 Welcome to Senate Education Friday, February 18th. A little bit of a late start. We had a cancellation from Treasurer Pierce who's having some technology issues. We have rescheduled or we're working to reschedule her for Tuesday. Really appreciate Mr. James coming in. Brad, thanks for being with us and for jumping in. To bring those watching as well as colleagues back to the conversation, we have a letter that we have getting close to finalizing. The core of it is there and a memo to finance with a recommendation around how English language learners, learning students, ELL students would be funded in the state. And Mr. James, you've probably seen that we have landed or are leaning toward a hybrid model and some questions were raised by a number of senators on this committee as to what the impact would be on taxes. So, and what would that look like? And so we have you here to talk to us a little bit about that. Sure, no problem. Brad James, it's your bit of education. And first of all, I apologize because this came to me two days ago and I completely missed that email. Thank you for following up, Senator Campion. No problem at all, we know everybody's busy. So what the question was asked, what's the impact going to be? And so if you use these two grants, in other words, you set it up so that you were looking at using all the recommended weights plus an ELL weight of 2.49. And then you were saying, then the question was, what if you get, I believe you call them mini grants to those districts that had 25 or fewer ELL students? So what I did was I calculated what the tax rates would be using all the weights including the ELL weight of 2.49. And that's the second column there that has the tax rates in it. Then I calculated what it would be by reducing education spending by $25,000 per student for every, or not pursuing, but for any district that had 25 or fewer students. And that's the second column that, and that's what I'm showing you, I figured it would probably be easy is just see what the decrease would be. So if we're looking at, does everybody have this handout that I put up there? Okay. I just wanna make sure if it's on our website and I believe Daphne sent it around to senators. So I think people have had it for a couple of days or at least a day now. Okay, great. So if I just look at the very first one, then it's Addison Central. If I work my way across obviously in Addison County, they have 15 ELL students, that's the very first column. Again, these are FY20 numbers. This is all predicated and based on FY20 data. So it's anything will change in the future. But the rate they would have with just having all the weights would be $1.679. Then if I took, if I went back and recalculated by reducing their education spending by $25,000 because that's what that grant would do, reduce their education spending, their tax rate decreases by about 0.001 pennies. So, you know, a tenth of a penny. That's what it decreased. At 50,000, it's that last column, 0.003. The reason it's not doubled is because there's an extra digit in there. I'm only showing you three digits instead of four in difference. So that's what we're looking at here. If there is no change at all, one of two things is happening. The district has no ELL students or they have more than 25 ELL students. I think there are seven or nine. I think it was seven. Oh, nine, I take it back up here on the sheet of paper. There were nine districts that had more than 25 ELL students and they accounted for 1,485 students out of a total of 1,780, those nine districts. And so the other 47 districts that had ELL students accounted for 295 in total. Just so you have some semblance of what's happening. So the idea here from what I interpreted from reading the letter from Senator Campion, and I guess the rest of you all, was that having these mini grants would then allow those districts that do not have a significant number of students, ELL students, to be able to at least hire a part-time person to work with these students. And that seems like this would do it. It's a very interesting idea. I like it, frankly, in my opinion. But so that's kind of where it stands, what you're looking at here. And again, I'm just showing you the differences. If you grab the tax rates themselves, I can show you that. If you grab see the four digits of the tax rates, I can do that, whatever you prefer. Senator Persley. Yeah, I guess what I was thinking we were gonna see is the change of the tax rate because of the 2.49 weight. That's hard. So I compared to something, you know, past, like a change. So this is just what it would be if in 2020 had we had this 2.49. So we'd have to look at some other chart that had us with the tax rate. If you would like to put another year or something in there, I'd be happy to. I mean, if you want to put, here's what they would have been, here's what they were in FY20. So now it's where we started from. You know, no ways of more or less current law with all those caveats as to what we did. If you want to put in that FY20, and then I could certainly show you that. I mean, it's a question of what you want to do. I wasn't 100% sure because we were racing around the end of the day. Right. I think it would be interesting to see that. But then as far as this chart goes, I'm having trouble visualizing why the rate would go down with the mini grants because when their, you know, their education spending is going up, but they're getting that money. Education spending doesn't include any of the grants. Right. That's right. The initial column did not include the grants. So the education spending was actually higher in those. If you were one of those districts that had, you know, that cohort of students, then your education spending decreased by either $25,000 or $50,000 for which scenario. So I was trying to bracket it is what