 Welcome back to Senate Education Act 28 literacy Miss St. James if you would join us please. I just want to remind colleagues as well as those watching last year, two years ago I believe, we passed Act 28 and what we had heard from the field and others was directly from the field, directly from teachers that they had left undergraduate school feeling unequipped to teach reading and writing. We also looked at our test scores. We decided to make some investments in literacy and the reason I want to return to this we had a little bit of a conversation literally the first day back you know I mean this committee had just assembled we all sat in this room we got an update and it was a lot at once and I wanted to sort of rewind a little bit because one of the things that I sometimes worry about that can happen in the building is you know from year to year things aren't sort of continued we don't pick up where we left off and I don't want to lose sight of one of the most important things that we you know work to educate kids on is how to read and write and communicate so Miss St. James we're going to start with you for just the overview what the bill did and then we'll move on to Ted Fisher and the agency and then Emily Lesh who's the project manager for Act 28 and Emily were you here that first day? You were yeah and I'm sorry I mean it was just even for me it was all you know it was a lot so just I'm sort of bring us back to it see where we're at see what improvements we need to do to make the opinion at all so St. James. Thank you. For the sake of time I'm going to skip over the purpose in finding sections. Senator Campion kind of teed everyone up well for how this act came to be so I'm going to in the interest of time I'm just gonna walk us briefly through the substance of the bill starting on page three section three and I'm going to kind of summarize again for time purposes but if you'd like me to go back and go over the specific language in the section let me know so section three essentially requires a way to make certain efforts using some funding that's going to be provided later on in the bill so starting on page four the agency is directed to provide professional development learning modules for teachers and methods of teaching literacy and assist supervisory needs and implementing evidence-based systems wide literacy approaches that address learning loss due to COVID-19 pandemic there's a certain chunk of money that they were supposed to use for that and then in subdivision two AOE is also directed to use another set of funding that came from ARPA money to address learning loss through the implementation of evidence-based interventions that respond to students academic social and emotional needs and address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on student groups most impacted by the pandemic and school districts that need additional support as evidenced by their needs assessment priorities in their COVID-19 recovery plans and then this act directed the agency of education to use some additional funds that all the funds come in the next section to retain one or more contractors to provide technical assistance to SUs we're on page five now to recommend how federal funds can be used to implement Act 173 to in the context of improving literacy outcomes recommend evidence-based practices in teaching literacy instructions to students in pre-K through grade three recommend how to provide professional development for teachers and school leaders and methods of teaching literacy and recommend policies procedures and other methods to ensure that improvements in literacy outcomes are sustained so those are things AOE was asked to have a contractor provide technical assistance on section four on page five are those appropriations so subsection a was an appropriation for the cost of the contractor the 450,000 yes the 450,000 subsection B was 3,060,000 was appropriated out of ARPA funds and then those were the those were the appropriations and then page six created section five created the advisory council on literacy and it did that by adding a statute to your green book and we'll see later that it came with it comes with a sunset so we're adding this advisory council to the green books and then it's also coming with a sunset meaning there's a repeal built into this for June 30th 2024 so the advisory council is created I'm not going to go over the specific membership unless you feel that that's helpful but it includes lots of folks are interested in included but also teachers and community members and then page 8 all the way down the bottom there subdivision of subsection D are the powers and duties of the council so the council shall advise the agency of education the board of education and the general assembly on how to improve proficiency outcomes in literacy for students in pre-k for grade 12 and how to sustain those outcomes and so they are supposed to advise AOE on how to update section 2903 of this title and 2903 you should have either a link to it on your website or a print out of it is the reading instruction section in the general policy section title 16 that talks about statewide literacy plan so the council supposed to update advise AOE on how to update that section that section was added to state law in 1997 was amended in 2009 and hasn't been touched since implement so also advise AOE on how to implement the state rides literacy plan required by 2903 and whether based on its implementation changes should be made to the plan and advise them on how to maintain the statewide literacy plan the council is also supposed to advise the agency of education on what services the agency should provide to school districts around page 9 now to support implementation of the plan on staffing levels and resources needed that the agency to support the statewide effort to improve literacy supposed to the council is supposed to advise AOE on developing a plan for collecting literacy related data and you can that informs for specific criteria there and then the council is supposed to recommend practices for tier one to two a tier three literacy instruction within the multi tiered systems of supports required under section 2902 of title 16 and we have page 10 the council is supposed to review literacy assessments and outcomes and provide ongoing advice as to how to continuously improve those outcomes and sustain that agreement. Subsection E requires the council to report back to the House and Senate committees on education we're on page 10 with its findings and any recommendations for legislative action and this is an annual reporting requirement by December 15th of every year as long as it exists as long as it exists and and then there's some information about meetings and they have the assistance of AOE and compensation page 11 there's an appropriation for expenses for the council and then on section 7 there you'll see that's the sunset so that's built right into the law so section 2903a is the advisory council on literacy and it's repealed on June 30th 2024 so that's current law so if you don't change that I don't believe that's changed but if you don't change. So have we got these reports? We're about to we're about to jump into some of these reports right after that and I I should have ensured that the sunset date has not changed I don't remember it changing last session but I will ensure that it has not. I don't think we did change it last session but I think it might be something we just decide possibly to move forward forever to make sure we get some advisory council on literacy so we don't continue to not make advances. Repealing or repeal is easy. Yeah and then section 8 is some kind of implementation of the advisory council and then section 12 if we're on kind of a different topic now I'm sorry section 9 on page 12 is teacher preparation programs so section 9 requires AOE on before October 1st 2022 in collaboration with the state board. The standards board for professional educators to review teacher preparation programs to access to assess what to what extent the programs prepare teacher candidates for literacy instruction evidence based literacy instruction. They're supposed to also look at the licensing and relicensing criteria as it pertains to literacy instruction. And then AOE and section 10 on page 12 is required to provide reports to the general assembly on December 15th through this year on achieving the purpose of this act which is to improve literacy outcomes for all students in the state. So theoretically you would have one more report coming to you this coming December. And then section 11 is amending part of Act 173. This is one of those extensions that happened to some of the dates in Act 173. So it just extends the amount of reports that are required from the advisory group. So instead of the last report coming in 2022 the last report was coming in this act required it to come in January 15th 2023 so adding a report there. And then this act took effect on May 13th 2021 not that long ago. We had a very busy yeah that committee was has really worked hard on this recognized an issue and that's why I just don't want to lose sight of the work and the work that everybody's been doing on it. So yes please yeah yeah I do think there's a bill coming from a literacy bill coming from the house. I don't know much about it. But it may address some of the things that we just brought up. I just wanted to throw that out there. Yeah thanks for mentioning it. The person I can remember who called me in the hall one day and said yes they're trying to take some of the findings and some of the things that sort of like you said coming out of this and maybe creating a bill. And can you say something about that? No unless there's any and unless there's been a bill introduced. Okay yeah. So if you would just start a literacy bill for us in the first thing I think possibly that will put it in and we'll end up deciding what to do with it is repeal that sunset date so that we always have an advisory council on this issue so we don't kind of go back to where things were. Can you stick around a little bit? Yes. Okay great. Mr. Fisher. Good afternoon. The writer Ted Fisher, you can see education and agency. He's the director of communications and legislative affairs. I'm glad to be joining you for the third day in a row under happier circumstances today. Ms. Lesh, great. Glad you pulled up your chair. Your kid said teeth. Yes and actually I think Emily's going to do the majority of the speaking. I'm just going to sort of tee up here a little bit and we can dig into some of the reporting recommendations of the advisory council and things like that and kind of go where you would like to go. Great. But essentially so just want to just briefly note we've provided written testimony under Emily's name. Beth didn't go over the legislative intent but there's three bullets I want to briefly emphasize here, which was investing in the effectiveness and core reading instruction as critical for students in general education and students with disabilities, students with mild to moderate disabilities who struggle with reading may not be supported by teachers skilled in the teaching of reading. While some special education teachers across the CUSD set a strong background in teaching or reading, others indicated they did not have the training