Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is the House of Education, Tuesday, March 31. Much of our time is about what the future should look like. So I have invited to join us today, John Adams, has really been the person behind all of our mapping tools, really here as a resource. What I'd like us to do is look at what is posted. These are, once again, my creations, it's my district maps that I came up with previously with some adjustments based on feedback I've had, and then kind of an attempt to create CISAs largely based on geographic regions, student population, topography. Some of this is undone, so it is not complete, I should say. So it's gonna be important to have feedback from all of you. This is really our time to say, you know, no, I really think for now we should do this. At the same time, I don't want us to get too hung up on lines of decisions for a number of reasons. One, in the language that we've been working on, we provide the ability. It's really guidance. It's not hard and fast lines when it comes to school districts. We allow for them to be sort of moved around. Two, whatever we do is probably gonna get tweaked even more in the Senate. So we should do our best and then kind of move forward. So John is here really as a resource to put stuff wall, make changes as we feel comfortable coming to consensus on some changes. So maybe, John, while you're here, you could go ahead and put up the draft districts with draft CISAs, I think, to start. And then we can so here's what we got out there. We got this would be the two maps combined, and then we've got each map individually. So the I kind of adjusted the c sub map a little, not a lot, but to reflect some other lines and also to create at least one more within Chittenden County. So I will just say that the changes that are probably most significant here is rather than having a These were based originally on the VSA regions. Rather than have one that goes from the Canadian border down to the Rutland County border, kind of expanded the size of the one that would be Addison County and and adding into it as visa both Champlain Valley and Mount Mansfield? No. Not Mount Mansfield. I may made an error here.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Anyway When you're talking, would you just let us know which of the three

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of them So we are or should we Yeah. So I have in front of me the one with the town names and school locations. So I'm looking at the ones that we have posted, I have the CISA and district map.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Just point out, John Adams, director of Center for Geographic Information. I will just take the opportunity to point out here on the School Explorer, you'll notice if you go to the Map Layers tab, there's a House Committee on Education, and I put that as a little section. And if you toggle that down, these are different layers that we can add for you for reference to put into the interactive map. If there's anything you'd like us to do you have other versions or anything else you'd like to put

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: on

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: the interactive web map? We have a little section now for the committee, and we can put things there.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I'm a little confused because the map that is up there on the screen has different colors than any of the maps that are published to our site, so I don't even know which one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, so let's put up on the big board, this one right here. This is what we should have open in front of us. Yep. So I would say right away, an error that I made was in the Chittenden Central Region. The CISA that kind of bisects the District 14 Tan area.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Oh, that's me.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And you should actually be going around up and around the Tan area.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Yeah. The Tan area is just one district.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That is about that Main Street. Okay. Unified School District.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: So the entirety of that one is meant to go with Which one? CBU and Okay. Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Kate, go ahead.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I'm wondering why the purple District 23 is carved.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would say that that also could be I mean, some of these aren't gonna be perfect. So for example, that was originally carved, shouldn't be like that. It was not my intention, but I left it just the same because Windfield and Plainfield are part of the same supervisory unit. This is where it's not going to be perfect. We're never going to be able to group because the point here is we're trying to make things smaller.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: We're trying to make things bigger.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm sorry, we're trying to make

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: the number of things smaller

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: by making them bigger. Thank you very much. So yes, that line should be going around the purple in District 23. So this is what we need to be doing right now, everybody, is just sort of pointing out these things that show up to you that didn't necessarily show up

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: to me. Shows up to you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right. Beth, you're welcome.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: In the color within the CISA, I've sort of suggested, and it's something like me as well, that Waterford Barnett wall, that Caledonia co op district be colored blue, the same as St. Jana and Denise, because they're already having conversations anyway. Okay, so I mean, I know they can go outside the lines, because it's guidance, but if we kind of made the guidance as close as we can get it

[Kate McCann (Member)]: in the first.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. So we are talking for the moment only about CECL lines.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Is that okay?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: We're gonna do CECL lines first.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then we'll do actual lines.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Let me look at the CECL lines.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Doesn't it make sense to do district lines first in case that changes where you put a seesaw on?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, sure. I think so.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Because I noticed that Lake Region has now been moved from green to purple, which you suggested. You are suggesting to change Waterford to Waterford, Barnett, Walden are the Caledonia co op school districts. They are not contiguous Although,

