 This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives on Thursday, February 4th, 2021, and I am delighted to welcome Amanda Garces here today, who is the chair of the Ethnic Studies and Social Equity Work Group, related to Act 1 that we passed in 2019. And you have submitted a report to the legislature, and we are delighted to hear from you to inform the committee on your progress. Welcome. Great. Thank you so much, Representative Webb. So Amanda Garces, I'm also the director of policy education outreach for the Vermont Human Rights Commission. Really happy to be here. This committee really was who helped us get to where we are today. So I just want to acknowledge that. I'm going to do a little presentation. I know that people are new to the committee, so I just want to give a little overview of Act 1 and where we are today. And can everybody see the screen? Yes, good. So just to give a little bit of background around Act 1 and its genesis. So in 1999, the Vermont advisory committed to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a report titled Racial Harassment in Vermont Public Schools and described the state of racism in our schools. It basically said that racism in Vermont school was pervasive. In 2003, there was a follow-up report with some changes that still alluded to the fact that racism existed. And one of the many problems highlighted at the time was that some curriculum materials and lessons plans promoted racial stereotypes. And the conclusion was that there was a need for a bias-free curriculum. In December 2017, Act 54 report on racial disparities in state systems also alluded to the issues in education in terms of racial disparities. And many reports sequent to that have shown the disparities for students of color, students with disabilities, and from the LGBTQ systems, you know, not disproportionately impacted by policies, disciplines, and things of that sort. I think in the report, in the act itself, there's like some of those reports highlighted. So I put this picture of Paige Wiley Bailey. I never met her, but I've heard so many great things about her. And she's one of many people who really have been working towards racial justice in our Vermont schools. Paige had a 24-hour, seven-day week hapline that she answered by herself when families of color will have issues at school, and she was one of the advocates. I just want to have that just to say that there's so much work that for decades have been done around this work. So in 2018, the first Ethnic Studies Bill was introduced by Representative then Representative Kaya Morris, Representative Coach Christie, Representative Brian Tina, and others. And it did not pass, but it gathered enough consensus among the institutions that included the Agency for Education, School Board Association. The bill did not pass that year, but it was the first in 2019 to pass things. For this committee that did a lot of work to make it happen, and it was signed in March 2019, the act, what it does is creates an Ethnic and Social Equity Standards Advisory Working Group composed of 20 people, many from the education institutions that you hear from every day. 11 members have been appointed by an organization called the Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in Schools, which I am part of as well, but that appointed the people. There was a process of interviews and application process, and the 11 members, including two students and one member from the Abenaki, went through the whole process. So the Working Group is tasked to look at the stable rules and regulations, like the standards, and to update them or make recommendations to fully look at the history contributions and perspectives of ethnic and social groups. We also are tasked to review state's actual stable rules in school districts and supervisory union policies that concern or impact the standards for student performance. So those are two big jobs. Our first meeting was in November 2019. We met for the first time, and then quickly COVID happened, and we couldn't meet anymore. So this is a picture when we were used to be all together. So we had one meeting, and then we went to Zoom. We were a little delayed because we started this process later. In May 29, we submitted our first report that was just, here's the membership of the group, the meeting schedule, and what we were going to do. And then we also announced the development of an educational standard survey document, which is a tool we created to help us look at how to look at the standards. This tool is right now in survey format, and we're sending it out to all the educators, and I can send you a link afterwards, to look at how they view the current education standards and I can share that with you. So once that survey is done, from the educator perspective, there's a group of people who will be doing the same, translating that to a caregiver's parents survey, and then another one for students who will be developed to get feedback about what they're thinking is. January 4, they'll just submit our report. And in the report, we are given our first recommendation to the state board to look at the education quality standards. The education quality standards, it describes what a high quality education should look like for students attending our remote public schools, and so we're making significant recommendations. For them, one of them is to mandate some ethnic and social equities in school pre-K to grade 12, establishing and supporting local school community committees to shape the development of those practices, promoting restorative and transforming justice programs, developing some professional development and mentoring programs for school staff, brought in the prohibition of bias and discriminatory treatment to include ethnic, caste, socioeconomic status, non-citizenship status, language and linguistic abilities, and then integrating career evocational training into the ethnic