Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Amy Wardwell]: Live.

[John Boschnell]: Okay. Alright.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So this is the Senate Education Committee. And at the at CBU on December 8, we're back after one session after a lunch, and now we're moving to a panel with teachers after having before lunch finished with a student with a panel of students.

[Dave Trebintzik]: This is educators and staff pretty representative of a lot of different jobs and roles within the building and I'm going to ask each of you just your name and what your role here is and probably why you specifically are here and then the senators are going to actually haven't introduced yourself yet right so they'll introduce themselves first and you can introduce yourselves your name and your role and then they're going ask you some questions. Alright.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So on my right, Senator Heffernan from the Addison County District. I live in Bristol. So very close.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Kesha Ram Hinsdale, this is my district. My kids will go here All goes well, and I don't think my husband made any of you cry as his teachers, who graduated in 2010. Who?

[Dave Trebintzik]: Rachel. Jacob Moon.

[Laurie Barry]: Know. They are.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm Seth Bongartz, represent the Bennington District and chair of the Seventh Education Committee. So, yeah, so we'll just do that, we'll continue that format. You go around and just tell us what you do, who you are and what you do.

[Troy Parity]: Troy Parity, I teach, I taught in the ninth grade core program, health and physical education for many, many years. And most recently I've been in the NEXUS program which is personalized learning where students build their own courses. So it's basically anything we sort of don't offer that's of high interest or relevance that they want to do we help them build it and attach it to standards and support the project.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You could talk about one of those students plus Codman Sips.

[Jess Hopkins]: I'm Jess Hopkins. I'm the building based director of special education here at CDU. Prior to that, I was a special educator here and then a chair educator here as well. I oversee all special ed and five zero four as

[John Boschnell]: well as our

[Jess Hopkins]: alternative programming at my school.

[Laurie Barry]: Laurie Barry, I'm a school social worker. The prior to coming year, I

[Jess Hopkins]: worked at a very different school district, so I feel

[Laurie Barry]: like I worked at a really needy school that doesn't have nearly enough view than it just we have here. So really stark difference. I also before that worked for a federal TRIO grant and worked all over the state of Vermont. So I've been in every high school in Vermont. I worked in our most impoverished schools. So the perspective I bring is statewide to, you know, what it's like to be here and what it's like to

[Naomi Williams]: be in other schools. Hi, my name is Naomi Williams. I'm one of the school counselors at CBU. I also work with most of our multilingual students.

[Amy Wardwell]: Hi, my name is Amy Wardwell. I'm I've been a social studies teacher at TDU for many years. Over the last two years I've moved into administration and I'm the current Snellinghouse Director. And in that position I have oversight and work with a number of different programs. I'm the core program director for our ninth grade students. I work with the RISE program, our personalized learning program, and work with some of our volunteer outreach club members.

[Jess Hopkins]: My name is Katie Mack. I have been the librarian here for the past two years, and prior to that I taught social studies in Chittenden House, in the core, and also in the upper house. Hi. My name is Julie Ming Carr. I'm the Fairbanks House Administrative Assistant.

[Julie Ming Carr]: In that role I'm basically responsible for about three zero four students figuring out where they are, sure where they're supposed to be and that sort of thing.

[John Boschnell]: I'm John Boschnell. I teach social studies in the Fairbanks ninth grade humanities program as well as economics in the upper house. Prior to my three years here, worked at Spaulding High School in Berry with Lori Berryman, So I bring that perspective to him.

[Dave Trebintzik]: Hi, I'm Dave Trebintzik. I graduated from here in '94 and then taught in the cork in thirteen years and then have been doing sustainability work and teaching science for the last week.

