Eliminating Independent School Choice (H.258) - March 1, 2023
The House Education Committee returned Wednesday morning to the bill that does away with Vermont’s public tuitioning system. Chairman Conlon opened the meeting, indicating that this would not likely be taken up again before the town meeting break. However, on Friday they will take another look at their committee bill on this topic.
Read morePublic School Choice for Elementary Students (H.209)
Representative Sibilia presented H.209 to the House Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill proposes to give elementary school students the choice to attend other elementary schools within the same Supervisory Union. The language models the public high school choice mechanism, which requires that both the sending and receiving schools would need to agree to the transfer.
Read moreEliminating Independent School Choice (H.258)
Representative Graning introduced her bill, H.258, to the House Education Committee on Tuesday. She claims the bill is meant to support high quality public education. The bill effectively restricts public tuition to the four traditional academies, which essentially removes school choice for students that reside in districts that do not operate a school. She admitted that this bill was about stopping the “siphoning of money” away from public schools.
Read moreIndependent Schools Bill - Feb 16
The House Education Committee came back to their draft bill on Thursday dealing with independent schools. Timothy Newbold (Head of School, Village School of North Bennington) introduce himself after Chairman Conlon prefaced by saying that they were interested in hearing from some of the smaller independent schools. Their school has now been in operation for 10 years as an independent school, but it was previously a public school. VSNB is accredited through NEASC and he called it a “very robust way for a school to go through self-reflection.” One of the advantages of this process is that it’s adaptable and different schools can get different things out of the process. This is particularly true in terms of the visiting team. Newbold shared that is students love being there and the love that people have for this community is palpable. He also pointed to the 2200 rule series as already covering the public accommodations act concerns and the harassment and bullying policies.
Read moreEliminating Independent School Choice (S.66)
Mary Newman (Head of School, Sharon Academy) introduced her school and the students that were with her to the Senate Education Committee on Thursday. Eighth grader Chloe Evans was the first student to testify. Chairman Campion asked what she likes about the school, what she doesn’t like, and what her message was to the Committee. Evans shared that she feels like there is a misconception that independent schools are just for rich kids and that has not been her experience. She was bullied and mistreated at her last public school because minorities were not widely accepted there. She has diagnosed trauma and would often fake sickness so she didn’t have to go to that school. She didn’t know a school couldn’t be so supportive until she was at Sharon Academy. She didn’t know there was a place she could feel at home before her current school.
Read moreNew Requirements for Independent Schools
The House Education Committee met on Wednesday morning to discuss an outline of the potential committee bill around Vermont’s town tuitioning program.
Read moreApproved Independent School Bill (school choice)
On Tuesday, the House Education Committee began putting together the elements they want to include in a bill around this topic. Off the bat, they want to codify the discrimination protections from the 2200 rule series into statute. There may also be some provisions around accreditation vs Agency of Education (AOE) review. There was a suggestion to do both because even though accreditation seems to be more rigorous, the accrediting agencies may not be looking at all the same things as AOE. The Agency has not yet weighed in on this topic.
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