 Perfect. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Friday, February 12, and this is a meeting of Senate education. Before we start hearing from some of our guests around their experience as at the Community College of Vermont. I wanted to just raise one topic, and that is this. If you will sort of shift in our state colleges, I know we have had some testimony, some conversations around. What's going to happen. When it's going to happen, our role and what I thought, and I'm really looking for input here from all of you, given that it is such a big topic and one that will be on the floor. Certainly when the budgets brought out, and certainly one that is in the community, our communities a lot. I recommended to the pro tem that perhaps the best way for us to get Senate colleagues up to date is for us to have a caucus of the whole, or at least the opportunity for senators to hear directly from Mr. I think one of the authors of the report, if not the primary author, a little bit from even maybe last year's Senate committee. But it's going to be one of those things that we are all going to have to vote on when it comes to the budget, when it comes to what kinds of dollars we are going to invest in our state colleges moving forward. And so, rather than I think every one of our colleagues reaching out to each of us saying hey what do you think, we will continue to learn about it but I think, given the enormity of the shift and the financial investment it seems to me that we do this as a caucus of a whole, or at least give people the opportunity, if they don't want to come to a meeting to that that there's a time to, you know, to have these questions so I just want to throw that out to, to all of you to see if that's something you're all comfortable with. And maybe even a little bit about what you're hearing in your communities. Senator Campion, we're certainly hearing a lot in our area of the state. And I think it would be an excellent idea for us to get from the horse's mouth as it were, what the report is about and the interpretation that the committee has seen because we're getting a lot of differing testimony, you might might say as to you know what is in the report and what it means and how it would be how it will affect especially the various parts of the state that have the state colleges in them. I'm going to start here and see. Yeah, I, I completely concur with Senator Hooker we're really here especially with Castleton around the corner we're getting inundated with questions and concerns and so on so I think it's really important we need to get up to speed and understand where we stand because there's a like, Senator Hooker said there's a lot of different rumors and half truce out there and who knows what the real deal is so. Senator Lyons. So I was going to agree with that but also. Do you think there's any. I have no clue how much time that caucus as a whole would take. You know could take a half an hour could take it an hour. The other issue that might be important to consider within that caucus if it could be split in two I don't know is the waiting study. There's so there's so many questions out there concerns being expressed by that so I don't want to derail the, the higher ed discussion. I think that's critically important no question. But if, if there is time to throw in a brief update on what is or is not in the waiting study that might be also useful. Yeah, yeah. So, I'm happy to bring that to the pro tem. I mean, I know that we are scheduled to have a joint hearing with finance on the waiting study I believe Senator Cummings wants to do it a week from Tuesday. And that should give at least the two committees that are primarily responsible for that kind of work some, some additional information. And we agreed to do it as a joint committee, you know, given that and given that it like without a doubt it'll end up in finance, no matter whether you know when we pass it out if that's what we decide to do. The big piece as I think I've mentioned is what with the house is interested in and whether or not they would indeed pick up this work if we were to spend time working on it. And that's something that I know the pro tem is in conversation with the speaker that center personal. What's that last comment on the waiting study or something else about whether the house should take it up. That was on the waiting study. Yeah, I was in the waiting so sorry I wasn't clear that is indeed. I, you know, I know that this the house in the past has had some concerns. And again, I don't have an update but I know that center ballot and representative crew crew and ski are in conversations. Yes. I don't want to interrupt the train of thought center campaign but another thing that maybe we are going to talk about or you could help me is the last week for some reason my email box has been inundated with people wanting to talk about s 13 the people waiting study. Is that something that we're going to be. Yeah, so that's what we were just talking about. How did I miss that I'm right here. You know, we see you. That's for sure. No, I know it might just what might have caused confusion actually is people have been just sending messages saying s 13 s 13 s 13. Yeah, just so you know that that is the people waiting study and we will have a meeting with Senate finance a joint hearing on, I believe it's a week from Tuesday with Senator Cummings committee. All right, that's good. No, no, no. And that'll be give everybody an opportunity to sort of see what we think and what direction we want to go in but I do know that this committee passed out a version of that waiting study. Last year so it's, I also did see, I did see Senator chin and laughing me pretty hard so I'm not going to forget that. No, and, you know, I'll be honest with you Senator trans you shouldn't forget it because he'll be on the floor before you know it. And you and the family can be up late getting questions ready for whatever well actually it is one of the things about the Senate and I'm looking to the senior senator from Chittenden to confirm this but committee members don't really go after community committee members. That is now that's true. That's kind of the unwritten rule. Right. Although if the committee member is reporting a bill from another committee that he might be on then that's a different story. Totally different story. My internet connection might go out that day. Senator personally please on the waiting so you just want to be clear with with folks that the study is the study and it's already out and the study had some recommendations so s 13 basically implements what the study is recommending that we do and I think that there is a camera there's a difference with the House bill I think the House bill does it over multiple years in the Senate bill takes a little different tack on how how to roll it out. No thanks for that clarification I appreciate that. And I just want to point out to Senator Tarenzini that we may be here but it's only virtual so you know it might have a difference. Good old Rutland it's not the state senators it's