Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Good morning, everyone.

[Unidentified Member (likely Rep. Kirk White, Ranking Member, House Commerce)]: This

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. This is a try hearing with our colleagues in House Education and Senate Economic Development. We are here today to have hopefully, robust discussion about career technical education with Secretary Saunders from the Agency of Education. And also, know in Senate Economic Development, Commissioner Kendall Smith with the Department of Labor as well. And so we're here to hear kind of the vision that AOE has on career technical education, and we're anxious to hear what you have to say, secretary Sanders. And welcome. Thank you for joining us.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Thank you. Good morning. For the record, I'm Zoe Saunders, Secretary of Education. I'm delighted to be in this room and also joined virtually by so many people who share our passion for expanding career and technical education to students across Vermont. So really look forward to this conversation and your input as we continue to make this proposal better so it can meet the needs of our students and our shared goals in Vermont. So I'll begin with the background of the timeline. How did we get here? This is really a culmination of three years of intensive study and also engagement with the legislature to understand what the challenges are and the barriers to expanding career and technical education, along with identifying what are some of the strengths that we want to build on moving forward. So back in 2022, the General Assembly recognized the need to evaluate our career and technical education system and make recommendations about how we could expand services to impact more students. The agency of education continued to work with the consultant that the JFO contracted with to further study. And through that process has produced two substantive reports that we've explored in detail with the committees over the last couple of years. Those reports continue to be very helpful and grounding and understanding the current state of delivery of career and technical education. And through those recommendations that came forward, we've spent a lot of time identifying how will that work in the Vermont context. And I want to give particular appreciation to the House Commerce Committee for really deep engagement in this last session. You raised forward a lot of important questions that I think have very much strengthened this proposal and are addressing some of the outstanding areas of inquiry that were raised last session. In July, at the end of the legislative session of 2025, Act 73 was signed into law. And there is explicit intent language in Act 73 that the funding formula should expand career and technical education. JFO is currently in the process of a competitive bid process to bring on an expert or multiple experts to evaluate the best way for us to build this into our funding system with that intent. And then into the fall of this year, we've continued to evaluate where there are some challenges that we'd like to overcome. What are some of the opportunities that we think are most impactful to drive this forward? And we recognize that over the last several years, there's been an intent and a real strong desire to modernize our career and technical education system. I think we're at the point after having studied this for three years and had really robust debate, that we're in a position to be able to meaningfully move forward this session. And that creates a lot of enthusiasm and excitement that's definitely represented by the participation in this room and also online today. So we go to the next slide. Let's start with the vision. We all share, I think, a vision for regional high schools. It's been documented in a number of goals that have been established by the legislature. It's something that we've heard really clearly in traveling across the state of Vermont through our Listen and Learn tour. And that comprehensive regional high school will allow for the traditional high school experience to be co located with technical centers so that the experiences are really infused into learning. Because we know that proximity to a career and technical education is very predictive of whether or not a student will take advantage of those opportunities. So we believe that that future vision will establish regional comprehensive high schools. We know that it will take some time to get to that future vision and that it will also require some school construction aid for that to happen. And so what we're proposing today is really a way for us to improve quality and manage that while we get to the future state. And I'm going to walk you through how this proposal, I think, is addressing what a lot of the large areas of inquiry were in terms of last year's proposal. I think we recognize that we share the goal for the future state, and we recognize it's going to take some time to get there. But in the interim, we need to make sure that we're enhancing the experience for current technical education, that we're expanding access and opportunities to students also in the younger years of middle school, and are proposing an approach that we think will allow us to do that while we move to that future vision. So in this vision, also, and it's beyond just bricks and mortar. So if we go back to the vision statement here, it's really making sure, if you don't mind going back, that every Vermont student is ready for life after graduation. So regardless of where a student lives and the proximity to a tech center, that they can discover their strengths, pursue their talents, and that those hands on learning experiences are aligned and help them to get meaningful employment after graduation and prepare them for meaningful careers. We wanna make sure that those pathways are supported from school all the way to adulthood. And so we'll talk today about some of the ways that we're gonna integrate that with some industry alignment. And then a key part of this vision is that CTE is a foundation and is essential to our education delivery, not an alternative option. And so what this looks like is CTE embedded in middle schools and embedded in the learning experience in the early years of high school in ninth and tenth grade. That we have blended pathways that both combine rigorous academics and applied learning. That this really the way that we learn and teach in Vermont. And that learning happens in a variety of different areas. Learning happens in classrooms. It happens in labs. It happens in job sites. It's really personalizing learning, ensuring that it's hands on, ensuring that it's meaningful, and that there's a clear application for jobs and careers after high school. And in this vision, we are being really clear that the student is not choosing between academics or technical, but that it's part of the way that we are delivering education in Vermont that's enriching, that is applying learning in meaningful ways, and supporting students in navigating high school and into their path after graduation. Within your packet as testimony, we provided a little bit of additional depth around that vision and the aspiration that brings in a little bit more context to what we're describing. And I'm going go through some of those key pieces as we move through the presentation. So next, it's important to recognize where we are current reality and that we have an equity challenge as it relates to access to high quality career and technical education. Many of our studies have pointed to the fact that access to CTE is largely related to a student's proximity to a tech center. And that we know there have been challenges also with transportation and making sure that students have that equitable access and opportunity to participate if the tech center is not co located at their high school or is farther away. We also have seen in our analysis that there's inconsistent program quality and also availability across the state. Transportation barriers do limit participation, and this has been documented and discussed widely in our conversations. And too many students miss early exposure in career education. There are parts of our states where we have some models and exemplars of how tech centers are really integrating learning in middle school. But that's not happening in a way that is consistent across Vermont. And that limits the ability for those younger students to explore their interests and identify if they want to be a CTE career concentrator in high school. So if we look at this policy framework, it is designed to address the equity challenges that I noted, both with respect to access and also access to quality programming in the younger years. So what we're proposing in this framework is to establish a statewide CTE education service agency. So this is a single governance entity to provide consistent quality and support for career and technical education in every area, in every context where CTE education is provided. This is similar to the original proposal back in January, where the governor put forward the education transformation, at that time, we were considering it as a BOCES. We had a lot of conversation with this committee in particular. And through that, we're saying, should it be a BOCES? Should it be zone district? We've landed on the need for this to be an education service agency because it provides that important bridge until such time that we can get to that future vision where every part of our state and every student has access to a regional high school. And I'm going to talk a little bit more in detail around how that governance structure will be organized and framed, and how that's responding directly to a lot of the questions we explored last year around roles and responsibilities, maximum efficiency, quality, and the integration with the K-twelve districts. Second, within this framework, the governance framework, it is allowing us to establish consistent quality, curriculum and accountability for all programming related to career and technical, including early exposure in the middle school grades. It is really being intentional around creating that consistency and stacked programming from the younger years all the way into high school so that they're able to better navigate and identify the areas that they're interested in pursuing. It is integrated with the Pre K-twelve delivery model. So it's important as we're engaging in this conversation to talk through the ways in which there is strong synergy with Pre K-twelve, where there needs to be really tight coordination. And we'll talk through some of the roles and responsibilities in that model. In this approach, we are proposing statewide funding to make CTE universal. We'll talk a little bit about the intention for that, but it really is to protect CTE funding and ensure that we're giving that opportunity that we are removing what has historically been seen as competition for different programming and making sure that this is just part of the educational experience delivered to all students. And we recognize that in this policy framework, it is a stage transition and implementation timeline. And so in many ways, the governance structure that we're proposing is a bridge to get in us to that future state. So let's start with talking about the Education Service Agency. One of the reports that we delivered to the legislature in early January, reported on the role of regional service delivery in the state of Vermont. And we've been consistent in indicating the need for regional service delivery, even within larger districts related to specialized services. And so last year we talked about CTE being delivered as a force of cooperative education service agency. As we've done further research and review, we're proposing an education service agency because of the way that it's constructed and is more tightly aligned with the statewide priorities and would be established through the general assembly. In one of the reports that we shared with you, we did a literature review of the different types of regional service models and the way in which they're different and how they form, also how they're different in terms of establishing the statewide priorities and the relationship with the agencies of education that they support. So the CTE Education Service Agency is a single governance unit. It would be responsible for delivering high quality CTE statewide. The General Assembly would direct the formation of the Education Service Agency, which would be authorized by the Agency of Education, who would be accountable for the overall quality of the system. The CTE Education Service Agency would employ CTE educators, manage the curriculum, professional development and oversight. They would also oversee programs across centers, high schools and middle schools. And this would make access no longer dependent on geography or district capacity. So this is one single unit that's responsible for career and technical education, not only in the programming that happens in the actual tech centers, but is looking holistically across the state and identifying opportunities to push in career and technical education in the middle schools and in high schools where there's space available and also being intentional about offering type of early exposure programs that can be accommodated in a classroom and create that early interest in career and technical education. Additionally, the Education Service Agency would be responsible for ensuring that there is a rigor everywhere. And that the curriculum implemented is aligned to industry, is supportive of students earning credentials that are recognized by industry leaders. They would be part of the program approval, review, the continuous improvement process, professional learning, providing instructional coaching, and coordinated student services and equitable access. We are also looking at statewide sector specific advisory boards. So currently, have regional advisory boards. We've talked about sometimes the challenges and the duplication because there's a limited number of employers and they're often asked to participate in so many different boards. This is really thinking about content specific.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: So if we think we have a set of programming, for example, that are all going to

