 Good afternoon, everyone. This is Senate Education on Wednesday afternoon, January 27th. We are going to spend today looking at S16, which is an act relating to the creation of the School of Discipline Advisory Committee. We have a number of witnesses, but we're going to start with the lead sponsor, Senator Sears, the senior senator from Bennington. Thank you, Senator Campion. Thank you very much. Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. And it's nice to be in the Education Committee Zoom room. Yeah. We just thought, if you would like, as usual, you know, I know quite a bit about this work through you and you filling me in over the years through you, but please go ahead. The continuation of work to understand school discipline and the use of expulsion and suspension. Over the years, there have been many studies done, mainly one in Texas that looked at the schools, the prison pipeline and found an extremely unfortunate, the correlation between school suspension, expulsion and prison time, and particularly in minority groups. And as I've met with people, particularly around the country, that study was done by the Justice Center, Council of State Governments Justice Center, and being a member of the board, we heard an awful lot about the study as it was getting put together and everything, and look particularly at Harris County, which is Houston, I believe, Texas. You know, my first boss said to me, you know, you first have to recognize you have a problem before you can solve the problem and get to the problem. So I think admitting we have a problem, is goal number one of this bill, that is gathering data regarding school discipline and race and ethnicity and other factors that go into it. And then hopefully that data would guide policies on how we deal with school discipline. But I dealt for about five years, I dealt for about 40 years from kids who didn't like to go to school, and they had a variety of reasons. Many of them were extremely intelligent, but many of them would prefer to get suspended when they could go out and basically do whatever they wanted. There was nobody at home to tell them what to do, and they would prefer that to an in-school suspension, for example, many would prefer an expulsion, get me out of this school. So I think we have a long history, but it's time to get some hard facts and data behind Vermont's expulsion and suspension. And then to try to develop policy based upon what we find out. Great, thank you. And we can find that CSG study through you, Senator Sears. Yeah, although you can go on the Council of State Governments Justice Center and look at the various papers that they put together, and you'll find various studies on school discipline and matters regarding juvenile justice. And if you would like, I can, the gentleman who did the study is no longer with the Justice Center, but they have people who work exclusively in juvenile justice, and we can get you some names and stuff. I think my only question is, you and I entered this bill in the past, we've had these conversations. Yeah. Historically, what's been the holdup? You know? No, I'm not sure. I think it's been the other body, but it's also been the education establishment, frankly. Okay. You know, and I started my program down in Bennington in 1971. And the school system was more than happy to provide us money back then in order to educate the kids away from the high school. They would have preferred they'd not be in the high school. I think there are kids that our education institutions would prefer to not be there. That's pretty blunt, I know, but I think that's true. Questions for Senator Sears. Please, Senator Chinden. Senator Sears, thank you for this bill, and I love measuring things. I have a phrase, and of course I teach at UVM, you can't improve what you don't measure, and what your measure matters. And I see a lot of this is just trying to get accurate data. The questions I have are from a new senator perspective. I just wonder if the council, and you have so much experience, you could probably tell me what your rationale is on the creation of the council being in consultation with the commissioner of corrections and a public safety. It's unclear to me where this council would really live and how it would exist. Are there other councils of similar composition and charge, or is it better to put the oversight of this council more clearly and specifically under a state agency? That's a great question, and I'm not sure I'm prepared to answer it, but I think you're getting in the right direction. I mean, the reason for the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Corrections is the school's the prison pipeline. That's the basic reason, but I certainly think the committee is, I would more than welcome the committee looking at other folks that should be looking at this, perhaps DCF too. Now, at one time, the largest high school in the state of Vermont was the community high school of Vermont operated by the department. I have one follow-up, if I may please. So I also, we also heard from Senator, not Senator, Secretary French yesterday about a part of his budget or plans is to try to unify some of the back office and first nation systems used in schools across the state. You see a fit for not not tasking the commissioners of corrections to collect this data, but maybe charging Secretary French to employ more consistency in tracking this data and part of those efforts to standardize some of the back office systems that we use in our public schools in the state. I don't, I think they could be done in concert. We need the data to understand if there's bias in these decisions, if there's implicit, I should say implicit bias, if there are certain groups of kids. A few years ago, Senator Campion and I introduced a bill to try to introduce alternative justice into school discipline, such as after school programs, making restitution through apologizing to the victim of bullying, for example, and having kids deal with that rather than expelling or suspending them, having to deal with what they actually did and how they can make it right. And restorative justice is such a tool in our justice system. I think many schools have instituted restorative justice and I'm not Anthony and Bennington is. And I think they're quite successful with it. Anything that Secretary French could do to make that generally available around the state would be, I think. Other questions? Senator Sears, thank you very much for... Thank you, Senator, and thanks for taking this up. Appreciate it. And I'll see you at five o'clock press conference with the banner. Yeah, no, actually, I was gonna say, if you would like some help with the Justice Center and I can see what they have on that study, but I can, it was... That would be terrific. I think Jim may be familiar with it. I think he may have seen it years ago. Yeah, if you want to, Jim, is that something you can collaborate with Senator Sears on? Sure, I'm not familiar with it, but I'll talk to Senator Sears. Yeah, I'll try to send you a link to it. Let me look on the Justice Center website. Okay, great, thank you. Thanks. Thank you, bye now. Thanks, Senator Sears, see ya. See you later. Mr. Demeray, are you ready? I am ready. Thanks for being with us. If you would take us through the bill, bit about what it does and how it plans to do it, that would be great. Okay, I've been having trouble with screen sharing today, so let me just see what's going on with it now, but am I able to screen share? Let's see, Jeannie. Yes, Jim's a co-host, he can share. Okay, let me see if it works. Okay. Perfect. Can you see this bill? Great, okay, good. Super, let me analyze this. Okay, okay, so for the record, Jim Demeray lives console. We're walking through S16. It starts with a number of findings, which I won't read through, but there are two themes in these findings. First is a theme around the fact that, exclusion, suspension or being kicked out of school, both of those fall unevenly onto marginalized groups. The first theme is that there's some stats around that issue. So that's one theme here. And the second theme, so you have down here on page two, black students, for example, their suspension rates are higher, et cetera. So there's that on that. And then secondly, the other theme here is around lack of that. So points out that under seven here, data is unavailable for more than a month or a week. And that's what leads to this co-language around collecting data. So we have a better starting place to deal with this issue. Those are the two themes here. I would say that these findings came out of language that was drafted back in maybe 2018. So this has not been updated and maybe it's a testimony we'll find that some of this could be brought more current. But right now it is where it is. And it lists out some other dates here, like this one here, 2013, 14. So maybe we can update that. Section two is a heart of this bill. So this creates the school discipline advisory console which as mentioned works in consultation with the commissioners of corrections and public safety. And it's job is to collect and analyze data regarding school discipline and promote public and approved independent schools in order to inform planning and decision-making, et cetera. The membership is 15 individuals. We've got the secretary, the commissioner for children and families, defender general, the executive director of the state's attorney's insurance association, a superintendent accepted by the Vermont superintendent's association. Two principals, two teachers and two special art teachers. And six, seven and eight principals are selected by the Vermont principal's association. Teachers are selected by the Vermont NEA and the special education teachers by the Vermont console of special education and ministry scores. And then you've got the executive director of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, the executive director of the Vermont legal aid, and two parents of students who have received and out of school suspension in a Vermont public approved independent school set by the secretary of education. The powers and duties of the console are to first analyze current data collection definitions and practices used in Vermont for its conduct and for disciplinary actions that result in a student's exclusion from the classroom and develop standard definitions and practices for the collection of all appropriate that way to school discipline. Second is to analyze annually on a school district basis the available data regarding suspensions and expulsions. And then if I collect and analyze this data as necessary to inform the work of the console including the number of instances of expulsions and suspensions in each grade operated by the district, the total number of students in each grade operated by the district who were expelled or suspended and the number of instances of expulsion and suspension or both for each student. The duration of each instance of expulsion and suspension, the infraction for which each expulsion and suspension was imposed and lastly each instance of referrals along for its authorities or the juvenile justice system. The third function is to identify strategies including unnecessary legislative changes to schools to develop in school solutions to discipline their issues and to ensure that student access is not impaired as a result. And lastly, it's functioned to the different practices that are not educated, school administrators, policy makers, et cetera. This console going back up here just to note is not, this is not session law. This is a new statute. So this is designed to be a permanent console not going forward. And I noticed in that regard that this reporting needs to be changed here. This says one report, but this is a permanent console. It should be an annual report. It'll be on January 15th to the housing and sex, needs and education and judiciary services and health and welfare with its findings and recommendations. Does that mean first meeting will be by September 1st of this year? This is also a language about our friends meetings. It should not make more than six times I would say per year, that should be out of here and get support from the agency of education, conversation at standard, conversation for members. And then section three requires the secretary before the first meeting of the council to collect and distribute to members of the council all readily available on suspensions and expulsions for the academic years 2013 through 2019. And then to tell you before July 1st of next year we incorporate the council's definitions and practices that they develop into their data collection rules and procedures to accept preventive by privacy laws. And the effective date is on passage. Okay. Questions, Senator Shendon. I'm just really glad to see secretary French here. As I read this, it seems to make a lot of sense but I wonder if it's going to get assistance from the department of education, the agency of education and if the agency of education secretary is the one that has to follow through on all this, is this the right structure in charge or as you highlighted, Jim, it seems like the language seems to have been temporal or task force oriented with a singular report and not an annualized report. And I'm wondering if we need to rethink the structure and placement of this so that it's more permanent and maybe that fits better as just a charge to the agency of education. But I'm the new guy and I'm going to keep saying that for another month or so but I'd love to hear secretary French's