 Good afternoon everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It's Tuesday, January 25th, two o'clock in the afternoon. We're back from a break. We also have house education joining us this afternoon. We're happy to have them sit in with us as we start talking about education, career centers, the CTE system. We're happy to have with us Deputy Secretary Boucher from the Agency of Education, Jay Ramsey. And I've also invited former Representative Michelle Coopersmith to be with us as well. Michelle and I, when she was here, worked a lot on workforce. Michelle, I consider someone who has put a lot of time, energy, and a lot of thought into this realm that we're talking about. We were always passionate about the career centers and apprenticeships and internships. And so I've asked Michelle to also give us her perspective. So, Kate, did you want to, would you like to say or introduce your committee to everyone? I think we all know each other, but people in the virtual world don't know us. I think we're okay. We have all the whole committee here representing various districts around the state. And I know that our committee knows the faces. So thank you so much for including us on this really important question. Okay, thank you. I just want to be sure that both committees, anyone who would like to ask a question, just let the people on education let your chair know. Representative Webb could can call on you and same for my committee members just let us know if you have questions. So I think what I'd like to do first is ask Michelle Cooper Smith to just start us off. Michelle, welcome. Glad to see you again. It's been a while since we've been able to touch base but I hope all is well with you and thank you for joining us this afternoon. Oh, hi. I thought I would go third but I'm happy to do this. And I'm so pleased. Kate and your team that that this is a joint committee meeting I didn't realize that till this morning. So that's pretty cool. So let me just I got a few little note but mostly this is, this is me. It's just my perspective and it's it, it sets the stage for how I have evolved in my thinking over the years. And then you'll get, you're just going to get Jane and Heather who are such experts in this and it's going to be great. So the whole topic of CTE it's just huge. It's huge for the individuals, the students. It's huge for the community, and its health, and it's huge for our economy. And what I'm going to my pitch to you is that there are two things happening with this CTE system that is not gone as far as I believe that it could and should. One is it's it's really an injustice to the individuals who aren't able to access the system, or for whom this system is not robust enough. And from an economic standpoint, we just shoot ourselves in the foot. And I'll talk about that. And we're just starting right at the very top every day. And I know that I know this is true. I believe this is true that our kids in K through 12 system. The messaging is to them. We want you to aspire to go to college. We will help you prepare for college. We believe in you, and we believe that you have what it takes to go to college. But if college isn't right for you. Then we'll send you to tech it. And I just want to say this is a big deal. Why is college, the default. Why is college the gold standard and CTE is less than. This is you ask any plumber and electrician or tradesperson in the state who didn't go to college or other people, and they will say that I'm not wrong about this. This is the truth of the message that our policies bring to our kids. So the question is why is college the aspiration. I've understood for quite a long time that that only 27% of our jobs in the state of Vermont require a four year degree or greater. And I heard, I caught a snippet of Betsy Bishop testifying the other day. She said only 20%. The Vermont Futures Project would have the exact data on that. And, and that's job. That's for four year degrees, but we're talking about four year degrees. So I've had a lifetime, not just my work as a legislator to witness the system and how it's been over the years. And I can tell you what I've heard from virtually everybody in the system and people, and they mostly say, in various words, as I push for CTE and more training programs. They say to me, they said to me as a legislator, they said to me as one who engaged in these conversations. How dare you deny individuals the aspiration for, and the chance to go to college. This is true. This is my big experience. And let me just pause and say, this is not an anti college speech, even though it clearly sounds like that at the moment, it's not. I mean, I have been lucky to have a college degree and advanced degrees, and my kids the same and, and it is the world that I have been privileged to be part of. But this is a question about what is the truth that will be over my kids. And this is something that I've cared about since high school. And then certainly when I was in my seat in the house. And to be fair, almost everyone, all the educators, the administrators and the parents will say, of course we value the trades, and those who do that. And they say it and they mean it. They're sincere. I believe they're absolutely sincere. But they go on to tell me why what I suggest that is a great expansion of programs of study in our K through 12 CTE system. They say why it won't work. And, and they, and I've been told these things over and over and over again. And you've probably already heard the list. These are not just obstacles. These are big impediments. Emotionally psychologically administratively financially and everywhere. So here's some of the list. Here's the current CTE system. If you send more kids to CTE school principals are going to have to lay off academic teachers. It's just true. Now they will say they never don't send a kid to CTE for that reason. But if they go over X number, they run out of money. I mean it's just plain truth. They, this is the big thing that CTE is training. It's not education. It's not education. They call it training. They say CTE trains students in a narrow set of skills for a job. And that job is going to be obsolete by the time they graduate. That's what they believe. That's what they say. This is what's out there as the narrative. They say tax dollars in our K through 12 system should not be paying for what businesses are supposed to do. They say it's not our job to train kids. That's for the businesses to do and to pay for. They say that students won't learn learn good citizenship in CTE programs. They won't learn about democracy. They won't learn these things. They say that students won't learn the three R's. They won't really learn how to read. They won't really learn math and they won't learn how to write in CTE. They say this all the time. Truly they do. They say that student CTE students don't become lifelong learners that they don't develop critical thinking skills. This is said all the time. I have heard it so many times over the years. They say that students won't go on to college if they attend CTE. They won't get in. They won't get admitted if they go to CTE. They say students won't be successful in college if they get in if they attend CTE first. They say that what I want to do is what the Swiss and the Germans do and they track their students and that those tracked tech at won't get it. They can't go on to college to university. It's called there and that those who are tracked early like this are stigmatized for life as having not succeeded in the morally academic route. They say that the path to gaining middle and upper class status is college. They say it in a lot of different words, but it's clear that's what they're saying. And they say that studies show that college graduates out earn those with basic high school degrees. Well, I won't get into the weeds on that, but you do the dig on this on the data. And you want to know the worst one ever. One of the fun things you all know you become a legislator. You have both the stress and also the privilege of getting into some high level heated discussions. And I got into a lot of those. And in one of them in particular, I pointed out that students at the Center for Technology as sixes go back while not telling you who it was or anything. I don't remember who it was, but a superintendent said to me and I said, you know, they've got this great fast forward program. Kids can actually get college credit for class taken in their CTE curriculum with their CTE teacher in the high school building. And he said to me. So, and I was saying these are kids who are college track. And he said, so now you want to take our smart kids. Well, you can imagine how I, I mean, I'm, I'm hearing it and I'm indignant as a Vermonter, but I'm also it, those are the experiences all of those bullets that make me acutely aware that this is a, this is a big thing. And it's got deep roots. And it's got all the financial roots and it's got all the emotional roots. And it sure is a mess administratively to try to coordinate. I heard earlier conversation just about in the earlier testimony at commerce, it's about how hard it is kids think they can just access one or two CTE classes and stay in the academic track and how hard it is. I can only get in trouble if I go into the weeds. But I can say that so much at stake for our society and our community and for the growing polarization between people and this greater stratification of class. And it all starts when the kids are younger and it our messaging around CTE feeds them and the reality of it feeds that. So I encourage you to look heavily, and I'm a huge proponent of apprenticeships and internships and training programs. But we absolutely totally in my mind need to spend significant more money in our programs of study delivered to our kids before they turn 18 or 19 years old and truly make what's in Vermont law true. The kids by law are supposed to be able to graduate from high school career and college ready. And we're not one of the. We got some of the best experts in the country. The directors at the local schools are administrators, Heather and Jay and others. All the brain powers there. And the will is there, but the policy is not there. And that's the job of the legislature. It's a policy question. So it cannot be passed on to lower levels, because they can only work when when the system. So thank you. That's it. I'm so pleased to see most of you. I don't even know I'm pleased to see all of you. I don't know some of you. Thank you. I think a great opening to this whole discussion. I knew you could lay it out pretty well. When you get old enough, and you just say, I mean, it's, it's, this is what I believe it's not. It's a big deal. It's actually a very big deal. Thank you. Both of you chairs and the rest of you. Thanks Michelle, are there any questions for Michelle before we continue on. Nothing here. Michelle, we really appreciate it. Thank you. I'm sure I'll be touching base with you over the session to. Make sure that we're going in the right direction. Well, I'm not as busy as the rest of you so I'm available. Thank you. Take care. Deputy Secretary Boucher welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here. Nice to see all of you. I am also excited that this is a joint testimony, which makes our lives a little easier selfishly because we don't have to do to two testimonies then. I'm Heather Boucher, the deputy secretary for education and I'm joined by my colleague Jay Ramsey, who is our former state CTE director and is currently our assistant division director for student pathways. And I am going to start the testimony by just laying out some of the proposals that are in the administration's budget proposal so that we can actually think about. I think many of those are addressing some of the issues that. Ms. Cooper Smith with that Michelle just brought up. So I'd like to start out by that and then of course both Jay and I are here for questions. If that's okay. Mr. and Madam chair. Great. And I did send ahead some three documents that I hope you were able to take a look at. I think as folks probably know, Governor Scott is very supportive of CTE. He speaks about it quite a lot. He is also very concerned as you know about what is happening statewide in terms of a shortage of workers in all sectors but certainly in the trades and certainly in healthcare as a result of what's happening with the pandemic. So backing some of the policy ideas that our administration has come up with. He has released a suite of different one to two page documents that highlight what has been what worth we're starting with as some ideas from in this case the policy of education and there are some similar documents that are being discussed with relevant committees of jurisdiction with pretty