Since the beginning of the 2025 legislative session, lawmakers in both the House and Senate have been working on their counterproposal to Gov. Phil Scott’s sweeping plan to overhaul public education.

But it’s become clear that the two chambers are moving in very different directions. And disagreement over how many school districts Vermont should have — and how quickly that redistricting process should happen — could squelch any grand bargains over education reform this year.

House Democrats are preparing to advance legislation that would set new parameters for school district sizes, including a minimum enrollment of 4,000 students. But instead of drawing district boundaries themselves, they plan to ask a new subcommittee on the Commission of the Future of Public Education to take the summer and fall to propose three maps, which lawmakers would take up in the next legislative session.

The House’s slower and more deliberative approach in H.454 has won the support of major public education advocacy organizations, including the Vermont-NEA. But it has frustrated the governor — and the chair of the Senate’s education committee, who has already drafted an alternate redistricting proposal.

At a press conference Thursday, House Committee on Education Chair Peter Conlon defended his chamber’s approach. While it was “tempting” to act more hastily, he argued, “the chance of unintended consequences that would just have to be corrected and changed in the next session is too great.”

“We need people with the time and experience to assure, for example, that every Vermont student has access to a career and technical education center and that a district line doesn’t inadvertently stick a mountain range in the way,” the Cornwall Democrat said.

The Senate has not yet technically advanced legislation, and is waiting for the House to send over their bill. But Sen. Seth Bongartz, who chairs the Senate education committee, has already drafted a map which would carve the state into nine large governance structures: six supervisory districts and three supervisory unions. Supervisory unions act as umbrella school districts in Vermont, with one centralized administrative office and superintendent overseeing independent districts with their own school boards.

The Bennington Democrat said he’s open to revisions to his map — but bullish on a timeline that redraws district lines this year.

“Not getting that done this year does set the process back significantly, and that’s concerning,” Bongartz said.

Instead of operating public schools, some districts in Vermont currently offer families vouchers, or tuition, which can be used at the public or private school of their choice. Because a school district cannot offer vouchers and operate a school, choice has historically presented an obstacle to regional consolidation. Bongartz’s somewhat complicated map is an attempt to solve this problem of choice in Vermont’s complicated educational landscape — mostly by much more lightly consolidating areas in which choice districts exist in large numbers.

Bongartz’s proposal would somewhat limit choice, and eliminate it entirely in some places, including Grand Isle County. But his plan is largely crafted to preserve much of the status-quo, particularly in the towns that have traditionally sent their students to the state’s four historic academies — Burr and Burton Academy, St. Johnsbury Academy, Thetford Academy and Lyndon Institute.

Bongartz, who once sat on the board of trustees at Burr and Burton, said his map sought to maintain tuitioning practices where they were “integral to the delivery system of education in Vermont.”

At least one key constituency has made clear they do not consider the Bongartz map to be the blueprint to a grand bargain.

“We are not interested in gerrymandering to preserve vouchers,” Darren Allen, a spokesperson for the Vermont-NEA, wrote in a text.

The House’s proposal, for now, is silent on where vouchers would continue to exist. Conlon said in an interview that he wanted to preserve tuitioning where existing private schools are basically the only option — including around the historic academies. But the choice debate, he said, should be kept for next year, when he thinks lawmakers should review their redistricting options.

Scott, meanwhile, says he wants new district boundaries now, not next year.

“We were elected to make tough decisions. It’s our problem to solve and our time to solve it,” he said in a statement Thursday, adding that he would call lawmakers back to Montpelier if he didn’t think their work was done.

“I will not support adjourning this session without a bill to transition to a new funding system, establish a new governance structure that unlocks transformation, and includes a specific implementation timeline,” Scott wrote.

The Vermont Republican Party is already attempting to capitalize on the moment to recruit candidates for 2026. In a press release Friday, Vermont GOP chair Paul Dame decried House Democrats’ “surrender on education reform.”

“If Democrats continually refuse to lead on this issue, Republicans will pick up the slack,” he wrote.

The owners of the Randolph restaurant Saap traveled to Chicago in the spring of 2022 to attend the James Beard Awards. The Northern Thai eatery’s chef, Nisachon “Rung” Morgan, was nominated for Best Chef: Northeast by the annual awards honoring the American hospitality industry.

Morgan won. By the time she and her husband, Steve Morgan, returned to central Vermont, their business and their lives had changed.

“We came back from Chicago,” according to Steve Morgan, “and there were 67 messages on my phone.” Most of those messages were for reservations in the 60-seat dining room. Revenue at Saap soared 300% after the restaurant won the award.

The Morgans were and remain ecstatic to have won. But soon after winning, what might qualify as good problems started to settle in.

