 Okay, moving on to then s 7s or h 716 You would let them in that would be great Is that somewhere here in my file This is the one we keep an e-mailed about yes I'm looking for Miss Simmons really to kick us off is she not here I Miss Simmons thanks for joining us committee we have been Talking about age 17 which is one of the 716. Thank you Which one of the pieces post cones The implementation of Some special education language Miss Simmons, would you mind refreshing our memories as it relates to What the postponement actually does and then if you would weigh in we know you've already been in here a little bit on this And I think your message to the committee was there was no need to postpone And we would then have a follow-up question around how do we get one of the things we've heard from those testifying is Teachers and others need to be ready to implement this work and be trained and we're wondering how the agency of education might do that so That's a little bit of that's our request of you and For yours Thank you so much Agency of Education. Yes, the house pass version of age 716 Does three things and two of those changes are about delay in special education rules. So believe that's the question today There were many many changes in Rule series 2360 made by the state board and that work was finished about a year ago Several of those changes were not strictly required by Act 173 But were consistent with the state board's authority and the public comment received through rulemaking a Subset of those changes are the topic of the delay contemplated in the bill. They are changes to the rule about Measuring adverse effect, which is part of the process of identifying whether a student will be eligible For special education the other rule has to do with the procedures for Identifying one category of special education, which is specific learning disability So these are rules that are governing the process that an Evaluation and planning team Undertakes when there is a student being evaluated for special education And it's really changing just two elements of a very comprehensive process and not every Step or facet of that process is impacted by these rules changes Very helpful. So how would the Agency of Education support the work that Teachers and schools will need to do around this Yes, so the Agency of Education has already pushed out professional development professional learning on these and the other rules changes Contemplated or adopted by the state board last year We have a team our student support services division who are providing that comprehensive training a lot of it is available now online for viewing it has been pushed out to the field and More of it is still in the final stages of development to be pushed out to the field We could come back with a presentation of the specifics of that Professional development that's been pushed out already and what's immediately forthcoming if the committee is interested I am fortunately am not your expert on that. I'm aware of the broad strokes, but it's not my team I think you'd be very happy that it's not the legal team. That's primarily responsible for that professional learning One question I have How long does the professional training take to get Teachers and others up to speed on what needs to be done I might frame the professional learning differently and give you a little more context There are presentations about the rule change itself And there are presentations about implementation However, all of this content is pushed out for supervisory union and supervisory district teams to digest and use it at a leadership level of central office level if you will to train the Individual staff as they see fit in that system. So this is a little different than what some might assume Such as a one session where many educators Arm rolled in the teacher is primarily the agency of education. What we're doing is sometimes called more of a train the trainer So I don't know I don't have the answer to your question. How long it takes the total number of minutes that are out there On this point, I'm not sure if you can hear me Emily, but I talked my lovely spouse with the public school teacher and I said would you think the week before this semester in the year begins is a good time just to put training in this and she just sort of chuckled she said that's always a very, very heck of a busy time. So I think the length of this training is an important question. Yeah. Just to be sensitive to our teachers and how stressed they are. It was last two years. Yeah, no, I think it's a really good point. And I'm also curious when the Simmons comes back to get a sense of her thoughts around the what if people get a sort of Despite requested extension only, you know, some districts might be ready to go other districts might not be ready to go. I'm wondering where Where she thinks the districts are in general, Senator Hooker. I'm wondering how different this is from the existing process to determine You know, who is eligible for specialized. So, you know, what, what is added to this. Who does it involve And again, going to the, you know, the length of time that it takes for the training, but how different is this from the system that's in place. The Simmons is that something you can answer. And I'm so sorry. I'm having some internet problems because of weather, but I heard the question how different is that changed rule from the former rule. The rules change is in regard to adverse effect is primarily dictating different data different inputs from the student and their Educational experience than that information and data that is relied upon now. So I think you've heard testimony and I should be considered a lay person when it comes to the evaluation process. I know the text of the rule, but not that implementation, but the former adverse effect rule relied on very objective Data measurements test