What Do Vermont Students, Schools, and Communities Need from the Legislature? Two Superintendents; Two Very Different Views

            Testimony provided to the Vermont House and Senate Education Committees on January 13, 2026 by Superintendent Patrick Reen and Superintendent Jamie Kinnarney:

 Superintendent Patrick Reen Testimony to the Vermont House and Senate Education Committees

 Superintendent Jamie Kinnarney Testimony to the Vermont House and Senate Education Committees

What part of history is this?

We are officially 

living out the part of history

that makes school children ask,

"Why didn't anybody

do anything to stop them?"

Response to Governor Scott's Address to the VT Legislature, January 8, 2026

 Governor, 

Your remarks were delivered with passion and confidence, projecting a vision of progress that you argue will follow if Vermont’s towns adopt a model of school consolidation (and closure) drawn from places like Barre. Yet passion alone is not proof, and vision alone is not evidence. 

What was missing from your remarks was a clear explanation of how closing rural schools will produce meaningful savings or reduce the crushing burden of property taxes borne by working Vermonters. You spoke of increasing teacher salaries—a goal many share—but you did not explain how this will be accomplished while simultaneously lowering property taxes. These two aims, laudable on their own, stand in tension unless supported by facts rather than assumptions. We can talk about Barre as an example worthy of emulation. But if consolidation is the remedy you suggest, why not also speak of Roxbury? Why not address communities where consolidation has brought longer bus rides, weakened town centers, people moving out of state, and unresolved questions about cost savings and community loss? Rural Vermont deserves to hear the full accounting, not a selective one. 

Closing schools does not eliminate children. It merely displaces them. Education must still be delivered elsewhere, often at increased cost for transportation, facilities, staffing, and administration. In rural Vermont, sending young children from a local primary school to a distant, bused school is not the simple matter it may be in a compact city. Distance matters. Geography matters. Families matter. 

Nor did your remarks address what becomes of the abandoned school buildings that sit at the heart of our towns. Unlike larger municipalities, many rural communities lack both the resources to maintain these structures and the alternative uses that might give them new life. The loss is not merely financial; it is civic and communal. An awful lot of schools would need to close—and an awful lot of people would need to lose their jobs—to achieve the outcomes you outlined. That reality deserves honest reckoning, not rhetorical assurance. 

President Theodore Roosevelt, in convening the Country Life Commission, warned against reforms that prized efficiency while ignoring the lived realities of rural communities. He understood that a nation weakens when its countryside is hollowed out in the name of progress measured only on paper. Reform, he believed, must strengthen the whole—not sacrifice the many for the convenience of the few. 

I am disappointed that the concerns raised by the study committee appear not to have been fully heard or addressed. Rural Vermonters are not resistant to change; they are resistant to being asked to bear irreversible harm without credible evidence of benefit. 

Our shared obligation is not merely to act boldly, but to act wisely—and with respect for the communities that have long sustained this state. 

Respectfully, 

Eric C. Pomeroy, Peacham

Low-Key Mindfulness Exercises

            “Starting classroom lessons or individual counseling sessions with a brief mindfulness practice helps students reset and prepare for learning,” say Michaela Avila and Danielle Maida in this article in ASCA School Counselor. “At its core, mindfulness helps students strengthen attention and self-regulation – the very skills that drive success inside and outside the classroom.”

            Here’s how a teacher might introduce mindfulness as a voluntary beginning-of-class exercise with students – or for themselves before launching into another school day:

• Notice your feet grounded on the floor, your hands resting.
• Your body and mind settling gently into the here and now.
• Inhale slowly, exhale fully.
• Repeat for five breaths. 

Cognitive scientists have shown that this simple process has a remarkable effect on focus and learning – as described in this widely viewed 60 Minutes segment with Anderson Cooper.

            The language used to describe mindfulness is important, say Avila and Maida. Avoid terms like yoga, meditation, breathing Buddhas, and namaste, and mention that many professional athletes, actors, and musicians use mindfulness as they prepare for performances. 

 “Mindfulness Mondays and Beyond” by Michaela Avila and Danielle Maida in ASCA School Counselor, November-December 2025 (Vol. 63, #2, pp. 34-37); the authors can be reached at michaelanavila@gmail.com and dmaida20@forsyth.k12.ga.us.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1118 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Inferencing - a Vital Skill for Beginning Readers

            “While foundational decoding skills such as phonological awareness and fluency are essential,” says Jen O’Sullivan (Marino Institute of Education, Ireland) in The Reading Teacher, “reading comprehension depends equally on children’s ability to construct meaning beyond the words on the page… Skilled reading is not simply a matter of recognizing words on the page; it requires the ability to understand, interpret, and engage with meaning… One key component of this meaning-making process lies in the ability to make inferences.”