the issue with the library moving it's something with Rutland County. All right, with that. Thank you. We are now moving on to post secondary education opportunities and I see three of our witnesses are here. And please correct me if I'm mispronouncing your name but Mr. Carrera, Mr. Abbott and Mizzou black. Would you reveal yourselves to us. There we go. Terrific. Everyone. Hi. Thank you so much for being with us. I think, okay. They're a little late but I see our other two I see Joyce is here. Okay, Joyce you've got here just in the neck. We, we, we started at 115. I thought you were starting at 130. I'm sorry. No, it's, it's no problem at all. You really did get here in the nick of time so we can absolutely turn it right over to you to introduce the students that we were about to hear from. Well that is perfect and thank you I'm sorry about the confusion in the time. From it all likely it's my fault so. Well, that's quite all right. So, I just want to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to, to share with you a little bit about the McClure gift and what's most exciting is to hear directly from some of our students. I think you heard from the McClure Foundation, a couple days ago or, well, yesterday or the day before. And Carolyn where and the McClure Foundation I just want to acknowledge are just amazing partners with us and have been for a number of years and have really helped to provide us with with funding to do some pretty innovative and creative things so we just are incredibly grateful to the McClure Foundation for their thinking and their partnership. But you know this particular gift came about. I think that the foundation was really looking at this in two primary reasons one to really acknowledge and say to the class of 2020. We care about you. We know that you've gone through a lot and here we want to give you a leg up. And here's a way to either get started or to add to what you were already planning to take for the fall. And what was, I think what has been amazing about the McClure Foundation gift is the clarity and the simplicity. It was, if you have graduated from a Vermont high school in 2020. No matter what your goals or your, your financial background or whatever, you're entitled to this, and you can take any course that you want there was no parameters around it's a three credit course or four credit course, any course that you are, you are academically eligible for, you can take so it was very simple. It was very simple to administer. And I think the message to the public was, it was easy to explain. And so, you know, working with the McClure Foundation, it was just really nice to be able to do that. And as you know, you heard from Caroline that more than 600 Vermont students took advantage of that. And, and, and, well, 80% of them, which is pretty phenomenal have said they are planning to continue their education, we have more than 50% that are continuing their education this spring, which is pretty phenomenal given the COVID environment and, and everything that is going on. And we expect that number actually decline, but it's interesting. We have more than 50% are enrolled at CCV, or about 50% are enrolled at CCV. If students went to another school, that information is uploaded into the National Clearing House, until after the drop ad period so we expect that that number will be higher because we know some people took a course at CCV, and are going to have gone to some other place this spring so we're pretty impressed with, with what students have done as a result of that. One additional, in addition to the students that you're going to hear today, I've been working with Jeannie to post we had the McClure Foundation shared with us a letter from us from a parent, and we got permission from the parent and student to post this letter so you will see that in addition to this, it's pretty heartwarming and it came unsolicited to the McClure Foundation and they knew we were going to, we were having some testimony today. And Carolyn said, you know, this would be a great thing to share with the committee so I would encourage you to take a look at that as well. So, you know, Senator Campion said, you know, you want to hear directly from students and we are, you know, it's always so wonderful to hear from students and their stories and what, what has made a difference in their lives and, and what they're doing with that so we're excited to have three students today. I have invited Katie Mopley, who's our Dean of Enrollment and Community Relations, to sort of manage this because you know in a Zoom environment, you know somebody starts to talk and then another person starts to talk and then no one talks and so I've asked her to sort of moderate this in a way so that there's no awkward moments and so she's actually going to call on students. And then, in the end we want to make sure we leave time for you all to ask students questions. So we expect to spend, you know, a little bit of time hearing from students but then also allowing some time to hear from to hear to ask to have you have the chance to ask students directly. So, with no other comments, I want to turn this over to Katie and take it away. Great. Before we even do that is what I just wanted to thank you and we are in conversations, particularly on Monday with our colleagues in appropriations and then we will hear, I believe, either Senator Kitchell or a designate from joint fiscal designate from joint fiscal come down and join us probably sometime next week to talk about options with, you know, going forward how can we again expand access continue this kind of program, other possibilities that we might be able to do to give particularly middle and low income Vermonters access to higher education. And Brian, you know I realized that I said that the McClure Foundation had to read to sort of reasons to do this and one was to say to Vermont seniors we care we want to help you. But secondly, you know they are there a foundation that's very concerned about access and so this was a chance to remove financial issues completely. And maybe what the uptake is in terms of Vermonters continuing education because as you all know, you know Vermont doesn't do well. We have a very high school graduation right but we, we struggle to and to have students continuing their education. And you know we've tried for years I mean dual enrollment's helping, but we've never been able to sort of make a huge leap in terms of those stubborn figures and this gave us a window into thinking about okay if we did remove finances, could Vermont really turn those figures around and I think it's a one off for sure. But I think that if we can keep trying that I think we might be able to crack that not finally. Thank you for it. Thank you for taking this on. Yeah, and thank you for being with us is Moby welcome. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And I apologize for my tardiness that is no no no no one apologizes if I am the one who should be apologizing I if there's any mistake ever I can assure you it can be traced back to me. Not with the committee but anything here at my house as well. So, know that. Well I'm impressed that the students were here on time at he told me she was going to log in early and really that's the most important part of this conversation. So again my name is Katie Mobley I'm from Burlington, Vermont and I am the Dean of enrollment and community relations at CCD. I'm joined today by Anna and Addie and Nick, you will notice that Nick have the choice of either having sound or video, and so he has chosen to have sound today. And that was part of our thinking around me sort of drawing him into the conversation because we want to make sure that we're hearing from all the students. I think I'm going to start with you but would you mind just introducing yourself and sort of opening up by telling us a little bit about your high school experience maybe pre COVID and then any impacts that COVID had on your experience. Yeah, I would love to. My name is Anna Graciel block. I'm from the town of South Burlington, and I went to South Burlington high school and I had a pretty standard high school experience. I wanted to take advantage of the amazing program at CCV of early college. I was really set on continuing down a medical path. And so I was so excited to go to CCV and get a free year of college during my senior year. And I continued on and I kind of, it was a bit of a wake up call in the fall semester was no longer at high school. But I really discovered a new passion in my spring semester of early college, right when COVID hit that I loved everything about business and management and international business. I was just so thankful that early college had really opened those doors to me that I was able to figure out early on what exactly I wanted to do with my life for free, which was amazing. And so when COVID hit my family, especially my mom took it pretty hard. She has a residential cleaning business, and her clientele went down to pretty much nothing. And she's the executive director of a local cancer support nonprofit, Healing Wins Vermont, and her and a few of the others volunteered to no longer get paid until they were in a more, a more stable condition. So the McClure gift really came at the best time where it took kind of the edge off of that CCV bill. And it was also at a time where I had realized I was not going to be able to kind of carry on with the college plans that I wanted to do. So I decided to continue at CCV through the summer in the fall. And with the help of the McClure grad gift, I was actually able to earn my associate's degree six months after my high school diploma. So very thankful to CCV. Amazing Anna that's that's a lot of hard work. That's. Thank you for sharing. Addie, do you mind going next. It's an honor to be here to speak with everyone. So thank you for having me. My name is Addie. I am from Brattleboro, Vermont. And I started at CCV this last fall. I actually, my high school experience was not very pleasant. I grew up in foster care and because of that, I was never really able to focus on school the way that I wanted to. And at 18, I wasn't able to graduate. I had to go and get a job and provide for myself. And I had never really thought about pursuing college because I had always had to be working and kind of taking care of myself. And then once the pandemic hit, I got laid off, which was really stressful, but I thought that it might be the right time to maybe start back into school. So I found out about this program and it really had changed my life. I made the phone call, got in two days later and started classes. And believe it or not, I made it that made the Dean's list this semester, which is hugely exciting. But I mean, the main financial reason or the main reason for me not pursuing a college career was also because of finances. So really, I mean, it was like a gift from God for me to have this opportunity. And now I'm looking at pursuing a career in neuroscience gotten really into it. And I am going to continue and get my associates here at CCB and then the world is my oyster and I'm so excited to see what's going to happen. Addie, that's such a great thank you for sharing that and that enthusiasm. That's outstanding and current graduations on the Dean's list that represents a lot of work. Nick, I'm going to invite you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your high school experience. Yes. Hello, I apologize for not being on camera for whatever reason, I have a bug with zoom where if I have video I don't have sound if I have sound I don't have video it's gotten very annoying I've tried. We know what that is like. We're just glad you're here. Thank you thank you for having me it was. Let me think how I want to start. I'm not the best at public speaking even though this is through zoom. So, my experience with this has been extremely positive. I come from a low income family and as of right now I'm the only person who's gone to college except for my mom and everything for us was finances like how would we, you know, pay for college how would we have enough to pay for me and to you know pay bills pay electricity get food on the table and thankfully in high school in my senior year I was able to get my grades up to a point where I was able to do do enrollment for the first six months so I did originally VTC did that it was a lot of fun that's when I realized how much better college was then in high school it was such a better experience there wasn't like, there was no competitions on who was better it was just people of all ages, coming to learn and that really took off the stress of learning because it wasn't a competition anymore it was people wanting to further their education and that transferred over to when I started at CCV I got in last fall, did my first semester and currently I'm a part time student because I'm trying to balance working at the same time of school during a pandemic it's not really that easy. My mom and my little sister both have compromised immune systems so coming in and out of the house especially like for work or even like if they leave to go get groceries and stuff like that that's a pretty big risk. So I decided to stick with part time just so I have enough time on my hands to balance everything and the free class made it so I was able to use the scholarship money I got to pay for all my classes without having to tap in out of pocket which was really helpful because it made it get to a point where I was like man I can do college. I don't have to worry about if I'll be able to pay for this because I'm eligible and it's all worked out really well. Nick thank you so much today. Did you mention what town you were from. I know but I just want to make sure it's on the. Yeah, I'm from Essex. And Nick am I correct in thinking do you work in the health care field. Will you talk a little bit about that balance between school and the work that you're doing. Yeah. Mostly it's just carving out enough time to where I can do my school work and have it be up to my own standards. I'm majoring in design and media studies so thankfully it's very much hands on I'm doing as