Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Education on January 30. Continuing with bill introductions, we are now moving on to h six one six, flexible pathways related bills, and I'm gonna turn it over to representative Booten, Barry City, who will introduce yourself, but then talk to us about the bill. Absolutely. Michael Booten, Berry City representative, and I'm here about H six sixteen. It's a bill that would expand the ability for people to tap into AOE approved learning program.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: First, let me address the obvious. Yes, technically, students have access to the free virtual learning. Currently, AOE has partnered with Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative. Under current state, a parent may request that their child go to BT VLC, which is the Vermont Virtual Learning Cooperative. However, statute states that it is the school's decision, ultimately, whether or not they will allow a kid to go through the program. Specifically, it has to be the student's personal learning plan, PLP. Although parents' thoughts are considered, the school is the one that makes the decision. So the issue that it fixes, in my opinion, is if a parent has decided to homeschool, they must withdraw their child. And at that point, we don't know anything. So we can't track them. We can't find out what's going on with their educational journey. Schools also lose funding associated with that child. If they were to have a right to use VTDLC, funding will still filter through the schools. Children's education is monitored, and Vermont teachers are still teaching. The bill gives freedom to parents while assuring quality education. And with that, I will ask if you have questions. So just conceptually, the student would remain enrolled in a school and but but would be sort of not on premises and instead choosing to sort of be a full time virtual learner. Or let's say because, again, it is the school's decision. Let's say that they only wanna take a wind class. Technically, they have the ability to do that, but the school makes that decision. And so they could take one class and still be on campus, or they could be 100% remote.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So this bill proposes then that parents have more of a safe decision, I think. Correct.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: They would actually because what happens, again, when parents make the decision to homeschool, and we know that homeschooling is on the rise, you lose complete track of of children and their education. And I I think it's a good idea to give parents not only the option to use a AOE approved program that does amazing tracking, by the way, and it's actually cheaper than usually what you would get in a regular school. And the school would receive the additional funds that are in there for full disclosure. Go ahead, Robert. And do we have any idea how many kids take advantage of this at this point? I do not. I do not know what the the current amount that are currently doing it. Yeah. But, obviously, it would probably be increased. Not a lot. I doubt that a lot of people would do it, but some of those students that are homeschooled currently may end up doing it, which, again, brings them back into the fold.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: Go ahead, Josh. So I appreciate you bringing this because I do think that parents having a larger voice in their child's education is falling by the wayside, and I think they should be brought back to the forefront. And also, as I think about it more, there are some kids who go through some pretty not great social dynamics in school, like bullying and other things, and they don't feel it and they can't get out, right? Because families can't maybe homeschool in the way that, like provide that curriculum to them. But this is a way where if a kid, it doesn't make sense for that child to be in that school system and have no other choice because they can't go to another school without paying full tuition. This is one where they could actually do that work from home within a really great approved state supply of educational systems.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: So I think that it is important for those kinds of scenarios. And I also want to point out that there is a piece of the bill that's missing that I would highly recommend if you guys were to put it in your miscellaneous bill, is that you would add in there, if it's not working, then they have to come back to the script because some virtual learning doesn't work. Right? It just there's we know that that it doesn't work. Some sometimes it doesn't work for students. More than likely, if a parent is that involved to wanna pull their child out, that's not gonna be the type of situation that we had during COVID. But I still think that, you know, if if the numbers or, you know, if the education quality or they're not learning through virtual learning, then they probably should have some sort of callback feature. Although I think VT VLC would not allow a student that's not succeeding to continue. I might be wrong on that. I I feel like during Oh, I'm actually you could claw back a homeschool student who is enrolled full time at BTB LC and then decides to return to homeschooling. Well, yeah. Once they go to home I mean, again, it's keeping I don't wanna say it's keeping them in the system, but it is keeping them in the system. And we're able to track everything. And and right now, it's you know, that's just not the case with homeschooling. I I sort of appreciate that angle to to this. It's quite thought provoking. But do you know if VTBLC offers a broad enough array of curriculum to actually give somebody a full time education? They do, actually. They are able to, I believe, from maybe even pre k all the way up to 12. But I do know that they can they can do one through 12. They do elementary and ice cream. To your comment, I do know of

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: a few families who actually use it for their homeschool program and have a middle school and are now in high school.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: Yeah. Just that it treats me as like, well, that considered should enrolled from a funding point of view.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah, just as a comment, having Todd through COVID, I I get the willies a little bit when we started talking about opening up virtual learning for kids. It was quite, at some level, quite a disaster. Although there were exceptions. I did have students who did well.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think your comment also scares me, because how do we get that kid back the fifth goal leader, or rectify that situation? But I heard what you were saying.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: And for me, it's like if we could put them in another school without putting the family through a rigamarole, that sometimes is the it could be the solution, but we don't it's not an easy process.

