Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: A good, valuable discussion, but somewhat theoretical down to something a little more practical. So this afternoon, I'm gonna put in front of everybody a map that's posted, but before you all start looking at it, I have it all on paper for everybody as well. But I just wanna talk at you all for a minute first. The real purpose here is so that we can take our conversation to a level where we have something to react to. So it was sort of like, okay, we we can talk sort like, here's where I feel I feel. But I think without saying like taking all I took kind of a lot of what we've heard, try to put it onto a map to say, not that this is what it should be, but this is what it could be if we were to apply various criteria. Let me just check my notes here. So what we're gonna talk about today is both this map, which I'll hand out in a second, but also policy that might go with it. And I really am just gonna emphasize that this is not meant to be the end all and be all. I created it with a lot of thought, with collaboration with folks out in the field, and then I will say, and some sort of decision making that I sort of like, well, I'll try that. It's not perfect. And it's meant as a starting point, not an ending point. Even more so, the point is really to give us something to say, Oh, I can get behind this concept, or perhaps it is something, even though it incorporates all of this, I'm still not there yet. And so it'll allow us to sort of get to, hopefully get to a point where we can say, here's what I need to get to, to get to yes, or not gonna get to yes, or I really like this. So I just want to say it. So I'm going to say all the time that these lines on a piece of paper are lines on a piece of paper. Yes, there is some thought behind them. There's some foundation behind them, but I'm not married to them. And they're really meant as a starting discussion point. So what I did is think about the testimony that we've gotten and especially the testimony from the Superintendent Association, which has long said research supports 2,000 to 4,000 students. We're going have some testimony tomorrow from an academic researcher who's done a lot of work in Vermont, Bruce Baker, who in 2015 or '16, did a scholarly paper looking at Vermont. It is as appropriate today as it was when it was written. It also supports two to 4,000. It also, I would say, supports the conclusions of the Commission on the Future of Public Education, which recommended to the legislature not to adhere strictly to the four to 8,000 that was in Act 73. Then we could say that the redistricting task force work was kind of a rejection of going to a highly disruptive, much larger district. Now they were silent on two to 4,000, but I think it does that. And then, as I was sort of working on it, I said, well, this actually solves some other challenges as we talk about moving to larger districts. One that has concerned me from day one is this concept of leveling up salaries. If we move to larger districts, we all know those of us who've been through Act 46 and you go to renegotiate contracts with your employees, no one's going to want to drop to the average. Everyone's going to want to come up to where the highest average is. This keeps things much more regional with smaller units of government. Is a governance and sort of structure change. It's not a how we send kids to school change. That's up to school boards. It also has the potential to really help solve complicated by having smaller governmental units, we may be able to use existing law within chapter 16 about how we organize elections and elections of school board judges. Those of us who have been through Act 46, if you recall that, it was really left up to the newly formed districts to figure out representation and board makeup. I'm not sure that this solves it. For some places, they remain the same because they meet that two to 4,000 mark. Also, as we talk about, I'm gonna have legislative council also talk to us about some policy go along with it. Frankly, it's about sort of how school boards operate. It's about how do we address the historic enrollment patterns, which is to say independent schools and their necessity going forward. And I think that it also speaks to what we've heard about the importance of cooperative education systems. Think for the time being, we'll continue to call them BOCES. That's what we have in law. And, you know, it doesn't I don't have anything here explicitly that says it, but I firmly believe that any package we move forward has to include school construction aid. So, is faulty. There are some districts where I'm like, they don't meet the number, but they also don't fit well. So I'm gonna hand it out. It's all up on the screen there. And then what I'm also going to do is just to let people know, I'm going to send you all a link to the interactive map. I don't know if that could be a public thing, if it would crash the system, but I want you all to be able to play with it, identify the towns and all of that. So this is I think it's 27 districts. They are, you know, sort of bound by a little bit of culture, a little bit of similarity, obviously lots and lots of geography. When you get the interactive link, you'll be able to see the numbers of students in each and every district. And you'll see that they range from a low of about 1,600 to a high of a little over 4,000. Mostly very solidly in the 2 to $3,000 pupil range. There are some sort of things that were unanswered. Chittenden County was a little challenging because everybody's at a certain number. Some are more interested in joining together than others. And so, like I said, there's not a there are no fixed decisions here. It was just sort of an attempt to say, okay, here are here are some criteria used to put things together. This isn't easy to look at because of all the town names and everything on there. Overall mostly respects existing SU and SD lines. There are some areas that I made an adjustment just based on sort of geography and what I know. There are two districts that are sort of like, don't know what to do with because they are interstate school districts, and actually to cease to exist requires an act of congress. Yet, if our sort of belief in philosophy is that we want as many Vermont students in Vermont public schools, it's something that we should sort of think about and consider. I don't have a whole lot more to say, but I think what I will ask is have legislative council come up and talk about some language that could go along with this package that talks about both how boards operate and about those things as well. So if you feel comfortable coming up and walking through, that would be great.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Oh, oh, well. Do. Sorry. I'm distracted by the whole year's talking.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'll get you guys all the link to the card and save. Okay. What I'll do is I'll also I need to talk with the agency of digital services to find out, like, if 30,000 reminders came on to this, would it crash the system?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Are you ready for me?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I am not.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Just need to see. I could have helped.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Leading the road.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: For extra. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Want me to wait till everyone has a paper copy?