[Brad Miller]: My name is Brad Miller and I teach tenth and eleventh grade social studies. Previously was a teacher in the ninth grade in selling corps and also worked with Lori and John. That's called him high school. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you. Just to set up the discussion, we are trying to, last year during the session, we tried to get out a couple of times to visit some schools and gave up. It's hopeless during the session. We're all way too busy. And we only have half a day because you have a morning committee and an afternoon committee or an afternoon committee. So it doesn't work. So we're using this time before the session to try to, A, just to get out and visit some schools, or visit some districts, but B, try to just step back from the discussion that we all know is out there about the bill and the legislation, but make sure we're focusing on the bigger question of how we're achieving the provision of an excellent educational opportunity for every Vermont child. And so just to give this a little perspective, we started in Canaan. Can't remember three weeks ago, whenever that was. Snowing. There's a school in Vermont, small by necessity, it's Canaan. And so very tiny school and we did the same thing, the same format, same student panel, teacher panel, and really fascinating. And we've been to Woodstock and we've been to Rutland. And now we're here sort of bookending in a way. Have one more to go, but it was bookending Canaan with one of the larger schools in the state. But all around, the things that schools are doing, the challenges and opportunities of what they're actually doing to meet the need, not just meet the needs of every student, but provide an excellent educational opportunity for every child. That's what we're trying to get at with these discussions. And so, I don't know exactly how to frame the first question, but we have one way in Rutland. We chose Rutland in particular because it has a reputation for providing really good continuum of services and really good wraparound services for kids both during the school day and sort of in a way of necessity outside of school as well. And so don't know how to frame the question, if you have comments along those lines from what you're seeing here. I mean, lot of the times what's happening, I think, is extraordinary efforts by individual teachers. There's a systemic part of what's going on in the school toward those ends of not just meeting but providing real opportunity for every child regardless of socioeconomic circumstances. But also even for the child who's a high flyer, making sure we're getting their needs. And so sometimes it's systemic and sometimes, in fact, think quite often it's individual teachers doing extraordinary making extraordinary efforts for kids. And I know that's going on here, so because I think more learning goes on in every school. But if you have anything to add to that discussion for us, would be a great place to start, either things you're seeing here. I think it's also important to talk about the challenges, things that aren't working as well. I know we're all human, we all want to talk about what's going on, right? But I think it's also interesting for us to hear, just as we're trying to really get our minds around the needs of the system, or even within, you know, all the efforts, things that aren't working as well as you wish they could, or opportunities you could see through some circumstances to be able to do it better. So that's just kind of a discussion that we want to get started here. If you can pick that ball up and do something with it, that would be great.

[Jess Hopkins]: Well what came up for me is

[Laurie Barry]: it was really interesting to be in a school that didn't have as many resources but had this amazing work based learning program and to come here and not have a work based learning program. No offense to yourselves or even your peers in government but it was an unfunded mandate with flexible pathways We'll just call flexible pathways and more into it. So, it's great to offer work based learning. It's not great when you don't have transportation. The kids who end up being able to take advantage of that often are the kids who have access to a car or parents that can support another vehicle in the household. So I feel like there's a lot of people here that bend over backwards like you were talking about. Teachers that have connections, myself included. And part of that is then you run up against some of the legislation around what's allowed with tech centers and their co op programs and work based learning and what's allowed. So I think what's frustrating to many of us is that we see, even in my practice as a social worker, and I do a lot of mental health work, is that's what gives kids hope. Kids who are not necessarily on the college trajectory but just want to start working the trades, just want a job, just want something to call their own. We see the change in them astronomically when they feel like they're getting rewarded, they're getting a paycheck but more than that, they're feeling like a sense of reward to be responsible enough to

[Jess Hopkins]: have a job and then to be able to

[Laurie Barry]: get school credit for that. So that's not the problem. Schools are able to figure that out in terms of what equates elective credit all that stuff. What we need help with is figuring out how to create work based learning programs that are not fighting with tech centers for that legislation around safety and OSHA and all that stuff. Get all that but I feel like we're just putting up these barriers for kids who want to work And so that's where my head went. Like us

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: to stay in touch. I'm leading a CTE work group and you'll see an op ed from me and the local papers about exactly what you're saying. And I have a bill in the works, but if you really do have to approach it from all perspectives, and yours is one that's kind of missing.

[Troy Parity]: When you talk about teachers doing exceptional things, you know, I think we have a lot

[John Boschnell]: of that. I think, you know, we

[Troy Parity]: have an amazing staff, you know, and we poached a bunch from Marion. And that's real. And that's real, right? Because, you know, people can choose to work wherever they pay. It changes and the climate and the new resources they have with restored students change. But we also have a lot of kids doing a lot of amazing things because of I would say our historic leadership around providing the space and the structure for clubs and those activities so if you saw our C3 well we had advisory today so What we visited advisory. Yeah so which is a part

