 Thank you. Ben Davis, Superintendent from Orleans Central Supervised Reunion, thank you for joining us. And can you give us an update on your community and progress? Sure. So, you know, I had some things all prepared and I don't want to repeat what other people have said. So I'm going to try to shift a little bit. But as a reminder, Orleans Central is in the Northeast Kingdom. We have six K through 8 schools, high school and union preschool of about 1100 students. So we started our planning back in the beginning of June, and we surveyed staff, we surveyed parents. We asked staff what their needs were, what their needs were around professional development, around planning, and what they needed to feel comfortable returning to in-person teaching. And we asked parents if they could give us an early idea of whether or not they preferred in-person or remote learning, what conditions they wanted met for their children to return in-person. And we asked if they were planning to access busing. So we got those survey results, we analyzed those. We had some days with staff at the end of the school year to start some initial planning. We put some protocols in place. And even though we didn't have the health and safety guidance before staff left for the summer, we had some ideas of what would be included. And we asked staff to start problem solving on ways that we could address some of that. We had some decisions to make early on, and as soon as the health and safety guidance came out, we were able to make those decisions. So that was really important. One of them was how we were going to handle busing. So when we found out that busing could start in step three, so basically all the kids could ride the bus, we didn't have to worry about spacing. And that kids would need health checks on the bus. That was good information. And then we had to decide how those health checks would take place. If we had to hire bus monitors, this took hours and hours and hours of conversation, hiring a bus monitor if we could even find bus monitors, how much longer would each route take? And our bus company was estimating at least twice as long. So while that has a significant impact, what are you going to do with a little five-year-old who doesn't pass the health check on the bus and the parents have already left, and they're home with a 10-year-old sibling? And what happens if a bus monitor doesn't show up one morning and does that bus not run that day? So ultimately, we decided and we worked regionally with this decision to have parents do the daily health checks, fill out a ticket that they present to the bus driver. And once we had that figured out, now we could start to think about school. And so the other piece of it was, was there room in our schools to bring all the kids back? And so we went to work measuring all the spaces in our schools and we quickly determined that at the pre-K through 8 level, we definitely had room to bring all the students back five days a week for in-person instruction. So that was really good news. The high school determined they did not have anywhere near the space to bring all the kids back. So our reopening plan is that we are offering five day a week instruction for all pre-K through 8th graders. Our high school is operating a hybrid model. They'll have 50% of the kids in two days a week, 50% of them in another two days a week, and all the kids remote one day to allow for a full deep cleaning. At the same time, we put out another survey to parents and asked them to really make a commitment. We did decide we would offer a full remote option for those people who were not comfortable sending their kids to in-person instruction. And we had hoped that we would mitigate the exodus to home study and maybe be able to keep some of those kids. And we also thought it would be a nice option to be able to offer our staff who had real concerns about returning to in-person teaching if we could offer them a remote teaching option. The results of that survey were that 77% of families want in-person instruction, about 15% want remote option, and then we did lose, I think it's another 8% to home study. So that's where we're at now. We put out an application to teachers to be a remote teacher. We only had a handful of teachers apply for that. So we're currently figuring out what that online instruction will look like. Our K-8 schools are not that large for returning in-person anywhere from 50% in our 50 students in our smallest school to about 140 in our largest K-8 school. And we have about 100 students K-8 offering remote. So we are trying in the process of organizing that remote school. A couple of my principals have volunteered to be principals of the remote school while at the same time managing their in-person school. They'll work with their remote staff to figure out the schedule and all the protocols around the remote teaching. One early challenge I had was my K-8 principals don't have year-round contracts. So they're not paid to work in the summer. I asked the board for permission to pay them. There was a lot of reluctance to do that. It was ultimately I got permission to pay them for 10 days, but it was not unanimous. So that's been a real struggle not having access to administrators during this time. It's been hard for parents. They've been calling the school. There's nobody there. There's nobody working there because they're not contracted to work in the summer. So that's been a challenge. I know that they're putting in hundreds of hours and not getting paid. And that doesn't feel great to me. We have we've done informational virtual informational meetings to staff. We're trying to keep the communication going. I'm sending out emails doing school messenger calls, not making assumptions that staff are necessarily checking their work email in the summer. So try to put out an all call to let them know if something important is coming their way. We're working closely with our association. The association president