 Welcome everyone to Senate Education. This is Friday, January 19th. We have a couple of things on the agenda. We're going to start with a review, some feedbacks, some ideas around S204, some acrylics, work on reading assessment and intervention, and then we'll shift to, we have some folks from the University of Vermont. I'm going to talk about the higher education incentivization in Vermont. So we are so happy to have the team that's over here with us from the Agency of Education. Great to see you, the hairless, and is it going to ask Porchella? Sure. Okay. All right. And floor is yours. Great. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for having us in the team. I'm just a hairless for the record from the Agency of Education. I'm the Director of the Student Pathways Division, and I'm joined by my colleague. I'm Meg Porchella, we're Porchella. I am the Director of Student Support Services Division, Agency of Education. And we also do have two additional colleagues, or three, one online. And we're very excited to introduce very Heather. So Heather, could you put yourself on the record? For sure. I am Dr. Heather Willis Doxy. I am the new State Director for Special Education, and I'm happy to join you all. Wonderful. And welcome. We're so glad. I don't know if you saw us, and her gulet actually was applauding. We're so excited that you're here. Thank you. I appreciate that. And then we also have... Hi, I'm Emily Lloydsup. I'm the English Language Arts and Literacy Specialist at the Agency of Education. Hi, good afternoon. I'm Emily Lach, the Act 28 Project Manager at the Agency of Education. And both EMLYs, EMLY Square, EL Square are in the Student Pathways Division. So we're very excited about this. We're really appreciative of this. And we may have overstretched a tiny bit because we were trying to be efficient, and I will say it's not as organized as it probably could be. So we're happy to come back or clarify or dig in. But we saw that there was about five big buckets that folks are attempting to achieve, that you're attempting to achieve with this bill, and very much so a continuation of both existing regulation, what we began with Act 173, what we have been able to move forward with Act 28, and particularly this focus on thinking about how we continue to support students who need those additional supports. We did it, perhaps this is not by design, but we would like to think it was. We did feel like we saw a lot of our existing policies reversed in here, and we outlined them here. I think we brought some handouts, but you don't need to pay for you too much, but if you're interested, there are larger excerpts. But as you may recall, there are four major policy levers that we identified to implement Act 173. One was around needs-based professional learning. I think that was called out very clearly in the DMG report. And I think we've been hearing it even at folks who've been giving testimony on this bill that there is a need for a professional where it begins being professional. Oh, I'm sorry, and I'm not reading the testimony directly, but we're on page two. Okay, thank you very much. But I have a follow-up to that. Let's see, you know, we'll just walk up the path and we'll have more on that question. Good to see you. Good to see you. You're close, buddy. Oh, so you have a pen, this is? Yes. Okay, thanks. So we're on page two of the testimony, and I'm not gonna read it, we don't have to read it, I don't want to make sure that we can get to questions, but I do think framing it that we have really organized their work around the provision of needs-based professional learning. We know that even the quote at the top and what was excerpted in Act 28 that said, there was a need to have educators who have expertise in working with students who may need additional support, but also expertise in delivering reading instruction. Poor data curriculum and content is incredibly important. There's been a lot of discussion around evidence-based practices and instructional practices. Tier systems of support and education support teams and certainly a lot of this build, I think of reflecting those layered systems of support and how is it that we are collecting student data and then responding to that data in a timely fashion. And then finally, local comprehensive assessment systems which are certainly implicated in the discussion around screeners, universal screeners and dyslexia screeners and really foundational to collecting that student data to inform instruction, investments, interventions. We do have, so if you look at page three, I think we try to organize this into just some general observations and then we try to have a second piece around specific components of the five pieces that the bill is proposing to do. The testimony, not the, so sorry. This is a fun game that we like to play on a Friday Which piece of paper should you be looking at? It's probably all right. Are you speaking to a very specific technical change that's in the bill right now or it uses more like broad? I mean, it's broad and then there's some specifics. Okay, great. And you could take or leave it as it is. But generally you're coming with supportive, encouraging, enthusiast for the bill itself. Yeah, particularly because it fits- Great. What fits within what we're trying to do and what we've been doing and continues us in a direction. Thank you. So generally there's a terminology section on page three and we're not trying to be nitpicky but I think just this idea of like deficiency sometimes can strike people the wrong way. And we understand that even if it's used in the term of art, sometimes it feels like it's applying to a person and not like a skill. And so we recommend something like fix it as a substantial reason deficit. So that this idea that deficits can be overcome but if you're deficient as a human being kind of doesn't always start the right way. We also were thinking that perhaps aligning to definitions of dysgraphia and dyslexia that are in accordance with IDEA and how it describes specific learning disabilities but also we both have them hyperlinked but excerpted here certainly the International Dyslexia Association's definition of dyslexia might be just a good fit for consistency going forward and so that there's not terminology mixed up. And then again, we have to do this all the time just wherever there's parent or family perhaps replacing with caregiver or guardian knowing that we have books about different family configurations. Right, sure. As far as fiscal and programmatic impact in I would not, it may be selfish but I would not be doing myself a service or my colleagues a service if I didn't identify that we do have a literacy project manager position who has been able to help us advance this work despite sometimes some pretty significant obstacles. An example would be our contract, right? It took, I mean, I think ADS identified after two years that they were not going to leave the contract, right? And we executed that within a month and I think it's only because of the additional capacity that we had. And so I'm not sure that some of the things that are outlined here would be possible if we don't think about how is it that we support them? So we have, you know, periodic workshops providing evidence-based reading instructional programming I think even universal screeners at no cost. And I know that there are sometimes universal screeners that you can see online that are directed at families caregivers, parents around screening for dyslexia but there are no evidence-based recommended universal screeners or dyslexia screeners that don't have a cost associated and that there is no state appropriation that exists prior to the pandemic or after that would allow us to sort of achieve that goal of providing universal screeners at no cost to all school districts and independent schools. However, I'm very appreciative of the inclusion of independent schools because certainly if we wanted, yes, literacy learning in the state, it's not just for some students, right? Right. I want it for everyone and we're highly appreciative of that. But we did pull together an estimate and looking at the professional learning, the grants, the coaching that we've been able to provide specific to literacy including in areas of assessment, purchasing assessment, et cetera, that has all been federally funded and that's been approximately $6 million out of the tarp answer funds that we've used to advance that work. We are not expecting that the state would be giving us $6 million but to understand that when we're wanting to do something and certainly with inflation and the pandemic costs have gone up across the board including with vendors who provide services to state education agencies. Can I ask a question? Sorry. Yeah, please. Please share. Yeah, please. I just want to make sure I'm understanding knowing that it's late the day on the Friday. So in this section, fiscal and programmatic impact. So I think it seems like there's not a recommendation because I'm not sure if you can do that but maybe suggestion or you're identifying that the literacy project manager position should continue, correct? That would be my recommendation. Okay. And then in terms of the universal screeners at no cost. So you're saying that that seems virtually impossible. So the options would either would be that we either find a source, a financial source to pay for universal screeners or you would ask local LEAs to pay for their own. With a recommendation coming from you. Yeah, and I think that that is very achievable. One, we have already pushed out about $350,000 in grants to help locals purchase assessment systems and programs. We have also been publishing guidance which I believe we also have but we will not hand out right now because I'm sure it'll be confusing but we can continue to tailor that those recommendations and that