 I'm Tim Ash, the president of the Senate, and I'm joined today by Senators Phil Baruth and Debbie Ingram who are the chair and vice chair respectively of the Senate Education Committee. And over the next hour, we're going to be talking to some school teachers and staff to get a real-time sense of some of the concerns or things that are being done to ready for whatever education looks like come September. And we are not going to solve all of the problems facing reopening, but this is a chance for us to do some backfinding in advance of the legislature's return in a few or a couple short weeks. So I'm going to let Phil and or Debbie say a quick word about the Education Committee and taking in this information. Then we'll immediately turn over to our four guests and also want to alert people who are watching this that the Senate is going to have what we call an all-Senate caucus, meaning all 30 senators are invited to participate in a more informal structure on Wednesday at 3 o'clock with Secretary French. A number of people have submitted questions for today, which are probably best directed for that conversation. And so anything that we don't touch on today will make sure that we raise with Secretary French and give him some heads up so he's prepared to respond to some of those questions. So I will cease my opening monologue here. And Phil, if you might just say a quick word from the Education Committee perspective. Sure. Thanks, Tim. And hello to everybody watching. I know it's an anxious time and I just want to quickly lay out what the legislature is and isn't doing at the present moment. So in the middle of an emergency like this, the Vermont Constitution gives the governor the power, the executive to move very quickly and nimbly and to frankly act while we're on recess, which we will be until the end of August. But the legislature's role is really to oversee the executive branch and that's what Debbie Ingram and I and the rest of my committee have been doing. One of the things that we also try to do is collect facts on the ground and opinions and worries and questions and move those up to the level of the Secretary of Education or the governor. So for instance, the governor just announced pushing back the statewide start date. That was something that began in calls with members of the NEA and other teachers and staff who uniformly asked us for more time. And so speaking for myself, my counterpart in the House, Tim, other leadership, we began to ask the administration to think about that. And the upshot was that that became the executive order. So I'm hopeful that today as in other calls with other teachers, I can pick up things that my committee can work on in August, but between now and August, take directly to that executive level and see if we can't move on them, even if the governor is reluctant. Great. And at this point, let's let's turn right to it. I know we have a pretty sizable crowd watching on YouTube, which I think is understandable given the level of complexity, but also the number of Vermonters that are impacted. So we have with us four guests today. We have Lindsay LeFave, who's a math teacher at North Country High School. We have Jim Johnson, who is a transit bus driver at the Champlain Valley School District. We have Chris Guros, who's a special ed instructor in Montpelier. And we have Alice Shermer Horn, who is an art teacher at the Mary Hogan Elementary School in Middlebury. And I think I'm going to start Alice with you. If you don't mind, we'll volunteer you to go first and you can give us give us your sense as from the elementary school perspective of how you're readying yourself for the current plans in your district with the state guidance. Some of the challenges you see, if any, and then we'll take it from there. Once you've unmuted yourself, we will have the benefit of there we go. Thank you. Sorry about that. First of all, I want to thank Senator Ash Bruce and Ingram for continuing to include educators in the conversation and planning a safe and realistic reopening for the fall. That's paramount. And I want you to know how much we really appreciate that. Last spring, I was certainly amazed, but not surprised at how all the educators I work with turned on a dime to provide online supports for families, both social, emotional and learning needs. And I must say that during the bus parade at the end of the year, seeing the plethora of smiling faces and families waving exuberantly at the buses and vehicles as we passed, I knew that the families really were showing us their support and appreciation of those efforts. So such a great group of professionals in the state, amazing educators and staff. So I'm very lucky. We're all lucky in that regard. Our district is working very hard. We have several task force or a main task force broken down into different groups that is working on the reopening. And of course, the Champlain Valley Superintendents Association of which our superintendent is a member of that group is working to make some decisions, of course, on reopening. We are using that the hybrid model and many of the concerns we have right now in our district are that although we're all going forward and in great detail with concern and creating these models, because of some of the difficulties that we face, some of the problems, are we creating a model that we can sustain? And unless we tackle some of these problems head on, we may be creating a system we can't sustain. So some of the things that I want to ask first, our state to help us with is supporting districts to provide any safety nets for sick time or sick benefits for staff. It used to be a teacher might go into school, of course, or a staff member with some sniffles or some sort of mild illness. Our nurse used to say if everybody was home with a cold, no one would be in the building. But now that's changed. So people might not have the sick time to stay out. You know, a minor illness could take days before you're able to come back. So we really need to be sure that districts have the support and funding to take care of that COVID related protocol for staff. Another thing that I'm really concerned about is our lack of substitutes. Right now, you know, folks right now are going, oh, we'll take care of it. We'll do it. And it's like, well, just hold on. We didn't have enough subs before. Many of our subs we had in our district are not coming back because of their age and COVID concerns. So really, this is an issue that could shut us right down. We need to hit that head on. Childcare for teachers is our, the legislator is fully funding schools so that when this is over, we can get back at it. But I know that my colleagues, I'll stop there and turn this over to my colleagues. I'm sure they'll add to that list. I have other items, but I think that'll get, get us started. So thank you. Debbie or Phil, any, any questions first for Alice before we