Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Okay,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: welcome to House Education, February 11. Before we head to the floor at 03:25, this is an opportunity for the committee to continue its conversation started yesterday. I'm sure where we pick up and where we end, but as I was sort of thinking about everything that we're trying to accomplish here, it does occur to me that we all have something painful, or I don't know how to say it, the proposals in front of us. For some, is the potential impact on rural areas and small schools. For others, it's the impact, potential impact on choice. For others, well, say me, it is the impact on funding. I would say that there's probably something in all of this for every one of us to look at as not just a political problem, but a real political problem. And so, I'm asking this question to be answered, but just to keep in the back of your mind, can you overcome that? What would it take to overcome that? And what questions might you have to help lead in that direction? So yesterday, I don't even remember where we left off. Think people had some questions. I was asking everybody to try to take those questions or suggestions and make them more specific so they could be addressed or discussed or whatever. But I just sort of, does anybody want to pick up the conversation and figure out where we go from here or talk about where we go from here? Along with Josh.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Actually, it's a question about what you were asked us to do yesterday, which was come up with a proposal and run it by a legislative council. They're busy. What's our time frame to get something back to you? Because at that point, we're at their will.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, it was more I was talking about getting questions answered. Right. And I think, you know, do the best you can. We're gonna I mean, we have a good time for lunch. We have, I would also say, a bit of an attendance problem in a couple weeks. So we would like to get as many questions answered as possible.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I'm trying for by the end of the week, but is That's that fine.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. We've got to start with a pretty full agenda. Anybody? Well, I guess, you know, there was some people were talking about a hybrid model. Can anybody explore that further or have any questions for legislative counselors, what

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: that might mean? Leland? Somebody explain it a little bit hybrid model. So I'll say it because I think I'm more of who said it. To me, a hybrid model is we have part of the state, part of us that wants just districts. And there are other parts of the state that want and need supervisory unions. So instead of having a map that just contemplates one or the other, it should contemplate both. We should be working with the communities that need supervisory unions and those who want and need supervisory districts. And then we can contemplate that on a map and then argue about who should be where, which town should be in here, what SU here. Well, I don't want to be in SU anymore. That is, to me, what the creation of a hybrid map would be, something that contemplates both wants, both needs for all of our communities, because that's what I keep getting far as questions and concerns. It may be worth investigating and talking about, but it also might keep us here all summer because that's not what has been asked of us. Right. And for me, that's the hybrid model that I was saying is, is there a way to look at growth? I already explained that. Repeat myself, but I won't

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And then I took it a step further and talked about considering you have SUs, but within that SU consolidating, kind of collapsing, like operating districts together within that SU to have the bigger districts within the SU. So instead of like an SU that has 10 now, you could have that same district or supervisory union with three districts underneath it if you collapsed. So you still have that consolidation aspect of things, just on a different

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: So you're saying, just for clarity, is if there's three K through eight and two k through 12, the two k through twelve's collapsed to three k through eight. If there's a non operating, well then it just remains on its own. If there's two non operating, then they bind together to create one larger non operating. Is that right? So

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: certainly, I've heard that floated before. Would I guess that the legislative council probably say, you can do whatever you want with the legislature?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: And so,

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: yep. I

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: would be in favor of looking at that as well, both in terms of keeping our eyes open and really thinking about the different regions, the different needs that these places have, whether it's geography or systems that are already in place. And I think that

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we should look down that road

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: and not turn away from that. And I know what the superintendents have said, I know we didn't hear it again today, but I think maybe there's something out there that can make everybody better.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Well, and I seem to have

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: trouble wrapping my head around this, because with the legislature doing more, but when I was on the task force as well, I think there's different operating structures are in different school districts that can't be in the same school district, and that's why we have SUs. Is that because we wanted it to be that way and it's statutory, or are there actually some constitutional issues behind it too that we cannot change? And I don't know that I ever get a clear answer on that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So that is a relic of Act 46, created districts. The legal basis behind that, perhaps you could speak to.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: Act 46 had specific language in it that, actually, let me just pull it up so I don't misconstrue, because it was before my time. The short answer is there may be constitutional concerns. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I just wanted to follow-up with just saying the legislature can do what it wants, and anybody can sue anybody about anything.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That was one of my concerns around having only SDs, and not having SUs. I'm like, are there places in this state that we have to maintain us use, not just because the community wants it, but because there may be some legal or constitutional issues that require them to operate that way, and just getting clarity around that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, it actually assumes the opposite. Just,

