Rite Aid expects to close or sell off all five of its Vermont locations as the struggling national pharmacy chain goes through bankruptcy proceedings. 

In court filings, the company has said it plans to wind down operations at the more than 1,200 drugstores it operates nationwide in the coming months. Among those are locations in Bethel, Brattleboro, Randolph, Springfield and Windsor. 

According to court documents, Rite Aid is actively trying to auction off rather than immediately shutter many of its locations, and it’s possible some or even all of the Vermont locations could remain open under the auspices of another pharmacy brand. 

For now, Rite Aid has said, locations will stop taking on new retail inventory while transferring prescriptions to other nearby pharmacies when possible as the company attempts to sell off its assets.

“It’s all very uncertain,” said Sandy Rosa, executive director of the Vermont Pharmacists Association. “It’s really kind of frightening. This is not good for the people of Vermont for pharmacy access.”

Indeed, if the Vermont locations do not change hands, the resulting closures could have dire implications for parts of the state that already have severely limited access to the medicine and health care provided by pharmacies. 

Pharmacy closures can create “pharmacy deserts” or areas without easy access to pharmaceutical care. In one recent nationwide analysis, communities in rural areas are considered pharmacy deserts if the nearest pharmacy is 10 miles away or more. In urban areas, pharmacy deserts are square-mile areas without drugstores.  

Currently, the Rite Aid drugstores are the only pharmacies operating in both Bethel and Windsor, and the locations’ closure meaning both towns would likely become pharmacy deserts. 

“Patients are going to be really up a creek, as it were,” Rosa said. “It’ll take a while in terms of a transition, but it’s going to be fraught.” 

As Vermont’s independent pharmacies have shuttered their doors and large chains like CVS and Walgreens have closed thousands of locations nationwide, pharmacy access is becoming a struggle in more of the state.

According to the state’s Board of Pharmacy, 28 pharmacies permanently closed in Vermont between 2019 and 2024. And already this year, Walgreens has shuttered at least three drugstores in Burlington, Newport, and Montpelier.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Rite Aid to close or sell all 5 Vermont locations.

Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese, now seeking to reorganize its depleting finances in U.S. Bankruptcy Court after settling 67 priest misconduct lawsuits, is bracing for a new wave of child sex abuse claims.

The state’s largest religious denomination paid out $34.5 million to survivors in the two decades between when news of a nationwide scandal broke in 2002 and its filing for Chapter 11 protection last fall.

As part of the bankruptcy process, all pending and future lawsuits have been placed on hold, with Judge Heather Cooper inviting accusers who haven’t reported abuse before to join the case as potential creditors.

As a result, 118 people have submitted confidential claims, records show — almost double the number of previously settled lawsuits.

The bankruptcy court doesn’t have the authority to hold hearings on any of the allegations, which are sealed from the public and the press. Instead, the judge has scheduled a non-evidentiary “presentation of survivor statements” for Wednesday at 10 a.m. at Burlington’s Federal Building.

“For many survivors, it took years and a lot of courage to come forward, so when the diocese filed for bankruptcy, it robbed those survivors of their opportunity to stand in front of a jury of their peers,” said Brittany Michael, a lawyer for a federally appointed committee representing creditors with abuse claims. 

“We know that the opportunity to speak in court can be an important part of the healing journey,” Michael said. “The survivors’ statements are a way to at least tell their story.”

The diocese, facing allegations of priest misconduct dating as far back as 1950, is the nation’s 40th Catholic entity to seek bankruptcy protection, it notes on an explainer page on its website.

Under federal law, the diocese must present the court with a tally of its financial assets and liabilities and petition for Chapter 11 help. The judge, in turn, will decide whether to allow church leaders to develop a reorganization plan that would require approval from both the court and creditors.

Seeking “full disclosure and transparency,” abuse claimants are seeking church records detailing not only a reported $35 million tied to the diocese’s headquarters and its state-level holdings but also all the community operations it oversees, starting with 63 parishes with an estimated collective worth of $500 million.

The resulting findings are expected to spark future debate on whether abuse claimants and other creditors will be limited to compensation from the church’s headquarters or also could be reimbursed through local assets.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s Roman Catholic Diocese faces 118 more clergy misconduct claims.

Recent efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to revoke the legal status of refugees has alarmed Vermont service providers.

It’s definitely affecting Vermont residents from certain countries, including Haiti, Ukraine and Venezuela, said Tracy Dolan, director of the State Refugee Office.

“They’re nervous and they’re afraid for their safety if they ever have to go back,” she said.

While new to Vermont, “they are doing all the things they’re supposed to be doing. They are working. They have employment authorization,” Dolan said. “Their employers generally have been pleased with the work and are really glad to have them.”

Those impacted include residents in the U.S. on temporary protected status granted to those who came from certain countries experiencing crises — such as Afghanistan, Sudan and Ukraine — and the humanitarian parole program that allows people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to enter and stay in the country for two years.

In light of February notices issued by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revoking those programs, at least two Afghans and several asylum seekers from Venezuela, Haiti and Ukraine who resettled in Vermont were set to lose their legal status this month, officials said.

The orders, which affected an estimated 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians nationwide according to the American Civil Liberties Union, have been challenged in court. A federal judge in San Francisco and another in Massachusetts have since ruled that those already in the U.S. could keep their protections for now. 

Alerts this month on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website state that Homeland Security “has every intention of ending Venezuela (temporary protected status) as soon as it obtains relief from the court order” and “No new requests for (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela) parole will be processed.”

A hundred days into the Trump administration, the efforts amplify the president’s first-day promise to crack down on an “invasion” of migrants, based allegedly on the high numbers of asylum seekers arriving at the border. 

