SmartTranscript of House Education - 2025-02-12 - 9:50 AM

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Okay. Welcome back to House Education, Wednesday, February twelfth twenty twenty five. Turning our attention to act one sixty eight, which was our BOCES or boards of cooperative education education services bill that we passed last year. Just to remind everybody, it was sort of enabling language. It didn't have money attached to it, didn't have staff attached to it, but it allowed folks to sort of get rolling. We're here for an update to ask some questions that the field has given us to think about and see where we go [Speaker 1 ]: from here. [Speaker 2 ]: Anyway, Anyway, it looks like you have a presentation [Chair Peter Conlon]: or a document. [Speaker 2 ]: We have a document. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Yes. Dude I was like, we [Chair Peter Conlon]: Would you like to go over that, or do you do do you have are you just waiting for questions, or do you have some comments you'd like to make for? Just Just give us an update. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: So Jill Briggs Campbell, interim deputy secretary. [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: For the record, Lindsay Hedges. I'm the interim dev interim director of policy and communications. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: I think we can give just kind of a brief update on sort of where we're at, and then I think it really yeah. Just some questions, and I think we have some opportunity to think through how we might move forward. Yeah. [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: Go ahead, Lucy. So I know you all heard from the field last week about Act one sixty eight, which established boards of cooperative education services or BOCES. And we wanted to provide a bit more kind of background and general overview before we dig into how we're thinking about considerations in a future state. So Act one hundred and sixty eight passed last session, aimed aimed to enhance educational opportunities, operational efficiencies, and allowed SUSDs to collaborate with shared services, programs, and resources. And there's a few steps that needed to occur before a BOCES could be formally stood up. First being that SUSDs had to come together to vote to formation of the BOCES. They have to negotiate on articles of agreement, which I think you heard a little bit last week as something that folks are looking for some support around, just given that it's potentially a time and labor intensive initiative. They then have to vote on those articles of agreement, and then those articles get sent up to the secretary of education for review. The secretary can provide edits and feedback, before signing off on those articles. And then at that point, once the articles have been approved by the secretary of education, the BOCES can apply for a start up grant of ten thousand dollars. To date, the secretary has not signed off on the formation of any BOCES and no start up grants have been awarded. But we know that there are conversations around the state, particularly in the southern regions of groups that have begun to have these conversations. We also know that there's some barriers to implementation, including budget constraints and lack of capacity or at the state level. And so we at the agency have been engaged with the Cloud Learning Collaborative who has really been leading those efforts down in the southern southern region of the state. And they've provide us provided us with really robust model articles of agreement to to, you know, provide as a resource for the field. And so I've had the pleasure of meeting with Jill and walking through those in their really robust, good starting place. We just need to make sure from the state level we are taking into consideration all of the, you know, fiscal, legal, programmatic, kind of, implications in those in the model articles of agreement before we're releasing them out to the field as a resource to use. And moving forward, the AOE also has a contractor on board right now that has some national expertise in the BOCES framework, so we are a little bit better positioned at this point to start moving forward that work in a more meaningful way. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Anything to add? Yeah. So I so, luckily, we do have new solutions who you're gonna be, hearing from on Friday. They happen to, as Lindsay said, be a national leader on the use of BOCES, particularly, to improve the delivery of special education services and support. They actually were working with BT, the the Vermont Learning Collaborative, as they were putting together their own kind of framework. So there's a nice kind of synergy there, and it's a group that really knows the Vermont context very well. I think that we've talked about this already and particularly last week that one sixty eight was, I I really think, a well intention to try to address a real need. You know, at the time, the agency had expressed concern, and I I still do have that concern that we're adding complexity on top of an already complex system, but I understand the reasoning behind it. Right? We all sort of agree that because our system doesn't operate at scale, that bringing regional scale to the delivery of of particular services and supports makes sense. Where, you know, to be frank, I'm sort of stuck is how do we move forward as we're contemplating big change as Lindsay knows and and the learning collaborative now in those districts. I said that to them when we were meeting. I said, you know, I'm not sure where we're going in the next year or two, and so it's sort of hard to, you know, sort of continue to rush headlong into the creation of something that may not be the the right move at this point. So I do think that's where that conversation should, you know, can happen. And in our presentation last week in the governance presentation, I've really been sort of thinking about this, and, Lindsay, I've