Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: 25. Okay.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I think I'm Okay. Welcome to House Education. We are live. Today is April 28, and we are turning our attention to s three thirteen. Just to bring the committee up to date on its voyage started in the Senate Education Committee. It was really it came over as essentially intent language. So no real statutory proposals in it. That was basically on purpose so that we would have an S bill here and the Commerce Committee could take some time to get testimony and do kind of a deep dive, which they have done. They've done their work and now it is coming over to us so that we can take a look at it, see if it checks out with us before it moves back to the senate because it's been heavily changed. So there is a I wouldn't say we've got all day on this. Really do need to get it back to the Senate because of all the changes. Anyway, so we have invited the chair of House Commerce to walk us through the bill and tell us a little bit about how they got here. All yours. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee, for

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: the opportunity to walk through S-three 13. I'll give you a high level. So for the record, my name is representative Michael Maricot from Coventry, and I'm chair of House Commerce and Economic Development. As chair said, bill that we received from the senate was more findings and intent than really any substantive language in there. We have adjusted the length, the intent, and the and the purpose language to reflect more of what we did in the bill. So we we started taking testimony. We we actually had a committee bill that we worked with the agency of education on that would create an educational service agency for the CTEs. We started to work on that, and it became clear to us that without really understanding what the cost would be to implement that, And without understanding where our larger education reform was going, it made more sense for us to not go in that direction and to go in the direction that we have here before you in s three thirteen. So, again, the findings and and the intent were we've developed them, and I know Beth will go through that with you. We've some of the issues that we heard from Vakted on what is happening right now in CTE, we explored rulemaking, telling the board to go through rulemaking. And there's a list of issues that we received from Baghdad that would really help them right now in between the time of changeover to run CTE a lot better than it's being run now. A lot of testimony was taken from the We heard from the board, we heard from the agency, we heard from fact that and I think in the end, we after talking with the secretary of education, that we came to the realization that probably rulemaking isn't the right spot yet, because I think a couple of years, they may have to really open up the rules and make rulemaking. But there are clarifications, I think, that the agency can make and give some guidance to the CTE centers. And so that's what you'll see in the bill in subsection five. Also, I think we also heard I'm sorry. That's in subsection three. We also heard issues with credits being transferred by well, credits being accepted by the sending schools to the CTEs as being a problem as well. And so you'll see a section on that, changing that language until, again, we go through rule making and all the guidance and everything. So we also decided that it would really make a lot more sense for us to have a discussion on what the governance structure should be for CTE and keep that discussion alive. So we're proposing to create a legislative working group that would consist of members from the four committees of each body, commerce, education, appropriation, and ways and means, and our counterparts in the senate, to work over the summer with AOE, with VACTAD, with the superintendents association and others in trying to develop what should be a good governance system for us to take to look at next year. And hopefully, we'll work in with whatever changes education is gonna going to go through. We still don't know yet. There was also a question of comprehensive, the definition of comprehensive high school. We had come up with a definition. We're not we're asking that anything we do that we look at that definition, it doesn't have to be that definition. I think as we start developing and having those conversations, the conversations we had in commerce, Our ideal thought of a comprehensive high school would be a fully integrated high regional high school that has that CTE is embedded as one of the curriculum that that there's it's under one budget. There's no more separation of CTE and high school, that it's all under one. That that's our vision. I hope that's everyone's vision as we move down this road. Don't know if we're ever going to be able to get to total regionalization, regional high schools throughout the state. But I think that's something we should strive for. And wherever we can do that, I think that's where we should be trying to get to. I think that is probably what we've done in a nutshell. Know Beth can walk better walk you through the language, I think that's where we landed. Thank you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Can you talk a little bit about the sort of challenges and roadblocks that your committee faced when taking on the topic of how do we govern CTE in the future?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I think the biggest roadblock is not standing the cost. So if we're looking at a foundation formula, and we're talking about $25,000 per student, That's the proposal that's been kicked around. What does that mean? Does that mean that the cost of the governance system is included in that 25,000 per student? We don't know. We also, I think we've found the ESSA intriguing, But we all have, I think we all came to the conclusion also is that, you know, when we talk about education, I'm sure you've all had the same thoughts is that, you know, we're 650,000 people and we got 80,000 students, that's probably a small city district. But it's hard to equate that because the state is a whole lot larger than one city district. And when you So it's hard for us to really understand how we can have an ESSA that incorporates 17 CTEs under it. And maybe it can be done, but we weren't sure that was the right road to be going down and try to explore. I think it needs to be explored more and discussed more. So that's why we we went with the study instead. And we know we're not we won't hear anything back from JFO about, you know, the dollar study that's going on until December. So it really didn't make sense for us to try to keep moving down that road without the fundamental question of what's it gonna cost us.

