Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Live.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. This is us. We'll return to the joint House Senate Education Committee hearing. What we wanted to do for the next couple of hours in something like twenty or twenty five minute blocks is hear from some superintendents around Vermont as we're considering the path forward for this year with their own reflections and perhaps hopefully some recommendations for us or things we should consider as we go forward this year. So it's always good to hear from people a little bit closer to the ground. And so that's what we're seeking to do today. And so we have the first witness we have is from the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union, Tim Payne. And I should note, by the way, that Chair Komen and I, as we do these joint hearings, are moving the chair back and forth between us and I have to be Chairman of Chair for the next slide. So I think we're ready. Everybody seems to be here. And so Superintendent Payne, you have the floor.

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: Good afternoon. Can everybody hear me?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Yes. All

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: right. Well, you everybody. My name is Tim Payne. I serve as superintendent of the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union. I've been in the job since July 2025. So a seasoned veteran at this point. I serve the communities of Pownall, Bennington, Woodford, North Bennington, Shaftsbury, Arlington, and Sandgate. We are a supervisory union and we support communities operating both public schools grades K-twelve and non operating districts with school choice K6 and K12. We have roughly 3,100 students. We create an exceptional learning community with lots of different academic achievements. I want to take the opportunity to highlight that we have outstanding AP scores compared to our friends in the state and the national average. We have a fine arts program that's comprehensive for K through 12, and we offer flexible pathways for our community based learning for all of our students to provide them with real world experiences. Our communities are pretty economically diverse. We have a free and reduced rate that ranges from 65 to 100%. And like many communities in Vermont, we face the challenges of high absenteeism, increased mental health needs, and the lack of alternatives for students not served in a traditional school setting. I want to thank Senator Bongartz for the opportunity to speak before the Senate and House Ed Committee today. I know I'm new to the position. I might be an odd choice to speak, but I've been a resident of Bennington County since 1994. I've served the last thirteen years as building principal at first the middle school at Mount Anthony and then the high school. Senator Bongartz shared his hope for Act 73 when we talked about this opportunity, the chance to increase opportunities for all students and I support his goal in that. My purpose today is to answer his question which he posed which was what should the focus of educational reform in this session be? My first humble suggestion is to set aside the map discussion and focus on how we pay for school. From my observation, the map discussion has not produced a clear next step and the result has been to sow division among neighbors and increase frustration with both the state government and the agency of education. When I am asked by elected officials and community members in the communities I serve about drawing maps, I often answer with a question. My question is if the current school districts in Bennington County, which is the BRSU and the SVSU were to be merged into a larger district under Act 73, how would a student living in Pownall at the southern border access school choice more Northerly Manchester? Bennington County is made up of communities with long traditions of both school choice and public schools. If you can't answer the question in a way that offers all students a better opportunity, why are we talking about maps? As a new superintendent, I have spent most of the fall speaking to community groups and explaining how school budgets are developed under the current system. Longtime residents are often stunned when I tell them that much of the process determining their property taxes happens after they vote on a school budget. They are equally surprised to learn that their taxes fund the entire state of Vermont and not their community schools directly. And good luck explaining to a resident of Shasbury why they pay a different property tax than a resident of Bennington. The current system is confusing and filled with accounting maneuvers that change every year and yet we are all amazed that taxpayers are increasingly frustrated about being able to afford in beautiful Vermont. My interactions with community members in just six months has solidified my understanding that there is an immediate need for an equitable and predictable system to pay for schools in Vermont. Returning to Senator Bongartz goal of providing better opportunities, I do offer a couple of concrete suggestions as was the prompt. First, adopt a budget process that tells us how much money we have at the start of decision making. Then trust local schools to make decisions on how to fund their schools that reflects their values and their needs. Ideally, the budget number would also change at a predictable rate over time, reducing the annual anxiety over property taxes produced by the current system. Second, reward school districts who are willing to innovate and experiment how they deliver an outstanding education for every student. The Agency of Education could encourage us by eliminating compliance and regulations that get in the way of experimentation and actually encourage schools to fail occasionally in their initiatives. Lastly, if schools are going to accept state dollars, they should meet common expectations and routine requirements. All schools should provide clear improvement goals to their communities, present their communities with their budgets for feedback, and be prepared to justify their request, and lastly, their students' growth over time. As the legislature returns to business, the easy route is to ask schools to do more with less. With a declining student population, that request is understandable, but does not address the fact that the legislature has repeatedly added initiatives without providing additional funding. In my time as a building principal, I hired school based clinicians, contracted with outside providers for students with autism, and hired an HHB coordinator. The recent state mandate to update, add, and provide training around AEDs in schools will cost my district $70,000 in the first year and there will be recurring maintenance and training costs for years to come. That amount in my district equals the salary and benefits of a new teacher. Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity of speaking today. I would leave you with these two questions as you step into your very busy session. What do you want schools to do? And how are we gonna pay for it? Two simple questions to consider, I guess for the day.

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: Thank you. And

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: thank you. Questions from around the room?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I'll ask a very quick one. Thanks for your testimony, Tim. When you talk about having an equitable, predictable funding method, is that, does a foundation formula with weights for each individual student satisfy that definition?

