Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You're live.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: This is House Education on April 24. We are working through s 02/27. We have a new version posted for folks to look at, which I would say yep. Hang on a second here. Let's do a little quick text. We have done some work. Jana and Erin worked with one of the stakeholders here. Nothing real substantive changing, but just some clarifying about policy versus procedure and some language changes. But we'll walk through it and highlight those and hopefully be ready for a vote.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: It's also just organized differently. So it looks like more changes, I think, than it is, but trying to sort of flow a little bit more the order of operations in school settings.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All All yours, Rick. All right. Good morning, everyone. Rick Segal with the Office of Legislative Counsel. And I appreciate the lead in because I was going to start with that, that there's quite a bit of yellow on this indicating changes. And it's not a dramatic change as far as the intent or the language goes, but there has been some restructuring. And there were some times where I could not highlight the yellow because I'll I'll

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: explain it.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Otherwise, the whole document's gonna be yellow. So there are no changes at the first page. I can tell you that purpose stays the same, and we are still on the same chapter and sections in title 16. Okay. On page two, in the definitions, no change to law enforcement officer. In number two, non public area of school, there is a little change here. The previous version used the phrase school administrator. So, you're gonna see that phrase highlighted all throughout the bill because what's happened is that term school administrator, which my understanding there was some confusion about that potentially meaning something else in Title 16. So, that phrase has been removed from the bill, replaced with superintendent or head of school, and sometimes like in this case designee. So, the previous version had just the school administrator. This committee indicated, well, what if the superintendent wants to designate a principal or some other staff member at a school to be the designee to authorize a non public area will now, if the superintendent, head of school, or one of their designees can determine a part of a

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: school to be non public.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I need

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: one more question.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Just that The OR designee applies to both or headoscopic.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just went through that. I had the same thought.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: know. Was like, there's

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: a pretty good of course. That's a good question. No change to the definition of school. However, subsection b is highlighted because the definition of school administrator was removed right above that. So you had number four, school administrator, that's been removed because we don't use that phrase in this building. Okay. In subsection B, adding the words and support, I just thought because of how this has been restructured, I think that phrase is helpful. It's gonna be resources and how the school can support students. Subsection A is not new language. It is kind of rephrasing what the AG is going to do. So, will read it because it's all yellow. So, a superintendent or head of school, previously instead of school administrator, shall distribute the immigration resource guide developed by the AG pursuant to subdivision two, which we'll get to in a second, to staff students and family immersive students. So the previous version said that a school administrator shall distribute immigration and civil rights related resources, etcetera, that are provided by the AG. The stakeholders kind of indicated this is a more direct way to do it. I agree actually, this is very clear that they shall distribute this guide that is developed by the AG. It's just a clear, this is what's going to happen. And B, again, administrator replaced by superintendent or head of school twice, a little changes there. And c, adding this is this is restructured more than it looks actually, so I wanna spend a little bit of time a second. So previously, the language said provide support as it starts here to the greatest extent possible. That doesn't change. To a student with regard to immigration related concerns, including and the previous version had a colon and then it had two things that that included. Those two things were, as you see there, including connecting the student and the student's family with an immigration advocacy institution that was in the draft. So, you may remember the second subdivision was providing the student with access to mental health professionals. And that was a little bit vague. Like, how can rural schools do that? Like, can every school actually provide that access? It was unclear. So, the compromised language here, and this is maybe up for debate, is the phrase and similar resources, which could include mental health professionals. It could also include other therapeutic things for the student to be successful in school. So, it's up to you all what you think about that phrase and if that's appropriate or not. I can keep going.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, but it seems okay. It doesn't hold a superintendent to provide anything in addition to what is listed here that allows them to. And

