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Renee McGuinness, Vermont Family Alliance Policy Analyst
Vermont legislators continue to search for loopholes to avoid education tax dollars going to religious schools while maintaining public funding for “woke” independent schools, despite President Trump’s Executive Orders to End Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, and Expanding Educational Freedom and Opportunity for Families, and despite an appeal in August 2024 to the 2nd Circuit in Mid Vermont Christian School v Saunders: a case in which MVCS is being excluded from Vermont’s Town Tuition Program and inter-school sports.
As an example, Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden) and the Heads of two Southern Vermont Independent schools discussed drawing a hard line against independent schools that do not abide by LGBTQ+ ideology during a recent Senate Education Committee meeting.
As a part of the legislature’s education reform considerations, Colin Igoe, Head of the Long Trail School, and Mark Tashjian, Head of Burr & Burton Academy, appeared before the Senate Education Committee on January 31 to provide information on their schools’ histories, culture, financing, academic standards, educational creativity unburdened by public school regulations, and the value of Vermont’s Town Tuition laws under Title 16, Chaper 21. Long Trail and Burr & Burton are located in Bennington County, in the towns of Dorset and Manchester, respectively.
Early in their presentations, both Igoe and Tashjian emphasized that Long Trail and Burr & Burton are inclusive schools and alluded to their morally superior stance over Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS), also located in Southern Vermont in the town of Quechee, which is currently being excluded from Vermont’s Town Tuition Program and inter-school sports based on alleged discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals under Vermont Agency of Education rules drafted in 2022.
According to Tashjian of Burr & Burton (@8:40), “We come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, learning styles, orientations, genders. You know when I arrived [at Burr & Burton] in 2008, I knew nothing about gender fluidity, for whatever that’s worth. I don’t think any of us did, and we’ve learned to embrace how people identify in their own way . . . and we build a community grounded on respect for individual differences.”
Igoe stated (@26:50) that Long Trail School has an environment of inclusivity, a strong LGBTQ+ student group, and that the school, “was in headlines a few years ago, battling a really challenging situation where folks were not as inclusive of some of our students. That was front page news around the world.”
Igoe was referring to the incident in which MVCS girls’ basketball team forfeited a game to Long Trail after the Vermont Principal’s Association (VPA) denied MVCS’s request to have a biological male removed from Long Trail’s team. MVCS was subsequently excluded from receiving Town Tuition funds and banned from inter-school sports and activities.
As a side note, Long Trail is an International Baccalaureate school, which is the institution that created the Primary Years Program of Inquiry implemented in a kindergarten classroom at Mary Hogan Elementary in Addison Central School District (ASCD), guided by the International Baccalaureate Learner Profile that provides the platform for the controversial books included in the “Who We Are” gender ideology literacy program.
While Igoe expressed (@18:00) the importance of students and families being able to “choose the environment that’s right for them” under the Town Tuition program, he is clearly against affording these same benefits to students and families that choose to attend independent schools with a Biblical worldview.
The subject comes back around @1:13:23, when Senator Hinsdale accurately summarized the incident involving MVCS and Long Trail School, and continued, “I think that’s a very live conversation right now, you know. What are we going to do in an environment where we might have to draw a bright line around discrimination of any kind and honor the will of Vermont voters who would like to ensure we don’t fund that kind of discrimination, and ensure that maybe you’re part of a cohort of Independent Schools where you’re saying, ‘Hey, like, you’re going to mess this up for the rest of us,’ but you know that might force a conversation on us very soon, given the executive orders coming down that causes us to have to behave in . . . more black-and- white ways. Has that been coming up in your conversations with other Independent Schools, or maybe others can help answer this, how did this situation get resolved with this school and do we still have schools that are discriminating against kids that are getting public tuition dollars?”
Igoe responded (@ 1:16:30), “all of the sudden we were thrust – a small school in Southwestern Vermont – into a cultural war, right? And what I’m most proud of and that our school and our students and those families is that we the in this whole nonsense . . . we were singularly focused on that student and supporting that student and we circled the wagons and school went on, and athletics went on, and we didn’t comment or get sucked into things that would take away from a 16-year-old kid kid who had a tough life who’s just trying go to school and play some basketball . . . and I think that’s actually probably emblematic of the way good schools are going to operate.”
