Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Welcome to House Education on 02/24/2026. This afternoon, we are going to continue to take some testimony and discuss the committee bill dealing with chronic absenteeism. We're gonna start with some testimony from the Vermont Independent Schools Association with some of their thoughts on some of the provisions in the bill. And without further ado, I'm gonna turn it over to you, Oliver, to introduce yourself and proceed with your testimony.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: Certainly, thank you, Chair Conlon and committee for the record Oliver Olson here on behalf of the Vermont Independent Schools Association. So we've had the opportunity to review the latest draft, which is Doctor seven seventy seven version 1.1. So I'll focus my comments on there. And I think as we went through it, the biggest change we would suggest is really comes down to the definition of absence, which if you have the draft in front

[Chair Peter Conlon]: of

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: you is, let me get that page number, is, yeah, right on the first page, starting on line 16. So it defines absence as a student who for at least half a school day, when the school is open, not physically on school grounds, or who is not receiving educational services or programming elsewhere pursuant to a program or plan approved by the district. So I think the intent is pretty clear here. It contemplates students who are, maybe as part of a flexible pathway, they're doing an internship, they're on a school trip, they're on an exchange program, they're not physically in the building, that all makes sense in a public school or an independent school context. The challenge is the words approved by the district doesn't really work for an independent school. So we've suggested and we sent in a memo, essentially just a technical correction that if you look at the bottom of the memo that I submitted, would essentially tighten this up a little bit and clarify that it's a district if it's a public school student and it's the school. So, and then also just, we felt it would be helpful for both public and independent schools to just broaden that to be receiving educational co curricular or athletic services or programming elsewhere. And that covers things like for students who are at an away game or something like that, or on a co curricular class trip. So just want to make sure that's broad enough to encompass those things. So that was the, I would say the first major one and the only other one of note was just, I think a question that came up and that is clarifying the scope of this. So putting in some clarification of or definition around a student and legal pupil and clarifying that we're talking about Vermont resident students. So for example, if you have a boarding student from Spain, we're not gonna be calling out the truant officer if, you know, that's an issue that gets really kind of, I think beyond Vermont's borders there. So I think just clarifying that a little bit. And then otherwise, you know, the concept of a model policy when we actually do get into absences and sort of delineating, you know, between, you know, the different types of absences and having a policy, The model policy approach generally we find works well. We went through that with the cell phone policy and the AOE, and that was a really collaborative process with the school boards association. I didn't see in here, I may have missed it, but it might be helpful just to do something similar to what you did last year with a cell phone policy and just say in consultation with the school board's association, and probably I would assume that the principals association and the independent schools association. And that way, if there are details to be worked out with the AOE, everybody has an opportunity to provide input, It all comes out. And then the nice thing with a model policy is as things evolve, the AOE has the flexibility to adjust without having to go through a statutory change.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Great. We had some other suggestions which I thought I would just bounce off of you. Well, they really have to do with kind of how a district responds to chronic absenteeism, once things become, I guess, moved to truant, which probably doesn't pertain to independent schools because ultimately it's a district's sort of legal responsibility to follow-up. But one was another comment, I'm not sure it's universally shared, was sort of removing the, our family is going off on a trip as an excused absence, making that an unexcused absence. You don't have to have an opinion on this, but I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to weigh in on that if you wanted to.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: I mean, I think typically the way these things are handled is that if there's a trip that there would be an expectation of an educational component or the expectation the student is continuing their education. So I liken it to, well, think of the pages that work in the state house, there's still an expectation that they are continuing their studies and there are alternative arrangements made. So I think as long as there's a, and this gets back to the, you know, the concept of having a plan. So if you're gonna be taking off, there needs to be a plan to continue, you know, that education as part of that trip in that example.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That's actually a pretty interesting example. Think that we were following up with the agency or somebody to sort of see where a page who's not in high school, there's an A3, gone for four days a week falls into this part of it, yeah. Okay, any questions from the committee about any of this? These are, I call them not surprising catches. Was also wondering about the applicability of state law to foreign students. We did discuss that. Well, it's not just independent schools, international kids too, right? Mean, everywhere.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's from another state.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: Exactly, yeah. It's not just international, it's other states and we certainly have a lot of cross border students going both ways.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: But I think it's just mainly just making sure that we're modernizing the concept of absence because so much education happens outside the traditional classroom. And particularly with when you start getting into a therapeutic school environment, there's a lot of different modalities for how those services are delivered.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I'll just quickly say, totally understand your, this is Emily, by

