 French wasn't able to hang around for two hours when the Senate ran long last week. So we've invited him back. I talked to the commissioner of finance, but he told we had a couple of questions for you. One, as it looks like the consultants may come in saying that if we're thinking about running broadband, if we can get them up with some small clusters around schools or telemedicine and they're coming in next. So we wondered if you had been able to identify those. We talked about it before. And then the other was education financing. We've kind of been kicking the, we've got the yield bill. We're kind of putting off doing anything with a deficit, but there is a deficit. And at some point, we're going to have to pay our bills. And so we're just wondering what the thoughts were from the agency in that area. So the floor is yours. So good afternoon. Sorry I missed you last week. And sorry, I got lost here for a few minutes in the, in the clouds somewhere before I landed here on Zoom. So the, yeah, in between last week and this week, a lot of our efforts had already started towards the first time I started shifting towards a focus on reopening school and doing that planning. As much as we were filing sort of a stream of consciousness or a deliberation stream on the ed fund and CRF and gear and ESSER and the different funding mechanisms, we sort of put that on, I don't say aside, but I decided in terms of our planning efforts, in particular, as we were thinking about the CRF funding, that it would be very useful and necessary to have a description of what the fall is going to look like for reopening schools and to focus the CRF, particularly on costs that might be associated with that reopening. So just a bit of a recap, there's basically three pots of the money available right now for education under the CARES Act, the CRF, the 1.2 billion. And I think it's useful to talk about these pots relative to their flexibility and their timeline. So the CRF is probably the most restrictive of the funding sources and it also has the shortest timeline. It has to be spent by December. In ESSER, the 30 million or 90 percent thereof that goes to districts is more flexible and also has the longest timeline, can go out a year if not longer with a tidings waiver amendment that we were able to secure. And then there's a small pot of money to gear fund, which is the governor's emergency relief fund, 4.4 million. Similar to ESSER has a long timeline, but probably the medium level in terms of restrictiveness, because it talks kind of about three different strategies. And I'd say the third strategy can be used fairly flexibly in terms of any entity education or related that's been significantly impacted by COVID, but it's probably a little more restricted than ESSER. So we've been focused on sort of looking at what are they going to be the conditions for reopening the fall, and particularly what are going to be the public health conditions for reopening the fall. And that's guidance we've been working on together with the Department of Health. I expect that guidance to be produced next week or published next week. We're going to talk about it tomorrow at the governor's press conference, I understand. So you'll see here some more about that. But you know, firstly, I just say reopening schools for in-person instruction is totally possible. And we're feeling increasingly confident that we're able to do that. One of the strategies that emerged is we started to consider, you know, once again, this issue of CRF money in particular being probably more restrictive and has the shortest time to it. We wanted to look pretty carefully at what opportunity we'd have to use any fiscal year 20 expenses towards the CRF. And with 80% of our costs being in personnel, it drove us to that that area of looking at personnel costs in particular. So one strategy, I don't know if you have heard from Brad and JFO, they sort of been working a bit on or kicking the tires on this ability, perhaps to take staffing costs at fiscal year 20 that were essentially mandated as a result of the emergency order on the part of the governor. You know, we required school districts to maintain payroll and so forth as an economic stability measure. To what extent could those costs then be shifted to the CRF? And which in turn would give districts essentially a bit of a surplus going into fiscal year 21, which means then there's a potential to offset that with a reduction in the ed fund payment. So we think there's an opportunity there. I think Brad, I would say back in the napkin estimate on that is somewhere around 16 million dollars. Not a lot of money, but I think it's important that we try to leverage any opportunity to reduce costs in fiscal year 20 or apply them toward the CRF. And I think we increasingly feel confident that's appropriate. I think there's also probably a similar opportunity with school meal programs. Some of that would be the salary capture in the 16 million. But we're also pretty well engaged in planning for school meal program continuity through the summer as well. So there's a lot of work going on in that department. But I think in terms of reopening school, the total cost of that is hard to ascertain at this point. We did have an estimate done nationally by the American Association of School