Craftsbury Community School Collaborative
Summary of Major Points of Discussion
Stakeholder Meeting
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Panelists: Winton Goodrich, Associate Director of the Vermont School Boards Association, William Mathis, Adjunct Professor of School Finance at UVM and Managing Director of the Education and Public Interest Center (EPIC) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Mark Oettinger, Vermont Department of Education General Counsel.
Annie Volmer opened the meeting, introduced panelists, and comed the new principal of Craftsury Schools: Merri Greenia
Facilitator: Heidi Krantz
Note: The May 20 meeting was packed with an immense amount of detailed information from excellent presenters. These “minutes” do not attempt to repeat that information. Where possible we have identified web sites for reference. The following notes are designed to identify themes, points of information and perspectives that may be helpful to stakeholders in preparing the Report to the School Board. This Summary is not comprehensive and may have missed important items or misinterpreted points that were made.)
Legislative Report
Challenges for Change. Vermont needs to reduce costs and increase efficiency; Change is painful but inevitable.
• State must reduce education funding in 2012 by $23 million. By August of this year, Supervisory Unions will know how much they must cut. If the Schools themselves don’t come up with the savings the Legislature will have to do it. Most schools will have to level fund and cut costs.
• If all Vermont schools were to increase student/teacher ration from 10.7: 1 to 11.7: 1 the State would save $43 million.
• From charts provided, the education spending per pupil for Craftsbury for FY 2010 is $16,090 compared to a State average of $11,639. Craftsbury was third from the top out of 309 schools.
• For FY 2010, the equalized education homestead tax rate for Craftsbury was $1.83, the highest of the 309 schools.
H 66 Merger Incentive Legislation
The Legislature rejected consolidation in favor of a bill that would encourage mergers. (H66) School consolidation is top down, and State directed. Mergers are bottom up and occur when school boards from towns work together to achieve savings and efficiencies.
(Note: Steering Committee will attempt to upload a full analysis of this bill.)
Following are brief points:
• Establishes new administrative entity called a Regional Education District (RED).
• Must include at least 4 school districts, a high school and a K-6 school and contain at least 1250 students.
• Managed by a single School Board (previous local Boards terminate.)
• All State school boards must decide whether to study this option by December 2010.
• If merge, Towns will receive tax incentives designed to cover transition costs.
• Formula tends to equalize tax rates so that non-participating towns may bear an increased burden.
• RED boundaries are not restricted in any way and District may contain more than one high school.
• Two year budgeting will be permitted and funds to conduct feasibility study will be available from State.
• If a town If decide to be part of RED then will have till 2012 to study it and move forward.
Supervisory Unions are acquiring more power:
• Policy Governance clarifies roles and responsibilities and in process takes local School Board out of day-to-day management.
• Growing importance of teacher oversight for purposes of security inevitably places more authority in Supervisory Unions.
• Superintendents now hire all non-licensed staff and are deeply involved in hiring teaching staff.
• School Boards will be required to develop class size policies.
School Choice
In Vermont, 90 schools have school choice. School choice exists when a community lacks a school and thus has to send students out of town. Craftsbury also has Act 150 school choice. I.e. a partner high school. Every town must have at least 1 partner school choice.
Charter Schools
Vermont does not have Charter Schools but there is authority to design schools with many of the attributes of a Charter School. However, research indicates that Charter schools do no better and that they tend to segregate by socio-economic class. Charter schools are popular because they are small, an existing characteristic of many Vermont schools.
Consolidation vs. Small schools
• Vermont has 91,00 students, dropping to 85,000 in next few years. Birth rates will continue to drop. Fewer students mean that per pupil costs will increase.
• The average School district in Vermont has 313 students. This means a huge infrastructure and process cost.
• Vermont has highest teacher to student ratio in the country and Craftsbury has the highest teacher to student ratio in the State. (This assertion needs to be double-checked
• The teacher to student ratio is main cost driver. Vermont is highest in country with 1 teacher to 10.7 students. Caftsbury is even higher with 1 teacher for every 8.37 students.
• There are four approaches to greater efficiency: Close school and tuition out; close a school and designate another school alternative; create a joint contract school; establish a union school.
• Within State, 40 Governance studies have been conducted. They demonstrate diversity and creativity in dealing with structural and organizational problems. Examples are available on DOE web site. Several studies have resulted in mergers involving substantial financial benefits to the participating Towns. Funds are available to conduct these studies
Arguments against centralization and consolidation
• Transitional costs are very large and savings are way down the road.
• Since 1989 14 states have passed legislation toward smaller schools or decentralization. Vermont is going the other way.
• Small schools: narrow the socioeconomic achievement gap; have higher achievement scores, reduce the incidence of violence, combat anonymity; have higher attendance and higher graduation rates and lower cost per graduation. Teacher satisfaction is higher, community involvement is greater and there are important efficiencies and flexibilities not available to larger schools. Small schools do better in terms of socialization measures.
• There is a significant community cost to school consolidation. Loss of management erodes the sense of ownership and responsibility participation declines.
• Cost savings of consolidation may be illusory. Cost assumptions must be very carefully analyzed. For small schools, annual costs can vary dramatically because of small changes in enrollment and/or staffing levels. (Smaller the unit, the greater the variation
• Studies are by no means unanimous that consolidation saves money. Initially costs may increase. It depends on situation.
• It is very difficult to identify a “viable” school size. This is a value decision that must be made by every community and cannot be answered by empirical research
• Research in Indiana indicates that the optimal school Supervisory District appears to be about 1800 to 2400 students, which is about what Vermont currently has.
(See epicpolicy.org for more information on small schools.)
Arguments for consolidation and centralization
• It is not the small school that is better it is the small class size that is better. The research is very clear. The most important factor related to student achievement is the student teacher ratio, the better the ratio the better the outcomes in achievement and social indicators. There is a direct correlation. This can be achieved in a large school as well as a small school. So you get what you pay for. At some point you have to draw the line.
• Larger districts encourage efficiencies such as staff sharing, greater student choice and better utilization of facilities.
• School closure is inevitable and will be forced by demographics. So some Towns will be forced to close schools. It is far preferable to be proactive and attempt to design a future structure than to wait
• If Craftsbury decides to not become a RED, we would shoulder more of the cost burden. Because of the blended rate, those who consolidate may receive a tax advantage while those who don’t may shoulder a disproportionate tax burden.
• The tax subsidy will cover the transition costs.
• There are a variety of different approaches that towns can come up with that are tailored to their own situations. There is a wonderful opportunity to think ahead and be creative and design a system that is both right for the student and the town and that is cost effective.
