Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the House Appropriations Committee. It is Friday, 04/10/2026. It's just after twelve noon. And thanks to everybody's flexibility, we are going to hear the House Education part of the Education Transformation Bill, H. Nine fifty five. We have with us Beth St. James from Legislative Council and Chair Peter Conlon from House Education to talk to us about this part of the bill. And as you've said before, but I'll say on camera, we will hear the ways and means part next week on Tuesday, and then we will take a break and we'll take a vote on that bill by the end of day Tuesday. So that's our timing, which it looks like we are back on track for. Beth, thank you so much for coming and your flexibility to join us now.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My pleasure. Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. So we're gonna walk through H-nine 55 as introduced. Just gonna share my screen. So depending on your perspective, good news, bad news, ways and means has done instances of amendment. So what you are about to walk through will remain largely unchanged by what it They have definitely made a few changes to what we're about to walk through. But the bulk of their committee work is adding new pieces of law to the bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. And if there's something that's deleted, we'd certainly like to know about it. And then you can say, but they're deleting that in ways it means they're proposed to or whatever.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm just adding pages. We're not making it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I noticed it was 101 pages.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's the amendment. Yes. So we have to add these 45 on.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Right, right. So

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in the interest of time, maybe we skip over the statement of purpose, or do you want a high level overview?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Everybody okay understanding the statement of purpose? We're good there.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, So we are going to walk through an act relating to the next steps in transforming Vermont's education system. Starts with some, I think, reader assistance headings in this bill, both in the bill as introduced and what you will be getting from ways and means are very helpful for orientation to what we're talking about in any given moment. So legislative intent reader assistance heading, we start with some legislative intent. To ensure each student is provided substantially equal educational opportunities that will prepare the student to thrive in a twenty first century world, It is the intent of the general assembly to work strategically, intentionally, and thoughtfully to ensure that each incremental change made to Vermont's public education system provides strength and support to its only constitutionally required governmental service that is taken directly from Act 73. Subsection B, the General Assembly recognizes that Vermont's schools anchor local economies and community identity, connecting young people to their homes while supporting workforce development and long term stability, and that different regions of Vermont have different needs, challenges, and opportunities. Further, it is the intent of the General Assembly to ensure that local voice and community input retain an important role in Vermont's evolving education landscape. So the next big reader assistance heading here is entitled Cooperative Educational Service Areas. And I can't remember when the miscellaneous education bill came to you if we talked about some of these changes. What everything under this reader assistance heading does, there's two things. There are some policy pieces that we will walk through. But the big change in every section under this reader assistance heading is changing the term Boards Cooperative Education Services, BOCES, to Cooperative Educational Service Areas, or Seesaws. Please don't ask me how to pronounce it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay. That

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is the bulk of what is under this reader assistance heading. Anywhere where there has been that name change, I'm just going to skip over pointing out that that has been the change that was made and focus on the substantive policy changes. So to just orient you to what we are about to walk in, in 2024, the legislature created the Enabling Law

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Court of Policies.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And under current law, and what you'll see struck through here, is language that allows BOCES to be formed on a voluntary basis between supervisory unions getting together and deciding they wanted to form this educational cooperative to provide services to their member supervisory unions or anyone who wanted to buy services from them. What this bill does is it moves from a voluntary process to creating cooperative educational service areas in law and assigning supervisory units to a seesaw for membership purposes. So there's lots of language crossed out that doesn't necessarily make a substantive change as far as what a seesaw or a BOCES does, but it's removing language that makes it seem like it's a voluntary process. So in the policy section, that's what you'll see here is we're no longer allowing and encouraging supervisory unions to create them. You all are creating them. So we've removed that language. And then we've added some language to try and summarize what was struck. That is on page two, line 22. It is the intent of the general assembly. That seesaws are utilized by member service, supervisory unions to, and then current law, maximize impact of available dollars through collaborative funding, etcetera. The definition section.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: The seesaws, is this going to any discussion, is this going to create any substantial increase in the bureaucracy, overall bureaucracy?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that is a policy question. We can talk about what seesaws do, but whether that increases bureaucracy, I think, is not an objective stance I can take.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So we'll ask Peter when he comes, and we'll try to just get through the bill and get clarification on we stand to scale. Peter will be forewarned with some of the

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: facts. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So we're moving to And what Section two of the bill does is it amends an entire chapter in Title 16. So we're on page three, section six zero two, the definition section for Chapter 10, which is currently your BOCES section, and we're proposing in this bill to call it your seesaw chapter. Educator remains the same. That was just a name change from BOCES to seesaw. But we are adding a new definition here, and that is the just a definition for Seesaw, which is an association of supervisory unions created pursuant to this chapter to deliver shared programs and services to complement the educational programs of member SUs in a cost effective manner. A seesaw shall be a body politic in corporate with the powers and duties afforded it under this chapter.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: And then subsection or You indicate different misery unions. What about just independent school districts I mean, schools that are

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's nothing in here that would prevent an independent school from buying services from a seesaw, but they are not members of a seesaw.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: I'm sorry. I don't mean independent schools. I mean, districts. I always had this question because it's It's

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: versus districts. That's what these asterisks represent. There is already a definition in current law that we're not changing that says for this entire chapter, any time we use the word supervisory union, we also mean supervisory district. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah, I have the same problem with that. We're all moving back to SCUs, but we are not.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's in current law. It's just we're not changing it, so it doesn't appear in the bill.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. So we could find it in current law if we wanted to find it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll show you right now, just to put everyone's mind.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We all feel better about it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're in chapter 10. This is going to say seesaw if this bill passes. And right here we have supervisor union means an administrative planning and educational service unit. That's the definition of supervisor union. But then we have this term also means a supervisor. Okay. And because you are not changing that definition in any way, we don't want to make the bill any longer than it needs to be. So we've added those asterisks. Thank you. Welcome. So those are the only changes to the definition section. Sections.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Can you describe, excuse me, what is the body politic incorporate with the powers and what does that sense?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's my least favorite phrase. It is a way to signify that it is a Essentially, you are creating a political subdivision of the state, a quasi public body. They are a public body. And it is a term that we use that could be far more descriptive than it actually is. But you're creating a public entity. And it only has the powers and duties that you're giving it under this chapter or anywhere else in state law. Okay, thank you. You see that phrase everywhere in the VSAs. Section six zero three, creation of seesaws. All of this language that struck is language describing the voluntary process under current law of how a BOCES would form. We are striking all of that. We're on page four line 15, simply saying supervisory unions are arranged into the following cooperative educational service areas. And then there are seven seesaws that this bill proposes to create. So they're each named. So the first one, by way of example, is the Champlain Valley North Seesaw. And then we list each of its member supervisory unions. And then within the subdivision that lists the member supervisory union, we list the member school districts of that supervisory union. So if you didn't know what supervisory union you belong to, you could find your school district and still find which seesaw you belong to.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I finally got you all the right links to the right maps yesterday afternoon after a first bad attempt. So, you should have that. So, this is the visual of all the blurries that are in here.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want to there's one note I want to make about one of the seesaws. But do you have any interest in digging into the membership?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I think everybody's probably found theirs. So I think we don't need to, but if there's a change or something that needs to

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: go I think there is one important piece to point out, and that is on page seven, line three, the Vermont Learning Collaborative. You have one BOCES that voluntarily formed under current law in existence today, and that is the Vermont Learning And what House Education did is they kept the membership the same for the Vermont Learning Collaborative. And you will see later on in the bill that the Vermont Learning Collaborative plays an integral part in the rest of the bill. And so when you're looking at the map, the seesaws have kept supervisory union and school district boundaries intact. We haven't split a supervisory union into two different seesaws. With the exception of the Vermont Learning Collaborative, that doesn't line up perfectly because it is capturing how they voluntarily formed under current law.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Does anybody here is part of that? Anybody in this community?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Say that again.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm just wondering if anybody is

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Is this Southeastern?

