Phil Dodd
Education reform is back on the front burner at the Vermont Legislature and is playing out against a backdrop of school taxes that have increased an average of 40% in the last five years and a long-term decline in the number of students in Vermont.
In the 21 years following the 2003–2004 school year, the total number of K–12 students in Vermont fell from 93,565 to 69,289, a 25.4% drop, according to enrollment data on the Agency of Education website, which reports enrollment figures that are slightly different than those calculated by school districts.
Vermont has the third oldest median age of all U.S. states, according to the Census, and many young Vermonters move away, while the younger people who do live here are having fewer babies. In 2023, Vermont had the lowest number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The student decline has continued in recent years, with the statewide K–12 count dropping 7.9% from Oct. 1, 2018 to Oct. 1, 2024. Among local school districts, Washington Central’s 14.9% decline is nearly double that rate, while Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools (MRPS) lost only 2.5% of its students, the lowest decline in the region. The six-year declines in the Barre and Harwood school districts were closer to the state average, at 7.7% and 6.3%, respectively.
Washington Central’s sharp student decline over the prior six years was followed by another drop this year. The district’s draft FY27 budget includes significant program and staff cuts in order to avoid the state’s “excess spending” penalty.
In addition, at the behest of the Washington Central school board, the towns of Calais and Worcester will be voting on Feb. 10 on whether to close their small elementary schools, a move advocates say could save money over time and provide a better educational experience for those students, but which many town residents oppose.
Under Vermont’s education finance system, school districts receive a certain amount of money per student. However, the funding is based not on the actual number of enrolled students, but on the number of “weighted” students. The weights were changed a few years ago by Act 127 to give increased funding to districts with economically disadvantaged students and English learners.
The weighting change hurt several local school districts, including Harwood, Washington Central, and MRPS. In Washington Central’s case, the school system had been expecting to use a decline of 111 weighted students in calculating next year’s budget, but that number has just been revised to a loss of 151 weighted students, further burdening the budget, according to Washington Central Superintendent Steven Dellinger-Pate.
There has been discussion in recent years of a merger between the Washington Central and MRPS, but the difficult financial situation of Washington Central because of its small schools and steep student declines could be a red flag for taxpayers in Montpelier and Roxbury. On the other hand, the Montpelier High School is at continuing risk of being flooded again, leading some to believe students and staff might be better off at the U-32 facility.
Washington Central is not the only local district feeling a crunch. Two years ago, financial pressures, including those caused by Act 127, caused the Harwood budget to be defeated, according to Harwood Superintendent Michael Leichliter. “We had to go to a third version before it was adopted, and between last year and the year before, we’ve reduced close to 50 positions,” he said.
The MRPS budget was also defeated that year, leading to the closure of the Roxbury Village School as a cost-saving measure. The town of Roxbury is currently negotiating with MRPS to purchase the school building, according to Superintendent Libby Bonesteel.
Montpelier-Roxbury’s relatively stable K–12 student enrollment since the two districts joined for the 2018–2019 school year is something of an anomaly. This suggests the Montpelier-Roxbury school system may be attractive to young families. The district’s numbers have also been helped by an influx of Afghani students. But the stability may not last.
According to projections by the New England School Development Council, MRPS’s K–12 student enrollment will drop by 12% over the next 10 years, though that could change if ambitious plans for new housing pan out.
The organization predicts that Harwood’s K–12 student enrollment will drop by 8.1% in the same time period; Barre’s will fall 14.4%; and Washington Central’s will drop another 16.3%.
Currently, the legislature is wrestling with a requirement in Act 73, the education reform bill it passed last year, to pass a plan to consolidate the state’s 52 supervisory unions and supervisory districts and 119 individual school districts into just 10 to 25 large districts.
Consolidation is designed to save money, though some observers say real savings will require more than consolidation.
“The savings will not come by just simply consolidating districts,” Bonesteel said. “The savings come when you close schools.” Fewer schools would mean bigger class sizes, fewer teachers, and lower operating costs.
While consolidation would reduce the number of superintendents and related staff, Bonesteel said consolidation could also lead to higher teacher salaries.
“You won’t have any savings because of the teacher contracts negotiations,” she said. Teachers in new, larger districts will want to have the same salaries as those in the highest paid of the merged districts. In this region, Harwood has the highest teacher pay, she said.
“If you’re giving teachers what could be a pretty massive salary raise, then you’re going to eliminate any savings” from consolidating superintendent offices, Bonesteel said.
Legislators are under pressure to do something, however, since school property taxes are projected by the state tax department to increase by 12% this year, on average.
To restrain taxes in the short term, Gov. Phil Scott has proposed adding $75 million to the Education Fund, while Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth has proposed a bill that would cap school spending increases in FY28 and FY29.
Solutions will be needed for the long term, however, as it appears Vermont will see declining student enrollment well into the future. Deaths have been exceeding births in Vermont for the past decade, and the state’s low birth rate is part of a global trend that is unlikely to change any time soon.
Maintaining a stable population rate requires a birth rate of 2.1 children per woman, but two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries with a birth rate below 2.0, according to an article in the July 27, 2025 Wall Street Journal.
Current birth rates are as low as 1.3 in Italy, 1.2 in China, and 0.88 in South Korea. As a result, the population has started to decline in countries such as China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Italy, Germany, and Greece, according to worldpolulationreview.com.
In the U.S., the population has been growing in recent years due to immigration, but current federal policies are sharply curbing that flow of people. In 2024, the U.S. birth rate was 1.6 births per woman, below replacement level, according to the CDC. That compares to 3.5 births per woman in the early 1960s.
In short, most places on the planet are or will soon be on the same trajectory as Vermont, faced with an aging population, low birth rate, and a declining number of students. In the U.S., for better or worse, Vermont is ahead of the curve when it comes to trying to deal with these issues.
