Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We're live, okay. Joint hearing of the House and Senate Education Committees. We're doing a few things today. Number one, we're picking up with one witness on Kunshui's Inn Friday. Friday. So we're flagging on the report of the task force and talking about their priorities that they would suggest. Squeezing in one person from the Law and Superintendent's Association first. Then we're going to shift gears for half an hour and go to this fun school day. So we have this fun school people coming in for half an hour. Then we're going to go back starting at 02:30, hearing from five superintendents from different parts of the world. So with that, I guess we should go around the room and introduce ourselves.

[Rep. Michael Morgan (Grand Isle–Chittenden District)]: I'm Neiman Morgan. I represent Grand Isle County and the western portion of the town of Milton.

[Rep. Katherine Sims (Orleans-4: Albany, Craftsbury, Glover, Greensboro)]: Mia Carkel, Albany, Half Break, Glover, Greensboro. Emily Bongartz, representative of Windham, five, Marlborough, Newfoundland Township.

[Ian Rose (Food Service Director, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union)]: Robin Hunter, nineteen-four. Joshua Dobridge, Williamstown, Chelsea.

[Julia Wolfe (Student, Harwood Union High School)]: Janet Brown, Chittenden one, which is the town of Richmond.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Erin Breach, Chittenden two, Willis, most opposed.

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: Chris Taylor, Milton, and a small portion of Georgia.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Peter Conlin in the House represent Cornwall, Goshen, Leicester, Ripton, and Salisbury. Senator Bennington District, which, includes all of Benton County and a few towns from Wyndham.

[Sen. David Weeks (Rutland County, Vice Chair)]: Good afternoon. Senator David Weeks representing Rutland County.

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: Senator Terry Williams also, representing Rutland County. Nader Hashim, Senator from Windham County. Senator Heffernan from Madison County District.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. So we're gonna hear from you. I think on the screen, we have Patrick Weeks, a trustee in the Vermont Superintendents Association. Again, sort of a holdover. We didn't have time to squeeze you in on Friday. So the floor is yours.

