Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome back to House Education on January 28. We're gonna have a bill introduction. This is H seven seventy nine. We have the bill sponsor and the bill is also signed on to by two members of our committee, Representative Harple and Representative Brady. But for now, we'll turn it over to Representative Chapin to kind of talk to us about it, then we'll have a walk through with legislative council. Welcome to the House Education Committee.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: Here, I'm Ella Chapin. I represent Eastmont Employer in Middlesex, and I am glad to be in your room. Thanks for all the work you're doing on education. So just to give a little explanation of where this bill came from, my thoughts, and some of the information I collected as brought it to you. The impetus for this bill really started my own personal experience, my own teenager in the high school, U32, where both my kids have gone, do go, where both my husband and I both went to high school, and the sort of impact that early college had on particularly my now freshman in college's experience last year as a senior in high school. But it also came as I explored that with other legislators and school officials and others, it grew clear to me that there's a really big challenge in certain high schools with the early college program and that it has some other consequences on the Ed Fund and others that you're probably familiar with. But I don't work in education. I'm not on the education committee. This is very much my personal experience, followed up by a lot of other input that I was hearing. So, my own personal experience at U of S this past school year, about 50% or more of the seniors were not in school at the high school between tech school and early college. 25% of last year's seniors were in early college, and I don't know the percentage, but my guess is more than half of them were at Norwich University. And this was the first time 50% of the senior class was not there. I think the normal range is more in the 20 to 30%, actually. Teacher E32 on your committee probably has the numbers more than I do. Norwich is, as you know, a private college receiving public school dollars through the early college program and the proximity for E32 to Norwich, there's a couple of other schools in this area. I think that the proximity of certain high schools to early college locations has an extraordinary impact on those high schools. That's my conjecture. That's my guess. It may also have an undue impact on certain other high schools. But what I've really noticed is just the proximity to Norwich has had a very significant effect on our high school's ability to retain teaching staff and courses and a curriculum that work for seniors in our high school. Our experience was that classes for the more advanced classes, my kid was a STEM student, so taught physics classes, coding classes, calculus classeswere either on the potential chopping block or those teachers that couldn't necessarily retain the teachers for those roles when my son stayed. He definitely considered early college. Most of his peers went to early college. My son stayed at E32 last year after some serious consideration and waiting to see if they would actually offer the courses that he was planning to take. And I think that it's been a bit of a rollercoaster for U32 in being able to retain classes and schedules that can work for the seniors, given the inordinate impact on how many students are using the Early College Program. My son had several classes of less than five students in those classes, In a total class size of 114 seniors, 28 of them were at early college last year. This current year, just so you know, the numbers are lower. It's now 17.5% instead of 25% of the senior class is at Early College at age 32. As I talked with other parents, legislators, community members, school board members, what I learned was that certain other high schools in various locations around the state are also seeing these inordinate impacts on their particular senior classes and their high schools. There are hidden costs for families to what is described as a free access to a year of college. There are costs. There are transportation costs. What I observed is many students in early college who are actually going to a physical location and not doing online through CCV either need a car or need significant transportation to get to early college, and that there are actually fees that colleges I don't know how it works in the state college system, but I know what I've heard from parents was that it was hard for them to afford early college. And what I've heard is that it is not being used equitably across the families who consider early college, that lower income families are having a harder time accessing the early college program or are utilizing the online CCV option because it has less financial hurdles to access. And