 Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Senate Education. S117, Ms. Richter. You're joining us at the table with a physical note. We have Ms. St. James with us. And the one named not on the agenda for the last minute edition was Sue Minter, who represents, I believe, organizations, the parent education programs that Senator Perchlich is trying to address in this bill. So she's going to join us. But Ms. Richter, if you don't mind, I'm going to just ask Liz Council, since she's here in St. James, 100,000 feet. Can you just tell us again what this bill does? Sure. About St. James Office of Legislative Council. This bill amends what's currently in session lot. Teen parent education programs currently receive 83% of the prior year statewide average net cost for people. And this bill would move that to 100%. It would also allow time that a people attending a teen parent education program is absent due to giving and recovering from her. For that time that that person was out to be counted towards full-time equivalent enrollment calculation. So those absences would be counted against. Any questions for Liz Council? We had Sponsor of the Bill, Senator Perchlich in. I believe he has Senator Kitchell interested in doing something with this perhaps in the budget, but we wanted to hear from Joint Fiscal as well as Sue Winter today. So floor is yours. Thanks. Good afternoon. For the record, I'm Julia Richter with the Joint Fiscal Office. I see that the committee has my fiscal note or the fiscal note in front of them. Also it's posted on the committee's webpage under my name. It's a short fiscal note. So really as Beth from Liz Council just walked through, it's increasing that amount that a teen parent program would receive from the Pupil School District of Residence from what it currently is of 83% of the prior year's statewide average net cost for people without debt to 100%. And so really we estimate this bill would result in an increased cost of approximately 130,000 to the Education Fund in fiscal year 2024, but this would be a de minimis impact. So I can talk in any more detail as would be helpful to the committee. Questions or comments? Mr. Francis? I wasn't raising my hand. I know that I was told you have some concerns about it. So I was caught by off guard in regard to this bill coming up this week. I reached out for one superintendent for a long time and asked about the source of the 83% versus 100%. And as I understand it, 16 BSA 1073 will I leave some elements of the services to the student with the school district. So the distribution between 100% and 83% was really an acknowledgement that the school district was not going to leave the student entirely to the teen parent program. Okay, they were going to continue to provide services. So the superintendent when I spoke raised that point and said, and I'm not sure that I agree with the superintendent and it was a very quick exchange, but they said, okay, if the tuition would go to 100%, then the planning coordination and assessment of the student's progress should go to the pregnant teen center as well. And I don't know that teen centers that are set up to provide services to students who are there because they're pregnant either have an interest or capacity to provide those kinds of additional services. So to wrap it up, so there was a rationale to 83%. And I just wanted to make sure really without any negative comment about the intent of the bill that wanted to let you know that that's what the reason was. Does that individual happen to give you any sense of what it is that they generally are kind of folding on? No, and I think if I may, you know, I think that the fiscal note is illustrative of why not, right? So there's not a lot of money involved. I recall these conversations because I was involved, you know, it might have been 15 or 20 years ago, I didn't check the sources and the statutes to see when the last time this conversation happened. But it was at a time like today when there was always an interest in what the distribution of obligation was going to be between school districts. So long went away saying there's fiscal pressures at the time. So there was an interest in 100% at that time as well. And it got worked out to 83% because the school was going to continue to provide services to the student. Do you know if it's safe to say that, and we'll hear from students today, this is the case for all of the school districts. Everybody's still doing something, whether it's evaluating, okay? Yeah, and I was asked that by Ms. Simmerman, who's here, you know, she works with us. And I don't know the answer to that question either for the school districts or the teen parent centers. I think there's a potential that the teen parent centers may offer a variable level of service for the students that they're serving. So, you know, I'd sum it up and still answer questions, but it seemed to me like it's a good point on both sides. And the point that I'm here to represent is the fact that school districts are still providing services to these kids. Do you have any questions for Joint Fiscal, Ms. Richter, Mr. Francis, or Ms. St. James? Do we hear from students here? General question, but we don't walk through on this bill? We did. We had to sponsor center virtually. So as well. Thank you. You're welcome. Please, I just, it just occurred to me because I'm wrapping my brain here. The last time this was discussed, Michael Fisher was the director of the Addison County teen parents center. So whatever that was, you know, he moved on to the health arena, but he was in that position at the time. Advocating for this. The way they're really happy because he was more working it out. I want to let her know we're ready. Okay. Anything else, Ms. Richter? Not much money. No. A few more things. When thinking about the statewide education fund, it would be de minimis. Yeah. And we'll hear again from a signature rule outline as soon as she pops on the screen why, how this will make a difference for young women largely. I don't think we need you to stick around. All right. Great. Thank you all. Good to see you. We're just waiting for Sue and then we get started. While we're waiting, Gemma, do you want to talk about buses? Can you come on? Yeah, go ahead. You want to try to summarize or you want me to? We have a request from the Killington-Bombs School. Okay. Which is an independent school. Okay. They've requested some funding so they can buy a 15,000-year van. Not funding. No funding. Okay. Just a code change. Okay. A code change that will allow them to purchase a van? So they're to buy. So apparently a U.S. government during COVID segmented vehicle purchases. And they needed to buy a van that's greater than 12. This was the original rule. You needed a government bin code, financial. That's not broken down. Anyway, it's something, you know, identification number or something. To be authorized to be able to buy a van that supports the school. So production was slowed down. Distribution of vans. High capacity in this case, greater than 12, was controlled by the government. So that these vehicles only went to high priority organizations like schools. Okay. Anyway, so this school, independent school in Killington. It's looking to buy a 10 passenger van. But still apparently falls within the requirement to have a U.S. government bin code. To be able to purchase the van. And be an independent school but not authorized to receive a bin code. Is that federal? I mean, how do they? It's federal. Yeah. So what do we do? So we have a rightful. Rightful. Yeah. So we, we, in our, we back off that it's US government just says government bin code. So that keeps it in our wheelhouse. And so it's just looking to utilize resources in this case, access to vehicles like, like, like, like any public, like a public school or public school. But in our statutes, we separate between government, state sponsored, state sponsored schools and, and independent schools. We differentiate. So what they're looking at doing. This is like 30 minutes ago. So I'm not really well versed on it. But the nature of it is they're looking for a statute change that allows independent schools to also receive. Also receive access to the government bin code. So are you going to be putting in a bill to change the statute? I'm not sure yet. I'm just, it's just an introduction of a concept. They got an email. I thought. This is just a pop off. Okay. I'm just curious about the process. That's exactly for the miscellaneous bill. That's exactly it. So the, the theory is that house and miscellaneous bill, we change language, which essentially authorizes an independent school to also access the government to be able to utilize the government bin code. And that's as much as I know about it. Maybe work with Beth to see if I mean, just because I don't know anything about it. If anybody's going to frankly, it strikes me as odd that in independent school, they feel like they've been buying buses forever. I would think this isn't the first time. But the pandemic changed the. Okay. Maybe Beth can help us navigate whether or not this is a state issue or a federal issue. Yeah, I need a lot more information. Okay. But we'll have to look at whatever you have. Maybe for the email to Miss St. James. So I apologize for the lack of clarity. No. I just asked for, you know, process wise. Yeah. Yeah. Very helpful. Miss Minter. Thanks for joining us. Hello, senators. Thank you for inviting me. Let me tell you where where we're at with this and you can perhaps help us. Senator first like came in a few weeks ago with this bill and always it seems like an easy bill. And we just heard from joint fiscal that it wouldn't cost the state very much to move in this direction. We're also pleased to have this director of the superintendent's association Jeff Francis in the room who also is just. Frankly, I think reminded us some of the history around this that this was, you know, done because you know this clip was done in part or largely or entirely because the public schools were still providing services to these students. And so the split, the 83% seem to make sense. And so we don't want to frankly just for this is how I feel I don't want to take money away from the public schools if they are indeed still providing some services. And so that is sort of where we're at. Does that make sense. Yeah, I mean, certainly I would love just to explain a little bit about our program. And if that's what you're asking and I do want to recognize that the director of our heist. This is called the Brook Street High School. Yeah, is with us Stephanie Rubin but I'll just quickly set the context and I don't know this history, frankly. I'm wrong. So this is this is a bill that I think when Andy first looked so that this is something you all support. Goodness, we are so excited that you're even taking testimony for the record on Sue Minter on the executive director of capstone community action, which is one of five community action agencies around the state focused on really ending poverty. We are nonprofit anti poverty organizations established in the 1960s through the war on poverty, the Johnson administration so many of us are still around and we do everything from helping address food insecurity we have the largest food shelf here in central Vermont capstone is serving the communities of LaMoyle County, Washington County and Orange County and a couple of towns in Windsor. Not sure why we do weatherization. A topic that you're all familiar with I think the subsidized home weatherization program. We also do lie heat people who come to us who don't have enough to stay warm all winter. Food security warmth, housing supports helping people get into homes and stay there successfully. But really, we also try to lift people out of poverty through providing opportunities and tools for self sufficiency and one of the most fundamental I call it the flagship program is our head start. We serve in our regions 300 families in a variety of ways, but the largest is our center based early education program, which is located in very city. The learning together center, which has 65 kiddos ranging from zero to or whatever birth to five, helping them get into school successfully and these are very at risk families they are families who are homeless 30% of the folks we serve in our head start sadly 30% are homeless. They may have parents in substance use recovery. They may be in foster homes their parents may be incarcerated. These are kids with significant traumas. We also have at the top floor, our Brook Street high school. It is connected to our head start childcare center because these are young moms who are choosing to carry their babes to high school and drop out of high school, many if not most will not return to high school and this program is about helping them become great parents, helping make sure their students have head start which is high quality early education. Most importantly that these young women achieve their high school diploma. It is an extraordinary program. I've only been at head start, excuse me a capstone for five years. In the middle of our pandemic, the, the deficits that we were running and I won't get into it but it had a lot to do with our childcare subsidy and how we do that in Vermont. We have a major gap and this program was literally on the chopping block because it is a discretionary program we don't have to do this, we choose to do this. And that's when I unearthed this statute, the statute act 192 of the session 2007 and I don't know that history. But what I can tell you right now is we have a program that is keeping students who would otherwise never