 Okay, good afternoon, everyone. This is State Senator Brian Campion, the Chair of Senate Education. It is 1.30 on Thursday, January 14th, and this is the Senate Education Committee. Today, committee members, it's good to see everybody, we are going to continue our tour of getting a sense of what is happening out there on the ground with regard to COVID and get some updates and some introductions and an understanding of some of our additional partners around the state. Yesterday, we had quite a bit of time with the Chancellor of the State Colleges, the President of CCV. Today, we're going to move on with some of our independent colleges. We're also going to hear from school boards later on and after school programs. I've asked Susan, and I believe Susan is here. Susan is the Executive Director of Vermont Independent Colleges to introduce herself and introduce her colleagues who have joined us today. And I've asked Susan to have each of the independent colleges that are with us to not only really kick it off by telling us a little bit about themselves as well as their institution. And then we can also get into what they have been seeing on the ground, some of their struggles with COVID. We do know, or some of you may be aware that the legislature allocated some COVID funds to our independent colleges to help with testing. And so I think it'll be interesting, as we've heard from other witnesses, what they're seeing, some of their struggles, what they might need as we are right now in this part of the pandemic, and hopefully going to get back, as we've heard from Dr. Levine and others, some kind of hopefully normalcy next fall. Before we start that, I do want to make people aware and this will be something that we'll come back to. If you've not seen the announcement out of Washington, President-elect Biden is talking about having students return to classrooms around the country. I think he said after his first 100 days in office and he talked about the cash that's going to be needed for that as well as other assistance. We'll get more details on that and we'll hear from folks in the coming days as we also continue to try or make good partnerships with the federal administration in addition to our federal delegation. So with that, Susan, I am going to, unless I see hands for an immediate question from committee members, I am going to turn it over to Susan to introduce herself and hear from our independent colleges. Susan. Thank you. Susan Stitely with the Association Vermont Independent Colleges or AVIC. Senator Campion, Chair Campion, thank you for having me here today as well as the three college presidents that you'll be hearing from later. I have been working with AVIC for I think it's been 13 years. So I'm very excited to see this newly formed committee and some new faces on the committee. We're closely with Senate Education and it's been a very good collaboration. AVIC has 11 members, the 11 private colleges, accredited nonprofit colleges in the state and that ranges from Sterling Colleges and Sterling College in the Northeast Kingdom to the South and you'll be hearing from Bennington College. But we have a wide and unique set of colleges in the state and you'll be hearing from Peter Eden, which is one of a handful of schools in the country that works with students with disabilities and the oldest private military colleges in the state, Norwich. So I'm pleased that those three presidents can be here today. I also want to thank you very much for the funding that he was given to the private colleges last session. Senate Ed was really responsible for getting us the testing dollars. Five million was set aside for that and we used a little bit over three million dollars for testing. The colleges are going to be increasing their testing this spring. There'll be more testing so a lot more costs and we'll want to discuss that further with you. We also appreciate that the legislature allocated 10 million dollars to the private colleges through the CRF fund and I just briefly want to talk about the distribution of that money. We had requested that AVIC be able to decide how that money was distributed. Normally federal funds come to the college based on the number of students that they have, the FTE, their full-time equivalency. We really wanted to protect our smaller colleges because that normally means the larger colleges get the biggest share of the money. But AVIC members all worked collaborative and I think it's an excellent example of how close and yet this for my community of private colleges is we work to ensure that the smaller institutions, the ones that could demonstrate what was allowable expenses as related to the CARES Act, that they be reimbursed 100% of what was allowable. So we had four small colleges that got 100% of the need that was allowable to be reimbursed. Then we divided the rest amongst the remaining colleges except that Middlebury College because they have additional resources, they agreed to take less. So it was a very equitable distribution. Middlebury took into account that it had an endowment and we really worked to support our smaller schools. It was a really great process and I would recommend and Chris will probably need additional support that that be the process that we use again. AVIC has also worked very hard on the reopening of fall reopening and now the spring. When the pandemic started and the governor appointed an economic restart team, he did not have a representative from higher education on the team. We are the third largest industry in the state in terms of salary and wages. So it was vital that we be on that committee. So I petitioned the governor to get a representative on and the former president of Norwich College had just retired. So he kindly volunteered in his first year of retirement to continue working on the restart team. So AVIC worked closely with that team. We drafted the initial governor's guidance for reopening colleges and worked really closely back and forth for several months to get the guidance right. And I think we did. We had a really successful fall reopening and you'll hear more about it on the spring reopening from the president. So I won't go into those details, but the quarantining, the testing, the student behavior. We had a student had to assign a health pledge throughout the fall semester. I tracked how many violations of the health pledge there were, how many students were removed from campus. We reported that to the governor's team. But the result was that we didn't have any student transmission of COVID to any community. Unfortunately, there was an outbreak at St. Mike's, but that was a community transmission to the campus. But there was no transmission from students to communities. So we feel that was very, very successful. We also have weekly president's meetings throughout the fall semester. And then we're going to continue probably every other week in the spring. Those meetings, AVIC organizes them, but we also include the public colleges as well so that we're all together talking about the problems, the challenges, how we're facing them and how we can support each other and learn from each other. And we also have weekly meetings with the health officials, with Dr. Levine, Patsy Kelso and Tracy Dolan. And we meet every week with them, the health care people from all the colleges, public and private. And that collaboration has been key, again, to a really safe opening for our colleges. So I think the real takeaway is, Vermont is very special in that the collaboration amongst the private colleges and the public colleges as well. And it really helps to make our sector strong. We're going to have more challenges to face this spring and your support, continued support is going to be vital to keeping us strong and healthy. So I will turn it over to the presidents, unless you have some questions. Sure, if I could just ask one question. So you mentioned the equitable distribution. Did AVIC work with that distribution in some way? Were you a point person in any way? How did that all happen? Yeah, I was the lead for bringing the CFOs together to discuss what model we might use that might be fair. So we worked through many different scenarios until we felt we came up with the best solution. Sure. Thank you. Committee questions for Susan before we move on to and just so folks know, we ran into this difficulty a little bit with Senate natural resources and energy and I apologize. Sometimes the little hands that people put in the chat or somewhere else, they're not being seen easily. So please feel free to put up your actual physical hand if I'm not calling on you. Okay, great. So we'll turn it over to the presidents. Let's see. Lori, President Walker, I believe you're first on the agenda. Great. Lori, you're muted. I promised, I made one of my resolutions was to not have to hear you're on mute, but so I've broken it already. Somebody just said that that was the most popular phrase that was said in 2020. I don't remember who actually said it. Welcome, President Walker. And as I think everybody knows here for complete transparency, I have been an employee at Bennington College for the last 15 years or so. And also for complete transparency as Senator Chittenden has an incredible alliance as I think we all do with University of Vermont. I am a big fan of Bennington's and very pleased that President Walker is with us and and still a relic to actually still a very new president to Bennington and came in right during the pandemic. So welcome, President Walker. So glad you're here and looking forward to hearing from you. Thank you so much. And I did just actually, Brian, just so your fellow committee members know, I got off the phone just recently with a today with a parent who said her son had taken your class and loved it. So he's a good teacher too. So anyway, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being here and I'm immensely grateful for your leadership. All of you, you have been an incredible support to all the colleges here in Vermont. And it's your leadership, your advocacy, your financial support on behalf of the colleges and students of our institutions that has meant so much. And I am, as Brian said, I'm not only a recent president of Bennington, I'm also a recent transplant to Vermont. And I am so proud to be a Vermonter. You, the state legislature, the governor, you've taken COVID so seriously and protected the residents of Vermont so well. And I am immensely grateful as a citizen and as a president of a college. I want to just share very briefly a note that I received from a student of Varus, because I think it articulates just how essential our cooperation and collaboration during this pandemic has been to them. She said, I'm following the health and safety guidelines because I want to stay in school. I don't have another place to go. And that's the case for so many of us students. Being in school is so much more for us than just being in school. It's security. It's about having a safe place and having a room and having food. It's a privilege to be here and to be in person. And that's not something I or my friends want to risk in any way. So our students are following these guidelines because they love it here and they want to be here. As many of you know, as Brian said, Bennington College is a national liberal arts college located in the southwest corner of the state in Bennington. We have a small but very diverse population of students. We have 21 percent of our undergraduates actually are the first in their families to attend a four-year college. International students make up about 17 percent. And the undergraduate enrollment, the full enrollment is about 800. And there are reasons to be hopeful about next year's numbers. And that's one of the things I'm really proud of right now, which is that it is our track record in Vermont and in Bennington that has drawn record numbers of students applying to Bennington. And so we are very proud of that. And we all need to share in that. One of the things that makes Bennington distinct among its peers is its commitment to an experiential student-directed education that provides hands-on preparation for post-college work. Many of our students have been interns in Montpelier during a fieldwork term in person often. Our fieldwork term is January and February. And this is some of the best work experience they get. ours was the first liberal arts institution in the nation to integrate classroom study with annual fieldwork experience. Ninety-six percent of Bennington graduates are employed or pursuing continuing education within one year of graduation. And these careers involve meaningful work in their desired fields. And I do want to say many of our students actually stay in Vermont. And I think that is a really important aspect of why independent colleges are so important to Vermont because people stay, they fall in love, they find connections, and they want to be here. And building a population of young people in Vermont is one of the goals we all have. We're a creative, nimble, and innovative institution, all of which has served us incredibly well. And the people, I think we've had real success just in terms of our COVID numbers. We had only four students. They all came on arrival with COVID. And so we then quarantined them. And there's been no other student spread or cases. We have, since Thursday, the governor was right in, I mean, I'm sorry, since Thanksgiving, the governor was right. And you guys were right that this was going to be the rough time. We've had about seven cases in the community of employees. Some of them are actually working remote and they never come in. And some of them, I think it's about four or five have been on campus, but not near the students. So the spread has been not from employees to students, but employee to employee. And that's one of the things we want to keep an eye on. But everyone has been noting the success of Vermont. And that is why our domestic applications have increased by about almost 20% this year among undergraduates. So let me just tell you briefly how we've adapted. We had a really fabulous core team working on creating a strategy. We had restrictions on travel. Number one, students arrival to campus began in the third week in August and they were staggered to allow for COVID-19 testing and physical distancing during move-in. Parents weren't even allowed in the dorms. Roughly two to help move in, roughly two-thirds of the total campus housing capacity was occupied the fall. We also had about 20% of the students were living and participating remotely. Our classes were all pretty much all hybrid classes. So faculty members were teaching both to a Zoom class and to students that were in their classes in IRL in real life. Any student who left campus to visit any place outside of Vermont and in any high caseload area at the beginning were not permitted to return. So some people left and then weren't able to come back. And we were following the Vermont guidelines to a T. We expect to follow similar protocols. We had comprehensive testing upon arrival and then if students, they could quarantine at home in their, if they were driving in and many of them quarantined at home and then took a test on arrival and then stayed in their rooms until they got a negative test. And we will do that again. I think that the key to our success has been the weekly testing that we've done. And it's interesting, I was, I think that it's not just that we know whether there are cases every, you know, all the time if there's a case because during the term when we're in session, students can get tested Monday through Friday and they each have a day and they get it usually within 24 hours. We do it