Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Welcome to Health Education, 04/08/2026. The committee is getting a walk through of s two thirty two, which is a library focused bill. A good question was asked by a committee member before we got started. Why are we dealing with libraries? And the answer simply is that that's part of our jurisdiction, period. If you sort of look at if you look at the description of what the house education does, libraries is now part of our jurisdiction. Okay. So therefore, let's take a walk through S 232 with legislative counsel. Good morning. Welcome.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Morning. Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. So we're going to walk through S-two 32 as passed by the Senate. And so first, I just want to say that even though libraries is part of your jurisdiction, I am not the attorney assigned to libraries. It's my colleague, Tucker. But he's out for a little while, so I am covering this bill. So I did not do any of the work on it in the Senate. So if you have questions about the work that happened in the Senate, I will not be able to answer them today, but I can certainly find the answers for you. Would you like me to share my screen?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That'd great. Yeah.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: So the bill is entitled an act relating to public libraries and the Department of Libraries and starts with some findings. The General Assembly finds that the state of Vermont and its communities depend on libraries as centers for learning, social connection, technological access, disaster preparedness and response, support of health care and social services, and numerous other vital services. As places of public accommodation, public libraries are obligated to ensure that their services, facilities, and resources are inclusive and accessible to all. However, many of Vermont's existing library facilities require improvements in order to fulfill this obligation and meet programming needs. Early literacy is integral to student preparedness and success. Vermont's Department of Libraries and statewide network of public libraries are uniquely suited to play a critical role in improving the literacy skills of students throughout the state. It is essential that the state raise awareness about public libraries and their offerings in order to ensure their continued beneficial impact and continued accessibility for all Vermont residents. For more than one hundred and twenty five years, public libraries have provided diverse after school and summer programs and literacy opportunities to all children free of charge. These programs often include literacy, arts, technology or science education, nutritious meals and creative recreational activities. So the bill is short, but it has several different sections. And so I think the reader assistance headings are particularly helpful. So this reader assistance heading, Vermont Libraries Day. Section two amends one BSA section three seventy nine, which is in the legal holidays and commemorative days chapter of title one to add a Vermont Library's Day, which will be the third Monday in the month of October.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You don't know how that date was chosen, I imagine?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: What happens on the online where you say? No idea.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: It's getting crazy. We will have the sponsor ability to forward that to us.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Next, I'm on page two, line 10. Next reader assistance heading, after school summer reading and early education funding for public libraries. Section three amends 16 BSA section 51, which is the universal after school and summer special fund that you all added several years ago, which is the cannabis sales tax revenue going into a special fund and then being used to support after school and summer programming grants. You can see here that there have been a few changes made. So on lines eighteen and nineteen in subdivision A1, the fund shall be used to establish a grant program that supports and instead of the expansion of universal afterschool, we're changing that to sustaining or expanding universal school and summer programs. Subdivision two, cannabis sales tax revenue shall be used to support a mixed delivery system for after school and summer programming. Eligible recipients can be public, private or nonprofit organizations. All of that is current law, and we're adding, including public libraries, schools and volunteer mentoring programs. The agency may allocate a portion of the funds annually to the Department of Libraries for the purpose of providing subgrants to public libraries to sustain or create fun written after school programming. A coalition or group of public libraries may also apply for a grant from the agency or department.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So, to me, as a policy question here, which we can talk to the sponsor about as well. So if you read cannabis sales tax revenue shall be used to support a mixed delivery system for after school programming. Eligible recipients can be public, private, or nonprofit organizations. The question is, why don't we just put a period there since public libraries, schools, and mentoring programs are in fact public, private, or nonprofit organizations? So we'll have to get more, but this seems to be creating sort of a subset of or a different way of doing after funding through campus sales tax revenue for libraries. I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm just saying that that's kind of the policy question in front of us is, should libraries have a different avenue for getting after school funds?