A previous order froze federal funding for refugee support affecting local relocation agency efforts.

“These actions by the Trump administration signal to Vermonters and Americans that this country is no longer a nation of immigrants,” said Molly Gray, executive director of the Vermont Afghan Alliance, a Burlington-based nonprofit that supports Afghans who are resettling in the state.

In Vermont, the orders affect dozens of Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans and more than 100 Ukrainians who are “very concerned that they could lose parole, be denied the opportunity to renew parole, or have their (temporary protected status) reversed,” said Matt Thompson, a program manager for refugee services with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants in Vermont, a nongovernmental, not-for-profit international organization that helps resettle refugees and advocates for their rights.

While Thompson does not know of any Afghan residents affected by the latest order, the committee and its legal services partners have been working to ensure that Afghans in Vermont pursue other options for remaining in the U.S., he said, such as the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa or asylum.

The effort to revoke protections launched by former President Joe Biden is problematic not just from a humanitarian standpoint but from an economic one, said refugee relocation workers.

“These individuals have worked here, attend church — which for some is so important — and learn English. They want to work hard, do a good job and continue to contribute to the community,” said Yvonne Lodico, executive director of the Grace Initiative Global, a nonprofit based in Manchester that provides services to several refugee groups including Haitians and Afghans living in Vermont.

The organization often fields calls from employers looking to hire newcomers, “and we have to decline,” she said. “Vermont companies, especially those in service industries, need these individuals.”

The federal orders have caused anxiety and bewilderment among the refugee communities, Lodico said, particularly because they arrived through legal mechanisms after intense vetting.

“They anticipated that through application for legal documentation they would be able to live and work here,” she said.

Dolan said refugees have long contributed to the state economy. “I can’t speak for every person but in general all these populations are working,” she said.

Ending temporary protected status for Afghans is particularly crushing for Afghan allies who have sought protection in the U.S. while the security situation continues to deteriorate in their home country under the Taliban, said Gray, from the Afghan Alliance.

“They were made refugees because of their association with the United States government and support for U.S. military and diplomatic missions. It is these circumstances that make the revocation of (temporary protected status) that much more shameful, horrific and unconscionable,” she said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: ‘Shameful, horrific and unconscionable’: Federal efforts to revoke legal refugee status could affect hundreds in Vermont, advocates say.

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday told states and other recipients of federal transportation funding that they could lose those dollars if they do not comply with the White House’s interpretation of federal laws — including on immigration.

The guidance, outlined in a letter from U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, told recipients that their obligations, by taking federal funding, included “cooperating with and not impeding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” as well as other agencies, “in the enforcement of Federal immigration law.”

Failing to do so would “compromise the safety and security of the transportation systems supported by DOT financial assistance,” the missive states, as well as “prioritize illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of the American people.” 

The four-page letter also takes aim at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, calling them “discriminatory” and saying that states and others “must ensure that the personnel practices (including hiring, promotions, and terminations) within their organizations are merit-based and do not discriminate.”

Duffy said, without providing specifics, that there had been instances in which recipients of federal funding did not cooperate with “ICE investigations,” and that some recipients had “issued driver’s licenses to individuals present in the United States in violation of Federal immigration law,” which he suggested would be grounds for losing federal dollars. 

Since 2014, Vermont has allowed people who live in the state — but who do not have lawful status or U.S. citizenship — to get “driver’s privilege” cards. It’s one of 19 states, along with Washington, D.C., that offer “driving privileges to unauthorized immigrants,” according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Vermont’s largest public transportation agency, Green Mountain Transit, funds about two-thirds of its operations with federal money and received the letter from Duffy on Thursday, said Clayton Clark, the agency’s general manager. Clark said the agency is, as a result, working on new training for what its drivers and other employees should do if federal immigration agents board a bus or come to one of the agency’s transit hubs in downtown Burlington or Montpelier. 

The state Agency of Transportation got the letter late Thursday, said Amy Tatko, an agency spokesperson, in an email Friday, and is in the process of reviewing it. In the state’s budget for the current fiscal year, which ends in June, federal funds make up almost 60% of transportation spending, according to the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Office.

Joe Flynn, the transportation secretary, said in a brief emailed statement that the letter “requires further understanding,” especially about the Trump administration’s intentions, but added the state agency is “not overly concerned at this time” about what it says.

Clark said that Green Mountain Transit — which operates local and commuter bus services, as well as on-demand transit for people with certain medical needs, across Chittenden, Franklin, Grand Isle and Washington counties — would, broadly, tell its employees to comply with federal immigration enforcement officials. 

“We would not want them to interfere — but we also would not want them to, you know, be aiding,” Clark said. The agency’s staff has not had any such interactions with federal immigration enforcement so far, he said in an interview Friday morning. 

Still, Clark said he is concerned by the nature of recent detentions by federal agents in Vermont and other states that took place with little warning and were conducted by officers wearing plainclothes and masks. This could make it difficult, for instance, for the agency’s employees to get a clear sense of what was happening, Clark said. 

He noted that Green Mountain Transit’s No. 56 bus stops just down the street from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester where Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian activist and lawful U.S. resident, was arrested earlier this month in that manner. Clark said he expects that some people use the No. 56 to get to appointments at that office. 

“When folks are not in uniform, not wearing any type of identification that would let you know what organization they’re from,” Clark said, “how do we know that this is ICE — and not somebody who’s, you know, trafficking New Americans?” 

Clark said he is concerned that the prospect of immigration enforcement raised by Duffy’s letter could discourage people from taking public transportation. But he said Green Mountain Transit could not afford to put its federal funding at risk, regardless of how he felt, personally, about this week’s federal guidance.