I was doing. That's right. But in a way, it's just going down, but... It's not huge, it's not significantly going down. It's going down from what could already be going up from all the other lengths. So I mean, it will not take me long to add more information into this because the work was actually getting those deltas that you're seeing there. That's what the work was. If you, I can, I mean, tell me what you wanna see. And I'll put it together. I mean, if you wanna add one more column, which is what hears with the FY20 rates are as your base comparison. And, you know, so I would have, I guess I'd have you all counts of that base comparison and then the next three columns. Was that what you prefer to see? I mean, it's the committee's decision. It doesn't matter to me, just let me know. Yeah, I think that would be interesting to see. Okay. So you'll add that, Brad, Center Alliance. Yeah, I was gonna actually suggest that, but so that's helpful because then that'll help us understand what the possible concerns might be out at the local level. But there's no way of knowing at this point what schools have for the fewer students that they have. So they have 25 or less or they have the 33 or the 50. We don't know what provisions they currently have in place. So there's, you know, we can't tell what the overall effect will be. We might know what the monetary effect is, a tax effect, but we won't know what the perception of help effect will be. So which is important because we're trying to help schools that have ELL students. Just an observation. So I think this is very helpful overall. Yes, Senator Perslick. And in these grants that's coming out where they do in the formula, education formula, they would have an impact on everybody else's tax rate. Slightly, yes, they would. Small, not a big number. Not a big number. I mean, the total here, if you did the 50,000, the total was just over 2 million, I think, 2.3 million. I'm going from the memory now. It wasn't huge. And so that would be, that would maybe be a 10th of a penny on everybody's tax rate. Somewhere in that range. It would not be a big, terribly noticeable thing. It would be a question. And that means it would impact these folks too who are also going down because it would impact everybody uniformly. But you're correct. It would have an impact because it would change the education spending. Actually, what it would do, well, you still have to raise the money because you still have to pay, you have to have the grant. So it may not change it much at all. Now that I think about it and put the pieces together because you're reducing education spending, but you're putting in that grant as another line of the headphone for all practical purposes. So it should probably wash. And that money is, well, wash for these districts. I think wash for everybody. These guys, well, these guys have got a bit of a break. It would depend on where their property values are. Now we're really good at the weeds. So that could impact the yield slightly, but I think it would be minimal. And I can't remember, I guess I have to go back and look at what we were thinking. I remember the 25,000 or 50,000, but I thought at one point maybe it was just some conversation I had with Senator Hardy or something about whether we wanted to do two different tiers of how many students they have. This is just a 25. I wondered if the grant should be stepped more than just one step, that like zero to 20, 20 to 50 or something like that, but. It could mathematically, it could certainly work. It's a policy decision for you all to make. If you could do it as a sliding scale, which take a little bit of work, but you do a sliding scale going down. So it's kind of whatever you chose to do, but you can certainly break it into two steps, three steps, whatever you chose, so chose. That's what about that way. And then Senator Perslick, are you okay right now? Okay, so this recommendation, this is where we land. We send it down to finance. And of course, this is going to be put in with a lot of other weights. Right. And so tell us a little bit about that and what one might anticipate. Well, I think what you're seeing here in that very first column is all the weights together that are recommended by task force, including the yellow weights. So that's where the tax rates would start. Right. And then, as again, as I'm showing, I think what you're seeing is you're gonna see those minor decreases due to whatever you choose the grant to be. As I said, I was basically bracketing that based on what you're asking. So I think you're pretty much seeing what's going to happen because nobody's really talking about changing any of the other weights because the weights are coming as a package. Right. So I think this is pretty much what would happen right here. Straight weight starts. Senator. Just to clarify, those weights were weights that were in the study, the Colby study. Thank you. Senator Lyons? Well, I was just looking down the list and I mean, it looks like, for example, if you look at Craftsbury, it goes from 0.013 to 0.026 and doubles. So it's a variable. That's all. And a lot of Senator Lyons has to do with the size of the district. Yeah. Because the smaller the district, the more of an impact that $25,000 or $50,000 is going to have on their education. But isn't that kind of consistent with what we've been wanting to do in terms of supporting our rural, small schools? Yes. Yeah. I think so. Senator Persler? Yeah, I was just looking at, I guess a thing that I had written, I guess we'll have to look at what, do we have this, the letter that we drafted somewhere on our website? I guess I could look at that. But the way I had it was one to 10 students, $25,000, 11 to 25 students, $50,000. So once you get over 10 students, you get the 50, but if you're under 10, if you're 10 