Northeast Addison County has an abundance of natural beauty and charm: verdant fields and family-friendly hiking trails, swimming holes and farmstands, and, in its hub of Bristol, a Main Street with eclectic gift shops, a homey brewpub and a stylish locavore café. There are also plenty of public s chools: an elementary in each of its small towns and a shared middle and high school. What the area lacks, though, is children. Twenty-five years ago, the region’s schools, which comprise the Mount Abraham Unified School District, collectively boasted more than 2,000 students from kindergarten through high school. This year, however, they are down to fewer than 1,200, and a further decline of about 160 students is projected over the next 10 years. Some schools in the district — which draws students from Bristol, Monkton, New Haven and Starksboro — have lost more than 40 percent of their pupils in the past decade alone, according to its superintendent, Patrick Reen. The decline isn’t confined to rural areas. In Burlington, the state’s biggest population center, school officials are seeing a similar reduction, if not quite as steep. During the past 20 years, K-12 enrollment in the city’s school district has dipped from 3,528 students to 2,972 — a loss of about 1 in 6 pupils. The slide, which is forecast to continue over the next 10 years, is likely to prompt discussion soon over whether to close one of the district’s six elementary schools. And Burlington High School, which is in the process of being rebuilt, will reopen in the fall in a state-of-the-art building with a capacity of 1,150 but currently only 850 students to fill it. What’s happening in these two school districts — one rural, the other urban — represents a wider demographic phenomenon affecting nearly every corner of the state. Vermont is watching young people vanish at an alarming rate. Over the past two decades, public schools have lost more than a quarter of their K-12 students, going from around 98,000 students in fiscal year 2005 to 73,000 in 2025, according to state education data — the result of factors that include falling birth rates and a relatively low flow of immigrants to fill the gap. The state as a whole, meanwhile, added 20,000 people overall during the same period.  The demographic drop-off in public schools has led to a steep rise in the per-pupil cost of educating Vermont’s children and, in turn, to higher property taxes, prompting state leaders to push for major education reform. After months of debate last year, the General Assembly passed Act 73 as the vehicle for enacting those changes. But the reform plan is currently stalled in the Statehouse amid a fresh argument over whether the school district consolidation and funding changes it envisions are the best path forward. It’s no mystery why Vermont, as a whole, is shedding school-age children. The state, with one of the oldest populations in the country, consistently ranks at the bottom of the list for birth rates. In 2022, 70 percent of Vermont households had just one or two members, and only 16 percent had four or more, according to the Vermont Housing Finance Agency. Despite the overall gain in recent decades, Vermont was one of only five states that lost population between 2024 and 2025, and at a steeper rate than any other. A chronic shortage of affordable housing has exacerbated the problem. Vermont’s dwindling cohort of schoolchildren has been long in the making. While schools elsewhere in the country have witnessed declines since 2019, following decades of growth, the downturn in Vermont began far earlier and is much more severe. Enrollment has remained stable in only a handful of school districts, in communities such as Colchester and South Burlington, which have seen an abundance of new homes built in recent years. Gov. Phil Scott and Education Secretary Zoie Saunders have argued that consolidating Vermont’s 119 school districts would create a more cost-effective and higher-quality education system by requiring each district to serve many more students. Others maintain that the solution lies in closing small schools, a wildly unpopular idea in a state that values local control and one that might necessitate building costly regional high schools. Yet another camp believes a less disruptive answer lies in bringing down the costs of big-ticket items such as employee health insurance. This group contends that closing schools in small towns will only hasten further enrollment declines by discouraging young families from settling in those places. In the absence of a statewide plan to address the issue, individual districts must face the consequences on their own. Meanwhile, the broader, root causes of the slow disappearance of the youngest Vermonters are not likely to be solved anytime soon. The outcome could have far-reaching implications for Vermont’s economic vitality and its workforce and decide which of its communities thrive — and which do not. Birth rates are “a huge ship, so when they start moving in one direction, it’s really hard to change the direction,” said Peter Nelson, a geography professor