Listening, Learning, and Leading for Vermont's Students

This commentary was written by Zoie Saunders, interim secretary of the Agency of Education.

When I arrived in Vermont, I shared my intent to spend my first 100 days learning as much as possible about the state, our schools, and Vermonters’ education priorities. What I have learned gives me great hope about the work underway in our state. There is a real and shared desire to build consensus on how we can strengthen and sustain our education system for the benefit of all our state’s students and communities. We owe it to our students, Vermont’s future, to do this work together.  

I have traveled across the state visiting schools and speaking with community members from Southern Vermont to the Northeast Kingdom. The level of engagement and focus on schools demonstrate Vermont’s deep commitment to student success.  

Through my travels, I have met farmers providing nutritious ingredients for school meals; multilingual liaisons supporting refugee students and their families; technical education leaders training the next generation of workforce innovators; artists nurturing students’ creativity; mental health providers promoting student and family well-being; and countless volunteers who serve on boards, committees, and school-based programs.  

Teachers, staff, and education leaders who go above and beyond are at the core of our education system. I have been amazed to see the innovative ways educators enrich learning through international experiences, project-based activities, outdoor learning, leadership development, and much more. Having also met and engaged with many students already, it is abundantly clear that we should all be proud of our young people. I have been impressed with their understanding of complex issues from geopolitics to our own state education system. What’s more, their commitment to giving back to their communities is deep and broadly shared.  

All of this shows Vermont can truly offer a unique and special learning experience. But we must ensure that all students are given the same opportunities and that we can responsibly sustain and protect what we value most.  

Despite the tremendous strains on our state education system, I have witnessed firsthand that education is what unites us. Our education system is where the needs and interests of children, parents, workers, businesses, and communities converge. I intend to continue putting students and schools at the heart of planning for Vermont’s future. By strengthening our public school system, we will have stronger communities.  

My planning for the Listen and Learn Tour has evolved as I’ve made my initial visits around the state. This initiative goes beyond orienting me as a new leader to the state.  I see the Tour as an opportunity for state-level leadership to support strategic planning and a time for the Agency of Education to engage with local and regional education leaders, ensuring our work aligns with communities’ needs and priorities.  

We will engage communities through surveys, regional meetings with education leaders, and listening sessions with educators, families, students, and community members. I plan to support these conversations with relevant data to focus discussions on how decisions can improve educational outcomes for all students. 

I also recognize that some issues impact the whole education system and need to be discussed on a larger scale. The Commission on the Future of Public Education is charged with creating a transformative vision. The group met on July 15 to begin its work to look at the needs of the system.  I am proud to participate on the Commission and Steering Committee and commit to bringing a data-driven, results-oriented, collaborative approach.  

The Agency’s Tour will not only help us to understand the needs of local schools and how we can help guide their work, but we will also bring this perspective to the Commission’s conversations. I invite you to participate in any way you can. Please visit our website for more information about the Agency’s Listen and Learn Tour and the Commission on the Future of Public Education.  

I look forward to listening, learning, and leading to advance Vermont’s education goals and build stronger futures for all learners.  

Listen and Learn Reporting

Vermont's Education Funding System: Explained and Compared to Other States

Listen and Learn: Public Engagement (October 28, 2024)

August 2024 State Education Profile Report

The State Profile Report provides an overview of critical data, ranging from student enrollment and academic performance to staffing levels and expenditures. By grounding our conversations in this broad spectrum of data, we aim to create a shared understanding of the current landscape and establish a solid foundation for future discussions.

A Note on the Upcoming Rerelease of the State Profile Report: 

Since the release of the State Profile report, the Agency has been working with stakeholders across Vermont to share the data and gather their feedback about potential data inconsistencies and how to better present the data. As highlighted in the initial State Profile, the Agency acknowledges the need for improvements in data reporting and has made this a priority.

Phase 2 of the Listen and Learn Tour involved regional planning with education leaders, where additional data were shared, to support data validation at the school level. The re-release of the State Profile is intended to demonstrate this commitment by sending data refinements, as well as additional context and analysis to tell a clearer data story.

The Listen and Learn Tour is an explicit and transparent process to improve data consistency, alignment across disparate data sets, and consistency in coding across Supervisory Unions/School Districts and schools moving forward. This work is necessary and important in ensuring that all stakeholders have access to education data to inform decision-making.

Based on stakeholder feedback and additional work by the Agency to date, key additions and refinements in the rereleased report will include:

Additional context:

• Vermont’s education ecosystem: The education system and its funding in Vermont is complex. Additional narrative has been added to the State Profile to explain the education landscape in Vermont, including explaining the governance structure and the different ways that students are counted in Vermont, from total enrollment (students served in physical schools) to average daily membership, or ADM (students that an SU/SD is responsible for, including tuitioned students), to equalized pupil counts (how the system counted students for funding purposes at the time). The different student count figures will be presented with fuller explanation for how and why each is used in different sections of the report. Additional context is also provided for how the funding system has changed since 2022-23 in terms of how it weights student counts to reflect differences in need and the expected costs for serving different student groups.

