Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is House Education, 03/12/2026. The committee is preparing to put the final touches on two bills and to vote them out. One is the miscellaneous education bill and the other is the chronic absenteeism bill. We're going open with the miscellaneous Ed bill. We just reviewed it this morning. We did not ask legislative council to make any changes. Are there any further questions? Maybe we'll put it up on the screen behind us. Again, it is the moratorium language, The interstate compact. Changing both seats to see seats. And finally, the. Fingerprinting. So class size minimums. Oh, even class size minimums. Thank you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I have Beth St. James Office of Legislative Council. We're using the same draft that Matt posted this morning for you. And I had failed to add in the statement of purpose the background language, but I've done it in the Word document that when you vote, will go to Matt to go to the clerk's office.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right. Any questions or concerns from anybody? All right. I guess, would somebody please move that we approve the miscellaneous Ed bill or by number?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I move to approve the miscellaneous ed bill.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. How about a second? K. K.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: What draft are we just second?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: 4.1. Point one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. Clerk, go ahead and call that roll.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Alright. Brett Brady? Yes. Brett Brown? Yes. Brett Dobrovich?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Brett Purple? Yes. Brett Hunter? Yes. Brett Long? Yes. Brett McCann? Yes. Brett Morgan?

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Beth Quimby? Yes. Beth Taylor? Yes. Beth Conlon?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Unanimous Start

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of nothing but unanimous floats out of committee.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I'm glad it started today.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're practicing now.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: That's great.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, let us move on to chronic absenteeism. So, background. There was the issue over if you remove all of the punishments, what's a stationary supposed to do? I had somebody from the State Surrey's office talk with counsel at AOE, have them figure out language. Have Purdue. They work together, come up with some language. I brought it to legislative council and we'll go through it now. We probably should just go quickly over what we've already gone through and then the new language.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Bear with me. Yes, we'll be looking at draft 5.1 of twenty six-seven seventy seven.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And let me just say at the start, I think that there probably will continue to be comments about the list. That would leave some work for our Senate colleagues to do if people want to leave that there.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So you're saying you don't want us to add anything else to the list. That's right.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Especially since the list has the catchall of you know, I got an email today, says, oh, you don't have the page program. But I think that falls under the catch all. What did you think overall, everybody? Think I can't remember. It could have been so many. It said, don't call a true officer. Call him Yeah. Call him someone. That can be the senate wants to take up that. Can. I mean, that's the name of the position in statutes.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Chronic absenteeism, this is draft 5.1, starts with a definition section. And I think you guys have me until

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: 02:30.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: 02:15. Nope. 02:30. 02:30. Okay. So if you want to go in more detail, have time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And again, I hate to repeat everything, but it's important that we all understand that we are creating a definition of chronic absenteeism. We are creating definitions of what is an excused absence. And so this does that, and then it sort of updates the truancy statutes that do exist.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All of the definitions are new. So you'll see this is all underlying language. So you're creating a definition for what it means to be absent, chronic absenteeism, what an excused absence is, parent or guardian, truancy, and unexcused absence. Those are all new definitions to Title 16, with the exception of parent or guardian. But it is a new definition to this chapter. So, section eleven twenty one is your compulsory attendance requirement. So, if you're between the ages of six and 16, you have to go to a public school, an approved or recognized independent school, an approved education program, or a student study program, unless certain things hold true. And then I'm on page four now. So students under six and over 16 years of age, so on either side of the compulsory attendance age group. And basically what this section says is if your child who is under six or over 16 is enrolled in school, then all those compulsory attendance requirements applies to them. If they're not enrolled in school, then they don't have to be enrolled in school. But if they are, then they got to play by the same rules. Section eleven twenty three, school absence may be excused. Superintendent or head of school, and throughout all of this, there's always the option for a designee. Not gonna keep saying that. I have highlighted in green May because I believe this was a policy choice that in my notes was undecided. So I'm just flagging that here. May excuse a student's absence for all or part of the school day, and then there's your list starting on page five. Do you want to go over any of these individually?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Committee members? Well, let's just read number 12, which is a catch all.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Other reasons not on this list with the approval of the superintendent or designee or head of school or designee.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: That's for family vacations. Nope. Now that's on the list. What's next?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That is where page program falls. Page program. Four H. I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: will say the agricultural community really wanted us to get four H on this list.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Well, talk to the Senate.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This subsection B is the pre planned family commitments or activities of which the school has been notified in advance. That's also May.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So that could include four H.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's a pre fam family commitment. I'd say 4H falls under the previous one.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Family

