 Ms. Garsus, how are you? Great, how are you? Great, it is great to see you. Thank you so much for having me. Well, we're so glad you're able to come in in person. And I know if you were still here, Senator Garsus could give you a special welcome. Well, Senator Garsus could be here, yeah, yes. But if Senator Weeks were here, I'm sure he would give you a special welcome as well. We're grateful that Ms. Garsus is here to talk about the Human Rights Commission and give us an overview of discrimination and harassment. And I know you have provided us with a handout. And I apologize, you did reach out to me earlier to come in and I'm sorry, I didn't tap it on it faster. So we're glad you're here now. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And just so you know, Senator Weeks will be coming in. We just had our second work, sort of policy update and we're trying a little bit. So yeah, for the record, my name is Amanda Nassis. I am the Director of Policy Education at the Human Rights Commission. And I really wanted to give you an overview of how our commission works and some of the things that we're working on. We think it's really important to just kind of have when you're talking about thinking about discrimination and thinking about public schools, just kind of our role in that. So I gave you this really short presentation one for me to give you in line. We've got a great process. And so the commission has been around for about 30 years and we have been the chosen entity to enforce the discrimination laws. And we are independent commission. So I wanna walk you through what we do. So we enforce the follow the discrimination law, the Fair Employment Practices Act. And these folks is more on state employees. So even employees retaliated against because they took co-workers compensation or parental leave or they want a flexible working condition or they're just being discriminated against. That's that is an arbitration. If they work for a private employer then they go to the attorney general's office. Our next one is the Public Accumulations Act and that is really broad, which is great for Vermont so we enjoy a very broad definition of public accommodations and yes, the first page. And our boards have had places of public accommodations also include governmental entities and our statutory place, the place of public accommodations includes any school that brings in cases that also brings gifts from inmates, police brutality. So it's really broad. And we also see cases against hospitals or clinics and so forth. So that's our jurisdiction. Could you say a little bit more about that while we're on it? So everyone has to follow all businesses, government, schools, everyone, public independent apps has to follow the public accommodations. Yes, anybody. So it's with anybody that has, you know is providing a service to people in the state of Vermont. So that's our state statute. So give us some examples of what that would include. So that includes an inmate who is not getting service at a correctional facility. You know, we had a case of someone who was not provided here in aid. We have cases where in restaurants, if they're not being served because they're black or Latino, that that is a place of public accommodation. So anything that's providing a service to the people. So if you're, so as we're the education committee, I can see of course some of those things could come up with faculty and staff at any school, but how does it relate to, is it related all to educational opportunities or offerings, for example, if your child, well, does it in any way? So harassment in school is our jurisdiction. And so if any child is being harassed because of a particular category that person to be into there. I think for teachers who are, that they go to the furniture office because those are considered private employers. So that it's not our jurisdiction. Students with disabilities also are not our jurisdiction within that piece like they was like an IT related. And so let's say that you have a student that is not allowed to join a student group and like the school staff is providing that support, then that community could come to a pass. We've had cases where Rachel has more cases than I did. Remember I'm the education original, but so in terms of schools, we have a lot of harassment cases that come through. You do, right? Yeah. And we've seen an increase of those, that's right. So with the IEP, for example, if a school doesn't follow the, let's say I had a child, they're great. They had individualized medication plans. The school didn't follow it, for example. Do I as parent have the ability? Is that what? No, but I think that, no, the IEPs go through like the agency of education and the whole special education act. But if they're not providing some IEP because they're black because it is related to its protected category and that it's considered discrimination, that it's a little different, but not like not following the IEP or not doing like that structural pieces of the special education law software. Sound right. You said, I may have misunderstood what you said, but said something about hearing aids. Yes. Can you say that again? Yes, yes. So we had a case in one of the prisons where an eatmate was not getting their hearing aids that is based on disability, so that places of accommodation that are providing that service, that support for that. So that was one of the cases that we have in the new report. You'll see that's one of the losses that we had. Okay. Thank you. And then the third piece is the third housing act and that's kind of a mandatory event that is being discriminated against because of the protected category around housing. This could include giving harassment neighbor to neighbor, maybe that's something that's not allowed. So that's kind of like our statute. We also have some of gender neutral backgrounds that we oversee, which has been Act 1.7. And here's a list of all kind of our protected categories and how they are related to each of our three statutes. So you could see rates, it's in housing, all those types of things going on. What is the law on gender neutral backgrounds? Because I've seen, I thought I understood it, but I go around different places of restaurants and they all have a different, I think there was a symbol that was supposed to be there, so they're supposed to have single use restaurants who have the gender of the intro. So if they have one single school. Okay. So that's actually good point. Some places only have one class and they use that as male and female class. So no, it's okay. So they have all the time. So people can send us in order to say, hey, when does this restaurant and they can have it? And then we'll send a letter to them and try to get them to do it. So the way that our enforcement works is people put a complaint and the agency will receive the complaint. We will open up an investigation so that goes to our attorneys. Oh, we have six attorneys, I don't know. Six employees, we have six staff. Our executive director, their assistant, myself and then we have staff attorneys. So they begin an investigation. Through all this time, they can start negotiation proceedings for settlement to try to settle their case at all of these stages. They issue a report that will say, we find reasonable grounds or not and that report is given to the commission that needs to be here. There's six commissioners that have commissioners that are appointed by the governor and they look at these cases on a multiple basis. And if, so again, like through all this time, there's trying to have settlement agreements. And then once they get up to the commission, if they found reasonable grounds, they can, it goes back to our executive directors for either try to settle the case within, I forget how many days, and then if not, they go through the litigation. So we have some cases in litigation and you can see in the report, a lot of that. So in terms of education, like we also are part of how we clean investigation. We also do a lot of proactive work. We sit on a bunch of workforces. I sit, I chair the foreign and partial police and committee, I chair staff, one working group and we have some colleagues that are the criminal justice council and then I also sit in the criminal and harassment council. And so a lot of the work that we are doing is proactive education outreach. We do inclusive ice training by center intervention and then trying to push our culture shifts and in our education system as well. So there are a few things that you can do and in terms of education, that we think is really important is to kind of locate our bullying harassment cases. Like I said, those harassment cases have increased. It could be, you know, part of, because of the work that we're doing around Act 1 and moving that work, but also because of the outreach and education that we do with a lot of our grassroots organizations that are a Vermont around education. And we have some really specific suggestions for the agents of education to kind of hire someone that can lead a bullying harassment campaign that can support cultural shifts in our schools, including independent schools. Do you have those recommendations? No, I don't. But I can send them. That'd be great. Yeah. I think that one of the things that we also see that bullying, for example, doesn't have a way, like so harassment cases can come to us, but in cases where we have a clear channel outside of the school district. So having a channel for students who are being bullied that is being defended as well will be really important. And then there's just a need to have more conversations about how that cultural shifts. Would you go deal with the bullying now? You said they're gonna start channeling, bullying through YouTube? No, no, no, no, no, we're saying that it needs to exist for another channel, but not necessarily us. It could be the agency of education have any different channels for that. So one of the, there's a bill in the house that is coming up right now by the person that's coached previously that is to change one thing in our harassment laws, which is the severe and pervasive law. So we asked the house last year and basically is clarifying the standard around a severe pervasive. So one example is when to prove severe pervasive in the harassment laws, you have to really, really have a level of opportunity here. So you have to, if you are a woman and touch your breath at your work, that is not considered severe pervasive. If you have a coworker that's asking you over and over again, locate and you're saying no, that is not considered severe pervasive. And so what we're trying to shift is to be able to allow for more people to come to our door and to give this opportunity for people who are experiencing what, of course, my say that it's not to be considered severe. So that goes over there, but I would love for you to think about the support then. I can't, we can take any more details about what kept it safe. I have a question. What is, what would the alternative standard be compared to the severe pervasive or pervasive standard? So that what we have right now is a severe pervasive, right? And it just, it has a high bar. So for someone to come into the door, you have to just, I don't know, maybe Rachel can talk more about what it looks like. And it's early and we go, hey, Rachel, hi. Do you want me to, for a record, I'm Rachel Selig, I'm the director of the Disability Law Project at Vermont Legal Aid. So the question is