 Welcome to Senate Education, Wednesday, February 8th, 130. Before we go to Jodi Emerson, who is going to join us, I just want to make sure everyone receives the press releases that were brought to you. And so this is, these were hoaxes at this point, hoax calls to provide, to provoke anxiety and fears in our schools and communities. I have asked the agency of education to come in and give us a briefing on it. Give us a bit of an update. The agency cannot come in to talk about what we were going to have them talk about since it's understandably all hands on deck upstairs right now. But what they will come in and talk to us about at 230 is Ted Fisher will provide an update. On the situation. And just so everyone knows, I do have a list here that I will read of the schools that were threatened. Just so you know, all of our community education center, Arlington Memorial High School, Broderborough High School, Christ the King High School, Colchester High School, Inesburg High School, Essex High School, Barrahaven High School, Grace Christian School, Middlebury Union High School, Newton High School, Mrs. Floyd Valley Union High School, Montpelier High School, Newport City Elementary School, North Country Union High School, North Country Union Junior High School, Otter Valley Union High School, Randolph Union High School, Rice Memorial High School, St. Albans City Elementary School, United Christian Academy. So those are the schools that received. What's that? Miss Porter. Oh, yeah, no. So that's a coordinated effort. That's a lot of schools. Yeah, it's interesting, right? And so I don't know if you want to say anything or correct me if I'm wrong. And my understanding is it sounds like it was some kind of almost robo call to all of these different institutions. But it wasn't institutions that I don't think picked up. I think they went directly to local police. And then in one case it went to the town clerk's office. The Governor needed a pressure release on it. I think it was the OIP performance system. Okay, yeah. So Mr. Fisher will be in to update us to the Governor Health Press Conference, front and center, of course, everybody's safety. And then also talking how you talk to kids about this and how do kids deal with this kind of trauma when it happens to them on a day like this, where there's something, police cars arrive, all these ambulances are there, the feeling in the school and how best to deal with that. So Ted will be in to talk to us about that. Any immediate questions while we have the Agency of Education in here? Okay, Ms. Emerson. Hey, Jody. How are you feeling? Not great today. Thank you, though. Thanks for having me. Well, we appreciate you joining us. Just to recap for everyone what we had asked you to do was tell us, I think basically what can we, nice cap. What can we basically do to help the CTEs in the state? I think that was basically the charge or was it a little bit different? I was there two weeks ago and talking about sort of workforce development and about a couple of the adult and CTE folks here as well. And you asked us to come together and work with a list of actionable items. And so we did that last, I guess, late that week and I sent it last week. We have it right here. Great. It says funding, access, adult tech ed and AOE staffing. So if you would take us through this, that would be terrific. Yeah, so some of what we've been talking about and it's been part of the study that the joint fiscal offices has put forward that APA consulting is doing out of Colorado. And their report, I think it's going to be delayed, but we're hopeful that they'll have something in March or April that talks about a funding model for CTE that's non competitive. Right now there's, there's a perceived disincentive to send students to CTE. Obviously, I'm not seeing the impacts of that because I have so many folks trying to get in and not enough space for them. But there are times when we compete with our sending schools instead of collaborating with a new funding model would help. We think would help that. And a while ago, there was a pilot that was ready to go out three years ago. So right before COVID. And that model was not going to pit schools against each other. And it didn't end up being piloted because of COVID and everything that happened then. So we're, we're hoping that we get back to something and that something comes out of that work. And I know the House Education Committee has been talking about it too. So just to be clear, if we were to then return to the pilot that was never piloted and try this. That sounds like it's a decent first step. Put some money aside. Again, like you're saying, so we're not here. People aren't competing against one another. And we can have Beth St. James give up some of that language and see if we see if we can get our colleagues to give it a shot. Yeah, I think the work was done. And over a long, if you saw that white paper from the CTE directors, there were years and years worth of work done around funding. And that was the, the pilot model that was proposed out of that and moving that forward might show us whether that would work. It might be prudent to see what comes out of the the research that's being done by APA and see if it still fits that model or if there's something bigger that needs to happen with school funding. Or just making sure that there's something that helps us to move forward with our, with our programming and not be fighting against schools across the state so that students get what they need. I mean, ultimately it's making sure we do what's best for students. Yeah. No, this is a good. Yeah, and the next piece on there was the. Oh, sorry. Just a quick question. I'm looking at the point on the back regarding staffing in the AOE. And, and I apologize if you were going to get to this but, you know, I'm curious is it that there are positions and they're not being filled for the positions don't exist and that that needs to be expanded. Do you know which one. So, I am still new to CTE this is my second year and my understanding was that there used to be more staffing, and that staffing was lost I don't know if there are open positions I know that there are three people in the AOE that work on CTE, and they do all sorts of. They do the compliance work they, they are overwhelmed with the Perkins and other grants that we need to put in and then they need to review. And so there's a ton of things data collection and review that they do that is really hard for three people to do for all of our CTEs across the state. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know if there are openings or if, if it's always been just three people. My sense is there were more at some point. Great. Okay, so back to the funding piece we can do, you know, we can explore that first piece, adequate funding to meet demand for programming. Tell us a little bit about that. In my personal situation, I don't have enough space to expand any of my current programming or build in new programming where I am so if I'm to expand and, and I can tell you that, and I probably did tell you welding is an area that there is a need for, and certainly there are plenty of industries and local central Vermont that would support us in doing so I have two companies talking with me right now trying to figure out how we can get this started. And it's hard to find a space I can't, I can't accommodate a welding lab in my building that I'm in currently. And so then you have to look elsewhere or look at expanding or renovating schools across the state to get what you need and all of our schools across the state whether they're CTE or not have some issues and many of them were built a long time ago. And so looking at ways to make sure that we can fund what students need across the state to make sure that it's adequate for their schooling. Baseline statewide CTE educator contract is a little bit about making sure that everyone is recognized for their skills right now. A lot of teacher contracts are because our CTE's are usually located within a bigger district. The majority of teachers in that district are teaching academics and teaching in a regular educational setting with a different schedule. And they have certain requirements like a bachelor's or master's in training and teaching. Our industry professionals who come into CTE don't necessarily have a bachelor's or master's some of them do. And they definitely don't have the training in teaching and so while they're a first year teacher they're also doing the apprenticeship program currently through VTC. And so they're taking classes to learn how to be a teacher while they're also in the classroom working with kids trying to teach them the skills of their industry. And these trades people could be journeymen they could be masters master electricians master plumbers master carpenters. And they're not necessarily getting recognized across the state in the same way that their peers are because they don't have that bachelor's degree. And I think that that makes it hard for us to hire some folks. It's already a pretty big pay cut coming from industry and plumbing or electrician and into teaching and then to not be recognized for the work that you've done and the years of training that you've gone through in the same way can be difficult. So looking at a way to standardize that. Yeah there's a discrepancy between how you want to say academic traditional academic teachers are treated compared to our CTE educated teachers. And I think that a few of our districts across the state have worked to remedy that in some way or another. If there was a statewide CTE contract that might help make that easier for everyone. I think we're talking earlier this week about the access piece. I saw or maybe it was last week I saw in the 31st. Some of that. And so I included in that a link to the state board rules, which is not what's in the green law book that you were referencing that day, but it's some additional rules from the State Board of Education that CTE's have to follow and that's where you find the information about what grade a student might be in ninth and tenth grade and whether they're entitled to technical education. Okay, we can we can have the state board and Beth and talk to us a little bit about that. Okay, great. Establish a baseline. If we had a state calendar for all our schools, we would be so much better off. I know that's been something that people have been trying to do for years. And, and the reason it would most help the CTE's is that right now, when our teachers go to work with someone who teaches similar programming they have to go outside of our center to another center. And those teachers need to be able to have time to come together and work together to build their programs. We do have aligned proficiencies and they need to start working on those rubrics and scales. And so we're right now allowing them to leave and go do that professional development because it's really important on days when we have students in the building. So if we had that statewide calendar, and we had the same professional development days across the state, it would be much easier for our teachers and CTE to get together and and be able to collaborate and build our programs even better. Yeah, you know, I've been around the building for a while now, you know, this statewide calendar pops up here and there and I understand it by we're parent Sally's off one week. And he's off the other week. It's, it's doesn't seem to make sense. And the opposition to it is always huge. And I off the top of my head, I don't recall where the opposition comes from, or it's just settling on what those weeks, the good weeks are, in addition to the good. Yeah, I think some of it's that and sometimes they, there's this fear that too many people will be on the ski slopes if we're all off. You're absolutely right. The industry does, they do come in and they do express a concern about this. Yeah. The other pieces that some schools go 180 days and some 175 and, and I think that could be accommodated on either end of the schedule as long as there was a baseline. Close. No, no problem. You sure you're okay to continue? Take your time. I just want to say the salad is really good. Looks good. The salad part is really good. Sorry about that. No problem. No problem. So we're on students under 18 be allowed to job shadow. Yeah, and that does happen in a lot of places, but specifically not in the manufacturing and healthcare industries. And my understanding in healthcare is that students under 18 can't do lift training, but they can be certified as EMTs. And so we want them to be able to do that work. And right now that they're not allowed in Vermont. Check it. I think what Rob and William were able to talk about was the fact that most centers do not have a full time adult. Tech Ed assistant director. And that's true of my center. It's a part time addition with a stipend for my, the person that does it at my center so what Stafford and Southwest are able to do with a full time person is a lot, a lot better and a lot more helpful for adults around there than what I can offer. So they have a range of a full range of programming and it's quite amazing and probably very beneficial to a lot more folks that we might want to see out in the workforce that aren't there right now. And providing the training they need so helping to assist and fully fund that so that everyone can have a full time would be a great opportunity. And I'll read the next one. Allow you to accept the seven funds for high school students to enroll in adult technical education programs to earn an IRC. And now we can use our flexible