Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to whatever the week number is. It's a busy week. We're going to be on the floor a long time today. We're going to go into the afternoon. So Laurie is once again rearranging the schedule And working her magic once again. I think you are deserving of a gigantic magic wand. These last couple of weeks have been trying. Okay, so the first thing we're going do is take up the amendment to eight sixty one. And Katie, if you want to join us, it's very difficult to understand. And I want to make sure that we fully grasp.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: It's so complicated. Our email exchange on Friday was that complicated. That was funny. No, it wasn't.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I'm still logging into Zoom.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: No, that's okay. It's okay. We have in front of us, so you don't need to bring it up. Oh, okay. That's fine. It's a one pager. Yep. I mean, I wanted to send this to you.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm working with an office of legislative council. So you are familiar with h eight sixty one, which is creating the ADA coordinator position. There is an amendment from representative Noyes that would add to the duties of this position, and that new duty would be to apply for grants and accept donations to support the work of the coordinator's position. So it wouldn't just be state funds, the coordinator could apply for other funding opportunities.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You may have any questions? Sounds like a good idea. Yeah, I agree. That's what the Secretary of State's office said when they contacted me about it. Said, We're following this. I'm like, Oh, okay. And

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: it also mirrors what we did in H-eight 41 on March 13, which is the animal welfare bill that has very similar language Great. For that as

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thanks, Dan. Thanks for taking the lead to do this.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: No

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: problem. So we need to do two things. We need to do a straw poll on August, and then just a straw poll on Dan's amendment, since I think that there's I believe that we have jurisdiction on this, and even though it was done in a different committee. I would like to see a show. Okay. Just remember, I'm just reminding people what it is. 861 is the ADA coordinator position in state government at the agency of administration. There was a amendment by house appropriations, which is this language that we saw previously that essentially says authorizing the physician if the funds are appropriated. So I still don't know the answer to the if, but we're prepared. So could I see by a show of hands those people who support H-eight 61?

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: And just for the record, I was not present for the testimony, but I read the bill, so I feel I can still vote on it.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. So that's nine zero two. And then a show of hands, those who support Dan's amendment. Again, nine zero two. Okay. All right. Thanks so much, Dan. And thank you, Katie. Okay. Now we're moving to pre K. And This is this is this is influx. We're still do we have confirmation from JFO that they will be able to be here on Wednesday? Yay.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: If, you know, if they're actually

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: If we're available. If we're available. Right.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Just quick clarification. Will I report the straw full on the bill or just? No, you'll

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: just do the amendment. I'm gonna it's just look to me for the latest version of the pre k bill

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: is Thursday, if you want go Thursday.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And that's three point one, right?

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: That's fine. That's fine. That's at four point one. I'll send that to you right now.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Alright. I wrote all my notes on three point one. Sorry. That's alright. That's all good. We'll we'll have other versions by the time it gets through. Trust me. Okay. So version 4.1 will appear on our web page momentarily. So since it's not on our web page, if somebody can put it on the screen, that would be good.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm moving as fast as my computer will

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: let me. I always say we're sort of at the very end of the line when it comes to Wi Fi, so things take longer than

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: forty six. Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: This is

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: much better than the mezzanine.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Ah, not right there. Well, they have to have something that's crappy over there. If

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: you want to see an example of little movement, if you read the Digger article about red clover and all of that stuff, it's like, well, that all happened a month ago.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Do you have any update? It was on WDEB.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Oh, they picked

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it up on And I'm thinking like, no, that's kind of old news.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I guess it's people haven't heard before. It's new news.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's new.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: But some stuff has happened since then.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: In the meantime, right? They didn't have the latest, let's just put it right. Okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Okay. So we have draft 4.1. I forget, did I have this? Did we have this key in here last time? No. So yellow is new changes not yet reviewed. And then green is a policy decision point, either something you were talking about but didn't make a decision or you've asked to flag. So no changes, but maybe something we need to come back to. Okay. Do you want us I left early last time. We've made a couple changes to the language that we walked through, but we didn't make it through the full draft 3.1. Where do you want to start today?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Because I have additional notes on stuff we've been through. So why don't we start at the beginning again? Unfortunately, it's partly because while we understand the private world, we don't really totally understand all of the education stuff. And so mine is probably more questions than changes. Okay. And we can look what already did. So and so you've changed that back to not yet enrolled.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I'm just going to keep scrolling until you tell me

