Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good evening, everyone. This is Doctor. Blanhaus from the Economist of Economic Development. It is Thursday, 02/26/2026 at 10:40 in the morning. So now we're stretching our gears from educational technology to CT. So we have Secretary Saunders with us. Secretary Saunders, welcome. Thank you for joining us again. Look forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Good morning. We're happy to be here. For the record, I'm Zoe Saunders, Secretary of Education.

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: And I'm Julia Schuster, Career Pathways Coordinator.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: And we'll begin our presentation today with a few slides just to ground the conversation. And really, what we're here to do is to continue to engage in dialogue and understand where there are some additional areas where you have questions that we would need to further respond to as we refine the proposal. I think what's really encouraging is that there's shared agreement and alignment around the vision for expanding access to universal CTE. So it's really wonderful to have that as a starting place. I know you also benefited from testimony from several CTE directors yesterday, which is helpful to inform the overall approach. And what we're understanding is there's more questions just around the mechanics of how we would move forward to achieving the vision. So I'm going to share our slides. So we'll just begin by reflecting on the existing challenges to expand access to career and technical education. We have completed three years of evaluating our system, and those studies have produced a really solid understanding of the barriers along with some proactive strategies to address and overcome these challenges. So we know that access to career and technical education is largely tied to proximity to a technical center. And as we establish the vision for universal access to CTE, we want to make sure that all students benefit from career and technical education and that it's not available only to a few based on location. Within our current system, there's inconsistency in terms of program quality along with program availability. Transportation barriers often limit participation. There are too many students miss that early exposure. So a big part of the vision and the approach that we're bringing forward is to enable us to provide that earlier exposure in middle school so that students have the opportunity to really ground their learning in and understanding how that's aligned to industry and having really productive, project based experiences. We

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: know that

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: there's a lack of consistency of policies across our system statewide. And there's inconsistency in awarding credit towards graduation for successful completion of a CTE program. There's also weak alignment with the post secondary pathways and the state economic development goals. The through line of all of these challenges is that we have great variability in program quality and access across 15 distinct regions with different governance structures and under a very complex funding system. So our shared vision for the future of CTE is that every Vermont student has access to high quality CTE opportunities no matter where they live or where they attend school, and that those experiences are aligned with postsecondary learning and the biggest industry needs in Vermont's economy. When we are looking to embed CTE in middle schools and high schools statewide, I I think it's important to reflect that the type of learning students are engaging in is very rigorous. And we want to ensure that all students have the right level of preparation and achieving those foundational academic skills to take advantage of these programs. As we think about that, we know that historically there's been this bifurcation of thinking students are forced to participate in what's quote unquote academic or quote unquote technical. And what we're talking about with the CTE vision is actually infusing career and technical education in the way that we deliver our academic instruction so that the learning is very relevant to students and they're able to apply their skills in ways that are really meaningful. And so in all the studies that we've done, it's clear that achieving this shared vision for universal access to CTE will require a comprehensive and coordinated approach to CTE governance. And we've put forward in this proposal one single governance unit for CTE. I want to pause here to reflect on the advantages of a unified governance approach. And I'll allow Julia to really expand upon these advantages from her perspective and working in the field with our CTE

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: directors. Oh, great. So one of the advantages that we see listed here, the coordination in program availability and flexibility for enrollment when we're thinking about the student experience with a single governance unit. It would make it easier for a student to attend a program where there's space instead of navigating a waitlist process if the closest centers fall. We see this even when the centers are coordinating with one another. That still is an extended process for students to apply to their local center, find out they're on