[Chair Peter Conlon]: the way, Oliver. Nice to see you. Good to see you.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I understand you're following up your language about expanding a little bit on the absence definition where it says educational co curricular athletic services or programming elsewhere. I'm just going to say I come from the side of less is more in statute, and I worry about adding, and I'm not that this is

[Chair Peter Conlon]: a problem, but I worry

[Rep. Emily Long]: about adding those. And once we've added those, we start to have other people say, wait, why isn't something that I'm not thinking of right now on that list? So I looked back at the language, and I think in my mind, most of those things would be covered under the language that was in there. But I could be convinced either way. Just tend to not like lists of things in statute.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: I think representative Long, what you're suggesting is we don't wanna confine ourselves by putting out a list. Are we confining ourselves to things? And it's really more of a, I think it's a really valid point. I think we're both trying to say the same thing, which is here are examples, but it's not necessarily all encompassing. And I think the original language just said educational and some of it could

[Rep. Emily Long]: For programming, it says educational services or program. That's why I was hoping that language might cover all of those.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Plus that program refers to educational. Sometimes a comma makes a big difference.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: Exactly. I was not a good enough English student to be able to interpret this and say which way or the other it, you know. I think maybe just being clear about intent of programming. Because if programming, if we all mean programming to be broad, then that's great.

[Rep. Emily Long]: But the rest of the sentence is the important part I think, which is pursuant to a program or plan approved by the

[Chair Peter Conlon]: district. And we'll have legislative council momentarily to bounce all these off of.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Appreciate the intent.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: Yes, I think, yeah. And that's to your point, Representative Long, it's all about, you know, it's the school or the school district approving it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Okay, great. Oliver, I know you made quick work to be here today and I really appreciate it as we try to deal with this bill. Thank you very much.

[Oliver Olsen (Vermont Independent Schools Association)]: Excellent, thank you so much, take care.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Thanks.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: All right, unless the council comes in, we'll kind of walk through what we have again quickly, bring up some of this, bring up some of the comments that we've heard. Concerns or what do people need to know? So, we're almost gonna make another thing very clear. I'm not gonna present this on the floor, so it's good that everybody understands it, because maybe I'll just pick somebody randomly. But are there additions or changes that people have been thinking about?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I had another member in my area tell me that

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: he was seeing this as an unfunded mandate because of the hard work we did make sure that we're providing curriculum and that he didn't think that we should be supporting or passing any unfunded mandates.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: We did that section. We did have testimony, thank you for bringing that up, about exactly that, the requirement. Of that kidnapping under the superintendent, but I don't see it. I think we've talked about some

[Unidentified Committee Member]: changes in that section, let me see what it says right

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Well, we said changing shelves may, and

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that took care of it.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: I'm not sure that alleviated his concern. But yeah, I I would say technically legally, yes, that should alleviate concern. I'm not sure

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it's in.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Was this under the if they get suspended or something? Yes.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: That's the only thing that could be

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: called an unfunded mandate. That's right.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: I assume that that's what you

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think that the idea of

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: the school that needed to be on schools, he said that needs to go through DCF. But DCF doesn't really create trichula, so I mean

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So here we already sort of ordered the change from the Xiao to a May, and there was one other thing that was a VPA testimony. So another small thing that adjusted for that. The other sort of issues that have been brought up, one is getting rid of what they call, couple of people refer to us the letter of shame, which is when you get the letter that says A big official letter. Yeah, and I think some have been concerned. I think the folks from DCF said, know, these letters have often included a threat of DCF involvement, they were interested in not having that. We could ask the AOE working with DCF to come up with a standard response letter that school districts can use. And then maybe we'll have to speak with everybody on that.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I'll go back to what Red Harple brought up, because

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I just found it. It does say a public school or an approved independent school shall provide access, blah, blah, blah, if it's suspension of three or more days and if the may refers to the expulsion. So if a suspension, it still says that they shall provide it, not that they may provide it. So it's currently in the draft. Maybe that was why

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Maybe that's why. About that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Because the yeah. It was the expulsion was changed to a may, but the suspension still says shallower. And tenth was this draft that I May. So we may that may be a little bit overlooked that we changed it in one place, but not the other.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I'm just thinking how could this

[Chair Peter Conlon]: how is this even it's like

[Rep. Emily Long]: I mean, I know we did.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: And says, hey, Billy bogged me out for three days. Could you just give me some work? Yeah. Got it. That's what I do. Got it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, Because they might

[Rep. Emily Long]: need No, because they might needed access to tutoring. But it's under if the student has an IEP or something else, that's already controlled by It's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: an IEP.

