 This is the education committee in the Vermont House of Representatives and we're continuing our conversation and COVID-19 response and have four superintendents here. And I think we'll start with Lynn Coda from Franklin Northeast. And we're interested in hearing how things are going. So what are the updates and always we'll ask all of you if there's anything that you see that we can do. So Lynn, Coda. All right, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak with you today. Today is the 18th day since Vermont school day since Vermont schools were closed for in person learning due to COVID-19. Normally 18 days doesn't feel like much, but in our current reality, it feels like it's been a very long time since we last had all of our students and staff members physically present in our schools. In 18 days, our school staff members and educators from around Vermont have accomplished extraordinary feats with very little lead time educators and administrators have problem solved solutions to extremely complex problems within tight timelines. I'm going to give you some examples of things that have been happening in Franklin Northeast. Very similar things have been happening throughout Franklin and Grand Isle counties and the rest of Vermont. In FNESU, our food service staff is serving meals to 1,512 children each day, resulting in more than 15,000 meals that are delivered each week out of our four production kitchens. Our numbers continue to rise, which is certainly a reflection of the needs within our community. Teachers, curriculum leaders, teacher leaders, technology specialists and behavior specialists have collaborated remotely to develop and provide professional learning opportunities to teachers and staff. In order to help them develop the necessary skills to navigate our current maintenance of learning phase and get ready for the continuation of learning phase that begins on Monday. Teachers, special educators, speech and language pathologists, counselors and our behavior team have been designing both online remote learning opportunities and equitable hard copy learning resources for those students without internet access each week. Teachers have had to use new tools persistently working to connect with students and families through a variety of means, maintaining contact logs, teaching logs, and serving as a hub for matching families with much needed services like childcare, internet, financial unemployment, mental health and food services. At the same time, teachers have been designing the new learning opportunities that will begin on Monday. Some teachers have found creative ways to manage their own limited broadband access. I've seen and heard about examples of teachers driving to school parking lots to access Wi-Fi in order to send materials, connect with students and download work. In another case, I've heard about a teacher driving to an in-last house to access better internet while sitting outside on the porch in order to social distance from loved ones while providing learning opportunities and making connections with students and families. Our work as educators is centered around students navigating this new reality absent the physical presence of our students is challenging. Not only do our educators and miss our students, our students are also missing our educators. Our staff members have creatively found ways to show love and care to students by placing signs and messages and bus windows. The staff parades follow buses on meal delivery routes, launching video messages through social media, screencasts, phone calls, emails and group digital meetings. Our staff members have begun learning how to sew face masks and are now also using 3D printers to make face shields for essential workers. We've partnered with the Child Development Division in order to match the childcare needs of local essential workers with the available childcare resources within our community. Special educators, clinicians, counselors, OTPT, SLP therapists and nurses have all been learning how to offer tele-services with children who need that level of support. Special educators have been working to navigate the complexities of providing special education services remotely to students. They've collaborated with classroom teachers and parents to ensure that each student eligible for special education services has a distance learning services plan. That focuses on reasonable appropriate essential skills in light of our circumstances to identify how educational progress will be maintained. Distance learning plans have been created with multiple options, individualized and in collaboration with families. Some options include offering consultation and parent training to families, to synchronize opportunities in which videos with learning materials are sent home to be completed at families discretion, or direct instruction with video conferencing with staff. For those students who do not have internet available learning materials are sent home and staff follow up to the best of their ability through phone calls to provide services. Some of the greatest challenges we've faced have centered around the limited broadband accessibility for our students and staff members. It's hard to help families access some of the free internet options that have become available as a result of COVID-19. It's been challenging for our teachers to connect with students who don't have internet access in the amount of time and persistence needed for this is tremendous. Planning to provide equitable opportunities for these students is one of the greatest barriers to distance learning. This presents an equity issue for our learning community. We're struggling to make connections with some students, not only do they have access, not only do they not have access to the internet they also have limited phone access. I learned just yesterday that some families have run out of prepaid minutes on their phones and are unable to afford to buy more minutes until their benefits begin, which makes phone calls between students and teachers impossible. Another barrier is that we don't have enough devices for all of our students. We are able to provide devices to all of our students in grades three through 12 and those younger students who receive special ed services. We intend to purchase devices for the remaining students but there are long wait lists for those critical learning tools. Some of the lessons we've learned during this time. I think the most important is that communication is the key during a crisis like this. Communicating early and often has built trust within our community. We've received a lot of positive feedback and appreciation for the work we've done to connect our families with resources, provide real-time updates and share plans for what's coming next. We've also learned that as a team our best work comes from an all hands on deck approach. We've embraced a team leader method and collaborate and share the knowledge and resources we have available to us for the good of the whole. It is only because of this teamwork that we can manage the monumental amount of work that has come our way. We've come together to do great things in just 18 days. Things we would have thought were unattainable a month ago. I'm blessed to lead an FNESU. It's a system nestled in the far northwest corner of our state. I'm so proud of our staff who are working really hard to meet the needs of all of our students and families while balancing the needs of their own children at home. They're limited internet access and the tremendous time pressure we find ourselves under. We've embraced the idea that flexibility and setting reasonable expectations for our students and families is incredibly important. Our staff has risen to the challenge and continued to inspire me on an everyday basis. Much of the work that's happening in the world of education isn't as visible as it is when school is in session. But make no mistake, our teachers, administrators and staff are carrying a heavy load, working harder than ever and doing it with grace, compassion and extreme dedication to our students. I'm reminding them often to be careful about their own well-being because I know they're working harder than ever before. I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to speak to you today and I do want to thank you all for your thoughtful leadership and service to Vermoners during this unprecedented time. Thank you. Wow. Peter, you have a question. I'm wondering if you would ask it now. I also thought we could just take all four and then open to questions. Well, it's a somewhat Lin Kota specific question. I just, and you can make a very, this is, I don't mean this to be a leading or political question, but I'm just curious to know since you were one of the last districts merged, if being a newly merged district has been a help, a hindrance or irrelevant through this. You're still muted, Lin. I wondered if there would be an Act 46 question today in some way. I actually think that surprisingly our communities have really, through the Act 46 process, they really came together as a result of navigating the challenges that we face during that time and I actually think it has been a help. I think that our communities have really progressed to a point where we're trying to think of the work that we're doing as a whole. There's no, I don't see any evidence that people are really trying to be town centered, we're trying to be organization centered. So I think it is actually helped during this and it's definitely the other piece of this is just the free flow of resources between our schools has been incredibly evident and everybody is willing to do their part and help wherever they can. Thank you. Thank you, and I have wondered what it would be like if people were trying to merge now. So, thank you very much. The next is sorry my papers are Kevin dirth from maple around school district. There. Good afternoon everybody. Good afternoon. Pretty much would be saying the same thing Lynn said so eloquently so I'm not going to repeat myself on on what she was saying I think I will try to do is highlight some of the things that she mentioned. And as well as something Peter mentioned which I think is probably very important, the one lens district and my district are very much alike. She's just northeast of me, and our district is made up a fair field. St Albans city. St Albans town, which also includes BFA St Albans and our tech center Northwest tech center. It's about 2700 students pre K 12. And maybe one of the, one of the differences between our districts is is we were one of the first to merge. And I would to answer Peter's question from that perspective. But I'm not sure how we would have done this or done this as effectively as we were moving forward now, if we hadn't been emerged district. We were four years into this now. We rarely think of ourselves as fair field or St Albans city or St Albans town. And if you know this area at all. And people don't, don't start mentioning St Albans town and St Albans city in two different sentences. That's a good thing. They're just they're thinking alike. We are truly consolidated in all ways. And I think that is, it's helped the communication along the way it's allowed us effectively to get to our kids easier and to do be consistent. With the district as we move forward. So, thank God for 46 as far as far as I'm concerned. As I said, just to reinforce some of the things. Lynn said, we are a slightly larger district. We're, we're serving about 1000 meals a day. That's really a highlight. I think what I've heard around the state, but certainly in our area to the people really appreciate this. Our students appreciate this. It's great that we've been able to do it. I publicly want to, we contract our food out with the Abbey. Public who want to congratulate them for that they are doing phenomenal, phenomenal work. And, and everyone is getting everyone is getting fed and that's increasing continually throughout our teachers are also working extremely hard to the point that I'm a little worried about them. They're doing things that they haven't totally been educated on at times. Everybody's in a different place relative to technology, and yet they're working extremely hard on this and, and it shows internet access is one of our biggest challenges. And I'm hoping if anything comes out of this crisis. It is the strong strong need for good internet access throughout our state. It's imperative. It is we're seeing the issues around equity alone. Make this very, very difficult. We've worked hard to make sure whether they have access or not. Students will have some sort of access, but a lot of cases what we're having to do is bus packets of paper out to the students, because they have no other way of obtaining it. And we're still learning of ways of then getting it back to us safely. So, those are just huge issues that I'm hoping we can, we can deal with as a state as we go along. The issue that is a challenge is around social emotional learning. While we are worried, and as we should be as we're going into continuous learning. We never can forget, and our district is really made it a priority that we can't forget that our students are cooped up in a house right now, not seeing people, and we are worried about the social emotional health. We're working on this as much as we can. Our teachers are, are, are talking to families about how often they would like teachers to call. So many cases teachers are calling every day to talk individually with students make sure they're doing okay. And while that may not be academic in some ways, it's, it's crucial that we know that they're doing okay throughout. One thing that really wasn't mentioned is special education. And I wish I had an answer for that right