In early July, Governor Scott and legislative leaders announced 11 appointments to the newly created School District Redistricting Task Force. This panel was created in the broader school funding and governance reform bill signed into law last month and is charged with drawing boundaries for new, larger school districts.

These maps will have a massive impact on whether the new law achieves the savings and property tax stability promised by its proponents.

Read NFIB VT’s recap of the Education Funding and Governance Reform package.

Who’s on the task force? The law outlines the criteria for the 11-member panel:

5 Non-Legislative Members: must have extensive experience working within the state’s public education system and ideally represent different regions.

– Senate and House must each appoint one retired or former supervisory union superintendent and one retired or former school business manager or school board member (total: 4).

The non-legislative members appointed by the House and Senate are:

Dr. Jay Badams: former superintendent of SAU 70, the first interstate school district (Norwich, VT and Hanover, NH) in the country.

Kim Gleason: from Grand Isle, Gleason served for six years on the Vermont Board of Education and currently serves on the state Pension Investment Commission.

Dr. Jennifer Botzojorns: retired superintendent for the Kingdom East School District and recently completed an interim role as principal and superintendent in Rivendell. She was 2023 Vermont Superintendent of the Year.

Chris Locarno: retired director of finance and facilities for the Central Vermont Supervisory Union; currently the business manager at Capstone Community Action in Barre.

– Governor must appoint one retired or former superintendent (total: 1).

Hon. Dave Wolk: former president of Castleton University, retired teacher, principal, and superintendent; elected Rutland County Assistant Judge in 2022.

6 Legislative Members: Senate and House must appoint three each; at least one of which must be from a different party and one of which must be from a different school district than the others.

The legislative appointees are:

Rep. Edye Graning (D – Chittenden 3). Rep. Graning was first elected in 2022 and is vice chair of the House Commerce Committee. She is the current chair of the Mount Mansfield School Board, on which she has served since 2013.

Rep. Rebecca Holcombe (D – Windsor Orange 2). Rep. Holcombe was first elected in 2022. A former teacher and principal, she served as Vermont’s Education Commissioner from 2013 to 2018.

Rep. Beth Quimby (R – Caledonia 2). Rep. Quimby was appointed to fill a vacant House seat in 2024 and serves on the Education Committee. She taught middle school mathematics in Barton for over 30 years.

Senator Martine Gulick (D-Chittenden Central). Sen. Gulick was first elected in 2022 and serves as vice chair of the Senate Health and Wellness Committee. She is a retired high school teacher and library director and is a regional representative on the Vermont School Board Association.

Senator Wendy Harrison (D-Windham). Sen. Harrison was first elected to the Senate in 2024 and previously served in the Vermont House. She is chair of the Senate Committee on Institutions and previously worked in municipal government.

Senator Scott Beck (R-Caledonia). Sen. Beck served in the Vermont House prior to his election to the Senate in 2024. He is the minority leader in the Senate and sits on the Finance and Energy Committees. Sen. Beck is a teacher at St. Johnsbury Academy and owns an independent bookstore in St. Johnsbury.

What will the new maps look like? The new law lays out several criteria that guide the map drawing process. Most notably, districts must have between 4,000 and 8,000 students. Currently, only one district in the state (Champlain Valley: ~4,400 students) exceeds the minimum threshold.

According to the most recent Vermont Agency of Education data, there were 82,901 public school students enrolled in 2023. This means map makers could create roughly 10 to 20 districts under the new law’s target enrollment range. Other factors, like new minimum class sizes and restrictions on independent schools receiving public funding, could further shrink the number of potential districts.

That will be a significant departure from the 52 supervisory unions and 119 school districts that are currently responsible for local school governance.

Supervisory Unions are administrative, planning, and educational service units created by the State Board. They can be made up of one or more school districts, and are responsible for establishing curriculum, managing state and federal funds, and more.

School Districts are governance units controlled by a publicly elected board. Their structure depends on the area and schools served, and they have broad power to set education policies, manage finances and facilities, and more.

See “School Governance 101” by Vermont Legislative Counsel Beth St. James for more background.

The task force must submit no more than three options to the governor and legislature by December 1. Lawmakers will still have to vote to approve a new map in 2026, which could lead to more changes, political wrangling, and is not certain to happen.

What are people saying? The education funding and governance reform package has drawn both praise and criticism since its passage in June. In reality, much of how the law shakes out will depend on the map drawing process.

Rob Roper, former president of Vermont’s Ethan Allen Institute, has expressed skepticism that the reform plan will achieve the desired savings and improvement in education outcomes.

The Vermont Rural School Community Alliance, which has expressed concerns about governance consolidation and potential school closures, applauded the redistricting task force appointments.

The Vermont chapter of the National Educators Association (NEA), the largest union in the country, trashed the reform package and said it “consolidates power in the hands of Montpelier bureaucrats.”