[Rep. Michael Booten (Barre City)]: Can I follow-up on that, Cameron? Because you're right. COVID was not good for our children because of the virtual learning, but we're not talking about all children. We're talking and and that's the the and on top of that, and then no fault to our teachers, but teachers were forced to do virtual learning, and that's not who's the teacher here? So let me ask you, okay, it's a completely different situation from virtual learning so to the people that are in the VLC, they know how to teach virtually. And on top of that, these are families that are committed to that virtual learning. Whereas during COVID, we had children that didn't have any support from home, were forced to look at a screen or what have you. And that just doesn't work. We know that that doesn't work. We can see it in the numbers. But we can also see in homeschooling where parents are directly involved in their children. It does have a positive impact. I mean, it does. And I get it, but this is a way that we can offer education, be able to track a child's journey, to be able to keep them in the system, so to speak, and give the parents the right to usher their children education. Thank you, representative Boothen, for for your presentation. We'll do a a walk through with legislative council now. Okay. Do you want me to stick around? Or Totally up to you. I will take off just because I have things in commerce. Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's me. James, office of legislative council. So we're gonna walk through age six sixteen as introduced, an act relating to the right to enroll full time in virtual learning. Section one amends section eight twenty one.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You actually skipped over a part that I had a question about.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, sure. In the statement of purpose?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yes. Okay. The bill proposes to require a school board to pay tuition to BTBLC. Is that how it works currently? Is it is it a tuition based model?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Let's look. So the way it works currently is So it looks like this is the enabling law that we put in Or not enabling law, the programmatic specific law that we've put in last year. Virtual learning has been a part of flexible pathways, as you know, for many years, but there was no program specific statute. This is the language we've put in last year. And there's nothing about tuition in there. So the answer is I don't know. Suspect that this is part of the flexible pathways categorical aid that comes is the flexible pathways program. There are a few different programs that have some general fund dollars, but in general, it's a categorical aid program. So coming off the top of the ed fund, What I will do is go back and look at the budget and find the line item for that appropriation, and it is likely to have virtual learning in there.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: And we can also hear from somebody from BTPLC for even Absolutely. Josh.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: I think after thinking about it and listening to you too, I think what it might be is by putting tuition in there, that's where it puts the funds in the hands of the district, which they don't get for the homeschoolers. So by doing that, if the tuition's $5,000 they pay that and they get to keep the other 10 or whatever it is. That might be purposely his way to get it the money to flow through the school as opposed to just directly the money to not come into the district.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I'm not sure because we believe that in order for the school to be able to count the students, the students being enrolled, it would be a tuition based thing.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: Just didn't know if that would might have been the intent behind it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think we should walk through the bill because I think this will answer all of your questions or assumptions you are making.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I'm not here on the intent.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So the section one makes an amendment to section eight twenty one, which is the statute. This is our town tuition program. This is the statute that requires a school district to maintain a public elementary school or pay tuition. Yep, okay. And we do the same thing in section eight twenty two and section two. So section eight twenty one says maintain an elementary school or pay tuition. All of this is current law. You see no strike throughs, no underlying. This is just a drafting convention change. You don't need to worry about it. We get all the way to page three before we see the new language, which says, Notwithstanding subsection A of this section, which is what dictates when a school district is paying tuition for an elementary student, At the request of a parent or legal guardian of a resident student, a school board in a district that operates an elementary school shall pay tuition for the elementary student to enroll full time with the virtual learning provider that AOE maintains access to and oversight of pursuant to Section nine forty eight. The district is required to pay the full tuition charge for the virtual learning provider. So this would actually be a school district. So what this bill does is say, operating school districts, if a parent comes to you and says, we don't want our child to attend the public school, we want our child to enroll full time in virtual learning, the school district has to pay tuition. Virtual learning program under flexible pathways is still there and is still operating. But there's a second option to access virtual learning through public funds through this language. Can I just say something? I just wanna give a disclaimer. This is what the bill says.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: can't comment on whether that tracks with what the sponsor intended. That's a question for the sponsor.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. But also, it's clear

[Chair Peter Conlon]: if we're gonna pursue this, we need to just learn more. Represent long.

[Rep. Emily Long]: So for clarity, how does homeschooling fit into this?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It doesn't. So, well, I should say That's the part So if you if you so Vermont's compulsory attendance laws requires children between the ages of six and 16 to be in either public school, an independent school or a homeschool program. If you were in a homeschool program, you're not enrolled in the public school system. If you are enrolled in the public school system, this would apply. So if you are enrolled in homeschooling, you are not counted in the district's ADM. There is no one to pay tuition for because you are not part of the public school system. You're doing the homeschool program. But if you are a student attending a public school and you are not enrolled in the home study program, then you could, under this language, ask for the district to pay tuition for you. If you were a homeschool student, this law went into effect and you wanted to take advantage of it, you would no longer be a homeschooled student.

