 Okay, thank you. We have. Why don't we take just a five minute break. And Kathleen. Would you like to take a five minute break or go right into community schools. Yeah. Whatever everybody wants. Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to go ahead and introduce your part of it. And then we'll see if we'll take a little break before Jim goes through his part. Okay, that sounds great. Okay. Yeah. So just like Serita. So I wouldn't ramble. I wrote. I wrote a little intro. And it's really just an update, a little bit of an update of the bill introduction I did last year, because as folks who are new to the committee may not know chair Webb and I introduced this bill last year. And got as far as talking about it and committee for an hour and then COVID. So. The bill is back. And it's back because I believe that it's more relevant than, than ever. So I'll just read my, read my little intro. So we're talking about H106, an act related to COVID. Access to a high quality education through community schools. All schools are located in a community. So what's a community school. As described in this bill, it's a public school that actively partners with families and with community organizations like health and social service agencies, nonprofits, businesses, local farms, institutions of higher education to offer well rounded and wide ranging opportunities, resources and supports that help every student succeed. And because these strategies are intentionally and specifically designed to reflect each school's particular needs and the community assets that can harness no two community schools look alike. Community schools as described in the, in sort of the traditional model are a flexible strategy that includes four pillars. Pillar one is integrated student supports. Pillar two is expanded and enriched learning opportunities. Pillar three is significant family and community engagement. And pillar four is a collaborative leadership team. So pillar one by integrated student supports, we mean things like access to medical care, dental care, mental health resources for students and families. And additional things like even job training or assistance with affordable housing or nutrition. Pillar two by expanded and enriched learning. We mean opportunities that go beyond that. We mean, Pillar two by expanded and enriched learning. We mean opportunities that go beyond the classroom, like after school programs, summer programs or partnerships with businesses to provide internships, volunteer opportunities or mentoring. Pillar three by family and community engagement. We mean things that bring families and community members into the school and vice versa. So programs that engage parents in the school and in their students success, classes, training or even social events for families and community members. And opportunities for shared leadership. So the school starts to feel like a community hub and these stronger connections between home, school and community are in turn shown to improve student outcomes. And finally, Pillar four community schools have a collaborative leadership approach that extends beyond the administration to include families, community members and local organizations. So Kate knows because she was with me. I first heard about community schools in July, 2019 at a conference pre COVID, obviously the national forum on education policy in Denver. And there was an afternoon seminar on community schools and I thought it sounded interesting. So I attended and I learned about schools in cities like New York, Philadelphia, Miami and Boston. That are accomplishing some really powerful things, really transformational stuff through the community schools strategy. But I didn't know if it was relevant to Vermont. So I reached out to the education commission of the states, the commission and I talked to the commission and the commission of the facebook, the commission of the state council and the commission of the community, and I was surprised by the incredible content that was available on the ECS. On how the community school model is being applied in rural states and regions. The report gave examples from around the country. And I was surprised and pleased to learn that Molly Stark elementary school in Bennington, that Kate and I visited Molly Stark in October 2019. There was a truck from the Vermont food bank parked outside and families were coming to fill bags with produce and pick up recipes inside the building. There was a whole room set aside for a dental chair and you know a local dentist comes in to provide services for students who qualify and in another wing of the building there was a pre-k and there were other clinics and programs for kids and they also offer summer camps in math reading and writing for kids and in all grades. They had a child care facility as well there too all in the same building. So much more recently and I mean much more recently I've started to learn that Vermont is home to many more schools that have adopted really interesting variations of this approach and that there are a lot of educators around our state that are actively engaged in this work and they're thinking about community schools in a much more kind of long range and broad way. So the question is why? We hear all the time in this committee that children are arriving in school with a wide range of really complex needs stemming from poverty, hunger, housing insecurity, substance use disorder. This really impacts their ability to learn and it impacts their ability to listen, to focus, to engage in the classroom and that becomes an equity issue. So the community school strategy is a proven approach. I have we have data and studies that we can send along when it's time to talk about this. It can help boost attendance, academic achievement and graduation rates. It can help close the economic and racial achievement gap and in terms of funding schools that adopt this model can unlock or access additional funding through the federal Every Student Succeeds Act because it meets us as standard of evidence-based approaches for eligible schools. So anyway, that's probably enough for me. This bill is model legislation. The Vermont NEA helped me to find it. It's based on Minnesota, New York and Tennessee. So I'm really excited to take testimony to learn more about this idea and to hear how we can adapt it and offer it as a pilot program as it's envisioned here for 10 schools here in Vermont. So thanks. Thank you, Kathleen. I'm inclined to say, shall we power through? Okay, we'll power through. We'll take a break after this, after the discussion. Thank you very much, Jim. Okay, so let's try to share our screens again, see if this will work. Do you mind? Absolutely, bringing that up. Thank you, Bill. I was going to try to do it myself. Oh, sure. You should still be a co-host. Okay, all right. Let me just see which one this is. Sorry, everyone. You just have to find. I'm not finding it on the text. Jessica, sorry. You have to do it for me. But it's not a problem. Sometimes it helps if you hit show all windows, not necessarily for now, but for the future there. Hit them all. Yeah, there's a little window on the bottom right that says show all screens, and sometimes that helps. Okay, thank you. Okay. Okay. Well, okay, for the record again, Jim Danbury, let's console. We're walking through H106, and if we can scroll down, this is obviously the community school bill. And let's go down to the findings. I'm not going to read through the findings in detail. I do want to highlight a couple, though. So the first few findings are about the issues with lack of opportunity for students on an equal basis, and issues around living from households. Let's go down to finding number three and four. So three says community schools facilitate the provision of comprehensive programs and services that are carefully selected to meet the needs of students and families. So it's a substance abuse, lack of stable housing, and inadequate medical and dental care, hunger, trauma, exposure to violence so students can do their best. Four talks about the four areas that James just went through. So the four key pillars are integrated student support, expanding and enriching learning time and opportunities. Three, active family and community engagement, and four, property leadership practices. Okay. And then the findings go on to talk about five is talking about the results that can be gained from improvement in this area. Six talks about the return on investment. So if you scroll down further, talking about least dollar invested in a community coordinator position returns $7 in net benefits. And then likewise, talks about every dollar invested in various programs and you hold up to $14.80 in return. And then the next finding is about COVID-19 recovery and how this could help with that. So let's go down to section three, which is the part of the bill. And this bill is kind of difficult to read through because there are a lot of long definitions at the beginning. And what I want to do is first go to the definition of eligible school so you can just see which school is going to apply for this funding. So let's go down just to page um other way down to page seven from it and scroll down further to the bottom. Okay, right here. So eligible school means a public elementary or secondary school that has a student by at least 40% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Where it's been identified for targeted support under the federal or state law. So it's beginning here because not every school is eligible for this funding. It's schools basically with a high percentage of students living in poverty. Schools are targeted for improvement. So if we can go back up them to page four. And we're looking now at the definition of school down a bit. Definition of community schools itself. So we're online 13. So this talks in detail, A, B, C, and D. We're talking in detail about the four areas that James mentioned. Um, much that we have to go through all of them in detail, but first is it means a community school has to have all four of these. Okay. So first is integrated school supports which is around partnerships with social and health service agencies. So for example for providing medical dental vision care, et cetera. Next page, B, deals with expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities. This is before school, after school, weekend, summer programs, et cetera. C, online nine talks about active family and community engagement which brings students families and the community into the school as partners. And that could be providing adults with access to various opportunities for themselves as well. And then D talks about collaborative leadership and practice, which is building a culture of professional learning and collective trust and shared responsibility around school leadership. Okay. Keep going