 Thank you Madam Chair and Committee and you just heard from me last week about one particular bill which is the extension of the merger deadline, involuntary merger deadline from July 1, 2019 to July 1, 2020. I do have other bills including transition facilitation grants and evaluation of Act 46 in a moratorium. But as I spoke to the chair, our focus is strictly on the extension. So I wanted to just make sure and that's H39. So if anybody individually wants to hear more about the bills and why I introduced them I'm happy to do that but I don't want to take your time right now. But what I did want to do is introduce Kara Zimmerman and have her come up and just give our perspective from, she is the chair not only of the Stowe School Board but she's the chair of the LSSU Board, Lowell South Supervisor Union Board and chair of our Transition Board. So she has a lot of hats that she's wearing and so I've asked her to come up and the chair has granted me that ability to do that. So Kara, if I could, you've heard me, you've got my pitch before. Thank you. Thank you. Tell us who you are. Can you repeat that? Okay. My name is Kara Zimmerman and I am the chair of the Stowe School District School Board. Actually the vice chair this year was the chair last year. But these things we have rotating seats of the Memorial South Supervisory Union Board and then I am also the chair of the Memorial South Unified Union Transition Board. And I'm here today on behalf of all the boards of the Memorial South Supervisory Union to urge the legislature to provide those districts that have been ordered to merge by July 1, 2019 a one-year delay in implementation. I want to begin by thanking you, Madam Chair and members of this committee for consideration of a one-year delay and emphasize that the delay is important because it would give us time that we need to provide the best services to our students, teachers, staff, and community members. The compressed timelines laid out in statute make it difficult to both appeal and comply with the law. In particular, the LSSU faced uncertainty as to the state board's decision until the last possible day giving us an even shorter window to prepare for a possible merger. Currently we are moving forward on a dual path both preparing to merge and preparing for operations in our current structure to reduce the likelihood of harm should be successfully appeal our case. We are doing all of this while also trying to keep normal operations on track. This is extremely challenging. I would like to take the remainder of my time to share with you what we are seeing and experiencing as school board members implementing a forced merger. Our primary concern as I am sure your primary concern is as well as the impact of this short time frame timeline on our students and I assure you that that is front and center in our minds as well. So to give you an example of how this could potentially negatively impact our students, we are very concerned that we will not have enough time to plan for our summer programs and for our meals for students. In order to properly plan for the summer we need clarity regarding which fiscal entity should be applying for federal grants, hiring employees, and so forth. We are not likely to get that clarity from the legal appeal until May the earliest. Preparation is particularly important in Morristown where more students are eligible for free and reduced lunch and many students participate in 21st century grant funded summer programs locally known as unbound. It is also important in Stowe where we are currently working with Elmore and Morristown to offer summer meals for all students in the region and to expand summer programs for students in need of additional academic supports. We would hate to see these programs compromised in any way due to the current state of confusion and uncertainty. We also need to be ready to pay our employees on July one. In order to do so we must have systems set up and tested well ahead of time to make sure that we can take care of our teachers and staff. We're also concerned about the impact this is having on community members. As you all are well aware community support is an essential ingredient for student success in excellent schools and we believe that communities support their schools when they understand what is going on with them. The rushed nature of this merger makes it difficult to effectively provide the information that the community needs in the small window of time we are given. We have many votes coming up that are critically important for our schools. Amendments for the articles of agreement which will take place on February 26th. I actually was telling Heidi that I pulled out my notes from our last board meeting because we were even a little confused. So on February 26th we have a vote for the amendments for the articles of agreement for the new board. Then we have on March 5th we have board elections for our respective school district boards which even if we are not even if we are merged we still need a school board who has care and control of the schools until June 30th and then to do an audit next spring or next fall. On March 4th the day before that vote assuming the amendments for the articles and even if they don't pass we need to have the petitions will be due for the new board seats and it's important that we make that deadline because we have to hold an election for the new seats on April 9th so that we can have our informational meeting on May 23rd so that we can vote on the budget on May 28th. And also on March 5th which is the day after the petition would be due, we have to vote on our local budget. So needless to say the process is cumbersome and we are concerned that our community members will have difficulty navigating the multiple votes necessary to both continuous separate school districts should we successfully appeal the decision and comply with the law. The dual process is lengthy confusing and frustrating and we are concerned that taxpayers will take this frustration to the ballot box which could result in program cuts for students. Frustration with the decision and process were evident in our organizational meeting where some citizens voted against every single act even adjournment. So the merger will result in increased taxes for Morristown and Elmore and ironically a decrease in stow. This is without any increases or changes in opportunities for students because we operate two parallel K-12 systems that do not share students. A tax increase in two of the three communities adds pressure to oppose budgets and cut programs. As an aside our high schools are over 12 miles apart beyond the threshold of geographic isolation as defined by the Vermont State Board of Education. So sharing resources is challenging whether we merge or not. We also have significant facilities needs across our supervisory union but stows needs are larger than those of Elmore Morristown needs. We estimate that facilities needs in stow will cost around $24 million. This will add further tax pressure on the Elmore Morristown taxpayers and schools without benefits to their students or alternatively will drive program cuts. The compressed timeframe for this forced merger has consumed 100% of board and administrative attention taking our focus away from important priorities like the ongoing implementation of proficiency based learning and social justice initiatives. In the Lemoyle South supervisory union we understand the importance of working together regionally and are committed to doing so. But we need a process and a timeframe that allows us to do so in many ways that benefit students in learning. The forced merger process especially when you compare it to the voluntary process with which we are familiar does not allow for positive proactive planning or even a sustained focus on students in learning. A delay will allow time to plan for merged operations in ways that include clear communications, thoughtful plans and community engagement while the legal questions are resolved. Our experience with the Elmore Morristown merger tells us that even if the forced merger moves forward we won't have adequate time to properly implement it by July 1, 2019. We are not confident that the court will resolve our legal appeal by July 1 and even less confident that it will be resolved in time to provide a smooth course for our programs and a smooth start to our operations next school year. And that is all that I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So you were kind of going over your timeline here with all the various states and my reaction was you seemed very well organized and prepared actually to move ahead with the merger because you've got all your ducks in a row and you're continuing with the dual process. One of the things that you had said, the challenges of what fiscal entity should apply for federal grants would almost be solved by following the deadline set forth by the state just because you were already fairly well organized for it and that if you had it would provide you with the one legal entity to apply for money and whatnot. So I'm just it's kind of a dual thought process as well as a dual. So excellent question and the reason why it doesn't actually provide us clarity rushing this through in the next few months is because we're all set up to merge if we need to but all of the work that needs to be done to actually make us one fiscal entity and then have to undo that fiscal entity should we be successful in our court case. So when you say what I hear from that and correct me if I'm wrong is that in fact that says you actually don't want to merge ultimately because you talk about being successful. Well if we are successful we believe we still believe our communities and our school boards still believe our proposal that we put forth two years ago and that was based on a really comprehensive self-evaluation which was based on nine years of study so unless there is new evidence in the ongoing work of our school board we're still incredibly committed to that proposal but we want to be prepared because our first commitment is to our students so we need to be prepared no matter what happens but if this were delayed a year we would be going into this next school year as two separate school districts but with votes and everything in place and communicating with the community so we can get the community to understand what is happening we can get community support on some of the articles where we do have some leeway and some say and we just feel that we'll start a much better footing. So an option to consider is one we could do something about a delay now or we could wait until the court and then find out what we need to do. I guess the concern there is that when I just laid out that very compressed voting time frame is to have strong school boards which are the foundation to strong schools you need to have people understand the new board and the composition and the purpose of the new board and then you have to have time for people to consider if they want to be on that board it would be helpful especially when we're learning to work as one board over these three districts to hear from the people who are running for the school boards so that everybody sort of understands where everybody's positions and their priorities but this is going to happen for us in an incredibly condensed time frame and I would argue that this initial board is really critical in transitioning from two school districts operating under a supervisory and two really good size by Vermont standards so I would argue that it would still be too late because it forces us all into this compressed time frame and it doesn't solve the problem of the summer programs. I'm talking about waiting until two and a half weeks which is about the time that we take, two and a half weeks is when we should hear something from the court. Well not for our case. Oh your case is not so we're not until April at the earliest so that's really our problem and that's what puts us in a tough spot for the summer because there's a lot of work to create a new fiscal entity which would be the Memorial South Unified Union but some fiscal entity needs to be applying right now for these federal grants for these summer programs, some fiscal entity needs to be handing out teacher contracts, paying teachers so we need to be ready to rock and roll with that and our supervisory union does have experience with creating a new fiscal entity and that transition and we learned through that process is that you need time and so this is a different process. Have your business folks said that they can't pull that off? It would be very difficult to pull off. I don't want to say can't because I don't want to throw mass hysteria into our system. We need good teachers and for parents who count on those summer programs for their kids to feel confident that we'll pull that off. So we'll do what we can but it makes it far more difficult and there is concern that students will be negatively impacted by this. Thank you. I'm going to stop here. I'm mindful of the time that we have another group coming in at two and I know that we want to hear from Representative Mariki and a couple of others so I would like to move on to that. Thank you. Sorry. No, we're doing the human puzzle. Primarily I'd like to echo Representative Sherman's request that this delay be considered. So rather than presenting those bills, you're focusing on a delay? That's right. I'd like to share my perspective. I'm still your name on this one. M-R-O-W-I-C-K. You're telling the agenda too. If you can pronounce it in Polish, I'll... It's Rewiński. Too good? Yeah, thank you. I don't have my testimony out yet but I'd be glad to email it if you can subset what they'd like to do that. I will. So for the record I'm Mike Mariki and I'm a State Representative from Putney. I represent the Wyndham Ford District, Putney, Numerson Westminster. This legislative covers two current supervisory unions, Wyndham Southeast and Northeast supervisory unions. I appreciate what was being said from the Stowe District because our Westminster District that I represent is in a similar bind. Initially their alternative proposal was approved by the Agency of Education and then overturned by the State Board of Education. So their crunch is as real as anybody's and didn't do any preliminary work, feeling that their alternative proposal was what was going to go forward. But I'm here primarily wearing my other work hat. The hat I wear when working with our children, both in school settings and out. The hat I wear working in our State's Family Services Division in partnership with children and families. What in other States is more succinctly referred to as child protection. I'm here to affirm that whether I'm at work here or outside the State House, my life and work is dedicated to keeping our children at the center of the circle, what I care about. Switching hats, I'm also here on behalf of the tripartisan group of legislators, Republicans, progressives and Democrats, and we urge approval of pushing back to deadlines for compliance here. For those schools that have merged, we're not looking to change anything. They've merged, they've gotten their incentives, they're moving ahead of the back. We're not interested in changing what they're doing or affect their work or situations. The schools and districts that are not settled though need more time to better serve our kids. We're at the stage of enactment with Act 46 that might be similar to the last mile broadband service so many of us are trying to get for our constituents. It's difficult at best, there's no easy solutions and it takes time. And that's the main point we're making here, we need more time. The loaf hanging fruits been picked, the more difficult situations are remaining. Making this even more difficult is the flexibility many of this field has written to Acts 46 and 49 has not been evident as Westminster has found out. We're hoping that with more time we can utilize the flexibility that Act 46 and 49 in fact have. Putting my other hat back on, I'm here especially as someone who now counts the time I've worked with kids in decades. I'm here because every day those children are at the center of the circle, what I care about. And working with young children whose lives are filled with trauma in that these children unless you work in child protection you would be shocked to hear the details of them. These are the children I'm hoping we can make more time to work things out regarding Act 46. These children need a variety and level of services, we would hope all our own children would ever need but when their lives are one trauma after another it's necessary. Here's why I ask how these children especially in Vernon where I worked with several children, how are they going to be best served when the town of Vernon is being told to merge with the district in hours drive away. I wish you would think about that and contemplate how you would feel for instance, if Shelburne was told you're merging with St. Albans if Rutland was told you're merging with Randolph if Cornwall was told you're merging with Northfield if Wells Fargo was told you're merging with Stowe if Essex was told you're merging with Hardwick if Manchester with