much free hand sketching painting as I am like actual writing and reading. As far as like the work school relationship it's I'd say it's a little bit easier, despite the fact that it's online for me because even though we don't we don't have any internet at my house so I have to use a hotspot. But it makes it easier because I don't have to get out of bed. I mean I do I do my schoolwork in the living room, but I don't have to go on any unnecessary trips I can just do work, and then I can come home and I can have enough time to do school from the time that I get home to the time that I go to bed and feel like I'm putting in enough time to both work so I can support myself and make money for myself and keep transitioning into being an adult and then not be a student and absorb the knowledge that I'm learning from further my skill as an artist and then also just keep furthering my education so that was the most important thing for me I really liked high school. I like learning and college has been in that surprisingly it's been infinitely easier than high school for some reason. It's all been vastly positive I had so far I don't have anything to complain about or speak negatively of even though we're all stuck at home in a pandemic. Thank you so much that's really helpful. I will say and I think Joyce alluded to this in her introductions that on the colleges and this was a really easy program to administer, which I will just say is not always the case in programs. You know we got to say to every member of the class of 2020. This gift is for you and so I'm, I'm curious I heard Addy I heard you say you know you heard about it and then you enrolled two days later. I'd love to hear from you Addy about sort of how did you hear about it and if you were to tell someone about sort of engaging in college what what advice would you give them now that you've had this positive experience. So I actually heard about it from my boss who is she has a spot here in Brattleboro and she was also doing classes on the side. And she knew that you know she had to lay me off and I was going to have a lot of time at home. She kind of pushed me to, you know, go go towards higher education and so she came to me and said hey, they're having this program. I know you're worried about finances, but this free class could you could you should really take advantage of this. So like I said I mean I was really lucky it was two days before the semester started, and I managed to get in and be in classes two days later. And so I'm really grateful for that. I've loved my experience at CCB, and you know coming from the community that I did I know a lot of other foster kids, you know, and there's a huge stigma a lot of us are pushed to go for more I mean a lot of the time we're just expected to do the bare minimum. So I've been communicating a lot with my, you know, the people in that community to take advantage of this opportunity because a lot of us really are also having to fund for ourselves and financial financial financial situations for a lot of us are not ideal. So I've really been spreading the word to everyone in my group Facebooks you know anyone I can just hey this is amazing. You know you'll have so much support. And it's a huge blessing so that's that's kind of how I'm marketing it, you know is is let's show, let's show the world that we can accomplish something even after everything we've gone through. So Addie what had you done I'm just looking here you were. Were you in high school and then you just graduated or had you been in the workforce a little bit. So I was still it was my last semester of my senior year when, when you're an 18 when you turn 18. You can't stay in your foster home anymore and my family didn't, we didn't have a great relationship so I had to make the decision either. I'm going to couch surf and try, you know, and finish out high school but I also I wasn't doing very well to be completely honest after everything I had been going through school was never at the forefront of my mind. So I made the decision to drop out and get a job, get an apartment. And then, you know, I wanted to get my GD so I did that. And it wasn't until this year like I said with with this program where I had ever even considered that I would try to do something like this. It's great. It's really great. Okay, were you going to ask something. I always do that the screen goes to something. I'm interested in the fact that you did you got your GED, daddy, and it was a while before this gift came on line and you were able to take advantage of that were there others in the program that had that were not 2020 grads, so to speak, that took advantage of the gift. So you had to be a 2020 grad. So, Addy, I'm assuming that you earned your GED within the year of 2020. Yes, I did. I had completed three of them but kind of put off the math one. I'm not a math ways. So I had to do a lot of studying and also, you know, with just working so hard. I just I hadn't had time until 2020 to get that done. So, luckily I passed. And so it happened that it was in 2020 and you're right there to take advantage of the gift and that's great. Another, another question if I may. Joyce, Julie. I'm looking at the geographic spread, you know, and we have two kids from two students from Chittenden County, one from down in Brattleboro. Can you give us an idea of what the spread was either you were or Kate. Yes, I can. Actually, we were really thrilled we had we had participants from every county. And the highest concentration was from Essex County. Okay, which is so we had, we were thrilled at the level of participation. And I will say, you know, I am so grateful to Addy and Anna and Nick because I think as Brian will say, you know, we got this request a couple days ago, and we really scrambled to find a way to reach out and so I'm so glad that they were able to. But yeah, we, we were very pleased. We had, there was not a pocket that okay like you know all these students came from Chittenden County or all these. No, they came from everywhere and we were particularly pleased with a number of students who came from Essex County, you know, we, you know, it's pretty not not, you know, it's not a very populated county. And so yeah, we actually had that breakdown in terms of the spread. It was, it was impressive. And then one more question. Do you have a breakdown of the number of students who took advantage of the program that we're already taking courses, whether it was through dual enrollment or the free college year, you know, and we're kind of adding on to their course of study as opposed to students who were taking the course as a first time and a one off. We have, well, I can answer your question in, in this way, we can tell you how many students how many students of it that use the McClure gift took only one course last fall, and how many took multiple courses. I don't have that figure right in front of me, Katie, do you? Yeah, we can. But what we saw is we saw a number and I think for some reason about 50% six, but I can't remember who were just simply taking that one course. We