 understanding sort of where we left last week when we were talking about what kind of feedback around the child care piece and the minimum wage bill was that after we looked at what did Richter put up and over ours, did Brighton put up, we want to keep ours and then in further discussion it was like oh but ours only goes out about so many and so to layer on top what was in their bill in terms of making adjustments so with that direction and then I think we want the intent language there were two sections painting drafted an amendment which we think and Teresa was part of this as well more organized than I am we think this is what where we came to if it's not fine but this is what's up there okay then office of legislative council so this amendment strikes section three of s 23 which was the ccfap language that was within the minimum wage bill and instead it puts in two new sections a new section three and a new section three a the first section the new section three looks very similar to the language that you passed in h 531 you have a subsection a that has intent language is the intent of the general assembly that investments and initiatives that forth from this act are meant to compliment the anticipated redesign of ccfap which will be monitored by the general assembly so that language comes out of your h 531 and then so I have a question is it set forth in this act I mean shouldn't it be in this section in this section section thank you and then in subsection b this language is identical to the language that came out of h 531 so this is the sliding scale the same sliding scale and in subdivision two this is the market rates same as what passed out of this committee and then section three a you're adding a newest subdivision to the ccfap language that's in the green books and this language says at beginning january 1st 2025 and each subsequent year that the minimum wage is increased thereafter the commissioner for dcf is to amend the department's ccfap program to do two things so just the sliding fee scale to correspond with each minimum wage increase in order to ensure that the benefit percentage at each new minimum wage level is not lower than the percentage applied under the former minimum wage and secondly adjusting the rate of reimbursement on behalf of families participating in ccfap in a manner that offsets the estimated cost of child care and Vermont resulting from the increase in wage so in subdivision a and b that language is modeled on language that isn't currently in s 23 um so in uh so i had a discussion with the chair about this um because our language um while we were enthusiastic about our language because it did in one year what the minimum wage bill would have done in five years um um what our language didn't do is to account for the out years so what happens after the minimum wage catches up to the changes that we're making and so um so we suggested a modest change which says could you push that up just a little bit okay um beginning january 1 2025 um which is essentially the place where um the minimum wage increase at 15 happens by 2024 so the following january and then every the following january minimum wage be increased by the cpi um and then if that bill passes the way it is then then the rates paid and um the um sliding scale would adjust with it so the same intent as what the current language has except for we we sort of from my perspective get the get the best of both so we adjust it up to what we we want to do as we pass that here in age 531 and then this language would address it in subsequent years after that um i'm trying to remember do we have any um look back in terms of the uh market rate changing we brought it up to 2015 and 2017 but as um it would drop we're out of 2026 now and that bill we didn't have anything about that didn't you and i think you're not we didn't uh it adjusts the poverty scale poverty rate right but you never never after the adjustment for the 15th there was no more adjustments than i remember well if you recall the the first paragraph of this in our intent language remember it's in the intent of 531 it's intended to be the initial year of a multi-year process yes that will adjust the market rates and the payment methodology but if that doesn't happen which a lot of things don't happen then this would adjust it if that does happen then this would not be necessary i like what you're saying yeah you need to i'm like tarnish you need to show me where okay where the language is that says the market rate is going to adjust it's right here in subdivision two subdivision two uh huh that's the language that you passed right that's how they're doing that's how i talk about that um and section three subdivision a section three subdivision uh it's on it's on line nine general silver investments and issues i'm meant to complement and anticipate redesign redesign right of the chapter five so the redesigned that riva presented to us included changing updating the market rates and changing the rates um the supplements paid um on behalf of families so it doesn't specifically say in 2025 will be at you know market rate 2023 it doesn't say that um because it's intended to be 531 is intended to be the first year of a multi-year process i do i do as we get further out the market rate stays the same what we're doing is negated some what because the market rate is down so the subsidy on all that is going to be effective so so let's play out worst-case scenario worst-case scenario is 531 passes the way it is and there's no other changes that happen for the next five years so the plans that riva put out to us that had it's a multi-year shoot we've got a pro presentation on it and how how much of an investment will be required each year the next four years i think it is so let's just say none of that happens worst-case scenario um this language would enable the rates to increase consistent with the minimum wage increases of the cpi right so that's a good thing if the redesign happens this would not be necessary if the market rate goes up so we don't we we're we're depending upon what happens in fiscal year 21 22 23 and 24 um the rates that we increased in 531 are already up to the five-year level of this so um one might call it a little bit of belts and suspenders as we use in this yeah in this summer well we're going 2015 and it'll be that way for five years um unless unless the governor comes through with the second phase of the proposed redesign so yeah there there is the potential that whatever gets implemented in 531 this year doesn't change until 2025 um i hope that's not the case i mean we you know that's why we have that intent language up there um about this being part of the redesign process um if we had left that out then i think that it would be problematic but um but we don't know what next year is going to bring i just want to make sure i understand this is an amendment that is upon 23 on the minimum wage bill not the minimum wage bill yes and not proposed by us but by it also we are we are making the change what is in the minimum wage bill right now is something is their attempt at addressing okay so this is our attempt to change them and this is and this is our time point you know good college drive but we we moved on it but we moved on it in the bill that we passed and you had some interesting points what happens after so um yeah so this is what we would be proposing next door right and they would be incorporating it into their bill we would not be we don't have possession correct i just wanted to make sure i really understood what we were doing there and um yeah and it doesn't change anything correct correct correct and reinforces what we have done before right so well okay i'm just going to say one of these i'm going to ask people to raise their hand and are they okay with this and then one of us will go over and present this to them as the um our proposal i mean our proposed amendment rather than doing it on the floor yeah rather not just part of their package and then people don't feel yeah so so in other words i'm not asking anyone here to be making a um state a statement about the minimum wage bill it is this section of the minimum wage bill that deals with the benefits click sounds good we think they like this right actually am i right about all of that i'm so um a thought i'm stuck on this that you pointed out on page one line 10 set forth in this act um so i'm thinking that the investments and initiatives would also that are supposed to but that should also be reflective of the new section 3a so i think instead of switching out set forth in this section we should say set forth in this section and section 3a of this after for both of them okay if i could just to go through once quickly just so we can read it sure i said call it okay um so what this language proposes to do is to strike section three of the minimum wage bill which was the yes which was their cc fat language and instead it puts in two new sections a new section three and a new section 3a section three uh basically is taken right from your h 531 so um subsection b of section three is a complete cotton paste from from your section three of h 531 and what we've done is just add us a subsection a with some intent language b so starting at b subsection b the first layer 2020 that um that whole subsection is just a cotton paste from h 531 and then the a that appears above it that's also from h 531 it's just from a different section so that's your intent language and this is establishing this is the appropriation um to amend the sliding t scale and cc fat that's what subdivision one is right here and then if you remember we have this list of subdivisions a through d which are the different points for the sliding p scales moving subdivision two is the um market rates adjusting the market rates and then there's the new section 3a and this is the language about corresponding movements in the sliding fee scale and the market rates um based on whether there's a change in minimum wage after 2025 and um k you're going to adjust the first paragraph you're going to adjust on section 3k yes online 10 versus set forth in this act i'm going to say set forth in this section and section 3a of this act it's kind of a separate question but so does the full minimum wage of $50 come at 2025 is that the year that's 2024 sorry 2024 so why then do we need to put in the January first because that's the next sheet that's the following year that's going to be a call that's going to be a call up based on cpi oh to get us back on to the cycle that we wanted to be on in the bill in our but in the minimum wage bill big jumps or not jumps and then cola right and then it starts okay so because that's what we're doing now okay right now we increase our minimum wage every year based on cola this sort of does a jump start there okay and then it stays so it's not really session law then this is real law is that right because it would seem like if it ended in 2024 then it would be session law right so this isn't in session law this would be in the green books that really your idea okay okay so can we present that show of hands in terms of presenting this to next door as what we would like them to substitute with the understanding it doesn't mean to commit us to the bill um I don't know how maybe to could you um as in as a memo to um you know that thank you for the opportunity to let us review this section um here's a look yep thank you very much yes I appreciate it great job yes everyone great job Mary Beth oh great job yes it was so I said everybody's happens that's different and um as we had done child care bill we were in the process I know I'm going to work on it um what I think is I mean it was it was a um it was a fair perhaps comment um that it's important and it's fine it's what it's what we did with child care to put out facts there was a nice little thing less of a graphic that had kids but this was sort of the outlining of this is what the bill does and this is the problem this is how the bill solves the problem um the hand the handout that was beautiful here um the handout that was beautiful um uh veers towards advocacy that picture that he does so um right just by by an advocacy group as opposed to sort of a factual summer um and I take some responsibility or not because um Mary Beth Mary Beth shared that with me I thought oh roughly made a few other it did not occur to me and so she spent lots of time with making it um whatever so I um but I still think and everyone still goes back to the idea of letting uncomplicated you know on multi bills to put put it out there on people's deaths so they know what they're doing and they know this so when they go home they can answer questions and so when they go home they can answer questions if they have to not be in the floor wrapped attention on things they can go back to that the um the other thing just a learning experience which Mary Beth would have learned too is that we have put at the bottom of it a little um thing that said that we um it showed the three pronged effort and it had each of the bills and what the clerk told us but you can't talk about other bills on the floor by number so we had to take that out this morning that was sort of earlier today no in my presentation I hadn't used the numbers I just talked about what the three prongs were but in general they were listed on the flyer that's just good for all of us to know I mean that's another little thing to just keep in mind when you're preparing so had you guys sort of like set up the one two thing you got the the three pronged you know the agenda general thing no what it was I thought you were going to include it I was but then it was texted me I I texted Mary Beth you said if there's a lot of chatter would you do the quote Mary Beth being a good team player texting Jessica to say are you okay with that I didn't see that because I don't say that out loud too much this was to be okay and it was fine and what was the final vote I one two four 14 and you know I um there are 14 people who voted no and um I don't know I don't know if Mary Beth's comment has um preemptive and amendment about the military or not um you know but there um um there was some talk that there might be some amendments so so it's so um you know you can breathe easy and just know that tomorrow it may not be like some other of our bills that the um that the day that the second day on the floor has been yeah it goes and the uh I talked to Brian just a little bit because he's still am I going to spoke with Sandy as well about the indigenous people and I said you know it's 20 right now in current law it's $25 if they were and they would never go after you know if you had tobacco or leave um and he agreed but he's still talking to the chief of some group and he may come in tomorrow but I'm hoping that I have some influence along with Sandy to not happen to do that and um the other thing is I did talk to uh representative with Blair and he told me there wasn't going to be a military exemption unless today they changed their mind so and I was a little confused but maybe it was just because it was informally offered representative Young's amendment was informally offered okay because when he um um on Friday he said I'm not putting it in the calendar because maybe I won't offer it got you and so of course he would want to vote it right right right do do note do note that he did vote against the bill yeah I was actually surprised that he voted for the bill ways it means because he was a new year's ago it might be worth checking with him one more time because when I went to leave he mentioned that he was thinking still thinking about it well so the calendar will probably go by five or so you know so just go online look at the calendar that would mean that's not the end of the world but it's right right okay and it wasn't just republicans this is a drip yes and no what's a what's a fool oh okay you're not that they make you capitalized they're an association we're not bad I wonder if they can have a health plan sorry um okay um sorry I know we have something else coming out uh-huh regulation of cannabis that's why I'm eating carrots so um just um so there's another there's another section or proposed amendment in the new age bill that has to do with our area of jurisdiction and I just didn't know what we're going to have an opportunity to review that um if you think we should um I haven't seen I've seen many different drafts of language that I have not seen I mean so I don't I