Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: Alright, welcome

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to House Education. We're just spending a little bit of time planning for next week and doing agenda planning. So everybody knows, we will vote out, if if everybody feels comfortable doing that, we'll vote out our first bill next week, which is h eight zero two, which is the inflator on the block grant that representative Long flagged. I wanted to

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: get it out quick because it's got to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: go to two other caddies. Does anybody feel like they need to have any other testimony on this?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, which one are we talking about?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's 802. It's the one that says that the census block Oh, it's your

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: It's a

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: very short easy bill. I've had it confirmed by numerous people that this appears to have been an oversight. Anything you want to add?

[Unknown Committee Member]: No, I mean, it's as simple as what I said here. This is not a complicated thing. It's just the exact same employee.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It? I guess

[Unknown Committee Member]: I would add one thing. We did ask for what is the financial impact? I know that will go to other committees, but it might make a difference to folks here.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't know. So in a very general sense, what I heard was a few million dollars. But what I would say is that inflator has been there all this time, so they've always been there. It's not an increase, it's only the only it has.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Did we get formal information back on that or just in conversation?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just in conversation. Something I learned is that it generally is the money committees that ask for fiscal And JFL jokes that they will be asked for that. I just want to get it processed. Give us a little something fun to do.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The other issue that we need to find, I'll touch on, although it can go on that miscellaneous and just to think about, is we've had a debate about we had information about class size minimums and conflict between the statute, when guidance is gonna be there and when rules will be there. And do we just provide something that just says, this is sort of held in abeyance until the rules are finalized by the State Board of Education? Anybody wants some more testimony on that, or if they just wanna get a question answered, please do that. I'd just like to sort of say, okay, check, We're all set to put that in the miscellaneous ad bill without further debate. ECBs are on the agenda for this week, Saturday? That's going to be taking my bill, taking the state's response, finding where everybody's comfortable putting final bill together, amending the bill to kind of be something that we're all comfortable with. In the world of the miscellaneous ed bill, we've got the moratorium and this one particular issue. We can do nothing. Senate will probably end up doing something. We could do something that's very, we don't have to lift the moratorium, but we could say, notwithstanding the moratorium, if a nonprofit therapeutic school is buying another therapeutic school and will maintain its nonprofit status, can do that. I'm not advocating for anything here. I'm just saying, we want to touch it, we can touch it, we don't have to.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: If we do touch it, if we do deal with that, is there a way to say Anne not only buys it, but maintains its original mission so that they can't just buy the name and then repurpose the school? Yes. We would hear that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I missed some of the testimony like that.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Maybe we don't need to take action for that to be able to happen between these two? May not, but you do a pain relief then.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, the state board has said that it's a new school. We did

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: hear testimony that, and I'm not quoting, but there's a need for more therapy at schools.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yes, on that one, I think. Like, you talking about a bigger change to the moratorium?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I'm talking about a bigger change to the moratorium.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that's

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: a far bigger issue. Is there the issue on our list? I think that was part of question.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So we would take care of the smaller issue first and then discuss that? Because I think it's a huge topic that needs to be discussed at some point, and it's causing certain things to happen in public schools that maybe public schools aren't ready for. And so there's all sorts of implications behind it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Josh? Especially after hearing from Essex Westford how they have done everything as they should by the law and how great it is, but even they need more of this. That, to me, is telling that we could get all public schools to do that well, and we'd still need likely more of those facilities. See, I agree with Chris that if we do just do the short term stop gap, that should definitely take that up as conversation to move forward sooner than later.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Probably later as we've got a lot of our that's a big issue, but later isn't after crossover, but still with the ability to take action. So thank you. What you just said is important. It is

[Unknown Committee Member]: a big issue, and I don't think I think it could have unintended consequences. But more importantly, I want to make sure that we're feeling very thoughtful about what we're doing in this area, because everything we're trying to do in special ed is going against what this is actually opening up for. My own local region isn't looking for, they're looking for trying to expand more programs within their buildings for students to get in front of their professional teachers. And we talk about this almost all the time. It may be very big to have a perception of solvers. I recognize that there are some areas that might belonged to it, but I think it's potentially one of the implications.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, my only concern, and I don't know enough about the issue at hand to offer any insight, but that there is, if we don't lift the moratorium for this one purchase, we will lose a therapeutic score.

[Unknown Committee Member]: But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the bigger problem.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right, right, understand that, yeah. Yes.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Is it time for a different topic? Do you think we can get a little more testimony around the eightytwenty vote for school counselors?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would like to see us get some consensus on what we've got in front of us. I guess this is more of a talk among yourselves. My feeling is that this is an issue that should be solved within the contract negotiations. And that if school counselors are not well served by their representation in those negotiations, I'm not sure coming to the legislature is the best place to solve it, but that's just me. And that's my opinion on that one. But we've only taken one bit of testimony, so I think we could take some more. I would say, talk to them when you get a chance, chat with your colleagues and see what we might be able to move forward on that. Okay. Would everybody agree that we may want to get some more testimony from the special educators? They talked a bit about guardrails and whatnot for CESAs in the future. Is that something that we need more help with if we're going to make it part of what we're doing?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Say more about guardrails?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, don't remember. So the special educators have said, we see the value of CISAs, however, we feel it's important that they have guardrails and they're talking somewhat technically about who will be talking to the LEA. Possibly,