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: be aligned to what our workforce development board deems most important and critical to industry needs. And so you would have a number of programs around manufacturing. So you'd have a sector advisory board for manufacturing to provide oversight and support of the curriculum around the programs offering manufacturing, for example. And this would ensure that there's that level of coordination with our Vermont employers. They can also provide resources like technical guides and things like that to enrich the curriculum to make sure that students are really learning from the cutting edge resources to prepare them for careers after after high school graduation. The Education Service Agency would also provide the middle school and early high school exposure. And so in this relationship, we would ensure that the curriculum for pre tech exploration, the ESA would actually create that, would train middle school teachers to deliver that within their curriculum. They would provide the guidance and support through that process. And then we'll talk a little bit about how the funding works. So the overall funding system and the intent language within Act 73 is really clear about establishing expansion of CTE. And also, have modeled that through the funding, there's the ability to provide that accelerated programming early in middle school. So this program, this approach, so it needs to be within the JFO study, but it's well within the intent language and the direction of the RFP that the JFO published to support them with finalizing the foundation formula within Act 73. So moving on to integrated Pre K-twelve delivery. The idea here is to make sure, as I said, that it's not a separate option, that CTE is infused in how we develop and design our education programming across the state and are infused in the learning experiences for students in high schools and middle schools. The intent of the ESA is to reduce the reliance on standalone centers so that we are really thinking broadly and comprehensively around how all students in the state within our current infrastructure gain access to career and technical education. There would be shared planning across the state for labs and what the biggest needs are. We've recognized that certain parts of our state, there's more challenges with accessing CTE and there may be greater facility needs to update lab spaces. So taking a statewide approach allows us to be more equitable and strategic with how dollars are invested to expand CTE programming. The ESA would also work very closely to support some of the regional partnerships with colleges and employers, along with the State Workforce Development Board. So statewide funding for universal access, the intent here is that funding for CTE is equitable, predictable, and that this is something that when we say CTE is a priority in the state of Vermont, that we actually fund it in the state of Vermont. And so this would be a unified statewide CTE appropriation. It would replace the fragmented tuition based funding that is currently in place. It would really ensure that we are resourcing programming. Now we have a lot of variability with those tuition costs and a lot of variability in quality. And so this is helping to ensure that as we're establishing programs across the state that are meeting the biggest industry needs, that they are funded to deliver those to the students and have the appropriate resources. This allows us to be more strategic with Perkins dollars. So the Education Service Agency is one governance unit, allows them to be the recipient of the Perkins dollars to actually evaluate the needs for students using Perkins and to create one statewide budget using those dollars. Does not at all change the intended use of Perkins, but it allows us to be more strategic as opposed to different centers receiving smaller allocations and doing their own needs assessment for their specific group of students. This allows us to look more broadly across the state to do a needs assessment of where we need to really invest the most to enhance labs and enhance programming for the student experience. The idea also with having this as appropriation is to overcome what has been a perennial issue of competition of funding. So that there's no new financial burden that would be on the local districts. This would be something that the state through the appropriation would fund because CTE is a statewide education priority. The state's transition and implementation timeline. So the education service agency is really intended to be that bridge until we, as a state, get to the future where we have regional comprehensive high schools, where all students are enrolled in a high school, co located with the CTE center and all of that programming is seamlessly delivered. And so the idea here is within that timeframe, we want to make sure that we are having a concerted focus, statewide focus on improving education quality for CTE, and that the governance approach allows us to do that in a way that is more consistent and can be done more equitably. One of the things we really talked about last year was the potential of having one CTE district. So you're probably asking a question of why have we come to this conclusion around the Education Service Agency? For many of the questions that you raised, and I want to thank Representative Graning. Raised a lot of questions. We had some conversations outside of committee too, just around, is this the most efficient way? Is this creating another layer? Is this duplicative? These are all the conversations that we engaged in last year. And we've landed on the fact that establishing a CTE district outside of the pre K-twelve districts would be really confining and limiting and could create in the future that other layer of bureaucracy. And so what this is doing is to actually saying, we know we need a statewide governance entity to ensure that we're improving quality, that this would be established as opposed to a district and then reevaluated once we're in a place to have regional high schools. So that those services that the ESA provides, some of them might be sunsetted because the districts of new larger districts could assume some of those responsibilities, or they might still contract with the education service agency to deliver certain resources and services that would be beneficial. So part of this is really being intentional about this being a bridge to getting us to the future state and ensuring that we're funding it in a way that is improving education quality. So implementation timeline, this is consistent with the timeline that is included within Act 73. So this would come into place when we transition to the new larger district for pre K-twelve and the new foundation formula. There is a clear change management approach that needs to be established here to get all of the pieces in place in order for this to be successful. So the 2026, should we go this direction? The legislature would direct the agency of education to establish the education service agency for CTE. In the 2027, the Education Service Education Executive Director would be hired. And then in December 2027, that Executive Director is hiring the central office staff, finalizing the frameworks for the programs that are being offered across the state. And then July 2028, the Education Service Agency would really go live as being the one governance unit to oversee CTE. We recognize that that go live date will also need to be thoughtful around what's possible in year one and what's possible in year two. And so we've conceptualized this for the first year, which is the twenty twenty eight, twenty nine school year. To focus on standing up and strengthening the ESA. And so this is really first ensuring a unified statewide CTE budget, standardizing quality and curriculum, improving equity data and student services and updating programs using guidance from the advisory boards that are formed around sector, not as per region. And then in the subsequent years, expanding and modernizing this work to provide the curriculum for middle school training for middle school teachers in the early high school year so that we're beginning to establish more of a integrated education delivery system. And then this is the time as we've really been working with the sector advisory boards, working with the state workforce development board, understanding what the industry needs are to really evaluate if we need to establish new programs or reduce the number of certain programs because there's just not the industry demand or workforce needs in those particular areas. Because we want to make sure that our students that are participating in these programs are getting prepared for jobs here in Vermont that will give them meaningful careers. And then in this process, we would inform the long term infrastructure planning. So with also the goal of having these regional comprehensive high schools, there's a need to establish really clear education specs for school construction in order that when new high schools are built, that we're being intentional about co locating those with these lab experiences that would be available within CTE. The education service agency can help as part of that evaluation and needs assessment to determine where the priority improvements would need to take place as we stage that work into the future. Overall, we've been having a lot of coordination with the Vermont Department of Labor and we are in really continue to be in focused conversations on all aspects of the proposal, but with a particular emphasis on how we ensure we're aligning this modernization of CTE to meet the industry and workforce demands of Vermont. And that calls on us to be very strategic around how we align our work with the State Workforce Development Board. So we're in ongoing conversation around that. And that certainly will be a lens by which we would direct the ESA to evaluate the need for certain programs and also quality of programs. Adult CTE within this framework could be delivered with the Education Service Agency because we want to make sure that we have a consistent level of quality and experience for our adult learners and also our students that are in high school. There are different models for how to deliver that, where high school students are learning alongside adults or adults might have a program track that's after hours or on the weekend to accommodate their schedule. But the education service agency would be responsible for ensuring that the programming is aligned to the credentials and the industry needs. And also adult education literacy, we're very coordinated and really ensuring that we can increase participation

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: in

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: that program for our adult donors specifically. And we think that's really helpful in supporting upscaling efforts that are also part of the Department of Labor's larger portfolio of work. So I'm certain that there are many questions and welcome those questions so that we can make the proposal better and achieve our shared goals of expanding CTE.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I have a list.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Your list last year helped us refine it. So I'm looking forward to your list this year. Is

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: it Okay if So I thank you. I think you're right. We all share the same goals. How do we get more CTE to students across the state more consistently, higher quality at a younger age. I think that we're all there. We all understand that value. I'm not sure exactly where to start, but I think So you're talking about a program that is a bridge between where we are now and when we have money to build regional high schools and the capacity to figure out where those can be and how we can build them. Is that

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: accurate? Yes. So this is getting us, for the next ten, fifteen years, it's going to take to really build out for that future state, it's ensuring that we have a single governance entity that is appropriately funded and resourced to enhance the quality of CTE delivery in our tech centers, and also pushing in those resources and programming in middle and high school.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: And the agency of education is going to be the employer and the trainer

