The principal of Bennington Elementary School has announced she will resign at the end of the school year. Elizabeth Grunberg’s decision comes amid ongoing concern over student mental health and behavior in the school and district.
“Being the principal of Bennington Elementary School has been a great privilege, and invaluable learning experience,” Grunberg wrote in a Jan. 3 letter to the Southwest Vermont Unified Elementary School District board. “I am grateful for the opportunity and will cherish the time I spent with the Bennington Elementary community. However, it is time for me to move onto my next challenge.”
Grunberg told school board members that she would leave at the end of her contract on June 30. In an email to VTDigger, she declined to answer questions about her decision.
“This is a personal and professional decision,” she wrote. “I love the relationships I’ve built with students, staff and the community. I wish everyone the best of luck moving forward.”
Katie West, a spokesperson for the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union, said the supervisory union could not comment on personnel matters.
Bennington Elementary School was the subject of a VTDigger investigation last month detailing the school’s struggles to deal with students’ mental health and behavior.
That investigation found that, from September 2021 through October 2022, police were called to the school nearly 20 times for student behavioral issues. Police reports obtained through a public records request shed light on a number of troubling incidents.
In one October 2022 incident, police were called to respond to a student who had made a threat — only to end up addressing a different student, who was making profane and violent threats and was “out of control,” according to a police report.
That student was cited with disorderly conduct in family court, according to the report.
In that incident, which has not been previously reported, Grunberg “expressed frustration with lack of support in trying to deal with the students and their behavioral issues,” in the words of the officer.
James Culkeen, the superintendent of the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union, said at a Jan. 10 meeting of the Southwest Vermont Unified Elementary School District board that schools there — and across the state — “are dealing with these child behavior issues that are escalated, elevated, in a way that we haven’t seen in the past.”
District administrators are working to expand resources for students struggling with their mental health.
Officials with the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union have set up a facility in the former Beech Street School building on South Stream Road to provide temporary mental health support for struggling students. The Bennington Banner reported on the facility earlier this month.
That facility is intended to provide short-term clinical support, counseling and education to students who need it, Kate Abbott, the supervisory union’s director of student services, said at the board meeting.
While “the vast majority” of students have no behavioral concerns, Abbott said, “we have a very small percentage of children that have some significant trauma, or that are working through some challenges right now with their mental health.”
The facility, which Abbott called the Beech Street Center, is intended to serve roughly 15 students at a time and has three staff assigned to it.
Supervisory union officials declined to provide more information about how the facility is staffed, citing privacy concerns. West, the spokesperson for the supervisory union, said that more information about the program would soon be available.
“It’s a great start,” Culkeen said at the Jan. 10 meeting. “And so important. But I will keep you updated as this transition site progresses.”