School Newsletter Requirements in Vermont: A Principal's Guide

Vermont has one of the most fragmented school systems per capita in the United States. Tiny town schools with fewer than 100 students, ongoing Act 46 school consolidation and merger processes, and a supervisory union structure that sometimes means one superintendent oversees five or six very small schools all create communication challenges that are specific to Vermont. At the same time, Burlington is dramatically more diverse than the rest of the state, with one of the highest refugee resettlement rates per capita in the country.

This guide covers what Vermont law and policy actually require, how to handle the state's distinctive communication context, and how to build a newsletter system that works whether you are running a 50-student village school or a diverse Burlington elementary school.

What Vermont law requires schools to communicate

Vermont's parent communication obligations flow primarily from 16 VSA Section 164 (assessment) and Vermont Act 173 (2018, parent engagement in tiered support systems).

Key communication obligations for Vermont principals include:

• VTCAP results: The Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program uses Smarter Balanced for ELA and math in grades 3-8. Individual results go to families; principals should provide school-level context through newsletters.
• SAT School Day for grade 11: Vermont funds SAT School Day for all grade 11 students. High school principals should communicate test dates, what the SAT measures, and how scores can be used in college applications.
• Act 173 parent engagement notices: Schools must communicate their Multi-Tiered System of Supports structure, notify parents when students enter Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention, and involve parents in the support planning process. This is a significant and often underappreciated communication obligation.
• Act 46 governance communication: If your school is in a recently merged supervisory union, parents need clear communication about governance structure, where the superintendent is located, and how the new structure affects their school.
• Title I Family Engagement Policy: Vermont's Title I schools, which include many rural and Burlington urban schools, must share their Family Engagement Policy at the start of each year.

Vermont Act 173 and what it means for your newsletter

Vermont Act 173 is one of the most comprehensive parent engagement laws in the country for students in tiered support systems. Passed in 2018, it shifted Vermont schools from a traditional special education eligibility model to a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) framework, requiring that schools exhaust tiered interventions before moving to formal special education evaluation.

From a newsletter communication standpoint, Act 173 creates obligations that many Vermont principals underestimate. When a student is moved into Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention, parents must be notified and involved in the process. This is not just an IEP process obligation. It applies earlier in the support continuum than traditional special education law did.

Practically, this means your newsletter should explain the MTSS system at the start of each year. What does Tier 1 look like in your school? How do students get referred for Tier 2 support? What does Tier 3 look like? When and how are parents contacted? Parents who understand the system before their child needs support respond much better to the process than parents who learn about it when their child is already struggling.

Burlington's refugee community and multilingual communication

Burlington, Vermont, is consistently among the US cities with the highest refugee resettlement rates per capita. The city's refugee communities include significant Congolese (primarily French and Lingala speakers), Somali, Bhutanese (Nepali-speaking), and Nepali populations, along with families from several other countries through Church World Service, the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program, and other organizations.

For Burlington School District principals, multilingual communication is not optional. The district's multilingual family liaison staff and connections to resettlement organizations are the most reliable resources for translation into the community's primary languages. French is the most reachable language for Congolese families (though Lingala and Swahili are also spoken), and Nepali resources exist for Bhutanese and Nepali families.

Outside Burlington, Vermont is very homogeneous linguistically. Agricultural areas in the Champlain Valley have some Spanish-speaking families from Latin America. A few Vermont districts have seen growth in refugee families placed outside the Burlington area. But for most Vermont schools outside Burlington, English-only communication covers nearly all families.

Vermont's small school sizes and what they mean for newsletter communication

Vermont has more school districts per capita than any other state, and many of those districts serve very small communities. It is not unusual for a Vermont elementary school to have fewer than 30 students in the entire building. In schools this small, "school-level data" reported in a newsletter may effectively identify individual student performance, which is a privacy concern.

Vermont principals of small schools should be careful about reporting assessment data at the school level when the numbers are small enough to be identifying. Focus on what the data means for the school's instructional approach rather than reporting percentages that can be reverse-engineered into individual student results. The Vermont Agency of Education's data reporting guidelines address this concern directly.

The flip side of small school size is that the newsletter can be personal in a way that large school newsletters cannot. A principal in a 60-student school can acknowledge every student achievement, describe every class project, and build a genuine community publication rather than an institutional bulletin. Use that intimacy. It is what makes small Vermont school newsletters work.

VTCAP assessment communication in Vermont's context

VTCAP uses Smarter Balanced for ELA and math, the same assessment platform used in several other states. The four performance levels range from Level 1 to Level 4, with Level 3 meeting the standard. Vermont also produces school quality reports that include VTCAP results alongside other school performance measures.

Vermont parents tend to be engaged with their children's education and interested in data. A clear newsletter section on VTCAP results, including what the performance levels mean, where students across the school landed, and what the school is focusing on in response, will be read. Avoid the temptation to gloss over results or rely on state report card links as a substitute for your own communication. Parents want to hear from you, not a state website.

Act 46 school mergers and governance communication

Vermont's Act 46 (2015) pushed smaller school districts to consolidate into larger supervisory unions, and that process has been ongoing with varying timelines and compliance across the state. If your school has recently been absorbed into a merged supervisory union, or if a merger is in progress, parents need clear communication about what changed, who governs the school now, and what the practical effect on their child's school experience is.

Confusion about governance can undermine trust in a school newsletter. If the newsletter comes from a supervisory union that parents do not recognize, or references a superintendent who serves multiple communities, explaining the structure clearly prevents misunderstanding.

Building a newsletter system for your Vermont school

Vermont schools benefit from a newsletter system that covers required compliance sections (VTCAP results, Act 173 MTSS communication, Title I Family Engagement Policy for applicable schools, SAT School Day for high schools) alongside the intimate, community-specific content that makes Vermont school newsletters worth reading.

Schools using Daystage in Vermont set up their template once and update variable sections weekly. For Burlington's multilingual schools, Daystage makes parallel-language versions straightforward. For small Vermont schools, the template stays simple enough to produce quickly even when the principal is also teaching, managing the front office, and shoveling the walkway. The free plan covers everything most Vermont schools need. No credit card required.