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: for this? So the education service agency is considered the governance unit. And they would be commissioned by the General Assembly. So the General Assembly would say, we are going to establish an education service agency to be the single governance unit for career and technical education, which will include hiring one executive director to oversee CTE across the state, along with a central office staff to support them with that delivery. The agency of education would be responsible for ensuring that the ESA is their bylaws and their structure is meeting the requirements and the goals set forth by the general assembly. Very similar in concept to the BOCES, although a BOCES is established more of a kind of an organic regional delivery. This is saying the state has determined that CTE is important. We are going to organize our services and our funding in a way to really ensure that that's delivered consistently. And then the agency would be responsible for standing up, approving the articles of agreement and so forth through the ESA.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I mean, an ESA can be a lot of different things. And it's so many different things across the country. Do it. Are part of the agency or branches of the agency in some states. They are not branches of the agency in other states. So that was confusing to me because some of the time you talked about the agency hiring and going into schools and training, and sometimes you talked about So I

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: think there are different ways, to your point, there are different ways that we can structure the education service agency. And there's different ways that the Agency of Education across the country are involved in that. We will continue to provide our deliver our role of accountability. So similar to how we have accountability and oversight of the districts, the agency of education would have accountability and oversight of the education service agency. Decisions about who hires the ESA director certainly can be discussed and debated and how you want to form the board that oversees the ESA. There are different models and we'd be happy to come forward and share the different models. But I think that the main intent, certainly for this first conversation is to talk about this being a construct for a statewide governance, statewide budgeting that's funded and resourced by the state to deliver on the quality metrics that we, I think, all share and would need to further outline within the terms of the ESA.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I'll go back to my list after some other people Chair Conlon, do you

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: have any members with questions?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Great. Thank you. I'm going look around the room before I volunteer to ask a question. Not seeing any so the the sort of funding for the staffing of the ESA itself, do you see that as a right now, the folks at the AOE who oversee CTE are funded out of the general fund, but do you see everything below that ESA and all coming out of the Ed fund?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yeah, correct. So the agency of education will be continued to be funded our staff by the general fund, and there are some set aside dollars for the Perkins, the federal programs to oversee and resource the agency to provide our responsibility. And then the appropriation would fully fund CTE. And that would be inclusive of the cost for the salaries to oversee and manage the education service agency, along with the budgeting that's involved in the program delivery. And labs, all of that would be part

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: of the appropriation. Appropriation from the education fund? Yes.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Correct me I'm wrong, but

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: it sounds like the ESA would essentially be the employer of all CTE instructors. And if I'm right about that, just like as we think about moving to bigger districts, there's all sorts of labor contract complications to that. Could you speak to how to address that in what I would call a relatively short timeframe that you have laid out here?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So the ESA would be the employer, and there's different ways to structure the staffing models. We have played with a couple of different variations and can bring that forward to explore with you. We've also done some initial modeling that I think would be helpful from the financial perspective to bring forward. All conversations around compensation with the larger districts and the ESA will need to have some decision points from the legislature. So collective bargaining has not been in the purview of the agency of education. However, we do know that this is a critical component as we're moving to larger districts, as we'd be establishing the ESA. So we're prepared to bring forward how other states have managed this both through establishing a statewide salary schedule, establishing a statewide contract. All of those are options that have been adopted in other states and could be feasible for us to move forward. We've heard directly from the field that, of course, this is an area that will need to have really concerted work. In order for us to be fair as a state, at the state level, we need to provide some clarity around the parameters for that, so we are equitably funding our staff within this future model.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Representative Brady has a question.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: Under some of the funding details here, it says, you talked about more strategic use of Perkins and federal funds. So I have a few questions related to the federal funds. One is, are these federal funds some that are potentially in danger in the federal landscape we face now? Two, how much are we talking about? And three, how does the creation of an ESA change the ability to be strategic about Perkins and federal funds that we couldn't do now with interagency collaboration.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yeah. So I think there were three questions.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Yep. I guess we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: could that if you want.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Rut, did you get all three questions?

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Got two.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: Start anywhere and then I'll fill in.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Okay. So first of all, as of yesterday, Perkins is level funded in next year's congressional budget, and there's every expectation it will remain level funded for next year. Vermont receives $5,900,000 in Fed and Perkins funding. That's level funded this year from last year, and it looks like we'll receive 5,900,000.0 next year. Perkins is not something that is currently likely to change in that regard. The level funding is of concern because always before that, we had small increases. But right now, level funding in federal government, I think is considered in the national CTE community to be a reassuring starting point. So that's the so and so I think it's it's reasonable to expect that 5,900,000.0 may be our general benchmark for the next couple of years. What this proposal would allow for Perkins funding versus what we can currently do. So Perkins comes with very, very strict requirements on what states must do. We keep 5% at the Agency of Education for the grant administration, and we keep 10% at the Agency of Education for what the law calls state leadership activities, and within that money that stays at the state agency. So if you think about 10%, that's 590,000 About a $121,000 of that we have to spend on very specific statewide leadership activities. So that money is already required that nothing changes with that. Those funds would stay the same. We're then required to grant out 85% of the funds to our eligible recipients. And in Vermont, that's the Community College of Vermont, which receives 22% of that 85%. And then the CTE centers receive the remaining 78%. And that seat that the money that goes to the CTE centers currently has to go based on a federal formula based on census data that were provided by the US Department of Education and it's a formula that bases the amount each CTE center is eligible to receive based on the overall population of five through 17 year olds in their designated service region and the number of there's a poverty level indicator too, so we get a poverty number we have to insert into that formula. So currently, our CTE centers in Vermont, 17 CTE centers, our smallest or most rural centers like, Cold Hollow Career Center in Ennisburg Falls And River Bend Career And Technical Education Center in, Bradford, they each receive less than a $100,000 in Perkins funds. They've been received between 80 and 90,000 each year approximately. Whereas our larger CTE centers receive more, many CTE centers receive somewhere in the 150,000 to 250,000 range. The Center for Technology in Essex receives over a half $1,000,000. So so we have a wide gap, but all of our CTE centers are seeking to do similar things and address similar needs. But the currently, the money has to go based on, each of those centers region. A statewide ESA would mean that the money would go to the ESA. They would do their own needs assessment, but all of the funds would go to that one ESA, all 78% of the funds that are available on the amount we grant out, and they would be able to prioritize how that was spent on given initiatives in each center or in each region of the state. And what didn't I answer?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: I think you answered it. What is sort of the difference in how I guess in your answer, it sounds to me more like it allows us would allow this ESA or the state level to direct funds differently around the state. But it doesn't really change the amount of funds or that they're being you're essentially saying, maybe more will go to some area and less will go to some area, but it's not a ability to sort of

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: amplify funds.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Exactly. Think what it does is allows us to prior, I think it would allow the ESA to determine where there were needs that are not otherwise met. For example, I think you're right in the sense that the overall amount of money and going into the system and the federal share of that money would not change. I do think there are situations right now where, for example, some of our smallest our centers that receive the smallest allocations never have the benefit of the funds and waste that some of our largest centers do. This could help offset that because some of our centers struggle to spend their full allocation with Fidelity each year. Then we always have to look at what funds have been returned unspent, and then we reallocate those again. But again, some of our centers are much better resourced and have fewer needs than some of our centers that historically just have never received that level of funding. This is a mechanism for a statewide system to really think about what those needs are and how to address them.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Thank you, why don't we wait for round two for any more other questions and pass along to Senate Commerce.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Although if we had an opportunity to amplify funding with the feds, we would.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Chairs

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Lockerson? Yes, thank you. We have a question, David.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Thank you, Madam Chair. So thank you, Secretary Saunders, for the briefing. I've got a specific example I need a bit of an explanation for. And so what I'm trying to understand is how the SEA is different from current leadership model. And I'd like to take the Stafford Tech Center as an example, that that's a kind of a classic regional high school example. How would governance be different in newer, in the new ESA model? Would there be one superintendent or would there be two different silos of leadership? One being the standard high school and the other being the CTE. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: I'll start and then I'll allow Ruth to provide some additional examples. So currently we have different governance models for how we oversee CTE. It just makes the overall system more complex. And what this would move is to one governance unit, which would be the education service agency. And there would be an executive, one executive director that oversees the delivery, quality assurance for the education in all of the CTE centers where that happens, along with the programming that would happen in the middle and the high school. As I shared, there are different ways to think about how to staff that regional office. So there are certainly other senior level roles within the team that are providing that support. Some models look at that more regionalized, others look at that more by content area. So there's a couple of different flexibilities for what I would call that staffing matrix for how the ESA was structured. But it would move us from a very complicated governance structure, which varies across our state to one single statewide governance unit. We've been having this conversation for the last couple of years around the benefits of moving to a single statewide governance entity and really operationalizing what that looks like in practice. And I'll let Ruth share some more examples of what that looks