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: but we might be able to get quite a bit of that answered by a shorter session with Beth. Okay. Don't think we're talking about any transfer

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of Yeah. Like, an equal rest mass. So

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: before we make it a whole

[Unknown Committee Member]: big thing, I kinda think we should just cut it away.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. That was very

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Or we could ask the existing BOCES how they're handling those, if those issues have come up, how they're handling those.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, you know, John, of course, so many of are not sure

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: if Right. Listen to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, anything else? Have a Can

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I still make one more suggestion? Someone suggested to me at lunch in regards to Act sorry, Act 73 that we hear from Mara Tegan. Do you know who that is? She is an associate professor of education at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. And she's done extensive research on racial and educational quality in rural school communities and how racial and kids of minority races and kids from small towns do better in smaller schools, and so that she would be a good person just to speak to that side of it.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I would just caution us that that would get us into a debate about the education in a small rural school, and we're not talking about changing that.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: It does seem like we're talking about changing that. Fair.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Governance and funding.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I have

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a thought on that.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think that as the task force was doing its work over the last couple of months, I believe that that expert has other things to offer about the picture of rural public education. I don't know. I've been a bit curious about her expertise as well.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's food for the watch. Okay. We will have gaps on our schedule probably. I would like somebody to refine what they would like to ask of this person to make sure it's apropos of Act 73 and what we're dealing with.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yes. And just based, since it's about agenda, I see on tomorrow's agenda, we do have the rural schools coming in to talk to us,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: and I just

[Unknown Committee Member]: want to say thank you, because I know I've asked for it a few times, I appreciate to see it out there.

[Unknown Committee Member]: This isn't really a agenda item, but I just want to put this out. Well, maybe it isn't a agenda item, but I continue to want us to take action in whatever possible way we can to set ourselves up in some way to start funding school construction aid. We are all in agreement that we want this program to continue and to grow and all of that. But we say that a lot, and we have taken zero steps. I do some of the preliminary numbers of dollars coming in right now on school budgets, but budgets coming in much lower than they would be today. If that pertains to hold, it may not. But if it continues to hold, there's been a lot of talk about buying down the property taxes. We may not need to do that. That means there's dollars there. And I'd love to have us have this conversation around, are we willing to go right out on the limb and say, if we're going to do education transformation, my head is going to constantly go to the one thing that I keep saying I can sell to everybody is regional, middle and high schools and combined with CTV programmers. I want people to have something to look forward to. That means putting some dollars to

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: I beat that forward. Oh,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Pat, didn't I already have you talk to the pretend association to maybe get some people to talk about exactly this? Yeah.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we will have Come in. Oh yeah, we got school counselors coming in as well.

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: It's Wednesday morning.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Wednesday morning, oh yeah, Wednesday night or ten.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Caller COVID schedule is voluntary. I'm

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: used to the old school agenda. Alright, so anyway, thank you. Reminder, that's happening. Representative Brady?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I am increasingly meeting with people about a variety of things that are reminders of work we have started. It's a challenge we're in. Act 73 is huge and lots of things, but there's also other things happening. And we can't neglect everything. And

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a bit of

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: a challenge we're running into of keep saying we're putting everything up. And so I long wanted to get a closer look at flexible pathways in Act 77. And obviously, that legislation had chafened Chittenden Harple introduced as a conversation point. I'm continuing to have a lot of conversations outside the building around that. And I do think we need to take a close look regardless. A lot of these things are going to exist regardless of the future state. And so I don't take it neglected. So I do think we have to continue down understanding a bit what our intentions were about where we are on flexible pathways, perhaps in general, but specifically in terms of the early college program. And I know that we're working on getting some testimony, but I just put in another plug that I think that needs to stay on our shortlist. And then knowing that our budget letter is coming due, I'm reminded of some investments that we have made and things that I think are incredibly important that we've lost sight of as we've gone from the Esther days to the Schierzippy days. Community schools, who came in at a great time representing Wiefert. We did some pretty amazing work in this state. And this part is getting hard, because stuff that was three or four years ago now many of you weren't here for. So there's some institutional knowledge even in our committee on these, but some of this is brand new to people. But the community schools work, When we started to have conversations two years ago about changing schools and the needs in the state, there was a lot of conversation and interest and enthusiasm around the community schools model. And now we're talking so much about comprehensive high schools. I think there's a lot of big ideas floating out around there about what we want to see. But I worry. We made a big investment. There's some great work happening in pockets of the state around that. There's some strong partnerships with the University of Vermont. It is grounded in national work, but we've lost sight of it a bit. And so I wonder, in light of our budget priorities, if we want to take a look at where the community tools work is standing right now in Vermont and what the needs might be to at least keep that going, if not to expand it. Again,

[Unknown Committee Member]: we're just so set up

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: here to just create new, new, new, new, new, and don't just spend the time on implementation and looking back on things. And that is not our fault, but it is. I feel bad for the rest of the world outside the building, how much we operate in that way. So next piece So I have talked to some folks that could I think we probably need a bit of review because some people were not on the committee when we created the program and the original work around it. It led to work at the agency. Again, this is like, we start a lot of things. Yep. And the agency has to see them through. We have to see them through. We have to check back on our investments. So I can certainly put Matt in touch with you to put together to give us a little bit of a history. I think Senate Ed actually did some of this work last year and it never got to our agenda. And they were interested in it as well, and where it stands right now and what the needs are. Again, understanding we're in a very different budget scenario than we were four years ago, five years ago when we started having this conversation.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Should say that is But I know the