don't know I mean so I don't I mean it's interesting because we're both sort of and inserted ourselves both then in terms of the child care piece because it was in the bill as it came over um and amendments that happen I mean things that get added to the bill in there get something nothing that's I mean there's you know nothing that says we can or can't or um except what we have on our plate you know I mean it gets in kind of thing otherwise I would say individuals okay real strongly that's what I was yeah um for folks who don't um that was kind of cryptic sorry okay there there is talk I mean and if you if you read your um your summaries from the home health agency it's it's in your language they are um they are proposing to do some kind of um addressing of the Medicaid issue for uh home care providers etc so that's where that is so we are waiting for Michelle we will be this will be our last day of of doing this and we will um as we are um today we're just getting I'm not sure we'll get the whole work we're getting a walkthrough of the cannabis um bill and there she is in sections of it in particular and then we have we've just gotten uh an email from the commissioner department of mental health about it um our focus is on medical marijuana and the public health um which were implications or not there of um and so we may be having um uh commissioner squirrel come in and I was maybe you know thinking if there's someone who's maybe not attached to the current administration so because um just to sort of do that um how's this so we can of course as opposed to I'm in my secret I absolutely she was gonna put with your coffee come on come on come on up um and I do um um to let you know Michelle there will be a few people who are um leaving for a few minutes at two just because there's a bill being signed that is important to them I will not be offended okay I just want to give you sort of a heads up and if it's too much of a critical mass we may have to take an unplanned break so for the record Michelle child's office of legislative council and you're discussing s54 today um so uh and Michelle some of us have a hard time hearing okay does the microphone help now that's just for the taping okay I'll make sure that I took my retainers out so hopefully I can project so we're going to be discussing s54 and I think as you already know um it's right across the hall government operations we've been working on ever a few weeks and the chair sent letters to four different committees including this one asking um other committees to take a look at certain provisions in there make recommendations to government operations for I imagine they asked you as humans from this committee to specifically look at the provisions of the bill that deal with the medical registry program and the regulation of dispensaries so just as a I'm going to give you kind of start in broad kind of strokes here and kind of try to set up the framework for the discussion then you let me know if I'm going off in a wrong direction um it may not have been in excuse me and her email she also informally said that she'd be look she'd be very happy to have us look at advertising okay um and in my cursory review quickly of the bill um three people who were made up the cannabis board and who they are and their qualifications would be something this committee would be interested in okay so there is a um they have not taken it up yet but I am on the process and you can imagine of working on a a big government operations committee amendment and there are things that in their amendment that they have not reviewed yet that they will do tomorrow that have obviously changed since when it came over from the senate and things like the composition of the board and some provisions on advertising as well so on things that perhaps that you want to discuss it might be that are not in the medical program it might be better if I can then get you the go box stuff that way you're not kind of starting back with senate version when they've already kind of tended to move past that already right this is this is a working program okay um so uh so generally um what I what I want to let me see pull up here see what's on here so I think I'm going to start out with a timeline here so for folks so you should be able to go into the witnesses and have a final so I want to just talk about the bill generally because I'm I'm guessing from a time perspective you don't want me to walk into the bill you want me to give you a summary of it um at present we may come back okay because um the intersection of so many aspects of this bill with medical from what is a public place is it the same definitions you know a closed space I mean there's definitions in here and are they the same as what is currently in law so there's but right now I think to give us to center us is right I'll just do an overview in terms of go back and walk through the proposal but I would say that it probably to do a whole walk through that we'd be able to work off of what government operation this is is working off of at this point instead of the ask house by some number one um but just generally in thinking about this so as you know because um you guys have dealt with this issue through the years is um we have a current uh medical marijuana registry that's in it's um within the department of public safety is regulated by department of public safety they also regulate the dispensary to adopt it um the medical dispensary law 2004 so you've had it for about 15 years um and on that patients can register where the department of public safety um uh they get a uh they have to have a debilitating medical condition that's defined in the law they um have their health care provider who they have a at least a three month health care provider patient relationship that health care provider can sign a medical verification form by testing that that patient of theirs has a debilitating medical condition that is defined in law and so it's not a prescription it's a it's a confirmation that the person has this particular condition and then the patients admits that with their application the person can be on the registry um the registry when the registry started um possession of cannabis was illegal across the board so this was an exemption out of those laws when it passed in 2004 what you saw in 2013 was the general assembly decriminalized possession of an ounce or last for adults 21 years of old dirt and then last year there was an adoption of page 511 which took effect July 1st which removed all penalties including civil penalties for possession of an ounce or less of cannabis for adults 21 years of age and it also 511 allows people to grow two mature plants and up to four immature plants but the difference with patients is that they're still an advantage to being on the registry even in the page bot post 511 world because that patients can have two mature and seven immature so they can have three additional immature plants also patients can have two ounces in addition to their plants and also they can or the only ones who can access medical cannabis dispensaries um caregiver can as well you can be a registered caregiver for a patient um also on the registry so right now patients and caregivers are the only ones who are allowed to access the dispensaries um what s54 does is it sets up a new regulatory authority which will be the canvas control board and this would be um the body that would work on establishing the new kind of commercial system and going through and and doing the build-outs of how it will be regulated adopt adoption of the rules and they will be doing it not just for the commercial system but they would also be doing it for the medical system as well as we think about it so right now we have a whole system of you know certain criteria in order to be able to be a patient on the registry and to access the services and goods at a dispensary um but if you have a system whereby basically you're licensing other businesses to be able to sell retail and you have someone that is um a patient and they can walk into a retail store and purchase cannabis and cannabis products um it forces you to look at the the limitations and the and things that are around the medical program right now because they may be kind of inconsistent so an example might be like right now occasion in order to go to the dispensary they have to make an appointment they have to designate a particular dispensary they can't go to all of them and which one they have to let the DPS know which one they're going to go to and they have to make an appointment to go so to reflect our pharmacies some of us can only you know our insurance will only reimburse certain has a special relationship with certain pharmacies okay um and um so then the question is is um if that same person could walk into a retail cannabis store and purchase products does it still make sense from a policy perspective to require that that same person if they're going to go to a dispensary to obtain cannabis from a medical dispensary to have to designate only one store or to make an appointment so there's kind of you have to look at the medical program at the same time that you're looking at the commercial program it's a great question and then it's kind of a little bit behind and we'll grade it too far and catch her so right now if you and I wasn't on this committee before so some of these are a little bit old but right now if you are in the medical program you is that considered a prescription no okay so that's not a prescription you you just it's run differently and you can't federal law preempts the states from doing that so it's it's simply a your health care provider is signing a form that is verification that you know I've had this relationship with this patient I've done a physical examination I know their medical history and they have and they have whatever is the qualifying condition and I mean that one might be helpful to them or right they don't have they don't have to decide no they don't have to be recommending marijuana they are just doing the verification of the illness okay right they don't have to agree or any of that so the prescription piece right now I know it's not but then I have another question around description so right now though in Vermont if you need a prescription for an antibiotic you can't tax that right so then this would mean that in the medical marijuana world because it's not prescription it will be taxed the same way as no cannabis and cannabis products currently that are sold by dispensaries are not taxed and under S54 they would not be taxed so under S54 the proposal is that cannabis and cannabis products that will be sold retail in a commercial system would be subject to a 16 percent excise tax and a potential two percent local option but anything that a patient or caregiver purchases from a dispensary would continue to be untaxed it's just really interesting because now we're going to hope if we if this opens it up a little it would never have anyone to go to a medical dispensary because it wouldn't be taxed I guess you'd still need the physician you still need the physician and you know we can make our comment around that at that end that is really a ways and needs issue in terms of taxation but you know on the one hand we're like oh see we're opening this up so but on the other hand we want to treat it separately so okay okay I just wanted to understand the past versus what we're headed thank you so again talking just big picture about about the royalty of cannabis control board so government operations has is looking at having it be a five member board so having an additional appointment in addition to the governor putting the chair the senate and house which first they would also have the treasurer and the attorney general appoint members to to the board and this board would essentially be kind of coming together in the fall hiring executive director and administrative assistant and then they've got a whole host of things that they've got to do right off the bat and they're gonna the big lift there is going to be a beginning starting the two draft rules for the commercial program in the medical program which also looks to regulation of the centuries so I guess we'll have to look at that one with their amendment um government operations is well the bill as it comes over um maintains medical marijuana as well as a commercial marijuana they the bill proposes to do away with the current regulatory structure of medical marijuana and replace that with the cannabis control board and there is no one under cannabis control board that has any kind of public health there is not any requirement with regard to specifics about those appointing bodies well I mean and and there's no appointing body it references public health or health I mean so you know so you have a medical I mean I'm just you know I mean if that's if that is really I mean we don't see it but from what I just heard you say right there is a requirement that they are to establish an advisory commission and so that is where I think people have an interest in saying advisory commission shall have folks on there with the business and regulatory experience or social justice issues or public health or those types of things I think is what the discussion is going on that being specific about having certain subject matter expertise being in the advisory commission but not tying the five board member positions to a particular field and um I guess no discussion then or maybe discussion in the advisory board that um sorry I'm not formulating this very long um we have several years of experience now in medical marijuana administration under public safety and I understand the Senate's desire to do that out I'm just um wondering that we've learned a considerable amount one might think um about from our experience there and it doesn't seem to be represented anywhere because I guess I'm just making more of a comment that's not a question thank you I think maybe once I can kind of scope out the different pieces it might start to maybe it might answer some of some of the other questions about about this is that so from just going back to the timing of it so the board is going to be kind of coalescing in the fall working on regulations they're also um going to they're going to be coming back to the general assembly in next january with recommendations for the second and third fiscal year build out for the program because the positions and appropriations that are created in S-54 are only dealing with FY 20 and not dealing with the second and third year um pieces of that they're also going to be coming back in january for recommendation on fee structures because there are five and they're going to be five different types of licenses that people can apply for in the new commercial system so it's a cultivator a wholesaler product manufacturer retailer and a testing laboratory and so people will be able to obtain one of each but no more than one so um right now currently under the dispensary program they are vertically integrated which means they can do everything from you know plant the seed to sale to patients and caregivers they would continue to be able to be vertically integrated under one license but that's not how we work in the commercial system that somebody wants to do that they would have to have one of each of the different five types of licenses but they could have no more so um it couldn't be you couldn't have you know one of those kind of big west coast companies that has you know franchises out there and multiple stores and things like that they could only have like each person in the one retail store um and so the so the board will be recommending a fee structure because there'll be tiers within each checker license and so they'll be coming back in January for that um then uh there are then they're going to start formal rulemaking um at the beginning of next year and that's going to take some time um they're going to as I mentioned they're going to be doing the rulemaking for the medical and the commercial at the same time so that hopefully you know there's going to be a lot of overlap in terms of you know what makes sense and then with making distinctions between the two programs where that's appropriate um so uh what matters to you guys um the in terms of the medical programs they are not due to shift over from the department of public safety to the board until January 1st of 2021 so the dispensaries and the registry will continue to operate under