Tim Kilcullen
Tim Kilcullen serves as a staff attorney at the Liberty Justice Center. He has a deep passion for protecting Americans’ fundamental liberties, particularly their right to free speech and a free press.
The Liberty Justice Center filed a lawsuit on February 27, 2026, challenging Vermont’s Act 73, a 2025 law that dramatically restricts the state’s historic town tuitioning system and limits families’ access to publicly funded educational options.
For more than two centuries, Vermont’s town tuitioning program has allowed students in towns without certain grade-level public schools—often rural or geographically isolated communities—to attend approved independent schools using public tuition funds. Act 73 departs sharply from that tradition.
The law amends 16 V.S.A. § 828 by prohibiting tuition vouchers from being used at schools created after July 1, 2025; confining eligibility to schools located within particular supervisory structures; requiring that at least 25% of a school’s enrollment during the 2023–24 school year consist of tuitioning students; and imposing new class-size minimums subject only to narrow discretionary waivers. These criteria arbitrarily exclude many otherwise eligible students and families from the tuitioning program.
The Liberty Justice Center, together with local counsel, represents two Georgia, Vermont parents Kollene Caspers and Michele Orosz, after Act 73 stripped tuitioning eligibility to attend their desired schools from some of their children while leaving those children’s siblings eligible.
The lawsuit, filed in Vermont Superior Court, Civil Division, Washington County seeks declaratory and injunctive relief against the Vermont Secretary of Education in her official capacity and damages against the State of Vermont.
The Liberty Justice Center’s complaint asserts three claims under Vermont’s Common Benefits Clause, which requires the State to distribute public benefits on equal terms and prohibits arbitrary exclusions from government programs. The lawsuit challenges Act 73’s denial of tuitioning benefits to both students and parents and seeks damages where families have been unlawfully deprived of tuition assistance.
“Act 73 puts special interests over the interests of children,” said Jeffrey Schwab, Director of Litigation at the Liberty Justice Center. “This law limits the ability of Vermont families to meet their educational need and rescinds a tradition that goes back two centuries. Doing so violates the Vermont Constitution.”
“Our family moved to our small town in Vermont specifically for school choice, knowing we could choose the high school that would be the best fit for our children’s education,” said Kollene Caspers. “This change was made mere months before high school visitations occur, applications are finalized, and choices are made. It’s not fair.”
Parents should have the opportunity to place their children in an educational program where they will thrive and learn to become active, healthy members of society. By restricting the tuitioning system, Vermont severely limits the educational freedom of their citizens and ultimately harms the children involved.
Casper v. State of Vermont was filed in the Vermont Superior Court, Civil Division, on February 26, 2026.
Tim Kilcullen serves as a staff attorney at the Liberty Justice Center. He has a deep passion for protecting Americans’ fundamental liberties, particularly their right to free speech and a free press.