Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. You're live. Okay. This is House Education, Wednesday, March 18, continuing our discussion on moving towards our goals of act 73. We were last talking about fleshing out roles and responsibilities of CISAs in a world in which we have CISAs in different parts of the state. So I think we have legislative council with us. I think one thing we can do is perhaps provide you some guidance to work on some language for us to look at. The committee can correct me if I'm wrong. Sure. While we have not agreed on lines or anything, because we have discussed them, we have said that a CISUS must

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: work

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: with member districts and SUs. The idea is here to bring them together to have talks to with a goal of the goal of bringing together don't want to quite quite what how to frame it, but I'll let you do it. I'll let you do it. Of of creating of creating newer newer merged districts with student counts of 4,000 to the extent practical.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I'll say two to four, just that's the

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I think Peter was trying to bridge the gap between the twos and the eights.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Proxime.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Roughly 4,000 to the extent that it's practical.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Is this within the seesaw's membership zone?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I would say we probably should have language that says it does not necessarily need to be limited to the seesaw's, What did you call it? The

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: membership zone.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Membership zone, love it, we're use it from this day forward. Got yeah. And that, like, you know, these merger discussions should include the goal of regional high schools that offer students better access to programming and career technical education. Middle high schools. That BCSA must also discuss or or work collaborating with member districts on providing special education services and administrative and financial services in ways that create efficiencies, increase offerings, and save money.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Correct.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Anything else that folks wanna talk about? They can't. They've, I

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I might want to broaden the way we say. I think we have pretty shared intentions on special education, but I don't know if there's any provision of special education or if it's because that could be professional development, that could be MTSS support, that could be ACT 173 implementation. I don't want to be overly prescriptive, nor do I want schools to freak out and say, Oh my god, somebody else is going to do our special education now and how this is all Just the phrasing of that.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Sure. Was

[Unidentified Member]: thinking something similarly about the implementation of ACT 173 really being a goal because if 173 is done well, that's when we are really going to have proactive, preventative interventions and reduce special education. I'm not opposed to put something in there about assisting with the implementation of that. We have to work on the wording around.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And as you say that, it also makes me think I don't wanna Be overly prescriptive. Overly prescriptive because it also might be the low incidence, high costs specialized services that is such a challenge in our system right now of not having capacity places, being on weightless already a long time, out of district placements more in some places. That isn't necessarily just an act on-site. Right.

[Unidentified Member]: It has multiple layers. We have to definitely work on the voting rights, especially.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. I was trying not to be specific. Frankly, it's the job of the agency of education to implement act 173. I would not want to think it seemed like it's the job

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: of the CSIP. Right. Right. It's the LTI. Right, I think it's more likely would be that the CSOs are maybe going to be the home of some more professional development that gets us towards

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So that's the maybe, and that the CISA will work to When I think of Think about some language. To me, it's all about high end, low incidence, high cost services or services that it's hard to hire for because you only need that service for a short period of time. I don't quite know how to phrase that. It is that the CISA would be required to also discuss how all the things we talked about with special ed that CISA can handle. I wonder if it isn't the bylaws of the current existing BOCES. Anyway, we all will think about that language. Any help you can provide would be fabulous.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Can I pull up the language we have now? That

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: would be helpful.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: That's St. James off. Remember, the language that you have now is working within current law. We can do whatever you want with it.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: But this is

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: the powers of seesaws. So it starts broad. They figure out what educational program services facilities and staff they want to have to serve their members. Then I added this language that's been batted around. Are you envisioning the direction you just gave me related to working with the member districts for mergers and then working collaboratively regarding special ed and administrative services and then whatever we've refined that language to be. Are you envisioning it lives here with the powers and duties or somewhere? I'm trying to figure out, is this a one time ask or is this the direction for seesaws in general?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: This is the starter path, where the other things on the list would be later. That's