turn to our next guest? Or would you like to wait? Okay. We'll, we'll wait and then we'll, we'll do it at the end. So Jim, we'll, we'll turn to you next and just explain to people what you do. And, and then same kind of questions. You're coming at it from a different perspective on the transit side and give us the sense of what the challenges are and, and how you guys are preparing. Yes. Thanks, Senator Ash. My name is Jim Johnson. I've been a school bus driver for Champlain Valley Union School District, which is the towns of Williston, Shelburne, Hinesburg, and Sherlock for 30 years. That makes me feel old to say that out loud. Um, and obviously I have a little bit of a different perspective because my classroom quote unquote is 40 feet long and 10 feet wide and I have to navigate streets with it. So, um, you know, I don't have the option to, to work remotely when we're not in school. We, we did provide some meal deliveries and we're involved in a great number of bus parades at the end of the school year, which I see kids get really excited to see, you know, see the fire engines and the, and the school buses and stuff. Um, you know, my concerns obviously safety and to borrow a quote that are a term that the, that Governor Scott uses as we, as we turn the spigot a quarter at a time. Um, I was happy to see that there was going to be a delay in school because I think turning that spigot a little bit at a time as we try to figure out these safety protocols and from a transportation standpoint, I'm concerned about, you know, health checks that have to be done on the bus, um, personal protection equipment that I will have to use. I will have to drive the bus as I'm good, uh, you know, masked up and possibly eye protection. And I'm going to, at this time, possibly have to take temperature checks of kids while I'm, while I'm driving. And, um, I can tell you if after 30 years nobody likes to be behind a school bus when I'm running on time. Um, so, you know, those are my instant concerns as we actually get back to school. Um, and then to kind of piggyback on Alice's thoughts is, you know, one of the things that we have to worry about is, is, is funding going forward, especially for me. Um, I'm hoping that the legislature can work with the Vermont Department of Health about like testing capabilities. Um, school bus drivers were at a shortage long before the pandemic started. And as cold and flu season comes along, I think any educator will tell you at times in the past that we've, we've come to work with sniffles or a slight fever. And that's not going to be an option. Um, so there's the safety aspect of that, but it also puts pressure on the rest of my drivers. If I can't come in, um, and are we going to have enough people to make sure that the school is staffed, that the bus is staffed. Um, so I'm hoping that there's maybe a testing program that, that might become available to, to schools. Um, you know, it's just a, it's a scary time as we all have this anxiety to go back. I think it is time to, to open that spigot a quarter turn. But I'm hoping that there's a lot of safety protocols that come with that. Before we turn to Lindsay, Jim, can you say a word about, you know, I think a lot of people are still trying to understand how the transportation would be impacted from the student's point of view. And I know at one point there was talk of, you know, skipping every seat or, you know, things like that. How are you seeing the guidelines for, for the number of students who will be allowed in a bus at any one moment? We're playing out in, in, in the real world. Yeah. So we have got some guidelines, not only from the safe opening schools document that came out a while ago, but in, in my own district. And we have different sized buses, Tim. So it's, it's not one flat number, but our, our largest buses, which usually can hold a capacity of 90 students will be limited to 28 people on that bus. And it's every other seat with the exclusion that if you have brothers or sisters from the same household that already are in contact with each other, they can sit together. But it's one per seat, every other seat. We, we are going to be implementing some sort of health screening. Some of those details are still to be ironed out. And we're going to be doing the hybrid model here in the Champlain Valley. So we're looking at half of the number of students on any given day. So I think that'll help in the bus. But the, the district has not reached out yet to who, you know, who actually is going to be attending school. So we're probably going to have to redesign some routes to accommodate those safety measures. But yeah, the, it's going to be anywhere from depending on the size of the bus, 15 to 28 students. And, and that's all that's going to be allowed to accommodate as much social distancing as possible. And then of course due to the mandate, not only staff, but students will be wearing masks as well. Okay, great. So we'll follow up with both of you when we wrap up. Thanks for the extra bit of intel. Lindsay, so you're up in the North Country. And you're a high school teacher. So a little different from Alice's universe. So why don't you give us your sense? Sure. Well, as with most of my colleagues, the prospect of returning to school is emotional and a little bit scary because it concerns the well-being of our loved ones, our family, and our students for whom we care very deeply. And that's why I've spent so many hours and meetings and sleepless nights trying to get through the myriad of questions and concerns that we have. I think we're all desperate to get back in our classrooms and try to get back to normal. But continuing to kind of struggle to convince myself that that can be done safely. We know that as school communities we can do extraordinary things when called upon by circumstance. Last spring we saw educators and school staff step up in ways that I don't think anybody could have imagined we would do. And I saw my colleagues do things that demonstrated creativity and adaptability that in genuine selflessness beyond anything we imagined. And while far from perfect that transition to remote learning in the spring assured us that our faculty and staff will do whatever it takes to support our students. But we also learned in the spring just how much planning and preparation is required to really shift our system, our educational system into something that is going to work in such a different circumstance. And while the previous release state guidance on reopening schools is an important tool it's and I appreciate its goal. It's also raised some real issues in planning and our Supervisor Union. We recognize that the document is intended to be a bit open and leave room for individual schools to interpret and do what's best for them. But that same ambiguity has also led to more questions in some cases than solutions. Some administrators within the same