Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You're live. Okay, this is House Education, May 5. The committee is probably about to vote on S214 there are just a couple, it's obviously a short fill, but Sharon Ellingwood from the N. K. Choice School District offered to be here with us in case we had any questions, and we haven't really taken any testimony from folks up there that I remember. So Sharon does have some testimony to give us, which might help us with the floor report, and I thought I'd invite her to go ahead. Then we will run through the bill quickly. As everybody's ready, we'll vote. Sharon, welcome, thanks for joining us.

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Thank you so much for having me. Can you hear me?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yes, perfectly.

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Good afternoon, thank you so much for having me. I would like to especially thank the chair and the whole committee. For the record, my name is Sharon Ellingwood from the NEK Choice School District. I'm a member of the board and also on the board of the Essex North Supervisory Union, which is two districts, the Canaan School District and the NEK Choice District. I reside in Essex County in a town of 87 people with two people per square mile of our population density. The N. E. K. Choice District consists of 10 towns and they are Norton, Lemington, Bloomfield, Brunswick, Maidstone, Guildhall, Granby, East Haven, and Kirby and Guildhall. Sorry. I've appreciated the thoughtful testimony that has been given in this committee on S-two 14. And I also at the same time want to recognize the broader work you're doing on education reform. We respect the effort under the pressure that you're under. The fact that you've made space for S214 in this session, it really speaks to me and our communities that it's simple that we matter. So thank you. Our Act 46 work brought the NEK Choice School District together as a novel large choice district, and we have built a strong unified district across 10 towns. S 14214 would not exist if we were just one small town as one district alone. Our merger is a success story that brings us here today. Without that collective effort of 10 towns, the pre K need we're discussing may have remained unaddressed. It is meaningful to see this level of care for pre K across micro rural Vermont and Essex County. It's taken more than five years of advocacy where pre K was not universal. For families who've been left out of pre K, this will open a true door. Families can enter the workforce and children can be better prepared entering education sooner, and their futures will be much stronger. S214 is a thoughtful and important fix for our youngest learners. As you know, when children arrive at kindergarten ready to learn, outcomes improve and the need for costly interventions can be reduced. It's a smart investment that benefits students and families and taxpayers and schools. So thank you. I had a lot of help from building bright futures with a lot of this data with their regional manager, Linda and a lot of partners across the legislature in the state. So thank you.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: You're very welcome. I say this out loud to people, but I don't know it to be an absolute fact. There are no public schools in any of these communities. Is that correct?

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: That is correct. We are like operating structures. None of us have schools. Many of these towns close their schools. Guildhall closed their school when they had about eight students in town, and they now have 42.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Really?

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Yeah. This choice has a lot of meanings to a lot of different people. And this model has strengthened Vermont by welcoming young families into our state, which is a true goal that we would like to have in Vermont. And East Haven is up there too, from very few students to I think approximately 38. Those numbers change. So please don't quote me on today's date.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Our one absent committee member today is actually grew up in Gilchalt, so. Nice. I hear you hear that. I taught. What's that? I mean, first teacher taught there. Oh, first teacher, no, I thought she grew up in, she went to Lancaster High School. This is like you. Could you give us a sense of what the pre K landscape is in these 10 towns? Is there a private pre K that exists?

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: There is one pre K in Essex County, in all of Essex County, it's a giant county, right? A lot It's of in Canaan. This, this fix generally is for children in the towns along the Connecticut River below Bloomfield, Bloomfield, Maidstone, Brunswick, Guildhall, they are those students are thirty minutes plus from like a head start, say Brighton or Concord, and they're a mile from a pre K in New Hampshire, they can enter New Hampshire K to 12 systems a mile away. So that's generally where they go. It follows the work patterns, the patterns where grandparents are, where parents work. So when I estimated this in the beginning six years ago, we were talking about seven students per year in these very tiny communities that might exercise this out of state pre K choice that the UPK statute currently inadvertently does not allow. It's not a lot of kids. The JFO estimated that a little higher to be safe and it could be a three year group, three year olds or it could be a group of four year olds. So that's why the number appears larger, I think, but it really isn't going to impact students that live on the Eastern side of the district or the towns that are very near Canaan such as Norton and Lemington. Those patterns tend to put those kids in pre Ks in the Canaan Vermont school. So it really depends on where the parents are going and where the town is in relation to where they can go. Not a huge number, not a huge number. Committee

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: members, any other questions? Yeah, go ahead.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: You used the phrase, I'm sorry if everyone else has heard this phrase before, but micro rural Vermont. I was just curious, what is the actual cutoff or definition to make something micro rural?