[Rep. Emily Long]: So this would be outside of that. I'm

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Could you point to exactly where it's

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Line 17.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Page 10.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Because tutoring is

[Unidentified Committee Member]: If you have to pay for a tutor to go or alternate. I think that's something That may be what your person is referring to.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I would expect teachers to give students who are missing the assignments that they need. Generally we do. Tutoring should usually be given when a student is on 90%. Not necessarily though. I'm not saying totally The tutoring part is where I sort of The other part is that

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: if they're out of the class, may not be so easy to just print off or update what you're doing. Sometimes you have to create a whole new lesson, a

[Unidentified Committee Member]: whole new plan, an alternative to what you're doing with the class.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Well, maybe this would be a good time to have legislative counsel join us to answer our what if questions.

[Rep. Emily Long]: And while she's doing,

[Chair Peter Conlon]: whole point that Oliver brought up about our pages here, they must have They're doing their homework down there. They certainly are doing their work. It's just printing stuff off or would they do something different for

[Rep. Emily Long]: There's only one kid usually in the school.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Welcome. Hello. So just a few questions, some of which have to do with four memories. First of all, we just had some testimony from the Independent School Association with some suggested language changes that I don't think I heard many people here object to, which we'll get to you. One was essentially where it says that district absence means a student who is gone, pursuant to a program or plan approved by the district or an independent school if the student is enrolled in an independent school. I'll forward you this language.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Beth St. Jana's Office of Legislative Counsel, is it on your website? Because I think I'm looking at it right now.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Okay, yes. Yeah, page one at the bottom there. So there are two changes. One, it would say A and B, and also within it, they are suggesting additional words of co curricular or athletic services. Meaning if somebody is at an all day New England's cross country meet. That an excused or unexcused absence? Speaking about the district,

[Rep. Emily Long]: I'm struggling with that extra language there.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, this is just the definition of absence.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Whether

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: it's excused or unexcused is a different kind of a fish.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Thank

[Chair Peter Conlon]: you. That's helpful. And then, so the what if it was brought up with pages who are

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: in eighth grade who are here four days a week. Under the proposal, where would you think they would fall? Programming elsewhere pursuant to a program or plan approved by, but it doesn't matter what I think. I think you're getting into creating a list.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: There you go. Good concern. I think it's a choice.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I don't know that I am the best person to suggest language that would sweep in all of those educational opportunities. That I think that should come from the field, because I don't know what's out there and available.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I am, yeah, and that's, we should, always have to remember what this is doing. It is defining absence and chronic absenteeism and then excused absence. The other suggestion, and I don't have anybody's input, but I certainly didn't, at first blush, have a problem, to when it comes to independent schools, make it applicable to Vermont residents.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is that just applicable to independent schools, so really also? Or yes.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, think it should be awesome.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That language suggestion was under the definition.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, so if we have 10 students from New Hampshire attending high school in Vermont, this would apply to them. I'm sort of playing it out, wouldn't that school district want to know, but we're still reporting them, we're still reporting the absences.

[Rep. Emily Long]: That's not right,

[Chair Peter Conlon]: and it still has to be shown against you at school, right? Yeah. I think maybe if you would do a very high level sort of reminder as to what each section is.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, Can I offer a suggestion to what you were just talking about? Are

[Chair Peter Conlon]: you Yes. No, definitely interested.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Never offended when you say not interested because it usually means less work for me. You could certainly limit this to being applicable only to Vermont students. And if you were concerned about making sure there are report backs for out of state students who were supposed to be in school and aren't, you can just put in some language that says, for students who are not residents of the state of Vermont, but attend a school in Vermont, school board or whatever shall develop some sort of agreement with the sending districts for attendance reporting. I'd be shocked if that isn't already happening, especially if they're on public tuition from another state. You can figure, you can make that up. Okay.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Exchange students from other places, different countries. It's not just Yeah, what I'm trying to say is he was talking about students who are coming from another country, that was what his example was in Spain, and I'm just saying public schools have that too.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: But he also, I think, was sweeping in at the same time, know, in case from Massachusetts, it might be boarding students and whatever.