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: And staying in that same section of law, those asterisks represent current law that we're not changing, and then we're adding a new subsection or subdivision to subsection A that says the agency shall create a simple application and reporting process that reduces barriers to grant program participation for small community based organizations, such as rural libraries, volunteer mentoring programs, and similar organizations. Subsection B of this statute establishes an advisory committee to support the secretary administering the funds, and the change here is adding the state librarian or designee as a member of that advisory committee. And then if we go to page four, again, adding a grant, we're staying in that same statute, that after school summer special fund statute, adding a new subsection at the very end of the statute that says, annually, the advisory committee shall solicit public on the grant program and procedures established pursuant to this section. The advisory committee shall hold a meeting to discuss the public input and any plans to implement recommended changes to the grant program. Section four, we're in the same reader assistance heading, but it's a new section of law. So amending 16 BSA 4,014, which is in your Education Finance chapter in Title 16. 4,014 is an early education grant for voluntary early education programs. I haven't had much opportunity to work with this law at all. It provides grants for It enables the secretary to provide grant funds for voluntary early education programs that can be used for personnel costs, training of parents and staff, materials and educational equipment and other costs related to early education programs. And then we're adding in on line 11, including training for public library staff. The secretary shall solicit proposals for early education programs from community organizations serving young children. Community organizations include school districts, adding public libraries, keeping the rest, other public agencies, including Head Start and private agencies, including child programs and parent child support. The rest of the statute remains. I have no information to offer, unfortunately, on the number of grants that are given out under this section or the types of programs that receive grants, etcetera. Would be a question for the agency. New Reader Assistance heading. I'm on page four, line 18, Department of Libraries Duties. So we're out of Title 16. We are in Title 22, which is our library's title, section six zero five, and amending that section, which is duties and functions of the Department of Libraries to read. This is all about updating, adding the terms digital or physical throughout. So duties and functions of the Department of Libraries shall be to provide, administer and maintain. Modifying collection of federal documents to be a digital or physical collection, modifying collection of current information relating to matters of public policy to be digital or physical, and then general library collection of sufficient size and scope to reinforce and supplement the resources of local and regional libraries, and that collection may be composed of digital and physical materials. On line 16, the department shall provide instead of service to other libraries in the state, modifying that to be materials to other libraries in the state, schools and individuals. And then instead of may provide service by mail or book wagon, changing that to through interlibrary loan and shall encourage the sharing of library materials between libraries in Vermont and nationally through interlibrary. Does that cover book wagons?

[Rep. Robert Hunter]: Sounds so cool.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think sharing of library materials between libraries is completely open ended as to how that sharing is done. Okay. So we're not getting rid of bookwagons, we're just expanding the language. I can't tell you whether someone else would interpret this as getting rid of book wagons. But to me, instead of using a specific term, we're just opening it up and saying share.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I love book writing. I didn't even notice a thing still.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: We call it the bookmobia. Yeah, bookmobia. Just got a new one. You guys are gonna lose me at 09:15, so

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I'm gonna

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: give a second.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Page Okay. Six, slide one. We're still in that same section of law. So duties of the Department of Libraries, a service of advice and consultation to all libraries in the state in order to assist them in realizing their potential. Striking, the service shall be private at a regional level as well as at the state level. I don't have any insight for you. I'm sorry on why that language was struck. Same reader assistance heading, different area of the law. Section six is amending 22 VSA section 143. Adding some language, so there's two types of public libraries. Public libraries is a defined term in Title 22, and it includes two different types of libraries. Libraries that are owned and operated by municipalities and libraries that are privately established, chartered or incorporated, but that are operated free to the public. So because there are two types of public libraries, this trustees section is only applicable to the municipally owned and operated libraries. And so lines 14 through 16 are meant to clarify that. So unless a municipality that is established or established a public library votes at its annual meeting to elect the board of trustees, the governing body of the municipality shall appoint the trustees, etcetera. This subsection shall not construed to apply to public libraries that are privately established, chartered or incorporated pursuant to subchapter two of this chapter. They have their own governance system. I would say this is not changing law at all. This is providing clarity by virtue of where this statute sits in context. The language you've added here or has been added here is just duplicative, but not everyone analyzes where statutes sit and uses that to make these kinds of determinations. So this language is added for, I would say, clarity. Last reader assistance heading, municipal bonds improvements to public libraries, section seven. We're out of Title 22. We're in Title 24, which is your municipality's title. Amending Title 24 VSA section 1752A. Modifying or amending the section heading here to include public libraries, privately owned municipality supported libraries. By a majority of vote of those present voting on an annual or special meeting warrant for the purpose, a municipality may issue municipal bonds under this chapter for the cost of capital improvements to any public library as defined in 22 BSA section 101, including any privately owned municipality supported library situated within the municipality for use of residents of the municipality, and the improvement shall be considered improvements for the purposes of this chapter. So again, adding clarity that when we're using that term public library, we're referring to that definition in Title 22. And then there is an audio visual revolving fund in Title 22, section six zero eight that is being repealed. And the effective date of the entire act is 07/01/2026.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Right.

[Rep. Robert Hunter]: So this it doesn't sound like it's asking for any separate monies. It's just kind of defining the way it's distributed from the cannabis sales tax fund? Correct. Okay.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Alright. So just to bring us, we're gonna do a lot of mental gymnastics today, jumping between bills just because of everybody's schedule. So while we have fifteen minutes more with legislative council, we are going to switch now to S 14, which should look familiar.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Yes, you've already seen this language. So this is S two fourteen is passed by the Senate. It is an act relating to the provision of pre kindergarten education and geographically isolated school districts. There's only one substantive section. It is an amendment to section 16 BSA eight twenty nine, which is the pre kindergarten education statute, not touching any piece of current law, just adding a new subsection to sit at the very end. And this is the same language that was traveling in the Human Services pre K bill, the language that came to you all that you considered, that is no longer in H95. I will walk through this language, but I just want to say that this language was provided by the Agency of Education and DCF working in collaboration with the NEK Choice School District. I provided maybe a tweak to one word, and that's it. So this is really language developed by the field. Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the any K Choice school district may provide pre K education to eligible pre K students by paying tuition pursuant to this section to one or more pre K programs operated by a public school in New Hampshire that is located in a school district within 25 miles of the Vermont border. The Essex North supervisory union shall be responsible for administering enrollment procedures and managing pre K tuition payments pursuant to this section and state board of education rules. The superintendent may apply for and receive a waiver from the agencies of any rule provision that is impractical for the any K Choice school district or the New Hampshire program by demonstrating that a substantially equivalent provision is offered. And this language would take effect on July 1.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Any questions on that? Yeah, Beth Quimby.