He estimated that the agency, which is already facing steep financial challenges and has had to cut some services in recent months, would only be able to provide about 20% of the service that it currently offers if it were to lose all of its federal funding.

Green Mountain Transit has already made one change to its operations in response to recent actions by the Trump administration, Clark said. After learning the administration could target federal funds used for what are — at least in the White House’s view — diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Clark said, the transit agency pulled the plug on its “Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee” meant to ensure its services were meeting the needs of people from historically marginalized communities. The agency made the decision to disband the committee in March, Clark said. 

Trump has taken aim at what he considers “DEI” programs in government and the private sector from the outset of his second term. His billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s cost-cutting “government efficiency” department has, meanwhile, repeatedly targeted federal jobs for cuts that it has said were related to diversity and inclusion efforts. 

Clark said Green Mountain Transit plans to replace its “JEDI” committee with “rider engagement” committees, still aimed at soliciting feedback from its passengers.

At the statewide level, the Trump administration earlier this year put federal grants for some major transportation projects under “review,” including large new bridges and a planned buildout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure across the state. During Gov. Phil Scott’s weekly press conference on Wednesday, Flynn, the transportation secretary, said in response to a question that the EV funding was the only pot of transportation money he knew of at that point that was still under threat.

Sen. Richard Westman, R-Lamoille, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, said Friday that he was concerned by the position that the letter put the state in. He said it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict what steps the Trump administration will take, and noted the state’s transportation revenue challenges gave it little flexibility.

“I wouldn’t want to comply,” he said, referring to the immigration enforcement described in Duffy’s memo, among other measures. “But I can’t afford to live without the money.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Feds threaten states’ transportation funding over noncompliance with immigration enforcement.

In 2023 and 2024, Linda Martin, chair of the Wolcott Selectboard, saw what happens when Flat Iron Road fills with water.

Where Route 15 crosses the Lamoille River, a bridge forces the wide flow of the river to narrow, bending its path around big abutments in the water. When the river surges from heavy rains, water spills over its banks, washing across the surrounding land and flooding the nearby Flat Iron Road.

Martin knows that the bridge abutments are the reason the road floods. The town hired engineers, who confirmed the problem and began designing alternatives to the bridge and its abutments that would help the water flow more easily.

To continue that work of designing an alternative bridge, Wolcott’s selectboard had applied for a $71,250 grant from a relatively new program, allocated through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, meant to help communities prepare for disasters before they strike.

Instead, on April 4, she — along with other municipal leaders and emergency managers around the country — learned that the Department of Homeland Security, under President Donald Trump, had ended the grant program altogether. 

The announcement put Wolcott’s project on hold and cut off $750 million for other projects nationwide, including $2 million in Vermont.

This funding stream, called the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, or BRIC, was an annual funding opportunity for communities recently hit by disasters. It aimed to shift the federal response from reactive cleanup “toward research-supported, proactive investment in community resilience,” as FEMA’s website describes it. 

The program was guided by a philosophy captured in the oft-cited statistic that, on average, every dollar invested in preventing disasters can save $6 in disaster cleanup costs.

FEMA has a wide umbrella of hazard mitigation funds, which BRIC once fell under. The BRIC program was separate from individual and municipal post-disaster recovery assistance, and those payouts are ongoing. 

When the program was canceled, the state, and the communities it works with, had been in the final stages of completing applications for the 2024 round of funding, which would have been due on April 18. That process ground to a halt.

Most of the grants that communities had applied to last year, as part of the 2023 funding round, had been outlined and organized but had yet to be awarded — this is where Wolcott’s bridge project falls. 

“Those are gone. If it’s not awarded yet, it’s gone,” Stephanie Smith, Vermont Emergency Management’s head of hazard mitigation, said. It leaves $2 million in planned, proposed projects across the state suspended. 

The remaining three years of projects — applications submitted during the 2022, 2021 and 2020 rounds of funding — are what’s left. Since BRIC works by reimbursement, communities are now racing to complete projects already awarded and underway.

About a week after the announcement of cancellation, the FEMA regional office advised Smith that communities could continue work on the ongoing projects, though they must complete them by their deadline — FEMA does not plan to offer extensions.

‘We all collectively lose’

The city of Barre is among the many Vermont cities and towns left in the lurch of BRIC cancellations, as it tries to address key infrastructure pain points that made the extreme floods of 2023 and 2024 as damaging as they were. 

As part of a broad hazard mitigation plan, the city had plans to redesign and replace a protective grate — called a debris rack — on Gunner’s Brook near Harrington Avenue. That rack worked almost “too well” at keeping floating debris like tree branches, leaves, and trash from clogging a narrow bend in the brook, as City Manager Nicolas Storellicastro described it. 

It creates a kind of inadvertent dam, raising water levels in this part of the river. When heavy rains come — as was the case in the July 2023 and 2024 floods — water rushes into the neighborhood.

“It works very well on a day-to-day basis,” Storellicastro said, “but it may not have been designed for an event of the magnitude that we got.”

The BRIC funding would have helped the city complete much of the work necessary to design and build a better debris rack, and restore floodplain to help the surrounding neighborhood absorb water without damaging homes.

The need for this kind of flood-resilient infrastructure is likely to become more and more prevalent in the state, as scientists predict climate change only makes Vermont more vulnerable to more extreme precipitation and flooding. 

“These floods, they’re stronger, they’re bigger, and we’re seeing that our infrastructure is just not up to the task,” Storellicastro said.

Because of this, the city has not abandoned its plans to replace the debris rack that the BRIC grant could have covered. Instead, Barre is looking to a different hazard mitigation grant program under FEMA, which is funding a number of other flood-preparedness infrastructure work in the city, along with a $68 million federal long-term disaster recovery fund recently awarded to the state through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. For that, the competition for an award is expected to be much stiffer.

