Public school studies option of going private
Toolbox
By Peter Hirschfeld Staff Writer - Published: April 1, 2007
WOODBURY – As lawmakers in Montpelier wrangle over a bill aimed at stemming school costs in Vermont, at least one town is considering opting out of the public education system altogether.
It's a bold move for Woodbury, a small central Vermont town that encapsulates the fiscal pressures faced by sparsely populated communities funding their own schools.
Eight hundred residents were asked to fund an $876,000 elementary school budget in March. That figure represented an 11.6-percent increase over last year's spending, which combined with a drop in the town's Common Level of Appraisal, is expected to spike tax rates by about 36 cents.
The budget passed by a single vote.
So did a motion to explore shutting down the public elementary school and reopening a privatized, independent school in its place.
"This is insane," Woodbury mother Retta Dunlap says of the cost hike. "This is interfering with my ability to provide for my children."
Dunlap, who home-schooled her three children, serves as executive director of the Vermont Home Education Network, a nonprofit legislative watchdog that studies bills and policies that affect Vermont's home-schooling community. On Town Meeting Day, she proposed forming an exploratory committee to look into privatizing the school. The Woodbury school board has since charged Dunlap with forming the committee with willing townspeople, a task she hopes to complete by early summer.
Dunlap's exasperation mirrors that of some legislative and executive leaders who say soaring school costs and property tax rates have outpaced many Vermonters' ability to pay. Heated rhetoric over education costs has surfaced repeatedly at the Statehouse this year, and Gov. James Douglas has suggested that any proposal that doesn't include a drastic cost containment measure will lead to an exodus of low-income Vermonters who are unable to afford budgets approved by slim majorities.
Dunlap is not convinced that the proposed education funding legislation – pulled from the floor by House Speaker Gaye Symington last week for lack of support – will sufficiently abate her annual property tax bill. Nothing short of a system overhaul, Dunlap says, will stem the tide of rising taxes.
"The reason I voted 'no' on the budget is I think we're voting for the wrong structure," Dunlap says. "We need to step back, reconsider everything, and change how we're doing this."
Woodbury's population – with a per-capita income of $19,772, according to the 2000 U.S. Census – is made up of blue-collar natives with ancestral roots in the bygone granite industry as well as newcomers drawn to its back-to-the-land allure. The town's 37.8 square miles is pocked with boggy marshlands in low-lying areas. Woodbury Elementary is a classic two-story brick schoolhouse atop a hill visible from Route 14, the main thoroughfare that cuts through the town.
Dunlap hopes that privatizing the school will be more cost-effective and that an independent model will give the school financial and curricular autonomy.
The concept isn't new. In 1998, Winhall, a southern Vermont town approximately the same size as Woodbury, closed its public elementary school. Winhall residents say that at the time enrollments were declining and that they weren't happy with student performance and the public school's per-pupil costs of more than $13,000 per year.
The town dissolved its public school in the spring and, three months later, in the same building, opened The Mountain School in Winhall. Last year, the school had a total of 57 students, nearly double the number enrolled in 1998, and its per-pupil costs, at approximately $12,000 including special education and transportation costs, are less than they were 10 years ago.
Woodbury's enrollment last year was 62 students.
"I would say that the opportunity and flexibility are much greater than in public schools," says Daren Houck, headmaster of The Mountain School. Houck, who has been an educator for 12 years, took over the school three years ago.
Houck prefers the independent school model more for its educational freedom than for its fiscal benefits, but he says The Mountain School's independent status does realize savings for taxpayers in the community. The extensive foreign language and arts offerings, he says, are possible because of the school's financial autonomy.
The Mountain School, for instance, isn't required to have a home economics or shop class for its middle school, programs that are expensive and that would force the school to eliminate other offerings it believes are more important. Those programs, Houck says, are required at public schools.
"I do not believe we could afford all these luxuries that we view as necessities if we were a public school," he says.
The school also isn't bound by federal No Child Left Behind mandates, which Houck says place too much emphasis on standardized test results. Students there still take the tests, he says, and perform measurably better than their peers statewide. "We get to teach what we want to teach. … We take the standardized test. It's one of many assessments. But it does not rule and run the building."
Small communities on average face higher per-pupil education costs than their larger counterparts. Statistics compiled by the Department of Education showed that in fiscal year 2004, the 50 elementary school districts with less than 100 students paid $9,431 per pupil. That's almost 10 percent more than the $8,610 per pupil paid by elementary school districts with more than 300 students.
Statistics also suggest that student-to-teacher ratios, a significant variable in per-pupil costs, are a corollary to school size. In fiscal year 2005, elementary schools with less than 100 students averaged an approximately 10-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio, whereas schools with more than 300 students averaged 13-to-1. Richard Cate, commissioner of the Department of Education, says small schools like Woodbury may fall victim to soaring costs whether they go independent or not.
"I think that overall it is simply economics that eventually closes down small schools," Cate says. "It doesn't matter what the Legislature does or what anybody does. When you get down below 50 or 60 kids, you're trying to operate something that in this day and age is extraordinarily difficult to fund."