has been involved in all of the planning meetings. We are working through things. She's bringing concerns to our planning group and we're trying to be respectful of all the different anxiety levels that are out there and trying to come up with things to mitigate that as best we can. Much as Lynn Kota mentioned, our regional superintendent's group meets regularly for a while. We were meeting three times a week. We're now meeting once a week, but we're certainly in contact pretty much daily. I think nobody's mentioned that Secretary French has done weekly calls with superintendents. That's been really important for the lines of keeping the lines of communication open. It gives us all a chance to ask questions and all kind of hear the answers to those questions all at once. We've been meeting with different groups of teachers. So in our small schools, we have a number of shared employees and there's definitely high anxiety around them about being in different schools. We have our teachers who are in four different schools during a week. So what do we need to do? What kind of scheduling changes can we make? This is our chance to reimagine education. What does that look like? How do we keep our employees safe so that they aren't being exposed to all those schools? And at the same time, to think about what kinds of scheduling can we do? How will it be delivered? And if we have to shift to all remote, the teacher who has 500 kids in four different schools, when they're trying to keep up with those kids in an all remote setting, it's unmanageable. It's unreasonable. We can't ask that. So we're trying to pay attention to that. We've met with those teachers. We've included them in having a say in that. I'm trying to look at my other big things. A concern is the money that was set aside for HVAC grants and working with Efficiency Vermont. We're on that. We've applied, but nothing. No work has been able to be started because the grant documents have not been released yet to Efficiency Vermont. So there's a hold up there. So the question of trying to get that work done even before September 8th is concerning. So we're going to want to hear from you on that. Certainly a concern about the ADM and how can we hold harmless, even though we have offered our full remote option, hoping that would help some families with that. We have 61 students who have opted for home study. So that's going to be a huge hit to our small schools. Another immediate question that I need a challenge I need to come up with a solution to is, our students were scheduled to start on August 24, meaning they were going to be in school 10 days before Labor Day. So if we get a waiver for five of the required student days down to 170 days, that still leaves us with five days that we're going to have to figure out if we're shifting our whole calendar. If we're going to try to bargain with employees to add five days and pay them, obviously they're per diem for those five days. And I know that if it's for planning purposes, we could use ESSER money. And I think I saw a question could ESSER money be used to pay administrators and yes, we have just gotten that that guidance about allowable uses and we could pay them for that time as well. So the calendar issue is a little bit stickier for us just because we had those 10 student days before September 8. So I need to think through that and, and, and people need to know right now, like, what does that look like what what is the final decision. I'm kind of waiting for the final governor's written directive to come out to see what's in there. And then we'll, we'll work on it that way. I think, you know, the health and safety things. Like I said, we figured out that we can do the six feet distancing and have room for all our kids to come back and now that all our kids aren't coming back in person. We have even more room. Our association expressed a lot of concern with the idea of going down to a three foot distancing. So we will, since we can do the six feet, that's what we'll plan to go through, you know, go forward with that, even if the guidance gets updated. You know, there's no reason not to continue with the six feet as long as we have the capacity to do so. We have the staffing concerns. I, you know, I've heard multiple people mentioned staffing concerns will we actually have enough staff to reopen. We, because we're offering five day a week in person and regionally are our bordering supervisory unions, I think are doing that I'm unclear about Orleans Southwest but we do have staff who come from places that are not doing five day a week. So that, that's a concern. You know, the idea of floating around of, you know, is, is there's room in the school to have a daycare option, maybe for those staff or whatever. And we don't have any room, extra room in any of our schools we are just maxed out especially if we have to think about physical distancing and using our spaces differently. So, you know, that that staffing is, is going to be a concern we have not gotten requests yet, but as reopening plans start to emerge I think we, we might get so we're anticipating getting some of those. Another concern we have of course is finances and what might get clawed back to help address the Ed fund deficit. How will that impact us. Lots of concern about FY 22 finances for sure. We're, we're just looking at leveraging the grant funds we have available to the best of our ability to try to mitigate all of those things without impacting student learning. So I know we've had teachers reach out with great ideas. I know our educators, I know they'll step up, I know, I know they'll work with us to make this happen. That being said, high levels of anxiety around health and safety and we just need to make sure we're following those guidelines. The other, the other context in the Northeast Kingdom is really low numbers. You know, all of my schools are in Orleans County. We've been at 14 cases for months now. So probably no active cases. And