Saap had to turn away potential customers “right and left,” Morgan said, as diners were suddenly drawn in droves to their prize-winning restaurant. Sometimes, he said, Saap had to stop accepting takeout orders because the dining room was full and the small staff was stretched thin. Morgan said that on a couple of occasions, Saap made the mistake of overbooking the dining room, making customers wait longer than they should have.

“There’s obviously cons to everything,” according to Matthew Peterson, owner of May Day, a restaurant in the Old North End of Burlington whose chef, Avery Buck, is nominated this year in the Best Chef: Northeast category. The restaurant finds out April 2 if it and other Vermont semifinalists advance to the finals, with overall winners announced June 16.

May Day’s previous chef, Mojo Hancy-Davis, was a semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast two years ago. Despite recognizing there are cons to everything, Peterson sees almost nothing but positives in being a nominee in the most prestigious hospitality award competition in the country.

“Two separate chefs (nominations) in three years feels more like a holistic representation of what we’re doing here,” Peterson said.

The James Beard ‘bump’

Peterson admits he didn’t take full advantage of Hancy-Davis’ nomination in 2023. May Day closed temporarily for previously planned renovations three days after the nod was announced. Any James Beard “bump,” as Peterson called it, passed May Day by.

“I didn’t necessarily know how to leverage that as an owner,” he said.

Months after that nomination, Hancy-Davis bought the Henry Street Deli in Burlington and left to run that business.

“It took the wind out of my sails a little bit,” Peterson said. Soon, though, he soon landed Buck, with whom he had worked at Hen of the Wood, which has restaurants in Burlington and Waterbury and has been nominated for multiple James Beard prizes over the years.

The wind is back in Peterson’s sails now that Buck, like Hancy-Davis, is a James Beard nominee. “It feels very validating to have another chef get that,” he said.

Peterson feels he’s better at leveraging the honor to benefit May Day. After learning of Buck’s nomination, he reached out to Hello Burlington, a website that highlights the city’s restaurants and events. The night a video about May Day went live on that website, Peterson said customers came into his homey North Winooski Avenue eatery saying they had just seen the video.

“There has been a bump for sure,” according to Peterson, who said the nomination that mentions Buck by name is about more than one person. “It just feels like a whole team working together.”

‘A monumental moment’

Christian Kruse felt the bump when he was a semifinalist for Best Chef: Northeast in 2022, the same year Morgan at Saap won. At the time, he was chef at Black Flannel Brewing & Distilling in Essex.

“It certainly was a monumental moment to me,” said Kruse, who left Black Flannel to work at The Big Spruce and Hatchet Tavern in Richmond, which have since closed. “It’s certainly something that I’ve worked hard to try to achieve. It is the Oscars of the hospitality industry. Any chef/owner/whatever that’s been working hard in their field and doing their craft, I think it’s something they want to achieve.”

Kruse is seeking investors to help fund his own restaurant in The Big Spruce location.

“It’s an accolade that really opens the door to have conversations with people,” he said.

An invitation from Kamala Harris

Kruse, Peterson and Morgan all mentioned the same relatively minor negative aspect of being a James Beard Award nominee. It isn’t so much about the impact it has on the restaurant as the impact on the customer.

“People come in with a different expectation once you’ve won a James Beard Award,” according to Morgan. He said some customers think of the awards as honoring only elegant dining rooms with linen on the tables, or French- or Italian-trained chefs unlike his wife who’s cooking elevated versions of Thai food from her homeland.

Once those customers taste the food at Saap, Morgan said, their response is usually something like “Oh, I get it now.” He noted that the year Saap won was when the James Beard Foundation started recognizing more diverse cuisine than it had before; customers had not yet adjusted to that new way of thinking about the nominations.

“The (James Beard) Foundation is broadening the scope of what good food looks like,” according to Peterson of May Day.

Kruse heard comments from Black Flannel customers about a brewpub not being what they expected for such a prestigious nomination. He noted that one of this year’s nominees, Canteen Creemee – which dispenses ice cream and fried chicken from a takeout space in a Waitsfield shopping plaza – isn’t known for impeccable service but for its creative, innovative offerings.

Peterson said his restaurant that aims for “fun, approachable food” has had “self-proclaimed foodies” come in expecting the elegance they might find in Boston or New York.

“We get a lot of that,” Peterson said of “self-proclaimed foodies.” That just encourages him and his staff to rise to the occasion.

“I like high expectations,” Peterson said, especially when the crew at May Day delivers what the customer wants.

A James Beard nomination does set a restaurant up for closer scrutiny, according to Morgan. “It kind of puts a bullseye on your back,” he said.

But the award also set Saap up for opportunities it might not have otherwise had. Just before President Biden left office in January, Morgan said Saap was invited to an Asian-heritage celebration at the home of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C. Restaurants representing the cuisine of 25 countries served small plates that night, and Morgan said Saap likely would not have been included had it not won a James Beard Award three years ago.