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: like on

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: the ground, compared to our current state.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: David has a No, no, I'll wait till we're done. You wanna follow-up? We'll wait till we're done. Okay. We have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: a follow-up when Ruth's done. Hi, Ruth.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Hello. And for the record, I am Ruth Durkin, the state director of career technical education at the agency of education. So it's good to be with you this morning. My apologies that I couldn't be with you in person. The ways I see it as being I think is and what I've heard some CTE center directors say to their teachers are, we will still have the CTE programming that we all value and that we see the strong return on our investment from. Currently, I just looked at our most recent school year data for the school year that ended in June 2025, and we had over seventy two percent of our CTE program graduates in June left with earned post secondary credentials of value, and over 50% are left with earned college credits. So that piece of our system stays the same. And the strong student learning and the strong teaching remains the same. But I think it gives the opportunity for our CTE centers and our CTE teachers to be part of a single entity that oversees how CTE functions, to provide statewide professional development opportunities in far more streamlined ways than we can currently provide with four different governance models and multiple different schedules for how students receive instruction. It allows for in my ideal vision, we currently have half day CTE programs. We have full day CTE programs. They're currently based primarily based on what building someone is in, not based on what the right delivery model is for a given program or how we might distribute and have CTE students around the state have access to a full time opportunity or a half time opportunity depending on all the other things that fit into their schedule. I think it allows an ESA with dedicated creative leadership to really design a delivery model that builds on all of our current strengths and thinks about how it looks statewide and how it's delivered and what happens in each building in our state and how we best support students in accessing all programs in our state. One of the things I think about a lot is designing to ensure that every CTE center program is full with the students who want to be there. We currently have barriers in place that rely on transportation systems or designated service regions or it's agreements among sending districts and and and CTE centers that land on my desk frequently. I think an ESA could help offset those by having one entity that's making sure our systems are consistent statewide in the ways that we make sure students have access, that our programs are designed for student learning, and that there we have the right balance that for each region of the state for students to have access to. And that might mean that students have a choice of attending one of two centers or three centers within a geographic region in a way that they can't currently.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Thank you. And in this committee, think David has just a quick follow-up or do you want to wait until Lou's presentation?

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I can just make that. Just one observation that the comment about the, or the from the briefing, the one year between establishing the ESA and hiring the executive director in my world in aerospace and defense, we would do that in half the time or less. It's very important to get leadership in place to guide the ship as it's being built and it's just one observation, but thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: I'd support that. Guess I would loathe to ask a question before Ruth makes her presentation I'm sure many of my questions will be answered. But I will say, as somebody who's been involved in this for a long time, one of our objectives was to more fully integrate CTE into our full time public education system, and I'm a little concerned that this further separates it and establishes more separateness rather than more integration. A concern that I'm happy to have laid by whoever and to integrate fully funds for all education. We have individual learning plans in place. I wish we follow them because then the money you know, then we are fully integrating a a an individualized learning experience for our students. I I think we're looking at twenty years before we get to regionalization. I think we're looking at billions and billions of dollars. I'd like to hear that address. We already know we have $6,000,000,000 of school construction need. I don't I I I I think we do need to be speaking to how we how we address that as we go forward. And with that, those are just some of my concerns. I you know, governance and funding integration rather than more separateness as I sort of was I was hoping for personally. But I also am really eager to get your Ruth's piece of the presentation before I jump in too much. Thank you.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So I really appreciate the question. And it's an area we've had a lot of conversation and the governor has been really clear too, and his desire to make sure that it's integrated. And so the conversation that we're having around regional service delivery is addressing the need that we have issues of scale and we have issues of equitable funding currently. Even as we move to the future state and what was always part of the original proposal, even when we move to larger districts, currently our CTE concentrators are about 4,000, 5,000 students. It's also highly specialized. And there is an opportunity to provide more regional oversight and support in a way that is consistent. This would require us to be very intentional about that relationship between the district and the ESA. So the district and the ESA would also need to be entering into a contract. They would be required to contract with the ESA to provide this level of employment, to provide this level of training for those at the tech centers, along with those who are providing the pre tech. They would also offer additional professional learning regarding for the college and career counselors to make sure that they are really equipped to help with the career navigation needs for their students. And the idea is because this is very specialized, because we currently have issues tremendously with scale, this allows us to provide a consistent level of quality for career and technical education. The funding mechanism ensures that the state actually funds this as a priority, as opposed to it being an unfunded mandate. But it is explicit in the way that this would be structured, that the district and the ESA would be coordinating. It is also a way for us to address some of the challenges with hiring and recruiting for all the different tech centers and all the different districts that need to bring on specialized career and technical educators and also leaders who have the expertise and the oversight. The thinking about making this an ESA as opposed to a district is to give us that latitude to evaluate if the ESA full suite of services will be needed in the future state and allowing some of those to be, as I said, maybe sunsetted or there's different services that might be provided in different parts of the state, depending on the need. So it's really a factor of understanding that the CTE is quite specialized, that we need to resource it well, provide the right level of expertise, and ensure that that's infused across. So it's really intending to infuse a consistent level of quality support, training and oversight for CTE in a way that the state prioritizes with funding. But you're right to note that that relationship with the district is really important. And that would need to be established explicitly within the terms of the education service agency. And Ruth, do you want to expand further on that?

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: And Senator Clarkson, I don't have a separate presentation, but I'm really here to answer these questions. And then that can help us prepare for future resources that we can share with you. But I think the things let me tell you how I think about it, because I think about it a lot in how it looks in delivery and what problems it solves and where we still have work to do. Right? So I think about the fact that under the model is proposed with an education service agency that would have the executive director plus other key leadership roles within that entity that would best support the ESA system. The ESA would be the one entity that all districts would work with on all things related to career technical education. And I just see that as helping us make sure we have the same application and admissions processes for all CTE programs offered by the ESA that are currently we have 17 different centers that do it 17 different ways in ways that create conflict and confusion. This would help offset that very real concern that everyone, I think, at every aspect of the CTE and sending school systems wants to see resolved. One, it allows for us to design consistently, to have consistent policies and practices, to have consistent levels of student support, because again, we have great variation around the state. Currently, we don't do that based on what we know about our student demographics. We do that based on other things that are not student focused. Some CTE centers only have one school counselor or one special educator because that's what they receive salary assistance for when they have two to three times as many students with disabilities or students with other needs as the center next door who may have more than one because they have a service region that's more supportive economically of their staffing at a different level. So I see it bringing equity to how we look at those kinds of things. But I also think the ESA model allows for positions that would specifically develop that curriculum, provide that training, be in regular relationship with district level teachers in ways that will strengthen our system. So while we talk about expanding middle school opportunities, those middle school opportunities would be delivered in each middle school in the state, but the ESA would have a key role to play in curriculum development, but in regularly working with and training the teachers in those centers and having staff that were specifically designated to maintain the relationships high schools and middle schools in a way that we don't have now. It builds a new level of relationship and capacity. And similarly, we're limited right now by what kinds of early high school, ninth grade, and tenth grade opportunities we provide based on what space is or isn't available in each of our regional CTE centers. So if we think about the fact that an ESA would design again and oversee again the content that would be taught in ninth and tenth grade, it would allow more of that content to be taught directly in high schools. It would also allow for program expansion to be looked at in ways that maybe we can't look at right now based on our current governance systems. I think it provides far more opportunity for creative thinking about how we expand high demand programs where we currently know the data shows we have need, especially in health sciences and construction trades.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: I think that important to emphasize also the naming, right? It is a service agency. So it is the state indicating CTE is a priority. We're going to fund it as a priority and make sure that there's the right oversight support to provide the services that are needed across the continuum, middle school to high school and have that consistency in terms of quality. And again, because of issues with scale, it does provide an opportunity for us to have that more statewide oversight and statewide quality for CTV.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: As we look at the different approaches that we already have in CTE, We do have some schools though that are already there for the vision that we're looking at, that you articulated that. We have some schools that are comprehensive, integrated already. How does how will this allow them to continue to continue their model that we're actually aspiring to? And then how do we bring on I know my district that the high school needs to be rebuilt soon, and that we're talking with the other SU, to create that comprehensive high school. How do we bring them on, while we still have this bridge going on? I think we're gonna have to create some way of bringing those, the new vision, into the fold. And so we may be operating two different systems for a period of time.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So in this approach, we would move to one governance system. So it would be one ESA, but the difference is it allows us to think comprehensively across the state as we're evaluating the delivery of this vision and allows for that additional expertise to provide those resources in the earlier grades as well. So even though we do have some centers that are co located, I think they're still not fully benefiting from our size as a state to really think about how we can manage that more comprehensively. So I would say that this would still mark a transition to get us to a more efficient way to deliver and oversee career and technical education and reduces some of the complexity of the existing governance that we have in place now.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Just like to add a couple of thoughts to that. I think, again, we do have 17 different CTE centers with four different governance models currently. So that does complicate sort of what where we have the strengths and where we don't. We have two comprehensive high schools that approve that offer state approved CTE programs currently. We have Canaan that offers them because they're geographically so far from everyone else. And we have Mrs. Goy that only offers state approved agriculture programs because that dates back so long that it's not written in anything that I've ever found, but they've always done it and they still do it. But they do that right now without having they they're able to access our statewide CTE teacher professional development opportunities, but they don't receive some of the same funding our CTE programs receive in CTE centers. If they were to if we design with intentionality for how we ensure that all CTE programs that are state approved are resourced, they may have access to, for example, the benefit of Perkins funding or other things that they don't currently have if we do this with them. And then the other piece I will say is that for some of our for those for Kanan and Mrs. Goy, just based on the resources they have and the things that go with providing the program quality measures we have in place. Our current system asks so much of them without providing the same levels of support and resource. This is an opportunity to help them help them make sure they're meeting the requirements we have for program quality and student outcomes, but without asking them to do that with no dedicated specific resources that our other CTE centers have. And then finally, have St. John's Bray Academy and Linden Institute that are two independent schools that provide CTE programs. And I think that that's something where there are models that are being looked at to how they could continue to do what they do or how we could have or how they could opt into the ESA that there are choices there.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: When

