Draft Vermont education bill would lower compulsory age, shift many State Board duties to Agency of Education

A 176-page draft of the governor—s education transformation plan discussed at a Feb. 26 joint House and Senate Education committee hearing would lower the starting age for compulsory attendance from 6 to 5, increase required attendance days from 175 to 180, and move many duties now held by the State Board of Education to the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), legislative counsel said.

The hearing was a committee question-and-answer session with legislative counsel following a presentation of the draft. St. James, an attorney in the Office of Legislative Council, told lawmakers, "This bill proposes to change the beginning compulsory age from 6 to 5." St. James also summarized day-count rules now in place: "The minimum number to be a full school day to count towards that 175 is 2 hours a day or over the course of 5 calendar days, a total of 10 hours."

Why it matters: The combined changes affect daily attendance calculations used for funding and compliance, legal definitions of truancy, and potentially labor and contract arrangements for districts and schools. Committee members repeatedly questioned how the draft would change oversight of independent schools, the responsibilities of the State Board of Education, and how districts would meet new school-choice requirements.

Key provisions described at the hearing

- Attendance and age: The draft increases required attendance from 175 days to 180 days and would lower the statutory compulsory attendance starting age from 6 to 5. Counsel cautioned that operational consequences — including implications for teachers' contracts and in-service days — are policy questions outside the counsel—s purview.

- State Board duties reassigned: John, an Office of Legislative Council staff member who prepared a color-coded summary, told committees the draft transfers many current State Board duties to AOE. Examples include rulemaking and adoption of education quality standards, oversight tasks tied to student performance standards and reporting, and administration of rules governing attendance and records. John said some language in current law is repealed without an explicit reassignment in the draft and that the document "does not go into that level of detail" about which AOE office or position would perform rulemaking.

- New and retained State Board roles: The draft would give the State Board some new responsibilities, including selecting and overseeing a statewide contractor to provide annual training to school board members and annually reviewing district —equity budget— policies and the outcomes of district quality evaluations published by AOE.

- Independent schools and school choice: Committee discussion focused on how the bill would change the legal categories for private schools. Counsel summarized that the draft would consolidate approved and recognized independent school provisions, move many approved-independent-school approval functions toward a recognized/registered model, and create a distinct category of "school choice schools." The draft would limit school choice designation to grades 9—12 and requires an independent school that seeks school-choice status to have at least 51% publicly funded (tuition) students as of July 1, 2025. The draft also would require school-choice independent schools to undergo an annual audit by a certified public accountant.

- District participation threshold: The draft directs each district to adopt a policy specifying the number of resident students in grades 9—12 who may participate in school choice; the policy must allow no fewer than 10% of resident high-school students to participate. Counsel and committee members discussed how that percentage could scale in large districts and whether the requirement was feasible in districts that lack eligible school-choice providers.

- Small-school finance and rulemaking: The draft changes the term "small school" to "eligible small school" in finance chapters and removes some prior eligibility criteria. Committee counsel pointed to a new requirement that the secretary (AOE) adopt rulemaking to establish eligibility criteria for small-school adjustments; the rulemaking directive appears later in the draft.

What committees asked and did not decide

Lawmakers pressed counsel on details repeatedly: whether the State Board would be eliminated (counsel said the draft does not repeal the board but reallocates duties), how rulemaking would be carried out inside AOE, whether new private schools could become school choice schools during a current moratorium on approvals, and how the 10% district participation policy would apply in large or small districts. Counsel repeatedly emphasized that the document before the committees was a draft and that many operational questions would be addressed through subsequent drafting, rulemaking, or committee action.

Next steps: Committee members were told the draft has not yet been introduced as a bill and that the joint hearing was intended to surface questions and identify areas for further development. Several members suggested more work with drafters and AOE staff to clarify administration, rulemaking authority, and the transition path for independent schools under the draft.

The hearing transcript shows committee discussion but no formal motions or votes on the draft during the Feb. 26 session.