 Hello and welcome. This is January 12th. This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives. And we are just going to have a brief discussion on what the week is going to look like so far. This afternoon, we're going to be meeting with the House General Housing and Military Affairs Committee. We will be looking at healthcare bargaining for school employees. And this is addressing what can be bargained and what cannot be bargained. This was kind of a complicated thing that emerged in 2018 related to a veto by the governor of the budget. And out of that, we had Act 11 that created this commission. And I'd probably say something when we meet with them as well. So this week, tomorrow, my goal this week is to get an update to hear from the field. How are we doing? How are our students? How are our faculty? How are our communities doing in the period of COVID-19? So we are going to hear from various groups. We're going to hear from the superintendents tomorrow morning. This will be followed by the principals. And then in the afternoon, we'll have the sexual harassment prevention training and the operative word there is prevention. I'm assuming that's going to be about an hour. And if there's opportunity to get more after that, I'll let you know. And then on Thursday, we're going to get an update from the agency of education and we'll have an opportunity to get a sense of guidance and what their sense is of how we're doing. We will also be hearing from the school boards. And I believe that we're working on getting the teachers and the guidance counselors in. Is that correct, Jesse? That is correct. So we may end up meeting a little bit later on Friday afternoon to accommodate teachers that are teaching. And we will, we'll be hearing about that. Given that we have nobody that has to drive home to the Northeast Kingdom or down to Pownall or, you know, the southern part of the state. We will, we will be holding our committee meetings a little bit later than we might have on a Friday. Let's see. I'm currently, Jesse and I're currently working on getting a presentation for you on education finance. Education finance is going to be part of one of the tax workshops that Representative Ansel talked about, but it's coming a little bit later. I felt that our committee should have a better understanding of how education finance works. Because people are going to be asking you. So be helpful to be informed. And don't be afraid. It's, it's complicated. Whenever you're dealing with something that is fair or easy. Easy isn't generally not fair. So it's a complicated system. We're also looking to get information from the agency of education and Ted Fisher is in the room with us. So he's listening, but he's just listening right now and I'll let you know, Ted, if I want your attention. We'll be asking to get information on how the CRF funds were spent. That's covered relief funds that came out of the cares act last year. And that money spent and what is left. Jesse, would you, when we do that, will you also invite Robin shy, and that's SCH EU from the appropriations committee. She will be our liaison to our committee for pre K 12 funding. We'll be part of that. And also representative Conlon is also going to be our liaison to the appropriations committee. So he might have to head up to appropriations now and then I'm going to keep saying up because they're upstairs. So just, I'm still in the building myself. So we will, we will be hearing hearing from them. We're also Kathleen is also good. Here comes Casey. We also will be Kathleen is helping Kathleen was appointed by the speaker last year to serve on the select committee for the Vermont State colleges that are our, our, our report on that Kathleen is going to help us set up testimony on what that interim report is about. It will be updated, I believe, in February. I would like us to get in before that. And we will hear from the people that wrote that report and a few others, including the Vermont State colleges will be working on what our role is in that. And then we will hear from the committee that created the select committee, or at least we presented our thoughts on the select committee to to the appropriations committee and, and that's how it got to got to be. And Jesse, when we take that up. Would you also invite. Peter Fagan from the appropriations committee. I'm going to hire add post secondary. I like to think of it as tertiary, but the only one so So if you could just add, add those two people from appropriations when we're talking finance. And then also, we have several bills that have that have been sent to our committee. And then we'll have an opportunity to look at what we're going to take up and what what moves to the top of the priority, given that the circumstances that we're in now and what could possibly wait. And what the committee really doesn't have an interest. So, just questions or thoughts on that is there are there things that you would like me to know more about. I'm going to go to Catherine just a second I just remembered when I presented the wall, what the wall looks like. One of the things that Jesse could you pull that up again is that easy to pull up. Well, I'm talking. When I refer to the wall. What I want you to know is that bills that actually passed out of committee are sometimes several bills all put together into one bill. There were probably 15 different bills on the white side of that that were related to delays for act 46, and they all went into one bill that we presented on the floor. That bill ended up dying in the committee of conference. And that ended up being no delays to act 46. In some ways, I think we're probably going to hear that some of those communities in the, as they're working with them closures that may have been a God sound that they were not dealing on. Merging or actually dealing on services. So, okay, thank you, Jesse. And any other questions on that. Any other thoughts. Okay. So, Kathleen James representative James. It's chair web. I just wanted to let everybody know that a revised and updated version of the select committee's report is was posted yesterday on our website. The decision process is already well underway for that next February deadline and I'll send a link to everybody when we're done here. So you can take a look there are a bunch of new sections. And they will be presenting that the people that wrote that wrote that report, I will we are inviting them into the committee to present it to us and the opportunity to ask questions. Representative Austin. Thank you. I think all of us have received a copy of the tax structure commission strapped report. And I started reading that until I realized it was 183 pages long. But they're asking for feedback and I believe the Ed fund is included in that report and I'm just wondering if I don't know if it would be our role as a committee to get feedback or maybe at some time when we had a chance to read at least the Ed fund portion of that report. To talk about it, I, you know, I don't know if that has really anything to do with us in terms of input but you know that would be will you bring that up when when JFO comes in to present the Ed fund to us. Yeah, some questions then. Okay, about that. That would be a discussion also with representative Ansel as to where it is in our jurisdiction. Yeah, so I think they're taking feedback until January 21. