 So one of those things Bill we're interested in we want to hear directly from the sponsor so Senator Lyons So thank you for the record senator Jenny Lyons from Chitton County, and I always forget the number on this bill 323 323, thank you It's really a it's a it's a straightforward request to provide hygiene sanitary hygiene products to young women in Public school bathrooms it says high school But I I think it probably should be considered for both high school and middle school at least given that menstrual cycles are beginning earlier earlier in girls lives and knowing that These products are not inexpensive a B Kids just don't know when they're going to need them so they don't always carry them around with them and So few kids carry quarters of nickels or whatever now you have put in machines. I don't know if they carry credit cards so having access to These products I think would be it. It's a great asset for girls And thinking about some of the other things that we offer At no cost in schools including contraception This one for me rises above that Sorry, but I just think it's really important. There are a lot of There there are a lot of concerns. I think that And having it in in bathrooms Makes a lot of sense It's difficult. I think for a young girl to go in and ask for something like this I think we had to go down to the nurses office or from a teacher It's bad enough Probably I don't know what kids are like today, but I was been pretty darn shy about saying anything So I just think it's something that I'm glad you're considering Of course Do you have any idea what the cost I have no idea what the cost would be You know, there's no fiscal note with it. You'd have to probably would be born by each school so It's another issue, but in the there may also be Alternatives to paying for it some of the some food banks for example offer This type of product and it might be that there are volunteer organizations that would help Find this or raise money or do it collaboratively with the school budget, I think but I I think I Don't think it could be that expensive I guess the one thing I would say is if we make the determination that they should be Provided free of charge that it's essential then I would be hesitant to put it on You know private philanthropy or something We don't do that toilet paper. We don't say go see someone's willing to give you Well, it should be in the school district. There's no question about it, but a school district can also use its Create creativity to find money for other things, but I think I agree with you. This is an essential It's not something you can Say it's ancillary Like I did have a discussion of this with my daughter last night Because she had complained randomly about a very similar issue Couple of weeks ago, and so I told her about this bill and she said that in Burlington high school where she There is one bathroom that has one machine that has never been stocked Since she has been there so it's a machine you pay for and No one can pay for it because it's never filled so I like the wording here where it says Shall make available Because it's not that we're saying they have to install a machine and never fill it they have to make sure that there's access So I imagine two Practical considerations that I do want to take testimony from the educational community about one would be caused obviously, and then the other would be imagine some we've had a discussion of this at least once in this committee in the past and The other consideration was vandalism These products would be used somehow to stop a plumbing or they'd be Abused in some way, but again the same can be said about toilet paper Can be used to vandalize about or the safe could be said about products that are not given out for free But but those are two areas where we'll ask some on the shore. Yeah, there are a number of issues that Yeah, and I should point out this is almost kind of a companion bill to one that's I believe in the finance committee Now which is to remove the tax Yeah, so So any other questions for center lines, I just want to comment that a lot of schools already do provide it So I don't the fiscal effect may not it be as high as there may be some districts that already are paying for these things and just Maybe not putting them in the bathroom, but I'm still already Right, I think one of the questions you have to ask is if you don't have it in the bathroom, right? Are the kids willing to go and ask for this, right? I agree. I agree I mean, I think it should be in the bathroom. Yeah, I guess my point was that they may already be on the budget Thanks Okay, thank you, sir Oh So as Center line set the language in this bill is fairly straightforward and fairly short So almost famous last words by saying that way But it creates a new section and title 16 address that a school district shall make menstrual hygiene products available at no cost And all gender neutral bathrooms and bathrooms designated for females located in public high schools Then we have a definition of menstrual hygiene products include sanitary napkins and tampons And in subsection B. This is where we address the payment school districts are to bear the cost of supplying these products and the school district may seek grants or partner with a non-profit community-based organization to fulfill the obligation in terms of effective of date the bill itself would take effect on passage But it would be school districts wouldn't have to comply with that until the 2021-2022 academic year I The first page on wine 18 It says they can seek grants or partner with a nonprofit. It could a school like For profit company to donate Is there a reason why that would be? Not to my knowledge We could change the language to include for profit companies are to get a grant. Yeah So you mean like seventh generation? Yeah, somebody would yeah Yeah Yeah So I just had a quick question So as it stands it says they shall make them available at no cost There's no penalty or enforcement mechanism towards their default That I'm not sure about title 16 So you're right There's no specific penalty in this section, but I'd have to look at title 16 more carefully to see if there's a general default for Yeah, I'm just thinking that There are certain issues more than others that tend to be Subject to Silent protest like we're we're just not going to do it So I could see this potentially being something that that they say a school board somewhere might want to act on. So I'm just wondering what kind of levels there are to enforce it. Sure. I'm happy to look into that for you. It's not as familiar as 16. In that, about by 1940. Is that in there because there's somewhere else to cut out 16? Because I'm not familiar with it, where it says that districts can't. Secretaries are part of non-profit community-based organizations to fulfill other obligations of the school or purchase other things? Not that I'm aware of, but I think this language is to clarify that it doesn't just have to come out of the school district's bottom line that they could seek other type of contributions and they can talk about the in-kind contributions. I just wonder if they could do it for anything else. I assume they could. Like a lot of sports do, right? Yeah. They could play Pepsi by the scoreboard, but that's Pepsi scoreboard. Yeah, well that's what I was thinking about. But you're talking about non-profit. Well, I'm just wondering if this was in here because somewhere else says you can't because I thought schools are accepting. There are certain, the way that finance formula works is that there are certain things that are outside of the school budget so if they are paid for by grant money, there are also like part of that, I think exact 60, that makes limitations on what schools can pay for by fundraising because you don't want the wealthy towns to be able to. So I think this warrants a little further discussion on whether this is necessary or if we start this precedent. Right. I think it's easier to