scores, for instance, numbers. The new rule is more characterized as more holistic and more subjective. Sometimes that word has a negative connotation in this context. Educators have described it as looking more at the whole child than A cold set of numbers. So the training that has to be done is I understand it to make this shift is talking about how to collect the new, more comprehensive information data points and how to evaluate it, how to norm that use of information. Yeah, Miss Simmons, we've heard testimony from folks and I don't know if you've heard it or read it. They're concerned about a harm that would be caused if we didn't delay. And I didn't know if we did delay. So I wanted to know if the agency has an opinion or if you are worried about that, you know, if we did delay, what kind of harm would be caused. But no, I guess my question really is from the people on the other side, the people that wanted to lay it, they said that if we, if we put it in place on July 1, that it'll be kind of chaotic, that they'll have a kind of inconsistencies between different districts because of their abilities, they might have already been doing it or they have the ability to do the training better than other schools. So my question is, does AOE share these concerns or do you feel that you have the capability and the trainers in the support mechanisms to bring the schools so that by time school starts, they can do these evaluations in a way that won't cause harm to the children. That makes sense to me. The harm, they're both both advocates for and against delay see risks in not taking their preferred approach. So I think the advocates for delay primarily view the risks as unreadiness, uneven implementation and third potential findings against the district as a result of its unreadiness. I can take that third one off the table a little bit. The agency of education's monitoring team is preparing to take a, and this is not an announcement of this policy, this is a plan policy that we're evaluating right now. Just a continuous improvement approach to these rules changes is supportive approach to these rule changes rather than making findings against taking punitive action against districts in the first year because of their unreadiness. So I think to put it more simply than I just said, we're going to be very understanding from a monitoring point of view around these rules and the fact that folks got ready very quickly for this rule change. We do always have concerns at the agency about uneven implementation. We know it's just a reality that some of our districts have more ability to pivot quickly than others and it's going to take longer for change to be implemented in some of our districts just because of their circumstances. So the agency is going to have a lot of work to do to support all districts. We are in favor of going ahead with the rule change without delay, because we feel ready to provide that support and believe we've already begun to provide that support, and we'll be there for the field in time for this change to take place. Senator Chitman. Emily, what you just said really validates what my mind is currently going on this. I got, I must say, I asked last week what the, what the caution would be if we just allowed schools to to go that are feeling ready for this year, but without penalty and making it clear that they can, if they're not feeling ready and they need to be there to allow for other school districts to take the delay. I'm of the opinion that that's the best way forward to enable each school district to choose how ready they are. The only counter argument I heard was that that would be inequitable across districts. At that point, I already see inequities in the entrance age for kindergartens and how we resource our schools that we're trying to address in other ways. What would you be your counter arguments against just allowing and adjusting this language to make clear that districts that don't feel ready for this year can take a whole other year, while at the same time allowing the schools ready to to an advocate this July 1. I'm really caution against that formal institution, you know, for me formally giving different dates for different districts, because we're talking about a federal educational entitlement that has enforcement in federal law. So a parent who is who has a complaint as a federal dispute resolution process of administrative complaints or due process complaints, and we at the state can't do anything about disallowing that remedy. What you would have is legal rights in one district that are different than the other district. A parent might have a claim against the state in a district that did not implement if their child experienced harm as a result of the delay in their district, because that's that could be seen as legally an equal treatment as a matter of state policy. So to follow up on that, if we allowed the language that came from the house over formally delaying a year, what would be the problem with a school district that chose to adopt a year early. Would you would you say if we let this language go through and we let them delay for a year and a school district says no we're ready this year, would you caution them against doing so. They would be allowing more very, very generally, they'd be permitting more special education that is legally required. Less likely that a parent would have an actionable complaint against them, just because of the posture of how that change would take place. It still would be worth analyzing with their district council, whether it's prudent to go ahead with that change out in front of the formal policy change as a matter of state law. I do hear testimony that at least one school is already doing this. And so they're already going ahead and they're using this, this new form of doing the adverse impact test. At least that's what my understanding. Let's just stop them