“I’m not willing to concede yet that the funding will disappear completely for this project,”  Storellicastro said. “We’re going to pivot, but that means that somebody else’s project, including maybe one of ours, doesn’t get funded. We all collectively lose when that happens. It just basically leads to another roll of the dice when the next storm inevitably comes.”

Filling a planning gap 

Part of why planners and municipal leaders found BRIC funding so valuable was because it helped fund scoping projects and pre-disaster planning work, which is essential to do before shovels hit the ground. 

Essentially, it’s funding to open up future funding, Smith said. 

“Most of them are projects to help communities identify future flood risk reduction projects,” she said. 

Take Wolcott for example: In order to stop the flooding of Flat Iron Road, the town first needs to know that the abutments under the bridge are causing it, find out what an alternative might look like and get a cost estimate before they can secure funding.

“That scoping funding is hard to find often. In order to do a big project, you need to have that work done in order to apply for funding to do that infrastructure project. So this helps (towns) get there,” Smith said. “It helps you get to being able to access funding to do the work.”

The other type of project the state funded through BRIC were updates to municipalities’ hazard mitigation plans. In order to get any funding through FEMA, each town or city in Vermont needs to have a local disaster prevention plan that the agency has approved. So, every year, Vermont Emergency Management has submitted a BRIC application on behalf of all the communities that don’t have plans that meet FEMA’s standards.

Like the scoping projects, it’s essential funding to open up more opportunities for funding. 

These local mitigation plans are particularly helpful because when disaster does strike, FEMA opens up a different stream of money — still under that bigger hazard mitigation umbrella — for future preparedness. The agency allocates 15% of total cost of the disaster’s damages for preventative projects — so the amount of money available, and the timing for when it becomes available, varies greatly. 

“We need to be able to apply immediately after the disaster,” said Smith. “We have to be ready to go with applications.”

BRIC offered a more consistent, annual opportunity for a set amount of money.  For now, the channel for post-disaster hazard mitigation funds remains. But the state is still trying to figure out how to cover the costs for writing the plans it was expecting to update with 2023 BRIC funding. 

Vermont Emergency Management’s hazard mitigation section does hold onto “a few million dollars” to fill any gaps left behind by FEMA prevention funds, Smith said. 

Finding ways to move forward

The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is one of the few 2023 BRIC recipients that has been able to move forward with the most recent round of funding, since FEMA had already reviewed this grant by the end of 2024. 

The department’s $183,857 planning grant will go entirely toward modeling landslide risks, state geologist Ben DeJong said. Those models should ultimately save the state from needing to spend on buyouts and cleanups after disaster has already struck, DeJong said. 

“We have always been more reactive and are hoping, with this work, to take a more proactive stance,” he said.

Working with a seasoned modeler at Norwich University, the department plans to create a map that highlights the most landslide-prone areas. Illustrating where soil conditions and sloping terrains can combine with high, sudden precipitation to become particularly dangerous helps inform homebuyers and developers, and can keep them from even building on high-hazard areas in the first place.

“Even if we saved one parcel from being built, (this grant) would very quickly pay for itself,” DeJong added, explaining that most individual home buyouts cost the state over $200,000. The entirety of the $183,857 in the BRIC grant will cover the time of an expert modeler at Norwich State and one state geological survey staffer who will support the effort to make the final map. 

In Rockingham, the town will be able to continue its plans to re-size a culvert under Route 121 and Ski Bowl Road without the $44,000 grant it was expecting from BRIC, by pulling from a state structures grant and local highway funds, Municipal Manager Scott Pickup said over email.

And, in Wolcott, the work to address Flat Iron Road’s flooding is intended to move forward, thanks to an alternative collaboration with the state Fish & Wildlife Department and other hazard mitigation grants that FEMA is still awarding, explained Linda Martin, the selectboard chair. 

“If those hazard mitigation grants got pulled, then I’d be really crushed,” Martin said. “So much work goes into one of these grants, hundreds of hours.”

Martin said that even if something changes with their backup plan, she hopes to preserve and repurpose the existing grant proposal. 

“If not, we will just have to be patient and we’ll find funding someday. I’m sure,” Martin said. 

But across the state, most of this preventative planning work will be left undone, Smith said. 

“These are not things that communities are required to do,” she said. “These are things that communities are opting in to do because they’re being proactive and because they want to reduce their future costs. I think the unfortunate reality is, without funding to do that, communities won’t do these projects, and then the next time we have a flood, it won’t be better, it’ll be worse.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: FEMA ended a grant program designed to help communities prevent disaster damages. Here’s where that leaves Vermont.  .

State leaders and environmental organization members spent the 55th anniversary of Earth Day defending Vermont’s climate change initiatives in the face of threats to such policies from President Donald Trump.

The Trump administration’s actions include rolling back regulations on air and water pollution, cutting grant funding and banning clean energy, Lauren Hierl, executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council, said at a Statehouse press conference Tuesday. 

She said that mass government firings mean that “the protections that don’t get gutted will not have the staffing or expertise they need to ensure our laws are actually enforced.”

In addition, an April 8 executive order from the Trump administration singles out Vermont for its efforts to hold energy producers financially responsible for contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, including a first-of-its-kind state law known as the Climate Superfund Act. 

During the press conference, Vermont Attorney General Charity Clark doubled down on her commitment to fight Trump’s executive order, which is aimed at climate laws that the president believes threaten “American energy dominance.”