pathways money to allow students to take the credits that the fast forward credits that they can get in program. But we can't facilitate them also taking one of the adult options so I have kids in medical professions who are doing CCMA and phlebotomy. And those are already really good and they wouldn't necessarily need LNA, but I do have an LNA option at night elbow to them. They could also choose to take that. And it would help us so we don't always fill them so sometimes we're running them at an at a cost to us. My last course had only two students in it for the LNA program at night. And we could fill it with a few more folks that might be interested and get a few more skills into our students before they graduate. But we can't use those funds right now. IRC that's the certificate program. It's an industry recognized credential. So it's the certificate. Yes. And AOE staffing you've talked a little bit about and this committee has raised the question around AOE staffing in general and whether or not there is any reason to mandate some kind of audit looking at the agency as a whole. I think Secretary French would respond and say we're nimble. We want to be responsive to the needs of the legislature and what the legislature passes each year. I tend to agree with him on that also, but there could be a happy medium on some of you know, allowing to still be flexible to make certain that concerns out there around lack of positions that those positions are are filled. So I think the folks at the AOE are working really hard and they're trying the best they can and I sometimes get Sunday emails from one of the tech and related folks. So I know they're working around the clock and it just it would be really hard to be nimble if you're overwhelmed and overworked. Committee, does anybody have any concerns about us as a committee doing a committee bill relating to CTEs incorporating these issues just to get it in the calendar and then back to us so we can of course we take a time more testimony on it. Yeah, this has been very helpful. I mean you really did great work organizing this I appreciate it and I also recognize you did it out of your normal work day in addition to your normal work day. So thank you very much this really provides us with a great guideline on how to be helpful. Well thank you for for listening to us and and allowing us to participate and for asking for that feedback. So do you. Jody I also wanted to say thank you and also what I love about these are that they so directly correlate to job growth in the state you can almost it almost jumps off the page so much appreciated. Good luck. I mean you've really actually I mean you've really saved the state a ton of time and this kind of stuff is usually done around the summer committee and there might be some summer conversations but again thank you very very much and we hope you feel better soon. Thank you. Okay. Bye bye. Hey would you email this testimony I know that St. James is here but would you email it to her so she has it and all the conversations about building a committee bill out of that testimony. That was really very helpful. Brian I'm going to have to step out. Yeah. Thank you. Good luck. Miss St. James you'd be so kind as to join us at the table. And I do I have access the testimony of your last witness on your website. So thank you. So again understandably the agency canceled a couple of topics we were going to talk about given this situation out there. We are around school threats we are going to be interrupted probably about 230 by Ted you may still be with us. And I apologize for that ahead of time to give us an update on what you're learning. In the meantime it seems like it would be worthwhile for us to talk just openly have a good conversation of around building this miscellaneous education bill. I have been throwing topics out to not only the committee but to you and I realize this is going to take a little time to build. So I thought we could take just this half hour and put a little more meat on the bone if you will. So and this and I look for everybody to of course weigh in on this. With regard the one thing we had talked about was CTE's you know open up opening up opportunities for 9 through 12 we would put that into a CTE bill. Not the miscellaneous education bill. That was one conversation that I initially thought we would bring to this. Let's see there is there was an issue raised from the Northeast Kingdom around pre-K choice and allowing as I understand I don't get an opportunity to give this testimony. I'm not. But allowing a district to be able to go over the border for pre-K and I think the reason they can't do it right now is it's New Hampshire pre-K dollars can stay in. But would we be able to allow people to go over with that with those dollars and use those dollars in circumstances in this particular circumstance. It was quicker drive much quicker drive than I think about a 40 minute drive and I'm happy to get that testimony to you. Pick it up. I don't know if you want to watch it or whatever is easier. Sure I think I think I know I think I know how to find it. And I maybe this question was answered in there but if this is a question of DCF regulations related to private private the pre-qualified private kindergarten or pre-kindergarten providers. I'm not sure that it would be. Yeah, it would be a DCF question. I don't know the. You're absolutely right. Just my hearing you say that makes me think that could end up in health and welfare. I think we still draft it. Take a look at it and either punt it to them or I'll talk to Senator Lyons and see if she wants us to kind of tee it up to see if it makes any sense. I think you're absolutely right. We were to include that it would indeed have to go to them. So why don't I watch that testimony and if I have any further questions I will connect with you Senator Campion. I don't think that the pre-kindergarten statute places any specific geographic constraints. And I don't know what the DCF rules look like. Okay. Anybody always feel free to jump in at any time. I'll just keep going down the list I've been keeping. We have not spoken to the agency about this yet. But I am interested and we'll talk to the chair of appropriations and hope to get the rest of the committee interested in considering an appropriation that would allow for schools. I wouldn't even say they're always rural schools. But schools that are short teachers, some kind of access to funds so they can get remote teachers sometimes to zoom in and teach a class. And it's just kind of formulating in my head. I worry about again the school that kids need that third year math and right now in these circumstances they do not have a teacher in that district nor can they find somebody. They can find somebody who happens to live in Rutland to teach trigonometry and giving schools some extra funds to help to pay for that teacher and to pay for any kind of technological needs. I would like to be able to give that to our schools. So you're thinking like a grant program? A grant program. A grant program. Administered by AOE. I don't know the wording for this and I'm going to look to others to be helpful here. Nobody is coming yet and I know we need to take a lot more testimony and set as told me that proficiency based learning is the future. Every parent I run into is saying it doesn't seem to be working for their kids. We had some teachers come in and say it's not working for their, you know, in terms of teaching. I think we've got to put it on the table and at least dig in a little bit more and have some kind of conversation or analysis when we're not in the building around whether or not this makes sense. And that's the only thing I would say anybody else wants to weigh in on this just to ask the question are we going down this path and for me are we not preparing kids adequately. The Etra story is the one I've heard most recently. Two years in French proficiency based learning give us a note what Etra is the verb to be, you know, so again these are all anecdotal hearing different things. We also heard from some teachers. Do we put a pause on this? I think it's worth looking at. So study committee. Study committee. Legislative study committee field study committee. We have to be people from the field and really analyze this and this is helpful for new senators as well to understand how we put together study committees. You'll hear from a lot of people on a study committee. Sometimes I think they can be really useful. We want to spend the next few months pulling apart proficiency education or do we want to put together a study committee of either legislators or people in the field or a combination of both to look at an issue and report back their findings. And oftentimes when it's a legislative committee, the speaker gets to appoint a number of people. Crotam gets to appoint people. The governor gets to appoint people. In this case, I think the expertise lies outside of the field. Outside of the legislature, my opinion, unless somebody was sent a bullet or a former teacher would want to be on it. It would be somebody from the principal's association, somebody from the superintendent's association. We can talk about what that committee makeup would look like, but that's usually how it's done. Questions please. I have a question and I have a feeling I should know the answer to it. And so I'm a little embarrassed to ask it, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is proficiency based grading something that was born of statute or? It's a great question. We can talk about this. Where is it? No, so the requirement that graduation standards and the standards set by the state board of education are measured in a proficiency based learning system is through the state board of education rules. And their education quality standards. Those rules were updated in 2014, I believe 2013 or 2014 with the requirement with that those requirements going into effect for students in seventh grade in 2014 with the thought that it would be grad the graduated class of 2020 that would have the experience in proficiency based learning. I have been unable to trace back that Genesis to specific statutory direction. I think you heard testimony last week from a witness who described it as the field refers to it as common law. And based on my research and listening to your witness. You know, the legislature has delegated authority to the state board of education to develop the education quality standards. And so that's what they did. And they chose to go with proficiency based learning. You will often see mentioned a proficiency based learning tied back to act 77, which was the flexible pathways act. But there was no statutory requirement that proficiency based learning become a part of the education quality standards out of act 77. So to really understand the genesis of that, I think you would need to hear from the state board of education on how those rules developed. But no, it's not in statute. It's the statute is the delegation of the authority to the state board of education to develop education quality standards. So we'll have them in the next week, the state board of education to really help us understand where these proficiency based learning standards all came from. So it sounds correct me if I'm wrong, somebody on the state board could have said, this is the way we should go. We should go all in favor say aye. And that kind of got the ball rolling. I mean, I'm not saying they didn't get thought to it or look at a bunch of data. And the universe of possibilities that is always certainly a possibility. For my perspective as legislative council, I've been unable to trace it back to a specific legislative directive to require proficiency based learning graduation requirements. That could have happened in committee discussion as part of legislative intent that did not make its way into legislation. I mean, this happened in 2013-2014. But unable to trace it back and heard from a witness who I think said the field considers this the development of common law. Okay. Yeah. It'd also be interesting to have the state board weigh in on if they're still steadfast in their support around proficiency or if they put you there. Yeah. Just be interested to know. Yeah. So we'll have to chair in. It's a great question and see if, you know, yeah, it's interesting how things happen. Okay. One thing that we talked about, and I looked to the committee whether or not you want to pursue this. We did talk about the idea of working with our colleagues on economic development and put aside some money likely from the Department of Tourism, I think, or somewhere on marketing our institutions of higher education. I don't know if that's something people want to explore, but basically it's come one, you know, put some dollars behind. We've got all these institutions. It's a great place to be educated. Part of Vermont branding. Part of Vermont branding, the education state, and we will, it would be an appropriation and we will, I don't know what that dollar amount would be, but you would put it in there and then we can have that conversation. Yeah. Can we schedule at some point, not critically, but an overview of what is Vermont branding? Yeah. You know, I'm sure the Economic Development Committee has had access to a slew of initiatives. I just be curious. Yeah. Like a 20, 30 minute overview. And maybe there already is, you know, a subsection of education stuff. It's a great question. You and I can talk about that. What is Vermont branding? It comes up in ag, as you can imagine. We had a whole day yesterday on Maple Syrup. And what happens if all of a sudden