Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Welcome to House Education on Friday, March 27. The committee this morning is going to run through, again, the language that we have been working on. One of the things we talked a lot about yesterday was timing and dates and what things would take. And we had sort of said, town meeting twenty twenty eight was a good sort of goal to have votes taking place on merged districts, new school boards, all of that. 2028, however, is also a presidential election year, and it sort of you know, it seems like if if the idea is to maximize voter turnout, and it doesn't make a significant difference. And it adds time to get work done. So you'll see here reflecting, the second date would be in November, and then it gives all the other steps a little more time to happen from our ambitious schedule. All right, with that, thank you for preparing the latest document and look forward to hearing it.

[Speaker 1]: Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. So you have draft 6.1 that we're gonna look at today. I also have a very, very bare bones timeline to go along with it, with all the dates. So let's look at the language first. And I think one thing I didn't talk to you about, Chair, is the dates in here, I think, trigger one of the policy decision points on our policy decision point list that we haven't really talked about in detail, and that is the contingency dates in Act 73, Just FYI. We're gonna jump right to no changes in the CSAL language. We're gonna jump right to page 20. Do you want me to share my screen?

[Speaker 0]: That'd be great, thanks.

[Speaker 2]: 6.1? Yes.

[Speaker 1]: Mine did not jump. So pushing the dates have changed a little bit, moving backwards from election day twenty twenty eight in November. And then, anyway, this is what we're starting with now. One sec. Find our last draft. Okay. So in our last draft, this date was 09/01/2026. And so now we are requiring hiring of facilitators on or before October 1. That doesn't mean that they have to wait until October 1. It's just the last day by which they would be compliant with the law.

[Speaker 0]: I just want to point out to the committee what you see there in line seven through nine. We are talking about CISAs, employee facilitators. Obviously, there's a little bit of conflict there because we haven't actually created the CESAs yet. Consider this to be placeholder language until we sort of have a solution about an entity that can hire facilitators and get them into the field, which we are continuing to explore. Can I ask a question about that?

[Speaker 3]: So as we hire these facilitators, is there gonna be some way to ensure a certain degree of neutrality in facilitating the conversation so the districts can really be honest about what is the right choice for them. I know that sort of the goal here is to get the districts to talk about the advisability of forming a union school district, but that's also a different goal than saying to push them towards forming a union school district, which is the reason I can support this. So I guess my question is how are we going to ensure that there is some degree of neutrality in just facilitating conversations and not leading them towards that?

[Speaker 0]: I guess I can only answer that by saying that's the job of facilitators, to remain neutral and to promote the conversation in front of them.

[Speaker 3]: But they will know that that's their job, right? That they're not working for us to push them towards consolidation.

[Speaker 0]: I do not believe so, though. I think that it is clear in the law that their job is to organize and facilitate the study committees to study the advisability of forming a union school district. Okay.

[Speaker 1]: And to the chair's point about the language on line seven through nine being placeholder language, it's highlighted in green and the key at the top says it's an outstanding policy decision. So anyone who's not watching this testimony but is looking at this language, as long as they can read, you'll figure that out. Next date. On or before 12/01/2026, two things need to happen. The study committee of membership needs to be complete, and the study committee needs to hold this first meeting. Then we jump to the next change, which is on page 24, 12/01/2027. This is the date by which the final report from each study committee is due. So they have a whole year now that we've pushed out the vote date to November 2028. Previously, we're looking at March 2028, so you had months to play with there. So most of them are being added to this timeframe. Then Subdivision 5 is the date by which member school boards need to have completed their review and given any feedback they wanna give. That's 02/01/2028. So two months from the final report. Then the secretary's review on page 25, line six, is 04/01/2028. So if the secretary has not submitted the report, the proposed articles of agreement and the secretary's recommendation to the state board on or before 04/01/2028, then that date just triggers the study committee to send the report and proposed articles of agreement directly to the state board review process. So the on or before 04/01/2028 is again on or before. So if a study committee finishes its report in September, then the secretary could take whatever amount of time they need to do that review as long as it was before 04/01/2028. But if the study committee only finishes its final report on 12/01/2027, and that's only a six And then it goes to the school board and then to the secretary, that window is smaller. There could be different windows of time there depending on how long it takes the study committees to do their work. And then the state board has until 06/01/2028 to issue its findings required pursuant to current law. And then you have the vote to form a unified union school district occurring on or before 11/07/2028, which is election day twenty twenty eight. And so between the state board's final findings on November 7, that process is gonna be the normal election process as far as getting your warnings out and all of that, but also whatever organically happened in the field around civic engagement in that time window. A status report. This date hasn't I have not, on my own, changed this date. This is the date we looked at yesterday for the status report from AOE for you all next year. We've bumped the study committee formation and first meeting to December 1. So I don't know what you're gonna get. And December is the holiday season. Right? So I don't know what you're gonna get on 01/01/2027. So flagging for you Save it. As to whether that is a date that is Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: I appreciate that. I I think that that's a date that would produce very little information. And so at least let's bump it a month to February.

