SC Connecticut News

Growing up in rural Vermont, Grace Miller developed a profound love for the natural world. This passion was further nurtured at Yale, where she discovered another calling - education. As a sophomore at Yale College, Miller began working as a student tutor in the Department of Economics. Helping her peers understand the complexities of macroeconomics made her realize her enthusiasm for teaching.

Miller's initial interest in education was sparked during her teenage years while working at Sisken Coutts, an outdoor education center near her hometown of Newport in rural Vermont. "I was the strange lady who showed up to your school with snakes," Miller reminisced.

During her junior year, Miller interned three days a week at Common Ground High School, a public charter located within West Rock State Park in New Haven. Here, she served as an aide in an outdoor leadership class and freshman algebra, chaperoned overnight camping trips, and ran "Wonder in the Woods," an afterschool program designed to foster appreciation for nature and the outdoors.

"Every Tuesday we’d get outside and go on hikes, play hide and seek in the woods, cook over fires, search for salamanders, make tea with herbs from the school’s garden," she said. "It was a lot of fun."

On her last day at the high school, her students expressed their gratitude by baking her a cake. Reflecting on this experience, Miller said: “I’ve really enjoyed watching the students grow over these past two years. I’ve seen them embrace hiking, eat food cooked over a campfire for the first time, and learn some algebra. It’s been very rewarding.”

Miller majored in economics and completed the Education Studies Scholars Intensive Certificate. For her senior thesis, she analyzed the effects of public school district mergers in Vermont using data from 2009 to 2024 provided by a recently retired state administrator.

Her analysis revealed that these mergers, initiated as a cost-saving measure, did not result in widespread school closures or significant effects on per pupil spending or tax rates. However, she found that transportation costs increased and some funds were redirected from administrative costs to education-related expenditures, including teachers’ salaries.

Through interviews and surveys with principals and superintendents from merged districts across the state, Miller discovered that many administrators questioned whether the state’s merger process was grounded in an educational ethos or strategic plan. Some reported difficulties working efficiently with expanded school boards.

“It’s clear the state is not really defining what it means by equitable student outcomes,” Miller said. “And without that definition, then no one is on the same page concerning policy or budgetary decisions.”

Miller's fervor for education is paralleled by her love for the outdoors. Last summer, she worked on an all-women chainsaw crew in Colorado, spending 74 consecutive nights in a tent while performing wildfire mitigation, removing invasive species, and doing other conservation work.

Next year, she will serve as a teacher in Chattanooga, Tennessee’s public school system through Teach for America. "I think education is one of the most pivotal issues right now," she said. "It’s really easy to think that you know a lot about education because everyone goes to school, right? But the issue is much more complex than meets the eye."