[Kate McCann (Member)]: so I'm the one who suggested the Lake Region be

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: moved from

[Kate McCann (Member)]: the green to the purple because they pair better with, or historically have paired more with North Country. I think that the latest iteration of that conversation is geared more towards pairing Lake Region with ASIN as a combined school. So even though I said that, I don't think that's really what the people in leadership are anticipating. Is what makes it so hard. And I think that this is why I am so hesitant. I get why we need a map and a model organizer, but I feel like it's just in some ways an effort and utility because people are going to have these conversations as we're asking them to. And you're just going to redo all of these lines. And like, for instance, I know we're talking about districts and not CESA. I mean, CESA's not districts yet, But at Crasberry, I don't think it's going to want to be in a district like this.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, so you're bringing up another challenge that I did not have time to solve for. District 26 is now too small. Yeah. Because I moved the region area up there on the concept that we want to sort of have regional high school discussions.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Maybe you should move it back. I don't know. The other part is, we don't necessarily have to move all of the whole district, right? Albany and Glover could be part of District 26, and Irisburg and Barton could remain part of District 13.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Where do

[Emily Long (Member)]: they currently

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: go to high school?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Currently go to high school in those two towns currently go to Lake Region.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. That's that's I I definitely was trying not to break out unified high school areas. But

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I don't know if that's necessarily a priority for the superintendents at Grand Isle High Schools. In fact, I've heard that that may not be a priority knowing that all this is so much different anyway.

[Emily Long (Member)]: But won't that come out during the study? Well,

[Kate McCann (Member)]: it will. So I mean, that goes back to my original point, which is that all of these lines, like, don't know I don't know.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Their guidance. That's what I keep telling myself.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: It's guide. I know. I just keep saying that over.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. But we do we do need to have fewer probably a fewer a. District 26 is an issue in terms of what we do with it now that we kept Lake Region sort of talking to North Country.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: But it's small because those areas are really rural and really under popular. Mean, we are

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: There's a lot of mountains there.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Yeah, we've had a lot of conversations about small by necessity. And like, this is where it is, right? Like, that's not going to be the same size as you get closer to Long Island or Chittenden.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, go ahead.

[Emily Long (Member)]: So just asking the question at the higher level. When you drew these maps, two questions. Was your intention to try to keep SUs or SDUs as they sit today clustered together, or were you fine with just cutting off single or multiple districts out of an SU?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: That's a question.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Because we had to have fewer boundaries. So I went this with some intentionality and some throwing caution to the winners.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Okay, so I'm asking for a reason, because I think having been part of an SU for some behaviors and surrounded by SUs, I know they work together amongst themselves. And I'm going to just ask the second question, which is the current CISA. In any of these maps, it isn't exactly the way it is today. And so I just want to note it. I know it feels What's it missing? I mean, so this is accurate in this original map that you put out, because it's Windham Southwest Supervisory Union. It goes all the way over into here. It looks weird and all that, especially when you only have So the CISA serves Stanford, Reedsboro, Seersburg? CISA does. Well, yes, whatever's in Windham Southwest. I'm not part of Windham Southwest. And the other thing I would say is Hartford, where at the top end of it, I don't believe is a part of it. You have to ask somebody who's in charge of the CISA. Hartford district there, high school and all that, I don't believe they are part of the CISA.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Doesn't mean

[Emily Long (Member)]: they Exactly. I'm not making any suggestions about this. I want to make sure that we're honoring the BOCES and CISA that's in place right now and not carving off people out of it. We want to add people into it. I'm good with that, but I don't know how those folks will think.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. All right. So then, thank you for that.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So you want draw that boot back in there.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yeah. It may feel very strange, but it's part of a supervisor And honestly, Reedsboro, which is one of them, just closed their school at town meeting, and the other two are town towns. So

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: add back in Searsburg, Reidsboro, Stanford.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Could we turn them green?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is one where there's going

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: to be

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: conflict just in lines, but the lines are meant to be advisory.

[Emily Long (Member)]: And when I say that, I am not saying that they won't want to be with another grouping. I'm not concerned about your district lines as much, but just want to make sure that we're honoring in front of Supervisory Union, which is part of that success. They may say, oh, I'm looking for

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Any thoughts from those of you in the Chittenden County area? John, while you're there, could you tell us there's so many words and phrases in here. Is district just tell us what District 2120 are.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 21 looks like it's South Burlington. Hello?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Maybe that's a a job for the interactive map as opposed to the static map then.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: And 20 is Burlington.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Burlington with. Maybe, John, if you could pull up the interactive one.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: I apologize if the colors won't line up.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The one that has the site builder, which is kind of nice to know is like how many students are in each of the CISAs or districts. That's the CISA map. That's the district map.

