Education Secretary Zoie Saunders Can’t Escape the Spotlight | Seven Days (2025)

Before Zoie Saunders agreed to become Vermont's secretary of education last year, she scanned the internet to learn how often previous education secretaries had been in the news. The role didn't seem particularly high-profile.

That came as a relief — she had always preferred to work behind the scenes. Being in the public eye is "not what I thrive on," she said in an interview earlier this month.

So when Gov. Phil Scott introduced Saunders, a Florida native, at a press conference last March, she was caught off guard by the constant, often negative, media attention she received. Newspapers and TV stations zeroed in on her seven-year stint at a for-profit charter school management company. They highlighted the fact that she hadn't served as a teacher, principal or superintendent — experience that most top education officials have.

"I was in the news every day," Saunders remembered. "That was uncomfortable for me." Some wondered if the intense scrutiny and public criticism would change her mind about taking the job. It did not.

Nor did the Vermont Senate, which refused, 19-9, to confirm Saunders in April 2024. Gov. Scott didn't accept the Senate decision and, minutes after the vote, appointed her as interim secretary, a controversial move that generated more headlines. Two senators challenged the constitutionality of the interim appointment in court, drawing more news coverage, though their suit ultimately failed.

Meanwhile, Saunders took the reins of an Agency of Education plagued by deep-seated problems, including low staff morale, numerous vacancies, an inadequate data collection system, and distrust on the part of teachers and administrators in the field. She assumed the role weeks after local voters, angered by projected spikes in education-related property taxes, rejected dozens of school budgets.

There was more to come. In January, Scott unveiled an education reform proposal that would fundamentally change the way Vermont schools are governed and paid for. He tapped Saunders to sell the plan to lawmakers.

By February, Saunders faced growing opposition to parts of the reform blueprint, both in the Statehouse and among educators who would be most directly affected by the changes. These detractors insist that Scott and Saunders' plan will provide inadequate funding, take away local control and force small schools to close. They're further troubled that it doesn't seem to have been crafted with the input of educators.

Now, a year into the job, Saunders faces conflicting tasks: strengthening the Agency of Education and its support of teachers and administrators, while promoting a reform agenda that is deeply concerning to many of those working in schools.

On top of it all, her agency is trying to decipher — and react to — incessant, confusing messages coming from President Donald Trump's U.S. Department of Education. Any changes could mean reduced federal education funding and threats to Vermont's inclusive policies around issues such as transgender students' participation in sports.

In the face of this daunting list of responsibilities, Saunders has dug in. She describes herself as a hard worker who doesn't shy away from a challenge, especially when she believes there's a greater good at stake. She says Vermont has "a unique opportunity to strengthen our public education system" and she's the right person to tackle the job.

The governor agrees. Saunders is extremely bright, competent and collaborative, Scott said, but what's stood out most is her resolve.

"She's persevered under difficult, difficult circumstances," the governor said in an interview with Seven Days last week. "I kept thinking throughout the year that any week now she's going to come in and say, 'I've had enough.'"

Instead, Saunders "kept her head up high" and showed up each day prepared and with a great attitude, Scott said. "I give her a great deal of credit."

But no matter how much hard work Saunders is willing to put in, she's in a difficult position. And her comfort zone out of the limelight? That seems very far away.

Parsing the Personal

In early March, Saunders sat at the head of a long table in the Senate Education Committee room ahead of her second confirmation hearing in less than a year.

Neatly dressed in a teal-blue suit and sensible heels, she took sips from a water bottle — "so I don't lose my voice," she explained to the senators in the room. "It's now happened to me a number of times."

Sen. Steven Heffernan (R-Bristol), a first-year lawmaker who served in the military and owns an excavating company, scanned a printed copy of Saunders' résumé.

"Harvard, hmm?" he said with a smile, eyeing Saunders.

That's where she'd gone as an undergraduate, she responded. Her 20-year reunion was coming up.

By all accounts, Saunders, 42, has a distinguished educational background. She grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where her mother worked as an insurance agent and her father practiced law, then started a real-estate software company. He died of cancer when Saunders was still in high school. Saunders said that meant she relied on substantial financial aid to attend a top-tier Massachusetts boarding school, Dana Hall, and then Harvard University.

After graduating, she worked for a nonprofit that supported children with developmental delays and chronic health issues before getting a master's degree in education at Vanderbilt University.