degree get that degree, not only getting that degree but they receive parenting support. We receive weekly clinical mental health support remember these folks have probably endure a lot of trauma many of them are victims of abuse. Many of them want to achieve. We help them with their literacy skills. We help them get career training. Many of them are now going on to post secondary education, a tremendous, tremendous program about which I have provided links and brochures that you'll get in your email. But it's very hard right now I have to raise for almost all of the programs I just mentioned you whether it's food security our food shelf, our Community Kitchen Academy a workforce development program are heat keeping people warm through winter, every one of these are deficit programs so I have to raise philanthropic dollars for this program I have to raise anywhere from 20 to 40,000 a year just to keep it going. And I'm committed to doing that but if we can figure out whether the legislature can help us by getting more for the peer per pupil spending I don't know why pregnant women would not receive 100% of the per pupil spending. Certainly we've heard from one of our sending schools that quote capstone's a bargain. There are other specialized programs that sending schools have to support their students and that are above the per pupil spending so we think this is a program worth committing to and I thank you for considering that not knowing any of the history, nor knowing really how much time and admin time the program takes from the school side. So that's great. And I would say that even if it sounds to me again we've only heard a little bit today but that the schools are still providing services so it's not as though we're not giving 100%. Sounds like though some of it is going to this program programs like yours and a little bit staying in the public schools again not not benefiting these women but they are providing a service to them in another way that's a little bit of what we're hearing. Well, you know I think when the statute says I think that the language is that that the district shall pay the teen parent education program 83%. Yeah, that means that they buy statute cannot support us with more than that. And certainly we do work with the schools. I'm sure the other programs of specialized education programs also are required to to work with schools and I just don't know if that limitation exists for other specialized education programs. But when there is that limitation, we would love for it to be reconsidered and certainly to be on equal with what's being done for other specialized education. These are young women who are at risk to begin with who have decided they can't go back to school. We're providing their education. We're getting them to get their high school diploma we're helping them be great parents. We're giving them a real chance for success and I'm telling you the generational poverty that we are trying in our best way to address through programs like this is really, really an important program. Do you want to say something. I would Mr. Francis is here. Hi Sue. Let me start by saying I'm well familiar with the great work that capital does and you know family seven position and really wanted to bring an awareness to the committee. And I was here in 2007 2008 when this was worked out. A I think Sue's points about the great work they do are on point B while you were speaking so I called up the DCF webpage for parent child centers, which was really the population of 15 centers that were being discussed back in 2007 2008. And it's confusing to me a little bit because for Washington County, it says that the parent child center is family center Washington County. So when you were speaking, the first thing that I thought of was that capstone really hasn't apparently an augmentation to services in the area. If that's the case, I think the proposal becomes even more intriguing because we don't know what the relationship is between the public schools and the other 15 or 14 teen parent centers in the state in terms of how they work with students. So in your case, it seems to me and I'm not knowledgeable on on this topic. It seems like you provide like full comprehensive wraparound services to these teenagers. I don't know what your relationship is with the public schools. I believe you when you say that public school officials might be saying they wish they could give you more money. And I don't know that it's, you know, if there's a constraint on that, that would be one thing to look into. But the larger picture for me is what's the relationship on a statewide basis between the teen centers parent, the parents, child centers and the schools because it may be that the original logic would hold in terms of what the payment would be. So I'd be happy to, I don't want to thwart the progress that that sue is making, but I also and I also would be willing to work with whomever to dig into this further. I just don't know. Yeah, and I know that Stephanie is here and I know I just if you don't have time we can continue offline or something but Stephanie has definitely reached out is my understanding that the 15 or so that used to exist have many of these have folded. And I wonder if it's because they can't afford it. We work very closely with the Washington County family center or the family center of Washington County. Stephanie, are you able to join us and I know you may have had some communication with them around this proposal. Sure. Can you hear me Sue. Yeah, we can hear you we just can't see. I don't know if my camera is working. So, there are only, let's see I believe six programs like ours in the state now we are the only one with a capstone with a community action agency and you're correct the other ones are with parent child centers. But I believe there are only five left to our running teen parent education programs. And I have spoken to a few and I believe it's the same kind of relationship with the schools where our programs are providing almost all of the services to the students. And really the schools, I would say is more of a small kind of administrative piece. And we love teaming with them all of our school districts that we work with are wonderful. It's just the services are being provided here. And you course, but you will communicate and work directly with the schools through this program and do you report with them, Stephanie. Correct. So all of our students are enrolled in ascending school so we work with them to establish credit needs. We would check in a few times a year with guidance counselors. We would report back on credits that are earned at the end of the year or help plan for for graduation. I have a really unique. I'd love for anyone to come visit it's just down the road but our and our students would love to visit you and if you have time and I know you don't. But we have one teacher who we think of as a unicorn, because she is certified in all of the disciplines. She has one on one these are small teams the maximum we have all together are 10 and at any one time and students come and go when they have their babies. They take a break they come back their kids are enrolled at the childcare. You know we do everything from parenting courses and financial planning and helping them get into post secondary education. And of course the mental health so many services, but the point is, we only really have one teacher plus Stephanie the director, the kids have teaching cooking nutrition and cooking classes here at Capstone Community Kitchen Academy. They are doing so financial education many many different kinds of programs so I feel like they get a high school diploma and beyond, and they get confidence in themselves and they feel that they have a home where they make sense, which often you know they find that same sort of community with their other high school friends necessarily. I'm just going to read. If it weren't for Brook Street High School I would not have graduated and I would not be the success story I am today. This program has made me realize what I can do if I put my mind to it. I mean, the testimonials are beautiful. They're on the website that you have the link for so. So, at least are you connected to other parent child centers and all because I think it's what we have. And if they do just similar things or you do. I'm just wondering if it's a collaborative effort associated with one another. Stephanie, can you speak to that. Sure. I mean I know Head Start as a larger program works closely with our local parent child center. We do not used to be when this when we first started there were monthly meetings with parent child center TPE programs which was wonderful. And as the years went by that that kind of stopped so I've just been reestablishing connections with folks and asking questions about how they're navigating funding. Thank you. I think this hasn't nest maybe historically wasn't really seen as a high school diploma of full education program but more like a social service and I hope that it can be seen I'm sure there is some work that the school is doing. Again, I don't know how it works with other special education programs. I'm sure Jeff might be able to share more on that but we just love that you're considering this legislation. Other questions for questions. If you would stick around just for a minute, can we just get general thoughts on this and any impressions at this point while we have this mentor in the room. Why don't we thought is that it seems ostensibly to be a great thing but I honestly I don't feel as though I'm ready to vote because I don't feel like I understand it well enough. Yeah, no I just wanted to get a general. Yeah. I concur it's really what's the rationale for the split the current split versus the proposed split just doesn't seem like we have the corporate knowledge. Yeah. So we know, you know, not to distract you from what the program is accomplishing. That's not the point. It's simply there must have been a logic. Now I like to understand what the logic is to change. It felt like we got the logic when Senator Perchlich presented and we got the walk through. Do you remember? I remember that it was logical is what I remember. See if you can condemn. Or we can watch the testimony if we can. No we can't have you condemn. That's my right. Yeah. Is St. James anything you want to add or anything you would call from Senator Perchlich's testimony? That's St. James Office of the Legislative Council. I can't speak to Senator Perchlich's testimony. I do just want to clarify that teen parent education programs are specifically defined in Title 16. And they may be part of a teen parent or they may be part of a parent child center, but they are not the same thing. So there are many parent child centers in the state that do not have teen parent programs. And there are teen parent programs that exist outside of a parent child center. They are just not the same. They are regulated by two different agencies. They may house one another or be in the same building or part of the same program. But the teen parent program itself is regulated by AOE. And so I think Ms. Rubin is accurate in the number of teen parent programs based on the information on AOE's books. And how many was that again? It looks like there's five specific teen parent programs and one, six, maybe six. So 16 parent programs, we could pretty... No, six. Six teen parent programs. It sounded like 16. Oh, I said six. No, it sounded like six. Six. Sorry, 16 teen pregnancy teen programs. We could reach out to them. We can get that information. Is that something you can help us with, Stephanie, around what some of the schools do, basically, with that additional 17%? Yes, absolutely. That can be really helpful to us. Sure. Well, what I'm just wondering, because we are connected to the teen parent ads and I think what you're trying to figure out is what is it that the schools need the 17% for? So I don't know if it might make sense for us to connect with our sending schools. You know, I don't know, but we can certainly connect with the other teen parent ad programs. Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, it makes... What I'm trying to do is get a sense of what it is the sending schools are using those dollars for. Okay. For example, so if it's something that they're basically doing for every other student, they may not need 17%. They may not need 17% of these funds. Does that make sense? You know, it's... But it would be interesting for us to kind of understand that. Senator Pulek. I also might... Another question would be, I think I heard that the number of teen ad programs have shrunk. Or was it... Oh, wait, maybe it was the teen centers. The teen centers have shrunk. So we have fewer than we should have. Did I hear that correctly? The teen parent education program, when it was started, I think I heard that there was something in the range of 15. Now there's only six. And I wonder if the inability to afford it is part of that. I don't know. Okay. That my question is, is it an affordability question? Or is it the fact that the need is not as great as it used to be? I guess I would want clarification on that. We have Senator Purslick here who's going to join us at the table. Thanks for coming down, Senator Purslick. We know right now you're busy funding our requests in the budget. But we want to just... We're looking at S117. Sorry. Nothing. We want to be helpful here for a helpful group of people. But what we're trying to understand is the genesis of that 83% that's split when it happened, why it happened. Are we, would we be taking public dollars from public schools that are providing a service to some of these kids still even though they're being educated in this other spot? Right. So can you help us out a little bit? I think as far as your first question, Councillor St. James might be the best answer like where it came from. Because when I did the bill request, like I couldn't find this in statute for a long time. And then Councillor St. James found it in session law, part of a bill from I don't know when. So you might want to hear some of the history. And I think, I don't want to speak for her, but she was also perplexed of why it was where it was. And that had survived in session law for so long. I think, I guess the question for me when I heard about it and why I put in the bill is, are those sending schools providing services to these students? Right. I was looking at mainly from the pregnant teen schools point of view of all the services they're providing. Yeah. But by getting less money than a school that would, or other like if you just sent your child from a sending town to a public school, you would get 100%. That's right. That's right. But they're only getting that. Yeah. Less than 100%. And now Sue and Stephanie to reach out to sending schools to help us understand exactly that. And we'll see what they say. And if they say, gosh, well, we're still doing X, Y, Z, and we're counting on these dollars. We'll let you know. Yeah. Okay. I appreciate it. Sue, does that make sense? Stephanie, you can help us with that. Maybe come back in the next day or so. Absolutely. All right. So if we could just get a sense, since there are six programs, what those sending schools are doing, that would be great. As many as you can. We'll do. All right. Hey, we'll be back in touch and we'll have you in tomorrow or Friday. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. I know that. Yeah, Sue. I just don't know if Stephanie is going to be able to reach all of those sending schools for those different programs in the next two days. Like I'm not. I think we might have a volunteer. So I would like to see this brought to a constructive end. So I'll help. And however. Thank you. So I'm going to, I'm sure your email is online. I'll send you an email right now about how to connect on this. Yeah. And Hayden, you can forward the information I just shared with you all. Thank you Hayden for fitting all that in. Thanks everybody. I really appreciate it because we don't know the answer either. And we sure want to keep this school, this program growing. It's, it is a life changer for these students. I've seen it. I've witnessed it and it's really hard for me to keep raising private philanthropic dollars for programs that are getting kids their high school diplomas. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jeff. And there was, there was another part of the bill about when the students are on maternity leave. Yes. So I didn't know if that was something you were addressed. That seemed like if the sending school sent it, you know, if you're sending a child to another school and they're, they get mono in or out for four months, they still get a hundred percent. They don't deduct that money. So a program that has higher costs, we thought should not be penalized for providing that maternity care. Right, right. Yeah. I think our question really lies in. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Thank you for looking out for the sending school. Absolutely. Thank you for everything you're doing to make sure the appropriations are okay. Well, no, I got a little message. Oh, okay. No, we texted them. Okay. Okay. Any other questions for Senator Perchlick about this transportation? Is it Perchlick or Perchlick? Depends on who you want. Thank you very much. Are you going to hear from Councillor St. James about the origins because I was listening. Councillor St. James, you want to join us again and tell us a little bit about the genesis of this? Sure. If there's not much that I'm able to speak to. So Beth St. James office of legislative council, this language first appeared in the budget in 2008. It's stayed there since then. It's the only place that exists. So prior to that, sorry. Part of that. It was a hundred percent or prior to that. So this language is not amending anything. So I think there can be an assumption, but I have not done any legislative research behind this. And frankly, because it was a part of the budget, there's likely very little. I can't guarantee that there was a policy robust committee discussion like you all have in there for a nice trail of legislative history. But I have not done that research. But no, this language isn't amending anything. So it was creating that split. I think you heard testimony from Brad James that he was around when this language was crafted. And there wasn't much more to it than this was part of the budget in 2008. And during recession, during a difficult time. You know, I think the language as it applies to tuitioning districts may be illustrative of the intent behind the split. It's spelled out a little more clearly for a tuitioning district versus a non-tuitioning district. But the split is the same. But there's not much to the history. Thank you. Any questions for Beth? Okay. Thanks. So we'll wait to hear back from folks hopefully tomorrow or Friday. And thank you, Mr. Francis. So we have something coming up at 2.30. But let's just take five minutes and I'll come back and I can give you an update on things with appropriations. I'll take five minutes. Okay, welcome back to Senate Education. For you. So as we talked about on Friday, these were some of the, generally I would say some of the committee's priorities. We sent this draft to approach. As you know, they wrote back. We sent this to interview advanced Vermont yesterday. We have VESAC also coming in. There's a little fluidity here back and forth. But we went through and prioritized what we thought were some of the most important things. A couple of little bits of feedback I would say that I received over the weekend. Monsay colleges, that's a separate number as you know from CCB. It's a big ask. I don't know if approach will land where the Monsay college system landed in terms of what their request is. The other thing I got a little feedback from just today in passing is on advanced Vermont. I left it at eye only recognizing that these are generally in our order of priority from our conversation on Friday. But I'm completely open. And again, this isn't anything we need to sign or do. We're just kind of putting it what we did this morning. What we're going to do tomorrow in Ag is just do a kind of a straw poll. I just wanted to get everybody's. I want this to represent generally what people are thinking. I don't want anybody to be comfortable. The other thing I should mention is that I was in economic development this morning, reviewing what we reviewed yesterday on workforce development. I think all of those things will end up in the budget, which as you'll recall is $2.5 million for the program that we is has forgiven this program. $500,000 to continue the program called Grow Your Owner Vermont, which gives opportunities to paraeducators and other people with bachelor's degrees in public schools to grow their accreditation. There's also relief in there for those people who are going through this process so they don't have to pay the $1,200 fee. And then you may recall there's the Diversity Affinity Group, which we created as a grant program and as a measurement tool in there to get some feedback and some reports back next year. We're trying to retain teachers really who come from a diverse community. And they were all met, I think, who all invented the budget. Yeah, please jump in. Can you remind me, and we talked about this a while back, the $350,000 for advertising for Vermont colleges. What would this money stream look like for that? Where is it going? Yeah, so they had, Jane also has some questions. It'll be interesting to see if that makes it. What we had said was, is there a way for our state colleges, EDM, and Independence, to start to come together and use some dollars through our marketing and economic development team here in Vermont, to start to market our educational institutions. So it's not just tourism and hotels and ski areas? Correct. But I'm going to take a comment. Okay. It's linked into one side. So that money would go to, like, Chamber of Commerce or, like, I don't know, who would be the who would be the vehicle? That's a great question. The recipient would be the department of tourism, who would then work with our state colleges in the developing program. Okay. Great. That's a great question. Will we have, will they, will we get a report? I know we don't. If the money makes it in, we'll hopefully get a commercial. You know, something, or, you know, we'll see, like, we'll be sitting home and we'll see what that looks like. Now, if it doesn't make it, what I'm at the very least hoping they can do is start to come together and start to have some conversations with tourism and say, hey, we need to come up with a plan and we've got to come back to the quotes and really let them know that this is real. Got you, everybody. Okay. Thank you. Because one of the things we're seeing is we have such a low tourism budget, but we also have this competition out there. We talked about it a little bit yesterday. Southern Vermont. It's like New Hampshire. Yeah. Like New Hampshire. Yeah. Your advertising budget. It's huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's huge. Huge. Get off the plane to San Francisco and, you know, something right there that says Southern New Hampshire University. Yeah. Questions or concerns at this point. Okay. Then I'll just tell Center Kigil. We're still feels good to us and shoot back questions and concerns and we'll continue to take testimony this week. Okay. Great. Great. So we're just waiting for our guests. What is this? Anything else? Well, we wait for five minutes until our next testimony. We jump into 483. Why don't you shoot us? We did that. We did that. We're just waiting. We have a story of this child. This is, we got an unexplained picture of a child. They sent it. Sue sent it to Hayden and Hayden printed it up. She asked me to include it. I wasn't trying to be raised. Yeah. We just don't have pictures of it. Yeah. We're all right. That's just wondering why. Yeah. Is there any contest? Is this leaving? This is leaving. Is this guy coming? Yes. I knew a princess fan. But Jay Bad. Yes. Pat? You know? I don't know. See what we're about to do. Is this a live program? My heart's broken... My heart's broken. Oh. Good afternoon. Welcome back to Senate Education. We're now we have Mr. Fanon with us from NEA and then we're going to talk to Jay Bad. I'm a superintendent which Hanover Interstate School, we're jumping into 483, but before we do 483, I just wanted to ask Mr. Vannon, PCBs, NEA, we don't have, again, I don't think the Senate's planning on postponing or doing anything. We may look at the rule, but on it, but was wondering if NEA had taken the position. I know that you didn't testify in the House. For the record, Jeff Venn and Vermont NEA, we understand, I understand you had some conversations out in the hall with Colin, I think, really for the last week. Don't want to engage in conference committee discussions, but certainly, Yeah, we just want to, this is just general testimony. Sure, I understand. But it looks like there's a dispute or conversation going on between the House and the Senate, and don't want to interfere with that. However, we want to make sure that the pacing of the testing and school construction are aligned. I'll say it that way. So you're for the postponing of the testing? We're in favor of aligning the timeline for testing and construction. Okay, maybe this is the way. 486, do you support how it's written in 486, which? I'll just stick to my guns here. I think we are in favor of aligning the timeline for both testing and construction. Don has, Don Tinney, the president of Vermont NEA has been working on the school safety matters for several years. And if you're going to put in a lock on a door, for example, when the vestibule is crumbling around it, that does not make a whole lot of sense. So I think the concept here is we've been wanting to align testing for PCBs. We certainly want them, that we can watch them in the school. And we want to make sure that the school construction happens as well at the same time. So it's just aligning the two. And I think that's the needle that you're trying to thread. I know that the House and the Senator are in conversation about that. So we support that, that conversation ongoing. Just for what it's worth, I did get two different correspondence from two different superintendents today, actually. Maybe one today and one last night, I believe, that we're in support of pausing the testing. So I think it's worthwhile to continue diving into the conversation for 46. And as I said, Senator Gillett, 46 will likely end up in the budget since it's trapping with 124. But certainly anything could happen in the budget. Any other questions for Mr. Fannan before we move to 483? And with us, do we have, are you Jay? Yes, sir. Hi, good to see you. Glad you could be here. So one of the things that has come up with 483 is public school admissions and whether or not there's ever any kind of admission process in our public schools. And that's what we're just trying to figure out. It came up last week and just wanted to raise it with the two of you who represent teachers, even a part of the Equity Council. And you are, tell us a little bit. What's the Equity Council? We're not the Equity