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: budget letter part is a particularly acute deadline. Yes.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: As you say, the budget reality right now, it's not lending itself to expanding programs. So this is

[Unknown Committee Member]: going sound like a point of question, it's not meant to be, but like to what end? Because what we need to do, what we can do as a legislature in order to address community schools, for example, is fund it. Yep. So I guess I want us to see where is all the funding right now. Where does it stand? What are the needs? And I'm not a

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: budget expert that knows everybody else's requests out in the ecosystem here. I'm not ready to just say, Oh, there's no money right now,

[Unknown Committee Member]: so I wouldn't ask for

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: that one. Because this is one I do know about and think has value, so I know.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, the word from the appropriations committee is that there's about $3,000,000 to play with.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Here comes my next one.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Since this is agenda planning, shall we then get somebody in here sooner rather than later? Budget letter's due Thursday. We're gonna work on it Tuesday. We don't have anybody come in to us to propose any funding. Why don't you talk with Matt, slip in at least a half an hour on this to get started, perhaps for Tuesday afternoon.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And then it's gonna be another one. But again, the challenge of we create policy, we create programs, we invest in things, and then we sort of move on. The teacher workforce, which I was reminded of it today in the testimony, kept hearing one of the goals right now of transformation is improved teacher quality. That's the most important thing in a kid's education. Salary alone does not just make a teacher better. Teacher quality matters dramatically. And I went back to my notes from three, four years ago. In addition to declining enrollment, we have the greatest number of decline teachers of any state. And we're having the most or had at least three years ago. Maybe it's changed on provisional emergency licenses. You were looking at the report. Regardless of retirements and things, the workforce need in teaching and the interest in it is extraordinarily mismatched. That's happening nationally, but it's absolutely happening here in Vermont. We don't have a high quality feature pipeline. There was a big workforce bill that this whole body passed that came through the Commerce Committee three years ago, two years ago. Before this committee, we were a different ed committee then. And there was an education piece of that. And that set up some really good work around emerging pathways. The world is changing. There isn't just one route to becoming a teacher, the same way we're doing emerging pathways with students. The same is true of working adults. To create some new opportunities and pathways for that, we had a teacher forgive the loan program that was extremely successful and ran out of money. And now we do have a bunch of people out there who we've left in the lurch. They have some of their money, and it's out, and they're not going get the rest of it. So there's that piece alone of our go, stop, go, stop. But I think the emerging pathways work and where we are, what the agency's doing, I know that we've had the division director. I'm not sure how it's all organized now. But Andrew Proutin has such great data and information, is doing a lot of work trying to there's some, I think, some good collaboration with Department of Labor. But a future state of education requires a really solid and well trained teacher workforce. And we took a lot of testimony about it. We did a lot of work on it a couple of years ago. We made some investments. And now we've moved on. I know I picked this up at the open house, and I'd really like to get more. I didn't have time to talk to Andrew that day about the emerging pathways. I feel like we need to do our due diligence as the education committee and understanding where things are, what the needs are, how these programs are working.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Well, new program has stopped. Right.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So that one is a pure money thing. But also, some of this, you mentioned that there might be some shifting of AOE positions related to Medicaid. And so if positions are moving around, are the AMEs potentially losing positions or vacancy savings? Are there other needs in the agency that are going to lose overall capacity or numbers at AOE when maybe they're not I don't know. We don't know nothing about Medicaid billing. But maybe they're not needed for Medicaid billing. But we also really need to be doing more the teacher pipeline work. So it's sort of budget. It's kind of like AOE reorg. Teacher workforce, I think, has got to be on our radar.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would your goal, in the short term, would like to get an update from the AOE as to what is going on in terms of just pathways. I think the forgivable loan program is pretty simple. We're not on money, but just the case for a number of forgivable loan programs. But yeah, I

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: think that the pathways and some of the, along with the secretary's testimony around teacher quality and raising teacher pay is this side of the teacher pipeline and teacher workforce. Who's coming in? What are the pathways to credentials? How fast are people turning over? And what are we doing to try to attract and retain high quality teachers?

[Unknown Committee Member]: It's not actually about what you're saying, but it keeps making me, because I've pulled up this page and it makes me think of this. As we are shifting in all of those areas, I keep being asked what's going on with the graduation requirements.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Well then that and proficiency based learning,

[Unknown Committee Member]: which is what made me think of

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: it as given you were talking about teacher

[Unknown Committee Member]: proficiency based learning and where does that fit into the new graduation requirements. So while it's not about teacher training, it is somewhat related. I'm just wondering if we could get an update on that, because there seems to be quite a bit of concern out in the field. I don't mean necessarily I've had a number of people reach out to me and say, what's happening with proficiency based learning that's not even mentioned in the new graduation requirements? And I can't tell you if that's true. I don't know if anyone's seen them, I know they're being worked on.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: We should probably all read the report that AOE has now sent to the state board because it will not go through state board processes. Then I think, great, we have a more regular cadence with the state board. This will be something, a regular cadence of updates on, for sure. So let's remember that if you

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have this regular setup with the State Board that that's a topic to talk to them about, and I'll hopefully remember to hold up if they ask me about it.

