Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome to House Education on Thursday, 01/29/2026. We are taking advantage of it being Mental Health Advocacy Day here in the State House to hear some testimony about mental health. I think challenges, services and whatnot in our state and hopefully a little bit towards what's going on in our schools. We have two guests today. Christian Chandler, you have the floor. You'd introduce yourself and I'd love to hear from you.

[Christian Chandler]: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Christian Chandler. I'm the coordinator of Team Two, which is a statewide mental health training for law enforcement, medical clinicians, EMTs, dispatchers. I've been running that program for the last twelve years. It's a collaborative effort between the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Safety, and it's funded through their budgets. I'm not here, though, today with that hat on. I'm here today, actually, as a former coach at Randolph Union High School. I coached the girls basketball team there, the junior varsity team, for six years. And when I was coached, I was required by the Vermont Principals Association to take CPR, concussion protocol, and I think implicit bias training. Now, haven't coached for four or five years, but I remember that. But I also had my career in mental health. I was formerly in the attorney general's office as an AG with the Department of Mental Health. And if they're going make me take CPR and these other things, why shouldn't I have to take youth mental health first aid? That is a free course that I have taken. I took it voluntarily, I've also taken an adult version of that same course. It's one day. And what I discovered in coaching is that it's way more than just talking about strategy and basketball. It's really talking with these young women about what's going on for them in their lives. And birth control came up, depression, family life, all kinds of things. And luckily, I felt somewhat equipped to handle those discussions. But I really felt like, why isn't every coach required to take youth mental health first aid? Coaches have such an impact on our youth. So many times, kids turn to sports when they're marginalized or there's no other place to fit in. And the coach may be their most respected adult that they have in their life. And to me, it's super important. And I think that's just a start with coaches. Mean, I would love to see a mandate that every coach in high school level has to take this course. But I think all staff in schools ought to take it as well. And it's offered right now throughout the state in some specific jurisdictions, but it's right there and it's available to folks. Curriculum of Youth Mental Health First Aid focuses really on those types of anxiety, excuse me, depression. They do scenarios in the training. It's an eight hour training, but it's taught through scenarios both virtually and in person right now. So it's not a matter of not being available, and it's free. Right now, the Vermont Care Partners offers it. I put that in my written testimony about how it's administered here in Vermont. But they have three grants right now, one through the Department of Mental Health that is expiring in two years, that right now focuses on the Berry Unified School System, Is that what it's called? Caledonia Central Supervisory and Southwest Supervisory Need. So they have that grant through the Department of Mental Health to work with those schools. Through a SAMHSA grant, federal folks who was defunded for a day last week and then came back on. They fund Youth Mental Health First Aid as well. They have that grant through the September of this year, and that's how it's offered for free. And then finally, through the Vermont Department of Health, they have a separate grant through them in four counties, Chittenden, Bennington, Rutland and Windham County. And I just learned before I came in here that new folks could take advantage of it as well. There's a training being offered on a Monday in March. It's virtual. Only 30 people can go, but it's specifically geared for legislative mental health first aid training. And you can scan this QR code and you'll be registered for the training. So I'm going to leave that here to do, up to you if you want to do that or not. And I can tell you that in the past year, 1,200 people have been trained in mental health first aid in Vermont. Over 2,300 youth and adults have been supported by somebody trained in mental health first aid. So it has a big impact. And to me, I think that it really should be a requirement for coaches. And that's how I tied in health education. And I gotta tell you, I'm used to testifying it over other parts of the state house. You guys have really nice digs up here.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That is unbelievable. That's

[Christian Chandler]: nice. It's really nice to not have to jam in and crowd around and get all sweaty with all those other people. So now I know about you. I know why Jay apparently was on this committee for a while. He must have liked the digs in the field. Oh, these are new digs.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Never experienced them.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Oh, he didn't? Okay. He's a start. Could

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you just give me a, for instance, I'm a coach, I've taken this course, what might I observe and how might I respond?

[Christian Chandler]: Well, one of the things that I observed was some bullying stuff between teammates. You know, there's clicks. It still happens in high school all the time. Kids just not knowing how to talk to each other, or also not knowing who they can talk to about what is happening to them. And as a coach, I could take both of them aside separately and find out what's going on. I had the tools about what questions to ask, and then also the resources were provided to me about where I could direct them for additional resources if they needed it. So that was really, really helpful to me as a coach. Any other questions?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, thanks for bringing us on to this program. It's quite fascinating.

[Christian Chandler]: Well, I appreciate that you'd found a half an hour in the schedule to put in some stuff about mental health today on Mental Health Advocacy Day. So really appreciate that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. For our next testimony, should be stuff now up on the website. Gonna welcome Ian Trombulaac. Ian, the Middlebury Trombulaacs, I assume.

[Ian Chambulak]: Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh. Of course. Who knows me? Who knows my parents? I'm sure.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I do. Excellent.

[Ian Chambulak]: Is it my dad?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Probably. Yeah. From his time teaching at the college. Yeah.

[Ian Chambulak]: Excellent. Yes. Doctor. Chomby Lak, and I'm only Mr. Chomby.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, Chomby Lak, if you'd introduce yourself formally and I'd love to hear what you have to say.

[Ian Chambulak]: Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me here. This is my first time testifying, and obviously, see I'm on Zoom. I really appreciate the opportunity to testify remotely. I'm in my office at work today, but this opportunity means a lot to me. My

