 Whenever you're ready the only the only thing I'll say before the secretary introduces himself is on your desks There is this list of reports, and it's obviously Anusly long I would say so one of the things that Jeanette's committee does is she sends us a list of reports that we can And so I just gave that back to Genie The two that they suggest that xing out were ones that I feel we need right now One was a pre-k report and given that the house is looking at pre-k not the time to give her that the other was a report on bullying and hazing and Since we have h1 yet make studies bill going through and that has a component of Question of disproportionate discipline for students of color doesn't seem like a good time to get rid of that report So I I put it out there if you have time you want to go through this and you want to make note of things that Logically seem unnecessary at this point. I'm happy to aggregate those and pass them on to Jeanette and See if we can possibly eliminate more in the bill that she's putting forward So with that said welcome mr. Secretary I I Believe yeah, you met the committee last year. Yes Thank you for coming in where we're as I assume, you know, we're interested in not just a general Couple of specific areas one of which actually all of which we've talked to you about before one of which is The general state of staffing at the agency Act 173 and professional development Now the third one is escaping my mind so pick up wherever you wherever you'd like and Thank you for inviting me and being a French secretary I have a series of pandas Start with the capacity issue and Sort of give you a summary of that but then also walk you through an updated organizational chart for the agency This first document is just the summary sort of an outline of the testimony I'm providing today There are some hypertext links in there for the most part those will be also handed out today as well But they can really provide this Probably given the record I'm gonna start the organizational chart here in a second Which I think is easiest way to talk about the capacity from a staffing standpoint So I'll make the general comment Firstly, we're in a different place than we were last year in terms of staffing For the most part last year the agency operated at about a 15% vacancy rate We have approximately 160 employees And for the better part of the year we had over 20 vacancies And many of those positions is what I want for the art chart. We're in important leadership positions or mid-level management positions So it's a challenge last year to make headway and some of the hiring when people really hire themselves those positions We subsequently have a labor statement. I think we're almost at full employment right now With the exception of one division which I'll go through which is the financial management position So I'll pass this out. This is all these documents that I've outlined in this report This is online as well under generally speaking under the alpha section of our website I'll look through the art chart And uh, I'm happy to take questions as I go through this page by page There are a few extra copies for members of the audience So on page one of the art chart just to recap Uh in the middle where it says online divisions basically the agency is divided into divisions The divisions comprise about 20 to 30 employees They're organized into basically to work with the agency that supports externally or internally through the education system every month The one major structural change last year Was the creation of a data management analysis division the first one on the left that previously those functions were Disperse and embedded in various other divisions. So SLDS some of the other projects and so forth that really highlighted the organization have its own division That's not necessarily something I precipitated as secretary, but with the change in secretary The employees knew that this was a probably a good approach and if we made it happen Flip the page On the backside of that page This is just in the office the office of the secretary itself those employees You know the report directly in my my area nothing really new here Though I will point out, uh, we had previously You'll see I don't know a color that is uncolored one But uh, the assistant attorney general staff attorney rachel smith and a far right That position had been previously vacant. This was Emily Simmons's old position When she was promoted to general counsel approximately january of last year that position was vacant We filled it on april that miss smith was unable to start the position until this september. So We'll introduce you to her at some point And once again, she's an assistant attorney general. So we you know, she's embedded inside our agency But she's supervised by the attorney general's office, which we found to be very useful Like today their supreme court arguments on act 46 So we found very useful to have Assistant attorney general inside the organization structure of the agency liais with the attorney general's office on the next page This is the newly created data division You'll see Wendy Geller is a division director will have her in some point. I don't know if you've seen her yet She was placed in this position somewhere around january of february last year This division is more or less fully staffed. We just had one important resignation or retirement and that was michael hawke He might know michael. He's been the long-serving director of the state assessment director position. We'll see that sort of in the first row Very important position of state. He just retired in december right before the holiday So that's the position that's under active recruitment right now Other than that, um, we just have one vacancy Uh, I'll make some you know talk about capacity two ways I guess one is the positions that are keenly interested in that also the work of the division So we'll make a comment though that even this this division is fairly much pretty staffed Fairly well fully staffed excuse me. Um, they're still struggling with a significant amount of technical debt that you know The modernization so forth efforts, uh, that have been accumulating over the years technical debt meaning Using old technology old systems while at the same time trying to deliver on new ones So there's a lot of uh, for instance A lot of workflow and data collection processes in the agency were managed by standalone excel files not even databases So the process is sort of doing that modernization while at the same time Responding and trying to build out a vision for the future has been very challenging. So I would say all of this division is fully staffed They're also struggling with getting ahead of the sort of historic problems and also I'll turn the page and go the next one which is education quality division Uh, if I could interrupt you sure I can there is an FTC over there in the corner Somebody The next page is the education quality division Um, this division as well as fairly fully staffed this division handles teacher licensure as well as The education quality components of integrated field reviews basically the quality assurance of our supervision on school systems in the state So can I assume that um, what we're looking at here is The same number of boxes that existed when you took Oh, that's correct. Okay. That's correct Yeah The boxes were in different places in some cases, but the the number of boxes that were being sent. Okay So this division fully staffed essentially capacity-wise fairly good shape we are seeing This year will be interesting in terms of licensing renewals We the general assembly Maybe was the licensing for it forget that they We compressed the teacher or relicensure window from seven years to five years at one point I don't know if that was through a change of statute or not But this is the first year where we're seeing the old seven-year people come in for renewal We have a first crop of five-year So we have about five thousand teachers going through a renewal process right now to spread So it'll be a busy time for them, but they've been preparing for that Um, another piece of capacity issue is that we have an older information system That manages the teacher licensing process called Alice That that system is up for renewal as part of a conversation with the office of professional regulation Perhaps consolidated function or other other functions inside the state government I'll move on to the federal education support programs division This division handles largely the federal grants food service hot lunch programs and so forth You know here too this this division is essentially fully staffed Last year we had three vacancies and even in the division director positions and around this time of year. So Essentially fully staffed the In terms of capacity, I think you know the food service program You know, we're operating a full you know staffing, but we struggle on that division to Deliver the program at the capacity we have And sort of my Sort of approach I have with these the federal sort of divisions and this division is almost exclusively funded by federal dollars Is to try to make the division live within the federal funding So there's very limited general fund of these these types of organizational structures So the tension there is around could we could we bring more resources from the federal government and at the state level to sustain programs But these guys are very busy, but fully staffed Next page. I'll go to his Student