 Welcome back to Senate Education, April 14th, Wednesday, 2.46 PM. We're moving on to the State Board of Education. Senators will recall our letter from the Social Equity Caucus and our conversation with Representative Christy last week, we agreed that Mr. DeMarie would draft some language that would work toward making the State Board more diverse, more inclusive. And so I've asked Mr. DeMarie to take us through that. And I've asked Jeannie to have Representative Christy in tomorrow afternoon to give us his feedback. And Jeannie is going to send him that language today. So he has the night to talk to colleagues and others. So we might be able to hopefully do something with this language this year, I think it warrants that my anticipation is, or what I suspect, is we would use one of the House bills, likely H101, which was their literacy bill as a vehicle for this and possibly other things. The House did pass out our literacy bill yesterday. The S114 left committee on a vote of 11-0-0. Some changes, a few changes. And Mr. DeMarie will take us through those changes tomorrow and we'll hear from the Agency of Education in Chelsea Meyers. The agency in particular were the recommenders of the changes. So we'll hear from them. And Chelsea Meyers has been helpful all the way along in this process. So we'll hear from her as well. But for now, let us go to this discussion and see if we might have language that we all are comfortable with. And then, like I said, we'll hear from the social equity caucus tomorrow. Mr. DeMarie? OK. Me, the language is up on our web page. So I missed your testimony last week. Joe was covering for me. Oh, right. That's right. And she asked me, she gave me feedback that you wanted me to look at how various other states approach this with their state boards or councils. I did look at the laws in New England states in New York state. There wasn't much, actually. There was a couple of things, but I used those examples to draft this language. So you'll see on page one, we're amending the section 161, which is the State Board of Education appointment of members. And you'll see on line 11, we already have a statute, the requirement that to the extent possible, the members shall represent geographically diverse areas of the state. So this draft strikes that language and says, to the extent possible, the members shall represent the state's geographic, gender, racial, and cultural diversity. Other states had versions of that. I didn't keep track of which states which, but I saw ones that said the commission members shall reflect the state's geographic, racial, and ethnic diversity. There's one that said the membership of the board must be representative of geographic diversity and gender balance. So you have approaches similar to this in other states. And then the last sentence here says, for the purpose of obtaining input from diverse sources for nominations by the governor, the governor shall convene a public meeting to obtain broad input prior to making a nomination for a member on the State Board. That idea came from the Rhode Island School for the Deaf. They've got that kind of language there for their school. So I brought that in concept for this. Thank you. Senator Lines? Herschel? Lines. I was going to just say, I'm less familiar with, I know it's a six-year term, but the frequency with which a public meeting might have to be held to appoint someone. If it's every year, that becomes problematic. It does establish a model for how many thousands of boards we have that are similarly important. So I'm wondering if there's a better way to get at the public participation than having the governor hold a meeting. I share that concern. But it's an important issue, which is how it's done. That's all. Senator Perslick? Yeah, I was going to have similar concerns about requiring a public meeting. I used to work for the state where we were required to have public meetings, but nobody ever came. We had to advertise for them. So I think it'd be better to require the governor to get names or have a process to where people can nominate names, because I can just see that a public meeting just kind of being forgotten about, not necessary. If nobody comes, then he doesn't get any nominations. But I guess it's the same if he just puts out a call or he or she puts out a call for nominations, then nobody nominates them. In other places, we have a process where some other entity makes nominations, which I don't know if that's more complicated than we want to get here. But I wondered about the public meeting part. And then I also, is it clear or do we need to be clear on what we need by cultural diversity? Because I could see people defining that differently. But I don't know if we all would have the same idea of what a culturally diverse board would look like. Does that definition exist in statute, Mr. Demeray, or do we have a definition of cultural diversity somewhere? No. No. OK. Senator Lyme. What about ethnic? What does ethnic do for us? Ethnic diversity with gender racial ethnic. We use that term in the ethnic studies, Bill. Yeah. Yeah. And it does have implications around cultural differences. And we certainly have different ethnic groups in our state. I think it's a little easier to make a point about it. I mean, we just heard testimony that Lyndon and Johnson University had different cultures. So would that be cultural diversity? That's a very good point. Senator Hooker. We're looking at BIPOC communities. I don't know if, you know, is that something that we would put in statute? I would assume that's the racial. That's the racial diversity. If I may, Senator Persley, would you say a bit more, just about the ethnic, the cultural ethnic studies curriculum? I'm sorry. But I'm forgetting the accurate name. But the language there. So it was. I think it's just called the ethnic studies, Bill. That's what we've referred to it. But I don't know. I think it did have more language, obviously, in the Bill. And I think even in the, we could look that up. I don't have it at the top of my head. I agree with everyone that has shared the concern about the public meeting. I think if, again, we were to work. And I agree with Senator Lyons and Senator Purchlick around cultural diversity and moving toward ethnic diversity. That might that might be enough. But that, Jim, if you could look around a little