Vermont Family Sues Over Exclusion of Religious Schools From Town Tuition Aid
The federal suit targets Vermont's 2025 education law, which advocates say cut most religious schools out of the state's long-running town tuition program.
See where this is ›BURLINGTON, Vt. —
A Christian family from North Chittenden, Vt., has sued state and local education officials in the U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont, saying their daughter was shut out of two public tuition programs because she attends a religious high school. The case, Bishop v. Saunders, was filed this week by Alliance Defending Freedom, The Christian Post and the legal group reported. The defendants include Vermont Secretary of Education Zoie Saunders, State Board of Education Chair Tammy Kolbe and the Barstow Unified Union School District.
See where this is ›Barstow has no high school and pays tuition for its students to attend school elsewhere. The family's daughter, a senior at Mount St. Joseph Academy, a Catholic school in Rutland, received town tuition in 2024-25 and qualified under a grandfather clause in Act 73, the education law Gov. Phil Scott signed in July 2025. According to the complaint, after she briefly withdrew in fall 2025 the district board read the clause's words “until they graduate” to mean “until they leave” and denied tuition this year, which also blocked her from the state's Dual Enrollment Program. The family is now paying the tuition itself and asks the court to restore both benefits for her final year.
“Parents should be able to send their children to schools that are the best fit for them,” said Jake Reed, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. “Such unequal treatment violates the First Amendment, and government officials must be held accountable.” The group points to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 ruling in Carson v. Makin, which held that Maine could not exclude religious schools from a similar tuition program, and to a 2021 federal appeals court injunction against Vermont. The state settled an earlier lawsuit in 2022. The Christian Post reported no response from the state or the district. Vermont Law School professor Peter Teachout has told VTDigger that a challenge to the law would be “an extremely hard case to make” because the state is free to decide which independent schools receive funding.
VTDigger reported in August 2025 that 12 religious schools lost eligibility under Act 73, and Vermont Public reported that the number of eligible private schools fell from 46 to 18. Alliance Defending Freedom is also challenging the law on behalf of Mid Vermont Christian School in Quechee and one of its families.
