Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we're back into a committee discussion mode. I just want to sort of keep talking as we were. And we kind of had a couple of hours since we ended our last discussion. And, first of I just opened the floor to if anybody had any bigger thoughts, but I would also sort of ask maybe each of us to talk about one or two things we're struggling with as we try to weigh the pros and cons of whatever it is we choose to do. I don't know if anybody's got some thoughts there. I mean, Every time I sort of have a broader view of this, trying to accomplish, I get like, I'm really passionate about this. Oh, I've kind of forgot about this end of things. So I got to thinking a little bit about some of the stuff that representative Brady said in our last go around, which is sort of, know, the hard saying the hard stuff out loud. So, you know, I also had a discussion with the delegate from the Vermont School Board Association, with the question being, well, are we still just dumping the same hard problems onto school boards? Closing schools, figuring out fussing, you know, all that. How are we making school boards work easier? Thinking about that as well. So those are just things that I'm struggling with where, you know, I think it'd be really easy. It's really easy for me to say I want fewer and larger districts governed by 11 member school boards. All of the other things I sort of advocated for, and they say, hey, all right, good work. But that does sort of pass the buck on the hard decisions that I, as a school board member, when I was one, begged the state to take more of an active role in. We have done a little bit of that by establishing class size minimums. But, you know, to what extent do we take on the unfair, hard questions represent Brady brought up the fact that do we say, you know something? We are gonna consolidate districts, but not all of them. Just the small ones. That that could be effective, but it also be seen as unfair. So these are just I'm not really sure where I'm going. I'm just trying to be put on the table here things I've struggled with and not quite sure how to find our way out of that. On the other hand, I look at the opportunity. If we sort of are sort of starting from scratch with newer, larger districts that allows a school board to and we say those districts are operating, not non operating. It allows a broader area with which one could come up with creative solutions. So if you are a larger district, within that district, there's a couple of large high schools and maybe a small high school. You can have the conversation. This small high school, due to declining enrollment as a standard issue high school, may not be viable. However, in this broader system, maybe that is the magnet school for kids who want to study music or the outdoors. So I think there's opportunity in scale as well in dealing with in both sort of maintaining some of the things we hold dear. But also addressing the challenges that are facing us. I'm going to stop talking to anybody else jump in. I can't carry us for the next forty five

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: minutes. We're all

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: just going let you keep going. I

[Emily Long (Member)]: think we're all feeling very similar feelings. We're drawn in every different direction. Coming from a rural area like I am, there is no question the next steps we take are going to create a lot of upheaval in every corner of the state, because that's the nature of transformation. So I'm still struggling with the timeline, the inability to bring community voice into the disruption that will be caused by, I know, Representative Harple will appreciate that I'm the one saying it instead of her this time, but the school closures that are going to happen, we're all talking about it finally, which I think is really important, because it will happen and it is happening. I know the upheaval happens because I'm feeling well right now, it already happens. Where I'm struggling is I don't have a problem with getting behind doing what's right for our schools and our kids and our communities, as long as I can say, this is why we're doing it. Is what our goals are of what we expect from it. And I again said this morning, and I'm still, I love that budgeting model, and it is done very intentionally. And it is essentially exactly what we do in our health district. I mean, it really is. It's just not done in the same manner in which they do it with intention. And it gets harder to keep staff around long enough to be able to keep a model like that going. But I need to know that if we're going to go through this change, that I can get behind it because we have goals, we have outcomes. The other thing I'm still struggling with, and I think, Brady did bring this up, this SUSD conversation. Having been a part of SUs forever, I recognize the challenge. And if we're going to go with larger districts, I can't picture a mixed delivery system like we have in my region without either changing the mixed delivery or staying an SU. And I just can't picture a much larger SU than even my own SU, and there's four SUs in my county, continuing to operate the same way ours. We have to we decide what we're going to do. We have to make some decisions about it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, Josh, you're up.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Struggling with, right? Like, the same thing 90% of us are or 80 of us or 100% is looking at the communities we serve, you know, specifically, the way I look at it is I'm serving my two towns specifically when I'm on the floor, but when I'm in committee, have to think of the whole state. I can't just think of my two towns. And I have to think of how Colchester is different than Williamstown, is different than Glover, is different than, you know, Milton. And then I have two towns that, while they saw opportunities generated by their mergers, in some cases, they didn't see the savings they were promised, and they're looking at what we're doing now as much as the same as we've done before. But also there's the pragmatic and business side of me that looks at the economies of scale and sees where that benefit is and how it can create more opportunities, especially when you can bring more students together. So that's like the struggle, right? My communities are saying we need more opportunities, we need more of this, but we need to save money. We're spending too much in the last time we merged, we didn't see that benefit. More so, like, I talked to Chelsea as much as possible, but I've been living in Williamstown for all this time, and they feel that they got the short end of the stick of the merge, or a lot of people do. So it's like trying to weigh my own communities, right, and then say in this room, I actually have to weigh all of the communities, and I have to look at, you know, those communities that, you know, need this from the education system and need that or don't need this because they're really self sufficient and self reliant or have the funds to do it. I mean, it's literally that hamster wheel that keeps going round and round trying to weigh all of this. Like, that's what I'm struggling with all the time, but I always have to keep in mind that I'm looking at the whole state, not just my community when I'm sitting in this room.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. You guys want to jump in?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Struggling, definitely struggling with the process. Feeling the weight of knowing that it all starts in this room, and unless we start making some decisions, we are staying exactly where we are right now. We're trying to figure out how we're all going to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: coalesce around some united idea that