Council, the Equity, what's the group? The Education and Equity Alliance. Yeah, right. And you're with? I'm the superintendent of ICU 70, which is one of your interstate school systems. So I serve Norwich, Vermont, and Hanover, New Hampshire. Yeah, okay. So we just want to be consistent. What they're asking for in 483 is for, which I don't really have too much of a position on yet, it's kind of an open enrollment where public dollars follow kids to whatever school they want. And I think that's happening in a lot of schools and I'll look, I don't see Ledge Council here, but I think that's basically what it's doing is it's saying if you want to go to whatever school it might be, no interview, sort of no test scores, they could be, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, they could be asked for, but even if the, or if a family shows them, then it can't be considered in the admission process, basically, and as I'm taking it again, it's sort of a, you want to go to the school? These are public dollars, you can go to the school. So I'm wondering from the two of you who've been in this world for I think a while, is there any time that a family just says where a school would say, public school would say we just can't take that kid? I guess I would. I'll start, James follow up, he's probably the better one. So as I said, my, You want to move up, Jay, you're welcome to. This is sort of joint conversation. This is just us trying to get more information on the bill. Sorry, I don't need to get you sick. That's quite all right. So what I'll say, from Vermanier's perspective, I've been doing this work for 23 years. I've never once been asked about admissions. The Vermanier members don't get involved. It's an administrator's trade and craft. And so literally this is the first time I've ever been asked about admissions whatsoever. So I, as they said in my email last week, I don't have anything knowledgeable to say on this topic. Yes, please. Well, so in that case, I would have some questions for Jay. Thank you for coming. Yeah, please. Let's have this guy swing to the bottom of some of this stuff. So yeah, please. So the admissions process or the enrollment process for a public school, you know, someone like, if you could just expand on, you know, when a family, let's say moves to a new area, they want to send their student to the school and that student has different needs. Whether it's an IEP or a 504, how would the public school go through that enrollment process or admissions process? Thank you for the question and thank you all. Chairman Campion and members, I really do appreciate the opportunity to speak with you. And I also thank you for your service waiting into these issues when the national debate around education is looking more and more like combat. I really appreciate your work. In my particular district and in all public school systems, whether it's in Vermont or in New Hampshire, any resident is entitled to admission and the admissions process, if you want to call that or the enrollment process is quite simple. I did unfortunately late send you a packet of information that kind of details those processes for your reference later. But in essence, it's a matter of proving residents and your enrolled and it doesn't matter. The only possible exception that I can contemplate is that if you have an expelled student, a district is not obligated whether either Vermont or New Hampshire law to accept a student who's been legally expelled from school. Otherwise, we have an obligation to provide enrollment for any student who's a resident. And the age restriction would be another qualifying factor and there are slightly different requirements around the starting age in New Hampshire and Vermont, but in both states now, thanks to some legislation in New Hampshire, a student with special needs on an IEP or 504 plan is eligible for public school enrollment up through the age of 21. So for a resident student, there are absolutely no barriers to enrollment. Can I ask you a quick, so for the background, let's say, you have a student who was previously expelled, how do you find that out? Well, there's a exchange of records when a student enrolls from another school system and so that would be a very well-documented process. It's a quasi-judicial process when a student is legally expelled from school and so there is a record generated. I will say that even though we are able to deny admission to students who have been expelled in the last 20 years as far as my research can find, we have actually accepted students that have been expelled from other districts in our own school system. So it's during that exchange of records that you would find out if a student was expelled. But again, you're gonna take the student. Absolutely, especially if it's a resident student. Yes, sir. Like from an operating district. From a non-operating district. From a non-operating district. So with regard to non-resident students, and I do have written testimony, I'll share a brief background here. The laws of both states require us to develop policies to admit non-resident students. Okay. It allows us to charge tuition rates that are established by each state and local policies often delegate the discretion to accept non-resident students to the superintendent. The discretion that they do grant us though is tempered by federal and state laws and regulations around non-discrimination. So we're not able to deny admission based on any protective factor. Though the discretion that we can exercise is cost, capacity, those sorts of considerations. And again, thinking about the expulsion case, we would be able to deny a student enrollment if they had been expelled from a different district. In my six years with SAE 70, we have not denied a single non-resident student. In the past 20 years, our counseling department informs me that we did deny a number of students in the early 2000s because there was a population bubble that was working its way through our region. And the high schools in the upper valley were absolutely maxed out capacity-wise. So we set a date by which non-resident students had to apply and any student that applied after that date was not admitted. And it was on a first come, first serve basis. So there was no discrimination other than poor timing, I suppose. So since then, there have been a number of different laws passed in the state of New Hampshire, especially which, again, is the controlling law for the Dresden School District, which is our middle and high school. And despite that, we're still in a situation where my discretion is tempered by state law. Please. Two more questions. So sorry if I missed this, but when you're talking about discretion, you've mentioned cost and capacity. I get the capacity piece. Can you expand a bit more on the cost piece? Sure, so if we had to, for example, hire an additional teacher to accommodate, if one more non-resident student joined our district and we had to hire another teacher or more than one teacher because of student enrollment numbers, we could conceivably deny that enrollment based on the impact it would have on our budget. And I was trying to find an email. I couldn't find it, but it was from an individual operates an independent school. They had mentioned that, I'm trying to recall it from memory as best as I can, but they had mentioned that public schools are able to deny admission if they find that a student or a potential student is dangerous. Is there any accuracy to that? I couldn't find anything, but you would definitely find it. I guess conceivably you could. And the limitation that would be, if there was any, again, a protective factor on that student who was a member of a protected class, obviously be protected by existing anti-discrimination laws, I can think of one student who, without giving too much detail, had committed a crime in another district and could potentially have been considered dangerous who we did enroll anyway and the student ended up thriving at our school system and graduated. But could someone be disqualified based on posing a danger to the school community? Absolutely. And last question. Yeah, that was helpful. Those, that discretion for the dangerousness piece, is that in the 2,200 rules or is that elsewhere that I could find? Again, for us, it would be something codified in New Hampshire law and... New Hampshire law. Right, but again, the Dresden School, this, right? He's in New Hampshire. Oh, right, we're under the jurisdiction of New Hampshire law. So there is nothing specified in terms of what constitutes dangerous. We would assume that a student who was expelled had done something that would be considered dangerous and that would be the sort of circumstance that would most likely inform my decision whether or not to enroll the student. Thank you. So would you just take a few steps back and tell us about your district and how it interacts with Vermont? Sure, so roughly one third of our students come from Vermont. Okay. As a result of a law that was passed in 1963, the last legislation, I think that President Kennedy signed before he was assassinated, the Dresden Interstate School District was created. And the legislatures on both sides of the river had to pass an enabling legislation to agree to some basic tenants. One of which is that the schools in Vermont would be governed by Vermont law and the schools in the arrangement that were New Hampshire would be governed primarily by New Hampshire law. And the roughly, as I said, a third of our students come from Vermont. And when the students finished sixth grade at Mary Cross School, they move across the river to Richmond Middle School in the Hanover High School. I don't know. Yes. Yeah. And there's an arrangement. There's a tuition calculation between the two districts of the financial arrangement that's, again, spelled out in that interstate compact. And the voters in Norwich actually vote on the Dresden budget and are represented in that process. And what's really kind of strange is that the timing of town meeting is such that the number of voters who actually show up for that vote tend to be larger than the number of students, people that show up for the New Hampshire vote because they separate their school district vote and their town vote. And so our Vermont residents hold a great deal of sway in the district. Mr. Phan, if there were a teacher that has, that you know of that really felt as though they were teaching a child, they just couldn't handle. For whatever reason, it just, what's that sort of process around if a child may need to go to either a therapeutic school or a, I don't know, a more specialized school? If it even got that far. Sure. Jay may add to this as well in supplement, certainly. But my understanding is if students on an IEP, Yeah. you might convene the IEP team and all those involved and determine where the best placement for that child would be, whether it's in that school or another school. And I think that's all by agreement, if you will, by the team to see what's in the best interest of the students. And if the child were not an IEP, that's when that whole process would get started. Getting them on an IEP. Well, perhaps, yes, if necessary. If that seemed like necessary. Right. Right to do it. I would simply elaborate if it's okay. Yeah, please. So there are provisions both in state regulations, but also in our own policies, which I've included for your review, that delineate who's responsible for what. So in essence, ascending school, maybe a non-operating school that selected Hanover to be there, the high school of choice. There's an arrangement that any excess special education costs are built back to the district of residence. So, and that's, I believe that's consistent throughout actually both states. And there is a provision in our own policies that if we find that we're unable to educate the student, that is we believe they need an out of district placement. That decision is made jointly by the sending district and us in the context of the IEP team. And then we at that point would say that we're no longer able to educate this non-resident student. And the cost for sending that student to an out of district placement would fall back to the district of residence. So my only question, just put my cards on the table with the admissions piece, frankly, is making sure that the school fits the kit. That's really the big thing that I'm wondering about. Back to this, making certain that if a student were to, and I'm thinking actually more like a campus school in these situations than in the other school, that if the student wanted to go to the campus school, it's just a good fit. And it sounds like the IEP process that this bill has in place and kind of what Mr. Fannon mentioned, if a student were placed at campus school, it would be through an IEP. It wouldn't just be driving up to the school saying, okay, I've got my public dollars. My kid's gonna go here. It sounds like there's some more intentional process in that and what I understand. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. That's a decision that would be made by an IEP team. Anything else? Couple. Yeah, please. Your district is the, against Hanover High School? Yes. Is it within 25 miles of the Vermont border? Oh yeah, it's a stowing throw from the Vermont border. Just looking for a capture. And if your seats were limited in any of your schools, whether the Vermont side or the Edmund Hampshire side, is it, if seats were limited, would it simply be first come, first serve? Or is it by lottery? We haven't operated a lottery and as I said, as far as I can dig into the history, we've only had that situation once in the early 2000s. And right now we're currently under enroll by probably 200 students, 150 to 200 students. So we have a great deal of capacity. I mean, they're enrolled. But if you were over enrolled, what would be your process? In the past, what they did was they set a date and they had accepted applications up until that date and anyone who applied afterwards wasn't able to get in, is my understanding. We haven't used the lottery. I believe we could use the lottery, but it's currently not policy. It's just not been a situation that we've had to react to. But again, as I said, we've really, there's been one student that anyone could recall in 20 years that we've not admitted. And honestly, there's a financial incentive, right? So our tuition is pretty high. It's $22,000 to change this year. So it's against our economic interests as well to deny anyone enrollment. True. And if you had a new student coming into your system from Vermont or from wherever, you do an exchange of records. Correct. Okay. You mentioned that earlier. Does that include academic history? Yes, it does. Right? And a really instructive document would be the district tuition agreement because it lays out what we ask from the family and from the district that is tuitioning the student and there's no academic requirement. There's no test score requirement. There's really nothing other than proof of residency and the sign off that I'll pay tuition. There is a, there are a couple of paragraphs that outline the information about special education that I referred to earlier. Sure. And just to remind me, and I apologize, prior to the student arriving, transcriptorize any kind of academic records. Correct. Anything else? Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck with your work. I know this is challenging. I just say one thing. Thank you, Mr. Bannon for being here. But Jake, thank you. You thanked us for our work and I know being a superintendent is incredibly challenging and one of the hardest jobs. So thank you for being here today. Oh, you're welcome. Yeah, I'll be, feel free to stick around. We're about to continue this kind of conversation with Ledge Council. We're gonna go kind of to a side by side so anybody's welcome to stick around. Wonderful. If that helps. We'll set you back for a seven o'clock board meeting. Please. We're ready. So we asked, Senators, may recall, we asked St. James to create a side by side documents so that we could all start to understand is in our folders. Basically, what's in 43? What's in title 16? What's in the 2200 series and what's coming forward in Act 173? So we can just get our heads around what kind of understand the bill a little bit more and also understand the interplay between titles that's seen 2200 series in Act 173. We'll do this for a little while and then we'll have Mike P check in. But for now, if you don't mind taking us through this but before that, any questions on what we're about to do? Because I'm hoping, and this is the document, this includes this. Yeah, and I'll explain how we use it. Any questions before we get started? I think this will be helpful. And I think people will better understand what's in 483. How it interacts with these other three pieces of rule, legislation, et cetera, acts. And it also would be good for us to start to just get a sense of where people are. Do you like this section? Do you think this section needs refining? Do you have any questions? And we can, so as we go through that would be helpful people would start to do that and I'll kind of keep a list since getting close to the end. Kind of, please. Thank you. That's St. James Office of Legislative Council. So as Chair Campion mentioned, I was asked to prepare side by side of four different pieces of law. Even using legal paper, that was getting, I think kind of lots of little black and white letters on the page. So what I've done is you have the language from 483 in the left hand column. You all should be looking at this document, the side by side. Okay. So the language of 483 and for the side by side, I only focused on the new requirements on approved independent schools. I did not include the language that's more conforming edits, like adding little pieces of language there. And I did not include any of the session law because it's all really implementing pieces here. So the left hand column is 483. And then you have a column for each of Title 16, the 2200 series and Act 173. I've put, if there is an applicable reference or similar provision in one of those three pieces of law, I've put the reference to it. And then I've given you either, like for the 2200 series, you have all of the 2200 series, Act 173. You have the approved independent school sections. And then Title 16, I pulled out the applicable sections. And there's highlighting throughout. And I will point you to the specific page and everything that we'll look at. It sounds complicated, but I don't think it will be because you'll see that there's a lot of new provisions without similar provisions in current law. Are we good to go? Ready to go. Okay. Subsection B of section 166. So remember, section 166 is the approved and recognized independent school statute. That's current law for all of the requirements to be an approved independent school or a recognized independent school. Subsection B is the approved independent school section. And that is where H483 adds a whole new category of requirements. And that category is that new category of requirements is what does an approved independent school have to be if they want to accept public tuition? And that's what we have been calling subdivision nine. That's where all of those little new pieces fall under. So if we're looking at H483, the left-hand column, the lead-in language is an approved independent school that intends to accept public tuition shall be approved by the state board as eligible to receive public tuition only on the condition that the school complies with the following requirements except it doesn't apply to therapeutic schools. So all of those little I, little one through 10, I through X are gonna be those new requirements that we're trying to find whether there's analogous law already on the books. Great. Okay. And just a reminder, therapeutic also pulls in, special education schools. Those are the therapeutic schools. Yeah, okay. Yep. There are many, there could be approved independent schools that are targeting specific populations of students with specific needs, but therapeutic schools are specifically defined where we make a definition of that. Great. So the first piece we're gonna look at, the first requirement we're gonna look at is little I there, one. The school agrees not withstanding any provision of law to the contrary to enroll any student who requires special education services and who is placed in or referred to the approved independent school as an appropriate placement and least restrictive environment by the student's individualized education program team or by the local education agency. And then if you look to the right of that, you'll see there is an analogous piece of law in all three of those pieces of law. So title 16. It's actually already effective July 1, 2023, coming out of Act 173. That language will be in the same statute. Right. If you take no action. No action this year. We leave without passing 43, no matter what the special education stuff. Little I will be in there. Little I will be in there. Okay, thank you. And you can see that if you look at the title 16 language, which is just the word document with a bunch of yellow on it, you'll see the first one there. This is language that will be in effect on July 1, 2023. And that highlighted language is almost verbatim of what's in 483. Does it help in any way? So they may have put this in for a reason. Maybe they didn't. Maybe they, you know, does it, if again, it's gonna happen no matter what. We could ask this of the House F20 why put it in. So all this, all 483 is doing is moving this language to a different part of the same statute. Okay. So right now, so come July 1, 2023, if you take no action. Yeah, it's still there. If you look at this, if you look at this title 16 language document, this is the lead in language to the approved independent schools section. Okay. So on application, the state board shall approve an independent school that offers elementary or secondary education if it finds after opportunity for hearing, but the school provides a minimum course of study pursuant to section 906 that substantially complies with all statutory requirements for approved independent schools, which you are adding to in age 43 and the board's rules for approved independent schools. That highlighted language is from Act 173. And if you take no action would be in that introductory paragraph subdivision or subsection B. All H483 does is move it from that. So after B, there's one through eight right now. For example, eight is the financial reporting or accountability section. Section five, subdivision five is the board's powers to suspend or revoke for not following rules. So there's all of these subdivisions under B. So you're just taking this language from subsection B and you're putting it in a different part of the same statute. Thank you. This language is also in the rules, the 2200 series. It's not as, it's kind of blended throughout the rules. So it's not as clear, concise statement. But I think a good place to look would be rule 2229.4, which is page 10. And that language should be highlighted for you. And it talks about accepting a student on an IEP. And then Act 173, sections 20A and 21 are pages 51 and 52. Well, 20A is page 51. And that's the language that would appear in section, subsection 166B if you make no changes today. So Act 173 is what made the amendment to the section 166, subsection 166B. So that language is covered in every place you're looking for. It's gonna happen. Thank you. Now we're going to get into some relatively newer requirements. So two, I'm still on page one. The school shall provide local education agencies with an attendance report for students attending the school in public tuition, an interval determined by, and in a format approved by the agency. I don't believe there's a similar provision. There's certainly no similar provision in Act 173. And I don't believe that there is an analogous provision in Title 16 or in the 2200 series. Any questions on that? Anybody need to hear from anybody else? It seems pretty, I don't know, that's very complicated. Okay, we're gonna go to page two. Three, the school shall provide local education agencies with a report of the academic progress of students attending the school in public tuition. Again, I do not believe there's a similar provision in either of these, any of those pieces of law. Same for four, the school shall provide local education agencies with a report of any enrollment change for students attending the school in public tuition, including withdrawals, suspensions, or expulsions, provided the school shall notify a local education agency the same school day if the school is considering expelling a public tuition student. There might be actual practices in the field that already meet some of these requirements. But if we're looking at just Title 16, just the 2200 series or Act 173, which we're really not gonna refer to at all again, because that's really just a special education piece. There's no specific direction like this. Seems to make sense, you wanna report on it? Yep, okay. Five, I'm still on page two here. The school has adopted and implemented policies and procedures to comply with the Vermont Public Accommodations Act and the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act. There is no similar provision and then there's no similar provision in Title 16. There is a requirement in the 2200 series and those rules are on page six and page eight of the 2200 series. And again, we're not gonna talk about Act 173, that's not addressed in there. If the school meets the definition of the Public Accommodations Act, it already applies to them under Title 9. And the Fair Employment Practices Act also would imply to all employers. So while Title 16 doesn't say you have to follow this, those pieces of law may naturally apply to these schools anyway. But here you are saying you have to have adopted and implemented policies and procedures and essentially show compliance with these acts through your adoption and implementation of those policies and procedures in order to be eligible to receive public tuition. So does everyone clear that while Title 16 doesn't require that explicitly, those pieces of law may already apply to schools anyway. And just to go back, this is, we did this last year, Senate Bill 219, require this, this was the anti-discriminate. I mean, I describe it in the St. James correct me, if I'm wrong, you cannot take public funds if you discriminate against protected classes. Or just can't discriminate if you, I mean, what I usually say to people is, what we were trying to do is keep public dollars away from schools that would discriminate against LGBTQ faculty, staff, and others is what I usually say. So the Vermont Public Accommodations Act does not contain a religious exemption, but the Fair Employment Practices Act does. So there is an exemption in the Fair Employment Practices Act for religious employers when it comes to, I believe discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, at least sexual orientation. And this does nothing to address that. This just requires the school to adopt and implement policies and procedures to comply with