or background to be effective in supporting students during the reading. And I should also just clarify, as the chair mentioned up front, I'm a poor facsimile of my colleague, Jess DeCarolos, who is on leave at the moment, and she did come and provide you a presentation. So a lot of what we're going to talk about today is to click it over that, but our hope is that with an orientation of the bill, an opportunity to ask more questions we can move forward there. So our goals here and the goals from the bill are to improve literacy outcomes for all students in the state, apply the ESSER funds that's again the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds under the three coronavirus response bills to address learning loss by supporting the implementation of evidence-based interventions such as summer learning, ELO after school with adverse populations, and provide technical support to Vermont's advisory unions to carry out activities to address learning loss and improve literacy outcomes. So with that, that kind of goes over the baseline of things. I'm going to pass the mic to Ronald. And Ms. Lesh, thanks for coming back. I really appreciate it. Yeah, happy to be here. So Emily Lesh with the Agency of Education and I was here with Jess DeCarolos, my colleague. So much of what I mean, all of what I'm going to go through here is what she went through and we can work through it here. And so as Ted laid out the legislative intent and legislative purpose, the act does this through establishing the advisory council on literacy, but then also through appropriating funds and the ESSER funds to the Agency of Ed and directing them towards improving literacy outcomes. And I'm going to drop you for a second by May. Ted, have we received all the reports that are now due as the agency? You are missing one. Which one? The one that you are missing is the one that the agency owes you in December 15, which is a status update. We received a very short one from us last January, which was due the previous December. We are in, as the community aware, in a bit of a legislative reports technical debt situation that we're hoping to address over the remainder of the session into the summer. I was just hoping we could get a status update on when we should have that report to you, but we don't have that for the agency. The one that looks at how teachers are being trained in the state, with the state colleges, UBM, all the independence, is that somewhere? I apologize, I just missed that. That's one I'm going to have to check on. You do not have it on your website, but I want to double check to see if there's one. We have it on our website. So we've reported out to the advisor council on literacy on that report, and it is active on our website. You're going to tell us what you found in looking at the schools and colleges in Vermont? Sure, yeah. It can be high level. Yeah, so high level. So this report was looking at, so the title of the report is the Educator Prep Preparation Program Literacy syllabiate project. And so the agency high level, we worked with the Education Development Center, which is a technical assistance center that serves our region. And we followed and working with them, they completed the syllabiate review project following national guidelines and standards that many other states, for instance, Massachusetts, followed a similar structure. And so they were looking at a few key two main questions, which are to what extent are evidence based practices and reading and writing instruction represented within program syllabiate from participating educator prep programs. And so looking for those evidence based practices in syllabiate and then secondly, do syllabiate vary in intensity and levels of practice based opportunities associated with evidence based practices and reading and writing instruction. So all the syllabiate for our state colleges and independent colleges are public? No, so yeah, well, I don't think they are. And they're not, so what I do know what I can say as a result of this project, they're not public. Okay. And we don't have, it's also suppressed who that, who participated. Okay. And so there were, so there are 10 educator prep programs in Vermont that focus on reading and writing instruction, six of them were reviewed for this project, six participated. And all were given the opportunity. Or were not. So I do not have that information. So one didn't respond to request. And one was declined, do was excluded due to design issues and then the other two didn't. I'm not sure. So you understand our concern, why we did it. People come to this state, this is their opportunity to learn how to teach and if they're not getting it, then they're going into our schools. So that's what we were trying to get our handle on. It sounds like we have the majority of those schools, but not all of them. So they represent 60% of educators recommended for certification and early childhood, early childhood, special ed and elementary pathways. So it's just making a note that we'll figure out what your programs communicate them back to you. Well, it was suppressed with design, like with the study design, I believe. It can be great to build this, is try again. I mean, to get everybody, you know, I mean, I'm talking to, you know, but anyhow, we can get back. So I think it with all this is if we had medical schools out there, you know, not training people the right way. You know, we'd all be all over it. So we just want to focus on this because we want to make sure these kids are really learning. So what we can do is get more information on the why, but whether or not. So as you know, for me, the term suppressor triggers a response because usually when we use the term suppression, we use it. We reference the federal education, the Student Privacy Act for, excuse me. We can figure out whether it was an element of design, something that could be corrected or whether or not there's some legal reason why. So what I'll say in the overall the strengths of this report that it did review the syllabi and it followed this nationally recognized criteria for component important components and critical components of reading and writing instruction. And so in reviewing those syllabi, five of the educator prep programs, so five of the six covered the 10 components for evidence based reading instruction and syllabi from three educator prep programs covered seven or more components for evidence based writing instruction. And so this was reviewing the syllabi. As you know, an educator prep programs will talk through if there's more to educator prep programs than syllabi review as well. So that is all on our website and we can make sure to link you to that. So that my question is, are we in good shape? Or we got some problems? Did I miss that around how whether or not our schools are doing this well? Is that is that I mean, the seven out of the 10, six, you know, the 10 out of the 10. Yeah. I'm not. I'm looking at Ted here because I'm not, I don't think it's an area where it's not an area that we have that I can comment on right now. Okay. And I don't mean to put any extra. Yeah, no, I think it's and I think so there are some next steps and recommended steps. And actually, I'll just, let's, let's get into those right now. I think we'll help. Yeah, I'll just, I'll just note that I'm, I'm sending this link to Hayden to include as an, as an exhibit. And I apologize to the oversight on that. The conclusions, the conclusions from the report is three, three, just making sure I've got the right one here. Yeah. It's three paragraphs. So I could read it quickly. The through line seems to be that educators completing Vermont CPP programs are exposed to evidence based practices for reading and writing instruction. Yeah. But we'll provide a full report for you. Yeah. So the initial recommendation. So one is to align content of the results oriented program approval. So it's the ropa approval process performance based approach to evidence based reading and writing practices. So we are on the final page of the written testimony page seven. Yeah. And that the ropa process is not an area of expertise for myself, but within the agency, you can certainly get you additional information on that process. Bottom of page six. Oh, sorry, bottom of page six. So the second recommendation is reviewing the educator prep program courses to learn about pre service teacher opportunities to apply what they learn in courses practice skills and receive explicit feedback on the application of those skills that they've learned. The third one is developing and delivering professional development to educator prep programs to ensure pre service teachers have opportunities in classroom settings the students to apply practice and receive feedback on evidence based reading and writing instructional practices. And the fourth one is to develop and deliver professional development for districts and writing focusing specifically on areas least reflected in the course syllabi. And so that that fourth recommendation is based on the fact that the review of the writing syllabi were poorer than the reading. So those those are the recommendations from the syllabi project. Okay. So should we go through the rest of this. Okay. So, so, as we walked through earlier, there were four key areas for work within the agency of Ed. And first is the use of federal funds and so. So, within that, so now we're on page, I'm on page two. There's the staffing and organizational focus really focused on building capacity within the agency of Ed. And so we've done that in two critical ways. So one is that I am on board as the Act 28 project manager. And so I started in June. The second big thing is really starting in September of 2021. A cross divisional interdisciplinary team has been working in the agency and that's been really critical for overall coordination across the agency on literacy efforts overall. The second big piece of work that has happened around using the federal funds to act to implement Act 273 of 2018 is focused on the communications and stakeholder engagement. And so that we have ongoing communication with our literacy council chair chair, Gwen Carmale, who I believe you're hearing from on tomorrow is already Friday. Constant communication, communication with membership organizations. We're continuing to expand network improvement communities. And providing technical assistance to to the local to the LEAs. Yeah, please. Just thinking of technical assistance. Are those webinar, PD pods? My camera for that term. Are they up and running now? So they are not up and running yet. And we are in the final stages of contracting procurement. What's the timeline? Do you think a month or two? Yeah, so I'll have to get back to you on the specifics. I'll just note, not just related to this, the process of IT contracting. I'm not sure why and it's, it extends, I think, beyond our agency. The process of IT contracting has become more lengthy. So many projects that we are have ongoing, including replacement of our educator licensing system. I believe it was not this committee, but the house education, your colleagues in the house heard concern about our education licensing system to our IT system being, frankly, outdated. Contracting process takes a long time to do and to work through the many steps related to information