WOODSTOCK, Vt. — The Vermont Senate Education Committee, led by Chair Seth Bongarts, visited the Mountain View Supervisory Union in Woodstock on Nov. 18 to hear school leaders, teachers and students describe the district’s work on literacy, early childhood and student engagement.

District Superintendent Sherry Souza told the committee Mountain View serves about 1,000 students across five elementary schools, a combined middle and high school and more than 250 faculty and staff. “We are building a strong foundation,” Souza said, noting the district runs full‑time public pre‑K classrooms in Barnard, Killington, Reading and Woodstock with “over a 100 pre‑K students.”

Dr. Julie Brown, the district’s literacy facilitator, said the district set an ambitious literacy aim — “90 percent of our students would be proficient by third grade and remain so” — and described recent assessment gains. Brown said third‑grade reading scores showed a “significant increase” and that several assessed grades perform 10–30 percentage points above the state average. She also reported declines in students needing intervention on district screeners, citing a drop from 43 percent in 2022 to 8 percent this fall in one universal screener cohort.

The district credited those results to a coherent, district‑wide approach: collaborative curriculum adoption and shared professional development, aligned literacy minutes in classrooms (presenters described roughly 120 minutes daily for K–3 literacy work and a minimum of 60 minutes for grades 4–6), common screeners and ongoing coaching. Curriculum director Ken Settle described a process of piloting high‑quality programs, aligning learning outcomes and scaling successful materials across schools.

Principals and teachers used classroom examples to illustrate the strategy. At Barnard Academy, Aaron Butcher said students “want to be there,” and described close family engagement and multi‑grade classrooms that allow student leadership. Woodstock Union High School principal Aaron Cinkimani noted strong participation in extracurriculars: “Over 80% of our students in the middle school, high school participate in after‑school activities,” which he said is a protective factor for adolescents.

Presenters also emphasized equity work. Rafael Admec and others showed district Cognia/PCAP results and said the district’s average percent proficient for math, ELA and science was the highest in three years and that, in some grades, gaps between economically disadvantaged students and peers were narrowing.

The visit included student presentations — examples from a ropes course, an observatory, and outdoor classrooms — and staff described partnerships with community organizations and Hartford Area Tech Center for CTE. Committee members asked about whether gains were a post‑COVID rebound or the result of deliberate local policy; presenters said state trends show continued declines but that Mountain View’s cohesive strategy and leadership appear to be producing local gains.

The committee will continue visits to other schools before the session reconvenes in Montpelier in January.