School officials unsure of gov’s ‘Education Summit’

An unexpected Education Summit announced by Gov. Phil Scott to discuss ways to reduce spending has area school officials anxious about a lack of information and planning detail.

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School officials unsure of gov’s ‘Education Summit’ | November 21, 2017 By PATRICK ADRIAN padrian@eagletimes.com SPRINGFIELD, Vt. — An unexpected Education Summit announced by Gov. Phil Scott to discuss ways to reduce spending has area school officials anxious about a lack of information and planning detail. Scott shared his plan with educational leaders statewide in a Nov. 14 letter, in which he reiterated the state’s challenges amid declining student enrollments. With an anticipated $80 million deficit in the state’s Education Fund entering 2019, Scott aims for schools to scale their operations proportionally to their enrollment size, and keep costs from growing faster than the state’s economy and wages. “The root of the problem is an education infrastructure built and staffed to educate well over 120,000 students, despite having only 80,000 today,” writes the governor. Many school officials share the state’s concerns and the need to adjust to the demographic trends; however, without thoughtful planning and preparation, some school officials believe it’s improbable such a Summit would be substantive. Finding the right ways to adjust requires thoughtful collaboration and well-informed dialogue, believes Springfield School District Superintendent Zach McLaughlin. “These collaborative conversations need to be slow and thorough. That sort of exchange is not possible in a single summit,” he said. While no length of this summit has been determined to date, such lack of details gives McLaughlin and Springfield School Board members more reason to doubt. In addition to only one month’s notice for the summit, more than a week later, there is still no exact date. Initially, McLaughlin said, district finance directors were not included among the represented groups to attend. School officials have particularly drawn concern to seven discussion topics mentioned at the end of Scott’s letter. While some of these seem like potentially good ideas — such as exploring the timing of budget votes — others are vaguely written. For example, one items aims “[To Consider] Regional pilot proposals to reduce regulations and promote innovation.” While no one has managed to confirm its meaning, Windham Northeast Supervisory Union Superintendent Chris Kibbe sees language like this, and terms elsewhere in the letter like “Opportunity Zones,” as code words for charter schools. Kibbe says that charter schools are not a sustainable model for sparsely populated state like Vermont. While Kibbe doesn’t agree with all the items on the list, others — like “special education rate setting” — would be potentially stressful to his schools, whose population have greater numbers of students in special education or living in poverty. Ideally, both McLaughlin and Kibbe wish for a summit where the legislators and the governor would come to understand, when enacting laws at the state level, the impacts those have on the local communities.