 So that moves us to a conversation with Mr. J. Nichols, the Vermont Principles Association. Mr. Nichols, thanks for being with us. We really would like to talk to you about two things. You know that we have a bill before us that was introduced, I believe by Senator McCormick last year having to do with mascots throughout the state. And that issue is on the table. And I'm going to ask Jim Demeray if he's there. When we get started just to kind of give us the quick overview of that bill just to remind us. And then we'd like to talk to you a little bit about school culture specifically related to athletics. And I believe that was in the email also there are a number of disturbing things in the press over the past, you know, between the, I think recessed and now. And we'd like to know how the Vermont Principles Association is working on those issues. Is there something that you need from us, et cetera. So with that, Mr. Demeray, would you just tell us over the overview of Senator McCormick's bill and how it how it would work. Yeah, sure. So for the record, Jim Demeray let's console. This bill is S139. And what it does is it would prohibit schools from since we have a mascot or other symbols or images that depict or refer to a racial or ethnic group, individual custom or tradition. So that's the prohibition. It would be three years in terms of coming into compliance. And it only applies to public schools. And failure to comply after three years. We've rendered the public school ineligible to compete in Vermont Principles Association's sanctions sanctioned events. So athletic events. That's basically the bill. Yeah, that's helpful. Mr. Nichols, the floor is yours. Thank you, everybody. Good afternoon. Thanks, Jim, for giving the overview of the bill for the record. Jay Nichols, Executive Director of the Vermont Principles Association. I'll touch on the bill a little bit and then to the questions that Senator Campion outlined at the beginning of this, of this session. So first of all, as a preface to my testimony today, I want to remind the committee that the VPA has leaned heavily into the issue around racist symbols and mascots in schools. We've provided a press statement that has been utilized a number of school board discussions across the state and has helped lead to the change in names of some mascots. Further, we have taken strong steps, excuse me. Further, we have taken strong steps to educate the public, student-athletes, spectators, cultures, officials and site administrators as to how best to address behavior at school events. I'll provide a little testimony on these two issues and then gladly answer any questions you might have. So first of all, that's 139. We appreciate the sentiment of Senator McCormack's bill, as well as the health bill with the same language. And we stand by our statement, which I'm going to quickly read to you. And this was on August 28th that we put this out of 2020. In support of the BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, and people of color students and families and other historically marginalized peoples, the VPA's Executive Council issues the following statement regarding school mascots. School mascots are often powerful symbols within a community. We believe that mascots and all school symbols should support feelings of belonging and inclusivity for students in a wider community. They should not perpetuate divisive stereotypes and contribute to the ongoing marginalization, erasure, and harm to BIPOC communities. Any mascot, nickname, symbol, or logo that has marginalizing, racist, or exclusionary elements should be replaced to demonstrate what it means to be inclusive, welcoming, and strong community. Just as all aspects of school operations need ongoing improvement for equitable outcomes and inclusive representation of policy and policies, so too should school mascots. Now that said, on the testimony, although we agree with the sentiment of the bill, we have two concerns as articulated by our Executive Council after a meeting Friday on January 21st, 2022. First, we don't believe that legislating from Montpellier is the best way to deal with this issue. We believe it's important for schools and communities to have these conversations together and try to reach a mutually agreed upon solution. Should the legislature determine that this issue rises to a level of compelling state interests, we would certainly understand that, but we would worry about this potentially being a legislative overstep. Secondly, the last sentence in the bill states of provision that we vehemently are opposed to. Third, any public school not in compliance three years after passage of this act shall be ineligible to compete Vermont Principles Association sanctioned events. The Vermont Principles Association is a private member-driven organization. As such, the VPA is not under the direction of the legislature in terms of VPA rules and regulations, and more importantly to us, we would worry about a small group of adults, example given board members, making the decision to keep an inappropriate mascot, requiring ultimately the punishment of school athletes from that school by denying participation of VPA sanctioned events. That's my testimony on the mascot piece. Would you like me to go into the behavior piece, or would you like to break them up? If it's okay with you, let's break them up. Let's stick with this for now. Committee, questions or comments at this point? Senator Perslick. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Nichols, I have a question for you. Has the. Principal's association looked at all the mascots. Like, have you done a scan and said. Well, you know, made a, made a determination if they are violating the principle that you, you read the statement. And if so, are there any mascots out there that would be in violation of the. Of the. Associations. Statement. Yes. That would be in violation of the statement. However, the statement's not a directive, nor do we have the authority as an organization to tell schools to a local level. What they can do in relationship to a mascot. And the example I would give you. Would be the whole masking issue. We've been putting out guidance that on the masking issue and on. COVID and return to play. That's been sent to us from the department of health. And all of those things are recommendations. We're not allowed to even say to schools, you must have every kid wear a mask to play sports. If the local school district says we're not going to do that for our home games. We have no legal authority to stand on. Fortunately, schools have been for the most part really good about that. It's the same thing here. The VPA does that doesn't have any authority to tell school what their mascot or their team name needs to be. What we can do is use the bully pulpit and we have. To say to people that we think those. We can use that. And we can use that. And we can use that. And we can use that. That's not inclusive of all students in your school. Should be revisited and should be changed. And we've had that conversation in several schools where changes have been made that you've read about the media. And in one school in particular where a change was made and then was made back. By the board to the previous. What we believe to be racist mascot. Does the decision think that there are current mascots that don't mean. That's that standard that do that. You know how many. I don't know how many. We've never really done a scan of it. And what's interesting is that. A lot depends on that the where the mascot came from. So for example, not trying to throw any schools under the bus or anything, but Leland and Gray. Has a mascot that's that's. You know, I think it's called the Patriots. I think it's called the Patriots or the rebels, one or the other, but whatever it is, it's about the revolutionary war. And all their imagery is around the revolutionary war and rebelling against. The British. And American independence. There's another school. So it was the rebels. That must be the rebels. There's another school South Burlington, as you know, where I used to be a principal that went through the same thing. And that clearly was more about South succeeding from the north. And I think it's more of a confederate type connection. And so those two things we would say are both different. That's kind of why we think the local committees, communities need to have those discussions themselves and make the decision that they think is best for their communities. Now I want to be really clear. There's a couple names that we think are really problematic and everybody on the executive council think that they're wrong. We just don't know if it should be legislated. We're not obviously not going to fight against it. But we think it would be better off if it was then at the local level. Is just the one follow up chair. It would be interesting to see that list. What mascots that the schools, the principal association feels is a problem. We could, I could talk to Bob Johnson in my office and we could actually get the names of all the mascots for high school supports and state and share that with you. I mean, I can think of two or three off the top of my head right now. Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to borrow the state. I want the ones with the school. The principal association thinks the problem. Okay, we could do that. And I'm going to call to it as we think might be problematic. Again, we do want to know the historical underpinnings of it. Sure. You're welcome. Senator Hooker. Thank you. Jay, you talked about wanting the communities to make this decision, but you also talked about a small group of adults, perhaps making the decision, which I think is the case in my community. Does the principal's association have any recommendations on what this community should look like? Yeah, that's a great question. And I know I've talked to the, the superintendent and your community about this as well as the principals in your community. And I know it's a real tough situation. We worked a couple of years ago with a guy with him, a Paul Gorsky. He brought him into Vermont. And he did a lot of work on what inclusion really means. And he worked with several communities, but I really, I don't have, we don't have a specific recommendation on who could help them have those conversations, but I think that's what it's going to come down to. And I just, I personally really worry about state overreach. And I think over the last five years, maybe our executive council has listened too much to me. Because I was kind of surprised when we, when we kind of fell this way that we thought this might be a bad idea. And I think that's what we should look at. And I think that's what we should look at. Because everybody there is completely against. Mass gossip that are not inclusive. However, they really balked at the idea of it being legislated. That's really the big question for us, Senator. Yeah, I mean, I'm on the, I guess it's 2022. What if people aren't taking this up? I worry about how, you know, marginalized