our Maple Syrup industry, you know, were to go down? I mean, it's a huge industry. It's incredible stuff. And, yeah. Pick up any tour guide from another country, look under Vermont, top of the Maple Syrup. Great if they also talked about, you know, Michigan institutions of higher ed. So yeah, it'd be good to have, we can have the department in, maybe even have Betsy, it's great, she does the national chamber, the statewide chamber, Betsy Bishop. Maybe we can have Betsy Bishop in. Great job. And talk about this. Great. So just a stand-alone appropriation not tied to anything? Well, we will just say now, marketing higher education. Who would the appropriation be to? Oh, the agency of tourism and marketing. Okay. Senator Hashim has on the list making, I think, re-categorizing libraries as school zones, which I know he is going to talk to the chair of judiciary about. If we were to do something on this, it would likely go down there, I think. But he's heard from constituents that a lot of teaching goes on in libraries. Can we re-categorize them as school zones? Public libraries, right? Public libraries, yeah. I mean, libraries are not within my portfolio, so I will partner with, I think it's Tucker Anderson on this, and... Well, just following up on that, public and I'm thinking, So I don't know much about libraries. So in Bennington, we had the McCullough Library, which I always think of as a private library. But then we have the Bennington Free Library. I think that's also private. So I'm not sure. I would say all libraries, I think. I don't know. Is there a Burlington Free Library that the town, there's a city supported by a library? There's the State Department of Library. There's that. That if the town only has town funds and maintenance building and everything, but they're also a part of the library. So it might be some connected tissue there. Yep, yep. Why don't we start broad then with Lipset Council or others who understand the subject, if we need to... Tighten your heart. Sounds good. Well, the only reason I was asking was because as Senator Machine was speaking, I was thinking of school libraries. And then I was confused because I was like, they already are part of the school. Oh, right. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why I was confused. So he's thinking of his community libraries. So this may make more sense to my colleague who works in, who has more experience in the subject matter, but... Who is that? I believe it's Tucker Anderson. I'm not positive, but I believe it's Tucker who does most of the municipal law issues. Re-categorize it as a school zone. Don't know... I don't think I understand what that means. For what purpose? Oh, he's concerned about firearms. Oh, okay. Yeah. I apologize. There we go. Now we're talking about the judiciary teams. Yeah. So I will put my head together with my colleagues. Thank you. And some language will come to you. The other thing I have on my list, we've heard from the State Board of Education, they make six bucks an hour. They don't have a lot of legal support. According to Dan French, I believe he said that we've never looked at... And there also seem to be doing a lot of work. I don't know if there's anything to do there right now, but if you can just keep a note somewhere, put it on a draft bill, should we have some kind of examination of staffing and compensation for the State Board of Education? It's a heavy lift, but I know all boards are heavy lift, or not all. Some boards are less of a lift. But this is a... they tend to do a lot of stuff. We're asking them to do a lot of room-making. And what does that look like compared to everybody else that does this work for us? Do you want just a placeholder now, or if you're thinking of study or an examination of that? Why don't you quit study or examination? We can always yank if you're interested. Who would be doing the study? Is it something that JFO would contract out for, or AOE would contract out for? Is there a group JFO would do the analysis? I would ask JFO to do the analysis and compare it to our other boards and commissions. Anybody have anything else for a miscellaneous education bill? Please, Senator... We have that farm-to-school issue that you and I briefly talked about, that those smaller schools aren't being able to access bodies for farm-to-school? So they're coming in today, and I heard from some of them in Ag. We can ask them directly whether or not some small schools... We put $500,000 in the budget last year, and they came in asking for the same amount this year to make sure local schools could buy local produce, right? And you heard that small schools are not as able to access that. So that's something we can find out today. Does that make sense? And then we could go from there. Anybody have anything else for a miscellaneous education bill at this point? Okay, I think that is it at this point. What is your timeline? Well, I suspect you're swamped. So why don't we get it when we get it, and then we will put it in, and when do you think we could get it? Maybe that's the best. Living within reason of people, you know... Depending on when I get it back from editing, my goal would be for very early, you know, aiming for Tuesday, but I don't know that I'll get it back from editing by then. So maybe we'll have a walk-through next Friday? Oh, sure. Does that work? Walk-through next Friday? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair. I also have... Maybe you're working on this, but there was a bill that I had asked for around signatures on ballots for school boards. Yes, that is a sign to me. So I don't know, would that be something that would get enveloped into this bill potentially, or should it stay separate? That's a policy decision for you all. It's really up where you would like to put it, but I do think that bill would... If you put it in by itself, it would go to GoVox. Oh, okay, yeah. I think because it's the voting. That's true, yeah. What I wouldn't want to do is put something in this bill that forces it to go to GoVox. Right, right. So maybe just leave it separate. We could do a completely separate bill. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd love to do the work of another committee. No, I mean, you know, I don't want to mess around. It's about Chapter 11, Senator Campion. What is Chapter 11? Do you remember last year? That's under Chapter 11? Yeah. So it would be here. Maybe. Three hundred page rewrite of Chapter 11 happened. Did you guys see me before? That was great. I can work with Senator Gulakhan. Do you mind? That would be great. And then I'm happy to take it up here. And then we could... The other thing while we have you is Senator Gulak has a school construction language that I think... Well, I'm looking to Senator... Becky Wanserman's working on that. She thinks it might be done tomorrow. Okay. Yeah. And so I have asked Hayden to put you on the calendar for next week. Okay, great. Just to give us an overview. Yeah. Okay, great. Just to give us an overview of the language. Anything else? Okay. So... Hey, thanks for everything. Of course. So am I awaiting instruction? We're going to connect on the CTE testimony. I just heard. So if you could take a look at that, which I think to me it would be great to build a CTE bill out of this testimony. I think they did a great job. But what you and I can do is after you've had a chance to look at it, maybe tomorrow or Friday afternoon after I think we're done at three, I'd be happy to stick around and just chat about the CTE stuff and see if you have any questions so we can build that bill together and make sure everybody wants to move forward with it. Yeah. I was wondering about that one piece that was around building expansions. If that would come under school construction bill maybe. That would be school construction. The other piece I would say may not be, jurisdictionally is not necessarily for me to comment on, but related to the health care and manufacturing fields. Those, if there are... Lowering the ages. Yeah. If there are industry standards or laws that govern those limits on age. I'm not sure I'm the right one to delve into that. But we can certainly talk about how to figure that out and where to get that information. But that's definitely not a school. I'm not a title 16. Yeah. So anything to feel comfortable. You have our permission to pull whatever you think needs to be out of a CTE related bill. We want to make sure it's all germane. Well, I think the CTE is going to straddle several areas depending on what you're doing. So it's totally appropriate in my opinion for me to work on a large CTE bill. But I'm not going to be able to provide much guidance on whether a health care employer should or shouldn't allow an 18-year-old to shadow or participate in. Yeah. Most of this to me isn't health and welfare. Great. Let's work together. I might be thinking of one other thing that someone brought up to me. In schools, apparently there's a position, and if there's an acronym, BC, something, it's behavioral specialists. And apparently they don't fall under a teacher's contract. But they're ending up doing quite a bit of teaching because of the lack of staffing. So I was asked to maybe bring that forward as something that could maybe happen. Collective bargaining is usually handled by Damien Leonard. Okay. You're hitting on all the things I don't, not in my portfolio. So it's a great day for me. Okay. But you can submit a drafting request to anyone, including me. Yeah. And then my director will make sure it gets to the right person. But historically Damien has handled all of the labor. He does the labor side of things. And so he usually handles the teacher's contract stuff. Great. But you can send me an email if you want. Okay. Yeah. Is that a question you want us to pull apart a little bit? Can any of you mind just talking to Damien? It makes no difference to me. It would be interesting to hear, because I don't know, it was just brought up to me from someone in a school. And it would be interesting to learn more about that. Damien, can you come in for 15 minutes next week? Yeah, I'll be good. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot for that. Of course. I appreciate it. I will see you all at some point later this afternoon. Thank you. I'm going to take 10 minutes before we have Ted Fisher join us for an update on general schools. Welcome back to Senate education Wednesday, February 8th, 230. Mr. Fisher, thank you for joining us. As we mentioned at the start of committee, everyone has received the press release from the agency. And there's a little bit about what has happened and what continues to happen. But we are immensely grateful for your willingness to come in and give us an update. So with that, floor is yours. Thank you. For the record, Ted Fisher, Vermont Agency of Education, I'm the agency's director of communications, legislative affairs. So what we know, let's just note up front, my colleague from the governor's office, D. Barbic, the governor's violence prevention director, may or may not come in and join us. Oh, that's okay. So if she joins us, we might pass the mic to her. So she's trying to wrap up the meeting. So what we know is that between 0830 and 1100 this morning, approximately 21 Vermont law enforcement agencies received calls reporting active shooter situations at local area schools. How many? 21. Thank you. None of these calls were determined to be legitimate. I should actually just note it was 22 dispatch centers. And I'll go into that in a minute and one to a town hall. And that is in a community where there is not a dispatch center located in the community. None of these calls were determined to be legitimate. The characteristics of the calls are similar and appear to be part of a hoax threat scam. It's unknown who the perpetrators are at this point and how exactly the hoax was conducted. The incident is under active investigation. You may hear me say that a couple of times in terms of questions that we can and cannot answer at this point. The calls were received to the main non-emergency line of dispatch centers, not to the 911 line. And as I mentioned, one call was received to a town hall. I presume to their main number. The governor's office is working with the agency of education, the department of public safety, local law enforcement, school districts and other community partners to respond to this incident and to investigate it. The Vermont School Safety Center was immediately in touch with Vermont school leaders, agency leadership of my agency and at the department of public safety, as well as with the governor's office. And we worked quickly to get information out to Vermont schools and to the public about the incident. Hey, we sent a note, a notice to superintendents and independent school heads and principals as well. Excuse me. And we, the department of public safety sent out an immediate press release and then there was a press conference at noon. I'm giving a poor and abridged version of that. So I recommend at very least watching the sort of briefing portion of it, Commissioner Morrison did really good jobs for outlining all of the facts. And so that can be found on the governor's Facebook page if you're interested in referencing it later today. So every threat was taken seriously until it was determined to be a hoax. That means there was a law enforcement response. Many students, staff and families were also made aware of the situation as schools followed their emergency plans. So to that note, incidents like this can cause a lot of disruption and anxiety in our schools, emphasizing the need for a trauma informed response and