School Consolidation

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A special commission is likely to recommend Vermont 'go slow' when it comes to consolidating school districts. Vermont students typically score very high compared to their peers nationwide. And parents, teachers and students alike rate our Vermont school's small classes and commitment to the arts, extracurriculars and community as essential to their quality of life. But many experts including several recent Commissioners of Education also think our system is inefficient - and that our kids could get just as good an education if we consolidated some of our school districts.

Fewer districts might mean lower taxes, less commuting for some students and their families and more efficiencies for teachers. Consolidation also might mean bigger class sizes, fewer teaching jobs, less personal attention and more squabbling at town meeting about which language, art and sports programs to fund each year. This short fact sheet from the University of Vermont lays out some of the potential risks and benefits. Do you think we need fewer school districts? What can't you live without in your local school? And what might you gain if your school district merged with one nearby?

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Susan said:

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I think that consolidation should not be mandated and the decision to go forward with it should be done at the local level. That said, there are incentives to avoid consolidation in the current funding system which should be removed, like small schools grants and the hold-harmless provision for declining enrollment. Some might see this as harsh, but we cannot continue to overspend other people's money.
Unfortunately, efficient and effective governance of SUs and districts is lacking in many cases. Our SU is well run and cost effective- we share special education personnel, which mean sharing those costs of salaries and benefits with other districts in our SU, which saves a lot of money. Other SUs should implement this practice as well as others we have adopted, such as aligning curricula with the other districts within their SU, sharing professional development and making bulk purchases of materials.
Finally, I think the education funding system also needs updates. I hope that our next governor will have the courage to change the main source of education funds to income taxes for residents and continue to access property taxes on businesses and non-residents. This would be a much fairer system!

January 26, 2010
Votes: +0

Joseph Thibault said:

	... @jeff, actually class size has not been proven (in any capacity) to affect student achievement. Leading research points solely to the quality of teachers. So I would say, our teachers are really who have kept our students performing better than their national peers. No offense, but what would be wrong with fewer teaching positions? Just playing devil's advocate.
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January 12, 2010
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Angelique said:

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Before we consolidate school districts we need to consolidate Supervisory Unions. This is where a huge amount of overlap and unnecessary layers of management occur - hence financial waste. Currently there is no mechanism in place for SU consolidation, so of course it isn't happening even in areas that are desperately interested in it - we need a structure for looking at the effciencies our our Supervisory Union's and reducing the number of SUs from over 50 to about a dozen. Will SOMEONE please start thinking outside of the box on this?

Consider that we spend about $400 plus PER STUDENT just on the administrative expenses of running an SU in my central VT area.

December 15, 2009
Votes: +0

Jeff said:

	... We shouldn't consolidate our schools for those exact reasons: bigger class sizes, fewer teaching jobs, less personal attention, and more program cuts
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November 10, 2009
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