[Speaker 4]: Question on the

[Speaker 2]: So the

[Speaker 5]: school board has until February oh, no. Sorry. Never mind. Move on. It's the whole year. It's '28, not '27.

[Speaker 1]: And that's the whole Union School District, the study committee process all the way to the vote. And then on this little timeline that I need, all of those feeds are on there along with a very, very general and brief description of what the date corresponds to. Guidance for study committee groupings, I've made no changes here yet. And then again, I have not, you'll see this employed by a CISA related to the facilitator is in green because that's a policy decision you have not made yet. I also not, on my own initiative, changed these dates. These are the dates we were working with in the last draft on or before 01/01/2029. This is the report back from the facilitator on barriers or impediments and the outcomes of all of the study committees. Previous draft had the vote occurring in March, so there was a lot of time for them to put together that report. Now we have a vote occurring in November.

[Speaker 4]: But the

[Speaker 1]: study committee process itself concluded a year ago. So I don't know what you do with this date. You could leave it and get

[Speaker 0]: the It'll be well before that anyway.

[Speaker 1]: Yeah, you can change it at any point in time.

[Speaker 6]: Yeah. I don't know if this is relevant, but I'm just looking at the timeline. And so I'm thinking about new districts and thinking about foundation formulas. Are we looking at summer twenty twenty nine that kicks in?

[Speaker 0]: So this is an outstanding major policy decision that probably will rest with ways and means, and that is what becomes the new trigger for the foundation formula. Under Act 73, as envisioned, it was once the whole state had been redistricted and those new districts were up and functioning. This is a different path. I think this is this will be the work for ways and means. The Senate has also been discussing that issue as well, and they they have in their current language, just kind of date certain. I wouldn't be surprised if that's where we end up as well at some point, but I'm not sure. But we will have ways and means figure that out. What would be the most appropriate? You could say, you you could you could just say, you know, process, depending on where we are. But we need a new trigger, and that is for the work. And that's what they are discussing that.

[Speaker 2]: You said it twice, now we need a new trigger. I guess I'm not sure what that really means because we are still going through the same process here. It's just a different way to do it. I mean, it's potentially, the trigger's still there, potentially. So we may not need to be triggered.

[Speaker 0]: And then, well, don't know the specific language, but you're absolutely right. Mean, we just say once this process is complete. And it becomes a little

[Speaker 6]: bit more interesting and really sort of a subtle setting in itself, right? Because if we just go to if you have some small districts and you have newer, larger districts, I mean, that kind of goes to the philosophy of the whole thing, Jim, right?

[Speaker 0]: So I think what you're saying is that the inevitable or the prospect of a new foundation formula system acts as an incentive for those districts to make decisions that they feel are best for them to deal with that. Clearly agree.

[Speaker 4]: Maybe. I just think it awaits

[Speaker 0]: don't know. It awaits that

[Speaker 4]: and complicate that quite a bit. And I had illuminating conversations with superintendents yesterday on both ends of it, of who will gain largely and who will lose big under the foundation formula. And I think that some of the challenges on the existing weights and the flaws in existing weights and the degree to which existing weights are impacting decisions will compound up until that transition. So I think I understand the sentiment. I just think it's far more complicated than that. This is where some modeling is super, super, super important. And yeah.

