 Good afternoon welcome to Senate Education Thursday March 2nd 418 and the afternoon of course you're following legislative work We've been delayed by a lump floor debate So what I want to do is just touch base and sort of do some air traffic control updates where things are where they're going We will have to meet of course tomorrow afternoon for a while since we missed everything today We will postpone some things until we get back, but I do want to keep us focused on Moving voting on school construction tomorrow Hopefully just to wrap hopefully wrapping up getting close to voting miscellaneous ed and getting close as possible to also moving our school safety bill we also Our friends in health and welfare pre-k study language, which again We didn't get to today But we do have various parties meeting outside of the building and they will bring forward language tomorrow So with that we do have 10 minutes before Ms. Barbic has to He no longer be with us but we do have her for a few moments and I want to be able to Return to and just get some some general comments D. Thanks for joining us. We know you're you're going to be joining us again I believe tomorrow I don't I haven't seen a schedule for tomorrow. So I'm not aware of that, but I can be all right. Well, tell us You've seen now a new draft based on Hold on one second. Let me just think about this how I want to do this. Uh Hayden is Beth with us tomorrow On things this can you just check her availability on the variety of things she is. Okay, so she will be around D, you know, I don't want to to confuse any issues right now, but I would appreciate any Overall comments or thoughts you might have, you know, I don't want to go back to line by line sorts of things with 10 minutes just as a feel right Uh for the process, but if you could just give us some Oh, some have an overview of the direction we're moving in based on yesterday's discussion And then we'll hear from dan and hopefully uh secretary branch and hopefully you again tomorrow Okay. Thank you, mr. Chair. Um, so I've been looking at draft 6.1, which was posted earlier today And I did have um just two small changes Page two line three One second. Let's all get our copies They are in our folders And there we go draft 6.1. Okay. What page? Page two. Yep lines three Just about halfway or a little bit further down where um after options based response drills I'd like to insert and fire drills in there at each school site in the fall I just want to be crystal clear that we aren't eliminating Uh fire drills Right. So I just want to be clear that So I want wanted to address that there and it's the same thing Same page but line 18 about two-thirds of the way down same wording just insert and fire drills in there You know, I remember I thought we had already addressed fire drills, but maybe we missed it in those those sections Maybe we did it in another section um, I remember we had the discussion about it and I I just feel like there we need to be clear as I read it I'm trying to look at it from the perspective of just the average person reading this It appears to me At face value that we only have to do options based not fire drills So I just want to be really clear that we aren't eliminating the fire drills as part of the requirements. Um, it does this the language now does refer to um the guidance Provided by the Vermont school safety center and the crisis planning team and that guidance does Indicate what months of the school year various drills have to be conducted But I just feel like it would be very clear if we added in fire drills in the language I'm not seeing any objection from the committee Okay, we'll do that Um, so in terms of um language those were just the two small changes that I I wanted to recommend um, and then um on some of the testimony yesterday and the day before I think it was the day before um, I just wanted to to clarify and I think uh, greg marino did a great job with his um testimony I listened to it late last night And I just wanted to clarify a couple things. Um, one is that The behavioral threat assessment team and the and the school crisis planning team are two separate teams in his school um in his district and One They do two different things. So I just wanted to clarify that Um, so there wasn't any confusion that the planning team doesn't do threat assessments Nor does the threat assessment team do the work that the planning team does um and then so on that is there anything in 6.1 that Concerned you based on that distinction that you just made No, I just wanted to to clarify All right. Thank you for that and um, I also wanted to um, clarify too that in the language under the um, behavioral threat assessment teams where we identify those Individuals that need to be part of the team and law enforcement is one of those individuals Um, I just wanted to clarify that that is just on the threat assessment team. It's not um, creating like school resource officers or That's police officers will be in the school on a regular basis. It's just that they would be part of the team if um an assessment indicates that there is some criminality in The behavior so for example the jack Sawyer case from 2018 Or 2017 2018 That would be an example where you would want law enforcement to be involved in that threat assessment But on the other hand if you had um an assessment that involved a student who was threatening self-harm There is no You know just given that basic there wouldn't be any reason for law enforcement to be involved in that particular assessment So again, I just wanted to clarify that it this isn't um Introducing like SROs in every school or that there's a constant presence of police in the schools It's just that one necessary um If a there is some criminal element in a behavior or action that they are there to consult with on that So as it's written now In the bill it is a member of law enforcement. Is there no matter what are you saying that sometimes that person May be brought in sometimes that person may not be brought in correct So if you know if there isn't a criminal element in the in this the threat You know and I use the example of self-harm Very often there isn't a criminal element to that so there wouldn't be a need to have law enforcement on that particular threat assessment in that particular instance um, and then the last thing is I put uh A couple of or I provided a couple of documents to Hayden to post In the the documents folder and one of them is the guidance that is provided to Vermont schools in conducting threat assessments and as part of some documentation that's provided through the training they received through on ticks um, so I post had I asked Hayden to post that so you could refer to it and and see Basically what the guidance is for doing the threat assessments and again, I think Greg did a fantastic job Yesterday really outlining that process um, and then there's another