The Covid-19 pandemic is bringing a new crop of students to the state, as newly remote workers decamp from urban areas to Vermont, which has made national headlines for its low rates of infection.
But the beneficiaries of this trend at this point appear mostly limited to a handful of so-called “tuitioning” districts in southern Vermont resort communities, which, instead of operating schools, provide vouchers to families to send their children to the public or private school of their choice.
In the nine-town Windham Central Supervisory Union, Superintendent Bill Anton said he’s seeing “absolutely crazy” spikes in enrollment in Dover – home to Mount Snow – and Wardsboro, which together form the River Valleys School District. The two towns operate schools for grades preK-6 and tuition out the upper grades.
Another Windham Central school district, Stratton, which also hosts a ski resort and tuitions out all of its students, is seeing a roughly 15% bump in registrations. That’s high, Anton said, but not out of line with enrollment fluctuations of prior years. In all three communities, he said, the influx of students appears to be mostly from out-of-staters.
“They might possibly already have second homes in these areas that are around ski resorts. They might have friends, or people in their network, that have visited these places or know of these places,” Anton said.
Vermont school districts have, by and large, been battling declining enrollments for the better part of a decade. And fewer students, as a general rule, puts upward pressure on property tax rates. But unexpected enrollments in tuitioning towns can put districts in a difficult spot financially, because vouchers represent fixed costs that must be paid out, even if the budget was set months before.
“It’s great in the macro. People moving in, you’ve got new tax revenue. It’s very exciting. But because of the way our funding system works, that particular district has a real financial challenge in the moment,” Anton said.
Randi Lowe, the superintendent of the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union, said Winhall, which does not operate any schools and tuitions out all of its students, has seen a surge in registrations.
“The increase in students they are facing this year is beyond what they have in their tax stabilization fund. It will be tough for them,” she wrote in an email.
Winhall is one of 13 towns that traditionally tuition their students into Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, where headmaster Mark Tashjian said the private school is “unquestionably seeing an increase in transfer students.”
The summer has been extremely busy in admissions, he said, as second-home owners or people who have vacationed in the area decide to make Vermont their permanent home, at least for the duration of the pandemic.
“I hear again and again from the long-timers, this is just like 9/11. People are fleeing the city and want to get up to Vermont,” he said.
Many families wait until later in August to register their children for school, and the enrollment picture is still developing. But superintendents elsewhere in the state say they aren’t seeing, at least for the time being, a noticeable spike in enrollment.
In the North Country Supervisory Union, Superintendent John Castle said there was an uptick in out-of-state families moving to Charleston, Newport City, Lowell, but nothing dramatic.
“Not sure there is any pattern here at this point,” he said. “Maybe we are just a bit too far at the end of line for some folks?”
Andrew Skarzynski, the superintendent in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, which serves Brattleboro and surrounding towns, said his principals weren’t reporting notable changes in registration patterns, despite an apparently intense real estate market.
“I am surprised we are not seeing anything in terms of an uptick in enrollment,” he wrote.
And in the Lamoille South Unified Union, which includes Elmore, Morristown, and the resort town of Stowe, Superintendent Tracy Wrend said the district has not experienced unusual upticks in registrations for the fall, although that could change.
“We are experiencing more inquiries about establishing residency for school enrollment in our system, and are monitoring for changing needs,” she wrote in an email.