“We marked our calendar 60 days from April 8, because that’s when we expect that the (Department of Justice) is going to act in response to this executive order,” she said in an interview. “There’s probably a number of things they’re considering, and whatever it is, we will be ready. We will be ready to defend Vermont, we will be ready to defend the Climate Superfund Act.”

During the press conference, Clark said this order “is another attempt to undermine state sovereignty, a theme with the Trump administration.”

“There is no national energy emergency, and in fact, American energy is at an all-time high. State laws are not a threat to American energy,” she said. 

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Baruth emphasized on Tuesday that Trump’s policies have created uncertainty within Vermont’s energy, housing and climate resiliency initiatives. 

“We passed the Climate Superfund, the flood safety, pollinator protection bill, S.25, banning toxic forever chemicals … all of those things were groundbreaking, as is the renewable energy standard and the Global Warming Solutions Act,” Baruth said. “All of those things are under attack. Every single one of them.”

He said that while climate protection laws have historically faced opposition from state Republicans, some may attempt to distance themselves from the Trump administration’s “wholesale attack on the environment.”

While some state Republicans initially opposed many climate solution bills, Baruth said there has not been much demonstrated follow up, which he takes to mean “that the stronger minority has looked at those laws and the support for them, and in some cases, decided to pull back.”

Baruth, Clark, Hierl and all of the speakers present at the meeting stated their confidence in the ability of Vermont lawmakers. Baruth said that over the past decade, Vermont has passed numerous laws to ensure a healthy environment and to uphold the mantra “protect and defend.”

20 million Americans — at the time, 10% of the population of the United States — gathered at the first Earth Day event in 1970. 

Despite Earth Day’s previous bipartisan support, the current U.S. leadership seeks to reverse the progress of past administrations, Hierl said, by allowing corporations to “maximize their profits at the expense of our health and our communities.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: State leaders defend climate change initiatives despite Trump administration’s threats.

At a public forum held earlier this month in Westford, parents and community members gathered to voice concerns that are being felt throughout Vermont: whether their local schools will still exist in the years to come.

The forum was held to discuss a plan by the Essex-Westford School District that will move grades six through eight out of the Westford School and into neighboring Essex Middle School beginning in the fall, leaving grades pre-K through fifth grade in the Westford School.

The move is meant to consolidate resources at one middle school location and provide a better education experience for the district’s students, said Robert Carpenter, chair of the district school board from Essex.

But the proposal has worried residents and parents about the future of their school, which first merged with Essex to become the Essex-Westford School District in 2017.

Community members like Pat Haller, the vice chair of Westford’s selectboard, suggest the plan is a precursor to the school’s eventual closure.

While school district officials insist they have no intention of closing the school, community members at the forum suggested that with fewer students at the school, and, in turn, higher per-capita spending, the school could be a future target for closure.

The school’s shuttering, Haller said, would be “disastrous” for the town’s future.

“We know that the attractiveness of Westford for young families is our school, and if we no longer have a school, then Westford won’t be as attractive, and we’re worried that we will lose further population and lose some of our tax base,” he said in an interview. “This just looks like a future spiral downward for our small town.”

As statewide education reform takes shape in the Statehouse, proposals to further consolidate Vermont’s dozens of school districts down to as few as five are fueling fears that small, rural communities could see their schools shuttered.

In many parts of the state, this is already happening.

Last year, the Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools Board moved to close Roxbury’s only elementary school. The school’s closure, made as a cost saving measure, came six years after voters in Montpelier and Roxbury decided to merge the Roxbury School District and the Montpelier School District under Act 46.

The Addison Central School District voted this month to close Ripton Elementary School, moving roughly 20 students to Salisbury Community School this fall. And earlier this week, school board officials in the Grand Isle School District announced they would be shuttering the North Hero School amid declining enrollment.

But in Westford, parents and community members have pledged to safeguard what they say is a precious community asset. Some have even suggested trying to de-merge from the Essex-Westford School District.

“We are preparing for a closure, just because this is what’s happening in Vermont right now,” said Kirsten Tyler, a Westford resident and parent who helped organize the forum. “And so we are pushing back really hard against this.”

Officials in the district insist there are no plans to close the Westford School. Carpenter said the district views it as a valuable asset within the district and is committed to keeping it open.

Still, with budget cuts they’ve been forced to make over the past two years, Carpenter said it is impossible to predict what the district might face in the years to come.

“Many people are saying this is just a precursor of closure. We can say until we’re blue in the face that it’s not our goal to close Westford,” Carpenter said in an interview. “But, unfortunately, with the state landscape, I would feel like I would not have the integrity of making promises about what the next five to 10 years look like in the educational landscape.”

‘The community gathers there’

Timothy Allen and his family have lived in Westford for nearly eight years. Two of their three kids went through the town’s school, so, like other community members, he frequently found himself at the school for events and other community gatherings over the years.

“There’s always something going on in the community that brings parents to that school,” Allen said. “It’s a wonderful time to connect with other people in the community.”

For rural towns like Westford, the local school not only provides an education, but also serves as a community hub, Tyler said.

“It’s where people meet. It’s where you bring your kids to play,” she said. “The community gathers there.”

The possibility of losing the school, Haller said, would mean losing that sense of community and, ultimately, the appeal of Westford for folks looking to raise a family.

“All of my close friends, all of my neighbors, I’ve become friends with because my kids have been friends with their kids,” he said. “We see each other every day. Losing that social connection would be very bad for this town.”

The student population of Westford School has hovered around 200. That number is set to decline, with some 38 students in grades sixth through eighth expected to make the move over to Essex Middle School next year, Carpenter said.

At the community forum, held on Sunday, April 7, parents worried about the consequences of the middle school transition. They invited experts like Nikhil Goyal, a sociology professor at the University of Vermont, to speak.