technology, so we can try to provide an update. I think we've observed, and correct me if you think I'm wrong on this, we've observed that this process has taken longer than anticipated, even post passage of the legislation. Once it's up and running, it would be great to take a look at it. It's exciting. We would love to come and show it to you. Certainly one of the things too, I think, I'm not 100% sure I want to double check myself and follow up with the committee, but these are learning modules. So I'll just have to find a solution that will work for other learning modules across the agency. Great. I'll call the mods. I'm sorry. And then this is another question that's tangentially related, maybe, but when I was on the advisory literacy committee, I was, I loved it that great work. One thing that made me a little disappointed was that, and I get it, but that we weren't allowed in any way to make any recommendations around curricula for lesson plan companies, products, which I understand we don't want to like give a leg up to some companies or some products and not others. At the same time, you know, we want to have a little bit more centrality in our systems. And I know like in Burlington, we ended up buying a program that we're going to be using across the whole district because it's part of our strategic plan now. It's just, I guess, I would have liked some kind of guidance from the experts, like these products are really good. These are maybe not so good. You know, just some kind of guidance and help in that regard. If I could just ask a clarifying question. Yes. Do you mean not recommending to school districts what they should contact for or recommend to the agency what it should contact for? As a district, I was looking for assistance as someone who's, you know, trying to help my district. It would have been nice to have some kind of, I don't know, guidance or maybe even just like a rating system or, you know, that just would be because I mean I'm sure they're not all equal. Sure, some are better than others. And anyway, this is a suggestion. So following up on Senator Gulick's question about the pods and the modules. So you are right now working to create these and these modules will be videos that teachers can watch to learn how to again teach reading and writing. So they will be, yes, and they are the so they'll be modules that that really focus on the neurological underpinnings of literacy acquisition. And, and so there will be, they'll be stackable and asynchronous so teachers can engage in them as they're able to online. And it is a part of this larger IT contracting process as Ted said and so that it hosting of that is a part of and just that that complexity of this contract. So Senator Gulick's other point, he sounds like there's already technology out there that does some of this stuff, right? I don't know a ton about it, but I know like we have, you know, we purchased a, and I don't know the name of it, but a product to help assist with literacy in our district. I think we're talking about two different things. Yeah, so we're talking about professional development modules that teachers will be able to engage in around the five critical components of literacy, the reading rating. Got it. I'll just, I'll just note. Yes. Just a small clarification. These, the part of the reason why this is more complex from the IT perspective is that we're creating something more in depth. It's a really a whole online course rather than just to be my now many members of our agency create these very long and in depth and well well constructed presentations that we put on YouTube. And despite the fact that it makes me personally a little bit worried because they are difficult from a digital accessibility perspective. We have to do a lot of work to make things accessible. They're wonderful resources that we can relatively easily provide and do in-house. The thing about that is that you can watch them at your own time, but they're not linked back to things like professional development assessment. The kind of things that are necessary for teachers to complete professional learning. So we're talking about creating essentially an online coursework that teachers can complete. And then my understanding is use part of their ongoing professional learning requirements. So that's why it's a little bit more complex than that. It's part of the reason why it's taking longer. And we're also, so it was put out to bid. And so we put it out to bid and have, there were several national groups that bid on doing this. So bringing that expertise to the work. So Ms. Lash, if somebody were going to ask me, all right. So what's happened since the bill itself has passed in terms of training teachers? Nothing yet. Is that accurate? So there are several things that have happened around training teachers. So let's get into that. That's good. And I can't wait to come in and tell you about these modules being live and ready to go. And helping spread the word amongst your constituencies. Okay, so the, so one big piece of work that has also happened is around evidence based practices for literacy instruction. And so we have recommended evidence based practices through a series of guiding documents based on national research. We have included a lot of briefs to make it easier for teachers to break down and make sense of these longer documents around classroom practices. We have with the special education team has developed reading and writing checklist to really help guide and document that students have received appropriate instruction and intervention. And then one piece that we're working really closely with right now with Ted's team, the communications team is creating an evergreen web space to really support the ability of teachers and system leaders to find parents to be able to find evidence based practices and one central spot on our website to just make it easier to navigate towards. For parents, did you say? And including parents, yep. So thinking about all the stakeholders within a school. So, so that's, that's a big, so right now those documents are live on our website and we're working on pulling them together in a more consolidated way and also adding more to that. The other piece that we're working on that I find really that is really exciting as we're collaborating with this region one comprehensive center. Who is providing some technical assistance and support to us as well to develop a literacy blueprint playbook. So a, which will be a stackable resource for system leaders that are that will help them put the statewide literacy plan or literacy blueprint into practice. So that will focus on the evidence based and data, database decision making. And in order to do that we just completed a and a survey to understand the district level of needs and supports to improve literacy outcomes and we had 82% of supervisor unions and districts respond to that and so we're, we're working on. Gathering responses from the 8% that didn't respond, but it's a very actionable number that we have and we have. It provides a lot of depth and insight around what is happening across the state and so we're actively analyzing that and that will provide us a really good foundation of information. So that the professional development and the evidence based resources and this evergreen web space that we're talking about here will be really responsive to the needs of of districts across the states and that's the intent there so I think that that that just this process of gathering information and understanding to make informed and strategic choices about how we how we move forward is important. So other professional develop I know you asked specifically about professional development I am going to I'm going to jump over here to page I'm using a slightly edited document so I think it's page. Five the in service professional learning so the literacy professional development we talked about bottom of page five five we talked about the pre service learning and educator prep program syllabi project and now we'll focus on the other in service professional learning that's happening. So we already had on that first bullet which is about the modules self paced online learning modules that will cover the five areas of literacy instruction. There also are Vermont early learning standards training modules that are developed that will be hosted on an online platform. And then we're in a active. We're in the final process of selecting a vendor who will provide professional development and training around family engagement and literacy. And so this is also a really exciting development and I can say with hopefully I should that this will this will roll out by by this summer so this will be professional development really targeting this summer is an important time. Yeah, I just want to jump in there. I'm not sure everyone in the committee knows and I only know this because I was a teacher but there are a lot of times in the summer there's a real downturn in reading ability or reading levels because kids are out for you know two and a half months and so it's really important to have those tools and resources in the summer to keep those levels up. Hopefully. Yeah, it's a great point and Senator Williams has a bill about would you say a straight year long school. Good luck with that one. Didn't we talk. No, just in the school in the summer. Right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. After her. Right. No, right. So this work around the family engagement and literacy and the professional development it will be two fold so we it will have will be literacy family engagement workshops. So engaging families in in literacy and then also small group supplemental literacy instruction that will be aligned with those workshops and so that that will be soon. Great forthcoming as well. The other piece that is really exciting and it's very active is that we're a part of work with the chief council state council of chief state school. There is no common term for secretary of education in the country so that is the professional association for all of the state education agencies. And they are doing this work called a network improvement community and so through that work. There's job embedded coaching that several of our districts are participating in and so there's active professional development and coaching happening there. And they're working directly with a national lead recognized researcher Dr Sharon Walpole. And so that is really focused on collaborative professional learning. They go through a plan study do act cycles and so they're they're actively the teachers are actively coming together trying out with their learning coming back sharing what's working and what's not. And so that that is a perfect that's currently happening right now. I just can't to break in having participated in some meetings related to another network improvement community. This is something that we do sort of across our portfolio can't emphasize how enough how amazing CCSO is as a resource. As a matter of fact CCSO is part of the reason why you heard from Mario Correño earlier on school instruction because we were able to reach out to our Rhode Island contacts. Do you hear about their program of the request and how is that. Thank you. I just wanted to ask a question. So I just had a general