down. Then we've got a bunch of positions and kind of groups identified. So we have a community school director. That means a person who is a staff member of another school. And it's responsible for identification and coordination of the four areas we've talked about. And serves as a member of the school-based leadership team which we'll come on to. And very importantly, D serves as the leads for the needs and access assessment and community school plan. We'll come on to that. But basically what that's talking about is that in order to apply for these, the script funding, the Electoral School would have to do a needs and access assessment. So what needs do they have and what resources do they have to meet those needs and what are the gaps? And then a couple of the plan basically to address that. So that's what that's talking about. And then also this position leads the needs and the assessment assessment. Basically this role coordinates a lot of that activity. Then you've got a term that says our community school initiative director. So if you scroll down a little more just, the key thing here is online 2021. So the community director we just talked about, that's kind of overall coordination. But the initiative director is working across three Electoral Schools. So if you have for example an SU with three Electoral Schools or more, this person would help coordinate among those schools the delivery of the community school program. And further, I think you have a community-wide leadership team and then you have a more local team as well coming up. So the community-wide leadership team is at the SU level and guides vision policy resource alignment implementation oversight and goal setting for the community school programs. And the team has to include many stakeholders which are listed here. And then you have, if you scroll down further, we talked about the Electoral School. Let's go on further to seven on the next page. So we have now the definition of a school-based leadership team. So we talked about the SU team overall coordination. Now you have a more local team at school level that is responsible for assessing that particular school's needs. Development goals, et cetera. And that's comprised of school and community representatives. We have now less than one-third parents or local residents and less than one-third teachers and other school staff. And then you've got lastly a definition of teacher learning communities, which is a group of instructional staff who are given time to plan to examine their practice and student performance and improve school policy. So that's a lot of definitions I appreciate. That's why it's possible we're complicated to go through, but go back to them. I'll have to go back over them again with you, of course. B talks about the assistance from the agency of education. So again, it's going to be, as it was in the literacy bill, providing technical assistance to SUs, giving them materials. So for educational purposes, assisting them with forming a task force to study the creation of an administration of new schools, and then informing SUs to the availability of grants, helping them with their applications, and looking for other sources of funding. And then coordinating across the agencies. Okay, so C, line 10, is the grant funding. So how this works is the agency is authorized to provide planning, implementation, and renewal grants. So let me pause there. There are three grant programs here. So a plan grant, an implementation grant, and a renewal grant. So the planning grant is for a one-year grant up to $20,000 for each eligible school. So you have an SU with three eligible schools that would be $60,000. So it's per school. We'll talk about what that's used for momentarily. And then after the planning grant, you have an implementation grant of $110,000 per year, for a year, for three years for each eligible school. So again, if you have three eligible schools and an SU, you'd have $330,000 to implement. And then at the conclusion of that three-year period, you can apply for a renewal grant of, again, $110,000 annually for three years. So you can get basically one-year planning grant, three years of implementation grant, and three years further of renewal grant funding. So D talks about what you have to do for the planning grant. That's $20,000 to plan the activities. So next page. Okay. So applicants for submit application for this planning grant has to describe the community-wide leadership team and the school-based leadership team. And the process over the place to establish the teams has to describe the process and timeline for conducting a needs and assets assessment, a community plan, school plan for each school. And C, to scroll down a bit further, if applicable, applicants for hiring staff or providing additional compensation to staff. And then in that application, the applicants will make an assurance that the applicants tend to apply for implementation grant within six months of receipt of a planning grant. And then it says, planning grant funds shall be used for the following activities. The establishment of the various teams, the conducting of a needs and asset assessment. We're going to come on to that further again and cross in the community school plan for the school. And then next page. It says that the planning grant funds may be used for hiring additional staff or providing additional compensation to existing staff or contracting with others. And then E talks about the application for the implementation and renewal grant. So those are the two other grants, ones are for 110,000 for three-year periods. So it says that eligible applicants shall submit an application for an implementation or renewal grant to the agency and for each eligible school that that shall include. And then scroll down a bit further. Now I was talking about the needs and assets assessment, which I've mentioned a few times. So it has to include this assessment that includes where available student demographic, academic achievement, climate that is desegregated by major demographic groups through protected classes, and access to and need for integrated support, integrated student, sorry for a little bit. Access and need for integrated support, student supports and access and need for extended and risk learning time and opportunities in school funding information for people, salaries, etc. Going down, it has to also include information on the number of qualifications and stability of school staff, on active family and community engagement information. I won't read all of this, if you're going down just, okay. So it has to include the description of the collaborative leadership practices, then the teams, the teaching and community, etc., and opportunities for partnerships with nonprofits and other organizations to coordinate services. Going down further. And then it has to include community climate indicators, like housing and stability, employment, poverty, etc. And then it talks about the community school plan, which has to provide description of a number of things. So how the director, directors will be expected to fill their responsibilities, collaborative leadership practices, etc. So a lot here in terms of what has to be the application, I won't read through all of it, but keep scrolling down for a bit, they're just, yeah, okay, it's up here. So there's a lot in the application for a grant, whether it's an initial grant for the three years or the grant that is a renewal grant. So all of that has been the application for these grants. And next it talks about what you have to do with that money. So one talks about programming services and activities to be tailored to the school's needs, as it identifies in the needs and access assessment. And I got an inferior to the pops up in my screen. So this is what you do with finance. You provide the director the recording services are across the SU or the schools. They maintain their school basic leadership team and teacher of our communities. They're implementing, oh, okay, they have at least two of the following integrated student supports. So they have a choice which we have to do here. They're listed here one through read down, but they have to implement two of these. So access to health services, access to additional services, access to programs to provide assistance to students who have been off the absent, keep going down just keep going down. Yep. Okay, it's up there. Then they have to implement expanded and rich learning time opportunities, which may include various things. So it's just like the instruction before after school, etc. And he says they have to implement this to active family and community engagement strategies. And they're listed here too if you scroll down further just so like onsite early education care, home visitation, etc. And keep going down. Okay, and then let's stop here on evaluation. So at the end of the initial three year grant period of an implementation award, and if you have a new grant the third year when that grant ends, each of our school shall undergo an evaluation in some of the agency. That evaluation shall include a minimum information under E1 and 2 that we're talking about. We're talking now about the needs and assessment in the community school plan. So it has to include the impact on academic achievement and opportunities, school climate, integrated school support, expanded and rich learning time opportunities, active family to go down, and community engagement, etc. So that's that quite a bit of detail in it, but outcomes and then goes down further. Then on before December 15, 2023, the agency has to report to the general assembly and the governor on the impact of the program, which will be made publicly available. Yeah, you'll just aggregate that as much as you can. And then the further preparation funds, okay, so we have a preparation of 1.529 million from the Education Fund, basically 22, provide grant funding under this program. That's for the planning grant, implementation grant, and renewal grant. But in the first year, it'll just be the planning grant. And I guess programs can also be implementation grant for the first year. And then not more than 10% of the funds can be used for technical assistance, and not more than 5% for evaluations that are required. And it's going down further. And the first day is on passage. So that was a lot of information. Another simple little bill. Yeah. Thank you. If you're a little overwhelmed, that's you're in good company. Now, Jim, this was a sort of a template bill that you put into Vermont language, correct? Is that right? Correct. It came in as James mentioned. It came from outside source kind of combination of other states laws. It was given to me as a package, as language. So all of the ugly dough in it is put into our format. Okay, thank you. Representative James Ben-Williams. Great. That was a lot. And