Administrators and their counterpart organization in the school business officials who estimated that reopening school is going to cost on average about $490 per pupil. That's true that would put our cost somewhere around 40 million dollars. And that might be a good opportunity to think about the CRF fund in terms of due to its short time line to think about costs that could be attributed to reopening school as a sort of a time bound activity that also would make good use of the CRF. And that would leave ESSER funds more or less in a position to support some of the educational activities that districts are going to note up having additional costs such as provisioning remote learning, mental health services or social services related to the negative impact of COVID-19. In terms of the broadband question, we've tried work inside the administration through the focus of the Department of Public Services, sort of emergency template plan that they put together. So to what extent there would be additional funding and education necessary to do that. I'm not certain about that, but I certainly would support trying to get funding through that plan because I think it's a good way to ensure that infrastructure is addressed beyond the immediate needs of education. I will say just- I have a question when you finish. Yeah, I would just wrap. I said I did talk to your consultant. I enjoyed that conversation a great deal and provided her some of the background on the history of sort of educational technology in the broadband expansion in Vermont through AARRA and so forth. Okay, does the Department of Public Service template reflect what schools have discovered? Like it sounds like just the brief meeting I had with the consultants that we're going to be doing a lot better if we can get one kind of compact area that we could just hook up somehow, then some kind of a, you know, hook up the state. I see you, Senator McDonald. Let me finish mine. And so I'm just wondering is anything the schools have found out? School districts or areas that have special difficulties? Yeah, I don't think there's anything new in that. I think it more or less was sort of like triangulation or confirmation of service levels that the Department of Public Service was already aware of. So I think if nothing else, we've used this experiment, if you will, in remote learning to confirm what we've already known. You know, the question is to what extent could funding like ESSER and so forth be utilized on behalf of school districts to address those concerns? I don't think that's possible. I think something like CRF coming in from the DPS perspective, coming in on a state level infrastructure, it's what's going to be necessary to address the last mile issues. Yeah, no, I don't think we're talking about education funds. I think this committee also has under its jurisdiction, utilities, which covers broadband. And we would be looking at broadband funding at some point. I was just saying we think there's an educational rationale to make those investments, you know, similar to telemedicine, I think the remote learning, those rationales can come from education. I think, you know, as we're inside the administration putting together that education package, we anticipate broadband investment being needed to fund the DPS plan, but the educational rationale being utilized to do that. Okay, I think that's what we might be looking for. Serena McDonald. The usual question when we refer to broadband, what are we talking about? In terms of the work topology or the speed, or I'm not sure the question, is it are we defining broadband as 25 three as symmetrical as 100 up 100 down? Your testimony defines broadband how? Yeah, for school, we have a standard that was established in 2014 of a one kilobyte or per 1000 students. We don't have an educational standard for home users in our profession. I think the public service has been running with 25, if I remember correctly. 25 three, I believe so. I believe Senator, that is the federal standard and this is federal money. So unless someone says something differently, I think you can assume that we're talking federal standard. It's up to us to decide if we want to hold out for something better. It's always helpful to understand what we're discussing at the beginning of the conversation rather than at the end. Okay. Okay, I think the committee gets it. Senator Brock. Secretary French, is it fair to say that there are difficulties or deficiencies in broadband for educational purposes throughout the state? Yeah, I think in terms of educational, if you're defining that beyond the perimeter of school districts, meaning we have, I think, accomplished a certain amount of infrastructure, we call wide area networks beating schools are connected to their central offices, or maybe schools are connected to their high schools and the sort of a hub and spoke model. I think that's fairly well deployed. I could I could say there's a level of difference between districts that have what we call managed wireless functionality, meaning the ability to push and control how they manage student devices at the wireless access point. So I would I would say there's a couple of problems defining that inside the perimeter of school, the level of functionality. But if you're speaking more generally about any