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Woodsmoke
Education conversations
HARDWICK – Having graduated from Hazen Union in 2019, as well as attending Hardwick Elementary School, I consider myself familiar with the OSSU schools system. As a student, each year I saw the faculty give it their absolute best, under continuously shrinking budgets. Some years, I recall the budget freezing mid-semester,[Read More…]
“Gee!” I exclaimed as I took it from him
EAST MONTPELIER – I see by the news that the Iditarod Race is in full cry up in Alaska. There’s a ceremonial false start right near Anchorage: kind of a parade, really, with celebrities everywhere. Then next day, safely out of downtown, the real thing begins: a roughly thousand-mile slog[Read More…]
Heller’s World
This year was going to be a challenge
HARDWICK – When I was asked to be town moderator, I immediately said yes. Town Meeting Day is my favorite day of the year, of course I will step up when asked to serve my community. I knew enough of Robert’s Rules to accept the challenge and then spent days[Read More…]
The absurd push for school consolidation
CABOT – Dear Governor Scott, Secretary Saunders and Vermont State Legislators: I am a retired educator, with 40 years’ experience in teaching and leadership roles. I don’t understand how you can continue this absurd push for school consolidation: creating huge districts, closing small schools, mandating class sizes, imposing spending[Read More…]
For whom the bill tolls: property taxes are killing Greensboro
GREENSBORO – Town select boards pore over municipal budgets line by line for weeks. The town budget process is difficult and time-consuming, but it isn’t complicated. There are revenues and there are expenses. School budgets are different. Vermont’s Education Funding Formula has become so complex that most school board members[Read More…]
It was another sobering week
MONTPELIER – It was yet another sobering week at the State House. Below are several facts I learned this week. Each reflects a separate area of concern, yet together they illustrate the challenging times we face. Twenty-five percent of students in our schools are chronically absent. “Chronically absent” means missing[Read More…]
The first 72 hours matter most
HARDWICK – In emergency management, there is a phrase that comes up often: the first 72 hours. It refers to the period immediately after a major event, when outside help may be delayed, systems are disrupted, and communities must rely largely on what they already have. For Hardwick, it is[Read More…]
True Religion
The only possible true religion (if there could be such a thing), would be a whole new way of seeing, which our divine Source, in and through us, would weave in tandem. And through the lens of that re-perceiving, —and re-partnering— could come a re-membering —of our birthright member-ship— in[Read More…]
