Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Good morning. This is a joint hearing between House Ways and Means on House Education. It's nice to see you all. I appreciate that we have really fully divided the table here so everyone knows where everyone stands or sits. It's against my knee. We are hearing testimony on the really comprehensive special education report we received. And since we we have a means, hosting this, we're hoping to focus on possibly education fund, but I imagine we might go in some other directions as the GACE may be. Like I said, for folks watching and looking, the documents are just being uploaded and will be available in a minute. So Secretary Saunders, if you'd like to join us. Good morning. Thank

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: you for having us. For the record, I'm Zoe Saunders. I'm Secretary of Education. I am joined by my team to present the findings from our recent current state special education report, along with an overview of our strategic plan and the key initiatives that we have underway. So I'll allow my team to introduce themselves, and then we'll get through the slides. So I'll turn it over to Erin Davis first.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Good to see some familiar faces and meet the rest of you. Doctor.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: There's like a lot of noise behind this table all the time in this room, so the more you

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: can speak up, the better. Use my teacher voice. I'm Doctor. Erin Davis. I'm the chief academic officer at the agency. Originally from Vermont, graduated from South Burlington High School. I've been in the role for a little over six months now. And among the divisions that I lead and support is the Special Education Division. I'm excited to present to you all today. Welcome.

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Good morning, everyone. My name is Ted Gates of the Agency of Education Senior Fiscal Analyst.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Anna Russo, you want to

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: go next?

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Good morning, all. My name is Anna Russo. I'm the Technical Assistance and Professional Development Manager on the Special Education Division at the Agency of Ed. Lovely to meet you all.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: So

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Anna will be sharing our slides and advancing for us. So thank you, Anna. We'll provide background on the report. This report was a requirement from Act 73. And we want to start by emphasizing the goals for this report. We're to really evaluate the current state of special education delivery. We took a very proactive approach to this involving a lot of stakeholders in the review of data, and see this as a way for us to meaningfully strengthen the delivery of special education. So our goals for this report are to improve special education delivery, and managing the rising costs, ensuring inclusive services in the least restrictive environment in a way that makes efficient and effective use of limited resources while resulting in the best outcomes, responding to the challenges of fully implementing Act 173 and the lessons learned from implementation efforts to date, ensuring that the delivery of special education is responsive to student needs and addressing drivers of growth of extraordinary expenditures in special education. We'll provide a little background on how this report came together. We conducted an extensive review of all data. And we also brought in practitioners from across the state of Vermont to work with us in evaluating the current conditions, evaluating the barriers and success factors as we look at special education delivery across the state. And we continue to be involved with practitioners and really moving our work forward. I want to really recognize and appreciate all of those that participated on the steering committee. So I'll allow, if we can advance to the next slide to talk about the steering committees, I will allow Erin Davis to walk through that process of involving practitioners across the state.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: One more slide forward for me, Anna. Thank you. Yeah, so during the production of this report, we met with the special education policy sprint team several times. The meetings were crucial and really beneficial to us in the development of this. It included folks from a variety of roles in the field. And the group really supported our team in the importance of naming some data gaps that we had, specifically when we think about the level of implementation of effective instructional practices, the quality of tier one first time instruction, and access to multi tiered systems of support. We have gaps that prevent us from responding to some of the goals that the report identified. For example, responding to the challenges of fully implementing Act 173 and the lessons learned from implementation efforts to date. We're going to talk about that in a moment as one of our findings. There are some data gaps, and we really tried to identify those and be specific about what we could share with you confidently based on the data and the things that we are not yet prepared to share and need to explore further. Additional themes that were raised through our work with the sprint team included the variability in district capacity to meet the needs of students with IEPs. The continuum of educational environments vary widely across our state. And we know there's variability that is expected. But we also know that within the variability, there's limited access in some places to highly skilled professionals, variations in terms of teacher preparation gaps, and then a genuine need to have a more robust program evaluation and monitoring protocols to assess the quality and cost of special education delivery across the entire system. This charge is beyond the scope of just special education. There's a need for improvement that's present and necessary across the entire system. The SPRINT team also stressed the importance of clear communication to the legislature, that we are talking, when we're talking about cost, it has implications. And when we think about the cost of special education, that special education is as expensive as it needs to be in order to make our educational system accessible in Vermont. Special education is about addressing progress in the general education curriculum for students with disabilities through the services, goals and supports, which ultimately make up what we referenced as specially designed instruction. It means the student needs specially designed instruction beyond the scope of what is in general education can offer in order to make progress. And we have to be mindful in the ways in which we understand this data, because students on IEPs have individualized programming based on how they access general education. And therefore, we cannot look to special education as the sole reason for rising costs. We're talking about systems here. We recognize that special education is presumptive on quality first time instruction, and to improve outcomes for all students, which is a need in our state right now. We really must prioritize and support the academic progression for all students. And ultimately, that includes understanding what is happening at that layer of education in our state that most students are interacting with. So when we say improve the quality of tier one instruction, improving the quality of tier one instruction is essential to realizing the full intentions of inclusion. We're saying that because if environment is, the environment is not meeting the needs of most students, all students are going to have a hard time accessing it. And students with disabilities are going to be identified as needing specially designed instruction in order to access their general education environments, which results in an increase in students being identified as needing those services. And in order to talk about all of this effectively, and actually change outcomes for our entire system, we have to understand the gaps and then understand what's happening at that first layer. This is really We want to make sure that we're thinking intentionally about going upstream, that some of these findings are downstream effects on students with disabilities and IEPs. Absolutely. We can progress to the next one. So one of our main findings has to do with the increased student need and extraordinary costs. I seem to have put my materials out of the border. Thank you. There's several main findings highlighted within the report. Firstly, the increased student need. Overall enrollment has declined, but the number of students with IEPs has increased. Additionally, we have growth in students qualifying for extraordinary expenses, and that indicates greater intensity and complexity of needs. This information, coupled with those rising extraordinary costs, particularly as it relates to tuition and transportation, reflects both an increasing severity of student need and an unknown variability of in house capacity, staffing and specialized resources. Extraordinary costs have driven nearly half of the growth in special education spending over six years. While only 15% of the expenditures. So despite driving 50% of the growth, these extraordinary costs make up for only 15% of the total amount currently being spent on special education. When you take that at an even more granular level, that growth is concentrated specifically in the areas of tuition and transportation costs for more intensive cases.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: So can folks hear me all right in the room?