person in Vermont being able to access an online learning platform, regardless of where they are, I think, yes, we have we have inequities and deficiencies in terms of level of access and capacity. Well, that's what I'm actually getting at is the ability to deliver remote instruction, particularly in this time of emergency. And a lot of our focus has been on last mile, and that sort of thing in terms of expanding broadband. But it's my understanding that we have a lot of spaces in places where ostensibly we have broadband in which kids at their homes cannot get access to internet. And that this is a more broad statewide problem, rather than simply extending it to places that, according to a propagation map, doesn't have good broadband. It's a broader issue. And I just want to understand whether or not that's been your experience of observing kids trying to use teleeducation. Yeah, I would agree. And I'd also throw kids and teachers into that as well, because the other sort of the side effect of this emergency is that teachers are now deployed remotely as well. So that's that's added a whole other dimension to it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we're we got on to broadband, but we're back to financing. And I thought you might have on the deficit, or I know we're focusing on getting kids back. And it's also my understanding that a fair amount of that cost might be HVAC systems. Yeah, I think the in terms of the deficit, as I mentioned, our strategy that we're pursuing relative to salary, I think is a good model. You know, the first thing we should try to do is to identify costs and fiscal year 20. That could be addressed through CRF. Because when I think of CRF as I've started to unpack, not only the timelines and the flexibility, but also just the mechanics of how we would give that money out. I often think of CRF, I use the word reimbursement often. So, unlike SR, which is an allocation directly to districts based on title one formula, I think CRF is a reimbursement model, meaning that we would establish a fund and then reimburse districts for qualified expenses. So if I play that out, first thing I think we should try to do is to identify expenses that would qualify in fiscal year 20 and reimburse districts for those expenses. And then, you know, that would in turn generate, but I said a bit of a surplus and then we could contemplate, we'll say, clawing back, but the ability to then use ed fund payments to sort of, you know, make make make some headway there in terms of the deficit. I think the other issue, once we start talking about fiscal year 21, that is to look at CRF to help with the reopening costs for schools, which I mentioned is nationally being projected a 490 a person that includes HVAC in that. So we have, you know, I know there's a larger conversation about HVAC as a specific focus. I still think HVAC is sort of a sub item inside of a larger framework of reopening. It's not necessarily, it's a very important issue, but at this point doesn't shouldn't be elevated to be a primary focus. I think it's situated within a broader planning framework, but that national number of 490 per pupil, which translates to 40 million for reopening, I think would include any HVAC necessary to open schools. Yes, we'll have longer, we have longer term building needs as well that would would benefit from a more systematic examination of HVAC needs, but for the immediate reopening, I think that's a useful number to go with. I know there's some concern that HVAC could eat up everything or a good portion of the money and concern that money goes to the remedial and the mental health issues that we know. What's HVAC? Eating ventilation, air conditioning. Thank you. Fresh air. Fresh air, air exchange. Yeah, eating. So I, you know, our approach to that once again is to we've been working hard to get the public health guidance set up for opening schools because I think, you know, it's easy then to situate HVAC into where where it sits relative to everything else that people have to do. So once you once you put it into that context, and I think, you know, once again, we'll publish that next week. You start to look at transportation, you know, getting kids to school, feeding kids in the building, PPE, disinfection, additional nursing costs, provisioning and conditioning, nursing spaces for isolation, temperature checks. I mean, it just there's a long list of things that have to be addressed and HVAC is just one of those. And then we if we put that onto the very concrete timeline of opening school, which is our objective, it's a societal interest, it's in the best interest of kids that we get those kids back in school learning. We have to then sort of make some decisions about where we put those resources. But from my perspective, in the last couple of weeks, my focus is really just on reopening school. And I think, you know, situating HVAC in that is important, but I wouldn't necessarily take this moment to begin a larger HVAC examination. Madam Chair. Yes, Senator Pearson, who's got a picture, and then I've got Senator Ballant. Thank you. Secretary, can can we assume that in the plan for reopening, there'll be a little more of a geographical approach? Should we have sort of a, you know, if there is a flare up in Chittin County, does that mean Orange