like, what does your pervasive look like? I can give an example of a student with a hearing impairment who is continuously ignored by classmates or teased by classmates or called names by classmates because of their use of an assistive device for here. Or I can give an example of a student with a disability who is also biracial, who is sometimes teased because of their disability and sometimes because of their race and sometimes because of their gender. We would view that as severe or pervasive, whether the Office of Civil Rights or the Human Rights Commission can include that really depends on the evidence available. But oftentimes it starts with words and then becomes physical. And what we often see is that the student who's being targeted finally responds and then they are the ones who are removed from the situation rather than the students who have been targeted from that. So what, so if the severe or pervasive standard was removed, what would the alternatives be? So we had some language that passed it through the House last year that would lower the standard and I apologize, not remit, do you have the specific words that we had last year, Mada? But essentially it would be more than kind of minimal or annoying, but it would be, so that a child doesn't have to go through three or four or five or six incidents of being the target of their peers before they can have their district take a look at the situation and say, yes, it's harassment and then do the education and whether it's restorative practices or other kind of positive behavior interventions and supports, our hope is that it's an educational process and the students learn and if that still doesn't work, then move on to kind of more disciplinary consequences. But we're also working very hard to ask you and not let kids be removed from school for disciplinary reasons. And so it's all connected in our view, yeah. So are the incidents, if you just talk about on the increase, decreasing or are they increasing? No, they're very much increasing, yeah. Yes, I think we've gotten six intakes that have to do with harassment or bullying in the last week and a half. I mean, that may be a little bit of an overstatement, but it's quite frequent that families are calling us and feeling like their schools just don't have the capacity to address it because schools are overburdened. And I think that so the part is like that we need to really look at this as an holistic way, you know, the agency is that it's an enforcement agency and we don't represent students, right? So like that, so they usually go to us if there's a disability, sometimes it's a... That's right, stepped out. So you're with... I run the disability law project at Vermont Legal Aid. I did put myself on the record. No, no, no, I just, no, I thought this, I thought this. Yes, no, I'm glad you told her, that's not what I'm glad to do. I was like, I told her she could if she wanted to. Great, that was great. And so, yeah, I think looking at this from a holistic perspective, you know, the work that is happening around like mental health and what is needed, like it can't be alone, it has to be connected to all the things. Like, well, how are we dealing with bullying and harassment? We can just pass the policy, right? But what is the support, the training? We are kind of working to, with the observational equity to come up with the training for students and families to know your rights around, know your rights and you know, waiting for the agency to be able to not take the policy. I think that, so there is ways that the Senate can really support students right now by saying we think we're into us because we know that there's an increase. And many families feel hopeless. And so I can bring many here that say, you know, I don't know what the answer is. So I'm just kind of pleading for them to look at these in the email level as you have this conversation about public dollars. That we're also looking at how we are supporting our families in our public schools as well and in the public schools that are dealing with this. I think it's great that you're looking at it because I think it's more a problem than a lot of people realize. I think, you know, my daughter used to come on from crying every night because she wanted to be a part of and picking on her all the time. It wasn't really one of them. And I mean, it really has a devastating effect on these students. Yeah. Ms. Garza, last year, we passed a bill by Senator Rompkins, Senator Sears's bill that's no more suspension's expulsion to, I think no one under was third grade or something like that. Yeah, or actually it was age eight. It was age eight, that's right. Okay, okay. Do we know how, do you have any sense of what's happening out there? In your, you know, again, I know you're not representing students, but anything that you're hearing from your side of things. I know. You want me to answer? Yeah, please, absolutely. So first, we have a whole proposal that we would love to talk to you about following up on Act 35 and that work group. In terms of the removals of children under age, we are still seeing it happen. We are seeing families being told it's not for disciplinary purposes, but you can't bring them back because we don't have staff or we need to set up a program for them. And we've had students out of school for months, months because the staffing of the staffing shortage and they're not willing to allow the child in. So we're still seeing it with children under eight. And I think we're actually seeing because of staffing shortages, schools feeling like they have to revert back to more traditional discipline instead of positive behavior interventions and supports reinstituting things like detention, after-school detention, in-school suspension, just separating students that have become behavior problems rather than working on meeting the needs to help them deal with those behaviors. And so some of what I think we would love to talk with you all more about are things like additional teacher training, additional funding at the agency to have an expert on safe and inclusive schools to support the districts, much better data collection on the use of restraints, seclusion, exclusionary discipline and kind of more longitudinal and more, you know, with more of an equity-based lens to it. And so we've got a whole bunch that we'd love to come talk more about because unfortunately, just saying no, you can't suspend children under eight doesn't mean children under eight aren't being pushed out if there's an issue. And I know from the school perspective, it's actually been a challenge because of the third-grade thing. They have some eight-year-olds and some nine-year-olds. And so why are the eight-year-olds getting treated differently than the nine-year-olds? I would welcome that. If you'd like to get on the subject of crossover, you can work with Hayden. We know that there is, Texas did the study, you know, school-to-prison pipeline, if you're suspended or expelled, you get behind. It's tough to get caught up. You start acting out, you drop out. I mean, I think the evidence is incredibly clear. So the question is, how can we help our schools meet the need rather than excluding students? So I, and I hope, yes. You sort of act 68, is that key? Act 35. 34, yeah. And they did a report. They did do a report and your counterparts on the house did hear from some of the people who worked on the report earlier, I think maybe earlier, I guess earlier this month. And I think those same folks would be happy to come in and talk about the report and, you know, talk about what we think are good next steps. So. Yeah, and it would also be great to understand whether or not, and this is a little bit of your work, but back to the bullying piece, how hard is it for a kid to get out of a school, you know, where it was end of civilian as a bill that could allow you, I think, to their five elementary schools in that district, bam, put you in another one, you know, make a little, just be able to, without a lot of sort of formal action given the severity that that's bullying. I think there are risks of disparate treatment with those, especially for students with disabilities, having another school have the choice to take them or not take them because of their level of need. And I can tell you from my work, the only situation where I was able to move a high school student from one public school to another public school, not in the same district. Because they were so vocal. Was a situation where they were so scared of the school, they couldn't walk out their front door. And we heard from a student last week, where's the family had to move? Yeah, we definitely had families, for sure. And we do have a lot of them. So part of the work that I do as an educational outreach is kind of hear all these stories so that I can, like before they even come to the agency to get a case, try to support them in other ways. Negotiate them with the schools to see if we can move them. And so there's a team of other organizations that support parents. Once the kids, there's a kid that comes through them, I kind of broke up myself. But we try to support some of these families to see what can happen and so they feel supported. In some of these districts, there's not enough type of folks who can support and that can understand what is happening to the family. So it's really still prevalent. And I do want to just encourage that when we're, we need to look at the holistic picture of all the cases and which is an excellent resource. You're so nice. Well, I'm always with a little bit of you, but because I think that the attorneys kind of know, like the case is a lot more for the prevalence. We have more of a view that we know that cases are increasing and a lot of it. So when you look at the harassment data, also like we don't see all those kids that settle. That's not what we see. So that data, when we're looking at it, we're like, wait, I know these cases, but they got settled. So you're not seeing that. Nobody's seeing that. So the cases actually are higher than what we see in the data. Sure. Thank you. Yeah, this is such a broad issue but it's a unique to schools. I mean, three of us are in health and welfare. We're talking about folks in the healthcare system who, well, many of them are not getting the care that they need, but also healthcare workers who are being assaulted. And so it's a really difficult moment in history, I think just because they're just the way we're treating each other as human beings and- We're seeing it in this building. Yeah, I want to say thank you to both of you. Rachel's already helped me in another issue before. So you are there for the folks who don't have a voice and who are often unheard. And it's really important work. And I just really can't thank you enough for what you do. It's an extreme individual student and family have to move. And we still have the problem because the only thing we changed is that individual student life. We don't adjust the issue with the real project. The culture. Yeah, there's a cultural shift that needs to happen. And I am really supportive of all the schools and the educators. It's not easy, right? It's not easy. It's so hard. And we don't have mental health support. We don't have enough special educators. So like we understand, but we should always increase advocacy and ensure that if things are not working, that we shift system. And it's like for me, creating this very informative piece around supporting students that might not have a case. So here's a personal story. When I was 16, moved to the U.S., didn't know English, was in the school, was bullied for about three months. And one day I lost it. And I got up. I was like, who are you talking to? There was paper on the floor. And the teacher was like, oh my God, did you see a therapy? I was like, oh my God. You know, like so, but that's what it was. It was like three months. And then when I was taken to the principal office, one of the students came and was like, no, yeah. Like the teacher never noticed that they were bullying her for like, I was sitting next to her, but nobody had done anything, right? So like those are the cases where we see a lot of this behavior. And then the person that has been bullied, kind of loses it. And then because there was not that processing place to support them or like, you'll see. So I think this is very dear to my heart. And yeah, so. Yeah, there's content lessons. You've got to carry all of that with you. Goodness worth therapy. But yeah, so this is just in a way to start the conversation about what is the holistic shift that we need to make and support our systems to be better. Well, all right. So one last question. Sorry. Please don't worry. We're talking about systems. What's the role of parents in like systemic change? Do you ever bring them in in terms of, and trying to educate? Because it's been, you know, we're all connected in various ways. I mean, she's your witness. So I want you to. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. The first thing I would say is that when it comes to students with disabilities, Vermont has as every state is required to a state special education advisory panel that is required to have a majority of the members be other people with disabilities or parents of students with disabilities. And I've been on that panel for the last several years. And for the first time, I think ever in the history of Vermont, our chair is now a parent of students with disabilities. So that is an important way for the agency and the board to be getting advisement on areas one might need for students with disabilities. And I can guarantee, I promise you, we've been talking a lot about restraints, seclusion and exclusionary discipline, harassment and bullying, the workforce shortage. Those are all topics that are on that agenda on a regular basis. And I think that our chair would be very happy to come in and talk about the work that we're doing and what we think you all could do to support that work. Parents have certain rights under the IDEA for participation and they have the right to things like parent training and that sort of thing. And I think there is very much room to improve access to parent training and true incorporation of parent view into these processes, not just for IEPs, but when issues of bullying and harassment, when a student becomes dysregulated and they're subject to a strict seclusion and in terms of the exclusionary discipline process, the due process rights that have been established by the Supreme Court, which are what we have in Vermont, we haven't gone above that bar, are fairly minimal. And I think a lot of parents don't even realize when they're having their informal hearing before their students suspended. So I think there's work that we could do to improve the parent role in many of these issues and the inclusion of parents at the district level and the school level. And I think, so Act I, you know, places a lot of view on the parents role too, especially when it comes to like the education, it comes to curriculum for communities that might not have that many people of color or people from other community communities are like supporting that work on it. And there's a really great examples of families who have gone through a bullying or harassment, who created them equity committees. So like, I think there are tools in there where some schools are doing great and have equity committees that have parents involved that do some education around the community processes. Some are not there yet. So I think there's hopefully more work around that. That there are things in place where, you know, site councils where they can have the knowledge of the parents to support those things. Thank you. Great seeing both of you. And you'll email Hayden, we'll have you back. I'll do that right now, Hayden. Yeah, yeah. And I will email you. Great. The pervasive, severe pervasive in case you guys want to add it somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it will actually, so tell us a little bit, what would you like us to add exactly? So the language change. The language and the harassment and then it passed already on the house last year in the fair housing. Oh, so it wasn't in an education bill? No. Okay. But so we need to add it. We need to correct the standard in the education in the Public Accommodations Act. Okay. And then we include, you know, education to schools. So that's how we are. And then we need to also add it in the, wait, in the Fair Employment Act. So like, we're trying to correct it for the three sections. Okay. We have our Ledge Council behind you, Ms. St. James. Is this? Damien Leonard. Damien Leonard. Okay. Yeah. But it is education law that Damien would be edited, would be. I haven't seen the bill about St. James Office of Legislative Council. I haven't seen the bill recently. If memory, sir, I don't know. I don't want to speak to that. But because we're dealing with public accommodations and the critical down of that related to the hazing harassment and bullying policies, Damien is taking the lead on that. Okay. So there is something out there right now. And do we know where it is right now? So the house, the house has a bill now that was just, yesterday, got a number by representative coach. And I really, Senator Rump wanted to do something, but I have not seen it. Okay. So I want to, I can. When you see her, one option for us is always if it's, if it's something, like I don't know if it could go or should go into a miscellaneous education bill, but just know that that's a vehicle for us for the next couple of weeks. And I can touch base to the center and she'll also, I don't know if it's, you could just leave the mesh there for some reason, but we do have a vehicle if it makes sense. I would love that vehicle. Okay. I will check. My favorite vehicle. You can add anything almost to it. Well, yeah. It will be changed to their public accommodations, which will include schools. So that's. So before we vote out the miscellaneous education bill, in fact, next week, why don't we have a discuss this and again, just so we have the language and we'll have Damien Leonard in with you also. And that would be an opportunity for us to amend the court if again, but he may come back and say, Hey, you know, this really has to go in a different way. You know, the thing about the miscellaneous education bill that I worry a little, if it's very serious policy, I want to make sure not that things in miscellaneous that are not serious, but there are different levels of seriousness. I want to make sure it's the respect that it needs. It may need to travel in its own. So. Great. Thank you. And if I'm not here, my executive director will be here. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And she's actually much more. All right. I love her, but I'll have to be a part of it. Thank you. Oh, you will. I'll have a great time. But I will make that happen. Thank you. And Samelia, good to see you. Oh, we can see you. Thank you. Thank you. Perfect. Yeah, thank you. Instagram. Thank you. You know, while we're on this topic, I'm just, we're looking at the school safety bill. And we're looking at a new version that we hope to leave up next week. And it does occur to me that having heard from the carcass that we should make sure that, you know, human rights campaign, the ACLU, others are kind of following and tracking this work, which Human Rights Commission, which they usually do on their own, but maybe we should just reach out to the ACLU in particular. Do we have your part? Yes. Okay. Just to make sure that everybody is on the same page as we move forward. The same chance. Good afternoon. Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Council, to just follow up on the conversation we're just having. I found the bill you all were discussing related to the definition of severe pervasive and harassment. It is 8359. What is it living right now, do you know? It was just introduced. It was just introduced. Oh, so let me tell you where it was referred. It was referred to General and Housing. Okay. It does make, it does amend, I think I looked at this language a long time ago, it does propose an amendment to the definition of harassment in Title 16, to be consistent with that definition in other areas of the Vermont's definition. And Title 16 is something we all know well, so is that in your opinion, something we could amend in a miscellaneous education bill saying that this is, or should it all be done? It is certainly, it's that many Title 16 is certainly within your purview and jurisdiction. How that is done, I think is a policy decision. Having piecemeal amendments. Doesn't feel great, but. There's nothing illegal about that. Sure, sure. But that is a consideration. So if you'll talk to Senator Rockinsville, and I'll try to talk to her and maybe we see where the bill is. And it would make sense if you could touch base with the House Committee to make sure that they are going to move this soon if it's a priority. If you believe, if you end up feeling like you want that section that is our jurisdiction, Title 16 amended, for example, they may say, because it's late crossover. I mean, I don't know if they're going to take this up, you know, in the next two weeks, eight days basically, if you can wait till next year, okay, but if you'd rather have it just amend 16, let's not. Okay. So we'll leave that with you. Great. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Andy Barber, delighted you're here in the World Wide Web out there. Thank you. Yeah. Great. So we are going through in, Ms. Barber, do you have the most recent copy of the school safety bill? Yes, I do. Thank you. You should have draft 3.1 with today's date on it in front of you. Goodbye, Lizzy. You all have? We're going to move on. Yeah, okay, great. The changes between really draft 1.1, but also 2.1 and this draft are highlighted in yellow. I made one highlight in, I think it's debatable whether that's blue or green. It was blue on my computer screen. Just as there was a policy decision to be made there with the use of our templates, but the changes between yesterday and today are very minimal. I don't know if you want me to walk through them or you want to get right into the policy questions you left on the table. Thank you. Sure. So we're looking at section one, amendment to section 1481, the fire emergency preparedness drills on page two in response to testimony you received. And because this is all new language, I'm not going to see a strike through for the changes. You're just going to, I get to delete it as I like. So each school district four that operates a school shall adopt a policy that used to be the supervisory union. And I went ahead and made online three. I went ahead and added the S to drills based on the conversation yesterday about a singular versus plural and what the singular excluded. And then we added the words at each school site in the open. And there's in the, I think they did catch that in the, I'm sorry, where are you? And on page three, in the fall, there's two in the, in the, mine three page two. Yes. In the fall and spring of the academic year. So I'll obviously fix that. And then template was a policy decision on, there was so, back and forth on that. And then the sentence was added in issuing the guidance to Vermont school safety center at the Vermont school crisis planning team to include trauma informed best practices for implementing options based drills. That way, which did not supplant anything. I don't know what the addition. Thank you chair up online too. Sorry, I didn't have a chance to speak up at that point. The opposite, each school district board that operates a school. I'm just wondering if operates is the correct term there. And I'm sorry, because I know that he switched up from supervisory and yet that school board operates school district. I believe that that, I don't ask. So this is the base language there was drafted not by me. So I don't want to speak to the intent of the drafter but the way I interpret it, this is there. Every school district, not every school district operates school, right? Those are the sending the steps. And though operates a school is a term we, is a phrase that we use to talk about. We could certainly say maintain the school. I think that's a commonly used term, but that to me, I read that as if you are not tuition in your kids because you have a school. Gotcha. Okay. So it's not actually operating. That's sort of the term of arts, it's used in the law. Are you asking or? Asking. When you say operates, are you asking if it's a term of art related to this particular situation or in general? In this situation or in the law, I'm only asking because I just have to laugh as someone who is on the school board, we constantly make the point that we're not operational. So I'm just, so I think the reference, so it's the school district that's operating, the school ever, you know, it's the voters, the, I understand that there's, I understand that the administration of the school is doing the day-to-day operation. I believe that this is meant again to differentiate between a school district that has brick-and-mortar schools and it doesn't. Again, you could use the word maintain. You could also, because it's the school district board that's adopting a policy and not the administration of the school that's adopting a policy, I think the saying school district board is important because they are the ones that are adopting the policy. So maybe the other expert's way is on that, but to me, maybe maintains could be a better word to Erika. I mean, legally, I think that's fine. Other experts, what do you think they're doing? I don't know, like the, maybe like a superintendent or maybe Susie Blowsky. Wonder what she would think of the word. I mean, I've heard them both operating today. So if you're more comfortable, I mean, I'm just looking around the room, does anybody, are you okay with, I mean, are you comfortable with maintains or would you just want to think about it, whatever. I'm comfortable with whatever, because I'm not a lawyer. So if someone like Susie Blowsky said, Martin operates as the word that we use in this case, then I would be fine with it. I just, in my mind of thinking, it's funny that we always say we're not operational and then I see the word operate, but I know it's not operate. It's not, I get it. So I'm flexible on that. For what, so what we can do with this, of course we will be doing this next week. We're all here from everybody else. So we'll be in again. And if she, we can just make sure that everybody's comfortable with operates. I'm fine either way. I will just note that they, in the feedback provided by the Vermont School Board Association Association, the Superintendents Association, the Principal Association, that wasn't as a guess to change. We'll see them again. So I'm sure if they're okay with it. And then the next change occurs on page three line 15. So before we get there, did we end up in this might be dealing with it? Did we, and D, I don't know if this is a question for you. Are we all in agreement that independent schools are part of this conversation? Is that just, okay. Yes, sir, they are. So the way that the discussion left off last time was that that was a TBD. So I haven't heard any direction otherwise. Sure, no, that's okay. So we have D. Barbic right there. And I think what we were wondering was we had thought that the agency of education, it was just an oversight that we're going to treat the publics and the independence the same way as it relates to this. And D is shaking her head saying, yes. So we want to make sure that that is consistent with all of our schools. Okay, so for page two, the subsection B, there is already a section requiring approved and recognized and the principles to conduct the responses, the drills. I think the policy decision was whether or not they needed a policy. And we want, and the agency of education wants the same policy for every school. And I see D is shaking her head, yes. And I don't see any discipline here. Thank you. And section two on page three, the next change is on line 15. And that is in addition of the word local in front of emergency management officials. So Senator Williams. Section three on page three, line 20. So this is about access control and visitor management policy. And so again, this is a change based on the testimony from the VE's Beach Supervisor Union and then the new trends are member district board or supervisor district board shall adopt the policy. And it's all of them because the supervisory union district offices are also required to have policies. So it's all of that. That was the last change. So the outstanding, again, maybe hopefully this next week as you'll see next week's agenda, we are focused just on really what's on that board for the most part, say maybe one or two little things. Can we return to template? And would you remind us on page two, line five, the debate folder that works? If you don't remember, I can. I can sort of, but yes. The, there's no commentary in the testimony from the VE's on why they wanted that change. So I can't speak to it, but there was discussion yesterday about there being a template and where the template was the right word to be used. Does anybody have some thoughts on this? I mean, the reason I thought template was the right thing that I could be wrong was that if we would have consistency in every school, so if all of a sudden you got transferred to a different school or you took a new job, you have that. Dean, did you have your hand up? I did, sir, if I could. So I think the words guidance and template are just reversed in this document depending on what it's referring to. So in other words, the emergency operations plan, that is a template that's on the Vermont School Safety website. The drill guidance should be that guidance. So under the drill section, like page two, where we were just talking about the policy, looking at line four, the policy shall require that drills be conducted following guidance developed by, and so with the drills, it's guidance with the emergency operations plan, it's a template. And where do you see the emergency operation plan? Just so I... I don't, well, just give me a minute to find that exact, okay, so it's correct. So on page three, line 16, shall maintain the Vermont School, and again, I'm gonna connect with Secretary French once he has an opportunity to see this as well, but the online 16, it currently reads the Vermont School Crisis Planning Team shall maintain a template, emergency operations plan, that's correct. So the emergency operations plan is a template, but going back to page two, that we were just looking at the drills are under a guidance, not a template. And that's consistent with what the bees also had passed for. Center weeks. No, I agree. Okay. Here, one quick. Yeah, I anticipated this, that's why I called on you for a few seconds. So on page three, line five, is it how routine is it for one arm of the government to find another arm of the government? And what's another fact is, is this a routine? Which French government is it? So it says the school district on page three, line three, School District Independent School Education Association who's administrative personnel in the galactic comply with the provisions of the section shall be fined no more than $500. And the question is, you know, how do we get that back and forth? I guess I'm confused as to what, right? The legislature builds laws that find all kinds of, builds in fines for all kinds of not following the law. Okay. Senator Sheehan. And wouldn't it be the agency of education composing a fine on the school district? That's what it does. Yes, so this is about independent schools. This is current law. Yeah. So without doing any research, I don't know how old it is, or I agree that on its face, it doesn't say who's doing the collecting. But it's not uncommon for there to be a carrot or a stick when there are rules that are being required to follow. But this is suspended law for some time. Thank you. Thank you. Nope. No, okay. Ms. Barbic, any other comments or questions from you or anything else you were going to weigh in on? We're not, we're gonna have Ms. Simmons from the agency in next week. But I think the agency from one email exchange is feeling pretty good about the direction of things. I know you were going to talk to Secretary French. Yes, I'd like to connect with Secretary French so we can review this together. We haven't had a chance to actually connect one-on-one on this because I did have a couple of questions to run by him, but I believe we're scheduled to be in again next week for testimony as well. But yeah, I would just appreciate a chance to go over this with him directly. Indeed, we may not have captured early on who you are and who you're working for. So if you would just state your name for the record and the organization that you represent. Sure, my name is Steve Barbic and I'm Director of Violence Prevention and I work at the governor's office. Great, thank you. Any other questions regarding this bill? So we will have a new copy, yes, please. Since we've got Rachel here from Legal Aid, do you think we could ask her? Sure, yeah, sure, absolutely. It's a great idea. So for the record, again, I'm the CEO and Director of the Disability Law Project at Vermont Legal Aid. There's a lot in here that makes a lot of sense to us. The section that is actually of greatest concern to me is section 1485, section 4. Page? Page 4, starting on line seven, which creates these behavioral threat assessment teams. We have significant concern that these will have a disproportionately bad effect on students with disabilities and overlap with what's already required by the IDEA, which is to do manifestation determination reviews if a student with a disability is potentially being excluded from school for more than 10 days because of a serious behavior. That process, unfortunately, we're seeing ignored in favor of an immediate removal and a requirement for a threat assessment as it currently stands. And this provision would take the responsibility from the IEP team who is meant to develop the plan, create the supports for that student, away from the team that knows the child best and put it with people who potentially have never met the child, including law enforcement, which could very well criminalize disability-related behaviors. So this is why I came to sit with you all today is because this is a concern for us. And what we've seen around the country when threat assessment teams have been created is exactly what I'm concerned about, which is that they have led to students with disabilities being even further excluded from school because of disability-related behaviors. Thank you for this. Do you have a fix to it, or is it just a, I mean, do you have some language or something or something that you think, or is this, go ahead, please. From our view, the existing law, the manifestation determination review process could be used before 10 days of exclusion, right? So if there's a student who's exhibited a behavior that might otherwise go to a threat assessment team, what a district can already do or could be required to do at less than 10 days would be to do a manifestation determination review at that point, determine if it's a disability-related behavior, and if it is, not exclude the student, but figure out how to amend the IEP and change the supports in order for that student to be safely accessing their free and appropriate public education. Ms. Barbick, I don't know if you have any initial response. We will definitely, please, tell me your last name again. Celic. Celic. Yes. Ms. Celic? Yes. Ms. Celic in next week, I think, on Tuesday, so we can flush this out a little bit more, and because I also just need to understand some of it and we'll have others weigh in on it. But I didn't know, Ms. Barbick, if this is something you want to weigh in on patient and more from the ceiling. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would appreciate more time for next week's testimony, just so that I have a better understanding as well, and then also have a chance to chat with Secretary French. But yeah, I would appreciate to be able to listen to the testimony next week. And again, as I mentioned, just to get a better understanding. Great. So I mentioned just to get a better understanding. Great. What I'm going to ask Ms. Celic to do, if you would actually draft language, send it to me, Ms. James, Ms. Barbick, as well, just so people have an opportunity to see it over the weekend. Absolutely. And then come and present, and feel free to copy the entire committee, and then we'll have an opportunity to look at it and then we can jump into it a little bit more on Tuesday. But if you could actually think about your language as it relates to this particular section as where you would like it, et cetera. Sounds like, yes, please. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, Ms. Barbick, I was just wondering in sort of on the other side of that equation, would it be possible for us to get some language and or data around the weaknesses of the manifestation determination review? Because it seems like there must have been a problem that was seen with that process to implement the behavioral threat assessment? No, am I not making sense? She's giving me a- I'm not quite sure I follow. Okay, so it sounds like right now there is a process in place to identify potential threats that's called a manifestation determination review. So I'm assuming someone saw a weakness in that process to be suggesting a new plan called the behavioral threat assessment teams. And I'm wondering if we can hear more about that. And let me just start with Ms. Selick. So there is, in your opinion, there's something that exists to assess threats like the one we're talking about right now? Yes, in terms of students with disabilities, there is already a process in place. For students without disabilities, it's absolutely optional, right? The MDR and the IDEA only apply to students with disabilities to qualify for an IEP. Section 504 provides some other protections before exclusionary discipline is imposed. And I think there's a tremendous overlap between behaviors that may very well lead to exclusionary discipline and some of the very serious behaviors that this bill would propose to be able to prepare for and prevent. Yeah, and so what I see, this is me thinking aloud here, we're trying to assess behaviors that could threaten, of course, other students, faculty, staff. And you're saying right now there is a process for that just for students that have a disability. So that strikes me as disturbing in itself. Sure, yep. So what? Students with disabilities are also disproportionately subjected to exclusion, you know, anyway. And are potentially more likely to be seen as students who may be a risk to their peers because of disability-related behaviors. So how long has this been on the books? At least since the most recent amendment to IDEA, which was in 2008, I believe, but maybe much longer. I mean, the IDEA has been the law of the land since the lane. So the manifestation determination review is out there on the books to determine whether or not students with disabilities are threatening or a threat to other students and faculty staff. Well, the disabilities behavior was a result of their disability. And that may very well be threatening behavior, behavior that might otherwise lead to them being excluded from school. So for example, maybe to make it a little more concrete, if a student with a disability says to a teacher, I'm gonna bring a knife and I'm gonna kill you, right, like that's one of these serious behaviors. And that is a student who has a traumatic brain injury and therefore doesn't have that filter to be like, oh, I might think something, I have no intention of acting on it, but I'm gonna, it's verbal spew, right? If they have an IEP, what's gonna happen is rather than going immediately to suspension or expulsion, if the plan would be to keep that student out of school for more than 10 days, or if they've already been suspended so many times that they may be hitting 10 days in a school year, their IEP team would be required to come together to conduct a manifestation determination review and say, is this a result of the disability? If no, then you can exclude them, you can do whatever you would do to a student with a disability. But if the answer is yes, then the team needs to say, okay, well, we're gonna return them to their placement, their least restrictive environment placement, but what do we need to change in their IEP to address these behaviors so that this doesn't happen again or if it might happen that we prevent it from getting to the place where it is a real threat? So that's what would happen to a student with a disability. If a student doesn't have a disability and they say, I'm gonna bring in a knife and I'm gonna, you know, then it's very likely that they're gonna be facing exclusionary discipline because of that threat. And there may be other things that happen beyond just the exclusionary discipline because of that threat. And we've certainly seen that in our schools around Vermont and around the country where it doesn't just impact that one student but the whole system of making the building tighter or more harder in order to keep people out and that sort of thing does kind of result. But this is the student focused part of it that is already addressed through the MDR. And I think one of the things that's important to understand is that this is not, in our view, something that is well implemented. So I recently worked with a student whose school kind of general administrators had never participated in an MDR before. And like we're not familiar with the process. And so I think it is, I think there's a training element for administrators as well in making sure this process works for students with disabilities. And I also don't think there's any reason to not have manifestation review for every student. Like what's going on with the student? Why is this the behavior? Why do we think the student might be a threat? But with people who actually know them and who work with them rather than strangers who are unfamiliar with them in the context of their lives. The same James, do you have anything? I do not have anything to add. Okay, okay. Thank you. Ms. Barbic, anything to add at this point? I think it seems like there should be a conversation between Ms. Ceeley and the agency on what might be what might be the best solution to what seems like. It's a tricky spot. It's just a little bit of a tricky spot. Yeah, it's just a little bit of a tricky spot. But I see your point and your point's a good one. That language would be to make sure that we're all on the same page. And if I could, Mr. Chair, I think that when we were looking at behavioral threat assessments and we've talked, we've heard testimony about the multidisciplinary team approach. And really that's, I think what's being mentioned here is really works hand in hand with the behavioral threat assessment approach in the sense that if this were a student with a disability, with the multidisciplinary team doing the threat assessment, that would become, it seems to me, fairly immediately notice and immediately known and bringing that, you know, the special educators or those that are involved in the IEP and such, bring them into that threat assessment because they have a knowledge of that student and their IEP if they have one. And so I think that's really when we're looking at the multidisciplinary team approach, this is exactly why we're doing that. It's to bring all of these different perspectives in doing the threat assessment. And as was mentioned by Dr. Rondazzo during her testimony, this behavioral threat assessment isn't intended to be a punitive tool. It's intended to identify behaviors and then resources that can be a bit made available to that student to, you know, get them on a better pathway. Rachel, would it help if part of the team had like a special educator, if there was a special educator on the team or a member of an IEP team, would that be helpful? Do you think? I'd like to think about that a little bit more. Okay, so we will look back or to having you in on Tuesday with a solution. That would be a big help to us. Thank you, thank you. Okay, anything else, committee, before we move on or Ms. St. James? I am not a part of the committee, but I do have a couple of those on today. You are part of the committee. It sounds like you want to move this very soon, but there are other policy pieces in here that you have not discussed as well as, or we haven't come to a decision on, as well as yesterday we left off on some small non-policy edits. I apologize, I thought the only thing, I was looking for things in green, so yes, let's continue. I didn't make these changes. We just didn't have time to talk about this today. Great, great. The school board's association? And frankly, I mean, we have two weeks. They're not going to move anything unless it's perfect. Okay, I just want to make sure that, if you want to go through all of the changes suggested, we haven't done that yet. Let's keep going. Are we on the miscellaneous bill now, or are we on school safety? Okay, sorry, I thought we were moving on. In section two, the emergency operations plan, the school board's association at all suggests that each supervisory union or supervisory district shall, instead of adopt, they'd like to see the word maintain. I don't have a thought either way on that. Well, if they have one, they'd be maintaining it, but if they don't, they would certainly have to adopt one. Perhaps adopt and maintain. Or maintain, yeah. They'd like to see language in all hazards emergency operations plan for each school site that is at least as comprehensive. Line to 12? At 12. Emergency operation