SmartTranscript of House Education - 2025-01-16 - 10:05 AM

[Chair ]: And you are live. [Speaker 1 ]: Here we are in house education on Thursday, January sixteenth. Take this next section of of the day to meet and learn about several of the associations that are most connected to our public school system, hear from them, hear what their priorities, concerns, and and whatnot are for our upcoming legislation, legislative session and frankly, are we two years of legislate literally moving ahead of us? Anyway, we're gonna open with the school boards association. We have two representatives here who are familiar to many of us who've been involved with school boards for a long time. But, anyway, would you please introduce yourselves and the floor is yours? [Sue Steglowski ]: Thank you for the opportunity to introduce the Vermont School Boards Association and its priorities. My name is Sue Steglowski. I am the executive director and general counsel for the Vermont School Boards Association. And with me today is Laura Diaz Smith, who is in her second year as president of the VSBA board of directors. So we're going to begin with Laura introducing herself and speaking about the critical work of school boards at this moment in time. [Chair ]: Hey. Good morning, Mike. And Sue just said, my name is Gloria Smith. I know many of you, but some of you are new to me, so I'm just gonna go through the whole thing. So I'm an immigrant from Guatemala, a country where public education is not prioritized for staying as a country of democracy. As an immigrant, I cannot take public education for granted. I know that what it is to not invest in public education and its consequences. Growing up in Guatemala, the idea that I will one day lead an organization like the VSBA or serve on a school board in a country that values education for all those children seem an impossible dream. Yet here I am, the chairperson of White House Central School District and the president of this incredible organization. My journey to this point is is not easy, and the context of where we are right now is important. To serve in the school board, I have first to become a citizen, a challenge that I embrace because I believe my unique background, education, and experience that contribute meaningfully to my community. This journey has given my appreciation for the transformative power of public education and not only as the pillar of democracy, but how it opens doors for every child regardless from where they come from. I share this story not just to talk on me, but to remind you of the impact that public education has on individuals. I'm not saying you don't know that. It's just that reminder for for for for all of us. So I urge you to consider your moral obligation to ensure education remains strong, equitable, and accessible for all. The future of our children and and the strength and the importance of strengthening our democracy depends on it. The VSBA staff or if the staff, the board, and it's over eight hundred and fifty elected board members are deeply grateful for the work that you do every day, and and receive receive every one of you. And your commit your commitment to serving the people of Vermont is incredible. So we are at a pivotal moment in public education, which as you know, remains the cornerstone of our democracy or at least that's what I believe deeply. Public education is not a political enterprise, and sometimes politics place into this by thing. Right? It is a democratic prerequisite. It's essential for ensuring that political and civil rights stay in place. It's impact is profound both at the personal level in shaping the lives of students and families. Just before you were talking about construction in schools, you know, like the construction affects our student outcomes every day. So at the population level, we influence our communities and set the state for the conditions for a better future for all our communities. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: At the [Chair ]: same time, we recognize that the pressures of our taxpayers are facing are real. As taxpayers ourselves, all board members of taxpayers, we share the frustration with the property tax increase and understand that the balancing that is required. However, it's not an either or situation. The challenge we face in finding out is a way to support tight and equitable and sustainable education and being mindful of the physical reality. So I'll get to the estimate in a minute. But I know a lot of you guys already know me, but I feel like some don't. This is a unique and critical moment at the state because the circumstances we face are complex, but they also offer so many opportunities to come together and craft an innovative solution oriented approach. We must emphasize our interconnectedness among the building, among our students, among our communities, and future generations. As legislators, you hold the power to honor the province of public education, and I ask you to evaluate the every proposal through the lenses that will promote student achievement and opportunity for all. That it is fiscal and admin fiscal and administered impact that we'll have in our communities, especially with the one we're really fast. And does it strengthen accountability for the use of public dollars? The FDA takes this responsibility seriously, and it's reflected in nonpriorities that students will cover now and have a little handout there. So thank you for inviting us to join us this morning and for your continued dedication to this important work. [Sue Steglowski ]: And this is the handout that I'll be referring to. I'm gonna start out with, who we are, which is on the front. And, let you know that the is a nonprofit member association that supports school boards in our work. That's who we are. All of the school boards in the state are members, so that encompasses, over eight hundred and fifty individual school board members. VSBA is committed to a strong public education system, and we believe that public education is a fundamental right, a foundation for democracy, the core of strong communities, and a driver for economic development. The VSBA's vision, mission, and beliefs are listed on this who we are document, and that is also posted on your, committee website. The roles and responsibilities of school board members are sometimes misunderstood. School board members, big thing to remember is they're the bridge between the community and the schools. They do not run the schools. They make sure that they are well run. Their core responsibilities are listed at the bottom here. They include hiring and evaluating the superintendent, developing a vision for [Laura Diaz Smith ]: the [Sue Steglowski ]: district, developing and overseeing the budget, adopting policies, and monitoring finances and progress and performance. Everything school boards do includes the opportunity for community involvement. And, again, they are the bridge between the community and the schools. I will move on now to our, priorities. The VSVI VSVI priorities are listed on the backside of that document under, legislative platform. And they're developed through resolutions that are proposed by and voted on by the association's members. So we have quite a formal process for, developing our priorities. We've divided them into three groups, education funding priorities, education cost driver priorities, and then our core priorities, and that's how they're, ordered in the document. So I'll start with the education funding priorities. We wanna emphasize that VSBA understands the education funding challenges that Vermont is facing and that we want to be a constructive partner in addressing those challenges. We're committed to finding solutions with you. When talking about education funding, the conversation often moves quickly to numbers. And as the people who build school district budgets, we understand that numbers are very important and that they cannot be considered in isolation. When looking at possible changes to education funding, we urge you to, one, focus on students by providing sufficient funds to support equitable, sustainable, and high quality education in Vermont school systems. Two, ensure predictability in the school district budget process. Three, please give enough time for school districts to adjust to any changes. Four, provide data and modeling to show the impact on districts over time. Five, strengthen accountability for the use of public dollars. And six, and this is an important one to us, include measures to address the cost drivers. And so I'll move on to, some of the cost drivers that we, are are part of our priorities. One of the major cost drivers in the cost of education is public school employees' health benefits. We urge you to utilize the control you have by revising the statewide bargaining process for school employees' health care. We understand that this will be a difficult discussion, but putting it off will only make the problem worse. Through the current bargaining process, benefits have become so rich that school employees pay zero dollars in deductibles. Benefits should reflect the coverage of most Vermonters. Another major cost driver is school facilities. Many of Vermont's school buildings have reached the end of their useful life and are being kept in service with Band Aids that are not cost effective. There's been a moratorium on state aid for school construction since two thousand eight, and you were hearing this morning about, the condition of Vermont school buildings. This has resulted in less safe and less healthy learning environments as well as impacting school budgets with the cost of the Band Aids. So we ask you to provide predictable and stable state school construction aid for capital expenses. A more recent and very concerning cost driver is the increased need for student mental health supports so the students can access their education. Schools have taken on this expense, and the need has grown. We ask you to adequately fund mental health services and programs and ensure that the expense does not fall on property taxpayers. Another cost driver involves the legislature utilizing the education funds to fund statewide programs. This is the legislature's prerogative, but the effect can be an increase in property taxes that is beyond the control of school boards. Given the critical juncture we are at in funding education, we recommend clarifying the limitations on the use and purpose of the education fund. The last cost driver we will cover is existing laws and regulations. Many of them were put into place without attention to how much pressure they would place on local school budgets and without adequate support from the agency of education on implementation. We ask you to adequately fund existing laws and regulations so that school districts are supported in their implementation. Moving on to the core priorities, which are listed at the bottom here. In addition to the education funding and cost driver priorities I just discussed, our platform includes core priorities. There's a time today to cover those core priorities in detail, but we wanted to highlight three of them. And those are, first, improve the capacity of the agency of education to meet statutory responsibilities. Second, require the agency of education to expand and maintain a comprehensive data dashboard. And third, restructure the state board of education. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Mhmm. I will [Sue Steglowski ]: just note that these were developed by a VSBA task force made up of school board members from across Vermont. They developed these recommendations over a ten month process in response to long standing challenges with the education leadership structure in the state, and these challenges have impacted district's ability to realize their educational goals. We submitted the task force report to the governor, the secretary of the agency of education, the state board of education, and all legislators in September of twenty twenty four. And if you're newly elected, you wouldn't have received that, but it is posted on your website today under my name. So if you have time to take a look at it, the details are in there. In conclusion, we wanna thank you for inviting us this morning and for your dedication to the important work ahead. We do hope that you have a chance to connect with school board members in your region, during this session, and we look forward to a collaborative partnership with you during the session as you work to provide high quality, sustainable, and equitable education for Vermont's student. [Amy Minor ]: Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: Thank you very much. And one question I have is, you know, we're probably gonna be hearing a significant proposal coming out of the administration. It's gonna have various pieces and parts that that I assume that the school board association will discuss. You have a very diverse membership. You've got school boards that oversee a small school. You've got school boards that oversee a multischool three thousand kid district. How do you all come together or or come up with your positions given that range of diversity? [Chair ]: The the [Sue Steglowski ]: first way that we come up with our positions is through our resolutions process, which allows school boards to submit resolutions for consideration of the membership, and those are voted for in the fall. Now that Mhmm. That that provides us with a base of information about our membership's thoughts on major education issues. But to be able to respond to proposals, the VSBA board does that work. And the VSBA board is made up of we we're divided into eleven regions. We have two representatives from each region. We have a very diverse, board with people from, you know, from very small districts to very large districts. And, in addition to those twenty two, Laura is the president. President. So we have twenty three in total. So my approach is, going to be and has been in the in the past few months to be regularly sending the board resources and information about what's happening, I will be sending them recordings of your meetings so that they can watch them and referring them to specific testimony within those recordings and the materials that are posted on your website so that when it's time for them to consider specific proposals, they will have the context, and they will have the background information that they need to be able to do that. [Chair ]: And I will I will add that we also have a legislative committee because I know you guys are gonna be moving quickly. So if something came up quickly and we can't, you know, it's not the number of board meeting and we can't gather everybody, the legislative committee will come together and and give input. And like any other board in the state, you know, you would have diversity of thought at the board, but I think the one thing that unites us is what is best for kids. And once the our board, sometimes it's not all in the same place, and this happened. You've got experience with this. It's not all in the same place. But once a decision has been made, we all stand behind that decision. Right? So I don't know if that helps with with with the answer. I think by the time that you have a a board of this largest, probably and the commitment to be at the Verma's Liberation Association, they all want what is best for kids, and they're familiar with governance. And they both are pretty well versed in in in Vato and and and are committed. I'm looking at what we would be sending, what Sue would be sending, you know, weekly. You know, it is hard to keep up with as especially with the old program to our best with the class and respond to your questions. You know, we are hoping to ask the critical questions that will be needed. Right? [Speaker 1 ]: We rarely get accused at Uber quickly. [Chair ]: I know. But things are moving. Yes. Yeah. But you're I heard that you guys are gonna be prioritized. Right? So there not be too many things going on besides, [Laura Diaz Smith ]: like, wishful thing. Other words. Yes. Kate. [Chair ]: What percent of premiums do teachers pay for health care? [Sue Steglowski ]: The percent of premiums is based on statewide arbitrator's decision, and that it is twenty percent is is the is what teachers pay. [Chair ]: And in recent years, fifteen, twenty years, have those premiums ever gone down or stayed the same? [Sue Steglowski ]: They have increased every year. [Chelsea Myers ]: And do you [Chair ]: know how the health care premiums compare to other states? [Sue Steglowski ]: We are we are working on putting together some information so we could come in and and speak with you about that. Yeah. I I have a two page document that covers that topic that I could email to you with some data that might be helpful. [Speaker 1 ]: Just on that topic, because I do think it will come up later and we can dive into more detail. But what is the current status of that statewide negotiation? When is the current agreement run out? When do negotiations restart? [Sue Steglowski ]: Negotiations are set to restart next April. [Speaker 1 ]: Right. In twenty six. Yes. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Twenty six? [Sue Steglowski ]: Yeah. Sorry. Not in twenty five. [Speaker 1 ]: So can we do that, like, a two year contract? [Jeff Fannon ]: Two That'd be right. [Sue Steglowski ]: There was a two year extension. Yeah. [Speaker 1 ]: Thank you. Just just a [Laura Diaz Smith ]: curiosity question. How often does the larger board meet, and and how are people are they elected to that board, or are they appointed to that to the larger board, the twenty two other members? [Sue Steglowski ]: The VSBA board? It meets most months. They don't normally meet in the month of July or October, but other than that We [Chair ]: meet yeah. And we [Sue Steglowski ]: monthly. Yeah. [Chair ]: And we meet remotely and in person. It used to be just in person and how we meet remote in person to facilitate. It. Make it easier for everybody to attend because a lot of people also sometimes have a board member or a board meeting that that day, so it allows them to come for part of it and then so I'll be there for me. But they when they're elected, each region elects It's [Chelsea Myers ]: it's it's numbers. Yeah. [Chair ]: So we do have a general meeting in October as you show it, and they elect their numbers. Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: Thanks very [Amy Minor ]: much. Thank you. Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: Alright. Next up, we have the superintendent association. Our committee is good afternoon to talk about the hard work that representative Brittany does. Yeah. I think your boss was gonna get that. [Chair ]: Taking copious down stuff. It's [Chelsea Myers ]: customary for [Chair ]: us to [Chelsea Myers ]: share the Vermont directory. We will all Thank you. All the information from all the central offices. [Speaker 1 ]: As soon as you're ready, introduce yourselves and and the floor is yours. [Amy Minor ]: Hi, everybody. My name is Amy Minor. I currently serve as the superintendent of schools for the Pro Chester School District. I also am currently the president for the Vermont Superintendents Association. I have been in education for a long time. I started as a substitute teacher, served as a peer educator for a period of time, science teacher, then I was department head, then I was an assistant principal, then I was a high school principal for ten years. And in my mind, I was a superintendent at Culchesters. So very invested in the education system and have done lots of different roles within that system. [Chelsea Myers ]: Hi, everyone. I am Chelsea Myers. I'm the new executive director at the Vermont Superintendents Association. I've been with the association, though, for a little over six years. And then before that, I held had held roles in education research, primarily early literacy and social emotional learning, and also taught in the classroom for a couple of years and then primarily have spent my career around education policy and non leadership. And I started back in August. [Chair ]: So I [Chelsea Myers ]: am the new Jeff Francis. New Jeff. In Jeff Francis fashion, I was going through his office books, and I found this book. It was written primarily by Bill Mathis. Some of you know Bill Mathis, and it was in nineteen ninety four. And so many of the themes are so duplicative to what we're talking about now. So I found that to be a fun little