from doing so. So we leave the delay. Yeah, we leave the delay in place acknowledging that some schools have already adopted these rules. Let's delay the year but then if school districts adopted early. What, what, what's the matter with that. I'm not saying it downside to that. Would you repeat that question. So let's, if we accepted the house proposal to delay per year. Yeah. I don't think there's a downside with schools that feel ready and choose to adopt this coming year this coming summer. I don't think there's a downside for allowing the schools to go ahead do it, but there's a downside for the students in the schools that delay year, because they won't get the services that they need. If just, if they, if the different way of measuring the child's needs. That year they'll, they'll lose one more year of getting the additional service. So that would be the reason that I would want to be cautious and I don't know how many schools were talking so if it was 80% would go forward and 20% didn't that would be different than if it's two schools go forward and 400 delay the year because then that's a lot more students. I mean, that's the main argument that I hear from those that don't want to delay is that their students that they feel would be fine because they won't get the educational services that they need because they'll fail the adverse test. So the school say the student doesn't didn't meet the adverse impact and so therefore we're not going to give that student the services. So here they're going to get the services under the more holistic approach. I mean that's how I see two sides. I'm just, I'm trying to get my thoughts around, you know, how is this kind of rolled out in the school and how long it takes to, to implement this, and are there time restrictions on, you know, like when kids have to be tested when they're being monitored. I, what I still don't understand really what it entails. I'm sympathetic to not wanting to put more on teachers and staff because of the pandemic and all, but what does it actually mean to the school and if we put it into motion, as it was intended, then, you know, does that mean that people have to kind of rush to get this accomplished, I guess. And Simmons, if you want to add anything from based on what you've heard. Listening to that comment I'm very sympathetic to the committee not having full visibility into what's what's being offered to districts and where that puts them. I would offer that I think the committee would really benefit from testimony by Jackie Kelleher, the state director of special education who's responsible for the professional development that's going out and who is a special educator. She could answer your questions more detailed. I'm sorry, I'm really sort of broader today. And I feel that there's a lot. After on the schedule for some time this week, Jackie Kelleher. Okay, let's have her in tomorrow. And she'll give us an idea of how people are training the length of time, all that sort of thing that would be very helpful. Thank you for what you were saying regarding federal disputes. Are we then are you saying that if we don't delay in something. And for whatever reason a school or a teacher is not trained properly. Are we putting the school in some kind of jeopardy with regard to a penalty from the federal government. There is in jeopardy of having a complaint against it in that hypothetical it's the kinds of actions that come out when there is an administrative complaint in favor of the parent or due process complaint in favor of the parent, go to getting access to the student. So it's not an enforcement action by the federal government per se it's a request for relief from the parent that would be granted by the it's actually the agency of education that decides administrative complaints and independent hearing from the government who decide due process complaints, and either neutral party can order reevaluation of the student particular actions of the school district remedies, you know for the students education. And I think my final question is you have a sense of how many districts are ready to go percentage wise with this company are not. Or is this all new training that would happen with regard to the adverse effect rule there's more new there. This is different than the practices that would have existed in any school district prior to the rule with regard to the identity identification of specific learning disability. There's less new there some districts were already voluntarily using an approach that is still permitted by the rule. Some districts were using an approach that is now disallowed by the rule. So that's the change there. I believe the data question is a good one for Jackie killer her I'm not sure how the data collection by the agency is actually published but we do have some. So I think it's survey type information about district readiness. Any other questions for this is before we move on to other witnesses. So we'll look forward to hearing that we will schedule individually mentioned that can give us a sense of the training tomorrow. And in the meantime, we'll continue right now hearing from mostly parents and special education advocates on where they stand as it relates to the delay. And let's start with Miss friendship. Hi, can you hear me and see me okay. Welcome. Welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for hearing my testimony today. I am a person with a disability I had ADD so unfortunately I have to read my testimony or else my brain won't process is what I'm trying to say. But my name is Jamie Crenshaw. I'm a parent member of the Vermont special education advisory panel. I'm also a graduate graduate of the remote leadership series. I'm a mother of two sons ages 18 and 16, both of which have been diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia for today's testimony I will be speaking as a parent and not as a