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: activity. Whole families come. And then

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: subsection allows the superintendent or head of school, but does not require them to seek justification for the absence. So now we get into some of the brand new law. Section eleven twenty four is the brand new response to chronic absenteeism, and this is where the model policy language lives. So subsection A requires AOE in consultation with the Vermont School Boards Association, Superintendents Association, Principal's Association, Independent School Association. And then we added, last time we looked at this, the Vermont School Counselor Association to develop a model policy on the prevention of chronic absenteeism and truancy. The policy has to include a template for documentation of actions taken according to the policy to address the absence, which shall constitute the truancy reporting protocol. The policy is also required to include a template for standard documentation to be provided to parents or guardians pursuant to section eleven twenty seven, which we'll walk through in a second. And then school districts are required to adopt a policy, truancy

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: chronic absenteeism and truancy policy. This is standard language. I'm on page seven. The shall develop, adopt, ensure the enforcement of and make available, etcetera. We've been using this in the last several years for any time we're asking for a model policy and or school boards to adopt the policy. And the school boards are required to Their policies are required to be at least as stringent as the model policy developed by AOE. And then the superintendent and the head of school are required to develop procedures to carry out policies. And the policy is required to be consistent with the definitions in this chapter. The superintendent or head of school is also required to ensure that data on student absences is collected and recorded in accordance with AOE requirements. And if a school board or approved independent school fails to adopt the policy, they will have presumed to have adopted the most current model policy published by AOE.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we have defined product absenteeism, and then now we have laid out the response to chronic absenteeism, is essentially asking the AOE to come up with model policy that must be adopted.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Can you ask a quick question?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: That last sentence where you just

[Emily Long (Member)]: read, that is also standard. I just want to make sure we've been doing that

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: for a lot of time.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Cell phones, school branding, I think hazing harassment and bullying prevention, although I can't guarantee that. But yes, we

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have been trying to use that language. That's really the crossword. Well, I think I'm asking mostly because I have to present this. There aren't sections. Now is this because these things are already in statute?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, so if we avert your eyes. So section one is amending an entire chapter or subchapter. I don't need to for every different statute. I have not, you don't have to call out a different section number, but I will do a lovely summary of the bill for you that will explain that. So you're good. We all do it. It's not I just will continue

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to bring sour patch kids.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Wow. Excellent transactional relationships. I tried one of the Kit Kats and definitely my elite alliances with the sour patch. Oh, sure. Okay, but that is a great question. And it does make it harder to refer. You're not referring to Section one or Section two, although there is a Section one and a Section two. You would be referring to a statute within section one.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: And I'll make sure that's all clear for Okay, thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Okay,

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so section, we're on page seven, line 17. These asterisks here, because we are in a subchapter and amending an entire subchapter don't mean that there's anything left off of the preceding statute eleven twenty four. It just means that there were no amendments to the statutes that were between 11/24 and 11/25. Correct.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Left job.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yep.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Failure to attend notice. When a student who is within the compulsory attendance age group, which is between six and 16, who is not exempted from school attendance by one of the authorized individuals in accordance with what we walked through in the beginning.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm sort of thinking about questions that might come up on the floor for Rob. So, does Vermont still have no compulsory educational requirement for kids under six and over 16? And the answer to that is we don't.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not compulsory, no. But if you have enrolled If you have enrolled

