College goes remote as COVID-19 surges

A surge in COVID-19 cases at Middlebury College last week prompted an abrupt shift to remote instruction, and the college is encouraging students to leave early for winter break, if they can.

The work education consultant Nate Levenson has been doing for the Mount Abraham Unified School District over the past several months is going well, he says, but it’s going more slowly than anticipated.

After reporting 47 new cases of COVID-19 since Wednesday, Middlebury College switched to remote instruction Friday morning and is encouraging students to leave early for winter break, which begins after exams end on Dec. 19.

After almost 90% of students stayed away from Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School on Friday, Dec. 3, attendance returned to almost normal this week, though not fully.

In the wake of events at Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School last week, three Jewish students at the school have written a joint statement detailing their concerns about the school’s everyday environment.

The Mount Abraham Unified School District board at its Nov. 30 meeting adopted a new sexual harassment policy, 14 months after it was approved for posting.

A pair of nonprofit housing organizations are nearing the financing and regulatory finish lines on a project that would add 20 units of affordable housing in a place they’re badly needed: Bristol.

Plans for relocating the historic New Haven Junction Train Depot have taken an adventurous turn in recent weeks.

It was about two weeks before the 2020 election when Middlebury College student Isabelle Hartnett realized the work she and her classmates were doing to boost voting engagement on campus was paying off.

The field hockey program Mary Stetson built at Mount Abraham Union High School is legendary.

Some kids would spend 60-90 minutes on a bus — both to and coming from schools — plus spending on busing would go up by $385,000 to $880,000.

After nearly a year of debate over the issue of whether “repurposing” schools is tantamount to “closing” them, the Mount Abraham Unified School District board approved a measure Monday night to bring some clarity to the issue.

Mount Abraham Unified School District Board chair Dawn Griswold refused to convene an executive session Monday night to hear testimony from a distraught parent who alleges her child was sexually harassed at Bristol Elementary School.

Middlebury College informed its faculty and staff last week that they would get two extra holidays this year and one-time bonuses to be paid in December.

If sales data from Stonewood Farm are any indication, more people are planning to host Thanksgiving meals this year, compared with 2020 during the first year of the pandemic.