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: That's a good question. My assistant superintendent who is new to the district as well, most recently served for fifteen years in Texas. She has quite a bit of experience with foundation formula. And so without applying Vermont numbers to it, I find it I tell folks I'm foundation curious. I'd be interesting to show me if you had a number assigned by kids by weights, I could give you how many kids I've got and you told me this is the amount of money you can expect. I think it would be a good tabletop experiment to walk through. Could I fund school? What would I have to prioritize? I think that's I think that would be well, I can use a real world example. Last night I met with one of the six school boards that I represent and we put forward, we're moving forward with the MAU budget. And I have a community who will see, I have a budget that will rise 1% assessment on one of my communities will actually go down 1% and yet they will pay more than $09 on the $100 value on that. And that's hard to explain to a community member who sees that their budget is down, but their taxes are going up. If foundation formula could address that in that, here's your money, Tim, we can predict what your taxes are going up. I think that's a conversation that builds trust in your community. Because right now I'm telling you that we're not building trust in the community. When the community sees me on TV saying my school budget is up 3%, but their taxes are going up $12.15, 20¢ on the $100. That's a hard conversation to have in the moment that I'm buying bananas in Hannaford and they want just two minutes of my time to try to explain Ed spending in a short brief period. Did I answer the question?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: You did, thank you, appreciate it. Somebody else, Karen.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Can you talk to us a

[Representative Erin Brady (House Education Committee)]: little bit about the enrollment trends in your district and across the schools and average class sizes? Do you see any challenges in meeting the minimum class sizes that are put out in Act 73?

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: Yeah, great question. I think we are experiencing the same trends as the state. And in fact, we are in the process of gathering information over, we went back fifteen years, cause we have a five year projection right now. Of my boards has done early building utilization work. So we figured a twenty year snapshot would be a good one. And so we definitely mirror what you're seeing in the rest of the state, which is a slow decline in enrollment over time. Sorry, the second part of your question?

[Representative Erin Brady (House Education Committee)]: Well, I guess specific to the class minimums that are laid out in degree, is that, how will that land in your district and in

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: your schools? Will it force some shifts or?

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: So a vast majority of schools will meet the minimums as laid out in the law. That's K through 12. But I think folks who, you know, certainly Senator Bongartz is aware that I serve the town of Woodford. We have the oldest public school, not the smallest. I learned that from a colleague earlier this month. We serve that serves K through six has 20 students. That absolutely is going to be a point of conversation how we continue to support that community school as we go forward.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you. And you're welcome to stay around and listen to everybody else who knows another question may come, but you also probably have plenty of questions you can go do.

[Tim Payne (Superintendent, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union)]: No, I'm going hang out. And again, I appreciate everybody's time. I'm hoping that my board meeting later on this evening goes as smoothly. You guys have been a lovely audience. You.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So next we have to show Susan. Maybe?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: She was on.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Let's give her a minute and it's not a problem if we go to somebody else and then come back. Okay. Why don't we move past our superintendent Sousa and go to Adam Bunting? Oh, Adam's here. Yeah, he's in front of us. Yeah.

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: I do have a slide deck. I don't know if that's something I can be projected.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: If you have a device, we think you should make the Opels. Okay. Good afternoon.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. Alright. Adam Adam, you get set up while we have Perfect. Testify.

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: I'll even move seats.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So, Terry, introduce yourself, tell us where you're from, and then off you go.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Yes. Is it possible for me to share my screen? I do have a slide deck.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: People have to give you the ability to

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: We have paid you co hosts. They need to stay home. Special. Terrific. So as a special educator reimagined, of course, I'm going to have visual cues in my presentation. So I hope that's okay. Hang on one second. It never goes as well as we had planned. Sorry. Let's try this again and share. And I'm going to do one more thing. And how is that?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay, you can see