[Speaker 0]: I would say understood and also always understood that a future legislature can make different decisions. And

[Speaker 2]: so I just want to go one step further from my own perspective, and that is that while I recognize that the Ways and Means Committee has the jurisdiction over education funding, The reason why, in my mind, we set it up this way was so that we could make sure that the system was supported, that we created then supported by the funding. There's a model in place, but our system is what, in my mind, is the most critical part of the work we're doing. That happens in this room. So I just wanna make sure that we're considering that as we're looking at the sequence of things, because there are so many points that need to be decided. They have points that need to be decided along the way, and the education committee should

[Speaker 0]: have top priority over those decisions, not a funding formula creating a decision about the system. Expectation is, first of all, built into the contingencies are also lots of studies that need to come back and be looked at, and the contingency of CTE funding needs to be figured out. So there are still lots of built in contingencies that will, I think, force a revisit of the foundation formula formula as this as this information comes to play. May not happen this year. Won't have an issue that studies won't be in and will CTE be solved. Point taken.

[Speaker 4]: I feel that we may, at some point next week, need to further clarify exactly what those contingencies are currently. Are they contingencies, or are they work that's supposed to be happening? And I know there's a couple of them, but at some point and I hope Beth can do that, and it might be John Grant as well. Being crystal clear about what is actually literally a contingency and what is a work that will happen, but it's not necessarily our understanding of contingency.

[Speaker 0]: Could you all work with legislative council to get a one pager that documents what works, but it's probably already been prepared

[Speaker 1]: and shown to us? I would just agree with the importance of that. I think how people are thinking conceptually about remaining work to be done and what is actually sort of a legal trigger in Act 73 are sometimes they're two very different things. I mean, now,

[Speaker 0]: actually, I think that is new districts across the state in place up and running, but we had made that a little more complicated because what if, you know, what what what does that mean if you have areas that say we don't wanna be in a in a new bigger, larger discourse?

[Speaker 6]: Which will be the future.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, very much in the future. Lost track all the way through it.

[Speaker 2]: Thank

[Speaker 0]: you. So I'm thinking we could I would like to get some I would like to get input from everybody on the committee that would like to provide input on the CISA lines and how they should be adjusted. Now the document I provided, it's a little confusing and a little difficult to sort of maneuver around, but I think if we could do just a sort of quick hit, look and see Again, I just would say that these are based on the redistricting task force recommendations, based on zones where superintendents are already collaborating.

[Speaker 7]: So I don't have anything finished on that, but I did some of my kids' art equipment, a tracing table with a light and some thin paper, and I started finding similarities between the super the lines you have for your CCs and the NCTE lines. There are some parallels there that may not they're not perfect, but, like, you start looking at the CT regions in general, you can start filtering them into the superintendent association lines. And I think that if we dig into that a little bit more, we might be able to find something that uses the best of both maps. In that respect, I don't know that I care for the district recommendations piece of the whole thing. I think focusing on just the CISA map is probably our where our best work is done. I think there's a way to do that. And, I mean, like I said, I started playing with it, but with our late nights here

[Speaker 0]: Understood. Let's get a little muddy.

[Speaker 4]: How are

[Speaker 0]: I was looking

[Speaker 7]: at five. She has I think there's five on there, but that's taking team I think it is or 14 CISA districts and kind of merging them together. What's that?

[Speaker 3]: 14 tech.

[Speaker 7]: Tech districts. Sorry. Centennial Districts. A lot of them share similar boundaries. And that's where I think, like, you'll have some that don't work very well. We're, like, down south. I think there's a line that runs to the west of the Green Mountains. You look at the CTEs, I think they're more in line with the Green Mountains. Right? So you might be shifting some things like that. But, yeah, I think there's a way to play both of them so you get kind of you get you get a lot of buy in from both the superintendent's map and the CTs that will work with them.