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: of the culture which a

[Troy Parity]: lot of schools have but we've also carved out time in our day for clubs to move into the school day because traditionally they were were sort of in the school day but after that last bell and kids drove away and ran to get on the bus. So we have a lot of things happening with student groups. Naomi is part of one and there's so many unified sports and clubs and because we would end of the day that it's accessible for every single student and kind of expected a little bit that you are taking advantage and being a part of those communities and those clubs that do those things and support others not only in our community but the greater community and find ways to do community service and then collaborate around you know civic justice and many of those things. But that's intentional right through the structure of the day and through the commitment from leadership to carve out that time and have that happen.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can I ask when it gets to the folks who've gone from Spaulding or Barry here, you know, when we're trying to have statewide conversations about a foundation formula and dollar amounts that are equitable per student, regardless of the political will of their community to raise their budget? I'm very, I mean, I think of Barrie and Rutland often, you know, places where they have much lower per pupil amounts, because that's what their community is focused on. And I, you know, I'm in a position of wanting to defend the largest one of the wealthiest districts in the state, but I can't ignore the rest of the state. So if you, you know, I think those of you have perspectives from around the state, it's helpful to compare that and compare what it's like to be at a school that has had its budget voted up for a long time, which is not the same in other parts of the state.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Although they had to put it down.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That was a shock to everyone as it was to me who voted for it. I just, the foundation formula strikes me as real equity that we actually haven't had before, and there's a lot of rumbling about it, but we have said we have equitable schools just because a local community votes on their budget with very inequitable amounts that we spend per student. So I'm pretty attached to the foundation formula. If people have other feelings about it, or can compare different school districts, think that's helpful for us.

[John Boschnell]: I think that the there was definitely more of a feeling amongst the faculty of building the banks anytime a budget vote came. You know, I think in my six years there, I don't know that it ever passed the first plan.

[Jess Hopkins]: Right. Thinking that, I'm not too sure.

[John Boschnell]: And so there's that uncertainty, you know, obviously makes it part of the workplace. And the students would catch on, you know, there'd be union days where the teachers would dress up to be supportive of each other. And that, know, you rightly pointed out, is an NHB year. And it's just one of those things that I think the community and the school, the teachers and the staff, it was almost it felt a little bit like an us and them thing. I don't do social media or anything like that, but people would tell me about a lot of the nasty stuff that would show up on the socials. Yeah, it definitely made it uncomfortable and unpleasant at times. But at the end of the day, you know, we came in and we were able to kill the robot.

[Jess Hopkins]: Remember

[Brad Miller]: I was there for five years and I remember a colleague telling me at one point that there was messaging going around among community members that somebody had driven through the parking lot at Spalding and thought our cars were too nice. And, you know, and that felt that stinks. But, you know, it's probably less specific than you want it to be, but the reason that I ended up applying for a job here was I wasn't unhappy at Spalding, because Spalding is filled with wonderful teachers. Truly. That's not lip service. There is such tremendous potential at that school. And I'm in my second year of a Rowland Fellowship right now, and I'm very thrilled to see that there is a new Rowland Fellow at Spalding. Ultimately, I think what was hard about Spalding for me was that bigger factors than teachers had control of caused us teachers at Spaulding to have sort of like a negative the discussion was negative. There was just a lot of complaining for the sake of complaining, which was suffocating. And then I came here and for a bunch of reasons, probably money, money is one of them, but then there's other reasons that we could talk about. The attitude here among colleagues was solution oriented and positive. And that was the biggest change for me coming here. Absolutely.

[Laurie Barry]: I would just add that there was this element of you're not going to be people here so I felt like we had young teachers that didn't stay so you had already inexperience which you can work with because there's a lot of really really great people there but there was this tension in it and I also think that you just feel badly at the end of the day knowing that you drive or you

[Jess Hopkins]: go to the store you're going to

[Laurie Barry]: make a significant difference if that doesn't feel great and also the leadership had tremendous turnover from the top down it's really hard to implement change and do positive things so the biggest pressure for me was the leadership and just feeling the solid like you're you're respected and you're appreciated and professional development you didn't have access to it. I spent the last time I had to go for my re licensure which we're responsible for our hours. I had to find all free opportunities which that is so stressful to try and find free opportunities for PD that we're required to do it's kind of ridiculous.

[John Boschnell]: One other thing that I'd point out too is coming here to bring you back over to the student. One thing that we've done really well here and I've taught in that grade my entire career is our core program here. It is really a wonderful way of helping students make transition from middle school into high school, helping students find a sense of belonging, giving them community right off the bat, and giving them the extra support and safety nets that they need to make sure, hey, you're going be okay, we're going help you become, you know, you're a little bit patient that's been on now, but we're going to make you successful.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Can you explain core a little bit better then?

