House Education committee reviews independent school approval, oversight and monitoring gaps for therapeutic programs

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The Vermont House Committee on Education on April 17 heard a briefing from State Board of Education Chair Jennifer Deck Samuelson and Vice Chair Tammy Colby on how the state approves and oversees independent schools, including therapeutic schools that serve students with individualized education programs.

The presentation outlined the multi-step approval and reapproval process under State Board rules, the agency’s new annual compliance-assurance form and the complaint-and-investigation pathway. Committee members pressed board leaders about a COVID-era backlog in reviews, what “promptly” means for enforcement, and whether therapeutic schools receive the same program monitoring as public school special-education programs.

The meeting matters because recent media reports about several independent and therapeutic schools prompted lawmakers to seek clarity on what state rules require and how the Agency of Education and the State Board share responsibility. Committee members said the topic is important for students placed in nonpublic settings and for districts that pay public tuition for those placements.

Board chair Jennifer Deck Samuelson described the procedural flow for approval and reapproval, saying the Agency of Education (AOE) creates an application form and reviews documentation before forwarding recommendations to a three-member Independent School Approvals Committee, which in turn makes a recommendation to the full State Board of Education. “The committee then has a standing meeting where they will take in whatever requests for reapproval are currently pending,” Samuelson said.

Samuelson emphasized that approval decisions may include conditions and that the board now examines approvals more closely than in the past. “Since I’ve been on the board, I think the board has become much more engaged with the approval and reapproval process in ways that I think are only helpful,” she said.

Tammy Colby, vice chair of the State Board, explained that the rules provide a bifurcated review depending on whether an independent school is accredited by a third-party accreditor. If a school is accredited, the accreditor’s materials can streamline the AOE’s review; if it is not accredited, the agency must perform an on-site review and more extensive documentation checks.

Colby also addressed therapeutic schools directly. “Therapeutic schools are essentially special education schools,” she said, and then described a monitoring gap: whereas local education agencies (LEAs) are subject to federal and state special-education monitoring under IDEA, therapeutic schools that operate as independent schools do not undergo the same comprehensive program monitoring by the state. Colby said the state can examine a therapeutic placement when the LEA itself is under review, but there is not a routine, statewide monitoring regime for therapeutic schools comparable to LEA monitoring.

The board leaders described the annual compliance-assurance cycle: the AOE issues an assurance form every January 15 and schools generally must return a completed form by February 15. The assurance asks schools to certify compliance with nondiscrimination rules and, for schools receiving public tuition, with the rules adopted in response to Act 173. Samuelson noted that the AOE’s technical assurance form is new and was designed to capture compliance with recent rule updates.

Committee members asked whether the AOE has caught up after COVID-related delays in site visits and rule updates. Samuelson said the backlog began during COVID when site visits were not possible, and that rule revisions in 2022 and later required new forms and processes. She said the AOE has collected responses to the technical assurance forms and, according to an agency memo included in her materials, plans to begin bringing batches of schools to the board for review in the coming month.

Lawmakers raised enforcement timing and scope. Representative Long asked about the meaning of the word “promptly” when the rule requires the secretary to notify a school and the board if a school misses a deadline. Samuelson said the forms have only recently been collected and there has not yet been a formal notification of noncompliance under the new process. Representative Brady and others noted there are roughly three dozen to more than 70 independent schools eligible for public tuition; Representative Brady said his quick count suggested “at least 75” such schools, a figure the board said it would verify with the agency.

The complaint and investigation process was outlined: complaints in writing go to the secretary; the secretary conducts an initial investigation and may try informal resolution or offer technical assistance. For more serious allegations, the secretary may appoint a review team, place a school on probation, or recommend suspension or revocation to the State Board. Samuelson described the board’s role as quasi-judicial: it hears appeals and may revoke, suspend or condition approval based on findings in rule.

The board also noted coordination with other agencies. Samuelson said complaints that implicate statutes outside the board’s authority would trigger notification to other state agencies — for example, the Department for Children and Families (DCF) would be notified where allegations involve areas DCF regulates.

Committee members also asked about residential programs. Samuelson said the rules require any independent school with a residential component to be accredited by a recognized third-party accreditor, which subjects the residential program to the accreditor’s review.

No formal board decisions or votes were taken during the briefing. Committee members said they plan follow-up meetings with the Agency of Education to clarify site-visit capacity, the composition and role of the Council of Independent Schools referenced in rule, and the agency’s plan to process the backlog of reapprovals.

The committee’s next steps will include reviewing the AOE memo and meeting with agency staff for operational detail; the State Board members offered to return if lawmakers want further clarification.