April brought sad news for the town of Ripton: Its elementary school, decimated by declining enrollment, would be closing at the end of the academic year. The Addison Central School District board voted unanimously to take that step, while directing Superintendent Wendy Baker to transfer Ripton’s roughly 22 grades 2-5 children to the neighboring Salisbury Community School in the fall. It had already been decided that Ripton’s anticipated three kindergarten and first-grade students would attend the Salisbury school due to tiny numbers in that demographic.

ACSD appointed a committee of Ripton residents and district officials who would, with the aid of a consultant, look for ways to repurpose the town’s beloved school building.

At the same time, ACSD officials began discussing how Bridport and Shoreham elementary schools might collaborate — by possibly merging portions of their student populations — to allow children in both communities to have single-grade instruction. Barring a collaboration, stakeholders were told that declining enrollment and a new ACSD policy on minimum class size would force both schools to offer multi-grade classrooms only beginning the fall. District leaders said they believed single-grade instruction could help bring up standardized test scores that had been lagging recently among students in both Bridport and Shoreham.

Speaking of youth programming, the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Vergennes — citing a financial crisis — sadly announced it would suspend operations. “Our hope was we could stay open through the end of the school year. It’s absolutely devastating that we couldn’t,” board Co-Chair Sadie Jones told the Independent. Club boosters and Vergennes officials quickly began exploring ways to continue programming in some other format.

Middlebury College, the county’s largest employer, announced several new steps it would take to balance its budget — including limiting employee benefits, offering early retirement incentives and growing undergraduate enrollment in the coming years — due to stock-price declines and increased financial uncertainties for the economy at large. In a letter to the college community, college brass predicted a $14.1 million deficit for the fiscal year, up from a projection of $8.9 million in October of 2023.

The Trump administration also announced belt tightening, with libraries among public services asked to share the weight of cuts in an economic strategy that also called for tax breaks for the nation’s highest earners. Addison County libraries braced for some bad news.

Some of Vermont’s top leaders discussed their fight against the Trump administration’s stated positions on voting rights, human services program cuts, tariffs and other issues at an April 19 forum that packed Middlebury’s Town Hall Theater. Among those present were Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas, Attorney General Charity Clark, Treasurer Mike Pieciak along with state Sen. Ruth Hardy, who organized the forum.

The Trump administration’s battle against higher education and non-citizens came directly to Addison County in April, during which federal immigration officials took action aimed at revoking visas for at least one foreign student at Middlebury College and three recent graduates from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California. College officials said they’d pursue whatever legal means necessary to protect the students in question.

Pennsylvania attorney and developer Phil Rosenzweig filed an application with the town of Middlebury to build a 32-unit, four-story apartment building — that would also host a restaurant — on a 0.71-acre lot near the intersection of Middle Road and Route 7, at Middlebury’s southern gateway. Rosenzweig announced plans to make 20% of Middle Road Housing’s units “affordable,” based on Addison County’s median income. Some of the neighbors of the proposed project expressed concerns about the project’s scale and mass, which led Rosenzweig to makes some revisions.

Orwell voters in April joined other Slate Valley Unified Union School District residents in approving a revised fiscal year 2026 public education budget of $31,623,010. Residents of the Slate Valley member towns of Orwell, Benson, Castleton, Fair Haven, Hubbardton and West Haven endorsed the PreK-grade 12 spending plan — which was $463,256 less than the one voters rejected on March 4 — by an 824-631 margin.

A coalition of Bristol residents and local organizations announced they were in the early stages of a multi-year project aimed at creating a multi-use recreational area on Hogback Mountain. The recreational area would be located on a 2,000-acre lot on Hogback owned by the A. Johnson Company, which for generations has allowed the community to use the property for recreation. The parcel is situated on the east side of Bristol village.

April provided a time for grateful reflection for members of the LGTBQ+ community amid the backdrop of an increasingly intolerant federal government. April marked the 25th anniversary of passage of Vermont’s Civil Union Law, which eventually led to same-sex marriage rights. The Independent interviewed two of the plaintiffs — Holly Puterbaugh and Lois Farnham of Middlebury — in the Baker v. State lawsuit that built key momentum for what was in 2000 a landmark law that sparked a national marriage-rights movement.

Local sugarmakers closed out a season that generally got off to a late start, with average- to above-average yields of maple syrup that, according to some producers, had a lower sugar content than usual.

Addison County’s most needy animals got a new caregiver and spokesperson. Karin Page was named the new executive director of Homeward Bound, Addison County’s Humane Society, in Middlebury.

Porter Medical Center in April was preparing to mark its 100th birthday, a June 14 celebration that would feature a party, a fundraising campaign, a time capsule, and a photo exhibit.

April brought bonus good news from your local paper: The Independent and its sister publication Vermont Ski + Ride Magazine took home 43 awards for excellence in journalism at the annual Better Newspaper Competition held in Portland, Maine.

Lincoln resident Wayne Johnson, chef and co-owner of the former Smoke & Lola’s restaurant in Bristol, announced a new project: “Don’t Panic Catering.” It’s a self-sufficient mobile catering business that would travel around the country providing high-quality catering services while using the surplus revenue to offer free meals.