guidance but they do have funds and because it's already in the education policy others that you have to have a little comprehensive assessment system. Our guidance then says part of that includes universal screeners and then we talk about what types of universal screeners and what they do. All of that is already a requirement and they have funds. And so that seems the most efficient for the state. We've been already pushing them in that direction and they want to go in that direction. I would say if there was to be an investment of an appropriation of any sort, it would be to continue to support both the mechanism I would be profiling professional learning through our learning management system and design professional learning. And the learning management system is the modules. Yeah, it's the platform on which the modules are available for other learning modules, right? And we have, well, we're on track two, two, their current system for not really learning standards modules, right? Modules will be posted in there. So already we're wanting to get the most aid for our budget that. So the other piece is with the annual report and this genuinely is not winging, but in looking at what you want in that report, we are actually already on our way because our investments in those local assessments have been with an idea to modernize our Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program, including having folks were directed to purchase assessments that reported in common measures. They're called lexiles and quantiles in this English and math. Both of those are measures out of state summative assessments so that people could be speaking the same language between local assessment, if you want to track student progress in state assessment, which really is measuring system progress, right? So, but that takes a lot of work. Our data collection system is designed for fellow reporting. I think if you notice, we sort of talked about this with Holocaust education. We do have, I think, a easier road ahead with what you're asking for, but we would need to build it in our grant management system. And we also want to make sure that there's some flexibility to leverage existing processes and procedures, including our continuous improvement plans. I think at our last review, almost every system had literacy in the continuous improvement plan. And what we would want to do is have people having to report the same information in multiple places. And we want to just make sure that we could design a process in which if we're asking for data to inform a report, that they only really have to do it once and we're adjusting it in one place. We're ready, okay. So it sounds like we'll have to dig in about a little bit. Yeah, we could, but you know, and I think just a little bit more of a longer timeline for us to like do that would be helpful. And I think I already touched on this around the professional learning. So the last piece would be, and I think all of us have consistently breezed over this is in 16 BSA-2903B, the agency of education is not identified as the responsible party for literacy learning in the state. It's the state board of it and the agency of human services. And I don't know if we want to correct that. I would. Okay. We can't see it over here. Yeah, we're not in a statute here, but. Can you serve all of it? Yeah, sure. So 16 BSA, right? So in part B, it describes that the responsible entities for literacy learning and the state literacy plan are the state board of education and the agency of human services. Yes. I know. Good. Safe, everyone, everyone, right? But that's how, right? I mean, there's a lot of work here, so, right? Here's the opportunity. Except for new. Yeah. All right, wow. Okay, thank you so much for pointing that out. So getting into some of those specific pieces, I would just skip over four, but what's there and you'll have the digital copy is there's a pipeline so you can see some samples of the guidance that we've provided. And we, again, are just incredibly grateful for using assessments and terminology that are consistent with already existing regulation. I think, and this is where I would say that I'd love to invite Heather in. There were some concerns around some of the specificity of the language and also, again, going back to that idea of purchasing screeners, whether we might wanna consider focusing language on the data that comes out of those universal screeners and how we use the data versus specified particular screeners and how they might use. Because, again, people already have them as we think we're about 65% of the issues that respond. I think it was 42 issues responded to our survey are using screeners, universal screeners. And so we wouldn't want to have them spend effort like thinking that they have to roll over but rather consulting with us, identifying what the screener can do and that it is in service to the goals of this bill and then focusing on how you then use the data versus we're gonna wipe everything out, all that investment and then push that they knew how it exists. I know this is a hard question, but are you confident that screeners that exist right now are not our quality? There are many that are, yeah. Many that are, many some that are. There might be some that are starting to roll that over and that's what you wanna focus on is not having everybody replace everything but rather targeted intervention. And I don't know how we would do that but we can talk about that. Well, it's a great question. And so the screeners exist where right now? I mean, they're all, right? Some are in districts, some are at private centers, some. Thank you. I didn't want to cut. No, please, go ahead. So, and I imagined that Emily is about to pull this out. I think what we have is, we were to talk about the names of the screeners so there's one that's the stars is one that's as popular. That would be something that's used at the school level because it goes for a certain grade fan. Another one might be the measures of academic progress. We call it maths testing. That's another one that's very popular. And so I think maybe reverse engineer. Those are the two that are the most popular I believe I'm not saying something that's out of line. And then maybe if we were aware of schools that were using ones that were lower on the scale of an evidence base, then that's where we could target. Are you getting the right data from the way you're using this particular screener? Right. I think also, right, that there's no one screener that there's not like when you look at that list. And so what we have, like you'll see in the testimony on page five at the top, very top there, the hyper ones that you'll be able to access. There are reviews where it will call you like this screener get, you know, a phonological awareness, third processing, et cetera. So what we have are a couple of things. One reviews of screeners that we know are being used at districts with at combination recommendations, limitations about what they can and can't do and the evidence base behind them. We also have a single point rubric by which systems can evaluate the effectiveness of their LCAS, their local comprehensive assessment system and the assessments within it as it aligns to our guidance. And so those are things that we can continue to improve. And certainly what we'd wanna do is look at what you're trying to do here in the bill and update our tools, right, that we could work through with you to just say, like, this is what it's doing because I think that's what you wanna do. We don't wanna have people think that someone else is doing a little thinking for them. That's what gets us into trouble. We don't want a teacher to lose all agency because what happens is then they start to treat it like it's widgets where it's like, check, check, check. You want them to engage with the process. You want them to sell an assess to use those tools and then to make changes. So screener, are we talking to actually person or is it that person? Oh, no, it's a tool. It's like trying to get you to work. Actually, I think a lot of them are done face-to-face. It's one teacher to one. We're not talking about test. Yeah, but we are talking about assessments. But yeah, we can get into the mode, but. Yeah. That was a question I had for you. Was do you feel that, so we had someone who's dissatisfied the other day who had gone through the Oracle Jam program to learn how to teach how to read. Should I say that right? Yeah. Do you feel that the modules that have been created and the other resources that you're providing, you feel like it would adequately teach someone how to teach the size of reading? I think we have designed this to be a 101, but I would invite Lloyd to enlist because we did take screen shots, but we did not bring them in that landing. If you want to talk about maybe what's in those outlines to just share a little bit about the content. Yeah, so it is. I mean, the first module is basically that, what is the science of reading? How does the brain learn in general? And then also just acquire those reading skills. And so we've got that first module that's for all teachers. And then after that, they go from they're banded. So we've got like the early literacy, which is K3. And then we've got that four through 12 for adolescents who have different needs than the early learners. And they're also designed so that all different content teachers can access the material and understand like the high school science teacher can see what is my role in teaching kids how to read and teaching kids through reading and writing and supporting them when they struggle. So we've been doing extensive reviews of the materials, before it's published, making revisions and edits. We introduced the vendor who is creating the modules to a national expert, Dr. Kurt Wright. And she's also reviewing the module before they're published. And