[Rep. Beth Quimby]: Just a clarification that they can only do this to pre Ks that are in public schools. They can't do it to private providers in New Hampshire like they can do private providers in Vermont, if I'm reading that correctly. Thank you for the clarification.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: All right, well, we've got a few minutes if people have questions back on two '32 as well. Again, I think sort of the sub and we'll get we'll have lots of testimony today on some of these questions about creating a sub grant program from the after school program. Beth, I guess I would ask you, there is nothing in current law that would prevent a library that wanted to create an after school program from applying for after school funds if they meet the criteria.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I would say yes. There is nothing in the black and white words in the green books, correct. Your answer to that made it sound like there is a loophole that

[Chair Peter Conlon]: you have.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: I don't think there's necessarily a legal loophole. I think

[Chair Peter Conlon]: that,

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: again, I wasn't privy to all of the testimony I've that occurred on done my best to stay in the loop knowing that I would be taking over this bill. And so I think you will hear through testimony why the Senate passed this language on to you all. I would suggest that the language on page three, line 10, that the agency shall create a simple application and reporting process that reduces barrier to grant program participation for small community based organizations such as rural public libraries, volunteer mentoring programs, and similar organizations means that perhaps there was some testimony that there is some barrier related to the application, but that doesn't appear in the green books.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you very much. Let you get off to your next assignment. Just looking at our agenda, we have Senator Ron Hinsdale to talk a little bit more about S two fourteen, which also probably shouldn't take very long. Welcome

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: to the House, Representative Long. For the record, senator Keisha Long Hinsdale, Senate Education Committee and lead sponsor of s two fourteen, and I I hadn't seen senator Hardy here, but we also were the originating committee of jurisdiction for the bill she sponsored on libraries. You probably heard from Beth that she took over for Tucker, and you may hear when he comes back that his grandfather started the first book wagon somewhere in Massachusetts, and there's still a plaque there. So no one was more sad than him to let go of book wagons, but we just simply don't have anything that is defined as a book wagon in today's world. They look like lots of different mobile book opportunities for people. And then you have Senator Hardy, a great champion for libraries, and you'll hear all about the challenges we had trying to figure out how to create greater access to a lot of institutions that already do provide a lot of after school care, but don't meet the same regulated standards as an in district after school program, but are in every community. So real drop in opportunities and much more flexible, but still very much utilized by a lot of kids in their local libraries, and we were trying to make that more available to them. S214, you probably have discussed this. It sounds like you've discussed language like this before. I would just give you, you know, two of the big picture reasons that I pushed so hard for us to finally get this across the finish line. Number one is representation. Essex County has two legislative representatives, a senator who does not live in Essex County and a House member who does live in Essex County. When I heard from NEK school leaders that this has remained a huge barrier for just a handful of families in Essex County, I said, Well, somebody's got to carry the water for this in the Senate. I will say, because it's on the public record, their senator would not cosponsor the bill, probably because of philosophical feelings about paying for pre k at all. So it really left the NEK district with no voice, no opportunity to say, We have some families, a small group of families that very much need this in order to be able to access pre K. If it was up to me, I would look further into the question of how many public pre K options are available within 25 miles on the other side of the border. Our committee traveled to Canaan, for example, although they do the pre K built into their school, but it's otherwise a very difficult journey for the rest of the county to go all the way up to Canaan. But I would personally try to make sure that this really does give them access to the pre K opportunities they need because it is a sparsely populated area on both sides of the river, and if there's a good private offering, that's what we have access to in the rest of Vermont. Tried to make AOE stepped in at the end, and NEK leaders really wanted to get this out of the Senate and with full support. But I think it's worth interrogating more of that dynamic. The second big picture theme for me is demographics, right? So anywhere I can find the opportunity to expand access to childcare and housing, you're the education committee. I sit in economic development and education. Nowhere do we see our challenges as a state more than in our demographics. And if we can keep families here anywhere in the state and give them access to childcare and housing, we're going to keep families in Vermont, and we're going to allow them to have kids and afford to have kids. It should be on all of our minds with property taxes, health care, the economy writ large. So I'm passionate about this bill. Was important to me, even if it's seven families, that we make sure they have the same access to childcare that others have.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you. This is just pre K, right? Not full childcare.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: May all have a distinct, you mean three to five instead of zero to three?