bit, continue to look around a little bit. And, again, we'll have Representative Christy in to weigh in on this tomorrow. But is everyone comfortable if we do not require the governor to convene a public meeting? OK. Yes, Senator Hooker. People apply for this? Or does the governor choose somebody? Because with judicial nominating, people apply. And then the judicial nominating board, that's those people. And then sends suggestions, nominees to the governor. And my understanding is that the governor appoints. I don't believe there is any kind of application process. And I think Mr. DeMurray just posted a little bit of information on that. Jim, do you want to add something? I just posted Act 1 for you, which it has a lot of information about these topics, right? So yeah. Oh. Act 1 is from a couple years ago. Yeah. Senator Lyons. So the governor does have an application form on somewhere. If you look for it, you can find it for boards, commissions, and committees. And then it gets filled out by the individuals. And then I don't know what happens after that, whether there's an interview or what. So then the question arises about identifying racial and ethnic differences. And whether or not it is legal to ask for that information. So Jim, is it legal to ask someone what their racial or ethnic background is and an application for a position such as this? I'm not an employment lawyer. I'm not sure. This is not on employment, though. This is obviously in the context of a board appointment. And I know the answer I have to check with, probably, Damien or another lawyer on that. Well, yeah, so I mean, I think people might be fine with disclosing who they are. But it does raise that question for me anyway. Thank you for looking for that. I mean, there was some language that we looked at early on, or it was from the governor's press person that said, again, generally, Governor Scott is looking to fill positions and have them more representative of the Vermont today and the Vermont we want to be and have greater diversity on our boards and commissions and appointments and recognizing that it didn't happen this time. So I think there are some guiding principles out there in general that the governor is following. And this would, again, just give some specificity and some direction on this. But one thing that I think might be helpful for us tomorrow, Jim, before having, when we hear from Coach Christy, if you would be so kind as to figure out between now and then, if you can't, I can just let me know, really, what is this process? Are people actually, in general, filling out applications and putting them forward? Is that acceptable, or are these, I've always seen these as more, hey, I'm now the governor and I know that Senator Lyons used to be on the Education Committee and I'd like her to take that this position. That's how I, but still I may require that Senator Lyons fills out an application. But I think it would be good for the committee to just know what exactly that process is. Yeah, I don't have a contact at the administration. So I'm happy to look into that, but I could use some help with the contact because I don't even know who you guys are. I will take it on. I will reach out to Kendall and she'll be able to, and maybe she could even come in tomorrow. Jeannie, would you ask Kendall to come in tomorrow? Yes, Senator Lyons. So, and Susanna Davis maybe, Kendall can link in with her. Well, that's a good idea. We have an expert on diversity in healthcare coming into our committee on Friday. And if Senator Hooker remembers, we can try to ask a question about ethnicity anyway. As I looked at the definition in the bill that Jim just posted or the information that you just posted that does have a definition of four ethnic groups on page something page it was on, but it's there. Okay. Jeannie, did you hear that request from me, Kendall Smith in the governor's office? I did just now. And did Senator Lyons suggest someone? I think we'll just start with Kendall and ask her to come in and ask her to just take us through the appointment process for the State Board of Education, how it works, is an application filled out, et cetera. And if you would have her please come in when Coach Christie comes in as well. Okay. And then will I believe I will ask Representative Christie to follow up with Ms. Davis this evening at Senator Lyons, good suggestion because I believe Ms. Davis is also integrally involved with the social equity caucus. So I'll make sure that that happens before tomorrow as well. Good suggestion. So Jim, if you don't mind, we are in agreement that we will strike that last bit about a public meeting and we will work, we'll hear more from Kendall tomorrow as well as we'll hear from Representative Christie and I'll ask for Christie to talk to Ms. Davis tonight. And do you want me to start the reference to cultural diversity? Yes, I think the committee feels ethnic diversity would be better. I'd not see any opposition to that. So, and I'll also, if you wouldn't mind, if it's, if you wouldn't mind just emailing me the clean draft to Jeannie and to me and I'll have Jeannie get the new draft to Coach Christie. Sure, that'd be great. The definition of ethnic groups is on page three of the link that Jim just sent. Okay. Okay. Anything else? Any questions, sounds like, and again, my hope would be to move this this year on the age bill and I'll work with Representative Webb a little bit so that when they get it, they'll also hopefully be comfortable with it. So going forward, this will be a new policy. We'll have to hear from a few other people as well. Final thing before we move on, I would just mention, we are going to continue today as soon as Ms. Wasserman is available on H426 and we also have the pilot program for, what is it called, the schools, not universal schools, but community schools. I am going to look at some language. One of the things I would like to add into that, if colleagues are comfortable and I'll bring the language forward, is to also tie some of our literacy work into community schools to see if there are ways to also continue to sort of focus on literacy and I'll work with Jim and others on that. And we'll pick that up next week. Okay, Jeannie, if you wouldn't mind seeing if Rebecca is available, that would be great. And committee, why don't we touch base in 15 minutes? Great, thank you.