 On February 9th, it's the 18th. 17th. 17th. Thank you. And we have a, we don't have a very heavy agenda I don't think today. We're going to go through the miscellaneous, that bill, the first real draft of it. We'll take testimony next week. We will also be going through a follow-up on collective bargaining rights for teachers. This was, I believe, erased by Senator Gulick. I don't think it's going to take a long time. And then we'll hear from the President of the UDM for the new senators. We would have had the President sooner, but of course he's the President of a major university. He has a very busy schedule. And then we'll have another walkthrough of the school construction bill. And our committee assistant, as you'll see now, added a few bills, put down the miscellaneous bill as a committee bill and school construction aid, as long as it's okay with you, we'll just do it as it is. But if you change your mind, you can always put it in an S-word. So, miscellaneous education bill. Thank you. Thank you. Beskin James, Office of Legislative Counsel. You have draft 1.1 of the miscellaneous education bill, committee bill in front of you. And I think it's important to say that this is all based on our one conversation from last week. That's why it's so impressive. So, I fully expect lots of feedback and changes here. And please don't be shy if I have missed your goals or intents. And if you have additional goals or if there's something, and I am not, for one, married to this, this is just, these are some ideas that we've all talked about, and this is the bill that we've generated. So, in that subtract, we'll probably move it in middle of March. So the first section is State Board of Education staffing and compensation study, asking JFO to look at other boards and commissions in Vermont, looking at their staffing structures and their compensation structures, and make your recommendation about the State Board's staffing and compensation. I tried to use some language that requires JFO to focus its analysis, right? There's tons of boards and commissions and they're not, if they're not all apples to apples. So I tried to use some of the State Board's responsibilities so that they can be looking at boards with similar responsibilities and what if we will. So I would encourage you to think about, you know, think about that language there, adding, subtracting, changing, et cetera. And just so everyone knows, this goes back to, you know, some of the things we've heard, State Board members, at least the chair, I know, maybe the vice chair is Tammi Kovey. I think that, you know, they're sometimes putting in as much as 20 hours a week. I just want to get a sense of, are we compensating them the way we should be, or for not? And if not, is there something we should be doing that, we should be doing that. And the second, we're on page two, second section is a report from A&E on statewide course offerings requiring them to look at the difference between offerings with any supervisor union on a union to union basis as well as district to district basis if there are large differences in course offerings between districts within the same SQ. That was just kind of a one-off, I think. We want to report on looking at course offerings and throughout the state to see disparities. So I would, you know, fully expect that language to develop as you take testimony on that. Section three on page two, a proficiency-based learning study committee. So creating a study committee run by AOE or staffed by AOE, I should say. Making recommendations for whether proficiency-based learning is the most effective way to ensure Vermont students attain rigorous standards and high quality programs, whether there are other systems of instruction, assessment grading and academic reporting that would better serve Vermont students. I would really encourage you to focus on that mission. The goals, the responsibilities, as well as the membership of the committee. I did the usual Vs and state boards and the agency of education. But you may want to consider subject matter experts that are outside of state government, you know, related to. Yeah, if everyone over the next few days could just read through this with more detail, generally the Vs are on a lot of the committees that we, because they know, they know the principals, they know the superintendent, they know the teachers, and we have somebody from the agency. But if it doesn't feel right, if you want other people not, just let me know. We can't name anybody, of course. But you can still, I've seen things like, you know, graduate level professor in whatever. Or yeah, I mean, it depends on, I would encourage you to maybe think about the perspective you want to bring to the committee. And then, you know, you can brainstorm on who might bring that perspective. And then I can say yay or nay on the rest of it. Yeah. And then page five, a remote teacher grant program. I will say, again, that was like a one-off. Yeah. Let's do a grant program on this. I don't know how, you know, we'll think about this and read through it. You know, yesterday's testimony made me feel really good that there are a lot of kids seem to be able to access these classes. My concern was that a lot of kids from pre-reduced families aren't accessing. So we're talking about the course offerings that are already that are available virtually. So I would encourage you to take testimony on the collaborations that are already existing, if you haven't already. It's later on the agency's website last night. There are a lot of, oh, gosh, I'm going to get it wrong. It's like the Vermont Learning Collaborative. It's the, they've provided the structure for the virtual attendance piece through COVID. But it was there before COVID and it exists now and it has all kinds of partnership structures for public schools. So some of it may be already. Some of it. I would really encourage you to take some. We can hear from them. It's different than just having a teacher in Bennington sitting at home and teaching in one clock, teaching advanced calc in Burlington. It's the system that is already in place is different than that. But you may hear about ways to loop it all into the existing structure. Page six, section five, post-secondary school marketing. And again, this is another kind of, I don't really have more information, but it gets to be determined some appropriate from the general funds, the Agency of Tourism and Marketing for the purpose of marketing. Vermont, so start here. Yeah, in my takeaway yesterday was this. Yeah, we'll talk to Senator Lumpensdale and Senator Kitchell. And maybe it's more about just beefing up their marketing dollars in general. But I'm glad it's still there. And we'll take into it. Section six is just the pre-kindergarten education statute as it stands now because and this is to address the issue. I think you heard that currently. The 166 subsidy for pre-k is not being able to be used across the border in New Hampshire or New York, where there is potentially a need for that. So I have not proposed any amendments to this section. What I have done is gone through and highlighted in the statute itself. There's there's nothing in the statute that says the money can't go to out of state. It comes within the qualifications of the programs. OK, so is it possible that the program that we heard just didn't qualify? No, so I think the agency has given testimony on this topic and a different committee. OK. And from my just my I would encourage you to perhaps hear the same testimony. I'm guessing it was how said or was it correct? OK. And the testimony was not very long. And but also for my plain reading of this, there's nothing in here that says you can't go to a school outside of the state. But there's language in here about the program having to be based on Vermont's early learning standards. So there's a requirement that there be a licensed teacher by a Vermont licensed teacher, doesn't just say a licensed teacher, it's specific to Vermont's licensing law. And then the rules that were promulgated to administer the program or even more specific when it comes to private programs and being licensed by DCF. I don't know anything about DCF