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Yeah. Okay,

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: perfect. So as of school year twenty three-twenty four, there were 16,152 students with individualized education programs, ages three through 21 in Vermont. There is an ongoing trend of increasing total number of students with disabilities on IEPs, three through 21, and an increasing total extraordinary cost, even as overall student enrollment has declined. So, you'll see that the red line is showing the percentage of students on IEPs out of the total number of students enrolled, while the blue line is showing the total pre K to 12 enrollments. So, while total enrollment kind of goes down, the total percentage of students with IEPs in Vermont is increasing between school year twenty nineteen-twenty twenty and through twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four. So it's an increased from 17.9% to 19.16%. So in the school year.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Did you have a question about the last slide?

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: About this, that one? Yeah. So I just wonder if you have geographic breakdown of this.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Geographic in what sort of way? We do have it broken down by specific, by LEAs or SUSDs, but if there's geographic regions, we would just need to know that makeup.

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: That would be good. That's the breakdown. Thanks. Does that show up in a slide here today? No, that could be

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: a follow-up. That's how the data are organized to be aggregated at this level. Yeah. Sorry, we have one more question.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Actually, have two questions. The first is that Act 173 of 2018 changed the criteria for identified students with disabilities. And I noticed the changes in the inflection points of this. And I wondered if this is an indication of greater need or a change in practice, In part because I don't believe that Vermont students are twice as likely as the pollsters to be disabled students on average in the nation. So I wondered if you consider whether it's need or a change in practice. Actually

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: in the report, there's some additional data and there's a time point for that where you can see the rule changes. So Anna, if you want to take that question, I know that was an area that you really examined deeply.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Yeah, I think so. There's a slide in a few that you'll see it a little bit clearer. And then if we wanted to look at, we could provide more data specifically for those rule changes because it does impact certain disability categories more than others. So we would just wanna provide probably a little bit clearer of a graph to help analyze that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Okay, if you could remind us when we get to that slide so that we can revisit the question, that'd be great. Then I think there's a second

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: follow-up question. When Act 173 of 2018 passed, it was the intent of the body was that we focus on primary first obstruction because that is the way we prevent over identification. Unfortunately, the division or the group that was set up to do that work was ended, the people were dispersed and the moment was reallocated. So that work around improving primary first instruction never happened. And I wonder, I mean, just wonder, is there an intent in the administration right now to actually do work when I'm improving instruction? Because I can't help but wonder if some of this data is what we're seeing because we failed to do that initial work.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Yeah. So our report was really clear that we've identified major implementation challenges with Act 173. That's a main finding that we're going to go through in the subsequent slides. Also, as part of our strategic plan, there's a very intentional plan and a strategy to support statewide training and support to improve the quality of tier one instruction. So that absolutely is a main finding and is directing our efforts as an agency. So let's revisit that question at the very end and make sure it's Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Back to

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: you all. I believe Anna was up.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Thank you. So in school year 'twenty four-'twenty five, there were 16,354 students in total with IEPs, spanning ages three through 21 in Vermont, fourteen sixty of whom were ages three, four, and five year olds that were in pre K. And this graph shows the total number of students on IEPs in Vermont from school year 2019 to school year 2025. So the data shows that for most of the period from 2019 to 2025, the number of students with IEPs remained consistent, around 15,500 from school year 'twenty to school year 2023, with the count rising approximately to 16,000 students in school year 2024. So, just to not create more confusion, but the dotted line on the graph does represent a change in measurement methodology. This was because of federal definitions and categories. So, before school year 'twenty one, the data for students on IEPs was divided into two age groups, three through five and six through 'twenty one. And then beginning in school year 'twenty one, the measurement was adjusted to three to five year olds not in kindergarten, and then five year olds in kindergarten through ages 21. So this change in methodology partly explains the visual shift in the green line and red line. And after school year 'twenty one measurement change, the way the data is collected remains consistent, so allowing for a clearer view of these trends. So from school year two forward, the data shows growth in the number of students with IEPs. This recent increase in total student count is not a general trend across all age groups, but rather is driven by a steady rise in the number of school age students requiring an IEP. The data shows that the number of preschool age students has remained largely stable, while the number of students ages six through 21 has steadily increased. When considering grade level percentage of students with an IEP, that number ranges for K to 12 students from 16 to 22% on average. So indicating the rate of students with IEPs persists across grades for school aged students with IEPs. And then to that earlier question, the rule changes was in effect for school year 2023. So we could, in a follow-up, provide that change in eligibility with a line and then possibly also broken down by disability categories, would help that one of those first questions that popped up. So the chart on the left specifically isolates the data for three primary disability categories for students on IEPs, other health impairment, emotional disturbance, and autism. Students with autism as a primary disability category shows an increase of 33 percentage points between school year 2019 and school year 'twenty five. Other health impairment has also shown an increase by 26 percentage points between school year 2019 and 2025. And then emotional disturbance has remained relatively stable, but it's kind of pulled out into the table on the right for school year 'twenty two-'twenty three to its higher than average prevalence in Vermont compared to a national percentage.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: What is the definition for purposes of this count of emotional disturbance that diagnose mental illness or if there's a, We have families who can't access mental health care, so is that identified by guidance counselors, school nurses?

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Emotional disturbance as defined can differ significantly. So I'm sorry, it's a little hard to hear.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: The question was how would a student qualify for disability emotional disturbance? What is the criteria?

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Yeah, so I probably am not the best person to ask for eligibility. We can follow-up with that and I can speak to the team and we have folks that focus on evaluation procedures and disabilities categories.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: It

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: might be the same thing where we need some further information, but I was hoping you could explain more other health impairment, what that includes, what increase seems to be at those particulars that are common across the rate of increase, etcetera.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Other Oh, health impairment sorry.

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: Go ahead,

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: Anna. Other health impairment is like a special education disability category for students that have chronic or acute health problems that limit their strength, vitality or alertness and adversely affect their educational performance. If I understood the question correctly.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Back to you.

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Okay, so the next couple of slides show changes over time in special education revenues and expenditures. So the first slide here looks at the major special ed revenue sources from 2020 to 2024. It's kind of fine print, but prior to Act 173, we relied on the reimbursement models. So those are the first three columns on the far left. And then we switched to the reimbursement to the special ed census block grant, which is blue and purple columns in the middle. And then we have the second set of data is the special ed main block grant. And then after the census block grant is extraordinary reimbursements. And you'll notice, as mentioned earlier, that there is significant growth in that subcategory over time as a percentage, much higher growth than the other categories. Then we also have IDEAB revenues, triple E revenues, state placed student reimbursements, and then finally Medicaid IEP reimbursements. Next slide. Then looking on the expenditure side from fiscal year 'eighteen to fiscal year 'twenty four, we have total special ed expenditures for those years and then the percentage growth in each year.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Sorry, can you go to

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: the last slide? I was trying to see it. When you call these revenue sources, the revenue sources for districts or revenue sources for the state?