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to stop. So I have a question on definitions. So this is my paranoia. I'll be upfront about that. And I started to express it last week around the use of the word tuition. And I am just wondering if, in this case, we need a definition for tuition that says it's equal to the categorical aid per student.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: When you say categorical aid per student, are you referring to the foundation amount in Act 73? No. What are you referring to? Well,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I shouldn't so quickly say no, because the intent would be so what we understood from AOE when they testified was that other categorical aid that exists now is not part of education cost that is on top of?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I did not review that testimony. So I don't want to comment, play a game of telephone. There are many, we call them categorical aid. There's no definition in the definition section for your education finance chapter in Title 16 that says categorical aid is. It is a term that we colloquially use to describe those payments that come off of the top of the ed fund. Universal meals, adult education, some CTE funding, transportation grants, etcetera. I don't think you need to define that term. The way chapter 133 is written in Title 16 is that it basically says, here's your Ed fund. Here's the allowable uses of an Ed fund. And one of those allowable uses is any of the financing statutes in that particular chapter. So the grant that this draft is creating would live in that chapter and automatically become an allowable use of the Ed Fund it would automatically come right off the top of the Ed Fund the way that education finance works. And that's what AOE does not want to have happen.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: They don't want it to be The way I understood the secretary's testimony was they weren't opposed to categorical aid as long as it was included in the cost of education. So not like Universal Meals, for instance.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think this is where I have to be very careful with what I say. I am not your money gal. I am not JFO. I'm just someone who spends a lot of money to go to law school. I haven't taken a math class since the '90s. I have not reviewed that testimony yet. I would have a question, I'm not going to say concern, I would have a question as to whether the testimony that Aoille gave is aspirational as to what their policy perspective is, or if it was taking into account the changes that were made in Act 73, I think you can include So right now, pre K is included in your overall education funding payments. It's in your per pupil spending. The policy choice you have made in this draft is to pull it out of per pupil spending and put it into a categorically grant. I think it is an open question based on all of the testimony I heard last year during Act 'seventy three and the testimony I have heard this year as to whether the base amount you passed in Act 'seventy three included costs for pre K education. I don't know. That's a question for JFO, for Julian Noyes. The base amount that you passed in Act 73 included costs for pre K education, then I think it would be a question for JFO as to whether that base amount needed to be adjusted to take into account your categorical aid grant. Don't know. Okay. I think it is a policy choice for you to make as to whether you want funding for pre kindergarten education, whether that's just for public, for public and private, just private, whatever it is, to be included in the base education amount in the foundation formula, or if you want it to be a separate categorical aid grant. I believe that is a policy choice for the legislature to make and not the executive branch. Right. And I guess my question is,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: can it be considered in the foundation formula and still be a categorical grant?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, but maybe not the way you're thinking. So the foundation formula is just your base education payment amount, and it captures certain pieces of funding, certain parts of our education system. There's the base education amount, and then there are weights for different district demographics and student demographics. It is a policy choice what you include in that part. What's coming out of the ed fund in general is more than just that base plus weights. There's the education. Right now, our current financing system has a weight for sparse and small schools. The foundation amount moves that or the foundation formula moves that from a weight to categorical aid. Transportation in our current funding system is a categorically, it's an open policy question for how to include that in the foundation formula. So the foundation formula is one piece of financing the overall system. I think it's a question, I think I'm wondering if what you are asking is, do you include pre K in the base amount or weights? Or does it come out of the ed fund, but just as categorically? Those are two separate policy Yeah, I'm understanding.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I guess I would say probably whatever we say here is probably going to be subject to modification, particularly in ways and means, as they think about this. Me personally, I have sort of one thought, but for two reasons, that I am still liking the categorical aid notion in terms of what we pay and that being of a set amount that's not too variable, so that it's easier to track and it's easier to assure that private and public get paid the same. And then my second thing is, in order to continue to send the message in education that early education is part of the whole, not just K to 12, but pre K to 12, that it should be included in the cost of education. So therefore the foundation form, the foundation payment or whatever, however that calculation is made.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah, Anne? Where is special ed? Because special ed also ought to be part of fundamental education. It's not something outside of special.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: We want

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: that. It is, we're that. Not No, no, I know, but I'm just saying that. Well, it's- But it doesn't parallel because it doesn't go the

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: way I would- It doesn't go You and I would agree.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yes. But they don't. It doesn't go that

