Ronan Khalsa

Amid the COVID-19 chaos, more parents turn to homeschooling

Oak Meadow, a Brattleboro-based distance-learning nonprofit, reports a sharp increase in demand for its educational program and home-school resources

Amidst a pandemic in which social distancing is key, attending in-person school might not be the top choice for families, especially considering the Brattleboro Little League playoffs were canceled because a family contracted the coronavirus.

Children learn and discover with their hands, and likely don't wash them enough. Plus, it's hard to stay focused on a screen for hours on end.

Many families have been looking into homeschooling since mid-March, according to Wendy Richardson, the director of admissions at Oak Meadow, a Brattleboro-based yet global homeschooling curriculum and one-on-one teaching school. Parents who had often considered it in the past jumped on board quickly, she said.

“People realized that the homeschool companies have a model that works with people at home with individual instruction,” Richardson said. “[Families learned what] schools couldn't offer and saw some students did really well at home without the group setting.”...

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Keeping busy from home

‘I have waves of sadness, anger, annoyance, boredom, a feeling of going through the motions, a lack of motivation, and jealousy. But I’m also thankful to be alive. My parents both know people who have succumbed to the virus.’

At age 22 I did not intend to be living in my parents' basement in West Dummerston Village directly behind the dying business that is the U.S. Post Office, of all places. I was planning on beginning my career in sports communication. But here I am, lying on my...

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Sports return to Windham County

As Vermont loosens COVID-19 restrictions, most Brattleboro town facilities have opened. Baseball and softball leagues have also pulled together an abbreviated season — with some new pandemic-inspired restrictions and creative adaptations of the rules.

While the COVID-19 pandemic is worsening in the southern and western states, Vermont has one of the lowest infection rates in the nation. Gov. Phil Scott and his administration credit their strategy of reopening the state slowly, coupled with most Vermonters wearing masks when they out in public, for...

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A baseball odyssey deferred

Right-handed pitcher Leif Bigelow will be starting his junior year of college this fall at a new address. The 6-foot-2 Bigelow, the only current Division I college baseball player from Windham County, has spent two years at the University of Connecticut and, with four years of athletic eligibility remaining, he is transferring to the University of Maine in Orono for the 2020-21 school year in the hope of getting his college baseball career off the ground. Bigelow has loved baseball...

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Restaurants eye their options for reopening

In years past, Memorial Day weekend has been a bustling place and marks the start to summer for downtown restaurants, according to Tim Brady, a co-owner of Whetstone Brewery. The restaurant, on the Connecticut River, is following Vermont Gov. Phil Scott's guidance with its reopening strategy. Scott announced on May 22 that restaurants and bars could open in a limited fashion for outdoor dining. Yet multiple area restaurants are not doing so. The Whetstone is limiting dine-in customers to 50,

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