[Rep. Emily Long]: But I wouldn't wanna eliminate that. I would wanna make sure students are here for a year or a semester in the public school. Little better way to

[Chair Peter Conlon]: work for them as well, make sure they're taking care of our students. Of them. Alright.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Let's do it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Let's do a quick high level. Okay.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So this is a committee bill, and I this is still draft 1.1. I know you've taken testimony, and I think you've asked me to make a couple changes, but I didn't the lines weren't right on what I was looking at, so I have made no changes to this committee bill yet, but I have my pink pen today. So I will be leaving with edits. Just sort

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So what you said, we did give you the initial sort of two small changes suggested by DPA, had those been made?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: No, because the lines that were

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Okay. All right. So the draft we are looking at is the original draft.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes. And when I reached out to get clarity, I think we had a meeting of the minds that I'm gonna be back here eventually and we'll just take care of them then. So no, this is the language as introduced by AOE.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Thank you.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Maybe that's why it says Xiao.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So section one of the bill adds a subchapter or amends the subchapter three and chapter 25, which is your compulsory attendance chapter. And it starts by adding a brand new statute, which is definitions the chapter. Absence, So there's the definition. Do you want me to go just kind of like generally or line by line? Generally. Okay. So we've got definitions for absence, chronic absenteeism, excused absence, parent or guardian. I'll just stop from there. I'm going to try logging back in. Matt, can you turn on sharing? Okay. There we go. Fruancy, and then the last definition is unexcused absence. So you have definition of absence, you have a definition of excused absence, and you have a definition of unexcused absence. Amendments to section 11.21, attendance by children of school age required. Here's your compulsory attendance law. And there are some amendments to, let's see, parent or guardian shall cause the child to attend a public school unless, and then the reasons unless. So per medical recommendation. So this is not an excused absence situation. This is they are excused from the compulsory attendance law. So there's a medical reason for that. They've completed tenth grade or is excused by the head of school or superintendent.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: It has to be any one of these. So like if a student wasn't 16 but had completed tenth grade, he could be excused from compulsory attendance? Yes. So like if a 14 year old got passed up twice, you could say you can drop out

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of school at 14 years old because they'll come and finish the degree. That is the way this is written.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That's existing law. Yes. Yeah, I'm

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: not arguing that point.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm just making sure there on it. Students under six and over six years of age, section eleven twenty two, this is students on either side of the compulsory attendance law. And it's basically saying, if they're outside of the compulsory attendance window, but they are enrolled in public school, then they got to go. And the parent or guardian has responsibility to make sure that they're going. And the parent or guardian and the superintendent or the head of school is under the laws and subject to the penalties relating to attendance of children as if those kiddos were in the compulsory attendance window. So five year olds that are in kindergarten, if they're enrolled, all of the laws that we're about to walk through apply to them. 17, 18, if they are actually enrolled in school, all of the attendance laws apply to them. But if they're not enrolled, they don't have to be. School absence may be excused. Superintendent of a public school or designee of the head of school of an approved independent school may excuse a student's absence for all or part of the school day for the following reasons. And here's oh, why is it so funny? Yeah, maybe I stop sharing my screen so that it's

[Chair Peter Conlon]: All right. Right.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So we are on page four, line 13. We're going to jump to line 18. This is the lists from the reasons for which a superintendent or of school may excuse an absence. So physical, you can see this is all new law, physical or mental illness of the student, family emergency or death in the family, quarantine in the home. Zoom is really having fun with me today. Just gonna leave. Students medical, dental, mental health or substance use treatment appointment, excuse me, family observance or religious holidays, legal activities such as a student's court appearance, driving exams, college or other post secondary program visitations, legal or administrative proceedings related to the placement of the student by the state, absences due to transition in the student's living situation, results of the student experiencing homelessness, pre enlistment or deployment activities of the student or their parent or legal guardian, or other reasons not specified with the approval of the secretary.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Reminder committee, that is one area where I suggest a change was made from secretary to superintendent.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Would you like me to make that change?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And again, if it says superintendent, do we have to put in something about the head of the independent school in that line too? Yes.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You want there to be an option for designee or do you want it to be just those two folks? Good question.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Probably should go with designee.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The superintendent or designee or the head of school or designee may excuse a student on the bottom of page five, a student from attendance for a preplanned family commitment or activity of which the school has been notified in advance.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So this is gonna be we'll come back to it at point to debate that discussion.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Pre approved absences shall not exceed ten cumulative school days in each year. That preapproved absences language applies to this subsection. So it would just be those family commitments or activities, not subsection A. I'm on page six now, line one. The superintendent or head of school may request justification for an absence. Still on page six, line three, section eleven twenty four, response to chronic absenteeism. This is brand new law. So I don't know that I can summarize this. So to minimize each student's loss of educational and developmental opportunities, and to ensure equity in the treatment of absenteeism and truancy for all students and families, the school district is required to adopt a policy related to prevention and response to chronic absenteeism and truancy. And that policy is required to be as least as stringent as the model policy developed by the agency. One change I might suggest is that you have the model policy come first in the statute, so it flows a little better. Can I make that change?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yes. That the agency worked in conjunction with Superintendent Association, School Awards Association, Principal Association, and the Vermont Independent School Association.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Is there any language that we had in the cell phone bill?

