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.