eliminate. Yeah. Yeah, I wondered about that. Exactly. Yeah, this is probably not going to be along the middle ways. Thank you very much, Casey. Appreciate it. I don't know. Ringo. So, Mr. Remers, good to meet you. So we are in the process of looking at a bill that would realign duties between the State Board and AOE and potentially among standards of the board. And so we wondered, first of all, had you had a chance to look at that language? Yes. I did read through it. You know, I actually wish for it. I don't know if you were going to say anything. You know, I only saw the same word referenced in a few sections. So I was kind of curious as to where you guys were seeing that. We wanted to, I think, Jimmy, do you have another copy of this? So we had our legislative counsel prepare this list of who has authority over which rules. Here's an extra copy. And so I think it was... The $5,000. Yes, the $3,000. We had a question as it stands now and as it would be here, what your thoughts were on the $5,000 series. It's now going to be in statute that State Board of Education would be making those rules. It is? That's the bill as it is currently drafted. So... That's current law. No, it's not actually. No, that's the one that was moved. Yeah, so the issue that our legislative counsel, who's just walking in right now, we're talking about the $5,000 series rules, is that it is under the State Board of Education, but all of the references to who is responsible for the rules are the license. It is your operation. And so there's a disconnect between what is in statute, I would defer to our counsel, but that was what we were trying to clear up. Yeah, so the authorities are the records in the Emeritus Council. The records are for the... It's actually said that the Terms Board has authority to make rules. But the rules are actually under the State Board of Education. So we're whispering what that is. Okay, so we were looking for clarity and your point of view. I guess we need to work down towards a few more details. Are we asking whether or not the State Board of Education could assume the responsibilities of the work of the Vermont Standards Board? I don't think that's the intent. Okay. I did see in parts where it was the responsibility, it was the duty of the Secretary of Education to bring our work to the State Board of Education for approval. So let me begin something that we hope to do today, which was the whole point of today was to have you, John Carroll, Secretary of Friends from the room so that we could have a little bit of real-time discussion. So at this point, John, could I just ask you, maybe you can clarify since you were instrumentally drafting what your intention was. The intent with the rules generally was to leave the broad policy. All of... Let me back up. This entire list of rules, top and bottom, are currently listed as board rules. The board has the authority to adopt. Currently under the President's law, all of these rules, including $5,000. Yep. The general purpose of the bill is to shift to the agency the majority of these rules, actually, the authority to adopt these rules without reference to the State Board. The ones at the top would stay as they are now with the State Board and the ones at the bottom would be... would be under the authority of the agency of education and not the State Board. The issue, though, today is that the State Board doesn't have authority. The issue rules by Dr. Sears is not under the State Board's jurisdiction. It's in the bill under your jurisdiction and it's not under the way it works today. It's under your jurisdiction. So I'm not sure why they're actually adopted by the State Board. They're actually... The authority to promulgate is for the external authority. That's my question. I'm not trying to figure it out. Honestly, there's no time to move it to the State Board, but... the way they talk today doesn't quite make sense to me. No, no. I'm beginning to understand here and then I don't know that I can clarify why it's necessary like that way or how it was built. But I would certainly recommend that it remain with the State Board as much as possible as I think the work of the State Board is charged enough. Indeed. Yeah. So... in that case, do you support the way this would be laid out now in the statute? So in the statute today, as I'm reading here, is that we are essentially making recommendations for rule revision, and that would then be presented to the Secretary of Education that then presents it to the State Board. Is that correct? Jim, is that the... what the way it works in the... Right now, in this bill, is that the responsibility is to transfer from you to the State Board which you want. When you went to the list of rules which I took from the bill, I had to go to the accident at that point because one of those rules actually you didn't have authority to complicate. Let's talk about it in here. I just took this list of rules from the agency's website, the State Board website. I would suggest the State Board's website is an error in this regard. I'm not sure about that, but I think we are profiting maybe is that it should not be transferred to the State Board. I wish we could fix this right now. I support that. I'm going to get you working. Okay. And Secretary Fringe, anything to add on that? No, I just talked with a larger issue of how we're certainly supportive of trying to separate these things out and clean it up. I think this is overdue that this occurred, but the devil's in some of the details and one of the things I want to convey today is I think there needs to be a better logic enough for the panel to sound as opposed to just sort of picking and choosing which things go to which part. This is an example of something that the devil's in the detail so to speak and we have to be very clear about what our policy intentions to ensure that can be done by putting stuff on websites. The consumers of the rules don't need to understand sort of the bifurcation process. They need to have a uniform sense of where the rules are and they should not have to go to three different websites or to multiple rules in my humble opinion. If they had a agreement that's very concerned about the rule. Oh, do you have a State Board? Do you have a Secretary? So it's not just possible to have some sort of website. Absolutely. I just wanted to deal with this one first because it's an outlier. We thought it was a mistake and it seems that that's what it is. It seems like what we're arguing for is to leave that status quo and Jim, you're clear on that? Okay, great. I think your work here is done. That could be a service. Okay, Secretary Fringe, why don't I ask you to begin to paraphrase you. You said that there should be an overriding logic rather than I can choose in terms of which rulemaking authority we move. I think and correct me if I'm wrong, John, but I think in large part it was dictated by current practice. So, nominally the State Board retained power but the Secretary had already been doing some of this. And so we're... The agency does the vast amount of work in preparing the rules and then they are kind of blessed by the Board. The Board sometimes has contributions to make and I think for me the decision rule was is the topic of the rule or 35 of them is the topic of the rule essentially administrative the Board brings no expertise with the obvious one being how long should school buses be allowed to idle. The Board brings no insight or expertise to that and it seemed like well maybe the agency knows a lot about that. So those kind of things we suggested should be placed squarely in the agency not only to develop the rules as they always do, but also to become. Okay. So, I've just passed down a copy of the chart that Jim DeMarie prepared and what it does is it takes the entire list of things that the State Board was charged with in statute and it indicates which ones in our draft are to be moved formally to AOE. So my opening question for the Secretary would be have you had a chance to think about