pathways division. This is essentially act 77. First one is learning times proficiency based learning adult learning career technical education So forth There's a couple of vacancies, but for the most part also fully staffed So, um, I know you know this but We in the house are both interested in proficiency based learning This session mostly around grading and notation. Yeah But we're going to have a presentation from the state board Got a preview of that yesterday from john carol and he's sort of unstinting in his view that it was More or less a Not a legislative mandate One that the state board and the then secretary um Moved into common practice on their own um, I believe their recommendation is going to be To revisit it in various ways. So I'll just note that If at any point when you're done with these other things, I would like to speak to that Yeah, I'd be happy to do that. You know, I sit on the state board and someone for the process So at any rate this division, um You know fairly fully staffed There's activity going on in ct even there's a lot of policy interest in the career technical education and We we operate a fairly successful staffing pattern in that regard, but it is uh, just to highlight that as something that's For a change, I think particularly with the reauthorization of the jessica The reauthorization of the federal law We call the perkins law that governs career technical education So we're in the process of having to do a new state-wide plan in ct So we can give you an update on that later Next area student support This is where uh mac 173 would reside. This is special education And um risk division The big big cause from my perspective on a lot of the concern of capacity reside in sort of a perfect storm You all in this division where we had a major probably the major policy mission in the forest now in front of that 173 The general assembly added two positions to this division at the same time. We had a new secretary The division director of the assistant division director and the state director of special education all retired right So it was really hard to move forward here You will see now that this division is essentially fully staffed Great including the new state director of special education Jackie tell her you'll see her to the right You could bring her in at some point as you're trying to bring it to you. Yeah, just out of curiosity I remember when we spoke with you last You were searching that position where I think you had identified a candidate out of state Was that this Yeah, I don't and i'm trying to remember this trajectory on the surge jackie did come from out of state Okay It wasn't necessarily an easy position to fill And it was it was more than just the dynamic of not having a leadership in place Because I think chris case is a division director. He wasn't in that position till february last year as well But I think the search is the retirements all sort of ended Folks all retire around december So if I'm going to state director position, I'm trying to remember one of them had been under active recruitment Of multiple times and had not yielded any results. So it's been it's been challenging with staff these positions are number of reasons So can I ask specifically in in terms of your chart One of the other questions we have for you regarded professional development around 173 Who who's I mean clearly the director would be Sort of pushing out those Those goals, but who's the hands-on person who would be tasked with accomplishing that Yeah, we have met porcelain who's on the top left the assistant division director Is essentially the project manager We invoke a lot of project management for complex policy initiatives. She's on the top left the assistant division director We to staff 173 we have a team that goes across the agency boundaries Including our financial divisions and legal divisions But meg is the project manager of that. So she's essentially the task master if you will And manages the logistics of that But one of the one of the things that happened last year I think my observation the agency had sort of responded organically to 173 by creating some inter collaboration amount of divisions I was not able and secretary become directly involved in that until act 46 was more or less resolved. So act 46 Throughout most of the fall through december was the priority In really consuming most of our legal capacity and so forth It's really after sometime after well this time of year where we started to look at restructuring how we approached 173 It's also the data division was formulated and so forth. So I think what happens we had interagency or interdivision approach to structuring it But when we started to put more resources that sort of elevated basically to be in the central policy That we're working on we're added to be able to add more structure and coherence to that work It's suffered as you know from climate coherence. And just one more question if as we go through because we're going to inevitably be Looking at 173 in various ways. Who would you prefer that we Contacted I mean assuming that you are not available. Yeah, well, you can still just go through our regular process. We have essentially mori and Suzanne are the central points of contact We have we have a team approach to staffing that so we have eyes on any legislative requests of every garden that will find the people that Will best answer your questions. It's really depending on the question that you ask. Okay So if you had a question specifically on the funding aspects of it, we might bring in more of the financial people If you ask the more legal question where legal staff might emerge in the program staff But we'll be looking at any requests like that as an integrated team So we're able to sort of ascertain where the need is and how to focus the resources for you Got it. Senator person the two new positions that were created. Are they on this of these like these? Yeah, so they're down You know, that's the other phenomena When you see hannah colvack and elisabeth roy those are the two positions the other phenomena should have pointed out last year I mentioned sort of in a cursory way that we have most of the agencies wearing a middle-level management positions I think one of the things that's happened which is healthy is that we've had a lot of vertical promotion in the agency But where we do have vacancies now for the most part they're at the entry-level positions, which I think is a much better situation Well, just that page is very reassuring compared to where we were a year. Yeah, they're functioning very different. Um Really in an integrated way. I think it's a it's a much better disposition. Some of that's due The personal leadership of who we hire Because I've tried to bring in some of the new people. I think it'll be really interesting here from jackie keller at some point But yeah, I think that's we're in a much better place in this division the In the last division, I'm going to sort of lay this out for me and like two pieces simultaneously. This is the financial admission of the agency This is the vision of the agency as I alluded to That is going through almost a very similar structural That's the other divisions went through last year And those changes have been precipitated by Change in cfo if you might remember emily burn resigned and moved to the agency of natural resources by april Emily and I had been working on a restructuring of this division I use the phrase mile or an inch deep in a mile wide and Because I have a great deal personal affection for bill talbot. I use him as a metaphor This division was structured largely around bill talbot, you know, and his he carried a lot of stuff in his head So there wasn't a lot of vertical capacity a lot of individuals doing individual work But no broader sharing of the expertise. So one of the things we started to work on here And it's still in the early phase. It's just a pretty sort of more vertical structured oversight potential for teaming Um, we I was able to deploy another position to this division and Create a deputy cfo position. So We have a cfo bill baits who I'll hang in at some point for you to meet. He's been on the job since august And then we promoted kathy flan again You can see on the other page as deputy cfo. So now we have a cfo deputy cfo Which which begins to provide a much better structural Management And then where we're going with this it's it's not overly evident yet, but we have basically dividing this division into two parts An external and an internal facing components of the external component largely dealing with school finance or the rat games crew Specialized finance and so forth working with school districts and then we have internal performance on oddity and monitoring and so on so We've started to do some internal promotion We run very competitive searches, but we've been fortunate to have some folks step up. So I'm on this I'm calling page two sort of the last page. You'll see john allu financial director John that was kathy flan against old positions and john was recently placed in that slot So kathy's in the process of turning over some per work to him And we'll have a similar approach on the external facing component And then we're running. I think we're running three different searches right now this division. So this this division is still going through That's five. Yeah Is this where the Uniform Charter begins ssdms. Yeah And that's you know, so what's happening now is we're we're addressing sort of the management