Sidelined

It’s a small school, but there are those who love it,” Daniel Webster reportedly said, defending his alma mater in an 1818 U.S. Supreme Court case. Most people can understand that kind of affection for a particular institution of one kind or another. Harder to grasp is the deep antipathy others seem to feel for a place they’ve never experienced, whose ideals they can’t seem to grasp.

Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) is a small, K-12 academy of about 100 students in Quechee, Vermont. The kind of place where “everybody knows everybody,” says Chris Goodwin, who’s worked with student-athletes at MVCS for nine years now. And while the school doesn’t offer all the amenities of larger, public campuses, it does encourage the special unity that comes with being among others who share one’s deepest religious beliefs.

Chris and his wife, Bethany, chose the school for their children for that reason.

“It’s a family atmosphere,” says Chris, who coaches the girls’ basketball team. “And faith is the defining issue. It’s paramount.” And the Bible, he says, is “the filter that this school runs everything through. You wouldn’t go to the school or be a part of it if that wasn’t the most important thing you wanted for your child.”

Apart from biblical instruction and strong academics, Mid Vermont also works to give its students as many extracurricular opportunities as possible, including sports — in which MVCS’s athletes have acquitted themselves particularly well. In 2020, the girls’ basketball team tied for the state championship. (The COVID-19 outbreak ended the season before a final game could be played.)

That’s a feat Chris and the families of Mid Vermont are understandably proud of. But it’s also one the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA), which runs athletics in the state, is ensuring the school won’t be repeating anytime soon.

Unless, that is, the staff, students, and parents of Mid Vermont agree to renounce the truths their school is built on.

Quechee is an unincorporated village of less than 400 residents, one of five hamlets that make up the small town of Hartford, in southeastern Vermont. The whole village covers less than two square miles and is home to Quechee Gorge on the Ottauquechee River — at 165 feet, the deepest gorge in all of Vermont. Unless you count the one that runs between the values cherished by MVCS families and those that state officials want them to celebrate.

It was that particular gulf that prompted a crowded living-room discussion among a handful of Quechee parents one summer evening in 1986. Each mom and dad had their own reason for being there … their own collected concerns for what their children were missing — and learning — attending classes elsewhere. The concerns were similar enough that the parents all agreed to a three-point plan. Over the next two weeks, they would pray about a) whether to start a Christian school, b) if so, when, and c) where it would be.

Two weeks later, the living room was full again. The parents agreed that God was leading them to launch a school and open it the following school year … somewhere. A year later, they had the place, a teacher, and five students. Today, they have 20 times that many youngsters and an academic program that — in the proud-but-proven words of the school website — “significantly outperforms its public-school counterparts in the state.” Mid Vermont graduates have attended the world’s top universities and carried their skills to places far removed from the towering aspens of Quechee Gorge: Jordan, Kazakhstan, Madagascar. Meanwhile, back home, the current class studies hard and plays a pretty fair game of basketball.

Provided, of course, the game is fair.

Leading up to last winter’s girls’ championship tournament, MVCS learned that the school it was scheduled to play was allowing a boy over 6 feet tall — identifying as a girl — to play on its girls’ team. After prayerful consideration and conversations with the school’s leadership and parents, Mid Vermont opted to forfeit that game.

“You hear all the time that the only way things will change is if girls choose not to play: ‘If there’s a male athlete playing, we’re just not going to play,’” says Chris. “But most people end up playing the game anyway and saying, ‘We can think about it after.’ I think we’re the only school that’s done this.

“The school believes, I believe, and the parents believe that God created men one way and women another way,” he says. “The Y chromosome means something. As an extension of those differences that God created, men as a whole are bigger, faster, stronger.

“It’s just discouraging to have your girls play against a male who has such a significant physical advantage,” Chris says. Still, as last year’s tournament approached, MVCS didn’t ask the other team to bow out; it simply withdrew its own girls from competition.

“Almost immediately,” Chris says, “the Vermont Principals’ Association announced that they’d kicked us out of the league. Not just our women’s basketball team — but the entire school wasn’t allowed to play sports in the state of Vermont anymore.” Nor, remarkably, to participate in any academic coed competitions: the Geo-Bee, the Science and Math Fair, the Debate and Forensics League.

What’s more, Mid Vermont is now banned from participating in a long-standing exchange program that allows students from all schools taking part in the VPA to join sports at other schools, if their own campus doesn’t offer that opportunity. In other words, a young person who wants to play baseball but is enrolled at a school that doesn’t offer a baseball program can sign on to run the diamond at some nearby school that does.