reaction to the structure of this bill. Sure. And we're going to have secretary French in just a little bit. But Jim, did you want to add anything at this point before we move through our witnesses? Not much, I just want to say that as I mentioned, this being a permanent council some of the changes have to be made in terms of reporting. You could make this a temporary council for a couple of years, I mean, that's your choice. Right now it's being a permanent and statute council. Senator Persley? Yes, I just need to switch between screens here. When we talked about a public school on section three, line nine, does that automatically mean prove independent schools or if we wanted to include those, would we have to say that or are they captured by public school? Since they... They are not captured by public schools. So when you're referring to an independent school there has to be separate mention. Okay. Something to consider later. Thank you. Just following up on that when Senator Sears introduced it or perhaps it was when you did Jim, are independent schools part of this? They are. No, I'm looking at page four. So the charge of the console is to inspect and analyze that, et cetera, regarding school discipline in public and approved independent schools. So it's covering both. Senator Persley, did you have a follow up? Well, yeah, that's why it stood out to me that we didn't list them in this data collection part. I'll go back to you and see especially some places maybe not others, I'll check and see. Okay. Senator Tarenzini. Thank you, Senator Campion. And you can tell me my comments are premature if they are as I'm reading over the bill here. The one part that I don't quite understand and hopefully some of our testimony today can clarify for me is the under section two when it talks about creation it talks about the creation of this council in consultation with the commissioners of correction and public safety. I'm not really seeing yet in my opinion the value of asking those department heads or commissioners to get involved in this. To me, it seems still like an education sort of lane to travel in, but maybe I'll get a better explanation later. I understand the statistics are that eventually some of these students unfortunately do end up in the corrections system and so on, but not understanding that portion. So I'm hoping to find out some answers, I guess on that. Great. And as we're going through this, we're taking a heavy look at it today, but if there are people that if we continue on this path next week, if there's anyone in particular particularly, just let us know that you want to hear from and we can certainly hear from that agency and that commission itself. Senator Lyons, are you looking for your unmute button or? I was finding my note page. No, I don't have questions. I'm waiting to hear the testimony, but you know, I'm always hearing concerns from school folks about the burden of human services and needs in school systems and how this is not, this is what I hear, this is not what I believe, that teachers are overwhelmed with having to deal with all kinds of human service issues. And as I look at this council, I guess I want to hear more about that perspective from folks as they testify, but then I'm also interested in, I guess, what is the purpose of the council? Is it for prevention? Is it to improve school culture? And so for me, it is a little edge to the council and I guess it might relate to the comment that was just made about having corrections involved. So I just like to see how this all sort of sugars off as we hear testimony. Yeah, it's a good point. Anything else for Mr. Demeray before we move on? Okay, Mr. Demeray, are you able to stay with us a little bit as we make our way through witnesses? I am. Perfect, all right, well, we're glad to have you. And with that, I believe, Ms. Isana Davis is with us. Ms. Davis, how are you? I am well, how are you? I'm fine. I think last I saw you in person was at Bennington College on an evening that we had a really great, lively conversation. And thanks for being with us today to weigh in on this bill. And I think this may be one of hopefully several times that we'll partner with you and look to you this year as we make our way through a number of different educational bills and fronts. One of the things we started talking about a little bit about last week, which I know will engage you on is civic education. And for today, we are talking about the School Discipline Council and S16. So if you don't mind, just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your role. And then if you would be so kind as to respond to the bill. Great. When I started this, everybody, I'm Susana Davis, the Executive Director of Racial Equity for the State of Vermont. This is a role that was created by Act of the Legislature in 2018. I was appointed at the very, very end of, no, rather, I began at the very, very end of July 2019. So I've been here for about a year and a half. And this role is housed in the agency of administration. So I work very closely with Secretary Young, but the work is very much statewide. And so there's a lot of collaboration with other agencies, everything from public safety to education, I see Secretary French here, and so glad to be on the call with him. And a lot of other agencies and departments as well. The statutory duties outlined for this role include conducting a top to bottom org review of all three branches of state government to identify systemic racism, overseeing the statewide collection of race data, developing performance targets and metrics, developing and conducting trainings for all state agencies, et cetera. So those are some of the things that we are doing. And I was very pleased to be invited to this hearing to discuss S16 because I think there's a lot of confluence between this bill and some of the goals that we had been thinking about for schools in Vermont. So I'll talk a little bit about that. There are a lot of committees, commission task forces that exist that touch on equity in some form, not just racial equity of course, but equity for the LGBTQIA plus community, people living with disabilities, people experiencing poverty and homelessness, et cetera. One of those committees is a task force called the racial equity task force. It was created by executive order last summer. I chair that task force. And one of the things that we were asked to look at over the last six-ish months was systems of support that exist for communities of color in Vermont, generally speaking. The task force issued two reports. One of them is already public and I can share that with, actually, I think I shared that with the committee earlier this week. And in that first report that we issued in September, one of the findings that we held was that school discipline, particularly the oppressive disciplinary tactics have a disparate impact on a lot of vulnerable students, which includes students of color. And so very broadly, the task force made a series of recommendations about this that I will talk about materially. All that is to say that between the work of that task force, the work of the act one group, which I also sit on, and a number of other committees, the harassment, hazing, bullying, there's been a lot of attention placed on schools, school behavior and how we deal with that behavior. A number of you may also be aware of a sort of slate of equity-related legislative proposals that have come from the administration, one of which is to do something very similar to what this bill is calling for, that is to create a body that's gonna help figure out how we can minimize oppressive disciplinary tactics and maximize in-school services. So I will say very generally, I am in support of the goal of this bill and in support of the work that it aims to do. And I come here with just a few questions and a little bit of food for thought for you all as you deliberate. First, I noticed that there is a strong emphasis here on having ties with the law enforcement community. One of the things that we discovered in our findings on the racial equity task force was that minimizing student contact with law enforcement was absolutely key to interrupting the school to prison pipeline and to preserving the social and emotional and mental health of students, especially those who live in communities or are part of demographic groups that are already over-policed. So we're talking about students of color, we're talking about low income students, et cetera. So that said, I do think that if we're considering creating a body like this, that we reconsider how much partnership happens with law enforcement, not to say law enforcement shouldn't be involved, but that I don't think they are the partners who should be primary to this group's work. I would instead invite us to consider additional or alternative partners, such as those in the mental health arena, those in the arts, believe it or not, because many of some of the most effective interventions when it comes to student behavior and discipline has to do with alternatives that engage students in other ways, like in the creative sector. So I would encourage us to consider having partners who represent the same areas that we wanna divert students to. I'm thinking about, and I don't remember where this was, but I remember reading a few months ago that there was a school somewhere in America that had created a meditation room for their students who were misbehaving in class and that it was very successful in that district. And so thinking about, if these are the sort of diversionary tactics or alternative methods that we wanna use, let's engage professionals from those spaces because it'll make us more likely to do that successfully. So that was one thing I wanted to say. It's a lot of law enforcement there and we may wanna reconsider. Another is I noticed a heavy focus on data here and that's so important, especially for a work like mine. We, I am often asked, hey, do we have data on race related to such and such? And it is often the case that we don't or that we do, but it's insufficient or that we do, but it's statistically insignificant because of low numbers. And I recognize that when it comes to the student population, we're up against certain federal privacy protections as well and state laws. So keeping all of that in mind, I very much support the collection and the analysis of data. And more importantly, what I really wanna encourage us is to make sure that we're doing something with it once we have it. Because there are data already in Vermont that tell us that there are disparities in student disciplines. For example, the commission, oh goodness, I'm gonna get the name wrong, but the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the Vermont affiliate of that commission issued a report I think last December that details the disparities in discipline for Vermont students of color, students living with disabilities, students with IEPs, et cetera. So between them, between HRC, between Act 1, between a number of entities, we do have data. So I don't wanna discourage the further aggregation and reporting and analysis of those data, but I do just wanna make sure that we're putting, that we're back loading, even not back loading, but that we're not focusing more of our attention on the collection and analysis, but rather that we're focusing more of our attention on action steps in response to these data. And then I suppose the last thing that I really wanted to highlight here was that we should be prepared to invest, which ties into the point that I just made, right? It's about what we do once we have the data and it's about how we reform our system. And so I think that we're thinking, we might be thinking about the immediate cost of the formation of this body and we might find that it's low cost or no cost to form this committee or perhaps minimal cost when we consider administrative support, et cetera. But the recommendations that come out of this committee could be pivotal for Vermont students, especially those in historically marginalized groups. So as we consider the initial work of impaneling this committee and perhaps their continued work, if it is a long-term committee, I just wanna make sure that when we do this, that we're not just committing to creating another body, but that we're committing to tangibly investing in the interventions that come out of this body's work. That's gonna be really key. And I suppose while I have the floor, what popped into my mind is another thing that I often mention to folks, which is that when you ask for input from historically marginalized communities or from people who tend to be underrepresented, oftentimes you will hear suggestions that might strike you as radical. And it's just so important that we recognize that the standards should not be where we are, but rather where we could go. And so as we think about how we do things today versus what are some of the recommendations that we might be hearing in the future, I just wanna make sure that we're all keeping in mind that our anchor shouldn't just be how we do things now, but rather where can our imaginations take us? And I'm thinking about specifically, I'm thinking about something as simple as like breakfast in school, which back in the day was considered radical because of who was proposing it, of course, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. But once we saw the impact on students, on their nutritional health, on their family wellness, on their academic outcomes, the fact that it reduced aggression and