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: can leave this room and get to the larger body.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I mean, I'll kind of build upon that, but in a political way. I mean, one of the reasons that we are all feeling a little bit stuck and hamstrung is because we're getting mixed signals from Vermonters. A lot of Vermonters are pretty disengaged with what we are doing. We hear from, let's say, many who are very loud voices, but we hear from many, many, we don't hear from many, many more. In part because the case hasn't been made. This is my repeated pet peeve that education transformation needed a public champion with the political clout to go out and sell it to the moderns. We didn't get that. And so now we are here struggling with the fact that Vermonters are as sort of confused themselves as they were twelve months ago, twenty four months ago, how we want to measure it. We are stuck with that problem as well. And I don't know if we can get out of it. I don't know if we're going to be able to move beyond where we are. I share your frustration that if we don't make some sort of forward movement, that we are where we are, and where we are right now is not a good place.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I think we also, I'm sorry, I our body had its confusion of all this. At the end of last session, whether he liked it or not, we had an Act 73, which we still have, put into law that people saw and people knew. And now we've started deviating from that, and that adds to the conclusion just as much as anything else does.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. I mean, we would be If we were sitting here with three options for maps that made everybody happy, it would be in a different place. But to the extent that the work of the task force represented the view of the monitors, would debate that. But we are where we are. Are. The shape.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Not going announce anything. We're up. Are we going to fix it? I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have the winner,