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: way. Yeah, we're not gonna go to that, except for I know we have to deal with Tripoli. Alright. So is your advice that we add that to the JFO conversation.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, and I think I probably misspoke to be generous to myself. Maybe I just wasn't as articulate enough as I could have been. The foundation formula that you passed in Act 73 that is contingently effective on a bunch of different things happening, did keep the weight for pre K the same. So technically, the foundation formula were to spring it to life on 07/01/2028, without any changes, you would still be funding pre K through the base amount plus a weight for pre K students of the current weight, which is negative 0.54. The intent language of Act 73 says it is your intent to make updates to pre K.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's included in in it's included in the calculation that was preliminarily made for the foundation for the foundation formula amount.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I can't speak to what was included in the base. Okay. Or what was taken into account in the base. I think that would be a question for JFO. Don't wanna overstep my swim lanes here. And I think it would be a great question for JFO. I'm looking up the 45A report from Act 73, which is the JFO report back to you all on I'm looking to see if it calls out pre K specifically. That does not mean that pre K is not a part of the scope of work of the contractor, so that would be a question for JFO. And the intent language from Act 73 made it clear, to the extent that intent language makes anything clear, that perhaps that weight that you passed for pre K was a temporary choice while you worked out your policy decisions.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Right, that's what I think that's what we understood. Okay. All right. So that was my first question. And now it's clear as mud. Well, it's clear understand or what we don't know and need to ask more questions about. So that's okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I have that through.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay, so does anybody else have any other questions on page one? All right, page two. Whatever questions I have about tuition go throughout. And we move back to 10. Again, we will have a consideration about whether four year olds might get more, but we have to wait for JFO on that. Anybody else on page two? Okay. Page three. I was on paragraph four. I know we had a lot of conversation about how these have number three and four connect. But it it seems like in paragraph four in the yellow highlighted that the second half of the sentence should be first. So that it would say in any region of the state the supply of prequalified credit is insufficient to meet demand for the pandemic in any region of the state, that the district shall work in collaboration with AOE, AHS, and the local Building Bright Futures Council to meet with neighboring school districts, private providers, blah, blah, blah, to further expand capacity Or and the district shall begin or expand a program. So we want them to meet with AOE, AHS, and Building Bright Futures. Would be the first decision point. So that should come first.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want it to be the So current law is there's nothing that would require school district to begin or expand a program when there's a supply and demand issue. This draft 3.1 and draft 4.1 has it as a shall. Do you want to move that back to a maybe based on the collaboration? Do you want to No, keep it a

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: want to keep it a shall. But through that collaboration, they might decide that this is a one year blip and maybe we don't need to expand. I think that calling upon the resources that they have available and the data that they have available. So we want them to still have the responsibility to understand that we need the capacity, if we need the capacity, if we don't have it. And we want them to then work with these folks. And the decision point is, do we begin or expand the program or work with a private provider to begin or expand the program? Okay.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Yeah. So, yeah, I'm looking at that first sentence also, and I read it several times, more than once, and thought it left out something key. And I'm finally reading it and realizing it doesn't. But if it took, I'm just wondering if it needs more clarity.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Which says, so you're

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: talking about. And that the first one under number three, in terms of what the responsibility, either by operating a pre kindergarten program within the district or and I thought it said identifying a pre qualified public board located in another district. And I said, well, we want them first to try to identify one in the district. And actually, that's what it means because it says pre qualified private provider twice. The first one would mean in the district. The second one would be in another school district. But I missed that distinction like the first three times I read it. So I wonder if it needs to say identify a pre qualified private provider in the district or one in another school district. Or is it just me not reading?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You can certainly add that. I mean, I assume you would want, well, I shouldn't say any assumption, make any assumptions. But should we leave it open to a pre qualified provider either located within ORB? Yes,

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But I think what Anne is saying that we want them to look within the district first. But that might be not necessarily because

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: we're not there.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Right. So saying yeah, that My the way you work in

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: question was about the pre K coordinators, like we heard a lot about having them resourced and I don't know if we should mention that. Because this just says encouraged to maintain a position, but, where is this? Oh, it's up on the screen. Oh

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: yeah, don't see mine. Oh, right here, okay. I think it's depending upon the district. I'm not sure that we are, I guess say a little bit more. Yeah. Mean, I think that's also something that might not, I guess I'm not a full step to requiring them to have one.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: No.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Can you think about something that?