[John Boschnell]: Sure and I think there are other people in this room who are probably far more qualified than I am too but I still see I thought it's the new guy here. We have our four cores and each freshman as they come in is assigned to a specific core. So they have the same team essentially in theory that we'll be teaching them. So we can get together, we can have our weekly meetings, we can talk about students maybe who we're concerned about or you know, we can talk about students that we want to celebrate, put up for awards. It just creates this really, really tight knit sense of inclusivity where we do these different things together. We are Fairbanks core, Chittenden core, something to be proud of. And it's just a great way to help people make that transition. And if anybody else wants to add anything, I forgot.

[Jess Hopkins]: There are four houses like Hogwarts.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And the

[Jess Hopkins]: core team is the ninth grade experience in that house.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So what does it have to do with their education end or is it just getting them more familiarized?

[Jess Hopkins]: It's a bridge between a middle school model and a high school model. So it's team of six teachers including an embedded special educator have a group of, depending on the year, around the kids, eventually, year to year. And those kids share those six teachers for the year. And that way it's a middle school model, and then they will be the core for electives, which gives them access to the bigger building. And you know,

[Troy Parity]: know we've got a school the size of Charlotte, right, and then we've got a school the size of Williston. Know, Williston is bigger than Canaan, right? So when you think about the kids coming into the ninth grade here, depending on what town you're coming from and what your experience has been, that can be pretty jarring for kids. And so the core is meant to do several different things and one is to make them feel part of that community and that they're known well, but it also allows us to do what we want to do in terms of climate and culture because we us they're in house, they're in that little pocket and you can do a lot of different things with them interdisciplinarily and think about what are our real goals here? And I don't if you saw any game in the building, like to take care of the place, take care of each other. Like a lot of that is what happens in terms of creating the culture that we want to see throughout four years and it happens in the core program. And we can, you know, they can blow up that schedule, do whatever they want with those students, you know, to respond to situations or for curriculum wise. So it's it's a really important way for us to build climate and culture which is so important when you have 1,300 kids in a building you know, they have numbers.

[Jess Hopkins]: But I also think support student proficiency as well. So you're able to, like, really rapidly intervene. You're able I mean, talking and speaking to the slide earlier, like, kid's name is known. You're able like, a lot of curricular initiatives begin in the course. So our push towards standard based learning began thirteen years ago in the core. So you're allowed to sort of innovate on a scale in a large institution.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And can you seek students that are not reading well, not doing math well, and help get them in a better place during core?

[Jess Hopkins]: That's the major reason why we haven't invented special educator as part of that model. There was a shift that happened twelve years ago, something like that, maybe ten years ago. So the special educator is responsible for case managing all students on IEPs and medical boards who are in that team, but CAND is also able to provide supports to students outside of that caseload, both by our educational support teams. So yes, yes is the short answer.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So just to keep the discussion going as best we can, What do you do, not just in the core of the first year, but throughout the school? And one of the things that I think happens, or could happen in monetary schools, I should put it that way, is there are those kids who fall through the cracks. The ones who might actually, under some circumstances, be capable enough, but sort of just slide through and get through Cs and get, you know, and what do you do to reach, to draw out the potential of those kids who are trying to hide it and not get drawn out. Because I think that's probably a challenge in any school and perhaps perhaps a bigger challenge in a larger school, ironically.

[Amy Wardwell]: I think that's why we have worked really hard with some of the programs that we have like the RISE program, like our advisory system, like our C3 program. We put a lot of time and effort into building relationships with our students so that there is at least some adult in the building who knows every kid really well. And for that child who is, you know, sort of sliding through algebra class, if I know them really well and can say, you know, I know math is not your thing, but you really were amazing in, in your woodshop class, and let's look at what are some possibilities. We have a rise class that we're going to offer this year. That's, you know, let's say we're going to do a woodworking class for bowl turning, you might really, really love this. And, and it's with teenagers, it's finding that one thing that will hook them. And the and that's a labor intensive process. And that's a really relational process. And if we don't spend a lot of time and energy helping every student kind of find what they're passionate about and have adults who are really committed to that, we are going to lose those kids, they're going to fall through the cracks. But I think the things that we're trying to do with advisory with spending time in C3 and RISE and project based learning programs like Nexus is to combat that very thing.