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: the wait

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: list, and then they can look to apply to another center, whereas if there's a statewide model, that could all be facilitated in a uniform admissions process. With a single set of standards, students would experience the same level of quality all across the state. While currently we do have minimum program quality requirements that all CTE centers are meeting, there could be additional coherence around that when we're looking at the balance of credentials that programs are offering and those college credits that students are pursuing in programs. I did want to highlight as well here, just with one set of standards, that when we're thinking about career technical education, sometimes we might not be thinking of all of the college courses that students are taking while they're in CTE. And currently, forty six percent of CTE students are taking college coursework during their time in CTE because that college preparatory, those courses are setting them up for a variety of careers in many areas. In terms of aligning with industries, the one really exciting part of having a single district would be a statewide program advisory board that could be industry specific or program specific. This is something that teachers have been asking for in some program areas for years because there's only so many employers in certain areas in the state. And so it could be a huge advantage for the employers and the teachers to be able to coordinate those advisory meetings. An opportunity that someone finds out about in one part of the state could be shared across the state. And currently, employers are being tugged a bit because there's 17 potentially individual program advisory committee meetings, for example, for an auto program, and that local Toyota dealer may not be able to go to so many meetings. So if there's one program advisory committee for auto, that could create a really great centralization of resources that then can be pushed back out to the local area. Proactive conflict resolution, as you can see, there's a lot of things that are listed out here. Scheduling, admissions, transportation, regulations awareness, post secondary institution partnerships. We heard or listened to the testimony from yesterday morning, it came up a few times from Baghdad, that desire for proactive conflict resolution and proactive coordination of issues before they rise to become a really big problem. We see this, I think if there were the single district, it could greatly help with the admissions process. There's currently work being done to try to align admissions practices across all 17 centers because there are so many just variabilities. But if there were a single district that could really expedite the work of trying to have just more coherence around the admissions processes. And when a question is answered in Brattleboro, that answer could actually be helpful to someone up in the Northeast Kingdom, instead of currently it's applied in one place, and then we go and answer a similar question somewhere else in the state, and we're redoing a lot of the same work many, many times. And I'll just do the final bullet point here, durable and compatible with any redistricting outcome. That one, I think Secretary Sanders can speak to more.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So we know that there have been several years where there's been an interest to modernize our CTE offerings and our overall system. And last session, we weren't able to advance that because I think there were a lot of outstanding questions as it related to the education transformation and how the K-twelve districts would be organized. So what we've put a lot of thought into is how we can put forward this proposal that can move forward irrespective of the district configurations for K-twelve. Because as one single governance unit for the entire state, the responsibility is to really operate our CTE programs and take that Vermont wide lens and understanding how we would partner and ensuring that students are accessing these programs. So as we think about our priorities as an agency, and we do see this as a collaborative process. And I really want to reflect on how beneficial it was to work with your committee last session. The questions that you asked, the dialogue that we had, really has strengthened the proposal as we're moving into this session and has helped to solidify some of the roles and responsibilities and the advantages for this particular proposal. Our main priority is to ensure that we can achieve universal access to CTE, and that we believe that unified governance is essential to achieving that vision. When we talk about roles and responsibilities, I think it's important to delineate the role of the agency of education and then the role of the education service agency. So the agency of education does not deliver education. We are actually not providing instruction. We do not do the day to day operation of programs in schools. That's the role of the district. So in this model, we continue to maintain our role as an agency of education in providing clear expectations and guidance, ensuring alignment with state and federal laws, and providing the level of monitoring and continuous improvement that's needed to support our system in achieving our desired outcomes. And it's the governance entity, in this case, the education service agency, that is really overseeing the day to day operations in a similar way that a district would. We'll talk a little bit about our decision of landing on an education service agency as opposed to a district. But I wanted to make sure we could clarify that. I felt like there have been maybe some areas of confusion around the role of the agency and then the role of the ESA. There is room for flexibility in terms of how we achieve this vision. As we look at funding, I want to reflect that right now, the Joint Fiscal Office is partnered with an education finance expert to finalize our overall funding system. And so any final legislation would need to capture the results of that study. We have brought forward two different proposals. So last session, we proposed a CTE weight with the governor's original proposal that was coupled with a different foundation formula. But then we've offered an appropriation as an alternative, given the shift in the foundation formula methodology and that the Joint Fiscal Office is engaged in a study to achieve the intent language of Act 73. In Act 73, the intent language is to expand career and technical education within the funding that has been allocated. And this would be a vehicle to explore, either appropriation or a weight, in order to deliver on that expectation. Our thinking around the appropriation was that it would allow us to really fund CTE first and also to ensure that we're appropriately resourcing career and technical education, reflecting that it truly is a priority for the state. In terms of the governing board, we proposed a five member board that would be appointed by the governor for the statewide ESA. But an expanded or restructured board could be effective. There are other models that you may explore. And I think there's some flexibility in terms of how to achieve those goals within the single governance unit. So I wanted to start there with some initial framing just to really allow us to spend the majority of the time in conversation. I think it's really helpful for us to understand where there are areas of questions that would be important for us to address. So with that, I will open it up for questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thanks very much. And I would say that I share a lot of the vision and the goals that you're creating about improving access to education. And, yeah, I'd like to get away from the academic, you know, sort of tech split, which I think is really unfortunate. But just how to improve access, and I think you're talking in a way that in terms of getting universal access, that's really, really important. Where I think a lot of the questions, you know, your legislators turn around in their mind is, well, you know, you're proposing a particular governance structure. It rolls around a single statewide governance board. I can imagine other ways of achieving

[Unidentified Committee Member]: some of

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the goals that you have. Certainly, I think when we talked last year, there was discussion about having whether some regionalized approach that actually combined some of the middle school, high school tech programs and governance was a good way to achieve those goals. Can you talk a little