the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act. And if the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act has an exemption in there. Which it does. Yes. Then this language does nothing about, it doesn't change that exemption in any way. This language doesn't change the Public Accommodations Act or the Fair Employment Practices Act in any way. This language, there is language later on in the bill that does amend the Public Accommodations Act. Do you remember when that exception was put in? I think I do, but I could be wrong. I vaguely remember testimony that it's been in there for quite a while. I want to say that's something you would say William is. I want to say it was the 90s. Yeah. And I can certainly, I'll make a note of that. It's easy to look up. Do we know why the House could have removed that exemption? That's a legal possibility, yes, yeah. Please continue. In the 2200 series, in the two rules listed here on page six, 2226.6 is on page six, and 2227.8 is on page eight also require compliance with the Public Accommodations Act and the Fair Employment Practices Act. And rule 2226 and rule 2227 are in effect right now. Okay. And admissions process. So six, the school shall not use an admissions process for publicly tuition students that includes mandatory interviews, academic entrance exams, academic history, mandatory campus visits, or consideration of ability to pay for any costs or fees. And I'm gonna stop there. Title 16 doesn't have any prohibitions on an admissions process for an approved independent school. The 2200 series has language on pages eight through nine addressing enrollment, but it doesn't include any of these prohibitions. So I'm just highlighting here the state board's rules related to the enrollment criteria. So if you look at page eight of the 2200 series. Okay. Where am I finding that? The 2200 series. Oh, that's where that is. Thank you. Page eight. Great. There's a rule. So approval to this rule is the approval to receive public tuition. You are on 2229, 2229.1. I'm starting at the very top. Just looking at the title of that section. So approval to receive public tuition. And then you'll see rule 2229.1 is enrollment. Okay. And so none of this really matches up clearly to what's required in H483. So I'm just highlighting the fact that the state board rules does have information about the enrollment process. The most similar language I believe is subdivision three and four. And so the state board rules require the schools require them to maintain a written enrollment policy which shows the school's process for making enrollment decisions when the number of applicants exceed capacity. And that a student shall be accepted for enrollment in a non-discriminatory manner. And that the school's written enrollment, no student shall be denied acceptance for enrollment if the reason for the denial, et cetera. So is that? Would you read that? Continue going. No student shall be denied acceptance. I may have to step out and take a sip of water. The student shall be denied acceptance for enrollment if the reason for denial is that the student is disabled as defined in section five before the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 or as amended or that the student is eligible for special education or undergoing the comprehensive evaluation process for special education. The student shall be denied acceptance for enrollment on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, marital status, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity or any other classification protected by state or federal law. Yeah, please. Hope you like it. More of a thought than a question. You know, I'm looking at the academic history part of section six. And I'm also looking at the section two of two to two nine. Any special considerations or requirements for student's acceptance for enrollment, which is something that the student or the parent has to voluntarily submit. So since the word mandatory is not in front of academic history in section six and 483, are those two concepts, do they mirror each other essentially? Interesting. So the language in age 483 is that, so mandatory is only modifying interviews there and then later campus visits. So if you take those phrases out, the school shall not use an admissions process for public tuition students that includes academic entrance exams or academic history. So, go ahead. So that means, okay. Yeah, I'll let you know, sorry. No, if you go ahead. I'm not sure, I'm just thinking right now. So the 2200 series, the rule subdivision two here in 2229.1 requires the school to let students know of any special considerations or requirements for a student's acceptance for enrollment. I probably should have highlighted this. Any special considerations or requirements for a student's acceptance for enrollment then goes on to say, none of which shall disadvantage a student based on protected class, student's actual or suspected disability or the student's history of economic status. It doesn't necessarily, this isn't, I think it's a broader concept than academic history or academic entrance exams. And so 483, oh, thank you very much. This is very kind. 483 would prohibit, would not prohibit special considerations or requirements other than academic entrance exams or academic history, but academic entrance exams or academic history would not be allowed to be a special consideration or requirement if 483 were to pass. So for example, a ski school. Your ski ability may have, may be part of your enrollment process. Yeah. I don't believe that would happen. Prior to 483. Yes, yeah. So I don't believe that would fall under academic entrance exams or academic history, but it might be a special consideration or requirement for students acceptance for enrollment. And you know, performing, I don't know, has a performing arts school, right? You might have to demonstrate your cello playing ability or a hockey academy. So again, academic entrance exams and academic history would be prohibited under 483. 2,200 series require schools to publish any special, other special considerations that they would have for the enrollment process beyond academic history or academic entrance exams. I mean, really I'm just trying to get to the fact of making the process for both public and private schools to be similar. That's what I'm trying to figure out. Yeah. So, okay. If I could also just say, it seems like, and correct me if I'm wrong, the 2,200 series, they do it, independent schools, do you need to accept everyone? No. No, okay. They can't just accept somebody based. They can't discriminate in their admissions process. Okay, in the admissions process. Okay. But if, yes, they can't discriminate in the admissions process based on the categories enumerated in the 2,200 series. Okay. I think 483 adds some things to that. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Can you phrase your question on that so that I understand it better? Are you saying that you want the processes to be the same in a public or private school? Given if the private school is a school that accepts public dollars, is that what you're saying? I think it is. Okay. All right, thank you. Yeah. I want some clarity on that one. I'm still having different ideas marinate between these two things right now, but yeah. Well, and remember, all we're looking at is private, is independent school law. We're not looking at the public school law today. So that would be a whole separate side by side. Right. And the public schools, again, it's come one, come all. If you are a resident of that district, yes. That district. And then there's a non-resident enrollment statute that is very broad. Okay, so that's where we see the differences. Yes, Senator. Sorry. The academic history piece now is I'm thinking back to when we were hearing about public school admission and the exchange of information of the students been expelled and the public school has discretion in that circumstance. It sounds like it isn't something that's used often to deny mittens, but it's something that they do have discretion for that expulsion. Is that something that would be considered under academic history? Or are we just talking about report cards? I think that as drafted, it is there's the potential for academic history to be ambiguous. And I would encourage you to hear testimony from the field on that. So for example, I know in post-secondary schools, transcripts will often contain a notation if there was a disciplinary action, but not all schools do that. I don't know. I don't believe that there's any requirement in title 16 about what a transcript would have to require. So I would encourage you to hear from the field on how that term would be interpreted. Okay, do you want to weigh in here? I would just center if you would recommend it. I think it's a good point. Yeah. For our purposes, academic would certainly be academic performance, that is grades, test scores, that sort of information. And it would be a separate behavioral conduct report. It would be separate from that. So I was right, and this doesn't inhibit the transfer of that information. Behavioral. Yeah. I'll mark this part so that we can get some information, additional information from the field. Okay, please. So sticking with the same subdivision. So the school can't use an admissions process that includes the things we just walked through, but the school may request proof of a student's most recently completed grade. The school may set a capacity limit on the number of publicly tuition students the school accept, and the school shall establish a non-discriminatory selection process when the number of publicly tuition student applicants exceeds any capacity. Again, the 2,200 series does require schools to publish their enrollment, their process for making enrollment decisions when there's a capacity issue. And then does require a non-discriminatory enrollment process. So any independent school is receiving public funds, school may request proof of the students most recently completed grade. I think so they know where to slot them in. But what is proof? I agree with you that I think that's in, it could be potentially ambiguous. I think that would be a great question for the field. I think what was contemplated is, all right, did you finish grade 10? Can, are you ready to move on to grade 11? Not how, you know, how close to not moving on to grade 11 were you, but are you ready to move on to grade 11? I believe that was House Ed's intent behind that language. Jen? We would rely on the students transcript or grade report report card for that information. So in this case, by proof, if the school believes proof is a transcript or grade report, they set that standard? If the independent school does? If the independent school. I think that would be up between them and wherever the student was coming from to work that out. And. Okay. If a student were to arrive, Jay, I guess this is for you, and you were not to see any transcripts. Now again, you could, family could provide them, which I think would logically happen, but if you didn't see a transcript or a grade report before the student arrived, it's saying this can't happen. What's, how do you place the kids either in honors math or remedial math or all that stuff? Just seems practical to see the grades. Sure, and I would say a great example will be the students right now. They're lining up their refugees. They're living in Poland and trying to transfer over. Okay. And don't have any records. So the way that we would deal with that is our counseling department would interview the students, do our level best to try to answer to where they are. We also have placement tests that we use with existing students in reading and math, so we could at least get an idea where they are on those core subjects. And it would be at the counseling department's job to determine what's the most appropriate placement would be. Matt, Mr. Robinson, you're with the group. Mr. Collins, you're with the group. Can you just help me understand arriving at any school, public, independent, without that academic history? How, why does that kind of make sense to you? Refresh your question. So it says here this school should not use admit in the admissions process, anything with academic history. So I get it's the admissions process, but when does the school get to see the grades to say, all right, we're gonna put the student here, that kind of thing. Understood. Thank you. As a practical matter, public schools enroll all students. I mean, my daughters attend school in Burlington. Both of them have Afghan refugees in their classrooms who came, you know, were evacuated out of Kabul Airport. Like they are not arriving in those schools without those records. Right, they have nothing to do with it. So I think the scenario that was just described is exactly what would play out. I think fundamentally what we're talking about here is trying to align two parallel systems. One being a public education system that enrolls all students who reside in that town and a system of public vouchers that go to private schools and saying, okay, if you are, what I believe is intended here is if you are a private school accepting public voucher dollars, then you wouldn't be sort of assessing that academic history to determine their admission. Public schools don't do that. Right. They assess to determine how to deseducate that student when they arrive at their doors because they accept all students. So that doesn't preclude, so all of a sudden a family or a school could say, we need your academic records before August 1st period in order to determine class placement, all that kind of thing under this