Goyal, a former senior policy advisor on education for Sen. Bernie Sanders, said in an interview that he views what’s happening in Westford as “a harbinger for what could come if the governor’s consolidation proposal comes to fruition,” with five regional districts “drowning out the voices of small rural towns and communities and potentially even closing their schools in the future.”

Both chambers of the Legislature and Scott have made education reform a priority in response to last year’s double-digit average property tax increases.

Scott’s plan, released in January, calls for “regional comprehensive high schools, central middle schools, local elementaries,” according to his proposal. Schools would further be assessed “based on financial viability and educational quality,” and “schools that fall short of these standards will be offered a range of options, including resource sharing or merging, with support from the AOE.”

Meanwhile, the House last week advanced its own bill that drew Republican opposition because of its slower implementation timeline than Scott’s proposal, but still included plans for consolidation.

The changes being proposed in Montpelier have set off alarm bells for Goyal and other advocates like Margaret MacLean, an education consultant and Peacham resident who is opposed to school mergers and consolidations.

When schools close down in rural towns, “There’s evidence of depopulation, declining home values, eroding social capital and problems with attracting and retaining families,” MacLean said in an interview.

“People are not going to move to a town where you have to put your kids on the bus for 90 minutes one way and 90 minutes on the way home. They’re going to move to the town with the school,” she said. “It’s going to change the landscape of Vermont.”

Both MacLean and Goyal have testified against further consolidating school systems in Vermont, and have pointed to research that shows small elementary schools are associated with higher student achievement, engagement and more meaningful relationships between students and teachers.

“You could easily imagine a scenario where larger towns are dictating on behalf of smaller towns, whether those schools should be kept open, whether programs and services should be kept afloat, and essentially determining the future of those areas,” Goyal said in an interview.

‘Outside of the board’s control’

Still, other experts in education have noted that small, rural schools are already closing, regardless of current efforts to consolidate.

Nathan Levenson, the president of New Solutions K-12, an education consulting group, said he understands why folks would worry that consolidation would lead to the closure of small schools, but said he thinks they have it backwards.

“The history of Vermont has been that as schools shrink, their cost per-pupil increases and available services, supports and offerings decrease,” he wrote in an email. “This amps up the pressure to close what has become a high cost, low service, yet beloved school.”

“In order for small schools to survive the tight budgets of the next 10 years,” he said, district’s must manage financial strategies to maintain low costs at smaller schools.

The double-digit tax increases last year, fueled by several factors, including the state’s education funding formula and ever-increasing premiums for health insurances, are already forcing districts to look for ways to cut.

But, he said, “This is much easier to do as part of a larger district which has an efficient central office, dedicated curriculum specialists, other schools to share staff with, and a savvy business office.”

Carpenter said the move of sixth through eighth grade out of Westford School and into Essex Middle School saves the district roughly $250,000 annually — a fraction of the district’s more than $9 million budget.

But the goal of the move was less about saving money and more about providing a better educational experience for the district’s middle school students.

“By moving those 38 students down to EMS — which almost half of their families wanted to move — we’ve actually been able to consolidate resources into EMS so that we can provide more services for those students and a better experience,” he said.

Carpenter tried to assuage worries about the future of the Westford School.

Those concerned about the school should look at its track record: last year, when the district was looking for ways to cut $4.5 million from the budget, Carpenter said much of the community suggested the board close the Westford School.

“And we stood strong, we didn’t close Westford,” he said. “And this year, cutting $6 million, we stood firm, while having much of the community saying, ‘This is an option, why don’t you just close Westford?’”

The district’s commitment to the school is clear, he said. But it remains tough to predict what kind of state directives will come in the next several years.

In the meantime, the district continues to face rising pressure from health insurance costs. The district was hit with a $1.8 million health insurance increase over the past year, Carpenter said, and since 2017, the district has seen $7 million in increases to health insurance costs.

“At this point, things are moving outside of the board’s control,” he said.

Haller, who first moved to Westford in 2006, said these anxieties are nothing new. The community voted in 2017 to merge with Essex because, he said, residents felt it would stave off a future closure. Now, he’s not so sure.

“And this speaks to Vermont and in general: We desperately need young families to move into our state,” he said, “and these sorts of consolidations, I think, are going to make it less attractive for out-of-staters to come to anything but our larger towns like Burlington, and not find it as attractive to live out in our rural communities, because we won’t have a school.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: As education reform takes shape in Vermont, community members in Westford worry for their school’s future.

For the past three years the Orange Southwest School District has offered a five-week summer program for elementary students at no cost to families, including meals and transportation.

About 70 out of 400 students were part of the optional program each year and participated in various activities from field trips and cooking classes to reading and robotics, according to Heather Lawler, the assistant superintendent there.

So when administrators heard the federal government had blocked a grant expected to pay for the $200,000 program this summer, it was “an absolute shock,” she said.

The decision came in a March 28 letter dated from U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. It notified state education leaders that the federal department has reversed course on extending the deadline on a Covid-19 pandemic-era grant – the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, or ESSER – that has paid for Orange Southwest’s summer program.

While the money from ESSER, as part of the larger federal education stabilization fund, originally had to be spent by Sept. 30, 2024, the Biden administration had approved an extension to allow schools to use the money through the 2025-2026 school year. (Public schools in Vermont operate on a July 1 through June 30 fiscal calendar; the federal government’s fiscal year ends on September 30.)

McMahon’s letter noted that the federal department had “reconsidered” requests from state leaders to continue the extension after finding it “was not justified” and terminated the program at 5 p.m. on March 28 — three minutes before the statement was sent.

