Turkey talk
At the Pierson
It’s that time of year once again
Artist explores dragonflies in show
Page 5
Page 11
Volume 52 Number 46
Child care reforms take shape
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shelburnenews.com
November 16, 2023
Honoring those who served
Act 76 leads to higher wages, subsidies LIBERTY DARR STAFF WRITER
Advocates, lawmakers and child care providers are celebrating what they call a “quantum leap” with the Legislature’s passage of Act 76, a bill that invests $125 million annually into early childhood education. The new law seeks to lessen the gap between what it costs providers to deliver early education, with equitable wages for staff, while also creating access to affordable child care for families throughout Vermont. By October the state’s child care financial assistance program will be expanded to families up to 575 percent of the federal poverty level — $172,000 for a family of four — and facilities — both center- and home-based programs — will receive a 35 percent increase in state reimbursements for families utilizing financial aid. The expansion is expected to help nearly 7,500 more Vermont families, said Shelburne Rep. Jessica Brumsted, a member of the House Committee on Human Services. “More families are going to be eligible for subsidies,” said Aly Richards, chief executive officer of the advocacy group Let’s Grow Kids, which has lobbied for these changes since its formation in 2015. “Centers are going to get paid more per child and subsidy from the state. So, they don’t even have to raise their rates. They’re just automatically going to get more per child and more kids are going to get subsidies.” Though only $20 million in grants meant to immediately help with infrastructure and staffing rolled out this fall, faciliSee CHILD CARE on page 8
PHOTO BY LEE KROHN
Veterans Paul Goodrich and Peter Gadue place the honorary wreath at the Veterans Day ceremony in Shelburne on Nov. 11. More photos on page 10.
At Shelburne Community School
Conservative group complaint leads to investigation COREY MCDONALD STAFF WRITER
The Champlain Valley School District was briefly investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights this spring after a complaint filed by a national conservative group targeted an opt-in racial affinity group at the Shelburne Community School. In December 2022, the district announced it was looking to develop an affinity group program for students in grades three through eight at the Shelburne
Community School who identified as Black or Indigenous and for other people of color. Parents were invited to sign their kids up by contacting the school’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion coach, Lashawn Sells. But the group never got off the ground. Parents Defending Education, a conservative nonprofit organization that says it “fights indoctrination in the classroom,” quickly filed a federal civil rights complaint with the office’s department of civil rights in January as a third-party organization “that opposes racial discrimination and political indoctrination in Amer-
ica’s schools.” Their complaint claimed that the group was in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires that taxpayer money not be spent in ways that result in or support racial discrimination. “The program description does not make participation in these affinity groups open to all,” the group said. An investigation into the matter was opened by the Department of Education in See INVESTIGATION on page 13