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: name

[Ian Chambulak]: is Ian Chambulak. I was, as we just identified, I was born and raised here in Vermont. I graduated from Middlebury Union High School 2008 and Middlebury College in 2012. And I earned my master's degree from UVM in 2017. Since then, I've spent the last nine years working as a high school counselor at Lemoyle Union High School in Hyde Park, Vermont. So a little up in the northern part of the state now. And I'm currently also serving on the board of directors for the Vermont School Counselor Association, which helps advocate for counselors across the state. So that's part of how I got this opportunity is VISCA is one of the co sponsors of Mental Health Day. And my in my role as a as an educator, it made the most sense for me to come here. Oh, that's the bill. Sorry. There might be some announcements now. We'll see. You might hear the overhead. Hopefully not. Fingers crossed. But yeah. So great to be here. I do believe that I carry with me a unique and valuable perspective on the mental health of Vermont adolescents. Oh, yeah. Here it is. It's it'll be quick. It's quick. Everybody remembers what high school is like. So, you know, because I was a Vermont teenager and now I work with Vermont teenagers, I think I've had a unique I have a unique perspective on the mental health of Vermont adolescents and and those of us who work to support their healthy development. So I will say that I did not particularly like growing up in Vermont, if I'm going to be honest. I grew up in a small town. It felt stifling at times. I was often bored. And when it came time for me to go to college, I wanted nothing more than to leave the state. That's what I wanted to do. A variety of forces conspired to keep me here for college. And thank God they did because it was those young adult years for me that I started to really fall in love with Vermont and realize how how great things are here. And I have never left since. I've just kept moving farther and farther north, but I have not left. And my adult life here in Vermont has become about supporting the next generation of Vermonters, their identity development and their search for the place their place in the world, which still for a lot of them, their hope is that their place in the world is not in Vermont. They want to spread their wings and fly. So what's interesting, I find, is that today's kids are growing up in a very different Vermont in a different world than I did, even though that wasn't that long ago that I was a Vermont teenager myself. Things are very different now. Boredom is a thing of the past. The proliferation of cell phones and social media has just made sure that there's no moment in time that's too short for us to want to fill it with some kind of digital stimulus. The social pressures of school follow our students home to their practices, to their jobs, anywhere that they can bring a phone. They can also bring a deluge of stress and anxiety. And I will say the technology has also helped them stay connected with each other. There are some positives, especially during the pandemic, but they did emerge from that crisis even more tethered to their devices than ever. And, yeah, the ease of communication and connection has come with a dark side, which is that it's a generation of teenagers who never really get to be alone with their own thoughts. So as a school counselor to nearly 200 students between the ages of 14 and 18, I bear witness to this. And I see that students are not only carrying more stress, but they're also equipped with fewer tools to manage their stress. The rise in anxiety has come hand in hand with diminished resilience to hitting those ups and downs and staying on your feet and moving forward. Our teenagers are just as funny and brilliant and creative and unique as they've ever been, but they're suffering and they need our help. So one reason I'm here is to thank you and applaud the Vermont legislature for its move to ban cell phones from our school buildings across the state. I can tell you right here now, in no uncertain terms, that has been a game changer at my school. The law took effect in January, but as a district, we started at the beginning of the school year with some new cell phone policies that has really reshaped the engagement and the school culture on my campus. The concerns that I was just talking about persist in a lot of ways because Rome is not unbuilt in a day. We've got some work to do, but it's been a huge start. The change has been stark and the results have been dramatic. It's the most engaged. And as my kids students would say, it's the most locked in that I've seen our school really since before the pandemic. But the work to support our schools and our students must continue and it's got to continue on a lot of different fronts. As there's committees debating the future of Vermont schools, and we're all operating with this feeling that the ground is shifting under our feet in ways that is hard to predict. Amidst all of that, we have educators that show up to work every day, and we do our best to provide as much consistency and routine as possible for the developing minds that are placed in our care. We do this amidst budget cuts, reductions in force, and the constant thrumming drumbeat of do more with less. When we ask our schools to do more with less, we must understand the ways in which our students are the ones who bear the brunt of that. Not only do they lose access to unique and robust learning opportunities, they also lose access to quality and comprehensive social emotional supports, not just school counselors, but also school social workers, clinicians, behavior specialists, and more. These positions are instrumental for the healthy functioning of a school building as they support students beyond the academic domain and help them develop skills to navigate their life at a time when their emotions are the most confusing. The ripple effect of budget squeezes is tremendous. When elementary schools reduce their support positions, students reach middle and high school with an underdeveloped sense of self and emotional vocabulary. When students struggle to process their emotions, they aren't able to focus on their academic development. When we aren't focused on academic development at our schools, we have to ask ourselves, what are we doing here? I give this testimony fully aware that we stand on uncertain ground when it comes to the future of education in Vermont. Educators across the state are waiting to find out if our governor and our secretary of education truly have our best interests at heart or if their plans for Vermont schools will lead to a further erosion of supports that are available to Vermont students. While we stand on uncertain ground, I am only here to ask the House Education Committee to wherever possible, stand with schools, stand with those of us offering critical supports to our most vulnerable students. And I just want to say thank you so much for your time in front of the committee, and I'm open to any questions that anybody might have.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. Thank you very much, Ian. You put a lot of the cause of some of the stuff you deal with on cell phones, social media, and all of that, We certainly got a good dose of that. Hearing that the cell phone ban is making a difference is incredibly heartening. Sometimes I feel like we ought to declare victory and get the heck out of here. But anyway, could you talk about some of the other pressures or problems that young people are facing as they try to get through a school day?

[Ian Chambulak]: Yeah, absolutely.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And how it's different than your time?

[Ian Chambulak]: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting, and that's a great question. And I could probably wax philosophic about that for the next hour, but I'll try to stay brief and within the purview of a committee like this. I see a huge difference in the level of resilience around discomfort. Think as I would consider myself very much part of the millennial generation. I think we had a hard time coming through school in our school experience, feeling like adults around us were not giving us the time of day to really feel our feelings and be anxious and feel depressed and have that be validated and acknowledged. And when we came into our professional lives, we made a lot of room for that for the next generation. We wanted the next generation to really be able to feel all that and be validated. I think that the COVID pandemic coming out of that, we are seeing a confluence of those issues coming together. There's been a lot of space in a good way for students to feel what they feel and to acknowledge that things are hard. But I feel that it's also come with a lowered level of resilience to be able to push through anxiety, to develop a healthy relationship with our anxiety, and to figure out the ways in which we can manage our anxiety rather than simply trying to get rid of our anxiety. So I think there's an existential element to that. We all

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: know that we live in

[Ian Chambulak]: a world where the future feels more uncertain. The political discourse and the cultural discourse, it feels very divisive. It feels very intense. There are a lot of really, really strong feelings. And there's, I would say, a feeling that students don't really know what their future looks like or what the future of our country looks like in a way that I think even ten or fifteen years ago, there were things that as adolescents we were growing up expecting, looking forward to in that American dream realm, right? I think students these days, they don't have quite as much certainty that that's something that they will have access to. You know, I think that obviously, we're talking about big things probably goes beyond the scope of the Vermont legislature to fix because it is not unique to Vermont. You know, I know I've talked with counselors from all over the country who are experiencing the same things. But I think when I think about things that can help, things that could help us at the school level, The first part of my testimony was very focused on the technology and the ways in which that has led to this culture of high intense anxiety. But I think the second half, I tried to bring it back to this idea of resourcing schools in a way that is not I don't want to say pinching pennies because I know that there's limited funds to go around. But it feels like sometimes, not necessarily just in Vermont, but in our culture, things like the military operate with a funding model that feels more like a blank check, whatever you need, we got you. And schools get what's left over. And I would love to see a paradigm shift where schools get what we need. You know, if we need an army of counselors marching into buildings to talk with students about the trauma that they've experienced coming through the last, you know, coming out of COVID, coming out of the pandemic, reentering society, then I think that's something schools should get to ask for. We find ourselves constantly trying to accomplish the same goals, but every year with less, every year with, you know, positions that have been cut. My district had to cut our diversity and equity inclusion specialists to get our budget through. So there are things that we're just losing because they feel like luxuries, but they're not luxuries. They're they're necessary components of helping students navigate kind of the new new landscape of mental health. That was a little bit of a rambling response to your question. I apologize. That's sometimes how my brain works. And I'm just trying to think if there's anything else that I that I had wanted to touch on. But that was a great question. If anybody has a follow-up.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Appreciate appreciate your answer. You know, somebody whose kids are not that much younger than you are, just to sort of hear your perspective, but also how it differs from kids today and what they're wrestling with. Very fascinating Actually,

