Tag Archives: Vermont Agency of Education

Florida Woman Does Florida Man Things

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Welp, Education Secretary Zoie Saunders has gone and stepped into it. Big time.

When news broke of her directive that all Vermont’s public school districts would have to officially attest to their compliance with Trump administration orders against diversity, equity and inclusion policies and curricula, my own Outrage-O-Meter didn’t quite hit the red zone. Saunders’ message was more nuanced than it seemed at first blush; it sought simple attestation rather than any actual changes to policy, program or curriculum. It was kind of a “cover your ass” situation. These days, many a larger and more respected institution than the Vermont Agency of Education has been engaged in similar ass-covering maneuvers.

But man, did it kick up a shitstorm, and Saunders found herself walking the whole thing back, not once but twice, within a few days and with the help of Attorney General Charity Clark. This, after some districts indicated they would not comply and the public education community as a whole reacted with confusion and anger.

And I get it. Saunders’ original missive wasn’t clearly written, it asked superintendents to sign their names to attestations that might or might not satisfy the federal government. Plus the Trump administration’s own “guidance” is a poorly-executed study in opacity.

The real problem is that Saunders’ unforced error played into the perception, warranted or otherwise, that Saunders was imported from Trumpland for the purpose of Floridafying our school system. It reinforced educators’ fears about her true intentions and those of the Scott administration. And that may have repercussions for her ability to lead the public education system in the future.

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Public School Reform As If the Public Schools Mattered

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The House Education Committee has set aside a fair bit of time this week for discussion of H.454, which sets out Gov. Phil Scott’s education reform plan in a brisk 194 pages. It is to be hoped that the committee’s deliberations will be centered first and foremost on what’s best for Vermont’s public school system. Because nobody else seems to be doing so.

Take the governor, for instance. (Please, says Henny.) He pays lip service to improving education, but his focus is clearly on cost containment. Radically centralizing the system is no guarantee of better quality. (It’s no guarantee of savings, either; the move to statewide negotiation of health insurance for public school personnel hasn’t prevented its cost from skyrocketing.) Doing away with local school districts in favor of five massive regional districts is clearly aimed at cutting administrative costs. And don’t get me started on the provision of H.454 setting minimum class sizes at 15 for grades K-4 and 25 for grades 5-12.

Those are minimums, mind you. What would the average class sizes be? 20 in the lower grades, or 25? 30 in the upper? 35? Cautious administrators will want a margin of error above the state-mandated minimums. And what happens when a school dips below the minimum? Does it close down? Put some crash test dummies in desks and hope no one notices?

Frankly, I wonder why any Republican who represents a rural district — which is the vast majority of Republican lawmakers — could support this plan as written. The class size provision alone would trigger a massive wave of consolidation that would hit rural Vermont especially hard. (Maybe that’s why H.454 has a mere five sponsors while H.16, the Republican bill to repeal the Affordable Heat Act, has 55 and H.62, to repeal the Global Warming Solutions Act, has 29. There hasn’t exactly been a stampede among legislative Republicans to sign on to the governor’s plan.)

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You Should Think of “Protect the Most Vulnerable” as a Purely Aspirational Statement

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The available evidence points to one dispiriting conclusion: We are about to experience another substantial wave of Covid-19. Both state and federal data (the two are drawn from different testing regimens) show that our wastewater is full of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control says that nationally, wastewater levels are Very High, and the worst levels in the country are in the Northeast. Case counts in Vermont, although still classified as “Low” by the state Health Department, are on the rise. Nationally, according to the CDC, Covid-related emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths are all heading upward.

Dr. Michael Hoerger of the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative is projecting that “Nearly one in three Americans will get infected during the peak two months of this winter surge. That’s 105 million infections & more than five million resulting Long Covid cases.” The PMC says we could be headed into the second highest peak for Covid transmission ever. Including those times when we avoided exposure as much as possible and wore masks whenever we ventured outside.

Yeah, well, I’m sure it’ll be just fine. At least that seems to be the foundation of Gov. Phil Scott’s post-pandemic policy. Because his administration isn’t doing a damn thing about it. Not even to “protect the most vulnerable,” which he says is one of the three pillars of his governorship.

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The Feds Place a Capstone on Dan French’s Tenure

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Well hey, here’s something. The U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office is investigating the Vermont Agency of Education for violating the rights of students by limiting school districts’ authority to enact public health measures during the Covid-19 epidemic and, in the Office’s words, “discriminating against students with disabilities” who were at heightened risk of serious illness.

Yes, that would be the Agency of Education then helmed by the mask-averse Dan French, labeled in this space as the Inspector Clouseau of the Scott administration. I’d suggest that the feds could have assembled quite the dossier simply by reading this blog, but doubtless their investigation has been more thorough than that. And to judge by the reaction of French’s successor Heather Bouchey, I’m guessing the feds have got the goods. In her reply to the feds’ probe, as reported by VTDigger, she didn’t claim there was no discrimination. She simply said the agency had no intention of discriminating.

“The AOE devoted significant effort throughout its COVID-19 pandemic response to ensure the equal educational access of students with disabilities including students with disabilities who are at an elevated risk of severe illness from COVID-19 exposure. If the AOE erred in its responses, guidance or otherwise, it is eager to address the error and make corrections for the benefit of students.”

That word “if” is the giveaway. Bouchey didn’t defend her agency’s performance; she tried to frame any offense as inadvertent, not intentional. And she laid out a glidepath to future surrender by saying the agency was “eager to address” any errors “and make corrections.” And don’t overlook her emphasis on “equal educational access” rather than, say, the health and safety of students. Gotta keep those disabled kids in class so they get “equal access,” you know.

But in case you needed any more evidence that the agency, under French, went too far in pressuring school districts to moderate their public health measures, let’s take a little walk down Memory Lane.

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Dan French Says the Quiet Part Out Loud

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The Education Agency’s proposed new logo (not exactly as illustrated)

Vermont’s education secretary let the cat out of the regulatory bag on Wednesday. He acknowledged that state regulation of approved independent schools is, as Willy Shakes put it, “more honored in the breach than the observance.”

Dan French was speaking to the state board of education, a body not known for an aggressive attitude toward the AIS’s. But this time, they’d had it up to here.

VTDigger’s Lola Duffort reported on French’s testimony, casting it primarily in terms of the troubled Kurn Hattin Homes for Children. Kurn Hattin gave up its license to operate a residential treatment program in the face of enforcement action by the Department of Children and Families (the department cited a pervasive culture of abuse) — and yet, the Ed Agency rubber-stamped Kurn Hattin’s status as an approved independent school.

Well, on Wednesday we found out how the agency arrived at that curious conclusion. And it ought to send shivers down the spine of every parent and educator and, heck, every taxpayer in the state.

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Bathroom panic in Vermont

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Seems to be a little confusion down Chester way. Officials at Green Mountain Union High School have barred a transgender student from using boys’ restrooms. In response, a couple dozen students staged a protest on Monday. WCAX:

Recently a transgender student, who identifies as a boy, was told he could no longer use the boy’s bathrooms at the school.  A complaint from a fellow student prompted the school’s decision.

… As the protest unfolded outside, school officials claim they have been ahead of the issue of supporting students’ rights, including the LGBT community. The school has six gender neutral bathrooms. The trans student was told to use one of them.

Yeah, kid, go use the Weirdo Bathroom. That won’t create a stigma.

On its face, this would seem to violate the legal principle that “separate but equal” isn’t the same as “equal.”

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