[Unknown Committee Member]: We have made a lot of investments and commitments in that area, and if we're shifting, want to ask,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: because it may have an impact.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: It may have an impact on the Harvard College of Hospital. It may have been big experience. That's

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: what made me

[Unknown Committee Member]: think about it, why I pulled the page up on you talking about early college flexible practice.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Sorry, those aren't fun.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I have no bias here, what was the other, I just want to make sure we have time to do our work. So I'm not trying to put anybody off. But some of the stuff, we have no money. We're not going to all of a sudden come up with a million dollars, so maybe we can talk about it later. I don't want to also talk about bacon.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Efficiency is not that's something we already have in place.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm like,

[Unknown Committee Member]: this is not mine. It's a direction which may

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You have a million dollars? I loved how Flores said small pockets. Get small pockets.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: To describe that, makes money. To what's I would love

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: to see maybe after crossovers, get some people in here to talk about the opt out bill, $8.30.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The point has to get here first, and there is a- Does he have it here? 30?

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: 08:30, right there.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, HA-thirty. Yes. Got it. It's kind

[Unknown Committee Member]: of handy thing I would've sold.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I was opting out of something completely different.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: No, I didn't opt out of all this. I

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: need to know now. I need to know more, yeah.

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: Oh, you want the whole enchilada?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, don't think it will take me both. Okay, great. Can you please elaborate on what

[Unknown Committee Member]: he was talking about with opt out? Well,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: there's this whole federal thing with being able to deduct from your taxes donations to independent programs, but you have to opt in or opt out of the state has to opt in or opt out of the program.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Hope that's what you

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: were thinking. That's what I thought you were going.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I need to know where

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: he was coming from though. Alright. Well, thank you all for the input. It's actually quite helpful, especially on some of the stuff that we kinda gotta deal with before crossover. And don't count on me to remember all of it. It's the next one. Little note here there is fine.

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: All you

[Unknown Committee Member]: can't remember it a lot.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, shall we return to our usual discussion? Everybody ready?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, perfect.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Discussion. Yeah. So today, I thought I would give us a break from talking at each other and doing a little more listening before we start all talking at each other. So I've asked legislative council to take the recommendation that came from the Commission on the Future of Public Education and turn it into rough statutory language for us to just read and look at, because I know that sort of the issue of school closure is one that is of concern to many people. And so just wanted to put it on the table as something. And then I have revised the sort of designation contracting language in light of some of the testimony that we've heard. And we can discuss that after as well. But, Beth, if you're ready, we'll walk through the proposed school closure language. And again, I just want to reiterate These are all for conversation. I did not want to lose the work that the commission did on this issue, so I wanted to make sure we had it in front of us.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. I'm just signing into Zoom. What would you like to walk through first?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The school code project.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So as your chair mentioned, this is a very, very rough draft that I put together with no feedback or input other than the language in the commission's report. And even then, I had to make some choices for drafting purposes. So if what you see in the commission's report doesn't align exactly with this, too bad.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just in context, this was one of the charges that the Commission had was to discuss community involvement in the decision to close the school. This was compromised language that the Commission came up with. Not everybody agreed with every part of it. So, off we go.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So this is meant to be more of a concept than really fine tuned language, if you will. You can see right there on the first second line, there's a policy choice there. So beginning in fiscal year, whatever you decide, the decision to repurpose a school building, close a school building, or cease using a school building to provide direct education in at least one grade, pre K through 12, shall be made according to the following process. So this is I should come back. I've drafted this as a piece of session law, meaning as session law, it would be envisioned to live for a short, finite amount of time. If this was something you wanted to put as a permanent process, like this is the only way to do it, we were going to add it to Title 16. Just keep these. These are all policy considerations for you to be thinking about. Okay, so the process. The school board shall form a steering committee to study the advisability of closing or repurposing the school building in question. The steering committee membership may include school board members, and the steering committee is a public body and is subject to the open meeting law. Ton of policy decisions right in that subdivision. Is the actual membership of the steering committee? It says maybe school board members, but that may be an area where you want to provide some guidance. Number of steering committee members. The language that I used was directly from the commission's report. What does form mean? Are they appointing folks? Is there an application process? All of these things are policy decisions. Second step in this process, the school board shall include discussion of the advisability of closing or repurposing the school building in question on not fewer than three school board meeting agendas. The school board shall seek meaningful input from the residents who would be most affected by the potential closure or repurposing by holding not fewer than one school board meeting where school closure or repurposing is discussed in, the town or city where the school is physically located, and the town or towns or city or cities whose resident students attend the school. I think if you choose to move forward with this language, I can be far more eloquent here. The point I wanted to just plainly get across is that the recommendation was that these meetings should be occurring not only where the school is located, but also where folks are coming, sending the sending towns, if you will. So if all of that is one town, great, then A and B are accomplished together. But if the school is located in one town and there are three towns surrounding it that send their resident students there, then there would have to be a meeting in each of those four towns. Again, that's all policy. That's all a policy choice. The third step would be the steering committee is making a recommendation to the school board regarding the advisability of closing or repurposing the school. Do you want me to continue with my commentary or just keep reading?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, no, I think this commentary is very important. Again,

