 to its resting place from hope, maybe today, maybe this afternoon. We don't hear from these folks, so if we don't do it this afternoon, we'll do it tomorrow morning. Okay, thank you so much. So you're welcome. You folks need to go through the whole belly, just want to go through the corrections, and change this rather. I love the whole belly. I mean, at some point before we go on it. What's your timing? You have a half hour now? You've got a half hour. Why don't we just go through the changes? Okay. Before we go on it, we'll go through the whole thing. Okay, yeah, okay. So for the record, Jim DeMarie lives console with... Hey, do you make that office a less console? There you go. We're walking through draft 8.4. So on the statement of purpose, we've made some changes. So this bill proposes to realign regulatory oversight by the agency of education and agency of human services, a pre-K ed program. So to realign is a bit vague. You're going to get more specific on that. But the idea, of course, is that what you're doing now in this draft is you have... You have dual regulation by AOE and AHS. Thank you. Early. Of public pre-K programs. Sorry. Of private pre-K programs, you have sole regulation by AOE of public programs. When it comes to monitoring those programs, therefore, you've got dual monitoring by both agencies of private programs. But only AOE is overseeing the monitoring of public programs. Keep that. Yeah. So you'll see that if you go through. But that's what the realign means there. So we're very specifically sort of unshackling the public programs from the dual. Correct. Correct. Privacy remain basically a status quo. Okay. Public... And we have joint rulemaking still. Right? Okay. Okay. And this also gives the other committee an opportunity to say we've got this one. You want to take a look at that one? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Should I have question three now? Well, should I say statement or ask a question? Ask a question. Okay. Well, I want to change that by vacation. You want... Okay. So that's a really big thing. Right. So we'll film that you want to change the by vacation. Okay. Okay. And then a small change in line 11 to reference that simplify and clarify the program qualification criteria for pre-K providers. And then we've added a few more details here. Require reports on the availability of qualified teachers for pre-K programs and how to ensure that students who attend of district pre-K programs continue to receive special education services and five create grant programs and fund regional pre-K coordinators. Okay. Then we go to the definition of pre-K child. So based upon AOE's recommendation, we have taken out of the exception for five-year-olds students on a 504 plan. So now you can attend pre-K and get the voucher. If you're five years of age, but not yet more than kindergarten, if the child is on an IEP program and the child's program team recommends that the child receive pre-K education services, the 504 has been taken away from this exception. Pre-K education is defined as having the same meaning as defined in section 11. So what's happening here is we've had dual definitions have been inconsistent. And in the previous draft, we aligned those two definitions to be the same. This one, though, rather than having two definitions cross-references, so we don't get out of alignment going forward. That's the idea. And we'll come back to that definition at the end, because it's been revised. Okay. So none of this stuff has changed. I mean, one change here that the community did not ask for. So to point out, on line 12, this is the notification by a school board to private pre-K programs that the board intends on expanding or beginning a pre-K program. We heard that opening a law requires a genus to be posted two days before the meeting. So we had two days here, so after one day, so at least, you know, you have some notice. So they get to send them the link that they created. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes it easy. Yeah. Yeah. So but one day rather than two days before. Okay. Then we go on. The next part is, yeah, so K cover this. Okay. So if you remember, we had a conversation about where the qualified providers are going to be listed. And the existing, not existing, but unchanged, Subdivision A talks about the Agency of Human Services posting private providers on their website. Subdivision B shows the Agency of Education posting public providers on their website. And then Subdivision C has been rewritten to read that bright futures using the lists posted on the two respective websites would post on its own website a list of both private and public providers that satisfy the program requirements. And it specifies on line six and seven, which shall be searchable by program type and geographic region. Okay. Okay. Then we go forward. So you see this, this language here jointly developed, sorry, on line two and three jointly developed and implemented by the Agency of Education and Human Services. This refers to the statewide rate that has to be established and they are doing that jointly. So we unstruck that language to keep it back in the statute. Okay. So we are now in the section that deals with regulatory on my line nine, regulatory oversight and rules. So this says, and it's unchanged on my 10, the Agency of Education shall have sole regulatory oversight of pre-K educational program offered by a public provider with the exception of CFAP and stars as we talked about before. That's unchanged. Now, though, it says on page 12, the Department for Children and Families Child Development Division and the Agency of Education shall have joint regulatory oversight of a pre-K educational program offered by a private provider. That's where you get into that change there. And then it goes on, on line four unchanged, but just to point out that we've got joint rulemaking here still. So line six shall jointly develop and