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I think about St. Johnsbury, we toured that in December. Looking at that system, to me, is the system that we should have throughout the state. They're integrated, they're comprehensive, everything is seamless. And I think that's what we're striving to have, a system. So how do we make sure that the schools that are already there, continue to function that way? And then schools that's, as we start building, how do we make sure that they're moving, that they're into that, that they will go to that same governance system?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So one, I wanna recognize that we have some bright spots, that we want to build upon. Like this proposal is designed to strengthen career and technical education. So where we're seeing really excellent instances of delivery of CTE, those are programs we really wanna learn from and model. It is important to review this proposal in the context of the current state, where we have tremendous variability now in the tuition and the cost of how we operate programs, and also variability with the outcomes and the quality of those programs. And so as we're moving to a new funding system, it is going to require us to ensure that that funding is delivering a consistent level of quality all across the state. And managing that statewide will allow us to be more equitable in ensuring that programs in every part of the state are resourced in a way and perhaps the right level of curriculum and aligned industry to deliver on those expectations. But I think it is important to recognize that this proposal is coming in the context of understanding we're moving to a new funding system. And that right now, the way that tech centers have tuitioning is very different and the outcomes are very different. And so this allows us to have one oversight specialized to really think about how we can operate our programs in a way that's going to be high quality everywhere. This is really a statewide approach to thinking about equity of access and quality of opportunity. Because I think that that shift is something that we really need to be mindful of. And we have to manage in a way that is going to result in better opportunities for students. And it will mean that, the way that center's budget and district's budget will look different and having the expertise of the ESA to support and manage that will be beneficial in achieving those goals of quality. Ruth, anything else you want to add to that in the context, the current context or future state?

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: I think that's very true to Zoe. And I think the pieces that go with that are all of our CTE centers and teachers are doing the best with the resources they have, but we do have such a wide gap in those resources currently that some centers do so much more with so much less, and then sometimes that does impact what what centers can do. I would also say our current teacher pay scales in some of our least resource centers mean that they have the hardest time attracting and retaining teachers who have the skills to ensure the strongest student outcomes. So when I mentioned the earned postsecondary credentials and the earned postsecondary credits before, we do have CTE centers that are well positioned to offer those, and we have others where in given programs, some teachers are not as well positioned to offer those based on the resources they have to support their implementing them and also based on their own professional industry experience that contributes to what they bring to the resources. Some of our centers can hire the most highly qualified people to make sure that they can offer multiple college credits. I I'll use Burlington Technical Center as an example. They always are at the top of the number of college credits our CTE center students are are earning. But we do have some more rural centers where they struggle, not because they don't have dedicated caring people, but because of student population concerns or other practices or pay scales. They may not have a teacher who meets the who has all the qualifications or has the needed number of students to teach certain college credits. A system change can address some of those barriers that in many ways are not focused on what's best for students and are based on sort of arbitrary systems in place in other places, this gives us a way to more creatively address them systemically.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Megan?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Let's go to house and then we'll come over here.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Chair Connolly? Yep, great, thank you very much. We do have a couple of questions over here, I might start. So when it comes to the concept of pushing in CTE, I think is a great recognition that not all CTE requires a separate standalone building. But as I envision it, does this mean that you could have essentially a CTE teacher who is employed by an ESA working alongside another teacher in the same school employed by the school district?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So I think there's a couple of models to this. So one of the terms within the ESA would be for the ESA to provide that level of training and curriculum to those middle school teachers and ninth and tenth grade teachers that are delivering the content. As we continue to explore this concept, there could be the ability for the district to contract for additional services for an ESA teacher to be embedded in teaching that class. So I think there's some flexibility with how we can structure that depending on the workforce needs of the district. Did that answer your question?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: That's perfect, thank you. My other question is, today, as you say, we got different governance models, we have sort of, it seems like, I think that there's been a provision that allows CTEs to sort of have special programs that might be quite unique to their area. And I wonder to the extent, as we have a more statewide vision, statewide governance under this model, to the extent we sort of move from, know, in our district, for example, we have a very popular theater arts and technology program within the CTE. I'm not sure that that would qualify under a statewide rubric of what Vermont employers are looking for, to what extent would that level of individualization still be possible?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: As part of the planning and the budgeting process, that comprehensive needs assessment would account for those regional differences. There needs to be a process to identify what are the largest state workforce development needs, and then where are some of the local employers by community. That actually helps to design and inform the overall budget. What we want to be mindful of though, is if there's a number of programs that are popping up, then students aren't getting jobs after, then we need to evaluate, right? And to think about ensuring that those programs that students are participating in are helping to connect them to industry and to careers and also prepare them for college. So I think that there's some ability to look at, maybe smaller programs that meet the needs of communities. We would need to ensure that that is following a clear rubric and that we can ensure that's adding value to the students' experience and supporting them for success after high school. But I think as we look at this, we will be partnering with the State Workforce Development Board to understand, here are the major workforce needs. And we need to ensure statewide the students have access to those programs and opportunities. Right now we have certain pockets of our state where there's a large wait list in a program like welding or something, and it's not available in another part of the state that you cannot access even through reasonable transportation. So we don't want that to happen. We want to make sure that for those areas that there's a greatest need, that a student can access it. And then through this overall needs assessment and evaluation of the local context, there'd be the ability to have other programs to meet that sector. But it would need to evaluate within a quality rubric. I would also say that within our graduation requirements, which is a little bit separate, we have designed that recommendation for statewide graduation requirements to allow for deepening learning and to allow for students to graduate with, for example, a seal, or if you think about it in the context of a college, like a major or minor in an area that could be visual arts. And so in this future state, we're also talking about specialized programming that's happening within our system and allowing students to deepen their knowledge and CTE being part of that. But there's also other avenues for students to really explore and deepen their interest and we're structuring that intentionally within the graduation requirements to deepen flexible pathways and to ensure students have that time and space in high school to explore their interest. So I wanted to put that in the context of the broader future state that is not just focused on CTE, but thinking broader about the entire system and how we're structured that. Ruth, do you want to mention just maybe some concrete examples of how you looked at different statewide industry needs and what that might, how that might translate into different types of programming in different parts of the state? I think a couple of examples would be helpful.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Glad to do that. What I will say is I think that we're well positioned to help ensure that those kinds of analysis, we build on what we currently do. Perkins V, which is the federal funding for career technical education went into effect with its current requirements in 2020, and it requires a comprehensive local needs assessment every two years. And in that part of that analysis, all CTE programs have to show their alignment with labor market need. And we rely heavily on Vermont Department of Labor data as part of that analysis. But and we also require rely on McClure Foundation, promising job reports and other kinds of things. And then centers can also show a regional need through a data analysis. So we do all those things now. I think, again, this gives us a chance to think about strategically where programs are located and where programs have access. So for the member who said that they have a strong art program in in Addison County, you do. And currently, it's only available to students in Addison County. It has space to incorporate other students, but we don't have systems that currently make that feasible. So we might not need multiple programs like that in different parts of the state because there may not be the same opportunities, but there's an opportunity to more fully enroll the programs that are really doing exceptional things currently that face under enrollment when they could be full. Likewise, I think we have situations right now where we know we have needs for additional programming, as I said, in health sciences and in construction trades. We're really limited by physical space and transportation systems now. ESA could more specifically develop the opportunities to expand programs in very strategic ways or to scaffold learning in different ways to provide more in the ninth and tenth grade years so that some of the things that are happening in eleventh and twelfth grade can be more focused at the CTE center. I think there are many ways to really use this as an opportunity to design with intentionality to build on the already strong things we have in place. The only other thing I would say is I think each of our CTE centers has pockets of excellence and their pockets right now, this would allow those each of those areas of excellence to become integrated into a more cohesive system.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Representative Brady?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: Jonathan, to phrase it, but I think building a little bit on Chair Conlon's questions, I really appreciate the vision, particularly for articulating that we don't want students to choose between academic or technical, that post secondary and career ready should be the goal and what we achieve for all students. I guess I can see conceptually the kind of more robust professional development that may be an ESA or that some kind of statewide organization around CTE can provide for general education teachers for middle and high school teachers. And I can get excited about that. I think, as a high school teacher, I think we have a crisis of engagement in our schools. And I think that meeting our kids did you say 4,000 or 5,000 kids roughly are in CTE centers? Did I hear that number right?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Ruth, you're on mute.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Any given year, it's between five thousand and five thousand five hundred across the board. And then really concentrating in those eleventh and twelfth grade programs, we're at the 3,200 to 3,400 a So year