I guess as the bill's lead sponsor, what I primarily wanted to say was that if I had had the knowledge to give this bill to Jim and have him write it from scratch, I'm sure it would have been a lot simpler and probably not included so many detailed definitions. So what I just wanted to do for the committee super quickly is to say that this bill identifies schools that are eligible. So you have to have a certain poverty threshold or be identified as needing help. So it identifies schools that could apply for this. It sets up a pot of grant money that they can draw from to implement this. And it outlines the things that they have to do. So what you have to do is you have to spend a year planning. And that means that you take a look at your school and what your school needs are. And you take a look at your community and what your community has to offer. And you develop a plan, a community schools plan. And then if you are approved by the agency of education, you get $130,000 and to implement the program. And that is primarily used to hire somebody. So all of that language was about hiring a community school's coordinator or director or whatever you want to call it. And the reason is because the research has proven that it's really important to have a dedicated person on staff who is implementing this plan, who's working with the community, who's working with the SU or across the district. You can't just say to like a social studies teacher, hey spend a couple hours a week being our community schools coordinator. It's not effective. So the money goes to hire somebody whose job it's going to be to set up all these interesting partnerships and programs and connections to run this program at the school. And then you have to indicate that you're making progress. It's intended to be a three-year pilot. And in the end you report on how it improved outcomes at your schools along metrics that you have determined are going to measure whatever it is you're trying to achieve. That is what this bill is. Okay. Thank you, Kathy. That was much more fair than I was. Thank you. Well, I had to read it a million times to get, you know, it's an incredibly wordy bill. And, you know, maybe in Vermont we do things differently. Maybe a lot of this stuff would have come later in the AOE grant, for example. So anyway, that's what this does. And I want to come back to the thought that this is an exciting program. We have schools in Vermont that are doing this in exciting ways. And I can't wait to hear testimony from these folks because it's going to bring this bill to life in a way that that language can. That's what it is. It's a grant program. The amount of money that we've built into the bill is random. It's 10 schools. It's enough money for 10 schools. Last year it was 2 million, you know, so I scaled it back. It's scalable. And it provides money for 10 schools to develop a plan that's completely tailored to their community and their school and hire somebody to run it. Okay, I'm done. Thank you. Representative James, Representative Williams. Yes, I think you, Representative James explained it very well. And I really appreciate that. Just a couple of technical things that I don't understand not being a part of the legislature for very long. Well, two things is a community school, a public school with different narratives and programs. And does this, if it gets approved, have to be passed now to the appropriations for approval for the monies? That's okay. Second question is easy. Yes. It would have to go to a propus where a propus would talk about the funding. So, I mean, that's ways and means. Would it be advantageous to have them part of our discussions so they know where we're coming from or they just say, okay, they know what they're talking about. So, we're just going to decide if we're going to give them the money. Chair Webb, you're the elder here, not in chronological years, although that too. Yes, this is not something that we surprise them with. We will have context in ways and means and context in appropriations. So, this would not be a surprise attack. Last year, it went through ways and means. No, no, it didn't. That was literacy. This one didn't make it out of committee. But, yes, it's a process when there's money in it. So, the first question, is it considered a public school and supported by the state? Yeah. Somewhere in that long bill, it says that you have to be a public school in order to be eligible to apply. So, this is a public school bill. And the other thing I wanted to say is about the four pillars. This is model language, and it's based on something called the Community Schools Playbook that was developed by the Learning Policy Institute, which is basically a think tank. And so, you know, the four pillars, that's how the Learning Policy Institute and the Community Schools Playbook, which is an actual book that I have that I've mostly read, that's how they define community schools. What would be interesting to me to see, I mean, we have to have clear definitions. If it's going to be a grant and schools are going to apply, you know, it can't just be this open-ended thing. But those definitions did come from this particular institute. And when we start taking testimony, I'll be curious to hear how some of the schools around Vermont, like Thetford Academy, is doing incredible work in this area. And I don't know that their Community Schools model, as they define it, includes these four pillars. Thank you. Yeah. And Molly Stark's been doing this for years. And, you know, I think Molly Stark may even predate, I'm not sure who came first, you know, this definition or Molly Stark, they've been doing this work for a really long time. So, hold that, because we're going to want to get to who we want to hear from, but I want to get a few more names, two more people here, representing Conlon and them too. Yeah, Kathleen, thanks for your summation there at the end. It definitely helps give everybody a better picture here. And it is a big complicated bill and it makes me happy that we are in a biennium and not a single year to make things happen. Just a couple of questions for Jim. First of all, just in my reading through it, it may need another sort of read through to differentiate between SUs and SDs. I noticed on page nine, there were two, number three and number four, one used SU, one used SD. Okay, yeah. But here's my concern is that this is maybe really a bill for large schools. And so my question, Jim, is would a group of three very small elementary schools joining together, qualify as a grant applicant? Well, let's go back to that definition. So, I was going to say, why don't we hold that as one of the questions that we have? Yeah, perfect. That's fine by me. Okay, can I chime in? If not, it should be that way, I think. So let's think about that. Okay, so we have numbers of schools. Just currently it's a school, not multiple schools. So it would be on a school-by-school basis as opposed to a group. Okay, thank you. Representative too. Thanks, Sherweb. Kath, I really like the idea of this bill. We've talked offline about it a few times. And I think, you know, first of all, when we say during the middle of COVID-19, we talk about people going into the school, it kind of might make us take a step back. But I think in the long run, this is something that could be good. Obviously, the money is something that I'm a little cautious about, specifically where we are with our school spending. But long-term, with the anticipation with, you know, student enrollment going down, I think this is a good idea for use of the buildings. I think that having less students in the school, you still have the infrastructure there that can be utilized. What is some of your long-term goals with this bill? I know right now you're looking at 10 schools. I think your vision would probably be every school. You know, I haven't thought about that too much, simply because where I stop and where I think we need to have the conversation is just like you said, we're in the middle of a pandemic and this bill has money in it. And, you know, so what I would like to see is, and I'm also, I'm amazed Sarita hasn't chimed in, you know, I'm also kind of a data person. So I would really want to see how those first, let's say 10 schools get approved, you know, I would really want to see the data and see how the program worked and how it was, you know, demonstrating measurable outcomes. And then we go from there. I mean, that's why what I like about this bill is that it's a pilot. You know, no schools that don't want to take this on have to do anything about this. Schools that are motivated and have the capacity and have the interest can pursue it. And then three years down the road, we've got data to see, hey, 10 schools really made this work, you know, and look at what it accomplished. And maybe those schools roll it into their budget. Yeah, you know, or maybe it's something that stays on the fund. I really don't know. But I haven't looked beyond being super interested in this approach, thinking it's probably transformative and wanting to see data on how it really works on some schools that go for it in a very defined apples to apples way. And I agree with what you say about the buildings, by the way. You know, this could really have some long term implications for what we do with our school buildings as well. And, you know, I know I'm going on and on about this because I think it's just, I think it's such an interesting program. But the way, you know, this has a lot of implications for farm to school with, you know, local agriculture and resiliency. It has a lot of implications for civic engagement, you know, in terms of getting kids involved, maybe in local government and vice versa and boy the business mentorships and apprenticeships. That's what that's how I see it. I see it as a transition to, you know, tech in school, internships, or whatever, you know, working on using those spaces for improving, you know, students' careers and what, you know, introducing them to things earlier in life. So yeah, thank you. You know, imagine like a makerspace in a school where entrepreneurs come in and, you know, use some space that hasn't been used before and the kids go in there and I mean, the possibilities are endless. Exactly. So I want to just focus in for a moment. I have a couple of things. I noticed that yesterday the secretary used the term full service schools, which I would think is similar to the concept of a community school. I also hear that this has the possibility for one-time funds, but it also has budgetary implications and positions for school budgets. I want to know, who do you want to hear from? AOE and Ted Fisher has the bill and I think he shared it with Jessica Carolus. So I want to hear from them who, so AOE, the Vermont NEA, I know is very supportive of the community schools bill and Colin