agree to rules. So that's unchanged. And the rules pretty much are the same as they were before until we come to monitoring. Okay. So the monitoring section has changed because now we've got to deal with dual regulation on one side and sole regulation on the other side. So now it says on line one, they have established rules to establish comparable monitoring systems. They're designed to promote optimal results for children that support the relevant population level outcomes that support the statute and to collect data that will inform future decisions by which the AOE and DCF shall jointly monitor and evaluate the implementation of publicly funded pre-K education programs offered by private programs. And the Agency of Education shall solely monitor and evaluate the implementation of publicly funded pre-K education programs offered by public programs. Okay. Just don't move on your words. Okay. Then. Hold on a second. There. So then it's. AOE. Joint monitoring of private. Direct monitoring. Sole AOE. Correct. So we're going to go along with that. Okay. Biprecation was talked about earlier. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit of a tricky corner in there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because of the wording that the publicly funded programs offered by the private programs. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. Okay. Sorry. Just got hung up for a minute. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then that says on line eight, which is unchanged. Sorry. Line 13 that the agency and department should be required to jointly report the results of the monitoring. So they might do something separately of the jointly reporting. And then the requirements for monitoring on line 16 are unchanged. So same as before. Okay. Then we come to, I put this in, if we didn't have a rule requirement that said this. And it says that the rules have to establish a process to verify that public and private providers satisfy and continue to satisfy the program quality requirements, which are the stars ratings or the teaching. So we didn't have it before. So I thought we should put that in. Okay. That's not how the kids are doing this is how the program is doing. This is just making sure that there are rules in place for the agencies to have a process for verifying that these are actually qualified programs. That's all. And then we go to, okay. This gets back into the definition of pre-K child. So this is the definition we're in. So our section three here on line five, we're mainly section 11. Section 11 are the definitions used throughout Pal 16. So there's the definition already pre-K education on line 10. So all we're doing here is saying when we were in the section on pre-K, we cross-referenced this section saying pre-K education means what this says. And what this says is that it means services designed to provide developmentally appropriate early development and learning experiences based upon all the learning standards to pre-K children as defined in H29, which is a pre-K section we went through. So that's basically saying, again, three, four-year-olds and five-year-olds if you are on IEP. So that's just again to make sure we don't have this issue going forward of having two sets of definitions that aren't aligned. Then on page 18, we moved out the date for this, for the secretary to develop uniform forms of processes. It happened over this summer. They want more time. So it's now March 15 of next year. But the idea here being after they do that, that all the school nurses have to have time to use those uniform forms of processes before the next school year. So hopefully that will give them enough time to do that. Then we come to, okay, so we have section seven left over this way? Sure. So this is the study that we've been looking at, looking at the availability of instructors moving forward. So the new language is that by December 15 of 2020, AHS and AOE are to study and report and submit that report to Education, Human Services, Health and Welfare. First, their five and 10-year vision for kindergarten. That's my fault, but actually there's going to be two of these here. That probably should say pre-K, I believe. And subdivision two, the capacity of public pre-K for children four years of age. Pause there for a second. That's what I think Sherwood, you asked for, but should that be kindergarten? Because we've been talking about expanding kindergarten times the fourth grade. So should this say kindergarten or pre-kindergarten? Kindergarten. Kindergarten, okay, yeah. Well, could we say kindergarten for children that are four years old? Yeah, that's what it looks like. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It'll be like junior kindergarten. Okay, so we'll put it up. Okay, so you want it to read the capacity of public kindergarten for children four years of age? Switch out those words. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And in subdivision three, bridging the gap between childcare, early education, work supports, and parent education. I don't understand if it should be parent engagement, I'm sorry that's my fault. Okay. That's my question. Yeah. I don't understand parent education. Okay. That's my fault. Okay. This is late last night. Yeah. Going back and forth with my words. Yeah. Okay. So that's, so this report here to note is by the two agencies to report by December 15, 2020, the previous section has two agencies reporting on the same date of all the teacher qualifications. So we don't want to, I don't want to at least combine this report here and seven without the teacher stuff because teacher stuff is so specific. Right. So I want to muddy that water. So we have a separate report. Yeah. And then we come to, we come to the grant program. So. The part you just skipped over, I know that's new, but that's the special affordability study. Yeah. That's the advisory group. And there are actually two things just to