Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified staff/technician]: You're done. Okay. I'm just gonna say. All right.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: We now are live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're live. Okay. Good morning, everybody. This is the Senate Education Committee, and we are today visiting the White River Valley Supervisory Union, and we're focused physically today at the high school in Royalton. I'll have the committee members introduce themselves in a minute. This is the fifth of five districts that we're visiting or stops we're making kings we're holding around the state. We started in Cayman. I don't know how long ago this had, six weeks ago, something like that. And we had subsequently one of the smallest high schools in Vermont up in Keenan. And we had subsequently spent time visiting the Rutland High School in the Rutland District. We actually want to think about it as districts, not just high schools. Woodstock, CBU, now our fifth year in Royalton. And all of them have had a slightly different focus, although the overarching focus that we're trying to step back and focus on a little bit is how we provide excellent educational opportunity for every Vermont student across Vermont. And as we've been doing that, we've purposely chosen different kinds of settings, small school, large school. You think about it, the obvious bookend for Canaan is CBU, and we were there as well. And then a couple of districts in between with different opportunities and different challenges. And so we were really trying to we tried during the session last year to get out into some schools and came up because it's impossible to get out of the building. Because we all have morning committees, which were all equally connected. And it's hard to so it's just hard to get away. So it didn't happen. We're using the time that we have now before the session starts. Just to go out and hear, and we love the student panels. We've run a student panel at every visit, teachers' panels, principals' panels, and it's really been it gives us the kind of contact, and we hear things that we don't get to hear during the session when we tend to hear only from we don't hear from teachers and students much during the session. So it's a really real opportunity for us to do that. So in a minute, again, I'll have the committee introduce themselves, but just want to say how much we look forward to hearing from you and how grateful you are of you taking the time to do this with us. So we'll start over here on my left.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Steven Heffernan from Addison County District.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Kesha Ram Hinsdale, Chittenden County. And the good news is I think they're the only school that's getting all fixed

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: for that. I didn't introduce myself, actually. Seth Bongartz, I represent the Bennington Senate District. Good morning, David Weeks representing Rutland County. Terry Williams also representing Rutland County.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Nader Hashim from Windham, yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I think we're going start with you guys talking a little bit first, then maybe some questions from us. Yeah. So you've got the board.

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: So thank you guys for all for coming. Good morning. I'm going to introduce ourselves. I'm Jacob, I'm a senior here. I'm from this high school and went to this

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: elementary. So you're from Royal Oak?

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I am from Royal Oak. Okay.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Cool. I'm from I'm from more of the Island Humbers. Good. Hi. I'm Liberty Bowman.

[Liberty Bowman (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I am a tenth grader here, and I live in sixth grade. Hi. I'm Megan Valentine. I am a tenth grader as well. I go to White River Valley High School and have grown up here.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Hi. I'm Tommy Amber. I live in Chelsea, and I go to Thutford Cap.

[Jayden Perry (Student, Sharon Academy)]: I'm Jayden

[Unidentified staff/technician]: Perry. I am a

[Jayden Perry (Student, Sharon Academy)]: senior at Sharon Catney, and I'm

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: sorry. I'm Aubrey Mackenzie. I'm a senior here, and I've lived in Soros my whole life, went to the elementary as well with Jacob.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: I think I'm gonna read us into some of

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: our big topics of discussion. So one of the first things that I think would be really good to talk about, which you kind of already mentioned, is looking at what opportunities we're giving kids, and if it would be expanded, if we did consolidate into this kind of, I don't know, we're calling like mega school, but for putting them all into like a school, let's

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: say 800 kids versus if we

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: keep it, how we have it. And I think for me personally, I walked into high school just wanting to take every opportunity that I could. So just to ramble off a few things that I've done, I've done basketball, softball, track, gone, what else? Soccer, theater, done this all the drama productions that I've been able to while I was here.