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: clearly, we're going to likely continue to meet most kids in their high school, hopefully, may be dreaming in these regional comprehensive high schools, but in their high schools. And so that kind of programming, whether it's a whole program and a credential or just an exposure to something that feels more relevant and interesting to them and relevant to the future they're graduating into is so, so important. It looks like when I look at sort of the longer memo here, the instructional and staffing positions in middle and high school associated with CTE exposure will continue to be funded through the statewide foundation formula, ensuring that districts remain responsible for delivering exposure experiences. And I guess that's where I'm interested in all of us working together more about how you actualize that vision if we aren't actually changing the funding and resources available. And likely in a lot of places under our foundation formula, we're actually probably constricting, restricting

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: some of

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: the funds that are available now. So I'm not sure how we grow and innovate and do some more of this push in for all schools when the foundation formula is also going to mean cuts and reductions in a lot of places. So perhaps not necessarily a question, but I think something I hope that we're all committed to working on. Because I do think and I see the other high school teacher at the table nodding here. I think we do have and we're going to

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: hear from you about attendance tomorrow. It's all related. But I do think we have a crisis of engagement among a lot of our middle and high school students that I'm extremely concerned about. So the foundation formula is designed to deliver a consistent level of quality across the system. And it does involve changing how we deliver education. We have provided some additional preliminary budgeting to show and prove out how the funding formula can allow for staffing and programming to deliver on this expectation. That initial modeling actually was based on less funding than was built into Act 73. So pretty confident that with the funding in Act 73, that is plausible and very achievable. It does require us to be operating at scale so that we can ensure we have the right level of staffing, the right level of support to deliver on these quality expectations. So not just the intent, but how this will be operationalized is to ensure that we are funding the education quality expectations that we've outlined. And so that means that there may be some changes in terms of how we're delivering education, right? Because we're operating at scale, but it is very much within the scope of the foundation formula to allow for and provide the middle school acceleration and the free tech programming based on the funding available. And we've shared different models for how to be budgeting to achieve that. Additionally, with this approach, there would be a requirement for those middle school teachers to participate in training from the ESA. Again, so that there's that consistent level of quality and support. And then as I mentioned before, depending on the district's needs, they may choose to contract with the ESA above and beyond what may be required in state statute for the delivery of high quality education. Did that help answer the question?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Member, House Education)]: Yeah, yes. Conceptually, I understand and probably agree. I think I'm concerned many of us are swirling here because the political headwinds of scale are one thing. But I think even if we could set that aside, the physical realities of scale of how we get from where we are to more comprehensive regional high schools is just not possible without some reconfiguration, not everywhere, but in many places of buildings that require Senator Clarkson talked about it. I'm not sure how, if we charge ahead with this part of it, we don't have a solution for facilities and the actual physical plant of a future state, how we get there. And think that overlies all of these conversations we keep having. I

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: think we're mindful, right? And then certain parts of the state to get to this future vision, there's going to need to be school construction aid. And I think the working group has identified a process for how that can be strategically prioritized over time. Even if we had money now and we could build buildings, it would take time. And so what we're saying is we don't want to keep waiting to modernize and enhance career and technical education because we're serving students now. And it's such a priority of the state. This is a model that allows us to provide some enhancements, modernization to career and technical education as we get to that state. Because even when funding is available, it does take a lot of time to build those buildings. Ruth, did you have your hand up? I wasn't sure. Okay.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Thank you. Can you hear

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: me, Rob? Ton of economic development is gonna weigh in here because, you know, a little bit joking, but, you know, we have an incredible aeronautics program. And with beta, maybe we could even have a partnership so that for the twenty years until we build out our regional regional comprehensive ops, we could have betas to you know, we could have aeronautics students, you know, cutting the time in half getting kids to different CTE centers. It's a great opportunity. But I think yeah. I think

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Meeting about the ways we can partner more strongly. Yep.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Yeah. I know. I I I kind of like this idea. I guess I would I get we our time is you know, we have thirty five minutes left left. I would just be curious to hear from labor maybe. I know we've invited chair Marcotte, you have invited Kendall and Jay to to weigh in. And I just you know, if that's an appropriate moment for us to pivot, I think all of us are, you know, sifting through both the pluses and minuses in our minds of this of both our hopes and our challenges. And might we pivot to Kendall and Jay?

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I'll ask one question before we pivot, if that's okay. This feels like a program in itself that doesn't get us to the future state. And so for me, I need a lot more detail on the connection between how this gets us to where we need to go. And I'm wondering, and this is where I challenge, and I wonder, and I ask my hard questions I'm wondering what staffing the agency of education would need and what positions the agency would need to do this work to develop this professional development system for career tech ed to support the career tech eds in the way that they need without creating a whole new system that is temporary to get us into something else. And I'm just so curious if anyone has spent any time on that.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: I don't know that there's an answer today, but that's like my The most recent study that was published last year does make recommendations for staffing at the Agency of Education. Those recommendations also came with a statewide governance system, as we talked about last year. Think it is important to One of the questions I would have for you to make sure that I'm responding to it is, what part isn't connecting with a future vision?

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: We're taking current regional technical high schools with embedded tech in their system, and we're taking them out of that system and pulling them out into this partnership ESA system, then we're going to eventually put them back. Doesn't It feel serves

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: the state. So I think you want to leave that option open, right? So we've talked a lot about regional service models. It may be that for the state of Vermont, that the ESA is the best way long term to actually deliver that integrated curriculum because it's working so well between the relationship with the pre K-twelve districts and the ESA. But why we didn't want to establish it as a district was to allow for that flexibility and also allow long term for the future districts to be able to adjust the way in which they partner with the ESA to deliver the services that are needed. So the ESA is just simply as a construct, still delivers on the goals that we described last year in terms of having that statewide governance, having consistent quality training support, but gives us the flexibility as a state to determine in the future how that needs to be structured as opposed to being a district which has a lot more inflexibility and permanence to it. But there are, as we've talked a lot about with regional service deliveries, there's states like ours that are rural that really use these approaches to deliver high quality. We've talked about it within special education. In this context, we're talking about in a career and technical education. It may be the way that is best for us in perpetuity to deliver on this and provide that level of expertise, but it allows you to kind of level up or decrease depending on how the districts are organized in the future, how systems come into being, so that you have that flexibility and latitude to be resourceful, be efficient, and be responsive as a state to meeting the workforce demand. But I think I hear your question and being more clear maybe around how we would structure it in terms of not just, I think, the employment piece is a question that we've talked about today, but beyond the employment oversight, what are the actual services? I think being able to really be clear and enumerating the resources and services that are delivered to the districts, this is really a push in model in many ways in a specialized area where it can be very hard to recruit and staff and also very expensive to fund. And so this gives us a level of quality that we're looking for.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Well, and your argument is just what the task force argued for, which is ESAs across the state to provide collaborative service models for the regions in the way that the regions need it. So I appreciate that because that's separate from an ESA only for tech. And so I think that if we're looking at it as part of a bigger structure, I could probably figure out, again, details matter, right? We could get that makes sense. That's the model that we looked at. But if we're looking at it as taking one specific program, only tech, and making an ESA statewide for that, I feel like that takes us away from our integrated goals. And so that's where I'm struggling. And I know Ruth has her hand up.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yeah, I'll let let Ruth respond to that too. I think the administration has always been very supportive of exploring regional service delivery. And that was part of the original proposal last year with CTE for the reasons that we've outlined. What's different from what the task force proposed is this is not on top of the existing governance. So an education service agency is not functioning on top of the existing governance of CTE. It becomes the governance system for CTE. So it is not a layer on top of.

[Rep. Edye Graning (Vice Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Which is why we have to hire all of the staff into this ESA to teach at the different regions, which separates out the regional high schools from their current staff. So that's where we get into this very disparate We can walk through the Yeah,

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: I think it's really valuable for us to go through, and we didn't bring this today, but we do have some examples of how this would be staffed. Think that's really an important question. How is this operationalized? I think conceptually, there's a lot of merit in this to achieving our goals. And I think you're asking the right questions around, well, what does this look like on the ground? And then really being intentional around creating the integration. That's really critical. And it's something that the governor is also very focused on, which is why we have came forward in response to a lot of the questions last year and exactly those concerns of coming forward with this as a more flexible option for long term that could better suit us as a state. But I'll let Ruth expand. You, I Ruth. You can put your hands

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: think it will really help for us to all take a more detailed look at at what staffing might look like and what that might look like in practice. I do think we've done some modeling that we can share, and then we can continue to discuss. I also think about the agency of education role because we've had multiple conversations over I don't know how many years now about what the how much of this is for the Agency of Education. What could the agency take on in addition to what we currently did with a different staffing level versus what should remain in a separate entity for CTE governance. I think where we keep coming back to and landing is the Agency of Education plays a very specific oversight compliance role in addition to everything else and making sure that the systems are supportive and working together but still having those layers of separation so that when there's a compliance issue or when there's a need to address certain regulatory or statutory requirements or federal legal requirements that that role is clearly the agencies and there's no perceived conflict of interest in how that how that works. That's how I think about it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Chair Michael Marcotte, can I just add on to Edye's question?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Sure.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: I'd love to go to staffing because we I've heard you mention, Zoe, a statewide contract possibly for ESA employees. We've seen where the statewide contract with health care has gotten us in terms of cost. Our costs in health care and education have had a little bit of one of the primary reasons that we're in the challenging spot, we're in education funding. So and I think many of us as a result are fairly trepidatious about moving to a statewide contract. This would be our handmuffs note on the tenth on is what I'm hearing you say. Is that what I'm hearing you suggest?