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: State aid, two districts.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: State aid, two districts. Yeah. Thank you. And how does money get into that state aid? Across here, how much of that is federal and how much of it is state education fund dollars?

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: I would have to follow-up with that. I couldn't answer that right now.

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: Okay. Thanks.

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Looking at the total expenditures over time, from fiscal year 'eighteen until about fiscal year 'twenty one, they were kind of flat, not much significant growth. Some of that, especially fiscal year twenty twenty one was due to COVID and we weren't transporting kids around. There was limited services available. So there was actually some decreases. But there was exceptional growth in fiscal years 2022, 2023 and 2024. In that entire time period from fiscal year twenty eighteen to 2024, the growth was somewhere around 17% in total during that extended period, which is not insignificant, but I would have you noticed that that's actually a little bit less than total education spending growth, which had higher growth in that total period. But, and then looking specifically at the total extraordinary costs, the percentage increase in that category was significant. And that's where we mentioned earlier that even though it only represents about 15% of the total special ed costs, it represents about 50% of the total increase in special ed costs.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: And the expenses are the total aggregated district expenses? Does it include any of your expenses at AOE?

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Only if that money goes through and then the district's suspended.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: And so for the district spending, is that only district spending that goes through AOE or is it district spending that might be coming from other sources as well?

[Ted Gates (Senior Fiscal Analyst, Vermont Agency of Education)]: It's from any source. Any expenditure that they identify as special ed is included in that.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Now

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: I've had several business managers, especially people work through the reimbursement forms for extraordinary expenses with me. And what I can't help but notice is that if you serve a child in your district at a lower cost, you can use that reimbursement process. You'll end up getting reimbursed less than if you place the district out of the child out of district into same work office setting that may charge two times as much just because of the form and the way it works. So, it is often less expensive for the district to place a child in a more expensive, substantially separate settings. I'm wondering if that's related to our over reliance on those settings. But I also know that that is going to increase total cost of being EdFund as we see there in these very high numbers. And I just wondered if that's

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: something that you're looking at as well.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Yeah, so another finding of the report that we'll talk about is really ensuring that we can have a greater continuum of support available within district support. So we'll walk through that in a minute. And we've actually been able to have some examples with different districts that have been able to implement effective programs to fully meet the needs of their students. But yes, that

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: is I'm sorry. Are you looking at the reimbursement?

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: We did. I'm not specific to your question around the reimbursement process, but we can talk about that when we get to the conversation around how we're delivering those services. Is the question around a review about state place students? Do have Yeah, sorry. I think that I wanna make sure I'm understanding your question. Is your question if there needs to be a review of the actual reimbursement formula? That's not part of this discussion. Follow-up.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: Oh, yeah, mine was very much a follow-up on that question. When we created Act 173, one of the big debates was a level that we reimbursed extraordinary costs. Were we providing an incentive, as Representative Holcombe, think, pointing out, to use out of placement services because they would be at a much higher reimbursement from the state level. And again, I don't think I heard you say yes or no that it's

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: So we yeah, so I'm clear on your question. So we did talk about that last spring and really reviewing that formula. And there was an adjustment there that allows for those increased reimbursement rates. I have to go back to our report to see if there was a further analysis from last spring that we can touch on when we get to that section. But yeah, we have those conversations around the incentives around reforming.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Back to you, Anna.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Or not? Was it Or starting? It wasn't you, Anna. It's from X-ray. Super to me.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: So it's actable. It's used to flow. I know you can't really see it. I

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: got it.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah. So this last graph here is now showing the growth in extraordinary costs by disability category. And this illustrates the distribution of extraordinary special education costs in Vermont across different disability categories from fiscal year twenty fifteen through 2025. You'll see the categories of emotional disturbance and autism are resulting in more extraordinary costs to provide services than the other categories. It reveals that the rising overall costs are not spread evenly, but instead heavily concentrated in a few specific categories. The graph highlights the following trends. Autism and emotional disturbance are the primary disability categories that contribute to extraordinary special education costs. The costs associated with those two categories have grown significantly since 2015 and dominate the total extraordinary expenditure. The categories multiple disabilities and other health impairment also show a notable increase in the costs over this period. This could suggest a growing combination of complex needs that require high cost specialized services. In contrast, costs for other major disability categories, such as specific learning disabilities and speech language impairments, have remained relatively low and stable. This reinforces that the financial pressure on the special education system is not due to a general increase in the number of students with disabilities, but rather a targeted growth for students requiring more intensive special education services. These begin to provide us some insight, right, these last few graphs, the overall growth in extraordinary costs, as seen on these graphs, that growth is probably influenced by an increase education cases for students with autism, emotional disturbances, and multiple disabilities, and also perhaps a challenge in our current system's ability to meet students' needs locally. This trend sorry.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Uh-huh. Just looking at the scrap,

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: there seems to be pretty steady growth in most, if not all, the categories through 'nineteen. And then again, from 'twenty onward, and we can all assume a 'twenty onward growth, what that effect was, what's with the drop from 'nineteen to 'twenty in pretty much every category?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: From 'nineteen to 'twenty, so that was COVID. We mentioned earlier, for example, that there was a significant reduction in transportation costs when most of the Yeah, homes happening

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: yeah. I was thinking how

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: it works.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Thanks. So this trend is also directly connected to Vermont's special education funding system. The state provides an excess cost grant to reimburse districts for the extraordinary cost of students with high needs. And if there are questions about that, we have some fiscal representatives that are better positioned to field those questions than myself. But in general, the data suggests that this funding mechanism is being used more frequently and for a growing number of students in those specific categories. We were going to pause here if there were any questions, but you all have been doing a wonderful job of sprinkling those in. I can keep- And if

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: it would be easier for you for

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: us to save our questions until natural pause points, we are very capable of that.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: It's been working very well for us, I think.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: You're very capable of enforcing that.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Yes. I trust you hard.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Could you move forward just one slide for me? Thank you. All right, so we're going to shift gears into talking about the gaps in service delivery, which was another main finding at VARS. And this is notable when we consider the data around educational environments. Vermont serves students in either a highly inclusive classroom setting, which means that 80% or more of the day is spent in a classroom. 80% or more of the day when we're thinking about ed environments is spent in the general education setting or in separate schools. So kind of a bifurcated process here, which is shown on the separate line item when looking at the data. In the report, this pattern is broken down by disability category. And there's a ton of work needed here to really understand the complexity of this finding. However, there are patterns in terms of it could be creating cost implications, and we're highlighting some service delivery gaps here. It also really showcases the continued challenges with general education and special practices and the alignment of those practices. So a heavy reliance on paraeducators to access general education for those students who are spending their time in the general education setting at more than 80% of their time, and then a limited shared ownership of outcomes for students with IEPs.