[Unidentified Member]: I assume that's what's being

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: passed away. Now,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I just really am going to continue to emphasize over and over again, this is Peter's first attempt at giving us something to talk about. Sound a rough draft of what the end all and be all thing would be. This is about creating conversation and debate. Conversation starter.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel, what document would you like to start with?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Why don't we do designation contract draft 1.1? And so just to sort of play way of introduction, one of the challenging things that we constantly deal with as we try to do education reform is how do we handle the fact that we've got a mixed delivery system in some parts of the state? And so from a sort of a legal perspective, through Act 46, it was sort of declared that we need to sort of have like minded delivery systems together in a district. My philosophy in creating this is that we and this is largely based on what we've heard from superintendents and others is no non operating districts and no supervisory agencies are all operating school districts. And so how do we do that in an area where we have traditional enrollment patterns that include independent schools? And I think I probably said this to all of you time and time again, this would really be moving from a, a this proposal would move us from sort of parental choice as the time and tuition program is set up today to school boards deciding where students go to school and if a school, a public school is not reasonably available, something that we would have to define, then a school board would need to address that through potentially using an independent school. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the first thing I will say is, if you were to move forward with the language or the concept that we're about to walk through, there would need to be a whole bunch of other changes in Title 16 to conform with the policy choices you're making here. This draft is simply to get the idea across, not to operationalize the idea, if you will. Does that make sense?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Very helpful. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, the first So, section one is amending section five sixty three in title 16, which, as you can see, is the powers of school boards section. Those three asterisks on line five mean we're not touching any of the current law. We are just adding new law, a new subsection on line six, subsection 33 to read that school boards shall establish policies and procedures. And I know that procedures fall under the purview of the superintendent for those listening who wanna correct me. But for now, we've got this language. For assigning each resident student to a public school operated by the school district for each grade for which the district is organized to provide education for its resident students. Provided, however, that if the district determines there is no reasonably accessible public school operated by the district, some are all resident students. The district may contract with a public school located outside the district or an approved independent school located either within the district or outside the district to provide the education for its resident students subject to the provisions of Section eight twenty seven of this title. Section two amends Section eight twenty seven and Title 16, which is the currently your designation statute. So, under current law, school districts already have the ability to designate a public school or an independent school to educate their resident children if they don't operate a school for children in those grades. So, that's current law. So, Section two is amending that current law, and designation is only available for high school grades right now under current law. So, you can see just even in the section heading there, this new section heading would read designation of a public school or an approved independent school. We're taking out reference to high school because this would be an allowable and required process for all grades. Designation, subsection A, a school district with one or more resident students for whom there is no reasonably accessible public school, I'm on page two now, and some or all grades shall designate three or fewer approved independent or public schools to provide education for such resident students in