[Emily Long (Member)]: What's the little purple?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Refresh here.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Alright. Purple is what I see.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right? Yeah. Alright.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: It's for Ferrelikton and Niemski.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So I know you probably can't sort of well, maybe you you could. Could you make some of these CECL line changes in real time while you're here?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: I can do my best.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: In the tan, the lightest sort of yellowish tan district. No, wait, I'm sorry.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cesare.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. So in the green, Cesare, the greenish blue is right there. We need to add to it Jericho and Underhill.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Thank you.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: So Champlain Valley South.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes. Yes. Add

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Thunder Hill and Jericho.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: And what are those tan those tan squares, just to make sure, Westford and yeah. Okay. Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, now what does that make Champlain Valley South up to for numbers of students? I can't read from here.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Just a little under 11,000, ten thousand seven hundred and sixteen hundred.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Holy cow, It's a little bit bigger than 20,000. Well, are CSAs,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Oh, right.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Alright. Yeah. Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And then would you to the to the east of that. Move Marshfield and Plain the Cecil line that is between Callis and Marshfield and East Montpelier and Plainfield.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Yeah, turn those around. Well, the line needs to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, we don't wanna change the district, we just wanna change the CISA to put the to put them into the blue next to it.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Marshfield and

[Emily Long (Member)]: Plainfield.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Plainfield into the red.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Yep. Yep.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Oh, so your line is

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: the district line's moving?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: No. The line.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: CECL line in that case. Do we move the right ones? Yes. Thank you. Now if we go to So do people feel good about those changes?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I think I'm still confused in the last one. Did you change the C sub line or did they just change color?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is the C sub map.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Okay. Yeah. Alright. Good. That's why.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. So then now let's go down to the Massachusetts border. And make red. Searsburg, which are red in the border, Searsburg, Reedsboro. Yeah. You're on the right ones.

[Emily Long (Member)]: That one? Those two and the bottom.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Foot. There it is. Those three should be now red.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: These to these southeast trees. K.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Not even with that.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Think one of the issues, could you tell us what the Northeast Region has for numbers of students?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 10,132.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, you know, I'm not how many do we have here anyway? One, two, three, four, five, six. So it's it's abundantly clear that the Northeast Region is a large geographic area. In a way, I'm sort of comfortable with that just because the numbers of students. And in a, you know. In a vast part of that, the students don't even have a bill or tuition to elsewhere.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Outside of the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: season? Might be within the season. Yeah, might within the season, might go to up to Kate and some may go down to Linden or Saint Jay. Some go across the river. Some go across the river.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And were you saying, oh, no, sorry.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So now in terms of the district groupings.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Can I ask a question on the CSIP

[Emily Long (Member)]: Because groups you're talking about

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: the large geographic region, I'm looking at the brown, the light brown?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, you're right.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: They're pretty large geographically as well. What are the numbers in

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: comparison there? So the center one the biggest Geographically one. Yeah, the Lunusi Valley region one.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: That one is

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's 14,000. Okay.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: We have two cities have this rich southern searcs. Join that giant season?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, I'll tell you folks, of decisions I made, I've left. We've got a number of very small districts. There was a desire to sort of based on the regional high school model to sort of picture a future in which many students would be attending high school at 32. But that sort of orphaned District twenty six. So now that's a very small district. Right. And same thing with District twenty five.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Think you could put district twenty six possibly with district thirteen. I would say But again, like you could also break it up.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I mean,

[Kate McCann (Member)]: the CECL lines make sense to me. The districts do not make sense to me when this is what we're asking people to do. So I just don't even know. It seems like we're spinning our wheels trying to make decisions that are just going to be second guessed anyway.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, that's exactly what we're doing.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: You're the head of District ten. How many students?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: District ten?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Okay.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What is district ten? Down.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Randolph, OSSU, and degree at BSU.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So are you saying maybe 25 of 10 combined? Mhmm.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: So maybe take sorry. Northfield Roxbury, move those into 23, Williamstown, Washington, Orange down in district ten.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: K. Let's do that.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: What?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Move Northfield Roxbury to 23.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I said sorry.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: And then those three down to this 10.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So the 10 is gone completely.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah. Which is part of our

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Why not move all of them down?

