 Welcome. This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives on Friday, January 14th. We had quite a delay in getting here. So we have had to change our plan this morning. This afternoon we were to hear from Secretary French, but he has since needed to get to hit other appointments so it's not able to be with us today. He was going to report to us on the Act 28 Advisory Council on Literacy as well as Act 72 for school facilities, but we will have to postpone that testimony. We had also asked him to help us in the requests that we have heard to allow remote schooling to count as calendar days. We put that in our miscellaneous ed bill. And we heard from the secretary that he actually believes he does have the authority right now to provide a waiver. He's not here. He did send us written testimony, which is currently on our website. We can review that. Actually, Amanda, why don't you bring that up and we'll just quickly take a look at that have an opportunity to review that for those who haven't seen it. Okay, great. I'm sharing my screen now. Thank you, Amanda. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Of course. And then paragraph two, he reports the law establishes that public schools must operate for 175 days attendance days and five teacher in service education days per year. When a school is closed for cause beyond the control of the school district, the State Board of Education has given authority to grant waivers for the minimum number of days with great requirement on a case by case basis. In the years posted here, the State Board has delegated this waiver authority to the Secretary of Education. He states that no change to the current statutes is necessary. I have existing authority to evaluate waiver requests from school districts, whose calendars will fall short of the statutory requirements for any reason outside the normal outside school district, including staff shortages, student absences, no days, etc. and tend to grant waivers generously for the current school year, given that we have begun to see closures resulting from staff shortages and we expect to experience impacts of the Omicron variant for at least the next several weeks existing process has worked well for the previous two school years in the pandemic context. Okay, you can take it down. So I wanted to hear from the field. If that same if that is sufficient, and if so then we will, we will go no further, no farther with our men in that regard so Jeff Francis, and you're muted. No, no matter how many times I do this, I sometimes. In any case, I am Jeff Francis I'm the executive director for the Vermont superintendent's association. I just get an audio check. Am I coming through loudly and clearly, you certainly are. Okay. I'm going to be brief, but my inclination based on secretary of French is written testimony and a meeting that I had with the Winooski Valley superintendents this morning. I'm not from Vermont region but it extends from Lamoille south, excuse me Lamoille north. In the, in the north, all the way down to the White River Valley supervisory union, which goes all the way down to exit to on 89. I raised the question of remote days with them. And it was a learning experience for me, because there were nine folks in attendance, and they spoke very persuasively about the importance of in person learning as compared to going remote. I've got 10 bullet points that they came up with through their own discussion that I'm happy to share with the committee but based on the emphasis that came from those superintendents and secretary French is explanation about his authority and how he intends to use it. I do not think that sections one and two of the bill that you are considering are necessary. So I could leave it at that but I could also very succinctly convey to you the attitudes of superintendents around the where we are at this point in time, the value of in person learning why we should be pointed toward in person learning as compared to remote would you like me to do that very quickly. Sure. Okay. So, I was a witness to their discussion but these are the points that they made. They believe that learning in school should be the highest priority based on effectiveness of learning opportunity equity of such an experience and student mental health needs. I think that superintendents observed significant learning loss and mental health instability as direct results of the inability to keep students in school and having to rely on remote learning. The second bullet point they said days in school, rather than remote days is better preparation for a return to the relative normalcy anticipated later this spring and for the 2023 school 2223 school year. The third point was that the Winooski Valley region superintendents noted the challenges for students in returning to a five day a week school week over the course of the pandemic, which is to say that the transition from hybrid or remote back to days in school is a challenging transition for many students and to support a dynamic of less stability rather than greater stability that could come with reliance on remote learning would exacerbate those challenges. They talked about the fact that equity is a huge consideration. In place when kids are in school, it often is not when they are learning remotely. The next point in lay person's terms, the dynamics associated with COVID are in quotes here to stay, and our collective effort should be to take all available measures to provide in person learning opportunities. We also noted that schools are comparatively safe environments, and the emphasis should be on making them increasingly safer through recommendations from the public health community and lessons that we've learned through the navigation of the pandemic. They spoke about the fact that remote learning is not an adequate or appropriate substitute for in person learning. They said a remote day is far from equivalent to an in person day. They said that it would be parents who will be forced to find play dates, double up care or other measures to go to work and older students congregating all day without appropriate mitigation strategies, creating greater spread than in school. They noted that isolation for students in remote settings is a huge concern. And they finally indicated that students who will remain unsupervised because their parents must work are at greater risk of learning loss, mental health crisis and overall safety. So my summary from listening to that conversation is that superintendents are in favor of doing everything we can to have kids in school rather than learning remotely. It's not to say that we don't understand the need for remote learning in the past. Going into the future, it should be have kids in school, have kids in school, have kids in school. That may be challenging given Omicron, but we believe that Secretary of French exercising his lawful authorities can work with school districts to help them manage their calendar, and that we can proceed in that fashion. I am really a mere, I'm voicing what I heard from them. They're the experts, but that's what they had to say this morning. Thank you very much appreciated. Any questions for Jeff Francis. Jeff, did you think that we should go to superintendent nice at this point or shed or move on to know I think that because superintendent