Springfield, Milton with Morrisville and St. Albans with Virgins. That gives you a sense of what's happening Vernon is being told you're merging with the Central Supervisory Union in hours drive away in Townsend. Back with my child's advocate hat on I ask how does this serve these are children with trauma and special needs in Vernon right now they get special services through the Brattle Bar District next town over and not have to worry that the center of their services is going to be an hour away these children get an array of services some in school some out. One of the desired outcomes for these children is to keep them local by that I mean not having to place this child in an out of town or even out of state placement how is his child's life is already chaotic best served by moving the town into a merger with a district in hours away will those same services still be available in next town or when specialists are needed do they have to drive an hour or do the children that's why I'm here to keep this child and others like them in the center of the circle of what we care about a delay may mean some inconvenience with some administrators some business managers but frankly that's not why I'm here I'm here to speak to these children most especially the children in similar situations if we're going to keep them in the center of the circle what we care about I'm asking for more time to get to the best place we can to serve them you brought a few schools so the Vernon situation under the state board order they would essentially be orphaned from the called Brattle Bar Area District and they would become part of a different SU central which is headquartered in the towns of Lillian and Gray we've been together for 50 years gotten along well as a supervisor union the alternative government structure that we have offered includes Vernon and keeps us whole did Vernon want that? well that's becoming more and more clear that they would prefer that than to be an orphan I can't speak for them here directly but I feel like working together we're making good progress in that regard so I'm wondering why did Vernon get like a geographical way wasn't there like a condition where he had to travel far distances we understand that too Vernon has been a choice town for the 50 years they've been here they're on the Massachusetts border the closest high school to them is actually in Massachusetts but 80% of their kids go to Brattle Bar some of them went there at this time they weren't ready to give that up within the alternative governance structure though Vernon participated in that and we feel like with some time we could get to that point where an alternative governance merchant would be able to be worked out and keep us whole again I worked with a number of kids in Vernon for a town of its size I'm pleased to say Vernon people generously take on a higher number of foster families and other surrounding towns so there's a lot of children like that and the children who have finally seen some sense of availability but they need a lot of services the array of services is really hard to describe because it's so consistent frustratingly not always as effective as we want but they do a great job as they can when extra services are needed it's right there and you're before us today not necessarily to present those bills but to say that you're making an extension a delay is what you're asking for I will say that some of those that half merged have talked about how doing so actually improved access for children so I hear that that's a concern for you that's been a concern for some that half merged and they've found that it's working better have they been that far apart from the district they were forced to merge in? I'm not speaking about Vernon in particular we're talking about your group that I see we're talking about this group down here correct well there's Roxbury and Middlebury excuse me I'm not Peely or Addison but again we're not here to argue the value of Act 46 you're here to say please offer a delay I appreciate your consideration I'm just curious for you the difference between an extension and a moratorium because it's language I've seen both bills I see you are sponsors of bills in each could you just speak to what the difference really is as you see it in real terms I don't see it as a difference what we're asking for is more time so I we can parse the language here but not a significant difference and again I don't know that we're trying to get away from or debate we do feel there was an alternative proposal that would allow us to merge and keep us whole you are in the joint lawsuit correct in the 31 two of the three towns that I represent are involved in litigation you is right now the court is supposed to be providing some guidance on February 15 the question before us is does it make a difference to do something now when it's probably going to take us two weeks given as you know our process well in terms of finishing it here waiting a day getting it on the floor waiting two days waiting a day to get it over the senate the senate takes it up takes it over just to say we're going to know more in two and a half weeks which is pretty close to the time that we would get something through so I'm wondering what difference that makes to you why we should do something when we're going to know in two and a half weeks if that was indeed certain I would agree with you but the courts can work like we do at times so I feel like we're trying to put this in the hopper so we're ready to go I just want to clarify a question Westminster's not part of the Putney-Dummerston merger they've been in a different scenario they're in a different supervisory union they originally got alternative governance approval by the board now they're being told to merge with Athens and Grafton their alternative that was to just remain for stand alone thank you very much and thank you for your consideration okay so basically what I'm understanding is that the three bills age 39, 40, 41, 42 the sponsors are looking to mainly just focus that on a request for a delay I believe we will have our lunch council go through those with us it won't be today so I think that takes up to a representative partridge and you have age 78 representative partridge would you have anything on the screen do you have anything on the screen I did bring a copy of my testimony I can try I got a heck of a time this morning trying to get this all organized and get the printer down the hall anyway I think I got a few more great hairs thank you Madam Chair and committee members for the opportunity to testify before you regarding age 78 an act that proposes to play some more an act that proposes to play some moratorium on school district mergers ordered by the state board of education until legal issues are adjudicated for the record my name is representative Carolyn Partridge I represent the towns of Athens, Brooklyn, Grafton, part of North West Minster, all of Rockingham and my hometown of Wyndham as a legislator I voted for act 46 and act 49 as the chair of the Wyndham Elementary on the board I also understand why a moratorium or a one-year delay in the implementation of the state board of education's order of November 30th, 2019 is necessary common sense requires the delay the board of education's order of November 30th is subject to a court appeal together with affirmative claims brought by most of the parties enacted by that order as to their statutory right under our democratic system there will be a hearing on February 15th on the school district's motion for a preliminary injunction if that injunction is granted all merger activity will cease during the pendency of the case if the motion is denied that denial will be immediately appealed and the main case will continue to go forward the court is ultimately being asked to reverse and join the state board's order and declare it unconstitutional on several grounds among the other issues the appellants challenge the validity of the agency's default articles of agreement which purport to permit the new union district boards to transfer funds before June 30th, 2019 real estate must all be conveyed no later than June 30th the parties also challenge the validity of the powers of a new unelected transitional board which claims to have the power to negotiate contractual agreements, spend taxpayer dollars, borrow funds and to exercise municipal power in all planning transitional and other related duties prior to July 1st the agency of education will be beginning a process to commingle capital reserves, debts and other liabilities and assets in their districts boards that may ultimately be deemed illegal will have begun to make staffing decisions, contract decisions even borrowing decisions elections for new involuntarily merged districts are held they will be warned by an unelected transitional board something that Vermont has never ever seen before it is truly unprecedented for a state agency to have invented an election process that is nowhere found in statute the process for counting and reporting votes in such an election is entirely invented by the agency and has no basis in statute as that process goes forward it may be the subject of further litigation because that process proposes to commingle and dilute the votes of individual towns it will be extremely difficult to remedy the harm to voting rights which would be a constitutional harm if the appellants prevail the intent to return to pre-merger conditions would be like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again and trust me the appellants will insist on putting Humpty Dumpty back together again a moratorium is the safest, surest way to give the court process time to resolve the merits of the appeals it will avoid the potential problems of having to ask the court to order the undoing of spending and borrowing decisions made by unelected transitional boards if we allow a one-year delay for implementation the status quo will be maintained and the court will have time to consider well researched briefs on both sides schools will budget and operate just as they have done before districts that have chosen to merge can move forward with that process there is no harm of course for assuring consistency and stability for our students this is why we all pro or con simply need the moratorium or at least a one-year delay until the court case is resolved number two voting processes required by law are now being ignored there are not statutes mandate that articles of agreement for new unions allow existing districts to the right to vote on the transfer of debt and property neither Act 46 nor Act 49 ever repealed the voting requirements with respect to articles of agreement the agency of education in their default articles of agreement which weren't sent through rulemaking ignored existing statutes that were never amended or repealed existing statutes involve a fundamental right the right to vote with respect to the transfer of debt and property the agency itself informed the board that there wouldn't be time for forced mergers to adopt anything but the defaulted articles without the general assembly's explicit authorization no agency has authority to rewrite laws particularly where they relate to voting rights this is the duty and responsibility of Vermont's elected representatives in the general assembly there is another issue involving small schools grants that even the agency is asking the general assembly to look at it is imperative that the general assembly revisit these issues number three budget chaos within the districts affected by the state board's order there is currently chaos surrounding budgeting the agency has been telling districts they must do merged budgets and that they may not do individual budgets financial managers have told us that they have received advice that they can't do individual town school budgets for existing districts in most of these districts there is no transitional board and no merged board to approve a merged budget existing boards empower to approve budgets for existing districts any district should have the power and the right to plan for the contingency that the appeal of the board's order may be successful but as a result of directives from the agency even though the law requires budgets to be presented by town meeting day many districts will not be in a position to present budget at town meetings number four the agency and the board seem to ignore the law that we wrote section 9 of act 46 said that districts could retain their current governance structure if they were meeting the goals set forth in section 2 section 10 of act 46 then went on to say that the board should be merging districts to the extent necessary to meet the goals of section 2 numerous communities came forward with clear and convincing evidence that they were providing excellent academic outcomes with great fiscal efficiency and with growing student populations but instead of merging districts to the extent necessary the board openly acknowledged on page 6 of its final order that it merged districts to the extent possible now I don't mean to disparage the board they are among our finest citizens working essentially as volunteers with virtually no staff or budget meeting once or twice a month they were commissioned to evaluate thousands upon thousands of pages section 9 proposals that were put together by dozens of communities each investing hundreds of hours in that endeavor and I can attribute to that because I wrote the one for Wyndham hundreds of hours were spent on this including the survey that we did of our community to come up with the results this will be a house agriculture and forestry for anybody who wants to look at it neither the agency nor the board ever developed any standards for measuring achievement of the goals of section 2 in order to evaluate those proposals made pursuant to section 9 some of these proposals which various communities had invested hundreds of hours researching and writing were only read by a couple of board members and given very little time for consideration by the board when the board rules required that each be evaluated on its merits I would add that the law we passed recognized greatly imbalanced debt and geographic isolation as barriers that might well prevent merger at this time the agency in the board almost completely ignored those barriers when in places like such as East Montpelier and Callis or Montgomery and Bakersfield and the town Wyndham these barriers are very substantial in conclusion let us all take the time to get this right for the sake of our students their teachers parents and administrators we need to set a more certain and secure path forward through this transition legislation though infrequent has been enacted during pending litigation usually by not withstanding one vsa sections 213 and 214 I would ask legislative council to research this to verify accuracy and provide examples it has happened our schools and our children's education are too important to impose a blueprint for governance that will be in place for generations to come without taking a relatively short period of time to clear up these problems now I mean this time to testify and present age 78 question what you're talking about it gets inside what's happening with the questions before the court I just want to give you some examples of why it's important to take the pause button take a little time and do it right so my question to you is the same we're looking at hearing something from the court in two and a half weeks given the amount of time it takes as you know very well is there a reason that we should do this now versus waiting to see what the potential word from the court is in two and a half weeks I would say that given that sometime around now more budgets are due so that they can vote it on a town meeting day I would say we need to do this quickly because it's for the good of the kids and are you working on a marriage budget at this point? No. The West River modified unified education district has its budget together, Wyndham has its budget together, yes I've heard in other testimony as well that the board members gave very little time and consideration when the board rules required that each be evaluated and also that very few people read. Is there some supporting data? Is there testimony I can listen to that I can see where that happens? I suppose that you could look through all of the videos that were taken of the State Board of Education's meetings. Each 78 would address two of the lawsuits but not the Huntington lawsuit. Is that correct? It's not listed in here as being part of the pending litigation. I would have to turn to It's not listed there but it should be. Okay. And so I just see that this basically would say that this is called a moratorium as opposed to what we've just seen kind of both representative Murwicky was saying either or I don't know if you have a different take on that or a moratorium extension I would be, I think that we should do at least a one year delay and push this out to June 30th, 2020. Right and in this bill if I'm getting it right it would be the later of June 30th, 2020 or such a time as none of this litigation is under appeal. So my bill is very similar to the one that