communities, as I know you are as well. But. Yeah, I. I'm just glad that we have time to talk a little bit about these issues. I think we have times up folks. But yeah, we can have this conversation. Please enter agenda. Jay, thank you. I don't know when you were in South Burlington, but I know that I was on the city council during the rebel debate. And that was a tour community part. I don't need to, to bring up all the specifics, but it was the worst. I've seen it at a really local level. So I'm, I would love to probe your testimony as to why you and guiding these conversations so as to shield our local school board members and principals from having to have this debate with such thorny issues where there isn't necessarily a right or a wrong. You mentioned the rebel conversation and how that term, I support removing the rebel, but I guess my question to you is, I thought you would have come out with concerns about the language as how it wouldn't really address that conflict. As I read this bill, I didn't see how it would actually help the school board steer away from that rebel debate because the term rebel is debatable into its racist roots. So my question is putting aside the fact that you're concerned that it might be a state overreach, do you have any thoughts on how this language could in fact help shelter our local school boards and our principals association so that they don't have to be the ones that are carrying the flag on addressing this issue? And instead the legislature could step in like the chair was just speaking to. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good point, Senator Chittenden, and that conversation actually did come up on Friday. And we had several members that were there. We had 12 of our, we have 15 member board. We had 12 people that were there. Ironically enough, we had three not there because of COVID issues covering in their schools, which I'm sure you're surprised by. In any case, the idea came up of if the state just did this, it would be a lot easier for principals and school boards. So that was a discussion that was brought up. And I think that's one of the reasons why my testimony on the first part of that bill, I mentioned compelling state interests. And I think you folks get paid the big bucks to make that determination, you know? So it certainly would make it easier for individual principals and school board members if the decision was out of their hands. We just think from a more of a core value point that to the degree possible, we'd like to see decisions made at the local level. But again, we're not gonna stand and argue against that. And we understand the rationale behind it fully. Our bigger issue would be about the kids again. We get paid big bucks, this is news to me. So. Not if you're new to the committee, if you've been there for a while. Yeah, yeah. So this bill, and I may have misunderstood, but this is basically saying, it's not necessary, it's saying you've got three years, correct? Yeah. To handle it locally. So it is, it's just for those communities that wanna say, hey, maybe next year, maybe next year, maybe next year, it's saying, this is the time. So in a way, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's just putting some pressure on local school board saying, okay, time's up, but we're giving you still a little extra time to your point. Sometimes it can be very helpful to have these conversations locally. They can be learning experiences. People come in, young people who might be thinking, hey, this isn't a problem, then here's directly from somebody who is of Native American ancestry or a member of the BIPOC community. And it's a real, again, John Dewey learning by doing and experiencing. So it seems like it's balanced in that way. Yeah, I don't have any arguing with that at all. Okay. The only argument I would have is I would not want any school that didn't follow through on this to have their kids deprived of extra curricular activities that we sanction. That would be the biggest issue. So on the first part of this, we'd be okay with that. Yeah, so you're okay with us saying, okay, folks, next two years, let's say, have the conversation. If you don't, then okay, maybe the state legislature says, I don't know what our thing is. You don't have a mascot or whatever, but really forcing that conversation. Or we could make up a mascot, that they would have to, I don't know, but it would be something in some way that would get them to do it. Yes, I think our committee would be okay with that. Okay. Again, we can either see it done at the local level and we just don't want them to be, we don't want the kids to get out of this. That's my point. I mean, we were giving you two years for the local community to do it. Three you said earlier. I know I'm playing with the numbers. I know I was hoping you were more forgetful because you're running a fever, but as usual, you're right on your game year. So yeah, so let's just say two to three years. Three seems like a long time given everything, but and that's something that the committee, it just again says, and I don't know what the correct repercussions are, if people don't, but it does seem to me that some pressure on the local community to start to do this, to have the conversation locally sounds like a good balance. Senator Lyons. Whoops, whoops. You just made the suggestion I was gonna make and that is, let's get the local conversation going. Let's not let it last any longer. I also remember when the crusaders at Champlain Valley Union were