 Okay, welcome back to Senate Education. So S178U an act relating to education of bill of rights to children who are deaf part of hearing or deafblind. Senator Hashim has been working on this and we have, we've asked him for an update. So Senator Hashim, the floor is yours. Thank you. So I've got several points I think for any future discussion as we go through the actual language of the bill, we'll probably want to hear from the Board of Education, the Human Rights Commission and some other folks who've actually had experience, lived experience with these issues. And the reason I mentioned the Human Rights Commission is, you know, this was mentioned in their report, you know, creating this compendium of legislation. And so, you know, hearing from them. And, you know, they also have a jurisdiction over Public Accommodations Act lawsuits. And so I think regarding some of the points I'm gonna raise, it might be good to hear from them as to where the gaps do exist in that accountability process. But yeah, so some of the general points, I think, from what I'm seeing is, you know, the one of the most important issues has to do with accountability and the complaint procedure as it relates to folks who are reaching out to the Agency of Education and going through the process of, you know, trying to make sure that their child is, you know, getting the support and help that they need. You know, my understanding is that there are a lot of challenges with that. And sometimes, you know, the procedure is either confusing or, you know, they're not hearing back. And, you know, I think that, you know, I mean, the question I have is, you know, how much of that is a legislation issue versus a capacity issue with AOE or, you know, a workforce issue at AOE. And just to clarify, that's not me throwing AOE under the bus. I'm just understanding. It seems like there's things that are getting lost in the weeds during this complaint procedure. So just to clarify, so the young woman we performed last week her family filed a complaint and the Agency of Education and then something didn't happen, right? Is that? It sounds like that's something that's happened multiple times with different families. There is a list of testimony or stories that I could actually provide to Morgan and we can put it on our page. But, you know, different instances of this happening probably different families, so. Where they're going to the AOE and then something, again, not throwing anybody under the bus, but something's not happening. Yeah, so yeah, there's some sort of disconnect and there's, you know, they're not, yeah. Yeah, you don't happen to know, and I don't remember if we heard this from anyone yet, but AOE, their point person on this, we know that would be, did she testify? I thought that she testified. I thought we had somebody in here sitting and right in the corner. Yeah, they go, okay. Yeah, and then she did testify. Because I think she came up to us afterward and said, hey, I'm going to look into this. Quick, okay. Yeah, that sounds fine. Okay. And then the, yeah. So, what else? Another one of the points, you know, focusing on the American Sign Language proficiency that it should be a prerequisite for teachers who have the cert, for deaf and hard of hearing certifications. The teachers who do have that certification should have the ASL proficiency as a prerequisite. And I think, again, that ties into the need for us to hear from the students who are in these classrooms with these teachers who do want to learn American Sign Language, but just aren't able to because the teacher doesn't have that certification. Just to clarify, so these are students who may not be of deaf and hard of hearing, but they want to learn ASL for now. Not quite, no, it's that there are children, the children who are deaf and hard of hearing and who have teachers who are not Sign Language certified or proficient, just aren't experiencing the opportunity to learn American Sign Language because that teacher doesn't have that certification. And then I think the, when we get more into, I'm starting to see the patterns here with curriculum and what we do legislate is what we don't. And I'm seeing that some of the issues are brought up in the rule series, 2360, and rather they aren't brought up in rule 2360. And so I think that, well, yeah, no, I don't want to make assumptions about what is or isn't in the rules because this is why I think we should also hear from the Board of Education regarding the rule series and what is already in law or the rules because we know that the rules have the force of law. What exists in those rules that is described in the statute and trying to figure out where the gaps may exist are there and then what is trying to be accomplished by trying to change those rules. But we don't, it's my understanding, we are not the ones who legislate the rule series. That's the Board of Education, right? And I think that the IDEA, we can, sorry, we can create similar analogs, you can call them, that mirror federal law and have them be in state law as well as an enforceable set of rules or set of statutes. And that, I want to double check the language and the bill itself as it relates to whether or not we are recreating those federal statutes or if we're simply saying that the, that different schools have to follow those federal statutes. I'm not, it's not 100, it's not quite clear with the language but that's St. James' question. So, yeah, so that's what I'm, those are my initial thoughts and just to close, I think, again, that Board of Education, Human Rights Commission and a couple more folks with lived experience of going through this process to figure out where the cracks are. And, again, the Human Rights Commission, this was one of their recommendations and so hearing, Amanda, or Amanda Garsis was, I think it's supposed to submit testimony. I asked her if she would be available today and she's not, but following up with her and- She's, she's Human Rights Commission. Or she, she is, yeah, yeah, okay. So I think following up with her to hear from that organization as to what they're seeing as the gaps as well, I think could be helpful, yeah. Yeah. So we're looking to understand where some of the gaps are. So we'll have Amanda Garsis in. Do you think the State Board of Education will help us be helpful in terms of understanding the gaps? I mean, they might be. Yeah, I mean, there are some recommendations that I think would go into the rule series rather than legislation. Okay. And I mean, if it's a request that we send to the Board to, you know, make some changes, I'm not sure how that rulemaking process goes or rather if it's a group of citizens who have to petition the Board of Education to make those rule changes, I guess that's the remaining question. So would you be, or if we had, I think the person who can probably answer that best might not be a State Board member, but Emily Simmons, AOE's Ledge Council, and I think she also, she also supports the State Board. Have her zoom in and we can ask her that question around rulemaking and then Amanda Garsis can come in and you can provide us some more information from families around, again, the gaps that you're seeing, they're seeing out there. Yeah, I have a document that I can provide to Morgan. We can print it and share it with everybody. They did also send a petition over that includes 75 Vermont residents and from what I can gather from the chart, I believe the second or third highest listed issue or the question was why do you support this bill? And as far as I can tell, it's either the second or the third highest reason is because, quote, the educational system does not sufficiently accommodate the needs of deaf and hard of hearing and deaf-blind children. With number one being, this is a human rights issue. Yeah, and I'd still like to understand, we can at least talk to them on or offline, what sort of happened if parents are reaching out to AOE. It sounds to me like they might need to streamline something. The interpreter just double-checking. What was the number one reason that you said? The number one reason? This is a human rights issue. Thank you. Thanks for asking. And also just for transparency, the total number of responses were 108, 75 were Vermont residents and 33 were outside of Vermont. So I'm not sure from where, but that's what they, what else provided. So for you next step, Emily Simmons, Human Rights Commission and some students or some families who are satisfied. Okay, I think that makes sense. Yeah, I understand where the gaps are. And I also want to add the, for what I think would end up being included in the rule series are the more cultural and curriculum, the