"I was really drawn to education because I saw it as a democratizing tool of our society," she said.

Fresh out of grad school, Saunders found employment at Charter Schools USA, a company that now runs more than 100 schools in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and North Carolina. She worked her way up to vice president for strategy, where she was responsible for efforts to improve academic performance, increase enrollment and manage grants.

Though charter schools are publicly funded and tuition-free, they lack public governance. Unlike traditional public schools, where school board members are elected by the community, charter school board members are appointed and govern behind closed doors.

Charter Schools USA, a for-profit company, has been the target of criticism, in part because its founder and CEO owns a variety of other businesses with contracts to provide services to its own network of schools.

Vermont doesn't have any charter schools, but Saunders' work for such a company rang alarm bells for some who wondered if her goal was to import them. Critics thought she might try to expand Vermont's tuitioning system, which allows students in towns that don't operate a public school to use public dollars to attend private schools (known here as "independent" schools).

"I don't think people really understood what a charter school was," Saunders told Seven Days. "I don't have a background in private schools. I don't have a background in overseeing voucher programs."

Saunders' next stop was her hometown, where she took a job in 2019 as Fort Lauderdale's first chief education officer. She helped to create an avionics training program in partnership with a local technical college and secured funding to make much-needed upgrades to a high school that had fallen into disrepair. Saunders also led a project to fix up school playgrounds and add lights and benches to make them more accessible to families during the evenings and weekends.

Saunders "is willing to take on the hardest jobs, but she's very good at always remembering the 'why' of something," said Erin Gohl, who worked closely with Saunders as a member of an advisory board that advocated for the city's public schools. "It always goes back to wanting to make things better for kids, teachers and families."

While in Florida, Saunders reunited with a childhood friend, Emily Betz Owen. Their kids became fast friends, too. One year, Saunders hosted an informal summer camp at her house for their kids and other friends. They wrote a book, then sold copies and donated the proceeds to their local elementary schools, Betz Owen recalled.

Saunders found several high school students to help the younger children with their writing — just one example of how she is good at bringing people together, Betz Owen said.

"Zoie is just naturally a leader," Betz Owen said. "She would constantly emerge as that in our friend group, too — not as someone who was in any way bossy, but as someone who genuinely had good ideas and could get people excited about things."

In interviews, Saunders has been reluctant to discuss her family. Her husband, Mark, is a pediatrician and assistant professor at the University of Vermont's Larner College of Medicine, and she said her two sons attend public school. But she declined to answer further questions about them or even say where she lives, save from sharing the rules her family lives by: "Be kind, work hard and stay humble."

Her guardedness stems, in part, from the backlash to her appointment last year. The governor named her education secretary just weeks after one-third of school budgets failed on Town Meeting Day. People were angry.

During those early days, "I just kept reminding myself that Vermont is in a state of crisis, and I'm a new leader to the state," she said.

Still, Saunders acknowledged being surprised by the intense opposition to her nomination, mainly from Democrats and Progressives. She described herself as "a lifelong Democrat with no professional or political connections in Vermont" who was appointed by a Republican governor.

"In a lot of ways, I'm probably the most apolitical secretary," she said.

Saunders' said her biggest regret was allowing her young sons to be photographed during the March press conference at which Scott announced her nomination. The photo, which was posted on the governor's social media, was used to accompany articles in various news outlets, including Seven Days, that scrutinized her qualifications.

"It was their cute little faces below headlines that were, like, 'Flatlander Go Home' or 'Reverse Carpetbagger Comes to Destroy Vermont Schools,'" Saunders said. "I just need to keep them separate and allow them to have a normal life ... I'm really strict on protecting that."

Getting to Work

When Saunders started as secretary last April, she inherited an agency that was floundering.

From 2003 to 2023, the education agency lost about 50 staff positions. It consistently struggled to fill vacancies. A state-administered survey found that just 42 percent of employees reported good morale. A separate survey of recently departed employees elicited comments about feeling "disempowered and disrespected" and wanting to "work in a place where people aren't crying all the time."

School administrators were also unhappy. In a 2023 survey of about 100 members of the Vermont Superintendents, Principals' and School Boards associations, respondents wrote that the agency was out of touch with what was going on in schools, wasn't equipped to provide accurate data or guidance, and lacked vision.

"Based on my past experience as a superintendent and curriculum director," one person wrote, "the agency has done so little to support the work of my districts that it never serves as a place I look to for support."

