Following two successive legislative sessions and an interim task force study, lawmakers at the State House in Montpelier are punting comprehensive education transformation legislation further down the field.
After a circuitous week of in-the-weeds negotiations, agreements, and disagreements, deliberations that sought to reconcile conflicting versions of the landmark education reform package melted down in disharmony as the midnight hour loomed last Friday evening. Lawmakers who had hoped to adjourn the 2025 legislative session at the end of May will now have to return to Montpelier for a special “veto session” on Monday and Tuesday, June 16-17, in hopes of executing a last-minute “Hail Mary” pass that will salvage passage of the detail-laden education reform package for this session.
On top of the reconciliation challenge, it remains to be seen if Gov. Phil Scott will sign any legislation that emerges from the ongoing negotiations taking place in the House-Senate conference committee that is attempting to settle the differences between the competing reform bills. A Scott veto in the wake of the June 16-17 deliberations by lawmakers — as well as legislators kicking the controversial education reform issue down the line for yet another biennial session in 2026 — remain distinct possibilities.
How does all this play out for local officials, school administrators, families with children, and beleaguered property taxpayers statewide and here in the Mountain Views Supervisory Union School District (MVSD)?
It’s anybody’s guess.
On Monday, the Standard interviewed Vermont State Rep. Charlie Kimbell (Windsor-5) and then listened in later that evening as Kimbell spoke before the monthly meeting of the MVSD School Board to update the community about the fate and potential impacts of the education bill, H.454, as it wends its way through two days of further tinkering by lawmakers 11 days hence. Please turn to this week’s Vermont Standard for an extensive Q & A feature in which Kimbell explains what’s going on.
For the full story, please see our June 5 edition of the Vermont Standard.