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Thank you.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The policy has to be consistent with the definitions in this chapter, and the superintendent or head of school is required to ensure that data on student absences collected and reported in accordance with AOE requirements. I'm on line 16 on page six. Any school board or approved independent school that fails to adopt the policy shall be presumed to have adopted the most current model policy published by the agency. There's several places in Title 16 where you use this concept. So what will be your new subsection requires the agency of education in consultation with everyone you just told me to include to develop and review at least annually a model policy on the prevention of chronic absenteeism and truancy. I'm on the very bottom line 20 of page six, we're gonna go on to page seven. This policy shall include a template for documentation of actions taken according to the policy to address the absence, now we're on page seven, which shall constitute the truancy reporting protocol. Each SU SD or approved independent schools policy shall meet or exceed requirements specified in the agency of education's model policy.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Okay. So in B, the policy shall include a template for documentation of actions taken according to the policy to address the absence, which shall constitute the truancy reporting protocol. So there's a lot in that sentence. But we've had one request, and I think it was a very thoughtful one, to say that the letter that goes home should be standardized so that not every district's doing it the same. Would that fall under that?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is, I think, ultimately going to My ability to answer questions around this is based solely on the limited conversations I've had with AOE who drafted this language. I believe that is what is meant by that this policy would require, what's the right word, consistency in the documentation related to absences and truancy. And that document that is based on the policy of all of those, what did I say, actions taken, the truancy reporting protocol. I think you can call this whatever you want. I find that confusing. Protocol to me is a series of steps that you're taking. The way I read this is that it's a document. It would be the document with all of the actions you've taken. I think it's a semantics. If it makes sense to the field, if that is a term that the field is using, that is great. As someone who is not steeped in this area of school governance or education policy. I found that confusing. But again, it doesn't really matter what I think. It matters what the people who are using the law think. But I believe that the point behind this language was to provide consistency on how absences are documented.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So I would say maybe after the word protocol, adding in something like including standard correspondence to parents and caregivers or whatever the terminology is supposed to be used, parents and guardians.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I'll just say by adding in these, as we call them, and these are two, to work on this, There'll be that feedback

[Chair Peter Conlon]: in the loop. But

[Rep. Emily Long]: I think we need to be specific about that.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: And so just to be quick, we said in consultation, whether that means in developing all of this.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The policy.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yes. And protocols

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: All of and policies are required to include a template for documentation. So I think it would be wrapped up into the policy development.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Great. I guess the word template is what keeps stopping me. It's a template for actions, a template for documentation of actions. And I'm not sure it addresses specifically what that actual driver is.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I think this would be a question for AOE and what their intent is. And again, if you're interested in that, it's really your choice. I don't know that the new policy is going to require a letter home. That's an assumption you're all making about the policy.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It may not be a

[Rep. Emily Long]: letter home.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't know. Don't know. My understanding is that this new policy and the template is meant to be everything that school districts are doing with consistency. And so that might be an open question for you all. Is there still documentation going home? Is that something that's gonna get flushed out in the policy and you don't know yet? They may come in and say, No, it's our intent to have people doing whatever they're continuing to do, and then I'll need to understand what people are continuing to do in order to build that in.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Or we just sort of say, y'all gotta work together. And then we can assume that the conversation will take place where somebody from one group's gonna say, well, what about the letter home? And then they can have a conversation about it. Kinda seems like that's all there once we require that they do this in consultation with the field.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Let's see. When is your policy? So AOE is required to adopt and publish the model policy on or before 07/01/2027. So you could require a report back that legislative session with updates on the model policy if you're interested in it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Just throw that in there. July 15 deadline.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Or do you want updates while you're still in session?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Oh, has to be by

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Next July.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Oh, Then, yeah. During the session. Yeah.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: March 15? Sure.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Your seats are. Yeah.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Auspicious. You

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: look at me making a suggestion and drumming up work for myself. You like it.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: It's the cost of being diligent with that.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. But do see what I mean on I don't know that the letter will exist Maybe they're required. I don't know. Nope. Okay.