through the Broad Institute. But it also, I think adds another level of kind of shared responsibility. Everyone knows they're going to get tested. So it actually helps. I think people follow and be extra careful. We are indebted to Broad for their excellent testing and for your support of that testing, because as I said, it's so important. In addition to the testing, all students, faculty and staff are required to self-screen daily to confirm that their temperature is under 100 and to report any symptoms. And we also provide transparent reporting. If you go to our website, it will tell you how many cases we have. It will tell you other violations and other things. We want to be very transparent. I've been communicating to the whole community every Monday, which I think has been really welcome. We've also reimagined campus spaces. Every physical space on campus has been reimagined in accordance with state distancing guidelines. The on-campus faculty and staff population has been calibrated to comply with social distancing and capacity requirements. And most importantly, in some ways, is the promise to one another. Every student, faculty and staff member using campus is required to sign a commitment of shared responsibility. And this is, it lays out kind of the adherence and the promise to adhere to the state of Vermont's safe and healthy return to campus mandatory guidance, as well as some additional requirements we have for mask wearing, physical distancing, health screening, travel restrictions, and more. And anyone who refuses to sign the CSR is not permitted on campus. We have not also allowed people from outside the community to come on campus, except for our wonderful neighbors who are allowed to walk their dogs. I think Senator Sears walks his dog on our campus every day. But people are not allowed in the in the buildings or unfortunately, because we're missing that wonderful interaction. But I just want to close by saying we are incredibly proud. We are incredibly grateful to you and to everyone who has helped. The additional expenses for all of COVID, we estimate are going to be over 8 million. This includes about 1.3 million in room and board refunds in the last spring that we didn't that we didn't get. So it's lost revenue and additional expenses. And so we're, you know, we're still trying to make up and this is going to be something that goes into the next year. And so this is this is tough for us. And it is really wonderful to see both your support and the support that Susan, who has done a fabulous job, I think on behalf of all the AVIC colleges, not only in providing us with information and context, but in creating a really shared spirit of we're all in this together. So I the third thing I just want to say before I close is we are all in a unique position and Vermont and it's has lived up to its reputation as being bucolic and beautiful. But also I had no idea what a strong and wonderful community this is. And one just last additional thing I do want to mention is that as I was thinking and talking to my staff the other day and talking about what are the challenges that our students are facing. And there are I think among all of the colleges, you know, some new kind of mental health challenges among students because of COVID. And I think it's important for us all to, you know, be aware of what kind of support our students need. And I am we are grateful for the the lifting of the restriction so that out of state therapists can provide service for people who are for students and community members who are out of state. And I know that that expires at the end of March. And we hope that that will be extended. So thank you so much for this opportunity. I am so grateful for your time today and your ongoing help and look forward to answering any questions or just being a part of this community. Thank you President Walker. Questions? Senator Hooker? I do thank you Mr. Chair and thank you President Walker. A couple of questions. First of all, your students went home for vacation and when will they are they back? When will they be coming back? And what percentage of them will be coming back? Yeah, so 80% came to campus in the fall. We expect that to be actually a little higher in the spring. So some students who were at home are going to be coming back to campus because they they realized how what a great experience it was. And some new students, I think we have 12 or 15 new freshmen who are coming in the middle of the year. They deferred and and some transfer students that are coming. So what we did is we originally had said that they would stay and we would continue hybrid classes through December 11th, which was the end of the term. But when Governor Scott's guidance came out before Thanksgiving, we went all remote. So all classrooms were remote. We encouraged people to leave. Some of them left. Some of them didn't want to leave until for another couple weeks we didn't force them out. But there are some students still on campus right now, the international students who have no place to go. But we will be, I think we start on February 12th and people will be returning in a staggered way in the two weeks before that. Okay, and just out of curiosity, with regard to their self screening, do you provide thermometers for each of the students? And is that part of the CARES fund? I mean, was that paid for through that? If they if they need it, we do. But most students are bringing the thermometers and we do have an app on the phone. So it's really easy to enter it in and to report your symptoms. And it's, you know, you report your temperature, you also report if you have a headache. Thank you. Yeah, and I'll just say something about the app. So since I'm on it, you know, right now I get tested every Monday, if I want to be on campus at all, go to campus, you know, a quick test, and then you get a text about, I don't know, 12, 14 hours later saying that hopefully that you're negative and then every day you go through and just take a look at the symptom list and see if you have any symptoms. So it for those institutions and people that are out there that aren't using that kind of technology, I just have to say it's been absolutely incredible, really incredible. Other questions or comments? One thing I'm wondering is you mentioned that mental health professionals, it sounds like at one point during the pandemic were not allowed over state lines. And then there was a waiver. I'm just looking for some clarity. Yeah, I'm, you know what, I, you know, health and welfare with us in the corner, Senator Lyon, I also be able to weigh in on this. Yes. And Susan, maybe you can help. My understanding is that as part of one of Governor Scott's early, or the one of the early policies, I think it was at the beginning of the pandemic. He lifted the restrictions so anyone who had an out of state license could give teletherapy over state lines. And that goes until March 31st of 2021. So as we look at, we have some students that have out of state therapy, and we are also trying to, you know, create an online community so that there can be more. So those students need to, and the therapists need to have the permission to be able to do that. I can follow up with the specifics. I think Senator Lyons in the corner and Senator Lyons, you should know President Walker has also been to campus over the years through Kappa, has weighed in on health care issues and other things. And she's the chair of health and welfare. And I think she might be able to shed some light on this terrific. Thank you. Yes. This is great to hear actually because I'm introducing a bill that's going to extend the timeline on that. So the telemedicine and the over state lines for folks is really very important. And I'm happy to hear that, A, it's worked, but also B, that it's a need going forward. So thank you. Thank you. That's great news. Thank you. As soon as the bill is being written now and actually just as a quick update, when we wrote the bill and we put in the timelines, we deliberately didn't end it with December 2020 because we knew we might be seeing some needs. So what you have just said valid dates are thinking, but now we can go ahead. So thank you. Thank you. And it's a deeper question about how does Vermont, how do we work together to increase the amount of mental health services? I was just talking to Tom D about that the other day. So thank you. Yes, it's very interesting and how much of this needs to be more permanent and more permanently in place. You're absolutely right. Thank you. Question. Yeah. Other questions. Seeing none, we will move on to, we'll go back to Susan. Thank you, President Walker. Susan, who would you like to have next? Thank you. And I believe President Mark Anaruma from Norwich is next and we see he's traveling, but that usually doesn't stop him. Okay, terrific. Hello. Thank you, Susan. Good afternoon, everyone. And I'll start with my expression of profound gratitude. You know, I got here on June 1st along with President Walker of last year and not the way you'd want to start a presidency, certainly, but it certainly was rising to the challenge helps to find the nature of your institution. So I've been very, very fortunate. And I'll start my comments by saying I arrived partly in anticipation of being in competition with my fellow presidents. But it was not that at all from the first day has been fully collaborative, supportive. They've been a wonderful community of peers for me and advisors, not very grateful for all of them. And for Susan's great work in leading me through my first year here, although the person I replaced went to work for the governor, Rich Schneider, of course, he's been a trusted friend ever since my arrival. So Norwich University, of course, is very unique. It's the nation's oldest senior military college. It's the original one is the birthplace of ROTC. It was founded by a person who left the West Point in 1819, because he wanted to make sure the United States military had an officer corps that was representative of our nation. So farmers, factory workers, et cetera, and not just for the elite. So that of course resonates today very powerfully. So there were senior military college and as founding, we have a very robust civilian population. We have two lifestyles. There is the Corps of Cadets, which is our foundational senior military college identity. We also have a very growing civilian population and students do choose their own lifestyle and they can move to one or the other once they arrive. So we build out a freshman class and we see other lifestyles do shake out. And we tend to have graduates that perform at a much higher level than peer institutions across the country. There are six total senior military colleges. We're the only one in the North and we are the only one that now is also in the West. We have our main campus in Northfield, Vermont, but we have satellite campuses in Denver, Colorado and Berlin, Germany. And we're going to be extending our international footprint. That's part of our strategic plan for the next five years. So very proud of our performance, of course, over the fall. And some of the unique features of the school that I do want to share that help lend to that success. We have several, we have three identified centers of excellence, a global resiliency center, peace and war center, and a cyber center. Our global resiliency focuses on climate change and how that affects public policy. And they are exceptional. We host several international conferences every year along that topic. In addition to the three centers, we have something called the Norwich University Applied Research Institute, or NUWARI. And NUWARI is very heavily involved with Senator Leahy, staff especially. And he's now going to be the chair of the Appropriations Committee under the Biden administration, so we're very excited about that partnership bearing even more fruit. But we are in execution of many government contracts at Norwich through that NUWARI vehicle. So those are some unique features of the school. I'll be happy to fill in any blanks if people have questions here at the end. But talking through our numbers and how proud I am of the fall term, we did decide to go in person. We incentivized folks to stay home because our model is very reliant upon experiential learning and personal destruction. We have a very active fitness program. Of course, we had the pain mountain trails and the Shaw Outdoor Center, which integrates with the town of Norfield. We have confidence courses outside, et cetera. We have Rooks, our freshman cadets, and there's a heavy physical component. We were able to do all of that through the course of fall semester. We executed 16,875 COVID tests during the course of the fall term, and we only yielded 16 positive cases from that. And three had never set foot on campus, but we counted them against our numbers. And I'll explain how we got to that point in the second. But we had a very deliberate arrival process. It was part of a course of several days. Parents were allowed to drop off, leave the belongings on the sidewalk, and then the individuals go to the room. We didn't allow any non-students inside the buildings. We did a forced quarantine on campus for a full week until we can get a second negative COVID test. We paid our employees to work from home or put them on paid administrative leave. They couldn't work from home, so we didn't punish our employees from something out of their control. One of the things I'm most proud of as a president of my first term, despite all these challenges, we're able to get through the semester and now currently sit in the same good situation. Not a single layoff, not a single furlough. We fully funded all benefits and we actually funded the increase in healthcare premiums. So I came in and used a phrase to keep the Norwich family together. Many institutions are not able to do such a thing, but I'm very fortunate that we were able to do so. So like I said, with the 16 cumulative cases, we also had a full sports athletics program. We stayed internal, but our student athletes were able to compete stay current. And our swim and diving coach did a very creative idea of having a virtual swim meet with some competitive institutions where they swam for time live against other schools swimming for time on their own campuses. That was very creative. Norwich has an actual national champion hockey program, men and women, and we're very proud of them and we're going to see how we can possibly compete through the winter and spring term, of course, only doing so safely. One of the ways we're able to achieve such success with the low infection rates and we had zero spread, which is the most important thing, is we have what we've we've achieved what we call the quadruple redundancy surveillance system. So you start with your app based symptom tracker. It's that's 100% faculty, staff and students and they self report or we incentivize the students, you have a single symptom, you stay in your room, you make the call, we send the nursing staff to your room, they give you an evaluation and then you are the release you stay there until we get your test back. We also put aside 70 dorm rooms or bed spaces and we have a facility off campus now that has 16 bed spaces. It's a private home that we renovated. So if we do have a single a symptom or we have a test that comes back as as inconclusive, we'll move the student to that area to reduce the potential of the threat. So we had the symptom tracker, as I said, we have passive temperature sensors around campus. So when I walk fast, much like the Burlington airport, you have the camera and it'll say, here's the form walking by that your temperature, then