[Unidentified Member (House Education)]: I mean, can make up all kinds of reasons in my head, but I'm just wondering why the significant cost difference if we're giving you around a foundation formula at 15, three or something, know, before weights. Why 20 is $5,000 like

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: For CTEs? Well, that's a number that's been thrown out. Okay. We know that CTE is can be more expensive because of Equipment. The equipment and everything else that goes along with it. And, you know, the question is, CTEs that are there now, who owns the building? You know, all of the background stuff needs to be thought of too. Who owns the building? So if it's if the school district owns a building, which SU or whatever it is, then, you know, the rent has to be paid, who takes care of the building, the upkeep, all of all of the things that happen with that. Plus, you have teachers that you have paid for. You have, payroll, who's doing the payroll, does that is that integrated with school? There's a lot of questions. And to try to get to those answers is gonna take some time, I think.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: So we've been there for a long time. I've been a school board member for over thirty years, and we've been doing this that long and probably longer. And you know this. When I first came in the building, I worked with you in the Congress Committee when I was in the committee on this. I'm Everybody here has heard me say, and I'm sure you are wrong, that I feel like CTE should be, as you just stated, embedded in our work. I'll just call, and you did it too, regional high schools. I also believe it should be in middle schools as well, whether they're middle high schools or whether they're separate schools, I still think we need to be doing it there. So my question goes to the study that you folks have come up with. And we've done so many studies over the years trying to figure out either governance or funding or whatever, and I've participated on summer studies and things like that over the years. I'm wondering about timing, whether if we're really committed, and it sounds like your committee seems pretty committed to embedding them in a future state of regional middle and high schools. Is this the right time to be doing another study to talk about governance, or would it be better to hold off until we have a little better sense of where we're going? I want this to work. Just like you do, I know. So I'm just wondering about why now?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I think we're in a good time to be doing this. I think There's a lot of attention being placed on CTE now that hasn't been in the past. And I think the time is right. I think there's two issues that I think we need to accomplish. One is bridge because we have four different four different governing systems right now to our for our 17 CTE centers. So we need four different governance systems. So does it make sense for us to zero in on one of one or two of those and as a bridge that gets us to the place where we wanna be, which is regional integrated schools? And because those are gonna take us can take us quite a while. Money is an issue as it always is. And so can we can this committee figure out a way of providing that governance system on the short term as a bridge to get us to as we continue to develop which way we go with the governance system for the regional schools. So I think that's what we were looking at.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Okay.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: That that's As this being more of a bridge. Because when you talk about regional regionalization, that should fit into whatever we come up with for our education plan. Because then we're doing away with CTEs being here and school being here. And it's all integrated and they all follow the same rules and same governance.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: All right, thank you. Yeah, we've talked about for years, how do we take these four different kinds of governance over our CTEs and try to mostly get them to agree on a single governance structure that we never got close. And I guess I'm a little concerned that this committee will have the same trouble sort of like coming up with newer, larger districts because it's going to require a mandate from the legislature to say this is how we're going to govern CTEs until such time as another change. So I hope that And I think it's clear in there that that's part of the charge, but I am nervous. But there's no other way to do it. And I accept that.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I you know, outside of us taking a stand now without enough information. Right. I think it's you know, hopefully, next year when you all come back, that there'll be a clear direction. And there may be a couple of different ways of doing it. Maybe we don't need maybe we can't go down the road of one governance system, but can we cut the system down from four to two, maybe, you know, that might be a possibility.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Like, I have questions on section three, which is page five. And it's a broad question. There's a lot of sort of specific, I might say, jargon, but not really, I just want to The language here and some of the language in section five as well on page seven. I just was curious about the origin of it. Create standards and competency based pathways, just the language here where it came from. Came from back to. Okay. And then on page seven. You know, I don't know what is meant by a pre enforcement intervention pathway. Same with early state mediation. And then they talk about formal enforcement. Who's enforcing what?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: And I think that's why we want to look at it. Who can do that? Right? That's the report back that we're asking for. Yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Okay. I just, I want to hear people who have to report that back are gonna have the same question about what was early state mediation, formal enforcement?