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: a great Do you envision a piece of session law as the starter language to get up off the ground over these next few years and you have something different that lives in statute? Or you could just leave it as it is currently, which is wide open, and then provide the session law direction?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think off the top of my head, it would say shall, at a minimum Okay. Work with member districts toward union school creation and providing business administrative services and special education.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we can massage that language. Then, know, what we do with the rest of these as a sort of like suggested area of continued collaboration?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I think you could add it up here. So in addition to any other powers granted by law, have the power to provide educational blah, blah, blah, best serve the needs of its members, including professional development, curriculum development, transportation, and then whatever else. And then you can have this language that says, at a minimum, a CISA shall provide these services.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: How does that sound? That's what I was thinking.

[Unidentified Member]: One, five, and six, you have to do.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I understand.

[Unidentified Member]: Yeah, there's your option.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if I actually feel strongly about this, but I wonder about requiring five at this point. The menu, yes. Consolidation work, yes. And the special education piece might take many forms. And it could be any of the others. But it might depend on who's in that CSAT, whether there are things that can be or maybe it's vague enough that it

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: is We're only requiring that

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: they talk about it. Okay, great, never mind.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Chris? Oh, I'm gonna move away from

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: this list for minute, because I don't know if Alright,

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: let me hang on. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Go ahead. Okay, Chris.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: I'm trying to solidify here, what language is making this mandatory to the districts or whatever's within the CSO to utilize it? Is it just the intent

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of the general assembly?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: That's a good question. There's nothing in here that requires a school district to use the services of a CSO.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right, so we are going to mandate that they are a member of a CSO, that the work of that CSO must include these things.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: We're even gonna tell them

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: what CSO they're gonna be in.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Yeah. You create the seesaw.

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: But they don't have to take advantage of any of the services, the redistricting conversation, the back office services if they don't want to.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We need to change that. Yeah, I know. We need to mandate that they enter into these conversations on these, at least these two areas.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I see that living separately than your seesaw enabling law. I see that living and maybe we change our minds. But what I will bring back to you as my gut reaction is that the specificity around the merger conversations, I think you keep the general language we currently have around union school district creation, consultation and facilitation. You keep that. And then we have some separate session law that's specific to this point in time about the 4,000 students, about the boundaries, about that. Because ten years from now, if you still want a core function to be union school district creation and consultation, those parameters are no longer going to be applicable probably. And within that, you can either bake it into the statute or you can just leave it to the separate session law that is meant to get at this moment in time regarding mandatory participation in those conversations.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: One question. I guess to the extent that we want those conversations about new district formation to sort of happen, maybe on an accelerated timeline, I wonder, some of these other pieces, the special education and stress development, I just sort of envision that process might take a little bit longer where it's having regional conversations happen quicker. So I think that maybe that argues some things are what you're suggesting.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Yeah, if you pull out Yes. I think we Yes.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I'm not gonna say anything.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I you bring up a good point. We need language that says that the discussion about merging districts needs to be sort of a priority and an accelerated timeline. I don't know what that language looks like.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Well, this is what I wasn't gonna say. You have created these seesaws, but you have not hired anyone. You have not drafted any bylaws. And so none of this work is going to start until the people are in place. And I can't provide you with any guidance on how quickly that can happen. So I worry that if we put in a timeline and it passes through the legislature, you may be setting the field up for failure if they can't even hire an executive director to do this work, who then would hire the facilitator. Oh, yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It all boils down to who's going do it more than one. But that's the truth for any of the stuff that we're talking about.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Correct.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, so if we were to work through this, we're going to create this, in law we're going to create CESAs. In law, we can establish membership of the governing CESA. In law, we can mandate that they hire somebody, be the executive director of the CSA. That's gonna take an appropriation, but we've got lots and lots of appropriations that need to happen for transformation regardless. And we have costs that go along with transformation that to date we haven't really accounted for such as salary leveling up. But we are then, I would say we are then, we still don't have bylaws, as you say, and so we could have a standard set of bylaws. We could probably get some help from the national organization for that or form something that does that. But then we are down to people. And how is the CCEP funded going forward? What's the model of financial support that we would probably be mandating on school districts?