requests that are related more so to culture and curriculum, which I think would go into the rule series rather than law. And you had mentioned, I think that Maine had done this. Yeah, Maine and also New Hampshire, I think there were, I think it was 18 states in total, if not more. What was the big pushback last week that we did before on this? We heard. Well, I think it was two weeks ago now. I think we heard that it was redundant. And that these laws are already in place. But then when we look at the testimony of the kids and their parents, there's clearly a disconnect because the people who these laws are meant to protect and accommodate are not experiencing that protection and accommodation from those laws based on the experiences that they're describing. And do we know from Beth St James, did she say it was redundant? Or if it timing, Senator Gilliff, please, you had a question. Miss St James, please join us at the table. I was just, I think it's gonna echo pretty much what you were saying, which is, can we find out if it is in law? And because it does seem as though we've come across this issue before where some things in law, but it's not being done. And what's the responsibility of the AOE in making sure that it does get done? Like there just seems to be a lot of confusion around that. It'd be nice to- It'd be nice to know who that point of person is in AOE. And I think we met her, but I don't remember her name. We're talking about S171. It's Senator Jamesville, please, Senator Williams. Senator Gilliff. Oh, certainly. Well, Senator Gilliff. Yeah, thank you. So, I've asked this question before and I don't want to belabor the point, but if it's happening to deaf, hard of hearing and deaf blind people, is it happening to blind people too? And I know that that's not your constituent's focus, but if we're gonna talk about mandates that apply to that group, are the blind people having the same problem? I think that was raised two weeks ago and the answer, as best as I can remember, has to do with the fact that folks who are in the deaf and hard of hearing and deaf blind community have their own culture, have their own language, and unlike what you see with folks who are blind, I do think there, I wouldn't be surprised if there was overlap in the issue regarding the accountability piece and the complaint procedures, but I think that the second component of this bill regarding culture and curriculum, I don't think that overlaps with the blind piece. So, yeah, does that? I'm just concerned from an equity standpoint that if we're gonna make mandate for one group, we should be making sure that everybody's covered for that. Yeah, and if you don't mind just putting a mental note as we go forward and we'll be focusing on that. Miss St. James, if you don't mind before we get started on what we have you in for, which is 191, 172, we have a question, we've heard that the language in 172, I think we heard it from the agency a couple weeks ago, is redundant, that it's not needed. And I kind of remember you being in the chair and answering this already, but would you mind helping us out? Sure, Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Council. So, I am not able to speak to whether the entire bill is redundant or not, but generally speaking, if a student qualifies for special education services either under IDEA or Section 504, the Resilitation Act of 1973, many, if not all of these components may be a part of a 504 plan or an IEP. The federal special education laws require students to be provided with a free, appropriate, it's fake, and I always haven't been in the education role long enough to remember a fake, it's probably not a great, free and appropriate public education in the least restricted environment. So, it's possible that in order to provide a child with a free and appropriate education in the least restricted environment, school districts are already required to offer many of these services. Now, if a student does not qualify for an IEP or Section 504 plan, there are other non-federal components to special education provisions, and also supports in the general classroom of making multi-tiered systems of support. And Act 173, even creating that new definition of students who are needing additional support, which would be outside of the special education context as far as IDEA and Section 504. So, I'm not qualified to sit down and say, okay, subdivision four is automatically provided for under IDEA or Section 504, or it would be a requirement under tier two supports in a multi-tiered system of support. But my guess is, if you're hearing that this bill is redundant, that that is part of it, is that if a student qualifies for any extra support, it's possible that all of these supports would already be provided. It's possible. I'm not saying that it's, and there could be a population of students who would qualify for supports under this bill, very specifically, that would not qualify under Section 504 or IDEA, or perhaps they would qualify for extra support in the general classroom setting, but maybe if not all of these items are required, meaning not all of them would be offered. So, I think there's potential for overlap and also some not overlap. So, we're gonna ask Ms. Garces to come in to help us understand the gaps that she's hearing next week, and we're also gonna hear from Emily Simmons to see if she wants to weigh in on, ask her about rulemaking. And she might be able to. She might. Have you heard from someone from the special education department? I believe that's who we had in next last week, but I'll check with Morgan. Yeah. And as with- Yeah, Ms. I can't remember her name. I don't want to say what, yeah. I just emailed to try to find out. And as with anything, you know, whether you're, how you ask questions sometimes makes a breaks whether you get the information that you need, right? So, if you want to know if everything in this bill would be provided for someone who qualified for services under IDEA or Section 504, maybe you have to ask specifically, would Subdivision 6 be part of an IEP or if I have a foreplanned if a student was deaf, deafblind or hard of hearing and, you know, just saying, generally, you know, it's redundant. Right. Like, what does that mean? What does that mean? Yeah, yeah. Senator Sheen. Porchella. Porchella. Make Porchella. Make Porchella. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'll hold my question for now. I think, yeah, I'll hold mine. Okay. She did submit five pages of testimony here on two. So, anything else on 172 at this point? Sounds like we're working our way on it, but once, yeah, and now we'll shift to 191. Thank you, Senator Sheen. Anything else from your end? No, I'm good. I think, thank you, Beth, for the note. I think one piece is making sure that this applies to not just deaf students, but also hard of hearing and deafblind students. I think that is one of the, that might be one of the gaps. And I'm gonna have to re-watch the testimony, but I know it's two weeks ago now, but. And I'll try to re-watch some of it also. Would you, in the bill, just, unless Senator Sheen objects, Senator Williams has raised issues of people who are blind. I just wanna lose sight of that if you could just make a note somewhere. Sure, the bill is very specific about services for one particular group of people, so I would need a lot of direction on this. All right, why don't we hold off for now? Yeah, yeah, okay. I just wanna use that request in that question. Okay, 191. An act relating to new American advancement brand applicants, and we have a revised version, I believe, after we heard from Tom Little from VSAC. So, we have it. And so I think we'll go ahead then, Miss St. James, if you wanna take us through the changes. Sure, Beth St. James, office of legislative council, you should have a potential amendment, draft 1.1, to ask 191. So this would be the first change to the bill that you've seen since the bill was introduced. And this is based solely on feedback and suggestions from Tom Little from VSAC's general council. So, the bill on page one, subsection D, the changes are highlighted in yellow. So, notwithstanding subsection A of the section, which is talking about who qualifies for an advancement grant. So it would be the term resident is what we're really focused on here. Applicants who qualify for in-state tuition to the community college of Vermont pursuant to subsection 21A5C of this section shall not be ineligible for the advancement grant, solely on the applicant's residency status. So, if they haven't been here for a year, if that's the only reason they would be ineligible, that non-year residency piece would not make