[Jess Hopkins]: Help

[Amy Wardwell]: those kids find the thing that turns them you know turns their world around. And sadly, sometimes those are the first things that get cut when we start talking about, you know, reducing budgets. And that's the thing that really frightens me as an educator is to lose the things that really actually get us the most bang

[Jess Hopkins]: for our buck with kids. We do have work to do in that area and we're doing that. We're doing that work that's identified as an area of need to strengthen our MTSS system. As our most critical support in high school is really complicated in a different way than at the K-eight to have a really robust MTSS system. MTSS. Multi tiered system support. So that's like, you know, in a third in a circle in the school, my daughter, she was identified as having missed a couple of those bowel combinations or whatever. She got pulled by the reading interventionist for three weeks. And I go, home that said, hey, she did it great. She's put me into intervention where that's an example of a multi tiered system of support. For many reasons, it's lot. It's very complex to do that at the high school. And we are working on that at a school level right now with support from the district primarily focused on attendance this year and trying to figure out how to use our data to identify signs of absenteeism early when we know that intervention can be more successful. And that is vastly very, very time intensive and people intensive.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Have you found that absenteeism has been probably exacerbated by COVID? Remember that. We just turned down

[Jess Hopkins]: a Right. Couple of It skyrocketed after COVID. Yes, it went above twenty five percent, I think, is the average across the state of Vermont and CVSD was not any different. We're back down slightly below the state average and believe 10%

[John Boschnell]: or under right now.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. But on a given week, it's ten percent. In a given week, ten percent of kids missed.

[John Boschnell]: The last time we looked at it. About a few weeks

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: ago. Yep.

[Jess Hopkins]: And the reasons behind chronic FSM is really complex and they overlap significantly, especially with older students with issues around mental health and socioeconomic status. We have folks that are pressured to work to support their families. The amount of resource that our school puts into filling gaps in the mental health sector is staggering. And it is a huge barrier for access to kids. There are significantly fewer resources in the community through no fault of the Howard Center. It's just a fact that there are fewer resources for our kids. I go to ACTU sixty four Coordinated Services Plan meeting, which kids who qualify for an IEP, in some cases are entitled to, coordinated services between the school and the Howard Center. The only player at the table who is required to provide services that are at Rebound MS DSP is the school. There is no requirement that community mental health organizations follow through with the services that they book given wait lists within on staff there's no requirement they follow through sometimes our district also doesn't have staff but we still have that requirement and that is a huge huge challenge in delivering good quality services for kids. Absolutely.

[Laurie Barry]: I would say another just to come off

[Jess Hopkins]: of what Jess was saying one of

[Laurie Barry]: the stark differences leaving and coming here as I was the director of school counseling when I was in Barry and the amount of kids I would have drop off drop out weekly. I I had at least one kid a week and they'd figure out when they were 16 if they had parent permission and too often for the reasons you listed parents were happy to have the kid not come back to school. And so if you call with the CSP meeting this community you know DCF is involved DCF was overworked and underpaid and that district was not a great place to be in the DCF system I'll say that and they would come to the meeting and the parent wouldn't want to meet in the school and they would want it to be my meeting and the parent had a bad taste in their mouth about school themselves so to set us up as the owner of that meeting was a bad idea from the get go So to echo what you're saying when that puts us in the driver's seat, you have to go to school. We want kids to go to school and I feel like that was a huge difference coming here for the most part. Our kids want be here. To not be here means there's no reason to in the way and we do have a mental health team. We did not have that luxury bearing and our counselors were overworked and stressed out and so I was able to bring in graduate students to work as my graduate assistants who are at the end of their program in clinical mental health. So they had free counseling services because parents couldn't leave work to bring their kids to counseling appointments. We also do that here. We have some interns but we also have a contract with the community mental health agency that comes in which is fantastic. And our school counselors have caseloads of almost 300 students on their caseloads. Having social workers available to be able to take that mental health loan is remarkable. For a ninth grader struggling to be referred to the mental health team, they're going be seen within a week. And so I feel like the response time and trying to have eyes on these kids is remarkable in a school this size. And we are being required to fill holes that social services is not. Absolutely. Yeah.

[Jess Hopkins]: So like that is reflected in our budget.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So we'll

[John Boschnell]: talk about that Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Us a little bit.