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: I use micro rural in a casual sense. Am not a data manager.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Okay,

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: I will just say that I do generally define that as micro rural when I look at Essex County. Where I live, it's two per square mile. I'm not the only town that has that density. Brighton is about 20 per square mile and St. Johnsbury is about 200 per square mile. Yep. So when you think about the NDK and I know you're from the NDK, know you're from the NDK, so appreciative of the work you're doing for the NEK. But within the NEK, there we're micro rural.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Right. So but the whole NEK is so I was just wondering, like, if I was to be asked what where is the line of differentiation, I guess? There's not a number though.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: It's a feeling. It's a feeling. Okay. I

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: think it's data. During COVID, there were studies about capacity, about capacity in our state, the towns that had the lowest capacity. I think it was the capacity index. Forget who it came from. I'm sorry, I wasn't prepared to bring that up today. But the towns in our county and my school district are at the bottom or at the bottom of that capacity index to apply for COVID funds and do that kind of thing. So, when I say micro rural, I'm using a dictionary definition and the statistics that I know are true for the different scales of the towns in the NEK. There's Caledonia which has its own feel and then Orleans County which has other central structures but Essex County really is different than the other two NEK counties when we collectively talk about the NEK. Essex County is a little different, smaller.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: No, I'm just saying definitely because I'm from Essex County, so definitely.

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Yes, thank you, Representative Quimby. Thank you, yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sharon, thanks very much. If you wouldn't mind hanging for And minutes, that'd be we'll just run through the bill quickly with legislative council, make sure there aren't any other questions. It's more of refresher course than anything else.

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

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Sure.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we have S two fourteen is passed by the Senate. Made no changes to this. So we're just looking at the as passed by the Senate version. An act relating to the provision of pre K education in geographically isolated school districts is an amendment to Section eight twenty nine of Title 16, which is the pre kindergarten education statute. Those three asterisks represent the entire statute. We're not making any changes to what's currently in law. We are adding a new subsection at the very end that reads, Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary, the NEK Choice School District may provide pre kindergarten education to eligible pre kindergarten 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 rules. The superintendent may apply for and receive a waiver from the Agency of Education and Agency of Human Services of any rule provision that is infractical for the any K Choice school district or the New Hampshire program by demonstrating that a substantially equivalent provision is offered. And then this language would take effect on 07/01/2026.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: So lines 15 through 19, when you were here previously, I think you gave us some examples of what waiver might be sought. I think one of them was, for example, New Hampshire doesn't have the Vermont Early Learning Standards. And pre K dollars can only go to pre K program that has VELS or not states in it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, the way our public pre K system is structured is that in order for education fund money to go to the pre K program, it has to be a pre qualified provider. And there are certain criteria that those pre qualified providers need to meet both public and private. And one of those things is licensed, Vermont licensed teachers. Another is following the Vermont Early Learning Standards.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: That's what I figured I might get questions about. I have the Vermont teacher licensure. I questioned if the distance of 25 miles might be away. What if it's 26? What if it's

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: I think you could say easily

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: I think those

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Those are just just main about a mile. They're five miles. That's two good ones if someone asks.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I will note that I can take no credit for this language because this language came to the Senate by way of the agency of education and DCF working with the affected communities to come up with this language. So it really is a compromise from the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Committee, any other questions? Would somebody like to move that we approve S-two 14? I move to approve S-two 14. Okay, we got three people. Give it to the new guy.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: Can I

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: ask a question? Yes. Because I'm the one who

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: has to email the first. We're actually finding it favorable. It's not favorable with amendment. So it would be listed as favorable in the calendar, right?

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, we've done it by then. If everybody's ready, we'll have the clerk call the roll.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Great. Representative Brady? Yes. Representative Brown? Yes. Representative Dobrovich? Yes. Representative Harple? Yes. Representative Hunter?