we can pull reports from there and say, do we have a temperature spike in these given areas around campus, then we can target surveillance testing more aggressively. So that's the second redundancy, the actual physical testing. We last term we did everyone got it every three weeks at a minimum. If they wanted to do more often, they did anyone competing in athletics or the military training curriculum got it every week. So we dig it through the fall term with obviously the 16,875 tests. This semester we're starting with 100% faculty, staff and students will get the test every week. So we're going to be more robust coming out of the gate and we'll see if we can back it off, if the data supports such a thing. So that's a third level we've done to see. The fourth is what I might be most proud of in this whole COVID nightmare because we did try to leverage the crisis to be a better institution and to leverage our talent better. So we started a wastewater surveillance system. It's called wastewater based epidemiology. So basically we go into the manholes, we grab wastewater and then we can sample the wastewater, see if there's trace of the virus. And we started to do it as a test base. So we had our senior students in capstone engineering studies build the auto samplers. We had a PhD holding faculty members supervising a PhD pursuing chemistry faculty member actually creating the test to look for the actual viral presence at an RNA level. And then went communication students writing the stories around it. And we had the facility operations of course, access in the manholes. Tremendous success story and very proud of it. So we're able to do a proof of concept. We did catch the virus in the area we knew it already existed through our testing. Then we brought it to the town of Northfield. And we went to the wastewater treatment plant there. We worked with the town put it in, we detected the virus there, but they had their outbreak already. So as we go into the spring semester, we will have those auto samplers in multiple locations around Northfield so they can pinpoint future infections. And now we had a tie, we have it tied to every dormitory on campus. So if there's traces of wastewater, we will close that dorm down, do 100% testing, put them on quarantine and building only and hopefully get ahead of any outbreak. So very proud of the WBE's what we're calling it. So wastewater-based epidemiology. So that's the quadruple redundancy we've achieved. So we're very proud of all these initiatives and the team has done very, very well. Student behavior of course, we had the maroon and gold contract. And I did get prickly with a reporter. I gave her a nice story and she said, well, of course you guys did well, you're a military school. Well, no, it's still 18 to 23 year old kids and we have to make sure they're behaving the right way. We have a lot of civilians. It's about institutional values. We got them to buy into institutional values and responsibility and they did do their part of the bargain. I'm very proud of the students. The experience was quite good. We did a lot more than people thought we could. And every year they run the river, the dog river. And I went first and it was quite unpleasant. But we did a while, you know, fully protected. We were exercising in a field wearing the masks. Not how it could have been, but we got to pull it off and we did our other training areas. The full transparency, wanted to make Northfield very comfortable. They were uncomfortable at first. I went to select boards. I briefed every week, gave them our numbers. I heard their concerns were very responsive. And we created a dashboard on our website that was interactive and you could peel back number of tests, number of positives, et cetera. It was an interactive bar graph. And that will be up and running by next week because we are already receiving students. So I'll go into that reception now. We started today. Really it's going to go Friday through Monday, but today are the early arrivals that fly in from out of state. We do have students from all 50 states and 27 countries. That number 27 will go into the mid fifties by the time, by this time next year if I have my way. So we are truly an international campus, but we do represent a national sample of traditional students. So they're coming in. They get dropped or they park their car and they go to the room. They drop their things. They go get their initial evaluation. We have a wonderful nursing program. Dr. Paulette Thabot, who is involved in the state very well, she oversees it. Our nursing students help administer the tests. So you show up, you go down, you get your initial test, you isolate in your room until you get your negative test back. So you can get food, we deliver food if you need to stay in your room. And then everyone goes into campus quarantine after your initial negatives, after probably 48 hours or so after arrival. And then the whole campus goes again on a campus quarantine until everyone gets their seven day negative. And then we will start integrating back. We started in-person instruction last Monday. We will start in-person instruction and hybrid instruction on February 2nd. That is our delivery plan. If we can teach a class, we're letting the faculty drive their modality. If they're comfortable teaching in person, we have incentivized them to do so. We have to flex our glass. We clean the classrooms very thoroughly, et cetera. If they choose to teach online, we encourage that. And many are doing the hybrid model. If we could push more to online, it de-densifies the instructional space. So it's just safer for everybody. So it kind of hurt us a little bit because we did incentivize. We have a $4,500 gift to students that chose to stay home voluntarily to achieve de-densification. And we didn't use triples and quads. We had doubles, no more than doubles and some singles. Singles are concerning them being for mental health. I came here from the Air Force Academy, where I was a director of a center and a full professor. And we had two suicides in 36 hours after the initial isolation rule. So to avoid that, we want to make sure we deal with isolation. So one thing I did right away last August was we plused up our counseling and wellness center from six to eight mental health professionals and both of the new hires were very proficient in telemedicine and ensuring that our students were getting mental health services that they deserve. So that is the high level things that I wanted to make sure that I could share. I'm happy to take questions. Thank you. Senator Lyons. So your last comment really piqued my interest. How did you find mental health counselors to hire? Were they military personnel or are they private? It really sounds like an amazing event to me. So I showed up with the scar tissue of what the tragedy is I just had endured in Colorado. So my first action as president was to tell the human resources to do a national search for two new hires in our counseling wellness center. And we had an applicant pool in the 30s. We did the full screening and then we were able to receive them at the beginning of the fall term. So it was a national recruitment effort and we found them no military affiliation, traditional higher ed expertise in the counseling realm but and one we wanted to make sure as we're internationalizing we're also diversifying our student population and faculty staff and we did hire someone who's a native level proficiency in Spanish. So that helped enabled us to provide higher level of service to our underserved students. So that worked out very well. Establien. Thank you for that. And so if I'm understanding correctly you do not have to be a student does not have to be enrolled in a branch of the military to be a student in Norwich. Is that correct? Absolutely correct. As a matter of fact I really appreciate that question. Most of our kids that go through the core of cadet experience do not go into military. It's a lifestyle, teaching discipline and it's funny because parents we can all well Susan and Laura and I can cry through ourselves. Parents are now very involved with presidents. Some will call me nine o'clock at night on my personal cell phone how they got my number I have no idea but they do tend to bulldoze and helicopter their students and we ask them just let us develop your son and daughter and they'll come home to you more resilient and better and there is a profound amount of data about how well the core cadet graduates do perform in the public sector to private sector wherever they do land if it's not in the military. So our core cadets now we do have ROTC students obviously where the birthplace of ROTC right but most of our cadets go into normal careers that are not uniform related. Well thanks again for your presentation and to President Walker as well nice nicely done. I look forward to the next one. Yeah thank you I do if there's no other questions but I'll be happy to keep taking them. I know we have a graduate I'm sorry Senator Hooker did you want to answer something? I do Mr. President just what percentage of your kids are in the core of cadets as opposed to the civilian lifestyle? It's 58 percent right now or in the core of cadets. Now our programs that will be growing will probably have it like in health sciences for example our nursing program really is world-class and we plan on expanding it. So we expect that proportion to kind of bounce around based upon programmatic appeal and also outside investment we're working on more scholarship opportunities so we'll see where it goes. The goal was 70 30 but right now we're at 58 core and we'll see what's pragmatic. Okay and another question with regard to commuters I don't know how many commuters private colleges have and how do you handle that when you do so maybe any of you could perhaps address that that question. So we do have a commuter population Northfield does not have a lot of off-campus housing available but the sports teams tend to become commuters and I'm using quotes so we'd be in the we'll be in the high dozens on commuter population but we do force them to do a symptom tracker in the morning they come through the temperature sensors and they have to take part in our in the actual physical broad nasal testing protocols and they can't enter a physical space until they produced a proof that they've done the symptom tracker and we do track of people so we did have a student that didn't want to take the test missed two and they would dismiss from campus so we were very stringent on the expectation for that level of participation in keeping the school open and I was most proud some of our one of our senior female students who wanted to be in a leadership position for that year she coined the phrase wear your mask so I can wear my uniform and the self-policing that was achieved by the students really is where I think we turned the tide it was pretty exceptional. President Walker commuters I'm not we I guess there are two kinds of commuters one is students who move off campus and become commuters and we have a few of those you know maybe two percent of the population the other is you know people who live in Vermont who want to come to Bennington and that's an area that we want to increase and through affiliation agreements with community college and other you know other ways to get adult learners and other people we do have community members who are taking classes at at Bennington and we love that most of them in fact the the environment has helped us increase that. Great okay thank you both President Eden is it President Eden am I getting it correctly Peter? Yes thank you terrific all right well welcome and we'll turn it over to you. Thanks very much let me start at the end okay thank you all so much not just myself but all of the families and all the students who are able to attend landmark college and the 200 employees who are able to keep their jobs I don't need to tell you all of the crisis facing southern Vermont with small colleges going under um a little bit about myself my background is in molecular and cellular biology I worked in the biotechnology industry before making a shift everybody thought I was crazy I made a shift to higher education and it was the best thing I've ever done I can't believe I had the guts to do it um you know the saying you know that which you possess is that which possesses you I I didn't possess too much back then I guess I was young enough but I made that switch and it was a professor, a dean and now it's starting in 2011 came up to landmark college which makes me right Susan the longest serving private college president in Vermont I think so so when I came to landmark college Susan mentioned landmark college there's one of a handful of colleges that service the students with disabilities somewhat true we're only we're one of two colleges in the nation that has a devoted dedicated model for students with learning differences we don't call them disabilities necessarily we serve only students with dyslexia ADHD autism executive function challenges these are smart college capable maybe not college ready but college capable students that's our thing when I came in 2011 uh not to dance on the departed my predecessor did a fabulous job but we were a two-year school which is a misnomer you know an associate degree granting college with two programs and I dare say a little bit like the bad medicine your mom makes you take students went there for a reason because of their LD well what we did is we realized students must have pride we need an alumni base so we immediately implemented baccalaureate programs so today we have associate degree programs we have short-term programs in the summer we have a growing online enterprise including starting a micro campus in the Bay Area to support our online programming for those in the area and we have growing numbers of bachelor's degree programs so um we are at once unique in a specialty college yet also traditional we know that you know your greatest strength is your greatest weakness for us it's LD we change lives parents love us not every student coming out of high school wants more special ed they don't grow up thinking i'm going to go to a special ed college but now because we have everything every other college has including sports internships study abroad everything and we try to remove the stigma from having an LD they're starting to realize that this place is just engineered for me it's really ahead of its time and so it's a wonderful thing but we are we are very small i don't like to say small i say optimally sized during my open house sessions and everything but we have 400 residential students and as i mentioned 200 employees um this college even though we're a niche unique college don't forget green mountain college they were also a niche unique college and they didn't make it you have to have sound business practices we have a tiny endowment of 24 million dollars but we have an endowment and now we're growing an alumni base and now the notion of neurodiversity learning differently being autistic it's losing its shame and stigma i dare say the risk is it's being romanticized on television a bit that you're automatically a genius but it's losing its stigma a little bit nevertheless not every student it wants to attend a college that focuses on LD so that's why we provide on ramps and off ramps short term programs maybe an associate stay for a bachelor's degree if you want we have to provide all these options so that parents can get the students to come to campus see how great it is see how cool the other students are and give us a chance once they come our yield and our retention is fantastic we have retention rates