DPS while the board kind of gets its its footing under them and they go through the whole rulemaking process and so those programs wouldn't shift something that they're discussing across the hall but they haven't signed off on but they can so I don't know how much you want me to talk about it one of the things they're considering is allowing dispense existing dispensaries of which there are currently five licensees to be able to do early sales to the public prior to the whole new commercial system coming online and so the way that that would work is that this summer an existing licensee could apply to the department of public safety for what would be a temporary permit to sell cannabis and cannabis products to the public and so that would uh that they were able to get the license they would get the license the later part of this year and then they would gear up and they could start selling cannabis and cannabis products to the public in addition to their services to patients and caregivers they could do that essentially from July 1st of 2020 until September 1st of 2021 at which time that temporary license would expire and that's when the retail commercial sales start so it is something that would only be uh on a temporary basis the dispensaries would have to pay a $75,000 fee each for that temporary license that fee would go into the cannabis regulation fund that's established for 54 which is to support the new commercial system so the way that 54 structure that came over from the senate is that all fees that are collected for application for licenses for annual licenses all that goes into the cannabis regulation fund the tax money as it's structured from the senate all goes to the general fund with the exception of the local tax it goes back to the local folks and but there is no the issue is that you have a hole basically in the fund at the at the beginning of all the regulatory work and so with the early sales you have money coming in from the temporary permits going into the canvas regulation fund to support the work of the board getting the commercial system up a month and then that year period the year and two month period where dispensaries will be selling to the public the 16 percent excise tax would also go to the fund to kind of fill the hole before until you start seeing revenue coming in from the public sales under the commercial system as of September 1st during the early sales would medical patients and the rest of the public be going into the same physical space for the dispensary what are the I have we've got language on that and one of the things is that they're allowed to dispensary would be allowed to have a different location to serve the public if that works because it might be that where they serve patients now might not um maybe there's not enough parking maybe there's because when we see what other states are tends to be long lines and that sort of thing so there are accommodations in the language around ensuring that dispensaries continue to meet the needs of patients and caregivers so it would it does things like says that those folks wouldn't have to make an appointment but they still would be able to make an appointment that dispensaries have to make sure that that patients are served in the way that like it's you know in other states it's kind of like there can be a line down the block for for commercial but if you're a patient you have a card you go right to the front of the line kind of a thing so there's a prioritization of serving the patients in a if they're doing both um but it's not required that they be co-located um so it could be a separate location one of the um is that I'm trying to figure out um in there somewhere it says total five stores online for under existing law under this under this yes yeah so it says total five for the temporary yeah because there's five licensees now and they get limited to only having one point of sale to the public now does that total of five stores statewide here it is yeah okay so that's when it goes statewide other than the dispensary on the temporary license are they going to be more than five once the full commercial system is up and running there's no limitations in the bill it's going to be up to the board so they'll consider a number of factors and one of them is geographic distribution so you know if they've got um yeah all the applicants are in yeah I gotta leave so I just want to get my shirt um right now we have to find dispensaries the satellite offices to satellite places are they are going to be allowed to sell the cannabis on a temporary basis through those satellites they might be allowed to sell out of one of the satellites but there's only five licenses five chemical licenses so there can only each license is entitled to have one location for for public sales during the temporary period so if they have two spots that they currently serve patients they're gonna have to pick one or it could be that they say well neither one of those is really um maybe they decide that they don't want to be co-ingling sales to the public with their services to their patients they might choose a completely different location and as long as they get approval from the municipality where they're going to do that then they could have a separate location but only one you mentioned that one of the differences is that medical patients have to have an appointment is that in the law or is that in the operating procedures that's in statute they have to make an appointment to go is the um you mentioned the medical marijuana um they will have this year props a little more than a year period of time when they can sell to the public right is the thinking that the medical dispensaries would kind of segue into the regular consumer retail market if they want to continue doing sales to the public they would at the time that they're that they're operating under that temporary permit in addition to their medical you know registration they would have to apply just like everybody else for either you know for whichever licenses of those five that they want because at september 1st 2021 that temporary is going to be gone so they will have to have to queue up to be ready that if they want to continue retail sales after that they will have to have obtained a new retail license from the board that will pick up so so michelle i apologize community i apologize for reminding when i look around the room we have no r's here and i'm not comfortable having especially in this topic continuing our education and understanding without the representation without full representation so i want to say it's a bill signing so why don't we assume a 15 minute break although i know we'd only have you till like 245 or something um i can be here longer it's i think you guys have something on schedule but i can adjust it oh no okay well you know we may be taking our break now as opposed to 3 at 245 because at 3 o'clock we get to your back recap so let's take like a 15 minute to 15 531 still in our discussion they said they're going to vote it out it's an important bill they have to get it out this week um they have a number i don't know what the number is but it's not our that's what i'm going to presume since it's uh let's see if they have a number i don't know trying to think i saw an article on it but yes the governor asked him to cut it back by millions oh really five million whatever article i was reading that they didn't talk about that but they said they were just there was yes there was an article on digger about that but then there was some i don't know some correspondence from the governor's office that came out if you go on the joint postal web page um there is a click on appropriations there's the copy of the letter being sent senate appropriations about all right that's what i said and um i of course because i'm so good with math it's like no we really are not over what you actually initially yeah we just took some money from somewhere else and put it there well you can't really tell if the two points i in the quote western France is really his proposal or not because if you take that out well it's still two dollars seven and so okay and he's um so i don't like they say by Thursday we need you to have a really good talk to him oh man yeah there's not very many republicans in the senate really have you noticed it tricep tricep say that again i mean perhaps perhaps because um i supported the governor on the lead bill i just shook my hand he said thanks a lot on the lead bill okay um i just been told that i'm in charge so welcome back shell thank you okay so you were you were kind of sure just do that so um so in thinking again kind of big picture is the idea is that dispensaries and medical registry would continue to operate under the department of public safety until january 1st of 2021 at that same time the new board cannabis control is getting the rules adopted for the new commercial system and the new medical program including dispensaries getting that we're also is the dispensaries while still being regulated by dps may apply for and receive a temporary license to in addition to serving patients and caregivers they may receive a license to have one location either an existing place for a separate location to be able to sell cannabis and cannabis products to the public from july 1st of 2020 until september 1st of 2021 when commercial retail sales go live and then that then that temporary license would go away um so with regard to like Teresa you had mentioned well there's this expertise that's been built up within dps so as i mentioned only the first fiscal year so fiscal year 20 is contemplated in here in terms of the physicians and appropriations and things like that because you don't have any money actually coming in until that um f y 21 in terms of the commercial system with people applying and paying fees to get the new types of licenses and so but the board is going to come back this january to the legislature and say this is what we're going to need for the second year once we start accepting all these applications once we need to start going and doing site inspections for licensees once we need to do compliance checks once we need to do all those things and so they're going to come and they're going to make recommendations one of the things that they've made very well do is they're going to say well with the medical program shifting over from dps into the board is like in the middle of f y 22 is they may say we're going to recommend that you take those physicians that are currently in dps you shift them to the board maybe you reconfigure them whatever it is and so i think they're probably going to be you know the board is going to be working hand in hand with dps and existing regulators who are are running the programs to kind of on how they're going to get up the new program because they're going to make sense to borrow all the stuff that's working well with regard to the registry and dispensary to look how to integrate that into the new system and some of those positions may be that's not in here because that's out the little ways so um i think you're kind of in a opposition of having to give us information about what other committees are doing so i appreciate that i appreciate that um so um i'm intrigued by the creation of the whole cannabis control board like a separate board so you know it's sort of sounded to me like we're not care board we'll take our cannabis and um i just i'll put that there i think ceiling's about that whole thing um and so it can you elaborate a little bit on what the thought was about not using an existing governmental structure sure um so i think if you look over the last um few years with some of these t and r bills um uh sorry oh tax regulator sorry um i used to i think i started drafting my first tax regulator bills probably you know um 18 19 years ago but they used to be short form i think i appreciate that from the sponsor at the time um but they've been you know they've been evolving over the years and so you started to see them really um uh really start to build out a game traction in the in like uh in like 2013 2014 and i think that 15 16 session was when you had s 95 and s 241 s 241 which passed the senate a few times and um and so the first generations were looking at having um a system within the department of public safety since they're the current regulators for the medical program um but uh you know i think people just kind of felt well do we is that the right home once we kind of expand it from something that you know the the discussion about cannabis and the policy on cannabis has been evolving over the last several years right rather than like when i like when i first started working on this it was i i'm the person who's always you know cannabis for the office because it was firmly always criminal and i do criminal law and then what started happening is then it's going into the medical realm then it's being decriminalized then it's being legalized now it's being discussed more as a commodity of more alcohol and tobacco and other regulated commodities rather than being firmly in the criminal realm and so people were thinking well does it really still you know initially the medical program was placed in the department of public safety because out of concerns that you had a schedule on drug that it was otherwise completely illegal and criminal to possess in this state which it is no longer for certain amounts and so there's been a shift in the in just the dialogue about cannabis and so i think then there was the determination and i don't think i'm going to raise here but i was gonna say i don't think i'm going on alone by saying dps wasn't super psyched actually about there it's not what we do necessarily they weren't about the idea of being commercial regulators for cannabis industry at the time and so then there's discussion well if it's not they are where should it be well then there was discussion maybe it should be in the agency of agriculture food and markets because they do you know cultivation of of plants and bringing things to market and maybe it should be there and there were discussions and there were proposals and probably a few things passed to send it with it being in the agency of agriculture but then because it touches on a lot of different issues people felt well it doesn't just really belong in ag either um dll was certainly considered but dll uh department of liquor and lottery um but that's different because um we have a we're a controlled state and um and so the the way that that works is we actually the state is in possession of the alcohol and distributes the alcohol which is something that um our office has advised against when it comes to cannabis because while um we have treated it differently under state law at the federal level it's still considered a scheduled one drug and we're the control system act and there are severe penalties for possession and distribution and um and though that exists now and the federal government could choose to take some type of enforcement action against anybody who's including cannabis business now um but we don't really see that there's been something um there's been a provider on the federal department of justice um uh appropriations um money um for the last few years that specifically says that doj cannot use any of its budget to um come down on states medical cannabis programs um and so that's been at restriction as far as the medical programs they could choose but it's really just to it's up to the feds about whether or not they want to choose to enforce the csa so all those states out west you get the whole entire west coast that has a regulated market it's just up to the feds about whether or not they're going to choose to take any enforcement action against somebody yes no control substances act federal yep sorry we have all the uh yeah so i will i will remember that um and so so certainly my recommendation to to you guys as my clients is you know i think with with having such large markets regulating markets currently an operation probably vermont you know little of vermont if you have a regulated commercial market probably isn't going to be at the top of that enforcement list but if you all the sudden if the state has big warehouses of cannabis like it does with alcohol and then the state the state workers are engaged in distributing that campus i think it might be a different a different equation so um so the dll model doesn't really fit i think so because it's kind of it seems