so we're making sure that the material in there is aligned with the most up to date evidence-based practices that exist. We can send this to you, but this is like, it gets into like, okay, phonics instruction. What do you do when you're doing it? So we have a detailed outline that we made PSO we can send to you to give you a sense. I don't think we would extend to the point of saying, okay, you go through our entire module series and now you're a certified specialist. But certainly it gets into instructional practices, assessment practices based on the neuroscience underpinning, flint deposition, literacy, and readings. And our goal was just that, that it be really for any teacher, not just one who's... But then for this first set, and then with the... We had a mission. To add on more discrete types around that could be tailored for specific teachers, that maybe the high school science teacher would need, but that again goes back to the learning management system and just like the grand scheme that we had. So a reading endorsement, you don't propose any changes to that. A reading teacher endorsement. Or we're not getting into that without thinking about it. And I wouldn't want to get into that without having our colleagues having the licensing division and the world of overview. And I think I put that in there around the EPPs. Certainly it's worthy of discussion, but how post-secondary structure is definitely different from K-12. And so it would be important that LNN and Andrew were here to weigh in because otherwise they're victims of our great ideas. So, we did provide some proposed, and I wouldn't weigh into that too heavily. It was trying to be efficient and then really being like it'd probably be better for another time. I do think this idea of replacing language that like focuses so that it focuses on using the data, right? With then informing intervention and actions and instructional practice, et cetera, versus focusing on being like, these are all the things that your screeners must do. Again, I think to stay evergreen, to stay current with educational research, but also because there's just no one screener that fits it all. There are also screeners that folks may have that maybe they are not designed specifically as screeners of dyslexia, but certainly can get information about propensities towards or risk of having a reading deficit. And again, stay away from that language of disorder or disabilities. Obviously that's when they're moving through those layers of support. So you're suggesting that added on the second page of the bill where it talks about universal screeners and screeners for dyslexia characteristics, shall measure skills based on grade level predictive measures, including, and you don't like that list, letter sound and name, fluency, phonemic awareness. Yeah, I think we could just target it at like, in order to inform, right, what it is that you're going to do because we can provide the guidance. There is already guidance around what informs, you know, what you might use for dyslexia, what you might be doing for universal screener. Is it a totally exhaustive list or is it not? I feel like by having that level of specificity, it might create some confusion and versus having it in rule policy and guidance. I don't think about that. So I do think one of the- I mean, you can do- The bill is to get specific, you know, it is to- Yeah. Specific around the actual diagnosis. Such a great point. Very much everything. Yeah. Definitely, you know, what to do, you know- Mm-hmm. One of your- Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So let me just- So, Andrew, I'm wondering if you might want to weigh in here? Yeah. So hi, everybody. Again, I'm Heather Willis-Doxy, and I also come from a strong background in literacy work with the Florida Department of Education. I was the deputy director for Justry, Florida there and was already heavily involved in a lot of policy around what we're doing here in Vermont. The caution, again- Heather, can I just ask you a little quick? Sorry, it interrupts you. When you say- When you talk about literacy, the science of reading literacy, I mean, there's a- You know, literacy can mean so much. That's a fair question. Literacy does mean so much. So in the general umbrella of literacy, I also served as the special education reading specialist prior to going into leadership in the actual reading department and led the state in professional development and technical assistance in the area of dyslexia. And I went back to gain knowledge. And I- If there's ever the opportunity to share a little bit more, I don't want to go into too many details right now, but I am very passionate about making sure that educators have the tools and the professional development that they need to not only teach students to read, but to understand when students don't understand and they're not getting it, what in the world am I supposed to do about it? And I think that's where the root of what the bill is trying to get at. When we circle back around and focus on how we're preparing teachers and making sure they have the knowledge because we don't always get that coming through a teacher preparation program or some who come to teaching as their second field for their career, we haven't always been able to have the opportunity to get that knowledge of to know what to do. And so I would really encourage to focus the attention there. But speaking back to the specific language about what needs to be included in a screener, I have not found currently on the market that there is a screener that screams for each of those key areas. And I'm familiar with the background of where those key areas of to be included in a screener came from the International Dyslexia Association. But even they will agree that there is not one reading tool or assessment that will assess all of those areas. And so being able to go back to the list that we currently provide to our local education agencies about the reading and literacy assessments that are out there, how do we then give them the information that these key areas that you've outlined, these are the ones that are addressed in these screeners and how do we educate on what are the characteristics of dyslexia and how do we use the current reading screening that we are using in our school districts to identify those students who may have characteristics of dyslexia. And then what does that specific intensive intervention look like for those students? So I don't think it's a bad to outline what's important to consider, but if we write it in the way that you have to have all of these in your screener, it doesn't exist. Like it's not available. You can't purchase something that assesses all of those areas. And we also have to keep in mind that a screener is meant to be brief. And so if we have to pull from multiple assessments to get it all of those areas, not that that's a bad thing, but it's no longer a screener. It's more diagnostic, like you're digging down and doing time intensive assessment of students. I just want to go back to Senator Beulah's original question though. And I made a misty answer. I think the question was in terms of literacy, how would you define maybe your background? Is it science of reading? Is it, did I miss the answer there? Tell us a little bit about that. For sure. So I definitely follow the science of reading and have done a lot of work closely aligned to the International Dyslexia Association. A lot with structured literacy, you'll hear that term over and over. I know it's been pulled out in different testimony that you've heard already around this specific bill. And so I- That's helpful. Does that, okay. I could go on and on. How do you want me to go? That's the approach that the agency has taken. I mean, our PD modules are, I mean, we use the neuroscience because really what you're talking about is the underlying neural structures. What are the operational pieces? So we're not talking cool language. We're not having cool language. But we do know too that science of reading does not equal structured literacy, right? I mean, the science of reading is, how is it that we approach developing literacy proficiency in learners and then you have approaches by which you can do that, right? Center view. Would you be willing to send us, or send me language that- Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Because I think we want to be really specific like- Would you just finish that question? Oh. Oh, yeah. So the language that would fit for kids with a degree or so. Yeah. If this isn't quite right, then what would be, as comprehensive as possible, right? That we might see in some of our screeners because we want to kind of try to mimic that, right? Including mimic the four instance language, right? Yeah. Because what we want to do is we want to say, don't think that you're just going to check box it the way through because you might then, that runs the risk of pulling people out of actually instruction. And even IEA, right? Says, you know, you don't want to have assessment that then starts to interfere with teaching and learning. Yeah. Right? So that's our one recommendation. And to your point, then it would help if there was a screen or an assessment being used that did not match it so that it could point people to the best practice. That would be great. And that's where the single point rubric comes in, just so you can evaluate. I know we're getting close on time. So- No, you're good, Ash. Oh, okay. Hey, wait. No, you're not good. I know. I had that feeling. I had that sense. I think you're not good. Wait, you are good. You're coming at 2.45? Yeah, you're good. You're good. So just shift it. Sorry. Okay. We do not have a time deficit. Okay. Or okay. So I think in the next section, there's going to be sort of similar observations and considerations. And there is a quote from Ocer at the