We read with interest that citizens in North Country, Rutland, the Capital area, Barre, the Mad River Valley, and Windsor county have taken it upon themselves to discuss various forms of redistricting and sharing of administrative services. They anticipate, perhaps, that change is coming, and they want to get out in front of it. Their conversations include several topics that may be important for the improvement of public education in Vermont:
Educational Entities
They realize that the number of overlapping educational entities in their area: Towns, Villages, School Boards, Supervisory Unions, Supervisory Districts, and CTE Centers, may be not necessary and might be ripe for reduction.
K-12 community cohesion
No matter what happens at the state level, they want to preserve the K-12 curriculum cohesion and democratic community control that they have worked so hard to nourish.
Shared services
They realize that some services such as transportation, special education, accounting, purchasing, payroll, technical education, insurance, and health services are more efficiently handled not by each district alone, by some kind of cooperative arrangement among them, such as Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES).
Focus on students
They want to be sure that whatever is done focuses first on the improvement of a student’s educational journey, and isn’t distracted by all the talk of tax policy, consolidation, private school tuitions, and state control.
State officials involved in the current committees and task forces surrounding educational reform might be wise to keep an ear to the ground and take cognizance of these grass-roots discussions.
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