 John Carroll, State Board of Education. Thank you for having me, sir. First, I want to commend the Chair for shuttle diplomacy that got us to a middle ground solution that I think is incredible. I want to just talk about this word, implement, that the Secretary has introduced to this discussion. He spoke about it in his testimony and he basically said and the State Board should have implementation authority over within each of the rule series that it retains and the Secretary has agreed that the Board will retain special education rules, educational quality standard rules, as well as independent school rules. I can't imagine that the Secretary seriously intends that we should have implementation authority over education quality rules or special ed rules. But if so, we'd be happy to take all the necessary staff from the agency to do that. So I think that word is leaves us, however, though, with another of the Secretary's general principles, which is that confusion and efficiency inherent in the split responsibility that occurs in the existence of current law. And I would posit to you that the present arrangement where the State Board approves independent schools is a vestige from the long ago days before Act 6098, 2012. Back when the day when the Board was in charge of the Department, they hired the Secretary, the Commissioner, if they didn't like how the Department was doing something, they could change it. That's not the world we live in. We have no authority over whether the agency does something well or not. And that's appropriate. I'm not trying to re-litigate that. But I'm just pointing out that the way independent school approvals work, and I didn't bring any with me, but we get them almost every month, is that the agency people go to the schools, hold up the rules and say, well, they're doing this, this, and this. When they verify, they oversee if there are problems, the agency gets notified. So the school applies for a renewal of its approval every two years, five years, whatever the interval is that comes to the agency. They receive it. They say, oh, we don't have all the documents you need. So-and-so support management of that. There are two people who are largely devoted to this in the agency. Then they go to the school, write up an analysis, present it to the secretary, the secretary studies it, maybe ask questions, and then gives us a summary of their findings and a recommendation. So we basically do what the secretary advises us to do since we don't have any information that we've gathered ourselves. So is it your request that we have that be determined to going forward, in other words, that the secretary, instead of taking the information from his staff that's been gathered, making a recommendation that he just make the decision? Yeah. The present situation we have now is a divided responsibility. I mean, it's his recommendation. Just hypothetically, what happens if a school goes belly up all of a sudden and 40 sets of parents are left holding the bag with tuition that was paid and their kids do not go to school? Who do they get angry at? Well, they ought to get angry under the present law. They ought to get angry at the board because you approved it, and we would turn around and say to the secretary, you told us to approve it, and what good is served by that? So I think that's why we originally proposed to remove the board's authority to approve rules, because frankly, we rely entirely upon the agency over whom we have no control. And I might say that the board has complained, as long as I've been on there with the previous secretary and the present secretary, about the quality of analysis that we see and on which we are to make our decision. But frankly, we have no ability to approve that. So let me restate this. Tell me upon. Yeah. So what you're proposing would not change the workload for the agency? They are. They actually might simplify, because they wouldn't have to ask us to approve it. Right. So with that understanding, Emily, what would the agency's position be on that suggestion? So first I would say that it's the state board's authority now and in our proposed future to set the bar at where it is appropriate to approve or not approve a school's application to be an approved independent school. And so the main concern that I have is that the agency would be making a decision based on where the state board has set that bar. Some would think it should be lower. Some would think it should be higher. And for each unsatisfied customer our decision creates, we have no ability to respond to their source of disagreement and entirely be the state board. And there's no feedback loop there. We would say, sorry, your application is denied. You can take proper appeal procedures, but we didn't write the rules, sorry. The second is that I'm abundantly clear that the state board has been dissatisfied with the documentation that the agency brings to each meeting that they approve independent schools. And our response would be that the state board should amend its rules so that we follow a different process and check a different set of criteria that we then bring to them because we just do a check against the rules that they have. And sometimes we're not satisfied with the result either but it's the result that the current rules require. So in summary, you oppose the suggestion for those reasons? Yes. The agencies. Okay. I, in my thinking about this and what I've been trying to do, it's to rediddy the rulemaking split to redo the charge to the state board. And then otherwise, make things mirror reality and then change that reality as little as possible other than those areas of rulemaking. All the way of saying. So when we talk about implementation at the beginning, I think that indicated that we should go along with the board, I'm sorry, with the Chair Carroll suggestion because we don't want to change the implementation split. So here my tendency is to, if the agency opposes this change to stay with the way things are currently done which is agency doing the visits, preparing recommendations, handing them to the board. I see your point logically. I think the agency has logic behind their position too but in order for this bill to move forward it has to try to work as much as possible in areas where there is agreement rather than not agreement. So I would be for leaving this situation as it is currently done. In other words, the board retains authority over rulemaking, the board sets the bar and then the board has ultimate approval. Agency follows the rules set by the board, implements, does the recommending work. Does that make sense even though it's not where you wanted to go? Well, I understand your logic and we'll do what you tell us to do. I don't mean to be flip. I understand. It's a logic set that's credible. It leaves behind a confusion about who's actually making this decision and all of that but I don't need to re-litigate that. I think your other suggestion to anticipate is that we move those rules from session law, not those rules, the rulemaking areas on page 14. Yeah, it's... Can I just ask a question? Have you, to your knowledge, the board ever not approved an independent school if the secretary has said that he... We have sent the agency back to get more information and we have also insisted that the school come and testify before us. We found it fairly frustrating that we don't have access to the agency staff themselves. The secretary won't bring them to meetings. We would like to inquire of them what they saw. But I should think that if this goes as you suggest, the secretary and I can talk about how we can make this work more successfully for them and for us. And I don't disagree with Ms. Simmons suggesting that the rules could be improved to clarify what the board is so preoccupied about. And in fairness, what comes up a lot is the board is very concerned about governance. You know, who's on that board and where they now? And second, financial management and oversight. And although the rules speak to that, they don't speak as forcefully as I think we come to understand those are very important. And so I think we can make this work better within the constraints of what you suggest. If I may to go to the question on page it's actually page 13 and 14 starting at line 14 on page 13. All of that is going to be in session law as it's now proposed and drafted. And yet the language in paragraph A at the bottom of page 13 is really important language. This sort of sets the ground rules about which basically says if it's not called out to be the board, it's the agencies. Well, burying that in session law seems to me just to be an invitation for years and years of equivalent. And is this stuff important? Yeah, you can see that it's important because three weeks are arguing about it. So it would just seem to me to make a lot of sense to have this language up in either chapter 3 which is what the board's authorities are or chapter 5 which Jim pointed out in this case where he would. Right. It would be important. Yeah, okay. We need to deal with section 1-2 because we're going to start on the rules. Yeah. But we're going to have the authority to deal with this as well and pursue the board's duties and powers. So Jim, do you mean then what's on 13 and 14? What's on together? 14. That rule set there. That set of responsibility for rules would be on page 3. Yeah. John. So the powers and duties would include rulemaking in those areas. And then what about on page 13, section 14? Or is that one whole section? That's one section. The A part would go either in the board or in the secretary's duties and authorities which is chapter 5. Well, I'll leave it to Jim where it fits best but so the idea would be that both that paragraph A on page 14 and the list would go in. I don't quite know how to work in A. Actually, it's just actually okay. So it could possibly go in connection with 212 on page 6 where you talk about secretary's duties generally and that's where you get into talking about rulemaking. The authority of the secretary. And it might fit there. Anyway. You definitely have to doubt it. I think that the language that the secretary proposed accomplishes this better. We would have had the language say adopt rules pursuant to the relevant provision as necessary for the implementation of powers given to the board under this section which is where its authorities are listed and then the other various sections that correspond to the existing rule series. Where is the language you're repeating later? On the document from our meeting but Jim changed that language into Dave's draft. Okay. So as I mentioned that cross-reference is another section of the law. Which is fine today. If you get final sentences of law and you cross-reference them for two years and you add more and more duties to powers for rulemaking in another section are to be remembered to put it back on our list. I'm just worried about it. So I'm found having this proposal here that makes sense to me to put that the list in there to this list. Cross-reference is a section of the statute here. I don't understand how Jim's idea is different than mine because you'll still have to update the list there any time a new area of authority is given to the state board. Except my concern of putting the name of a rule series is it ties their hands. What you're actually giving them is rulemaking authority where there is a jumping off point in the statute that you decided to put on the state boards rather than, I don't think you mean to give them rulemaking authority on a series of rules called special education but nothing else that might be related in the statutes. I would be listening to both series and powers if you listen. At any time the General Assembly determines that we should have some additional rulemaking authority. You can do that. I don't see that that's a complication. Okay, so it seems to me that's a matter for the lawyers to figure out. I don't agree to the language on page 3 as it stands today because that's identical to the Secretary's rulemaking prompt and I don't think it's consistent with our agreement. Which language are we on? Page 3 of the draft you're looking at today lines 7-3-5. 