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: All right, thank you. And I apologize for not being there in person with you today. I'm actually coming to you live from sunny, warm Dallas, Texas, where I'm at a national training sponsored by a group called Leading Now, which very appropriately invites a core of about 30 superintendents from around the nation to help build skills and strategies for educational leadership in today's political realm. So quite appropriate for the conversations we're having in Vermont. And I'll apologize ahead of time. Occasionally, in my hotel room here, the heating or plumbing system makes some pretty weird noises. So it's not me. It's this room somehow if you hear anything along those lines. So thank you. My name is Patrick Reen. I am a trustee for the Vermont Superintendent Association, and I am superintendent for the Mount Abraham Unified School District. Thank you for inviting VSA to offer testimony today in the early stages of this potentially historic session, and thank you for your courage to engage in this truly transformative work. I am here today speaking as a trustee for VSA and not in my capacity as superintendent for MAUSD, even though today I will be giving you some examples from my district and my region simply to help create some context. And while the perspectives that I'm sharing today reflect the vast majority of VSA's membership, superintendents are not unanimous on all of these points. The VSA shares your goals for act 73 to create a more affordable and equitable education system that increases opportunities for Vermont students. As you continue to work on transforming education in Vermont, we want you to know that we stand ready as willing and able partners. The Vermont Superintendent's Association represents the leaders who manage Vermont's public school systems. Our members oversee instruction, staffing, budgets, transportation, special education, school safety, and community partnerships across every region of the state. Our mission is to ensure every child in Vermont has access to a high quality education that prepares them for life, work, and citizenship. Our vision is a system that is equitable, coherent, financially responsible, and grounded in community trust. We're eager to lend our skills and knowledge to help you make this transformation as successful and smooth as possible for Vermont students, educators, and taxpayers. We fully recognize the controversy of the work you're engaged in and the reality that many may agree this work needs to happen even if they don't want change to happen in the communities they serve. Despite the controversy, we stand with you in this difficult work because we too are driven to do what is best for our students, our teachers, and our taxpayers. And we know we can't get where we need to be by remaining where we are. While there's much work to be done, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that there are currently great things happening for students in Vermont. Across Vermont, schools are doing important and innovative work, progress that becomes especially clear when we look beyond the narrow lens of standardized test scores, which we know do not fully capture the critical skills, dispositions, and real world competencies students need to be truly future ready. We have communities that have largely been supportive of their schools, even when we've had to make some pretty big asks of them. And we have amazing educators who care deeply about our students and families who work tirelessly to give them the best they can. We owe it to our students, families, and educators to work together to ensure our teachers have the tools and support they need to provide our students the kinds of opportunities they deserve at a cost taxpayers can afford so that we can keep families in Vermont and maybe even attract more to our great state. As I've said in prior testimony, we can provide a great education for our students. We can have reasonable tax rates for our taxpayers. We can have many small districts and many small schools. Pick two. I believe act 73 chooses the right two, a great education and responsible tax rates. VSA is here to help ensure act 73 does this to the best of its abilities. As the legislature considers significant policy decisions, we urge you to keep five questions in mind. Will this improve educational opportunity and student outcomes? Is the approach grounded in credible research in the Vermont context? Does it reduce inequities rather than just shift them? Are timelines realistic and sequenced carefully? Does the process strengthen trust rather than weaken it? When these answers are unclear, refinement is better than speed. Here's the good news. I have just two priorities that I'm gonna ask you to focus on for this session. Just two priorities that can move us a long way toward improving affordability, equity, and opportunity. And even better, the two priorities are very closely related. They are to create scale at the district and school level and take steps to ensure a truly equitable foundation formula. It's that easy. Two things. In terms of creating scale at the district and school level. Without creating scale in an equitable manner across the state at the district and especially school levels, we will not move the needle on affordability and equity. We're unlikely to increase scale in a meaningful way without some upfront investments. In regard to the district level, the VSA agrees we need fewer districts in Vermont. We feel strongly these must be school districts and not supervisor unions. We believe fewer school districts can improve equity for our students and may eventually reduce some expenses if the size of the new districts are supported by research and make good common sense for Vermont. VSA has previously provided testimony suggesting district sizes of approximately 2,000 to 4,000 students based on review of research and experiences of VSA's superintendents. To be very clear, these should all be school districts with no supervisory unions. SDs provide greater flexibility to move staffing and other resources where they're most needed. They provide greater job security to staff. They reduce redundancies in central office and or cooperative education service areas. They provide greater opportunity for public school choice or transfers. They provide a unified experience for students and staff, which improves equity. They offer a unified mission, vision, curriculum, teaching contract, strategic plan, budget, etc. They allow district leaders to be more focused on the instructional needs of the district and less on the management of multiple districts. In short, SDs will save more money and be more equitable than SUs. VSA recognizes the role the four historic academies play in educating Vermont students, and supports finding a method outside of creating SUs to continue this relationship. It's important to recognize that this shift will cost more money initially, with the potential for savings in the future. The reality is that standing up new districts while current districts remain operational will increase cost. Scaling up salaries and benefits in newly formed districts will increase cost. Paying attorneys to transfer property will increase cost. Paying attorneys to draft or review articles of agreement will increase cost. And paying attorneys to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements will increase cost. Also important to note that new districts should be creating ways that make sense for the region and for Vermont. As I said, 4,000 students make sense in some regions in Vermont. It's probably too big in other regions where 2,000 students might make more sense. And we think the task force, the redistricting task force, did a good job articulating the many factors that need to be considered as we achieve scale at the district level. Getting new districts operational will take time, money and support. Among other things, once the new districts have been identified, they're gonna need to elect a school board, hire a superintendent, hire central office staff, create a new name, establish a new entity as a business, transfer property, transfer debt, negotiate collective bargaining agreements, adopt policies, establish a curriculum, create an assessment plan, build a budget, assign staff, and then begin operations. I was superintendent for ANASU when it became MAUSD. We kept the same five towns and the same six schools. We effectively changed our name and reduced our number of boards from seven to one. It took us eighteen months and cost tens of thousands of dollars to start up the new SD while running the old SU. The scale of change contemplated in Act 73 is much greater, and the timeline and cost for the transition should reflect this. At the school level, achieving scale, put plainly, Vermont can't afford to continue to operate the number of schools we have for the number of students we serve. As discussed, there are efficiencies that we could and should realize through district consolidation. Those efficiencies pale in comparison to the efficiencies that can be realized at the school level. As mentioned before in our pick two of three scenario, when we choose to have many small schools operating at a fraction of their capacity, we're choosing to either allow