            What does that involve? Making inferences is the ability to combine textual information with background knowledge, says O’Sullivan, allowing the reader to go beyond what’s explicitly stated and draw conclusions, make predictions, and understand implications. “This cognitive process is crucial to reading comprehension,” she says, “and requires children to integrate what they read with what they already know and, just as importantly, to pay close attention to clues within the text itself.”        

            Inferencing is a process rather than a single skill, and is not something that can be taught in a lesson and checked off. It needs to be taught over time, starting with non-reading activities like:

• A “mystery bag” with students guessing the occupation of someone with a lunchbox, crayon, and library card (a student) or an adult with a stethoscope, notebook, and ID badge (a doctor);
• Looking at the Norman Rockwell painting Going and Coming and answering questions about what’s going on, where people are going, and the time of year;
• Using wordless picture books like The Snowman (Raymond Briggs) and Journey (Aaron Becker) to answer questions about why a character did something and how they are feeling;
• Using oral language games and role play like “What’s my emotion?” and using puppets to act out everyday situations and pose questions about what might happen next. 

All this culminates with reading aloud from high-quality texts with emotional depth and implied meaning and using the BUILD framework to help children connect the content to what they know, laying the foundation for skilled comprehension:

• Build background knowledge. Introduce content-rich topics across the curriculum, exposing children to a variety of concepts, experiences, and worldviews. 
• Unpack vocabulary and context. Identify and pre-teach essential words and concepts. 
• Infer meaning through modeling. Pause to ask questions like What do you think is happening here? and Why might the character be acting this way?
• Link texts to real-life experiences. Connect stories to familiar routines, emotions, or experiences children have had.
• Deepen understanding through extension activities. Reinforce inferencing skills through discussion, writing, and creative projects.

How can inferencing skills be assessed? The best way, says O’Sullivan, is through formative observations as children talk, play, and share reading, watching to see if they are:

• Using background knowledge to fill in information that’s not directly stated;
• Identifying clues in visual or written texts that support an idea;
• Linking their insights or responses to those clues from the reading;
• Connecting story events to their own experiences or to world knowledge;
• Inferring a character’s feelings, motives, or intentions from actions, words, or illustrations.

“When we nurture both word recognition and language comprehension from the earliest years,” O’Sullivan concludes, “we give children more than the ability to read words on a page. We open the door to understanding, curiosity, and lifelong enjoyment of reading.” 

“From Decoding to Understanding: Building Background Knowledge and Inferencing Skills in Early Readers” by Jen O’Sullivan in The Reading Teacher, January/February 2026 (Vol 79, #4, pp. 1-21); O’Sullivan can be reached at jennifer.osullivan@mie.ie.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1118 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

Thinking Differently About Rigor in Classrooms

      “In education, rigor refers to the level of cognitive challenge and academic demand placed on students in their learning experience,” say James Marshall, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University) in this article in Journal of School Administration Research and Development. “It involves teaching, learning, and assessment processes that encourage students to understand deeply, think critically, and apply knowledge in complex, novel, and meaningful ways.”

       Marshall, Fisher, and Frey push back on five common misconceptions about rigor in K-12 schools: 

• Rigor means more homework and harder tests. True rigor, they argue, is about the quality, not the quantity, of the work students do.
• Rigor is only for “gifted” students. On the contrary, it’s about appropriately challenging all students.
• Rigor is just about academic content. In fact, it’s about work across the curriculum, including the arts and humanities.
• Rigor means traditional, teacher centered pedagogy. “This view neglects the effectiveness of interactive and student-centered teaching methods in promoting deep learning,” say the authors.
• Rigor precludes creativity and enjoyment. Actually, they say, “true rigor should engage students’ interests and passions, integrating creativity and enjoyment with challenging content to motivate and enhance learning experiences.”