7-3-5? Oh, sorry, 1-3-5. 1-3-5, okay. So that's open-ended. We did incorporate your suggestions there. No. We lose their suggestions but I also had one cross-requisites of sections of law that currently give state-of-the-art rulemaking authority which are not in this section of their duties. So basically cross-requisites as much as statutes and as I say, I'm worried about doing that because you're... I was talking on the side of the OOF series here. I was talking on the side of the state-of-the-art authority over making rules for the content areas. There's a list of content areas for you. No map to your rules. So that's the first I recommend. So Emily, can you just... I don't have your language in front of me. I can pass to you 9-8. I just sent it over. So you want to add for the implementation of powers given to the board under this section and under sections, dot, dot, dot, dot. If it works better for you, Jen, maybe under... we can make it refer to topics rather than sections of law, but with that we need a language for the implementation of the authority given to it. Yeah, I'll talk to Thomas or Benner because we're at the top. So to make rules about special education and educational quality, do you understand? Okay, so I will put page 3. Also, there's an outstanding question. Am I assuming on pages 13 and 14, Emily? We bumped off of that one. What was the decision on paragraph A under section 14 on it? Which lawyer, yes. Well, I'm wondering, Jim seemed to think that was tough. This is why it's actually a lot. This is why it's not meant to be a statute. It doesn't need it. So the argument of that statute is basically saying that at one time deal you're reordering who's responsible for rules. And so at one time we're re-aligning it. So, John? Magnificent. Okay, so let's go with leaving paragraph A in section law and moving the piece on paragraph 14 into the statute. I'll look back to the conversation we had about approving infant schools because it's not just that. Emily? I'm not sure. So if we have the infant school that's still approved on board, does it also apply for secondary schools? Does it also apply to disadvantaged schools? There are other categories under the 2200 series that might show what you want to do. I guess if we're going to leave how we handle I hate this word implement how we handle independent school rules status quo then I think we ought to do that for the entire rule 2200 rather than try to rejigger out how we do this for now anyway. I'm certainly not prepared to parse that baby into you do this, you do that. Let's just leave the whole thing the way it is and then we can if we see a better solution in some other time we can talk about that. Another question, one more question. This is a detailed step question on board. So for infant schools for example there's a decision whether to approve the score or not as much as you will have. There's no language about very steps are taken in the process the information about schools or application fees is back to you and stuff like that exactly the agency and the state board. I think for now we ought to just leave the rule as it stands and come back and examine this. A really important piece is the review piece that you I don't know where that came up was it 173 or 149? It was in maybe the big bill It was an act 173. Anyway that review process we've activated that once already with respect to the campus school and Westminster and the result was really really positive. And you like retaining the board's power to do that. If the approval was the secretary's I would welcome the opportunity to keep doing that but anyway so that all stays unchanged because it's all in the end of the school rule which leaves that alone. For example you've been dealing with a lot of the what happens to transcripts with schools for our business. Right now this actually has the board doing lots of things about that process about determining what happens next for doing appeal to the court system or making sure that there's a good record protection plan. I think we changed that didn't we? No, sorry we changed this by question. Is it an school approval or is the secretary's school an approval or an analysis approval which if we go by that philosophy we can be doing that still. But this philosophy that every rule that the board has authority over it must have implementation authority is frankly we're starting to try to figure it out. So instead of dealing with the philosophy is there agreement on the way the draft is now who has that responsibility? Right now it's come back to the state board has responsibility under the philosophy that we had a couple of days ago and it's here now. Existing statute with regard to independent schools and anything else covered by rule 2200 would remain unchanged. So that post-secondary transcript issue is a special case truly because the agency and the state board actually agreed last year in the context of last year's miscellaneous education bill to change that responsibility to the secretary and it didn't pass. So throughout this year I think the state board has approved four agreements for closing post-secondary institutions that are closing and it doesn't take much time off of their agendas. If they would like for that approval to only be within the AOE that's totally appropriate. I see that as a consumer protection provision and it's not related to approval of an institution to open up. It's a classic case of the kind of thing where we don't bring much value and expertise and we come and we go but the agency is always there. So if there's a way easily to move that that's great but it's a little bit like changing school snow day rules. I mean that's stuff from the old days that I think we all would like to see changed. So if it can be done easily great. If not we'll just okay so you're a little bit of agreement if it can be done easily. Yeah. Okay. I just I think we've covered most of it. I want to just point out what I think is a possible conflict of purpose or something on page 6 lines 1314-50 and something like that shall adopt rules, secretary shall adopt rules of all persons under the secretary of supervision and control as directed by the general assembly. So to the extent that the board retains rules over educational quality standards over special educations of those involved people who are under the authority of the secretary. I see. And so that seems to me to be an invitation for a later disagreement where the agency says well we have authority over all rules that pertain to people over whom we have oversight. And well that undoes the agreement that we have made about educational quality standards and all that. So that language just reaches way too broadly into the area. This isn't our language. This is language from the original draft and I thought that it was odd to. So I went and looked and it's the rulemaking prompt used for most state agencies. And I think the essence of our agreement is that the state board will have the rules that you all may have agreed are important for them to retain and other rules will be the agency of education rules unless you specifically dictate otherwise. That's why I think that this language is appropriate in concert with what we discussed earlier which is a very clear list of what belongs to the board. Yeah but the language that says all rules will be will be the sectors except a list is not going to be in statute it's going to be in station law and I just feel like if that is a it would seem that they are to both be in statute. It seems to me just invites confusion. It's Connecticut will this will be in statute. But paragraph A that says for the rules about that except for the state board of education rules and so on that will not be in statute as you have advocated. But it's just lost out but it's so long so it's not going to go away. But I see John's point which is a broad reading of this charge on the secretary's duties would indicate that the secretary controls all rules pursuant to anybody in the employee of a week. The weird duty split that we've been dealing with from day one is that the state board does in fact have the power under rulemaking to direct the agency to do certain things. So let's throw in a reference to section 164. A step that's provided in section 164 which is where the state board is ruling the authority. I would just point out that this language of execution of its powers and duties and of the powers and duties of all persons under supervision and control has been around for years and it used to apply to the state board. We struck it out because there are no persons under the state board's supervision and control. We are very mindful of that. Yeah, this is a referring day. I understand that, but the original language was here. So what do you think about Emily's suggestion to make reference to accept as directed in section 164? I think that's a good suggestion. Well... Too many lawyers in the room. I'm not a lawyer. I'm here for the execution of its powers and duties and our views of the agency. I'm not sure why that was hinting here to the authority. Well, let's built in the suspenders by referencing back except as in other words it might offend your redundancy of a meter, Jim, but it speaks to an anxiety. Can I in conclusion just celebrate what you're doing here because in addition to your observation that we have stipulated that any rulemaking by this board will be within the limitations of legislative intent about which you know I'm pretty ferocious. We also you have done something really important by striking out on page one at 164 in the general powers and duties the language that was slipped into law at act 98 where it says at line 16 and establish an advanced education policy for the state of Vermont. That never existed in state law until act 98 which of course did strip the board from virtually all of its authorities and this was tucked back in not in the original draft I remember the morning you were there President of the creation I was not. I was on the other side but I Bill Doyle was sitting in that chair right there and I had a 3-2 majority for not making the change to an agency and then an old hand in the building who shall not be came in and met with Bill Doyle and he switched and this was part of the part of the I was majority leader where he had a 16-14 majority and I suffered with the same phenomenon so taking that language out is a huge step because it has been understood by previous boards to mean that we make law established policy has been understood to the right effect and I think getting that out of there is a huge step as I said if nothing else happens that those two things have been success. Again I want to thank you Mr. Chair for coming to us I mean the health care bargaining bill happened similarly there was the governor was proposing state white health care bargaining NEA was opposing it the following year they came forward with their own draft which allowed the log jam to be clear same here you came forward in essence willing to circumscribe the powers of your own body and that's the only thing that's allowed just to go forward so very much appreciate it and thank you especially you Mr. Chair but also the committee in turn thank you Emily would you like to take a look here or have we answered your thoughts? I think I'm good but may I have time to review the very long draft and all this detail since you just to clarify and I have yet to ask for questions from the committee either but the idea is to treat this now as an extremely semi-final draft but tomorrow we will come in with the intention of final markup and vote doesn't look like there will be much in the way of a markup so unless one of the parties or one of the major education organizations come forward with an injection we probably will vote this out pretty quickly tomorrow but understood that you would like to review it and reserve the right to put in for more I was just going to say there's that one funky line that we didn't know what it did you remember when you were talking about that and I found it on the