much all of the agencies and departments throughout state government. So one of the things that we know is really critical is that in terms of our education system PK 12, we really do rely on our CTE system writ large as a bulwark of really ensuring that we have the workforce that we need of the future. I do want to point out, I think folks are quite aware of this but just as a, as a further clarification if needed. When I'm talking about CTE, I'm including both secondary CTE which is high school in statute but also includes more and more. Our framework includes seven six and seventh grade on up to 12th grade. And then we also have adult technical education, which is for folks who actually already have a high school diploma. So, it's really important to actually distinguish between those two when we're when we're talking about things because right now in terms of the governance and funding. It's not very streamlined and I can answer any questions about that moving forward. So the suite of initiatives proposed by the Scott administration for CTE work to solve our workforce challenges. It has a number of different components that I thought I would just kind of run through and then they're in different levels of specificity and activity. So I'll give a brief update on each of them. The first as I know our education committee members know, I'm not sure about commerce committee but there is currently a $90 million surplus in the Education Fund. And so one of the primary proposals that the governor has is first to return half of that surplus back to the taxpayers which is not surprising given that he has built his platform for years on and reducing the tax burden for our residents. And then also the other half of that surplus so another $45 million he he's proposing that we actually invest that in our CTE system in terms of infrastructure so that we can actually use these dollars to really make sure that our CTE facilities are modern have what they need to be functional as buildings. And part of this is so that they can actually fully train and educate students that are in their programs. Part of this is also stemming from the fact that there are dollars available to through ESSER and other some other dollars but primarily through ESSER right now for construction for our K-12 non CTE infrastructure. And so the idea is to hopefully provide some of those additional supports for our CTE buildings which were often built at the same time as our schools and so they're facing the same deferred maintenance and challenges as our schools are. So, and then there are two proposals that directly relate to funding and governance changes to CTE. Both of those are currently bills that have emerged in House Ed and they have been jointly developed by Representative Kimball and Representative James with our feedback early in the process I believe over the summer. Definitely fall but I think even starting in the summer to bring these to fruition. So, one is H483 which is proposing to continue the work that was done by started by this committee by the House Commerce Committee. A couple of years ago with pilot project that would actually allow CTEs to think outside the box in terms of governance and funding. And we made some good progress in those pilots and now the new bill asks us to basically finalize that work so that we can actually bring that initial activity to bear and actually help us actually build a new system for CTE should look like which is directly I think related to what Michelle Cooper Smith was talking about. And so that's H483 and then the second bill that is relevant is piloting and this is kind of a new idea but we think it will be potentially a wonderful addition to the curricular space for CTE students. So, thinking about how we could actually design a virtual high school that CTE students could use as their high school so that they could actually complete their core courses. So, the graduation requirements that they need to graduate that are not the CTE courses so it would allow them to have more time in the CTEs doing work that's the hands on training and the advanced work that they are actually at the CTE center to do. And one of the pieces that's also interesting is it could actually if we design it well could actually get at the issue that all different students have different proficiency based graduation requirements that are coming to the same CTE center. And so if we can streamline this and and and think about having CTE students attend a virtual high school that would be the same high school for CTE students, it could bring us much further in terms of streamlining. So that is one of the parts of the proposal that have also been brought forth from the administration. And I believe that is H468 that is put together within house education. Let's see and then we did have the governor did have a proposed budget adjustment act, including a sum of one and a half million dollars from the Ed fund to provide to all of our CTE centers. We House Ed was working on this. We were actually still doing some of our calculations of how our proposal would work we've sent that on to all the committee members as part of today's testimony. I believe this has moved forward in house appropriations. We did testify last week in Senate appropriations. I don't know where that currently is. We could perhaps talk more about that in our view what we're trying to do is stabilize the entire CTE system. There have been some other pieces of testimony that came that came up which specifically relate to the independent the three independent tech centers. I think it's unfortunate from our perspective that proposals got almost pitted against each other as do you support this, this independent center proposal or do you support the proposal that would have given two dollars to all CTE centers and I'll tell you why that's important in just a sec that would have been based on their, their usual headcount prior and during the beginning of COVID. So it's unfortunate I think that from our perspective that that happened and we're still hopeful that we can actually get some financial assistance to all of the tech centers not just the three independent tech centers. So the reason we came up, we put this forth is that it, it might seem that that the CTE centers for instance that were co located with a high school did just fine given all of the Essar dollars that had gone to the education system. That's just not true. And our CTE folks put together the document that you can see which is kind of a straw poll of what Essar dollars were actually awarded to each of the CTE's through the leas and I believe one of the largest what was Burlington which received or will receive $60,000 towards COVID relief. And, you know, we would I think all agree that's just simply not enough. Part of the big challenge is that the federal rules, the way the law was written actually precluded technical centers across the nation from actually having direct access to any of those education dollars, unless they were a district as defined by federal law, so an LEA. And ours are not that's that's just the way our system is set up. So, where regardless of whether they were co located regardless of whether they were actually independent regardless of whether they were sending school CTE's none of them had direct access to Essar and so that's why we had proposed here are here's you know some modest dollars to help stabilize each of the tech centers in the breach. There are gear funds which are also federal COVID relief dollars. Gear one was used for the CTE system to help primarily provide they could apply for grants which they all did to get PEE so personal, you know, safety equipment in in terms of the actual management of the first wave of the pandemic with the second so there's a second pot of gear dollars which we call gear to and the governor has directed one and a half million dollars of that to the agency so that we will run a statewide campaign, promoting the advantages of CTE promoting the the great opportunities that CTE affords for younger students and for current high school students and for adult students and also for parents. And so we're going to use that those dollars so a portion of gear to will be used to actually hire a vendor, which we call in state language basically a contractor on to work with us to do that big campaign about really making sure that everyone understands fully what CTE looks like the trades are an important part of it it's not just the trades and so we want to actually certainly we can talk more about that with this committee and I'm happy to hear your thoughts on that. And then another smaller portion of those gear to dollars the governor will be using them to launch two to three programs in electrical aviation and transportation so electric vehicles in the state and the idea there is two fold one it pushes us forward a little bit more in terms of our sustainability and our carbon footprint as a state helps us continue making that work. And then also, because I forgot to say, many of our CTE centers actually experienced a decline in student participation as they've gone through coven. The idea is that really getting a couple of these really neat electric, you know, electric helicopter electric airplane programs up and running can actually really serve as a neat recruitment tool for both hopefully girls and boys to get them excited about CTE and get them thinking about it. The only other two pieces I would say is that we are supporting authorizing language in the budget adjustment as well that will allow Vermont technical college to continue the work that I think was started in the commerce committee if I'm not mistaken to have VTC courses taking place at the CTE centers. And my understanding is that may have been waylaid also by the pandemic and so it's an attempt to kind of reboot that work and kind of keep it moving forward. Perhaps Jay can help me and knows a little bit more about that component than I do. And lastly, there is a new proposal on the table in partnership with Labor to design some more localized regional units that actually melds training employers and CTE centers together to really help them find those connections easily, some of the pieces that Michelle Cooper Smith was talking about. And locally working together to identify what the specific barriers are in that particular region with that particular district or set of school districts and with the assistance of the state actually really try to hammer through those. And then against the backdrop of we hope the broader funding and governance structure reform that's so desperately needed. I have been very fond of saying, you know, as Michelle hinted at Jay and I have been doing this work for a long time and I have been very fond of saying, we know that the last thing left is the least sexy, which is the funding and governance improvement, but if we don't do that we're we're just not going to really see what we need to see in terms of making sure that our CTE system is, you know, top of the line, a national leader and certainly is meeting the needs of our state. Jay, did you have anything else you might want to add. I kind of just went through the whole gamut. I think you've touched on every thing that we have identified as initiatives I would also say school counseling has been a growing focus of our work we put out a statewide survey last February on to better understand what school counselors were and particularly during the pandemic but also about what their needs were related to career counseling since that is a critical component of all of this. So that's what I had prepared to say. And Madam chair and I'm happy for questions or, or what lies next in the conversation. I have two in our committee representative Mark up if you want to kick it off. Go ahead madam chair. Okay, representative Williams and then representative common. Yes, thank you. I am looking at the extra funds for CTE of sheet that you gave us and I don't see anything there for Linden Institute check or St. Joseph Academy check. Are they receiving extra funds. Yes. Yeah, that's a great question. That was my question at first two. And so those are two independent schools and they actually had access to what are called Ian's funds as Sir Ian's funds e a and s that were actually set aside dollars specifically for private or independent schools so they both got funding directly through those through that set of COVID relief dollars. So really the CTE centers and then also as the Education Committee heard about the adult education system in Vermont really are the two entities that did not have direct access to any COVID dollars. And we can get those amounts amounts for you if you'd like as well. Yeah, thank you. If I may add to Heather's response about Linden