MIDDLEBURY — Area school board members are getting ready to join students for a summer break of their own, but not before bringing their districts into early conformance with a new public education reform bill that Gov. Phil Scott signed into law last Thursday.

Passed by both the Vermont House and Senate this past legislative session, H.955 establishes what Addison Northwest School District Superintendent Sheila Soule described as a “formal, facilitated process for the state’s school districts to study the advisability of forming new unified union school districts, while also creating Cooperative Educational Service Areas, or CESAs, as regional structures for shared services.”

The Addison Central (ACSD), Addison Northwest (ANWSD), Mount Abraham (MAUSD), Lincoln (LSD), Champlain Valley (CVSD) and Mt. Mansfield (MMSD) school districts are to be combined in a “Champlain Valley South” CESA charged with identifying common services that might be consolidated and shared.

“These conversations are really operational,” ACSD Superintendent Wendy Baker said, saying CESA committee members are likely to pose questions like, “What are we all doing? What is it costing us? Are there things we could do together that would feel reasonable and result in some savings or better service or more bandwidth that would allow us to cover something else well?”

The ACSD and ANWSD boards on June 8 appointed their respective superintendents — Baker and Soule — to represent them on the Champlain Valley South CESA board, which must hold its first meeting with 45 days of the bill becoming law. Adam Bunting, superintendent of CVSD, will call the first Champlain Valley South CESA board meeting. The MAUSD board at its June 23 meeting also appointed its superintendent, Patrick Reen, as representative to the CESA board and discussed potentially having a school board member attend those meetings, too.

While the state’s seven CESA boards are exploring economies of scale, a separate and more high-profile effort will explore potential voluntary mergers among some Vermont school districts. Locally, H.955 specifies a merger study grouping that includes the ACSD, ANWSD, MAUSD and LSD. The Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center will also be part of the discussion.

“Merger committees are expected to study the feasibility of forming unified union school districts and must examine structures that could include local elementary schools, centralized middle schools, comprehensive regional high schools, and universal access to career and technical education,” Soule told the ANWSD board on June. 8. “The committees must consider operational efficiency, transparency, accountability, educational opportunity, Career & Technical Education access, special education delivery, and the ability of districts to function under the future foundation formula.”

School districts have until Sept. 15 to pick members to participate in merger study committee meetings that will begin Oct. 15, according to H.955.

Merger study committees must submit their reports to the Agency of Education by Sept. 1, 2027. Based on those reports, the secretary of education must send its merger recommendations to the State Board of Education by Dec. 1, 2027. The state board must then sign off on any merger proposals, which would be decided by affected residents on Town Meeting Day (March 7), 2028.

In July 2029, a new foundation formula will replace the current education funding system that will be predicated on student enrollment, according to Otter Valley Unified Union School District Superintendent Rene Sanchez.

“The analogy people use is a ‘backpack’ of money: each student carries a base amount of funding, with extra added for students who need more support (for example, English language learners),” Sanchez stated in his final newsletter of the 2025-26 school year.

A series of additional steps — some requiring legislative approval — would lead to the creation of Regional Assessment Districts to establish financing and other rules in any voter-approved merged school districts by 2031.

The current pathway to voluntary mergers seemed unlikely only a year ago.

State lawmakers had considered proposing forced school mergers and expanded school districts as part of a more sweeping public education reform process though Act 73. But legislators — after receiving testimony from individuals, school officials and other stakeholders — significantly softened their education reform push in a way that maintains local control over the fate of shrinking public schools. A demographic shift in Vermont has seen student enrollment decline by around 32,000 students (25%) during the past 30 years.

“The (weightier discussion) is going to be the voluntary mergers,” Baker said, while “the CESAs are something we might make some hay out of.”

She said the Champlain Valley South CESA members might, for example, consider collaborating on the processing of criminal background checks for all of their employees. Currently, each district takes on that chore unilaterally using its own resources. Collaborating on this chore could save money that could be passed along to taxpayers or redeployed to other mandated school services, Baker noted.

OTHER ADDISON TOWNS

In the southern part of the county, the Slate Valley Unified Union School District (SVUUSD) — which includes the Addison County town of Orwell — and Otter Valley Unified Union School District (which includes Whiting, Leicester and Goshen in Addison County) have been placed in a merger study group that includes Barstow Unified School District, Ira School District, Mill River Unified Union School District, Quarry Valley Unified Union School District, and the Rutland City School District, Rutland Town School District.

SVUUSD is also starting a discussion about the future of its elementary schools, according to district Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell. A new Elementary School Reconfiguration Committee will review enrollment trends, educational programs, facilities, finances and seek community feedback.

“The committee may consider topics such as grade-level configurations, school programming and the potential future use of school buildings,” she stated in a recent newsletter to SVUUSD stakeholders.

The Orwell Village School falls under the Slate Valley umbrella.

“Like many school districts across Vermont, we are seeing changes in student enrollment and increasing financial pressures. We believe it is important to proactively examine how our schools, programs, and facilities are organized to ensure we can continue providing high-quality educational opportunities for all students,” Olsen-Farrell said.

But she stressed: “No decisions have been made. This committee’s work is intended to gather information, explore possibilities, and provide recommendations for future consideration.”

Any SVUUSD residents interested in serving on the Elementary School Reconfiguration Committee should email Olsen-Farrell at [email protected].

Additional reporting by Marin Howell.

Reporter John Flowers is at [email protected].