[Speaker 0]: Where where this will get tricky is if we choose to deal with Chittenden County or the combination that we have now with Franklin, Chittenden, Addison Counties together, that's just one, which I believe is too many staff, students, whatever. And so, in order to sort of break that up a little further, we may sort of need to put districts together. In a CISA that don't necessarily all go to the same CTE. So here's just a for example, and I'm not strongly advocating this, but this is what I've been thinking about. If you look at the big pink on the left there, which was called District 1, I I think my own district is District 1. You know, I would say that in and of itself is probably not big enough to be a CISA. But I think if you were to and if the idea is to sort of break up Chittenden County a bit, I think if you were to add District 15, which is CVSD, and even maybe District 14, which is Mount Mansfield, That there you have a CISA that probably the numbers are good. It's mainly sort of sharing the idea of rural education. These are very rural areas for the most part. And anyway, and it it sort of starts the breaking up of Chittenden County as one big, large meeting. And and, you know, as you sort of think about working toward the closer parts of Chittenden County, you know, I see one could imagine the needs of each of the CSIS changing. You know? For some, great one might be transportation. For another, it might be ELL services. For another, It might be a special ed or whatever. But anyway, do I guess I my belief is that we need to divide up that big upper left into at least two. Rather four or three. Just geographically, it's pretty massive anyway. So those are some initial thoughts for me. I've even thought, well, maybe from the Pink South to be added up to that as well to make the Southwest Region not so large. I have had requests via email from some folks who have pointed out that, hey, we are part of this CTE region, but we're in this CCEP. I think it was that person in particular that said that they are more aligned from a CCEP point of view with latency north of Rivendell.

[Speaker 6]: Mhmm.

[Speaker 0]: I'm totally sure about that. I have to go back and revisit those. Central Vermont's pretty big, but maybe that works. Although, I would say that as well, I've heard I've had emails from people who say, know, Marshfield Plainfield tends to sort of look towards the left and not toward the right and should be over there. So, anyway, I don't know if other people so I I sort of have those on my list of of sort of how I might this weekend. But what are some of the other things that people have thought about or have heard about that they also feel? Obviously, at the bottom there. That CECL line that kind of goes right through the pink, that probably should be adjusted to sort of reflect that. I'm just checking my understanding now, this sort of

[Speaker 4]: CISA world that we're building towards. A district could buy services from another CISA. It doesn't have to be

[Speaker 0]: That's right.

[Speaker 4]: There. So I'm thinking about Chittenden County and breaking it out. But hopefully one of the things that comes with this is low incidence, high cost special education services and some better services for students' needs, and that

[Speaker 0]: they

[Speaker 4]: you foster can that. And Chittenden County, so if you break that up, but they could still

[Speaker 0]: And the other thing to think about as well is that CISOs will also be the sort of guiding forces or the sort of guide for what happens within, sort of think of it as something used to term testing. So within that we'd have districts Those are the districts that the facilitators would work with to meet and talk with. I have a question. So

[Speaker 5]: we had discussed that current statute limits Vermont to seven, but that we would adjust that. Is there a thought about the number of ceases? Because if we end up with too many ceases, then they aren't actually efficient in doing what they're supposed to do. But five doesn't appear to be enough.

[Speaker 4]: Just wanna

[Speaker 5]: have a rough

[Speaker 0]: thought about the number of seizures that would be reasonable. I personally have kind of weighed about seven in my past.

[Speaker 5]: I was thinking seven or eight.

[Speaker 2]: Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: That means because seven is what it is now, but not varying from that seven very far.

[Speaker 0]: I would agree with you that I want keep them efficient. Frankly, if you look at the size of the current Vermont Learning Collaborative, CISA, It's roughly the size of what we have here on the lower right. We have a example of a geographic area that is already a CISA.

[Speaker 5]: So looking at the lower right, does that encompass the entire existing CSIP plus a little more?

[Speaker 4]: Or no? Or is it exactly

[Speaker 2]: So I just double checked. And the boundaries you put on this map in that area, Windsor, Windham Counties, are the actuals.

[Speaker 5]: So these block lines are exact.

[Speaker 2]: That's today that I Unless somebody's joined that I

[Speaker 0]: The four counties.