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: it. One

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: more second. There we are. So I'm going to do my best to work between my testimony and my toggling from slide to slide. So to begin, good afternoon, members of the Senate Education Committee and House Education Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to offer my thoughts on the work of your committees and the legislation this spring. I am Sherry Souza, superintendent of Mountain View Supervisory Union. We are a district of seven communities, including the towns of Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pittsfield, Pomfret, Reading and Woodstock with just over 1,000 students. I ask that you stop me along my presentation if there's something that you have a question about so that we can fully explore this time together. So you asked me to speak on three topics regarding the future of public education in Vermont. As a transplant to the Green Mountain State, I pursued the opportunity to work as an educator in Vermont more than thirty years ago. This state then had a reputation for progressive educational philosophy and a commitment to meeting the needs of all children. I have remained here as a special education teacher, building base administrator, special education director, and for the last seven years, superintendent, because that vision has been a reality for I have always felt that Vermont provides the space for inspired educators and the potential for creative responses to challenging needs. I hope that my varied experiences and belief in the Vermont Public Education System allows me to offer an informed opinion today. First, you asked me to speak to the school district redistricting task force and their report. The charge of this group was to examine statewide consolidation options and propose new district configurations intended to improve equity, quality, and fiscal sustainability. This was a Herculean task with limited time and state data. I value the intellectual curiosity of this group, of legislators and experienced Vermont public educators as they fully dedicated themselves to the task. They demonstrated a fierce commitment to finding a path forward by designing a plan with three strategies that embrace the context of education in Vermont, the need for greater equity of educational experiences, and the opportunity to be more efficient in delivery of programs. Of the Task Force three strategies, I have experienced in achieving a voluntary merger and have labored to create a comprehensive high school in our community. However, I believe that I can best speak to the value of cooperative education service areas or BOCES. As one of the superintendents who shepherded this concept of substance for Vermont, I have direct knowledge of the benefits they can offer to our students, educators, and financial bottom lines. While I do not believe that SESSL can address all of the educational challenges we are facing, they are a vehicle that provides the scale and scope to access more affordable resources and maintain the direct knowledge of individual communities' needs. Eight Southeast Supervisory Unions and Districts have already benefited this model through, first, a responsive special education evaluation teams. We are now able to evaluate students at a much more timely and cost efficient model. Staffing solutions for hard to fill positions, across the state of Vermont, special educators, speech language pathologists, those positions are incredibly hard and difficult to fill this BOCES that has been able to support us in that work. Comprehensive program reviews to support continuous improvement in special education services and instructional practices. This is one of the true pieces of equity that we need to address with regards to special education. Targeted consultation services tailored to district identified needs, high quality responsive professional development focused on building instructional and organizational capacity, both general and special education and cooperative purchasing initiatives that increase efficiency and reduce costs for member districts. Most recently myself and the director of the Vermont Learning Collaborative, now the BOCES, who are able to apply for a grant for over $100,000 to work on special education endorsements. As a district of 1,000 students, I'm not able to access that. But applying with eight other superintendents through the collaborative, we're able to be competitive in our request for these monies. Cooperative education service agencies are designed to meet the specific challenges and opportunities of a region, and are only limited in scope by the creativity of its members. It is my recommendation to implement the school district redistricting task force's phase roadmap that offers strategies which are research based and data driven. The Vermont legislature has been a partner with school leadership in providing quality educational experiences for our children and tending to the financial challenges we are facing. House six thirty, which brought us the opportunity for CESA, has been a significant piece of legislation positively impacting student outcomes and financial efficiencies. The same can be said for act 73. This legislation, I believe, codified some of the challenges of educating students in Vermont and put steps in place to begin the work to address them. For me, the valuable outcomes of this document include minimum class sizes and grade requirements that recognizes the quality of student experience and financial efficiencies coexist. A path forward to access school construction aid, an attempt to achieve a statewide calendar, graduation requirements, and the goal of a foundation's formula to address equivility of school funding. The foundation formula was presented as a means to achieve equitable funding for students so that an individual zip code did not dictate the quality of the education they receive. In essence, it provides districts the same dollars per student. The reality of this method is that districts that are more efficacious can direct more dollars directly to each student. Districts that are less effective will deliver fewer dollars directly to each student. I believe that until we evaluate the root causes of inequity of educational experiences and address those specifically in legislation, we will continue to maintain this pattern of varied student outcomes and experiences. Here's what I'd like to see further addressed regarding the funding formula. First, provide evidence for the implementation of this methodology by offering measurable positive impacts on schools, students, and taxpayers. Next, analyze the impacts across district sizes, demographics, and regions before making changes to the funding structures. Finally, ensure that formula accounts for the integration of both academic and CTE pathways so that neither is disadvantaged and students have access. These insurances would provide community members and educators the documentation they need to trust, but my predecessor supervisor just spoke about trust, superintendent, I'm sorry, trust the intent of legislators to create a more equitable education funding system using this strategy. Again, equal funding per student per district is not the same as equitable funding for Vermont students. The 19 pages of Act 73, and I've read every single one of those 19 pages multiple times, that outline a process to access school construction aid was a relief for my district. We finally had a template for addressing the urgent situation of Woodstock Union High School and Middle School's failing facility, which is in my district. My ask for future legislation at legislative action on school construction aid are few but significant. First, fully execute the requirements of Act 73 with regards to the state aid for school construction by identifying a funding source. A firm commitment for school