how this sits with you, not just philosophically but in that fine-grained detail? Yeah, I mean to your point it has provoked sort of most of the use of word philosophy was sort of a question of the logic employee so that's all I brought with me today was just sort of a quick summary of how we would suggest a logic model that could be introduced to help sort this out a little bit. I think the issue for us is really in those last two bullets I think there's two criteria I think we should use as we go about the support process. One is a policy coherence that there should be direct relationship between statutory authority, regulation and technical guidance. So technical guidance being a more granular thing that we put out, whether it be a spreadsheet or some aspect, basically done on the secretary's authority of regulation maybe intermediate but there should be a through line between those things and unfortunately we've had examples in the last ten years or so that's not necessarily the case partially with the transition I think under Act 98 where essentially the state board had an almost authority to regulate the education system, independent of statutory authority. So I think we're, when I say the need for policy coherence, I think that's driven our assessment that's driven by an understanding of the context and the historical moment as an education system with a demographic challenges and what appears to be growing an equity of opportunity both academically and in issues like school facilities and so forth. So there's a need to have a better tightly integrated regulatory framework and that second piece of it as a result of that would yield better accountability which is a challenge we often find in ourselves that as an agency there's a bigger source of frustration for us is that who are we accountable to? Under Act 98 I think it's implicit that the secretary does report to the governor but it's hard to enact the general assembly's requirements so we are not responsible necessarily for our own rulemaking authority even though I think under the transition with Act 98, the agency as the department of education previously had essentially its own rulemaking so it can right now so I think this issue of accountability is increasingly in the foreign concept particularly we're dealing with the policies in front of us now that use Act 173 an example are really policies that are very complex but also integrated across state agency boundaries so there's a lot of interplay with Mel Health for example so we need to have clear lines of elimination and responsibility so when I apply those two filters to this list what I would suggest is that all regulations should exist under the agency's authority there's a role for the state board I think to act as a mechanism of accountability perhaps where before anything is pursued by the agency the state board sort of green lights it but as the chair said most of the lead work done on regulation is not by the agency from its technical orientation and also to point out that we also have a responsibility on our federal law as the SEA many many of the programs specifically that we administer and catch the federal requirements and so forth so we are ultimately a very clear accountability in that regard and we need to have the authority to probably get rules that allow us to fulfill that responsibility so my analysis if I subject those two criteria to this process what it would result in is all rules and I would make the exception of the standards where I think it's important they retain responsibility or those rules but there's some issues there I think that we should be intended to but that could be done with statute and we'll have to expand on that basically a pipeline development I think with teacher shortage issues but the framework all the rules should more or less fall on the agency's promulgated authority and then reject some mechanism for the state board to sort of green light that process before rules are advanced but the process we have now is two cumbersome and sort of underlined accountability so would the idea be to have the state board not promulgate any gaps in the agency initiative so the agency for instance in the case of 173 would produce a kind of a draft before we would go forward and formal our process of rulemaking the agency the board would have a time certain periods of green light and or not as opposed to them being sort of the owner of the rules you know I just brought an example I mean 173 is an interesting context this is where these are federal specialized laws and regulations you know these are the current state regulations to take essentially a lay board through a very complex process this is a challenging dynamic in which we're going to have to enact really critical and civil rights issues federal funding responsibilities so we haven't put any energy on to coming up with specific language to do that because I think you know the framing of this is where if we have a conceptual agreement of applying some logic we would have to throw a support spot behind that but after that I think I would just suggest sort of a division of things I'm not sure when the logic was to do this per se other than what I heard the board sort of expressing an affinity for certain topics versus others I don't know if I would adopt those logic models I think affinity is one way to put it I think institutional memory is another in other words certain rule series the state board has created an architecture over the years so I can see a willingness on their part to continue that so if I could just go rewind just a little bit it seemed as though you said you would prefer that there be an overriding logic and you believe that the most compelling one would be to have all rulemaking authority at the agency but I hear you right then to say if we weren't going to do that then you viewed it more as a duty split or a sharing of responsibility that would be we haven't put effort on really analyzing this kind of where we started today looking at the standards work down to that granularity we could certainly engage on an item basis but I think where our initial reaction was because we do want to support the board for its effort on this it's been really positive and we want to support them in the work but what struck us in this sort of division was sort of a lack of an overriding logic and I think the you have policy coherence based of Act 77 and proficiency based learning as we discovered sort of mutually that there is no sort of statutory authority for proficiency based learning I think it's increasingly going to be challenging for us to enact good policy if we don't have a better connection between statutory authority and regulation it's hard for me to imagine a situation with the agency would be probably getting rules for the absent statutory authority that we would largely as a part of the executive branch would be reacting to policy of the establishment of the statutory authority well and as John Carroll knows I believe that the state board has in the recent past taken on jobs that weren't laid out for it promulgated rules that no one was really asking for absent some interior motivation within the board with that said I have found very useful about this draft is that it seems to me the state board was willingly narrowing its own portfolio and increasing the the duty split when we made AOE an agency and there were I was in the committee and I opposed that bill actually there were promises made around the table about the state board retaining an independent role and then the agency acquiring a larger role but also being accountable as you said indirectly to the voters via the governor so I view this draft as helpful because it seemed to me to begin a process of envisioning a narrow role for the board but continuing role for the board in rulemaking if that is the direction that we continue to move in we would be asking them for AOE to get into the weeds with each of these remaining pieces, rulemaking pieces that