Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Hi, Gila. Welcome everybody to House Education on February 18. Sort of following up on a discussion we started yesterday about CISAs or BOCES, But it would be good to have back in folks from the special education world who have commented on this, but just to get some more specifics as to the type of guardrails that we should be thinking about as we go to form CESAs. So we've invited back Erin Maguire and Chris Fenway to talk with us further about it. Really, we'll turn it right over to you and hear what you have to say. Thanks for making the time this morning.

[Chris Benway]: Great, thank you so much for inviting us back. My name is Chris Benway, and I'm the current president of the Vermont Council of Special Ed Administrators. I am also the director of special services for the Slate Valley Unified School District in Fairhaven, Vermont. And I'm in my twenty eighth year of service with the school district. Thirty fourth year in public education, also having worked in higher ed and community service agencies with developmental disabilities and mental health. So it's with that perspective and background that I offer testimony on behalf of VCSEA. As you know, VCSEA is an organization that supports all special ed leaders and collaborates with organizations across the state, including superintendents and the agency of education. We're very honored to contribute to a state that values education for all of its students so very highly. Today, we're happy to come and talk to you about the cooperative service agencies. We previously provided testimony, as you noted, and today's testimony really focuses on support of the Cooperative Service Agencies with guardrails, as you noted, to ensure access, effectiveness, and quality leadership. We feel strongly that the CESAs have the potential to address some of the staffing shortages, improve services and support for students with the low incidence disabilities, provide professional development and resources to school districts, and to strengthen the regional collaboration in special education, as well as increase school districts capacity to support all learners, not those just specifically with disabilities. It is a way to potentially leverage the resources, including the qualified human resources to create more equitable systems across Vermont, which I know is the goal of the legislature. We need CESAs to improve access to services, increase efficiency, and enhance student outcomes based on the unique needs of the region or the group of school districts. So we believe that one of the guardrails is that it should be voluntary, that the entities should not be static entities offering a prescribed menu of services, but rather that they must be responsive to the outstanding needs of the region. So if there's a need for specific therapeutic services, OTs or PTs, or, you know, board certified behavioral analysts, that that might be part of a regional cooperative education. It might be different in another region of the state because they may be very rich with those services and they may need consultation to IEP teams on low incidence disabilities. So really the design and the offering by the regional collaboratives really needs to be designed, it needs to be flexible to meet the needs of the entities that it would be serving. So the CESAs need to be designed to support appropriately all the students in that district. If it's professional coaching and development that's needed, and that's identified by the participating school districts, then that should be included. So basically what we would say is that a guardrail would include the CESAs need to be differentiated to meet the needs of their school districts, just as we differentiate our classrooms to meet the needs of the different students in our classrooms. No two regions are equipped with the same resources. They vary differently from region to region. So we have to honor those realities within our world and be responsive to them. As noted, this is an opportunity to achieve a level of quality, efficiency and effectiveness that would not be alone. I think the legislators talked a lot about small rural school districts about some disabilities with very low incidence rates, which makes it very hard for individual schools sometimes, or even school districts to operate a program, let's say, or programming. So there's opportunities for collective programming, collective training, collective professional development to help build capacities within existing schools and structures to better meet the needs of all students. CESAs should not be designed to create placements for students with disabilities or placements for students of certain categories. They should be designed to support schools and school districts in meeting the needs of all the students that they serve. Some of us have been around long enough, so we remember those commissioner designated programs. We remember homecoming and closing of those programs. And it's really important that we have LEAs retain their responsibilities for a free appropriate public education. CESAs cannot serve as decision makers for eligibility placement or IEP determinations. Those legal responsibilities by federal and state law remain with local education agents. The federal laws and regulations require this, and the LEA responsibilities include things such as being able to provide or supervise the provision of services, being able to allocate resources, including fiscal resources on behalf of the district, human resources on behalf of the district. So therefore LEAs have to retain that lawful authority and responsibility while partnering potentially with CESAs and working together around compliance. Vermont districts vary widely in size, as noted before, in capacity, and in student need, so CESAs must remain flexible and responsive to those changing needs of the districts that they serve. Their success should be measured by stronger inclusion and improved services within local schools, not by creating placements as noted, not by creating separateness, but by helping us to improve our inclusive responsibilities and outcomes. There's been much talk about the amount of money that's been expended in terms of with out of district placements, out of state placements, so over time, if we can increase our expertise and increase our capacities within our local schools and our local school districts to meet the needs of more learners, not all learners, right, but more learners, then perhaps we can stabilize those costs. It's also essential that in terms of guardrails that the CISAs do not undermine the internal capacity that school districts have always built, have already built. Some of us, school districts could share great success stories of development of their MTSS systems and the outcomes that they've achieved as a result of that. Some school districts have developed a continuum of alternative placements to meet the needs of learners within their district or within their region. So districts should not be forced to dismantle those programs that, or staff structures in favor of a regional model. Our schools and districts are in different places, as we said, as I said, and so with regard to programming or resources, the CESAs can't be cookie cutters. They must operate transparency and they must operate with accountability and compliance to IDEA, ensuring that districts aren't put at risk for noncompliance. So at this time, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to speak and turn things over to Erin McGuire for a few more details.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you. Was very helpful.