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I continue to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: talk Constitutional issue comes in to the, we get to be an SU, but you don't.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes, about fairness and equal opportunities. Go ahead, Leland.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I was just to follow-up on this hybrid

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: situation.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I don't know if that's good or if it's bad, but there this our state of Vermont is small, but there are areas that are different than other areas, and something might fit better somewhere than it fits in another place. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: guess, for those of you who are advocating for this, what's the advantage?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I think we heard one of them today is the

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: more of a tie

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: in to the local control and the towns themselves. In a bigger district level, you lose an aspect of that. So that's obviously one of the arguments that's out there for.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say that'd be an argument for returning to SUs then. Yes. Keeping Or the ones that exist, but really everybody returning to SUs.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I mean,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: if you want throw that off the table.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Rob, what do you see as the advantage?

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Well, not just local control, but again, I think that the places that now are just surrounded by non operated districts also allows that way of life to continue. I'm here in Loud and clear that's what people want. And I wanted to just piggyback with this. We haven't talked about CTEs in a while. You guys came up with a map this summer, and I just started not to do an abrupt turn, but I wanted to make sure we get that out there and talk about that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That, so I would just say, the CTE map, if that is something, Rob, that you want to study, learn, especially why did they reject it, bring it out, that's fine.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I have just a question for faculty, because I can't wrap my head around it either. I guess, is the intention to have voluntary mergers where or not or or forced mergers? And I think you or somebody brought up non operating districts would be in their own district. Somebody said that.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I was just asking if that's something that

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: be correct. So my question around that is that so then we would have school districts that were not contiguous necessarily to each other. They might be scattered around an SU. But they're larger SUs. This is a question, not a comment.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I would say that could be the case. In bench but not operating, would think that they have they still have their meetings. They still have to be written down, but I think there's probably I would assume, because I don't live in one that there is probably less having to continue to do things versus district that operates 12. Or education goals, really, there's things that would be more communication on a regular basis. So I don't know if that but I could also see where two fully operational districts that turn into one being separated by this stretch of land could be concern. Again, it's a thought and it's a conversation behind. That's why we're drawing these lines. I think that's where it would be important to the design.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Can I just sneak into the one that asked about that? In my thought process, it would be mandatory.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Thanks, I have a question.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: It's a clarifying question about the SUSD hybrid. I that's what we have now, obviously. We have that. You talked about numbers and two to four. So does that How many total districts then are we gonna have For those who are advocating for that, how many total districts then do you see in the state? If they were a future state, it was still a hybrid, we had STs and SUs. How many in the end are there?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I wouldn't know until I looked at who ended up being within the math, within the STU.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Because I also

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: then started to wonder even more about the foundation part. Already have my concerns, but that dramatically changes the foundation part. So we

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: are headed on a very different path.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What about

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: 15 SUs? What if we used the CTVs as sort of the centerpiece of SUs?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So you're saying that we just have SUs?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Well, you seem to be really finding it challenging to have a hybrid and things like that could be like a constitutional challenge or a lawsuit challenge. I hear that you don't want that either. If we did move to just SKUs, could we do it around the CTEs, which is something that people seem to be really validating?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, I'm not quite sure I could possibly envision that. I guess I would say, what's the difference between 15 SUs and 15 SDs?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Well, within the SUs, you have the district. I think it goes back to this A lot

[Kate McCann (Member)]: of school boards, I think is the answer. Which

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: is what Chris, I think, is trying to get at.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Right, it's a lot of school boards, it's a lot of budgets. But I mean, thing that you said, like, what are the things that you can't get over or that you need to try and get over? I mean, one thing I can't get over is like, our schools being shut down by people outside of those. And something I'm being told loud and clear not to let happen?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: so I mean, I

