 Welcome to Senate Education on Thursday, February 15th. We are starting with continuing our conversation on S-220 from yesterday. This is an abbreviation to Vermont Public Library saying if everyone has their, hopefully say maybe their sheet from yesterday, we left off, we're going to move to section seven. So again, I think the two things that we need to, the one thing we need to return to now is section six. We'll have a conversation about it some point again, where the whole committee is on patron records in age. So I apologize, I also lost my glasses so I'm using Senator Westman's. I see, I think I see him. So please, could we pick up within the library consultant position? Yes, this is section seven and runs from ages nine to ten. This section establishes three full-time library consultant positions, one within the agency of education, two within the department of libraries. And there's an appropriation at the end of the bill associated with these positions. Did they mention at the end of the bill how much the number of when they walk through it? Oh yeah. Yes, 225,000 two department of libraries for the two positions and half of that 112,500 to the agency of education. So three full-time library consultant provisionals, one within the two departments of libraries. Wow, that's a lot. I'll be surprised if that makes it over the finish line with this bill, Naio, just honestly, and I think this committee just needs to prioritize is this where we would fit appropriation says, hey, do that $500,000 to spend on positions? Is this where you want to put them or would you want to put them somewhere else perhaps for the agencies? Please, yeah, Senator, do it. Are there any library consultants now? Yes, we have youth services, access services, technology, government information on reference, continuing education and operations. I feel like I'm skipping one because they're not watching. We have six or seven, six or seven, okay. Yes, and this is not a request from the department. Sure, from the report, yeah. Ms. Donio, would you just, when you say consultant, when this says consultant, they're talking about part-time kind of consultant or is this a term that is used? This is a civil service position full-time and they are, most of the consultants have a master's degree in library science and they consult on those specific topics that I just mentioned. They serve as experts who help to train people in the certificate program, so they teach courses. They also consult library directors and they consult library trustees. So our department does a lot of work to support libraries throughout the state kind of being their best selves and so that is how that term is used and the pay that's associated with it is for that full-time degree professional with a master's library science. And recognizing that this isn't coming from the department of libraries, but from the study committee, would you mind going in on this as to the need? The recommendation of the working group didn't actually specify additional positions for the department. The working group recommended that if there was additive work for the department, then it would be important not to add the additive work to the existing group, so just to clarify it, the working group's positions didn't call out two positions or these specific positions. As far as the department's need, the need for support for libraries is great. However, the department recognizes that there are many competing priorities at this time and we did not include a specific request to grow our team in this budget and I think that's really, as far as our priorities, we are focused on using the resources that we have to serve the community in the best way that we can and we're not prioritizing these specific positions. I think some of what my testimony shared was really showing areas where we might be able to change our approach and lessen the impacts on the department and that will come up later as you go through the bill today. I think I can speak for the one that would be housed in the agency of education, which is coming from the school. I'm sorry, I was thinking so much about the department. The working group did recommend the working group and this is not the department, I just want to make sure you see the chat I'm wearing at this time. The working group report did reflect what the school librarians shared with the community, which is that they would like to see a position restored to AOE that was removed maybe 20 years ago and that that is a that is a school library consultant position. So thank you, Senator for reminding me of that. Yeah, it would be Senate. But that's, I do just have to put a point there, that's not an AOE or a Department of Libraries recommendation. Right, that's coming from school libraries, yeah. Thank you. Anything else on this section on the market that we need to have a conversation about self-sufficiency and the part of the Senate creating one position within the agency, but anything else right now? Yeah. I like that we're talking about hiring somebody within the self-sufficiency department. I'm not sure what we're going to find in the morning. Right, right. And I think this can be a short appropriations. Again, would ask us is this as big a priority as maybe getting somebody on the ground to make sure laws are being enforced and kids are reading hasn't been on the books for 20 years and we can hear from folks as to whether or not that was thinking difference or not. Okay, section three for section eight. All right, this is on page 10. This one is fairly straightforward. Just a little bit, I don't want to, just to put it, I'm going to put it 32, 35 years. We'll get called. I mean, I instantly felt the change. All right, that's great. You're from the south. So on page 10, this is relating to training and education at the library staff and really what this is doing is codifying an existing practice of the department. So this section proposes to amend the department's duties to formalize the practice of providing continued education for the certificate and published library. And again, this is already a certificate program that exists within the department. They have a curriculum for librarians to get this certificate. This is putting it in the duties of the department. Okay, that's okay. All right, sections nine and 10, public safety. So there are two provisions within Title 13 that are amended in these sections. Section nine, amends 13 BSA, section 17 O2 to add public libraries to the provisions governing criminal threatening as certain public facilities and locations. So for example, government buildings, polling places during elections, school buildings, and here public libraries are added in as well. Questions. So this is you're talking right now just 13 BSA, 17 O2, right? Yes. So this is adding public libraries, provisions governing criminal threatening. So right now it's schools, government, some government buildings, public or private schools, post-secondary places of worship, polling places during election activities, state house or any federal state or municipal building. Now, municipal buildings already cover a big chunk of what the public libraries are, but there are public, free public libraries that are available to the public or places of public accommodation, both would qualify as a municipal building, which would be covered by this one. I'm bringing it up for a minute. What are the folks saying? It's going to be a debate. It's already covered in statute, right? Well, not all of them. A lot of libraries are, we I don't know the percentage, but those that are your colleges, your post-secondary institutions or school libraries are covered. Any that are municipal buildings, which would be any of your specifically established libraries, but the association libraries, incorporated libraries that are free public libraries would be brought in with this. Like my, my hometown library, Rebecca Cook's, she was concerned because we don't have a town police, and that's going to make her library staff unfortunate. And she doesn't want to be in that business. Wow, that is a municipal building. So it's already, it's a municipal building, and it's already in that position. Yeah, yeah. So this is, I think, just pulling in some extra, some, some Corfinn libraries, if you will, that aren't theirs. Okay, Senator Wheat-Scots. Senator Henshey. No. Senator Hewlett. Okay, we're okay with that. And so now for BSA 4004. Yes, so section 10 in Man's 13 BSA section 4004, to add public libraries to the statute that governs the possession of dangerous or deadly weapons in a school bus, school building, or school property. This includes, if you go on, by our possession, public libraries and library grounds are added into the prohibitions here in section 4004. So this is outside of the building. So we're talking about now, grounds, things like that. It would be in the public library or on the public library's property, Senator Sheep. And so just to be candid, this particular part was an idea that can't be constituent of mine a year ago. And one of the things that I learned and thinking about, and I'm looking at this is, it's my understanding there's different categories of public areas. You have designated, you have limited for, and so the courthouses, for example, which only certain people can come in and out, but if they're, you know, like military bases are public, only certain people can come in and out. Courthouses, also public, can't carry firearm into either of those. What with the public library, where my understanding there's no, you can't tell somebody that they can't come in. Is there a potential issue in saying, for this public forum, you can't bring firearm, do you see any issues there? I will only say that it is something that you should investigate. It gets an expert testimony on, especially with updates to Second Amendment jurisprudence. This couldn't be considered, I don't know if Eric, it's Patrick, discovered this here, but it's a sensitive location. I don't know. I do not have the depth of knowledge to give you a deep answer. Okay. Does it have the intention of exception of law enforcement officers, I will have to go back through the poll text and statute to see if there's already a carve out for law enforcement officers. I know that in many of the statutes, including, for example, the hospital buildings statute that passed recently, there's a carve out for law enforcement and security personnel. There is a carve out here in Subdivision C3 for possession of firearms, if the trustees of the library authorize possession for use for specific occasions for other specific purposes, it is slightly different. The center limits. So school bus, the school district owns the bus. That's considered school voucher. Again, we have testimony from Rebecca Cook that she didn't think that she wanted to get into that and basically be making a sense of varying. And I don't support section 10. John, didn't we have Chris Ballery, the federation to testify on this? Yeah, he asked me to call that. Yeah. He's following proceedings. He texted that he'd like to comment if we move forward with that piece. And I'm going to ask Morgan to have Eric Fitzpatrick in. Next week to comment on that. I mean, they could do the same thing, but I couldn't sign up there. It says no firearms, no deadly weapons. And then they violated their violation of trespass. So do we have to make and you know, do we have to make the libraries of soft target where people know that that's a place where nobody's going to carry a firearm or a gun for life? And that's typically what happens. Yeah, I think to your point, even if even if a sign is put up, then we can learn more from Eric, but even if a sign is put up and the library is still considered a public place, it's open to everybody. There could still be a issue when it comes to prohibiting carrying firearms. The other analogy