Saunders has acknowledged that the agency was struggling. She says she's tried to create an "empowerment culture" that encourages staff members to speak up if their supervisors propose something that doesn't make sense or could have unintended consequences. She's also instituted monthly all-staff meetings to make sure that everyone has a clear understanding of the agency's goals and to break down silos between different divisions.

It's not clear whether current employees think things have improved. Seven Days asked to interview agency staff about changes under Saunders' leadership, but a spokesperson declined the request.

Several staff members who spoke to Seven Days on background over the past six months said there has been an increase in workplace collegiality and coordination between divisions since Saunders took the helm. They described her as "unflappable" and "diplomatic" in her day-to-day management style.

Understaffing is still an issue, though. An organizational chart provided to a legislator this month shows numerous staff vacancies, including chief financial officer, director of special education finance and Medicaid, and division director for Student Pathways, a position that oversees various instructional initiatives.

The agency is recruiting to fill many of those roles and adding the new position of chief academic officer, who will lead efforts to improve curriculum standards, instructional practices and student achievement. But, in the interim, it's also struggling to fulfill some of its duties.

In a statement to Seven Days, the Vermont Superintendents Association said the agency has not provided professional learning support to educators who must implement Act 173, a law meant to ensure that struggling students receive instruction from highly skilled teachers. Nor has it shared model school-safety procedures, as required by law. The agency has also failed to provide timely data, evaluate instruction and support schools that have staffing issues, the group's statement said.

The agency has publicly released more reports under Saunders' leadership than in years past, including a "State Education Profile" — an analysis of student demographics, outcomes, staffing and expenditures. After the profile was released in August, some school administrators pointed out mistakes in enrollment numbers and spending figures.

The errors were due to long-standing data collection issues, Saunders said. She has committed to fixing them and brought school district business managers together to try to find the root of the problem.

A corrected report, with expanded data analysis, was released in November. Saunders called it a clear example of the agency's "commitment to doing this work right."

Helping Hand

Kevin Dirth had retired from his job as a superintendent when the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union came calling last spring. The district was in crisis: The superintendent and business manager had abruptly resigned, along with other key members of the central office staff.

When it came to the district's finances, "it had all fallen apart," Dirth recalled. The school board wanted him to lead them through the turmoil.

Days after he took the reins, Dirth recounted, he got a call from Saunders, who had also just started her job. She told him that the Agency of Education stood ready to help.

A large contingent, including Saunders herself, came to Wilmington and spent hours talking to school district staff about their problems. The agency helped for months, Dirth said, in a collaborative rather than punitive way. Saunders gave Dirth her cellphone number and told him to call whenever he needed something.

Dirth appreciated Saunders' accessibility and willingness to help and also the way she managed her staff.

"I could tell they respected her," Dirth said.

North Country Union High School principal Chris Young was similarly impressed last summer as he dealt with high levels of airborne PCB contamination that threatened to close classrooms. Saunders and her staff did "a lot of behind-the-scenes work with other state agencies to make sure we were able to stay open," Young said. "I feel like she had our back."

Saunders said she prides herself on this type of work — being there for the people her agency serves. She's also particularly proud of Read Vermont, an initiative launched last August to improve students' reading skills amid deep concern over flagging test scores.

Literacy "is the most critical thing we can support in our state," she said.

The agency contracted with the Stern Center for Language and Learning in Williston to provide online monthly workshops for educators about topics including best practices for teaching reading. About 150 teachers have attended each session, according to Stern Center president Laurie Quinn. The center also provides intensive coaching for K-3 educators on how to teach reading; 14 schools are participating this spring.

Saunders' most public events took place during her Listen and Learn tour, in which she traveled around the state last year to introduce herself to Vermonters and hear from educators, parents, students and community members.

On a December evening in Hinesburg, Saunders greeted several dozen community members in the library of Champlain Valley Union High School. She launched into an explanation of what the Agency of the Education does, then presented a slideshow with data about Vermont's schools.

Participants broke into groups to talk about what they saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the state's educational system. Saunders listened, taking notes and making observations about the themes that emerged.

As people milled around after the session, Saunders approached a mom who had teared up while speaking about how much local schools meant to her family.

"Thank you for sharing," Saunders told her. As a mom of two, she said, she could relate.

