After receiving new declining enrollment data for the new school year, Harwood school leaders this week took two key steps this week regarding merger talks with neighboring school districts and a separate effort to investigate combining four of its elementary schools.

BARRE — The pitch for the latest bond proposal involving the Central Vermont Career Center is pretty simple: better price, better place, and, in retrospect, a superior solution to what has become a persistent problem.

The Harwood Unified Union School District has 23 new teachers and staff members this year from preschool through high school. During their orientation process, Superintendent Mike Leichliter asked them to complete a survey to share some details on their backgrounds as well as their hopes for their new positions.

The 2026-27 school year got off to a start on Aug. 26 with school buses rolling, parents lining up in the school drop-off loops, and those families who live nearby Brookside Primary School in Waterbury strolling through the crosswalks on Stowe Street to get their students to class.

BARRE — Voters in 18 central Vermont towns will be asked in November to consider a $55 million bond, which, if approved, would finance the Central Vermont Career Center’s latest expansion plans.

The recent listing of Cabot Creamery’s company headquarters in Waitsfield for sale for $2.95 million has caught the attention of Harwood school district leaders who are mulling a major school consolidation effort.

Harwood Unified Union School District School Board member Roberta “Bobbi” Rood of Waitsfield has submitted a letter of resignation from the board effective this Thursday, making tonight’s board meeting her last. 

For the third year, a local nonprofit created to support high school travel study scholarships will host a fundraiser on Aug. 29 to continue its work in the coming year.

Neck of the Woods child care in Waitsfield has set up fall preschool childcare at Moretown Elementary School for families with pre-K students attending the school.

With the new school year just on the horizon (first day back is Aug. 26), Harwood Union High School is putting out a call for opportunities over the coming months for students to participate in community service.

Across Vermont this summer, a program to distribute free meals to reach all children up to age 18 is underway as Hunger Free Vermont partners with school districts and various agencies.

A committee of the Harwood School Board says it’s ready to recommend a radical new setup for the district within five years: a major downsizing from operating seven schools to running just three.

Across the Harwood Unified Union School District, a variety of staffing changes are in the works as some teachers and faculty retire or resign, some shift to new roles, and new hires are made to fill key openings.

A tornado warning on Thursday didn’t ruffle plans for Crossett Brook Middle School’s eighth-grade graduation. The ceremony to salute 68 eighth graders was already planned for the school gym.

Their stories were similar, but not the same, and the five students who spoke during the Central Vermont Career Center’s year-ending awards ceremony probably had more than a little in common with the nearly 200 who didn’t.

On June 11, the fifth-grade Wizard Team at Crossett Brook Middle School held a Literary Food Truck Festival attended by more than 50 family and community members. Kids made foods inspired by books they read.

The Harwood School Board has three meetings on its calendar for its final week before summer break: a board retreat, a building committee meeting and a special executive session.

Parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers and classmates joined Brookside Primary School's 62 fourth graders in the school gym on Wednesday morning for the rite of passage many have awaited since preschool and kindergarten.

A high school math teacher tapped to address Harwood Union High School’s class of 2026 summed up his life advice in the form of an equation, while delivering some of the most heartfelt sentiments at Saturday morning’s commencement.

Harwood Union’s internship program introduced recent graduate Claire Pomer to newspaper reporting when she was a sophomore, and in the fall, she is headed to Northwestern University’s journalism program in Chicago.