them ineligible. If they're not eligible for other reasons, this does not automatically qualify for an advancement grant. And we're gonna talk about who them is in a second, but it is not ineligible. I know that's not the most elegant writing, but it's basically saying, if you meet every other requirement but you haven't been here a year, you're eligible. Okay, so who is eligible? So in 2022, the legislature passed an amendment to the determination of residency for tuition purposes for the Vermont State Colleges, specifically the community college of Vermont. And so that language says, for determination of residency for tuition to community college of Vermont, a person who resides in Vermont shall be considered a resident for in-state tuition, beginning at the start of the next semester, if that person, and then this is the category of folks that would qualify for this advancement grant if they haven't been here for a year, but they meet all the other eligibility requirements. So someone who qualifies as a refugee pursuant to the federal definition of a refugee, someone who has been granted parole to enter the United States pursuant to, I believe this is the humanitarian parole federal definition, or is issued a special immigrant visa pursuant to the Afghan Allies Protection Act in 2009. So if an individual met all of the other advancement grant eligibility requirements and fell into one of those categories, if they hadn't been here for a year, they would still, they could still qualify for an advancement grant that one year residency piece would not kick them out of eligibility and exclude them, yes. And then, so the bill is introduced, it was the same concept to a much broader category of people. It listed just several immigration statuses. But such. Can I ignore it real quick? I'm not seeing the language in the bill as introduced on, so this section D here, am I blind or is it not in this potential amendment? It is. So this amendment is changing that language. Right? We're amending the bill as introduced. So 2185. So the language that's highlighted is new. Right. So what? It's cross-referencing 2185, which is. Which is what I just walked us through. Which are those immigration statuses. Thank you. Okay. Does that make sense? It makes those. Okay. Thank you. And again, that was a recommendation from VSAC. So I think that works completely for legal reasons. I would just, my advice to you all would be, is, or my question to you all would be, are those the communities that you wanted to meet with this language? Because it's, as I think I've mentioned, like especially when we're talking about, everyone uses the term Afghan refugees, but many of them are actually here under humanitarian parole, right? So when we're throwing around these different immigration statuses that none of us are qualified to really understand, right? I would just want to make sure that you all know who you are impacting with this legislation. And so if you're comfortable with this language, great. If you're not, if you're concerned that you're leaving someone out, are you wearing, or including a community that you don't need to include, let's figure out the right people to talk to. Do you have a copy of that here? You just referenced of the cross-section. Nope, but I can send it to Morgan. Yeah, that would be great. Did I send that to you, Morgan? No? I don't think so. Okay. And do you mind just eating who we're capturing in this? So I can hear it one more time, thanks. So. I think I might bring up five copies. Someone who qualifies as a refugee pursuant to the federal definition of refugee. Yeah. Humanitarian parolees. And someone who has been issued a special immigrant visa pursuant to the Afghan allies protection act of 2009 as amended. And then. Anybody have any questions on that? We'll get it printed up and I'm going to pull up and know what I have from the joint fiscal lines. Please go ahead. And then this was not in the bill as introduced, but was a recommendation of the staff. So I've included it for you all to consider. Page two, adding a brand new section, incentive grant eligibility. So section one and the bill is introduced was only for advancement grants. Section two would be a change to eligibility for incentive grants and pulling up incentive grants. So I can read to you, they are a need based grant program to aid students who need financial assistance and are pursuing undergraduate studies and give promise of completing satisfactorily a degree program or who have been accepted for admission to an approved post-secondary education institution for undergraduate studies. So remember, advancement grants are for non, I don't want to get it wrong, non degree education and incentive grants contemplate that you are seeking a degree, right? So it's a right in their completing set promise of completing satisfactorily a degree program. So section two is making essentially the same change to eligibility requirements and incentive grants also have a one-year residency requirement. As does the residency requirement comes from the definition of residence for all of the ESACS programs in this title or in this chapter. So notwithstanding any provisional, a lot of the contrary, a person who qualifies for in-state tuition to CCV pursuant to the language we just walked through. So refugees, humanitarian parolees and Afghan Allies Protection Act, special immigrant visa holders, shall not be ineligible for the Vermont incentive grant program solely on account of that person's residency status. So again, making that same residency exception for the incentive grant. The big difference here is that what ESAC is proposing is that this is a temporary, the section one would be amending the grade books. So the thought there is that it's in perpetuity until you change it all. Section two is a piece of session law with a repeal date built in, so three years from now. This language actually appeared in the same bill that amended the CCV in-state tuition language as a piece of session law for one year. It was repealed, I believe, or two years. It was repealed July 1, 2023, I believe. So my understanding is that ESAC is recommending that we try this again for three more years. So this is already in line with the current session? No, it ran out. It was repealed on July 1, 2023. So it's just past July. Okay. Is this continuing? For until July 1, 2020, or whatever date you all take. So this would just be going back to the way it was. Just half a year ago. For that one year, from July 1, 2022 to July 1, 2023. Yes. And I heard back from Ms. Richter. She doesn't see a fiscal impact. She doesn't see S191 as having a fiscal impact. And I think it's probably because, and I'll go back and confirm this with folks, that the dollars are coming from dollars that have already been appropriated or will be appropriated to ESAC itself. So I think what Tom said, I could be wrong, that their budget can withstand this additional request to these additional hits, if you will. But I'll go back and confirm for you. Yeah. It's kind of an odd perspective. That is a fiscal impact. Because if the money weren't used, the money would roll back and just become liquid for some other. So I have a email, I'll forward it along to everybody or have Morgan print it out. So we won't be, and we can always have rent, we won't be allocating appropriating more money because of this. That I guess. So we'll take this budget, which has already been, I go after your budget, this year's budget, and it's pulled from that. And I think, and I could be wrong, we can have, I think it's a good idea to talk about this. When she says, there's no expected fiscal impact on S191, therefore no formal fiscal note is required. I wonder if she sort of interprets that because we are not going to appropriate a certain amount specific to that. So we can, yeah, we can have rent, yeah. That's, those are the changes to the bill as introduced. Yeah, please. So to your comment about no one here being really qualified to fully explain or dissect the status of the meeting of refugee, et cetera. Oh no, that's not what I meant. I meant every immigration status and who qualifies under that immigration status. Okay, so how do we, right, but how do we, so I understand, you've been answering poorly, it's pretty straightforward. The Afghan issue, I understand. But the refugee status, my understanding, again, I'm not an immigration lawyer, but it's a rather broad characterization and incorporates political refugee, economic refugee, et cetera, et cetera, natural disaster refugee. I mean, we do need to understand that before we can really decide if this is an appropriate use of state treasury. I can read you