To view written testimony and find link to video testimony, click here. This testimony was also featured in Vermont Public, week in review. The VPA’s Jay Nichols provided testimony and answered questions in House Ways and Means on 2-6-25. First, do no harm. Do not rush into financial decisions without looking at potential…

Click here to view the 13 minute interview conducted with the Vermont Principals’ Association Jay Nichols, explaining how members of the education community are reacting to the proposed changes.

Jay Nichols, Executive Director of the Vermont Principals’ Association. Response to Governor’s Budget Address and Education Finance Transformation. Written testimony and video link to testimony found here.

Link to Testimony and Documents

Main Priority: Protect Public Education and ALL Vermont Children

Equitable Funding Changes
● Advocacy at Commission, General Assembly, Administration levels
● Be careful of unintended consequences of any funding changes
● Support nuanced, data-based approaches to funding changes
● Provide transition dollars to school districts that may be immediately hit by funding
changes in a manner that negatively impacts students
● SAME DOLLARS/SAME RULE for any changes to education funding for any school or
private entity receiving education fund dollars…

Link to Testimony and Supporting Documents

“[A]ccidental inequalities of birth, wealth, and learning are always tending to restrict the opportunities of some as compared with those of others. Only free and continued education can counteract those forces which are always at work to restore, in however changed a form, feudal oligarchy. Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife”  

Link to testimony and supporting documents.

Main Priority: Protect Public Education and ALL Vermont Children

Equitable Funding Changes
● Advocacy at Commission, General Assembly, Administration levels
● Be careful of unintended consequences of any funding changes
● Support nuanced, data-based approaches to funding changes
● Provide transition dollars to school districts that may be immediately hit by funding
changes in a manner that negatively impacts students
● SAME DOLLARS/SAME RULE for any changes to education funding for any school or
private entity receiving education fund dollars…

From the outset of this legislative session, our Associations have provided substantive testimony in an effort to illumanate the core cost drivers impacting public education. (Full Letter)

These are the points I wish to make on behalf of the VPA after viewing Ways & Means
this morning. (Full Written Testimony)

It has been a long time since Vermont has had school construction aid; 2007, in fact. (Read Full Testimony)

An Act related to boards of cooperative education services as passed by the Vermont House of Representatives (full testimony)