construction aid is essential for schools, districts, and a successful implementation of act 73 overall. Making that commitment would engender again trust while not making a firm commitment achieves the opposite. And just as urgently, pass legislation drafted by representative Kimball and senator Clark to exclude capital construction costs from the definition of education spending for the purposes of calculating excess spending. Building needs across the state will not be addressed at the cost of educational programs. I support the work of our legislators to reduce the number of school districts and supervisory unions in Vermont. Opportunities for future work by the House and Senate to address this need would include creating measures of success for the stated goals of Act 73. Equity and cost efficiency, not arbitrary student counts. I would ask the message that redistricting will not singularly control tax increases is critical, and that it will lead in fact lead to short term cost increases. Critically, the drivers of significant cost increases, healthcare, mental health, staffing, and facilities must be solved. Further, revise the timeline for execution so the work is evidence based and meets the Act 73 intended goals. Finally, provide districts, not just AOE, with transition resources. The requirements of Act 73 are not merely turning off on or off a switch or drawing some lines on a map. This work is deep and meaningful and requires financial resources from the state to achieve. I would argue, and I'm a good arguer, and have the evidence to support that excellence of educational opportunities has been achieved at Mountain View Supervisory District for the majority of our students as a result of becoming a supervisory district. As a faculty member and administrator, I sat too many meetings where I saw the stagnation of student outcomes. It didn't matter what instructional or curricular direction we took, the lack of a clear district wide vision and the infrastructure to implement that vision was needed to move forward. This all changed with the Towns of Our Supervisory Union made the brave decision to become a supervisory district. The merge allowed us to realize a unified contract, a unified curriculum, a unified strategic plan, portrait of a graduate and educational policies, Unified Instructional Practices, Unified Board that allowed the superintendent to serve as an instructional leader, Unified Budget that supports stated priorities of the strategic plan, and a unified faculty and staff who are knowledgeable of the district priorities. In my experience, the term unified is synonymous with the terms opportunity, efficiency, and effectiveness. This was not an easy process. For MDSD, this meant twenty five three hour meetings and multiple town votes when our towns already shared a high school and the communities were integrated. Loss of board control was a primary concern for our eight boards at that time and their citizens. These fears have not been realized due to the work of the Merge Board, which has resulted in impressive growth in student outcomes and improved faculty retention. This Merge did not close schools, but it did allow us to reimagine the instructional spaces that better reflected our portrait of a graduate. This new MBSD board had many growing pains. However, they were eventually recognized as the Vermont School Board of the Year. The 18 member school board members now have a broader vision of the district and confidence in the capacity of the leadership team. Once we became a merged district, the schools and educators benefited from a clear, coherent message of our purpose and a learning culture based on reflective practices. We created a Portrait of a Graduate where the community, students, and educators identified the valued attributes of our future graduates. Two five year strategic plans, one which was executed during COVID, were written based on a needs assessment that brought together parents, students, educators, and administrators to identify the short and long term goals of the district. Our leadership team wrote and the board approved a teaching and learning policy that codified the work of the district and board. Decisions were made at the district level to direct COVID federal dollars through improving literacy, mathematics, and the social emotional health of our students. Professional development started at the classroom level with a small cohort of teachers. Student success created Teacher Momentum for Change. The district hired with the Merge Board support a district wide curriculum coordinator and facilitators for literacy and math instruction. These content area experts created frameworks for district wide work, aligned curriculum, instruction assessment per Act 173, deepened multi levels of support attending to all three tiers, outlined professional development cycles, developed systems for student and teacher accountability, provided teacher team and individual instruction, coaching and modeling, and supported principals as instructional leaders. Further, the MVSD leadership team dedicated themselves to continuous improvement through data cycles and national professional learning. We also visited high performing schools across the country. None of this could have happened as a supervisory union with eight separate districts and boards. Only as a supervisory district could all of our students achieve at this level of success. Superintendents cannot act as instructional leaders when serving the needs of multiple boards. In summary, the legislature has an opportunity to respond to the expectations of our communities and the responsibility to educate our children. If we attend directly to those factors most impacting our mission. In my testimony, I've highlighted the work I'm most proud of as superintendent that has created a vibrant and agentic learning environment for the students of NBSD. I have seen how collaboration of school leaders through cooperative education service agencies does make a difference for student services and financial efficiencies. I value the work of Act 73 to address class size, create statewide systems, support a path for new and renovated school facilities, and to establish a more fair and transparent parent funding system. I am fully committed to superintendents focusing on the role of instructional leaders rather than attending to the expectations of multiple boards by becoming school districts instead of supervisory unions. I would also ask that the reflective practices in place of MBSD also be considered by Vermont legislators by considering these three questions in all context. Does our work create more equitable educational experiences? Is the work supported by evidence? Does it expand opportunities for and produce measurable positive outcomes to student learning? I know that these three questions are the compass points for creating a vision for Vermont education that will build on its reputation for having a progressive educational philosophy and a commitment to meeting the needs of all children. Thank you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you. We have time for a few questions or a couple. I had one, Cheryl, You're a relatively small district with a thousand students and the legislation contemplates having those districts get bigger SVs or SUs, whichever it is, take a larger size. And what's your perspective on that as somebody who has a district that you've achieved what you've achieved in that district of 1,000? And just of want to get your thoughts on that part of what the solution is.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Thank you. That's a great question. I believe that as a Supervisory District, these goals and this kind of student progress could be accomplished. Again, when your superintendent can be an instructional leader and not managing multiple school boards, one contract, one calendar, one director of curriculum is