converted over to the Red Hawks and that was also an interesting conversation and there were some of us, and not some of us, there were some who thought that Cow Valley Union should be converted to the local dairy vernacular didn't happen, which was a good thing, but there were a lot of fun things that happened during that discussion as well as the very serious. Wouldn't it be nice if that could happen with other schools? So I do have a question. Do you really have a fever? I'm a little under the weather, but I took a COVID test and I came back negative. Oh, good. That's why I'm working from home today. I don't feel too good, but I'm almost here for Senator. I'm sorry that you're not feeling well. Thank you. But is there a possibility that if the schools didn't make a decision that another entity could do that for them short of the legislature? So the State Board, the Vermont Principles Association, a coalition of folks, I don't know how. Not that I'm aware of, Senator. Okay. It's a great question though. Again, you don't wanna punish kids because if adults aren't like you're saying, going to make the decisions that need to be made, but it would be great if you would give some thought, Mr. Nichols, to what happens if in a couple of years we don't. Or we just do this under tighter timeframe. Just give that some thought, that would be great. Okay. Would you like me to share on the behavioral piece now? I'm just looking to see if there are any other questions or comments related to this. So it sounds like we will move forward with this in some way, but rethinking perhaps, although not having pulled the committee officially, we might rethink the athletic suspension piece. Okay. Yes, speaking of athletics, floor is yours again. Okay. So in terms of behavior at athletic events, it's important to recognize, and I know you all know this, that schools are a microcosm of society itself. So just as with racism, if there's inappropriate conduct in society at large, there's gonna be some inappropriate behavior in schools and extracurricular events. This fall, we had several high profile events and in a couple of cases also involved alleged and substantiated allegations of racist behavior. Let's let the VPA take several actions. First of all, with the support of our diversity, equity and inclusion committee, and the approval or activity standards committee working in conjunction with the athletic directors in the state, we drafted an announcement to be read prior to school sporting events beginning in the winter season. That statement is attached with this testimony. If you'd like me to, I could read it to you. It's about a page. Like maybe some highlights, parts of it, sure. Sure, basically what it says is, in my own words, when you come to event at our school and it mentions the school name and the other school that's visiting, we expect all behavior to be appropriate. There's no racist behavior. It mentions certain categories. And it makes the point that if fan conduct is not the way it's supposed to be, that the game can be stopped by the coaches, the officials and the site administrator, and it can be dealt with in a variety of ways. One of which is to send everybody out and to have the kids play without any fans there. Another one is to reschedule the game or stop the game right there at that time and let the VPA decide what's gonna happen with the game. So there's a lot of opportunities there that officials in the past haven't really known what to do. As a baseball umpire at the high school and college level and I've thrown parents out of a game before for inappropriate behavior. But if you had a bunch of people heckling a kid, a lot of umpires wouldn't know what to do. And we're saying, you know, if it's to the point where it's really inappropriate, you can stop the game and so can the coaches along with the site administrator. So we're trying to put more tools in the toolbox so that people that are actually hosting the event. Along with that, we've also implemented required implicit bias training for high school officials. And we'd already done that for coaches but now we've added high school officials to it. So it's our understanding that we are the only sports association at the state level in the United States that has made this a requirement. And through our partnerships with the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina which the VPA partners with on a lot of things and the National Federation of High Schools we've been able to provide these trainings at no cost to the officials themselves. And that was important to us because our officials are not really paid a lot and it's very hard to get people to officiate. Additionally, we've added a third party investigation option should a situation occur at an event in which two schools are involved and they can't come to agreement on what occurred. With concurrence from the two school districts the VPA will assign a third party investigator who investigates incident develops a report with findings of fact and recommendations for the two school districts as well as the VPA. And then finally we have implemented an online live link on our website that allows anyone to report a concern to the VPA that occurs at any event that we sanction. It's very simple form and Daphne has a copy of the form, a PDF of the form that I sent to her that she can look at. And the kids are using it and adults are using it. We've had a number of cases from the fall and early this winter where people are sharing that information. And then