remind you. One of this is how to ensure portability of special education services when the student goes out of district. And the second is how to ensure that the funding for pre-K is not doubled because of the census grant. Right. Can I have? Yeah. Yeah. If a special ed student left the district, their district, their home district, am I to another school? Could the IEP and the funding fall now? Good. Good. Okay. So that's the part that takes a student away from the recommendation of the IEP team in the Supervisory Union, which is the LA, then the FAP goes away. But that doesn't mean that money can't fall out. But it's a choice at that point, not a requirement. Okay. So session nine, just read through this. This is a new grant program to encourage regions to hire pre-K coordinators. So it reads, A, the pre-K coordinators grant program is created to enable SUs to work together in a sustained and targeted manner to retain pre-K coordinators on a regional basis. In recognition that Supervisory Unions or regions within the state that retain pre-K coordinators deliver pre-K educational services in a more effective and coordinated manner than those SUs or regions that do not have this resource, this program is designed to assist SUs that work in collaboration by providing funding to retain pre-K coordinators. Administration, the agency of education shall master the grant program and shall determine the applicable, sorry, the application and the work criteria, provide that applicant to represent not less than three SUs that agree to work in collaboration to coordinate pre-K educational services to a pre-K coordinator whose service is region represented by these Supervisory Unions. The agency of education shall inform SUs of the availability of grants under the section and provide technical assistance to eligible applicants applying for these funds. The agency of education shall also advise SUs of other sources of funding that may be available to advance the purpose of this section. Program funding, the agency shall award grant funding under the program of up to, and it's a bracket, I'm not sure how much you want, for application to successful applicants. The amount of this funding shall be used, shall be based on SUs of the applicants proposed budget and total availability of funds, and I'm not sure there should be a second year of funding, so that's the question wrong for the committee to consider. And then D on before December 15, 2021, the agency of education shall report to the John Assembly and the governor on the impact of the grant program. The report shall be made publicly available on the agency's website. And then now we're seeing a provision of a lot of the contrary. X amount is appropriated from the education fund to the agency for fiscal year 21, designated for program grants under this section. And again, the agency shall include a special request for next year or more money if you're doing it through your program, I wasn't sure. And then the agency can't spend more than 2% of funds for technical assistance and not more than 2% of funding for the report. And that's it. Thank you. Peter. This grant program, I'm on what we were looking at here, page 28. And basically my question is the agency essentially will design this. They'll make the rules around it. They'll say we're only providing 30% and you need to provide a 70% match. Or do we need to be prescribing some of that? Well, this is a call for matching funds. So I don't think we have the authority here to demand matching funds. Just unlike the grant program for nursing, which is very detailed, all they're doing here is retaining a coordinator. It's much simpler program, I think, to a minister than the other one. We have lots of goals you want to see. We've got models, too. I was trying to think through sort of the same thing. So is the 150 intended to be salary and benefits for that person for one year? I think that they can use it in any way that they want to use it, not to find how they use it. Well, the purpose of the section is to retain, I didn't say employ or construct, but it's just retain, which is a more vague term. But somehow you get the services of the coordinator for that region. The hope is that what they're going to do is here's your seed money to get started. And then you're going to realize this is such a good idea that you're going to start putting in your budgets and you're going to be able to spread it out throughout supervisor units. Because what I was assuming that, so I'm thinking about the two-year thing because if you, just trying to think through the timing, if this new person starts in September and then budgets are due in January, you're not going to have time to show that person's impact before you're trying to build them into the budget. So it's sort of like, we've got this great new person, she's working across, you know, she or he is working across three SUs. Yeah, and we're already trying to, you know, move that cost over to the SU's budgets when the person hasn't had a chance to show the impact yet. So that would be my thought on that. And I don't have to fix that. But just a two-year program would be, I think, preferable to give this person time to really make some changes. I have the option for a second year. Would you like to do that? I mean, some kind of physical... Well, I want to do that. How many would like to do that? We've got a counter argument here. Okay, counter argument. All right, so I totally get what you're saying and understand that. However, I think the model has existed long enough in other areas that the argument to put it in the budget the next year is an argument that can be made. I hear you saying, but it's really a superintendent at school. We're going to have to sell them any more stuff then that the coordinator has to prove how effective they are. And we do have someone who recently walked into the room who actually started a program with 12 SUs. So we might be able