Heidi Sherman introduced but there was a little bit in addition and I can tell you what that is exactly thanks to Jim Wright. Jim writes to me your bill does the same thing but in addition requires the General Assembly after the court has rendered its final judgment on the litigation to issue a joint resolution approving the mergers. Without that joint resolution the mergers would be stopped even if the court finds that the forced mergers have legal effect and I think that has something to do with the fact that really only the General Assembly can make changes in terms of voting rights. I would turn to the lawyers to see if there is another reason for that. Yeah. Thank you. You said the extension should be at least one year. How long would you like it to go? I would like it to be in place until the court cases or the appeal is adjudicated but a year will give us a better picture for what's coming along. I can catch up. Thank you. I really thank you for the opportunity. Thanks so much. I like your big round. Yes. I'm sorry. What did she say? Nothing. I have lots of sunshine. And we like having you as a neighbor. And I like being closer to the printer too when it works. Thank you. Are you speaking for us then about you have two bills 23 and 62? Two bills. Everyone has copies of them. 62 and 43. So for the record, I'm Janet Ansell. I represent Calis-Marshfield and Plainfield. I have two bills. I may have cosponsored a few others but I have two that I've initiated and those two that I'm going to speak about. Are they going up there? And two of my towns have kind of worked their way through at 46. Marshfield and Plainfield went through a process and had a lot of discussions. Actually both voted in favor of consolidation but the towns they were going to consolidate with voted no. So they ended up without partners. Anyway, long story, things are relatively calm. This has been a much harder process in Calis and we're part of Washington Central. For those who are returning to this committee, you'll remember discussions last year about the disparity in debt among the Washington Central towns, people are nodding. It's a significant issue for us and is H43 among other things sets out a path for trying to deal with that. And I'm going to focus not on that at the moment because frankly even if this committee acted right now, if there isn't a delay it wouldn't make any difference. So I'm going to talk about the delay and the evaluation, which are two pieces of H43 that I think are really important. In age 62 I'm going to talk about proposal require a town vote before a school is closed when it's part of the merged district. In my mind, so I didn't tie my bill to the lawsuit and I did that purposely. I knew that Representative Partridge was going to have that in her bill so I knew it was going to come in front of you. I was doing something much more simple. Just saying I think that given the timeframe and I understand if you're sitting on the outside, it looks like there's been a lot of time, particularly since the state board issued its order. If you're in a town that's subject to the order, it doesn't feel like much time at all. And in Calis we never have actually voted yes or no on whether to merge so we haven't had that kind of community engagement and dialogue that we really I think need to be able to sort of work through this step however it comes out. I think for me the delay is really if the bill proposes a year it's not tied to the lawsuit. I think it's important when you think about what's its state which is really our kids and our community and I think that the timeframe that we're in now not as school administrators so I can't tell you whether it's manageable or not. Some people say it is, some people say it's not. All I can say is that I think for the community it's too important and I represent a community that really needs time to have a discussion about what their kids need and what they want their school to look like and they haven't really had that. To me that's also connected to the proposal for a serious evaluation of Act 46. When I say serious, my bill puts money behind it. What I would want to see is a contract with a third party entity to do the evaluation. I think it would be really important that people feel that it's independent and that they feel that it may be professionally done. The bill puts $500,000 towards it that came out of a conversation I had with joint fiscal. They've done these kinds of studies like this. They're not cheap. I mean if you're going to have something that's worth having you need to spend some money to do it. The idea that I have is that it would be in three stages. The first stage would be this coming December which I think would help inform the discussion. If we have a delay, if we are successful in getting the delay, it would help us understand what those next steps should look like. The bill ties it to the goals of Act 46 that I guess the way I think about it, this is probably the most major restructuring, what is the most major restructuring in a really long time? Probably 100 years. We did Act 60, but we also did Act 60 and that was financing, not kids, although some people saw it as both. But we did do kinds of evaluations of Act 60. This is a very major change for a great many people and at the very least I think we should understand whether the changes were making advances towards those goals. I feel that that's probably in my mind that works with the delay. You give yourself some more time and you get some more information so you can make the best possible decisions. The other two pieces of the bill have to do with allowing some kind of alternative and how to deal with the disparities in debt. I'm very happy to come back and talk to the committee again about those, but I think given where you all are at the moment, that's probably not the best use of my time or yours. But very quickly what they would do is they would allow a phase in of a unified tax rate or they would allow, they would have a legacy debt tax rate to operate separately from the base budget. So it's kind of simple ideas but it would require that they negotiate that on the emerging stance. So if you want me to stop for a minute, I'm sort of babbling away. Do you then have questions and then go to 62? Would that be better? Yeah, I just have a couple of questions. You mentioned the Act 60 review that was done by a third party. You know we did reviews of Act 60 of various kinds and I'm not sure but the one I'm remembering is really had to do, it was post Act 60 and had to do with education finance and it was done by a third party. Do you remember probably long after because we're looking at one of the things on the report, this is really new and it's hard to get a report when things are so new and things are, murders are just happening. So I don't know how many years it was and I could go back and try to construct different evaluation points that we did with Act 60. We also did an Act 60 technical direction bill the year later which was kind of a massive rewrite. But the my thought is that the first murders really under this current process that we're in right now which predate Act 46 happened as long as four years ago. If you're doing a three stage evaluation to have the first stage December 2019 means you're looking at something that's five years old. I think that's enough time to begin to figure out what your metrics are and look at the early merge districts and say are we moving in the right direction. But the bill has three dates. It has, let's go back and think about myself exactly what they are. It has 2019, December 15, 2019, December 15, 2022 and then December 15, 2025. So I think you really do need to do a long term thing but I think there is a good reason for doing stage one now because we have merged districts that are already happening. Thank you. Any other questions related to this particular one? Sorry. So 8.62, this came out of just sort of general conversations. I'd say in my community one of the real concerns is certainly a concern about that. But there's also a concern that our school is going to be closed. We have an elementary school K-6 in Calis. It's not big but it's not tiny. It's over 100 students. And it's in buildings in good shape. I think it's unlikely that it would be closed. But it's a genuine fear that you become part of a larger district and other people are going to make decisions about something that's really important to your community. And the more I talk with people, some people thought this was already the role that you can't close the school unless folks in the town agree. I know some merged districts have made this part of the articles of agreement. But if you're in the situation of being merged involuntarily, I can tell you that you don't have any leverage in those negotiations. The state board's made its order and there's the bulk articles of agreement that give you two years of protection. And you really just don't have any leverage. And I think it's a genuinely held fear, whether it's justified or not, as someone else would have to decide. But I think the fear is real and I think some, well the proposal here is to say is to do it indefinitely. And the way I've written it, it would apply to any merged district. I can see an argument to eliminating it to the province. But the idea is to say if this unified board wants to close the school they should convince the people in that town that it's time to close. And if they can't do that it's probably not time. People in towns do close their own schools and I think they will continue to do that. They don't do it quickly. They shouldn't. And I think that requiring a vote of the people in the town is reasonable. I think it's good policy and I think it will allay some real fears on people's parts. So I'm proposing just to the legislature but just make it a roll. Do you know how many towns are that to close their schools to? I don't. A few. Not very many. A handful. And they might have closed. Who knows. I honestly don't think Calis is going to be closed with a large board, not with a small board. But I can tell you that people are afraid. I have visited your school and it is lovely. It is lovely. More lovely than other schools. No, it's the most lovely right now. H43 would also kind of give an opportunity for that, right? Because I understand it would, during the delay would allow communities to adopt new articles of agreement similar to how they could have been deferred. Which is in our district where I am, we did include just that protection and we could do it. But anyway, there would be a path for that in either bill, essentially. But one would be from the state and one would be an opportunity for them. There would be a path, but the truth is if you're the little school that's worried and you're negotiating with the big community, you just don't have any leverage in that negotiation. And that's what we're discovering. This has become a real sticking point in Washington Central. So I'm saying let's take that off the table. Don't require the negotiation. Let's just say that's going to be the goal. One, just to follow up on what I experienced and again just in one district, but the leverage of the small towns had in our district was that since they were part of the study committee and it was part of the articles of agreement if other towns wanted to find themselves in a merged district, they needed to agree to that stipulation. And I understand this is different but that was the leverage of those towns. That point was to say, well we're including it and it's part and parcel with the agreement. You want to merge. And that's exactly the leverage that in the forced merger you don't have. Can you tell me what the cost per pupil for an equalized student is in Calis? Not if it happened in my head. It has been relatively low. On the lower, well I'd say it's sort of in the middle. But I can find a figure for you by if you know it's in the middle. Somewhere in the middle I think. I'm sure somebody from Calis who knows. I think from your towns I remember that Calis was the lowest of them. That's here. I'm sorry. A little over 15. Thank you. I think you were also the lowest of your merged districts. Yes, we are. Thank you all so much. We will be in discussion. We appreciate the efforts that everybody was showing for their towns with their schools and for their children. And the committee will be discussing whether we are going to vote. We're going to go vote on electronic cigarettes which is much easier. Okay, thank you. Because we have another probably stiller side coming in. Excuse me. Excuse me. I don't want to say it a lot more. Who are you? I'm the committee assistant. My LOR. And you're on... We just have to... Thank you. Thank you. All valid. Plenty of life. Oops. It's a jump suit. Stand up. Oh my goodness. I wonder why. Good. Can I have a little water please? Yes. Get out of your bed. Okay. Real fun. Real fun. It's the bill. Okay. Basically... It's good. So that's technically two seats. They may be small but they are two. They're in my bag. I do. I can give a courtesy charge. Is there a... Yeah, either way. Okay. We just departed. Okay. I wanted to say first of all over the weekend as you know our mission was to move H through three through quickly. We had originally looked at doing a public hearing. We decided instead to go for the fast track. In that process we have over the weekend heard from groups that had things to add. And as I say to everybody the legislature is very bad at lists. Here we are again with trying to make lists that are not always inclusive. So there was a group that worked earlier today. Dylan and I participated. I was kind of in and out with a group to look at changes to the findings to address basically anti-Semitism which is a significant problem that's been happening in our schools. If you go to the paper and look it up you will find it. Looking at that, looking at an expansion of ethnic groups and maybe something with a data collection. So in order to help us inform us on that we have a few people here to testify and the first is Abai Ramey can't talk anymore. I'm a retired speech language pathologist. It sounds together anyway. So Abai Ramey Small is here to from Ahavezetic which is the largest temple I think in the state and she's here to give us her input on that. So we very much appreciate you making the drive down. Yes, I hope that the roads weren't too bad. Thank you for all of us, right? Thank you so much. Really appreciate the opportunity to be here and your interest in working together on this and all of the good work that you're doing on something that's so, so important. Abai, I want to just take a step back before I talk about the Jewish community and our experience to talk about what our concerns are about other groups in Vermont so that our Jewish experience is contextualized. That is that we have spent a considerable amount of our time and effort in forging close relationships with the Islamic Society of Vermont as I have with the Imam Educational Programs and Social Programs, a religious program shared with the folks at the mosque. And that's not only so that we come to know each other as friends as part of the community to appreciate each other but also because I personally have been concerned for their safety and we're living in a time that feels fraught for some of us who are in communities that are in other places in the country experiencing hate. And out of concern for the Muslim community I wanted to make sure that our presence as friends and protectors is very much a part of our relationship as well as our mutuality in being part of a broader religious community together. So that's chapter one. Chapter two is my concern about racism in the state. I was in Bennington just was it two weeks? I kind of lost track. Two weeks ago when Attorney General T.J. Donovan made his announcement that there would not be criminal charges brought against the white nationalists who had been threatening and really taunting and hurting the family of Kiamars. Attorney General Donovan invited me to be there and I took that as a strong statement that he understood that the Jewish community and the black community were all in it together. It was a press conference that was held in the synagogue in Bennington that felt really important and present. It was very painful to listen to the stories of what she and her family have gone through. There's no question in my mind that this is the right moment to simply take action to support her, her family and the African American community in this state and that the need to address racism educationally is really important. So I support that you are trying to move on this quickly, especially having stood with her on that day and experienced what we experienced together. We also know that there are other groups in the state that are experiencing misunderstanding or hate and that includes Native Americans, it includes immigrants those seeking refugee asylum. In our synagogue we have ESL classes and we're working on forming relationships with the new immigrants who come through our doors so that we can be a strong support for them with Vermont and we work closely and so for us the experience of those who are coming from other parts of