in terms of how it's gone so far this winter as always we've had our issues. In one case we had a parent arrested and removed by police and handcuffs because they refused to wear a mask at a junior varsity basketball game. I wish I could say I was making that up but I'm not. However that issue and others have been handled mostly at the local level. Athletic directors and coaches have both said that reading the statement and being a refer back to it has made people realize that they are willing to pause or even cancel a game if necessary and take appropriate action to keep kids safe and to make sure the event can occur in an appropriate way. And I could say a lot more on this subject but I think at this point it might be better just to let the committee ask any questions that you might have regarding this. I just have one quick question. How is being communicated to parents? And I may have missed that but you know. Yeah there's a. I mean this is, come on this is like ridiculous. So how do you read that parent that says hey before you go to the game or match or whatever read this or just remember to kind of tone it down a bit. And our hope. What's going on there? Yeah. Our hope is that by reading it at every event having schools read it at every event and you know hopefully every school is doing this. I've been to several this late fall when we put this in place and this winter and I've heard it read every place I've been to. Now maybe people are seeing me walk in the room and so they're in the gym so they're reading it but I've heard other people say that it's being read as well. And I sent along with the testimony the copy of what's supposed to be read. Schools are allowed to adjust it a little bit to make it a little bit shorter and schools have come up with some creative ideas of doing it. For example, I was at a basketball game last night where the captains of the home team, boys and girls actually had a recording of them reading the statement powerful when it's kids saying you know and the school did it that way because they didn't want the kids to do it live every time but we've seen other schools I know at Burr and Burr and they've had captains of their teams actually read the statement because Dave Macelli's worked a lot with us on this and he's the AD there. And up north here where I live different ADs have done it in different ways. Sometimes it's a kid reading it sometimes it's an announcer sometimes it's a captain of a team. Usually they'll do it right before the national anthem. So I think it's had impact. We certainly have seen coaches have said that they think it has impact. Is it gonna solve all problems? No, but at least it gives people the fair warning that this is the high school event act appropriately. And if you don't, you're not gonna be able to stay here. Yeah, first leg. Yeah, thanks. And thanks, Jay. Cause I was concerned when the media and I know, I don't know if you felt BPA was treated fairly but I don't think it came off well in the media stories on how things were handled. In my experience, middle school basketball games is that the fans and parents are pretty horrible and one thing that you said stuck out to me. You said, like, if there's heckling of a player to the point that it's inappropriate something could be done but I'd say any heckling of a player on a fan should be inappropriate and the game should be stopped. And I don't, I will look at the statement that you gave us with your testimony but I think one of the concerns that are the stopping the game doesn't really stop the bad behavior. Like, I think, and then maybe you can clarify this that not only should they be able to stop the game but they should be able to declare a winner. If one side is heckling the players then the ref or others should be able to say, okay, that's I forfeits and you lost the game because that's what they care about. You know, even rescheduling it, you know, they might think that's a win. And so I think it needs to be. Good point. That's the kind of with a mascot that has to be some kind of consequences. Yeah. Seeing refs try to stop, you know and I've seen parents get thrown out. I've seen the bus driver of the team get thrown out of the game and but it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference because I think there's a general culture that it's acceptable to heckle players and heckle the refs and I wouldn't be around in any of those games precisely because I don't think they're protected. Yeah. So just to respond to that quickly, when you read that you'll see that there is a part in there that the game could be forfeited. And what we do is we have the coaches and the side administrators get together and make a decision on how they want to proceed and it could be announced with the end. Part of this is the culture that we live in, right? So it's not uncommon when I'll give you an example of the game I went to last night when a kid on one of the teams travel a bunch of fans on the other team kids, kids on the other team started singing you can't do that. And I don't know if we should be in the position of trying to please that stuff. I'm really trying to draw the line at the stuff that's really inappropriate because I don't want just kids. They're playing basketball and they travel. Yeah. So the kid traveled on the other team, you can't do that. And when a kid approach calls a timeout, a lot of times the other team will yell back talk it over and they'll sing. You know, to me that stuff is just part of the game and I don't think we're ever