taxes to increase at a faster rate or provide a reduced quality of education to our students. We know taxes can't keep growing the way they are, so the default action will continue to be to reduce the quality of education for our students. That said, school consolidation must be undertaken thoughtfully, with clear plans that ensure improved opportunity and equity. Abrupt closures without such planning would betray Vermont's values. Scale is necessary at the school level because operating many small schools results in inefficient staffing. This means we employ more staff than we need and can afford. Inefficient staffing also means asking some staff to do more with less, when in reality, we can only do less with less, without changing the way we deliver education. Coupled with the implementation of the foundation formula, more overhead expenses for facilities and inefficient staffing means fewer dollars go directly to students. At the same time, as long as new mandates and social responsibilities continue to be placed upon schools, staffing needs will remain high. Every reduction in funding to our mental health partners and every new piece of legislation that requires someone to report out on or be trained in something adds personnel costs to schools and districts that are not directly related to teaching and learning. With regard to ensuring a truly equitable foundation formula. Without seriously addressing our scale issues first, implementing a foundation formula will only shuffle inequities, not address them head on. The VSA agrees implementing a foundation formula in Vermont could be an effective way to increase equity for students as long as it is done within the context of creating scale and is safeguarded from political expediency. To be very clear, a foundation formula, on its own, does not provide equitable funding to Vermont students. It provides the same dollar amount per pupil to each district. But districts are not equally structured. Districts that are set up efficiently will deliver more for each student with the same dollars. Districts that are less efficient will deliver less for each student. Equal funding per student per district is not the same as equitable funding for Vermont students. Also important to note that a foundation formula does not save money. It saves money, like cutting a grocery budget saves money when I haven't figured out why food is so expensive. It's simply spending less without addressing the underlying cost drivers. The result is I either starve myself or I'm forced to dig deeper into the pantry. Maybe I'll find enough in there to make a meal, or maybe I'll go hungry. That's a local decision. As it currently exists, act 73 proposes to restrain spending, cutting the grocery budget via a foundation formula without significantly addressing inefficiencies that exist at the school level. Why food costs so much? And leaves the decision about whether to create efficiency or not up to local communities. This is where you see what you can make from the pantry or go hungry. Put plainly, it avoids doing the hard work at the state level and puts the responsibility on local leaders, elected and otherwise, to do the heavy lifting. In some cases, students will benefit from decisions to create efficiency. In other cases, students will be disadvantaged in favor of keeping what we've always had. A foundation formula should be implemented after efficiencies of scale have been achieved throughout the state at both the district and school levels. If the intent is for the newly formed districts to create efficiencies at the school level, the new district should be given the authority, time and guardrails to do this work before a foundation formula is implemented. Otherwise, we're just shuffling inequities. The VSA respects the need to address affordability in a meaningful way in the very near future. However, inserting a cap on spending as proposed in s two twenty without doing the hard work of creating scale first, while also on the cusp of major overhaul to the education delivery and funding system. Risks eroding trust in communities may interfere with our ability to address inefficiencies, and most importantly, risks harming students. We need to either do the work to reduce costs by creating scale or accept that costs will remain high to keep what we have. Forcing a cap only further hangs local leaders out to dry to solve our state's problems and perpetuates inequities for our students. To help ensure equitable student funding within a foundation formula, the VSA supports minimum class sizes, which are already in act 73. The VSA supports small by necessity requirements. BSA recommends turning to research on school scale and building on the small by necessity work done by the State Board. We support establishing staffing ratios. Without equity in staffing levels, we can't equitably deliver foundation formula dollars. We support negotiating a statewide contract for teachers, support staff and administrators. Without equity in compensation for employees, we can't equitably deliver foundation formula dollars. We support providing construction money to receiving schools that need more space to educate students from a school that is closed. This is part of the upfront cost of creating scale. If we don't invest so school facilities can educate enough students to achieve scale, then we can't equitably deliver foundation formula dollars. And we need to make thoughtful decisions about which schools to operate sooner rather than later. So we aren't investing in school construction projects on schools that may end up closing. We simply can't afford to fix school buildings, only to have the work undone or redone when that school is repurposed. We feel strongly that a foundation formula should not incentivize identifying students with disabilities. A foundation formula should also not include a supplemental spending provision unless it is a transition tool. If we're going to do all of this work to create a foundation formula and create equitable student funding by addressing inefficiencies, why would we include a provision that un that undoes this work even just a little bit? This is especially true if the driving force behind much larger districts is to try and equalize the grandest value per pupil of those districts so that districts can equitably raise dollars beyond a foundation formula. And a foundation formula serves students best in an SD, not an SU. SDs are much more efficient, which improves affordability and opportunity by requiring fewer dollars to operate and directs more of those dollars directly to students. With regard to the work of the school district redistricting task force. The VSA has great appreciation for the time, care, and thoughtful effort the school district redistricting task force dedicated to this important work. Their findings helped illuminate a reality many of us experience on a daily basis, that many of the challenges we face in educating students in Vermont are rooted in our lack of scale. In essence, the task force calls for creating cooperative education service areas, comprehensive high schools, and reducing the number of school districts. The VSA supports all three of these concepts. The task force's exploration of cooperative education service areas is a promising way to address some of the challenges facing Vermont and is a concept worth pursuing. There are ways CESAs would improve the affordability, equity, and opportunity in education in Vermont. However, without careful consideration and great intentionality, they may only add a layer of bureaucracy. For example, if the CESA assumes responsibility for services that districts already provide efficiently at scale, or if they establish their own executive leadership, finance, and HR functions, special education, curriculum meter, etcetera, while districts are still required by statute, contract, or operational necessity to maintain parallel roles, then those result in duplication rather than consolidation. In short, the details matter, and VSA is here to help with the details. Even if implemented well, CESA is alone will not produce the affordability, equity, or increased opportunity Vermont students and taxpayers deserve. Comprehensive high schools would be an effective way to improve access to CTE programming for Vermont students, which is certainly an area we have room to grow in. Presently, some CTE centers don't have enough capacity for the number of students interested, while other CTE centers have many vacant seats. In some places, students need to travel many miles to access CTE programming, while others walk down the hall in their school to access programming. Moving to regional comprehensive high schools could be an opportunity to address both of these issues and also contribute significantly to achieving scale at the high school level. As I've stated a couple of times, the VSA agrees we need fewer school districts in Vermont. We feel strongly these should be school districts and not supervisory unions. Their size should be supported by research and what makes sense for Vermont. And as I've said, the VSA has recommended sizes of approximately 2,000 to 4,000 students.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Miss miss Windham, sorry to interrupt, but we're we're short on time. Are you