to ask them how long it has been. Okay. Just hold that because we're going to want to talk with them. Okay, because I think this is a great discussion. You were at some point and went on and took you to get your 12 SUs going. We'll just hold on that. I guess I feel like one year, this is the kind of career that really needs to be owned by the supervisory means. That's why I was asking about, you know, matching funds because I just need to be skinning the game. So I guess I'm comfortable with one year. I suppose I can always come back and ask them how to be extended. Should we keep it for one year for now? Yeah. I'll keep it for one year for now and go through some of that. Should we do matching funds? Well, I think Jim made it. I think it was real for matching funds. The AOE described it as they can do it however they want to do it. Oh, they can do that? Yeah. They're going to design the grant fund. And that's what happened before. They weren't matching funds. There are organizations that would be very interested in that. Is that what you said? No, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what I thought. Jim said that they can't because they can't require matching funds to do this. I think unless we say it, we've had language before that about the required matching funds. The grant has been express free of statute. Yeah. I don't know that the AC would have authority to require matching funds unless you say it. No, I don't think we were talking about requiring matching funds, but it's possible that's you to take in money from another organization. Yeah. And there's language here about having the AOE help them find funding. Right. That's here. But requiring matching funds is not here. No. You could draft this to require it or you could draft it to the HD authority to do it. Right. But if the agency said, okay, these are $30,000 grants matching funds is assumed. In other words, they don't have to fully fund. They would need it, in other words. Yeah. Yeah. And the agency is required to fully fund a position. They're required to fund the grant amount that they said that they would give. Yeah. And it may not be enough to fully fund something. Well, I see the language though is up to a certain amount. So right now it's bracket 150,000. But we based upon the budget that they actually come in with. Right. So if they come in with a budget of 100,000, they're going to get 100,000 under this language, I believe. And unless the agency comes up with rules that make them more of a competitive process, we're going to be... 100,000, I'm sorry, per application. Yeah. Yeah. That's $150,000 total. No, no. No. That's a bracket because that was just the amount you had in your literacy bill. Yeah. So it could be wherever you want. I don't know, $500,000? And how many... 30,000. No. And that's how the matching funds, the total fund. Yeah. This is $150,000. You figure this is three SCUs that are getting together. That's basically 50,000 each. But they're... Yeah. You know, in terms of... Yes. It would be 50,000 each sort of... Each sort of... Yes. Which sort of... Or if it was 12... Right. Right. Yeah. Three regions again? Four? Three or more, right? Three. No, the region... The regional... Yeah. No, the region, the regional... Would you say there's like four regions? Yeah. Is there no... The superintendents have... I think they have the four regions. Five. Do you have the five? Do you have Francis Montz? The superintendent association. Five regions. They have five. But that's not a state defined region. Yeah. Just because of time... I'm happy to come back to this after we have time to think about it. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Serena. Do you want to hear more? Yes. Okay. Briefly, to say you have a concern about this, we won't discuss it, but you're concerned. Okay. So this is my concern. Then I've been thinking about all we can occur from quite five superintendents. Yeah. But one, I'm really concerned about the joint overseeing of the pretense. Yeah. They find it confusing. They find policies being administered differently by different individuals. Not out of... Yeah. Just because it's... So that's one. Yeah. So that's one. And, you know, what was really pointed out to me was the issue of equity and access, which I think is the foundation of the public school system. And a feeling that AOE should oversee the educational... The education portion of pre-K for both private and public. So this does... Everything you're concerned about this... Just do it there. Yeah. Yeah. The agency of education overseas and in private? Yeah. Along with... No, no. Along with AHS. Without... We don't want to do that. Okay. Okay. But that's committee, but the committee upstairs. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And just I'll finish. Yeah. That the AHS be in charge of safety and health for the privates. There we go. Okay. Yeah. You know, I mean we... We'll hear... We've got some time now to hear from... We have the bees, as we call them affectionately. And let's go kids. LGK to hear from. So thank you very much. Thank you. We have two just to hold because they're gonna... It's not... Let's not do the next draft quite yet. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna fill things. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Too much. Okay. But there may be some others. I mean we're gonna need to fill in that bracket. Yes, it is. Okay. Extremely. Jay, are you speaking for them? Yes. We're back here. Yeah, I'm sorry. Did you happen to see what we added in sexual 7? Did you walk in just as it was... I heard what you said, but I... I haven't looked at anything else. Yeah. So we'll give our testimony on 6.2 as we last saw. Okay. Okay. So Jay Nichols-Vermont, Principal Association. I'm here representing the organizations that are on the board behind me. This is joint testimony from us. Thanks for having us here today. Thank you. On behalf of our organizations, we welcome the opportunity to testify. We wanna really focus today on reemphasizing our long-standing calls for equity, quality, and simplicity in whatever pre-kidding garden delivery system model we have. And we wanna provide feedback on draft 6.2, 166. So first... So if we go through, let's do the check as to whether it was addressed or not. You guys can tell us if you addressed it. We've got, down below, we've got whether it was addressed on 6.2, the original 6.2 that we saw. So as you know, creating and maintaining any effective system requires a willingness to make adjustments. One of our concerns has been since the enactment of the law in 2014, despite a memo from Secretary Holcomb and Secretary Gaube, respectively of AOE and AHS at the time, in 2017, I believe it was, there have been no adjustments made to the act by the General Assembly. And there are persistent reports from the field of major concerns. I wanna do a quote from Kate Rogers, AOE Early Education Manager. She provided this definition on January 18th of 2020. What defines Vermont's universal pre-kidding garden education is the implementation of high quality, effective instruction by licensed educators who use evidence-based practices within intentionally designed early learning environments. We agree with that wholeheartedly, as does all the research. The House Education Committee's recent phone conference with the National Institute for Early Education Research provided clear guidance. Vermont has focus on access, and we've received a lot of credit for that across the nation. It's now time to focus on quality. The research is compelling. The credentials of both the lead teacher and the assistant teacher affect child outcomes. And I'm gonna take a drink because I'm battling a sore throat. Don't touch anything. I know. A lot better than I was three days ago. As we noted in our January 23rd testimony, the core principles that guide our recommendations, again, are equity, quality, and simplicity. By simplicity, we mean to take a complex law and make it as easily implementable as possible. So our main points act, students with disabilities do not have equitable access to educational services compared to their peers who do not have disabilities. That's a huge equity issue for us. There's inconsistency in the requirement of direct teaching time for credentialed staff. That's an equity issue. There's insufficient child outcome data necessary to evaluate the system. That's a quality issue. And there are many challenges with systems oversight and administration by the state. And that's the issue when we're talking about simplicity. That's what we're talking about. We do not support draft 6.2. Previous to the one you just put up there because we haven't seen that yet. As it does not make sufficient improvements to equity, quality, or simplicity in the pre-K delivery system. So here's our assessment. And again, you can question me on these. Can you sort of back up a mention? Yeah. A little bit more. There we go. It says the research is compelling credentials of both lead teacher and assistant teacher effect child outcomes. Yeah. And right below it, you say there's insufficient child outcome data necessary to evaluate the system. Right. There's national research about programs where you've had teachers teaching and the results that have come into play. In Vermont, we haven't tried that yet. We haven't looked at that. What we have in Vermont is two completely different systems. And we have no real assessment of how the systems are doing. That's the point we're trying to make. So how do we know there's a problem? We don't probably. We don't have the information to make any real judgment on it. What we have is national data that shows that kids with quality teachers show great improvements in terms of kindergarten readiness outcomes, how long their percentages towards graduation, those types of things. But we don't have Vermont data. That's our point. We need Vermont data. We need to look and see what the differences between kids who are getting quality instruction and kids who are getting licensed teacher instruction versus kids who may not be. Thank you for that distinction. You're welcome. Yeah, I have to say that. You're on fire. Yeah. And I wasn't trying to do that. I'm not trying to rile anybody up today. So for our... Does that answer your question? Yeah. No, not. Okay. So implementation goals not met in 6.2. Consistency across the delivery systems for settings in a licensed teacher qualification is in contact hours with kids. In draft 3.1, this was addressed by requiring a licensed teacher to provide direct instruction during the pre-kindergarten hours funded by the school district. That is a fundamental thing that we believe has to be in any bill. It should be licensed teachers providing instruction if it's going to be using education funds to pay for it. Draft 6.2, moves away from this goal by emitting any reference to increasing direct licensed teacher content. And you know that what we do in this bill is we study that. Yeah. We don't have the data on it. Yeah. So we start to get that data. No, that's... Yeah, we're going to get that. Right. And what we have is national data, as I just said. And we don't have these data. So we... Yeah. Is there the capacity to put a license? No. You know, we came into millions of dollars. Is there the capacity to put a licensed pre-K early educator in every private? I don't know. I don't know. So that's a male student. Yeah, I don't know. I have no idea. I have no idea. I'm just saying quality needs to be attended to. We know that a teacher needs to be present. We don't know what president means. We would say president means actually working with kids. But the interpretation around the state is very different. Right. Right. Again, so research clearly demonstrates the importance of having a high quality teacher providing instruction to pre-K in our children. That's national research. And you folks all heard this in your conference call. And a qualified educator is what distinguishes pre-Kindergarten education from early childcare. So we want to make sure you recognize the difference between the two. We also have the goal of elimination of joint oversight. 