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Committee to focus on optimal district and class sizes; superintendents and secretary to testify
Summary
The Senate Education Committee said it will hear a governance proposal from the education secretary and testimony from superintendents next week and will focus on district and classroom sizing; a school board member warned of one city dominating representation on an enlarged district map.
The Senate Education Committee said it will hear the education secretary’s governance proposal and testimony from the state’s superintendents next week, and it plans to focus committee work on determining optimal district, school and class sizes.
That work is intended to inform the committee’s review of proposed redistricting and governance changes and to resolve competing views about how district lines and school scales should be set.
“We have the secretary coming in tomorrow, to give us their governance proposal,” said Senator (unnamed), a committee member. “And then senator Weeks and I stayed with Will and, Beth, yesterday afternoon. And so what we're gonna try to do mostly next week is really focus in on optimal size for districts.”
Committee members said the state superintendents association will present its view on recommended district and class-size thresholds and that the panel will compare those recommendations with the secretary’s proposal. “Superintendents association is saying the optimal size for districts and class sizes is different than what the secretary has proposed,” said Senator (unnamed), a committee member.
A school board member from the Franklin area raised concerns about representation under a five-district map shown to the committee, saying Burlington would carry more population and could dominate decision-making. “His concern was when he saw the map of those 5, he goes, our concern is that Burlington's brought more people in it, and they all will be dictating,” said Senator (unnamed), summarizing the public comment. The board member suggested splitting the Chittenden area across districts to preserve local voices.
Committee members said they will “listen to the rationale” presented by superintendents and the secretary, and then make decisions based on those presentations. No formal redistricting decision was made at the meeting.
The committee expects to spend substantial time next week on the questions of “what's the right size per district, what's the right size for schools, and what's the right size in classes,” and indicated follow-up hearings and testimony will be scheduled.
No motions or votes were taken during the discussion.