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this is all policy. There is a place in here where I can actually say, nah, you can't do that. But this is all policy. How is the steering committee arriving at this recommendation? Are you giving them any topics of consideration that they have to weigh? One of the pieces of law that I looked at yesterday when I was writing this was the school withdrawal process in Title 16, Chapter 11. There is a similar process where there needs to be a study committee formed to recommend to the communities whether to withdraw from a union school district. And that statute requires a whole host of specific pieces or specific topics, data points, what have you, that the study committee has to consider. So that might be something that you'd want to consider here is how is the steering committee arriving at their decision? You also could just say they can do whatever they want. There's a wide spectrum there of how specific you're going to get should you choose to take this up.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Which is a nice way of saying the traditional future of public education in coming up with this idea basically created a steering committee, gave it nothing to do, and then said it had to produce a report.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Am not none of this is a commentary on the hard work of the commission at all. It is a commentary on my lack of specificity and drafting. And where I would want to go if someone just said, let's try and flush this out together. Page two, here, the commission recommended two different options. So I have them here as 4A and 4B. So one, and they did not recommend this window within sixty days, I added that. So within sixty days after receipt of the steering committee's recommendation, the school board shall hold either a nonbinding advisory vote or, in 4B, conduct a public input survey, both of which would be meant to reflect public sentiment regarding closure of the repurposing school and the nonbinding advisory vote or the public survey would have to go to the town where the school is physically located and all of the sending towns. Again, not only are there two policy choices here just for whether it's a survey or a nonbinding advisory vote, whether it just goes to those localities, whether it goes to the entire union school district, it's all policy in there. Whether you even have this advisory step before you get to any final decision is all policy. Okay, here we get to a little bit more of the finite where the law actually does provide using guardrails. So within ninety days, again, I added that timeframe because I think it helps to give folks windows of when these votes or decisions need to be held. Again, just because I find it helpful does not mean you need to make that policy choice. Within ninety days of the results of the nonbinding advisory vote or public input survey, because we haven't made that decision yet, conducted pursuant to the language we just walked through, and not less than one hundred and eighty days prior to the proposed date to close or repurpose the school. That was a recommendation in the commission. The voters of the entire school district shall vote whether to close or repurpose the applicable school. And then I added all of this fancy language borrowed right from Title 16 regarding that it would the vote would be taken by Australian ballot, and it would proceed according to the election protocols we already have in place for union school districts and that the ballots would be commingled. Commingling of the ballots is a policy question. It is technically a policy question whether or not you want the question determined by Australian ballot even, or whether it's a floor vote. But this is what most of what is happening in union school districts is happening this way. Do you want me to speak at all? And then I'll say page three, the sixth step is that closure or repurposing of the applicable school shall occur if the question is approved by a majority vote of the school district voters. So it's the entire district. Do you want me to speak at all to what I didn't include or not?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, sure. That'd be fine.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. There was a recommendation to have an appeal process to the State Board of Education. That's not really a thing for a vote. I don't really know how else to say it. Votes are relatively speaking, a vote of the electorate is the way to determine the will of the voters, and there's not really an appeal process for a vote. There are various different ways you can contest an election or a vote, and most of those have to do with procedural irregularities or ballot confusion, but just not liking the outcome or disagreeing with the outcome is not usually a basis. I believe that technically, there is an extremely extraordinary remedy available through common law, potentially, if all of the facts are correct for someone to challenge the results of the vote. All of that to say, if you make a policy decision to have the electorate be the final decision makers on whether or not to close the school, that's it. That's the decision.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Version one. Is there not a process in this scenario that a petition could be presented to reconsider a vote?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, you could do that. Because there is that. There is reconsideration. There is

[Unknown Committee Member]: contesting So that's all spelled out in statute.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. That's all in election law. But an appeals process for the results of a vote, I'm not aware of any analogous situation, and I think it flies in the face of public elections in general to allow for an appeals process to a vote.

[Unknown Committee Member]: You know, it just goes to first to say, I mean, a reconsideration is in its own way some form of appeal. You know, somebody's not happy with the vote, they can petition to reconsider it, they could change it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, that's very different than an

[Unknown Committee Member]: official I understand the language, the legal.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Where there's a different decision making body. It's the same file When a That's good. The big That's what I see the difference as. When you appeal, you're appealing to an entirely different body to reconsider the issue, essentially. When you file a petition for reconsideration, it's the same folks.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, okay, got it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Whether or not the electorate is the final arbiter is a policy decision. If it is a school board that is making that decision, then I think we can certainly talk about an appeals process and what that looks like. And if you want to go any deeper into election law, please call on Tucker and Tim. And then we have the last provision in this language is just that this language is going to supersede any charter or school district articles of agreement to the contrary.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Can I

[Unknown Committee Member]: ask a question, I guess, of you on the appeals process? Did that come from

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Just suggestion for potentially how, okay. We did not have a lawyer in the room to advise us that we were going off the rails here.

[Unknown Committee Member]: But I wondered where it came from,

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: but that's important to know.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The components here are requiring a good robust engagement and study by the school board or its steering committee. And then closure requires a vote. Now the vote is for the whole district, because the whole district's responsible for the expense of the building, as opposed to just the town in which the building is located. That also created problems because some, what if we try to close a high school that serves five towns? Does just the town where it's located get to vote? So that's why it went district wide. It was also because some of us believed that the decision should be made by the school board and there were others who said it should be made just by the town, this was sort of the middle ground that we came through with. Leanne, do I have any I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think you just answered my question.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I was kind of goofy about how this was sort of a response to representative Olsen's bill worked with that district, Washington.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It was a response to the charge that we were given to come up with a process for engagement with our school. Before that bill, I think, goes over here. I only put this on the table, put it out there just to have it in our back pocket if we wanna continue discussing this issue as we move to, if we can move to newer and larger districts. I know that some people get very interested in this level of protection.