licensing. I don't know if there are. Interstate agreements regarding child care and child care subsidies and all that jazz. So when it comes to 66 funding being able to be used outside of the state, my encouragement would be to really hear from the field on how those pre-qualified private providers are being approved and the specific criteria that are being used. Remember who they heard from? Emily Simmons. Emily Simmons. And committee may remember this is a constituent of Senator Kitchells. They've got an early child program that's really far away. Isn't that it? And they just want to go to the board of New Hampshire. That's super close. I think that's my basic understanding of the problem. And you're saying that it's possible to go. That could happen right now, but they might not meet standards. Well, I'm not saying it's possible. I'm saying the law doesn't say you can't go to New Hampshire. You can't use this out of state. The program requirements themselves may be the limiting factor. And I think hearing on how those program requirements are interpreted would be really helpful to you in deciding whether or not you want to make any changes to that. Right. So Emily Simmons, just mark her name down and we'll have her in to look at this section. So that is just the pre-K law. You can a lot of pages that you can get. We're going to go to we're going to go to page 17 section seven. There was a question about whether you could include libraries in the definition of school or include them, make them be school zones. I think it's the term used for regulation of firearms purposes. Yeah. So I've just made a suggestion here. So the first thing I will say is this there's in title 16. There's a prohibition on students having firearms in schools. And then the fire arm exclusion from schools in school buildings is a criminal statute that's not in title 16 for for for other other than students. There's requirements about guns in state buildings. I believe a lot of libraries, not all. So if they're in a school, they're already covered by school. But most of them are going to be municipally managed. Owns associated. So you could certainly look at creating a new prohibition either in criminal law and tying it to libraries. And if that's the right you want to go, I would be in my one of my colleagues who does the who does title 13, the criminal title. They're in move and and if you want to do something about municipal buildings, I would move in my other colleague who gambles municipal and libraries are in title 22. There is a however, working group on the status of libraries. Currently working. Yeah, we put that into a couple of years ago. Their report is not due until November. So a suggestion I have is you'll see on page 18, adding to their charge. But looking at what our current law provides adequate protections for libraries for fire and violence and then requiring their court to include legislative recommendations regarding fire on a web of the library property. That language might need to be worked out a little bit, but that's one avenue. If you don't want to just outright make that change now, I don't know jurisdictionally, if you're looking at amending criminal law, I don't know if that would be this committee. Yeah, I'm just looking at center. I see you. He's. Yeah, he's interested in this. So what do you think? Yeah, yeah, it's your turn to put me on the spot. No, it's I mean, the genesis of this, you know, the largest library in Brattleboro, the second floor is almost entirely filled with the kids section. A few librarians have asked, can we make libraries equivalent to schools so that we can more easily prohibit people coming into the firearms because they've had and runs, you know, because they've had situations where they have a crowd of kids in this large classroom and then somebody walking around with a rifle or a pistol. And it's a little frightening. So that was the request from the librarians. But I could also see how this might end up being a judiciary, miscellaneous bill. This language we could probably do OK with and wanted to just, you know, one separate constituent say, hey, this is one avenue that on your afternoon committee you could move forward with. Well, also talking to judiciary. Yeah, is this something I think about? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Thank you. Sir, why not just say all municipal buildings? Well, I mean, I could, but that wasn't the request from my constituent. I mean, this is a pretty specific thing coming from the librarians of Brattleboro and, you know, exploring banning firearms in all municipal buildings is something that I imagine would be talked about in judiciary. We want to go that route. And then yeah, I love doing work that's supposed to happen in other committees, just to keep colleagues on their toes. But yeah, this this I think we could. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. But I just I mean, obviously I want to keep children in libraries safe. But there are children and families in other municipal buildings as well. And other vulnerable people. And just and just kind of out there. So I think the municipality can just make that a rule. They could put a sign up and then no firearms per entity. Firearms are prohibited in every municipal building. Yeah, they can do that. Yeah. OK. Yeah. That's me. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, we try to do it, I think, as to select work just outside of some buildings. And that could be because they were just outside the buildings and needed some legislative action. But OK, yeah, that's good to know. You know, so we'll keep it in touch base. Yeah. No, yeah. OK. And that's it. OK. Thank you. So I would say, you know, miscellaneous education bills, all sorts of things end up in them. We'll pass this out in a couple of weeks. So we've got time. We're going to hear from people next week. But if you have time to read it over over the next few days, nothing sounds, in my opinion, nothing says happy birthday more than the evening homework. It's birthday than reading the miscellaneous education bill. And reading it as a family is even more fun. Well, I cannot stress enough that I understand this is there's been very little clear direction on a lot of this. So I would anticipate you getting a lot of feedback while language. She knows totally. So to the extent you want me in the room to hear some of that testimony, if it works for my schedule, it might be more efficient to have me here. And I'm happy to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you can let you know. We have some people, you know, tend to be lined up for next week. So anything else? Beth, thanks a million. Welcome. That was really great. Happy birthday. Thank you. She and I asked a few questions about the committee. Yeah. Since we're still. Should we have a best in? No, I don't think so. I don't have any more to get up. I mean, you can go on. Sure. I a couple of questions that I had were we had discussed a few times, personal finance and then civics. And I was wondering if that's something that we might want to think about again. Just think about it. Yeah. And then my other question was just about the statewide force offerings and create kindergarten through 12. What I was just wondering generally, and this is not a question just for you, chair, but all of us on this committee, what's our goal in doing this? What are we trying to achieve? We want to I know we've talked a little bit about equity. Like we want to see if there's equity from one district to another. But that was really at least in my thinking, that's what I was just trying to kind of figure out is are there areas that we need to focus on and fill holes? You know, if and I was thinking, honestly, more nine through 12. But, you know, if they're going to look at something kind of goes back to what I was thinking with getting these more technology in schools if they don't have something. And again, we also bring our own personal experience. I don't really know. But I know in some rural schools because of teacher shortage, they don't have certain offerings that you might find in bigger schools where there are more people to live and maybe more housing