saw students who were taking two, but with a free course added one. And we also saw which is interesting, not a huge number, but we did have a number of students who are enrolled at other colleges like UVM, and, and added a CCB course to their load, because it was free. And so they could, you know, so they took a full load at UVM, like maybe four or five courses and added a course at CCB. So we did see some students who, because also they could access it from wherever they were. So even if they weren't living in Vermont, and they were going to school somewhere, they could access an online course. And, and so we had some who were enrolled in other schools add to their mix by taking a course at CCB. So it was like, it was an interesting combination. People used it in lots of different ways. Thank you. And thank you students for sharing your stories. It's impressive. Center personally. Yeah. Mr. Chair, I have some questions about kind of around CCB and dual enrollment, not specifically about this program. Yeah, please go ahead. And a question for the students and maybe the folks from CCB can answer to and that I just wonder what the students perspective because it sounds like everybody did early enrollment as well as not early enrollment early college as well as this program. I just wonder what the experience is when you have high schoolers in these college classes. And seemed like from my daughter did it and seemed like some of our classes she said, there was a lot of high schoolers in the class and I don't know if that's, if that's just since it's a community college you're going to have a variety. I just wondered what your perspective was about either the benefits or not of having a mix of high schoolers and other students in the classes. Does that make sense as a question. It does and I do you want to answer that so not I would say Addy did not participate if I'm correct at E shake me off but did not participate in a dual enrollment or early college and it did but do you want to talk about that experience. Um, just as a high school student in a class with people of all ages, and just how my experience was, um, it was was interesting to say the least because on one end of the spectrum you have the students like me who have never taken a college class before. And it's kind of all you know bright eyed bushy tailed like we'll do whatever the professor says we're a little nervous. And then on the other end you have kind of these lifelong learners that have so much experience and inspiration and advice really to give and they have. I've learned so much. Um, I remember this one woman in my human anatomy and physiology class and I think that she was. I think 55 and she had been a single mother, and she was, I think she's one of the hardest working people I've ever known. There's a bit of a language barrier and sometimes it was you know kind of hard to understand everything that was she was saying, or sometimes you couldn't quite understand us but they're just kind of this really interesting bond that formed between her and the entire class, where we all learn so much from her and the And it was just really interesting to see how all of these people are there not because you know they feel like they have to or because you know, you know, mom or dad or whoever said that they must go to college but they're there because they genuinely want to learn about the world around them and they want to apply this in an amazingly useful way in their life. And I think that itself really brought me out of my shell, and really gave me a newfound appreciation for education. We're simple exchange really students and teachers it's great center person sorry to interrupt. No, it's good. Thank you for that and I guess a quick question for choice and Katie is, have you ever had a college student that's me only like, why do I have these high schoolers in my class. Maybe not just from the my experience for my daughter because she felt like the high school students worked harder than some of the college students but part of that is this like a lot of the other ones had jobs and, and some of the high schoolers didn't so but is that ever come up like, you know, Yes, you know I would say that you know and you know I'm looking at Senator Lyons who, you know as a faculty member and can probably speak to this better. Being on the ground, but I will say you know this is one of the benefits of C of the CCD classroom. It is the rich diversity and an age is one of those pieces and I think you know as Anna so said so well is that you know people come together in a class, because they're really it's unite it's united in the learning and it sort of levels of playing field because it doesn't really matter if you're 16 or 80, you're there to learn. And so I think that you know this is one of the things that we, we do that I think our faculty do amazing well is celebrate that diversity and people can learn from each other in really, really significant ways I will. I mean our average age is still in the high 20s. So even though we have more younger students our average age is about 28. It used to be 31, but I will say about 50% of our students now are traditional age students, but we also have a lot of students, you know, between the ages of 30 and 55, particularly people who are thinking of shifting careers they've been heard on the job. They've been, you know there's just a number of reasons why people come back but I don't know Senator Lyons do you have something to say about that because it is, it's just this melting pot of diversity in our classes and I think faculty do an amazing job at, at, at using that, but I will just ask Senator Lyons if she. Oh, I think you've done a great job. Yeah, yeah, you've done a great job explaining it. And even by, by historical knowledge from Trinity College was similar. So the mix is really is enriching at both ends of the spectrum so the students like Anna who come in and are just hungry for learning theoretical and basic information. They're very well aligned with people who have all that practical experience at the other end. It's kind of neat to see, and it makes for a very interesting. I don't know, maybe you two or three could talk about your classroom experiences and working with some of the non traditional students I mean there, you have to have had some kind of connection and picking up some of their skills and knowledge. Nick, do you mind starting just we get you back in to that quite did you hear that question from Senator Lyons. Yes. I think the best part about having a diverse classroom is that you get a lot you get in some ways you get fresher eyes. I would say the two experience that stuck out most to me was the first one when I was in do enrollment for Vermont tech in my senior year. There was a guy in my class he was like, I think either 60 or 70 and he was a veteran, and he was taking electrical engineering simply because he was retired he didn't work anymore and there was something to do and as the weeks went on during the semester, because we were all in the same classroom, pretty frequently. We