Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: Hello.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Welcome to House Education on Tuesday, April 7. The committee is getting an introduction today on s two twenty seven, an act relating to creating immigration protocols in Vermont schools. We're gonna start just for timing needs with a walk through with legislative council, and then we'll hear from the bill sponsor sort of about what's behind it. Anyway, I'm gonna move right ahead. Rick, take over.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I'm gonna meet you all. Rick Segal, Office

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: of Lichten Council. I

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: was in this committee last biennium, but this biennium, I think I've not been in here. So nice to meet you all, see you all. Just a little bit of background of my portfolio in case because you don't see me a lot. I'm here because immigration is one of my areas. You may also see me with CTE if that comes here, my area being workforce development. So those two areas do kind of intersect. So Beth and I would work on a workforce development portion of CTE if it were to come here. Otherwise, I do commerce, economic development, IT, which includes AI, very exciting, privacy, data privacy, a lot of technical stuff that probably wouldn't come here, but just so you all know, that's my background. Okay. So two twenty seven is an immigration bill and do you want me to share my screen, Mr. Chair?

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Yeah, I agree.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's an immigration bill. It's also an education bill because it is entitled 16. I won't read the purpose, may let the sponsor of the bill, Senator Bahowski, who is here to talk about that. I'll skip ahead to the actual statute that is placed in this bill. So we're in chapter 33, which was created several years ago for schools, fire, emergency preparedness rules, and safety patrols. This bill, as it passed the Senate, would add on an immigration protocol to the section. First, we start with some definitions. So we have law enforcement officer, which has the same meaning as 20 BSA 2351A, and it's a very, very broad definition. Really, any type of peace officer in the state of Vermont, including federal law enforcement, would be lumped into this definition of law enforcement officer. So that's one thing to keep in mind as we go through the bill. Also includes a person acting on behalf of a local, state, or federal law enforcement agency. However, it does not include a school resource officer or a safety officer who is stationed at a school. So those individuals would be exempt from the requirements of this bill. Two, a non public area of a school is an area of a school that normally requires authorization pursuant to a section in this chapter that the legislature created several years ago. The schools have to have some kind of access policy. You may know about that. And includes any area a school determines to be non public. Schools are different, so a school could determine that this part of their building is non public. Finally, school means a public or independent school that is approved under Section 166 of the title and includes employees, independent contractors, and school resource and safety officers working for the school. One of my grammatical changes, if you were to amend this bill, would be for that to say working within the school, just to kind of avoid any issues with that wording. So, I would again recommend working within the school, if you were to take a benefit note. Okay, Subsection B, Immigration Resources. A superintendent shall distribute immigration and civil rights related resources to staff, students, family members provided by the AG's office or that has had its resources reviewed by the AG. At each school, the superintendent oversees designate at least one individual to serve as a resource for immigration related matters who shall receive on an ongoing basis from the superintendent updated information and training material provided to the superintendent by the Office of the Attorney General. And finally, foster to the greatest extent possible, a relationship with a legal or immigration advocacy institution that will provide assistance to a student with regard to immigration related resources, including a situation where a guardian of the student has been detained by immigration authorities while the student is in school. Okay, student records. Schools are prohibited from using policies or procedures to engage practices that have the effect of excluding a student from school. This would include collecting or requesting information regarding citizenship or immigration status of a student or of a family member of the student, unless it's required by federal or state law. Including designating the student's immigration status, citizenship, place of birth, nationality, or national origin in any database that the school maintains or as director of information as that term is defined in FERPA. They shall not voluntarily share student information, including immigration status, citizenship, place of birth, and several other characteristics with a third party unless required to do so by state or federal law. Okay, moving on to subsection D, law enforcement on-site and request for information. So remember how we define law enforcement, right? The superintendent of a school shall subject to be, in a second, be the sole authority to admit a law enforcement officer who appears on an immigration related matter. That term is defined here in a second. Okay, so an officer that appears on an immigration related matter into a non public area of a school and designate at least one individual who works at each school to serve as a designee of the superintendent in the event that the superintendent is not present when the law enforcement officer appears on-site. The superintendent or designee shall not allow a law enforcement officer appearing on an immigration related matter into a non public area of the school unless the officer provides official