many people believe that the online learning for seniors in high school isn't always the best choice and thus some lower income folks are, in an inequitable way being forced into online options as opposed to accessing that in person learning and a peer group that they're really engaging with. That was not my personal experience, but that's what I heard when I was talking to other parents and administrators. Obviously, many families and students love the cost savings if they really can utilize that year of free college. And it's a very popular program and I understand that. And in no way do I want to reduce opportunities for students. Obviously, this bill can come across that way. So I guess I just want to say that out loud. I really hope that this committee, my real hope with this bill is to inspire a look back at the early college program that maybe should have been there in statute as a sunset and a look back, because it's an incredibly impactful program, both pros for students who want access to specific kind of classes, but also some really big cons. So, what I'm trying to bring to your attention with this bill are some really big cons for certain high schools and maybe an inequity issue in how the program is administered. And so, hope is that you'll really look at those goals and really, especially the education transformation process. My imagination goes to, if we really had robust regional high schools that can meet all student needs, we wouldn't need early college in the same way that we maybe have or have utilized it to fill gaps. That's what I see is a lot of parents and families, a lot of families and students utilizing early college to fill gaps where they don't feel like they have access to certain kinds of classes or to the level of instruction that they're looking for. I also learned that we double pay for students. This was shocking. My understanding is that after so there's a threshold of 5%. If more than 5% of a high school senior class is in early college, which has been the case ongoing for you to every year, that we're paying both the school district still for those additional students above 5%, as well as the college. And that, in this time of really being concerned about the Ed Fund, seems untenable. And so I guess, at the very least, I'd really love for you and ways and means to look at that and think about whether that is how we should be paying for early college. I've also been told by the Chair of Ways and Means that this will become an even larger issue under a foundation formula, the way that early college payment is structured. And so, again, I think just as we look at education transformation, I just have felt really strongly that a discussion about early college and how it fits into this transformation is really important. And so ideally there'd be like a longer fair I know I didn't write the bill this way. It's not my background. I just sort of went with something simple, but I can only imagine this needs to be phased in over time any changes to early college. Just want to again acknowledge that for the record. Many legislators, including multiple people around this table, seems to be equally concerned about the equity issues and the damaging impacts on our high schools and their ability to maintain adequate educational opportunities for seniors. And so that's really why I brought this bill forward. Just to be clear, the bill would repeal early college, it would increase dual enrollment vouchers, which seems to be a much more sustainable program with less negative impacts and more equitably accessed by students and families. So increasing dual enrollment from two to four classes for juniors and seniors would enable students to come out with at least one year of college covered. So it's sort of, in my mind, a bit of a trade off to increase dual enrollment if we're going to reduce early college. And then it would create a committee to really consider alternative ways that high schools and state colleges could work. And maybe the bill should be flipped around and you should focus on learning from partners around how state colleges and high schools could work together to continue to provide great educational opportunities for students and integrate the state college system better into our high schools and make that a more seamless transition. So ideally, there'd be some great thinking about other ways we could do that, especially in partnership with an education transformation process. So that's what the bill would do. I don't feel tied to any of those things except to really re look at this program overall and just appreciate your willingness to even consider it. So thanks for having me.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you very much. We have a question here.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Do you know if kids take a dual enrollment class on campus, does that count towards their vouchers that they already get?