got to hear stories from him from what it was like when he was young, not only just being at war but like how different the world was and for him. The class was as much about you know learning a new skill like electrical engineering but also he said he got him out of the house he said he loved coming in because he was able to. He was able to do something every day and he was able to feel wanted again and he was able to do something that challenged him and he was able to learn a new skill. The second experience that also stands out the most is recently last semester, so my first semester at CCB. One of my classmates he's a full time firefighter. And he is. I think he has like three kids, and he's on the job constantly and in our forums we would talk and he said, this was for my. Which class was it. Intro to visual communication. The whole thing was just, he wanted to have another skill besides his career under his belt. Something that he enjoyed doing he said he enjoyed doing art he became a firefighter because it was something that was in the family, his father was a firefighter and he would talk about like how he would mostly be at the station when he was doing his classes like when we would do a zoom lecture or when we would be doing our forums he would be. Nick I think we lost your. Yep. Yeah, Addy do you want to jump in and Nick if you get back just jump in. Did you have an experience Addy with sort of a mixed classroom environment you want to share. Yeah, not so much last semester, but this semester I'm taking sociology, and there is a huge melting pot of different ages in that class. Oh, I think next back I want to let him finish I don't want to interrupt him so. Yeah, sorry, it seems like I just lost connection for a minute. I think I was saying they brought very unique viewpoints because it's, you know, in each respective sense they're different people but both have very unique views on not only the world but on education from you know two different times mingling with people like me who are at a high school and still learning about what life is and then you have them who have been around for a while and they know what life is and they've built lives for themselves and they're just coming full circle where we're just starting out on our journey to learning and it's very refreshing because as much as I love talking to people my own age it's always nice to get a different viewpoint on how people see the world see education, how they have no opinions about it and how everyone learns in their own different ways. I'm wondering and I think this might be for Joyce and or Katie, you know I'm thinking about how you in general market, you know, and are getting the word out. I know I remember hearing Nick talk I remember there was a comment at one point from President Judy about whether this year and years past that you know not as many men are taking advantage of of of CCV and then Addie had her own experience as as a foster child and then you know a GED student. There are ways that you are marketing to these particular groups and then Anna, in some ways, I'm not sure, you know, again just broadly how how we're reaching, we're reaching certain groups. Well I can talk just generically but probably Anna and Addie and Nick can probably tell you more about how they heard about it directly, but I will tell you, Senator champion that is this is a huge challenge Katie overseas marketing and communications. We, we, we appeal to such a diverse audience that trying to target our, our message to a particular audience we are constantly thinking about. Okay, how do we reach this group, and how do we reach this group because it's very it's a very different message to someone who's 17 than someone who's 60 and is going to switch careers. Yeah. And the same way to you know we serve around 300 veterans a semester, or really trying to figure out how to market to, to particular groups is is a constant challenge and we are always, you know, trying to figure okay what message here what message there so, and then you add to the mix of, you know, for years ago, you know if you hit radio newspaper and TV you were good, you know those were the ways that you did it. So now you've got social media and so many different platforms on social media and, but you can't leave TV and radio and print behind you've got to keep those going but also, you know, our audience, you know so much of our, our promotional stuff happens with social media because that's how students learn about us. And then, by far the most important thing is relationships. It's our relationships with people in school, it's our relationships with teachers who teach high school students, it's relationships with different, you know, entities in the community, we are always and then with businesses, because I think as Addy said, you know it was her, her boss, who encouraged her to go back to school. So, you know this it's just a web and it's you know and we are always working at it we always can do better, but Katie I don't know if you want to add to that. American experience is now if you move into a community, you, you are looking sometimes for a community college I mean that you know they are part of, you know, certainly the state's landscape, the country's landscape. And I'm hoping more and more people, you know, are thinking hey you know you look where you're living and around the community college for a variety of different things classes, cultural opportunities experiences things like that. So one, one other thing particularly related to the McClure gift which I think was pretty interesting that we had as many students as we did take advantage of it. We did not ramp this up. The McClure Foundation came to us the beginning of June. This was so we had had, you know, co we were two months into the COVID environment. You know, we were at the end of a traditional school year so in terms of working with guidance counselors and you know trying to get stuff out to high school seniors. You know this was so in you know the beginning of June is when we actually, you know they came to us and said we want to do this and in two weeks we had stood it up. But by then kids were graduating. And so that was just a challenge in and of itself because the normal channels through through our school network were, you know, summers and different beasts and then the school year. You know, Ms. Weir from the McClure Foundation said that you were all incredible partners in that, you know, they came to you at the timing that they came to you and you were all able to get this while rolling and that was that was great. Hades group. Other questions colleagues, Senator Hooker. That said, about the marketing and the timing. You had 600 plus students participate of and that, I believe Ms. Weir said it was 10%, how many of 10% of the graduates. What if they had all done it. Would you have been able to accommodate them. And quite frankly, that was one of the things that so when the McClure Foundation, you know, they, you know, they are an extremely well positioned foundation. But they, you know, when they