next page too so it made me feel better than it appeared twice I support what Jim has done which is to keep both entities in and leave it do no harm because we don't know where it came from I'm just worried about I'm worried about mine I wasn't even allowed to turn this draft, that's easy but I was wondering if you want to give people more review time to share you mean let it hold over during crossover yeah okay fair enough wait during crossover you mean during our break you want it out of my crossover absolutely I'm fine with that why don't we think about tomorrow as when we get it ready from the committee's perspective so committee let's go to 226 226 I had a couple of questions on this I'll let you do it tomorrow okay on the list yeah I just wanted to know if you have any questions I have a special idea so on these two slides so the way we work is to settle on the what's the question or why was the the federal rules regulation right so they agree based on the this is so let's not interrupt what's going on it's because there was already a lot of contention around the special education advisory panel and the new rules that they would draft and then the state board set in because they have the final authority to be so that seemed to me a good outcome and so I recommend to the secretary there would be special education where it is with the idea that possibly in the future we would contemplate mostly because of that so that was agreed to by a we and chair care no future days you have to come back to it post 173 yeah 2022 yeah okay we don't have Jim just just just got a document just hit send okay so Jeff Collins I'm thinking yesterday we as we ended had in place what seemed like the committee's straw voted version we had a couple of outstanding questions so one of those outstanding questions was superintendents I talked earlier with Sue and correct me if I'm wrong Sue but Sue says that school boards are okay with just pulling out superintendents not business managers or AR Jeff we were here with that soon I met this morning I have one concern still I raised it last week but I want to reiterate it in the language and see it get fixed it's part of the pay if we pay by income I still want to make sure that that's not a mercy in the actions we took a couple years ago where school districts would pay 80% of health care costs we expected kind of at least 20 out employees okay so different issues let me come to that one sec so the idea would be to in fact in his new draft is that what he just said New Genie okay great so in that draft he has pulled out superintendents because that looked like where we were going so that basically solved um I think we have the draft 5.1 or where they're I think there's a new draft you think it's beyond 5.1 yeah I think there's a okay it's 5.2 okay um I think that's good I'm happy with just pulling them out and I did get a text from Jeff the other Gen that you got okay I had an error in my draft correct it for me so here is the updated draft it will make four copies of folks and you want to let us know what's different here Gen and then we'll ask our folks left just point it out yeah okay so this is draft draft 5.2 of S226 so first change is on page one so definition of school for E now says it includes the following individuals same list as before and then on page two says line four now standing it's division A it includes individuals who serve in the role of superintendent great okay um then next change is up on page 6 just cleaning up the appropriation take out the brackets around the dollar figure bring in general fund and this is what I have made a mistake about to other people in this we all have this draft the line 20.21 has been struck out and the draft that has to be ordered I have just deleted it so I would all together with that strike here so let's change likewise on page 7 the line is 11 to 13 this has been struck out and then and then on top of page 8 now says the definition may negotiate a statewide procedure for these views concerned public school for health benefits we have this house that has not been sold on yet on 8 through 14 okay and I spoke earlier with Sue about this and we'll hear from them I think it's mostly around the timing of November 1st okay and then we go over to page 11 and here's the work copy has it so it says on line 11 including a cost estimate for the affirmative proposal and that is it's on page 12 line 9 it now says explaining in appropriate detail the rationale just like in the last class talk yes it was correct the entire language there it goes okay so with that said with that said Jeff and Sue not sure if you'd like to come to the table or where you are in terms of wanting to comment on this Jeff Jeff and for the record we met and we talked about data which is found the issue is found on page 8 of draft 2.5.2 I think we're still mostly there but I think we just had one of the questions I think when I spoke with Sue before I suggested moving on or before October 1st and then leaving February 1st for when they could supply it as the deadline and it seemed like Sue might be okay so Sue Siklowski, Vermont School Board Association we actually really favor Senator Hardy's suggestion which was to require timely submission but not to have dates in there but if you are going to have dates in there I think October 1st would be better than November 1st my ordinarily I'm a fan of fuzzing up because if you get more agreement my feeling though is if there was a dispute about getting information because the two sides disagreed on the need for it and on what was timely I think if we just say timely we leave it to both sides and even to individual districts to determine what timely is so I think in this case if we supply a date that's agreeable I think that's preferable to having it hang out there just as a determination to be made by the parties on the clock what timely is so I heard the last thing you said was October 1st so committee how do you feel about doing a date not until the first is good Ruth it's finally okay let's go with October 1st on line 9 it's going to be February 1st on line 12 Sue were there things you wanted to speak to or I think you covered the exclusion of the SPA supports that I was not able to get feedback from the employer commissioners on that particular topic okay Jeff anything else no I think we're supportive of 5.2 okay and our position now on the bill as supportive, neutral or I guess I would say mostly supportive okay I understood that for each side I think there was a piece that they didn't necessarily want very good so Jim that's a pretty minimal chance we're going to do that and that will so my question is kind of to the cross out the premium responsibility percent that's paged down to the bottom and I understand that I don't necessarily have a problem if they want to negotiate different premium percentages for different employees but as my understanding a couple years ago we didn't really I don't really specify any spread numbers but I guess what I'm trying to say is you don't want to district on the hook for more well I mean I don't want to see the high end employee employee who's making a lot it's the payday roughly the 20 but negotiate the 10 I'd rather see them work that out within their membership how they want to do it I don't think that's a lot of negotiating for individual school boards and the complexities plans makes more complex the more variance we put it well that issue is you know in the bargaining itself between employer and employee is the split so it would be hard I think to limit it because then we basically just be determining by statute which is what the governor wanted to do originally he had an estimate of $14 million could be saved and then he wanted to statute the results of the bargaining which the legislature didn't go along with so I see what you're saying but it seems to me the only way we could do that would be by predetermining an outcome of the bargaining I just don't have it because it's still do you want to have a separate vote on this piece I don't think it matters I'm not someone who thinks that committee votes end up anywhere anyway but it still makes me do go along I just I just worry about the long term implications can be I think and correct me if I'm wrong either side or anybody else in the room but I think what we're talking about is NEA wants the ability to bargain and to seek agreement on different rates of contribution I would think that wouldn't change the basic dynamic how much the employers are building I don't see the NEA going to the members saying you're going to have to go up 25% contribution because we're going to give new teachers out of college they're only going to have to pay 10% or 5% of the income well I do think if you're negotiating different rates of contributions that would be something you'd have to be honest with your members about that it may mean that people at higher income levels pay more right so I wouldn't assume at all that it means that the difference would come out of the heights of the districts because again that will be openly bargained the premise behind this draft is that you've got the employers on one side want to statewide grievance procedure they're now able to bargain that NEA would be able to bargain for differential contributions if I'm the school words there's no way I would let the fact that they're going to have differential rates of contribution force me to accept a result that I don't want otherwise so it seems like you're still getting the same bargaining dynamic it's just that they have the ability to seek a split within their own I don't have a problem with that but I wish there was a way we could legislate that I think the only way that I can see to do it would be to put in a solution which I wouldn't be opposed to but I can get some votes I think others of us would be opposed to that so just checking so if you want we can have we did originally straw vote this so if we don't change it do you want to have another okay then if you can get us another draft and smoke them if you got them five minutes five minutes five minutes five minutes are you going to do proficiency based grading next or I can wave all of those votes before they give up get on the bus if Jim has a draft for she already got on the bus never mind they're coming is people waiting coming up or not sure it'll depend on whether Jim has a actually he does have a draft just saw that and yeah 1.1 so we will discuss so Jim you want to show us what we got so just two sections first section section law this is on 9th on the 4th December 15th 20th in collaboration with the State Board of Education to have a case so you recommend a report to the House to send on education on how to implement in relation B1 the people waiting to have this report commissioned under Act 173 including the timeline for implementing the collective people changes how to implement these changes and the tax rates and school budgets and three the interaction of these changes with other provisions of existing law and this list is from Chloe Chloe Wessler including the excess spending on the threshold the whole harmless provision the effect on non-operating districts and districts to which they pay tuition small school grants and Santa Fe under Act 46 and then B as far as this collaboration with the agency of education under section A on the 4th December 1, 2020 State Board of Education should hold not less than five public meetings in different regions of the state to get an input on the waiting report and its implementation if you could add a sentence to their agenda makes it clear that they would then pass those five days to AOE for inclusion in their application plan I can do it but it says it's part of the collaboration with them so I can't well it doesn't specify that they have to pass on their work products I'm also wondering about the language shell study recommend and report on how to implement could we just say more directly that they shall develop an implementation plan because I think the rest is implied and I'd like to avoid right does that make sense Jim? other comments on this is