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: I'm just about done.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. Okay. Good.

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: The task force recommends we achieve this through voluntary mergers. While we agree that a thoughtful approach to school district consolidation that accounts for anticipated future enrollment is important, we're less confident that a voluntary process will achieve the reductions needed. Meaning, on my own experience, communities seem to have little appetite for taking action to reduce school districts. Eight years ago, Addison County superintendents advocated to the secretary of education to reduce our then three school districts, four if we were to count our independent CTE center, down to one for all of the reasons we're talking about reducing districts today. We did not receive support for this. Several years later, two of those same three districts, MAUSD and Addison Northwest, spent eighteen months engaged in a merger study process and got so far as to hold a vote on a merger in our two communities. That vote failed by a very wide margin. Soon after, one of the five towns in my district successfully withdrew and is now their own district. A second town followed suit and voted to withdraw, only to be denied by one of the other member towns. Last week, individuals in that town once again began actively generating interest in another attempt to withdraw from MAUSD in response to conversations that MAUSD board is currently having that involve the possibility of closing schools. This seems like an indication that despite clear signals from the governor's office and legislative leadership that we need to reduce school districts and schools, some communities are willing to increase school districts if it helps ensure they get to keep their town school. In my ten years as superintendent in Addison County, despite multiple attempts by superintendents and some boards to reduce the number of districts, we've increased from four districts to five, counting the CTE district, and very nearly six, all while losing hundreds of students. We now have five possibly moving towards six school districts and serve a little over 4,000 students. I share this with you as an example of the very real political dynamic playing out in communities that caused me and many fellow superintendents to question if voluntary mergers will get the job done. Of everything I've shared with you today, I hope you take this message away. That the VSA shares your goals for Act 73 to create a more affordable and equitable education system that increases opportunities for Vermont students. We want you to know we stand ready as a willing and able partner who brings the experience, expertise, and knowledge to help make this transformation as successful and smooth as possible for Vermont students, educators, and taxpayers. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to partnering with you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. And incidentally, I don't think we have your testimony in writing. So if you could send it in within a couple of days, that would be great.

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: Certainly.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay.

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: Questions? Wouldn't mind. We're very short on time, I apologize, Patrick. And as you kept testifying, you kept answering my question that I had on my mind, and then I moved on to the next one, and you'd answer that. And I appreciate the thought put into that voluntary mergers, especially based on your own experience, probably don't get the job And so that was kind of a hallmark of Act 73 as it passed. What I'm hearing from your testimony is that some of the stumbling blocks for the VSA with it were the $4,000 to $8,000 student guidance. Could you speak to some of the other parts of that bill that may have changed throughout its process, to the negative or to the positive?

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: Boy, you said you're short on time, right? Think you actually

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: covered a fair bit of it in your testimony. I'll just reread that, but go ahead.

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: Yeah. I guess what I would say to that is the points that are most pressing that we think are most influential to focus on right now are the ones that I covered in this testimony. There are many other things that we could speak to. And in the interest of focus on the parts that would move the system forward in the most important ways, these were the ones that we thought made sense to focus on for right now.

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: As you talk about voluntary well, here's one of the things I struggle with. And that is, if we're going to get more efficient at the school building level and we leave it up to community boards to do, it's very hard to do. On the other hand, I'm not sure the level of trust people would have if that becomes a state level decision making. I personally see a larger school district and a larger school district board probably the best place for that decision making power. But even then, it's gonna be pretty hard. Give us some thoughts on how we can either build the trust or make things happen in an efficient way so we can get to where we need to be.

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: Yeah, I gathered this testimony with an assumption to an extent that the expectation is that these newly formed districts would be the ones that would tackle that. And I think there are advantages to doing that. It may be difficult to imagine a scenario in the near future where trust at the state level, like with some sort of a school closure task force can be realized. So probably the next best thing would be these newly formed districts, where I think there's support needed to make that happen, because I agree with you, it will still be really, really challenging. I think that's where we wanted to kind of emphasize leaning into the small by necessity work being done by the State Board of Education. I think creating really clear guardrails for when it should happen and when it shouldn't happen so that new districts that are formed have something really strong to lean into, and then making sure that the articles of agreement give the board the authority to take that action are really critical pieces to helping move that work forward.

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: And just to be clear, how do you see the new districts being formed?

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: That is a wonderful question. I don't have great clarity on that, and we don't have a position as a VSA on that at this point, except to say that we feel that we bring a great deal of expertise to that conversation, and we would like to partner with whomever is going to be tackling that really, really challenging work. It seems important for that to happen as a necessary step for many other pieces of ACT 73 and the kinds of scale we need to create. And I can't think of a group better positioned than VSA to support those efforts.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, thank you. Nobody leave their seats. We're gonna do a quick switch. We're gonna take a break at, just so people know this, a break at 02:15 for fifteen minutes. So we're now gonna switch, thank you. Thank

[Patrick Reen (Trustee, Vermont Superintendents Association; Superintendent, MAUSD)]: you, Chittenden.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: To our Farm to School half hour. They, we have our people in the room or are they on the hall?