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Roxbury is already part of Montpelier.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Where they go to school?

[Emily Long (Member)]: That doesn't

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: matter, though.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: I know Northfield is as interested in being with the Montpelier U32 region.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Could we, in terms of the other Northeast, could we just spread out a couple of the surrounding districts to make District 26 disappear? Like, put Glover and Westmore in District 12 to make District 13 a little smaller, and then you move Cracksbury, Wolcott into District 17, and Woodbury into District 23.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's a lot.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That's a lot of movement. You

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: hold yours for a moment.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Love them. My little change No. In

[Emily Long (Member)]: We're gonna we're gonna we

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: we never finish up with Josh's. Okay.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Can I ask how many students are now in District 23?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Probably have some issues. Yeah.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 5,620.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And how many are in District 10?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 3582.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Yeah, I think Roxbury and Northfield go down. It's enough kids to I think Northfield is on the highway as it is, so it's close to Randolph and it belongs with Randolph. But more importantly,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Where do folks in Williamstown Williamstown has a high school, right? Where they go typically to get CTE. Although

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: we're a heartbeat away from Barry, we go to Randolph. We're part of that Randolph, and so is Northfield.

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

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Are you moving

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: twenty five into ten.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: All twenty five into ten?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: Right, feel on Roxbury.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Into the gray that you just made there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And this is all This is not, pardon fast, decided right now. Is do it, sleep on it.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Now you're at what, 4200?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 220.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: And what's District 23?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 4980.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Has it changed? Didn't really change much at all.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Just think that depends on the General

[Emily Long (Member)]: question. Yes.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: I'm looking at my area.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm gonna go up to your area, since you

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: haven't spoken yet. Students within that CISA, which has Grand Isle County and all the other district eighteen and nineteen, are students, Grand Isle County has no high school. Would they be confined to that CISA to go to high school?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, the CISAs definitely do not govern anything like that. The CISAs are really just service providers. But the more interesting question is, okay, we have, what you're talking about is District 22. 22. So would that limit under this grouping? Well, so here's, so what your question is, would that limit to where they would go to high school if district twenty two became a school district? And I'd say the answer to that is if they wanted to. The, you know, the easy answer is to say, yeah, that would make everybody pretty simple. However, if that district within that district chose to have an attendance and choice policy such as the language that that Chris laid out earlier, just within their district, they could, frankly, within their district, do what they wanted.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Just such an isolated area being an island, there's only two ways off from it. Yes. Excluding Canada and New York. So it makes it very difficult. Is it fair to say that people in Isle Lamont and North Europe tend to travel south to high school? Isle Lamont has to go across into District 18 to get back into District 22, which it belongs, Because there's only the only way off from Isle Amont brings them on to the Southern tip of Albert. Albert. Yeah. So they have to go through Albert District 18 to get back into 22. And at this point today, there are people in Albert, students in Albert. It only goes through 8th. I know of a couple of students that actually go from there every day to South Burlington to high school. The flow of of students, in most cases, goes to the South.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Do have a sense of, like, do most Albert kids go to Missisquoi?

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yes, would say that most Missisquoi or New York, go down south into the Burlington area. At

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: a bigger level, I would just remind everybody that these are voluntary. And this may be one of those places where they say, because of our enrollment patterns in our Lincoln Franklin Buckshot Scatter, it may not work

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Grand Isle County itself only has about less than 900 students. Including K to eight, which they educate on the islands. Counting 12, up to 12, up to 12.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I mean, again, many of these may fail, not fail, they may choose to be that it is not advisable. Look at that, you can see right there. Maybe go to, right now, is that student travel or is that just adult travel? Student.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yeah, so most of the outdoor kids go over to Masisko, or some go down to BFA St. Albans up across into New York. Some of them. But most of the islands, Albert's not an island, but most of the islands that flow is southerly toward,

[Emily Long (Member)]: not many, maybe one from Milton, Colchester, and then most of them go to Burlington or South Burlington.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Does it make sense then to change the seesaw line to take the islands and drop them into Chittenden Central? Well, to me it does.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Remember, the CISA is there to provide services.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Right, but we might want the islands people to be talking to someone in Chittenden County. It's possible that they could join the Colchester High School or whatever.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So, I think what you're saying is that CECL line

