By Jim Sabataso
RUTLAND HERALD
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Members of the public urged lawmakers on Friday to make the state’s school funding system more equitable.
More than 30 people spoke at a public hearing held by the “Task Force on the Implementation of the Pupil Weighting Factors Report,” a joint legislative body given the job of proposing a more equitable way to distribute money to school districts across the state.
Currently in Vermont, school budgets are developed at the local level by school boards and approved by voters. Funding, however, comes from the state education fund, which is funded in part by property taxes.
Those local tax rates are determined by spending per equalized pupil. A higher equalized per-pupil count means lower tax rates for a district.
To calculate per-pupil spending, the state applies a weighted formula that reflects the resources a district needs to educate students based on certain characteristics, including students living in rural areas, students from low-income backgrounds, students with different learning needs and students for whom English is not their primary language.
Yet a 2019 report commissioned by the Legislature found the existing formula to be “outdated,” with weights having “weak ties, if any, with evidence describing differences in the costs for educating students with disparate needs or operating schools in different contexts.”
The task force held a similar hearing on Sept. 8, at which all 40 speakers supported an overhaul of current pupil weights, echoing the report’s argument that they fail to equitably distribute resources.
Nearly all those who spoke Friday, also expressed support for the study.
Cathy Solsaa, a member of the Rutland City Board of School Commissioners, said district schools have struggled “for decades” to provide necessary programming and meet student needs without adequate funding.
“The number of economically disadvantaged and, oftentimes, traumatized students make up a significant portion of our enrollment,” she said. “The true cost of meeting our students’ needs exceeds the current weighting system.”
Rutland City Public Schools is part of the Coalition for Vermont Student Equity, which represents more than 20 underweighted school districts around the state.
Solsaa said updated pupil weights would allow the district to better serve students and taxpayers.
“With this new system, we’d be able to provide our students with the support they need — no matter their economic status or where they were born — to reach their potential and become responsible, engaged citizens,” she said. “We no longer would worry about passing an increased budget to already highly taxed property owners or taking money from the (Education) Fund.”
Solsaa added that a recent task force proposal to remove weights for English language learning (ELL) students from the formula in favor of funding them with grants was “disheartening.”
Under the proposal, funding would be sent directly to school districts with English language learning students in the form of grants, or “categorical aid.”
The proposal would provide a $25,000 base grant to districts with at least one student, with $5,000 per each additional student. In total, the program is projected to cost $10.7 million.
“(The study) specifically stated in the report that the formula needs to be taken as a whole. … Remove one weight and it affects all the other factors. To remove ELL students from the equation is to change the outcome,” she said. “It is fair to say that categorical aid will continue to support the framework of racism, classism and systemic inequity on many levels.”
John Stroupe, chair of the Addison Northwest School District Board, was the sole critic of implementing the study’s recommendations as is, saying, “it would do tremendous damage to my school district.”
“We estimate that if the weighting study was implemented as it was written, that we would see a 20% tax increase on a level funded budget. We would lose more than a million dollars in revenue and with a loss of about 59 students.”
Stroupe said his district can’t simply “tighten the belt” to make up for those losses, stating, “we already are bare bones in our education.”
He added that ANWSD is currently exploring potentially merging with a neighboring school district in an effort to maintain student programming and keep taxes low.
“If you implement the weighting study, as is, I believe it will pour gasoline on a fire that is already raging,” he said, urging the task force to continue study potential unintended consequences for smaller districts like his.
Scott Fay, school nutrition program manager at the Essex Westford School District and president of the School Nutrition Association of Vermont, encouraged the task force to recommend the Legislature require universal school meals “to level the playing field for students,” regardless of where they land on new weighting formulas.
He also asked the group to “recommend the statewide use of the household income form to collect the information needed for the weighting regardless of how the weights are calculated,” which would simplify the process by reducing paperwork.
Fay explained meal participation has increased by 67% during the pandemic thanks to federal waivers that have guaranteed meals for all students.
As a result, he said, schools have been able to erase the stigma associated with school meals and focus on providing more nutritious meal programs.
“The bottom line: With a level playing field, more students are receiving nutrition they need, so they are fed, focused and ready to learn,” he said.
Fay’s request was echoed by several speakers, including Cassandra Fraser, director of marketing at the Abbey Group, a food service management company that feeds a number of schools around the state.
“It is our responsibility to create the conditions necessary for learning and making sure that our kids aren’t distracted by rumbling stomachs, and this is paramount to doing so,” she said.
Tori Cleiland, chair of the Winooski School District Board, contended the task force was “going rogue” with the lives Vermont’s children by advancing its own proposals, such as funding ELL with categorical aid.
While members of the task force had previously stated that updated models that included its proposed ELL changes would be released earlier this month, such models have yet to materialize.
“Proposals without doing the modeling first lacks integrity and foresight and equity,” she said.
She noted that testimony Friday was largely in favor of implementing the recommendations of the study.
“It, essentially, seems like you’re questioning the intentions of the communities and the educational experts we hire to run schools to use the taxing capacity to meet the needs of our families and students,” she said. “The actions and words of this task force demonstrate that the task force feels that you know better than communities, families, professionals in education.”
jim.sabataso @rutlandherald.com
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