law. Yes, 483 prohibits the use of those for the admissions process. Okay. For example, how would they know what grade placement if they have capacity limitations? Grade 10 versus 11, how would they know if they have no records whatsoever? Actually, so it's a pre-placement issue. It's a pre-acceptance issue to know if you've got a capability. I mean, it's not as simple as just delineating limitations. So 483 does allow a school to request proof of the student's most recently completed grade. I think you just heard testimony that that might be a transcript. I think that that's potential to vary between school and school. But that transcript could then be used in the admissions process to say, you're under 483, you're not a right fit for us. It could be used to say, oh, you're going into grade 10, we have a capacity limit there. And then what is their capacity? What is their, they can set a capacity limit and then they have to have a non-discriminatory selection process when the number of, if they get two people buying for no spots in grade 10, what does that look like if a spot suddenly opens up? Just another hypothetical. English has a second language. Without seeing a student, but hypothetically having a student who, or English is a second language or English is not even spoken, how would you, and you put yourself in the position of an independent school, how would you determine if the student should be accepted into your curriculum, into your school if you, if there's a potential that the, either their English is, they speak no English or they speak English, which is not compatible with the 10th grade or whatever grade that they're theoretically being assigned to. So this is kind of a pre, how would you know whether to hire a teacher? Right, you have to hire a teacher. You don't have the English language capability, English language, English has a second language capability. If you don't have that capability in your school, you have to have, you have to have that knowledge, that background about the student to be able to accept. So I understand that kind of like, acceptance and then once accepted, then you place into the right, potentially the right grade or the right AP versus shop, whatever the mix might be, but certainly it's not just a blank slate that any school can accept anybody. It's an in circumstance, which is kind of what's being asked here. Yes, thank you. No, I'll pass actually. How do you handle that ELL? So as I said before, we, it's hard for me to go out to the self and place an intense school because we are going by the fact that we take everybody. Sorry, like when our- But do you ever ask about ELL students? Do you have any kind of application that might say, hey, should we be preparing to have an extra teacher that kind of thing? Sure, one of our standard enrollment documents is a home language survey, in which they will indicate that they have any of those services. So the home language survey would be kind of like mandatory interview. I mean, it's questionnaire, it's a mandatory questionnaire for placement. Isn't that kind of the idea of why you would give them that? I guess you said it's a federally, we're obligated under Title III to do just that, that we have to survey our, in fact, we could provide that survey to all students, all families. That's what we would use to identify the need for ESL and again, it's Title III. So as long as we accept federal funds, we must comply. So, since we're dealing with hypotheticals, let's say you have a student who speaks a language that you don't have a teacher who can work with that and you're just not able to find one. What do you do in that circumstance? So teachers, speakers of all languages are not obligated to know every language that they might encounter and so it's not a qualification or a obligation under the law. So like, sorry, what happens to the student? I mean, do they still go to the school and how do they get services if they don't speak English at all and you can't find any staff? So there are degrees of services that are provided depending on whether a person has any language skills or not and there's often a test that's administered to determine what those levels are and each, I can't speak for all, I feel a bit of a spokesman for the field. Well, there are a lot of you kind of on the border, a lot of schools like you on the border. Well, and I would say, but having been a superintendent in Pennsylvania, we're under the same federal obligations. We have the same law, the same process and so yeah, there's a testing regimen that is sometimes used and purely for placement purposes and then there are different models of providing those services, but each of them has a certain amount of shelter instruction where they're gaining competence with English language as well as content and then they are gradually released to greater levels or reduced levels of that sort of intervention and then ultimately are in the, in regular classes with that tennis support. Thank you. Sure. Oh yeah, Mr. Robinson. Comrade Robinson, Hermione and I. Just to that, I mean, remember the conversation here is about independent schools that choose to accept public dollars, right? To be eligible to accept public dollars. So public schools accept all students and meet those needs of those students to that sort of ability under all the legal requirements and what sort of contemplated here private schools that choose to accept public dollars and the standards upon which that they would be eligible to receive those public dollars. So Senator, perhaps the school determines that that's not something that's within their purview to be able to provide it. So maybe they wouldn't be in a situation to be able to, they might choose not to accept public dollars. Right. Well, sure. Over the scenario we're looking at here is schools that are currently providing education to a subset of students in the state. And if this bill passes and they can't accept all of the criteria, all of the criteria which all public schools accept, then they don't get their students, their students aren't, you know, and then the district has got to scramble to figure out what to do with those students. So, you know, certain schools will accept this and certain schools are really going to struggle with this. So we're going to wound, potentially wound a subset of schools and the related students who are going there now. That's kind of what I'm boiling it down to. Not every school can accept every acceptance criteria that a public school accepts right now. That's the fundamental problem. That seems, what we're boiling it down to. Mr. Robinson, is this admissions piece, was this complaint driven? I mean, had there been a lot of complaints, you know, or where did this sort of the genesis of, or was this kind of the house thing out? We'll get, you know, do you know if there were a lot of parents that wrote in and said, hey, this is really uncomfortable, we don't like this? I would absolutely encourage you to hear again from the chair of house education on their specific intent. The NEA did not propose, or the equity alliance did not propose this one. No, I would, to be very clear, and although I'm not speaking on the totality of the equity alliance, I will say this bill was created by the house education committee. We provided comments that have pulled the process, but I would encourage you to hear from the committee on that. Please. So we're on page three now. I'm rolling at number seven. The school shall provide the results of all state mandated assessments of students on public tuition to the agency of education, which shall publish the results on the website in a manner consistent with the publication of the same results for public school students. There is a very similar provision already in section 166. Wait, if you look at your title, 16 languages at the bottom of the first page. 166G, an approved and funded school that accepts students from the district of residence pays tuition under chapter 21 of this title. So use the assessment or assessments required under subdivision 1649 of this title, which is state board standards to measure attainment of standards for student performance of those students. In addition, the school shall provide data related to the assessment or assessments as required by the secretary. Yes, Jeff. Sorry, there is a big distinction there between the language of proposed legislation and that language in that a recent meeting of the Superintendents Association, I asked all of my colleagues how many people have ever even seen the assessment results for the grade and pen and schools and one person raised a turban. And that was only because she requested them. I think there's difference in languages that they will be published on the website. So if you try to find them now, you will not find them. For whom? For independent schools. Independent schools, okay. And this is saying that the school shall provide the results of all seminal and two results of the words. Okay. And Ms. St. James, you're saying this is in 16VSA. It's similar. How is it different? Well, there's no publication requirement in subsection G. Okay. And the language is slightly different. G is very specific. The assessment or assessments required under subdivision 1649. And this is a little broader, state mandated assessments. I think it's very likely that those are going to match up, but it's not the same language. And we require the same with the public schools? I don't know. So this language in H483 is to require publication of the same results in a manner, require publication in a manner consistent with the publication of the same results with the public school students. And I don't know off the top of my head what that looks like for public school students. Do you publish your academic results? We're forced to, yes. So you are. Right, there's a dashboard. By the state of New Hampshire. By both states. By both states, okay. Helpful, thank you. Okay. Eight, the school's tuition rate for publicly tuition students shall be the same as or lower than the tuition rate for private pay or students. And both tuition rates shall be published on the school's website and reported to AOE annually. And there's no current similar provision in any of those three pieces of law. Tuition rate publicly tuition, okay. Any questions on that section? You good? No, I don't have a question. This is more of a procedural question, Mark. If this bill passes, 483, and so does that change, are we gonna change Title 16? 483, the language that we're walking through in that left hand column, is a proposed amendment to Title 16, Section 166. How about, there's nothing in age 483 that requires the state board to reopen the rules. They may choose to, but there's nothing that requires rulemaking. Now you just go back to the admissions question one more time. And I don't know if this is for Mr. Robinson, but you might be able to help. Can a public school still expel a student? I would defer to the superintendent. You can expel a student. So you can expel a student, okay. Student have due process rights, and it's a similar quasi judicial process where there's representations provided or can be provided. Okay. And also, obviously, I'm just trying to understand in terms of the, everybody's here, we've got everybody, I'm sure somebody can speak to this specific number that we've expulsion is exceedingly rare at this point as a general practice, but also you have publicly employed educators, publicly accountable superintendent, a public school board who would all be involved in that process. So there's public accountability and transparency to the electorate involved in that process as well. But expulsion. Sure. I mean, as a general concept, right? What would happen, where do students go when they're expelled? General. So that is a great question because the schools are saying, no, because of whatever reason. And we're not required by law to accept students that have been expelled elsewhere, yet there's still an obligation to provide some sort of alternative education. And especially if the student has a 504 or an IEP, we then have an even different set of rules that we need to follow that ultimately end up with us having to at least provide tutoring or some sort of ongoing education. If a student is expelled in Randolph, whatever school they move up to your area, you don't have to take them if they've been expelled. We do not have to take by a state law in both states. Okay. Before you kick back off, just one question. So I'm not gonna make a comment, just we need to revisit on AIDS, VIII about tuition. I need to go back to notes because it's probably been over a month on whether some of these independent schools enjoy an endowment, which affects the price of tuition, which, you know, it's a benefit which obviously public schools don't enjoy to my knowledge. So I'm just putting it out there that the endowment question, I think is relevant in this case. And it needs to be revisited. And where do you see it? So on eight, VIII, age three? Yeah, okay. I mean, I understand the intent, but the unintended impact is that endowments may have a positive effect on independent schools, tuition rate versus what a public school might have to charge a student because there is no endowment. Can Act 60 change if a public school has an endowment? Can Act 60 change that? There is no prohibition on fundraising right now. Of course. The public schools also. Right. Yeah. There's, I think Act 60 and Act 68, I think the commentary would be it changed perhaps the need for fundraising or the attractiveness of fundraising, like for all of the effort involved, but there's no