punishment in schools, the fact that it fosters better learning, et cetera, once we saw those undeniable numbers, then suddenly breakfast in schools was no longer a Black Panther Party for Self-Defense thing, it really came onto the radar of public nutrition, public health, public school, and suddenly it wasn't radical anymore. Now it's considered basic and necessary. And so as we continue in this work, I want just to remind us that one, we should be prepared for the down the line investments that we're called to make. And two, that we should keep in mind that those recommendations may not be what we're accustomed to but may absolutely move the needle for students in the month. So before I ramble for too long, I'm gonna stop there. Thank you all for your time. Thank you. Committee, questions. And if you don't mind, I'm just gonna kick it off with, around the data, do you believe that we already have enough data out there to start to be making some of the changes or is there indeed more data to be collected? Because- I think the answer is- Go ahead. Sorry, I was just gonna say, I think the answer is both. Okay. We certainly have enough to know that there are disparities and to identify the student groups experiencing those disparities. And we are also in some ways limited by lack of data or lack of ability to report them publicly. So there's always work that we could do to expand the data collection and analysis, but I think that we still already have enough to be able to act on. And something I should have mentioned earlier is, it isn't just about the students experiencing the disparities but also about those who are on staff or faculty who may or may not be empowered to weigh in on certain disciplinary decisions, especially if the faculties are not reflective of the diversity of the student population. So for example, data show us time and time again that when faculty mirror demographically the student population, faculty tends to have higher expectations of students. They think more critically about students. They think twice before recommending repunitive. Measures, so really ending, I shouldn't say ending, but improving our school discipline structure is gonna have to do both with policies that we're implementing, but also in who it is who's implementing and enforcing those policies. So I think those data on diversity, not just for students and for faculty are also should be contributing to the body of data we have. Thank you. Questions. Terrific. Thank you. Please feel free to stick around if you have time. You can always watch this also at a convenient hour since everything is now on YouTube. And we'll leave it there for now, but likely we'll have you back to continue the conversation. Thank you. Thank you all. Secretary French. Good afternoon. How are you? Doing well. How are you? Not too bad. Thank you. Would you like me? Yes. You've heard some testimony so far. Appreciate you being here. If you would share your thoughts on S16. Yes, I thank you for the opportunity to have French Secretary of Education. I submitted a written outline of my comments earlier today. So hopefully the community has access to that. And I appreciate the conversation around data. I think that's would be my first point. We have a construct and statute already about data collection and that really stems from the secretary's authority. So I think firstly, the issue in terms of process of how to collect the data, I'd make the observation that it's more effective, I think, to use an existing process and authority to collect data as opposed to creating a separate body to do that because ultimately the agency is going to be involved in making that happen anyway. And we would prefer to be directly involved because that's essentially how the system is configured. And secondly, I just, you know, the issue around data quality which is an issue, always is an issue. As a system, we've made some improvements on that in the last couple of years primarily through the implementation of what's called the state longitudinal data system. Essentially what that means is for almost all the data collections that we do with school districts, those are automated processes. So districts have student school information systems so which they enter data and then they export data from those systems to the state system. So it's gonna be important if we are implementing another data collection process here that we work within that overall system, meaning that we have a standard of data collection and process that conforms to what we already know and do is that we'll greatly assist with addressing the issue of data quality. To the earlier comment, I think we're a Senator, can't hear your question to Susanna about, do we have the data, do we not have the data? You know, we can always have more data. I think, you know, we certainly, I can describe the data that we do have largely in this area stems from federal requirements. So the school districts themselves report directly to the federal government in what's called a civil rights data collection. And then we have a separate federal data collection that comes to the agency, what's called a combined incident report, which is essentially number of students suspended, how many of them were on IEPs, that kind of thing. But we haven't really ventured down the path of asking Vermont questions of our system and creating Vermont data collection. So I think that's an opportunity and something we look forward to doing. But as we do that, it's important that we understand that there is a sort of a federal standard for data that we use, what we call common education data standards. So there are all the data elements have been defined that are in this bill in sort of a federal data dictionary. So we would just want to ensure that whatever we do in terms of a data collection would conform to that standard. Once again, to improve data quality and to ensure the data can be collected and so forth. But I would just... I could just interrupt there for one moment. Sure. Just to clarify, when we collect data right now, it's in a structure or it's in a format that is in sort of compliance with how the feds are asking us to collect data. For the most part of the data collections, we do ask the districts to do are directly as a federal requirement. Okay. And when you say we don't collect data for Vermont specific. So for example, can you give us an example of what you mean by that? Yeah, for example, there's been a question that's emerged from debate in the general assembly around, I'll use pre-K as an example. And to what extent pre-K, are there pre-K deserts? To what extent is pre-K unequal from region to region? To what extent is pre-K center-based versus home-based? And we don't necessarily have that data until we listen to those questions and design a system. So to give you an example of how that was resolved, each, the agency of education's what's called a state education agency or an SEA. Each state obviously has an SEA. And we're grouped together and we have a comprehensive support center assigned to us from the US Department of Education that works with each region. We brought these questions to our comprehensive support center, which helped us design a geographic information system basically to portray spatially the pre-K data for our state on a county by county town by town basis. So we can share that map with you. It's on our website. It intersects with socioeconomic information, employment information. So we can really, you know, policy makers can then parents and so forth can look at that data and visualize and draw some conclusions about to what extent pre-K is being responsive of the systems being responsive to the needs in different regions. So that's an example of a sort of, I would say a customized solution to questions that emerge that we ask of data all the time. But the bulk of the data collection we do with school districts, it's really the federal government that's asking the questions, you know? And as Susanna alluded to, sometimes there are limitations on how Vermont can respond. Firstly, our governance structure is fairly unique. I would say in Northern New England, we have the shared, let's say the supervisory model, which is fairly unique in most parts of the country. There's the district is the essential sort of compliance building block, if you will. But we also, in Vermont, we have low numbers in a lot of those entities. So to Susanna's point about suppression of data, that's always a primal issue. That's really helpful. And I'm just wondering again, if you could clarify a suppression of data. So when the numbers are very small, is it a confidentiality issue in some ways that we don't ask for certain kinds of data? Yeah, it gets, basically, this term suppression is usually the beginning of a data collection, which asks a question, for example, how many students of color were suspended? Yes. And at some point, that's a filter gets applied generally through what we call FERPA, the Family Education Rights Privacy Act. So the point of logic there would be to what extent would that data lead someone to be able to do personally identifiable conclusions. So if, for example, there were only two people of color in a school and there were two suspensions in a year, someone might be able to infer who got suspended. And that would be a violation of FERPA. So those kinds of issues sometimes emerge in our data. That's very helpful. But to the larger question, so my first point, I can talk a lot more about data collection, but I would just make the observation that we are interested in improving data quality. I'd say we, I think all of our monitors, including members of the General Assembly, particularly data quality and education, we've done some work in this area in terms of automating our processes and really in a good place. And I think the pre-K maps a great example of using modern visualization tools to be able to answer questions that people have of the data. I tend to be fairly protective of secretary of creating other data collection processes outside of that sort of automation workflow because we've worked really hard to pay down, I'll call it technical debt, if you will, we've been using very antiquated tools at the agency over the years. We've made some great strides using modern tools. So anytime we create a new data collection process, I wanna make sure it can exist within that workflow because we have, we've built a data division in the agency with data scientists and their great folks. Love to have them come in and testify at some point. But anytime we take them away from doing that modernization work or the required work, it distracts us from our ability to continue to improve our ability. So in data reporting, so I would just sort of call that out as one observation of this bill that I would recommend working with the existing statutory structure, which is that if we think we need more information, if we think we need more reporting on data, I would encourage a general assembly to direct the secretary and therefore the agency of education to do that work. Certainly we welcome the opportunity to work with stakeholder groups to design a data collection. If there's interest in asking those questions, particularly from disadvantaged communities or folks that have been disenfranchised in some of these processes, that's exactly what the data collections are for. And we would welcome the opportunity to work with folks to design a data collection. But my point would be that the agency is really the apparatus that we have in state government to implement any data collection. It's a distraction to have another entity doing that. And I think it ultimately undermines our data quality. The second point I make about the bill, which is I should have said in my introduction, we're supportive of the bill. We think it's important work. And I just wanna piggyback a bit off Susanna's comments because our, I say our, as we were contemplating reflecting on our COVID experience and particularly what's going on this year across the country in terms of race relations and hate crime and so forth, we arrived on discipline or the interest of having a state level committee on discipline, not necessarily from the data conversation, but as a strategy, a series of strategies in a sort of portfolio, if you will, around expanding equal opportunity for our students. And what I provided today in my written testimony is sort of an outline of four strategies we see being central to that. And one of them is a state level committee to look at discipline and particularly exclusionary discipline practices. And I think, you know, one of the things I just emphasized from Susanna's testimony, it's a great question to ask, do we have sufficient data? Do we need more data? But one of the things I think for many educational leaders we've taken away this year is that that shouldn't delay our action. We have sufficient data. We know what best practices and discipline and we know there's some innovation going on even in Vermont in regard to that. So it's really a question of highlighting or modernizing our approaches to discipline to make sure they're culturally and racially responsive to all students. Once again, our commitment here is about equal opportunity. And I think it would be useful in that regard to have a state level committee to identify those practices and to call them out and to put pressure on the system to adopt them. We don't need necessarily more data to do that, to justify that work. I think it's well known in the field of education. We have