been thinking about this as we move forward. I do think that there is a role for an education service agency or BOCES, maybe multiple in our system. I think it behooves us to sort of take a step back and think about as we're looking at changes in government scale, where are those gaps. And then the other consideration is there are multiple ways to structure a BOCES or an education service agency. Our current structure in one sixty eight is really districts sort of organically creating this. There's other ways to do this, and I think you should contemplate them. There's ways to do it that have more tight coordination with the state. There's different funding structures in other states. The funding comes as, like, a categorical grant directly from the state. We're sort of contemplating that EBOCs. So I do think there's an opportunity to take this idea, which I think is a good one and serves a really important purpose. And as acclimate people are contemplating different changes in the system, what is that key role? So it puts us in a little bit of a weird spot, and I think it puts folks like the learning collaborative in the southeast, which is really by far the furthest along here, in a bit of a weird spot. And so I think that's sort of, you know, we just want to have that conversation on what we do with this. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah. Appreciate that and certainly willing to acknowledge the same that we are we are our current reality, and then we're talking a lot about changes. The proposal with the ESAs, I think we still have a very good grasp on. And, frankly, we're working off of a short form bill when that even shows up. So we also are sort of, like, having to think in two different two different tracks. We've got like, if we are working within the system that we have today, what changes need to be made to to move this along? I think many of us would like to see the ability of of of one BOCES to be formed, to see how it's a kind of a good pilot. On the other hand, you know, we got a lot of discussion in what what is the future will gonna look like. So just to say yeah. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Yeah. Yeah. Same. [Chair Peter Conlon]: The you know, one of the thoughts let's just so let's just stay on the current system, No big changes in the future. Just to think on that path. The learning collaborative basically comes out of the month. They they were wondering about, well, can't we have access to the ten thousand dollars written in order to form articles of agreement because they require lawyers and a lot of expense, and nobody's, I think, ready to [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: get money for that. [Chair Peter Conlon]: And this, I guess, isn't really a a question for you in terms of, like, what's better money now and money later? But there were is that accurate? They don't have access to the money until they have a group of three looking at this as the end of this. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Yeah. And, Lindsay, you dug into this a little bit. There there's actually a workflow issue in one sixty eight that is preventing that [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: step forward. So yeah. No. I mean, without the language in front of me, I I wanna reference that specifically. But, yeah, my understanding is that the start up grant is not available to OCS until the secretary has signed off on this agreement. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Right. And and so they have articles of agreement. They they did create them, and they currently are in what step of of the process? [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: If they want to formally submit them to the secretary for approval, we could move forward with that process. We would then need to create a grant program, so we can do that. I think where we've been is, I would say, more in a step of, like, sort of conversation. And and I I will like, full full disclosure, as I said, I've really been cautioning them. Like, oh, I'm not sure if you all should be moving forward. You've done a ton of work in this space, but I am I am very cautious about I I take your point about the idea of having an example of this, but it would take a tremendous amount of work for them to actually stand this up. It would change their special ed delivery. And I am cautious about putting them in a situation where we might say a year from now or even by the end of the session, this is no longer a relevant construct. So we could move forward, but I'm not I'm just I I have real concerns about doing that. I don't know that [Speaker 2 ]: we're setting everybody up for success. [Chair Peter Conlon]: I I guess I would say we we have a law. We have a process in that law. That's the reality we're working with. [Speaker 2 ]: I'm really concerned about what's happening here. It feels like the legislature passed a law to create a structure for BOCES that the agency at the time supported. We know the field supports because it is a potential tool. It is not the end all, be all, but it is a potential tool for some scale and some efficiency and some regionalization. And I I'm not sure which organization is, but I think we have testimony. There's at least one group whose articles of agreement are sitting at the agency and waiting for action. And I I don't understand legislative process enough, I guess. We can pass a bill, it becomes law, and then it can be held up because there's a potential for larger change that's theoretical right now. I this feels like a so but, really, this this feels like a really slippery slope we're in right now, and it's a small thing. But if we're saying that we can't move forward on enacted policies and laws and grant programs for anything in the field because we're we don't know what the future will be, I'm losing sight a bit of how how the the whole process works here and and what's happening in in the field that there's an articles of agreement, I