Statewide, about 80% of our children live in communities that educate their children in schools that they operate at all grade levels. These schools include small town elementary schools, and both town-based high schools, and larger union high schools. These larger union schools – like Rivendell, CVU and North Country – were created when smaller communities came together to provide greater opportunities for their children.
Approximately 20% of our children live in communities that tuition their children in all grades or that operate some grades and pay tuition for the remaining grades. Tuition students represent approximately 7% of all students statewide. Instead of working with neighbors to build a school, these small communities chose to educate their children in some or all grades by paying tuition to other schools. Currently, 75% of publiclytuitioned students in Vermont attend public schools in neighboring districts. Most of the remaining publicly-tuitioned students attend selective independent schools either in Vermont or beyond.
There has recently been a great hue and cry, complete with an online video representing tuition districts as cans being shot off a fence, implying that “school choice” in Vermont is under assault by Act 46. The clamor has little grounding in fact.