Institute and St. Johnsbury Academy. Early in the pandemic the governor identified the gear one funds. So the governor's emergency education relief funds for technical education that was about $4 million. And we followed a process that we followed for our other federal funds for technical education that they went to a consortium of the public supervisor unions in the region. And through that consortium Linden and St. Johnsbury had access to 457,000 of the gear funds. And they had Ian's, yep, and they had Ian's dollars which we can get. Sorry to cut you off Jay which we can actually get the, the figures on. It's a great question. And just for for new folks when I say independent CTE centers I'm not talking about those two which is confusing. I'm actually talking about three CTE centers which are independent districts and so those are River Valley or Springfield. I'm talking about Hannaford Center in Middlebury and then Southwest Vermont Career Center. Just to confuse folks. Not I'm kidding it's not meant to confuse you but it can be confusing. Thank you represent a comment. Yeah thanks. When can we expect a more detailed fleshed out proposal about the surplus education fund dollars. I think this is where the administration is right now because we're really hoping to partner and come up with some of those ideas together. In this space. I think the focus from the governor's perspective his his hope is that we can actually frame that around infrastructural funds and enhancements. So I think we really do want to the reason that one is so open is because I think the administration really wants to work with the General Assembly to come up with what that might look like. Did you lay out the roadway the path that that collaboration is going to take place. You know I think typically that this is above my sorry to say but pay grade but I think that technically happens when the leaders of the House and Senate meet with the governor and and talk about some mutual spaces of policy development that I'd like to work on. I think that is perhaps what's hoped hoped for but I can certainly bring that back and and get some additional information from the governor's office to more specifically answer the question. Thank you. I've got another question but I represent Mark up. So we go with another question. Representative Austin. Yes. I'm glad to hear about the electric cars, you know, and electric energy. I'm wondering if there's any more thinking and looking at what are the future jobs in the next five to 10 years that for one is going to need. And backing that down to the state colleges and even, you know, junior high and high school, kind of making, you know, students aware that these are the skills and knowledge that our jobs that where they could stay in Vermont and make a good living. Yeah. Thank you representative Austin it's a great point and I'm sorry if I gave the impression that that wasn't part of the calculus going into this. It certainly is. I think from the administration's perspective, the real core work that needs to be done in the next three years or so will be in the trades. So some of those areas that we know have been really decimated in terms of bodies to do the work we need to do in the next session. And a lot of that is because we have a big COVID relief infrastructure bill that will actually be providing dollars for construction roads infrastructure. And so I think that's where some of that pressure is coming from that we don't really have the workforce right now to actually lift those federal dollars that we know are coming. And then secondly, we know, particularly with respect to CTE, we know that because there are health science programs that are that are, you know, a core part of CTE programs in each of our centers. We know that the healthcare industry already was facing some significant challenges and shortages, particularly with the aging of not only the population in New England but nationally. And then also the COVID epidemic has only made that worse. We have nursing shortages we have folks that are just really getting burned out. So those are the two for this particular focus this year. But, you know, I think our administration has always been interested in what are those those fields across or those positions across many sectors across a multiple multitude of sectors that we really need to make sure our state is thriving. And we know that we have shortages across all sectors. So, so there is a focus on trades and healthcare for the short term but definitely that long term view is all about like what how do we actually make those connections between the jobs that are actually going to be available in Vermont and actually are needed to actually help stabilize our economy and help our state thrive, and then what we're offering in terms of in terms of our CTE programs. And I also think the the electric aviation, to some extent, the thinking is it's a really novel, neat, cool idea that a lot of students might not know about and so it could be a hook to get them into thinking about CTE because who doesn't want to learn how to build an electric helicopter or or plane. I do. I'm just I'm specifically thinking of just, you know, the forest industry, the outdoor recreation industry that climate economy. You know, there's two or three that, you know, there are two or three that I think need jobs now, you know, need workers now and I think projected into the future they'll need them and seems like it would be a good match. I may on some on some level and we're talking about the secondary CTE programs. We're talking about introducing concepts to students and so to your question about the climate workforce. If we're talking about a construction program, you know we're talking also about weatherization learning how to install windows so that you know air doesn't leak around and so that's one of the sorts of topics that can be used to update the curriculum. And so, you know, I think we have to walk a careful line here in response to what Michelle Cooper Smith was saying when she started it's not about an occupation we're not creating to a particular occupation where introducing students to a career path through construction you can be an electrician you can be an HVAC technician you could. You can be a window installer you can be a weatherization expert and so I just want us to be careful when we're talking about it. We want we want it to lead to something we we know that, at least from the Center for Education and Work at Georgetown, 70% of jobs by 2025 will require some amount of post secondary education so we're, we have to identify the credentials and have them be stackable so someone can over a lifetime, build a career. And I also want to speak to the development of programs, those we've provided as an agency in the legislature allocates in normal times, whatever that means $750,000 for new program development and those are funds that we grant out to the technical centers. They use it to update their curriculum by equipment and implement new programs. So for instance at Randolph, they have implemented a dental assisting program and that that's the second one in the state. The other one is at Essex. And that leads to a federal process that the centers are having to do this spring called a comprehensive local needs assessment. And in that process they're examining their local labor market or their regional labor market. We have UVM prepare some reports for each tech center based on their service region. And they have to go through a process basically of justifying why are they offering the programs that they're offering. And if there is a program that's misaligned, what are they going to do about it. Do they need to train the teacher, do they need to update curriculum, do they need to discontinue the program and start something else so we'll see the results of that. Hopefully, you know, late spring, early summer as they submit their Perkins applications. Thank you so much. Early. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You're all right. We're good. Okay. Thank you. I just had a couple of different questions. I think you mentioned the SR grants being able to fund school construction. And I haven't seen that. And I'm wondering if you can talk to that because when we look at $45 million going into the career and technical education centers. I don't know that there's that necessary need for it, but I know there's over 500 million in school construction projects that have been proposed so can you talk about the SR funds for school construction. I have a certain component of the SR funds. I would actually have to have Jill come in and talk with you about that. Jill Briggs Campbell because she actually is our answer guru and there's all different kinds of proposals where certain, certain dollars can be used for certain things and not for others. I do know that with SR I believe $1 we actually invested in our state set aside we invested in a contractor to help develop facilities plans that I think we're going to be using those local education dollars but I want to actually go back and just confirm all those pieces. Okay, thanks I only have a few more pointed questions so it's they're short I mean not pointed but short. In talking about the adult tech education programs. One thing that we've heard of is because very few of them have full time directors for their adult education programs and we've heard from testimony that you can see the absolute positive results when there is a full time adult education technical director on site. And so what should be interesting to get your thoughts on that if that makes that much of a difference in participation. And then the second part is really looking at the role of the regional advisory boards. As Jay was just talking about developing curriculum around what the perceived needs are really from AOE wondering how you're leveraging those regional advisory boards and determining what those needs are on the local scale. So I'm going to let Jay address the regional advisory board piece and he can certainly also round out what I say in terms of the adult education piece. You know I think I think our view is that we want to support anything that helps students regardless of their age get the right kind of training and education they need. So I think the adults technical education system is still really problematic because it doesn't have a streamlined governance system. So we can talk about it but we really don't have any dollars in education to support that system. We have a little bit in terms of some salary assistance. But the bulk of those dollars. I think folks know are actually housed within the Department of Labor. Thankfully we work very closely together labor and education at the state level to actually work in how to answer and co develop programs, internships and a streamlined system. I would actually argue that we probably also should be thinking about adult basic education in that same vein and think about how those programs are could be our currently deployed to really help adult learners who have left the K 12 system and are still, you know, looking to finish their diploma how to help them actually get really teed up and intrigued by or at least learn about CTE pathways. So we support, you know, we support ways that we actually need to make sure that we're delivering the education we need to get to our students. Jay, anything you'd add there. I mean, I think I'm coming from a an important perspective, our state CTE director is a former adult CTE coordinator and so, you know, our current rules say each center must employ a person it doesn't say how much. And so, I think we could look at all of the examples where there is a full time person and see that there are results I don't disagree with that part of the testimony does each center need to have a full time person I think is the question could the center in St. Albin's in the center in cold hollow employ one person who coordinates between the two sites could Burlington and Essex do the same thing so, you know, again, we need to step back a little bit and say, what is the right organizational structure if you will for for that system and I would echo what Heather is saying about adult education literacy, and I would remind everyone that in act 74 of last session, there is a study that we just had our first meeting last week with a group around the state to start looking at adult CTE and adult education and literacy. I was hoping you would mention that. And if I may respond to your rap question. Each center that receives a Perkins grant or that is intending to apply for Perkins money Perkins is a federal grant program that funds career and technical education at the secondary and the post secondary level. CCV and Vermont tech receive Perkins on the rab is