think, waiting for approval. So I I think that's a bit bit of [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: a mischaracterization of what I was saying. So let me well, I'll I'll take a step back because I probably wasn't explaining myself as well as I should have. So I'm signaling in an informal way my own sort of thinking around this, which we had discussed kind of at the beginning, was maybe part of the conversation today. On the formal and implementation of one sixty eight, I think we can all recognize as Brett Conlon pointed out that there was no resources identified [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: for this in [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: the agency and that we had signaled very clearly last session that there was no one in the agency who had any expertise around the formation of the BOCES, and no resources were identified too. So over the course of the fall, which is when the conversations with the learning collaborative have happened, We have identified that. We've had multiple meetings with them, and they've been really, I think, good partners in this. In bringing on new solutions for different work, we identified that they actually had a great deal of expertise in this area, and so we are leveraging that expertise to support the implementation of act one sixty eight. So I think it's really I want to be very clear about the two different kind of conversations that we're having. So we do have articles of agreement that have been, I would say, in informally submitted, and and we can go back to the learning collaborative and actually go back to those districts and ask for the formal submission to the secretary for review. It would then require that we had expertise within the agency that would be able to review those articles of agreement, including what are the kind of fiscal implications, legal implications that it needs to respond back with some level of knowledge and expertise on on whether or not we should approve, whether or not there's any concerns. We can, at this point in time, leverage the consultants with the product for a different purpose, but we're willing to use to support this work because no resources are done. I just wanna clarify those two different In addition, I think that it behooves us to have a conversation around how we might conceive of BOCES or an education service agency future state. So I'm not in any way saying no. We shouldn't move forward with this, and it shouldn't be. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Representative Brown. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: So are we hearing a commitment to move forward with the work of both these as law is currently written in vision? [Speaker 2 ]: If that's what I mean, I think I'm here [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Going to say again, we just now have been able to bring on some expertise. I don't know, and I need to go back and understand the degree to which we need additional expertise within the agency. I can't have a consultant reviewing articles of agreement and and having the secretary to sign off the legal obligation on that. I can ask our general counsel to review and certainly they will. We can ask our finance department to review, certainly they will, and we can then identify whether or not he has with the appropriate expertise. But the articles of agreement we've had for a month or so. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Is the lack of expertise can is that a vacancy issue? In other words, are there are there postage jobs that would bring the expertise necessary to to deal with this? [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: I mean, in other states, there's usually some sort of staff or team at the state agency that is responsible for the issue. So not entirely sure how to answer that question. [Chair Peter Conlon]: I don't [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: have any posted job that says BOCES coordinator. [Chair Peter Conlon]: No. No. No. No. I I realized that, and and I don't think we need to have BOCES coordinator for one BOCES. But I I am wondering about, you know, are there are there positions at the AOE legally, financially that would normally be available to review this and those vacancies are just unfittable? [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: No. I wouldn't care. Yeah. I wouldn't characterize this. Or [Speaker 2 ]: Just curious of what what is envisioned of the ESA ESA that is that would be different from a BOCES? [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: So I I spoke to this a bit last week. So if we are contemplating future states so let me draw a line so we're really clear. We're not talking about one sixty eight at this point. We're talking about future state, potentially. We're contemplating a different governance structure. Then I think it does make sense to ask the question, for example, if it was the five district structure that we proposed, to what degree, since those are already regional in nature, you would want regional BOCES or an education service agency providing those same services? The answer may be yes. You still do want special education services coordinated by BOCES or a statewide special education BOCES or a statewide CTE or, you know, potentially a statewide education service that would provide professional development on critical areas like literacy and math. So states use education service agencies or BOCES in a variety of ways. And I keep saying ESAs because that's the umbrella term, and BOCES is a very specific construct, so I'm trying to expand our thinking a little bit. So, currently, one sixty eight has districts forming a BOCE. If we're operating at a different scale, is that still the right construct? And I think it's worth a question. And as I said, in other states, you can just fund directly, like, through a categorical grant to the professional development education service agency that's gonna provide these