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: That's ours, it's the window. The

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Southeast Region, is that kind

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: of the remote learning collaborative?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yes. Okay, Mike, you're in that group. We can recover almost all the cases of the state, maybe not Grand Isle,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: but we cover a lot

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of them here in this group. That's why I was looking at yourself. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. That's the only one I wanted to just point out, especially because we're going to see reference to that seesaw again in this bill. So we can jump all the way to page 10, line 20. Everything that I just skipped over is just seesaws in their membership. So current law requires articles of agreement as the governing document for BOCES, and articles of agreement contemplate some sort of voluntary relationship here. So we're going to just rename them and call them bylaws. The requirements for what needs to be in the bylaws remain relatively unchanged. Everything that struck through here is about the secretary having to approve articles of agreement, etcetera. This is no longer a voluntary process. You have created the seesaws, and they need to establish a governing instrument or their operating agreement. And so we're going to do that through bylaws. You'll see on line 10 or line nine on page 11, each seesaw shall establish bylaws to serve as the operating agreement of the seesaw.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So they're going to be able to do anything they want, so it's not going to standardize across the state?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The bylaws all have to contain the same information. The services that they provide, which we haven't gotten to yet, may vary.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which will make sense as we go along.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you'll see this is all current law other than the name change BOCES to CSOF for what needs to be in the bylaws. The changes that have been made here on page 12 no longer do the bylaws need to contain the method of termination of BOCES or the withdrawal of member supervisory unions because you have created them in statutes, only you can change the statute. And the same for admitting new members. Only you can decide, absent some sort of charter change process that would still need to come through you to change a statute, only you can admit new members or change those.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: But you can see that

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the rest of the requirements around bylaws, the operating document remain the same. The requirements for board of directors have not changed. And we've struck the limitation on the number of BOCES, although coincidentally, you have arrived at the same magic number of seven. Powers. So I'm on page 13, line 11, section six zero four. Powers of seesaws. So current law, I think it's worth spending some time here. Current law, we've kept largely intact and we've added to it. So in addition to any other powers granted by law, a seesaw shall have the power to provide educational programs, services, facilities, and professional and other staff that in its discretion best serve the needs of its members. And we've added here some suggestions, including professional development, curriculum coordination and development, and transportation. Seesaw is required to follow all applicable state and federal law, specifically around special education law. That's the reference to Section five zero four and IDEA. And then this is a rather large substantive change in that you are now requiring a seesaw to offer services in certain areas. Current law just says talk amongst yourselves, figure out what your membership wants, and then you can do what you want. At a minimum, on page 13, line 20, a seesaw shall offer services in the following areas to its members, on the top of page 14. Special education, including implementation and maintenance of tiered systems of support and the provision of low incidence, high cost services, business and administrative services, and union school district creation, consultation and facilitation.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Last question? Okay, these all look like responsibilities and powers of a supervisory union, pretty much, with this stuff. So what will the supervisory unions do when they cease this?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the supervisory unions are members of this cooperative, and the CESA is required to offer services, but no one is required to take them up on that offer. So there's still the requirement for the supervisory union to be the body that's responsible for certification or responsible for central office duties, business administration. And if the seesaw decides that they could offer to their member supervisory unions, a shared information system, then those supervisory unions could purchase that service from the Seesaw. They would still be responsible for maintaining their business duties. But maybe that Seesaw is offering a service that helps them out. It doesn't change who's ultimately responsible. It is meant to offer complimentary services

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: the at end. I think that's the budgets.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: The seesaw. For the whole group? Yes.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's a system. Each seesaw sets its own budget.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Right. And the board

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: of

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the seesaw is made up of members of the supervisory union boards or the superintendents or their designees.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay. So who sets the budget? So, the ceases budget, its budget. Correct. Just like supervising units set their budget now. Correct. Each school has to plug that in there. So, that's what they would do

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: with this? The current law allows for or requires, what is now articles of agreement proposed to be bylaws to contain the financial terms and conditions of membership, including any applicable membership fee. So I don't know what it allows for variation. It allows them to figure out

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: how they're going to set that up.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: As we get to Peter, we'll get into more detail about how it works and how it has worked with Vermont Learning Collaborative and that kind of sort of not So hold your thought.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So that was the last big substantive change. Scrolling back up. So the services that seesaws are required, everything else under this reader assistance heading is that change from BOCES to seesaw. So I'm just gonna scroll so you can see that we're just there's no other changes other than that name change going on here. This is all current law. Just name change, name change, name change.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What page are you down to?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm going to go to page 19.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Line five.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Parties question. We've created these thesis. Is there a discussion of when that must happen? And is there a time frame?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is a transition. There is a small piece of law regarding when their first meeting needs to be and when appointments need to be made. But the changes here would take effect on 07/01/2026.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: 2026. Correct.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm on page 19, line five, section four, which is an amendment to section four, oddly enough, of Act 168 from 2024, which was the BOCES bill. Because there is a grant program that's currently in existence, a startup grant program, that gives supervisory unions who are trying to get together and have a meeting of the minds to form a BOCES up to $10,000 to do that work. But because you are no longer making this voluntary, because you are requiring seesaws to exist through state law, you're gonna keep this language these amendments keep the grant program alive and then say that every seesaw is entitled to one grant up to $15,000 for start up costs. So you've changed the frat amount from $10,000 to $15,000 on line 14. My understanding I don't mean to steal JFO's thunder here. My understanding is that you have one BOCES and there has been one startup grant, so AOE still has $60,000 for this grant program. We're going to let them keep that. You can see the appropriation that was originally made in 2024 allows for those funds to be carried forward on page 20, lines three and four. But you've bumped up how much each grant is. So you've added a $30,000 appropriation that I will get to in a second to make up the difference. So you have six seesaws that need startup costs money. You have one that's already going. So they've already had their grant, and they've already used it, and they're going. So you're adding an extra $5 on top of that initial $10,000 five times six is 30,000 so you've got a $30,000 appropriation here. Right. So there was 60,000 left from the 70. I did it the other way around.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so we have six of them at 15, and that equals 90,000. So we had to add 30.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just, yeah,

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: they both work. You're the money people, not me. I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: did go over this with Joy Francisco when I read the bill through and was worried about money and how it was going to work, so it works.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is one of the substantive changes that Ways and Means has made to the bill as introduced. So the amount of the appropriation has not changed. Do you want me to go into detail or you want to wait for Emily? Or do you You can give

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: us the headlines of what's changing.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So what we'll see traveling from ways and means is language that keeps the appropriation amount, but taps into the education transformation money that's traveling that was appropriated under Act 73 and the amendments you made to it in the budget.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Oh, yes.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so, what the Ways and Means amendment does is make this an allowable use of those funds.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And actually, we have talked about the fact that we had put money in the budget for education transformation. We put some language in, that language will get tweaked to align with what's happening here. So there's no new money. From our perspective, that's what's important. The money's accounted for, the budget. Thank you. And

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: then we're going to keep scrolling. These are all there's a series of sections in other places in the green books where both the word BOCES or Boards and Cooperative Education Services were used, and we had to update those terms too. So these are all just name change conforming amendments that I'm scrolling through. I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. And I'm going to take us to section 12 on page 25. Everything I just skipped through is just the name change. And remember, we're still under that Seesaw Reader Assistance heading. So section 12, line 16, page 25, Seesaw Transition. Within thirty days following the passage of this act, each member supervisory union board shall appoint a person to serve on the board of its assigned CISA pursuant to how board members are appointed under the law. And then within forty five days of the passage of this act, the superintendent of the largest SU by average daily membership has to call the first meeting together. They have to elect a chair and other necessary officers, and then they're off to

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: the races. So effective date is July 1. The first thing is by the July, the second one is by mid August.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then on page 26, line four, subsection C of section 12, is some language, some kind of legacy language to account for the fact that the Vermont Learning Collaborative already exists. And this bill uses them and relies on them for the rest of the bill. So the bill needs to keep them alive. So we've added language here that says the articles of agreement of the Vermont Learning Collaborative in effect on 06/30/2026 shall serve as the operating agreement of the BTLC unless and until amended. So they don't have to start from scratch. They can kind of exist as they are and keep going. We're about to go to another very big reader assistance heading, so I thought I would pause before we move on.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So far so good. Now we have Julia here too. Welcome. There are Clementine's over there if you