the world running away from violence and from hate is really an important Jewish value for us to recognize our sameness together and to be supportive to them personally as much as we possibly can. We also had great concern for Central and South American, Latin American immigrants and we have in our synagogue a sanctuary working group that is focused primarily on how we can support those who have come to Vermont who are feeling threatened and this is an issue across our state. We are also working on programs and relationship building to support that community. There's a long history of education and collaboration with the LGBTQ community so all of these are expressions of our values as a Jewish community and as well as our recognition that we are all in it together and so for that I really applaud what you are doing and I'm very grateful as my whole community is. Now the area that we feel needs a little bit different kind of attention is anti-Semitism. The ADL, the Anti-Defamation League has statistics on that, many educational programs on that and we've been reading about how those experiencing hate across America in the highest number are Jewish communities and Jewish individuals. Those most likely to experience hate in schools or institutions are Jews because we're Jews and in fact the Jewish community is feeling threatened and fearful right now. When Pittsburgh happened I can say that it sort of surfaced what we'd all been holding back as this feeling like uh oh what's happening now and now it was ooh it's here and this great concern we had that we all need to be together in understanding each other and supporting each other. After Pittsburgh happened we in Burlington organized a gathering, it wasn't exactly a vigil it was it was a prayer and solidarity program that was held at City Hall and hundreds of people came spilling out onto the street in Burlington out of concern for the Jewish community and that was really important for the Jewish community to know that our community cares about us and shares our concern. One of the things that I found really interesting was that in the weeks after the Pittsburgh attack we started receiving cards, calls letters, floral arrangements some from people we've never met and never had any interaction with to tell us that they were concerned for us and that was very moving and very important but it also flagged for us that this may have been the first time that some of our fellow Vermonters recognized that the Jewish community is experiencing a time of fear and some threat and so the outpouring was beautiful, it was lovely, it was very, very, very much appreciated and it flagged something for us. There's something happening now and this is a conversation we need to have together as a community. I can tell you from my experience working with the families at Ohavi Zedek that I've heard some very troubling stories of anti-Semitic taunts that children are experiencing in school bullying swastika, many swastika stories where this hateful symbol of the Nazis has been thrown around as a way to taunt Jewish children in schools. There was a big incident in the Burlington High School just a couple of years ago, it took a long time to resolve where one of this students was using the Hindu symbol from which the swastika was drawn as his symbol on his email account and this deeply troubled the Jewish students who didn't see this as Hindu but rather as a way to mask the fact that it was actually a swastika. We had a lot of meetings with the superintendent of schools and parents with students who were feeling afraid to go to school and it has come to our attention in a number of different ways that our kids feel like their friends may not realize what they're going through and those who are not their friends who may be the ones bringing these hateful acts towards them may think it's funny but it may not understand even what this means which is why education is so important being able to share with kids what the experience of hate has been for the Jewish community which goes back for 2,000 years and of course the experience of the past century during the Holocaust a time of much, much, much loss and grief in the Jewish community and for the first time members of the Jewish community are once again wondering could this happen again now you may say that that sounds irrational this is the United States of America it's 2019 and on a rational level maybe that is irrational but the truth is the Jewish community isn't always so sure that everybody understands the threat that they are feeling that they're experiencing and when children are coming to school taunting other Jewish children with anti-Semitic symbols and statements it does really care attention we take it very seriously given what we've been through and so I've read what you have been working on and I'm again really grateful that you're doing it totally understand why you're doing it and want to see this happen I hope that in the attempt to be inclusive that there isn't some inadvertent exclusivity that is that the Jewish community needs to be noticed in whatever language is included here in the best possible way now if it were just about race that would be one thing but once you begin to include other communities that are experiencing hate it's really important that the Jewish community is included in that and I want to remind you that statistically the group most likely to experience hate in schools and organizations and in the workplace are Jews even more than the other communities that you've named here that's the statistical truth in terms of religious communities well that's yes that's true now there's no question that the different groups that you've named here may experience hate in different ways so for example somebody said to me I was talking to yesterday in the Jewish community well are Jews being pulled over by state troopers because they're Jewish obviously is a way to make a point and I said no that's not the case however the taunting of children in schools is something that's specific and unique to Jewish children and is very very deeply concerning so the Anti-Defamation League is a resource for this information among others and we certainly would be more than happy within the Jewish community to offer whatever advice suggestions that we can bring to the table to help so that the bill that is eventually put forth is one that helps everybody to feel like they've been noticed and protected and cared for I'll just tell you one more story and then pause if you'd like to ask me any other questions we had a member of the Jewish community who's a parent in our Hebrew school who's a school counselor she came to do a talk along with a member of the state's attorney not the state's attorney the U.S. attorney's office who specializes in civil rights and in hate crimes and they came to talk to parents so that there was some perspective on what individuals families and communities can do when they feel that there's hate being expressed in the schools there was a school counselor and there was this attorney from the U.S. attorney's office and there was somebody who had come into the meeting who was not a member of the congregation but had an interest in hearing what was said and raised his hand and said I don't understand the swastika's a Hindu symbol now like for a Jewish year that's like fireworks go off we are still just a generation away from six million of our people being murdered and that that swastika may have come may have some similarity to the Hindu symbol it's a symbol of hate and here right in my own synagogue somebody said that I couldn't believe it this is about education and so I think it's important that this bill is coming out of the Education Committee because we need people to be important and to be sensitive could you clarify the distinction between the two the Hindu symbol and I understand and I can't understand how somebody might suggest that that's a Hindu symbol they have a similar appearance not identical and there's some markings on the Hindu symbol that are not on the swastika symbol the distinction is one comes from a religious tradition of the east and one comes from the Nazis that's the distinction what's that it's going in different directions it's twisted so you may say context is everything but when you have a child who's verbalizing hate towards other Jewish kids and uses the Hindu symbol it's pretty clear that that was a way of trying to get away with it but using a swastika it just is really obvious to the Jewish child and that has happened right here in our state my main concern as a former school counselor and educators that if you know why wouldn't a Muslim come in and say you know I would like you to be covering Islam or Buddhism or Hindu or Satan worship you know what I mean other religions I mean we don't want to start comparing numbers you know who's being oppressed the most or you know I understand but I feel like if we open this up to all religions what will be our argument that you know you don't have enough numbers so we're not going to include you so that's an excellent question I haven't seen the language that's been worked on this morning so I was sort of holding back hoping that there was something that I could comment on but I'll comment on it from your perspective and I appreciate that so the first thing is that's why I started out by talking about our outreach to the Muslim community we are concerned about members of the Muslim community and in fact the first call that I got after Pittsburgh was from a member of the Muslim community because of our mutual concern for each other so there are two religious groups that are feeling threatened in America right now Jews and Muslims and others may say that they have had discrimination but they're not in the same ballpark so that still doesn't enter your question I realize that but it could be that you include religious communities who are experiencing threat or persecution or have experienced threatened persecution such as those that are currently feeling threatened Jewish community, Muslim community and others so in other words you could adopt language that says yes we mean everybody but we specifically understand that there are two communities right now in our state in our country and in our world that are feeling very overtly threatened so perhaps you could adopt language that incorporates that while not excluding everybody else working on that language we're hoping that I'm trying to see if our drafter can come up soon he's actually we'll be here at 345 I'm trying to get him in a little bit sooner but we are looking at some language that I think will help and we are interested in your view of this representative elder and I mean I would have a reaction to the idea that some groups are also secular and possibly culturally this could be true of different religious but that sometimes these groups are not necessarily a group of practicing together and organized religion but just that that is at play as well and just kind of representative is awesome just what made me think of that that sometimes it's not just who is an active member of a religious worship organization absolutely it is very true that this is not about who's affiliate and who's active in the religious community it's about how you identify and it's not just children in schools I was just this morning meeting with a member who is a nurse at the hospital who was telling me that she has endless numbers of stories she can tell about experience she's had working with people who are intelligent and educated and working in a very sensitive field who don't realize that they're saying things that are really hurtful and ignorant so schools are a good place to start because this is where we're going to chart the future but this is a problem that's happening everywhere and it has to do with how people self-identify and not so much of how much they practice that religion so I'm curious I don't know how this works but you'll tell me if my suggestion my thoughts about language resonate does that feel like that's moving in the right direction or are you not able to answer that yet? I think that's very helpful I'm wondering Representative Jean Batista we might pull up some of that language without our attorney here first All of it is our question so let's look at some of them where we have focused our attention is in the findings we have looked at a number of things we wanted to take faith words out of it is one of the things that we wanted to do because as soon as we start doing that then we've forgotten somebody you mean like excuse me I'm sorry does that mean that naming religious groups is that what you mean? No just taking the words at one point it was Jewish faith we're trying to stay away from that for example and we're trying to keep it as broad as we can so that it can be inclusive and yet is addressing some of the issues we did get from Doug Martin from Temple Sidon I did send us some data from US hate crime statistics that did note hate crimes in Vermont so this is a nice statistic that we have and we're going to be doing it in terms of percentages from this day it's not that many but it's enough we can at least say percentages and the one that is the highest number of incidences are related to race, ethnicity and ancestry that is followed by sexual orientation and religious religion and the fourth is disability so that is a piece that at least brings into account that this is an issue that's happening in our state and we have some statistics Madam Chair just to let you know that we have it on the screen behind us so you don't have to turn around whatever works best so the first one has to do with citing some statistics on hate crimes and it does bring in that religious orientation is one of those biases the second one that we were adding and you know what Dylan what I'm not seeing in here is we at one point have things about symbols and I don't see that we got that one and I can't remember why the next one the definition that stands right now says ethnic groups means non-dominant racial ethnic groups in the United States and women people who are abnatic people from other indigenous groups, people of African Asian Pacific Island, Chiconex, the Latinx or Middle Eastern descent and then added this as well as minorities that have been historically subject to persecution or genocide which is some strong language specifically name a group but I think that a lot of people can look at that and say that's my group so that's one thing you can think about we hope to get this done by the end of the day and again I want people to bear in mind the group was struggling today and this is what happens is we could kill the whole bill by struggling on a word and we want to make sure that we have another opportunity to address it and again the most important thing that we're doing is establishing this group so thoughts on that I appreciate that this is really helpful I had seen that there had been one version of ethnic groups in a previous version of this bill and then an update and this is yet a third this is one that we're looking at at the moment I think it goes toward that to name groups fact that the Jewish community isn't specifically named or the Muslim community to be frank it feels like it doesn't quite do it this is better I see that it's better and I understand but given that those most likely to experience hate crimes from these various groups the Muslim community feels like there's something absent from my perspective and I understand the challenge that you have and I don't mean to diminish in any way how hard that is and I appreciate that but if there were some way and again I feel for the Muslim community as well that that could be flagged because that's a current situation that needs special attention I suppose that's what I'm talking about some kind of special attention our families are really struggling right now they're looking for that I don't think we could do that we didn't do number five there did we number four here is in our findings and that uses the statistics 21% racial, 23% sexual orientation third one was religious bias and the last one was disability bias that brings that in the second one says the harassment of marginalized groups and the lack of understanding of people in power about the magnitude of the systemic impacts of harassment and bias damage to the whole community that's another one of them Dylan we had something about symbols at one point what happened to that? I'm not sure what the status is with Jim's drafting but we could certainly look into it we had at one point we were looking at language we had in developing the findings discussion this morning with a group of stakeholders and several members of the body and we had worked on language that would bring in examples of Vermont instances in which identifiable symbols of hate have been seen we had a lengthy discussion about the wording and whether or not we should name in the findings the word swastika and what positive and negative connotations that might have for a reader of the bill but additionally if we were empowering use of that symbol by naming it there was some consensus without speaking for others that referring to a symbol such as a swastika as a symbol of hate and