Lola Duffort
Education/Youth ReporterLola is Vermont Public's education and youth reporter, covering schools, child care, the child protection system and anything that matters to kids and families. She's previously reported in Vermont, New Hampshire, Florida (where she grew up) and Canada (where she went to college).
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As part of Act 73, this year's sweeping education reform law, lawmakers enacted much stricter rules about where families can go with publicly funded tuition vouchers. Deborah Bucknam, a Walden-based attorney, is now laying the groundwork for a legal challenge. -
“That basically two people from Podunk, Vermont, you know, won these big awards on a global stage for piping,” Jackie Lewis said, is “a total credit to our community.” -
The school's executive director said the reputational damage done by the Agency of Education's probe had cost I.N.S.P.I.R.E. too many students to continue operating. -
For nearly two decades, the retired middle school teacher has been on a singular quest: to find, photograph, and inventory every school in Vermont that ever was — at least, if a record exists of it. -
The smallest district in Vermont has fewer than 200 students, and the largest just over 4,000. Act 73 envisions radical change: districts with between 4,000 to 8,000 students, although the law allows some flexibility. -
The money was earmarked for adult education centers, migrant education, teacher training, mental health supports, after-school programming and English language learner services. -
A vote to revoke the school’s approval would likely shut it down. Therapeutic schools like I.N.S.P.I.R.E., while private, are wholly publicly funded.
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Wilmer Chavarria, the leader of the Winooski School District and a U.S. citizen, said federal agents at the Houston airport demanded that he hand over the passwords to his phone and district-issued laptop. -
The latest news leaves over $18 million in congressionally-approved federal funding for Vermont school districts still in limbo. -
Vermont has been disproportionately impacted by this latest Trump administration freeze. Nearly 21% of its federal K-12 funding is tied up in the grants that the government is withholding, according to a national think tank.