now but I don't believe anybody does. We're doing the best we can and we're, we're waiting for guidance and we're obtaining guidance from the state. We continue need to, to work towards that, because some of the issues are just very, very challenging. When you're doing things online with our special lab. But we are getting that guidance from the state and I and I every day we're feeling a little bit more comfortable as we move, move through that. And I think they, the last two things I would mention and in some ways I've already talked about it for challenges is, and I believe it's the same thing that every one of you on this call is, is, is dealing with is just managing the anxiety level within our school district and keeping it calm, low key, we will get through this. It's a learning experience. I truly believe we're going to get stronger out of this. We're going to teachers are going to be learning skills they haven't had the opportunity to learn to learn in some cases. In fact, one person I talked to today a parent, look to me and said, you know if you could only get this internet access, taking care of. We could probably never have to have a snow day again in our lives. You know, technologically because you've got everything down now. And you know he's right. If we if, if we could make this work. And the last thing is just communications. We have found is our in our district is Lynn had mentioned the more we can communicate out. And I think it's bigger than that. You asked how you could support us. We as superintendents need that communication from the state level down to us so that we can give that communication throughout and give it on a timely basis because we are managing such high anxiety levels. And I believe it's getting better. However, I have to be honest and say, when the superintendents learn it's six at night on the news that schools being closed for the rest of the year. It's not helpful. We heard that. And, and I understand everybody's going through the same thing we are. But the more we can just help make sure that the whole level from from from governor down to, to community is done as well communicated I think it would help. But we're getting through it. And as they say, I think we'll be stronger as we get out of this. Thank you. I'm going to move on to the next one and I've already got some questions going, but we'll ask them of all of you. Zach McLaughlin from Springfield. Well, I'd like to thank all of you for the opportunity to get your ear for a little bit here. I think Lynn and Kevin did a excellent job of framing what we're, you know what we're doing, what it looks like on the ground. So I'll, I'll, I will not repeat a lot of what you heard from them. I will tell you that I think one of the, I think one of the key things for this committee to know is the careful balancing act we're trying to do with families around the amount of academic work we're asking people to do at this point. And in terms of communication, I think one of the things I want to make sure is really clear. At the state level is what is the expectation for the amount of new learning that will be occurring because on a regional basis, I know that we have a lot of conversations about families who are saying, This is too much right now. You're asking too much of us. We're not in a position to do some of the things that you want to do while we final simultaneously are sympathetic to that but also feeling the pressure to respond to what the expectation is of us at the state level. So we're all doing balancing acts in that regard. But I think universally what I'm hearing amongst districts is, you know, take care of the people in your community first. And that is through the food, the opportunities around food that we're doing but also around design that our number one goal first and foremost is the is maintaining kind of appropriate stress levels of our staffs and families in a period of crisis. So, so we're trying to do our best and I think what's one of the things that would be helpful is in the in communication that comes out at the state level that expectations around what type of learning is going to be occurring between now and June. Are not put at a level that's not attainable for ourselves or for our families. So I think that's something I want to keep an eye on the, I also say that there's an intense amount of collaboration happening amongst superintendents around the state right now. We are a lot there's a lot of small districts in our state, but you have leaders from across across the state collaborating together in a variety of different ways. And that is in formalized ways through the the superintendent's association trustees group, doing a lot of work to, to be a conduit with the agency and with the governor's office around things that we think are necessary. That's been a lot of late nights and weekend work to to pull that stuff off. I will also echo in terms of things that you can be thinking about. I think Kevin and Lynn both spoke about broadband. That's not something you got to fix in the short run. But that is clearly it's becoming a, you know, it's a civil rights issue in a lot of ways that we have whole portions of our communities who are unable to access what we're trying to provide at the moment. And, and unfortunately it's it's going to, it's only going to magnify existing equity issues within our state. And so that's a real, that's a real concern for me. We haven't talked about the situation with the Ed fund and what what is what in the mid the midterm for us as we're starting to transition out of our initial, our initial response to closure. We're all very cognizant of the fact that we don't know what our ability to even operate is going to look like next year. And so I have real concerns about our ability to do any type of planning about the return to school and what that will look like. And in my case, I'm one of the 18 districts who do not have a he don't have an operating budget for next year that has been agreed to by my voters, and I don't know when I'm going to be able to do that. And I have a lot of planning that needs to occur in a very short time about what it's going to look like when we return right now I'm not really able to do that planning I'm also not able to do some of the hiring that I need to do as a result of that. So those are, that is the, in the short run I know there is no there are no easy answers to that to that question or that concern. But that is creating a lot of additional stress. I'm sure it is for you as well. On the field. And I don't think there's layers of people in our organizations who are not aware of the of the crunch that is going to come through the ed fund it but they're starting to become aware. And I worry about the impact that's going to have on all these people that are doing this amazing work. And then the last piece, I would go back to the equity piece once again, Kevin, Kevin mentioned that special education is a real challenge at the moment to do with authenticity. And, and I worry about, again, the least fortunate among us those with the most needs being left behind in this period. So as we move ahead with a lot of the remote learning that we're talking about. We're less equipped to deal with some of the students who have, who have some special needs that are really hard to deal with that a distance. So I think that's the other thing to keep an eye on. Some of the things that you guys can do in terms of helping, helping things for us some of it is whatever regulation can be cleared for us to have flexibility in the short run to do the work would be greatly appreciated. And then whatever can happen to give us some, some medium term clarity on FY 21 is crucial. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Meg, Pautin from Two Rivers. Thank you. And good afternoon, everyone. It's, it's great to see you. Thank you so much for having us come and testify this afternoon. I really appreciate your interest in our work and what we've been doing and what our challenges are I've been recently I've been thinking, what a monumental endeavor we've, we've been involved in and so I think our colleagues, my colleagues have done a great job. I'll, as Zach said, I'll try not and Kevin, I'll try not to repeat. I'll give you an overview to River Supervisory Union has two districts. We have six towns for four towns in the Green Mountain District, two towns in the Ludlow Mount Holly district. And we have six schools to middle, high middle schools and high schools that two different buildings, and then for elementary schools. Unfortunately, one of our, our schools, Black River High School, our Black River High School Middle School is closing at the end of the year. So, the fact that we're out of school is impacted even greatly by those more greatly by those students that they won't be able to be in their schools to school to end the year at the close of the year. So, I'll just give you some overview of kind of how I've been thinking about the work, my orientation to this work. When we're close, our schools first closed, I started thinking about how, as the superintendent of Two Rivers, how I can lead our supervisory union through this COVID-19 pandemic. I borrowed Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. And, and I think about, you know, first and foremost, we need to take care of our needs so we can be available to educate and feed our students. So, I've been very consistent in saying that to our employees that, number one, you got to take care of yourself, two, take care of your families, and then be ready to work. And I'm just so proud of how our employees have just stepped up and all of a sudden taken on all sorts of different work that they were never trained to do and have jumped right in. And, and our, our teachers are now distance teachers, they're providing an education online, which many of them never intended to do. And, and we have a pair of educators doing a lot of different work as well. We have, because of the, the way this COVID-19 can be spread, we have many protocols that we're using to keep people safe when, if they have to come into our buildings. And, we just had to think differently, think differently about our work and think very differently about our work and try to do our best to fulfill our mission to educate our students in this new work environment. And our teachers, we've asked a lot of them, as I mentioned, they are now teachers of online learning or distance learning. Also, many of them were never familiar with the zoom platform so all of a sudden they had to become familiar with a new platform and, and how to deliver instruction through that platform. We've looked at all sorts of categories of employees that are, are doing different work and, you know, our school nurses, we've looked at them to give us advice. And to help us determine how we should be working and how we should, you know, just one example how we should allow service providers to come into our, our schools because we have on maintenance, ongoing maintenance issues that need to happen. And as far as special services that isn't, you know, one of the challenges also we are special educators and para educators have worked to provide services through the zoom platform, even our OTs and occupational therapists and physical therapists. And I think it's a credit to everyone really it's it's it's a it's a full hands on deck effort here not only our employees but our families and our students. You know, we're all working together to make this work is to the best of our abilities. And a couple of things that I want to let you know that our challenges for us. We have a critical situation at the Mount Holly school, we have fluctuating PFAS levels in our water system. And we had been working with our principal will mainly mainly Craig Hutter had been working with several entities to try to remedy the situation and it's stalled now and you know our students, we had to truck in bottled water and they were accessing bottled water for several weeks and you know to to make sure that they can all get back to school in August. We just we need help, we need help resolving that situation, learning, figuring out what we need to do to resolve that situation. So that's one thing connectivity is a challenge when we put out a survey in the initial time of this school closure. We had 37 households that reported to us that they didn't have any internet connection or if they did have internet connection. It was unreliable. Fortunately with our director of technology Lauren Baker and detail as our partner. We have brought that down to six households and we are. We've ordered hotspots for the households that still are not connected. We're sure they're going to work. We're hopeful they're going to work. However, you know, the different types that we've tried to order have been back ordered. And, you know, we'll continue to hope that they get here soon, certainly so we can get everyone connected, but that is a challenge. Providing childcare or attempting to provide childcare was a huge challenge. We were hopeful that we would be able to have two sites for childcare. As time passed, we were unable to provide that for the children of our essential workers. However, we have been working with those parents who are essential personnel to make sure their children have care and actually Zach recently told me there was an opening, a couple of things in Springfield, so that was very helpful. And another concern that was recently brought forward by a board member who happens to also have, you know, not only his children being educated but his wife is trying to provide an education to the students at her school. Just expressing concern about privacy. Initially, I thought he was talking about the platform because, you