options. So just trying to understand what there is an equity issue around that. And I think for future committees, I would say might be helpful just to have a sense of that landscape out there. Well, I was wondering I was thinking about is should we take a look at, for example, like EQS and standards, because it seems as the courses sort of are born, you know, of those, you know, you can have a variety of courses, but they're all going to be based or have their genesis somewhere in like in the standards or EQS or. So I was just wondering if you just take a deep dive on those before, maybe before doing this means sort of make sure all schools are meeting those or working towards them. Yeah, or maybe just for our own, just to have a knowledge of for me, it would be helpful to have a knowledge of those before looking at the courses because the courses are almost like secondary to the structure. You know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah, it totally does. The only other thing I'm just going back to is in again, it was one story, the UVM kid. Yeah. Guess this letter, thanks for no thanks. You need three years of math. You only have only two. Now, Tom said again, intervene and said, no, you can't be out. But just to just to make sure that we're kind of OK out there is what I'm just trying to get a sense of. And there might be another way to do it. Yeah. I am wondering if that student had the option of online courses or to enroll in my gut is no without line. OK, that's my gut only because it was I guess they're online courses like 12 years ago. But I don't know. And in terms of dual enrollment, Mr. Ben, when was dual enrollment? Did you guess 15 years ago? Oh, no, no. No, no. Well, yeah, 12 to 15. OK, it's not that long. Not that long. OK. Twenty twelve. Twenty twelve. OK. Really? That's not. Oh, OK. OK. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's current. Yeah. Right. Sam Lynch, do you have a question? Just one question for John. We we keep talking about equity and we're talking about equity issues. Yeah. Does Act 60 of 1997 still apply? So that was about funding, right? So. When you say does Act 60 still apply? What do you mean? Well, the reason there was there was the education. Right. I don't need an education bill. Brigham. So the Brigham decision, which requires substantially equal educational opportunities for all the monitors. Yes, that is your North Star. Still substantially equal, I think, is perhaps what you are trying to understand with this report. What does that look like today? Substantially equal. But yes, the requirement for substantially equal educational opportunities is still so the question is, are we still are we layering requirements on top of that original decision, the Brigham decision as we go through our process and keep adding requirements to it? I mean, it's a basic concept. I mean, are we layering on requirements from the state or not to local districts that you know, maybe you and I and Beth can sit down and sort of think about that stuff. And yeah, yeah, I'm the personal finance and civics. I am all for if anybody wants to bring some language for it. There is some language you might want to check in the house. I think it builds on this and it makes sense. Uh, let us know. And the civics, are we going to report back to you from the agency of education and civics? No, Holocaust education. Oh, just Holocaust education, it was honest. So we can talk about we can have another conversation if we could put on the agenda, just civic education and personal finance, if there's something from those that we want to put in there if we want to do a standalone. There's information we have. I thought a few senators were looking on a bill around civics education. That's why I'm surprised it doesn't come around yet. The one bill that comes up every year. I don't know if it's going to be the same one is the one that says in order to graduate from high school, you have to pass an exam on civic ed. We've generally said the state doesn't do curriculum, but we do standards. Civic ed is in the standards, but. Listen, what means happy to entertain anything that anybody has usually mark or take the form. That's what happens. Yeah, yeah. So he's been putting it in since the early 1960s and sooner. If he has put it in every year and some stuff's come out of it, but. Because because it's in the standards in social studies, teachers do cover it in different ways. In one thing that could be really interesting. That I at Harvard does an amazing job of civics, you know, and what he does. And I know I think the agency has a website for civics, you know, ideas. So we can keep talking about it. Yeah, OK, and the Secretary of State is doing. And so it's going to be doing it. You got very close last year to require actually changing EQS standards. We did it. Yes. And then we pulled it back to just the Holocaust report. OK. So you did we've got discussion about last year's out of control. This is a much more OK. Thanks a million that have a great weekend. You as well. Mr. Leonard, it's just a touching base. See everything's going in there. You want to say a few words about something. Well, OK, we haven't seen you since orientation. Well, nice to see everyone. It's my first time in the committee this year. So always an exciting moment for me. So climbing. We're talking about collective bargaining and just to reframe it. Do you remember the actual question that was asked? I remember this. So I'm looking to Mr. Robinson, you send us a great email and I said nice email, but it was raised in committee. So let's just pull this apart a little bit. Do you want to Mr. Robinson, just introduce yourself? Call Robinson, Vermont. It was a question about board certified behavior analysts. Yes. And their inclusion in teacher collective bargaining units or not. OK. I believe was sort of the nox of the inquiry. And so I just so you know, the president of UVM will be here too. OK, I'll be very quick. Great. Thank you. So collective bargaining at the schools, there are two laws that apply. Labor Relations for Teachers and Administrators Act and then the Municipal Labor Relations Act. Basically, you fall under Labor Relations for Teachers. If you have to be. The wording in the statute is licensed, employable as a teacher by the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators and not an administrator. So administrators, principals, vice principals, they fall under their own group. What that's been determined by the Labor Board to include is anyone who needs to get an endorsement from the the Standards Board for Professional Educators. This is your school nurse. They may have their professional license, but then to be in the school, they need that endorsement. If you need that, you fall under Labor Relations for Teachers. If you do not need an endorsement or a certification or license to be working in the school. So, for example, custodial staff, front office staff, maintenance staff, any number of other folks, I'm sure I'm forgetting now. But if you don't need that license or endorsement, you fall under the Municipal Labor Relations Act. So typically the Labor Board tries to include, make the bargaining units as large as possible for simplicity. So you might see custodians and front office staff and bus drivers in the same union, even though they have different jobs. But that's just for administrative ease and negotiating contracts. You're doing one negotiation instead of three or four or five. The issue here is and I don't know about a great deal about the Board Certified Behavior Analyst. But in order to be covered under Labor Relations for Teachers, they need to require an endorsement in order to be covered under Municipal Labor Relations. They don't. In both instances, though, their employer needs to be the school district or supervisory union. If they're employed by an outside third party and then they come in on a contract basis, that's a completely different Labor Relations ball field. So like how are mental health? Exactly. Yeah. So if they're contracted, but if they're employed directly by the school district, it's really a question of whether they're there and they need an endorsement and