[Kate McCann (Member)]: The conversation

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It cuts the light tan part, move that down to the bottom of the tan part in District 22?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Yeah, take the islands and move it all into

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: you haven't gone the other way.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: The flow goes down into, some go to Colchester, Burlington, South Burlington, some go to Essex, those are the areas where. Let's be clear.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're having two different conversations. We're having a CISA conversation and a district conversation here.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Well, we want the CISA though to reflect-

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: How services flow.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: How things go, right. So it makes sense that District twenty two,

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: District twenty two should be in conversations with people to the South.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Twenty and twenty To me, that makes This

[Kate McCann (Member)]: is probably more for Ledge Council,

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: but I think this is where, in our work this week, in my opinion, the boundaries of the CISAs are far more important in that we're actually creating those, and there are faster on ramps to improving services and creating efficiency. And I understand the principle of why we're also giving the state a graphic organizer to start filling in possible districts. But the flexibility is more important on that part of it so that we are not trying to quickly make that decision right here about the islands because there's going to be a couple of funky things. I don't Again, this is a broad statement, so it's not super helpful. I'm not sure if the Ledge Council can translate that at all. But to me, exactly map stuff is far more important on the CESA part.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I would agree. That's why I think it's important that we take the islands like you're suggesting and carve around that with the seesaw line and drop it down into the South So that when you're talking about services, special ed and whatever, you're taking the kids who are in K through eight up in here and following those services as they drop down into whatever schools they go to for high school.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: There are some eighth graders that leave the island still, seventh and

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: eighth graders. In the future world, the CISA is there to provide services to the school district. So. If if we talk about Grand Isle K through eight school. And they would like to take advantage of. CISA services. No matter where the kids go to high school, because those schools will take advantage of the CISA services in their region.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: That's true.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You know, how I hear what you're saying. I could also say we should just drop the CISA line so that Colchester and Milton are in the same one. This is what But like, you know, if you are if you are in the business of providing a speech language pathologist one day a week to Grand Isle, one day a week to South Europe, one day week to North Europe, one day a week to Iowa. Would those services probably be coming from? And and I still agree with you, Kate, they're probably gonna come from down to Chittenden County. But then we've made a fairly big Chittenden central reason in the seesaw map has how many?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: About 12,000 means 739.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We're gonna be adding into that a bunch more.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Oh, how many are in District 22?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: How many kids are we talking about? Well, Milton's in there, but how many are just

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: 4,400.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Actually, we could keep Milton. I'm taking Milton. Yes. We could scooch around Milton. We could.

[Emily Long (Member)]: We could leave Milton

[Kate McCann (Member)]: with District 19 up there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Out of the islands and bring them on down.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Hey, I

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: like it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, let's do that for now. So, John, here's how I'd explain it to you in the CISA map. We would add to the Chittenden Central Region, South Hero, Grand Isle, North Hero, Iowa. Although Very grand. A little hesitant on Iowa, they got let's just do that for now.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: They are part of the supervisory union at this point.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: And and how many did that add to it? The Chittenden Central Region is now at thirteen three forty five.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Which is close to what we were at before. And and the fact that most of those kids go to school down in that area anyway makes me alright.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Good change,

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Leland, I think.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright. Thanks, Kate.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Any other CSA lines. Right?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, won't take anything at this point.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Happy with the CESAs? I mean, I could help figure out what to do with this Maggie District 3026. Do want to take the time? I think that should get exploded into the districts around it. And I think we could do that by shortening some of the lines. Like, Clever Barn and Westmore, I think could be carved off into District 12 because a lot of what you have up above the top at the top of District 12 is like, there aren't really a lot of people there, that's just space. And then that way District 15 would be slightly smaller and you could add District 20. Are we writing Glover? Greensboro, Glover and Barton into District 12, and then move the rest of District 26, or actually Crashburn, Walcott over to 17 and Woodbury down to 23, and Hardwick either to 11 or to 17.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So I have a

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: bit of a concern.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Standard to 12 as well. Sorry, you don't have a concern.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Well, I know that Barton, Albany, Glover, etcetera, the current Orleans Central Supervisor Union is having conversations right now about building a central elementary school, and you're taking three of the towns out that are part of that. So based on current conversations that are happening, that's a little concerned. Moving standard into 12, I need to know more about how standard goes to school, But I would be okay from what I know today. Because if Walden, that Cal co op supervisory district is a little funky and it's non contiguous.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: But if Standard was part of