accordance with district policies and procedures adopted which that we just walked through. So you can see there's a lot of current law we're keeping here. Ability to designate three or fewer approved independent or public schools is already current law. Subsection B, designation contract. Now, everything we're about to walk through is pretty much brand new. If the board of trustees or the school board of a designated school votes to accept this designation, because at its heart, designation is a contract, and a contract requires two parties and consent on both sides. The district and designated school shall enter into a contract in accordance with this section. Subdivision one applies to all contracts. The contract between a sending school district and a receiving public school district or approved independent school shall specify the duration of the contract, contain any other provisions the parties deem necessary, be ratified by a majority vote of each of the governing bodies party to the contract, so school board or board of trustees or whatever the governing board is of an independent school, be filed with the Secretary of Education, can satisfy any additional requirements established pursuant to this section as applicable. Page three, line one, subdivision two. The language we're about to walk through applies only to approved independent schools. If the designated school is an approved independent school, the contract shall, in addition to satisfying everything we just walked through, require the receiving approved independent school to add a minimum, notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, enroll any student sent by the sending district who requires special education services, provide the sending district with an attendance report for students attending the receiving school pursuant to the designation contract at an interval determined by and in a format approved by the agency. Some of this language should look familiar to some of you. Provide the sending district with a report of the academic progress of students attending the receiving school pursuant to the designation contract at an interval determined by and in a format approved by the agency, provide the sending district with a report of any enrollment change for students, including withdrawals, Comply with the provisions of sections eleven sixty one A and eleven sixty two of this title, as well as notify the school board of the sending district at least twenty four hours prior to suspending or expelling a student attending or receiving school. These are some of the attendance provisions that you actually just heard testimony about. And so we would have to true up any references depending on the changes you make in your chronic absenteeism bill. I'm at the very bottom of page three, subdivision F, adopt implement policies and procedures to comply with the Vermont Public Accommodations Act and the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act. Page four, line one, subdivision G, Defrain from using an admissions process for students attending pursuant to a designation contract that includes mandatory interviews, academic entrance exams, academic history, mandatory campus visits, or consideration of ability to pay for any costs or fees provided that the school may request proof of a school's most recently of a student's most recently completed grade. Provide the results of all state mandated assessments of students on public tuition to the Agency of Education. That's legacy language that I was lazy with that should say something about designation there. Which shall publish the results on its website in a manner consistent with the publication of the same results for public students. Refrain from charging students an application fee, an academic fee, or any fees for academic materials. And finally, Subdivision J attests on or before August 1 of each year to compliance with the requirements of this subdivision. All other statutory requirements for approved independent schools, and the board's rules for approved independent schools on a form created by the agency, including documentation of the following: a statement of nondiscrimination posted on the school's website included and included in the school's application materials that is consistent with the Public Accommodations Act and Fair Employment Practices Act, and on page five, an assurance signed by the head of school that

[Kate McCann (Member)]: the school complies with the

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Vermont Public Accommodations Act in