our community, many people in our community have a kind of a different view of this whole thing. And I guess we'll see once kids come back, we're keeping a close eye on, on summer camps that are up and running and active and summer school we don't have summer school classes in our SU. We never have other than extended year services for special ed kids, but we're, you know, we're keeping a close eye on that in contact with that. We're not seeing anything yet. I'm out of that, but, but we know that things can change and our educators have, we are setting them up in case we have to go full remote. Everybody has a Google classroom. We have early release days monthly where grade level teams meet we've done that for years and years. They're used to doing that it's being done virtually you know it was done virtually all spring will continue that so they can collaborate. No, I, it's just the, the thousands of details and every single time you make a decision it impacts so many other things. I mean, we are, I want to make sure we have time for the other two superintendents and I think there were we're also hearing that all of you have issues around staffing, all of you have issues around childcare issues for staff. You have HR concerns, and all of you have the complexity of different models of instruction, but I want to make sure that we have time for the other two and maybe a little bit of time for questions. So I would like to move on to to Libby bone steel superintendent of Montpelier Roxbury. Yep, I'm Libby bone steel superintendent of Montpelier Roxbury. I'll, I can go quickly through our plan. I know that's what I was asked to bring here but it's very similar to Bev's which is amazing because but I don't know each other very well. But we are also opening five days a week. K through eight. We're doing a pod model so we're putting two adults in every classroom k eight that stay with that classroom so we're using all available staff staff in order to do that. Because the teachers will not move out of those pods and the kids won't move out of those pods so we're we're trying to mitigate risk as much as possible in our, in our k eight buildings that way it's a it's a model that was used successfully in Europe. And so we're really relying on that model heavily. We also have a shortened day in k eight our students will be picked up at one o'clock, simply because I don't think it's ethical to have kids and teachers working hard and masks all day long. We have a shortened day every day for our k eight. We also have a k eight virtual Academy option for parents right now we have the survey out for parents we have 17% and it's holding pretty steady at 17% of our parents who want that option. So we're expecting about 150 students taking the virtual option across our k 12 district, probably about 40 of those will be high school and we'll also be working with Vermont virtual learning collaborative to offer that to our high schoolers over our k eight. We might be using the Vermont virtual collaborative for seven and eight as well but we're creating a virtual Academy Mike Barry my director of curriculum and technology is the named principle of that. We're more than welcome to visit our website we have a lot of information on our virtual Academy up on our website. Currently, we will be once we have our numbers and our grade bands and the number of I piece and all of and 504 is in needs and things like that then we'll be looking at what staffing we need from form from our other staff in order to staff that. And then our 912 school, the schedule hasn't been published yet it's published tomorrow but it will be a hybrid schedule we also walk through every single space in our, in our district and our, our elementary schools in our middle school can house all kids with six feet apart I mean we literally built the rooms with desks to make sure our middle school we have to change some of those spaces around a little bit but for the most part we can fit kids. In our high school we can only fit 13 kids in a class all the class are pretty uniformly shaped. And so we can only fit 13 kids and most of our classes have between 20 and 25 kids in it. So what the high school is doing is they they're creating a four quarter system so we're splitting our year into four quarters, each kid will take two classes per quarter. And the teachers will break that class into two cohorts so there'll be an am cohort and p m cohort kids will be attending in person four days a week for either the am or p m session. And then on Wednesday there will be a virtual learning session for the entire class with the teacher so to bring the entire class together. So, doing it this way we don't have we don't have to limit courses auction to our students they can still take their full eight course load. And it also actually opens up the schedule for a whole lot more enrichment opportunities and intervention opportunities for kids also opportunities for a full class for SAT prep. It offers AP opportunities for kids to do that longer throughout the year. It enables us to do some pre teaching and some cross disciplinary teaching. So we're actually pretty excited about our high school model we hope our community is as well goes out tomorrow so cross your fingers for me. I can imagine I'm beyond email most of the weekend again. So that's that's the Jimmy that's the basics of our plan that I'm happy to answer any questions about. We've been working really closely as an administrative team I don't know how Bev's doing it without her administrative team I can't imagine. I guess who you turn from earlier from mainstream middle schools my new best friend. So we are together quite a bit with our union leadership. We're together quite a bit with our nurses, and basically we have the rule now in our district that if your eyebrows start to be raised because you're concerned then let's talk about it. Let's talk about it and let's get it on the table and let's try to problem solve together. So