this draft leaves with the board I assume there would be some where there would be a stronger argument on your part than others am I reading you right that that's not where you want to go today yeah that's correct I mean we certainly could embark on that journey I think you know where we the chair and I would correspond to your email we have general agreement that there's a good separation here between policy versus administration what I would say I have a hard time applying that logic to the administration of some things of the administration and not other things and I see the ability of the board retaining policy authority of its items of being inconsistent with its role in advancing a larger, higher level of policy so to me they're inconsistent and also I think once again the agency to use the point of the 2200 series sorry the agency can get lost on rulemaking and forward to so it's not I don't think just to point out the board's exertion that the agency as a regulatory body has its own you know and that's why it's important and I included the statement of our purpose work that we we you know part of the work we've come together to say look you know we're not going to go on those exertions we're going to really as a basis of achieving equity in high quality for all Vermont students our authority needs to be well grounded in statute authority we're not going to go off and do projects or things that we haven't been explicitly you know pulled to do we have a leadership role which is at the front process to come in and advocate for this you might see in the data and so forth but once the statute's going to establish our role is to enact that so we see you know the need for that discipline would be helpful at this moment in time for the state because it's been lacking I agree and the final thing I would say is that I think that's everybody's intention with this draft from the people who wrote it the committee that's been looking at I guess it would be helpful ultimately for us to know of the 15 or so areas that the state board under this draft retains rulemaking authority so your agency has been somewhat strapped has been had a very full plate and I think if we take act 46 for instance I think the board did Yeoman's work helping out even as a lay board so what chunks of this 15 areas could you see remain with the board and could you be comfortable with and then I think that gives us an area of agreement and then we can discuss the places where you disagree come to our conclusion I think to use the case of act 46 as an example I think it was Yeoman's work as part of the board some of the best board work I've ever seen the contribution they made though wasn't necessarily technical it was political and we had to do the technical work that certainly informed their political debate and there's certainly a crosswalk going back and forth but we're not equipped to do that political work that was essential to formulate the same life plan but we were in situ to do the technical support of their deliberations so I mean that's a specific problem that requires additional political interaction which I think justifies the existence of a state board like entity where as we envision our role that's not appropriate for us to on the other hand in terms of capacity to spend time having to educate a lay board about highly technical special ed regulations it would free of our capacity not to have to do that and maybe if I could ask and maybe this calls for a meeting between the two of you to kind of finalize where you are on this but if I could ask you to situate your thoughts and your agreement in three categories one where you believe a we should have all of them one where you believe a we should initiate rules and then they go to the state board like the 173 rules I think they played a good role there in terms of mediating a little between the advisory group and then areas where you're comfortable with the board having rulemaking authority and basically developing the rules without a draft and we might apply or just suggest that sort of political versus technical paradigm that rules that are more political are more of a political realm shall we say and some are more technical and then there are some that probably should be abolished so we have, I'm looking at I think it's Jim 2400 I mean that rule speaks to the board creating a board if I'm not mistaken so there's things like that that we shouldn't be interested in carrying forward regardless of how we divide things up yeah if we could get rid of the rules in the process that would be a good thing but when you talked about green lighting can you use that term equal to like a veto authority yeah I don't know we have to explore that but as opposed to the board being responsible for engaging in the rulemaking process we would bring that to conclusion and therefore holding the rules and responsibility and accountability for enacting that but I think there's a measure additional measure of accountability that would serve a very important role in that regard and they could sort of and they could introduce some language in the draft that speaks to the board sort of sitting in between that process and a section that would be okay just it provides the public another opportunity to be involved which I think I support and it seems like even all the rules that the board is making now are really done talking about the architecture that they've created because they've created that within the agency because they don't have any staff yeah I mean there's very few of these rules if any that don't require directing and see them all under immigration so even on the force making the rules you're making the rules we are doing a lot of legwork so we have to bring them to a place where they can take the political perspective sometimes the board members bring different levels of expertise like in the case of one second three the general assembly created an advisory group precisely to bring additional expertise to the process the board I don't think was expected to bring specific technical expertise they bring a political convening of the board but yeah regardless of which rule it is we're still going to be that's the point about the accountability piece it's like whether the board does it or we do it we're still doing it in terms of staffing and things unless they're given significant resources which is I don't know how you have to say if you had, if you really had like a veto authority would you need to have any in your bucket to promulgate if they have to come to you to give before they could submit them is that the same as having authority to promulgate them basically without having to do any of the work yeah it's they're pretty similar to the way it is now I think I'd want to understand better what green lighting means because I think if there ought to be some red lighting as well I think that's proven by our work on Act 173 where we have asserted and reminded folks that indeed it's the board that has to sign off on the final language of the rule and that I think they've gotten people's attention and that's going to use the process so in that sense we had a right red light authority and it is certainly true that the leg work is done by the agency and I think it was that with us so but the idea of the ability to initiate rules from the perspective of the board which as you say is more a community based perspective and less an administrative perspective that seems to me to need to be preserved even though it's a difficult case for me to make because at the same time I readily acknowledge what the chair has said is that the board has gone beyond its statutory authorities in some of these initiatives of its own and that's why my takeaway on this is if you do nothing else please leave the language of the draft in front of you that says the board shall not initiate anything that is not explicitly provided by statute and you know just to state maybe the obvious the opening couple of pages of this bill situate everything