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That's right, well, you were just using the term childcare, this is really pre K, right? This does not affect any CCFAP money going to New Hampshire or anything like that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I would ask, I think so. I think it's just the

[Chair Peter Conlon]: The pre

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: K tuition. The pre K tuition payment.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: It'd be nice to get CCFAP.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Any other questions? All right, yeah, this is something we have talked about a lot many times. Think we've got What has stalled the House Education Committee in years past is trying to somehow also use private pre k, but because New Hampshire's just a completely different system, it never works. This seems like limiting it to public pre k of ticks all the right boxes. That should work out just fine.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And then we will know how many kids are in Essex County. I mean, right now, our pre K work has been the best way we know where our three to four year olds are and made sure that they're counted and we have the interventions we need and they stay in our system and are successful.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You did. Did you say you did not get an understanding as to how many public pre Ks might

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: be within that 25 mile? Sharon Ellingwood from the chair of the NEK Choice Board did feel that there was enough capacity on the New Hampshire side in public pre Ks, but she's also been waiting ten years to see this pass. If there's more of a detailed understanding of making sure this will work for all families, think that would be appreciated. The language started out differently. And Essex, Government for a day, capital for a day, just so happened to occur right before we passed the bill. They worked on this language. They seemed satisfied with it, but I really wanna make sure those kids get access to pre K.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Any other questions? No. I'm gonna move us along. Thank you very much. Yeah. Because Senator Hardy has The library. Hasn't appeared. And we can get some more in-depth luncheon from the library bill. Boy, we are jumping back and forth here, aren't we? Yeah. Welcome, Senator Hardy. Why don't you talk to us a bit about how this came to city and talk a little bit, especially about the challenges of accessing after school funding for libraries.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm Senator Ruth Hardy. I represent the Addison District in the Senate. And I'm the lead sponsor of S-two 32, the recorder on the floor with Senator Dave Weeks, if you want to hear from him as well. And I, as your chair has said, I'm a huge fan of libraries. And I've done a series of bills about libraries to get them more attention in the building and to help support them and expand access to libraries for Vermonters. Public libraries are one of the few things that almost every town in Vermont has, regardless of size. So urban towns and rural towns alike have libraries, and they are the center of a lot of activity and sometimes really the only public resource in a town, so really wanting to make sure that everybody in Vermont has access to their public libraries. So this bill is the third in a series of bills about libraries. And it starts with and I know you just had a walk through with Beth, so I won't go through all the details. But the findings are, of course, just me and others touting how important libraries are and relate to some of the things in the bill, including early literacy. Libraries are the site of a lot of early literacy. Think about all the story hours for preschoolers and toddlers. I'm sure many of us in the room have sat on the floor in our libraries with our kids in our labs reading books. So it's a really important resource for a lot of people. And a lot of our childcare centers and preschools go to the libraries for those story hours. And it's also important that people know about libraries. And the last one, the fifth finding was added after the bill was introduced, and I can walk you through that a little bit about after school and summer programs. I'm sure you're aware of the after school and summer program that libraries do. Many kids go to the library after school. My own kids included walk to our local library for after school programming for many years. And then the summer reading program is a statewide summer reading program that is sponsored by the Department of Libraries in a sense and then all the libraries that can participate in it. And kids get often prizes, preemie certificates or whatever for reading a certain number of books. And so it's a really important part of summer education and summer access to literacy. So that's why that was added. And I'll tell you more about that when we get to that part of the bill. I worked with the Vermont Libraries Association in developing this bill. So they were the ones that told me some of these things that they really need and want. And one of the things they were most excited about was creating a Vermont Library Day. And I asked them, when do you want it? And they picked the third on Monday in October. They didn't want it to conflict with Indigenous Peoples' Day, Columbus Day, Halloween. So it's kind of in the middle. And this is just it's not a real holiday. There's nothing about nobody gets the day off from work. In fact, libraries would probably work harder that day. But it's just a day that everybody would be celebrating libraries across the state. So the after school stuff. And some of you, I know, have known about this fund, and this fund has been somewhat controversial. And we had a big blow up on the Senate floor about this fund a few years ago. But the fund is what it is, and these are grants that go out to after school and summer programs. Some of them go to school districts themselves for their own after school and summer programs. Some of them go directly to organizations that provide after school and summer programming, like the Boys and Girls Club or different organizations in all of our towns. And you can have them in to give you much more detail about this. But libraries, do provide summer and after school programming, have tried to get this funding in the past and have not been successful for a number of reasons. But one of the largest reasons is the application process is enormous, lengthy, and intimidating and inaccessible for especially our small, little rural libraries. The application, I've heard, is 20 pages long and it's mixed in with they braid together federal funds with this cannabis excise state funding. And so it has a lot of federal requirements involved in it. And it is just really hard for a little library that might be coming in and asking for $1,200 to run their summer reading program. And then they have to do a 20 page application for it. So it's just not been accessible. And libraries have not gotten any of this funding. So the state librarian has been trying to get this funding for libraries. It has not been successful, and the agency has not been open to including libraries in it. And I know you're very well aware of the agency of education in here, so I won't go into more depth than that. So the education committee and Senator Ram Hinsale was there, and Senator Weeks can tell you a little bit more about it. But the education committee in the Senate was trying to get that agency to make a simple application, so that they could access it at libraries and other small organizations. I think small mentoring organizations have been enough. That's why they're listed in here. And other small organizations that do after school programming have not had access to it. The agency was not interested in doing that. So the committee, the Senate Education Committee originally had in the bill that 5% of all the funds had to go to libraries and that the fund itself would be jointly managed by the Agency of Education and the Department of Libraries. And it was largely because the agency was pretty hesitant, say, to make the application more simple. When that happened, the after school people got very upset because they didn't want they thought it was going to be a slippery slope, that everybody was going to come in for their percentage of the fund, that would just make it more difficult. So I worked on an amendment that would get everybody on board, including the libraries, the education agency, the administration, the after school folks. And I think, I hope you will hear from them that everybody is on board with where this is at. And I encourage you to have the after school folks in and obviously definitely the libraries, the agency, of course, but also Kendall Smith, is the commissioner of labor. She actually chairs this board, and I worked with her as well. So I hope what you'll hear is that everybody is Okay with where this landed. And that's why there is the language that you asked Beth about, about the simple application, is it's requiring the agency to create a simple application and reporting process. Because it's not just the application, it's the reporting process, to make it so that these organizations could get access. And rather than say that there's a specific percentage that's going to libraries, we included the language that the agency may allocate a portion of the funds to the Department of Libraries for the purpose of providing subgrants to public libraries to sustain or create summer and after school programming. So they could say, we're going to give this amount of money to the Department of Libraries, and the Department of Libraries would subgrant it to libraries. Or a whole group of libraries could come in and apply for it. All of the Windham County libraries could band together and say, we're going to get a Windham County library grant and then subdivide it or something like that. And then the state librarian is added to this oversight advisory committee so that libraries have a seat at the table. And then annually, top page for the advisory committee shall solicit public input about the program and procedures. And this is to make sure that this program remains accessible. So that's the most controversial part of the bill. And I'm hoping it's out of place, I'm hoping you'll hear. And if you don't, somebody please alert me because I want to make sure that the bill goes forward.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I got a very sniggly little question. That is why specifically calling out volunteer mentoring programs?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: So that's a great question. These programs were apparently in similar position to libraries and that these are very small after school programs that work in a lot of schools. The one I know of that I visited was the Moncton one. So in lots of small rural schools, and these are volunteers that come in and mentor kids, mostly elementary school kids, and read with them and do things with them. And Senator Perchlich, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, is very interested in these programs. So he asked me to include that language. So in order to get this through appropriations, I was happy to help with that. So that's why. So I'll