came to us, they were like, so do you think you'll have 200 or 1000 or six and because you know they, they didn't give us a grant and say okay, we can only serve this much they were committed to whoever came through. We could have we could have handled it on the CCV in, but you know we were curious to see how many people so you know this is the, this is one of the beauties of the CCV model, we can flex, grow and, and, you know, if we have to pull back we can. You know, we just have a very non traditional budget model that works really well. You know, in this, I credit, you know, this is the budget model that was established when CCV was established 50 years ago to be able to respond to shifting environments and it's really helpful for that so Senator Hooker yes we could have we were ready we can ramp up we can add courses, because you know we, we have a lot of, we have a lot of faculty networks and we have a lot of people that are very interested in, in teaching for CCV, far more than we have courses for. Senator I would just add that you know when we had preliminary conversations with Carolyn where she said you know how many typically high school grads immediately the year after do you serve and it's about 300 and then you know we sort of got aspirational and I will say you can go back as a staff member we thought well maybe we could get 400 450 and when we have to go back to them and say wow we're at like over 600 it was. It was amazing, it really it represented in such a tight timeframe I mean I think had we had six months to have you know and I have the conversation with the school counselor and map this out I have no doubt we could have tripled that number but it was a little to Joyce's point the fact that they were willing to just say just go. It's really easy to message something that's clear and easy and free. And it's more complicated when there's like oh you're interested in this but okay wait do you qualify for this or do you, it doesn't mean there isn't opportunity there but this was the easiest thing to promote that I've ever been involved in CCV and it was, it was great during that time for sure. Center personally. On that note, and I don't know, either addie or of the others from CCV know I thought the state had done a special grant programs specifically for those that are experiencing foster care. A few years ago something passed that said the state basically is going to take responsibility for those that don't, you know have the parental care. So, but, but it sounds like, maybe I misunderstood what that was or is there a special program for foster care that give them full tuition that state college. Is it okay if I answer Katie. Yes. So, I looked into a lot of different programs. Unfortunately, like I said I really only had two days to get it together. I'm not from my knowledge. I have been working a lot with Vsac. And I was able to obtain a lot of grants through them. Also through the fast set because I am considered an independent student. I was able to get that extra funding but I wasn't able to find anything through the state of Vermont for kids coming from the background that I was. Vsac is also an incredible program that has been invaluable to my ability for me to be able to help define this extra funding. Get help with you know because I'm also trying to figure out how to fill out the faffs on my own which is not easy. I mean they've been incredibly helpful also my CCV counselor has been amazing but yeah I mean I kind of had to go out and search for that funding after I got in and it was a little difficult but I was able to navigate that through both my CCV advisor and my Vsac counselor. Great. Thank you. And I just want to bring you back into the conversation here. First of all, your mother sounds like an incredible person. She described her was was really wonderful and she must be incredibly proud. How did you do your entire high school your senior year in high school at CCV. You get so you you you got the dual enrollment all the way. And in part did you say was high school in some ways that senior just not a fit or you felt as though academically you wanted to to broaden your horizons what made you do that. My freshman year of high school I was talking to my high school counselor about graduating high school a year early. I was already a year ahead of my peers. And I kind of like to fast track myself, and he had suggested the early college program. And there's something that was kind of at the back of my mind until junior year. When I realized that high school. Well was high school, and I felt that it would be a much better fit if I went to college and since I really wanted to graduate a year early. I realized that this was the most practical thing to do. It saved me money and it got me amazing experience that then fast track me to go on and get my associate's degree at 17. Great. Any other questions or comments. Anything from our guests and a Nick or Addie or certainly Joyce or Katie. I defer to students do you have any, any final comments for this committee. For those of you from Chittenden County, just know that Senator Lyons and Senator Chittenden are your two senators and a lot of where we don't have anybody here that represents Wyndham County but Senators ballot and white are your two go to folks in the Senate. And I are also both SB alums go wolves. I do have a question that is off topic now sort of, but maybe connected with the onset of the pandemic we try to help people retool. And I'm just wondering what kind of response CCV had from Vermonters who were looking to take courses to help them either get different jobs or, you know, just try to change their direction. And Senator Hooker, are you referring specifically to CRF funds that we see. Yeah, we had over 600 700 students enroll, and that again was over the course of a weekend to set this up so we had a lot of, you know, and, you know, I, I think this is an indication of, you know, once again, we were able to remove the financial barrier from can from investing in yourself, and we saw so many adults want to come forward and they you know in the testimony and the survey information about why they hadn't engaged earlier in education. And it's interesting if you look at the graph, the number of people that said it's just about finances. It was huge. So we had a huge number of people that that took at the end of that Sierra funding to to sort of invest in their education and sort of figure out ways that they were going to pivot to something different post COVID. And it seems from your descriptions of setting up both these programs that there's a real need to look at the red tape involved in getting into other programs so that may be something that we should take a look at as well to make it easier for students like these young people to get involved and for people who are older to, you know, have the supports that they need as life changes. It's really, really wonderful observation because one of the things that I think, you know, we, we and I will use the collective in this group now, you know, approach things from a place