the approach or the language the approach is the approach I don't know if I can support it just because I don't know if I can support the move that's a good point so can we have a piece explicitly Jim that says the legislature will then deliberate and either accept or not accept the implementation plan I don't know if that's not the most making it clear that there's a that the legislature has to green light making it clear that it has to green light in order for it to go forward it would have to green light in other words it won't automatically go under it oh can we we can't do it like we could stop it but we don't have to you mean well that's always the case if we passed this year that it was going to go into effect we could stop it regardless next session you know what I mean as long as we did it before it was implemented the kick-rack structure changes anyway sir and I'm it's more a psychological thing because when people read it like Cory they're going to say I want to be doubly sure we're going to have a vote on this next year once we see the implementation plan so the idea is to make it clear that we're not studying it it's a plan for implementation and then there'll be essentially an up or down vote on it after it comes out of the committee of jurisdiction assuming it comes out of the committee so I I'm happy that we've moved to this sort of interim step because I think there's a lot of stuff that needs to be worked out I guess my concerns with looking at this and this is no disrespect to anyone involved with these two entities but I'm concerned about putting this fully in the hands of the state board of education and the secretary of this agency of education because I think that there is a lack of confidence in those two organizations out in the field and I'm concerned with a sort of blowback that might happen with a major change like this unless there are more sort of partners at the table that will help determine how to implement it and talking to my school districts wanting to have superintendents at the table special ed directors potentially school boards association I think legislators need to be involved because we're going to have to put it through this building and unless there are people who can really speak in detail about what this does we're going to have a hard time passing major legislation through here so I guess I like this approach I just feel like it needs to be broader and yes obviously we can all go to the meetings and sit and watch and participate as we can but I think without a real structure about getting the sort of major players involved it might be more difficult I'm also you know there are a lot of policy questions that have to be answered in order to implement something like this and I I'm not I mean the implementation plan may speak to those policy decisions but I think they are decisions that we have to make in terms of what are we going to do with all of these elements and to be clear the implementation plan when it comes to us is just language so we would then so January 1st of next year under this rubric that language would come to committee apply all of our policy scrutiny at that point and then we would only green light out of the committee what we were comfortable with to go back to the idea of the different contingencies the superintendents the special ed folks or whatever I so this is avoiding a study committee which is where we would specify those people to together create a kind of agreed upon implementation this is specifically going to the government agency that does this and asking them to put forward the plan they will draw on advice from all those areas as a matter of course but speaking for myself I would be reluctant to in this name a bunch of people and elevate them to the point where the agency is going to have to ticker with each of them about how it's going to implement so that's a difference of approach what you're describing sounds more to me like a study committee as we really understand it where you have Dan French or Designee as one member you know all these other people as single members what we would wind up then would be a bunch of homogenized recommendations that then we would ultimately do our policy work on and ask the agency to implement anything so so I'm trying to go over that step but it wouldn't eliminate the advice that those people would offer the agency and the state board going forward I kind of see what you're saying about the skepticism around those organizations within the state but I you know I don't think this is a huge lift in terms of coming up with an implementation plan given the studies results it's mostly education and phasing and is there a way to ameliorate the effects on hardest hit communities well there are a whole bunch of things that are not answered in the study in terms of decisions to be made I mean about the spending threshold for example that's major they removed the spending threshold in the simulations so you know trying to figure out what is the appropriate that's a policy decision so what is the agency of education are you expecting that to make a recommendation of this is where the spending threshold should be and I mean Chloe in producing her simulations removed the excess spending so it's it's a policy decision but what they would do is they would put forward a plan that probably stipulated that and then that's their approach it comes to this committee and then they explain their assumptions that their approach is based on if we disagree with them we might do something else with the excess spending so in other words this isn't going to produce anything that's acted upon except by this committee or the house committee will get a copy too and then we will begin our work on it but we would be beginning from an actual plan to implementation and we would be sort of the beneficiaries of this public education tool that the state board would have already conducted five public meetings I'm also I don't think we ever had a discussion about our feeling as to whether simulation meet one was well that's the discussion we're having now yeah because I know that's the one that you asked for the updated and you know maybe that is the quote-unquote best one but I don't think we as a committee would have discussed if that's the one we think and that's a huge decision in and of itself in terms of the approach that we want them to implement and it doesn't really say what it is in here simulation be one for people who've never read the report they're not going to know what that means yeah and the other thing I would add on this list of things the study does mention early early college and whether or not to have a wait for early college and a couple of my superintendents have requested that we consider that so I don't know it's possible to add that to this list of other things to include do you meet early college or early early college because right now if students go to early college they're not included in the pupil counts for a school district and so school districts are still in most cases providing educational services to those students but they're not being counted yeah I think the level of complexity that would introduce for the number of people involved in the early college program makes it you know sort of complexity breathing I would think in other words in the simulations there's the suggestion that we could add in special ed there's the suggestion that we could add in and take care of small school grants and then early college so there are all kinds of ways in our port if you wanted to you could make the waiting formula speak to seven or eight different needs but with each category that you add especially ones that aren't currently part of the formula you're increasing the level of complexity and I can't see that there's enough benefit for the relatively small number of students that do early college but that's my my opinion so so it's a point well taken we haven't had a discussion about which simulation to use I asked Jim to plug in B1 because it's the it's the least bells and whistles and special ed is not really a one to one correspondence with special ed it's a kind of way of predicting special ed and the census based formula that we've already got going into place with 173 seems to me a much more accurate marker because it's based on their actual data so that's why I didn't want to use the special ed one and the small school grant again there's only four or five communities that are getting it now that aren't getting it as a merger support grant so doesn't seem like there's a huge need to change the waiting formula in terms of that so that's why I went with B1 but let's leave that open as to which simulation we use how did others feel about Ruth's other thought about more organizations at the table this imagines the agency in a kind of stripped down fashion creating an implementation and avoiding a study committee to follow the study we just had so we've asked the agency to implement Act 46 and proficiency based learning and the same state board and I don't think either one of them got rave reviews from our constituents and this one's going to be a large tax on increase in a lot of towns so I think you're going to have more fodder for someone like me to come down next year instead of just giving us a board again if you can but what the board is doing here is essentially a listening tour with a basic explanation of what is going on what happens in the community and the community says hey our tax you want 52 cents we're dead set against this and they still do it then they're still going to holler and say we weren't listening to well the board passes that testimony on to the agency and the agency theoretically uses it to fine tune their implementation with that said if you implement this waiting formula there are going to be communities that are outraged there's no way around it because historically we've underfunded certain communities which means that those communities are now enjoying an advantage that I don't think we've ever funded anybody but that's the truth well I mean we are getting letters now that are talking about reparations for communities that have been underfunded historically so this is going to ferment the way that these other controversial bills sort of bubble along and we will develop people who will probably become more outspoken more involved in the electoral process based around that we didn't do something or that we did do something so Jim I think this is a little premature to do this so soon with everything else in the works premature to because this puts it out a year for the agency to come back with a plan right do you think that there's still things in the works that need to be worked out back home with the school boards, superintendents parents, taxpayers this is just going to look like they're going to get, we're going to get to jump on again on an increase in taxes I mean I think that definitely some communities would really appreciate something like this sooner than later I think there's so much going on right now they can't digest what's given to them fair enough I think there are going to be people and it won't be a few a sizable group in the state will feel like it's never the right time to do this because it will mean a rise in their taxes that they're just never going to be ready then there are there is a larger I would say call it three-fifths of the state like if we don't do it this year we're shirking our duties because the report makes it clear that the current formula is inequity so we're all going to have to vote our perception of which of those is the worst outcome right? is it better to, so it sounds like you'd be okay with a few years before we address it. Yeah, a few years after we this is trying to make some legal risk here which is that the court that you've been in is public is just a recipe for a lawsuit so you know, but I would say there's a risk that the court will be used if you delay, if it's a couple of years or if they take action I think there's a I think it's interesting though for a lawsuit I think it's time Brigham's looked at again I think the