Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, this is House of Education, March 25, continuing our discussion on policy decision points on language in front of us. I would say we could take a look at number two on our list, talking about facilitators. I think that we're gonna need a little, some help from the outside on that. I'm gonna reach out to the VSBA on that. Qualifications, I think probably we should probably put something in there, and I'm open to suggestions. Emily.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: I guess that first one, we first talked about this, I was like, Yeah, we really need to have qualifications put in there. And then I started thinking about it. There's going to be a pool and they're going to be overseen by some entity, whatever that is, we have decided at some point. And there will be goals for that facilitator, which are the things that I really don't talk about. Why would anyone pick somebody who wasn't qualified? I guess I'm wondering whether we need to be prescriptive. Every time we talk to a list of things that we think are important, a qualified facilitator works for me. I don't know how far I need

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to go. I would be very comfortable. Yeah, I would be very comfortable adding with knowledge of Vermont's education landscape. There are people who are good at facilitating, but I think this work requires a knowledge base of what an SU is. I think we probably know the facilitators, the profile that they're going to be anyway.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: I totally agree with that. For months, knowing what the law science is.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You have to know what you're facilitating. That part's nice.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And for me, that's why I said earlier, some sort of like a almost more of a job description than a qualification is required, that whoever is applying to be it's more goals. I don't know if it's really a job description, but what am I getting into? It's like, what what is the facilitator expected to do? What what is the role? What's the job of the facilitator? It could and then say, oh, I can do well, I didn't have it online. I had it here.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think we're sort of like I how it's gonna probably the same way it worked out back '46. Probably a lot of retired superintendents, principals for deep knowledge doing would that. But I just would say that, I can wish to say facilitators with a strong understanding of the Vermont educational landscape, something along those lines.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Beth Quimby, Office of Legislative Counsel, I will do whatever you want. Can I pose a question? Sweet. Knowledge of or experience in or both? Because someone can read the law

[Unidentified Committee Member]: and then tell you that they have knowledge of.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So do you want someone who has experience working in Vermont's public education system or with or alongside? Or do you just want knowledge of, I think that's fine both ways.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's very well done. Appreciate that.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: I like experience, Fred.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. It actually is what happens if you don't get it. You will.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Experience is pretty broad.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think you could probably Yeah, I think that's probably true too. Let's say experience with Education landscape. Acknowledge of and experience with

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Knowledge and or?

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll put both in and then I'll bring my registrar.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. Very helpful.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Think

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: don't know if could, I think I'd already started putting things. Yes, everything else I've we've already gone over. I have in my list of. What I believe to be sort of the consensus on a lot of this.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Did we talk about study committee membership allowed to be adjusted by facilitator after the work is underway? Does anyone have notes on You give us the number and letter again, please.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's 2, 50, little seven. I wrote, yes, allowed to be adjusted by facilitator after work begins.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, I like that ability to be fluid as the work

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: happens. You want success here. Or I'll tell if you guys wanna run through what I have. Let me open see if

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I can open this document.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. 2CIV. 4? That's the two to 4,000. I said minimum 2,000 is practical, so there's no upper limit. Save the contiguous debate, so we'll keep contiguous there, so that was not good to have a debate over. Yes, allow members of different SUs, that's BII. Yes, allow to be adjusted after the work begins. VIII, we did not discuss this, but open to suggestion from legislative council.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I have some language in there already.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Number three, grant will be awarded by the state. That's what you said, if we're mandating, should pay for it. B, no deviation from current law. I don't but we need an explanation from legislative council about current law and board size. That's under B, little I, little I. Didn't know if there was anything in her law belt.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There is for town school districts, and that is Nothing that I can find.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I know in Act 46 there was, I think.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't speak to what was in Act 46 myself, but when I was doing research, and research is generous, just for the looking I did, I did pull up a bunch of articles of agreement that the state board issued for their forced mergers. And the board size varied from, I think the smallest I saw, and I didn't look at every, was four, and the biggest I saw was 10. So there was a pretty big variation. I'm making an assumption that that was based on the size of the district.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Ours was 13. I know what CVSD is. Probably around that.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Mine's 11.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Oh, it is currently? Oh, it's 12. Yeah, 12. There's nothing in chapter 11 that