very squarely under legislative intent and I really appreciate that that coupled with the spinning off of the majority of the rulemaking formally to the agency suggests to me very much the right direction I think I don't myself envision getting rid of the board and I haven't until the secretary recommended it as one possibility I haven't considered stripping them of all rulemaking so I think what I had imagined was the re-envisioning of the duty split but not removing the power to promulgate rules that's a discussion we haven't had voted on yet but I think the probably the path of least resistance is to have some subset of the top 15 here that we ultimately agree on between agency and board I prefer that it not become you know when we turned it into an agency and the commissioner into a secretary there was a long fight around the table it was a fight that went up into the governor's office and around to the house and you know it was one of those turf battles that took most of the session and ultimately wound up in a compromise anyway I'd rather just start in a compromise position and I think you too are best situated to make that happen and for us to then agree on so I don't know what your timetable might be secretary for for helping to produce that what would you like for a time? you know this is something I'd like to move out before crossover it's a long long bill I'd rather not have it hang around a long time but could it be done by the end of next week yeah we can try once again it's the process I appreciate your interest in getting a compromise out of it reminds me a lot of 173 we don't necessarily follow the principle all the way through we see compromise as the way that unfortunately it's right where we are now which is not coherence which is a larger lens I think the of from a stakeholder community perspective to have stakeholders have who do they go for this rule is the state work control level or the agency control level who's in charge it's a problem I think the efficiency issue of meaning to have resources to do the work on their own it's interesting and there's a central item I can tell you right now that are in the top that we would want to have a role in having really this issue fundamentally of education quality standards and this would be the the concerns the standards for to not have regulatory authority over the essential quality elements of the system it's the major contributor you'll hear me talk about and I mentioned today when you were asking about capacity or additional capacity what you might need we've lost the regulatory authority over inputs in the system to guarantee baseline quality when we used to have school quality standards and I think we need to enact that kind of approach so this issue over education quality standards is one I think is critical in terms of the standards board we're going to need to have more conversation around pipeline development stuff so we have an interest in talking about reciprocity and all kinds of professions and we have a lot of barriers right now in our licensing process where it's challenging sometimes for educators license in other states that come in line with that said this is exactly the sort of thing that's what we'd be able to do is then hear why John thought education quality standards should remain with the board in terms of role-making well that's the general characteristic of these are all about how education is deployed out into the states into the state I mean we've discussed before that the nature of education here in our state and in many states is unlike any other executive function the executive agency and then the real work is done in school districts and super denancies in the classrooms and that's where 13,000 teachers are standing up and delivering and that's where and so it seems to us that having things like school district organization rules which by the way are municipalities having their rules set by the by an executive branch agency under the direct control of the governor didn't seem appropriate there are some constitutional issues even about who can regulate municipalities and understanding is it you guys and nobody else I mean I would disagree with that's precisely the example if the case with 46 is reaffirming the Brigham decision I mean the central role of the Brigham decision is the logic that the state is ultimately responsible for education and it delegates authority to those municipalities as it see fits but it can't delegate it's responsibility so on the essential issues of accountability that's not delegated authority to municipalities I mean the state is ultimately responsible so even on this list school quality center students performance and outcomes and responsibility to locals to do that with the expectation that they would enact the constitutional requirement that should be held for children but they don't do that absolute state responsibility for all students so that's I mean that's the Brigham decision in a nutshell and that's important I think you know this might be what the state board wants to do but that is not the context constitutionally or legally by which we develop framework to mistake permanent relations that's inaccurate I think part of it too is I don't know how you define this committee what's our vision for the state board of education when we look at the rules what kind of work we expect them to do knowing policy you know it doesn't make sense necessarily for us to be like school vice bus idling goes here but walking to school program goes here you know like because I read some of these some of these are talking you know we talk special ed finance yet we have to hurt people over here so we have two different entities looking at cost structure so I think we probably to help them in their work needed to find as a committee what we see for the role of the state board and me personally I see a more limited one than they even asked for here I think the way these rule out what big issue my way is proficiency based grading and under this they still may have been able to make that kind of error and we could have too you know I think you know but you're easier for us to deal with that's one of my argument I see here you getting part right so I think as a committee we have to define what we see for role of the state board and I'll be honest I don't see much of what we disagree on that but I think that's we have to decide before we give you the roles I think we have to just kind of agree on a vision for the board absolutely you know to go back to the arguments about whether to have an agency or not many people saw coherence and accountability as the defining issue then there were a lot of people who felt that what it would mean is you would get a more ideologically driven agency so one of the arguments that I would make and I include act 46 here as well as 173 having a you know you've got the legislature here you've got the agency here and having the board out here with a defined role that the legislature picks and chooses has in several instances allowed us I think to get further than we would have faster and the secretary I think was exactly right when he talked about the board having a more capability politically than having the state but you know looking at the end of act 46 you had the secretary developing a map that then went to the state and they did another series of hearings around the state so I see that role myself as one member of the committee of course is right that we'll have a discussion about what the board should be doing the secretary has begun the process of looking at this Andrew so if we're going to take out the authority from the board to do any new rule you explicitly said you wanted to make sure we could get in here then it would just be these existing rules but these existing rules are already all written so it would only be amendments to these rules and would you ever envision the rules absent legislative guidance to do so because in my world in the state government I work on we never, I