 Hi everyone, I'm Jenna Kalasky with the Vermont Council on Rural Development. So I'll be facilitating this conversation. The plan over the next hour or so, hour and 15, is to walk through a series of questions. We're going to ask a few different things to both collect input for the governor's action team that Paula described in the opening, but also to have a conversation with your region and to think about what are some things that are emerging in the arena of education and child care, things that you're concerned about or barriers that you might be experiencing today, and then get into some ideas where are some areas where there could be needs at the state level as well. I will just mention really quickly, so I'll be facilitating. We also have some other members of the team here with us. We have Kimberly Gilbert from Two Rivers is going to be describing for us. So everything that we discussed is going to be captured in those notes and we're going to do the same thing in all of the different forums and then bring those back to you to share once we're able to compile after these forums. One other thing before we dive into it, we do have some visiting team members with us. And I'll just go around really quickly. We have Allie Richards from Let's Grow Kids with us. We have Rebecca Ellis from Congressman Welch's office. And who am I missing? I mentioned Richard and Kimberly. Okay, yes, I'm sure I'm not missing anyone. And what we're going to do before we get into participant discussion. So one of the charges of the governor's action team is actually to share a little bit of region to region, what's going on in the state, what's going on in communities around these different topics. And so in every one of these forums, we've invited someone to kind of keynote the forum to just kind of get the conversation going, frame some ideas and concepts and to share what they're thinking about in this arena as we're responding and working towards recovery from COVID. So we have Allie Richards with us from Let's Grow Kids. And I've asked her to share a few opening thoughts for us. And then I would love to hear when we open it up to everyone else, I would love to, I don't feel like we have time to go around the circle in terms of introductions, but please when we enter into a conversation later, carry your name and any affiliation that you want to mention too. But go ahead, Allie. Thanks for being here with us. Great. Thank you all so much. I just so appreciate seeing all of you being here in Orange County with you physically and virtually. I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom in New Berry, Vermont, where I grew up and I'm back here because I have 20 month old infant twins and identical boys. And I need my parents and grandmothers support to get through the workday with them. So we spent a lot of time over here in Orange County and I love it and I missed it. So it really is a pleasure to see so many familiar faces as well. So just in brief opening, I'm the CEO of Let's Grow Kids and as many of you may know, Let's Grow Kids is a campaign for high quality, affordable childcare. And a lot of these discussions that we're having at the state and locally, a lot of this idea of survive versus thrive language has been using. And I think this actually governor's task force is using those words too. What's really fascinating about childcare, as many of you know, because I know many of you brought this issue to the fore and asked to discuss this, is that childcare was in a survival mode before COVID. Now many sectors are actually feeling like they are in a similar situation that childcare was to begin with, which is basically, you know, underpaid, undervalued, under respected as a society. So really, we have not found a systemic solution in Vermont or this country to actually fund childcare in a way that allows for there to be enough of it and allows for it to frankly be high quality and those who are doing it to actually be paid more than a poverty wage. So that's unfortunately a backdrop that we have been working on for years and many of you actually on this call I recognize from from doing this work. And so, you know, it's an interesting situation for childcare to be in then, when you literally have, you know, this idea of recovery and then rebuild. And childcare needed some really care and tending and attention and funding before all of this. But the positive news is we're all here today. Again, this issue has come up in every single county as a key topic. I think folks are seen, guess what, we've always understood this, but now we've really truly in our guts known it and seen it childcare is essential. We are bottlenecking our economy or bottlenecking our workforce, our kids and families were not doing right by them. If we don't get this right, so it is our opportunity as we rebuild if we rethink how we do things to maybe get this right from the beginning, but I do have to sort of couch it in this context of we were having a bit of a crisis before and perhaps we can, you know, really dig deep together as community and figure out how to get out of it. So a couple other quick things to set the stage and again, really appreciate the chance to offer this sort of opener. In Orange County alone, we have sort of done analysis kind of by county over the years and there are about 984 children who are likely to need childcare because they at least have all available parents in the workforce. They are not at home at this time and 594 of those 984 kids do not have access to any childcare in Orange County. So that's a pretty tough statistic that you will likely feel all the time. And that means that 60% of children in this county alone lack the childcare that they need. And when you talk about high quality, there's even fewer spaces. And so we know things such as there are 26 full time childcare programs before COVID in the areas serving 390 children. And we've been recently working with a lot of local programs to expand or create, be created, which is incredibly exciting. And I won't go into too much deep on this because I actually see some folks on the call that can. For example, there's a really wonderful spark story to use the VCRD terms in Randolph, a community coming together saying we don't have childcare, we need it, what are we going to do? There's a consultant hired, Riva Murphy who's on the call and there's a group of folks from lawyers, pediatricians, business folks, early educators and partners coming together to say what are we going to do about this? And so that might I hope be something that comes up in the conversation. But one example, you also have a wonderful parent child center in Orange County, which many of you are probably very aware of a huge asset that's at the table for a lot of these local and state conversations and also offering incredible care for kids and families. So that's the big picture that I just wanted to sort of unfortunately lay out of interesting proposition where it's a weakness for the state in this country. But frankly, perhaps it could be an opportunity if we rebuild and reconsider in this moment. So I'm really excited to hear from you all and what this means to you and what needs and hopes and ideas are. But let me just quickly then say in the COVID world, what the heck happened? As many of you probably saw, child care closed down when schools closed down. But unlike schools, because there's no funding stream, it was unclear if child care was going to survive as industries. And we don't know yet how we'll do just so you all know 30% of child care programs stayed open throughout the crisis under very different, as you're probably seen, very different health guidelines, masks, smaller class sizes, temperature checks, no adults, you know, in or out of the building, except for the educators. So under this new sort of world, 30% of our programs across the state stayed open to care for essential workers, children during the thick of the crisis. And now that we've reopened with all of those guidelines in place, we have actually about 70% of programs, which is much better than almost any other state reopening, because the state actually funded child care through a stabilization program to make sure we didn't literally lose it all, all of it, which we already were in a fragile situation. And without some intervention from the state, we could have really looked at some really dire numbers on top of a pretty dire situation already. So we have about 70% of programs with 50% ish capacity, some honestly are full and oversubscribed and have weightless. And some are about 50% or less because of various reasons, parent preferences or programs just changing their capacity. But what I will say, and you may notice this, we have really limited data. I can't tell you exactly what's going on Orange County right now beyond the initial analysis before COVID. And that's rough, a rough estimate even at that. We really don't know what are the state of your programs specifically, and there's no good data at a state level to dig deep. So that's a real gap that we can see that really affects how we do our work. So, you know, what's