School board members in the Grand Isle Supervisory Union know their district must change.
Over the past six years, they have closed two small schools in Isle La Motte and North Hero. And still, they know many property owners cannot afford the annual tax hikes driven by soaring education costs.
Even before last year’s passage of Act 170, which requires school districts to participate in regional merger conversations, the Grand Isle Supervisory Union was looking at merging the three school districts scattered out among the Champlain Islands in northwestern Vermont.
So Richard Monterosso, South Hero School Board chair, said he went into the initial Act 170 inter-district merger meetings with an open mind.
But less than a month into the process, Monterosso said there’s been confusion and frustration among many of the school board members taking part in the merger meetings across the state.
Local officials say there are concerns about public meeting laws, tensions between large and small districts, and, for some, a lack of information from the Agency of Education.
“I am disappointed. I think it’s a disservice to public education,” Monterosso said. “The issue is, it’s not transparent. It’s not coordinated, and I’m not even sure this is going to produce anything useful.”
Act 170 established 18 regional merger study committees, each made up of representatives from neighboring school districts, who were supposed to hold their first meeting before Oct. 15. The process is supposed to culminate with the state signing off on local recommendations for district mergers by the end of 2027.
But already, the process appears to be behind schedule in many communities.
Monterosso said there are already questions being raised about how meeting information can be shared with the public.
Since the new merger committees are independent entities and include members from different school districts, some lawyers argue that meeting agendas and minutes cannot legally be posted on individual supervisory union websites.
Because of the confusion, some merger committees have called off their future meetings until the issue is resolved.
“There are some obstacles that have emerged that are definitely slowing the process down,” said David Younce, who is the lead facilitator for the Act 170 process, and who’s working with the districts, the Legislature and the Agency of Education to try to move the work forward.
One of the first tasks for the merger committees is to figure out how individual school districts will be represented on the new boards.
Monterosso said this has also created confusion and distrust, especially among smaller districts like the ones on the Islands, which are working with much larger districts to the south.
"We would lose a real, meaningful voice in any decision about education on the islands."Richard Monterosso, South Hero School Board
“In the end, if we are merged with either Milton, or with Colchester, the island’s interests will always be in the minority, and majority mainland districts could vote to close schools,” Monterosso said. “We would lose a real, meaningful voice in any decision about education on the islands.”
The merger committees are supposed to wrap up their work before the end of next summer, and then the State Board of Education and the Agency of Education are expected to sign off on the reports and recommendations for consolidation before the end of 2027.
Towns will vote on the new proposed merged districts at town meeting in 2028.
Younce says merger committees are losing valuable time, and there’s a chance he might have to go to the Legislature next year and ask for an extension to push the vote out beyond 2028.
“We’re in this window where we’ve got to get those answers before we can go much further,” Younce said. “It’s challenging to balance that reality of, ‘OK. Let’s wait and get the answers we need,’ with the urgency that’s felt by the timelines in the law.”
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Another barrier, local officials say, is the lack of accurate and timely data that is coming from the Agency of Education.
Vermont Superintendent Association president Brooke Olsen-Farrell, who is also superintendent of the Slate Valley Unified School District in Fair Haven, said merger committees are being asked to make decisions about students, aging school buildings and property tax implications without having what she says are accurate and timely reports from the Agency of Education.
“Right now we’re at a place where there are far more questions than answers,” Olsen-Farrell said. “We recognize the complexity of the work facing the agency, but the way it’s rolling out is not necessarily inspiring a lot of trust in the field.”
When lawmakers were hammering out the details of Act 170 earlier this year, there were sharp differences of opinion between the Legislature and the Scott administration.
The administration wanted the Legislature to write new maps that directed school consolidation.
In the end a compromise was made to allow voluntary mergers, and Education Secretary Zoie Saunders said that is specifically what is now causing the confusion and delays.
"We’re at a point we can either cut more and more services for kids, or look at how we change."Zoie Saunders, Secretary of Education
“It’s no secret that we had some concerns about a voluntary merger process,” Saunders said. “The governor’s original proposal was designed to avoid a lot of these same challenges that are coming forward. We named concerns about a process that pitted community against community, and we named concerns about the confusion this could create.”
Still, Saunders pushed back on the idea that the lack of guidance from the AOE was slowing down the process.
“There’s no shortage of information or data to begin engaging in this work,” Saunders said. “There are no unresolved questions that people are waiting on the Agency of Education to respond to. There’s no difference of opinion. Many just don’t like the answer.”
Saunders said the agency is moving forward on producing reports that the committees need to advance the merger discussions, and she said there is no reason to slow down the early meetings before getting into the more substantive, and difficult conversations about merging school districts.
“There are certainly a lot of fears that are coming forward, and as part of the beginning of the process there are some kinks to work through,” Saunders said. “The reality is districts have been having to cut programs. They’ve had to cut electives. They’ve had to lay off staff. They’ve had to close schools. We’re at a point we can either cut more and more services for kids, or look at how we change.”