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: They're mostly in the room.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. So I don't know how you want to do this. I see there's five of you. Whatever order you want to do is fine. Just come up and you're on. Thank you. And introduce yourself for the record, obviously.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Hello, everybody.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Up and out.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Yes. Hello. My name is Dana Hudson. Can I wait one second to get the doors? Okay. My name is Dana Hudson, and I coordinate the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network. My employer is Shelburne Farms. But the truth is is that I really work for the hundreds of educators, farmers, school food professionals, organizations, and businesses that make up our robust farm to school and early childhood network. But most importantly, I really work for the thousands of Vermont students that are participating in farm to school and early childhood programs. So I first wanna thank you all so much for giving us some time here today to talk about the impacts that farm to school and farm to early childhood have on Vermonters, as it supports our schools, our farmers, our local economy, and our communities. We are asking you to support the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood grant program and the local food incentive program for schools with level funding, base appropriations of $500,000 each. The Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network was created in 2008 to address the growing movement of schools that wanted to serve local products in their cafeterias, while also using food and farming as an integrative educational concept to address student learning and engagement. You can see that well, the way we we approach this work is a three c model of change, which I have some handouts I can give you there at the end, in which you'll see the 3C model right in the front. We found that this has the best long term staying power by looking at how the classroom, the first C, cafeteria and community work together to create a win win situation for students, families, farmers and communities. And I, for sure, have seen the impact of farm to school work. The school in which my children go to has a chicken coop, fruit trees, and a prolific garden. Their farm to school program is woven into the school curriculum, and every child in the building gets to experience these activities every year that they are in that school. They come home with the stories and the memories, but more importantly, they feel a deep connection to their food, their community, and the world that they live in. Vermont has invested in three key programs to improve student health and learning and benefit farmers. These three cornerstone programs is what we're asking you to support. So first is the Rosa McLaughlin Farm to School and Early Childhood grant program that was started in 2006 and has since served over 300 schools and early childhood programs in every county of our state. The program provided capacity building and technical assistance to schools and early childcare programs to develop and strengthen their farm to school activities. So that's the first cornerstone project. The second one is a local food incentive program that supports increased local purchasing so that more of the $25,000,000 that schools spend on food every year is staying here in Vermont, staying in the Vermont economy, and staying with Vermont farmers. In the past ten years, we've gone from 5% of the budgets of schools going towards local food, this is an average statewide, to we are now at 14%, is staying here in Vermont. So in ten years, we've seen almost 10% growth. And that's coming from over 150 farms across the state that sell to schools in early childcare programs. The third cornerstone project is universal school meals. This ensures equitable access to the school meal programs for every student in every zip code of our state. Since for many of these students, half of their daily calories come from school meals. So if you look over a week, half the calories they consume in a week come from their school meals. We know it's essential for student health, for their learning, and for their success to have access to nourishing meals. Today, you'll hear directly from a early childhood educator who's supposed to join us on Zoom, so hopefully she's here, a student, a superintendent, and a school food professional on how Farm to School is making a difference in their work. We are looking for your support on the level based funding for both the Local Food Incentive Program and the Farm to School Grant Program, each at $500,000 These programs make a huge difference in the ability of schools to buy their food from their Vermont farmers and engage their students in understanding where food comes from. And the programs work together to support Vermont families, Vermont farmers, and Vermont children. I'm happy to take a few questions if you want to do now, as well as I'm excited to have the other speakers join as well.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Why don't we go through the speakers now?

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Okay. Back up. Make

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: sure everybody gets their chance.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Sounds good. Thank you all very much. And is it okay if I pass these out? So I'll leave them here for you, Jake. This explains the model of the three Cs and the classroom capturing component and the return on the investment, what we're actually seeing based on the investments of these programs, what results we're actually seeing. Thank you. And then Yeah, I'm afraid, I don't know if How do I find out if the person's on the Zoom who's gonna be joining us? Allison Greaves. She's at Bennington, early childhood. Okay. Bill, we'll go to the next speaker, if that's okay. So I'm going to invite Julia Wolfe, eleventh grader from Barwood High School to join.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Ms. Stitch, for the record, your name and your town of residence and your school.

[Julia Wolfe (Student, Harwood Union High School)]: I'm Julia Wolfe, and I live in Waterbury and go to Harwood Union High School. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. I'm here because I would like to ask you all to continue to support Farm to School and Early Childhood Education Program, as well as the Local Food Incentive Program with $500,000 each for fiscal year 2027. These programs are essential to teaching young students to understand and care for the food they eat and the environment around them. As a student in my school district since preschool, I myself have been profoundly affected by these programs. Some of my most vivid memories from Riverside Elementary School are hands on food lessons where we cooked in our classrooms and visited local farms. I remember making butter, cheese, and ice cream and learning about how farms work. Then when I moved up to Crossett Brook Middle School, I had a sustainability class for part of each year. In fifth grade, we learned about caring for our school's chickens and greenhouse, deepening our understanding of the effort it takes to raise plants and animals for human consumption. In sixth and seventh grade, we focused more on climate change and organic and sustainable farming. All this fascinated me and was easily my favorite part of middle school. So when offered the chance to do inquiry projects, which were student developed projects based on our interests, it seemed natural that I would do something farm to school related. My sustainability teacher offered me the idea of using a grant given to the school to purchase and maintain beehives. I spent that year studying beekeeping, purchasing beekeeping materials, and understanding what both domesticated and wild bees need from humans and what we get from them in return. There are currently two beehives at Crossett Brook that are cared for by students and used to educate them about the roles bees play in our agricultural systems. When I entered high school, I wanted to continue building on this knowledge. I considered working with the student run harvest of the month taste tests where students make and serve local food recipes. I also thought about working with the teachers and students that run the greenhouse that grows greens used in our cafeteria. But I eventually decided to join the Harvard Sustainability Club and in turn the Vermont Youth Lobby. Through those programs, I was able to get involved with running a workshop for my peers at FEAST, a statewide food education and sustainable thinking summit run by other students. I taught a workshop on understanding the legislative process and how to effectively lobby state representatives in support of environmental issues. Through the help of the teachers and farm to school experiences that I loved at these schools, I've become more knowledgeable and engaged in the world around me and I'm incredibly grateful for it. One more thing I'd like to mention is that throughout my time at all these schools, I had access to school breakfast and lunch. Though lunches made of mystery meat and overcooked broccoli prevail in the medium, I've never had to worry about that. Thanks to the farm to school program and the goal of using more local ingredients in our lunches, I can look forward to grilled cheese sandwiches made with red hen bread and mac and cheese made with Cabot Cheddar. My school has been able to source close to 25% of the ingredients used in our cafeteria locally, which helps our community environmentally, socially, and economically. So with that, I ask you to support the continued base funding of $500,000 each to the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood grant program and the local food incentive program. Thank you for allowing me to share my story.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. Thank you. We'll hold the question. Let me just go sit over there in case you want to ask you a question after and see if anybody immediately available. But thank you.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Thank you.