can't imagine where we enacted a new rule unless the legislature made a change I think we'd give you an illustration in act 49 I think it is you spell out changes in relationships between different schools and special education funding authority to receive special education funding and you direct the general the board to modify the existing rule 2200 to reflect the standards laid out in act 49 section 18, 1920 which is work we need to start doing very soon and in that particular case the language of the statute is very prescriptive and the rules then would be virtually just a cut and paste of statute and then that becomes the rules under which the agency oversees the work of the schools and special funding special funding so it is true that virtually all of the work is simply updating or realigning existing rules and our preamble as the chairman has said seeks to fence the board in so that all of its changes to existing rules are directed by statute you don't just get to go do that because it feels good so if you did have the board decided that something about the career technical education rules they thought should be changed under your kind of proposal what they have the authority just to make those changes only under with legislative not if that is all inconsistent with legislative director that's a good example of the board not having a technical background in this so the rules on technical education are largely driven by federal regulation so you don't make changes at the state level to the rules on technical education without understanding the Carl Perkins Act and those are highly contingent on federal regulation so the board might desire to do some things but they are going to quickly find themselves needing to do some things and the agency can't delegate its responsibility to implementing that very important federal program to a board and that might be a good example of the second category where maybe it should be in this bill that the agency promulgates those rules, a draft of those rules and the board has to sign off because they are not getting into the nuts and bolts but they are looking at the overall vision of the board just on a very specific issue we have this issue under the federal law that is required that Perkins law was reauthorized so we are required to do a new state-like plan so the federal government looks at our statutory framework to sort of understand how we are going about doing that and it's not clear to them either so what we have done is we have shared with the board a couple of presentations on the goals of our Perkins plan and the board voted to affirm those goals and then we have been embarking on a series of communication hearings that have been publicly advertised that feedbacks will be put together with tech directors now that's coming in for a finalization it's not clear due to our incoherence in our process as to who is adopting this plan so we are going to talk to the state board is this something you see yourselves doing or is this something Governor signs in some states it could be all above it's like we have to get more clear about what that process is but if we had to take that process as I think would be anticipated here through a state board process simultaneously with them doing Act 173 rules there's no way we would be able to do it and we wouldn't have been able to do it either technically from the agencies because we are supporting multiple public processes at the same time it's very complex I think I think you make some great points about the sort of ad hoc quality of this you mentioned that you'd be willing to undertake the journey to look into each piece that's really what we need you to do I think the board is pretty clear they've John correct me if I'm wrong but the board has signed off on this in principle yes but not in particular we have to have a meeting to discuss but in principle the idea is to transfer as many administrative functions as possible rules as one of them but there are other things like I mentioned to you last time we have the people who have to approve independent schools we do it relying entirely on what the agency has told us and we have no expertise at that point if we went out ourselves and looked at it so that's the kind of administrative function that's residual to us left over from pre-act 98 days that needs to be cleaned up so it's both those kind of administrative engagements that we bring no value to the flip side of all that either way is not to be doing less on the board but to be freeing the board up to be getting above the granular and into the strategic a simple illustration of that is we convened a 6-7 hour hearing last Tuesday in Rotland in which we took testimony from around 33-34 individual or models mostly educators but the public also chimed in and gave us a different perspective and we're going to be sharing what we learned with you folks and so that's a case where we come away with some insights about the sort of community slash political perspective that frankly is not what the agency is particularly good at or set up to do and so we think it's important that that kind of alertness and pulse taking come to you and you decide well is there a statutory adjustment we need to make or not and so that we become part of that conversation with you and that some pieces that might need to take the form of rules and that might be a case where we would have a stake in initiating rules which in this case would be educational quality standards rules to memorialize and bring down to earth the statutory directive so I think if we are cut off from any ability to initiate rules then that becomes our way of actualizing what we've learned and what we've shared with you so long as we're fenced in that says you can't do it if you don't tell us that's really crucial to me and to the board I think so preserving the ability of the board to take initiative in areas that impinge upon the public and that's what was the idea of most of these is it seems to me that's the vital way that we can facilitate bringing change. So speaking of this another thing that you all should consider in this putting your heads together session on page 4 of the draft in laying out the duties and responsibilities of the board it says review rules proposed by the agency of education prior to pre-filing the proposed rules with ICON and so we asked if that was reciprocal. In other words if the agency was going to review rules that would be promulgated because it I think later in Jen can track this down but I think there's sort of reciprocal language I don't think so as you're doing on the agency to provide you with the draft rules certainly I do and I think that the page 4 is what I've referred to sort of green light and red light opportunity would be a good function that I would observe that as much as the board doesn't want to be penned in it did a pretty nice job of pending us and we have and this would be a point the committee would have to consider I think it's very necessary that we operate in that sort of statutory understanding but as an agency we have the ability to create rules now absolutely and so as does any department or agency in state government so if we were going to anticipate some way to do that we were going to have to create a special dispensation or directive to the agency of when and when it cannot make rules this language makes it even more restrictive than we have now and it really requires us only to do so in our very narrow definition of suggestion and I agree to back to Senator Parran's question if we're imagining one of the rules of the board is to be a check on the agency then it seems to me that the agency should be a check on the board in you know our governance model we tend to like checks and balances so is there a way that we could make this reciprocal so that the legislature is confident that any rulemaking that comes out of either shop is viewed by the other and I don't know about the mechanics of whose greenlighting what contingencies we