next? I think that's up to all of us. There's a variety of things that we can do locally. Again, I'm excited that maybe we can hear about some spark stories naturally in this conversation. For example, Randolph, there are local ways we can come together to increase access to childcare today in this very tough environment. We've also been very hard at work getting the legislature to give additional funds to get us through this prolonged period where it's much more expensive and difficult to provide childcare in this moment. So we have gotten $12 million actually in the last round of federal stimulus dollars for restart grants to support childcare in this very difficult time to continue to function. And we'll have more work to do when the legislature comes back on August 25th to see if we can get additional kind of bridge funding to make sure that your local centers can continue to operate. And then the thought is what's next? How do we rebuild stronger? So there's lots of ways for you all to get involved as well. And I'll just close with that. You can tell the governor and your legislators how important childcare is to you, how important early education is in this moment and beyond. You can talk to your friends and peers about it as well. You can write off ads. You can share your story. You can connect with your local childcare programs and ask them, how are they doing? And what do they need? Because it does vary greatly in this really turbulent time. So I'll just leave it at that as an opener to hopefully set the stage a little bit with some statistics and some thoughts about both childcare in general, where we were before, and how this, I would say, pandemic has exacerbated many of these problems we've seen, but also shed a very bright spotlight on exactly what has been going on and the value and the essential nature of this to all of us and our well-being and our economy and our communities. So I'll leave it there and I'm very excited to hear the discussion tonight. Awesome. Thanks so much, Allie. It's a really, really great way to open and frame the conversation. And I want to turn in here from other folks and I will say we're going to at the end of this forum welcome Allie back to share some reflections and resources as well as our other visiting team members on the call. They're going to mostly listen in while we have the conversation and then have a chance to share. So to start, the first question I want to kind of ask, and I know this is a tough question to start with, like it can be really easy to dive into the barriers and challenges. I know, you know, as a mom with a young kiddo whose childcare has not reopened, I know a lot of the challenges of what we're all facing. But I actually, first just want to hear, and I should be clear, childcare and education, right, we're talking about this more broadly. But what do you want to see in your community in this area? When you think about recovery efforts, when you think about response, where would you like the region to go? What would you like to see for the children in Orange County? And again, use the raise hand function or there's few enough of us that if you want to unmute and just like shout at me, that's fine too. Kate, do you want to say something? Yeah, thanks. Remember to just say your name and where you're, any affiliation you want to mention? Yes, I'm Kate McClain. I'm a Chelsea's Blackboard member. I'd say on our part of Orange County, what we have, as you said, the Orange County Parent Child Center right down the road in Tumbridge, which is an incredible resource, my daughter goes there. But it's before COVID had a waitlist and I just, the thing that I hear most often with my friends who have young children is not enough options. And Orange County Parent Child Center is wonderful and is really close to us, but for other parts of Orange County, it's really far away and they have a waitlist. So just dreaming would be nice to have more child care. So when you put that in the format of a dream, your dream would be to have options for everyone. Yeah, well just to, to, I guess to spread out the option so that there are closer, so that there are options closer to people in the far flung towns of our, of our county. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. Ellen? Hi, I'm just eating dinner, so I have my video off for that reason. But I'm Ellen and I work with Building Bright Futures and I, one of the areas I work with is Orange County. And my vision is for parents to have the child care option that they want, whether it's in their home, whether it's at a home child care, the location they want. So my vision is for parents to have options near them that fit what they need in their life. Yeah, thank you. Amy? Thank you. I'm Amy at Jungle Library in Randolph and I will say that in the past couple of years we have seen a rapid decline of home child care providers and that to me is very concerning. And I realize that there's a much bigger focus on child care centers and I don't, I think that it's wise to have everything be a single model. So plus that's with the business that people can engage in in their homes and in those, it's a living for great. Right. Yeah. Thanks, Amy. I think that Pat was next and then Riva. Hi, I'm Pat Moulton. I'm the president at Vermont Technical College. So I'm naturally going to put an education spin on what I, my vision for Orange County would be a good robust pre-K through 16 education system that enables infants and children prior to even pre-K, organized pre-K to have access to good quality child care close to where they live. There's got to be a way to do some micro child care models or many and whether they be registered or unregistered, but then also that Orange County residents have access to good quality secondary or primary and secondary education and good access to Vermont Tech and post-secondary education. And, you know, just a note, I mean, you know, child care of course is a challenge and that's pretty sobering news. You gave us Allie and the pre-Kovid was bad enough, but it's gotten worse. And I would argue there's similar phenomena going on in higher education as well. Not comparable for sure, but unlike organized kindergarten through grade 12 where there's a mandate you attend school, that's an option for higher ed. And it's an option for, well, it's not really an option for child care. So I mean, those who rely on the income of customers, if you will, and I know my faculty would shoot me if they heard me refer to our students as customers, but they are, it affects those entities because of income, loss of income, any number of factors. And the news has been rife with Vermont Tech and our future, I'm here to say that we have a robust future here in Orange County, but there's a lot of watershed moments and change happening throughout our economy. And I think that's a good opportunity to embrace that for child care while we look at new models of delivery and opportunities to make sure we're providing the quality child care that businesses and employers need, as well as humans of course. So that's great. Thanks, Pat. This isn't hard for you guys to come up with vision points at all. This is a beautiful vision so far. Riva, go ahead. Oh, Riva, you're muted. I just am muted. Oh, maybe I didn't. Yeah, no, I had to do it. Hi, everybody. I unfortunately don't live in your lovely county, but I'm working with the Randolph child care task force. So I really just tuned in to sort of hear everything that you're talking about and going on. But I would like to represent where the task force is right now because I think it may be of interest to the visions folks are talking about and the vision that they have. They are moving forward at trying to open a high quality, fairly large 70 over 75 kid child care program in Randolph, which would we're sort of looking at a nine town area that would sort of feed into that. That doesn't mean everybody in Orange County couldn't particularly go. It's just who looks like they'd be likely to commute into that program, which would increase the capacity significantly in the region. But the thing that I would like to say is the task force is really focused more broadly than just opening up that one program. They're really concerned about the same things that Ellen and Kate talked about and Amy talked a little bit about in terms of options and choice. So the first step is moving ahead to just make a giant leap in capacity directly in Randolph, which is a good location for many people commuting around the region. The model that they've asked me to create for them is very high quality, good wages for the staff and a model where employers, state subsidies, sort of a mixed income model where there's more than just parent tuition supporting the cost of care in the program. So that's a piece that they're working on right now with some hopes to open that within a year or so. Little bit of concern about the impacts of the COVID, the necessary health requirements, but that's a plan. But they're also very focused on supporting increasing family child care providers in the region as well and thinking about