To the editor: Ed Secy Saunders fails public schools with latest directive

Vermont needs a secretary of education who understands how the system works here: It’s debatable that Zoie Saunders issuing a directive that school districts looking to hire superintendents only offer contracts for one year falls under her purview.

Saunders’ Agency of Education colleague, Toren Ballard, makes a laughable attempt to justify the edict by pointing to a former Vermont secretary of education directing a school district to hire an interim superintendent for one year following passage of Act 46. The executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association clarified that “…was prompted by unique circumstances in that district, as opposed to Saunders’ ‘blanket approach’ now.”

Regardless of some possible interpretation of statutes that the education secretary has such authority, the concept is, in a word, ludicrous. It would discourage qualified educators from applying, and who could blame them?

Instead of constantly adding to already considerable challenges faced by public school directors in these times, our education secretary should rightly be providing supports to them. Are private schools being told to only offer one-year contracts to headmasters? I’m guessing not. This is blatant favoritism, as has been displayed since Saunders took the helm.

Any school receiving tax dollars must accept and provide the same services to all students, in accordance with the Common Benefit Clause of the Vermont Constitution, and leveling that playing field should be her first order of business, for the good of all students and taxpayers of Vermont.

Ken Fredette 
Wallingford
Friends of Vermont Public Education