[Rep. Emily Long]: You

[Unidentified Committee Member]: have that documentation if you're gonna proceed.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Actually, you know what? Me

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: maybe you shouldn't have said I'm really I'm diligent because verify something. There's some asterisks there. So I just need to verify what is not included that we're not changing. So that's all brand new law. So there's nothing there that we're missing. Eleven twenty five. Oh, 11/25 is about truant officers. Eleven twenty six. Okay, so now we're getting into notice. We're on page seven, line six. When a student who's in the compulsory attendance window or enrolled in school and on either side of the compulsory attendance window fails to enter school at the beginning of the year, or if they are enrolled, they accumulate 20 or more, I'm on page seven, line eleven, twenty or more unexcused absences within the same school year or within the last one hundred and seventy five consecutive student attendance days. So one whole school year are straddling two. And then the next language is just about the students on either side. Which

[Chair Peter Conlon]: basically says if they're enrolled, they're also subject to that.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Yes. Yep.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The principal is required to notify the superintendent. Then for Vermont residents, students, the head of school of an approved independent school shall notify the superintendent of the student's district of residence. Upon review of the truancy reporting protocol, superintendent shall I'm on page 11, line one. If warranted, notify the truant officer and centralized intake of DCF.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So Oliver brought up wanted to keep it limited to Vermont residents, seems like that starting at line 19, it says for Vermont resident students. That's Vermont resident. Yes. Thank you.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, but I think this is only applicable for, right now, as drafted for independent schools. It doesn't say, do you want

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: me to add

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: make it applicable to all schools, that if they're only looking at Vermont resident students? No? Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And is this only applicable to this section about the 20 or more?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: This is how you determine whether someone is chronically absentee. Right. The principal's keeping track of it and then notifies the superintendent when they hit 20. I'm sure there has been notification prior to that.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: This is to call somebody truant or absent?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Truant. Truant. Okay.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, guess this seems to be appropriate. Certainly

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: for independent schools.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, but any bigger thoughts? I do sort of trust that we're doing this trusting that public schools probably, if they're taking in students from other districts, their own arrangements. I have more. No, I have more.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: You wanna move on?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. I'm just

[Chair Peter Conlon]: If she says, do you wanna move on? Say yes. If you guys don't want to, just say, nope, I'm not ready yet.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Truancy, just looking back,

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: oh

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: my goodness.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Excitement goes over the rooms.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I just bounced back up to the definition of truancy, and it means a student who accumulates 20 or more unexcused absences. And then chronic absenteeism as a student who is absent for any reason for 10% or more of a district's in school days. So technically two different concepts. Okay, one thing, page eight, one thing I find interesting is the use of the term if warranted on line one.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You're on page eight.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Not that you should care what I find interesting. If warranted

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Line one page.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Eight. Oh. As opposed to just they will do it.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah. Well, I don't know what policy choices you wanna make. In fact, this is a perfectly reasonable policy choice for you to make.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I would make it warranted or not warranted.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: What are the criteria that And would

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: this may be a question for the field where they need that flexibility for various reasons. I'm just pointing this out.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I would say we strike that. Otherwise, gotta mean, don't we have to identify what's warranted or what's not? Right. That would

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: be a way understanding.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What am I gonna say?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Exactly right.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Policy decisions. Allowing them to decide. To not

[Unidentified Committee Member]: do it. Well, I've seen

[Chair Peter Conlon]: that kid downtown. No. To not do it.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Or or to ignore it.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: It's still a good point. Grew up with a sister, but I can right. I guess I'd need It just seems like it's, say, like, the superintendent Chao, if it meets the definition of truant, report it, But I will strike it since it's somewhat If that

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is what you want the intent behind this language to be, I think that's already covered because it requires this doesn't kick in until the student accumulates 20 or more unexcused absences.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: We entered into truancy, which

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: is the definition of truancy. Yes.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So it's worked. I

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: think that's a policy choice.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: When we talk about the emergency and then notifying emergency services of DCF, Is that mandated reporting anyways?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Currently? For child abuse?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Education or neglect goes up to age sixth grade. Truancy is