[Chair Peter Conlon]: just say that one thing this committee has a great aversion to is creating lists.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Yeah, I can understand.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So as I look at cannabis sales tax part, it says, including public libraries, schools, and volunteer mentoring programs, they are already covered in eligible recipients of being public, private, or nonprofit organizations?

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Correct. The reason they were listed out is because, as I said, these organizations have tried and not been successful. So it was making sure that it was explicit that libraries were eligible and the mentoring programs were added because of concerns that Senator Perch occurred. And do you have any actually, the

[Chair Peter Conlon]: only email I've got on this whole thing is to drop the word volunteer from mentoring programs. Oh, I

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: don't know. Have no opinion about

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: that. So, drop the word volunteer, we mean it would include mentoring programs that people have hoped to be mentors in? It's a game.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: You've been to a game.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: Oh, oh,

[Chair Peter Conlon]: So, Mentor Vermont, for example, is an organization that has a budget.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Oh, it's funny. Yeah, no, I think volunteer is referring to the mentors themselves. Yeah, mentors are not paid.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: As an organization, it's not 100% volunteer.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: I see. I don't have strong feelings either way. That

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: was just me trying

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: to get the bill through the Senate. And then the next part is about

[Chair Peter Conlon]: early

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: education. There's a grant program in another a different one about early education. And this is just making clear that it could also be used for training public library staff so that if they need training for those story hours, they could. Then the next section about the duties of libraries, this is just adding digital or physical. And this is partly to help them remain eligible for federal library funds because there's a definition of a library collection, and we need to make clear that digital books and digital resources are included in the collection. So the state librarian requested that, and you can ask her more about it. The trustees there and I just want to make sure I know there are libraries, there are the public libraries consist of two different models. One, municipal libraries that are owned and run by the town and are part of the town budget and the town select board or city council or whatever, that part of the town budget. Then there are nonprofit libraries that are also considered public libraries that are all open to the public, but they have a different oversight. They usually have a nonprofit board. And the last few bills that we've done, we've made clear the oversight of those different libraries. And this is just to make sure and this was not in the original bill, so Beth might have more information or Tucker about this. But I think that some of the nonprofit libraries were feeling like the select boards were telling them what to do. And they wanted to make sure that the select boards didn't have oversight of them. And also defining, making sure that all public libraries are eligible for the public bonds as long as it's a municipal the municipality says, we want to issue a bond. That's that last section. And repealing the fund, I think you've heard about that. We don't use that fund anymore. So that's the bill. The bulk of it was the after school and summer program, which has been a consternation for people since it was created. And I didn't realize I was stepping into that bee's nest when I introduced the bill. But hopefully, you will hear broad support for it now that it's been changed.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thank you. And so we've got all the right folks coming in to hopefully verify that they're all good with it, makes our job a lot easier.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: Excellent. Well, you for Thanks for rushing up here.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I know