Supervisor Union are interpreting the guidance as suggestions and perhaps best practice. Maybe we should try for six feet but it's okay if we can't accomplish that is what I'm hearing. And others are really adhering to it as requirements. So a statewide plan that include clearly delineated requirements based on local testing and data would be really helpful I think for all of us. We all have a great deal of respect as Jim mentioned for the systematic approach that's applied to reopening the state's economy and it seems logical to apply that same approach to the reopening of our schools. It feels like a full turn of the spigot is happening all at once which is a little bit scary because who knows if we'll be able to close it or slow down the flow once we open it. It's an interesting I guess juxtaposition that I have to register my vehicle via the mail because the DMV is perhaps too dangerous to enter and yet we're fully reopening our schools so that contradiction is a tough one to talk about with teachers and try to really justify that. I think as we've seen our schools are the heart and soul of our communities and I have majorly conflicting feelings keeping me up at night like I really need to see my students. I need to get back to our schools but to do that safely I'm just really questioning if we can do that with such an ambiguous plan in place right now. All right thank you Lindsey. And Chris why don't you wrap up our kind of introductory comments from the Montpelier special ed perspective. Sure thing the first thing I'd like to do is really highlight the work that special educators have been doing since schools shut down. If you think about students receiving special education these are students that it was really hard to envision how we would make distance learning work and I know special educators around the state were working morning till night meeting individually with their kids with their students every day to make sure that they got what they needed and that will continue this year and be even better should we need to go remote for a period. In terms of this year Montpelier Roxbury has been working I mean I haven't people talk about summer break I haven't really had a summer break this year. There was about a week when school was closed and since then I've been meeting weekly with my superintendent and the admin team along with members from the teaching staff the custodial and clerical staff and paraprofessionals it's a plan for how we're going to make this work. In addition to that we've been meeting at the building level to solve problems specific to each building. Now our plan in Montpelier Roxbury right now we believe that we can get we can have five day a week a week schooling K-8 because we think we're blessed with the space to do that. That said even though we've been working all summer on this plan there's just a number of unanswered questions that I lose sleep over just about every night and those are we have a number of staff upwards of probably 30% that either have a high-risk health condition or live with somebody that has one could be their partner or their child and it certainly does not seem ethical to me to force those people that go back into the building. I have trouble even thinking about how to make somebody who is just uncomfortable and anxious with this whole plan how to force them to go into a school building and be in front of middle schoolers elementary schoolers high schoolers and expect that to go well under the constraints that we have. So I'm I'm concerned about whether some of the plans that are being put together are or capable of actually staffing in a sustainable way. I can tell you that you know as a as a union leader I can wake up some days and look at my calendar and say oh there's it's a free day and next thing you know I'm on the phone all day with teachers that want to talk about whether they could retire whether they could take a leave and things of that nature and that worries me and as has been said you know the the state and the secretary of head and the governor have really taken a local control stance on school reopening and so that's kicked a lot a lot of the work to the locals obviously and I'm up here at Roxbury you know our admin team working in collaboration with us which is important. We put together what I think is a as a fairly solid plan I wouldn't say a hundred percent safe because nobody can say that but I think about as safe as we can get but when I look around the state and talk to some of my other colleagues you have districts with completely different plans and some are interpreting the guidance completely differently and when it comes to to to a global pandemic we're only as safe as our weakest link and so I worry that in some places might say ah six feet not that important and you know all it takes is a couple districts for an outbreak to start and then the whole state's going to be shut down again and so how to balance that idea that we could go back into distance learning with providing high quality in-person instruction you know we're trying to plan for both and it's a heavy task or certainly another a number of other issues I could talk about I guess one other thing I should highlight is I have a lot of questions about special education that I don't feel I have answers to a lot of districts are really operating on a pod model trying to minimize risk by limiting the contact that each student has with staff trying to keep them contained typically I would be pulling kids from all over the building working with them in a groups going into different classrooms and it's clear it's not the safest thing in the world anymore for me to be doing that so that guidance that tells us kind of the best practices for how to provide special education services during a pandemic is critically important and I'm worried that if it comes out at the 11th hour it's going to throw yet another wrench in some of the plans being made thank thanks all four of you for giving us the sort of you know a pretty expansive view at the different levels within the schools Debbie or Phil questions to get us started Debbie go for it thanks but yeah let me just say first of all I I mean I hear in your in your voices how concerning this is to you and you know just want you to want to acknowledge that and I know you're you all care very deeply about your students and you're doing your very best to make sure that all this happens safely so I want to thank you for that I I'm not sure who to direct this to but I let me just ask one concern that I have or a question that I have is what happens if you you know like Jim mentioned you know taking temperature checks even when the kids get on the bus what what happens when you find that a child you know has a temperature that's you know too high or you know but maybe their parents have already gone to work or I mean have you have protocols been set up for