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: bit about that?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: In terms of, you know, the future state of how we're organizing our middle and high schools? Is that the the question? Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It does bring in a discussion beyond just CTE Mhmm. To how you can provide students in general, you know, whether it's the academic track or, you know I mean, I hate those track kind of things. And it seemed to be if you integrated in a in a regional or, I guess, the responsibilities for high school and CTE, you know, God bless if we can get some money to have it actually in the same building kind of thing, but still the concept is maybe a little different or maybe an alternative to what you're proposing as a single district. And I'm wondering if you've given some thought to those kinds of alternatives.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So I appreciate that you're moving beyond the conversation around bricks and mortar and really thinking about the overall quality of education delivery. We're very focused on ensuring that we can create that alignment. The approach with the one single governance unit is to ensure that we have that level of specialized expertise that is supporting all learners across Vermont. And as we structure the Education Service Agency, when you think about the way that would be organized, we would anticipate that there would be regional directors as part of that staffing model to provide the more targeted support for those sending schools and middle schools to ensure that tight alignment. We would also expect in this model that within our larger districts in the future state, that our central offices would have the capacity to have a liaison for career and technical education to do that interface with the education service agency to ensure that there is that tight alignment.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, so I hear that under the proposal there would be, or at least the possibility of having regional directors Answering to the, you know, the single board, I And I'm wondering how different that is from, you know, where we're at right now. If there are regional governing structures or if it's just a director or whatever, and they need to somehow coordinate the line and do all these things with the high school governance structure and programs and things. I'd be eager to try it. I mean, there have been some, I've seen some real problems with the best of intentions, trying to get that alignment between the CTE program and the high school programs. A lot of it's funding issues, but there were other issues even beyond funding, I think. And I'm wondering how you can think about having whatever governance structure, you know, try to really, really reduce those line of problems, not completely eliminate, which is which is why, you know, I think some folks are talking about a regional approach to governance as opposed to having two separate, even if it's statewide, still two separate governance structures.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So our thinking around a single governance unit is to ensure that there is the consistency of expectation and that there's a consistency of quality across the state and ensuring that when you're overseeing day to day operations, that you're really organized and functioning as one statewide team with very clear expectations and very clear mechanisms to support that delivery. The governance comes with other changes as well. So I want to acknowledge that, like, When we talk about shifting to a governance, one single governance unit, we see some really immediate benefits from that when you're describing statewide equity in terms of budgeting, we're talking about consistent program quality, some of the things that Julia has highlighted around just managing some of the conflict resolution pieces. While the agency can establish guidelines, this is the day to day operations of the work and being able to manage that in a coherent way. In addition to the governance, there are some other policy changes that will be put into effect through Act 73 that will be supportive of this. We'll be moving towards a statewide calendar so that now you actually have alignment between your sending schools, your CTE centers. There's going to be consistent professional learning days, which will help to support with the cross training that's needed with this work. Additionally, we're moving to statewide graduation requirements. And as part of that, we want to ensure that there's clarity around the courses that are counting towards the students graduation requirements. Right now, that's not the case. And we've identified ways that we need to modernize the state board rules so that those expectations are clear and there's consistency across Vermont in terms of those students being able take the learning that they're doing in CTE and have that apply to their graduation requirements. So as we look at the work we're doing statewide in elevating educational opportunities and rigor, we're infusing a lens of career and technical education to that work.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Very much. I hope we can continue that conversation.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Anything you wanted to add to that, Julie? No, I think, okay, yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I'm just gonna get on topic here of local control. Mean, the majority of the schools here, the people have a say. They elect a school board. They have some level of control over the at least not taking the private ones out. I see in this thing, there's no mechanism for the people to have a say. So my question is, what are you going to do so that people feel like they have some say in what's going on in their centers? I mean, they're paying their tax dollars to this stuff.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Absolutely. So one, we recommended a board configuration where it's an appointed board. There are other models where that could be an elected board that might be something you would pursue and consider. But beyond the actual board composition, there is a requirement for a level of community engagement in order to developing the continuous improvement plans, ensuring we have done our due diligence and comprehensively reviewing the needs statewide in terms of what are the industry needs, but also within the local community. So that would be an expectation that would be replicated. And part of the structure would also have the regional directors really interfacing closely with the K-twelve system, with the boards of the K-twelve, as well as engaging community and industry partners in getting an evaluation of what's going be most important to offer. Want to expand on that?

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah, I'd love to talk a little bit about the comprehensive local needs assessment, which is part of the Perkins V requirements. It's just core to career technical education. And so Perkins V is federal requirements. But part of that comprehensive local needs assessment is engaging with the community, local industry, getting input directly from students and families. I'm pretty sure it's every three years. And this informs the direction not only for individual programs and how they're running, but also a center. And currently, every single center is doing that. There's in other states that have larger districts under this plan that could potentially just be that one CLNA for the whole state. But either way, each center would need to still be engaging that local community, getting feedback on the programs, reviewing the data of what are the needs for the local industry, not just statewide. And really impacts student outcomes for students and making sure that they're providing, the centers are providing what the industry requires and also being receptive to just questions that are a little more intangible, like what contributes to student belonging and feeling connected to each other and to their center. And that's all part of that's going to be baked into CTE being offered in any format. Currently, it can have its challenges doing that 17 different times. There are advantages of having that as a more coordinated process.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: And I would also add to that, that the CTE ESA would be an accountability partner with the districts as well. Ultimately, as we're looking at our accountability framework, we'll be measuring outcomes. And it's not just in terms of evaluating access to programs, but our students earning the certifications. Are they able to successfully complete their college and career readiness indicators? So that will still be part of our overall accountability system. The thinking around the CTE ESA is to ensure that we're wrapping around the level of support for all of our district systems so that we're offering that high quality of experience and opportunity. And then the board, as a similar to the State Board of Education would be held accountable as well to the outcomes and for accepting public feedback and things of that nature to support with any enhancements to the process and the outcomes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just had a question about the state board rules that are governing CTA. We heard yesterday that there was a conversation about how they need to be updated from 1998.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: We agree.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: This conversation that's happening as we're moving towards this future state. Yes, absolutely. We completely agree, and I know that