identification and a judicial warrant that names a specific individual under arrest or subject to a search. My second request for a change here is that really should read a specific individual subject to arrest or search. A search, a warrant would not name a person under arrest. It would be a person subject to a search. This was done as a floor amendment, so didn't have as much time to edit it as I would have liked. Number three, absent a judicial warrant, no school shall reveal any information about a student or school staff member in response to an immigration related request from a law enforcement officer. And here we have the definition of what an immigration related matter is. It means an administrative warrant, civil warrant, immigration detainer, or any other document or request that pertains to an individual's immigration or citizenship status. On or before 01/01/2027, AOE in consultation with the Vermont Superintendent Association shall develop and review this annually, model administrative procedures to help schools execute the policy set forth in the subsection. So just this law enforcement section, right? Not the school records, not the other information, just the law enforcement on-site section. The procedure shall additionally provide a process to follow in the event that a law enforcement officer on an immigration related matter enters a non public area of the school without providing official identification or a warrant. So in other words, officer ignores the order of the superintendent or designee, what should the school do? E, immigration agreements. Except as required by federal state law, and you see that a lot in this bill, the bills is being deferential to federal state law, which sometimes will, especially the federal law will supersede the state law. No school shall enter into an agreement with the state, local or federal government entity that furthers the enforcement of any immigration law. The school superintendent is the sole individual to approve an agreement required by federal law. Applicability. So there are two federal laws that you need to be mindful of, AUSC thirteen seventy three and sixteen forty four. They're very similar, and they both involve the federal government requesting immigration or citizenship status from states. So if a federal government entity requests a person's immigration status or citizenship status, the school must comply with that order from the federal government. So this is to ensure that those two federal laws are not being ignored because they will supersede state law. G, policy required. Model policy. So on or before 01/01/2027, AOE in consultation with the AG's office, the Vermont Independent School Association, the Vermont School Boards Association shall develop and review at least annually a model policy that reflects the requirements set forth in the section. This is similar, I believe, to your cell phone policy language that Beth St. James helped me with. Adoption of policy. Beginning with the twenty seven-twenty eight school year, each school board, again, similar to your cell phone policy language, shall develop, adopt, ensure the enforcement of and make available in the manner described under five sixty three-one of this title and immigration protocol policy that shall be at least as stringent as the model policy developed by the agency. If they don't adopt it or new to their own policy, they will have presumed to have adopted the model policy. Same thing with the independent schools, they must develop one or adopt by default the one published by the agency. Section three, the AG's office in consultation with the agency of education shall develop an immigration resource guide pursuant to 4086 fourteen eighty six b one. That is where the superintendent must give information to students, staff, and their parents, family members. The guide shall include immigration and civil rights related resources, information regarding standby guardianships pursuant to fourteen twenty six twenty six a, and a list of immigration, human rights, and relevant advocacy organizations available to provide immigration assistance to students and staff. Be developed in a manner that serves to protect the privacy and safety of students and staff. Be completed on or before 08/01/2026, and be sent to all superintendents for distribution to school districts on or before 08/31/2026. The AG's office shall review the guide at least once annually and submit any updates to the guide to all superintendents not later than thirty days after completing the update. And the act would take effect 07/01/2026.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Thank you, Rick. I have a question. So federal law enforcement ICE agent as a civil warrant to detain somebody can I don't know what exists in current law in terms of sensitive areas, and they just walk into a school currently and go where they need to go to get that person?

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So under current state law, there's no sensitive space restriction except for courthouses. There actually is a bill S two zero nine that passed the Senate. It's now in the House Judiciary that would make schools a sensitive space that would limit arrests within schools. It is different than this. Two zero nine limits just civil arrests. This does more than that, right? So in this case, your question about ICE immigration or state law enforcement, if they have a civil warrant that is not signed by a judge, that's the key part here. A judicial warrant could be a civil warrant that is signed by a judge. That is a proper warrant in this bill. So if it's a judicial signed warrant that says this person is subject to a search, then the school would allow that person in. There would not be a statute, let me put this other ways, this would not be prohibitive of that action, if that makes sense.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Yeah, I'm just trying to get to the part where.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So we're looking at page of the bill, page four, subdivision three, and I'm sorry, couldn't, submission two. Right, line nine. So