[Unidentified staff/technician]: Been

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can you just remind us, as opposed to an 800 student school, how how many students are are here? I just didn't walk in. How about

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Two twenty five. Right? Two twenty five in the high school? Yeah. Okay.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I've been the class president as well for past years, and that's I don't know, it's not to like brag, but to say like, we have a lot of opportunities if you're willing to take them. So I we had like, I think 30 girls in our softball program last year, varsity and JV combined. And so, at least the worry for me would be that if we did go into school, where there's 800 or so kids, you're going to be picking and choosing the best of the best for your sports teams, you're not going to be letting everyone join. And I think that would be the worry that like, you're going to take these opportunities away from kids before, you know, I'm going to go to college next year, I'm probably going to have to give up a lot of what I've been able to do in high school, because I either don't have the talent to do it at a college level, or I just wouldn't have the time. Would anyone to touch on the topic of

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Yeah. To add on to that, so at Duffern, we have about 300 kids. And one thing that's great about that is we had 34 boys try out basketball this year. But that doesn't do cuts. So every single kid has gotten the opportunity to play in some way, shape, or form. We made two JV teams so that we could have more playing time for kids. And and theater, which I'm also a part of, if you join the class, you're in the play automatically. There's no cuts or anything, which is just really great in providing everybody an opportunity rather than just the best.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: And then also a bit of segueing from opportunities into transportation. If a kid lives like an hour and a half away from this new school that they're going to, it would be that there's a lot of questions that would come into play, but it would make it very hard for them to get transportation for whatever after school activities they're doing. I'm actually paying in and live, I think. I wanted to first to talk about transportation for for you guys.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Yeah. Since I live in Pittsfield, that's, like, thirty, forty minutes away from here and so I have to get here every morning because buses don't come my way. And there was one day, maybe last week, where it was snowing and sports were canceled. So it took me like an hour and twenty minutes to get home just because the weather was a little worse. So it if the school was bigger and it was farther away from me, I it would take me a long long time just to get to school in morning. Nevertheless, sports, which would I would get home at like maybe 11:00 at night.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: How do you how do you get to school?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: My parents have to drive me because there's no buses that come anywhere near mine. So I live in Thomas. I only live ten minutes away, but every every morning and afternoon, I work, and transportation is already, like, bad for me. And my schedule is, like, really falling hit on, like, relying on the editing of the plan. So, like, sports, like, which is being canceled last week, they canceled it after the buses left, so I had to be here until sports would have ended. And it's just it would be really difficult, say, to go, like, an hour away, like, you have to drive an hour away, say, like, driving for sports, but you get sick and stuff and your parents have to pick you up. My parents, my father works, like, out of school in Maine and stuff. I would have to be at school until it ends his age, right? I would have to stay for sport because it's like, at some degree you can't just last minute change.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Could you just explain to the committee what it is you do in the morning and evening?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So every morning before school I work, I work on the clock. I usually, on the weekends I like I have tracking so I'll work, do my morning chores, finish at like three a. Sometimes and then I'll go to sleep and then I'll work before school again. And then afternoons after I finished practice, I go and I work again by babysitting for like neighbors or like family friends. I also help them with chores because some of them are elderly. So just going to school really far away, I would not have the opportunity to do that anymore. I wouldn't be able to make money because I'd be so far away. Transportation, it would take me forever to get home.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Who had the track lead story? That was about the going to was it up at UVM? What time did you yes.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So our track leads are at UVM. We had to be there at 05:40 a. M. So say, you go to school an hour away, the office interaction, we would have to do so much earlier and tracers wouldn't be like you have to leave like four in the morning. That'd be crazy.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can you all talk about academic and career education opportunities and how that's going for you? Like AP classes, CTE?

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I'm currently in three AP classes and my average AP class size ranges from three students to nine I believe it is. For college opportunities we have an early college program here where we go with like the Norwich or CTE and then we also have class opportunities when you're a junior at Dartmouth. But our AP offerings are we have several AP offerings compared to other schools around the country. I'm actually quite proud of the number we offer but it's still limited and within those classes we have very few students who actually stay in the class. I'm an AP calculus class with three students. It was four but one drop and then although there's a class behind it that peeps into a pre calculus and there were three students in that group of them dropped so it's a one student class now. We have the population half the class it's just hard to find teachers for it and

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: would you find it hard if you had to do it via like zoom in a larger classroom do you think you

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: could do calculus that way? Calculus definitely not. I think another class like a history and english class could be possible but calculus definitely not. Virtual I've had experience with several experiences with virtual classes and they are quite difficult. You can take the class easily. It's great. You can take it whenever you want. Just it's very hard to retain the information from those classes. So having a have like having the ability to get to know your teacher personally or just being able to call them for help is it is so important for these higher classes especially in the high school.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Yeah. Going off of you said career. So I wanna be a PE teacher for my career. And one of the great things is my advisors actually, that were kind of these PE teacher, and I he's we have this connection. So I've been able to actually help out with middle school classes. Yeah. Because it's like a smaller school, I've been able to, like, have that connection.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's really great. You you know what you wanna be. PE teacher, do wanna stay in