maybe this program could become a shared services hub that would support other smaller child care operations in more rural parts of the county or of the region. So that's just sort of the work that they've been doing. It's sort of the point that they've come to with a lot of optimism about about really making those expansions and options for the future. So I just wanted to report out on what that group is at this point. That's kind of great. Riba, that's more than kind of great. That's pretty exciting. And I want to hear, I actually, it's coming up, bringing up a couple of questions for me, but I do want to, maybe we can dig a little deeper when we get into kind of emerging strategies going on in the region. Does anyone have other vision points that you'd want to share before we move on to the next question? Judith, you had something you want to share? Yes. Hi, everyone. This is Judith Irving. I'm in Brookfield. And while I, it's really important to understand what the current needs are and really supportive of filling this gap of 594 kids without options, my bigger vision and hope is that we could get to a point in our society and maybe we could just do it in Orange County where we have family leave policies that support parents and young infants and young toddlers 100% better than what we do now. I am very sympathetic with the absolute need for both parents to get back at work so soon after the birth of a child, but I don't think in the big picture that's the best thing for everybody. So it would be lovely if sometime we could move towards a much more supportive family leave policy that looks a lot like other countries that have had those things in place for a long time. Yeah, thanks, Judith. So not just about the care itself, but the policies and the support that wraps around families with young children. I love that. Peter, you're on mute. There, now we can hear you. Peter Kirby from Washington. I'm basically just a parent. Fortunately, I am retired, so I do not have a problem on childcare for my daughter. However, we do recognize that there is and the numbers were scary, Ali. I knew they were bad, but they're really scary. But the problem I'm seeing is the immediacy. We are talking about school starting possibly physically in school within basically a month, I think just about a month through today here in Vermont. And we're talking about Riva was mentioning childcare for another 80 or so in the Randolph area, maybe in a year. Ali was talking about maybe getting some more funding in a month. Which, of course, then we'll have to, we'll take time to implement. I guess my question is what do we do in a month? It's a great question, Peter. And I don't know if we'll answer it tonight, but I do want to, I would love to get into that. I think it's a, this is a challenging topic, right? Where you have immediate issues, like you say, and then this ongoing thing that we've been working on for many, many years and still work to be done. So there's kind of two sides of it. I just want to really quickly, and you're presenting a challenge and I want to get into some challenges and maybe barriers. Just anyone else who hasn't had a chance to share, want to share a vision point? Eliza, I'm not sure who's on the phone there, but if you had anything you wanted to add. So what about that question of challenges and barriers? What do you think, what are you worried about in this sector? And I want to be sure we're focusing on the K-12 education as well as child care. What worries you? What are your concerns immediately or in the long term here as we work to recover? No one's concerned about that. Jenna, I would say the cost, the affordability of it all. I mean, I'm peripherally involved with the effort here in Randolph and we're talking about having businesses provide subsidies for child care in part because employers need their employees to have access to quality child care. But what happens when there's a recession or like we're in right now and businesses can't afford and the ability to maintain quality and decent wages and affordability, I mean, there's the crux of the problem and has been for decades. So there's that and then the affordability of education, K-12 education and where property tax rates are going and our ability to sustain the educational infrastructure in this state. It costs in many districts more to send your kid to high school or middle school than it does to send them to Vermont Tech. And, you know, there's something wrong with this picture and we're expensive because we don't get supported properly by our legislature where the dead last in the country and public support of public higher education. So it's the affordability that concerns me, particularly in times like now when we're having economic struggles. So that's number one in my mind. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you. And I hope I don't get it. Is it Siobhan? It is. Yes. Thank you. I'm Siobhan Lopez. I work at that Ford Academy and I'm the dean of students. And one of my concerns is that as we went through the spring with remote learning and trying to really make sure we didn't lose track of any kids is the really clear need that this time made for us of schools, schools are expected to provide a lot of services besides just education and the ones that we really felt like we needed a little more support with were mental health and access to medical care. A lot of the kids that we were working with couldn't participate in remote learning and hopefully they won't have to for that much longer. But it just was, they couldn't because of many factors, but the mental health aspect was really key. And we've always focused on that in our school as I had tried to have clinicians tried to have that be the focus of our counseling department. But it's never enough. And I feel like it sort of points to schools are expected to provide a lot of services and a lot of access. It would be great if there was a way to make that not just an expectation, but an explicit goal. If that's what we're going to do, then we should really do it all the way. Yeah, thanks. Where did you say? That's Ford Academy. Okay, great. Thank you. Amy. So the Orange Southwest School District has worked really, really hard to identify the families in the school district and bring through Brookfield and Randolph who are not connected. They don't have internet connectivity. They have been bussed in their rear ends to make it happen. And so this kind of, with dovetails, I think with what Chabon had to say, certainly telemedicine has also been something that the Martin Center has experimented with, different to a less little extent has experimented with, but having people completely unmoored and unconnected has been so detrimental. And I just, I want to hold up the Orange Southwest as an amazing example of how they went out into the community and found the people who needed help getting connected, whether that meant pointing them to the right service provider, whether that means helping them with the applications, whatever that meant. That's great. Thanks, Amy. Maybe we can dig into that a little bit more too when we think about emerging practices. I think that Judith was next, and then Carl. Well, I wanted to pick up a little bit on what Peter started, which was, we've got a very short amount of time before schools are going to do something. And I think that schools are, everyone there and everyone at the state level, are really working very hard to figure out what could that something possibly be. And I think what I'm hearing and sensing is that there's going to be a portion of parents and kids who do not want to go back to the public school situation. And so for various reasons, and then there's a group that need to go back, that want to go back, that should go back. And when I start hearing discussions about the hybrid model, which involves like one day in there, one day home, one day in there, one day home, I feel like as many as often could happen with hybrids, it ends up being the worst of both possible worlds. And I think that to a certain degree, our schools, there are going to be parents that want to establish private, you know, what's called private home academies, home schooling essentially for the for the interim. And I think what we have to start thinking of really soon is how to help them organize and how to help them provide the education in their pods out of the public school system. And just how that work. We do have a home schooling tradition in Vermont. And so there are some resources. But I don't think the state is going to is Dan French today said they've seen between a 15 to 25% increase in the interest in home schooling. And I doubt if they're anywhere near adequately staffed to support and monitor that. I just think we have to start being more realistic about where parents and kids need to want to be, and that the schools are not going to be able to be everything for everybody. Great. Thanks, Jen. It's Carl. Thanks, Jenna. And thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. I'm Carl Demereau, I'm the state representative for the Orange One District. And I