for schools to be available to their students, staff and community. Just know from AOE's perspective in some ways the timing couldn't be worse. As you all know, the social, emotional and mental impacts of the pandemic are still very much being felt. That said, many schools have made big investments in this area over the last few years as part of that. So my hope is that they'll have that capacity and they have some resources for speaking with children and families about traumatic events. And we also have some of those resources available to the Vermont School Safety Center website. Just a note for families. I'm paraphrasing Deputy Secretary Terry Boucher here, which is, in conversations with students about this, emphasize to the student that they're safe, that everything is all right. If help is needed, can ask for it from schools, community members, other people that you feel comfortable with. And one thing to import to emphasize is if parents feel that their student wants to talk about it, they should have that conversation, even if it's difficult or uncomfortable, not trying to hold it off, whatever. If a student wants to talk about it, even if it's going to be difficult or even if they can't express what they're feeling, that is helpful. The last thing I'll just say is we're still early in this incident. We know from experience with other states that this has happened that this has happened over a couple of days. My information is all from 11 a.m. to my knowledge. An hour ago when it came down to get these updates, we had not received any more, but it's possible that we could receive some this afternoon or we could receive some more. We're all being extra vigilant right now, excuse me. We're still early in the investigative process, so I'm sure we'll give you an update in terms of what has gone on. I have a list of schools as of 11. I read them, but I don't keep copies. I don't keep copies. I have a few questions. One was, is there some common denominator between all of the schools that was first born or was this a same kind of random? The second one was, did schools actively go into lockdown or was it determined to be a hoax before they actually did that? I don't know in all cases. I know, and I'm trying to keep it to the facts that we as in the state know, I have heard some anecdotes about lockdowns or community notifications in some cases or family notifications in some cases. I don't want to say that happened everywhere. We also heard the media did ask about whether or not schools were communicated with actively during the response. Remember, this was a call to law enforcement. We know that that happened in some cases by hammock doubt. We don't know if it happened all the time. Again, this underscores the recommendations that we have through the school safety center of first schools to build strong relationships with their local law enforcement. It's very possible they receive calls because it's part of their operational plan or whatever. And that's something that I was asked by your colleagues in the house and we can look into it and see sort of was that a factor in terms of was there communication before a police car showed up in the parking lot, for example. To your other question in terms of common denominator, I'm going to try to paraphrase Commissioner Morrison and say that that's still being investigated. That and some of the technical aspects of things, the messages were similar, whether it was the same message, those kind of things are still are what they're looking into and we don't have an answer yet for those things. But I imagine that we will, at some point, be able to provide that update. Any indications that these threats were occurring simultaneously or near simultaneously in other states? From what we know and as of when we asked, which was this morning, doesn't appear that any other New England states had this. The answer as far as the whole country goes is we don't know. What we do know, and I should note and I didn't mention it earlier, what we do know is that this is a national, unfortunately a national trend we were made aware through our colleagues in the Department of Public Safety and with this, as you know, well from taking testimony, it's AOEDPS and the School Safety Center is sort of the bridge between. We sent out a notification most recently in December about this to superintendents to make them aware that this was, what happens, and that was, as a result of information received by the Vermont Intelligence Center, which is a unit of DPS responsible for information sharing among law enforcement and they had received notice from other states that this happened. So even if it didn't happen simultaneously, we know it's happened in other states, to schools and to other places in the community, frankly. The term that was used earlier that I didn't include in my remarks if you're not familiar with the term, it comes from this term SWAT team, like SWAT team, and I guess there are people who think it is amusing to call the police and get a heavily armed, thus the SWAT team terminology, police response to an unsuspecting person at an unsuspecting address. Apparently this is, I think originally started as some sort of online joke. It's not funny particularly when it gets used among the community as a way to attack schools and to attack communities and spread fear. But it does appear to be sort of, fortunately, a trend that we're seeing nationally not just among school districts. Has anybody of any other states been able when this happens to track the people, the organization, whatever? I don't know the answer to that. Right, he's pretty sophisticated. Colonel Birmingham had an interesting response earlier in the press conference. I think it was about closer to the end if you're interested in here. I'll try my best to paraphrase here. In some cases, these incidents are still under investigation in other states. In some cases, unfortunately it appears that the actors occur, the actors reside outside the United States and have, I feel like about there, I have my own beliefs about what their motives might be to attack communities in the United States but it could be any number of people and those would be difficult. I think sometimes it could be difficult to find who it was due to the ability to use the internet and technology to make these kind of calls. You were upset during their comments but I think... No, I think you were about to say there was a regulatory conversation to be had and potentially at the federal level about whether or not we can receive these whether it's right for us to continue to be able to receive these kind of calls that are made through the internet through phones, spoofing, whatever. I mean, I don't know and I'm way over my skis here to say whether it was the same it's like what you might get from a telemarketer or some of these kind of reported calls. I think it's interesting is that that kind of technology could be employed in situations like that and we will presumably wait for the investigation to pan out as to whether or not that was the type of thing used. My comment or question was when the commissioner referred to this as an act of terrorism because you are putting fear into people and creating disorder does that somehow connected to anything in stature to help support these investigations or that's a good question for DPS and probably a good question for once they are a little further along on the investigation but the commissioner did mention that just maybe to go to take one more step back is this is a criminal act there are terrorism statutes certainly that this could potentially fall under but it's also a crime to make threats of this nature, threats of violence so I think once we know more we might know whether or not but certainly I think the term terror is apt in this case it creates anxiety and provokes fear among members of the community even when there is no incident it still has an impact there is no physical threat it still is a threat that causes an impact for families and students and staff who are trying to go to school on a Wednesday other questions for Mr. Fisher I think it would be helpful for this committee to stay in touch with the agency on this we have a school safety bill before us are there lessons to learn are there things to that either the commissioner the chief secretary and if you find out in the next few days that would impact this bill in what we decide to move forward so if we could get let's say a regular briefing for the next next week in other words something that makes sense for Friday 20 minutes that would be great if not next week in some kind of debrief around lessons learn things that we might take from this and as we deliver school safety I would be happy to come and provide an update I didn't say this but one of the the thoughts for me internally is to keep a fire understanding you have a school safety policy work in front of you at the moment is to keep a firewall between that because this is too important this is an urgent event this requires our full attention but I think we can provide both an update and I think it would be interesting for us to provide sort of exactly what you're just saluting to which is how does this apply to the policy angle that's under consideration and so I will communicate that back I know that secretary French is anxious to return to speak to you more about policy as well so we can have more schedule of those and nobody should be taking anybody away from this kind of important work that you're doing so when it makes sense when you feel it's comfortable when everybody's comfortable to return to the policy we can certainly give an update and I know that it's a team effort so many folks are working on this right now and I'm sure our DPS colleagues will have some information for us in the coming days and weeks to share so I appreciate the committee's time okay really appreciate it thank you the committee we in any moment I think even maybe when Mr. Fisher opens the door we might have our additional guests out there we want to check those if you want to let that person in welcome back to Senator Education Wednesday February 8, 251 we now have Farm to School Awareness Day really welcome and re-welcome I had the opportunity to see some of your faces this morning when I wasn't sharing now it's game time and we're really thrilled that you're here we have an hour so about 5 minutes about you know I'd say roughly each before we have to move on to something else but Betsy do you mind joining us in kicking it off and really glad you're here and if you could just sort of set the table you know what everybody's going to hear and why that would be great okay great so my name is Betsy Rosenbluth I'm the project director of Vermont Feed which is a Farm to School partnership of Shelburne Farms where I am and NOFA Vermont and it is Farm to School and Early Childhood Awareness Day so we're here to talk about the impact of that on our students on our farmers communities and thank you for inviting us in we are asking you to support the Farm to School in Early Childhood program with a level funded base appropriation of 500,000 for fiscal year 2024 and to support the local purchasing incentive program at 500,000 in base funding so the governor's budget does include Farm to School in Early Childhood grants at 500,000 but we just learned that the agency of education budget does up for the governor does not include the local food incentive so we could if I may while we're on this new group new senators who weren't here last year we did put the 500,000 in last year correct so and that would allow to talk about in this committee local schools to purchase local locally and you're saying that's not in the budget right now that is not in the governor's and the governor's recommend while we're on this topic I'm going to look to my left here where senator who has been asking about small schools in particular as it relates to accessing local foods yeah I just correspondence from some folks who were saying that they are in a small town a small school district and because of their size they are unable to access the Farm to School program does that make sense to you do you know a district then some window window is a window in school could be yeah that sounds right I can have my colleague Cullen from NOFA Vermont speak I know for the very very small schools you have to be creative in how that happens so for many small schools and several of the speakers today can talk about central kitchens that then send the food out to the various schools that sometimes happens if it's not happening directly in the school sometimes very tiny schools will get it from another district there's some geography challenges if that's the school and I know we've been trying to figure it out with them for a while so we can talk about that the grants program is open to everyone the local food incentive is open but it's for school food authorities supervisory unions so they would be part of the larger SU for that program okay center weeks for the uninitiated yes can you just like 10,000 foot view of what is the program what's the goal of the program how long has it been in existence just some baseline let me back up for a few minutes so Vermont led the nation back in 2007 when we passed the Rozo McLaughlin Farm to School program which created the first farm to school grants program and that program has issued over 200 grants to K-12 schools and early childhood programs a few years back we expanded the eligibility beyond schools to include early childhood since 80% of our brains developed by the time we're 5 years old and so we know that