Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Welcome back to the House Education Committee, 02/06/2026. We're getting ready to hear from Advance Vermont, and I believe there might be a budget request in there from them. Whenever you're ready, you can introduce yourself and

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: give us the presentation too. Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. Thanks for bearing with me as I get things going. My name is Tom Cheney. I'm the executive director of Advance Vermont. It's great to see you. So I thought today I would give you a little bit of refresher on Advance Vermont, some of the data that drives us, and then spend a little bit of time talking about this concept of a career navigation system, which I think is timely to discuss as you all are creating a new system for education in the state, and then share the work that we're doing to help build that system. So for starters, a little bit of a refresher. With Advanced Vermont, we believe that every Vermonter should be able to see and pursue and navigate a current education path that meets their goals. And what does that really mean for youth? That means they should graduate high school with a plan. Far too many are not doing that right now. And then working age Vermonters, anywhere from 25 to 64 should feel empowered to also advance in their career and have the opportunity to do that as well. We are a teeny tiny nonprofit founded in 2017 until this past July. Our backbone organization and fiscal sponsor was VSAC, though we we operated independently at them. And this year, as of July 1, we are officially, all in on the new nonprofit, so our own five zero one c three. For their own board and all of those things, and VSAC continues to be just a stellar partner and friend of ours. So our focus, simply put, we're working to build a wide career navigation system. We'll talk about what career navigation is soon. But for us, we want to ensure that career and education seekers, and importantly, those who support them, have the information and tools they need to make informed choices, that all education options are elevated and on the table, that schools, organizations are able to embed consistent, purposeful, and equitable career guidance and planning. And then we work with partners to do this, because it's incredibly important that we are not working in silos, but that we're bridging those gaps and finding our common leverage points together. A few quick things we do, we'll talk a little bit about them. But My Future VT is our free hub for career and education planning in the state. The Vermont Credential Transparency Project is basically just a fancy title for the work it takes to build out these really complex databases, particularly collecting information about the education and training programs offered in the state of Vermont, which is more difficult than it sounds. And then graduate with a plan, which we'll spend some time talking about today, which really aims to help increase the number of students who do that, who leave high school with next steps for their current education path. And finally, we work to inform policy and practice. That's why we come here not just to put in a budget request, but also to help you with your work. And then I help folks in executive branch too. So we work with the Office of Workforce Development, the Department of Labor, with AOE in different ways, and including went to a personalized learning plan training that AOE did not too long ago. And we'll be doing a training with Work Based Learning Coordinators, the AOE sponsor. And so lots of different ways we're interacting with state and private partners. So one of the things we talk a lot about, as you'll remember, is the number of Vermonters who have some sort of piece of paper after high school. And that's one of our guiding goals at Advance Vermont. And the goal is that we hit seventy percent. As of yesterday, there was a new update in the national data. I haven't even been able to dig into it yet, except that we're at 60%. So we went up about a little bit of almost a percentage point in the last year. This is 2024 data. But don't get too excited that we're getting within striking distance of that 70% goal, because the underlying data in terms of the pipeline for our youth, it is pretty awful. So we'll talk about that soon. From that data, just to give you a sense of these working age Vermonters, what are the credentials that they own? So 19 are graduate degrees, 29% bachelor, 8% associate, a teeny tiny bit have a certification or a certificate, which puts us, we do pretty well compared to other states when it comes to degrees. We are well, well behind many states when it comes to our non degree options, which is the challenges you'll see on the next slide. There's still forty percent of Vermonters have not completed an education program after high school. So there's a lot of opportunity here to continue to increase the level of education in our state. What

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: would be easier for you?

