Montpelier, VT: New special school will increase places

Sept 9, 2025, VT Digger: Montpelier’s New School expands space for students with complex needs 

https://vtdigger.org/2025/09/09/montpeliers-new-school-expands-space-for-students-with-complex-needs 

The purchase and renovation of multiple buildings on the college green will allow the school to expand enrollment, the school’s executive director said.

After past programmatic moves that it acknowledged can disrupt student learning, The New School of Montpelier is setting down solid roots on the college green in Montpelier. 

With last year’s purchase of Bishop-Hatch Hall at 41 College Street and Alumnx Hall at 45 College Street from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, The New School can create “stable places” for students, according to Elias Gardener, the school’s executive director. 

Gardener noted that The New School’s students “often are diagnosed with autism or have experienced trauma and are extremely dependent on predictable consistency.” 

The New School of Montpelier, a worker co-operative, is a Vermont Therapeutic School approved by the State Board of Education, Gardener said, with its tuition set by the Vermont Agency of Education. The school was founded in 2005 for 16 children with “complex challenges in central Vermont foster care homes,” whose educational needs the local public schools could not meet. “All of our students receive special education services identified on Individual Education Programs and placed by public schools.”  . . .

To increase student space, Gardener said the two lower floors are being renovated to make classrooms, which, upon completion, will allow The New School to add an additional program with the capacity to take up to ten more students. “We consistently have a multi-year waiting list with staffing and space being the two primary barriers to meeting the needs of the public schools,” he said. . . .