this this is really helpful for me in this. I think when we go back into session in another month, you know, it's really good for me to hear these concerns that that you have around childcare and education. And I want to I want to raise one more. And that is the the chronic underfunding of public education and rural areas since the passing back 68. We have better information now about what it takes to educate children and some of our rural and more disadvantaged areas. And I think we also know now that those areas of the state are not getting a fair shake when it comes to education funding. And for those of you who want to learn more about this, UVM did a study of pupil weights in the education funding formula that they completed last December. And I would I would really strongly encourage you to read that. And I think that's one thing that really needs to be changed. If some of these rural schools had a bit more money, they might be able to do something like open a pre-K program sooner. And they might be able to have daycare programs that extended longer in the in the working day for parents. And what's that resource that you just mentioned? It's the study of pupil weights in Vermont's education funding formula. And it was done by UVM's education and social services for the for the secretary of the agency of education. So it was completed last December. So I would I think that we're we're suffering from 20 years of underfunding in our rural schools. And I think that that's that's a huge that's a big piece of where we are today. Yeah. And I just spent a little bit of time earlier this evening with some at Wait River Valley school with some folks there. And I know there's the thing that really seems to concern them is just the uncertainty. They don't really know what any of this is going to look like. And I think that's really weighing on a lot of a lot of folks minds. And Judith spoke about that a bit. So I and I don't you know, I wish I had the answers for them. I don't. We see the way this can change in just a month and we may be looking at something different in a month from now. But I I just really appreciate all of your everyone's input this evening. And it's going to be really helpful for me in the session. Thanks. So I want to hear from Susan on the idea of challenges. And then I do want to shift to thinking about emerging practices in the region. I hope I don't know if anyone can hear a toddler tantrum going on upstairs in my home. Good. That's good. That's appropriate to the forum topic, I guess. Susan, go ahead with that. I think that I will actually provide a transition to best practices. I in just in terms of thinking about what can be done now. I am struck by the fact that when child care had to step up and got state funding to do child care for essential workers, we didn't see a surge of infections from that work. Somehow those providers were able to take care of children in a way that didn't increase the infection. So I would suggest that people should as schools should look to daycare providers who have already provided these essential services and say, what did you do? How did you do it? Especially because we're talking about very young children who aren't going to mask easily and things like this. So I think there's a store of wisdom there that other elements of the educational system might benefit from. Yeah. So some sort of peer learning there, which I know was kind of happening in the child care community, certainly as more centers opened up. And of course, summer camps going on right now as well. Well, that's great. So that's a perfect shift to thinking about emerging ideas. I'd love to hear. We've heard a couple of little pieces, which is exciting to hear. But what is going on in the region today? So this is going to serve as a couple of things. Number one, it's a chance to share with each other anything that's currently going on in your region. Number two, the governor's action team is using this opportunity to collect emerging strategies that are going on around the state. The team has built a website where we're collecting stories of recovery strategies, both kind of meeting immediate needs, but then also building resilience in the long term. And we want to keep building that site and then sharing it with other across the state. So this serves a couple of purposes. But anything you want to share that you see potentially emerging today, any strategies or things that seem to be working or could work? I think I'm seeing a Gail in the chat. Health centers are working for how to help support schools to open. Gail, if you have audio, I'd love to hear about that. Yes, hi. I'm Gail O'Clair. I'm actually the CEO of Little River's Healthcare, which is an FQHC on the eastern part of Orange County. And I'm also a member of a big group collective of CEOs of all the FQHCs in Vermont organized by the Bystate Primary Care Association. And we've been talking about this very issue in how health centers can help support schools in their reopening. In fact, tomorrow I have a conference call with OESU school officials. Right now we have one of the things we've already been doing for the last few years is providing social workers at our local schools. We will limit in how many we could provide. It was mostly in Bradford and Wells River until very recently, and we've just hired several more social workers, and we're hoping to be able to provide them to schools, probably including Setford. I heard someone calling from Setford, I think, Siobhan. So I'll be talking to Emily Nicely and Kate Beaton and several others tomorrow about that. But beyond the behavioral health, we also have capacity with our nurse practitioners and possibly some of our nurses to provide vaccine clinics and also be supports for the school nurses and helping assess whether a child is really thick enough to go home or what are their symptoms really about, but actually looking at school-based medical clinics in addition to providing the social workers. So my question to the group is what kinds of things, actual practical things would you envision this being helpful for? We want to help. We don't know fully what we can do to help. And the other issue is space. The social workers is one thing. They don't have much for space needs, but when you put a medical provider in it and now you're talking about a lot more room that's needed for medical care, at least a couple of rooms. So I don't know what the capacity is of the schools, but I just want to throw that out to everyone and maybe get some ideas that I can bring back to at least OESU. Yeah. Well, Gail, that's an incredible offer of support. I just jotted that question down and I want to come back to it in just a few minutes when we get into thinking about ideas, if that's okay. Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay. I'll come back to that first thing, but I do want to just check in. Are there anything, and I have noted the kind of the work you're doing around social workers and behavioral health support in schools as something that's going on today that's a promising strategy and partnership? Any other? Judith, you have your hand up? Yeah. So a couple of ideas I've heard in the past couple of weeks that I thought were worthy of note. One has to do with structuring a lot more of the education in the outdoor space. And we all know it is going to get colder out, but there are places like Earthwalk and Montpelier that have figured out how to do outdoor education for kids year round all day long. And I think we're going to, I think that's a good idea to think about because I don't think the way our schools are structured right now and the way that classrooms are structured is really supportive of healthy environment at this stage in the pandemic. The other idea that I thought was interesting was a lot of our downtowns, and Randolph would be one of them, have a lot of empty space. And if one of the issues is that we need to spread people out more, kind of keep them with a smaller group that they are with all the time, but not right in the entire building, we got a lot of spaces downtown that various school, small school groups could turn into their own individual classroom space. So I thought both of those are of interest. That's very interesting. Is that something, Judith, that's happening today? You're saying that's something that that could be a potential to use those spaces? I mean, that's just honestly, me thinking of the realities of what resources are out there. Needs we have. Yeah, but Jenna, if I could interject, we got a call at the college from Randolph Union High School saying they were looking at options for additional classrooms should they need them. So your idea, Judith, may have traction sooner than you think, but so it's the social distancing in the rooms. We've all had to do surveys and inventories of how many students you can put in what size classroom and labs and they may find they need more space. This was an early inquiry, but so and you've got a point, Judith, a lot of empty space downtown. I haven't seen, is VTC during in-person classes? We're doing a hybrid delivery as