the definition. Okay. Yeah, I'm pulling it up right now. And I, forgive me if my comment was not helpful. I meant is you all are trying to determine what categories, what communities we were trying to serve with this language. There are many, many, many immigration statuses and immigration statuses within immigration statuses. So just saying, there are folks from X country in my community, and I wanna make sure that that they are served. We would need to figure out what is their immigration status. And that's not something that I'm qualified to figure out. We would need to talk to those communities. So let's see, the definition, the federal definition of immigration is. Immigration or refugee. I'm sorry, refugee. Any person who is outside any country of such person's nationality, or in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided. And who is unable or unwilling to return to and is unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that country because of persecution or a well founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. That was A, or in such special circumstances as the president after appropriate consultation and may specify any person who is within the country of such person's nationality or in the case of a person having no nationality within the country in which such person is habitually residing. And who is persecuted or has well founded fear. So that's so outside of their country or in their country. The term refugee does not include any person who has ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in the persecution of any person on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion. I think that's, there's some more to it, but I think for the purposes of our, I can send this, yep, I'll send this to Morgan to post. But yes, that is a broad definition. It also takes some time to actually get refugee status. I don't know, I mean, my understanding is that you show up to our country seeking asylum, you're an asylum seeker, and then there's, and then you have to go through a process that involves court to get that refugee status. And I think maybe I'd follow up with an immigration attorney for that, but that's my recollection. Yes, so I think you're kind of hitting on what I'm trying to highlight for you. Asylum seekers or asylees would not be, I don't believe included, in the carve out here. And so that's why figuring out the communities who want to be serving with this language is so important because you may, the constituents that came to you or the constituents that you were working with may not be effective, I was like, I don't know who they were, right? But yes, and I had, when I was drafting the language for the Community College of Vermont, I believe I had been in touch with someone at the Vermont Law School who worked in the immigration clinic there who helped me, so I could find their name perhaps and either reach out or put you in touch or have them testify, but no. If you know anecdotally, these are the people in my community or a community that, and here's their immigration status, I can trace that back and try and find some language for you, but I'm not gonna be able to come up with every immigration status that's here in Vermont, right? I do know an immigration lawyer in Burlington, I could pick his brain for a little bit, or even have him testify, or the person who Bader mentioned. There's one we brought him to. So for this bill right now, the main witness I have coming back in is Julia Richter, who sort of talked us through the financial, possible financial impacts. Anybody else wanna hear from somebody? You wanna hear from a particular immigration attorney on this or do you wanna ask him? I mean, I could follow up, I guess, to be up to the rest of the committee if you wanna hear from an immigration attorney who I'm sure he'd be willing to testify. I don't wanna assume for him, but I'm sure he'd be willing to. He's worked with Afghan refugees and would be able to clarify the process that you don't have refugee status. The second you show up here, you have a silent seeker status and you have to go through this court procedure to actually be granted refugee status, but that's not an area that I have an expertise in and I'd wanna confirm or clarify that. So if, yeah. I think it would be a good use of 10 minutes of Zoom time, just to kind of make sure it can't make a decision based on what we think it means. Yep, is he gonna charge us? I'm fine with that, yeah. What was that? Is he gonna charge us? I'd like to ask him. Frogo. His name, can you do it? Let me, I'd have to double-check my email. Anybody wanna hear from anyone else in addition to the attorney and Julia Richter on this or any red flags, anything else on this? So, yeah, please. Going back to your earlier comment, do you think Julia would be, or someone would be able to quantify this? I know that there's money to potentially scrape up. I get that, but yeah, what is the impact? I think Scott would be able to answer that. I think Scott would probably be able to, because if we sat down, we could ask Scott just how much we're looking at for this budget. The CFO might, yeah. Or I guess Scott, I mean, if you have time with the court. Yeah, no, it's a good point. Yeah. He's thinking T. Financial office. T. Financial office, yeah. Otherwise, I think we're pretty good. Yeah, so we'll see what they're thinking, because they must be anticipating some number, and they can't be anticipating, I'm guessing they're not anticipating 1,000, but where are they getting their 100 or 1,800? I think it would honestly just be a couple dozen. Yeah, we'll talk about that in just a minute or two. We said, great, beautiful. Okay, Ms. St. James, 171. Unless you have any other comments around this. No, do you have any homework for me on this, though? I don't think so. I think we'll just have, the center machine will set up the immigration attorney. We have Julia Richter working on set up for next week, as well as the CFO from B-SAC will dig up that person or their designate, and go from there. And then I think we'll be ready to roll. Yeah, at least at once. Just for your information, Dr. Levine's testimony's on the website. Oh, thank you. Well, that was very fast, great. Terrific. So S171, this is Senator Rom Hinsdale's an act relating to leave a residency of a student following displacement by natural disaster. We're gonna look at a few definitions. We asked you to do that. And wondering, I think we have put a whole thing in our files, you wouldn't mind filling this in. Sure, that's St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. My charge for today was to help come back with some information, some potential definitions, anything at the back of there for natural disaster and just police. And it's not good news. Okay. And just to remind everyone, one of you were a lot smarter than I am. What was this, McKinney-Vente? McKinney-Vento. Invento, okay. For homeless students. So remember, this bill proposes to you add a section to section 1075 of Title 16, which is the legal residency statute for how we figure out what school district a kiddo belongs to. Okay. And generally speaking, we figure that out by looking at where the legal guardians are residing. So if the legal guardians of a child are residing and they're domiciled in a school district. Yeah. That's where that child goes. Yeah. The statute also has provisions for state-placed students. Also students that are in state custody for CHIMS cases. Okay. That's just one example. So just continuing that thought. So if somebody's been removed from their home. Correct. There's already statute dealing with where the foster home is. Exactly. He or she may return to that school for unlimited period of time. Or until. I don't know off the top of it. Okay, that's fine. Probably until the fostering program is over, maybe. I would have to read the statute there. But the statute also has a provision for how we figure out the resident's status. So what school district a homeless student belongs to. Correct. And that's where the McKinney-Vento Act, which is federal legislation for children to play. And McKinney-Vento touches on many different things for secondary down. So not post-secondary, it's for public school. So social services, all kinds of things. Schools are required to have a McKinney-Vento outreach coordinator. There's like all kinds of requirements. But one of the requirements in McKinney-Vento talks about access to education for homeless students, right? So, and there's a whole bunch of, and I'm not the expert. You had a great, I watched the testimony you took from the folks from AOE about McKinney-Vento. So I am not an expert in that piece