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: would

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: find it very challenging to be able to say that we could have a state in which we have both SUs and STs that is basically just keeping status quo. Because if you're gonna make change, then make change. If we're not, then let's be very clear. We don't believe that we just wanna maintain the status quo. And collapsing a few likes within an SU, I don't think it moves the needle, but it also basically would prompt everybody who maybe was an SU to say, why do they get to be an SU when we don't during this whole revamp? So think we need to move to a state where sort of one size fits all. You know, the issue, you're gonna hear me say the same thing over and over again that you've already heard me say, but when it comes to closing schools and all of that, and how we define community, I think what you're talking about are towns that were launched from the 1600s. Yes, it would be potentially a board that doesn't have the same level of representation of one town on it. That's taken we went through with Act 46. But these decisions,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: the decisions are

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: being made. They're being driven by factors other than the governmental structure, it has much more to do with declining enrollment, staffing and construction needs. And we probably should put back on the table the language from the Commission on the Future of Public Education that talked about a process for school closure in an era of larger districts, sort of what has to go into it, and then something we can put into language, which may or may not, it might make people feel more comfortable, perhaps not comfortable enough. One thing I think about with this concern over the impact of schools closing, which is happening anyway, or it's not because school boards are trying to make it happen for the good of students, for the good of taxpayers, and they're not being blocked by votes as we saw in Washington Central. None of that solves the problem of declining enrollment. Buildings be, having less and less, needing more and more repairs and the inability to staff. So think, stop talking. Thank you, Kate, to quickly go over.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Learning enrollment, you talk about that a lot. What I think about is opportunities for children, opportunities for our students. And I know what it's gonna mean my district because we're not gonna shut down those two schools. It's gonna mean we're gonna cut programming, we're gonna cut teachers, we're gonna have fewer opportunities for students, and none of that is fair. And it's based on the fact that people don't wanna lose their small schools that are less than five miles from the next school over. I think we need to provide superintendents and larger school boards the opportunity to make sound decisions for all students within a district to improve education for all students.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think we heard that loud and clear from the superintendents who spoke today as well, the challenges of needing to make change and not being blocked from making change. That's gonna be a major hurdle for us to either get over or not. At a certain

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: point in time, we're going

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to have to raise our hands and say, can this committee get beyond that or not? Are there things that we can sort of do to help people? But at a certain point, we're gonna have to say, this committee can accept new larger maps or this committee cannot.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: That's where we're at. Go ahead. I think that we're all in agreement that there has to be consolidation. I don't think that's an argument in this room at all, so I think we can all get on board with larger something. Yes. I'm not sure

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: that that's true, but I'll

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: try to I don't

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: know if that's true.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It's hard to speak for everybody. Obviously, there's a lot to consider. When you want to start getting to the political side of things, we also have to figure out what we put out there, what's going to actually move in the long run.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Beth? I would say, certainly agree with Chris. I think I'm going to speak for myself. I'm on board with definitely having larger areas, fewer governing units. In fact, I'd go fewer than 27 even. It's what the something is that's a sticking point for me. Know, all SD model, no SU model, I'm still hesitant on. And of course another issue, not a surprise to you, is the treatment of the independent schools within the system. And the necessity that we have for independent schools in my region, and making sure that that is accounted for. I'm not sure the current language of designation is sufficient to handle that in my region. So is it something I can work with and continue? Yes. What's currently there does not work for me in my area.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Good. And so I would say that that language is up for discussion at any point in time.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: It's definitely a sticking point for me.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: I

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: actually want to continue on with Chris's thought process. So when

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you brought that

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: up, were you thinking of all SUs? So everything's an SU and then you do that for like underneath all of them? Or were you thinking of a hybrid or potentially not sure?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: were you thinking under that structure of the consolidation of like for like underneath SUs? Were you thinking of it under a map of the state that was all SUs? You were thinking as a hybrid? No. Okay.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: In moving to the newer districts or SCUs, I mean part of the idea is to have less government, get rid of some administrators. And you ask the question, are going say, why get, why do we have to have an SD and they get an SC? I think one of the things in playing around on the map is it comes down to size and proximity. It wasn't that hard to fill up 2,000 to 4,000 people over in Chittenden County, right? But it's like a lot harder to do it as you go across the state. And so I think that that is one justification is to say that like you guys can have a district here and then we need an SU here because to create a district that big is just like completely unfeasible. But even more than that, I think that there could be some compromise. Maybe if we did like SUs in our more rural parts and we still could convince them to have bigger districts within those. So it's not 15 districts within those SUs. It's three or four, dealing with three or four budgets, three or four principles. It doesn't seem, and maybe I'm wrong about this, on the map, a way to make STs within SKUs, is there? And so like a two