Not only has the VPA put a stop to Mid Vermont students doing that — it has forbidden students from all the other schools in Vermont to take advantage of any programs unique to MVCS. In years past, students from nearby public schools have joined the girls’ volleyball team at MVCS since their own schools did not run a volleyball program. This is no longer an option for those student-athletes from neighboring schools who wish to play volleyball. So, in unjustly punishing Mid Vermont, the VPA is also penalizing young people far removed from MVCS’s decision.

Dawna Slarve and her family have experienced the effects of that boycott firsthand. The two youngest of her four children attend Mid Vermont. Her 10th grade son plays basketball, while her eighth grade daughter plays volleyball. Their two teams are taking what competition they can find. Since teams aren’t allowed to play in the VPA league, MVCS — trying to provide continuing opportunities for its students — has joined the New England Association of Christian Schools (NEACS), a multi-state league.

It’s something, but the opportunity has its drawbacks. The closest school in the NEACS is over an hour away. That’s a lot of travel time, infringing on study hours and needed rest.

“It was a long season for my son,” Dawna says. “A lot of missed homework nights, nights that went later than the typical sports season. He was pretty much dragging by the end. Instead of being excited that there was one more game, he was like, ‘I don’t know if I have it in me to travel three hours.’”

Her daughter wants to play softball, but Mid Vermont doesn’t field a team. “We’ve been looking at where she could join in the local towns,” Dawna says, “but they’re all turning us down because of the situation with the VPA. We just kept getting the door shut in our face.

“It’s something that’s being discussed all the time in our household,” Dawna says. Her children “are aware of everything that’s happening. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but this is where we’re at, and we want to stand firm on our beliefs. It’s disappointing to my daughter, but as much as she’s frustrated, she understands that it’s not something that we caused … and not something that we can bend on.”

And for the Slarves, it’s getting harder. Even apart from what’s happening with their children’s sports, Dawna and her husband, Nate, are having to weigh the growing possibility that, next year, the children may not be able to attend Mid Vermont at all.

Like a lot of parents, the Slarves came to Mid Vermont for a variety of reasons. The family had moved to the area because it offered their two older sons the option of attending one of two nearby public high schools (or a private, state-approved school). The boys each chose to attend a different public high school, and each was pleased with his choice. But, as their two younger children approached high-school age, the family became aware of a third option: Mid Vermont.

That awareness coincided with several experiences that undermined the Slarves’ enthusiasm for public school education. With the arrival of COVID-19, for instance, their decision not to vaccinate their children put them at odds with a local government official increasingly insistent that all local students receive the shot. Their son, in particular, found himself ostracized by peers and staff for not having taken the vaccine.

About the same time, Dawna says, their daughter came home from school “with information about how she could change her gender, how boys can wear dresses.” Upset, Dawna called the school’s principal, who said the material would be required in the girl’s class going forward. The Slarves were welcome to see about opting her out, but it was clear “this was the direction the school was taking.” Not long after that conversation, Dawna was baptized, and her daughter went to school excited to share that happy news with her classmates. School officials were less thrilled with the tidings, telling the girl, “You can’t talk about religion in school.”

“This was very conflicting for me,” Dawna says. “My daughter can’t share the joy of her mom being baptized, but the teachers can share with her how boys can wear dresses.” Enough, the Slarves decided, was enough.

“We were like, ‘Yep, we’re done,”’ Dawna says. “We want to go someplace that’s going to teach our children about God and allow us to have the peace of mind that we have some medical freedom and some say in our children’s education. And avoid any of the lessons that they’re giving in the public school on puberty blockers and gender identity stuff.” A month into the new school year, the Slarves moved their children to Mid Vermont, “and we’ve been here ever since.”

The benefits of a private, Christian education soon became apparent.

“Being in a science class that’s not pushing evolution is great. Having a Bible class elective has been really wonderful … it’s helped us on our spiritual path. We really feel like we’re heard, and part of the family and community here — compared to being just another number in the public school. Our kids have enjoyed being in smaller classes: a better teacher-to-student ratio, and connecting with other kids.

“It feels like a community,” Dawna says. “A second home, a second family. There’s a lot of fellowship that happens that I don’t necessarily feel we had in the public school — families reaching out and helping each other, helping carpool, helping get to sports and back. Very friendly, supportive. Overall, it’s been a very positive experience.

“I’ve had four kids, and my first two went completely through public school,” Dawna says. “If I had to do it over, I would have them here.”

Unfortunately, due to the machinations of state officials, even keeping the two she has at Mid Vermont may soon be impossible.

The reason why has nothing — and everything — to do with Mid Vermont’s decision not to play against the girls’ team that put a boy on the court.

Nothing, in the sense that what’s tripping up the Slarves’ plans to give their children a solid Christian education isn’t athletics; everything, in that it involves that same MVCS commitment to its religious views and policies.