“Extending deadlines for COVID-related grants, which are in fact taxpayer funds, years after the COVID pandemic ended is not consistent with the Department’s priorities and thus not a worthwhile exercise of its discretion,” McMahon wrote in the one-page letter.

The decision arrived a month after the department announced a change to how the remaining ESSER funds would be paid out, which required states to pay for approved uses up front and then submit expenditures to the federal agency for reimbursement.

Established by the CARES Act in March 2020 and implemented to support a range of concerns from pandemic-related learning loss to building safety upgrades, the ESSER grants awarded more than $189 billion to state educational agencies across the country and more than $399 million to Vermont. 

The sudden reversal in federal funding has affected about 32 school districts and one mental health agency in Vermont, according to Jill Briggs Campbell, deputy secretary of the Vermont Agency of Education.

Vermont school districts have at least  $10 million pending in that grant funding, she estimated. The department has received about $800,000 worth of invoices but cannot request funds until it goes through the new process outlined in McMahon’s letter which states the federal department will consider extensions “on an individual project-specific basis.”

“All of these were approved for extension by the previous administration,” Briggs Campbell told the Senate Education Committee Wednesday during a hearing in Montpelier.

And there is no assurance the waivers will be approved, she warned, given the mixed messages coming in.

During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., Briggs Campbell said she asked a federal education official to confirm that the pandemic-era funds would continue to be available for reimbursement for school districts and states.

“And she said unequivocally, ‘Yes, I can confirm that,’” Briggs Campbell said.

The McMahon decision arrived just two days later.

“So basically, all bets are off,” Briggs Campbell told the committee.

Among affected programs is the Agency of Education’s Read Vermont initiative that aims to improve literacy statewide. “So all of that work has come to a halt,” she said.

A combined $1 million from the federal education stabilization program funds the initiative. While some of the allocated money has already been spent, there are several hundred thousand dollars left that the agency plans to submit a waiver for, she noted in an email.

“We have heard very clearly from educators and district leaders that this state level support for effective literacy instruction is important to their efforts to improve literacy outcomes for students,” she wrote in an email, adding that one of the consultants even offered a pro bono training Wednesday to more than 75 educators, in light of the federal stoppage.

Across the state, districts are reeling from the potential ramifications of the federal directive regarding money some have already spent.

The Harwood Unified Union School District, for instance, is waiting for approval of the $502,000 remaining from its original district ESSER allotment. It was used toward learning support and the summer academy program for students facing learning loss as a result of the pandemic, according to Superintendent Michael Leichliter.

The funds have already been spent and if a waiver is not approved the district will face a deficit in its budget.

“During a time of tremendous financial stress on our education system in Vermont, if the originally promised federal funds are not released, it will lead to increased pressure on our schools,” Leichliter wrote in an email.

At the Orange Southwest School District, Lawler sent out memos to staff and families on March 31 to notify them the school district “will not be able to offer summer programming as we have in the past three years” due to the abrupt ending of the grant program.

Janni Jacobs, a teacher in the district for more than 40 years, said summer school is an incredibly valuable offering, particularly for students who come from low-income households that can’t afford private tutoring, sports or summer camps. It is also a great way to get kids outdoors and exploring in the summer months while their families may be busy, she said.

“Many of the kids that go there have no other options. So instead of going to summer school, they’re going to be at home, and, I hate to say it, probably on their devices,” said Jacobs, who is an English Language Arts teacher at the Braintree Elementary School and has taught the summer program in previous years.

Having seen first-hand how the program benefits students during the summer break, Jacobs said that of the many changes to the federal government under the Trump administration, this one has hit her the hardest.

“If they’re trying to make America great again and everybody says that the kids are our future, why do you take away programs that directly benefit the kids?” she said.

There are many ways to cut waste in government, she added, “but not by starting at the bottom with the kids, you know. Start at the top.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Changes to federal grant rules cause loss of summer educational programming.

MONTPELIER — Thousands of people crowded the Statehouse green and overflowed onto the street below the golden dome on Saturday for the largest planned demonstration in Vermont against President Donald Trump since he took office again.

Geri Peterson, an organizer of the Vermont rally with the decentralized activist network 50501, said the expected turnout for the rally in Montpelier was 6,000 people, but that crowd amassed to an estimated 10,000 people.

“This is a bipartisan moment where we need Republicans and Democrats. It’s everybody that needs to be fighting against the oligarchy that’s trying to take over our country,” Peterson said. “Trump support is eroding as a direct reflection of the fact that the American public does not support any decisions he’s made since becoming president.”

From Bennington to Newport, Vermonters gathered at more than two dozen planned demonstrations around the state under the “Hands-Off” banner, a national effort to mobilize peaceful protests against the Trump administration and the president’s policies.

Peterson said the “Hands-Off” satellite rallies in Vermont and around the country may indicate an “inflection point” for the support of the president. She added that recent political actions also demonstrate this shift, such as New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker’s 25-hourlong speech rebuking Trump’s actions and the Senate voting in favor of a measure to call off some of Trump’s tariffs on Canada, with some Republican support. 

Among the crowd in Montpelier, Rose Loiselle, a University of Vermont Medical Center nurse from South Burlington, said she was motivated to protest because she was concerned about the threats to public health care and to democracy. 

“I’m grateful for the numbers coming out to show that we do not agree with what’s happening to our country and our constitution,” Loiselle said. 

The lineup of speakers at the Montpelier rally included former Gov. and U.S. Ambassador Madeleine Kunin; U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt.; Lt. Gov. John Rodgers; Senate Majority Leader Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast; state Treasurer Mike Pieciak; and other Vermont activists and organizational leaders. 

