Thanks for your insight. I really have not spent any time in southern VT in all the years I have lived here. Definitely not surprised anyone would bring up the NEK...

As for SB, I was part of a group that was put together by concerned parents/teachers called SB Educational Equity Collective (they're still around and kickin'- attending school board meetings and doing what they can) to try to figure out what could be done about the environment at the school because we all were so disappointed in how the school 'handled' various situations. So, no, they may look like they care to outsiders, but they don't really seem into putting action behind words. And it's not only racism; my daughter was being harassed by some boys in middle school and the principal told me that if it continued, he would place my daughter in a new class. Not the boys, of course. It's a toxic school district and I thought we'd be in the clear since, as you said, it's so liberal and diverse.

On another note, I also lived in the south- Louisiana- for a couple of years when my daughter was in elementary school. She never once came home from school and told me about any racism she experienced in her day. Not that you could pay me to move to the south again, but if I could do it all over, I would not have put her in this school.