3.1 addressed this objective by establishing regulatory oversight by AOE for public providers and oversight by AHS for private providers. And then they would do annual reports together. We believe that the advantages of bifurcating oversight with proper interagency coordination will prove better for both public schools to the AOE and private providers through AHS. Joint oversight has not worked well thus far. There's no school leaders that will tell you that it works well. Draft 6.2 requires dual oversight for the quality rating system. Monitoring quality and accountability, which we touched on a little bit. Draft 3.1 addressed this by requiring program operators to notify the respective agency in school districts within five calendar days when it no longer satisfies one or more requirements. I think that was a good step. And draft 6.2, at least the version that we've seen, requires the Secretary of Education and the Commissioner of DCF to establish a process for remedial action. The language doesn't have any timelines, provides no requirements in terms of actionable responses to serious violations by AOE or AHS. This is a special concern to us since it's been five years, and we still have not seen an introduction to a pre-K monitoring system, and that this new system that we're hearing about has not been introduced to the field as of yet. Okay, remember, we haven't seen 8.4 yet. She's saying you fixed that? Maybe. We will look at it. We will look at it. We will definitely look at it. Then we also thought there were some implementation goals that were partially met in 6.2. Okay, special education portability for providing a free and appropriate public education. So we support the inclusion of a special education study to examine the matter of equity. However, in draft 6.2, takes no immediate action to address the inequities experienced by students with disabilities and their families. This has been a five-year ongoing problem. We're discriminating against our disabled students, and we continue to do that. We support analysis, as we've said, and we also think the analysis should include but not be limited to pre-K pupil weighting, census-based block grant, and the triple E grants. Implementation goals met at 6.2 should be retained in any subsequent draft, excuse me. The two years of pre-K eligibility, you've made that much more clear. We think that that makes perfect sense. We agree with the removal of the three stars with a plan. We're moving to four stars as a minimum. We support any enhancement and quality requirements. We're removing liability of public school systems for private provider actions. That language that removes the liability makes sense. That's a positive step, as public schools should not be liable for actions of private providers for whom they have little, if any oversight or authority over. In conclusion, while we appreciate the efforts the committee has made to improve Act 166, coined by it, Version 6.2, we cannot support draft 6.2 because it does very little to address equity, quality, and simplicity, which would improve the quality of instruction and programming for pre-K children in the state of Vermont. And I've got a team here with me, and any of us can answer any questions you might have. I think it would be really helpful if maybe you guys could huddle while we're on the floor forever and just look at 8.4. Okay. If it looks like we're going to be on the floor for the rest of the day, I hope that we'll be able to do that. Many of us have a meeting with the AOB at 1 o'clock, so from 1 to 3, we're going to be tied up. We do. I think we've got a bit of a run to start. So, that's for kids. And you have not, you're not speaking, I'm really sorry. I got this sorted out this morning. Yes, I'm just kind of responding in the moment to a number of things. So, Sarah Kenney from Let's Grow Kids. Thanks for the opportunity to be back here. I'm going to be very brief, because I find myself in the rather uncomfortable and entirely unexpected position of agreeing with the position of both the agencies, which is a new thing for me to say on this topic, that the bifurcation that's proposed in the bill right now is not the best remedy to the situation we have now. It's not a small tweak. It's actually a very major change to the system, and that it's not advisable at this time when so much has been happening that the agencies have been doing together in terms of the monitoring system and the rules process that's underway. But I have already talked to you all about that, so I'm not going to belabor that point. Just a couple of thoughts that arose as you all just walked through the latest draft that I just wanted to flag. On page 8 of the new draft, where you're talking about Building Bright Futures being the one who administers a publicly available listing of all programs, again, highly recommend that you all actually talk to Building Bright Futures about their capacity to do that and what their work looks like. It's very possible that that does make sense. I just don't think any of us can speak on their behalf. And on page 25 of the new section 7, which is the report on sort of the vision from the agencies, the language that is in the bill, especially the third bullet, I think I'm not looking at it right now, but talks about bridging the gap and work supports, and I don't actually know what any of that means. So I would recommend adding some additional guidance to the agencies on what exactly it is that you're looking for them to report back on. I do think that it is, it totally makes sense, and it is time to have an evaluation from both the agencies under their current leadership about what do they see