healthy brain development is essential with good nutrition that's part of it and so that is now part of that program it's administered by the agency of agriculture and Gina is here and she'll talk a little bit more about the impact that she's seen and what's happening with that program with that then two years ago we started a local foods incentive for schools for K-12 schools that provides an incentive for increasing local purchasing and so we recognize that the federal reimbursement in the meal program really has not kept pace and when it comes to spending those dollars within Vermont sometimes it costs a little bit more so it's not a reimbursement for that but it's an incentive and you're going to hear from Harley Sterling today in Wyndham County about how that incentive really catalyzes schools to purchase more local because they get a higher grant that's bringing money back into their program so we'll talk about that schools spend over $20 million a year buying food and the goal is to capture more of those dollars into the Vermont economy and spend it with Vermont producers and Vermont farmers so even 20% of that would be significant over 100 farms now across the state sell at least something to schools or early childhood programs and so we have a nice map on the website we can share with staff so you can see all across the state farms have those relationships and then the third leg of the stool so to speak is universal meals and that component is ensuring equitable access to all these farm fresh school meals for every student and every zip code across the state and so we know for many students half their calories and half their nutrition is coming from school meals and so making sure that that's available and all students can enjoy that Hungry Vermont can share also a lot of information about the impact that just the last three years have had on that we I might just jump to this these three programs then all work together so this was attached with my testimony in your website but there's a hard copy that just shows how farm to school and universal meals are increasing participation in the school meal program which is bringing more dollars more revenue into those school nutrition programs which means they have more money to buy local which is getting more fresh you know from students who are connected to it with the education then they're participating in the program and it's this positive reinforcing cycle that that we call the virtuous cycle of farm to school so that graphic is just showing you how these three programs are working together in a positive way and for us it's really connecting students to what that food does for their health for their bodies and their communities and the economy so it's benefiting the students building healthy habits and connections to food while also benefiting our farmers it's the win-win of farm to school and I would share just a very brief story I told this morning of talking to the Sodexo staff up at UVM a while ago and they shared a story with me that they're seeing Vermont kids growing up with farm to school in Vermont schools when they get to UVM they're asking for where's the local food, where's the fresh food and so we know that it's staying with those students I could even say at Bennington College kids that come from interstate but even now young people are looking for it more and more at institutions of higher education they understand that right in the connections yeah we had two students high school students just previously in house education they had to go back to class or they'd be here from Harwind Union high school but talking about what it's like to grow up through middle school and high school with farm to school understanding the connections and it is with those kids hopefully for life so I think I'm just going to save time for questions and for our other speakers so we're going to hear from Food Hub that has been working on how can we best deliver and fill gaps in the supply chain to get that local food to schools we're going to hear from the agency of education and the agency of ag and we have a teacher on zoom so it might be easiest if I can announce the next speaker it's sort of shifting a little bit we have on the list so yes we would love to hear from Dr. Lee that's awesome I have the school info for you River Valley Unified School District which would include Dover and Wardsboro Windham Central Supervisor Union sorry? Wardsboro and Dover yeah which is I guess part of the River Valley Unified School District okay that's the school district yep yep I'd be happy to speak a little bit more too later if we have time yeah and certainly there's a legislative fix in any way that would help this situation we're always all yours for that kind of thing great so Dr. LaVine is next thank you okay great Dr. LaVine how are you I'm great how are you guys good good to see you and with you I can't quite see the name Dr. LaVine I could recognize it from anywhere but I'm sorry your name Aziza okay and you are not quite yet so I think we're going to start with Dr. LaVine great to see you but looking forward to hearing what you have to say thank you Mark LaVine Commissioner of Health I would hate that my celebrity status got me first place in line here but I'm happy to pick this off with a few comments that really are focused on some of the things you just heard because kids brains are front and foremost for the health department and really many issues which US legislators and policymakers struggle with whether it be educational achievement gaps or deepening disparities they have their roots in how well a child is nourished and nurtured at the very earliest points in life so most of my comments will actually be less at the school level and more on the early childhood experiences like childcare and preschool but clearly science can link children's brain and optimal development to high quality nutrition as you just heard the first few years of life are the most critical for a significant proportion of brain development and a great deal of the brain's ultimate structure and capacity is shaped very very early in life and there are basically three factors that influence early brain development reduction of what we term toxic stress which are the things that produce adverse childhood experiences the presence of strong social supports and secure attachment and then the third of course optimal nutrition now obviously it goes without saying that children need access to nutritious foods but that doesn't mean many many Vermont children are not at risk two in five Vermonters experienced food insecurity in 2022 that's 40% so a family's nutrition insecurity can be directly linked to an ability to have access to nutritious foods for the children about three quarters of Vermont's children under six live in households where parents are working this means these children will need high quality childcare during the work week and of course if they're going to be benefiting from their childcare program they're going to need to receive nutritious food during the course of the day so they will receive lunch and sometimes breakfast everyday which can be really more than half of their total daily calories so whether we're talking about a child at home or at a childcare or in preschool it's important that they receive nutritious meals wherever they are and one of the vehicles for success in that endeavor is farm to early childhood programs and this of course not only supports the families and their but also Vermont farmers now let's start to explore exactly how these early childhood programs can help overall child development first of all farm to early childhood programs bring local foods to children in childcare programs so some of these children may have their only opportunity to actually taste fresh fruits and vegetables things that they haven't maybe experienced in their diet to that point obviously that leads to potentially building healthy nutrition habits as well as learning more about what's grown in their area we also know that children actually do let their parents know that they've tried new foods so that can have an impact on the parents own nutrition and on the parents buying habits and they may be more encouraged then to use these types of foods as part of the families diet children are also getting nutrition education as part of these programs so they learn about various fruits and vegetables and where they come from many of the programs in childcare actually have gardens that children can help with and then eat from children are often involved with age appropriate food preparation tasks and we know the children that have grown or prepared food are certainly more likely to try those foods now these programs can also of course benefit the farm community by providing opportunities for local farms to sell their products locally to these childcare programs building awareness for families that the farms are nearby and can produce provide produce and other products for their use at home and just a quick mention of there are funding opportunities available to early childhood programs to help them create robust farm and early childhood programs so there's the farm to school and early childhood grant an 18 month program that provides coaching and action planning funding for program teams to implement farm to early childhood strategies while supporting nutrition education and access family engagement and community building with local food systems and then there are CSA grants community supported agriculture that provides 80% of the cost of a CSA share to help early childhood programs specifically across sorry specifically accessing local foods that are fresh building community and relationships with the farming community and exposing children staff and their families to local foods so in summary these programs support the early childhood system by offering access to nutritious foods where children are during their day supporting high quality childcare providing nutrition security and access to families and offering educational opportunities to help shape children's current and future eating habits and really their preferences over the course of a lifetime since so much is determined in those critical early childhood years I'll stop there and see if there's any specific questions or we can move on to some of the other speakers Any questions for Dr. Levine Dr. I think the only thing I would say is if there is a particular piece of research that you think the committee should see around this issue if you would forward it along to us that would be great we'll be talking to our colleagues if we get the universal school meals we'll be talking to them about those early years we'll be sharing numbers around things related to how important it is to have access to farm fresh vegetables any particular research would be helpful I will have my administrative assistant forward to you during the course of this meeting a journal of pediatrics publication talking about the role of nutrition and brain development especially in the first three years great thank you great to see you Dr. Levine really appreciate you weighing in on this no problem I'll hang out for a short time thank you Gina I'm sorry the folks at school it's a little awkward the student had to go another teacher dropped out she's still on hi Zeza great to see you thank you for joining us hi everyone great to see you thanks for having me my name is Zeza Malik and I'm a fifth grade teacher at Champlain Elementary in Burlington so I have I wrote down some stuff so I'm going to read this to you today I am speaking you today to ask for you to support the Farm to School and Early Childhood Program with a level-funded base appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2024 and to support the local purchasing initiative incentive program for schools at 500,000 and base funding I believe in the Farm to School Early Childhood Programs as being a critical connector bringing farmers and educators together so that children and youth can experience local food have nutritious meals and learn about where their food comes from when I first started at Champlain which was about 13 years ago our gardens were in disrepair there was no connection between our gardens and the cafeteria classroom or the community students access to garden programming was limited to whether or not their classroom teacher was willing and able to take on a garden plot many classroom teachers were interested in incorporating garden-based learning into their curriculum but were simply overwhelmed by the task in the absence of systems to support it those who were dedicated would lug in things from home like food processors, cutting boards extra shovels, rakes we'd spend our own money out of pocket to purchase supplemental ingredients and all of our planning was done in isolation and outside of the regular work day fast forward a couple of years we had an amazing opportunity come up with the Northeast Farm to School Institute this transformational program is made possible through this funding we were able to bring stakeholders together from the classroom, cafeteria and community to create those systems that we were really desperately in need of we were able to create an action plan and formed a farm to school committee with the objective of connecting those three things the classroom, community and cafeteria now we have the time, money and expert advice necessary to develop curriculum that includes reading, writing, math, history, science and to bring the learning and products from the outside into the school every single classroom now uses the garden for hands-on learning