and under, you get the 25. I can easily do that. It'll take a little bit of time. And I don't know if you're trying to get a letter out today, I don't mean to jump into it and tell you guys what to do. I'm not sure I'd be able to get it done in an adequate format today. I don't think we need to see, like it's pretty clear from what you've done, what the impact would be, like the difference on the tax rates for the towns is minuscule. I think more important is like what the impact is overall, dollar-wise and what the overall weights impact. I think that if you had the 2020 tax rate for those towns and then the people could actually see the difference, that's where everybody's focus is gonna be. The fact that some districts changed one to three-tenths of a cent because the yellow grants probably won't give much attention after they see the other change. Okay, so let me ask you this then. I'm trying to keep it simple. And I was impressed with how simple that one looked. I came out with it for once. I mean, I can always change it to landscape too. But what if I ignored that column, the column that has the estimated tax rates of all the weights that I'm using as the base? And instead, I think this is what you and Senator Gliner are saying, put in the FY20 rates there and then had the plus minus from that. Is that where you're kind of thinking it would be more beneficial? The plus or minus have all the weights including the yellow weight. Plus the grants. I mean, I could do the FY20 column and then I could do plus minus all the weights, no grants, and then all the weights, 25,000, all the weights, 50,000. Yeah, that would be fine. It's okay with Senator Persley. Okay, Senator Lyons, does that work for you? Yeah, okay. I just asked Daphne to send the letter around to everyone, so it's fresh in your emails. So hopefully it will be there soon. I can probably have that done within 30 minutes at the most. If you would. That would be terrific. That would be terrific and we can have you back. Okay, all right. Anything else before I jump off then? Just giving people an opportunity. Daphne just sent around the draft of the letter. I just want to pull it up and make sure, give everyone opportunity to take a look, to make sure they don't have any additional questions. I mean, when I say draft, this is draft because I do want to add some real language to this, give people some context for our discussions, and how we got there, et cetera. And it's still, it just looks sloppy to me. Senator Persley. Yeah, I like the idea of being more precise on the mini grants. I mean, this is 25 to 50,000 range, but we could be more specific if we have the time to say, and I'm not sure what the right number is. I'd have to talk to the schools or AOE, or those, at what point does a halftime person can handle like how many students, and then at what point did they need a full-time person kind of thing? But we could say, okay, instead of just telling finance 25 to 50 range, and like one to 10, 25, 10 to whatever number, 25, 50 would be more precise that I feel better about. Mm-hmm. And who do you think would be best to determine that? Ideally it would be whoever deals with ELL at AOE. I think there's a person, I don't think it's also just- You retired. Retired? You retired, okay. Yeah, so we're down a position right there. Okay. So, I think, I don't know, I don't know as we know the answer to it. I think it might be more of a question for folks in the field and the school districts themselves to what they think. I truly have no idea, but I would guess they would probably have a better idea than we would. I mean, I wouldn't say Libby Bonne-Steel, so then Bonne-Steel might have an idea because I think they're, I don't, not saying that to be prevent, what do I, I think that word wrong last time. Just because, you know, I'm in her district, but she's in my district, depending on how you look at it, is that they, their ELL students fluctuate because of people coming and going for national life. So I think they, not too distant past, they've had under 25 and now this year they have over 50. So she might be able to provide kind of the difference, what it means, or we could, if there's other districts like that, that have had a range or experience, because I think when you ski has whatever 500 might not be as helpful for somebody that's in the range we're talking about. Would you mind reaching out to the superintendent, Bonne-Steel? Yeah, I can do that right now. That would be great if we could get that, those kind of numbers and center alliance. We did, I thought we got some testimony, a little bit of testimony about that, but I don't remember who, who gave it. Maybe it was Libby Bonne-Steel. Might have been someone from when you ski, but go ahead, please. There could have been when you ski. They were talking about what happens when you add and subtract, but I guess my question is more about, is about the memorandum and the draft, the draftness of it. So I was not here when it has changed a little bit. I think I was absent when that happened. But my question is, are we going to put together any language regarding best practice for ELL students, not necessarily to send to finance, but if it's going to be included in the bill, we're going to have to put it somewhere, and direction around what, I guess the ELL person has gone, but so how do we... This is where we would be working with the probes on this piece personally to get that language ready for them. It seemed to me a better connection, but I'm open. Well, I was just thinking that whatever language is put forward, we ought to be putting it together, and then, yeah, so that's all. Not a big deal. No, I think that's a good reminder. And I suspect whatever we end up doing if we change the mini-grants, listen, that also could end up being changed down the hall, but I think we can give them greater specificity, or some real policy behind it, the better. I noticed the last sentence there is that we could provide you with related policy language if needed. I suppose that's okay, but... The last sentence. Tell me where you're looking. On the draft at the very bottom, where we're thanking them for consideration. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. That one. Yeah. I'm not clear. Yeah, it's still sloppy. It's just there needs to be more text in general here, kind of pulling things apart a little bit, and I do have some text, a little bit that I'll share orally with the committee when Jim is in, and Jim's gonna work with us a little bit this afternoon to see if we can get to a point where it's a little bit more solid. Okay. Senator Hooker, question. A favor from Brad? Yeah. Could you just give a couple of examples of what this would look like for a person's property tax, the changes as you go through. Just a couple of, you know, when you do the run of the other numbers of what they pay now, what they're paying at this point and what they would be paying with the new weights and the grants and the difference that it would mean to an average property tax payment. Yeah. Sure. A penny, essentially a penny on a $100,000 house is about $10 in tax, just roughly, you know. And so we're, in a lot of cases, we're talking about 0.001 or 0.002. So we're really talking about a couple of dollars per $100,000 value. So you figure, I have no idea what an average house worth these days. But you figure, but if you figure about $400,000, you say $400,000, that's maybe roughly $10. Okay. But I will do some more calculations so that you can see it instead. Okay. Instead of listening to me. Okay. Senator Lyons, when I just want to go back to your comment, if you don't mind about the letter itself for a moment, just to make sure I'm on the same page with what I'm thinking, tell me what sorts of things you're thinking about as it relates to related policy language. What are the kind of things that are coming to your mind? Yeah, good question. I think we had talked about how to put some guidelines in about what it means to work with ELL students and the extent to which it might go beyond simple English language instruction to other areas of support for kids. So, and it's a lot more difficult to engage community when you have one student. Maybe it's easier, I don't know, but some of the concepts that we've heard about from the schools that have been doing this for a while, they're all over the state. Yeah. So that's all I was thinking about. No, that's really helpful. I really appreciate that. Yeah, that's great. And I think we might be able to plug some of that in with Jim when he comes in this afternoon and then maybe even I can, you know, kind of committees comfortable, share it with some superintendents and others and try to tighten it up a little bit over the weekend and get back to folks. But that's really helpful. Yeah, that's all it was. A little comprehensive. You know, we could go on forever with that one, but we don't, it's more of what's possible. What are the kind of guidelines, I suppose? Great. Yeah. And I'm just seeing that Jim Demeray just wrote that he's available. So who'll come in now? Oh, my God, look at that. Can I just comment on- I don't know if that was, what's that? Please go ahead. I just dovetailed to what Senator Lyons said or go back to what she said before about best practice. And maybe that's some of the language that we want to include in this because people who have been in this for a long time have things in place that they can certainly share. And I know we talked about that when we talked about the position at the agency and how that position may help to disseminate the information that comes from best practices. Mr. Demeray, thanks for joining us. Brad, do you want to leave for a little while? Yeah, I will and I'll let that have to know when I'm back. I mean, I don't mean that in any, like, that's not, that does not mean for me to be, I'm trying to be rude. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Brad. Yeah. But you're trying to stay so offended. I'll be back. You can listen to the tape later. We're not gonna say anything bad about you. I'm used to it. You are. Geez. All right, so Mr. Demeray, thanks for being with us. A couple of things as we look at this memorandum, I'm just gonna first just throw this out aesthetically and this isn't your job. I'm happy to do it in a Word document, but it isn't, it's crunched up. There are, again, this isn't you. This is something I can do or we can have if you wanna just communicate with the editors. It's crunched up. You know, the margins aren't accurate, all that kind of thing. I think we just need to generally have editing tidied up. I also think we need some kind of introductory comment there that mentions that we've deliberated over the past several weeks on how to provide English language learners with the necessary educational experience is the necessary funds, if you will, to support this very important work. I think it just needs something. And I'm looking, if others disagree, feel free to jump in. You know, this was, and I, you know, I could go on. This is a compromise that Senator Perchalick and Senator Hardy worked on. I think it's good to put that in there. It, two members from the task force as well as both serving on the committees of jurisdiction. And this, you know, we'll get to the point where we have a vote, but I think looking at what Brad just presented us with, I think we'll might be able to go unanimously. And then at the bottom, instead of, or in lieu of, I guess, the discuss with you and provide related policy language, I think what Senator Lyons mentioned before you got in, and then I'll turn it over to everyone else, you