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Go for it. Pepper it. Pepper it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Just I'm wondering about the definition of difference between certification and certificate.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yeah, so a certificate is like you go to CCB and get a bookkeeper certificate, and it's going to be accredited through CCV. A certification is you'll probably go to a association. I don't know if there is a certification for bookkeepers, but let's just say there is. You'd go to the National Association of Bookkeepers or whatever that is. And that's their seal of approval. And a lot of times that is a test that you take. And usually, there's a training component with that that may be offered at a CCV or a CTE center or that kind of thing. But that the certification is you often get upon taking a test. And if anyone has a better way to describe that, feel free to do so. But that's how I And everything looks a little different, but that's general. When we look at the most promising jobs in the state, there's like, I forget how many it is, it's 55 to 60 jobs. The Poor Foundation, the Department of Labor put out as the jobs that are most likely to yield a high wage and be high demand in the state. You look at this and the spread of the credentials you need for that is 48% need a bachelor's degree. And then 5% need an associate degree. 3% need a registered apprenticeship. 5% need a certificate. So already you're seeing that we need more certifications, registered apprenticeships, that kind of work. And quite frankly, we need more bachelor's degrees for those high pay, high demand jobs. That's not every job in the state, but those are the ones that are kind of the highest growth opportunities with the best wages. So, okay. This is now I shared this slide last year. I actually shared similar slides to those, I think, last year too. This one may look familiar. Of 100 students, eighty two will graduate high school, which we don't like, like that to be higher, right? Seventy three will say, I'm gonna I plan to continue my education or training. Then look at the drop off. 40% will say, I'm gonna enroll in college, and then about twenty eight of those will graduate. Boys, low income students, those numbers are quite a bit lower, particularly as you get deeper on this graphic. And then when you think about today, have thirty seven percent have a bachelor's degree or an associate degree, and we expect only twenty eight percent of the current graduating class to earn a degree. That's a 9% slide based on what we have in our current population for a share of bachelor's and associate degrees. So that just shows you that we should expect that number, unless we do something different, to slide as much as nine percentage points as people age out of the workforce and age into the workforce. So that's a real challenge. And then when you think about those most promising jobs and when you 48% requiring a bachelor's degree, that 28% number doesn't even touch it. And that 28% number is a two year and a four year degree combined. Mark Morris? Do you track at all how many people leave high school and enter the military as opposed to any of the other? So I'll tell you, was trying to find that an updated number on there. One I was able to find today was this morning was in the neighborhood of 8%, but that's very old number. So I couldn't tell you for certain. It's not massive, but it's also not teeny tiny. I'm surprised that even 8%, that's fairly high. Don't take my that was an old, old thing that I saw. And I went to try to find it. I think that it may be on the Agency of Education's website, but it was down this morning. So that is a number that I am happy to follow-up with. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, if you look at this and you say, okay, it's more than 40% are going on to something. They're maybe either doing a certificate or a degree, I mean, a certificate or a certification or apprenticeship. Maybe they are going to the military. That number is probably not much higher than 50%. So there's about 50% of our students who are going straight into the workforce. Some of those people may have a great sense of where they're going and a great trajectory, but I think it's fair to say most of them probably don't. And so there's a real opportunity for us in this work. So, okay, we're talking about career navigation. That's what we're gonna spend the next couple of slides talking about. How do Vermonters, how do our youth, how do our educators, how do our parents rate how we're doing in our pre K-twelve system to prepare them for life after high school? And they say youth career and education planning fall short. So in the neighborhood of three quarters of these folks rated as somewhat effective or less. So go to my school, I'm getting support to help figure out what my next step is. It's either okay or not good. And that's unacceptable. We want every single student to be able to graduate with a firm plan. And that is just one data point showing us we're not getting there. What we know from this research, this is research that we did, by the way, and surveys of 500 people from across the state, that future planning is just insufficiently integrated. It's siloed within a school or within a district. There are pockets across the state doing it well and others that aren't. This isn't necessarily a rural versus urban thing. This is something that impacts virtually every school. And only a few, I would say, feel probably a firing on all cylinders here. So we need to be much more purposeful and consistent in embedding current education planning across our pre K to 12 system, and particularly our middle school and high school. And then students serving adults need support. In this survey, we asked, hey, what could we do to help you? And they need professional development, They need guidance. They need some direction for how to implement this type of system purposefully into their coursework and into the structure of their school. So I'm gonna pause there with the data and just talk kind of bigger picture for a second. And it feels personal, right? We do expect that every student graduates high school with a plan. I think that's just fundamental in what we expect our system to do. We've already noted that probably the neighborhood of 50% don't have a very concrete plan. And we should admit that even those going on to a post secondary option may not have a particularly strong plan. So there's a lot of wibbly wobbly as you get up there. And then you walk across that stage with that diploma in hand. And just envision every other student doesn't walk down the stairs and into an education or career pathway, but they're falling off the stairs. That's kind of what our system is doing right now. And there's a real opportunity to fix it, and it's not that complicated to do. We just have to be purposeful in that work. So what is career navigation? Because I told you it wasn't complicated. It's the ongoing process of learning about options, making those informed choices, and then taking the steps to work towards their goal, whether it's according to credential. And when I say credential, I mean any kind of piece of paper after high school, it's an umbrella term that we use. And then ultimately entering the workforce. What's a navigator? Navigators are those people who, they're adults who play that pivotal role with teens as they're exploring their next step. So it could be a school counselor, an educator, coach, parent, family member, and did I say employer? Yep. All, anyone who interacts with youth is gonna have a conversation about, do you wanna do? What makes you excited? And really a lot of work we need to focus on is how are we helping these navigators be as successful and as influential as they possibly can be? And when I say influential, I almost like, I wish I could take that word back because it's so much of it's listening and then helping students connect the dots. And right now in our system, we rely on our school counselors for that work. And there's some others now, have more flexible pathways folks in some schools, work based learning coordinators, who do great work. But our system was built in a time where it was college or work. We're now in a place where there are a lot more options. Our society is getting away from this knowledge based economy where college was the only option that we wanted to drive people to outside of going directly to work to a lot of these other pathways. There's a lot of distrust with education after high school right now. We're seeing our falling rates of people continuing on to education after high school. It's clear that model that relies on a school counselor is broken, and that we have to think about how we're incorporating the whole school community in this process. So what does that mean? It's integrated across schools and organizations. So not just the school, but employers, support services, the after school programs. But you have to embed it in classroom learning, teacher advisory, and then make sure that every single adult in the school community sees their role as a mentor, understands how they fit in to the system within their school, and that they can then support youth a little bit better. So, the key drivers of a career navigation success, what do you need? You need information. What are my strengths? What are the jobs? What are the education? What is the education I need? What are the supports financial aid? It's so important to have timely information. Things are changing, but also as soon as you get bad information, you lose the trust of the student. Skills and credentials, everyone, I made the case for why we need skills and credentials, We have to help people navigate through that, be prepared for what that is. Social capital is incredibly important. And you build that through those mentoring relationships. You build that through the front office person who you have a relationship with, the teacher that you have a relationship with. We have to be really purposeful about allowing students, particularly those who are underprivileged, the ability to build that social capital. A lot of wraparounds and supports. I don't have to convince this committee of that. But then there's an ecosystem, and this is where you all come in. We need a combination of tools like tools that we provide with My Future VT, the support we bring to the field to graduate with a plan, which we'll talk about, to make sure there's purposeful, consistent embedded current education planning. But it has to be coordinated and it has to be driven from the state as well. There has to be an expectation and some guidance and leadership at the state system level. So I'm gonna talk about what we're doing here. And some of you are familiar with My Future VT. I will keep this a little quicker because you know what it is. But this is a tool, free platform for career and education exploration. It is pretty essential for our young people in the state. They can come in here and explore careers. We have the top 500 careers, we use Department of Labor data. And with each of those careers, you can see what it pays, how many openings there are, what that job is. You then get connected to the education opportunities that align with those careers in the state. And also all the other things, what's a job shadow? How can I do that? What's an internship? How can I do that? A personality quiz or a peer interest profile, so you can kind of get a sense of what your skills and strengths are. The second section is around finding education, so you can learn what the education options are, actually at the high level, like what's an apprenticeship or a certificate, then find the education options. So this is what I was talking about earlier, we are the only place where you can go and see the vast majority of the post high school credential bearing programs. So everything from a CTE course to a doctoral program at the University of Vermont, can find on My Future VT. We'll talk about how many we have on the site in a minute. That is something that is unique. You can't get that anywhere else. We're the only people doing this. If we're not here, that data set goes away. So that's a little bit of the pitch ahead of time for the appropriations request, But that is a pretty important value add that we bring to this. Because if we weren't here, if this tool wasn't here, you'd have to go to a CT center, UVM, Norwich, whatever entity you're looking to get education, learn their website, figure out how to understand how they talk about their programs. We have it all apples to apples here. And within an online shopping kind of tool where you can compare the programs side by side as well. A lot of other information about how to pursue education, and then a whole another section around what are the support services? So we know that youth and adults need a human being to help them as well. Tech tools are essential. And when you ask youth and adults where they go for their advice and their information as they're pursuing their current education pathways, a tool like this is right up there in the top three in most cases, but humans are too. And so often they're looking at their family, they're looking to teachers, but they also, we need support services. So we have a list of 138 different support services. So this is from VSAC to Vermont Works for Women to the Department of Labor and everyone in between, where they actually have purposeful programs around career and education exploration. So nine out of 10 users report that My Future VT has the information they need and that's easy to navigate, works for them. 90% say that they took a step forward in their planning or their journey after using the tool, including applying for a job or applying for an education program. So it's working. Over the last year, this is for those who've been paying attention to us over the last number of years, we've expanded our education options that we've been able to publish on the site from six fifty to nine fifty. It's pretty huge, there's not many left that we haven't published. There's still some schools we're working with. This is all on a voluntary basis, so it can be a challenge to get that information up and we don't publish anything they haven't signed off on, so that could be strong data quality. I talked about our database of support services has grown significantly. And what's most notable, I know this is a question that's come from this committee and others, how do we know people are using it and are they using it in a meaningful way? And one of the best measures is that we can see a growth in the schools, libraries, and other organizations sending their clients to My Future VT. And that is growing quite largely. And so for every corner of the state, there are different entities that are directing people to this tool. And this is an example of that, just two examples that we screenshotted of where the Department of Labor and then the Franklin County Industrial Development Corporation were sending people to our site. Or in Department of Labor's case, actually working with people in MyFutureVT. Any questions on MyFutureVT or anything else? Because I just kept going.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I actually do have a question. I'm not as familiar with MyFutureVT as some might. So myFutureVT is that for both the users, such as the student and the adult, that support there's components in there for both? Yes.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: For the most part, they're gonna use the same information, but there is some more specific to the adults as well. Yeah.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: So I remember the first time we heard you speak about this.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yep.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: And I was thinking, where have you been all my life? And then I heard you say this same similar spiel a couple of times, and I'm still waiting for where have you been all

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: my life?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Like, I teach at U32 high We're not using this. Why are we not using this? That's my big question. You don't have an answer.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: I can talk to you offline about U32, but we do talk with your school counselors, they're great, and work with them. I just did a training where they were this fall, I think it's exciting Yeah, about some of the other

[Kate McCann (Member)]: But if I they're not working with my students, it's not helpful. Or if they're not training me to work with my students, it's not helpful.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: I'd say the best thing that we

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: could

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: do to get this tool into more people's hands is more support getting it into people's hands. So that's two and a half of us at Advance Vermont. We're running the organization. We're making sure the site works. Have this whole another thing that I'm going be talking about in a minute. We can't get to the schools we'd like to, or to do the trainings with teachers that we'd want to. We just don't have the funds to do it. So if we were a private organization selling a tool, this course is free, we'd have, I don't know, for a size Vermont, let's call it four or five people that might be bouncing around the state doing sales. And that's just not we just don't have the capacity to do it. So we understand that more people could be using it. We also know that those who are using it, and it's not insignificant, are finding tremendous value in it. So I'm with you. I want to be in every single school. We just don't have capacity to ensure that that's the case right now. Yep. Is there, I

[Unknown Committee Member]: want to say, you know, I guess, like how do you make money? I mean, there, do colleges advertise on here? Do places advertise on here? Is there like want ads, jobs?