knows a lot about this. Then there are some, there's some groups of practitioners who are really studying and engaging, doing kind of deep work on the community schools concept in Vermont and I forget the name of the, I'm sorry, I'm just having a almost senior moment. I'm having a mid-senior moment. So that group and then I think we need to get some schools in and I can work with Jesse on the list. I haven't reached out to Molly Stark recently, so I don't want to surprise them. Setford Academy has been listed as a great example. Winooski High School is doing some work so we can hear from some schools and I'm probably forgetting some important people too. Representative Austin. Thank you. I'm, you know, I was just kind of listening Casey and Kathleen. I'm just, I have two questions and I'm wondering again, could this be a revenue source for schools? I mean, I don't know what the x60 law is in terms of not mingling or commingling revenue sources. I think it's with the municipality, but could these entities be paying rent to the school to use the space in the school? That's just a question. I'm just wondering about that or fees or anything like that. And also for the Vermont State Colleges, I mean, this is, this would be another, I mean, use of some of these big buildings as well. So those, those are just two thoughts that I had. So this might end up being something that could take a little bit of small group work. So folks sort of working offline and being something back to us. I'll put that as a possibility. So in terms of testimony, we're looking at the agency of education. We're looking at what we affectionately call the bees. We're looking at practitioners. Anything else that we can think of? Yeah, I have them scrolled into the into the school. But these are the usual suspects, is what they call them in themselves. Representative Brady? I wonder about some of the the non-ed partners here, like the like community health centers, like some of those other groups that are going to end up being touched by this, sorry, there's clarinet in the background. I can't make him not go to a Zoom clarinet class. But I wonder about some of those, so that it, I mean, it isn't Ed Bill, but so that it isn't just, I mean, what we're talking about here is bigger. So, you know, those, the dental group, the, you know, some of those other groups that are going to be touched by this and that could be part of some of those community schools. Yeah, that's good. And I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying that. I know. That's a good idea. I need to think a little bit about who those folks would be, but they're, they would know, people would know who are not me. Some of the community centers perhaps. Okay. Representative Williams. Just a quick comment, kind of a crazy one. Tell me why public schools and community schools be one and the same. Is it a mindset? Why, why isn't everyone buying into this? Is that for me? I think that's, I think that's for the universe. Right. Exactly. Well, remember that, you know, we've been educating, had had laws about education children since the Constitution and education was delivered a little differently back then. So, but it's a very good question, particularly as we're seeing more children struggling with poverty, mental health issues. Yep. And I guess, yeah, I guess I would just add, I mean, it's, it's the same thing. I mean, you know, a community school, and I'll go ahead and use, you know, air quotes, but a community school as defined in this bill is a public school that does this, this, this and that. So you could turn public school into a community school just by the vote of the people or the No, not that, not the vote of the people so much that the, you know, in this bill anyway, a community school is any, any public school that adopts this model. Okay. I got that. I heard that. Thank you. You bet. However, it does nothing that says that a school board can't decide to implement some of these things and just run it through their own budgeting process. Right. Representative Brady. Okay. So if people think of other folks to include on this, we'll be working on testimony on the literacy bill, working on testimony for community schools. I want to take a little break. And then we will pick up In fact, maybe we should come back at 11. I just wanted to make sure that Representative Sabilia was invited. Was she invited to this meeting? Yes, she was. She was. And we were set for 11, correct? Correct. Okay. I think what I should do then to honor that is have us come back at 11, which is going to give you, well, it's, it's 20 minutes, isn't it? Can you just hold it and let me just see if I can reach her? Sorry. Sorry, I hear you. Yeah, it's, it's strange being on YouTube. I'm now hearing from people who are watching. Yeah. Okay. That's strange. So I have the name of the group. You, you forget that we're broadcasting live. That's right. It is the Vermont Education Equity Project. Why don't I just send it out to, to Representative Sabilia. Why don't we come back at 10 of, that gives everybody about 10 minutes. Okay. So we can go on break. Okay. We are continuing with looking at bills. And right now, thank you, Jim Demmeray, our lead counsel for walking us through or presenting to us the options that are, coming forward related to addressing weighting study. So, yeah, for the record, Jim Demmeray, first thing we're going to do is go through a, a brief deck just to give you context for how the weighting report and the issues bring back to bring them in the whole question about equity. Okay. So, if you would just bring up that presentation on the website. It's one that reads from the foundation plan to bring them back 60, etc. Thank you. Okay. So we will be going through two bills today. Representative Sabilia's bill and Senator Bruce Bill on, on the weighting site. But before going there, I wanted to give you context for this. So that's what I'm doing now. If we can go to slide two, Jess. So I'll start with pre-bram. So I think, I think the committee probably knows what we do as new members. The brain was a major decision that was issued back, I believe in 1997, which found that the way in which Vermont funded education was unconstitutional because it created an equity, both from a taxpayer standpoint and from a student standpoint. So what I want to do first is just to explain to you what the brain court was looking at. And I have a few slides here to show this. And these slides are by way of a lawyer that used to work in an office named Pierre Griffin, who is a fabulous, fabulous tax lawyer. So on these colorful slides at the beginning, I'll give him credit for creating them. So the latest work before bram was we had a foundational plan. And this example shows how it works. You have a foundation amount. I can't point to it because I don't have control, but under the example of town, there's a foundation amount of 5,000 per pupil. So what that says is that state is expecting towns to spend 5,000 per pupil or more. And then you have a base rate of 1%. So the way that works is if you have a town, if you have a town here, it has a small grand list of $400,000. Just by the way, it's going to make it easy. At $400,000, at 1% base rate, it can raise $4,000 for a student. And that's a blue area here. But the state wants a minimum of 5,000 per pupil. So how does it get there? Oh, the state gives a grant. So the foundation grant amount in the red is $1,000 per pupil. And that's how this town gets 5,000 per pupil. It raises money at 1%, then it gets additional money from the state. If you go to the next slide, it shows the equity issues. And it's best demonstrated by taking two towns. So one town has a lot of property wealth, and the other one has much less. They both want to spend $10,000 per pupil. And again, like the prior example, the foundation amount is 5,000 per pupil, and the base rate is 1%. So if we go to the next slide, what happens here now is the property rich town has a grand list of $1 million. At 1%, it can raise $10,000 per pupil. It doesn't have to resort to foundation grant because it can raise it on its own. Property poor town with 400,000 grand list, again, just like before, can raise $4,000 and it will get a grant for $1,000. So the question is, how does it get from that 5,000 amount up to $10,000, like the property rich town has? So go to the next slide, Jess. What happens is it has to raise that excess amount on its own. So that green amount there is raised through higher taxes in the property poor town. And that results in the next slide, that results in the property poor town having a tax rate of 2.25% in order to raise $10,000 per pupil while the property rich town can raise that same amount on 1%. And that is the equity problem that Brigham was looking at. So that just sums up for you kind of the baseline as to what the issue was going into Brigham. Pause there and see if there are any questions. Next slide. We have a raised hand. Can I ask a question? Yeah, when we talk about property rich, is there, are there distinctions in like second homes? What types of property is it? We're looking now at homestead properties. Like the primary homestead? Right, yeah. Okay, thanks. Okay, so the Brigham Constitution has two clauses that are very important to this conversation. One is called the education clause and it gives everybody to education. So it says a competent number of schools ought, these days we would say shall, be maintained in each town unless the young assembly permits other provisions to the community instruction of youth. Two important points about this clause. First is it's unusual for less common at least for a state to have a right to education in this Constitution. Vermont was quite unique at the time of doing that. The U.S. Constitution does not have this clause. There's no right to education in the U.S. Constitution. Second thing is it says that schools shall be maintained in each town unless, not unless is the way we get to tuition districts. So the assembly has allowed towns to tuition their students and that's the way we stop from this tuition. And then there's a second clause called the common benefits clause. It's a right to essentially equal opportunity. So it says the government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit protection and security of the people, nation or community and not for the particular moment, a moment, a moment, sorry, or advantage of any single person, family or set of persons who are part of the community. So when you put these two clauses together, the Supreme Court essentially said that it creates a right to substantial equality of education, educational opportunity. Let's turn next to Bram. So Bram from 1997, Bram held that the current education financing system with its substantial dependence on local property taxes and resulted in wide disparities in