at Middlebury College who studies demographics. “We can work to steer it, to alter the course,” he said, “but it’s very difficult, and it’s going to be very slow.” Pick Two Patrick Reen Credit: File: Caleb Kenna There’s a riddle that Reen, the Mount Abe superintendent, likes to pose to people when discussing the state of Vermont schools. Pick two of the following: high-quality education; reasonable tax rates; small districts with lots of small schools. Which do you choose? Despite the state’s best attempts, he says, we can’t have them all. Reen has tried to balance all three since he took the job in 2016. But it hasn’t been easy. Early in his tenure, he oversaw the merger of five town school districts and seven school boards, which had been organized under the umbrella of Addison Northeast Supervisory Union, into one school district served by a single school board. The merger allowed the district to reduce some administrative costs, create more flexibility in staffing, and provide equal funding and services to the elementary schools, Reen said. But in the years since, enrollment has continued to decline, and the district has been forced to cut staff and scale back services to keep property tax increases at bay.  In an attempt to turn the tide, Reen has advocated for both closing schools within his district and merging with other Addison County districts to create a system that is of higher quality and more affordable. At every step of the way, though, he has faced resistance. Ahead of a potential closure, for instance, Lincoln residents voted in 2021 to leave Mount Abe and form their own micro school district of around 80 K-6 students; the State Board of Education approved the withdrawal the following year.  Still, Reen has not given up. For the past year, an advisory council of administrators, teachers and support staff has met regularly to design a configuration that works better for students and teachers and costs less. Schools that have lost students aren’t just more expensive to run, Reen said — they often don’t use their space well and have smaller-than-desired class sizes, sometimes with students from multiple grades.  “We’re trying to stretch our dollars further and further, which is a noble idea and a lot easier said than done,” Reen said.  The advisory council is now considering three options, two of which would involve closing two of the district’s four elementary schools. Sixth graders would start at Mount Abraham Union Middle and High School, which currently serves grades 7 through 12. Town votes would be required for the district to move forward.  Reen said he understands why communities often forcefully resist closures, but he isn’t convinced that keeping small schools open will prevent further decline.  I’m not sure the evidence suggests that maintaining small schools is the way to attract families to Vermont, because we just haven’t seen it.Patrick Reen “I’m not sure the evidence suggests that maintaining small schools is the way to attract families to Vermont, because we just haven’t seen it, and we’ve been utilizing that approach for quite some time,” Reen said. The state’s education overhaul efforts led to the creation of the Rural School Community Alliance, which advocates for rural schools. But Margaret MacLean, a founding steering committee member, doesn’t agree with Reen. She argues that real damage can be done to communities and students when schools in their towns close. Research shows that closures are particularly detrimental to students of color or those from low-income households, she said.  There are some cases, MacLean acknowledged, where a school might lose so many students that it no longer makes sense to exist. But the burden of districts’ declining enrollment is often placed on small, rural schools rather than trying to make changes across the broader system.  Out of Options  A sign against school closure in Worcester Credit: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur The dilemma of whether to close two small schools in the towns of Calais and Worcester consumed many central Vermont families earlier this month. The debate, and the result of town-wide votes in each place, illustrated the difficulties of making big changes, even at a local level, in the face of declining enrollment and increasing costs. The elementary schools are two of five in the Washington Central Unified Union School District. Over the past decade, the district has seen a 14 percent decline in enrollment, a trend that is projected to continue over the next 10 years, according to superintendent Steven Dellinger-Pate. The district’s middle and high school, U-32, can accommodate 950 students, but its current enrollment is only 671.  