[Erin McGuire]: Great.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah,

[Erin McGuire]: making sure you can hear me okay. I'm Erin McGuire. I am the director of equity and inclusion and co director of student support services and instruction for the Essex Westford School District. I serve as the past president for the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators as well as our national organization, the Council of Administrators of Special Education, CASE. I would like to speak to some guardrails or needs as we think about this topic related to investment and leadership and governance. But before I go into those topics, I just wanted to note a couple of things that I think are important to consider as we think about the potential opportunity of this design. We are sort of in Vermont and understandably so in our past conversations about this topic as well as currently focused on special education. But this design has the potential to really serve students through access to services beyond special education. Think I about the amount of work individual school districts are doing related to managing Act 166 and registration and private preschools. I think about the amount of work we do related to our EL populations and sometimes, very few students in a school who need those services. I think about some of the business practices that I've heard discussed related to the potential for these designs, and so I did just want to note the importance of if we're going to have this conversation, the reason I think we need to move away from the BOCES framework is because if Vermont is going to invest and do this work well, centering ourselves in special education, I think might miss some opportunities. So I did just wanna say that. And then something that Chris said that I wanted to just lift up as well is the importance that we do not create sort of a decrease in inclusion and an increase in segregation of individuals with disabilities through this model. And so it really, I think, needs to be explicit that it is the expectation that that will not happen as we move forward when if we're going to reframe a law that you already have actually written, right? We have the ability to build these already and there is a model down, I think in the southern part of the state where they've tried one on for the first time and wanted to cite that as a potential resource to all of you to learn a little bit about how they've done that, what that looks like, what their governance structure is, and the way that they are partnered with school districts. So these entities are really a place for school districts to help themselves meet their needs, given their scale and scope and the challenges that they have because of that. But they are not a replacement, as Chris said, for the school district. They are a partner and a place to receive support, professional development, access to services. And VCSEA really wants to make explicit that those are basically purchased services by the LEA that the LEA employs, and it is important that students are not leaving their school district to receive those services. The services need to be flexible and deliverable through the education system that exists where students are, as opposed to going there to receive those services. So just a restatement of something Chris already said, but wanted to just lift that up. We also wanted to make sure that you understand that there is an investment to be made to build these. In the current environment of conversations about Act 73, there are a lot of discussions about education being an affordability issue in Vermont, which I understand. And I want to be careful about people thinking that this is an immediate solution to an affordability problem. This is about the potential to improve outcomes for students, to improve access to services, but it is not an immediate tax impact improvement over time. The students still need the services. To build a new entity that has access to services that school districts can access is going to take an investment from the legislature that I think is important to discuss very explicitly and make sure that we are not we don't have that become another part of the current political dynamic and challenges in the system, and then kind of become a target for an increased cost. So I just want to make sure we're all on that same page that in order to build something like this, there's a full year of build. There's employees that need to be employed to build this out. There are hiring practices. There are policies and procedures to develop. There's a governance structure to develop before there's even the opportunity to have a school district purchase a single service from a CISA. So hopefully that's helpful to you all. And again, that's not that is in support of the development of these and just a reminder that we can't sort of quickly save money with them, that there would need to be an investment upfront. Secondly, it is important that we're clear about leadership of these designs. Oh, did somebody say something?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: No, no, you're fine. Go ahead.