research on that. We have models of best practice. And I don't think it's necessarily just based on what I know of this area that it wouldn't take two years of study, the collection study of data to come to that conclusion. My fear is that we'd waste two years, particularly at this moment in history that we're in. There is a sense of urgency that the system move forward. I think in the more of an action disposition to take on some of these significant institutional issues. So that's a point I think I would also highlight certainly sympathetic and interested in advancing a state level committee. I think it's time. I think the mechanics of data collection just from a sort of a clinical perspective are concerning to me what's being proposed. I can think of some better ways to do that. But then secondly, I would situate the work from our perspective in a broader strategy around expanding equal opportunity or ensuring equal opportunity for all of our students. And we've promoted some other strategies in our round curriculum and so forth that we think are also important. Great, many questions, Senator Persley. Yeah, thank you, Secretary French for those last comments. I'm glad to hear that you're interested in moving forward and not just waiting for the data collection as we know that there's no time to lose on making these changes. One, and I liked your four suggestions in your written testimony that I saw. One thing I wondered if you could kind of give us some update or maybe it's not you, somebody else, but when you, in your number two is to expand the charge of the Act One working group. And I know the working group in Act One ends, I think it's next year, 2022, but I wondered if because of COVID or other things, before we add work to them without expanding their lifespan that we know where they are, maybe we just hear from them later, but I haven't heard an update on their work yet this year. Yeah, I know they will be bringing that forward too. My sense of that, the work has been going very well. I know they've reached out to the State Board. They have an obligation to report to the State Board as well, so they're in the process of doing that. The point I'd highlight that's brought into my written testimony, and I think this is gonna be a big policy debate, particularly in this historic moment that we're in for Vermont. It's about the, what is the role of curriculum? So we've, it was brought out in the Act One debate. We have a construct in Vermont where the State Board of Education adopts curriculum standards like the Common Core and so forth, but then local school districts are charged with coordinating and developing a curriculum for their school districts. And I think what I've noticed, particularly with the Act One conversation, there's an interest in going further than just promoting standards, that people actually also want to get into this issue of curriculum appropriately. We see that with the civics education conversation that's emerging now as well. So I think we have to be cautious about that to a certain extent. We don't want to see curriculum necessarily overly, let's say influenced by a political conversation. On the other hand, there is a need, I think, to perhaps be more forceful, particularly in some of these areas. So I think the compromise that we're promoting is this idea of a model curriculum. So the state responsibility would begin to be to promulgate model curriculums that districts could use, at least as a starting point, so that each school district isn't necessarily starting from scratch. And we would, I think, I say we, meaning the agency, would be the conveners of that conversation. So we could bring together stakeholder groups around different curriculum areas and say, here, beyond the next level down from standards, here's a curriculum framework for a specific area. Once again, it's not unusual for states to provide that role in other locations. And I think some of these conversations because of their importance, now will generate some interest in seeing the state produce model curriculum in some of these areas. So I think that's what we're promoting sort of at the beginning of that conversation. Okay, great. And I see Ms. Goddess is here. So maybe we'll hear from her. I'm pretty sure she's the chair of that networking group. So thank you. Any other questions? Senator Hooker, please. Thank you, thank you. Secretary French, your number four on your testimony is a task force on school disciplinary form. Would this be instead of, is this incorporating what this bill proposes? And would this be the AOE's answer to what the bill proposes as far as a council goes? Yeah, we haven't done the crosswalk. I would just observe their parallel ideas. We, once again, starting internally and working from Suzana's work broadly in state government, acknowledging that we would benefit from having a task force on this area. So I would just observe they're very similar concepts, perhaps starting from different places. I see Senate Bill 16 is emerging from a question about data. What data do we have? What data don't we have? But I think there's mutual interest in convening a state-level entity of some sort to be a convener of this conversation and to advance the conversation towards action. So I think there's plenty of opportunity. We haven't done that crosswalk. We're happy to do that, whatever we can do to help the bill get through. But I would just observe this was sort of our thinking it wasn't as a reaction to Senate Bill 16. It's just we had been working independently on this. Okay, and can you just comment perhaps on the intersection between AOE and corrections or law enforcement? Yeah, once again, we did not contemplate that in our approach. We see that, I think someone had mentioned previously, asked the question, what is the connection from our perspective, from an equal opportunity perspective and particularly an interest in moving districts towards an action disposition on this. We didn't make the connection to other agencies. Perhaps that could be accomplished in the task force membership, but we saw the task force members really being more representative of the broader community and stakeholder groups, including educators, but also parents and so forth, not necessarily from other areas of state government. Thank you. Senator Chapman. Secretary of Friends, I recall you speaking yesterday about the budget and I heard you say something about standardizing back office software for public schools. If I hear remembering incorrectly, please adjust my thinking. But do you see that as an opportunity to integrate some of the standardization that this bill is calling for when it comes to tracking these things and informants with what we're reporting to the federal level, but also enabling some statewide or state Vermont specific tracking. Yeah, I appreciate the question. It is, it's important I think to acknowledge that there's a couple of variables driving what we call modernization. One is to improve the quality of the data we have. And basically what we have right now, the construct is that the local school districts have what we call a transactional database. On a daily basis, they're recruiting, they're recording attendance, discipline, grades for students, residency, the basic biographical information of staff and students. And then periodically they export data out of this local student information system to the state longitudinal system. So in between those two things, when we start thinking about data quality, basically what we wanna do is reduce the opportunity for any of these data to be modified along the way, multiple hands having to touch them, arrange them, visualize them, whatever it is. So those automatic processes allow us to do that. A point of vulnerability in that chain right now is the variability of the local school district information systems. We have considerable turnover of school staff in those positions. So, and these are not necessarily simple systems to operate. There's a, you know, as I mentioned, there's a whole federal data dictionary sort of approach and uniformity that has to be learned. And the reporting requirements themselves are fairly sophisticated. So it's challenging. And we see the pattern across the state as districts have turnover in those positions. It's really hard for us to bring those people up to speed. So we think an important strategy would be to introduce a state level student information system that can be used at the local level. And then the state basically functions on a level of extracting data on the backside of that system. It's, there's no more exporting, if you will. We all live in that ecosystem. It's a model that's done in many states. So this initiative is just an example, I think, of good questions policy makers and stakeholders should be asking of the education system. And our inability to produce quality data should be a sign that that's an issue per se. But I would just, I would disagree with the proposed solution here, which is to create another entity to create a manual data collection process where we should be putting pressure on this automation process and ensuring that whatever we ask of the system at the sort of moment where we're trying to build that automation for our long-term goals, that it doesn't distract us from that mission. So I would encourage us to ask the questions of the data and I'm very interested in trying to respond to those questions through a design process. But I also don't want to be distracted from that modernization work because that just sets us back. Every time we have to do a manual data collection of the system, it just diminishes our capacity to make progress and improve. What is our overall goal? I have other questions. Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for taking the time again today to be with us. And thank you again for yesterday, which was incredibly comprehensive and helpful. And we'll look forward to continuing our work with you on this as we move forward. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks, Mr. Secretary. Amanda, I apologize for calling you by your first name, but I would love to know how to pronounce your last name before I butcher it. I appreciate that. Garces. Garces. Great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for being with us. I understand you're not new to the committee, but the membership has changed slightly and looking forward to hearing your thoughts on S16. I see, thank you so much for having me here. So I wanted to introduce myself. I am the director of policy education outreach for the Vermont Human Rights Commission. Our mission as an agency is to promote full civil and human rights in Vermont. We protect people from unlawful discrimination in housing, state government, and places of public accommodation, which includes schools. We enforce it through anti-discrimination laws, through investigations, cancellations, and litigations. The commission provides education and training and develops an advances policy relating to the protection of the most vulnerable, those belonging in protected categories, including women, children, black, and other people of color, new Americans, persons with disabilities, and members of our LGBTQ community. I am really happy to be here and thank you for the opportunity to testify on this bill. It's a new year and we really hope that this year brings hope for many of you. We are very lucky in Vermont to have organizations and grassroots groups who are committed to education and who envision an education system rooted in transformative justice and equity. And I am hoping their voices reach you this year. And I am here to offer myself as a support to reach those voices who are not always present. I first want to say that I reach out to the disability rights community and ask for their feedback on this bill and their thoughts are included here. I respectfully suggest that to have them wait in to this important bill because this really impacts their community. In regards to S16, I appreciate that the intent of the bill is but find that there might be other mechanisms where we can get to the goal. The Vermont Human Rights Commission is part of many councils, task forces, mandated by our legislative body. The creation of yet another working group with a sufficient funds to do its work is troublesome. And as someone who has advocated for other on-founded councils and working groups, I am now urging you to not go that route. As the chair of Act I, the Ethnic Studies and Social Equity Working Group, which I hope to comment short chair at work. I know firsthand of the amount of work that it takes to manage the working group and the work that is behind making the information accessible to all participants. That is no small task. And we should make sure that if we want to include, impact and marginalize families in any working group that we ensure accessibility because that in itself is an expertise. One thing that stands out is the makeup of the council as an advocate pointed out weights heavily on officials within the system or our own policy positions. If we want equity, we need to move away from the current practice so that we can really move our schedule where it needs to go. We must support the voices of those who have a marginalize and impact it. And that representation should be majority. It is a very different experience. And as the wise Ed Pacquin, if you have not met him from the disability rights for a month, he stated it will be more successful if the council had a better balance with those who run today's