[Unknown Committee Member]: It revolves no.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Think having this other conversation, but I think there definitely needs to be conversation about some of the work again.

[Unknown Committee Member]: Yes. I

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: see some concerns that I have already, but

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Did we hear them? Your concern?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: One of the concerns is just the timeline how not that it should be a quick timeline by any means, but I want to look further at the timeline. You've got sixty days, ninety days, one hundred days, eighty days, and then you've got a section even before that of a lot of different meetings that have to happen, so I just want to look at the timeline more. And then the big one is, should it be a vote? That's the big discussion.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I also want to make sure everybody knows that this is there's language in the recommendation that's not here. This is only in the case of needing to close a school for, know, sort of, it's more of an arbitrary decision. I don't wanna say arbitrary because it's well thought out. But it's not, if the roof falls, you gotta close a school, you've got mold, that power already exists.

[Unknown Committee Member]: I'll just mention this because it's come up many times, and sometimes it's by me, usually it's by me, in this process and we're not in this language. When a school, when a community or a district is contemplating the closure of a school, one of the barriers is the challenge of what to do with that building if it's closed. So I'm gonna continue to say that I think that we should be responsible in considering seed money for the district, the town, the whatever, and what happens to the building once it's closed. I don't know how any of that fits into here, but I just wanted to put it on everybody's radar because it's been a barrier in my own region, and I'm sure it's a barrier elsewhere

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to closure. I mean, even

[Unknown Committee Member]: engineering costs or legal fees

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: can I be a

[Unknown Committee Member]: didn't want to go there, but

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you did it, so I will go there? Yes, thank you. And I'll just bring up some other concerns that I have. So, for example, it says, to repurpose a school building, close a school building, or cease using a school building to provide direct education in at least one grade, Does that mean that if you move your pre K of three kids to another building, have nine pre K kids, does that mean you have to have an Australian ballot vote for just moving one district? That's where the vote concern is for me as well.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: For clarification, if you move them to nine, if you move nine kids to another building that was not, maybe it was in the school, but the school was adopting sort of another building, whether through rent or through, would that really be closing a school or would that be acquiring a space?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, this says you hold a vote, it is based on the recommendation of the commission to repurpose a school, close a school building or cease using a school building to provide direct education in at least one grade. So, you know, we had lots of cases where people have moved sixth grade to a middle school. Now all of a sudden, under this proposal, you have to have a vote.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Repurposing. I'm not sure I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: read it that way, but if two people disagree, there's probably more people who disagree. So that's a great area to clean up to make sure it reflects your intent.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. And I thought before I led this conversation, I should have gone back and read the recommendation because I thought we had dealt with this issue of moving just one grade.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I read this, and I'm not sure that I took this language directly from the commission. I may have borrowed it from the default articles of agreement under Act 46. I read this to say you're ceasing to operate the school building with at least one grade in it, not that you're moving one grade, but you need to clean that

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: up. And

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: maybe the repurposing is a little vague too, because does that just mean reconfiguring it for different grades or repurposing it for noneducational?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Not Yeah. Yeah. We designing statute at the commission level. We're running broad recommendations for the legislature to consider.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I certainly appreciate that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Further discussion on this? Anyway, so I just want everybody to sort of have it in the back of their mind if we want to take up this topic further in this session. Alright, so the other language that Beth has brought is I had put on the table for discussion purposes, sort of policy language about moving from sort of the town tuition program to moving to a direct contract relationship between school boards and independent schools. Again, this is sort of the idea that school boards are responsible for educating students in a school. And some of the testimony that we have heard is, for example, in the Champlain Islands, they send their kids to more than the previous language said three, but they use more than three. We've got places along the New York state border that go all over the place. So I worked with Beth to make it sort of a little broader with no sort of number limit. And again, I put this out there as a good idea, but I may not have seen the challenges and it may need a lot further revision. But why don't you go ahead and walk us through this as well? And I will say at the outset, so this concept basically says it recognizes that we have elementary school deserts in the state, And it recognizes that we have the historic academies that have long served as the public school in many parts of the state. But it does not recognize other schools as being part of the educational ecosystem. So just right out there on the table.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I'll just share my screen. Okay, we're still in Title 16. We're in the powers of school boards. Any language that's highlighted is different from the first draft you looked at. So the first draft you looked at required each school district or each school board to assign each student to a public school. And then if there was no public school reasonably available, then they would designate. This language requires each school board to establish policies and procedures for assigning each resident student to a school in grades kindergarten through 12 as applicable that is either operated by the district or designated by the district pursuant to the designation