revenues available to local school districts, the five children of an equal educational opportunity, the violation of the U.S. Constitution. And note here, there are two levels of inequity to bring the court down. One was taxpayer inequity. By the way, that example of the two towns. And that led to unequal educational opportunities because it led to unequal resources. So, and note two, these two levels of inequity were across the whole state. It wasn't a local issue, it wasn't like here or there issue. It was an issue across the entire state. So next slide. Bram said that the distribution of a resource as precious as educational opportunity may not have its terrain force, the mere fertility of a child's residence. And the parties in Bram on both sides can see that the foundation plan resulted in unequal opportunities for students. But the state argued that this was justified by the state's interest in promoting local control. Next slide. The Bram Court rejected that argument holding that the constitutional right to substantial equality of educational opportunity is essentially a state mandate that can't be overwritten by local control. Therefore, the court held that to fulfill its constitutional obligation, the state must ensure substantial quality of educational opportunity throughout Bramon. Next slide. And then as a consequence, Vermont's education and funding system was substantially changed by Act 1668 to comply with Bram. And since that time, the Vermont Supreme Court has not in any meaningful way analyzed those clauses in connection with education. So all we have as a person in this area is Bram. There's nothing after that that really guides us. Next slide. Just a moment about Act 16. It retained local control for spending decisions but created a system of tax rate equity. So two towns with the same per people spending have the same spending adjusted tax rate homestead. And two homes, homestead again, one in each town, who pay the same property taxes if they have the same fair market value. That's essentially the consequence of Act 16. So let's move on now to the next slide. It's getting into the weighing factors. I know that you've heard from Jeff Rao on the weighing factors, but it's complicated. It's hard to understand. And I thought we used for the highlight some of this again for you before we talk about these bills. So the property tax rate and the income sensitized rate are based on a school district's per people spending. We're talking about homestead again. So per people spending is really important here. And per people spending is determined by dividing education spending from the school district approved budget. As I said, they approve $20 million education spending by the number of equalized pupils. We're going to come back to that. Let's say you have 1500 equalized pupils. So when you divide that, you get per people spending $13,333. If there were less equalized pupils, $1,200, per people spending would be higher. It would be $15,666. And if there were more equalized pupils, per people spending would be lower. So the key point I'm making here is that the higher the equalized pupils are, the higher the number of pupils you have equalized pupils, those in lower tax rates and lower equalized pupils result in higher tax rates. So the calculation of equalized pupils is really important in determining your tax rate. Let's go to how that's done. In order to determine equalized pupils, a number of waiting factors are applied to exclude districts student count. The school district student count is basically its enrollment. And the term that you'll hear is ADM, average daily membership. But ADM is just a count of enrollment that's done every year. So the policy behind applying waiting factors to student enrollment is to provide more resources for school districts that have a relatively higher number of students that need those extra resources. To awaiting students, giving them a higher weight than one or a lower weight than one in accordance to the resources required to educate that student. Pre-K students are weighted low. There are 0.46, so less than half of a student. Elementary and kindergarten students are weighted at 1. So same as enrollment, 1. Secondary students are at secondary means 7 through 12 are rated at 1.13 a bit higher because you have to offer additional classes and programs for high school students. Students who are from low income homes or are English language learners receive additional weighting. Okay, next slide. Weighting is your sum game and this is really, really important. So for example, if there's a higher weighting for one school district with more students who are from low income homes, that district receives a higher weighting. That results in another school district with fewer of these type of students receiving a lower weighting. So this is how you get to equalize people. So the notion being that what you're doing basically is you're shifting resources from one school district to another. So if one school district has higher need, needs more resources to educate students, it's going to have a lower tax rate. And as a consequence, another school district with less need for resources is going to have a higher tax rate. So it's a shift among school districts of tax rates, which means that all districts are supporting students who need support. They're all pitching in. And that's that's how the whole financing system works to make it fair. Note that the way is not to roughly provide further resources for school districts that have a relatively higher number of students that need those extra resources. That would be the case of grant funding. So if you didn't have weight, you could do grant funding and give money directly to school districts to be spent on students who need support. This doesn't do that. This results in both lower educational tax rates and the ability of a school district to move to more cheaply increase education spending and provide additional resources. It creates more tax capacity. So it's not providing funds directly. It's creating more taxing capacity that could be used to support these students. School districts may not choose to provide additional resources, but might instead might instead benefit from lower educational tax rates. It's a local choice what to do with this extra tax capacity. So I represent of James, did you have a question there? Oh, okay. So just just an example of a grant is the special ed grant currently that that that that schools that schools get. And part of our challenge there is it's a very complicated cumbersome way of getting those funds. Other grants could be transportation. Correct? That would be an example of a of a grant that a school district gets to cover a cost versus rolling it into per pupil spending. Or a small school grant. Or a small school grant. Representative Austin. Yes. I guess I'm curious as to if it would be possible if we didn't you know change the weight well change the weighting but provide grants as opposed to sending money back to the local school district so that we would know that that money would be used to help children who are struggling. That would be a policy. I mean it could be that the town or the local uh-huh. Is can you understand the rationale because the town could just lower their tax rates and those children could still struggle. Correct. That's a policy decision that you're able to make. I heard testimony last week I think from sort of her French about the the pitfalls of grant funding too which is if you're grant funding you might not appropriate funds next year because you're squeezed right so it might be hard to maintain. So there's a balancer it's policy question for you as to how you create equity but Tim McCullough we testified last week that no matter what you do on grant funding the weighting formula has to be corrected to make the whole system work properly. I understand. Whether you're doing grants separately her position is at least or as I heard this has to be addressed anyway. And we will we will get her we will get Tim McCullough. Yeah and that's not for me a comment I'm really I'm just reminding you of testimony that I think you heard. That's a question before the committee. I would say so I see you've got a few more slides Tim. Yep keep going slides yep almost done. Okay so Act 173 commissioned a review of the rain factors that report found that the rain formula does not reflect contemporary educational circumstances and costs and that the existing weights have a weak we have weak ties if aimed to the resources needed and the report recommends adjusting the weight and adding new weights. Let's go down one more slide and then we're going back to very this is the last slide before we go into girls. So remember that bring them on two levels of inequity taxpayer inequity remember that the form enriched town different tax rates leading to unequal educational opportunities for students bring them found that the distribution of a resource as precious as educational opportunity may not have as it's determining fact for us the mere fertility of the child's presence. So as we look at the current rain factors they may result in taxpayer inequity because school districts receive a relative tax advantage or disadvantage from the weights. So if it's not fairly designed it could result in taxpayer inequity that may result to that may result to unequal educational opportunities for students. The school districts which are most in need of additional resources are not getting the taxing capacity before those resources and may result in unequal educational opportunities based on the mere fertility of a child's presence. So this is how the whole conversation ties back to bring them and the concerns that were raised in that case. Okay so I'm done with that kind of framing exercise. Let's just open for questions at the moment. So is it fair to say that both Brigham and the report of Dr. Colby addressed with the funding side but not the spending side? Yeah so basically the result of Brigham was to reform the tax structure in a way that would hopefully provide more resources for students. Right and now again we're talking about reforming the tax structure, the weighting is now, in order to hopefully provide more resources for students. Excuse me that's what I meant was the taxpayer side. Representative Harrison? Yeah Jim I don't know if you can help me out or not. One question that I get and I'm going to receive it quite often at school meetings in a few weeks. Is there anywhere we can find the formula that actually determines the tax rate? I understand the weighting factor, I understand if you spend more than 18,700 but I don't understand the sausage mill that goes through to come to the tax rate. I think the best way to approach that Representative Harrison is to have JFO come in and do a worksheet for you, show you how it works. There