have but you understand a more equal distribution we did stop when we looked at this and realized that what it did in effect was make a one way veto system really and it seems if there's going to be a review prior to filing or even pre-filing that might be made reciprocal in order to get the most effect out of your working together so if I could it sounds like you thought you might be able to meet at the end of next week we could maybe the following week have the two of you back well we could I was endeavoring to respond to an issue for us to draft something based on criteria I mean I don't know depending on how the logic plays out I don't know where we'll come to agreement so if I were even to take the logic of which I was starting to listen to the conversation if I were to say the board had a policy or sort of that political dimension versus out of the administrative weeds then the bulk of these I would take out of the board's left there would be very few things left on this left the first one absolutely the political ones the state governance that requires interaction with the local authority anything with an appeal process but any of those political ones 33,000, 3400 those kinds of things absolutely state board but everything else to me is a regulatory function or an administrative function that should be under the state boards that's where the logic would leave me absent other logic absent other logic I don't think we could negotiate right if you provide me other logic I will change my logic I'm hoping to have John supply at least potential other logic so what we could do is you guys could you guys meaning the agency could draft something give it to us John would look at it and say I don't agree then I'm going to ask the two of you to put your heads together anyway that's easier I can produce a draft for John so let's do that real soon so that there's time for us to go back we've got other things to do the issue of portraying this is delaying things all the time but I can stop doing something else we don't want to interrupt anything and we're not that's great and then when you feel that you've put your heads together and you've reached whatever meaning of the minds is to be had and then maybe bringing that and outlining the places where you disagree and why that would be the material for our next can I just ask a clarifying question because I'm listening to the secretary I think what do you understand you're doing by next Friday we're going to endeavor to start with this and apply some logical sort from our perspective and I'll share that with the chair of the state board and to you and then we'll convene some sort of get together on that but we'll be reacting from a draft that the agency creates and I will endeavor to do that fighting in the next week we'll try to get it done earlier so we can have more time to get the heads together are you drafting a new list what I'm drafting what are you drafting a bill or a reorganization of the list so you're not actually drafting a 113 page bill I'm not reluctant to put our power on that until I know what the framework you want to achieve here's the logic we want to be clear the state board put forward with our resources a draft if the secretary wants to put forward a full draft that should be your right so don't feel constrained I know time being in the absence if you'd like us to do that I can go just do that and then we can go to the regular process to sort of reconcile those pieces which might be more efficient I think before language is drafted working with this duty split list is a real time saver the two of you meeting sooner rather than later so as opposed to putting legal staff to drafting a long bill what I meant was I don't want you to feel that we're precluding you to the extent you want to draft language to repeat with what's on it I'm just thinking that speaking just for myself personally it's easier for me to work off the draft we already have and then change it based on what we all agree on a change rather than having 113 pages here 113 pages here and then going Jim what's the differences can you put together a chart for us and that would be but the pages are mostly conforming changes so yeah I mean I just worry once again the logic of it and I also want to be you know there's stakeholders that are interested in this conversation that are by definition disenfranchised if we go offline so I think the richness which is the importance of this issue deserves full public scrutiny and I would say the efficient way to do it would be to present an alternative draft of the rules but just to say you know my initial logic right now is to sort of separate this out based on policy coherence and accountability the list that we have now that logic isn't clear so we're going to have phenomenal significant differences between what's here and when we would adopt the big goal would be you can take a finding statement would be to promote greater coherence and accountability in education policy construct and to situate the board out of a place that allows it to do broader community engagement to interact in those political dimensions of education policy if I did that I could walk through and do a draft you know but the starting point because that logic is fundamentally different than what this is if and and not retracting what I said about your being free to write whatever draft you want I will say if this reminding me of the school boards and the ADA I will say if the logic is just that all rulemaking should stay with you and the board believes it has because currently all of these things are now in statute as the board's responsibility so if the idea is that 100% of it goes to the agency I think we found her immediately in trying to create a workable bill so to the extent you can be flexible in that logical principle I think we're in a general agreement again of this idea the board should be at a policy level and that's significantly reduced as the number of things there still will be things on this list so I'm sorry Senator thank you I was just trying to think of this philosophically and think of an analogy in another agency in the state of Vermont where there's any kind of similar relationship and I know the agency of human services pretty well since I serve on that committee and I'm thinking of like the relationship of that to the Green Mental Care Board for instance but can you help me think of another analogy of how you're thinking of your relationship to the state work of education yeah I think it's you bring up AHS that's an interesting I'm immediately drawn to that dimension of the complexity as well because I look at pre-K policy which is on the list an added dimension here as we have a construct currently that requires regulation for two different agencies and we have a board that sits on our regulation that they necessarily do not so that's what you'll hear a lot from schools and private providers is this construct is overly complex it's basically like a certain regulatory paralysis but I think in terms of process you know the once again a theory part of the logic would be that the agency can be more responsive and held more accountable to a statutory intent than an independent board can be if there was a policy issue that was established in statute let's say pre-K and we were solely charged for doing you might see fit to create an advisory group to provide additional expertise and technical stakeholder work input into that formulation of those rules or you might not but you also could put some parameters as you did with 173 specifically about how you want to see the rules formally so you can do that on a case basis but in terms of like if I'm trying to draw the analogy the green on the care board if the agency had the board was situated at a higher policy level which I think is commendable dimension because to get out in front of some of the education issues that we have today I think we need to be thinking further on the future I think the board might be in a better