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: These are the federal categories of educational environments. The first setting served inside the regular classroom 80% or more of the day is considered the least restrictive environment as the most inclusive setting. And as you go down the list of potential settings, they get more restrictive, 40 to 79% of the day, less than 40% of the day, separate schools, residential facilities. And then there are some educational environments not shown here, include correctional facilities, hospital or homebound placements. So as you look at the data, you'll notice that a large percentage of our students are served in the least restrictive setting. There has always been a focus on inclusion in Vermont, and in most cases, our students on IEPs are served in their regular setting 80% or more of the day, and that's at 82.32%, which represents more than 12,000 students. And then looking at the percentage of students served in the regular classroom, 40 to 79% has decreased since school year '22 to school year 'twenty five. Similarly, students served inside the regular class less than 40% of the day has also decreased in school year 'twenty one, while students that are served in separate schools has increased in school year 'twenty one. So, looking at educational environments by similar sized states of students on IEPs ages five through 21, The most recent national data for comparison is school year '23, and for that year, Vermont had the third highest percentage in the nation of students being served in separate schools. When compared to these states, Vermont surpasses these states, and the national average for the percentage of students included in the regular class, 80% or more of the day. And as you look at other educational environments, you'll notice a similar trend. 40 to 79% of the day, our percentage is very low comparatively. And then again, the higher percentage of students in separate schools at five point two seven percent, which is more than double the national average of 2.36%.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So we're going to break this data, these data down a little bit more. And now we're looking at these data specifically with the disability category of autism. And those percentages are representing that number of total students with a primary disability category of autism. So Vermont leads in this table at sixty three percent for including students with autism in regular classrooms, regular education classrooms, for eighty percent or more of the day, which is substantially higher than the peer states. In this comparison, that does not indicate that students are placed in less restrictive settings at a higher frequency than the states in this comparison, though. Conversely, Vermont has a notably lower percentage of students with autism served inside of a regular classroom between forty to seventy nine percent of their time of their day at fifteen percent. And as you move down to separate schools, you notice that there's a much higher percent of students with autism placed in separate schools at nine percent. This figure is quite a bit higher than Wyoming and North Dakota and also surpasses the national average of five point eight one percent. This pattern suggests that when full inclusion, so eighty percent in the regular education classes, if that isn't the chosen path for a student with autism in Vermont, the alternative often tends to be a separate school setting rather than a less restrictive option like a regular classroom for just a portion of their day.

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: Could you describe a little

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: bit what a less restrictive setting would look like other than putting a child into a separate school? So I'm trying to understand what that middle delivery system looks like and how that might vary across different types of districts because some districts have access to different resources than other districts. So for example, it doesn't mean agencies or other folks that help meet the needs. So what would it look like for a child who's inside a regular classroom like 46.79% of the same? What would they do with the other part of

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: the time?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So one model that's not infrequent is some type of resource room where the students are spending a portion of their day in a setting with special educators who can support them in that way. And then they are looking at the needs of the child to identify the parts of the day where it makes sense to include them. So perhaps they can join their peers in music and PE courses and those kinds of things, but they need the additional support and pull out for their literacy instruction, just as one example. So there's, I would say that's probably the most common model that I've seen is that there's some kind of pull out space where they're getting some of their instruction in that setting. And then there's other parts of the day where they identify based on the needs of the child how they can be included with their peers in the general education setting.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: So you've identified that as, yeah, our system versus other states perhaps. What do