question. What are what do teachers think about these programs and did they share any thoughts on it. For general. Or is that a very broad question. That's a great question. And it's a great question. That's a very broad question. Speaking generally one of the things just not related to literacy. One of the things I would love us to be better about as an agency is understanding what the needs are from almost all of our target audiences. Frankly, you hear me slide into communications directors speak right. One teachers are one group of folks among parents and students that we talked to. I do not know that we have surveyed them on literacy. We have not teachers specifically. You're not serving them specifically. But it's something that we'd like to do more of just more general and just literacy. I think center issues questions a great one. Yeah, hopefully you take that back. Think about that. It's huge. Right. I also think is where it's a really important question as there are many opportunities coming up around professional development. So really ensuring that communication and ability to access these opportunities. But also that it's done in a coordinated fashion. Well, I hope one thing that blueprint does is just send the message that we really need to improve our literacy skills in the state and that there are a lot of folks who are behind it. And, you know, sometimes it's all about messaging and getting people excited. It's going to be work right for some people to learn a new way to teach reading. It's going to be work and it's going to take time and resources. But if there's just this collective sense that this is a priority for everybody, I think that's helpful. So hopefully that's one of the messages that will come through with the blueprint. And when we really start pushing it in as best we can. I do want to just know because the to orient to the to the two reports from the advisory council. So this year's report was recommendations to update the blueprint. Last year's report was recommendations on the section. I'm so sorry. Beth, I'm forgetting which section it is to 903, which is the section of law and literacy and reading instruction that hasn't been updated since 09. The recommendations are for that from the advisory council are contained in last year's report, which you can find on the committee website. I can provide a for just for convenience. I just checked with Emily beforehand. The agency is not prepared to comment on their recommendations today. But it's something if you're interested in taking those up that we can certainly come back and talk to you. So I think we're getting close to it here. So I did note earlier these this we're continuing this collaboration with the region one comprehensive center really focused on developing this playbook. And then also developing a statewide community of practice religion literacy educators and so that actually I think that gets to this question of teachers of it and so that will be an opportunity for educators across the state to engage and engage with one another. And then the that one other piece to note that we will be there will be shortly I'm hoping within the next two months. Six weeks I have in my notes here as there will be a request for proposals put out for a statewide model. Coordinated curriculum for English language arts and literacy and so that gets to your point here of providing. It will not be a list but it will be a statewide model for coordinated curriculum and so that will be putting that out to fit and so we'll get responses and then work from there to select someone so that's nice. I'm very glad you left Kentucky. How did you find that is a little known fact. Oh really that I grew up and I grew up in Kentucky. I'm very happy that you're here doing this work. Yeah. Very happy to be here. Center weeks. Just a curiosity question looks like the bulk of the act was to find. Professional developing modules, which seem to have equated to online online training. I'm just curious from the agency's perspective on the reception that goes back to the question. Is this the best vehicle for improving enhancing teachers literacy. Technology or one format versus another. You know, we've all done a lot of online training. One thing we noticed. I believe that is it from his last year's work. Why am I sure who addressed it best. One thing we noticed when the pandemic happened and we had to start doing almost all of our technical assistance and professional learning online is that we started to see a much better representation from around the state or geographic perspective where either holding things in Montpelier or a lot of times we'd be convening things, trying to convene things in regional centers or a lot of professional learning for educators is convened unfortunately in County with some in Washington County. So certainly the ability to provide online options at the very least is something you really like. The other thing about these models today will be self paced and asynchronous. So you can take them this year you can take the next year you can take them when you wish rather than having to try to schedule an in service day or try to do it in the summer or find a time or maybe miss an opportunity because your district schedule doesn't align with it or what have you. So there are plenty of those options still out there but that's one major benefit to having the online. Okay, and maybe from a, I don't know if you kind of watch national trends but nationally are we seeing that these are effective professional enhancement products. Is it having that result is really, I know it's too early for this program. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I don't have specific data on the national results but I think the trend that we're seeing nationally even like Rhode Island, the folks that were just in here talking they have taken a really similar approach where it's one part of professional development overall and so I think that that's the way that we're the lens that we're using as well as like this is one piece of it that is an important piece and it's a way to to with the the limitations of traveling for in person sessions. It's an opportunity that teachers will be able to plug into on their time and when works for them, but also being really mindful of the need to complement that with other offerings as well and so that is one piece that developing this community of practice that we talked about for literacy educators. Whether that's a monthly getting together and being able to debrief with with others and so thinking about how we can use those modules as a platform for doing other work in professional development as well and in other conversations. Yeah, but I think it's an important question. Concluding comments from you. We have about 30 minutes on Act 1 and 30 minutes on PE. Yes, you've got a packed afternoon here. We have made it through a lot of information here. I just want to say something generally which is that if you go to page two middle of the page where it talks about staffing organization. Emily spoke about it earlier. I just want to know that one of the things that the agency does often that a position was created or actually a contractor. Provision was created that ended up in the higher employment and service position in Emily and it takes much more than just one position often the agency. You've heard Secretary French sort of refer to this either passing or more specifically is that we when we have when we identify needs or when the legislature makes laws we reorganize ourselves often to meet those needs. And so the you know you're seeing the your work here but you're also seeing how we organize through a lot of a lot of information how we weave it together with existing. Opportunity or existing programs find additional opportunities and try to create something that is as comprehensive as possible so I just wanted to signal that and draw that out there. It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of collaboration internal and with partners and we try to make sure it's aligned with all of the other work that we're doing. We're going to have to leave it there. Thanks very much. Really appreciate it. I just this is very helpful. Yeah, thank you all for your time. Yeah, and good work for you. Work on this. Thank you. Three minutes and we're going to 30 minutes on act one and 30 minutes on physical education and welcome back to Senate education. Miss Garces, thank you so much for joining us. You have the floor. And I know you have. Of course, we know Miss Myers from her work. But we don't know. Am I pronouncing it correctly? Just Soria. Soria. Soria. Thank you. The floor is yours and tell us a little bit about act one. This is a completely new group of people for the Senate. And so they're all curious about act one and its implementation. Great. Great. And we have until four when the physical educators are gone. Okay. So we'll rush it. Don't rush it. You can at least have you back. Yeah. Thank you for the record. My name is Amanda Garcette. I'm the director of policy education and outreach for the Vermont Human Rights Commission and the chair of the act one working group. And I'm Chelsea Myers. I'm the associate executive director at Vermont superintendents association. And I'm here in my capacity as a representative on the act one working group for this entire duration. I'm Diego Soria. I'm a junior at Montpelier high school and I'm mentoring a brand up as well as an act one. Great. Nice to have a student here. So we'll start by just giving you a background of why act one exists. Would it be helpful to tell you when we're switching slides if it's not up here? Sure. Oh yeah. Yeah. We're on the remembering the why 1999 slide. Did you want to bring it up? It's up to you. Okay. So, so just to give a background of why act one exists in 1999. The advisory committee in the US commission of civil rights publisher report that say that racism in Vermont school was pervasive. They didn't follow up reporting 2003 that said some changes were made but it's still not a priority among school administrators school board selected officials state agencies. Charged with civil rights enforcement enforcement. In 2017, the act one at 54 report racial disparities in state systems was issued by the human rights commissions and the attorney general's office task force concluded that education was one of the five state systems in which racial disparities persisted and needed to be addressed and as a recommendation. They said that we need to change that the culture a little bit and also to teach to teach children from an integrated curriculum. That represent the both the contributions of people of color, as well as indigenous people, women, people with disabilities and fairly actually represent in our history and oppression of discourse. Are you all familiar with the youth risk behavioral survey. That provides some pretty valuable data about how our kids are doing and in 2019. The report found pretty startling information about LGBTQ youth in our state. For example, twice as likely to be have been bullied 3.5 times as likely to have experienced experience unwanted sexual contact. And 4.5 times as likely to have attempted suicide in the last 12 months. So pretty startling data. And so actual one. So after one was the result of a lot of advocates