so we went from just having one or two teachers bringing all these things in doing things in isolation to now every single classroom pre-K through fifth grade is working in the gardens and this isn't only for our school but throughout the entire school district which is six elementary schools that we're working with two middle schools and one high school all connected together now here at our school students are harvesting kale that they bring to the cafeteria to get turned into kale chips that is un-served in the cafeteria they're eating cherry tomatoes straight off the vine they're harvesting peppermint tea that we use for tea during reading time in our classrooms and we share it with special guests our gardens have expanded significantly to include plants that directly connect to our curriculum our second grade students recently studied pollinators in a nine week long research period we worked with the community to not only create a report but they designed a pollinator garden to enhance the gardens to attract pollinators that are beneficial to the garden and vice versa making it more productive and getting that hands-on learning in a way that books are great but this just adds a whole another element to it we also now have a cooking card that's stocked with supplies a team that works on lesson plans and full-time employee who's able to plan and deliver instruction it's just really really incredible you know just thinking the status of the schools these days and what that means to teachers who are overwhelmed, we're understaffed to have access to all of this and to get our kids outside and getting learning in this hands-on way is just simply incredible our coordinator works really closely with the school's chef to help develop recipes, do taste tests that use the produce directly from the garden in addition we've really had a focus on even increasing equity within the garden we've added crops and recipes that really are representative of all students so we've added for example heirloom abinacchi crops we've also worked closely with the association of Africans living in Vermont and gotten recipes from our newest Americans into the garden so we have those crops here we've been developing recipes around those as well we also planted those abinacchi seeds that I was talking about and recently harvested them this last fall to then create a squash soup that then was served to the entire school so just amazing connections getting that hands-on learning and history science all sorts of things plus learning valuable skills of cooking and gardening at the same time students and families are invested in our garden they understand the importance of native plants they're willing to try new foods gardening really brings our community together this funding has been transformational for our school community I'm just asking that you please support the Farm to School and Early Childhood Program I couldn't be happier that it's around and couldn't advocate it for it more if I tried love it so thank you very much and let me know if you have any other questions any questions please hi Aziza it's Martine hi I just wanted to say hello and thank you for all you do you are a fabulous teacher a rock star educator and please say hello to all of my friends at Champlain Elementary I definitely will nice to see you thanks for your testimony Aziza would you say a word or two about universal school meals and how they're going at the school whether or not it's working or not is actually something that also has been quite transformational because previously it was you know kids would get like big bills and some kids wouldn't eat we have the most amazing school staff that our cafeteria workers would make it work for every kid but it has just simplified it so much and made it so much more equitable and I see more and more kids eating the meals and really having the fresh fruit program too I think that's included in here as well getting like a big thing every single day of a fresh fruit from somewhere kids are devouring it eating so much fresh fruit and vegetables they are fighting over carrots and you know like want to eat the last one and it's just really really exciting to see that and I just love the way that it just levels the playing field for everyone everyone is eating those meals regardless of who you are so that's been a huge game changer Aziza I did think of one question I'm trying to get some other schools and other districts to adopt gardening programs like we have in Burlington because they've got all this wide open land one of the problems that people always bring up is like who tends the gardens in the summer so do you just have volunteers in the community that do that we do a combination of things so we definitely utilize volunteers but we also have a really strong farm to school program where at some of our other schools so one of the big game changers has been that we've actually had some time to talk as a district and now we have this full-time employee that works year round so we have a direct connection with our food services program and we have someone who's working on the curriculum and kind of connecting the purchasing and food kind of connecting the three C's that we talked about the cafeteria classroom and community together so in the summertime there's a program there's fork in the road and so those students are in a work training program where they're gardening they're learning how to prepare food and they sell it in a food truck and those students are employed to go from garden to garden and make sure that the maintenance has been done so we have a partnership with them where they do a good bulk of the weeding and caring for the garden but we also have community volunteers who come in and water the garden and do other additional supports but that's a huge thing because it is teachers aren't there in the summer the students aren't there in the summer so utilizing it when it's most productive we've also connected with some of the summer programming as well like some of the summer camps use it as well terrific thank you very much feel free to stick around your schedule may have you going off but if you if you have a few minutes feel free to stay with us thank you very much I better get going but it was really nice to see you all thank you very much for having me okay thank you Miss Perron Gina Clitherow okay oh there you are yeah welcome thanks hi Gina Clitherow Vermont Agency of Agriculture Farmed Institution Program Manager about the grants program the Farm to School Early Childhood Program that multiple folks have mentioned already in testimony so I'm just trying to fill in the details but I'd like to share our fiscal year of 2022 report showing the impacts of the most recent round of investments so as Betsy mentioned in 2007 this grant program started we offer through the Rosa McLaughlin Act the Agency of Agriculture offers grants on an annual basis to Early Child Care and K through 12 schools through this grant program over the last over the duration of the program so far over 200 grants have gone out and 1.6 million and state funds have been invested through these grants and as Aziza really clearly laid out that these funds focus across the three C's of Farm to School which is Farm to School Classroom, Community and Cafeteria so within the Farm to School Grants Program there are three well Farm to School Program there are three grants programs within that the first is the Farm to School Early Childhood Grants Program the second is the CSA Grants Program or Community Sport and Agriculture and the last is the Vision Grant the Farm to School Early Childhood Grant is the program's flagship funding opportunities that are on for a long time and it is a capacity building grant focused on focused on building sustainable and holistic programs at schools and early care centers it takes a team based approach to doing so oftentimes there's educators, students and administrators and farmers and family members all on this Farm to School team and the average award is around $10,000 and that's a package award of financial assistance on average $10,000 and then also robust technical assistance that really helps teams implement that project effectively with expertise from our meal program viability local procurement experts and school gardens and also in curriculum development so our partners for that grant program are Northeast Organic Farm Association so NOFA Vermont, Shelburne Farms Hunger Free Vermont and Vermont Garden Network and then folks also get coaches so you get a coach to work with you one-on-one throughout your grant and you have access to these technical assistance experts and you have the financial award and this combination of money, mentorship and expertise is a proven model to really support the development of these programs over time the second grant program is new, both of the other programs are new or they started in 2021 the CSA grant or the community supporter agriculture grant subsidizes the cost of CSAs or farm shares by 80% for early childhood education providers and after school programs this grant is smaller the average award is only $800 but there is a direct benefit tying both the farmer and also to the educator and the students who get to engage with this local food and in addition to that you know it's a grant that's really right-sized for smaller programs so it's a really unique opportunity and we've seen that grant program be really highly sought after we had 28, we awarded 28 grants in fiscal year 2022 through that program and we've also seen folks start off with the CSA grant and then come back and actually apply for our fiscal year 2023 funds for the farm to school and the childhood grant program and be successful in obtaining that the last grant program is the vision grant program this program is to support innovative and impactful projects that are kind of proposed outside the box solutions to contemporary problems for climate change food insecurity, food sovereignty racial injustice and these are youth centered projects and the idea is that these projects can be replicated and scaled across the state and that's been a really exciting area of innovation in the program so far this one also started up in 2021 so we've granted two grants so far through that program one each year we granted one this year to sorry in 2022 to Fairfield Community Association and there's a little story about them at the back here of the report page 11 $16,000 so over the course of fiscal year 2022 the most recent year of the grant program $190,000 has been invested through these programs and also supporting for the farm to New England Farm to School Institute coaching program which you'll see here is one component of the expenses budget here on page 5 but the we were really excited that Governor Phil Scott and the state legislature increased the program budget for the farm to school grants program for last year to $500,000 and that's for fiscal year 2023 and we're still working through those funds so we don't have a full report on how that's all gone out the door just yet like I said we have these three grant programs one of them opened in the fall and so we have impacts to share on that one already we've granted twice the number of farm to school early childhood grants that flagship opportunity that we were able to fund last year because of this increase to the base funding and we are anticipating awarding 60 CSA grants this year in comparison to the 28 that we offered last year and we are allocating $150,000 to the vision grant budget so looking to support several high impact scalable replicable projects this year in that program as well so yeah it's an exciting time for the farm to school no China program and the agency of agriculture and the network to see this growth and I'm excited to share more next session as we get to see the full effect of the $500,000 in the angle budget have you been to Depperston school looks like there are a lot of that's Windham County correct? I pick up and drop off my daughter there looks like what's happening around local yes yeah it's great yeah they received a 2022 grant from the farm to school a China program that's great questions so I was a certain know for certified vegetable farmers from 2008 to 12 I got out of it because I couldn't make a living out of it how are we making sure that the farms that want to get involved in this program get the information they need and actually get an equitable share of getting their vegetables to market I was probably the problem with that because we have such a short growing season unless you've got plastic unless you can grow under a greenhouse that you're just competing with everybody else's I know if you ever hear of the better roots go out they had a program that was excellent and I followed that when I started getting involved with the actually it was Master Gardener's course Verne Groove and Jurner had a couple meetings with him they made sure that everybody okay you're going to be in the co-op you're going to grow potatoes and that I grow beautiful tomatoes well we want you to grow potatoes so and if we need somebody has a blight or whatever your tomatoes we'll buy your tomatoes so I'm just concerned that everybody that wants to be involved in it because if you're talking about taxpayer money it's going to get a chance to participate that's a great point and a great question and I totally it sounds like a lot of money is going to school programs and they actually have their own gardens and I think that's wonderful but if I'm also looking at maybe we can make some distribution out to some of the local farmers well you know