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: need some water.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: And some plain water.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Real quickly. We changed the name of a whole bunch of things in here. Under duty, under section five, we started to duties of supervisory union, and that's all existing language. Yes. So what they've been doing, they will continue. Correct. Even if it does look to me, over its justification, it's what you have been doing.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This bill makes no amendment to the duties of supervisory unions.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: They stay the same? Yes. And CISA makes its own duties and powers above that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Don't know that it's above. I don't know that there's CISAs are not governance entities. So a supervisor union is also not a governance entity. So there's nothing in this bill that contemplates a hierarchy. So I don't want to say whether something is above something else.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Let me just make this real quick. St. Almistown, St. Almistown City, Fairfield, BFA make up a budget together early, early, early for an SU. Well, in our case, it's an SD. But the point of it is so that they know how much they have to go and put in their budgets individually to go and support the central office and its duties. Now the supervisor unions are going to have to go and do the same process for the CESA to get their piece of the budget so that they can put that into their town's budgets as well.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, it's all spelled out in current law, how that works.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yeah, yeah. And so then, so you do it for the SU or SD, and then you do it for the CESA, and then the towns have to go and support all of

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this with their individual town budgets. Ultimately, this is coming out of school budget. Well,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: in our case, it's a school district. So what we actually do, a school district budget. The SU of the states, that's the budget. It's all part of the same thing.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The source of the money are your education payments. Yes. Okay.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Just wanted to clarify that.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so we are going to jump to a new reader assistance heading. I'm on page 26, lines seven and eight, Union School District Exploration and Formation. And I'm going to do an overview before we dig into the language. What section 13 does is it requires it has the Vermont Learning Collaborative, your one existing, I'm just going to say seesaw now, hiring some facilitators who will then assign every school district in the state to a study committee to study whether it is advisable to form a unified school district using, in large part, current law. So that's what we're going to walk through in Section 12. Blank stares. Title 16. Title 16, current law, yes. So Subsection A, facilitator, on or before October 1. And there is a beautiful timeline coming to you when you have the Ways and Fifth Amendments. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We don't all have it yet. I just copied it when I was watching.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's so much on there that's not in this bill. I thought it would be dangerous to bring

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it up. Yeah. We can all look at it after we're done here.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: But I see my colleagues here, so they must have done something in Mesa Means.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I think

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: they're out of pause.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So on or before 10/01/2026, the Vermont Learning Collaborative, remember that is your one existing CISA, shall contract to employ or contract for the services of seven union school district formation facilitators. Why seven? There's seven seesaws. And so we're going to use those seesaw boundaries. Keep that in mind. Who shall be responsible? So the facilitators are responsible for organizing and facilitating study committees to study the advisability of forming a unified union school district.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Is Wayne, you have a question?

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: With no criteria for how we go about that process. I mean, first of all, we have to make some assumptions that the people on there actually want to do something that's Go ahead.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Let's get the whole thing through, and then some questions might get answered. And then Peter will talk about this.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: ETLC shall also hire one lead facilitator, so that's a total of eight facilitators, who, in addition to facilitating study committees as necessary, shall oversee the work of the seven facilitators. A facilitator shall have knowledge of and experience working in Vermont's public education system. The VTLC shall assign one facilitator to each seesaw membership region. And this this reference here on line 19 on 26 is just to the seesaws that you've created in statutes. So that's the first step in section 13. VTLC hires facilitators. Second step, subsection B, page 27, line one. Study committees. Two things need to happen on or before 12/01/2026. The first thing is subdivision A. Each facilitator shall group districts within the facilitator's assigned Seesaw Region's member supervisory unions together to form study committees to study the advisability of forming a unified union school district. So Seesaw facilitator who's assigned to Seesaw 1. Seesaw's are made up of supervisory unions, not school districts, so we have to talk about member supervisory unions. But supervisory unions are made up of school districts. So the facilitator gets together and assigns school districts to a study committee. And then we're going to walk through the criteria that the facilitator is to use when making those assignments. So on line six, the facilitator shall consult with school district boards prior to finalizing study committee membership. And the facilitator is supposed to use the suggested school district groupings contained in section 14 as guidance.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The other map I sent you yesterday, groupings and CSAs with the QMS.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So two things for the facilitator to consider so far. One, consult with school district boards, and two, use this map as guidance. The third piece is they've also got to follow the following criteria when making their assignments. So I'm on page 27, line 10. Total average daily membership of school districts forming a study committee shall be a minimum of 2,000 students as practical. The school districts forming the study committee shall be contiguous. School districts on the same study committee may be members of different SUs. And then the second thing that needs to happen on or before 12/01/2026, is that each study committee is required to hold its first meeting. 16 on page 27, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, a school district is required to participate in the study committee it is assigned to. Other than the work that goes into it, like reports, that's the only requirement. They have to participate. There's nothing in here that mandates what the outcome needs to be. I'm on subdivision three, line 19. A study committee formed pursuant to this section shall adhere to the processes and requirements, a sixteen day essay chapter 11, subchapter two, and then everything under subdivision three, all of the A, B, etcetera, are modifications. Chapter 11 in Title 16 is your Union School District Formation Chapter. Subchapter two is the Exploration and Formation Subchapter. And then the rest of the statute is about once you're up and running, how are Union School Districts governed? So this bill contemplates using current law. So within that current law, here are some modifications and some further direction. So I'm on page 27, line 21. A study committee formed pursuant to this section may identify necessary or advisable school districts that are not members of the study committee or are not members of the seesaw or both, and shall work with the applicable facilitator or facilitators to adjust study committee membership as necessary. So if you get going and you realize, gee, this is really not the group we should be talking with, we should be talking with these folks who are outside the boundaries we were originally supposed to consider, this language says, great, have at it. Work with your facilitators to adjust that membership as necessary. Page 28, line four, subdivision B. This is about study committee budgets. So under current law, Union School District study committees set their own budgets for the work they need to do. And current law says if your budget is going to be more than $50,000 you need to get approval of your voters. So what subdivision B says is, notwithstanding that current law, the study committee is going to be funded through appropriations that you are going to make that we haven't walked through yet. But if the General Assembly doesn't give you enough money, then you can revert to current law and go through whatever current law requires. So you were to give them think there's a so you're gonna give them a facilitator, which is a cost right off the top. And I believe there's a grant coming up that is $10,000 if memory serves. If they think they need to spend more than that, the facilitator and the $10,000 they need to purchase other services or whatever. If the extra money they would need is less than $50,000 they would not need to get voter approval. But if it's more than $50,000 they would need to get voter approval. That is all current law. And Ways and Means has changed that $50,000 threshold to $500,000

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll see that next week. Yes. So they don't need voter approval up to $500,000

