Rutland Town principal tells Senate committee homeless students, staffing and transport strain school resources

Sarah Tetra Petzloff, principal of Rutland Town School, told the Vermont Senate Education Committee on Feb. 19 that an increase in students placed in motel and hotel programs and shortages of staff and counselors are placing sustained operational and emotional burdens on her K–8 school.

"We get them to school," Petzloff said, describing the immediate duty to enroll and transport children who arrive without records or resources. "You don't wait for paperwork. You don't wait for records from the other school. We just get them to school." She said many of the families placed in motel-style housing struggle with substance use and that staff have seen increased relapse and related safety and health problems among students.

The testimony detailed how those circumstances have led school staff to provide basic needs and services beyond instruction: supplying clothing, treating chronic head lice, arranging improvised transportation (including contracting with outside drivers) and repeatedly filing referrals with the Department for Children and Families. Petzloff said her school of about 350 students includes both affluent families and a substantial homeless population, and that many students require special-education services and aides.

Why it matters: The principal framed these operational demands as a drain on instructional time and district budgets and as a contributor to turnover among assistant principals and other staff. She noted that the school must provide transportation for students who choose to remain enrolled despite living in other towns, and that transportation costs can be high when drivers are scarce.

Staffing, certification and pay were recurring themes. Petzloff said a recent applicant pool for a physical-education position once produced 70 licensed candidates; now her primary screening is whether applicants can legally work in the U.S., hold any license and pass a background check. She said school nurses, who can be paid substantially more outside education, are difficult to recruit and that her current full-time nurse is retiring. On mental-health supports, Petzloff said many students wait more than a year for counseling or therapeutic placements and that the district lacks sufficient alternative and therapeutic programs.

The principal described programmatic work her school has pursued: training staff in structured literacy approaches (Orton-Gillingham/science-of-reading methods), maintaining interventionists for reading and math, adopting Keys to Literacy for writing, continuing a long-standing math curriculum and holding multi-tiered supports to catch students who fall behind academically. She said smaller class sizes around 15–18 are preferable but that needs vary by cohort.

On consolidation and supervisory-union (SU) structure, Petzloff said the merger that created her SU (Rutland Town merged with Rutland Southwest and others) has not dramatically changed enrollment or day-to-day operations at her school but that larger SU size could offer the potential to share specialist services (ELL teachers, behavioral supports) across schools. She added that consolidation alone does not guarantee nimbleness, because changes often require agreement across the union.

After-school and community partnerships: Petzloff credited the Boys and Girls Club of Rutland County with operating after-school and summer programming at her building, providing snacks and dinner and running summer school; she noted parents must still arrange pick-up because the program does not provide home transportation.

Other details raised to the committee included problems with free-and-reduced-price lunch form completion (her school’s reported rate fell from about 33% two years ago to roughly 6–7% last year, which she said understates need and reduces Title funding), the recent hiring of a school resource officer in January who helped manage a threat assessment, and ongoing worries about chronic behavioral incidents that sometimes require removing a student from class or bringing in crisis-intervention-trained staff.

What the committee heard but did not decide: Petzloff described needs and local responses but did not request or present a formal motion or bill during the hearing. Committee members discussed state funding streams (including an allotment from marijuana tax revenues raised by one member) and how shared SU services or larger district constructs might improve access to specialists across narrow attendance boundaries.

The committee indicated interest in further testimony from principals and teachers about district size, shared services and access to nearby providers. Petzloff closed by saying she welcomes committee members to visit the school and reiterated that frontline educators are managing broad social-service needs in addition to instruction.

Ending: The Senate Education Committee said it intends to continue gathering perspectives on district configuration and service access; Petzloff’s testimony underscored the committee's stated focus on how governance structures and funding choices affect a school’s capacity to meet students’ academic and nonacademic needs.