Hope for Vermont’s transition-age youth: Lessons from Gone Guys
Jake Kornfeld is interviewed for the new documentary “Gone Guys.” Photo courtesy of Well Told Films.
This commentary is by Carolyn Weir of Weybridge, who serves as the executive director of the J. Warren & Lois McClure Foundation.
The newly released Vermont documentary Gone Guys is filling theaters from St. Johnsbury to Montpelier, and Brattleboro to Manchester. Audiences are staying afterward, drawn into urgent conversations about how to better support boys and young men who are quietly slipping away from school, work, and civic life.
It’s not an easy subject. At a time when threats to women and girls are real and rising, talking about the struggles of young men can feel fraught or misguided. Too often, the gender binary itself forces these kinds of conversations into an “either/or,” when what is required is “both/and.” Gone Guys resists easy answers. It approaches the issue with curiosity and the knowledge that multiple truths can coexist. Produced by Well Told Films and Presented by the Tarrant Foundation and the Vermont Community Foundation, it asks: why are more boys falling behind academically, struggling with loneliness, and facing rising rates of substance use disorder and suicide? How might we widen our lens of gender equity and care to include them without narrowing our focus on the urgent needs of women, girls, and gender-expansive youth?
Drawing on Richard Reeves’ Of Boys and Men, the film pairs national trends with Vermont data and voices. Its message is both sobering and hopeful: gender-specific challenges are not isolated problems. They shape the wellbeing of entire communities. The film leaves us seeking solutions grounded in healthy relationships and belonging at a moment when many are being pulled toward ideologies rooted in exclusion.
At the McClure Foundation, we’ve been tracking Vermont’s education and workforce data for the past fifteen years. For young men, especially those whose parents didn’t attend college, the numbers are falling fast.
In 2023, just 81% of male high school seniors graduated and only 32% went directly to college. Both are the lowest rates in New England.
Engaged young people make a better Vermont. So how do we make Vermont better for them?
From our work, here’s what we know:
- This is not a problem for schools to solve alone. Young people are struggling because of a multitude of factors, and Vermont educators are doing excellent work in profoundly challenging conditions, in the years of adolescence when disengagement peaks. They are using creative approaches to spark curiosity, build skills, and link learning to purposeful pathways.
The best solutions are likely to be found in the spaces and partnerships between systems: education, healthcare, afterschool, business and industry, college and workforce training.
Other states offer models worth studying. Colorado treats the final years of high school and the first years after graduation as one seamless stage, aligning advising and promoting early access to pre-apprenticeships, college courses, paid work-based learning, and credential programs. Vermont’s current education reform efforts should leave space for bold thinking in this direction, with young people included in the conversation.
- Young people need flexible, supportive pathways. For over a decade, Vermont’s Early College program has allowed students to complete a full year of college tuition-free in lieu of their senior year. The results show what’s possible: higher college enrollment and degree completion within six years, according to a VSAC analysis of participants who applied for a Vermont State Grant.
Programs like Early College are part of a menu of pathways that could be a gamechanger for the rising numbers of young people stopping short of high school graduation.
The Free Degree Promise builds on this successful program by offering pathways to accelerated, debt-free degrees at the Community College of Vermont (CCV). Students like Donovan from Richford see the impact: “With an associate degree, I could get a great accounting job at 19. Even if I go on to a bachelor’s or master’s, I’ll still be in my early twenties when I graduate. That’s a big win for me.”
The numbers back him up. CCV’s Free Degree Promise students graduate at double the national community college rate and in half the time. Since launch, CCV has seen a 150% increase in low-income Early College participants, and nearly half of this spring’s 70+ graduates were first-generation college-goers.
- Caring adults make the difference. From King Street Center’s recent call for community members willing to mentor young men to Randolph Union High School’s practice of pairing college-bound graduates with trusted adults of their choosing for their first year of college, we know that relationships can bridge the gap between potential and success.
Owen, a graduate from Randolph, chose special educator Heidi Schwartz as his mentor. “Having someone to go back to when explaining my learning needs has made a massive difference.”
In a state where demographic pressures weigh heavily, an asset we have in abundance is the wisdom and care of adults and a culture of neighbors helping neighbors.
Through it all, we remain curious and hopeful. At the McClure Foundation, we will continue to invest in research, convenings, and programs that elevate youth voice, build opportunities, and strengthen the systems that prepare young people to navigate a rapidly changing world.
Every day, we see people inspired by possibility. Vince, from the Northeast Kingdom, is launching his teaching career through a new Vermont registered apprenticeship program. Marshall, through ReSOURCE’s YouthBuild program, graduated high school while learning construction skills and repairing flood-damaged homes:
“It gave me an opportunity to graduate high school, which at the time didn’t seem possible, while helping my community.”
Their stories remind us that the challenges facing young people are not “theirs” alone. They’re ours too. Together, we must help find and grow the bright spots.
I hope you’ll watch the film and find a new way to show up as a caring adult to the young people in your community: as a mentor, coach, employer, wayfinder, or friend. Because a measure of Vermont’s future is whether every young person feels they belong and can look ahead with hope.
For more information about the film and where to view screenings, visit: https://goneguysfilm.com/