[Ian Chambulak]: that jogged something loose for me. A huge difference that I feel between when I was in school and now is, and I'm saying this to my colleagues quite a lot, is that the compliance era of education is over. So when I was in school, I remember this very clearly. Actually, this did happen to me a couple of times. If I was out of class in the halls, laughing with my friends, somewhere that I was not supposed to be, and an adult teacher, counselor, whoever, it didn't matter. If it was an adult and they worked at the school and they found me and they said, hey, you need to be in class right now, I would go to class. Like, was like, okay, yeah, you're right. That's where I need to be and I would go. I think COVID, you know, when we pulled way back and kids were only in school for two days a week instead of five and things were happening remotely and because we had to, we got very flexible with certain things. It kind of pulled back this illusion of school that they are required to do this. This is just mandatory. It's obligatory. They kind of saw through the veil and that, you know, they sort of started calling our bluff. We're back in the buildings five days a week, and we've got kids out in the halls with, hey, you got to go to class. And the response, not from every kid, of course, we still have a lot of really school oriented students who are here to focus on their studies, but they're not as interested in just complying with our directives because we're adults and their kids. They're asking us questions like, why do I have to go to class? You know, I never would have asked that question when I was told you got to go to class. It was I was just assumed. And so it has been a challenge. But the response, I think, has actually been really positive. Because if the compliance era is over, and we can't just get kids to do what we want, because we're adults, and we're authority figures, we're telling them you got to do this, then the the implication there is that we actually have to build strong relationships with our students and give them educational experiences that are engaging and relevant to them that they actually want to engage with. So in the course of navigating how hard it is to not just be able to tell a kid what to do and have them do it, we have found creative solutions, where we've made school better. You know, that's sort of been the response. It's like, it make make school better. Make it be something that a kid doesn't feel like, is painful or horrible or something that they're just being forced to do, but actually something that relates to the future that they see for themselves, gives them skills that they are interested in acquiring. And when you build a relationship with a kid and you ask them to do something, chances are they're going to do that because they feel that relationship. They know this is a teacher who's asking them to do something that's going to better them rather than just because it's a hoop that they need to jump through. So the the rub there, though, too, is that building experiences like that requires more resources, not less. Right? So we want more classes and more class offerings that are actually going to grab kids, then we might need more teachers rather than fewer. You know, if we want more work based learning, we want kids out in the community doing internships, then we need more resources around transportation and work based learning coordinators and asking, you know, creating new positions to do that rather than adding those tasks to already existing positions. So I think the ask for educators to actually educate Vermont students is becoming more personalized, more flexible, more tailored to the unique student experience. And I think it it just makes logical sense that in order to be doing that, we need to be having we need we need more folks in the buildings rather than rather than less. So I just wanted to add that. I think it's a great question, though.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. Yeah. I got a couple of minutes left. Are there any other questions? Great. Appreciate your insight, Ian, and for taking

[Ian Chambulak]: Of time with us course. Thank you for your time. I I really appreciate it, and thank you for the for the work that you're doing.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you. We can probably just keep the same live for you. Everybody is cool. We're just going to continue on with our next bit of testimony. Speak, I think you are up. So our next round of testimony is really kind of the outcome of work done by the Human Rights Commission with recommendations for the legislature. Anyway, with that, the floor is yours.

[Big Hartman]: Thank you. Hi, for the record, I'm Big Hartman. I say and own pronouns. I'm the Executive Director and General Counsel at the State of Vermont Human Rights Commission. Really nice to see you all again. Thank you so much for giving me this time today. I'm going to let my technology work its way into being able to share my screen behind me, I assume, is where it will go. Assuming I'm using the right word.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Say again? Oh, there you go.

[Big Hartman]: Okay, awesome. Thank you so much.

[Ian Chambulak]: Okay,

[Big Hartman]: we're going to do technology. It's going to be so great. It's totally going to cooperate.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So far so good. I

[Big Hartman]: just want to get

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You just lost being host.

[Ian Chambulak]: I lost.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, that's you. Okay.

[Big Hartman]: So I get my full screen view here if I can before I share. There's too many things open. That's not going to work either. I'm so sorry.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's fine. We're well ahead of schedule. Take your time. Okay.

[Big Hartman]: Share. Hey. So I thought I would oh, my goodness. I thought I would start today.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: That's all right.

[Big Hartman]: Thank you. I do like to bring handouts for people, just in case you're all sick of looking at the So that's what I have, and I can give those to anyone who wants them when I'm leaving, or if you want to look at them while we're talking. But I wanted to give you all a bit of background and context about the work of the Human Rights Commission and our endeavor to create discrimination free schools in Vermont. It is state policy that all students are to be free of discrimination and harassment in Vermont schools. And this is an issue that the Human Rights Commission has been involved with basically since its inception about thirty eight years ago. And what we're finding, unfortunately, on the big picture is that this was especially racial harassment was identified as a very serious problem that needed a lot of attention and resources as long ago as 1999. And a lot of the recommendations from a US committee that was looking at the issues then, lot of the recommendations that they had then about how to address that problem are still things that have not been achieved yet. And so I want to give you some context about what we're doing in our office in recent years. I've been at the Human Rights Commission for four and a half years. I started as a staff attorney investigator doing investigations, including school based discrimination complaint investigations. And I've been executive director for two and a half years now. And I'm going to go through slides, but I really welcome questions as I'm moving along here. So I just want to give you a quick agenda of where I'm going to go today. I'm going to start just sharing with you about the Human Rights Commission and giving you a statutory overview of what statutes we enforce that pertain to schools, and then give you a better picture of what our school based complaints look like and the types of things that we have investigated and the discrimination that we have discovered. And I want to talk to you about what we're doing on the prevention side. I have been actively engaging in trainings with school staff in order to try to address problems that we've identified in schools and try to start to get ahead of the issues. We're getting really good feedback about that, and I want to talk more about the potential there. And then I will be closing with a discussion of some of the recommendations that came out of the twenty twenty five Civil Rights Summit that our office hosted in November, which was really a community effort bringing together advocates and community organizers and community members to strategize together about what we can do to really shore up and strengthen our civil rights protections here at the state level, recognizing that at the federal level, civil rights, particularly civil rights enforcement, has been drastically deprioritized in the past year. And really, state law is where the front lines of civil rights work is going to be happening for the foreseeable future.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Okay?

[Big Hartman]: So as I am not sure you're aware, the mission of our office is to promote full civil and human rights in Vermont. We are an independent state agency, and we primarily are engaged in investigating complaints, helping to resolve complaints that are filed with our office, filing lawsuits when needed to enforce our statutes, educating the public, and doing what I'm doing right now, advising policymakers on the effectiveness of our current anti discrimination laws. So when we look at our school cases, the HRC has three buckets of jurisdiction. One is fair housing. One is state employee discrimination. And the third area is public accommodations. And schools are included as a place of public accommodation in which all people have a right to be free of discrimination. And so we end up using our Title IX of the Vermont Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act to enforce provisions within Title 16 about harassment. And as you're probably aware, there's a model HHB, hazing, harassment, and bullying policy and procedures, and our agency is listed as the one to receive complaints of harassment. I wanted to give you just a quick overview of what the HRC complaint process looks like. We do have to heavily vet complaints. We do not accept all the complaints that come into our office simply because we have a small team of nine employees, and there are way more complaints than we could possibly accept. We do prioritize school enforcement, school anti discrimination protections, as a strategic priority for enforcement, recognizing, especially nowadays, that US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights is really no longer engaged in enforcing civil rights in schools and has pulled back, greatly cut their resources in their office and their staffing, and also kind of change their direction altogether on what civil rights they're going to be enforcing and for whom. So we are really kind of the only line of action that families have when they feel that they've been discriminated against. Of course, people do not have to come to the HRC to enforce their right to be free of discrimination. They can file directly in court. But the reality is there's a very, very small pool of attorneys who represent complainants in discrimination cases. And the reason we have state agencies across the country that enforce our anti discrimination protections is because otherwise, there would really be no civil rights case law, because individuals who experience discrimination are not likely to have the means or the resources or the capacity to file lawsuits themselves. So we conduct, for cases that we

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Is it fair to say it usually reaches your level after things have been unable to be resolved at a more local level? Or does it often come directly to you before attempts at fixing it at a local level fail?