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Yeah, let me think on it

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: a little I

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: believe, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I believe some supervisory unions maintain this position So that it's more of a regional. That's what, yeah. We can certainly build, we can say school districts or supervisory unions are encouraged to maintain position. You can add that in there. The slight disconnect I see is you are tying the responsibility for ensuring access to the school district and not the SU, which are two separate entities. So if it was just supervisor unions are encouraged to maintain a position, I see why is it the SU? When it's the school district's responsibility, but you could build in both if that is something you're interested in, or you can just leave it at school districts. It's a may. It's an encouragement. And so the education field is going to probably keep doing what they're doing.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think that the one thing that this didn't quite capture for me is And I think we're just gonna keep it at school districts. Is that they can work together so they don't So this could be A regional. A regional approach.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: But I see the challenges of saying that in legislation, like what's the region?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I play with the language and say, you know, something to the effect of school districts are encouraged to either maintain a position or collaborate with other school districts in their region, which is an ambiguous term, to ensure each school district has access to a pre kindergarten education coordinator.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We're wanting do the strong encouragement, but not requirement.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Right, and not continue that, like, encouraged not to continue the status quo for people to panic.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Not to further complicate matters. But the education committees are looking at those regional collaborative bodies, which could be a natural place for

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: a Yeah, person like exactly. I mean, that's where I would see it. Are there any other thoughts on page three?

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Really tricky to write legislation for the moment we're

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: in. A

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: year from now, would be a completely different conversation.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And I think that it's, we have to, in particular, not yet to wedded to what we write.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Right, we know we don't get right, but we're really communicating input. On four. Passing a bill.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Page four, I just wanted to be specific on the website of DCF and AOE where it says publicly accessible database of prequalified providers. If we can add website of DCF and AOE. Think it says that a couple of times in here. Just want to make sure I understand this. The pre qualification, you have NAEYC and at least four stars. So you need both of those?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, they're or. So you only put the conjunction between the last two items of the list. So they're all ors. They're all ors. They're all ors. Yes.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I wasn't sure if the or just applied to the three and four stars. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay, and people remember what's happening here. It's underlined here down version three on line 16 through 18, because we changed that later to a requirement. Does Okay. Anybody have any questions about that? Okay. Page five. So this is, I think this is one of the places where we left off in talking about registered home providers. I have

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: to leave, and this

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: is the conversation I want to hear.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: And you were going to think more about this? Yes, so I spoke to the department, and currently there's only 35 private providers, family childcare homes that are offering UPK. And then I sent an email to everybody with their qualifications. So 20 of the 35 are already AOE licensed educators with endorsements as early childhood educator. And then of the 15 who aren't, the current qualifications of those 15, I sent to everybody. So, I think given that data, we're okay. I feel comfortable requiring the same of the family childcare homes, same qualifications. So they're all on their way to doing this.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Exactly. We would give them the same amount of time. Exactly. Okay. So we're going to require it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the same requirement for registered home providers as private providers?

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: A question, so the 20 have the AAE license and we have the 15 remaining, but we just said they're on their way. Do we know?

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Because their qualifications are listed. So one already has a Master's, two got a Bachelor's, And they don't know if don't they're currently continuing their education.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: The other 12, who are a bit further away, we don't really

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: know what they're supposed Don't know their status as far

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: as

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: getting, continue getting more.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It will become apparent. So I think that we have to remember and think about what our goals are, and we're increasing payments, and we want to have comparable education for students wherever they happen to choose where to get that education. And And there's already a lot of

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: incentives and supports for individuals- And money. And money that, Yeah, so the one thing that I do wanna touch on that I forgot is providing the same pathway for provisional. So currently, licensed teachers have a provisional status that gives them a mentor and some other supports. So we want to make sure the similar, we offer family childcare homes, individuals, the same options pathway for provisional license.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: Single, center and family.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Yeah, and yeah,

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: the branding wall working in

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: early ad.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm such a Debbie Downer today.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: I'm