Tashjian interjected that he was a part of a group that sent a letter to the Vermont Principal’s Association (VPA) expecting MVCS to be expelled from competition for violating “rules of governing,” and further stated that religious beliefs are “okay until they do harm to another kid . . . and I think there just has to be a red line there, you know, discrimination.”
Senator Hashim suggested the Committee hear from Legislative Counsel Beth St. James before discussing the ongoing case any further.
Meanwhile in early May of 2024, House Judiciary Committee members gnashed their teeth against “so-called lawyer” Gregory Baylor, Senior Counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, when he testified that Proposition 4 Constitutional Amendment, if passed, “will be added to our toolkit,” during the poorly attended public hearing for Proposition 4 “Equal Rights Amendment.”
CJ Spirito, Head of Rock Point School, and Sergio Simunovic, Head of Greenwood School will appear before the Senate Education Committee Tuesday, February 11 at 3:15 PM. A Committee field trip to St. Johnsbury Academy is scheduled for Thursday, February 13. To date, no Heads of religious schools have appeared on the agenda to offer witness testimony, and no field trips have been scheduled.
Students, staff, and administrators at MVCS are getting a real-world lesson in Matthew 5:11-12 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. / Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.”
Timeline of the Vermont school choice program and efforts to exclude religious schools:
1869: Vermont school choice program is implemented: it is unclear to me whether it’s true that the public money can be used for students to attend any non-religious school inside or outside the state, as there is a history of public funds being transferred to religious schools outside the state. There is no language in 16 V.S.A. § 821, 16 V.S.A. § 823 or 16 V.S.A. § 828 that excludes religious schools.
1999: Vermont Supreme Court held that allowing towns to reimburse parents for tuition to religious private schools through the Town Tuition Program violated Article 3 of Vermont’s state constitution in Chittenden Town School District v. VT Dept. of Education.
2017: Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, SCOTUS decision, “government cannot exclude churches and other faith-based organizations from a secular government program simply because of their religious identity,” according to Alliance Defending Freedom.
2020: Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, 140 S. Ct. 2246, 2261 (2020) (“[a] State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”).
2022: Carson v. Makin, SCOTUS decision, “Maine cannot discriminate against religious schools,” ADF
2022: As a result of the Carons v Makin decision, ADF on behalf of Rice Memorial High School, settles with Vermont in A.H. v French (2020) and E.M. v French (2022): The VT Agency of Education sends letter to school districts that, “the First Amendment requires districts to treat tuition requests for religious schools the same as secular school tuition requests.” ADF
2023: The Vermont Supreme Court dismisses Vitale v. Vermont, which argued the state should pay for all Vermont students to attend their public or private school of choice.
2023: Senators Hardy, Cummings, Gulick, Lyons, MacDonald, McCormack, Ram Hinsdale, Vyhovsky, Watson, White and Wrenner introduce S.66, which would require local school districts to select up to three public or private schools from which parents would be allowed to choose. See, “Newly introduced Vermont legislation could derail education choice in Green Mountain State.” And “Will a U.S. Supreme Court decision end Vermont’s School Choice System?”
2024: The timeline for Mid Vermont Christian School v. Saunders can be found on Alliance Defending Freedom’s website.
2025: H.122, introduced by Representatives Birong of Vergennes and Graning of Jericho, also proposes to eliminate parental choice by requiring school districts to designate not more than three schools to which parents can send their children, in up to 25 school districts.
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Categories: News Analysis
they just don’t want parents to have a choice in their children’s education.
“As an example, Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (D-Chittenden) and the Heads of two Southern Vermont Independent schools discussed drawing a hard line against independent schools that do not abide by LGBTQ+ ideology during a recent Senate Education Committee meeting.”
I guess Kesha did not get the “memo” from DC. LGBTQ+ is disappearing. I have noticed in my travels that in most cases where I saw LGBTQ+ flags, they have been removed.
The fact that these woke independent schools are all for school choice, until parents choose another school that isn’t woke tells you all you need to know. Parents are catching on to the freak show, and want no part of it. But that’s the “tolerant” Left for you.
Addendum: (May 2023) House Judiciary Committee members were gnashing their teeth at losing AH v French and EM v French, both filed by ADF, and having to reimburse public tuition dollars to religious schools.