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I talking wasn't asking so much about SU versus SB, was asking the forced merger of your district going into a larger SD and your perspective on whether that's helpful or not.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Thank you for that clarification. I do believe this can be accomplished with a larger district and going from 1,000 to 2,000? Absolutely, again, with those unified pieces in place.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yes. Thanks. Actually, might follow-up on that a little bit and kind of the same question. As you talked about your success at Mountain View Supervisory District, to me that's kind of proof of concept, and Act 46 of got us there. So I guess the question is, I think you've proved the concept, and perhaps it's time to take a different path to larger districts that don't involve twenty five three hour meetings, and that are perhaps simply the state says, okay, the concept has been proven. We see it here at Mountain View Supervisory District. I'm sure many other superintendents would say the same thing. Maybe it's time we just move forward at a quicker pace with larger districts. You comment on that? And then I do have another question after this.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: So during that time, I was a special ed director. I did attend every one of those twenty five, three hour meetings. They were challenging. I think those conversations were important because we really needed to work hard as superintendent and special ed director to help the boards understand and appreciate the opportunities that were available. The voluntary component of that, and again, it took multiple years and multiple voids, but I think those conversations were really important. And I think that commitment to the district once it happened allowed us to move faster. And I see other situations where that commitment might not have been achieved even though through a voluntary merge and I saw districts pulling out. So I appreciated the opportunity while it was a lot of work. Those conversations are really important.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: One of questions is, yeah, you wrote, until we elevate root causes of inequity and address them specifically in legislation, we'll continue to see varied student outcomes and experiences across Vermont. Isn't a root cause of inequity the fact that some districts fund their students, that we fund districts at wildly different levels?