is carrying a firearm in a public park. You can do that. There's no limits to who can go in and out, but a public park. And so I'm wondering if or how that same concept would apply to a public library if there's no limits on who can come in and out. So those are my thoughts. So I think Eric, please. All right. I did want to go back to Senator Reece's question. Yes, in subsection C of this section, there is an exemption for law enforcement officers engaged. It's not in the bill because it's not being changed. But yes, in those ellipses, there's a lot of law enforcement officers. All right. Sections 11 through 14. It's a series of amendments to the library governance sections in Title 22. And these sections of man provisions governing the mandatory and discretionary committees within the general law governing public libraries to align those duties of powers with the statute of government powers and duties of library trustees. So sections 11 and 13 reflect each other so that there's consistency in those deputies with what do the deputies and authority of those officers are. Second, in a man's provisions governing maintenance of appropriations for public libraries by municipalities to provide a municipality shall vote to appropriate funds for public libraries in sufficient amounts for the maintenance care and increase of libraries. So you'll see that in section 13. So primary operative language that second sentence has changed say to the annual at the annual municipal meeting, the municipality shall vote to appropriate money in sufficient amounts. It's not a significant departure from the underlying law, but it is a substantive shift in how that duty is phrased. I'm not well schooled in the legal language. What is the legal definition here of the corporation in which section? Page 13 between five. Yes. So section 105 is going to apply to the trustee incorporated libraries. So we'd be speaking specifically to the library, the library itself. So we ran into this, there's a lot of topics like the library because it's a municipal library. They wanted to get their solid employees raised. It was going to be a substantial increase to the budget. And because they have a board of trustees, we said, well, I'll keep a percentage of increase and we'll give it to the trustees and allow them to decide who did what for a raise. That was one way around it. But it was also some loophole in there with the board of trustees that could cause problems for the municipality because the way we did it. I can't remember how to find out more about it. That's what we had to do with the fact that we had a building trustee. Certainly see a problem with insufficient amount. You know, it's just a landmark. Where are you at? Insufficient amount. There's never enough money for anybody for anything. Any good purpose? Oh yeah, that clause is added so that the municipality isn't just a contributor to the maintenance and care of the library. They are the base contributor. The appropriations from the municipality have to be in level amount to actually support the maintenance and care of the public library. Yeah, that's already the case, right? They are the base. So I want to just, I have a question first and then I can answer, but I'm sorry. I trusted my counsel. Did you want to say something first? Sure. Okay. I want to just clarify this section applies just to municipal public libraries? So the level of funding from municipalities to public libraries is varied and even libraries that are municipal public libraries may not be receiving all of their funding from the municipality and the working group heard repeatedly that the funding was insufficient. So then we looked at the, that the annual appropriations were very challenging to operate within, because of the way to put it. And in the working group's report, we broke down both municipal and incorporated public libraries. So those are the 30% that are non-profits. But for both of them, the state of Vermont was considerably far from the average per capita spending for libraries of the same size. So looking at libraries that serve 5,000 people, libraries that serve 1,000 people. So funding for the libraries, both municipal and incorporated, is an area of continual concern and is often not sufficient to provide the service that statute says every Vermont citizen to make. Yeah, I guess it seems to me that we'd be creating, maybe I'm missing something, a real mess around with select boards, other city councils where there are competing demands. And in statute it says the libraries, there could be a major flood. But then people are going to say, well, but you know, I just worry about precedent. I've never seen us put anything that says sufficiently without some kind of definition center we'd share. Yeah, no, jump on that. Certainly, if I would consider state transportation budget insufficient, I would consider school construction budget insufficient. I mean, it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous slope. And to have that language in here, I agree completely with the chairman that can't, it just leaves us wide open to Chris, because all the budgets seem insufficient in the current state of Vermont. Well, that's the way it's not, the word is insufficient though, right? It's insufficient. So in the, the contra perspective is that if it's not in a sufficient amount, then it's insufficient. So it's, I just find the language dangerous. Well, is there a precedent for the state government to be requiring municipalities to sufficiently? Yeah, I mean, is there any precedent? You're probably looking to perpetual care funds and other trust funds that are held by trustees of public funds at the local level. So for example, there's a duty to appropriate enough to wanting to maintain sufficiently the sanitaries that are under control of the sanitary commissioners at the local level. There's actually a bit of parity in play between libraries and sanitaries here and that part of the funding for some of the municipal and nonprofit libraries that we're talking about do come from trust funds. But those funds don't necessarily grow because there's a statutory list of investments that the trustees have to use for purposes of the res of the trust and they diminish over time. So that's where the sufficiency clause here comes in is if you have diminishing res for the libraries over here, it probably has to be level funded by municipalities. And that's why earlier when I was talking about municipal funding, to my knowledge, and I want to remember from the report, I didn't memorize the 700 salon pages, but that the primary funding sources for these libraries is the fiscal ones, even if they help fully fund them. Senator Sheen and Senator Geerle. Thank you. I think it's less so the criticism that I'm worried about, more so the challenge that could be created for select boards here. And I'm going to practice by saying I love libraries and I strongly support them. But I'm thinking about if a town is let's say a bridge washes out and the library also has a leaky roof. And the town is trying to figure out, it's trying to move around wanting to figure out what they're going to pay for. And they are required by law to fix the leaky roof before they address the bridge or they address a broken light post on Main Street or something along this office. So it's, I mean, one of the things that I hear from people who are serving on select boards and school boards is unfunded standards. And so that's, yeah, that's one of the things that I am concerned about. I do philosophically, I do want to see every library well funded and operational, but it's, I think it feels like stepping into the realm of the select board and telling them what they shall spend money on. That's my initial take on this. Sounds like the committee's in agreement on this. You're not. Well, I've been spoken yet, but I'll speak after. Thank you. I just want to note that these recommendations or this bill as it's drafted, again, really is only looking at the municipal public library section. And so if the committee did change its minds in any way, I think there is an issue of, it sounds like you're leaning toward not including some of this language, but that the matter of corporated public libraries, which are 30% of the public libraries, which serve the same function, there is no requirement that I'm aware of for any funding from a municipality to the incorporated public library in their town that serves their community. So for example, Gearing-Opelia, they can put something on the ballot, but there's no requirement that any funding be given to the incorporated public libraries. And there's nothing in this bill that addresses that, but I think you should be aware of it because 30% is a margin for public libraries. And I think when people see a public library, they assume the municipality funded it out of certain level and they, there's not necessarily that relationship. And with regards to funding, I also want to clarify something that came up in this room the other day around state funding. There is not, there was discussion around another part of this bill, it's funding from the state. There is not that type of funding. For federal funding that the department gets that, but there's not actually state paid to public libraries. So I just want to be sure that that dynamic is understood and I'd be happy to come back at another time. I need to run upstairs for another committee, but I'm happy to talk about this. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator. Thank you. I don't mind being alone with the center here, by the way, but I, it seems like two things, like one, it seems like the municipality has is that they get to define what's sufficient. It's right. So, you know, sufficient could be a moving target, I think it could be defined by the municipality, but also. Can we just stand up for a second? Just before, so Senator Gullick's point, is that's true across state government? I mean, this is, is this tying people, locking their hands in a way? Municipalities, is this locking them in? Yeah, in some regards, but you've heard the conversation, it's some here, myself included, be like, okay, we might be boxing a municipality in. Senator Gullick's saying, okay, but the local municipality can define what's sufficient is. So, can you just help us get out of the box or? I think you're going to have to stay in the box of the ambiguity because you're going to be car pressed to find a case that will define sufficiency for purposes of municipal funding. Having said that, this is sufficiency for a wide range of purposes, maintenance, care and increase, sufficiency for increasing the library is going to be the most ambiguous sufficiency for maintaining the library is going to be the least. What are the current needs and what would be a sufficient amount of appropriation to make sure that the library, for example, can stay open? That is likely going to be the basis for the legal test there. Yeah, a follow-up also. For seeing that, yes. So, that was my first point. My second point is simply that having served on the school construction aid task force, I'm really scared, worried to let buildings go decades without the support they need because then you end up in a position that we're in the schools where we've got hundreds and hundreds of millions per year of deferred maintenance and that is problematic. And I live in a city right now that has a lot of abandoned and derelict buildings because we didn't keep up with the maintenance. And I can tell you, it is a huge problem. It's huge. So, I guess if there's any way we can avoid that. And because we can define sufficient, I just think, I don't know, I feel okay with this. That's just my, and I thought like I said, I'm happy being just well and deceptive. They all feel strongly the other way. Sufficient could need, to be honest, if that's what they have to find. And