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MARCH 12, 2026
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School board extends superintendent’s contract Bunting signed through 2028 BY JASON STARR Observer staff The Champlain Valley School Board approved a two-year contract for Superintendent Adam Bunting last Thursday. The extension takes Bunting’s contract through 2028 and comes after the school board completed a performance review of Bunting’s nearly two-year tenure leading the district. Bunting was promoted to interim superintendent in 2024 after the departure of Rene Sanchez
and named permanent superintendent in the middle of the 20242025 school year. He is the former principal and a student alumnus of CVU High School. “We think that Adam has done an exemplary job, and we’re really grateful for his efforts for the district,” board chair Meghan Metzler said. Bunting has spearheaded the district’s development of a “student and community engagement” protocol, an evolution of Sanchez’s efforts at “diversity, equity and inclusion.” It is guided by a framework known in the district as the ICPD Framework, an acronym for student identity, connection,
Adam Bunting VTDIGGER FILE PHOTO BY GLENN RUSSELL
proficiency and direction. “That’s been a really extensive undertaking for the past two years,” Metzler said. The district’s website lists several goals of the initiative: “increased student motivation, academic success, and retention; a school culture rooted in belonging, equity, and restorative justice; stronger community partnerships that support student growth; and empowered educators and engagement facilitators driving meaningful change.” Metzler explained: “Adam is trying to improve overall student engagement and making sure we can measure and understand how
our students are doing. While things like test scores are really important, it’s also a lot of other things like their identity, their connection and their direction. All those things have to come together to make sure that we have students who are ready for the next chapter of their lives when they leave CVSD.” Bunting has also led the district through the challenges of staffing cuts, the specter of statewide school district consolidation under Act 73 — which he has spoken out publicly against — and a federal inquiry into the district’s policy of permitting students to participate in sports based on their gender identity.
Vermont State reimagines Williston campus
Master plan seeks to increase campus vitality BY JASON STARR Observer staff
The Williston campus of Vermont State University is spared building closures recommended in a master plan involving its sister campuses in Lyndon, Castleton, Vermont Johnson and State Randolph. names new Instead, the president, plan recomPage 24 mends ways to give the campus — shoehorned as it is into a former Taft Corners shopping center — a more vital, collegiate feel. The master plan was commissioned in 2023 after the merger of Vermont State Colleges and Vermont Technical College. It
A rendering of a reconfigured Williston campus of Vermont State University, with a welcoming green. COURTESY OF VERMONT STATE UNIVERSITY
is the university’s response to declining enrollment and underused infrastructure. It was made public this year through a public records request from
Danville-based publication North Star Monthly, which reported on the plan in February. “VTSU faces significant challenges because of declining
enrollments, an ageing and oversized physical plant, and a constrained resource base,” the plan states. “The university … seeks to meet this defining
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moment by embracing hard decisions through a collaborative process, identifying specific buildings for rightsizing, and devising cost-effective strategies to promote vibrancy and enhance the student experience.” The master plan recommends decommissioning dozens of buildings across the other campuses. But Williston’s campus, by far the smallest of the five, is not pegged for downsizing. Instead, the plan focuses on making better use of the courtyard at the center of the campus by adding seating areas and landscaping. “It can be a focus for exterior campus informal activities and gracefully accommodate the daily back-and-forth between buildings,” the plan states. The plan does describe a see VTSU page 24
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