Catan, Stardew Valley BG, Everdell, and Isn't the Clever are me and my gf's go-tos.

I am a Vermont educator, and this is a very relevant issue.

While I agree that this is a whole-wide country problem in the past couples of years, I can state that as an educator Vermont has fallen prey to their own progressive ideals, mixed with the inability from the state to not be able to do anything when a parent goes "There is nothing wrong with my kid".

It's great to find if there are solutions to a problem when a kid is acting out and misbehaving, but people don't understand that sometimes a kid is just plain rotten (probably because of their parents) and that there needs to be consequences for that. If we don't teach consequences, we're only pushing kids through under the false ideal that something else is always to blame (the teacher, their emotions, another kid, the school, etc) instead of owning up to their faults and finding solutions within themselves to fix.

Case in point with the alteration at the basketball game. Instead of a parent simply going "it's okay, my kid just needs more practice/they're trying their best", they are blaming xyz reasoning on something/someone else. Combine that with the politics going on in our country right now, and you got the perfect storm.

I know people keep saying "this is happening everywhere", but VT has the unique problem of not only having high COL, but we also don't have any type of housing. We can't get people staffed for probably 1/3rd of the job force here because they literally can't survive here between lack and cost of housing.

Waterworks hands down.

Each dish is amazing

As a teacher in Vermont I can tell you the biggest issue teachers have to deal with is parents.

This was also an issue before the pandemic, but it seems to have amplified tenfold when it comes to behavioral issues of students. There are certain students who are simply insane or would not have as many issues if their parents had any discipline or treated their children as kids and not as friends.

You read these articles thinking "why call the police on elementary students?!" until you have children throwing scissors at you, cussing you out, or saying I quote "I want to stab you and see your guts come out" as they're charging you with sharp objects. We're trying, all the SEL, parent communications, etc.

If a parent doesn't think their kid can do anything wrong, or isn't involved, you're basically screwed.

It's not fear, it's data.

Places that have paid family leave have at least 1 million people living in their country. Can you find me a place that has any less 1 million people and paid paternity leave?

While I do want many of these progressive things, they still cost money. A lot of money that we simply don't have in this state with the amount of people + the cost of living.

Get more people to move here, build, and then lets have a convo on those progressive ideas.