an integral part of that process in each region. So the tech center directors are going through this comprehensive local needs assessment process and when they get to the end. And it comes to their regional advisory board. There's probably some other steps that I'm missing but to simplify it. The regional advisory board has to sign off on the Perkins application before it gets submitted to us so those high school administrators that are on the rab business and industry partners that are on the rab have to sign off on kind of the justification if you will for continuing certain programs, just continuing some or starting new ones. It's interesting. When. Yeah, thank you. I was the chair of a, I was involved with a high school board with the technical center for many years involved in all of the I was the representative to the technical center from the board. As were many others. One of the things that Michelle mentioned of course is the fact that these are sort of second class places second class students second class citizens, they this lack of this lack of counseling lack of incentive to go and really do the things they probably need to do. I didn't see that in our high school. I wonder, and maybe Heather and Jay I don't know which is the rest best one to ask but do you have data on what has been done with these schools with people coming out of these programs going on to college or post secondary education whether it's doing one culinary school or some auto mechanic school in Idaho or Chicago or someplace, not to mention colleges and other places it seems to me that there is a whole lot more of that now, then there might have been back in the 50s and early 60s that there is now a recognition that these are real educational environments. I don't know that we had a course. We had a course at BFA that was, I mean these kids went on to want to know a national award and robotics or something. And all of those kids I think went to college and engineering school. I mean the point of it is is that you must have some data on this. And the second question I have is my experience with CTS and both as a person who's involved with some programs with the business and also as a survivor who's really involved in education over the years is that some of the CTS centers are uneven. You can have really really good programs and really good people it's a personality based thing when you have a really good person and the program like crazy and it's, they're attracting students, they're doing a great job and then five years later someone else has taken over and it's not so hot. What do you do about that. I mean that's an ongoing issue. You know what, it's interesting to me that I'm learning things that I didn't realize I'm learning that the money for this for the adult basic adult education personnel is coming out of DOL it's not coming coming out of AOE. That's an interesting for technical education representative. Yeah, the CTE. But for regular adult education for regular adult education it does come out of the agency of education. Okay, so really basic is okay adult basic yet and I mean we have a lot of teachers a lot of excuse me a lot of adult students who go to back to BFA. You know they they get diplomas they go to the prom I go to all the classes. They're in some of the CTE courses and are in the honor society for you know I mean. There's a lot of adults out there that I've seen who go back to school and participate. But it's interesting your adult education for the CTE is funded out of DOL and not of AOE. But what about the data. And what about the unevenness. What do you mean there's some places where I know they're just gang busters and some places, not so much. Jay I'm going to let you because you're more on the ground and I am set makes sense. We do collect data we we have been collecting three or follow up data but there's. There are some problems with that because it's requires the instructor to follow up with students three years after they left so if you took over teaching. You're not going to have that relationship necessarily and the students are not likely to respond. We do six month follow ups. And we can we have access to the National Student Clearinghouse, which is basically a repository of data from student loan applications is primarily how it gets in there. And we can map students we in 2015 we we underwent this exercise to see where students were and we could do it again. It just requires some time. So we we we can access that type of data. I'm hoping when we start building on this marketing campaign that Heather was talking about with the governor's here to funds that will be able to tell the story using data so we'd be able to say more about what percentage of students go on to college and and what areas and what kinds of jobs do they have and how much money does the average student earn you know real numbers like that that would be attractive to parents and students. And in terms of the quality of I'm going to paraphrase what you said quality of administrators or quality of teachers. I think our approach to that has been it's their local decisions. And if the superintendent that is responsible for a technical center has hired someone it where is our job to obviously work with them because that's who the community has appointed as the leader of that school. If I may just add a couple points Jay. With the with the last point. We have invested as a state in training CTE teachers because one of the challenges is it's very hard to actually get folks from industry to make the leap into teaching they often give up significant salary. But we still even with that training program that we provided we've still struggled for many years to actually really populate those positions I would say it's actually going to become even more challenging because now we're seeing the entire education sector is seeing a lot of turnover and resignation of classroom teachers and so the administrative churn for our education sector in general is a big problem as well representative Dickinson. And so I'm wondering if we have a bigger problem at play so we have a huge turnover and superintendents and in principles. You know, we haven't historically had that turn level of turnover in terms of core teaching staff like you might see in CTE but I think we're going to start to see that. However, I do think that there are unique aspects to actually recruiting CTE teachers because they do need to have that technical skill and often that's developed by actually being in the industry and actually working in those businesses. So we'd be very happy to think outside the box together and figure out some new ways to recruit. What was the first part of your question because I did have another thought I had about that one, oh the data data. Yeah, I, you know, I do correct me if I'm wrong, Jay, but even, you know, and by the way I wanted to say the past couple of years, all of our data has been really skewed because of the pandemic just in terms of what actually the districts and CTE centers can actually pull together in the context of having to deal with the pandemic. But my understanding was I remember being pleasantly surprised when I actually came to this job, which is now going on eight years I can't believe that is that a significant portion of our students in CTE do go on to post secondary. And certainly the placement rate in terms of employment is really high for all of our all of our students. So I think one of the things that's always been a puzzle is the post secondary outcomes are very good for our CTE center students and so how do we, how do we connect that actual fact with getting the the messaging about CTE to parents and students and community members. Frankly, these are great questions. Thank you. Thank you. We do have another question here. Representative Brady. Thank you. This is probably a bookmark for a future conversation but I am curious to hear more about the administration's plans, not just for CTE's but workforce development programming in our K 12 system falling from the document that you shared. And what that might look like absolutely, you know, better facilities that are CTE's would be phenomenal. I heard you mention a publicity campaign. I guess I'm hopeful that the thinking around this if we're going to really look at this system is that we'll engage in thinking about what happens in the sending schools to and across our K 12 system and not just separately at CTE's. And I hope that that part of that conversation includes listening to students sometimes I wonder if we're designing a lot of solutions and what we think we need and we aren't actually hearing from students, both in, you know, full time in their in their schools and in CTE's and the barriers are what they want what they need particularly in the post COVID world as we get there because it's been a formative experience for our students so I guess I'm hopeful that that's part of the process before we define all the solutions. Yeah, I think that's actually a great point and the good news is we are just and we're just starting this work. And I think those are really great points I would say our crew at the agency has a very strong track record of reaching out to students we do annual listening tours where we actually go around and Jay you can talk more about this and actually get the perspective of students and educators on the ground we were doing this before COVID obviously I thought you were going to go though in a slightly different direction represent representative Brady, which was, we actually are required as part of the state set aside as our dollars to do a workforce study some workforce review of actual the education workforce and so we are actually, we are, we did an RFP to actually have, you know, a contract for an entity to do that work with a New England framework I thought that's where you might be going so I was kind of on a different track. And we'll do that work too but yeah these are great points. I think the nice thing about doing a broad based campaign like that is that we, we really can think outside the box a little bit more than we usually do. I think it's tempting as adults often for us to solve the problems and I do think it's critical that we listen to students in regular times and I agree with you like certainly now in terms of, you know, what does life look like as we as we move into hopefully a more, you know, a more stable sense of life and education as we move forward. So those are great questions are great points. Jay, did you want to add anything. The comprehensive local needs assessment that I talked about we're requiring the tech centers to do surveys of students and their faculty and their communities. And so, hopefully all see surveys coming out of the tech center so you can give them feedback. So that informs the investments that they make with the federal money. But, you know, in terms of the, the media campaign and we've, we've been doing some, you know, thinking about what is it that we want and one of the things that we want is student involvement and, you know, in one of the ways would be, you know, trying to think of a way we can involve students in the project itself digital media programs around the state. How can we have this be a learning experience for some students. And then just in terms of what Heather said about a listening tour. It hasn't been an annual one, even though we would like to go out and listen to them annually. A few years ago we did a strategic vision process for CTE and I went around and listened to students in four of the tech centers just to say does this feel right is this speaking to you. What else do you want us to know. And then, and then another way that we engage directly with students is the CTE team has to monitor review the tech centers for compliance with civil rights laws that's a federal requirement specific to CTE. And as part of that process we interview students about their experience in the tech center, particularly if you know they're they're students of a historically marginalized group. So, and then the last part of your question I think was about in my mind a coordinated curriculum and yes that that is part of what we have envisioned as part of the act 289 work. It's difficult at this point to try to do that work. We've started with updating curriculum competency standards for each program, and then that will help us communicate kind of downstream to seventh and eighth grade instructors. What are the concepts that they could incorporate into their curriculum. It's obviously a long term strategy that will take a lot of effort. We've done here I think. Thank you. Another question. My honor. Okay. Representative Mark, I have one more question and I know we're going to need to break. I think I just want to piggyback on