there are other legal terms that can explore to replace sufficient. They might better meet the policy decisions that they need. Necessary is a lower standard than sufficient. If you agree with your point about buildings in this state, I'll let you see council members. I mean, honestly, you know, it's like, I wonder if the institution should weigh in on that. I think the league of cities accounts for sure. So, I'd simply like to add on to a point that anybody desires a state of decay and municipal or state facilities. It's just the economic reality while we are at the airport. So, that's not how we are where we are. And I don't see that changing anytime soon. And then to the other point about sufficient is there's two perspectives. There's the government perspective on what's sufficient and that's the municipality boards and, you know, then there's the citizens perspective. And what I think we're commenting on is that they're never completely in balance. And if you're the citizen, we're going to say, this is not a sufficient amount to keep the facility intact, to run the public, etc. So, whereas, so I think what we're trying to say is that you have to recognize that it puts the municipality into a line when they're confronted by the citizen who objects to insufficient seats of the funding. Along those lines, it sounds like, you know, anybody can sue for anything, but it does sound like we're creating some tension there where somebody from the Board of Trustees could say this funding is insufficient. We're going to sue this elected board in the town based on this. Does the proper remedy you disagree with the budget at the local level is to take it out of the polling place in the following election? The likelihood of private right of action, there's nothing from this is slow, but the likelihood of a green voters thinking that the budget was not sufficient for their purposes, did they vote for summits? But I think it's my sense that we could accomplish the same kind of the same effect with this legislation by even striking the word sufficient. If you read it, it's in a balance board. That is the underlaw law. The duty right now is that they must appropriate something. The new clause is the insufficient right. We have to move on. I know you have to move on, but you've made a little progress. We're getting there. I actually enjoying this bill. It's much more interesting. Is it because of me? No. Mr. Anderson, maybe tomorrow, another 30 minutes, if it works at some point, if not, we'll see you on Tuesday. All right, last time we were talking about the possibility of coming here Sunday, we'll be able to turn it in. Let me know. I'll get more of an attitude. Thank you. Sunday morning. Appreciate it. Mr. Fisher, looking right with your Are we alive? Actually, I should note, I was given this by your counterpart, Mr. Chair, at the House. It's my understanding by the Chair of Education in the House. It's my understanding that one of his committee members may have gotten married, yes. I am on three. I'm conscious of it saying anything on the record. It's not my news, but I was given this as I'm wearing it proudly. Thank you. I left the office before knowing it's coming here. Morgan happily printed the agency's implementation plan. So, firstly, I haven't announced who I am. That's a different thing. Well, before you even do that, I just want to, Dr. Boucher is supposed to be with the stage. He can't be with us. So, emergency, please stand. We've asked Ted to come in and start to take us through the CTE recommendations. And about 30 minutes to do that. So, we're going to have you jump in and give us some highlights. And I would welcome if Ms. St. James has any questions as you're talking. Absolutely. To feel free to raise them. Absolutely. So, firstly, for the record, Ted Fisher, Vermont Agency of Education, I'm the agency director of legislative affairs. And I'm very glad to be with you today. I have apologies that I have again stepped again for Secretary Tuchet. She's done some regrets. And she's looking forward to hopefully joining you guys next week when we have a draft. So, and I will be happy to answer questions from Beth and from the committee. I think Beth and I are also going to chat as a sidebar to go over some of the language. There is a Canadian language that I'm not putting in front of you because we have some things to hire now. So, if you will, you should be seeing that next week. Yes. Senator Culek has a question about it. Sorry, Ted. I know you're being started yet. And as you're probably going to explain, but is this full packet of comments, not this bill? What bill do you have in front of you? The Career and Technical Education, the LH-207. 207. 207? It is. I did ask Morgan to provide to you H7-16 because, and you remember, we did talk about this a couple of weeks ago. Senator, I would with great appreciation to Senator Clarkson and the chairs since humor. The H-207, or S-207, excuse me, mentions that the agency shall bring this report which we have brought. There is some language that we've already presented and requested from both the Senate and from the House. And the House version has some of that language. And there's one caveat that I will sign post. So, I also went over that. That's the big change. That's St. James Office of Legislative Council. I believe you have two CTE bills. We do. You have two S-207, which is what Senator Clarkson introduced. And then you have a committee bill S-304. And they are the same, right? Not the same. The committee bill actually contain not everything line by line, but almost everything that the House version that Ted is referencing right now contains based solely on Ted's testimony from earlier in this session and AOE threat recognition. Beautiful. Thank you. And I'm so sorry for missing that point. Great. So, it's got age 716 and he happened in our committee bill. Is that a big report? So, I don't mind telling you all that last week I got in trouble with the lieutenant governor and the secretary of the Senate because my pager goes off and it bypasses my silent dysfunction. So, I just put my phone on airplane mode so we don't get distracted anymore. Here we go. So, okay. What we're looking for is the committee bill. Yeah, which is my law. So, I'm happy to go over some of those recommendations. I did provide some testimony to you on those. Those include things like moving rulemaking for CTE from the state board to the agency in the hopes that once we go through some of our government's work next year, we'll do rulemaking on that, which will be long overdue in two decades. Some other work and you'll actually note this as we kind of go through the implementation plan. There are places where we've already addressed some of these items. So, for example, a model with a model policy requirement recommendation for you, which would be a model policy on career technical education that school districts would adopt that would help sort of navigate the guidance and making sure students are had access to career technical education. They also have some requirements for middle school. I'm going to say early high school exposure to students. I've had three years to talk about the committee. So, I'm happy to refer to that and go back to it. I was planning to go over the fiscal recommendations today because that was sort of our goal from the APA report was to bring those this year and respectfully punt on some of the governance ones. We are actually working with APA, who are the consultants who created the report, has contracted by GFO, and we're continuing to work with them in the hopes to be at the agency as now to continue to work that government's things in front of those recommendations next year. So, I think what might make the most sense for our thinking, my thinking, speak for one foot. Maybe let's go back to say, what is it that you, the administration is hoping to pass this year on CT? Tell us that broad picture. Absolutely. What exactly you're hoping. You have the bill is coming, but just in your own words. Absolutely. I run into a constituent. What is it that we're really hoping to do this year? So, for that page two, where it says summary of APA recommendation, page two of the published work. Great. Thank you. And I also have the executive summary of the APA report as well here. So, this is, you can find that there as well. I don't actually know what they call them. So, I'm going to mess it up. Algin, Blick, Highlock. This is your stamp. Yes. So, just sorry, to answer that question, going slightly back, you'll see at the top of page two, this plan is required pursuant to Act 127 of Henry 22, Section 17, that bill, that act, required GFO to contract for a study. That study GFO contracted with APA, that study was delivered to the agency. The agency was required to do an implementation plan. We are delivering this implementation plan late. I think that hindsight is 2020. The timeline on that was probably insufficient, but I understand the urgency, which we also share. And so, we are now bringing that. We also have an ongoing working relationship with the contract. And just to be clear, what you're going to talk to us about right now is what you hope exactly will pass this year. So, summary of APA recommendations. This is how they crosswalk it, and I'm just going to briefly tell you what we're open to do for each of these items, and then we can dive into them either through the report or through the bill more directly. So, funding incentives or grants to improve the accessibility for students from schools that do not share a campus with a CTE center, like my green book back there, there's 40 of grant under 16 via title 16 that gives funding from schools to schools to transport students to CTE centers. We're asking you to require us to study that and determine whether or not we should adjust the funding ratio. It is $1.50 in 1998 dollars adjusted for inflation. I believe it's around $3.00 of change. Now, I asked Nicole, we are director of that fund. It was never one to study. And it's just transportation next year. Yes. And this is transportation aid to school districts and not to slentee. We're going to be talking a lot about direct funding to CTE and changes how CTE is funded. And again, this is asking us to look into whether or not we need to change the transportation monies for schools and see the state school transportation is kind of an area. So that makes sense for us to look into that very specifically in terms and not change it as part of our change to how we fund CTE centers themselves. And just everyone else, that's the real for the committee bill on CTEs. Okay. All right. So, cool. Number one is transportation is full of districts. As a study. As a study. Okay. I, too, is creative facilities funding system for CTE centers. This is part of a lot of the meat and potatoes or the tofu and kale of this report. It is moving from a model where we have a tuitioning system where CTE centers charge tuition based on costs to school districts. And then the state has several provisions of additional aid that we then direct directly. We're talking about over a period of several years moving away from that and we're going to directly allocate funding from the education fund to CTE centers based on a regional understanding on statewide basis of the cost of the programs. Just dive it a little bit more. No, hold on. Is this a study also? No. So we would like appropriations to create a fund no dollar amount to create some fund that will be available. No fund. We're looking to do with a two-year phase in to create a new section of law that essentially extends the funding. And what A we would do is calculate the cost per student per program. So for example, and I'm using an example where a CTE director who's listening might be like, oh my gosh, Ted has got it totally wrong. But for example, Burlington Technical Center has an aviation