[Jess Hopkins]: Yeah. We can't get a we can't get a therapist in the community. The waitlists are you know, one of one of my advisees right now has been waiting for more than three months, and she's a kid who very much needs that she's not she's not the only one.

[Laurie Barry]: I have an insurance drug in January. But

[Jess Hopkins]: we know we know what the services are that the kids need. They need mental health services, They need, you know, they need food assistance. They need some they need housing assistance. And and we

[Dave Trebintzik]: want to be able to provide all

[Jess Hopkins]: of those things. That may be the charge of public education. If it is, it needs to be funded in a way that allows us to do that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This is partially a question for Adam district wide. I had one principal say to me in Bennington County, she was an elementary school teacher, but she said if it were up to me, buses wouldn't run until 05:00 so that we could keep kids for socializing, you know, all the things you could do in good after school programs, which I think are a little bit harder to do in high school because they have different interests. But is that something, you know, thinking about that continual service and the opportunities for kids whose parents have some means versus kids who don't have any means, thinking about summer as well and summer slippage and or just giving, providing real opportunity for kids in the summer, what are some of the things that you do sort of district wide?

[John Boschnell]: Yeah, I don't know if anyone wants to respond to that, but I would I'll just quickly say I think that when we were talking about that Icelandic study that I shared earlier, that third space idea is really important to home and then what happens in Queen. Think part of the reason why this group has been you know still willing to work on things like the C3 program we mentioned and Ride, having it be embedded in the school, allow us to give permission to some students to step out of how they might be driving themselves and it also provides opportunities by others doing that. Know I think about, I don't know, fifteen years ago when we had another budget challenge we cut our after school busing, our late busing as we call it, ultimately we dropped back a couple of years ago and just began to run even two buses, but I fully understand where that comment comes from. I appreciate it. I don't know if anyone else wants to respond to that. And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: by the way, I think I want to acknowledge what you do with the in house work you do with clubs in house and other programs. So I want to just acknowledge that that's innovative and understand why you're doing it and the way to reach kids that you have always had a hard time reaching. I just want to start with that acknowledgement even as we move on to that third space that should go. I think it really

[Dave Trebintzik]: just comes down to purpose and engagement for those kids. Like we can get them here longer, you know, buying something they feel perfectly or engaged with. I know for Field and Forest, those kids that we have, they're not, they're looking for something different. That's why they take the class. It's an all day class. They get to spend all day with me. And for some of them to sign up for that not knowing what they're going to get into is a real risk for them. But then they find so much joy and purpose that some kids that you would never think would think about going to college for Forestry. Paul Smith, these two kids just got enough Paul Smith because they took this course all day and were outside all day. They really found purpose in that. I think that what we just keep trying to do is innovate different ways to get kids to find their purpose. And then as soon as they do that, they're engaged. And then you got it. Right? So I think that's the key to all kind of what we've been doing.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I've heard exactly by the way that from other heads of school or people at school that if you can get a kid to find a passion that and then it carries over to everything else and so you said you said it but it's funny because your words are almost exactly the words I've heard so it's really rings very true.

[Amy Wardwell]: It can be tricky because you know we're working in a in a profession of individuals right it's really hard to find the one size fits all formula because every child is unique and we've got to figure out well what are the 1,300 different ways that I'm going to get these kids engaged And that takes time that takes personnel that takes focus and it and it may not happen at the same time for every kid right? Teenagers as they're like toddlers all over again right? They're trying to explore who they are, they're pushing boundaries, they're trying new things. And, you know, not every kid is going to find their thing at the same point in time. And, you know, just because you're 15, and you should be this as a sophomore in high school doesn't mean that every 15 year old is going to hit that benchmark at the same time. And I think when we think about education policy we have to be flexible. We have to be allow for that difference in spectrum for all of the different kids in our care.