sign before we came in here to talk to you all. So who are we? The Vermont Superintendents Association represents fifty six superintendent. That's all of them. And an additional thirty three central office leaders or aspiring superintendents and retired superintendents. Our work falls within three categories of work, member services, so supporting superintendents with their work in the day to day operations of the school districts. So they'll call me up with a potential challenge, and I help to either get them connected with the right resource or it's something that I have, come across before. We do a significant amount of professional learning through conferences, academies. We train new superintendents and aspiring superintendents. We do mentoring and networking, and many of these professional learning initiatives have been focused on the implementations of laws passed by the general assembly. For example, our three year inclusive education project to support districts in the implementation of act one seventy three, and then before my time, a multiyear project to support implementation of act forty six. So a lot of what the professional learning we're doing is helping to helping with implementation and support of the laws that you all passed. And then the third pillar of work is advocacy. So working with you all, the state board, the agency of education, and other stakeholders to support the work of moving education in Vermont forward for all students. And we view superintendents as very important change agents in the process of moving education forward. We're staffed by two full time employees, myself and our office manager, Christy. And Amy will talk a little bit about our governance structure. [Amy Minor ]: We're very excited to have Chelsea at the helm. We're governed by a ten person superintendent board that includes a past president. And each member of the board, we ensure that we have all regions are representative. So five regional trustee positions and also five officer positions. So that makes up the ten components, and it's nice to have each, area represented on the board. We meet monthly. And at each of our monthly meetings, we also invite the secretary of education to attend. And as an organization, we do free all members meetings annually, and, typically, we collaborate with other organizations to do a fall conference and a spring conference. The next component that we wanted to share this morning is what do superintendents do. And in all of the different roles that I've had across education, I would say that the superintendent's role by far is the most complex. We do a fair amount of visionary leadership, not only within our districts, but across the state and with our other collaborators. We try to make sure that we have the highest outcomes for kids. And at the same time, that visionary leadership is directly impacted by the educational leadership that we must do. We're expected to be the experts in education and how to move, outcomes for students forward. So that means we do a lot of listening, a lot of learning, a lot of working with the agency of education around all of the different requirements that we have and targets that we need to meet. So drafting, writing our continuous improvement plans, making sure that our student data is increasing and that we have measurable outcomes connected to that work. Probably one of the favorite parts of the job for myself personally is I see myself as the teacher of my principals. Right? Custom teachers teach students, principals teach teachers, superintendents teach principals. And so my job, central office where I work, lasts quite a bit when will I maybe be in central office this week because the place that is home is schools. I like to be on the ground, seeing the action, walking through classrooms, seeing what firsthand classroom instruction looks like, and then meeting with building principals, watching them do faculty meetings, watching them do leadership team meetings so that we can give them feedback. By doing that, I can strengthen my own system as I carry the overarching [Chair ]: large ball of [Amy Minor ]: the work that we need to do. As superintendent, we also do a fair amount of collaboration with human health services, mental health organizations, and making sure that we are advocating for what we need to lead our school systems forward. Of course, fiscal stewardship and making sure that we are being the best stewards of every single penny that our taxpayers give us in the months of January, February. My primary role is to educate my community around what does the budget looks like. I've actually already started that work. For me, that means in person meetings in schools. I do in home meetings in my community to make sure that every taxpayer in Colchester has a strong understanding of when I go to the ballot, what am I actually voting on? And that requires education the way our system currently currently works. Personnel management, human resources, how do we onboard employees? There are a lot of regulations connected to supervision, evaluation, hiring, and firing. So making sure that those systems are strong. Someone has to oversee all of that work, and that's what, a piece of what superintendents do. Probably the most important piece of work that I do proactively on a regular basis that all superintendents do is that's crisis management. We have to have strong crisis plans, and we have to train all of our employees in what those plans are so that our brains have muscle memory so that when you're in a moment and we're responding to a crisis, you don't have to think about what to do, and you don't have to go to the plan. You can just do that. So as a superintendent, you really oversee every aspect of what happens in your school district. And because of the structure of schools in Vermont, that looks slightly different depending on how many people you have in your central office to help delegate. We're not a large district, not a small district. We're kind of in the middle, but I definitely I like being out and about the same folks. [Chelsea Myers ]: Some information about superintendents over the past five years. We pay very close attention to retention of superintendents and the longevity of the superintendency and try to do our best to support superintendents throughout their tenure. In twenty nineteen, we had six transitions. Twenty twenty, eleven. Twenty twenty one, nine. Twenty twenty two, twelve. Twenty twenty three, six. And twenty twenty four, we had fifteen, and we're expecting another year pretty similar to that. I will note, like, those are not all new superintendents that end up in roles. There's a lot of movement that happens, and it kinda cascades. Like, this year, we have fifteen transition, but five of those were new brand new superintendents, and so we do our best to support them. We have forty districts that have experienced at least one transition in the last five years. And in case you wanted a little bright spot because there is one, the current average tenure is six years, which is actually almost double the national average. And so that, is a pretty great statistic, I think. It has fluctuated a little bit, but currently, we're at about six years. So a little bright spot for the the retention of superintendents in Vermont even though there's several transitions. Amy's gonna talk about a little bit about what is great about Vermont schools, and then we're gonna move into our legislative priorities. [Amy Minor ]: We are in this pivotal moment in education right now, so thank you for, spending some time with us today. I would be remiss if we didn't talk about some of the bright spots that are happening across the state. And so when you look at Vermont schools, we are unique in that we do have a fair amount of project based learning. We live in a beautiful state with lots of natural resources, and our schools are using outdoor education and using the environment on their campuses to enhance learning for students, farm to school programs, internships, community based learning. Many of our schools provide access to health centers. Adult education happens in many of our school buildings. Family services help happen in many school buildings across the state. We're really proud of the food that we serve since COVID, not only during the school day two students, but there's a lot of strong information around how schools are providing meals to students and families at night and on the weekends. We have a red backpack program, and every Friday, we have, some private donors in Colchester that help us fill an additional backpack of food that goes home every week to, to families. We our schools have been welcoming places not only for refugee students, but for our refugee families and providing all of the services that families need in order to integrate with American culture and society. We have a strong commitment, I believe, in every school across the state, to culturally responsive teaching and learning, financial literacy, and strong technical center offerings, that our students are enjoying the access to. If If you've never been to a junior chef competition, very cool. But thinking about the culinary side, robotics program. If you look at schools eight years ago, robotics didn't happen in most of our school districts across the state. Those robotics programs are really cool. My daughter is in one of them, and the things that she knows about robotics as a twelve year old is fascinating. So really proud of that. And then we have a lot of student led conservation efforts and students wanting to be have more of a voice in their school system. And we're seeing more schools have social justice alliances where students have more of a voice in leading the school and meeting with building level administrators to talk about how can we change the school environment to include more student voice and to make more change for students, where students feel welcome and belonging. Specifically, of course, to talk about Goldchester for just a little bit, Our student performance data is rising. And this year, in every one of our disaggregated categories, the gap flows every single category. Our teachers are doing tremendous work since COVID to close the achievement gap. And