almost 90 for our baccalaureate programs and almost 70 for our associate degree programs the challenge is as beautiful as Vermont is come to a rural campus that focuses on LD so that's our thing and that's and that's our brand now we started in the spring with the usual sorts of de-risking that all the other colleges have done the students all had to go home for a while we had to pivot quickly for online learning thank goodness we started about eight years ago with our online programming and baked into the cake of those are scaffolding and support systems for students that have LD so we have we had a little bit of an advantage there but the campus is where they want where they want to be nevertheless they stuck with us we were I think the first college in Vermont to have a summer program very small tightly managed and that went really really well um much as my my colleagues here have said we started the fall with with a very careful the testing hypervigilance masking distancing got great compliance from our students we really really did and I have to say now that I'm always saying this but it drives me a little crazy when people focus entirely on students like they're radioactive like they are the disease vectors we've got 200 faculty and staff coming and going there are bigger risk than the students almost 96 of whom live on campus so I always push back when people talk about students they're not the ones going to the gas station that night going into the store that night so we have to be mindful of that but our employees based on the evidence of our testing we had only a few positives so we of course follow the regulations we had isolations contact quarantine one student and this individual also came to campus with the infection they were all in asymptomatic um he broke the rules and we had to send him home and that was that was very difficult but you know you do the right thing you never make the wrong decision but it broke my heart a little bit because it's not great to be in isolation when you're an 18 year old freshman your first time in college but he still broke the rules and we had to do it it was a tough call but the right one to make um we've lost revenue we had great retention from the students who were at Lamar College but the brand the new student cohort for the fall having never seen how robust our resources are because students are all at risk academically um they've never been there so we had about you know 30 not go to any college uh they didn't want to send their their son or daughter across across the country or live in a dormitory it doesn't matter how small the dormitories are so we lost revenue there we lost revenue with our summer programs we shifted some students online who who needed it and we lost room and board revenue we had to return room and board revenue we've had testing expenses and all of this has been helped by the support of the state of Vermont as I mentioned up front we we we've kept jobs and we realize how fraught things are with small colleges in New England especially Vermont and we're just too important a college with the students we serve with this silent epidemic which is learning differences and autism to go under so we're not going to but we need all the help we can get I'll stop there and take any questions thank you mr president that's very helpful um questions I see senator taranzini please thank you senator campion I uh president Eden I appreciate you mentioning uh green mountain college I think senator hooker and I can agree that uh Rutland county over the last couple of years has suffered greatly with the loss of the college of st. Joseph's and green mountain college those were good paying jobs with benefits those were students who were here from all over the world to help grow our economy and unfortunately those two colleges for one reason or another have closed their doors so it's it's critically important that we see all of all of your colleges succeed and excel and grow for the future and I'm I'm excited that you're all here today so we can hear what's happening on your campus in real time and and I know now as a freshman senator you know a little bit more and what can I do for the future to help you through this committee so I appreciate your comments uh uh as well as the other presidents thank you very much I couldn't have said it better I think senator taranzini said it perfectly we we understand we're first of all we're so grateful you're part of the landscape of vermont uh not only of course what you offer uh first and foremost to your students but also what you offer to the greater communities you are economic development drivers you assist our towns in so many ways you offer cultural events you know you really can become as many of you are uh you know hubs of culture and education in your communities and we're so grateful for that and as senator taranzini uh said we also recognize the landscape of higher education is at one of its most challenging if not its most challenging uh point in history and we hope you'll continue to reach out to us and communicate with us um and partner with us as we navigate this time with you that's terrific other questions senator hooker please yes thank you and thank you president and yesterday we talked a little bit about it sounded like teacher-student ratio in uh the public schools and and the comment was made that you know the lower the better for for the kids if you're the students and more teachers i'm curious with it with a student body of 400 um with us uh staff of employees of 200 i'd be interested in knowing what the distribution of those employees is and and you can do that and send it to us but it's you know it sounds great you know two to one i mean it it's wonderful yeah about 70 of the employees are faculty members and about 130 are staff and a lot of the staff are for direct student support you know these students they're smart um but their adhd is so extreme um of course all colleges have students with dyslexia adhd and autism we know that but they're at lamar college for a reason because it's significant enough that it gets in the way of their success they need support out of the classroom sometimes with social pragmatics the social aspects um and i don't call them soft skills but other skills and strategies needed for success in life um but in the classroom sure maybe six students in a class we have classes of 12 we also classes of four um and we use a universal design approach we know there's heterogeneity in the classroom we may have students with dyslexia we may have students with autism and um we often have autistic students and that's not their ld their ld is adhd it's it's it's highly complex that's why we call it neurodiversity but we do have tremendous support for them in and out of the classroom but we do not infantilize them this is a legitimate college it drives me crazy when people say real college because you know we are a real college we we have standards i've been at three institutions and i've never seen so little grade inflation as i do at landmark probably because we know the stakes are high for these kids if we just see them through and they transfer to any place iv league school or community college and if we didn't really test them and give them skills and strategies they will fail and we'll lose our reputation so it's really quite it's quite rigorous at the college but they get a lot of chances as well you know what it really is we talk about the science and the art universal design and everything a lot of it is the fact that it's all we do this is not a program there's no shame i'm in the program like i was in high school every student has rolled the same boulder up the mountain they never have to hope for the right calculus professor because everyone gets it and when they come onto campus they realize wow this place is built for me and i don't have to worry about having a deficit then they blossom challenge for us is to get them to come to rural vermont at our price and i'm comfortable talking about our price tag we are extremely expensive when i came in we were the most expensive college in the nation it was us nyu and sarah laurence and my board chair sent his kid to landmark and then sarah laurence so he joked about how much it cost him for for college for his kid but we're a nonprofit we don't make a nickel as a matter of fact we've struggled with deficits the last five years or so so our price is seventy four thousand dollars a year it's enormous do we give away scholarship absolutely as much as we can a net price the average amount paid is not too different from a lot of other colleges and i think this is one of the reasons why you don't see more colleges it costs a fortune to run a college like this for these smart kids who are not going to get a college education and they're not going to fill all of the all of the needs in in society and industry because they won't graduate we have to support them and it costs a lot of money so those those things work against us when we have people looking for colleges i have i have no problem talking about that and honestly uh um there now we're i think we're the 35th most expensive college we don't put that on a bumper sticker either trust me okay but we've done our best to keep the price down but it still costs a lot for this model and it challenges us in many ways but we're trying to raise a lot of money for scholarship and we've had a great success with fundraising thank you susan is do you in any way as the executive director partner with economic development or tourism as they sort of market vermont if you will is there a role there for the uh our independent institutions to be honest um and it might not even make sense but i'm just curious now i have tried and for several years i did attend uh the service of a marketing monthly meetings uh trying to drive home to them how important we are uh to tourism and bringing people into the state yeah and not that they don't understand that but um they i couldn't get them to promote us more they did some but we did manage to get them to put you know when they developed their website to put colleges on there i want it i want it you know they have like work learn and play or something i want it to be you know work learn and study um so that we were more upfront but uh we have worked with them yeah i mean i think we're gonna be done i think they should be marketing us much more well sure and even to be thinking about vermont as a whole as the education state pre-k you know through post-secondary with regard you know and even as we move more and more you've heard that the governor and all of us here are very interested in in you know expanding access to early childhood child care uh early early childhood education and so for us to to be thinking about vermont as a as an education state i think would be terrific uh president in yeah absolutely and and and this is easier said than done but you know the i remember being in some of these meetings with susan and they talked about well you know what's our brand in vermont the rugged you know the rugged intellectual you know and it's a great a great place lifestyle and that's that's fine but the real problem is having people stay and having enough talent to work yet what do you have you have you have an educational network with students whose students and the parents they're pragmatic they demand career readiness they want internships if we could plug these students if we could get serious about career readiness and integrating these students before they graduate into all of the slots that need it to to save the economy in vermont and populated with students they will then stay i'll tell you it's all about value that sounds so trite parents these days especially at landmark they come here worried about is she going to pass calculus finally she will and then they're worried about a job if you can get them into a job early on with internship it will help us recruit students better and it'll stop populating all of your new and nascent industries in vermont it's very easy to say that sounds very pat tough to do but it's it's sitting right under our nose use our students to help our industries then they will stay because there'll be jobs and around and around it'll go thank you all right just looking at the clock i'm just looking for final comments final questions from either the president's uh or committee members or susan i i just want to say you know i continually try to drive home to the governor who you know talks about bringing youth to the state we are key if not the number one reason why young people move here and finally you know when green mountain college closed you know a high official recognized oh we had this captive audience and we let them go um so that's why continued support from the state is i think vital great thank you all oh sorry president walker i was just going to add the the other piece that um several people in the community have talked to me about is that we also bring diversity to the state and um that is i think an important piece of you know what is important to vermont and what i think the uh it's not just it's international it's domestic uh you know and i think uh it's something that we want to continue to do and i think that vermont is embracing uh yes mark two quick things i think i was so happy about telling our good news story i forgot to give the uh the very quick number uh just so you're aware we are operating at a loss of about 8.1 million dollars for the uh for the academic year so we're very grateful for the support and the help uh they will you know we we all need a little bit of assistance as it's available and we'll be happy to provide anything that is needed to help support our case but you know even though it's a good news story of how well we're doing it has been a really tough revenue hit and i'll end my uh i'll go back on mute after offering i know senator campion that you are a proud bennington um uh associate i would just say that we're north university university offers a full offering of uh graduate programs and if all of you would care to register we'd love to have all of you be north university alums here uh within 18 months i think we're gonna have to leave it there uh thank you all very very much uh this has been incredibly helpful the final word to committee members you know as these institutions open back up uh hopefully in the fall i would encourage uh all of us to get around to the ones that we don't know uh visit students visit classes visit our presidents um i think uh it would be great so committee members i will see you back at 245 uh we'll continue things and thank you all uh we're going to go on a quick six-minute stretch and look forward to seeing you all again soon thanks for making the time well i don't know about everybody else but i mean i i know it's a lot of information hearing from folks this time of year and in learning them and what they're they're doing etc but um you know i haven't been on this committee uh for four years and i know another number of you are also new and it's going to purge like you're returning but uh i certainly find it really interesting and i'm hoping other people are finding it as interesting as well particularly in this you know this era of covid um and it looks like uh you know we'll probably make our way through some of this by early next week um we'll i'll be in contact with the pro tem's office and jeff fannon and others that will be working on some kind of remediation bill uh knowing in sort of response to covid for our for our schools happy to and of course everybody here will be in the loop um and uh then i think we'll start looking at other bills um as well or at least