system and those who would like to see a change. You decide to go this route. Here are some recommendations around compositions. Disability organizations should be included and should be appointed by the Vermont Center for Independent Living, Air or Developmental Disabilities Council. Caregivers of students with disabilities and students or former students with disabilities should be selected from organizations who work in those communities. We have such a rich amalgam of organizations here in Vermont who have champion disability rights. And they should be the ones that reckon the best people for this work. I'm going to emphasize that they're the ones supporting our families with litigation and other support services. An advocate who works with families also thought about the fact that school districts often contract with designated agencies to provide educational and behavioral support to students with disabilities, particularly for students with emotional disabilities and students with significant behavior challenges. This program should also be represented and should be required to receive that data, to collect data. BIPOC organizations from Black, Indigenous, people of color should also support in the appointment in this and who have been affected. It's proportional when it comes to issues, to this issue of discipline. Individuals from the LGBTIQA community are also impacted by this and should be included in this conversation. We already know that data collection is hard issue in our state. Report after report, we keep saying we need more data. But creating a console does not solve our issue. We need to be bolder. Our data collection lacks consistency. We need to standardize it and require the collection. We should have an AOE public dashboard so we can access the data and should be desegregated by race, ethnicity, disability, and language. In 2017, the Vermont legal aid report called kicked out. If you have not seen it, I really encouraged you. Talked about students of colors and students of disabilities being two to three times more likely to be suspended and excluded under white counterparts. We would like to see that report, that progress report. What's happening since 2015, right? And so how can we make those systems better? Did we get better? Is there progress or are we not moving? We would also like to see the collection of data for on referrals to law enforcement and a response to discipline. How many students are removed by law enforcement and called by administrators? And how many students receive citations to juvenile court or behavior at school? And then let's end to say we're doing, what are we doing with this report? Or maybe let's start there. What are we doing with this report? Let's first decide that so that we can be bolder and move this work. We know the data already points to this proportional impact to students with disabilities and students of color, black students, students from the LGBTQ community. So let's not study anymore. Let's do. So that's, I'm asking this. We can study, yes, but we also need to do. So a council needs to do and study at the same time. There's not or, there shouldn't be an or, there should only be an end. And so I just rated it with what Susana said and I appreciate our ALE. For Secretary French and for, you know, having that same sentiment. I am open for questions. Ms. Garces, that was very helpful. Just a couple of clarifying questions. In general, it sounds like, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, you support moving in this direction with this changes that you outlined and those being a real rework of the membership of the community as well as sort of what we heard from I think both Susana and Ms. Davis and Secretary French, which is the, you know, there are things that can be done now and let's not postpone for two years because we do have some data that we can actually start to make good, healthy changes in our system based on that data. Yes. I think that what I'm saying is that if you choose to go this route. Yeah. What are the recommendations that I'm making? I believe in Ecosusana, there's already some task force. There was mentioned about the F1 working group. I cannot say that we want that work because I need to speak to the rest of the committee but that is part of it. There are already task force that are looking at data, racial, yeah, all the data. So like who is the best group to be doing this? So we need to reinvent the bill. So we need to do that. Can we, yeah, what are the systems that are already in place that we can move forward? Because there are many reports that have been submitted which Susana mentioned some that already specify some of the data that we need to look and strengthen and that there is two basic principles right now. We can collect all the data but if we don't have uniformity and if we don't have consistency then it's going to be flow data again and then we're going to keep going on that route. So how can we make our systems better and so that we can move the work forward and is this the right team of people joining the, so that, yeah, is this the right group? So if you choose to go, these are my recommendations. Let's bring all the people that are impacted so that they have a voice, the people that are doing the work so that they have a voice and let's balance. This is one of the most important things of Act One is that there is balance between the people that are in power or in the systems and the people that are out of the system and there is a mix. Great, questions, yeah, Senator Persley. Thank you, I forgot to say this, it's great to see it in the committee again and looking forward to maybe in the future time just hearing an update on Act One and the work that you've been doing there. But have you seen Secretary of French's testimony and his four recommendations? Have you seen those yet? No, I did not, but I did hear his testimony. Okay, because there's one in there about expanding the Act One working group. So we can hear from you later, maybe when you're in just with that hat on of what you think about that. And in sort of similar to that, I wondered what you thought of that you're not your working group, but that working group taking on some of these things. Cause how you opened up is like, we don't really need yet another group, which often, like you said, we want to include these people that have been marginalized, but then it's hard for them to participate because of those issues. And we're kind of like basically asking them to do all the work for the state that we don't want to put forward. And it's a lot of work that we're asking and it's very important work. So I wondered if either now or later we have suggestions on how we could either use your working group or Secretary of French's other suggestion of a different group instead of just kind of imposing on more people to have meetings. We give them the per diem, but that's not really sufficient for the work. Yes, and there are some lessons that we're learning from Act One. And so one thing that I would say is that if there's funding to make the work possible, then it is in a brainer. Give, put the funding. So right now we should all be thankful for the HRC for allowing me to do the amount of hours that I'm putting on Act One. My co-chair who was appointment by the Vermont College I think a social equity school is doing a tremendous work. I apologize that you guys have not seen the report. There must have been a mix between the change of committees. But we just submitted a report Act One just made a report last month and we are asking for appropriations because of the amount of work because accessibility piece is really hard. We are looking at statues. We're looking at data. We're looking at things that not everybody understands. So how do we have a meaningful response? They're subjects of their own reality. They are sharing their expertise of life experience and we give them a statue that I can even read. So we have to translate that, right? To say, this is what we're doing. So the same thing for this committee I would recommend. Like if we're bringing in people that make it accessible that means we need to hire someone with that expertise. There are people that do that for a living. They translate materials. They work with our disability community. And so like we are trying to develop all these documents that we're putting in like different, not even languages, but different, like making it third grade level, which is not passed. So like it's like all this work that comes when we decide as a state which I really appreciate that we are going to include impact to members of our community in these really big policy decisions because they have been marginalized for so long. We're going to give them the voice and the work but then there's no funding for the work. So that makes it hard. So I am very fortunate to have a working group like the working group that we have and Susana it's in the working group that's doing amazing work. And so like I want to see that as a matter of like, okay, here's this group that is really doing good work that is collective that is, and how can we translate to this other group that has an imbalance of power already and balance of voices and that it's not like doing that extra step. So like, let's make it right. This is what I'm saying, the long answer. Great, thank you. Thanks for joining us. And we're having you back in soon to go over the act one report. Thank you so much. Thank you. Mr. Fannin. Good afternoon, Mr. Thierre. Jeff Fannin for the record from Vermont NEA. And thank you for giving me a few minutes here today to talk with you about S16 what I refer to as a school discipline advisory council built and it was great to hear Susanna, Secretary of French and Amanda's testimony, all three were very good. And I'll try to alter mine to improve upon mine in the wake of theirs. They were all very impressive. Before I begin though, I just want to acknowledge again that we're still in a health pandemic. Teachers, educators are still working remotely in some cases hybrid. A lot of them are in person. Most of them are still working, showing up to school in person. I see Senator Tarantini with the young child there. You know, it's a diverse, rich year. I'll say it that way. And the public school employees are doing their best in a challenging environment in a health pandemic. You know, they've stepped up in magnificent ways along with their school leaders to make sure the kids are educated, to make sure that they are fed and their social emotional needs are met. So a lot is going on in schools right now. It looks different than it did a year ago at this time, but hopefully we'll be back to normal. I don't know when. And it's important to just keep that as a backdrop for me at least personally, that a lot of educators are going through a lot right now is not easy. And they've just created great workspaces for their students. So they're safe and they're educationally appropriate wherever that space may be online, in person or a combination thereof. So these essential frontline workers are doing their best in a really challenging environment. So I'll stop there, but just that's always a backdrop for me. So thank you. As for S16, in general, we support the creation of the advisory council, but we do have some suggestions and Ms. Davis beat me to the punch. We didn't share testimony, but some of her words are better spoken than mine. But right out of the box, she mentioned what I guess I call the over emphasis on corrections and law enforcement. And I call that the framing of the bill itself. And I don't think that's the intent of the sponsors at all. In fact, I'm sure that it's not, but it does come across as being overly emphasis of corrections, law enforcement, and I think we can do better. I'll say that. It's an opportunity for a revision of the bill itself as we move forward, if in fact you decide to move forward. So, and again, the corrections and criminal justice angle appears again in the makeup of the council itself. I think Amanda Garza stood a nice job of outlining some other groups that might be worthy of being participants on the group. I'd also add to that, that many marginalized students that we're talking about here in this bill are suffering from trauma, not of their own doing, not their fault in any way. And we had to acknowledge that reality and perhaps put some people on there from the social worker community. I think Secretary of French mentioned DCF possibly, Mental Health, Ms. Davis mentioned. So there are other groups out there that probably should be added to this to recognize, excuse me, that the students we're talking about here come as they are. And we need to make sure that we genuinely look at who they are and how they arrive in the system. And again, the system is largely the education system that we're talking about here tonight. So the emphasis on the criminal justice is not to say that we shouldn't use those folks as resources, I just don't know that they should be primary council participants. And finally, with regard to the data and the agency of education, I will say this that under subsection, I think it's subsection F and the agency is designed to or at task with providing technical, administrative and legal assistance to the council. But I don't see any associated resource attached to it. I quite frankly think the agency of education is overburdened as it is now. And Secretary of French may not agree necessarily, but from my vantage point, they need resources to do the many things that we've asked