[Big Hartman]: People call us as an absolute last resort. In my experience, sometimes they're calling us way later than they could have, And they have tried everything at the local level. They've tried getting some relief through the agency of education. They have tried going to their school board. They have talked to the superintendent many times. They have tried everything and really genuinely don't know where else to turn. Yeah. So for the complaints that we do accept for investigation, they are assigned a neutral investigator. We have now, as of this year, we have four full time staff attorney investigators who are conducting all of our investigations statewide. They do not represent either party in the case. And that's really important. A lot of people are calling our office like, I need a lawyer to represent me against the school. That's not what we do. We are a neutral investigative agency. So we're trying to see if discrimination happened. And we do that by giving both parties a full chance to share with us their documents, to provide testimony with us. We do extensive investigations. The school cases tend to be some of our more complicated investigations and complaints and generally take, on average, around two years to complete the investigation. So it's by no means an instant solution for anyone. And that's why I think there's a lot of folks that never bother coming to our office because they want the problem resolved now while their child is in school. And our process is just simply not set up for that. But sometimes, an investigation can be finished early because we're able to facilitate what we call conciliation. We're like this neutral go between for the parties. And we might be able to see if there's a resolution we can help the parties reach so that we don't have to complete an investigation, and they can move forward to solve the problem together. That's a great outcome. We rarely see that happen in the school cases that we have, though. And most likely, they will conclude with an investigative report where our investigator summarizes their investigation and does a legal analysis with a recommendation for our commissioners about whether or not our staff believe that there's reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. We have five commissioners who are appointed by the governor. They serve five year terms. As you probably know, Kevin Coach Christie is our chair and has been the chair for many years. For cases that we find there are no reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, that's the end of our process. The parties have the benefit of access to our investigative file. They may still want to pursue an action in court, and they have the ability to do that. But our office is done with it. And that complaint will remain confidential by law. So the existence of the complaint, the outcome of it, is not something that our office can disclose as a matter of public record. But if the case finds reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, that finding is a matter of public record, and we are still actively involved in the case, our statute our statute allows a six month period in which we are actively involved in trying to settle the matter. And if we aren't successful at a settlement at that point, we have the ability to pursue an enforcement action in court where the Human Rights Commission is the plaintiff against, in these kinds of cases, against the supervisory union or the school district and the individual school. But we are not representing the complainants in those cases. They are what's called the aggrieved party. They have the ability to get damages. But we advocating on the public interest's behalf. Okay? So that's the overview of our process.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: How often does it get to that level where you are having to take action on it? Has it gotten to that level? And how often does it get to that level?

[Big Hartman]: Great question. As the HRC has expanded its capacity, in fiscal year 'twenty four, we were given an additional position that was a litigator position. So that enabled us to handle in house much more litigation than historically we've been able to do. Mostly, it had been maybe one or two outside contracts with law firms, or the executive director would be the one handling a lawsuit while also doing all the other things that the executive director does. Since we've had a full time litigator, senior counsel, Mitch Robert, who's here in the room, who we hired in 2023, right now, as we sit here, we have about 15 cases filed in court right now. It vacillates somewhere between fifteen and twenty. And many of those are housing cases, but we have had a growing body of school cases. We have not had one go to trial yet, which I think is a good outcome. Trial is traumatizing and does not always yield the truth. If we are able to solve the problem through a settlement, that's something that we're very happy to do, and we're gaining more and more experience at that level.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: As you were walking through the process here, you said that school cases rarely sort of work themselves out even within your process. Is that due to a fear of liability or outright stubbornness?

[Big Hartman]: Can't say what's motivating the parties for not settling cases. I do think that often the families are very scarred by what they have gone through, and it's hard for them to stomach it not getting a full investigation. They want to tell their story. They want to see what can be discovered through an investigation, and that's why they're coming to our process. I think that's a part of it. And then sometimes because of the harm that they've experienced, their settlement requests may seem quite high to the school, who often feels that they did nothing wrong and they did everything they could. I do think it's often just a very different point of view happening.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Can I speak to that

[Big Hartman]: and maybe I can make

[Kate McCann (Member)]: it a question too? I approached this year and was told that, yeah, like we because I went to an administration and said, my student has said that this really racist thing happened to her. And what I was told was that, yeah, it may have, but we can't give you or the student any information because the student that carried that out is protected by FERPA. So you're just gonna have to trust us that maybe we did find something, but we can't tell you what we did. And it's really the legislature that needs to take care of that. That's what I was told. So I don't know where that fits into all of this.

[Big Hartman]: I mean, I think you're really naming one of the serious problems with the status quo, which is that even when schools do take action to address harassing conduct or bullying, they generally are not at liberty to discuss that action with the parents of the other student, the victim. Right, but

[Kate McCann (Member)]: it leaves victims with having no idea if it was resolved.

[Ian Chambulak]: That's

[Big Hartman]: right. Absolutely. And the schools are often kind of stuck in this place because of FERPA, which is a federal law. Yeah. They're stuck in this place of saying, trust us. We took action. And that's not always going to lie well. And then when incidents accumulate and things keep happening, it's like, well, I don't believe that you did anything. And one of the good outcomes that can happen through our process is that because we collect an investigative file, even though a lot of the student data is redacted, the family that's the complainant does have access to that file. And that is when they sometimes find things out that happened, that the action that the school did take behind the scenes, that they would never have known about if there wasn't our investigation process. So there's not identifying information, but they usually know who we're talking about and who they can put together. And sometimes that helps them get a better picture of things that the school did that they didn't know about. Other times, it confirms their feeling that they didn't do enough, and that's why it happened again.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: So can I turn that into a button now?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That was a great question anyway. Go ahead.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: So my question is, are there changes we could make in statute that would make it so that healing process could actually take place and we could be a little more transparent about if someone is found to have engaged in racist behavior that we find out that that was taken care of. Are there things that we as a committee can pass that would fix that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think we probably have a federal state issue, but go ahead.