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: but you

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: go ahead.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No, I haven't thought of that. People obviously feel different ways about how the task force report came out. I guess as someone who is part, as we all were, of the process on a really tight timeframe of developing ACT 73 over a couple of months last session, personally, I'm really relieved that the task force took such expansive view of the work ahead of them. So, I mean, if we could have had a clearer path when we started this session, but I think finding the right answer is more important. That's opinion.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, we are up against a lot of things here. The challenge before us that we all have, we have all of our own personal politics. For those who choose to run again, this is a sort of big matter as well. Just putting on table is the other thing that I'm sure each in our own mind we're wrestling with.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I just want to say, because you made me think of it, I've mentioned and struggled with time. And I've been struggling with the timeline from the time we first stepped into the session last year to the end of the session and the timeline that happened over the summer, which I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, even in the task force having basically four months to work, we heard in testimony that they really only had two months with the data that they had because they were asking for a lot of data. So I mean, it's all a part of it. It's not just the future timeline of Act 73 or what we have on our plates on this committee, but this is huge, what we're trying to do. It's transformative, what we're trying to do. It's not something that we've been trying to do for a year or two. It's something we've been trying to do for decades. And I want to make sure we're doing it right. And I want to make sure we're taking the time to do it right. And I know we're gonna always be able to take time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So here's what I'm gonna start as we have these conversations, as my role of chairs, to say, okay, the two of you have a problem with the timeline, What do you suggest? And I'm not saying answer it right now. I'm just saying come back with some specifics.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Absolutely.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: As I hear people's concerns and thoughts and all that, I really appreciate all of it. Much of what people have been saying has been giving me more food for thought, but I am going start saying, Okay, well then, blah. And I think if people are advocates for the status quo, say it. There's an argument for that as well. No, I was not accusing you saying that.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No, I know that. And I don't know that we've actually heard anybody saying that. I think we're all just wrestling with what's the right pace of change. We all want to move forward. We all want change. The superintendents, the principals, everybody agrees on that. School boards. It's just achievable and what's the right pace?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: The reality of it is, too, that we're not going to get this 100% right no matter what we do. It's going to be a fluid thing even after we ask it all. There's going be changes that we say, We didn't really think that one all the way through, it needs to be changed to this. So if we're going to look for perfection the first time through, we're going to be here fifteen years from now doing the same. That's clearly the We're not going be here. Somebody will be here. There's that desire to need to move forward with some action to move us down the road a little bit, in my opinion.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: I was thinking about what you just said, Peter, about just the small ones. Well, another approach is, if we're taking a step back, there are plenty of school systems at scale that are doing a good job and already working. So we identify those and we look into places where we need help and how to bolster those things. Maybe that's kind of like a coming in from the side kind of thing rather than going, okay, let's get the mapping tools and let's spice up the state. Why not look and see who's working, what's working? Who's at scale? And where are the places that we're losing kids and places that need help? And that that's kinda like a maybe just a smaller one. Some of those aren't small, but, I mean, maybe it's worth throwing help to where they need help. And that's how we start determining where these districts happen.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: And that that would go along with what the superintendent said, being strategic markers. Right? Because some places, you know, are good. They don't they don't need any help. They don't need

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to be screwed up either. Yes, those places are supposed to be expensive, but we're gonna have to take words from like, throw them some help and make that a much more less abstract, much more specific term. Because a foundation formula, for example, is in fact that. Yes, it is. It recognizes that some districts need more funding than others because But it has to

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: I guess just being more laser beam targeted to saying, these are the areas that really need help. How do we, you know, okay, but what if we did this and even we get on the phone and say, happened, you know, superintendent or principal, what would happen if? Well, yes, but our ability to sort of micromanage or,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you know, is somewhat the level to which we could drill down. Right, these

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: might be What would you say if these things were to happen? You know, there's a possibility to talk to me tomorrow, right? Like, think about this.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, yours is a good point because we've heard the argument time and time again that we have got districts or that how much you spend doesn't necessarily reflect. We districts that spend well below the state average and get above the state average results. But why do we replicate that? Every part of the model is completely different.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: There's a human factor.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, there's a huge human factor. Yep.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: To be a little more precise on the timeline here, I just went back to my floor report from last year of H4504. So I'm not advocating for the status quo. Just found my newspaper article where I extended it

[Emily Long (Member)]: over three pages to a

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: little exchange. So what came out of here in the house, I don't think was by any means perfect. And we were working under extreme circumstances and doing our best. I supported it. I tried to sell it on the floor. I think that one of, if not the most important piece of that timeline was, and I know this will not be genuinely figured out by all in this room, was the class size minimum policies and the timeline for them. And I just have to go back to my photo report to find these class size minimums were supposed to go into effect. And they were only a two year average, not a three year. And they were slightly different than what ended up in the conference report. But those are supposed to be going into effect this August. And I know that's another way, a hard problem we're all talking about, which is some school closures. But it is one that has come to us again and again from educational experts in the educational field, saying this is something that we need in order to be able to make the right education decisions in our community. And in my mind, that was, again, perhaps maybe the most important piece of the legislation in starting to shift scale. And instead, we slowed that down and sped up the foundation formula. And so the collision of those two, I become more concerned about the foundation formula. But we moved to it even faster and we haven't dealt with the underlying. And this alone does not solve it. But to me, it was one of our most important pieces. So, the timeline, maybe there is some acceleration of some dates and some pushing back of others. If it were to meet, the sizes the class sizes are and then putting the meat on the bones, including the money, physical construction money, are things to speed up. The foundation formula I am not opposed to, I'm not sure we are ready or we understand this intersection with enough. What else might happen?