that came together. So if you think 1990 report things of the grandmas. Now that were the parents of some of the kids in the school. So these are it was brought in. It was created and written by a group of grassroots activists who came from BIPOC communities, LGBTQ communities and people with disabilities. And disability justice advocate and really to center the inclusion that was culturally responsive, anti-racist, and discrimination. And in 2019 this legislature signed acts one and two law. So the act one working group consists of state leaders and education, high school students, civil society advocates and community members who care deeply about the causes of act one. I'll say from personal experience, it's been one of the most rewarding professional experiences that I've had at BSA just a lot of hours, I mean a lot of hours spent unfortunately in zoom rooms. But building relationships, really diving into the language and thinking about what's best for all kids has been great experience with all the other associate education associations as well as members from the community. So the working group is 23 members for students. We have indigenous representatives from the religious community. We have all the VBA, all the B, they're both often in these rooms curriculum directors, associations and my office, which is the human rights commission, the office of racial equity, plus the rest are community members adopted, by the Education Justice Coalition, which is a grassroots organization that does education justice in Vermont. So there's all these community members who are advocates in different avenues from disability rights to LGBTQ rights to black and brown families. So for the past three years, we focus our charge on the education quality standards. Basically what we put in is CS5th floor of our work. Yeah, so for those who don't know that education quality standards are a governmental rule from the State Board of Education, and it's really kind of like a blueprint for education in the state of Vermont is looking at what's important for schools to teach in terms of values, of subjective and aspirations, as well as, again, that blueprint on guiding districts as they develop curriculum in their local systems. So I'm sure you've all heard that curriculum is adopted is created and adopted locally. So this is not a curriculum document, but instead kind of a blueprint guiding document for the state. And so when we edited the proposed changes in the EQS, we really focused on changes to direct instruction curriculum, not curriculum itself, but like how curriculum is produced and led at the local level, expanded anti-discrimination protections, professional development of school staff, flexible pathways to learning. That was a big one. Just really thinking about who's accessing flexible pathways and what are the barriers of access to flexible pathways, school board policies and administrative leadership, school community collaboration, and that was really a focus of like what our school boards doing to connect with community, what policies are in place that sort of work and restorative justice practices. And so the revising we have kind of this overall thinking, which is our charter, like how does a document like this promote critical thinking around illustrative contributions and viewpoints, encourage students to really explore questions of effective social identities, provide welcome spaces for all of our students and develop pathways for families to really be able to talk about a child's experience related to race, ethnic or social group identity at school. The statement of purpose basically is what is guiding everything and saying that the underline is our additions to the statement of purpose of the current EQS, which is that schools need to be equitable, anti-racist, culturally responsive, anti-discriminatory and inclusive. And we add that we should also include independent schools. Some of the ways that Act 1 was to support students is creating spaces that improve student well-being. I do a lot of, I guess listening to a lot of the marginalized groups in our schools like kids from who have a Kazakhstan background, Armenia, South America, like a lot of different groups. And one of the big things that many of them talk about is not being able to feel supported in curriculum. They feel supported by each other like through culture and through like food and stuff like that. But one of the common struggles that we talk about is not being able to have any influence on the curriculum. And that it is for all students. So you'll see a lot of slides. We're not going to read all of them, but to give you a snapchat of kind of like the work, how we're thinking about students living in poverty. That how do we ask that to recognize and reduce any financial barriers to access of flexible pathways, furthering economic justice by asking schools to teach about and help students understand why everyone should have economic opportunities. And then you want to talk a little more about. Yeah, so really supporting BIPOC students in Vermont tech fuel is very important because my own experiences moving here from Arizona, which is a very diverse place and coming here, I felt very kind of alone and not supported, not being able to express things like I can't share like foods with other people. And that's a very isolating feeling and to know that there's people who are working on creating a more welcoming space in schools here makes not only me feel good, but as well as my peers at the high school and I'm sure in other high schools. Just as Amanda mentioned this, we think that the edits are inclusive of all students and we particularly looked at how the education quality standards can support our LGBTQIA plus youth, especially with the national narrative going on now just really doubling down on anti discrimination, equity and inclusion for those students and thinking of the language, particularly around that. And then the, we also thought about students with disabilities and how the education quality standards align with our other like federal protections at 173, which you heard yesterday, we were really thinking about how can we reinforce and support the other laws on the books that are supporting students with disabilities and making, of course, inclusive language. So for an example, we added some language about accessible print and multimedia that was in the document before. For multilingual students, you know, being able to communicate to parents and legal guardians about opportunities for flexible pathways in ways that are culturally and linguistically inclusive. We talked a lot, spent a lot of time about thinking through multilingual families like my family and how like that affects me growing up. When I came when I was 16, I have, you know, my mom never had anything translated. But, you know, like thinking through all of those experiences of how do we really support families with English second language, which kids sometimes end up translating for their parents or like their caregivers, what they need. So I think, you know, we've really had a lot of conversations around being multilingual and about those services that students can get and how they get information in their different languages. So at one of our first meetings, we really talked about where this work situates in the context of kind of the education guiding frameworks in Vermont. So I talked about the education quality standards, which is kind of that overarching blueprint of education. But when we think about ethnic and social equity standards, we thought about in that diagram is from the Vermont Agency of Education, should that be another standalone type of course, for example? So you have math and literacy and science standards and global citizenship standards. Should it sit beside it and be another category? Or should it, in the next slide, be situated on top and be a lens in which all the other subject areas are viewed through. And so as a working group, we really thought about that second option of that lens for which all the other standards are viewed through. Alright, just a quick question. The CCSS, NGSS, C3, what would it say? So C3 is the like social studies standards that are generally adopted at the local level. The next gen science standards are a national set of standards that are generally adopted at the local level. And then I actually don't know what the acronyms are for the literacy and math. English language arts? The CCSS. Oh, Common Core, I'm sorry. And these are adopted by the State Board of Education, right, like the State Board. These are the academic standards that have been adopted by them. And our job was to look at these standards to make sure that they were relevant to all of the communities. So that was a decision, our first decision, January 2019, or 2020. It was like, are we going to do our work as a standalone or is it something that is going to be adopted? So all of the content standards are viewed. So we finished our education body standards in April. We submitted, we got a lot of feedback from a lot of people. We submitted to the State Board of Education. And since then they created a subcommittee that's been looking at this document. And it's about to go into rulemaking process in a few months where the State Board will look at it. The subcommittees got some public comments. They've made some changes. We've kind of been collaborating back and forth with the Act 1 Working Group to ensure that there's alignment or that they understand the whole context. And so hopefully in the next few months they will be voting on it. The rulemaking process will go through and the State will adopt that. As part of our last work, what we're working on right now, Do you want to talk about that? Do you want to talk about the policies? Sure. Oh yeah. We also formed a policy subcommittee group that will be looking at are there any policies that are maybe missing from required policies or model policies at BSBA that could help support this work, especially like around the school board function of the changes that we're asking for. So we haven't gotten very far into that work, but that is kind of another stage in the final stages of the working group. So we'll be done on June 30th. By then we will have a set of recommendations around policies that will crosswalk with anything that we're making. And we, the legislature approved $50,000 in the last year to support our work with the consultant. So we failed three attempts of the simplified bid for because we're proposal, but now we have an amazing team of consultants who are ethnic studies experts who are helping us build an ethnic studies framework. So there's a subcommittee that was created that is meeting every week for like three hours and like diving deep. And, you know, we'll be done with hopefully that by May and we will hold shop in June. So in your last few slides, it's just, we just wanted to give you what the framework looks like. And there's some examples in there. New York State Education Department has a framework that they use Washington state. And so that's kind of what we're going to be building for Ramon. It's a framework that will be used hopefully with all the content standards. So when they're looking at math, you know, there will be components that, you know, teachers when they're building their