[Mike Lichlider (Superintendent, Harwood Unified Union SD)]: Good afternoon, my name is Mike Lichlider. I'm a resident of Duxbury and I'm the Superintendent of the Harwood Unified Union School District which serves six towns from Waterbury to Warren. Do, Mr. Chairman, have to object to being placed after my student. It has happened before and it has always caused issues for me because I do not think I need to talk anymore.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: But

[Mike Lichlider (Superintendent, Harwood Unified Union SD)]: I will share that probably one of my favorite stories, not just about farm to school, but in general in my school district occurred at Brookside Primary School, which is in Waterbury. And I was in the cafeteria. I was helping out that day. The principals were out and some students come through the line. Kindergarten and Alison, who's one of our food service workers, serving the vegetables. And she had some choices. And she looked at this little five year old and said, Would you like green beans? And the little girl looked at her and said, Are they fresh or frozen? To me, that tells the entire story about farm to school. That doesn't happen by chance. That happens through education. That happens through students learning the difference between good foods and not having good foods in school is a serious concern in our country. And it also kind of illustrated to me the value having moved to Vermont four years ago of our Farm to School program in the state because it is in my opinion next to none. As a person who visited Vermont over thirty years ago with my family, I was impressed by the fact that we placed an emphasis on buy local, I think, I don't know the statistics, but I'm sure far before most states in The United States. But with that, I would ask your support as has been mentioned before for continuing the program level funded. As a superintendent, I am keenly aware of the challenges, the fiscal challenges that not only I face, but more importantly, that you face as a state. I said to Chair Conlon before the hearing that I'm very happy to be testifying on food and not Act 73 today. But our school, as Julia so eloquently mentioned, receives about 25% of our local food from local producers, which speaks to the interconnectedness of our state, of our community, and the importance of farm to school. We have intentionally in our food service, when I say we, our food service director has worked very hard to increase that percentage that we're near 25%. So that equates to about $37,000 a year. So one of the reasons fiscally that I ask you to level fund that out of the general fund is because there is a direct result. If those funds disappear, we make the very difficult choice of how to make that up. And we have wonderful producers, local producers in Vermont, Misty Knowle Farms for Chicken, as well as a lot of the ones that Julia mentioned as well. And Red Hen being one of them with Randy George and the wonderful work they've done there as well. So we are not only supporting and helping our students, we're also supporting our local businesses. And I say this also from perspective prior to being a superintendent here, I was a superintendent in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, which is referred to as the garden spot of America by many. And despite the abundance in agriculture, despite the fact that the school where my central office was located was surrounded by farms, we did not bring farm food, local food into our schools. It was less expensive to do so. So we relied on more processed foods, frozen foods, foods that were not local, and quite frankly, foods that were not as healthy. So that is why I encourage you to continue level funding the program. It has a direct benefit, not only from a health perspective on our students, but as you have heard from Julia, it has benefit educationally. I think that is one of the things that makes our state exceptional and unique. So I thank you for your consideration.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. Ian? Okay. Yeah, maybe stay right in the front row, in case you want to call you back.

[Ian Rose (Food Service Director, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union)]: Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to testify today and thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Name and a residence. For