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Okay. Let's see. Anybody else. Are there topics of interest that you would like to make sure that we address this year. I want you to also if you see bills that that are of interest to you that come through bearing in mind that we are under pressure. Madam chair, are we considering rate on as something that could be on the horizon or. I haven't seen that anything come in in that regard. I do expect to see something related to school construction. And I think that may end up being that this committee last year passed a bill out of our committee that ended up I think dying in the appropriations committee in the middle of COVID-19 was went through from our committee. We worked with the institutions committee and send it to ways and means and it ended up dying up and out in appropriations. There is possibility we will be looking at the new covert relief funds. We will be looking for presentation on that at some point, but I'd like to work with like to work with our appropriations committee on the order of that. But we will have an opportunity to look at that. And it's certainly an interest of mine. I've been in touch with a congressman Welsh's office about it. And I think we get it as a priority for the national conference of state legislators. We are not the only only state struggling with aging infrastructure in our schools. We spent a lot of money recently on lead remediation, and we certainly have spent a lot of money on each back in air quality. We certainly, we don't have anybody here representing Burlington, but we do know that Burlington high school is facing quite a situation. Representative James, did you have something else. Yep, thanks. Just wanted to bills of interest. I hope I copied everybody yesterday on the latest draft of the community schools bill and if you have any questions about that. I'm going to introduce it later this week. Representative Austin. Yeah, I'm still revising and working on the literacy bill but literacy is a huge concern of mine, and it has been since last year and, you know, whether we take up my bill or not, I would really like to hear again from the Stern Center, and from there was a gentleman I was looking for his name that spoke to us I think from the BMG group that wrote the report on the struggling students. I'd like to hear kind of again from all of them on the state of literacy in Vermont. I understand that the secretary also has that interest, and you are taking you've taken the bill that we passed out of committee last year correct. Yeah, and you're introducing that. I would say that we have an opportunity this year, perhaps to use some of the money coming in from from the current. I'm not sure what it's called but we'll just call it CRF for now. We'll have an opportunity to use some money for that as well as we as we look at learning loss, learning loss and, and I think the NEA would prefer we called it in undelivered education. Everybody's learning I just don't know what they're learning and it's not necessarily great stuff that some of the kids are learning. And I am including a section on the impact of COVID on learning in this new bill. And remember it doesn't have to be completely perfect before you. Thank you, Kate. Better to get it better to get it introduced so we can fix them committee. Okay. Let's see represent James is that still you have another one. Yeah, I haven't really gathered my thoughts around this at all yet. Thank you and I mentioned this in passing yesterday if if time permits. I would like to at least learn a little bit more about media literacy and how students in our schools are taught to assess sources to understand and have some discernment around what they see on social media. And how to gain some skills around determining whether what they're seeing online is accurate. Certainly, we certainly call on the agency to have a conversation with us about where it where it fits in the standards. And I think over all of that for for me as we're looking at at things like the waiting study is who's overseeing the standards that they're actually being implemented. I will tell you when when 911 happened I was working in the Williston Central School, and I remember walking into a classroom, and I saw some of the most amazing teaching as that the towers were being, you know, decimated, and I was watching the teacher teach them how to assess what they were watching. What was fact what are they assuming how do you what you know what are you going to do with that assumption that you think it's the Russians, for example, is this unknown it watch watching the teacher go through what they were assuming, and being able to bring them back to evidence was was really impressive so there are some people that really know how to do this well. I'd love to know how we're how we're teaching that like I said I haven't started to explore this but you know, I think there's nothing. If we're all to democracy then making sure we're all operating from a shared set of facts. So if we have time I'd love to, I'd love to take a look at that. That's great and if anybody's interested take a look at the Jill the poor article called hacking of America. It's pretty interesting discussion on how we sort of gotten to the state of what's happened to media and goes back to the fairness doctrine and what happened in the Reagan administration and it's fascinating article and also refers to the founding fathers okay sorry geeking out representative to. Thanks chair web, sort of a little late we had a caucus went a little bit long so. I was wondering I don't know if you talked about it or if we're going to speak about it. I know in the governor's address he spoke about and I'm sure we'll know this after his budget address but childcare. That retains what that means to the agency of education. Right. That's a big one. And I thank you that that is that it is that will be a very big conversation. Thanks. Anything else. So, I will see you then after we will be after the floor. We will be I believe that's right is that right Jesse can you just review the. Yes it is so you all have the house floor at one o'clock today and then 15 minutes following that we will be joining House general housing and military to walk through there. So just to understand there. There was a bill that passed the Senate. Last year related to healthcare bargaining. We ended up going to House general housing and military affairs. It, we didn't do anything with it. It's the bill that I think we're reviewing is the bill that came over from the Senate. That is about to be reintroduced. There was a bill that just also went to that committee that representative Conlon submitted. I think we're just going to sort of start that conversation and see what happens. I'm happy to talk with you a little bit about the history of how we got there. I think represented I think representative Coupoli Conlon and I were the only ones that were in the edge committee in 2017 and 18 when this came forward in the special session. So it may need another look. Yeah. Is what the 21 0030. I don't know, but, but it was too, too. It was as 226 from last year and it will be. I think it might be on the it might be on the House general. What page. If it isn't on ours. Okay. I don't think it's on ours. Okay. It is on House general. Yeah. Okay. So it's on ours now too. Okay. That's outdated. Yeah, that's it's on. I apologize. Yes, it is on as of this morning. Okay. So everybody take a little break. We'll see you on the floor. So to speak. And we can go off live.