studies pedagogy. Additionally, we are in the report. We are exploring some other initiatives. One is the—oh, wait, I have to—I know that there's a lot of conversations around literacy right now. There is a team in our working group, headed by Infaned, who works for voices from Vermont children and who was appointed by the coalition. And he is with a team of three people who was looking at literacy through the lens of ethnic studies and the disparities that exist for BIPOC students right now. So that is on the works also. So we're looking—a lot of the questions that are coming up from the working group is the licensure and build work requirements for future educators pre-K through grade 12 and how they are getting trained to be in this world of racial injustice. Optional policies are racial justice, social equity, and diversity hiring by school boards, which there's also teams of people who are kind of like thinking around that. No work has started around that. Some of the things that we're thinking about is like recommending formal evaluation of the flexible pathways initiatives of 2003 in relationship with the historically marginalized students. And then a big one is the establishment of a professional development collaborative with the College of Ethnic Studies in San Francisco. So that is one of the—the College of Ethnic Studies in San Francisco was established in 1969 as one of the oldest. They are—their feel is unique, you know, as an educational experience. And from their website it says it redefines the lives of people of color from their own perspective. And this is like—so we have been, since June, speaking with the Dean of the College, speaking with two amazing professors who are nationally, internationally acclaimed. They're really amazing. They work with many school districts in the nation. They do talks. And we've been thinking of a collaboration to support this work here in Vermont. So that is one of the projects that we have been working on. And I think their expertise is what we need to move this part of the work. I'm almost done. So other projects we're working on, we're looking at, you know, the review of the Title 16 Statues that are among our preview. That there's a team, a subcommittee that's looking at that. And the way that we're thinking about is like getting the feedback from the communities that—in the schools. Subcommittee, exploring avenues of advising and supporting local school boards for the policies. We had the School Board Association come and give a presentation in our last meeting. So we're thinking about that. The literacy committee, which I already spoke about. And then the survey that we're doing, the collaboration with the coalition to make sure that the work is being, you know, like really on the ground that people are listening and that we're getting feedback from the communities in Vermont so that it's not just us. And then we've been talking with the Vermont Principal's Association and some of the work that they're doing. And then this we requested in the last session, but because of COVID, we couldn't follow through. But we are currently requesting the additional three members, two more students and one Indigenous representative, which is really key. A student voice is really important. They advocated for those two seats. And then in our first meeting, they advocated for two more. And their perspective is so valuable and so needed right now that like centering their voices is really key for our working group. So with that, we end by asking for $108,000 of appropriations for this work. I want to know that this has been a lot of work that is done, you know, week by week. So we're asking for $25,000 to work with a national specialist. We really don't, we think we know that we need support in all the standards. When Mark and I started working on them over the summer, you know, it's going to be like we need some expertise to come in to help us analyze how to move the work forward. $71,000 for this work to really be effective. We're hoping to start a relationship with the College of Ethnic Studies to do a 30 Vermont Educator cohort that can be recruited by people that are educators that are already doing their work in the schools to enroll in at three creditors of College of Ethnic Studies in San Francisco, hoping that they can become trainers too and to start to, you know, grow their work. We also, you know, we have folks in our, well, we all need to have this information accessible, right? Like the statues is not, you know, easy to read. All the standards are dry. All of that knowledge is really hard. Even months to months when I'm doing the reports that I'm sending are like the things that the subcommittees are working, what that requires is having sort of trying to translate this document to accessibility for our, you know, like our communities with disabilities. And that is not an easy task. I've actually been failing at that quite regularly because it's not, you know, it's not my expertise to be to be trying to make the language more accessible. And it should be all of our expertise, but it's not. And so we want, we'd like to hire someone to support in that to make all these concepts more accessible to the communities that we're working with. And then at last, you know, $2,000 for technology costs, well, actually that $1,500 is for the stipend for the three members that were requested. And then $500 is just for all the technology costs, the serving monkey, for example, and paying out of pocket, you know, like things like that come out committed to this, but you know, it's like we need some support on that, zoom all of this to make it more accessible for people. So that is that. And this money here that you were referring to was all one-time money, correct? It's all just for your one-year budget. Okay. And did anybody put that into a bill form? Yes, Representative Ryan Cina and Representative Coach just met it. I don't think