Officials: Vermont ruling on religious school tuition raises questions
Modified: 4/28/2021 9:00:25 PM
When the Vermont Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that public funding couldn’t be used for religious worship or education but could be used for secular classes at religious schools, it left school districts in a bind.
Local school boards and administrators in districts that pay tuition to schools had no yardstick with which to gauge whether payments to a religious school would be funding religion or education. Districts made decisions on their own, with some paying tuition to religious schools and others drawing a bright line.
Last week’s decision by the Vermont State Board of Education requiring three school districts to pay tuition to religious schools, a matter that’s also the subject of litigation in federal court, doesn’t make things any clearer, according to school officials in two of the districts, both of them in the Upper Valley.