* the original list was incorrect - this was updated 3/27
This could affect you if you are from: 

Baltimore, Belvidere, Bloomfield, Brunswick, Danby, Goshen, Granby, Granville, Hancock, Hubbardton, Ira, Kirby, Landgrove, Lemington, Londonderry, Maidstone, Mt Tabor, Norton, Peru, Pittsfield, Plymouth, St George, Sandgate, Searsburg, Stannard, Stratton, Victory, West Haven, Westmore, Weston, Winhall.* 

These 31 towns either tuition all their students, or tuition some plus have a union school affiliation for the others (essentially having two school districts)

For the most part, this bill modifies Act 153 (the school consolidation law from 2010). But the really important piece here is an addition to the bill that would provide Act 60/68 excess spending penalty relief to K-12 tuitioning towns. An example of a town this will affect is Pittsfield, where all of the students are tuitioned and the school budget was recently rejected due to a $2696 excess spending tax penalty PER STUDENT. Towns that tuition all students have no direct way to vote on the budgets of the schools their students choose.

Penalty relief has support from the Department of Education, and the Senate Education Committee. If you live in a K-12 tuitioning town, please email your Senators (contact info here) and Representatives (contact info here). Make sure they are aware of this addition to H.753, and ask them to support the language in the bill. 

This bill affects some of the SMALLEST towns in the state. Everyone that weighs in on this will really make an impact. 

Please share this information with your school board and select board members, and pass along my contact info (Angelique Lee - 802-746-9910  angeliquevermont@gmail.com). Here's a draft of the language that will be in the bill. 


 

Status: 
This bill has passed out of the Senate Education Committee and the Full Senate and progressed to the House where it was referred to the House Education Committee.

This bill originally proposed to give full public school choice to all elementary and high school students, and eventually include choice of independent schools. As often happens during the process, the realities of financing, and the desire to avoid unintended consequences caused the committee to greatly scale back the bill. The current form of the bill is basically an expansion of Act 150. Act 150 is the school choice law that created "choice districts" within Vermont and allows a certain number of students to move within those districts. You won't find much on Act 150 on this website because it is such a limited bill, and only 300 students have taken advantage of its offerings.

This bill still needs parent support to make it through the House process and become law.
Please go to our updated TAKE ACTION NOW page to help this bill on the second half of its journey.

S.201 would now:

• Do away with "choice districts" and allow students to choose public schools statewide.

• Allow a greater number (but still limited) of students to choose their public school.

• Implement a lottery if there are more students interested in transferring schools, than there are spaces available.

• Expand Act 150 choice to students in grades 7 - 12 (it was previously grades 9-12)