a licensure to teach in the school or if they don't, they're under the municipal act. So that is all I've got as sort of the overview. Are there any questions? No, that seems pretty cut and dry. I was asked by a constituent who is in a school who just, you know, it's been different times because of our shortage, staffing shortage. And I think there are folks who've been sort of tapped to do duties outside of what they would normally be doing. So she was just asking, you know, boy, it's too bad. These folks aren't in the same family as the teachers, so to speak, in terms of contracts, but I totally understand that. Yeah. So the standard for she's full time. She's full time. Yeah. If the standards board requires endorsement for them at some point in the future, they could potentially come into the teachers union. The otherwise they'll they'll likely be in the the non-licensed union. There is always the potential that the labor board could determine that a particular group should be in a different bargaining unit because there's such a difference in the interest. But their history has been typically to try to bring the groups together. Because what happens in Vermont Towns is you'll have one unit of three people, one unit to review if you start splitting people out because we're just too small. Yeah. So. OK, thank you. Great. Anything else, Mr. Chair? No, I don't want to say anything. Sure. I wasn't about it. Yeah. Briefly. Yeah, yeah. Please come on up. Thank you for your order. So for the record, Tom Robinson, Vermont, NIA, everything Damian said. And in addition, I just want to say that the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators does create new endorsement categories for licensure. You know, I'm going, I don't know for sure, but I'm going to assume when licensure first started in the state of Vermont, we didn't have a social work endorsement, right? Or a school nurse endorsement, which there is now for teaching. OK. And so we, I will say, as a general matter, we have, just a good point, we have noticed over the past couple of years, there are some professional positions in schools that currently don't have a teacher licensure endorsement that we've been thinking it might be worth having a conversation with the Vermont Standards Board about exploring and they, you know, they're a they have a whole rulemaking process. They would go through to do that. And so anyways, we've actually been thinking, are there some additional positions that have emerged in recent years that it might be worth exploring having a conversation with the Standards Board about building out some additional licensures that then would allow these individuals, I will say, to the other side of the coin. And actually, I think this was in the Burlington School District recently. There were some occupational therapists and physical therapists that approached us about forming a union and did and are now part of the support staff bargaining unit in Burlington because they are not. There's not a OT or PT license teacher licensure. So to the point, which one? The municipal bargaining unit for the support staff. Because they don't have a teaching license, but for teacher licensure, there's school psychiatrists, nurses, I think in the email that I shared with Senator Campion and Senator Gullick, I had a page from the rules for the Standards Board that enumerated all the various categories that teacher licensure exists in right now. So if if Senator Gullick were a committee member, anybody wanted to just have that looked at. I mean, it sounds like you're looking at it regularly. But does it make you'll let us know if it makes sense for us to? I mean, even in this case, I'd say, gosh, would you review the possibility of, you know, this kind of thing for this kind of profession? Yeah. And I think it might be worth inquiring of the Standards Board, too. You know, you could, you know, I think if you wanted to sort of noodle that over a little more as a committee about what are kind of the evolution of public education and the professionals working in our schools with students and how licensure the Standards Board. I believe the current chair of that actually containing our president was a previous chair prior to his services. President Vars, the current chair I believe is the superintendent in the Colchester School District. Anyone here? Yeah. So but they are, you know, they go through the outcome process, you know, whenever they aren't making any adjustments to rules in the back of licensure. So yeah. Yeah. Great. Good to see you. Good to see you, too. Have a good week. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. We're just waiting for President Garamella and let me just take a little spoiler of that. Welcome back to Senate Education. We have with us President Garamella from the University of Vermont and Wendy Koenig, the Federal and State Relations and Legislative Liaison for the University of Vermont. Mr. President, this is the first time you've been in here officially to provide us with an update, provide us with some information on the university. So we're very excited that you're here and we know that we elected one new trustee, one returning trustee in Senator Tolino and then Senator and Chef Smith also. So returning, new and then old returning. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. I've been to this committee, of course, many times before this room and I love coming, but we have lots of new faces in the Senate and the House, of course. And so more than happy to, you know, answer questions and really help you understand that we're a partner for the state and we take our partnership very seriously, what we should do for the state, what we can do for the state, et cetera. And so we had this one pager. We've got some copies of, or we have a heart copy, which would be helpful. OK, great. So I just wanted to give you a quick sense for anyone who's, you know, you're enamored of and guarded, you've brought to Vermont, but just a few details and then happy to answer questions and such. So we tried these one pagers because it concentrates information. And so just wanted to give you a sense that there are 3,700 plus students from Vermont at U of M. And I'm very proud that about a quarter of them are eligible, which, of course, as you know, means that from the lower income end of the spectrum and about a quarter are first gen students. I think this first generation of students generally needs, you know, they need more orientation to what higher education is and such. And they have families that are supporting them the same way. So we've been leaning into that a lot. And many of us in the administration are first generation, so we have been recording our stories and telling them what's great, what our pathway has been. And so they feel supported and not alone. So that's going well. And, you know, we are over a thousand Vermonters on degrees in U of M this past year. So, you know, being for Vermont standards, we produce a lot of graduates, but a little green box on the side is one that I'm particularly proud of. I mean, certainly, we not only educate students with the jobs and the productive lives, 96, 95% of them are employed right after graduation. But the next number, which is that we had 1155 of our graduates live and work in Vermont after graduating. I think that's a huge deal. There's no other entity, no other force in Vermont that brings that many students and that many highly talented people to the state. So, and of course, because we have a good by the state population, this means that six or 700 students from our side of the state are studying at U of M and working here. The thing we could do as all together as a state is to maybe make the state stickier for these people. How do we ensure that they stay longer and not just get their first job and move on? But that, I think the fact that we are the most significant attractor of talent to the state is of great importance to me. The little part of this, you mean in terms of your other competitors in the state, or are you talking about as a, also as a business and a company? Well, there's no other entity in the state that brings in over a thousand people into the state highly qualified. Nobody else. There's no idea in that. Lot of families doesn't. And so, yeah, it is the single largest entity that, I mean, I- Yeah, no, I hadn't thought about it that way. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. I mean, we don't have great leaders to attract lots of people. I mean, we can give them a little money to come, et cetera, but it's not that big an attractor, so. And I think the piece below is something which is a great personal relevance to me, personal importance to me. It's my passion. If you've heard anything about UVM, I hope you've heard that we've frozen tuition now for five years in a row. We have frozen room and board, we've frozen fees, so we don't freeze one thing and increase it somewhere else. There's no gimmicks here. And that's been very difficult to do. It's not easy to say, well, let's stay flat and while our expenses go up, our expenses go up about $10 million a year. So we're forgoing a lot of revenue by not increasing it. But affordability and access and being as expensive as we are as a public estate land grant, but also a flagship was very important. So for a fifth year, we've been able to do that. I'll say that this past fifth year of the freeze had very much to do with the increase in our appropriation that you were able to approve. So we're very thankful to the legislature. We're very thankful to the governor for putting it in this budget last year. And before that, we had had no change in our base budget for 14 years. And we calculated basically 14 years of no increase means about a 25% drop. So we had a 25% increase last year. So we're back to where we were in 2008. And that's been very effective for us, very good for us. I think it's a small amount based on our budget, but it helps us do these kinds of things. The bullet below that is especially exciting because this year, this semester, we announced the UVM promise. And that is basically that any Vermont family making $60,000 or less can send their children to UVM paying no tuition and no fees, as long as they qualify. So I think this is extremely, it's extremely important that we make it as simple and as clear as possible because I think that there are students in eighth grade and sixth grade and such who think, well, what's the point working so hard? I couldn't afford UVM anyway. So here we're telling them that, hey, work hard, get good grades, and you can go to UVM, not paying anything. At least in terms of tuition and fees. So they're basically responsible for permanent work. Right, right. So I think that this message gets through the counselors to everyone. I was in DC yesterday, I was talking to Senator Sanders. He was just really excited. And first time I saw him that happy with me. But, so it's called me after being a little bit worried. But he said he'll talk about it in the Bernie buzz. So I really do think we need to get the word out because the more our parents, our students understand that there is a pathway to Vermont, to the University of Vermont, to work hard, maybe that will help the numbers we have a little bit. As you all know, we have among the highest rates of high school graduation in the country and among the lowest rates of going on to college. On the other hand, despite the highest rates of high school graduation, we don't have that many numbers to students, right? So the number that worries me a lot is I checked and we had 7,200 high school graduates in Vermont in 2010. And in 2020, that number dropped to 5,500. 7,200 to 5,500 is a very serious drop. And that continues. There's not that many students be produced in, or high school graduates be produced in New England. And so, those part of the reason that drove our push for getting students in Vermont that are from beyond New England. And so, for this fall we had 30,000 plus applications. So 30,000 applications for 3,000 seats were pretty good. It's pretty good, yeah, yeah. Right? And then a lot of- That's just undergraduates. That's undergraduates, yeah. So that allowed us to construct a class that we're very proud of, which has the largest number of first generation students we've ever had. The largest number of students of color we've ever had and over 50% of them are from outside of New England. You know, California and Texas and Hawaii and all this sort of stuff. And I think that means long term we're recognized more broadly. We continue to have interest in UDM. So the UDM promise, I would ask you all to spread the word as much as you can. I can turn to the other side briefly. I don't need to go over it. If you don't mind what we're just on that. So how does that compare with your competitors? I know some institutions are saying 150,000 or less. You know, others are saying even it's maybe a little higher. Where does that, you know, compare to who you're competing with? I don't know if another institution in the country has done this voluntarily from their own resources. Okay. Everyone else who's done this, I could be wrong but they might be one example. But I don't think so. The state has provided money to universities, to public universities to do something like this. Okay. We're doing this on our own. And the reason we picked 60,000 is that it covers about half the households in Vermont. And it seems like a good number to go with. The median income in Vermont, as you know, is about 63,000, 63,100 and something. Didn't seem like a nice number to ring. That doesn't ring well. So that's why we picked 60,000. And I thought there were a bunch already, VAS or a bunch of just institutions out there that were kind of doing this center machine. You might know something. I actually had a different question. Okay. So those are private schools too? Yeah, no, I understand. So yes, so you do compete with some private schools. Yeah, sure. Sure, of course. But I mean in Vermont though. This is for Vermonters? Yeah. Is UV and Promise for Vermonters? Yeah. So I see. I think it's very much targeted to try and increase that number of students we're going on to college. Yeah. Center machine. Yeah, so I was just looking at the number on the first page, nine out of 10 Vermont first year students return for their sophomore year, which seems like a great number. I'm just wondering that small fraction of folks who do decide to transfer or just not return. I was wondering what reasons they might sell. Yeah, no, it's a great question. And I think like this too, I think 90% is great, but that means 10% of being left behind, right? I will say that there's no way you can ever have 100% because people make the wrong choice sometimes. I go to college and think it's not for me. UVM is among the top 5% in the country. You will take this year, but in terms of retention rates among publics, okay? So it's very good at retention. We're doubling down on retention. Going up by a percent or two, the provost has goals for us. So I feel like it's our moral responsibility once we take students on to actually see them through college and have them graduate and be productive citizens of the state and country. So there are students who may come from Seattle or so and say I thought it would not be fun and it's not for me or it's too cold or I don't agree with the politics of the place or whatever else. There are others who find it more rigorous than they would have, than they can handle. So there are multiple reasons. This is a number that almost can never be much higher than nine, unfortunately. We are trying to do our best. Some of the things we're trying to do is that we have a very effective partnership with CCB where we have almost every program CCB offers as a partnership pathway to UVM. So go to CCB, take courses, do well, and you're guaranteed admission at UVM. It's even less expensive for them that way. Three-to-no kind of thing requiring? Yeah, it's not even 3.0. That's great. It's somewhere that's great. Maybe that's the point, I think. So, and those students who come to us from CCB graduated higher rates, do better and are retained better. So it actually is a good pathway for them. So sometimes they may go there and do a different pathway. But so it's a drop-off, some take a gap year that comes in that number, et cetera, et cetera. So