[Erin McGuire]: Okay. The leadership related to designs like this are important. The most common structures in the rest of the country that I'm familiar with have a board that is made up of the districts that are part of that cooperative, and the leader of the cooperative is responsible to those district leaders. There are some entities in some parts of the country where there are state run designs, but given some of the challenges that we've discussed around special education leadership in particular in the state and the diverse array of needs in the state, it is VCSE's recommendation that we do attach to a district governance model as opposed to a state governance model. There may be other opinions about that, but that's ours. So right now I think the people who would be best suited to help build these kinds of designs are people who understand the different regional aspects Chris was talking about across the state. So there are people in my county who might be really able to understand the way this kind of design could be helpful in a place where we have twothree of the population of Vermont. And there are other folks who have more experience in more rural spaces, more geographically separated spaces, that kind of CISA is going to look very different. If it takes two hours to drive across a CISA area, that's going to look different than if it takes forty minutes. And where that main office is situated, whether you need two main offices, what what the the hiring structure looks like for the diverse array of needs across a very large section of Vermont may be different than a smaller section of Vermont. The needs of a rural school will look different. That's another reason why I think we support this idea of governance at the district level, because this idea that governance can be the same across Vermont, we know we struggle with that because of the diverse array of needs, and we really think a district centered design for governance would make a lot of sense. I think the last piece is just that we really want to make sure that we work to carefully have CESAs become a successful and strengthening part of the system that they don't become in competition with. I will say that there is a little bit of me that worries about the, if you build services out and make services increasingly accessible, that's a good thing for students and families. It may also in the system result in increased service need. So for there if there are places where services have been unavailable, we will see an increased service that will be now accessible and an increased cost related to that service. So I just, you know, the complexity of the dynamics of increasing service availability, while I think is important for students and we need to value that there may also be an increased service access that happens, I think likely on that, and that we may actually see some increased costs in some places that have been really lacking resources that maybe are not spending on resources because they can't find them. So it's just sort of another financial reality to understand. I just want to say that given the conversation about redistricting, given the conversation about the foundation formula, given the conversation about the change in weights for funding special education, which we've testified in front of you on a couple of times now, and the desire to reinvent education in Vermont, I think this is an important part. I just want to notice how much change we create at one time, and how difficult it is to sometimes see the impact of a singular piece of change when there are lots of changes happening at the same time. And so just another kind of warning about creating this new design, again, which we are not opposed to, as we're not opposed to a change in the funding formula. It's just that the impact of what we're looking at with each change needs, I think, some careful analysis. So I hope that helps. And I would like to just take the privilege to make one brief comment about the funding and while it's not directly tied to sees us, I think this is all interconnected. I wanted to let you know that VCSEA really does feel like we need a bill related to the MOE issue at this point, given some of the continued conversations that are happening around the study issue of special education funding in Vermont. So we don't need to talk about that, but just wanted to let you know that there's been some recent additional things that have happened over the last forty eight hours that we really do think an MOE bill to ensure that whatever gets recommended by the agency of education around special education funding for the weights does include a direction from the legislature related to level of funding to make sure MOE is not interrupted for individual LEAs. So thanks for allowing me that little moment to pass on that message. But let's move back to CESAs and what questions do you have for us? How can we support you in your conversation about the issue? Thanks, Bennington. Thank