representative of any organization. As stated in my March 18th written testimony, I do not support the delay in implementing rule 2362 or rule 2362.2.5. In my opinion delaying the changes would mean that Vermont is choosing to will will fully be in defiance of the federal ID, ID a law, because we are denying students with disabilities the right of early identification and evaluation as afforded under ID a section 2 of bill H716 is asking this committee to answer the question of whether our educators and staff have time to adequately prepare for delivery of special education services. And all honestly, I don't understand why this question is being asked. When the Vermont Board of Education approved the rule changes they determine these changes were necessary. Through public comment, the Board of Education heard evidence that the language in the current Vermont rule 2362 was overly rigid and caused students to be found ineligible for special education services on a technical or formulaic basis, rather than the well informed judgment of qualified special educators. This means that Vermont students with disabilities were being denied a free and appropriate education and entitlement protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Act. It shouldn't matter that the changes came from public comment. It doesn't make any less important. 16 VSA 1657 states that are local education agencies need to ensure that students are furnished educational services in accordance with any state or federal entitlements. Early identification evaluations and special education and related services for students with disabilities are entitlements protected under ID a ID a 300 point 101 C states that each state must ensure that a free appropriate public education is available to any individual child with a disability who needs special education related service. Services, even though the child has not failed or been retained or in a course of grade and is advancing from grade to grade. Significantly below grade norms means the 15% are below. This is waiting for failure before supports are provided. Public comments also identified that the language in Vermont's current rule 2362 and 2362 point 2.5 also denied fate for students in the categories of disability. Deaf blindness and specific learning disabilities, neither of these categories require an adverse effect on educational performance. The removal of adverse effect is especially important when it comes to fulfilling Vermont school set in 16 VSA to 903 preventing early school reading failure reading intervention. The statute states children who fail to read by the end of first grade will likely fall further behind in school. The personal and economic cost of reading failure are enormous, both whether student remains in school and long afterwards. The state Board of Education in collaboration with the agency of human services, higher education, literacy organizations and others shall develop a plan for establishing a comprehensive system of services for early education in the first three grades to ensure that all students learn to read at the end of third grade. A comprehensive system of services includes early identification, evaluations and special education related services for students with specific learning disabilities, who by reason of under IDEA section 300.8 require special education and related services. The IDEA section 300.8 requires that a child make two prong tests to be considered a child with a disability. The child must have one of the specified 13 disabilities, and they must because of their impairment need special education related services. How does the evaluation and planning team answer these two questions, and I'm hoping this will provide some of that. So the first one answers to the questions that you had asked. They do it through the special education process of note, this is the process that many people have stated would require a significant practice change for any special educators. There are seven steps in the process and from my understanding only one step is impacted by the rule changes. The first one is referral or child find and I'm not going to go through what each one means I'm only going to explain the one that's being impacted. So the first one is referral or child find. Second one is review of existing information and data to determine if an evaluation is warranted. The third is consent for an evaluation. The fourth is evaluation data assessments and other information. The most crucial when it comes to evaluating a child, because this is where they they collect all of the data on the information about the child. It comes from the general education teachers it comes from special education teachers anybody that has knowledge of that child has to be part of this data accumulated accumulation. The comprehensive evaluation must provide information relevant to making decisions about how to educate the student so that they can access engage and make meaningful progress towards meeting age and grade level standards. The fifth step is evaluation findings which is interpreting the data. Again, it's already in current law nothing changes there. So this changing is step six and that's the eligibility decisions. This is when the team determines eligibility. This is the step that is most impacted by the rule changes, but I believe it is positively impacted. The rule changes ease the restrictions on eligibility. The team may now make decisions relying on the evaluation data that's been collected and their expertise and knowledge. The decision around child's eligibility is not always going to be the same from school to school and it shouldn't be each decision must be made by the team on a case by case basis, depending on a unique individual individual needs of a particular child, not based only on discrepancies in age or grade performance in academic subject areas. The last step is