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Resident alleges inconsistencies between district HHB counts and Agency of Education data
Summary
A community member told the Barre Unified Union School District board that harassment, hazing and bullying (HHB) incident counts the public saw differ sharply from Agency of Education (AOE) datasets and urged the board to change who receives HHB reports.
Steve Thompson told the Barre Unified Union School District board during public comment that the HHB (hazing, harassment and bullying) incident totals presented to the community differ substantially from the data the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE) publishes. He said the discrepancy appears in local documents the district shared and in public records he obtained from the AOE.
Thompson said the district’s figures shown to the public through mid-November 2023 reflected “176 HHB investigations in just the first few weeks of school,” a total he said would represent nearly 30% of the prior year’s statewide incidents. He told the board the most recent AOE dataset he reviewed listed the district as an extreme outlier with 215 investigations through mid-May 2025 and expressed concern that some values in the AOE data for the district are suppressed, “possibly indicating that the district reported less than 11 harassment and bullying incidents for the year,” which he described as “at odds” with the local totals.
Thompson also told the board he has received materials he says appear to be misleadingly formatted, at times printed with AOE letterhead, and said some individuals listed as HHB report recipients provided him “misleading documents.” He urged the board to identify different HHB report recipients for the upcoming school year “in light of these inconsistencies and other direct evidence.”
The board did not take formal action on Thompson’s request during the meeting. The public comment concluded and the meeting moved on to the agenda.
Why it matters: HHB reporting is the primary means for the Agency of Education and district leaders to track bullying and harassment incidents and follow statutory reporting requirements. Large mismatches between datasets, or questions about who receives and records reports, can undermine public confidence and complicate state oversight of student-safety systems.
Context: Thompson cited AOE reporting practices and numbers repeatedly; he told the board the AOE “requires reporting of all HHB complaints and investigations regardless of substantiation.” He asked the board to reassign local HHB report recipients for the next school year.
Next steps: The board did not vote or assign follow-up at the meeting; Thompson requested that the board identify alternative HHB recipients.