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Superintendent Chamalala.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. So I'll add today that a school could do this without this law. A school classroom is a private space. So if an officer comes to school with a civil warrant not signed by a judge, that's signed by either a homeland security officer or some type of immigration judge, that would not, it would be an administrative warrant. A school could decline that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Joshua, can you tell me if districts, supervisees, the state have been looked at to see how many have policies like this already in place.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I'm not the best person to answer that question for you. Believe you have witnesses that can better answer it for you than I will be able to.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Yeah, I wanna ask the good question for the agency, the directors of that information.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: Beth? Just curious what policies might exist now for judicial warrants that aren't related to fit generation? Do schools have policies now about a law enforcement officer who has either a judicial warrant or an administrative warrant on a other legal matter and whether they're admitted into schools or not. Then again, you may not be the best.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yeah, I'll say, good question. Again, unfortunately, not the best person to

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: answer

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that There's question for no statutes, I will say, that would apply to that situation.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Your question, Casey? I did. Great. Go ahead.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: I was just looking at the definition for nonpublic area. I guess I'm wondering if you could if you have any examples in mind of what those non private areas are. So I understand that schools are supposed to have essentially, like, an entry protocol, a procedure where we all have to sign in, come through the you know, that main entry, we sign in, and then we have access to the school, which is public area, generally speaking. But if we're looking at non public areas, what is that? Is that the principal's office? Is that You see what I'm saying? Can you give me an example of a non public area as far as when this was being created? What the thought or intent or idea?

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I can't speak to intent, but I can tell you with the definition you see on the page, schools do develop those access control policies where you either have to badge in or you buzz in and they ask who you are, either maybe CID, then they log you in, they sign you in. Each school may have or each school district may have a different policy. So this definition allows it to work with each school, how they already kind of do things. It also allows schools to determine what they believe to be is not public. So you may think that the cafeteria is public. I don't know if I would agree with that. It would be up to the school to say, based on where our school's built, the way our building's set up, we believe that maybe the lobby is public, however, everything else is not public. So to answer your question, it's open to schools to define that for.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Okay. Would it be fair to say that if a school has a controlled entry, that really anything beyond that controlled entry point is non public?

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right, I mean, if an officer comes, fuzzes in, says, I'm a police officer, I have a warrant, the school may let them in, right? And without knowing what the warrant says. And then once they're inside, then the superintendent or designee can look at the warrant and say, okay, this is a civil warrant, or this is a criminal warrant, right? So we need to help this person do their job. So in that case, you let the officer in to a probably a public area of the school, the reception area would be my guess. At that point, there needs to be a little flexibility for the schools to say this is kind of what we determined to be not public. And we can work if you don't think that's a proper way to word it, we can certainly tweak that language then.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: But

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: I could technically, that's a superintendent, If I were superintendent, I could push before the board to say anything outside of that entry control point is considered nonpublic. Yeah. Which would deny entry for everyone essentially because then they're going to determine who can and can't access the inside of the school because it's considered non public. Right? Well, so there'd still have to

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: be some kind of because the the way the statute's written is that it it this really applies to law enforcement. Right? So when a law enforcement official comes to the does every school have the buzzer? That's a question for you all. Yeah. Imagine that's pretty common. They would come, would buzz, and maybe there's a camera or maybe there's not. They would say, hey, I'm so and so with Burlington Police or with ICE or whatever it is. And then the way the statute's written is that if it is a law enforcement on immigration related, then there would be more questions like, do you have a warrant? Is it a person subject to arrest? Is it a person subject to a search? And the school could then determine, do we let this person in for more information? So I can yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Joshua, I hope it's a quick one because I just checked the agenda. This was supposed to be a little tighter than it was. We can have Rick back.