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Under the Ways and Means Amendment, yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: We'll worry about that, wouldn't it?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So I'm on page 28, line 11, subdivision C. In addition to current law and chapter 11, a study committee shall also explore the advisability and feasibility of a contemplated new unified union school district operating a regional, middle or high school or both. A regional, middle or high school contemplated pursuant to this section shall offer resident students increased educational opportunities and access to CTE. So just think about, as you're studying, whether to form a unified union school district, how could a regional middle or high school fit in? But it's not required that it's used so. Correct. It is required that they consider it, but not included as part of their final proposal.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But no, and then that's that. Yeah. Yes.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The subdivision D. So there's probably two options here, right? Folks are required to sit on a study committee, and they either decide to form a new Unified Union School District or not to form a new Unified Union School District. And so Chapter 11 uses the terms advisable or inadvisable. It's either advisable proposed formation of the new school district or inadvisable. Subdivision D on page 28, line 17, talks about what needs to be in the final report of the study committee if they determine it is advisable to propose formation of the new union school district. Can you define what a Unified School District is? Sure can. A Unified Union School District is a school district that's made up of two or more towns and is organized to provide for the education of its resident students in K-twelve. So current law requires some requirements as to what needs to be in the final report. We're going to keep that requirement on line 19, and we're going to add to it. So the study committee shall also include an analysis of the following. I'm on the very bottom of page 28. Educational advantages and disadvantages likely to result from the formation of the proposed Unified Union District. Top of page 29, the financial advantages and disadvantages likely to result from the formation of the proposed Unified Union School District, the likely operational and financial viability and sustainability of the proposed new Unified Union School District, and any other advantages or disadvantages of the formation, including any advantages or disadvantages to the students and taxpayers of the region and the state.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: These are the criteria I was asking you about.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is what they have to report on if they decide to form the Unified Union School District. If they don't decide to form a unified union school district, if the study committee determines it is inadvisable, then subdivision E applies. This is what needs to be in their report. So if a study committee determines it is inadvisable to propose formation of a new unified school district, first of all, it doesn't go anywhere. They have to issue a report, and the report needs to be disseminated, but there's no vote of the electorate. If the study committee decides that it is inadvisable to form new union school districts, the process stops.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: After the report. After the report.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So before the study committee members vote to dissolve the study committee, then the study committee has to prepare a report with the following details. I'm on page 29, line 13. The names of the school districts participating in the study and whether they were participating formally or informally, an analysis of the strengths and challenges of the current structures of all necessary and advisable school districts, the reasons why formation of a new unified union school district would be inadvisable, with specific references to any state law or rule the study committee found to be an impediment to the formation of a Unified Union School District, with a specific analysis of why such ruler law was an impediment. And page 30, if the decision of the study committee was not unanimous, an analysis of the minority view of the committee outlining the ways in which a unified Union School District would actually promote the state policy set forth in Section seven zero one of this chapter, which is the policy that governs Union School District formation. So if the study committee gets together and they say, Nope, this is It is inadvisable. This is what needs to be in their report. And then the study committee would be required to transmit its report to its school board members and also to the facilitators working with them. And on line nine, page 30, members of a study committee that determines it is inadvisable to propose formation of a new unified school district may form a new study committee or committees and may pursue any union school district formation option available under current law after the study committee members vote to dissolve the study committee form pursuant to this section. So if you have a facilitator that has grouped you together and you decide it is inadvisable to form a unified union school district, but maybe half of you want to go off and explore formation of a union high school district. Current law already allows you to do that, and this language is meant to let you know that you can do that.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: That was how they formed MGU. They chose not to score K-twelve, they chose to.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So, that's a good example of how that could work. Yeah, okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so now we are back out of separate requirements for advisable or inadvisable, and now other than transmitting the report to its member school district board, we're really just talking about study committees that have decided that it is advisable to pursue formation of a new Unified Union School District. So all study committees are required on page 30, line 15, subdivision four, to wrap up their work and issue their final report on or before 12/01/2027. And if you remember, they are required to have their first meeting on or before 12/01/2026, So that's a year. So on or before 12/01/2027, the study committees shall complete their final reports and transmit them along with proposed articles of agreement as applicable. So current law requires if you are voting that if a study committee determines it is advisable to form a new union school district, they also have to come up with articles of agreement. And current law spells out exactly what needs to be in there. So if you have been voted towards forming a new union school district, not only do you have to send your report to the next step, you also have to send your articles of agreement to the next step. And the next step is to the school boards. And then if we jump to page 31, the next step is for the school boards to complete their review. So on or before 02/01/2028, school boards are required to complete their review and provide comments to the study committee according to current law regarding the study committee's report and proposed articles of agreement. Current law says that the contents of the study committee report are solely within the jurisdiction of the study committee themselves. So while they can receive comments from the school boards that make up their membership, the school boards can't require them to change their Next step towards union school district formation. If the study committee voted it was inadvisable, they have gone off separate journeys than we are going on right now. So the Secretary of Education is required to review the proposal before it goes to the state board. So I'm on page 31, line five. If a study committee determines that it is advisable to propose formation of a new union school district, then the study committee is required to transmit the required report and proposed articles of agreement to the Secretary. That's all current law. What this section, what the rest of this subsection does is it puts a time limit on how long the Secretary has to review. So the current law does not give the Secretary any time limits. So if the Secretary fails to submit the report and proposed Articles of Agreement with the Secretary's recommendations to the State Board within sixty days following receipt of the report and Articles of Agreement, or on or before 04/01/2028, whichever date comes first, then the study committee doesn't have to wait for the secretary's review, they can go straight to the state board. And then the State Board is required to take action and doesn't have to wait for the Secretary's recommendations. Next step, page 31, line 17, subsection D, State Board Findings. The State Board is required to issue findings according to current law on or before 06/01/2028. Next step is the vote of the electorate. If a study committee determines that it was advisable to propose formation of a new unified union school district, then the voters of each school district that is identified as necessary or advisable shall vote whether to form the proposed union school district in accordance with current law on or before 11/07/2028, which is Election Day twenty twenty eight. So there's nothing stopping them from having a vote prior to then. But that would be the last, that would, as contemplated by this act, when those votes needed to have occurred. So the communities all get to vote? Yes. And a union school district is only formed. Remember, when we're talking about school districts and we're talking about voting, each school district is a separate municipality for the purposes of our conversation. So if you are a union school district, which is made up of two or more towns, when we're talking about voting here, the municipality is the school district, not the towns that make up the school district. So if you have three union school districts and one town school district that have all been determined to be necessary to the formation of the new union school district, the electorate of each school district needs to vote yes in order for the new school district to form. If one school district votes no, then the Union School District does not form. Subsection F, page 32, line F, a status report. So on or before February 1, the Agency of Education in consultation with the facilitators is required to submit a written report to the General Assembly with information regarding the membership of each study committee and the status of each study committee. So you'll get a little update in February of what's going on in the field. Section 14, page 32, line nine, is the guidance for study committee groupings. So I'm just going to read the lead in language, and then we can talk about what each of these groups are. But that is the colorful map that your chair held up. So facilitators are required, shall use the school district groupings contained in this section as guidance when forming study committees. Facilitators may form study committees that differ from the guidance contained in this section. They just have to provide a rationale for their choice to the lead facilitator who's required to do one final report for you all when this is all done. And then everything, all of the subdivisions in section 14 are called groups, and they all contain school districts and that me, you have a colored map that shows you who belongs to which group. That's the one that has more meetings.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: The Sixes had seven, and this one has a lot more. 21. 21.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I believe I think there may be one or two places where this doesn't match up. But I believe So there's no school districts that have been broken up. There's no supervisory unions that have been broken up. And I believe the seesaws remain largely intact to the extent they can. I'm going to scroll through these groups, and we're going to jump to section 15, study committee results and analysis facilitator report, and at the very bottom of page 35, we're going to go right to the top of page 36. So you have the final vote having to occur on or before 11/07/2028. So the final report back to you all on what happened is coming on 01/01/2029. The lead facilitator is required to submit a written report to the General Assembly with the results of each study committee overseen by a facilitator. And information regarding whether, and if so, how, the following issues impacted or influenced the final outcome of each study committee overseen by the facilitator, along with recommendations for legislative action needed to remove identified barriers to the formation of new union school districts. So did differences in staffing costs come up or costs associated with moving from several different collectively bargained agreements to one collectively bargained agreement? What about differences in operating structures or geographic and topographic barriers, enrollment patterns and projections, or any other factor the facilitator found to have influenced the final decision of a study committee. Section 16, page 36, line 17, is another report back to you all. On a report 01/01/2029, the agency, in consultation with the study committees formed pursuant to this act and the State Board of Education, is required to submit a written report to the General Assembly with recommendations for any supervisory union boundary adjustments necessary or ESSA boundary adjustments necessary, taking into account any of the mergers that have happened. So after the dust has settled, do our current supervisory unions make sense? If not, what are some suggestions for how to change them? And do our seesaw boundaries make sense? And if not, what are some suggestions for how to change them? Current law, and this bill does not change that in any way. Current law is the state board is responsible for setting supervisory union boundaries, but you all will be responsible for setting seesaw boundaries because they're in statute.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Back on page 36, where this final report of the facilitators can be checked with us on some of the factors that were involved in the discussions. What's the point in reporting on those factors? Is the thought that the legislature might take some of that information and change legislation later on? I would

