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By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The Senate Education Committee voted 3-2 on Wednesday to favorably recommend Zoie Saunders as the next education secretary.The Senate is expected to vote on Saunders’ confirmation next week. She needs the support of a majority of the 30-member body,...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The Vermont House’s tax-writing committee rolled out a preliminary proposal this week that would radically reimagine education finance in the state. The plan, written into the annual bill that helps set tax rates statewide, would provide school...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

A former student, who is Black, has settled a complaint with Twin Valley School District alleging that officials didn’t do enough to address racist bullying she faced at the district’s middle and high school, according to the ACLU of Vermont, which...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

In 2021, court rulings gradually opened the door for religious schools to receive money through Vermont’s school tuitioning program, which allows students in districts without a designated public option to attend the school of their choice. Then, a...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott thinks it might be time to wrest some school spending control away from the local level.“That’s not going to be popular. My just saying that probably isn’t popular, but I think it has to be on the table,” Scott said at his...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Voters struck down close to a third of school budgets across Vermont on Tuesday, the highest proportion in at least a decade, according to the Vermont Superintendents Association. Twenty-nine of 93 reported budgets were rejected, according to...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The latest data from the Vermont Agency of Education shows a small decrease in projected education spending and affirms previously anecdotal evidence on the major factors causing a projected increase in education property taxes.Health care costs,...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

An incarcerated individual imprisoned through Vermont’s private prison contract at Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi died on Monday, according to the Vermont Department of Corrections. Alfred Brochu, 71, “was found unresponsive”...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Lawmakers are now talking about replacing a controversial cap on homestead property tax rates with a new tax “discount” that would apply only to districts losing tax capacity.“Five percent cap is over,” Rep. Emilie Kornheiser, chair of the House Ways...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

A lawsuit alleging Green Mountain Union School District and some of its administrators failed to protect five sisters from harassment after one of them was raped has been settled for $300,000, according to the sisters’ lawyer.In 2017, Skylar White, a...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

A new estimate puts the projected average property tax bill increase next year at more than 20%. In response, the House tax committee is considering its options, including changing a controversial cap on local property tax rate increases.Summarizing...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

David Briggs, who owns two large buildings that are at the heart of downtown White River Junction, is starting to talk publicly about an “exit plan.” Last week, Briggs presented a mockup to the Hartford Selectboard of his vision for the Coolidge...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The Defender General’s Office’s investigation into the death of David Mitchell, who died in the Springfield, Vt., prison last April, revealed that medical staff did not recognize the seriousness of his condition in the months before his death and did...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

In a letter directed toward school boards and superintendents on Friday, two leaders of legislative tax committees warned of the “unintended consequences” of the state’s newest education finance law, which, they suggested, could have districts trying...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Two weeks before this school year, testing discovered elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, the carcinogens known as PCBs, at Bellows Falls Union High School. Since then, Andrew Haas, superintendent of the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union,...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The president of Norwich University said he is departing the military school after more than three years on the job.Mark Anarumo told VtDigger on Friday that he was leaving by “mutual” decision. Provost and Dean of the Faculty Karen Gaines will serve...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

When Barre City police pulled over a gray Ford SUV in September, they said they discovered a 17-year-old boy in the back seat carrying 50 grams of crack, $5,000 and a pistol with its serial number scratched off. But rather than file charges against...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

A Vermont Superior Court judge this week sided with a man sued for defamation over an op-ed in a local paper, citing the state’s laws protecting against frivolous lawsuits against free speech. Devon Kurtz, a Woodstock resident, wrote a commentary in...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

WOODSTOCK — The town’s economic development commission has expanded its housing incentives, allowing landlords in bordering towns to receive funding to house Woodstock workers in newly created, unused, or formerly short-term rentals. Woodstock’s...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

MILTON, Vt. — On a gray April morning, with occasional snow flurries swirling, three fisheries specialists gathered on the Lamoille River to catch some of the river’s walleye for sampling.This year, the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department will do...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

A Windsor County man previously accused of stealing a Dartmouth-Hitchcock shuttle bus was arraigned in a new case on Tuesday after state police said they discovered him in possession of another stolen truck and a loaded handgun.Mitchell Horton, 35,...