The hardest working and most academically talented students largely make do with the present selection of courses. In terms of curriculum options, not much really changes from year to year. Essentially, the school's neediest population has less daily access to the most highly trained and experienced staff. Paraeducators often plan lessons and deliver them without the adequate professional supervision which legally and ethically should be provided . Of course, the paras genuinely care about the students and make their best efforts to guide their learning.
Many paras soon leave, however, because the pay is so abysmally poor.
Naturally, they receive little or no health insurance. To add insult to injury, access to the municipal retirement system was offered last spring only to support staff who are not union members. And it's not just core academic programs and staff which are being shortchanged. Sadly, school officials took a popular but very questionable course of action. They decided to join many other Vermont schools who already had opted to sacrifice student health services to bottom-line budgeting.