as though there's different agencies within the state that have little pieces um legislators and both that it wasn't obviously the senate bill but also and there was a house bill h196 that a lot of folks signed on to and it was the same there as they looked and said well massachusetts has a different model whereas they created a an independent um agency independent commission so the um the campus control commission in massachusetts so that is independent it has appointments the way that this one does and that they operate so they're an independent executive branch agency essentially um and that today would um work with other agencies and departments to kind of collaborate take information they'll be more collaborative with ag with maybe they can you know learn from training and compliance from dll learn from dps on you know the experience of regulating the dispensaries also and pull all the information together and then they are there's language in s54 that says you know with it when it comes to rulemaking they're to be consulting with these other agencies and collaborating when there's specific expertise i imagine when the ed comes back to the jihau assembly and talks about you know this is what we need for year two and year three build out um they're going to try to use existing resources and state government you know one example would be using the agriculture laboratory so um so you have this ad lab that i think is just now getting going and so um this board is going to want it's going to be requiring compliance testing so there's a lot of language in s54 that requires testing in different ways in in the chain of cannabis right before it comes to consumers and um and uh in so each different type of licensee is going to have certain types of requirements for testing and they're going to be required to do their own testing and they may contract with a test a licensed testing lab to do that for themselves but the the regulatory body is going to want to do spot checking and compliance checking and they may say well doesn't make we don't want to duplicate services so we want to utilize the services of the ad lab for that and and so they'll coming up for a proposal so they're not going to kind of recreate things that already exist they're going to try to link into existing systems and the concern with having it in one of the existing agencies was if you put it in one place there there was concern that if you had multiple agencies being involved in the licensing and having duties that it kind of creates a little bit of a bureaucratic kind of octopus that might not be the most efficient as opposed to having it all contained in one regulatory body that coordinates them and has their own rules and their own enforcement thank you has anybody um estimated the size of the bureaucracy that it's going to take to do this thing um because it seems like a whole different thing that's being set up well uh I think you've got two now you've got the you've got the dispensaries that are built and they're being regulated and watched over now you're going to have the other and it seems that's going to be safe time this is sounds like a big operation to me I'm just wondering how the oversight is going to be done well you know the contemplation is you have the five member board with two staff people at the beginning they will be making recommendations as as I had mentioned for the build out for whatever additional positions they may need um for the but um but I think that that kind of remains to be seen um and it's going to depend on the number of applicants the number of licenses how many need how much oversight do you need um you know we have estimates on what the current illegal market is but you know it's always not like you can get an exact number on that really and so you know one of the stated goals of 54 is to try to move it as much of the illegal market into the regulated market as possible and so you have kind of guesses you know we have the ranch report um that was completed for um for the state several years ago um that estimated that there's a hundred thousand cannabis regular cannabis users in in the state and so um I don't know what the number is on the dispensary my understanding is that the dispense the registered patients on the dispensary has dropped since 511 took effect last July so I think we were we're pretty steadily moving up for a while and then they've seen the numbers drop but somewhere between five and six thousand and so if you take those folks plus you know maybe so you subtract because again I don't know you have a hundred thousand people who are using and most of them are using um either in they're participating in the illegal market where they might be growing their own or they might be sharing with their neighbors because under 511 which passed last year um uh any persons 21 years of age or older can grow cannabis for themselves and they can share up to an ounce with other people um and so it could just there's a I'm sure a big sharing community but there's also a very you know very well established vibrant um illegal and so what they're trying to do is try to move as much of that illegal market into the into the regulated market as possible and so the question is how much of that comes in to the regulated market and how big is that okay so um I just want to remind us though that although this is all really interesting are um our focus is supposed to be the um what this bill will do to the existing medical program that this committee has overseen Carl just you mentioned to figure five or six thousand less people are now registered how many total registered patients registered patients oh okay but do we know how many have been lost to the system uh yeah I can check with with the details about that but I know that we were it was steadily moving up and then once we actually got that we can find it online because we had we had a volunteer a couple weeks ago my reflection is that it was a bit but it was a little yeah it just wasn't it did not continue to go about right um so I'm going to go through I have you have on your iron pass just something which is excerpted language um I'm just going to focus in on so what's what page are we so if you look at the doctor that's got our cookies um oh I'm sorry so uh the registry of the unofficial section do you have um do they have the one that I sent you earlier today it's on their ipad okay so I think that because that is kind of the latest uh gov ox hasn't really done much to this but there are a couple little tweaks so I think if you look at that and you look at the language it says under my name so cannabis registry sections of the bill and I just excerpted some things from the current gov ox amendment and so um we're looking at this language what it is is it is adopting the first section section nine here is adopting a new chapter for a medical cannabis registry this new statutory language would not take effect until January 1st 2021 so it wouldn't start until the program shift over so that so everybody would still come to the patients who still continue to operate under the existing one January 1st 2021 this is different I mean then what is that what is already asked uh we just we just started this okay so I don't I haven't done any kind of comparison I can tell you I can get the highlights of really what it is and this is basically kind of setting the very basics for a registry so there is a lot that is not here that is currently in chapter 86 and and then it directs the board to basically take this kind of baseline um formula and then promulgate rules further so there may be things that are currently either in statute or rule that the board may decide to add but if you look at um in the definition section is so you have cannabis which is the same meaning that you have under current law I'm just using Cambridge one of the things about the shift over is the terminology so I'll typically say cannabis although I realize I'm under current law it generally refers to as marijuana but they're the same thing um cannabis products those are just meaning anything essentially to consume anything from a consumable to to an oil to a cream or something like that those things are currently available at dispensaries the definition of health care professional is the same as in current law something that is not the same as it relates to a health care professional is that under current law in order to be a registered patient you have to have a bonafide health care professional patient relationship which is means that you have to have a relationship with that health care provider for at least a duration of three months there are some exceptions for that but generally there is a three month requirement for that relationship that is not a part of the current language in what's being considered the definitions for our mature immature plans are the same subdivision eight qualifying medical so it's being the same includes individual to a professional license yes the definition of health care professional that's in here is the same exact as current so so current law allows new Hampshire yes so the definition of qualifying medical condition the term is different because it's debilitating medical condition under current law but the definition is the same so there's no changes there essentially what would be the entry for the verification so so what is the import or what what is the impact of taking out the word debilitating if we take out the word debilitating what does it do in terms of going forward I think it's just a policy choice of how to use the current we have I mean we have a bill on our wall that I think that I mean that has come over from the senate that deals specifically with medical marijuana and the conditions and things like that and so removing the term debilitating and make it from a policy point of view make more sense to open it up to other kinds of things that are just a medical condition that are not debilitating I see I see what you're saying no I think it was just a I think it was just a preference for a language choice under the other body to not use debilitating it would be more of a talking about what you don't qualify but the definition is the same so moving on to the next section for the registry simply states that the board is to establish the cannabis registry for the purpose of allowing persons with qualifying medical conditions caregivers to obtain privileges regarding cannabis and cannabis product possession use cultivation and purchase subsection E which is at the top of the page so under this proposal again remember that this is going this is going to be going forward in a in a world in which everyone can possess a certain amount and also purchase so a patient will be able to cultivate no more than two mature seven immature plants that's the same as current loss with no change there they continue to be three additional immature plants than what any person could do I thought it was four now it's seven no it's it's four for for someone who's not a patient okay I thought the legislation was too mature for that's what passed last year but that's for like somebody like me who's not a registered patient patients right now can do too and they would continue to be doing so there is new language there right after that person instead any cannabis harvested from the plant shall not count towards the possession limit so what happens so right now under current loss for patients patients can have two ounces of cannabis they can also grow their two and seven plants but the law is silent on what happens when your plants become mature and you want to harvest it and so it doesn't really talk about that but last year in h511 it did address that issue with regard to everybody and it said that for everybody who can have two and four and you can have an ounce and whatever you harvest off your own plants as long as you keep that in a secure location where your plants are grown that doesn't count towards your ounce because the idea is that like if you're only allowed to keep an ounce and you're allowed to grow if you harvest five ounces off your plants are you supposed to flush the other four down the toilet or what do you what do you do with it the you know so when you when I talked about how much you can have as your you know your ounce that's separate apart from whatever you harvest off your plants if you choose to grow which you don't have to so um so this just trues this language just trues it up with what you passed last year to clarify about what happens when you harvest your plants so it's the same so what does someone do with six ounces it's really sure I think what a lot of people do is if they grow outside and then they harvest that and then they store it didn't that's as long as it is stored in the inter-facility on the property oh right yes you're barn yep you're good so so can you give me then um I'm not really interested when we say possess that just I guess means on their person at any point in time because you possess it even if you're storing it someplace else it's just an example the idea that you can have that in on your person so it could be you know in your backpack or somewhere three ounces is a lot of canvas and you know how it's very it's very lightweight you're zooming but you just three ounces seems like a lot to carry remember so this is separate apart not everybody so we think about I don't know they may have data on this like what proportion of patients actually grow their own versus go to a dispensary in order to get their their products so so they're allowed to do either so but for someone who perhaps isn't going to grow and then maybe and you want to talk to dispensary about this and they go and they obtain their cannabis from a dispensary my understanding from the testimony before is that there's a wide variety depending on how long somebody's been using whatever symptoms we're using it for things like that about how much they need and especially when it comes down to certain products that have the silicone of us down to something that some people have you know want being a higher um conversion because of the type of product it is but this is referring to cannabis not cannabis products yes but I would say that this is there's a translation um you know maybe would add to these a three ounces of cannabis or cannabis products in combination the way that they do for detail sales I remember us having this discussion on the medical marijuana bill about how much the difference is in right tinctures and the weights of different things but I was reading according to definitions and this would be the plan only it would not be tinctures and edibles or anything else that has a separate definition okay I got a good idea we can use the plastic bags that we're trying to get rid of the store is it's three ounces what we have the medical marijuana bill ma'am it's currently two ounces two ounces okay current law current law is two and we increase that from one yeah my recollection to two and some feedback and now we're going to go to three this is our particular set so far just just said curiosity could a person be a um a uh patient of the essentially can be a regular person at the same time so they could have seven 11 and four no you can't no but the the the way that their registry work is it is is an exception to the rule the rule is I can have um I can have an ounce and I can have two or plants yeah as a registered patient I'm exempted from that and I get a special I have the special opportunity to be able to do this my two and seven if I'm a patient but I don't get to add I don't get to I don't get to be under the benefit of so so I've been thinking about what what are the benefits as a registered patient in a commercial world is you can have three more immature plants you can have an extra two ounces and you have the ability to go to a dispensary so that's what's in the free there and you can be and you can be under 21 so when I'm talking about the commercial I'm always talking about you have to be 21 years of age or older that you do not have to be on the registry you can be um on your 21 you can be under 18 as long as you have your parents guardians so I'm gonna actually so I'm gonna skip around if that's okay I'm gonna go actually to the dispensary language I just want to highlight because I think it will help me talking about it about understanding what patients the benefits for a patient so you're probably going to hate me when I say this but I think what will help this