structure But we had I talked about kathy flan again. We have shon kusano Who? You know had other responsibilities, but took on ssdms. So these it's not sustainable to have people like take on these things No point so as we as we Fill in the sort of management positions, we're going to be adding direct capacity and have basically a point first on this That's one of our big positions. We're going to create through this reshuffle Right now. We have people just doubling up on the job functions, which isn't sustainable along I will say bill dates the new cfo is also certified project manager Um, he also is bringing a lot of project management expertise to the work of the agency. So he at some point I want to say around maybe it was his latest august we transitioned on ssdms I was managing and like transitioned back over to bill. So he was recently taking on more of those nights So that that too is just sort of a temporary Um So I think you know The last piece is just on the bbs. Uh, you know, we have folks from the agency digital services and are In our division I can talk about more of that. We're just generally in terms of the program at inside the agency We're in a much better place than last year. Um, though the financial services division is one word the process of making over Um, well, I can very well look like what I'm watching but the other divisions are more or less I think that looks very good. Um, still a lot of progress. Yeah, uh, questions for the secretary on the work chart So, um, um I In the off session was in a variety of meetings with superintendents at school people and sort of in the field The The feeling seems still to be that the agency of education doesn't have the capacity to meet the needs that helps those groups And even as recently as a december meeting that was still a feeling In the context of uh, all these sort of moving parts specifically the special education and school finance areas I mean I you spoke to the school finance thing But it may be just a feeling maybe it's not reality But that's certainly what i'm hearing from superintendents and school board members in the field and i'm wondering Uh, first of all, I think part of my question is do you feel like even though you don't have any as many vacancies? Do you have the capacity to meet just, you know, do you need more positions? And I know you work for the governor and you have to be careful answering that question. I get that but um Uh, you know, it seems to me that this is a pretty skinny agency for all the stuff you have to do And and so my second part of that question is what are you doing to? Ensure the field that you have You know, you can run the ball Yeah, no, it's I think it's an accurate perception on the part of the field And that's a function of the significant policies. I mean, we're trying to implement at the same time From my perspective, I don't know if a lot of consideration was given to Trying to implement structural reform and special education simultaneously Why were you doing that 46 and trying to do uniform charter counts? I think unfortunately all those things arrived on the doorstep of the agency in school districts there for Simultaneously, so that's that's been a struggle and then factoring change to secretary. So it's one should not be surprised with certain stuff Um, but I think the agency Also was very stylized in a lot of ways and it was a not in a good position to address a lot of leadership to some of these Policy issues and it to bring coherence to them. So I think it's a fair characterization Um, I think we're working hard to turn that around but I would also from our perspective I think one thing I learned last year was that when we talk about Agency capacity, I think it's also fair to talk about district capacity Uh, so we we are intertwined very closely in a couple of areas wanting to be financed over the special education and legal issues So when districts, uh, don't have capacity We also struggle for example And um, that's that is a big part of the story for instance on the slbs project and start by collecting data Some districts aren't a much better place to do that work than others Um, last year when that when that initiative was launched versus all supervisors still haven't submitted their data This year, we just had one district not be able to do their data It delayed us. It's still delaying us, but it's a big accomplishment to get everyone else over the line But in terms of your specific question areas, I feel like we need to expand and I do, um, you know, I Hear that comment come up some part of the coverage things. I can't you know, I do advocate for my agency I do, um Also have to think about last year my argument, you know, we still have 23 vacancies So I wasn't in a position to advocate for more positions What I've alerted some legislative leaders to and I'll share with you now. I think there's a couple areas where We might have to add capacity to the agency depending on how things go Certainly Part of it is up to you in terms of what new policies you expect us to implement But an area that I'm increasingly concerned about has to do with district capacity So we've had a couple of districts Come close to a real financial crisis, if you will And it's not atypical to find that sea's called state education across the country Have some capacity to go in and Booey up school districts operational from an operational standpoint. So when districts struggle with Doing their federal reporting or getting clean audits and those kinds of things And trigger some oversight responsibilities on our part and we don't necessarily have a technical team that can come in You know come in and sort of in a management position and come and say we're going to help you run your district for a few months Maybe get you back in place where we can actually You know, we're sure the federal government that we can send you the line that you deserve So I'm concerned increasingly that we have some districts in that condition I don't necessarily have the capacity to address that When that comes up very similar to our response to act 173 We essentially have to staff a team around that district that pulls people from different divisions So we would staff a district as a case or a project To make sure that the district itself is not experiencing a fragmented response from the agency and if I could just jump in there It's a great segue So we had uh john carillon as I mentioned We were looking over the reorganization bill that Right he and jim demore with some oversight from me put together So he's talking about spitting off a number of functions To aoe as well as Acknowledging that some are already being performed by aoe But for instance that idea of districts that need a team to go in The state board has a red flag Scenario where they would go into right independent schools Where that would now be as I understand that that would be aoe That would pick that up so If we go forward with that it adds to your capacity worries So just take that one example Now you're not just worried about red flag public school districts right red flag independent school districts Can you Can you accomplish Just the 64 thousand dollar question. Yeah, do you need more people to accomplish the reorganization that john carillon's talk? Yeah, that's that's a larger topic. I think but just to take another narrow example This summer we had the red flag the threshold with the compass school. Yeah, okay, so What we did inside the agency I'm just limiting the state board's role from that as we reached out to the department financial regulation Pursuit support on that You know, we we use an opportunity like that to meet this dollar regulations and maybe Look for an opportunity to take away what we've learned from the experience of scale because we're in the process of rewriting rules for and in school oversight role for special learning and general education as part of 173 So I think we had excellent response from dfR to do that and we were able to support The state board in going doing a site visit and so forth I would argue we could do that more efficiently without the state board's involved You know, we could do that site visit. We had an a we staff member involved with dfr We basically doing the aspect it would be involved in the state board add the whole layer process to what otherwise would be much more direct conversation with the school So i'm i'm not convinced that that can't be more simplified and therefore give us greater capacity In terms of the this idea of a red flag Our current authority in terms of dealing with public schools is really restricted to meeting the school quality standards or not And that that triggers under asa we have under that federal education program division We have this technical support staff that deal with districts that aren't Providing good outcomes for students or being support in doing that We don't have threshold things for operational issues You know, that's that's my concern is that when we do start talking about for instance, it's not getting an audit Um, the red flags become immediate and with the federal government breathing down our backs and we have to go in pretty strongly We don't have any sort of gray nuance area where we can coach you through Process and we don't have people to put on the ground in your central office to help you It's more or less immediately going to Accountability say, you know, we send you a formal letter you come in and present your case and then you know At some point we say you can't accept