[Big Hartman]: I mean, under FERPA, it does seem like there is an avenue for a state law to be passed to at least make clear that some student records can be disclosed to an investigating agency like us. And we are not yet identified in Vermont state law as an agency. So we do struggle with limited disclosures from schools when we're getting all this redacted information student A, student B, student C. It hampers our investigation to not get that student information. That would be one place. There is a slight exception in the HHB procedures that says that schools can share action they took against a student who was found to have engaged in HHB if the parent or caregiver of that student authorizes that disclosure. I have not seen a case where that authorization has been given, but it is supposed to be something that conceivably would enable a school to share the information if they get the permission from the student's guardian. But I haven't heard of that happening, but the cases that we have are usually the worst ones. But I really see that. And I see it with teachers as well. Teachers want to know what happened. I filed this report. What happened to that kid who said that thing in my classroom? And they often aren't told. And then they feel like, is the school looking out for this other child in my classroom? It's really a tough situation. And I'm not aware of a way to around FERPA other than to designate at least our investigative agency as an authority to whom schools can disclose student confidential information. And we could still create a mechanism where we maintain that confidentiality so that the complainants didn't have access to that student record that would otherwise be confidential. Okay. So we're already touching on some of the struggles with these cases that I think everyone involved struggles with, like all sides. There we go. We're moving forward. So outside of the realm of complaints, I wanted to lay out some of the other ways that the HRC has been involved in school related work. So I've outlined for you here a variety of policy work that we've done. This is not going all the way back to at least 1999, when we know there was a finding around racism as a pervasive problem in Vermont schools, and recommendation that the Human Rights Commission and the Agency of Education receive increased resources to be able to do prevention work. And then we've been a designated member of the HHB Advisory Council since it was created. We've been actively involved in the Act I Working Group and the Working Group on Student Protections Against Harassment and Discrimination from 2023. And then we've also been trying to work at the community level because we really hear from students. We hear from parents. We hear from community advocates all the time about how badly state level leadership is needed to address the issues that we're talking about in these cases. The prevalence of especially racist harassment in schools is deeply concerning as a persistent problem that's been here for decades. And increasingly, we're seeing other types of harassment. Sexual harassment is on the rise across the country in all areas, as well as harassment of trans and queer kids in Vermont is also on the rise. So we're trying to engage more with the community and with the organizations that are working with those marginalized families and children to get more information out to them and help them know what the process is supposed to look like for HHB issues.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Is there a room in this process or in HRC to investigate and in some ways protect teachers, or is this only students and families?

[Big Hartman]: So teachers who may be experiencing harassment?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: By students or other teachers.

[Big Hartman]: So that would be an employment situation. And so the workplace harassment prevention programs that are in place for the workplace would be the avenue. I do think that these types of that the HHB policy and procedure do address when staff is perpetrating harassment, but it is not meant to address teachers being protected from it directly. It's really about students. HRC has been on the training side, HRC has been a really important player for at least twenty years in the records I can find at my office, providing education for school teams about how to respond to harassment incidents. In the early days, I think we were also training a lot of the folks who were doing the HHB investigations. And since I've become director, because I have a background in harassment prevention and I love doing trainings, I've amped up our training offerings and done a number of trainings that I'll talk more about for all staff of a school district or a school, as trying to get ahead of the problem. Because we really want to get to a world where we don't have all these school complaints coming in our door all the time. And we do see a lot of the problems that we're finding in our investigation could have been prevented with better education earlier on in the process.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Related to the community engagement, or it needs training, do you ever work with school organizations that are parent organizations and provide training for folks at home? Because we all know a lot behaviors begin very early at home. And you talked about prevention and to prevent this.

[Big Hartman]: Yeah. I think the trainings that I've done for parents, I've done one with the Family Network. And I've done one with Outright that was geared towards parents and caregivers of LGBTQ plus youth. So those are more in the nature of like a know your rights. It's not necessarily how to address these issues with your child so that they are not a perpetrator. But it's what to do, what their rights are, and what to do if something happens that is discriminatory.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Got it. Thank you.

[Big Hartman]: So that's an overview of our work. And I wanted to just go a little bit ways into what are we talking about when we're talking about school based discrimination and harassment. The next set of slides are really drawn right out of the latest training that I offered to a school district just last week. But big picture, what is school based discrimination? It's basically any time that you're treated differently, less favorably, because of your membership in a legally protected class. And it can also be because of your family members' membership in a legally protected class. And here, you'll see the laundry list of legally protected classes. I want to note that immigration status and citizenship were just added to this list last legislative session. I do think that there's a need to update the harassment statute to include those two new legally protected categories that are not listed yet in Title 16. So we'll look at that slide next. But generally, I will say claims that are brought to our office are typically going to allege either disparate treatment, meaning I, individual student, was treated differently than other students who are not like me. And I think it's because of my membership in a legally protected class. Or harassment, which we'll talk about next. And then there's a third theory of liability that's disparate impact. This is where you have a facially neutral policy or practice that may have a disparate impact on members of a protected class. This is where we're looking often at racial disparities, like in discipline. We don't have a lot of these types of claims in our office. And if we did, we would need a lot bigger staff. There's a lot of data there. There's a lot of research needed for that. And I think organizations like ACLU are hopefully a little bit more equipped to address some of those kind of disparate impact, big picture things. But we sure would like to be taking a look at those issues. We know that racial disparities exist. We just don't always have the capacity to address it school by school. So harassment is one form of discrimination. And this is the legal definition that's laid out in Title 16, mostly quoted, slightly paraphrased for simplicity. When I do trainings, I'm trying to give people plain language understanding of things. And these statutes are all written very legalese, technical, tough to understand. So I break it down into sections. I'm not going to read this out for you. But in addition to having this definition in the statute, there's also a definition of racial harassment and sexual harassment and harassment based on other legally protected categories. And it has a laundry list of things like slurs and racial epithets and examples of things that can constitute harassment. This is where we would need to, in this definition section of harassment, this is where we would need to add the two new legally protected categories. They are all listed out except for these two new ones. The majority of our school cases involve harassment allegations and only a small segment of them are this disparate treatment, like I was treated differently. Many, though, can involve both. A lot of times, we're hearing from families, my child was subjected to harassment. And then I think that the way that the school went about dealing with it, they treated other kids better when they got in trouble for stuff than my kid when they got in trouble for stuff, and or other ways that parents can feel that their child was not treated fairly. And then the big question, how do schools become liable for harassment? And this is very clearly laid out in statute. This statutory section five seventy came out largely of case law. And basically, then the case law was codified in state law. And so I want to be really clear. All of these elements need to be shown. So a harassment claim against a school so a harassment claim is never brought against an individual. It's brought against the place public accommodation. So it's typically the school and the school district or supervisor union. It can only succeed if all of these elements can be shown. First, that the student was subjected to harassment, as that legal definition we just looked at. Two, that the harassment was so severe or so pervasive that it substantially and adversely affected the students' equal access to educational opportunities or benefits provided by the educational institution. Again, one of these really highly technical concepts that I think it's tough for parents, it's tough for administrators and students to understand what does that even mean. And I want to also remind you that the severe or pervasive standard for teachers in the workplace who are protected from harassment is not severe or pervasive. That is not a requirement for any other harassment claim under state law. It only persists for these school cases. And then the school will also obviously have to have notice of the harassment. And then this is really the element that we see our cases come down on, that the school, where our analysis this is where people are butting heads about whether or not the school failed to take prompt and appropriate remedial action reasonably calculated to stop the harassment. And so I'm going to lay out for you some of the things that we've seen schools commonly doing wrong, which may inform our decision about whether or not we believe they failed to take that prompt and appropriate remedial action. But before I go on to that, I just want to go back to that substantial and adverse effect. We rarely, in our analysis, are getting hung up on that point. Because when these kids are coming to us, they have often already had very serious mental health crisis occur because of what they've gone through. They've often withdrawn from school activities. They're struggling socially. They don't want to go to school anymore, where they started off loving school. The parents are only contacting us because they are feeling like, I'm losing my kid here, and they're scared. Now, we haven't had courts yet in Vermont interpret this language. And that's where a lot of us are anxious that a court will impose a very high burden on a family to show that this element has been satisfied. So now you've got to go get your kid's psychiatrist in. You've got to get medical experts to prove this substantial impairment to their access to school? And are we going to start having expert testimony on whether the child did have access, but it was a choice not to go to school anymore? It's hard to see how this is going to play out. And it's very concerning to us. But generally, the cases that we accept for investigation, I hear enough in the intake meeting to know moving forward. And it often comes down to whether or not the school did enough to address the issue once they had notice of it. So some common pitfalls that we see in schools. First off, staff often are witnessing or hearing about HHB conduct, and they're failing to identify that that's what it was, and then failing to document or properly report that conduct. The HHB policy and procedures lay out a very clear protocol. Supposed to fill out a student conduct form if you witness conduct or hear of conduct that may constitute harassment or bullying. And I think a lot of time, teachers are misinformed about that or other staff. We're talking about the lunchroom, the recess, the after school activities. These folks think like, I need to know it was definitely harassment before I need to report it. And this is something I'm stressing in my trainings, and I'm seeing light bulbs go off that are very alarming to me, because I would have wanted folks to know that when they first started. Then we also see administrators make a decision not to investigate harassment or reports where they say, Oh, well, just do the investigation process that's required by the HHV procedures. The procedures require that you inform parents of any kids involved that there's an investigation going on. We see schools miss that step quite a bit. That information is also about, if you are not satisfied with our outcome here, you can appeal that through this various process, including contacting the Human Rights Commission. And we have folks who have had many incidents of HHB investigated, and they were never told that the was an avenue that they could have gone until they found out randomly by searching on the internet or talking to someone in their community. We also see that staff do not always intervene when they witness harassment. So that's a piece we, again, feel like there's opportunity for professional development and training around that. Safety plans are supposed to be a tool, both during an HHB investigation and after, to ensure that children that may be targeted are still able to carry on with school in a safe way. We see safety plans either just be not used, or if they are used, they're not really carried out so that the adults around this child who has a safety plan don't know that there's a safety plan. They don't know what the safety plan says. They don't know if the safety plan is going or when it ends. There's just not a lot of tracking of that issue, and incidents occur. Then we've seen administrators This is a tough one to witness, that administrators fail to substantiate incidents when there's not a separate witness. So a child will say, he called me the N word. The student accused of that will say, no, I didn't, which I have a kid. They never did anything. And then because there's not some third party who can tell the administrator, yeah, I saw it happen, the report is not taken as substantiated. And so action is not taken about that. And this is very common and deeply disturbing to me that we often train administrators to make sure there's another white person who heard it to verify that it happened. And this is really problematic, that we are not taking these kids' word for it. And then we're going on as if, well, it's not substantiated, so we can't do anything. And that kid is still living with that. That kid is still carrying that around every day in school.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that's a really challenging situation, I would imagine, for an administrator, because it is a they said, they said What is your advice to them to move beyond that?