know, we have been assured, you know, and there have been recent defaults that have been added to to protect the privacy of our students and our teachers. And that was about the intrusive nature of us coming into their home, I think, and I think we, we need to be mindful of that. And we try to be mindful of that, but, you know, it's just something for us to continue to be aware of. And another challenge or concern that we're not clear about yet is we have some employees who are not working for whatever personal reason that might be given the pandemic or in. And so they've one, especially has asked us, should I, you know, claim unemployment and, you know, initially our thought is no, we're paying you. However, you know, a question for us is, do we ask these employees or can we ask these employees to go on furlough and request unemployment or file for unemployment client. So that's a question we have. And I would like to just put a shout out to our food service program. As my colleagues have said, we continue to provide that on a daily basis. And also, we will be providing it when we're on vacation next week. So these are our bus drivers our food service personnel, and our para educators who deliver the food and, and are there at the schools for pickups as well. They're going to be working to our during a break so I just wanted to give them a shout out. So, you know, in closing, I just want to say how fortunate I feel to work with such a stellar group of employees we, we have an awesome team and we're doing great work and I'm so grateful for the work that they're doing that we're doing together for students. And I would, I do have an ask. I know we're all working hard and we have a lot on our plates. However, I'd like our essential workers to be recognized by this legislative body. And I'm wondering if you could work with your Senate colleagues and put together some sort of proclamation proclamation to recognize the efforts they put into this monumental endeavor. That would be very appreciative first appreciated. Thank you. Okay, you've been muted, still muted. There we go. Sorry. In terms of technology what, what options have come forward that you didn't have before what are the, what are the things. And where is it coming from, I've heard about some new hotspots were the, were those things that were were given to you or you had to come out or I'm just interested in, in progress in the area of technology. So we work with the educational network of America. And so we try to order what they have called kajits, however, that would provide hopefully some connectivity for our families. Personally, those are on back order and they aren't available to us any longer. So, our director of technology has been searching about where she can purchase some hotspots I think she really recently went on digital wish. I'm not sure if that's the exact term, if that's where she went but she's been shopping and we're waiting on those 10 hotspots to come in. We're also shared with families, the hotspots throughout the state in case they want to come to our schools or, you know, go somewhere else. Are you getting help from the state on that. No, okay. Caleb elder, and then Peter Conlon, the question. Thank you very much. I guess this is a question for Zach. You had mentioned that there were some real barriers that you foresaw in in being able to reopen school. When that time comes and I, I was just wondering if you might elaborate just a little on just a couple specific examples of what some of those obstacles will be. And maybe I didn't do the best job of articulating so for me, I think the kids are going to come back our are kind of curriculum maps as to what we think the progressions of where kids are going to be are going to be going to be all out of alignment. We're going to have a ton of like lifting to try to figure out. And so this, this student, you know, get a portion of some, some education during the fourth quarter of the year, but they're in a variety of different places based on their accessibility to, to the internet, to how much that we're able to ask them to do effectively over that period of time. So when we come back. Let's keep the fingers crossed and say we're, we're back in the fall and everything's wonderful. If it is, it's still going to be this unbelievable lift over the course of the summer and into the fall to try to realign it because all the, all the things that we have set up in terms of our curriculum progression is going to be all screwy. In addition to that we're going to have a whole bunch of kids who have gone gone through a really traumatic event. And now we're going to have social emotional flare ups that we, you know, that would be more than what we would typically see so all in the realm of all, all that extra work we need to do simultaneously. I don't know, I can't, I can't hire people right now, because I don't know whether or not I'm going to have a budget. So, those two things happening at the same time, scare me about my ability to do everything people are going to need me to do come the fall, assuming the falls when we're back in action. Thank you for the clear. Thanks, I don't really have anybody this is directed to but maybe Kevin you could address this. Have all of the necessary protocols been worked out for remote teaching online in terms of student safety and. You know, just I know that there were a lot of issues with FERPA as well but I was thinking more about protocols for the teacher student relationship and making sure it's being, you know, monitored appropriately and all that would like to take that. I'll take it. Yes, for the most part, we're working on that. It's not perfect yet, because we're still learning what those protocols are and what's necessary in this type of environment. But for instance, we're ensuring now there's two people in, you know, teaching together, usually a pair and in a teacher. So, it's just not one person in the room and it would be like having a door closed with another student. So we're doing things like that where we've learned, we've been continuing to learn around zoom and the, the strengths and its weaknesses. And we're trying to put protocols in place around that with the waiting rooms, things like that just to make sure. And this is also for our school board to make sure those things are handled. So we are doing it. I don't think we're completely there yet, but we're continuing to research it and do what we can with that. Kathleen James. Yeah, thanks. It might be that this question is more appropriate later in the conversation. I'm not sure if this would be, you know, more for Jay or But on behalf of a couple of constituents, the question that I am hoping to learn a little bit more about is food service workers and this is really kind of following along on one of Meg's comments. What I'm wondering is that in some cases, food service workers we all know they've been deemed essential workers, and, and they seem to not have a choice. So, you know, I'm wondering if there's any serious conversation about offering them hazard pay, or whether there will be some flexibility in being able, you know, in schools being able to furlough. So I'm not sure who's best to answer it. Maybe this is just something for the AOE or the Scott administration, but it's very much on my mind and I've heard it from a couple different folks. So I'm just going to toss it out there. Thanks. So you mentioned my name so I'll just respond real quick and superintendents can feel free to chip in. This is Jay Nichols for the record from our principal's association. So Kathleen and others, it's done differently in different schools. There are, there are places where I know for a fact that food service workers and food service workers and food service workers and food service workers and food service workers and food service workers and food service workers. So Kathleen and others, it's done differently in different schools. There are, there are places where I know for a fact that food service workers are in a vulnerable population and have been told not to come in. They might be helping with playing the menu or something like that from their home, and it might be other support staff. I think my wife goes to school two mornings a week in Berkshire where Lindsay superintendent helps make lunches, because she's not in that risk group. So I know that different schools are handling this different ways, but I don't believe anybody who's in that vulnerable population has been forced to work to my knowledge and superintendents can certainly chime into that. Yeah, I'll add to that. Certainly this during this time, we've only asked workers to fulfill job responsibilities if they can. No one's been forced. You know, we, as, as Jay's mentioned, we do have some, some of our employees who are in those vulnerable populations or vulnerable categories. So, and we do have, you know, specifically, we're, we're very mindful of the food service workers and the pair educators, all of our support staff, and what, what we're asking of them. And any employee can always say no. That's great. Thank you so much. Serena Austin. Thank you. First of all, I just want to recognize the work that you all are doing. And just every time we talk to any school teacher or superintendent, it, it's just amazing at how quickly you brought things up to speed for delivering education to Vermont's children. I was just wondering if there's any kind of thinking about maybe doing a questionnaire or survey for parents, you know, just because it was probably the first time that we've asked parents to do this and not, you know, just to get some feedback from them in about what worked, you know, what was difficult, was it too much work, was it too little work and I'm sure you'll get something in the middle. But just to again use them as a information point as to how this work for them and how it could be improved, you know, if this should happen again. I don't mind speaking to that. We definitely have been attending to that and that's something on our radar to we're starting to draft it now to send out to families because it's always about improving the practice right so none of us had any experience preparing to shift into a mode like this so that real time feedback that we get from the field will definitely help us to improve. I have sent out other surveys, but not specific to how the learning piece is going and I think that as we shift into that continuation phase of the learning period it will be really important to get real time feedback from both students and from parents. I also add to that we do have a survey going out on May 1 for that very purpose. And the reason I've chosen that date is because that'll be for us a full two weeks of implementing our continuity of learning plan. So we borrowed it as educators do from Franklin Northwest or we haven't completed it but we Franklin Northwest Supervisor Union has put one together. Can I just ask you all for how many students do you have in your in your district. We have about 1000, little over 1000. If you if you've your questions been answered can you put your little blue hands down the screen. We are going to be speaking we're going to be looking into mental health for our students. Next week, we're going to be inviting some people in from the designated agencies considering act to 64 responsibilities for our children who are on coordinated service plans. Are you are you folks are your teachers working directly with the designated agencies how are they showing up for your students who had had emotional behavioral variety of challenges that were picked up by the designated agencies. Anybody. I'll just in this might not be true for everybody. But this is a gap right now in where I am. And that's not a criticism of those agencies. We're as we hustle to get up the core parts of what the governor set out for us. Some of the some of this connective work has been has been a little bit behind. I don't know what I'll be interested to see the ability of those of those agencies to to assist in those ways once we get going but I would say that that is that is not something that's fully emotion in my situation. What about others. Just to add to what Zach saying, I would say it's similar for us. We rely on our guidance directors school counselors and school based clinicians. And meeting weekly they've done they've made sure to connect with our most vulnerable students right at the beginning. They continue to provide services. They put together a web page for us as educators and also for our families. So those are the folks we've been relying on. We've had that some of the services that we typically have access to during the school year. We still are having some access to their others that we're still trying to navigate like Zach said they're they're ramping up what it is they're going to be able to offer. We're navigating how that fits with what we're offering with kids for two kids and families as well. Think the other piece of this is that families are struggling with some of the things that we typically struggle with in schools in terms of of expectations around students who are resistant to doing work so I think that we have mental health staff on our organization that are reaching out to families and trying to provide some of that social emotional learning. Support for them because they don't typically have to ask their kids to do the kinds of things that they're having to ask them to do now so providing and pushing resources out to families, not just to the students is really important during this time. And I would add, we've increased our own capacity in our school district around mental health for several years. So we have, we have capacity to some of this but Lynn and I, and the rest of the Franklin