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: So we are exploring the idea of trying to get more employer.

[Unknown Committee Member]: So I'm spending 50 right now.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yeah, right now there's no sponsorship of it. We're working on sponsorship model. I don't anticipate that that at least immediately is going to support the entirety of this program. But yes, that would be nice supplemental income. Right now we're state, federal, philanthropic grants that are one time and go away. So we're piecing it together every single year. And I can't tell you how grateful we are for the legislature over the past four to five years, giving us support larger and smaller, depending on the year, smaller last year. But very grateful for the support we've gotten from you, because it's allowed us to stick around and to do this service.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I guess I was thinking how cool it would be if you were a kid and you're looking into a certificate program, and I mean, just all of our lives have advertised this. And then CCB came up with their program that they would

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: be happy to give you money to advertise for people.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yeah, yep. Not so far. And I think that as we continue to get a proof of concept, it's now almost five years old, there's more opportunities to raise dollars.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I'm sending my diamonds.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Okay, awesome.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Awesome. Good. One more user.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: I love it. We'll look for that in the analytics. So the next program, and this actually does answer your question a little bit too, representative, so make sure I get back to explaining it. We talked about the career navigation system and how important it is. And so one part is around making sure people have information. That's my future VT. Now to get that information, to your point, you do need an adult to help get there. We don't have a huge TikTok presence with My Future VT. So we do really rely on the adults to help get this tool in front of students. But there's more to it than that. We already talked about, this is our graduate plan initiative. Too many students graduating without fear next steps. They should all have a sense of what their next steps are, including college, training, volunteer service, military, or entering the workforce. What we know is that students benefit from those adults. Adults need training and tools. Schools and organizations need help to operationalize this in a meaningful, not siloed, not inconsistent way. And that collaboration is really essential to making this work. So what we're doing with this Graduate with a Plan initiative is professional development for schools and communities. So one of those professional developments could be coming in and saying, here's this great tool called My Future VT. So we can do that with this program and have more, we are building that additional capacity to have those conversations and those trainings. But the field's demanding this and that we've curated our options in a way that meet their needs. So we did this, remember, we did that survey that I mentioned earlier in the spring, asked them what they were looking for. We now have about 20 trainings that are ready to go for schools, and we're starting to schedule these trainings. We've done some at conferences and elsewhere, we're starting to go into schools this winter and spring, which is really, really exciting. And the goal really is to help adults better understand their unique role, give them awareness of those options for post high school, the certificate apprenticeship, so on. Help them with messaging and language to use with youth. And then to help these educators implement that knowledge into their coursework, into the school day. The second piece we call a Career and Education Planning Framework. And what it is, is what it says here, a comprehensive, very practical guide for building capacity to ensure that all students develop these actionable plans. And really what it means is this is the foundation for the bridge I was talking about earlier. So if we are having people walk across the stage, a lot of them fall off a cliff, we have to build the bridge to get them to their career and education pathway. And this framework is a document that will articulate what that bridge should look like. So it's a practical guide. I already said that, but for helping students develop those plans. But in short, it's a vision for a career navigation system. Here's how we think it should look like in your school or in your community. This is how it should look like in the state for career and education planning. We're focused now from sixth grade up. So we'll have a scope and sequence for those teachers in the room to get a sense of from sixth grade, seventh grade, all the way to twelfth grade, what is it that we want our students to have experienced, maybe be able to do, have the competencies as they're kind of building, because it's a slow build to your final plan. We know if we don't reach them in middle school, we've often lost the kids. So that's an incredibly important part of this is really making sure that we're reaching middle school. Middle school does not have the infrastructure that a high school has now and the high school infrastructure is not strong enough either. So this is what we're working on. And what's really cool is that it takes a coalition and we have great partners from AOE, VDAW, VSAC, CCV, Careers Click, Vermont After School, Mentor Vermont, The Vermont School Counselors Association, more players. We have an advisory committee, it's like 19 people. We bring them together, and they are helping us with each of these pieces, but in particular are gonna be very valuable as we finish the development of this framework. And the end goal is that we have a consensus document that can really be the vision in Vermont for how we are supporting our youth in their current education planning. Other states are doing this. Typically, it's at the state level that they're doing this, but we're doing it from the outside in and making really good progress with this coalition who've been really essential and a ton of buy in along the way. So we've been building a program over the last year, as I kind of mentioned, and we're actively conducting these trainings, creating this framework, piloting the framework in Lake Region Union High School, doing some work with other schools too on different pieces. And the response from the field has been pretty incredible in validating the need for this work. Any questions on Graduate with a Plan? This is really career navigation system development is what this is. It's pretty exciting, if you couldn't tell my excitement. Okay, so our priorities, we really truly can lay the foundation for that bridge, for career navigation through pre K to 12 transformation and our CTE reforms. I think there's a path. I think it's not a lot of legislative text probably, but I think that a nod from the legislature that we see this as being very important. And as we build our new system, we're reaffirming that we believe that every single student should graduate with a plan and that we should make sure our new system is able to do that. I think we wanna be a part of that for you. There's work that we can do right now as we transition from current state to future state to ensure that we are not waiting for a new system to try to make this change. So we're going to ask for $600,000 in continued state funding to support the development of the Screw Navigation System, both as a bridge and to the future state. So what we see this, the three main things are sustaining and expanding my future VT. I see impact. That means more kids using it, more adults knowing to use it with them. Fully implementing graduate with a plan. So by June or so, we will have this framework, we hope in a pretty good place that can be made public and start to get socialized. But we now, you know this with reports, you get a report, it sits on the wall. We have to make sure that it's implemented, that schools then have the professional development as well as the implementation expertise to turn their teacher advisory system into one that has monthly modules around current education planning, that they are purposefully embedding it across their curriculum. And then finally, something that I maybe alluded to, but we're doing work now that the state is required to do. So there's some statutory charges that the state published lists of those credential bearing programs we have on My Future VT and that database of support services. We're doing that work right now, and we would love to continue to do that work for the state and then free up state resources that wouldn't have to do that themselves. How does the 600,000 compare with your current level of funding from the state? It's higher. The current level of funding this past year was 3, oh, sorry, was $150,000 We had asked for $350,000 and we have received that before, But we have not asked for funds for Graduate with a Plan before. So it's My Future VT and Graduate with a Plan and Misask. And this would allow us to have about four people working on this work. I would expand for our little shop. That's a pretty big boost to the impact that we can have and the impact that we can make across the state.

[Unknown Committee Member]: With Lake Region Union High School as your example, are they doing this alongside their PLPs or are they doing

[Unknown Committee Member]: this as their PLPs? Do you think that this is redundant to the PLPs that

[Kate McCann (Member)]: they're Great supposed to be

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: question. No, this complimentary and in no way duplicative. This is a way to support the PLPs. So the Yeah. PLP, a crew navigation system, there are a lot of tools, right? Early college, dual enrollment, fast forward, go down the list for all these different tools that the legislature and others have created or mandated over the years, what we don't have is kind of a cohesive package around it that makes sure that we're being thoughtful about, okay, let's figure out how we're directing kids to this thing or that Let's figure out how we are using PLPs in a really meaningful, impactful way. PLPs, I think no one would probably argue that they're going exactly as planned. That's kind of right. There's a lot of opportunity to use this to build some more buy in and then to think differently about how you can use the PLP.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Right. Like, I guess I was kind

[Unknown Committee Member]: of seeing maybe this would be like the sort of vessel or the instrument for the PLP. Yes. It doesn't really seem like we've been able to settle on exactly how that goes. So maybe this is the one.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: So the PLP lead from AOE is on our advisory committee, as is Erin Davis, the chief academic officer. And so we've been, even the last couple of months, been more specifically talking about PLPs. And they have ideas for how they want to revamp the PLP system. And we want to support them through that with this. 100%. Yeah, that's

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: a good question. You had a question?