[Big Hartman]: Yeah, I think you can sometimes gauge the credibility of these kiddos. We have had situations where the child has made one report after another, has never been found to be dishonest in school in any way. There's no reason to question the credibility of the report. And my recommendation would be, even if you don't think you can substantiate it enough to impose discipline, discipline isn't always going to be the solution anyway. Keep your focus on the student who reported harm occurring to him and take action to protect him. That's my recommendation. Do a safety plan. If this kid is saying, I got to sit next to him in math class every day after he did this to me, Well, maybe we could separate these kids. Maybe we could figure out another way to make the environment safer. We can have check ins with that kiddo. We can see who is their trusted adult. Where is the place that they're safe in that building? And really coalesce around ensuring safety for that child. I think so often, focus of the conversation is the kid who did the bad thing, what discipline are we imposing on them? And that's really never, I don't think, going to solve the problem of the child that's been harmed. And so this is another one of the pitfalls I've identified here is that incidents will accumulate without a holistic approach from the point of view of the child. These kids often went to elementary school with these kids. They've been subjected to comments throughout. Then they're in middle school, new administrators. None of that information is often carrying over that there's already been incidents with this other group of kids. Middle school is the worst. And then they go to high school, and it keeps happening. And this whole child's future is impacted. And their ability to learn and their ability to see themselves moving forward in life is impacted by this accumulation of events. And you've got different administrators dealing with each incident one at a time. This student was a problem in this one. Oh, this other student was a problem in the next incident. And then two years went by, nothing happened. So they should have been fine by then. But we're now looking at it from the point of view of the child who experienced those incidents and how it's in my what I've observed is that it hangs on them. It hangs on them for a long time, because that's not the only place that these incidents are happening.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We've all been kids, and one comment can hang. Right,

[Big Hartman]: exactly. And then when it's about a characteristic of yours that is already targeted in other ways, it's magnified for sure. So I wanted to share with you some of the trends that I've noticed in cases coming our way. In general, school complaints are increasing in frequency and severity. We're seeing them more commonly in the rural districts out there. Most of the complaints are race based, but we are seeing more and more involving disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, sex and national origin. Many cases involve a series of events that have happened, not just one. And it's often some kind of electronic something that happened over the computer or the phone and social media, coupled with some other in school conduct. And increasingly, we're hearing these horrific reports of there being a physical assault coupled with hate speech. So really tough stuff. And then I just want to share some of the patterns that I've observed for these families that are going through this. Often, the student who is the complainant is one of the only kids like them at this point. We know that students of color will go through elementary school being the only child of their racial identity and feel that. And then that the harassment often has taken place for more than a year, spanning more than one school year. The parents and caregivers who come to our office have advocated extensively and feel like they've tried everything. We are the last place they want to go, honestly, and we're their last resort. The student experiences, as I said, a significant noticeable decline in mental health. And then there tends to be some kind of what I call the last straw incident, something that leads the parents to suddenly take drastic action, including very commonly just pulling their kid from the school in order to keep them safe. So we're seeing parents leave the state, homeschool, private school, if they can afford it, change schools and drive their kid across the school district to the next school district over just to get them away from the situation and the administrators that they felt were not able to protect their child. And as I described in the pitfalls slide last, there's these basic HHB procedures that we're seeing not being followed, inadequate and ineffective use of a safety plan. And all too often, are not getting live in person training about harassment prevention. They're getting a slide deck at the beginning of the year, along with everything else that they're supposed to be doing at the beginning of the school year.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That's exactly what we're getting.