when we look in our data now, we are seeing lots of positive growth. Couple years after COVID, lots of our data in splat. I think there was a lot of things that we needed to do to support students and families in order to get them back on track. And I guess we've done that, and the data started to show that. [Chelsea Myers ]: So we'll move on to our legislative priorities for the year. You'll you have this on your website now, and you can see who we are and the mission and vision of our association. We have, several core principles, for the legislative session and then, legislative priorities. So Amy's gonna talk, briefly about the core principles, and then I'm gonna honor your time and try to go really fast through our legislative priorities. [Amy Minor ]: I will read all seven to you, but I will hit the highlights. I think the first one is probably the most important one. It's the only one I will read. DSA recognizes the change in the educational delivery system is necessary to develop an affordable system for taxpayers while providing high quality education for students. As part of that, core principle, we do believe that the Vermont Superintendents Association plays a key role as a change agent. We want to ensure that we are addressing disparities and opportunities to ensure that every student has access to strong resources and that we need to look at legislative changes around the cost drivers. And in doing that, quality must be one of the benchmarks that we hold deal because we want to have a strong and top quality education system for all students in Vermont. We wanna also ensure in the work that we're about to do that we avoid any unintended consequences. And so that might mean that you need to go slow to go fast, that we might really need to understand the changes that are being proposed to know if we make those changes, what is going to happen, especially given the interconnectedness between ed finance, school governance, and physical size of our school buildings and proximity of home to school. The education system does not operate in a vacuum. Not only are we providing strong access to academics, there are other components that connect to the way that we provide education, and that has to do with housing, child care, environmental workforce, and health care needs. They also have a role on what happens in schools. And finally, our last core principle is we are many some paper patents have already warned a school budget. So knowing that we are working on f y twenty six right now and that budgeting is underway, I am going to make statements to my community and educate them on the budget that we will warn next Tuesday night. And my community has a lot of trust in me, and communities have trust in their superintendents. We need to educate them around the ballot. So as we move through the rest of the s FY twenty six budget, just the timeline. Be cognizant of the timeline and what we have shared with our communities and how that what we have shared could change based on the decisions that you make for their taxes to fall. [Chelsea Myers ]: Alright. So I will finish with our education or our legislative priorities. The first bucket of work is the education funding reform, and our key component is to, create more equity in the education funding system by addressing the state's considerable range and waited for people funding, which I believe is approximately ten thousand to eighteen thousand dollars currently. Any overarching change to the funding system must be properly modeled and ensure adequate funding for high quality education. Take a look at the ed fund and determine what it is paying for in terms of pre k funding. Revise the funding formula to incentivize public schools to run pre k programs and consolidate oversight under one organization to simplify regulations. Under instructional delivery size and structural no structural change, the first one on that list is class size. And the reason we put that first is because you actually have a policy mechanism already at your disposal around class size in act one fifty three of twenty ten, which requires all districts to establish a class size policy, but the government but the state does not set the minimum. It only sets the maximum in the education quality standards, so there is a vehicle there to be able to make change. And staff to student ratios is next because there is not necessarily a consistent method in calculating staff to student ratios. There's different ways in which people calculate, for example, contracted services and and just getting very clear about the definitions, we think is essential to be able to move policy forward related to staff to student ratios. Think about the district and school efficiency guides. Try to identify the optimal size of schools and districts to improve efficiency and increase equitable opportunities for students. And in in relationship to that, providing extra support for reimagining what community can look like in places that may not may meet those efficiency standards right now. School designation. As we're thinking about changing the delivery model of, public education, we have the risk of actually expanding our delivery system more so by adding more and larger elements of choice, which, don't necessarily help to bring efficiencies to the overall delivery system, both from a fiscal and delivery model. And so our recommendation is to require that districts without their own schools to certain grade levels designate up to three schools to serve as the allowable schools of that district. That ensures that districts without schools for saving certain grades still can meet the educational needs of their students in a more efficient delivery model. And then, of course, you've been talking about facility modernization this morning, so I won't go too far into that, but that's an important pillar. And then we can't talk about all of these changes without understanding, what quality looks like. And so keeping a focus on what that vision for high quality education in Vermont is. If you're thinking about changing the funding structure, we must know, like, what it is that we're trying to pay for in order to make sure that there's sufficient funds going to schools and whatever models ultimately selected by this body. And then to strengthen and develop the educator workforce by fostering robust partnerships with higher education institutions, creating incentives to recruit educators, and supporting grow your own programs. There's many places and disciplines that have, educator workforce shortages, and we know that one of the most important tools in improving education quality is the quality of, the workforce, the the teachers. Please consider equity when making changes to the delivery system that holds independent schools and pre k programs that receive public tuition to the same standards of quality, equity, efficiency, and transparency of public schools back to the mental health and social services, provide clarity on funding responsibilities between education and human services based for school based mental health services and invest mental health support for youth and their families. And then, we hear a lot of reports about Medicaid being extremely cumbersome, and so taking a closer look at that and potential expansion to students without IEPs, that's something that happened nationally for, I think, a decade now, but it's not something that Vermont does. I admittedly don't know a whole lot of the why of that, but, was, curious as to why Vermont has not done that expansion when other states have. Again, school construction and facilities aid is is critical, but two more nuanced points in that category is the use use equitable standards for capital reserve accounts. That was an act one eighty three of twenty twenty four to allow facilities investments to remain outside for people spending calculations. It's currently deterring people from doing essential work to their facilities because of the inclusion in the excess spending penalty. And then a big one that we've been working on for a number of years is the PCB testing program. I hope that you'll offer us an opportunity to come in and share about what schools are going through. It's pretty significant, those that have been identified as having above the actionable level in the disruption to students. And as far as we know, the reimbursement process for those schools has slowed, if not stopped. And so thinking about putting a pause or complete halt on that PCV testing program in order for schools that have been identified to get the proper support they need to remediate. Like the Vermont School Board Association, we think it's important to examine the statewide oversight structures of education in Vermont, including the relationship between the state board and the secretary of education to ensure proper checks and balances such that one branch of government does not have total authority over all of the appointments. And then, just being really considerate about considerate about new legislation, and making sure that those are fully funded and fully vetted for maximum efficiency and leverage to improve education quality and experience for students. There's gonna be a lot of change coming, so just asking for for all of us to ask ourselves whether it's the most essential change at the moment when we're thinking about policy considerations. So tried to go through that fast. [Speaker 1 ]: Sorry for I appreciate that. One thing, I guess, that would've been the Supernova Association has been has been pretty valuable resource to us is its ability to sort of put a concept out there to its members and get pretty quick feedback for us. Is can you talk about that a little bit? [Chelsea Myers ]: Yeah. There's a lot of ways we can do that. We can do more targeted feedback request if it's, like, for example, is gonna going to impact small schools. We can reach out directly to those superintendents. We also get very good response rates from, like, surveys, very quickly. Superintendents are very responsive. We can pull together meetings very fast on things. So it's it's one of the benefits for having a smaller membership because we get a lot of really focused attention from the members when considering new policy proposals. [Speaker 1 ]: And could you just explain briefly your your funding [Laura Diaz Smith ]: what capital [Speaker 1 ]: of funds for the ESA? [Chelsea Myers ]: Yeah. We both raise money from our professional learning opportunities that reach more than just superintendents. So a lot of different parts of the delivery system, and then we also, superintendents pay dues into the association. [Speaker 1 ]: And just to I was just to clarify that, generally, those dues are actually paid as part of a school budget. They're not paying it personally. Correct. [Chelsea Myers ]: Yep. I think that's pretty common throughout the Yeah. Association structures. [Speaker 1 ]: Any any questions, folks, in this case? [Chair ]: Just a quick one. Do for point of clarification, do superintendents get the same health care package as teachers, or is that negotiated separately with the school board? [Amy Minor ]: It's typically negotiated with the school board. I know for myself and a number of other superintendents, we we have the same. [Chelsea Myers ]: To be clear, it's separate from the negotiation process, though, the statewide negotiation process. So it could it could be it could mirror what you all what educators get, but it's done separately. [Amy Minor ]: Thank you. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Does that [Chelsea Myers ]: agree? You can keep [Speaker 7 ]: this short because I think we're gonna hopefully take time as a committee to get into it in much more detail. But under, instructional delivery and structural change and class sizes, and inventing EQS, can you talk a little bit about how EQS is working or not working right now in the field? Like, what are the sort of checks on whether we're meeting EQS and what has that has that changed over time? Like, is the agency involved in overseeing assurances around EQS, or is it fairly unreg regulated is not maybe [Chelsea Myers ]: the right word. But I'm [Speaker 1 ]: gonna invite you to have a brief response because we'll definitely dig into this later. [Amy Minor ]: Each superintendent in previous years was emailed a list of assurances Mhmm. That you needed to sign off on. Were you was it something that you were needing, not doing, or working towards those for your three choices in the assurance component connected to the QS? [Chelsea Myers ]: There's been varying levels of, for example, involvement in the continuous improvement plans in the integrated field reviews. So that that's ebbed and flowed over the years, but it's a pretty big topic. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: For sure. [Speaker 1 ]: New Year. Thank you both very much. Alright. And just a reminder, of course, knowing that, you are all spread out everywhere, when we do have superintendents who test on you, you're welcome to assume they have busy schedules and all that. Yeah. Thank you for making me drive. [Chelsea Myers ]: Yeah. Thank you. [Speaker 1 ]: K. We are now at running late, but we don't I think we'll be fine to meet our lunchtime. We're all principals association. We're ready. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Good morning, everybody. I'm director Jay Nichols, executive director of Vermont Preschool Association. I've got cards for you to have my information including my cell phone. You would need to ask us a question and text us, not about baseball. No problem. So I'll start by just telling a little bit about the DPA. DPA was founded in nineteen fifteen, and it was originally the Vermont Headmaster's Association. And it was founded originally enough to the nineteen nineties. It's almost all about overseeing high school athletes. That was the genesis. Around the nineteen nineties, a lot of research came out about principals as instructional leaders that's continued to today. Prior to that, principals were basically managers of buildings, boilers, buses, and behavior. They weren't expected to be in classrooms. They weren't expected to be helping teachers in their instructional practices, and that has all changed since since the nineteen nineties. So principals are much more involved in instruction. In fact, the latest Wallace Foundation report, research report has has had principals identified as equal with teachers in terms of the impact on student performance. And And the reason for that is, quite honestly, is we have less teachers with experience, and so principals bringing teachers together, having instructional coaches, helping teachers improve their craft, supporting the nuances of the building, making sure the building's running well, all helps impact the positive learning of students. So that's been a recent research trend. Few things about the BPA, we have a fifteen member governing board that's spread around the state. One retired principal, one career center director, one assistant principal, and then the other twelve are active current principals in state of Vermont. And, again, it's g geographical school size. We try to have a balance of gender. Right now, we have one more female and the male, so we try to keep this even as we can on all of those things. We have twenty eight sports committees that we oversee. We oversee lots of professional learning. We have a new principal's class. We've had over two hundred and seventy principals go through that class. That class is taught by me. It has been for the last almost fifteen years now. In fact, Amy Amy might be not gonna pick all of her principles except for one to that class. So we try to really provide first class instruction for them, for principals. We We also run a mentoring program by Vermont Law. We're in the few states that does this. Every single principal is a mentor for their first two years. And it can be through the VPA, but it also can be separate from the VPA. The superintendents get to choose. They consult with us. We give them a list of mentors that are trained, and then they go out with the person who thinks the best fit for the for the principal, and that's been a very successful program. We have six employees for the entire state. In terms of principal turnover, it's annually around twenty percent. Now that number sounds higher than it is because many times, it's a principal who was being tapped to go from small school to bigger school, maybe in that same district or is becoming a superintendent. Most most superintendents were principals prior to being superintendent. So it's not uncommon for people to go from one job to another or go to a bigger school or move closer to their home, and we do lose principals every year across the border to to New York and and Mass because the pace higher there and the retirement systems are somewhat stronger there. So we also have that as a fact. Let's see what else. I wanted to mention, first of all, in terms of and we'll just go through our list here, equitable funding changes. I've had a couple legislators send an email saying, great. You were on TV the other night saying you were a little concerned about the foundation form. And I know not everybody took it that way, but when I made comments about the foundation formula, though, when I was being interviewed by well, I'm talking about Yeah. Tell me what you're saying. [Speaker 1 ]: When I [Laura Diaz Smith ]: was being interviewed, goodbye. Yeah. We were talking about the foundation formula in general, and I was giving him a reserve about that is what's happened in Alaska. Where Alaska went, like, nine or ten years in a row without putting in the cost of living index that's in the law. So for nine or ten years in a row, they leveled fund. So what happened in Alaska was the base education amount didn't change. The places that had plenty of oil money, they locally taxed and and added programs. The places that didn't have that level funded really meant touch to their program. So a foundation formula can work if it's done right. Just wanna put that out there at the very beginning. So in terms of our priorities, I just wanna say we got two goals, the big day, and these are not in your notes. First is to uphold the public mission of schools, provide equitable learning opportunities for all Vermont students, And I can send a copy of these. The second is support, retain, and recruit school leaders with a focus on increasing diversity, fostering resilience. Now in our membership, we are predominantly, at the elementary level, female principals. We have about sixty percent, sixty one percent are female principals. At the high school level, it's closer to fifty fifty. Overall, we're slightly more skewed in the number of females who we are males. If you think about that from a logic model, it should be that way, maybe even more so because our teachers are around seventy five to seventy eight percent female in the state of the model. So when we think about that, we should have more females leadership. And that's something that we've tried to lean into. We do a woman at leadership conference that we sponsor with the superintendents, and we're constantly trying to recruit strong female teachers and instructional coaches to consider the pathway of the principalship. And now I'm just jumping to my to my major notes to take any questions. First, in terms of, equitable funding changes, we would like to see nuanced approach, approach that looks at all the different legs, of the funding formula. So for us, a really, big thing is looking at cost drivers that local districts don't have a lot of control over. I was listening to senator Baruth and speaker Lewinsky talking on the radio, and they both talked about health insurance. Health insurance is one good example. For your application, principals get the exact same health insurance as teachers, and it's done at the state level. Principals are actually represented by Vermont NEA. So one thing that we're represented by Vermont NEA, principals do not have any member on that mission, but we are treated the same as teachers and paraprofessional support staff, but we do not contract all the same. And it's eighty twenty for us. And VPA employees are treated the exact same way. Whatever our principals get, we get. So we pay twenty percent of our insurance, and the VPA pays eighty percent. So very similar to, the features. For us, one of the big factors here is that we wanna make sure that