needs extended us the courtesy of being with us. She can augment my comments I know she's got a perspective as a participant in that meeting this morning is in a very experienced superintendent so I'd be disappointed if we didn't have the opportunity to hear what she had to say. Thank you. Thank you so so welcome. We always appreciate hearing from superintendents in the field so. Thank you. It's nice to see you all. My name is Bridget Nice. I'm the superintendent of schools for the Harwood Unified Union School District. I've been a principal for 20 years at the same place in Johnson, Vermont. I'm in my 13th year at the superintendent in the Harwood district. So I'm happy to join today. I want to start by saying my remarks do not represent the VSA as a whole because we do not have a association position or statement on the matters that you're discussing today. And as far as the Winooski Valley, these are the comments that I'm going to make based on our dialogue with a little bit more specificity and food for thought for your committee following just remarks. What Amanda put up on the screen that was the first time I had seen that. And so I will tell you that the information and guidance that is coming out is changing daily, and we're doing our very best of course as you are probably to keep up with that. So as far as waiver provisions, I would agree with what is said except where we've been told to date that remote learning days will not count towards mandatory attendance and that the waiver process would be used if we would be very lenient if we needed to close because we simply could not staff. As I did one day because I had not enough food service workers to feed our students or for potentially other illness related matters. So I'm not sure how that does or doesn't fit into the waiver process. So I'll try to be succinct. I know your time is very important. So I'll read. Given what we know. Should we be accepting of and normalizing remote learning at home is an acceptable replacement for in person learning. The one who's give LA superintendents have 10 reasons why we shouldn't one remote learning is seriously inequitable from teacher to teacher and district to district. And it's best it is not an equivalent for in person days at school. Number two, increased isolation is bad for our students for a myriad of reasons, period. Three, our students are already in mental health crises at varying degrees. Four, students have a lack of support from nurses, counselors, social workers and some food insecurity when they're remote. Five, increased serious behavior needs were very prevalent this fall. And those are now regulating we're getting in rhythm. Six, more, more remote learning will set us back for successful reentry and startup in fall 2022. Seven, our students currently present with significant learning loss since 2020 as evidenced by state and local assessments. Eight, increased stress and anxiety for students and families who struggle to implement remote learning will make matters worse. Nine, more parents will unlikely more parents excuse me will likely but be unable to work, creating greater anxiety for students that are already stretched. And 10, ultimately, we risk a never ending cycle where remote days become a substitute for in person learning, the fault solution for future variants and tough winters with illness in Vermont schools. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So it seems like having the secretary at least there to consider a waiver. Does help to just figure that someone is watching to see that this is not being overly used, given the importance of in person learning that you have so it's so succinctly outlined. So instead of just having it blanket school boards can decide, which is really what our bill was saying. This says at least the, at least the Secretary of Education is taking a look at what these, what these requests are, and what they're for, and probably how many they've had. So yeah, does it seem like then just at least having the oversight from the Secretary is better than just saying school boards go ahead you can count them. School days. I think the responsibility should lie with the secretary that questions probably best answered by Secretary French and I have no idea what the criteria would be as how one would determine that. Right. Um, let's see representative. Harrison. Thank you. Quick question. We know that remote learning is not an equivalent to in person learning. And I think it's an assumption at least all make is that a substitute teacher is not the same as the regular teacher. How have you been doing in your district with staffing. I certainly is desperate from district to district we've been doing well I have not needed to close school this year I closed one school one day only because the food service people were in quarantine one was positive and I actually couldn't feed the children at Brookside all the other schools remained open. So we've been fortunate. We've created on staff sub positions in addition to itinerant daily subs and we've also added some positions for testing assistance and other sort of roles by others that could come in part time so that our support staff and teachers weren't pulled to do those things as well. That said as a point of reference after the first week back from the holiday coming in January I had 1354 lost learning days in my population of students that could be multiple days by one student or one day for one student in a student body of about 1600. So the number of cases. The first two days this week I had 23. Yesterday I had 18 ish, but we've staffed. Every center of common. James. Thank you. So it's it doesn't sound like a lot of support for sort of encouraging remote days. And so I sort of asked myself well what's worse a remote day or no day, which I think is kind of the option that you're stuck with. And then the question becomes does that just non school day become fewer days taught or made up for like a snow day. Could you kind of help me kind of weave all that together. I'll do the best I can with these questions and of course I'm coming right off of my own thinking. The first thing I would say is that if you have a closed day. You're still required to attend a number of days. It's 175. I believe you made it 170 last year I would encourage you to look at that this year I think you are going to talk about that. So if you're closed, you're closed and you're going to make up those days so there's almost a replacement for the in person day. If you approve remote days, you're there is no replacement you are substituting a total day of in person learning for a remote day, which are not the same. So to me, the goal is to have as many in person days for the points that I made possible for Vermont students. And I think you'd have to ask yourself if they are substitutes for one another. Are they incentivizing. Yeah, thanks. If you had to close one of your elementary schools for a week, let's say. It would just be basically lost days that would have to be made up for as if we had a week long blizzard and it closed the schools. Is there a certain point at which you have started running into contract issues. Yes. So if you have. And I think that's where there may be a conundrum for the first semester. I think one of these this conversation today with the Winooski Valley group truly Peter was about the second semester, how we're going to get to June, and sort of what is in the best interest of students from now till June. So I think your example going back to the start of the school year, will those days need to be made up or not becomes an issue. 