[Big Hartman]: And the live trainings that I've done, people are like, thank you so much. We've been this was so helpful. We usually just get these slides and no one can really have time to address those issues really thoughtfully. I wanted to give you a few examples of recent cases that have found reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. And these are gross generalizations of a long series of events. But for example, a Black student being subjected to multiple instances of overt racism in his school, where he was one of the only Black students in his grade, including remarks about the color of his skin, the shape of his body, the fact that he had white family members, comments being made in the classroom, and persistent use of the n word against him. In those instances, no HHB investigation was done, no safety plan was put in place, and the conduct kept happening. In another case, a Black student in elementary school was called the N word while being physically assaulted by a group of students in the playground during recess. He had reported being subjected to that word many, many times before. He had reported that other students were telling him that other kids had called him the N word. And yet, the people he reported that to, who were administrators, did not do proper investigation or implement an actually effective safety plan. These stories go on. In another case, a female student who did not identify as gay was repeatedly called gay and called a lesbian, among other associated terms. And this included name calling, ongoing remarks about it, threatening conduct, physically threatening in graffiti, in the bathroom. While the school did no HHB investigation or implemented a safety plan, that conduct continued. That student suffered severe mental harm from that incident and is no longer able to participate in public school. In another case, a female student was sexually groped by a male student who was in her class. And then the school investigation took more than six months, during which time she was made to be in the same class with that student, and another incident occurred. So these are just some stories to try to help you paint a picture of what these cases look like for us. And I know that in speaking with the families, a lot of these parents end up becoming these advocates. It's like a full time job of doing this advocacy for their children. And many would appreciate I know that they appreciate that there's a state agency that cares about these issues and is looking into it. And I know that they would appreciate an opportunity to share their stories further in this building. So moving forward, I just wanted to give you a summary of our recent complaint activity. And just keeping in mind that in any discrimination complaint, the way that all of us across the country who are doing this work look at complaints that come in is that for every complaint that we hear, you got to assume there's five to 10 people who are not bothering coming to us at all. They don't believe in the system. They don't want to be here for years. They just want to move on with their lives. It's too painful. It's too much labor. And we're never going to hear about that. So to me, this is really representative of a much bigger problem. These are the folks who have invested a huge amount of their time and their life in our process. So in the last four years, HRC has completed 13 investigations against schools. And nine of those included harassment allegations. In nine of the 13 investigations, we found reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred. This is a much higher percentage of reasonable ground cases than our other types of cases, where it's somewhere between 4060%. Two cases out of the 13, we actually had a determination that there were not reasonable grounds to believe that discrimination occurred, either because the student had not the family had not given enough notice to the school about what had happened, or more often because the school had done the right thing with the information available to them. But in two cases, we never got to a determination and there was a settlement before the investigation was complete. And then on top of those investigations, right now, as we sit here today, we have 16 open school based complaints under investigation. 13 of those are including harassment allegations. And just to put that in context, we have four investigators. That's one quarter of all of our cases right now is school cases, As if there's not a whole lot of fair housing violations happening, this is how serious we are taking it and how serious a problem is in the state. We do have one case that is currently filed in court and two other cases that we filed in court recently settled for a combined settlement of $250,000 And that settlement also included some training requirements for the entire school district and reporting requirements so that there would be a centralized reporting system in place that we would have the ability to monitor and enforce. So that sums up what I wanted to say about our complaint work. I thought an hour was a lot of time. But as you can see, I have a lot to say on this issue, and it's something that we devote a lot of time and energy into looking at. So before I move on, I'm going to talk about our trainings next. I just want to see if there was any questions about our complaints. So like I said, I've been revamping our offerings for harassment prevention work. And in the past three years, I've offered five live in person trainings for school based staff. These have been very large team training sessions on their in service days. Two were for district staff. One was just for administrators and equity coordinators. That was like a full day. And these are the rank and file employees. I also encourage the administrators to bring the non educator staff that are in the building and might be witnesses. They have the same obligations as teachers to report harassment and bullying. So it's important that they attend the training as well. And then I've already outlined for you some of the other workshops that I've done as know your rights type work. And then one of the handouts I brought today, in case anyone wanted it, was we did partner this year with Outright Vermont, and we made this handy dandy Know Your Rights Guide. This is for parents and caregivers of LGBTQ plus kids. And it's got an overview of all of our anti discrimination protections and some additional stuff just about schools. So if folks want this, should I pass it around? Or do you want me to just leave it here and you can take some?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just leave it right there. Great.