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: all aspects of schools admissions and operations, and an assurance signed by the head of school that no public funds were used to subsidize the tuition of private payer students. Subsection C, we're gonna move on page five down to line 12, and subsection C is now a definitions section. And you can see there's some yellow highlighting because there's a In addition to all the other policy choices you would need to make, here is a policy choice that I don't even have draft language for. As used in the sections, reasonably accessible public school means a public school located within x miles by district operated transportation of a resident student's legal residence as that term is defined in section ten seventy five of this title. That's your How you determine district of residence for student section. A student means a student from the sending school district attending or receiving school pursuant to a designation contract executed pursuant to this section. And then subsection D is rough and repealed, and subsection E is finally repealed, and that is the extent of the language for this concept.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. So, you know, obviously, how do you define the reason for accessible public school is something you would have to work on as well as, the judge counsel said, all of the other policy choices that would go into this. Again, I just wanna emphasize, this one concept, one idea, but for me, it is both respecting the fact that we need, especially our historic academies to continue to provide, and that it provides a sort of method of continuing that while also pulling the state out of this complicated choice situation, which is frankly led to lawsuits and other things. Maine has also gone down this path, and I am working with the Education Council of the States to try to learn, have them connect me at least with somebody from Maine to learn more about their process and what they did to address this as well. But again, it's really just here for discussions sake. Move We're on to the next little slug of language.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I just realized that I didn't share my screen for any of that. Would you like me to share my screen?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's okay if we don't have it pulled up anyway, and it is all posted.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I apologize. This next draft is even more of a draft, would say. And it is taking the general concept. Do you wanna tee this up or do you want me to?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that I personally, and I think many others here have been convinced by the work of the redistricting task force, by the testimony we've received since then, that BOCES is an important part of the future of the COP. We want to find ways of building scale and saving money in addition to some district consolidation. So this is just a language for us to have available to continue to work on it. How we sort of, as we like to say, operationalize that mandatory, not mandatory, we'll think about funding to somehow make it happen. But anyway, this is really just here to have available to us as we continue the conversations.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I think this needs even more direction and policy choice. Absolutely. Basically, we'll walk through the language, but it doesn't do much without you identifying the criteria in yellow there. So on or before 07/01/2028, whoever you choose shall enter into a proposed agreement to form an association of supervisory unions, deliver shared programs and services to complement the educational programs of member SUs according to the provisions of Title 16, Chapter 10, that's your BOCES chapter. So criteria for BOCES formations, I've just put bracketed there. You could identify the towns themselves or the supervisory unions or the school districts. You could set criteria, School districts that have an ADM or SUs that have an ADM less than this are the ones that you're gonna focus on now. The world is your oyster. But if you want to have some amount of control over what this looks like, you've got to identify some criteria for who you are asking to form these. This section shall not apply to an SU that is a member of a BOCES that's already formed. So if you've already formed

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just because some of this language is a little bit sensitive, if we were to move to a world of only school districts, that would be changed to school districts.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which means you would have to change your entire BOCES chapter.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Yep. But that's what I'm here for.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, so section four, it's really two of this. Creation of a board, we're making some amendments to current law. This is your enabling BOCES language. Current law sets a limit at seven BOCES statewide, we're removing that. On page two, line one, amendments to section six zero four, which are the powers of BOCES. Right now, can see on line three, BOCES has the power to provide educational programs, services, facilities, and professional and other staff that in its discretion best serves the needs of its members. We're leaving that, and we're further clarifying on line nine that at a minimum, a BOCES has to provide at least one service in the following areas to its members, special education, professional development, curriculum development, coordination, transportation, and that should probably be an or business and administrative services. And like the chair said, the first section in this draft is entirely policy what you wanna do with it. But in order to operationalize any of this language and so that it doesn't conflict with any other changes you're making, there are lots of other changes that we would need to make to Title 16 to operationalize this.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Kind of a lot here. I so here's how I sort of foresee moving forward. You all can I I just sent out the interactive list to all of you? You can play with it at will. You've got sort of suggestions you wanna make. Great. But I think before that, we will get some reaction. Probably starting off with the superintendents since they were the ones who had probably the strongest technical team that helped build this next week, if they're ready, as well as others, probably AOE, but at a certain point, we're gonna have to turn back inward and figure out sort of how we wanna perceive what people's feelings are, but I think it would be good if everybody had the weekend to think about it. But I would definitely open the table to any clarifying questions or thoughts or suggestions for steps to move forward as opposed to changes in language.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Yeah, please. The link that you just sent out is slightly different than the map that we have. It doesn't have all the same districts. Using it on the iPad, I can't identify all the towns. So I'll have to go to my other computer before I can really look carefully if you can't have that same link. But one of the questions that I had was about the cooperative education services document and it says that a supervisory union cannot have more than one BOCES. So is this kind of like laying out like you can either have districts, supervisory districts instead of supervisory unions, or you can have supervisory unions, but you won't

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: do the BOCES. So if we

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: wanna do the BOCES, we have to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: move to school districts. So I'd say at a much higher level, so what I put in front of us says that we are gonna be a state of 27 school districts.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: And