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: you think is driving that gap?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah, I don't know that we're able to say quite yet. That is an area of further inquiry, and it's a reason that we've identified this finding as a critical one in our analysis here. I mean, that's going to vary widely across the state. And it certainly is an area that we need to get a little bit more deeper of an understanding of, and I wouldn't want us to conjecture prematurely.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: I would say qualitatively, we've been having these conversations with districts that are developing their programming with in house to evaluate the advantages of providing those services and also what it takes to be able to actually pull those together, what resources and expertise needs to be brought to bear in order to deliver those specialized programs in district. And we definitely see that scale impacts a district's ability to do that. And certainly some of the case examples that we've identified, larger districts are able to provide more comprehensive continuums of support for their students and even offering specialized schools and programs within larger districts. So it's an area that we're focused on. So within the therapeutic school setting, there is a lot of statutory requirements in terms of actually reporting data and oversight of those programs. There's not the same type of visibility that the agency has for those specialized programs that are developed within district. And so what we've talked about with a lot of practitioners across the state is there's a value in being able to have greater visibility to those programs, how they're organized so that we can actually learn from them and scale those effective practices across the state of Vermont. We've had very willing partners among our special educators in districts in the state who are really helping to surface some of those promising practices. But it is not currently required for the agency to have any role in overseeing that or collecting data. In this report, we're not suggesting that, but we are suggesting we need to learn more about that so we have greater visibility to the positive impacts that can be established when these in district supports are available and what, to your question, is required in order to make those happen. And so far, in some of the preliminary review that we have done, there's definitely impacts of scale and funding to be able to do that and level of specialization. And so that's why it's really an area that we're going be focusing further, because we know, given that there's increased acuity of needs of students across the state, that there's extra demand for our educators to have that specialized training and expertise. Many of our districts, because they challenge to hire for those roles, are having to contract that out at a significantly higher cost. So all that feeds into this broader conversation. Hopefully that gave you more context. Representative Brady? So as you've looked at some of the promising practices in this qualitative data, is it happening in larger districts or larger schools?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: I don't know if you could maybe give some specific examples of where you're seeing some of this. And I wonder if you have examples of small schools in large districts that are doing it, or if we're talking about larger districts that also have larger schools.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: There are certainly different models that we're revealing. Certainly larger districts have been more of a focus of how we're looking at that in terms of pulling resources. We've also approved the first proceeds in the southern part of the state and are reviewing that implementation model. We have started these qualitative convenings with a number of districts that are offering programs. And I think what we found was in most districts that we reached out to, they said, oh, yeah, we have a specialized program. Okay, share more about it. There just wasn't that visibility. And so we weren't able to pull this into the report, but those conversations are ongoing. And so we've been able to collect program descriptions from across the state and are still in the process of really evaluating that to fully answer your question around where we see exemplars, not just because of size of districts, but different configurations of schools. I don't think we're far enough along at this point in our review to give you specifics, but we are seeing that this is kind of emergent and is happening in districts. And we're seeing that there's different abilities to deliver on those goals because of some of the challenges around scale and funding. They've been part of our coasters.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: One of the challenges, I mean, to go back to the reimbursement rules, also the way we can at various points, the way we test for it, the way we handle reimbursement, we actually make it harder for those to be done within distance. But I wonder if you see, and you'll get to this, but if they need both seats or shared, regional shared services as a way to sidestep some of those current challenges and create that scale where it's needed, but also in a way that doesn't punish those districts who do step up, then hope some of those programs continue.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: So we've been really consistent that we see a role for shared service delivery in particular areas of education delivery, inclusive of special education. The question is, where can you get to scale with larger districts? And then what type of specialization is still needed that we would need to pool resources across the state, either statewide service delivery or regional? And so those are things we've been consistent in saying that it's an area of focus. And we provided some recommendations in a subsequent report around how to structure those regional service deliveries. There's a lot of different ways to deliver them. And I know many of you in the room are really well versed in those different models. I mean, I think part of our recommendation as we look at the BOCES law was passed before we were contemplating larger scale education transformation. And I think recognizing that we know that this is a need, there's different ways that we can structure those models in order to ensure that they are fully aligned with the objectives and the needs of the state and also resourced appropriately so that we're not creating additional duplicative work district by district, district by district across the state to achieving the benefits of some regional service delivery, and then contemplating what can actually be delivered through larger districts with central offices that are more robust versus what still needs to be, what still would have some demands for additional regional service delivery. And special education is an area consistently that we said we'd want to look at to evaluate statewide. We're going to move to clarifying questions only and then big picture questions.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: Okay.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: This slide shows you the educational environments for students with a disability category of emotional disturbance. Before we dig into this table, I want to note that this disability category is defined differently from state to state and has different eligibility criteria from state to state. So this comparison is not linear, since there are many variables that might cause variation across the states. The table does show a distinct pattern for students identified with emotional disturbance, with Vermont's data again standing out from its peers and the national average. Again, similar to the chart on the previous slide with the disability category of autism, Vermont serves a high percentage of students with emotional disturbance in regular classrooms for eighty percent or more of the day, coming in at sixty two percent, which is higher than the national average, but less than our peer states. As you move down the table again, Vermont shows a very low percentage of students with emotional disturbance in regular classrooms for forty to seventy nine percent of the day at five percent, and for less than forty percent of the day at seven percent. Both of those figures are well below the national average and other states in the table, which again might indicate that these intermediate placement options are not frequently used in Vermont for students with emotional disturbances. The most significant finding is Vermont's extremely high rate of placing students with emotional disturbance in separate schools at almost twenty percent. This figure is nearly double the national average, and it's drastically higher than both Wyoming and North Dakota. The data for students with emotional disturbance sort of reinforces that all or nothing pattern that we were seeing with the data on students with autism. Vermont places at a higher proportion places a higher proportion of students in a fully inclusive setting, the eighty percent or more, compared to the national average. However, for the students who are not placed in that setting, Vermont's educational system appears to be heavily favoring separate school placements, almost to the exclusion of other options within local schools. The very low percentages in the 40 to 79% and less than 40% categories suggest a lack of a robust continuum of in district support services that could serve as alternatives to separate schools could be due to a variety of factors. I know we've already started to get into this a little bit, but such as the severity of the students' needs, a lack of specialized resources, a lack of specialized staffing in the local schools, or a systemic preference versus separate school environments for this particular population. The complexities that we've outlined on these slides should be evaluated with caution. The agency has identified that while many districts have organized specialized settings and intentional clusters of services to provide support for students with specific disability categories, it's not currently collected data, as the secretary was speaking to, in such a way that the agency staff can evaluate with confidence the quality or structure of the services. This is an area that we're pursuing further inquiry that should include both qualitative analysis and comparative quantitative analysis on student outcomes in a variety of those service models.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Carolyn? Oh, sorry, Representative. Got this water bottle. Yes.

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: In particular for the educational environments for students with emotional disturbance. Do you look at the classrooms that these children are and to see what the, how students overall are performing if there's their students with in that classroom with severe emotional disturbances in that classroom. And do you consider a classroom the least restrictive environment for a student with emotional disturbances?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: When determining the least restrictive environment, obviously, we're wanting to be as inclusive as possible, but we're considering the needs of the child. It may not be appropriate for them to be in a general education setting to have their needs met at all portions of the day. And so it's really about looking very closely at that individual child's needs and always erring on the side of trying to be as inclusive of a setting as possible, but making sure that that is actually appropriately meeting their needs. Second question?

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: State or federal, remind me, please, of the disinvolvement. A state or federal requirement for these

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: restrictive environment is federal. It's federal.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Do you have data about how the children in the classroom are doing?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: You're asking about the student with the disability or are there peers that are not everybody?

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: I think if you could talk about just the overall trends we're seeing in performance and then the need to ensure that the student

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: I think that's moving beyond clarifying questions.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: All right. And I just want to

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: make sure that we have time to connect it into all

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: the Yes, we can have a fuller conversation around I think your question really is how we're making sure that every student is getting the educational quality experience through our system and that the right supports are in place in the classroom to achieve that. I think that's your question. Yeah, and we can have a fuller conversation around some of the strategies we have in place to provide some additional training around those evidence based practices and also a more coherent monitoring and support framework that will allow us to be better positioned to respond to that in future planning. Sure. Thanks. She has a wonderful connection. So the next slide.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: Yes, there. So thank you for the segue.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So the next main finding has to do with the role of high quality of first time instruction, right? And so that is going to be directly connected to outcomes for all students. So another main finding is something that we've alluded to a number of times at this point. We must recognize the role of high quality instruction. Declining performance is present for all types of learners in the state currently. Plus, there are ongoing persistent achievement gaps for students with IEPs. And that speaks to a need for stronger implementation of best practices and first instruction in evaluation and of the implementation of Act 173, and of the accessibility of environments to all students. We just shared one, we have higher rates of separate placements for students with significant needs compared to other states. And perhaps the the continuum of supports is missing in many schools and districts. We need to support schools in both building less restrictive classroom environments and placements that are aligned with individual needs, and we need to strengthen the role of that first time high quality instruction.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: I