well. We're not, we're doing instruction and lecture remotely, but bringing students in on one week intervals for intensive labs and the hands on applied learning that's so important to our programs. We are letting certain populations come and stay for the semester, but following all the state guidelines regarding testing and masking, etc. So that's not our first choice from a financial standpoint, but it's the right choice from a public health standpoint. Yeah, I'm sure that's a piece of work to navigate, though, all of those moving pieces. Wow. Can I just say as a not as a visitor, but as a squatter in Orange County, someone recently and to follow up on this great comment in the chat about, you know, this outdoor innovation starting in Orange County, you're not surprised at all by that. Recently someone came to us with the idea that maybe would be some sort of collaboration between tent companies, which are actually doing really poorly right now in Vermont and trying to create some sort of collaborative regionally or, you know, across the state to have sort of discounted tents and even like a funding pool. There were some funders that were interested in maybe supporting, you know, the basis of this to provide outdoor spaces for schools. And that work would have to start very quickly if it was real, you know, to happen before it got called. But that was an idea that I had heard from someone else that approached me recently about it that I wanted to share. Well, and in another session is Perry Armstrong, who was right in Shine Tent Company here in Randolph, who is exactly living the life you describe, Allie, so that there is an Orange County nexus to that conversation. Yeah. He did my wedding tent. Ellen. I'm not sure if this fits exactly, but my group we're working on setting up more child or babysitting courses for middle schoolers, so that they can then be trained on how to be babysitters in case something happens where there could be a one on one or one child, one babysitter to one family. So we're training parents, a few parents to be these instructors on babysitting courses as a potential to hopefully this won't be needed. But if not, it's a skill for both to have. And so that's one thing that we're doing right now. That's great. And that's Building Bright Futures is doing that. Yeah. Yeah. This area of Building Bright Futures is, yes. Got it. Not across the state. Okay. Any other, I'm curious, Riva, just briefly, you mentioned the task force, and maybe you said this and I missed it, but what is the, who's the task force made up of? The task force came out of Randolph's sort of economic development summit when they identified that childcare was a critical need around economic development. The task force was developed out of that. And it's got a very broad membership that includes schools, you know, the folks from Orange County, parent child center, the childcare providers in the area, some business folks, folks from Gifford. So it's actually has been a pretty broad task force discussing the issues around childcare. I was brought in to try to sort of facilitate coming to a decision about a childcare program. And so they've come to that point. But I think they're very committed philosophically to not just this one solution, but to the concept of building out more options. And so really thinking about making sure that all of the childcare in Orange County or in the area is of high quality and that there's an expansion of options, both through family childcare, which might be able to get some supports from a shared services hub in the region. So that's the other thing that, you know, Ali might be able to talk a little bit about that because it's an effort that lets go kids spearheads, but it's a way that a group of very small childcare providers can come together and create sort of some shared back office functions, some shared other pieces that just makes it easier for them to operate sustainably. So certainly a conversation throughout the childcare world right now, a lot of the work I'm doing in three or four different communities is around what's a sustainable childcare business model. We have been exploring, as Pat mentioned, making sure that there's, you know, the state has some participation, let's go kids, what are their purposes, increasing that participation. Parents right now pay the majority of childcare fees and it's unaffordable for them. So part of the models that I've been creating is how do we get some employer participation to offset the parent payments and then try to make this affordable for everybody. So that's a part of the work that's going on everywhere and that could extend, not just in this one childcare center that we're opening, but if you had a model that was workable and you worked openly with all the childcare providers in your area through a shared services network, you could expand that sustainability across all of those little programs because certainly in the outlier communities that have smaller populations, a family childcare home is a perfect option, but it'd be nice if they had some support on administrative functions, training, healthcare supports, the conversation about how do we make sure that they get some expertise around healthcare, those kinds of things. Yeah. Gosh, what an exciting model that could really serve as a model for the state. I mean, I'm excited to follow that work. Other, I do want to move on to thinking about ideas, but other emerging practices that you're seeing are things you're excited about in your region today. So let's shift to the question of ideas for additional action needed. And this is really about brainstorming. We're not going to, unfortunately, solve all of these problems tonight, but we have an opportunity to think through what could be done. And I'm thinking about that broadly, certainly at the community level, but also regionally, and also this is an opportunity to, Kimberly's taking these notes and these are going to go to the governor's action team and be shared up with the governor to say, like, what do you need at the state level? What's missing today in education and childcare? So all of those things are welcome. And I'm going to go to Riva first, and then I want to make sure that we come back to that question around the Little River, a Gales offer around Little River Health Center support. Riva, go ahead. So I'm going to jump right in and say that the sustainable business model that I'm building for the Randolph Group is dependent on them moving forward with a five-year plan to improve childcare that was voted in by the legislature last year. So I'm using the estimates from that plan and hoping that indeed in the future there's some increased rate increases from the state. But I think it's really important that we don't lose the momentum for childcare that we had in the legislature prior to COVID hitting, because if that plan isn't realized, as Ali said, it was in a fragile state before. It's more fragile now. I'm trying to be optimistic about if we can come back with that plan in place in the next few years as had been as a legislature passed, and those kinds of increasing investments, that's going to be huge for childcare folks. Without that, without the governor and the legislature continuing to champion the state support for childcare, childcare is going to be in more trouble. So I just feel compelled to mention that. Yeah. Thank you. So let's come back to Gail's question around any thoughts on that? How could, and I will say a little river, but health centers generally that may be more broad support schools and childcare is in reopening. Do folks see an opportunity there for partnership? Ali's nodding her head. I just, I would love to jump in here. I don't know what the rules are. I just have to say, yeah, I would love to connect to you beyond this. There's so first of all, I think it ties to earlier comments about this idea of full service schools. That's what people have been saying here. And I so agree. And an earlier comment, which was schools are doing so much. I think Yashivan was saying that, and we're doing well beyond this, you know, education, you know, social work, there's, you know, health, there's, you know, also nutrition, by the way, there's all sorts of really important things that we all know. And we don't necessarily talk about it for some reason. We don't necessarily then organize ourselves properly around funding streams to fully support it. So some people think, oh, well, look, the education dollars are really going up. But then you look at what's happening on the ground and oh, it's actually all of these things that are happening in the school that are quite costly, supporting the child and the family. And it just happened because schools are there just doing it, you know, and so it hasn't been done intentionally anyway. So Gail, the fact that you're doing this and thinking about this and asking this question is unbelievable in my eyes. And for child care, it's just what Riva sort of saying there. There's a vision out there in this work for child care specifically to sort of, again, up front as we build it, own the