federal money anymore So I worry about not having capacity between there and we when we think about defining those red Thresholds might be I think we are going to have to contemplate the operational red flags, which I don't think we have in our portfolio right now It's really based on quality standards Well, I will offer it and leave the offer open the session We I believe are going to move a version of that reorganization. Yeah, it seems to me um John carol was Open to the idea of not pushing for resources for the state board Because we pointed out that he was spending off a number of duties. It's an odd time to ask for more staff writing you when you reduce your load But obviously a we is increasing its load So there I can see an opportunity in that bill to add an appropriations section where we would You know if you identified a position Or two that were necessary to accomplish this right work. That might be worth thinking about. Yeah I mentioned I think there are two areas where We need additional or would need additional capacity. One is the sort of I don't know how to qualify this technical support for operational capacity of districts I think the other is one of the areas that attracted me to this work is Adding more policy horsepower to the agency Um, you know take this very specific specific issue to state board We certainly in a word of position to support the state board in advancing their topic and I'm a non voting member of the board So I don't I don't try to weigh in too strongly and other than try to facilitate their conversation and clear about what they're trying to achieve But when it comes time to turning their proposal into actionable and correct legislation I mean that's where we have we don't sometimes have adequate editorial force power to say You know, you have limited capacity in your ledge counsel We don't have necessarily adequate capacity to design policy But I think one of the lenses I would put on the table in terms of considering the state board's approach is We shouldn't ever to get better quality education policy and act in a state When I say policy, it's not just as you it's also regulation And I'm not I'm not convinced we have high quality regulation on our side Part of that's due to the political process with the state board and how that rolls out We can talk about proficiency based learning as people do case study in that. Yeah So I think you know regulation is a critical piece of a lot of aspects of enacting the goals of legislation and right now the the regulatory process is rather chaotic in education and I think we there's a lot that we can do to streamline that work to create more effective regulation I think we would need additional force power to do some of that. If I'm not convinced the state board Is a way more is the correct body to do regulations. Yes. No, I agree If you if you feel you've thought through those positions Well enough to commit them to paper If if you want to produce descriptions of those, you know Sure such that we could put it into an appropriation section and send them to Jim Demeray I'll have him at it. We'll just talk about that as a condition of passage of that bill With the idea that we'll take testimony on it, but It seems to me that resources are an issue. I just don't think putting them in the state board At that moment is the is the way to go. I think it's it's a perfect opportunity to argue that um a we Is Streamlining but also taking on work in needs. Yeah, it's it's part of the diagnosis of what's in front of us as a state Yeah, and what I've learned and I think many of us I'm appreciating we're ruining a bit of a demographic crisis as the government observed, but I think all policy makers sort of agree to that We have some work in front of us. That's going to require some real structural change So if that's the case then my conclusion is the agency's going to need some capacity to do that Structural change and that structural change is it's political, but it's also technical and that's another regulation of technical side needs to be available Just another area that I've heard in the field that you seem to be lacking is um anybody who does Facilities work. I throw that he's that same operational pick out category. Okay, and then um I think this has come up specific to special ed but more broadly is um professional development and teacher education Work that's the other area that I Actually, that's where I wanted to go. We're next. So good good connection. Where are we on 173m? so the the School construction I work for over the operational side. It's uh, it's you know, it's an important if you heard the radio this morning, you know It's something that's heating up for you. Yeah, I guess the agency at one point. We operated a program. We had three staff support that Like, you know, let's go to the school construction program. Yeah So we have we have once again I think of some of the structural work that's in front of us to do that. We're going to need some capacity So we'll talk about we shift over to professional development aspect. I call the program side of 173 You know, just I'm going to talk to a couple things on this What's coming around is a summary we did for the census-based advisory group Sort of this is a quick List of sort of the discrete activities That we've been involved and we provided a similar list to this committee last spring I think before I would say before we had real coherence on sort of what We thought the course of action should be on the programmatic side. So these are You know, we're I guess the question is we're very Easily able to produce a list of activities we support To what extent those could be considered to be coherent and impactful I guess that would be the bigger question and we're in a different position now to talk about this And we were not sure that this is a discrete list of activities That we've been engaged in under 173 More importantly, I want to say more importantly, but I'm going to pass around now This is a this is a report that you require us to do on the technical assistance and professional development Which is it's an embellishment of that cost timeline document And I just want to share with you To sort of how we approach this issue How we see the professional development for 173 being structured for distance And this this document that's coming around is really a good summary The work we engaged in So On page two of this the document I just handed out you'll see our theory of action What we did this summer was really we struggled a bit to To come up with sort of a coherent model for what the professional development for acting 173 should look like And what we went through the agency itself went through a vision or mission Mission at your size and came back to conclude About our one of our fundamental roles is to enact the law to create regulation to do that So one of the things we started to look at is what are our current regulations and how could we use them as structural levers if you will To enact 173 So we think under the theory of action We think there are four areas that we're going to focus on as part of the 173 implementation These are areas that have been in the law or regulation for a long time in Vermont for over 20 years So it's a coordination of curriculum But you know walk through these a little bit just historically that that was shifted to the su down to act 153 into the virtual merger provision So that's like 2010 Has really been explored To from a systems perspective needs-based professional learning Local comprehensive assessment system and then the multi-tiered support system or ESP system So what the message that we're promoting as part of our professional development focus now Is yes, there's need for specific technical expertise on certain topics and that's what that discrete list represents But that's not in itself going to move systems forward The big deficiency our diagnosis in Vermont is not the fact that where we have a deficit of technical expertise We have a lot of expertise. It's ongoing. Our problem is that we don't necessarily work systemically in the district a lot So when we're trying to promote this is a some letter result of act four and six Is to say now that districts are under for the most part under one supervision of one board We want you to contemplate coordination of curriculum now more forcefully as a district You know, so it's really hard to talk about how we remediate for students when we don't know the definition of the curriculum That's the many districts since they don't have good formal curriculum Similarly, uh educational support teams Previously we're done on a school by school basis Which means mental health agencies other resources have to interface with over 200 schools to figure out how to provide services By in sort of putting emphasis at the district level we can reduce that point of entry to 60 entities When we say each supervisory in a supervisory district We want you to contemplate how you're going to provide support systems to all of your schools and figure out how to do that in an equitable and high quality way So the theme here is we're taking four levers that have always been in regulation That really represent, you know the backbone of 173 in terms of using multi-tier support and so forth But we think the important change as a result of act 46 is to put emphasis at the systems level of the state and districts Well, we want we now need to contemplate these things and enact these things as a group of schools as opposed to Working