representative Brady's question. That's something that we actually discussed a little bit last week. But more of asking some students to actually testify with our committee and with yours and maybe we can talk about how that could work but also to include parents to see what parents are thinking about. Because, you know, we are all assuming right now and we're trying to and we're trying to I think we need to hear it directly from the students and directly from parents. What are they looking for in their schools and are they looking for more technical education and better outcomes for their kids. So yeah, I think we should talk more about that and how we could join together to maybe do something like that. Sounds good. One more question here from our committee. And then I think we'll probably need to end. Representative Erickson. Today's conversations that was worked around workforce development and CTE's we've been concentrating on primarily secondary education. And so with the dancing a little bit around adult education, has there been any effort to dovetail what the CTE's do with what corrections do? It seems like that's an untapped possible source of workforce. Yeah, I think one of the challenges that is part of the broader sort of tapestry of all of the CTE work is that in some sense we actually mirror the fragmented nature of the federal funding. So we have a small portion of, I believe, adult education dollars. I think do we have Perkins dollars that goes to corrections too? Yeah, so, but a very small amount of corrections and adult basic education federal dollars go to corrections. So we, every about three years when our plan is needed to be updated, which varies, but it's approximately every three to five years, we do connect with corrections, excuse me, and ask them if there need to be any updates for the funding that's going to be funneled through the agency of education. I do think though it's a great question. And I know that some of that thinking in terms of adult technical education and corrections has in the past happened within the Department of Labor and we've been part of that thinking as part of the WIOA legislation. So the big federal bucket of dollars that the Department of Labor has, I'm just not sure where it is currently, but it's a great question. And I think it's one that we need to make sure we all kind of keep thinking about. I don't know if we've done anything particularly innovative in that space. Jay, do you have anything else that you've. Yeah, there are lots of threads of federal money that go to corrections. We've, we've been involved in a grant that corrections received called the adult reentry and employment strategies airs grant. So we, our state director for adult education and literacy sits on that group, along with some folks from Department of Labor and corrections and maybe a HS to, to help them strategize how to break all of these funds and to come up with innovative, you know, strategies to support people as they're exiting corrections. And in terms of, you know, how much money from Perkins goes. It's, I think 1% of our state's allocation which translates to, I think it's $52,000 somewhere in that vicinity. So, in, in this, you know, the scale is not, it's, it's not a huge amount of money. Thank you, Stephanie. My question, thank you. My question has to do with guidance counselors. And with this excess funding or, or perhaps additional funding stream seems to have this need for additional guidance counselors to help with career training, certifications, credentials, CTE planning for the CTE center and then of course, and also colleges, but is there a plan to provide extra staff and all the schools to provide more solid planning and guidance to students for their career training? Yeah, I'll take an initial stab at that one and then Jay can perhaps again Jay has been doing some significant work with school counselors in the division of student pathways. So, one of the challenges right now is there, there is enough, there's enough funding right now to actually hire counselors and staff and our districts have been, have been doing that with the COVID dollars. One of the challenges is we don't actually have the bodies. So even if we were able, you know, even if we use some of these dollars that are on the table that we talked about today, the problem is that we don't have the workforce. So we need to also be one of the things we've talked about them. There are national models about growing your own in terms of really helping, you know, actually high school students think about becoming a teacher counselor and actually almost doing like, you know, many internships while they're actually a student in high school to think about teaching careers or to think about school counseling as an option. So, yes, you know, we wish we wish that we had an easy solution there and could say, you know, here's some money and we'll be sure to get you some school counselors with it. But, you know, I know if you take a look right now at Indeed or at school spring, which is where education positions are actually posted, there's just a ton, just like there are across sectors. So I don't want us to stop there because I think we need to actually recruit more people with a focus towards some of these sectors that really need really need critical supports. I will say we have been doing a lot tighter work with mental health, and I think that, you know, one of the things that we're hoping to bring to bear is more state supports around social emotional learning and mental health so that that can actually relieve some of the burden on school counselors and they can get back to doing some of that work around core, you know, career advisement counseling when in the past several years, most school counselors have had to really focus on, you know, triage and trauma in terms of students. And so that is one piece of the puzzle. I'm going to be happy to come and talk about what we are interested in doing on a different day with that. Anything else you wanted to say, Jay, I think the school counselors have been really excited to kind of do this work with us because I would agree. I think that they're interested and they want to do more in terms of career counseling. It's just capacity, if they're responding to, you know, mental health needs and other concerns that are active at that moment. It makes it makes them not available to do some of this other planning work that they really are interested in doing. Thank you. Somebody mentioned corrections. I served on institutions when the Community High School of Vermont was being threatened with extinction. And we had a situation where we had a lot of people advocating for what they did. We did some tours of what was going on in the correctional centers. I don't know. Heather, Jay, maybe you can talk about who has the responsibility for that is that the agency of education is that the agency for human services and corrections is in human services. Those are primarily technical education. There were some literacy and other courses in there, but it was, if I recall, the largest high school in the state. What is the, where, what is your situation with that and how are you putting the technical training into that. So my understanding is that it is, it is a component of the correction system so it is under a HS we don't have authority over it, other than, as I said, we do function as a pass through for some federal dollars that the corrections education system is entitled to. I don't know, I'd have to go back and look it's a great question I have to go back and look and see if they are technically an approved independent school or recognized independent school do you know if they are Jay they used to be I don't know if they still are. I don't know if they're approved or recognized but we have that oversight of them and they I think are accredited by me ask which is the New England Associations and Colleges. My understanding is they were recognized high school. And we had. And we had requirements that certain members of the correctional population had to. If they were under a certain age they had to go to high school without a high school diploma. And there was some attempts I think at one point to extend that to people who did have high school diploma so that they would take classes that would allow them to gain trades and training to go out and get good jobs and in the auto mechanics that came out of the out of the program that was in Northwest Correctional Center. Many, many of them got really good jobs and made serious money on mechanics make serious money which is why it's so hard to hire someone for CTE to teach that because they make in six figures out in the larger world and those those people who made the effort now there was some other things in corrections that are unique to corrections because we were told when we were investigating all this that the inmates didn't necessarily have to get up in the morning and go to school or anything else. Some of them get out of bed at three o'clock in the afternoon. But the issue is is that the programs are there and they can be very very productive. And if it's, you know, if you've got bifurcated bifurcated responsibility here, you know who's in charge, how are you connecting and working together, I mean it makes it harder for it to be a really viable productive program. I don't know, do you have anything to say to that. Well, I would also observe that because of the number of entities or organizations that are involved it's probably really difficult to coordinate right so if they're looking at the list here they are an approved independent school. We don't provide a high level of oversight of them if, if I may. And so it's corrections is running this program and we are trying to find ways to connect the programs that we have oversight of like we are an adult education agency and career technical education to them. So if they came to us and said hey we want to get rid of this type of program and instead focus on training people how to code. Then, you know we'd sure be interested in helping them figure out how they could use the money that we provide to them to make that happen. And that would that's the nature of our relationship with them they're coming to us to say, you know we want to do this how could we do that. I know there is a tight connection particularly up in the Northeast Kingdom with adult basic education that center and corrections and so it might be another place to think again about that sort of bringing tighter connection with adult basic education and adult technical center adult technical education and then we could also think about and and how is corrections fitting in with both of those because I think that pipeline is there. And I think it's it's very a salient pipeline in the Northeast Kingdom because of the geographic proximity to where corrections is the St. John's bare facility and adult basic ed I don't know given Vermont adults learning I mean they're they have sort of branch offices across the whole western part of the state so I'd have to look there but it is another way to kind of maybe come out and think about it. Yeah, thank you. Our committee is going to have to leave. I so appreciate being part of this conversation with you and appreciate that we are working on a couple of career tech bills with members of your committee and members of our committee. I feel not quite sure in terms of the governor's proposal. I don't have direction and I don't have a bill and I don't have a plan from the administration on this. So I'm unclear as to what the expectation is given we basically have one more month to pull things together before we have before we have crossover. So, if there is something that you're looking for we're going to need it right away, like, in about five minutes. It's trying to be reasonable here. But I want to thank, thank you representative Mark cut for including us, and we will be in touch. Thank you, thank you representative web appreciate education joining us. And, but I would ask Deputy Secretary Bush and Jay to stay on with us. I think there's some more questions that we'd like to ask and we appreciate education joining us and I think we, we should have some more discussions together. Maybe getting some students and parents and to talk to us and together and give us a better idea of what's happening. Thank you representative Mark I am scheduled to testify with house education. Next. He's being poach. Yes, I can stay. Yes. Thank you. I'm going to leave this meeting. Go back to our own meeting. Okay. So, it was an interesting discussion, but I think in my mind anyway if if we're not, if we're not thinking about the funding mechanism, where the money follows a child. We're not thinking about counselors that can give a full, give