for how that's going to be handled or their plans to have you know you know and space and infirmary to isolate kids or have you have you been told how that will be handled well Senator Ingraham at least as far as the bus part I I don't have answers to those questions I have not got those from my administration we have talked about that especially with younger kids I've asked my district to have a policy where a parent can't leave a child at the bus stop without supervision which is something you know parents sometimes has to go to their own work or you know they know the bus is coming it's you know we're not quite at winter time yet but I certainly am concerned that if I have a child who who has a temperature that I can't let on the bus because that could potentially expose 28 other kids to that but I also am not gonna drive away and leave a child certainly in grade school high school might be a little different but somebody should still know that that child you know is exhibiting some signs so I don't have I you ask great question questions that I've been asking you know my admin and it's we're still playing that game where you make plans too early and then things are changing so rapidly but as we rapidly approach the end of summer I wish I had an answer for you for that I don't that's a very interesting logistical challenge it presents for sure Phil your mute button I think Alice maybe had an answer to that okay I was just going to say on our district they're trying to still work that out so we're talking about do we require an adult with the child at the bus stop whether if the parent had to go to work are they assigning someone to stay with their child so we're talking about the you know a potential of children coming with a little slip of paper saying they've had their temperature check that that's taking care of at home so we're still have in dialogue with coming up with what solution would be appropriate great it's something that will raise with Secretary French because I think you know parents throughout the state understood when the state shut down effectively that we were all in it together and we all had to change our normal routine and practices and this is one where it doesn't seem like districts can really come up with different policies for what you do with a kid who's alone at the side of a road because there's really only one response which is to make sure the kid is okay and gets safely back to wherever he or she came from so I do have a question so one of the things that's concerned me a lot is I'll call it teacher flexibility or teacher choice so if you remember back to the early days of the emergency the administration decided they wanted a mandatory program to set up child care for the children of essential workers and they were going to mandate that districts provide this child care in some cases using teachers who didn't normally do child care to serve that function it was not voluntary it was not flexible and as a result the administration had to pull it back and make it voluntary so I fear that a similar thing is going to happen here if there's an across the board mandate that all teachers go back into the classroom because many have family members who are at risk and they're going to vote with their feet and to their own detriment in terms of salary or potential punishments so is there is there any flexibility in your districts that allows someone with vulnerable family members or who themselves feels vulnerable to opt for fully remote instruction I don't know who to direct it to but feel free anybody to kick it I can take that one so it's certainly a priority for me and our superintendent to protect people who have a vulnerable health condition logistically you know teachers in schools have extremely specialized roles so if 30 percent of your staff roughly has a health condition that makes it so maybe they should teach remotely that doesn't necessarily line up with how you staff the school you know there's scenarios where it could wipe out a whole department you know let's say for example that all the special educators in one of your school needs to work remotely that becomes a problem so I think it's a priority that we need to do that but I myself and our administrators have yet to solve the problem of how you do that and have the appropriate staff in the school but I personally believe ethically we need to at the very least protect those that are vulnerable or live with somebody who's vulnerable well let me let me ask a related question Lindsay maybe I'll direct it at you I've heard from teachers and I'm sure Debbie and Phil have also some teachers who are concerned about their own health and you know for whatever unique circumstances and their administrators are trying to make it work to teach remotely others are being told well you know we have a design that you're going to be teaching in person so you'll have to be on you know like a medical leave of some sort so you have different district leadership in a way giving different responses to the exact same predicament and I'm wondering if you know if you know Chris says 30% as an average might be have a profile with vulnerability or susceptibility at a higher risk what are you seeing up in North Country yeah we're not seeing much of a systematic approach I don't know that it's been addressed at the the district or supervisory level what we're hearing as a message is that if you have a concern about your own personal health or that of one of your family members that you should apply for a leave of absence or submit sort of a personal petition as to why you might need to work from home and how you might do that it's really kind of falling on individuals to make that decision and almost that plan we've tried to as Chris mentioned throw around the idea of how we might align those teachers with the necessary instruction but in our Supervisory Union we're actually all individual districts at each building as well so North Country and high school is its own district the elementary schools are each their own district as well so we don't have as much leeway to use teachers from one building where there might only be seven fourth graders to help assist with the whole group of remote fourth grade learning so that's a certainly a roadblock for us so we've that's really the only message we've received at this point is that we should address that as individuals and perhaps apply for a leave of absence okay great that's clearly a system-wide issue that we're going to be confronting and it does raise other labor management issues or workplace safety issues in the grand scheme of things that we'll have to have to be on top of other questions Phil or Debbie before I start sifting through a number of the ones that have come in I'm fine Debbie I just asked has there been any kind of informal attempts to reach out among between districts to have some consistency or