[Speaker 2]: No. I didn't look at it as counties. I looked at it as SUVs, and your lines on here go around the SUVs. So this little piece here that goes into here is part of the Windham Southwest Supervisory Union. So this dotted line going over into Bennington County is part of the CSA that is the Southeast because it's part of an SU. So cutting that They are non operating well, have two down low. These are the one of them is not on.

[Speaker 0]: Bridge now. So that line is in fact

[Speaker 2]: Those lines are accurate. It's the the current SCSI. Okay.

[Speaker 5]: Just to make sure I understand, the black line is fine, it's the color pink that which we might want to change. I'm literally not referring to

[Speaker 2]: the underneath. I'm really literally referring to the dotted line. Even up here, the only thing I don't I mean, this is an interstate, Northwest Interstate, but but up north of that, it's the correct it is a link up here. So, yes, it correct. So this line here is the current CISA? District 27 is Mountain. Okay. Thank you. Our

[Speaker 0]: language allows for adjustments here. I'm not sure we The

[Speaker 2]: Stanford University, the reads for a school just quote. Why I

[Speaker 0]: So I realized that everybody could be looking at these maps quietly. We don't need to be in committee to do that unless there's further discussion. I guess I would also ask if over the weekend and Monday, if people have contact with folks in their area about these, Especially ask my Chittenden County folks. I just not. Talk to people and think about that as well. All of this is I would also like to ask everybody over the weekend, on Monday, whatever, to talk to people about sort of what is suggested here for groupings. So, for example, you have a much better sense of things up in your area. Again, I just will continue to emphasize that these are groupings to talk. These are not They abandon the process at any point in time. It is voluntary.

[Speaker 4]: I don't know if we need to spell it out, but I've heard, particularly from Beth McCann and Beth Harple, those areas well, that you're also thinking about groupings in service of regional and middle and high schools. Yes. That's not necessarily, I mean, think it's in the greater conversation now in the state, but whether we end up calling that out specifically here, but that's so important to these groupings, that's where this regional understanding is so critical of knowing what the buildings are, who's already kind of thinking about

[Speaker 3]: things where they're willing to move people around Earth.

[Speaker 0]: Of the pieces of language that I've been thinking about maybe adding, and this is very simple, it'd be that sort of the first job of a facilitator would be to gather everybody within the CISA boundary and say, here's my guiding map for what districts should form worker study committees. Do you have any recommendations for adjustments to those things? Because we allow that to happen.

[Speaker 7]: Josh? Not to keep going down the same road, but did you give any more thought to the word contiguous after your thoughts about Bob, I'll put it Roxbury?

[Speaker 0]: I have I have. Yes. And there's even another area that has come to my attention that so we may build it more of a contiguous as practical or something. Yeah. I do think there are a couple. Again, Thetford and Ware, it it mainly associates with.

[Speaker 7]: And you think that language is, or why do you think that language is just worth having them figure

[Speaker 0]: it out with us? Don't have a strong opinion. Haven't given a deep thought. I just think

[Speaker 7]: of, like, trying to give them as much ease, right, much leeway as possible to actually make mergers happen as opposed to feeling constrained.

[Speaker 2]: Sure. Emily? I'm I'm I wouldn't be comfortable with as practical. I think that that goes against what we're trying to do here. I'm not I had a suggestion yesterday about another option to be able to do that. And I think we should continue to look at what the issues are that are arising here. But I still wouldn't be comfortable with removing the language as contiguous nor making it as effective at this point in time.

[Speaker 3]: I feel like the different, even though you gave me a personal tutorial yesterday, Kate, as we

[Speaker 0]: all Competition is very important when dealing with this stuff.

[Speaker 3]: Yeah, I'm the newest, I'm

[Speaker 4]: the slowest, I'm the dumbest. I fully know it. But

[Speaker 3]: I just, I feel like this would be a little bit easier if we could actually get three maps to kind of look at take the layers off. It keeps getting confused in my brain is what I'm looking at. And I'm also wondering if I can't decide if it makes sense to pre game this conversation by giving them our recommended districts. Isn't the point to have the communities themselves talk about strategic mergers? So why are we putting out, and here's what you think the conclusion you should come to.