[Big Hartman]: And this is a list of the general topics that I try to cover, an overview of the law and what is harassment and bullying, what reporting requirements are, an overview of those slides that we just saw about what HRC complaints really look like in real life, the problem of racism in school, trying more and more to get more curriculum out about ableism, just recognizing that it's an ism that isn't really talked about enough. And students with disabilities make up about twenty five percent of all students. And it's a really important topic right now, talking about what do we need to do for our trans and gender nonconforming students. I try to always spend a dedicated amount of time talking about bystander intervention strategies. This is what you do in the moment when you see or hear something that could cause harm. And what I see is that staff are really hungry for these kinds of tools, And they don't want I'm doing maybe thirty minutes talking about it. They want to have breakout sessions on this. They want to do role playing. We haven't had the capacity to offer that yet. But it is something that we hope we'll be able to find a way to ensure staff that we do this kind of preliminary training for can then dive deep together in small groups to play out scenarios. We're all going to be learning along the way here about how best to protect our students. And then when there's time and when I'm working more with administrators, I'm interested in doing kind of big picture best practices for prevention. Just some of the observations I've made about HRC, about the trainings that we've offered so far. Routinely, there's a critical mass of attendees who do not know where their student conduct form is or how to submit it, and didn't know that they were actually required anytime something happens that might be HHB to report that. They thought they needed to know for sure it was definitely harassment before filling out the form. And we talked about that confidentiality piece. I hear educators, too, really expressing frustration that it's not a transparent investigation process. The outcomes are not transparent to them. They don't know whether their kiddos are really safe. Then they're often not informed about safety plans. And generally, when they get my training, I'm the first person who's come and talk to them live in person at a professional development session about these issues. And you can see there's, in my experience, they're really hungry for more information. They're like, thank you so much. When can you come back? And I'm like, I got nothing to do. And my hope is always to give resources and tools and connect those administrators who are passionate about these issues with the other experts in Vermont who can come and do more small group work. In general, they've been really well received, and I genuinely wish I could go into every school this year and do this. Unfortunately, I'm busy overseeing 100 intake cases and 100 active files that are either in litigation or under investigation, in addition to coming here and doing all of the legislative and policy work that needs to happen for advancing civil rights in Vermont. It's really a resource problem. As I'm sure you all hear about the resource struggles at the schools, our office has been historically under resourced on especially being able to get ahead of issues. We're responding responding to discrimination. We're not getting ahead of it by prevention work enough. So one of the things we wanted to do and to bring me to the actual topic that I wanted to come here and talk about. I mean, really wanted to give you all of this context whenever I can get in front of an education committee. I want to tell you all of these things. And I also want you to know that in November, we organized a three day civil rights summit in Randolph. We had over 300 people participating. We had two goals. One, let's bring community members and advocates together, because there's a lot of doom and gloom in the news right now. And people really need to know that the capital S state of Vermont is doing something to ensure civil rights protections are still solid here. And we wanted to get the subject matter experts together to discuss strategies for strengthening our civil rights here in Vermont. We covered a broad range of topics, and one of them was an extremely well attended panel on education equity. That was called Principles Our Responsibility for Equity and Justice in Vermont Schools. This was the description blurb for the panel. And here were the folks who attended, who were the panelists at this event. We also had invited and had planned to have a student from the Vermont Student Against Racism Network, which is a really important student led initiative. Unfortunately, that student ended up being sick that day and couldn't make it. But this is just a reflection of a very small segment of a large community of advocates who are mobilizing around this issue. And students are really upset about it, too. And so this was just the tip of the iceberg. You can go on our website, and there's QR codes and links in the pages about the education equity recommendations. You can watch the entire eighty minute conversation that unfolded there in November. And it was really about finding what are the frontline civil rights defenders saying that is needed now. And they came up with five recommendations. One is to ensure effective statewide harassment prevention programs, training, and tools. So while the Agency of Education has some role in this, we also see that when there's a gap in that information getting out there in the prevention, training, and tools, AOE isn't going around doing trainings for schools. No one is except these small nonprofit organizations and consultants and us. So we really feel there's something significant about the state of Vermont Capital S being the one offering this information and these prevention strategies. So this is why I have chosen, as director, to make this a priority in doing these trainings, because there's a real void of information for the folks who are really the rank and file staff who are seeing these issues unfold in schools every day. And then there's a real lack of public data about HHB. How many incidents are happening? How many race based incidents are happening in schools? We're never going to be able to measure our success on these issues if we aren't measuring the scope of the problem now. And while the agency of education does have some requirements for schools to report that information, we don't find that information is at all publicly available. And even when you make a public records request for it, it's very difficult to use the data meaningfully. It's not disaggregated. We don't know where these incidents are happening. We don't know what action is taken to address them. And it's going to really hamper our ability to study the problem and study any progress or lack of progress that may be happening moving forward. There's also been years and years of work in developing education quality standards that reflect the ethnic studies standards framework that was developed over many years through the ACT one working group. Those are now incorporated into the education quality standards, but there's been no guidance for schools about how to roll those out in the curriculum or in building culture in the schools where it's not tolerable to have harassment occur at all. It's really about a wider scale culture and prevention effort that is lacking leadership from the state. So some schools are incorporating curriculum, but they're all kind of doing it themselves. And there's some webs of equity coordinators and folks who are passionate about this in the schools trying to coordinate amongst themselves and share tools and things. But really, these folks are in desperate need for leadership and guidance on how to do better. And they want to. But there's really not a lot of support given to them for that. I talked already about our concerns about the severe or pervasive standard in harassment. We are not going to stop talking about this, even though I know it has in prior sessions, it's still a problem in the statute. And we see it presenting some serious challenges for folks when we're not able to settle the case and it's time to go to trial. There's a lot of risk involved in what judges are going to do with making families prove that the conduct was so severe or pervasive that it substantially impaired the child's access to education.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Do you think the reason that that has been eliminated everywhere but schools is because in schools, both parties are minors? Or do you have any idea why school is the last place it hasn't been removed?

[Big Hartman]: Well, I think it's a policy compromise. That's the reason. But in the workplace, you're up there and in fair housing, where we've already eliminated the severe or pervasive standard and in other places of public accommodation, you're generally often not bringing the case against the person who did the harassment. Your coworker can harass you. But if your employer fails to take action, you have the claim against your employer. You don't have a claim against your coworker. So I don't know that that's necessarily enough of an explanation for me of why

[Kate McCann (Member)]: it's I wasn't changed. I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's barrier. We

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: had testimony last year and felt like checking it out. A lot of it has to do with the fear of really amping up the amount of HHP work required of schools from the current level. Yeah. And already their inability to keep up with what they're trying to keep up with.

[Big Hartman]: My recollection was that it was two years ago, it was in the prior-

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It was, we did not talk about it last

[Big Hartman]: Yeah, it was not even brought into the fold last year. And I think that there are a lot of parents, especially, and students that have a lot to say about that. And then the final recommendation is about an issue that you could take action on this year. As you recall, I testified to you at the end of last session about H-one 130. This is the bill to expand both representation and role of the HHB Advisory Council. I've been serving on that since it came back into existence last spring. It has been a challenging council to be a part of. The last two meetings that we had, we did not have forum. And so no meeting even occurred. I think this is because there is a very small group of folks on the council. And our role isn't totally well defined in the statute as it's written. And I think that there is a role to play here for the community to be advising the agency about how to do this prevention work better. But so far, those meetings have mostly been the agency telling the council the latest that they're doing without really getting much input. We did have a role in talking with the agency about their proposed changes to the current hhb policy and procedure. I don't know where that stands right now, because we haven't had any updates but supposedly it was supposed to be finalized in January, rolled out a draft in May, They did not invite the HHB Council to have any special input. They invited us to participate in a survey that they gave to the public. Of course, I needed more time than a little three question survey to provide my feedback. If anyone's interested in that, I'd be happy to share it with the committee. It's also on the Human Rights Commission website. But we had some very grave concerns about the draft changes. And now we don't know where they stand at all. As the agency has been going through this reorg, and they've had a lot of staff turnover, it's been really hard to see how they can hold down leadership on these issues very effectively. I just want to also, before I leave, name a lot of folks are involved in these recommendations and in looking at these issues and are really the subject matter experts on what's happening in the schools and what could be happening. I can only speak to primarily these legal complaints. But we want to get into a world where we're not having anyone have to think about, do I have a lawsuit to file? That's our goal. And we have a lot of partners in this work. There are the individuals who are education experts and consultants that have been working on equity issues for many years throughout the state. And then there's a lot of organizations that have a role and a voice here that I encourage you to hear from if you're thinking about taking more action on these issues. The NAACP is really one of the only advocate organizations working directly with families trying to get kids what they need in our schools today. We also see organizations like Outright Vermont, Education Justice Coalition, the Vermont NEA. There's a Vermont Educator Equity Collective that is staff members. There's also the family network, which is parents of especially students with disabilities. And there's the Network Against Sexual and Domestic Violence. These are some of the major players in these conversations and working on the advocacy side of things. So I really encourage you to elevate their voices whenever you can when you're looking at these issues.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you very much. That was a long, comprehensive presentation. I especially kind of appreciate some of the things that sometimes get lost in the shuffle. We look at H-one 130, the reminder that the Act one, call it, EQS standards are now live. So that we should follow-up on. Thank you. Any other questions before your jury?

[Big Hartman]: I also just always bring stuff with me. So I have, in case folks want to know more about our office, I have hard copies of our annual report and a mid year report about our case data for the so far this fiscal year. We are asking for an increase to our position so we can do more proactive civil rights work. And then I have hard copies of the summit report. We're having a press conference at noon tomorrow at Cedar Creek Room.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would your additional funding allow you to do more of the preventative trainings that seem to be in very high demand? Absolutely.

[Big Hartman]: I'm asking for a policy director position to take a lot of that load off so that I can do more of that type of prevention work that I think is really, really badly needed.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You're quite too bad at having this. Thank

[Big Hartman]: you. I enjoy it. Thank you so much for giving me all this time and consideration. I really appreciate it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, folks, we pick up again.