Welch spoke to his concerns about the threats to democracy, deportations without due process, threats to Medicaid and Social Security funding, and the dismantling of federal agencies and departments during Trump’s second term. 

“This president we have is on a lawless rampage, shredding the Constitution,” Welch said. “We are here today standing up for hope and democracy.”

Standing at the podium, Rodgers spoke to what he said were nonpartisan concerns regarding the Trump administration’s actions, such as cuts to Medicare and Medicaid and recently imposed tariffs on Canada, which he said will negatively impact Vermonters.

“As a Republican who supports women’s rights, the LBGTQ community, local farmers and loggers, our manufacturers and other great Vermont businesses, the free press, the United States Constitution and the rule of law, I am appalled at what the Trump administration is doing to our state and our country,” Rodgers said, according to his notes, provided to VTDigger by a 50501 organizer. “It is time that the Republicans in Congress stand up for their constituents instead of following the will of their president.”

Kunin stood before the crowd with a hopeful message for Vermonters coming together to protest on the rainy spring day. 

“We still have a big battle ahead, and we have to persevere,” Kunin said “You have to have imagination. You have to have optimism to believe that things can change, and you could be the agent of change.”

Ram Hinsdale said she was concerned about the rollback of abortion rights and voting rights as well as attacks on immigrants and transgender people. She encouraged those at the rally to organize in their communities and connect with neighbors. 

“We will continue to demand our country back because, let’s be clear, it has never been more consequential to exercise our freedom of speech than it is right now,” Ram Hinsdale said. “While we demand hands off our rights and our dignity, we must also be hands on with our communities.”

In Brattleboro, U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., addressed roughly 1,500 people who marched from downtown’s Centre Congregational Church to the nearby Common.

“Many of us are feeling angry. We’re feeling anxious, and we’re worried about the state of our nation,” Balint said before traveling to another rally in Middlebury. “I know all too many folks are feeling paralyzed by the sheer number of things that are coming at us. But we can’t let it stop our courage.”

In Rutland, an estimated 600 to 700 people held signs along the central corner of Main and West streets. Organizer David Coppock said protests for other causes typically draw no more than 25 to 50 locals.

“I’ve never seen anything here on this scale before,” Coppock said.

Read the story on VTDigger here: Thousands of people protest Trump presidency at rallies around Vermont.

DERBY LINE — Local Canadian officials hosted a press conference Friday to condemn the U.S. government’s decision to limit Canadians’ access to an iconic library and theater that straddles the northern border in Vermont.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Friday afternoon that beginning Monday, the agency would be restricting Canadian access to the entrance of the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, which is on U.S. soil, attributing the decision to safety concerns. Staff and library card holders are allowed to access the entrance until October, when limitations are expected to become even more stringent, the agency said.

“The goal of this phased rollout is to provide members the opportunity to obtain the necessary travel documentation without negatively impacting library operations,” Ryan Brissette, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a written statement. 

“On October 1, 2025, all visitors from Canada wishing to use the front entrance will be required to present themselves at a port of entry to enter the library from the United States,” with some exceptions provided for handicapped access and emergencies, he wrote. 

First opened in 1904, the library and opera house is situated between Derby Line and Stanstead, Quebec. For more than 120 years, the library has enjoyed a unique status as a neutral space, where those in Canada can enter U.S. territory to use the space without first going through customs. The building is a heritage site and has long been considered a symbol of the close relationship between the two nations.

On Tuesday, however, U.S. Customs and Border Protection informed library staff that the longstanding arrangement was over, according to Sylvie Budreau, president of Haskell’s board of trustees. 

“No matter what this administration does, it will not change the fact that Stanstead and Derby Line are friends and partners forever,” said Stanstead Mayor Jody Stone said at the press event. “Without borders you wouldn’t even know that we are two separate communities. 

According to Budreau, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had similarly moved to restrict access from the Canadian side of the border in 2022 but ultimately agreed to let the operation run as usual.

“They have more support now,” she said.

The library plans to open a service entrance on the northern side of the building for Canadian patrons to use, which they hope to renovate in the coming months, Budreau said.

Within the library, it would be “business as usual,” she said, and there are no plans to restrict patrons’ movement within the library, which is bisected by a line of tape representing the international border. 

Dozens of people from both sides of the border gathered outside the building Friday to watch the press conference and protest the decision. 

Among them was Clement Jacques, a lifelong Stanstead resident who said he was “not comfortable at all” with the change. 

Wearing a bright red hat that read “Canada is Not for Sale,” Jacques said he was a library card holder and had been coming to Haskell for decades.

“This building is used by both countries,” he said angrily. 

The announcement came just weeks after U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited the library, as first reported by VTDigger, during a whirlwind trip to Vermont following the death of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent David Maland.

During that visit, Budreau said, Noam crossed back and forth over the line of tape on the floor that represents the international border while saying, “U.S.A number one” and calling Canada “the 51st state,” echoing a common taunt from President Donald Trump.

Since then, tensions between the two nations have continued to soar as Trump continues to wage an on-again off-again trade war against Canada while suggesting that the U.S. should annex the country. 

Still, Canadian officials at Friday’s press conference were eager to reaffirm the close ties between the two nations. 

“The Haskell Free Library & Opera House is a testament to the amazing relationship between our two communities,” said Marie-Claude Bibeau, who represents the Compton-Stanstead district in Canada’s House of Commons. 

Earlier this week, Bibeau joined Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. at a roundtable discussion in Newport, where she denounced Trump’s controversial tariffs on Canadian goods. 

“Our border community is strong and this will only further our strength and our ties,” Bibeau said Friday. 

Read the story on VTDigger here: U.S. to restrict Canadian access to historic Vermont library straddling northern border.