way we've defined equal opportunity in the state is wrong and it never got us there it's a 30-year-old case now or a 20-year-old case that I think is inherently flawed and we will never be able to come to it I don't think equal access to educational opportunity has to do with money as a student at BFA St. Albans I didn't take an economics in college I couldn't take an economics class and Essex had one I had a lot of opportunities at BFA St. Albans I don't feel like I was ever limited but that to me is an inherent oh that's a constitutional violation I didn't get that equal opportunity I think we're flawed in this building to think that equal opportunity is where dollars are because I don't think dollars necessarily relate to quality of what we're getting as a product I don't think it would be a bad thing necessarily if we ended up back in the courts to try to figure this out and you can never avoid the possibility but it's Jim's job to give us advice and I much appreciate it I think I have gotten letters I mentioned the one from a guy who's talking in terms of reparations I have gotten a sequence of letters where people are making it clear that they view this study as authoritative and solving the question of whether their districts have been underfunded usually rural communities we all have a letter from VREC I think they're called 40 somewhat districts signed on to that making a similar case so I guess you know inherent in what Jim was saying you were saying there were people at home who needed to be brought up to speed I think that's what I was attempting to do here by having the state board go out and I talked to Chair Carroll he would be excited with his work to do that to go out and try to engage the state on the issue that's the sort of thing that he envisions the board doing in its new incarnation and then passing that information to AOE I think Ruth's concern about us having the policy in front of us I don't worry about that because this would come immediately to us beginning of January and then we would operate on it as we would with that bill that we deal with yeah I think a couple things I do think that this isn't appropriate based on all the work we just did there's no riveting about the state board I think it's an appropriate use of that and I think that I like that about this and having them go out and do the public hearings I think five maybe two of you because they're not going to get to every place what I would like to do is expand the implementation group beyond AOE I think we got testimony from somebody I can't remember who's through Jeff or somebody Jay, one of the Jay people in this room who said they were concerned about making sure we did this right so that we didn't degrade respect for public education or state and I have those concerns too we're in a sort of fragile period right now after Act 46 and 173 and proficiency based learning and all the other things that are causing stress out in the field and I want to make sure that I think we should do this and even though my districts will not be helped or will be neither helped nor harmed it seems for the most part I think it's the right thing to do for education and finance in the state I just don't want to do it badly and have it further erode trust in public schools and so that's why I feel like we need to have broader representation in creating an implementation plan and there are policy decisions that need to be made before you get to the part of the plan where like what do you do with these things and everything that's not mentioned and that is you know we the reason I requested that we update to 2020 numbers is because the interactions with merged schools versus non-merged schools and that has a big effect on the school poverty rates and how they're calculated for school districts and sparsely and probably maybe to a lesser degree ELL but certainly poverty rates and sparsely and I wouldn't want the punishing schools that went ahead and merged through Act 46 and if they hadn't merged they would have had a higher poverty level they would have had a higher sparsity level and now they're merged into one that's not punishing but being conscious of those interactions and how that will play out in the field and how that may exacerbate some of the some of the some of the so in other words they merged the reality now is that they partake of economies of scale that are allowing them lots of advantages so you'd be saying allow them all those advantages but then should we no I'm not saying we do that I'm saying we have to be sensitive to that in the field there is huge division of school districts that have merged and the schools are now pitting against each other the communities are and this and getting this out there to say oh well if we had merged we would have gotten this big bump with this there's going to be these interactions in the in the field about all of these various policies piling on top of each other I don't think it's a reason not to do this but I think it's a reason to do this very carefully and thoughtfully and I have concerns that the AOE and the State Board of Education would be able to do that how would you feel about if the language was that they shall create an implementation plan drawing on the advice and study of listed parties, comma blah blah blah that would make that better would make it explicit that they should be interacting with them what we might get away from is a situation where we create a committee where AOE is one vote Jeff Francis is one vote blah blah blah nothing against Jeff Francis just saying that what you wind up in that case is going back to square one half the people in the room may be based on their constituencies not excited about doing it if we want to move forward from the study and be careful we can hand the authority to AOE and then we're giving the State Board not the authority but we're assigning them the duty of going out and taking public opinion passing that to AOE who retains the authority so they're together they're putting together raw materials for the plan on these other people and organizations but without being inhibited by them because the administration supports they support redoing the waiting formula even though it's politically sensitive and I think that's a value to us if you want to go forward so I'm hesitant to say well I just don't trust the agency involved I think we can trust that no matter what happens it's coming back to us and hopefully they produce something that looks really pretty good for us and then we can and I do think legislators can enter the process at any point going to the meetings interacting with the State Board going directly to the agency expressing concerns or ideas but I like that better than Study Committee too I agree we don't need to study Committee too I do agree with that I was thinking more implementation working group which may be just semantics but to say we are going to do this and we want you to tell us how you think we should do it that's what I want to do but I think having a broader entity doing that than just AOE outreach efforts of the State Board of Education so maybe in consultation with is a good compromise and if you want to develop a list of parties that make sense to you and pass it to Jim he can drop it in this draft we are still doing that public hearing yes okay so we're not going to pass this until after that public hearing is that correct so the idea would be not to act on any language until we've heard okay that would be great we'll take a look at this two or three more times at least once before the public hearing so any thoughts from anybody else you know I agree that naming bigger groups is always mixed okay I think it ought to just be each job given the tracker it's probably wise and you know it'll make explicit what they would probably do anyway but it'll make sure okay does that make sense Jim and I just wanted to say you know that some districts watch they're better and we're like is that right and there's oh yeah talk to Bobby we're better by two pennies to the cost of 52 I mean you guys both have districts that are both fixed yeah that's right we were already some of the ones that are not too heavy that Burlington would actually get into the better they are too okay so if you want to update this and then on Tuesday we'll be able to that's Tuesday when we come back so we won't pick it up then but on Wednesday and then on that Wednesday assuming that we don't hear anything from AOE or the state board we'll vote out the state board bill and then tomorrow we're going to do what did you say we were going to do changes TBA TBA no tomorrow TBA TBA Friday we'll do an 166 yeah CDIM 166 the state board bill so we're not going to do that tomorrow we're not going to do that over until Wednesday so we'll do the miscellaneous bill tomorrow so we'll do the miscellaneous bill we'll talk about athlete deal oh yeah the UVM language so were you in the room Jim attending that UVM language I was here that language that language oh no Stephanie did you get a copy somewhere let me give you a copy and then we had two suggestions as I remember oh yeah we already voted so it'll be the 224 so let me just find that Jim what are we going to do we should see this tomorrow I think you're over here I think you're over here because I said they already got on the bus so we need to talk okay oh I took it the other way I thought you were already on the bus I'm not going to be here but you were already on the bus to come over so please your path is in yeah please join us I I misunderstood Emily to okay I've gotten on the bus to go home so the reason why we asked you to come and thank you that we were wondering what was going on in the agency was there action plan something that's a practice being assembled with the same plan to target districts that were having trouble with PDL so if you could fill us in on what the actual administrative approach is and then the question is how can we help without hurting what either local communities are doing that's working or what you already have in the process so thank you very much for this opportunity to talk about proficiency based learning I have this in the team for the proficiency based learning team which is the team that has all the content specialists two of whom have only been there for their 6 months probationary period and we have just hired a new parts person who's moving here from Tennessee people at this day at least to so we're excited about that just so you have a little bit of background information and I think yesterday you were talking I'm Jessica Carolus I'm the division director of the PDL team there's other teams okay I think there was some misunderstandings and when she was asked about an action plan my god I understood what you were actually asking about because the proficiency based learning team we have a two year work plan that includes support for proficiency based learning we have people like Maggie Carrerafly who's very invested in the state science assessment my team has been doing a lot of work for the alternate assessments so proficiency based learning is a part of every team members work but they also have content expertise and responsibilities related to that content in terms of it might be good again I guess I'll just pause because I appreciate that you asked that question and I do suspect that perhaps Susan was caught up so we have a broader set of goals for the agency we have priority actions for the division we have 16 that sit within the division proficiency is actually a goal which is that you want every student to be proficient and so is the question what would be the alternative if we don't want kids to be proficient but it's within a larger ecosystem so it came with multi-tiered systems of support and personalization and flexible pathways granted some of those things were statutorily defined others were regulation and some came with funds and some came without funds but within that context there is a set of team goals but those are always also attached to teams across the agency and across the division because to stand things up they can't be parsed out