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: might claim this water.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Yes, go ahead.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Out of the three of us. Okay, so this report and the subsequent special education strategic plan report call for an evaluation of Act 173. It's a critical task, and Act 173 was not a special was not special education legislation. We need to get clear on that foundation. Act 173 was the right legislation, and it tackles many of the issues that we're talking about now. However, the accountability methods at the Agency of Education that are currently in place do not yet offer visibility into the implementation of Act 173. We don't really know all of the ways in which evidence based practices are being implemented, both in general ed classrooms and special education settings. The consistency of access to intervention supports is another unknown. We're not sure yet how the clusters of services function across schools and districts. And again, bigger than just special education, bigger than just students with IEPs and their ability to access special education. This is really about all students who struggle, understanding how schools are approaching their multi tiered systems of support design and how that impacts service delivery for all the types of plans that could be employed for any student who struggles. The crucial next step for us in an area of inquiry in this process, and much of that work is not just from within the special education division, but more broadly within the academics area that I mean. And then lastly, just want to acknowledge, I know we looked at the dates a couple of times here that this act did pass in 2018, and so there was an interruption in implementation due to the pandemic.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: As we conclude the findings from this report, we do want to lift up a note of caution. As the legislature is considering different cost containment considerations, it is important to keep in mind the federal rules governing IDEA. So we're not going to get into too much detail, though I am going to highlight a couple of specifics around maintenance of fiscal support and maintenance of effort. So these are dual accountability methods that protect funding for students with disabilities, and just something that the legislature should and must consider as we consider any cost containment strategies. At the state level, there is maintenance of fiscal support. At the local level, it is maintenance of effort. And these provisions require that we maintain funds for special education spending. It is that accountability mechanism that governs the use of IDEA funds. I think it is important to note as we act 73 contemplates a funding change to understand the impact of that funding change on our ability as a state to maintain fiscal support and the implications on districts to maintain for MOE. You will recall that the original, I know there was some question about this in some prior testimony, so we want to give a little context to the timeframe of how the funding system has evolved into Act 73. The original proposal from the governor did recommend that we maintain the census block funding precisely because we have some questions and concerns around the impact on maintenance of fiscal support and maintenance of effort and recognizing too that that census block funding has not fully been implemented in terms of rolling out the financial system. Additionally, we have had a lot of conversations already with the US Department of Education and OSEP specifically around the state's intention to move towards a transformed state, which will be more efficient and effective at delivering high quality education services inclusive of special ed to really think through implications of any funding change on our ability to achieve MFS and MOE into the future. As we analyzed the funding proposal, one of the goals within this report was for the agency to put forward a review of those conditions that need to be in place in order to move towards the weighted funding proposal that is included in Act 73. We have commissioned a separate study to evaluate that, and that study will be available to you this legislative session, which is looking at the disadvantages and advantages of moving towards a new weighted system for special education, along with considering the implications on MFS and MOE. So that will be a resource to you in the coming months to support decision making, and I know also to support the Joint Fiscal Office as they finalize the funding

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: strategy. When?

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: I mean, April this session is not useful, so I'm just wondering when

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: this is.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Well, does align with the role of the Joint Fiscal Office Study. So hopefully they're beginning to do that work this month. So I think we do have April as our timeline, but

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: I will go back and look at the scope of

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: work to find months for that. But that's precisely the reason that we didn't make recommendations in report that we submitted to you in the summer, because we recognize that this has tremendous implications on MFS and MOE. And it is really critical that we do our review and due diligence to bring forward to you any potential ramifications of those decisions. So just wanted to note that we recognize that is a request that you've made of us. We've also recognized that there's some additional expertise needed to evaluate that. And then I want to highlight that the reason we are taking that so seriously on the next slide, this does have, we are required to maintain this. If the state or districts are out of compliance, there is a one to one penalty in terms of dollar amount. So it does have a very significant fiscal impact. I do want to note that there are exceptions for when you're reducing the amount of spending for students with disabilities. And that's if there's one high cost staff departure. If there is an extraordinary student that qualifies for extraordinary expenses and exits the system, either through graduation or moving to another district that would qualify, the overall reduction in census, reduction in the child count of students with an IEP and then long term purchases. So, the Vermont LEAs have used the exceptions one through three in order to justify that reduction in MOE. So I just wanted to highlight that and just stress this as a note of caution. Know you were joined by special education directors or some committees earlier this week, question and wanted just to share that we are very well aware of this and are being really methodical and thoughtful around bringing recommendations forward and partnering with the Joint Fiscal Office to ensure we have a full understanding of what any change in the funding system and how it would impact our ability to achieve MFS MOE.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Before you transition to the next report, we also had the Council of Special Education Administrators scheduled for this time slot. Our committee assistant told me it was a bad idea and too much of a time crunch into the grocery door. So I'm curious, with folks in the room, should we transition to the Council of Special Education Administrators and then have AOE come back? Okay. Would that be okay for all of you to come back into the second half of your presentation? Okay.

[Erin Maguire (Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators)]: Could I make a suggestion? I'm sorry to jump in. I'm Erin McGuire.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Love that for you.

[Erin Maguire (Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators)]: I think I think that, having the agency finished this presentation and for us to be here with you all for it and then to be able to respond in totality. I've been taking several notes and have lots of thoughts to share and I'm interested in hearing the rest of it. We would be happy to schedule a time to return to you all as opposed to having the agency be bifurcated in their presentation. Certainly though happy to do whatever it is that the committees feels most appropriate. We're gonna follow your lead, Erin.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Thank you so much for jumping in. Back to you. No interruptions.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Thank you. Thank you, Erin. And Erin's been part of our steering committee among others. And I just want to emphasize, this report came about because of the collaboration that we have had with practitioners across the state. And what you're seeing here is real clarity around where we feel like we have gaps. And our strategic plan is designed to address those gaps. And so it was really important for us to have those conversations and producing this report, so that we were really honest about where the challenges are in Vermont, and clear around the role of the agency of education, role of the districts, how we can work together to overcome many of the challenges and the barriers that we've identified. I have another slide. Oh, so throughout this process, we have looked at our organization and how we can best deliver on the education priorities of the field. I think all of the committees are aware that the agency of education completed a reorganization, and that was potentially designed to elevate our areas of focus where they are needed most and to reorganize our teams and expertise in a way that can be responsive to the field and supporting us in achieving our collective goals. And so within the Specialification Division, there were some really substantive changes that occurred through our reorganization. Mainly special education has been elevated now within the agency of education. It previously was a team that was buried within another division. And so it was not part of the kind of decision making that happened at the agency wide executive level. So a couple of changes that I will note. We have created one, we created a new academics area. And with that was the addition of the chief academic officer. Doctor. Aaron Davis has taken the leadership of that role. We also have added a deputy chief of academics. The deputy chief of academics will be overseeing special education and curriculum instruction. That is with intention because what you're hearing from us in the presentation is that in order to enhance our special education delivery, we need to enhance the quality of tier one general instruction for all students. And that's why the organizational structure is reflective of that. The deputy chief of academics and the chief academic officer both sit on my executive cabinet. And then we have elevated the state director of special education role to be a division director of special education, which sits on my extended cabinet. Through the appropriation from the general assembly, we added another role that is supporting with the management of our strategic plan. We are in the final interview process to bring on that role. We've also made some shifts to ensure that those folks in the agency that were really dedicated to special education for our younger students, school age students are now part of the team so that we're creating that alignment across how we provide support and monitoring for special education. Additionally, outside of the special education team, we created roles to support our oversight and training and financial management of IGEA funds and all special ed revenue resources. So that includes the addition on our finance team of a special education finance director. Additionally, we have created a grants management division with an emphasis on overseeing IDEA funds and providing level of support. So I want to emphasize that our reorganization efforts were very mindful of the needs that we have to strengthen our focus at the agency of special education, our agency wide focus on special education, and is intentional about breaking down silos that had been pretty persistent at the agency, and contributing to some of the challenges that we have noted. So, wanted to just emphasize, many of you know about our reorganization, but wanted to make sure you understood the intentional design and focus relative to increasing special education leadership and expertise.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Our strategic sorry.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: Secretary, you said that you were in the final interview stages for which role was that again?