committee is to have a side by side of the current medical um and you know half the piece of paper says current and half the piece of paper says proposed because then we know what are we um looking at to um to change um so if I can direct your attention to page I guess it looks like eight of this draft page six and looking at the dispensary language okay I just wanted to go through the you can see the things that they're allowed to do because this relates to again if you're a patient what does that get you on a commercial um if someone's using the big claim that we got it's page 43 so the first is the language about that you know it's the intent that there continue to be a system of a regulated license cannabis dispensaries for providing certain products and services to patients and caregivers um that's separate apart from the commercial system um so if we look at subsection B there on section 971 so a dispensary that would be licensed here would be able to do the following things that are not that will not or are not in this draft compensated to be allowed for commercial licensees so as I already mentioned they could continue to be vertically integrated under one license um but they would also uh the products that cannabis and cannabis products that they would sell would not be taxed um so then to the patients they would be able to deliver cannabis and cannabis products to patients and caregivers so under this current draft delivery is not available under the commercial system but it would continue to be available through dispensaries um also would allow patients and caregivers to um in addition to delivery to be able to purchase without needing their vehicles um so there's one facility that allows the drive through them um they'd be able to produce and sell products that have a higher THC content than is permitted for cannabis establishment so in S54 there's restrictions around um you can only if you're doing a certain product you can only have you can have a maximum of 100 milligrams of THC per product it has to be it can be no more than 10 milligrams per serving and then there are other provisions in there that allow the board to be regulating the types of products that are offered and putting kind of criteria on there about what's sold and so it may be that the dispensary by rule is allowed to offer different types of products with different concentrations so that would be available in the commercial market um so that's four and five and then also similarly they might be able to produce and sell products that are not otherwise permitted um in the commercial market but might be appropriate for the medical and then they're allowed to sell larger quantities um to patients and caregivers because under the commercial system they're being limited to announce can I ask a question so in in one I mean in uh two three and four um this specifically refers to patients and caregivers so in these six sections for patients and caregivers yep and then five six and seven don't refer to patients and caregivers is it intent because these licensees theoretically will also have commercial license no it's just a language thing I didn't um it's in dispensaries under the under the intro language in the way that they're able to do are only allowed to be selling all the products for patients and caregivers okay if you look at um section 973 thoughts about specifically and so if you look at 973 83 so I just wanted because I wanted to tie in kind of the dispensary parts when we were still talking about the patients um so those are the things that appear that being on the registry the advantage is to be on the registry subsection c back on page three um is just with regard to privacy and exemptions from public records it's enough to what is contained now with the medical registry top of page four subsection d directing the board to establish an application process is rulemaking so currently in statute there's all the stuff about the forms and what the form shall look like and how they shall be and everything is all prescribed in the statute that's not done here it's more left to the board to be developing the application process and forms so section 953 are patients so uh so we're talking about the board person can register to obtain the benefits of the registry um uh in addition to an application form to be completed by a person who seeks to register as a patient the boards will develop a medical verification form to be completed by the applicant health care provider and submit by the applicant that has to the person having a qualified medical condition but again it does about in the statute it rather than just picking up that existing it allows for it to be able to look at the existing your modifications have been worked on you cannot get familiar with the provision in subsection b of 953 that's as already mentioned if you're under 18 you have to have your application signed by a peer guardian section 954 allows for uh someone to serve as a person's care giver um so they can apply to be a care giver on the board so um all of these things are pursuant to rules adopted by the board um and I guess the question is in the current law my recollections at least that we have some sort of guidelines about who can do what and and or hence and I guess I'm just making that as a notation we're a little more specific about right and I think we're going to be really helpful Michelle um and we're going to have to start with because at three we're moving on to 3k um is it it's especially as it relates to the existing medical marrow walking law and statute if we really have this side by side so that we can see it I know you're doing it as you go time um knowing this committee we'd like we need it visual and then we can go back and um we may go oh it doesn't make sense but when we see the goal we'll go okay yes it does make sense to to do that so that would probably be a good place to start um and I regret that we need to stop because hopefully we're in the hall we expect to secretary we expect two secretaries oh actually the secretary and a commissioner because um because um uh secretary gobae turns out has an appointment come on in thank you thank you Michelle thank you our goal is to have every single member of the council in there We may recall that two or three months ago when we were talking about pre-K and the relationship between agency human services and agency of education. We were told that there was a report coming. So this is our opportunity to hear the report and we are welcoming Clare. Are you Clare? I am Clare. Alright, did you? Sure, I'm Clare Irwin with Education Development Center presenting on our inter-report and this is my colleague. Yes, I'm Erin Huckill, I'm a Research and Education Development Center. Well, thank you. I'm here for technical assistance. I'm Dan Fritz, Secretary of Education. I'm joined by my colleague, Ken Schatz from agency human services. We're the folks that commissioned this study on your behalf. So this little context, this study was passed as included in Act 11 last session. Two ladies here are the research, principal researchers behind this work. We're going to turn it over to them to give you an update, but just so you know, this is an interim update on a report and final part to do in July. So thanks for having us today. So I do also just want to acknowledge my colleague, Janet Cook, who is not here today, who is also doing a lot of free work on this study, so I would be remiss to not mention her. So today we want to go through just the study background, just a little bit of an overview of what Act 11 is really asking out of this study. I also provide an overview of what we've done in the status report. We're flipping number four, so we're actually going to do the next steps before we talk about the findings just to give you a preview of what's coming next. Just again to reiterate that this is the interim report based on half of the work that's been done and we are still feverishly working away at completing the data collection and analyses. And then Erin, I'll turn it over to her and she can provide an update on the findings that you should have received the report, so she'll just be providing an overview of what was in there. If at any point you want to jump in with questions, we also have a couple of spots where naturally we have breaks for questions as well. So again, just a little background. As you all know, you're probably very familiar with Act 166, but it was passed in 2014, fully implemented in 2016-17. It has wide reach, so that's I think really exciting that the legislative legislature has taken this on and is really being careful about looking at it and studying it. You can see approximately 75% of four-year-olds and 60% of three-year-olds are actually affected by this or they're participating in it, I should say. So really Act 11 really wants to understand how to more effectively and efficiently provide state-funded universal pre-K in Vermont. Our timeline is we started this work back in October. Our interim report was submitted in March and our final report will be submitted in July, so it's really a quick turnaround for us in the research world, but it's been fast and furious and fun, so it's been great. So the key areas of interest for this study, I'm paraphrasing here. There's a little bit more detail in each of the, in the Act, but really how well is the funding model working? How are families making choices about pre-K? Does the system provide equitable access and especially for kids who may become more disadvantaged backgrounds, particularly rural or low income? Does the current system create undesired outcomes? And how can oversight be simplified? So just by way of a status update, so we have conducted, analyzed and summarized the findings from 13 semi-structured interviews. So these were with legislators, the Agency of Education, representatives from Human Services, Agency of Human Services, the Vermont School Board's Association, as well as the Superintendent's Association, Building Bright Futures, and a professional university of Vermont. He's very familiar with pre-K in Vermont. And then Erin also conducted a systematic review of the research literature across multiple different topics related to what Act 11 is trying to decipher. So as you saw in the interim report, that's really focused around kind of summarizing and merging together the two sets of data which would be from those state-level interviews and the review. So in terms of next steps, we are in the process of interviewing pre-K providers. So we've taken a random sample of 30 providers across all of the regions of the state. This includes private, public and private center-based public and family child care providers so that we ensure that we have a range of opinions, also a random selection so that we know we're getting all the different kinds of voices that might be coming to the table around this issue. We also... Head Start is actually another one. We ensured. Are they included in your... Yes, we ensured that they were part of that sample. Yep, absolutely. That's a great question. And we also are going to be conducting a survey of families regarding their pre-K program choice. So this we'll get at, how are they making choices, what are some things that may have adversely impacted them, and so forth. And then we're also going to be conducting an analysis of data that may be provided by the agency of education. So for example, one of the things that we'll be doing is looking at kindergarten students and comparing the demographic characteristics, so, you know, race, ethnicity, special education status for reduced price lunch status between those who accessed pre-K and those who did not access pre-K. So it's a kind of a retrospective looking back. And then of course we'll draft the final report and submit by July 1st. So that will wrap everything up. That's where we'll kind of make our final recommendations based on all of the information that we've collected together. So I can pause there for questions before I pass it over. Can you tell me what a semi-structure interview is? Yes, that's a great question. So we have a structured set of questions that we start with so that we ensure that we're asking really about the same things of all of our interviewees. But our interviewees might mention something that kind of makes us think, maybe we should ask this question. So we allow ourselves to kind of go off of what the questions, pre-specified questions are if there is an area that we think we should explore further. So you have canned questions. Correct. And then the semi-structures, the other questions that might develop on that. Absolutely. Great question. So how did you figure out who did you ask? Who did you inquire? Who did you consult with to identify your semi-structure questions? Well, that's a really great question. Absolutely. So for everything that we've been doing with this, we've been working in close collaboration with the Agency of Education, so in particular Kate Rogers and Thor Greenwood, in addition to folks at the Child Development Division, so Riva Murphy and Melissa Rivo-Garrett. So when we have done any of the surveys that we've created or the interview protocol and even the report that you see me, we've sat down with them, shared that information with them and had a conversation about what they're seeing, what they think is missing. Anything that jumps out to them is important to me. So with both AOE and AHS. Yep. And it must have been involved with the community actions as well if you were dealing with Head Start. We're dealing with Head Start. So we have not communicated directly with Head Start. So for example, Renee Kelly has not been part of, excuse me, the conversations in terms of the specifics say instruments or interview protocols. But insofar as CDD oversees all of the providers, the Head Start lens has been brought to bear. How did you determine the families to interview? That's a really great question. So families are always difficult to get to. So what our approach is to, we have the 30 randomly selected providers that have participated in the interviews and we are asking them to help us recruit the families that are their families. We're providing them with online links that the families can access to complete the surveys anonymously as well as paper and pencil versions of those surveys with post-marked stamped envelopes so families can feel comfortable answering honestly and not feel like their providers going to be receiving those responses. So then you will have a sample from all the different types of pre-k's. Correct. That's the assumption. Go on. Okay. I saved a surprise. Okay. I'm going to pass this over to Erin now. She's going to talk about some of the key findings from the report. So as I mentioned, I'm going to talk about the different sections of the report and going to our key findings both from our interviews with stakeholders and then from the research literature as well. And so we'll start with delivery models and specifically we've looked at Vermont's misdelivery model for pre-k in which public, private, home-based providers and head start providers are all able to become pre-qualified and participate. And when we spoke with interviewees, they generally expressed support for the misdelivery model. And one of the main positive aspects they pointed out is that misdelivery allows for a wide degree of character choice. And so parents and families can shoot from a program that works well for them in terms of the location, the educational philosophy of the program, the hours of operation. Let's them pick something that works well for them. We also heard from a more practical standpoint that Vermont might not be able to offer a truly universal pre-k program without mixed delivery. And some stakeholders thought that if pre-k was limited to public programs only or private programs only, that there just might not be enough seats and enough capacity for all the three and four-year-olds who want to enroll. And we also heard some concerns from the stakeholders we spoke with. One was about the cross-sector applicability of regulations that were originally designed for private settings or home-based settings and that public schools have faced some challenges or found it to be somewhat duplicative of their own regulations and safety standards that they are already applying with. And one other concern that came up was that some stakeholders noted that there had been some pockets of misperception and mistrust between