Grand Isle superintendents are working directly with our agency up there, and communicating on a regular basis trying to get more help as we go along, which I think is the agency up there has recently laid off over 100 employees. So, there are other questions that we should ask them when they're in, if you think of them. We have questions that that that we're planning to ask. I'm not sure what the question would be at your level yet, but we're still navigating that. I'm thinking just being clear about what services they provide or can provide us would be would be helpful. I heard there was a request for flexibility. Can you tell me what kind of flexibility you're looking for. Yeah, I mean, some of some of this has come has already come. It's not connected with programs from you guys it tends to be federal programs whether it's around food, deadlines around title title money title spending, but whatever flexibility we have at the state level to give us as wide a berth as we can to try. I saw someone tweet this and I was great great way to describe it. We're trying to like Apollo 13 our education system. And so as we're, we're doing that work we're being as creative as we can be, but we run up against regulatory, you know, stuff that is created in a non global pandemic environment, when we would all be going to schools. Here's an example. Again, you don't control this one but we're trying to figure out how to deal with make missing privacy in a different way but how are we dealing with FERPA. In relation to the recording of class interactions where we have we want to offer kids the opportunity to synchronously be present for class and quite part of the class dialogue, but then have other students who may need to access that material. If we record that there's certain issues with FERPA around our ability to do that stuff. Same thing with Kevin talked about having one to one service with kids. And as a former high school teacher, I would never do a tutoring session after school without my door open so colleagues could could be aware of what was happening in my space. And now we want to record those one to one sessions both for the sake of the student as well as for the sake of the staff member. Again, we're having questions about what's our ability to do that within an existing regulatory framework. Those are all federal issues, whatever stuff you guys have around dates, timelines, etc that are related to state level, state level stuff, the more flexibility you can give us in this environment over the short run would be greatly appreciated. We have pretty direct access with the superintendent's association. So, if you can be sending things to Jeff Francis. He can organize that and come to us that would be that would be great we're standing by waiting to hear from from us to things that you think that we can do. I know some of the dates and times are in the State Board of Education. Excuse me they've given authority to the secretary, but at any rate, we can always, we can always have a piece of that conversation. Other questions. I so appreciate you for coming to speak to us. We are paying attention as are you and how we're going to be seeing out the end of this school year, but it is also raising questions about the coming school year. There certainly are concerns that we're looking into in relation to the Ed fund. All of these things will affect you. It's been very appreciative of the fact that the number of people that are coming together and working together is incredibly important. And seems to be making a difference. I also want us to always keep in mind the opportunities. Going forward that we can gain from this experience. What what are some what are some things that have been trying to open up that we haven't been able to get through that we might be actually able to think about now. I would really appreciate your input on that. So, there are no other questions for the committee members. I guess I would wait Kayla Belder, and then we'll have Jeff. Thanks. One last question here. I'm just curious open questions anyone for the rest of the operating year through June 30. Are any of your districts in any kind of are you waiting on any revenues, basically in order to pay your bills for the rest of the current operating year. Just just wondering if that's a factor before July 1. To start, I, I understand from some things we were hearing from the state that the April 30 payment will be going out from the state. So, we're feeling okay right now for the, for the remainder of the year that finances will be fine with that state at the April 30 date. And just so you know that we will be looking at the conversation starting between the House and the Senate. In relation to the 18 districts that currently do not have a budget. We will be working with Jeff Francis and Sue from BSPA, as well as the agency and our own. Joint fiscal office to figure out how we might address this to deal with the fact that you don't have budgets and the current statute is probably not that helpful. So with that, I think, yes, go ahead. You know, I was just going to say we, we do have one town that seems to have difficulty sending payment. And so, you know, as, as Zach mentioned earlier, that has me even more concerned, you know, for, for our budget for next year, you know, it's the, it seems quite dire, the future financial situation. We are aware. Ways and means committee is taking a pretty good look at that as well. And we've been joining with them on some of their conversations. Okay. I thank you so much. Jeff Francis. Hello, everyone. Thank you very much. I asked for five minutes. I'll take to the first thing I wanted to say was yesterday. BSA sponsored a webinar. Featuring Mark for all the goal of which was to start to bring local school officials. Into the discussion around the fiscal challenges we face marked at a great job. We want to contextualize for local leaders. We have a lot of challenges ahead using the same information that legislators are getting. We had 190 people on the call. And we're not, we will continue to do that. Along those lines. What I have been making an appeal around is this the, we're dealing in a period of an unprecedented challenge. We're dealing with challenges that are not going to serve us well. I know that there are discussions going on both in the administration in both bodies in the general assembly and locally with regard to the fiscal challenges. My strong urging is that the general assembly and the administration. And educators, including the NEA to the table sooner rather than later. So as the picture becomes clearer around what we face fiscally. I'm asking that we come together understand the problem collectively and work together to address what I think will be extremely formidable challenge on the funding front. The reason that I say this to the education committee is because I think you better than any other committee in the building understand local school operations and can understand why we would want to be involved with finding solutions to these challenges. It will not work if the administration, or either the house or Senate or committees, they're in start to float ideas about how we're going to contend with this. People are are they are weary. They are working very hard. Some are growing impatient. And it'll be great if we work together in a spirit of collegiality. The third thing, Chair Webb, you alluded to and that is the 18 districts. Zach McLaughlin's with you from Springfield. He's one of those 18 districts. He talked about the challenges that his school district will face. These 18 districts do not have budgets through any choice of their own. In the case of nine, their budget was defeated and they have not had an opportunity to take a revised budget back to the electorate. In the case of the other nine, they had both schedule that they had not taken place yet. It's a different scenario than the districts that passed their budgets on town meeting day. We are going to work with them and with you to get them into stable financial footing for the start of the next fiscal year with an understanding that it's going to be tough. We're going to work with them and with you to get them into stable financial footing for the start of the next fiscal year with an understanding that it's going to be tough. My judgment was, well, if we can help them by giving them fiscal year 20 authority to contend with FY 21, that should be sufficient. Kowski and I met with 13 superintendents who serve these 18 districts the day before yesterday and they justifiably said that won't be sufficient because in effect it starts them off with a budget cut for FY 2021. We're not asking for any special dispensation for these districts. We just want to put them on even footing so that they can move forward with all other districts into the challenge of the head. They did not control the fact that it's difficult for the electorate to eat impossible for the electorate to come together right now to vote on a budget. In order they control the economic fate of the state and the dire picture that some folks would be being asked to consider a budget within. So our goal is to get them through legislative authority reasonable budget to start FY 21 so that they can be with all other districts as we navigate these tough roads ahead. So that's what I wanted to say to you. I know there's more work to do on this, but I didn't want the moment to pass with about without conveying those thoughts. Thank you. I believe that the bill that the Senate is working on right now has an inflator in it. Well, there are two. So there was one that was officially under discussion on Tuesday that had an inflator in it. That was discussed in the Senate. Frankly, they didn't like the inflator, but I don't think we had a chance to express enough the perspective of these local school districts. And Jim Demeray, who maybe on the call was asked to draft one without the inflator that has not been formally presented yet, but he had shared that with Sue Seglowski. So we knew that that was consistent with the discussion in the Senate Education Committee. I think we'll probably talk about this next week. We maybe asked why we're speaking about a bill that hadn't been formally presented yet. But Sue did have a copy of it. It was shared with her. And we're in a place where we frankly don't have a lot of time. So we're going to move ahead as openly as we possibly can in that spirit of working together and getting the job done. The Senate and I plan to have agreement between our two committees. Before it goes to the floor. So we, we're going to be working as well. And we will definitely want your, your, your response and the SBA and the NEA. Those are critical to us in our formation. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you all. I don't want to take any more time. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you so much. We're going to just continue to move on with the rest of our agenda, which we love to have you stay. Do or do not. It's all good. But we're going to, we've been using this once a week to check in on what's happening in the field. So we've been speaking with trying to bring people in as we did with you today. Superintendents, we brought in some teachers. But we wanted to hear from the superintendents from the teachers from the school boards from the special ed directors from the principal. So, so I'm going to just open up that discussion now and, and move on to Sue. So if you want to stay and listen, please do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for having me. I wanted, I'm going to just interrupt you one, one second. I'm sorry to the superintendents. If you have written testimony, would you send it to Avery? We would appreciate that. I know that I'm going to want to be referring back to some of the things that you said. So go ahead. That's fine. Thanks. I just wanted to start out by letting you know that the VSBA met this week, the board on Wednesday night, and it was their first fully remote board meeting. We had a meeting in person with the option for people to participate through go to meeting, but this was of course fully remote. And at the end of the meeting, they, they all expressed their profound gratitude to everyone in the education community for their heroic efforts that they're taking right now. And they sort of started out listing different people that work, different groups of people that work in the education community. And then they just said, you know, we really can't do that because we're going to miss somebody. We just really appreciate all of them. So I wanted to convey that to you and to the people that are listening. I know that the webinar that Jeff talked about that happened yesterday with Mark Peral. There were school board chairs on that webinar. All the school board chairs in the state were invited to participate. And we will be emailing a link to the recording of it to all the school board members in Vermont so that they all have access to that information. It's really important that that they're hearing the same information that you are hearing from the joint fiscal office. I'll touch briefly on the 18 districts without budgets. That's a topic that the BSBA board covered on Wednesday night. And after being briefed on everything that that Jeff spoke about already in his testimony. The BSBA board voted to support an approach that would provide spending authority for FY 2021 at the level of FY 2020 plus an inflator. And also, when the, as part of that vote supported an extended amount of time for getting budgets approved by voters because of this pandemic voting cannot occur during April and May. So they're supporting an extended amount of time for districts to get their budgets approved. And I would also just