gonna get rid of that. What I have a problem with is when somebody's using racist language or swearing at a kid or an official and in those situations, people need to be removed. The other thing is you mentioned about the VPA not coming off too well. The reality of the situation, the big situation that took place is that the VPA found out it was an issue well after it occurred and it wasn't reported to us. And so we were playing catch up on the whole situation if you're referring to the soccer game that brought a lot of this into the light. And so we've tried to respond to that by working with superintendents, athletic directors, principals, and a little bit with the School Board's Association but not a lot to try to make sure that everybody had input on the direction that we were gonna take. And so what the testimony today is about is a response to that. And that doesn't mean it can't be strengthened or tightened up depending on how things go. I was talking to the New York executive director a few days ago and telling him about some of the things that we dealt with and he said, you guys have no clue. He says, you know, Vermont, you have no clue. We deal with this, we deal with racial stuff every single day, repeatedly. It's very, very tough to police. So we are fortunate where we are but we do take it seriously and we're willing to take any action we need to to make sure that the playing environment for kids is fun but also safe. Yeah, Sam Persley. Yeah, I wondered if you had ever been to an ultimate competitive ultimate Frisbee game? Well, we've been to one, it wasn't a playoff game and I went because once we sanctioned it, the year that it became a varsity sport was my first year as executive director and I was in the office, a old baseball coach, old basketball coach and I made a comment to Bob Johnson about it saying, wow, because I don't know if you saw this but Saturday Night Live took a shot at us probably in the ultimate Frisbee I don't know if you guys saw that skit or not but they picked on the VPA, picked on Vermont for having ultimate Frisbee for sport. So I said something to Bob about, well, now we have Frisbee for sport and Bob said, you cannot call it Frisbee. You have to call it ultimate and you need to go to a game. So I did go to a game and it's pretty amazing. The kids call the fouls themselves and all that stuff. So it's interesting. I think it's an excellent example of sportsmanship being as important as the game. So it's something that is an example of how competitive sports can be played without that heckling of the rest, so they don't even have rest, so they don't heckle the players. Not only, I just also want to say it wasn't just the soccer game, it was a, there was a woman's, maybe it was a soccer too but maybe it was lacrosse or something where there was also just sexist comments or comments directed at specific players that was an issue too. And that's the kind of stuff that I saw at the women's basketball games that I was going to where, I agree with you, just chanting for the team and that kind of thing is okay, even if it's about something not a specific person did, but it's any kind of heckling to a specific person or really berating the rest is, I don't think that, I think there should be a zero tolerance for them. Yeah, and they're supposed to be, one of the hard parts is you usually have one sighted minister there. For example, last night at the basketball game that I went to and I won't mention the school, the AD, who's a pretty new AD, I think he's in his third year, he's really, I think he's really good. He thought that the kids were getting a little bit too rambunctious, it was a really close game and he went up and he sat in the stands with the kids. But there was this one guy sitting not too far from me that several times made inappropriate comments about the rafts, but he also didn't yell them out as like he was sitting with his group of people and said, ah, this raft's every fricking calls against us, rah, rah, rah. But he wasn't screaming at the referees and the referees, I don't think he even heard a single thing he said. So it's tough. I mean, we are a very big sports culture. I used to say as a superintendent that if I said we're gonna cancel the RC basketball this year, I'd have hundreds of parents there ready to lynch me. But if I said we're gonna cancel the algebra, people would be like, well, yeah, I guess that's okay. It's part of the society that we live in, unfortunately. Mr. Nichols, help us understand, where does the buck stop during a basketball game? Just so I know. So you've got the AG, you've got the ref. Who's gonna be the one that would ultimately say, okay, enough is enough, this game is over and this group won, this team won. Well, ultimately what would happen in that situation would be that the site administrator would stop the game. And then he would meet- You're a great administrator for me. Oh, usually it's the athletic director but sometimes it's the principal or the assistant principal. So whoever in the hierarchy is there at the highest, okay. Right, but they can't make a decision on whether the game is forfeit or not because they're obviously on one side or the other, right? So what they would do is they would meet with the coaches and meet with the referees and together they'd make a decision on how they wanted to handle it. And the decision was to stop the game right there, not complete the game, then it would come to us and they would share the information with us and we would decide, is it a