you just really feel like there's a total just all local control and no no real sense of anybody trying to coordinate systematic even by region consistency Alice I think some are as I said I know the Champlain Valley Superintendent's Association was working together so that was a group and I think possibly down south there may be groups working together but a statewide approach is helpful for of course as we know for some of these things but that is being problematic with having this kind of fracture for folks for sure I'm gonna my question I don't quite know who's best directed to maybe I'll ask Alice and this may be something Chris that you want to touch on from a special ed point of view one of the questions we had submitted well just I'll just read it rather than try to paraphrase it it says many school districts around the state are offering remote only options for parents and families to opt into this means that those students who have the means and support system to be out of school can be but those students who do not will be sent to the school building creating an inequity in the school system further separation of the haves and have nots in our communities and it gets to a concern that I know Debbie and Phil and I have heard on the one hand there are we hear people saying we need everybody to stay at home because it's the best way to make sure the fewest people are infected then on the other hand we hear if kids don't go back especially lower income children and those with special education needs will be the ones most seriously disadvantaged now those are statements that we hear and I'm wondering Alice from your point of view is the is that opt I don't know if it's opt-in or opt-out but the remote option approach how is that playing out in Middlebury right now are our parents already signaling that they're going to avail themselves of that option and if so is there any sort of characteristic of the families that are choosing that option or is it too soon to tell yeah we definitely have people that are taking that option I mean right now I can't give you the exact number because I know that that can be changing I think I heard a number a while ago but that changes daily I'm sure with who's opting in and out and I really can't tell you right now who those families are but I agree we have had that concern that it's going to be the haves and have nots and it's certainly something that we need to address and very concerning I think that that's definitely an issue that we're grappling with right now with out of solution at this point first for school families Alice who do not have financial resources to speak of you know technology at home can be a barrier to really being able to continue you know meaningful continuity of education is your district providing additional resources for those kids who are have been at home and likely will be if they are parents choose that option I'm absolutely yeah oh sorry go ahead absolutely ACSD has done a you know an extensive job and being sure that families were connected to broadband I know that broadband in our state is an issue and certainly we are hoping that the state will help support and be overseers and to be sure that everyone is connected appropriately but our our school district definitely was working on that along with providing you know laptops or iPads you know but Chromebooks that's the word I was looking for Chromebooks to students so that they could engage yeah and Chris from the special ed side because we also hear that that's also a particular problem and obviously special education services aren't one size fits all but any what's your reaction as someone in the field to whether that might tip the scale towards having the students come back knowing that many others are concerned that we should not bring them back how do you see that that challenge yeah just thank you for bringing up the equity issue because it's something that we thought about a lot it took us a little longer than other districts to decide to offer the remote only option because that was a concern I will say that that our numbers for Montpelier Roxbury were somewhat surprising when we put the remote option out there it's holding steady at about 17% of families that want the remote only and frankly we thought it would be higher I don't have the information yet about what the demographics are of those families although I know Secretary of French is concerned about this issue and has asked each district to send in that data um you know I think a lot of us read the article in the New York Times about the learning pods and how you know families of means are going to be able to weather this storm a little more comfortably than others I've also heard anecdotally that there's some individual teachers being approached by families and saying hey if you took a leaf of absence some of us would pull together and pay you to teach our kids this year instead of setting them to school that's a concern as well and lastly one of one of the considerations that districts certainly put had to think about when they decided to offer remote only was you know if a parent chooses to homeschool their child that's a significant loss of funding for the school district so one consideration is if you don't put a remote option out there that family may decide to homeschool and then they're no longer a student in that district which is a funding problem so that that was a consideration there is of districts doing that that's a good one for us to file away Debbie and Phil to make sure a district doesn't suffer the calculation as a result of families making these these kinds of kinds of choices another question this one heads your way Jim when bus drivers fall ill with or without COVID especially in the late fall in early winter how will we transport students to and from school when the drivers are quarantining or recovering their health you had said I believe that you already struggle to find drivers but it's not wouldn't be the first time that a driver maybe at the last minute calls in and says you know I I shouldn't be showing up at work because I might have symptoms related to COVID what's your best laid plan here in terms of meeting that challenge well and that is one of our biggest challenges and I speak for admin and my transportation supervisor on a daily basis our district is rather large so we have a large number of drivers so the hope is that we can we use an alert now system that alerts parents by you know text or phone call and you might get a phone call that says your child's bus is going to be running 30 minutes late today because when I finish my route I'll have to go out and cover somebody else's route and we're going to have to do the best we can we don't know how many kids we're going to be transporting yet and we don't know how many drivers you know we're in the process like all staffs now to look at who might have to