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: I would agree.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: And I guess, I think I would just say that I think Act 73 get it back through a foundation formula.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Correct, I would agree. And that's why I support the funding formula. Think modeling how that would impact, where the changes would be. I think there's a lot of decision made at individual communities and towns that do impact the outcome for students. So no, I think the funding formula is valid.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. You're the second superintendent to sort of bring up this idea that some districts are gonna be more efficient with their dollars than others. Gradually, if that's ever gonna be solved 100%. But I guess I see a much more important root cause just in how different districts fund their education.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Well, and I would defer to how different district supervisory unions use the COVID money. We were incredibly strategic. We really focused on literacy, mathematics, social emotional. We didn't hire additional positions. We used our resources for professional development. We saw this as an opportunity to really move the work forward in ways that we couldn't accomplish otherwise. So I think there are certain levers that can be pulled with financing. It was challenging. There was a requested time in our district. We wanted a paraeducator in every classroom. And we were very careful on how we use that COVID money to make sure that it was used in a way that would in the long term impact literacy, mathematics and social emotional. So I think there are some ways that money is applied and that's the efficiency and accountability in terms of what is the work to be done and what are the goals that are set.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you. Representative Brady?

[Representative Erin Brady (House Education Committee)]: I have two questions. The first one is same. I think I'd like to ask all superintendents what your enrollment trends look like and if the class size minimums in Act 73 would impact any of the schools or configurations within your schools currently.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: So we've maintained our enrollment. We did have a bump during COVID. We had a lot of people who had second home homes and moved up here during that time. Post COVID, we have maintained to be a district of 1,000 students. So over the last thirteen years, that is pretty much pretty plus or minus 10 where we've been. So we have not seen that 20% decline in enrollment. And I would say that speaks to the level of success our students are experiencing. So people who are looking for a successful school district, they're staying and they're maintaining. I would also say that another factor is that we have full time public pre K for four year olds and three year olds when there is room and capacity. I think those two factors have encouraged people to move to our region, stay within our region during that time. We have maintained enrollment in our district. In terms of class size, we have one very small elementary school. The challenge we're facing is their classes are multiple grades and they are not within the band that has is an act 73. Our challenge is that we do not have an elementary school close by, that if we move those students to join another elementary school, the closest one is full. There is no capacity in the closest elementary school. And so at this point in time, we will continue to have Reading Elementary open because we have no other place within our district that has the capacity to take that number of students.

[Representative Erin Brady (House Education Committee)]: My second question is I know that there's a huge facilities need in the high school. Are there discussions happening already around a potentially different configuration for that high school to bring more students into a newer building? I know that the landscape here in the state makes it hard to do future planning right now, but I'm curious if that's happening at all or what the potential is for a regional middle and or high school if we have facility planning.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: So what we've recognized is a pattern where at this time we have eight different communities as part of the supervisory union. Pittsfield is also part of those seven towns. We have 20 other communities that have sent students to our high school. So quality of program has really and success rate, we have 50% of our high school students participate in AP classes. We offer 17 different AP classes. So while our facility is failing, our program is doing extremely well. And so that's how we've been building and maintaining that thousand student population or the population in our middle school and high school by offering high quality programs that are really engaging opportunities for pathways for instruction. So that is how we're trying to build our student enrollment and maintain it. We also believe that when we build a new facility, more students will come. They are at this point in time, even though we have 20 communities, in addition to our eight, I think there is fear and we've experienced that. A week ago, 20% of our bathrooms were down for over a month at the middle school and high school. We are putting in money into that building to replace a failing system in our cafeteria and a boiler. So I think while we are bringing students from other communities, there is a great concern about the longevity of that facility. So there's a programs are great, but still when people students walk through that building and see the challenges we're facing, they may not choose to be part of our district. Thanks.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I see a hand. Let's do one more and then we have to move on.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: I think I have the opposite question of Chair Conlon because I can see how twenty five three hour meetings would be extremely valuable. I wonder what your big takeaways were from fears people had that were unfounded versus the kinds of representation agreements you had to make during those meetings that help inform our work to support district mergers? I think what came out of that meeting, and

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: I think the real turning point for that group, Act 46 group, was the understanding and appreciation that all their schools, the five elementary schools all feed into the same seventh grade. And what we were seeing, and I was a middle school, high school special ed teacher, students were coming into seventh grade, such diverse experiences that we really were losing the first year of school because we had students on different curriculum, different pacing, different experiences. And so the realization that they all became ours, when they entered our middle school and high school, they were all our responsibility. And that as long as we allowed schools to have their unique personality, and that's continued with having similar academic experiences and social emotional experiences. Once that was understood and appreciated, the movement forward happened much faster. I think there was a real concern and we see and it continues that the unique personalities that each school would be lost, by becoming a Merge District and having the same curriculum and instructional practices. Well, we've been able to demonstrate very successfully that that continues to happen and that we are having much more improved student outcomes.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: Can I just ask quickly, are there some outcomes, it doesn't have to be now that you could share with us that you think have materially improved, we can point to? Well, think that's