U.S. Department of Education in the Office of Special Education Rehabilitation around, this is your shop, so page seven, really getting into, we have been leaning into and really building out guidance around multi-care systems of support. We also have guidance on working with students who are then severely identified with disabilities. And so we want to make sure that our language is generally in alignment with what we already have in regulation. I don't know if you wanted to speak to this section on providing interventions for students to exhibit substantial deficiencies in the things. Other than reading this? No. I mean, page four, line three. Well, we're on page seven. I don't know. But Bill, or if you were. Yeah. So this would be section one of D through F. So getting into generally the concern being that as much as possible to have language that aligns with and reflects existing model and policy. No, this is page seven up there. I think more than I got there. Yeah. Yes. That makes sense. When we take more, it's more. It's not. But I think from that perspective of when, to what degree we might already have some of this guidance through our layered systems of support in place that we could reference so that we don't run the risk of it getting money for people. And there are definitely challenges around implementation. And as people think about how students receive additional supports, I think particularly, and if I'm remembering correctly, there may be timelines. Also in this section or one of the next and wanting to make sure that if we're referencing something like an individual reading plan knowing that already in higher education quality standards, there is language around identifying additional supports in students' personalized learning plans. Those things are often reflected in education support team plans, EST plans in section 504 plans in IEP or individual education plans. And so what we would want is some guidance about what kind of instruction and support should be getting outside of structures that already exist within the school that should be used, if that makes sense. That's makes sense. And we can, again, draft some language if that would be helpful so that we're getting at what you want, but using the same language that's in existing. So independent reading plan has been referenced before also, so we've already been alerted to that. Yeah, okay, sorry. Yeah, be appropriate. Yeah. So I think getting into that, school districts and approved independent school to provide families with notification of identified reading decisions. And that is where you're making some recommendations around parent notification and 100%. We, 100% for parent notification and also understand the desire to have that happen as quickly as possible. And again, we're open. I just know that there could be some conflict with existing federal and state law rule policy that has very specific guidelines around notification, child find, those types of pieces. And looking at that 15-day window, knowing that generally under IDA there's a 30-day notification period. And again, it's Heather, please correct me if I'm wrong in any of this. But wondering if we might want to align some of those timelines to that so that there's just no, what you wouldn't want is someone conflating and then thinking they have to do 15 days and they have 30 days, right? Or vice versa, but rather say, okay, particularly if there's the possibility that this is getting to a point where a student maybe is identified as having a disorder or disability and not a deficit that then moves into the IEP realm and then you don't wanna have something where you've got one law, a state law conflicting saying 15 days, federal law saying 30 days and then they're fighting, right? Right. And again, we'd be happy to draft language that, and again, if you stick with 15 days, we understand but that would be something that could create some confusion. I mean, is there, would it be possible to do 15 days for a non-IEP 504 student or whatever? It's interesting, I don't think we have anything around educational support teams where we have guidance that represents a timeline other than to say families should be part of, caregivers should be part of the conversation from the beginning as soon as, so that is something I think we'd be happy to look into when we go back. Just don't believe that that's in our current laws or stuff like that, she's saying right. And even thinking through it's making something like a no-leader that's ready to inspire earlier but say there's absolutely a cut point. Right. What's the pushback on that? I mean, actually, I'm just thinking about, our Vermont MTSS Survey has questions around when families are notified around educational support team and I don't have the numbers in front of you but what I would be very happy to do is find out, what's the percentage, because I imagine it's fairly high but that it would be good to look at the numbers. It wouldn't be specific to literacy of course but it could be just when an educational support team is convened around a particular kiddo, what's the timeline or what's percentage of families that are notified right away. And I think that might give us an idea of what we're talking about in terms of need. Is it a small percentage that we're really trying to target or is it more of a universal across our schools and districts? So I'd be very happy to dig into that and report back. But as far as like that question about the pushback, there is. We're not assuming, yeah. I sat on an ESD leadership team. We met on a weekly basis. We went through every student was sitting our flags in our early morning system. And looking at them. Teachers look in families the beginning of your child's and notice they're struggling. What do you want to say? Well, sooner or better. So the next section and this is section one G through J, I believe school districts and approved internet schools to report certain reading performance data to the agency. Again, we're really excited about this and have been working towards this but I do think we're gonna need it's a complex process. We need some time to build this out. We have been continuing our work both with the region one comprehensive center, which I think we referenced in our testimony on the fifth. We're working with the Vermont curriculum leaders association. We rolled out our literacy learning plan template and our playbook for system leaders for the state literacy plan. And with that, that will be a tool that many states have these. And in fact, actually we were just posted on LinkedIn but from that perspective of looking at building that out that could near some of the data points that you've outlined here that you want to collect to building that into a web-based platform so that we can collect that in a way that then can report data. There's a data collection component in our grass management system. That's also where our continuous improvement plan lives. We also have just been scoping out a plan it would be a two or three year study with the regional educational laboratories, NEI, Northeast Islands research team to look across all of the assessments that the agency ingests to help us get a sense of what direction can we go in with the goal of possibly being able to pull up some of those local assessment data and maybe incorporate into our state accountability plan. But that's something that's gonna take like a three to five year road to build out that component also because we have to follow federal timelines but that's something that we're wanting to do. So I think if the goal was to have us have to have a report next December, I would wanna be frank that I'm not sure it would be a good one. And so I don't know if there's any flexibility there in thinking about getting us to a point where maybe we're gonna come in next year to talk about how we're progressing and building out the collection mechanism. How do you feel about this? I think anything's on the table. Okay, so. Yeah. And kind of following up on that, I don't need to answer that because it's more of a question if the more staff would help so it takes. Well, sir, I'm not sure. You're good at both. Yeah, I'm good at both. You're good at both. Thank you. You know, and then I think, you know, when we get to just looking on page nine, look at that, we're at the end. Skipping over a few things because they're there and again, you can continue to work through this. There's a few suggested as they're just sort of tweaks. I think that with the, I already said this, but with the EPP, the Educator Press Programs, I'd really wanna have folks from the Education Quality Division who oversee the RIPA, the results of the program approval process here to speak to that. So I'm not really sure if I understand what is meant by reading instructional program because there's instruction themselves differently. They don't generally have like a program like at schools, you know, you might have the textbook or something like that. Where are you? I'm on the last page and the suggested edits. I'm in the last, second to last bullet. Okay. That's section one. Where in the bill though, sorry. This is section one, J4. We try to put it all here. No, I know. I'm just trying to find out if it was J4. Page seven. Oh, we got it. Yeah. I guess I'm going to get it in the copy of this bill. So it's J4. Oh, got it. And just not shifting too far away. When is the EPP review back? We had asked, I know for an assessment of educational programs in our colleges, didn't know when that's going to be back. We published it. You did? Yeah. Thank you. But we just, go ahead. Yeah. So we published it. And I think we did have a chance to speak with you. There were some recommendations, but we can send you. I actually think the link is in the summary of the document that we provided you on the fifth. When we testified of the activities that we engaged in, there's a report hyperlink, but I will send it to you. Do you mind just resetting it to me? Yeah, absolutely. And I wanted to send it to you. Like, is that where your question to, maybe it was, I don't remember what college, but I think you asked the question about whole language that way. Thank you. You're the most. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yes, I'd like to see that again. Yeah, sure. Thank you. And we would just say, I think what we spoke to on the fifth is, aren't accepted if we are able to go forward is to, because we've really focused on in-service, right? So we got that report. We started the work and it literally was what is going to have the greatest impact in the middle of the pandemic when we're thinking about FBS and literacy learning and to focus on in-service supports for teachers. So we sort of stood that down. That's why we focused on the PD modules, the playbook, the data literacy, the assessments. And now what we'd like to do is return to some of those recommendations, which are going to require some partnership with folks that certainly we don't have regulatory authority over, right? So it's going to take some partnership, if you will. Okay. And then I think the last thing among these generally would be in that 16, yes, A is section 29 on three, part A is you're proposing to put in reading specialist. So which a school reading specialist shall provide, knowing that there are various permutations of terms, titles, et cetera. I think it might be sufficient to say which a school shall provide, because some people might call themselves the Wilson reading teacher or the literacy specialist and interventionist or the interventionist or whatever. So I think, you know, you could even say which a school shall provide from a qualified professional, right? Just so that folks don't start running out to rename everybody a reading specialist or... All right. So a school shall provide, what was your... Difficulty, which a school shall provide by a qualified professional. Boy, a qualified though, hmm. I have to think about one thing. A qualified professional reading professional, qualified. So, and Heather, if you've got something, I'm trying to think about this from the perspective of like, what if you had a school psychologist within the district who also had expertise in this area? Their title is school psychologist. They might be someone who could provide services, but they're not a reading professional. They're school psychologists. Okay, so, but who would have oversight over that? I guess it's my question. The, is that right? The decision process of the district? The superintendent, the principal, yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. Well, and also our licensing team and our, okay, our, you know, our standard for those things. But so, but, because I thought I just heard you say like they don't need to be a licensed reading specialist. Oh no, what I was saying is that people have different titles, right? So you would have something, they have to be a licensed educator to be, right? And they have to be endorsed in those particular areas. But here's like a course, like with flexible pathways, right? We have people who are dual enrollment coordinators, early college coordinators, flexible pathway coordinators, PLP coordinators, work-based learning coordinators. They all oversee flexible pathways, but they call themselves something different, right? And I think from the perspective of saying, if we can identify from a qualified professional, which means that you're a licensed and you're in person in the area. So I'm a French teacher who also has an organ feeling ham certification. And I have a French endorsement, a reading specialist endorsement. And I also have a science endorsement, but somewhere in there there's a reading specialist endorsement, right? I don't know if that's the right term. I'm sorry if I don't know the right terms, but I guess I'm just kind of understand better. But, help me. Yeah, I'm trying to think this through because it's like, you have folks who may have training, but they are hired for a role, right? Okay. Like the literacy intervention is. So you're saying they shouldn't have to have a specific endorsement in reading? I'm saying that they could have that endorsement, but they could have a different title such as the literacy. Right, so maybe the goal. So I'm saying that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Because I think- So take the title away. And put the goal that you're moving forward. So I think when you're putting reading specialist in there, it sounds like a title, but what you're talking about is a qualified professional. Right. Yeah. Got it. Thank you. The school psychologist also has this, right? Qualified is the key word. Yeah, and that's why, because what you don't want is someone to either say, well, we don't have a reading specialist, but you have a literacy interventionist and they're like, oh, but I thought the title was great. So I think it's just by having it be a school shelter vibe by a qualified professional, right? Who is guided by all of the rules that govern licensing and endorsements and all of those things. Great. Yeah. All right. I know. I have a really hard final question for you, which is there are a lot of edits and suggestions in here, which I greatly appreciate. Can you sum up briefly what's in the end if we were to take all these suggestions? And we have other ones too that I need to get pulled back out, but what's left in this bill? What do we end up with in the end? Yeah. Well, again, you would cut most of this out because the only sort of suggested edits or proposed language or anything like that one section, I think you have a lot here that is we would probably want to go back and maybe mark this up. So it's clear to align to the language because a lot of those recommendations are like, well, let's just align. So we would be adding stuff in, but you've got a lot here where it's a focus on and strengthening that critical to improving literacy outcomes is that you have to be engaging in that universal screening. You have to be leveraging your multi-tiered system of support. You have to be responding quickly, right? And you have to be intervening today with meaningful and guided by data. And that is strengthening that in the statute and that hasn't been there, right? We just want to make sure that we don't spend all of our time trying to translate for folks, right? Or like avoid those conflicts. And that's what's really exciting about this. Awesome, I was hoping you would say that. I just wanted to make sure that we're on stage. Okay, great, wow. And put us in there. Yes, that's right, yeah. Yeah, that's probably super. Any other comments from Slash, did you want to? I don't have anything further right now. Yeah, no, I think they've got everyone. That's right here, again. No, good job. I don't believe. I'm only going to. It's really easy. It's okay, I'm only going to, I'm only going to. I'm only going to, I'm only going to, I'm only going to. I'm only going to, I'm only going to, I'm only going to. Dr. Doxy? Willis Doxy, thank you. That's okay, I'll answer to you there. Dr. Heather, Dr. Willis Doxy. No, I'm excited to see, you know, in a legislative approach to the things that we've already put in place in school districts that are best practice, you know, this just kind of has a formal placeholder for it. And I appreciate the collaborative spirit to ensure that we're able to clear up any language that may be, may cause some confusion out in the school district. So I just appreciate the time to be able to collaborate with you guys to make sure that we're all sharing our perspectives and getting it right. I appreciate the enthusiasm and the collaboration as well. So we're all excited. That's right. We're still going to do what we're going to start to market up next week. Awesome. Yeah. And, you know. And we appreciate that, walking through that, the morning conference happened on a Friday, after a very robust week. That's a nice word, but I like it. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Good to see you all. Thank you. Thank you. Great to meet you. Congratulations, Heather. Yeah, thanks, Heather. Great seeing all of you. We do, we have not received, not that you had homework, that expression, we said you had some schools, but we have put together, been trying to put together. So it's still on offer. Very interesting. We'll set it up for you. And then we also had a fantastic conversation with the U.S. Folk Festival Memorial Museum this week. And our meeting with them next week, they're going to be helping us with our stroke week sequence and have offered to come up and provide professional learning. So just wanted to share with you. Wonderful. That's great, Jess. And the other thing we learned yesterday is, and I believe it might be in our folders today, you know, a whole class education, here's the other, I'm sure this has been told to me a million times, but it's in the standards. Yeah, and it's Senator, Mr. Bennett, sent us the link in it. So I think that's great. I think we need to marinate on it over the weekend. We'll have a conversation next week. Okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. You're welcome. It's always important work. Thank you. You're welcome. Nice to see you on purpose. Yes. You too. Bye, Heather. Bye, Heather. So, UVM is coming in 15 minutes. So we've got a little break. We can go off. Welcome back to Senate Education, Friday, January 19th. Our last bit of business today is an interesting one. Our education incentivization in Vermont, we have J. Jacobs. Correct. And Katie Foblie. Yeah. Welcome. And Maurice Mimac. Correct. Mimac. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Very excited to have all of you here. And we'll just go around the table. So you all know who you're talking to. We'll start with Vice-Chair. Hi. Senator Mimac. So let's look at the Maryland Tenant and represent Chippen and Centralton. But first. Kerry Williams from the Royal County and San Juan. Brandi Member. Yeah. I'm promoting them. Dave Wheats, Roland County. And Brian Campion at Bang and Calf. So the floor is yours. And I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Great. Well, thanks for having us. As you said, my name is J. Jacobs. I use the acronym, provost for enrollment management at the University of Brooklyn. And I'm Katie Mulvaney, I'm the Dean of Enrollment at the Community College of Vermont. And Maurice Lamatt, Vice President for Missions and Enrollment Services for the Los Angeles University. Katie, Maurice and I wanted to come and talk to talk to you all about our collaboration as the three public institutions of higher education in the state and well in tackling what we perceive to be one of the largest problems we're seeing in the state which is the college going rate amongst our high school graduates. We sent along a PowerPoint, I'm not sure if you were able to see it or have in front of you. We have it right here in our folders, in the folder. And if you don't mind, we'll also bring it up on the screen. Don't bother me. I like to write what's on the screen. But are we going to pull it up on the big screen? We're going to pull it up on the big screen. So, but you can have a look. I love this colored palace. On a Friday, you need the bright colors. That's great. Maurice asked me to tone down the UVM brand and I'm the UVM public. All right, so if you want to scroll to the next slide, Ben. So, we wanted to first just level set everybody on the challenges that we are facing as the higher education industry in the state. You've likely heard about the quote on quote demographic lift and the declining numbers of college students. So, the graphic on the top was of both graphics actually were taken from the New England Secondary School Consortium's recent report that talked about the total number of high school graduates has been declining over the past four years by 2% in 2021. The state of Vermont had just over 5,700 total high school graduates and the high school graduation rate has also declined by 2% in the over the last period. In fact, in the bottom graphic in the bottom right corner, you can see that Vermont actually has the lowest high school graduation rate in New England, just over 83%. If you move to the next slide, this is simply showing that the end is not in sight with the demographic lift, which the Western Institutions of Commission for Higher Education projects that the number of high school graduates within the state of Vermont will actually continue to drop by 17% between now and the academic year 2036-37. Most of these, most of this drop comes from our public school graduates with over 1,000 students dropping off the cliff and what these data don't show is a potential second cliff due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lessening birth rates don't have that many. The demographic lifts are scary, but moving to the next slide, I think this is what Maurice Katie and I believe is actually the most pressing problem that we see in the state, which is our college going rates of those college eligible high school graduates. In fact, we have the lowest college going rate in all of New England and among the bottom eight college going rates throughout the country. In 2021, again, according to the New England Secondary School Consortium, just under half of our students who graduated from high school have decided to enroll in college in 2021 and on the right is data from iPads in the National Education Clearinghouse shows about 55% of the class of 2020 will take college. Moving to the next slide, just to kind of segment these changes out a little bit, you can see between 2019 and 2021, four-year public institutions in the state dropped enrollment by just over 4%. Between those two years, the national average was 3%. You all know very well what Maurice in Vermont State has been going through. I'm sure you've read what the University of Vermont has been going through over the past few years and moving to slide six is the same data from 2019 to 2021. Public institutions in the state actually is a different story. We've seen an increase of somewhere between 3% and 4% in two-year college enrollment in the state. One of only five states in the union to see a positive growth in two-year and from what Katie tells me, 2022 and 2023 were actually better than this 4%. Unfortunately, however, it doesn't seem like the college-going rate decline has an end-in-side data. Moving to the next slide, these are data that just came from the most recent VSAC report that's showing the college aspiration of Vermont's Vermonters are continuing to drop. The aspiration gap is actually led by male identifying students and students who are first in their family to attend college or first-generation students. You can see those figures in the top right, set them to go out by gender and parents' educational attainment. We all read often, three of us read often, the perceived value of higher education on the decline, and you can see that parents are emphasizing college less in the bottom right graphic there. Trending long-term, moving to slide eight, this is really bad news for the state because the Georgetown's Center for Education and Workforce is projecting that by 2031, over half 51% of the jobs forecasted to be in Vermont at that time will require at least a degree, and an additional 17% will require at least some college, bringing the total number of jobs in the state in 2031 requiring at least some college to over 68%. All right, and then we wanted to begin to understand actually where are Vermonters in college. We decided to use 2020 data, and this has been most implicit in the most recent data set that we have available to us using the national database iPads. In 2020, there were 57, 70 students enrolled in high school in Vermont, 83% of them graduated from high school. That brings us to just under 4,800, and just under half of them enrolled in college, bringing us to just under 2,350 students enrolling in college, and about just under 70% of them went to college in state. You can see on the right graphic where those students went that year. That means 738 students attended college outside of Vermont, and if you dig into the data even deeper you can find that those students are enrolling in private institutions, mostly throughout New England and New York state. So moving to slide 10, this is the reason we're here. We wanted to show you all how we are starting to collaborate in an early way to tackle the college going great. Over the past few months we have had the opportunity to talk to many of our colleagues on the K-12 side in school counselors. We were accepted to have a panel session at the Vermont School Counselor Association Conference that included the three of us and a colleague from VSAP down in Killington in November, and we had a great conversation with probably 30 to 40 counselors there, discussing where students are going, why students are going to college, and most unfortunately why students are not going to college, which we'll dive into here on the next slide. We had a similar conversation at the University of Vermont's campus with my admissions team's Vermont School Counselor Advisory Board. We are and have been but continue to be working on pathway and articulation agreements between the institutions. So UVM and CCV have over 32 plus two pathways where students can get their associate's degree at CCV, seamlessly transfer to obtain their bachelor's degree at the University of Vermont and graduate in four years. We have similar pathway agreements with VTC, sorry Vermont State, sorry, Vermont State. They were with VTC and we're grateful for Murray's and his leadership in making sure that those articulation pathways agreements stood at the status quo with the state colleges. Four-year state colleges and of course CCV and Vermont State have those pathway agreements and we want to continue to look at what agreements might look like from the four-year programs at Vermont State in the graduate programs at the University of Vermont. And then finally and lastly, KV's team of advisors at CCV meet regularly with the admissions teams and the registrar teams at Vermont State and the University of Vermont in order so that they, the advisors, have the knowledge that they need to help pass down to students for student-centered pathways, transfer pathways, not necessarily just the articulation agreements but the more traditional transfer pathways between institutions as well. And then finally and lastly, you know, we wanted to showcase what we have heard from these past few months of collaborating together on why Vermont's are going and or not going to college. And we found that there were really two main reasons that bubbled up to the top for both, oh sorry, and they're actually very, they're actually very similar. The reasons that students go to college are because they have that expectation from their parents or their caregivers and they know that going to college will provide a sound financial future for them and their families. On the flip side, students are not going to college for similar reasons but opposite side of the coin, right? They don't believe in their ability to do college level work or they don't believe that college is possible. So this is the question that we've been asking ourselves. How can we, the royal we, collectively between the institutions of public higher education in the state, VSAC, you all of the state government, the secondary education counselors and teachers, fix this college going rate problem. So we wanted to think about things to address confidence levels and the ability for students to see themselves on campus, be that