of law. But their presentation was very clear on the services and the rights that are afforded children that qualify as homeless under that federal legislation. For state residency purposes, for how you figure out if a student, what school district a student goes to, this statute provides that the legal residence or residence of a child of homeless parents is the child's school of origin, which is what I believe this bill is trying to get at, right? Unless the parents in another school district agree that the child's attendance in school in that school district will be in the best interest of the child. So, you know, if it's better for the child to attend to the new school, then great. But a child of homeless parents is defined as a child whose parents lack a fixed, regular and adequate residence, or they're currently living in a, some sort of shelter or temporary accommodation, such as like a hotel on a public assistance voucher. So I think the conversation you all had and the caution that you were given, I think slightly in my walkthrough, but certainly in the testimony that you took from AOE was that it's possible that many children who are, I'm gonna use air quotes here, displaced by a natural disaster would fit in this homeless category. And so there's already a piece of law that would govern them, okay? But the gray area is, what is a natural disaster? And what does displacement mean? Because it's possible that what you all are thinking of as far as displacement, may not mean that someone has, it lacks a fixed, regular or adequate residence. Okay, Senator Weeks. I recall though that the fundamental problem was a family who may be displaced from their original domicile. They pick up a temporary domicile, they then are not homeless because they have. Yes, that's exactly the point I'm trying to make. So depending on the population you were trying to reach or the set of circumstances that you were trying to take into account, let's say a student lives with their family in one school district and their home is flooded and it's not habitable and they have to move. But the family has the means to rent a new house, buy a new house, et cetera, in a new school district. There's a possibility that that student would not meet the definition of a homeless student, right? So there would be no law that automatically entitles them to stay in the old school district. That's what this bill could do. Right, that being said, is it possible that family could petition the school board and say, hey, this is really important to us? Sure, we were able to afford a house here, but we really want Sarah to finish the school year or something like that. Yes, it's a little more clear for high school, a little less clear for elementary school. Okay. So to look at that set of circumstances, we're gonna jump to chapter 21, which is the maintenance of public schools, which is the town tuition program, which is where we talk about the requirement for schools to maintain an elementary or high school or pay tuition. So for elementary schools, which is great, pre-kindergarten through six. Let's see, what does it say here? Talking about kids get displaced, but they're able to afford a new house somewhere and they still want their kid to go to that school. Could they petition their school board? So the elementary school says, you gotta maintain a school or pay tuition, right? Notwithstanding those options, if a school board in a district that operates an elementary, a school board in a district that operates an elementary school may pay tuition for elementary students who reside near a public elementary school in an adjacent district. If it's within the best interest of the student and the judgment is left up to the school board. So that's very narrow for elementary school. For high school, it's different. For high school, the statute that requires the school district, if they are organized to provide a high school education, they've either gotta maintain a high school or pay tuition, but it also authorizes a school district may maintain a high school, both a high school and furnished high school education by paying tuition to a public school as in the judgment of the school board may best serve the interests of the students or at an approved independent school. If the school board judges that a student has unique educational needs that cannot be served within the district or at a nearby school, and the judgment of the board is final. So for elementary school, the only discretion for a school board is if you're a boarder of another school district. But for high school, it's any public school or any approved independent school if it's in the best interest of the children. If a family gets displaced in their child's third grade, they have to then use the school that borders their other school. No, if a... Third graders displace. If a third grader is displaced, they haven't really determined what that means yet, but we'll just use the example of they can't live in the home that they were living in, right? Current law allows for their... Well, it depends. They might meet the definition of homeless and in which case they would be able to stay in their school of origin. Yep. Right, right. If they don't meet the definition of homeless, I think they can still petition their school board. It would depend on, I guess, if they don't meet the definition of homeless, that they probably are a resident of the new school district, considered a resident of this new school district. And if they were in third grade and you were a resident of the new school district, you could petition that new school board. And you were on the border of your old school board, your school district, you could petition to go to the old school district. The school district does not have to say yes. But also, within the legal residency statute, if there is a dispute about residency, the secretary makes a final decision. In fact, any interested person or taxpayer who is dissatisfied with the decision of the school board as to the student's legal residency may appeal to the secretary. So there are a lot of avenues here. But may I ask one question, and I'm sure I'm missing something. What if this committee were just to say given, I think Senator Chittenden's bill and Senator Ron Hinsdale's bill, what if we were to say, no matter what your circumstance, if your family's transferred or you buy a new house or anything, that you can finish that one school year? What am I, because I'm looking at the committee. It seems like you could, though, with a petition to the secretary of ed. Well, it's contingent upon, or actually given the okay, right, the green light. Yeah, so you could get, you could petition your school board and the school board could take rate. Yeah. Or they could say no. Or they could say no. You could petition this, so that's for paying tuition. If it's a town that maintains a school district, or operates school. If the town is a tuitioning town, that piece of law that we just walked through would not apply. It doesn't, that law doesn't say if you're a tuitioning town, I mean if you're a tuitioning town, you need to go wherever you want anyway. If it's just if you lived in an operating district. I guess for me, I'm just interested if some child, it's January, wherever they are going to school, that they could just stay at that school and just wrap things up if that just feels right to them and their families. Senator Kuehle. I was just gonna suggest, maybe we could hear from some superintendents because now that we're talking about this, I know it's come before. I know it has. Right, right. It's come before the school board that I serve on and I know that we've had these discussions before. And I feel like there's oftentimes, at least within like, maybe even the county, I think superintendents work with each other to make sure that generally this kind of thing works out. Yeah, I think so. So if the elementary school language is the least restrictive. It's the most restrictive right now. Okay, so how about if we just change the language to the one that's least restrictive. Right. And make the other one the same. That will require change of statute. Yes, everything you guys do, like there are quite a few changes to statute. Okay. That only, so that language is specific to bordering. So that would only work if the district that you move into bordered your district of origin or your school of origin. But I think what Senator Williams is saying, I could be, you might be saying the same thing, is if we were to make the elementary program, the language would mirror the 9 through 12 language. Oh, that's not what I heard him saying, but for sure you could do