fact that it is absolutely there for the child and the family. It's this trusted hub that some people need. And so so many things can happen in this platform, including healthcare. So one quick thing is we saw amazing collaboration in the, especially during the peak of the crisis for those 30% of programs we were talking about for essential workers, kids that Susan mentioned, you know, didn't actually have an outbreak really, we had one program of all the programs that had two staff gets an unclear if it was related to the child care program and they were covered. And we have only had one instance of one kid in the state since the started six months ago in any child care program just positive. So there a lot of that is testament to the amazing health integration that's been happening. We've been, for example, supporting that through co hosting webinars between the Department of Health and childcare providers. So there's a lot of amazing, you know, really you're onto something schools and childcare folks really do need support of their local health care in every possible way from onsite things that you're mentioning, but just to sort of webinars and frankly having a warm line to pick up the phone and ask questions about the guidance, which is quite complicated and new. So what you're saying is incredible. And I have sort of a laundry list of things that are possible at the childcare level, at least for example, onsite developmental screenings, you know, early intervention screenings, you know, for example, hearing, you know, other pieces like that, a lot of Head Start programs do that. But instead of us all creating new apparatus, you know, apparatus for that, why wouldn't we just integrate care, you know, care coordination and onsite medical labs, as you said, with the healthcare that already is in place. So yes, my answer to you is you're onto something especially, you know, for sure childcare is ready to talk. And there's a whole litany of things that could be done, you know, for example, by you in the spaces and a lot of childcare actually do have designated spaces already to do work like this. So I love to connect offline further on that but just a little flavor of I think there's a lot of collaboration potential and when your question. If you want to put your contact information in the chat room, I'll jot it down and we can connect. I should point out that Little Rivers isn't the only one doing this. The other federally qualified health centers, a good many of them are doing the same thing in their local schools. And also the cool thing about this is because of the way we're funded, this is no cost to the schools because for a good part of the time we're there, we can bill for those visits. The social workers can bill for their visits and of course if we run a clinic, we would get billing but Medicaid covers enough to at least cover our costs there. We're not going to make money on this but we can afford to do it without losing money at least. And with more grant funding coming, this is a great project to sell to our federal funders for supplemental grants as well. So there's a good chance that there's going to be some good more good news coming down the pike in terms of capacity for health centers to do this. That's really great. Thank you, Gail. And I'll just spend an alley put her email in the chat but also in a follow-up to this we are going to send contact info for all the visiting team members too. So I'll be able to follow up that way. So let's go to Peter and then Pat. Good, I am muted this time. I hate to play the Debbie Downer because some of the ideas that I've heard expressed here tonight are marvelous and workable. However, they all require funding and we're basically looking at the state for the funding and I'm afraid at this time of the year or this time that we're in with the COVID thing, state funding is going to be extremely limited. I do not see increased funding for child care at this point. I don't see increased funding for the BTC and the other colleges and just even trying to maintain the K through 12 funding is going to be a very, very difficult stretch. We're not just looking just here in FY 21 but FY 22 as well. And as I said, I hate to be the Debbie Downer but we do have to look at the reality of the situation. I don't see increased federal or state funding coming. So we're going to have to, anything that we're going to have to do is we're going to have to find on our own. Yeah, thanks, Peter. You know, yeah, I hear that concern and also I feel like we're experiencing a global pandemic. So maybe Debbie Downer is okay every now and then. We're all experiencing some challenges. Can I hear that concern? Okay. I just, your point, Allie, about full service education and centers I think is spot on and what you and Gail are talking about a spot on. I will say, and you may recall from your time on the board, Allie, I'm not sure where NVU was but NVU used to have a child care facility Northern Vermont University because they have an early childhood program. And the idea of putting an early childhood education program together with the center makes perfect sense. They got out of that business for reasons I understand it was not cost effective. Castleton was getting ready to do the same thing and tabled it with all the COVID. So, I mean, being able to maybe look at some of those case studies to say where was the gap? What happened here? Because that seems like a natural and we have career and tech centers that have child care facilities that do seem to work. So, what's the difference between those two? And I mean, Vermont Tech does not have an early childhood program but there's nothing to prevent a Castleton or an NVU of having a program similar to that in Orange County. So, but there's something missing and it's probably funding and you're probably a heck of a lot more familiar with that than I am, Allie, but that's part of the challenge. And also, I'm going to apologize because believe it or not, I have to jump off for a 745 Zoom session. So, I apologize. I can't stay for the duration, but it's no rest for the weary here. But thank you for this conversation. I look forward to getting the notes. Well, we know you're busy. So, thanks Pat. I appreciate you being on. Okay. Bye-bye. And I see Allie is agreeing in the chat that yes, money is the challenge. Susan, do you have something to add? Yeah, I just wanted to follow up on what Pat was saying and I failed to introduce myself. I live in Thetford Center and I also just stepped off the Vermont Women's Fund. And in that capacity, I became aware of what other women's funds were doing. And some, the Vermont or the Women's Fund of Mississippi launched a very interesting program because they were concerned about single mothers and their ability to get continuing education. And so, they helped support childcare centers at community colleges. And it turned out to be a very successful program that helped the educational programs of the community college while also supporting mostly single mothers who were seeking to continue their education. And I think that that's a model that we should look into in Vermont. That's great. Thanks, Susan. Other ideas that folks want to share? And certainly people who haven't had a chance to chime in yet don't hesitate to. I wanted to respond just to Peter's comment about money. And I feel like a lot of this doesn't take money to make some of the changes. Obviously, we all wish each of our organizations had access to more funds. But to do things like I was talking about essentially having a health and mental health center in a school, that takes collaboration with existing organizations. If I could get Clara Martin, for example, to do, to send two therapists one day a week to school and Little Rivers or another clinic to send someone one or two days a week so that we could have kids have appointments in school and then get back to school instead of have to figure out the transportation and somebody leaves work and it makes it so it's not a huge amount of extra effort for the agencies. But it creates enough relief for parents that it makes it so that kids do get medical care. They do go see a therapist when they need to. And the school just provides a home for it. So I feel like some of it is about figuring out how to be creative in our collaborations and working out the liabilities rather than just finding more money. Yeah, that's true. There's going to be a lot of creativity and innovation here working with limited resources. Other ideas people want to share? Go ahead, Casey. Oh, wish. Maybe that was an accidental. Casey, were you going to add something? No, I was just making sure we were all together. You're here. Yes. So what about, I'm curious, there was a Judith, I don't know if Judith is still on, but Judith raised something earlier around like support for alternative models. I'm curious what folks think about that. You know, it's something I thought about a little bit in the childcare world, but she was talking about it actually in the context of older kids of education, right? That some people may choose not to participate or