      Marshall, Fisher, and Frey then present the RIGOR Walk – a tool (and acronym) for designing, observing, and enhancing effective classroom instruction. Here are the components: 

• Relationships – Positive interactions between teachers and students, and among students, are essential to good learning, say the authors. “Such relationships foster a supportive and trusting atmosphere where students feel safe to engage, inquire, and learn from their errors.”
• Instruction – Effective classrooms transcend the traditional teacher-centered, lecture-based model, selecting from a wide repertoire of evidence-based strategies that serve to foster and scaffold effective learning. A key component is checking for understanding and constantly fine-tuning instruction.
• Goals – Aligned to grade-level expectations, these provide clear direction for a wide range of activities, a roadmap for teachers, a detailed description of learning outcomes, and a way for students to assess their progress, seek feedback, and ultimately succeed.
• Organization – “A well-organized classroom environment provides students with predictable structures and routines,” say Marshall, Fisher, and Frey, “which can significantly enhance their learning experience by reducing distractions and confusion.” Part of this is access to learning materials, flexible grouping, and accommodations. The classroom environment can be seen as a “third teacher,” alongside the instructor and classmates.
• Relevance – This “extends beyond merely informing students about the future utility of their education,” say the authors. “It encompasses the creation of learning experiences that are responsive to students’ backgrounds and lived experiences, making the learning process personally significant. Tasks within the educational setting must therefore be meaningful, integrating real-life contexts that resonate with the students’ own experiences. Relevance includes students’ lived experience and cultural background and is best manifested when students can articulate what the curriculum means to their lives and futures.

      Marshall, Fisher, and Frey have begun the process of validating the RIGOR framework through classroom visits and further research. So far, they say it has good face validity and is helpful in rehabilitating the idea of rigor among teachers and leaders. 

“RIGOR Walks: Development and Initial Validation of a Framework to Support Rigorous Learning Environments” by James Marshall, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey in Journal of School Administration Research and Development, Spring 2025 (Vol. 10, #1, pp. 13-20); the authors can be reached at marshall@sdsu.edu, dfisher@mail.sdsu.edu, and nfrey@mail.sdsu.edu.

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1117 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.

What We Capture - and Lose - with All the Photos and Videos We Take

      In this article in National Geographic, Emma Magnus says it’s great that we now have so many easy-to-access digital images – kids’ birthday parties, vacation trips, family gatherings, weddings, selfies. With our smartphones always within reach, we’re capturing more of our lives than any previous generation; one woman estimates she has about 150,000 pictures in the cloud.  

      This plethora of images may be affecting our “autobiographical memory,” says Magnus, which “is central to how we understand ourselves” – a mental reservoir to which we refer when we think about our lives. Photos and videos can help with reconstructing our life story, jogging our memory about details and emotions we might otherwise forget. Remembering is an interaction of what we actually recall and all the images we’ve off-loaded onto hard drives, smartphones, and social media. 

         All of this reduces the cognitive load of trying to remember everything, but it may also weaken our ability to recall details unless we look at those images. “As a result,” says Magnus, “when we turn to digital images to reconstruct an event, those files don’t just support our memory. They feed back into it, becoming part of it and subtly altering it… They’re shaping which moments we remember, how vividly, and how well we interpret our personal histories.” There are also photos we delete – snapshots of an ex, a bad night out – and those are deleted from our mental hard drive as well (except for those that refuse to leave)

      There’s another wrinkle to our prodigious picture-taking: relying on a camera to capture an event can detract from appreciating the moment, in the same way that concentrating on filming a concert can reduce our enjoyment of the music. And what if we never look at the thousands of photos and videos we’ve taken? Most people don’t review and organize their digital material because it’s overwhelming, so there’s a double loss – being less present in the moment, and then not revisiting the images we’ve taken.

      “Of course, outsourcing our memories to technology is nothing new,” says Magnus. “Human civilization is built on technology created to preserve and export what’s in our heads: Instagram, floppy disks, the printing press, even language itself. But tech is temporary. Hard drives will fail and social media companies will fall, and while that may not make them worth avoiding, today’s memory repositories have so much capacity – and are so integrated into our lives – that we stand to lose more when they inevitably fail.” Does that mean that if our phone is stolen or left behind in an Uber and there’s no backup, part of our brain is gone?

      “Many of us have conditioned ourselves to instantaneously, almost unconsciously, rely on our phones to capture moments,” Magnus concludes. “Capture the highlights all you want, but remember that the moments that shape you may not be the ones on your camera roll.” 

“Are We Reaching Photo Overload?” by Emma Magnus in National Geographic, December 2025 (Vol. 248, #6, pp. 96-99)

Please Note: This summary is reprinted with permission from issue #1116 of The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.