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah, just quickly, could you just expand us a little bit more on what you're doing for the state. So tell me about what the state's required and what you're

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: doing in place. You

[Emily Long (Member)]: need to get a better sense.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: So the state is required to publish a list of credential bearing programs.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: specifically. Department of Labor.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Okay, thank you.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yep. And then the Office of Workforce Development has the support services database. So that's like listing the VSACs and the different players in that space and what those programs are. And we work really closely with them, and they're great partners. But ultimately, we are doing network right now. It would go I think if you were to ask the state, they would not have a plan for how to pick that work up.

[Emily Long (Member)]: But they are required?

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yes. Yep. So I think we can help meet that requirement. Yep. Thanks. Yep. And then in terms of my future VT, there is not a thing. The Department of Labor for six years, I think, has been working on building a platform that would take over what is called Vermont Job Link, which is where you can go find some jobs and has some information as well around career searches. They've been working for about six years to replace that program. Sometimes we come to the legislature and say, My Future VT is at a minimum a bridge till they've replaced that program. I think at this point, the department will even say, My Future VT is not just a bridge. It's here to stay. So without My Future VT, there wouldn't be a place for youth and adults to go get that information. And then Graduate the Plan simply doesn't exist.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you very much. I think your program is definitely filling a gap that's been drastically missing process. There any further questions from the committee?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Did you say what you thought the PD outreach potential might be with the increased spending in terms of the number of schools, the number of people and places you might be able to get to and

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Yeah, I think things look like. I think we can hit in the neighborhood of 300 adults a year. And then if we think that they'll then in turn support three kids, you're seeing the outcomes, larger outcomes there. And each person that we reach isn't hopefully not just teaching for a year, but the skills that we help them develop, the understanding and role that we help them develop, that'll stay with them. And then with the framework, that's about making systems level change that will impact every student within the district and hopefully every student in the state. We're not going small in terms of our impact. Thank you very much. Great, thank you.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: If everybody's feeling okay, we'll just continue on to our next round of testimonies. Questions? Okay, so I think it jumped up here. So these gentlemen in front of me, we now have no school, right?

[Unknown Committee Member]: Through, parents are online, great care is online, and then it's it's a a popular popular view. View.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Drew, it looks like you're getting your stuff all together here, and whenever you're ready, we look forward to your testimony.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Thank you so much. Can I be heard in your room okay?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: It's coming through loud and clear, and just for the committee's context, so this is just an opportunity to sort of get a continued understanding of the independent therapeutic school services that are out there and how they fit in with services provided to public school students who use them. And so we have, today a bit from the middle school and we have a bit from designated agencies that also operate therapeutic tools.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Thank you so much. So chair and members of the committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Drew Gradinger, and I serve at the Kindle Farm School, which is a therapeutic school operated by HCRS, which is a designated agency for Windham and Windsor County. Just a little bit about me, I sit on the senior leadership team of HCRS and I also am on the executive team of Vermont Independent School Association and, the Council of Independent Schools. It's I'm

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: gonna I'm gonna ask you to for just a moment. The folks with middle school apparently have a tight deadline here, and we just if you don't mind, if you can hold Of course,