When Saunders first applied for the Vermont job, she told Seven Days, it was clear that big changes were needed to improve the state's education system. But she wasn't sure how ready Vermonters were to take that on. The Listen and Learn tour confirmed to her that many in the state believe that schools need an overhaul — and that the Agency of Education should lead the charge.

At the end of the tour, the agency released a lengthy report that outlined themes that had emerged. They included broad observations, such as: "It is important for the state to strike the right balance between unity and freedom," and "Schools are increasingly serving as a hub for community and social services which goes well beyond their traditional role to educate students." It also contained more detailed information about the challenges and assets of each region in the state.

Not everyone was impressed. Don Tinney, president of the Vermont-NEA teachers' union, said the tour felt like an orchestrated event, not an authentic way to engage with Vermonters.

"I would say that [Saunders] listened for the ideas she wanted to hear," Tinney said.

He said he is concerned that Saunders isn't connecting with educators. He noted, for instance, that he's met just once with her since she became secretary — a break from the "Vermont tradition" in which the agency's head would regularly meet with leaders from his organization, which represents some 13,000 teachers.

Tinney said he is also troubled that Saunders is outsourcing some of the work he thinks should be done by the agency. State contracts reviewed by Seven Days found that the state is paying Denver-based APA Consulting more than $400,000 to aid in policy development and to support Saunders' Listen and Learn tour, including planning and facilitating meetings and producing the final report.

"We don't need to ... hire private companies to advise Vermont educators how to run public schools," Tinney said.

Indecent Proposal?

On January 22, just weeks into the legislative session, Saunders stood before lawmakers gathered in the House chamber and briefed them for 50 minutes on a sweeping plan to transform the funding and governance of K-12 schools. The CEO and vice president of APA, the consulting firm that helped draft the plan, looked on from the balcony.

The proposal would consolidate Vermont's 52 supervisory unions and 119 school districts into five regional districts with 10,000 to 34,000 students.

Vermont would also move to a funding model known as a foundation formula. The state would determine how much money was needed to adequately educate each student and send a lump sum to schools each year. School district residents would no longer vote on school budgets.

In the name of greater efficiency, rulemaking on issues such as education quality standards and independent school requirements would be shifted from the State Board of Education to the Agency of Education. The state would also establish more consistent regulations for class sizes, graduation requirements and grading.

The funding and governance changes would be in place by fall 2027.

"We just can't make tweaks to fix the problems," Saunders told the legislators that afternoon. "We have to redesign the system."

Saunders characterized the plan as a bold proposal that would address Vermont's long-standing education issues: declining enrollment, rising property taxes, hiring challenges and inequity among school districts. She noted that the policy's details had been shaped by what she'd heard on the Listen and Learn tour, though it was billed as "Governor Scott's Transformative Education Plan."

Communities want more direction from the state about curriculum and graduation requirements, she said. Students who attend small, rural schools voiced concern that they don't have access to the same extracurricular activities and specialized classes as those in bigger schools. Saunders said she also heard consistently about the need for a more transparent and predictable way to fund K-12 education.

But for many who work in schools, the plan missed the mark. Not only did it fail to address rising health insurance costs and school construction needs, it proposed changes that many believe would be disruptive to students and teachers.

The plan has been touted as a way to expand educational opportunities for students, but many educators say it doesn't explain how. And though the plan limits public dollars from going to private schools outside the state, it introduces the new concept of "school choice schools" — private or specialized public schools to which any student in the state could gain admission through a lottery system. Critics believe this change would increase the number of public dollars going to private schools, or might give an unfair advantage to students whose families are savvy enough to navigate the lottery process. They're also worried that "school choice schools" wouldn't have to meet the same requirements as typical public schools.

Winooski High School teacher Caitlin MacLeod-Bluver, the 2025 Vermont Teacher of Year, said she was surprised by the scope of the plan. The proposed changes, she said, go "far beyond what's needed" and would hurt both the multilingual learners she teaches in Winooski and the rural kids in Moretown, where she lives.

The required class size averages in the plan — 15 students in grades K to 3 and 25 students in grades 4 to 12 — would have detrimental effects on small schools and hinder teachers' ability to provide a quality education to all students, she said. She also believes the funding to cover the cost of teaching students learning English wouldn't be adequate to meet their complex needs.

Some school districts that have started crunching the numbers report that the per-pupil dollar amount proposed in the foundation formula would result in large cuts that could cripple their ability to operate.

