In late August, state Sen. Scott Beck (R-Caledonia) called Cabot School Board chair Chris Tormey and vice chair Ellen Cairns with some advice: If they wanted to give local families full school choice in the future, they should consider voting soon on whether to shutter their tiny high school.
The Senate minority leader told them that he had watched Cabot’s August school board meeting, in which members discussed the possible closure of their high school, which has just 10 to 12 students per grade. When the General Assembly reconvenes in the new year, Beck continued, it may well pass legislation that would narrow students’ educational options if the Cabot high school closes.
Currently, when a school district does not operate a certain grade level, it is required to pay for families to send their children to any public or private school that has state approval. Beck told Tormey and Cairns that he believed the legislature may change that next year and require districts that close a school to designate just three public schools to receive their students. Parents would have to choose one of those if they want the district to cover tuition.
In Cabot’s case, that would rule out sending students to two nearby private, or “independent,” schools in the region: Lyndon Institute and St. Johnsbury Academy, where Beck has taught social studies for 27 years.
Furthermore, Beck told the Cabot School Board members, the legislature might make that provision retroactive to January 1, 2026. Tormey and Cairns took that to mean they would need to vote on the question before year’s end.
Days later, Beck conveyed a similar message to Clayton Cargill, chair of the Danville School Board. Cargill attempted to find other legislators to corroborate Beck’s intel, but his effort was unsuccessful.
Instead, he said, “every instance of it having been said originat[ed] with Senator Beck.”
Still, Cargill wasn’t willing to dismiss the advice outright.
Cargill characterized Beck as “a gorilla at the Statehouse” and a “man who knows things and wields clout. “When he brings me information, it’s usually good,” Cargill told Seven Days in an interview.
Beck’s warnings have instilled a sense of urgency and pressure in the two rural communities. Both are already concerned about the fate of their small high schools in light of sweeping legislation passed in June that aims to change the way Vermont schools are funded and governed. The legislation, known as Act 73, recommends regional high schools and calls for minimum class sizes of 18 students for grades 9 through 12.
“We don’t know so many things right now, and we are being pressured to capitulate in advance.
Clayton Cargill
The Cabot School Board has created a survey to ask residents whether they want the high school to remain open — or close at the end of this school year. One question asks whether a vote should take place before the end of the calendar year “in order to ensure that Cabot’s students can take advantage of the ‘full high school choice’ option” that Vermont’s current tuitioning system permits.
The survey cites Beck’s warning to the local school board members.
“Obviously it’s impossible to know now whether Senator Beck’s prediction will turn out to be accurate,” it reads, “but we felt it important to include that possibility here.”
In Danville, meanwhile, the uncertainty is “drastically affecting our ability to message properly about this enormous, rapidly unfolding situation,” Cargill said. “We don’t know
so many things right now, and we are being pressured to capitulate in advance.”
Beck told Seven Days his communication with Cabot and Danville school board members was a good faith effort to make them aware of potential legislative changes.
Several versions of the education reform bill included a provision about designating three public schools in the event of a school closure, he noted. That stipulation was removed when a conference committee reconciled House and Senate versions of the bill; Beck served on the committee and was instrumental in stripping the provision.
“I fully expect it to come back into the conversation next year,” Beck said.
But at least one prominent legislator says there are still so many unknowns that no school board should rush to act based on one lawmaker’s speculation.
“Trying to predict the future of Act 73 is a fool’s errand,” said Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee, the body that first introduced the three-public-schools provision.
An 11-member redistricting task force — which Beck serves on — has until December to create as many as three possible maps for new, larger school districts. Once the legislature settles on a map, Conlon noted, the state’s current school districts and supervisory unions will cease to operate, meaning any decisions a school board makes now would likely be rendered moot.
“Closing now and going to [school] choice could be something that’s quite temporary,” Conlon said.
Rep. Leanne Harple (D-Glover), a teacher at Hazen Union High School in Hardwick, agrees. She said that when Tormey, the Cabot chair, asked for her opinion on Beck’s comments, she warned him that “anything [the school board] chose to do now could be undone.”
“To instill this fear in people at this point is really premature,” Harple said. “When this bill passed, it was to protect public education, and now, to try to scare public schools into closing knowing they would probably [send students to] private schools … it doesn’t sit right with a lot of people.”
Others suggest it isn’t appropriate for Beck to share his suppositions about the future of education reform with the school boards. Not only is Beck working to create new school districts, he is employed by a school that could gain students if Cabot and Danville close. Currently, public school districts pay St. Johnsbury Academy $24,600 annually per student; Lyndon Institute charges $25,202 per student.
Sue Ceglowski, executive director of the Vermont School Boards Association, declined to comment specifically about Beck’s speculation. But she said her association expects members of the redistricting task force to “operate with the utmost integrity, accountability, neutrality and a genuine commitment to the common good.” School boards shouldn’t be making consequential decisions based on speculation, she added.
Neil Odell, a longtime school board member in Norwich and board member of advocacy group Friends of Vermont Public Education, took it a step further. Beck’s warning “just feels like a move to be able to funnel more kids into St. Johnsbury [Academy],” Odell said. “It doesn’t pass the smell test.”
In June, fellow Friends of Vermont Public Education board member Geo Honigford filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee about Beck and Senate Education Chair Seth Bongartz (D-Bennington), alleging that the senators worked to shape the education reform bill to financially benefit independent schools to which they have strong ties.
At least one additional complaint was made to the ethics committee about Beck’s conduct during the education reform debate this year, according to emails reviewed by Seven Days. It is unclear what, if anything, will come of those complaints given that all proceedings are confidential. But at the time Honigford filed his complaint, Beck dismissed it as a baseless “political jab.”
Odell said Beck’s recent calls to school boards reinforce for him that Honigford’s complaint “definitely had merit.”
But Beck argues that Cabot and Danville students wouldn’t necessarily choose to attend St. Johnsbury Academy. Furthermore, he said, St. Johnsbury has had a steady enrollment of about 1,000 students for 30 years, and that likely won’t change, whether or not Cabot and Danville close their high schools.
Data provided by St. Johnsbury Academy headmaster Sharon Howell show that the school’s enrollment has fluctuated between 901 and 994 students in the past six years. Since the 2020-21 school year, the number of private-pay boarding students has declined while publicly tuitioned day students have increased by more than 100.
Beck, in an interview, stood by his decision to warn the school boards of the potential changes, saying it would have been “irresponsible” if he hadn’t.
“Does that put additional pressure on them? Is there some discomfort there, especially in the context of redistricting? Yes, I fully admit that there is,” Beck said. “But I think not making them aware of what’s probably likely is not really responsible, either.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “School Speculation | Cabot and Danville school boards feel pressure to act on state senator’s advice”
This article appears in Oct 1-7 2025.