188 days in my district, 178 no more than can be student dedicated days. So if you've required your teachers to teach remote. They worked. You have no opportunity to make up anywhere along the calendar in person days instead. If you close, they don't work. And so you have an opportunity then under the contract to make up those days. And you know I think the thing that's coming to my mind and talking to you is there is no perfect solution here. Right, I mean that's. We're really looking at a student first idea as to what is overall best holistically for our students in our system. And one of the driving factors right now that's in our face is their mental health. Thank you. And that that was very helpful information. Appreciate it. Thank you Peter. I think clarifying the concern about incentivizing remote days is an important consideration representative James. Thank you I had a similar question I guess about clarifying. So you had mentioned that right now the guidance from AoE is that remote days don't count. But that waivers would be granted for under certain other circumstances so I was just trying to clarify in my mind. What guidance you're currently operating under from AoE and how or whether you think that should or could change. Sure, I will speak to my understanding and again I would direct you to Secretary French for potentially more specificity. My understanding is we've been told repeatedly since the beginning of the school year that remote days will not count towards the mandatory attendance standard. So we also have a problem with discrepancy where many superintendents would have adhered to not having remote days and others thought it's better than nothing for their students so they had remote days so now we have kind of tad bit of a mess on our hands right. I'm going forward but the waiver provision from the secretary that the state board has authorized him. My understanding was that those waivers would be lenient and they would be granted such that if the rule was 175 days the school district might not make that. They would not have to make up all of the days it could be summer could be all and that they would be leniently awarded to us or approved for us based on our inability to staff and the reason they occurred would have to be specific to being coven related. And just to clarify I'm sorry I think we have already taken testimony on this and I got confused or forgot is the waiver is the waiver process or authority new and will that be if so will that be retroactive. I don't know I'm not going to speak to that I think you should ask the secretary. I think what you'll see represent James is in his memo to us is that that authority did reside with the State Board of Education, and they have given that authority to the secretary in recent years it looked like. Okay. Okay, thanks. Yeah. No representative Austin you did have a question you're you're okay. Okay. Let us go then to Jay Nichols. Good afternoon everyone. Good to see you all. Representative erison I'm sorry for sneezing on you before this started I saw how you did the fake fall back when I sneeze so. So good to be here. Jay Nichols executive director of remote principles Association. My testimony today is based on conversations I've had with a few principles and other educational leaders. Our executive council has not taken an official position on this legislation. To this point. So after hearing other thoughts this testimony focus could change a little but here's what I'm thinking right now. As of today January 4 2022 I don't think there's a necessity to make changes to 16 vs a 1071. After listening to secretary of French and a couple of different settings. I think he has the necessary authority to grant waivers for closings that are beyond the control of the school district. That authority was granted to him this year as it has been throughout most of the pandemic by the state board and normal years the state board has an authority. In addition secretary of French has repeatedly signaled that he will be generous and liberal in his determination as to the need of waivers in this regard. I know he'll work closely with superintendents and making those decisions at the local level. And also heartened with conversations I've had with principles and superintendents who all agree that to the degree possible we need to stress the importance of in person learning. For both social emotional purposes and academic purposes in person instruction and simple human connection is vital for our students. To learn that when we move to hybrid or remote learning many students will be at a disadvantage because of parents having to work inadequate technological resources lack of supervision and so forth. If the school closes because of staffing considerations I hope that they will provide remote opportunities for connections among students as best they can if they can. One principle who opened up a big Google classroom for the entire school just so kids could enter throughout the day to connect with friends and available staff members when they had to close because of lack of staffing. It wasn't a remote day but they gave the kids chances to connect to see each other and to see some of their teachers that were able to join. As I shared testimony with you recently our children overall are in a mental health crisis, increasing remote learning has exasperated this problem and not less than that. Thus, as such, I think we need to stay in person as much as we possibly can be. And thank you for the opportunity to testify today as well as your continued focus on supporting our schools during this pandemic. And that's all I have. Thank you. I am going to turn now to Jeff Fanon, who can speak for the teachers. Thank you and welcome, Jeff Fanon. Thank you, Chair Webb. Jeff Fanon, Executive Director of Vermont NEA. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak with you. As others have said before me and most notably Jay just a minute ago, my comments here today are preliminary. Last week, the Vermont NEA Board met on Saturday and met with Secretary French. And this conversation didn't, the conversation didn't involve this at all involved the, the changes in contact tracing and other things that were released last Friday evening, Friday afternoon, I should say whatever. So the board converse with Secretary French on those changes that were proposed last week. You should also, you know, the Secretary of Education did issue just I think a little afternoon today three follow up memos to that change from last week so we're trying to digest those. As we speak and understand those and the changes over the week it's been a tumultuous two weeks since the start of this semester if you will after the break. My board for money, the board of Vermont NEA hasn't had a chance to look at this draft bill. The Executive Committee hasn't had a chance to look at it either so my comments here are just preliminary but based on discussions we've had with with members. Some of my peers around the state and trying to figure out what's going on. I