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: you heard that from the CTE directors yesterday. There is a need to modernize our CTE rules with the State Board of Education. We've done an initial review around what aspects of the rules could be modernized now. The thinking was to, in terms of timing, ensure that we have decisions around where we're headed as a state with CTE overall. Because once you open up the rules, you open up all parts of the rules. And it would be helpful to know that future vision and have clarity around the legislative intent moving forward so that those rules can be fully aligned. I've had some conversations with BACTTED around this. Know one of the things that they shared yesterday with you was the importance of sequencing. And we recognize that. The intent with the proposal is that the State Board of Education would actually update those rules before the new structure will go into place. But we think it's important to have clarity around that new structure, because that's going to inform the changes that are made to state board rules. If we don't have clarity on that, we open up the rules, make some adjustments to what we can, and we'll have to reopen them again if there's further contemplation around a shift with the governance and funding.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And just on that, is there any thought about the timeline when those do get updated? Since 1998 was a long time

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: ago. This has state board really since I think the first week I was in this role. And that's because everyone's very focused on modernizing our CTE rules. We know that we have to do that. And the thinking was that there is going to be some major legislation around CTE. And so the state board, in terms of prioritizing the rulemaking, was looking for the legislature to make those decisions. But we're ready. And we've already coordinated with the state board in terms of how that process will work. We will be providing the first draft of the adapted rules for the state board to then engage in further public comment so that we can really be aligned and we can The way we approached it was evaluating the capacity and subject matter expertise of the agency of education and the state board of education. And so this approach to rulemaking around CTE, we think is going to maximize the expertise that we have and allow us to move forward expeditiously. But it would be very helpful to have clarity around what the future state of CTE governance and funding looks like, because that does inform other changes to the state board rules beyond some of the pieces that you're probably picking up on. They're creating some immediate operational challenges in the field today. It made sense, like, going forward, that we would have some language that would

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: make sure that the board is, every five years, is looking at rules and making sure they're updated to go from 1990 to now we're at 2026.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yes. Do we not have any major updates as

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: There's something wrong there.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And I think we've fallen. That's part of the reason why we we're having a conversation, I think, too. So I think, you know and so I think, you know, we may look at language that would tell the board that every five years I have to take a look and and consult with with AOE, but consult with with the career tech you know, the career centers as well on how to upgrade what's going on. And do we need do we need upgrades and rules to make sure that we're consistent?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: And the the State Board of Education has identified this as a need. Last session, the General Assembly approved an appropriation for the State Board to bring on an attorney who can support with the review of the existing rules and identify from a prioritization lens what they need to address first. So that work is underway. There's also some changes when we move from a department to an agency. And so there's some rules that weren't updated during that transition that need to be clarified. And we're working in partnership with the State Board to ensure that there's the appropriate ownership of the rules. And to your point around regular monitoring, I think that will probably align with the cadence that we'll get on with our new funding. So with the foundation formula, there's an expectation that on a regular cadence, you're evaluating that funding to ensure that it is delivering on the intent, the intended outcomes and delivering equity across the state. So it would be natural for in that five year term to also do an evaluation of the rules.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Jonathan? Sort of an elementary question. In this model, would voters be voting at time meeting day on a statewide CTE budget or something that was pertaining just to the center in the area that serves them?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: And the model that we're putting forward, it would be an appropriation. It would not be voted on. But that's true also with the shift to the foundation formula. It would be, you know, the budget would be determined by the state moving towards the districts. And then there is the option for communities to identify if there'd be an additional local spend. But in this model, the intent is that there would be a clear process of evaluating the budgeting needs, and that would be a line item that the legislature would approve. Our thinking in that approach is, again, paying CTE first, ensuring that it's funded as a statewide priority.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Another idea that was on my mind was, in trying to have the CTE that's provided reflecting the characteristics of the industry, the economy, sort of at that local and regional scale. In the Portia state where I live, advanced plastics manufacturing is a significant industry. And I'm hoping to sort of get a little clarity on how would investments within that industry sort of in this model ultimately be determined? Is that something that would require sort of that that ESA level sort of approval of an attempt to invest in machinery, equipment, or educational expertise from within the industry? Sort of to understand that clearly.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: And just to make sure I'm understanding your question, and this is around the budgeting and how we would prioritize?

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: Yeah, and thinking at that state level, information has to follow-up to the ESA about here's priorities for this region or for that, the CT center, that center.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: That's correct.

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: That's just kind of the criteria I was looking for, just on that process and who speaks to whom

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and how.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Absolutely. So within this model, it is a statewide review and evaluating what those needs are. The intention of that is that we can be more equitable with distributing funding because you could identify that one part of the one tech center when you really need some additional investment because they're looking to start up a new program that's in demand. And so there's that flexibility when you're looking at statewide budgeting around where those dollars are able to be invested based on the needs assessment.