students the full advantage of, should they, you know, what does college look like or what a CTE look like what what are the trades look like. We can throw all the money we want to add it. But if we can't get the kids into the career centers. Then, you know why spend the money. So, and at the same time, it's really hard to, you know, legislate hearts and minds and so I think, you know, it's very hard to legislate culture so I think the way we do that is by continuing to think about those who don't already understand whether it is students parents or educators, really what this system looks like, and why it's important and needed in our state. I think there certainly are outdated perspectives about what CTE is. And I think it's, it's really tricky because I think we ourselves who are in this space. We talk about trades and I think trades can pull sometimes for that outdated perspective, and I don't think that's what we mean when we say trades because trades today are not the same as trades 50 years ago, but I think people that are savvy about this, don't understand that and so I think we can do a better job with that so you know perfect example is green construction. So you know if you, if you don't learn now, and this is not my forte but if you don't you know I know enough about it to be a little bit dangerous if you don't learn now how to actually build eco friendly buildings. So I think that's not a real disadvantage in any kind of a building career moving forward. So I think, I think that's one of the things that is important is for us to be really clear about, you know, a what what is a CTE I do think we have to fix the governance formula and the funding. One of the neat things about 483 is the, the major proposal that came out of the pilot was actually changing the funding system, so that it wouldn't be a tuition based system for secondary CTE for secondary CTE, there would actually be allocations that went directly to the CTE centers and so it would be based it would be like a funding formula for them. But there needs to be more work done to figure out exactly how that would actually play out because the three entities that did that work to really start the ball rolling where the independent CTE centers that are their own districts. So we need to continue to actually move that forward by looking at like okay now what would it look like if we did that for all of the CTE system. In addition, while we're trying to actually change the governance and make them something more unified. Does that make sense. It does. You know, we've known for a long time that the money following that the child was was a problem. We can't take that away. Yeah, and we're yeah, but we're at a point how much longer can we wait. Right. So, we, you know, I, I understand the need to look at it some more but we're we're at a point now where we can't wait too much longer. I think we've got to we've got to fix this fix this problem and make sure that we're not creating another one in the schools where we're taking too many kids too many kids are going over to the career center we don't have enough kids and in the in the regular school. Well, that's why we need to actually figure that out and that may happen in some areas but you know. Yeah, but my point is we've known this for a long time. But now that we have a crisis. We're really focusing in on it. And so I'm hoping that our focus can be laser like now that we're not kicking this can down the road for another five years because we can't afford to do that. Yeah, I don't think that's the contemplation of this bill and certainly representative Kimball has been working on it so perhaps he can talk a little bit more about it as well. I really think it's, in my view, I think what it's meant to do is to is to sew up the final details so that we would be ready with the new, you know, some new funding, perhaps even like a year from now. That's what I was one that I wanted to hear. Thank you. But that's what you know I think there needs to be more testimony on it from what I understand I think it was just proposed and how sad. Yes. Yeah. I think that's fine. I just want to, I want to be clear that we can't wait much longer. And we've got to do all we can to get this nailed down. And, you know, if we don't have quite everything. Frankly, I think we got to start trying something different because what we're doing now is not working. But I do think it's important to have to bring some students in and bring parents in and have that discussion what do you know, we don't know what their expectations are we were assuming a lot. From what we're hearing from everybody else, but we're not hearing from the actual people that we're trying to affect. That's a great point. I fully support that I would look forward to hearing it. Yeah, we may need your help to get some students and you know, I'm almost thinking of getting the word out to all the schools. And then we get heads to the parents and we have a we might have an evening hearing virtually and bringing people in and having those having those discussions with them or at least trying to understand what what their expectations are. Sure, we'd be happy to help get the word out and even go so far as to potentially identify some particular parents or students that have had good or bad experiences that you might want to hear from. I do hope that folks might be interested in the virtual high school idea because I do think it could potentially solve some of the challenges as well it's not. Certainly the funding is really critical, but one of the barriers we know is transportation to get to the CTE Center and if they were doing you know and that is really because they're going back and forth between their high school to get their core courses, and and so if we could get at that barrier as well I think that's something that could go a long way. And we actually you know we have entities such as Vermont learning collaborative virtual learning collaborative that we could actually set up. Like, you know, a virtual high school for CTE students, we could do that that could be something that we come out of this session with. I think it's a great idea and you know I think we're learning a lot. You know an apprenticeship programs, you know electrical programs, they're all virtual, and it's working seems to be working fine and you know it takes away that transportation issue for up my way there. You know they're trying they were traveling to St. Johnsbury. So you got somebody that works all day, then drives to St. Johnsbury in the wintertime over Sheffield Heights is not a, not a great thing. You know my son did it for a number of years and I think it's much easier now and if we could replicate that, especially with. Getting the kids from the high school to the career centers that you know our career center is housed at North country, but Lake region is also part of that. And I think those and those taxpayers are getting short change, because it's difficult to try to align the you know the classes, try to transport them up to, up to Newport. And, you know, they start, they're starting their own culinary classes at Lake region. Because I'm assuming they find it easier than trying to move those kids up to Newport to the career center so. Yeah, I think it's a great idea and we should really be exploring that. And just to follow up on that point if I may I think one of the things that I've seen which is worrisome in the past couple of years is. So, um, high schools are also doing that so high schools are starting programs that basically replicate what CTE centers are doing. And is that a good use of our funds when we've already invested in the CTE centers and also are they getting, you know, is the high school. Is the high school really equipped to teach something that really should be taught in the CTE center but is being sort of repurposed in the high school like I have some concerns about that because I think. I think seeding those kinds of courses in the younger grades in middle school and in junior high makes a ton of sense. But what I'm seeing is replication of CTE curriculum in the high school perhaps an effort to keep students there. And I've testified about this in front of the committee before as you know chair Mark I don't I think that's not a wise use of taxpayer dollars and I also I don't. I'd like to see the outcomes of those courses for students versus actually being taking those at the CTE center where they actually are when we can get them highly trained faculty in those particular areas. And, you know, maybe if we can do something with virtual high school and we fix the funding, like some of this, there won't be as much appetite for this. Because they won't they won't be losing dollars if a student goes to CTE. Having said that though there are some tiny high schools still and if a lot of students wanted to go just like if a lot of students want to go to early college a lot of students do do enrollment. It is putting pressure on the small high schools. So but that's that's that's a whole flexible pathways issue it's not just a CTE issue. Emma did you have a question. Hi, thank you Mr. Chair I was just going to just add that you know I think there's a lot of things are likely probably working well and things are not working so well and there because every CTE campus is not built the same and so if we were to go the path of a public hearing. I would, you know, try to do some intentional outreach to make sure that folks are coming to tell both what's working so it can get replicated we can learn from that. And our numbers for example I represent Burlington Deputy Commissioner and a part of Burlington sorry part of Burlington, and our numbers went up but that's probably for a few different reasons one we don't have an actual high school at the moment. But there's also some innovative stuff happening so it'd be, you know I just love to learn from that so that if we do make some structural big changes that we're really learning from what is working in a very rural state where it's an issue where duplication of programs is a question mark this committee has, you know, what talked a little bit about at least so yeah just it was just a general request to try to really bring in all all types of stories along the spectrum. For sure. Yeah, we're talking about how the money follows the child and the schools do not like losing their students to the CTE centers and that's a that is a real barrier, and a real problem. But in the past 25 years we've been losing students like crazy anyway we've lost something like 30,000 students. And I don't know how that fits into this picture at all. But I'm sure it must for CTE centers are going down in just those numbers and those documents you left with the Department of Education on on the numbers of headcounts. It looks like they're holding their own the CTE centers. They gone down a little bit since 2019 to today but you know that's understandable. Some of them have really gone up I mean North country's got over 500 students on it. Yeah, but but that's a question is what does you know if you lose some students. What difference is that going to make. I mean if you can't get the teaching staff and you're losing students because maybe because we're losing students anyway. We don't have the number of students we're not going to have an we seem to have a birth rate that is as low as it was before the Civil War. So I don't know where you're going to get these students from. The other thing is and I had another thought here. Yeah, I just remembered. Were you around or did you participate in any capacity or follow at any capacity the, the famous four year vocational school between the was going to go into Chittenden County between the Essex and Burlington situation a few years back. I haven't heard of it, but I was not around state government. It was, it was a really big deal. Every high school within 40 miles of Burlington had a fit over it, because this was going to be a four year and you talk about this virtual learning and about bringing your classes to the. You know that was a can of worms, and it was a huge big deal. I mean, Fairfax, every we have a vocational center in St. Alvin's but it was a huge can of worms and because Burlington always been the major technical center and then Essex became a technical center and they advertise like crazy and build up all kinds of programs and they were in competition with each other and then people from Burlington would go to Essex wouldn't go to their home and it was like, that was a real tempest in a teapot. And I don't know, it's a tough one, because there's that for having four year vocational schools. Well and that is what other states have as a model and you know we did go through a very contentious governance. We have a process with our