[Emily Long (Member)]: You for being As very

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: maybe another exercise in trying to move forward, is there any desire to take a closer look at that hybrid map that the Agency of Education showed us the other day? Talk about it, poke holes in it, there's got to be something somebody likes about it to have a discussion about it. Don't know, just throwing it out there. Doesn't mean we have to have that decision right now. It's a map. They're not endorsing it by any means. They even said it in the committee or in the hearing.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: If we're willing to go forward with this redistricting, I think that would at least be a start, something to look at, something to get some ideas from. You both for this

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: agenda. We are meeting with Senate education to discuss exactly, not discuss, but we are going to get some field reaction to what was put on the

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: table as I've started to

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: like That's exactly what we need from the MC. Yes. Excellent.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I'll just say, since you really want specifics, Peter, and I understand totally right, I can't take regional comprehensive high schools off the table anymore now that it's been put on in the way that it has been. I have no clue about the timeline, the dollars and construction dates fits into that, but I don't want to go into this continued conversation around transforming an education system without looking long range. And it's the only way I can sell it to the people that I represent and Vermonters in general. And that piece to me is really important, as is the long conversation we had

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: yesterday and today around the successful. So in my effort to make us all drill down to specifics, I don't know what that means. In other words, first of all, we need to define, to use the legal definition of comprehensive high school, which I think probably all are in agreement with that, but putting it on the table, I don't know, how do we flesh out a concept? I mean, I'm asking you or all of us to think about, like, what does that mean if we were to sit down and say, we want this in proposed language? I like the idea, but I don't know how you select where it goes and what it needs.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Take those and develop them. At that specific point, I know we couldn't get him yesterday. I think that Jay Adams was the most deeply involved in the super hyper map work in the task force related to high schools. I know they couldn't put out, these are where they should I can do that on my own, but it also might be worth all of us hearing the next level of detail about that part of the task force from him. Because I also think that it probably isn't impossible to figure that out. There's not gonna be that many schools with 80,000 kids. Know where the big schools are. Yes, this is hard, but I'm not sure it's impossible to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I just, as I think about it, know where high schools are, but I don't know if where high schools are is the same thing as regional high schools.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Would that be organically decided when a bigger district has been formed, or would that be something that gets formulated before the districts? Which comes first, the chicken or the regional high school?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, Addison County would make a great sized district. If you look at the three larger school districts that are there, divide them into one with the idea of a comprehensive high school, which I think actually people love it. But in order to have that actually not make kids be on buses for hours, you can build a whole new high school and career center centrally located within the geographic area. But to the extent that that's a concept that is achievable, I mean, right down to, are there soils in that area that can accommodate a septic system for a high school? That's where I get two,

[Emily Long (Member)]: that's the challenge. Well, that's a pretty good section then, it's kind of the guiding principles and all. And are we going to? Jay? I I know we asked him to come in and then he

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: didn't make it in. We have not gone any further. If that's to the committee's liking, we can certainly have a minute, but we've got time to schedule.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: mean, don't think your invitation was an invitation to just bitch about everything about your sack, but I don't like, so I'm not gonna do that.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I mean, was it? No, no.

