A valued and unusual school in the ETWC community will not be opening
next fall. The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont. Founded in 1999 as
an independent, nonprofit school, Compass served many public school
students referred by their districts in small towns throughout southern
Vermont. The state is fairly unique in that it is one of only a handful of
states that does not have charter schools. This public-private arrangement
worked well for a good many years; we hoped that the model could be
perfected and tried elsewhere.
Over the past year, staff and board has struggled heroically to raise
revenue, keep tuition affordable, and allow the school to survive. Ultimately
they weren’t unable to close the gap and reluctantly announced on June 8th
that Compass will close.