prohibition on fundraising. How long do we have you? I guess as long as you need me. Okay. I'm going to, just for my own needs, take a five minute break right now and then come back if you don't mind. So where did we leave off? I think we stopped after discussion on eight and we have not talked about nine. Publicly tuition student shall not be charged an application fee, an academic fee or any other fees for academic materials. No other similar provisions. Right. And then 10 is the last. Please go ahead. Just again, a reflection of the fact that, you know, there's tuition and their fees. Very common to have fees in a variety of school settings except the public school settings. It's just fees are just like another way of kind of like categorizing costs in attending schools. I don't know, I just find this kind of an odd call out. You know, the impact will simply be that in-patent schools, it's okay, that's not a fee, it just gets lumped into the tuition. And so it's just a cost of education. I think that's a fair point. I mean, you see that as a cause in universities. Exactly. Is this prohibit, so I'm just saying academic fees. So again, if athletic wear, all that stuff. That would not be prohibitive. It would have to be. Correct. Okay. What about a field trip? It's academic. Academic fee, I mean, I don't know that I have a good answer for that. Okay. An academic fee, I think what was contemplated here is like lab fees, books, et cetera. And that would fit under academic materials also. You know, I think a good way to get at whether that phrase meets your goals is to consult public schools on whether they charge fees for field trips, et cetera. Sure, Paris. Thank you. 10, the school, so 10 is the last we're on page three at the very bottom. Subdivision 10 is the attestation piece. This is the last change to section 166 in title 16. So this is the end of that subdivision nine that we've been talking about. So 10 requires the approved independent school to attest on or before August 1st of each year to compliance with the requirements of subdivision nine, which is everything we've just walked through starting with the Act 173 language. All other statutory requirements for approved independent schools and the board's rules for approved independent schools on a form created by the agency, including documentation of the following. And before we get into the following, I will just note that there's no attestation requirement in title 16. The 2200 series does require the application to comply with all statutory requirements. And then getting into the following piece, there are state board rules that are kind of analogous. So the attestation has to include an attestation that they're following all of the rules and laws, including a statement of non-discrimination posted on the school's website and included in the school's application materials that is consistent with the Vermont Public Accommodation Act and the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act. And that is on page six of the 2200 series, rule 2226.6. And that's almost verbatim from the state board rules. And that is currently in effect right now. The difference here is that 483 is requiring an annual attestation and the state board rules are requiring this in the application materials. An assurance, so the second piece as an assurance signed by the head of school that the school complies with the Vermont Public Accommodations Act in all aspects of the school's admissions and operations. And again, that's taken verbatim from the state board rules on page six there. Okay. And then an assurance signed by the head of school that no public funds were used to subsidize the tuition of private payers students. There is no similar provision anywhere else. So seems redundant to page three rule B, I, I, I. And it's requiring, if they're requiring somebody to sign it, just seem to have to write a tool. I also just say tough, I mean, I'm guessing you've got all the funds mixed up. Gesundheit. No public funds were subsidized to a student. Okay. Okay. Any questions on section seven before we move on? And I'm just looking through. So a lot of this is definitely in 2200 series, Gesundheit Act 173, Summon Title 16. So Robinson, the parts that aren't in those sections the non-anti-discrimination stuff. What's the best way to describe how this, the rest of this will help kids to make education better and more? So first of all, I would like to represent bosses in their room, a member of your house counterparts. So she may have thoughts as well. Ultimately, what we're talking about here are public taxpayer dollars, right? In the education fund, taxpayers go every town meeting day and vote on an education dollar. Education dollars, so I think as a general construct this is putting some minimal, basic guardrails and standards around public taxpayer dollars going to institutions that are providing education to students that are having their education paid to those public taxpayer dollars. So how would you answer my question? How does it improve education for kids in Vermont? What, I mean, I don't represent bust might have something. I don't think the purpose of this bill was to improve education. It was to address a question around taxpayer dollars going to private schools in Vermont and changing legal context in which we found ourselves. Section eight. Section eight is an amendment to, again, we're gonna focus on the left hand column for a second, just to orient ourselves. Section eight is an amendment to section 828 in title 16, which is part of the town tuition program statutes and the title of it is tuition to approve schools. Basically, this statute lists all the different types of schools that public money can go to. So a district shall not pay tuition of a student except to, and then it lists schools. You'll notice when we talk about independent schools and that recognized independent schools are not eligible for public tuition, this is where we're getting that. Recognized independent schools are not listed here, right? Only approved independent schools. So the big amendment here is you'll see the underlying language is new language. So you'll notice everything we just walked through is brand new, it's all underlined. The language in section eight, there's a couple additions at the very top there where we're modifying approved independent school. So now it's not just that tuition can go to any approved independent school, it's just those eligible to receive public tuition located in Vermont. Or this is the big piece. In independent school, I'm at the very bottom, independent school in another state, you'll see or country is crossed out, located within 25 miles, we're on page five now, of the Vermont border and approved under the laws of that state or country. So again, if we look at this title 16 column, the second column, to currently this section allows tuition to go to schools outside the country or state that are approved under the laws of that state or country with no geographic limitations, just anywhere in the world. This amendment, you can't go out of country and you can only go to an independent, you can only send tuition to an independent school in another state located within 20, the school is located within 25 miles of the border. So it's a big change. And we did that, what we did last year for what it's worth in 2019, we said I think no independent school out of country and no independent school in less, or public school unless you order the state of Vermont I think is what we did. Yes, I think 2019. Except we did do, sorry, we did do an exception for a therapeutic school if that is the best fit for your child given some of the kids needs could best be met by a therapeutic school in another state, we said, okay, we didn't want to prohibit that from happening. Yes. And this takes care of that by adding therapeutic school to one of those, an allowable school to tuition to with no geographic limitations on it. So age 483 proposes to add some requirements just like we walked through for in-state schools add some requirements to out of state schools which do not exist in current law. So subsection B, an independent school on my page five an independent school in another state located within 25 miles of the Vermont border that is approved under the laws of that state is eligible to receive public tuition if the following conditions are met. So the first is the independent school has adopted and implemented policies and procedures to comply with all anti-discrimination laws applicable to public schools in the state where the independent school is located and makes reasonable efforts to enforce those policies and procedures even if those laws by their terms do not apply to the independent school. The school shall attest to compliance with the subdivision on or before August 1st of each year. So I should have, we should go back and look at the 2200 series before we keep going. So if you flip back to page four on page six of the 2200 series. Page four of? The side by side. Yeah, okay. And then if you go to page six of the 2200 series. Yup. Rule 2225.2 says, and actually if you look at it in context, if you turn to page five, you'll see tuition rule 2225.1 is tuition for independent schools in Vermont. And then she'll not be paid from public funds unless they follow all these requirements, right? And then if you look at 2225.2, tuition for out of state schools. Tuition to be paid to an independent school in another state shall be made in accordance with and then it refers to the statute that we're talking about here. So that's it. That's the only requirement right now for out of state schools is that reference in the state board rules. I think you're next here. Do you want me to keep going? Uh, would you mind, so let's see, where would we be picking up? We did that section. Me too. I'm almost done. Yeah, why don't you go? Okay. Keep going. So subdivision two, the independent school posts and maintains on its website in a prominent place, it's policy to comply with all anti-discrimination laws. And then the school has to attest to that. And then we're making the independent school that's out of state comply with everything we just walked through in subdivision nine, except for the anti-discrimination section, because you're asking the independent school out of state to follow their own state anti-discrimination laws. So we're not gonna ask them to follow Vermont's anti-discrimination laws. Please, yeah, Jim. How can we make another school out of state follow the tuition piece that is on page four, section three, or subsection three, where no public funds can be used to subsidize the tuition of the private payer? We can't enforce that, right? They won't be eligible to accept public, Vermont's not gonna send public tuition to them if they don't agree to do that. That's what this says. There seems like there's a lot of, frankly, in the paper, a lot more about public schools right now in dealing with anti-discrimination issues and violations and things like that. Do we have any attestations that we require public schools on this stuff? I am going to say, I don't know the answer to that specifically. I have, in sitting through all of the testimony that house education took, there's references to lots of forms and attestations that public schools have the certifications that they have to fill out. I can't cite you to this. And maybe I'm wrong, it just seems like, and we have to dig right here, but we won't pull it in, but it seems like there's this school after this school, after this school, yeah. I can't cite you to a specific state statute or state board rule that says you gotta send this certification related to this. However, the Public Accommodations Act most certainly applies to public schools. And there are, the Human Rights Commission has jurisdiction over that. And there's also federal laws that also have their own anti-discrimination pieces. And if a school accepts federal funds, they have to follow those laws. Public schools certainly accept federal funds. And so there may be pieces to annual compliance in relation to the federal pieces as well. So I would encourage you to hear from this field on the specific, what does the form look like, how often is it, et cetera. Again, I think the other piece here is the public schools are public in that they are controlled by the school district, which is publicly, the school board is publicly elected, right? So there's a certain amount of public accountability in that area. I totally get it. I'm wondering if we should just finish this and then we can always come back. Sure. Just because he's out there, thanks. So the last one is the independent school provides an assurance on it before August 1st of each year, signed by the head of school that no public funds were used to subsidize tuition of private parents students. Right. Again, I know this is a lot of work. Very helpful. And I think hopefully probably by next Tuesday, this is maybe the last thing will be worth it. The only thing we'll have left is 43. This raises a lot of good points. Is there anything you need from me? I know that may change between now and tomorrow, but anything that you need for me for tomorrow or anything? No, but I'm gonna work on this tonight and send witness ideas out and maybe connect with you just to see what we might be missing. I don't think you have me scheduled for any testimony tomorrow, but I plan to watch everything that you have going on. Okay. Great, thank you. You've got to switch the witness chair. This one's very low to the ground. Very awkward to get out in front of everyone. Hi. You still have a stroke left. Yeah. Good.