John Castle, executive director of the Vermont Rural Education Collaborative, a nonprofit that advocates for rural schools, was skeptical that Saunders' Listen and Learn tour helped inform the plan. "There's no way the public said, 'This is what we want you to do,'" said Castle, a former superintendent.

If Saunders had really wanted educators' input on the plan, Castle said, she would have talked with them before releasing it. Instead, he said, "I don't think anyone in the field saw this coming."

Lisa Ruud, the new superintendent of Grand Isle Supervisory Union, certainly didn't. She said she and other administrators had been blindsided. She's disturbed by both the big changes the plan calls for and the fact that educators weren't included in its creation.

Ruud said she's lost trust in the Agency of Education. She worries that when agency employees ask her to supply data, such as class size numbers, the information will be weaponized against her schools. She used to have monthly check-ins with the agency's finance department, she said, but has stopped because it no longer feels like a partnership.

Young, the North Country principal, said people in his community have generally panned the transformation plan — especially the idea of five big regional school districts. And he's having a hard time, he said, "reconciling the Zoie I know from the PCB crisis and the Zoie I'm seeing lead this massive effort on behalf of the governor."

The use of educational jargon can be confusing and alienating, and Saunders, when speaking publicly, often uses hard-to-parse phrases such as "intentional ecosystem" and "cross-functional teams."

When Saunders talks about the proposal, "she kind of goes into a political-AI-bot mode," Young said. "It's just a lot of policy speak, which is not necessarily bad or wrong. It just doesn't land as well with the folks that she is trying to lead."

Wait and See

Developing a reform plan is its own challenge, but defending and selling it can be an even harder task. That's especially true for someone who is new to the state and has no long-standing local connections and zero political capital to burn.

In recent weeks, Saunders has seen that firsthand.

Though legislators have indicated openness to using a foundation formula and creating a smaller number of school districts, they've dismissed many other aspects of the plan as too much, too fast. Both chambers are working on their own policy proposals that would likely take much longer to implement.

Last week, superintendents spent time in the Statehouse sharing their ideas for revamping school governance. They proposed class size minimums — smaller than the ones in the governor's plan — that would go into effect in fall 2026 and new school districts, to be determined by a working group of public education experts and researchers, starting in fall 2029.

More than 80 rural school boards and selectboards have joined a new coalition, the Rural School Community Alliance, to advocate for preserving and strengthening public schools and to oppose consolidation and closures. A subset of educators, meanwhile, formed a group called Vermont School Workers United to oppose the transformation plan. A town hall forum in Barre last week drew more than 100 people, and similar gatherings are planned for coming weeks.

Saunders said she believes some of the opposition is based on misconceptions about the plan, especially regarding school choice.

The governor's proposal is not intended to expand private school options, she said. "This plan is about ... How do we make sure that we're managing choice in ways that are going to be equitable?"

"I think there's a lot of fear," she said. "And when there's fear or concerns or questions, it's hard to sometimes control that narrative."

Some wonder why the governor has not taken a more active role in pushing the proposal. Though he has released several statements of support, he has not spoken publicly in any depth about why he believes it is the right path since he first described the overhaul during his budget address in January.

Such a transformation of the education system "requires some pretty significant convincing of Vermonters," said Rep. Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), chair of the House Education Committee. He believes that Scott — "the most popular governor in the country" — should be the one doing that, rather than giving that role to "a brand-new secretary who is not from Vermont."

Both Scott and Saunders told Seven Days that the proposal isn't set in stone and they are open to alternative ideas that improve quality and make the education system more equitable and affordable.

Saunders said she's committed to discussing ways to refine the plan with educators, though she acknowledged the challenge of "opening that dialogue in a highly politicized and highly polarized environment."

Slowing down the process might actually be a boon for Saunders. It could give her a chance to step back from the politics and devote more time to responding to the needs of those in schools.

Perhaps she could even win over skeptics — as she's already done with some legislators. Last month, seven senators changed their no votes to yes to confirm her as secretary in a 22-8 vote, 11 months after the Senate tanked her first confirmation.

One of those who flipped, Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Baruth (D/P-Chittenden-Central), told colleagues that the state would be better off with a permanent education leader who could shepherd through an overhaul of Vermont's education system — regardless of the final details.

"I'm a big believer," Saunders said recently, "that trust is earned over time."