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: I can.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Have them go first just because I know they have to be on their way quickly.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: My pleasure. My pleasure. I am at your service.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Does that work for, you guys? Can you Yes.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Thank you.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Move into testimony mode quickly? Great. Sorry, I saw that come up on the screen first and Drew was up, so I thought it was all connected, but that's it.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Hello. Good afternoon, mister chair and members of the committee. My name is Elisa Walker, and I'm the school director at the middle school. We are a small therapeutic school in Winooski, Vermont. I worked in collaboration on this presentation with Ryan Ericsson, one of my teachers at the middle school, and our school founder, Doctor. Feeney, who's sorry he couldn't be here today. Before we begin, during my testimony, you're going to see some photos of some middle school students and their families. And I just want to assure you that we have written permission to share. I wanna start today with two urgent questions about education in Vermont. How do we ensure that all Vermont students receive the education that they need? This is the first question. Every Vermont child has a right to an education that prepares them for a successful life, and we all have a moral obligation to make good on that promise. And this is the second. How do we afford it? We have limited resources, and education is not exempt from this. Money squandered on inefficient or ineffective programs is both fiscally and ethically unacceptable. These are two big, complicated questions. They don't have simple, easy answers. Their solutions are gonna be complex and multifaceted. What I wanna talk about today is one small but vitally important part of that solution, which is therapeutic independent schools in general and our school, the middle school in particular. First, I wanna give you some idea of the population of students that are served by therapeutic independent schools. As you can see, it's a tiny proportion, less than 1% of Vermont's overall student population, but with disproportionately high share of those with special ed needs. Also wanna take a moment to distinguish therapeutic independent schools from non therapeutic independent schools. So therapeutic independent schools like us serve less than 1% of the student population, about 5% of those who have special ed needs. Non therapeutic independent schools serve about 10% of the total student population, but less than one percent of those with special ed needs. So though they're operating both independently of the public school system, very different sorts of schools serving very different types of populations of kids. So let's zoom in for a second and look at our school's population, which I imagine is probably pretty similar to some other therapeutic independent schools. The kids we're working with are disproportionately poor and the severity of that poverty is increasing, as you can see. I'm leading with this not because poverty is the single most important determinant for students' ability to access their education, but because it serves as a proxy for a whole host of additional indicators, housing insecurity, food insecurity, access to physical and mental health care, to name just a few. In addition to trying to navigate school and poverty, our students are also trying to navigate DCF, juvenile justice, substance abuse, and many of them have a history of trauma. Some students are dealing with all four of these simultaneously. And these are the sorts of intersectional issues that public schools are just not designed for research to adequately support. And this is why we need therapeutic independent schools. There is a population of students whose needs exceed public schools' abilities to provide. While not all students who come to therapeutic schools have spent time in a homeless encampment, some do. A few of our students spend time in the one shown here. Simply put, if we rely solely on public education to provide education, there are going to be some kids who will never receive the education that is their right. And there are a whole host of other reasons why a student might require an alternative setting. Some students come to us after having physically destroyed rooms in their previous schools. Some of those students have proceeded to destroy rooms in our school as shown here, and public school staff typically do not receive the training or the practice and how to safely isolate such a student without restraining them while quickly, calmly, and efficiently evacuating all the other students and staff in the building. Our staff do. We have systems, we have procedures, we train for this, as I imagine all the other therapeutic independent schools do as well. Post destruction, public schools often struggle to help such a student repair the damage, both physical and relational, and reintegrate back into the school population. As you can see, this is the same wall. More on this later, but again, we have a lot of experience doing this successfully. Some students have needs that are beyond what public schools can provide, including emotional impairment. This one doesn't have a picture and that's because when students are in emotional crisis, we're not taking photos, we're providing support because that's what those kids need. Most of our students have experienced trauma, often repeated trauma. And this history of trauma means there are often, emotional reactions that are unpredictable and extreme. And as a consequence, these students are obviously struggling both academically and socially. In our school in particular, we have multiple trained clinicians to directly support these students and to provide insight and advice to all of the other teachers and all of the other staff to better manage those students. In our staff meetings, we go over every single student every day, their emotional triggers, their responses, how to recognize when they're becoming escalated, strategies to deescalate and reregulate them. We have explicit coaching to help recognize those signs and how to navigate their social relationships. It's just a level of service that public schools are not equipped to provide, but without it, these students are not going to be able to access an education. It's also the reality that every single one of our students is on an individualized education plan and receive special ed services. The reasons for these IEPs can range from ADHD to dyslexia, to autism, to auditory processing disorders, to traumatic brain injuries, to a whole host of other issues. Many of them have multiple diagnoses, because we only take students in grade six and above. Often when they come to us, they're coming off years of unsuccessful interventions, and are correspondingly just years behind academically. The past year, we have taken on two middle school students who could not identify all the letters in the alphabet. Other students are just simply discouraged by years of struggling, often unsuccessfully to learn in a public setting. Remedying this situation is a long hard road. It requires extensive academic support and differentiation. Our special educators work with classroom teachers to ensure we're meeting each student where they are and providing that differentiated support that they need to move forward. Both of the students I mentioned earlier, the middle schoolers are both reading basic sentences now with reading intervention that we've been able to provide on a daily basis. And we're not concerned at this point about their ability to meet their reading and writing requirements by their expected graduation date. In addition to the supports in the previous examples, there are several qualities that make therapeutic independent schools like the middle school, especially well suited to serve the educational needs of students who have been unsuccessful in public schools. Every educator at every school is going to tell you that relationships with students are important. Most schools are going to tell you that building relationships is a priority. And for therapeutic independent schools, building relationships with students is a prerequisite. We cannot provide an education to our students without having strong relationships with them. And for most of our students, their primary experience of being with adults is them letting them down. They have major trust issues and those trust issues mean that we need to build up a relationship with them. We show them we're interested in them as a totality of a human being, not just as a student. We review students at staff meetings. We flag students we're worried about. We make plans to adjust schedules as needed. And because our students have the same teachers, the same special educators, the same clinicians year after year, then we can play the long game with them in a different kind of way. We can build a level of trust and security and strength of a relationship that enables us to work with our students rather than working on our students. And the degree of this concerted consistent attention isn't something that public schools are able to provide. Our students have high needs, but they also have diverse needs. For example, this student has a baby. But as you can see here, we found a way to keep our student in school. The approach, academic, social, clinical, that's going to work with one student is not going to work for another. And the need for differentiation extends far beyond the classroom, as you can see here. Adequately meeting their needs requires a high level of flexibility and our small size and our high staff to student ratio is going to allow us to have that flexibility. Some of our graduates go on to college. Many, however, intend to enter the workforce immediately. For both groups of students, the ability to hold down a job or an apprenticeship is a critical life skill. Some of our students are able to access those through tech programs, But for most students, the same barriers that prevented them from being in public school would prevent them from being in a tech program. To fill this gap, the middle school currently partners with two different mechanics, a chef, a rescue shelter for farm animals, and the Vermont Construction Academy, which is in the photo here, to provide internship and training opportunities for our students. So we can continually, work to provide them the best education. And finally, this section, I want to finish by talking about our discipline system. I've saved it for the last, because it's the most important. And if you only remember one slide, I do hope it is this one. Most discipline systems are punitive at the middle school and at most therapeutic independent schools. The discipline system is based more on ownership and restoration. A student acknowledges that they caused harm, and they must make and carry out a plan to mend as much of that harm, physical and social, that they can. This doesn't mean that there aren't consequences. The consequences are often very significant. We currently have a student who recently wrecked an entire room, and that student has now spent weeks installing, patching, repainting the walls of that room. They had to write a letter to students and staff acknowledging and taking responsibility for the harm that was caused. They're still doing community service to compensate for the cost of the materials and the other repairs of our program. Taking responsibility for the harm your actions cause is a far more important and meaningful skill than having a three day suspension or for that matter, an expulsion. But it also reinforces the student's social ties to us and our school community. And they see that we care about the harm that's done to our community and that they are part of that community and that they know that if someone harms them, we're gonna make sure that that harm is repaired and that they are still part of this community, even when they make mistakes, even when they cause damage. For the sake of time, I'm going to move quickly through these slides, but I do have several slides to talk about how we really are a school first. I spent a lot of time on the therapeutic part because it really distinguishes us from public schools, but it is important to know that we do offer our students a rigorous education. We know that these are the education quality standards put forth by the AOE, and here are all of the classes that we offer that address each of those standards. This is also a slide that just demonstrates how our students go through graduation. We track all of their progress. It's mapped onto these graphs. And it shows clearly for this particular student, which proficiencies they've achieved and what they have left. And then we tailor their education as they succeed based on what they need and what they have achieved. It goes on. These are also required graduation proficiencies. Transferable skills is a huge part of our program. And they are required for graduation. And I know it's a hard niche to look at because it's small, but it's important because we use all of these things to assess if a student is ready to graduate the middle school. And we really go above and beyond what the agency even asks of us. As you can see, on this second slide that continues the transferable skills, all of these categories are actually put out for early elementary students, but we believe that they are also needed for our students who have never acquired these fields as an early ed student. So we have added to this list because our students need it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: We're taking questions in the middle of the end.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Whatever's easier.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Sorry, you couldn't ask a question. Is this a student facing document? You showed this to the students. A student sees this on their report card. Okay. And so do they actually see this phrase, don't be an asshole on their report card when you send

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: it to them?

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: I don't see that on here. It's on the slide. I'm looking at it right now.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Under responsible and involved citizenship? It does.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: How fun. Okay. Well, I'm going to be honest. I was under the impression that that was not on this slideshow anymore. I'm just curious. I'll just be clear with you about it, which is that we do our best at our school to be relatable and connect to our students. Don't be an asshole is something that at one point we believed was a relatable way to connect to them, to help them understand that that's a big deal when you're acting that way and that we're going to work towards not acting that way. And that's sort of the first skill that we're really working on. But no, that shouldn't be on there and it's not professional. And I wish it wasn't there. That's the truth right now. It will be removed.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Did you say you're only in middle school?

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: No, we serve students from six

[Kate McCann (Member)]: to twelve. Six to twelve. Yeah. It's not residential. They go home. Correct. That's my favorite.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Which may be a hotel, which may be nothing, which may be housing in flux, It might be a camper.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Where are you located?

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: We're in Winooski.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: You guys let me know.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: We're on that other, a different one East Allen Street, near the Maple Fields and

[Kate McCann (Member)]: right before the highway. And it looks like you serve about 25 students a year or

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: something Yes. About 25 students. And how long

[Kate McCann (Member)]: have you been doing this?

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Since 2017. Thank you. Sorry for all

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: the questions.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: No, you're fine. Okay, so let's go back to the second question then, which is, what's the most fiscally responsible way to meet the educational needs of the students who cannot, for all the reasons outlined before, access education through their public schools. Specifically, are therapeutic independent schools the most efficient and effective way to spend our limited funds? And so to address that, I wanna go back to another slide. The students who need therapeutic independent schools are really a tiny sliver of the population and spread among Vermont's 300 odd public schools. They amount to a small handful of students in each school, often only one or two. In order to adequately meet those students' needs, those schools would often have to hire and train additional staff, often multiple additional staff to adequately support each of these students. As small as we are, we do provide significant economies of scale by providing education for students from multiple different school districts, Which you can see in this slide, the cost of hiring one additional specialist would often exceed the cost to educate a student at the middle school. Some therapeutic independent schools have higher tuition costs based on the scope of education that they serve. But even then it is still typically more affordable than hiring additional staff. But there is a final point to consider here, which is that even if a school were to hire additional staff, the quality of that education would be unlikely to match the quality of education that therapeutic independent schools provide because they are specialized, because they have that extensive training and experience. We have a demonstrated track record of success that exceeds what could be accomplished with temporary hires in a public school. The cost of tuition is expensive, but it is minor compared to the costs to the student and to society of a failed education. So how are we doing? Well, we're a small school. We've only been open for about five years now, but here's the scorecard, not all success, but most our graduates are holding down jobs and or doing college or some type of post secondary training. They call, they text, they sometimes stop by and say hello. And by and large, they are creating lives for themselves and contributing positively to their communities. They're reading and writing, they're doing the basic math they need to get by in life. They're applying those transferable skills to navigating jobs and relationships in communities. We don't have a counterfactual. We can't rewind time, see what would have happened had they not gone to therapeutic schools. But anecdotally, we can see that they are doing a lot better than their families may have expected, than they expected. And to drive that home, I want to close with a story of one specific graduate who gave me permission to share his story today. This is JT. He started at the middle school in the 2021. He's 14 years old in this picture. Here's what JT's case file looked like when he came to the middle school. He had emotional disturbance. DCF was involved with him and his family. He had multiple sources of childhood trauma. He had a history of verbal aggression. He had a history of physical aggression, including violent fights. He was involved in the puvenile justice system. And during part of his time at