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: you guys are a super busy committee. I really appreciate you and all of your work. And it's always fun to be up here. So thank you. Thanks.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Everybody doing okay to we'll do a we'll take a break, maybe if that's not up. Alright. Switching gears again. We are welcoming representative Arsenault. I have a seat at the front. And so just everybody, we had hoped to have representative Arsenault in earlier than now. This is obviously an h bill, so it's missed crossover and all of that. But I thought it was, at a minimum, worthy of a good conversation, and there's always the potential of a miscellaneous Ed bill coming back to us and me adding more to it as we did with cell phones. I just thought it would be, well, we had a little bit of a breather on our schedule to have this conversation. So welcome.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: A well earned breather. Representative Angela Arsenault from Williston.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: We have not had a walkthrough of this, so you don't need to go through it like Ledge Council would, but just Thankfully, it's pretty Of

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: course, I forgot my water, so I'll just my way through this. So you've seen the bill, H-eight 30, it's quite a simple, short bill. We're not supposed to say simple. The longest part of the bill is the findings. And they're there to, as findings are, to try to help build the case or really make the case for why this should even be considered, in my view, why it's necessary. So I won't walk through the findings unless anyone wants to. But I will just say that a lot of the information that we gathered here is from the National Education Policy Center, which is a really, I find, really great resource on a lot of different topics. But they're doing a lot of work on ed tech and AI in education. And then also found it really interesting that number five, top of page three, our last finding, that 2016 is the year that we hit our low in literacy test scores, reading test scores. It's also the year that the Agency of Education reported that there were more computers for student use in schools than there were students in Vermont schools. And I think that just speaks to the utter saturation in our schools of classroom technology and the way that it was adopted with a great deal of optimism, understandable optimism. But we have to take a look at what's actually happening now and really critically review whether that optimism was warranted. So interestingly, I found it interesting. This bill from section two on, except for the very last subdivision. So I need to learn the difference between subdivision and subsection, but anyway

[Chair Peter Conlon]: All right. We're happy to forget either.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: Is from 2015. So this bill was originally introduced in 2015 by Representative Anne Donahue. So that just lets us know that parents have been waiting more than a decade to secure the right to opt out of education technology. Rep Dobrovich, Rep Hunter, I changed just a couple of things. We added parent or guardian because the original bill just said a student in a public elementary or secondary has the right to refuse an and it said computer instead of electronic device. And then we also added C at the very end of the bill to say that a teacher who decides that they don't want to use education technology in their classroom has the right to do that without being dismissed, suspended, disciplined, reassigned, transferred. So that's not a walk through, but that's really all that's in the bill. It's just saying that a student, parent, or guardian in a public elementary or secondary school or approved independent school shall have the right to refuse an electronic device in order to perform work forming part of a course of instruction. And then at each school district or approved independent school would have to adopt a policy similar. I see it going similar to the way we handle the phone free schools and other personal electronic devices. Ideally, there would be a model policy with hope. Anyway, schools would have to say exactly how parents or kids can use this right, what it means, and explain very clearly for educators how it's gonna look.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I

[Rep. Robert Hunter]: know that this really represents a mind shift, because everything was swimming along in education, then here comes technology. So the people who have been in the game now for ten or fifteen years only know this. So this would be a major shift for a lot of educators right now. Maybe you could, because you've done a lot of research, much more than I, talk about some of the compelling things that 're not just aware of, but maybe concerned about as well.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: Well, thank you, Representative Hunter. I have five pages.

[Rep. Beth Quimby]: Imagine that.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: We did not plan this. So

[Chair Peter Conlon]: That

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: was just the walkthrough ish.