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: even the immigration, it's still to the greatest extent possible, so it could be that they just can't. So, 2A is the same, me hold on and see here, make sure I'm looking at the is what happened. So, the 2A was in session law, which for newer members, session law is law, but it's used for more temporary appropriations. I'm looking at you because I know you're new. It's used for appropriations. It's used for studies, reports. The conversation made me realize that this guide is an ongoing obligation. The AG will look at this every year, because immigration changes, immigration laws change every year, they could change every year. The way they're executed change every year. So, this section, the words have not changed. However, this was in session law now. It is in statute, which means you can find it in the green books, easier to find for the AG and kind of more permanent. The AG in consultation with the AOE shall develop this guide that was referenced earlier in the statute. And again, no other changes. It's just moving it to the statute. They shall review the guide at least once annually and send any updates made. I just added that I thought made was missing. Made to the guide to all superintendents and heads of schools not later than thirty days after completing the guide. So again, that replacing that phrase. The editors did ask if it should be head.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Right. I was having the

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: same question. Yeah. So, was a question mark. So, it's kinda up to you all. It's apparently grammatically fine this way, but it's also fine if you wanna say heads of school. This is the way I thought it made sense, but I don't frankly know this area well enough how that's used.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I mean, is that going to come up and be an issue?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: For those of us who are sort of particular about grammar, I'd like, heads of school or heads of schools. Yeah. Yeah. I think as Rick said, either one probably is just fine.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If the editors don't have a step means it's kind of Yeah. There's not a clear way of doing that. Okay. I think it's used a couple of times. So I would just be consistent. Subsection C, student information privacy, no change to C1 or C2 or C3. So, no change to subsection C. This is the record keeping, not sharing information unless required by federal law. Okay, on page four, sorry, bottom of page three, subsection I'm on page four, sorry,

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm having multiple sheets of paper.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Just the change from school administrator to superintendent or head of school three times, the law enforcement section. So now it's the same thing, just worded differently. On page five, again, superintendent or head of school. No change to two, three, or four. So, there was a subdivision five on page five that was removed, and this was the provision that had the schools create procedures for law enforcement on-site. And this language was partially moved to a different part of the bill. So it's not gone, but it did have language in there that I can read it to you all, that AOB shall develop model procedures to implement the law enforcement section. And again, stakeholder had questions about, well, the policy is always above the procedures. So the way the bill is kind of structured, we would like that language to be later in the bill. So I was like, that's fine. It's still the same language, it's just moved a little bit later. There is one thing that was removed that I'll mention here in a second. And that's why Yi is highlighted because five was deleted. Okay. On the next page, page six, we are in this immigration agreement section replacing the school administrator with superintendent or head of school. Applicability, no change that federal law cannot be preempted by this law. Okay. So policy required. The model policy is still required that AOE has to develop its model policy. The change and this is where the subdivision five would come in a little bit, because here you have instead of set forth in this section. So, the policy is now just going to be subsections C and D, which are the law enforcement sections and the make sure I get this correct the student information section. And the thought was there that the bottle policy does not even include details about the immigration agreements, does not need to include information about the immigration resource guide. The policy is just really about how you share information and how law enforcement, when they appear on-site, if they do, how that should be developed in policy. So it's making their job easier, AOE's job, the policy is going to be more narrow to just certain parts of the bill. I don't have a problem with it.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: And that's because the other part, like distributing the resource guide isn't statute, we don't even have a policy.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Right,

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: right. There's no really, I can't, and I thought about when I was in the meeting, I like, yeah, let me think about this. Thought about it. I don't see any issue, and I we can disagree, but I don't see any legal issue with having it limited to just those two parts of the bill. Okay? In the adoption of the policy, so again, the schools must adopt a policy that's at least as stringent as the model policy. If they don't adopt it, they adopt the model policy by default. So, these sentences at the ends of A and B, A is for public schools, B is for independent schools, this is the administrative procedures. And this is new. And this was also taken from subdivision five that was deleted that says that you have these policies that are developed, but then at the local level, at the school level, you have to have procedures that carry out these policies that are adopted. That specific language was missing, and that was recommended to help schools figure out the path to actually make this work in reality. And I don't know if this works. I think this gets the point across, but I'll be curious what you all think about that language.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's pretty typical. I mean, if you sort of go through the hierarchy of AOE develops a model policy, school boards adopt the policy, superintendents create the procedures and protocols around those policies.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I did talk with Chelsea from the Vermont Homeowners this morning, because they've been helpful in helping figure out how this would apply in the real world. Given the different nature of this whole topic area, superintendents felt like they need to develop model procedures in this case as well. So I don't know how big of a directing change that would be.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Probably not major if it's just gonna be, you would put it up in B or in G1. You would say a model policy along with procedures, something like that. A huge, if that's what the committee wants. Then I would delete do they adopt procedures too? Do schools adopt procedures? How does that work? When AOE if AOE adopts a a bottle procedure, how does that work in reality?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I don't know if they