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: happy to ask whenever you all want. I am not an expert on licensing in the teacher field. All of the qualifications for licenses and endorsements live in rules, not in statute. And my understanding of provisional and emergency licenses is it requires certain conditions to be in place for eligibility. And some of those things are a superintendent is requesting it. There is supervision by a licensed provider, etcetera. And so I don't think you necessarily need to make any changes to current law if you want all of those same conditions to exist for someone to obtain a provisional license or an emergency license through the teacher license. Because we're saying that they're required to be licensed. Correct. So it would If you wanted to make special exceptions, Great. Then we don't need I don't think we need to do anything. Okay.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: But the opportunity for those originals will be across the board through the current system, which is linked to a superintendent's engagement.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, mean, I can pull up the rules if you wanna look at them. I'm not intimately familiar with them. Teacher licensing has come up very little for me in my five years in this position.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I've experienced this process with actually a private pre K UPK provider and our local superintendent, and it has worked. Forgot about that till just now.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: From a policy perspective outside of rule, do you want to say anything to encourage similar relationships?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: In other words, to remove the potential ambiguity because it's in the private system.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: And it's my understanding that the early ed team at AOE, this was happening until recently and something was changed, which is why it's kind of top of mind for me, where it seems not to be available anymore for AOE.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: This was like a couple years ago when my local And

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: this is very recently that this so I just I don't know if it's something that we need to work with the department or to Doug's point, be explicit about it in statute that we wanna ensure the same pathway exists.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: I'm hearing something similar. And the points I was making last week, I've had advocates talk to me who have indicated this provisional process or pathway doesn't seem to be happening in the process.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. I think that was the

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: internal change at the AOE that made So that I think it would be helpful to be explicit that early educators have access to the provisional license.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: They're in the political private setting.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: With the same rules.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I was gonna say, as long as they meet all the other qualifications. Just

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: to make sure The same rules have always applied, but to ensure that they have access to it. Wonder We if can say as set in rules or whatever.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, we're not meaning to change changes. The

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: process should be the same, and there shouldn't be any exceptions for early educators, but they should still have access to it. I can certainly reference that here.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I wonder if we should add something also back up in Subdivision 4 that we were looking at about expanding access to a regional plan to further expand capacity, which shall include the consideration of the use of provisional licenses.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, the provisions. That's a good idea.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: There is

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: some language that Katie shared at the end of

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Are we coming to that point?

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: She is included in a section d at the end.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think this language was drafted with an assumption that you wanted to change the requirements. But if all you want to do is ensure that a person who is an employee of a private provider or is running a registered home program can submit an application the same as someone who's employed as a public provider and follow that same track, I don't think you need any legislative language other than that encouragement. I don't know that you need this language. If you wanna change the requirements, like make some concessions for the private and registered home.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: I think we're just looking for an equal path.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. Brenda?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Who would fund it? Because right now private sectors are probably struggling with their own finances. Would the taxpayer be funding it or would private sector?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know the costs associated with provisional licenses or anything like that.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: You have to pay to get a license. You have to pay. A person has to pay a fee to get a license like any other license in the state. But I don't know

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: they what place won't be asking me

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: the cat person. I don't know enough about how that provisional license

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: It's my concern. I wrote to a superintendent to get some facts because I like going to the sources. And she said the three year olds were not a good idea. And that eventually it's gonna end up cost, very costly. And so my thing is after I getting the information from the superintendent is who's paying for it. So that would be a concern. And she said it wasn't good for three year olds, especially with Head Start. And Head Start had already told us it was a problem. Okay, thanks.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I happen to agree about the three year olds, but think the majority the committee did not.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Yeah, go to the

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: professionals. Okay. So I'm still on page five of draft 3.1 where it's talking about on behalf of a resident pre K child. The line that says, however, that the district shall pay tuition for weeks that are within the district's academic year, Act 73, aren't we moving to a common academic year?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. The agency is required to come up with a statewide calendar.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah. So I think we can delete that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. And that works with the assumption that all of this is taking effect with the foundation for Yeah. The foundation

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Or later in the case of Yep. Time we allow for licensure. And then I'm I don't know if you have it in this version about process jointly development implemented by AOE, AHS, and approved by the general assembly.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. I don't have that, but I will that's why it's in green. I knew that there was a decision point in there. Yeah. Okay. By the general assembly. You want to build out any process for that or No. Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Got it? Okay. Anything else on page five, anybody? Okay, on page six. And this is where I start to have questions for, I think, JFO. This is where we stopped. Determining, yes. Think determining average daily membership, is that still Oh, yeah, you got that out. Okay. That's what I thought. All right. Okay. District administrative costs. Okay. So what I don't see here anywhere is is and I I don't know if it's something that we're gonna get information from JFO about is that the district, because they have a responsibility for implementing contracts and potentially a coordinator, that they need to receive some sort of administrative fee on top of the categorical