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: I do enrollment on which campus? On a college campus?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Oh, I don't really know what a dual enrollment. I'm teaching dual enrollment. I just taught dual enrollment statistics, but I don't know if the kids had to use their voucher in order to take that class with

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: me or whether they did still

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: have We can some clarity from where she's at, Jana Brown. I think they did have to fill out the

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: paperwork for CCV and use that credit. Believe that they did.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: Right, that's the kind of, In my mind, that's the kind of efficiency that could be re envisioned that system to increase opportunities for students and access to those college credits that could be really useful. Catherine?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Representative Brady, Representative Harple, do you want to add anything since you're both on the bill?

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: No, I mean, think you covered it. For me, my biggest concern is that this is decimating our school. It's decimating our engineering senior culture. The classes are empty. I have not a single class. I'm like the eleventh or twelfth grade teacher. I'm not a single class of more than five students this semester. And last semester, I had multiple classes of less than five students.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think to me, it's part of a bigger need for us to do kind of sustaining the oversight of major initiatives, which is the flexible pathways initiatives and all of the work around Act 77. It's really incredible, what Vermont has done. And maybe one of the few things we've actually gone pretty far with implementation. There's so many pieces to Act 77. On my wish list for our committee since I got here five years ago, it's been time to go back through more carefully what's working and what needs to be updated under flexible pathways. I still think it's, in terms of the spirit of the law and where we were going, it's a national model. It's a forward looking, progressive way of thinking about education. And I think it meets the world that we're in. However, what all those parts of it are and how they're functioning ideally would be, again, something that we are watching more carefully. Anecdotally, my own experience, I think that there's real scale overlap issues here. And so if it's particularly devastating small, medium sized high schools, it's all part of the conversation around our school sizes and how do we make sure that students have opportunities. And instead, it's like we're kind of the impact, perhaps not the intent, but the impact of early college has been in some of the places where scale is already teetering as a challenge, it has become it has greatly magnified. The best data I can come by is from VSAC from 2022 of exact numbers of kids from what schools. And so of course, you've got to weigh it against the overall size of their schools, but a few outliers jump out immediately. And it's Spaulding, Harwood, U32, very high numbers of students. And so understanding the ecosystem and the impact there, I think, is really important. It is a popular program, so taking something away is going to be challenging politically. That's just the reality. But I guess, to me, understanding better the whole of Act 77, what is working. And if it's about getting kids more connected to post secondary opportunities, is it doing that? Or is it a pathway for kids who were already on a very college path for it to be paid for, which may still be a great state goal and probably one I support, but I'm not sure if out of our K-twelve education fund is the place to do it. I think we need to do everything we can to bolster our state college system, and this has been an important piece of that. So I want to be careful in how we address it. But I think that as we look very closely at our K-twelve funding system and potentially change it dramatically, we should be clear about what we're funding where. And if this is a post secondary program and this is really about higher education maybe, then maybe it's better as a general fund allocation to the state colleges than an ed fund allocation out of property taxpayers and school budgets. Can I add another thing? So I have lots of thoughts, but I appreciate it. I think this is a really important policy issue. If the foundation firm is going forward in any form, like you're naming something, there's all these ancillary issues that we have not. This is one, but I'm going bring up another one later this week. We've got a few pieces of pieces. But the foundation formula isn't going to just instantly shizzing them, fix. These are still going to be issues in our system.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: I also don't think that needs to necessarily take anything away if in addition to doing this, are bolstering our dual enrollment because we can still offer those and we're already seeing that for those kids that can't go to early college, we can't offer them the classes that they need because there aren't enough kids to fill them. And in a way, it almost feels like this has been a little bit of union busting because we're letting teachers go because we don't need that many teachers anymore that our students are on, which kind of lies in the face of contractual labor issues. And the other thing is that when we lose our juniors and seniors, we're losing sort of that, I feel like the first time I spoke, I made it sound about my class enrollment, which is not my point at all. Like, we're losing our role models, we're making an empty school, and we're making it seem like a place where kids should try to get out of as fast as they can.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm sorry.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Representative Long. So I really appreciate you bringing this to and having this discussion because everything I'm hearing echoes what I'm experiencing and hearing locally. The equity piece is the biggest piece for me right now because it's not to say all the other parts aren't really important. They are and that they're equally as important. But for me, in my experience, anecdotally, talking to people, because I don't have kids in high school now anymore. We didn't have access to it when they were there. It isn't equitable. I mean, it just simply isn't accessible for some of our students, and that seems very clear to me. In your experience talking to people as you're developing this legislation, did you hear from folks who are sitting in school districts who are now experiencing districts offering additional dual enrollment on their own to keep children in the classroom instead of going to early college? Because I've been hearing about that, and I'm wondering whether you heard that too.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: I wasn't aware that that was an option because I don't think our school district does that. But it was very interesting to me to learn that some school districts are voluntarily choosing to offer more dual enrollment beyond the statutory two, one junior year and one senior year. So I thought that was interesting. And I am curious and hope that you'll take some testimony on this as if some school districts are doing that in order to address a lot of these issues in a way to My understanding is our school district just puts it out to every It almost feels like they're encouraging students to leave high school. That is how it feels, how students are being coached. And what I witnessed with my child and other students being coached as to how to get the education they wanted their senior year was like, oh, we might not be able to give you that kind of schedule. Have you checked out dual role? Have you checked out early college? Go check it out. Norwich is right down the road. That was the sense I got witnessing and hearing about some of the conversations happening between school counselors and children blind to their senior year. And to learn that other high schools are trying to discourage the use of early college and voluntarily increase dual vouchers tells me different high school leadership are approaching this differently. And yet, we know enrollment decline is so heavily impacting our ability to teach, particularly high schoolers in certain ways that, again, it seems inequitable that different high schools are approaching this in different ways and sometimes we need digging themselves bigger holes is one of my concerns.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Probably we should switch over to our legislative walk through. Thank you very much.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: Thank you all for listening. I can't stay.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes. Again, this is 2022 data, so I'm trying to get more updated stuff from VSAC about numbers of kids, discrete kids from high schools. But looking at some of the biggest high schools, and yes, CDU is the biggest, the numbers are not very big. And so I do think this is an important part of the conversation around regional middle and high schools. And so if we are not giving kids opportunities, there's no doubt there's a lot available to kids at CBU when you have a school that big, and there is a much smaller uptake of early college. There may be other factors at play, as Robert was talking about, but I think that's why this is an important conversation at