putting in the weight of the meaning of that symbol and its relationship to serving frequency with which we are seeing hateful symbols at schools in public spaces at places of worship at farms and in places of business all of which are documentable if that's a word offenses that we have seen in the media in recent reports that that might be a way to again convey that symbols of hate have no place and are in fact damaging to the whole community so we had worked on some language around that there was general agreement that using that term symbol would also address other symbols of hate someone pointed out that some people view flags as carrying a meaning and that that is a symbol for some and we all know the instances recently and the discussions in communities around the country about use of say a confederate flag and so on and so forth so that's language as well that I think would be appropriate to consider within an amendment and we do have some potential language that I could take to Jeremy if you'd like me to. The way that the language read the swastikas and similar messages of anti-seminism and racial hatred have in recent years appeared a disturbance frequency at schools and public spaces places of worship farms and places of business so it's a matter of how we're going to address the symbols graffiti and whatever we can do to get the language enough so that we can get the bill passed and fix it in the Senate if we need to. That would certainly be helpful. It's certainly not only swastikas that we're talking about but naming it does help and if there's a way to flag that there are some groups that are experiencing an intensity of resurgence and intensity of hate that because it has a history, has people feeling very much afraid would be really helpful for educators to know since this is about education so that they understand who they need to educate. And that's what the workgroup's mission will be. Their mission is to be able to organize things around their statues that they can be helping to maybe look at curriculum development and things that can go as model torches. This is what the workgroup is focused on. Thank you. Do you feel that the term ethnic group which we say here means non-dominant racial and ethnic groups do you feel that you know because we're trying to come up with a carve out within that category is that even appropriate to defining it? I'm very glad you asked that question because having been looking back and forth between the screens I missed that word. I had seen it when I was studying in preparation for coming here. That word sets off alarm bells for Jews because they're one of the anti-Semitic canards that has been around for a long time is that Jews control the world which of course we all know is not true in a total anti-Semitic canard. Non-dominant flags that. So I think ethnic groups that's fine but non-dominant I think we need a different word. I don't know why we can't have minority or something like that. Somebody in the Jewish community yesterday said to me did you see that there's this word non-dominant? Oh my god that's going to be bad. That has a very strong response in the Jewish community. So let's flag that word. Again I just want to say that as an educator I've been on the end in schools where we've gotten you know mandates from the legislative and corporate where the implementation is very different from this conversation and my concern is really seriously is that for us even if we had three children of another religion, if they perceived, if those parents perceived that their children are feeling excluded, I think this opens up the public schools to teaching all religions or I don't want it to become a numbers game. You know I understand the dominance piece of it in terms of the Muslims and the Jews but I could definitely see this conversation being with a mother that are Buddhist or Hindu saying but my child is you know feeling excluded and I just want to avoid that. I'm totally with you. I think that there was language whether it's this one or a previous one I lost track about those who have had historical experience of persecution in this country. Is that there? Which does begin to touch on that. Thank you. If the language did flag that there are specific groups that are most concerned at this moment or most experiencing this at this moment and others, if there's a way to create that inclusive language the problem is just as you've just said once you start to name any group you're leaving out other groups. So if there's a way to do that in a way that is not exclusive that would be great and I think it's possible. Either you name none or you say here are these that are most in this moment in time most at risk for this hate and of course we want to also make sure that we have inclusive education so that there's sensitivity about difference as difference and that there will be one or two students who have other faith traditions and they should also be the beneficiaries of this sensitivity education. I'm actually going to turn to the two other rabbis that are in the room and I'm going to ask you as a group in terms of the word non-dominant do you have a thought on that and if you could when you speak say who you are non-dominant racial and ethnic groups. We're looking at the word non-dominant. My name is David Edelson. I'm the Rabbi at Temple Sinai in South Burlington and I share Amy's concern that non-dominant it depends on who's defining the group. It's an amorphous term that can move depending on who's speaking it. I would think that something like racial and ethnic groups that have historically experienced oppression and discrimination in the US would be more inclusive and more dominant which gets into a whole argument about who's dominant. And then just say including people who are. So that other language from the other place could fit here as well and resolve some of that. So just looking around the committee are we comfortable with making a change representative? I just want to bring forward the perspective of the many hours that I've spent with the groups who primarily have worked to bring forward this bill first in a different vehicle last biennium where it failed to pass setting the work back by many months when it could have begun in September and to the present point. Speaking for the perspective I've heard there because I want to make sure it's heard in this discussion especially with so many folks in the room that I'm very pleased are here The word non-dominant I think if I could speak for the coalition members that I've had conversations with is an important term to share to the communities both represented within this building and outside of it that there's a recognition on behalf of law makers and policy makers in this state that there are people in our society who have had little or no representation or who have been in positions where their identities for whatever reason have been marginalized and the use of that word the way that I've understood it in working with members of the coalition and of the different groups who are named that word carries a connotation as well of potential empowerment because we are using the laws to name people perhaps have not had the level of representation that we would like to see through this work and I just think it's important to also bring that perspective I'm not necessarily espousing it however as a cosponsor of the legislation we're looking at today I'm aware of the heavy weight it holds for all of the groups who are named I don't want to see any group not named but if the work is to go forward there is a value to the symbol of words that this body uses that the laws uphold and there is a process of I don't know if it's reproaching I don't know what the right term is but of setting right many wrongs that have existed that continue to exist that this bill acknowledges need to be fixed in our education system and so that's just an important piece that I'd like to share with the committee can I make a draft? this definition in two parts means and then A, non-dominant et cetera down to here and then B and minors that have been historically to keep the non-dominant of this part and you don't pride the non-dominant of this part that's exactly what I was thinking it looks like that could be two parts I can't speak for the other stakeholders okay so we'll have to follow up with them Madam Chair, you had asked both rabbis yes, excuse me I wanted to know what his thought was I don't need to add to this particular but happy to share other thoughts whenever and call one will you just share your name for the record? Rabbi David Feinsilver of the Jewish community of Greater Stowe Stowe has been busy in our community okay so let's go with that for now Rabbi Feinsilver, do you check with the coalition? we'll see if that will be okay, they had accepted this language well exactly, excuse me, she needs to check with her the coalition is that the case with any change to this language or just specifically to that language right there I really like their approach to very mobile years so they've been the ones that have really brought this forward they also have expressed their sensitivity she's been sending the anti-semitic materials it's very clear that if along the conversation we tilt the other conversation if I may, as I listened to you speak you used many words that sounded really helpful but aren't there I understand there has to be an economy of language but when you talked about underrepresented there were a number of words that you referenced that describe what non-dominant means the explanation would be helpful there I found it really helpful to listen to you, I didn't get that from reading this it does seem like this is the core definition to this bill it does need to go back and forth as much as necessary and this input is really appreciated but it is, this bill speaks to realities that have happened in public education for a long time and also it speaks to things like but at its core it is a bill that creates a working group but also creates a working group that will hopefully help a standard to be adopted, a standard which will reinforce more equitable educational practices in the longer term in our schools and so I think that not, what I think Dylan would represent is talking about the fact that we want we're really trying to acknowledge that one of the testimonies we heard is about windows and doors and mirrors being so important for young students to be able to see themselves reflected in the curriculum and to be able to also be able to look past our beautiful but sometimes isolated hillside pockets in Vermont and to see a broader world in which they might fit in a different context in which they do right in, that's the middle and while or Wyndham County or whatever it is and so anyway I just wanted to mention that just as that sort of the kind because I think it's really easy to pivot to a conversation where we are talking about persecution and hazing and bullying at the foremost but just to kind of bring it back to the, not that those things aren't fully important but that the real core of this bill is really closely adjacent to those things and also kind of it's fundamental about something very subtly different and so I don't pretend to have an easy answer about it but you can go down a route where you're looking more at some of the realities of persecution in schools and they're very symptomatic of what we're talking about but they're also just next to what we're talking about so it's a complicated it absolutely is, you're right just a comment I agree and in fact if one word makes one group feel like uh oh there might be another word that makes another group feel like uh oh so I'm flagging that word from the Jewish perspective but who knows what the rest of it so I don't envy the position you understand the complex again we want to make sure that we can make this bill that's the most important thing I could tell you we could sit here for weeks and try to get that perfect but the bill wouldn't be yeah so it's being inclusive but also moving forward and identifying and I think that we should probably bring up the thing about getting the bill the comment about symbols and repeating on the screen I don't have it presently I have language summarized that I could read to the committee of them and be helpful based upon the conversations earlier and figuring out what words would fit with the feedback of some of the coalition group and then some of the members of the Jewish community who were present this morning at our meetings something that we came close to or at least that I wrote down which is a modification of some of the language we talked about earlier would be hate symbols have in recent years appeared with disturbing frequency at schools, in public places places of worship, farms and I actually think that's it there's one other clause at the end it's not places of just trying to get it straight here but the notion being that we acknowledge these symbols exist each of these tie out to a citation of an event that has actually happened in Vermont and so you're actually memorializing the findings at the start of the bill provide the context for why we are taking the subsequent action so within that we would be providing those examples and I know the word hate symbol might not convey it's full meaning for everyone who reads it but these are not defined terms they are terms as a general let's set the floor of what we're talking about here so I don't know if there's any feedback on that that sounds helpful I will send that to Jim thank you do you mind asking are you hoping this will be voted on we are our goal is to get this done before the end of the day we want to get the fully amended bill onto the calendar and I also have to have a committee ask to make a decision here the bill and I don't make it on our own of course of course it's the committee just when do bills have to be turned in but like I think we have one more day it's usually about 4.30 so I think we're going to be able to get that when's the deadline for bills isn't it like one more day for bills here's how the structure will work right now our bill was on the notice calendar for today it was up for presentation tomorrow Dylan is prepared to do that however we want to make changes we want to actually do a replacement amendment we want to do a strike all and put these changes in we'll not just try to amend it in little pieces we'd like to strike the whole bill put in the other language put in these changes then it goes through as a complete one document which is much easier to follow than the going back and forth that makes people crazy that's not good so we would do that we want to get it into the calendar tonight so that tomorrow when people come on the floor and the bill is being presented the whole new bill is on the floor and this will also be an opportunity for our other members who are not here to be able to vote so you're communicating with Jim right now correct yes he's going to fold in language I just sent it to him okay thank you he's getting his mileage in yeah he's going back and forth between us and the senate okay thank you thank you would you like to testify on this thank you but I don't we'd very much like to hear from both of you you can sit next I mean whatever I'll be brief I'll be as brief as I can because we've been through a lot thank you we appreciate your input so for the record my name is Rabbi David Edelson I'm the Rabbi at Temple Sinai which is an aggressive reform community in Burlington and I as Rabbi Amy Small said we strongly support the motivation of this bill the movement of this bill obviously there are tremendous issues that need to be addressed in our education system so the first thing I want to say is we are for the bill so the problem is and I'll get a little personal anecdote in a minute but the problem is often anti-Semitism operates by making anti-Semitism invisible that's one of the ways there's ways systemic racism operates there's ways systemic anti-Semitism operates and denying that it exists and naming it is one of the ways that it operates and so one of the reasons I think we feel and I understand as Amy said that the limitations and we don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good but leaving that out leaving that word out can be actually participating in the systems that make it invisible and the reason people feel it's like not naming racism would be if you were doing this bill and it never said the word racism it would feel like you weren't you were participating in the racism you're trying to fight against so I did want to start by saying that's the concern if I could articulate it that way and I would add Islamophobia to that they operate very different ways in systemic ways but they share the tendency to try to say that they don't actually exist and that invisibility is part of the problem which leads me to when I met with my fourth, fifths and sixth graders after Pittsburgh one of the things I mean we had a gathering as well and it was very supportive and it felt very great but then I met with the kids in Hebrew school and I said almost to a person was that yeah that happened and no one mentioned it in our school and when we asked the teachers they were