News Analysis: What’s the future for the commission on the Future of Public Education?

By Shawn Cunningham
© 2025 Telegraph Publishing LLC

Last Wednesday, the Scott administration unveiled its plan – at least a rough sketch of a plan – for fixing all the problems of Vermont’s education system with a 45 minute slideshow by Agency of Education Secretary Zoie Saunders. And, depending on who you’re listening to, it either made the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont superfluous or gave it the opportunity to be quite useful.

The commission was set up by the legislature last year to look at Vermont’s public education system and make recommendations that would give all students “quality educational opportunities in an efficient, sustainable, and equitable education system.” The main driver behind this was the public outcry at the large jump in the property taxes that fund most of the state’s public education system.

The administration’s new proposal would change the funding formula so schools would get an amount set by the state to educate its students. It would also eliminate the current system of 119 school districts and 52 supervisory unions and replace it with five school districts, each with one school board and one central office.

One of Saunders’ slides titled “School Scale” included the following bullet points:

• Regional comprehensive high schools, central middle schools and local elementaries;
• Collaborative planning and investment to leverage school buildings as community assets if they are closed;
• Measuring which schools are small by necessity and which are small by choice;
• Measuring viability of a school system to ensure that it is able to deliver on requirements for quality education and financial sustainability.

The proposal represents a very large shift in the way education is funded as well as a move from local to regional (and state) control of schools. These are among the long list of ideas brought forward by the commission in its preliminary report to the legislature. But if the General Assembly moves forward with the administration’s proposal, there remains the question about what the commission should be doing for the coming year.

At a Senate Finance Committee meeting last week, state Sen. Scott Beck of St. Johnsbury said, “I think it would be the best thing if the commission disbanded” noting that the commission is made up of people who represent stakeholders (the teachers’ union, independent schools, principals, superintendents and school boards among others) and they will be coming before several legislative committees to plead for their groups.

On the website of the St. Johnsbury Academy, Beck himself is listed as a teacher. St. Johnsbury Academy is a private school approved to receive public funds. With 844 students, the academy is the largest “Approved Independent School” in Vermont. Burr & Burton, located in Manchester, is second with 783.

Commission chair Meagan Roy told the Senate Finance Committee that commission members think it should continue, but feel they need to hear from the legislature to affirm the charge the commission was given or to update what would be most useful to the legislative process.

The establishing legislation, Act 183 that created the commission, calls for recommendations to address the system’s problems including its size and footprint (i.e. “the most efficient and effective number and location of school buildings, school districts, and supervisory unions needed”) and to create a plan to implement necessary changes. Whether the legislature sees the commission as the vehicle for working with such granular detail is yet to be seen.

Also mandated by Act 183 was a robust and equitable public outreach program. Recently, the Agency of Education completed the process of hiring a consultant for the commission. Afton Partners of Illinois was hired to help the commission with communications and engagement with the public. Roy and other commission members have said that function could be helpful in bringing feedback to the legislature as the process continues.

“The commission feels strongly that it has an important role to play in this conversation,” Roy told The Telegraph last Friday. “The administration’s plan may cause the legislature to ask us to do something different, but our focus on engaging the public on whatever ideas are being proposed is a really important part of the conversation.”

In the meantime, the commission is attempting to be as nimble as a group made up of volunteers with full-time jobs can be. At a recent meeting of its steering group, members decided not meet as subcommittees and add a second meeting of the full commission to every month. The next meeting of the commission is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 3. Afton consultants will be in attendance.