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Then you are subject

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Then it is compulsory. So if you are between the ages of six or 16 and your absence has not been excused, or let's just read it. When a student between six and 16 years of age who is not exempted from school attendance by one of the authorized individuals. So it's not excused, it's the exempted. So those like the medical reason for not being in there and whatever the other requirement, I think there were four of them under eleven twenty one. Fails to enter school at the beginning of the academic year or being enrolled accumulates 20 or more unexcused absences within either the same school year or within the last one hundred and seventy five consecutive student attendance days. So that would be over two school years. And the same concept applies starting on line two to the students on either side of the compulsory attendance requirement if they are enrolled in school. So when a student is under six or at least 16 years of age becomes enrolled in a public school in grades K through 12, and they accumulate 20 or more unexcused absences within the same school year or within the last one hundred and seventy five consecutive student attendance days, the principal for both of those situations is required to notify the superintendent. And then for Vermont resident students, the head of school of an approved independent school or designee shall notify the superintendent of the student's district of residence. Upon review of the truancy reporting protocol, the superintendent shall notify the truant officer and centralized intake and emergency services of DCF Family Services. So that's all, everything we've looked at thus far is language that you've looked at several times now. Section eleven twenty seven is new language. Some of it is new language. Some of it you have looked at before, but I've just highlighted the whole thing. And I will say that because of timing, what is posted on your website, you'll notice that the header says it's unedited. It's with editing now. As soon as I have it back, I will send it to Matt and remove that unedited designation. So notice and complaint by truant officer penalty. So this is the section we were talking about where the original language we were looking at removed the penalty and used that phrase, something like, but take legal action. And so this is the compromise language that is being put forward. Subsection A remains unchanged. The truant officer upon receiving the notice insurancing reporting protocol shall inquire into the cause of the non attendance of the child. What's going on? If the truant officer finds that the child's absences are not excusable under Section eleven twenty three, so that's different, then they don't have to enroll. Those are the excused absences that's list or the family vacation. Then the truant officer shall give written notice to the parent or guardian that they must comply with the obligations of section eleven twenty two of this chapter. And that written notice, part of the model policy development, AOE is required to develop a standard form or letter to be used for that notification. So subsection B is where we get into the new language. So anything that's crossed out is current law. It's not the language that used to be there. So if you are ever interested in a side by side of what was there and what we're looking at now, I can do that, but I didn't think it was necessary for today. So the proposed language is, if the parent or guardian continues to fail without legal excuse to cause a child to attend school as required by this chapter after having received that notice that we just talked about, the truant officer shall 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. Subsection C. The state's attorney may prosecute the person or may file a child in need of supervision petition in accordance with 33 VSA section 5,309. If a criminal information is filed under this section, a person shall not be fined more than $1,000 if, after receiving notice, a person fails without legal excuse to cause a child to attend school as required by this chapter. So there's your It's discretionary. A state's attorney can prosecute as a criminal offense, which would be a misdemeanor, or file a CHINS petition, and this law does not preclude the state's attorney from taking both avenues. No, neither.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: No. Yes.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So do you want to get

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: into I mean, if you want to get into it, technically, state's attorneys have independent prosecutorial discretion, and so they don't have to do anything. A judge may disagree with me.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's an important point. That makes it.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Like, it could be a may, something else, or neither of those. Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Because they have independent prosecutorial Yes. Can you say those words, Beth?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Have an ethical Prosecutors have an ethical obligation.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Have a prosecutorial discretion.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If you get questions about that on the floor, we've gone way far off track.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Does this sound that