[Ian Rose (Food Service Director, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union)]: the record, my name is Ian Rose. I'm the food service director for the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union. Our food program serves four schools in Heartland, Windsor, Weathersfield and Brownsville about 1,100 students that we feed each day. I'm here today to ask that you please support the farm to school and early childhood program and the local food incentive with a level funding base appropriation of 500,000 each for fiscal year 2027, and also to continue funding universal school meals through the education fund. These two programs together ensure that all children receive high quality meals at school and that we are supporting our agricultural families and businesses across the state. I grew up just outside of Boston and have been working in food service for the last thirty years. My family and I moved to Vermont to the Upper Valley ten years ago, and I've been in my role for the past two years. Through my professional journey, I've had the honor to work in a variety of establishments dedicated to showcasing the beauty and benefits of local food. This practice is carried over into my personal life where prioritizing food items sourced locally has become one of my core values as an individual partner and parent. The mission of our food team is to source products and craft menus that help put our students minds and bodies in a position to learn and grow as best as possible. In each of our kitchens, we emphasize scratch cooking, minimal processing, unrefined sugars, local meat and lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. We are always looking for ways to improve the overall quality of our ingredients. Coming into my role as food service director, I wanted to make sure the value of local foods, the value which I hold dearly, was not lost amidst the financial challenges and realities of a school meals program. As a parent of two school age children, I was aware of the universal meals program. I was not aware, however, of the farm to school and early childhood program and the local food incentive and the benefit they bring to Vermont students. Without these programs, we would not have the resources to provide the local food items which enhance our students experience each and every day. Currently, am taking part in the Farm to School Leadership Academy. This program was designed to bring together leaders from all over the country who are committed to transforming food systems in schools. Coming out of our recent gathering, I felt a tremendous amount of gratitude for the policy systems and values we have here in Vermont, values which are not universal across the entirety of our country. It is one thing to have farmers producing beautiful food all around you. It is a whole different thing having systems in place to help those products find a way into our schools. The Farm to School and Early Childhood program helps schools to create the structures and build the partnerships we need to be able to bring farm fresh food into our schools and early childhood programs and offer it to our students on a daily basis. These programs are the physical demonstration of good policy and practice. I wanna share some words which are not my own, but rather are those of our parents, staff, and community members. Their connection to the farm to school and early childhood programs exists on a deeply personal level, and they experience the direct impact every day. This first passage is from one of our parents. I am so grateful that our students that our school supports our local farms and producers. Not only is it important for our local economy, but it instills a value of appreciation in our students for the benefits of locally sourced food, reducing negative impacts on the environment, transparency and what is used to grow our food, not to mention freshness and a lifelong habit for seasonally based produce. I feel a sense of pride as a community member in this value that our school system upholds, and I can see that same sense of pride come through in the preparation of meals by our incredible food service team. My kids are happy and appreciative of the meals they get at school, and I have peace of mind about what they are receiving. This is something that matters to our economy, our community, our environment, and the lifelong health and habits of our kids. This next comment is from one of our office administrators at the Windsor High School. As someone who sits in clear view of our fresh fruit and veggie station, I can attest that there is a steady stream of students throughout the day of all grade levels coming daily to take advantage of this wonderful program. It is really great to see many of them get excited about what fresh fruits and veggies we have each day. This is such a valuable program providing healthy snack options to so many students, some of whom don't have access to these items at home or have never been introduced to them. We are not only providing healthy food options, we are also expanding the variety of food in which students are consuming. Hopefully, healthy habits will continue at home and as students grow and make healthy food choices for themselves. Honestly, there aren't enough positive things I can say about this program. This last comment is from another of our parents. My son Truman is autistic and non speaking, and fresh fruits and vegetables are one of the ways he most consistently says yes to the world. For Truman, food is communication and connection. When his school offers fresh local produce every day, he's not on the margins of the lunch room. He's participating in a shared community practice with food grown in the same Vermont soil we all call home. Supporting farm to school in early childhood and the local food incentive in fiscal year twenty twenty seven is not only good nutrition and good agricultural policy, it's also a quiet daily form of inclusion for students like Truman. Please keep these programs strong. Thank you so much for your time here today, and for all the work you do every day to support our families and farmers. Thank you for listening to my testimony and considering the real impacts of the farm to school and early childhood program and the local foods incentive. Level funding base appropriation of $500,000 fiscal year 2027, as well as the continuation of universal school meals throughout the education fund means that we can continue this important work of nursing children with foods grown and made right here in their own communities. I'd be happy to answer any questions and share more information with any of you.

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. Stay available. I see that Alison has joined now. We have about five minutes left. So Alison, introduce yourself for the record and where you are from and off we go. You are still muted. Okay, now you are good. Hi,

[Allison Greaves (Director, Bennington Early Childhood Center)]: thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you today. And thank you for allowing me to do this through Zoom. My name

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: is

[Allison Greaves (Director, Bennington Early Childhood Center)]: Allison Grisb. I have worked in the field of early childhood education for almost thirty years. I'm currently director at the Bennington Early Childhood Center in Bennington, Vermont, which is why I'm doing this through Zoom, because that's a really far drive for three minutes of testimony. We are a pre qualified pre K partner site through the Agency of Education and a five stars quality early childhood education program through the Child Development Division of the Agency of Human Services. We serve over 70 children ages one through eight each year. I'm here today to talk about Farm to School and Early Childhood funding and how it has positively affected my program and to respectfully request that you please support the Farm to School and Early Childhood program with a level funded base appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. At my program, we have always had a great connection to gardening, harvesting, composting, and making and eating our own food. We have gardens on our property, and we engage the children in activities pertaining to growing, tasting, harvesting, cooking, and eating food. These sorts of experiences fit naturally into early childhood education into our curriculum. We are, however, always on the lookout for ways to improve our programming. And in 2021, the opportunity to be part of the Farm to Early Childhood Institute came on our radar. Going through the institute helped us to think more deeply about the three Cs of farm to school: cafeteria, classroom, and community and help us to form a value statement and action plan to guide our growth and our commitment to farm to school and early childhood education. Our plans included expanding our outdoor classroom opportunities by completing and outfitting a pavilion space, building a story walk trail, providing meal activities and supplies to families, purchasing more locally grown and raised food, expanding our raised bed gardens, planting more fruit bushes and trees on our property, making more connections with local farms, and planting a pollinator garden. As we worked on these goals, we applied for more grants, and we received the Farm to Early Childhood grant in 2022 and community supported agriculture or CSA grants in 'twenty two, 'twenty three and 'twenty four. As we continued to grow our connections to the land, we not only wanted to support the children, families and staff of our programs, but also other children, families and early childhood educators in the community. In 2024, we helped to organize a Farm to Early Childhood Education mini conference here in Bennington County. It was so well received that we helped to organize a second annual mini conference last year, and we are currently working on the third annual Farm to Early Childhood mini conference here in Bennington County. These mini conferences have brought professional learning experiences to early childhood educators in our region and sparked further interest in farm to school and early childhood activities and connections. One of my staff is now a Farm to Early Childhood mentor to another early childhood program in the area, assisting them as they go through the Farm to Early Childhood Institute. She and I have both been attending farm to school and early childhood meetings with Dana Hudson from Shelburne Farms to plan a gathering to continue connections in our region. And our center just recently applied for a grant to support the purchase of CSAs for four area early childhood programs, including our own. Farm to Early Childhood education initiatives are strong in our region, thanks to state supported funding. The impacts of Farm to School in early childhood are deep and meaningful, including exposing children to the process growing, harvesting, and eating healthy and nutritious food, fostering community relationships and supporting local farmers, and promoting curiosity and confidence in children through nature based programming that supports social emotional development and wellness, to name a few. We need these funding sources to remain stable so that we can keep moving forward and continue to make connections with more programs and schools, thus growing and sustaining deep connections to our food sources, nutrition, and ecological sustainability. As we enter into this new legislative session, please continue to support the Farm to School in Early Childhood Grants Program with a level funded appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year twenty twenty seven. Thank you so much for listening. It is my hope that hearing stories like mine, which highlight the impacts of this funding, will help you to make informed decisions for the future of farm to school and early childhood education in our state. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. We have just a couple of minutes if there's a question or two. By the way, I think the five of you did an amazing job articulating the reasons you're here and what looking for. So I think we all have a pretty good understanding of what you are asking us to do. Bob, I have a question. My question, number

