“My job has never been so exciting,” Anne Bordonaro, who leads the Vermont Agency of Education’s work on federal education programs, told lawmakers in the House and Senate Education Committees Thursday. 

Exciting, though, could easily be replaced with “chaotic.”

The fate of the U.S. Department of Education remains an open question. Just this week, the department’s new leader, one-time professional wrestling company CEO Linda McMahon, announced plans to cut the department’s staff in half. An onslaught of executive orders from President Donald Trump and his administration have destabilized public schools nationwide, and court cases challenging the president’s actions only add to the ever changing landscape.

“As you can imagine, just about anything you put on paper is obsolete about 30 minutes later,” Bordonaro told lawmakers. 

At the moment, the agency doesn’t expect “significant cuts” to “core education programs” as a result of federal funding reductions this school year or next, according to Bordonaro. But impacts in the 2026-27 school year are uncertain. 

Through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the state receives more than $68 million annually from the feds, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act provides another $37.5 million for Vermont’s schools, Bordonaro said, among other streams of federal dollars. 

But while the biggest potential changes may not be imminent, the turmoil in Washington is already trickling down to local classrooms. 

Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Slate Valley Unified School District, said in the joint hearing that her relatively low-income district relies on federal dollars to pay for all of its academic interventionists and school psychologists, among other staff. 

Slate Valley’s school board, worried about drastic actions in Washington, instructed Olsen-Farrell to add language to the contracts of about 20 staff making their positions contingent on federal grant funding. 

“So they all received contracts today with that in it and to say there was a lot of emotion is an understatement,” she told lawmakers. “I’m significantly worried about retention and stability.” 

— Ethan Weinstein

In the know

The Vermont Senate voted Thursday 22-8 to confirm Zoie Saunders as education secretary, ending a yearlong saga over her appointment. 

Last spring, the Senate voted 19-9 not to confirm her as the education secretary, a rare rejection of a cabinet appointment. Now, with education policy dominating conversations in Montpelier, Saunders has served as the face of Gov. Phil Scott’s “education transformation proposal,” which seeks school district consolidation and a new education funding formula. The goal, she’s said, is to expand educational opportunities while also reducing costs. 

“What she’s trying to do is provide the best opportunity she can for every kid in the state,” Sen. Seth Bongartz, D-Bennington, chair of the Senate Education Committee said, explaining his support for Saunders on the Senate floor. 

Yet many senators who opposed Saunders’ appointment last year once again spoke out against her confirmation. Sen. Becca White, D-Windsor, told her colleagues she’d heard even more opposition to Saunders from constituents this year than last year. 

“I have to vote no,” White said. “We can resist school closures and consolidations.”

Read more about the confirmation debate here. 

Federal fallout

With tensions rising between the U.S. and Canada, Vermont businesses have been caught in the crossfire of a simmering trade war between the two countries. 

Already facing the prospect of price hikes and supply chain disruptions due to tariffs on Canadian goods that Trump has enacted and postponed multiple times, Vermont companies now have to contend with another knock-on effect of fraying tensions between the nations: Canadians are shunning Vermont goods.

Signature Vermont brands from Skida to Barr Hill are paying the price. Read the story here. 

— Habib Sabet

Funding aimed at making a struggling Williamstown farm more resilient has been paused. A program that distributes local, free food has been cancelled. The Department of Environmental Conservation is missing $10.7 million for clean water quality projects. 

In the last few months, the new Trump administration has pulled back federal funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, climate change and the Inflation Reduction Act, signed in 2022 by his predecessor Joe Biden. 

Around Vermont, those funding changes are affecting farmers and the organizations that support them, prompting alarm and confusion. Altogether, the federal government has paused or cancelled tens of millions of dollars in funding for agricultural programs across the state.

Read more about the federal funding cuts for farmers here.

— Emma Cotton