Cate, who emphasizes his support for Woodbury's privatization study, says salaries and economies of scale – not public status – are to blame for Woodbury's tax burden.
"I think it's smart to look at an independent school as an option," Cate says. "But I think they should look at other options as well, like doing something in conjunction with another community."
Therein lies the dilemma for small school districts, where residents are often as passionate about their local schools as they are frustrated by the costs to run them.
"We love our school," says Metta Motycka, chairwoman of the Woodbury School Board. "I don't want to see our school close. It's the center of our community. … We've got an excellent faculty. We just want to keep it open."
"If you walk into the Woodbury school, you're walking into a family, not an institution," says Rep. Peter Peltz, D-Woodbury, a freshman lawmaker on the House Education Committee. "It's a tremendously nurturing environment for good teaching and learning."
Peltz is among the legislators attempting to reconcile Vermonters' seemingly contradictory demands for quality local schools and lower tax bills. He supports examining the independent school model in Woodbury, but like Cate, he doubts it will solve the underlying problems wrought by small enrollment.
"It's an interesting exploration. … Obviously there's a concern about tax burden and cost," he says. The town, according to Peltz, also should consider other options. "We've got to look beyond town borders to protect and support our schools. We can't do it on our own anymore. There is an economy of scale … a common exchange of facilities and staffing that could come with governance change."
Dwight Davis is the executive director of the Vermont Independent School Association. His nonprofit organization represents the 170 independent schools in the state that serve more than 14,000 students. He calls small, local schools the keystones of education in Vermont and says privatization is the most viable solution for saving them from financial ruin.
"As an independent school you do what you want to do. It's like you're running a business," says Davis.
In Winhall, taxpayer-funded tuition allotments follow students to The Mountain School, which is run by a board of trustees that sets the annual budget. That budget is sent to the Winhall public school board, which presents the budget, including special education and transportation costs it contracts from the Windham Central Supervisory Union, to taxpayers. The school also solicits grants and runs an aggressive annual fund-raising drive, with a goal this year of $75,000 in private donations. Winhall's tony status (per-capita income there is 50 percent higher than in Woodbury) helps its fund-raising efforts.
"If you do it as an independent school, you form your own board, write up your own bylaws and you run it just like a business, selling a product, which happens to be education," Davis says. "It's the epitome of local control."
Davis says independent schools can hire and fire teachers without the threat of legal action from the teachers' union. That freedom, he says, ensures a supply of good teachers who are willing to comply with taxpayers' educational philosophies. (Woodbury pays for the equivalent of six full-time teaching positions. The teachers are not unionized.) The schools can also eliminate classes that are superfluous to the town's core educational mission.
"The way things are going right now, I think the whole public school system needs to be overhauled," Davis says. "And going independent is probably the only way you're going to keep your little schools alive. … It's a hard job, but it's worth the effort to save those kids."
Woodbury is part of the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union, which also includes Craftsbury, Hardwick, Greensboro, Greensboro Bend, Stannard and Wolcott. Woodbury sends its middle- and high-school students to Hazen Union School in Hardwick.
David Ford, co-superintendent of the union, says proponents of privatization should not minimize the contributions supervisory unions make to local schools. Along with heading special education and transportation programs, according to Ford, the supervisory union tackles a range of duties that might otherwise overwhelm a school the size of Woodbury Elementary.
"The whole world of curriculum development, professional development for staff, is all done by the supervisory union," says Ford. "The bookkeeping, accounting, managing all financial aspects of school operation, is all handled by the supervisory union."
Ford says the education funding crisis plaguing Vermont isn't new.
"Is there a crisis? I think there's always been a crisis," he says. "Every town meeting brings someone's version of a crisis."
And the costs of running a small school, which he attributes in part to special education costs, aren't going to disappear as long as Vermont remains committed to taking care of all its children, regardless of the cost of meeting their special needs.
"I think the presumption (about privatization) might be that you can do it cheaper and perhaps avoid some level of control," Ford says. "I remain unconvinced that you might be able to do it cheaper. Can you do it as well? I'm not sure."
The ad hoc citizens' group, Vermonters for a Better Education, published a how-to guide on privatizing schools in 2006 based almost entirely on the Winhall experiment. The brochure, available online at http://www.schoolreport.com, says privatizing can "save taxpayers' money under certain circumstances."
The guide lays out the rigorous steps involved, which include leasing the school building from the town, dissolving employee contracts and obtaining the "approved school" status necessary to receive state funding.
"Is there a savings? I don't know the answer to that yet," says Dunlap. "But with true local control, I think we at least have a chance to control costs, independent of what happens in Montpelier. And even if the savings aren't immediately there, maybe people are willing to make this move to at least take control over their own school."
In Woodbury, it seems, residents are more eager than ever to consider solutions. A petition, signed by more than 5 percent of registered voters, was filed recently with the town clerk. Those residents want a revote on the school budget, which passed 50 to 49 in March. Voters will return to the ballot box sometime in the next 60 days.
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