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Vermont and do that? Or

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Yeah. I would like

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: to. Yeah.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So I work here at the school after hours at the One Planet. So I work with ages kindergarten through sixth grade. And I Is that the after school program? Yeah. Okay. And I have learned a lot about my kids and have grown to grow connections with them on a personal level, which would be harder to do if I worked at a one planet with a bigger, like, group of kids. Because on a good day, we have about 45, and I've got connections with all of them. So a bigger group for one planet would be harder to make those connections with it and say, like, because we have like a cut off. I think it's 50. So, that cut off so many more kids wouldn't get that opportunity after school, which would Oh. Transportation could come get their kids partnered if they live where buses don't go. So it just it's helpful for

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So help the the kits you have in that program are from k through five? K through six? Yeah. And is it for, like, an hour or an hour and a half?

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: It's from

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: three to 05:30.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. You're you're here the whole

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: time? Yep.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Next for longer. Okay. And then the buses take those kids home?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: No. Their parents will come and pick them up after work. Okay. Fine. So on the opportunities, like, talkers, I have an interest in doing military, and last year, so my freshman year, I talked to a guidance counselor about, like, oh, what can I do and stuff for, like, future years, and they they helped me, they showed me like opportunities I had, like, there's like, not boot camp, but like you could go and like there's like actual military workouts and you could be there? So I think on the opportunity thing, even in small schools, you'll have that opportunity. You just have to ask for it, they'll accommodate you. There's so much stuff I wanna do and everything. If I wanted to do it, all I have to do is ask, and I'll do their best. I think in a bigger school, like, we'll all just have, 800 kids. That's gonna be harder because there's so many kids you'll have to accommodate. It's gonna take a while. And I feel like in general, they want us to, like, oh, we offer this stuff. Can you do this? Or, like, figure it out on your own. Because my big school's in Florida, that's how it was.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. So I just wanted to thank you guys first for coming out. It's valuable for us to get insight directly from the students. The perspective is very unique, and obviously, a lot of us have been outside of high schools for a long time. So my question for you guys is, because I don't understand the dynamic here, you have White River Valley High School. You have Thetford Academy. What's the dynamics between the two? And Academy. And Sharon Academy. What are the dynamics? Do you have choice? Do your parents have choice on what school you go to? And how are they different? How are they alike? If anybody wants to kind of manage that question. But I just don't know.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: At Sharon, we aren't in the same division of sports as like, you guys are we're in division four, so we don't really, like I know kind of I know Tommy kind of a little bit because I don't know. Just because. Yeah. Don't know.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Where do you guys live? You were from Tom Brady? Tom, you're

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: from Chelsea? I don't know, like, any, like, year unless they went to Tom Brady. And also, I think track I don't do track but I know a lot of people do do track at Sharon and I do do some track here and stuff. But also in Tunbridge, we don't have a high school in Tunbridge. It's just a kind of it's like first it's first branch now. It's combined in Tunbridge and Chelsea, so it's just one.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: At what grade you get choices?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: That's our so, like, once you go to eighth grade, you can just kind of pick wherever you wanna go.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Between the preschools, pre high schools?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Between between any any high school at all

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: in Vermont. Okay. Pretty much.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Oh. Like, I could have gone my dad wasn't there yet. Could have gone to Spalding, which I do not wanna do. But yeah. It's yeah. Do you know

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: how many students are in Sharon High School? 120. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: What are the personalities between the schools? White River Union, the White River Valley, Thurgood Sharon? Can you help us out a little bit to understand, like, is one academically oriented? Is another academically oriented but different? Just just to get a sense of why did you choose the school you chose?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Certainly. It's kinda like both of the questions I had chose because I live in Chumford. This school, I feel like it's a mix of both academic and athletic. A large portion of our school is really athletic, but those people who, like, don't say do sports and stuff, they're really smart. They focus on academics, and I think most of them, all of them really have a good future, even all the sports people. And the reason I chose the school is really because of that. It's close. It's like good community compared to like other schools I shadowed. When I shadowed here, it felt so comfortable. I'm actually friends with the person I shadowed now. Other schools, the shadows were very like, not to say cold and like rude, but they just didn't really connect with students as much as, like, the White River Valley and Sharon. I'm like, that's where it was. And