the CSA grant program which is a smaller grant program but that funding does directly benefit farms because if they're partnering with an early child care provider early child care providers being reimbursed for that cost of signing up for CSA but I think that some of my other colleagues I think with the Green Mountain Farm to School can really talk a lot about the process for onboarding producers and supporting them in accessing institutional markets definitely an important market outlet and Gina you're with the agency I am perhaps also just something you can go back and ask any of your colleagues who might be able to also respond to Senator Williams question what else is out there to support our farmer I mean I know there are a range of grants but just to give him an idea of what's out there that would be great yeah sure thing happy to do so we certainly have a lot of grants in the agency and there's stuff beyond too so yeah happy to be able to reach out I just looked at your map and I think my farm is still on there but I'm not sure I didn't know that you had a farm it's great to know in your program overview you get a couple of kind of administrative items that were required for program management and such and I assume that comes out of the grant money that's all that's appropriate but I'd like to kind of flip this around 180 degrees and take the perspective of the school what are the elements in the school itself which require funding to to exercise the program you can take that perspective not the agency but coming back from the school looking at the agency how are the funds utilized so are you asking I apologize about senator are you asking what type of like how much staff time is needed to manage the grant and apply for the grant that's not covered at all because I don't know what the costs are from the school perspective so there's money being allocated some of it's being utilized by the agency to run the program but does the school benefit from the dollars actually go to the school and if yes what in the school are they using the money for on a day to day basis yeah so within the 500,000 that's allocated for fiscal 2023 and the 190 none of that is going to the agency of agriculture for administration of that program the question around budgets they vary a lot based on what the project needs are for each school specifically for that early childhood grant that can kind of be a lot of things but sometimes it'll fund you know garden equipment or the professional development for staff to learn about how they can get into the curriculum or to pay for subs even so that teachers have the time and space to engage in professional development around farm to school curriculum integration there's probably some other examples that other folks could share but equipment for processing food in the kitchen mobile kitchen projects I think we had someone testify about that earlier today a wide variety of projects can be supported okay any other questions thanks so much okay I don't know if Connor's here or Carly wants to jump in okay with the agency of education so the local food initiative is administered for the agency of education okay thank you hi there for the record my name is Connor Floyd I'm the grant program manager for the child nutrition programs team at the agency of education and I'll be providing a brief overview of the local foods incentive this is the second year that the local foods incentive grant program has been operating this is a state funded grant program with a $500,000 appropriation and the grant program is split up into two separate tracks to help get schools kind of ready ready for the program and so when a school food authority which is just an organization of schools usually at the supervisory or school district level chooses to apply they're going to start with a baseline year grant that baseline year grant is a couple simple questions that's really getting schools thinking about what they need to do and what they need to prepare for to shift their purchasing and be successful in the grant program it's really there to be a support and so every application for a baseline year grant that we've received we will review and maybe provide some feedback but they've all been approved and so that gives schools a 15 cents per lunch grant award for that baseline year and the intention there is for it to be a little bit of some seed funding help schools cover that increased cost of purchasing local which is going to be required to qualify for those subsequent year grants after a school food authority has successfully applied for a baseline year grant every following year will be a subsequent year grant and that's when it's a performance based award schools need to track their local purchasing and we review that documentation we'll ask for some backup receipts just to confirm that the numbers that they report are accurate for the subsequent years there's three award tiers and so school food authorities must at least hit 15% local purchasing if they do that they'll receive 15 cents per lunch served the next tier is 20% where they'll get 20 cents per lunch and then the highest tier is 25% local purchasing which results in a 25 cents per lunch award this year to kind of help get the word out and prepare our schools for this we partnered with Vermont feed and a couple of food service directors to host a webinar training during our summer institute which is the period in August when we're preparing schools for the coming year and that training gave an overview of what's going to be required of the grant provided some context in terms of what an audit would look like of their applications we don't want any surprises for folks that apply we want them to be prepared with the documentation that we need to verify those applications and then we have the food service directors on that call as well to provide some insights into their purchasing strategies and just ways for stretching their budget and still purchasing local we also put out quite a few guidance resources both through memos and different pages on our website to explain the different aspects of the program and then finally in designing all of these the different pieces that make up the local foods incentive we work really closely with food service directors food hubs nonprofit partners we recognize that food service directors are already really stretched thin and so to add another grant program for some there's a really big ask inherently in this in this grant there's a lot of work between tracking all those foods separately keeping all those receipts getting some product documentation that demonstrates that it is indeed Vermont local and so we really beyond the the core requirements we need to ensure program integrity we've been really mindful of trying to keep things simple and you know we've done that by the application for a subsequent year grant is built right into a financial report that we already act to collect right and so instead of meeting to submit a whole separate application for a subsequent year grant there's just a few extra lines in a financial report that school food authorities complete so we're doing things like that to try to really make it as as low impact as possible one one thing that has come up quite a bit is thinking about what does local mean right and that's a question we often get from school food authorities when they're just beginning and is sometimes a point of confusion and so the grant uses the agency of agriculture is Vermont local definition which has three categories of product and there's pretty specific requirements to meet those local criteria we discovered when starting implement this that there's not an existing list of what counts as local there's no one checking or approving those so we're really starting from scratch the approach we've taken with the question of what is local and what isn't is we put that on producers and so Vermont feed has been really helpful in collecting letters from producers verifying that their products are local Vermont feed has created an open database for schools so it's easy to check there and schools also always have the option to reach directly out for producer to ask for one of those letters once we see that there's that letter verifying that it's local at the agency of education we don't do any more digging there we take that at base value so briefly looking at this past year's results of the local foods incentive this was again the second year so it's the first year that there were some school food authorities that could apply for a subsequent year grant there were 23 that were eligible which means they applied for a baseline year the previous year of those 23 15 applied and of those 15 six had local purchasing percentages that were 15% or higher and so there are six school food authorities that are going to receive a subsequent year grant award assuming that the audits that we're conducting right now all pass and that everything that was reported there the other nine school food authorities they tracked their local they did everything they needed to and their numbers just didn't hit that 15% threshold but in their financial report they still reported those numbers to us which we appreciate because it gives us a context of the full picture of what schools are purchasing there were eight school food authorities that could have applied for a subsequent year but didn't school food authorities that applied for a baseline year so it's their first year engaging with the grant program I in total there was just under $340,000 in funding requested and so we anticipate to award about that much that is you know well below the $500,000 appropriation for the program but as Harley can attest to later on it takes a while to really shift your purchasing and so the schools that are currently at that 15% or higher they've likely been doing local purchasing for much longer than this past year right that is just the first year that it's being demonstrated through this grant program as the years continue we anticipate that funding request to increase as more schools become eligible and so at this point despite being a little low right now I think it's that $500,000 appropriation it feels like the right fit for the time being finally two other things to highlight one is that 27% was the highest local purchasing percentage and that was a Wyndham Northeast local purchasing percentage Harley's coming up right after me and so he can speak more to his efforts he can say you know he didn't start purchasing local and their program's been doing this for a long time it didn't just start this year so it's been a lot of work to get there and then of the 15 schools that did apply and recorded their local food budgets that accounts for right around $775,000 of Vermont local food purchased and so that's just a good number to track as we go and as more schools apply and we get more data reported I'm sure that number will grow and so I will leave leave it there but I'm happy to answer any questions folks may have one of the things that came up this morning in the committee and I'd like you and Rosie Krueger perhaps to come back next week and share with the committee we're not getting the forms for so many families that we need to be to draw down money from the feds for universal school meals and there was talk from the chair of AG and others can that form become a little livelier can we do more outreach can it say something at the bottom support your local farmer build this form out something so I'm going to have Hayden reach out to you and have you come in just maybe next Thursday for a little update on that we would appreciate it I'm going to move on to the director's the best fit there I don't work on those forms but she's been working really closely on the universal meals initiative we're putting it on you now Connor we'll see you next Thursday you don't want to do it you might want to talk to Rosie I'll check it with her thank you we really appreciate it yeah so we have about 15 minutes so you know we have a hard stop because we have to finish our testimony and committee members to have something at 4.30 I'll be as quick as possible thank you chair I almost didn't recognize you with a suit I had to recognize you with a chef dressed like you're grown up today so I just want to echo all the points made in this great testimony earlier I'm here to ask the committee to support the local bursting incentive $500,000 in base funding and the farm to school grant program $500,000 I also want to thank the legislature for all of the work they've done to support the universal school meals program I share testimony in the House Ed committee last month that was just really compelling the constituents at my schools if they wanted to share any stories for me to bring and the response was overwhelming and from a very diverse group of stakeholders from nurses parents, grandparents, teachers principals I made a joke that it's pretty hard to get people in schools to agree on anything I think we had 23 emails back and forth about when to reschedule school picture day so it was a real testament you don't often see something that everyone thinks is just a win-win-win but universal school meals and as I'll try to explain local purchasing of these farm to school programs are as close to a win-win as I've ever seen so I just want to stay in my lane and speak about the local purchasing incentive in schools and what I've seen this year the grant has been I hate to use the word game changer but I don't have another one another term it has totally changed the landscape and the conversations that I'm having with other school food