far that's worked. However, I'm not going to deny that there are several challenges that we are still attempting to overcome. I'll just give you a little hint because we haven't really talked about the now longer in service time that we have which I'm very thankful for. We're going to be doing virtual teaching and learning opportunities in service training for all of our teachers, not just our virtual Academy teachers. We already have two days of parent conferences planned in order to get a sense of how that closure period was for students that was already well in our plans. We have to do tons of training on structure. I'm going to book a consultant named Jennifer Abrams hopefully to do a session on how to have hard conversations, because we're going to have to have them, and we simply can have anybody running to a principal and put in where they're masked for five minutes and I felt uncomfortable. We have to be able to say that to each other. So I'm going to book some time to to talk about how do we have those hard conversations with each other as a staff. I'm also going to be booking a woman named Tina Bogren to make my staff feel good. She does a lot of self care when things so we need to, we need to really get them in a good position to come in knowing they can do this. We'll have tons of collective planning blocks are special educators will need to meet with every single student who has an IP in order to rewrite that IP and service page. So they will have time to do that. We'll have to figure out how to do the health checks and all that kind of thing so we have a laundry list of things and so that time I just want legislators to understand will be put to very good use. And we're already thinking about what that's going to be like. The communication plan is I communicate every Thursday if you're interested in any of those communications you can find it on our website, and then the principles follow up with a more specific buildings, building based communication on Monday from what I've said on Thursday. We also take themes from all the questions that we get from my Thursday letters to the faculty or to the community, and make FAQ documents off of it that can go out on Monday to try to get some of those questions answered. We just started this week weekly town halls with our staff to make sure that they can ask any questions they want. And they also shoot me emails all the time so we were communicating that way. Next week we're starting town halls with our community. We work a broadcast show with a local resident answering questions that he took from the community and our board meetings every other week of course have a major update so we have a pretty strong robust communication plan and also all our social media sites that you can find it at MRPS VT. I would rather spend most time on my time on just the challenges that we're facing right now and representative web you really you summarize them nicely before I started talking, and you're really hitting the nail right on the head. Nothing is a considerable concern right now. Yes, we have a childcare dilemma because we all opened with very different plans. Recognizing the Champlain Valley all went together that still doesn't eliminate the childcare needs right it's it's a reality that we all are facing right now. I think it could have been avoided. However, it's where we are now so as superintendents. It's now our job to solve the entire state's childcare need. That is a large lift and it's not anything we point we've signed up for, and it's been our responsibility since March. So that is a major concern from the superintendent's group. We're trying to do creative solutions in Montpelier Roxbury we've talked about it collectively for about four hours this week already. I have a staff survey out to find out exactly who is having trouble with childcare. We have about 40% back who who say they have a major childcare issue coming up. And if you think about my district in Montpelier and Roxbury our staff commutes from an hour circle around us. So that encompasses 20 to 25 different districts with 20 to 25 different plans. So I'm, I will make a unique bargain with each and every one of those superintendents if I have to. However, that is, that's a big ask. I'm just gonna put that out there. We also did a survey around high risk with staff 50% of my staff falls within the category of being high risk, a higher risk for COVID-19, or who lives with somebody who is at a higher risk for COVID-19. So how do we handle that, not all of them want to work remotely. That's a given. However, I feel I have an ethical responsibility to protect my staff members. And I also have an ethical opportunity responsibility to teach children. And so those two things are in significant conflict with each other right now. And I guess I have a survey out to my families around who's taking that in person versus virtual and said only 17% want the virtual option. I have more staff members and not licensed in the correct fashion to address that need. So, I'm not I haven't solved that problem yet, but we will we are working very hard on figuring that part out. So, we are working very hard on finding that anxiety. We are just in general around this whole piece that other people have spoken to before. And as I said today and I'm my meeting with union leaders and nurses and administrators. Let's figure out how what we can do now to start trying to alleviate that anxiety and really the room was silent. We don't know what we can do besides communicating more and giving opportunities for people to talk to us about it. The other big concern is the, the these questions around what happens when somebody gets sick. Again, we talked about it this morning, the symptoms for COVID-19 are symptoms that children have all the time. And so, like, are we to assume that every time a kid has diarrhea that they now have COVID-19 because that's the biggest symptom of COVID-19 and children right now. I'm out of