public and private providers and possibly has been exacerbated now that both providers are working more closely together to deliver the same types of services. So you've heard from public support, public providers who thought some of the regulations were duplicative or whatever. Did you hear from any private providers who feel like the regulations are duplicative or don't fit? I should have set that stage a little bit better. The interim report is focused on the state-level interviews. So I may have confused the situation by talking about what we're doing next first but all of the key findings we're talking about now for any of the inter-interviews were all at that state level. So there were no providers that were part of that conversation. As of yet, we are asking them about those things. And so we looked at the literature on mixed delivery. We found that experts have expressed support as well for mixed delivery systems and they pointed out similar to the MOT stakeholders that mixed delivery allows for a wide flexibility and parent choice. They also noted that mixed delivery can help to promote broader involvement in quality rating improvement systems. So providers are more likely to opt into the STARS program, for example, or to try to increase their rating within the STARS system. And that mixed delivery can also help to reduce child transitions. So families can choose from a program that operates for 40, 50 hours a week or a full year schedule. And so that reduces the number of times children within a day or a week have to go between multiple types of programs. One concern that came up within the literature, though, is related to possible inequities between public and private providers based on the salary and benefits available for teachers and that generally public schools are able to offer pre-K teachers higher salaries, more expansive benefits, and that this could, in theory, lead to a situation where the fast pre-K teachers end up in the public schools because of those options. I just talked about that support for the mixed delivery system and parent choice, and I'm just wondering, in your literature review, there was anything noting, anything worthy of note with regard to actually having the opposite impact a mixed delivery system might have in other words that before when three and four-year-olds weren't really eligible except for under, you know, limited circumstances for public pre-K kind of situation and now they are eligible for public pre-K any potential reduction in choice because of the private pre-Ks not being able to having fewer consumers in that sense, having fewer families and fewer participants in the private pre-K you seem to have noted some essentially going out of business of the private pre-K because of that. Sure, I haven't come across any of that in the research literature, but that is one thing that, you know, as we're talking to providers right now, they may bring up with us if there's a concern for them. But within the literature, that was not something that we were going to discuss. Thank you. I'm going to ask, what's the research literature? We've talked about experts and we've talked about research literature. So what, I mean, is that education? I mean, what is that? I think it's so interesting that you bring that up because I was recently in a situation where we were talking, being taught what jargon that to use and literature was one of those things that we were talking about to you. And we're using it anyway, so there you have it. So it's really the research base. So it's the studies that we've looked at that we've summarized. So when we can talk about the research literature, it's kind of like what's out there around a particular topic. How do we know that what's out there isn't just me writing about something? That's really good. So do you want to speak to the criteria used for what you've reviewed? Yeah. So a lot of the research literature that we looked at is peer reviewed. So it essentially has to go through a process where it was vetted and feedback was provided by the colleagues, the professional researchers, who are investigating these various topics. So that was one criteria we looked for was just simply what was within the peer reviewed literature. And then we also spent time looking for other evaluations of state pre-K programs. So within other states that have early childhood education that's publicly funded or pre-K programs that are publicly funded, looking at those types of reports as well. And then as far as the specific criteria that we used, we really tried to build in our criteria for first terms around the issues of interest to Vermont. And so thinking about those core questions that we're looking to address, and we based our search around those particular terms and issues. And then once we actually got into reading some of these studies, not as a hard and fast rule, but oftentimes we tried to select the ones where there was a strong research design so something like where they basically have a control group where they're looking for children who participated in pre-K against children who didn't participate in pre-K and what those outcomes were. So really thinking as well about the quality and rigor of the research design or the data set that researchers were looking at. So you're making it sound like it's a control group, but the one who dropped out in pre-K was just not ready for school. So if we're comparing her to her sister who succeeded we're not really comparing comfortable kids. And to that point that's why in all of the work that we've been doing around universal pre-K in Vermont we've steered clear of talking about it as a control or really making those comparisons from my perspective until we have the data that will allow us to understand what are some other early childhood opportunities that children are participating in. So you may have children who are getting 40 hours a week of high quality care but you only know about their 10 hours a week of pre-K because they're private pay and no data system is going to pick them up. So there are a lot of things that happen with kids in early childhood that make it impossible for us to say treatment and control. What Erin's referring to is looking at studies that were either kind of experimental, it sounds like a terrible term I know, that's jargony, in where they did have a control group or a treatment group or those that would be considered what we would call quasi-experimental where they really have a strong research design. It's not an experiment but you're able to control within reason for other competing explanations of why you might see differences in children's outcomes. So she's really speaking to the research that was reviewed, not so much what we're doing and I wouldn't say that even the work that we're doing as part of this evaluation is going to be quasi-experimental or any of that. We're really helping kind of show the landscape of what's happening and make inferences as best we can based on a bunch of different approaches to looking at the information in the data. But you're very correct. When we talk about the funding models in the second bullet, K through travel funding formulas are best option. Is that from the research or is that from the Vermont street bullet like you said? Sure. So the second two bullet points there are from the research literature and so thinking about those K through 12 funding formulas, so there are experts in the K through 12 funding or pre-K funding who have looked at different types of systems that states use. So a lot of them might use a K through 12 funding formula. Some use lottery proceeds for example and some states rely on an allocation from their legislature each year and they typically found that by using the K through 12 funding formula and just adopting pre-K to make it a pre-K through 12 formula that these states typically have the most consistent and stable levels of funding from year to year and generally the highest amounts of funding overall for pre-K. And so we're fair to say that they are all public pre-K They're all publicly funded pre-K but they may be within a mixed delivery system very similar. So other aspects of funding when we talk with our inter-group use there were some concerns that were brought up one was about that there are some stakeholders within Vermont who prefer that public funds be used for public programs only and maintain a general opposition to the use of public funding to go to support private programs. So that was one concern we heard. Another issue that was brought up related to possible inequities in the amount of funding between public and private providers and this was based on the fact that public schools typically are funded for pre-K students through that funding formula I just mentioned and private providers are funded through a predetermined tuition amount and that those numbers typically are not the same with public schools typically having higher amounts of funding per student and so there were some concerns that that might lead to inequitable funding levels between different settings. One other thing I wanted to mention just going back to the research literature on K through 12 funding which is also relevant to that point about different funding levels by setting is that some states that have a model similar to Vermont where they're using a K through 12 funding formula to fund pre-K and they have a mixed delivery system that some of these states have established guidelines where for the amount of funding that goes to a public school through that funding formula if that public school then chooses to subcontract with a private provider that they're required to get a set percentage of the money they received through the funding formula to that private provider and that's regulation in some states what it plays to help ensure that there is equity in the overall funding levels. In addition to K through 12 funding formulas one other option for funding pre-K that we mentioned in the report is pay for success or social impact funds and this is something you may have heard of or be very familiar with but essentially these are a relatively new model of funding early childhood education or other government preventative services in which an external investor puts up the initial funding for the program so they kind of take on the risk of whether that program will be successful or not and then they are only repaid by the government if certain targets for outcomes are met and so for pre-K this might be something like an assessment score that students are measured on or a reduction in special education placement or some examples we've come across and so if the programs meet those targets the government then agrees to pay the investor who initially funded the program and so this has been used in Chicago and in the state of Utah to fund expansion of pre-K services it is a newer model and so it's hard to say how it really compares to the K through 12 funding formula but it could be something to keep an eye on in the future if there are other examples of states or programs set up to use this route to see how those come out I've investigated deeply pay for success models for other issues in incarceration things like that I've always been told that we don't have the density that I've got people like in order to really implement a pay for success model you know like in Chicago I'm just curious if you've found other communities that model more our size and our identity that you know I think it's a great idea of public private partnership but I've always been told that we can't really take advantage of it because of our size because we don't have enough population so I'm just curious I've heard that I don't know if it's perhaps because the investor is looking for a greater return frankly than what could be achieved I know that with the programs in Chicago we have Goldman Sachs I do believe I'm not 100% sure but I do believe there are some smaller organizations like I'm familiar with one in Boston who are doing similar work I don't know if they might really continue to conquer a smaller return than some place like Goldman Sachs perhaps but that might be something similar and how do under some of these models how would they just open up the recruitment or some of these students who would seem that they would tend to people would try to limit the intake of their students to guarantee the outcomes so I think it would seem hard for me to understand how you would adequately do that So part of our success will take models that pretty much have to have an external rigorous evaluation of the outcomes so having a research team and a plan in place for the evaluation and agree measures in advance of what you'll look at as a successful outcome and so having that external research or evaluation team is really your safeguard against a program claiming success maybe hasn't actually achieved that So one thing I'll say I think that gets maybe at your question too is in a state level program like Vermont's your kind of intervention or what is actually happening in the classroom is not necessarily the same and so you may have less of an ability to affect that outcome than you might in even a city where you might have more control over what's happening at that level because it's more local control so that just might be another we actually didn't talk about that previously but your question makes me think of that is that that might be another concern thinking about a paid for success model in a system like Vermont where you have a lot of local control you have a mixed delivery system and so the different approaches to the work but I can see how it could be skewed and people have to work on setting up some controls and not a lot of issues So another area we looked at was access and dosage in terms of who is eligible to participate in Pre-K and with dosage we're really referring to how much Pre-K students participate in per week or how many years they might participate before going to keep your garden and we talked with stakeholders they were generally mixed and so we had an almost even split of the folks we talked to as to whether they preferred universal or targeted programs and so some people told us they really preferred to have a universal system in which everyone is able to participate and there aren't any criteria and so we talked to said that they wanted to make sure Vermont was really prioritizing participation and or the amount of hours to week for under-resourced children Many of the interviews we spoke with also suggested that 10 hours of Pre-K per week might not be sufficient and they went on to recommend that the state consider offering a creative number of weekly hours and then when we look at the literature on universal versus targeted Pre-K one of the questions that often comes up when states are deciding between the universal versus targeted program is really do students across the income spectrum do they all benefit from Pre-K or is it only certain subgroups of students and the research generally shows that students from all income levels so low, medium, high income do tend to see benefits from participating in Pre-K but that those benefits tend to be greater for students who are in the low and middle income so there are benefits across the income spectrum but they tend to be higher for low and middle income students We also looked at was there any distinction in the age group or any distinction in your researcher in your discussions with people around 3 year olds versus 4 year olds in terms of access to pre-school Regarding universal versus targeted not as much but maybe this other point will answer your question so we did find that there are benefits for students the research tends to show there are benefits for students if they attend Pre-K so in age 3 and age 4 typically before going up to kindergarten those kids tend to have greater outcomes in the short term than students who attend only at age 4 Does that answer your question? Yes You're thinking kind of an interaction between income and age so for lower income kids do they have an added benefit of attending earlier Is that what you're thinking? Yes and is there any difference in outcomes for age and type of Pre-K that they participate in so whether it's private center based private home based or public Pre-K there's a difference across the ages and their access to the various types of Pre-K So I think that's a great question and I think it relates to so we can just drop this down so this is definitely