Secretary of State urges May 15 deadline, apportionment board and IT funding for proposed school-district overhaul

Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanses told the House Committee on Education on March 26 that the governor's proposal to create larger school districts and elect school board members by ward would require a fixed timetable, a new apportionment body and additional election resources if the plan is to produce November 2026 contests.

"Those ward lines would need to be established in law, signed into law by May 15 of that year," Copeland Hanses said, urging the committee to treat that date as a hard deadline if it wants new school board elections on a November ballot. She recommended creation of a School District Apportionment Board modeled on the legislative apportionment process and said the Secretary of State's Office should be included on that board.

The nut of the office's advice was procedural and technical: wards should be substantially equal in population, compact and contiguous and, "with only very rare exceptions, should respect current municipal boundaries," Copeland Hanses said. She estimated an apportionment board would need about…