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: suggest letting Chair Conlon speak to the point of it. But I would say that the language contemplates recommendations for legislative action. So I would say, what is the point of asking anyone to give you a report back? It's to get that information, and then you would decide what to do with it. Put it to the side. Let it inform decisions moving forward.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: He's taking notes, so we'll ask him Okay. To get

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: All right. Yeah. Okay, go ahead.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Now we get into the big appropriations section. So section 17 are all of the appropriations, at least as introduced for the various different grants that you're giving out to enable all of this work to happen. And ways and means. I'm on page 37.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're welcome. Section 17, line three. And the Ways and Means Amendment does not change. I believe it does not change the amounts of any of these grants. It just changes where the money is coming from. So study reimbursement grant appropriation. So the agency is required to pay up to $10,000 to a study committee to reimburse participating school districts for legal and other necessary services for the analysis and the report required pursuant to Section 13. This is done on a reimbursement basis. The study committee shall forward invoices to the agency on a quarterly basis, and the agency shall reimburse one half of the total amount reflected in each set of invoices upon receipt and the remaining one half upon completion of the final report, provided, however, that no payment shall cause the total amount of funds paid through study committee to exceed the $10,000 limit. This concept was taken directly from Act 153 from 2010, which is what kicked off the chain of legislation that led to Act 46. So if you are a study committee that gets together and you have two meetings, if you had $50 worth of invoices to submit, you could do that and you could get your $50 reimbursed. But if you met 27 times and you had costs up to $10,000 you could be reimbursed for up to $10,000 That's where the current law of study committee budgets would kick in. If you needed more than that $10,000 then current law of how study committees fund their budgets would kick in. Where is that money coming from? So there is an appropriation on page 37, line 18, in the amount of $210,000 from the general fund to AOE for these grants. That is simply 10,000 times 21, which is the number of groups in Section 14. You may have more groups than that. You may have less groups than that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So the money from here, again, is in the budget under that section C103. Whatever. And there's like 1.46 I can't remember all the exact numbers. But anyway, it'll say the language would get tweaked to say, of this $1,460,000 up to $210,000,000 can go to this. So we'll be able to clarify further. Because right now, it just says around education transformation and a few other things. So we can be more specific in the budget. It's accounted for.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And it's the same concept for every appropriation in this section. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So I won't say that anymore.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, I think it's I don't want to say it anymore. My voice is breaking. Okay, so that's the first grant here is the study committee reimbursement grant. The second on page 37, line 22, facilitator appropriation. You got to pay for these facilitators. Where is that money coming from? It's coming from this section. The So sum of $442,000 is appropriated from the general fund to the Vermont Learning Collaborative. This is where the language is going to change to be an allowable use of the money set aside in the budget. But the amount of money doesn't doesn't change. So it's going to Vermont Learning Collaborative to hire those facilitators. And it is allowing VTLC to use up to $32,000 of the funds pursuant to the subsection for administrative costs. I believe that is $50,000 for each facilitator and $60,000 for the lead facilitator, plus $32,000 for administrative costs to get to 442,000 And then this subdivision two goes away in the ways and means. It's about having Vermont Learning Collaborative report back to you all on how they're using this money. And I misspoke before, the money does not go directly to the Vermont Learning Collaborative. The Ways and Means Amendment will have AOE giving this money to the Vermont Learning Collaborative. But the purpose of the money and the amount of the money does not change. Page 38, line 13, subsection C, CESA executive director grant appropriation. You have created these entities in statute. You're going to give them some startup funds in addition to that $15,000 that we walked through in section four. We're also going to give them $50,000 towards hiring an executive director. And so 50 times six, because you already have a seesaw that is up and running, you only have six that need this startup money, would be $300,000 And it's the same concept. This language will be changed in the Ways and Means Amendment and make it an allowable use of the education transformation money traveling in the budget.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: We're almost done.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Page 39. We are in a new reader assistance heading, amending twenty twenty five action resolves number 73. Section 18 is amending the effective dates. So you'll see everything that is contemplated by that asterisk remains current good law. And we're going to jump to section F. Subsection F is the part of the effective date section of Act 73 for the foundation formula. You can so first I will note on line nine on page 39, current law contemplates the foundation formula taking effect on 07/01/2028, if the conditions are met. This bill changes it to 07/01/2030, if the conditions are met. And then it adds new conditions. So striking the contingencies and replacing them with new contingencies, starting on line 14. First contingency is that the clerk of each school district voting on the proposal to form a unified union school district pursuant to this act has certified the results of that vote to the Secretary of Education. Second, contingency on page 40 actually remains the same as current law, and that is that you all have received the 45A report from JFO.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which is about what the foundation formula is? Correct, yes. So that is what it is right now, and it's not contemplating being changed, the dollar amounts, under this? Correct. Okay. Yep.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: New contingency and subdivision C on page four, or I'm sorry, on line four, page 40. JFO has provided the legislature with an analysis that shows the combined approved fiscal twenty twenty seven education spending for the school districts consolidated into each new school district compared with the estimated educational opportunity payment under the revised proposed foundation formula for each district, I believe this language changes in the Ways and Means Amendment. There's still an analysis required by JFO, but what that analysis entails, Ways and Means has provided some clarity on. Okay, thank you. Subdivision D, this is the last contingency. All contingencies need to be met for the foundation formula to take effect. Legislation has been enacted that addresses the following: suitable geographic measures for determining sparsity within the foundation formula whether it costs more to educate a secondary student than an elementary student in Vermont and if so, an appropriate weight to capture the cost differential of educating secondary students, how to account for the provision of career and technical education within Vermont's foundation formula, how to account for regional differences in operating costs, including those driven by regional differences in cost of living and legacy collective bargaining agreements within the foundation formula, how to fund special education services, school construction and renovation and repayment of school district debt, transportation and universal pre pay, and any other aspect of the foundation formula the General Assembly deems prudent to address.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Which is still a lot of work to

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: With all those categories, were they all studies in Act 73? No. Some of them were studies, Monica.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: CTE is specifically called out in Act 73. As for what is contemplated in the scope of work of the JFO study, I would defer to JFO on that. And then the other change here on page 41 to subsection G is repealing the or striking the language related to new school districts contemplated by this act. This is an effective date for two subsections in the tuitioning section that had slightly different contingencies than the rest of the finance language. And so we're just repeating the same language that was in subdivision A above relating to certifying the results of the vote as the contingency here as well, along with whatever the contingency was contemplated in Act 73 on page 42, lines two through five. That language has not changed. New reader assistance heading on page 42, line eight, pre K education. Starting with some findings, the General Assembly finds that despite being colloquially known as the universal pre K program, not all children three and four years of age in the state have equal access to a pre qualified pre kindergarten provider. Vermont ranks second in the country with regard to access to pre K education by children who are four years of age, with seventy six percent of eligible four year old children receiving pre K education, and that Vermont is one of two states in which more than 70% of children who are four years of age receive pre K services. Only 11% of eligible children are enrolled in pre K services in Essex County. There is considerable geographic disparity in the state with regard to the number of pre K spots available, and as a result, 95% of eligible children in Windsor and Windham Counties and 93% of eligible children in Chittenden County have access to a pre qualified pre K provider as compared to 55% in Franklin County and 61% in Grand Isle County. And while a substantial portion of states provide a full school day of four or more hours of pre K education daily, less than 5% of Vermont's pre K pre qualified pre K providers, excuse me, provide a full day of four or more hours of pre K education. Those were all findings. The Ways and Means Amendment changes these sections pretty significantly, pairs them down. Yes, the pre K sections.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Okay, so including section 19, all of the findings are changed?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Those sound like facts. Well, your findings should be facts. It's not supported by primary resources. Let me just double check. It's all blur at this point.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Sure it is.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, the Ways and Means Amendment takes out the findings.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Well,

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: it's very interesting. I learned a lot by just reading this. Because it sounds good at the top and then you get to a lab Essex and you find out that less than 5% provide a full day.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I Okay. Get to attach to this.

