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Northeast Kingdom leaders tell Senate education panel rural reforms must fit micro‑rural districts
Summary
Superintendents and school board members from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom urged the Senate Education Committee to account for outlier, micro‑rural districts when designing education reforms, citing tuitioning across state lines, limited pre‑K access, transportation gaps and lost federal CTE funds.
The Vermont Senate Education Committee heard testimony Feb. 20 from leaders in the Northeast Kingdom urging lawmakers to tailor statewide education reforms to the region’s “outlier” micro‑rural districts.
Sharon Ellywood, a member of the NEK Choice School Board District and the Essex North Supervisory Union board, told the committee that her district tuitioned roughly 300 students to 38 different schools and remains geographically isolated. “We have about 300 students in this big board, a big big board of a map, and we tuition them to 38 schools,” Ellywood said.
Why it matters: Committee members are weighing systemwide changes that assume larger, more centralized districts. Testifiers warned a single statewide approach could reduce local representation, complicate transportation and prekindergarten access, and cut funding for small but essential programs such as career and technical education (CTE).
Superintendent Sean McCann of the Kingdom School District said the Northeast Kingdom’s…
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