Washington Central Connections

May 30, 2025

Superintendent's Message

Transforming Education in Vermont: Understanding H.454

Dear Community Members,

As you may know, lawmakers in Montpelier are currently discussing House Bill H.454, a significant piece of legislation aimed at transforming our state's education governance, quality, and finance systems. The stated goal of this bill is to ensure that every student in Vermont has access to substantially equal educational opportunities that prepare them for the future. The General Assembly and the Governor find that a change in our education system is needed.

This bill is currently in a conference committee as the House and Senate work to reconcile their different versions. As highlighted in a recent VTDigger article, Governor Phil Scott has expressed concerns and indicated he would not sign either the House or Senate bill as currently written. He has outlined specific demands for an education transformation package he could support, emphasizing the need to avoid increased spending under a new funding formula and to implement significant changes sooner than 2029. Navigating these perspectives is a key part of the ongoing legislative process.

H.454 proposes several major changes to school governance, education finance, school construction aid, tuition and independent schools, as well as property tax relief. The two areas that have the greatest potential for impact on our district are the school governance and education finance parts of the bill. The school governance changes will create a committee to draw new district lines and create fewer districts in the state. This would mean that WCUUSD could be joined with other local districts to create a larger district with one central office. The education finance reform is introducing a new system for funding education that is based on a weighted per-pupil payment, along with the possibility of supplemental district spending for amounts approved by voters above the state-determined base education amount. Both of these components of the bill would have significant impacts on our district.

This is a complex and multi-year process. As the bill is currently written, various reports and recommendations are due in late 2025 and 2026 from state agencies and study groups on critical details such as statewide data systems, school construction recommendations, special education delivery, transportation guidelines, and refining the new finance formula. The full operational transition to the new unified districts is planned for July 1, 2029.

As this legislative and transitional process unfolds, staying informed is crucial. We will continue to provide updates as information becomes available. Several state-level commissions and task forces, such as the Commission on the Future of Public Education and the School District Voting Ward Task Force, have been established to study key issues and develop recommendations. These groups often hold public meetings and welcome community input, offering valuable opportunities to learn more and share your perspectives.

Navigating these significant changes requires careful planning and continued community engagement. We are committed to working through this transition, whatever it may be, to ensure the best possible educational outcomes for all our students.

Sincerely,

Steven Dellinger-Pate

Humanity Justice and Inclusion

Imagining New Worlds

When I first began contributing to this newsletter, I explored heritage months: Black, Women’s, Arab American, Asian American & Pacific Islander, Jewish, LGBTQ+ Pride, Disability Pride, Latinx, Native American/Indigenous Peoples, and more. Of course, one month each is not enough to celebrate the history and complexity of each group, so these pieces were teasers, meant to inspire lifelong learning.

In a recent newsletter, I wrote about my realization that the Declaration of Independence was written with a feather, which made me consider the fragility of that foundational document.

Classrooms are wonderful places to learn to cherish the rights and values enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Last week, at Berlin Elementary School, members of the Humanity and Justice group created a learning opportunity about the history of Memorial Day. Everyone was welcome, as students learned about the Race Course, a Civil War prisoner of war camp in Charleston, South Carolina, notorious for its horrific conditions, and abandoned after the end of the war. Students learned about a group of formerly enslaved people who reburied Union Soldiers found in a mass grave there, and in honor of those they buried, declared that day Memorial Day.

The Berlin school students read A Day For Rememberin' (you can listen to it here), which tells the story of ten-year-old Eli, who helped prepare the fencing that surrounded the graveyard at the former prison, ahead of the ceremony that took place there on May 1, 1865.

In his 1963 speech, A Talk to Teachers, James Baldwin spoke of troubling times, and said, “those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people must be prepared to “go for broke.”

I read a few 2025 commencement addresses this week, and found words like these repeated: “stay human,” “make yourself indispensable,” “don’t follow the rules—create better rules,” and “Ignore other people’s blueprints—they depict a world we no longer live in.”

And this from sociologist Ruha Benjamin, “Remember to imagine and craft the worlds you cannot live without, just as you dismantle the ones you cannot live within.”

There are awe-inspiring opportunities in our schools to imagine new worlds. That Memorial Day lesson was that kind of opportunity. Our young people need us to be willing to make those opportunities happen to revise models, imagine possibilities, open-heartedly risk, and ‘go for broke.’

I’m grateful for another year of ‘going for broke’ with all of you.

Best wishes always,

Shelley Vermilya

Humanity & Justice Scholar Residence