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: We put forward a statewide salary schedule as something that the legislature can look at. It can look at a statewide contract. You know, we have reviewed other models of states who have gone in this direction and we can propose those as options to consider is what we're moving towards. What I wanna be really clear on is part of this proposal is to address the fact that we have unequaled pay for teachers across the state. And it is the intent of Act 73 and also of this proposal to overcome that barrier so that we are compensating our teachers that live in more rural areas of our state at comparable levels to their peers and more affluent and populated areas. So it is actually an explicit intent, is to achieve teacher pay parity. And so any legislation we would hope would be intentional around establishing the guardrails and the parameters to achieve that outcome.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Thank you. We have another question here.

[Unidentified Member (likely Rep. Kirk White, Ranking Member, House Commerce)]: More of a comment, I pick up on Representative Conlon's question earlier, as well as this conversation thread. A concern or topic that's on top of my mind discussion is if this were to go online at any faster rate than the contemplated consolidation of districts, I'd be concerned that we're going to take over the oversight prioritization of the CTE centers away from these local communities. We don't own those facilities, those districts do, and there's sometimes debt on those instruments. And so working through how those districts, if they are losing the ability to direct and prioritize how those staff are focused or otherwise sharing other responsibilities in the district, I'd be concerned about how a state overreach and commandeering that commitment outside of an alignment with redistricting that those spaces could create even more tension. So that's getting into the weeds. Overall, I think we all agree we need to do something better to deliver CTE across the state. I'm just concerned about how to get there.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: At a cost we can manage. Ruth,

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: do you want to provide a little bit of context around the ownership of buildings?

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: I'd first like to talk about teacher pay and then I think the ownership of buildings. Back to teacher compensation, we currently do have a range of what our CTE centers pay teachers, which means sometimes frequently or often, some of our better paying CTE centers hire away teachers from our lower paid centers in a way that doesn't create a strong system. And in addition, when any CTE center hires a new teacher out of industry, that teacher has a four year apprenticeship program, takes a series of courses to become licensed. There's a cost to the district that employs them of doing that. And so I'm seeing occasion on occasion that one of those lesser those the regions that pay less will invest that cost to the new teacher only to have that new teacher then be recruited to work somewhere for more money. And I'm also seeing that I do see I just last week was in a meeting about which teachers are not returning, who are are newer teachers who are within four years of employment. And I see a pattern of pay and how that is determining whether they're returning to industry or not. So they've given up two or three years out of industry. They've been making less money in certain centers. They've taken the courses. Their employers have paid for those courses, and they're going to go back to industry without that return on investment. And I I I want to ensure so I think there are hidden costs in what our current teacher compensation looks like, and our lower paid centers have costs that come with more frequent teacher turnover or with losing teachers to other centers that we need to that aren't captured on paper, but that we see in practice. So just something to have in mind as we think about the true costs of how we staff our CTE system currently and what that looks like moving forward. And as for facilities, what I'm gonna say is it's already complex, the relationships between districts that host CTE centers, the CTE centers that are their own CTE regional technical center school districts, have a facility agreement with the district they separated from to form that governance structure. There are it's it's already complex and works in any in any given year in ways that cause tension. I think the better we can design something that has clear facility agreements for whatever system we move forward to, and expectations about how costs are covered and what is included in that, the better the system will be.

[Rep. David "Dave" Bosch (Member, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Why don't we transition now to Commissioner Smith and Jay Ramsey. Jay is in here and Commissioner is in Senate Economic Development. Commissioner.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: Yes, we'll see how we do in separate rooms. So good afternoon, good morning. Not afternoon yet, sorry, everybody. My name is Kendall Smith. I'm the commissioner for the Vermont Department of Labor, and I'm joined by Jane Jay Ramsey, who's the director of our Workforce Development Division. So you already heard a lot from secretary Saunders in Luzerky about the way VDOL is leaning into this space with AOE. When we think about CTE, that's a shared overlap of the Venn diagram in terms of the population that we both engage with regularly and are focused on supporting. And while we don't normally talk about CTE as a major workforce investment in the state, when we're talking about dollars and cents and tools, it really is one of the largest pieces of our pie. So we are also very invested in seeing successful transition here into what is next for our CTE programs, but also one of the threads that Secretary Saunders laid out was how does that then integrate for adults? So whether it's adult CTE into adult education and literacy AEL providers and other training programs, and what is best in terms of creating a really comprehensive system where all these parts and pieces are coordinated, aligned, and hopefully working together with smooth transition points and pathways for individuals depending on their need. I'm actually really excited over the past hour and a half because at least what I've heard seemed to be general consensus around the goals and the need and the urgency here, which is always a really important first step. And so hearing that across three committees and with the two agencies in the room, and I'm sure maybe some of my counterparts at Agency of Commerce are listening in, and we have the Office of Workforce Strategy and Development in the room. I think having that sort of overarching agreement of what we're trying to achieve actually should not be undersold, at least of what I've heard over the past hour and a half, so I'm pretty excited about that. I do think the crux of our challenge lies in a couple places, Chair Clarkson, you said threading the needle between our hopes and our challenges. I think what we're trying to play out with this PSA structure is a way to thread that needle, although it sounds like there are a few details where we need to all come back and put some meat on the bone there for you all. And then, Brett Brady, I also hear comments really stuck with me too in terms of, again, the urgency, the need, the experiential learning preferences of the current generation that we are working with. So we talked a little bit of we were gonna talk about adults, really, and how this connects into adult CTE and AEL providers in terms of what we came prepared to discuss. Last year, again, we were talking about integrating adult populations as sort of a phase two to this effort, where first we needed to understand what we were doing with the Pre K-twelve system, that way we could gracefully scaffold on what does adult PTE and AEL and other training programs look like. I would say we have taken a small step so far where we have integrated adult CTE under this ESA, but in order to really understand what comes next for AEL and others, we do need to make some of these decisions. That way, again, in terms of a system approach, it all works. I will just, I will pause for a second, again, with my counterpart upstairs in the other room before I go on and keep monologuing and see Jay where you might add on there in terms of the vision we were talking about yesterday with the adult population in this space.

[Jay Ramsey (Director, Workforce Development Division, VDOL)]: Yeah, I think Thank you, Commissioner Jay Ramsey again for everyone. I think the opportunity here again focused on adults is a more consistent offering of adult credential training around the state at a low cost using the facilities that are already there. And I need to call in the connection with registered apprenticeship. If we want to continue to invest in registered apprenticeship, I think again, a shared goal, we have that as a shared goal. They're changing expectations of young people out there in the world. Businesses are adding those programs on. We can't expand without a reliable, consistent delivery for adults. And that's a connection here. And I'm not saying that it's a trade off with the Community College of Vermont. I'm not saying it's a trade off with Vermont State University, but these things can all exist together. We just need to structure them a little bit more strongly than they have been structured. So I'm making an apprenticeship connection here to the adult CTE programs because that's related coursework. That's what the apprenticeship programs mean.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Yes,

[Jay Ramsey (Director, Workforce Development Division, VDOL)]: me too. So I think there are lots of opportunities here in what the secretary has presented. And I also appreciate the questions that you're asking as you try to understand what it is we're talking about, what are the workforce development connections, how does that change the overall education system. And, yes, it would be different. I think there are lots of opportunities here to lean in on the ESA and have that be a part of the transition to the future states.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: One of the other opportunities in this conversation, this is a little bit meaty, but we talked about Perkins money a little bit during this conversation. The Agency of Education as well as Vermont Department of Labor and I believe there's one more Jay, I apologize. We received Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act money or WIOA. That also again is what we use for our funding a lot of these workforce development services, training opportunities, etc. The Agency of Education sent in a Perkins plan to the federal government. We sent in a WIOA plan and we think this also opens up some opportunities to better integrate our Perkins plan and our WIOA plan and make sure they're aligned and coherent. So that's an opportunity we are exploring and this model and this conversation is helping us

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: focus our thinking around. What about Workforce Pell? We've been hearing in the last couple weeks about Workforce Pell. We're just smiling. How does that integrate also here?