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: it, then Walden Standard would be now contiguous into 12, and Barnett Waterford would also be contiguous to 12. So I think moving Walden Standard, Barnett, Waterford. And again, that's got reaction, there may be some information out there. We only

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: have Standard.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Make them blue.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So the CECL line would move around Standard. And that may be a problem that I just am not aware of.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: John, would you mind clicking on standard and telling us what supervisor unit is it?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: It's in Orleans Southwest.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Moving Standard over may not make sense.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't know the Standard. They may have choice. They do.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: But their patterns of how they go to school, they go to Hazen. I

[Kate McCann (Member)]: think some of them do,

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: but the majority I think come to Hazen. But I would definitely do Walden, Waterford, Barnett. Walden, Barnett, Waterford is the Caledonia Coopervisory District. They're non contiguous. Into District 12. And I know they're already talking with St. John's Ferry and Kingdom East. They would end up probably on the same study committee anyway. But they're in the same CSO already, so that could happen anyway without the district line changing. Because they're already in the same group. So the study committee could still be made of that. But yes. Because the facilitator In will these districts as being suggestions. Yes. It could just happen.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: But we wanna make it easier.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: They're in the same CISA, so. Is this making you

[Emily Long (Member)]: hear about?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Yes. So sure, yes. Because if they're already having the conversations anyway, they now have a facilitator to assist them with those conversations. Oh yeah. That they won't have anyway. Okay. That's just for my opinion.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right, so you are saying we're gonna move we're gonna turn we're gonna add Waterford and Walden to District 12.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And Barnett. And Barnett. Yep, those three towns are an SD currently.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And mean, there's a standard in that?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I know enough about standards, but if you want it to be contiguous

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Yeah, we want it be contiguous in the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: right to go through.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: It sort breaks them off from their current supervisory union. I hesitate to break up existing supervisory unions without a really good reason to.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: How many fits are in standard?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: About it. I I also know what roads go into standard, which ones are in that. Just go ahead and chop it. Oh. It's the guillotine today. Again, this is brainstorming.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, so let's District 12 is how many?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: The revised one, because we've been moving things around a little, is 3,979.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: But did that happen just as you did you just add Waterford and Barnett?

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: I added Walden. Have not added Waterford or Barnett yet to check-in. Do you

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think, let's move standard in there too, for the type B discussion. Yeah,

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I thought these all

[Emily Long (Member)]: caught up.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And it may have been, maybe Walden's, when Act 46 happened, when the consolidation happened, and they end up in this non contiguous, maybe Walden doesn't want to be part of Walden, lot of her departed. Maybe they would like to

[Emily Long (Member)]: be greedy, I don't know. Walden.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Yeah. Somebody get done with this

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: trip, I what excites I know. Kate McCann. Yeah, I was the

[Kate McCann (Member)]: one who brought it up and none of that actually helped scale what I would say. We're still there.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right. All right. I realize this is hard and working with really helpful. I

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I know we just made changes the Western Side of District 13, but that included Barking, which I think because of the interstate probably would want to stay in North Country, which I was just suggesting Greensboro's lover and Western. You got it. I'm not sure. But Barton back in the other one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Well, Barton would have to be because it's got the high school in it, right?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Well, yeah, I guess, I mean, technically, the high school's in Orleans, but I guess Orleans is Barton. Depends on who you ask.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Orleans is Barton?

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Orleans is within the town of Barton. Okay.

[Emily Long (Member)]: It is not a

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: It is

[Kate McCann (Member)]: like bigger than Barton.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: It is not an actual town.

[Emily Long (Member)]: It's not really funny, is it?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All we've done is make District 26 smaller.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Right. Because I I mean, my rent to get rid of it completely. Okay. But it's trying

[Emily Long (Member)]: to take it away. Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: All right. So what else can we

[Kate McCann (Member)]: We can move to Crabbs. I mean, Crabbsbury wants to be its own district. I know that it does.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So I'm not going to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: say any We're talking CSA. Sorry. No, no, we're talking. No, we're talking districts.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: All right. Okay. Yeah. So I mean I don't want to talk about Prabhupes for you except that I could say districts are 17 if I had a different answer. Well, could be in District 17. Hardwick could be in We're in this really funny spot right now where Glover is six minutes difference between North Country and St. Academy. Like literally right on the interstate. So I just don't even know what to do. I'm tempted to put them towards St. Jay Academy and Barking towards North Country, kind of split the difference.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Well, Glover is part of the

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Lake Region Union High School, correct? Region Union Elementary Middle School. Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Is it the Hardwick Region UHS?