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, I mean, you basically, an SU is, you know, we get caught up in all these, but an SU is just a collection of STDs.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: No, no, mean, I know, I mean, on the map tool, there's not a way to do both, is there? Yeah. I guess I would need to do it

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: on paper.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I think that we could have maybe some SUs at the corner of the state that had two or three districts in them and still have bigger districts. And the justification is it comes down to proximity. You still live in your community of 2,000 to 4,000 people out in a district this big whereas for us.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So I'm

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: not older. You can read all the things. You put them on, and then you would just name them. So in your region, might be Leanne's SU. But you might want to see what does that comprise of, and that's where you can go over and check the existing SU. So you can do it, but it's very manual.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yeah, I can try that.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: It doesn't make sense to me to say that we do need to just go with a one size fits all model. When you clearly play with the map and you can see that the way that we have set up our state population wise, it's

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: not the same at all across the state. For me,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: it's more of a question of, I think that there are lawsuit questions, because people could say, he got to be an SU, he did not. We're gonna sue, so we can be an SU. So I think that there are legal challenges of operating two different ways of delivering education. I'll say on a sort of greater scale, I think that we're gonna have a challenge, matter what, recruiting high quality people to SUs over SDs, because I think fewer and fewer people wanna be a superintendent in an

[Kate McCann (Member)]: If fewer and fewer teachers want to teach in an SU, because if there's a rift, you can't move to the other school without losing your seniority. It's insane.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I'm getting all sorts of emails from teachers who want to teach in an SU, who are saying, please preserve our SU. So, I mean, I think that right now this is really coming down to what seems like a good urban plan and what seems like a good plural plan. And we need to work together and pursue each other. There needs to be some compromise here. Like if you want us to move to district, have to let rural Vermont also in some ways move. And I'm not saying anyone here at this table is or isn't rural, but like just in general. The only way it's going work is if we work together and allow this kind of flexibility and not sue each other.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Can't control who sues who, sadly.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Can we pass the be nice law? If the concern of using SUs is losing local voice and local control, are there other mechanisms in structuring new SDEs in those boards to work towards that in terms of the size of the new board or the representational proportionality of that board to ensure there is voice from all towns, that there is certain I don't know if something's sparse by necessity metric towards board membership. But I wonder if that, instead of a hybrid governance structure, which to me feels like, I would say, you, I think no change. Feels like we're pretty much stuck against a brick wall if that's where we are. I wonder if that's the place to try to address that concern, isn't the way that the board is structured, if the concern is about local control of our employees.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sorry, Jana, you have said anything? Now you have to talk. We'll bring a sharing stick in.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: We're sharing stick in. We're gonna bring

