Rural Decline and the Future of Vermont Public Schools

In this course students will examine how the stresses created by Vermont’s shrinking rural population affect the future planning, governance, and politics regarding local public schools. Students will conduct research projects to better understand the increasing pressures and realities local districts face regarding such issues as enrollment declines, inequitable distribution of access and resources, increasing student needs, significant facility upgrade or repair needs, community engagement and local control, and state and local property taxes. By the end of the course, we will have weighed competing interests, collated and compared a wide range of relevant data, and considered some solutions.