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: function that we're in block group.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Section two is the amendment to the designation section. So, the first time you look at this language in draft 1.1, there was the there was the limit of three schools and it was either a public school or an approved independent school. This language says a school board may on line 16 designate an eligible approved independent or public high school or schools to provide education for its resident students by contracting with an eligible school pursuant to the section. Subdivision two tells us what schools are eligible. So on page two, a school is eligible for designation if it is a public school located in Vermont or outside of Vermont in a different state, or the school is approved under 16 BSA 166 of this title, which just means it is an approved independent school, is eligible to receive public tuition under Section eight twenty eight, and meets at least three of the following four criteria. The school serves as a regional CTE center. The school was established through the granting of a charter by the general assembly. Schools qualified as a public school under the definition of public school in effect on 06/30/1991, or the school is designated under 16 BSA nineteen thirty five with this title as an employer of teachers within the meaning of Chapter 55 in Title 16. This is eligibility to participate in the state teachers' retirement system. So, are the eligible schools. So, public schools in Vermont or outside of Vermont, in a different state, or an approved independent school that meets these criteria. So

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: for those who haven't seen this language before, I can see it raising questions. These are essentially legal definitions that encompass the four historic academies.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I thought that when we were talking about Act 73, when

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we passed Act 73,

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: that there was language in it that said that these schools would still have to now meet the minimum class sizes, but that doesn't appear to be the case in this language. So would the school still have to meet the minimum class sizes?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This language doesn't touch anything about eligibility to receive public tuition. As I said, when I walked through the strap the first time, all this language is meaning to do is get across the designation and contract concept. There would need to be so many conforming amendments around your policy choices and other places of Title 16 to make that work, whether you want these schools So, yes, the class size minimum requirement is under Title VI under But Section eight twenty you haven't decided yet if you're going to allow for public tuition anymore. And so do we need that statute anymore? And is that where they live? And do you want them? A whole host of other policy decisions. But technically, under Section eight twenty eight, that's where the class size minimum Okay. Requirement

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So but this cuts out all the others all the other independent schools that

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: have already been approved by the law last In grades nine through 12.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: In grades nine through 12.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not sure I understand the question.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, by defining what a school is, it's a public school or meeting these criteria. That limits the schools that are available to receive public tuition for grades nine through 12 to the four academies.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For approved independent schools, public schools, there's no qualifying language. And I am not familiar enough with those schools to know whether they offer elementary education. So if you all are, you can make those assumptions. But I don't know.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it's

[Unknown Committee Member]: not one of them.

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: For a concrete example, perhaps in my area, we have two independent, proved independent high schools in my area that are currently receiving public tuition dollars, Burke Mountain Academy East Burke School, or high schools that are independent, under this proposal, they would not be eligible to be designated for Rush. An elementary, approved independent elementary school in my area that currently receives public tuition dollars would be Riverside. Still does me under this because it's an elementary school, not a high school.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Trying to remember, we talked about We talked about elementary schools, but did we not pursue language?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think we talked, I don't have any memory of talking about.

[Unknown Committee Member]: TBD. TBD. TBD determined. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do want me to keep going? Yeah. Okay. So we're on page two, line 15. A school district may operate its own public school or schools and also designate an eligible school or schools pursuant to this section. And there is no limit to the number of eligible schools school board may designate pursuant to this section.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Again, that's no limit. That is really to sort of recognize that we have places that use multiple public schools, probably greater than three districts currently. Or they might use one of the four academies and four other public schools. Alright. That's it. That's it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Everything else remains the same.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: There was some language at the bottom here that said section three.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Oh, I pulled that because of what we just walked through, but I'm happy to put that back up. Yes. You want me to put it back up? Yes, the draft I sent Matt initially had it, and then we walked through school closure language, and I pulled it, but I'm happy to put it back up.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Put it back up there because this is a kind of a different issue, which I'm not sure if it This it's was so this next section was to address the issue of closing a public school that would then create a desert, a public school desert, and that would require state board approval. Then that becomes it it ties in what we just talked about. So we'll need to figure out how to make that work.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This is adding a section to the school board's chapter entitled 16, a school district that seeks to close a district operated public school and instead designate an approved independent school pursuant to Section eight twenty seven, which is the designation statute that we just walked through, to educate the resident students that would be affected by the school closure shall seek approval from the state board for taking such action. The State Board shall approve the school board's decision to close a public school and educate its affected resident students by designating an approved independent school if the State Board finds after an opportunity for a hearing that closing the school in question would not create a public school desert.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So here was my goal in coming up with some new language, which I said already, but I'll say it again. And that is, we have heard concerns that school districts need more options for those that don't basically operate a high school. I've heard concerns that we

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: don't wanna necessarily make it

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a free for all either. And I've heard concerns that we are shutting out schools that have served as basically public high schools for two hundred years. So it's to be inclusive of that. It's to be inclusive of the need to have more than three schools available if you are designated. It's to address the concern that there are students who are equidistant from LI and St. Jay because they remain part of the system here and to also sort of add some simplicity to it. So, this is to discuss. Representative Brown?

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No, I was gonna say, I appreciate that this language sort of acknowledges a concern around public school deserts. I'm just glad, I think it's good that we're talking about that. And then obviously there'll probably be some policy decisions to make around defining what that looks like. But I think it's a really important conversation for all of us.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, and it may be one of those things where before a school board decides to close the school, they need to go to the State Board of Education, something like that. Yes,

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: please. I just wanted to call out that restricting independent schools further could be a non starter for many in the body. So I'm kind of throwing that out right at the beginning of the conversation with this.