program. It's an expensive program to operate, right? So you've got nursing programs that are expensive and we've got certain trades programs that have lots of lumber costs and other things. So every program is different in terms of the cost per student operate. So what we're looking to do is over the period of several years we'll be gathering data. We've already gathered significant data on student participants, program participation, as well as the funding costs. We're asking them to disaggregate that by program. And then we will use that to calculate on a statewide basis. Every school district in the state will have the opportunity to receive the same allocation based on real costs for each student participating in a program. Sam, I'm just a little confused on tactics here. So I get the report, at least you know, with the slides we've gotten into it. But I'm wondering, the language that you're talking about, is it embedded in one of the two bills that's already on the table? No, it's to contest. So we as part of this report also drafted some language, we're working with back on that. We were, that is going to be hopefully ready for next session. Just go ahead and see again how I fit that. Yeah, I thought that I probably should have sound posted that more directly, which is we, this language came later, because we requested for more time. Is this to do with the money follows the student argument or at that number three? I keep hearing that one of the problems with student funding is that the money follows the student, is that what I'm talking about? No. And I actually, I skipped over one there, so I'll come back to two. I haven't used those words correctly myself, but I definitely heard the argument. So what APA says is design a funding system that treats all CTE equitably while incentivizing additional CTE capacity in high growth sectors, utilizing a weighted student funding formula, different funding by CTE. Oh, right. Okay. And so that incentivization thing is interesting. So just so you know, literally, we have like 15 minutes for this. So I mean, we're looking for a big overview today. Munder's going to come back to this. And again, Jody might come back and be like, there are many reasons why this wouldn't work. But we have the Career, the Central Vermont Career Technical Center is a very short number of road miles up a relatively large hill from the state airport in Berlin. There is no reason potentially that aside from administrative barriers, why they couldn't also have an aviation program. So the goal is to try to put all CTE centers in Vermont on equal footing to match need, to no match student interest to programs, right? So essentially, it would help them address some of the upfront costs starting up one more sense of programs, because the money that the state will be directing to the program better matches the cost to educate one student in that particular program, if that makes sense. This is important incentivization. There's another incentivization question that I think we have some language about potentially studying for the out years, which is the idea of the state actually putting a stone on the scale and saying, these this set of programs should get an additional, you know, what additional set of dollars per student kind of annual basis, because we want more students in that program and what incentivize CTE centers of opening a capacity. That's a decision that could be made. It's a policy decision. It's not one that we want to move to this model at first, but that it could be something to consider in the future. So create a facilities funding system for CTE centers. Actually, I have recommendation number two from the APA report, and there is already conversations about facilities funding occurring in this building. So we have introduced intent language. You will find it in S 304. That just says that it's the intent of the General Assembly that to include CTE centers. I will note because we talked to each other that that the report of the task or sort of work improved on school facilities funding includes recommendations. So we're thoughts all we're doing. That's all we want to do for that period of second. So we have some policy elements, aligned calendars and academic requirements in CTE regions. So we have some recommendations about strengthening some of the powers and duties of regional advisory boards to start doing some of this work with a specific interest in working on bell time. So we have CTE regional calendars already, but we often don't have common bell times, and I learned a new word when I started doing this, getting to the CTE works, which is bell times. Not every not every school ends a period at the same time. So the idea would be at a certain common time across the region, all the students are done with second period and they all can go off to CTE. So that's one of our recommendations. There is a recommendation to review CTE teacher preparation, licensure requirements and compensation to attract skilled professionals. We are not bringing a recommendation on that this, oh, excuse me, we are bringing the recommendation over this year. There's a state capacity question for additional staffing. They need to support career technical education. If the founder's recommended budget, there is one FTE for the CTE team. And we would appreciate the community's consideration and potential communicating their colleagues at the other end of the building to support that when it comes to CTE standpoint. Excuse me, full-time equipment. I apologize. It's our no-man-clature for one position. So we say one FTE, but we mean one position. That would be an education programs coordinator for career technical education. We have a state capacity required. This is another recommendation of theirs, required that career exploration be offered to middle school students. That language is already drafted in an S-304. We have a state capacity to encourage greater secondary and post-secondary collaboration. We have that in S-304 as well. I'm sorry, I don't have the section numbers from S-304 in front of me, but we have a requirement that's starting off with a certain set of programs, including education, I think construction trade with two others. We require the AOE to work with the Vermont state colleges system. And then larger systems changes, nine and 10, review distribution of programs and consider offering programs outside of CTE centers and create either a coordinated regional governance structure or a single district for CTE. And those are the two that we're punting on for this year. We're going to bring those back. Next year, we have an intent language to nine and 10, not this year. Next year. Next year. So we want to do the funding, get the funding and statute start transition. We do have some language that we've proposed in both the House and the Senate that says that all of this is contingent on the legislature doing governance work next year. So it would sunset or essentially not allow the programs to take effect so you could consider that as a potential hook to make sure that a new legislature coming in next year and beginning the next fighting is attentive to this. I'm going to pause for questions. Great. It's navigation. So questions. So that's a good overview, Ted, of things that are being 304, as well as things that you're working with that on to include in 304. So what will make sense, what we'll do is we're going to have you back next week when Beth take this through all of 304 and say, Hey, this is, this is our CTE bill. And then we can start to have some witnesses come in next week as well. Any questions for Mr. Fishman? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Okay. Committee, this just take five minutes and then we're going to come back. We're going to have shift to what's it called? Yes, it's Dolly. The Imagination Library. Welcome back to Senate Education. We have a real treat today. We're looking at S3 or an Acre Lady Sports for months young readers, but specifically we are looking at the Imagination Library part of the bill. We have an all-star team, including our former colleague, Senator Cheryl Hooker, who we used to serve on this committee. We're going to kick it off with Nora Briggs. We're very excited, Ms. Briggs, to virtually welcome you to Vermont. Where are we finding you? Actually, today I'm in Palm Beach, I'm in Palm Beach, Florida, today. Wow. Okay. Same weather down there. I'm sure that we're experiencing up here in Vermont. Maybe just a tad different. I was hoping to join you today in person, but the travel just did not work out. Well, it's very kind of you to take the time. We're thrilled to have you here, albeit virtually, and would if you ever are in Vermont, we hope you will take the time and come visit us here at the State House. It would be a real pleasure to welcome you. We're excited to hear your thoughts on the bill that's been put together, as well as we likely will have some questions. So please, the floor is yours. Perfect. Thank you. So may I first by saying that Dolly sends her greetings and she thanks you for considering expansion of her Imagination Library across to all young learners in Vermont. And we agree nothing is more basic, more essential, more foundational to a child's success in life than the ability to read. The research and science is very clear. We cannot wait for kindergarten for children to have access and exposure to books and reading. We need to reach them early and reading at this age under five happens primarily at home and reading at home requires books. And we know that not all families have access nor can provide books. So this is where we can help. Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is that contactless home book gifting program for children zero to age five their fifth birthday. They receive an age appropriate down to the month age high quality book with their name on it every month at home, no cost to the family. And we know that books in the home lead to increased kindergarten readiness, changes in the home literacy environment with families connecting around the book and all family members focused on reading. Significantly stronger reading math and science academic outcomes, both starting in third grade and continuing on we track children all the way through kindergarten higher high school graduation rates. We know that simply getting the books into the home starts then the change in the change in the trajectory of the lives of the kids and families and communities. A statewide program provides more benefits to the state than a collection of local programs. County level program partners ensure statewide coverage for all zip codes equitable access for all families to early learning resources. Children start kindergarten with a shared experience and helps level the playing field. This creates a shared bond with children across neighborhoods, communities, race and economic differences. It starts to help rate the division at an age when children notice the differences between themselves and other children. They all receive the same books. It's a special gift. It's an instant bonding. We partner with state agencies to find the most vulnerable and underrepresented families. Special program for foster care children, babies born to parents who are in a correctional or other type of facilities and that could be an adult or a youth who has a child under five working with WIC and other agencies to find the families that most need help to have books in their home. We partner with the state birthing hospitals to enroll at birth. Children come in right when they're born receiving a book every month so they can have a collection of 60 books into their home by the time they graduate out. Partnership with the state department of education if you like to flag imagination library participants. Most states put a flag on the student master record card which indicates