At the summer’s start, officials with the Vermont State Colleges said they would face higher education’s mounting challenges head-on, and spend the rest of the year crafting a plan for systemwide reform. Two months into the process, Mike Pieciak, who chairs the VSCS long-range planning committee, said there appeared to be hardly any disagreement from […]

Higher education opportunities like apprenticeships and community college are on the rise in Vermont, a state where 92 percent of students graduate from high school but only 37 percent of people aged 25 years or older have a bachelor’s degree. It’s good news that more students who have opted not to attend a four-year school […]

Another school year is upon us and while the kids might not be as excited about it as their parents are, back-to-school fun brings lots of new things. Students at Burr and Burton Academy and Long Trail School returned to school Aug. 22, with freshmen at BBA and new students at LTS starting the day […]

Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos announced a new licensing model for funeral directors, designed to expand pathways to licensure, minimize student debt, and allow qualified Vermonters to train for their chosen profession more efficiently, without having to leave home. Funeral directors in Vermont are licensed by the Office of Professional Regulation (OPR), a division […]

New rules aim to make it easier to become a funeral director in Vermont. The state has no funeral schools, but Secretary of State Jim Condos says the new licensing model will expand ways to get a license while also keeping student debt down. It combines college-level coursework with apprentice-style experience. The Community College of […]

Community College of Vermont will once again offer its entrepreneurship program in fall 2019. Start-Up 802 is a two-course curriculum designed to help students develop entrepreneurial skills and launch business ideas. The program was launched last year as the result of a collaborative effort to stimulate economic development and cultivate local talent. CCV developed the […]

After a month’s hiatus due to understaffing and lack of a field supervisor, the Fair Haven Rescue Squad is back up and running with a new supervisor and several new staff members. “We have coverage from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” said Lynn LaRock, member of the board of directors of the rescue squad, on […]

Until she died last year, my youngest sister, Madelyn Linsenmeir, was sick for most of her adult life with a chronic, relapsing disease: opioid-use disorder. Not that you would have known it if you met her when she was well. Maddie was girl-next-door pretty, with a freckled face and wide smile, and the openhearted exuberance […]

Since lawmakers dramatically expanded Vermont’s early college and dual enrollment programs in a 2013 education package, high school students have had more opportunities to take college courses on the state’s dime. But many school officials say the programs — in particular early college — are also exacerbating the budget pressures already at play in an […]

Walk into the Card Room at the Vermont State House in Montpelier any day this summer and you’ll see quite a gathering. Isaac, head tilted slightly back, looks out thoughtfully. Katherine, glancing to the side, one corner of her mouth turned up, is perhaps slightly amused. Sarah, hair tied back, has the grace of a […]