one off on each school basis So the theory of action we're promoting is that the state will be working with districts and that districts will be working with schools to confront And so the the the funding for Consulting and Things that are designed to change the culture of delivery that's going to be offered at the district level and then Yeah, so each district under regulation is required to have a needs-based professional developments and that's sort of in the long standing But not really Vigorated towards this act. So we're going to be cultivating everything we do sort through that expectation And using our other regulatory issues or apparatus such as The federal grants when we go through a view of those grant applications We're going to be looking forward to what extent districts have built capacity to deliver professional development on systematic basis with best needs of 173 So in summary, you have a discrete list of activities. We've been engaged to date I would say, you know, we did bring to do this last year as well, but without really a coherent sort of model The second document sort of describes the beginning of a coherent model We're engaging in promoting that as a series of white papers And now we're turning the corner with our partners and the bees and so forth to actually talk about what are the concrete things We're going to be doing after that So the first part of the fall was really about getting coherence and now we're turning the corner in terms of implementing Actually doing And then the Seems to me the obvious follow-up question is we did delay act 173 in certain aspects last year by a year I know that wasn't something we favored at the time but Given where we are now is the timeline Correct as yeah, and I did come around to advocate for delay ultimately, but I wanted to hear a couple other pieces of the puzzle I think we're My goal this year is to achieve consensus with the advisory group to come in together and provide you a recommendation on that very question The advisory group is going to be providing its annual report to you shortly It's already I might already be out We also have A schedule for the state board to launch the rulemaking process which I think they're going to start or at least Put it into the poppers next week Yes, so I'm saying you could be done by December So once once we get that schedule set up and we're going to immediately turn to Bringing you some recommendations on changes to the law. We have some technical corrections from last year That weren't part of the technical corrections bill But I'd like to get consensus on the issue of delay and some other issues related to 173 Bring that more in a consensus view to you and uh, John's characterization was that The advisory group in AOE had moved quite quite close together on Where where they stood with regard to draft rules. Is that how you see it? Is it? Yeah, so I think it's it's been a very challenging process Largely just due to the technical nature of this policy. It's very complex a lot as a later study will you know I wasn't here when 170 here is being passed, but I understand it was raised early on in that process And the issue of this thing called maintenance of effort will be sort of like the devil the details And that's what we figured out as well. So I think once we got to that point And part of it was the agency trying to escape sort of its historic trajectory on regulation Which was about a new reimbursement system But we still had this issue of maintenance of effort. So we really had to dig in pretty deeply To get some understanding of how we're going to navigate maintenance of effort I was just gonna do you mean the federal requirement for maintenance of effort and the both the district and the state level, correct? Yeah, it's really a district level requirement But maintenance of effort basically is you have to pay the same you have to spend the same amount you did on the prior year You have to maintain your effort spending And there's only four ways you can reduce that one of this to reduce the number of special needs students You have you know, they're very useful comes with that all the regulation. And is it all about spending or is it all about services? Well, it's um, it's all about spending the maintenance of effort is really a spending test But in order to escape that requirement if you will you can if you are if you have fewer students that are eligible for special education So precisely the logic that under her it's 173 It's like we're trying to make investments give districts flexibility with their state dollars to make some investments That would theoretically reduce the number of students that are eligible for special education That's exactly the model that has to be an act in order to sort of navigate maintenance of effort So one of the key feet as we get into that how we do maintenance of effort the technical guidance by which we We help districts navigate maintenance of effort Part of the tension was between us and the advisory group was to figure out Where that will long so we have uh Yes We had you know, we had the statute which provides the goals and we're engaged in a regulatory process right now Part of the way we got to closer consensus was to say well, there's going to be some things that are so technical They're doing the line in regulation that go along in this category of guidance Which is something the AOB can kind of do outside of the regulation Thing but there's there's concern is that what we might do there Is not subjected to enough public scrutiny or folks can't be directly involved So we're we're there's still some uncomfortments to what extent we could promulgate guidance without the oversight of stakeholder groups Right, but it is when we look at what the maintenance of effort technical guidance looks like in most states It's a large lifestyle workbook that we would pre pop You know, it's hard to put a workbook inside of regulation So the way I think goes in the guidance, but we have some work to do with districts to design that process So what we've done now is to say, okay, that that's going to go into some future guidance thing that we'll develop with you But if you could agree to this framework, then we think we're all good to go But there's concern about what that thing would look like Yeah, but it's it's it's a very technical policy. I think you know, it's fair There's been a lot of conflict on 173 But you know, we as I mentioned as we came out of 46 we see 173 as a major Way to to do some systems alignment are lots of issues not in a special education to touches all aspects of the system And then my last question for you Would be uniform chart of accounts, right? also delay Because we have heard from business managers and others on the ground that Here on fire scenarios Obviously we've been we've been gone and have come back Is here still on fire? Yeah, it's hard work. I think it's it's not maybe not on fire, but They have part of it, you know, the channel assembly agreed to provide additional resources I mean, I think the original design it was supposed to be voluntary became mandatory No one was prepared to implement that the model was not appropriate for an involuntary implementation So we've worked with the vendor and so forth, but We'll provide you some really good reporting on that. I think it's making progress, but it's hard work Yeah, so the good news is now like some of the things we'll certainly make an argument one way or the other But we'll provide you the project metrics that you can see the number of tickets being submitted and what what the consensus view is Um, I think mr. Bates's leadership has been really helpful on that. So he he just had a meeting that he meets monthly with vasville Yeah, so It's in a different place than it was last year. It's still a very complicated process and it's um Some districts have capacity to do it and others are really struggling, you know, they have just enough capacity to keep the lights on We have a schedule for implementation the vendors stepped up and we have additional resources We did finalize the handbook and finally the new accounting has been done. So There's some light there, but it's the work in progress. I think it's a you'll find hopefully a different tone I think it's more objective criticism as opposed to Hair on fire, right? Yeah, okay. Well, that's also we have to talk about the state the more good news. Yeah um, and I'm thinking The way that happened last year when people are really Worried or really suffering they come out of the work and they they make their voices heard I haven't been hearing from those people where it was last year. So it may be that now we're just in a A normal nuts and bolts kind of Yeah, I think they'll still I you know once the ability is going to be here on fire It'll be more concerted and directed, you know, like this should have been done this way or that But it's it's been a much more responsive role out in the narrative sort of conversation with districts Some districts still have real challenges implementing it others have making progress and are going live in the system. So Other go ahead Um, uh I can't remember are we doing a day where we're getting the sort of final wrap up on after 46? Yes, the resource outage is coming in with uh, you know Final map Semi-final statistics, okay, that's a work thing. Yeah, that's a survey. You wanted us to report back on that. So we We commissioned a survey to districts and did some research basically Using the five goals of the law to see to