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, I work here. I work here, so you know.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: And includes any area a school determines to be non public. Could they determine the parking lot, the property lot? Sure. Football field? Sure.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Thank you very much, and I think we probably will have you back, but I appreciate the introduction. Senators, welcome to come and join us, and I just want to apologize for having held you up a little longer than I intended.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: I'll let Senator speak and I can

[Rick Segal, Office of Legislative Counsel]: answer questions.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Thank you, thank you for making the time for us. Course. Laura's yours, tell us about how you got to where you got.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, Lead Sponsor of S.227]: Absolutely, Senator Tanya Lihlitzky, for the record, and I am one of the lead sponsors of this bill. This bill came out of what we're seeing happening and things that I was hearing from people whose children were not going to school because they were afraid of their attendance at school and wanting to make sure that our public school ecosystem is a safe and protected place for every student to be able to learn. In my district, the Windham School District implemented policies that are very similar to what you see in front of you in S227 and they have had to use those policies to protect students and make sure that students can safely learn. I worked closely with this Winooski School District to sort of zoom out from what was very Winooski specific and create policy that could be applied in every school district. There are schools, I know the Montpelier School District has been working on policy like this. I know the South Burlington School District after recent events in South Burlington are working on similar policies to this. But it became very apparent to me that every student regardless of what school district they are in, deserves that level of safety and security in their learning environment. And so while it is not typical that the state comes from on high and says, you must implement policies like this, I felt like we were not in typical times and what we're seeing happening needed to be protected at that level. And I'm really thankful that the Senate Education Committee agreed that we did need to do something so that every student is able to learn at school and feel safe. I think one important thing to know is an administrative warrant, which is what we're talking about if it's not signed by a judge is both issued and approved by the same entity. Typically, warrants have been used for things like enforcing building code or health inspections. In this instance, they're being used to detain people. So for me, this felt very different than the typical use of an administrative warrant and it really challenges due process. And so that is why it doesn't blanket. I do want the health inspector to be able to inspect our schools. I do want the building code inspector to make sure our school buildings are safe. And that's why it is narrowly limited to not the other types of typical administrative warrants. And so that is where the bill came from and the intent of the bill. And I do hope that you will work and make the technical changes that that legislative council asked us to make. And when we had this bill on the Senate floor, it was the day after the incident in South Burlington. And we were really sort of it wasn't planned that way, but we were really sort of sitting in real time with why this is important. I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: I think the only technical change that was brought to us was changing one word.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, Lead Sponsor of S.227]: There was one other, but they were very technical.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Great, yeah, Josh, go ahead.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: Can you help me understand the specific gaps that prohibition on voluntary sharing of student staff information absent in judicial warrant and justice compared to FERPA and 20 VSA subject forty six fifty two?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky, Lead Sponsor of S.227]: Part of what this is doing is actually codifying FERPA language into Vermont state law should some of those protections change at the federal level. There is also a prohibition in collecting certain information as legislative council shared if asked for that information and the state has it, it doesn't need to be shared. But by not collecting it, we don't have it to share. But there is the data protection aspect of this is largely codifying for law should those protections go away at the federal level. All

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: right, great. Thank you very much. Appreciate you taking the time.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Education)]: Senator, can I just add one thing, It Senator Martin Guzvich passed out of Senate Ed unanimously and Senate, the whole Senate unanimously? It did. Great. I was curious.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Now we're catching up with our schedule here. All right, we had got the here to testify both on Zoom and in person. Torin, I'm going to let you moderate.

[Torin Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications, Agency of Education]: Sounds good.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: See the presentation, but I look forward to it. Thank you.

[Torin Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications, Agency of Education]: That's good. For the record, Torin Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications at the Agency of Education. I have my colleagues right here. Great. I don't have too much to say to start out. We don't have a full formal presentation or anything. But I guess I'll start off by saying I think the intent of this bill is to uphold every child's constitutional right to public education in Vermont. That's a priority at the Agency of Education. So we certainly support the intent of the bill. Because of that priority at the agency, we have released a few different iterations of immigration guidance to schools, particularly since January 2025. I believe we shared those versions in some of the committee materials today to be available. I think it's an open question of how I'm not sure how much the guidance would differ substantively from what the model policy envisioned in the bill. I think that's maybe an open question. But I will say we are very supportive of the intent of this bill. And I will kick it over to our general counsel for any additional more technical details.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Great. Welcome, Emily.