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think we can build that into the grant payment when we get there.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: When we get there. Yes, absolutely. Okay. And so we're moving down through this page now. We're on paragraph four. This essentially is just saying that a prequalified provider or a school district, isn't that right? That's what I was wondering, because I know school districts are doing this also.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. I think it depends on what the school district is offering.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Heard from DCF that there's, I think, 19 school districts that are combining CCFAP with pre K so that there's a full day. And some of them are doing it by the school district enrolling directly, and some of them are doing through contracts with private providers to come into the school.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so I would have an open question as to whether there is a cut off at some point for the provision of pre K public education and then the provision of childcare. I think if you're providing public education and charging a fee for that, I would wanna consult with our education finance attorney and JFO on that. I have

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: a strong gut reaction to that, but that's Well, that was my gut reaction when I was reading number four. So I felt like if we're setting a standard for public pre K, then that's what it is. And that in the public setting or in the public funds, this is just my personal opinion. So I feel like there should be a line, a line where it says, we're done with public decay, if that's ten hours, if that's fifteen hours or whatever it is. And then the next line is how to pay actual. And that's not what number four does. It enables private payment for pre K beyond what the school district receives for the ten hours. And this is the part that is an equity issue as well. So the school districts that have built it into their budget are providing it free of charge, theoretically. I understand. Yeah. I mean, the taxpayers are all paying it. But those school districts who have not built it into their budget may be doing the ten hours and then they have the ability Right. To And that doesn't seem that's

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: It should be standardized. However it works, it should be

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: But then we ran into the question of, well, what if there's more needs in a particular community? But you have to do that through the type of instruction you get during the time that you're authorized for that instruction. So we don't say, we pay them more through the weights. Through the weights. But we don't say, you're going to get more hours of school. School day is this and we don't say you're going to get an extra two hours of school because you need to learn English. So I'm not a fan of one school district gets to put thirty five hours in their budget and another school district only puts ten hours in their budget.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You won't have that. If this takes effect at the same time as the foundation formula, that's not a thing anymore Because there's no more school budgets in the same way we think of them now, where they are a creation of what the district values, essentially. You all will be telling them the money they have to work with it. Right. I guess our

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: question then will be, do we want to allow additional, seeking additional payment for whatever amount? Because

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: they could choose a full day pre K and not have the resources maybe for something else that one might offer, high school, five foreign languages or whatever. They would be able to choose what they value, and so they could put more into pre K. Is that

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Potentially. I think there's some open policy questions that your other committees are working on, such as, is there more direction to school districts on what they can use their foundation payments for?

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: And we're not looking to change anything within a school district with the changes we're talking about. We're not looking to stop them from providing some service to the kids for forty hours a week. We just wanna make sure that it's dealt with separately and outside of this

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Outside of pre day. Outside of Right. Yeah.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So, in my estimation, number four would need to be changed. So, they're not able to work in private arrangements for pre K. Section

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: four only applies to private providers.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I understand that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: By virtue of having your pre K funding come through a categorical aid payment, school districts are only getting money for the hours and the kids that they have. So they're not going to be getting any money beyond ten hours for the number of kids they have. My understanding is that they are already able to, under current law, operate an after school program, etcetera, and then parents can qualify for CCPAP, and then the program is pulling that in. That part is not necessarily my area of expertise. And so I can definitely consult with Katie, but I'm not sure you need a language change if you want to allow that to happen.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I guess what I'm trying to get at is do we need number four at all? So we're not trying to promote additional pre K hours beyond what we pay for in the categorical aid.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that may I'm not sure that's a legal question. If, let's say, we struck Subdivision 4, do you think that private providers would understand that then they could charge beyond the ten hours that they're receiving from the school district? That's all I see Subdivision 4 as, is telling private providers that, yes, you're gonna get this payment from the school district, but you can also charge a family on top

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: of that. But what we want them to charge on top of that shouldn't be for pre kindergarten education.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: It's for early child care.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Yeah. It's for the hour.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: A child comes to Room 46, and from nine to eleven, five days a week to get their ten hours, they're in pre K. From eleven after school, 11AM for them is after school. So whatever time, they're in an early childcare program that's run by the districts. Right.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: So they strike prekindergarten and put

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: in strike the whole thing.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Right. I mean, you could strike the whole thing because I think that what

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I would do is be clear that, in this case, would be school district or pre qualified private provider. I think that what we want to say is for those hours beyond what is funded for pre K, you can access- The child care financial assistance program. Child care financial assistance program. And that can be done- For early education For early education services. It's for childcare. It's for childcare.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Not for or after school care.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And is both in the private and in the public because it's happening. Can do that.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: What happens to parents like me that wouldn't want to ask for assistance that always, even though I was struggling, pay $70 a week for my kids to go to four year old preschool because I wouldn't ask for public assistance. There's a lot of people like me. So what happens to them?

