Education agencies demonstrate redistricting mapping tools to Vermont lawmakers

A joint hearing of the Vermont Senate and House Education committees on Thursday heard a demonstration of three redistricting mapping tools developed by the Agency of Education and the Agency of Digital Services to support the redistricting task force.

Secretary of Education Zoe Saunders and John Adams, director of the Center for Geographic Information at the Agency of Digital Services, told legislators the agencies had produced several conceptual maps and three web applications — a district builder, a school explorer and a drive-time mapper — to visualize possible school-district configurations and related metrics. Saunders said the agencies were “not coming today with an endorsed map” but offered the work as a resource for the task force.

The district-builder application lets users assemble districts from municipalities or supervisory unions, view changing average daily membership and grand-list per student metrics, rename districts, export assignments, and generate reports with district profiles and a 10-year change analysis. Adams said the builder also supports importing saved assignments and sharing configurations via a long URL that reproduces a user’s settings.

The school-explorer tool layers school-level data, including enrollment, facility condition indices, staffing details and district affiliations, alongside additional datasets loaded at the committee’s request — for example, high-resolution population distribution, statewide commuter flows, grand-list detail and conserved lands. Adams said the team can add more layers on request.

The drive-time mapper estimates travel times using bus telemetry for typical weekday conditions and E-911 addresses; the model distributes a town’s student totals across residential addresses to estimate how far students in each town would travel to a given school, a method Adams described as an estimate rather than a record of where students actually live.

Saunders framed the work against Act 73’s requirements for the redistricting task force, saying the task force should study consolidation configurations and propose up to three options while considering factors the agencies mapped as layers: historic town and district boundaries, geographic features, population distribution, capacity and facility condition, transportation patterns, grand-list values, student demographics, assets and liabilities, and access to career and technical education centers.

Staff presented three scenario families used for modeling: configurations based on Vermont School Boards Association (VSBA) regions, a regional-high-school model that groups high schools into drive-time clusters, and a hybrid that combines elements of both. Adams described the regional-high-school concept as starting with high schools of a minimum ADM of about 300 students and assigning nearby towns by drive time to form clusters; staff said some VSBA regions and proposed districts exceed the maximum ADM threshold discussed in the session, which prompted hybrid splits in Chittenden and Central Vermont to better meet enrollment targets and preserve supervisory unions.

Lawmakers welcomed the tools but pressed for more detail. One legislator proposed exploring a far smaller number of districts, saying “I would like to see either one or two districts,” though staff and other members framed that as an individual comment rather than an agency proposal. Representatives asked whether models reflect existing school infrastructure or hypothetical new construction; staff said the models are based on existing schools and infrastructure but can be refined and that facility square footage was included in backup documentation as an approximation of capacity. Saunders cautioned that operational capacity — how classrooms are organized — is not tracked systematically at the state level and would require additional work to model precisely.

Members also raised implementation questions about consolidation costs — building transfers, collective-bargaining merges and other logistics — and about the role of the grand list in local fiscal capacity. Saunders suggested the tax department weigh in on grand-list implications and referenced the Brigham decision while noting grand-list values are relevant to equity and potential local supplemental spending.

Staff said all materials were uploaded as backup documentation and provided in printed packets, and they invited lawmakers to request additional datasets (for example, cost estimates or other implementation variables) to be incorporated into the tools. No formal motions or votes were taken during the hearing; agencies said the tools are publicly available for Vermonters to explore and that they will work with legislators to refine models and add requested data.

The committee adjourned after the presentation and Q&A with no formal endorsement of any specific map.