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that part of the future of Vermont education delivery should also include BOCES. So the term supervisory union traditionally has been all encompassing to include both supervisory districts and supervisory unions, which is why it's in there. But I would say that the concept of supervisory unions as we think of them normally would cease to exist under this proposal. Okay.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Can I ask one more question?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, go with the floor.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: And then you also said that this map is about governance change, not where kids go to school, which would still be up to school boards. However, if we go with this map, then suddenly we have bigger districts with less local school boards. That's not my whole question, but is that correct so far? So therefore, those bigger school boards could then in fact choose to close to smaller schools now that those smaller schools don't have their own school boards and would potentially be populated with members from bigger towns because they'd have more voting power to elect their own members.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say that you're correct, basically, just that pretty much exists today.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Right, except that we have smaller local school boards who wouldn't necessarily be as quick to close their own schools. So with the bigger school boards, they might be a little quicker to close other

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: smaller This proposal is fraught with political decisions.

[Unidentified Member]: Okay. That being one of the concerns that I'm sure we'll hear. Right. I'm more asking it as

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: a question. So theoretically, small schools could close because of the bigger school.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think the only way I would respond to that is if a school board chose to do that. This is governance and structure. What school boards choose to do with that governance structure is gonna be up to them. I would argue, as I continue to argue, that that's happening anyway. Small schools are closing because of declining enrollment and boards are making that very hard decision to do that. Just as we're about to see on February 10, a vote in Washington Central to close two schools.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Right. I mean, except that the difference right now is that they're when they do close their own small schools, they're choosing to close their own small schools versus a larger, more distant board choosing to close that town of

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: schools. Yes, I'd say that it's the same argument that went on with I-forty six. Just, you know, we're sort of taking it to the next level. You're right.

[Unidentified Member]: And with all due respect, we have the superintendent's very compelling testimony. I'm gonna take a hard look here. I mean, you know I come from a interesting universe down there with a lot of schools. So I'm gonna look at this world where there's where there's choice, and I'm wondering if, you know, if there might be a place in the future for a hybrid system so just saying I'm looking hard.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And that's all this is meant to do.

[Unidentified Member]: I've got a lot going on there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, understood. Lieutenant McCann?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I would like us to think about adding to the list of the powers of boards of cooperative education services, that one through five list, at the very end, looking at technology being added to that. You

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: mean sort of like that centralized IT function?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That person who safeguards all your

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Once again, yes, making yours always challenging to be all inclusive, but yet not so big that yes, Chair Caledonia? I just would like to say a lot to digest, obviously. Thank you for leaving the ball on the court. We have some friends who really dig into and make some decisions on your chairs. You know, I'll just again say, politically, there's a lot here that we're going to be faced with. I would really like from local people who are going to react to every line change or any decision we make, Right up to the governor who has made clear that he likes fewer districts. And I think that's probably the reaction we'll get from the AOE. I just would encourage everybody to do your best to sort of filter what's coming at you at all times, because it's gonna start coming in hard and fast, which is why I'm gonna continue to say, this is a conversation starter. This is not, like I said, this is what could be using the testimony that we have heard, but it is not meant to say this is what should be. So I hope everybody understands that this is here to react to, changes are probable, possible. And we might find ourselves pulled in so many different directions on this. We can't even do it. But we're not going to know that unless we got it in front of us. Email. Yeah.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: But it does work on iPad.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's not fully is. It's probably one thing we probably will do next week is bring in John Adams to just do lots of technology questions and working through it and have to get everybody a refresher on how this system works. You can also sort of create your own. Those of you who have not been on this thing, it is pretty easy to use and I'm old and don't really like technology, so play with it. And the link I gave you, you can play with that. It's not gonna change my saved work. Yes? Question on how the map was created was the criteria, was it student count? Was that the basis of? Yes, Yeah, the 2,000 to 4,000 was probably the baseline foundation. Then I would say maintaining school different SU boundaries, and then geography, and then culture to the extent I have any understanding of culture and those who I talk to have any understanding of culture. Thank you. It is imperfect. It is meant to be nothing but a starting point of our conversations. I mean, I can even point out a few. There are a couple of central within the mountains districts that are really hard to put with somebody else just because of topography as opposed to geography. Yes?

