Phil DoddWith the state moving to a new education finance system that will send all school districts the same amount per pupil, adjusted for demographic characteristics, school budgets will be determined by the number of students in a district, not by what the voters decide.
The Montpelier Roxbury Public Schools district (MRPS) student enrollment held steady from the 2019–2020 school year to the 2025–2026 school year, but MRPS’s student count is projected to fall by 12% over the next 10 years, according to the New England School Development Council.
A decline of that magnitude could require significant cuts to the MRPS budget, potentially decreasing the quality of education, which is one thing that draws people to live in the district. Test scores for MRPS over the past 10 years rose in reading and held nearly steady in math, a much better performance than the state averages, which fell sharply in both categories. That’s the kind of thing that attracts parents.
The district’s projected enrollment decline is not unique. The total number of K-12 students in Vermont fell about 25% in the last two decades and is expected to continue falling. The ongoing slump probably reflects the fact that Vermont has the third oldest median age of all U.S. states, and that the state in 2023 had the lowest number of live births per 1,000 women in the nation.
How can the district attract more young families in the face of these trends? Building housing suitable for families would be one way. That means larger apartments and more home ownership opportunities. Another path would be to build condos and smaller homes that would appeal to older Montpelier homeowners looking to downsize, which would then open up their houses to new families.
Before the pandemic, I organized, with others, a series of meetings about downsizing, and found strong interest. Unfortunately, we have not seen developers step up to build very much in the way of new housing attractive to downsizers.
The city has added apartments in the last few years, and another 75 or so look likely to be built in the next couple of years. But many are smaller apartments — studios and one-bedroom units — and while needed, they won’t accommodate families with children.
Moreover, many young families aspire to own a home. Some of the city’s staff think building apartments is preferable because owned condos and homes tend to rise in price over time, but to me that is a feature, not a bug.
I agree with Zach Watson, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Central Vermont, who notes that homeownership allows people to build equity over time. Young working families “should be able to build their wealth by investing in their home through mortgage payments and not be forced to rent because that is all that is available,” he has written.
New owned homes do not need to be McMansions. Some of my boomer contemporaries grew up in families of three or more children in small homes of 1,500 square feet or less.
Within our school district, Roxbury is unlikely to see much new home construction, so it is incumbent on Montpelier — with its water and wastewater capacity — to lead the charge in providing housing for families and downsizers. This will be true even if our school district eventually merges with other local districts, which are also expected to see student counts drop.
In negotiations with DEW Properties for the Country Club Road housing project, the city should push for quality condos and especially small homes. Those small homes are underrepresented in DEW’s proposed 108-unit first phase, which contemplates 56 condos but just 10 single-family homes or duplexes.
The company said in its latest proposal that it is flexible when it comes to the housing mix it will build in the first phase, and could add another 10 to 15 single-family homes to phase one, depending on a market study and public input. That would be an improvement.
Bringing in young families should be front of mind in our planning efforts. The city could promote itself as a great place to raise kids, with good schools. Boosting job opportunities would help. But building appropriate housing should definitely be part of a plan to attract families, before we have to start thinking about laying off teachers and staff and cutting school programs.
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