[Kate McCann (Member)]: the middle school, had a

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: parole officer. He was expelled from public school. He was also expelled from multiple alternative schools. This was a student with needs that far exceeded not only a public school, but all the other available alternative educational settings. We spent four years working with JT, and it was long, hard work, both for him and for us. He was frequently involved in violent verbal and even physical altercations with other students. There were repeated cycles of harm, repair, reintegration. We tried a lot of different approaches. Some worked, many didn't. And when an approach didn't work, we just tried something else. Because JT saw us working hard, he worked hard. And he showed up to school even when things weren't going well. And eventually, together, we found enough things that worked, including an apprenticeship at the Honest Mechanic in Charlotte, that played into all the talents and all the strengths that JT had. And through these personalized approaches, JT was able to meet all of his middle school graduation requirements and receive his diploma last spring. And today, here he is with a steady, reliable job, working at the honest mechanic. He is supporting himself. He is supporting his family, and he is making his community a better place. And now I want you to think back to that slide that showed all the issues in the case file when he joined us and think about where you would have predicted him to be based on where he was then. In order for us to continue doing the work, we need three things from the Vermont legislature. All of them boil down to predictability. First, we need financial predictability. We need there to not be wild swings in the budget for special ed or in how those costs are divvied up among the state and the LEAs and in where therapeutic independent schools fit into those budgets. Second, we need regulatory predictability. We need to know clearly what the agency of education wants from us as a therapeutic independent school, and we need that to be fairly consistent from year to year. This has not historically been the case. When agency of education guidelines are unclear or inconsistent, it makes it difficult for us to know if we're even in compliance with the AOE's requirements. And lastly, we need statutory predictability. We need to know what the legislature's long term plan is for the continuum of special education services and how therapeutic independent schools are going to fit into that continuum. This concludes my presentation. I want to thank you for your time and attention. If you have any questions about therapeutic schools, and the work that we do, I'm happy to answer them now or at any time that you would want to reach out.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Quick question. So you say you serve 25 students at a time. Yes.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Do you

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have any spots open?

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Yes. But it's complicated because I also have multiple referrals that are coming and then it takes time and there's students that are leaving. And so there's always a flux This

[Unknown Committee Member]: question is gonna sound crass maybe, and this is not my, I so appreciate your focus on the therapeutic and all of the work, into dollars and cents things that were being hammered. Somebody like JT, did the tuition money, was that from a, they'd been expelled from a school, who was paying that tuition? That's not ultimately what I care about with these kids, it's outcomes, but I'm trying to understand, like, was that a school district paying So that

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: what happens is the school district determines that they cannot serve that student anymore. And then they find an out of district placement, and that school district pays that bill.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Just in light of some information we got yesterday from the AOE and sort of numbers and looking at what you're providing here, I just wonder if other states are funding things like this through juvenile justice or DCF kind of work and not through school budgets, and if that is the difference more between some of the anomalies were being given by the AME in terms of number. I just wonder, because you're in terms of the case profile, we're talking about students here. It's clearly not, it is absolutely an education. It is not just an education. It is a whole restorative therapeutic experience. And so I wonder,

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: once there's DCF involvement or it goes to residential, then I do think the payment might shift in certain ways, but I'm not sure how that exactly works.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: You very much. Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you. And Drew, you are up. Sorry for the confusion earlier. Appreciate your Not

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: at all. I mean, wow, that, I don't know middle school well, and watching that, the similarities, between our school just right off the cuff is is pretty potent. And, the slideshow is cool because I I don't have one.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: So, but,