“It’s been quite the crazy ride,” he said.

And the nominees are…

This year’s Vermont semifinalists for the James Beard Award (finalists to be announced April 2):

• Outstanding Restaurateurs: Cara Chigazola-Tobin and Allison Gibson, Honey Road and The Grey Jay, Burlington
• Outstanding Bar: Wolf Tree, White River Junction
• Best Chef, Northeast: Avery Buck, May Day, Burlington; Charlie Menard, Canteen Creemee, Waitsfield

www.jamesbeard.org

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.

State lawmakers are once again taking a swing at passing a comprehensive data privacy law for Vermonters. 

On Thursday, the Senate unanimously gave approval to an amended version of S.71, a bill that would put guardrails on tech companies that collect and sell data while providing baseline data privacy rights for users in Vermont.  

Prior to the amendment, the Senate’s version of the bill mirrored the one that was introduced in the House. The new version strips a controversial provision that led to a similar bill’s failure last year.

Sen. Robert Plunkett, D-Bennington, explained the change on Wednesday on the Senate floor before a preliminary vote. “This amendment contains the central consumer protections of really any data privacy law,” he said. 

Those protections include the right for users to opt out of targeted advertising and limitations on what kind of personal data can be collected, among other provisions. 

What the bill no longer contains, however, is a private right of action for consumers, which would give users the legal right to sue companies for violating the state’s data laws, opening the door for Vermonters to launch weighty class action lawsuits against big tech companies.

A fierce debate surrounding that right of action dogged the sweeping data privacy bill passed by both chambers last year, with some lawmakers contending that the provision would place an undue burden on some Vermont businesses. 

And when, after a months-long game of tug of war between the chambers over the provision, the legislation made it to Gov. Phil Scott’s desk, the governor vetoed the bill, pointing to the inclusion of the private right of action as a dealbreaker. Last year’s effort came to an end in the Senate, which lacked the votes for an override.

By removing that sticking point, Senate lawmakers appear to be playing ball with the governor, offering up a more palatable version of the data privacy law that could finally elude his veto. 

“In the governor’s veto letter, the governor indicated expressly the preference that Vermont adopt Connecticut’s data privacy law,” Plunkett told fellow lawmakers, referencing Connecticut’s exclusion of a private right of action provision. “That is what this amendment proposes.” 

It’s unclear, however, whether the House will be equally agreeable.

— Habib Sabet

In the know

Top officials at the Department for Children and Families have acknowledged the existence of an internal calendar used to monitor Vermonters’ pregnancies, confirming an allegation made in a striking lawsuit filed by the Vermont ACLU in January.  

The document, Family Services Division Deputy Commissioner Aryka Radke said in a meeting of Vermont’s Legislative Women’s Caucus Thursday, is a Microsoft Outlook calendar that includes the initials, an identifying number and the expected due date of certain pregnant women.

The admission sheds light on a secretive and little-known function of the Department for Children and Families, one that top officials have said helps protect newborns from potential abuse or danger. 

Read more about how the calendar is used here. 

— Peter D’Auria

State officials plan to extend two shelters for families experiencing homelessness in Williston and Waterbury that had been slated to close down next week, on April 1.

Chris Winters, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families, said in a Wednesday interview that state officials want to avoid disrupting the school year for children. 

“We don’t know for sure if folks have other options, but even if they do, you know, that might require them to move,” Winters said. “The concern there is that kids not be uprooted and potentially not stay in school through the end of the year.”

Read more the future plans for the two shelters here. 

— Carly Berlin

On the move

The House advanced the Legislature’s annual property tax bill, known as the yield bill, which helps set property tax rates statewide. 

Lawmakers chose to adopt Gov. Scott’s proposal to use $77 million in one-time General Fund dollars to buy down the tax rate this year. That decision is expected to reduce the average property tax increase from roughly 6% to 1%. Actual tax rates will vary from district to district, and the fate of the few outstanding school budgets that voters are yet to approve will also impact rates. 

The bill provides “property tax relief,” said Rep. Charlie Kimbell, D-Woodstock, who reported the bill for the House Ways and Means Committee. That is crucial, he said, after last year’s double-digit property tax increases. 

—Ethan Weinstein

Visit our 2025 bill tracker for the latest updates on major legislation we are following. 

A thousand cuts

The federal government announced Wednesday that it would cut $11 billion in Covid-19-related grants to local health agencies, including $6.9 million to two departments in the Vermont Agency of Human Services. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Health, Kyle Casteel, provided a statement on behalf of the agency Thursday that called the cuts a “sudden termination” that would “negatively impact public health in our state.”

Most of the funds, about $5 million, were allocated for vaccination programs at the health department. The statement said the grants began during the pandemic but have continued to support the department’s work beyond the pandemic. 

Read more about the federal cuts here. 

— Erin Petenko