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I think some of those conversations

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Intervention pathways.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: I don't know. I think BACTEC has had some preliminary conversations with AOE on this, but they can fill you in a lot better than I can.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: And So, yes, we have the the head of fact head coming in either tomorrow or the next day. Let's see if I can get any questions. It's largely around sort of where I'm at. I don't know if it was AOE language or something. So it's else. Oh, not just I didn't know if there were all the terms were.

[Rep. Michael Marcotte (Chair, House Commerce and Economic Development)]: And it's so it's language that from Baghdad that we developed also with assistance from AOE as well. So they've walked through this with us. They they Baghdad recommended some changes, which we incorporated as well as AOE recommends changes that we incorporated. So

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: And we have the agency coming in as well, again, when we provide more feedback. Any other questions? Thank you very much for your time. Now we'll have a formal walk through section by section with Legislative Council. Hope you had a peaceful weekend.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Do you want me to share my screen?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yeah, let's do that.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: This is Commerce's Strike All Amendment to S-three 13. And as you already know, did we walk through a three thirteen as passed by the Senate at all? I can't remember. Well, luckily for you, sections one and two of this amendment are largely exactly the same as passed by the Senate, the findings and the intent language. So section one is a findings section. Do you want to focus on the findings and intent, do you want to jump right to the You do? Okay. So section one, line nine, the general assembly finds that. Vermont?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I said, no, you don't need

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: to go.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Let's jump right into the Okay.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: And we're going to go to section three on page five, line one. So this section requires the agency in collaboration with VACTED and the Superintendents Association to issue guidance on the following topics, and their guidance should reflect the current system as it exists on 07/01/2026, in an effort to provide clarity to the field prior to updates to the CTE rules themselves. And that guidance needs to be issued on or before 09/18/2026. And so the topics for that guidance are updates to definitions, including definitions for CTE programs, credentials, embedded academics and satellite models, credit standards and competency based pathways, work based learning sequencing aligned with OSHA standards and federal hazard orders, minimum safety space and equipment standards, data and reporting alignment with Perkins V, and explicit allowance for differentiated regional delivery models. So kind of a bridge to get to a rule overhaul. The rules for CTE haven't been updated in quite some time.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: And it sounds like the idea here was to start off with guidance rather than having the state board open up the rule series and only then do a little bit and then close it back up and then open it up again later.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Right. I think the theory is if you all are going to make changes to the governance and funding systems that would then necessitate updates to the rules, let's wait to open up the rules to do that. There is technically nothing stopping the state board from opening the rules right now or any of their other rule series and engaging in rulemaking. But this is not asking them to do that. It's asking the agency to issue that kind of middle step guidance to get to that place where the rules are able to be updated. Section four is an amendment to 16 VSA fifteen thirty two, which require is where the is fifteen thirty two lives in Chapter 37 of Title 16, and that is your CTE chapter. And this is the language that gives the State Board rulemaking authority. So we can see right there, the state board shall adopt by rule in subsection A and then subsection B, the following shall be adopted by procedure

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: or rule.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: And then we're adding, so we're not making any changes to what needs to be in rule. We're adding a completely new subsection C that requires the state board to review the rules and procedures adopted pursuant to this section not less than every five years and update the rules and procedures if necessary. Section five is a giant report back to you all from AOE. So on or before 01/15/2027, AOE will submit a written report to you all with the following. The first subdivision number one is regarding licensing. So in collaboration with the Standards Board for Professional Educators, AoE will come back to you with recommendations regarding CTE educator endorsement requirements that balance the need for increased access to CTE educators with industry expertise and experience, but the need for ensuring CTE educators are qualified to provide education in their specialty fields without unintentionally creating additional barriers or complexity. Such recommendations shall include both necessary statutory changes as well as recommended changes to applicable State Board of Education rules. I'm on page seven, subdivision two. Second topic for a report back to you all is a pre enforcement intervention pathway that is responsible for supporting interpretation and implementation of CTE rules and statute, providing early state mediation between CTE centers and sending districts, documenting patterns of noncompliance or systemic barriers, and escalating unresolved or repeated issues for formal enforcement. So you should be getting recommendations for all of that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Okay. I would probably not be doing any good by asking you to define some of these terms, but these would

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I don't know that I can define them, I can give you what I understand this