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Thank you so much. Emily Simmons, general counsel, AOE. What I thought I would do, I'm gonna pause and let the chair give me feedback, is walk you through our current guidance. It was reissued in January. It's the last several pages of the information that we sent over. This worked really well in the other body because this is just the state of the law, whether a school district adopts a specific policy, whether the general assembly enacts legislation or not, and I thought it would ground your further conversations and allow you to maybe ask some more clarifying questions.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: This is the memorandum that is on page five of the work you sent over?

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Yes. That's what I'm proposing.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Great. Great.

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Okay, so I'm gonna take us right there. I'm gonna make all of you bigger again. Okay, there you are. Here's our, I'm just scrolling through in case folks are still catching up. On page two is our memo that we issued 01/30/2025, and then you'll scroll through, and we have the current memo dated 01/13/2026. These two are very similar. I'll highlight the one substantive place where we've updated the guidance. So we have issued this guidance through our weekly superintendent's update, and it is posted on the federal updates page that we maintain on the AOE website. So if you have anyone who wants to access it, this and other information about developments from the federal administration can be found on the AOE website. So right up top, undocumented students' right to public education. We want this to be totally clear echoing what Torren said. Public schools are prohibited from denying access to students based on immigration status. This came first from the Supreme Court case, Plier v Doe 1982, and has been reiterated in our state law, probably most notably in title 16 section one that I know this committee is very familiar with. So students in Vermont are also entitled to be free from harassment and discrimination based on their protected class, which now includes national origin as a matter of our title nine public accommodations act, thanks to actions of the general assembly last session. So that just making it clear that that is a recent amendment calling it to administrators' attention. We also have long standing federal law, four and title six of the civil rights act that protect against discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin and other protected factors. We're linking folks here to the Vermont Human Rights Commission, which has further resources and, of course, the adjudication of complaints of any discrimination in schools. So again, you're going to get the flavor here. We're just kind of laying everything out on the table, not that any of this should be news to our administrators, but an easy guide for school officials, classroom teachers, families, parents, everybody. So getting into FERPA, which was some questions you were asking right before I popped on, probably the most important thing that we wanted to put out to the field in light of recent immigration actions is that our schools don't have any obligation to collect information that would relate to a student or the student's family's legal citizenship status or immigration classification or any reason that they would be allowed to legally remain in this country or not. So if you don't have it, it can't be demanded of you as a school, so we wanted to really let folks know there's no operational or business reason for a school to be cataloging and collecting that information about their students or families. Beyond that, of course, we have FERPA. So student's personally identifiable information and education records are protected by FERPA. This law provides that information in a student's record can only be disclosed when specific conditions are met. The agency always recommends that our school districts and supervisory unions get advice from their own legal counsel on particular situations if they're getting requests from immigration officials for information that could be in a student's FERPA record, these are gonna be very fact specific cases, and we don't wanna steer folks running by giving very broad general guidance that might might not apply with certain facts. For example, a judicial warrant does compel a school to release the named information from the student's record. That has never happened that I am aware of in my time at the agency. The agency has never received a warrant that would require us to release that information, so exceedingly rare but legally peaceful. For that reason, we encourage school boards to first review what information they consider directory information under FERPA. This is information that does not get that protection, that absolute protection against disclosure to third parties. School districts will typically use directory information for things like information that's gonna go in the yearbook or in newsletters that praise student achievement. You list at the beginning of the year information that the districts will consider to be directory information, provide that notice to parents, and then parents have the right to opt out of their particular student's directory information being listed. This is a routine process that happens every year, but we are encouraging districts here to re review their policy on directory information to make sure that it's really only what they intend to put out publicly without consent from parents. School enrollment is always a question. You know, this is when you think about your school district. What paperwork do they accept? What proof of residency do they accept for families to enroll? And schools have policies like, oh, we need utility bills that show your address and your name. Nothing in state law, however, or state board regulation for that matter, names the specific documents that you have to accept. So school districts can absolutely, and we encourage them to be flexible about the variety of documents they would accept to demonstrate proof of residency and proof of a child's age for school enrollment. We're encouraging them not to ask for documents that could or would be likely to reveal information related to immigration status and letting folks know loud and clear that you do not need a Social Security number to enroll in public school. Again, we have this provision of the McKinney Vento Homeless Education Act that also covers students who are unhoused and would otherwise not be able to establish that formal residency in the district, but they are entitled to enroll in school. This next section has been expanded.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Emily, I want to stop you for just a quick second. I get why school districts have to have some sort of evidence of residency. I just think about people who may be here on a tenuous status, basically living in a cash economy and not having, maybe staying with friends, not having an electric bill or whatever to show that residency. Are there sort of more, I guess, in person ways of demonstrating residency?

