Blunder over legal process impedes school merger studies in some regions

School board members who met in St. Albans expected to kick off the process of discussing district mergers under this year’s education reform law. Instead, the Sept. 29 meeting devolved into a public information session because members didn’t think the meeting was properly warned, according to local facilitator John Everitt. 

The kerfuffle among districts in the Group 17 region was just a preview of how confusion over the minutia of public process would get merger study meetings — scheduled to happen across the state in a tight timeline — off to a slow start.

Committee meetings in five regions have been canceled or postponed because this year’s education reform law, Act 170, is unclear about who is responsible for warning meetings or posting information such as agendas, according to Dave Younce, the state’s lead facilitator. The law outlines a process for districts and supervisory unions to consider merging with each other, a move that supporters say would save on administrative and maintenance costs.  

The legal ambiguity has led facilitators and school district leaders to point fingers at each other in some regions, with each denying it’s their responsibility to warn meetings or post information. In regions where there’s disagreement, committees don’t plan on scheduling new meetings until the legislators or the Vermont secretary of state’s office provides an interpretation of the law, Younce said. 

“If it’s end of November and we’re still struggling to get clarity, I think it does put our timelines into risk,” Younce said in an interview. 

Committees have to submit final reports to the state in September 2027, and any resulting merger proposals would go before local voters on Town Meeting Day in 2028. 

Although the process is in the early stages, Heather Stephenson, a Londonderry parent of two, said she’s concerned that it’s difficult for parents and taxpayers to find clear information about merger study meetings. 

Stephenson said she doesn’t want information to be solely disseminated by school districts or supervisory unions because in her area, most kids go to independent high schools and many go to independent middle schools. Notices from districts might not reach parents with kids in independent schools, she said, or taxpayers without kids. 

“It’s important to be in the room when the process begins, not halfway through,” Stephenson said. 

Sen. Seth Bongartz, D-Bennington, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, said the disagreement between facilitators and school districts is “just making it more complicated than it needs to be.” 

Bongartz said that under Vermont’s 2015 education reform law, the initial meeting of each merger committee was warned by the superintendent from the committee’s largest school district. The committees then warned their own subsequent meetings, he said. Bongartz said he thinks committees should follow the same process now. 

Meanwhile, Younce said the Vermont Learning Collaborative, which the state hired to facilitate the merger study process, has gotten legal advice that it might not be necessary to warn committee meetings at all. Younce works for the collaborative in his role as lead facilitator. 

The collaborative also doesn’t plan to create a statewide website or publish information on each region’s process, Younce said. “The local school districts are the entities that have to educate their voters,” he said. 

Still, the organization has provided some materials on its website such as updated maps of merger committee regions and an attachment listing information from local districts’ websites. 

While the learning collaborative declines to assume responsibility for warning meetings or sharing information about them, some districts are concerned about taking on the role themselves. 

A handful of districts have gotten legal advice that it isn’t their responsibility to post information and warn meetings, according to Chelsea Myers, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association. 

Myers said her organization has been advocating for a “central repository” for statewide information on the merger study process. 

“It’s just that no one wants to own that piece of it,” Myers said. 

When asked if the Vermont Agency of Education would consider creating a webpage for merger committee information, Toren Ballard, a spokesperson for the agency, said that “the Agency cannot satisfy another legal entity’s obligations under the Open Meeting Law.” 

Ballard said the agency believes it was clear and consistent with the law to have school districts and supervisory unions keep community members informed. 

Younce said he’s been in touch with legislators and the secretary of state’s office to get clear guidance within the next week. 

Bryan Mills, the office’s chief of staff, told VTDigger in an email Tuesday that the office didn’t have any guidance on the issue.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Blunder over legal process impedes school merger studies in some regions.