document that I provided that I um shows the difference between mdrs and threat assessments and Explains both and does some parallels to how how they are different from one another and they are two very different processes Yes, and we have those documents in our packet. Uh, thank you and thank you for providing them uh, to Hayden Uh, senator weeks was mentioning language. Uh, we already have the I'll let senator weeks ask this question So, um, uh, D. You mentioned that the law enforcement would necessarily be involved in all the threat assessment teams Just wondering if it's appropriate if you could introduce a sentence that modifies the current language That to make that clear So I just to clarify not that they wouldn't need to be part of the teams that they wouldn't be part of every single threat assessment So so in other words, they'd be a part of the the team when necessary if there's a criminal element in in the threat Right So right so right now if you look at version 6.1 on page 4 line 17 Uh, it talks about uh administrators, mental health professionals school counselor and nurse and local law enforcement officials So you're saying so there's no change to that. They you're saying that they are going to be Part of the team, but they may not be always needed Correct and the same may be true for instance for a school nurse. We think it's important to have them as um Somebody who's a core member of the team But there may be a threat assessment where the nurse is not necessarily needed in that assessment But we want to have the ability to have them be part of it if needed Sir weeks well again just for clarity. I I I agree with everything you're saying. I get it It's just said so when it says compote then page four line 16 when it says compose of out of minimum Uh, when when the when the flare goes up and everybody they call for the threat assessment team All these people are going to come unless we allow So again because out of minimum unless we allow some flexibility That there'd be an optional claw, you know something that says such such members are optional based on the circumstances or Words to that effect. I'm I'm just trying to draw out of you You know a modification to that sentence that allows us that you're happy with That allows us to move forward That's awesome Yeah, and I'll just clarify that I do think having heard some of the testimony yesterday and hearing committee members questions and comments I I think if we could get in there something along the lines of And I think largely the concern might be the law enforcement officials If needed when needed or recognizing a line in there saying recognizing that All of these individuals will not be part of every meeting there's some kind of Flexibility there. I think would be important for the committee to consider um Yeah, I understand what you're saying I this the wording is exactly out of the the training and the and the guidance that We've received through ontics and best practices So these are the core members as identified in best practices Okay, senator, will you just uh, please thank you. Uh As long as the police officers know that they're part of the team and they're involved in any drills or Training because they don't know they're part of the team. They don't show up And yeah, and it does stipulate in terms of the training that all of the members of the team Have to be trained annually. So that would obviously include the law enforcement as well I'm sorry, senator We had talked about making bias training part of the Recurrent training is that are we still thinking about putting that in and Um, D. I'm wondering what what you would think about that Um, I mean, I'm not opposed to it. Um You know, I could run it certainly by secretary french, but I I'm I'm not opposed to adding bias training as as part of it. Um Yeah Yes, I'm glad I would run it by, you know, secretary french, um You know Before going on record that yeah, well, let's go ahead and do that. I just I do want to confer with him, but um, I don't I don't see it from my perspective as being an issue If thank you senator dulyck, I'm really glad you remember that and I thought we had directed ledge council to put that in there I too don't see it in there right now Uh, but we will I will loop back to her in an email and copy you and ask her to include that I think the um Mr. Chair, I I think I know what you're referring to and if I recall it's the wording that was added related to um See if I can find it to The training, um Sorry, it's going to take me a minute to find it. Um Yeah, there was there was something about wording and of course now I can't find it, but it was added but I it wasn't um What senator gulick was referring to it was um It was a different um the wording was different Well, feel free to uh bring that back to us tomorrow. Okay And that was added I that I'm thinking that made maybe what you were recalling And that was something that superintendents and principals. I think asked to be inserted so on page two um line eight But that does not I don't Unless are you referring to senator gulick's question about uh bias training? No, I I think what um I when you had said You thought that there may have been some some wording discussion about that in the past I was thinking that you were referring to The trauma informed best practices, which was a recommendation that the superintendents and principals had recommended We did put that in but not the um uh Bias training was not Anything I recall Seeing in any of the drafts right So we will ask lege counsel to add that and she's going to take us through a new version tomorrow Anything else from you at this point date? We really appreciate you being with us. We know you're also running late to another appointment Uh, no, I'm all set and I will just uh look at the the schedule for tomorrow and assume I'm back at some point Um to see you then great Thank you very much for your time. Thank you Committee Anything else for today? okay Then we will see everybody tomorrow at one Probably going to lose uh dating tomorrow at around three, but we will keep going until we're just until we've got everything uh Sort of uh cleaned up and organized. Yes, senator gulick Do you foresee the floor being? Long tomorrow like it was today. I don't uh personally because we're starting at 11 30 And I think things are sort of in pretty good shape So but I'm guessing we get off the floor in an hour 12 30 latest my gut And then if we could get in here what time are we getting in here? One o'clock so maybe we eat our lunches in here and just start to vote and finalize and get ready for uh our week off and uh really get everything tidy I'll check with the pro tem also senator gulick about that and let hey Know if if he says otherwise in terms of length of time and he can send something out to the committee Anything else mr. Ross? We good? Okay. Have a great evening everybody