[Unidentified legislator (committee member)]: three, do you believe at some point this will have legs enough of its own that it will not need state funding to make it thrive. So

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: as an incentive based program, it's building capacity within these schools and communities to have their own mix. And so when the school applies for a grant and gets a grant and they build their action plan and they have the support of coaches and mentors through that, then don't come back the next year for a grant or the next year. It sometimes happens where there's a lot of staff turnover or ten years go by, the grant program has been around now for so long that we have pretty high turnover rates in schools where they have to reapply, but the fact that this is a values based thing and it's trying to change the systems in which, that's one of the parts of the local food incentive program, you're changing the purchasing systems so that there isn't the need for, you're incentivizing it to then when the systems are changed, they don't need that support. So yes, I foresee a future where we will not need ongoing state support, we're not there yet. We are still at this point of transition. There is a statewide goal of 30% local, about 2,030. That's not just in schools, that sort of foods, all the food system farm to plate work statewide. And I'm proud of the fact that schools are now as an average at 14%, but we still have some work to get there. So yes, but not yet. And I'm a supporter of that. Yeah, that's okay. Hope that answers. A

[Ian Rose (Food Service Director, Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union)]: huge part of my job is procurement, right? So I'm on the front line or kind of choosing how that relates to that. There are things that can get done at the legislative level that assist us and looking at something specifically like higher processed items, we've made decisions to move away from those and spend that money on heirloom apples for example. I don't think I have to educate anyone on the value of one versus the other. Other states, California being one, had the state level made laws that prevent those products from finding access, the hyper products, processed products finding access into the schools. In my position, it makes the work a lot easier because what we run into sometimes is just physically having access to those products. The hyper process stuff is less expensive. Kids will grab a paperboard, it's designed to do that. Putting laws into place that minimize or remove those as a product that's viable for us, forces the vendors to sort of the higher up tier to make decisions to remove those products and replace them with something that falls in line with what we're talking about here. When that happens, we open up competition and that price naturally comes down for us. A lot of these things are either sort of niche or niche adjacent products, meaning that they're still expensive and they're premium because there's not a lot of competition on them.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So thank you. One quick question, quick answer.

[Mike Lichlider (Superintendent, Harwood Unified Union SD)]: Okay, quick question. So I felt bad for Ian, given Julia's comment about mystery meat and overcooked broccoli, but, you know, so be it. A question for Dana. You mentioned ROI, return on investment, in your brochure. Can you articulate what the kind of hard and fast ROI

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: That's not a simple answer. I'll be as succinct as I can. The fact that the local food incentive program, I'll just pick on that one for a sec, because there's so many pieces of universal school meals, the grant program, the CSA program, there's just a lot there. And so a one minute answer is not fully possible, but just a little food incentive program. By creating the incentives that then if you reach 15%, 20%, 25%, at the inside, you're changing the way you're setting up your system, your procurement patterns that we now have of the $25,000,000 that is part of the, as well as spent on school meals right now a year, we're at $3,500,000 that is coming out of the school meal budgets. That's what that percentage is. And so that we're not spending 3,500,000.0 on the local food incentive program, you're incentivizing it. So you're seeing this amazing return of the budgets being shifted to purchase a local product. The other aspect of, and UBM has done a great research study about that every dollar that's spent, you get another 60¢ return on that. So for every dollar spent on this, we're seeing at least 1.6 within the economy returning back. So they're in that materials that besides that research, you want to dig deeper into it. But we see a lot of returns in the educational components, in the economy components, the farmers that are so proud and happy to be selling to the schools. So there's monetary return, there's social return, and I'll stop talking because that's as short as I can be without answering.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you, should we still take 15, there are maybe 10, okay. Thank you for coming. We're gonna take a break, go offline, and come back

[Dana Hudson (Coordinator, Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network; Shelburne Farms)]: at