and so I think one of the things is she was reflecting on the fact that we've just put out a survey and we're collating the data now in 2017 we put out a survey what was the status of KBGRs across all SUSSEs we've just collected that information for 2020 and I think that's what she was reacting to but she said collecting data and we always use data to inform what will be the next set of two to three year goals that we're putting on the field so to give you some ideas about the professional learning opportunities that we've provided based on integrated field reviews the data from those reviews we noticed that systems with good intent were trying to create local comprehensive assessment systems but the assessment systems really were focused on elementary and in math and English language arts according to the education quality standards local comprehensive assessment systems should incorporate all content in areas grades K through 12 so based on those data we've been providing convenience around what is a strong proficiency, what is a strong local comprehensive assessment system and within a proficiency based system we really think that performance assessments are essential that you can't assess those transferable skills without giving students opportunities to do something so our second convening was directly focused on performance assessments going over some resources that we had developed in terms of quality criteria for performance assessments sharing that information with people from the field and getting them to help us improve that work because whenever we do something and then we get input from the field they always make it better and they're using the materials as a really good idea about what will work in their systems, what will not work the other thing we do, the resources that we create is that we put them on our website as the word document so that people can tailor them for their specific circumstances can I just ask when you say a convening what in physical terms, what is a convening convening for me is that idea of pulling people together to make some decisions and problems thought together I'm just wondering who's pulled together where how often? Our focus was really educational leaders so curriculum directors principals, teacher leaders are the roles that are most often represented that we're trying to think systemically I love working with teachers however teacher only has one classroom I can work with a curriculum director who is working with a supervisor or district I have the opportunity to work with a lot more educators and therefore students and so you pick a location and invite everybody and have a morning we have multiple types of professional learning I'm sure you've heard folks come in and talk about network improvement communities we can perform workshops, there's conferences there's convenings generally convenings are when we're developing resources for folks and you want to be informed to make sure that what you're developing is at most use to them and I think those are the resources we've organized under headers and provided links so that you can go and take a look at some of those samples usually it's the stakeholders who are most impacted and there often can be multiple stakeholders so sometimes you might specify we want a team so we want someone who is in leadership someone who is a district leadership building leadership and then a classroom educator sometimes we're focusing on special educators because we're doing something very specific about ensuring that all students can meet proficiency sometimes it's folks who are responsible for flexible pathways but one of the trickiest pieces is how do you align flexible pathways to the proficiency based graduations in particular schools and so you pull folks together generally on average we can have we can have our technical assistance being formed by 100 to 300 to 800 educators at any one time depending on how long we can sustain the project sometimes we use contractors to identify spaces it makes it a little bit easier to get locations sometimes we work with schools we have leagues to like the league of Indiana schools there's 25 high schools who are involved we actually often have our conferences or convenings at the sites around the state so that usually it's more south or sometimes if we can have four regions covered but it varies depending on whatever the activity is okay the third convening actually which is the most interesting one for me because it's new work in terms of how do we help students design performance assessments so students doing a flexible pathway how do we help them figure out what evidence they can collect to demonstrate that they've actually met proficiencies excuse me sorry please continue alright the other thing we do like we've worked really hard to put this information together so I look for multiple ways to disseminate it that I'm currently writing some blogs that will include kind of the stories of those convenings along with links to all of the resources we're doing workshops at other conferences related to local comprehensive assessment systems and we'll be at the best institute week long institute once again sharing with educators who haven't participated previously information about assessment systems because I feel that there are 11 of change that I was a science person in theory and it was always interesting for me to watch teachers and what causes them to really change and it was when we had performance assessments in science great level performance assessments and we'd get together with the student work and there would be some variation in terms of what students produce and the opportunities for teachers to talk to one another about just how did you manage to make that happen in like your classroom yeah she is but that's when I saw teachers because I wasn't always welcome into all classrooms but once we started doing performance assessments all teachers want their students to be successful but that's when I got invited into classrooms where teachers were kind of struggling with science teaching science so performance assessments I think an assessment in general because assessment drives what happens in classrooms is really important so based on the IFR data as well as important level of change that is why we've been providing those opportunities throughout the state that's just one example of some of the work that we're doing so I have a question I I represent probably what I can put together some of the poor implementation in the state and they made it better try to make it clear to the parents that AOE was providing them no support you know how do you how do we answer to that are you guys actively reaching out are they coming in you know how is the relationship working are you guys looking for places where you can go and say hey it's not working we need to hear this or are you just waiting for them to call you and raise their hand so there's a mix of things so one the first thing we did is we actually did an audit to see how many folks from actually participated in any of the professional learning that we've offered over the last couple of years I believe there was one person who was not in a district or leadership level so and I think that that's important for folks to know I agree I don't basically want you to comment you know we love bogey mams I mean it's a great way to not take responsibility I think the agency should sit here and say certainly we have some responsibility in this but I would also say that what we've tried to organize and this is not the full compliment of what we provided is organizing both professional learning that's been provided the technical assistance that's currently sitting on our website and that's out there that often what we try to do is make sure that those things are tethered together or tailored to the audience and then direct them to it one thing that we are currently working on from a structural perspective is we're rebooting our professional learning network it had been a system that had been in place and we had contracted out with some funds that we had identified within the agency to have certain professionals from well known organizations to provide various series particularly around proficiency based learning and personalized learning however I think it was not effective in getting the word out so one thing that we would own is we want to improve how people hear about the opportunities we often have listserv so every education coordinator at the agency who's responsible for the program usually has a fairly lengthy listserv mostly because also people don't get off the listserv so it can be thousands of people so we usually send it out through that we have our weekly field memo we certainly reach out to some of the professional organizations that have actually been named we coordinate with them all the time we work with them around the proficiency based learning symposium that was recently offered and we certainly provided some support there but one thing that we'd like to do is we have a digital platform and as you know the state is actually overhauling its entire web pages which also these are all the things that are hard to quantify and articulate to people where you can have delays but we're turning over our professional learning network so that we actually have a coding and tagging system so people can put in and search for professional learning based on something that they're interested in and then also download reports and that's a way that we can communicate it will also auto populate a calendar so we're working on that but of course we have communications people one whom you see every day here which means that he's not doing communications so I'm actually working on that right but I have six teams and responsible for 15 independent grants and etc and 22 contracts and you know so you're doing all of this and I think one of the things is that the sheer volume of what people are contending with it's absolutely true that our public education system certainly should be honored should be respected there has been a distinct lack of ability and the conversation around education in this state the fact that literally I'm interviewing principals who are coming to the agency to work and I always ask this question to folks why the agency, why do you want to do state level work and to literally have folks say well it came down to I could either be a really good principal or I could be a good spouse and parent and it's now time that I have to be a good spouse and parent because literally it's just eating me alive to be out there trying to talk about this which is why I want to go back to that question what is the alternative to proficiency kindergarten, primary education has always been a proficiency based system can you imagine if we promoted kids who had not received basic numeracy or literacy right you don't just say well good kid shows up puts his lunch bags away you know C plus move them along right you hold them we actually had multi-age bridge right we have classrooms in which you're doing K to 2 or 1 to 2 we do that because we know that we need folks to have the requisite skills the problem is that we have turned it into something more complicated than it needs to be and really I want to ask that this body be a champion and articulating that minimally we should say that if someone however we grade them however we report their learning a B plus actually means that someone knows understands and can do independently in novel situations we are at a time right now in which we cannot anticipate the future maybe 10 years ago we can say this is what the next 10 years are going to be we can right there's cars that you download a $3,000 app to update your car what in itself driving what's next so you need to have kids who literally absolutely know it I think was it last week or a couple weeks ago you asked the question well we had a good education so why do we have to do this that's not incompatible it's very likely that you had teachers who were absolutely committed to making sure that how they reported how you were doing was an accurate representation