[Sen. Ruth Hardy]: That was the walkthrough ish. Walkthrough light. So I want

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: to, again, remind everyone, from 2015, parents have been waiting more than a decade to secure the right to opt out of education technology. And I want to be very clear. We're talking about education technology products, not technology education. I'm aware of a Vermont family whose two teenagers are attending a Waldorf high school in Washington, DC because they have family there. And after several attempts to opt their teens out of ed tech in Vermont, the school in DC was their best option because they would agree to it. But one of those teens is taking a coding class. He does not have a one to one device, nor does he have an email account. But he uses a school computer to learn coding. I share this story to illustrate the point that this is not an anti tech education bill. It is a pro intentional tech use in education bill. So this idea of an opt out and the idea of how we could look at education technology writ large is based on this foundational framework that's just three words legal, safe, effective. Is it legal? Is it safe? Is it effective? To answer the legality question, I look to the EdTech Law Center. So attorneys Julie and Andrew Liddell have a firm in Austin, Texas dedicated to holding tech companies accountable for harms to kids and learning. And in this great eight page handout, I just wanted to share. I also I'm relying on other people's voices because I feel like you've probably all heard me talk about this stuff a lot. And I want to assure you, oh, it's not I know you know, but it's not just me talking about this stuff. So the EdTech Law Center says, on the legality question, EdTech takes users' information without effective consent. It does not fully disclose its sweeping data practices, leaving users in the dark about exactly what data it collects, how that data is used, and by whom. Many companies circumvent parental notice and consent entirely, seeking consent only from school administrators, even over parents' objections. Nothing in the law, like the law, supports that theory of consent. Rather, parents have a right, a legal right, to know what information private companies collect about their kids and how it's being used, and they have a right to say no. Existing law. On the SAFE question, interestingly, just yesterday, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which is sometimes called NCOSI, just released their dirty dozen list. So every year, they release a list of it's a campaign that calls out 12 mainstream entities for facilitating, enabling, and profiting from sexual abuse and exploitation. Other listed entities this year include Snapchat, TikTok, Brock, Steam, Discord, and Mark Zuckerberg. Also on that list, the Chromebook. And Cozy says, at the heart of the issue is the Google Chromebook default settings, which have been reported to recklessly grant students essentially open access to almost the entire internet, exposing them to harmful content like pornography, violence, sextortion, and cyberbullying. And some have claimed that Google search algorithms designed to prioritize maximally engaging content actively push dangerous material to minors, amplifying the risks. That's a tactic that we know meta, Google through YouTube, all kinds of social media companies use. It's used by ed tech products as well, including Chromebook, but other platforms and software too. In a report or a piece on New America, a think tank dedicated to a lot of different things, actually, but they have this short paper called Public Schools, How Ed Tech Monitoring is Reshaping Public Schools. So this is another piece of ed tech that we may not think about. But products like GoGuardian, Bark, and Gaggle claim to provide safety and security, but they do this by surveilling students. And this piece says, numerous schools have contracts with surveillance focused fintech companies. These surveillance systems use AI to see if students' web activity correspondence for keyword searches can reveal their state of mind, if they're being bullied, or even their potential for committing an act of violence. This monitoring occurs through three primary pathways school issued devices, school managed internet connections, or school managed accounts, like email accounts. Research indicates, however, that the ed tech companies spearheading classroom surveillance technologies often extend their authority beyond classroom hours, produce unsubstantiated marketing claims, and engage in data collection and sharing practices that lack transparency. The piece goes on to say that regulations like FERPA and COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule, are designed to safeguard student privacy and safety, but they've also been used to justify access restriction to certain educational platforms and extractive data use. It names twenty eleven amendments to FERPA that actually broadened the scope of who could be granted access to student records by redefining authorized representative as a nongovernmental actor who may represent schools. This change allows ed tech surveillance companies to operate as educational partners, permitting schools to disclose student data to these companies in the same capacity as school officials. This loophole is even more problematic because of the absence of financial penalties for ed tech companies that violate FERPA. Enforcement focuses on schools through the possible loss of federal funding rather than holding the companies accountable. And that's, again, from the New America piece. And you'll notice a theme emerging, that there are just so many ways that these companies avoid accountability. This is yet another one of them. And just bringing it closer to home more directly, I've spoken with and others have spoken with Commander Matt Raymond, who is the head of Vermont's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. And he has said that school issued devices are frequently implicated in the cases he investigates. That's a little bit on the safety front. Now we get to effective. And for that, I turn to our friend, Doctor. Jared Cooney Horvath. And I'm going to pick just a little portion out of this book that I recommend you all read if you haven't. It's Act With Data, but rather than cite a bunch of statistics, I just wanted to share. This is at the end of one of the early chapters. He says, EdTech isn't failing, meaning failing to be effective, because of outdated software or poor teacher training. It's failing because it's fundamentally incompatible with how human beings actually learn. Learning is deliberate and effortful. It requires sustained focus, thrives on emotional connection, and succeeds when skills can transfer flexibly between contexts. Yet by design, ed tech undermines these biological realities. It fragments attention, severs emotional synchrony, and confines learning to a context so narrow that knowledge struggles to escape the screen. And as this chapter's title suggests, these problems are intractable. Unless tech stops being used primarily for entertainment, multitasking will always remain a barrier. Unless tech incorporates biological components, genuine empathy will always remain impossible. And unless tech is deliberately made harder to use, more friction, transfer will always remain elusive. In short, unless ed tech companies are willing to radically rethink their programs, platforms, and business models, digital devices will never be engines of deep learning. The cost of ignoring these truths isn't just lower test scores. It's the slow erosion of qualities every parent hopes to see in their child the ability to think deeply, to connect meaningfully with others, and to shape the larger world. When we tether learning to screens, we risk raising a generation literate in apps but illiterate in life.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Our time is a little bit limited. Is this going on in other states? Yes. In the findings, you talk about Sweden sort of limiting it to H2. Right. Yes,