The steep drop has driven the district to a breaking point. In its current configuration, it can’t provide the resources needed to best serve students without sending property taxes skyward, Dellinger-Pate said. Last fall, after extensive deliberation, the administration and school board devised a plan to close the two smallest schools, Calais Elementary and Doty Memorial in Worcester, and to send their students to elementary schools in East Montpelier and Middlesex, respectively. The move, administrators said at the time, would provide appropriately sized classes, a full-time nurse and librarian at each school, and band and chorus opportunities for older students. The expense of maintaining the five elementary schools, on the other hand, would mean substantially scaling back staff and programs across the district. Barbara McAndrew speaking at a community potluck and discussion about school closure in Calais Credit: Jeb Wallace-Brodeur “Closing schools isn’t our favorite option,” Dellinger-Pate said in an interview two weeks before the vote. “The problem is, we have to have kids. And getting more kids is a really slow and arduous process for our state right now. Without a grander plan … our solutions are very limited.” Ahead of the vote, a contingent of parents in each town organized efforts to persuade fellow residents to vote “yes” on closure, holding potlucks, writing letters and setting up online resource hubs. Tara Lee Byrne, a Calais resident with a preschooler and kindergartner, said she’d been convinced by school officials that sending Calais students to East Montpelier would provide her children with more educational and social opportunities. “Instead of this being a dystopian idea of Calais shuttering, I’m trying to think about what it could become,” Byrne said last month.  Noah Weinstein, a Worcester parent, was torn over how to vote. In the end, he was swayed to support the closure after speaking with a Doty teacher, who told him that the staff there felt “they would not be able to adequately meet the needs of our children under the five elementary school model.” The more robust academics and extracurriculars of a combined school were also a draw. But he and Byrne were outnumbered. On February 10, residents in both Calais and Worcester voted decisively to keep their elementary schools open. Since the school budget had already been finalized based on the assumption that there would be three elementary schools next year, administrators will now have to figure out how to spread that money across the larger number of schools.  Housing First? The Burlington High School construction site Credit: John James Even two cities in populous Chittenden County — both of which have undertaken expensive school construction projects in recent years — are feeling the pain. Student populations have declined in both Burlington and Winooski schools because of a lack of affordable housing suitable for families and fewer refugees and immigrants coming to the area. Burlington saw a small enrollment increase — from approximately 3,500 students in 2003 to 3,659 in 2012 — followed by a sharp, 19 percent decline to 2,972 students by 2025. When Burlington High School closed abruptly in 2020 because of contamination from toxic chemicals known as PCBs and learning was moved to a converted Macy’s department store, a dozen or so families pulled their students from the district and enrolled them in private schools or moved to other towns, according to superintendent Tom Flanagan. But the main reasons there are fewer students in Burlington, he believes, is a one-two punch represented by the state’s low birth rate and a housing shortage for families. We don’t have houses that most younger families can afford to live in.Tom Flanagan “We don’t have houses that most younger families can afford to live in,” Flanagan said.  A 2020 transplant from Providence, R.I., Flanagan said he was surprised by how expensive homes were in Burlington when he relocated with his family of five. The median single-family home went for $550,000 last year, city data show. In 2024, the median rent for a three-bedroom apartment was nearly $2,300, and rental vacancies were down to 2.2 percent, among the lowest rates in the country. A healthy vacancy rate is around 5 percent. Tom Flanagan Credit: File: Bear Cieri In recent months, three or four families have told administrators that they were moving because they could no longer afford housing; they’ve appealed to the district to let their children finish the rest of the school year in town. Miro Weinberger, who served as Burlington’s mayor from 2012 to 2024, said that when he led the city, one of his main concerns was slow housing growth. During his tenure, he said, the city made progress, with an average of 120 new housing units created every year between 2012 and 2021, but much more is needed. That’s the goal of Let’s Build Homes, the new statewide pro-housing coalition he launched last year. To avoid a future of continued education cuts, Weinberger said, “we need to build more homes of all shapes and sizes for households of all income levels.” New housing is in the pipeline, including a development in the city’s South End that could ultimately bring 1,400 new units. The first phase calls for 200 studio and single-bedroom apartments.  