think in large measure. We agree 100% that in person learning is the best that's the, the gold standard that we're trying to achieve. I think I said this on Wednesday when I testified to the committee. I think that superintendents need to have the authority and flexibility to pivot when they think necessary without fear of penalty of any kind. I think that Secretary of French has written submission of today seems to make that clear. And I think that's probably the right way to go as Jay just pointed out the changes to propose changes to 1071 title 16 may be a little unnecessary at this point. It may come a time in the future when we want to revisit that. So this is moving so fast that, you know, three weeks ago I don't think we would have been in the place where we'd be talking about this necessarily. This Omnicron variant has really whipped through the state and whip through schools. Superintendent needs just said you know 23 yesterday 20 ish today whatever the number was. It is fast moving through our communities at large in our schools reflect that. But having said that in person learnings needs to be a priority students well being is certainly about most importance. But as you just had a few minutes ago there are contract implications for for staff, particularly hourly staff teachers are salaried. But the support staff are hourly and and this would affect this could affect their their wages and that's of concern locally. And I think it ought to be concerned at the state level to we don't want to harm anybody in react overreacting if you will to the COVID pandemic so those are concerns we have. I certainly think that the superintendents in conjunction with their local associations can navigate those issues. Won't be easy necessarily but I think they can do it they've done in the past. And I think that it's a little bit premature to say we need to change 10 section 1071 right off the bat right now. And I think the next week holds this week I would you know Monday I would have said something very different about today on Friday and, and here we are so it's all very fast moving dynamic, and I think the secretary's memo today is helpful. And if he's going to be generous with the waiver requests. We'll figure that out so with that I'll stop and take any questions you might have. Thank you. Let's go on to Susa Glowski from the State Board of School Board Association. Good afternoon Susa Glowski Executive Director of the Vermont School Board Association. Thank you very much for asking for the SBA's response to the committee's COVID-19 miscellaneous bill specifically sections one and two regarding student attendance days and remote learning. As a starting point, utilizing the existing waiver process with authority delegated to the Secretary of Education by the State Board of Education seemed to work in the 2020 2021 school year. We're now in the 2021 2022 school year. Section one of the bill provides that retroactively going back to the beginning of this school year through the end of the next school year. The school board of a district decides to operate one or more schools remotely than any day operated remotely would count. If it qualified as a student attendance day, if it had been operated in person. The VSBA doesn't have a official position on this proposal since none of our resolutions or guiding documents address remote learning directly. I can confer with the VSBA Executive Committee which meets weekly and I could report back to you. What they would likely do is look to existing resolutions that we have relating to equity and quality, equitable access to meaningful and rigorous learning experiences, emotional wellness of students, and a commitment to the success of every student regardless of family economic status. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. So it seems like we have a fairly, fairly organized view that what the Secretary has should be sufficient. I know that we're hearing questions to reduce the number of school days my own thought is that's a little bit of a premature conversation at this point. Thank you very much for many of you on tabling that discussion for the future. I know we reduced it last year I forgotten by how much Jeff Francis. I was just going to agree that I don't think it should be taken off the table at this juncture but it does seem that it perhaps could be deferred a bit while we wait to see what the course of omicron is and how things play out. General view from everybody. Yeah, it is only January. We have a few more months to go. Okay, this is very, very helpful. Are there any other questions we've got a group here any other questions representative Brown. Thank you chair web I just I did have a question for the folks in the room just to clarify what I thought I had heard earlier this week in the testimony around tests to stay. Can someone just maybe clarify or remind me as we move forward under the new guidance that was issued this week and sort of continues to evolve. I have a plan for the deployment of rapid tests to families around children who are close contacts in a classroom with when there's a COVID positive case I thought, I thought I had heard I know that the current program gives rapid tests to students who aren't vaccinated and I thought there was going to be a move to expand that but I just wanted to see if I could get some clarity on that. Anybody able to respond. Great. I just wanted to draw your attention to guidance that just came out about an hour ago because it breaks it down in multiple levels we just really received that a super intense and we'll just be messaging that out. Probably this weekend, sort of in a nutshell current contact tracing goes away surveillance testing goes away. And tracing doesn't wholly go away though because you will send a letter or notice to an entire classroom of a positive and each school is told that we will have enough supply of antigen and or lamp PCR test to administer those with the specificity that is told to us in this guiding document as to whether a student is unvaccinated or not or staff members unvaccinated or not. So quarantine goes away which means more in person days will be essential very few kids will quarantine essentially only those that are symptomatic or ill. Otherwise they'll test to stay it's called test to home. Now instead of test to stay and parents will be doing the testing. Thank you so much for that clarification. And Amanda and I are working with our Senate sister committee to invite the secretary in to present the guidance to us. So we are able to be more up to date and he can do it in one round. Brittany yes. I can I after hearing from Jeff and I just want to put in a plug also for all of the teachers in Vermont, and in particular the support staff and our food service staff and the sort and tie it into remote learning. I don't think we should draw strong conclusion that remote learning is at any time preferred by teaching staff, or even okay with teaching staff I think our staff has been so remarkable since the pandemic began in 2020, frankly at least in my district they'll just do just about I ask of them, so that our kids are well taken care of. But teachers weren't trained to teach remotely teachers weren't trained to have the entire learning experience be a technology one. And to ask them to do that at home when