getting people in to hear uh hear from them one thing i'm thinking about looking at next week there is a bill in uh having to do with civic education uh i um i'd like to hear from the presenter of the bill uh and i'd like to have a real dynamic uh conversation about really what is civic education and what we might want to do and what we might not want to do um i know there's some institutions out there uh and some really interesting people out there who are thinking about this i know there i look spend some time looking at one course not called civic ed but i really liked it it's called educating for a democracy and i thought maybe after maybe thursday we could spend some time um hearing from different folks uh i know there are some interesting historians out there as well who are weighing in on what an economist what is it that students need to know how can we best um educate and prepare students to be active participants in this democracy how do you it's more than voting we know that and it's what are the tools and and i'm not sure it's a test uh just to show my own uh you know concern i i think it's it's more than that i think um certainly you need to know that you know history and and government but um how do you really get students involved so that's just something that's on my mind and perhaps uh we'll do it uh post inauguration day but moving on now we have uh we're going to hear from our uh eyes and ears on the ground with our school board members uh sue it's great to have you here we know there are so many school board members who are really in so many ways i think the unsung heroes in this state people that are committing their time and energy uh to making certain our young people uh receive the best education possible it's an incredibly challenging job i often think as i'm going through the grocery store it's one thing uh you know to get pulled over quickly and quick conversation but i always think it's the select board members and the school board members that are really the ones who no matter where they are uh it it's it's they're they just can't escape uh so it's uh we just want to recognize that uh that level of public service is is quite incredible so thank you for being here and we look forward to hearing uh where things stand uh in general what you do how you got to be in the position you've got to be in and how we might work with you and how we will work with you going forward and then what you're seeing on the ground right now with covid so with that sue i'll i'll pass pass it to you okay thank you so much for having me today would you like me to share my screen with my written testimony that would be great okay thank you can you see it i cannot oh wait a minute let me see there you go perfect okay perfect okay so thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with your committee today about the vermont school boards association the role of school boards in vermont's public education system and also the covid 19 related needs of school districts um before i talk about the vsba i'll just tell you a little bit about myself um my name is sue saglowski i'm the executive director of the vermont school boards association vsba for short and um i grew up in rupert vermont which is in the southwestern area of the state and yes it is it is a beautiful town and um i am a licensed attorney i have worked in several different legal jobs working for the state of vermont as an assistant attorney general but also most recently in private practice before i joined the vsba and i joined the vsba as the director of legal and policy services i and i became very interested in doing that because i am a longtime school board member i i'm not any longer a school board member but i serve for somewhere between um 10 and 15 years i kind of lost track along the way how many it was but um i served on the meadowey school board the bennington ruttland supervisory union um board um and also on the pollitt school board before there was a a merger that happened with meadowey so um i became very um interested and passionate about school board work and um that's really how i ended up at the vsba um i was in the role of director of legal and policy services for a couple of years and then um went into the role of the executive director so now let me tell you a little bit about the vsba it is a 501c3 nonprofit organization and the vision of the vsba is is here in my written testimony um vsba envisions a state where every student has access to and is engaged in a world-class education where local boards provide student focused and that's important student focused oversight of education systems and where educators families and communities are engaged partners ensuring that the futures of all vermont children are driven by their aspirations and not bound by their circumstances and you can see uh our our mission is also um set forth we are a membership organization and our mission is to support school board members in the performance of their role and to serve as their collective voice in the public policy environment uh the way we're set up is we have a 24 member board of directors a president an immediate past president and 22 regional representatives there are two representatives from each of 11 regions around the state and our current president president is neil odell of norwich the vsba as a um nonprofit is governed by bylaws resolutions and policies and resolutions are positions that are taken by our our association on issues of importance to vermont school boards and they might include recommendations for actions by our own association local school boards also um they may include recommendations for actions by the legislature the or the executive branch they are guidance for staff and the vsba board when we're working in the public policy arena um so that's how when i come in and speak with your committee um most likely i'll be speaking on um based on a resolution that has gone through the process of being proposed by one of our members and voted on at our annual meeting and if there's um in the absence of a resolution on a particular topic the vsba board itself with representatives from around the state provides guidance to the staff the vsba has four full-time staff whose role it is is to provide the following five services we provide um advocacy um representation in the general assembly and in public policy development with the agency of education the state board and other education organizations we also provide board training and support we have um school board you live which is a comprehensive workshop on the essential work of vermont school boards this year we might not be able to have it live but normally we do um and then we have school board you digital which is a series of monthly webinars on relevant topics of interest for our members um we also provide on-site workshops extensive webinar webs i'm sorry website resources and customized board development including board retreats we have an annual conference and also regional meetings we also provide consulting services so we support member boards with operational or management challenges and also strategic planning needs and help them with super tech superintendent searches and evaluations strategic planning governance transitions and boards that would like to use the policy governance model we um help them with that fourth thing we do is communications we provide all members with regular information updates through our website through emails through a quarterly newsletter and also regular legislative reports we also publish the vermont education law book you may have seen it it's a green book that has all of the education laws of vermont in one book in one location and we publish a book called essential work of vermont school boards which is a model for effective education governance the last service that we provide to our members is legal and policy services and that um is a service that provides them with consultation regarding legal questions updates on changes to the laws and regulations and um training for boards and superintendents and um in conjunction with the vermont school board's insurance trust which is vis-vit the vsba also publishes model school board policies and we conduct policy audits as well next i'd like to talk a little bit about the role of school boards school boards are not involved in the day-to-day operation of schools their job is really to provide a high level student focused uh oversight and assure the delivery of an effective education program in their communities at a reasonable cost for taxpayers and in accordance with state and federal law and they have six areas of responsibility at the local level first thing they do is engage the community to a step establish a vision for the school district they also adopt policies hire a superintendent and establish clear expectations for the superintendent develop a budget and provide financial oversight monitor progress toward the vision that they've established with their community and operate in an ethical and effective manner so i've told you that school board services near and dear to my heart and to serve on a school board is really to uphold the great american tradition of a free public education for all this tradition forms the foundation of our democracy which is a well-informed citizenry it's extremely important that students develop critical and independent thinking skills and that they understand how history can impact the future simply put education is crucial and central to the future of our state and school boards play an important role in vermont's education system i'm going to now move on to covet related needs of vermont school districts um and i would first note that there are many needs and i'm sure your committee has heard about several needs through other witnesses so today i'm just going to be highlighting um one of those needs which is the school district annual meetings and budgets and the reason i'm highlighting that is i believe you're going to be considering a bill addressing the issue this week h48 right now school boards across the state are working to finalize their budgets in preparation for warning their annual meetings most school district annual meetings are held in march on town meeting day and um as you know the ongoing pandemic is presenting significant challenges and running safe elections especially for those districts that vote from the floor under vermont law only a vote of the school district voters allows the district to switch to an australian ballot system but um the legislature passed act 162 last fall which allows the school board itself to vote to use the australian ballot system this year um if they normally vote from the floor at the annual meeting and additionally the senate will be considering h48 which authorizes school boards to vote to move their date their 2021 annual meeting date to a date later in 21 and also to require the municipal clerk to mail the australian ballots to all of the active registered voters we understand the general assembly is on the course for an expedited passage of this bill and in light of importance of this action to local school officials um we want to ensure the committee understands the effects of h48 on school districts especially the provision allowing municipalities to move the date of their 2021 annual meeting there are many school districts um that are now in unified union districts that cross town lines and they include several towns um i spoke with a school board member earlier this week from a unified district that includes nine towns and that board um is anticipating the passage of h48 and so it's communicating with those nine towns about plans for its upcoming annual meeting and coordinating with those towns so far six of the nine towns um seem to be on board to coordinate with the school district by not changing the date of their town meeting but there are three towns that have not decided yet how they're going to proceed so if those three towns decide to move the date of their town meetings it raises logistical and legal questions for the school district's annual meeting and so many in fact uh questions in fact that the school board will need to have its legal counsel attend its next meeting to ensure that it makes an informed and legal decision and prepares its warning properly so because of the complexities involved with chain allowing changes to the date of annual meetings it's important um that state officials take the lead with an organized communication strategy to encourage towns and school districts to align their votes clear concise and timely communications starting now are critically important so the school boards can consider the implications of the legislation and their preparations which are happening this week and next week the sba provided a webinar yesterday with the help of the secretary of state's office to provide school board members with the most up-to-date information on h48 and answer questions uh questions were answered for an hour and at the end there were still 32 unanswered questions which are which are going to be answered and and the answers will be sent out to everyone who attended the webinar we had over 75 people attend the webinar we're also working with the remote league of cities and towns to send a unified message to school boards and select boards on the importance of coordinating and aligning their annual meetings this year this year's budget process will be uniquely challenging due to the economic crisis caused by the covid-19 pandemic we're hopeful that vermont communities will continue their tradition of supporting public education by approving school district budgets when the vsba has more information about the status of school budgets um as the as the voting occurs i would be happy to come back and update the senate education committee on that in conclusion i'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak with your committee today i look forward to working with you to address covid-related needs of school districts and ensure a high quality public education for every vermont student thank you thank you sue very helpful uh questions or comments for sue uh senator perchlet please i would just let sue know that we passed that age 48 today thank you i wrote that a couple days ago because i was supposed to testify uh tuesday i think and then it got moved to wednesday and then today so yes thank you yes thank you for your flexibility too as you can tell i'm new to the job yours by tuesday wednesday night on thursday i'll get it thank you other questions comments yes senator hooker please thanks sue thank you for your testimony and thank you for your work certainly as a school board member i agree with senator campion that school board members and select board members are the ones who bear the brunt of the public questioning anyway uh how many school boards are there in the state and how many of them belong to your association the way that our membership is set up it is by supervisory union or supervisory district and there are 55 of those in the state and 53 of them are our members of our association that's great okay there's roughly 800 school board members in the state individual people this goes to senator lyons comment this morning in committee when she said she's impressed with the number of volunteers we have in this state and the work that gets done by volunteers thank you absolutely senator perso yeah i'm not to bring up a potential source subject but on act 46 in the interest in some new districts to allow everyone some some school boards wanting to leave their districts and i just wondered i know in the in the past the school board association has sometimes had