them to do. So yesterday, Secretary of French mentioned data, you know, the back systems, that's been going on for a couple of years and it needs to, if they genuinely want to roll it out, I think we've got to give them the resources to do it. This would be one aspect of it. But if we're going to give, you know, lawyers to give legal advice to this council as they advance, you know, maybe we ought to have a designated position to support the work of this. This is a high priority for the state. And when something is of a high priority to any organization or any entity, you see it in their budget. Their priorities are seen in their budget decisions. And I don't see that here. And I think we need to have it here quite frankly. So, and the other piece I would look at too is, and I think Secretary of French mentions it, I guess maybe you can extrapolate that he mentions it, but certainly school board policies and maybe Susan Glouckel will speak to that. Those ought to be reviewed. You know, I heard from a teacher talking about zero tolerance policies and they may be appropriate in some instances, but maybe we ought to look at those to see how they overly affect students of color, students with disabilities or any other marginalized group of students. So school policies also weigh into this and I don't see any mention of them anywhere, but I think that, you know, it's certainly worthy of a good idea to look at. So with that, we do think that there's a need for data. It does help and guide our decisions. And it's been, there's a lot of it out there, but there is a lot, as Secretary of French said, that we can't see because of the small numbers. And so we need to figure out a way around that, if you will, to genuinely address the underlying concerns. So with that, I will stop and take any questions you may have and happy to be here today as well as later in the future, if you think necessary. Questions? I mean, that was, it was very helpful. I mean, it seems, I mean, there are definitely some common themes coming up that you mentioned or reiterated around, you know, corrections in law enforcement, trauma and mental health representative on the committee. Certainly AOE and the need for resources are very, very, very important. Senator Lyons, please. Thank you. It's not so much, it's not a question really, but it is an affirmation of some of the things that we've been listening to. And I think it's important. I don't know what the act one council is and I apologize for that, but I really don't. I've been on education and I look forward to hearing about it. I do know that we have established a prevention chief in the office of administration who when that person is hired, we'll be working, I would think alongside Susanna Davis. We've also put in place across agency and department prevention council within the Department of Health that we'll be looking at trauma-informed policies to help mitigate the effects around social determinants of health and include those issues that we've been talking about today as diversity issues around diversity and so on. And including in that mental health. And then I hear the need for folks coming in from VCDR, the Vermont Council on Disability Rights and we need to have DAs and SSAs involved. And then I hear that we have insufficient resources within the AOE to accomplish its goals. And at the same time, these other organizations that have been identified are also stretched thin. So we know that our schools really need to have, they need the reinforcements that will help build this culture of prevention and be a trauma-informed group of professionals, which I understand working very hard on that in schools. So for me, it seems like the biggest thing we need to do is to have boots on the ground. We really do need to be implementing some of the things that we know about and coordinating between and among all of the different councils and leaders in state government and elsewhere. So that's just a comment. The more I hear, the more I think coordination could be really important in this process. It's a great comment, Senator Lyons. And I'm reminded of, it's really taking us to a little bit of field, but after 9-11, what the law enforcement community realized was they had no way of talking with one another. They missed a lot of communications, if you will, and a lot of signs that weren't swapped back and forth or whatever. And maybe that's what, you made a poor analogy given what I said earlier, but the truth is, what I think you're talking about is coordinating all of these efforts, these multiple efforts at some level, whether I think it's got to be the state, I'm thinking aloud here, but to ensure that all of these things that we are doing and we are doing a lot are well-coordinated, well-resourced, appropriately resourced, some of us that will testify after I am here, this morning we're up in ways and means talking about resources, I was at least, in getting that for schools in the Ed Fund. And so the Ed Fund is particularly well-positioned right now financially, but we wanna make sure that it's there, I know it's amazing. We wanna make sure that it's there, not just this year, but next year as well, as kids come back and their needs are significant. And we need to make sure that there's some coordination of this issue that we're talking about here in S16, that it happens, and that was a theme from several people, that we can't just collect data for the sake of collecting it. We actually have to do something with it. I thank you, I agree with you. And obviously the Prevention Council is something that's near and dear to the work that we've done in health and welfare. And the prevention chief who is, should be sitting in the secretary of administration's office is, I think that that's the level that we need to have this coordination, period. And then the resources to accomplish the goals and the recommendations, but that's my own opinion. Thank you. Other questions? Oh yes, Senator Hooker. I guess after listening to Senator Lyons, my question is how do we tease out what we have already for data, what recommendations have been made and listening to Secretary French and Ms. Davis and Ms. Arseth, the fact that we do have the data and now is the time to begin things even though we need to collect more data. So what would be a good step toward collecting the reports that have already been made, the data that's already been collected and to glean from that, you know, where we can start with some of the recommendations. Who would do something like that? Would that be up to education? Would it be up to, you know, Ledge Council who would have access to these reports so that they could go through and get information out of them that would be usable right now so that we don't have to wait two years for a council to come up with other recommendations? Yeah, it's a great question. I'm not sure I know the exact answer. My thought would be that schools are pretty strapped right now with, you know, trying to operate. I'll just say that. And that's taught, you know, from the administrators all the way down to everybody else working every day in the school with students, you know, in their classroom or on their bus or in their cafeteria. So I think it's got to be, you know, my thought is the agency of education, if we're gonna focus on education and not the criminal justice aspect of this, which I acknowledge is later on down the road. But if we really wanna get at this at the earliest stages, then it's gotta be, I think the agency of education. But again, I'll repeat myself that I think they need the resources to do that. That is not an insignificant lift to pull all the various reports together, coordinate those center lines, you know, I mentioned from the Department of Health. You know, there are other groups that are doing some of this work. And I think it would be, it needs a concerted focused effort, perhaps at the agency of education to make that happen. Yeah, I mean, just to add to that, it seems like so much in our country has been studied, has been examined. Sometimes it really is, keeping the research, curating it, putting it out there and getting some decisions made or get some policy advance based on what has already been done. That being said, I think simultaneously continuing to collect data of some, you know, relevant data makes sense. Absolutely. Anything else? Mr. Fennin, thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. Thank you all. And we know your mother work for us and we look forward to getting you back in sometime soon. Absolutely. Look forward to it. Thank you. Thanks. Committee, why don't we take a break until five minutes after three? We've been at it for a while and come back then and hear from our last witnesses. Thank you. Mr. Nichols, good to see you. Nice to see you too, sir. Appreciate you coming in, having a conversation around S16 and look forward to hearing your thoughts, questions, concerns, support of. We'll just leave it there. All right, wonderful. Thank you. Appreciate it. Would you like me to share the screen? I've, we sent testimony to you. I can actually show it on the screen or if you'd rather have me just speak to it and it's up to you. I believe there might be a senator or two that does not have it, not able to access it. So why don't you go ahead for now and put it on the screen? Okay, Jeannie, have you given me co-hosting rights? I'll let Jeannie do that. I have. Awesome. I didn't know when you would have had that already done for me. All right, everybody see that okay? All right. So this testimony is on behalf of the organizations at Two Prospect Street, the Vermont School Boards Association, the Principal's Association and the Superintendent's Association and Sue, who's the Executive Director of Vermont School Boards Association and Jeff, who's the Executive Director of the Superintendent's Association are also here to respond to any questions at the end. And I wanna make special note that Chelsea Myers, the Associate Executive Director of the Vermont Superintendent's Association is with us and Chelsea did a lot of the legwork on this and bringing the thoughts of Sue and I and Jeff into one document that provided this testimony. So I wanna reach out and thank her for that. So thanks first of all for inviting us to speak to your committee on S16. We wanna convey that our association's commitment to advancing equity in schools across Vermont is number one responsibility. We recognize and support the need to examine exclusionary discipline practices as a whole and in particular, how these practices disproportionately affect traditionally underserved students. So in that spirit, here are some considerations that we asked you to think about. In terms of data collection and transparency, we believe that data transparency is an important tool for district and state leaders to examine their practices and adjust accordingly. School districts are required already to report exclusionary discipline data, including desegregated reporting to the Office of Civil Rights. We ask that consideration is given to reducing redundancy and reporting and to the extent possible, how the agency of education utilized data that is already being reported. We recommend considering strategies to improve the fidelity of the reporting of this existing data and more transparent reporting at the state level. And we recognize there are some small N numbers in some schools where, you know, that has to be taken into consideration. A complete picture of the data that exists at the local and state levels is a critical first step in identifying what information might be needed and any additional data reporting and transparency should meet our requirements for student privacy. That said, we also do want to state that we don't believe we should be waiting for two years to take any action. We believe that there are many steps that can be taken right now. We'll talk about some of those in this testimony and we really don't wanna be in a situation where we have paralysis by analysis. Let's take steps so we know that we already need to take and then continue to collect data and adjust as we go. So I wanna draw your attention to a report on a Delaware called the status of school discipline and state policy. We have the link here in the testimony for you and I'm gonna read verbatim from that. Requires the State Department of Education to compile and release an annual school discipline report that includes statewide and individual school totals for out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, alternative school assignments and in-school suspensions. All desegregated by race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, grade level, limited English proficiency, incident type and discipline duration. Schools meeting certain thresholds of suspension or expulsion for three consecutive years must then review their discipline policies, assure proper implementation of restorative justice practices and submit a correction plan to the State Department of Education. This approach points to the importance of coupling data collection and transparency with also appropriate and supported accountability measures and has an emphasis on growth and improvement rather than a punitive response. Goes along a lot with what Senator Sears was talking about earlier today with you about improvement and accountability. Any additional emphasis on data collection reporting and transparency should consider proper support to local school districts on appropriate use of the data and best practices for considering data