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: So I should get something remedial since there was no such thing as pre K-five.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: That's lot.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Many of us, actually, right? Okay. Continue.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're on page 43, line nine, section 20, legislative intent. Ways and Means changes this a little, but keeps it largely intact. It is the intent of the General Assembly to ensure that pre K education is included as an integral part of Vermont's education system, as the right to education is fundamental for the success of Vermont's children in all grades pre K through grade 12, determine a locus of responsibility to ensure there is access to pre K education within all school districts, provide access to licensed teachers in the classroom of both prequalified public and private providers, including access to support and provisional status, and equalize financial resources for all prequalified providers of pre canary education. And then Section 21 requires JFO to contract with a contractor with expertise in Vermont's educational funding system to make recommendations regarding how to account for the provision of pre K within Vermont's education finance system, including consideration of use of categorical aids for the inclusion of pre K within a foundation formula for the use of a pre K weight. And the contractor's recommendations shall be designed to provide funding for pre K education that does these certain things, which is support access for every pre K child with equal payments and equal educational standards for public and private providers. The cost of pre K education is included in the full cost of education, increases access and participation in areas of the state where access or participation is limited, continues to support a mixed delivery system. Those recommendations are required to align with the 45A report that you're getting back related to the foundation formula and is due on or before 01/15/2027. This all changes in the Ways and Means amendment. The concept of getting a report back related to find how to fund and achieves all of these things is kept. But who's doing the report changes. There is a requirement for a JFO report. There's also a requirement for a report from Building Bright Futures. So just know that this will change in the Ways and Means Amendment. There is an appropriation here of $50,000 to JFO to hire that contractor. There is also an appropriation in the Ways and Means amendment because it keeps the concept of JFO contacting with someone to give you a pre K study. And that appropriation is $75,000 in the Ways and Means amendment. Is that plus the 50 or it's just It is instead of And that appropriation is not contemplated as part of the education transformation.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: What it's worth about $130,000

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: on the bottom line. Right.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I wasn't going to

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: be the one to say that. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And section 22, it shall all take effect on 07/01/2026, which is so beautiful and simple. And that's not what you will be getting to wave

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: at me.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: It was so beautiful and simple. Are you saying this in your sleep at night at this point?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, I'm actually singing some song my daughter taught me about purple soup. That is a wonderful thing to do. I'm glad you

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: can escape into purple soup. Maybe you can make some. They have that food color and you could make purple soup all over.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: No nightmares or anything.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No nightmares, not yet. Well, I

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: think you're very clear in the way you present this and I thank you for that. If you want to switch them out, I'm going have Peter come in.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, absolutely. You. And we also had joy

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: here, we had

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: grace, had not only got Danning. John was here but he left. Maybe they're back in are they back? I'll be watching. Okay, thank you Dave. Thank you. This means we are meeting on Monday, so that's a good one. Welcome, Chair Conlon.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Thank you. Do you want to introduce yourself? Mr. Conlon of Cornwall, Chair of the House Education Committee.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So do you want to just talk a little bit about how the CESAs work and how you all envisioned it? There's been questions about bureaucracy, but what are the services? Kind of how that works at this point.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: First of all, CESA is not a layer of government. It is a service provider. So member districts either pay into it with dues or in by hiring services of the CISA. That's how they are funded, in order to get services at a lower cost than if they were doing it on their own. So CISA is a large section of the state. We have created seven. They are there to essentially take advantage of scale in order to provide services at a lower cost. So let's go through a couple of examples. Maybe all of the districts in that CISA would like to just do one busing contract. This is the entity that can sort of play that role of negotiating that contract. Maybe that district has, you know or maybe that CISA, which has five districts, those five districts alone only have one or two students with very particular needs. But together, they have enough students that they can provide services within that larger CISA at a lower rate than sending these students out of the district to a private entity. The other thing, so that's about sort of saving money. Are also, one of the things we really lack in the state is scale and staff enough to get federal grant dollars. We leave a fair amount of money on the table because school districts on their own simply don't have the capacity or the skill set for the federal grant writing that goes into it. This is a service that a CISA can provide. Services that would be paid for, but costing a lot less than sort of doing it district by district. Let's say another example would be professional development. Right now, you you might send a group of teachers to Massachusetts or Boston to a convention, hotels, food, cost of it altogether because of that amount of professional development just simply doesn't exist in the state, either from the agency or elsewhere. A CISA because you have a geographic area that built scale can provide that at a cheaper rate. And I'd be happy to share with everybody a link to the presentation we received from the Remote Learning Collaborative, our current CISA, showing exactly where they are saving money and the services they're providing despite only being a few months old.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And so I'm also thinking, and I get your ring. I think about every supervisory union or district has their own business manager. You

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: can think of back

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: office sources. You could eliminate those positions and have one from the CISA to do that work possibly?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Yes, would say things like payroll, food contracting, whatever, of the larger the scale, hopefully the bigger the discount.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Right. And so then you would you can eliminate positions in school districts. Yes. You could do that. Yes. You go.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Yeah. And so along that same vein, so we have special education going on in all those districts. Some cases one to one going on. And so this would mean that you could have someone that's trained up, properly trained up, maybe more enhanced training than what those conducting that work have now, that they could be shared across schools and be able to cut down those costs that we're incurring now? So to answer your question, I'm going to say yes, And to say that we passed Act 173 back in 2019. Really, nobody disagrees with it in terms of what its goal is, in terms of providing services to students who struggle. And one of the challenges that it has had ever since then was an inability to sort of implement it because it requires a lot of training and all of that. But the idea is training teachers to provide that frontline intervention so that you don't have early on, so that you don't have to rely on paras and one on ones later. You know, again, in providing the level of professional development needed for this, a CISA is, really well suited. And then in terms of, you know, sort of sharing across districts, I would say that, yeah, one of the reasons a CISA exists is because districts may have just a quarter of a need of a person to come and do something, but this would allow somebody to have a full time job serving multiple districts for the services that they need. If we look at what's going on here, we know that the costs are running away compared to what we have for income at least going forward in time. Certain places where a large magnitude of that total cost has been curving a lot of it's in that special aid pocket, right? So focusing on that and having that described in a way well because right now the way this is written it doesn't tell anybody to go and look at these particular areas because and look for cost savings or scale kinds of improvements in the system. So how do we have any insurance? If there's a lot of else in the language we have now, can choose to do or do not do it whether they please pretty much. So how do we box them in so that they actually achieve something that helps? Well, answer this two ways that are somewhat contradictory. One is that a CISA is there to serve its members, and its members decide the services that would best suit them. A CISA is also not limited geographically. So in other words, it needs to serve its members first. But let's say one CISA becomes particularly skilled at providing special ed screening services. There is no reason districts from a neighboring CSET can't hire them, probably at a at a non member rate, to provide those services. So there's that aspect of things. I would also say we are sort of boxing them in with this with H nine fifty five. I'd have you turn to page 13. It says, at a minimum, a CISA shall offer the following service areas to its members. Special education, including implementation and maintenance of tiered systems of support, that's right out of act one seventy three, and the provision of low incidence, high cost services. You So think of those services that require a student to be sent out of the district at really high cost. Do you think that all the CSAs that will be you know, all all the groups put together will interpret what you just said in the same way and go about it that way? I think that they will look at the statute. Idea is is, yes, to say we are gonna offer these because we know this is these are areas where we have seen cost savings, especially with the currently existing CESA. But, ultimately, the districts that form the CESA are probably gonna know best what money saving services they can provide based on their need. I'll just give you another example. You know, we could say they all need to offer English language services. But really, know that English language learners are concentrated in Chittenden County. And so that CSET might be really specializing in English language services. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Have Chittenden in the blank.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Thank you for all this work. I can't imagine how hard this was. I'm wondering, a lot of the process really relies on the Vermont Learning Collaborative, I mean, on their shoulders. And I'm just curious about capacity. I haven't looked at the report that was submitted to you by them. But can you just say a little bit about

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Absolutely. So I might disagree with you a little bit. The the responsibility that is asked of them here is to essentially hire and train the facilitators who will be doing the work for the merger study committees. They will be led by a lead facilitator Other than sort of like paying these people who will be hired as consultants, their role is not to they they don't really have much more of a role beyond that. In terms of CISA formation, I don't think we ask anything of them. But what I can tell you is they are very excited to play any role we ask. Okay. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: we have mic and then I have a

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: question. Thank you. First of all, I wanted to correct something. Earlier, I suggested that our district Southeast was the learning collaborator. It's not, there was an entity called that in district, but it's not the one that's in Pittsfield, which is right there. So just to correct that.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: did want to first of all thank you and the committee, committees. This looks promising. I think there is the ability to provide the services we need to find that balance between providing quality education and saving some money. I know that the transformation committee over the Senator Harrison has reported to our county delegation that they looked into plain consolidation, the straight consolidation and the savings just weren't there. And we haven't seen savings in our area from Act 46. And this seems to hold more promise for what's possible moving forward. So I appreciate your taking the feedback you've got from many, many people, the work of the transformation committee and transforming this into what you have here. So thanks and looking forward to continuing to learn more about this and see how we can move forward.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Great. I just want to clarify one thing. The Vermont Learning Collaborative does cover most of Southeast Vermont. That is the CISA that is there and is actually already saving you money.