[Jess Hopkins]: And for the range of needs of all the different kids in our community because we are a public institution we support all of the kids. That common question a moment ago about summer programming when we had a bunch of extra money from the federal government during COVID the district standard summer programming, and was KEA stand at the high school, there was more programming for all kids, and the benefit that that had for our students with disabilities who are entitled to summer programming and school year services, to have them have a summer experience where they work with general ed peers, which is the purpose of special education. Purpose of special education is to ensure access to the general ed curriculum. That created an opportunity that hadn't existed before, and it would be great, and then three years later, three years later, I don't remember exactly how many we are not able to continue to support that, which is too bad. So we're doing what we're required to do with the kids who qualify for it, but standing that opportunity, it erodes all the support, board's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: elections. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: to get to the heart of, you know, what's coming up for us, and I said this to Superintendent Bunting this morning, you all shouldn't be forced to prove that scale means we spend less per student. That is, I think, a false narrative that is playing out right now in Montpelier, that if we made all of the schools, the high schools, for example, the size of CBU or larger, we would automatically be spending less money. I think what the research has shown from ACT 46, which I was there for and other thing, is that you can spend more on the students and have more resources collectively to put into their extracurriculars and well-being, and have more flexibility that way than when, you know, you have a very small budget and a few new special education students, and all of a sudden, it's haywire for your small community. You feel better professionally being in a, I mean, my high school is 4,800, so like a big, big school. You know, I think there's too big, I think there's too small. We're reckoning with that, but I think it should be about student success and well-being, not this false idea that we're going to somehow save money. I'll just add that I think if we were to do any maps, they would be around where the state might be able to scrape resources together to match for regional high schools and maybe more CTE and more, you know, just more facilities that that meet student passion and teacher capability. But how do you all square working for this unified school district, the largest school district in the state, hearing a conversation about if everyone was just your size, we would magically spend less?

[Jess Hopkins]: I can speak to this because I my first seven years were at GSA Fairfax, which is a lot smaller, and my husband still works there. And I think it it's as I think echoing what everyone has said, the teachers are spectacular in Vermont, and there's herculean efforts going on everywhere. And it was nice to have sixteen, twelve kids in a class, And the work that you are doing in smaller schools is maybe not systemic in terms of making connections, but you're sitting around a table, you're all talking, everyone knows each other's names, and you're doing the work organically that I think we have to do as a system. Being at CBU has been incredible. The programs are flexible, you can innovate, but that doesn't necessarily, you know, mean that that our students are getting a better education than students. It just looks the way it just looks different.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I would,

[Troy Parity]: I live in Bristol as well and served on a committee several years ago to try and potentially merge administratively the Virgins and the Naderham District. It didn't go well. But it didn't go well for the a lot of the reasons that you hear about all the time people but my kids all went there they did not come here and some of the things that exactly that you talked about with that the smaller community, everybody knows each other and it's this, you know, ticks the whole building, everybody knows all the students and the community is so strong. But there's also opportunities that they were not able to have that they didn't combine like they wouldn't have been able to have a lacrosse team if the kids from Virginia didn't come

[John Boschnell]: over, right?

[Troy Parity]: And if you think about some of those opportunities that, like you said, you just cannot get super small schools in our district, like we can share a teacher with Shelburne from this building. And that's what we were trying to accomplish with that merger was like, you know, we could share an AP calculus teacher between the two buildings and make that happen the way they were already doing the sports stuff. But there is this slippage you know when I hear a girl the other day talk about trying out for the hockey team here she's been on she's been on the hockey team three years and I think we added another fourth school this year maybe she didn't know if she was going make it this year You know, I'm like wow that makes my heart hurt a little bit, know, you've been on the team three years and now our hockey team just got that much bigger and you might not think that you're kidding, you know. So there are all these weird trade offs, but kids need to feel seen and valued and heard, and that can happen in a school this large if we keep our eye on the prize with how we do it. How we run the place, what we value, and what our systems look like. That's not automatic, right? And it doesn't mean it's automatic in a small school, but those are the most important things. Kids want to be seen, want to be heard, want to feel like they're valued. That way when they are ready to engage, we have that relationship and we can engage them.

[Brad Miller]: I grew up in Northern Virginia, in the in the essentially the Burbs. And the public high schools where I grew up were massive. And, you know, like when I drive around Williston and I blink, they're like, okay, this kind of looks like where I grew up. And I think to myself, like, how many other places in Vermont look like that? Know? We have the numbers we do because a place like Williston, the rest of Vermont doesn't look like that. So to to say that what works for us applies elsewhere, that is incongruous to me, just visually. And I think to what Troy was saying, I sort of talk a lot about at CVU is something called Harkness discussion, is student driven inquiry. That's where I got my role in Grant in. And Dave, John, Katie, and Amy were students of my class training them. Hardness is an important part of our culture here. And, you know, we do student driven discussion in classes of twenty four and twenty five people. And as Troy was saying, it is scary for high schoolers to ask them to be vulnerable with 12 kids, let alone with 12 other kids sitting on the outside listening and watching them. We think that that's important work, asking them to have meaningful civil discussion. And it's just harder with more people in the room. The more people, the harder it gets. And frankly, the easier it gets to just say, let's be on computers today. That is the path of peace resistance, the bigger we are.

