Dear Editor, The Mountain Views Supervisory Union has recently been holding meetings with local communities asking for voter support to build a new middle and high school building on the site of the current complex in Woodstock. Having attended the recent meeting in Killington, I would first like to compliment the MVSU for their nerve in…

By Marc B. Schauber Editor’s note: Marc B. Schauber, of Dover, is the executive director for the Coalition for Vermont Student Equity. Act 127 of 2022, the law that corrected 25 years of injustice in our education funding system, is a good law. It allows all children in Vermont to receive an excellent education regardless of…

It’s no secret that school property taxes are heading higher. In the Dec. 1 letter from the Tax Commissioner, they were estimated to go up by 18.5%, based on a 12% increase in school district spending. That number is now over 20% statewide as proposed spending is now up 14.8% on average. Some of the…

As we say goodbye to our first month of our Legislative Session 2024, bills are beginning to pass and Vermont’s current challenges are being further articulated. Many are flood related. Our first Flood 2023 Recovery bill to pass both chambers is S.160, a tax abatement (relief for taxpayers) bill. The bill covers an abatement in…

Submitted Attorney General Charity Clark today announced Feb. 1 that Vermont will receive $1,079,000 as its share of a $350 million national settlement with Publicis Health to resolve investigations into the global marketing and communications firm’s role in the prescription opioid crisis. In agreeing to the terms of the settlement, Publicis recognized the harm its…

By Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger More than two years since the Legislature created the PCB testing program, the state has sampled almost a third of Vermont schools built before 1980, when building materials were most likely to contain the toxins. In 35 of those 96 schools, testing has discovered PCBs at a level that mandates action. Testing is scheduled to…

A Vermont House bill could change the definition By Brooke Burns, Community News Service Editor’s note: The Community News Service is a program in which University of Vermont students work with professional editors to provide content for local news outlets at no cost. Only a third of Vermont’s 20,000 occupied mobile homes qualify for the…

Ever since a new middle school and high school was proposed five years ago, there have been discussions over the true needs and alternative options in order to keep the costs down while continuing to provide excellent educational standards. Now with a bond for a new build on the Town Meeting Day ballot (Article 7),…

By Ethan Weinstein/VTDigger A long-awaited report on how Vermont should address its billions of dollars in school construction needs arrived in the Legislature on Thursday, Feb. 1. In short, the report suggests the state should consider incentivizing districts to build in ways that align with the state’s goals. That could mean a “newer and fewer” approach,…

Submitted   School Board decreases budget in anticipation of Act 127 reforms By Polly Mikula At an emergency meeting Friday, Feb. 2, the Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) district board voted to amend two Town Meeting Day (TMD) articles related to the proposed district budget and bond for a new school. The decision came after…

By Polly Mikula Construction has begun with an access road from East Mountain Road up to the water storage tank and is about half completed. Casella Construction Inc. with subcontractor Maine Drilling & Blasting has been working on the first section of its Contract 1-3A for the town of Killington since early December. The section,…

I love a good party. And by good party, I mean one where everyone is on the dance floor, free of their inhibitions and simply loving life. The ones where your vision starts to blur and all that surrounds you is the sound of music and the feel of the dance floor beneath your feet.…

For the first 10 years of my marriage, my mother-in-law gave me pajama pants for Christmas. She was a self-avowed horrible gift-giver and upon gracing me with the sleepwear, would announce, “Yeah, it’s another pair of pajamas. Just switch them out and keep quiet.” The pajama pants were generally good quality, usually flannel, with some…

You know Orion always comes up sideways. Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, And rising on his  hands, he looks in on me… So wrote Robert Frost in his poem “The Star-splitter.” The aesthetic wonder of this easy-to-find constellation and its twinkling starlight have captured the imagination of countless stargazers. But the…

I haven’t been in touch with Bear Spirit for a while. I thought I’d let him hibernate in peace and quiet. But then I recalled I hadn’t shared all my interaction with the coyote who appeared in person and in spirit right before the snow fell. I entered my Radiant Heavenly Heat Sauna and began…