not have access to a program or any number of reasons. And she was saying we need to get folks the support that they need to do that. I just wonder if anyone had thoughts or not. I thought that was an intriguing question. I was batting some ideas earlier today with some folks about this, Jenna. And the one warning, I guess I would add, and this is something I was just going to maybe, out of my reflection, but I'll plug in now instead, is equity. I think we have to be really careful when we start talking about working. And there we go. Eleanor, this is the same thing at the same moment on the chat. When you start doing work around ideas, some of them are amazing, good old-fashioned, Vermont, common sense and grit to get through this moment that we're in. They're not necessarily permanent things that we'll do, but bridges and ways to get through this. But you do have to think, as soon as you start doing offshoots, things no longer become public goods. There's unequal access to available resources, unequal access to a variety of things. So, you know, I was thinking, I was hearing about co-ops and shares and some are home schooling and tutorials and stuff. You really have to think immediately, all of the melting pots and sort of equalizing structures that we have throughout our school systems that we see so often. We do not have a job care yet, by the way, big part of the problem. But really, they fall apart immediately. And so you have to worry about equal access and just equity and the families that will need it the most likely will just be falling behind. And this will create major gaps. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Can I add something to that? Sure. Go ahead, Reba. It was interesting because I've been talking about these concepts with some folks too. And what somebody pointed out to me the other day, we weren't talking about Vermont per se. We were talking about some of the larger school systems that are thinking about opening and the amount of risk there is to having kids in crowded spaces. But one of the points that this person brought up to me when I brought up the equity argument that you just brought up was that there are kids who may be living in conditions where their parents or emergency, or essential workers, don't have to be out in the workforce every day. There might be lots of a lot of people in the home. And they may really be needing to get back to schools, get the supports they get. If parents who have the resources to create a cohort that would keep their kids out of the school, it would allow more distancing and attention for those kids. So it was just they sort of flipped my equity argument on its head a little bit around for the kids that really need what public education has to offer. And if we want to spread the kids out a little bit, thinking about that. But I did also really like, I think it was Judith who talked about the possibility of using some spaces, some other spaces and outdoor spaces to do the same thing. But it's just a different look at that equity issue about if a parent has resources to not put their kid in the system at the moment, it allows more room and more resources for the kids that don't have that luxury as well. But it's tricky. Right. Yeah, it's all tricky. Francesca? Yes. Speaking about being very tricky, but at the same time, it could be a win-win situation having some parents that need to send the children to school and other parents that instead they prefer to have the kids at home for education. I was talking with some people like a few days ago and how really the parents are asking the teachers beside all the other things also to have their kids not on the computer all day, to provide them the education they need. And speaking about outdoor education and probably and also putting together the resources, also like talking with those youth organizations like, I don't know, 4-H, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, how they could reach out to those kids that maybe can work and do their homework at home, but maybe they can meet all together in one afternoon to do some outdoor and learning activities also for a mental health situation so that the kids don't feel trapped at home, but they can still meet with other kids. So putting also those non-profit resources together with the schools that could benefit both. Yeah, that's great. Another one of those ways to build collaboration and partnerships to get kids the resources they need. I love that. And kind of a model that Pat was describing that they're doing at BTC, right, that hybrid of online learning, but then also some in-person kind of opportunities. Amy, you heard something, Michelle? I'm still going back around to the question of families who have always elected to homeschool. Having public libraries in our communities closed, while many of them are still closed, has maybe been a problem for families to rely on those resources to get their kids? Yeah. I wish I had a solution for that because I'm at a public library. Yeah, I guess that was going to be my next question, was kind of like, are there, like, what's needed there to support? You know, this is a big topic of conversation in the Franklin County Forum as well, and it was interesting to hear some different perspectives on how libraries have started to open and what they've seen work one. One library is putting, this is weird, but putting mannequins in seats in the library so that when people are coming in on a limited basis, they feel that there's other people in the library. It was a very strange conversation, but everyone loved it and it's funny. Like, it brings some humor and some fun to the challenging time that we're living in, but it was fascinating to hear what people are thinking about there. Francesca, do you have something else to add? Yeah, I just saw that a library, actually New Hampshire, on the border with Vermont, West Lebanon, was doing something super nice. Every Saturday they were leaving some packages with handicrafts that kids can do at home. I thought it was a nice service for the parents and also speaking about these kits, like packages to leave out. The Vermont Youth Project is doing the out-of-the-box, which is this free box that is delivered to 2,000 kids in different communities, in different counties, though, towards Rutland. I thought that was just an input on how we still could deliver some practical things to the kids in these times where they cannot really meet, and that was all done also with private business support, of course. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I love that idea. That seems like one of those things that should go up on that promising practices website. I see Eliza here is sharing an example at the Tunbridge library doing some work reaching out to families in a variety of ways. That's excellent. Thanks for sharing that, Eliza. We've got about a minute before I want to turn to the visiting team. Does anyone have some last ideas that you want to share, have the last word? I'm seeing a Douglas joining us, but it looks like some echo there, but feel free to chime in if you want to add anything before we move to our visiting team. I'm all set. Okay. Well, thanks for joining. No, you're fine. I'm just listening in right now. Sure. Well, so I think we're going to turn. We've got Ali Richards with us, and we've got Rebecca Ellis from Congress from Waltz's office. Rebecca, why don't we start with you, and Richard and Kimberly, too, if you have any reflections you want to share, feel free to chime in as well. Rebecca, do you have some reflections you want to share? Well, unfortunately, one reflection is that I kept losing my internet. I wasn't sure if you were... I've been on it three times, so I've really only been catching snippets of conversation. Yes, so I think I'm going to pass tonight on off three comments, but it's been fun to be here for the minutes that I was on, while my teenager was walking through the house and talking to me as well. Oh, isn't it fun working from home? Well, thanks for being here, and I will share Rebecca's contact info and follow-up, and if you have anything to share with the congressman or with his office, then Rebecca is there. Ali, you want to share some last reflections? I would love to. Yeah, what a pleasure, folks. I also have the honor of being part of the Council on Rural Development now, and this just shows me why it's been so successful, because you really brainstorm some really amazing nuggets here and some actual ideas, but I will say I heard a lot of really interesting things. One really pragmatic thing I wanted to follow up quickly with Amy's earlier comment about home-based providers, and we've addressed it a little bit. We see a massive trend in the reduction of home-based providers across this country, not just in Vermont, and a lot of it is actually women aging out. A big population of women who are doing it are just at retirement age now, and there was a boon about 20, 30 years ago in that, but there are ways to, for example, that's for kids, we certainly are promoting any, back to the very first visions of folks in this call, any