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: right, and you have access to that slide. You can see the amount, again, we were at the Vermont state average, we were at 65% in literacy and math, lower in math. You can see in our scores right now are even more improved. 80%, 85% of our students are proficient in literacy and 70% are proficient in math. That puts us in the top five to 10 across the state. What is most impressive and what I'm most proud of, the group of students that were not moving, we weren't seeing the growth rates we really wanted to see were those students who are most economically disadvantaged. And in our tenth grade data last year, there was no difference in growth between our economically disadvantaged and our non students. That I have never seen and it's been incredible. When 50% of a public high school students are taking AP classes, including students who are on individual education plans, all students believe they can succeed. And I will tell you for a teacher, when 80% of your to 90% of your students are proficient in literacy and math, it's a game changer. The kind and quantity, quality, pace, deeper learning you can achieve when the majority, large majority of your students proficient, much different.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you so much and please stick around if you're so inclined and we'll now switch to Adam Bongartz from CVST.

[Sherry Souza (Superintendent, Mountain View Supervisory Union)]: Thank you.

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: A few handouts.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Alright.

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: Thanks for having me today. I'm Adam Bunting. I am the superintendent for the Champlain Valley School District. We serve the towns of Hinesburg, Charlotte, Shelburne, which often the governor often references in opposition to Sheldon. And I bring that up just to say that I think there are some misconceptions about our district that folks have. We actually have nine zero six students who are economically disadvantaged right now. It's bigger than some districts in the state. So often when our community, Shelburne, is being held up in opposition to other places around the state, I always wanna clarify that. We also serve Charlotte and the mighty Saint George, small but an important part of our community. So it's interesting that I'm giving testimony today. It's a little bit of a serendipitous timing. Well, I suppose it's little bit redundant. I've been working with my, what we call our lead team. We have monthly meetings with all of our administrators across the district. And we were collected today. We've been working on a year long community based design process that will end up being a multiyear process to really think about, and I'm going to talk about this quite a bit today, mapping and maximizing student engagement. You'll hear from me again and again and again that I think the most important metric we have is student engagement and that we actually can look at that by student, we can look at it by school, and that we need to think start thinking about that as a state. But as part of our design process, we've been looking at human centered design principles and watched a clip today from someone named Don Nelson, who's an author, a designer, and a cognitive scientist. And he talks about the four elements of really good human centered design, which is what you all are engaged in all the time. He talks about you have to really design for people, not as we think they should be, but as they are. That we have to look at really solve for root causes versus symptoms, keeping in mind that everything is a system. And that ultimately we need to start thinking about small and simple interventions because of the complexity, because of the nuance in what we do, we're probably gonna get it wrong first time through. And then in our we pause at lunch, and we always have a leadership minute where someone from our team shares their thinking on leadership. We had Tyler Cohen present today. He's our communications manager. And Tyler used to work for Backcountry Magazine. And we're sharing some of his leadership lessons from being in avalanche country and being out there with folks who really take some risks in backcountry skiing. And he had one of his quotes that he shared with us was, from one of his friends was, make your decisions when you're warm, well fed, and dry. And I think about, I'm wondering whether this group as we head into this legislative session is warm, well fed and dry. Are in the thick of it. You are in the conditions in the back country with threat of avalanche. I don't want to overstate it by any means. But if there's any testimony I have today that doesn't feel respectful of that process, please know that I hold that in my heart. The complexity and nuance with what you all face and what we face is real. All right. So this is just some stats you can look at later for who we are as a district. We have almost 3,700 students, as I said, nine zero four, I think I must stated nine zero six, who experience economic disadvantage. We have 113 multilingual learners, 20 students right now who are experiencing homelessness. Just to get to your question, Aaron, enrollment trends about four or five years ago, I always use CVU, our comprehensive high school as an example. We are near 1,400 students. We've seen a dip the past few years. We're about just over 1,200 right now. We're gonna decline a little bit and then go back up. And a lot of that depends on housing. I know near and dear to Senator Ram Hinsdale's heart. So we'll see what happens. So as I'm supposed to The invite today, what are the ingredients of success, kind of the response to the redistricting task force, and then what are our hopes for, or my hopes for the upcoming legislative session? I'm gonna tap back. I apologize for those who visited in December. So Senator Bongartz, I think you organized it and getting everyone over to CVU. It was great to host the folks who are there. I always try to convey complexity through story. It's a little bit easier for me. I don't know if it's my English teacher background or not. And in December, I shared a story actually that started with a haircut that I was getting this summer. So I go to Clay's barbershop in South Burlington. A little shout out to Clay for anyone who goes. Clay is a very popular barber. And thus the wait times are often, you know, some are there. I always bring my laptop and I'm in my email typing away. I think this is late July, early August. And I'm stressing about the upcoming school year. And I am actually probably stressing about Act 73 at that point too and thinking about all the moving pieces, head into my email, and I hear this bright call from across the barbers. Hey, Mr. Bongartz. I look up and I see Kevin, who is pictured here in the slide deck. And Kevin's a 2018 graduate from CBU. I served as his principal. And as Kevin describes himself, he has high functioning autism. And so the thing to know about Kevin is it is like a ray of sunshine. Any time you interact with him, bright, engaged, present, just right there. And so I popped out of my seat, snapped my laptop shut, walked across the barbershop, and he was there with his mother. And I kind of asked my standard question, How are doing, Kevin? What are you up to? And what was apparent to me, which was great, was that he was thriving. He just looked mellow. And I think as most educators, we worry