curriculum will be thinking about to meet those standards. So that's kind of, I won't go into that. Those last slides were created by our firm Michael Martin, who's the curriculum director's association rep. But yeah, so I know we only have 10 minutes. So do you have questions for us? I'll really quickly add Amanda McGrath from the Brown Principles Association. And I have been doing quite a bit of traveling around the state, talking to different stakeholders about what they think they're going to need for implementation and really just getting the word out there at different opportunities and having discussions about like what's the fear and like really building on the fact that a lot of this work is already happening and uplifting it and thinking about it from a system-wide perspective. So that's just starting, but I think it's been really rewarding experience and we'll need more of that for sure. So let's sort of look before and after if you will. What does education look like before this is implemented? And what does it look like after? Is it the lens itself how we're looking through? Can you just say something about that? A constituent would just say, hey, just give me the quick skinny on this. What is it? I think we could start, if it's okay, with a story as an example of like where the story about your classroom experience and what that looks like could potentially be the type of experience that students are hopefully going to experience statewide. That'd be great. So I had an English teacher in my sophomore year who I made a really good connection with. We just like really connected deeply. And I asked him about one day what he thought about the topic when in the English language a lot of people, when they say America, it's specifically talking about the United States, but America in itself is not just the US, but it's South America, the United States, Mexico, Canada, it's that whole part. And there's a song that went pretty viral and it's called This Is Not America. And it has a lot of just like the artist is kind of just showing like all of the Latino side of things and how it impacts the United States and how just the Latino experience feeling like kind of like quieted down, I guess. And he offered that it was a great opportunity for his class. So I helped him teach the class one day with that song and I analyzed it with the class and made those connections. So I think with that question, just kind of incorporating all those things to give kids a more open view of perspective. Yeah, so I hear voice and choice, sense of belonging, cultural representation in the curriculum, student driven content. I think it's like the perfect embodiment of what we're hoping for across classrooms. And what we do here is that this document is in some ways in Vermont, you know, the practice is ahead of the document, right? Like there are some educators that are already doing it. So I think that's really important for us to like really that what you're doing with it, what we're doing with this is really supporting those educators that are really doing this work that are trying and attempting to have like the students be, all students have like find that their way. So finding that just helps your education. I suspect so. I mean, we all have to find those passions, those interests, and if we're not feeling recognized, then that's hard. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. This is so important and I can't help but as we just were talking about school construction is I'm thinking how are we going to build culturally responsive schools, the physical structure when the time comes. So I'm really excited about that. But I also just wanted to say, you know, this work is so critical, not only for our BIPOC students to be able to see themselves in the classroom and in the curriculum, but for, you know, for me, growing up in Vermont, there's so much I didn't learn and I've had to kind of recoup it as an adult. And I often feel a little bit sort of angry about how narrow my education was. So I'm really hoping that this expands what we learn in terms of lived histories and, you know, the truth, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the whole kit and caboodle of complex histories. And so I really appreciate this. Thank you very much. And thanks for coming after school. I'm sure that was, I'm sure you're exhausted, but thank you for being here. Okay. Senator Hashim. I just wanted to say, you know, this, so Act 1 was actually the very first bill that I voted on in the house and the house because they're so wonderful. I wanted to make sure that this was at the top of the priority list. And I remember after voting, I was like, I wonder what this is going to look like in two or three years. So it's really wonderful to see the work you're doing. And at least, at least for my district, I can't remember the numbers, but I know Wyndham County is one of the fastest changing when it comes to demographics. I think this is setting a good stage for students and adults across the state. So thank you. Thank you all for coming. We really appreciate it. So we do have four recommendations for you. Yeah. So we just encourage the state board to adopt the recommended changes for formal room making would be helpful. And then considering the work this work and, you know, the principles of this work when working on any new instructional initiatives or any initiatives in general. The example is like school construction for, you know, and when you ski school district is a great example of how school design can be really critical for communities. And then explore, I think, talking with the agency of education on the implementation of this work and what the plan is because I think that teachers are going to need to feel really supported in this. It can be really scary in some communities to implement this. And we just want to make sure that we're bolstering that support as much as possible. I think with the new instructional initiatives, I think it's really important as we're building this framework to that we're really connecting all the pieces. I think that when we think of ethnic studies is like, okay, there's a class is like, no, like this framework is really going to be impacting a lot of things. And, you know, we, we have really amazing experts that are helping us build this and we just don't want it to be like, okay, they created that and it's going to be on the shelf. It's like, how does it really connect with everything as a lens for all of our students? And I want to emphasize that we really mean it when we say all of our students like when like really deeply every working group member really believes that this is not just for our BIPOC students but that all of our students will benefit. And how we see that capacity being built for like something is that the practices already happen and we have really amazing educators and doing really good work and that we should also support them. And like we were thinking like this mentorship idea, like how do we, they, who have already doing who are connected, who really have it down to support others that really want to do but don't know what kind of questions they ask. Because that's really the most important questions like they're afraid because they don't know because we didn't learn these things because there is a lot of work that we're going to have to do deeply to think about like how our position and how we implement these things. So that we really support them but that we support them as a team that is not just one teacher but like here we're going to pay you so that we can help create some units that other ones can learn. And so I think there's really great educators and I just want to lift them up because this work is possible because of them. It would be helpful if you'd be willing to maybe just keep in your mind identify a few of those folks maybe after crossover. We finished with, you know, what we passed to the house we might have some time there to have them come in give us a sense of how they're teaching what they're teaching be really, really interesting and always it's great to have students come in and talk to us. That is a big difference. Future senator maybe? Yeah. Washington County right? Yeah. Hershoes. Thank you all very much. Good to see you. Thanks a million. Yeah. Appreciate it. Great work. Ian. How are you? How are you? Good. Want to have a seat? We have, you know, roughly 25 minutes or so. Sure. We have a couple of people signing on too. Great. I think that you lead the discussion. There we go. Or lead the sort of part of the conversation. Great. You've got that. Mark, have we started? Do you want to write it together? Is that what this is? Disabled education. Great. Hello. Pat? Yes. Good to see you. Good to see you too. So we've asked you here a couple of weeks ago. We had people in the committee. And then we were actually visited by Ms. Vermont, who has also raised some interesting questions around physical education and health education. And so a couple of things just for you to think about, set the table for the conversation, I would say we'd like to know what this education looks like in this case. How often are students getting it? I for one little concern, maybe they're not getting as much. I'd love to know that. Health education also, we don't have to go through everything about health education. But one of the things that Ms. Vermont said that I thought was very interesting was how can we use health education as a vehicle for young people to identify some of their struggles, mental health issues that they might be dealing with. And just techniques, just acknowledging those mental health issues, trying to capture some of those mental health issues and getting them the assistance they need, knowing that they're not alone. And kind of what they might be feeling and thinking about is just also normal stuff, possibly. So that is where we're at. So anything you can do to help us with you would be appreciated. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. The focus today is mostly on physical education that I can explore. That won't stop us from asking questions. I was going to say, as we talk about health education, I am the, my name is Ian, I'm the health and physical education's content specialist within the proficiency based learning team, within the student pathways division at the agency of education. So my background is in health education and physical education. Before you start. Yeah. From the proficiency based learning team leader, and Ian is one of the great members of my team. We're in student pathways and Ian has been working at the agency now for six months. All of six months. He's a rock star. You're still lucky to have him. We'll see about that. Don't say that. So I'm going to go through. You're able to hear us too. Barking myself. Yeah. So I'm going to start off with a little bit of kind of an overview of what the, it looks like across the state, looking at your statue, just kind of the basis for why do we have physical education and Vermont. We're joined by a participant or a physical educator who teaches at flood brick school. And then Lisa Cleveland, who is the physical education teacher education coordinator at Castleton University or Vermont system. So they're going to be able to talk a little bit more about the practice and also some of the things that they're seeing in the field, but I can provide kind of an overview at the state level and even, you know, looking at what does it look like across different schools and Vermont. Yes, it does. So I did type something up. I'm going to read some of it. So a health and physical education as course is a study provides students with essential skills for healthy living after high school. Students that participate in physical education are almost twice as likely to maintain a healthy level of physical activity after graduation. Research also suggests that greater opportunities to engage in physical activity and physical education within the school day are connected with student academic achievement, behavior management, overall health, and also connected to school attendance. So physical education in Vermont supports student health in a context where student health needs to have grown in many areas, which we've explored a little bit about. Based on 2019 youth behavior risk survey data, which Dr. Mcrub also mentioned, a quarter of Vermont high school students reported overweight to high ratio. A quarter of high school students in the same survey also reported that they did not meet the U.S. Department of Health physical activity recommendations, which is essentially just 60 minutes of physical activity a day. LGBT students reported both lower rates of physical activity and higher rates of obesity than other student counterparts. The growing health mental health needs of students in Vermont have also been discussed here. And physical education is therefore important for all Vermont students. So, overview, and then I can talk a little bit about the Vermont State Statute board rules. That's about that, and that provides a lot of the framework for how it actually is in the state. So there are several statutes to provide direction in physical education practice. Physical education is noted as a required course of study in 16 BSA 906, just as English is. 16 BSA 136 provides further nuance to what physical education should look like in the state as it defines physical education as a sequential environmentally appropriate program. There's an enjoyable experience for students and is designed to help students develop the knowledge skills, self-management skills, attitudes, and confidence needed to adopt and maintain physical fitness throughout their lives. So how often does it happen? Does that go district to district? That's going down here into the education. Quality standards. So the paragraph below that talks a little bit about the tiered systems of support within physical education, which are an important part to require by federal and state law. But Vermont State Board of Education has written in BQS also states, each school shall provide students in grades K through 8 with at least two physical education classes per week. Each school shall provide students in grades 9 through 12 with one and one half years of physical education there. So that's what's in BQS. How does that compare to other states? That's a great question. I'll have to look into that. We can also, it would be great if you would email Peyton Ross to give us a sense of where we are in comparison. So again, so generally, two days a week? Two days a week, K through 8, and these books can probably talk a little bit about what that might look like in practice. I would say that it ranges. And I would suggest talking to some of the folks that are in practice because yes, I think it ranges. I know it ranges. So while we have on this topic, would one of you just let us know how often, so it sounds two times a week, but how many minutes, it's really getting some serious exercise. I'm looking at you, Mark. Yep. I can gladly chime in. Yes. So the mandate is two times weekly, and I'm a K health and P teacher. But it is always it is based on the school schedule. So there's no timeframe in that statute, which is the downfall, right? I'm always striving to get my kids 60 minutes of exercise daily. But currently my schedule is 35 minute classes twice a week for my K to K to six or K to five kids. Sorry. And my six through eight kids see me three times a week for 35 minutes. And that has fluctuated from as many as 45 minutes in my career here at floodbrook. So I've been here since 2005. Sometimes I've had them for 45 minutes. Sometimes I've had them for an hour. Sometimes I've had them for a shortest 30 minutes. So because there's no time frame in that statute, it definitely leaves it up to the district's discretion. And even within my own BRSU, I'm in the BRSU supervisor union, we're striving to get some consistency, but that has been hard for us as well. We're trying to say within, to our superintendent, we would at least like the kids being the same within our SU, but even within our own SU, we have timeframes all over the place. They're seeing them twice, we're seeing them twice a week, but that is it. Mark, you've been at this for a while, almost 20 years. Sounds like Yeah, I've been in Vermont since 2005. I started teaching in 1997. So 25 years, sir. Yeah, so are you seeing greater obesity issues or less? Or can you just say something about that? Um, Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, like, yeah, I guess that's just an objective question. I think it's, you know, it comes and goes. I guess it depends on the group of kids in the class and their upbringing, you know, it's, it, there's a lot of factors that go into that, um, COVID has definitely been a hit for a lot of the kids. Um, I know I, you know, I know, like, fitness testing is a big question mark out there for a lot of people, but, you know, that has been a great realization for my kids here because we've been doing it forever. It's part of what I do here. Um, those kids, the kids that have been doing it are some of my best comments from kids have been like, holy cow, no exercise for one year is really impacted how many like, you know, how well how good my flexibility is, how well I can run. Um, so I think it was great for me to be doing that free COVID and then after COVID it was awesome for those kids to come back to the gym and be like, holy cow, I'm out of shape. So I think it goes back and forth between the two. Thank you. Just out of curiosity, um, are students ever evaluated for obesity? You know, formally is that, you know, is there ever a weight, uh, you know, body mass index review with students? Or is that just not somewhere? Yeah, not within P, not within my curriculum. Um, most of it has been through the, you know, our physicals that we have kids get through the pediatrician. So we have that within our school, um, umbrella that that has done via pediatrician. Um, okay. So our nurse holds all that data then, so she collects that and has that. Um, so I see that, like I have access to it, but it's not part of something that I do with NPE, as far as measuring that NPE. We talk about it, but we don't actually measure it. Thank you. Yes. And so, thank you Mark for that. Um, I'm going to just talk a little bit about some of the, overall trends. So if you turn to this lovely page, or some below points out, uh, some statistics that come from a variety of sources, Vermont Agency of Education, Vermont Department of Health, US Department of Education. Um, and these are related mostly to public schools. Um, so just not to read every single one, but pulling out a couple things of importance. Uh, in 2020, three quarters of Vermont schools require physical education teachers to follow a written physical education curriculum. Also in 2020, nearly half allow for these waivers, exemptions, or substitutions for physical education requirements. Um, looking at school improvement plans, this data is also from 2020. Um, although it's increased the level that health education and physical activity are built into school improvement plans, we saw a noticeable dip between 2018 and 2020, uh, meaning that physical education goals are less included within school improvement plans as they were from 2020 to 2020. Um, and also looking at the teacher level in both 2020 and 2021, uh, there's been a statewide shortage of physical education teachers in Vermont. Uh, in 2021, there were 19 physical educators granted first year provisional or emergency license is to teach in the state. Um, and then you can look at kind of at this back page. This is just a breakdown of different courses that are offered. Um, and attendance would end them. There's a range of courses that exist. Um, and these are credit like courses. So, um, and actually I was going hand over my time to these folks who, as I said, six months, but also lots of experience up here, um, to talk a little bit about the preparation part as well as the practice. Thank you. Okay. I guess that's my cue then. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm appearing on zoom. Um, but it's been a busy time here at Castleton, especially given the library closures and the nutty stuff going on here. So I'm happy to talk about physical education and likewise, if you have health education questions, I could probably answer those as well. This is my 19th year here at Castleton. Again, as Ian mentioned, the teacher education coordinator here, I oversee the preparation of our students who are going to become teachers, not only in Vermont, but whatever other state they travel back to and right now a lot of them are traveling back to home states. They are not staying in Vermont. We place the majority of our students in Vermont schools. We also though have a typical number of maybe a quarter every year that we place in New York schools as well. Uh, I know probably two thirds of the physical educators in Vermont. They've either come through my program or I know them through other professional organizations. So I am literally in the schools watching what's going on. My student teachers are in the schools telling me what's going on and we're doing the training to try to improve the quality of physical education as well as health education in our schools. My probably the biggest takeaway I can give you today is the inequity I see in schools across the state where we have teachers that are highly qualified, teachers that are struggling, teachers that do not have the time to teach their students in Rutland where Senator Weeks and Senator Williams your kindergarteners are getting one day a week for the best teachers I know because that's what they're allotted and I know that time is precious and, you know, there's a lot that goes on in schools but the intent of providing quality daily physical activity is really tough when students aren't becoming physically educated to want to be physically active beyond the PE class and that's really what a successful PE class is. Teacher candidates it's not what you're doing in your class it's what they're taking from your class and what the kids are doing beyond your classroom time that's when you know you're successful. So I'm happy to answer any questions you have about teacher preparation or physical education or health education in general in Vermont. That was very helpful just to know that there are kindergarteners out there that are just getting that one day and we're really talking could be 20 minutes and from where I'm sitting it's great socialization it's great post-COVID like Mark said getting back into the physical