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Yes. So school districts have absolute discretion for being assured that a parent of a child is a resident in the district, and residency only means domicile. It's where you live evidenced by indications that you intend to live there and not somewhere else. You can really only have one residence at a time, but it does it's not required to be any formal arrangement. You as a school district, you can't limit parents to like, you have to have a lease. And if you don't have a lease, you can't be a resident. School districts are required to be more flexible and allow the parent to demonstrate with whatever they have that they are residents there. The hypo that you gave me would tend to indicate a student whose family is doubled up, which is one of the factors in McKinney Vento that a student meets the definition of unhoused or temporarily unhoused. So the bar would be in a different place, and they really wouldn't have to show anything other than a statement to the school officials about their current living status to qualify for McKinney Vento.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Thank So

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: this standby guardianship provision was an addition last legislative session. So this allows a student to or the guardian of a student to obtain emergency guardianship when their parent or other guardian has been detained in an immigration proceeding. I'm not the attorney in state government who knows the most about legal guardianships and emergency guardianships, so we consulted with the attorney general's office on this section of the guidance so that our school officials who also are not regularly in those sort of family court realms would be aware and that parents who access this information would have these resources. And very important, and two provisions that are from our original 2025 guidance is that schools reach out and encourage all parents and guardians to keep their emergency contacts up to date. This is a very straightforward set. You'll know from your kids being in school that you can list the trusted adults who are permitted to pick your child up from school. So if something were to happen to you and you were not available, the school would already let that trusted individual take your child home at the end of the school day or in case of emergency. And then finally, we have more about the McKinney Vento Act, which gives students themselves some rights to make educational decisions for themselves when they themselves are unhoused or unaccompanied minors. So here, this was really more news if you'll think back to 01/21/2025, that pretty immediately on entering office, the current administration suspended a rule that had restricted immigration enforcement on and around school grounds and school buses. We wanted to make folks aware of that right up top. So this means that there can be immigration enforcement as from the federal perspective in these sensitive school locations and other places where students gather, particularly bus stops came to mind for us. However, with or without a particular policy or with or without state law being enacted, there is no legal requirement that would generally entitle any federal immigration authority or other law enforcement officer to enter the physical grounds of a school building without a judicial warrant. It would really be on then the administrator in charge on campus to enforce that that law, that Fourth Amendment protection essentially. So this is one of the strongest reasons we believe that that we should have a uniform policy because that's a lot to ask of an administrator where a school district has not affirmatively adopted that protective policy. And then we we get folks the background information here that you already received about the important legal differences between the administrative warrant that you might be shown by federal immigration officials and a true Fourth Amendment judicial warrant. Then we include kind of I think this is law that Vermont enacted in the last Trump administration that municipalities, including supervisory unions and supervisory districts, are prohibited from entering into agreements with the federal government regarding immigration enforcement. Only the governor has the authority to enter into those agreements as a matter of state law. So that's your, I'm sorry, somewhat dry run through of the guidance that the agency has put out. The headline for you here is that it matches almost provision by provision with the the bill that's in front of you. There is probably some updated thinking that came out of amendments in the other chamber that might go a little bit beyond this guidance or be more specific than this guidance, but it is very similar to what all school districts have been told for well over a year from the Agency of Education.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Great, thank you very much. I actually have a quick question about standby guardianships, which as you said, you're not an expert in, but really, if you're somebody who has updated your emergency contact list so that there's a list of trusted adults who can collect your child from school, whether there's a guardian or not is not necessarily something the school might not ever become aware of if that trusted adult is handling the transportation to and from home?