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Two things. One is that on the maps that we get printed, if we can't get the towns labeled, is that

[Kate McCann (Member)]: hard for us? Well,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: stole that from you. We need some guidance. So today I spent some time trying to overlay town names, because I totally agree it would be really helpful. I couldn't do it. That does not mean that ADS can't do it.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Okay. And then the second thing is just I did go and play with the maps prior to this meeting, and you would write in the sense that it doesn't take that long to get a polar up to 2,000, but there's a huge difference between clicking on towns and actually driving across counties. And so I think that when we think about getting up to 2,000, that's a farther distance for the people living there than you realize. And then you go to Chittenden County and it's one tiny little shape, it's 2,000 immediately. And it's just not There's two totally different definitions of equity, I think, that we're working here. And this is all coming from sort of that goal of to make education more equitable. But really is the equity that in those bigger districts with bigger schools, have more resources and more funding, so now we're more equitable? Or is it that, in this tiny little bird of Burlington, you only have half a block to go to get to a great high school where it's in this county you have?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I would say these are great questions for tomorrow when we have Bruce Paper in because he really looks at it from an academic point of view. I would just say, I look at it more as capacity of a superintendent at a central office to manage the governance of a certain number of students. So while distances may be huge, the number of schools and students still might be relatively small. So if you look at the upper right corner, wow. But the number of students there isn't quite big and in fact, probably half those students, it's all currently a place where there are no schools, so they sort of all have to be tuition someplace or designated someplace. And again, it's not about bus rides because none of this speaks to where kids go to school or how many schools there are, if that's a decision for school boards under the current thinking.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: We do keep saying that, but yeah, at the same time, when we go to this model, it's going to have less, the boards are gonna care less about the towns farther away from them. And I mean, need to shut down those schools. So this is in fact a path to the closure of our schools.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I would just say as somebody who spent a lot of time on a merged board where that was a concern, I care just as much about the towns and their schools that were far from me that were in my own community.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't say that we don't care about that. What I mean by that is that they're less connected than and might feel that pain

[Kate McCann (Member)]: a little bit less than the people that are actually

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's absolutely a concern that we will hear plenty about. Yeah, this is really about many things, including creating a system that can continue to be, one thought is I'm building it, I'm like, well, maybe a 2,000 really should be a 3,000 because we're gonna go from 3,000 down to 2,000 in that bigger district in the next ten years because all signs point to continued declining enrollment. And so should we be building districts that anticipate that ahead of time? These are all rhetorical questions to think about, not to discuss right now.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: Sorry, it's really hard not

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to discuss these rhetoric items. I would say, we've got some good testimony coming in tomorrow. We'll hopefully get some reaction from the field and we will start sweating it out to the extent that we can as a committee. Can we get to enough yeses to move something out of here?

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: I ask one more question? This is Laurie. If we are a map, or if you're creating maps that anticipate a decline in twenty to thirty years because that is the way that some of us are projecting the trajectory is going to go, should we also potentially be planning for maps that anticipate an increase just in case that that is the way? Like, should there be a plan C?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If evidence showing that that's what's going to happen, yeah, we should.

[Laurie [Unknown] (Member)]: It's really hard to know what's gonna happen in the next three years.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Forgot All, what our person today said earlier, but all things over which reasonable people can disagree. And we are a very lovely group of reasonable people. Need for further discussion? Everybody ready to just spend some time digesting? And I would just ask all of you, as you go out and hear from people, to please react by saying this is a conversation starter. This is, you know, nothing is set in stone. This is one person's proposal to make that conversation start. This is gonna be a committee process. There's no other way to do this than all of us should have actioned it out and seeing what we can do. And maybe we don't get to where we can move something out of here, but then we will have a clear indication of what's clinically possible and what's not. All right. And remember, nobody can attach my name to Jesse. Good afternoon, what do you want us to for PCs, Matt. Alright. Good. Well, we are then adjourned. We have the floor at 03:30, and then we are back here in the morning.