not supposed to talk about that and they said and I said well how'd that make you feel and they're like well we felt really invisible and we felt like what we were going through didn't exist to other people and these were fourth, fifth and sixth graders in Vermont schools now not some other time so I think that invisibility is something that I think you need to be aware of one of the issues with anti-Semitism since I'm a rabbi I'll speak to that specifically is that Jews that don't wear yarmulkes or paraphernalia aren't eminently visible and so it is very easy to hide what's happening there which it isn't always in other minority groups of course it's quite visible I went to public schools in Georgia during forced integration of the schools in South Georgia when I was born police with forced busing I was regularly beaten up for being Jewish I was regularly bullied and punched I wouldn't go far as beaten up but similar things for being gay I'm an openly gay man and was in high school so and we had access through our doors we experienced a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism growing up and yet I would never try to say that what we experienced compared to what the African Americans were experiencing in the school system so I think we get into real trouble when we try to compare these things like you said on the other hand I appreciated what you said but I remembered when I was in college at William & Mary another Southern school and they had exams on Yom Kippur or my professor did and I said look at Yom Kippur can I take it before, can I take it after she says no you can't so I was in the Hillel so I went to the president of the university and it was a similar argument and what my answer was there is that well that you should because if they have a holiday like that's okay so I think the issue here is what's happening right now which is more along the lines of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and racism and homophobia and transphobia but I also think it's important that when this workgroup is formed that there's language in the bill that these things are included so when they're developing the standards you're speaking of and they're developing the curricula you're speaking of that there's enough language in here that such issues as Islamophobia and anti-Semitism would need to be addressed so one of the concerns that I have in the understandably trying not to go into certain areas that just raise a lot of red flags is that I would want you to feel and honestly in your hearts that this language would do that if that makes sense to you that this language would mean that the workgroup would have to wrestle with anti-Semitism now obviously Judaism Jews are sometimes difficult to define there's totally atheistic Jews that are cultural Jews there's totally religious Jews that we have a wide gamut I have African American Jews and we're all different colors so we fit in between like we're a Venn diagram of identities and it makes the language difficult and I recognize that that being said they are experiencing anti-Semitism in a variety of forms one of those forms is to deny that it exists another form Amy brought up in this dominant language is that the Jews are actually the most dominant group in the world which is regularly trafficked in this country and sadly there is anti-Semitism in communities of color there's racism in communities of faith like we're all there's enough blame to go around there's enough I don't want to say hatred but certainly misunderstanding and a lack of understanding to go around but that being said it's important that the workgroup from the Vermont legislature make it clear that people would need to work on those issues as well if somebody I've heard stories of kids going to school with the Yarmulke on and having their Yarmulke yanked off after Pittsburgh I had students that cited they would go to school with the Yarmulke on even though that's never been their thing because they felt like I need to do this but they experienced was not good at all I know other stories of people that are throwing money at I had this happen when I was a kid so it breaks my heart throwing money at you and going we know you love money in the lunchroom every day it's not fun and it's not minor and it's not subtle right like some things are subtle some of this is not subtle and so I just think it's particularly important that I think it's particularly important that the word anti-Semitism find its way if not into the bill into the notes on the bill into some guidance for the work committee I don't know what those parameters are but leaving it out is actually participating in the very problem and so I know I'm speaking strongly I hope I made it really I take a lot of minority boxes as it happens and I very strongly support what you've been doing and support getting the bill out not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good but I fear that if that word is not in there somewhere somehow it would be easy to overlook it and so I would just end very quickly so David has a chance by saying for those of you that don't know Jews all over the world read the same part of our Torah our sacred book each week so no matter where you are you're reading the same thing this week one of the lines in our text is you shall not oppress the stranger because you were strangers in Egypt and you know the heart of the oppressed so this bill is completely fitting in our tradition and our values and our ethics we just want to be included in it for reasons that I think Amy said very articulately so I thank you for that opportunity I'll see if there's questions one thing I would say that I think sometimes gets lost in this is this work group will be subject to open meeting law which means their meetings will be open and you will be able to ask to provide testimony to the group I think that the experiences that you have in even curriculum development about what you're doing in your Hebrew schools would be very helpful to the group as well so I would say that you know you can go to these meetings if there isn't someone who's Jewish on the on the commission either through the appointment of the committee of the of the group the working group there's also the opportunity for the teacher representative to be Jewish there's an opportunity for someone from the school boards association from the superintendent there are other groups there that would be able to have the opportunity to bring in a Jewish voice we're struggling a little bit with an Islamic voice because I haven't been able to speak to anybody but I'm hoping that somehow we can we can include in the language somewhere that this can be we have a meeting with the state police where there's an anti-biased policing there's that committee and it didn't occur to them to ask a Jewish representative on that group at all so I guess what I would just I don't think that was a deliberate oversight it's part of what we're talking about anti-Semitism can feel invisible and especially and I'll say this being Southern in New England there's a sense of self-congratulation that that's not who we are but that's not my experience here either so what you're saying speaks to me but I just think it's really necessary to make sure that is followed through on if that makes sense so thank you I appreciate it yeah forgive me didn't mean to interrupt but yes I have to feed my meter in a minute but when I leave it's only to do that I'll be back I do want to say that when you mention having a Jewish representative of one of these other groups I don't think that does it because they don't live our lives they're not the ones who are hearing the stories from the children from the parents from my meeting where the person is a nurse at the hospital they're not the ones who are hearing these stories and understand the subtleties the hiddennesses and the sensitivities that would need to be brought to bear and so while that seems like a good idea if I may I would like to suggest that there be very specifically chosen Jewish representatives if not us but other we certainly can and would be happy to but also other official representatives of our community and the Muslim community and Amy speaks my mind on that so we are asking the coalition and you could certainly lobby the coalition to have some representation but I wanted to make sure that you have representatives do you have a question for somebody just a second I just wanted to see Emily Rosenbaum did you want to speak at all about some of your experiences if I can speak if I can go for five minutes I have one child yeah if I can go for five minutes no now I have to leave part of why I have to leave because one of my children is no longer in the Vermont public schools due to the intense anti-Semitism he experienced and Emily Rosenbaum I'm sorry and so his carpool drops him in Waterbury every day because we have had to go in that public schools there I do not have tremendous amount of time because I have another child to strip through but I do want to say that I'm the president of the Jewish community of greater still I have been tremendously moved by the conversations I've had with educators in our supervisory union they are desperate for help from the state they are desperate for guidance and funds to help address some of these issues so this bill is tremendously important and they talk to me all the time about it like can you get us some help and part of what we're dealing with in our community we've had three different instances of swastikas on school grounds since the summer we have had two different instances that my family alone has experienced one yesterday of people laughing about Mein Kampf which if you don't know what that is it's Hitler's biography that sets out the plan for the destruction of the Jewish people in the schools and those are only the ones my family has witnessed we have again the coins being thrown in the cafeteria pick them up Jews can't play basketball the scarring that happens is not just from the those things happening it's from not being able to stand up for other targeted minorities because you're so afraid of being targeted yourself it's forming an identity when the anti-Semitism is sort of erased because we've had educators in the Supervisor Union say wait can we say anti-Semitism and that's part of the problem with some of the language we're talking about here it keeps skirting anti-Semitism wait can we call swastikas anti-Semitic I hope so and so it is it is a very difficult situation and there's a that erasure of anti-Semitism is part of it and so when we talk about what our children are going through the most heartbreaking thing for me and Rabbi David will talk more about it I think is when our youth tell us they try to hide being Jewish because they are forming their lifetime identity and everyone in this room knows that the biggest protection you can have if you are targeted is feeling part of your group and feeling supported by your group and when they are trying to hide it or assimilate because they are afraid that is tragic to me and so that if you have any questions please feel free to give them to me now before I go deal with carpool, strep throat and a 10 year old you want to put the left side let's say your school flags we don't like flags we did have some Gadsden flags that were hung outside of our school from what I understand as you probably know those students did not mean them to be hurtful but when they were told they were being viewed as anti-Semitic and racist they hung them out the next day anyway and they were within their rights I guess but the question is don't we want our youth when they hear that something is being perceived that way to go oh and take them down and not continue to wear the t-shirt and not continue to hang the flags and the heartbreaking thing to me was the parents of our very few black students in our school who came to find me afterwards to thank me for saying something because I felt I could say something they didn't even feel they could say anything and those are flags that were way before people were shouting Jews will not replace us so let's be clear those flags have taken on some new meaning but flags are sticky you know they have symbolism and they're sticky because they can mean one thing and then mean another and you can they just moves so you know my I understand the reason to just talk about symbols of hate because symbols always move I have a doctorate literature so I can say that but it's just it's very hard to see a laundry list of people who are having issues in our schools and have no place in the bill that specifically mentions the anti-Semitism any questions for me how do we get contact I sent you my jacogs email address I'm very specific to use my jacogs email address for jacogs business but I can give you my cell phone number I don't want it going in the record though I'll go and catch you as you go I just prefer not to have my phone number public but my email address is Emily.Rosenbaum.Jacogs.org Good luck with the children Thank you, you guys do amazing work and I want to apologize for all the exhaustion you have experienced earlier today Thank you and what you have in store for yourself We have a strip test later today Thank you Thank you Please, you've been here a long time and as I remember you were on the road at midnight last night I was Hi I'm Rabbi David Feinzelber of the Jewish Community Theatre Stone and also a parent of three young ones in a Morrisville system living in Morrisville I am representing as the Rabbi of Jacogs members who span over 15 towns were from Montgomery up north down to Warren and everywhere in between and east and west so we're a diverse group Thank you for letting me testify I feel a little out of place and what's remarkable and what you're hearing today is three rabbis coming up here giving you all the same information and I'd like you to take that in We there's a well-known Jewish phrase two Jews, three opinions and it's very true and yet we can all come here and say to you we value this bill greatly we are all deeply invested in work across working with minority groups targeted groups we're all doing a lot of work on this from LGBTQ to folks with disabilities to refugees to racism work I helping to lead a Stowe-Morrisville coalition working on racism and antisemitism and other isms in our catchment area and so we're all for let's go and let's do this and let's get this to the floor what you're also hearing is that we want the word antisemitism included in this bill and there are a lot of reasons for that there is the systemic history of antisemitism in in Vermont that is not talked about but you can Google it and there are articles written on it including dozens of Gentiles only signs in fairly recent history as a parent what I see in the schools is a very Christian dominant society my kids coming to school before Christmas and the day before they go on the winter break they're showing a movie and it's Polar Express and you can either go to this movie and watch how wonderful it is to believe in Santa Claus or you can sit alone in the office if your parents happen to know that Polar Express is being shown and advocating for your kid to not join in that film so I think there's a lot that's coming out of just simple lack of knowledge and that's important but there's also a lot that's just blatant antisemitism there are you've heard over a dozen examples at this point you've heard of the multiple swastikas in our lamoille union you've heard of the closeted Jewish students in middle school and high school who won't let their friends know that they are actually Jewish one student told me that they were coming up to a door in their school a group of kids in it the the she wanted to enter into the room they said you can't go in there you're Jewish panties thrown on the floor and what we're hearing from the educators from the administrators closely with and the students is that how do we name this problem it's a simple word for it antisemitism as Emily said earlier they wouldn't call a swastika antisemitic if my kids who are growing up in these schools can't put a name to it then they're lost I love that image we use it of putting up mirrors mirrors let's reflect who is in our communities and what they're experiencing and this is what's happening right now antisemitism works very differently than all of these other isms we're not a world as a people we're not all religious we're not all secular we're not all cultural Jews we we span multiple ethnicities across the world from India to the Middle East to Eastern Europe to North Africa to North America and beyond we're on all continents and when we yet we're talking today about what it's like to be a rural Jew right and to identify in that way and this would be a different conversation in New York this would be a different conversation in Boston and there's antisemitism there right but rural Judaism there's a lack of knowledge there's a lack of there's a we can't even there are people who don't know Jews have never met Jews don't even know what antisemitism is that a swastika's what is a swastika's history I mean it's really just basic and fundamental and so and then here we are talking about whether to include this word