here and have a 12 and a nine year old that happens often. So I'm just, I read that's a really tricky wicket and so we have one isolation room our nurses today we're reporting on an average typical year. They could have five to 10 children at any one time with a fever or one of those symptoms of COVID-19. So, do we get five to 10 isolation rooms do we put them outside. That's not going to work in January. So I, we really have a struggle there with like the I understand the safety guidance but when it's put in reality in a school building. It's just not realistic. And so we have a major challenge the other piece that we're talking about is when one of us and it doesn't have to be me, it could be Lynn who is so far away from me, has a confirmed case in their school where by a child or an adult. I understand what the pediatricians are saying around, you know, you might go, you might go remote for a little while and clean the space for 24 hours and then everybody can come back in that's not the reality. We do not work in a hospital setting, we're not a pediatrician setting. We don't have doctors, we weren't trained for this kind of thing. If there's one case in a school the reality is that there's going to be considerable pressure and when I say pressure I mean you know, and I mean nastiness coming at us saying you need to close your schools immediately for the for the future that that's just the reality of things. Because we don't work in doctors offices and the pediatricians that are talking to our to our staff right now are talking in the position that they, they would take in a doctor's office. And that's not us. This is a considerable problem, and it's our reality. If there is a confirmed case in schools I understand what the sciences and I understand what the doctors are saying and so to all my teachers. The reality is that we will most likely have to go virtual completely again. And it doesn't matter where it happens in the state and I think Randy's experience with the, with the blow up in Manchester that wasn't actually a blow up is a good case in point. So that's, that's a piece that I think we all need to be thinking about. The guidance whether or not it's shifting or coming when I need it or whatever it's, that is what it is. And I think most of us are pretty, pretty there. I mean we're just dealing with it as it's coming. I do need special education guidance and I do recognize how technical that is, but that is a major concern for a lot of my educators and a lot of my parents that I can't answer yet. And I under, I get Secretary French that it's a tough technical thing that you that's not easy to write in any way shape or form and we understand that. I don't need some work on pre K. I'm not sure what that's supposed to look like yet. We also have staffing dilemmas in that area because pre K teachers are not easy to find. And so I have a pre K teacher who is saying I'm not coming to work. And so now I have a pre K that I need to find a teacher for and I probably won't be able to so am I allowed to cancel pre K. So we'll we'll see about that. I also have other staffing concerns it at RBS in particular it's my smallest school it has 35 kids in it we need a one to teacher we have no nurse there. I can't hire a nurse we've had it on the books to for in school spring for at least five months now can hire one. We have more than half our staff on the at the high risk category at RBS, which is a major concern so I'm not positive about what we do with that yet I haven't solved that problem yet. Because I want to make sure we have time for a program as well. Can you tell me when you think you will have an understanding as to what your staffing issues are. Um, I think I have a pretty good understanding now. We haven't we haven't figured out how with our union, how we're going to staff the virtual Academy yet and I think once those decisions are made which they should be made by hopefully the end of next week if not midway through the week after that. Once people know what our reality is with what we need for the virtual Academy and what the reality is of what we need for in person. I fully expect resignations to come at me. And this is something that as a statewide issue. I don't know what I'm hearing. I believe so I don't want to speak for my other superintendent colleagues but I believe it is. Yeah, we're hearing it in statewide. So did you have just one more thing because I just my last, my, my last two quick things is outdoor education I'm getting a lot of pressure for outdoor education people think you can just put up farmers tents farmers markets and get them outside but there's a liability issue there and a considerable cost and I'm a pretty much a city school district so I don't have space for that and that understanding is hard. And the last thing I want to say is that my colleagues of superintendents around the state are the smartest most dedicated people I know, and I've never seen a more beat up the group of people. We are tough and we can take a whole lot of things but we're taking things left and right and it's really hard right now. So that's it. Well that sounds easy. Well thank you very much. Libby I always enjoy hearing from you and if you can stay. And if we have time I do want to get Barbara and as well, who has stayed here since to as of you. So Barbara and if you are available. Yes. Madam chair and members of the House Education Committee. My name is Barbara and Commons mantra. I am superintendent of Wyndham Southwest supervisor union. It is in Southern Vermont, and it is pretty much between Bennington and Brattleboro. I have five schools, and about 600 students. I'm also president of the Southeast regional superintendents Association, and it is a privilege to be speaking in front of you. I realize that you are at the end of your timing. I know that a lot has already been said representative web is there a timeframe I want to really honor that you want the time for questions and you're pretty