their own students are also in a remote setting, and their children are at home is nearly impossible. So I in as far as support staff it really does create a big concern for that the other thing is let us remember that if we do that they're also isolated. So there's something to be said for the adults in the system, receiving the camaraderie and the support that they need to sustain this pandemic by coming together and being in contact with one another easily. Thank you. You mentioned food service and you have this year had universal breakfast and universal lunch. How is that going. I'm bragging I say enough about my food service to tell you the truth, participation is really high. You're extending free breakfast and free lunch, our participation is really high, and it's amazing what they've been able to pull off. We've only had I say said the one day where we just across the entire district could not satellite out of Harwood or have enough hands on deck. So it's been a good, a good program. Yes, wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. Great. Jeff Fannin. So I would just want to echo that with Superintendent Nese just said I think that's great. It's a testament to what we can do when we put our mind to it and and so to pivot that a little bit in the, the testing component. So I apologize for stealing anybody's thunder here but you know, I'm not a great teacher I'm not I'm not a teacher. I work with teachers. So I put the into the chat the three documents and just came out an hour or so ago for your edification but I certainly think that letting the medical experts explain this is probably the best thing, and it's no offense to anybody in the school system. But this is a lot of medicine and epidemiology expertise that we need to hear from and I think it would be really good to hear more from Commissioner Levine and and Dr. Kelso and others explain this and the rationale behind it I think that's really important for the entire school community to hear. I don't think there are probably many medical doctors who work in schools and I don't know if anybody, but I, this is important stuff we need to hear from the medical experts, and hopefully that this these three documents will calm the field a little bit but it's a, we need to hear more and explanation and rationale behind it. I think it'd be helpful so I'm sure that's coming I hope that it is. And we'll see how these documents play out in the field. So, equities and I just like to also add equity of students and others have said this but it is really so important. And that goes with testing I heard from a teacher the other night who said students who we know aren't vaccinated are likely to not take the test or at least take it well. And should we be doing this in schools to help those kids who are most at risk. There's a segment of the population of the student population where we as a school system need to wrap our arms around them in a caring way and help them through this pandemic more than a lot of other kids who have a lot of strong family supports at home perhaps. So, we'll see if there's enough testing kits out there for everybody I know it's an issue. And we'll figure that out but we need to make sure that all students and all staff have access to these tests so they know he's bringing it into school or bringing it home, the virus that is. So, thank you. Thank you we are actually working to get some information on supply. Representative Austin. I know this is exactly directed to but I'm curious about the dual use of the technology that's used remotely. And if it's also used in the classroom. So, if you know we never saw COVID come we were blindsided by COVID if we have to had to go back to remote learning with students and would staff be prepared to make that switch and would students be much more familiar now with the technology or the content or the programming. Do they use it at all in the classrooms at all the same technology that they would use when they're using when they're teaching remotely. Thank you Brittany. Good question and I would tell you that I'm pretty sure it would be vastly different from district to district and from grade level to grade level I'm pretty sure that's what that you would see. If it were my district I think that we had some very sophisticated remote planning last year. But I would probably need to close school for a day and turn that into a teacher preparation day to even begin that process. So our littles for example K through to don't take devices home. They used in person time to learn how to navigate all of those applications and their Google classroom that would have to be taught to them. So I do think thank you for bringing that up because I think there's a misunderstanding at large in the community that oh we did it before it's like a light switch just flip it back on and you're going to be ready to go. And that is just simply not the case the the older students yes they probably have more capability of almost to the light switch, but not the littles and not the kids in the middle. Thank you. Thank you. So just question on contact tracing we definitely heard from a school nurse who was wanted to have no contact tracing whatsoever. So my understanding that is contact tracing really is just notifying parents that someone in the class. Has covered and that doesn't sound like contract tracing that just sounds like we're giving you a notice that you probably you tell me I've been exposed. Yeah, please. I'm doing too much talking today. I think actually right now all the questions are directed to you. Alright, thanks. You can control me Kate. Well, that guidance really kind of just came out. And if I had my, my druthers, I wouldn't state contact tracing is going away goes away, like it's all done now. I think it's modified is what we're saying, because it, it's going to intersect with test to home. So we're not going to make line lists, we're not going to have to be partnered with BDH to get those lines lists responded to. We're not going to make individual calls to each family, hundreds of calls. Because of the way Omicron spreads. What we are told is if Billy Ray is in the third grade classroom, and he becomes positive. We will send a letter home to all of the classmates within that third grade class. At the same time, because they're now consents considered pre presumptive positives, we will provide them with the antigen tests or a PCR test at school that goes home with them. And there will be a different amount of those distributed, whether they're vaccinated or unvaccinated. They'll be identified through a group letter, the testing will be sent home with them, but they will continue to come to school and not be in quarantine, as I understand it, unless they become symptomatic. That's a big shift for us, right. So, contact tracing in my mind is modified an example of a seven to 12 model for that because as you would know, the students would have multiple classrooms throughout the course of the day. So we have a way to go in through our swift reach and power school tools that we use and we could find Billy Ray schedule, and we could figure out exactly all of the classes that he's been in. I picked Billy Ray Jeff because I don't know that I've ever met a Billy Ray in 40 years in an education so that's that's kind of my everybody knows that when