know, for us to reference something around, you know, these aren't the right words. This isn't something that just happens in the classroom. This is something, this is a working with ELL students. It is full services and it's, there needs to be a comprehensive approach. So students are successful, families are successful. There are things that are going to happen outside of the classroom. There are going to be things aside from just teaching English, but you know, cultural kinds of things, making also, I don't know, Senator Lyons, you're, you know- No, you've said it, you know, that for some of the schools there's some integration within the community and support services to help kids adjust to a new culture. And that happens in the school and then the school, some of the schools have provided some outreach to families and community organizations. So, you know, I'm not clear, we can state fully what constitutes best practice, but certainly there are some components other than teaching English. So having those broader support services that better integrate the student into their new culture, you know, and it could be considered school culture, but sometimes it extends to the family. We saw that too, where the families are helped in teaching the language or in learning how to vote. I mean, all of those things are so critical. And that is why we've moved in this, that language to support why the categorical grants in smaller populated communities are essential. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Senator Hooker. I liked what you said about comprehensive and then I liked what Senator Lyon said about including, you know, family and stuff. It looks like a holistic approach. And I don't know if that's a- Oh, I like that one. Might we need this? Yep. Good word, Senator. Holistic is great. Senator Perslick, how are you feeling about this in terms of what we would be? You and Senator Hooker both served on the task force. You worked on this compromise. How does, where we're heading sound to you in terms of what we would share with finance? I don't think it's good. And it allows us to move forward and help, you know, at least hopefully, help these students out, help the schools out throughout the state that need the other weights and then collect the data to move forward and keep up. My main interest at this point was that, one, we get this pass, but two, we keep up on it every year and not say like, okay, we did that and then 20 years later realize we're all out of action. Right. Senator Demerite, questions or comments from you? I do have questions. So I understand that the open, you want the format to be different. This has been through editing, but I can certainly make it. No, I know you mentioned that and it's... I'm happy that I've changed the format and make it a bit different. The opening, I got, I think I got what you want in the opening. You want more of a description of your deliberations, taking input from task force members. And then you said at the end, you'd like to replace the end with something, but I'm not quite sure what that is. So what do you want to say at the end? So at the end, I would say, let me see if I jotted anything down here. Bear with me one second. We were talking about the end being more of an opportunity to explain, well, support the work above, the decisions above. In other words, we recognize that English language learners, it's, as I think Senator Hooker said, you need a holistic, comprehensive approach to making certain that these students are successful and their success is essential to all of us. I mean, these aren't exactly the right words. I'm just giving you the gist of what we're thinking. It's work that takes place not only in the classroom, but outside of the classroom. There's work with cultural liaisons. There's work to be done with other agencies in state government, local government to make certain that the student and their family is successful, if you will. And having a categorical grant, particularly I'd say in very low populated districts is essential in terms of achieving that success. Something that's where I'm at, but I'm looking for others to weigh in. Anybody want to add to that, please? I mean, it's what we can look at whatever you pull together. Senator Purchlick, no, okay. Senator Lyons, Senator Hooker. Just looking at something that might address or point to being successfully integrator, successful integration into the whole community as opposed to just having classes at school. So I think the whole idea of becoming an integral part of the community might serve them well. Senator Campingkei jumping. Oh yeah, Senator Taranzini. Yes, sir. I don't have the raise my hand feature. I like to bill a lot. I think it's a nice compromise. I fully support it and look forward to voting on it. Great, terrific. Thanks for that. Senator Chinden, anything from you at this point? I know you've, no, okay. How's that feel, Jim? Does that give you enough to go on? Yep, let me take a stab at that and get this back to you. Okay, let's see. Let me just look at the schedule for today. We have Jay Nichols coming at 2.30, then 2.45. We were gonna do this with you at 3.30. Is it possible for you to bring language back to us at 3.30? Oh, sure, of course. All right, that'd be great. If you don't mind, we can look at this language that you're gonna do right now at 3.30 when we were gonna take up people waiting and maybe move it or close to it. We'll get close to it. Great, anything else from anybody? Okay, all right. Mr. Demeray, if you wanna go now. Okay. I'm just kidding. We will see you soon. Committee, we have Mr. Nichols coming in at 2.30. So, sorry for the unevenness of the schedule. We'll all remember this on election day for Secretary with Treasurer Pierce having canceled on us. But yeah, so why don't we come back at 2.30?