is a formula for that but I'm not the one that really can present that. She's actually on deck to do that and will show us how per people spending and average daily membership, how that math works out. We're really going to need this because it's very helpful. You did it for us last year and it was very helpful and I'm sure all of us are struggling to remember a lot of it. So please I see any other questions so far at this level before we go to the two bills? I see none. Let's go. Okay so we're going to have to go through the bills quite yet. We're going to have to get the detour into the weighting report itself. So just if you pop the weighting report and go to page... Yep, what page? I'm getting there. Okay, page five has a big chart called E1 right there. And can we make that bigger somehow so people can see it? Oh great, great, right there. Okay so this table E1 here is important because both bills are about to talk to use this table, use the results from this table. So what this shows is on the left-hand side you've got various cost factors. So student needs, context, grade range, we'll come back to that. But what you're looking at here is what are the weights? What should be the weights for various categories? So first under measure you've got the poverty rate for poverty rate consideration number of English or percentage of English language numbers. And then you go down to what happens we have a small school. So under 100 students or a school that has 101 to 250 students. What happens we have a rural district so very few people per square mile. What happens for grades, most school grades and secondary school grades and pre-k. So these are all of the different categories where you're going to find weights. So the third column is the existing weight. So today we have um starting at the bottom we have the 0.46 weight for pre-k that I mentioned. We have secondary students versus grade 7 through 12 being weighted at 1.13. We've got poverty weight of 0.25 percent and English language learners get 0.2 percent. So what this means is that you're taking under current law, you're taking for example a student who is in secondary school so like grade nine that student will be counted at 1.13 not one but 1.13. So more resources are necessary for that student. If that student um that's a great student is from a well-income family there's an additional weight for poverty and if that student is uh English language learners additional weight too. So you add them up. So um that is the way this system works currently. Then there are two proposals on the right hand side. I think people are raising their hands so we actually pause there before I go on. Yes. Representative Ericsson is that a new hand or representative Austin? How the poverty rates determined? Is it like free and reduced lunch? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay we'll go back to the um report. Okay so they've got two new weights two columns of new weights and this is confusing um and the first column says new weight derived from models without controls for SWDs and the second is the same but says with controls for SWDs. So what does that mean? SWDs are students with disabilities um and why this is confusing is it links over to a different subject. So we're talking now about weights for tax purposes right but in special education reform the funding reform when we're moving from a reimbursement model to a census grant model um there was there is a notion that certain supervisory unions should get more money grant grant money than the census grant would provide um so supervisory unions with a very high level of students from poverty um might need more resources. So what these two columns are doing I said is you can do it two ways you can fix for that you can fix that special education piece by adjusting the weights more and that's what the the controls for SWDs so the column second in from that right that's what that's doing or you can not try to fix that with weights you can just adjust the weights and then fix that issue over by increasing the census grant amount. So there are two approaches here that ties over to the way special education is being funded and that's why it's confusing um the way in which both bills approaches we're about to go through is to use the far right column so that's to say we're good adjust the weights without thinking about but census grant funding for special education and if you want to fix that you can fix it over there. That's that's as we talk about what's going on in these bills it's looking at that last column but the last column says is that I started at the bottom again uh reading up um pre-k is the same um pre-k doesn't change um but secondary grade enrollment does change so um you're moving to um basically a system where grades I think it's 7 through 12 we get a 1.2 weight it's up from um 1.13 and uh middle grades um I just forgot how that's defined but like I said 7 and 8 or I don't have that primary but basically you're having uh different weights now broken broken down for middle school and secondary where before it's just 1.13 now you've got 120, 1.2 and 1.23 then moving up you've got population density enrollment so if you come from a rural district okay so you have less than 36 people per square mile the idea is takes more resources to educate students in a rural district so you have a new weight of 0.23 added to a student from a rural district but if it's a little less rural so you've got up to 55 people um 36 to 55 you get 0.17 and if you're from a area that has 55 to 100 you get 0.11 but the idea is that it's recognizing that kids from a rural area possibly educate then if you hit that test then you look at school enrollment and if in addition to being a rural you've got a small school with an enrollment of about 700 students um you get an additional weight of 0.26 and if your school is a little bigger between 101 and 250 you get additional weight of 0.12 the very big changes are up top so um you're moving uh under this scenario to a waiting for poverty of 2.97 so you're counting essentially that one student um who is a living in poverty that student's counting for basically three students okay it's a highway uh saying that that student needs a lot more resources than other students and for the um uh English language learners you're getting a much higher weight too of 1.58 I suppose to 0.20 today so that's the column we're using you'll see that in um and the flexibility is built um and you share a reference to that in Senator Bruce's bill so before I move on from that are there any questions about that because I know that's that's a complicated topic I see representative Conlon thanks one question and one comment I'm going to do the comment first and that's just to point out to people that the 2.97 in the top right would be added to the one point whatever from the numbers down below so you're you're counting that that student as potentially four uh four plus uh my question Jim and this has always confused me um how do we define a student with a disability is that equal to a student on an IEP? I'm not sure I didn't look in the report I'm sorry uh we're pounding for that I didn't look in the report it would be a student on IEP I believe also maybe a 504 plan okay that's what I remember it was IEP or 504 okay great thank you check that down representative James thanks chair Webb I don't know if this is a testimony question or a Jim question um Jim if you are the person to ask what can you remind me about about the derivation of the current existing weights because I seem to recall that they were um maybe not scientifically derived that's what the report says so uh Tim Nicole's testimony was I believe that they were not scientifically derived based upon resource needs no analysis they were basically I'm not sure how they're derived but uh it was kind of a brief that seemed fair I think at the time and maybe it was it was from other states that had adopted weights at that time but wasn't done with a rigorous analysis as you've seen here okay thanks there was a follow-up email that I got at the time from George Cross who was on the committee when they worked on act 60 and he indicated that they they did consider it I don't know what they considered but the Colby report did not did not find any evidence of it being um scientifically considered but I'm happy to check with George Cross to see if he remembers what they consider I'm not sure it's relevant going forward I I mean we know now that they're they're inaccurate in our current context I was just curious um Representative Brady this may be sort of dumb question but I'm trying to understand on all the waiting for school size and density which makes sense how that interacts with our policies and some efforts to also realize efficiencies in school consolidation in some district consolidations like are there are are we sort of setting up two opposing systems here we're in one place we're trying to incentivize and encourage more consolidation and is this sort of doing the opposite but I also realize I mean some towns and schools are are so remote that it does not consolidation isn't a a reality or a a good option in a lot of places either so I'm trying to understand the interplay of that of those two forces it it's definitely a point of discussion and I do believe that um that would be we can talk with um Tammy Colby about that because I do believe she did reference that as well if you're remembering Jim um I can't recall that but there's there is a competing interest in terms of what that 40 there may be I don't know if there is between that 46 and and the current weights addressing the small schools and and morality um but that would be we'll speak with Timmy Colby about that um Representative Austin I just want to um kind of check out an assumption this also could be a dumb question but I'm assuming that um with let's say this additional funding um that school boards um could hire more teachers or hire more master teachers because of the increase in their funding is that accurate to assume yes right it's more funding they can choose to right it's more tax capacity they can choose to raise taxes to have more resources for these students and spend however they think appropriate to support those students okay thank you yeah it's go ahead go ahead I was want to uh I was channeling my inner Mark Perot but Jim jumped jumped me on that and that just to remember that this is about taxing capacity it is not about more revenue from the state yeah it's the same amount of money it just gets divided up differently um or it could be the same amount of money um Representative Brady did you have another yeah I'm probably way off in left field now but seeing the policy like sense of all of this and the reports and the research it's coming out of and also the fact that we're talking about taxes and tax