Montpelier teachers met on Tuesday Afternoon to protest the lack of progress being made by the District Administration to improve the culture of the Montpelier School District. While both the Board and the leadership of the Montpelier Education Association (MEA) conducted teacher surveys to identify areas of concern, no visible changes have been made despite the Board being aware of these concerns for many months.

The MEA’s identified some of the areas of teacher concern including: an atmosphere of bullying, teachers are in fear of retaliation/reprisals for raising concerns, a favoritism/bias for certain individuals depending on friendships/family relationships, teachers do not feel valued by administration, and a lack of trust that administration is willing/capable of making positive changes to improve working atmosphere.

As part of back-to-school activities in August, the Administration invited guest speaker Jim Mahony to speak about school culture. He stressed that school culture is everything, and that encouragement matters. The Montpelier Education Association whole-heartedly supports this position.

The MEA plans to work with the Board to implement positive change, and fully expects that the Board of Education will support these efforts. Montpelier teachers have made it their goal and mission to positively change the school culture during the 2019-2020 school year; the MEA is hoping to work with the Montpelier BOE to ensure the administration is held accountable to accomplish this goal.

The MEA is hopeful that the administration of the Montpelier School District will implement the cultural changes necessary to ensure that every teacher feels safe, encouraged, welcome, and is a valued and supported member of the school district community.