Second-Year Rep. Brady Navigates State House, Schools Amid Pandemic
Representative Erin Brady
It hasn’t been an easy transition to the state legislature for Representative Erin Brady.
A lawmaker in her second year in the Vermont House of Representatives, Rep. Brady says that the process of getting familiar with the legislative system and with her constituents in Williston have only been made more difficult by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’m really trying to learn the process,” said Brady.
“It’s only my second year, and this is the first time that we have been quasi-in the building,” Brady said. “I just need to figure out so much institutional knowledge, I’m trying to build relationships, figure out who’s who, so for me my biggest priority this session is to learn how to be effective over time.”
Brady, a Democrat, was born in California but grew up in Minnesota. Originally working for then-Minnesota senator Mark Dayton, she would later enter the field of education, where she would win Vermont’s history teacher of the year award from the Gilder Lehman Foundation in 2019.
Sitting on the House Committee on Education this year, she says that both Vermont’s K-12 schools and post-secondary education are areas she hopes to focus on and improve over the long term.
“I taught high school for many years,” Brady said. “I’ve worked with far too many wonderful, smart, talented high school students who just sort of evaporated after graduation…I think for a lot of kids who don’t go to high school college bound and with a family supporting them as college bound, they really struggle and we struggle as a state to capitalize on their true potential”.
This is an issue that takes more than money, Brady said.
“I used to think for many years of teaching that it was, you know, we need more financial aid and counselors to help kids fill out applications,” Brady said. “I’m starting to see what some research has pointed to, which has been that a lot of post-secondary decision making and challenges often come down to what sort of identity [a student has], what their experience has been, what they see possible for themselves as an adult.
On the primary and secondary level, Rep. Brady predicts that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will stay at the top of Vermont education’s issues for some time.
“I worry that the level of challenges in our K-12 schools is being undersold,” said Brady. “I was teaching full-time up until a couple weeks ago…it is no doubt the hardest time in schools on so many levels. Teachers are demoralized and some are really scared about their health.”
There is a community level of anxiety and stress that exists about so many things right now, Brady said. There may not be a legislative solution to this rampant stress, she said.
“I like to be an innovator. I like to think big for schools,” said Brady. “I’m trying to temper myself because I think we need to just kind of keep in survival mode. Probably for a while longer.”