that. Cause that makes them both equal and maybe gives people a little more flexibility in that. She would certainly do that. Again, it's just discretionary to the school board. You know. Yeah, I think it's very, would you hear from school boards and the superintendent's association on this and see what people think? I mean for me, it just seems like for a kid to have to make new friends middle of the year rather than the new year. So then you, I would say. That wasn't the most popular kid in town. So sometimes it was trouble if it was September or January. So I would encourage you to think about how long. Sound like you're circling just finishing the school year. And then transportation is not required. That was part of it, yeah. Period, right? That's discretionary for school districts. So if you live in a school district with a transportation, you know, policy and you're staying in the school district but you've moved out of school district. How does transportation factor into that? I believe there's already some language of somewhere that we might be able to draw on. But you could certainly say you could either make transportation discretionary in the school districts and let the school district decide if they're gonna provide transportation if they do for everyone else. You could say under no circumstances, it's the parent's responsibility to take advantage of this provision. Or if you craft something. Kind of lost track on it, I would say. Are you referring to any family that decides to move during the year that they would be allowed to finish the school year or displace families? Well, I'm just thinking maybe the cleanest way to do it the easiest is if, no matter what their circumstance, if they want their child to finish their academic year there and transportation, they're gonna do the transportation everything, probably talking 10 kids. I don't know if we can ask the superman's association but it seems to me like they would be a good thing for the kid. Especially if they already paid the property taxes there. Kind of interesting the ins, yeah. But we can have them come in and it gets rid of the whole what's a disaster or what's not a natural disaster who think that sort of thing. We can hear from folks. Please go ahead. I was just thinking about how tuition factors into all of this, but if it's just for the finishing the school year, maybe that's not. And we wanted to say at that same school, this isn't like okay. Right, but I'm just thinking of the family that moves into an operating town out of a tuition district, right? If it's just one school year, they could remain in that potentially approved independent school. But if you were to go any more, if you were to go let's say till graduation or something like that. Okay. We would be having folks who are moving into an operating school district allowed to tuition to the school of their choice. Right. Just because their family decided to move into an operating school district. I don't think that's a good term. Yeah, so you're saying if somebody is in a non-operating district and they move to an operating, no, you're saying if they're in an operating. And they move to a, no, if they're, sorry, if they're in a non-operating district and they move to an operating district, this bill would allow them to continue receiving tuition. Right. Or this idea would allow them to continue to receive tuition until however long you all decide. And so I could imagine different math depending on how long. Literally math as far as cost, right? Yeah. But are you, would you be, yeah, if we were to let it go on and on and on and on. Yeah, I mean there could be more of a physical impact with that versus finishing the school year. But that's a policy decision, so. Right. No, but I think, Again, just speaking for myself, the family wants to get to finish the school a couple months there, whatever. Hate to see this huge process have to happen where they're petitioning people and everything. But if it generally works out, you can keep it as is. Okay. Anything else on this? No, I will just note that there is no definition for natural math. Right, and that's where this sort of maybe something is that done a little bit more easily. Yeah, I love that. Any homework for me on this bill? No, I'm gonna ask Morgan to ask the Superintendent's Association, the School Board Association. Here you go, Morgan. You can ask them that question. So I'll let them in next week and hopefully, and I'll talk to Senator Ron Hinsdale. I can see if you were in high school when you were like a junior in playing sports. Totally, completely, yeah. If you were in elementary school, it's not such a big deal. We have your little buddies or whatever, and yeah. I'll just comment that often families make job decisions, the fact where they live and where they work and the facts where they live, where they go to school. Those are decisions that families make all the time, and I'm not sure that, you know, I understand the displaced by a natural disaster, but to then shift more towards a, you know, a kind of more softer approach to pick your job and, you know, pick your school. It's kind of a collateral support by this legislation. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean. So which part? Well, so if you, so this scenario where all of a sudden that kid's in 10th grade and the parents are moving four miles away, but it's him or her in this new district, if the committee wanted to move in this direction, he or she could stay at that original district until January until the end of school year. Tell me a little bit more about the concern. Well, I just, you know, I understand the premise. Yeah, yeah. I also understand that, you know, parents are making decisions all the time about following the job, following, essentially following the money. And I'm just not sure that, you know, those kinds of decisions need to be reflected in legislation to basically, you know, place their kids. Yeah, the benefit is for the family, not for the community. So I'm just saying, biblain about it, you know, as a kid, a military kid, I did probably three schools where I was halfway through the year. It's not a crisis, you know, benefit is you're shifting into your new location earlier rather than lingering and waiting. It's just a different perspective. That's a really good point also. Fair enough, yeah. I mean, the parents could also say, come on, Sally, you're coming with us, if that were, they thought that was best completely. Yeah, that's a good point. Anyway, I'm listening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not from the disaster bit. Yeah, it's got some relevance. Yeah. Okay, I get that, but brawning it out, it's a two-edged sword. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I would like to leave Senator Graham Hensdale happy to. I appreciate that, yeah, yeah. All right, why don't we take five minutes until our folks from the School Board, from the, we have one more. This is a marathon. Woo! Oh, look at the thickness of the wall. S-303, we have just some brief testimony. This is hopeful. Thanks, Bill. Thank you so much. We'll see you tomorrow. What about families that have deaf, hard of hearing and deaf? Seven, eight, oh yeah. I make sure. It's a bit tonight. It's a bit tonight. Oh, you're very nice. Great, welcome back to Senate Education. Final business for the day. We are yesterday, and we're so pleased to have the three of you with us, talking about S-303, an act relating to support Vermont's young readers. And one of the things we have been talking about if you've followed our work is whether or not we should have principals, superintendents, other administrative staff take the 46-hour modules that we're having teachers take. And so Ms. Myers will start with you, your thoughts. There's Associate Executive Director for BSA on the record, for the record. I just want to, I've been listening a little bit today, introduce or reintroduce Amy Minor, who is not only our VSA president, but also I've heard you saying a lot about the Standards Board for Professional Educator. She is also the chair of that group. So I figured inviting her and having her available to answer some of those questions with her vantage point on that Standards Board would be helpful. We do have some brief testimony to read is that what you would like or do you want to just go into a discussion? I mean, listen, I think generally, do you think administrators should go through this training? Maybe start there. I think my first response to that would be, I have not gone through all of the 46 modules. Okay. I haven't done all of the hours. I did sign up and I was able to complete module number one. Okay. And so