something that we can take a closer look at and release I think also to how we maybe parents make choices about Pre-K and you know maybe they're choosing more of the family providers or the private providers for their younger children and perhaps making different choices of older ages we're obviously going to be getting at some of that but we wrote it down and we'll take a look because I don't want to answer right without having the right answer. No I appreciate that. I'm troubled by the use of the term short term gains. What does that mean and what do we lose when that's over? So that's a great question so in the research a lot of the research have looked at the outcomes for students that can regard an entry or at the end of the Pre-K year and a larger question is do those games persist for students who attend Pre-K as they continue through their education or is there the possibility that students who maybe don't go to Pre-K for early childhood education and start at kindergarten do they catch up to their peers who attend Pre-K essentially. With this particular bullet point you'll see here about short term benefits for students who attend for two years that's based on the fact that the research has really looked at short term outcomes primarily obviously it's much more challenging to study students into high school or adulthood and there's just not as much literature on the long term outcomes and the relationship between attending for one or two years so is this research done on ten hours a week of Pre-K or is this research done on five days a week four hours a day so for this we focused on and focused on kind of the more comparable programs so I mean you've probably heard of the headstart impact study perhaps so kind of just speak to you know where that study was a randomized control trial where they actually did randomly assign kids to attend headstart to not attend headstart you know it showed great gains at kindergarten and then by third grade the kids looked the same and the kids are in headstart for more than 10 hours well so this is different very much so and they have a lot more regulation over exactly what it looks like also the Tennessee Pre-K and that also probably was more and Eric can speak to the number of hours but in terms of the catch up or the loss of gains or the catching up of kids who are not in Pre-K there is some evidence that quality might make a difference as well so there are other researchers that weren't the primary researchers on the headstart impact study who examined it a little bit closer and did find that there was variation in the third grade reading scores depending on the quality reading of the Early Childhood Center the Headstart Center that they were in yes, headstart is different than 10 hours of publicly funded Pre-K but there have been other studies that have been done for the Tennessee Pre-K study that also did find that it's kind of the big conundrum right now in Early Childhood is really understanding how can we show sustained gains not that we don't want other kids to catch up we want them to all do well but how do we show those sustained gains from Pre-K and are we measuring the right things really to be honest with you I'm trying to I'm having a tough time trying to understand bullet two three two, four, and five and one it says the interviewees talk about increasing the Pre-K hours the other one says it's an unclear relationship between weekly hours of Pre-K and child outcomes and then the last one says that there was a short term gain in kids that spent more hours more time so I'm trying to figure out that yeah, that's a great point and so one of our goals here is to talk about and present both what we heard from the state level stakeholders who we interviewed and then also to show what the research and the data on similar topics might say and so in some cases frankly those the findings from those two different ways we went about collecting information may conflict somewhat and so you may have a situation where stakeholders say well we really think that a certain thing should be happening within the program and then the research literature might say some things that we've different or might not support that exactly the same way that the stakeholders pointed out to us so we think it's important to take into consideration both what we're hearing from those within the state and then also what some of the broader research says as well and then these are kind of two different issues so one is again that question of how many hours students receive per week but then the other is so the years of pre-k we might think of that for more of a developmental perspective for young children at what age is the most appropriate or kind of official for them to be getting this early childhood education and a structured pre-k program and so the question there is really do those benefits come in starting at age 3 typically or do they come in starting at age 4 so the distinction is so bullet 2 comes from the interviewees so that's that data source so they just had a general feeling that more pre-k hours were needed based on their experience and expertise versus 4 and 5 come from the research that we reviewed so it may be that so the unclear relationship and I think that there is a distinction there to make that it wasn't 10 hours versus more it was what was in the research which you had said the part-time versus full-time so that part-time might be defined years it's actually defined differently which is one of the really difficult things about doing early childhood research and trying to understand it but that part-time was generally defined as 15 to 20 hours and full-time is really more of the 30 to 40 hour range so it's again not apples to apples when comparing to Vermont's situation but there is this idea here where the number of hours that you get in a week might impact your outcomes but there's also the idea that separately the total number of years that you attend pre-k might impact your outcomes and so that's what those two bullets that's what kind of differentiates those two bullets there public picturing a statewide interview stakeholder he said they were state level stakeholders and now I'm talking about Riva so we are talking about folks like Riva, folks like Dan folks like some of our colleagues around the table the legislature we had a professor at the University of Vermont Building Great Future the interim executive director the executive director of the superintendent's association as well as the school board's association so really kind of high up people who represent in some situations really do are kind of representatives of their constituents I mean have they visited programs have they been in the room with teachers and children I mean to speak to that that's why we're doing 30 so we did 13 of these we wanted to get kind of the general reasons for doing these interviews in addition to kind of creating these interim findings was really to kind of get a sense of what should we be asking providers so that we kind of came armed with okay here's what the general sense is let's ask providers about these different topic areas and let them talk to us about what is really happening for them yeah hopefully we can talk about you at some point and we'd like to ask lots of questions get to what are your interim findings right so where were we in our quality so we just want to speak to that so these are our interim findings so one of the things that we want to ensure is that folks understand that this is kind of what we've found so far along the way but we really feel like it's important for these in addition to the other results from the other interviews as well as the family surveys as well as the data analysis from the data that we'll get from the agency of education exactly for that concern of what do this they're coming from a particular perspective and these questions that we really want to know about really relate to what's the reality on the ground and so to make choices or to have key findings that are kind of recommendations for how to move forward without having that information would be a little bit premature so quality comes under equitable access or desired outcomes I'm looking at key areas of interest and how it opens up I'm trying to figure out where these things fit into what in fact your attitude should be looking for so I will say that so these topic areas relate to also how the RFP was structured that we responded to so again there are actually areas here and I'm going to have to go back because I'm sorry to make all of you dizzy you know I think that absolutely it relates to equitable access I think it also could relate to how families make choices around pre-K so there are different pieces that are important and there are kind of topic areas within pre-K that were important to explore in terms of a literature review I think that you know we wouldn't really be able to do some of these things around these kind of broad overarching questions like does the system provide equitable access it would be very difficult to kind of focus a review of the literature on something so broad you probably would be happy with the 200 page report that we provide to you so so you responded to an RFP excuse me commissioner yes what input did AHS have in the RFP I think that for the record Ken Jepps commissioner of the Department of Children and Families I think Riva and Melissa may have some impact on the limited nature but honestly I think the legislature by describing the scope of the project primarily did detail the major parameters of the RFP jump on quality so we also looked at quality so the question of what makes for high quality pre-K program and one aspect in Vermont are the teacher quality standards and the minimum requirements for teachers and we found that stakeholders were concerned about the variation in teacher standards across different settings and so some of them were worried that these different standards could lead to inequitable student experiences depending on the type of setting that they could have and other comments that we have related to quality one regarded the STARS system and a suggestion to simplify the STARS rating requirements and then another was related to offering more professional development supports and making professional development more accessible particularly for private providers who might not have the embedded brain professional development opportunities that their public school peers do and then when we looked at the literature on quality we found that what is most important for providing a high quality pre-K program is what's referred to as process quality and so this process quality includes really the nature of the interactions between children and their pre-K teachers or even between children and other children in the program so in particular thinking about high quality instructional support such as providing regular feedback for pre-K students and for providing them with scaffolded learning opportunities we did find somewhat surprisingly in the research that it was found based on analysis of data typically no relationship or limited relationship between early child and educators level or type of degree the outcomes for for children this will be this is one of the potentially core debates in this state right now in terms of while in schools we're moving towards proficiency based class whatever proficiency based as opposed to things grading A, B and C and structured kinds of things it looks like what the interviewees want is to simplificate concern over teacher qualifications but then you say the research says there's limited relationship and if we are teaching our students in high school using a more proficiency based process what the you know it seems like there's a disconnect so perhaps we can clarify a little bit here too I think with the research of showing us that more of these proficiency based quality indicators of a professional do matter so that's that process and certainly those instructional supports that are being provided the way that the teacher is interacting with the students and the children in the classroom but what the research is not really showing is that there's a strong relationship or any relationship between teacher's licensure and student outcomes that's not what this says it's an educational level of education and child outcomes that doesn't say licensure in terms of some research I do believe has shown and I believe it's that perhaps a child development associate might have some relationship but that's so we can we should clarify here and I think it is the literature obviously over viewed in the report but that it's not necessarily that no education itself has no relationship but that there may be particular licensures or certifications that may or may not be related to child outcomes but that the stronger relationship is really between these process quality aspects and student outcomes so when you take it to the next this when you're actually evaluating our system how will you so you'll with the 60 60 sets is that what you're doing at 30 sets how are you going to find doubt you know connect educators level and the quality and the outcomes of the kids so we're not looking at child outcomes part of that is I should back up a little bit I shouldn't say that we're not looking at their outcomes at all we are looking at associations with T.S. Gold Spores but in terms of linking educator qualifications specifically to do what you want to jump in I'm looking at your key areas of interest does the current system create undesired outcomes well how do we know what an undesired outcome is if you're not looking at discrete data it's happening in Vermont the next phase of this right so I think there might so I guess it depends on how we're defining outcomes so if we're defining outcomes strictly as student at academic outcomes that's one thing but the way that we were interpreting what the law said and what we were asked to do is looking when we're thinking about looking at undesired outcomes really looking at are there undesired things that are happening so families making choices about pre-kate if they wouldn't otherwise be making because of the strange vital limits of how do we find that out to our family survey created that we're going to be implementing starting next week and then also through our provider interviews and will you be connecting I believe that the Child Development Division just did all survey BDF just did a survey on families family choice will be much more in-depth and we've been consulting with actually we sat with Riva and Melissa and they reviewed the survey that we created we also have received copies of and attended the webinar that was just gone by NORC and ORC who were the contractors who did conduct that survey so there is some overlap but actually click on this thing not much because that's a much higher level than what we're hoping to get out of this survey we're asking much more specific questions I think you covered it I think that we definitely are working together to make sure it's limited duplication obviously we want to provide the work that had been done by NORC to EDC and I think that's hopefully helpful as they dive deeper into some of the questions that need to be posed here so obviously that is important I will add that from my perspective but I do think I will mention the issue about outcomes Aquasitics is still relatively new and so the question about whether or not third graders, sixth graders are actually doing better is something that is really important to me and I think we should think about how we're going to actually measure that but frankly it's too early to tell I will say one of the things I think it speaks to Sandy because earlier you had had some concern over your you know you're thinking about this is a control and this is a treatment you know there's only so much that we can control for and one of the really big things as I mentioned earlier that we don't have so we will look at outcomes but there are differences in the number of hours that kids are receiving depending on which program type that they're attending most likely and we don't know anything about that and so when we have proposed the types of analyses that we'll do we've been very cautious because we don't want to present findings to anyone to suggest that one thing is better than another when that data mate you know we're missing so much of what could be an alternate explanation for example so I don't say that we're not