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: to me. Could you please start with pre enforcement intervention pathway?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I think that's the term that came, I believe, directly from VACTED. So I think they'd be the best folks to speak to that. My understanding is a pre enforcement intervention pathway is meant to get at a system to resolve conflict, whether it's around a statute or a rule, when one party doesn't believe the other party is complying. So for example, I think we've all heard a lot of anecdotal testimony about wait lists and whether kids can go from one CTE center to another, even if it's not their assigned CTE center. And so if there was a complaint about a student not being able to access the CTE program of their choice, and there was some rule or statute on point, this pre enforcement intervention pathway would lay out the steps and the folks involved to remedy that situation. Where that pathway lives, who's responsible for solving the conflict, I think is the big question, especially because if it's an interpretation by a school district, do we wanna give the school district responsibility for mediating when they are one of the parties to the disagreement? What if it's the state board that is interpreting a rule different? So who is the mediator when all of the folks at the table are the only folks in the field? So you should get a report back on recommendations for that.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: So this is the AOE saying, here's what we recommend for a pre enforcement intervention pathway. Here's what we recommend for early state mediation. Here's what we recommend for formal and first.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: And you'll see that on line for their state is not capitalized. So early state like early stage.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: And

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: maybe that's supposed to be capitalized, and I've been interpreting it wrong the entire time.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I don't think that's the way

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I interpret it. But again, this is just recommendations to you all. The third topic that you will be getting updates on is updates or recommendations on is updates to the Flexible Pathways Initiative that alleviate statewide inconsistencies with how flexible pathways are accessed and how personalized learning plans are created, updated, and utilized, including recommendations for a statewide framework for career navigation, consistent with 16 BSA Chapter 23 Subchapter two, which is the flexible pathways subchapter, including grade level competency standards for students in pre K through grade 12 related to career exploration and planning that are designed to ensure that each student develops the knowledge, skills, and experiences necessary to graduate with a clear, actionable, and adaptable plan for career and educational next steps and evidence informed educational resources, activities, and curricula that support opportunities for awareness and exploration of planning for career and education pathways both in and out of the classroom setting.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: Question. What does create viable competency standards for students meet? So

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: my understanding is that there was a recommendation that Commerce was interested in pursuing regarding having a competency standard related to career development. So similar to all of the other standards that the state board sets. So for English language arts and science and math, etcetera, that there would be a career exploration standard. And I believe that that is what this is getting at. So it would be competency standards that are relevant to the grade levels, so not which I think is kind of explicit in competency standards. But I believe that was language that the agency suggested be added. So an EQS, like an update to EQS? So the state board is required to

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: make sure I get this right.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: The answer is kind of, maybe. So the state board in section 164, the powers and general powers and duties of the state board is required to implement continually update standards for student performance in appropriate content areas and at appropriate intervals in the continuum from K through 12. And then the EQS, Education Quality Standards, require the state board to require schools to substantially meet the standards adopted by the state board. And they're woven into the EQS. So I believe what this is asking for is recommendations for how career exploration readiness, etcetera, can be woven into either its own competency standard or other competency standards.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: And does it, would it then also parallel pertain to rule 2,200 series of independent schools? Are we

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: You would have to explicitly do that. Yeah, I mean, I think you would These are just recommendations and there's nothing in here that's specific to independent schools. And so generally speaking, when we're asking for recommendations, we're asking, unless you are explicit, the recommendations are gonna come back however they come back. The next piece is evidence informed educational resources activities. Oh, we already went over that. Okay, so B, recommendations for statewide professional development programming to help individuals within the public education system to have direct contact with students build role specific knowledge and skills necessary to support students in developing post high school career and education plans, recommendations for a model career navigation policy that is integrated within comprehensive system improvement efforts to strengthen pre K through grade 12 academic proficiency that establishes a framework for school district to embed those grade level competencies related to career exploration directly into core academic instruction, ensuring that career aligned learning supports the attainment of rigorous students performance standards, ensures that students engage in meaningful That's the language that came from the agency, I believe.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Starting where?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I don't know if I can't say that it's all of lines 10 through 13, but I believe that the agency had some edits related to lines 10 through 13.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: It's got that jargony sound of the agency of education.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Ensures that students engage in meaningful career education exploration and planning activities that reinforce academic growth in the real world application of classroom learning and utilizes a process by which each student develops and updates a personalized learning plan in accordance with current law, serving as a primary tool, tracking both academic proficiency and involved career interests. And on page nine, an analysis of data collection system capabilities and gaps related to flexible pathways, personalized learning plans and college and career readiness. So three topics, you've got licensing for CTE educators, a pre enforcement intervention pathway and updates to flexible pathways.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: All of this under the big umbrella of recommendations from the AOE in this report. Correct.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Section six subsection A is a piece of intent language that lines five through 11 just define I'm sorry, lines five through eight just define comprehensive high school as it exists under current law, which is a public or independent school other than a CTE center that provides secondary CTE education approved under section fifteen thirty three of this title. Then starting on line eight, as Vermont works to transform its CTE system to increase the access, quality and opportunity of CTE programming available to Vermont students, the concept of a comprehensive high school could be expanded to achieve these goals. It is the intent of the General Assembly to move toward a model of comprehensive high schools that would offer all opportunities available to students within the public education system to be defined as a public or independent school other than a CTE center that fully integrates the provision of CTE with the provision of general education in one school building or on one school campus with a single budget for both CTE education and general education. And then subsection B says