districts, and we have not done something like that on the CTE side or even on the adult education side you could argue I mean, we are losing students right now. And so that means all parts of education are losing students. I will say what is interesting about CTE is that because a lot of there, there was some flexibility offered with this committee's work actually about four years ago to actually allow younger students to take courses in CTE and not have to sign on for full blown programs. We did see an increase in participation so we did see more interest in CTE. We're a little bit at odds with how the federal government requires us to actually think of programs because they really want to see those like almost like matriculated full time students. But we did see that for a significant portion of our students in Vermont, actually opening up some of those channels where they could actually get a taste of CTE, they did see an increase, which I think is very much in keeping with all the conversation we've been having, which is open up some of those channels, don't make it so rigid that they have to jump through five hoops and that's the only way they can get to CTE. Yeah, thank you. You're very welcome. Hi, yeah. Michelle started out this entire conversation talking about sort of prejudices and conceptions people have about, about technical education. And, and you yourself mentioned that you know it's hard to change hearts and minds around these kind of things. And it seems to me that that a certainly a linchpin in that part of that process would be our guidance counselors. And, and you mentioned that of course that we don't have enough guidance counselors and at this point a lot of our, a lot of the time our guidance counselors are doing the mental health side of their counseling rather than the career guiding side. But I'm just wondering. How, how does the Department of Education, Internet education, you know, get information to those guidance counselors around that to help them start to change their, their, their thinking so that they aren't just everybody's going to college and if you can't make college they'll send you to a tech career. And is it true. Do they get regular information retraining. I see that they're, they're continuing education required they get their licenses renewed for every five years, and they, they have to take credits of CEUs as someone in a profession that has to get 30 credits every two years. I'm actually kind of shocked to that that that that they need so little. And so I'm just curious how that, you know, how that process works. Yeah, so a lot of the components of that question it's a very good one. For a long time, we didn't really have a strong presence at our agency of education for school counselors, I will say, just as a gentle, a gentle piece of advice. They don't call themselves guidance counselors anymore they call themselves school counselors, which is interesting and I think part of that is because they feel like their jobs expanded from being guidance counselors to being everything in the kitchen sink and that is still the case for them. We have some school counselors that are that are running the assessment so they're running the standardized tests for students they're running you know the the SBAC. So, I think what we're hoping to do in the agency is actually really clarify and get some standards around what are what what is the role of the school counselor. We provide materials regularly. Certainly, we were regularly before coven about career advising what that looks like. It is part of, you know, they often are school counselors are part of their own national society and that actually does have a component that is career advising as well. But I think what the challenges is at the local level they're under considerable pressure, and there aren't enough of them. And so they're just really having difficulty getting everything that they're being asked to do done. And I think that they actually had the time to actually provide more of those very traditional ways of thinking about guidance, as we talked about. So, we are working closely with they have a state network of school counselors. I think it would be great for the committee to hear directly from the chair of their committee as well just to get a, you know, a more of a view of what's really going on with them because I do want to make sure just as we, we don't. It's hard to speak on behalf of students and parents I think sometimes we all can get ideas about what's going on with certain sectors and it might not necessarily be the case. Are there some school counselors that are really not tuned into CTE and really don't have any clue. Absolutely. Does that characterize all of them. I'm not so sure. What does characterize all of them though it has even before COVID is neat is really having to deal with increased anxiety depression behavior problems and challenges and family challenges that are making their way into schools and so I think that's part of the puzzle that's really important. So, and in terms of the standards for re re licensure that's an interesting one and I could certainly have our team that works with the licensing board. Take a look at that. My sense is they are they are very likely. They might have different licensure requirements that are more stringent to actually be licensed as a clinician in a different setting. So if they were for instance needing to get re licensed and I don't know enough about this as you know a clinician in a mental health setting, they might be more like what you were talking about with your professional credentials that need to be updated and there are a lot of them I don't know. My, my sense is that what it looks like and what it sounds like is it's very similar to what is required for our educators so that's probably why that looks maybe not as perhaps sophisticated or as much in terms of like coursework, but it's a great question. And one I can definitely get back to you on I can have our director of education quality reach out to if you want to learn more about that. Yeah, I think that was part of it is that if they're doing more mental health counseling essentially, then one would hope that they would have more comparable continuing education requirements to do that profession. Well, one would hope but I think what happens is they're there. They're doing more mental health counseling not necessarily because they are mental health clinicians, but within the school there is who would take on that role. So, you know, one of the best models we know just from research and from, you know, looking at other nations and from states that are doing this right in our own country is that if you have actually a school based clinician embedded in the school. It actually does allow those true clinical mental health services to be to be actually addressed by a professional who who has that kind of a license and I think we have a pilot with that happening right now from with some federal dollars actually in three of our school districts and the state. I just think we're not quite there yet as a state and mental health has been defunded and defunded and defunded as well so there's a battleground over that. But these are all good questions I think we're definitely really trying to make way with that and and write the workload of school counselors to get them back in the business of providing career advising and counseling. So, we're all ears about how we actually do that better. I think we have the right connections right now with the school counselors to actually have some of those great conversations and they will have ideas about you know the ones we're working with. Want that to so they'll have ideas about what to do moving forward. It just as one example because I could talk about this all the time because it's an area that's a major interest to me. You know so school counselors were hired right to to work with students, and, you know, to help them plan for what's happening after after high school then also to provide some, you know, social supports groups those kinds of things. But not perhaps that the level of like what a school based clinician would do which is really to work with someone who's who's been you know who whose needs are at like a higher level, a student or group of students. So, COVID comes along, and I have school counselors who are being asked to provide counseling to their peers, because of trauma and and COVID related issues. And something's got to give right like that's not their job like their job was not to be the EAP officer for the district and so. And it's not that's not to blame the districts either I just think it's a symptom of, you know, not having clear boundaries and clear ideas about like what is the role and responsibility for this particular position. And in general they tend to be folks that that like to help so it's hard for them to say no, I think, hard for them to say I'm not going to do that. Yeah, it seems like you changed our how our teachers and our guidance counselors. We just piled on more and more to them they've got to be social workers. They, they, and people don't realize that I think that they think they need to be everything to everybody. They're trained in certain areas and we direct expectations to just, I think, way too far. And we have, we have some districts that hire social workers and so that's the piece right it's about like, and I think that's on us at the agency to get really clear on like here are some models that really work the model of just expecting the school. So, the school counselor to do everything is not a good model here you know, sorry to cut you off. No, no, that's, that's good. Thank you, Stephanie. Thanks, Heather I wanted to go back to what you said about not wanting to replicate the CTE centers within the schools. So what I think about this piece quite a bit and looking at my, my local school thinking also about those numbers those huge numbers of kids that graduate every year without any training whatsoever. So, and when I see, you know, there's the, there's the college track kids okay they're going to go to college the kids who are going to this, the career technical education, they have to receive a certain that they have it's some it is competitive. They need to achieve a certain grade point average in order to go to the career technical education that CTE center, but then we're left with a chunk of kids who are not going to college and not going to CTE centers, but and are left without a skill after high school. And that's where I think it is appropriate to have some level of training within the school that it's just maybe a certification or credential but they're not getting a, they're not getting graduating with us with a technical high school degree, but they're, but they'll at least be ready to get that first job. And so I, I, you know, if someone could have a what's the basic level we can have if we could have a if there's a welding program or if there is a affiliated CDL driving something you know something that is a course that that would get kids just showing that they could achieve a skill and they can and they can get that first job so I don't I think it's a good idea to have some basic career and technical education embedded in the schools and have career technical education, tech and teachers in in the school but not the full grown and breadth of the program that is at a CTE center. Yeah, I think, I think this is a bigger conversation that I'd love to continue to have. I can see it both ways and you know, I think one of the challenges with taking a class or two is, you know what does that prepare them for so it prepares them for maybe that one job but they are they prepared for what might lie next after that job and so I do think I do worry. First of all, I worry that there is not course oversight like there is at CTE centers, in terms of what is offered. So, I don't know that the person offering welding is actually the right person that should be offering welding, I hope the superintendent knows, I don't know that welding. So, welding is one that I'd certainly want to make sure that they're there, it was happening in the right kind of space. I haven't heard about welding happening in this place I've heard mostly about, you know, it doesn't make a difference. I mean it's just a kind of class like that that's not a, it's a hands on class that might. Yeah, so I, that's not the challenge I'm seeing so the challenge I'm seeing is, you've got a sustainability program that's at the tech center, literally five minutes down the road. So, you've invested a whole heck of taxpayer dollars to build a chicken coop and some agriculture that you're going to do with high school students at the high school, like, we're just not a big enough state for