[Unidentified Member]: Yes. When we had the testimony before on CSIS nationally, in addition to funding was governance. Now, is it an elected form? Is it made up of

[Emily Long (Member)]: We have and since

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: we we figured

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: that out? Yeah. Your current law requires let me find it.

[Unidentified Member]: And are we happy this will be currently?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Currently, seesaws are managed by boards of directors that are composed of one person appointed from the Supervisory Union Board. And that's either a board member or the superintendent themselves from each of the members.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Makes sense. But I guess we have to look at them carefully. Someplacement's gonna have a board.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Eight people. Right. Right, we have a Right, I'm not sure how you would get around that, because they are all financial contributors to it and are gonna want to be part of the governance.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: And you currently have articles of agreement under these changes bylaws defining the financial terms and conditions of membership and any applicable membership fee, as well as the service fees. So you don't even require a membership fee. Let, under current law, all a policy choice.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Emily? So the current policies that exists operates under the law you just And my understanding is that the boards who signed on, the boards of the SUs who signed on, and there's now the school district, and then the rest are SUs, there's eight of them now a part of it, Appointed the superintendent to be that overseen, that board

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of the basins would call them.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Board member.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I'm to take that and envision this. When we're talking, I think there'll be a that has been seems to have worked really well because it's an administrative function. So it stands to reason that the board gets updates from the BOCES, from the superintendent on the BOCES. When we add in the piece about redistricting the goal to have that conversation. I want to make sure that we're very clear about the separation between the board itself for the CISA and that work. Because the board itself, this is just my perception, but the board itself is overseeing that conversation, which will include the members of that CISA. So we're not talking about the board. I think it's just really important to remember that there's a lot of other things that the CISA will be doing that are administrative and need to continue to function. And separately, they will have a conversation going on overseen by a facilitator, because we kept talking about facilitators, to engage in that conversation with the member districts of those or SUs, wherever they are. It's sort of a parallel conversation, because there is a lot of other things that that CISA board will need to be overseeing, special ed and all of that. I just worry about us thinking about having a board member from each of those members running the CISA as opposed to the administrator running the CISA? Do you see what I'm getting at here?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Isn't it currently the administrator?

[Emily Long (Member)]: From It is in that one. But I don't and what you just read, it could be board or it could be a board member. Somebody is appointed. Board right now

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: It's on the screen. Okay. So board of directors. Current law. Yep. Anything that's not not underlined or structured is current law. The only change is the name here. Managed by a board of directors, which shall be composed of one person appointed annually by each SU board. And that It's the next sentence. Appointed person shall be members of a SU board or the superintendent or designee of the member supervisory union.

[Emily Long (Member)]: So that's the sentence that got me. It literally could be a mix, or it could be all board, It could be all superintendents. Correct. And all I'm trying to get at is to make sure that the board of the CISA is set up in a way for optimal success. And now the current law I've moved to. It doesn't matter. I'm not Okay. The current law that we were just talking about didn't have redistricting put into the sort of front, and that's a political conversation.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So where do we take that comment?

