House Education continues H.454 debate, focuses on how many education regions and who draws lines

Members of the House Education Committee met Tuesday, March 11, to continue discussion of H.454 — the bill framing regional education districts and the so-called “Taylor equation” for school funding — centering on how many supervisory regions to create and who will draw district boundaries.

The committee agreed Ways and Means needs a concrete number or a narrow range so it can model impacts under the bill’s foundation-formula construct. Members debated three immediate options that circulated in the meeting: nine, 12 and 15 regions, and discussed an existing map based on Career and Technical Education (CTE) center regions as a speedier starting point.

Why it matters: Ways and Means must produce fiscal modeling that underpins any change to the state’s school funding formula. Without a number to use for that modeling, committee members said, the fiscal effects of the bill cannot be fully estimated and legislative decisions will be harder to scope before crossover.

Discussion highlights included whether line drawing should preserve current school district boundaries, who should be tasked with drawing any new regions, and how the bill interacts with existing choice and mixed-delivery systems. Several committee members said they were reluctant for the Education Committee itself to draw final lines and preferred appointing a separate commission or group to apply criteria and return options for a quick decision later in the session.

Committee members repeatedly raised the CTE-region map as a possible template. Sue Ziblowski, executive director of BSPA, told the panel that enrollment in the existing regions “ranges from about 4,000 to 10,000” students, a statistic members used in comparing possible region sizes. Several members said the CTE lines generally do not split existing school districts and might therefore simplify design and reduce disruption.

Timing and process were recurring concerns. Members noted the house crossover calendar: anything not resolved by crossover will likely wait until next year. One committee member said their “marching orders” were to return the next day with clearer guidance to Ways and Means on what numbers or ranges would be acceptable for fiscal modeling.

Participants also raised related policy issues the committee could not resolve in a single meeting: the bill’s treatment of school choice schools and how a requirement that a district offer a choice school would operate in places with few or no independent schools; whether the state’s evidence-based funding model uses reasonable assumptions about a future staffing and program state; and the political and legal implications of changing the appointment structure for the secretary of education.

Committee discussion referenced a draft committee vehicle, VR25-0937, which members said was being used as a holding vehicle for ideas and potential language. Members emphasized that no formal decisions had been adopted and that the draft bill functioned as a conversation vessel.

Next steps the committee recorded during the session included: provide Ways and Means a number or acceptable range for modeling; consider appointing an external group or commission to draw lines using clear criteria; request follow-up from legislative counsel and agency staff on legal questions about school choice provisions and the governor’s proposal; and return to the map and related governance questions in subsequent meetings before crossover.

No formal motions or votes were recorded during the portion of the transcript provided.