say similarly to what Jeff stated that the interest is really in seeing that all Vermont school districts are as prepared to move into FY 2021 as possible and on equal footing. I guess the last thing I'd let you know about is that we're working on getting resources out to our new board members. This is quite a time to come on as a brand new school board member. Certainly a lot to learn for anyone who comes on as a new school board member but during this time, I'm, it's really quite overwhelming so we're especially working on getting the new school board members all of the resources they need in order to be effective board members. That concludes my comments. Thank you. I believe that the draft 1.1 of the Senate draft is the one that you're talking about, which I believe is going to be put into a committee bill once they go through the formal process of allowing our bodies to develop committee bills beyond the deadline. Correct, it's 1.1. Yeah, who's not going to like this. Well, I'm not sure who's, I mean, I think that it's a pretty compelling argument to say that they, you want to put them on equal footing with the other districts that have already passed budgets. I know that there are districts, there are a few districts that have a significant increase in the number of pupils. And so there, their budgets are going up more significantly. And that's just because of the increase in the number of pupils that they have. So they, it may be that they would like to see some kind of factor applied in that, in that bill that would take that into account. Peter. Yeah, I think my question is along the lines of what you were just talking about with the increased number of pupils. I know at least one of the districts that hasn't voted is a non operating district, no schools. So, you know, their, their budget is just simply numbers of students times expected tuition rates. And it seems like those should be sort of moved to the side, given a very specific formula since theirs is essentially pure math. And I guess I wonder if there are how many of those without budgets are not operating. I don't know the answer to that question but I could certainly find it out for you. And let you know. Yeah, not important now. Thank you. Any value in waiting, we had heard at one point that it might be a problem. We don't want to preempt towns from voting. I'm wondering your thought on that. I think. I think the sentiment that I heard on Wednesday night was that there should be an extension of the. Normally, boards can vote on a budget as many times as it takes them to pass a budget. And I think the sentiment that I heard was that there should be time beyond June 30 for boards to present budgets to their communities and have them voted on. Before the default budget would be basically imposed upon them. What was there I don't remember is there a date in the Senate bill around that or that's something we can discuss or we'll be taking this up next week committee will be taking this this up next week. I'm looking at it right now. In draft 1.1. It says if the fiscal year 21, 2021 budget of a school district has not been approved by voters on or before June 30. Okay. And that date was not that that date was not necessarily acceptable. I think it needs to be extended beyond June 30. Okay. Dylan, did you have a question. Yeah, thanks to I mean, as a representative in a community that has not yet voted for a budget. I don't know quite how best to respond to it because part of my concern is the seeds of fiscal chaos are sown by forces, not of our own making right. This is a genuine crisis. And so I have some concerns about not necessarily our community, but any community that hasn't advanced the budget, their ability to do so in this environment, particularly if you have voters who are really on hard times who might be very concerned about fiscal impacts, we can all relate to that. So I'm just trying to understand it but I'd be very supportive. And the, the realities we're facing here and many other communities are I'd be very supportive to either figure out is there an inflator we could put on a default budget that would bring districts up to a point where they have ability to build around next year or looking specifically at what you're saying more time so I just, I want to let the committee know this is something I think I could be supportive of. I would be interested as we get going to to just hear as this evolves with your members, what you think would be best so that we can reach consensus here. Yeah, I'd be happy to ask some school board chairs to, if they'd like to testify to your committee. So you could hear directly from them that draft 1.1 does have an inflator and equal to the average statewide increase in student enrollment for already approved budgets. Kathleen, James. Yep. Just to make sure I'm understanding there is not yet any wording for a solution for the districts you mentioned mentioned Sue that have an unexpected increase in student enrollment. Right that that is not reflected in draft 1.1 right now. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. So we will be a we were going to be working on this bill as well as 173 they're going to be two different bills will be working on those next week. So we'll get those lined up. Okay, thank you. Okay, so the next is Jay Nichols, Jay. Good afternoon. So for the record, Jay Nichols, executive director of the BPA, I've got maybe five minutes or so of testimony. Thanks for having me. I want to start by expressing my sympathy to all the committee members who knew Bernie Jeskiewicz and especially Larry on the news of Bernie's passing you're in my thoughts and prayers Larry and everybody else. On April 6, we participated in a two hour zoom call with high school principals, assistant principals, and other school level high school leaders around the state. We had 45 people on the call. And additionally, we had a meeting with our VPAs equity practitioner network, which is made up of principals and other school leaders focused on equity issues in our schools, talking about the impact of COVID-19 virus on equity. The high school agenda centered mostly around grading and instruction and equity issues. So here are a few themes from that from that conversation. Principals really want to make sure that no harm is done to students academically for things they can't control. And some of the things that people are doing are as follows. Some schools are moving to pass fail for the rest of the year. Others are moving to systems like high pass, pass fail, or pass with distinction pass fail. Some schools are going AB or pass fail. And some are even given students the option to take whatever method helps them the most. So different students could choose different things in some of these settings. Others are still having a GPA and traditional letter number grades, but they're not allowing students grades or GPA to decline during the crisis. In other words, they're making sure students grades don't go below where they were before the crisis started. And that's actually something that's very common in the colleges are doing that all across the country that I've seen. Leaders are worried that if you're grading material, are you really grading for privilege and just increasing the learning gap. There are concerns about new learning, especially in the huge equity issues related to that new learning without actually having a teacher with you. How much new learning should students be expected to acquire is something that high school principals and teachers are struggling with. Some parents are pushing back hard that they want traditional grades and assessments. Others are saying, in fact, more are saying, No, this is all way too much for us, you know, give us a break, give our kids a break here. Most principals are saying they won't be doing traditional final exams. Many are saying that the assessments that are being taken at home really could be testing the resources of the family as opposed to the curriculum knowledge of the student. Some are going to use these though as formative assessments, just to see where kids are at relationship to their learning. Some places are keeping the grading systems exactly the way they are right now, but airing on the side of the student. So again, the students can't go backwards, but they could go forward if they're if they're making progress. There are some concerns that principals shared on Monday with some teachers not adjusting and trying to run their classes essentially as usual, which is creating great problems for some students and as you know can be a huge equity issue. Principals are working with teachers to understand that they can't expect their classes and curriculum coverage to proceed as it did before the crisis and most teachers have been phenomenal about this and understand this. There are concerns about students are not engaging how to connect with these students is a real issue. Some students. Some schools rather will give incompletes to students who refuse or unable to participate in remote learning. There's an importance of making decisions but being willing to change them going forward several principals said they were going to put in a system. And if that system hurt the student anyway, they're going to revisit that system at the end of the end of the school year to make sure that students were held harmless. Bottom line is there also were discussions about credit recovery. What do you do if a kid does nothing and he or she is a kid who's on the margins of whether they're going to graduate or not. We reach those kids somehow. So a lot of discussion about that no firm answers on that. And the bottom line is principal said at high school level, we need to meet the kids where they are when they come back. We need to meet them where they are right now and give them as much support as we can. And that was a resounding theme on that call. Now for the equity practitioners network, which is 24 principals, mostly are mostly elementary principals. They want to make sure that people understand the pace is not slowed down for administrators. They're working longer hours than ever before. They're trying to solve problems for which there really is no solution. The stress level is very high. And principals want people to know that this is also true for support staff and teachers. Teachers and support staff across the state of Vermont have been phenomenal. Hats out our teachers hats out to their organization Vermont NEA organizations like that, and to the teachers in the field and support staff they've been great. They had some thematic concerns that they wanted me to share with you. Some of this you've heard me say before from other groups online learning is not equitable because we don't have universal access to broadband or one on one devices. This should be provided from the state if there's any hope for equity and online education. That should be step one. Worries about parents who are losing income are now being asked to manage their children's education on top of their basic survival needs as a family. The impact is wildly disproportionate for families that were already struggling with poverty, disabilities, and other forms of marginalization. A reoccurring theme was there should be free internet connectivity for everyone everywhere in the state. Some big concerns about food insecurity for families as people lose jobs, some concern about the next two weeks, vacations. Some school districts will be providing meals, some won't. So we're worried about some families during that time. School leaders are worried about increased domestic violence and the safety of children at home without the physical presence of school. There was a concern about Act 166 providers now closing, the districts now being asked to provide distance learning for the students they don't know and that others have been paid to educate previously. Principles were wondering how they're supposed to do that. However, I want to add here that the AOE is addressing this concern and so we're happy about that. In fact, Dan made a comment today or Heather Boucher made a comment that Dan had said something along the lines of if we don't get high quality academics for our three and four year olds for this period of time as long as they're safe and socially and emotionally that's what really matters and he's absolutely right. The inequities for children with special needs is particularly apparent and troublesome. Principles are really struggling with this. These are the children that are the toughest to educate and now we're asking parents to do much of the work for which they do not have the training or skill set. There are no easy answers. You heard superintendents talk about that. Nothing that hasn't come up too much. There's with the superintendents. There's concerns about planning for next year. Principles are saying how do I hire people? How do we hire remotely? Many school systems already have many openings for next year. How do they see candidates teach when there are no students to actually see them teach in traditional sense, which is an important part of the hiring process. The other thing that came up several times is we're trying to have full schools starting in a remote way on April 13th when we know it isn't really possible or even advisable. What races that we're trying to win and what costs? I do have to say guidance that's come out from the AOE has been really good. We've worked with the AOE on that. Several superintendents and myself worked with Dan over the course of a weekend on this and I think it's a lot better now. There is more understanding about what kind of screen time kids should actually be expected to have. It's much more in line with national standards. And I'd like to close by sharing two quotes