services across the field. So I think it's just a different construct, and it's worthwhile to have the question. And I think that once we understood what direction the legislature wanted to take in terms of the overall scale and organization of the system, Then if you're being methodical, you would then say, where are the gaps in the delivery of service and support that is not necessarily appropriate or the, statewide that the agency of education is not positioned to provide, and the district can't provide. And that's the gap where you fill in with the ESA. Right now with one sixty eight, because of the scale of our those regional kind of fed both seeds, if that's what they were going to organize, do make sense. There is a clear gap that needs to be [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: served. So I think that's it. [Speaker 2 ]: So, basically, there's an agreement that we are gonna move forward with some kind of system for shared services, just construct of it and depending on it. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: I mean, that's what we're sort of proposed, Kim, as I do think that there is a contract. But, fundamentally, like, how you fund it, what the relationship is between, say, the agency of BOCES or an ESA and the districts, like, that actually all drives specific goals. So those are actually choices that matter. And so my suggestion was as you all are moving forward with whatever proposal you're going to sort of adopt, that you do sort of think about in a really methodical way where are those gaps, and then what are the specific goals, the measurable goals you want an ESA to achieve, and then that should inform the these sort of structure and funding. [Chair Peter Conlon]: As we sort of work through our future state, current state tension, the clock is ticking. So, you know, the the five district proposal that's been put before us exists only currently in a short form bill that doesn't isn't in our committee yet. It's it's I assume headed here very soon. But there are so many and we'll get into this in our next session. But but it's a we got it. We've got a group ready to go addressing one of the most important issues we have, which is the high cost of extraordinary services for special education and a move even if we were to move to a five district state, which, you know, I think would probably qualify and somewhat unlikely. That's still gonna take several years to even figure out all of the language of one of the powers of a five person school board that oversees one of these things. And so I guess I'm I'm just concerned that we are holding up what could be a model example unnecessarily. And if the consequence is that we move that that ultimately, it becomes irrelevant, I'm always a big fan of when nonprofit organizations become irrelevant because we saw it from. But there needs to be. Yeah. I [Speaker 2 ]: I have a question, and then I again, I'm really I think great concern for many. The question would be so one sixty eight is law, and whether it's implementation of one sixty eight, which is now existing law, or the secretary's vision of ESAs, which we've seen signal as a a future state, is it safe to assume then that we're gonna see in the budget request resources at AOE to implement those things? If we're don't have them now and we're applying out of consultants and that's an inferior way to do it. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Yes. So the budget request includes a request for significant resources to support education transformation. And if part of that does contemplate a role for education service agencies or BOCES, that would be something that we would need to resource. [Speaker 2 ]: My second question again, and maybe it's more for the next counsel is and and I'm perhaps overreacting, but I'm I'm feeling like there is a a tension here that, is becoming more clear. We're all discussing a potential future state, there's a, you know, sort of broad strokes proposal from the governor, there's been a lot of policy ideas brought to our committee, we know we're weighing a lot of things. None of those have happened yet. They will go through a lengthy legislative process and more importantly, difficult work implementation field. We still have to live in the real world and in current day. And so I'm I'm concerned that we're we're saying we're gonna just sort of suspend the things that are supposed to be happening on a day to day basis because we don't know what the future of our state brings. So still have to open. They still have to function. BOCES are supposed to be, when an article of agreement is sent to the agency, considered and approved or disapproved. Like, this feels like a a a concern a a pretty big concern about the implementation of existing law and an inability to sort of function in the real in the moment we're in while we plan for the future. We'd all love to stop time and just plan for the future, but we can't do that. So we've gotta live in the constructs of what's already there. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: So can I respond to that? Because now it's been said twice. Yeah. And I'm not [Speaker 2 ]: really sure how else to characterize [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: to to to to respond other than how I have. So one sixty eight was passed with no resources or expertise within the agency to do this work. It is new work. It is not anything that the state has done before. We sign that when the bill is being passed. We received the we've been working actively with the Vermont Learning Collaborative as a way actually to inform ourselves, and that's work that Lindsay and I took on because there was no resources appropriate and no expertise identified within the agency. So we have used it as an opportunity to better move on about how this work could be done. As it turned out, serendipitously, they had utilized the services of new solutions in their own work. We were using that work to better be able to support