of what you were doing and that they weren't going to let you graduate without minimally being proficient proficiency based systems are also really good for kids who want to excel because now there's no longer a boundary in a traditional system imagine just a circle you got pushed out and then couldn't get back in so we developed a high school completion program in flexible pathways and we have adult education and that's all the money going out and then we have kids who are hitting a ceiling because there's nowhere to go there's no extended learning there's no way to advance there's no way to extend their learning to exceed proficiency in a proficiency based system you just erase that boundary now folks have been pushed out and kids who want to excel we have early college, we have dual enrollment they can design their own learning they can negotiate curriculum they can do all of these things the problem is that this kind of change for a hundred years we've been doing something the same way the whole time it's not going to change in four years or six years I mean the regulation was put in place what in 2014 which means that we're starting to roll out and by the way there's no funds so that they can pay contractors to provide professional learning so there's a year, right plus you've got PLPs, flexible pathways plus now we start to add in Act 46 and all of these things it's just on top, on top, on top until the skeleton can't move, right understood, let's just stop there what I would say what I would say is that I think the committee from the testimony we've taken has a generally positive outlook on proficiency based learning but as senator parent pointed out uneven results in certain districts that's driving anxieties and so what I would what I would ask you is is this what I hear you saying is you have a plan, you've developed resources which are available digitally or on your website is there because and that's my question is there a given the severity of some of the problems in some of the districts are you proactively going out to those districts to offer them help of one sort or another we are but we also have to balance it with folks again are you coming in to evaluate so we have our accountability system so education quality reviews integrated field reviews is another data point we instituted listening tours so the first two years I was at the agency we went out to schools of course those schools if they were interested someone could say no we then visited the second year after engaging in collaborative problem solving to say how can we work through we've done the same thing we have an implementation kit that we've just launched we've gone out we were just up in north country you just explained that the implementation kit is actually for flexible pathways but it has everything to do with proficiency which is how is it that we're measuring student learning right how is it that we're articulating to families and communities so they're making informed decisions before they engage in a learning activity there's also a student tool that goes with it there are two facilitation guides we went up we're evaluating things that aren't even flexible pathways but we're going out to sit with teams to say how can we help but if you're asking the question if someone does not want us to come and we're not engaging in monitoring or we're not engaging in a formal field review or education quality review do we have the authority to say no we insist right so what we have to do is we have to develop those relationships which we do we belong to a million organizations you're out there you're saying please let me come but you understand that people might feel sensitive so you have to almost play the long game where you're saying I promise you we're not coming here to evaluate or judge but we are coming to help you but at some point there is a responsibility at the local level right we wouldn't have local control if the expectation was that it wasn't implemented at the local level so it's a it's a balance but I would say that we're continuing to do those those field visits that outreach to say we'll come to go to those professional organizations where they can bring together their members and then offer so the VSA has a conference BPA has a conference Vickla etc have you had any school districts tell you and not the terms but basically you're not welcome not to me directly but I will say that certainly you know we hire administrators it's not I mean I was in the field so certainly I have heard people say well you know it's not like there's AOE police you know I mean I think this is the thing is when we talk about lag and drag on a system it's because we are subject to constant change and I'm just asked that we stay the course because you know that folks are out there just waiting to see if we lose our will and our knees tremble and we go back right well and that's another question I had so stay the course proficiency based learning as the secretary said many times is different things for different communities and he has said we're not we're not going to be policing what you do so what does stay the course really mean then if there's not an agreed upon course or a single course are you just saying that we should not insert ourselves in the process because the course is really 300 different courses playing out yeah I mean to summary I mean I think that we are moving towards consistency I think last year when we came in if you remember and if you don't we invited Andrew Jones in who you heard from again this year because we work with folks as a develop solutions to scale those solutions to share those out with folks who are looking for those solutions people are at different places I mean we just heard folks talking about how different areas are resourced differently and so we know we have different learning management systems and different student information systems well that's how people measure and report great right so again if we were to change things up they can negotiate different contracts if they want to customize that cost different money so I think there's a whole slew of things that we have to consider if I was to be so bold as to interpret what the secretary was saying I think he's saying that there is no one mandate coming from the state as to how you implement proficiency based learning but there are a set of recommended practices that are based in evidence based research that I know previously you've been asking about learning targets measurement of learning and I believe when the exercise happened John asked you to say what would you need in a proficiency based system I heard clear learning goals so that's learning targets that makes it explicit high quality well that's measurement of learning based on mastery instructional approaches and support pacing and progression I heard someone say individualized pace when and where learning takes place that's flexible pathways and assessment of learning those are six components that have an evidence base that comprise how you get to proficiency and so see AAR American Institutes for Research has created a teacher and students survey based on those six key characteristics Sigrid Olson and I were trained in it it's been too busy this year really people we've asked a lot of them but this summer we plan on doing a training for educational leaders so that they could use these surveys in their systems to figure out what are their strengths and what are areas they might want to target to improve the other thing that is really interesting I think it indicates the variety around the state in terms of implementation we just did a survey and we received 100% information from 100% of our high schools around the status of proficiency based graduation requirements and personalized learning plans and currently there's a range from six graduation requirements to 135 that's an indicator that we need to do some work work at least regionally with folks and the tool that we have to use now as a lens to consider what your graduation requirements are and that's different than what we want all students to know understand and be able to do this is what they need to graduate but we've worked with over 300 educators, business folks students give us the best information but every group we could manage parents, community members to create a Vermont portrait of a graduate and it has six attributes under those attributes we have descriptors and then performance indicators it looks very different than the original one that the agency created it was kind of our transferable skills the transferable skills are woven throughout it but my favorite one is well-being and that came from students and it's only one of six not the only one it's one of six attributes and within that they wanted financial literacy which I also thought was interesting so other things like academic proficiency learner agency are some of the examples so we can now use that portrait of a graduate to say here's a goal because if teachers can't hit something if they don't know what they're aiming for here's the goal here are the attributes do our graduation requirements actually enable students to meet this vision of a graduate so another question just to cut to the chase we're trying to decide if we should do something nothing or some mildly helpful thing in between so is there anything that we could that we could do by way of legislative action that would be helpful what the agency is doing for instance it's a lack of resources driving the plan rather than what ideally the plan would be a couple of years ago we got in LA from LA to do the kickoff for the portrait of a graduate as well as the research for grading practices and it was really helpful to be able to bring in a national expert that national they like as the field I think like says and I think we have something to contribute but the people who have a national expert have national expertise and that perspective really bring people to the table so having some funding where we could have money for larger convenings and bringing national experts I think would be wonderful we've kind of in our testimony we've kind of isolated not surprisingly the notation as the piece that tends to be driving the most you know contention and anxiety etc would it be possible to arrange a series of convenings on that piece yeah and it's already sort of begun with the PBL symposium that happened on the 11th and hoping to be able to provide for folks with exemplars based on the different systems that they're using they're not all created the same so power school but then if you can afford to actually modify power schools so that you can get what you need so certainly those kinds of convenings I think there would be two things one is that there's one appropriation for secondary school reform it's $200,000 when it was first laid out it was for implementation of Act 77 so literally there's been grants that go out to the field and I think that if you have systems right now who are attempting to either develop refine or expand upon how they they're reporting systems, how they actually articulate things, how they take 130 PBGRs and get it down to something that's a little bit more manageable and realistic they have to rely on the few in-service days, the few early release days and that means that usually they're looking to be able to pay their staff to stay to be able to do that work, that additional work so I think being able to provide funding to the field to really get over the hump and do that work is really important I do also agree that the agency having the opportunity to hold those convenings to put that work out there to facilitate it, we're using a lot of our leads and networks to do that the New England Secondary School Consortium those tend to be centered on secondary schools inclusive available school but generally secondary schools and really what we're looking at is TK to 12 systems or whatever how are those systems are organized because I think we also heard that if you want to have coordination of curriculum a clear pathway, not disjointed different sending schools sending to