the evaluation report. And again that's not impacted by the current by the world changes. The special education process these seven steps will not and does not change regardless of which three identification methods is utilized. The only step that is being impacted by the rule change is step six the eligibility decision, which as others have stated simplifies the process so that decisions made by the team are decisions that rely on the combined expertise and knowledge of each participant before the trials. Therefore, I do not see how the changes in the rules would require a significant practice change for our special educators. The rule changes align with the intent of Act 173. The four main goals of Act 173 as they relate to services provided to all students require additional supports are effectiveness of services availability of services equity of services and supervisory union compliance with IDA and state law. This is what Secretary Dan French has to use to measure whether Vermont is effective in implementing Act 173 he has to use those four goals. Vermont Board of Education voted to approve rule changes so that Vermont would align with existing federal IE DA laws and more importantly to ensure a free and appropriate education to all its students, including students with disabilities before sale failure sets in. They also approved the rule changes so that Vermont could ensure the goals of Act 173 are implemented effectively. Bill H716 has passed over to your committee. The bill suspends the implementation of rules 2362 and 2362.25 until July 1, 2023. The sole intent of the delay is to allow educators and staff time to adequately prepare for the delivery of special education services. To the delay the implementation of the rules is not only a violation of student rights to equal education access, but is in my opinion unnecessary. The special education process has existed in the federal IDA law since it was last reauthorized in 2004, determining specific learning disability eligibility eligibility using a model based on whether the student responds to scientific research based interventions has also existed in the state of Vermont special education rule since it was adopted in June 13, June 13 2013, the multi tiered systems of support was implemented in 2014. This means that Vermont educators and staff should already be fully trained and knowledgeable in determining disability eligibility. This includes using the response to intervention method. There should be no ambiguity or any significant professional development when implementing the new rule change. In closing, I ask that this committee consider removing section two from H716. It is critical that Vermont special education regulations aligned with federal IDA and that the existing provision of a free inappropriate education for children with disabilities be retained. Thank you for your time. Any questions. Thank you for your testimony. I submitted your testimony. I didn't. I kind of just started down what I wanted to say this morning, but I can, I can make it more formal and send it in if you like. That would be true. That would be a big help if you would send it to Daphne. Thank you. I just want to say that when it comes down to determining eligibility, the education of agency, agency, education, agency of education back in 2016 created an adverse effect chart. This chart and I send it to you. This chart has the measures that educators must use when determining it has different examples of tests that they can use. And then it has a criteria for comparison. The only thing that is changing within the entire process is the criteria that people are using to determine eligibility. Everything else is exactly the same. So I don't understand how this is such a big process within our schools. Senator personally, a quick question. You had mentioned a few disabilities that don't need to have the adverse impact designation. Can you. Yes. Which ones were those again. It's specific learning disability and death blindness. If you look, and this isn't my first testimony that I sent on March 18th. If you look at the definitions of those disability categories, there is not an adverse effect. Every other disability category says within their definition that they have to have adverse effects on their educational performance. These two disability types do not have that written in there. And so what they have to do before when it comes to determining eligibility, they have to see, does this child fall under this disability category as defined by 300.8. And if they do, they use that information they drew from all of the different assessments and they say, do they need special education services. And it's important to note that the team should be looking at whether or not that child could make up the deficit. And they need to be able to stay in their peers within the special education classroom, because that is the big question is, do they need additional supports in order to reduce that gap. And if it can't be done within the general education classroom, then it has to be required by special education if they fall under, you know, a child with a disability and they need special education. Now that's helpful. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Any other questions. Feel free Ms. Crenshaw to stay on. We're going to move to Ms. Ballard. We do have, we're hoping to hear from everyone in the next 15 minutes. So it's one way to think about it is, are you have new information to share as it relates to this issue. Thank you so much and I apologize my cameras off my internet is not working very well. Great. I'm going to read really quickly I wrote something so that I could stick to the timeline and hopefully be very quick so good afternoon and thank you to chairman campion and the rest of the committee for taking the time to hear for myself, Jamie and Sandra. In an effort to be concise and not repetitive, I'm going to try and keep my testimony brief, but I want to echo that I agree with the points Jamie and Sandra will or have made today, and I am here today to strongly advocate against delaying the rule change related to specific learning disabilities especially. I'm a parent of three children, two of whom are living with disabilities including learning disabilities. As a parent, I know firsthand this rule change would have changed the trajectory of my own son and stop the increasing stress and being faced due to the lack of appropriate intervention and identification of his learning disabilities. As an advocate, I support families in many different buildings and districts across Vermont and I have seen multiple children just in the last couple of months be denied eligibility due to not having enough measures to show a severe discrepancy. These children are often viewed as a behavior problem and while their disruptions clearly come from the frustration level work and their learning disabilities, their behavior is what they are given support for. By treating behavior as the only lens we view these children struggling with, we set them up for stigmas and stress that impact their ability to access their education as well as their overall sense of self. I briefly testified to the House Education Committee on this bill before they passed the bill out of committee and I'd like to briefly share my thoughts again with all of you. It makes me sad and disappointed to hear such a focus on the stress and preparation of districts and educators and not hear more intentional focus on our children living and struggling with potentially unidentified disabilities. Even if I thought the delay was appropriate, it would be really helpful to feel like the focus on this shift is not just based on the comfort and needs of the professionals. Our children and students with disabilities must be at the forefront of our discussion and should not be left unspoken about. As a member of various groups and councils, I know firsthand some of the amazing work being done of the last year to help prepare for this by Jackie Kelleher and her team at the AOA. They are available and able to provide the technical to support to those in need of it before July and I hope this committee has or obviously you just said you would be hearing from her and her team directly on how they have and can support districts and educators without delaying this change. The risk of over identifying should not and cannot be greater than the potential to help those with real needs sooner. We are providing comprehensive and quality evaluations and interventions. This change shouldn't feel so overwhelming to those who already have the knowledge and the ability to make this shift. And for those who need the support the AOE is prepared and ready to support them with the technical assistance and we should give them the opportunity to lead this work on the current timeline. I have told myself and a fellow advocate that we are privileged by our level of knowledge and the access we have to those in the system and the leadership positions. Now full disclosure as someone living with a disability myself with two sons living with disabilities and a family that struggles financially, I've never seen myself as privileged in that way before, but they weren't totally wrong. I do spend a lot of time in many meetings for students across the state. And what that has taught me is there are many children who are not being identified, who are struggling with other identified needs that are being ignored by the current structure. And I wish that the families I work with had a stronger voice in this room, but even getting myself a voice today was challenging. Please do not think that this is a minor issue. It really isn't and it shouldn't be delayed specifically for one group to the preparation from the field. For those that may remember about two years ago right around this time before COVID, I was testifying that the rule changes in dyslexia, and I was very emotional because I had just learned through an independent evaluation. My son had profound learning disabilities that hadn't been appropriately identified or supported from kindergarten until seventh grade. Had there been less reliance on a discrepancy model it would have been fully identified and his behaviors and isolation as I mentioned would have been much less. Since that time my son has made huge gains in reading math and writing and that is due to the collaborative path his team has taken on focusing on strength and weaknesses, rather than just the documentation collected during the assessment and the rigid requirements for eligibility. I share that because I've seen firsthand that we do have many districts and educators who are ready for this change if they aren't the voices you hear in this room, even if they aren't the voices you hear in this room. And we have a team at the AOE who is ready and able to provide technical support and parents who are ready to support their families using the flexibility this change will allow, not only to help identify their children with learning disabilities, but to begin to engage in the interventions and supports that will ultimately be needed. And to do so before the cost and intensity escalate as the child gets older. Thank you for your time. Thank you Miss Bellard. Any questions at this point. Miss Chittenden in this dollar please feel free to stay on as we continue to hear we're going to miss Chittenden and then we're going to hear from one more witness and have a committee discussion about this. I'm also having some connectivity issues. For the record, my name is Sandra Chittenden. I just want to say thank you chair champion and all of the Senate at committee members for taking all of the testimony that you have. And thus far, I think Katie and Jamie pretty much said everything I was going to