through direct admissions programs, for example, we just saw New York state announced theirs just last week. The state of Texas has done this for years and years and years. We're the top 10 percent. Can you explain direct? Yes, we're the top 10 percent of in the state of Texas and the state of New York. The top 10 percent of high school graduates are automatically admitted to their state selection. Financial issues irregardless. I believe so, yes. Family can pay or state still pay? No, no, no. This is just an admission offer. I think the financial age is a separate process. But we know in New York, for example, students can go to community colleges for free or Maine, they can go to community colleges or things like that. Do we require high school students in order to graduate from high school to fill out the free application for federal students? We've seen other states do this. We've seen that FAFSA submissions go out dramatically. Is this a recommendation? It's not necessarily a recommendation. It's something that we have been collectively thinking about, potentially recommend for the state of the future. Or other programs that are still confident. How can we make sure that students are on our campuses engaging with our faculty, with our students and feeling and seeing themselves being successful on our campuses before they even move? So you said that New York did this. Yes. How long ago did they do this? A week, two weeks ago. Next question was, they see a bomb in New York. Texas has done it since the 70s. Yeah. Do they have a history of a bomb? They showed it kind of before. Then I'll bring these 10 percent. I think Texas's issues were a little bit different than ours in Vermont. They saw a bomb in BIPOC students, back to the ecologists. There's a lot of data out there to support that, just for moving enrollment barriers, certainly increase. Yes. The anxiety around the process. So there's no application. You graduate within the top 10 percent if you can get a letter or whatever. There's no gathering waters of recognition, taking tests, making sure your high school trends are present. So this isn't something you need legislation to think about. This is something you could do. No, because we would need coordination. From the agency event. So think about the data sharing that happens in Vermont. K-12 data is held very separate from higher ed. So we don't have the ability to save you of the 5,700 students that we know who they are or could reach out to them. So there would have to be, it would need to be from legislation. I don't know if you think different. I mean, really, again, it's because the agency of education, those grades are very private. And the agency identifies the top 10 percent of each school or has them reported those students. And we could even potentially expand that, right? That's coming from either UVM's perspective. Even UVM, the top 10 percent is probably too small of a cut. I don't know what the right cut would be. 30 percent, 50 percent. I mean, we admit Vermont is at a 70 percent rate at the University of Vermont. So what does that mean? Sorry, Senator, go ahead. For sure. Yeah. So how does that change in terms of out of state with regard to standards? Are you saying, for example, a B minus kid might get into University of Vermont from Vermont, but a B minus kid from California might not? Or you're just having a little more generous, a little more liberal, a little more understanding in the interest of serving Vermont. Yeah. In our holistic admissions process, we want to make sure that we're serving our land grant section by ensuring a critical mass of volunteers in each class. Great. Let's interview it. Yes. I just wanted to ask about the demographic quick, which I believe is not unique to Vermont. I believe this is like country-wide, maybe worldwide, and minus a robust immigration system. I don't see it going away. Is there a talk at federal level what the future is going to look like? I wish there were a plan, because it seems as though we're not going to be able to fill all of our schools as time continues on. Again, by a state robust immigration plan, which we don't seem to have either. So there's no plan. Okay. No short of lightning. I mean, this is a small step, but going back towards the moment there is the changes that have been recently made to the FAFSA, right? That's what they call the FAFSA simplification process. So that was something that some families would just hear and they couldn't even deal with it. I mean, thank goodness we have the SAC in our state and they provide services that they do, but this is a staff on the fence at least and trying to make a process a little simpler. Yeah, and I really appreciate what you're doing. I was a first generation college student and it was, you know, the whole thing was so shrouded in mystery that it was very scary. And I see it in where I live with, you know, first gen and also new Americans. I mean, it is just terrifying. And even once they get there, you know, I think I wasn't very supported. I mean, back to old days anyway. And I think to, you know, to this day, it's really difficult for students. So I appreciate any like demystifying you can do. And like you say, you know, just improving confidence because so many kids have potential. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm just getting kids on your campus. I've been a band college forever. And it's always surprising to me the number of local kids that haven't been on campus. Yeah, I mean, I would say quarantine dual enrollment is a huge part of this. So getting students to have an early experience where they have that confidence. And then I jokingly said this in-house, but I'll say it again. And then the open end of a funnel is CTB. So having students start in a more expensive, excuse me, less expensive, more flexible environment where then there's collaboration for some to go on. So the risk isn't as big, but we do a lot. I think to the, you know, we talked about this in-house too, but the idea of students entering the workforce shouldn't be discouraged necessarily either because there's the pairing of they can continue with higher education while they're working with their employer. Oftentimes, they're getting assistance from their employer. It makes it a lot more affordable. They're not biting it all off at one time and they're kind of wading into the water. So, you know, there's this stigma that's out there about, oh, you know, I'm not going to go to college with this. My parents, you know, they'll support me or no one in my town goes to college and we're just going to stay here and I'm going to go to work. Well, you can do both, you know, and then trying to change the narrative around that. I think as a system, we're doing that very well with the focus on workforce development, but that seems to be targeted more at, you know, 30-somethings and maybe 40-somethings. And how do we get those students that are coming out of our baseballs that are just in the gothic right now? How do we engage with them to show them the focus opportunity? Making it the easy choice, right? But I think that's sort of the thing. Right. And I would just also say just trying to eliminate the barriers. I think we don't have enough guidance counselors that every kid and a lot of kids need help, whether it's, you know, filling out the application, filling out the FAFSA, just, you know, I mean, the money is scary too. Sorry, I bring up all this scary stuff. But we've talked about collaborating in the fall on, you know, application days where our admissions teams can bleed out into the high schools to help students apply to college, not the University of Vermont, not Vermont, just apply to college. Or, you know, Katie brought up in the house, you know, what I love, the term they use, predictive affordability. Right. So, the 802 Opportunity Grants is a great example of that as students in families making $75,000 or less being able to attempt CCB without tuition. We've replicated that at the University of Vermont with our institutional funds in the UVM Promise. Maurice has done a similar one at Vermont State. How can the 802 Opportunity Grants be scaled up to include four-year institutions? That's something to kind of, that we didn't really dig into too much of the last session. But I think that's a challenge. As a legislator, it's a challenge, right? Because you're working one year at a time, and funds are available one year at a time. But, you know, the critical occupation scholarship program, we wouldn't probably be grateful for that money. It helps so many students. But to, you know, Katie's point, it's hard to predict that, right? So, the legislative process of the bill is proved late in the session. A lot of students are already made the decisions by then, right? But it's hard. I wouldn't get a multi-year landing out there to do this. It's a challenge, right? So, about incorporating some technical quite effective for college, I know, I couldn't get in to Gasselton or UVM when I went to my high school. So, I went to Hampshire. It was one of the boat types of thing. And Gasselton. When I got out, I got drafted. I actually got my vouchers to do while I was in the arm. There's no carrot and a stick, either. Because they can go all into the workforce. I mean, you know, McDonald's is paying 18 bucks an hour. So, and they're saying, hey, I can go make this much money and I don't have to go. Yeah. I mean, we talk a lot about VR completely dear at an age of 27. So, often we see students after they've worked at McDonald's for five years and they're like, okay, this is not where I want to be, right? So, I think that open end of the funnel being available for students. But we did talk a lot about the role of, I don't, I don't think, well, I'll speak for myself. I don't think CCB feels like college has to be for everyone. But we want it to be available for