as the future for public pre-K, that that is a conversation that should be done in consultation with lots of stakeholders, everybody in the room right now. We would also, I think it would be really wonderful if that also included a parent survey of parents who are currently enrolled in, whose kids are currently enrolled in universal pre-K across all the settings. Can we just get that? Yes, yeah. But I think it would be interesting to hear. What I've heard from you all and from lots of other stakeholders is that that data was not what you were looking for and was not reliable somehow. So I think it would be great to again evaluate sort of what are parents thinking about, and especially parents with kids who are in the categories of children that we've been talking about, so students who don't seem to have equitable access right now, what would actually work for them? I think what that survey didn't get from parents was does 10 hours a week work for you? Would you prefer more hours? What should the future, what should the future of the system, we know what that many working families need full day, full year care. And so the question is, what would the best scenario look like for families? Do they need 20 hours a week? Do they need 50 hours a week? I think that's information that we don't have from the survey that was done. At least I haven't revisited it in a little while. So I do think fleshing out that sort of the vision section for what the agency should be reporting back on would be really helpful to make sure that you all get the information that you're looking for and to ensure that other folks are engaged in that conversation as the report is developed too. And that's all, oh sorry, the universal pre-K coordinators, I haven't honestly had a chance to really ingest any of that language yet, so I would love an opportunity to have some other folks I work with and look at it. So section seven is something that I worked with our lunch council to add last night. And part of that came from one of the reasons that I thought would be a good idea to address 166 was to look at stabilizing what we have now for the present pre-4 and 5-year-olds. Stabilizing that, but also keeping track of perhaps this isn't the model that we want and there's another direction to go. So the intention that I held which I'm going to take to the committee and see if this is a co-committing position is to stabilize now and look to the future as to where we're going. And the thought of we get caught up in a struggle between public and private programs that I don't think is really anything that those of us, all of us in this room really care about 3 and 4-year-olds think is helpful. So are we, right now, this is a public education program that 166 is. But it may not be meeting the needs of what else we're talking about. Child care, early education, parent engagement, workforce, all of those things. Is there another model perhaps that we're looking at going forward that we haven't considered that maybe puts 4-year-olds in public school? Maybe. I don't know. It's going to be for someone else in the side. And maybe we need to be looking at our child care for infants and 3-year-olds maybe we need to have a different model that doesn't get all tangled with the problems that we've gotten in with this. I don't know what that future is for the smart people out there that probably do. And having looked, I looked at what's happening around the states even though I had a nice weekend away, I of course had to go in and look at what's happening around the states. And the government structure around the states is different everywhere and everyone is dealing with this. And it's amazing. Some have everything in AOE and some of them have a whole separate department. Some have mixed, some have it all in their human services. So it's not like we are alone and struggle now. Years ago, kindergarten schools didn't have to do kindergarten. Maybe we're at that question again. I don't know. And then I'll stop here. But to say stabilize now and work towards the future. And if there's other language in this, I think when I look at, we're asking AOE to come back with this by December 15th. That might be a little ambitious. AOE and AHS to come back with that. That might be a little ambitious. But I think we do need to have a conversation about what our picture is for our zero to grade three. Yeah. I think you raised an excellent point, Madam Chair. And I think the question is is this study just looking at what the state does for four-year-olds? Or three and four-year-olds? Or is it because the way this is structured right now, it's not clear to me that it's looking across the fold. Like how do we support children prior to kindergarten? Or globally? Yes. So we're not looking at I think you raised an excellent question about we don't want to be looking at universal pre-kindergarten in a silo as completely separate from the rest of the supports that families rely on. And the early care and education that every kid in Vermont deserves. So this is language from the moment I was born. And I'm really happy to talk. I'm also happy to say maybe we're out of time and that language gets discussed upstairs. I think that there are different things that we can do, but I think we do need to remember that we are in transition, stabilized now and figure out what we're doing. I appreciate that and I think that's some of the concern that we have with the bifurcation proposal is that it seems actually destabilizing as we remember that one. I appreciate that. I'm just wondering I'm just wondering I just did a whole lot of things about it. If we send something upstairs can we put the committee strongly recommend something? We can say anything we want. Because we want to. And they can choose to change it and then we can agree or not agree. So does it come back to us? After that. It depends on how they structure it. Yeah. But we will have a vote committee vote on