[Robert Hunter (Member)]: Yes. Representative Emily Long? Yes. Representative Case Long? Yes.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Kate McCann? Representative Morgan? Yes. Representative Quimby? Yes.

[Jana Brown (Clerk)]: Representative Conlon? Yes. Alright, ten-one.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Alright, Representative Quimby will be the reporter on the bill and we'll get all that out so we'll get on the notice calendar tomorrow. So Thursday. Yes, great. Okay, thanks very much. If you're not able to read. Okay, no, we'll stop here. Just had a question for you. Sharon, while we have you here, I just got a little curious about the Guildhall statue gave us. Guildhall has always had choice, or is that wrong?

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: They had high school choice when they had their elementary school.

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

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Didn't have a school, it would be hard pressed for me to tell you when it closed as we were not a merged district at that time.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Thank you very much for your time this afternoon and your perspective from up there was very helpful.

[Sharon Ellingwood (NEK Choice School District Board Member)]: Thank you. The study that I was rather clumsy with was in 2022. It's the Vermont Community Index, which was developed by the Department of F and M for towns to take advantage of the MTAP program, the Municipal Technical Assistance Program. So they ranked like how what kind of capacity towns had to apply and how many, you know, full time town clerks, that kind of thing. So it's data a source for our area and we are at the bottom. So thank you for allowing me to clarify that and for attending today. Thanks for all your

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: hard Thank you. So just some agenda talking. We have at 02:30, so this is sort of like me filling our time with informative stuff that will set everybody up for having good information in the future. So I'm on the board of the New England Board of Higher Education. One of the priorities that they have is creating and bringing people together, talking about how do you get higher education into prison systems. There's a lot of work going on in other states, innovative work. And so I thought, since we have time and space, at least this week, we can talk about what's going on in Vermont. And then later in the week, we'll have the New England Board of Higher Education come in for two reasons. One, just as an sort of introduction as to what it is, what it does for Vermont. And then two, to talk about their work in higher education in the prison system. So that's why you see that on the agenda, it's really informative at most. Tomorrow, we've got a couple of kids coming in to talk about student on school boards. And I'm not sure if we're gonna be able to do anything with it, but if we could sort of negotiate quick passage of a miscellaneous ed bill, if we were to amend it and send it back to the Senate, we could move forward with, I would say, addition, that might look simply like AOE will come up with a model policy working with the school board's association to make sure that every board that governs a high school has a student member on it. A student voting member? We won't do voting members because that's constitutional issues because they haven't been elected by anybody.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: So are you basically saying there is no way for that to pass then because we can't support student voting members? Would it have to be a non voting member? Yes.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: Yeah, I think you could have a student vote in an advisory capacity only, But in a world where we are electing people based on population and all of that, to then give a vote to somebody who has been elected. Maryland does it, though. Yes, it's a fairly limited way of doing it. I just don't think it would pass constitutional law during the law.

[Emily Long (Member)]: When I was on the school board, we had something similar. They didn't vote, but we did ask them, we didn't task them, but what's important to you? What's important to the student? We're going to be talking about flagpole policy or whatever the thing is. How did students feel about x, y, and z before they would present? We would have our conversation and we would take what they said into consideration as we sit and vote, just like public comment. And I think that they felt like they were a part

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: of that process, and they were feeling nervous. Yeah, I agree. And I actually like Harwood's method of saying, You vote, they just won't count it.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: I mean, Right. Students already can sit on school boards. They do all over the

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: school Right, this would make it mandatory. Yeah, which I think is part of what the students who were asking for.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: No, what they were really asking for was that their vote was

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: No, you don't take it up with the US Supreme Court.

[Leanne Harple (Member)]: Yeah, but that's the part, I guess, I don't understand, because Maryland did pull

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: it off. Well, think you have to look at the nuances of how Maryland is The suspect is fairly limited.

[Beth Quimby (Member)]: So I guess I would say at this time in the session, that could not be sorted out in time to get that passed. So the non voting member piece could perhaps pass out and that could be investigated.

[Peter Conlon (Chair)]: We can we can test the AOE with the best. Or constitutionality of it. So then later in the week, can see on Friday, we've got them in the board of higher education coming in. 09:15 tomorrow, you may want to change the name of that since it's not part of Oh, that's true. '73 or 2025. It's a addition to miscellaneous input. Okay, so we