a different opinion different view on on the consolidated districts than the superintendent's association so i wondered if you had anything to say about those those towns that are that are trying to get out of their quote unquote forced districts the only thing i would say at this point is um that it is uh the law does allow that currently to occur right okay so you're not think you don't think there's a change or a need to change the law in any either way either be more permissive or less permissive our association hasn't taken a position on that yet that's something that the vsba board of directors would need to um consider to take a position on okay thank you senator jindan uh first of all i want to thank all of the school board members out there it is tireless work so i just echo the comments from chair campion but i want to pick up on uh senator hooker's comment there the this volunteer work and i know it well i know all the school board members of my community have talked to others um what would you say to my constituents out there that often comment if not lament uh that when our volunteer school board members are are negotiating for with teachers and again i'm married to a teacher i love teachers uh when they're negotiating with uh teacher unions they there seems to be an imbalance with uh professional negotiating experience do you have a position on the sbea uh sorry the school board is it sbea or your initials my apologies if i got your act the sba the sba um what is your general thoughts on how active involved and how much is there enough support for school board members to feel like they are negotiating as as best they possibly can when it comes to working with teachers teachers unions and finding a fair and equitable deal for uh of working conditions for our very important educators in the state that's a very good question um they that's definitely a uh an area of focus for the vsba and we do um provide collective bargaining supports um so yes we're aware of the need for sure so um do all school board members take the training is there a training once people get elected is there a process there and is that something everybody participates in and that might cover you know ethical behavior all that kind of thing or is it optional it is optional uh for new board members we do provide a new board member training um and not all new board members um take part in it there is a certain amount of training that is required for um board chairs to do with their superintendent by law i believe that's eight hours but not for every board member so folks know you know uh senators know there's a situation in bennington now you may be aware of sue with her a board member has said uh a number of horrible horribly racist uh derogatory comments um and uh there's no way at this point to remove that board member because it's not it's neither in the bylaws nor is it in the the charter which i think would need to be changed so so the community has struggled with this it looks as though because of timing it might not there might not be anything that can be done uh and that it might just have to wait and go to the voters which is tragic given you know a lot of these comments are directed at children uh and you know he's there to uh to help and assist and so it's it's just something that you know i guess i'm not i guess the one thing i'm wondering is if whether or not your association has taken a position on this and and actually more importantly are you a resource for the school board members that have been trying to find a solution which might as i said be removal are you that kind of resource that might get a better question when there's an issue like that can people call on all of you for legal advice to work directly with the legislature to help move something along etc yes we are a resource and we we actually have we have a book that i mentioned the essential work of school boards and in that book we have a set out a process that boards can use to deal with challenging behavior of a board member so i often provide that i i provide that to board members when they contact me with questions that are you know similar to the one that you're referring to there is no way for them to easily remove a board member but there are possibilities of censorship and things like that so the process sets out it's a very clear process that we've set out i'd be happy to share it with you have you been in contact with with the school districts down here have they been in contact with you looking for assistance in this regard yes school board members okay terrific thank you okay by senator hooker yeah going back to h48 we did pass that bill today and you your testimony suggested that there were a number of questions and i've heard from some school board members as well does the association support the change and is the association working with those municipalities to get them to sync with the dates so that things are a little more consistent yes we are working with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns to get out a unified message with the two organizations to select boards and school boards to encourage them to work together as much as they possibly can i'm sure you're aware of the two million dollars that has been set aside to pay for the mailing of ballots and the way to make efficient use of that money is to make sure that that their towns and the school districts are coordinating so yes we are definitely working on that we're hoping to you know hear hear some messages coming out from the state level to that effect as well okay thank you so are you involved with recruiting at all i mean it's not a party for example affiliated office does your organization look to recruit people to run for the school board we don't necessarily look to recruit them but we we definitely look to educate people about school board service and what it entails and how important it is and in hopes that they'll will become interested in running it's a hard sell a lot of work for no pay and people are always mad at you yeah right yeah can you advertise it that way senator titan senator lines yes i underpaid and overworked although i really enjoyed my school board work uh when i was there but one of the one of the things that sort of been mentioned and i think is an interesting point of conversation is the relationship between the school and the municipality and how in different places there's a very close working relationship and then in others there's not and what is since the consolidation and act 46 have you seen a change in that in any way um is there is there a move to greater uh cooperation or less just curious i don't know that i could really answer that question generally i think it is specific you know different areas of the state may have different things going on so that's a difficult question to answer any other final questions for sue sue thank you so much for joining us we look forward to continuing to partner with you and i know you'll keep us updated on things and certainly appreciate your time today thank you very much thank you bye so i see our our final witness has arrived which is terrific holly how are you i'm doing great senator how are you good to see you uh one of the things i know senator perchlick has been involved in i know the topic has come up in this committee for a long time and that is after school programs after school programming um and uh what that looks like in the state what are some of the possibilities um and holly i got to know a little bit it was four or five years ago when i was on this committee and i know she was advocating for after school programs then and i'm grateful that you're continuing to do that work today so what i thought we might do holly is is just i for one could benefit would benefit from a broad overview of after school here in the state of vermont um you know i i don't think it's universal uh and you know where is it how is it doing some of the benefits of it um and uh also i'd like to hear what's happening you know with regard to coven in after school and then i think the final thing i'll just mention it ties into everything and that's we've been talking about how and this is not the right expression uh it's not a winners or losers but there are there are families and individuals that have been much more negatively impacted from coven than others and those are the families and young people that we really need to work on work with work work for recognize and help and so i'd like you just keep that in mind as well as it relates to to after school and how you might play a role in that kind of work so with that holly moorhouse thank you great thank you so much um this is my favorite time of day the hours of three to six p.m are the after school hours i know you have all had a long day so i'm hoping we can have some fun together um and the next 30 minutes or so looking at some data seeing what young people are saying about mental health thinking about youth engagement and youth involvement and uh planning a path forward um i am uh the executive director of remand after school uh that is it's a statewide nonprofit that's been around for about 11 plus years uh we work with about 450 or so after school summer youth serving organizations across the state children um from kindergarten through 12th grade and often uh beyond and um as a statewide after school network uh we have been nationally recognized for the professional development we provide to the field for our initiatives around science technology engineering and math in vermont around our initiatives in the out-of-school space around social emotional learning we have also been internationally recognized for our work on youth voice and primary prevention so we have a lot to work on and a lot um has happened um in the last 10 plus years in vermont i don't know if it was intentional in addition to being in the after school time space on your committee schedule but it was also really interesting to listen to the state colleges just as one sort of starting point connection uh robert putnam and his 2015 book our kids shared about a project that found that uh youth who were involved in extracurricular activities and after school programs on a regular basis um in high school were 70% more likely to go on to college than their peers who were not involved there are so many connections between early childhood k-12 education and higher ed that after school is that glue across all those connections the other piece uh senator campion when you mentioned um wanting to be the education state you know over a decade of research and after school has shown that we will never make progress in becoming an education state or addressing the academic achievement gap or really meeting the needs of our students if we don't take into account the time outside the school day and over the summer um it happens on a number of levels we have parents who contact us all the time they want to live in communities that have programs they need to live in communities because they need to work they need after school programs they need summer learning programs they know that that's what helps get their children ahead and helps them get into college helps them find career paths forward um and as we have seen very starkly throughout covid that communities that had strong after school programs strong summer programs strong youth serving organizations that could partner with the schools were the ones that were able to offer so many more resources and we're going to look at what some of those resources were so many more resources you know from food to academic support to child care and we have other parts of their state that would because they don't have those players in their community really saw great disparities um and what they could provide and um so that that learning point the last piece I want to tag to is when you talk about civic engagement I would say after school programs in vermont are leading the way on youth voice they are using models of youth councils participatory budgeting putting dollars in the hands of young people to make decisions about what positive change looks like in their community so when you have those conversations I hope that you will take into account that work there is also a bill that some young people have been working on with representative lamp here to create a statewide youth council and I think that that ties well to goals around civic engagement I have some documents that I wanted to share and um senator campaigns are okay if I share my screen please uh the first first of these is uh is really a background if you're new to the issue of after school um this resilience and strengthening families document gives you some of the basic data it connects to a larger report that we put out in 2019 but really the takeaway from this is that access to after school programs is really a cross cutting issue it's one of those issues where you invest in one program and you hit economic issues with working families you had education issues with the achievement gap and summer learning loss you hit prevention issues with substance misuse and risky behaviors you hit food issues by providing access for to healthy food and snacks for children and youth you hit mental health issues self esteem workforce development it really is one of those spaces part of what makes a such powerful space is that it is a it's a creative space and it's this mix of education guidance counselor learning child care positive youth development it's about taking students out into the community bringing the community in into the programs so it's really a rich a rich space to look at education and and well-being for for youth um so this uh initial document covers like some of the key data points um and and each of those areas um actually the legislative working group that center campionine were on together uh did a return on investment study that you see noted here with support from the national conference of state legislatures um at that time that study has been replicated nationally um and you'll see some of the recommendations at that time including this connection to the Vermont youth declaration of rights which was done through after school programs and this uh elevating and amplifying of youth voice the second document um that I uh wanted to share for some background information does it show when I just flip over to the next document are you looking at a document this is America after three uh Vermont after three yes Vermont after three thanks yes so this is part of a study um and I'm sharing this here because this is very recent data it came out in December 2020 and this is a national study that's done every five to six years by the after school alliance it's based on a parent survey and they also do enough surveying um in their methodology so that they can have state specific reports for every state um a couple of things to notice in this report one Vermont for the second time in a row ranks in the top 10 in the nation for after school programming I mean that is something to celebrate um we um we rank in the top 10 for these numbers I'm going to show you at the top of the second page um safe environment high level of parent satisfaction 96 percent of parents saying that their after school programs have knowledgeable and caring staff um we still um have great need about 39 percent of children and youth who are not currently in programs would be in uh program this afternoon it's over 26 000 students so in these hours that we're sitting in right now 26 000 students in Vermont would be in programs this afternoon um if more available accessible and affordable you'll see that that is actually an increase when you look at