I'm going to talk about students I go with Billy Ray Ray and Mary Fran, because I haven't met any. So that's my little moniker. Anyway, so you can you can very easily and quickly determine all of the classrooms then that would get the letter, and then all of those students will receive the test kits home. They will keep coming to school if they're asymptomatic. They will take the test at home with their parents. So that's contact tracing modified intersex test to home and replaces surveillance testing, essentially, and the contact tracing as you might have known it to be. So in terms of the percentage of time that it would take if we consider what it was let's call that 100% what what what's left, what percent of that time now would their time be, I don't know what their time was before but I mean percentage wise, I can't really tell you that because it would deter that would be determined by how many positives you have simultaneously. Right. And usually contact tracing in the old way where we're calling every family and managing that that is like five people in my district working the entire weekend if you get a case. It takes that long to narrow it down get all the close contacts and call those families. So setting out that quick letter and then knowing that they can pick up the test or send the test home is much simpler, much faster and easier for our employees to to manage for sure. Thank you that's very helpful and understanding how are you doing with supplies of masks. That's to you, Bridget Nice. I think I'll just leave the volume on the mute button on Kate. Yeah, that's going to probably very district to district now in our district we have an ample supply for all of our staff to have KN 95 masks and they do. And we've ordered another 10,000 masks and they should be delivered any day maybe as I'm speaking to you for all of our students to access them so that that supply has not seemed at least difficult in my district and secretary French was asked and he said if we had difficulty that we should reach out because the state supply is quite huge he said so I don't see that as a problem. Great. Thank you representative James. Thanks. Just reveal how long it's been since I've had kiddos and school. How do you guarantee that that parents are going to receive the letter and I'm thinking of the crumpled up letter in the backpack that you find two weeks later. So how do you know that the info is going to reach the parents. No question it's not really a ladder so we have a service it's called Swift reach, and we have the capacity to text their phone, email them, or send a voice recorded message out, and we utilize all three. And that's technology that all of our s us and sd's have now I assume. Maybe so they might call it something different but I never use the word all. And as a superintendent you mentioned guaranteed I don't ever guarantee anything. Thanks I just revealed my age. That's okay. Thank you. This has been very helpful. Thank you for your continuing discussion on what it so we've got Bridget needs we've got you in the room. What would you like the legislature to do and what do you want us to please not do. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow wow wow. I, I, while I agree with the team that spoke I think reducing the 175 days is premature, but I also think it may well be needed so I would really ask you to look to that. And in my district, our board is already talking about what we might do to be able to support our teachers. We can't say enough about what they've done what they've endured. I'm so proud of them and our district and I know most of my super all my superintendent friends must be in the same. I will use the word all, all will be probably in the same boat. And it's been a long time. We've been doing this now since 2020 and asking people to do the impossible. So last year when you went to 170 that gave my school board the opportunity to tell our staff all staff from our support staff up through our vacation that five days of work day pay which was already in the budget would be would not be reduced in any way, but those days became an extra five days vacation for every employee that worked in the school district as a sincere thank you for stepping up repeatedly and doing what they did. Not only do we need people not to go to school till July one, because all of these other tentacles are going to show up. But that is a way that's cost effective for school boards to consider if they're so inclined to give a thank you and more to teachers and help help us to get out at a very reasonable time in June, which then helps us to ready for the fall. That would be one. Thank you. We'll keep us posted if you think of more. I will. Okay. So you're looking for us to do a whole lot of really cool new initiatives that no no no let's let's thank you thank you for leading me right into please no new initiatives. It's a stay put as we say we have all that we can handle. Now we really at the point we can come up and breathe we really need to focus on learning loss and students social emotional well being. And I can't emphasize that enough kids are most kids are not okay but we don't know how not okay they might be and what we're going to do to support that. And I think the answer money has been incredibly helpful, but you are also hearing we can't hire. There aren't enough people, whether we need home school coordinators or social workers, teachers support staff, I mean it's just so very difficult to hire that we are hearing it's national I'm hearing as well. National concern. Yes. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. I brought up learning loss and it's brought up. Almost daily from, from everywhere. How are we going to measure learning loss. with our younger students, our K through three students and maybe graduating seniors even. How are we gonna measure this? Nice to see you, Larry. You know, I don't know that I have a succinct answer for you or a comprehensive answer for you. The best way in my mind's eye to measure learning loss, we need to have the kids in school. There's a start and our local assessments that we have across school districts in Vermont are very powerful. And yes, they're time consuming often to administer, but it can tell us where students should be based on their sort of chronological and grade placement and where they're actually functioning, especially in literacy, especially in math areas like that. Social emotional learning now has some excellent screening tools that we're able to use through student surveys and observations and things like that that sort of help us get a pulse of where our students are from a social emotional perspective. There are the statewide assessments, but they don't really drill down in my opinion, Larry, to a point where you can have targeted assistance and tutoring for that learning loss student to student. You know, the grain size just isn't small enough to do that, but our local assessments are. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, thank you. This has been a very helpful conversation, I think for the committee. So committee, are we comfortable in letting those two parts of our bill fade away? And we've deferred to the secretary's authority. Could I just see a, if you disagree, yeah, get thumbs up or some such thing, everybody's okay with that. And people who want us to continue on with a bill. Okay, thank you. I think that sounds like a good plan going forward. We'll leave that. I think that your point about one of the reasons why we might want to consider down the road, reducing the acquired number of school days is something to consider. That's the reason I haven't actually considered. So with that, just going to move to committee discussion, give you an idea of what I'm, some of the things I'm looking at for next week. And those of you who are not on the committee, if you would like to stay, please do. But otherwise, we will say thank you, but please stay if you want to hear more of what's happening. Thank you so much, Superintendent Nies. Thank you, it's nice to see you all. Really helpful. So, just a few things going on. Number one, I am working with our Senate counterparts, Amanda and I at a joint meeting to hear from the secretary on update on guidance. We were going to have Representative Cohen-Heiserin to talk to us about the waiting study. I think the best use right now, I'm just going to ask, I'm going to ask members, I'm not going to suggest, I'm really going to ask you to go view the testimony that Senator Hardy and Cohen-Heiser gave, you can see it in two places. One of two places, either in Senate Finance or in House Ways and Means, they presented that. I think there weren't any questions. I think that they just presented their information and asked for questions not to happen. But I think that would be a good way for us to kind of get up to speed with what their report is about. So, can everybody just agree that they're going to be watching this before Tuesday? That would be great. Thank you. Representative Austin. I just wanted to say, I watched it a couple of times and also read through the slides again. And I think it will really help to pay attention to our conversation, to listen carefully to the discussion or the presentation about ELL students and why they're recommending away from weights and towards more towards a grant for ELL students. And I'm not positioning either way, but there's a really good portion of the discussion around that. Thank you. Representative Brown. Thanks. My question was just, was it the same presentation both times that it doesn't really matter which one we choose? Right, no. And for the most part, you could often, I don't know if this one works as well, but I often when I'm watching these, I can put an awful lot of them on double speed and then slow it down and go, wait a minute, I didn't quite get that one. But very often you can do that. So, those are two things. I, we will be following up on a few things. I'm going to move forward with chapter 11. It's going to take a while to get through that. So we're going to set up several sessions with best St. James to walk us through the 115 page bill of which some of it is essential. Some of it, it's really just technical. It'll just have capitalization here and there, which we don't have to spend too much time on. At the same time, we do have a bill introduced by representative Shaw and I've forgotten what the bill number is, age 493, which actually looks at some of the policy issues we've talked about in changing changes to chapter 11. So we'll also, we're also working to get him in to present that bill to us in the context of the work that we're doing around chapter 11. We're also just trying to get more information on where we are with masks and test kits. We may end up inviting someone in to help us understand where we are with that since that we keep hearing that's, those are major parts of mitigation. I was looking at my list here. There were two bills that I introduced. One was to bring retired teachers, that representative Hooper and I introduced to bring to retired teachers, allow them to come forward to teach for a year without affecting their pensions. That bill has gone to government operations. I'll follow up on that. There was another bill that I introduced related to speech language pathologist and audiologist being able to participate in an interstate compact. That also went to government operations. But we have heard that schools are worried about not having access to SLPs and audiologists. So I'm following up on those things. I think, oh, and Act 173, we're gonna be taking testimony next week to decide if we'll be hearing more from the field on whether we should delay that, which is the remainder of our bill, which is all adjusting all of those states that Jim DeMarie went through. So that's on the, we're looking at for next week. I think we're looking, Amanda, at the schedule being a little bit, a little bit more organized than this week. This week has been a little bit of a challenge. Yes, ideally that's how next week we'll go. We'll keep you posted. Operative word, ideally, there. Representative Austin. Yep. So we're meeting in Peristen on Tuesday, back at the state house. And I'm just wondering about the on the wall bills. Will they be up? And if not, is there a way we can just see them, just have something sent out just with what is on the wall, what remains on the wall from last session and what's come in? I know Amanda was working on that. So Amanda, I know you were working on that but we thought we were going to be in person. Do you have any update on where we are with that? Yeah, thank you, Rev Webb. Yeah, I was in the process of working on it. My last in-person day at the state house, I actually printed them all out. So they are printed and in the committee room, they just have not been put up on the wall yet. And so during my, all of the free time that we all have, I will be attempting to put them on the wall as soon as possible. Great, thank you. I may try to be there on Monday. I don't know, we'll just have to see if I could make that work and help you out a little bit. Yeah, so we will be in-person. You will be getting your test kits. I think that that is, you can work that out with your caucus on how you're doing that. Any other questions that I probably don't have the answer to but are willing to find? We're gonna be wearing our masks. Good masks. Okay, and 95s. I think we will try to not have us meet for long sessions to give us breaks to be able to get some clean air. The acoustics in the room are not good. We're gonna have to keep working on that. A good question. Yeah. Madam Chair, do you suppose there are any plans to have microphones when we're on the floor? Because if you recall the other day when we had the vote about masks, it's kind of, seemed like certain people in the room were, they continually were saying, speak up, use your microphone. I wonder if we have anything kind of to put on your mask. Do you have any news about that? You mean to put it while we're functioning in our committee room? Yeah, I mean, I imagine you just the way, a pressed outfit would interview somebody with a little microphone clip to their tie, right? Right, right. I wonder if you couldn't put one on a mask. Good, good, that's a good question. I don't think we have an answer yet, but I think we're gonna be working out those problems this week and I think that's a good question so that we can actually hear each other. Representative Austin. Sorry, just one more question. Is it okay if we lunch in the committee room and if we are in the committee room to listen to the floor, to be