antisemitism and there's something about even asking that question can we include it or not there's something sticky about that too we're naming we're naming in the bill there's a paragraph paragraph 4 in the finding we're naming LGBTQI we're naming disability we're naming racism all of these issues and my suggestion is that we add is it possible to pull it up can you do that yeah let's see then there's that it's all even numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 that would leave me so number 4 in the findings the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender it's in 2.1 yeah we'll go back to the committee queer, questioning, intersex asexual and non-binary communities this one other students of color students with disabilities and the lack of understanding of people and power about the magnitude of this systemic impacts of harassment and bias damage the whole community further down there it is yeah so my suggestion I think it's pretty simple one is to add religious bias the harassment of religious students the harassment based on religious bias and then in brackets including Jewish and Muslim students at and etc in there you've named the folks who are mainly being targeted just like all the just like this list that is right here in the bill but you've also included it to other religious minorities who might who might and are experiencing significant harassment that's my ask here he is he's hiding him over here he's hiding him over there staff with presence okay we have new language that we can go through that is it is it can we have an electronic Jim this is the 12 page version that you hand me a paper copy of your point of one is is it from one it's not a trick I acknowledge that we have a representative who is here this one and whatever he's like me 3.1 and so I don't yet see it so I just want to confirm you have that paper copy doesn't say 3.1 3.1 which is refreshment you know yeah yeah so I think what I will do now is have Jim sit here and go through the bill and this will be an opportunity to see where we are and why don't you just want to see what we're doing first sure we've been talking over the weekend so so Jim will you join us is that okay so I'm going to have him go through this bill let's see where the language is here and then take a look and again I also want to reiterate the not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good that there is another opportunity to address this in the senate since we haven't I'm hoping we can get this finalized today we don't see Amanda in the room do we know where she is she could not get child care but I checked in quickly I checked in quickly and she wrote that this is language that Dylan and I have been in discussion with a variety of people we've come up with some language and we'll see if this is working and this may not be what you want but it's where we are right now should we go to bills can we go to the top okay there it is it was there yes it is should we have you helping me oh I'm sorry 3.1 yes so the changes from the from the bill that we passed out of committee are in black the changes that we're looking at right now are in yellow okay so for the record as council we're going through a proposed amendment to your report on community education on H3 3 as chair Webb mentioned the changes from your report are in yellow the first change is on page 2 line 19 with a new finding which reads according to the US Department of Justice report on hate crimes in Vermont in 2017 51% of hate crimes were based on a motivation of armed racial bias 23% of hate crimes were based on a motivation involving sexual orientation bias 17% of hate crime were based on a motivation involving religious bias 9% of hate crimes were based on a motivation involving disability bias Another new finding is on line four, which is eight symbols have in recent years appeared with disturbing frequency at schools and public spaces, places of worship, farms, and places of business. And then six, this was a finding you already had, but it's been revised to not read the harassment of marginalized groups in the lack of understanding of people and power with magnitude of these systemic impacts of harassment by the kind of damages the whole community. Then on the definition of ethnic groups on line 11, this is now broken into two parts. The first part was the same as before, talking about non-dominant racial and ethnic groups with various examples of that. And then second on line 16 says, and minorities that have been historically subject to persecution or genocide, and that is not modified by the non-dominant framework. And then on page four, the working group has increased to 18 members from 17, and the additional member on page five, on line three, is the executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission for this need. And then we have a typographical error from before, so on line 17 on page seven, it says the working group may recommend, it's said to say four, there's just a typographical error, so it's been corrected. And then lastly, in terms of reporting, so this is now section two of the bill, where we're now having the State Board report various metrics by a group. So now we are including, among other groups, religious groups. Let's go back to page two, and the first thing that we have then is number four, which includes the data from the U.S. Department of Justice. This is the thing that identifies hate crimes and who was affected. Committee, we okay with that? Not into our participants here, this is acceptable to include this data. I'm going to say, so committee, everybody's good with including that, okay? Check. Can we make sure that they are too? I did look over, and I see, thank you though, to make sure that we get that. It's data, that's okay. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Number five, here's one, hate symbols have in recent years appeared with disturbing frequency of schools and public spaces, places of worship, farms, and places of business. This is where the discussion came in as to whether we should include swastika. And we have a lot of conversation about that in our small group that we're talking about. When farms be considered, why do we think we all farms? Why don't we just have places of business? Seems weird to have farms there, I don't know. This is Jim Batista. This is referencing a report in particular. And Jim, you have, each of these corresponds to a news story, is that correct? Okay, okay, so we had pulled a number of news stories, so we could double check that. But each of them would correspond, I'll just pull up. I might be able to speak to that. There's often symbols of hate on the white coded hay bales and things like that on the sides of grow houses. So they're so large as you drive down the road, so I think that's a good one. If you remember the take back Vermont, that was on their barns. Yes, one judge. Representative James, do you have something to add? Just, I guess, just following up on Sarita's possible concern that, I mean, your elaborating is helping me, but that it seemed like we were singling out. The other places listed are public spaces all over Vermont where anybody, I guess, could show up and hang something offensive or horrible. Whereas a farm almost seems like you're targeting farmers. And is that what we're intending to do? And is that accurate? That's my question. I was going to share with you about this. Places of business, a farm is a business. I think that if there are concerns there that would concern the committee, places of business would tend to catch a farm. I'm not sure if there's other thoughts on that, but. I'm looking to my guidance team here, my three rabbis and my buddy over here. Assistant rabbi over here. Yes, yes. Assistant rabbi. Yes. Well, I would say that I've lived in Vermont for a little more than three years. And it's quite noticeable how Vermont's culture is unique to Vermont. Including farms. And given that this has happened to farms, and this is specific to the way it's being expressed in Vermont, that felt helpful to me. Yeah. Yeah. Representative Toof, did you have a question? No, I was just saying, my workers, and I think I do remember the article, like the new article that worked out. I mean, I'm just concerned because I think it might imply that farmers are more, you know, it ties farmers to farms. And I don't think that's fair or accurate. I mean, it's the symbols that are showing up on farms. It's not farmers are placing a lot. It's appearing. It's appearing on haybill. Yes. But they're appearing on sites and buildings. Go ahead. So let me just, who wants to keep farm in there? Are we equal? Clothing a story? Is that what that line means? Okay. Yeah. This is where we're going to get ourselves really tangled, everybody. That's a reason why. I was going to look at this, like, which one of these things is not like the other test. And everything else on that list is pretty general. The farm is pretty specific. Thank you. I would say that if it's captured credibly by pick places of business, it seems like once you list farms, there's a whole lot of things at that kind of trophic level you're not listing. I agree with that. Yes, Rabbi. I don't mean to take it. Having thought about it, after what I just said and conferred, if it's too controversial and it's too much of a red flag, let's lose farms. There are places where I think for my purposes, and the purposes of the representatives of the Jewish community, we were more concerned about language being included. This one we don't own. It's okay if it's not there from my perspective for all of these controversy. Back to hate symbols. Just hate symbols. Is that going to be enough? Excuse me, Rabbi. I just know that I have limited time. In terms of the additions, I have no problems with any of them. So I'm giving my nod to all of them. We still haven't addressed adding in antisemitism, and that seems like a larger question. So I mean, is it possible to talk about that and then move on to going through all of these? Yes. Is that a different way? These seem pretty benign to me. I think we're saying the same thing. Okay. So the hate symbols, just leave it at hate symbols, you're okay with that. Yeah. Okay. Let's get to the last question. Does everyone else? Let me just take with my committee. I just want to go through with this. You're okay with that? We're removing farms? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. So not to complicate things about why farms stuck out to me and now I get deployed in the place of business. This is not saying whether they are victims of hate symbols or creators of hate symbols. Right. But I guess it's sort of fake. They're appearing there. I'm comfortable with removing farms. Let's remove farms. Yes. Capture my business. And then I won't say anything. I'm going to keep breathing. I'm going to tell myself the same thing. Okay. So committee, you know what? I think I will stop and we will get to this issue because I know that you have limited time. There are some reasons that we've heard not to include antisemitism and Islamophobia. One of the questions concerns that we heard is when we say antisemitism, that that is tied to Palestine and Israel. And this is one of the things that we've heard and we do not want to be getting wages in on that factor. Is that your experience? Never. It's an issue. What's that? You can separate that. Representative Jim Batista, did you have more from the coalition on that concern? No. I think there has been discussion about how words could be or have been codified in other states and that some have questioned whether the use of antisemitism as a legal term in other states is being used to talk about different either groups of people or different authorities. I'm not an expert in that area so I'm not aware of that. And I have not done legal research on use of antisemitism within other state laws or national laws. I'm just not aware. I've never heard that. You've never heard that? No. Because we do not want to be getting into that political discussion? Right. That's why it's not acceptable. Certainly, Jews and Hamas are not whatever, but it's not antisemitism. I'd like to first get back to the rabbis and see if you could huddle and suggest language for us. See if that could work. If you could suggest language that we would add to the findings. You've got it. Why not do that? One option here is hate symbols have in recent years. You could say hate symbols, comma, include antisemitic symbols or primarily antisemitic symbols. You could just put it right there. You heard lots of stories about how it's more than just symbols. Can we focus in? It has an editor who spends a lot of time working with 10, 12, 18 people review boards. I'm reluctant to even say anything. I know you guys have been working on this language for a couple of years. That's why I'm being so quiet. Could we not try to get to a solution key in? I'm on page three. The new definition of ethnic groups. Code of B. Would that be a place to get to our solution in a very kind of succinct way? Could it be something? Dylan, I'm really looking at you here. Like, minorities that have been historically subject to discrimination, harassment, persecution, or genocide based on religion, comma, make a little list there right in that specific section and that could be a place also to insert the word antisemitism. I'm looking at that one specific section that seems like it could be expanded to include a broader definition and then we don't really need to go anywhere else. Can you formulate that sentence? Yeah. So maybe it could be a real broader thing. So minorities that have been historically subject to harassment, comma, discrimination, comma, persecution, or genocide based on religion, comma. Now I've lost my list. Religion, comma, gender. You know, we could go back and get a good list. And then you could say this might include, you know, somewhere after religion you could put antisemitism, comma, Islamophobia, comma. I also want to remind folks that there's another opportunity in the Senate to address this. There's another opportunity to address this. The goal is to get this onto the floor tomorrow and move to the Senate and to get the action on this work group going. It's possible that we aren't going to have enough time to get that list together unless you can huddle. The three of you, four of you can huddle. Give us some language that we can accept or work with Jim and Dylan. We just, we have a time limit here. Madam Speaker, not to prolong people's suspense, but I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Madam Speaker, thank you. Madam Chair, you know, I am wondering if a five minute break for some ideas to be generated and some conversation and just pause would be good for the committee. I think that's a good idea. Going into that break, I just mentioned I'm interested in whether an addition on page eight, line 10 or 11 would make sense. Maybe if people are talking about that, maybe this is just where it's a challenge. And then we've got our list of behaviors. And I'm just thinking that challenging antisemitic or Islamophobic behaviors could fit in that list. I know it makes it a longer list. And so page eight of the draft is voted out of the committee. And so I'm sorry, this may not be what we've got up here. So maybe it's a slightly different line. I think it's still page eight. There's a nine line three. Yes. So Michelle. Yeah. Channel nine. Okay. Channel three. Yeah. We had enough language. There we go. Sorry. Sorry. Channel nine three. So I'm just curious if that might be a place where language antisemitic could be included in there. Because that to me is kind of where the rubber hits the road in terms of these standards. And so that actually seems to me even in some ways a little more core than the language about, you know, who is included in that. That could be a little more. Anyway, that's it. That's the spot we might look at. I was just wondering. It does get the core. Take a break. Yes, please. What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? What are we doing? Oh, yes. So. So. I did. Yes, Sam. Right now, we have a choice to continue to move this language to death. Get it to a point that it's acceptable and grease a path for the Senate to take up the differences, which I'm willing to do. This would mean that some of the things that we're not able to quite get right, be an opportunity for the coalition and the Jewish community to work together in language that they can both live with. We're out of time for that. This is the beauty of having another body that can address this. So my recommendation is we make some slight changes here. And we leave room for the Senate to have something to do. And I am quite sure that a similar age three is on their calendar that their room will be full. And we know that the process doesn't there is another process. So there are a couple of changes that we have looked at. One was on page nine. Are we in that 3.1? Right. We're in 3.1. Okay. On page nine, I am reluctant to use the word religion. But we can talk about that. On D. So on C, there was a recommendation to include religion or socioeconomic status. And then under D, there was a recommendation to include religion. I am going to suggest that what we do is under D, it says specify prohibited conduct as it relates to racism. These are those bias terms. Racism, sexism, ableism, and other ethnic and social biases. We have to find ethnic groups that will include those that have been persecuted or subject to genocide. So that will roll them into that discussion. That would be a change that I would recommend. And the rest of it, I would recommend to the committee that we make that change. We vote it out. And we do the good work tomorrow. Right now the clerk is waiting for us. And we grease the path to set it up for the Senate to have something to do. It opens the door for people coming in with amendments to say that we're including that. Which is a challenge and I am concerned about it. Because I don't want to vote that down on the floor. I want it to be taken up in the Senate. Right. I don't necessarily have that control. In terms of making that change and other ethnic and social biases, Jim, what's your thought on if we did that on your deed on page 9? Fine. That's fine. The other question that came up was on page 3, there was a discomfort with the word on line 16 minorities that have been historically subject to persecution. There's a possibility that we could just call it groups. So that is general as you can get. That's one way of doing it. Populations. Populations. Yeah, we are wordsmithing and this is what we're not going at. Well groups fits well with the language in this definition. Because ethnic groups means, and the first one says non-dominant racial and ethnic groups. So using groups in B would make sense. Would make sense. I think. Committee, good with groups? Yes. Anybody opposed? Good. Instead of minorities? Instead of minorities. Yeah, I'm probably opposed. That's all right. And again, they can address the citizen, which they are sure that they will. So we're talking line 16, changing minorities to groups. To groups. And then we're talking about on page 9, under D, line 6, and other ethnic and social biases. Can you roll it up? Yeah. Maybe peoples? Are you on page 9? Oh, you're on the other one? I'm talking about groups instead of groups. Oh, the groups. That does work, doesn't it? Yeah. So groups worked and actually sort of worked into the language. So on line 6, we add and other ethnic and social biases. I'm sorry. I don't know where the rabbis are. Does anybody know what happened to the rabbis? I think they had to go. Yeah. I'm sorry. We're looking at line 6 on page 9. Ableism and other and ethnic and. Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Judaismism and ethnicity. Right. It's defined in the unethnic groups. It's defined as the reason that I was thinking that that would work is because we have to find ethnic groups. And the rabbis were okay with that? They were okay with that. They were uncomfortable with the term minorities. That's fine. Yeah. They're fine with it. I'm glad. I mean, I think that they are correct that we did do a list on line 14. I recognize that. And as soon as you do a list, we know what happens, right? Right, right. They have something to say about that. Somehow I just sort of missed that one. I don't know how we missed it, but we did. And so I think that they have an argument about why we should address that. That's what they said at the show. Representative Coopley wants to put short people? Well, I'll go for short people. I would like that, too. And let Mr. Sriman eat it against him. Yeah. So I just have to let Dylan know when I hook up my vote. So those are very quick. You can do those easily, correct? Correct. My question is this right now is an amendment from Rep. Jim Batista. Yes. That would be the next question. This could be an amendment offered by everybody named. We can't say by the Education Committee. I can name who would want to be on this amendment that's addressing this. So I can either put it in as just Dylan's doing it, or I could put the names in who would want to be on this. This is again, as I said, this is a strike all amendment, keeping it organized in one thing for the Senate to pick up, for the press to pick up, and they're not trying to deal with these piecemeal things. Right. It's much more organized. And it can be offered by, who would like to have their name on this? I guess we should explain the benefit of putting the, as much of the committee on as possible. Seen by the floor as Dylan put on having this committee support. Let me just take a straw vote. Who so far has some support of the bill that we just were talking about? I don't know where we're going. Okay. Good. All right. So we have a straw vote that looks like we're going to come up with a blue one and zero vote. I asked Dylan to cut back. Excuse me? I asked Dylan to cut back. Good. Me too. Maybe he'll listen to you. There are certain options. No more options. Madam Chair. Yes. I did mention it, but Representative Ansel, notice that Abel is just spelled wrong. What? Abel is just spelled wrong. Ironically, that is what it was spelled like when she testifies. I thought it was Abelism. Abelism is line six. I took it from her testimony, but it might be wrong. I can't find any place in any dictionary that spells it anything other than A-B-L-E-I-S-T. I can't find it anywhere spelled that way. That's what it says. A-B-E-L-I-S-T. A-B-E-L-I-S-T. Oh, do we have a Q-A? It's correct. It's correct. A-B-E-L-I-S-T. A-B-E-L-I-S-T. That's what our editors do, right? Yeah. Cleaner. Nope. Slag. No. She's retired. I think that's definitely a... I would like to get Dylan back here. That's making an assumption. I saw it and I was like, why? Do you think that spells it? Yeah, yeah. I had no idea. It's a legislative spell. Oh, I have to run line three. Uh-huh. Yeah. What does this mean? I don't know what you guys are doing. I think I should go work on this because I think a few minutes ago I already named this on it. So... Shall we go work on this? I'll come back. Yeah. So why don't you do that? Okay. I'm down to you. Let me just go sort this out. Okay. Sure. That's why I get paid with big bucks. Yes, ma'am. I just... Yeah, I get scrammed. Yeah, we all do. I don't think we can count in date here. I don't think it's going to take long. Okay. What do they do for nothing? They take my dogs at night. I can't... Oh. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Okay. Our doggie did care of weights and then she... Cool. Do they take pictures of people on your side and say, I look at my dog? You're going to be like, you guys literally made this bill worse. Um... I will. You better be short. Yes, I'll be short. I just want to go with one rabbi. Okay. Um... Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um... Sorry. Hi, I'm Jason Lorver. I'm, uh, come here as a private citizen and I'm a former member of this body. And it's great to see, um, my old folks that I've worked with and kind of... Old folks. Old folks. That's us. Hey, I speak because I'm one. Um, and, um, and I so appreciate the work that this committee has done on such an important bill. Um, and I just applaud this work because we need, we need this bill. Uh, we need to address, uh, the concerns, um, uh, particularly a racism, but also, um, anti-abolism and the, um, homophobia and LGBT phobia and all that stuff. Um, and as someone who is Jewish and, um, and in conference with my rabbi, um, um, who testified here, um, I want to share a couple of thoughts, um, and I'll be very brief, um, that, you know, one of the, the anti-Semitism is real and, um, and when I go to high holidays, uh, which for Jews that means Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah with the holiest holidays of the year, uh, we have armed guards there. So, uh, for those of you who go to Christmas Mass or to Easter Sunday, um, services, imagine if you not only had police there to keep you safe, but you felt the need to have that there. That is our reality that we face. Um, and certainly the, um, the massacre, um, in Pittsburgh that happened just not a month ago, two months ago, um, is fresh in our minds as are the swastikas at the high schools. So it's very real. And, um, I appreciate the work that you guys are doing in trying to please everyone and move this bill forward. Um, and so I think I'll just leave it there and say thank you for the work that you've done, um, and we need to continue to address all forms of bigotry. This is part of what the worker will be dealing with. And on D, right now it says specify prohibited conduct as it relates to racism, sexism, ableism, and other social biases. And first for process of recid and other ethnic and social biases, which would, it's addressed in terms of ethnic groups, what it would cover, they would at least go back to that. I know, haven't used the word anti-Semitism, and I know that there's a desire for some to do that. And I have a desire too. I just don't have the agreement on that yet. So, and I will say that as, um, as, uh, when I was a boy, I remember quite vividly, whether in first grade or second grade, filling out these forms of what's your demographic. And I'm like, well I'm not white. So what do I, what do I check? And I would often write in other and write Jewish as an ethnic group. Um, that my, um, my, um, predecessors, my ancestors, um, who were in Lithuania, who were Jewish, um, they were not considered Lithuanians. They were Litvox. They were Jews. Uh, it was separate. And, and I don't know that you have that in other religions, that a religion is also an ethnic group. Um, but for me and for many Jews, it's an ethnicity. It's not just a religion. Um, and for some it's mostly an ethnicity and they're not particularly religious. Um, but certainly with, um, Hitler and, um, and for people celebrating the Bar Mitzvah and the Pittsburgh synagogue who were gunned down, um, there wasn't the question of, you know, are you Jewish, um, or how Jewish are you? It's, um, it's all lumped together. And so that is an ethnicity for the, for the purposes of the bill, um, particularly with, with the religion spoken in the bill, um, I can see myself included there. So where we're at right now is do we vote this bill out or do we postpone and get the Jewish community and the, and the coalition to give us different language? That's what we're waiting for. That's what we're trying to decide right now. So I will say that I've spoken with one of the three rabbis here who have testified, um, and got a green light. Um, I haven't spoken to the others. So to, and, and I haven't spoken to, I know that there were other members of this body who were concerned about, um, this. And so I haven't spoken to them. So I can't speak for them. And I also don't speak for the entire Jewish community. Um, you got a green light on one. To move forward as with, with these changes. Okay. Um, so to the extent that, that, uh, a one day postponement would allow there to be more communication and more support. For the coalition and, and the Jewish community to give us the language that is acceptable to both. Right. Because the, the Jewish community and the coalition have not had the opportunity to get together just out of time limitations. And you know how quickly you're moving on this. Um, and we just haven't literally had the time to connect as we're just finding out about things as they're happening. Do you think that you could help to facilitate that conversation with Amanda and the coalition to be able to help? I would, I've already reached out to her. Um, or last night I did, um, just be emailed, but I don't know her. Um, we've never spoken. Um, but I'd be more than happy to talk to her. Yeah. Could you, would it be possible to get, to talk to the other two rabbis? Yes. Because I feel like if all three rabbis were okay with this language, I think we'd be okay. Um, Knowing that there's the option to, to make the corrections in the system. Yes. And that, that, that. So thank you for, for saying that because that, that was part of the conversation was that knowing that, that we still want this to move forward. And that some of these concerns, um, should continue to be addressed and discussed. Yes. I could reach out to them, you know, by one o'clock tomorrow. Right. Yeah. Just a little bit of information for the committee based off of some conversations. Um, I had a chance to connect with Amanda a little bit from the coalition. Um, she is trying to pull together a meeting. Of the various members to talk through some of the issues that have come up and try to figure out what consensus looks like. Um, she said that she needs time to do that. Um, possibly 48 hours. That's a lot of time given our, our time. Um, on the other hand, just a process note for everyone is that the clerk's office in order for an amendment where we to offer a substitute amendment as a committee containing all of the points that have been worked on today in order for that to be published in tomorrow's calendar, we would have to turn it in tonight. So we are up against that timeline. Um, but if we need more time to hear feedback from some of the folks who provided testimony today from members of the coalition who would like to discuss this and give time to the work that needs to be done, uh, perhaps it does make sense to pause. To do a bit of a delay, recognizing that we want to make sure we do this right. Um, and so I just offer that the committee is a couple of observations here. 48 hours is a long time. Um, if we're looking at five o'clock with 48 hours, that means that nothing happens until Friday, which is really late in this game. And at the same time, um, we're going to have to postpone this game. And at the same time, if we can do Friday, it's just that we'd be postponing it several, you know, we'd be standing up a couple of times and postponing. Yeah. Taylor, do you get the sense that Amanda would prefer that we voted, you know, get it moving today instead of work? And so the work will be done on the other side there. I don't want to speak for Amanda personally or for the individual members of the coalition personally. But I think that because significant concerns have been brought forward, um, in the interest of finding a successful bill, I think that they're willing to work through it. And more time is probably, uh, more important at this moment than, uh, immediately having a vote and it moving, recognizing that everyone wants to see this bill move. Right. I mean, when do bills have to be for this session? When do bills have to be for this session? We have plenty of time. Oh, we do. Oh. Okay. I don't know if January 30 versus November 30. No, that's why we made a request to have a bill drafted. Okay. So we have plenty of time. We haven't done the middle of March. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason we're trying to hurry this thing through is so that we can amend curriculums a year prior to, you know, we don't want to accidentally push it over so that there's another year that the stuff is at the top. Right. We have to get it into the curriculum. Yeah. I just didn't want to lose. Okay. Pause. Pause. And, and Dylan, would you, um, work to get those groups to communicate? Is that? Can I? Yeah. Dylan, do you want to pause or do you want to move it? Um, I want to see a good outcome. You want to see a good outcome. I've also been given somewhat of a reprieve from the back office over there that I don't have the, you've got to get this out. We've been given more time from that. 48 hours. Good. Okay. I think that will be good. Sure. Yeah. Okay. A version. It's not anything that we did. You want, that version posted. You want to go through it? The version, um, yeah. It's a 4.1. Okay. It's a, you've got to go. We're not going to do anything right now, so that's fine. Okay. I'm sorry. Good. Yeah. I can go if you want. Take a seat. I'm going to take it too. Yeah. Good to see you. We'll see you in the end. Thank you, Jason. Yes. And anything you can do to facilitate this group working together, we're always happy when those groups are happy. Oh, no. Did you want some comedy? Did you? Oh, yeah. Comedy routines. Is that your cup? Yes. Oh. There's a cup over here. There's a cup. No, that is not. Oh, that might be any. Anyone? No, this is not my cup. All right. So the changes are highlighted in yellow. Um, so on page three, uh, line eight, I deleted the word farms, not list. Uh, we had a very good comment from my English professor over here, but we noted that there were damages to be damage on line 12. That's been changed. Thank you. Uh, and then, um, groups rather than, rather than minorities on line 19. Then we've got two, uh, able list on line three, and ethnic and social biases on line six. Okay. Let's get that posted. That's what went on. That's right now. Yep. Tomorrow we have, so we're okay with that so far. And, um, we'll be moving, we'll be hoping to get that, those two groups talking and come to some kind of language that they can really apart. Good. Don't we agree with that? It's a good process. It's, it's, it's why I say when you get to list, why we have problems. This is the sausage making. This is the sausage making. That's exactly right. Committee, thank you for hanging in here. Yeah. Really appreciate your thoughtful questions. And care for this really important issue. Thank you. So we're off tomorrow. We'll be here tomorrow. Well, at night. Night.