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Do you want to explain where your siblings went to school?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Oh, so my older sister who's in college now, she went to Sharon and my middle sister, she still goes here. She's a junior. So though my sister did go here, it did play into her back, but I could have really gone to Beaver School, but this school really just has, like it has such a good community. It has good sports, good athletics, and really gives so much opportunity to all the students that attend.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And would you benefit from trust to any of the other schools or would your parents have other transportation at a school?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: I would be able to get bused but I'd have to like meet them halfway time out and like even going here I would have to meet halfway so I just get my fence. He got me here every morning. K.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: I I chose Dever because when I they do, like, an open house. When I went there, they talked a lot about how they focus on everybody, which is kind of confusing. But, like, they do a lot of athletics. They do a lot of academics. There's a huge theater program there. There's a robotics team. You can basically do anything you want when you're, like, there if you have an interest for it. Me being a person who likes to do a lot of of wide variety of things, I thought that that would best suit my personality. I know that doesn't isn't for, like, everybody, but, like, that's why I chose Duffer. K. What so I understand White River has graduating class roughly of 80 students. Between 50 to 80.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: 50 to 80. What about Bedford?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: What's just an average? Like 60? 50? Okay. And then Sharon? Like

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: twenty twenty five. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And is that was that a factor in deciding which school to go to?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Not really. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Just curious.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So let me pose a question since you posed the question to us. So you said your checklist class has three people in correct? Yes. So as a taxpayer and your parents who are carrying the burden of that how how as we as the legislator and your school boards make it more cost effective to because teaching three children our students please forgive me on that teaching three students it comes at a price. So how do we as state answer that question when you have taxpayers going you need to leave.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: And do you have

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: a full suite of APs at the academy? No AP?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Sharon? No.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: We have some of our classes do honors, and it's not like it's not its own separate class. It's just like, if you wanna do that, do it outside of class and get credit for that.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: We have honors classes, and you can take CCD, and you can

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: go to Dartz as well. Yeah. Do

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: you do you come here for AP classes ever? Or

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: No. I I think CCD.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Are they available to you online?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Yeah. So I've taken I just took college offer online

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: because I was eligible for that.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: I had a friend who just

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: took calculus in Dartmouth Right. Because that's what he's eligible for. How how do they get to go to Dartmouth? Yeah. They just arrive there. Try to help. Fifteen minutes? Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I guess I would, like, from a district perspective, be curious why we would pay for a student to go to Dartmouth before fill an AP class in the state?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Yeah, so just to clarify, senators, we provided you students from across the SU that are members of the SU and who made some choices

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: right

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: for secondary school. Stafford Academy is not part of WRPSU. Beyond Academy is not part of WRPSU. Those are independent schools separate from WRBSU with the seed public dollars that our students choose to go to. We have been exploring the Sharon Academy recently. How can we partner to provide some more opportunities across campuses at the Sharon Academy and the White River Valley High School, but the White River Valley High School was the only WRBSU nine twelve school, of which some of our choice districts choose to come to or even districts that are not part of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: our last few like Pittsburgh. And just so people who are watching who don't know who you are.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Oh sorry, Jamie Canarney, Superintendent of Schools at WRBSU and and just to provide a little context for the public and for Senate education, WRBSU serves 10 towns, of which one is a non operating district, Grandville Hancock, so they have choice K-twelve. One is Rochester Stockbridge, which closed their high school in Rochester during Act 46 and merged two towns into an operating Pre K six of which we now receive in the White River Unified District about 85% of their students over the last three years, a majority of which you see in our middle school, which is in Bethel. We have the White River Unified District, which is made up of Royalton and Bethel, which was merged during Act 46. You'll see the blue and gold jerseys. This was South Royalton and then Windham had a high school in Bethel. They kept their elementary schools in each of their buildings. We have a unified middle school between the two towns in Bethel and the high school nine twelve. Here up the 110, which you have two students from one in Chelsea and one in Tunbridge, they merged to form First Branch Unified District. At that time, Chelsea closed their high school, and that is why they had choice grade nine through 12. Sharon is a standalone school district that operates K through six. Of which a majority of your students be a choice, either choose the Sharon Academy, Harvard or our high school. And then we have the Stratford School District which operates the Newton School, which is K through eight and have choice nine through 12, and a majority of their students go to Pepper Academy or the Sharon Academy. But we have students from this SU attending approximately 40 different secondary schools throughout the state or in the nation. Given the fact that there's choice throughout a majority of the history.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So New Hampshire is going to go away.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: But currently, right now, they're attending.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. So are with the students from other from the academies, be be okay taking classes here instead of dual enrollment?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: As far as

