Vermont’s early success in controlling the crisis and a hot real estate market this summer fueled speculation that Covid-related migration could mitigate the state’s longstanding demographic woes and even repopulate shrinking schools.
But those hopes were likely overblown.
The Agency of Education has not yet released enrollment figures for this fall, so it is impossible for now to have a clear understanding of the pandemic’s impact on student numbers statewide. But anecdotal reports from superintendents suggest any gains were small and likely concentrated in tuitioning towns and affluent districts. And pre-pandemic conversations about consolidation and closure are continuing apace.
Jeff Francis, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, thinks that whatever enrollment upticks some districts might see will be eclipsed by the impact of long-term trends.
“I wouldn’t expect that that’s going to be material,” he said. “After all, we’re talking about having lost about 20% of our student population in a period that was less than two decades.”
Vermont had more than 93,000 preK-12 students in 2004, according to figures published by the Agency of Education. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, the state counted just under 80,000 students.
In the Addison Central School District, the school board is considering closing as many as four of its seven elementary schools, and a campaign is underway in the district’s smaller towns to try to withdraw from the unified district in a bid to block the proposal.
Laurie Cox, chair of the selectboard in Ripton, whose elementary school is on the chopping block, said she worries about the downstream impact the school closing would have on the rural town.
Ripton may be small, she said, but it has a “really vigorous community life.” Within weeks of the pandemic’s arrival, residents leapt into action to create systems of support for their neighbors. Without a school, Cox worries that new families won’t move in. And those who do decide to settle in Ripton may be less likely to invest their time, energy and resources in a community that isn’t investing in them.
“Even if the houses sell, they don’t sell to people who necessarily get involved with the community. You sort of end up losing your volunteer fire department,” Cox said.
School shuffle considered
One county to the south, in the Slate Valley Unified Union School District, Superintendent Brooke Olsen-Farrell said her district had about 90 fewer students this fall than a year ago. More than 60 of those were lost to homeschooling, which boomed this year as parents worried their districts were planning to offer too little — or too much — in-person schooling.
The district is again considering converting all of its preK-8 schools into preK-6 buildings and sending all middle-school students to Fair Haven Union High School. That move would entirely shutter one of Slate Valley’s schools, the Castleton Village School, which currently serves students in grades 6-8. (The sixth grade would be moved to Castleton Elementary School.)
“Our population keeps declining; we have huge infrastructure needs. And we had three budget votes to pass the budget last year that only passed by 16 votes in the end,” Olsen-Farrell said.
The bulk of the reorganization wouldn’t take place until the 2022-23 school year. First, the school board would have to greenlight the plan to consolidate middle school students in one central location, and then voters in both Castleton and Hubbardton would need to OK any proposal to close the Castleton Village School outright.
But the district could move ahead with converting the Benson Village School into a preK-6 as soon as next year, since there are only eight students right now in grades seven and eight.
“Currently, we have two teachers teaching across five grade levels and, while they are doing an amazing job, it isn’t best practice,” Olsen-Farrell said.
But while the pandemic may not solve the state’s long-term enrollment problem, it could have a short-term stabilizing impact on school finances.
Worried that schools could lose substantial numbers of students through no fault of their own because of the crisis, lawmakers this session enacted a temporary hold-harmless provision. Falling enrollments usually put upward pressure on a community’s school tax rate, but if a district lost students this year, the state will use last year’s enrollment numbers when calculating its taxes.
Much is unknown about the upcoming school budget cycle, including whether Congress will send an additional bailout to the states, which desperately need help to make up for free-falling local tax revenues in the pandemic. And at least one perennially difficult cost for schools — health insurance — is set to rise significantly once again.
But several local school officials say the hold-harmless provision is going a long way toward easing anxiety this year. That provision will certainly give the Mount Abraham Unified School District some breathing room this year, according to Superintendent Patrick Reen, where officials are mulling several scenarios.
No significant change is likely to occur until the 2022-23 school year at the earliest, he said. But the district is contemplating closing schools, or even consolidating with the nearby Addison Northwest School District. The districts already share a food service program and athletic teams.
“We need over 300 students to move in to resolve the financial crisis that we feel that we’re in. So even though climate migration or Covid-migration may be a real thing, it’s unlikely that it’s going to produce more than 300 students in our five towns,” Reen said.