the bar chart and red orangey red over here from 2014 um in 2014 we were ranked fourth in the nation and um 2020 we were ranked ninth in the nation so still in top 10 but but some decrease um because there are a few worrying numbers uh another number that I want uh to draw to your attention is this number in the bottom in the center 14 percent of children in after school who are from low-income households so top 10 in the nation for the quality of our programming we know how to do after school programming well here in Vermont however we were 51st in this national study because dc was in the mix 51st in the nation for the percentage of children enrolled in after school programs who are from low-income households we have a real issue around access and I'm going to take you to the last page to look at these three bars on the left because I asked parents so what what are the barriers to participation and three barriers came to the top lack of available programs we have areas of the state um that either do not have any after school programs they do not have any summer programs or they have a few and there's long waiting lists so you can't get into them there's there's just isn't enough to meet the need programs are too expensive was the highest barrier um and I think that that ties to that number that we just looked at looked at about access especially for low-income families and then the third is around transportation no way to get children to and from programs so those three issues senator campy remember they're very similar to the issues we looked at five six years ago right there's areas of the state that are underserved there are barriers around cost and now this new one sort of rising the top around transportation so there's some other numbers in here to look at there's a lot of support it's a bipartisan tripartisan issue uh to sport after school and uh you know vermont in this last year in 2020 has made um some really important progress um including uh the governor's initiative for universal access to after school as well as the task force uh that senator perchlick and I um are serving on the um the third piece is is my testimony and and I'm I gave it to you so you have you have it written down you have my thoughts there but I really want to hit on um on some some over viewing areas I want to talk about the highs during covid I want to talk about what we saw on some of the lows I want to make note of the progress we made as a state since March really in dressing after school and out of school time and then I want to draw attention to the continuing challenges um that we see the um the highs really are covered in these first two pages and uh where it comes from is the way that the field stepped forward I mean taking you back to March you know schools had to quickly go remote and they had to close their buildings um and there was for a while this misunderstanding that after school programs just no longer existed because school wasn't happening in the same way that was not true after school programs morphed and changed and stepped up in so many different creative ways they became resources for families providing information about unemployment access to food mental health services they stepped forward to provide child care for essential workers they expanded their hours to meet the needs of working families even while schools were offering less in person over the summer when a number of skill school buildings continued to be closed they found alternative places to hold summer programs and it really was this after school field that stepped forward to meet the needs of summer and that was coming from this place of students have already missed three months by then right of in-person learning we're already falling behind we couldn't wait another three months right to bring them back into safe spaces and so working very closely with the Department of Health finding ways to run summer programs um communities that were able to have programs running summer programs also were a step ahead when it came to school reopening because they had professionals who had already been working with the COVID health and safety guidelines for months and bringing children into common spaces and working with staff and families about those procedures and some of them will even talk about how it was teaching the students the mindsets of how to be in a common space right under the COVID guidelines safely schools and communities that had those programs in place were able to start from a point of strength right when it came back to reopening schools in the fall. Access to food was very important and many after school providers moved on to the school food distribution teams they were on the buses delivering meals they put together take home kits for STEM or arts with activities and supplies that went home to children and youth they created virtual programming opportunities sometimes they were for teams just to get together and connect on Google or Zoom or FaceTime sometimes they were outdoor activities that sent kids outside in their backyard and then they come back and share really creative and how they were connecting a lot of attention as well from the professionals in the field around the social emotional needs and how to combat the loneliness isolation that young people have been feeling throughout the pandemic. Also a lot of attention of how to create things like youth councils and we have engineering clubs that are running right now that really get at youth agency how do we increase youth agency in this time where so many youth feel stressed and and helpless really important piece of the puzzle. Those are some of the the highs. Some of the lows well the disparities I will say you had parts of our state when you look at September where schools elementary schools in particular were in person five days a week maybe to 11 or maybe sometimes 1pm and then an after school partner was running after school programming until four or five in the evening so if you are a family living in one of those communities up in the northeast kingdom or the Windsor area you have programming five days a week between school and after school almost for a full work day. Further south many of the school buildings were closed there weren't as many after school partners in that area to begin with and there were communities where families had absolutely nothing as far as resources for the children around in-person instruction and support. You know the disparities really were painful to see. Another kind of low was something that developed in our state I would say and I think as an education committee this difference between school day teachers and after school professionals and how we view them and how we talk about those fields those two different groups of professionals. The when as I said when schools could not open when there were remote learning days and were the after school professionals who stepped into those spaces when teachers could not be in the classroom with their children. When after Thanksgiving weekend or after the winter holidays when schools were concerned about having enough teachers to have staffing or because people had wanted to travel or visit family or so forth you know they turned to the after school programs to see if they could run programming and make sure that they didn't travel and so forth. So you know anytime that we're providing supports for our teachers around testing or vaccinations I think we really need to be thinking about this youth serving field as well because they are playing such an important role in so many different ways. I think the other challenge has been the the cost of programs. Capacity has been lowered it was about 50% over the over the summer compared to pre-covid as far as having capacity to serve students in summer programs. In the fall that picked up in some key areas especially where students could come come back in either through the remote learning hubs that the governor's initiative set up the child care hubs or through partnerships with their school. However even the child care hubs initiative that the state put out it it only allowed for operating costs for the first month and the assumption was that parents would pick up the cost of tuition or participation fees after that first month. Sometimes you had a parent taking a child to a school that is their main school on a remote learning day in the same building with some of the same staff but because it was a remote learning day the parent had to pay right for the care and support in that same school building and for parents to pick up six extra hours of care up to 30 extra hours of care was quite a high burden. So I'm hoping that as we move forward and we look at the winter and spring and the needs of families and the reduced school schedules and who and how we're going to pick up that slack that we can shift them of that burden more towards state and federal dollars instead of having it fall on parents. Progress, great progress I would say in our state I'm very proud of the state level of collaboration between the child development division the department of health the agency of commerce and community development especially around the hubs those child care hubs. I have not in 20 plus years in Vermont seen such rapid and deep level of collaboration to stand up a support and emergency system for working families and for students as I saw with that state level of collaboration. We also as a state I think started recognizing that child care doesn't child care needs don't end at age five when they go to kindergarten right we really started to understand that child care needs continues throughout the elementary years and really I would say middle school. Some of our initiatives didn't go all the way up to seventh and eighth grade and that's really when you want kids right and supervised and supportive programming with caring adults not engaging in risky behavior. So really thinking broader and more connected about our child care needs. The continuing challenges you know many of the supports that Vermont put in place such as the child care hubs with the CRF dollars as ended in December. We still have programs that are not fully back we do not have any more funding for for hubs through that that funding source. We also did not as a state help cover places as I mentioned raft school programs had to expand their hours and didn't receive any additional funding to do that. So maybe instead of running from three to six they were now running from one to six or 11 to five or something. So many of them are burning through their budgets quicker in the year and have talked about maybe having to end and not make it all the way through the school year as a program. So that's another thing to watch for I I wanted to tag also as we look forward I want to stop sharing for a second and then I want to share this is am I sharing I lost your faces I hate when that happens how about that all right Vermont after school has partnered with five communities and researchers from Iceland on the Vermont youth project Iceland has a probably the strongest global model on primary prevention and we're in a five-year memorandum of agreement with them and our second year of data we just collected seventh through twelfth graders just last October and in the survey this year and those five communities two of which are in Rutland County for the senators from Rutland County we added COVID specific data questions and I think this is some of the only survey data I've seen in Vermont yet directly from our youth and I want to draw it to your attention as an education committee this first chart that I'm sharing you'll see it's got seventh and eighth grade on one end ninth and tenth in the middle eleventh and twelfth on the right the green bars are for um the this is for the total for all five communities these are where students answered that things have gotten a little or a lot better the yellow bars are no change and then the aqua light blue bars are where students said it's a bit worse or a lot worse this first chart is about um how COVID has affected school connections you will say see that about half of our high schoolers are saying um school connections are a bit worse or a lot worse under COVID um on the next slide I want to share uh this is specifically about mental health and asking them what ways has COVID affected uh their mental health um once again you'll see particularly for ninth through twelfth graders 45 46 percent of students have said it has gotten worse um since COVID uh how has it affected their educational experience including the interaction with teacher and classmates particularly eleventh and twelfth graders almost 60 percent say it has gotten worse uh about 50 percent of the ninth and tenth graders have said it has gotten worse this chart is around loneliness how did it affect your level of loneliness once again um over half of our eleventh and twelfth graders have said it loneliness has gotten worse feeling anxious once again all of our high schools about 50 percent um are naming that they feel more anxious um this is just a subset of that data collected from the fall uh but it's really telling um and it's quite real um which brings me back to my final recommendations um when we look at how to move forward in 2021 and 2022 I hope that we look at educational supports in a very broad lens I hope that we talk not only about learning loss but we talk about mental health and social emotional learning I hope that we talk not only about what schools can do but what about after school programs youth serving and organizations summer programs and all those wraparound services can do in this mix um at the end of my report I've noted three of the federal funding sources the new SR relief dollars um that all of these three can be used for child care and or after school and education I'm hoping that as a state we'll be able to leverage some of those dollars I hope in winter and spring we can meet the needs on remote learning days the expanded after school hours that are needed right now for our students and for our working families I hope that we can do a summer learning summit that pulls all these partners together and make this summer the summer about community connection and learning that is what our young people need we need six to eight weeks of full summer programings and we need to be moving on that now and as we move into next fall I'm hoping that these supports around social emotional learning youth voice youth um agency youth advocacy uh continue to be themes you know as we move towards becoming the education state and we don't lose those pieces um so I will pause there and um take questions or I'd love to hear comments and what you're thinking thank you Holly I just want to kick it off by saying you know we we've asked uh Jeff Fanon to of the NEA to kind of start to gather folks a little bit uh and look at the issue of remediation you know this is sort of post-covid um remediation and in broadly speaking you know what may my students have missed uh what do we need to be doing uh mental health issues the range of things and so rather than all this talk in our silos uh and each of us go to sort of each you know each committee with a presentation I'm hoping to have Jeff uh kind of take the lead on this talk I know he's reaching out to the prince superintendent's association the principal's association uh others and I think you should just be a part of that and I would I would just recommend reaching out to him you know how can after school uh how does after school fit into this um you know what does a summer look like now we're hopefully might be leaving COVID in some regards or even if we're not how does after