what extent they're being Right, so we'll As you know, it's a Big issue in my district. Um, and this is a Maybe not a fair question, but I just I'm hearing a little bit in your Your comments about the capacity of districts and what they're able to accomplish In the field because of various challenges they're facing and I'm just wondering Sort of broadly speaking the sort of state of K-12 education in the state and how you see it and whether it's It's stable or in crisis or what? Uh, you know, I uh, we have a lot of positives to be proud of But I think you know one thing I've learned the last year is you know I was conditioned in the last 10 years of my career to talk about declining all this is paradigm That's I think clearly can be seen as a larger demographic And that that manifests itself in our building higher at the AOE and local districts as well Um, just in the last couple weeks, we've had more superintendent resignations, you know, that seems to happen to bring out a third year or so So it's really hard As much as we gear up to think about it's easy to look at these Issue on paper and say, okay, here's a professional development plan and here's right But if districts have vacancies between leadership positions and have trouble finding special ed teachers You know, we we have to really think about designing policy around those conditions Which you know the school construction issue the same kind of deal we have we have districts that are in different states of Function and more and more I see that tracking out to the larger regional demographic changes in the challenges We have need a partner in our social service delivery model on those things as well So I think that's where once again, I conclude we're going to need more horse power policy design It's going to be in here of I think more more Forceful and for coherent policy in order to address the challenges because they're going to warrant that kind of response from the state level And we need to be quick to provide the supports for districts to do that So I think we have our challenges and it's uh, it's we have a lot of work in front of us And From the perspective of students, you know Do you believe that the quality of k-12 education in vermont is sound or In some places it is in some places, you know, we can we can describe that that regional variation recently You know the equity issue is that we have you know, we take facilities as an example We have stayed some of the best facilities in the country I've seen in vermont and we have some deplorable conditions in the state But that's how our country has operated in education and we leave it to the states to figure out And to some extent to localities So we have I think increasingly issues of equity Regardless of the program if we think about rural enrollment, if we you know think about feeding kids We have we have delivery system equitable challenges. You know, we don't we don't necessarily do that well on a regional basis Really varies and that's becoming exacerbated exacerbated to a certain extent based on Communities and the ability to navigate the demographic issues Yeah, it's pretty apparent today as we go around Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. It was a fantastic response to our requests And again very excited to see the organizational chart And please let us know On those two positions And then anything that we can do in terms of suggested language from the agency We do have a miscellaneous bill right that we can move Yeah, as I mentioned, we'll try to bring some coherent recommendations on or consensus recommendations on 173 And that's a requirement that we do that. I think with the advisor group And there'll be there'll be some need to make some tweaks from last year anyway I'm not sure delay is this the appropriate time yet But maybe it would mean that there's some places we need to reconcile things in the waiting So you move back some of that as well Is AOE going to come back in on the waiting setting to actually I'm going to meet with AOE with Chair of finance on Friday I believe at noon time And so after that meeting I'm going to come back in so we will hear from dr. Colby tomorrow Then I'll have that meeting with and Cummings and AOE on Friday Then the beginning of next week. We'll have a committee discussion about thoughts about proceeding We're basically a two-meter directory just to explain What's in there? It's very complex and there's a lot in there. Oh, yeah And then what I'm I'm listening closely to stakeholder reaction including all of you I'm going to formulate a sort of analysis of what I think the policy case or recommendation should be just for my observation of that interaction But right now we're sort of doing educational trajectory Engaging with everyone, you know, I'm reading governor's staff on Friday as well Let's continue the rest of the January It's a very high quality report and This really includes a lot of I think Yeah, I agree Thank you I'm in the committee But uh, very glad to have you I have paper copies of his documents. We sent him electronic, but would you like paper? Paper would be good Why don't we quickly introduce ourselves? Andrew personally from here from Washington county We did Just So the only thing I'll say before you start is we have a time certain of three o'clock Very good, I didn't I didn't know if you're going to ask for something specific or So I'll take a few minutes if you would to briefly talk about Since I knew the sort of the strategic Thinking planning vision we have for the university. That's an interest I'd like to give you a quick update on the state of the state Say to the university if you will and that's the that's the handout and then I'll Introduce you to the opportunity for investment that we're asking for so in terms of the Strategic directions of the university, I think Um, part of what I did is even before I came I talked to lots and lots of people. I think I've ever since I was named including to govern our being our being and Jim Douglas and folks like that And since I've arrived that traveled through across the entire state met with people And uh, and certainly leaders not only registraries, but also others And within uvm I've met with as many students as many faculty as we can so as to just kind of gather a sense of the place And so, uh, you know the way there are and I've said this in multiple public Settings, um, we think of our Strategy is sort of a three prong thing with one prong being the largest really it's not that are co-equal And that is a focus on your students and student success to experience student Access and so on So student quality to me means That we offer the best most relevant most updated courses and opportunities possible for the students that we Help them from their very first semester at uvm to connect to internships and service learning opportunities So it's museums if that's what is of their interest but kind of help them think about success after uvm and and what kinds of opportunities lead them there And uh, and obviously to introduce them to Vermont opportunities. So hopefully let's take here It also means affordability right that Accessibility that With respect to the economic background, hopefully you have a chance to to consider uvm. So it's in that Vain that we announced a very challenging goal, but a goal we believe deeply in which is to Freeze tuition for next year. We're not increasing tuition for anybody Going to uvm and so, you know, that's a challenging thing because uvm gets a small amount of support from the state We rely very heavily on out of state student tuition 90 percent or so comes from that But I think it's the right thing to do. It's unsustainable to keep 90 percent of tuition 90 percent of our revenue is from out of state tuition So, um The it's it's unsustainable to keep increasing it and you don't want to price ourselves out of every market and such I mean uvm is among the more expensive public schools for good reason. We have we are 49 for the nation for state support Again for understandable reasons, but it's it's the truth and our expenses are high So but it needs to be done. So we've taken that step And uh, so that's the student success student access student placement Making sure that everything we do is filtered through that is as good for our students The second piece is about our landcraft mission. Um, I'm a product of public schools What they've produced for 20 years and I was concerned for 10 before that so truly believe in it and um, I believe particularly in our landcraft mission That's under just moral wrote that legislation that passed I'm more desk in my office that inspires me every day I think in in in one sentence what the land grant mission means to me is that It's our sort of solid responsibility to bring our assets of significant assets across every one of our schools to bear on our community For the betterment of our community the future of Vermont is closely tied to the future of uvm. I think we can help each other. So We committed to that. So actualizing that is is the second piece of this And the third piece of it is you know, how do we ensure a future successful uvm? And and how do we get the word out? How do we how do we increase our? preeminence or or get the word out Well beyond Vermont well beyond new england where every state is shrinking Um, and so I think it's important for us to have a simple Set of distinctive strengths that we can talk about easily, you know three or four that roll off the tongue It's not that all the others