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By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

North Country Union High School students will start the school year learning in tents after testing registered high levels of PCBs in the school’s primary academic wing.The polychlorinated biphenyls have also pushed back the start of school until...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Vermont is pursuing two potential locations for a new women’s prison in Essex, Vt.For years, state Department of Corrections officials have stressed the need to replace Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility in South Burlington, calling conditions...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

If anyone could navigate Vermont’s special education system, it was Chris and Pallas Ziporyn — or so they believed.Chris, once a teacher, received a master’s degree with a focus on special education. As a teenager, Pallas served on her local school...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

In a motion filed Wednesday, Gov. Phil Scott’s administration fired back at the two Vermont senators suing the governor and Interim Education Secretary Zoie Saunders, asking the court to dismiss the case. The motion, penned by two lawyers in the...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

On Tuesday, Vermont joined a small list of states approved to bill Medicaid for some prison health care coverage. “We were expecting this, but it’s definitely very exciting,” said Isaac Dayno, chief of staff for the Vermont Department of Corrections....

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Last week, two state senators announced they were suing Gov. Phil Scott over his appointment of Interim Education Secretary Zoie Saunders. In a Friday press conference, Sens. Tanya Vyhovsky, P/D-Chittenden Central, and Dick McCormack, D-Windsor, said...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Negotiations between Gov. Phil Scott’s administration and legislative leadership soured after a Wednesday afternoon meeting to discuss the executive branch’s property tax and education finance proposal. The meeting and subsequent fallout followed...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

While studying economics and education at Yale University, Grace Miller found a surprise topic on the agenda: Vermont’s one-of-a-kind school funding formula. The 22-year-old from Newport and her classmates learned about the “Brigham decision,” a 1997...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

Gov. Phil Scott vetoed the annual property tax bill on Thursday, setting up a veto session showdown on a piece of legislation that must pass for schools to be funded as normal. “We must provide property tax relief now. This can’t wait for another...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

The Senate’s version of the annual education funding bill, passed Wednesday night, would make a dent in Vermonters’ looming property tax increases but stopped short of changing the system. By and large, the bill punts tough questions about how to...

By ETHAN WEINSTEIN

After a lengthy and dramatic debate Tuesday morning, the Vermont Senate voted against the confirmation of Zoie Saunders as state education secretary — but the fight over her appointment appeared far from finished.Saunders needed a majority of the...

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...