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Like an AP class?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: An AP class? Yeah. Personally, it works a lot better for me to do dual enrollment because it's all online, and I have I'm a three sport athlete, so I have to be at effort after school.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So it doesn't really work for me

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: to come here and then go there, but that's just me.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Mhmm. I don't take any basic basic classes or anything or do a loan or anything. I don't know. Is it yeah. Don't know. Are you in some honors classes? Okay.

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I think transportation wise trying to come through these AP classes they're blocked kind of randomly. They try to stay within the morning but they're blocked very randomly And if you were to try to travel from say that pretty much forty minute drive, it doesn't really work with your sending or your homeschool all that well. You could arrive on in the morning here on time but getting back to the afternoon and actually still feeling part of that community would be very difficult I would assume. Sharon it would probably it might be easier depending on where you're coming from and where your home is. A lot of it just has to do with geography and just time it takes getting to and from. Would like there's the idea of going to Dartmouth State classes that was I wanted to do that and then I realized going half hour out of my way each day would not work with my schedule whatsoever. So I was unable to then do that. Luckily our school offers each classes but the transportation aspect plays a huge role.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: And then more on geography I just think the one thing that we hadn't mentioned yet that I thought was kind of important. I mean, Mr. Kearney, I think I don't want to speak for you, but I think we have a hard time as it is calling snow days occasionally. And I just wanted to mention that if we have kids coming from all over hour and a half away, it's probably it's gonna complicate calling things like snow is a lot more as it is.

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Especially with the fact that a lot of people around here live on dirt roads. Mud season is very real here.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: We go to school at White River Valley, but they're letting you know stuff.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So something to add to Aubrey's about, like, calling snow days. Some people, depending on what time their buses go by their house, like, if they merged into a bigger school, will already be on their bus on their way to school, depending on how far they live. So calling snow days would have to be like the night before Mhmm. Instead of in the morning.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: A couple hours before school.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: And then one thing I just wanted to kind of say is that I couldn't really find a better way to say it. But for South Royalton, at least, I think that the high school really makes up, like 50% of I don't know what you want to call it the towns like energy or liveliness, whatever the community, I guess. And I would say that the other 50% comes from the law school, we partner a lot with the law school we had, think last year, I don't know if it's continued, but there was a couple law schoolers that ran like an after school like cooking program, I believe. And I currently am engaged in a little sort of internship thing that's also built into my capstone project at the South Royalton Legal Clinic. So there's a lot of opportunity for connection there. And I think that if you take away 50% of whatever you're calling the town energy, it's living here would lose a lot of appeal. And I think that we know that finding affordable real estate is kind of rough right now, especially in this state. And if you're looking for a home to like specifically raise a family, you're not going to pick a town that doesn't have an easily accessible school. And the same could go for law schoolers. That's kind of a lesser point. But if they partner with a school occasionally, what would be the appeal to living or going to college, law school in a town that doesn't really have much in it. There's not many like events because we do we power a lot. I don't know, like, it's not like actual electric power. That's the only way I can say it. And I think that the same goes for the amount of businesses that not only partner with the school, but also get a lot of revenue from us in general. They will buy ads in the yearbook. Also high schooler staff a lot of local businesses as well. So that would take away if we didn't have the high school here. Also community service as well. Just another thing not I'm in NHS. So I've done things at a few locations.

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Service every year, each student,

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: and I do know that a lot

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: of people do it occasionally outside of the school. So that's also taking away some

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: I'm

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: so sorry to interrupt, but we have lost our visual, so we just need to make a few adjustments.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: sounds good. We can continue on audio.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: And I was a part of that. I had a and the. I don't think that is connected on a personal level and my organization make connections with me, make connections with my friends, with the man that works by me and other students to.