directors across the state they're all really engaged with trying to make this local thing happen and as Connor pointed out they didn't give out the full grant this year but so many people were right on the cusp and so many people are just getting started trying to start building these systems find these recipes how did you do that, what did you do we bought a potato peeler in our district to start doing more local potatoes because if you've ever worked with local organic potatoes seconds you know there were little green golf balls sometimes you don't have four labor hours to peel potatoes things like that are happening all there's just great stories from around the state Scott Fay shared from Essex Westford that they bought a beef burger patty press and they're making their own beef burgers so that would represent a very large scale of how to do this but in our very rural small districts we're trying to do it on a smaller scale show that it can be done in schools with only 70 kids maybe those same systems will scale to our high school that has like 350 representative water districts in Vermont so just I see so much value in this program we've always heard people message that they buy a local and there's always been what does that mean and so to finally have these data that is like here's the numbers, here's the receipts it's been a wake up call for some folks that are realizing well that's actually kind of hard to buy 15% local but it's doable and here's the districts that are doing it and making it happen how do we get there, how do we get that for our school, how do we get you know some of the best food in the world that's grown here in Vermont that goes to all these fancy restaurants how do we get that same food in the communities where it's grown fed just to you know a group that maybe that's 50% of the calories they're getting that day I can certainly attest to my district I know that there's kids that that's the only food they're getting that day that's really been our mission before this grant existed was to try to build these systems out and be a model for other school districts and this grant has enabled that just tenfold and the value of the return on that $500,000 grants are $340,000 this year the talent set over $700,000 $775,000 in local food was purchased but that is only going to grow and if we had every school district in Vermont at 15 or 20% that's a big number and Senator Williams addressed your question from earlier having the school which is probably the largest restaurant in town to be engaged with their local farmers is the best way to ensure that every farmer who has product available can start to build those relationships I know I hear from people all the time it's like I grow potatoes I do sugaring we have lots of those direct relationships but then we also have the food hubs and the logistics starting to grow around the state to service some of the bigger districts as well so I'm just really enthusiastic about this I think it's a really great investment and I hope that this body will continue to serve I didn't want to sound selfish but my farm was still there I had some health issues so the farm had been fouled I had interns from Green Mountain College that were the number one sustainability college so they weren't under and I was finding help because I was a one-man operation they provided some pretty good help they were really interested in growing good quality food and maybe is there any way that we could extend this program into students that like to work in the school garden maybe extending it during the summer months to help the farmers on the farm yeah we heard just this morning earlier just about how engaging it is to students when they're involved in growing the food if they get to do a school project where they're in the garden and they grow a pepper that's where they're trying things that they maybe they would never try otherwise because it's all about stories and this gives them the story it's like I grew this pepper and so at our elementary schools that have these robust farm school programs you just see their salad bar participation is off the charts and by the time they get through school to sixth grade they're salad bar experts and they go on to our other schools and you can notice the difference from the different schools that feed into our middle and high school if they don't have as much of a farm school program some of these kids are experiencing they're starting from a later date so we can grow right here why should we ship it from 3,000 miles away exactly yeah so in addition in addition to gardening which I get the linkage between the kids and growing the food and the habits I get all that but I'm going to take a kind of a corporate perspective on what you're doing what everybody's advocating so in the corporate world when we want to change some behaviors we put that response way back on vendors we require vendors in contract language to change their habits so for example the goal is to achieve 20% local purchasing I assume that schools like a lot of larger institutions use companies like Cisco and such so wouldn't it be a simpler solution to in the request for proposal from a food vendor to say look you now have a mandate for 20% local production or local you know including 20% local food production into our business relationship go forth solve it, come back with how you're going to do this and basically just kind of like not making your responsibility to figure out a new method to source you know green beans from Williams farm or whatever whatever the case might be you may do it for you in the department of agriculture or education or whomever agency then takes that and they just validate okay it's happening I'm just curious why it's like a 180 degree difference because it's a public institution as opposed to apartments what you're saying totally makes sense and there's a lot of people who are involved on this at the state level with the food directors buying group and people involved in procurement who are doing this work and what I would say is that this brand has given schools an incentive to want to buy more local and back it up with documentation and what that is in turn doing is creating the market pressure on these larger vendors that now we need to find a way to get more local on our trucks so that they can compete with the food hubs or whomever or even the larger districts who just don't have time to have 37 direct relationship with farmers I need it to be on my Cisco truck that is happening and I just can't emphasize enough that we are so early in this process so many good things are just getting started it was only going to continue and those relationships are only going to become more robust and I do see that happening where more local is going to be offered it's already happening I just want to make one more caveat so in this case this is a state-funded supported initiative to change a behavior but in the other model a corporate model that cost is absorbed by the vendor it becomes from a state perspective it becomes a flat cost it's not a cost that needs to be absorbed I'm just kind of curious why you're preaching to the choir we've tried to really buy local without even bragging about it but what the grant has really done has just changed you can say we buy local we're a Vermont farm-to-school cafeteria program you don't have to do very much to back that up and it's very effective cost-effective to kind of local wash and say we do all this great stuff but to actually purchase the local from Vermont farms in a systematic way all these different support systems I think to get to where you're talking about getting if that makes sense thank you great, thank you some wrap up we've got about four more minutes so any concluding comments or new information yeah absolutely I know we're really short on time I'm hoping to clear up some of your questions about how these programs benefit our farms and small businesses food producers and some of your questions about how this works within the procurement and the supply chain levels my name is Becca Perron I'm the account manager for Green Mountain Farm Direct we're a local mission driven non-profit food hub so we're the intermediary between schools that want to purchase local and the local farms so to speak to your question Cisco is an enormous corporation and by sourcing the cheapest product possible and shipping it as far as it needs to go meanwhile we are doing the work to create relationships with these local producers and make sure that they're being opened up to these new markets which are being created by grants such as these which give schools the funds to purchase local so I'll tell you a little bit about what I do but first I'll ask that you please support the Farm to School and Early Childhood program which is a appropriation of $500,000 and also please support the local purchasing incentive program at $500,000 base funding so we are an aggregation and distribution service and we source a wide range of products from over 50 Vermont based producers from fruits and vegetables dairy, eggs, meat, soy products beans and flour, maple and honey pickles and other value added products and we service 72 school accounts across 18 supervisor unions and 5 private schools and early education centers we broadly serve northern Vermont so there are other food hubs that serve the other areas of the whole state is covered by food hubs not all of them use food hubs not all of us use in the state do but these programs help schools to utilize the services that food hubs provide in the northeast kingdom where we service these schools are rural with enrollments under 100 and tiny procurement budgets so given these barriers local purchasing is often a challenge but the local purchasing incentive is a direct response to the challenge and I included an example in my testimony about California Central Supervisory Union that we saw bounce back from the COVID-19 school year to this past school year and we saw them bounce back to purchasing locally raised ground beef from N.E.K. meat producer Gros Slaughterhouse in Troy, Vermont locally grown and stone ground wheat flour from Morningstar Farms and Glover and carrots from Pete's Greens and Craftsbury and all 52 of our Vermont based farmers and producers were directly benefited by the sales increase that was after the local food purchasing incentive was launched but especially our small scale vegetable growers like St. Joe's Joe's Brook Farm in St. John's Berry Hartwood Farm in South Albany West Farm in Jeffersonville so we're seeing real data that supports local farms and producers being supported by this incentive program these are the broad strokes any questions yes I did have clarity on my earlier question I guess the issue that my constituent is having is around the minimum order size yeah that's a really great question I was up especially with the tiny year schools yeah so I guess he was hoping that maybe that could go away so that it could be more equitable to the smaller schools so right now they can't get the money because they're just so small apparently or they can't get food minimum delivery delivery amount sometimes it's $200 sometimes it's $400 it depends on the distributor is there a way to fix that it's around it yeah there are drop shipments so if we're talking about an SU that has five schools yes so they can pool their orders so all the schools can go in on one order and then distribute as needed afterwards there are also ways for them to order up and get foods that will last longer than a week so they can maximize their order that way depending on the food hub that would service them there are a couple of workarounds what's the SU again windows yeah food connects yeah do you do anything with the local distribution of companies like Point River and Black River Produce as far as distribution we don't work with them as far as they know they don't do much with schools they deliver local produce to retailers and co-ops they're a competitor of ours but again we are finding a market with local food specifically because we spend so much time creating relationships with producers making sure that we're supporting them that way it almost makes sense that if you went to some kind of a co-op to find out who had who was going to grow the vegetables and make even contract maybe something to think about with the ad department it just made like the their roots co-op I talked about I think it was incredible there was such a concept such a great concept helped the farmers and it made sure people with markets have fresh local food thank you all for joining us we very much appreciate it this was very helpful and we look forward to staying in touch thanks so much could you make just one sentence just a final plug for the record my name is Helen Wordfett from the Northeastern Uniformity Association and together with Shelburne Farm I'll share my remarks and I can pass them on to my assistant or I'll save my remarks but really we just want to underscore that we've learned today about the $500,000 appropriation for this really transformative revolutionary local purchasing is not that included in the governor's budget so I would really like to reiterate that request that you support the $500,000 base appropriation for fiscal year 2024 and I believe that's changed since this morning I would reach out to the chair member of the local chair as well we learned that information right in between thank you all very much thank you so much thank you great committee I think Beth St. James is probably right outside we're going up to the next you're going to be awesome at 173 see you around