on the floor? Yes, my understanding is yes. Do you have a sense of what time we'd be starting on Tuesday? Floor is at 10. Would we be before that at all? I think the floor is at 9.30. Usually it's 10 on two. Yeah, that's Friday's coop. You've been in the legislature for like 50 years. I thought I heard 9.30 today, but. I thought it was 10. We usually, you know, that usually allows time, but we'll check on that. I think it's 10. When we're remote, I usually have no problem in having testimony before then. I think that we probably won't do that for this week while we're trying to figure out how this is going to work. Here. I think just getting there and being in person. Yep. Oh, thank you. Amanda says that reminded us that floor is at 10 o'clock on Tuesday. Thank you. Okay. I think unless we're 100% remote, we really can't ever be before 10 on Tuesdays. Yeah. No, I agree. And usually it's 10, which is what's allowing people to get here. Representative Toof. Thanks, Madam Chair. Do I see that we have a joint meeting on Tuesday at one? Did that work out? Is that on the schedule? Well, we have the governor's address. Governor's address. Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. Governor's address. That will be the whole body. Is there anything that people would like us to be considering or we can take some time next week as well? Other things that we want to be considering. I know waiting, there's a good chance that we don't have to be fully involved in that until after class crossover. That's what I'm currently hoping that we can work out, that the first bill will actually start in the Senate. We'll be working on some of the education issues. Education policy issues while ways and means we'll be looking at more of the implications to the education fund. There'll be more on that part. We'll be looking more at actually impact on education concepts. We also have the S 100 on the wall, which is the universal lunch bill. I'm hoping that we can get to that. We don't have to do that now. We can do that after crossover. So that's, it's up there. I don't intend to ignore that. I heard from the committee that that's a bill of interest. We still are going to be getting updates from the administration on literacy and facilities inclusion and community schools. We will be hoping to build that in as we go along. And I believe there's a good chance we'll be able to get Ted Fisher from AOE into our committees every Friday. And I would like to be able to do that before floor. I don't know what people's travel deals will be, but the fact, yeah, so. Well, we'll work on that. Kate also suggested just to fill it, if we have gaps in the schedule, it seems like there's been a lot of bills referred to our committee that need to be presented at some point in time. Right. And looking at it, looking at a few of those, one of them is representative James Bill, which I'm, we're pulling up. So representative James had left, I spoke with Amanda about getting you and who did you, who are you working on that one with? It depends on our, both of the CTE bills should have popped up by now, right? I hope. I think so. So we would like to get both of those at the same time. Okay. Great. You can work on that with Amanda. Cause I think Reptoof and Dickinson and Kimball and I are on one of them. And then I think the other one is just Rep Kimball and I, but that's just because things were moving so quickly. And that's the one that dovetails with one of Rep Coupoli's bills. So basically we've got it all covered, I think. So if you can organize that so that we can and work with Amanda and me on how we will present all those at the same time. Sure. It'd be great. And Representative Toof, you're just agreeing, right? You didn't want to say something. That's correct. I was just giving a thumbs up. Okay, great. The parochial and independent schools questions are in Senate education. I don't expect that we are going to be addressing that before crossover. That would be an after crossover issue. And... We are under the obligation, right? To pass something on waiting. Is that correct? We're never under, we're under obligation to do what we do. Well, of course, but aren't we kind of like, isn't the threat of lawsuit kind of imminent? Oh, there's always a threat of lawsuit. Most of the things that we do. Some people might even prefer that take that route. Some people would like to let the courts decide. Some people would like to see us and kind of hash it out. Well, the reason I ask is because, I mean, I am totally confident that the Senate will send us something, but I just wonder if we want to keep track. We'll be preparing and most of the work will actually be done in the money committees. So we will hear from Kornheiser sometime next week, I'm assuming. I think so. We do have two members. We do have one of the co-chairs. Excuse me, we do have two members in our committee who were on that. Past course. It was a really impressive group. And we'll be leaning to them to be guiding us through the issues that our committee should be addressing. And I keep looking over here because I have a big white, big yellow piece of paper with all of the issues that I can think of that we're addressing. Anything else? So Amanda, we made it through week two. Let's everybody do a big thank you to her for sticking with us. Thank you all. I really appreciate it, Amanda. Thank you. Representative Austin. And I don't know if the committee members, you know, feel this way, but I would just like to gain a better understanding about the mental health impact because of COVID. I feel like this is never, I mean, not that I'm aware in my teaching career has ever happened. This kind of disaster, this type of crisis. And I have to believe that there are researchers that from the beginning have been doing research on this particular crisis and how it's impacted children and how it's impacted learning and what the best methods are for treatment, for children to, you know, bring them back, you know, to a healthy mental health state. And I, you know, I just would love, I don't know if it would be positive just hear from someone who, you know, nationally who is doing research on this and has come up with, you know, an understanding of what school-aged children are experiencing, you know, this is, I feel like this is normal behavior in the context of a crisis, what our children are exhibiting, except for some. I think some would need more serious intervention, but I'm just curious, I have a lot of questions about in this particular instance, you know, we keep talking about mental health and we keep talking about getting them treatment, but I'm not clear what that means, you know, what the treatment is, what works, what doesn't work, what they've learned, you know, just. A lot of that for us is gonna be what we as the legislature would, how we as a legislative body would respond as opposed to we're not the ones that are gonna get into this therapy approach works better than this one over here, but we do have additional ESSER funds to appropriate this year, the recommendations on appropriating that, so it's certainly something that we can throw into the mix. Okay, thank you. As we're hearing mental health and learning loss are the issues that we're hearing from the field. So anything else then? Okay, we will see you bright and early.