I would love to do a study that lists outcomes kindergarten, first, second, third, grade until the data systems are there I think we need to be really creative with how we define outcomes, how we look at outcomes and how we interpret what we're finding because the data just really don't support a clean association between pre-K and outcomes when you look at family choice will you be able to look at to factor in socioeconomic status we do ask a question on the survey about that and you know we are really hoping that families feel comfortable answering that question it is an anonymous survey one of the difficulties with getting at families is that we don't have an agency of education doesn't have nor to CDP you know family addresses or ways for us to contact families directly so we really don't have a way of doing it any other way than asking them outright what's their income like. One of the comments is sometimes made about the publicly funded pre-K as contrasted to the private I mean is that those who can readily take advantage of the publicly funded pre-K which in Vermont is 10 hours a week are those where both parents don't work or where their socioeconomic status is such that they can figure out how to get the kid somewhere else in hour 11 and so I don't know if that's true but that is one of the comments that goes out there and so for talking about equitable access love to see whether is that rumor is that an urban myth or is that in fact steeped in any kind of reality. And I think one you know we'll be able to get at that a little bit with the family survey and then also with the data analysis that we'll do with the agency of education data we are able to look at free reduced price lunch status and see where they are enrolling and we've already through another contract we have the US Department of that where we're working in partnership with CDD and AOE around issues around pre-K we've already on the 2016-17 school year data done an analysis to look at enrollment trends based on child characteristics and we previewed that last week to the House, Senate, and committees. So this is the final section we looked at was the administration of the pre-K program and we found that many but not all many of the stakeholders who we spoke with supported the idea of administering pre-K through a centralized single agency. But we did hear other suggestions so some stakeholders preferred to continue with joint agency and felt that having both agencies involved would bring different perspectives into the pre-K administration and then we also heard the idea of possibly creating a new standalone agency that would be responsible for administering pre-K and possibly other early childhood programs in addition. And many of the stakeholders who we spoke with supported the idea of optimizing contracting and payments at the state level. We thought that would be an important step toward streamlining the program administration. And one other idea we heard was to think about devolving responsibility for the delivery and monitoring of the program to the regional. And so this would essentially make pre-K similar to K through 12 where a supervised reading would be responsible for providing a quality education to the pre-K students within its boundaries, either in a public setting that they provide or by contracting with private partners to provide pre-K in those settings similar to tuition students at the K through 12 level. And then when we looked at the literature we found that there was really no one-size-fits-all best model. We were looking for that. It would be great to find. But yeah, there was no one perfect model for administering pre-K and it really would depend on the state's political contacts and their background. But that said, experts have pointed to benefits of consolidation. So for example, making communication easier and strengthening communication between those involved with the program simplifying the monitoring efforts and then just overall reducing duplicative efforts or redundancies in everything that we should see. And so those are the core findings from our interim report that we wanted to share. There were other questions or anything you can clarify? I'm just wondering probably goes back a little bit but did you find that people responded many differently to what we call childhood development or childhood education and people make that differentiation sometimes that early childhood development is different than early childhood education? There is something that some of the stakeholders brought up and for example in some cases where we heard the recommendation to continue with joint agency that was part of the rationale was that it brings in the perspective from those who may be more involved with early childhood services alongside those who are involved with more of the educational system services. Interesting how parents respond to that. Making one of those what do you call those questions in terms of all that right? So much. Kicking screen you're going to make us researchers. Absolutely. My question is actually just semi-technical. I'm assuming the use of many some etc. very non-quantifiable numbers is just because you're not ready to tell us the real numbers right? I mean there's 11 people in the room who said one agency and six said a standalone agency or is there another reason you can see actual So it was a relatively small team people and we wanted to protect the confidentiality of those who we spoke with and so by kind of providing the most specific numbers those people feel free to talk with us without thinking that they specifically are going to be identified and as I'm a quantitative researcher my training and I would say that with a sample so small jargon over so yes thank you so you know just when we're thinking about you know we're thinking about quantifying how many said this and how many said that the overall sample size is very small there's only 13 and so I would say that you wouldn't want to infer too much by saying oh this percent of the sample said this because one person changing their mind could actually make a big difference yeah but it's a good question well you know your sample size sorry yes sorry so rolling way back to almost the beginning of your presentation I think I heard you say that you were interested in children who might be disadvantaged whether by income or living or rural or living in the country being rural and I wonder if you consider rural children with disabilities so considering I'm in a very rural part of the N.E.K I'd say I don't and so far as resources can be more sparse yes so so it's more of a geography thing it's not specific to the characteristics of the children themselves but for example the other study that we just presented on last week we were seeing that in the 1617 school year there were supervisory unions with as few as zero pre-qualified pre-K programs within that boundary with the supervisory union and as many as 23 so understanding what does access and equity look like in those supervisory unions where you have zero one, two, three pre-K programs of public or private available to kids I think is a really real question yeah rural communities and kids are more isolated absolutely and so again when you're talking about the private pre-K programs you're talking about the private pre-K programs that the school is providing some money to we're talking about publicly pre-qualified pre-K programs so private programs who have become pre-qualified through the pre-qualification process and are eligible to provide pre-K services and the thank you for coming here your wife our world is education our world is child care and at the beginning of this legislative session we had a report from Building Bright Future and one of the first things they said is we need to clarify the oversight of the organization we ignored that and did a great bill to try to make some address some of the issues in the RCCFAP system so I keep looking at the kinds of things around the systems level that we seem to have made changes and we obviously did not use the word pre-K because for us pre-K means on some level you're funded by the education fund and we're not always sure what the difference is in terms of and child care center on hour 13 and I should say that my research background is not just specific to education so it's child care as well so it's early childhood in general and I'd say that it's not a unique position I do research in Connecticut as well and they're actually one of the states that has chosen to have an office of early childhood at the state level as well as Massachusetts where here on this they have a early childhood office but I think that that is the question and it's definitely stuff that our partners at CBT brought up right is if we're interviewing these pre-K providers are they even going to understand what you say when you say you're 10 hours a week of pre-K because it's not necessarily the outcome dry for sure we understand yeah I'm still a little flummoxed by the quality about the research just looking at your more detailed explanation from your powerpoint about there being no or limited relationships between early childhood credentials and child outcomes and so I just want to encourage you to have some more discussions with Riva about that because we definitely have differences of presentation about that kind of information it would be helpful for us to understand the differences between research that CDD has done on this and research that you're doing actually in conversations with Melissa she has indicated that this is what she was expecting so that so again to the point that where we had a conversation around how there is research that has shown that having a child development associate is more related to child outcome and increased child outcomes so we have had these conversations with CDD we actually sat down in a meeting they received the report beforehand and then we sat down and discussed the findings all together in the same room with Kate, Riva and Melissa and as far as I know now I'm not speaking for Riva or for Melissa but I do know that we have had that conversation and it seemed like we were on the same page there that this kind of they were not surprised by these findings we'll have other conversations with them thank you I mean if I may just along those lines I know I specifically asked Riva about on the educational background of child care people what was the difference between somebody with let's say an 8th grade education a high school education a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in other words nobody can give any definitive number but I'm just trying to get at a difference of 1%, 5% 20% in terms of improvement in the outcomes and I didn't get that and basically I was interested in your last bullet start along this line how would we come up with something along those lines because I mean basically the overarching comment from Riva and others in the department for it's just a tremendous amount of evidence that says the higher the educational level the better the outcome higher the educational level of the presenter or the person in charge of the children but hearing what you're saying there doesn't seem to be the correlation that I've been led to believe there is yeah I think it also depends on how it depends on how you're defining the education level and what you're looking at so there may be a difference if you get to a certain level so once you get to your child development associate what is the coursework that you've been getting you've gotten a solid understanding of human development, child development working with young kids it's really focused around the early care setting but when you get licensure once you get to the point if you could have gotten licensure in early childhood but you never have been in a pre-k classroom so I think that there's I think it really depends there's a lot more to the story than just what's that certification it kind of gets to the question around proficiency based what are those things that you're actually receiving when you're in those programs and I think sticky off the top of my head now but with a child development associate I think you have a lot more canned you know what you're getting about some of these other certifications which may not be showing the same associations that you would expect but the what's behind those is a lot more varied so maybe that's behind what we found in the larger thank you thank you if I may I do appreciate that sort of elaboration I'm struck by this too and so I have not had those in-depth conversations with you but it is complicated I think there are issues related to educational outcomes which I think is what you're looking at here as opposed to some of the more broad child development outcomes that we were also talking about but I do think this would be a very fruitful area to have more conversation I think it's really important I just want to commend the researchers for giving us this preliminary report the hard part is to come they still have to make recommendations and so I think for me this was one of those areas that struck me as something we need to better understand have more conversations you may know that the issue of the education requirements with respect to child care is a fairly complex and controversial issue and so I think it really does warrant more conversation and so I do want to sort of confirm the comments that you've made that I think we do need to dive a little deeper into this and see what it actually means again I look forward to your recommendations to figure out where we want to go with this and I think we can add so you know one of the way that we try to focus because there's a lot of research out there on all of these topics and so to focus on kind of the context of the public pre-k publicly funded pre-k so what we can do is maybe it sounds like this is probably a really good area for us to go back and do a little bit more exploration so what we can do is explore more what are those different delineations of CDA versus not a CDA or an associates degree versus not an associates degree in the context of Vermont the question is really around licensure right teacher licensure do you have our certification and do you have that level of education and because that's a degree requirement as part of the legislation so what we can do is go back and maybe explore a little bit more across the span of education level and then conclude that in our final report and what I would hope is that if you find things that based on what is in the legislation create barriers or in fact create unanticipated or vulnerable outcomes that just because when we wrote this we said this then maybe we let go of that or maybe we add onto it I guess I would hope that you are not constrained in your recommendations by this is what the law says so this is what we're going to build on the law it may mean changing the law thank you oh my god when I look at your more detailed thing it talks about experts have suspended but there's 13 of them the experts they would be researchers that are so that's who the experts are and who are yet others have raised concerns that public settings will attract and retain the best teachers via superior salaries and benefits who are they so those are the researchers as well and in some cases it might be the same researcher who is ready maybe the experts the pros and cons excuse me thank you again because I appreciate that question and I will admit as I read it having lived through this for a few years I actually was trying to guess who said which things and honestly I think you all did a really good job just so you know of summarizing and putting forward many of the things I've heard over the past few years so using that example I have heard folks talk about that question and issue and I've heard that from providers I've heard that from the CDD that one of the disparities is salaries and that it is challenging for our private pre-K providers to pay the same salaries that public schools pay so that is one of the issues they do highlight quite clearly in this internal report and I think it's real and we just finished the challenge here right and literally we could be here for a few hours and ask you lots of questions and thank you very much a large cadre of our committee needs to be somewhere else by third 30 and we have a commitment to making sure they can do that so I want to say thank you very much and we look forward to the next chapter thank you very much