we keep looking at that very carefully. We do exit interviews with those leaving all those things. It's a good question, but that's not any... We might get to 9.1, 2, maybe, but it may not be able to get much higher than that. That sounds like it. And it's something I'd be able to afford it. Actually, that has a lot to do with it. The family situation changed and it was an expensive business, et cetera, et cetera. And we hope when those hot things happen, but you can only look so much for yourself, I'm sorry. That's okay. Thank you, Chair. Question about new American students in particular. We at Burlington High School had a student graduate. He was the first kid to graduate from high school and his family. It was a big deal, wonderful, wonderful kid. Ended up going to a college out of state with a scholarship to play soccer. And things spiraled out of control, I think it's really hard for a first gen student to be placed on a college campus. Let's face a lot of wealth. There's a lot of wealth. There's a lot of cultural pieces that are strange, frankly. So he ended up engaging in some behavior that wasn't tolerated by the school, got kicked off. The soccer team's life basically kind of spiraled after that. And he ended up getting kicked out. And long story short, he's no longer with us. He came back to Burlington and it was just a tragedy. So that's an extreme story, I know, but I am one of the kind of supports you put in place that need to be pretty, you know, thorough. And yeah, can you speak to that at all? Well, I mean, I'm just really, you know, it's heartbreaking when you hear these stories. But you know, that is, I'm sure you've heard of this. There's a term called the hidden curriculum. I like the term because so the hidden curriculum is what students don't know when they come from backgrounds that are not, so they don't know how to apply for internships, they may not know how to get jobs, how to network and all that sort of stuff. So we've been focusing on that quite a bit. The Honors College certainly puts a lot of wrap around services around students for that. So I think that UVM is actually quite good at that aspect. We are considered a kind and caring place. Everyone is. I mean, I'm not saying there's not the odd hazing or whatever else, but we have identity centers. At least our students of color, for example, our identity centers are all over this. There's a Mosaic Center for, you know, persons of color, but primarily black students. There's the Prism Center for LGBTQ plus students, et cetera. There's women and gender equity center, et cetera. So, and then there's the Newman Center for Catholic students and they love for, et cetera, et cetera. So I think we actually have a very well-functioning set of identity centers and student support centers, our student services, student affairs group is very clued into this thing that are, what is it called, a report, a care report, I think. Anyone can file a care report. If I see someone struggling or they're blushing out or something, you can file an anonymous care report saying, hey, you know what I'm talking about, it looks like X's may need some help. So it's just, someone goes, reaches out, right? And we've, I have done that, others have done that. I've done that. So, so there's a long list, but we really care about doing the best we can. I do think this new Americans thing, we could do more in that space. Senator, I mean, sorry, Representative Karoli who's on our, as a trustee. She has been talking from the beginning from my time here about, Minuski High School has a lot of new Americans. You know, Bergen High School has a lot of new Americans. What are we doing? You know, we could go to the Bronx and bring students, et cetera, but we've got our own in our backyard. And so we've got a new permanent dean for the College of Education and Social Services, Kay Sheppard. She's amazing. She might have been in here. Oh, she was? Yeah, she was great. Kay, great. So, she's developing approaches to do more of this because you've got to, the social work piece is important, do the mental health piece is important, the finances piece is important. So, you know, we can always do better and we continue to seek to do better, but I think, I hope that this student would have had a better experience. We've got Caps Consulors. We've got outdoor clubs and our clubs that are pretty, I think, welcoming. Yeah, I think, I know, I really felt that moment that this student needed to be brought in and it was literally a matter of life and death and so. Athletics, actually, and none that you mentioned, he was in soccer or the student was in soccer. Our athletics program is a very strong culture of spread respect and DEI, they've got their own group and I would say they actually lean in more than the rest and support each other. So, you know, it would be stupid for me to say if he were at UVM, he wouldn't have had the same experience. I don't know, but we hope that we do as much as we can. Okay, thank you. I know, we may have asked this of you when you stopped by that one afternoon and caught some of us in committee, but all of the students that aren't getting into UVM, does the end of admissions ever say, you know, if you wanna be in Vermont, state colleges, give them a shot, you know? Does that kind of conversation ever happen? Could that conversation happen? You know, I mean, again, I know it's on me for everybody, but, you know, it may very well be on everybody, you know, students' radar, but the chair of agriculture where I spend the mornings and while we're looking at these numbers, it was, is there any way to be helpful in soccer? You know, in my previous institution, we had regional campuses and we went through a process that wasn't happening before. We said, if you don't get in here, you know, automatically be considered at that. Now, you know, not everybody would pick it up. Yeah. So I think the CCB pathway is something that I believe is a very important piece of this talk. We did start talking this week. We started a program this year called Catamount Experience where students who don't quite make it but are close and seem promising. We actually admit them in a cohort, we give them wraparound services and they all stay together and take classes. And if they do 2.8, I want to say, or something like that, they're automatically in. So that's going really well. So well that these students don't want to go out of there into the dorms. They want to stay together as a cohort. And I think almost all of them will qualify, most of them will qualify to move in. So that's another way to get that next run. But to the very specific thing, I think it also depends on whether this is out-of-state students or in-state students. I doubt very much that out-of-state students would be interested in a program like that. I suspect in-state students work with VSAC and such, and VSAC is so effective, they probably know that already. So we can keep looking at that. I appreciate it. My second question, back to the first generation college students, do they have some services that are all great? So because I can see where those numbers, maybe you would lose some of them more often, but you have some services on them as well. Really? So they self-identify during the process. We're celebrating them, but the board meeting, I think we had a cool slide up. We've got, you know, Patrick Rilak has done a little video that my first gen, you've all got chords now that are first gen chords for all of us that are first gen. People record their videos. Our general counsel happens to be a first gen person, and he said, I want to record a video. And so I think it's a lot of encouragement, but a lot of support services, too. So I think we have a first gen office, I want to say, or certainly that looks out for them. Again, we could do more, but I think we need people. So great, thank you. To turn around, I've got just a couple more quick things to share. You know, the back shows you the economic engine and we are, of course, you know, 4,000 plus employees with a 300 million payroll. We brought in over a quarter billion dollars of research funds this past year, for the first time ever. And the importance