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: The strategic plan coordinator. It's an education program manager for the special education team.

[Unidentified Legislator (House Ways & Means or House Education)]: And the other ones you mentioned, are they all filled at this point?

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: The chief academic officer position is filled. The deputy chief academic position is, I think, posted this Posted this week. So we're really thrilled about that. Also, the special education division director role is posted now, and we are recruiting. So for those of you who are watching who are interested in making a positive impact on special education delivery in the state of Vermont, please, I encourage you to apply and be part of our team of supporting our goals of improving special education delivery for all students across the state

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: of Vermont. For that. Okay.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: We have a lot of details in the remainder of this report around our special education strategic plan. I do recognize that we are short on time. So if could progress to the next slide, out of sight to hear where we are. Oh, am I in right place? Okay. Act 73, in addition to requiring a report, required us to develop a strategic plan to enhance special education delivery, wanting to ensure that we had very clear measures and goals of how we were going to make that improvement with an emphasis on implementation. This requirement coincided with the agency of education being engaged in a comprehensive strategic planning process that started with an environmental scan, where we've gone all across the state for a listen and learn tour. We've done an intensive data analysis to really evaluate some of the gaps and the opportunities for improvement. And so it was important as we took on this requirement that we embedded our focus on special education within the agency wide strategic plan. And I'll talk a little bit about how we're structuring that to ensure clarity on roles and responsibilities with an emphasis on implementation and results based accountability. This work continues to involve both practitioners and families across Vermont. So if we go to the next slide, I'll share with you the inputs that we received into our strategic planning process. We did partner with our special education advisory panel, the seat, in really reviewing the first part of all of this work started with looking at the report. We need to ground all of our planning around the realities of our current state. And that was the first part of this work to make sure that the strategies that are going be implemented are really going to move us into the right direction. So you can see that we had several meetings with the special education advisory panel. We also took into account the work that the seat did in producing the unmet needs document. That was another important resource for us in evaluating the current state that is reflected also in our report where there's clear areas of alignment. We continue on a monthly basis to work with the SIFT and giving updates on where we are in the planning and collecting input. Additionally, we established the steering committee. As Erin was describing earlier in her presentation, that started as a policy sprint team. So we actually organized a policy sprint team last session to try to understand the impact on change from the Act 73 on special education. Because that wasn't as much of a focus in terms of the kind of policy making last session, that team really didn't start working until after Act 73 was passed. And then they've transitioned into being our steering committee, which will continue to support our efforts. The composition of that steering committee has actually evolved. There's additional practitioners across the state that will be joining our efforts to continue to evaluate and provide input on our planning. But the steering committee was very instrumental also in looking at data and giving us really an understanding of what are some true challenges on the ground when you're thinking about implementing some of these best practices, and what are some of the ways in which the agency has been helpful? What are some of the ways in which the agency could improve upon the support? And so we really took that to heart as we developed the strategic plan. When we look at the way we organize the approach for strategic planning, it did start kind of look at the four buckets of work that we engaged in. The first on that, you don't mind, Anna, go to the next slide, was starting with the environmental scan, as I'd mentioned. The report that we submitted was a really critical input to that. And so we took that work very seriously because we knew it would guide everything else that we did from there. Then we established the strategic framework for the agency wide strategic plan. We hosted our first statewide planning retreat in November, which was attended by over 300 educators and partners, agency staff. That also was a timeframe for us to establish a regular cadence, where every year we will come together to review where our progress is. And within the strategic framework, those are organized around the five pillars, which we'll walk through momentarily. Those five pillars really acknowledge Vermont's emphasis on a whole child approach and ensuring that we are evaluating quality of the entire system. And special education is infused throughout the strategic plan, which is intentional. The next phase is looking at implementation planning and then progress monitoring.