that they were in imagination library. That helps track participants, tracks also the return on investment by the state and program effectiveness. We find that schools also use it to plan the remedial and one-on-one tutoring that's necessary in kindergarten based on the saturation rates of children getting books in the school districts. Partnership with the state and local library system right with that aim to tie and focus library usage for all family members. All families that have library cards with children under five in imagination library all children families with children should have local library cards ties to adult literacy and dual language programs. We place a multi-generational focus on literacy as the best way to learn to read is children's picture books best way to learn a new language children's picture books and it's simple we're connecting adult literacy to the books that are coming into the home. Weeks can sometimes do a fun state-level focus on family time and reading. One example is the Drive a Dolly license plate campaign. We put Dolly's face on a license plate in the state of Vermont. We focus on reading we do billboard campaigns and of course all the funds generated that would come back to a community go to the local program partner to help pay for their local community share. There's also a state program and opportunity if you like to layer on other family resources. Some states do book buses using the imagination library books and then connecting and partnering them with food and medical statewide programs are special. We also do story time out in the parks with the department of recs and bring books into the community people to the parks all focused on reading and family fun. State programs work at a state level to fundraise and help local communities so there are never children on waiting list and if there's a budget deficit in a coming year they have mitigation funds to ensure that the program continues. A statewide program ensures equitable access providing increased opportunity for improving statewide kindergarten readiness academic achievement and creates a state focus on literacy but really the program is special. Dolly calls this this is her heart program. It really is about connecting hearts in the home in the families connecting to each other with snuggling and cuddling that happens. The book is the tool. It's about creating a love a sense of security and comfort that comes from the book coming into the home and really Dolly just wants to help create a love for books and reading and make sure that every Vermont child has access to equitable access in books and learning really providing the best start they can have in education and in life. Thank you. Thank you Ms. Briggs and well just after you started Senator Starr joined us and he's the lead sponsor of this initiative and so he may have some questions as we go along as well. Any questions for Ms. Briggs from the who's with the Dollywood Foundation at this point? Any questions? Do you have any questions? Well is Nargon being with us? Yeah you're going to be able to stick around? Absolutely. Absolutely. Top priority for Dolly and the foundation. Okay thank you so much. Thank you. Terrific. So now we are shifting and we have Ms. Campbell, Shire Kids Vermont. Hi. Thank you so much for including me today. I'm really grateful to be here. So please go ahead. Did you have some testimony that you wanted to share with us? I do. I'll proceed. So thank you to the committee on education for hearing my testimony in support of Senator Starr's bill. I also want to thank Senator Brian Campan for your ongoing and dedicated support of early literacy in southern Vermont and Representative Kathleen James for guiding my earliest explorations of seeking a statewide imagination library and Representative Woody Page for his earnest attempt at a statewide program two years ago with House Bill H636. I'm Nicole Campbell, Executive Director of Shire Kids. We're the local affiliate for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. We serve Bennington County, Western Wyndham County, and a few proximal towns in Rutland and Windsor counties for current total enrollment of 1,114 children in Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. So my written testimony includes more information on my background, how I became involved in the Imagination Library, and I really appreciate the committee's time to read through all of the submitted written testimony from me and I know several others who have prepared written testimony. But for now I want to focus on how Dolly Parton's Imagination Library can impact children all around Vermont. Nora just shared so much useful and helpful information on how the Dollywood Foundation works directly with the states and evidence of the value and success of the Imagination Library in helping literacy is overwhelming. The Dollywood Foundation focuses on identifying common outcomes for all Imagination Library programs so this means that the impact of this program in Vermont will reflect successes seen in other states with long-standing statewide programs. Research-based outcomes that are documented through several studies on the DPIL website reflect how this program establishes building blocks for lifelong literacy and how it supports the research on evidence-based literacy. So I'm so grateful Senator Starr that this program, the statewide Imagination Library program is being proposed within a comprehensive bill to improve how children in Vermont are taught how to read. In a seven days article written by Allison Novak from last fall, neuroscience professor Reed Lyon told a group of lawmakers that effective teaching should begin with clear systematic instruction in the sounds that are contained within words and how those sounds connect to print. Building that strong foundation in those two skills known as phonemic awareness and phonics is an essential step to becoming a successful reader and the National Reading Panel considers phonemic awareness and phonics along with vocabulary comprehension and fluency the five pillars of effective reading instruction. So this brings me back to Imagination Library books. So every parent has heard that you are your child's first teacher and in fact engaging parents and families is an important policy position at the Vermont Agency of Education. Families are empowered to be a better teacher to their children with Imagination Library books. Each book and I see you have one right in front of you Senator Starr by a local author. They have a front or back panel with guidance on how to make the books come alive. The books have expert but accessible guides to help parents engage with their children by introducing elements of the five pillars of effective reading instruction even before the child is explicitly taught how to read. One of the books selected by the Blue Ribbon Book Selection Committee is Bear Sleeping by our Northeast Kingdom author James Martin. He shared with the local Northeast Kingdom affiliate that the special book flaps are added to some of the best picture books in the world and remind parents that young children learn through play. So through a combination of play and introducing elements of the five pillars of effective reading instructions, children will have increased early literacy behaviors which is a foundation for school success. A scholastic research companion found that 61% of low-income families have no children's books at home. Having books in the home leads to more reading. A California professor of early literacy, Dr. Susan Neufeld who was an early supporter and she was an important leader in the introduction of a statewide program for Dolly Parton's Imagination Library in California. She shared her research showing evidence that providing books to children that they own is highly impactful. A study done by Clark and Polton for the National Literacy Trust which explored the correlation between book ownership and behaviors and attitudes of children toward reading found that children who own books were more likely to visit the library, enjoy reading, and read more frequently. Children who did not own books, did not enjoy reading, did not visit the library. So without access to books of their own, young people were less likely to have positive experiences of reading, less likely to do well at school, and less likely to be engaged in reading of any form. Imagination library books are owned by Vermont children and will stay with them even if they move in with grandparents and not her uncle or spend time with a foster family. Again I'm so grateful and thank you to Senator Starr, thank you to the Senate Education Committee, thank you Ms. Nora Briggs for your presence here today and everyone I've worked with over the past five years who love helping young children prepare for life. Thank you Neufeld. I remember you filled me in on this years ago now time flies so it's great of you to be with us and talk to us a little bit about the successes it's had down in our neck of the woods. I think we are now shifting to I think Ms. Gamble. I didn't know Cheryl if you wanted to say a few words before I jump in or Whatever works for you Cheryl, whatever works. That might be a good idea because I really have the least experience here with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. I'm on the committee with Joan, Joan is our chair but I'm learning so much listening to Ms. Briggs and to Ms. Gamble. This is such a wonderful program and I just wanted to say a couple of things about it. First of all thank you Senator Starr for introducing this and bringing it to the committee and for the Ed committee adopting this and making it part of your more comprehensive literacy improvement bill that you have going through. It's this easily accessible cost effective program that extends from cradle to kindergarten is proved to establish a culture of literacy not only for our youngest students but their families as well as Ms. Briggs and Ms. Gamble have pointed out. Families will read. I know my own children read to their children and they have lots of time together snuggling but also snacking as my granddaughter will say because she's always looking for some cookies but this is the type of the type of engagement we want to see in all families. I just want to add a little bit to what Ms. Gamble was saying about the article that Allison Novak did back in October of 2023. She said that today only about half of the Vermont third graders in our state read proficiently and the results are far worse for children of color and those with disabilities are living in poverty. So this program really would ensure that our kids are getting a better foundation before they even get to school. She went on to say that the stakes are high low literacy is linked to a host of negative effects including poor health poverty and incarceration and there are less obvious costs being unable to read proficient proficiently causes deep hurt and shame. So as I said I'm new to this program and I'm happy to be part of it but I know a lot less than these three wonderful women here so I'll just hand it over to Joan to let her talk a little bit about what we've been doing in Rutland. Well thank you. I'm Joan Gamble and I'm a strategic change consultant and the champion of the imagination library at the Rutland Free Library. I'm honored to testify in favor of this bill especially in front of two senators from Rutland County Senator Weeks and Senator Williams. I learned about the Dolly Parton Imagination Library or DPIL in December of 2020 during the pandemic when I read an article about the imagination library in Brandon and my first reaction was Brandon what about Rutland and so I spoke to Kyle Hutchins who started the Brandon program during his paternity leave after learning that his baby was not eligible for the program that was offered in Addison County. As a