of a quarter of billion dollars coming into Vermont, and thanks to Senator Lay, of course, part of it, but is that this money spent here in Vermont? It's spent on research that matters to Vermont, you know, addiction and opioids and small scale food systems and sustainable farming and rural partnerships, you know, gun institute for environment and agroecology and all these kinds of cancer. So I think the kind of work that's done is very important to the lives and livelihoods of Vermonters. But we also hire a lot of and attract a lot of high end technical staff and lab staff and all that. So that's a big plus. And we had a study done six years ago. I know I'm sure that number is much higher now, but we have seen a $1.3 billion impact. I wouldn't be surprised if it's twice as much today. So clearly, we have a very big economic impact in the state. Plus our alumni, we've got almost 36,000 alumni in the state. And that number is also a little old, we need to keep updating it. But I think, I think two weeks. Members of Senate education. Yeah, exactly. I think we all care about some aspects more. Vermont's struggling with housing, with childcare, with people, talent and such. So I just wanted to also put in the last set of bullets below, which is 33%. Third of the physicians in Vermont are trained at UVM. And if you look at just primary care physicians, it's 41%. So I'm very proud of that. We keep working on increasing that. 80% of students in licensure programs, which is teachers, live in and work in Vermont after graduating from UVM. And 80% of our graduate students and 50% of the undergrads in the nursing and health sciences programs today. So these are all critical areas. Nurses, teachers, doctors. So we're doing the best we can. We'll continue to grow this thing. And our center of centers, for example, has been very focused on the nursing side of things and has put some programs in and helped us with some clinical placements in community health centers and stuff. So in that way, too, I think we're doing the best we can. And I just end with saying that we're a very good bet. I mean, the investment of the state and the UVM is quite small compared to national standards for capital, 49th to 50th. But I understand we don't have a big tax base. I appreciate the help we got last year. But till last year, so we always had a half of the money that came from the state went to scholarships. A quarter went to the college of medicine and a quarter went to extension agriculture. So, and then the new money that came in last year all goes to sort of helping student aid. So with that, I guess the ask that I hope you'll all consider endorsing is that we as we work with the governor, we talk to him about a 3% increase in our base like he's providing to other or he's put in for other state agencies and such. It's a cost of living increase. So a 3% increase in base and then there's a $3 million one time ask for three years. It's a million a year for three years for the upskill program. Some of you who've been in the legislature know the upskill Vermont program. It was an extremely successful program. We've done it twice. This is a program by which the state sends us money and we use it all to support Vermonters taking classes online, by and large. And so, both last year and the year before that the moment we announced the classes all of them were signed up for within 24 hours or so. And so there's a great demand if you could do three times as much. I think we would have, that would be absorbed. We've actually tuned our offerings to what we're seeing the demand for healthcare, you know, program management kind of thing, leadership, et cetera. So I think if we do it for a three year period, I think there's a little more planning that people can do what we can do. So it's a pass through. I mean, we spend it on educating Vermonters to, you know, once they dip their toes in taking another class or so then they take another and another maybe do a certificate and an advanced degree and train themselves, et cetera. So the two asks we have for the legislature this year or the three percent increase in our base and the three million one time in upskill. The governor's thankfully put them both in his budget. So I'm happy to answer questions many front, you know, housing, whatever else I've covered everything. Yeah, thank you. I have an easy question and I'm a really hard one. The first one is the percentage of Vermont students in the total students, is that historically about the same percentage that we've had, let's say over the last 30, 20, 30 years? Do you know or? So the number of Vermont students, it's a tricky question, it's actually not an easy question because the number of high school students is dropping. So again, if there were 7,200 students graduating in 2010, let's say half of them applied, there were more that could get in. So the way I see it is about 5,000 students graduate give or take, about 3,000 want to go on to college, about 2,000 apply to UVM and about 1,700 get it. So it's really a very good bet. If you've got reasonable grades, you get it. Some others want to go to Harvard and whatever else, you know, more power to them. It's okay. So we're a very good bet for Monters. As, I mean, depending on whenever you're, the baseline is, you know, once upon a time we were much smaller school. So our number of students has grown, not in the last few years though, because we have committed to about 3,000 students per year. We talked about this, I think. So our new students per year is about 3,000. It's not an exact science. So sometimes it drops a little bit below, sometimes it go up above, but we don't have a plan to increase the number of undergraduate students coming in every year. We do think the graduate programs could benefit from growing a little bit, especially with our research funding growing a lot. And so we will continue to house the first and second year students on campus or working on housing options. That was my second question, so. Good. That's the easy one. The first one was actually the hard one. So we're really committed to being a part of the solution on housing. So you know that Vermont has a challenge with housing. Chittin and Kenny has an even greater challenge. Burlington has an even greater challenge. And so we continue to house all our first and second years on campus, but it's not only them, right? It's our grad students, their staff. We've had five or six staff last year take jobs at UVM and turn us down after when they couldn't find housing. Yeah, yesterday, yeah. Yeah, different spots. So we're building, ground is being broken I think next week to build about 600 new beds in South Burlington about a mile, 1.2 miles from campus. So these are apartments that are good for staff, for faculty, especially early in their careers, right with students. We were going to have about 490 beds originally was the plan. And, you know, they were gonna come in tranches of in 2024, 25 and 26. We worked with the developer to increase that number by about 100 beds and finish the project by 2025, one year in advance. So we would have 600 almost new beds on the market, if you will, in a couple of years. And then we're looking at a number of other options. I'm hoping that if you're successful in all these things we're trying to do, we'll have about 1500 new beds for the next year or so. Wow, I mean, in terms of our line of sight to them. And all devoted to UVM, students, faculty. These are things we would, that we would, right? Which is there for us. You know, there are different tranches. Undergrads need a different approach than graduate students, faculty and staff. Even within undergrad, first and second year students on campus, third and fourth year students who don't want to stay on campus. And so what can we do for them, et cetera. So we're looking at different creative options in each of those areas. And we'll continue to be, I'm hoping, announce some more success with each of those things. But I hope that the city and the county and the state also look at this issue and try to, yeah, really capacity. It's a huge issue everywhere. Right, yeah, yeah. So my, back to your admissions, 30,000 applications. That's incredible. So who are the kids that are getting in? If you could just give us a little profile. When you said pretty good grades and you're going to go to UVM if you're from Vermont, that's a lot of, that's a, it's very competitive without a doubt to give them, it seems to me. So there's two pieces to your question. Vermont students have a leg up. Great. And they get in. You can be a reasonable student in Vermont again. I don't have a number. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And we provide, you know, on average, we get very little tuition from Vermont students. Again, half of them attend paying no tuition at all, pretty much. And 90 to one, 92% get lots of aid. So for Vermonters, it's a very different story. As I said, you know, these numbers aren't exact so I'm worried about just throwing them out there. But about 2,000 students apply about 1,700 or so are offered admission, or whether they take it or not is a different question. On the other hand, our incoming class is the best prepared class ever in terms of DPA, SAT scores, ACT scores, et cetera. So if you're outside Vermont, it's actually pretty darn difficult to get in these days. Which is interesting because, you know, people were saying, there were people who told me, you know, Vermont's become a sort of a safety school or something, you know, around there. And then their children apply. I'm not hearing that. And their children apply, they don't get in, and they say, hmm. So it's nice to become harder and harder because there's a lot of interest. And I think part of it is the affordability thing, right? The fact that we care about this, the fact that we did really, really well in COVID, we didn't have a single student hospitalised through our COVID, we said it, right? I, you know, that message gets up and it's not all of my doing. It's the students were very, very careful. Everyone was vaccinated. Every one of our employees was vaccinated with faculty, staff, et cetera. They masked and they were supposed to mask if they'd be hidden themselves in an emergency. Nobody went to hospital. None of the students. So that word gets out, I think. And so we're getting a lot of interest in our research. The fact that we are really good in sustainability work and environment and food systems and complex systems and, you know, cancer care, liberal arts, all of that. School of the Arts. We started a new school, School of the Arts. And we just announced new school of world languages and cultures. These kinds of things sort of raise the profile and draw more interest, I should rightly say. Since we have time, right? Yeah, yeah. We have you until seven. But then we're definitely late. It's all right, good stuff. The UVM promise, which is fabulous, it reminded me of a conversation that we had yesterday about how Vermont is this fabulous place, but how do we get the word? Like how do you get the word out there? How do you tell the story? And so I'm wondering if you, I'm assuming you have a designated sort of social media advertising department that is working on that. That was one of my questions. And the other one is, you know, using an equity lens. Are you, do you go into neighborhoods or, you know, again, parts of Burlington and Winooski with literature and information that is already translated for those folks? So that, because it's great for the kids to have the information, but if the parents have the information, then it's even more powerful. So, I'll talk about the engagement with schools. The first part was? The first part was the advertising. Right, so yes, we have, I think, what the number five ranked Instagram account or something I've told about my people. So, yes, I mean, we're working hard at it. Wendy, can you send, Senator Gillick, or everyone here, the campus video? So, we had 10 students record their stories, two minute clips. It is so wonderful to see them, okay? This is, it's just a color, women, men, different participants. You just said why they came to UVM and how much they enjoy. It's such an uplifting thing and it's all over, all the administrators are getting it. So, you know, it's never enough and I'm not a TikTok, I'm not gonna get a TikTok, but we work hard at that. And clearly, if 30,000 students are applying to get it to work, right? The equity lens is very important. So, this is where, I mentioned, Carol Odie is very, you know, is working with Katie Shepard and others in engaging with the Willewske schools, the Burlington High Schools, et cetera. We have a program, we've had a long time, I had nothing to do with it, it's a set up well before I came, where we had to give a full ride to a bunch of students in the Bronx, African American students who come here, it's right, we do it really well. It's an expensive program, but, you know, it's there. And so, we do think a lot about how to engage. It's hard to attract students of color to Vermont or staff of color to Vermont. They don't see themselves in the surroundings, but we're far browner than the state of Vermont. And as I said, we had the largest number of students of color this fall and then ever before. A third of our faculty this past year, full-time faculty, we were hired last year and the year before identified as faculty of color. So, I think it comes in all levels. You need administrators who, you know, you're not different, you need faculty who look different, you need staff. So, it's not easy, but we're very focused on that. We have a very data-driven approach now, a new approach to diversity of inclusion, not only recruitment, but how to take care of them on campus as a strategic plan. There's a university-wide university diversity council that has one empowered representative from every unit so that it's as accountability that goes to all levels. In Burlington and Wynuski as well, we have staff called multilingual liaisons who work really closely with families and it would be great to somehow, I don't know, engage them to help with this mission. The translation piece, I don't know. I'm sure that they can reach out to our admissions people and get that. I know we do a lot of translation services for our custodian staff. There's a lot of them and many speak Eastern European languages or Nepali or whatever else. So, we do do that. I don't know how much of a demand we have for, clearly the students can go explain to their parents and they know English, but we will look into that to see if there's a, you know, that's a productive thing to do and we'll also talk to the schools to see if they'd like things translated and guess. And the, see, the cultural liaisons in Wynuski? Multilingual liaisons. Because we did something in this committee, we can go back and look at with cultural liaisons in communities two years ago. I mean, that might be another. Okay, here we go. We'll leave it. Yeah, we'll leave it. Questions? This guy'd like to get another degree at me, maybe. There you go. I'll give you a JD and a crack. My oldest son's old. No wonder for him. Oh, that's great. Is he happy? Is he in love? He's not working in his career field, though. He's a son. Who is? My degree is in political science. Okay, all right. We'll get out there. I've got that. I'm a mechanical engineer and I've been a mechanical engineer in a long life. I've been doing a few other things. This has been terrific. Always good to see you. Thank you. We appreciate it. I know a few, a couple of us were on campus. This is right over here. Good to have you. Please, you're welcome to come. Thank you. Can we do this? You know, it's easy to host a, you know, vegan chili on a hot, on a cold day. Yeah, we've, yeah. Just have a chat and that's for me. So it was great. Yeah, so thank you for having us. Thank you. It was great to see you. Thank you. Thank you both. Wendy, great to see you. Have a good weekend. Have a good weekend. Have a good trip. See you. Thank you. Great to see you. Thanks. Bye, nice to see you. Okay, see you soon. All right, thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we do have the, our last witness will only take 15 minutes. If people are comfortable, we'll just go with the pre-15. That gets us a little 15 minute break. Sure. Oh, my arms are gone. Okay, yeah. We'll be starting.