[Kate McCann (Member)]: you for the We're voice man,

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: that is Probably not today. Sorry. I was thinking actually something sort of similar. Think way back towards the start of this conversation we had talked about school advisory councils or some kind of mechanism that would help folks be more comfortable with the fact that there would still be a great and impactful amount of local voice. And the other thought I had was I wonder, short of redrawing, if we don't get to new maps, are there other tools that we can give superintendents to make the change that they want to make in their geographic areas? We had some discussion last year about dissolving part of an agreement. Is it worth revisiting that? Now that we're really opening up the conversation, it'd be great to maybe consider what that full spectrum of options looks like.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I do wanna pull us back to something that Erin said earlier, and that is every decision we make affects the foundation formula. And so the more districts we have, the less and less it works.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Can I ask if Beth was working towards pulling out some language from Act 46? I didn't know if it would be okay to hear what would Yeah, absolutely.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: So I think it's helpful to remember that Act 46 was a snapshot in time. The majority of it that we all talk about and think about was all session law. And so there's very little in Act 46 that you all should think of as controlling in any way, shape or form. You may think of it from a legal perspective. You may think of it as controlling from a policy perspective, and that is your prerogative. But from a legal perspective, it was a snapshot in time meant to achieve specific goals. It is 2026. We have moved on. Legal perspective, not from a policy perspective. So section four of this bill, so at the very beginning of the bill, there was language that required all governance transitions contemplated pursuant to the act to preserve the ability of a district that as of the effective date of the act provides for the education of all resident students in one or more grades by paying tuition and to be able to continue to pay tuition. There's nothing in current law, nor did Act 46 amend what was current law then to allow for a school district to both operate and tuition the same grade. Could and you continue to be able to, under current law, operate for some grades and tuition for some grades, but not both. The same construct has carried through. Whether you keep that construct is a policy choice. And with all policy choices, there may be legal implications to those policy choices, which is why I said there may be constitutional implications to whatever policy choice you make. But Act 46 specifically right off the bat said, if someone currently tuitions, they can't be required to give that up

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: in order to comply with Act 46. That's helpful. Thank you.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Currently, we operate under SUs and SDs. And this isn't I'm just curious, has there anyone ever tried to sue because of that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. More people have sued over the fact that some parts of the state have choice and others don't. That's

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: true, but I'm talking about the SUSD conversation that we're in right now, specifically, because you have an SUSD and I don't.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It has not come up because Act 46 for the most part was voluntary. And

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: with the hybrid system, I agree with it or not. I think it's still reducing what we currently have. Even if we went to 27, still less the amount of SKUs we have and SDs in general by doing so.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So what's the purpose of this?

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I'm just making a statement that we're gonna maintain status quo where we are, but when we really would be reducing is all I'm trying to say.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But why not go all the way?

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: All SUs? No, all SUs. Because I think they

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Go ahead. I was thinking, if maybe there's a way to reimagine an SD in terms of its governance, right? And I guess what I mean is, and I haven't thought about it, I haven't thought about too much until right now, but what if we could recreate or redefine an SD so they could all be SDs, but then in your area, kids would retain their choice. Like in my area, those kids would retain their choice. I'm just saying we have an idea of what an SD is right now. What if we just blew that up and redefined it? Let's reimagine what an SD is so that it works for Vermont, so that it works for Perry. Is that possible? Well, mean, Emily's laughing.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We can do whatever we want. I think the problem with this is why would we be operating differently and what are the legal implications of, say, this one gets to operate that way, this one doesn't?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Beth, I know you have somewhere in all of your presentations, like the visual about different operating structures and all the arrows. So in each links, pull that up. And I'm trying to understand. So if you have new SUs, but you still have SUs, what exists within them for structures in terms of, like, does each one then have a bun it still has a bunch of SDs in it? And so you have Because then what assumptions go into the foundation formula? How you make a foundation formula that's intended to be a sort of one size fits all. The weights are the way to address different types of students that are research based, that there are certain students with different needs. Empirically, again, research, not community feeling of what is different. I'm not

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: sure I understand your question.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I guess I just, if you have the visual, I think it would

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: be good for us to

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: be looking at it when we talk about this.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: The foundation formula is based on school districts. Our school financing system is based on school districts. Those are our governing structures. Supervisory unions are an administrative unit. They are not a governance unit in the same way that a school district is. It's easy for me to sit in this chair and say that because I am not in the field and I am not making the decisions. But when I read the law, there is a clear distinction between not only the duties and the responsibilities of those two structures, but what they are at their core. One is an administrative central office essentially with assigned responsibilities, and the other is the governing unit that is in charge for making all of the policy decisions for the school district. Your policy priorities individually may not align with that. And that's why I'm here to draft new language for you. But if you have me in the seat and you ask me, what's the difference between an SU and an SD? And I pull up the statutes, at the core of it is one is a governance unit that governs, that runs, that makes the decisions and sets the policies.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Into contracts.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Enter into contracts.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: Supervisory unions can also enter into contracts. Supervisory unions are also employers, right? It gets a little murky, but the statutory definition is that a supervisory union is an administrative unit. It