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: but so that was really great. I, the last time I sat with this group or the second to last time was pre COVID and I let this group kind of know that therapeutic schools were bundled up with independent schools in Vermont. And this committee, it was like almost the first time they really were able to decipher that about seven, eight years ago, that that these therapeutic schools were within the independent school community. And so, and that that meeting alone really changed the trajectory for our schools. There was really almost an instant compassion towards our school and attention to make sure that, that we weren't saddled with unnecessary, stuff so that we could keep going. It really made a drastic difference quite a few years ago. So, I am here to speak in support of all the therapeutic schools in Vermont, with the hypothesis and, you know, the statement that, it's not an optional service. It's essential part of the state's continuum of education and behavioral health. Therapeutic schools serve students Vermont cannot afford to lose. Across the state, therapeutic schools educate students who've experienced significant trauma, emotional disturbance, we saw that in that presentation, and complex behavioral and mental health needs. These are students who often cannot safely, safely access learning in traditional settings. All of our kids are on IEPs in my school, and this is not because they don't want to learn, but they have not yet had the supports needed to regulate, trust adults, and stay engaged. And that story about a kid coming to our school from the middle school, I think, is universal. There's really good safeguards for civil rights that, any school in the country cannot just dismiss a kid and put them in an out of district placement. They have to protect the civil rights. And so the schools are demanded to try and try again, as they should. The the schools really should do their best, and I think they are doing their best. But what that means by a time a Kindle Farm a kid comes to Kindle Farm is that they've seen themselves as failures over and over again. And they don't trust adults. They don't consider themselves learners. And we're really starting at a very Maslow hierarchy base of needs, to get the student's ego, back into being resilient. So I think therapeutic schools really keeps kids learning, connected, and moving forward. I think one big difference that you'll see, and you could hear it in the middle school, is that we're not based on punishment. We're really based on accountability. In therapeutic schools, we reduce power struggles and these power over dynamics that these students often feel. We prioritize prioritize emotional and physical safety. We rarely use suspension. Our students are really good at knowing what the safety markers are of their school, breaking them, and that that means they don't have to be in school or in difficult environments that are, edgy for them. And at our school students learn to replace old habits with new skills, to regulate, to communicate, problem solve, and repair. This is what real behavior change looks like. It's not exclusion. It's not cycles of crisis and not repeated failures. I think therapeutic schools work, and this is something cause I've been asked to consult in public schools quite a bit, and I'm very humble about that. We have resources, we have frameworks. But the big thing I see is that our classroom assistants, our teachers, our supervisors, our clinicians, our whole disciplinary procedure, which we call accountability procedure, because we're not, disciplining and threatening this for that, those are all lined up from the direct work to the administrative procedure. And I think public schools really have a hard time because they have, many student types and constituents. And so what they do when a kid is unsafe, is often suspension. And if we did that, we wouldn't have kids in school. So I really appreciate what therapeutic schools are able to do from direct work to administrative hierarchy on this accountability. And that's just something that I think a lot about, very hard to replace in the public environment. Okay. So Mill School's a therapeutic school. They have a good reputation. There's quite a few therapeutic schools in Vermont, but I can speak particularly to therapeutic schools that are part of a designated agency. Those are the mental health agencies that serve, different counties by designation. HCRS covers Windham and Windsor and we are part of HCRS. So on top of all this beautiful stuff, like the Mill School talked about, Kindle Farm and DA schools can do even a little bit more. Because we're embedded with the designated agencies and Vermont Care Partners, you know, we have integrated clinical staff embedded in the daily school environment. Here we have three clinical staff and a clinical intern presently. We are, we are this designated agency, so we are the ones that provide crisis services when kids are not doing well in home or at school. And so there is no disparity. The communication is instant, and we can do wraparound services at a pretty high level. Care coordination extends very much beyond the classroom. We work with families and we work with, all the mental health supports in a wraparound service, which includes like state level CSP planning and interagency collaboration with DCF. The designated agencies are the ones asked to do that. And because we are that, that can happen quickly, seamlessly, and instantly. Strong continuity between school based services and community based treatment. And then frankly, we can leverage DMH style Medicaid and Success Beyond six to drive down the cost that we pass on to, the tuition. Ours, like the middle school, is tuition paid by districts. And so it really is coming out of every every area's, education budget. And so we try to leverage Medicaid to drive those costs down for our district partners. It's a system of care in Vermont that's, the legislature has really, supported over all these years. And so we just get to really utilize, the Vermont Care Partners kind of continuum. You know, right now Vermont is discussing major education reform. I think it's due. It's very important. I'm proud of you guys for doing that. You're looking at cost containment, restructuring of special education delivery. So I really appreciate you being curious about that. You know, is highly inclusive for most students, yet still relies heavily on therapeutic and out of district placement for a small high needs population. And this is not a contradiction. It's a sign of a service gap that you guys have identified. I think in my steering committees, I hear it often called a missing middle layer. For certain students in the public system, you really do meet the special ed, requirements of those kids at high rates. It's very impressive. And then there's also a high need for us, therapeutic schools on the other end. And what I've heard you identify is this kind of missing middle, a pre Kindle farm, to help kids avoid our school. We're very excited about your, foot on the gas towards that. We're, incredibly supportive. And I guess I'd say I think our therapeutic schools, have something to offer as you develop that missing middle so that we're speaking the same language, so that when a kid is in those programs, it's porous between a program, a therapeutic program, and that. The more we can align the creation of those programs with collaboration with, therapeutic schools, I think the better we're going to be. So we really think we're well positioned to support the creation of that, those programs that might meet the gaps for missing middle layer. A caution, the caution that I think about is if we move too quickly to reduce therapeutic placements without building that missing middle layer, we will see more student crisis, more hospital level intervention, more staff burnout, and I think higher costs in the end. This idea of like, what are we looking for? What am I asking for? I think we're asking you all to protect Vermont's full continuum of service for students with complex and emotional behavioral needs. We're asking you to preserve and strengthen therapeutic schools, including those operated by designated agencies. We're excited for you to build the missing middle layer using partnerships between districts, and therapeutic providers and ensure therapeutic schools and designated agencies have a formal seat at the table in policy and implementation discussions, which I am. Just so you know, I'm on a steering committee for truancy. I'm on a steering committee, for special ed and including, therapeutic and independent schools. So I see that happening, and I'm very thankful. I think therapeutic schools are one of the most humane, accountable, and effective tools Vermont has for supporting schools, students with the greatest needs. What else do I have? A couple more things. Therapeutic schools embedded within designated agency are especially equipped because we bring clinical infrastructure and crisis response and system level coordination that public schools cannot realistically replicate. I wanted you to know that in the designated school system, we have 11 schools that serve three seventy four students. So we are making a difference. My hope is that we're taking basically my school serves 48 students, grades three through 21 plus, through 12 plus for special ed. And, it's just a privilege, to be able to do that. What questions might you have for me, and how can I help you understand the things you're looking to understand?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'll ask a similar question, that I asked to the middle school is, with 40 spots open for students. Do you a backlog? I know I used to work in the Milton school district. We dealt with Howard center and it was usually a extreme waiting period to get a struggling student, the services that they needed. Are you experiencing the same in your area?

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: We have more demand than we can keep up with, and we're also very leery about building capacity because of what's happening at the state. It's really hard to invest a million bucks in, you know, some new school stuff if we just don't know where we're going. So we're a little stuck, in the moment. So we have 48 seats. Presently I have three open, but we've offered I will be full in seven days. So it all depends on the timing. And right now in the middle of the year, to take a student with super high acuity is really hard because we've assigned our most experienced staff to the kids coming in at the beginning of the year. And so what we often do is ask these kids that are on the cusp even for us, to come in at summer when it there is academic demand, but it it's, less than the school year. And that's a good kind of ground for, like, testing a kid, making sure it's a good fit without a a lot of, financial dollars behind them. And if if they don't succeed at camp, it doesn't feel like such a deep failure. And then at the beginning of school, we can really build the program and make sure that our kids with highest acuity are a little bit spread out, have our most seasoned staff and and we're kind of prepared for them. So, we are almost always full. We usually only lose about two to four kids a year, because they just can't keep it safe enough even within our program, then we have kids move and DCF placements and things like that. So it's really in it really hard to to say at any one time. So some of these kids that we're letting in this week only applied three weeks ago because that grade level, two kids, you know, the district didn't have a place starting in September, and so they had to do something, and then they pull them off our waiting list. And so it's just very varied, but I do think, our local districts wish we had more capacity to answer your question, but it is complex.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Thank you.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Did did I just hear you say that you have every year two to three kids who, even you can't sort of accommodate? Yeah. Because for safety reasons?

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Yeah. Either that or they're not attending and engaged enough. And it it really, you know, our LEAs don't wanna be spending money that isn't being reaped. We totally agree with that. And so we've really lie we really line up, in lockstep with them to make sure that kids aren't, accessing education, that we're not just dragging that along. We'd rather get kids that are gonna come to school and participate in the program and have a chance to to gain the skills. Really good at what we do when kids engage, and so, so sometimes we'll let kids go, if they're if they're not attending, after great deals of barrier removal and and things like that.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Thanks. From a safety point of view, just sort of was wondering, well, if not you, then who?

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: I mean, I gotta tell you that will bring tears to my eyes.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I figured it was a depressing question.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: It's a little depressing. I mean, we used to kind of think that the retreat was one level up from us, and it really wasn't at the time. I mean, the residential component may have been, but there really is almost nothing in our catchment area down here. There is community school. They go, K to eight, I believe. They're not quite as robust enough. So usually if a kid fails at a community school, they look at Kindle Farm. But if they fail out of us, it often goes to tutorial programs and things like that. We do have this weird little track record where, and it happened this year. We had a senior that was not safe. He only had six months to go. We've known him for five years. He's like family. He's now, wanted to come back. We would not let him without some proof that he was serious. So he's in a tutorial program. I think doing pretty well with the goal of coming back, summer and fall semester to graduate. And when kids choose to come back, they typically ace it because they kind of know what they're getting into. They've been removed. They realize what they've quite often they they're they're ready to go at some point and and then come back and do quite well. So, it's never too late.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Could you describe I you know, the the the term tutorial program is in a lot of statute around

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Yeah.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Education funding. Can you talk about what exactly what a tutorial program is?

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Yeah. We don't offer one at the moment, although I really am interested because I think it would make us more porous. So if we can't handle a kid, but there is no place for that kid to go, we could still maybe do like a partial day, maybe in their community, or something like that more successful. So typically a tutorial program would take curriculum either from the public school or sometimes in the case of, an independent school like ours, and they would have a partial day and do just the academic bare minimums to keep a kid engaged while, whilst, while the public school looks for a more robust placement. And so I I I kinda consider a stop gap. I think even five to seven years ago, school districts really leaned on that stop gap, but, maybe too much. And then the AOE stepped in, to make sure that it wasn't the entire schooling program. And I think those tutorial programs, actually became inside the AOE's regulation, and I think things have really improved greatly in those programs. I think they're, they really kind of are able to help school districts kinda meet that middle when they don't have any other options. But I can't speak super professionally about them because I I don't run one of those yet.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: That was that was really helpful. Thank you.