[Unidentified student (from Chelsea)]: To go over what she said about, as we'll be, like, all of the need. As Jamie said, I'm from Chelsea, and that's where the. And I remember people still working there. One of businesses closed. There's, you know, events where, like, everybody goes down and, like, meets each other. I remember when I was younger, there's, like, countless times. I did a basketball game there.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: But the entire town would

[Unidentified student (from Chelsea)]: be there. Everybody knows me on the court or just eat other people. And there's nothing like that anymore. Makes less desirable.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: What's the company on that campus?

[Unidentified student (from Chelsea)]: That's for the middle school is now. I was

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: always at work. And so getting to grow up with that, I learned a lot about our, learn a body, like, that's not a lot of pictures. And my my dad had, small business and I actually wear this sweatshirt every day. It's, like, And What's the business? Buying dogs to learn. It can help us install solar. And I don't think that as an SD is a group. Guess, you know, do what they're doing.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Tommy, do you want just before we get to do you want to just explain where your siblings fall, that whole relationship where they went to school?

[Unidentified student (from Chelsea)]: Yeah. So, I have children, child four or five. I have three older siblings that all graduated from Chelsea. I kind of was the student that I lived in. So, I was kind of heartbroken when I found out that I couldn't graduate from San Diego school all my siblings.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: How many students were graduated by the time you called?

[Unidentified student (from Chelsea)]: Chelsea? Probably not.

[Unidentified student (moved from Florida)]: So, I went to school in Florida. I drove to like almost nine years ago. I went to the Middle East, both elementary and middle school. My grades went down and I was always worried about, oh, well, I don't know anyone here. I'm not gonna ask questions. I'm gonna look stupid. Excuse me, think these kids in Vermont that have grown up in like small communities of like, say, class of like 14, moving them to a big school of 800 kids.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Be successful or you're gonna sink in your grades, you're gonna plummet. And my sister, she goes to after the time that the the story happened, she went to school in New Albany, New York, and she went to Sharon Academy. She was not used to, like, a very big class time, so when she had college, she did not want to ask questions. It was really nerve racking. She was just all worried about, like, who these people are and that she didn't know anybody, everyone else from New York, And that really did not help her grade. And I understand that that's what life is about. You're gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna step out of your com comfort zone. But I feel like high school is a very important, like it's a very important time in your life that everyone has to be with how they are because it's gonna affect the rest of your life. I

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: when I say this and I really mean it our high schools here act as a heart of our town. Now that is socially, that is education wise, everyone around here is connected especially in this area. I'm assuming it applies a little bit to Sharon and Bedford as well. It used to provide very much so at Chelsea. But everyone is very connected with the school. You ask people here who've lived here like in the area all their life, they can relate back to the high school and they will know something about it. Like they will know they put up one of these banners or like they then sponsor one of the signs down on the baseball field or by the booster chef but everyone is very connected. You can come across a lot of people that Bennington that big game on that same team that you're playing for now. All of the people are connected. You can come across businesses who are like, hey, need people to work for me. I I go ask a high schooler, they'll give me someone. Everyone around you is very connected. Events wise, high school acts as kind of like I'd say entertainment for the town. Sports games year round, theater all the time, class like events like we were into a hot dog eating contest that they got knocked down. But we're gonna do a hot dog eating contest to bring the community together. But like all the classes and people around here are very connected with their community and they want to connect their community and keep them connected. If you have graduated, you're always connected. If you're growing up here, you're still connected with it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Question from Senator Weeks? Yeah, so I like the theme of where you guys have been for the past ten minutes talking about schools, in particular Chelsea's, the closure of Chelsea's. So with thirteen, fourteen students, now knowing what you know about communities and what your parents may be up against with property taxes and what have you, how would you have done this different with Chelsea? Would you have kept the school going at fourteen, graduating class, or how would you have approached it? I'll put it back on you because you're the last guy to talk, and then the gentleman from Chelsea who had the siblings graduate from that but wasn't able to join them. How would you approach it?