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: Yeah. I just didn't there there was actually an entity called Called Learning Collaborative. Got it. Got it.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Not to be confused with.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: It was

[Michael Mrowicki (Member)]: actually started by Casey Mrow, who was the son of Edward R. Mrowicki.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: That's a

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: great piece of trivia.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Fun facts. Yes. Bring that to trivia night, see if anybody knows. Now we all know. So chair comment, I'm my question is about the facilitators. Having been a facilitator myself, but done work with school boards, I'm trying to imagine who these people are and where they come from. So

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: we had to have facilitators during Act 46. They were largely, I would say, superintendents, assistant superintendents, people who had really deep knowledge of how our system works in Vermont. So now not only do we have those, we now have those who have experienced act 46 and have been through that. So I would probably see many of these people being retired or former superintendents or or people with deep knowledge. We have you know, I can't sit here and say to you, we guarantee you that you'll get eight people or seven people. However, we have we have heard informally that there are lots of people out there with this level of that of knowledge and and Skills of skills. Exactly. Yes.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Lynn and then Wayne.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay. Is act Or did you just sit here? Act 173. Was that the one that took the special education professionals out of the individual school districts and put them in the SUs?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, I don't think any act did that. But I would say, I think it was 153 was what said which said that special education within a supervisory union would be the responsibility of the supervisory union rather than individual districts. So it didn't move people, but it moved responsibility for those people from the individual districts to the central administrative office. Part of that, think much of that was to sort of get rid of the sort of burden and stigma we had in the state when if you were a small district and a family moved into your community with a high need student, people sort of looked at that and what it did was more socialize the cost of special education across a supervisory union rather than just one small district. So it sort of smoothed out the highs and lows financially.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I remember 01/1953 because that was my first term here. And that was really helpful.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: And what one hundred

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: seventy three does is it really takes best practices and promotes them within schools, mostly using multi tiered systems of support. It's not the block grant. And then so then that that is what also brought on for financing the census block grant for gang

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Dickinson So that did not quite just I just wanna because I remember that, and I remember that that was supposed to lower the cost. I don't know that it did. And it sounds like you feel that that or your committee found that that was not as successful as it was hoped to be.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I think it still can be successful. It suffered through a lack of implementation. And I think anybody at the Agents of Education would agree with that. And the consultants who were hired that the professional development that was needed in order to bring on these best practices did not happen. COVID's to blame, a lot of turnover in the agency is to blame.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Just curious, when you talk about lack of implementation, where did the gaps start? Where did the barriers start?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: It was a lack of professional development to really bring teachers the skills they need to implement multi tiered systems of support. Classroom teachers,

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: not special ed teachers. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you. I have another question on when you talk about the benefits you get from the CISA, in my county, in my memory, a lot of the professional development was done countywide collaboratively with all the different school districts, the two or three districts, four or five districts that we had, SUs that we had. So some of this, did you hear any testimony or anything about how this was already being done? Because I suspect some of this was already happening. I would say

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: we didn't have formal testimony on that. First of we have a number of teachers on the committee, but I've also heard from a number of superintendents. I'd say that probably some of that professional development that you experienced was at a higher level led by the agency. In other words, bringing groups together and maybe county or whatever districts. That has largely fallen by the wayside as between struggling with funding, turnover at the agency, different efforts. So I would say that, yes, professional development has faltered in the past decade or so as a result of all of those factors, and that is definitely one of the contributing factors to why Act 173 has been so slow in reaching its potential.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Okay. And the third thing is a lot of these things were done on a supervisory union level by the central office. As you whether it was, well, for instance, the collaborative CE and or professional development, a lot in the grant writing, what will the SU do after it has put all this responsibility into the CISA?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, hopefully focus on educational leadership rather than focusing on board management, on HR functions, on negotiating food service contracts and transportation contracts. Hopefully, have a more have a higher level of scale. Remember from the time you're talking about to the time today, we have probably lost 20,000 students. So we don't really have the scale that we had previously. And well, no. We've increased teachers, but So I think that probably you can talk to any superintendent, and if they can some of those sort of non educational leadership functions to an entity that's better at it, they'd probably welcome that. Okay.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: And the third thing is there is and following slide 16, on page 32, when we get to vote, when the towns get to vote after the study, there is a veto power there for the towns to choose not to join. Any number of towns people to not join this.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But it's not towns. It's only a town if you're at like Lincoln is its individual school It's a school district. So we have eight towns in ours. We share what's with Jim And so seven of them might say no, or seven may say yes and one may say no, but it's the total votes of all those towns. So it isn't every individual town.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: District. District. Pardon me if

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I say town. School district. Does that mean you're commingling the votes of all of those eight school districts or is it just each one has its

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: own decision to So when you are forming a unified union school district, all of the member districts that are doing that are their own entity, right? And they all have to vote individually in favor of it. They are not commingled. No. And any one of those districts, if they do not vote in favor of it It doesn't merger does not move forward. Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: But a district the district can be made up of eight towns and still vote for it even if two of the towns vote against it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: In that case, the vote would

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: be commingle, then you wouldn't But bail you would never know which right, because it's all commingle, like our school budgets are now.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Yes. Okay. Because we have this was a big issue in our area. School district decided to do. One small school district decided not to move forward with this. But when it finally got created in Act 46, then the votes were all commingled. Actually, votes were commingled when they created. Once you are

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: a unified union school district, generally your votes are all commingled.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: I'm going pass