from school leaders that I found very powerful and I think you will too. The first is from a principal who does not want to be named, who's in the equity practitioner network, and she says, I am blown away and brought to tears by the fact that not once in this real life sci-fi movie have I heard an administrator, an educator, an instructional assistant, cafeteria staff, custodian, bus driver say no. I've heard how. I've seen puzzle looks and laughter in the face of seemingly impossible challenges. I've seen courage and connection and I'm alternatively lost, stress, scared and incredibly inspired by those I work with. And then the second quote is from Chris Young, principal at North Country High School and a member of our executive council. Chris said the following. I think the scariest part and all of this is that we just don't know what is actually happening in our children's homes. Nor do we know what the longer term impact of this closure is going to have their mental and physical health. I think we can probably agree that it will take quite a while to remediate the academic impact, but it is a social emotional impact that keeps me up at night. We have students who rely on schools for their basic needs, including food, clean clothes, medication, personal care and therapeutic services. We have built social service agencies within our schools to meet these basic needs, and now that schools are closed, it is likely that many of our students basic needs are unmet. We will not even see the impact of this neglect until schools are reopened, and addressing the effects of that neglect will take longer than any academic recovery will. Given the scope of the school's response to the pandemic, it should be apparent that the question people should be asking isn't, why do schools cost so much, but rather, how can schools possibly deliver everything that they deliver for so little. Those are my prepared remarks for today. Thank you. Will you send those into Avery? Yes, I will. Thank you very much. Avery, thank you. Any questions for Jay? We appreciate the passion with which you share what's happening for our kids. Passion is coming from the teachers and coming from the principals. Let's see. Next is, I know that the secretary is coming on at 330. We can get Tracy in, and when the secretary comes in, Jeff Vannon will see. I might ask you to wait. Oh, the secretary's here. Tracy and Jeff Vannon, do you mind waiting while we listen to the secretary? Of course not. Of course you don't. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for joining us. We've had quite a good afternoon. Quite a day. Yeah, listening with this listening to super tenants. It's, it's, it's moving. So yes, so you were going to speak to us about a number of things. So I'll just give you the microphone. Yeah, I think the general idea was an update. I can say the, you know, I'm sure you're aware of the governor announced an extension of this emergency. State of emergency and the stay at home. Stay safe approach through May 15. That's still, they want me to stay on target with the May 8th deadline relative to producing some guidance on end of year celebrations and or graduation. We're starting that conversation now. Had a conversation earlier today with other stakeholders so we're going to start percolating some ideas on that. The, certainly the primary aspect of that decision making will be the public health information. But that that guidance will still be on trajectory for honor before May 8th. The, we have no new information on cares act dissemination of funds, but I will say the, certainly a better part of my week now has been focused on the financial situation. So we're spending a lot of time on that with other legislative leaders, folks inside the agency and the finance office. So, I expect to, you know, next week that to be a major focus of our work. We have, you know, trying to wrap our arms around the problem and start to identify some solutions and possible strategies we could use the continuity of learning plans are coming back. We had asked those to come back on Wednesday of this week and our staff read through a good chunk of them last night. And we seem to be, the reaction is very positive about what districts are doing in terms of trying to meet those requirements but you know as you know everything we're doing I was uncharted territory so we're our disposition is to be supportive as opposed to regular from a regulatory standpoint we're just trying to help districts iron out some issues and identify folks that could be supported to that work. And other agency heads and particularly department of public service agency commerce community development and agency digital services on broadband issues. That work falls into a couple buckets one is just sort of trying to triage and troubleshoot individual literally individual parents and teacher addresses to see what we can do working with private providers to get resources out to folks. On another level will be applying for a new round of rural telemedicine distance learning grants that just came out US Department of Agriculture so we'll be submitting a grant proposal for that on this broadband infrastructure issues. We were just trying to, I guess on a couple levels work on the broadband issue and I think, as you know that'll be one of the outcomes probably this crisis is that will be a more emphatic policy emphasis on broadband needs in the state. That's, I mean I can talk about other other aspects of the work but from a regulatory standpoint it's once we turn the corner on the continuity of learning that's been sort of I think a place of stability to a certain extent so now we're just working on and enacting that work and trying to support the needs of our students and teachers as best we can. The finance piece is a big piece that's out there right now I think. I agree. We heard a little bit from the superintendent's about some of the work that they're doing to try to expand broadband. And I did not hear that they were getting help from the state are you are is the state trying to help with this right now it sounds like they were, they were finding avenues on their own. And I think all of the above you know it's one of those things where, you know, certainly districts will have some flexibility inside their cares act money to pay for things along those lines but my impression is most of what everyone's working on is sort of like all last mile issues you know we're trying to really resolve individual parents to access problems. And I think about like sort of the broader infrastructure issues do they have wide area networks and so forth because most of what we're dealing with is outside of the school perimeter, you know it's really out into the broader landscape so we did. We sent out a survey at the end of last week, trying to connect the school community with the public service community so we were asked folks to identify families and students that might need to access. That didn't work well. I think it's just people don't have a lot of bandwidth to do surveys right now. And so we're just chatting earlier today what we're going to try to do is stand that up at the state level so if you're an individual parent or teacher doesn't have access or any Vermont or we're just going to encourage them to submit a form. And we'll go from there and just sort of cut out the middleman so to speak I'm getting that data. And the advantage on that and as we work directly with the providers, a lot more than the districts necessarily do that there's some good partnerships that say Rutland City had a great represent cookies probably familiar with that. They had you know nice partnership with providers school district and so forth but you know everything's going on districts are working directly with folks we're working with folks. It's all hands on deck so to speak. I certainly have a few questions one we also heard we just heard from Jay Nichols about about grading and the grading I guess totally is is a local control I gather, or are you providing guidance on that. Yeah our guidance is it's a local control shoe but I think you know I know to the point our guidance is really and this is where I think it's really important to get everyone on the same sheet of music and you know that what's going on now is not the same thing as taking instruction and just shoehorning it into remote learning you know so we have to sort of say lower people's expectations but take some of that pressure off. You know everyone initially was really trying to just do what they did in person online, or by delivering materials and so forth and it's just not possible. I think what we're seeing so far as folks are coming up with an appropriate response relative to academic accountability and grading and so forth. We just put out some guidance today on sort of graduation which is sort of in that general theme as well as like look for flexible ways to document student learning. I don't think we're going to be so insistent on some of the traditional methodologies because we're going to have to have to solve this problem here and it's going to require some flexibility and I think therefore most appropriately, appropriately. Locals need to have the maximum flexibility to figure that out. I'm going to open it up to I'm going to have three things I'm going to want to talk about one is budget one is 173 and one is the thing that came to us from the colleges, but before we get to that I wanted to just see if there were questions from members and I see Caleb elder. The question. Thank you, Secretary for joining us again. I have two questions. The first one is just following up on a question I asked you last time we heard from you which was since that time I think that we've heard the health commissioners say that we're going to be moving towards more surveillance testing in some cases as school staff are still working and of course the school delivery food delivery systems are so critical. I'm wondering if you've heard anything about that testing capacity becomes more available if we could see widespread testing in our school staff that's question number one and I will just say question number two as well here. We did hear about the budget shortfalls. We did just hear from some superintendents it sounded like the April 30 payments were going out and so revenues for this current operating year are pretty secure. I'm just curious. So at any point during the coming operating year research July 1 when we might anticipate that could there be instances in which school districts don't receive anticipated revenues due to funding shortfalls. So, sorry for two big questions but there they are. Yeah. So I think on the first question we don't have any specific formulation of extending PPE requirements or testing requirements to school food service personnel. Though I would I would suggest that might be a possibility as we ramp up those measures for all folks are on the front lines and dealing with the emergency. My observation is that we've we continue to expand our testing capacity fairly aggressively more one of the leaders every time I see us ranked on from a state basis we're seeing to be near the top of that. And the information that I'm seeing about, you know, on the other side of this, when we start to try to say is the governor uses the phrase open the spigot and try to go back to normalcy to a certain extent, you know, our ability to do that pre having vaccine is going to be predicated on our ability to greater surveillance and having more significant PP available for everyone. So I think that's coming. But there's no specific strategy right now that I'm aware of food service in terms of the budget issue. My approach on this has been initially to talk about fiscal year 20 versus fiscal year 21. It's not clear to me yet what the nature of the problem isn't fiscal year 20 I have pieces of information. We're endeavoring to sort of articulate a problem statement, if you will, very succinctly. So, when you mentioned cash flow payments on April 30 if it's still not clear to me how that's going to work and if there is a problem there or not. We're just trying to wrap our arms around this and get a solid problem definition I think by next week, we'll have a better understanding in that but it's really requiring a composite view of lots of folks I know representative Conwan was on a testimony that I was in the other day. I think it was in Senate finance and or might have been in ways and means where, you know, Bill Talbot was there, you know, Brad James has been in jfo so we're all we're all trying to pull this together and understand the true nature of the problem. Firstly, then identify strategies. So I think if that logic holds up, you know, where we look at fiscal year 20 for an immediate if you if we have something that needs to be addressed immediately we need to work fairly aggressively to do that. It's not clear to me yet if that's the case or not relative to the education fund. Certainly fiscal year 21 is a whole other can of worms and I think you know my my message to the superintendents on Wednesday is, you know, you know, don't don't expect business as usual. I think you know one of the, you know, significant impacts of the virus will certainly be on the state's economy and how we in the states financing of education is an important part of that. So what I hope to do is certainly get information out as early as we can so folks are informed about the context. But, yeah, we're going to we're going to have, you know, to be making some difficult decisions I think it's also hard at this point to understand the amount or timing of any federal revenue that will be coming into school districts as you know as it will be coming into states as a whole so maybe some of these