MORRISTOWN, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont school district’s inadequate response to serious and widespread harassment of Black and biracial students has led to a settlement agreement with the federal government, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.

The department’s Civil Rights Division and the Vermont U.S. attorney’s office began investigating the Elmore-Morristown Unified Union School District in December 2023 and reviewed records and complaints from the previous three school years. Investigators concluded that students, primarily at the middle school level, faced frequent slurs and racist imagery, including the use of the N-word and displays of confederate flags and Nazi symbols.

“Racial harassment makes students feel unsafe, deprives them of a supportive educational environment and violates the Constitution’s most basic promise of equal protection,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in a statement. “We look forward to the district demonstrating to its students that racial bullying and harassment have no place in its schools.”

Superintendent Ryan Heraty said Wednesday those comments don’t reflect the district’s current reality given that there has been a dramatic decrease in such incidents.

“When students returned from the pandemic, we saw a significant increase in behavior at the middle level, which was deeply concerning,” he said in an email. “In response, we have taken many intentional actions to address this behavior, which the DOJ recognized in its review.”

In a letter to parents and other community members Tuesday, Heraty said the district stands firmly against any acts of racism and responds immediately to reported incidents. In the current academic year, there have been no reported incidents of race-based harassment at the district’s elementary school and a “very limited” number at the middle and high schools, he said.

The Justice Department said the district cooperated fully with the investigation and has already implemented some improvements, including adopting a central reporting system to track incidents. The district also agreed to revise anti-harassment policies and procedures, hold listening sessions with student groups and conduct formal training and education programs for students and staff.

MONTPELIER — The Vermont House will have more Republicans leading its policy committees — and is bringing back a committee tasked with overseeing the state’s digital infrastructure — for the legislative biennium that started Wednesday. 

Democratic House Speaker Jill Krowinski, who was reelected to her post Wednesday morning, announced committee assignments on the House floor that afternoon. The speaker has the sole authority to make committee appointments in the House. This year, she had more choices to make than usual, with a number of committee chairs and vice chairs who either did not run again or lost reelection campaigns — leading to significant turnover in leadership.

Only one Republican — Coventry Rep. Michael Marcotte — chaired a House panel in recent years, the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee. This session, Marcotte will be joined by a second caucus member — Swanton Rep. Matt Walker, who will helm the House Transportation Committee. 

Meanwhile, the number of Republicans serving as committee vice chairs has more than doubled — from four last year to nine members this year. Overall, nearly all — 11 of the 14 — House committees will have some GOP leadership this year. 

Notably, Rep. Jim Harrison, a Chittenden Republican, will be the new vice chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. The seat was held last year by Middlebury Democratic Rep. Robin Scheu — who will now chair the budget-writing panel.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Krowinski said the enhanced GOP committee leadership was a result of the increased power the caucus won in last fall’s election, when Republicans gained 18 seats.  

“Given the increase in the Republican caucus, it was automatic that they would be picking up a second chairship and increasing the number of vice chairs,” she said.

While the House announced committee assignments Wednesday, the Senate must wait until the lieutenant governor is sworn in on Thursday to do the same. The lieutenant governor is one member of a three-person panel, called the Committee on Committees, that doles out many of the leadership positions in that chamber. 

This year’s House Energy and Digital Infrastructure Committee is, in a way, a move back to the future. The House had an “Energy and Technology” panel as recently as 2022, but for the last biennium, jurisdiction over those topics was split between the House Environment and Energy Committee (which had the former) and the Government Operations and Military Affairs Committee (which had the latter.)

The former will now be just the “House Environment Committee.” Meanwhile, the new “Energy and Digital Infrastructure” panel will take up legislation related to “energy, utilities, telecommunications, broadband, information technology, cybersecurity, and other similar policies,” according to a resolution the House approved Wednesday. 

Krowinski said of the focus on digital infrastructure: “We make huge investments in it in the state, and I think there’s a greater need for some spotlight on that to make sure that the projects are running on time and they’re running on budget.” 

She added that energy policy was too heavy of a workload, on top of environmental issues, for the members of that committee in recent years. 

Notably, the new committee’s ranking member — the No. 3 slot — will be Rep. Laura Sibilia, I-Dover, who unsuccessfully challenged Krowinski for the speakership. Sibilia was previously vice chair of the now-disbanded environment and energy committee.

Among the House members who will take over committee chairmanships this year are Scheu; Walker; Rep. Kathleen James, D-Manchester; Rep. Marc Mihaly, D-Calais; Rep. Matt Birong, D-Vergennes; and Rep. Alyssa Black, D-Essex Town.

The Elmore-Morristown Unified Union School District has reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice following allegations it failed to address racial harassment among students, according to a press release Wednesday from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont.

The settlement comes after a federal investigation found the district did not adequately respond to incidents of racial harassment from fellow students, which contributed to a hostile educational environment. The Justice Department said the harassment largely occurred at Peoples Academy in Morristown. 

An investigation, which examined three year’s worth of complaints, revealed the district failed to address severe and widespread harassment of Black and biracial students. The report described a hostile environment where students were subjected to frequent racial slurs, Confederate flags, and Nazi symbols and salutes.

“Racial harassment makes students feel unsafe, deprives them of a supportive educational environment and violates the Constitution’s most basic promise of equal protection,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release.

Under the agreement, the district is required to implement measures to better prevent and address harassment in the future, including revising policies and procedures to make clear they cover conduct that contributes to “a hostile environment,” not just actions aimed at individual students. The district must also investigate harassment reports quickly and fairly and take action to address harm, prevent future harassment and protect students who come forward from retaliation.

In consideration of this agreement, the justice department agreed to close its investigation without further enforcement action.

The Justice Department said the school district cooperated with the investigation and is actively implementing improvements.

“We have been transparent about the harmful and dehumanizing language that has been used in our schools, especially when students returned from the pandemic,” said Ryan Heraty, superintendent of the Elmore School in a letter Tuesday to the Elmore-Morristown community . “Through this intentional work, we have seen dramatic declines in student misbehavior.”