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Wayne. It

[Wayne Laroche (Member)]: Just to back on one of the things you mentioned, back on the topic of care, facilitators. Having, you know, I've had to deal with facilitators in the past and seen some outside. Some organizations, there's actually people that specialize facilitating from the outside. They don't necessarily need to know the whole operational details of what they're facilitating in order to do a good job and some of them have done excellent jobs. And on the other hand if you have people that have an in-depth view too much in-depth view they also have in-depth opinions And that facilitator needs to be objective as possible when they're running that. So that concerns me a little bit. I would just say that the facilitators would be hired, I would say, with great care through the Vermont Learning Collaborative. And they I I I would say that they have the skill set themselves to sort of look for that level of both knowledge and facilitating ability. This makes me nervous. It is all ultimately a human endeavor as is everything. Being asked to trust is the thing. And as you might guess, I'm kind of an analytical kind of person. And looking at this, if you were to look at this system, and I mentioned that you saw me stand up on the floor when we caucus of the whole and asked for a systematic analysis of the system has been done. Right now we're talking mostly about governments. But we know we also have operations, you get personnel management, you get curriculum, you get all the other elements of this that are separate.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Now you're not really addressed here. I would be locked up to whoever's going to be mocking around in that after these things are set up. Given the fact that we are where we are at the costs and the declining performance of the students with increasing costs concerns me that the people that created the problem are the people that were asking to solve the problem. Maybe they're with appropriate people, but without some little more detailed structure, I'm very concerned that we're going end up with higher and higher taxes and no better outcomes for the students. That's basically my big concern about the way it is right now. And like, for example, why would we tack kindergarten on the back of this when we're dealing with a systematic problem of costs and outcomes? All right. Well, let me just sort of talk first about the legislative role versus the agency role versus the sort of school district role. And while others may disagree, I've sort of been up of the philosophy we need to stay in our lane. And that really, it's the agency of education and the state board of education working together that is in charge of making sure our schools are doing what we say they should be doing. And so yes, this not get into what are the necessary steps to improve student outcomes, except would allow us to devote more resources to what goes on in the classroom rather than what goes on in the administration. So I'd say that that's part of it. We've sort of I think it's true throughout everywhere, but we let the educators educate. Here's the second part of that. So are we missing something? I mean, if the if AOE is gonna be still or is, are we gonna enhance some of capabilities that AOE is spelled out what they're supposed to be doing there? So we have two sets of quality standards in the state. We have educational quality standards, which really sort of govern what is taught. And then we have district quality standards that talk about how districts are operated. Those are all sort of within the purview of the state board and the agency, but it gives them essentially the authority to make sure that schools are meeting both the educational quality standards and sort of the operational standards. So we have multiple grading systems within the various schools. We don't have a single system so that we can determine as we put more resources in, we get better performance coming out. It's hard to measure when you're dealing with apples and oranges. I'd say that there are statewide standard assessment tests that are meant to have sort of objective measures that aren't the same for every student. Right. We can say that, but when you start looking at, is there a 10% increase or is there no need? If you're dealing with A's and B's, passes and fails and whatever, it's hard to have quantification of success. And just that's one thing. But then skip on to accounting where there five different accounting systems to bounce schools. Is this gonna be the portion that will fix some of that stuff? Or is that gonna have to come from AOE? That's probably best. I mean, it's ultimately gonna have to be funded. I would say that, yes, the financial piece you are talking about has been a struggle. It was attempted to be fixed by moving to a uniform software. It simply was a failed effort that needs to be tried again. Sounded like some of the You had resistance out in the field, people wanted to use some resistance. Well, that's because in many ways it failed them and their needs. Was probably good for a big district that had multiple people and could be on their own to learn how to use it and didn't work out so well for a smaller district that didn't have the capacity to take it on. But solving those things, I would say we solve by providing funding for the experts who are out there bringing people together and saying this is the direction we should go. So I'm just trying to wrap my head around what courses do. This looks like mostly governance. It really is about governance and service providing as a way to keep educational experts educating rather than doing a lot of other stuff. I just don't see how it's going to get us very quickly. Put this way, the tax pressures we're going to be proceeding are going to impact all of us politically. And I don't see that this is going to get us there in a timeframe that's going to mean anything in my lifetime as a legislator because for four or five years out. Which it has been under every proposal, it's been a multi year process. Yeah. Because it's a big it's a big amount of change and it requires all of these human beings to make that change happen. And that's why I was again asking that again on a system analysis point of view, chunking it out into, okay, we're going to work on governance now, not through kindergarten. The kindergarten language here, which I think is subject to change, is just beefing up the study because we have to fund it. I mean, is also about governance and it is about funding and transitioning from the governance we have today and transitioning from the funding system we have today.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Timeline may help see some of that as well, but and the tax department has to be very involved, there's a lot of stuff that they can't turn on a dime to get things done either. Everything takes longer than we'd all like it to take. It's a huge system. Mean, I'm sure, you know, Chair Conlon's committees, they dug into it. There's so many things that you have to think about. I mean, have simple bills, they're complicated when they get here. Never mind transforming an entire education system.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: But I appreciate the comment about sort of divide and conquer. And this we are so right. This is really about governance and funding.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Lynn? One last quick question. The ESAs, will they have a system wide budgeting process, or will it still depend on each school district or supervisory unit or whatever you want to call? Where does that system that's come in to get the scale of doing the budget and seeing how you

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I think that it's going to be governed by a board of people from the member districts. They will set the budget based on you know, I I they'd say, alright. Well, what do we feel we have the capacity to provide to our member districts in the next year? And how are we going to fund that?

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: Is that going to be the one person on the CISA board?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, that's I don't mean I don't what you mean

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: by that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Well, one point that says in there, it consists of one person on the court. It's a little confusing language. It's all I

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: like SUs, one person. You know, I mean, we now have now have some SUs that are now as districts. Those districts do a global budget or a system wide budget. Individual districts still do their own. Will the SESA take over some of that responsibility? Is it system wide?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: No, would say a CISA is a fee for service organization that is either strict fully funded by fees or funded by fees and dues And those fees and dues would be in the budget of each individual member district.

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: So they want to have a control over the budget? No. Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: No, you imagine a school budget, you go down under transportation, it might say share of, you know, unified transportation contract. Well, that contract may have been figured out by the CISA. It's proportional now.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So maybe it was 100,000 and this year it's only 40,000 because they're sharing it with all the other places or something. Sorry. Yeah,

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: I'm wondering about the various study committees that are going together and they're considered merger. And as I understand it, they're supposed to be considering merger of, possibly the merger, to create a pre K through 12 school district. Yes. How do we handle those current school districts that are not operating that tuition their students have, so they do. Or they only operate currently K through eight or pre K through eight.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I appreciate that. So how a district operates itself sort of within its borders would be up to it. So you could you could conceivably because we dealt with the same issue as we looked at forced mergers into k 12 systems that, you know, you can create a system where maybe your new larger merged district has, yes, a a k 12 system that is now with a k eight and then and then time tuition after that system. You can have language that would accommodate that. Both systems or that district may say, you know something, we are gonna go to within our district, full choice, where space allows. So really, should a group want to take on that type of merger, there are ways to create the language and the articles of agreement that can accommodate either both systems side by side or an integrated system that would allow all students access depending on space available.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: So do you not see any disadvantage to our current relationships that we have with existing independent schools?

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: I would say that nothing in this bill contemplates changing that relationship unless within a district, everybody thinks that's a good idea.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Okay, but various, the groupings that are together in this little committee, this committee could decide, okay, you guys only do K through eight and you guys go through eight through 12 and you guys don't do anything, but they are close together geographically and for whatever reason they want to be together, they could form a merged district

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: and That's set up their the hope. The reality may be that they may say, we can't figure this out, and they decide a merger is not advisable.

[Unidentified Committee Member (possible John Kascenska)]: Right. But if they thought it made sense, they could. Because we've had all this discussion before about how did workers go together that have different kinds of operating.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Well, I wouldn't say yes. Act 46 specifically said no to that. This does not contemplate saying no to that.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: So you can have the variety of

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: You could. It would be complicated to figure out, but there's no reason. It's just how you decide to govern within your own district.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Any other questions? And Beth is still here. House raising youth just voted the bill out. So I will try to find, I've been looking for a final document. I haven't seen it yet.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: as soon as we see that, I'll make sure we get that sent out to everybody so you can read that over the weekend. Peters, thank you very much. Welcome. Happy

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: to be here and talk to you. Really appreciate the good questions too, especially as I have to get ready to be on the floor at some point. That's right. And we're interrogating

[Eileen “Lynn” Dickinson (Member)]: the better practice I get. Better here than there.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: Have to wait, you know. So I think we have a caucus of the whole scheduled for after the floor and before our separate caucuses on Tuesdays. I understand.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: And that will be focused on the ways and means of minutes. May? Okay.

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: You already did yours. Yes. That's right. Okay. And then we will have ways and means at 01:00 come hell or high water, think. We'll have that part and then we'll vote the bill on Tuesday. Monday's now off the table because somehow miraculously we got all this done today. Thank you, Ben, who I hope will now get an afternoon snack, if not lunch. Thank you, Chair Collins, for coming in.

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: Do I have lunch as well?

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: I'm gonna have afternoon snack and lunch at rest hours. All right, So thank you committee for hanging in there and your flexibility as we had lots of excitement on when this is all going to happen. Our plan is in this committee at 01:00. Are we set for that on Monday on Sorry, I keep saying Monday. If we get over, it's not January, February, or March, it's not Monday. So we'll be here. On the

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: floor

[Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee)]: and

[Robin Scheu (Chair)]: then we'll be there.