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: is not elected, by the way, either.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: There is no election. It does not have taxing capacity. It's not a municipality. It cannot explicitly own property. So much of what happens out there is not explicitly in the green books, but it happens. Let me find I'm literally just on your website looking for this presentation. School governance. Okay. And my internet connection is shaky, so bear with me.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: It's building.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Well, my office used to be right there.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Yeah. Before your chairs are there? Yep. That's why you can swipe. It feels so

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: comfortable here. Pull. There's a magnet there. So it's hopefully loading.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, that's coming up, just so the committee knows, I will go downstairs at 03:30. If you all wanna keep talking and not go to the floor, that is absolutely allowed.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Thanks.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: School Governance one hundred one, January. This was my awesome clip art with the box that shouldn't be there, but I don't know how to get rid of it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: supervisor unions surround school districts, which contain the schools. Supervisor unions, this is the definition from Title 16, administrative planning and educational service units created by the state board. Supervisory unions can be made up of multiple school districts or just one school district. If it's multiple, it's a supervisory union. If it's one school district, it's a supervisory district. I didn't write this law. I'm going to venture to say that the only reason we even have the term supervisory district is because we needed a way to distinguish between supervisory unions that were large enough to only have one school district and supervisory unions in order to be functional or effective needed to have multiple school districts. And so it was a way to distinguish between the two. Other than the number of school districts they provide administrative planning and educational services for, there's no difference. The boards. The boards are different. The school board is the supervisory district board.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Anybody in this room can probably answer this

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: question, but I'm asking you're sitting there. Supervisory district

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: ten contain more than one town. Mhmm.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, yes. Because the supervisory district I think

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: it yeah. Well, the reason

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I bring it up is because I think people often get confused about town versus school. And I think it's really important that we understand that there's another layer on all of this, and that is town, and that supervisory district could have multiple

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: That's a great point.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: One could have multiple schools as well. Well, right. But that's We're getting there. I better visuals.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Have better visuals.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Don't you worry. That's the dumbest question ever. Why would you put a supervisory district or supervisory union that has

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: a lot of the school districts in there?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Like the one on the right. Is that?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: So Or how does

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: that It was to distinguish it from

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a security. It's not a great terminology.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: It would be If someone were to come to me and say, draft this situation now, one of the things I would be thinking of is, okay, well, we need to assign responsibilities to a supervisory union or assign powers to a supervisory union. So if we assign powers to a supervisory union, and then we say you're not a member of a supervisory union, who in that school district is responsible for those duties? Supervisory unions are responsible for, you can see, the SU wide curriculum, fund reimbursement, professional development, special education, which is a huge one, procurement, construction, teacher contracts, etcetera. If those were all in state law and you just said supervisory, these are supervisory union duties, and a supervisory union is by definition made up of multiple school districts. And there is a decision made that this school district over here is so big that you only need one entity to do all It's so big that if you were to add another one, it wouldn't be effective or don't know the right word. What do we call this? The school district has not been assigned to these duties. So then you're saying, but in these situations, then the school district shall take on these responsibilities. And instead we just say everyone's a member of the supervisor union. If the supervisory union has multiple I mean, I think you can just call a supervisory district a supervisory union.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: It's the

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: same thing. The school board And I think this could be, again, depending on your policy perspective, a meaningful distinction that the supervisory district board is the same as the school district board, and those are elected representatives. The Supervisory Union Board are also made up of elected representatives, but they are appointed from their school district boards. So it's not the same. There's different levels of decision making on who operating the supervisor union and who's operating at the supervisory district level.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You go first.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Are there extra superintendent stuff? Is there a superintendent who's taking care of the supervisory union? There's one And then another superintendent who's overlooking that school district?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: No. There's one superintendent for all three school districts here and one superintendent for this one school district. The superintendent's attached to the supervisory union.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's why we have 119 districts, but we only have 53 superintendents. While we're on this topic, I will just put in another plug for one of the problems with supervisory unions. Voters don't vote on supervisory union budgets. They're hidden and buried within the allocated money that that is voted on in the district budget. So in other words, the supervisory union the unelected supervisory union board comes up with their budget, and then they allocate that cost out to the district budgets based on whatever formula they use. Then it's voted on. It's a line item. A little bit on the hidden burglaries statement. A little strong. It