are neglected. It's just that if I go to arizona new mexico To to help students think about uvm as an option. Um, I'd like them for example to think about water um, I'd like People across latin america and across the u.s. To think if they want to study fresh water any aspect of fresh water They think of uvm. We've got a jump plane there. We've got 50 faculty members from every department including philosophy working in water That's a distinctive distinctive and important work, right? If we simply say Something that 20 other schools can also say that's not the same thing If something in the medical space, we're lucky to have a great academic medical center in a small state like ours And it's right on campus and close proximity to engineering and nursing and liberal arts and so We we have a great comprehensive school. And so there's probably something there environment and sustainability The state of romano is very proud of its environmental stewardship The university of romano is very proud of it And so what in that space can we can we pitch sustainable farming food systems So these are the kinds of things that I'd like for us The leadership and the faculty and others at uvm to think about okay these four sound good I mean we'd be proud of uvm Being known for those things. So that kind of thing. So that's a really a simple three-pronged strategy Focus on the student focus on our mission our responsibility to the state and And try and ensure our future through this distinctive Strengths and such and invest in further so we're going well So That was just a quick view of the strategy in terms of the state of the university if you will It's just a simple one pager Um, we've much more behind this any more data that you need. Please ask me ask wendy. You all know wendy. Well What the first part of that talk page says is it talks about uvm being for romantics, right? There's this myth that maybe it was not for romantics. Well First of all, we're extremely focused on retention and graduation. So it's not just the inputs but the outputs that matter and We have among the highest rates of graduation of any university in the country Which and also the the time to graduate which means that it's more affordable This day a fifth year they pay one more year of fee if they finish in four then they can go sooner 44 percent of romantics paying no tuition at the uvm And many of the others have significant discounts to to attempt. So it really is very accessible to for monitors Um, and and there are other numbers here that I'm happy to discuss But it is really good value for the state The second piece talks about the impact that the state that the university has in the state of oman And we have 33 000 plus alums in the state We have a 1.3 billion dollar impact for the 40 million or so we get from the state, which I think is great How do I we also bring in significant research funding which not only money coming to the state but also allows us to do great work so You know, I think I think there's much for the state of oman to be caught off and then the bottom big First a little bit to our land grant mission reflects it the state appropriation that we get Full half of it goes towards student scholarships A quarter goes towards supporting our extension program, which is a great value of the state And a quarter goes towards the medical school to to support healthcare. So Um, we will continue to be committed to this and to the last piece I'm happy to answer questions after is that we have been discussing with the legislature and the governor and so on um an opportunity, you know, I um so every state around us in in the country that has Announced any affordability kinds of things and frozen tuition stuff have gotten more money from the state to do so You know, I'm sure for 12 million more dollars towards unh and they were able to freeze tuition No magic there. We're doing it without asking for the state to help Because the state can only do so if you understand that so I'm not here to ask for more money for any of that There is one opportunity though. I think we all realize that the shrinking workforce the shrinking You know population and some are very serious challenges I understand that in five years we'll have as many working for markers as not working for markers These are quite scary statistics. And so what can we do, right? So I think that There is an answer that you think we can be part of the solution I'm asking the state to consider supporting an office of engagement at uvm It's your office there essentially so so what what it means is Um, and if there's a little website at the bottom go uvm.edu slash engage If you click on it, you will see that we have like 200 different efforts at uvm That are in service in the state. You know, this is extension This is the center for the research for Vermont for Vermont and so on, but there's so many more things this philosophy week this Every department does something to support the state of Vermont so But no one knows this a lot of Vermonters have no clue And also the farther you get from chitenden the more uvm seems like this Strange base that they don't know where to go. So we would like to offer One front door to uvm that any vermont or any vermont entity farmer berry ski industry biotech healthcare can knock on to seek help and This is the office of engagement And what we would do then is to connect them to The many assets that we have sometimes it's we provide data sometimes we provide expertise amongst our professors So The office of engagement is not a concept for me. I started my administrative career at Purdue Setting up such an office. I led the office of engagement and it was extremely successful. It was the most popular part of Purdue It was not about our providing money to causes. It was connecting and being at the table and convening We did things all the way from bringing maybe 4500 very happy jobs to the little town of west lafayette indiana and the middle of cornfields if you could do it there you could do it here But too too much more prosaic things so little things that you might think are trivial So it's a quick example We had with a church called me once and say we're sinking physically Can you help? Well, I was able to find a building infrastructure management professor who said, you know, if they pay for my Car drive over I'll go up and see what's going on. He did he spent three hours with them told them exactly what they needed to do And they were through You know an aquaculture company if two people was looking to locate in indiana from colorado They wanted some help. We connected them to two professors in fisheries and natural resources. They got exactly that they needed and They've now grown to 16 or so in our last check And it's a success story. So Anything like this right can if we'd like there's so much that you can do We just like to make it easy for them to do it. And so And I'll stop in a couple of minutes here. So the the second page describes this effort to you the There are three sort of big Subsections if you will so one has to do with supporting workforce development through internships, right? So our students I'll have a fair number of internships and stuff, but we don't do it very deliberately very intentionally in a centralized way I'd like to be able to do that We also need to do a lot with our employers in the state to understand how they can reach uvm That will be actually harder in some ways to help them think about how to engage uvm students early on so that they can actually go and Right work for those folks after they graduate Our alumni are very helpful to have the rigor to offer those internships the back side of that page talks about Attracting out-of-state alumni back to Vermont. This is another specific project. I did in in my previous job There are specific ways of doing this and we will work to to help with that And the third part is to make industry university partnerships much more smooth and easy and real The industry is loosely Is used to state it could be any kind of organization We've been talking to global foundry for instance, right? So attracting companies is one thing but retaining those you already have is equally important So we have talked to them about their needs. What would keep them in the state? They wanted a certain kind of offerings of courses and stuff in a flexible way We're doing it for them and we'll be signing an agreement and Announcing that you know we've talked to Ben and Jerry's about Unilever Bringing more of Unilever to campus to biotech to bring more of Agenda campus to the state And so on right there's there's smaller entities in the Northeast Kingdom and elsewhere that we can have similar We can provide similar support to so the point is that we do a fair amount of this But to strongly energize this effort so that anyone calling this number or even that place Should get really good solid support From the get go if someone if you set it up sort of have heartily And they call and they don't get what they want then they'll go away and never come back That'll be worse than not setting it up. This is why we are we're asking for some support to stand it up and I understand it's the appropriations committees, but um, you know if you Believe in this mission. It's a good investment for the state. Then I understand What they need from you is a letter of support or something We'll leave it to you to consider that the last page is a Is a not bad. I just did the beauty of Brooklyn Herald yesterday. It's about our land grand mission