rates and not necessarily defining what will happen educationally with these dollars is there would there be any sense in this is maybe I'm just like asking the universe in somehow also like addressing in in EQS like that that certain you know certain student populations that your EQS ratios maybe should be different if you have students who are weighted so heavily or your qualifications should be I don't know that's obvious maybe that's just opening a whole other can of worms but I'm I'm wondering about the like making sure things are going where they're needed and the EQS seems like another that the education quality standards and sort of what I know at least on our school board you know that's the one lever I feel like the school board's pretty familiar with and is looking at pretty carefully when we look at the budget you know that we're not all education experts on the school board but we are aware of like what do we have to be doing and how are we using our money to do that so I wonder about that other place too that will be a good part of our discussion and I think there might be something in there in one of these bills and maybe what we could do is move to the bills now I'd like to have us out of here by noon I don't know if that's possible well we'll be out of here by noon whether we're done or not let me put it that way so Jessica's moved to eight five four okay bringing that right up however however it works to present it to make it as easy for us to understand the differences between these bills would be helpful oh they're very different yeah okay okay so this is representative bill um let's go down a bit and let's go right to the heart of it let's go right into findings okay so there's a number of findings here um I'm not going to go through them because you can read them on your own but basically setting up this whole conversation kind of going through we just went through in a way so um I'm not going to focus on the findings um so let's go on to page four you're going down if you would okay okay here we are okay so section two is amending the statute on how wave membership is determined um in the heart of this if you scroll down to the next page the important part you've gone is right here oh right here scroll up just one more line or two okay so this c section says that the secretary shall determine wave launcher membership wave launcher membership is just a two-year average of enrollment okay um um so it's going to use a two-year average of enrollment and then and then adjust that by these weights okay uh so pre-k students are getting a 0.46 weight that's unchanged um so now if you look at the new two kindergarten degree five it's getting a weight of 1.0 that's the same as it was before for k through five grades six through eight is getting a um 1.23 weight um in grades nine through 12 it's getting a 1.20 weight um and those are different so used to be that if you're in um grades if you go into grade six you have a one weight now uh it's now grade six to grade eight has a higher weight and then grades nine to 12 have a higher weight um i do want to check this because i think that these are reversed um let's take a look nope sorry actually okay so this is correct um so those are the new weights um that's exactly from that column that we looked at so now further um you'll see that the poverty weight so uh so saying that these are the wave launcher membership as calculated under c will be further increased to compensate for x page uh it's still costs for uh proposed by students from economically divide the prior backgrounds so what's happening here is we're moving up to 1.16 but remember that what we just looked at brings it to 2.97 so what's happening here is we're not phasing in the entire poverty weight in the first year because it's such a big jump do you see there are a few further sections we're coming on to that gradually increase this poverty weight to get to 2.97 but the first year is we have to 1.16 and then in two it's the one for English language learners and it's going up to 1.58 and that is as reflected in that column we talked about um and then we're adding some new weights so now we're saying in e that the uh launcher membership under c will be further increased for differences in the cost of education because of the higher cost of education and geographically isolated areas of the state uh the adjustment should be equal to the total from c so if you're again if you're a student you have a weight of 1.2 and that will be increased and we multiply by um so if you have a multiplier of 0.23 uh where you have 35 or fewer people per square mile um and then scroll down further just um you have uh additional multiplier of 0.17 where the population density is 36 to 56 and then then 0.11 where the density is 56 or more of a fewer than 101 so that's your world world density that's new then in addition it says if the number of persons per square mile uh in the school district is 55 or fewer then uh you get an additional weight for small school size so um go to the next page you're going to get an adjustment further adjustment of 0.26 um multiply that the number of students enrolled in school uh with basically 100 100 or fewer students and for a school with 100 to 251 students you get a most part of 1.2 again right from that same column we talked about before so that's basically the changes to the specific weights and new weights being added section 2a um is um a phase in of the poverty weight so I mentioned before that we were going from 0.25 to 1.16 in the second year of implementation it's going to 2.06 and that next section 2b you scroll down further you're going further you're going up to the right there up to the 2.97 so after three years you get the poverty ratio up to uh where the column had it at 2.97 I see we have a raised hand so let me pause there um yes please uh representative arson all right the numbers we're seeing in the proposed bill um from the weighting study yes they're from that very column we went through so the very right hand column um of table p1 and and they're being stepped up in increments to get to the final numbers one of them is being stepped up everything is coming to force at the same time except for the poverty weight because it's going up so high uh from where it was that's being phased in thank you yep anything more before I go on this is a math question uh you keep using the verb multiplied um I just want to make sure that that's correct as opposed to added to and I guess what would probably help as we get into this in in detail is one of your sort of hand written flow charts that shows the the calculations and how they're created yeah unfortunately it's very complicated because we are some that are percentage odd we are some that are multiplied by we are some that are added to uh and this is the way everyone's done it so when tanikowi was specifying she says she had to fit this into our system uh and that was quite challenging for her but yeah it is quite complicated and I think I think Chloe's going to talk a little bit okay just scroll down to the next section so now we have a section um which is basically uh mitigation for dramatic increases the tax rates as a consequence of this change so it says that for fiscal year of 23, 24, 25 an increase to a municipality's property tax rate the equalizer receives 20 percent of what that means what meaningful tax rate would have been but for the amendments we just went through shall we mitigate so if you're seeing a 20 jump of your tax rate because of these changes then there's some mitigation for you um let's go down further uh right there uh oh right there um so if you hit that 20 percent threshold then in fiscal year 23 um that increase due to the waiting changes uh will be reduced by 75 percent and then for fiscal year 24 our next page it will be reduced by 50 percent and then for 25 reduced by 25 percent so basically that if you if the if the consequence of the wait changes has a 20 percent more effect on your tax rate then you're going to get some mitigation and it phases down um over time okay next section is uh says that the excess spending penalty which is a penalty imposed at school districts when they spend too much um is suspended um so uh for fiscal year 22 um and then the agency is going to report to you the effect of that suspension um and uh include any recommendations recommendations for further uh legislation okay next section five uh talks about preservation of merger incentives so under act 46 there were a number of incentives given to school districts to merge including some governors as to how their tax rates change all this is saying is that that this change of weight will not affect act 46 merger incentives or benefits they got so that's what this is doing next section okay this is a repeal of small school grants so today we have a grant program for small schools um in the waiting formula we have as we just talked about uh a new weight that would be for small schools so rather than doing it through a grant that would be done through the tax waiting so this small school grant would be um repeal to keep going down further yeah going right there and then there are a couple of this technical conforming changes changes to that so seven is just a conforming change to reflect the small school grants still live around and likewise section eight is a technical change to reflect the next page that the um small school grants still live around so um those are just technical conforming changes um and let me come on to a section about um non operating school districts so if you are a tuition school district obviously you're paying tuition to another district that operates this school so this is saying is that um the waiting changes are designed to reflect the actual cost of educating students picking your account student needs and the characteristics of their educational environments non operating school districts pay tuition uh and non operating school district counts resident students toward its equalized people count so if you're a tuition district you get uh a tax rate just like every other school district does based upon number of students but this is saying is that the tuition you're paying to the to the operating school um doesn't necessarily match the resources necessary to educate that student it doesn't really match necessarily what you're getting as a tax rate so there's a disconnect today before you even change talk about changing the weights uh there's a disconnect today between these things um so this is saying that unless the tuition paid for a student by a non operating school district to a receiving school district reflects the cost it's being that student the amount of tax benefit in the non operating school district and the amount of cost that's going to get the student school down to further adjust um higher lower um where are