that we know about higher education we know the language of higher education we know what needs to happen. And, you know, there are many people who have never been to college aren't surrounded by people or supported by people who understand that language of anything can feel like, like it's, it's impossible or it's just too hard to do. And so, you know, the number of students that we that we work with who don't understand that that you that you that you that finding that it's financial support to help them and how they apply I think, Addie referred to the VSEC counselor helping her apply to the faster form the faster form is hard. And it, you know, it doesn't, if you know after you've done it once or twice it's not so hard, but the first time it feels really overpowering. And it asks for questions, you know, it asks like for your parents income. Well someone like Addie, you know, that's a heart that's what do I do about that. So and Addie, I'm, you know, I'm just using you as a, you know, I don't know how you dealt with that. But you know there's things that we have put in place that just make it really difficult for people to, to get through that system. So one of the things that we're always working like our admissions process. It's, I hope it's pretty straightforward for people and it was great to hear that a couple people were able to do it, you know, from start to finish within two days, because we have really worked at that to make the application, we're open admissions, but people still have to, you know, they have to apply but it's a very, very simple and hopeful a straight straightforward process because, you know, you get it doing that and you run into a stumbling block and the and people are gone. Okay, that's that's not for me, you know, and they take themselves out of the game. So simple is really important and I mean, simple in terms of ease doesn't have to be simple but it has to be easy and that can't be glitches. Yeah. Center lines. So, you know, given that and given that the McClure grant was so simplified, and folks could simply could access the tuition dollars that they needed without a complex process. This is for the, for the students. Once that burden was off your shoulders. Then what were the supports that you found at CCV that that enabled you to succeed. You know, because it looked to me as if there was a much higher success rate with that with the McClure cohort cohort of students I'm not positive about that but it looked like that. So I'm just just maybe Anna, or Addie, or Nick could just speak to what the supports were after the money was delivered that helped you. I'll start with Anna. Thank you for doing that Ginny. I think that my support stayed pretty consistent. My parents have always been a huge support to me, especially my mom, and I think that also my CCV advisor was a huge help throughout the entire process. Sometimes I would frantically email him and he would, you know, email me back in this very calm like explaining like this is how this is going to work your, you know, it'll be fine. I appreciate just his patience, and also, especially the professors, because they really took the time to understand everything that was going on, and to translate that into their lesson plans. And understand that things are really wonky right now and that students are doing their best but also knowing when to kind of give that nudge of, well, we can't let you, you know, not do any work at all. And so I think really just having the support of the advising system and having the professors after that financial burden was taken away it was, it really spurred me to keep going and to look past CCV and everything that they had given me and look towards my next education step. Great. Anything else. Nick, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, once the McClure Foundation grants went through, I too had a bit of a frantic couple of times when I would email my advisor and also my VSAC financial advisor because I also had to do a FAFSA. I remember it took about three days, three consecutive days where he had to do phone calls to explain how to do it. And I just remember how I always felt supported. And my guidance counselor, she's always really nice and really warming and really calm. So even when I would email her like three times and they're all like, Hi, so I don't know what to do with this form because it has to come on and I don't talk to him as much and he doesn't give me that information. She's like, Okay, so this is what we can do to get around that. And the same thing on my financial advisor, she was really good with thoroughly explaining everything because I wanted to understand what it was I was filling out so that if anything like financially happened, I could keep track of it and be responsible for myself as well. And I just remember how, you know, she didn't give me a hard time when I would ask questions and she'd always be really nice and if I needed something explained a little bit more in depth because sometimes finances can be like that. She was always really accommodating and the professors are really nice. Everyone's been really accommodating with my unique situation of not having internet but having internet because I have a hotspot. I've had a few times where I've dropped out of the zoom class on accident and haven't been able to get back in and just like a quick email and be like hey so sometimes I may actually drop off the face of the zoom and return five minutes later if I can get it working and it's nice only having to explain that once or twice and then not you know, getting in trouble or getting penalized and just having people be supportive and understanding that some of us aren't exactly in the most ideal situations for online learning but we are still making the best out of it and doing good classes. Great. Thank you all so much for being with us today. This was incredibly informative and interesting. You're all doing great work. We're all proud of you. That's for sure. And here to support you in any way we can as you move forward and I hope you'll keep in contact with us with either, you know, directly with the committee or with your elected senators and representatives. It's important to hear directly from the field and you've provided us with a really great look into CCB in your own lives, which, which is means a lot to us so thank you all very much. Thank you all for this time and again I just want to thank the students for taking the time to share your stories they are, they are powerful and so inspiring to all of us so thank you. Thank you Senators for allowing us to do this it was fun. It was a great way to end the week. Absolutely. This was a dream come true for me I'm really into government so I was. This was really I mean I'm like star structure really excited. So thank you guys so much for having me. Thank you so much. Thanks everyone. Bye bye. To me let's take a 10 minute break and we'll come back and Jim is going to take us through yesterday's work on a draft literacy bill and updated draft based on yesterday's testimony. Great so see you.