forfeit? Was there culpability on both sides? So we're just gonna play the game again or play it from that point without fans or something along those lines. So we wouldn't put a site administrator in a position where they could say, okay, now the game's a forfeit, your team loses, our team wins because that would be asking for a really tough situation. We would say site administrator with the coaches and the ADs, similar to what Burlington to South Burlington did. They stopped the game, sent everybody home, it was a volleyball game and that was in a direct response to information that we gave them on how they should handle that. And one of the teams did end up forfeiting that game because they said, we were largely responsible. So we'll take the forfeit, we didn't have to intervene. They said, we'll take the forfeit. So before I move to center lines, who made the decision for the game to be over and send everybody home? Again, highest site administrator there? Yeah, the difference in that one though was that they both were there. Because it was two schools in Shannon County, both ADs happened to be at the event. But yeah, it would be the site administrator would make the decision to say, that's it, everybody's going home. Okay, center lines. Oh, okay. That was a struggle just to get unmuted. You know, this has been, this is a great conversation and obviously there are some sports where we see more of the harassment going on than others. And I don't know how to learn from those sports where it doesn't happen as much. I think of tennis that has grew up in a, tennis grew up in such a polite society. But, you know, do we still see that on the side? Do we still see discriminatory comments on the sidelines? I don't know. And at what, how many kids are involved in working with you? Do you have sort of a cohort of students learning about these issues and trying to help out within their own local institutions? You know, it just seems to me that kids can corral kids so much better than we adults. Yeah, that's a great question. So the Vermont Athletic Directors Association, they actually have a conference, a leadership conference of kids and we help sponsor them and we help provide them with training and stuff. That group does a lot with student development. And that's been something they've been doing for a long time. I can remember back when I first was a young high school coach that we had a couple of kids every year that got selected to go to this conference for athletic leadership, and they've been doing that for a long time. So as done at the local level, there's a lot of schools that participate and I think most high schools have kids that participate in that and have that development. Usually you have to be a member of a sports team and a captain and somebody who's interested in leadership and they provide them with training. And to my knowledge, I think every school does something like that. Different in every school, but they all do something like that. I think that's really helpful. But also moving into the groups of kids who are not in any of the game, sometimes it's those groups that are, or they're watching their friends and they get frenzied. Oftentimes that is the case actually. For former students, you've had a lot of issues over the year with kids who are 21, 22, 23 years old or at a game that are just acting completely inappropriate. And it's really hard on the school, especially if they find out what somebody did a day later when the kid doesn't even go to their school, they can issue a no trespass. And also our diversity, equity, and inclusion committee at the VPA with VS ADA has students on it. So we're definitely trying to get a student voice where we can. Senator Persl, I'm sorry, Senator Lines. No, I was just gonna say it sounds like there's so much going on. Thank you, that's all. Senator Persl. Yeah, that's good to hear you're getting the student voices. My last question was on the forum that you have for people reporting, which I think is a good first step. What happens if, you know, who's reading those? What happens when you get a report? Can you just go through the process after it's reported? Yeah, so any report that we get, we make sure it goes to the two athletic directors, then the two athletic directors talk to each other and they try to resolve it that way. And they let us know if they need our help with it. One of the things about the VPA, and I tell people this all the time, people look at me like I'm crazy. VPA only has five employees for the whole state. And we're one of five organizations in the United States to oversee sports as well as, you know, the legislative work, the legal work, if a principal's in legal trouble or there's an employment issue, they come to me. So we only have five employees. So for us to get involved, it's usually on the really big stuff in the schools, I ask us to. It's amazing how well the athletic directors work together and the principals work together to resolve issues. And I'll give you one example. One of you, I think, as you, Senator Percik, mentioned the issue about students making sexual comments towards students on another, I think it was across, but it might've been soccer this fall. And we heard about that issue and we had heard a lot from one community about that issue. And the other community did an investigation and they released a statement that they did not find harassment, which they didn't. But what they did find was inappropriate behavior and they took action against a whole bunch of kids. However, because