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah, I'd just say even today, we do have when there's a CTE center that wants to start a new program, maybe it is an expansion in local industry, it's the AOE's role currently to review and approve if that program can start. And then there's different opportunities for funding to enhance equipment, things like that. So in a sense, there is already that state view on it. But I do think an advantage of a single district would be that when there may be an expansion in one particular industry, any type of investment or just like knowledge sharing on, well, this works really well in this area, I would imagine that it would be much easier to share those lessons learned and what's working well with centers across the state in a way that right now, when we're approving a new program in a new area, we're not broadcasting that to all the CTE centers and saying, oh, there's one center that's starting this new manufacturing program. Let's tell everybody about it. Whereas I think if there's a single district, could be a little bit more built in to have more coordination.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: We provided testimony to Senate Education a couple of weeks ago, really was responding directly to a data request. But one of the things that I might just share with you from that presentation is when you start to look at a statewide view, you can see where there needs to be shifts in how we're offering programming. So I'm going to share a visual map that helps you conceptualize what this starts to look like when you take a statewide view. I'm in the right spot here. And this isn't in your testimony, but we can follow-up with that. So when you think about doing this comprehensive needs assessment, right, we know that demand is an important element of that. So this is just a quick visualization as we're developing tools at the agency to support with the needs assessment. This has shown you where we have the large waitlist. It's really, I think, illuminating to see where we are oversubscribed and where we have areas of under enrollment. And then there's a deeper dive in looking at that by actual program and program within the cluster of the area of specialization to determine which are the programs that are most in demand or those that are not really receiving the level of interest from students. We want to look at that and be strategic with how we offer. So just kind of an interesting view as we step back, it allows us to kind of take that statewide view of the comprehensive needs assessment. And part of what we are also working on is enhancing the tools and the data reporting that we provide to our districts and in this case to the CTE ESA to inform that type of decision making so that we are appropriately budgeting in a way that's driving equitable decisions. There's also opportunity because I know the conversation about input is important around creating different advisory mechanisms that can operate at the school level. One of the original items we put forward in the proposal last session was to have school advisory boards and to think about equity based budgeting and then school advisory boards actually have a role in that. It's a topic that I think is starting to kind of take root a little bit in this legislative session. And I think that there's some work we can extrapolate around how that would be operationalized within a tech center as well. So there's other ways to create and organize feedback mechanisms that are supportive of you know, decision making and ensuring that alignment with the community.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Question,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: perhaps more of a concern that relates to that graphic you just showed us. Had three children, both through Stafford.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Mhmm.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The eldest started as a junior. And he would have been waitlisted for his first choice, but he took a second choice because the lack of middle school introduction to those things, he wasn't really focused yet. So Right. That's a good piece of this thing. But moving forward, I'm wondering what kind of flexibility there will be to launch some of those students off to to the north, which offers some of the same programs that are in demand and that would also help take some of the pressure off the Burlington ones, but also to preserve that flexibility going forward under the new governance thing, because I can see those things changing, the demand changing from year to year or every couple of years or something like that. Right. And we don't want it being cast in stone.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yes, we certainly want to have a level of flexibility and also creating what I always think of as centers of excellence, right? When you're identifying those programs that are high demand, that are aligned to the industry needs, ensuring that we are providing them in a way that's accessible across the state. So that students, to your point, if there's a large waitlist, there's another CTE center that they could access through some transportation. How do we ensure that we're facilitating that? There are mechanisms in place where the agency of education supports our tech centers in reviewing that. And then last session, the general assembly passed some stronger legislation that's requiring our CTE centers to share directories and to help to facilitate this type of work. The other piece that you mentioned was around readiness. So potentially with your one child, in middle school, they hadn't started thinking about it. And so by the time they were in high school, they weren't sure what they wanted to take advantage of or maybe didn't have the prerequisite requirements. That's why we think it's so important to emphasize middle school and having that early exposure. The exposure piece is important and also showing that the students are ready to take on the rigorous coursework. And I think it's really every time and I'm sure you all have visited many tech centers, it is incredibly impressive what students are doing, like building solar powered cars and outfitting entire homes with electrical and plumbing. This work is really complex, challenging, high-tech. And we know also that some of our students are unable to participate in CTE because they may not have the foundational academic skills to do that. That's also the reason we're looking at this holistically as a way to increase rigor and establish really high expectations for our entire system. And that starts even before middle school with some of the work we're doing around targeted interventions and standards based instruction.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Think just to add on to that a little bit, over the years, we've taken testimony also that there's students that have difficulty learning in a traditional fashion. But when they get to a tech center, and it clicks with them, they're doing things, you know, they may be on a building, and they're doing geometry, they're doing different types of math and different sciences that they couldn't learn in a regular setting, but it comes to them by doing a hands on. But if we have students that don't have that, that haven't achieved the rigor, how do we get them into the tech center so that we can find out if that will open up their minds so that they can

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So within this approach, we're being really intentional about expanding our support for CTE beyond those eleventh and twelfth grade concentrators and for the CTE ESA to provide support and training for educators that are providing instruction in middle school and also those early high school years. And so it's really being conceptualized as a layer of support to our districts in ensuring that we're providing curriculum that is age appropriate at that level and the training so that students early on have those opportunities to engage in hands on learning that's relevant. And when you think statewide around the budgeting, there's a possibility with some of our middle schools to repurpose certain classrooms for this type of work. We are also, and it's part of our larger accountability framework, exploring how we can really evaluate the middle school acceleration piece of this work, really so that we are helping to promote readiness at a younger age. And that comes with instructional practices that are very engaging and our Chief Academic Officer expand upon that in terms of establishing a model and a framework for how we can do that in a rigorous way that promotes student engagement and is grounded in the content standards.