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: ever had to tell us the

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: procedure, comes

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: to that. So maybe the AOB is making a recommendation for model recommended procedures, yeah. Question about whether we just can tell

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: what to model. That's really administrative, what the procedures are, in my experience.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What I'm hearing you say is that their concern is that this is a sensitive topic area, and rather than everybody going off in their own direction. I'd really do.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: And it would be very helpful if it were consistent. Right, I think that's consistent, and

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I'm sure that's why this study did not exist, but I- I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: just had a question on page seven, line 13. Any approved independent school that fails to adopt a policy shall be presumed to have adopted the most current model policy. So as you said, the head of school actually develops the procedures, I guess my question is what happens if an independent school, if that presumption is wrong and they haven't adopted this policy and they're ignoring this law? And also, we assume that there is independent schools of action be against this law? From what I understand, most schools want this to work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So the answer to your question is there is no policy police out there for either independent schools or public schools. Both sort of have their enforcement mechanism. If you want to play the scenario all the way out that a school that refuses to adopt required policy from a public school point of view could be closed by the secretary, from an independent school could lose their ability to receive public tuition.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Right, okay, so they'll no longer be in a public school. I'm concerned about asking in any particular case to go and ask the AOE to develop procedures if we never do that. If the system that we operate under is they have a policy and it's superintendents who do procedures. I don't want to change that in this particular instance. I would leave it as it is.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I was just going to say that was my gut reaction as well but your suggestion, Chair Conlon, about developing recommended procedures would make me feel more comfortable because they're not required, they're recommended and I do think there's some value in the sensitivity of the topic and the consistency of procedures following the policy. But I could be wrong, but that may seem

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I don't know.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I just don't know. In law, I believe it exists in the behavior threat assessment. Does it? Yep. So is situation that each school may have because they're uniquely built and designed and potentially structured that a model procedure would not be appropriate? Is that possible? Is that why? I don't know if the language here, they see it on the screen. This allows each superintendent to, based on their school and their staff, I don't know. I'm just, if the AOE recommends procedures, I guess they can ignore those recommendations. I guess that's the way it'd be worded, is that they would just be recommended. They wouldn't be I don't even wanna say model. I'm just kind of thinking about how this would actually work.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Let's go back up because it only applies to section A. Is

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: actually Well, is no. This is so this is still about the law enforcement on-site and the student privacy. Yep. So this is still it's flowing, and I'm going back to my meeting yesterday. Flows from the the policy, right? The district has the policy from AOE that suggests the Stamont policy, and other procedures flow down from that. So, just wanna be how prescriptive when it comes to procedures. Are

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: people good with language that would sort of provide recommended procedures as opposed to required procedures?

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: I was going say, the behavior threat, do you have that language?

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: Haven't taken a look at Exactly. I have not pulled that actual language, no. But in starting to prepare for all of this, this is actually sounds this is a school safety I mean, it's being set in the school safety chapter. And so this all ties together. So there is testing for that, but I think recommended procedures. Just think some consistency is important and is not new or unique in this area

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of I also agree, this is sort of so outside the training of the superintendent that I think some recommended procedures would be good.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Can tack that up once we complete the Okay. Assume you want to vote on this this morning?