say. And the only thing that I would add that as a special ed advocate, I'm seeing many children that are being denied IEP's because of this discrepancy model. It's a huge issue for their self esteem their self worth their self confidence it causes behavioral problems within the school environment and end at home socially. You know kids are really struggling we're coming out of a pandemic. I know that you know teachers have had a lot on their plates. But Vermont is essentially not in compliance with the IDA SLD requirements. There are some districts that are already doing this model and some districts who plan on doing this July 1 2022. And my own daughter when she was in kindergarten didn't qualify for an IEP although she had all the characteristics of dyslexia and dyscalculia. And once she got to third grade she did qualify but she only qualified for math because of the discrepancy model, and she was able to receive related services for the reading. She still didn't qualify under SLD for reading, although she had dyslexia, and you know she didn't receive appropriate intervention until fourth grade, and luckily her dyslexia was mild. And dyscalculia is not and she still hasn't closed those gaps with her basic math computation, and it takes four times the amount of money to remediate these children when they're not remediated early as in, you know kindergarten first and second grade. So I would really like the committee to really think about the effect that it's going to have on the children in delaying it another year, given where we are and how far these kids, you know, are already behind. So, thank you for allowing me to give testimony this afternoon. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with the testimony. Any questions or comments at this point from Mr. Again feel free to stay right on as we continue our conversation. This price thanks for joining us from the Vermont family network. I don't think we've had you in committee yet this year so welcome. Well thank you then for inviting the Vermont family network to testify today on each 716 BFN is the federally designated parent training and information PTI sent in Vermont. PTIs are required by the individuals with disabilities Education Act and exist in every state. And at the end we have been supporting families of children with disabilities for more than 30 years. Our family support program operates a helpline where we respond to families who call us when they have concerns and questions about their child from early learning through transition to adulthood. Special Education eligibility and evaluation has been the primary reason for many of our help line calls. I have submitted written testimony to this committee a couple of weeks ago and I will not duplicate that information today. But I will merely repeat that the event opposes any implementation delay of the 2360 rules regarding adverse effect and specific learning disabilities. I hope to profit some additional insight today. In April 2015, the Agency of Education convened a stakeholder group to inform and review a guidance document that will provide greater consistency across the state and provide interpretations from the AOE for areas not explicitly identified and generally within the special within the current adverse effect rule. This was an acknowledgement that schools have struggled with interpreting and applying adverse effect for many years. In addition, when IDEA was reauthorized at the federal level in 2004, there was clarification that educational performance consists of both academic and functional performance. Smart special education rules only listed academic skill areas when considering eligibility for special education. When the state rules implementing the 2004 changes were being promulgated 18 years ago, advocates and families asked to address the adverse effect criterion. We were told there was insufficient time to address this and that there would be opportunity to do so at a later date. Nothing happened. The Vermont rules were revised again in 2009 and in 2012. That's 10 years ago. Again, we asked to address concerns about the adverse effect criterion. Again, we were told there was insufficient time and we promised an opportunity to address adverse effect after that round of rule revisions were completed. Nothing happened. Without that needed rule change, the stakeholder group of 2015 of which VFN was a member, worked into 2016 to provide guidance and training so that special education teams would consider the effects of functional deficits on academic skills when determining special education eligibility. This in effect made determination of special education eligibility even more convoluted. Removing the current operational definition of adverse effect has the potential to greatly simplify the eligibility process for educators. This will also shift the amount into performance with the federal definition of educational performance, which remember came through the 2004 IDEA reauthorization. This will also shift the focus onto what we call the third gate of special education eligibility, which is to assess the child's need for services. This will help children. These are the decisions we know of from families who have called us whose children were not considered eligible for special education services under the current definition of adverse effect. Teachers at the school tell me my child is too bright to qualify for special education. She has no friends. I see her not participating appropriately or even at all during circle times. She's not like the group, paying attention to a completely unrelated object. Even in group projects, the other children ignore her suggestions. She's often confused by the activity going on in the classroom and doesn't understand what to do. Another example, I get called two to three times a week to pick my child up from school for all sorts of behavior issues. Sometimes