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I am not your expert on the difference between educational neglect and being a mandated reporter. I think that would be great testimony if you wanted it from DCF.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So we had DCF. They were largely supportive of every They were mostly, I mean, main concern was standardizing the response and to not threat people with, I mean, DCF called. I would say that with this, they're just alerting DCF to it. DCF has the judgment to wait to investigate it on.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Exactly. There is, Once that notice goes to DCF, there's a whole separate section of law that would apply that's not contemplated here. Yep. Notice and complaint by the truant officer. I'm on page eight, line four. Once the truant officer receives the notice and the truancy reporting protocol that is required after the section we just walked through, they've got to inquire into the cause of the non attendance of the child. If the truant officer finds that the child's absences are not excusable under the law that's created in this subchapter, then the truant officer is required to give written notice to the parent or guardian that they must comply with this chapter? Guess in your kid's school.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So I think this is what people have referred to as the letter of shame. And so can we work in some sort of language that says that that written notice is based on the protocol developed. Interesting.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Why

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: don't you just what about requiring the policy to also come up with a template letter? It's one from an officer. Okay.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Would be great. That's

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: a really basic question. Who is the employer of an

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: ex government officer? Is that the state's attorney's office? We're literally looking that up right now. Okay.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I think generally every school district has to appoint a truancy officer.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Sheriff's

[Chair Peter Conlon]: department. It's often the school resource officer in larger districts. Otherwise, it might be like the principal.

[Rep. Emily Long]: Oh, okay. Sheriff's office. What's that? Sheriff's.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: If they're appointed by the district. That's what I'm saying. Under

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: eleven twenty five, which is a section that this bill makes no changes to, a school board is required annually to appoint one or more truant officers, and then there's a bunch of folks who qualify ex officio as truancy officers, police, sheriffs, deputy sheriffs, constables, and police officers. Some counts of constables. So you theoretically have a school board have appointed a lay truant officer or one or more, and all of those folks are ex officio, so they are truant officers just by virtue of their title. So I'm going to update the policy language to require that it also includes a template letter for the truancy officer to use. Right? Yeah. Okay. So we are on page eight, line 14. What happens if parent or guardian does not comply? Then if they fail without legal excuse to cause a child to attend school as required After having received that written notice, the truant officer is required to enter a complaint to the state's attorney of the count and shall provide a statement of the evidence and truancy reporting protocol upon which the complaint is based.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: This replaces everybody sees what's been crossed out, sort of like mandatory $1,000 fine. Right. Wow. And it also replaces what you see on page nine of line three. We're removing the requirement that the state's attorney prosecute somebody.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: The language just sounds a little nicer. It's the same thing. Well, you can't require the state's attorney to prosecute someone. They have independent discretion. But you can require a complaint to be filed, and then they have to review it and use their discretion on whether or not they're going to bring them out a case. This is a question that did not occur to me until we were having this conversation. I would be curious, and I'll work on this, if there is any other enabling legislation related to truancy that a state's attorney would be able to file a charge under or if this is it, in which case I'll reach out to my judiciary folks to see whether you do need to have a penalty there. Folks need to be on notice of what the potential penalty is. It's possible that there is a truancy statute in Title XIII, I think, is your criminal title. And I'm just not aware of it because it's not where I practice. But I do think this is something I should look into. Do you know if AOE has worked with the state's attorneys on this?

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: I don't know.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I thought They said yes. Right? They said yes.