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That's hard say about Hardwick too. Hardwick could really be part of 17 or 11 or 23. You've got fourteen, fifteen and sixteen right there. I mean, so I have a question.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let me just finish this. If we were to just take District 26 and move it into 17.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: The whole thing?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: The whole thing. I

[Kate McCann (Member)]: mean, maybe.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We are talking about a geographic area that is operating one, two, three, four, five high schools. And maybe it would be a good thing for them to all talk together.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Maybe. I mean, I'd be more tempted to be Crabsburg and Greensboro North or East, not This is a weird area.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: This is why Oh my God, this does not work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's vast and rural. I

[Kate McCann (Member)]: think that Erin was coming to the closest with the ceases or what we need to do.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: That's my question. That's

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: all an important point here. For the time being, let's just blend District 26 into 17, they're within the same CISA for the time being. Of course, now we've made that CISA gigantic.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That's why I was saying like, can split it.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: No, they're all showing the same CISA. Starting the same CISA.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So I guess that's my question. Are we now getting to the point that we were referring to not get to about overthinking all of this because we know it's going to be adjusted down the line anyway.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Then that's why it's a At good

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: this point, the CECL lines matter more right now than district lines because the study groups will be having these conversations on the ground.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: They will, and I just this is why I think we should go, I know we've kind of moved past here, but why I was saying that we should go with the CTEs because they're already districts or they're already some kind of service district or CTE districts. And then we don't have to get into the what school districts do you want.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It gets challenging with CTEs because you've got St. John's Berry and Linden are two of the CTEs. Cana is another CTE.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: We could make the St. J. And L. I. CTE one. You could sort of use that CTE model to carve up this section like you're trying to do right now. That's You just pull out that map and go to town It in that

[Emily Long (Member)]: might work for you.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Might work for you in your area.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: There is nothing. I mean, is becoming increasingly clear to me is there is nothing that is going to work consistently across our state for all areas because our needs are so different.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Which is why it's not mandatory.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Right, but instead of getting to that work, we're spending all our time on trying to create closest something versus saying, just do it, which is what we're actually saying anyway, but just

[Emily Long (Member)]: sorry.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We'll do a little Nike here and just do it. So let's move 26 into 17. That'll be a sort of stop and think. And again, these are just mandatory conversations, not mandatory outcomes.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: That doesn't make sense because talking to the educational leadership in '26, they don't want to be with 17. They were talking about either 13. Mean, wasn't part of, that was never part of the conversation.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So maybe what you're saying is,

[Kate McCann (Member)]: but then 13 is so?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, but I think you're bringing up a very good point that it will be within that group where they will they're the ones who need to get together to settle the Hazen versus Lake Region versus North Country question. And then they may say, we should be two districts, and here's how they should be broken up. All right. Sorry, John. We're gonna move 26 now into 13.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: The original 26.

[Emily Long (Member)]: No, he's talking about the original.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: The original? Because we've already

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: mentioned the standard, yeah.

[Emily Long (Member)]: Take a look at what that's changing.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: We'll go into green for now. Let's

[Kate McCann (Member)]: just name the towns that you want to go into into 13. So

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Crashberry, Wolcott, Woodbury, Hardwick, Greensboro.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I think Standard needs to do that too.

[Emily Long (Member)]: The

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: road from Standard to Linden is often passable in winter, going into Greensboro.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Do

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: we really need the district map since we're allowing the CSOs to make those decisions through their conversations?

[Emily Long (Member)]: Frankly, that's not ignoring it, because our

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: mean, would district's changing immensely. This is a tough conversation that we're not going to figure out the right things to. We've talked about allowing CESAs on the ground to figure out what they need for their regions. We have all the language in there that voluntarily pushes it to do so. I mean, I think MAP is I understand the reasoning, and it's nice to have. But, I mean, we are complicating the situation. I know we have a lot invested in this, but does that make sense based on the language?