strategic change consultant who works a lot with nonprofits I knew the questions to ask before starting a new program. The same questions you should ask as you consider this bill. Is there a need? Is this program the best way to fill the need? Are there others filling the need and what does it take to run a program? After extensive due diligence about the DPIL it became clear to me that this was an evidence-based program that would cost effectively address literacy issues. Investing in early literacy is the key to addressing overall literacy problems since 90 percent of brain development occurs in the first three years of a child's life. The logic model supporting DPIL which I attached to my written testimony shows kindergarten readiness is a key outcome of the program. DPIL has a database of 39 research reports on their website imaginationlibrary.com showing that kindergarten readiness affects children especially at risk children in the short term and the long term. A study by the Arkansas Department of Education tracked children who participated in the program versus those who did not participate and participating children showed 29 percent increase in kindergarten readiness but also significantly stronger reading skills and higher reading achievement tests over non-participating peers consistently through third grade. The Kansas Emporia School District followed participating and non-participating children and showed consistently higher performance all the way through ninth grade. In talking to education and social service agencies it became apparent that there was no other organization filling this need in the Rutland area. My next step was to figure out what it really takes to run a local program. DPIL has a detailed handbook of what's needed to run a program. In addition people running other local affiliates like Nicole Campbell who runs the Shire Kids serving Bennington County and is testifying today were a tremendous help. To start a program you need a partner with a local 501c3 or a library or a school so that you can have access to the bulk mailing rate. I chose the Rutland Free Library as a partner to serve the five towns in their catchment area Rutland City, Rutland Town, Mendon, Tinnmouth and Ira. In order to start a program the local affiliates needs to raise fund to cover at least the first six months of operating the program. I gave numerous presentations to local organizations showing how cost-effective it was due to economies of scale provided by partnering with the Dolly Parton Foundation. As a result I was able to enlist the support of the United Way of Rutland County and two local rotary clubs and sustaining support from Rutland City Schools who use federal monies to reimburse us the cost of mailing books to participating children in Rutland City every month. Since we began mailing books in April of 2021 we've mailed 12,507 free books to children in the five towns. We are currently mailing 460 books to 460 children every month. Our dedicated team of volunteers including Cheryl is focused on getting all children under five in the five towns we serve to participate especially at-risk children. This requires ongoing marketing efforts since every month children graduate on their fifth birthday so we need to keep finding new children to participate. We do this through ongoing marketing efforts via Facebook, newspaper articles being visible at local events like National Night Out, local public access television, and by partnering with local agencies like the Berthing Center at Rutland Regional Medical Center, local pediatric offices, schools, and local daycares. We especially focus our efforts on getting at-risk children to participate by encouraging all agencies like DCF, the Parent Child Center, and Head Start to sign up children. We pay extra to have the post office mail us undelivered books and then we've been collaborating with the Rutland Homeless Prevention Center to give books to children experiencing homelessness since they do not have an address for us to mail them books. I enthusiastically support your bill and the effort to bring the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to all children under five in the state. The Dollywood Foundation partnership makes the program incredibly cost effective and easy to administer to achieve these evidence-based results. Thank you. Thank you. That's great testimony. Questions for any of our guests or witnesses? Ms. Briggs, if you don't mind, I'm wondering how many have other states moved in this direction of sort of doing it statewide? Yes, we currently have 20 states that have long-term state commitment with us. We're getting ready to launch the state of Oregon, which will make our 21st state, and I have eight other states that are pursuing legislation and looking at this as part of their own state's literacy focus. We're basically a tool in your toolkit. Right. What we're good at is getting books in the home. Yeah, that's great. Other questions? Center start. Yeah, the only thing I would say is you just heard the best testimony I've heard in regards to this. From Nora to Nicole, these people have been doing the heavy lifting, and you've heard the results, and most of you in here don't know me very well, I would say, other than for the last few months, other than your chair. But I've been here a long time, and I don't take subject matters lightly. If I'm going to put my name on a bill, it's a bill that's capable of passing this institution that we're all part of, and over the years, where I should back up and say last summer when I was approached about this particular bill. And if you look, you'll see the number on my bill is quite a lot higher than if I'd introduce that right away. And that was because I was doing a lot of research on the bill before I put my name on it. And you know, and all that research, I mean, I didn't find one negative aspect to it. Every bit of it was positive. And, and I spent a lot of years on local school board and supervisor union, you know, all the things that we do before we get here. And, you know, you read any statistic, and our children are not learning very well. And I think that's why Brian and you folks have put together a strong literacy bill to try to help do that and get our children a fact of reading and understanding the English language and being able to converse with people. And, you know, I couldn't find one bad thing about this bill and about the Dolly Parton Foundation. And, you know, I just think for the money that, I mean, our budget's $8.6 billion. And, you know, $100,150 grand is pretty small numbers to take a chance on helping our children so they aren't incarcerated and they don't spend their day in the principal's office or wherever they keep them now. It used to be the principal's office when I was on the school board. But if we get them started right, kids aren't born bad. But you take and just put a little electronic machine in front of them when they're babies and they get used to pushing buttons instead of listening to the stories being read to them, you're going to end up with children. Well, we're ending up with them. And so I just want to, you know, commend Nora for being on today and the other three women. And Cheryl, we spent quite a few years together. And when Cheryl was here as a rep and as a senator. So, she knows the story anyways. Boy, I can't think of another issue that would be as important as this on helping our children into the future. Thanks, Bert. I don't know how well you know Senator Starr, but he has been a big advocate for children his entire career. And I would also say children that don't always come with as much as other children, you know, moderate low income kids recognizing their needs. And thank you so much, Senator Starr. And thank you, committee. One of the reasons this program really works well is it is a gift. It is not a charity. That's why we ask for the state to partner with the communities in a 50-50 public-private partnership. The Dollywood Foundation pays a vast majority of the cost, but we do want a small community piece because Dolly feels that if you give away something for free, people don't always value it as much. They don't have skin in the game. So, we love partnering with local communities that care about getting books right into the homes and hearts of their family members and their communities. And at a state level when you offer it for all children, your grandchildren and nieces and nephews and you know, your own children of all ages in all communities, it's that gift element. It's the gift from the state of Vermont. It's the gift from a local community and from Dolly that really helps make it work. Most states that come in, their goal is to get to 65 or 70 percent of all the zero to five children. That's a lot of children. Right now, we're less than, we're about 18 percent of all the children. So, we think about every month that goes by there's a child who's aging five and won't get a book in this program, may not have any books in their home. So, we thank you for supporting just even considering it and thinking about it. We've got a lot of experience over the last 30 years doing it with states in conjunction with our local program partners and the goal is to make it feel special. The goal is to find and that's what brings in the underrepresented families. We have lots of states who will let us know that they get families who kind of come back and say, they've been getting a book every month from Dolly. We got it at the hospital and what else do you have for our families? What else do you have for my kids that are like this? You build this wonderful relationship because there's no means test. There's no proving you should have a book or need a book. It comes as a gift as a parent opts in. Some states are getting focused on doing a birth certificate enrollment. So, when families enroll it for the birth certificate, it's an opt-in right there when they're getting the birth certificate. That way they know that kids are getting it. But it's just this wonderful gift that comes from the state, partnered with the local community. All children get it from all communities and sometimes we get some of the feedback about children who have books and can afford them. This is where that shared gift, kids coming to kindergarten from communities that are gated communities, maybe hud homing, farms, rural communities, suburban, urban, have all gotten the same book. It levels the playing field. It's you're my best friend. I've got that book. That's my favorite book too. It changes the dynamic right when they come to kindergarten. It's really the place they learn. Other people have more or less than themselves. It's just one of those very rare feel good things to work on. This is my dream job. I came in after corporate sector. I don't have a background in education. I'm a passionate about reading and lifelong learning. But I know that when you make something feel special, people treat it special and we get to bring in the families that they just don't know they need it yet, right? But when we help them find the program and they sign up and it's free and they don't have to prove that they need it, that's the special gift that last. This is a legacy item. This is something really special. We're super excited. The books are beautiful, I have to say, absolutely beautiful. I brought David, Mark, the guy from West Perth. He wrote to us also. Oh, you did? Do many of the hospitals in other states get involved where they sign the parents up right away? Yes, they do. It's a wonderful thing for a hospitalist. We only got like 14 years old. Yes. I'd like to go back to Ms. Briggs's comments about the shared interest in the books, the bonds, and maybe you can talk about the book that the kids get when they graduate and what that does to their first day of kindergarten when some teachers ask. That's good. Thank you. So the first book they get, regardless of what age they come into the program, is The Little Engine That Could, which is one of Dolly's favorite. And what it does, it sets the tone for the program. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. Then they get a book that's age appropriate down to their month. It is a national book gifting program. So children across the entire United States, if they are 28 months old, they get the same book. We do not collect demographic data, economic data, gender data. This is about inspiring the love of books and reading. And they get a book a month and on their fifth birthday, they get a letter from Dolly. They also get an email with a graduation song right to the child, which basically tells them to keep reading, dreaming, learning, being more, caring more so they can be something. They ask them to go down to the local library if they're not already to make sure they get a library card. And when they get to school to make sure the first thing they do is go to the library, check out a book at school, keep learning. But that last book they get is Look Out Kindergarten Here I Come, which prepares them for the change and being at home and learning in the home environment to learning in a school. And a lot of kindergarten teachers around the country, that's the book they hold up on the first day. And they know immediately which kids have gotten the same book. They can almost start to segment the children that are going to need more help based on that. I've got that book. It's my favorite book. And they know that they've been prepared. And meanwhile, you've got the heart piece. I don't ever want to forget the heart piece because it is, if we all think back to how, if we have good memories of reading, a lot of it probably started on the parents, on the laps of our parents or grandparents, people we love. And part of the specialness of the program is the fact that the tool, the book is the tool and families are gathering together around that when they're little. And it's singing and talking and hugging and snuggling. And they're reading. And it's the sense of feeling of comfort and security that I like that it comes with the reading, you're imprinting the good feel around reading. We recently saw a survey that's being published very soon around kids are reading less for fun. They're not enjoying reading and they're actually not reading for fun. And somewhere along the line, they're thinking about skills and drills and all the things that come academically. But having the book in the home words just about reading and snuggling and making fun of words and different voices and all of these things helps cement just so simply. I mean, I remember where I fell in love with reading some of my grandfather's left. I remember it. I remember the sense of comfort and security. And I just became a reader. And I do believe readers typically have higher success in life because they can read. And we just want that for everybody to have access to it. It's as simple as that. Thank you, Ms. Braves. Any other questions for our guests today? Thank you, all. Ms. Braves, please, from all of us, thank Ms. Parton. I mean, she has done so much. And this is just another example. And please extend a warm welcome, I mean, extend our invitation for her to come for a warm welcome if she's ever in Vermont or would like to come to Vermont. And we extend the same invitation to you, of course, to have you here at the State House and show you our state. When we do the signing. When the governor signs the bills, Senator Star will send. And if Dolly Parton has any questions, I'll give you Senator Star's cell phone number. He won't answer it at any time for Dolly Parton. Maybe not for some of us, but for Dolly Parton, I know you will pick up. That's him. Thank you so much. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Carol. Thanks, Joan. Thanks, Nicole. Great to see all of you. It was terrific. This lady walked in with me. Did you just start a program in St. Albans? So for the record, Amy Johnson, I'm from Vermont Care Partners, but I was formerly at the Parents Child Center up at NCSS in St. Albans. And after my daughter went through five years of the Dolly program and still now eight and a half loves, she reads every night all the time. She's a big reader. It's great. Up in St. Albans, we said, how can we get more books to kids? How can we make sure that everybody builds this type of library? And so we started it. It's during the pandemic and it's been running for almost three years now. And we have probably 2,000 kids enrolled. It supports all of Franklin County, all of Grand Isle County, hugely successful, and probably one of the most things I'm the most proud of starting up at the Parents Child Center in St. Albans before I left. Not many more, but it's about 2,000. When we enrolled, when you go and I met with a rep from Dolly's, the national team, and we said, well, this is like how much is going to cost you each year because this is how much, what percentage we project each year signing up. When we launched the program, there were already people on a waiting list in those two counties waiting to be enrolled. So they automatically immediately had at least 200 kids enrolled. And we went from, we did not follow the five-year trend line. We just went straight up and had over 50% within the first maybe two years. So it's an incredible program. Everybody who I interfaced with, I was the director of the Parents Child Center, but I kept hold of being the coordinator for the Dolly program. So I was the one who personally enrolled everybody and got to interface with the families. Nobody has a negative thing to say about it. It is fantastic. Just an all-star program, super supportive of kids, of families. So I really, so I had a fine time in my day today doing it. It was for my partner stuff to be here to listen in and just really sighted about the folks who were able to testify. I've worked on and off with these folks for the past couple years as we've been trying to get this off the ground for the state. So thank you very much to the committee and to Senator Starr. Thank you. While they were to die in English, I just happened to have my name on the field file. Any final comments from Joan Nicollard for Gerald before we close? Okay. Thank you all for joining us. We're going to take a five-minute break. Thank you. You'll take this off. Welcome back to Senate Education, Thursday, February 15th, 326. Ms. Cormole. Thank you. Once again, thank you for coming over, making the time to address an incredibly important issue. We have some decision that we need to make on 204. If you followed some of the testimony, but you know, you have some comments on 204. Complements, I think, also. I do. Thank you. If we love the speaker, we might even put a sign in there to our compliments. Oh, yeah. I do love positive stuff. Thank you so much. I'm Gwen Cormole. I serve as the Chair of the Advisory Council on Literacy for the Space. I'm also the President of the Vermont Curriculum Leaders. And you saw my amazing superintendent yesterday, Amy Miner. I work out of Amy Miner. I'm the Director of Curriculum and Colchester. So I'm extremely fortunate to represent a number of director organizations. I would say I can read through this, but really, I have three main comments. One is, thank you. You're doing a really, really important and fine job of raising the awareness of the supports for literacy for struggling learners and helping us align that with our existing requirements. And I would say both are really, really important. So thank you so much for that. My second comment is about that alignment. There's one area that is still slightly out of alignment. And that is the area about the universal dyslexia screener. And it's in relation to the language. And I have some suggestive language for that. I've spoken to the Vermont, the VCSEA, the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators. And then my last was just a clarification point. So if you would like me to, I can read through the testimony. So you want to start with whatever the committee's preference, but you mentioned something. What was the first point? Thank you so much. And I love that. Let's go to the second point. Okay. The second point was about the dyslexia screener or the process for screening. Some of the language that is in the draft, the original and the second draft bump up against the process of identifying students for a disability. And so there's a process that's outlined in multi-tiered systems of support that say we have to teach and assess and provide layers of support. And when that doesn't work, then you then you did, you do an eligibility process to see that there is a disability. Screening is important and we're very supportive of that. But lining up the language so that we are screening the, or reading difficulties or areas of reading difficulties and looking to see how students are struggling based on characteristics associated with dyslexia, but it is not about dyslexia identification. So the special educators felt strongly about that. I, this is not my area of specialty. My area of specialty is assessment curriculum, those pieces, but I certainly watch what happens when we set up a system. And I can describe it. Our system of assessment is that three times a year we use a universal set of screeners. If I use kindergarten, we screen for letters and sounds. We screen for funding of awareness. We screen for phonics. We screen for oral reading fluency. We do sight words. So we have an array and then we do something called star early literacy. We do all of those three times a year. For what agency? This is kindergarten per screen. We do oral reading fluency. We do star reader or early literacy. So three times a year there's a series of screeners. When a student is showing some area of need, we provide systems of support, which might look like title one reading support or it might be a reading teacher, extra instruction. We're monitoring that progress. And we may, if a student is showing more struggle, do additional assessment. And then at the mid-year we're assessing again on all of those assessments. And then we do it again at the end of the year. Along the way we're doing these systems of support. If a student is not responding to the systems of support, you do a higher layer of support. And then that is not working. Then you do the special education defecation process. So dyslexia, they may have markers that have listed a long list of things that we're working to find out are they progressing successfully? And if they're not, we're providing those layers. And then they may be looking for a specific learning disability in the area of reading, which is where dyslexia would fall. So the special educators asked if we could adjust the language to reflect that we are doing universal screenings on these skills and characteristics of dyslexia but not dyslexia identification. Why? Because dyslexia identification is more special education and it's a particular process that they have to follow. Is this the right one? That's the right one. I don't think there's anything too scary in there. I think we're very close in describing as the village more of the language to make sure it lines up with their requirements to identify in special education. So there's no, I think as a constituent a young woman now was not screened. Well, maybe she was screened. I have to talk to her parents, but dyslexia was missed if you will. Okay. So is this in some way, would this person still be captured? The person would be captured and probably sooner than in the past. Okay. Act 173 and remind multi-tiered citizens of support are really one of the pieces that put those systems of screeners in place and then the follow-up systems of support. Okay. I would say prior to that some systems did and some did may not have. But I