[Chair Peter Conlon]: you. Just some common themes that I'm hearing is, one, they should be sort of designed with flexibility to meet the needs of the districts. It should be governed by the districts that are parts of them. That within the world of special ed, they are not there to replace an LEA and the responsibilities that the LEA has, but are there really to offer additional or requested supports that may be harder to provide without a CISA. And then I appreciated your point about accountability. I think we always forget to put in parts about accountability. Sort of the one measure that you described was that the result is more inclusiveness, not less. I do have a little question on that, which is kind of a sort of scene specific. And that is, one of the benefits we've heard about CISOs is that you can build the scale you need to create a program that now being That would replace one that is way out of district. So you're potentially But if it's a multi district CISA, you may not be bringing that program to all the districts, but that you may be bringing it at least closer. I think this sort of hits on your, if you create services, you're gonna have greater access to services. We say part of the accountability is that it can't increase segregation, but yet part of what they do is help create programs that replace out of district placements. Then therefore create more use, are we increasing segregation then?

[Erin McGuire]: So I will just point back to the report that the Agency of Education delivered and their point about increasing the availability of services inside of schools for placements because there are, at least from the report, I don't know how I feel about this comment, but it was made that we have too many students placed in separate settings when we compare ourselves to Wyoming and North Dakota. And so the idea that we would build separate settings and increase the numbers of students who go to separate settings is in opposition to the current data that we have, as well as the report related to, section 29 of Act 73 that was delivered by the AOE. And so while we may be able to build some separate school settings under CSAs, what that does primarily is displaced the private independent schools who have been serving students, or it will increase the number of slots available in areas where we do not have therapeutic independent schools to serve students. But it will be important that there is an accountability feature that if a CISA builds a therapeutic school, which is really what we're talking about, that it does not increase the number of students who are in separate school settings. Now, the problem with that guardrail is that the legislature and VCSEA and the AOE do not control those decisions. The IEP team individually must make every placement decision for every student in the state who is eligible for special education. So while we can look at the data, the data is actually a roll up of every individual decision made. So you can't actually say, oh, well, if we build this, we cannot see a higher rate of kids placed in separate therapeutic schools because we don't want to increase segregation. I mean, you can say it's the intent not to see that happen, but again, the actual accountability to cause that only sits with IEP teams and by federal law, we must retain the autonomy of an IEP team to make placement decisions. I know that is a complicated answer and one that is maybe challenging to think about how we might write policy around that issue, but it is sort of a reality. And so if CESAs were to focus on helping schools build internal programming in their schools to serve the needs of their students, that might be an appropriate policy decision that would help address the issue that was found in the work that they did do under Section 29. Do you see what I mean? The reality though is that IEP teams determine placement and if there is an available slot in the region for students to be placed in separate settings, it will be up to the IEP team whether or not to place a child into that separate setting.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Great, thank you. Representative Long and then Representative Harple.

[Representative Emily Long]: So thank you, this has been really helpful and got me thinking again about everything. I'm trying to unpack the impact of the fact that we haven't fully implemented Act 173 on this conversation. Because we're having this conversation around outside placement, whether they're at therapeutic schools, independent therapeutic schools, or whether they're going to be developed in some future state in our school buildings. But that actually isn't one of the goals of Act 173. Act 173 is essentially trying to meet the needs of students in their home setting. And so I guess I'm a little surprised that this conversation around that this may increase segregation. And so can you just tell me whether you, if you think that that's right, that acts 173 not being fully implemented has impacted this, because a lot has happened between the time it passed in 2018 to today, that doesn't align, frankly, with the goals of Act 173. But then have you looked at the current CISA that's in place, both CISA's in place, and what their expectations are? Because from what I have understood, as a member of that district, that CISA, which covers a couple of counties, essentially. It is more about providing staffing in districts, in schools where needed to meet the needs of kids. Because the last thing I want to do is go against what our goals were on 01/1973. I want to make sure students have what they need in their buildings wherever they can. So that's helpful.