“religious beliefs are “okay until they do harm to another kid”. It’s okay for students at MVCS to be harmed by a delusional male student who thinks he’s a female to play in girls sports and change in girls locker rooms. The Left is big on recognizing everyones “lived experience, unless that lived experience is Christianity.
Bingo, Paul. You nailed it.
It’s not “religious” per se they hate, but Christianity.
Woke, Progressive, Leftist, Marxist, atheist, and LGBTQ+ ideology IS their religion.
Why is Individual Freedom such a hard concept for the Dems/Progs to grasp? They want Freedom for themselves, but they won’t allow Freedom for others who have different views. They take an Oath to uphold our Constitutions, but do they even know what they say?
The implementation of DEI should have been challenged in the US Courts immediately when it was first initiated. We have “equality” NOT “equity.” DEI violates our State Constitutions, our US Constitution and US Civil Rights Law.
School choice, especially “religious” choice is protected by our State and US Constitutions and Civil Rights Law.
Vermont Constitution Article 3.
Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship …….
US Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …………..
US Civil Rights Law
NOT to discriminate based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin …..
There are more than enough false dichotomies voiced in this article to go around.
First and foremost: All of the discussion in this article is centered on what a school should or can do. What about what the parents and their children should or can do?
Why not let every school set its own curriculum and policies as each school’s governing boards direct? The point everyone is missing here is that under School Choice Tuitioning, the authority to decide at which school a voucher is used is up to the parents… PERIOD! The SCOTUS said so in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639, twenty years ago.
If John Doe wants to send his child to a school with a focus on LGBTQ++ policies, why not? If his neighbor, Joan Smith, doesn’t want to send her child to that school, so what? Let each parent send their kids to the school they think provides the best educational programs for their respective children. The rest of us should butt out.
Take the Kindle Farm School in Newfane. It’s an independent school specializing in serving boys with specific learning disabilities. That’s right. Only boys. Are they discriminating against girls. What about boys who think they’re girls? Take the Greenwood School in Putney, also mentioned in this article. Greenwood also serves a boys only program. And both schools receive tuition vouchers.
Suppose there’s a religious-based independent school with a curriculum and policies focusing on what some might characterize as a traditional family model. So what? There are also schools focusing on curriculum and policies characterized as LGBTQ++ models. So what? Perhaps a traditional family wants their kids to broaden their horizon, and they choose an LGBTQ++ school to expand their children’s awareness. The same way they might send their children to study in France, or in China, to learn those cultures. So what?
So why the intense focus on what a given school can or can’t do?
Here’s the real false dichotomy. This has nothing to do with parents and their children. It has nothing to do with individual taxpayers. It has everything to do with special interest groups controlling the grotesque amount of money we’re spending. These debates are all about money. And the people perpetrating these divisions (e.g., legislators Phill Baruth and Jill Krowinski) should be ashamed of themselves.
It’s none of our business folks. Stop justifying your own personal idiosyncrasies by preventing others from expressing their eccentricities. Live and let live. Under the H.89 School Choice bill, Equal Access is guaranteed. Not Equal Curricula. Not Equal Outcome. It’s all about EQUAL ACCESS! To whatever educational pedagogy is demanded by parents in an educational free market.
Mr. Eshelman, I 💯 agree with you on school choice. Actually I’d take it further and say government has no place educating children: it’s done an intentionally lousy job. My commentary is about the continuing discrimination against religious schools and parents/students. It’s about Democrats and Progressives doubling down for control despite case law and Trump’s EOs. I wrote it for the purpose of exposing tyranny and hypocrisy.
I agree, Renee. Because our government is corrupt – and make no mistake, it IS corrupt – the following prospect is untenable.
There is a difference between a ‘government run’ education system, and a ‘government subsidized’ education system. And no… they are not, necessarily, one in the same.
Under current law, taxpayers have agreed to subsidize a student’s K-12 education by providing parents equal access (as measured by an equal financial subsidy) to choose the education each parent believes best meets the needs of their children… as long as that choice does not harm someone else with a differing choice. I.E, ‘free enterprise’.