that's been released yet, but like they just did it yesterday or like they did it last week. And I think, yes, so as soon as I have that number. Okay. And yeah, I would say that there is an incredible amount of work that has been done and that the working group is working. Excellent. Questions, Representative Brady. Thank you. And I have a couple of questions. Does the legislation that they are working on include the two additional student positions? Like, is that something we would have to legislate? And has anybody drafted that? Yes, part of that bill because there is appropriation to add three more people of $1,500. And we didn't really spend the $15,000 last year. As of the report of January, we still had $14,000 because, you know, we're not paying mileage or, you know, just we would just spend the $50 stipends and not everybody's actually have taken, are taking it. Okay. And then this, my second question might be more of a question for you, Chair Webb, but so when the recommendations come out and if there are changes to the EQS, is that totally a state board thing or is there a legislative role in that? I believe it's that state. Oh, I don't know. Sorry. I have to get counsel on that, but I believe that the standards are addressed at the State Board of Education. We can ask them to develop standards. But whether we would have to do that or not, I'm not sure if it's just directly to them and they'll consider it. But we did, we did, we did sort of do a flurry of trying to get those two students in and it was just too crazy at the end of the year. So I think we're, I think there's a lot of interest in taking that up this year. Thank you, Representative Webb. And we are reporting, we are doing a presentation to the State Board on their upcoming meeting in a few weeks. So that conversation is starting as well. Representative Austin. Yes, thank you. Amanda, I just have a couple of kind of process questions. The survey that's being sent out to the teachers, is that before you start looking at, you know, where you want to build on standards or increase standards, is that are you going to wait and kind of synthesize the results of that survey so you can see what is already being taught and then build on that or see where the gaps are? And then I have one more question. Sorry, go ahead. And the other question is just the 71,000 for the 30 teachers. Couldn't that be taken out in your professional development funding? So for the second question, that is, we're only asking for half and we're committed to look through other resources for what the full program, I believe it's like 150. And so the other, the other part of the funding, we're looking to their maybe PD credits, but also partnering with other other agencies and organizations in Vermont that can support the subsidize the other half of the cost for those 30 teachers. So we're not asking for the full amount of what the cost will be. And just about the standards, just the time was a survey. Yeah. Yeah. So the survey, so when we started, we, we created a tool that said, you know, like, like we had standards that really look at centering or not centering, but like really looking at what we're trying to accomplish, which is like having BIPAC students not be marginalized. Like so we created a tool. And then we said, well, we can use this and see like if the current standards have that. So that, so that is what we're asking is like, and I can send you the survey. My brain is not completely there to recite the survey right now. But the, you know, some of the questions is like, those, the educational standards that you use, and it, you know, depends each teacher have uses different center, you know, like, they, do they talk about ableism? Do they center? Do they talk about slavery? And so like it just, and then it gives them. So I think that I'll be more than happy to send the survey so that you can also send them to your constituent educators to fill out surveys taking about 15, 20 minutes. I think my question, my question is are you going to represent of Austin? Well, I've only got about four more minutes and I have two more people that want to want to talk perhaps you and Amanda could talk offline. Is that possible Amanda for you to talk? Thank you. Representative Brown. Oh, thank you. I just have a very quick question. Amanda, you had mentioned someone who was specifically doing this work focusing on literacy. Can you just repeat that name for me? Yes, it's infinite co closure and I can send you the email. He's one of our subcommittee members. Okay, great. Thank you. Representative James. Thank you. I was interested to see that you're going to explore the intersection of historically marginalized students and flexible pathways. So if that's a long answer, no need to respond. But I was just curious what you're expecting to find or why that's an area of interest for you. Yes, I think we're just looking at the programs and how we want to make sure that my pop students are taking advantage of these programs to the full extent and that it's working for them as well. So like we know that sometimes programs like that are inaccessible for a variety of reasons. So we want to make sure that all those variety of reasons are taken into account. Thank you. It was the beginning. So we're just starting. Okay, thank you so much. Representative Brown, is that that's not a new question. Is that a new question? No, okay. Thank you so much. We will I'll be watching either I'll either be watching for Representative Chenis-Bill or we'll just we'll just pick it up. We are going to be making some recommendations to the budget. Anyway, we'll keep that in mind. Thank you so much for your time and it was great seeing you again. Quick question. Is there anything in there that you've addressed on implicit bias training? In the EQS, there is a little but not like yes. Okay. Thank you so very much. I'm sure we'll see you again. Yes, thank you so much. Bye.