WHITINGHAM-The federal government has ended a settlement - which was intended to address and prevent future cases of racial harassment at Twin Valley School District - just over a year early, according to a recent letter the U.S. Department of Justice sent to the supervisory union.
The department pointed to the school district's compliance with the settlement terms by improving policies and practices. But a leader of the Vermont Human Rights Commission expressed concerns about the decision's potential connection to the dismantling of civil rights enforcement under the Trump administration.
The settlement in 2023 between the Twin Valley School District and the U.S. Department of Justice stems from a 2021 complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont to the Vermont Human Right Commission on behalf of a student who formerly attended Twin Valley Middle High School, referred to as a C.B.
Under the settlement, the department required the district to assess all relevant policies and procedures, conduct annual school culture assessments, implement training and professional development for school staff, and continue to report relevant information to the department. The agreement started in March 2023, and monitoring was set to continue for three years until July 2026, with an additional 90 days to raise remaining concerns, under the terms.
According to the complaint, C.B., the only Black student in the school at the time, faced severe and consistent racially motivated bullying and harassment from fellow students, which school administrators failed to properly respond to. The student developed depression and anxiety, her grades dropped, she withdrew from school sport activities and eventually transferred schools weeks before the school year ended.
The federal Department of Justice found in its investigations that the district was aware of and did not adequately respond to individual instances of harassment and to the "hostile educational environment" at Twin Valley Middle-High School, located in the town of Whitingham in Windham County.
In the letter to Superintendent Bill Bazyk on May 6, Jonathan Newton, a deputy chief with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, and Natacha Lam, an attorney with the division, wrote to notify the district that the three-year agreement would be concluded early.
The department's decision to close the agreement was due to the district "improving its response to and investigation of complaints of discrimination, conducting thorough assessments of the school's educational environment, and taking responsive action reasonably designed to remedy the harm caused and prevent reoccurrence."
"The District's proactive and substantial commitment to this endeavor has led to significant improvement in the District's processes and practices," according to the letter. "The United States is therefore concluding its formal monitoring of the Agreement and considers this matter fully resolved."
In a statement provided to VTDigger, Lia Ernst, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, wrote that the 2023 settlement between the school district and the department was "aimed at systemic, forward-looking change."
The Vermont Human Rights Commission facilitated a subsequent settlement between the former student and district in 2024, in which the district was required to release a public statement to address the harm experienced by the student and the insufficient response of administrators. The student and district also exchanged letters on the harm of the incidents and the district paid the student an undisclosed sum, under the terms of the agreement.
The 2024 settlement by the Vermont Human Rights Commision, initiated by the complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2021, was intended to "acknowledge and redress the harms our client experienced because of that harassment and hostile educational environment," Ernst wrote.
"We hope that, as a result of these two settlements, current Twin Valley students do not have to go through what our client endured," Ernst wrote in the statement.
'A dark cloud'
Bazyk, superintendent of the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union which oversees Twin Valley School District, started his role in July 2024 and said he could not comment on the 2021 complaint directly.
But Bazyk said the school district worked with the U.S. Department of Justice to train teachers and administrators and establish processes to ensure the state's hazing, harassment, and bullying policies and procedures, as well as federal Title IV reporting processes, would be followed.
The school district also worked to build more robust reporting options for students experiencing harassment and developed a diversity, equity and inclusion-based curriculum for students throughout the entire district, Bazyk said.
The district also brought in diversity, equity and inclusion consultants and hired a director of diversity, equity and inclusion, but the staff member left the district in summer 2024, and the role has not been refilled, Bazyk said.
He said the open case was "obviously a dark cloud" over the Twin Valley Middle High School. The district is more equipped to properly respond to cases in the future and plans to continue to incorporate diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the district, Bazyk said.
Bazyk said he thought the district had earned the Department of Justice's trust that the district would continue these efforts, and "that's probably why they ended it early," he said.
'Premature conclusion'
Big Hartman, executive director and general counsel for the Vermont Human Rights Commission, said they were disappointed by the early conclusion of the U.S. Department of Justice settlement because "there's always more you can do to create a more welcoming environment for all students."
The commission did not impose additional measures in the 2024 settlement because the U.S. Department of Justice settlement met the commission's standards for long-term monitoring to avert future harassment cases, they said.
Hartman said the settlement's early end could be related to the dismantling of civil rights enforcement under the Trump administration. Hartman said the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights satellite locations have been shuttered, and a swath of staff have been fired under the current administration, weakening the federal office's ability to investigate discrimination in schools, according to reporting from ProPublica.
"The premature conclusion of this settlement is very reflective of a national shift in civil rights enforcement priorities that we're seeing across the country," they said. "This shift is a signal to us that we can no longer rely on the federal government to enforce our civil rights protections, especially as they apply for people of color, trans people and individuals with disabilities."
Amid these national changes, Hartman said state level civil rights enforcement is now the "only line of defense." But, Hartman said Vermont's civil rights enforcement entity - the commission - is severely understaffed and there is a reported backlog of complaints to the commission from recent years, including a rise in racial harassment cases in schools around the state.
"We are seeing a worsening trend of harassment in schools based on race, especially in the past year or two," Hartman said. "That is very concerning to us, and we know that enforcement, through agencies like ours, is really crucial to trying to remedy the harm and trying to prevent future incidents of discrimination."
Wichie Artu, president of the Windham County NAACP said students who are Black, Indigenous or people of color and their parents consistently report bullying and harassment at schools around the region. He said many students and parents do not understand how to file a complaint, resulting in many being dropped.
The Windham County NAACP works with families to guide them through the reporting process and has encouraged the development of coalitions and support networks of peers, staff and family because "this is a 'it takes a village' kind of problem," Artu said.
Artu said he could not comment on the changes at the Twin Valley School District. However, he said he has observed generally in his work that school leaders often enact well-intentioned reforms of school policies and curriculum but fail to make a meaningful impact on school culture if they do not center BIPOC student voices in those changes.
Artu said the Windham County branch of the NAACP is planning to reach out to the district to learn about the initiatives implemented to improve school culture, and said he hopes the group can work in "solidarity with these efforts."
This story was republished with permission from VTDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To support this work, please visit vtdigger.org/donate.
This News item by Greta Solssa originally appeared in VTDigger and was republished in The Commons with permission.