Harwood superintendent joins state commission to reform education system
July 15, 2024 | By Lisa ScagliottiCorrection: This post was updated with Meagan Roy’s recent job change.
The newly created Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont begins its work this morning and Harwood’s superintendent is one of the commission members.
Harwood Unified Union School District Superintendent Mike Leichliter was chosen by the Vermont Superintendents Association to represent that group. The association’s executive director Jeff Francis, who is retiring, was selected to represent the Vermont Principals Association.
Created by the state legislature this past session, the commission has 13 members representing a wide range of key players in the state’s education ecosystem. The group is charged with studying pre-K-through-12 education to make recommendations on the entirety of the state’s public education system from its role, governance, and administration at the state and local levels, to its size and scope, and the financing system in place to support it all.
Earlier this year as school districts prepared budgets to put to voters, new policy that revised key pieces in the state’s complex education-financing formula became a lightning rod, sparking a cry for larger-scale reform of the system. Lawmakers, Gov. Phil Scott’s administration, educational leaders across the state, and voters all weighed in calling for a change in delivering quality education in an equitable manner that taxpayers can afford.
The legislation that created the commission asks the group to submit its preliminary findings and recommendations by Dec. 15, 2024 and its final recommendations by Dec. 1, 2025. Proposals of new legislation to implement recommendations are due by December 15, 2025. Along the way, public engagement is to play a key role.
This morning’s meeting is at 9:30 a.m. both in person at the Agency of Education offices at 1 National Life Drive in Montpelier and via video conference online.
The members of the commission are:
Zoie Saunders, Interim Vermont Secretary of Education
Jennifer Samuelson, chair of the Vermont state Board of Education
Craig Bolio, Vermont Tax Commissioner
Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, state Senate appointee
Rep. Peter Conlon, D-Cornwall, state House appointee
Nicole Mace, Winooski School Board member and Vermont School Boards Association representative
Jeff Francis, Vermont Principals Association representative
Michael Leichliter, Harwood superintendent and Vermont Superintendents Association representative
Jeff Fannon, Vermont-National Education Association executive director
Elizabeth Jennings, Addison Northwest School District Director of Finance & Operations and Vermont Association of School Business Officials representative
Meagan Roy, chair of the Census-Based Funding Advisory Group
John Castle, Executive Director of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative
Oliver Olsen, Vermont Independent Schools Association representative
The agenda for this first meeting has organizational items of business as the group begins its work. Meagan Roy will serve as chair. For the past two years, Roy has been superintendent of the Washington Central Unified Union School District and recently began a new position at St. Michael’s College as coordinator of the school leadership program. The commission also will designate a steering committee.
The agenda has the link to join online or by phone via Microsoft Teams.