what they do. Okay. And then we can amend what they do on the floor. If that gets into a whole that's complicated. Okay. Just want to know what the options are. So you said bifurcation would be very destabilizing. I said we fear that it could be destabilizing as far as destabilizing. Are you referring to the what we're calling now a realignment under 8.4? Or are you referring to the full bifurcation under the previous version? I'm thinking about 6.2. I didn't see that that changed significantly in the draft you just looked at where AOE is exclusive. AHS has basically no involvement with public school programs, right? Yeah. What do you think why that's destabilizing? I think it's one more really big change in the field. I think it will it'll feel different for folks out in the field. I think it will feel unfair for private providers. And I don't want to dive deeply into this conversation because I know you're anticipating that human services will talk about the private providers impact on this. I feel like I've said a lot about our concerns around the universe and the fact that the agencies have just finally gotten to a place where they have developed a joint monitoring system. They spent the last year reviewing rules and regulations looking for duplication with a whole couple dozen public schools engaging as a part of that process. I think we've just reached this place where the agencies are actually being proactive in thinking about how to solve problems together and to just decouple all of that and that's it. I'm just afraid that it was helpful I think I would feel differently. What's that? If I had heard that having AHS involved was helpful in the public schools I would probably feel differently but I didn't You know I just add one thing I came into I got my license late 70s, early 80s I believe right around the time before 142 came in which was basically the basis of IDEA. At that time we had a place called Brandon Training School. Brandon Training School was definitely the only place you should put children with developmental disabilities that's the only place that they could be served it's in the institution where you have professionals. Well we found out maybe that was a good idea maybe there were other things that could happen so they started to come out and we put them in special classrooms and back in the day when I was there they had signs over the door that said TMR, EMR and Multi-Handicapped so that was trainably mentally retarded educationally mentally retarded and Multi-Handicapped and they were in their separate rooms and that was going to be the best thing we could do because that's the only way that you can make sure that these kids are getting served well it somehow took a long time it took 25-30 years to realize that they actually returned really well in the classrooms and they're members of the classrooms and they're not only learning in the classrooms they're socially engaged and they're teachers of children without handicaps so I just I just I guess I have more confidence in the public schools ability to handle this than I think perhaps you do I'm not saying that I don't think the public schools are able to handle this at all I think there are the agency of human services as we discussed brings a depth of expertise in terms of the early brain development zero to five I don't dispute that there are incredibly highly qualified wonderful people working in both kinds of settings across all settings and I think kids benefit from that level of expertise we have said that we support a licensure we support credentials and we're not just talking about pre-kindergarten we're working on many fronts to support development of credentials from birth to five we do believe in the research that indicates that the credentials of the teacher and the training and professional development of the teacher in a classroom whether you're talking about in a public education pre-k classroom or you're talking about in an infant room that person's ability to have the professional preparation that supports them doing a great job the most crucial things we can do in the settings across the board and the agency of human services also supports that and has been working really hard to support that across the board so I do think that there's benefit to maintaining that vision I also think that the concerns that the chair just raised related to what are the impacts of what we're doing in public schools and in pre-kindergarten you know public school what are the impacts of that on the rest of the system and on everything that families and children need is better considered with both agencies being engaged in that conversation together so I agree with you and that's part of I mean that's the big part of why the focus of our legislative work this year is not in this room but is in the rest of the building and in this room talking about the supports that we need to be able to continue to increase the credentials and the level of quality in terms of what we're providing to kids birth through five all around the state so I just finally got my own rule right? I just wanted to say that I think it's important to have an evidence based conversation when we're talking about anything in this building and you know the research again focusing on what's best for kids and again I'm not saying to overthrow but I think it can't just be people's like you said at the Brantford school Brantford school it can't be that we just think that this is what's best and I think technology is at the point now that we can really focus in on what advances learning so I'm just suggesting that we continue to look at evidence based outcomes as a you know and try to stay away from anecdotal or opinion kind of that and look at what actually in data says is the best program for all children okay committee terms of this draft are we going in the right direction? are we going in the right direction? you want to stand with us? I don't care