same dollars, same rules for any changes to education funding. You're gonna hear me say that over and over again. If we send money to private entities, we need to make sure that it's transparent, that they're accountable, and they're following the same rules for their students in terms of admission, in terms of quality of instruction they're getting, the support that they're getting so that it's equitable and it's fair. Your job is not to be the senate of education for public schools or for private schools. It's to be senate our senate health education for all students in the city of Vermont. So your job is to represent all students. And as a v as a VPA, that's what we attempt to do every single day. We did wanna mention specifically, like, right now, we have money coming from the ed fund that we think should be coming from the general fund or other sources. One example is early childhood money for private providers. We have private providers, and we have had them for over ten years receiving money that do not have licensed teachers providing instructing kids. And in schools, we're required to have licensed teachers even for preschool kids. That's not equitable, and it's also not fair to the kids. We can bring in lots of research. Somebody who's seen the research, and we can bring in principals to testify the difference between the kids that are in programs that are overseen by schools directly versus childcare center where there's not a licensed teacher. And the difference is enormous. The principals can tell you the difference and how impactful it is to have a licensed teacher working with kids. Same thing with with private schools. BPA strongly believes its rules should be the same if money is coming from the education fund. If the school is truly private and the money is not coming from the education fund, then that's different. Chelsea mentioned, a little bit about the education governance construct. We've been a big supporter of moving from an agency back to a Department of Education. Full disclosure, when the superintendents voted on this, whatever year that was, we were pretty much split into thirds. I was the the treasurer at the time. There's a group of us, Jeanne Collins, myself, Elaine Pickney that really felt we should keep a commissioner and keep a, department, not an agency. We were worried about it being too much politics into education. There was a group of us, that were really adamant that the governor need to be more involved and that, the governor's office and it wasn't governors governor Scott at the time was able to easily wash their hands with education issues, and therefore, should become an agency. That was led by a person who became the secretary of interest in Dan Franchi. So, you know, we could not decide. So the BPA and the VSA at the time did not weigh in on that. I think after what we've seen over the last ten, eleven years, we should really look at trying to move education away from the political constructs of having it be an agency. And along with that, you know, two year governor term, guys. Now we've had we typically don't hold out incumbents, but we did go up to the governor this year, first time in two hundred years, It could happen with the governor. Have the direction of our education system be at such a whim that the agency could change on a dime like that with a change in the governor concerns me, and I think that should be something that's thought about. To give some examples of what we think that could look like in here in terms of restructured agency of education and, state board. You can regress that. Pre kindergarten, we support full ADM for full school day, full school year programs for school districts that want to do that. We think that's an easy change you can make. There's legislation that tried to do that last year. So places that are already doing that, for example, Sonali City, it's a great example of that very poor community. They their local voters at Sonali are funding full day pre k. That should be fully part of the state system initiative, full ADM for that. They're doing the right thing for lots of kids in poverty there, and their taxpayers are paying extra for it because they don't have extra taxing authority for that. That's an easy fix. We should definitely have BCAG for schools that are doing full day programs be funded same as we do kindergarten. I'm not gonna touch on vaping. We support it every year. The governors vetoed it. It's fast. I hope that the house and senate, again, will support vaping law. I hope the bill comes forward. Principles can talk to you all the time. We got kids that are getting addicted to negative things. And so it's a crisis. And we have we have buildings we're putting in detectors that have a big we got principals or and systems are putting chairs outside the office and out of the bathrooms and working from the chairs, because it's such a crisis. And what's happening is these tobacco companies are targeting our kids with these fruity mint flavors and bubblicious nicotine, and kids are using these products and getting cooked. Maybe it's not as bad as cigarettes. I don't know. It sure is not good for them. So I'd I'd love to see the legislature act on that again if the opportunity is there. PCBs, I think you all know how we feel about that. No funding, no testing. The president of the v s the VPA is Rebecca Pimp. She's a principal at Twin Valley Elementary School. Their schools had major issues with these PCDs, and they will be working with the EPA as long as that building's in existence. The president-elect incoming president for next year is Chris Young. He's a principal of North Country Union High School. And they get to hear all those hundred and fifty fans going all day. They're just more intense for the fall. Either one of those would be happy to come in and talk to you about the actual impact of students on a day to day basis as a PCB, mitigation efforts that have taken place. Reading implementation, act one thirty nine, we are saying, please do not make any changes to that. Please don't even let people talk about it. Let the law go in for a couple years. Let's not we're already hearing talk about changing it to say applies all the way through twelfth grade and all these things. Let the law set up. Let schools actually do the work for a few years and then see where we are in terms of reading test scores. Adult basic education, I think the AOE will be talking to you about that. We need a clear path for those kids who used to be able to get a adult diploma through the schools. That's changed. And so far, we haven't seen a plan from the ALI and how that's gonna be addressed. And I have principals sending the email saying, what are we gonna do in June? So I'm hoping this gets fixed before that. And then the last one is cell phones. We have worked with some state officials as has, I think, fee from INEAs has been part of it, and DSBA, DSA about common sense build that would focus on policy. We don't want you to spend a lot of time on it, but it would restrict some use of cell phones or most use of cell phones from eight to three. We don't want to just open up the can of worms that we did last year. People were talking about Nava and kids use Google Docs and all that silly stuff. We're trying to make kids digital learners in today's world. And other than that, that's all I have. I want to go quick because it's also important to leave Vermont any any plenty of time. But I'll take any questions that you have. [Chair ]: Do you think a [Speaker 7 ]: cell phone bill, like a bell to bell policy, [Chelsea Myers ]: is creating an unfunded mandate? [Speaker 7 ]: Is it putting is it going to create cost, either financial or time? [Laura Diaz Smith ]: It's gonna create time. There's no question about that. And it's gonna have to be enforced. That's something. It's gonna probably be ninety percent of my members enforcing it through teachers, and principals taken away. That said, vast majority of principals do think that something should be in place. It doesn't necessarily have to be a law. Although, one of the advantages of the law is it gives cover. Know, that's one of the advantages of that. And, you know, the bill that we've been talking about is Nuance where there there would be exemptions. We have a lot of kids that use them for dialysis checks and stuff now. And so you would have when I was a principal, it didn't exist. So there's gonna have to be five zero four accommodations and those types of things for some kids. There's also times where it's educationally appropriate. I got a scrum letter from a teacher who teaches this plumbing, heating, electricity type stuff, and he said his kids use it for their electricity work all the time. They're actually using it to look at what wires to cut and all this stuff and and actually use the flashlight. They're also loading downloading data from a live circuit. Well, stuff like that, I think we need to leave some flexibility in it for the principal to be able to say, yes. You can use your you can use your phones in, and missus Brady's techniques. [Speaker 1 ]: Certainly, a topic we'll be learning a lot more about. Thank thank you very much, Jake. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: You're very welcome. Hey, Tom. [Speaker 1 ]: Alright, folks. Next up will be people from the national national Vermont National Education Association. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Morning, Jeff. Morning. [Speaker 1 ]: Go right ahead and introduce yourself and take it away. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: I don't know. We'll do [Jeff Fannon ]: it. It's set up. It's a bit So for the record, Jeff Vann, the executive director of VermontNEA. Thank you for having me here today and and be around much of the session. So if you have any other questions, please stop me. Whatever. I'll start with just some slight introductions as to what Vermont and EA is and how we're structured a little bit. We're about thirteen thousand members who work in every public school and and several of the the historic academies around the state where paraeducators, bus drivers, school workers our school cafeteria workers, administrative assistants, as well as teachers. And so we cover the gamut of of all the working custodians. I'm missing somebody, but, you know, we cover the gamut of everybody who works on on the school system in Vermont. So those thirteen thousand members are represented by a board about twenty two members from around the state. It's it's just a paraeducators, bus drivers, teachers around the state, and they make decisions on behalf of the organization. And I work for them, the board of trustees the board of directors at Columbia. You will also see, in addition to myself, you'll see Don Kenny, who's the president of Vermont Media, a thirty one year English teacher in Middlebury and then ended up at BFA Saint Albans. He's not here today, but you may see him in and around the building. You'll see Colin Robinson, our director of government relations. He's your probably go to resource for immediate questions. He's here a lot more than I am, and he's applicable and probably friendlier than I am. So you get a better answer out of town. In addition, you'll see Rebecca McBroom, our general counsel. She was here earlier but had to run to a meeting. Becca is mouths about labor issues, of course, a lot of special ed work she's done. So she's she brings a little bit different platform to to the conversation, but different idea, different perspectives, general counsel. So she's also a source for you from from NDA. So that's how we structure ourselves. In addition, just give you a little flavor about how we're structured as a staff, We have seven Uniserv directors who work around the state. Uniserv directors almost entirely are teachers who we've hired, and our model is we work with our members to help bargain local contracts, process grievances, and we work with local leaders in that regard, whether support staff or teachers to do a lot of we think it's much better to work more closely with your local administrator or school board to figure out problems, nip them in the bud earlier, and that's kind of the model approach we have. Consequently, we hire administrative directors, UDs as we call them, who are all usually right out of the ranks teaching and work with other members, and we train them, and that's how it would work. We also have a director of professional programs, Juliette Longchamp, thirty year teach teacher in Vermont. Doctor Longchamp, as we know her, is a our director of professional programs and does more PD than any other person in the state and works with educators around the state in all forms. Indeed, we have the largest licensing mechanism in the state. Several years ago, president Kamala, you asked me what we're doing to address teacher shortage. We're actually licensing teachers, not Vermont VA is not licensing, but we're working with them to get through the peer review process to become licensed teachers. Last year, I think we were over eighty in that regard, so we are doing the work necessary to get people licensed and in a classroom and teaching kids. And so that's that's happening. We work with local schools on that. We've started off mostly in the northeast kingdom in that. The curriculum director's up there. So that was a program we that was seeded with money from the federal government under art through the AI. We signed a contract with the AI. We could do that work, and that's work is ongoing now and funded through schools directly to make sure that people get the licensing background that it needs. So that's work that's ongoing and and robust, I would say. And then for some discussion about health care, we have a director of member benefits, Mark Hage, who works with his counterparts at at Beehive, which is the Vermont Health Initiative, which is the the trust, the joint administered trust that has the health health insurance products offered to educators. So that's that's who we are, what we do. And if you have any questions, by all means, call or ask me. Briefly, our our legislative agenda, you have on your website, maybe you have a background of notes. But we we understand and acknowledge there's some education funding issues that need to be addressed. We want to be at the table. We're at the table. We're open minded. We have a proposal that we we put out just for the holidays, and and I'll just in brief, if you have that as well, We think the income thresholds, income sensitivity, the clips as they're known, haven't been adjusted for inflation in a very long time and needs to be. So we think that's one quick effective issue that we addressed and would affect positively about fifty thousand Vermonters to reduce their property taxes. That's a pretty significant move that just catching up the the cliffs to catch up to inflation. Also, we we heard somebody in our first Chelsea or Jay say, looking at what's coming out of the Ed Fund, making sure that we know what it is we're paying for out of the Ed Fund that used to be paid out of the general fund. So last year, the administration said that the increase in mental health services from that are being paid for by schools was in the tune of fifty or sixty million dollars. That was last year, the increase. That's gone up and continues to go up because the mental health system, the state is really not doing what it needs to be doing at all, and it's been left to the schools to pick up that piece of the puzzle for kids. And they are doing it because they have to. There's no choice in the matter. So that's gonna cost you from the general fund to the ed funds, the property taxpayers. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: I don't [Jeff Fannon ]: know if it's intentional, but it has happened. We heard that through the pandemic, and it's only gotten worse. So we think taking a look at what's coming out of the Ed Fund is important. And lastly, we think moving to the income tax and abolishing the residential property tax is a is a good move. Two thirds of the of taxpayers pay their education tax based on their income through income sensitivity, and we think that should be extended to all all Vermonters. And therefore, we could abolish the residential property tax, And that would be significant. So there the sheet there, it does give some examples on page two, but it it's it's certainly there are ways to lower property taxes in the immediate future, look at what's coming out of the Ed Fund, and then move to the income tax sort of a a progressive, you know, three step move that we're suggesting. So we we think school finance is obviously a big issue. It is. We know that, and we want to remain in the involved in those discussions. So thank you for keeping us in mind as you move along. Just a a few it's nine pages or agenda. As you might guess, with thirteen thousand members, we have a lot of things that mean a lot of things to a lot of people. And acknowledging that students are in crisis now more than ever before, whether that's because they're not getting services elsewhere, but they are ending up at schools, and we need teachers, educators, some of you here in this table know that better than I do. Kids are in need of a lot of help and support like never before. So we think that increasing school counselors is actually a good move to work with kids. It may be paid for differently, but certainly getting kids with their needs is what we think is advisable. We get community schools, expanding that to address more and greater services that are coming to the school, kids who are coming with great needs. Obviously, funding the AOE is important part of this piece too because you're going to have an agency or department as Jay suggested. We didn't think it was advisable many years ago to go to the agency, but I'll leave that on the table. But you you need to fund the AOE so that he can do his job and and advise and counsel schools. So we think that's important. Looking at administrative efficiencies is a good move as well. So and also, lastly, to address student excuse me, teacher shortage. There was, in twenty twenty three, the legislature legislature established, through VSAC, a student loan forgiveness program. I think that should be extended. It worked, and it was it was [Speaker 1 ]: Yeah. [Jeff Fannon ]: Desirous from people looking at that so we could keep that going. [Speaker 1 ]: One quickly Quick question. When does it expire? [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Yeah. I [Speaker 1 ]: don't know. Go get it. Come. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: I don't know. Go get com. ComAround took money. My understanding from CSAC is all the money's been expended, and it's gonna It's cheaper. Fund. They've doubled the applicant somewhere that they have on. [Speaker 1 ]: You're actually able to keep it going, but they haven't been closed right as I'd like to like now. Usually, now it's more described. Okay. Yeah. [Jeff Fannon ]: So there is no deadline to it at all. Right. One oddity in the education system is school support staff who are not employed in schools over the summer are ineligible to even apply for unemployment insurance. Unlike any other seasonal worker in Vermont, school employee school support staff can't apply for unemployment insurance. We think that should be changed. They they were able to do that in the eighties and early nineties, I think it was. So federal laws changed. Vermont changed with those federal laws to allow it. The laws federal laws changed back. Vermont did not change back. And so we are we believe that that should change again back to the way it was in the eighties, and and school support staff should be eligible to apply for may not be required to give it to them. There may be various reasons why they wouldn't, but they can't even apply for it now. We think that's that's a mistake and should be fixed. [Speaker 1 ]: Any sense of what that would cost? [Jeff Fannon ]: No. I don't. For the most part, a lot of these people are offered some positions. Again, they they could apply, but if they're offered a position or they haven't yet another position, most of them do work other positions in summer, so they wouldn't get it. They would be ineligible to receive it, but they would be eligible to apply for it. So the answer is, I don't know. It may not be as much as people think because most people do get second jobs and sometimes third jobs. I know I have a board member who's a paraeducator. She has three