Until recently, Mid Vermont had been participating in a Vermont public benefits program that gives families who do not have a public high school in their district the freedom to choose for themselves which school their children will attend. Through what’s called “town tuitioning,” students in communities like Dawna’s can attend any school given “approved” status by the state.

And for a little while, Mid Vermont was on that approved list. Recently though, the state changed how private schools could maintain their approved status. Now, to participate in public programs like town tuitioning, schools are required to comply with new “antidiscrimination” rules — rules that force Mid Vermont to base its policies on restroom use, pronouns, student dress, and athletic teams on so-called gender identities, not on its religious beliefs about sex.

The new rules also require the school to hire individuals who do not share and live out its faith and convictions. And, although the school requires one parent of each student to be a born-again Christian, the new rules prevent that, too.

“The state of Vermont has essentially adopted its own orthodoxy around the idol of self-identity,” says Jake Reed, legal counsel with the ADF Center for Christian Ministries, which is representing Mid Vermont in a lawsuit challenging the state’s persecution of the school. “The state believes individuals get to decide what their sex is. And that is diametrically opposite of what Mid Vermont Christian School believes and teaches — that God uniquely and immutably created men and women. That truth is why families like the Slarves and Goodwins choose Mid Vermont.”

Mid Vermont is not the only school facing this sort of religious discrimination, Reed says.

“We’ve had three prior cases in the state where Vermont was excluding Christian schools from participating in public programs. The state doesn’t like what they teach, what they believe, how they operate according to their faith — so they’re essentially trying to ostracize them from every aspect of high school education.”

Remarkably, the state of Vermont has already lost a series of decisions in recent years involving these same issues, including one at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that “literally changed a couple of decades of discrimination against religious schools in the state,” says Ryan Tucker, ADF senior counsel and director of the Center for Christian Ministries.

That win, combined with another recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, opened the way for religious schools all across the U.S. to receive state funds without forfeiting their Christian principles. Nevertheless, Tucker says, Vermont officials persist in trying to get around the law.

“We’re seeing a continuous, growing hostility toward people of faith in this state,” he says. “They fail to recognize that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land.”

“The state is trying to extinguish these schools and families from the public square,” Reed says, “simply because they disagree over a controversial issue — one where state officials are completely ignoring biological reality as well as the religious liberty and free speech rights of the school and its students and parents.”

It’s a danger not just to Mid Vermont, Reed says, but to other Christian schools all over the country.

“If private Christian schools can’t participate equally in public programs and are treated as second class,” he says, “their doors will eventually shut. As the number of students goes down, tuition rates will have to go up — just to continue operating. Families will have to start taking their children elsewhere. And eventually, private Christian schools will cease to exist.

“The Supreme Court has answered the question, but state governments aren’t learning,” he says. “Schools like Mid Vermont have to keep making a stand for their faith because if they don’t, they’ll be pummeled into non-existence.”

Dawna Slarve doesn’t know if her children will be able to return to Mid Vermont next year or not.

“We’re supposed to be re-enrolling,” she says, “but I haven’t filled out my papers. We’ve looked and looked at our budget, and there’s just no way. Not knowing whether the tuition program is going to go through has us kind of in limbo. We’re looking at other options, trying to figure out the what-ifs.” She knows of at least two or three other MVCS families in the same boat.

Her children, she says, “do worry about what it’s going to cost. And, depending on the day, they’ll speak out loud about ‘What can we do so we can stay at Mid Vermont if this court case doesn’t go through for us?’ Other days, they’re ready to throw in the towel: ‘We’re struggling with sports, we’re struggling with tuition — this is a lot of work.’

“But, at the end of the day, we are all in agreement that we are very, very blessed to have this. To get up and leave home every morning and come to this place and feel like we’re safe and secure … is just a great feeling. To be with like-minded people, who are proud to say that they’re Christian, is really important to us.”

Coach Goodwin says that, even with the challenges of playing outside the state’s leagues, his athletes share that appraisal.

“It’s more difficult to get around to the games,” he says. “The teams we play may not be as competitive. The gyms we play in — sometimes they double as the lunchroom. But we put it together because we believe in the mission of the school. And we believe that the decision we made is the right one.”

“This is a battle,” Reed says, “for the hearts and minds of our next generation. Families like the Goodwins and the Slarves can only take so much. At some point, you have to make a stand.”

“There are sacrifices that everybody makes in life, for different reasons,” Dawna says. “For our family, the things we feel we’re sacrificing by being here … we’ve made those things a priority. We’re proud of those sacrifices because we know we’re standing on our two feet and firmly on our faith — and on what we believe is right.”