[Emily Long (Member)]: Just going off on what Josh is saying, I think in some areas, I really am trying to stay focused on CSAs because I think that that's the most helpful way to go about it. And these things are important. You don't want to separate, naturally merge districts in separate CESAs. But I have looked down at my region, and we've got basically Windham County chopped into two crosses. And I guess that means two separate study committees. But I can see the study committees wanting to go north south because that's where the roads go. I can see the whole county saying we want to be one study committee because we all merge together in one form or another where we overlap. So I'm trying to not be focused on the districts. I just want to make sure we're part of CISA and that

[Kate McCann (Member)]: we have the opportunity to have the

[Emily Long (Member)]: conversation more broadly if we need to. Because I don't want to assume that those colored lines in there are going to be the final decision.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I would add that I think the district lines are important because we're having the conversations here, like the fact that Beth knows that these towns are in conversation already. Let's make sure that they're in the same seesaw by making sure that they're within the same district lines sort of talking, having that conversation. Again, they're just a guide, right? But you want to make sure that talents that are already talking are in the same form.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We add language that says that the facilitator's first duty is to meet with everybody, with all the boards within their seats, I don't wanna say to decide, to reevaluate the guidance map and to adjust accordingly. I guess

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I like that idea.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't wanna necessarily give up on the map. There's also sort of reasons out there because people have said, people sort of want a map as to what the future might look like. I'm not immune of what you're saying at all. I know. Yeah,

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: I get it.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: I think what you just suggested is a very good compromise, is that we provide a map. I mean, we have to stop. To me, I'm sorry that I got upset before, but I just feel like trying to tie a toddler's shoe when you're right out the door.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: This

[Kate McCann (Member)]: is a good compromise to give them a fine whatever and let's stop so that we can focus on the savings and then make that the first task. Because you're going to do your map, we know the first thing that you need to do is get together with these people and really make sure it's like that.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I'm curious about down the road, because we're never going to get this So I'm not saying we're failing. I'm saying we're not going to get every line done. So I want to just make sure the language, even within the mandatory CESAs, allows for movement of lines as needed down the road. Because when these conversations start to unfold, with a facilitator, we might find a CESA line. Even though we've made it mandatory, we may need to change it. I just want to assure people that can happen.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: Yes, yes. So one of my other concerns about doing the recommendations map, we can all talk about our regions and what we do know, but there are areas that representation isn't in the room and they're not being allowed to have the conversations about who's connecting about merging currently and stuff like that. I think if we go back to making sure that current regions are within the CISAs, the current districts, SUs, are within the CISA lines, they will have those conversations at their meetings about who's talking about merging currently. So I guess if you have those three towns that are talking about doing an elementary school in the same CISA, then when those conversations start, that's going to be part of the conversation regardless, because they're all within that CSA. Now,

[Emily Long (Member)]: we should go back to some of this, because there might be a way to put some language in here to say, you have this much time to I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: mean, we're making CESAs mandatory. So

[Emily Long (Member)]: I have to go back and review all the timelines. We're making CESAs mandatory. Maybe there's a time frame of finalizing what's mandatory after some of these conversations happen.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: My concern with not having a guidance map is that it will be much harder to bring people together in an organized fashion, even though we've allowed them to change. It provides a starting point to say, we're gonna get this group together and they may all get together and say, this is insane. We should be getting together with all of these other people. We've allowed for that adjustment. But without a sort of a starting guide, I worry that it just might be chaos. I totally agree with that.

[Emily Long (Member)]: I'm not suggesting we don't have a guidance.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: And slower. How

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: about we take a little break? John, how was your time? I realize we are not using you to the best of your abilities.

[Joshua Dobrovich (Member)]: He's enjoying the show.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: She's gotta be used to that by now.

[Emily Long (Member)]: No, he's not. I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: think we've booked you for an hour. We've already delayed you.

[John Adams (Director, Vermont Center for Geographic Information)]: I'm trying to stay or to Just take advice from afterwards if that's helpful.

[Leland Morgan (Member)]: Will we get an updated CISA district map? Yes. So

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: for the CISA decisions that we've made, if you could create a new version of that overlay on the districts, but we sort of left a bunch of districts hanging there. We did.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: But we did make some

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: good changes. The Jericho and Yeah.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, why don't you do that, send it to Matt. We'll thank you very much for your time.

[Kate McCann (Member)]: Thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And we'll