VSBA Board Seeks Comments on Governance Reform Proposals

By John Nelson, Executive Director

 

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Editor’s Note:  The VSBA Board of Directors has approved for discussion a draft proposal for significant changes to the statutory assignment of duties to supervisory unions, school administrators and school boards. Please read the following article for a review of the rationale for issuing governance proposals now, a brief overview of the draft’s proposals and directions on how to see and comment on the draft in its entirety.

 

Every state and national report on school governance reform in the last twenty years has stressed the importance of clarifying the responsibilities of school boards and administrators as part of any school governance re-structuring.  In 1998, for example, the Vermont State Board of Education made school governance recommendations to the General Assembly.  After discussing various structural changes that might be made to the Vermont education governance system, the Board recommended an emphasis on board/administrator roles.

 

Based on our research and consultation with interested parties, we continue to believe that the emphasis on governance reform at this time should be on redefining and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of administrative and leadership positions within the public education system.  We believe, in fact, that the solution to problems of local school governance highlighted in the many reports on the subject is found not so much in answering the question “How many should we have?” as in the answer to the question “What should they be doing?”

 

The VSBA has recognized the need to address the problem of role-confusion by adopting two resolutions on school board roles. The first VSBA resolution on the “Role of School Boards” identifies the five key areas of school board responsibility:

 

• Vision
• Structure
• Accountability
• Advocacy
• Conduct and Ethics

 

The second VSBA resolution on board roles more directly addresses the role-confusion problem:

 

The Vermont Legislature should review and revise existing statutory roles prescribed for school boards, superintendents and principals.  Overlapping duties should be reviewed and simplified, if possible. Duties that are time-consuming but not essential to core board duties—define vision, establish structure, provide for accountability, and advocate for students and public schools in an ethical manner—should be optional.  School boards should be permitted by law to delegate duties as they see fit to administrators, subcommittees and other panels that are accountable to school boards.

 

Despite the many calls for progress in this area, little has been made.  In Vermont, recommendations that the controlling statutory assignments of authority to voters, school boards and administrators be reviewed and revised have never been pursued.  While it is easy to generalize about “policy” functions and “management” functions, it is difficult to get consensus on where the fine lines separating the two should be drawn.

 

More recently, legislators and others have also begun to question the viability of supervisory unions as they are currently structured. Clearly, today’s supervisory unions dramatically differ in size and function from the S.U.’s originally conceived in the early 1900’s.  Today’s S.U.’s generally play significant roles in the administration of programs, such as special and compensatory education, that did not exist when the supervisory union structure was designed.   The following issues related to supervisory unions are increasingly being identified as in need of review:

 

• The legal standing of S.U.’s to own property and carry out “municipal” functions

• Ambiguity in S.U. statutory responsibilities.  See 16 V.S.A. § 261a
• The S.U. budget adoption process
• One person one vote on S.U. boards
• The indirect accountability of S.U.’s to voters and member boards

 

These issues are already being “piecemealed” through legislative proposals to “fix” one problem (the S.U. budget adoption process) without understanding the S.U. system as a whole.  The possibility that changes to the S.U. system will be implemented in  a haphazard manner makes it more important than ever for the VSBA to follow through on its stated goals for S.U. reorganization.  Doing so will assure that any changes in S.U. functions or structure are consistent with our goals and interests. 

 

The VSBA Board of Directors has approved for discussion a draft of revisions to the statutes that govern the roles and responsibilities of supervisory unions, superintendents, principals and school district boards.  The Board views the draft as a place to start. It is narrowly focused on the roles and responsibilities issues addressed by our resolutions.  The draft does not include proposals for statutory changes in supervisory union structures—budget adoption, board representation, etc.  Nor does it address changes to many other sections of Title 16 that assign various responsibilities to administrators and school boards.

 

To review the draft in its entirety, visit this link on the VBSA website: “VSBA Governance Reform Proposal” at www.vtvsba.org.

 

In brief, the draft includes the following significant provisions.

 

1.    The supervisory union board duties in 16 V.S.A. §261a (the provision to member district of special education, transportation, financial management, for example) that are now optional would be mandatory for all supervisory unions.

2.    Superintendents would be empowered to employ and dismiss persons who work for supervisory unions.

3.    School district boards would hire and dismiss principals, and principals would hire and dismiss teachers and others who work within their schools.

4.     Superintendents would evaluate the work of principals and would make recommendations to school district boards when the boards make principal employment decisions.

5.    The quasi-judicial functions of school district boards would be referred to referred to hearing officers retained and assigned by the Commissioner of Education.

 

Clearly, the adoption of these and the other changes in the draft as approved for discussion by the VSBA Board would dramatically alter the relationship between supervisory unions and member school districts by giving S.U.’s more responsibility over the delivery of services and coordination of educational programs within supervisory unions.  On the other hand, school district boards and principals would focus more on local objectives and accountability.

 

The VSBA Board is eager to hear from school board members who wish to comment on the draft proposals.  Your comments may be posted on the VSBA website at www.vtvsa.org (click on the “VSBA Governance Reform Proposal”).

 

If you have questions or comments about the draft that you would like to discuss with me, feel free to call me at 1-800-244-8722 or 1-802-223-3580.