school uh play a role in in working with folks uh with young people the other thing I just want to mention and that's uh one of my interests is literacy and uh you know one one principal did say to me not long ago you know you could put a kid in and he wasn't talking specifically about I think after school but well let's take the summer you know you can put the kid into a summer program for four weeks but unless that person knows how to teach literacy really has the tools it really it's not going to make the difference you want it to make so again I would just uh I you may be doing this uh I'm just putting it out there that you know working to make certain that your folks have those tools so that um you know I could read to my nieces and nephews for four weeks it might make a difference I would think it would but to teach literacy reading and writing I would think those are what's out there and just to get the best to your folks I agree I think that goes for literacy I think it goes for STEM um and you know there's two two approaches you know one is there is power in after school programs or summer programs being closely connected to the school day like that's been proven in the research it doesn't mean sometimes teachers are teaching in after school um but it doesn't mean that all the teachers have to be teaching there but communicating with staff this is what the youth are right these are what my students are working on you know here's what I'm seeing here's are the here are the pieces and then in after school they can they can take those and use hands-on learning and and other creative ways to to get at those same concepts um the other thing that we found uh over COVID is even when we offered dollars like through the hubs program not every school wants to run after school and not every school wants to run summer programming they didn't want to they wanted somebody else to so I think that we need to be careful of not following those assumptions that they all do um and to make sure that we set up systems for universal access that allows for that flexibility and diversity and then strengthens those connections right so that we don't have some programs that are really good at literacy because they have the teachers in it and some that are weaker but really we've we've managed to put in those those different different layers yes a center lines please so holly uh holly thank you very much um I think your day is probably as long as ours has been but uh one of the one of the things that I greatly appreciate about after school is it really means out of school and you know so it's not necessarily it doesn't necessarily have to be affiliated with an educational institution and I think that makes a huge difference and and also the the models that you bring to us with parent and community involvement which is so uh terrific in other countries and I'm just wondering what what community members organizations and groups have stepped up to fill in some of the gaps perhaps where the school isn't interested that's a great question so um the most relevant data I would say is both from the summer and from the child care hubs um the where we saw we saw established after school programs and community organizations like king street center or sarah holbrook center right who are already working with youth right they they stepped into that space we saw parks and recreation departments um move into that space that's a whole nother agency right they were working with the agency of commerce and community development not agency of ed not child care division um and all of a sudden it was like whoa over the summer we got to connect to them as well and get them connected to the Department of Health and how to do this well so and they continued throughout the fall um to to fit into that space um we saw a number of arts organizations um really expand their programming and offer full day uh camps both in the summer and um throughout the fall um we did not see we had a number of employers contact us um you know hospitals and other large employers feeling that they wanted a child care center or an after school program or a remote learning day hub in their building and maybe they had a space but as we got further into those conversations they actually like didn't want to run it themselves you know they wanted the wire to come in or somebody else to come in and and run it and um then it became tricky uh because to set something up for a remote learning day that as soon as the students went back to school transportation was going to become an issue right of how you get them from the school to the business um it created some other logistics so um so those didn't then pan out in in the same way um who else stepped into that space there were some uh private providers of youth programming uh gymnastics studios fitness centers martial arts um who also expanded um their program offerings and it so it was a very of course a very Vermont very um intricate sort of who's in the community and who can leverage libraries or another space that were leveraged during COVID um and I would say are really strong partners in this out of school time space because you're absolutely right senator that it's it's after school it's weekends it's summer and it's in service days at school vacation days it's it's really anytime outside of school so it's really a variety another lesson we learned was um we had a community where the school partnered with one partner to offer programming on remote learning days at free or very low cost um and that actually hurt some of these other providers who were having to charge because they had families signed up for remote learning days to work with them and then once this low cost option came in families shifted over and then some of those providers were actually in danger of having to close or lay off employees and so forth so um because it's a complicated and diverse landscape we have to be really careful with how we implement solutions for sure thank you thanks and and thank you for all your work that what you've accomplished over the a very short time relatively speaking has been uh really outstanding so thank you yes you're welcome and thank you for your interest um on the the broader like community based models um that Vermont youth project I mentioned and where this data came from about the mental health and right there the sites are in Rutland and Franklin County um I just want to name some of the players that are at that table are hospitals um pediatricians mental health providers uh boy scouts girl scouts boys and girls club prevention networks uh town alderman's legboard man uh mayor uh police and sheriff departments um and I would say some that that project in particular in my head is really those five communities trying to take what we see in iceland and finland and the best of the best in romant and how do we make our communities and the built environment around youth the best places for young people to grow up and um third space out of school time is a key component of every one of those discussions senator perso did you want to add something I saw you unmute yourself and I know you've been on this committee for uh for a while now yeah I wanted to reiterate the thanks to holly and the organization for just bringing raising the the level of knowledge of after school in the state and and working tirelessly to promote it and and you know it was kind of a new even though we talked about it last term in this committee I was being on the task force and having to look at some of the research and what others are doing that uh came to come to really appreciate how valuable it is and if we want these kind of self actualizing youth and good citizens that we talk about civics or we talk about just uh things like literacy or other academics after school just extremely important and whether it be something like tutoring or other activities that that it's just incredibly important to to to provide the the well-rounded individuals that we want to be the leaders in the future so I've become a real evangelical proponent of after school programs at this point so no questions but just wanted to say that great can I ask another question please of course so and it was triggered by senator perch like but um so all of the all of the great things that are going on and it's sounds like some a lot of these programs are different depending on where we are in the state but your goal is to become to have this fall into place as a ongoing system when are we I mean do you feel that there's any seamlessness that's been developed is it self-perpetuating at all at this point I mean there's a lot of energy that you and others are putting into keeping whatever programs are in place going and and developing new do you feel that any of this is becoming sort of community perpetuated that is a fun question I do I um a few things I um we do have common standards around quality um and what a quality program looks like and that took a lot of years to get to and there's a lot of buy-in about what quality looks like and and what kind of training staff need and we have a very strong network across providers um I mean early on in COVID we had open calls every single day and they had lots of people on them you know and and talking and sharing um we have places in our state that have had strong programs for so long that I don't think families can imagine not having them you know if they were to go away now most of those or many of those are funded through federal dollars and they um and they have for instance like the 21st century community learning center grants which are big five-year grants and we have places in the state that have had those for 15 plus years at every single one of their schools and and so it's really strong and ingrained there um I think um the other piece where I see I think we've done a really great job at um making people want to have programs um and um and a couple of data points on that when the legislature um put uh $600,000 it was in 2018 of the tobacco settlement funding put that aside for access to after-school and summer learning programs. Vermont after-school worked with the child development division around um granting those dollars out so we had $600,000 to grant out over two years and we received over 100 requests and the amount of money requested was about $5.5 million for that $600,000 and the requests were coming in from homeless shelters and science museums and um churches and schools and all different kinds of players in different communities and communities that I hadn't even heard of that I had to look up and that see this need and wanted to move forward. We had um some additional money just in just past December of 2020 to run a smaller competition we had about 60,000 left from the state that wasn't used under COVID and then we uh the community Vermont community foundation gave us an additional $50,000 so we had $110,000 and we're like let's let's run a competition the CRF money's ending let's get this out it was a quick turnaround I think it was like 10 days or something we received 84 applications with requests over $900,000 for the $110,000 the need is there right like we have done a really good job at raising awareness um people seeing what they knowing what they need and and and communities moving to try to do it where they're getting stuck is in who pays for it who owns it do the schools pay for it do the parents pay for it do the town pay for it how do we pay for this cost and it's it's really uh an ownership question too that we also have in our state we're having now you know where does it sit does it sit with the agency of education does it with child development division is it a health issue is it great so I think that's you know those are some of the questions we need to answer um but yes I absolutely see um strong strong leaders uh great quality standards places that can't imagine not having after school and lots of hunger and interest and places that don't yet have it um we're really poised um to to solve this problem and I'm so excited to work with all of you in this biennium on it great thank you Holly and thank you for joining us today and you'll reach out to Jeff Fannon that would be great um and uh and you'll keep us posted also on ways that of course that we can partner with you I don't know if there are any actual ills in at this point related to after school but I certainly know that you'll be on your way down to appropriations to talk about these things and we'll be working closely with the Appropriations Committee to help guide their work so thank you awesome thank you so much and in the spirit of after school everybody needs recess and a healthy snack thank you thank you Holly well great so uh thanks everybody I appreciate it I appreciate the questions the conversation tomorrow we are as you know jumping into the world of ed funding with uh joint fiscal uh with treasurer Pierce and then uh we'll have a break and we'll move on to broadband uh an update from uh Commissioner Tierney uh two things that are gonna be coming up next week that I believe one of which uh Jude sent to everybody and the other I believe Senator Pertulic sent those are two uh two reports one on the waiting study which we'll we'll hear from uh folks next week on that um and the other is the select committee on higher education we have about an hour and a half next week where we will have the consultant Brian Prescott in with Senator Bruce and uh President Joyce Judy talking to us about their work and uh with their findings and update us a little bit on on things from their end yes just a reminder to uh our elected clerk elected clerk yes Senator Pertulic is that why your hand was up because you wanted to volunteer I'd be happy to be the clerk but I have another thing to mention please go ahead and I thought I'd mentioned it today it's instead of uh tomorrow when Commissioner Tierney is here just to folks know that Commissioner Tierney is my boss in my day job um so just uh I work at the Department of Public Service I don't have anything to do with broadband I work for the Clean Energy Development Fund but it is housed within the Department of Public Service thanks for that heads up and I I probably should have given folks uh a heads up yesterday that my boss uh President Walker was going to be here today it's it's a small state uh we all wear multiple hats uh especially in order to you know to suit our interests and as well as to uh you know just get things done so I appreciate that heads up uh and on the the note of clerk is there I don't I honestly I don't want to force anybody into this position um the clerk uh takes the role the clerk um or you know records votes um I suspect if something were to happen to myself and Senator Hooker the clerk no I guess it's the ranking member would pick up uh where we leave off um Senator Perchley is that yeah no I I'd be happy to do it as the one returning member although you don't need to be returning to be the the clerk and it seems like sometimes they stick with one of the new newbies but I'm I'm almost a newbie so I'm happy to do it all right yeah yes Senator Hooker I'm gonna nominate Senator Chittenden because I nominated Senator Tarenzini in Health and Welfare but I'm happy that Senator Perchley has volunteered in that spirit of volunteerism that's so strong in this state and I think what is it like a thousand bucks you get I don't remember what the clerk gets oh it's down that much I thought it was like five it's a tough time all right Senator Perchley I'm happy to co-clerk with you there you go that's right if if he's absent we know who to call in thank you all look forward to seeing you tomorrow and have a great evening