[Rep. Emily Long]: I thought we had I think they did, but I would

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: with them that day, the chemo.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I guess, not to belabor this, we do have to get to something downstairs at 02:30, but then, I mean, it seems like they, she shall be fined not more than $1,000 pursuant to section So the section C is the part that I missed.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, so page nine, line three, subsection seven. The state's attorney is required to take legal action with respect to a parent or guardian who allows without legal cause for a child to continue to accumulate unexcused absences after contact by a touring officer. In a prosecution, the complaint information or indictment shall be deemed sufficient if it states that the parent or guardian neglects to send the child to a public school or an approved independent or recognized school or a homestead school. So enroll them in something that counts towards the compulsory attendance law. I still have that same question about not providing notice about the potential penalty.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Or how can you have somebody prosecute somebody without a potential penalty?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's what I'm saying. So I'll look into that.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: am not on the judiciary team.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I will say, I don't know if you can reach out or if we should. Line five, the state's attorney shall take legal action. This is really vague. If somebody says, well, what do you mean by legal action? I don't want to assume why those words were chosen. Is that something you could ask AOEs? Yeah, great.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I could certainly ask AOE, and I will check with our judiciary team as well to see if they have any.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I would assume and hope that it would so that a state attorney could use the breadth of options available, such as mediation or diversion or whatever it might be. But don't like I said, I don't wanna assume anything here.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm on page nine, line 14, legal people taken to school, non resident child. This language, the recommendation here is to repeal this entire statute. And this allows I guess we should just read the language, the structure language. A superintendent and the truant officer shall stop a child between the ages of six sixteen or a child on either side of the compulsory attendance window that is actually enrolled, found wherever found during school hours, and then take the child to school. Yeah. And then on page 10, line one, a child of legal school age who is exempt from school attendance who has not finished elementary school and is living in a district other than the place of legal residence, shall the school board's approval be admitted immediately to a school in the district where he or she is found? If the district is not admitted if the child is not admitted to school, the immediate action shall be taken by a true and officer to cause returning the child to the district to whom he's or her residence. Yeah. Appealing all of them. Yes.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Good idea. Patching kids off the streets.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Of course, they've been successful.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section, I'm on page 10, line eight, section eleven twenty nine, jurisdiction of non residents. The only amendments here are to the language around parent or guardian instead of person having control of such people. Do we really ever control?

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: No, not

[Chair Peter Conlon]: as a parent or guardian.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Don't know. Think that's all pretty well.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Section So now we are in a brand new section of the bill. We're done with making amendments to the subchapter related to absences and truancy. We're in a whole separate section of the bill, an amendment to eleven sixty two, which is in the same chapter, but a different sub chapter. Suspension or expulsion of students. This is where that language that you all added not too long ago about not suspending students eight years and under, That's where this language lives in the statute. And this is brand new language that AOE is proposing to add. So public school or an approved independent school shall provide access to alternative education, such as tutoring, instructional materials and assignments to a student during any period of suspension of three or more days. And then they may provide access to alternative education, such as tutoring, instructional materials and assignments to a student who has been expelled, except that the school shall provide educational access to the extent otherwise required by law.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yep. So line 17, change the shall to a May. I think the committee has agreed to that change.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then on page 11, section three requires the agency to adopt and publish that model policy on or before 07/01/2027, and then school boards to adopt a policy based on the model policy on or before 07/01/2028. And I'm going to add language that requires a report back to you all on the progress the agency has made on the model policy and the associated templates on or before 03/15/2027. Section 16, VSA ten seventy six, the penalties. Let's see what this says, ten six. Pen 76. So the recommendation here is to repeal the statute that says a superintendent or a truant officer who fails to do their job shall be fined not more than $100 A teacher who violates a provision of this chapter shall be fined not more than $25 nor less than $5

[Chair Peter Conlon]: right, five's good.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Wow. You can

[Chair Peter Conlon]: now build an inflator of people. No inflator. Literally not.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So the recommendation is to appeal that statute. There's no recommendations to replace it with anything. And then the act would take effect on 07/01/2026, but you've got those different implementation dates built in for when those policies need to be adopted. And that's the whole bill.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, we'll take a little bit of a ten minute refree before we start downstairs. Okay, my plan with this as the conductor of our work would be to say we aren't gonna try to vote this out by the end of the suite, we'll save it till after. We'll allow legislative council to do a little bit more research. I'm very intrigued by the question of prosecuting something with no penalty.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Legal action. So,

[Chair Peter Conlon]: how does that sound?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Great, I would talk to you guys language tomorrow, but if you don't want it till after town meeting week, that's fine too.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Yeah, would say, if you can get us just some language to send back sometime this week, that'd be great.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Absolutely. And I'll reach out to you, Chair, when I have had time to connect with my judiciary colleagues and AOE about the speech piece.

[Rep. Emily Long]: And then we'll

[Chair Peter Conlon]: try to pop it right up soon after we return. This was actually very helpful and productive,

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: thank you. You're welcome.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Why don't we close there? We're gonna start downstairs at 02:40 sharp. 02:40, have we not? The other committee's running late. I guess, I'm not gonna report this bill. We are now, those who are absent today may not have to do it either. So anyway, we'll draw draws. One here is a friendly first school I taught at three unexcused absences and specific failure failed to play.

[Rep. Leanne Harple]: Wow, yeah you can't do anything. Just called

[Chair Peter Conlon]: up and say, hey I'm taking Billy out, we're gonna go fishing. Fine, it's unexcused. Yeah, Unexcused? Unexcused.