plan that is at least as comprehensive? So they are suggesting, so the current language reads emergency operations plan, and they are suggesting right after plan to insert the words for each school site. So it would read, they shall adopt and maintain and all hazards emergency operations plan for each school site that is at least as, et cetera. Ms. Barbic, I'm looking to you. I, again, I don't think that that would be an issue, but I would like to confer with Secretary French. That'd be great. And we can, then we can hold on that one and have them come back to us on Tuesday. And then there's a suggestion to strike after the word template online 12, going under line 13. There's a suggestion to strike maintained and instead insert the word provided. I don't know. I mean, if the template is being. Senator Weeks. Maybe D can comment on this, but I would imagine this is a living document that gets updated. So maintaining it in recognition of the crisis planning team might be appropriate. I'm inclined to think so too. Because it's going to change every time rights change, new threats emerge. And then therefore be maintained center. Dee. Yes, I think maintained, as you mentioned, it's, it is a document that is subject to change. And I think there is even a section in this that requires that the, that that document be reviewed annually. So yes, it is something that needs to be maintained. It's not, you know, developed and then considered done forever. So I think maintained is an appropriate word. Let's stick with it. And then there's a suggestion staying on the same line 13 on page three maintained by the Vermont school crisis planning team. I'm sorry, what line? Line 13. Yep. Maintained by the Vermont school crisis planning team is what the bill currently states. And there is a suggestion to strike crisis planning team and replace it with safety center. And I don't know enough about, I don't know if that's... I think they might, I'd say we stick with crisis planning team. I think they're thinking safety center, perhaps we're getting confused. There is a Vermont safety center. Yes. Mr. Chair, I believe that safety center would be appropriate. Okay. And then to go back on what we were talking about before with the template provided or maintained again, I wouldn't like to confer with Secretary of French on that just to ensure that we're in lockstep on that. Yeah, we've agreed that you'll get back to us on that one also. Thank you, Dick. And then they'd liked the last suggestion in the section is to add the word reviewed prior to updated. So if we're at the very end of line 13. Reviewed and updated? Correct. So from line 13, the plan shall be reviewed and updated. Makes sense. Thank you. And then the last there were again, other outstanding policy questions, but on section four, so that takes us to page four. If I could jump in for a second. I did wanna point out on line 16 on page three, the Vermont school, it currently reads crisis planning team shall maintain. That's again, the same situation we looked at on line 13. It should read safety center, not crisis planning team. Thank you. Again, on page four, section four, there is a suggestion on line nine. It currently reads shall appoint a behavioral threat assessment team to be comprised of, and I know you're amending this section. So I don't know if you want me to go into it, but there's a suggestion to strike all of the people the team would be comprised of. And replace it with following the guidance issued by the Vermont school safety center and the Vermont school crisis planning team. And there are no reads with the requirement to follow guidance from Vermont school safety center and the Vermont school crisis planning team. It is not necessary to spell out in law the precise composition of the behavioral threat assessment team. And I don't know enough about the school safety center and the school crisis planning team to have a feeling either way. Ms. Barber, do you mind checking in with the secretary on that one too? Yes, I will. Great, great. And we know Ms. Sealy is also gonna be working on this section. Those were the, that's the end of the technical changes that we didn't get to or the language changes. We talked about each policy decision as it came up yesterday. I understand the committee's intent is to have the same requirements on approved independent schools. And also recognized independent schools are just approved. Can we do that? Is the recognized for... You can do whatever you want. You're the legislature. So recognized again, sir. Go ahead. No, go ahead. No, please. Are you asking me what a recognized... Yes, I'm asking you to remind us that the... So a recognized independent school is a school, I mean, read the definition to you, but it's a private school in Vermont. And they have to report to the, they have to be recognized by the State Board of Education. And they have some reporting requirements to the State Board of Education. Oh, if they're already reporting things and things like that, then I would say, yes, if this is an absolute way. If the draft language only contemplates approved in some places and recognized in others, do you want to keep that? I think we need to be consistent throughout and have recognized and approved all the way through. They're already reporting things to the State Board, yeah. And then it sounds like you're gonna have the agency to talk about some of those larger policy questions, like what do they mean by educational institution? Right. And some of the other items we talked about. So, Hayden, the agency's coming in Tuesday, we're hoping? Thursday. Thursday. You and the Secretary. Okay. And someone Tuesday will have Ms. C. Leegan. Yeah. And you will have spoken with D and the Secretary. Could we have D come in on Tuesday also, just so the two of them, you know, when comes in we'll have the other come in as well. Okay, I think it's time for a new clean draft and then we'll pick it up on Tuesday. Yes, the changes again will be very minimal. Absolutely, the ones that we've discussed we'll see. Anything else from committee members? It's kind of sausage making time. Okay. Ms. Barbic and Ms. C. Leegan, thank you so much for spending your time with us today and spending time together on Monday. And we'll look forward to seeing both of you on Tuesday. Sounds good. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome back to Senate Education. Final bit of business today is going through the Miscellaneous Education Bill. We went through it yesterday with a couple of different advocates and we have Jeff Fenn with us, the NEA, to weigh in today. Jeff Fennan, welcome. Jeff Fennan again from Vermont NEA. Thank you very much for having me. Here to talk about the Miscellaneous Education Bill. I know I did receive the latest version. I don't think there are too many dramatic changes such that I was prepared to say yesterday and we'll follow through what I'm saying here today. As it relates to section one, and I'll just say generally the State Board of Education and looking at it, it looks like there's now a study or excuse me, a report or a requirement that the HC hire a third party to report or something of that sort. Again, I read it very quickly just 15 minutes ago so I'm a little bit unsure of exactly what it's doing. I do think it makes sense. What we're talking about here are volunteer board members. We rely on that across the state, whether it be a select board, school board, many other boards that we have in the state and we are a small state and not a Vermonter by birth but married a seventh generation Vermonter and she would say this is how we've operated many for many years and the question is whether we should continue to do so. And I think you're asking a very good question, same with legislators, we've always been a citizen legislature and shouldn't you be looking at that and whether you all should be paid. And it makes good sense to look at that. So I do support looking at it but it is a much larger question. Absolutely. And so the snapshot of the State Board of Education. That's our snap. I mean, that's- No, actually that's your bailiwick here. You might want to look at and add to the language just as I read it a few minutes ago, whether we want them to be appointed by the governor and or other states elect them or how do other states do it? And maybe that's something just a third party entity could at least chart out seven states of this way, 15 do it this way, et cetera. I've had bills as you probably recall many times trying to dissolve the State Board and trying to again kind of get everything under the Secretary of Education. So we could bring that kind of discussion up again. Does it make sense still for us to have a State Board or do we go about it in a different way? We imposed, for money I imposed many years ago, 10 whatever it was. About 10. Moving to a Secretary of Education. Yep. We thought it was a position to politicize. Yep. And I stand by that, honestly. And I think that was good then and it remains good policy, but we are where we are now. And I think taking a look at the State Board as it relates to that overarching question might be that it's a healthy examination. Mr. Fadden, do you remember when John Carroll was the chair of that board, was there some kind of examination that happened during that time around rules and responses? Is that what you built? I don't know. No, thanks. Okay. I just kind of don't know. Because it is, it's a great question. I mean, they do, they have a heavy lift and some other boards do also, but it goes back to your point in what we talked about yesterday. How do you get diversity, low income people and others on these, if you're gonna say, hey, come on up, when you just don't have the time. And just, yeah, right, do you have the time, the resources, a per diem is not going to entice somebody of low means, typically, to travel that far and put in that time. So we wanna richer, more diverse. Yeah, so we'll look at this in terms of beefing it up to consider other questions around the State Board. But you, I mean, you don't have to tell me right now, but generally, unless you have the answer, believe the State Board still has a role in this State. I do, I think that they're... I know they do right now. I mean, we could sort of send that. They obviously still have a role to play because you still have some rulemaking and they've got other responsibilities. Understood, the question is that the right entity to do it and is the way we point down the right way to do it. The idea for many years is that we didn't wanna politicize education, particularly at the State level. And the question is, have we politicized it too much, too little, not enough, all those are good, worthy examination questions. Because the goal, ultimately, and I think we all share, we may vary on how we wanna get there, but it's to educate kids and educate them well so that they go out and be productive citizens and thoughtful and intelligent young people. And grow up into, it's good for a monarch. It's a long-term goal, it's a long-term investment, is education, and I think we need to look at that and that includes the State Board and their role in that. Sue mentioned the statewide healthcare. Yeah, so we do have... It's not there, is it? I don't... It's not at the bill. No, we'll take separate testimony. We do have what we refer to as porfin language that's sort of floating around, but you support that idea. I think you should, I certainly think you should hear from