Unfortunately, the pervasive corruption in our system, by legislators and the voters electing them, has led to a despotism that I fear can only be resolved in severe conflict. When two wolves and a lamb vote on what to have for lunch, if the lamb is at all interested in surviving, the lamb must become the wolf.
I’m praying for peaceful means, Mr. Eshelman!!!
So am I, Renee. Self-defense isn’t restricted to being violent.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” ― Nietzsche
Vermont is woke. It wants to discriminate against Religious schools. The Supreme Court voted against this form of discrimination!
Marxism ruins it for the rest of us. We have a Marxist cult ruining and running our schools into the ground.
Public funding should not go to religious schools. Remember the separation of church and state???
Unless the State is telling parents they have to send their children to a religious school there’s no violation of the separation of church and state.
Conversely, if the state says the money can’t be used for a religious school then the state is violating the parents’ 1st Amendment rights.
But Mike, those who push the LGBTQWXYZ ideologies ARE religious, just not Christian. The fervor of those ideologies have taken on the semblance of religion, even atheistic ones.
And could you please explain what you mean by “separation of church and state” and cite where you find that phrase or concept in our laws?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble“
That’s what it says. It says nothing about school funding. In fact the freedom of association part should allow any individual to send their kids to whatever school they like. and the state should not be free to force parents to pay for a public school they think is harmful to their children.
Also, Martin Green above says that the LGBTQIABC+ qualifies as a religion. The climate change story also qualifies. They are atheistic beliefs that assume that humans are defined only by their animal instincts but also intellectually powerful enough to control the weather and “save the Earth (c)”
Mike: The 1st Amendment says this:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…”
Again, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” … this is referred to as the ‘free exercise clause’.
September 14, 2022:
“Vermont school districts must use public dollars to pay for students to attend approved religious schools, Education Secretary Dan French wrote in a memo sent to school superintendents on Tuesday.”
“The new guidance comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling in the case of Carson v. Makin, which found that Maine’s exclusion of religious schools from its school tuitioning program was a violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.”
Denying religious school public funding IS the very act of separation
There is no constitutional right to force Vermonters to pay property taxes to fund a public school or fund a public health care system. Go back in Vermont history and you will not find a constitutional amendment that would allow this.
There is also no constitutional right prohibiting Vermonters from agreeing to pay property taxes to fund a public school or fund a public health care system.
Yes, this is one of the ‘faults’ Ben Franklin warned about in his final address to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
“I confess that I do not entirely approve of this Constitution at present, but Sir, I am not sure I shall never approve it:”
Franklin went on to say that:
“In these Sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.”
The ‘fault’ has become loathsomely apparent. And again, it is Franklin who is generally assigned the following sentiment.
‘Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.’
This is why The U.S. is, technically, a Constitutional Republic consisting of checks and balances to governmental power. But if the population, for whatever reason, becomes dishonest and corrupt, the Constitutional Republic form of government will ‘end in Despotism’.
We’ve come to this crossroad before. The Civil War. And we survived after much death and discomfort. Unfortunately, we are now confronted with a similar calamity. And I give us a 50-50 chance of survival.
Headline should read: California interloper who came to Vermont to attend college and never left and capitalized on her ethnicity to get elected to senate now likes to tell Vermonters how to live “messes up” local culture.
You all LOST this fight. Now go away & pay homage to Stalin.
Is it easy to open a one room schoolhouse in Vermont?
Yes or no?
We are teaching reading, writing, math, science, all pretty basic stuff, not rocket science or brain surgery.
They have us fighting over money, they win. Independant schools should stay as far from public money as possible. The true power of an independent school is to show how effective and good you can be without obscene budgets. This is their biggest fear; the ruse will be over.
We pay astronomical amounts of money for less than mediocre education, fact.
$12 big mac don’t do anyone any good, this is how Vermont is run.
Just make it easy for a one room, two room schoolhouse to operate, no funds from the state. People will do the rest.
This is all a big dog and pony show to protect the lobbyists, Montpelier’s true master. They will be sticking it to us once again, more taxes, less education, comeing soon.
Biological males should not be allowed to compete in athletics on girls teams. The President’s executive order makes that clear. It’s past time for the VPA to fully reinstate MVCA to high school sports along with sending a letter of apology for their heavy handed actions.