It sort of describes it So that hopefully wasn't too long. Oh, no, it was wonderful. I I wanted to ask about So there's a two million dollar price tag on the engagement piece, which I think is very interesting As I read through It's talking about specialized staffing to bring alumni back and then in the piece around comprehensive industry university partnerships It says a dedicated corporate partnership focus to be brought about with support from state funds If you if you had to Just quickly lay out a little more detail. What is the money actually pay for is it? I'm assuming it would be housed in existing Space and is it all personnel? Is it operational funds? What so it's a good question, Phil? And it's a good one as in you deserve an answer to that There's a model that went into the number And as I said, I've run an office like this. So, you know getting it up and going is Work takes an effort. So, you know, the one thing that I'll preface it with is that UVM is an extremely lean organization despite all the talk of administrative bloat and stuff There have been studies that show that UVM is 500 on the list of 600 in terms of administrative overhead So very few people sitting around doing, you know being available So I don't have people I can just put towards these things and each of these needs some very careful connectivity and so on so the the placement internships placement type office the The part to sort of educate our our employers about how to pick that up And each of the other things you write out. So there are in some instances Sort of a CRM, you know that a customer relations management software That's needed to say a sales force or something that will support this effort because there's a lot of Keeping track of things and so on involved. So it's primarily personnel because you know, you probably need a few people And you know when you add up their cost it comes up to that It will need some, you know effort to reach out across the state and assist So there aren't specific pieces going to each of those Focus areas and then simply pulling these 200 or so efforts together in a seamless way As you know to get something off in a successful way so that it has low resistance to access Takes takes them very careful laying out, but it's not buildings. It's not furniture It's we will do it as efficiently as we can Understood So I will just put this out there I inhabit two worlds because I teach at UVM and then I come here and so I I Pick up buzz from both places so I would say that there was a Generally favorable reaction across the board to your pledge to hold tuition flat I think everybody thinks that's a smart move. It's an equitable move But what I will say is that there's ambient anxiety About if tuition is out flat where where do we make that up? if if I One possibility is that the specialized staffing might for instance involve Maybe not in your administration, but in others a new vice president to be in charge of it I can't think of two things that might Impact one another most negatively Other than that, which is if somehow there was a Tighten our belts around positions faculty and staff and at the same time adding a VP of engagement So I know and know is the answer Yeah, yeah, so good question and obviously this is not for this committee necessarily And I'm addressing the senate on this the as I as I made very clear in my announcement The tuition freeze announcement And and move is not built on The back of staff cuts or or cuts, right? It's um, it's to do our job better as in Um, so so transfers right so we can focus more on spring transfers On better utilization in the summertime of the campus offering more online certificate program type things that are revenue generating Enhancing our research Funding so that it supports our undergraduate and graduate research research is not always Sort of Displacing funding, but but you can at least support students that way plus Bringing in more resources from our from our Donors and alumni and so on so there's a there's a fairly careful modeling that went into it It wasn't a win by the way It was the reason it took me three months or so to announce it is that Every dean every vice president looked at their operations very carefully to see What it would mean and they're each committed to doing so sometimes a one percent increase in retention We can make can make them whole in that space. It's also very good for us to increase retention. So Every dean has looked through what it means for them the distance education piece has been worked out to Offers some additional programs that will that will generate revenue The graduate piece has never been modeled before and it's been looked at so So the tuition is not going to come at the expense of Certainly not planned on the expense at the expense of the staff comes or something I have no desire to hire more vps I say that After having said that we're extremely lean in ministry So I think uvm should be very proud of it and I think we should in general Be comparing ourselves against where we stand compared to the rest of the the world And and not simply in some bubble where we think over all the heavenly administrators or something We're not so But what this needs is a a doer, you know, this person will run around the state We have extension their extension offices, but that's only a very small piece of it. So I want this to be a A working level person, you know people in each of these positions that are and sometimes it may be Casting somebody's role, maybe whatever they were doing is no longer You know as relevant as it was 40 years ago. It was done. So Now it isn't meant to Very sensitive to the to that Yeah, to the polarity that you talked about. Good. Thank you My last question is it occurs to me now if it's staffing is this 2 million going forward in other words In addition to the to the base amount that uvm receives for is it one time? Right. So it's a very good question and if you I assume sounds like you read it all carefully in each of these pieces, I've said what the metrics are that will track, right? So I don't want to continue doing this if you don't go well, right? So I Counted the house and the senate with the With the assurance that if this is done Well as we intend to do it you will see such movements of needles in each of these things and we'll track and report back Next year we'll be back two years from now. We'll be back I want to say may sound arrogant But I want to say that two years from now you'll see that the needles are moved so well in each of the instances That you would have thought why didn't we do it before the 2 million was nothing for What we're getting for it and if you don't You should cut it off and I you know, I would understand So at this point, you know, these are annual budgets. So we don't Right, you know, we don't plan for that far into the future I'm not looking for the 40 million or so we get to be somehow enhanced and this will become I want this to be its own thing. I want this to be Something that the state feels like it owns It's it's the state and your other half, right? It's it's this place that Is investing in it expecting a lot out of it and holding it accountable You have a state climatologist to a state whatever. This is your state engagement Effort if you will as a land grant and I want to be held accountable for The the the movement of several needles here that we would identify and make it very clear And and I I think it's a great idea I I think the fact that you've already done it from the ground up at purdue was one of the reasons why you were hired Um, and we'd be silly not to take advantage of that given how successful Questions for um, where's the gear now? Is there any thought of trying to track out of state alumni not just of uvm, but like high schoolers I wanted to do it universities outside Why not, you know, I mean, I think there's a certain um allure to say my reaching out to uvm alumni But there's no reason why I actually thought of it a slightly differently from you A lot of things we're doing we're proposing here the Vermont state college system Could feed into and benefit from as well, right? And so, you know, I've been talking to jeb spaulding ever since I arrived into joy's duty Karen and so on and uh, I think that again, I see the And I'm digressing a little bit. Sorry The I see the education thing on in the state has a spectrum. Certainly. There's the k through 12, but you know, there's the two year Um Associates degree type things that are sorely needed in some spaces. Um, there's four year degrees. There's more so I think the sooner we think of it all as one Family one spectrum that we're all offering the more effective will be and more efficient will be and so All of those pieces could certainly fit into this If there is Willingness on that side on on whichever side we're working to I would love to work with schools I'd love to work with st. John's very academy. I mean, whatever it is, right? So to help put each of these things So we are at time and I appreciate you fitting into that time So particularly weird day where the chair and vice chair both have Of appointments with the committee really continue beyond it. Um, but thank you so much and We will um in terms of that letter of support We have a couple of pieces of legislation. We're moving that we need to communicate with the appropriations committee about anyway So, uh, we will have a discussion as we go forward and And generate that letter later on Is anything we can do? Details Wendy's Sure, okay