[Emily Long (Member)]: We

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: are forward thinking. What can we do that would make it out of this committee? And I don't know. I taken the temperature. We've had people missing to say, Is the concept of bigger, larger districts mandated by the state a non go within us? I wanted to talk first.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah, I mean, I guess I want to have a better idea of when we talk about consolidating districts, are we really talking about consolidating schools? And I want to have an honest conversation about that, and I just feel like we're all over the map on that. And I think about this concept of equity nobody's talking about kids in Burlington and just being on buses for forty five minutes. That's because they don't have to, right? Because they can get that many in there with those minimum class sizes. I think maybe we should be open to considering the minimum class sizes across the state should not be uniform. That we've got different ways that people live in our state. We are a very rural state and can't outlaw ruralness. But if we're not going to consider that, I guess in thinking about the school construction, it seems to me like when a lot of people talk about consolidating the schools, at least in my area, they're talking about like Danville and Cabot will all go to Hazen. But you know what, Hazen still isn't as nice as the theaters at U32 or the science lab. So they're not going to get anything better. We're just going have to shut down one small school to put them in another small school that also is still really inadequate and doesn't offer any of the things that kids across the state get to. So I guess if we could actually be like, we're going to put a ton of money into those parts of the state and build new construction and give them theaters beside the B32 and science labs that are equitable to that, maybe you might have a chance of getting people excited about that. But right now, we're just talking about moving them out of one small school into another comparably, really not as great small school. So that's one thing I think that we could do. However, I think we also need to acknowledge that not everyone thinks that bigger is better. A lot of people moved to small towns because they wanted small schools and they wanted small class sizes. So how are we going to deal with that? I think we talk a lot about Vermont needs us to make this decision, but yet they're all shouting us down. Maybe we should actually find a way to listen. I don't know. Already decided we're not going to though.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So just to respond a little bit, when I said, I didn't say Vermonters were looking for us to make breakfast at school boards.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Right, okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Because it's on their shoulders. And again, for me, one of the important things about creating a new system is to be as sort of resilient as we can to declining enrollment. And I'll just keep saying it. It's not consolidate. It's not governance that closes small schools. It's declining enrollment and reach a certain point. So, I would. I think that the problem is the demographics are moving at a far more rapid pace than changes. And we're finding ourselves sort of stuck in a situation where we are probably keeping too many schools open based on the enrollment that we have. And the inequity of Hazen not being U32 is because of the system that we've had going up to this point.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Can I move on to that?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I I think that if we want to look at bolstering up sort of our enrollment and our population, then maybe we really need to invest at this time in our most rural places rather than of move people on out. Because I think that the problem is going to get a lot worse long term if you know that if you go settle in the Northeast Kingdom, you're probably going to have to be busted to Chittenden County to go to school. If we make huge investments now, I'm like, fine, maybe I can accept that I'm losing the bigger is better argument, and we're going to do this. So then in that case, I would say, let's really go ho and let's invest in these rural places and let's make it so that these are these incredible places that people want to move because suddenly they're doing better than they ever have before, not that we've moved those resources out.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: At Page three point.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And I know we're in very different places. I couldn't agree more. I think fundamentally what we're wrestling with is a challenge of Vermont. The governor or anybody is talking about nostalgia, this is not just about school boards and school This is Vermont and I own, and I don't live in it. So it's awkward. But Vermont has held onto a rural, small village way of life that most rural states have not been able to across a variety of ways. This is about schools, but really it's about much more than that. My frustration from two years ago, certainly last year, has been that I hate talking about closing schools. And I realize it's crummy for me to sit here knowing it's probably not going to happen in Williston anytime soon. Who knows, eventually? But it's all about loss. I've heard John Castle, who I respect tremendously as a really expert in rural education, that there is loss here. And we, the legislature, the state, anyone, we don't have a vision for something different, not just loss, moving beyond that. What are the things to look forward to? And it's not going to be the same. But if we're going to build a really state of the art regional high school, let's put it in a desert and in a place relatively as much as you can, those geographies, and where there is going to be probably It's a lot of going to be different. But I do think we should have been That's probably the biggest challenge of all this is that we've never offered all along, I think this has been about World Vermont could lose a lot. And what are they going to get for it? And how do you and it's going to be different. That's going to be hard anyway. But I would love to see us say, we're going to put in the Northeast King, three places in the state. And we are going to put state of the art multi use, multi generational, multi use buildings and forward thinking, but regional, middle, and high schools, we're probably gonna lose a bunch of small schools. But it's not