[Rep. Rebecca Holcombe]: So I'm going to kind

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: of flip to share where we are with the report that we sent you is really looking at the environmental scan. So taking the reports that we've walked through of those major findings and outlining how special education is infused within this strategic plan framework. Are there dates attached to the I can. I can add those.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: That would be great. Sure.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: Yeah, absolutely. I would say the strategic framework formally launched in November, just to give you a point of context, because that's when we rolled it out through our strategic planning retreat. And then now we're at the next slide, we're getting into the implementation planning. So we have stood up steering committees. The special education group was the first to really start this work. There were great important lessons learned from that in order for us to best facilitate the steering committees moving forward. The role of the steering committees now is to look at the goals that we have set within each of these pillars and establish measurable targets, along with evaluating if there need to be some revisions or refinements to those set of goals that have been set forth. Additionally, within this work, we're looking at how can we best promote statewide improvement in these areas. And so the steering committees will be an important reference point as we're developing those action plans to make sure that the work that we're setting forth to do is actually going to add value and address the main areas of focus. And then progress monitoring. So we're really clear that we do not want the strategic plan to be something that goes on the shelf. That can often happen. You spend a lot of time, there's a lot of community input in actually developing the plan, and then it goes on the shelf and you're not adjusting it. We're really looking for this to be a working document. And so the steering committees will support us with progress monitoring. So that statewide planning retreat that we had in November, we'll have again next November, making that an annual event. And so while the first one really focused on establishing the framework and the goals, then the next planning retreat is really helping us to evaluate our progress towards those goals, so that we can be honest about the advancement we're making along with if we're not seeing the progress we would like to, so that we actually have that time to make make forced corrections. Our strategic plan is definitely aligned with a broader vision statement. And so the vision that we've been articulating is for Vermont to be the best education system in the country and doing that in a way that's really consistent with Vermont's values. And we've operationalized that in terms of giving all students roots and wings. If you'll go to the next slide, and I appreciate it. One of the things we heard from the steering committee that was really important was that our students with IEPs feel like they belong in the classroom. And that's really important for talking about roots is developing that sense of belonging. And one thing that they also emphasize, it's not just a Vermont value, but research shows how important that is for students to thrive academically. And then wings, making sure that every student with an IT gets the services that they need to thrive and to reach their full potential. Within yeah.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Given the time crunch, I wonder if you could jump to the special education division plan slide. Sure.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: So if we can, I'll just kind of show you as you look through this. These are the pillars. This is how we've organized our goal areas. I'll just give you orient you to the first slide, and then we'll pass through. But within each of these goal areas, we've identified these key performance indicators where we're going to set measurable targets. And so just for your benefit, when you go back through that, you'll see how we've intentionally connected these goals to special education is being infused throughout the plan. I appreciate that. No, that's okay. That's fine. The only other piece I would add before the division plan, if you could progress to the funnel slide, Anna, I'd appreciate it, is we're creating that strategic alignment. So what we've walked through is agency wide strategic plan. Each of our divisions is now in the process of doing division planning. Our special education team was the first out of the gate to do that. So commend them for being the leaders in this area. And the intention here is to make sure that we are very clear about how our teams are operationalizing the implementation of these major strategies to drive forward the goals. And an element of that that you see reflected in the report is identifying where they also need to collaborate with other divisions, because we are looking to create synergy, not create additional silos. And so as we start to publish these division plans, you'll see that there's clear points of connection that allows us then to cascade all the way down to the district's school improvement plans and to student IEPs. So moving into the special education division plan, I will just in the interest of time, very high level identify the key areas of focus and will allow our team to expand around the detail that's behind that. So within the division plan for special education, we are reestablishing a strong cyclical monitoring approach. We are addressing gaps in service delivery. Part of that is actually doing further evaluation district by district around how those programs are being organized. Because as we've noted, we don't have visibility right now to the programs and their successes, and we need to know that so we can help to scale those practices. We also are seeking to improve accessibility and caregiver involvement and have an integrated focus on improving quality throughout our system. And so hopefully you're hearing that as a major takeaway. Everything we're doing within special education is also contextualized within our broader efforts to elevate educational opportunities for all students in every classroom across Vermont. The agency wide planning has really given us that structure. And in addition, the division plan work is informed by all of the input that we are receiving from our practitioners who are involved in the steering committees, some of which are actually partnering with us on the training that I'm going to share with you in a moment. We are really endeavoring to do this work in a very collaborative way. Some of the major initiatives that have already rolled out, and I want to emphasize this, we're developing a long range strategic plan. The agency hasn't had a strategic plan for some time. It's really critical, but we know that there are immediate needs now. So we have already launched accelerated initiatives, and we are underway with actually getting into the implementation to support the work now. Within the area of special education, a major initiative is focusing on the implementation of Act 173. That is a major finding that we heard from our report. As Doctor. Davis indicated, we recognize that those best practices codified in Act 173 are the right best practices. The challenge has been the fidelity of the application and also visibility onto those practices being implemented and with high quality. So we are developing a playbook, which will also have an accompanying toolkit to guide and monitor strong implementation. We have heard really consistently guidance documents are not enough. So I want to be really clear on that. This is a structure in which will also be supported by a coherent monitoring tool kit and framework so that we have strong accountability measures. You heard in our report that we often lack data in this area, and this is a course correction in overcoming that. We also, within this scope of work, will be offering bootcamp training as early as this spring on effective systems for those students who struggle. Then into the summer and the fall timeframe, we will be hosting regional convenings and coaching to provide differentiated support for the use of this playbook and the toolkit that will also beyond regional planning, where we're coming together as professional learning community will involve one on one coaching for district systems. Additionally, as I mentioned, we'll be furnishing a report for you with some additional considerations around the funding being contemplated with Act 173. That's really focusing on the conditions that are needed to be in place in our system, disadvantages, advantages, and also literature review around how other states have moved forward with a weighted model and the lessons learned that we can build upon. You've heard me talk a lot already about our reorganization being a key element of this strategy. We have really done an emphasis on integrating program finance. You can see that today too, just within our team members that are here today. But in addition to restructuring, there's new processes that we're building in to ensure that we're having that level of collaboration, that we're doing the transfer of knowledge that is needed to have a full understanding of how we best support our system with special education delivery. We also, you're hearing a lot about a movement away from guidance to focusing more on statewide training and professional learning. This is already underway. We've expanded professional learning on inclusive practices. Trainings, these are statewide training sessions. There's a series of them that have already kicked off and they are involving both our educators in the field, along with our experts at the agency, so that we're all learning together and understanding those best practices of how we move forward. Read Vermont is an initiative that we launched last year to support the implementation of Act 139 and ensuring that our promoting statewide literacy outcomes. Our special education team is very involved in this effort. Again, making sure everything that we're doing is focusing on all students. And that includes understanding the unique needs of students with IEPs. You will note that there will be 's a request coming forward to you through the governor's recommended budget to be able to revert funding to appropriate to this purpose of supporting Green Vermont. So just want to note that that is how those dollars would be supporting with job embedded coaching for principals, curriculum directors, and educators around the science of reading. We talk a lot about our holistic education. That is true as we're designing our approach for our special education strategic plan. We know that there's other factors that impact students' abilities to learn. One of them is getting to school, being in the classroom. We have a challenge with chronic absenteeism. This is a national issue that many states are facing and has really been exacerbated since the pandemic. So, we have an Everyday Counts campaign that has been launched. We've also introduced some statutory changes for chronic absenteeism to ensure that there's consistency and how that's implemented across the state, clarity of practices. We've partnered with the health community across Vermont, including UVM. We've hosted a large scale conference to really provide training and learning around those best practices to reduce chronic absenteeism. We have great examples across our state of districts that are doing this effectively and part of the design of this effort. And graduation requirements, this was another element of Act 73 focused on elevating academic quality. The Agency of Education submitted recommendations for statewide graduation requirements at the end of the calendar year, that is now with the state board of education to review and make determinations around. Within this work, we've been really clear about having one diploma for and being consistent with that practice that Vermont has had for a long time. And we've stood up a working group around accessibility for those students with IDPs and that work is already underway. We have, I think they met this week, correct? Yes. Kicked off this week just to make sure that we're being really intentional around the accessibility supports needed for our students with disabilities to attain a Vermont School of Development.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: You have one minute left,

[Rep. Carolyn Branagan]: I'm just Thank

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: you. That's really helpful. So we'll hear from the special education council maybe next week, and we'll talk to Howzaz about it, but we'll to see the both of separately. Hallway just felt really loud. And thank you all. I think we have a lot of follow-up questions and we'll figure out the best way to have everyone back wherever they need to be to get those answered.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: The team that you'll hear next will help us to sort through some of those questions, too, on our steering committee.

[Rep. Emilie Kornheiser (Chair, House Ways and Means)]: Thank you

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: so much. So thank you all for being online. Sorry to take your time.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Thanks, everyone. We'll see

[Anna Russo (TA & Professional Development Manager, AOE Special Education Division)]: you soon.

[Zoe Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont)]: K. See you soon.