As of noon today. New language has been added at the last minute to draft bill H.454 (designed to severely overhaul Vermont's education system) and is under discussion at the time of this writing. 

This is a day of testimony in Montpelier by a number of grass-roots organizations about the sweeping education overhaul plan proposed by Governor Scott and his newly appointed and controversial Secretary of Education, Zoie Saunders (formerly of Florida). For more on Saunders. 

As it's currently understood, the new language would void the current "articles of agreement". Those agreements were developed a few years ago under the state's Act 46 school consolidation effort. 

The new language would give authority to school boards to close schools. That means the agreements reached a few years ago around 2018 or so) would be thrown out!

To give you a little bit of context, the proposed school system restructuring plan wants to have ONLY 5 school districts. There's a little debate on the exact number but it's far FEWER than we currently have. To put a fine point on it...

Your voice, your influence in the schools under this proposed new system would have FAR LESS IMPACT than you have right now. Your voice has already been watered-down due to the state's Act 46 consolidation of a few years ago. So this new plan would reduce your thoughts and input about the schools to...   what; essentially ZERO?

And with the new language put into the draft bill this morning, it's easy to get the idea that closing of schools (maybe lots of them) is high on the list for the folks who are driving this bill. 

Keep this in mind. Particularly for rural schools, towns, and villages (that's most of Vermont) -- where go the schools, so go the towns. In other words; If the schools close, the towns are going to struggle for their existence. Think about it. What conclusion do you come to?  

School Closure Section Added to Latest Version of House Ed Bill
Committee Discussing Now

A link to the bill will be provided here as soon as available.

ALSO, you can watch government in action and local grass-roots organizations by going to YouTube and watching the live-streams or the recordings of them from earlier today (or previous days).  Here's the link for the House Education Live-stream and Recordings.