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: they have to prosecute? That's a heated question.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. There has to be The truancy officer has to file a complaint with the state's attorney's office, and then the state's attorneys may prosecute or may file a CHINS petition or both. They have special ethical obligations not to bring cases that are not just, that there's not evidence for. They have witness, if they don't have witnesses and they can't I mean, there's so many different things that go into that and exercising that discretion. It's a may. In a prosecution, the complaint information or indictment shall be deemed sufficient if it states that the parent or guardian So this is talking about the notice that's required. And then the information has to specify if the applicable person is a parent or guardian and then name the person of the child and then name the child, neglects to send the child to a public school or an approved or recognized independent school or home study program as required by law. So that's the base knowledge that would be provided to a parent. And so the case wouldn't be dismissed because there wasn't proper notice. That's the basic information that needs to appear on the complaint. So that's it. That's the compromise language that you have. Meat of it is this subsection C. And I don't even know if compromise is the right word. It may be that this is the intent all along, and this is just the first time that we've gotten the language right.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I believe that the intent was to open up discretion and sort of remove the threat of financial fine, but that being the only means of prosecuting made that complicated. But anyway, yeah, it seems to work.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Go ahead. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know, is it currently within the state's attorney's purview to choose to file a Chittenden's petition? Yes. So sort of like restating options that already exist?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And I think the next section's important just to review.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, repealing these snatch a child off the street and take a

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: bus stop. I think it's important to say that, yeah. Is that what that section is called?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, that's the technical

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: term. If you're a superintendent or principal, no, I'm sorry, superintendent or children, you are required to smash that child off the street and put that in school, even if it's not the school where the kid lives.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: That's right. It's sick of it screaming. Sure could. That sounds damn dangerous.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Why would we be repealing that part?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Jurisdiction non residency, only change here is changing person having control of the pupil to parent or guardian because who has control of their children? Okay, so we are in a new section now. We're on page 11. We are out of section one, which means we are out of sub chapter, whatever that was in your attendance and discipline chapter. We are still in the same chapter in Title 16. We're just in the discipline piece of it now. And we're looking at section eleven sixty two suspension or expulsion of students. Those asterisks here do represent statutory language that does not appear here because we're not making any changes to it. All we're doing is adding a new subsection that gives public schools and independent schools discretion, So may provide access to alternative education during any suspension period of three or more days. And then they can also do that for students that have been expelled, except that the school shall provide educational access to the extent otherwise required by law. Section three is subcession law. Subsection A requires the agency to come back to you all in March, almost a year exactly, and submit a written update on the efforts made to develop the model policy. And they have to include their most recent draft and most recent drafts of all of the templates that are required to be developed as part of the model policy, just to give you a check-in on where they are in that development. And then subsection B requires the agency to have that model policy adopted and published by 07/01/2027. And then subsection C requires school boards and independent schools to adopt and implement a chronic absenteeism policy on or before 07/01/2028. So there's a whole school year in between when the model policy is required to be developed and the school boards are required to adopt their own policies, but there's nothing preventing any earlier action should that work out. There's a repeal of section ten seventy six. And then there is a new section that requires on or before 12/01/2026, the agency to submit a written report to the education committees with recommendations for updates to Vermont's home study program law to improve oversight of home study programs and to ensure home study participants compliance with attendance requirements. And then this entire act would take effect on 07/01/2026. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, we have defined chronic absenteeism as of 07/01/2026.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We don't have a policy in place to react to it until 07/01/2028.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: How does that language sort of live in the meantime?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It lives. The reason I'm struggling is I think some of this language can be used by the field without a model policy.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: so whether you want this language to only be effective once a model policy is adopted, I think is a policy choice. The truancy update would take effect right away. The list of excused absences and non excused absence, that would take effect right away. And so those actions would be taken. I don't know what the policy will entail, so it's hard for me to say. I think that might be a better question for AOE.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But in the meantime, though, it does define what excused and unexcused absence is, but then can be used jumping sort of to the current truancy or the new truancy law. In the absence of a policy between there? Yes. I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: don't think there is one right answer on this from a legal perspective, because I think it depends on what you want folks, What you want to apply now, regardless of maybe extra Do you want some of it to take effect now? All of it to take effect later? All of it to take effect now? Some of it to take effect All of it to take effect now because some of it is useful now and the stuff that isn't useful now because you don't have the policy will just die.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm really comfortable with the way it is because I agree that it's providing language that the field can use. I was just kind of curious about. I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think this is an awkward position for me to be in because I'm not executing this. And so I think technically, I think it's fine. You may get feedback that it's not fine from a user perspective.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: My question was technical, though. Yes. And it's fairly plain language, right?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I mean, are, the model policy is required to come up with templates and there are references to these templates in here. It's not as clean-cut as everything happening all at once.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I think the templates are probably the biggest missing piece, probably, if we're talking about how the field might Because if you are encountering it and they are, and we already know they are then you have to know what you're going to do about it. And so I guess the default would be to go back to whatever the practice has been in the past until the model policy is in place with those templates. But there was I'm trying to remember. There's nothing in here that they could do those templates earlier.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, everything is a before. Yes, Yes, a by. Yes.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I guess my next question would be, there is quite a long lead time. Is that standard? Is that something that was requested by the AOE? I mean, I'm wondering whether it can be shortened.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You can do whatever you want