those kids were all under 18, they couldn't share, you know, Joey Smith was banned from games the rest of the year, any of that stuff. And they can't share that with the other school either. We just happened to know that they did take strong action against several kids who were involved, but it's not something that gets shared publicly. So oftentimes it's very similar to when a school does a harassment investigation. If I find that somebody's committed harassment and I take action against them, I can't tell the other side anything other than I found harassment or I found inappropriate behavior, we've taken action. And parents also wanna know, well, what is that action? Illegally school administrators can't share that. It's the same here. When students are participating in athletic events, they still have their FERPA protections. They still have their student record protections. Being member of an athletic team is part of your student record, part of your permanent record. So schools only have so much they can disclose when they take action. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. You're a hooker. Thank you. So, what's the protocol for participating in sports if you're not vaccinated? Can you, I didn't hear the first part of the question. I apologize. What's the protocol now? I mean, I understand that kids are wearing masks while they're participating in sports and there is no mandate for vaccines. So what's the protocol for kids who are not vaccinated? So if you're not vaccinated and you are, and this just changed a little while ago. So if you really wanna talk about this, you should talk to Mark, Dr. Levine and he could explain it better. But my understanding is if you're not vaccinated and you don't have any symptoms, you know, you're wearing a mask, you're fine. If you're, what would we used to call close contact and you're not having any symptoms, you wear the mask and you get the antigen test. I think it's on the fourth day and the fifth day and they're both negative to keep playing. If they're not negative, you have to go a certain period of time before you stop having symptoms before you can participate in school and thus sports again. If you're vaccinated, it's a different standard. Although I think it's pretty close to the same thing now because it used to be, you'd have to sit out like 10 days and they're not doing that anymore with the change. We're not really doing close contacts like we were before. Okay, so you're essentially doing the same thing that the schools are doing. There's no added precaution for kids who... The only added precaution we had early on and this came, I apologize for the dogs. This came at my recommendation and maybe Dr. Lee and I had talked and we had agreed and other people agreed with us that if you were not vaccinated and you were a close contact and you didn't have any symptoms, you're in that quarantine period, you could still go to school because of tests to stay at school and you could still go to practices but you could not play in games against other teams because we didn't want you to mix with kids from other teams. And that was like an incentive to tell kids to get vaccinated. But now with the changes and nobody really doing that level of test to stay anymore where it's really the parent doing the antigen test, I think that's not as big of an issue now. So if you're positive, you have to get cleared by your PCP. Your primary care physician, right? Has to say you're okay to play but if you're not positive and you're masked up, even if you're what would be a close contact previously, you just would take the antigen test and if it's negative, you'd keep going to school and you'd keep being able to participate in things. And are kids wearing N95s? No, not everybody. I mean, I went to a game last night. Some kids were wearing, I think what we're N95s or some kids were wearing cloth masks. There's no rule about that. There's just recommendations. And the bottom line is as long as they're wearing a mask, I personally would love to see everybody wearing N95 in school and in sports. It's interesting because a lot of states are not requiring masks in sports. I think we might be the only one that are requiring masks for playing. A lot of them are having the kids wearing them on the sidelines and the fans wear them. But when the kids actually on the hockey rank or on the basketball court, they're not wearing them. But in Vermont, we're having the kids wear them. Any final questions for Mr. Nichols? Are there any final comments from you, Jay? No, I just appreciate your time on this and we all have the same goals in mind. So yes, we'll take a look at your testimony. We may have you back if senators have additional questions or concerns, but really appreciate your thoughts on both of them. And my only immediate request would be if you could give some thought to what are, what would be the appropriate response if we were to say give school districts, school boards a certain period of time to rethink their mascot, what would happen if they just opted not to. And I think it was Senator Hooker or Senator Lyons that posed the idea of maybe it does get punted to the state board or some subcommittee quickly. I mean, we'd really be talking probably about one or two districts, but it seems to me that some follow-up is necessary, otherwise we might not get folks to do it. So you could give some thought to that and I think that in the next few days. In the meantime, we'll be feeling better and thanks very much. Thank you all.