much. About 12 minutes. We'll see what we can do and I might if people are willing to stay on a little bit longer I think I would like to do that and extend us to 515 for those of us that can can can stay. Very good. So in response to coven we created a Wyndham Southwest coven task force, and our task force team is made up of principles and central office administrators. And we have been meeting sometimes daily, then sometimes weekly depending on what is coming up for us working long and hard. And one of the first things that we did was we studied the safe and health guidance for reopening schools that came out from the AOE and Department of Health. And from that we created a version of that in very user friendly language, and it is our self and healthy schools reopening of schools plan. We have some guiding principles that guide this work, including that document, the safety and health of all students and staff is a priority. And social emotional learning and health of students and staff is also critical in person education is preferred mode. While we need to be prepared for distance learning and equity of access must be front and center. You've heard these but it is really important to just mention that it is during a crisis that equity issues do get highlighted and we are quite aware of those. That document was widespread it was shared and we believe strongly in collaboration and communication. And so part of that plan has included our sharing that with our staff and teachers getting a full day of input. Sharing it with our boards. I have a super board which includes all of our board members sharing it with all of them, getting input, then making adjustments and then putting it out to the community. When we put it out to the community, we put out a survey so they could give us input at that stage. That has been a very vital piece to keep the communication lines open so people feel a part of this process. And that is been going well. We are at the stage where we are having a, it's every day this week we have a community meeting at each of our schools, and we're having people show up where they could talk with myself and the principles and ask their questions that has been well received as well. What we're working on right now is our reopening of schools part two, and that is either you call it the learning dispositions or models for schooling. And we identified that the survey information that we received from parents that included that 59% of the people do plan to send their children back but that is about 41% do not. And then we got about 70% there interested in knowing more about remote learning option that spoke to us very strongly that is an interest. So that along with three other key premises that we need to prepare and train to transition to remote learning at the turn of the time we just need that flexibility and agility. We also again believe strongly students need to be in school, and we use the guidance documents to lead everything that we're doing. With that we identified that we're going to have two options for families. They are in a proposal mode they are going in front of the super word actually tonight for them to discuss it further, the two options that we're proposing one is a four day in person with one day remote. The four day in person, pretty much as a Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday, it is for K through 12. We did prioritize pre K five based on the guidance and information that we did receive from the AoE as well as from other research and pediatricians. We also believe that if we could fit the children, which is the case, we can fit the children in all our schools, and because our numbers are small. We also believe that we need to follow all those guidelines and still open the choice to have it be four days versus five is the value of having one day for teachers to provide remote learning skills, and to have them practice, build their competency in it, have the children practice it. And also, we want the time to give students with special lies needs time in the building where no one else is there. We're proposing that Wednesday, not be in person. We understand that that could be a hardship for some families, we've been collaborating with our 21 C program called wings to come up with a proposal that Wednesdays would you would have some level of childcare for those families who definitely need that. Additionally, based on that survey that I mentioned earlier with 70% interested in knowing more about remote learning option. We also are proposing a fully remote learning option, which would be a completely separate track. Then this other hybrid for one model. And this is where parents can choose this. And we're looking closely at collaborating with Vermont virtual learning collaborative to do that work with them. We still need a lot more planning time to figure all that out. One of the pieces that comes up is this, which comes first the chicken or the egg and you have to figure out, who do we have to staff, how many children need that. And that work is going to hopefully come to us that information will come to us through some more surveys that we'll be sending out. There are a few items that I'm going to reiterate that you've already summarized I've heard from other superintendents here as well as chair web you summarized it very well. These are some of the concerns and things that we'd like to bring in front of you, coming from the Southeast regional superintendents. One of them is around the expenses, they're, they're high. We have a lot of small schools, and a lot of our small schools only have part time nurses part time custodians, but that's not feasible with all these needs. So we need full time nursing and full time custodians that cost money. We also are having also similar challenges and finding nursing staff. There's also concerns that everybody shares around fiscal year 22, and about what how much money would be clawed back. Can we really spend money