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: I just want to add one more thing. For ninth and tenth grade students in our current system, there's pre tech foundations and pre tech exploratory programs that generally, I don't have the enrollment numbers right in front of me, but generally they're very well involved. And I think it speaks to what you're mentioning where students know they wanna go the CTE route or they think they might want to, but they also need a They might wanna get that started sooner. And I just think that it's a really great model that's already working and would be exciting to see that expanded because there's a lot of great lessons that have been learned already just with both of those foundational courses and exploratory programs where students are In the exploratory program, students are getting a half or full day of instruction. They are getting some academic credit. But it is in these hands on applied settings that are really related to the CTE programs at the center.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I also heard that you've heard some of the centers, especially the ones where they're really oversubscribed, we bring in the kids that are the higher flyers, and the kids that really need to be in there as well are the ones that get left behind. And those are the ones that at times we find wind up in our justice system instead of being productive members of society. I think whatever we do, we have to figure out how we get those kids involved and engaged, because I think the hands on for them, for those students, will be the ones that we can save and be productive members of the mall.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Overall at the agency, we are looking at that vertical alignment. So in this conversation, we're largely talking about these opportunities in middle and high school. But to your point, there's an intention of looking at the entire system and ensuring that our students are getting that early and targeted intervention and that the instructional, this is that they're benefiting from are really engaging and helping them to, what you talked about, where things start to click. And so just wanted to share that there's great intention from the agency's view of looking at this holistically. Some of the work we're doing around the CTE proposal and around the statewide graduation requirements are really looking at kind of our longer term outcomes. But we are really backtracking that to understand what else needs to be part of our system in order for students to be ready when they're entering middle school and high school to take advantage of these opportunities.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, so when you showed that graph, or the table, I guess

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: it was, and

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the centers that had capacity, and the centers that had this huge wait list, they just got my juices really slow again. And I'd hate to, well, I'd love to see, getting to the positive. Would love to see us able to tackle that problem. Yes. And I think we've been talking about it for a number of years. There's some statutes, questions about whether the statute's being followed or maybe there should be clarification or whatever. I think that is short term, it seems like getting rid of that sort of dysfunction would be a real good short term way to increase access. And I would very much love to see us being able to tackle that in terms of this discussion we're having about CTE this year.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Absolutely. And that is the intent as well as we take the statewide view is to evaluate where we are, where we do have areas of CTE centers that are oversubscribed. How do we help to facilitate that those students are connecting with those experiences? And then, you know, as we look overall, they're gonna be pushing in support in middle and high school. Are there opportunities to retrofit certain classroom spaces to meet some of those demands or shift where we're delivering education, that statewide view allows us to contemplate that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, Charlotte, I think that's great stuff. And there's a lot of things that I think can be done sort of the administrative or school district level. But I suspect there's also a role for statute here. And it's such a critical need. It's been a problem for so many years. And I'm saying, how to do that, but I think it's something that I'd like to grapple with on a stature.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Such a good segue to my question. Thank you. So just have the concept, right? Think we're all on the same page. We all want that. But as we're looking at how this works for the ESA, would it be a mandatory statewide ESA that every school district has to join? It would be the way we deliver a CTE education in the state of Vermont. Right. So right now, have BOCES law, which is voluntary. So we would mandatory ESA that every school district So this would be one governance unit.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yep.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then the current districts would still maintain the staffing. They would still be the employer. Thank you. The employer and they would still own the buildings, the facilities, the materials, all of that. That would stay the same as it is now?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: In this model, the ESA would be the employer for those educators that are delivering the CTE training in the high school years, the programming, and would also be the employer for those that are providing the training and the curriculum development to middle school and the early high school years. And then within the K-twelve districts, they would be the employer for the teachers on record for middle school and ninth and tenth grade as well.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So the ESA would hire coaches, teaching coaches to do

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: They would also have the CTE instructors. Would employ the CTE. Yes, the CTE essay would employ the CTE director, the regional directors and the CTE educators. In addition, there would be staffing to support with the training and the curriculum design to support earlier in the system.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then the facilities, the buildings, the property, what about there?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So there would need to be a lease agreement in terms of the sharing of the building space. There's tremendous complexity now with ownership around buildings, and there's a lot of variability actually across the state. So that's something that we're going to have to really reckon with as we look at the X-seventy three and moving forward. But I know we spent a lot of time in our last discussion talking about this contract. And so we stepped back and said, what do we really mean by that? Really, this part for the contract, it's more focused on the sharing of the building spaces. Everything else would be established in terms of the education quality standards that the ESA is delivering CTE education. Sorry, go ahead. Did that answer your question?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes, just

[Jonathan Cooper (Member)]: have one.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: One thing that would be really helpful is a flowchart. It has ESA and then what flows from that. Yes. Know, CTE directors, who sits under who, you know, the hiring is by the ESA, but the CTE director, is the CTE director still the primary boss of staff in the CTE centers? I think a flowchart would be really helpful.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So having the SP and the agency, what your roles are in that, that would be helpful Absolutely. For me to

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: then would we be dissolving the independent CTE centers right now? So we have four independent, would they still exist because they won't have staff? They would- So many different structures.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So, we see the independent school conversation as a separate policy of consideration.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I mean, Stafford and-