act part of life and so frankly it's just disappointing so I think one of the things we can learn from the agency is whether or not I guess maybe Lisa what is this pitting up against what is it when a kindergartener is only getting 20 minutes a week what's happening there are people just saying we can't find the time because the kids have to be doing what can you help us with that? That's what I hear from my teachers in the field we're not getting the time because there is so much other so much other stuff going on in schools and it's all valuable so the new role I think that physical educators are really trying to take on in schools as well is addressing the social emotional needs of our youth we're trying to train our teacher educators to address those SEL outcomes it's not about we need to be competitive in sport it's about let's figure out how we're going to have students self-regulate and not get anxious or angry at one another and so trying to modify our curriculum to meet the needs of current students but again if students aren't getting the time to practice those skills to learn those skills then the preparation doesn't matter here but if I could go ahead I was just going to piggyback on that if you don't mind we just have a question and then we'll go to you Mark this may be a big one that's not really answerable but I have heard and I think other countries espouse this notion of more academic work doesn't necessarily need better academic there is a place where more structured play and physical activity actually will lead to more learning and again like you don't need to give me any data around that but it is an interesting concept and I guess I'm interested in learning more about that as we talk about this that's a great point Senator Goulick the data has been out there for 20 years and again I think that data is going to shift now more towards social emotional outcomes given what we experienced through the pandemic and what the additional needs of students are now but you're right on target the academic benefits for quality physical activity are there Senator Williams has a question so what I'm hearing is you know we have a shortage of teachers and is it the administration is deciding that P.E. takes a back seat to other learning needs and I've also seen school buses going by my place in my town at 245 so how do we put it all into one day that we expand the day for the educators so as far as the shortage in teachers right now pre-COVID again this is my perception I'm the person that writes recommendations for students to get jobs it was a competitive market schools weren't hiring as many teachers teachers are staying longer in their jobs school districts were taking physical educators and splitting them between schools or hiring them as 25 or 0.8 you know this weird system where you're not a whole professional during the day you're a 0.8 professional COVID saw just like other content areas a plethora of teachers retiring leaving early and I've told my students you are in the best job market you'll ever be in that being said we're not keeping up with supporting our students here we're not keeping up with students teaching they find that it's not what it's cracked up to be it's hard they're seeing violence in schools kids are fighting they recognize they're not being supported as physical educators and they say I'm going to go into a different career so the other thing that's happened over the last 10 years there's really two physical education programs left they're not accepting any new students and most of their grads left the state Norwich because of the nature of Norwich's program a lot of their students leave the state those that stay they're wonderful they're highly qualified and as I mentioned about a quarter of ours were already placing New York they're not coming back to Vermont to work where they can get better pay or better support that's optimistic about coming out of COVID and the cohort of students we have coming up but right now we definitely are in like this weird place where there's nobody available there's no one taking jobs I literally two hours ago had one of my former students asking me I'm going on maternity leave do you have anybody that can take my spot for six months and I'm like they're already gone so so yeah I got sorry I got a bunch of notes on all that perfect um so I could chime in just follow Lisa on the tidbit of just the teachers right like we we had a great we have a great program at floodbrook right we have a full-time PE teacher we have a full-time health person we have a full-time guidance counselor we have a full-time social worker like we are we are ready for all of it right our program is so good that our supervisor union one it has duplicated it across the school you know across our SU so our health teacher moved to another school that was closer to her right she was awesome she was here for eight years she was a castleton grad right we just recently replaced her so it's been a year and a half to try to find a health teacher to replace her therefore all of that work not in a bad way sort of got kicked back to teaching both health and PE cramming it into my schedule luckily we found someone that is you know going to be here to teach so it's one of these things of like for us it was we were doing a great job everybody recognized we were doing a great job they duplicated it what we're doing across our whole SU and now we lost one of our great great teachers she's still with us she's just in a different building right so that's one piece of that right I agree with the structured play piece right now one of my greatest comments I get from middle school kids all the time is they want to get rid of recess and have more PE they want to be with the PE teacher doing structured activity going hiking snowshoeing playing volleyball in a structured fashion as opposed to recess right I have way less discipline problems while I have them structured and doing something as opposed out at recess so that's sort of dealing with that recess question a little bit and doing structured play and then back even further you know someone's comment about just timeframe right we have if I see the kids twice weekly which is the state mandate right now 30 minutes there's only 36 weeks in a school year that's 36 hours I only see the kids for 36 hours for physical education within a school year sometimes that resonates with parents about how little I actually see them like 36 hours is not much time for me to spend with them throughout a school year now how I've countered this a little bit is I definitely have taken stuff out of my classroom right so I've gotten snowshoes I got a grant for snowshoes I've assigned those to a classroom right there's a classroom teacher that takes the kids snowshoeing instead of me so I'm getting them active elsewhere right I started with COVID I started we started sending home gear in my SU so instead of the kids if we're doing jump roping in class I'm sending a jump rope home for the kids so my budget and some grant money and some local you know finance people here are seeing value in that so if I'm playing soccer we're buying a soccer ball for every kid in our school you know in kindergarten and they have a soccer ball so that they can actually play so I just got a grant for cross country skis you know so I have a great two classrooms that have enough cross country skis to go cross country skiing and I've trained them in PE class and now the classroom teacher is just taking them out and they're doing that instead of recess they're going cross country skiing right so there's sort of ways around it but you know again that's depends on the PE teacher as well right that's my passion so I'm very proactive in that aspect you know other PE teachers might not be as proactive as I am so I'm just trying to have a great program and keep that rolling right I have to fight every year to keep my health teacher to keep my full-time guidance counselor to keep my full-time social worker right those are constant things that are on the chopping block but there are people that are needed here to keep this place running smoothly sorry so that was a lot I was getting to everybody's little tidbits as I was taking notes thank you we appreciate that you have the fire in your bellies we really do I mean that and I'm going to ask Ian would you mind coming back in two weeks and we'll arrange it of course I wouldn't welcome you yeah I'd like to just sing it somebody come back in two weeks I'd like to know this comparison between other states and I'd like to know if you can make the case for more visible education I mean some kind of greater mandate you know behavior issues I'm not an expert but it just seems to me that a lot of this stuff is popping up and could be addressed you know listen somebody could write Sam way off but physical activity is so important for all of us we all feel more relaxed I think if we get out and have that kind of physical activity right so yes so I was a kindergarten teacher and I just want to say that 30 minutes includes your transition so it's not really 30 minutes unfortunately the other thing I want to say I think I'm getting her name right Robin Newton from Virginia the teacher of the year she has an amazing program she has a really interesting program that connects the brain, physical activities and epidemics so she is someone I think you would really like to talk about getting her in the agency mentioned so maybe everybody could come back or just have this conversation maybe be mandating more and I appreciate Mark really very much that you know you're getting kids on cross country skis and snowshoes you know some kid leaves Vermont and kind of expect that kid to know how to cross country ski, snowshoe and have some kind of experience if we can give it to them so the other piece of this is what does the agency look like around grants and things like that to make sure that those kinds I kind of think of it that I'm sure everybody is skills for life I mean my brother loved lacrosse but he's not going out with the lacrosse stick anymore but you do play golf forever, ski you know he's still broke a lacrosse ball around with the kids I get that but what are those things we can do for life? Skiing is what made my college decision to go to UVM maybe not the best way to make a decision but it's good enough I agree that might not have been yes I can definitely bring some more data and kind of assess what's currently happening obviously we're not in the legislative business of making policies or suggestions but I can definitely gather some data for it if you want to make a decision yeah exactly state of play thank you thank you all great to see you really appreciate it before to meet you again in a couple of weeks thank you so much welcome to visit thank you appreciate it same here it's so nice to be back in person it is wonderful though that you have the videos for people to look at later I enjoyed looking at some of the testimony and learning what people are thinking that's great I look at them too I miss a lot are you checking to see how you looked in the video? no I don't worry about that that's my priority that was it this angle is like a little camera a little bit alright thank you thanks everybody we're adjourned for today we look forward to seeing everybody tomorrow