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have found, nor do I remember providing guidance or limitation for Union School Districts.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So we can be silent on that and let them use their best common sense. Okay, low I. Acquired consideration UUSD? Yes. Two, what happens if they wanna do something different? I wrote that our consensus was that they should just follow the law, that if it's inadvisable, they issue their report, they're done, they wanna use chapter 11 to pursue something else, they certainly can.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Maybe we'll have 49.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Other side. Can I just ask a clarifying question?

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So if they determine that it's not advisable to form a union school district, but it is advisable to form an elementary school district and a high school district, they would have to issue the inadvisable report to span the study committee and then form two separate study committees.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: If that's what I would get it. Yes. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Well, wouldn't, I mean, had this thing so inefficient, wouldn't those discussions with the same people have already taken place? Couldn't they just form those districts at that point?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Could they

[Unidentified Committee Member]: do a really short study committee?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They could, but that's just, they could easily form it and they just cruise fast as they go. Yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You're saying we would start a new study committee?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, I'm saying that we would stick with current law, but by virtue of the fact that they wanna do it, they should be already five steps ahead. Yeah. Okay. If merger study committee troubles you. Little the three i's there. That's a no deviation from current law under letter d.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Where are you?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's a great question. D.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Oh, wait a minute.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Did you say c

[Unidentified Committee Member]: three? Does the USD need to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Wait. What you say?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Does it need to include all participants? And we said no.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Think that goes to the exact current.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. So c c Three. Three, no deviation from current law. D, two i's, numbers one and two, no deviation from current law.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: D1 and two, D2, sorry.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: D1 skipped altogether. Sorry. D2,

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: one and two?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: D2, one and two, no deviation, weren't long. D3, I think we have enough language prepared for this because we did already do some language, but would add reports going to the same places as advisables after presenting reports.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: You're You're saying for D3 new districts and advisable, you're saying yes to reports?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. And we already have language that says, send us a report or create a report as to why it was not advisable.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It includes everything I have listed here.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I mean, you can't do that. Why wouldn't we just To learn.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, in other words, it's not hard to say you know, if they say we have found this inadvisable because we determined that leveling up salaries would cost $5,000,000 and felt that was upgradable. It would just be good to Or somebody else might say, it's not an inadvice way because we are unable to figure out how to operate two different education delivery systems within the same district. You know, all that information is going be really good for the state as we're trying to figure out how to go forward.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's not like this isn't the last time

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: this issue is ever going to be raised.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It will be raised again in ten years.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: So, less

[Unidentified Committee Member]: than that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Anyway. Okay.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: All right.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then that's as far as I've got, but I- I thought we went through all. No, that's as far as I got typing up all of my instructions. Gotcha. So we can continue on here. Secretary review, state board review. At this point, we said no deviation from current law.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Except that we wanted to act in Yes,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: but we very good, except that if the secretary fails to act within thirty days, that it goes directly to the state board. Does current law have a if the state board doesn't act?

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. It doesn't have anything about if the state board doesn't act.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay. Probably. Down to G, vote to form current law requires voting district identified, necessary by the rule, deviate in any way. Needs to happen by a certain date? Yes. And that's gonna be part of, once we get a better sense of, we provide incentives, we're gonna say it has to be done by a certain date in order to qualify for incentives.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sorry, wait a minute, hold on one second. So state board review, you were not deviating from current law.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: open question as to the no, or?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Were the state boards allowed to say no?