[Unknown (possibly Committee Assistant 'Pat')]: I think that Zoe's comments were pretty apropos. She kind of ended with saying, well, we covered this past 'seventy three, We had a lot of independent schools now, we don't have many, thanks, but we'll oversee those. So, they're there for us to use.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, this is, I can certainly put this out there thinking that everybody was gonna

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I know, sir.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I would challenge everybody over the next few days on the weekend to say, what are the unintended consequences here? We need to be asking about that at all, of all things. I'd like

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: to say, I appreciate the effort and I definitely need some think time,

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Like the three out of

[Rep. Leanne Harple (Member)]: the four criteria, I'd have to examine those more closely and see what those impacts would be on the independent schools in my region that aren't at historic academies and what that might mean for elementary students as well as high school students. So I need to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I appreciate it. So my mind doesn't retain much. And in my mind, Beth and I totally solved the elementary school question. I don't think I fantasized about that. But I do think this does not speak to and does not recognize the fact that we do have public school deserts where at the elementary level, have independent schools that have to fill the gap. And I think if I was thinking back, I was thinking like, perhaps no regulation on that, because it's really not that many. It's generally one area, but that's to think about. Thank you.

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I just can't help myself. I like I have to say, I really disagree that we have in any way put this issue to bed. I think the fact that you still have so many different policy threads that require some really thoughtful work, I really have to disagree with that statement from earlier.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, this is at the heart of whether we can whether we can come to agreement on school districts and sort of a uniform thing across the state. This was my attempt to say, let's have school districts, let's have school boards do across the state what they do in most of the state, that is make sure kids have a place to go to school. Let's recognize that the historic categories have served that role and are vital to moving forward. But yes, we are going to run into this every time we continue talking. Are we really moving the needle if we just keep SUs? Is the real goal of SUs just to maintain choice in some parts of the state. Whereas I think the role of the state is to educate kids at school.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: Yes. This might be a topic for a later discussion, but it's very connected to this. So yes, there is a portion of continuing SU's because of choice, But is there a way within the format of everybody going to the district to leave things as is for the independent schools?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say this is the wall we keep hitting, getting hit by is, right, leave things in place, what does that mean?

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: What's currently operating right now after Act 73, but not touch it any further.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, what we have, what we didn't touch under Act 73, because it is continually the wall we give, is the issue of choice existing alongside traditional K-twelve education. That's We the challenge for

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: did kind of touch in Act 73 because we passed something that limited it to 18 schools, I believe, which we were okay with because of the past.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We did not deal with it because we did not create districts.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: So within a district model, is there a way to take care of it? Where we can allow what is happening now to continue?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that's what we keep running into. It's that I'm not sure we can.

[Unknown Committee Member]: So how do we move forward without doing any of what you're proposing?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm not sure I have an easy answer to that. I would say there are other big thinkers out there thinking about this and discussing other things that I've never thought of. But I mean, I've been in this community for ten years, and for ten years we can't move forward because we can't solve for having school choice exist alongside way, you know, the way, it's generally delivered. Oh,

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: that's just clarifying. What does solving that mean?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, changing it. Eliminating it? Eliminating I yes, hope I've been very upfront that this does eliminate the concept of choice. It does not eliminate the concept of paying tuition to independent schools to educate children. And I realized this is what we're going to So I don't think we need to talk about this any further because I think we're going make any headway. But I would say that if there is somehow that it can all come together, Great. I don't know what that is. I've been unable to find what that is. And I am by virtue of the fact that I'm the one putting my name on things and putting things on the table. I am sort of following my own philosophy that we need larger, bigger districts and these districts needs to operate under a standard set of statutes. And that the second we start making special exceptions all over the place, it all sort of falls apart. But I don't know. But can

[Unknown Committee Member]: expect the

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: foundation from my

[Unknown Committee Member]: life that we're all

[Unknown Committee Member]: I just have a hard time with the special exceptions. I mean, it's been part of the Vermont culture for longer than all of us have alive multiple times.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would agree that the use of the academies to educate children in high school has been here for generations. The proliferation of independent schools really happened post 1991. And that's when we sort of moved into a choice model with options. My purpose is not to, this is my purpose, to put this on the table, and for those of you who have an issue with this, to think about it, think about how we might solve for it. But this our positive blockade and it comes to the SU SD problem as well. So when I say I'm trying to solve for something, I'm trying to solve for my vision. And I think that that vision is shared by many others, including sort of the original proposal from the governor of H450 4. Sensing silence and sensing the need for people to do a lot of thinking and not really being interested. Shall we just adjourn until the floor and everybody can sort of talk among themselves? Or is there further discussion that folks would like to continue with?

[Unknown Committee Member]: As I talked to you earlier about, for me, it's I want to think through and digest before reacting.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Yeah. And I am not looking for a robust debate on this proposal right now, because we should all sit with it for a while.

[Rep. Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: And I just want to clarify, for me, it's, you know, we're all trying to have these courageous conversations and move conversation forward, and when I put these ideas out there, it's to add to the conversation, because these are things that I'm hearing and these are the questions that I ask. It's not in any way to halt the conversation or to be dismissive of any of the ideas. It's certainly to things need to be

[Unknown Committee Member]: out.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, and I fully expect you to sort of lead the conversation in different ways than I might be, and I appreciate you doing it. Leanne?

[Rep. Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I don't know what my question is.

[Unknown Committee Member]: That's fine.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Seems like a good time to wrap a napkin, a cup of coffee or a Diet Coke. Don't we all take a break? Water. We have the floor at 03:30. If anybody sort of in intervening time has some agenda suggestions or schedule issues, let me know.