we going um won't be equivalent so what this is doing is saying we need to look at this question we need to look at how how tuition is determined how the tax rate is determined for non operating districts and make sure that tuition paid reflects the actual resources necessary to educate that student so the next section goes on to require uh before December 15th the district of education will look into the in this question and report to you how the statute's government payment of tuition should be amended to ensure that the tuition paid for a student um uh reflects the cost of educating that student um so that's what that does and then next is a report um on um number of reports here the first report required is to report by AOE in collaboration with JFO to uh calculate there are 88 players on the stamp to calculate the um cumulative over under and over taxing that resulted from the um the current uh weighing so uh recognizing that the current weighing is from grounded and good science I guess um this is saying go back and look at the effect of that um on uh taxing next section section 11 is another report which looks at at the agency of education identifying the cost of student outcomes from this issue and then the next section 13 is a moratorium on changes to the tax system until the judge assembly um has time to consider the recommendations and has acted on the report and there's a hand up leaf from rep austin so let me pause please three can you go back to section 12 for one minute yep I just what what is that actually saying the agency of education is to uh look at how students have been affected basically by the current funding system but where the current weights and to see what the outcomes were to see if there's any to identify I think inequity and what happened as a consequence so is that is there any um kind of follow-up like two years or three years let's say if the weights are readjusted will they look again to see like looking at this and then you know comparing it to after yep we're coming out to that and they'll look at student outcomes as well yeah let's go on to that we have a section on that coming all right okay so in the palm okay so we have a moratorium on changing tax system um and then we have this uh to the rep austin's point section 14 creates a joint uh legislative education oversight committee and its function is to monitor evaluate research overseas and provide a continuum continuum review of uh implementation of the way informal changes and the effect that student it's called a paid student equity outcomes um the membership is six members uh which are the um chair or designees of the house and sanctuaries and appropriations and education um house being on ways and means and sanctuaries and clients powers and duties are um to show review jfo data on education budgets and education tax rates they testimony from stakeholders assess the work of the agency implementing the laying form of changes uh at the request of uh of house and sanctuaries um research exam issues that may lead to further further action and five provide information and assistance to other means on these matters and going on typically the chair um you've got um going down just uh quorum of voting is pretty shared um keep going down so this uh sorry go up right there oh every more right there things um so the first thing has to be called on before our super one of uh 2022 that dates further out because this whole act doesn't implement until you're out so we're not starting this whole thing until July one of 2022 so that's why this dates quite far out for this uh oversight committee there's to be twice a year during fiscal year 20 through 28 uh it's going on further if you would keep going can meet more frequently um and uh except there um yeah it gets uh gets compensation um the report is giving a similar report on before each of uh one two three four five six years so it has time to actually consider the full impact of these new weights so it's got quite a time span to it and it has a standard compensation reimbursement provision and then appropriation of $2400 this year you pay for that and then go down further and then there's a report on uh program act changes so this requires that on before on August 31 of each of these years 23 through 27 these school districts are reports of the agency on program act changes resulting from the weight of former changes it's only increases and decreases and program programmatic investments so but this is doing it saying okay okay so we lower your tax rates uh to recognize that you've got more student in your support and it's just saying how do you actually use that tax capacity have you increased programs have you decreased programs what have you done with it um so that's what this is designed for you um and then lastly agency will compile the results from those reports report them to you uh or sorry to the joint education officer committee and that committee will report report to you on the results and then lastly we've got defective dates so as I mentioned the effect basically next year and then you have a phase in for the the um we mentioned poverty waste are being phased in you have a phased in schedule to get those fully implemented implemented so that was a lot let me pause there so this is a this is an implementation plan which will be different from the other bill this this is actually implementing the next bill is a is a plan to implement this is actually implementing um representative arson yeah quick question from a first year legislator there's a ton of dates in this bill uh that pregnant our predatory on the bill being passed this session correct yeah okay so it was delayed by year we pushed all those dates out by year but yes okay that's kind of what I thought thank you why don't we um just review what the differences are in the in the senate bill okay I can do that quite quickly actually because there's a very different concept so if you burn up just s 13 from it okay and scroll down get past the findings findings I'll go through you've gone you've gone okay right here uh back up okay so this is right there very different approach so this is to implement the report this is basically having the agency um think about how to implement the report this is on before December 15th of this year the agency in collaboration with the state board of education and various stakeholders including the bees um shall develop a plan of implementation the reports uh go up sorry um a plan for implementation uh the way it changes finding that very same table we talked about table e1 uh new weight derived from us with controls for swd same same one so as we went through in the other bill is the target um and then the implementation plan shall include scroll down a bit a timeline for phasing in uh design for the implementation that's sensitive to tax rates um consideration of the new formulas interaction with other provisions of law including ex-suspecting policy threshold especially in operating districts districts pay tuition uh small school grants uh in act 46 so things we just went through they'll be thinking about those things and then um and then as part of this the state board will go and hold information information sections around the state either virtually or in person they will hold uh scroll down at least six means purpose of which is to educate the public about these uh these changes uh and gather their input uh so um and then it would um refer refer this to the agency which we use the input to input to inform its implementation plan um and then we'll deliver that plan uh to you by December 15th of 2021 and then uh this is a piece of special law that says that the expectation is that next year you would implement the the report so this is one year study about implementation and then next year you would take action as opposed to rep stability this bill which is you're taking action this year and this would be a plan that would come in at the end of 2021 so basically knowing how things go they'd have until this bill passed through and signed into law and December 15th to um come up with a plan for the next legislative session yeah correct yeah okay um representative arison did you have a question versus that polls this is obviously a significant conversation quite significant um and whatever we do we'll end up over in ways and means at some point so in terms of you know it's 1158 um please send me a note on who you think you would like to hear from uh related to this other than our usual suspects which would should be the agency of education the um the the uh vermont education associations um tanny colby and if anybody thinks of anybody else uh let me know it may be worth pointing out to kate that this is probably not the last two bills that we're going to see on this yeah yeah i know that i think there's more action happening in the senate well there's a bill i know that was sent around to everybody to look at um from representative beck which is far more encompassing includes waiting and a lot of other things right i'm not sure where that bill is going to go whether it's going to come to our committee or arison means directly um representative austin yeah thank you um i guess you know i would like to avoid the situation that we had in this day with act 46 with the implementation you know that was that's that was pretty divisive and i don't know who if there's someone out there that can think about what would be the best way to move forward with the implementation of the waiting study you know so that it didn't become you know i don't want to delay time because i think it's important that it happened but i don't want to become time you know a conflict between children who need el l instruction and children who are living in poverty i i don't want it to be the halves and the halves not to have a big eruption about that and i don't know if there's someone that could advise us as to the best way to reach our goal and um you know i like the idea in the senate bill of bringing you know the public hearings i always feel that that at least people have been heard on their position that that might make the transition easier we'll hear from the state board too um i would say that at this point then we can break we are on the floor at 115 um we will come back here um 10 minutes after floor um and i'm hoping that that Chloe Wexler will be able to join us at that time um and then at three o'clock we have a report from the select committee and the vermont state colleges they'll be checking in with us so it's a it's a very full day and um i i appreciate so much that work that you did um jim damoray on providing the background i think that the committee has needed that it was really helpful yeah i think it might help prepare us a little bit for chloe as well and some of some of the math that she may be playing forward okay with that