opt out because of you know their immuno compromised or they might hit one of those high risk factors and and since I have you know the top three senators on the education committee and I know everybody's going to be scrambling for funds but one of the things that I'd like to see the state look into is bus drivers are a little different than teachers so I only have five sick days and I don't want to put kids or other staff at risk so if I wake up for the sniffles or if I have a fever and I have to quarantine for a number of days I have to do that without pay and I don't want to put my drivers in the position to try to make difficult choices that you know you want to make the safe choice you don't want to come to work with the sniffles because you don't want to pass that on but people also have you know rents and mortgages and light bills and heat bills and groceries so there's just no safety net there from the state or federal level to say you know hey what am I going to do I woke up this morning and and I don't feel well and does that mean I can come back to work after I feel better or to go back to the testing should I have a test do I quarantine for seven days you know and the department of health has some guidelines but when it comes to specifics like that and and what do you do when you can't go to work for five days but I'm not really unemployed and I have no leave time to fill in those gaps so that's a that's a big concern on my end for my group right Tim if I could just jump in jump in quickly so I've had a number of people raise this issue with me Michael Sorotkin who's part of the Chittenden delegation with Debbie and I and Tim he chairs the economic development committee which normally handles sick days and all paid sick days legislation went through that committee but my committee obviously is the one most intensely interested in the functioning of the school districts there's obvious overlap here so I'm going to be talking with him in advance of going back in August is there something that we can do quickly that might pass through both houses and make it to the governor in terms of sick leave that's COVID related it's obviously a very complicated issue and there are contractual you know things at the district level that we'd have to think about but I plan to be working with him in the weeks leading up to it so just so you know there there is some work already being done on that thank you I've got a handful of questions that have come in all on the theme of personal protective equipment for teachers, staff, bus drivers I've received questions sort of on all of these and the issue of who's responsible for providing it and will there be enough of it Lindsay maybe I'll start with you and I know that different job types in the schools might have a different level of concern about this but I think it's a general concern what are you seeing so far what's your district telling you about what will be made available well the district thus far has allocated funds to at least upgrading facilities needs in terms of not personal protective equipment but hand sanitizers and a lot of those requirements that have been stated we also have right now an informal agreement but we are I think close to a formal agreement that the district will provide at least masks and face shields if as required they haven't committed to a number but I think we have an agreement whether they are you know KN95 masks or cloth masks is sort of I think at this point will pretty much take anything that they are willing to supply enough of and that seems to be pretty much across the board support staff teachers we have yet to really discuss you know whether or not some staff who work closely with particular children need goggles or other personal protective equipment but we're hearing that that will be provided and whether procurement will be possible is a little troubling we thought I think our supervisor union our superintendent thought that that was going to be provided by the state at one point but they have placed orders and claim that we will have that as necessary by the time school starts Alice what's you want to give us the elementary perspective in this sure yeah we totally would expect that the school the employer would provide that personal protective equipment and our district has said that they expect to do that I think that I agree with Lindsay that procurement is a concern my understanding and I hope I have this accurate for our district is that they are looking to the state to support them and getting this equipment so financially or or just accessing the materials themselves do you know the if it's one or the other of those two I do not I certainly I know accessing financially I'm not sure I can't speak to that and I know that elementary teachers are very concerned about this that's high on their list because they're even concerned that as children remove the mass for breakfast and then for lunch and there's we've all have the conversation about aerosols that stay aloft for a certain period of time you know it's really important they have that protection so yeah I I expect our district will come through with that and I hope that's not too optimistic got it Debbie or Phil or shall I turn to another I would just add on the end of that when I think back to the first days of the emergency and the grocery store that I was going into I think their management had every intention of getting them protective equipment but day after day week after week went by and they didn't have it and the woman that was working there was dealing exclusively with customers wearing masks at that point but she herself wasn't being given one so what I worry about all of this is and this goes back to the theme of inequity that we were talking about before some districts will be very well protected in terms of these physical barriers others not so much and at that point what do you do the horse is out of the barn and you're playing catch up so I think to go back to a disagreement that the senate had with the administration the NEA had been calling for a statewide reopening task force to develop uniform principles and plans across the state the governor didn't want to go along with that and I think if you look at our success as a state the success has been generated by statewide order and to the extent we have deviated from that we've had less success so certainly when it comes to the start date of school when it comes to you know personal protection equipment can the state get involved in procurement and then you know have them go equally to districts we're past the point where we can really do that given the timing but I think that would have been the better way to go and one final note the NEA is still calling for a statewide reopening if not called a task force then something that would go by the same principle which is that we want to have uniform plans rather than