Education task force recommends cooperative service areas, rejects CTE map 7-3

A joint hearing of the state Senate and House education committees on the task force charged under Act 73 heard a report that stops short of forced statewide consolidation and instead recommends creating cooperative educational service areas (regional hubs for shared services) and encouraging voluntary mergers, while rejecting one proposed CTE-focused map by a 7-3 vote.

"We voted against the CTE map — I believe it was 7-3 — because of the issues I mentioned before," said Senator Martina Rakulik, one of the task force co-chairs, summarizing the panel's judgment that the CTE map produced major equity and scale problems. The task force said it generated several mapping exercises, including a single-district and value-based options, but found they did not meet the statutory qualifiers in Act 73.

The task force emphasized equity, minimizing student disruption and logistical feasibility in its statutory charge. Retired superintendent Jay Adams, a task force member, told lawmakers the group’s recommendations reflect practical experience: "There's nobody here that knows whether consolidating will actually save money," he said, arguing that rushed consolidation can lead to school closures, larger class sizes and uncertain net savings.

The report highlights three principal approaches the task force recommends pursuing: formalize cooperative educational service areas to centralize non-instructional functions and professional development, incentivize voluntary mergers where regional comprehensive high schools and facility needs make sense, and target investments (for example, building construction aid) to make consolidation feasible in locations where it would improve access to career and technical education (CTE).

Task force members said they held four public hearings, collected written input and traveled the state to understand local conditions. They also said data gaps and agency capacity limited their ability to produce final, ready-to-adopt consolidation maps within the four-month window the panel had to work.

Representative Joshua Dobrovich pressed the panel on that point during the hearing: "So your charge under Act 73 is specifically to come up with three statewide consolidation maps," he said. Jay Adams responded that the task force lacked reliable, student-level GIS data and that producing defensible consolidation maps would likely take substantially more time and specialized analysis than the panel’s mandate allowed.

Members raised specific concerns about Chittenden County, where one draft map would have placed roughly 21,000 students under a single superintendent while other districts would have had about 2,000 students — an imbalance the task force said created equity problems. The panel also flagged geographic "CTE deserts," areas outside a 30-minute drive of a comprehensive CTE center, and said locating new centers would require further study of transportation and staffing.

The task force recommended that the legislature and Agency of Education use the collated data and Appendix E of the report to move forward. The panel repeatedly cautioned that implementation planning — including funding for construction, staffing and AOE capacity to manage transitions — is essential before any large-scale restructuring.

Lawmakers at the hearing pressed for clearer maps and asked how short-term costs and governance changes would affect long-term savings. The task force repeatedly recommended a methodical, community-based approach and warned that rapid, top-down consolidation risks political backlash and unintended harms to students.

The committees did not take legislative action at the hearing. Chairs urged members to review the task force's report and appendix for details on suggested criteria, cost drivers and regional proposals. The joint session adjourned after the presentation and question-and-answer period.