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: this moment. Can I just say one thing related to that and sort of going along with this conversation? That I said about the equitability of the program, the early college. If school districts are presenting the alternative of increased dual enrollment, that from what I've been told is because it is more equitable. More children have access to it and don't lose the funding of having to un enroll their student. And so right there we travel across. And when you talk about increased dual enrollment, does that take place within the school building?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So these are just, again, are just enhanced offerings within a high school building, which I realize are for college credit, but isn't it really just down to the baseline of we need high schools that can offer a robust program that kids want to stay for? It is exactly that, and it is literally for the same reasons that we've

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: heard around the room, to keep to students in the building so that other 80 courses, can be It accessed. It literally is that. And this smaller and more, let's just face it, rural becomes a bigger issue. So it's more reasonable financially to offer more dual enrollment out of your own budget than it is to lose a student to Berkeley College for all.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Your Honor.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. I think you had a fabulous walkthrough already with the sponsor of the bill. Do you want me to share my screen and do a quick walkthrough?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Do Okay. You want to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And quick, it's fine, because I think you already got a lot of information.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is H. Seven seventy nine as introduced, an act relating to updating the flexible pathways initiative. There's some intent language here. Do you want to go through that, or would you rather skip over it? Skip over it. Okay. So starting in section two on page two, we've got some reader assistance headings. This is the early college section. So the first thing that section two does is it So this is the flexible pathways initiative statute. So the Flexible Pathways sub chapter has this kind of overall statute that applies to the whole program. And then you've got programmatic statutes that follow for dual enrollment, flexible pathways, you added virtual learning. This is where adult education lives. So this is the kind of overall flexible pathways initiative statute, and it lists what is included in flexible pathways. So to create opportunities for secondary students to pursue flexible pathways to graduation, that include, so we've got work based learning, virtual learning, dual enrollment, and you'll see that this bill proposes to repeal early college. And that's what section three does, is it actually repeals the actual programmatic statutes related to early college. And then section four, dual enrollment, this is the dual enrollment programmatic statute. You can see nine forty one was the overall statute. We've now gotten to nine forty four, so you can kind of visualize where we are. And you'll see that the only change here is that an eligible student may enroll in up to four dual enrollment courses instead of two under current law. And then the applicable change was made here. So, this is the place in law that allows the subsection H of section nine forty four is what allows school districts to offer more than two dual enrollment courses. I forget who said it. It just would come out of the budget instead of the flexible pathways funding. And then, Section five creates the college level programming for high school students working group, which if we just look at the creation of it, to examine opportunities for high schools in the Vermont State College's system to partner on providing college level programming to high school students, including within high school classrooms. And then the working group would be composed of the secretary of education. Okay. Great. They would have a deliverable to you all December of this year. And everything would take effect. The intent section, the change to dual enrollment and the working group would take effect 07/01/2026. But the early college program would sunset on 07/01/2027, which essentially means juniors who are participating this year would have next year, and then that would be it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I have a question for, I believe, for Representative Harple, but with your, you talked about juniors and seniors being out of the building. Isn't early college just a senior program?

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: Okay, maybe that's true. I know that junior is enrolled in my dual enrollment course this fall, so that was open to them. Just look, early college.

[Rep. Ela Chapin (Bill Sponsor)]: It's just for

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, just for grade 12.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: Okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So if you are planning to do it, you're a junior, and you have planned to do it next year.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: Right. I mean, maybe the confusion is we also have juniors that grad you with graduating juniors. So I wonder if they've been mean, maybe I'm wrong that there were any juniors, but

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Of course,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the juniors are probably a head up to CTE as well. Yeah.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: I mean, I know that, yeah, it's both. Like, as you get closer, and maybe it's not all this, but as you get closer to the upper grades, it's less and less

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: students. Questions

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: for legislative council? Pretty much straightforward. All right, so for the committee on this topic, so we have a joint hearing with Commerce later in the week about the Higher Ed Trust Fund, which has got a little more money than a few states. One of the issues that we have with early college is that state college system has sort of built in this revenue into their financial model. And that's one of the challenges. If I could control all the money in the world, I'd say, okay, if you're gonna get rid of early college, let's take that same investment, not out of the Ed Fund, and put it into eight zero two opportunities and freedom of the two programs that allow low income promoters to go to either C-four B or state colleges tuition free. And so that's kind of why I really want us to understand the higher ed trust fund situation.