position to do that because your rules are often caught up in this really complex technical environment if the board were to identify some issue so for instance one of the things we've identified through 173 reports is this literacy challenge we have in the state we found that through our surveillance but ideally the board would have found that through their community engagement looking at data and so forth and they would then turn to us and say in the form of a report and recommendation we have a literacy problem in the state we want you to go forward and figure out what a way to do that and that would lead to a conversation of the general assembly about a priority on literacy but so I could see them sort of functioning that level of identifying what's coming at us so we need based on looking at data or listening to communities about what these are the issue of equity I think is a growing issue and the board could be very attentive and it's fully pulled at function to go out on a regional basis and say these facilities look like this these opportunities look like this and here's what we found forcing us to kind of go into that sort of surveillance but I think the regulation policy would address it and I have maybe intentionally and unintentionally disparaged the board's 2200 rules in this room but I will say Bill Mathis has nothing in his heart but the best intention in terms of socioeconomic integration and equity and so the board did I think air and getting out over its keys with that series of rules but I had long talks with him about it and it comes from his belief that the state had a fundamentally inequitable system and they were trying their best to do that now it happened in ways that exceeded their authority I thought but equity is definitely an area of where the board has been a leader in terms of communicating to the state well gentlemen thank you so much for the question well maybe it's more of a comment I just thought it might be helpful we have the discussion that that our parent brought up about some of these things before they do a lot of this work because we'll do that next week because it seems like even if all the rules were in AOE it was a red light green light or veto kind of process since AOE is already doing them anyway I don't see any difference really so actually we have time tomorrow Jeannie yes could you walk out like half an hour or 45 minutes tomorrow for any discussion about this bill but with no witnesses does that work you have to look at the schedule we're good that's a schedule I can't imagine we're going to have to have a lot of testimony but can we yeah no just at the end after the testimony on 323 that's okay just put a half an hour for that committee discussion that's good gentlemen thank you so we'll assume that your agency is beginning on the journey producing so something beautiful and then to the extent you can communicate with one another that's great and then we'll have the two of you act the week following on a mutually agreeable time thank you very helpful to have you by the way I didn't get you to do this earlier Peter Peltz and Jim Gleason from the State Board very nice to see both of you thank you so Jim do you want to join us or are you heading out hours for work well that's good that's of course that's the hygiene hygiene products and just a couple of general questions about I'm glad you got that all cleared up enforcement yeah see so somebody would just have to see problem understand okay so probably we don't have okay okay so committee I wanted to just have a quick discussion about center lines bill I've scheduled testimony I went ahead and schedule testimony for tomorrow from the usual suspects so I was presuming interest in the bill seems to me an issue that we as I pointed out legislatures confronting in several different committee and policy areas so finance has a bill to remove taxes on those products here the intent is to compel districts that are not currently providing them to provide them so general general thoughts on that bill obviously been on a fiscal note yet we haven't talked to this managers or anybody else but thoughts on it I'm going to go meet with Tim on a transportation question so my question maybe Senator Lyons talked about I wasn't sure what the problem was it sounds good I'd be supportive of it but I wasn't sure is there a problem that we're solving or are we just trying to provide a service that's the only let me ask is there a problem with other two daughters often and I think Senator Lyons did mention this a little bit but girls who are first menstruating don't always have their menstrual cycle on a specific schedule that can be completely random to begin with and so they may not always be prepared so having them available without having to go ask for them is really helpful there also girls who may not have the ability their families may not have the ability to afford them they're actually quite expensive and so I think both from an equity of affordability and it is uniquely a female issue and so it puts girls at a disadvantage it causes a lot of embarrassment that's what I I wanted to make sure that's what it was quick testimony from Don Tinney right Don Tinney President your question we have discussed this with our board of directors and across the entire board the teachers have said it is an issue for girls in it and it's as young as fifth grade and what we're finding my counterpart in New Hampshire has they've done some surveys they found that it leads to absenteeism because girls won't go to school in addition to the embarrassment so we are not official to well I guess it could be 1% in support of this that's fine but our board is very but it's we have discussed it as a board and we definitely would support this and I think the other group you may want to hear from would be the school nurses just to suggest that I know we attend a year from these four people all the time frankly I'm a little unwaying that it's always those four that weigh in on every bill we do so I would really love to hear from the school nurses we also there's a school nurses I am pretty sure there's a school nurses association I did a few phone calls a lot of that is handled in the nurses office if the student wants to go there to get the things that she needs and it's a pretty charge Senator Lines was talking about a lot of times they go there for shots and pills the fiscal issue piece I think probably won't have a ton of impact except for the installation of the machine or the dispenser you know because school districts are already already buying them so that was my point is that most of them are already buying them it's just a really big distribution mechanism and I can tell you from personal experience if you have to go to the bathroom and then run to the nurses office during that period when you're running to the nurses office you're not pun intended you bleed through your pants and then that causes embarrassment especially for a 13 year old girl that's like the worst thing that could happen but that is a really embarrassing horrible thing and the missions are I mean they're not having a fill they're not fabulous either so I don't know if we could come up with I mean I feel like high end hotels and stuff they'll just have them sitting on a basket but then you have the vandalism problem so it's a my concern is just how will we do this it's different from what already happens with them I'm sure we'll hear testimony that for instance if there was a basket of them they would just wind up in the toilet even if somebody's mad you know it would just seem that the only people who didn't avoid that sorry? that would only happen if they ended up in the toilet no, no, no I don't think so boys are not the only ones who misbehave yes not my girls there should be a remark I mean it's a little nurse association so I remember that um look around it's on to your husband I know there is a professional or is it because we help them also we'll find we can make them all and find one