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: for these effective dates. I'm asking why it's there.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If memory serves and you do have AOE in the room who can correct me if I'm wrong I do believe that the language I received originally had one effective date for all of this. I don't remember if I explored that very deeply with them. To me, this is really a question for what the policy would entail and how crucial that is to executing this law. I mean, some of these things, from a non user standpoint, from just a lay person looking at this, some of these things, I don't know why you would need a policy for Certainly anywhere where there's discretion, if the model policy is going to guide your discretion, then you are gonna see some uneven practices in the field.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Well, is discretion. There is. Right.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so if the model policy, if one of the big pieces of the model policy is going to be how do you exercise that discretion, then you are just leaving it up to the field to figure that out.

[Emily Long (Member)]: And I want to say, don't have a problem with that, just like you were saying. I just don't want to be surprised that we should have had a problem. You know what I'm saying? That's my only

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So two things. A, I'm happy that the language that was presented today, it does restore the truancy officer and the enforcement process, which was something that I was having concern with as well. Something that does still concern me is that we are up to 20 excused absences. So if there's 15 excused and 19 unexcused absences, that's thirty four days missed out of one hundred and seventy five day year, which is about 19% of the school day for the year. To me, that's an awfully high number to miss. Right? That could be potentially missed before truancy is even considered as a thing. So that's I just want everyone to think about that because to me, that's a lot of numbers of a day before students truancy and then enforcement can be had. Now I know there's a lot of tools that we're hopefully gonna have a model policy on how to address that before we get that far, but that is still a fairly decent concern of mine. I don't know if it makes me a no, but it makes me concerned.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Good. That's nice.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let that one just sit for a moment.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yeah. I just did the math to make sure I was right, but I was like, that's almost 20%.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Believe that was in Brady.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Try to complicate that and say that in those kind of scenarios, which are absolutely happening, my belief is that it's generally not going to be a uniterate process or a true campus intervention. That's the difference that changes things. And I'm quite supportive of the email we got from the attendance specialist in Montpelier. I know that my district culture has done a lot of work on this, Harvest Resource Lists, they didn't have any social worker devoted to attendance and engagement. And the things that change this behavior and that increase engagement are the ways that we support families and kids and not punish them. It does not change my concern about that number or the number of absences with the amount all of it is absolutely a problem and challenge.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think, yeah, to remind me of the testimony as well, I would hope that there wouldn't be a superintendent or principal who would say, Yeah, you're technically no longer absent or chronically absent. Well, happy that we

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: were able to bring the enforcement back into it that was missing. Like I said, I hope that these things that we're trying to do to not let the kids get there take effect. But to me, it's still a concern because there's how many are not. It's really in the efficiency and I can't think of the word I'm looking for, but like the robustness that we implement this to make sure we don't get to that many days, thirty four days.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, I think probably that chronic absenteeism is big topic in the education world, and I assume that everybody's ignoring it. I guess I feel comfortable with the field being able to respond to your concern, which I think is a thoughtful one. I was