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. The way I read Chapter 11 now is they have to make certain findings. So if they can't make certain findings

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There was no change to the existing process. Right, which would

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: They can reject By saying no, they're rejecting the artifacts Yeah, of the

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it only goes to the voters. I'll come back to you tomorrow with

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: that. Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That would be great. I think we would have decided no deviation from current law.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, and now we're on G, both

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: on Okay. First G, little I, no deviation from current law. You get by a certain date, yes, TB. Yep. Support back on results from AOE, yes.

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That date's gonna be tied to whatever

[Unidentified Committee Member]: other two g two is. Yes. Yep.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. I'll I'll send you what I have any credit. So I'll reach the doctor and get the work. Does that give you?

[Beth Quimby (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's great, you haven't made very many deviations for recurrent loss. Yeah,

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we got ourselves going down that path and then we took a break and said, keep it simple.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: All right.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That would be it. Thank you, committee. We will adjourn. I will hesitate to say it, but frankly, we'll lose our committee assistant anyway, and so we can't come back without that.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: In time anyway. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But I think does everybody feel comfortable talking for the time being? Last time I asked this, went back on and did all this through the door. And I don't want to not have that opportunity again.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: I guess it'd be helpful. I'm sorry, I did this This last is great. This is what we're here for. But

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I am going to ask,

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: we're going to come back and we're going to look at language that Beth is sharing with us tomorrow. Then I'm just trying to figure out It's very helpful to me to know what our next steps will be, especially if we're talking about Right.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. So one of the things I have been trying to get in terms of, at what point have we created a complete package? I mean, we do need to discuss dates, all the things that we haven't done on here, lines, all that sort of thing. The next step might be that we really just maybe I'll break out some more blanker maps that we can literally draw on. So

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the intent to have a map that goes with the site?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, so the map would be an overlay of two things. One, the groupings that are guidance for the facilitators and then the CISA boundaries for creating CISAs. We can almost just do two separate maps, one of the CISAs, of that. The the CISA boundaries overlaid on the other shows sort of like that that would then direct the facilitator. Like, this facilitator is gonna start working this area, this one up here, That stuff. Because the season's going to

[Unidentified Committee Member]: stand regardless of what happens. Exactly. Yeah.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: So, while I recognize that the funding of them will be in ways and means, I think it would be helpful. I'm thinking about the work groups. I'm thinking about the incentives. And I would love to have a discussion about what would help facilitate this conversation locally in this

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: community because we're connected to it. We've

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: had dollars, tax, all that sort of stuff.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: When we come back tomorrow, let's actually think about that incentive structure, because you're right, Act 46 had both tax rate reductions and incentive grants.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: And I'd even like to have a conversation about the potential of maybe some nominal incentive that schools do close as a part of the conversation we have. I'm not going down that path, but I'm saying I want to have that conversation, see how everybody feels. Because I do see barriers to that regularly on

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the ground today. For repurposing of the building.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah, and I'm not saying, dump $100,000 on a bigger piece of wood. What I'm saying is there are costs, posing school, for a community to buy a school. There are basic central costs, like an attorney and engineer. And I don't know what that would include. And I'm not saying we're going to do it, but I think it's worth the conversation. Sure.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right. We will all be back here together then tomorrow at nine. What are we out for the agenda for tomorrow? 09:30. And was there a reason why we did 09:30?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: We can just ask Beth until 09:30. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I will be out of room from nine to ten tomorrow, if it's still okay?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Okay. Depends on what you're gonna say.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I, tomorrow morning, have been invited to a meeting that's either there or there. I've checked with our to my local hospital boards about some stuff. Alright.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I'm gonna say I gotta get some more information on that. We'll shoot for 09:15.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Wait. You just said 09:30.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah. Don't put on the

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: agenda 09:15 as aspirational. Maybe me. I think she needs struggle.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: About time.

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

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we can start at seven. No. Do seven to nine.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member)]: We're like,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: seven to nine and then take a break.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Start at seven tomorrow?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. Or eight.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: In the morning? I'm not at nine. I don't think anybody's coming in at seven. No.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's gonna be a late night.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So let's close here. I'll say