I'm gonna answer based on that premise. I think if in most cases an building administrator is evaluating the performance in the classroom of a classroom teacher. And so if we are wanting administrators to be able to improve classroom instructional practices, they have to understand what we are looking for from instruction. And so I think there is a connection with if you want to transform literacy education in a school district, I think your administrators have to be in alignment with what those goals are in order to drive action plans and give feedback on what's happening in a classroom. So you would say yes. I would most likely say yes. Do they need to do all of those 46 hours? That's really hard for me to answer without moving through the training. I will say, I have some questions about the online modules that are on the AOE website. I think really strong professional development can absolutely impact a student's learning and experience and the level of instruction that teachers provide. I'm not sure what I've experienced thus far in the modules is engaging and will directly result in an entire school district moving their literacy instruction just because I haven't moved through those modules. And so the delivery model for me was part of one of my concerns just looking at section two. And that last sentence of section two B where it talks about developed and offered or approved by the AOE, I think every teacher wants and every administrator wants students to have high literacy scores, right? As an administrator, my hope is that every student in my school district is on grade level for reading by the end of grade three, because in order to access the content that starts in grade four, you have to be a really strong reader. So not being on grade level can be a challenge there. I think for me, I would love to see that language involve having the AOE not be the only driver of those decisions, but having a committee that involves teachers, administrators and the AOE working together to develop this literacy training and to approve the literacy training that would really I think improve the relationship, the fidelity of what we're trying to change and the understanding of why this literacy training is important. So that could be, we might already have that set up in the literacy with the literacy council. Maybe, I don't know. Yep, when I read through that literacy council section that wasn't made strong enough for me. And so I think if you could make that more explicit, I think that that might be helpful. I think my biggest concern is if we're gonna require teachers to do any amount of training, we really need to make sure it's gonna be relevant to what's happening in their district and in their classroom, engaging and impactful. And so I think trying to build that is a great spot for collaboration. Senator, would you agree to say something? No, I know it was about the camera, but no, that's a really great observation and suggestion. Thank you. Thank you, yeah, very good. So yeah, we can talk, as a committee, we can talk a little bit about that. I like what you're saying, have a group of people. So for example, what I'm imagining is if a teacher says, all right, well, I'm now taking this literacy class, it's a three or four credit class, why do I need to do both? And does this equate, is this good enough for what would happen in the modules? This group of people would have those conversations and decide, and it sounds like that would be a great group of people to actually decide, yeah, that's exactly what we want you to be doing. And so Ms. Minor, I would just say if, in all of your free time, which I know you have just literally none of, if you can think about, who would might those three to five people be that would work with teachers and others on determining that, that would be great. Yeah, I think it would really be important to have teachers. Yeah, yeah, in that buy-in, okay, it's not just the agency of education that's secretary saying, yes, that's good, it's bad, but a group, yeah. Exactly, and I think for me, when I started to go through the modules that I was doing, you know, the modules provide great information, but what is a challenge is that disconnect between the work that's happening in your building based on your building's action plan and scores, and me as an individual classroom teacher moving through a self-paced module where I can play and answer some, I can play kind of the recording and then answer, that is not always the most effective modality to change my classroom practice. So if there was a connection, we're thinking about how can districts deliver this so that it really is impacting more than me just doing this to get my licensure renewal, which is- That's right, that's right, that's right. Senator Dewitt. Yeah, thank you so much, Amy. How do you feel about coaches and their ability to transform our current situation? I think that coaches are critical. We have seen tremendous math growth in our district with our math coaches. We have added reading interventionists. One of our areas of growth would be to provide more coaching specifically in the area of reading instruction. And so what is helpful about a coach is that real-time feedback. Coaches can do modeling of a new strategy so that the teacher can watch that and practice. Coaches can give real-time feedback when teachers are doing small group or large group instruction with a reading strategy. And so I think they play a really important role of taking the textbook knowledge that you need to learn around what is best practice and then to transform that into application that becomes natural for every classroom teacher. What's your district, Ms. Minor? I'm in Colchester. In Colchester, great, great. Yeah, we talked a little bit. I mean, one of the things- Committee of Correctness, if I'm wrong, with the coaching piece is the- I mean, work is so hard to find teachers right now and coaches and her as it's- But I get it, having somebody there would make a huge difference. Yeah. It's that you can take a course and you can move through a module and have a level of understanding but then being able to apply that new skill, the coaches and the building level administrators have an important role in that, especially if you want those new skills to be implemented with fidelity in a building, in a district, across the state. So I may have a misunderstanding then of the coaches. So would coaches be people who you might already have deployed in, for example, third grade teachers, also the coach, that kind of thing? Fourth grade teachers is a coach. I think there's different models for how districts use coaches based on the resources and the FTEs that you have, sometimes that might be a side-stike and it doesn't necessarily need to be a full time position. Great. So in addition to thinking about a little bit about what this committee makeup might look like, if you've got a rockstar coach in your district, I'm sure you do, it'd be great to have a conversation with him or her at some point and maybe you could just pass that information along to Morgan. Just so we throw these words around, sometimes I assume, oh, that's this, but it would be great to talk with somebody and how they work and how they operate. Great. Thank you. So Chelsea, do you have anything else that you wanna add before we switch to Mr. Nichols? Yeah, just a couple of questions or just observations about the bill in terms of I do recognize that you've been talking a lot about those online modules and talking about that as a requirement, but in the bill, I'm not sure that it is quite clear that the modules, the online modules are that the training required itself and especially when you add the provision of it can also be approved by the agency of education. It's not clear, for example, the number of hours or the type of training. So I think just more clarity around that and the kind of dosage of the training would be super helpful. We're definitely in sport of continuing the Literacy Council and just have some further questions that I'm happy to provide in our written testimony. I'll send it after and Amy, I've read her testimony as well has a couple of those questions that you could just look over. I know you've had a marathon afternoon. So I'll send that. That would be great, Chelsea, I appreciate that. That would be terrific. Anything that you, and you've seen draft 2.1, yeah. So any kind of clarifying questions, if you would send them along to us and copy Letch Council as well, that would be great to kind of keep this all moving and fluid, but Ms. Meyers on the topic specifically, anything else to add around the training piece of administrators it