The reason I am writing this letter is because of the road conditions in Vermont. My concern is the safety of Vermont’s drivers and the reliability of going to and from their destinations easier. My first reason is, with the inconsistent weather patterns going from rainy, to temperatures dropping quickly, the roads are going to get icy. Of course, we can’t change the earth’s temperature and earth’s precipitation, but I feel as if we should prepare in advance.

What I mean by this is if we buy throughout the year, we can prepare for those dreadful winter encounters. I am not going to pretend that my thirteen-year-old brain can comprehend this idea as much as someone older than me can, but I can imagine what this strategy could look like. The tactics we are using are doable, but salt tends to be one of the easier ways to make the roads safer.

Secondly, school can depend on if the roads have too much ice or if the road crew didn’t have enough time to get it all. Trust me, I love having school off, but that just means it takes longer to finish the school year. Also, if adults have littles at home, it can be difficult for them to take the day off of work depending on the job and circumstances. In my case my mom has a job that she can work at home if she needs to, but not all parents have that luxury.

And I know it is not the road committee’s fault for the amount of ice and snow on the ground, so I am not putting all of the blame on them. So, I would like to thank all roadway crews who help clear our roads when needed.

Lastly, what if we tried something other than salt. I know we have tried mixing sand with salt to make it last longer but what if we tried calcium chloride? A fifty-pound bag of calcium chloride costs anywhere between six to fifteen dollars and a fifty-pound bag of salt costs about eleven dollars. But based on statistics according to the Albany country land bank, calcium chloride is more effective than salt. Calcium chloride starts working instantly and melts ice up to 8 times faster than rock salt. Meaning, if we used this, school districts across Vermont would have less snow days and less days to make up at the end of the year. Even though we all love the occasional snow day.

I deeply thank you for reading this letter in regard to salt on the roads.

Hadley Brown
VUMS Student

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Students at Vergennes Union Middle School finished a civics unit by writing open letters. The driving question was: What makes democracy work? To create this final project, teachers and students used the New York Times open letter contest framework. Students could choose any topic they felt passionate about. The letters are being published in several different venues: in our school newsletter, on Front Porch Forum, in The Addison Independent, and on school bulletin boards. Two students submitted their letters to the NYT contest! Our students did a wonderful job writing these letters, and we hope you enjoy reading the ones that appear here. We expect these students will continue to use their voices to highlight issues they care about!

Libby Payeur and Nan Guilmette
VUMS Humanities Teachers