that so I, that's the thing that I'm really struggling with. You know, I think that these are, these are good points. I would also be very interested in learning more about what are the barriers, like why the student, especially as I said earlier how we've tried to open up some opportunities to dabble more in CTE and not have to fully sign on for full board programs. What the barriers are about why, why they still might feel poorly about just taking a course at the CTE. One of the things I think that's also, I wish that we could actually see more of is to actually have CTE instructors coming into the high schools to actually do some of their courses there. I think that runs into labor issues from what I understand so contractual issues. I think, I think I understand your point for sure I just, I worry, I worry that there's that that is unintentionally short changing students as well. And, you know, I think it's an important thing for us to continue to talk about and think about. But there are, there are a certain group of kids that are left out right I mean they aren't but they aren't good enough students to go to the CTE. And so we're what we're how do we help those kids. So, by law, all students are able to go to CTE CTE centers don't, they're in our state they don't have criteria that you know you don't have to have a certain GPA. Students who are on IEPs they do have to do some reviews and make sure that, depending on what the students challenges are that safety isn't an issue. But by law students who are juniors and seniors actually, no one can actually exclude them from CTE. So if that's happening that's something I need to know about. You know they they were not we're not yet Massachusetts where they actually you know they have to actually apply with a certain GPA to get in that's not that's not how our system is set up there. So, so I think if that is happening in an overt way that's something that we can actually move on so please let me know. I do think one of the challenges though is that in some of our CTE centers it's back to this infrastructure piece like they, they have more appetite but they filled their classes. And so they literally don't have enough room to have more students and that's a problem, but it isn't that they were excluded based on like GPA or something like that and that's also why we want to, you know, figure out how to actually expand the infrastructure that they really are sort of, you know, students would be exploding out of their buildings, if allowed to be. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Emma. I do, I do have to leave in just a moment, because it's going to be four o'clock soon and I had actually apportioned an hour for my testimony. I will be very brief it's my comment and it is a question for you Heather so I apologize. I just want to get into structural questions around how cities are currently structured and just going back to school counselors just for a moment. I just think it's important for folks to remember that not every school district has the same staffing resources and a school counselor in a very small rural district is holding away more than a well resourced and county based district not to say that they're all equal either. And so when we start to go into that into that area of exploring the role of school counselors which I think this committee would really benefit and understanding because there's such a nexus and on what students experience and how they get guided for their career pathway on many levels whether it's CT college or even something else. I think we just have to keep that in mind and think what are the opportunities to address that if there's a way we can think about that structurally as well, because that's a real reality that's making a very inequitable outcome for students based on where they live in the state which not we're not the education committee but that brings in other issues we should be seriously considering and how we can partner with the education or education colleagues to find a better solution because you know I think the new for my time on in the legislature attention on career pathways is such a critical one based on all the different ways kids learn. And I even think to my own experience going through spaulding high school and Barry, I wanted to check out, you know there's a tech center attached to spaulding high school I wanted to check that out and I do kind of remember this still it's been a minute but it was impossible to get into my schedule which is another structural issue and it wasn't that I was deterred it was just a kind of impossible to figure it out and so my ability to kind of get more creative about my exposure. And I was probably a pretty typical college, you know, tracked kid but that's that's a problem. And that's, you know, not too long ago it was long ago but like I think there's you know there's lots of pieces to sort of dig through to figure out all the different barriers people are facing students are facing. And those are the barriers that are more likely happening those very subtle under the sort of, you know pull back the veil kinds of barriers which are, oh, I guess you can't fit this in. The other courses you want aren't going to allow this, as opposed to, you know, no you can't go to CTE. I think most educators know that you can't say that you can't say no you can't go to CTE. So I think. Yeah, we do know that there that those kinds of barriers I mean I don't think that's just spaulding I've heard it about several that it's about scheduling and it's about actually the the compounded effect then back to our governance structure is that then you've got four different high schools that are all having challenging problems and so they have to actually, they have to have blocks of time across those high schools that are actually open for all students to do CTE and that's where it gets really problematic because there's nothing that actually holds them accountable to actually do that other than like they have to do it as an individual district or high school, but then when you're a CTE center and you're trying to actually coordinate across all of these it's really on the goodness of your colleagues heart in the in the high school. Good work. Good work. We need to continue to do. Please call me back and then talk. I'm very open to new ideas and and to ways to certainly move these two bills forward and get some more clarification on, you know, some other ideas either in this list that I've proposed or in some others. As we move forward. Hi Michelle, hi bye Michelle. Nice to see you. Heather, thank you. We appreciate your time and we certainly will have you back in I think, you know, our further discussions I think we need to, you know, bring in the super tenants association principles association school boards association that the guidance association CTE directors and associations need to have them in and because this isn't what our committee normally does. We're we're looking at workforce but a lot of the issues they're dealing with CTE and and the schools and how they function and and also quite frankly we have you you brought it up there's an issue of workforce within this within the school itself. And how can how do you know how do we deal with that and what can we do are there things that the state can do that but make some changes there. But as we know, we don't we don't have the answers we won't have all the answers, and we won't have all the fixes. A lot of it's out of our control but thank you. I do I do think any way we can actually have these cross sector conversations within the General Assembly is is is wonderful and beneficial. As folks who've been on the committee for a long time know I've been doing this kind of cross sector education and workforce work for a while. But, you know, I'm really pleased to see things like the joint testimony in that because I do think it's really important we are talking about like a nexus of the two. And so, you know, maybe needs to be another General Assembly committee that's on education and workforce together. I don't know. Well thanks. I'm going to leave. Take care. Thank you very much. Thank you. So committee. I think it was a good discussion this afternoon will keep it going for sure and we keep we need to keep pushing and Michelle thank you so much for joining us I think you really help to really set the stage for, you know, what the issues are out there and, you know, you've been working on this for since I can remember since we've been we were together on this committee and it was always your passion and I think we're we're just taking it up where you left off so thank you. Well, thank you. So, just to be clear, it's been your passion to, and you have been a leader in this. Can I just say one last tiny thing. We keep talking about talking kids into going to CTE, winning their hearts and minds. Let's incentivize them. Let's make this actually the attractive option. And stores do it all the time they have lost leaders from milk. I mean, there, we could be given college credit. A lot more than we are for CTE classes. Give credit where credits to there's all we can. We should be letting kids take ATE classes at night. We should let kids take programs in the summer and get academic credit for them. I mean, if we're serious about this workforce problem, we're going to just make it work for people. And anyway, on that note, you're all wonderful. Thank you so much. I will let you go so you can finish your meeting. Bye bye. Good to see you. Hi Michelle, aren't we working on those things. The CTE college credit thing that we're working on that. Yeah. Yeah, I just want to say that and I at BFA and St. Albans when I was on that board and when I had kids there. Actually, I went through the similar kind of thing that Emma's talking about. We'd sit down and we try to figure out I'd never believed in study halls or anything. My kids that have a class every single period, no matter what, no matter if we added extra classes, we could. There just wasn't enough time to even take an interesting course at the CTE course because you had to block out this huge amount of time, and you couldn't take like a piece of it you had to take the whole thing. And so it didn't work. They didn't have enough time to take all the academic courses and other kinds of things they wanted. Number two, the guidance counselors are so overburdened. They're, they've got, I mean, I don't know how, how small high schools do it, but in our high school we had 1000 students, and we had 250 counselors with every single, every single 250 students with every council they didn't have enough time plus the mental health issues. It didn't work for school psychologists, you know, other 50 years ago so there are other positions and other people who can do this. This isn't just the guidance counselors they're totally overworked. You know, very difficult. That's for sure. And MVU had a little agriculture course they taught that was, we got rid of our agriculture course with the CTE and Saint Albans. Well MVU started their own little agriculture course. Yeah. Interesting, my granddaughter texted us, texted me when we were starting our conversations about quarter three and she asked me what, what I was doing I told her we're talking about, you know, about career centers and she sends me a picture she was at the career center, walking through the career center at North Country. Oh, it's great. She's in my ninth grade. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think she's not taking any courses there but she was going through the center which is good. They're exposing us. Yeah, that is great. So, it was interesting. So, any questions, committee. Okay, so tomorrow we'll continue. I'd actually like to know what the capacity is for these career technical education centers. It looks to me like they have about 5000 kids a year enrolled in them. But is there is at the current level the capacity that it can meet. Right, are we turning kids away because there's just no room. I don't think so. Maybe you could be from smaller programs I'm sure are more popular than others. Right. And if that's the case and how do you, how do you turn someone away if you aren't having them apply. Right. Right. Good question. And also a BFA we had a guidance counselor that works solely with the was the vocational technical guidance counselor that he worked with everybody that anyone who went to him. And I remember sitting down trying to do a schedule for one of my kids with them. But that's what he was he wasn't the regular guidance counselor he was the vocational technical guides counselor and he worked exclusively mostly with those two. So there's, there's abilities out there to do this. Okay. I think we're good for the day so I think we can go off live.