[Rep. Emily Long]: You'd enroll. Yes. Thank you. Yes. Helps because it is confusing.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Oh, I'm sorry. And

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: then this is saying that the only virtual learning provider is the one that the agency of education maintains. So it's not like ABC Virtual Learning in Tempo two decides to come to market or not, we can't go to them, right?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So I'm gonna skip section two. It's the same concept, but for high school, and go right to section three. Thought there was a section three, I guess there isn't. Yes. So those statute says Sorry. My Internet connection is unstable. Happened to Almost. Well, I'm trying to pull up the statute so you can see I just used the language from section nine forty eight about AOE maintaining access to and oversight of. So it's the same language from the virtual learning programmatic statute. So yes.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: I'm going bring that up because that means that it stays within the public education world.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: This is at a minimum a good prompt for us to learn more about how VTE VLC is doing and sort of what it does offer. But to know how many people have taken advantage of it. Yeah, in what form.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Think quite a few students at our school take advantage of it. I mean, will say in this conversation about all the different paths things can go on, this is yet another one of them.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: It's pretty flexible, isn't it? Those pathways.

[Rep. Emily Long]: So flexible. So you smoke fence, right? What's that?

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: Sure, I know it's been good, at least in communities around me, where there isn't anything other than, if you're looking for speaking Spanish or Russian Mandarin or whatever, there's not a lot of options in a lot of more rural schools. This opens up those options significantly while still being in school. So I think there is a lot of usage for off market learning. I think they have a Russian.

[Rep. Emily Long]: That's also available to students who are enrolled in person. I'm not saying that that's not true, but I just want to make sure everybody understands that that option is available for all of our public schools.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich]: And I would just comment again, that's how some good ways is being used currently in our public schools, not for this particular purpose that Michael brought up.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, think from a union negotiations point of view, it is supposed to be additive and not supplant teaching in schools.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think sometimes it does supplant though, that is happening, that like we offer an English teacher, I mean, an English class or a history class at a certain grade level and kids are still somehow getting signed up for taking tenth grade history, It feels like he's

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That's a little off topic, but

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, but well, you're

[Unidentified Committee Member]: saying it shouldn't, I'm just saying it

[Rep. Emily Long]: does. Yeah.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you very much. Appreciate your time this morning with going through all of these.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We have one more, right?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yes, we have one more. And why don't you just stay right there and you can present first.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just had to restart my computer.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Oh, all right. All right, then we'll make Emily go first. This is 802? 802. Lucky for you get that. That's a bill number.

[Rep. Emily Long]: 802. That's a great bill. I'll pull

[Chair Peter Conlon]: it up, we're all suffering here, I assume, from All right. This is House Bill eight zero two, Bill Introduction.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Thank you for the record. Representative Emily Long, Newfane, Windham 5. This, bill came out of a question that came to me from a business manager that I answered with all the knowledge that I thought I had in confidence and found out I was wrong. And in fact, I reached out to our chair, and he, I'm going to just fully disclose, thought the same thing I thought. The Act 173, which is the act relating to enhancing effectiveness, availability, and equity of services provided to students who require additional support, our special ed bill of 2018, included an inflator when we passed the bill for each year, an inflator to the special education census grant. What I didn't realize and assured the business manager who reached out to me was that the inflator actually ended Help me the date. I can't remember when.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Believe this would be the first year,

[Rep. Emily Long]: this fiscal Which was why it came to me. And so I am requesting that we put the inflator back in and the language, which you'll hear in the walkthrough, is based on, the same methodology that was in place before, which is it inflates the uniform base amount used to calculate the census grant by NIPA, which is the National Income and Product Accounts from 2020. And that's simply all it does, and it does it from current year on.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Questions?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Comments? Just a timing thing. So did the inflator hit for the FY '26?

[Rep. Emily Long]: It did, and it's not for '27.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Which is the budget that everybody will be voting on in March.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Correct. Which was one of the reasons why I rapidly jumped on this because I really didn't want to see this just go away. I mean, we all know.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Just for those of you who may not be as sort of know the history of ACT 173 the way Emily and I do, so Act 173, pays for special education in all of our schools based on the number of students in the school with a block grant. And so when it was created, it was an inflator to recognize that the block rent needs to go up to inflation. Exactly, thank you. Any other comments, questions? It's It's a very very straightforward. Extensive customer.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Good catch for staff members in our Absolutely. SUS.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you. Thank you. You.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm having a heck of a time getting the internet to work So for while I wait for the bill to come up,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I will. I

[Chair Peter Conlon]: guess it's fair to say as I look through this, there's lots of stuff crossed out, which I assume is because it's already in the past at this point.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So would say, actually, if someone wants to share if Matt can share his screen, I can Matt, can

[Unidentified Committee Member]: you do that? I think the same thing is

[Chair Peter Conlon]: don't know how to

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: do that. Don't speak science.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I should have mentioned that about the clarifying link. There's a lot of cleanup in here. And honestly, the changes are simply what I told you. But it looks a lot bigger.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: It's not really why it wasn't a one

[Unidentified Committee Member]: page panel. My apologies. I should

[Rep. Emily Long]: have mentioned that when I was

[Chair Peter Conlon]: The opportunity to clean it up.