[Emily Long (Member)]: I'm trying to find a way to make sure that we set up board for success, but the CISA for success, and not have it become a political entity for regis. Is that what I'm saying?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, but I mean, it needs to have a board of directors.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Oh, I'm not arguing that point, but I guess what I was trying to point out is that it will not be that board who's facilitating the conversation, luckily. And the conversation won't be happening at that level, it will be happening at the member level. They'll have to be And I want to make sure that we are very clear about that, that the members of that CISA will be the ones who will be making the decisions around what's right and what's wrong for people's treatment. And I say it because they have other functions.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't quite know how to take those thoughts and put them into language.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I guess I'm going to suggest that it says it should be an administrative function. The board should be administrative as opposed to the board.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: The board is required to hire an executive director, who will function like the superintendent of CISA. Superintendent is the executive director of the supervisory union, and then there's the board. So, I see a similar relationship between the school boards and their principals and the superintendent and the board, and the seesaw, and its executive director. I'm not out in the field executing this, so perhaps that is not a good comparison, but that's how I'm thinking of it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't know how to take, I wanna set the board up for success into statutory language.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I think one of the things you have working in your favor is that there is already an entire piece of current law related to voluntary school district mergers in a very rote process. And so I envision referring to that. So I envision the session law language that I would be putting together. You like that?

[Emily Long (Member)]: I think it's certainly It makes me feel a little more

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: comfortable So with I very intentionally use the term union school district creation here because really the only option is a union school district under current law if you're talking about mergers. And so I would, again, off the top of my head, I'm envisioning coming back to you with some language related to facilitating member districts or supervisory unions, creating study committees pursuant to, and then referring to the law, and the study committee membership is laid out in law and it is all school districts.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Puts boundaries around it that I needed to hear. Does that make sense?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I haven't heard in any of your conversations talking about creating a new process for Union School District formation. So you really have that at your advantage, that it is a defined process that has been used for a long time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. It is, I'm glad we have it. It has the potential to fail.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: It's voluntary.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If it's voluntary and requires a vote of the electorate.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: You can change, I mean, this is

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You can change it, or we can say the elector is the electorate, electorate doesn't want do it, don't want I to do mean, is a certain point in which democracy speaks. Yes?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I think that if we're going to go that route,

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: we need to find a

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: different word than fail to describe what happens there.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Already set out in current law. So it's like, ah, here, let's just look at it. Who knew when we were rewriting this chapter? Yeah, I knew.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Whoever put the work into this did a great job. It

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: was not me. It was Donna Russo Savage and our former director of election.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, was really talking about the mentorship committee.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Oh, was you. Look at me try and pat my own back. So Subchapter two and chapter 11 in title 16 is all about exploration, formation and organization. Unless you tell me otherwise, every step of the way, I'm going to borrow specific language from all of these sections or refer explicitly to these sections. So section seven zero eight talks about what the study committee process looks like. And there's provisions in here for the superintendent may have to convene the study committee's first meeting. But there's provisions for everyone's role on this. There's advisable and non advisable. So even if you

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: have someone who doesn't want

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: to come to the table, they can still be tagged as being integral to the formation of that school. This is all very specific, but built right into this section is that a study committee proposes formation of a union school district, then the study committee ceases to exist once all of the other processes have gone on. But if a study committee determines that it is inadvisable to propose formation, the study committee shall cease to exist, and you go back to square one. So I would use that term if the study committee determines it is inadvisable to form a union school district rather than fail, or whatever.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm talking about a vote.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Okay, Leland, let's go look

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: at the- Let's stay here for a second, All right, again, I think we should just make this a caveat of any conversation we're having here, we're all just thinking out loud. And I when you think out loud, don't know if I agree with what I'm gonna say, but I think that what we are essentially doing here is requiring that study committees be quarantined. We are not saying it's an option.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: And