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: That's a really great question that I don't think I necessarily have a fully baked answer to besides it is a puzzle piece that we are arranging with all these other puzzle pieces right now. So for those that aren't necessarily following the workforce Pell conversation, this is a new federal opportunity that they would like to see in place for this coming fall. But what it does is it funds short term training programs at accredited institutions for individuals that are looking for different upscaling opportunities, different credentials. I actually think of it as similar to Vermont's advancement grants that we've had for several years. It's a little bit different in the details, but the spirit is similar in terms of a program we've already had in place. So that is something else that whether we want to figure out partnerships and ways that these Workforce Health eligible training programs could be offered at adult CTE centers and programs, there is an important piece, again, that this has to be connected back to an accredited institution, so a college or university. But if we can be working with our higher ed partners for them to then partner and pass through some of this programming at whether they're with our ADL providers or adult basic ed, adult VTE, that is going to be another, again, tool we have in our toolbox for Remoders. I don't know if there's anything that Ruth or Drake Turner from the Office of Workforce Strategy Development would add on to that, but it's an important consideration.

[Drake Turner (Deputy Director, Office of Workforce Strategy and Development)]: Sure, I'm Traitor, Deputy Director of the Office of Workforce Strategy Development. Just a quick update on Workforce L is that there are a number of responsibilities for the State Workforce Development Board to implement and stand up that program and advise the governor on, I won't go into them to do shot it, but there it would be a pretty significant lift. So we've already started to convene a working group of the state workforce board to start to think through how to be really intentional and planful. And I think the commissioner's point around advancement grants is a good one to be thinking about. There are some states that haven't been the guiding force ahead in that way of really supporting students with shorter opportunities. So it's great that Advancement Grants have been so integrated into Vermont. They've really already prioritized some of these ways to support students. So it sort of remains to be seen, like what's the full opportunity workforce out in this moment, but definitely we have the right folks at the table and we'll continue to have those conversations and keep the board and legislature and our sister agencies informed about how to move forward. Chair Marcotte, may I just interject a One question of my concerns Zoe with this is that you know in some of the sector work is I don't want to see it in duplicating in ESA the work of the state workforce development board. As I serve on the state workforce development board, along with Mike Marcotte, and we're really so pleased with all our work over the last several years, swimming it down, energizing it, engaging it more fully, really excited about the office.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: I really want us to lean in as we go through this whole CTE re envisioning, no matter where we end up, really using our office of workforce strategy and development and the state workforce development board in really strategic ways so that we're not duplicating efforts.

[Zoe Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Absolutely. Commissioner Smith and I have had those conversations. It's our intent to approach these sector advisories in a way that is really complimentary and synergistic with the work of the State Workforce Development Board. They're really focusing on the oversight of the curriculum, providing resources. It's a level down. I would say the State Workforce Development Board is providing that state level strategic leadership and direction. These sector advisories are able to really work with the instructors, all of the instructors that are working in aviation, all of the instructors that are working in manufacturing, and for them to be able to provide an update of, here's what we're doing in our program. Here are the things that we could benefit from in terms of delivering our curriculum now to students. So I've served personally on some of these sector specific advisory boards in the aviation space. And when we had our fixed based operators who were also part of these advisories, our instructor was saying, I could really benefit from some more technical manuals to support my students so that they get used to being able to read these technical manuals, they know how to interpret it, and then they can follow those instructions. And so the fixed based operators would say, great, we actually have these technical manuals we can provide you. Or we need to be able to look at repairing different engines. And they could say, Okay, actually, we have a connection that can support that and bring it into your program so that you have that in your lab space. So it's a different type of work. It's work really engaged in the curriculum alignment, allowing the instructors that are delivering these programs across the state to really work in a coordinated way with industry partners who are willing to give their time and expertise, along with resources that they have within their own business or their sector associations, to support with the delivery of curriculum in the student learning experience. So they're connected, but they also are separate in terms of the scope of work and the ability to engage directly and being supportive of our educators, our CTE educators who would be delivering these programs statewide. So I hope that helps to make a little bit of a difference in the scope of the work.

[Kendall Smith (Commissioner, Vermont Department of Labor)]: What I really like about this model and that level of work too is that that fertile ground for buy in from our business and our industry community, making sure these programs align with their needs and what the opportunities are and what students are going need to know how to do when they exit, but also just from a relationship standpoint too, helping people feel more connected to their schools, to their CTE centers, and seeing that relationship and that partnership hopefully strengthen over time. Mean, in this room, there's been a couple chambers in that during the testimony, but again, that is something where businesses would really be able to lean in in a meaningful way and see a tangible result from that in shaping the ACTE program through these boards.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: Kirk Conlin?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yeah, thanks. So my question is based on a very shallow understanding of how adult CTE works and how it's funded. But my understanding is that it basically, it's not funded. It's a requirement to provide it, but that it has to be self funded by tuition paid for the programs that the CTE offers. And I think that they try to offer programs that they think people are interested in, in order to derive the necessary tuition in order to pay for the director that they're required to have for adult CTE, but isn't funded. The future? What do you see as the funding model going forward with adult CTE? Are you talking about, well, they can take advantage of the services of the ESA, but they have to pay for those services?

[Jay Ramsey (Director, Workforce Development Division, VDOL)]: Ruth has her hand up, so.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: Maybe we can tag team, because we've for talked about as long as I've known you, and I don't even know how long that is anymore. But I think about it this way, I think that adult CTE would be part of the ESA, right? It would allow for an adult education, an adult CTE system that currently you're right. It is required and not funded. And we have a few CTE centers that have the resources to provide a full time person who is their adult CTE director and those centers offer far more robust offerings than the centers where someone else has it tagged on as part of their already very large job. And then in addition, we have some centers that because it's not funded say they can't do it and funding mechanism to help them close that gap. Jay and I have talked about this and Jay I'll let I'll defer to you in a moment but I'll ideally an ESA would allow for the charge to include adult CTE and for the ESA to determine how many adult CTE positions would be needed statewide to plan and ensure programming. But for example, I can say personally I worked as the, assistant director for Adults Career Technical Education for eleven years when I was, in Randolph. I left there in 2015, so it's been a long time. But at that point in time, I had the benefit of having a significant portion of my time dedicated to that position, which meant in different school years. I also helped out regions that didn't have that capacity. For some years that was Hartford and the White River Junction area. For some years that was Barrie and Central Vermont. But we could design with intentionality what the staffing would need to be to provide adult CTE. Because I always have thought that if we really funded the right number of people to design the curriculum and make sure it's consistently implemented, hire and supervise instructors, that where we do well is running it then as an entrepreneurial model, where all the tuition has to cover is the cost of paying the instructor and the cost of paying for supplies. Those things have always worked well for me when I did the job, but what was difficult was making sure we had the infrastructure to pay the staff who had to supervise and manage the programs. And I think this gives an opportunity to do that again in a more regionalized, oversee consistently seen way so that the ESA could have a coordinator in each region of the state.

[Jay Ramsey (Director, Workforce Development Division, VDOL)]: Thanks.

[Ruth Durkin (State Director of Career and Technical Education, AOE)]: And Jay, it's all yours.

[Jay Ramsey (Director, Workforce Development Division, VDOL)]: Ruth, Chair Conlon, I would say that your assessment is accurate and you summed it up very well. Each center has a coordinator, different amounts of time, different end results. The resulting limitation of that is that when people are coming through the WIOA programs that the Department of Labor administers, we need to have training providers to send them to so that we can spend federal money in support of them. And there's a I won't get into all of the weeds around the requirements of that program, but it means that the tech centers and their adult programs are not participating at the depth and frequency that they should be, part of the limitation there is around data collection. They are inconsistent in their enrollment systems. They're inconsistent in their reporting systems, and that is all a function of the funding that is directed to them. The reality of the funding situation here with adult CTE is that there is some salary assistance that comes from the agency of education that's not Ed Fund because some of it is because they're supporting the secondary programs, but there's no Ed Fund dollars going to support adults. The Department of Labor provides $20,000 grants to 17 centers. We're ending that this coming year because we're going to repurpose the funds as a way of reinvesting in adult CTE. We're going to put out a competitive bid. We're going to fund three adult CTE programs or partnerships or some version of getting them to work together in a different way. So we'll fund them at a $100,000 each and commit to doing that for three years. That is coming out of the department's base budget and an allocation that we've been that's $400,000 that we're dedicating to adult CTE over the last five or six years. We need to transform that. So that's an investment that we're going to be making in the upcoming fiscal year so that we can potentially see different results, so that we can encourage a better data collection, that we can encourage their participation on the eligible training provider list. So that makes more training available to adults. It makes the training programs available to the most vulnerable people that are being supported with VOA.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: So I think we're just about out of time. And so, Saunders and Commissioner Smith, thank you for joining us this morning. I want to thank our colleagues in House Education and Senate Economic Development for joining us. I think the next step is awaiting language that we can start working on. And let's move forward and see what we can do. I'm hoping that we can get us on a path to success on the CTE realm of education. Thank you all. Thank you. I think

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Chair, Senate Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs)]: we can go up.