[Erin McGuire]: Chris, do you want start?

[Chris Benway]: I can start and Erin can certainly chime in. First of all, would echo that yes, 173 was not intended with the intentionality and planning and accountability that we all had hoped for. And I do think that there's a lot of unfinished work with regard to 173 in some districts. That's part of the issue is that there hasn't been consistency of implementation across the districts, so I think Erin and I both feel very proud of some of the changes that have happened in our home school districts, but we know that some of our neighbors have not enjoyed some of those same positive outcomes in terms of student outcomes and success on a variety of measures. And so when we think about CESAs, talked before about the fact that this wasn't just about special education, this was about supporting the needs of all students. And so to go back to that, I think that that is a place where, you know, in Southern Vermont, they had a lot of staffing shortages and issues with regard to that. So that was really that regional need was how do we get some expertise in these specific areas? So that's how they've designed it. And when new needs came up, when they lost people in key positions, they leaned on their cooperative agent to be able to partner with them to come up with sort of short term and long term solutions. And then that may have sort of planted the seeds for some future evolutions of that entity. And now the district next door also has transitions going on and now they have a need in that area. So now is this something that that cooperative collaborative board is now going to do in the future because it's in need of many? So I think that speaks to the need for outside of special ed and also the need for that ongoing flexibility based on those regional needs. The piece around increasing potential, I think that's one of our fears is that it could increase potentially the number of districts. The reality is, as Erin said, many of our students and families are living in a reality where they're not getting unnecessary service right now, or they don't have access to maybe the placement that the teams have identified as being necessary because there's not the availability. The other thing that I wanna remind folks of, because we forget to talk about this time is sometimes we have students with very, very complex needs who supersede what we can provide in, you know, the public industry education or mainstream. And maybe those students have been identified as needing a much have a higher level of placement, like a residential placement, but there are very few opportunities. So I think, you know, districts around the state could speak to, you know, I have a student that was denied at 17 different placements across the country before we found a placement that would accept him because of his level of needs and concerns around, safety. And so when that happens, school districts, seeking those placements, most of the time local school districts are, it's their responsibility as a local education agent to figure out how to provide access to an education to that student during that interim period. So there are, that's where the increased costs may come if the students who have been going without a necessary service, and now there's expertise or opportunities to become available or opportunities to collaborate, you may see a student getting something where they haven't had it before, but it's because they really weren't able to access their free appropriate public education previously. So Erin, go ahead.

[Erin McGuire]: I know we're out of time. I would add though, that I think it's possible that professional development through a CISA could actually help with Act 173 implementation. And you could look at regional accountability structures for Act 173 implementation through this design. You know, I think the ability to start building out separate schools as sort of a first functionality of ceases makes us nervous and I based on the segregation issue. So I think we don't want to necessarily negatively paint the potential of benefit both related Act one seventy three as well as a myriad of other possibilities. But it's a guardrail to ensure that we don't end up centered in. You know how do we build six other schools so students with disabilities aren't in our public schools? This is hard work when you cannot find staffing when students are not having their needs met in their public school and understanding why that's happening. Those are all important conversations and, the idea that we always place. We don't always place it, but a fair number of times we place that in the need of the student as opposed to the lack of capacity of the school. You see the difference there. So, all of those conversations are important. And I think Chris and I and also, know, the individuals with disabilities we've spoken to around this because their voices need to matter a lot in this conversation. And parents have been very clear like both we need placements where there are very intensive needs, but we also need the voice of individuals with disabilities. We cannot increase segregation. We cannot go back on the inclusion work that Vermont has done. Please, whatever we do, while we can benefit lots of things through this design, lots of opportunities, let's make sure that we hear that clearly and do what we can to avoid that from happening.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thanks. Representative Harple?