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: the seesaw facilitator would be the one identifying who would be on the study committees?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let's say yes for the moment.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If we go this, if we require that they form a study committee, we could also require that they form that that study committee come out with a proposal for a union school district.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I don't think you can require that they come out with a proposal for a union school district, but you can require something to advance to the voters.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, that's that's that's kind of what I where I was going. Yes. Was that they have to require Yes.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: A single or a cookie?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Multiple. Yeah, I mean, that's Otherwise we're headed towards that many giant think this is something we can keep teasing out. I don't think you can require a set of humans to come up with a certain outcome, but I do think you can require a process to advance. And so I think the next hurdle will be what goes to the voters. Because if study committee says, yes, we see two union school districts here or one union school district, then that goes to the voters, that's pretty clear cut. Already spelled out in law. But if they say, no one on this study committee thinks anyone on this study committee should merge, or we think only three out of the five districts on this study committee should merge, then what goes to the voters? The voters of the Yeah, and the which voters. Yeah. I mean, because the vote now to form a union school district goes to the electorate of the proposed new union school district. So I'm not saying that this is a hurdle. We would just need to think through all of the details. You could have Here's something. Oh, boy. Withdrawal. I think withdrawal, the process for withdrawal is a little more similar to what you were looking for here. We keep all of the study committee requirements, but withdrawal says see. There is a withdrawal study committee. Sorry. I can make it bigger.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Hold on.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: There's a withdrawal study committee. They have to come up with all of these findings. Shall evaluate the educational advantages and disadvantages likely to result from the withdrawal of the petitioning town, both on the students residing in the new school district and then the students that would remain in the Union School District, educational advantages and disadvantages, financial advantages of withdrawal, financial advantages of continued inclusion, the likely operation on financial viability and sustainability of both the new standalone district and the Union School District after withdrawal. My favorite catchall, who is going to be the supervisory union of this new member district? This was a big issue with Lincoln, remember, when they withdrew. They have to have a report with all of their analysis there. If after conducting the analysis, the withdrawal study committee votes to advance the withdrawal process, then the committee prepares a report.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Just wanna be clear, you're kind of talking about doing this in reverse. In reverse.

[Unidentified Member]: This entire Yes, yes.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: This is really laid And maybe not exactly this much, but this is you could require certain analyses to be in a report, but bear with me. No. It doesn't. There options we were considering, I think, of withdrawal going to the voters regardless of what the withdrawal study committee Let's see.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Where did we end up? Okay.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Boat.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: There were definitely versions of this that we contemplated that I still have access to, so I can try and find them. But I believe there were versions where it went to the electorate no matter what.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No matter what the Withdrawal committee.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Yeah, yeah. It does go to the voters no matter what, regardless of what the state board recommends. So if the withdrawal study committee does recommend withdrawal, then it goes to the state board to make recommendations. And it goes to the electorate regardless of what the recommendation of the state board is. But if the withdrawal study committee says, No, we don't think withdrawal is advisable, then it doesn't go to the state board and it doesn't go to the electorate. This is definitely an area we can keep teasing out. I can't guarantee you that it will come to a satisfactory conclusion, but you may have something to work with here. So we're requiring study committee. You've required the membership of the study committee, their meeting. Do you want to keep current law for what they consider or do you want to add?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think that All right. So that the study committee should represent the goal of roughly 4,000 students. Is that impractical? So now the study committee itself doesn't have to consider that, that they are just that goal. Ah, okay. In other words, the facilitator facilitator would be bringing them together to in groups of 4,000 students. They can, you know, the people in that area can help figure that out.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: That makes sense.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: They have to be contiguous.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: What about does anyone know where I'm going? Operating structure.

[Unidentified Member]: Something I've been asking before.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. No. Yeah. So I think good question. This is sort of where we might not all agree. I believe that the goal should be to have K 12 operating structures within these new districts.

[Unidentified Member]: We disagree with that point, just out of a practical reason, practically. Someday down the line in the far future that could happen, seeing where I live.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let's put that as a What was your specific question with operating structure? Was that it?

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: You've given the facilitator direction to group folks for mandatory study committees that would result in 4,000 ADM as practical. It'd have to be contiguous. But unless you're taking into account operating structure.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Some in my area don't

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have anybody can take those.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Well, yeah, and if under that, if in the membership area of the seesaw, in order to get to 4,000 for your study committees, you have to put non operating and operating districts together on a study committee, without further direction by the general assembly, you are leaving it up to them as an all or nothing. Because under current law, there's no explicit permission to both operate and tuition in the same district.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, we're back to where we always end up. Josh,

[Chris Taylor (Vice Chair)]: why does it have to be continuous?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Because the goal here is, you know, if you think about my map, Chris' language, the governor's map, anybody's map, it is about having a more efficient system and to have a system that is it's not more efficient if half your district is separated out by another district.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: What if you're doing it? It's like a like for like type of situation.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're really just talking about SUs again.