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: just wondering about yesterday, I was when we were talking.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm sorry, this is not my pitch. I was saying, I'm just looking at the model policy language again, and the model policy is designed, it's a model policy on the prevention of chronic absenteeism and truancy. And most of the rest of this is what is an absence? What is an excused absence? What is an unexcused The process to make a determination if there's an absence or not an absence. So again, I think it is technically a policy choice. But the way that the model policy is characterized as the prevention, much of this could take effect without a model policy from a plain reading of the law.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So committee, go ahead. I do have one other question, not to throw

[Emily Long (Member)]: a monkey wrench into it. But it caught me off guard. I wasn't quite sure. On page seven, eleven, and 26, but I'm actually going to page eight, where it talks about when the student is 20 or more, might excuse absences. And the part where it says, for Vermont resident students, the head of school of an approved independent school or designation shall notify the superintendent of the student district of residence. That makes sense to me. But then it says, upon review, the Trendsi reporting protocol of superintendent shall notify the treatment officer. I guess I'm sort of curious about the connection between the wraparound. The student doesn't attend the school that the superintendent is the superintendent of. It is only the town of residence. And now all of sudden, it's their responsibility to make sure that the truant officer has been notified and the truant officer who's making sure that all this process takes place? I guess I was a little taken aback by the fact that there's this total separation there, and I guess that's the different rules that we operate under. The

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: truant officer lives in 1125, which is the one title or the one statute that we didn't address. And it's someone appointed by the school board or some folks in ex officio positions. So there isn't a statutory relationship between the independent school and the druen officer.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. That's, I guess, ultimately, under the law, the LEA is responsible for the student.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I recognize that, and I see all that. But I guess I was just pointing it out, really for any change, because I don't see how you each make a change. But it just sort of caught me off guard when we're the idea of all of this is to make sure that we're connecting all the dots for a student to wrap around all of that. And then all of sudden, you've got two separate entities dealing with one issue. I just wanted to make sure I knew what I was looking at here, and you clarified that. Thank you.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Feels a little funny.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: How do we feel about voting? Alright. The clerk's nodding.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Did we resolve all the questions?

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I mean, early on, you

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: had highlighted the shall make

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: None of this resolved my concern. I will begrudgingly vote yes because we did bring in some enforcement, maybe when it gets to our colleagues, there could be more discussion about what 20% of the school year missed really is. How do we fix that?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Just to make sure it's been resolved, because it was mentioned very early on and we kind of chatted about it, page four, line 19, we'd had some discussion on whether it was May or shall. I'm fine with the May. I think the point that Robert Hunter brought up at college vids, what if there's 60 of them or if there's 80 of them? So leaving it as a May instead of a shall, I am okay with, but I don't know if we've resolved that amongst ourselves before we.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Heard that Robert, the reason why May is better for representative Hunter's concern is because it allows the superintendent to not Right.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It also helps with It does help with your concern of

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the thirty, forty days. You're God nineteen days. Right.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Like, does help with now that you've said it,

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: thank I just wanted to know if we all agreed that maybe keeping before we throw We trust the court. I've talked about

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the discussion.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Thank you very much for Be clear.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: No. I'm malarned, but I'm still gonna apologize. Alright.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, if we're ready, would somebody move the bill, please? I say I move that we approve draft four centers of twenty six zero seven seven. I'll move it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Correction, five

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I'll second that one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Take a second eight.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Just to clarify, five draft we're putting on draft five.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, five by one.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Alright. Rep Brady? Yes. Rep Brown? Yes. Rep Dobrovich? Yes. Rep Purple? Yes. Rep Hunter? Yes. Rep Long? Yes. Rep McCann? Yes. Rep Morgan? Yes. Rep Quimby? Yes. Beth Taylor. And

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth Conlon.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, like to explain my data.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I'll say.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: We'll see that first. Oh.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Eleven zero seven.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, and Hunter is the Here's the reporter. And so the miscellaneous bill, have to put a reporter down. I'll put me down, but, basically, I'm just gonna introduce the bill and then start deferring to people. We don't have to list everybody we're deferring to. Right. Do I need to deliver something right now