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So the standalone districts. The CT districts. Yeah.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So we would, this is essentially just moving towards one So governance

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Hannaford and Berry Central Vermont, they would no longer

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: They would sit under the CTE governance, CTE ESA.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. But yeah, there's no reason for them to exist if their director and staff are part of this.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: It's moving from multiple governance units to one governance unit.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And then I guess my other question is, the agency does some of the centralizing now. We were just talking about that. How much more centralizing could be done at the agency with don't think the agency should be the employer of the staff, but how much more centralizing could be done there rather than in this

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: ESA? So we've had all of these conversations internally too, right? What's the role of the agency of education? What's the role of the CTE ESA? So I think a really big distinction is the agency continues to maintain its responsibility for the implementation of state and federal law, ensuring that there's consistent guidance, ensuring that there's a level of quality assurance and monitoring that we're responsible for as an agency. And so with that, into your question, can certainly come additional guidance that's more coherent. So we're doing that across every part of our system. And then the CTE ESA is really delivering the instruction, right? They're doing the day to day operation of the work that needs to happen in order to connect our students with these learning experiences. And so that's really kind of in a big picture level, that's how we think about dividing those roles and responsibilities, similar to our role in supporting a district. Yeah, so as part

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of the flow chart, think that would be to point what's going to the agency, what's going to the NSA, what's This truly is my last question. When we're talking about I know, if you don't call. When we're talking about the industry groups and having those be statewide, I can see some value to that. But I also understand that a student's not going to drive an hour to an employer each way. For sure not, maybe they will, an hour, not more of it. So if we're looking at these one industry group, could we be setting up a system where we're not regionalized enough because it's too long of a drive from one end of the state to the other? And so just worry that we're going to lose something if we're statewide there and not more regional the way it's designed to be now. And I heard we're still going to I mean, Perkins is such a small percentage of the money that we spend. And so to say that we're going to always follow Perkins no matter what, even though it's such a tight rate, Like we would have to really, this is again a legal thing, right? What would we change in our laws to enable her therefore doing things in a way going forward that will truly support all of the states? I so this the hard

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: part because

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the vision is easy.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yes, we all are alive on the vision. How are going to operationalize that and make it happen? That's what we're trying to think through here. So you're right to point out that the Perkins dollars are a small portion of the overall funding. However, it's almost 100% of the accountability framework, or a large part of the accountability framework. There's other state laws that we obviously have to adhere to. So that's a really important distinction to lift up. And you're also, I think you're asking of two questions and we can explore this further. With the statewide boards really providing that support to our educators and ensuring that the curriculum is truly aligned to the industry needs and that CTE educators are benefiting from that support from the industry and employment community. The other piece of the question is, how are we ensuring that we're building the right level of partnership so that students can participate in those work based learning opportunities and internships? So allow us to come back because I think those are we've been really focusing more on the high quality programming, which we see a huge benefit of the support to our CTE educators and what you're naming is ensuring that we also have those localized opportunities for students. So let us come back and talk through that next time. Could you do

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: anything Yeah, those program advisory committees, they're great networks because CTE teachers are coming from industry. They have great connections with local industry and they continue building those over their time teaching. But they really, as Secretary Saunders is pointing out, the program advisory committee is designed to give guidance on the direction for, for example, we'll see certain equipment becomes recommended after a discussion with a program advisory committee or certification. They're saying, oh, this certification's really become an industry standard. So the IT program starts offering that certification. And on the local, so that could apply to a student anywhere in the state. When we're talking about a student going and engaging in just building connections with the workforce locally, that those connections could potentially There could be an employer on a program advisory committee that sets up a work based learning opportunity for a student, but that's not why it's there. So work based learning, every CTE center has someone in a role of a work based learning coordinator, coordinator, and through them and connections with the program teachers and directors, they're building out those local networks. And that is core to what CTE is, is getting those students out, whether it's job shadows or co ops or apprenticeships. And that element, as Secretary Saunders said, we can follow-up more with more detail, that's baked into what CTE, what programming looks like. That's along with getting credentials, taking college courses. Those local work based learning experiences are a part of that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Many of our tech centers now have RADS. With 12?

[Julia Schuster (Career Pathways Coordinator, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Don't know. I'll stop my head. Advisory boards.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: We already we have some that have regional advisory boards that have Some are very

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: robust and some aren't. Right.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: And so how do we how can we utilize that structure to provide for the regions that then can advise the ESA.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: So what I'm hearing is of interest is coming back and really unpacking what this looks like in terms of meeting some of the regional needs. It feels like we have some agreement on a benefit of statewide as it talks about the curriculum alignment. And what we're hearing is you want to understand what that experience is for the CTE center and the local community and connecting students so we can expand. But I think some of what Julia has shared, we can build upon.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Crazy ideas. And you think of the different contracts you're gonna have to to do with the the high schools that host CTEs, did you have any consideration to throw the high schools underneath the same governance model with the CTEs?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: We hadn't. And largely, it's a a question of scale. So as we think about the number of students that are participating, it's around taking that statewide view to achieve scale. But I think where we're headed with the larger districts allows us to have the scale for high schools to support. That was our thinking.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Have two questions. Are you Jonathan?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah. Two