he divides the teacher, or he disrupts the class by being loud. Sometimes he distracts other students. I'm starting to think his teacher hates it and uses the first opportunity to send him home. I can't keep my job if I have to be so often to bring him home. Yet when I ask the school for help, they say he is too bright to qualify for special education. We often hear from parents that they are discouraged from requesting special education evaluation because it's too small. Without social skills instruction or behavior plans, children's communication skills and behavior can continue to deteriorate until they fail their academic classes through their inability to access their education. Finally, qualifying for special education, but we don't want our kids to have to fail over and over again for receiving help. Vermont has one of the highest rates of students who qualify for special education in the emotional disturbance disability category. One of the possible reasons for this is when an underlying learning disability is not diagnosed and remediated, the child exhibits behavioral challenges through embarrassment and frustration. They then qualify for special education, but a behavior plan is not a substitute for appropriate instruction. Early identification through implementation of the new rules will get our students the help they need in a timely fashion. Informal refusals to evaluate are another barrier many families face. A school may report that they have processed all the parents' requests for special education evaluations in a timely fashion, resulting in almost all the children qualifying and receiving special education services. What you have heard repeatedly are the parents who are told orally that their children will not qualify and that they should not bother to request an evaluation. If a parent does not submit a request for special evaluation in writing to the appropriate school administrator, there is no record of one being requested. Under the new rules regarding specific learning disabilities, districts will no longer use the discrepancy model for eligibility, but instead determine whether the student responds to scientific research-based intervention. Response to intervention RTI and multi-tiered systems of support MTSS have been part of the education landscape long before the pandemic. I went through my records and I saw that in 2009, VFN in partnership with the Agency of Education, then the Department of Education developed a booklet entitled, response to intervention, a guide for parents. I do have a link to that in my written testimony that I have submitted. This was to help parents understanding of RTI so they could work in partnership with schools. This booklet was done 13 years ago. Children with disabilities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. More than ever, our children need earlier identification and intervention. They have already suffered through two years of disrupted schooling. Further delay of the new rules will penalize them further. Please make the right decision and prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable children. Please implement the 2360 rules in their original time frame. So thank you. Thank you, Ms. Price. Any questions or comments for Ms. Price at this point? Thank you all for joining us. We very much appreciate it. This is very helpful and we hope you'll follow our work as we continue to make work on this decision. This is certainly a decision point. I think when I look back to who we heard from that really wants to delay, I believe it was the Vermont Crucible Association and Superintendents Association. They supported the delay but it seemed like they were supporting others that were asking for the delay. I was really pushing for this early on. Teachers, educators. The school, the college association. We really like to know how many schools approximately feel ready for this and also how much time the training is going to involve over the summer. We'll have the training folks come in tomorrow for about 15 minutes, I would say. And that should hopefully give us a sense of what this actually looks like. I'm inclined not to really push this out but continue to hear from folks. I'm not in favor of the delay. Yeah, that's where I am right now. So I'm trying to remember when we acted on the rules. I think it was in the fall. And I think one of the problems is that this has been a very difficult time for everyone. So seeing something new and different and having to restructure the way you do things probably overwhelming. So but I agree that maybe the summer will be a time for people to catch up a little bit. And let's see what the training looks like. We'll do that tomorrow. And the point that we're going to be working a little bit on tomorrow is PCBs and just that's another thing that the house has sent us that is asking for a three year delay. And we need to start to get things on. Sorry, they are sending us something that will have a two year delay. Yeah, that's a good question. They want, it was, because we recall we had Peter walking others in asking for it, their intention is to send it over on a farm miscellaneous education bill. So we could either we get it back, strip it out. We don't agree. We're reconfirming in our, in our document when we send them. So anything else in our lines. We're looking at Graham's. Answering questions. And I don't see anything in here that would say that we can't put money aside for a support. Yeah, and I'm so if we're saying delay, let's not delay until we know we can't do something like that. Right, right. We're also continuing a little bit later this week on the military, three military bills that we have. And that I would say will probably be our first vote sometime next week, because there's no real reason to delay all of that. I don't think we're going to have line. I think we're going to have to come to our house.