that we're being told we can spend through these grants, or do we really need to try not to. So that that's a worry. I'm repeating what other people have said but it's important for you to hear is the waving of some days from 175 to 170 that's waving the student days. That's really helpful. And for you to consider holding no harm to the ADM. That's the annual daily membership protecting that we do have people interested in homeschooling and that losing the people whether it's to homeschooling or something else will impact us. If you consider that childcare you've heard a lot of those issues, the issues for parents and for teachers. Lots of questions about labor workforce staffing, you've heard a lot of that as well. Testing the question about either some way that we could ensure there is a system for testing it's coming up by the community and staff. Lastly, the one I want to mention is one that I know Libby mentioned but I want to emphasize the decision making process for when we need to close. That is an extremely challenging process. It will be filled with anxiety and fear and pressure from the community. There will be more guidance around how to do that to support superintendents around making those decisions. And to not underestimate that the pressure of the community will start prevailing, and that will start leading to schools closing, even when there's rumors, even when it's just about someone they know, versus even someone that they've had close contact with. And health guidance is clear, not everybody follows that when they're in anxiety, and in some level of trauma. So please keep that in mind. Thank you. Thank you so much I have a couple of one quick one first to Dan French, just around the CRF funds and HVAC. Do we have just if you could just give us a quick update, are those funds coming out yet. Hopefully next week it's a little more elaborate process due to, you know, the involvement of the oversight of the CRF funds and the bureaucracy so it's taking a little longer. I hope that it should be out next week. Which bureaucracy. We have our own the finance office and then joint fiscal committees interest and making sure the funds are used appropriately. You know these are fairly restrictive so we're making sure everything's done properly of course. We're also actually submitting questionnaires on each program aspect to ensure compliance we just received approval for the food service program elements and I think we're very close to having the larger pot of money approved for the general reimbursement for school so it's just taken a little longer internally than I thought it would. Okay, thank you. I'm going to hold this open in another 15 minutes. For those that can stay. It's very clear that we have some real anxiety and the anxiety is it's based in some real concerns. And I think the best we can do in the legislature and the administration in the field is to work to identify those issues that are driving that anxiety and see if we can systematically address address the ones that we can. Remembering that at all times the virus rules. And they're not they're not an easy dance partner as we go through this. Larry Coopley. Thank you madam chair, I think, Libby you had brought up a pretty frightening aspect of perhaps teachers who do not want to come back to the classroom and Don is not with us but Jeff I think you're here with us I hope Jeff Fannin. You still on. But my you know my concern is, you know, either because of age or yeah I'm still here. I'm still here. Some of the teachers because of age or health compromise conditions may not want to be in the classrooms. And my concern is do they take a leave of absence. How do you handle their compensation. Should that occur. This is a conversation that every superintendent is having with their school board and legal currently. Because how do you, how do you deal with that. If I if I offer, but this is if because we haven't figured out if I offer a years leave without pay or with pay it doesn't matter if I offer years pay. I have to replace that teacher. It's not like I have an abundance of teachers who are just waiting to work. So I have to replace that teacher. I don't. It's hard to hire a teacher right now. I don't know if I could do it. I had to have a much easier chance of doing it than Linwood or that would, but it really like that is amazing so we don't know what to do with that. Jeff, can you help a little bit. This is a major issue. We've been aware about aware of it for some time and trying to get a handle on it sort of a chicken the egg. The problem is, we didn't have plans. So people didn't know whether they're coming back or not. Jeff, could you just say who you are in your role. I'm sorry. Yes, I'm sorry, Jeff Fannon, Vermont in the A. The trouble that the concern has long been known, I would say the challenge has been that plans are just recently out. And then I think I don't know who it was. I'm not I don't have a visual right now. That's why I said, you know, once the plans come out, then, then she would be getting possible resignations or other people assessing. And so it's sort of the chicken the egg. They weren't able to superintendents weren't able to know who was coming back to develop plans. People weren't able to determine whether they were willing to come back until they knew what the plans were right if they were going to go remote. It looks different than in person. Everybody's situation is different. And everybody's covered or not under the ADA. So it's what we, you know, that was why a couple, you know, a month or so ago, we've been calling for a statewide commission to address these and other issues. We're working on it at a state level now. But that is truly why we thought this was a state issue a month or month and a half ago. We're, we're working on it, but I don't have an answer for you represent Coopley entirely. It's work in progress. I will say that we know it's time is of the essence. So if teacher does not come