History of school mergers in Vermont

Vermont has changed how its school districts are drawn many times. Act 170 is the latest step. This page gives the main dates, with a source for each.

1892: from neighborhood districts to town districts

For most of the 1800s, a Vermont town could hold many small school districts, and rural areas relied on one-room schoolhouses. In 1892 the Legislature passed a law that folded each town’s districts into one town district. It became known as “the vicious Act of 1892.”

The law cut the number of school districts from over 2,000 to 251. Towns had to buy the old districts’ property and pay their debts. The change spread the property tax for schools across the whole town, so rural areas no longer carried it alone. Cities and larger towns saw little change.

Source: Vermont Historical Society, “Equity and History: Vermont’s Education Revolution of the Early 1890s”

1906 to 2009: supervisory unions and union schools

In 1906 the state created supervisory unions: groups of town districts that share a superintendent and central office while keeping their own boards. After World War II, towns began to form union school districts, often to run a shared high school.

Source: Office of Legislative Counsel, Act 46 overview, January 2021

2010 and 2012: Acts 153 and 156

These two laws offered tax breaks and other incentives to school districts that chose to merge.

Source: Office of Legislative Counsel, Act 46 overview

2015 to 2019: Act 46

Act 46 of 2015 built on those laws. It offered incentives for districts to merge on their own, in stages. Districts that did not merge had to show how they would meet state goals. In 2018, the State Board of Education issued a statewide plan that required some of the remaining districts to merge.

The State Board’s final order merged 42 districts in 36 towns into 11 new union school districts, for a net cut of 34 districts. Counting the voluntary mergers under Acts 153, 156, and 46, 206 districts in 185 towns formed 50 new union school districts.

Vermont had 267 school districts before Act 46 and about 120 after the State Board’s order.

The State Board counted a district like Burlington, which has its own superintendent and serves one city, as one of the structures Act 46 preferred. Burlington, South Burlington, and Winooski each still run their own district today.

Sources:

What the Legislature found about Act 46

In Act 170, the Legislature wrote down what it found about past mergers. It found that Act 46 created larger districts that cut central office costs per student and removed duplicate boards, “while maintaining or improving student opportunities in many regions.”

In the same section, it found that closing small elementary schools “often yields limited or inconsistent cost savings” once busing, buildings, and the effect on the community are counted, and that it may hurt student results and family involvement, mostly in rural areas.

These are the Legislature’s findings. The committee has not taken a position on them.

Source: Act 170 of 2026, Section 1

2025: Act 73

Act 73 of 2025 set out a plan for larger school districts across Vermont, a new way to fund schools based on each student’s needs, and a statewide tax rate. It created a task force to draw new district lines. The task force did not recommend new lines, and the Legislature did not create new districts in 2026.

Source: Agency of Education: Education Transformation

2026: Act 170

Act 170 changed course. Instead of the state drawing new districts, every district now joins a local merger committee to study the question, and voters in each district have the final say. The Agency of Education describes it as a process that “largely reflects existing procedures for voluntary mergers.”

Read more on our page about Act 170 of 2026.

Source: Agency of Education: Education Transformation

Last updated October 27, 2026.