[Rep. Emily Long]: And Ledge Council is wonderful in doing that, whatever. Presented with the opportunity.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that was not me.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: No, nonetheless. Is up behind you now.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. So I should say that I'm pinch hitting today for John Gray, who was booked in another committee. But this is the level of finance that I can handle. So here. Matt, can you scroll? Very powerful, please scroll. Okay, well, let's stop there. So section 2,961 is the census grant. You'll remember before this, well, you won't remember, so we won't have to talk about that. Some of this is like these strikeouts are just drafting convention. Can you keep scrolling? Okay, this is great. So the census block grant, you use a uniform base amount to calculate it, but we needed to get everyone to that uniform base amount. So the statute has a plunge of transition mechanisms built in, And that is what is struck everything that is struck through. It's all of the transition language so that when we go through and come up with our supplements this year, you'll have a nice clean statute because we are no longer in the transition anymore. We are just in the census block grant. And so you'll just have how to calculate the block grant using the uniform base amount and none of the like for fiscal year 2021, 2022 and 2023, this is how you do it. And for fiscal year 2024, 2025, this is how you do it. So that's what John is, that's what he has struck through here. In the uniform base amount, you'll see, so means an amount determined by dividing an amount equal to, I think this was a language preference, The average state appropriation for those years as adjusted by inflation. You can see that that as adjusted by inflation is the underlined language. There was no inflator there before. Matt, can you scroll? But you can see that for fiscal years '21, '22 and '23, which is transition language, there was an inflator.

[Rep. Emily Long]: And

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: for fiscal years '24, '25 and '26, there was an inflator. Fiscal year 2027 is the first year out of the transition, and which is I think what was triggering everyone to say, is there an inflator? So I don't know that you were wrong when you were answering your business officers before that there was an inflator because there was in the transition years, but not once we're out of the transition. So substantively, all this bill does is add the inflator for the Census Block Grant going forward.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Great. Yeah, go ahead.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Do you ballpark have of how much money or how much actual dollars you're talking about for the inflator? Like what the rate is?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm just kidding. I didn't expect anyone would know. That's a good

[Chair Peter Conlon]: question that we may need to pass over to Jana Brown. Yes. Jana, Jana, would you mind contacting Julia Berkshire Thank about

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you, Matt.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: And this is really kind of a question for Emily and me, and that is, was it our intent to sunset the inflator? Right.

[Rep. Emily Long]: You're looking at me. I'm looking

[Chair Peter Conlon]: at myself too. I know

[Rep. Emily Long]: you are, but while you're thinking, I've given that a lot of thought too. And I don't recall ever having consideration of a sunset. In fact, I think if we had, we would have literally put sunset in there intentionally. On the other hand, the bill clearly said it ended in that.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Why are there dates? Biggest that is what was actually transition.

[Rep. Emily Long]: And we may have forgotten to add that sentence in there,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: but we would have that's

[Rep. Emily Long]: the only thing I could come up with. Yeah. Because I don't think there was ever any intention. We always knew that there needed to an inflator, and that's because we were on the committee at the time when we passed this in 2018.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's just

[Rep. Emily Long]: my thoughts.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Do I have a know. I'm trying to think of a logical reason why we would have taken the inflator away, and I can't come up with one.

[Rep. Emily Long]: If I can say one more thing. There was genuine confusion in the field about this. I mean, it wasn't it was at the DASBO meeting where it came up and people and I honestly didn't speak with very much confidence saying, Oh, no, no, it's still there. And they actually recognized it last year, but we still had it in place. And

[Unidentified Committee Member]: so they were genuinely confused why it would go.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you, and so I'd say further instruction with this one is if you wouldn't mind adding it to our miscellaneous set bill.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Got it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Alright, that is it then folks. We're back here at one for some probably relatively quick testimony from the treasurer's office to learn more about the Higher Trust Fund. We've all gotten a copy of the report. Probably if you take a moment and read that, you'll probably understand everything they're gonna say

[Unidentified Committee Member]: when

[Chair Peter Conlon]: they come to testify.