[Unidentified Committee Member]: questions. One, is your proposal gonna make any recommendations around the certification for instructors? We've heard that there are some issues there and that might be impeding centers from being able to hire folks and provide access to students. So that's one. We've heard some stuff about that. So that would be very helpful to see what your recommendation is statutory. And then the second question was, I know JFO and their consultant is doing a funding study. When exactly, when will that be available to say a standing committee like ours? Sub question, how is this debt allocation a part of that study? So I

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: would defer to JFO and their consultant to provide the details around the timing of when that will be available. I'll share that as the agency of education, we're partnering very closely with JFO. So we're supplying a lot of the data that they're requesting. And yes, it will need to look comprehensively and understanding all of the cost of the system. That's a big part of the work that we do in supporting JFO is making sure that every aspect of the funding accounted for. So that will need to include debt management. There's also work that's happening within the House Ways and Means Committee to really establish some clear understanding of the debt management as well.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sometimes policy follows funding and vice versa. So, when we're thinking about policy, sometimes it's hard to do that without understanding what the mindfulness.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: That's right. Yeah, think in an ideal scenario last session, we would have been able to approve the final funding formula and the districts and establish these quality objectives. That was our hope in coming forward with the proposal just for that reason to have clarity. But I think there was an understanding that additional time was needed. But that is because of that additional time, are still some outstanding questions. And so we're working really diligently to provide as much clarity as possible. And one of the things toward that end is partnering with our members of the field, like our business managers, directors, really start looking at budget models because that's where things really become real. So we've done a first round. We need some more work and some more input as we're starting to map out these just different sample budgets. That's largely been focused right now in the K-twelve space, but that can apply to CTV as well. But yeah, we know that clarity is really important. So

[Unidentified Committee Member]: when you think sort of sort of long term, right, we've talked about sort of a long term vision of having this kind of regional comprehensive high school. So where are your eyes down the road? I mean, are you imagining this ESA model to be able to adapt to that and continue to be the same model for CTE delivery? Do you see what you It could be.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: It gives you the flow. So we had some discussion around whether or not to propose a district versus an ESA. And to achieve our policy goals, we didn't need the rigidity of the district because that comes with very specific specifications. So moving towards an ESA model allows you to revisit whether or not that's going to be the way that the state delivers CTE in perpetuity, or if there's an adjustment to the scope of what the ESA does. For me, it comes back to scale. It really, when we look at all of these decisions, it's around ensuring that our dollars are going further to deliver on the quality objectives. And that's a large reason that we booked for the single statewide because of the scale of this number of students that we're serving and also the level of specialization that's required. This can be really hard to hire multiple times across the state. But I would, as Vermont might look forward and whether it be ten or twenty years, the questions I would ask would be looking at, is this continuing to serve us in achieving our quality objectives? And is this the best way to operate at scale? Those would be the questions I would ask. But it gives you the flexibility.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sorry. She might last.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Anything else that you want to add?

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Know, this has been a good conversation, And I think we I mean, everybody's wheels are turning, for sure. But I also see the complexity in everything that we're talking about. And I think that it would really be helpful for us to create a roadmap

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Of this is what we need to do this year. And I, you know, I think that if we settle on one, the governance system, and start the rule making system, and maybe come up with a really good definition for comprehensive integrated high school and change. I know there's a piece of statutes that's that I think we need to make sure of this, that sending districts are accepting the credits. That's right. Mhmm. So fixing that, I think, is maybe the first step that we then charge the agency and maybe others to now what is this going to look like now. So if we go this if we're going with a single ESA and out regional notes, what's all the things in the background that have to check that? Absolutely. And and a time frame for all of that. Because I there's no way that I don't believe that, like, 2027 will have this done. I think it's I think if we have a map of here's our goals of for this year, next year, the following year, and then in year 2030,

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: whatever, you look for implementation. Absolutely. There's tremendous complexity to this work, and what I'm hearing you request is an understanding of the change management approach. So what we've provided so far are really high level milestones. And the next step is to get deeper and understanding more tactically what does that look like on the ground. And I think in that, in describing that, it would be helpful to partner with Backdead in walking through, because we need to make sure we're bringing up those considerations from the ground. That's really going to be critical for us to appropriately outline a change management strategy that fully considers the complexity of this work. Absolutely.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any questions before? Anything else you want to add?

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Really just appreciate this committee and your commitment to this work. I feel like we learn a lot every time we come to the committee. Find these discussions to be really generative and helping us to further refine and advance this important work. So just thank you very much for your engagement and your partnership.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: I think, you know, we're off next week, so we'll come back to this, give you some time, but the next time, maybe we have some members of that, we have everybody sitting at the table and let's have this big discussion.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That would great. I think

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: that would get us to the right place that we need whatever legislation we need to move this year and to set us up on a good path.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Yep, that would be great. I agree. It would be very helpful. Well,

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: thank you.

[Zoie Saunders (Vermont Secretary of Education)]: Thank you very Thank

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: you. Maybe had an earlier lunch today. So we're back at 01:00. We're going to start taking a look at H two eleven, which is the data broker bill. And if you're gonna start on the CP set, which Yeah. So there's no