the two chair, respective sides, chairs. Yeah. And certainly... Anyway, so section two, statewide course offerings. Yeah. It reminds me of Act 46. Act 46 was a law that was passed designed to increase educational opportunities. And the way it strove to do that was by consolidating governance and therefore creating larger governance structures so that some small schools within the governance structure would have what the larger schools in the same governance structure have. It was to equalize that at some level. And I think it's healthy to look back and see whether Act 46 did that. I surmise it did not. I think that anecdotally have not heard that smaller schools now are offering German as a foreign language app versus the larger schools that might have previously or something along those lines. So it's a worthy examination. And that includes statewide course offerings. We typically, for Montenegro, think that schools do offer what their communities want them to offer. And that's important because parents, a sense of belonging, students, a sense of belonging and control of their academic future. I don't know that typically want the state and weighing in on curriculum. And that's what this is essentially looking at. And that's something we've not been fond of in the past. Yeah, I mean, what I'm trying to get to a little bit just to guide work in the future for this committee is that one, and I get it, one horrible example of the kid that shouldn't get into UVM because there was in the third year of math. What else is out there? How can we, as just, you know, I always feel like sitting in this chair and I haven't been there this that long, but a real understanding of what's happening out there and what students are getting and what they're not and what they're being offered. So that's kind of it. And I think your points agree when about Act 46, even in my own district, I hoped that the five elementary schools would end up with one school board so that you could switch teachers around, switch kids around, just more of that kind of flexibility and get more offerings, greater equity. And I don't think that's happened. I don't think so. I mean, I think that, you know... Maybe it has in some areas, but I can just... It was introduced as an educational opportunity bill. And I think there was a quiet murmur in the building that it was a way to cost-save. And that has been the focus. Well, I don't know, A, if it has been a cost-saving, I don't know. Nobody's looked at it. Yeah. And I'm not suggesting that was the overarching concern, but it was a rumble of the building at the time. And certainly the stated goal of Act 46 was to make sure that all kids had a more equalized educational opportunity systems in place and nobody's looked at whether that has happened. And I think that that's something that could be examined. So I think before you go into taking a look at the statewide course offerings, maybe we stop and look at what Act 46 has offered to change and alter. And frankly, I think Jay and Sue said this both. I am concerned about the AOE's capacity. Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna have them. And I wonder if there's a way to kind of connect both a little bit because what you're saying is very similar to I think the goal there is what has Act 46 produced and what hasn't it produced? And yeah. Okay, let me work on some language that might incorporate both. It was a big change. Yeah. For many places. Yeah. Yeah. Some were reluctant. Yeah. I know I recently talked with Mike counterparts in Maine and they were 10 years ahead of Vermont and school governance consolidation. And now they've gone back and there have been some divorces, if you will, over in Maine. And is that good or bad? I don't know. But we're behind them in the timeline of that and maybe we can talk to our friends in Maine. Took it back, yeah. To see. Yeah. What was that? What am I doing with space? Yeah, yeah. Not waiting for years. Yeah, yeah. But again, it's an AOE capacity which I'm concerned about. If I could interject with the question more for the chairman potentially. So with this section two, would you consider it being refocused towards a review of the results of Act 46 and the effect on statewide course? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think they, and I do think they're connected and it would be really interesting to see if anything else came, that if things improved, it's a heavy lift for the agency, one way or the other, but they could always farm it out. And one of the things I struggle with is, we get out, we all see it, we probably all visit our own schools all the time, we do different things. Really having a grasp on what's happening out there is hard for legislators. And so if we could combine the two of them, I think it makes sense. I would not agree more. Yeah, yeah, okay. I heard a term I hadn't ever heard before. I'm meeting with Beth this afternoon a little bit so it can work. A look back. Somebody said that they didn't support a bill because it didn't have a look back. Is there something that we could incorporate, like Act 46, what we're talking about right now is looking back at what the intent was and what it actually accomplished and if it didn't do what it was supposed to. You do have some school districts that you're pulling out of Act 46. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. The only time I've seen a look back, I know Senator Kitchell's working on one with S5 that, you know, so that people can sort of get a sense of, I'm not sure if it's really a look back as much of a, I'm not sure if the term really describes what it does. I don't understand the term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no results. Right. Do we make a change? It's a metric. Yeah. And sometimes the results are, it did, it's successful. Right. It did and then you learn. Right. Anyway. Okay, and you go on to section three, it's a theme here, perhaps. Yesterday I think you talked to Sue and Jay about Act 77. Yeah. And PVGRs and I think the same could be said there about reviewing all the success of that. So Act 76 and Act 77 and Act 77 is the personal learning plan is still enrolled in PVGRs. What has been the success of that? Have we seen it? Yeah, it's been 10 years. I think you're right. You've got a good time to do it. Yeah. Well, if I remember the testimony correctly, she thought it might be too early. Still. Yeah, for PVGRs, I think that's right. Because I think Jay was the one who also said that it was PVGR. It's proficient in base grading. She thought it had only been in place for four years and then we realized it had been in place for 10 years. Correct, but Jay also said, I think it was Jay. I could have been Sue, I could have been both of them. Yeah. That last year's senior class or the year before were the first ones who came up through that system from start to finish, if you will. And so we're starting to build potentially some linear data about that. So it may be early, but it may not be too late to start collecting the data and seeing, finding out how you wanna collect the data. Right? I mean, part of this would be, I don't know how, they would collect the data, what would be the tangible things to collect and helpful, but to start to do it now when it's fresh and it's mine. Yeah. I'm not, somebody who's in the school I could say, I remember how we used to do it. Yeah. Is how we're doing now. You heard from, you were considering teacher Reggie working for Lucy who said, she's carrying two. Oh, I'm talking to any teacher that works in this building in Vermont. Yeah. You're carrying two grade books. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think that was anybody's intention or hope that teacher Reggie had two grade books. Right, I know. Seems a little bit inconsistent with the goal, I would say. It is, you know, you hit just rely on test scores. And that could be one of the things that they could pull apart. How else could we, you know, find, get a sense of whether or not this is, this is working or making a difference. We know. Well, graduation rates, maybe, and stuff like that. Well, I think even better is, we know we have a high graduation rate, but we know that the remediation issue is huge for CCB and the state colleges. It's well, no, that's a fact. I will, I mean, unless you want to have a graduate student, you know, I mean, that is what we hear all the time. Even from UVM. Right. So it's one thing, the question is, you know, you can have a lot of, 90% of kids graduate on time, but what are they graduating with? It's a very important question. Would you agree? I mean, it is important to find out, yes. But equally important is where, we graduate with about seven or so thousand kids a year. Yeah. In the state, half of them go to college. We're talking about 3,500 kids. Why the other half? What are they doing? Yeah, I fear part of it is because we've not adequately prepared them. Prepared them or financed them? Maybe both. Yeah. For what goal? For whatever goal they want to actually meet, whether it's go on to higher education, the trades, go into the workforce. I mean, nothing's pointing, you know, the scores we see, we know are dismal and unsatisfactory. And then if you talk to, you know, then if you talk to the institutions of higher ed, they also have this concern. So I'm not sure where, I'm happy to look at bright light if you've got something there. Yeah, I'll think about that. And then I, you know, and this is something we could find out about Act 77. You get really motivated kids, but what about the low income kids? Are they really benefiting from that in 77? And that's been finding some of that out. It's enrollment. Yeah. I think it was just, that it has just been helping the kids. Who would get that otherwise? Who would do that otherwise? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great, I will add some language to that. We'll bring it back to the committee. That's a good idea. Section four, remote teacher grant program. Yeah. This gives me that, and we've talked about this, the Vermont Virtual Learning Co-op. Yeah, and you know, we might pull this. I just keep it here just to make sure we don't lose sight of it. You were the one who recommended that the two teachers come in. They were great. Seems like there's a lot of good stuff happening out there already. I just want to make sure that kid and, you know, our lowest income districts are just have the same thing. And some of that could be figured out, I think, during the earlier study, and that's what I'm hoping. You know, sure, Mount Anthony Union High School, I think probably has more offerings because of its size and some of its financial ability than some other areas, yeah. And so I don't know what that will look like by the time we vote on this in a couple of weeks, but I'm just kind of keeping it there as a placeholder to see, do I talk to Kitchell and say, hey, do we just make $500,000 available or add somewhere to make sure that if it's a low income district, the teachers can kind of not go around their school board or but say, okay, we can get these funds because we really need these funds because Sarah really needs that, I don't know, AP class or whatever, yeah. So one of the ways I think it's being done now is through the Ron Virtual Learning Co-op. Yeah. So VTBLC doesn't, and you can talk with Jeff Reinhard, who is the principal or head of school and I don't know what the technical term is, just I don't, but they have partner schools who are in Vermont. Yeah. And those schools enjoy benefits by being a partner school with VTBLC. They get seats so their kids can take a class if the name used, whoever she is or if they are, would be able to take it through, through no charge whatsoever to their home school. So Jeff, do you think, you don't see, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I'm happy to, if you don't see that there's really a problem out there right now with kids accessing it, I'm okay with pulling it, it's just- I do worry about over-reliance on remote learning, right? Well, one of the things we've learned in the pandemic is there's no substitute for in-person teaching, none. And so to the extent we have a system that's in place before the pandemic, which is VTBLC, that grew pretty dramatically during the early years of the pandemic and is continuing on. It's a well-established program in the state. It's usually working and it'll be good to hear from them directly. Do you need to expand it? Are you hearing stories of students in smaller, more rural places not getting what they need? Or are you able to meet their needs? Right. And I don't know the answer to that. I don't know the answer to that. I think you know it a year from now. Yeah, and for me, it's, as you know, it's particularly hard right now to find teachers and moving somewhere and finding a house and you're not gonna hire one person to move somewhere just to teach a couple classes of calculus. So that's what, it's sort of that unique moment, but I agree with you in terms of virtual versus in-person. That being said, there are kids that are also gonna be just more comfortable sometimes doing virtual. They're getting bullied, they're, you know, so all those options are important. Right. It's not a viewer. I'm sorry. No, I just wanted to say we do know that you're right that some kids did better in a remote environment early in the pandemic. Yeah. It was a small number, but should we mean that their needs? Yes. And so yeah, again, I'll fall back. It sounded like a broken record. I think ETBLC could do that. Yeah. And it is doing it. It was doing it before the pandemic. Right. Great. Yeah. That's a great thing to do. I just want to reiterate what Mr. Bannon is saying. ETBLC is amazing. Yeah. I can't, as a parent, my son couldn't get a physics course. He wanted physics. He was able to take it through ETBLC because we had a teacher who was teaching so we got those credits. And then as a librarian, I had students who needed a class that Essex High School was in offering and they were able to take that class during the school day. And I would, when I was the librarian, I would let them come to the library and I sort of became their mentor in a way just to give them a space to sit so they could do their work and, you know. So that's another option. Like they were being taught by someone who wasn't in our building, but we had the space and we had an adult available and we made it work and it was just phenomenal. And then we also had a Spanish teacher at Essex High School who taught Spanish so we got credits in our school for our kids to be able to take courses which was really nice. Yeah, it was great. You've done B.T.L. The first school. I've done DHS. I don't know. DHS, I don't know what the difference is. Okay. Maybe pull up some information. If you don't mind, we can look at the, you know, Vermont Learning Center. Vermont Learning Center. D.L.C. Virtual high school, Vermont Virtual High School. D.T.L.C. is the Vermont Virtual Learning Co-op. Co-op, okay. The DHS is... Virtual high school, I think it is. I'm not a national organization. Yeah, I'm gonna ask Caden to dig up some info on the one that you've mentioned and just send it around to everybody. Okay. Great. Section five, preparation for higher ed marketing. Yeah. What I would say is why not for all education? I remember years ago, Fensi Bishop and I were chatting. Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever been up the interstate on a Friday during the winter. Senator Gullick, you're probably zipping up every Friday about this time. And you'll notice... I think we're all on the interstate. Where are the interstates? Sorry. Well, you probably have it a little bit different in and around Rutland that they're heading up the mountain road to Killington. I think of Stowe and Sugarbush. Getting off, you know, heading north in the interstate from here at the Stowe-Waterbury exit, it's backed up onto the interstate. Yeah. And if you've ever done a Friday night to the same route, my in-laws live north of Burlington so we occasionally drive up there. And you'll see people in their cars, the blue light in the back, the kids are watching a movie or something like that. And they're all heading up to the slope for the weekend. And I said to Betsy, why aren't we grabbing 10% of them? 10% of those people. And some marketing program at every sugar, at every ski area in the state. And I always thought, well, pay teachers some sort of stipend to do it on a Saturday morning, to touch base with these parents or bring their kids up every weekend to ski in Vermont. And we're gonna end up being with a few places where you can ski in the not too distant future, sadly. But getting them to stay here, they're able to work remotely. It's even more true before the pandemic. That's right, that's right. Yeah. The Betsy and I were chatting. Now, after the pandemic, these people can work from anywhere. And why not have 10% of them? If we just touched and spoke and conversed with 10% of them on the chair lift up or in the lodge growing hot chocolate and got them to stay, not just for Saturday and Sunday, but year round. So using money to market for higher editing is good, but also for K-12 as well. And frankly, for the entire state. Yeah, one of the things that was interesting that we learned just such a tiny, tiny little marketing budget, aesthetic, 3 million. In some of the campaigns, I think other state, hey, you could live here and all that sort of thing. And I'm sure we've captured some over the years of Senator Hushing talks about his trip up here the first time, just loving it and wanting to stay here and that kind of thing. So I'm gonna close it. It just expanded. Yeah, yeah. I was just gonna say, when we have our beautiful new schools, we can put those on the glossy brochures. Renovated old schools. And or, and they're running to that. But that does get to the point. The school construction point is absolutely true. If you drive 15 minutes out to East Montpelier Elementary School, it's a beautiful school. It's gorgeous, overlooks the grottin' range, it's fantastic. Bring somebody up here and show them that school that's been rehabilitated and nicely so. It is idyllic. And who would not want their kid to go to that school? Oh, there's so many. Yes. And we do have a lot of those schools. But then unfortunately we have other schools where they're in a department store. Yeah. Right? And that's of concern. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That learning environment is not conducive to learning, I would say, in many cases. And we did look, as you know, now what eight weeks ago, early on, if you look at our peers in New England, in New Jersey, New York, we're not knocking it out of the park. So somebody might say, well, my kid's getting a better education in New York or New Jersey, might as well stay, might not be the appeal. That's all, you know. Fair enough. But I would say that's throwing in the towel for the rest of us to do that. No, I agree. But we can't park it without getting everything kind of up where everybody else is. Here's what I would say. Could we be doing better? Yes. Are we doing really well? Yes. And I think we're, you know, top five or just about every category that you can think of as compared to our peers. Are we, I think we are and have been for some time and I wear that we're slipping. I do wear that we're slipping. And so, you know, infrastructure is important. Yeah, I'm sure it's huge. Yeah. It's huge. It's like a ton of new schools. Yeah. It's huge. Jersey does too, I think. It's got so much money too. So anyway, I think we should be marketing for higher ed, for K-12, for the state generally and I've said this before in this community, it's maybe tired at this point, but my father used to say to us, we're too poor to be cheap. Yeah. And we've got to invest in the long-term health and vitality of the state. Yeah. You're fair. Yeah. And I think we have no choice, yeah. Section six, pre-K. Again, not lower the standards, I think suits that very well. The only thing I would add is a fan of and hearing from my members, play-based pre-K, we've got to focus more on play. So are we. These are young kids. We're not sitting there drilling them. So while we're on that topic, has Jeff or has a, Jay Nichols talked to you about being part of that group? Okay. Yes, I just. Great. I know everybody's swamped, but yeah, if you could just weigh in and if all of you could bring some pre-K language to us, I think health and welfare, I think I was looking at their schedule. They're going to try to vote S56 out. Of course it's going to have to go to two other committees, I think after that, finance probably an approach. So we have a little time, but they're going to want to attach something. I'm guessing that's going out next week. Maybe. Yeah, you've tasked Jay, he is one of the tasks I would say. Great. Great. See you next. Okay. I brought the gaffter, yeah. We get to that. Tell me again. Okay. Seven. I don't. There's a library. Yeah. Okay. What's that on? 17. I would just say, we ought to be to protect librarians from firearms. Absolutely. You remember this library study? We passed out of this committee two years ago that looked at a bunch of things as it released the libraries that we're getting a report back. I think they said, December. And we just thought, okay, while you're looking at everything, take a look at this as well. It's a big conversation in this committee. We were remote. I don't remember. Yeah, yeah. I'll be sincere. I think it came from Senator Bray. And so we're kind of just looking at all the libraries and coming back with a report to the legislature, just giving everything that's changing. And so we thought while you're doing that. This is more municipal libraries as I. It was all municipal libraries. Yeah. I don't think it included school libraries, anything like that. So it's just kind of the state of the libraries themselves. And we had the state librarian and a bunch of other people in. So the report's going. It's moving. We're supposed to get something back in December. And so while it's, they're kind of all sitting around the table working out. We thought we'd send them this little thing to look at as well. About? The firearm piece. Firearms, yeah. And then they could report back. We don't need firearms and libraries. Right. We support libraries without guns. So in that regard though, page 19, line three, paragraph five, isn't that kind of a duplicate of what you just outlined of the report due in December? Line five. The current overall, this is current law. Oh. Yeah, so if it's not underlined, it's current law. So she just probably just plopped it in there. Yeah, that way. No, yeah, well, now I get it. So what she did add was on page 21, you'll take it. Thank you. Thank you. So I will meet with Beth and try to get some language around some of the Act 77 and Act 46 stuff and bring it back to committee. But this is getting meaty and it feels good.