type of option for childcare that works for you in a setting that works for you, and that's a mixed delivery system of in schools and centers and at homes and such a rural place like Vermont, and hearing specifically the challenges of Orange County, there is a role for home-based providers, and there's a way that we can unlock that through some of the strategies you all brainstormed today, these sort of like shared services hubs and creating economies of scale and support so that you actually can have this robust sort of system that includes that. So that was one thing I really wanted to address. I also, I think it looks like Judith is gone, but yeah, we're one of four countries in the world that doesn't do family leave, so great point. That was sort of an early point that there's a lot that might be happening now in this COVID world that perhaps we're going to, as a society, look at and to hear really good point, Peter, about urgency and affordability and funding. There is an interaction with some federal funding here, perhaps for example, there's a lot of momentum about pay family leave federally. Boy, wouldn't that be helpful for a little state like Vermont to have a federal solution to that, so we do not need to figure that one out, but we don't usually hold our breath for that because we get our stuff done here ourselves and done quickly, and then I would just say to the broad, broad point, affordability, funding, everyone's talking about it. It's always, it's always the pain point. I wonder if we're ready to just break it open, let's just break it open, change the way we do business, change the way our funding flows in the state. We're seeing so many this pandemic as you all are bringing to the fore just in the education lens. We're not even in the broadband part of this discussion, Rebecca, which I'm sure would have been very timely for you today with your woes. Basically, we are seeing some serious inequities, some serious faults, and maybe this is the force we need to actually break it open and have that urgency. Peter and so many of you were talking about, so for us child care, it's this example of, yeah, it is funding. We're going to have to find that funding. When you do, this is what we've not experimented with yet. When you do, maybe you actually get yourself out of the rut. It's rethinking affordability all together and putting some upfront investments, and then you see perhaps reduction in costs across the board, and perhaps your demographics go up, and your grand list expands, and your tax base expands, and you have a jolt of energy into the economy. It's totally breaking open affordability and thinking about it, but as so many of you touched upon that issue today, is the time to be very bold. That ties right into what we've been others were saying too about the legislative aspect. There's so much, again, these sort of little sparks that happen locally, and I see it happening right here, and then you can create a model or just elevate an issue to a point where the legislative advocacy and funding and prioritization follows, but absolutely all those things interact, and I'm hearing you all talk about them so fluidly today. Then I would say the last thing that we haven't covered yet from my notes from the conversation is just that we talked about equity really important to think about that lens as new ideas crop up in this odd moment we find ourselves in, but then this idea of can we learn things from childcare before we reopen K through 12 schools. Susan brought that up earlier, and we're hearing so many amazing ideas. Francesca and others about the outdoor piece. Outdoor is going to be a key thing here. We already can do it, we've thought a lot about it. It's going to take some serious Vermont grit to do that as the temperature dips, but there are lessons that can be learned in the childcare that Susan brought up, and they include you've already touched upon some of them, small class sizes, really good connections with healthcare folks, keeping as many few adults, unfortunately as possible, there are really big challenges that you see in K through 12 that you don't see in childcare. A lot more adults involved, a lot more larger sizes, congregate settings, all those things need to be worked out. So childcare was able to work out a lot of those things. And also it looks like research is showing the younger kids are not vectors for this virus, which is amazing from a public health standpoint, but older kids are and it's not quite clear where that cutoff is. So just reflecting back on what I'm hearing from you all, there are absolutely lessons to learn and some pitfalls and challenges too between the childcare piece in the K through 12. So I'm left with tons of hope. Of course we have challenges. I am left with tons of hope. We're not going to have a choice, but to move on these things quite urgently, I would say. And so with great thinking and participation, civic participation like you all are showing tonight, we might just be able to get it done of what we are small enough, and we do listen to our communities a lot more than other places. So for that, I'm grateful. So thank you all very, very much. Very fun to be with you. This is my first visiting team day. So I hope I did okay. And I just really, really appreciate you all and your engagement. I think you did great, Allie. Thank you so much for those reflections. Richard or Kimberly, did you want to share any reflection in the conversation? I know you were focusing on managing and note-taking, but... Thanks, Jenna. I don't have too much to say except I was kind of just, tonight's comments and participation and discussions give me a ray of hope for all of the monitors. You know, realizing that child care, K-12 education, pre-K-12 education, and higher ed underpins our economies. It's important for both local and state economies. And the ray of great, I just discussed today and tonight, I'll also just hope and to this version of it. So I just want to thank everybody for participating while I was kind of managing some of the IT back in the court. Thanks, Richard. Appreciate it and appreciate your help managing as well. Kimberly, do you have anything you want to share? Not too much. I was mostly here to listen. Thank you all. I learned a lot. So I'm a planner at the Regional Planning Commission. So I would just plug in a note that you all had such great ideas. And if you haven't already, be sure to share with your Town Planning Commission. Child care is an element within town plans. And it's a great way to get your vision, you know, in a town endorse document. Great. Thanks so much. And to close, I'll just say, well, I want to say two things. Number one, I want to say that I also am encouraged by this conversation. So Vermont Council on Rural Development manages community conversations all around the state. And I admit, and I shouldn't admit this here, but maybe four or five years ago when towns were coming up with like, we really want to work on childcare, I admit to thinking like, gosh, like how, how, how is a community going to tackle this issue? It's primarily private, you know, businesses and blah, blah, blah. So years ago, that's what I thought. And I've just, I've learned and I've come around and just hearing you all talk tonight. And over the years, I've learned, you know, communities are really rallying around or trying to, you know, rally around young children, rally around their local schools, rally around their childcare providers and educators and I think in some ways I admit this conversation, I think maybe there are things going on in this region that are further along than another part of the state. And that could really be models. And so I'm excited to learn even more. The other thing I wanted to say is thank you all for being on this call and for the work that you're all doing. I mean, all of you, educators, childcare providers, library, leaders, legislators, all of you are working tirelessly on behalf of families and children in the state. Peter, you said you're just a parent. That's heroic too. We're all in this together and we're all working hard to support the kids in our state. So just really appreciate your time on the call and all the work that you're doing. So what we're going to do now is head back to the closing session. Just a couple of notes to do that, very similar to how we ended up here. So hopefully we can all figure out how to end up back there. And we're a couple of minutes really, so you can take a couple of minutes and get in there too. But Richard has posted the link to get back to that meeting. And I will say too, just a quick mention of follow-up. Kimberly took all the notes today. We are going to get that survey out. So if you have ideas that are coming to you or additional things you want to share, we'll be sure to be in touch with that as well. So again, on this meeting, we're going to click leave in this meeting and then either copy that link there and plug it into the website or grab that link off of your email or the VT rural website. I'll see you all in a minute or two in the closing forum. Thanks so much, everyone.