Data refinements:

• Enrollment: Total enrollment figures from 2003-04 to 2022-23 were corrected for accuracy. Changes to enrollment led to additional changes in:
  • how supervisory unions or supervisory districts (SU/SDs) were grouped by size by shifting the categorization of three SU/SDs for comparisons throughout the report;
  • staffing per 100 student figures, and
  • special education percentages that were calculated using the enrollment figures.
• Expenditures: In the previous release, expenditures were calculated per pupil using total enrollment. In the rerelease, figures have been instead calculated using average daily membership (ADM) to better reflect the students that an SU/SD is responsible for and on which dollars were being spent. Specifically, total expenditures include tuition for students served in other settings who are not counted in total enrollment figures, but are counted in ADM. Additionally, some duplicated expenditures (i.e. expenditures that were double counted based on how data were coded in the field and rolled up) were excluded.

Additional analysis:

• Expenditures: In addition to looking at total expenditures, the State Profile includes more nuanced analysis of expenditures in an effort to “peel the onion.” This includes looking at ongoing operating expenditures, or how much is spent on an ongoing basis to educate students, excluding variable expenses like capital (school construction projects, for example) or debt service. While the primary intent of the expenditure analysis in the State Profile is to consider all funding sources that are used to serve students in order to best reflect the educational opportunity and level of equity those funds afford students. The Agency also understands that another important perspective is the experience of the taxpayer, so analysis in the State Profile more concretely highlights the portion of expenditures that are funded by Vermonters through the Education Fund and how this has changed over time.

The anticipated scale of the impact of data refinements is roughly +/- 5% of statewide figures in most instances, and the Agency is engaging in a final round of data validation with SU/SD staff prior to the rerelease of the updated State Profile, which is expected to be released by November 22, 2024.

Given the scale of adjustments, the overall narrative of the State Profile has not changed in most areas with general patterns and trends remaining similar, even if the scale of differences shifts. The biggest anticipated change to overall trends observed is expected to be to the total enrollment decline seen between 2003-04 and 2022-23, with a greater overall decline observed than previously reported. Further, while the total expenditures analysis at the state level is anticipated to change minimally due to using ADM instead of total enrollment, the additional expenditure analysis will provide a more nuanced look at education spending in the state.

While overall statewide trends were fairly consistent after data refinements to date, the story in individual SU/SDs did vary which will have greater impacts on comparisons by SU/SD groups. The Agency will continue to work with SU/SD staff to ensure the accuracy of data for their SU/SD prior to releasing updated SU/SD-level reports and appreciates the cooperation from the field in the data validation process.

November 6 Meeting Links: 

Educator session: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIocOiupjwqGNKOtEYVG0Q0Vy65xGgcVG10

Public session: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIsc-CsqT8oGtG2fuag_iPVNsVs02_XFVk4

Each public engagement session will take place from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Every session will begin with introductory information and data to support more in-depth conversations, followed by breakout sessions on topics related to student achievement and support, career and college readiness, and school budgets, among other emerging priorities.

While not required, pre-registration is encouraged using the online Listen and Learn Registration Form.

The mission of the Agency is to provide leadership, support, and oversight to ensure that the Vermont public education system enables each student to be successful. To fulfill this mission, the Agency wants to be a statewide education leader and believes in working in concert with and in support of our partners in the field. Through this Listen and Learn Tour, we (the Agency’s Interim Secretary and staff) look forward to meeting with Vermonters across the state and hearing from those most impacted by decisions made at the state level. Together, we will envision our shared goals for our education system, identify the obstacles and develop a strategic and collaborative plan to move forward. This will help the Agency build a work plan for the future that is aligned and responsive to the vision and the needs of Vermont communities.

During the Listen and Learn Tour, the Agency will be engaging with education leaders, but also teachers and staff, parents and families, community members, and students as we work towards ensuring equitable access to high quality educational outcomes. These conversations will be supported with relevant data to support conversations on how state, regional and district decisions improve educational outcomes for all students. 

Through the Listen and Learn Tour, the Agency seeks to:

1. Align Agency work to regional/district priorities and needs
2. Identify a shared vision for the future of education in Vermont and develop a strategic plan
3. Improve access to high-quality educational opportunities for all students
4. Identify levers for improving student achievement
5. Provide valuable perspective and data to support the work of the Commission on the Future of Public Education

Over the next few months, Vermont will be undertaking efforts to reimagine the future of the state’s education system. At the same time, the Agency of Education is developing a strategic plan to support Vermont’s education goals. This work will inform how education leaders, school community members, and the Agency of Education collectively ensure that all students have equitable access to high-quality educational opportunities. These parallel efforts include:

• Agency of Education Listen and Learn Tour: The Agency’s Listen and Learn Tour will engage deeply with local and regional education leaders and school communities to ensure our work aligns with stakeholder needs and priorities. Stakeholder engagement opportunities will include surveys of all stakeholders, regional convenings with education leaders, and listening sessions with educators, families, students and community members. 
   
• Commission on the Future of Public Education: The Commission was established in the passage of Act 183 of 2024 (the yield bill).  The Commission is charged with: (1) establishing “a statewide vision for Vermont’s public education system”, (2) creating “an efficient, sustainable, and stable education system” that “afford[s] substantially equal educational opportunities” to all Vermont students, and (3) identifying “strategic policy changes” to make statewide vision a reality. 

As the Agency seeks to work in partnership with those in the field to guide its work, the Listen and Learn Tour and related data gathering will enrich and support the Commission’s conversations to meet their charge.