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: I've known a lot of Chelsea people, and they can relate a lot with people in South Grove and I think having them say go here would allow them to somewhat keep the community there. Going to Bedford is of course their own choice but I think trying to stay within a local district allows people to like still have a sense of community in their area but also a wider community that everyone still knows each other. Okay and how would you approach it?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: Well of course I'd love to keep Chelsea but I think that if it couldn't happen, this is the best way for it not to happen. I think that the choice of kids being able to go to what school suits them the best is the only way, in my opinion, that it work well, it works the best in my opinion. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. I was going to ask this one quick question. Why did you choose Sharon? You haven't talked as much,

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: so just talk

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: to us about why you chose Sharon and what that's like.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: I know well, one of the reasons why was because I my best friend goes there with me. Mhmm. But when I shadowed, I shadowed well, I also shadowed for one, so it doesn't go there anymore. And my Gwen, I don't remember what class I shadowed at but I don't know, it was like really it was really like welcoming I guess because especially to me because I was a little greater shadowing. And like everyone was so nice, just to like just to everyone else. And I don't know. It was just like well, I shadowed it. I just had a really good time there. And also, I really liked how the classes were. It was kind of a weird day because, like, a projector blew up or something in one of my classrooms. But I was in this science class, and they were doing this project about I don't even know, but they someone made a little movie about it, and everyone was, like, everyone was just having such a fun time in that class. And we did like the brunch class or whatever they had it was I don't know I don't know how to

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: explain What what were

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the average class sizes when you were visiting?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: When I visited I think it was a little usually now, usually it's my classes are around, but it was a little bit more when I went there. One

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: really important thing that I wanted to mention was, so we had a very long fight, I think it probably ended near the beginning of last year. We had a bond vote that was on the table. I don't know if anyone's familiar with it. We there was a lot packed into it that we would have gotten. But like, notably, we would have had new entrance that was more secure and looked better for the backside because that's where the high school comes in. We don't generally get to use the product because we all park back there. A lot of theater renovations, we would have had a new rehearsal space, which was is was and still is really necessary because of the amount of kids that we have in our music program. And it's all crammed in downstairs along with elementary music classes. But that aside, the longer when I spoke to people who said that they didn't necessarily vote yes for the Bongo, a lot of their reasoning was stemmed from the fact that the possibility was on the table that our school was going to get closed because of what we're talking about now. And I think that the longer the possibility gets dragged out that that will happen, the more you're going to take away opportunities to better the schools that we have. And I you brought up a really great point earlier about, like, having a, we should rework the way that we have an AP class with three kids in it, and figure out other things with the college programs and all that I 100% agree. What I would say is rather than thinking about closing schools like this, let's reallocate sit down and work through ways to reallocate funds rather than necessarily close schools to make it work better in the students favor so that we don't have classes that only have three kids in it. And I personally, I don't want to speak for anyone. I haven't been presented with any, like, hardcore evidence that what is being presented in this act is going to save money. That I don't know if anyone else wants to comment on.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You guys have a couple minutes left, I wanna make sure everybody gets a chance for a last comment if you want.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So one of the ones that kinda is gonna piggyback on that. I also went to Chelsea. I went to Tumblr for them. After the merger, went to Chelsea for eighth grade. Some of them ain't very sorry. And we really did not see, like, any improvements. We still were getting taxed for, like, old schools, and that, like, never went down for a while. So, like, what Arthur was saying, where is, like, the evidence that this is gonna save money? Because you're still gonna have to pay for more transportation for students farther away. You're gonna have to figure out ways to, like, support, like, kids who want to be bored. There's still gonna be, like there's so much stuff that you're gonna have to pay for, but more students as well. And it's just, like, the evidence really. I'm sorry. But So, yeah, I've done my research about this, and it seems like if we have to build new schools, our taxes are gonna go up, which means we have to pay more than what I think we already do to build these new schools instead of keeping what we've already had got and bettering what we've got. Because if we just better our schools, then we can we have more opportunities. We'll have more sports. We'll have better education. If we got the PAC for our music department, we have more kids in bands than we have because it's our space is so small. So many kids have actually dropped band because of how the The PAC. The PAC is like our where we would practice and rehearse for like music goals and like things like that.

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: And was the proposed center that was shut down due to community bond.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Yes. So it's just was one of those things a part of the bond though that Aubrey mentioned.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Our PSE being Performing Arts Center. Okay. It wasn't the greatest name. It was really just a new like band group but that's the

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: other thing. So that would better our school, we would have more opportunities, more kids would be able to be a part of band and chorus and do more things with that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Just because I think you all are doing such a good job advocating for for your experience. We, you also might want to think about the possibility of this school getting bigger, right? You know that, that more kids might be coming to this school, do you have the capacity? Is that something you look forward to? You know, so I just want to make sure, for those of you here, you're not thinking our school's gonna close, but what happens if our school reaches a different capacity? What would you need?