[Speaker 0]: For me, I think that things will happen faster if it provides the structure. Now, structure isn't, again, structure is malleable in the field, but it seems to me if you are somebody who's sort of tasked with this work to at least have a starting point of how you bring people together,

[Speaker 2]: that

[Speaker 0]: is gonna help get things started even if adjustments are made along the way. But

[Speaker 3]: isn't the structure perhaps the rubric or the metrics versus saying this

[Speaker 4]: is the outcome we hope you get to?

[Speaker 0]: Well, we aren't leading people down necessarily path. We are bringing them together so they can come up with their own rubrics.

[Speaker 3]: But it seems like we are. When we say that here are the suggested regions and you don't have to do those, but here are our suggestions. And it's making the map more complicated to look at. That's the piece that I would like to take out is the pre suggested. And I think that also makes it easier because then we don't have to redraw the lines because that is part of the work.

[Speaker 6]: So would you just say, would you say, okay, we were looking for regions to quartet?

[Speaker 3]: Yeah, and whatever other metrics have come up, that's not the only one that's come up. But like, you know, and that they need to have the CTE centers and like the geographical and the cultural. Yes. So what I would say is I would give people the maps of just CSAs themselves, and then fine, they can be based on this. I will withdraw my idea about CTEs. Although I will continue to say I'm hearing a lot of support for that and that the superintendents within CTE regions work together very closely too. But whatever, I don't want to complicate it. I do want to move forward. But I think that it will be easier and more authentic in what we're asking to do if we take out the pre determined.

[Speaker 0]: I worry about efficiency and speed without providing some guiding direction in the beginning. Can revisit this.

[Speaker 5]: My thought process behind it, and maybe some of it's that I've already had a lot of information over the last year as a member of the school redistricting task force, is I was thinking of groupings within it of people who are already talking already. They're already having these conversations. So I was not thinking I was trying to predetermine their outcome. Was saying they've already come to me or us or task force and said, we're already talking. Well, that's your group because you're you're doing it on your own to the greatest degree. The people that are already having the conversations anyway.

[Speaker 0]: I would like to encourage people to be part of it.

[Speaker 5]: And more part of it. But you start there, except for efficiency, they want to do this work, they need some help doing this work, and as they're going through their study committee, they may find other partners, they may split apart, but it's the starting point.

[Speaker 0]: I'll pause right here. Get an update from Matt. We're still on six fifty seven,

[Speaker 6]: which he lost me to know.

[Speaker 2]: Oh, I

[Speaker 4]: didn't even bring this.

[Speaker 5]: Can I ask a question?

[Speaker 4]: Of Beth?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah.

[Speaker 4]: The deconstructing committee, I keep hearing discussion. Was there a formal list of how many Wasn't there some testimony about how many organic mergers were being discussed? We tried to put that on the map, Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: But it got a little confusing because some people are talking to more than one person.

[Speaker 4]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: But they did so there is you know, all the input that we were getting in emails, oh, Kingdom East is talking with Saint Johnsbury and Calico. Oh, but Kingdom East already also, they were talking with Orleans Central, for example. Or North Country is talking to Orleans Central, but they're also talking with Canaan. So it got kind of complicated in that. But if you are within the CISA and you can go outside those boundaries, and it's just guidance saying, well, we heard you were talking anyway, so we'll color that region in. We'll call that region in. Even at the very, very beginning, one of the first ideas, when we're saying, what should we look at with maps, was suggested, well, why don't we start with what people have told us they want to do? Let's put that on the map and see what that looks like. How close does that get us? And then go from there. And that idea was rejected by the committee as a whole because it wasn't data driven.

[Speaker 4]: Do you know if that map information was I'd have to go back

[Speaker 5]: and look, but every email we got was, of course, saved. And I think they did sort of because they wanted to put it on the map and see, start making a separate file and saying, Oh, this is specific to conversations that are happening.