[Emily Long (Member)]: to the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: public? Will help you. That

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: has a list of things.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: He's very good. He's still be breaking voluntarily, then we could sort of cut out. Alright. So that actions those actions are done. Budgeted council will get a fully edited

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just sent

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: it to Matt.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. I think we're all done with us then.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You know I'm not. For the moment. For now.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: We're okay feeding you. For now.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Alright, so

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we have our usual discussion topic set for 02:30 or 02:15, which is right now. I don't know as, I guess I would throw it open if people have things they'd like to sort of bring up and work out right now. Think I'd be more interested in having something to respond to.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Chris

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: will have his stuff. All the same. But I don't to not have the conversation if people are to have the conversation right now. Otherwise, I'm gonna suggest that everybody use the next hour before we get to the floor productively, period. And I will say we are at recess until the floor.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: May I

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: ask a question?

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yes.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That I'm volunteering. But if the miscellaneous ed bill is going to be divided up and people need to get reports ready, that could be a productive use of time. I don't want to take time to figure out who's going to do what section, not that I'm volunteering.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think Brady should do the ECS stuff, because she's taking advantage of their programs.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: ECS, that's the BOCES to CISA.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: No. Everybody's like, That's the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Kate's on BOCES to CISA. It's gonna do BOCES? Okay.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So which one is it? Is it the interstate compact for the Brady's gonna do?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Jana, would you do Moratorium?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Sure. It's my least favorite part,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: but I will do it. What was the final thing at the

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: bottom of it? There's two things left, class size minimums and background checks. What was the last one? Background checks.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Chris, do you want to do background checks?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I honestly would rather not. I don't know what I'm going be up against here after the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Background checks, Quimby, you want it?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I think I'm more comfortable with class size minimums and Right. Background

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's all right. You got class size minimums and Harple's doing background checks.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Unless you want to I mean, because the minimums is just the change of

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What's that?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Minimums the class size minimum one is just about aligning those timelines. That's right. It's not about the policy. Although someone will ask.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yeah, and that's where I can answer class size minimums. Right. I do not want to even touch it. That's my assumption.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you guys want a section by section summary for the miscellaneous bill?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sure. Yeah. I have to

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: get something prepared on the class size minimum.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Background checks is basically the same

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Giving the AOE

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: background checks for their contract.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: In the same way that superintendents are Why

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: there was an incident where we hired a contracting photographer. Turns out he had been sued. It wasn't a criminal thing, so it wouldn't have showed up anyway, but he had been sued for taking illicit pictures and posting them.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Had they done a background check? Might have. No,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: because it criminal. Was The statute of limitations had passed, but anyway, but at least put some more. Just put a highlight.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Put a highlight that, hey, we have a policy.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Okay. Well,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you know, so this is all going go in. We can delay things on the floor, no problem.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: This

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: has me. The interstate compact because we're paying the dues anyway.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What was your judiciary? Yes. They have a quick look at this?

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: What I was told, they actually wanted it to come here.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: That's I told offline. But they can obviously do a drive by. They're pretty

[Emily Long (Member)]: much with the advocates.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They said they need

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: to go

[Emily Long (Member)]: to the agency, so but great. He might wanna talk to Peter to make sure.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'll just do that. But this won't be until Tuesday. So even that weekend, delay the day, depending on how busy we are at work for us. I'll just ask another question to make sure. So you're gonna introduce it. Yep.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And then will you also do the summary at the end of who the witnesses were and the vote and Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I always forget the whole witness thing.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And the vote and what the vote was and all that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: '40 two.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So the COVID pandemic

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So you'll start it. You'll end it, and the and this way, and the effective dates and all that kind of stuff at the end. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: will be using some of this time to prepare for my presentation of the PCB bill. Oh, that's I

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: saw that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. It will be tomorrow unless I'm told Maybe we have to present having a hangover the weekend about like, delayed a bit.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Might have a lot tomorrow morning, it looks like. It's a lot of notice.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: why I said to my

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: brother, can you come take care of dad so I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: can