district by district because that's how our system initially wound up so unequal that the courts had to write it and I fear we'll have a miniature version of the same thing well the next question get those go ahead very briefly sorry I just I think that the Department of Health might need to be involved in in this discussion about how to procure PPE because you know my role on the health and welfare committee that was they were the ones that were trying to bring PPE into the state for a variety of different you know areas that need it and and it's hard it's been hard to get with the lack of a national just distribution plan but we probably need to at least centralize it at the state level my next question actually gets to some of Debbie's work in the health and welfare committee so Debbie's been working hard at increase in child care support this was pre-pandemic when there was a system that was struggling but had an equilibrium to it that we could fund with a sort of pattern now obviously things have changed significantly so the question says that I'm going to shorten the question a little bit but it's clear that districts not having coordinated plans on reopening that because of this childcare has become a nightmare situation for parents in the community employers and educators alike is there any discussion to the state giving more guidance on district coordination for instance if one district is doing a pod model from eight to one like ours in a neighboring district is going two days a week in person the logistics become impossible for those with children who need child care Lindsay are you how you know how have you many of your coworkers also are facing the same challenge that the parents themselves are facing how what have the discussions been like on the ground sure well we are all of our K through eight schools within our supervisory union are following the same plan they are all actually going back to 100% enrollment minus the ones who elect a fully remote option and with the same schedule the major concern that I'm hearing about from my colleagues mainly is if they themselves have a student in another district which often happens and that school is on a completely different plan or perhaps along the same vein but a bigger question I'm hearing is if and when I think it's when we have to close again and go fully remote again to have a more solid child plan child care plan ready for when that happens because I think that's sort of in our district because everybody's on a similar schedule for K through eight it's less concerning right now I think it's the inevitability that we will close completely and we'd like to be more prepared for parents and staff at that time who need child care options we don't have much of a plan in way of that so I can't say much more to it than that's a big concern that we do have Jim a related question for for you I believe you said that the Champlain Valley School District is doing the high so-called hybrid model and I don't quite know how where parents are planning to have their children in the off days if they can't themselves be home um are from the transit point of view are how are how do you get folded into that discussion is are the transportation needs in the in the non in school days sort of left completely to the parent or is the district saying that it will step in with some kind of solution yeah so the district has not sent out what I survey is a bad word but they'll be reaching out to these parents who's about their transportation needs and we will accommodate what those are it's hard to develop those plans when we don't have the actual numbers yet I mean um you know sometimes we can be an afterthought and one of the things with childcare is that that just because you take the bus in in the morning if I have 20 kids in the morning does not mean I'm going to have the same 20 kids in the afternoon if they need transportation to a daycare or to the neighbor's house to for that so I can't suddenly have 40 kids try to get on my bus in the afternoon because 10 of them are going to the Smith's house you know as parents a lot of parents are working on their own helping each other out kind of a community effort to with you know with this hybrid system which is not easy for childcare so we are aware of it and there is a questionnaire that's going to be going out I don't have the date in front of me but I think it's next week that parents will be you know having to say whether they're going to opt in to the remote learning or the hybrid model and if they're need transportation but rest assured we will get every child to school who who needs transportation without a doubt okay Debbie or Phil all right then I'm going to keep turning it's it's a high if Secretary French were here he'd be he'd be being very dexterous at this moment because there's a tremendous number of more administrative questions which I don't think would be quite right but I'm going to I'm going to ask this is a question that came in and it I think for the people who are watching this it might help explain why it's so complex and each school has its own unique circumstances it now I just lost my place give me a oh okay it says will schools be deep clean daily or just on Wednesday which I think was a nod to the day that the schools would not have students in person our school doesn't have a this is all sort of a condensed set of questions but they all relate our school doesn't have AC in the classrooms will they not be able to use fans and wearing face masks with the heat that could generate especially I guess in the earlier fall um I I feel it is worth trying to shield the desk so the teacher so the teacher and student can see what is being said meaning have a shield instead of having the requirement that the teacher wear the mask so that the students can see the sort of body language and the lips moving and helping communicate so that's a handful of interrelated questions Alice you know it is is how much consternation is there at Mary Hogan about the the sort of habitability of the different spaces that are used for instruction at the school and do you feel confident that those are being addressed through strategies from the facilities team yeah um I think that as long as we have the limited number of students we'll be able to accommodate you know the two days a week with our hybrid model and the lesser number of students entering there is quite a bit of concern and the it's not written in stone yet what some of the procedures procedures will be because we're still getting new medical advice and points of view regarding shields whether aerosols go under the shields and the barriers and people should now suddenly I'm hearing more about eye protection than before so before it was exclusively your mask so um I I think for certain special educators and Chris can probably speak to that that's going to be more or um speech language