[Unidentified Member]: Not necessarily.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Because it would be mean, I think there's a certain there's a certain practicality of having things contiguous. As opposed to not having a contiguous. I'm sure I'm trying to sort of play it all out in my head. You know, if you are creating a group of 4,000 ADM and they are contiguous. Geography is going to be a hindrance to gaining efficiencies,

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Potentially. But I mean, being contiguous, you're limiting that group's options for how they create their districts.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'd say it's somewhat conflict with having larger regional middle of high schools if you are sort of creating districts where part of your district is interrupted by another district. I get thinking out loud here as best I can. Alright. So

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Please. I'm somebody It's gonna lead us back into the vortex here that we're already in. But does contracting or designation language It's sort of a middle path of which schools are then in that

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: district

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: and still being utilized as de facto public school that

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: gets us out of

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: how to deal with two different delivery structures, I don't know. Is

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: there an option for us where we leave just to ask another question on top of that one? Or is there an option for us to make that governance piece more open ended? I mean If we modify what's strictly in current law, I feel like maybe that we should think.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: think you can do multiple different things depending on what your ultimate goal is. You could use some notwithstanding language and then build in whatever you wanna allow, whether that is explicit or you leave it up to the districts themselves to figure it out. You could require check back to the general assembly, not necessarily for approval of the school district formation, although technically in the universe of possibilities, that is an option. But maybe so that you can figure out if and where you need to amend the law to allow this new landscape to flourish. You could just amend the law now and say, starting in whenever the foundation formula takes effect, this will be the allowable operating structures within one school district. Study committees work towards this goal. And you align the operational date with that change, you could not touch it and not give any direction and see what you get?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's you were suggesting.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Yes, I think so. So all remains. Think for now. I just wonder if there's a way for us to foster and invite these conversations that may ultimately run into all of the familiar roadblocks, but let's see how far we get.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I would definitely suggest some sort of report back to you all from the CSAS with all of the details of these conversations, the good, the bad and the ugly, so that that can inform future legislative choices. But yes, you don't have to do anything. You can allow the CSOC facilitator put together non like and non like and see what happens.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: For the time being, let's do that. I hate to say, could you put that all into language? But more to say, could you just make sure you note that in an outline for language? Alright. My brain doesn't work anymore. Anybody else? I think

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: we're gonna make great progress.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you for that encouragement.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: I'm serious. This is great.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Mean, I think it's I think that it is very important that you have brought us back to that. We have systems in place and we have existing law that we can take advantage of Yes. Rather than continually trying to reinvent the wheel to move us there. The question is, you know, is this just act 46 all over again? In a way, is, but in a way, it always has been because act 46 is always newer and larger districts. You know, we are if we are all trying to respond to many different things here, what we think works, what we think our community think work thinks works, We think the state needs and wants, and we are every day getting lots and lots of mixed messages from everybody. But this is this is helpful. Yeah. Alright. I'm gonna just I wanna call it there. Do you have stuff you can work on with what we've given you? Yes. Alright.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Again, my comment of you guys have done great, I think this is great, is a nonpartisan comment.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No. No. I appreciate it.

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: Political perspective on this. I just mean you're moving.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, I'm really giving you I because you know what to

[Legislative Counsel (Staff)]: was trying not to say that, but great.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Great. Thank you. We'll hold there. If we could hold you for just Could I just speak for a few minutes? Just about another thing.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Are we meeting after the full event?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The floor may be well under dinner time.

[Unidentified Member]: I know. I'm assuming

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: no