jobs. So these are hardworking folks, hardworking managers who want to work, but sometimes can't get a job for various reasons. And so it should not be ineligible to even apply for employment insurance. So that's I think a mistake is adjusted. As it relates to health care, we are very interested in the work with our colleagues and through Prospect to move to lower the cost of health care. Reference based pricing is something it's been done in seven other states which with much success. I understand that there's a concern that it may shift. We actually think it would be good to apply reference based pricing to all Vermonters. It is not lost on me that just yesterday, the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont said that we're paying too much in hospital costs. Prior to that, the Green Mountain Care Board said we're paying too much as did the Oliver Wyman report in September. So we are spending a lot. We have the highest premiums in the country, health care insurance premiums in the country. Why is that? And it's mostly because the cost of health or hospital care. We need to look at that. And one way to look at that and address this is to reference based pricing, which is simply capping giving hospitals a reference with by which they can't charge over. And so in other states, Oregon and Montana, for example, they pegged it at Medicare plus I think it was two hundred percent. So they're making twice what they're being paid reimbursed twice what they're being reimbursed for Medicare. Right now, Beehive is reimbursed and is being charged three hundred more than three hundred percent of what Medicare pays, so three times what Medicare. And so if you were to gradually lower that or bring that down to some methodical way, we would be paying a lot less. And that's what the Green Mountain Care Board said in December, I think it was. So a lot of conversations will take place about that. We hope it is a a meaningful step in the right direction to lower the cost of health care for everybody. So that's one solution. We do think that the state should continue to fund the free universal lunch program. I've heard more and more from my board members about how important this is about it removes the stigma from kids from having to apply for a free and reduced lunch. It is a really significant program for students, and we think it ought to be funded. And how you fund it out of of where, that's a that's a discussion, obviously. But doing away with it, as some have said, is we think this category could be wrong and ill advised. School construction, I was on the task force two years ago. It's an ongoing conversation. Obviously, this morning, thank you for that presentation. I'd like to hear that. And we wanna remain in that, but certainly restarting some significant school construction program is necessary. It is our schools are woefully behind the curve on the facility managements. It just outdated everything, facilities all over the state. So the six to nine billion dollar price tag that we've seen bandied about is not we don't sneeze at that. We don't cavalierly say this, but it is it's gotta be a long term solution. And, Chris, we've talked about it. You know, there are many ways to fund it. But getting going, we think, is important. And so, certainly, fully funding the testing and remediation for PCBs. These are these are learning environments for students and the working conditions of educators, and they ought to be working in places that are safe. So thank you for that. It's good to have a reason to make familiar with them. We do think that there ought to be a wealth tax to apply to those making more than five hundred thousand dollars. We've raised, I think, a little over seventy five million dollars, and you could use that in creative ways. But we think that there is interest in that from my members, and I think across the state, people think that so we're making more than five hundred thousand dollars can can afford a little bit more to help the state, and pay their fair share. Additionally, keeping the pension promises from a couple years ago, that's on the right trajectory. We heard from treasurer last week. Things are moving in the right direction. Keep steady on that. I I call it oatmeal. We wanna hear oatmeal about our pensions. We don't wanna have spicy things in our in our oatmeal. The pension needs to be funded. It was not funded for as the actor has suggested for many, many years. That's put us behind the curve. We've started to address that. That's going in the right direction. Thank you. Keep anything we can do to keep that going is great in our humble opinion. The state needs to some way respond to the radical US Supreme Court decision in the Carson v. Megan case so that we remain true to our constitutional separation of church and state, which right now we don't. Not adhering to our own constitution. So I think that we need to, as a state, get together and figure out how best to respond to that decision. So that is thoughtful and it remains consistent with our constitutional values and principles. So happy to work with you on that as well. Acknowledge that we want schools to do better. They do a great job. Our public schools do an awesome job right now. They're meeting the needs of students across the state, and educators are really working with a lot of kids with a lot of different needs and doing great stuff. One of the things we know that is important, Jay just talked about, school leadership is very important to schools. And why is it that more people aren't going into principalships? Because great teachers turn into great principals. It should be an examination of that. We want to make sure that we have great principals in all of our schools. They're the ones who are schools that our members work that my members work with, and that's important. So look at that And certainly looking at the AOE capacity, what have we asked them to do? Can they do it? Can they do it with Fidelity? And I'm I'm not sure the answer is yes in all cases. We we may have over asked them to do things and not given them the resources with which to do them. So that's an an examination date. I know when I started out here many, many years ago, there were robust special ed teams, for example, that would go around the state and meet with schools and work with them and try to better their improve their practices around special education. That's not the same that's not happening now. That's a loss. So I think that there are ways to make sure that the AIE has capacity we think it should have and fit the statements it should have. I should say that you as legislature think it should have, but it's a a matter of capacity for them right now. So with that, I'll leave it to any questions you may have, and happy to answer questions here or later if you happen. [Speaker 1 ]: Thank you very much, Jeff. Just to this is for the committee's information. So we've had a lot of discussion about health care. Jeff and brought up reference based pricing. I finished review that that is a topic that is being taken out of the health care committee this year. And I'm gonna ask Annie to send you all a link to a YouTube video. Last year, we had testimony from Mark Cage and from Beehive Just sort of talking about why our health insurance rates are going up. So, like, it's actually very clear, I think, valuable piece of testimony to watch. And so we'll just [Jeff Fannon ]: I don't wanna send that around to folks, and [Speaker 1 ]: we can find it in the archive. [Jeff Fannon ]: Yeah. But, I mean, I I don't recall the archive, but I think it was Bobby, Joe, Sauls, and and Mark Hage. They're coadministrators behind, so they worked well together, and and I'm sure it's a cogent thoughtful presentation. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Or two. Yeah. [Chelsea Myers ]: Thank [Laura Diaz Smith ]: you. I just have a quick question on page two. I'm just kinda curious. Sure. State should, as a matter of law, make a default for those who borrow or purchase or refinance a home to escrow the property taxes as part of a monthly payment? I'm just kind of curious. [Jeff Fannon ]: Yeah. Many states have that. So in other words, you get a mortgage. The default is you escrow your property taxes. And we think it's a it ensures that somebody's paying their mortgage and their taxes on a consistent ongoing basis basis. It frankly, I don't understand why banks don't do it. We don't do it here in Vermont, and we think it's probably a better way to ensure that property taxes are paid instead of getting once or twice a year a big bill face facing your family finances. So it's it's just taking into your mortgage as a default. You can opt out. No question about it. But most states, it's an opt in feature of their mortgaging, and we don't do that here. We just think it should [Speaker 1 ]: be reversed. Okay. Thank you. Any questions? I just again for the committee, a couple of just topics that were brought up are will be things that will be working more to the the low forgiveness program. I I think by all measures has been a success that will have the exact I mean, talk about their administration of it. It was funded with ARPA dollars one one time, and I guess it's fully subscribed. [Jeff Fannon ]: Yeah. Our were helpful significantly and got a lot of things going. And then the question is how do we maintain them or or not. And as long as we do that intention, I think, with our eyes wide open that we do or don't wanna continue things. Yeah. [Speaker 1 ]: It's important to look at. And we'll also spend some time talking about community schools and the model where they're the sort of pilot program that we funded. Again, your one time hundred dollars a few years ago. Right. Anything else? Thank you very much. Thank you. [Chelsea Myers ]: Thank you. [Jeff Fannon ]: That's alright. Good to see [Speaker 1 ]: you. Alright. So we are back here [Jeff Fannon ]: at one thirty. [Chair ]: Are we here [Chelsea Myers ]: or are we in a pavilion? [Speaker 1 ]: Was that I'm sorry. We're at the pavilion. Yep. It'll be a big it'll be a big crowd. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: And [Speaker 7 ]: then two six. [Laura Diaz Smith ]: Two six.

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