[Speaker 4]: I think I heard a number in the 20s or 30s of like And I don't know what level talking. I don't either. Wasn't it something like that?

[Speaker 5]: So, yes, a lot of those conversations happened. And then it didn't, you know, as why has his name

[Speaker 1]: gone right out of my head?

[Speaker 2]: Adams? Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: As he was trying to put all of that in, it did begin to get a little bit complicated because of the multiple conversations happening. That's at about the time that we were getting near the end of the work. We said, Well, we're going go in a different direction anyway. But there is information there,

[Speaker 4]: and I'm sure we would get it.

[Speaker 5]: Sure people would contact us and say, We're talking.

[Speaker 0]: I'm going to meet with John Adams on Monday, hopefully, to sort of disaggregate and have different maps. Next page.

[Speaker 7]: Be interested in my rudimentary crayon drawing.

[Speaker 0]: Just need to translate them on to something that you presented yourself. Rudimentary crayon bronze is great.

[Speaker 2]: As I was actually talking to Beth about this, I believe that I was incorrect, I think. I don't know for sure. On this whole yellow thing, I think this is hard for here. Can't see.

[Speaker 0]: I can't read the writing.

[Speaker 2]: And there there is district. I don't think from the list I have of the participation participants, that one wasn't included. It's not included. Just for clarity,

[Speaker 0]: I didn't state something that was.

[Speaker 2]: Alright. Let's make the rep Harple and this conversation. Let's make me recognize it while we're talking about how observations are happening, and organically, are in mine too. I wouldn't want to draw a map because I've been fact just conversations that are high. But if we're going to draw a map that has CISOs in it, I think we need to, number one, I think having guidance is helpful, since we're going to have lines on the map that are ceases. So I think the guidance is helpful to start the conversations. But I also wonder about when those merger talks and maybe mergers happen organically, whether we need to recognize that seesaw lines may have had to be changed as well. And so when we're going through this process, I just want to make sure we're very verbal and maybe have to do something in writing too about reassessing the after the merger process reassessing the ceasing lines. I just don't want to hold back the work that's happening in the field because it's gonna be hard. Sort of goes along with not trying to Making sure that people know that there has to be some flexibility built in as the mergers have. Erin?

[Speaker 4]: I think potentially one of the other real important pieces about some sort of guidance map is, again, to try to ensure that we're or do the best that we can to put the state on a path to districts that we're not further creating class divides. We're not further putting schools with the highest populations of students, configuring in ways or leaving them to sort of keep hearing the whole dance partner thing analogy. Because that was one of the challenges, it sounds like, in Act 46 in some places. Know Different of my reasons, I don't have a clear enough understanding of that. But it's a little bit of applying lessons learned in the next steps forward. So I think of it like I'll be cheesy, Leanne, but as a teacher, graphic organizers or tools we often create that are for some students, but they can help all students. But if you really want to take your own notes and your own method, that's fine. But we've provided some structure. And so it's not feeling great if you don't use the graphic organizer. But the graphic organizer is there as a tool, and it might end up being beneficial in all places that it was even

[Speaker 1]: It's funny that you say that. I raised my hand

[Speaker 3]: right before you, and that is literally what I was going say, is reprocessing this in my head, and there's a place for models. I mean, we've all written lots of lesson plans. There's lots of lesson plans. And yeah, now I see it as like, for example, here is your model. I am reframing what my accent.

[Speaker 0]: Teachers are great. Maybe we'll pause here, spend some floor time. We're back at three at a minimum. Stay tuned. Ahead.

[Speaker 4]: We're back at one?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, I have us scheduled to be back here at one just because I put it on there. There's no testimony or anything scheduled.

[Speaker 4]: And the 04:00 is committee discussion?

[Speaker 0]: Right now we're at three. Oh, yeah, I think that we will have the presentation from the AOE period.

[Speaker 3]: I would almost rather like remote with you guys on a Saturday than stay there today.

[Speaker 0]: Well, we have we have a test on the schedule from at three. Okay. Great.

[Speaker 7]: Gonna be here till 6AM.

[Speaker 2]: Alright. So 4AM. The whole