one district high school all of them have different pathways different standards, kids are entering the door at different places, if you want that coordination of curriculum you have to be able to convene and put out their system-wide supports I don't know if you feel comfortable doing this but if you would like to generate language for an appropriation section of our miscellaneous bill that would encapsulate what you just said I think I'll try to pass on my understanding of what you should to Jim because it'll be a game of telephone and won't mean much by the time it gets to him but if you would send me language via genie we can take a look at it I think it would be great to the extent that it's centered around the PBGR you know development and evolution and in-service professional development around that piece that's very targeted because that does speak to I think it's fair to say that's what we isolated as the biggest issue for people in the transcripts we had some students from the Think Tank at CBU come talk at the agency a couple years ago and one student said with all the changes in technology how come our transcripts look pretty much the same as they did 30 years ago and the Mastery Transcript Consortium is doing some really interesting work in terms of creating an electronic platform where you get a quick view of the student and then you can dig in deeper to find out more so that admissions officers can do that quick scan that they need to do but then get additional information there are I think six schools that are piloting it this year and what's interesting about this group is they called every student who applied to college they called the admissions officers to check with them what worked with this transcript, what did not work and they're constantly trying to revise it and improve it so that it is a platform that works for a variety of colleges and they're going after some of the big universities and having those conversations with them because if they can make those bigger universities comfortable they're thinking some of the other colleges will fall behind I believe they're having a meeting this spring with some of the principals and educators in Vermont to talk to them to find out more about what they need. Yeah, I mean essentially what you described is a hybrid model where you can get the old traditional grades but you can also get a richer portrait. Yeah, that's really the key is how to help districts that didn't make the right call on how to present grades and have I don't know how funding plays into that I haven't checked into what the cost is and I don't know if it's too expensive for some systems or not. I think another focus at the agency now is also providing assistance to districts so that they know how to actually expend some of their federal dollars I believe you've probably heard from the secretary that we have a tendency to send a lot of those federal monies back so by being able to provide really specific guidance about here's the evidence base this is where it might fit within your title dollars. This is how you can do it we've been piloting different courses like EMC squared which has been in collaboration with VSC and you know though we were going to send out a memo to say this is how you can support professional learning for your teachers so that they can be trained to deliver that high quality mathematical instruction that's going to lead to proficiency. So I think the more that we can do that because I do think that there's some value in saying that it's not always about funds but it's about there's different kinds of resources investments, time, support beyond just financial supports. So I heard you just say that you're sending federal dollars back that are going unused and yeah we're talking about a new state appropriation is this if you can use those federal dollars better and put them toward that state appropriation that's the idea so federal dollars often have very significant and specific restrictions on how they can be used also if we have already funded at the state level so as an example of new enrollment it gets really hard to then say we need federal dollars to do it because we're getting anticipating versus supplementing but I think in looking at some of those infrastructural pieces that people might The other thing that I heard that concerned me beyond the sort of notation issue which I think we all agreed was problematic was this question of collecting data so that in future years we can have some data that shows that this was useful I remember that question you literally listened to the tapes of us talking no I was in the room I like to be very undercover so I would just say that one which I think you know you were talking to Mike Martin and you were talking to John Painter and you were talking to Andrew and Gabe they were struggling to figure out how they would assess we would assess the way that we've been assessing all along we would build into the existing accountability system I think last year I came and I read to you from our competition project on the secondary school consortium that as of the 2017 data which is always a couple years behind because you're talking about cohorts is that we're leading the states when it comes to both four and six year graduation rates college persistence rates completion rates high school graduation rates even across certain groups and what we would be doing is looking at those same metrics that's the concern if we want to reduce the dropout rate which we have since 2013 by one and a half percent if we want to increase college persistence rates but also around those historically marginalized groups we would be looking at those same things we would be using our accountability system we would be leveraging that we wouldn't create another inefficiency by having another set of measures okay I mean the question originally came up and I don't know if you were in the hearing with the education commission of the states and I asked them about national data I was not there for that they were like oh yeah that does not exist it was wholly unsatisfying but my other my other question was and you mentioned this in your comments but for students who are at or exceeds proficiency we did get testimony from students themselves saying that you know they felt like it was just oh you're proficient and that's good enough and so I'm wondering if you have any professional development or resources for educators for those specific students who may be already at that level that they can then help those students to exceed proficiency and go beyond what is so absolutely and I would say again that professional development isn't necessarily going to look different for anyone else because you're going to be given to those six fundamentals of how do you implement a high quality proficiency based system you know I hate to say it and I hate to say it on record but across all jobs and careers you can have folks who aren't necessarily accepting right so I'm not sure if it's proficiency that resulted in someone saying good enough right how do we know that that's someone who wasn't saying good enough prior to us implementing proficiency that is absolutely fair what we really want to do is be making sure that we are investing and continuing to build out our education quality reviews and our accountability systems and providing support to district and building leaders who are the folks who are you know responsible for evaluating teachers and making sure that based on those evaluations they're using CFP funds to invest in needs based professional learning to make sure that those teachers are getting what they need so that they can give students what they need but certainly we as an example would be the flexible pathways implementation kit again which is what we've been doing is letting kids engage in flexible pathways but we're not actually attentive to how is that leading to proficiency how is that expanding upon and providing that extended learning opportunity so providing tools and tools like that for them to create profiles and to think that through and to put an action plan into saying I can't say yes to this question how am I going to get to you guys but I think just that statement alone of how is this leading to proficiency is what bugged a lot of the students they want to how is this leading to excellence and what the students are hearing when they're hearing proficiency based learning is that proficiency is enough that we're not expecting them to go beyond that so I think a lot of it is about the messaging and I'm hearing it in a way that we're both talking about it it's about proficiency it's not about excellence but proficiency really means it's not perfectly synonymous with excellence but proficient means like very good at something it's not creating a balance your annual job review if you had not meeting expectations proficient and then exceeding expectations well if it's kind of like meeting expectations that's what we want for all children we want all children to be proficient but we want anyone who can to excel and that's why when we created the scoring criteria for transferable skills in that exceeding column we had a description or putting something like what the student comes up with they might come up with something we never thought of so it's actually on the students plate not the teacher to say I have a great idea and I want to try this I want to go above and beyond and if that's not happening in the classroom that's a problem with the instructional practices not with proficiency based learning so we have to be careful about when is proficiency based learning at fault and when are some of the instructional practices not allowing students to excel I take your point because quite frankly within our divisions we actually refer to this as student centered learning and proficiency progressions are just one component of student centered learning flexible pathways with a profiled high quality assessment student agency all of that goes into it which allows for that and if you want someone to be agentic to be able to think independently apply their learning in novel situations they minimally have to be proficient but if we don't actually evaluate for proficiency and have some clear target for that then how do we even know if they're exceeding it and I'm not sure if that's all at least clear for them what I heard from the students and from kids that I know there was a student who ended up going to CTE so he was saying at 3.8 or 2.8 and he thought he was below but he was a freshman and he was 2.8 at a scale to proficiency based graduation requirements that means that he was pretty far along as a freshman and then as a sophomore he went to CTE which by the way is an example of student centered learning where you can go to CTE which is historically been proficiency based and then he came back in 3.8 where he was already meeting proficiency based graduation requirements but no one was able to explain that to him and that's the problem and actually in the presidential scholar applications there were some examples of students who use proficiency based learning as a spring board to do the work that they wanted to do which was really interesting to read and we could share some of that with the other faculty well I really appreciate the time as I say if you wouldn't mind generating language for us that we could you know massage into something that we can drop into our bill I think our intention is to at this point do as little as possible in the mandatory sense and not enter into creating any more requirements for anybody but it does seem that money might help in a certain targeted spot and might attract people who were otherwise saying leave us alone we'll do it on our own so thank you for coming over thank you so much for this opportunity and thank you for your support and not making the field go in a different direction because they're working certainly for you do you want extra coffees they did but I'll leave them you don't want all of these that's right you don't want to take them home and leave them in the blackboard okay we are done for today