to improve policies and practice. Rhode Island Department of Education provides an example of how data collected can be supported by resources on best practices. We also put a link in this document that you can look at for that connection. We also want to mention that one of the most important things is proactive support of the field. Teachers and educators of all stripes are tired, they're working through a pandemic, they're feeling a little beat upon in terms of retirement issues around the vaccine and morale is not real great right now. And most teachers did not come into education as mental health trained personnel. So supports are gonna be really important for them if we're gonna ask them to take on more responsibility in that area. So encouraging and supporting the use of alternative strategies to support students at risk for exclusionary practices is imperative. Our schools have a number of established and emerging structures that can reduce the occurrence of exclusionary practices. As a state we think we should leverage some of the following. A continued emphasis on the importance of high quality multi-tiered systems of support, MTSS, social and emotional learning, trauma informed practices, positive behavior interventions and support and restorative justice. Equity and culturally responsive practices are fundamental on design, implementation of each of these frameworks. Like any other framework, the implementation is key knowing the context of the children that you work with and making sure that they're culturally inclusive. There needs to be a focus on integrated mental health services. This has been a huge problem for a long time and it's something that we need to try to find a way to address. It needs to provide best practices around building a positive school climate and to reinvigorate the need for a well vetted statewide school climate survey which we all fully support. There needs to be an increase in the availability of and funding for implicit bias training to meet school communities where they are at and is intended to how implicit bias impacts school disciplinary practices. You don't know what you're doing wrong until you're taught what you're doing wrong. We believe that building systems that support alternative methods of schooling need to be in place. There are times when a student may need something more than what can be provided in the regular structure of the school. Schools need support providing alternative learning environments to support students for whom the general school systems are not effective. This may include strong embedded mental health services for the student within the school. Additionally, in relationship to the S16 if you were to have a council or a task force we're recommending that representation from the Vermont school boards be included. School discipline is an area that is currently and appropriately addressed in school board policies at the macro level. We also want to make clear to the committee that supervisory union school district boards are responsible for establishing a supervisory union wide curriculum. And that's in section 261A1 of Title 16. Some topics, some policies related to the topic that we already have in place. All school boards currently have a firearms policy and that is based on VSBA's model policy. This policy is required by law and references federal law and it includes expulsion as a sanction. So an example would be if a student, for example, if I'm a superintendent again and a student brings a gun to school for whatever reason, even if it's a second grader I would be compelled to have an expulsion hearing. It does not mean the school board needs to expel that student. They certainly could do something different but there would be an expulsion hearing by policy. And then many school boards, if not all also have a student discipline policy that's based on VSBA's model policy on student discipline. Other things that we think you should consider, reducing or eliminating expulsion and grades pre-K through three. This would minimize to the greatest extent possible exceptions to this rule. We realize with any law or rule there could be like exception but we wanna close the polls as best we can. We also think you need to consider private childcare providers and any actions resulting from this work. Nationwide evidence clearly suggests that pre-K students that are in private centers are expelled at much higher rates than in the K-12 system. And for example, you can see pre-school expulsion and suspension defining the issues paper that we linked here. And prohibiting expulsion and out-of-school suspensions for most nonviolent infractions including truancy and attendance issues is another step we could take. Many years ago before I was a superintendent I was a principal and we were at a meeting and a principal from a high school that shall not be named. They'd put in a policy about smoking cigarettes and the policy was that if a kid came to school and was caught with cigarettes it was automatically a two-week out-of-school suspension, 10 school days. And there was no punishment other than that because if it was their first offense. And what they had, I believe it was like 107 kids at the high school that brought cigarettes to school on the first day of deer hunting and they were all suspended for two weeks and they all went deer hunting and then they came back to school. So policies don't always do what they're intended to do so we need to make sure we look at that. So finally, our associations believe that creating more equitable and anti-racist schools is of the utmost importance. Given the complexity and scope of the work consideration should be given to establishing a designated team or person at the agency of education that is able to provide technical assistance, research and report best practices and lead the complement of statewide initiatives that have been and will continue to be introduced whether you have this task force or not. And we did not talk to Senator Chittenden earlier or change our testimony based on what he said but having some leverage of expertise at the state, at the AOE that's leading this, we feel is very important. And with that, we'd be glad to take any questions you may have. Okay, Senator Chittenden. I mean, Sarah, Senator Perkslick. Yeah, thanks, Jay. Your recommendations there at the end about ending expulsions. Do you think that's the best place for that is in statute or do you see that happening at a different level of the education regulatory system? I think it needs to be in statute. I don't think it's gonna happen unless you have it in statute, Senator Perkslick. There are some places that have already done that and there are exceptions to it. And I'm not able to think of a case off the top of my head right now but pre-K through three, if we're sending those kids home and we're expelling those kids, you know, that's a real problem. And if we do that, we really are buying into the present to school to present pipeline. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it's to think about kids going home. You know, I don't know how kids get caught up. It's at any age, you know, if you're out for a week and algebra is being taught or something we've been talking a lot about in this committee of literacy, you know, reading and writing, it would, the challenge. And then of course, there's the emotional toll on, you know, being suspended, being expelled. So other questions, any comments from others that are being represented by Mr. Nichols? I apologize. I thought you were all going to testify. So, but... Your committee was working pretty hard and you could use a little bit of a break. So we decided to pull together. And we do that from time to time if we're on agreement. Tricking the committee chair. Senator Perswick. So I don't have your testimony up in front of me. So can you just remind me, I know you recommend the changes to the working group or whatever it's called, the task force or whatever. But did you say whether you thought one was needed or if that this could be done some other way or like Secretary French suggested just having a task force just talking about that, the policies around discipline? Did you touch on that? I think the three of us talked about it. I don't necessarily think that it's needed as long as there's a mechanism in place to make it happen. But I'd like to see, I'd like to have Jeff and Sue answer for themselves on that. This is Jeff Francis. Can everyone hear me okay? Yes. I'm the executive director of the superintendents association. My view on that is that it would be good if expertise was at the agency of education. I think in order to get a broad spectrum of interests and advisory group of some type is appropriate because there's such widespread community interest in this matter, but when you take a look at some of the functions of the task force per se, they could be handled by well qualified employees with something akin to a advisory group or an oversight group so that you had a broad spectrum of interest regularly checking in on this matter, both in terms of practices in schools and the data. But the notion that you would form a larger group to do what I would refer to as sort of the expert work or administration might not be required. And I also thought that the testimony with respect to waiting toward the mental health side rather than the correction side, that resonated with me. This is Sue Siglowski. I'm the executive director of the school boards association and I would be in agreement with the comments that Jeff Francis just made. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions or comments? Yes, please, Senator Hooker. So once again, it seems that people are in agreement that things are already known. There's the data that things should begin. So I guess Mr. Nichols or any of the witnesses, where would you recommend that we begin? I'll start if anybody else wants to jump in. I think you should start by looking at pre-K through three potential legislation that would no longer allow expulsion in that area. And I also think you should look at legislation that would no longer allow expulsion for nonviolent type of behaviors. I think it's silly to expel kids because they brought a cigarette to school. And I did it many times as a superintendent because policy required me to. But I would much rather see those kids be compelled to be in some type of a smoking cessation program or something on those lines and still be able to continue in school. Those are two actionable things that you could jump on right now. So Mr. Nichols, right now in the state if students brings a pack of cigarettes to school, are there policies on the books somewhere that would require a suspension or expulsion? Yes, not an expulsion, but there are school districts that have a suspension. Oftentimes what they'll do is have like a five day suspension, but you can reduce that by two or three days by going in front of a committee. And I can't think of the name of it right now, but there's a committee that meets that you can appeal to them and tell them how you're gonna mitigate and it's usually made up of the principal, the guidance counselor and a couple people. So there are some districts that have that. There are other districts that have policies that are much more, I guess, progressive in nature would be the way to say it and that would not necessarily automatically call for a suspension. But again, they're developed by local boards. It's not in reflection of any statute. The only real statute thing on expulsions, one, you can't expel a kid more than 10 days unless you have a school board hearing. And then if the kid's a special ed kid, there's a thing, manifestation, determination related to their disability that you have to go through. I'm not gonna spend time on that. In terms of expulsion, typically by Vermont law, a kid can only be expelled for the remainder of the school year or 90 days, whatever is greater, unless it's a gun-free schools violation, a weapons violation, and then it could be one calendar year. So in terms of the amount of expulsion, we already are, I think we're in a better place than most states. Many states still, expulsion could mean you're gone from that school forever. I hope that helps clarify a little bit. So what usually happens in those situations when a student is expelled? In other words, Senator Sears was in here talking earlier. He started a program, God, 40 years ago, 45 years ago, that really was for those students. But what happens now in those cases? It depends. Sometimes students, and I'm thinking more about older students. Yeah. Enter an adult ed program. They don't have to actually expelled. I can think of one case where a student left school and came back the following year. He actually brought a weapon to school and threatened another person with it. He was out for a full year. And we really felt he was a risk. And there's been other cases where, typically school boards, you'll run a hearing and the parents will be there and the student will be there. If the student's over 18, he or she can decide if the parents are there. The students under 18 that the parents have to be there and they'll have their counsel with them. And the superintendent would basically work as sort of like the judge running the process and the school board would serve as a jury. And the principal would make a recommendation on what they thought should happen. The parents would make a recommendation on what they thought should happen. And ultimately the school board would get to decide up to and including the possibility of expulsion for the rest of the school year or 90 days or in a gun-free school's violation calendar year. But boards usually want kids back in school. It's just if it's a situation where it's such a safety issue to everybody else, that's typically where that would come in. Thank you. So, yeah, I'm in this moment and we'll have a committee discussion a little bit afterward. But it's like everybody's saying, we do have a lot of data. We have a lot of information here. There are steps that we possibly could take legislatively or the agency could direct us. It doesn't seem productive to wait before making some of these changes. So I appreciate that. Anything else? I think we have, okay, thank you. I think we have one more witness, Ms. McGuire. Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Mr. Francis, Ms. Zaglowski. Appreciate all of you being with us and certainly more than welcome to stick around. And Mr. Francis, we'll see you tomorrow at 11 a.m., correct? Or at least I will for the superintendent's meeting. Yes, looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. McGuire, welcome to Senate Education. Thank you. I'm happy with us. If you would please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about the organization you're representing and weigh in on S16. We would appreciate it. Great, thank you so much for having me. My name is Erin McGuire. I am the director of equity and inclusion for the Essex Westford School District. But today I am here representing the Vermont Council of Administrators of Special Education. And we also reside at Two Prospect with some of the other organizations that you just heard from collectively. And the organization represents a group of people who really are advocating for students with disabilities in schools every day. So it is really one of the only organizations at Two Prospect that really focuses in on a group that is marginalized within the concepts that we're talking about here holistically. And so we thought that it was important to come forward and have a conversation with you about S16. I think the first thing I'd like to share is gratitude for focusing in on this issue. BCSEA definitely has a strong emphasis on equity related to our hopeful forward movement for the state for students with disabilities, but also would like to take a moment to recognize the importance of what we describe as intersectionality in the area of equity. And for our work this particular year and going forward, we really are focusing in on the intersectionality of race and disability. And I appreciate some of the comments that have been made around ensuring that we really do bring the conversation forward about students with disability in the context of discipline. I'd like to make a couple of statements about BCSEA as it relates to disciplinary practices in our conversations as of late, which is that we are really at a point where we're questioning why we would ever remove the opportunity for education for any student based on behavior. We know that behavior is communication and sometimes behaviors can be highly problematic, very complicated and very challenging to address. And there are circumstances of safety. I think that Jay did a good job at describing some of those kinds of events where we need to think very carefully about how we engage and what we do for students to help them forward given how significant their behaviors become. And we're also really beginning to question why we have zero tolerance policies to begin with and what it is we think that we're doing when we have zero tolerance policies related to students. That's really for all students, but particularly for students with disabilities who already have had an experience where I would say the education system has yet to really find its way into being able to meet all of their needs sometimes. And so already the general education system is really struggling to meet their needs. We've added special education. If those things all fail as student and it's not working well for them and they end up in a disciplinary situation and then education is removed, it really starts to beg the question. And I think Senator Camion, you spoke about that briefly just a few minutes ago. So I just wanted to share that BCSEA as an organization is really beginning to contemplate that because of the inequities that we create with how we treat behavior. For students who are coming to us with behaviors that aren't hitting those thresholds, they get access to education. And then the students who are having the most challenging behaviors, I might argue that those are the students who need us most maybe. And so questioning sort of what is this systemic behavior that we have about removal of education as a right from students for periods of time. It doesn't mean that we don't need to behave differently as educators with those students to keep others safe in those moments. So I would just offer that in addition to what some of the other people have testified to here today. BCSEA also does support the intent and wonders about action. So in our legislative priorities, as we talk about equity, we are in line with the agency of education in the importance of curricular representation for all students seeing themselves within their materials and the lenses through which we instruct both current as well as historical events. One of the things that hasn't been talked about here today that we really feel is related to this topic is the diversification of the educator workforce and really feeling like we need to have a conversation about the diversity of our workforce and need to move forward with that as we think about how we have these conversations about disciplinary action in schools. And then also would extend that concept into the design of any statewide committee that was created to make sure that there is voice for a variety of people, especially those people who have historically been denied power and voice in the past and be careful about who we center in that work. And then we also really support a conversation about policymakers thinking carefully about how we ensure equity-centered policy development in our state. And that includes related to discipline practices among a myriad of other practices in our schools to make sure that we're carefully considering what we need to be doing. I'm thoughtful about our goal in this conversation about changing practices in schools and how you use committee structures at the state level or task forces at the state level to actually change practice. And I would encourage us to think about that and make sure that as we have a conversation about any task force on discipline that we're clear about outcomes that will actually change practice. I think that goes to the point of what data do we have and what do we already know and do we really need to prove things more to ourselves? And maybe we do. And I do think high-quality data collection is critical in our state. We need to be able to know where we are. In school districts, disaggregating data and understanding intersectionality within your data through an equity lens is a critical next step to change educational practices at the local level. And so what we might be able to do related to the expectation of school districts reviewing their own data and running root cause analysis and understanding what their data says and how that should relate to practice change shows up for me as I think about the work that we're talking about here versus a statewide conversation about what our statewide data says and then what? So again, sort of linking it back into the then what? I would also like to just make some brief comments about the constitution of a committee. I do think it's important that you have a role for a director of special education in the current bill, it's special educators. And there's a difference in that to Jay's point about the complexity of manifestation determinations and the responsibilities that directors of special education hold in determining disciplinary outcomes and working through what is and is not a manifestation of a disability in a disciplinary context. That definitely is administrative work and I think needs to hold a special role within the context of this conversation. If you do move forward with a bill that really dives deep into data and understands what that data says. I also wonder about a director of curriculum because of the intersection of curricular work that I keep hearing about in this context and also the potential for something broader than just discipline. In my written testimony, what you'll notice is that there is this question about discipline and then also what else? Because discipline is one aspect of data that we need to look at. I know that the work that Susanna has done across the state, Ms. Davis has done across the state thinking about these issues has not just focused on one data point. And when we just focus on one data point we might get stuck in that data point. And there are a myriad of data points that we need to be considering related to equity issues across schools. There are a number of people, including myself who have now come forward and started to do equity leadership in schools. And so school districts have equity leaders in them and equity coaches. And I just have to wonder whether or not that is also an important role to hold. And I would add to make sure that students and other stakeholders are part of this group related to my comments earlier about voices that often are not at the table. Intersection and connection with other work happening on equity feels important. And I don't have an answer for you about how to do that. You all were talking briefly about that. How many reports are out there? How do we make those connections? Who would pull those together? I think those are the right questions to be asking because we do want a comprehensive picture to think forward and make decisions about what will we change. Is it the exclusionary practice pre-K3? Is that the right next step? Maybe. But I think thinking about the context of all the information that's been collected in the state on these topics and then thinking about that would make good sense. And then I also in closing, I would just offer an important conversation to be had about what happens for students in schools when the plans don't work and they become highly dysregulated and need to regulate in ways that take them away from a space of their learning circumstance and need to regulate and return and to see that differently than discipline. And so there's a nuance there that I think is just important to note. And I'm not really sure how to handle that. Maybe it's within the context of definition and being really clear about that and what is and is not a removal versus what is or is not actually a strategy to help a student regulate. Taking proactive breaks from learning environments that can be overwhelming and be a very helpful tool for some students, particularly our youngest learners who really need to move and maybe have some other opportunities for deeper relationship than being in a large group at some times. So I just wanna make sure that as we have these conversations, we recognize the complexity of student needs and the difference between exclusion and support. So I'll leave it there and offer an opportunity for questions. I really appreciate you having me. That was terrific. No, thanks for joining us. Questions? Senator Hooker. Just a comment that a lot of what you're talking about, Erin, I think is in practice in some schools. I know that when I was teaching, there was a problem in the classroom, especially with kids with special needs. They were often given a break. Taken, removed from the situation that they were in for just a little while and then brought back. So I'm interested in hearing you talk about this as not discipline, not a disciplinary action. So that sounds like an interesting idea to me. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I think the definition of what is and is not removal becomes important in that context. So as we look at our data, it just gives you evidence of how complicated it is to collect this kind of data. What is a removal versus what is a support? How do we know that? And how are we reporting that? And are we reporting it consistently or not? It's just an example of how I think sometimes the data ends up challenging to collect and be confident in. Is it about the amount of time that they're gone? Is it whether or not it's in their plan or not? Is it whether they're on a plan or not? And so who is that available to and who isn't it available to? So I do think making sure that whatever we do, we are thoughtful about what we consider a removal versus support. And when it is a removal, making sure we're clear about when can you remove a student from education and why? And what is our obligation to provide education even when it isn't safe to be present? And how do we think about that? Great. Other questions or comments? Ms. McGuire, I hope you'll continue to follow our work on this and look forward to partnering with you on this and I'm sure other issues going forward. If at any time you notice there's something on our calendar that you would like to weigh in on and have not received an invitation, please just simply reach out to us and we'll make certain that you are there. I appreciate that. Thank you very much. It was good to see many of you that I know. Nice to meet those of you that I do not. And I look forward to future work with you. Thank you. Great.