pathologists and um people in that particular line that are helping kids we're talking about what kind of barriers can be set up to keep the students and staff safe in that regard in our district that I don't think that plan is completely finished yet but it is being discussed okay great I've got one I'm going to read off and maybe this is more for Phil and Debbie to consider as we return to the cyber state house and for others in the senate watching as we all know students and staff suffered trauma and isolation during the final months of the 2019 2020 school year as schools reopen in the fall in whatever way they reopen how can we prioritize addressing the trauma and stress that everyone is facing what supports can Montpelier offer educators when they return to address these challenges so I think that's something that we just have to be thinking we know what a very difficult situation it was and you had teachers doing a lot more than their normal classroom work and the same with staff and so I'll just flag that as something that we have to be particularly attentive to I think we've got time for one more to chime in on that one Tim yes of course so you know we're very aware that families have had vastly different experiences in this pandemic and if you look at the plan that Vermont NEA released last week there's a phase that involves meeting with families and just assessing where they're at and where their social emotional needs are and Montpelier Roxbury we have a plan already to do conferences with each family before school even starts so that they can just check in and know what needs might be there before they enter the building and you know I think that's at least for me and I know for a lot of educators that's at the forefront is what social emotional supports do families need and I think assessing that from the get-go is just really important well Chris thanks for adding that in light of the current date of September 8th what is the timeframe that you and your peers envision that interaction with the students and their family occurring? I think it in our district we have about three weeks with the new date and we think we can roll that work into that time period if other districts have shorter periods of in-service I personally believe that's important enough to push school back a couple days if need be but I think it's you know I wish I could say there was one size fits all approach to that and if we had a more of a clear statewide plan maybe there would be but I think it's something that should be prioritized and in some districts they can roll it into the time they have others would maybe have to push things back a little further to do that well Chris this may be an unfair question to ask you with a limited time to answer but that process of engaging with students and their families I can imagine would be very informative in terms of how to meet the particular households needs and I guess the question is is that a process to help determine how education will be conducted or is it to say we've determined how it's going to be conducted now families we're going to work with you to see how you will succeed with what has been decided because if it's the former it raises some questions about how quickly you can then turn on the education spigot when I think about it primarily it's to see what what additional supports students might need if we check in with a family and they share with us that their child just seemed depressed during the pandemic boom day one we can have them check in with a guidance counselor you know if we have a family say my child really didn't engage in the remote learning they really struggled with the math we can have them assessed by a math interventionist so it's it's not necessarily about changing the opening reopening plan but getting additional supports both social emotional and academic to students that need them and it could be that a family is really struggling a lot of folks have lost jobs during this my family is down to one income and so it gives us that information as well great well not great that you're down to one income but great that that process elicits the kind of information that'll help you guys make this work so I think we will we're going to wrap now but I want to for people who jumped into the the youtube stream maybe mid stride just remind people that Alice Schirmerhorn is a art teacher at Mary Hogan elementary and in middlebury Jim Johnson is a bus driver in the Champlain Valley school district Lindsay LeFave is a math teacher at North Country High School and Chris Guros is a special education instructor in the Montpelier Duxbury district two last so-called housekeeping issues the first is that the senate is going to be doing what we call an all senate call meaning all 30 of us are present or as many can attend in a somewhat informal setting like this with secretary French on Wednesday at three that discussion will go about an hour and a half those are streamed live so anybody who wishes to watch can do so the best way to find the link is to go on the senate website and we'll make it as prominent as possible for anyone who wants to go to that link also I know some parents are wondering why they were not asked to participate in this and as I said on the in the beginning we will be looking for ways in the coming weeks to have additional opportunities which would be inclusive of parents we wanted to hear from teachers and staff with the hour that we had dedicated today but it is not at all to say that we don't have much to learn from the parents themselves and senators Baruth and Ingram as chair and vice chair of education will be instrumental in the senate's piece of working with the education community and the governor's team in the house and so if people have specific questions or encouragement about how we might proceed obviously contact your own senators but these are two senators who are very very well informed and positioned to be helpful and Senator Ingram is also on our health and welfare committee where a lot of these themes sort of intersect so with that I think we'll sign off and thanks everybody for watching this is going to be available to be viewed off of the senate's website so if someone asks that they missed it you can direct them to the same link that you went to and you'll find it and I want to thank our four guests we know that as you said that it wasn't exactly like you got a break it seems like it just you know blurred from one school year into the other and so we're very appreciative of the work you're having to do the flexibility and on behalf I think of the whole senate we're just so grateful that we have such great people in our education system so thank you so much so we're going to sign off thank you and and stay tuned for the Wednesday discussion if you're interested in hearing us discuss with Secretary French thanks thank you thank you thank you