[Representative Leanne Harple]: Yes, I had a question just about the human resources to do this. I'm curious, would it require like MOUs if people were working across different districts within a CISA special educators? How how would sort of that work with updating collective bargaining agreements? I'm really glad you asked that question. It is very important that the development of CESAs in Vermont maintain teacher access to teacher retirement, to benefits that teachers experience.

[Erin McGuire]: I would hate to see it sort of come outside of the public system so far that people did not have a way to work for a CISA. I think it would be very difficult to hire if we did that. But I do think a conversation about how collective bargaining works for a CISA is something that is an important conversation. It would not be a district entity. It would be its own entity based on my understanding. So all of the directors I work with who oversee CISAs in the nation, are basically superintendents of CISA, and they are collective bargaining, and they have a board, and they have a staff. I mean, we are talking about an additional type of structure in Vermont. That's why we talked about investment because there's a lot of work to do to create a CISA. Now I don't know if that's what's happened in the one in the southern part of the state, and I don't know the current law that you wrote and how it interacts with the collective bargaining. We I wonder if hearing testimony from that CISA directly about their experience. If you're really thinking about trying to structure a law that will work in Vermont to put guardrails on and describe these issues, might be very helpful to hear from them directly.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I think the law we have does speak to this.

[Erin McGuire]: Okay.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: We need to revisit it. And the one in Southern Vermont, I'm not sure, other than the executive director, I don't know if they have full time employees if they're just using consultants at this point. Chris, you made a comment early on, and you said that CESAs have the potential to solve some staff shortages. And then it makes me sort of think, whenever we talk about something, I always say, well, who's gonna do all this? But if we have staff shortages, how is a CISA going to be able to find these human beings if school districts can't?

[Chris Benway]: Yeah, I think sometimes one of the things that we may find, especially in like your small and rural school districts, is that they may not have like full time equivalent needs for specific personnel. So thereby they are informally trying to collaborate with other school districts to say, hey to their neighbor, do you have an OT that may have some extra time that we could contract with in those kinds of conversations? So I think that's how it's, in some cases, it's not that the folks are not there, it's that they may not be there for the limited time that's needed in that district. So if you're able to put together a full time position for, you know, a particular skill or area through a CISA, and then people are buying into that like a contracted service, you know, Erin's district might need ten hours, my district might need five, and another district might need twenty, then we can partner on that full time position we would be paying into that entity for the service and that individual might be serving, you know, five different schools in three different districts or what have you. So sometimes it's not about the lack of qualified personnel, it's the lack of availability for the limited time or sometimes geographical challenges. There may be more a particular, more SLPs available in Chittenden County because there's a training program in Chittenden County for SLPs, right? So there may be things like that that extend, you know, that create some of those sort of populations or service challenges. So those are ways that it could be addressed because that may entice other people. And in areas of complete shortage, if there's full time equivalencies, then folks are able to relocate, but they're not usually willing to do that for a point four FTE.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You had a question? There was one, so we have not settled on a term yet, but Erin, one of the first things you said was that we need to move away from the BOCES model, but I don't think you're referring to the BOCES model that we have in this state, but are you referring to more like the New York BOCES model?

[Erin McGuire]: I just think that the development of this being sort of tagged in a way that can be assumed. It means something from some other place has the potential to impact the design. So I think you know we have encouraged the Cooperative Education Service Agency framework. BOCES has a historical reference to special education in some places. It also has a historical representation of places students go, and so we thought that it would be a good idea to use the term ative Education Service Agency because it also then allows us to really think a little more holistically than some of the bias that might show up from using the term BOCES. So that's why.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Very helpful, thank you. We probably need to make those. Those are changes we can agree on and vote on, and that might be an easy task. All right, thank you both very much for your time this morning and the input. It was very helpful.

[Erin McGuire]: Great, Thanks for having us.

[Chris Benway]: Thank you for having us here. We appreciate it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: We have three minutes till we start again. We'll we'll keep the Zoom up, quiet the room, but people need three minutes to go get a glass of water, whatever. Go ahead. Go on.