everyone. Like, you don't have to make that choice. But right now in Vermont, too many students are not even considering that choice, right? So, we've got to flip the narrative, I think, in that way. And then work with students and adults sort of throughout that progress. Yeah, I'll go to Randall. Yeah. I was just going to say, there's a post-secondary opportunity for everyone to enter right here. Yeah. Right? Whether it's a certificate program or apprenticeship program, like you're describing, that we're offered through the legacy VTC programs, to a certificate program, to, you know, a pathway to a nursing degree through CCB, to all the way to a doctoral degree, a UVM, right? There's something for every Vermonter here. And that's why I think it's, you know, the fact that we can present as the public face of higher education in Vermont is really going to help people see that, you know, anybody can come, right? Everybody should be able to come. Yeah, I've got one observation and two questions. First observation is the slide that's sitting in speaker six, what students report their parents feel would also be interesting to figure to find out what parents feel about what their students, their children should be. Because, you know, the first comment, the whatever. Yeah. That sounds like a student response. And, you know, I'm not quite sure that's, you know, parents or a little laissez-faire these days, but what they really feel, all of their children should be like, I think they'll be more interesting than what the kids. The first question is, so on slide above the bad news for the Vermont economy. So 68% of all forecasted jobs are required. Okay. I see that as also a positive. That means that there's 32% who could be heading towards CTE. And we're all in this committee, I think we're all very strong CTE supporters. Yeah. I see that as an opportunity, not as a detractor. It all depends on the spin. So to your point about, you know, what Randolph's doing, what Randolph offers, or what, you know, more technically oriented, you know, not talking about engineering, I'm talking about, you know, the trades. There's an opportunity there. Well, that leads me to the second question. That's, you know, where are Vermonters going? I'm not sure. I see the data, but I'm not sure if you've done the analysis of why. What's causing the Vermonters not to, you know, to maybe look at universities outside Vermont, and obviously they're not looking at the private universities inside Vermont. So, you know, what's the limitation? Is it marketing budget? They're getting better deals outside of the team. That's the takeaway that's really important here, is why they're not. It's more affordable for many students to go to college outside of Vermont that it did. And we have names that we even know folks that wanted to go to UVM, but it was just, they got the bigger box at other institutions. Tell us a little something about what kinds of jobs you're referring to when you have 51% of the jobs forecast. What do those jobs look like from 231? Do you guys have any sense? I don't know. Okay. This is the Jewish channel. Yeah, this is the data I just pulled. Yeah. Second medical. I like your point about the guidance system and the principles. You know, because I, my personal experience at 16 decided I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to go to a trade. I wanted to go to a staffer, staffer tech. They said, no, you're in a college track. So maybe a little flexibility in the guidance to actually not tell them what they're going to do, but ask them what they want. Yeah. Well, and I think you're addressing that with the funding model, right, with career and tech. I mean, that's part of the challenge, I think. Yeah. The efforts that are being made with BSAC and all of us to get into those, because so many students in high school don't even know what some of these programs are. They don't know the career pathways, right? So they're being asked to select something on a form and they don't even know what they're selecting. I'll select business, because that's what I should do. I'll select law, pretty law. They don't know what a mechanical engineering technology is. Yeah. So it sounds like you'll be doing a lot more like pushing in rather than waiting for them to come to you. Super. That's a way to go. Sam Weeks. Well, I don't know. Kind of in summary, what are your asks? Was this purely informational or did you have a short list of? No, no asks, no recommendations. Yeah. We wanted to come to you all today to talk through, to make sure that you understood the challenges that we're facing. Make sure you understood that we are collaborating and coming up with these ideas for potential recommendations. So the University of Vermont State College of CCDF, no requested legislature this year whatsoever. You don't need to do that for Drake. This is very interesting. And I think the guessing committee would be very interested if you all supported to sort of dig into some of the things that New York is taxing. Yeah. It's not an ask, but I do think that collaboration data sharing with our K-12 and higher ed is something. CCDF has been participating in a Gates-funded initiative this year called Accelerate Ed. It's been amazing, connected to the free degree promise from the LaCour Foundation. And over and over again, the theme that comes up is states that have a cohesive model have data sharing across the model. The gap is after year 12. And I totally understand what you were saying before about privacy and there are lawyers who are better tasked to think about that. But it is, I think it's a real challenge in Vermont. And I think for us to dip in in the way that you said, Martine, it would be helpful to have some more of a bridge there. And so that's a little vague, but I think there's, you know, in the old days, let's say T's were taken. Yeah. You would start to get notes and letters. I don't know if that's still happening. I'm sure you too, by listening. Yeah, we did. We did. We did get the title, by a fewer people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got one more dimension to leave. I heard from one of the National Vary D-8 caucus. Yeah, in general. So we can't, we can't get into the high schools to try and, it was soldiers. And, you know, if they want to go to the military, get them in the guard and want to come back to the state and then go to college. Yeah. Because the guard chest is very disaggregated. We run classes at the guard. I mean, they're great. They do a great job at that. And they, you know, they learn a skill, you know, what you think about the military, but they don't figure somebody to keep our people here. You said they can't recruit in the school. They only, they're only allowed into that school by, by law one day a year. And they're competing with the active component. I think, sorry. Well, it's, I think what I experienced, because I was involved in recruiting for the National Vary D-8, Councilor Dunn's Council didn't want you talking to their kids. Does they have them? They already had a courage act in mind. So just curious here, who initiated the three of you coming together? Was it over the Lester's chairman, Rosie, you three guys. Katie took the credit in the house. I did. Someone said, well, how did you start working together? He said, buy us a credit. You didn't actually power point. No, encourage. That's very encouraging. We're all in this together. Yeah. I think we want all of you, like we are working closely together and we want Vermonters to know their options for them. And we need your help with changing the narrative in Vermont around higher ed. It's, it's problematic. We, I think we historically have sort of said, oh, well, this, again, I'll speak for CCB, we want students to make whatever choice they want and know they have options. Students are not choosing to pursue the, they don't know they have the option. And I think broadly higher ed is under a lot of scrutiny and attack. So it's very, we've got sort of a tricky environment to be working within. And I think we want all of Vermonters to know there is a place for them to go to higher ed. Yeah. And we're going to keep working on it. I know we're running out of time, but just to clarify what you would like from us, sounds like they were being asked at the AOE to share data with our institutions of higher ed. I look to you all, and you might not be there yet. You might want to think about this. Yeah, I don't, I don't think we're, I don't think we're ready for a specific ask or recommend. Easy work. So you can ask us. We come, we come before lunch with our, I just want to add, yes, one thing that was mentioned in the last committee is that, you know, this is not something that we're asking for at the moment, but expanding 802 opportunity to four year public institutions would be a real problem with this. And so that's something that we may come back in the future after more research has started to This is a tough year for money. We know. Yes. So, but that's, it's planting the seed of thinking about that in the future. And like Senator Weeks said, if we all be, man, we all feel the same way. We really appreciate the initiative, you know, coming together on your own thinking about this, the best interest of Vermonters. You close the comments. Are you guys going to race back to Rotland County? You're going to be safe. He's going to get all of you first. Thank you. Thank you Richard. Thank you. Okay, committee. Thanks for a great week. Really super. We've got a busy week next week. Warren's finishing the agenda. It's probably already up. We're looking forward to see what we're up to. We think the one thing that is very important from this, from the week. Yeah, good work on this. That's your literacy bill. Yeah, yeah. But I think, yeah, I think we're done more. Yeah, are we feeling good? Yeah, no, good, please. Thanks again.