back Jeff, if they decide on, you know, they just don't want to come back to the classroom for obvious reasons. Do they still are they still compensated by their supervisory union or their local district. You know, each situation is different. I think the answer is generally no. If you're not working, you're not getting paid. Now, there may be some benefits that I'm not aware of. You know, there might be a contract that says, if you, you know, you take some of your sick leave with you or something like that, but those are just benefits that they typically would get. There's nothing special that I'm aware of. If you're not working, you're not getting paid. That's pretty typical and normal. A lot of people are close to retirement and might take a retirement that might go the retirement route and just take a lesser amount because they're going to work maybe two more years or something like that. And so the heck with it, I'm going to retire now and I'll just take a lower annuity kind of thing. Thank you. So those are the, I mean, those are the people, the questions people are grappling with right now with their spouses with their family members and, and, you know, amongst themselves and with their superintendents, frankly, they've all been trying to work together. I know to figure out who's going to stay, who's going to be there, and who just says I can't because physically I cannot do it. I shouldn't do it. Or my spouse is at risk and I shouldn't do it for that reason. Or, you know, any number of reasons why it's a health crisis. It's not an academic crisis, not an education crisis. And, unfortunately, still spilling over into the education realm. Thank you, Jeff. I think Peter Conlon. Thanks, Madam Chair. Just a quick comment on the question and the comment is in reaction to Libby bone seals. Comment about superintendents being a fairly beat up bunch right now. It's not surprising your task with coming up with the right answers for a number of constituencies, children, teachers, staff, parents, the community in an era where there really no one really knows what the right answer is. And in an era where you're working on your diets and not mandates to fall back on. And I'll say that despite all of that, the level of new cooperation and collaboration that's going on across the state is impressive and the work that has resulted from that is incredibly impressive. So I just want to want to put that out there that given the fact that you know, keep saying you're building the plane in flight. It's amazing. The question is really for any of the three superintendents we've had this afternoon all three of you are going with a much more in person model for K eight students, starting fall. And this goes to the question of what if somebody gets sick, because you're using that model. How nimble will you be in terms of pivoting to fully remote. Take that one by ran or if you want to jump into the. We fully expect to be able to pivot rather quickly. So if we have to go fully remote we will the beauty of having the virtual Academy up and running from the get go and having that principle who really knows what he's doing like various excellence at what he does and knows the realm of technology really well is that now we'll have a cadre of teachers of professionals who will have worked out lots of kinks. We also have a really strong professional learning community in our district, and I know others do as well. So those virtual teachers will still be meeting I'll be at virtually with their in person colleagues through a professional learning community. So they'll still be lockstep with what's happening there. And so we, we fully expect that they turn around to go virtual when we have to do it it's more of a when not an if will be relatively easy. Compared to last spring it will be a different experience than last spring. Representative coop Lee is your hand still up. If you are if you have something. No, you're good. I just put my hand down. Okay, thank you. I just want so much to thank folks coming in today in whatever that means coming to this meeting today to help inform the House Education Committee on where you are in terms of the guidance from the agency connection to the field, and how the field is in that guidance, as well as a complex array of learning models. It's very clear that there are some unanswered questions at this time. I hear some that are coming toward us that I'm pretty sure we can address if not in August in January. I'm hearing questions about the number of days at the ADM count, the calendar I think I might have heard something about licensing I'm not sure. There's also a question I'm hearing in relation to perhaps some of the things that the agency can do in terms of purchasing of materials on a broader scale and making those available. And this is not a conversation that's over. I am so appreciative of you all for what you're doing. And I really think that representative conlon stated it well that even though we hear about the upset and the worry and the concern we that's there we're also seeing that there are people that are very actively working to address those conditions so I think it's important that we have access to both both the challenges as well as the work that is being done. We will be meeting again in August. There will be some CRF funds that we will be looking at as to how those will be used. I am appreciative of the issues that you brought forward to us today, and I'm also very aware of your concerns about clawback. And I guess with that, I just want to thank everyone. And thank you, Secretary French for for coming in, and, and as well as Lynn Kota and Randy Lowe, Bev Davis, Liberty bone steel and Barbara and comments mantra our attendance and our teachers who are able to stay Chris girls and Andrea Griffin. You're my heroes, because no matter what we do you're carrying it out, even if you have no instruction you're going to figure it out. You're my heroes. And I guess with that, we can end.