guess maybe the way for me to ask it, I'm sorry to interrupt, if this might be helpful, would this person, if they were screened after this bill is passed with this language recommendation, is something not going to happen where their dyslexia would be addressed right away? It sounds like- If I struggle to read it, it would get addressed right away. Okay. Whether it's just, it's the purpose of the screener is to figure out who has needs and in what area and in what layer of support is needed. It's not to identify an area of disability. And so trying to separate that language is what I'm bringing to the table. Okay. Yeah. If I can, Dr. Steph, given the systems of support that you all like, are you supporting the bill? I am. Yeah. In the castles. Okay. But if there's already a system of support, what does the bill bring? It's not, I'm just, again, I'm not a professional educator, I don't have any depth in this field. Yeah. It's a good question and a colleague asked me that question today. I was doing legislative updates with the Vermont curriculum leaders and asking for feedback. They asked the same question. I would say one is raising awareness. The second thing is it's getting more specific and clarifying what we are looking for. So what, even though we have state standards that say phonemic awareness and phonics, and we have requirements that say we have to screen and do follow-up assessment, it does not say specifically what we need to screen on. And it may not be as specific as the list that's in the bill. I think you raised the key point that I'm also making is it's really important to line things up because we have a number of requirements already in place that are represented. And so the council is saying we agree wholeheartedly with efforts to improve literacy outcomes and provide support for students as quickly as possible. If this bill helps us get there, that's a good thing. But avoiding redundancies, a way to avoid redundancies is at least line up the language and help us where, and then include those pieces that you're working to clarify, like what are you screened, what are the areas that we are screening for, and how do we preserve special education in particular because that's federal law. That's your area more than mine. You probably can't comment or don't want to comment or maybe both on schools that don't use MTSS to you at this time. Well, we're all required. So, I mean, it's our strategy, multi-tier systems of support. And I'm going to mix up whether it's statute 2902 or 2903, but it's already in statute and requirement. In our federal law, when we receive federal funds, we're required to have multi-tiered systems of support. And in public schools, schools receiving public funds. Okay, because you and your language and the original language is approved in defendant schools as well? I did not. That actually comes from the crack of the bill. I didn't, I think that's a decision point on your end. That's why I was asked, but you don't can't comment, don't want to comment on what to do with schools that don't have MTSS. I would say for the public schools, we have a requirement to follow based on a series of state, and some federal language that requires multi-tiered systems of support. Act 173 slightly redefined that or strengthened multi-tiered systems of support. And then there was a field guide that is part of the agency's guidelines on how to do that. And schools are implemented this. They may be earlier in implementation. They may be just setting up their screenings. They must might just be setting up their systems of support. Dapping has been a challenge, so not every school has enough staff or they have more positions available that are not fully filled. So they may not be fully operational, but it is one of our requirements and we are all working really hard on it. Yeah, I was passed, I want to say 173, two sessions ago. Yes, and then there was a slight delay in the rule changes. So you're saying that's still kind of getting up and going, just the staffing issues? Well, there were two parts. There was the funding part, there was the special education identification and rule changes, and then there was the part which is about curriculum assessments. So there are a lot of systems that it impacts. Thank you for that answer. I really appreciate it. I just think at some point, because we're going to have a decision point in our committee as to whether this should be more broadly rolled out with independent approved independent schools as well. Do you have appeal? Do you have a opinion? Well, we do share public dollars with our with independent approved independent schools. And I think if we're required as public schools, it's very nice if we're sharing the dollars, if we share the requirements. When we receive Title I dollars or when we receive extra funds, we do have requirements to share those funds. So my first opinion would be that it'd be nice if they're they're sharing them. We've not had that conversation with Vic Club. The council does have independent schools, the Vermont curriculum leaders, I'm sorry. The advisory council does include the independent schools. There is a representative from the independent schools, and there are three community members. And I think they are both representing public and independent schools, the community members. Do you think you might be able to send us the name of the person on the advisory committee? Sure. It's Susan Gray is the representative. That's the representative of the advisory council for the independent schools, the Vermont independent schools. She's very supportive of the multi-tier systems of support, of screening, of structure of literacy. She's very supportive of this. Yeah, it's great. Just how do you how do you thread it? Because they don't necessarily follow the same guidelines. Do you know what I mean? It allows the same rules. Yeah. So yeah, I can't, I can't make that one. I do love it. Well, working from the same time on. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that. Yes, I'm curious to question, I don't want to go down a rattle, but they're rambles. Homeschool, how do we catch kids that may not be, may need intervention? Okay. Is there any system? Well, homeschool has to go through an approved system. So when I, if I'm a parent or a caregiver opting to homeschool, I have to have an approved plan with the state. And so I fill out my application and I have to demonstrate how I'm going to meet that curriculum. By having resources on the agency of education website, including professional learning, including resources about assessment, they would have access to that. But I can't say what the, what the approval process or how they might access. Homeschool, families do have the ability to work with public schools to come in and access parts of public schools that can be part of the approval plan. We have had students sometimes to participate for academics, sometimes for athletics, different parts of school. But in particular, whether the child is where they should be in this particular aspect of reading. Well, I would say that having resources at the agency of education published available for anyone would probably best meet those there. But there's no check. There's no, that's what we're looking at. Is there something that we look at reading number, you know, that's all the time, what you want to, there's nothing that captures these kids. I don't know what the process for application. You can do that in that. I don't know if they have a data collection at all. Just to that point, I'm quite certain that that's what one of the things that we changed last year is there is no assessment for the teacher. No reporting report. Right. I'm just still wondering if there was a standardized test piece in there, but that could be going for the teacher that was sitting down. Senator Wint. Back to this. Okay. If you don't mind so we can wrap up. The other recommendation that I made was there was a little bit of confusion about the grade levels for the bill. Okay. So my second recommendation is to clarify. I believe this is a K-3 literacy bill in the initiative. There is a section where you have K-3. There's another section that says screening for dyslexia characteristics in grade K-1. So I didn't know. And I also wondered if where you land on that clarification, if you would put that in the description of the bill so that a high school literacy teacher is not thinking this is part of their screening process or it would help clarify where this lands in schools and stuff. The same change. Do you see that in there? Does the discrepancy exist? I'm not sure. I would call it a discrepancy. Do you have a policy choice? Because the language is specific to universal reading screeners for grades K-3 and then dyslexia screening for dyslexia characteristics was specific to kindergarten or first grade. So I think that you all should take testimony on whether that's an appropriate distinction to make. And you're saying Ms. Carvelay, can you say? I might say make those agree. Make those agree. Make those agree. I think what's the harm in going K-3 with everyone? Some of the things that you're looking for in second and third grade are really specific to kindergarten and first grade skills. So phonemic awareness is one. The letters and sounds and how oral reading fluency you can do in any grade, comprehension you can do in any grade, but the early reading, identifying letters and the sounds of letters are specific to kindergarten and first grade. So I would, my recommendation would be clarify those. You're interested in. I'm going to go K-3. Okay. Unless there's major objection at this point, we'll see a new draft that will look at K-3. Okay. And then I would put that into the title or the description of it just to fill for kindergarten through third grade for being difficult. Anything else? Just a huge thank you. I did include the advisory council recommendations that we made. I brought those back. And I have been really hurt by all of the collaboration and consistency that I'm hearing as I talked about the Vermont Superintendent Association, Vermont Principles Association, the Vermont School Board Association, Vermont curriculum leaders, the Vermont Council of Special Education, the administrators. People are really interested in working and are working very hard on this. They're appreciative for the efforts and anything you can do to align language and requirements will help the work that is happening and it's going to make it better for students. So these advisory council recommendations aren't related to 204. No, they're not. It's general. Just bringing them back. Which some of them, I mean, I, looking at, I know the first one, we've had some, well, we can take a look at it as it relates to our community work, but glad you brought them back. Great. Ms. St. James, any clarity that you need from us? So we're going to work with these recommendations as presented and we'll look at a new draft in the coming days. And that's the decision points to make. And we'll return to 303 and hopefully by the end of next week, we'll be able to start a quick possible vote markup because this will go down to appropriations where it will sit. And yeah, we'll have to make nice with the appropriations. Okay. It was really fun thing of the 303, the Deli Parton Imagination Library. They came to the council, did a brief presentation, and they've been sending some updates. So there is also a lot of positive energy. Yeah. Yeah. You have to figure out the fiscal side. I know. There's a $100,000 appropriation. I didn't want to get into it there, but I'm not sure where that came from. That was sort of a, hey, we'll put $100,000 in or that was a joint fiscal number, but we'll figure it out. Don't know that. Yeah. Well, if you did, I'd be very impressed. Thank you. All right. I think we're finished for the day. Thanks, everybody.