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: I guess a question about section A or subsection A, was that part of the original Senate language, do you know?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Only sections one and two are part of the Senate language. Everything else came from commerce.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: That's a horrible question for all of us. No. So, yay, love this. I think we've all been talking so much about regional and comprehensive schools, different ideas of what they are, not siloing systems. But thinking now to Markot's introduction, if we're operating in a future state of a foundation formula that is whatever amount, 15.3, 16.9, whatever, per regular education student, and whatever it turns out to be after much more study for a CTE student, say 25,000, the heck do we do in a school that's both and all of them and is maybe a more comprehensive streamlined system. It's a completely unanswered, I think.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Well, I think it's actually highly unanswered because it might come down to just a mathematical formula. What percentage of your day is spent in CTE? CTE? What percentage

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: of of your Maybe. It certainly would complicate, to me, the foundation formula and this vision that I believe is somewhat shared of students being able to flow in and out of just being in one school, and there's lots of different types of education there or what campus stands.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Or maybe CTE is funded through grants. And foundation formulas still sticks with the spoon. Yeah, it just strikes me as another complex change of ordinance.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Page nine, line 18, any recommendations issued to the general assembly regarding how to achieve regional high schools, how to achieve more comprehensive high schools, or how to embed CTE within secondary schools shall consider the definition of comprehensive high school the General Assembly intends to move forward pursuant to subsection A of this section or any other model that creates high schools that share operational costs, expand opportunities, and improve educational equity across a broad geographical area to guide such recommendations. So what they were trying to do here is say, if we're gonna talk about regional high schools comprehensive, whatever term you're gonna use, you should at least start with the definition that we've built on lines 14 through 17. But if you got a better idea, you can use that too.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: The

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk, House Education)]: recommendations that they're referring to on line 18, is that apply to both the legislative working group and the AOE reports?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: That Any recommendations. They did not wanna be specific. So line 18 there says literally any recommendations. Pursuant to this statutory language or just Any recommendations, anyone out there who's coming to you and trying to sell you on regional high schools, covering some high schools, whatever term we're using, this language should guide them somehow.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: So, for example, last night after our meeting, somebody came up to me and said, you should have private donors build CTEs. It was a pretty good idea. Just get me those private donors.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: Sure, yeah.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: But again, you would sort of sum up this part as saying basically, if you got a better idea, bring it on. Yes. Okay.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk, House Education)]: It's really strange to me that subsection B is asking for recommendations to be aligned to an idea that it's not yet been bound. I this

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: is all I know it's just intense, so it really doesn't matter.

[Rep. Emily Long (Member, House Education)]: That's a comment. But I

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: think that your intent actually does matter.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I mean, yes. I mean, texts are cut, right? Right.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: And it feels big as well.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Section seven looks pretty easy.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: The first change in section seven that appears throughout is anywhere the term credits is used. We've added or proficiencies because of how Vermont awards its credits or proficiencies has the potential to be different everywhere. That's throughout the statute. The other large substantive change here is on starting just to orient you on page 10, line 14, subsection B. The credits or proficiencies earned by CTE program shall be honored by any public or independent school within Vermont. Then if you go down to line 20, it says, The school board of the high school from which the student wishes to graduate shall, under current law, make a determination as to whether the credits shall be applied toward graduation requirements. This amendment requires those credits or proficiencies earned at a CTE center to be applied toward graduation requirements. So it takes that discretion away from the board, school board.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: That's the language essentially on page 11?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Yes, lines one through three.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: I have a question, I don't know if it's not really for Beth, somebody might be able to help me with that. We're adding efficiencies in here, I understand why. But does someone remember, I remember someone telling me or I heard somewhere that the new graduation requirements don't mention proficiency based intervention.