problems aren't as significant as we might think if there's some stability introduced from the federal revenues but all that sort of open up in the air. And, you know, at the moment, we have many school districts all but 18 essentially that have adopted school budgets so we know, you know, what that sort of projected spending is going to be. We've supported some language that was sponsored I think originally or the idea was sponsored by BSA about how to deal with those 18. Again, trying to bring some stability into the immediate context, but we'll, as soon as we can sort of address the immediate issue and fiscal year 20, the next couple weeks it will turn our efforts into the fiscal year 21 issues but I think, to a large extent between now and June 30, hopefully we'll have a better understanding of certainly where the virus is going to be where you know the economy is going to come back online. And also to start to understand to what extent we'll have federal dollars coming in to support some of these systems, but I still expect what even with all that the impacts can be pretty significant. And we'll start we'll start working on fiscal year 21 stuff almost immediately. Thanks. I'm just curious to know if the agency is or will be providing districts with some guidance on financial decisions such as furloughing employees. Yeah, that's, we haven't done specific guidance on that issue but I've said to folks I think this is when this is all said and done our financial guidance will be probably the largest body of guidance that we produce. We've already produced a significant amount of guidance on coding of information and so forth and how to manage various aspects of federal grants and so forth. The, the issue of furloughing employees I mean right now, you know, as you know we're making this transition from the maintenance of learning to sort of the continuity of learning. There is a thread that's common through throughout this emergency, which is that districts are required to pay their employees, their current employees, you know, so anyone who's whether it's a parent care teacher districts are required to continue to pay them, whether those folks are actually performing their sign duties are working their regular schedule, and they are required to pay them in accordance with their regular scheduled hours. That was decided early on in the process as an economic stability strategy. But as we turn the corner particularly on contractual services we're already starting to get questions or districts on non employee compensation so if you're obligated for a service. A service is no longer being delivered to what extent are you required to continue to pay those make those payments in particular if those payments are subject or allowed a cost for reimbursement under some federal grant or special education so we have a lot of those questions coming up so we are I told superintendents that we will bring producing guidance on that contractual issue. But the issue around employees, at least through the length of this current emergency at the end of the year is that you are to pay people as as if they were working their regular scheduled hours. And on the other hand, districts still have the full obligation to live under any collective bargaining agreements or other contracts they might have with staff. In many cases, in the case of furloughing or reduction in force we're long since past or since past the deadline to which many districts could actually work under that their collective bargaining agreements to do any kind of reduction in force. So, I think, you know, for the moment, we're not providing any guidance on that issue, other than to say we have they have a directive to continue to employ all staff but we are going to be producing some guidance on the contract issue. So, we had a situation that came up, we're hearing that the funding for busing, since they're not not busing students they're busing food that there's not a reimbursement for that. Does that go through the Ed fund or is that transportation or what's the story without. Yeah, I mean there's I think I raised the question to folks. It's an area we, you know, we were sort of we were talking about, are there statutory things we might want to look at. I just sort of posited that my understanding of the statutory language under transportation reimbursement is that that's exclusive to transporting students to and from school each day. So, districts are required at the end of the year to submit a tally of their, their proposed allowable costs, if you will, for transportation. And part of that definition is that it can't be for anything else other than transportation to and from schools so they did they're not for instance allowed to include trips for away games or field trips that's not part of the reimbursement right. So, the question would be, is that what we mean by student transportation costs or not. Or is it going to fall into that bucket of costs that are coven 19 related and therefore, they'll have other revenues available to pay for that, you know, so it's essentially, I would say in the case of transportation fund and or the way we approach transportation reimbursement, generally that reimbursement somewhere around 45%. You know, for qualified transportation to and from school on the other hand, delivering meals with a school bus might not qualify as the current statutory definition is but on the other hand, those costs are totally allowable under their federal tax money and it might be a cost they pick up on that side at 100% reimbursement. So that the transportation fund I don't think is struggling quite as much as the general fund and the education funds. Is it worth. Well, when I said transportation fund it's not I'd have to go back and look I don't know if I don't think we have a discrete fund per se for school transportation when I said transportation fund you're thinking of the larger infrastructure transportation fund state highways and so forth. The school transportation amount is is sort of pegged off an inflator of inflation and so forth so that percentage I quoted 45%. That number moves, depending on how much cost there is and the inflation of the total amount the state's going to provide for transportation. But as you know, not every school district in the state provides transportation or some do it for some grades and not for others. So the question would be, you know, is there I don't think I guess is what I'm saying I don't think there's a need to address the statutory language on this because I think there's adequate flexibility through CARES Act funding. This is exactly the type of expense that's clearly COVID-19 related. That should be qualified and coded as a COVID-19 expense and therefore hopefully CARES Act revenue would pick up the difference. As you move forward with guidance, I did speak with a mental health counselor regarding concern for our children who are at risk. And our conversation went to the fact that, you know, COVID-19 is, you know, we are doing what we're doing, it's a primary health issue and we are responding to a primary health issue. Children, from what we know so far, tend to be at a lower risk. In contrast, they are at risk for a secondary health issue, which is mental health. So with children not being in school, the chances of mental health changes is something that I'm really hoping as you look at that continuity of learning guidance are taking into account the incredible challenges that we are likely to see related to children returning to school with mental health changes. No, absolutely. It's everyone's anticipating that. We did issue joint guidance with the Department of Health just separately this recently this week on acknowledging that this issue is on our radar and that we're also encouraging districts to maintain their contracts with their designated service agencies and also to make them aware that there's virtual therapeutic interventions and support mechanisms available. Those services have been transitioned to being online, but we're similar to our childcare perspective. We need that mental health infrastructure available to us now and certainly after the crisis is over. So we felt it would be helpful to produce joint guidance on that and we did so this week just to raise the awareness to everyone. Compensatory ad is another one on my mind. Assuming it's on yours as well. Absolutely. Anything happening yet? Nothing new on that. You know, we, the general has predicted sort of OSAP, you know, the federal Department of Education section that deals with special education has been very good in their guidance but they're also still closely adhering to the requirements of that law and not interested in backing away from our commitment to our most vulnerable students as a state. We aren't interested in doing that either. So, you know, right now folks are being very creative, so we say and implementing strategies part of that work. It was first necessary, I think to define what we mean by the regular education environment in terms of continuity learning. So I think the next logical phase of that is to then revisit student supports around that. And certainly another area where I think federal funding will be helpful with the cares act is that our disabled students are going to our students with disabilities are going to need additional supports during this period and afterwards. And district should prioritize the use of their CARES money in that regard to ensure these students are supported. But yeah, it's going to be a significant challenge and and as you mentioned compensatory services that challenge isn't going to go away when we all return to normal per se because we're, we're going to have to assess the impact of this crisis on all our students including the impact on those students with disabilities. I'm not seeing any questions so I just want to say that we are going to be working on some default budget languages language we're going to want to be in touch with the agency. And, you know, some access to to Brad as well as to what the impact will be and whatever legislation that we're looking into. You know, the Senate is going to be starting a bill we're going to be coordinating that language so that whatever we we finally move forward is there'll be, we will all be happy with it and both committees will be able to support it. And we are going to be looking for your support in whatever case we do as well so I want you to be involved. So I'm going to go to to also look at what the impact is basically on our districts and on the Ed fund. The other thing we're looking at is 173 delay that will also start in the Senate. And we'll be following that so we're going to want your, your feedback on that. And I assume we'll be doing that with Emily. We testified, you know, it's hard to keep track of the time but I believe it was earlier this week that Emily and I were testifying in Senate education and we've produced a language on 173 delay. Basically a one year delay across the board. We also have the technical corrections language from last year that's still alive issue. We did, we introduced that concept. That was our, that was my opinion in our agencies disposition. We did put a caveat on caveat on that in that we hadn't had a chance due to the time to consult with either the census based advisory group or the state board on that. So I've, I've had other conversations with the state board chair since then, and they're moving forward with their rulemaking process on 173. But the board as a whole will, will discuss some more of their next meeting is April 22nd. So we'll have some perspective on the state board and Megan's been made aware of our testimony. We've produced testimony on 173 delay. We've also drafted testimony I think Jim has seen on dealing with the 18 school districts. So we've done that as well. But yeah, if you need anything just let us know and Emily's Emily beer happy to help. There's one more thing that came up this morning from our colleges our state colleges university and independent colleges. We are looking for and I believe may have reached out to the governor looking for immunity for colleges who are used to either their campuses are available. They're worried about liability and I think we're seeking something from the, the administrator, the governor to give them some immunity from liability related to this and wondering if you're aware of if there's any action on that. I'm not unaware of this issue it's not something necessarily that would go through me, but, you know, I appreciate putting on my radar happy to coordinate with them on that but I, this is the first time I've heard. Yeah, I mean it certainly makes some sense and it's whether whether the governor can do it by executive order or we need to do something about it. Okay, certainly seems like a reasonable request. I don't have anything. I guess what I would say in closing is in this time, the incredible importance of working together and keeping in touch with the various experts in education and experts and children, and the providers and the state and the legislature and the administration is going to be what we're going to need to be able to get through this. I agree. Yeah. No Mavericks. So I think we are good. Let me just make sure that I'm. Okay, Kathleen, did you have a question. I'm just having trouble reading my, my messages here. She might have. Kathleen, did you have a question. No, no questions and I don't think my little hand is raised so. I can't see there. Okay. Thank you very much. We are going to move on then to hear from the teachers and from the special administrators. Have a good weekend. Thank you. So how much time do you have I want to be as well it says I have two minutes but can we can we all go. I want to give Jeff a