other districts as they're doing this work, and I would say the learning collaborative has been a really great partner. We received the articles of agreement in an informal way a month ago. So that is the actual timeline in which we're operating. So we are meeting with the learning collaborative again, and we need the districts to submit the formal articles of agreement, at which point we can do that review. Once we have received those, then we would be working within the agency to identify who within the agency has the expertise to be able to evaluate the articles of agreement and have the secretary approve or not. So, again, I think actually working within the real timeline of what's happened and distinguishing between the two conversations we're having today. One of which is an update on the work form sixty eight, and one was my understanding was a more informal conversation about how we might conceive of this future state. So I do think it's a mischaracterization to say that we're not moving forward with this work. We haven't been sitting idle and not doing anything, but, again, no resources were identified. If it was something that we had decided to state that was a direction that we needed to go in, then you do have to identify that we have to build expertise with the agency to do this work, and that it's new work for the agency and it doesn't happen over it. [Chair Peter Conlon]: I appreciate that. I mean, I think that when we passed the bill, part of it was to say to see what sort of interest there was before potentially staffing up the AOE. I agree. Yeah. Can is there what other conversations are going on around other things besides the learning to happen? Are are there active Around BOCES? Yes. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: So I do think that that SPED is the focus. We've also seen in the southwest side that there are some districts who are really looking at the work on the southeast side as a model. And so as I said, we really kinda used this as an opportunity for us to better understand how we could support this work. And our intention is to take those articles of agreement once we have an opportunity to review them and understand and, again, to leverage a consultant that we brought on for an entirely different purpose, but we are using to support the work to move it forward to understand if that is a good template. In which case the agency would be able to hide a template for other [Chair Peter Conlon]: That's a good idea. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Building capacity because we see that there's a need to do so, and we're doing it within our own resources. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Appreciate that. And the the clarity on the process is is appreciated. Any other questions? We're gonna do yeah. Go ahead. Look. Because I'm wondering if you have one. [Witness Lindsay Hedges]: I I [Chair Peter Conlon]: If you don't have [Speaker 1 ]: I do. Are we sort of wrapping this? This is related, but not specific to BOCES. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Well, we we are I mean, it is related. [Speaker 1 ]: Yeah. Well No. Not shallow. Make [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: sure that [Speaker 1 ]: It it is well, ahead. Let me ask you. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Thank you. Thank you. Can I say you stick a pin [Speaker 2 ]: on it [Speaker 1 ]: for No? I this is actually related to budget. And so I'm curious. I I don't know whether we're gonna see budget proposals happen because I've been hearing it may not happen. But if it does, does that include the spreadsheet of the staffing levels at the AOE and how many vacancies we have in the AOE? Will we be seeing that in a budget proposal? And and also, does I I'm going back to my earlier years on the education committee. And typically, when a budget proposal comes in, there's usually a big spreadsheet on the staffing levels. And I'm just [Speaker 2 ]: really curious about that. [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: Data. [Speaker 1 ]: And well yeah. And you mentioned about using consultants. Just curious about whether we'll be seeing that as well, how many consultants we're using sort of related. We we if we don't have staff, we employ consultants to come in and help us, and we'll be seeing that as well. The the this is just, you know, related to all of these questions and budgets come. So [Chair Peter Conlon]: I I just wanna provide an update, everybody. We did we were scheduled to have a budget presentation to the chief financial officer. The AOE is under the letter. Okay. So that's gonna be postponed. K. Great. So [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: so we can include as inter budget the current staffing levels and vacancies. And then you would like to know comprehensively the use of consultants? [Speaker 1 ]: I I'm going to look through our chair at the top of the table about how deep, we wanna go, but I personally I'm speaking to myself. [Chair Peter Conlon]: I think they're going to obtain the request. [Speaker 2 ]: I would. I would. So I just wanna distinguish between the two [Witness Jill Briggs Campbell]: to to ensure that we're we're meeting your needs. So I think what I heard, but please let me know if I've misunderstood. You were interested to know if we have brought on consultants to No. Support vacancies? [Speaker 1 ]: No. I'm curious about the use of consultants and how much we have have employed consultants. And if that's related to vacancies, fine. If it's not, that's fine too. It doesn't really matter. It would be nice to know if it was related to that. But, you know, there's we we've certainly seen quite a bit of use of consultants here, and I'm just curious about what the level is. Hard to know without looking at it in a budget. [Chair Peter Conlon]: Thanks. Let's pause, take ten minutes. My dumbest face. [Speaker 2 ]: And we [Chair Peter Conlon]: will

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