sounds like and I don't want to put words in Ms. Meyers' mouth, but again, if you're going to be evaluating teachers, good practice to have this similar training. Yeah, I echo what Amy said and also just would add that she surfaced a lot of the best practices in professional learning, which I spend a lot of time with, like things like coaching and putting into practice and things like that. We just have questions about how those modules would translate to some of those best practices in professional learning, but agree that administrators have to have the knowledge in which they're evaluating and giving feedback to teachers on in order to effectively be coaching those educators in their practice. So yes, completely agree with Amy and I would just, the last sentiment is I think it was Senator Weeks yesterday asked about kind of like, how do we know if we're successful? So if we give 46 hours of training, is there a mechanism in which we're going to assess in a couple of years if teachers feel, for example, more effective in teaching literacy and if literacy skills scores are going, while not necessarily causal, if they're going up in the state of Vermont. Great, thank you both so, so much. Mr. Nichols, can you top that or you just want to call it a day? Well, I wrote down some notes and I can actually type it up into testimony and send it to you folks. I don't disagree with anything that Amy and Chelsea said and I've only had, I looked at the bill last night after I got home from up there, it was about 7.30, typed some things up and I was thinking that the bill was requiring all licensed educators to go through the modules. That's how I read it and maybe I read it too quick. Now that's how I read it as well, but we'll check into with our council, but our question specifically for you is whether, let's say we want to know if administrators should be pulled into this. Are you talking K-4 administrators? We're talking K-12 administrators. Yeah, so I would think about that a little bit with high school administrators, whether or not we'd want to go down that road. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing, but if I'm a high school principal and I'm responsible for the physics teacher and for the AP chemistry teacher and AP government teacher, typically if I'm an administrator in a high school, I'm not going to have the content knowledge in every single area that I'm going to be responsible for, but I am going to have hopefully a real strong understanding of pedagogy. I think with reading it's a little bit different. At the K-4 level, I used to as a superintendent tell my administrators that when the teachers are getting trained in, and I'm just making this up, math land, for example. Even to be there getting the training with them, so you are really clear on the practices you expect to see in the classroom, and so that you can reinforce those best practices. I think the same thing holds true for reading. So if I'm a K-4 principal or elementary principal K-5, K-8, and our teachers are being trained in these modules that hopefully are approved and not just by the AOE. I'm fully, I think the licensing, the literacy council that we've talked about before, I think that group should be very important in this. People like Gwen Kamoli that are real experts in literacy should be helping the AOE make sure that whatever programs are requiring of school principals and educators that are teaching reading, that they are their research base, that they're effective, and that the training that they're receiving, the module part scares me a little bit. I think there's a lot of power in coming together, humans or social animals, and working with other people in a group together, maybe you're taking the modules and then you're talking about them together, you're working on implementation together. I think there's a lot to be said for that. I would not want to be a check the box exercise where I just go through modules on my own, why I'm drinking wine at night or whatever, I don't drink wine, but if I did, and checking the box. So I would really want to make sure that there was a way to really make sure that the actual learning that we want to see occur happens. I think it's a great point, and the other witnesses made it as well, is there a way to, again, maybe as Senator Gullick mentioned, corporate codes or sort of this stuff happening in districts in a different way, just not like you're saying, checking off the box. I know Ms. Meyers was very involved. So were you instrumental when we put this money toward this, but you don't want it to just be, hey, I did this and it not be as deep and as meaningful as it possibly could be. And yet you also want to recognize teachers are incredibly busy letting them do it. Some of this, when they have the time to do it, also seems to make sense. Yeah, I think flexibility is important. And it's one of those things where, where are you going to be loose and where are you going to be tight? We need to be tight on this needs to happen. We need to make sure that we're really strong, especially in pre-K through third grade, at least, and really understanding that reading is a dynamic field and new findings are continuing to emerge and researchers are recently considering the intersection of traditional literacy with digital literacy, for example. Something we talked about a little bit in this committee, which is becoming more relevant in the 21st century. And the research on reading continues to inform educational practices and policies across the world. So we want to make sure we're tapping into that, having the, it's just like being a doctor, right? Or being a, I just got a tooth pulled yesterday. So being a dentist, you know, you want people with the latest research techniques that are doing the best job they can. And we want to make sure that our pre-service training in our colleges through the Ropa process, there really is more of a focus on literacy teaching. I have teachers tell me that they had one class in teaching literacy and they're coming out with a degree to teach college and to teach in the elementary school from our colleges and they're nowhere near ready. So I think focusing on that. Yeah, no question about that. Yeah. Now, is this a serious situation? Yeah, and to Amy's point, I might have a instructional coach in my system, you know, any town school district and that person might be the best person to help organize this for our group. And another district, it might be one of the principles. So it used to be a reading instructor who has a master's in reading. Another place it might be, you know, well, we're gonna work with this consultant who's really strong in this area. And I think all those have merit. Statewide average for ninth grade language arts proficiency, which I know isn't literacy, you know, 36.7% in the state of Vermont. That's a real problem. It is a problem. There's a question of whether or not it's real or not because as we know, you know, every year we have kids that take five minutes to take the test when it's the NAPA assessment or even and we can't, we don't know if kids are really trying or not or so there's all those factors too. A better assessment is our local assessment system should really be able to give us a good idea of whether kids are on grade or close to on grade level. And many kids start out in kindergarten already three years behind. And it's one of the reasons why the VPA keeps pushing it for preschool because the research is pretty clear that preschool helps, you know, helps fix that gap. But even that said, when we're doing our local, our own local assessments, you're absolutely right. We do not have enough kids where they're supposed to be but end of third grade and certainly not in the upper grades either. So attention. We have districts as low as 12%. We have districts, you know, 27%. Yeah. Yeah. It's an issue. You're absolutely right. It's our number one academic issue. Yeah. Okay. Great. It's incredibly helpful. Ms. Miner, don't be a stranger. For some reason we don't have an opportunity. We know you have another full-time job but your testimony is great and very helpful. Great. Happy to accept any time. Chelsea, thanks a million. If you don't mind sending those questions along that would be great. Jay, not bad. Not bad. You did okay. Overall. I'm never gonna get to Chelsea's stand-up. That's all right. For 455 in the afternoon, not bad. Thanks, Jay. I just want some more friends. I really appreciate it. And I'll send Marty Mike to my remark, just thank you. Great. Thanks, everybody. Have a great evening. Happy Valentine's Day. Okay, thanks, everybody. I think we're done. So are we off now? We're off now.