[Unidentified Member (House Education)]: I it where was it?

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: It's English, so many years ago, have to do. Yeah. I

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: think it's right. I'm just trying to align this recommendation from the AOE, I assume, to the new grad programs that don't mention proficiency.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Have AOE and we can actually add, that'd be a good question.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: And you do have a little bit of a choice to make in that those new graduation requirements don't go into effect for a couple of years. So you could wait, or you can make changes now and then make changes, and you've choices, but we are in a little bit of a waiting period. Section eight is the legislative working group. The working group is created to study and make recommendations to transform Vermont's

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: career

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: and technical education governance structure. The working group is composed of eight members, four from the House, four from the Senate, not all from the same political party. Speaker appoints the House, committee on committees appoints the Senate. One member from the Approach Committees, one member from the Commerce Committees, one member from the Education Committees, and one member from the Money Committees, each chamber. The working group in consultation with AOE, VACTED, and any other relevant stakeholders is required to study and make recommendations regarding how to incorporate Vermont's CTE governance system within the larger education governance system. And then the recommendations shall include several things. First, on page 12, line 19, a transition plan that ensures no disruption to safety, access, or programming, including recommendations for whether the transition shall maintain the four separate CTE governance models while working towards one education governance system, or whether some other governance model or models should be used during the transition to one governance system, and if so, the transition costs and sources of funding associated with such a transition. A timeline to move from the current public education governance and CTE systems to one system that incorporates governance for both general education and CTE. Recommendations for how state age school construction may be leveraged to achieve one education governance system. Recommendations for locations of comprehensive high schools as that term is defined in 16 BSA fifteen twenty two subdivision 14. That's probably a legacy change that we probably should have caught in Commerce. At one point, one of the drafts Commerce was looking at actually took that intent language and actually made a change to the statute. And then we changed it to intent language, and I never updated. We never thought that it was this reference there. So I believe this is meaning recommendations for allocations of comprehensive high schools as that term is recommended in the intent language. Recommendations for the funding of adult education and secondary credential program participants access to secondary career technical education, including the source of funding and the flow of funds. Recommendations for how to fund and integrate adult CTE education into the education system in a way that allows for robust programmatic offerings open to adult, all adult learners without a high school diploma.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Does everybody know that currently, CTEs have to have a mandate to offer adult programming as well, but there's no funding for it. So that's why they come with tuition payments.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Recommendations for ensuring that students will not be placed on a waitlist or prevented from accessing CTE due to lack of capacity or there is a viable alternative program that aligns with the student's intended program of study and meets program requirements, including sequencing of safety concerns through the provision of coordinated transportation. And recommendations for ensuring adult diploma participants have access to the educational programs that best serve their needs, including CTE, while also complying with federal and state requirements for adult education, as well as recommendations for how access to such educational programs shall be funded.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: So, right now, if you are in one of the adult ed programs, but you're young enough to qualify to attend CTE, that's not a pathway because they don't have the capacity to basically CTEs exist by charging tuition and adult education programs don't have the money to pay tuition. So that's that concern is in there.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: The working group will have the assistance of the Office of Legislative Operations, my office, the Office of Legislative Council, and JFO.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Will you proposing a change to that?

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: I have a giant mortgage now, so I can't propose a change.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: Good to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: have the option.

[Rep. Jana Brown (Clerk, House Education)]: Yes.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: But I will not be writing a report for you. I will, however, write legislative language. So that is what the deliverable of this working group is on page 14, line 12. On or before December 15, the working group shall submit its findings and recommendations in the form of proposed legislation to the general assembly. My office will call the first meeting to occur on or before August 15, which is ambitious. Working group shall select co chairs from among its members, one from the house, one from the senate at the first meeting. A majority of the membership shall constitute a quorum and the working group will cease to exist on January 15. Compensation and reimbursement, as usual, under 2VSA section 23 for not more than six meetings, and the bill would take effect on passage. Oh, and I was not sharing my screen for any of that.