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well, pre K is public education. And so what we're saying is education is pre K through grade 12. So just like you don't pay for K to 12, you're not gonna pay for pre K. Hours. After, yes. Can pay yourself. You pay yourself. You don't

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: have to apply for that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. You don't have to pay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I just don't want to

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: take that option that their child's-

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Absolutely not. No, that's not required.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: Because my son would just apply for anything. Thanks.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So then the next is moving on to rules.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No. I wonder, and this is, I think maybe should you choose to go through it, I'm going make a note for the next draft to have that language. Term pre kindergarten education is defined here and it is not I think Section eight twenty nine is publicly funded pre K. The definition for pre K here, let me scroll up, is not tied to funding. It's services designed to provide pre kindergarten children developmentally appropriate early development and learning experiences based on Vermont's early learning standards.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: And funded by the state.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And so I think I'm just throwing this out there as food for thought. This definition is for this section only, so I think you can change this definition and refer it to public funding. Or there's an acknowledgment that pre K education encompasses or has the potential to encompass any service, regardless of the funding source, that provides developmentally appropriate early learning experiences based on bells. See what I'm saying? We

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: don't want the second one. We want the

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: first We want the first one.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So you want to change the definition of pre kindergarten education for this section to tie it to public funding? Yes. When will we know the public funding?

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: That's Put

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: it on in Act 73 already. Oh, okay.

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: So it's already there? We're not gonna ask for more because of this? No. Okay.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And whatever iteration comes out of the education committee in ways and means, I don't know what they're doing with other committees because people are

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: And this so ten hour week long proceeds x 73.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, yes. Yeah.

[Doug Bishop (Member)]: So that's that's long been

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: They don't wanna burden

[Brenda Steady (Member)]: the tax six anymore than we have.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: They're already burdened.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So then we're moving through rules. I only had a question on number one. Oh, this gets to that payment part again. Payments as a component of statewide tuition established under this section. I needed to understand that better. I didn't understand that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know that I can offer any feedback. I think that this may not make in kind payments. I think you can certainly ask JFO. I think maybe the field would be a better resource on this. So

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: they could do fundraising, essentially.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't understand what this is meant to get at.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So I didn't either when I read it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Which is concerning that none of us understand

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: what this is. It's most concerning to me that you didn't understand. We didn't understand it. Okay. We have just five minutes to get to the floor. So we should probably stop here.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Up to one page, one and a half pages.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Did a lot of other stuff. Then we have Doug's proposal to consider as well. And a lot of this is actually, it feels like it's very prescriptive when it comes to what's in the regulations to me. Considering what we normally say about regulations and out committees. The rules. Yeah. Okay. The rules, it's very prescriptive. So I wondered about that, to be honest. Could you see if you could find the rules and see if it actually does all this stuff? So it was just a question for me. I'm sure it was done that way for a reason. It was a new program at the time.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Well, and we did something with STARS back in 'twenty three when we changed it. The original STARS statute had all the rules in statute. And with the revision, we pulled them out and put them in rules. So every time we wanted to make a change, we didn't have to go through a legislative change. That's what I mean. Yeah, so I think this is like I feel like it's over the

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: next curve.

[Jubilee McGill (Member)]: I think it's a good exercise to do to find out what can be pulled out and put in rules. So if things And I can find out from the administration, like how often are these changed?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Like, do you need flexibility to be able

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: to change them? I can tell you that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Never. Yeah. The rules are never changed.

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Do they actually have them that in these areas? I don't know the answer to that. Yes. So we're back at this at some point. I don't have my schedule right in front of me, but

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, have today.

[Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Right, because we have the six fifty amendment. Should I send that email to everybody as a heads up to the one section on state attorneys and

[Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Any background information that you have would be a good idea. So that's the one discussion. After floor, we're going to do that amendment. Floor is going to be long. If we have additional time after we do the amendment, we'll come back to committee discussion on pre K, and we'll talk about Doug's proposal. Okay? Alrighty. Thank you.