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: Think the innovations like the PAC would drastically help. So we had a I'm not I don't know the exact numbers. This is when I was in it. I think we had a band class of about 50 students in an elementary sized band room. Now this performing arts center was gonna make it so we could have so many more students in that area and it would drastically like attract students to the area. With that being shut down, so many more students have left that program and there's not as much attraction to this school. So instead of having a band class that was like 40 to 50 students, it went down maybe 20 to 30. A chorus class of being 20 to 30 down maybe 10 to 15.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can someone I might have missed why it shut down or why it

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: was a community vote just based in the towns. And the people in the town voted no.

[Aubrey Mackenzie (Student, White River Valley High School)]: And on that, like, there was going to be, I don't. I'm pretty sure this is correct. But there was going to be a lot of outside funding. And what I could be wrong, but I what I heard after the fact was that it was really going to be like, a one time or maybe a few time like, the people were kind of exaggerating how much it was going to increase their taxes on that. But it really only would have been like, say, a couple like payments of like $50 That's like if they kind of like envisioned what it would have been coming out of their pockets if it had passed. And so I thinking about Chelsea asking, like, if this school closed down, would I would ask the community, would you rather keep the school that you like, we all love and love going to and it makes our community, would you rather pay a little bit more out of your pocket to keep that and make it better or have nothing at all would be? Paying for that

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: would, I would assume track more students to the schools than building them up making that I don't know the exact number for how much a student is worth but making it so they can all go to one school and be a little less expensive.

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: To go off of that, I'm I mean, for me, least, don't know if that's just because I'm a kid, but I think, in my opinion, that the child's experience is a lot a little more important than the tax, like, the amount of money it costs. And for a kid to be a lot more happy in a smaller school where they know their teachers and they aren't just, like, a name on a roll call sheet and they actually are, like, known by everybody in the community, I believe that's a lot more valuable than a little bit cheaper for them to go to a huge school where maybe they're a shy kid and they, like, have a really hard time meeting the people.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Do you consider this a huge school?

[Tommy Amber (Student, Chelsea resident attending Thetford Academy)]: No. I wouldn't consider this a huge school. No. I think this school is a great size. But like like I'm saying a very large school like consolidated towns would be really hard.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: What you said is fairly true but everything does have a price tag eventually. And what happens is is this price tag is getting so high that that person can't afford their their life here in Vermont. This is why it's become such a big issue with me. You know healthcare is one avenue that they blame along with a couple others but it's our task and Vermont's task to find a way that we're going to make Vermont one very, know, education of our students priority one, but we have to do it in an affordable way or it's just people are going to exit the state because they can't afford it and then that small school your parents wanted you to go to they no longer can afford now you're moving somewhere else. That's the concern of most Vermonters so it's getting that price that you know taxes shouldn't be a burden they should be an inconvenience and taxes are becoming a very big burden to a lot

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: of your parents and most of us.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah pay attention to time here but why don't we do one more?

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: So I was just wondering, because say you have this, you make the schools 800, that's gonna cost a lot of money. Where's that money coming from? And then you're gonna have all these other, like, taxes on top of it for transportation, all that stuff. It's just in the long run, I guess it could be cheaper, but, like, for a while, can be really expensive, and you're still gonna be doing the thing you wanna prevent. It's going to be really unlivable for people for how many years it takes for those taxes to go down. Because the taxes from Chelsea Chubbard merged in, those I'm not really, like, in on that stuff, how it happens, since I'm a student.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Education finance is very complicated.

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: Yeah. It's just it didn't go down for a while. And it's I don't know if it still hasn't gone down. Liberty also made a point on that with what was it?

[Jacob (Student, White River Valley High School)]: That's one

[Unidentified student speaker(s) via shared mic channel]: from When Bethel and Southworth to merge. Move

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: on. That have to end because have to stay on schedule Bethel to get through, but thank you all very much. You are articulate, both people for your schools and your community and so thank you. Got a lot out of this. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I love that you argued with us. Yeah.

[Unidentified staff/technician]: Yeah.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: You for Yeah. Figured we'd just We're gonna go

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: offline and go on a tour of the

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: school. So