County schools will be closed or will we be able to think about it in a much more geographically specific way? Yes, Senator, I think that's accurate. You know, we're sort of back to where we were at the beginning of the emergency in terms of, let's say, trying to, you've heard the box-setting, boxing it in strategy or containment strategy. So we're coming out of what I've observed is the social mitigation approach, approach this broad, you know, shutting down things. Now we're coming back around to, now that we have the management tools like increased testing and so forth available to contemplate maintaining operations of schools in the context of living with the virus. And that means we're back to what the CDC would term a reactive school closure sort of decisions, meaning we have to plan for instances where even in one school district, some schools might be open and some schools might be closed. But certainly regionally, some schools might be open and some schools might be closed. And, you know, our first goal is to get the public health guidance defined so we can understand the operational planning needs relative to opening school. And then our next level of work is to really lay out how those decisions are going to make and who's going to who's going to make them and what are the criteria that would inform those decisions. Thanks. Thank you so much, Secretary French, for being with us today. I get two questions for you. One related to the estimate of 490 per pupil nationwide for the costs of reopening schools. I'm wondering, do you have a document that gives a breakdown for what that includes? And if you do, could you forward that on to our committee assistant? I'd love to have a better understanding of what that includes. You bet. Thank you. Second one, and I apologize, I was switching from my cell phone to my computer because I was traveling. So you may have said this. So I apologize. But back to the issue of connectivity in districts. Have you at AOE been able to gather the names of families within each district that is not currently connected? No. Okay. And is that on AOE's radar screen to do that or how are we going to determine where best to spend the money? Yeah, it's not on our list. I mean, we've had difficulty with this type of collection from the beginning of the emergency for a number of reasons. Primarily we don't have the data and districts don't necessarily have the data either. I think the best data to use is to start with the public service data that describes where the service is and where it isn't. And certainly we can pinpoint, you know, on a family basis or I would say again, teachers where teachers live. But I think those public service, that public service data is going to be the starting point for that sort of last mile build up. And sorry, I realized I had one more one more question, which was obviously there's been a lot of discussion about what all this time at home has has meant for kids, especially kids who are vulnerable to mental health stressors or violence at home. There's been a lot of talk about the kind of additional supports that are going to need when schools open up in terms of help from the designated agencies in the area to do more work therapy work with kids and with families. I'm wondering if that has been factored into your assumption of how much money is going to be needed to reopen schools safely? No, I think the focus on reopening, once again, looking at the applicability of CRF in particular, is to focus on, you know, the, I would say the physical plan or the implementing the public health guidance. I think the other we're anticipating once schools come back online, one of the activities they would be involved in is certainly an assessment of the impact of what's happened so far and that I would say includes the mental health supports. We are in our guidance and our health guidance, including a section on mental health guidance, because we see that as being deeply connected to the broader physical health issues. So we're goal one would be to open the schools and then put them into a disposition to make this sort of diagnosis or this assessment or priority. But that that'll be emerging as I think I would argue a large area of cost ultimately in the coming months. It's just hard, I think, to think about using CRF that way since those expenditures have to be complete by December. Thank you. Okay. Secretary, when you talk about the salary issues that you're going to reimburse with CRF, is that I know some food service workers were paid but weren't actually working. Teachers were paid, but teachers were working. I'm just, I'm, can I assume that the consultant that the administration was hiring to help figure out and avoid clawback is working with you on this so that we do have the acceptable documentation, if that's how we go forward. Yes. We've put our best thinking on it both in terms of Brad and the JFO, I think, have kicked the tires on this concept a bit. So I was talking with Commissioner Greschen yesterday and he thought it was, you know, picked around enough to advance to have those consultants take a look at it. So we're going to shape that up for them to give us an opinion on. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Secretary French, anything else you think we need to know? No, you know, look forward to working with on this. I think it is, you know, once again, from a logic standpoint, but important for us to articulate the public health parameters on reopening, and particularly as it focuses on CRF, but I think we're moving very quickly now that that's been sort of more or less finalized, though it'll be published next week, that we'll be in a position to, you know, map out the costs a little better. Dan, any thinking on the possibility? Because I was thinking, we're going to just assuming, and my connection is my grandkids who are good students, but even doing schoolwork at home, they're going to be some ways behind where they would have been when they start school, because three hours at home is not school. So, you know, the ability to call that and get it funded from CRF, I'm wondering if it can. But the other thing is, a lot of parents are struggling with this summer, with school age kids, and there's also a lot of documentation about, especially kids with issues, really bottom out in the summer, as opposed to kids that read and don't. Parents read to them. Has anyone thought about doing a remedial program this summer to start outdoors in the ball field? Yeah, no, I think districts are. I think it's been interesting to observe, I think, you know, the traditional summer programs, I'd say traditional is hard to describe, but I would say traditionally, historically, those have largely been remedial programs. Those programs have been expanded over the years. Yeah, those programs have been expanded over the years, really under the cover of a 21st century learning community program, which is an after school program we run during the school year. Those programs have expanded in the summer to include, you know, more activities, but also an academic component. I think what I've observed this year, you know, we've certainly green lighted school districts for the ability to offer in-person camps or summer programs, but districts have been very hesitant to do that, more so than they typically would. I think one, they want to understand the public health guidance a little bit better. I think some of them I'm noticing are using the summer as a way to test their preparation for the fall in that regard. But I think furthermore, folks are just worried about their financial picture. You know, this very conversation is, you know, putting districts in a very conservative position relative to their finances. So they're like, you know, I don't, you know, for example, I think schools are like, now, we typically spend title one on summer, but I want to reserve that for the moment until we know what we're doing. So I think there's, as we started to telegraph to people that, you know, we're not sure about the funding, but furthermore, that summer, this emergency is not over. It's not like we're declaring this is over and let's start going into remediation. We really can't do that so forcefully because the emergency is not over. I think we'll get the schools open in the fall and it's only when they're open will we begin that real full effort to assess, you know, what's been the impact in terms of learning loss and so forth. And that's, I expect that, I'll say that tale of that, that assessment period to last some time. And, you know, it's going to be a big, big part of our focus in the coming months, assuming we can maintain the operations of schools for in-person instruction. I'm just concerned about the kids who normally would have gone to camp, would have spent their afternoons at the pool. Those things have, many of them have been shut down and at best parents are, you know, yeah, just putting together. It's just underscores for me the importance of reopening school. I mean, we have to get back in business, you know, it's as much as I've been saying something like as much as COVID-19 has been a public health emergency, having schools closed as an educational emergency and we need to get them back open. It may be a parental sanity emergency too. My daughter says, I can be a full-time employee. I can be a full-time wife and I can be a full-time mother and I can be a full-time teacher. I just can't do them all at the same time. There's a lot of parents that are feeling that stress working from home. You've got two of those parents on the phone, Madam Chair, who don't know what they're doing with their kids this summer. I know. I mean, it is a hard one and they won't include the grandparents in the loop. Yeah, we're going to get there. I'm increasingly confident, you know, talking with my peers around the country and I meet weekly with my New England peers and, you know, we're in a good place. I think, thanks to our disciplined approach, we've obtained a certain measure of opportunity to do planning for the fall and the summer. I don't feel like we're in as much a reactive disposition as we were previously, but I'm pleased, I'm heartened to hear the urgency that everyone, every Vermonter encounter says, let's get the school opens get them back to doing what they do, because we need to do that. Okay, other questions. Thank you. Keep us posted. Thank you. We'll do. I think it sounds like we may be here most of the summer too. We'll stay safe. We'll know better tomorrow, I've been told, but thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate your work.