But those may not accommodate new American families, who tend to live with more people per household. For decades, immigrants have made up a sizable chunk of Burlington’s student population, but fewer are settling in the city, in part because of policies under President Donald Trump that effectively ban refugee resettlement. On top of that, the children of immigrants who arrived 20 years ago are leaving to raise their own families in more affordable communities, often outside of Vermont, Flanagan said. Despite these challenges, Burlington’s relatively large size has allowed it to absorb population losses more efficiently than smaller places — one of the benefits that proponents of Act 73 see in the bigger districts envisioned under the law. As enrollment dropped over the past five years, Flanagan said, the district eliminated about 15 positions. Those employees were able to find other jobs in the district. Burlington has also not seen as large a property tax spike as other school districts with declining enrollment. That’s because of a 2022 law that counts students who are costlier to educate, such as those learning English or living in poverty, as more than one under the state’s current funding formula. Burlington may need to close one of its six elementary schools in coming years. But that process, too, would be easier in the Queen City than in a more rural place. The decision wouldn’t require voter approval, and, with schools in relatively close proximity, students could get to a new campus without enduring long bus rides. Nonetheless, the loss of a school is “painful,” Flanagan said, even if it’s the only way to preserve high-quality programming. Flanagan said he hopes that Burlington’s new $200 million high school, slated to open in the fall, will attract more students, including from outside of Burlington. Vermont has a public-school choice provision that allows a certain number of students to choose a different high school than the one they are assigned, as long as both districts approve. If Burlington continues to have unused capacity in its new high school, Flanagan said, he’s open to considering partnerships with other districts.  One natural partner would be Burlington’s smaller neighbor, Winooski, which is also feeling the effects of the housing shortage and the slowdown in refugee resettlement. In 2019, when voters approved a $57.8 million bond to renovate its school complex, student enrollment was projected to increase by 15 percent over the following decade. But the Winooski district now has several dozen fewer K-12 students than it did when voters passed the bond.  The possibility of a partial answer to its housing woes emerged late last year, when the Champlain Housing Trust submitted a proposal to build 30 affordable units, almost all with three or more bedrooms, on the site of the former Winooski Armory. At a Development Review Board hearing in December, local high school students spoke in favor of the project, sharing that their friends had been forced to leave the city because there was nowhere for them to live. School board vice president Nicole Mace made the case that more students would translate into lower property taxes.  But last month, the review board rejected the proposal, citing potential adverse effects on the city’s wastewater system and the development’s failure to conform to the “character of the area.” Just a few miles away, the Colchester School District’s five schools are reaping the benefits of a more family-friendly housing landscape. The district experienced a small decline in student population between 2004 and 2011, according to Agency of Education data, but has maintained about 2,100 students since. Superintendent Amy Minor characterized enrollment as “stable and strong.”  Several large housing developments have helped offset the declining birth rate. Two of them, Severance Corners, which broke ground in 2004, and Sunderland Farms, which was approved in 2020, have added hundreds of new one- and two-bedroom dwellings with amenities such as dog parks, fitness centers and green space — and both are still expanding.  Hundreds more units are in the pipeline, according to Zachary Maia, development manager of the town’s planning and zoning office. Colchester’s school enrollment is expected to grow by around 100 students in the next five years, according to projections by an outside firm.   That rosy outlook is one of the reasons Minor believes the district was able to pass a $115 million bond in 2024 to improve its aging HVAC and electrical systems and renovate and expand existing school buildings. Stable enrollment has also led to relatively low property tax rates compared to other communities. And while many Vermont districts have struggled at times to pass school budgets, Colchester residents haven’t rejected one since 2014.  Not a Blip The current quest to overhaul Vermont’s education system can be traced to Town Meeting Day 2024, when voters across the state rejected one-third of all school budget proposals. That wave was seen as a taxpayer rebellion against rising costs that ultimately led to bipartisan passage of Act 73 last June. This year’s Town Meeting Day, on March 3, doesn’t figure to be nearly as dramatic, thanks in part to a state decision to use other money to buy down the property tax rate. But in recent weeks, legislators have begun hammering out a proposal to create a more affordable, equitable and high-quality education system — permanently. Declining enrollment comes up regularly in their deliberations.  