This commentary is by Daniel A. Morris of Northfield. He is the chair of Central Vermont Supervisory Union and the vice chair of Paine Mountain School District. He teaches philosophy at Norwich University.
Dear Vermont Agency of Education,
I was pleased to see that the Agency of Education will be conducting a “listen and learn tour” this fall to gather input from Vermont communities about goals and priorities for education in our state. Because I cannot attend any of the sessions at the times offered, I am sending this letter with some observations based on my experiences as an alumnus of Northfield High School, a parent of three children in Northfield schools, a taxpayer and a member of the Paine Mountain Board of Directors. These experiences lead me to the following conclusions, which I hope you will keep in mind when considering changes to public education in Vermont:
We Vermonters value our small schools. They are, for almost all Vermont residents I know, preferable to large, regional schools. In smaller environments, our kids get specialized attention and we can form meaningful relationships with faculty, staff, and administrators in the buildings. We view schools as the vibrant hearts of our communities.
We are concerned about what will happen to our communities if schools close. Indeed, closing schools in the name of economic efficiency fundamentally misunderstands the very reason why many people choose to live in Vermont. Communities that lack their own small, dedicated schools will struggle to attract new young families that might otherwise consider moving to Vermont. Some might choose to relocate out of state if schools close in their communities. Merging to form larger, regional schools is an unattractive option for many of us who value the intimate educational settings that Vermont offers.
Vermonters face unsustainable financial pressures, and our education funding formula is largely to blame for this crisis. Vermont consistently ranks among the states with the highest property tax rates in the country, and we are in that unfortunate position because we rely almost exclusively on those property taxes to fund education. As our home values increase, we pay more in education-related taxes often without seeing any real benefit in terms of academic or extracurricular programming.
School budgets are increasing for reasons that are unacceptable to most Vermonters. The primary drivers of budget increases, as you know, are increased health care costs and increased demand for and cost of special education services. Vermonters find these cost drivers unacceptable because we would prefer to spend our education tax dollars on investments such as outdoor programming, foreign language study and the arts.
Increased health care costs don’t fall into those categories. They don’t even fund better health coverage for our teachers, administrators, and staff. Vermonters know that special education funding is important, but the opportunistic increases in special education costs since the Covid-19 pandemic have eroded our ability to invest in other important areas.
Local school boards do not have the power to address these cost drivers. The skyrocketing costs of health care and special education cannot be managed or controlled by local community members who set missions, visions and policies for our schools. The exorbitant costs of health care and special education must be addressed at the state and national levels.
Until meaningful limits or new funding mechanisms are found for health care and special education costs, local school boards will not be able to pursue any kind of exciting, dynamic programming for the kids and schools we love. Instead, we will continue to ask the same two grim questions that leave everyone completely exhausted and disappointed. First: what should we cut and merge? And second: how much can we ask taxpayers to support?
Gov. Phil Scott, the Vermont Association of School Business Officials, the Vermont Superintendents Association and the Vermont School Boards Association have unfortunately and wrongly assumed that school boards can control the primary cost drivers and implied that austerity must be our fundamental strategy. Letters authored by Gov. Scott and the these organizations have naively instructed local school boards to plan wisely for FY26, ignoring the fact that major cost drivers are out of our control. There couldn’t possibly be a less inspiring vision of education to put before school boards and the Vermont kids, parents and communities we serve.
With these conclusions in mind, I ask the AOE to take the lead on meaningful change in Vermont’s approach to funding public education. I ask you to value our small schools as much as Vermonters do. I ask you to work with the governor and legislators to find new revenue streams and/or propose major changes to state appropriations that can support the kind of public education our kids deserve.
The era of saving money by sharing superintendents and tinkering with pupil weights has run its course. It is time to fund schools in a more creative, visionary, inspiring and sustainable way.
Sincerely,
Daniel A. Morris
Read the story on VTDigger here: Daniel A. Morris: An open letter to the Vermont Agency of Education.