[Rep. Angela Arsenault]: that's on page four and five. We would not be alone. Several states are currently, I think there are 16 states right now considering bills related to the regulation of ed tech. Utah, for instance, just Utah legislature passed a bill and the governor signed it into law on March 18. It's a really fascinating, pretty sweeping ed tech bill. For instance, they have an opt as far as one to one devices and taking that one to one device home. For middle and junior high school, it's opt in. So the presumption is you're not going to take it home. Younger grades cannot. And in actually K to two, I think, in the Utah bill, there's no screens. For high schoolers, it's opt out to take it home. Presumption is you can have a one time device to take it home. But there's also the opt out provision. Iowa has a bill that passed their house that says each school district shall make publicly available on district's internet site a list of one to one digital device programs and use and information regarding opt out options for parents who decline participation in digital instruction. They also say that for K through five, there can be no more than one hour per day of digital instructions as an Iowa bill. And Rhode Island, much closer to home, guess, even closer, has a great bill with an opt out provision. And they combined our opt out bill and our registry bill, H650, which you all may remember passed the House a couple of weeks ago. They combined that into one bill, and that's moving through their legislature right now. In their bill, they kept the standards that we have in our registry bill as law, not just to be considered, which is what we shifted to. So that's three examples. And I will say there's a lot to consider here, of course, with education technology products. And this bill is admittedly an incremental approach. And we passed age six fifty last month, but that bill has to make its way through the Senate and still get signed by the governor. Obviously, even if it's signed into law, it'll take a couple of years before Vermont has established set of standards for education technology products. Parents and kids should not have to wait that long to say no to their continued participation in this unregulated market. They should have the explicit right to demand an education free from algorithmic manipulation, targeted advertisements, and constant digital surveillance. To end, I'll turn back to Jared Cooney Horbath. I wanted to share an anecdote that he wrote to me in an email a few months ago. And I wish I could deliver it with his characteristic engaging conversation style, because when I read this, I can hear him saying it. So a school this is Jared Kooning Herba speaking. A school I worked with in Australia introduced an opt out option. Only about 10% of families took it. But what happened was the teachers working with those students at first tried doing two of everything, an analog and a digital version of each and every task. Really quickly, they learned three things. One, it takes way too long, too much time to do both. Two, the analog version reflected their goals as teachers more than the digital AI supported tasks. And three, the students doing the analog work were all doing better. After about a month, the teachers chose to stop creating digital material and leaned completely into analog. In a short time, more teachers followed, and soon analog became the norm, all because of a simple opt out option that a small minority of kids took. So I have additional information that is Vermont specific because, surprising no one in this room probably, the Vermont Coalition for Phone and Social Media Free Schools shifted their focus and shifted their name to the Vermont Coalition for Independence, Reconnection, and Liberation, VT IRL. And they have sent out a survey to hundreds of Vermonters. We have two eighty six responses so far. 94% Nope, 94.8% of two eighty six respondents support an opt out for families and teachers. Those who do not stated their main purpose or their main reason for not supporting it is because they think it should be handled on a more holistic level, and they don't want their kids singled out in the classroom. But 51.4% of respondents said they have considered leaving the public school system because of how ed tech is used. Sixty one percent of folks who responded who do homeschool currently said that the use of ed tech in schools was part of the reason they went to homeschooling. And we offered the survey left space for people to just share their thoughts. And a number of people said, this is a quote, we left our public education school system in favor of the Upper Valley Waldorf School precisely because of public education's reliance on screens for instruction. And then a number of parents wrote with stories about how they had tried to opt out. One parent specifically whose child has ADHD, she tried to opt out, said that screens are just not they're not good for her son, not working for her son. But said, it would be The teacher said it would be difficult to effectively monitor my son's academic progress and identify areas where he may require additional support. She said, In a class of 11 children, I find this to be completely absurd, but have yet to make any meaningful progress out of fear of retribution. So there are plenty of parents in Vermont right now who would take advantage of an opt out have tried. I know of a representative, one of our colleagues, who opted her middle schooler out and said that the school went along with it. But now, whenever the class is using their Chromebooks or other ed tech, he sits in a corner with a book. And the school is not providing him a full education because she has said he's not going to use a Chromebook. So it's a problem. And the frustrating thing, I think, especially for parents is that in many ways, they're just fighting for what they know to be best for their kids. And for a number of reasons, whether it's habit, what we've become accustomed to, the notion of reducing technology use in education just elicits a strong response of, like, we can't here's the reasons we can't do it. But no one was ever asked to prove, no one was ever made to prove that using technology the way we are in education currently was the right thing for kids. And now parents are being asked to prove why it's not. And we have to flip that around.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: I'm going to hold this here. Thank you very much. Good for this to be a good conversation starter. And appreciate you taking the time.

[Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you.

[Chair Peter Conlon]: Thanks. All right, everybody.