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

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have until ten so that's my schedule. Alright, and then on page seven, we already talked about Do you want to keep the Do you want to reference the model proceed the submitted procedures or do you just want to leave it at that they shall develop procedures?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think we would probably I'm not sure if we would need that sentence. Would you say it Well, should think I would say maybe in the top part would be recommended procedures for superintendents or something that

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In the AOE's task? Correct. And then

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Policy model policy and recommended procedures. I guess those are two separate places, but

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you don't want to require them to adopt procedures.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: right. Period, they're still required to implement the procedures though? So do you want to not get rid of that?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I'm not sure you have to state that superintendents implement procedures, because that's what they that's just what they do.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I mean, I'm okay. Give them their incentives. I just wanna make sure they're not

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: because they're only gonna develop or adopt. Right? They would either develop their own procedures or utilizing the recommended template, we can just adopt that template. Or not have any procedures. Right. So then that's fine. I just don't know how common that would be. Okay, so I'll strike those two yellows.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's always understood that when a policy is adopted, a superintendent So does the

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'll strike those two sentences in the next edit. Alright, in section three, this again existed, but because we moved post the language, the immigration resource guide into statute, this is just now the deadline. And I do wanna talk a little bit about the deadline. It's been August 1 year, and then they shall send the guide to superintendents and head of schools by August 31. The effective date is July 1, so you give them a month to, and maybe they're ready to go. I don't know if Julio Thompson or anyone else has testified as to if they're working on this already, maybe they are, but maybe consider either on passage or pushing out the date a little bit.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: What do we do on passage? Passage? Yeah, I'm going to speculate with some confidence that they probably could turn this around in the air very,

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: very quickly. Question on this that maybe was answered and I missed it because it came up, I think, very early when we looked at this bill, normally as the procedure policy, that things go to the AOE and then distribute down to superintendents and then distribute down to school. So this is going directly to the superintendents and not going to the AOE first to be distributed to their network? So I think someone brought that up as

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: question about the AG. Was brought up.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: So did the AG send it to superintendents or to the Agency of Education? Most cases goes to A and E, the A and is the one who then returns. We're actually

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: somewhat silent on that. Well, it says

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: it shall send it to the superintendent's festivals. Should the AG have to do that or just go to the AOE and the femtiva through their network that they use for everything else?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Would be interested in seeing the

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: AG having

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: to go to

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: 50,000

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: superintendents, find all the independent schools, make sure they all have it.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. Sorry, restructured. Was reading as you were talking. So in

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: It seems overly complicated on the AG's office to do that.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: In statute, it is in consultation. So that's the extent of the distribution. So you do, you work with AOE, the AG works with AOE, but then the distribution steps over, steps around AOE. So if you wanna change that, we can.

[Erin Brady (Ranking Member)]: I think the age issue for distribution. For distribution, because they already have a distribution network for everything else in place. Makes sense?

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, the AG still develops it. Yes, with the AOE. The AOE distributes it.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: All right.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Okay, so just to summarize, we've asked legislative council to go back and have AOE come up with recommended procedures. And we have asked to have the distribution channel for what the AG develops go through AOE for distribution, which does make sense. They're the ones who've got the contact information.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, Leanne. Question on page three. We had said immigration advocacy institution and similar resources. I'm wondering, do we want both, or do we want if immigration advocacy institution isn't there, we would then want similar resources. Do we want both, or do you want one or similar if one isn't available?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Immigration advocacy institution. I guess and. The really question is whether you go with and or or.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah, you want to have. The or. And that or if one's not available, then do the other.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think if you have or you could limit it to something similar. And just and allows a lot more.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So it wouldn't necessarily mean that you'd have to do both.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: That's right. Okay. And it always is to the extent possible. Alright. You want to over what

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you want me to do or do want me to do you want to go over what you want me to do?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So it it so again, it would just be the two that we just talked about, having the distribution from the AG go through AOE, and then AOE coming up with recommended procedures.

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And removing those two sentences that the superintendent head of school shall develop and implement procedures. Okay. And the effective date.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Okay. What

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: do you need? Ten minutes. Great. That'd be Alright, great. Everybody. We will

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: rather I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: guess, than putting everybody on silent, we will

[Rick Segal (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: just