[Emily Long (Member)]: It's Emily Long, and I just wanted to say thank you. I have been following, of course, as you know, I live in Boot Van and I've been following Kindle Farm since Bob Bursky founded it.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: -Oh, wow.

[Emily Long (Member)]: -And I just want to say how much I appreciate, having been thirty some odd years on my local school board, how much I appreciate the niche that it has filled. And I just wanted to also acknowledge the shift when you partnered with HCRS. And it sounds like that's working well for you. And if it isn't, I would love to hear more.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: But Can I tell you that story? I would love to

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah. I think it'd be really great for all of us to understand what what went on.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: I think it's a really important story, and I'll be candid with you all. So the story goes like this. Bob Bursky was our original director. He was quite a wild person, but his DNA is here. He developed the school day, relationship based, very, varied therapeutic activities, horseback riding. We take about 17 field trips per day. 70% of our kids are off campus at the Boys and Girls Club blowing glass and things like that. So that's our history. And in about 2018, there's financial struggles and Kindle Farm could not have we could not settle our bills. And so our board threw a Hail Mary to the CEO of HCRS, who said yes on a weekend without looking at our assets, our fiscal anything. They just saw the similarity of mission, which I did not know how aligned it was, but it is a dovetail. And so basically, we couldn't afford to exist and we had we needed help. And I think because HCRS had Medicaid in their sales, we could leverage Medicaid for the first time. So HCRS came down after some negotiation. They finally said, listen, you have to be HCRS in order to leverage Medicaid. And we were petrified, right? We're this small little place. We're maverick y. We're cool. We, and HCRS is a monolith. Like, it's 600 employees. It's a it's almost like a corporation. I think the reputation wasn't as good now or then as it is now. It's I think it's a stunning reputation now. And we were petrified by the the, I would it's definitely a merger, not a takeover, but we were fairly petrified of that. In the end, this agency has an HR department and can manage that a thousand times better than I could as a, as a sole director. They have a facilities department. They have an IT department. They have a clinical crisis department, and a and a financial set of eyes that are just huge. And so what they've done for me, because I've been here that entire thirty years, not in leadership. I started as a classroom assistant, but, I've been here for about seventeen years in leadership. They took the vast majority of the workload of these things that make a business and allowed me to focus on being a trauma informed school, with best practices that just go above and beyond for kids. And I can call an IT department. I can call the clinical department. I can have an HR deal with, whatever craziness comes from employing, you know, 50 people. And so it's just been, I give them an A plus, for allowing us to keep our unique model, for bringing clinical expertise, and for giving us the headspace to get better over those years. It's been phenomenal. And I would have guessed I would have given a failing grade when I first jumped into that.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Thank you for that, Tarim. I really do appreciate it. And I just wanted to make sure everybody understood the partnership with, our designated agency that you've created. So thank you.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: There's one thing I can't speak too much to. I do think, you know, I really am proud of being able to grab some Medicaid mental health dollars and drive down the cost in the AOE system. There is a model called CERT schools. I think two of our schools are CERT schools and they are able able to leverage even more than I am. I can't speak to it. I don't understand it, but I do know there are several models that try to leverage some of this mental health, money to bring down AOE education costs. And I'm really curious about as many ways we can leverage that. I don't know enough to to say if it's successful or how that goes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Any other questions from the committee? Thank you Drew.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Thank you

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: so much. I

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: really appreciate your work. Thank you so much.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Thanks Drew. Take care.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Okay, take care everybody.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I do. To sort of say you know, so we're we're done for the day today.

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: Last thing is I put in an article I wrote. It's in the Vermont digger. I put it in the chat. It's about how I think therapeutic school serves, the state of Vermont, so I just put it in the chat

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: for The chat doesn't really work I on

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: already said it.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Never mind. You very much.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Give it

[Drew Gradinger, Kindle Farm School (HCRS)]: a read. If you got any edits, let me know. Take care.

[Elisa Walker, School Director, The Mill School (Winooski)]: Thanks, Drew.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Is there is a public comment appropriate at all?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: It's not really something we do, but if if you sure. Go ahead. Just tell us who

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you are.

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: Where are from?

[Jeff Mail (Parent)]: I'm Jeff Mail. I'm actually a parent of a student that graduated from the middle school this past this past spring. And I just wanted to say a few words about the impact that that's had for us. So my son, and by the way, he's 18 now, he did give me permission to come and talk to you about it. He was born with autism. And I I was reflecting back on that, and I was thinking of all know, as a new parent, it's my first child. And, I was thinking of all the hopes and dreams, you know, that you have as a parent when you have a new child. And in my case, it was, you know, maybe he could go to MIT like his grandfather did, or, you know, you hope that my son's gonna be this great citizen, right? All these things. But then you realize, oh, he has autism. And unfortunately, those hopes and dreams, you start crossing them off. And you start thinking about, oh, could he even be independent? Can he support himself? Like, wow, this is way different than what I expected. And so what my experience was was getting into elementary school. He went to a local school in Grand Isle, Grand Isle School. And then we started getting problems from the school, much as Alisa mentioned, disciplinary problems. He never had a safety issue ever. These were all noncompliance to work expectations, types of disciplinary things, refusing to do the worksheet. And then the progressive discipline kicked in for suspension. But once you had one suspension, then the next one is two days. And then the next one is three days. In fact, that third day suspension, I noticed it was interesting. The principal wasn't in the school that day, yet he still got suspended. And it was actually the planning room person who was sending the suspension letters home because he viewed this as an automatic process. And then it escalated worse from there. We started, of course, advocating back to the school to get therapeutic services for our son. And they took an unusual step of inviting an insurance attorney from Bisbon, the state's insurance fund, to came to an IEP meeting when we didn't have an attorney. And now on top of everything else, I literally have a very hostile attorney from the insurance company yelling in my face as I'm trying to advocate for my son in an IEP meeting. And I recorded it, so if anybody would like to hear that, I'd love to hear that and I'd love for you to make that illegal because that's just a terrible thing for our parents struggling with autism to have to deal with that. Thankfully, the AOE, we put in an administrative complaint. They reversed all of that and got a lot of that fixed. So I appreciate that. And then a miracle occurred. The middle school came along, and their approach was just completely different. So, I wanted to just, well, first of I'll tell you that, my son is graduating. He's now a student at, Vermont State University in Randolph. He's in the electromechanical engineering program, and he's a I'm proud of him. He's he's gonna be a great engineer. That all happened because of the turnaround that occurred at the middle school. And I think an important point for me, Alyssa described to you how the school process works. It also works on the families. What she did, what that program did is restore my family. Before all those discussions around the dinner table were all about how do we deal with this suspension? How do we deal with this lawyer harassing us? And that just went away. And we got back to being parents. And my son's siblings got back to having a normal family. We had regular dinners again. We had a view of the future. College was back on the table. Maybe this could work. And it has. So I just wanted to communicate that to you that, this is really, it's a totality of the situation, that families get weathered very badly when they're going through these problems in public schools. And I don't necessarily blame the public school because they're doing the best they can, but they're small. They don't have the resources. And the middle school just achieved a complete turnaround all across our family, and it brought joy back. And that's what means the most to me.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Did it work out that Who footed the

[Tom Cheney, Executive Director, Advance Vermont]: bill for the middle school, your child attending the middle school? It's the LEA. Okay.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So you were able to make that part of his IEP and all that? Okay.

[Jeff Mail (Parent)]: The insurance company didn't like that idea, but we succeed.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Thank you very much. Thank

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you. Thank you. Congratulations.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. Appreciate that. Okay. So next week, I'm sort of looking over the agenda. So, you know, we'll have time on we're gonna have time every day to talk. So give it some thought and all that. And and we will also have time with superintendents, time with AOE, time with potentially the SBA as well.