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Not quite. I think the emergency contact is a protection that would help the family in case of emergency on the day of or maybe just a few days after a parent being detained. However, for an individual to continue to make educational decisions and communicate with the school and receive that FERPA record, they would need to be appointed the student's legal guardian.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Great. Thanks. So I don't know if we need to hear from Courtney before we just sort of ask about the bill itself.

[Courtney O’Brien, Director of Safe and Healthy Schools, Agency of Education]: No. Thank you. Courtney O'Brien, for the record, I'm the director of safe and healthy schools for the AOE. I think Emily summarized everything quite nicely. The only additions I might add is that we have been getting a number of, I wouldn't say a ton, but some questions around protocols and more tactical response to these issues in schools. And we have been recommending that school teams refer back to their emergency operations plans, which should, if done comprehensively and in accordance with Title 16, Section fourteen eighty, should address unwanted or violent intruders. And so we're kind of recommending that they utilize those protocols that are familiar to them as well. Emily also mentioned that we currently have a separate set of protections for harassment, hazing, and bullying that absolutely should be considered when we are thinking about whether or not harassment has occurred in a school system by the school community and around the school community. And then the last note that I would make is I have received a few questions around how the behavioral threat assessment process applies in this situation, which is another subsection of emergency preparedness in in title 16. And in this particular case, behavioral threat assessment is a process that is used to intervene and provide interventions to members of the school community when there's been a targeted threat of violence against the school community. It is not designed to support this type of enforcement, immigration enforcement activity that we're seeing. So we have been kind of steering away from that as the appropriate protocol in these situations. BTA is really meant to help to connect students who have made a threat of violence against their school community back to the needed supports and services. And so it's not really helpful in this case.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Thank you. As I read the bill quickly, there's really only one ask in it of the agency, is to come up with a model policy. Any objections from you all having that task or to any other sort of part of the bill that you wanna talk to us about? I really actually appreciate very much the walkthrough of current guidance. That was very helpful. And it all frankly seems aligned with the bill.

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: Well, Torren, I wanna know what you would say.

[Torin Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications, Agency of Education]: I was gonna say we have no objections to the idea of the model policy, but

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: I'll defer to our general counsel for any more information.

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: That's right. And the bill directs us to work with the attorney general's office, which is something that we would do anyway and have done with the guidance that I showed you today.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Josh, go ahead.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: So I actually asked this question earlier, and this helps me ask me the question a little broader, actually. How many districts or SUs currently have a policy like this or have been using your guidance from January as a policy?

[Torin Ballard, Director of Policy and Communications, Agency of Education]: I'm not sure I'm answering Is that something that we collect data on? Do you know?

[Emily Simmons, General Counsel, Agency of Education]: No, we don't have that data collection. So I think you're going to hear from the School Boards Association. They might have gotten some reach out for school districts working on policies. Our we received a lot of positive feedback and thank yous from the field when this guidance originally went out in the superintendent's update. And it's my sense speaking with superintendents that they have this guidance handy and are using it as a resource. And I would say that's across the board for those folks that these issues have popped up. And then as we know, the experience of our school districts and supervisory unions is not uniform as with many other issues. So I think it depends on on which district you are for this topic.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: Hey. Because I do know, like, my SC

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: was brought

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: up in conversation. We already have something in place that addresses this. And it was based off of information from, I think, the BSBA possibly or again. So I was just curious how the state has been adopting or adapting to that. So I'll ask the BSBA the same question.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: It was hitting me as duplicative because so much of this is already in FERPA, but I was somewhat struck by the comment made by Senator Vijoski, FERPA could go away. We may wanna keep the protections in the state.

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: Word that I keep running through my head now.

[Rep. Peter Conlon, Chair]: Committee, any other questions for the folks from the AOE? It's very helpful. Thank you to all three of you. This was helpful and very informative. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Great. Okay, we are going, are you next? We're gonna take a ten minute break so that I can get a cup of coffee and then we will have brief comments from the Vermont School Boards Association. And then we will take another break as the attorney general's office cannot be with

[Rep. Joshua Dobrovich, Member]: us