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: is strong. And I say that because I think it's really important that people are aware in the supervisory union that when you vote on your budget, that you have a portion of the supervisory union budget in So we do everything we can in our region to make sure that people know about the supervisee. We don't bury it

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: or hide it. It's less transparent just by function of its complexity.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I'm not arguing about the transparency, but this is actually really important because when people are upset about a budget in a supervisory union or in a school district that is part of a supervisory union, the natural reaction is to go back and look at, wait, we didn't get to vote on that supervisory union budget. Isn't that where we can get our savings? When we don't want to cut our local school district budget? So I think it's really important that we hear that regularly. And I think most people don't understand how that works. It's not that it's a lack of transparency, but people feel very frustrated that they don't actually have a vote on that supervisory union budget. Your school board that is appointing people to the supervisory union would recognize that and vote some only, not the public.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: You wanna continue with this or move on?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'll ask those who want a good refresher.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: You wanna continue? Oh, okay. Just the net, right? Yeah, so statisticians.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: You want the arrows. Yes. You want Can I just say, because you said we can call them both supervisory unions? I think it would be very confusing to do that. But I do think that you could call supervisory districts supervisory school districts. Because at least then they would understand there's a difference. They are about they are really very similar, the supervisory district and the supervisory I mean, the school district. They have very similar.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: All

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I'm trying to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: say is I don't think we should Just

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: equalize these. Because it gets very confusing. People wouldn't understand.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: If there's multiple times.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So this slide is just the different types of school districts. These are the powers of school districts. This is an example of union school districts, but here's some live examples. So this is one supervisor union that's made up of how many school districts? Great. How many schools is the superintendent in charge of? Six. Okay.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Just checking. It's all the data. Do

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: each of these school districts have the same operating structure? But they are part of the same supervisor union. They are two distinct districts. Same superintendent, same central office, different school boards. Echo Valley Community School District is made up of two towns. They operate two schools and they tuition. Payne Mountain is made up also of two towns. Four schools. They operate all grades. This is a pretty easy example, super easy example, built in, the supervisory district, one school district that operates pre K through 12.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I don't get it. Why not just be a school district then?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't get it. You are

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: a

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: school. There are a whole host of responsibilities in state law that a supervisor union is responsible for and not a school district. And so you could. This is a policy choice you could make. You could say, Beth, go and draft language that eliminates the distinction of supervisory districts and supervisory unions. And so my first attempt at doing that would be to go into Title 16 and say, if you are a supervisory union composed of two or more school districts, all of the duties that are currently there are assigned to you. If you are a district that is currently a member as of a certain date and time of a supervisory district, then as of a certain date and time, all of the duties that are assigned under 261A to supervisory unions now become the responsibility of the school district. I think there's other implications on where we have the LEA signification What? For special One school board, one supervisory district board.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Three buildings. One rebuilding. One town. One supervisory.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: I hear you, I hear you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So Kate, I would say that the map that was put on the table envisions nothing but school districts, one word, one term.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: And part of my job to operationalize that, should you go that way, would be to take all the supervisory union responsibilities and make them responsibilities of the school boards. This has major implications when it comes to special education.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I say special education.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: This I think is my favorite example. This is one supervisory union. How many school boards are there here? It's like, yep. Five school boards. Do they all have the same operating structure? No. How many towns?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: A lot.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: So it's really varied. Some of these school districts operate all grades, some of them tuition all grades, some of them do a little bit of both. Some of them are members of union school districts, some of them are members of elementary union school districts, and

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: then high school union school districts.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: Some of them are members of elementary school districts,

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: and then tuition their student One superintendent, one central office. Correct.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: All policy choices.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That's it. That's the last slide.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: So then go

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: to North Country.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel)]: I had to be able to use the clipart.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So totally this is a good example.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: If we moved to a school district model, things like a lot of people are really fighting hard for, and I do understand all of the reasons they've been put forth about the efficiencies in that model. If we move to a school district model, I mean, we include that new rules about like representative Olson's bill to not close a school without a town? Yes, I know all of your questions and objections, but we should do that. And another bill that was to let every town have at least one member on that school board. Mean-