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah, maybe that's what we need to do. I think that maybe we should consider a few more in rural areas than some of us. Make them a little bit closer together, not have people still spread out and really think about what are these minimum class size numbers. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out who told me or where I heard about that there's currently one school in a state that would meet minimum class sizes or one district. It was one district. I have it in my notes somewhere. I can't remember

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: where I

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: saw it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's amazing because our class size minimums that we put in there are so low.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: They're not low for the North Sea

[Emily Long (Member)]: a huge impact in rural areas. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: don't want to relitigate class size minimums, but there are built in exceptions.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah, only I was more thinking about when we're gonna invest at these bigger schools, maybe a few more of them in really scattered rural areas than in some of the areas where it's easier to get to them and fill them with those class sizes. Let's not necessarily have someone who needs to travel from Newport to St. John's Prairie. Although that's a bad example, because St. John's Prairie has got other independent schools in that area. But across two or three counties.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think you're bringing up probably quite a divide we just had in Vermonters attitudes or legislators attitudes for this. I tend to be a little bit more dark cloudish. I do not believe that there's going to be this great surge of families because birth rates are way down and young people are choosing to live in walkable, diverse, culturally interesting places.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Religions lose to population. It's a statewide And

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: this has been going on since well before the pandemic. The pandemic sort of put a pause on it. So I'm less optimistic that if you build it, they will come and you to justify the use of the dollars. That being said, the system we have has created the inequities that we have. But moving forward, I think your point of that, I think we really need to sort of separate younger grades versus older grades, that why can't ACE be a great high school at the level of other high schools that you may think are better? And maybe our funding reflects that with the foundation for a bit. But I think you bring up a good point that the Hazen is going be the regional high school and it can be the thing that attracts people to that area, then let's supercharge

[Emily Long (Member)]: It's also the opportunity

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, that's just an example, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily Long (Member)]: We just talked about the regional, support that. But there's also the opportunity to do that investment in communities that are, you know, I have one, right? Three communities together that each have a school, and they could get them all into one if there was a financial investment made in that one school. And if there wouldn't be, I think, as anywhere near the pushback against doing it if we were making the investment, and then we'd be closing two out of three schools and having better opportunities for kids and better meeting class size minimums then, all of that. You see what I'm saying? It can happen at a local level depending on where you are, but there are opportunities in the state

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to do that. Absolutely. Well, then you gotta be careful about, you know, I think it's hard to make everything all stick and no carrot.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Just talking about investment and return on investment.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Buy in.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Please. We're never going to reach perfection. We're never going to have complete equity. There are also the state of Vermont is small, but the way people live and the way they believe and their culture in the Northeast Kingdom may be tremendously different than that in the other end of the state. So to try to feed everybody hot dogs on Monday is not going to work. So we can't let those things hold us back. I think we have to move forward, realizing that we're not going to end up with a perfect deal. And if we do, we do keep holding back, trying. We're we're gonna be right doing what we're doing next May.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: What we're doing

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: right now, we're doing in May. And I I I don't think our constituents want to see us do that. They expect something, even if it's not perfect. But I've spent the last number of years dealing with Fish and Wildlife Act two fifty and cows in the cornfields. So I'm we've been here ten days, so you don't have to necessarily think

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that I'm saying. Represent a part of the state for which this is there so many levels of this are highly important to them in terms of the islands.

[Emily Long (Member)]: They

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: have

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: significant declining enrollment. They've already closed schools. They have choice. Sort of all the factors are up there.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: They're in pretty good shape, really. They don't have a high school to deal with. They still have that opportunity to go just about anywhere they want to school. I'm certain How different that situation is. But still, I just

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If we just had the 6,000,000,000 that fits up our schools, it'd be great shape. All right, if everybody's feeling talked out, we'll break until after four. And when we come back here to sort of have a who else do you want to hear from conversation. And check the agenda as well. It keeps getting updated.