chance to say, I did actually, so again, I'm Tracy Sawyer's executive director of Vermont Council of Special Ed administrators and thanks once again for having me here. I did provide written testimony, so I won't go through this, but I really appreciate people taking a look at that because I wanted to talk to you about two things, which was the disability law projects letter from, I think April 3rd around the cares act and I feel like it's important, you know, to see kind of our response and thinking on that. And then I was going to talk to you more about the independent school special ed piece that we talked about last time but you can look in my testimony to kind of see where we are on that issue and then we can just check back in. I guess I would just mainly say that, you know, we've, as we've told you and the choir all of us you're hearing from school personnel, you know the ability to meet timelines and formal compliance requirements of IDEA is a significant challenge at this time and any flexibility we've been asking for through our national organization or the good work always been great working with us is just limited flexibilities only in a specific circumstance of COVID-19. This is not an attempt to repeal rights, but instead just enable family flexibility with an emphasis on local education agencies and parents making good faith efforts in light of the current circumstances. We have many families who don't even want to have IP meetings or do evaluations right now under the circumstances and we just don't want the procedural part of IDEA to put them in an untenable situation. So, in my testimony it talks a little more specifically about what's in place and some of the things that we're asking for but it's it's very limited. It's just what needs to happen. We believe for families and for the schools as well. Some of the things in the disability law project letter really point to kind of expanding the IED mandate. And in this emergency it's just impossible and it's it's inappropriate. So we completely are very much concerned with families and children but we're really just trying to figure out how best we can work with them where they are in moving forward. So if you could just look at those pieces that I have in the testimony and our request would just be to not block access to federal relief if it comes. As I think, again, families need a break from some of the procedural parts of IDEA as well as now as well and we are hopeful that some of those very limited flexibilities will come forward from the federal government so we're still waiting. But I talked about the letter that we had sent with our national organization last week and so again there's more in my testimony. I think that was the most important part of that piece and just quickly with regard to the guidance for approved independent schools, including residential facilities that we looked at last week. I hadn't, you know, we had just seen that that day but we interpret it to say that LEAs will continue to pay tuition and will be reimbursed and again I can't stress enough. You know how these schools are such a critical part of what we do and we don't want them to fail. We're just right now we're just LEAs are needing clarity about whether the state will continue to reimburse the LEAs at the same rate as they were being reimbursed prior to the pandemic, or if they would limit the reimbursement for actual costs of services delivered. So, you know, the reality of special education schools may or may not be able to continue the services and regardless the services are going to look different, and they're going to be provided for less hours. So, we're working with the AOE and looking at federal guidance and continuing to figure out this kind of financial piece of this. You know, I think at this point what that says we've heard is you continue to pay the special education only independent schools and we'll just have to see how that plays out in the coming weeks both with the AOE level and with more guidance that comes out federally so I wanted to close the loop on that and I think again if you read my testimony I'll stop. And we'll be following up with you on 173 later. Yes, and we do support. We do support the delay. I had a board meeting this morning. Have you do it later because I want to make sure I get Jeff in and then I know we're going to have you back on that. Thank you. Okay. Well, I don't see any questions for you right now, Tracy, but I'm sure we will once we get to to, and we also have mental health coming in next week to talk with us about how kids are doing. Oh, Sarita, you had a question. Question, can we get copies can of the testimony of the delay the 173 delay that Dan French talked about and also this testimony. Tracy's testimony, can we get copies of that. Yeah, we can. We can get copies on our website. It will. Okay, great. Yeah, thank you. Okay. So just then. All right. He just come last. Good afternoon. I won't take me last as a, as a symbol of anything other than I stand between you and a weekend on good Friday, no less. I'm happy to be good Friday. Happy Passover Ramadan at the end of the month and anything else you're celebrating. Happy to all. I'm going to start where he was Jay started and just acknowledge what what's all going on here we're in a middle of a health crisis. And to put a fine point on it. I'm a good person in the form of a representative Bernie Jankiewicz and acknowledging Larry a good friend of yours and I last saw Larry or Bernie in the airport. I think in January he looked tanned and rested and we chatted and met his wife. He looked great and I remarked him that he looked great and and he just said yeah, he felt great he looked great was a nice conversation with his wife and his son and he just looked really happy. And that's my fond memory of Bernie now is happy in the airport. So anyway, and that's why we're here that's why we're all here on a Friday on a zoom is that we were in the middle of a health crisis. It's not an education crisis. It's not a, it's turning into an education crisis it's turning into a fiscal crisis but it truly is a health crisis. That's why we are here. I just want to bring us back to that and a little bit so and the reason where we close schools to kids is that we want to keep them safe and healthy and their families safe and healthy and so that's where that's priority number one. And that's what we're all trying to do and doing a great job at doing it we should give ourselves a pat on the back it's been one month. It's truly and we're making it day by day and some days are longer and harder than others but we are doing it so applause to us all. But we are starting to think it remind me and others have mentioned this here we're starting to think ahead about next year and how we get kids back into school. It is not going to be easy it's not going to be a regular start of the school year. And, and one of the things we are doing is working with the Northeast Family Institute NFI to put together a PD program a professional development program for educators. A webinar I should say to address the social and emotional needs and trauma sensitive practices that we're going to need with that we will need to employ next year. If not sooner and so this is for the well being of the educators they need they need that training and reinforcement. But also these are different times and they need new new and different strategies to deal with that as they welcome their kids back next year. So, it is not going to be easy, but we're trying to pivot to that and make sure that people have the education that they, they so desperately need to get up to speed. The stress levels of educators is off the chart, and that includes superintendents principles I've seen emails from administrators that you know where they they acknowledge themselves that they're beleaguered and challenged and, and my, you know, the teachers and educators I work with. The chart is the stresses off the charts, in some cases, and it's as well for their students and their families. It's, it's across the board, and those there will be some consequences as a result. And I'm just going to you know I've been, we've been collecting stories from our members and I just got one during the during this hearing, and I won't read you the six pages of different educators who are responding reporting about their families or students, their own families and their own students, their own children who are students as well. And I'll just read you one quick one I won't identify the person I don't have permission yet but they've been teaching for 14 years they cried about students before they worry about their safety, worried about them being fed they worried about them being loved and were and brought worries and she's brought home worries home with her about those kids. But she was always able to separate home and work. And so there was a definite line, and she said there is no line anymore. It's COVID-19 is decimated that line. And so that's, it's spilling over into her personal life, her kids lives. And that's true around the state and it's not a sob story just an observation, and it's simply a fact that we're all going to have to deal with down the road. One way this is playing out is the CLP's the continuity of learning plans. So, I think the aways received. We met with Dan French earlier today. I think he said they have had. They've received 25 CLP's from around the state they're due, I think, Monday. So those are all coming in those as of yesterday. The concern about that the CLP's the development of those was that a lot of cases teachers weren't involved in the development. So we're asking administrators to develop these plans for continuity of learning. And we wanted to make sure that teachers have a voice so in some cases they had great voice in some places not so much. We're trying to work through that and get some guidance from the agency to make sure that educators are involved in that process because they are in fact the ones delivering education. We're trying to work through that. I think that's about all I really have to say and answer any questions you have a happy to come back and talk more about 173. It's a big issue and Internet access remains a significant challenge for a lot of the same families those that have have and those that have not continue not to have in so many ways and Internet just being one example of that. So happy to answer any questions well aware of the fiscal challenges that we're staring down and I think Secretary French is right. Looking, I think what he said is looking ahead more towards 21 than 20, trying to figure out next week what the federal government will do their issue and guidelines guide guidance next week on the cares act. So there's a 30 day application period thereafter. So it's some time before the money from the cares that will actually hit the streets here in Vermont. So anyway, happy to answer any questions. You might have late on a Friday. I'm not seeing any women wait a minute yes I am. Serita Austin. Hi Jeff. Hello, Serita. Good and this is kind of just maybe just from a school counselor perspective. Like, in my, in my school and an ornament minor time from March on creating groupings for the next year. So six great, all the six great teachers got together to create balance grouping so the receiving teachers, you know, in terms of special educators to educate sped students, you know, special students. And you just special education ELL different academic levels so each group that a teacher received was balanced. How is, but I'm trying to figure out how is that occurring. The next year, I mean, they're, I mean, I can't imagine the combinations of kids that are going to a middle school or a high school or no just how is that going to occur. Well, the answer is, I don't know, be very blunt with you. I know that it is something that needs to occur. And, and I have not heard any discussion of it. I imagine that the guidance folks are starting to look at it. You know, originally it was the first few weeks of just in crisis full on crisis mode. And I think people are starting to shift into. Okay, this is this is going to go on for some time. The schools will reopen at some point and when they do how's that going to look and you know what are the grades going to look like everybody will be a little bit behind. And that's true month is true nationally so you know when when I hear parents that are stressing about my kids missing in this assignment or this algebra or something. Every kid in the country is doing the same thing is struggling the same way they're all, you know, missing these last two months of school. We just need to give ourselves a break and allow for that so the answer to your question though. One thing in New Hampshire for example the, the associations, the NEA New Hampshire and the superintendents over there the principals school boards, put together a joint statement and they were recommending a four day school day school week, followed by a four day planning and it would not that I'm not saying that we should do that necessarily but it's it's one option in that fourth they be a planning day for teachers and guidance to figure out next year, and the next week. So it might be a big equity issue. Yeah, it's it's part of the equity issue certainly. Thank you. Okay. Every we've got a tentative start on a schedule. Thank you all. Thank you so much Jeff. And if there's a time we can get some teachers and we'll just see maybe not, maybe not now. I think probably we'll hear from mental health and then we'll all realize that we really all need mental health counselor. I know I'm ready to sign up. Just thinking about those kids I tell you. Sorry. So, um, Avery we've got to stay right now. We're done. We're done.