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The answer to the question is yes and maybe. So yes, we could say if we're going to all school districts and if you want to advocate for towns, get to have a vote on closing, that'd be fine. It may not win the day, yes, proportional representation on a school board is a little trickier because let's say the district, because of its sort of large geographic area, has 22 towns. A board of 22, well, it gets even more complicated. For those of us who are on a merged district, you have to have proportional representation.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: And it

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: has to be based on population. So, if you take Harwood, they have somebody from every town. But their vote is fractional. In other words, they might only get a quarter of a vote or they might get a full vote. Or in my area, we have six, seven people from Middlebury and six from the rest. We have 13. If you get into 22 and this is this is one of the challenges that we're going to have to face if we go down this path. You you don't want a board of 22 people. That's a lot of people or or more. So how do you how do you create the representation on the new board? So under Act 46, we left it up to the newly merged districts to figure out how they want to do it. It was locally created. And we could do that here, too. We could say there's going to be a transition board like we do with Act 46, and that transition board will come up with the representation with assistance.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Well, I just I feel like that is one of the big problems that is really stopping us up is that, you know, I don't know about other people, but I don't represent any towns that are okay with giving up the possibility that they'll ever be on their school board again. And that becomes really hard, especially when you're in a district where much more urban and close knit or more popular towns, populous towns are going to be able to get those votes. It's possible that this tiny little town is never gonna see someone on the school board again. That becomes a huge deal breaker. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: mean, they're certainly not barred from being on the

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: school board. They're not barred.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You gotta run. Again, I think for me, it comes down to, I think that that is totally legit, absolutely something to think about. When you think about the five district model or if we went to a 15 with the CTE centers, Figuring out that proportional representation is when we talk about war drawing and the war drawing working group and all of that, that's what it's all about, to make sure that every vote is represented. Going to with with the map I put down on the table that which goes to 27, you know, there's a chance we could follow the act 46 model and let let the new districts figure out how they want to do that representation. So it's a little more of a homegrown method. But it gets a little tricky in areas where there's lots and lots of towns and you don't want to have boards that are more than 13.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: And this is why I keep going back to, then that's why we need this hybrid model is because we are not the same across the state in terms of new sizes.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Or maybe we need to allow for districts that are fewer than 2,000 in some areas so that you don't end up with a space this big that's got 27 towns in it, and you make sure you've only got maybe 13 towns in it. And then maybe you could create

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: a board that has representation from all towns.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All worthy of discussion. I don't have an argument again.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I feel like there's gotta be some gig here for the little towns, and it feels right now to me like they're standing to lose everything and that we're not really offering any.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, so I think that that is worth discussing. And I think what we need are viable proposals to address that.

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: So,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: mine doesn't have to be the only proposal on the table.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yours? What's that?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Is it yours that I fixed?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's right. Yes. You an improved mark on the table.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I go to the floor.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Can I follow that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I will. I think it's a part of one of my concerns of the foundation formula is that it is a mechanism to reduce spending and squeeze the system overall. And so I think that leads to pain everywhere. And there is pain everywhere already. People are not just in small towns, cutting, cutting. Dancing programs, losing staff, losing, that is the thing

[Kate McCann (Member)]: that is happening. Well, in schools, not just in rural Vermont.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: That is happening all over the state.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I will echo the secretary and say that larger districts have the ability to put the resources where they need to be. Part of the foundation formula is that sort of the larger you are, the more money you get from the state because it's a foundation formula and a larger district with that extra money to pay for it. They can direct it and that may be the way you save small schools. It also allows them to allow a larger board to be more strategic in how you deploy the money, but also how you sort of have students around. It allows for the maybe this is K to three, maybe this is four to six. Because the challenges small rural schools face and I'm in a district where I'm about to discuss closing our third elementary school. They're not going away and think that districts need to have tools to address that. Anyway, if people are ready to break, we'll break. As the speaker kept encouraging me to say, you can always stay in committee. Can always stay in committee. And I have said, sometimes the floor is a nice break in the conversation. Take a break. So we'll do that. We'll adjourn until tomorrow.