[Unidentified Member (House Education)]: Further

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: questions? So Chair Markov basically said, what we have in front of us is a bill that has a lot of intent language, requires a major report from AOE with lots of recommendations, has some smaller changes and then a charge to this working group. Any other questions for legislative council? Thank you very much.

[Beth (Legislative Counsel, Office of Legislative Council)]: Welcome.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: We're off at two, so you got a few minutes to transition to your next assignments.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: Thank you.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Right. So we have coming in the head of ACTED to sort of provide their feedback. We've got Emily coming in to provide their feedback, which I think is quite important just because they're being asked to compile or make a lot of recommendations. There may be areas that we would like to tinker with, so think about that. And then the state board, have lined up currently to speak to this. However, that was when I was under the impression they were gonna be asked to reopen real estate, and I'm not being asked to do that now, so I may just ask them to sign off. But is there other testimony that you think we should be getting? Not sure whether it stay open. And again, this is just intent recommendations from the AOE working group.

[Unidentified Member (House Education)]: We can't just to know how the different governance structures work, you know, just to

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: have a rep from each place. The head of fact that should be able to speak to the various models. Basically, what we have are just high schools that have a career center attached to them, and it's all part of the same budget. We have independent schools that have the same model, that's two there. Then we've got independent, public independent CTEs, such as in my district where the CTE itself or Barry CTE itself is freestanding, different school board budget is voted on separately from the high school board.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: There are

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: four of those in the state. That's only three governments. We have I mentioned that one. We got independent schools, schools where it's just part of the budget, independently governed. We'll find out. So and, you know, and then we got some of them are are half day programs or full day programs. You a lot of

[Unidentified Member (House Education)]: do we take all of that into account as we look at

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: September? So, you know, I think, so within September is, you know, a big report back on the plate for each student, and part of that is CTE. It's special ed, it's CTE, it's overall updates, so other things as well. So that's where it fits in. But meanwhile, we have sitting out there these four different ways of governing it, a desire by the AOE to turn it all into one day CISA, But really the operative word as agency to state that would employ everybody. Which seems rather ambitious. And I can't remember which fourth student buying this when we have factored in what the fourth one is. Yeah, this has been a tough nut to crack all along. And in part because we've allowed, we as a state have allowed sort of these different governance styles. I know in our district, separated the high school, couldn't wait to get rid of the CTE center because it was a huge part of their budget. Is it the heck? Yeah. So that's independently governed. Okay. But now you look at with twenty years of retrospective and it's like, now we don't have an integrated high school where kids could have seamlessly gone back and forth. They have two separate schools, separately governed, that are attached. And while the transportation is very easy, the coordination is hard.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: I just want to follow on what Representative Long

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: said. And

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: that is I'm trying to follow this. I'm not even going to say just the working group, which I have serious concerns about. I really wasn't joking when I said, we have done studies in working groups, I don't want to say every year, but boy, constantly. And I feel we've asked a lot of people and really haven't taken advantage of outcomes of those studies and working groups. We are in the middle of a pretty significant transformation of our education system. And to me, I'm going to continue to say I deeply believe that an integrated system, not a separated system, but an integrated system is best for our kids and for the state in general. And this whole thing to me feels incredibly preliminary. Maybe it's only one year preliminary, I don't know, but it feels preliminary. I could understand why the VA was going to come in and push for a whole separate single district, and we kind of rejected that. So I don't know how it fits in. And we'll know more if we pass nine fifty five and get some study committees going within a year, we may have a better sense. But I don't want to have to put all this time and effort into it again in a working group and find us upend all of that with the work work. Just my thoughts.

[Rep. Peter Conlon (Chair, House Education)]: Yeah. We'll get some good feedback. Years in the world of education transformation is a short period of time. So, and if you think about, if this working group comes back and says, we believe that every CTE should be under the governance of the high school that is closest to or attached to, legislation wants to impose that mandated in a transition plan, that in of itself is gonna take some time. So I'm not sure about preliminary because there's all the little stuff that's got to go into who owns the building and all the coordination of all the bookkeeping and all of that because we've separated some of much of this. Or at least in four. But yes, can't help but say that we're trying to sort this out forever. Sort it out. It can be challenging. Yeah. All right. Next up is $2.45. '2 two forty five. All right. And just everybody knows, we're in that period of the legislature as we get into May, there are gonna be forty five minute gaps, hour gaps, whatnot, because we don't have a lot that's pressing to get out, although we now do. Yeah. Let's come out tomorrow.

[Unidentified Member (longtime school board member)]: And