The drop in students “isn’t a blip,” said Saunders, the education secretary. Sources: Vermont AOE Enrollment Dashboard, Burlington School District Credit: Rev. Diane Sullivan “Ten, 15 years ago, we might have been in a place where we could say, ‘Should we engage in this work?’ Saunders told legislators last week. “I think we’re at a crisis point where it’s not a ‘should’ but a ‘must.’” Earlier this month, Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee, introduced a prospective map that would carve the state into 27 school districts with between 2,000 and 4,000 students each. Under Conlon’s initial construct, some bigger districts, such as Champlain Valley and Essex Westford, would not be required to combine with others. Merging smaller districts would enable the resulting school boards to make regional decisions, such as preserving small elementary schools while consolidating upper grades, Conlon said. He called his map a conversation starter, not a fully formed plan.  In testimony before Conlon’s committee last week, Chelsea Myers, executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association, called the proposed map “an important turning point in the consolidation conversation.” It recognizes “the need for greater efficiency and effectiveness in governance and district operations, while not moving so far away from local identity that communities feel disconnected from their schools,” Myers said. She called Vermont’s current mix of supervisory unions “overly complex and increasingly misaligned with declining enrollment.”   Saunders and Gov. Scott, meanwhile, have advocated for larger districts, of up to 8,000 students, which they say would allow money to go further while still providing greater learning opportunities.  Larger districts funded under a so-called foundation formula, in which every district receives the same amount of money per student, Saunders told lawmakers last week, “can offer more courses, more electives, more programming for students and can better support our educators in improving instruction.” In the current funding system, school districts can maintain level spending if student enrollment declines, but that decision increases per-pupil spending and, by extension, property tax rates. With a foundation formula, which is proposed in Act 73, school districts that lose students would automatically forfeit the funding for those children. That could spur some schools to close, Saunders acknowledged. But she said having larger districts would create more options for school officials to allocate their resources.  “It’s really important to recognize that right now, school districts are closing schools. Right now, school districts are cutting staff,” Saunders said. “And it’s being done in a way that’s not strategic, and it’s not consistent in terms of how those decisions are made across the state.” Some superintendents and education experts believe that building more schools may be part of the answer, even amid declining enrollment, by providing an incentive for smaller schools to combine within a new school. Consolidation at the school level, especially among secondary schools, could save more money than combining entire districts, they say.   “You’re going to get a reduction in the spending and an improvement in the quality when you take a high school from graduating 12 kids to graduating 200, or even 100, kids,” said Bruce Baker, a national school funding expert at the University of Miami who grew up in Rutland.  Saunders believes in regional, comprehensive high schools but argues that new governance and funding systems need to be in place before they’re built. Some Vermont school districts can’t wait. While legislators pore over maps and spreadsheets in the Statehouse, communities are facing the realities of what it means to educate fewer students. In November, the Taconic and Green Regional School District board voted by a 11-2 margin to close two small elementary schools in Sunderland and Danby. The week before, residents in both towns had said no to closure at the ballot box. But that vote was nonbinding.  And on Town Meeting Day, voters in Marlboro will decide on the fate of their town’s pre-K through 8 school. The school currently serves 53 students, with 3 to 10 students in each grade. Over the next few years, enrollment is expected to drop to 41 children. ➆ About the Series Seven Days is delving into the far-reaching ramifications of the declining number of young Vermonters. Got a tip or feedback? Write to us at [email protected]. The original print version of this article was headlined “Empty Desks | Enrollment in Vermont’s K-12 schools is dropping at an alarming rate. Communities are on their own to deal with the problem.” The post Vermont’s School Enrollment Is Dropping at an Alarming Rate appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less