[John Boschnell]: I just throw one thing in response to that. Was just hearing Dave speak made me think of a graduate from three or four years ago who had an incredibly difficult childhood upbringing, was struggling at school, and then discovered the goats, and gave this speech that I know both of us were in tears and I had a little emotional thinking about it, talking about what it meant for her to be caretaking these goats. Correct me if I get this wrong, but talking about ways in which that talker doesn't form relationships again with people in a different way.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Are there goats here?

[John Boschnell]: There are.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay.

[John Boschnell]: I say this already connects with Amy's point, and that is when I think about a monolithic district across state or the five that were proposed, I am fearful about who's in charge because I think it's really important that people easily get focused on standardized tests and proficiency, and if you are not thinking counter intuitively, you're not thinking about what we're talking about in terms of like, no, this is about student engagement, which comes down to the four words they keep saying identity, connection, direction,

[Troy Parity]: and proficiency. All four of

[John Boschnell]: those things are happening for you're probably losing your ability to engage them. My experience, and I don't want to pass the snap too wide, is that the farther we move up the hierarchy in terms of people who are making decisions about education, the less likely they are to be thinking about those counterintuitive ways in which we need to hook kids and in the ways in which we need to honor kids. So if educators are making decisions about what our kids need, I feel good about that. I get worried about it when I think about the bureaucracy it would take to support those huge districts. I get, I mean, if we're the right people in charge, then great.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, you're talking in some ways about the ability to be entrepreneurial in the way that you deliver education based on the needs of your community and the kids you serve. Even having this discussion alone,

[John Boschnell]: is education about citizenship or developing citizens or is

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it about developing careers? Those are two very different ways. And I have to agree that we should be very careful about getting too top down because it will intertribute the ability to be entrepreneurial in the way that you meet the needs of kids. So that's something I'm very cognizant of. I haven't seen the infrastructure yet.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Well, have seen the schools that you're all so similar. And I do like the progress that we made that we got to find what how to educate the child. The main thing is educating students and whether we have to take which path to get them interested. All schools that we've been at seem to have a program now can get that more standard standardized. Yes, that would fall under all you people meeting and deciding that. Our hardest part of this is we only going to have x amount of dollars to do it with. And then how are we going to spend them x amount of dollars? And we all see how things get wrapped around the axle at the students say you know hey they closed this course that all of us were very some of us were very interested in and they were really going why didn't we get from top down why other than oh but they just cut it out of the budget. Well cut it out of budget because there's only six kids going to it and we just can't afford to pay one teacher to teach six kids and I think the students would understand and we're teaching them adult decisions right there that you don't always get what you want and it's a hard reality of life. But the main thing is taking the money we have and educating these kids as well as you are. Did you ever get the number per child yet? How much it was? You know, the state's given a number then add ons to it. Can everybody do with that? You know if you can and they can't right now because they're too small and there's no way of making them any larger. Can we incorporate with New Hampshire? That's a whole different discussion to make a larger school. It is just trying to do good common sense decisions that are going to make our voters happy, make teachers happy. Now I am not arguing that you're not paid enough because I couldn't do what you're doing with the children that you're doing them with. But some of the students are exceptional like, wow, it must be a joy to come and meet with them every day. So it's how we are going to do the little bit of money that we have. And that's really the biggest question and is it consolidating some? Your communities don't want it I know that for a fact but can we keep Fordham to keep all these buildings going? We can't so as a community and that's how I'd like to see a community deciding in Bristol, you know, they knew it, administrative was like, hey, we're all for it and then just the local people were like wow we don't want to lose our identity and it's like well then when tax bill comes just say yes and they don't want to say yes no. So that's what I'm gathering from meeting with all you and every you know I believe every school we stopped at it's a renounding you really care about your students, care about your school and now we just got to figure out how we're going to afford to keep it within what little bit of money Vermont has so

[Jess Hopkins]: I know we're about ten minutes over for the public comment

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're not that crowded public comments.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So surprised. Thank

[Dave Trebintzik]: you very much. Thank you. Thank you. You. Thanks everybody.