State sets new rules for winter shelters

The state of Vermont will once again pay to shelter people experiencing homelessness in motels during the bulk of the cold-weather months, regardless of that day’s forecast or whether they meet certain eligibility requirements.

With little debate and by a 24-6 vote, the Vermont Senate gave preliminary approval on Thursday, March 30, to a bill that would inject $150 million a year of new funding into the childcare sector and create a new parental leave benefit.

Three years after Gov. Phil Scott first signed a contract with state employees that would provide them with paid family and medical leave and anchor a voluntary program for other employers in Vermont, the Republican governor has announced that his adminis … (read more)

Lawmakers on the Vermont House’s powerful budget-writing committee finished their draft of a roughly $8 billion state budget late Friday night, voting 10-0 on a spending blueprint that makes major one-time investments in broadband, housing, clean water an … (read more)

A former aide to U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., announced Tuesday she is jumping into the hotly contested race for Vermont’s sole congressional seat and hoping to win the votes of progressive Democrats.

Becca Balint, the president pro tempore of the Vermont Senate, is running for the state’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, she announced Monday morning. “I’m running because I believe that, even with the challenges of today, we cannot back … (read more)

With the Johnson & Johnson vaccine coming online and the federal pharmacy program ramping up, Gov. Phil Scott announced Tuesday that school staff, child care workers and more Vermonters with high-risk conditions would become eligible to receive the Covid- … (read more)

LYNDON — Northern Vermont University has received a $3.5 million donation — the largest-ever private gift to the Vermont State Colleges — from Mark and Molly Valade, college officials announced Monday. Mark Valade is a graduate of Lyndon State College, th … (read more)

District leaders began releasing plans last week for bringing students back this fall. But their proposals for reopening the state’s preK-12 schools diverge in significant ways, and some fear Vermont’s uncoordinated approach will require officials to go b … (read more)

As schools in Vermont and across the country prepare to reopen, it’s clear that children who do get the coronavirus are far less likely than adults to get severely ill. What is less well understood is the role they play in passing COVID-19 along to others … (read more)

VERMONT — Some education officials believe a recent, hotly debated reform effort skipped over a key part of Vermont’s public school system — career and technical centers. “They said, well, we’re not trying to get to that right now. We’ll get to it eventua … (read more)

WOODSTOCK — Nearly a year after the State Board of Education made the final call on reorganizing and consolidating school districts under Act 46, one holdout district has decided to put a merger proposal before its residents – by choice. Barnard school of … (read more)