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: about our

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: students with special needs, particularly students with intensive special needs, which does not describe Kevin. Because school is often the peak of their lives, is when they are the most connected, when they are the most involved in their community, perhaps experiencing a sense of purpose. And So I was just especially glad to see Kevin in that moment. And he began to tell me what he was doing. And he had started right here this business called Games with Kevin. And he goes around to community and brings joy through organizing games like Family Feud for companies, for schools. We, at this point now, have had him at all of our schools. I've got a picture of it right here. This is in Charlotte. That's a small group of students. And I immediately said to Kevin, you are gonna help me kick off the school year this year. You're gonna meet with all of our faculty and staff. And he came, he led. It ended up being about 800 faculty and staff over two days in games. The reason I asked Evan to join us wasn't just because of of the business that he's running, and it's and it wasn't just because of who he is, but it's because of what he embodies. And in my mind, he embodies the success of a school system. He embodies what happens when I know that when we are focused on students achieving a sense of purpose by the time they leave high school, knowing their identity well. And his mother that day said to me in a barbershop, she was like, you know, none of this, like what Kevin's doing now, who he is now, wouldn't have happened without his experiences at Wilson Central School, Allen Brook, wouldn't have happened without CVU and all the opportunities that he had. And so I dug around in my emails and I found like some of what Kevin got to experience at our, what I would call, comprehensive high school, which is gonna tap into the you're getting the redistricting task force piece here in a second. But he had the ability to participate in unified sports, traveled to Seattle. This picture up here is from his grad challenge presentation, a senior capstone. And his project was pretty remarkable. He's working with our acting class, developing social stories for other students with autism to understand social cue and social nuance. He led our entire faculty and staff through our advisory system and a winter carnival in a Family Feud game that he's now doing. So you could see these threads back to high school. And to me, that's just vital. I bring it up today with this quote, and I shared this with the folks who were at CDU in December. When our board chair when the board hired me to be superintendent, and I'm always communicating in terms of stories, She said, I I don't wanna hear about the unicorn. She's like, I don't I'm not really interested in a singular story, Adam. Like, yes, I like hearing it. I wanna hear about a herd of unicorns. There there may have been an expletive in there when she said it to me, but I've removed Greatness of this occasion. I want to hear about herd of unicorns, which means a system. And so over the past, it's really been a decade, but more earnestly across the system. We've been focused on what you see in front of you. And this is what we call our engagement framework. So at the heart of learning is seeking story. And we look at student story and engaging students through four lines, connection, proficiency, and direction. And each one of those lenses have been fleshed out, and we are also measuring our progress with identity connection, proficiency, and direction as a system. You can see some of the statistics that we have here and as individual students so that we can respond acutely and systemic. These metrics to me, our proficiency metrics that we talk about are important. But when we have students developing a sense of direction and we are actually measuring it and we're acting on it, that is absolutely crucial to long term success of our students. So you'll see some of our metrics here. Eighty seven percent of CBSE students score proficient or above on standardized literacy assessments. All of these are interlocking and to me are components of these. When you ask the question, what are the ingredients of educational success? These are those. So I'm happy to speak more on that at greater depth in a moment. So I guess I would tie this into the redistricting task forces work in that. When we look at strategic mergers, I think we need to be thoughtful of more than just size. And I think we should start considering more creative metrics like the ones that we've developed at CVSD. I know there are so many districts around the state that look at these ingredients of success and that we bring that mindfulness. I've seen people map out engagement. I would call it engagement per dollar or opportunity per dollar. There are some really interesting metrics out there people are playing with. I'm going to recommend someone to come testify a little bit later. Some of this data also speaks to my concern with the mega district that was dropped last year for Chittenden County. When we start thinking about a 22,000 person district, I don't What I've seen state level is we tend to focus more on compliance. I worry about the bureaucracy. I am not seeing a discussion. It's been about a decade statewide since I've seen a discussion about future facing learning. We hear a lot, and it's important, about literacy and math. We are not talking about problem solving. We're not talking about critical thinking. We're not talking about the things that we can that are being measured nationally. There are systems out there that we can move towards. And I think without that, then we are going to find ourselves behind the eight ball. And that gets to some of the messaging. I wrote an op ed a little while ago when I saw it was senator and representative publishing, I think, some of the governor's messaging around the broken educational system by focusing solely on NAEP data, which is not disaggregated by district, that is deflating, that is defeating to our educators. It's an unfair narrative, and it's an untrue narrative when you start digging into different metrics. And I don't think the general public really has an understanding about NAEP data. And I felt so strongly when people are publishing that type of rhetoric in our local newspapers because people are gonna vote our budgets down. We are gonna lose resources for kids like Kevin, and that's not acceptable. And I'm not saying that's what my op ed, I think, was a little spicy at times. But it really is a call for partnership. I think about Barbara Stanton, who is a role model for me. We have a Snelling house at Seaview High School. This is a picture of Mark and Diane, our children who came to meet with our Snelling students this year. And I think about, I really do agree with the governor saying in terms of the political courage that it's going to take this year for all of us, all of you moving forward. And I think we want to hold Barbara Snelling in mind, who, as legend has it, in the 60s, she basically created this comprehensive high school called CVU, much to the chagrin of folks in Shelburne and Hinesburg, who loved their little high schools. And I think it was the one time that Dick Snelling lost Chaubern to I think it was Udi Thomas. Thomas really was named after Udi Thomas, was a farmer in Chaubern at that time, because his constituents were so angry at this comprehensive high school. At the end of this, all of our careers are going to end. And I think if we can have a legacy like Robert Stelling's legacy, where we have partnered and worked together to create something better for this state, think we will all be proud. And that is what I'm seeing from our superintendents as well. When I started last year, there was a narrative of superintendents being fearful of being seen as or construed as obstructionist. That's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing superintendents saying, I will work against my own self interest in my own job because we have too many small schools. We have too many small districts, but we need to be thoughtful about the system design. Please partner with us. Okay. So, and just moving forward into a few other topics. I was in a supervisory union back in 2017. CVSD consolidated into a district. I cannot imagine how folks function as superintendents in a supervisory union. One board is enough for me, and I've seen great cohesion and a great use of resources since we consolidated. I do not We have folks, colleagues of mine who have 14 boards across the state. I think Sherry's testimony said, I don't know how anyone becomes an instructional leader in that capacity. Comprehensive high schools, absolutely. I think, again, I think Seaview is pretty close to being a comprehensive high school in the biggest district. I go back to when I was principal at Montpelier High School, just down the road. This is an image I like in 2014, we invited another small school's junior and senior class to our prom up at National Life. Thank you, National Life. And the entire junior class and senior class came and joined our junior and senior class. And it was such a powerful experience because to me, it's like these comprehensive high schools, we always think about opportunity and experience for kids. We sometimes forget about diversity of student experience, that some of those larger sizes, it's like we get to connect with more kids. They, students want that. The strategic voluntary murders that came out of the redistricting task force. Yes, I think we should partner. I think there should be strategic mergers. The voluntary part, I wonder at a little bit when we look at act 46, you saw some strange alignments that came out of act 46. And I also think about recently in 2022 and the non native Unified District and Addison Northwest tried to combine. They went through a lengthy process. I believe most of the both of the boards were on the same page. The leaders were, and then it got to vote, and the public wrote it down three to one. So that's where I worry about some of voluntary piece. I put making this easy for folks who should testify, I put Megan Roy on here. She's probably not gonna be happy with me that I have her picture there. Megan is doing some really interesting thinking about how we might go towards these strategic mergers. She's doing research on it right now. Highly recommend that she come here. And I know the Superintendents Association has also done some work on thinking about what are the mechanisms that could force some of these strategic mergers? What is the carrot? I don't like to use the term like stick. That doesn't sound right. But what are the class size mechanisms that we could use to force this? I'm sure you all are well versed in it. Cooperative vegetation service areas. Yeah. We're a small state partnership collaboration, of course. I worry about some of the overhead expenses in terms of what that could look like if we don't wanna add extra costs. And then finally, a foundation formula. I put they're both Megan's, so it's easy. Megan Metzler, our board chair. Highly recommend. She is a financial executive. She works for Vizak. She has students at heart and has done so much thinking about how the foundation formula could work. The one thing that both she and I think would say is how robust can our modeling be? Partial modeling around foundation formulas not gonna work. The wrong foundation formula is going to lead to potentially massive layoffs. And also, I believe, higher taxes in towns who probably are less well suited to pay those taxes. Finally, finally, my last three things that I'll say, my few of my hopes, I believe, and I want to be careful about how I say this, I'm gonna say it respectfully. It is not a comment on our current secretary. I have a lot of respect for Secretary Saunders. But most of the folks who I talked to when we shifted from a secretary to a commissioner believe that we took a step back as a state. We've made education more political than it should be. We know how often our governors could turn over in this state. As much as we can separate education from politics, and I know you can't fully separate it, I think I hold education sacred. Obviously, I'm biased. But that would be a bill I'd like to see. Hazing, harassment and bullying or bullying, harassment and hazing, whether you're HHV or VHH. The Wellington laws in 2015, I don't believe we are meeting the spirit of those laws anymore. When I see a quasi judicial system in place for our kindergartners, first graders, and second graders, I cannot tell you how much time our administrators are spending on investigations. And the second we are following process like we are supposed to, and we do, because it is high stakes, we are sending official letters home to parents that their child, that they're being investigated. That I know most people are like, hey, let's just do restorative justice. It is not that easy once we introduce this quasi judicial process. Something needs to be done. I don't think we're doing it. And then, of course, you know this, housing, healthcare, and economic development. Looking solely at education doesn't make sense. I don't want to position myself as an education leader where I'm like, oh, you're coming after us? Well, look at healthcare or look at housing. These things are all tied together. We each need to take responsibility for it. I will tell you our budget this year, however, 16,900,000.0 of our budget is tied up in health care this year. That has grown 47.5% since FY '21, and I believe that's when the state adopted statewide negotiator. And then I've got some other benefits of comprehensive schooling. We stop there. You gave me kind of a ten minute warning twenty minutes ago. I'm so excited.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Questions?

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: Well,

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: since you were my husband's principal, I feel like I can speak a little more frankly.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: We do.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: So one thing that I talked to you and Megan, towns don't pay property taxes, people pay property taxes. So I think, you know, one of the really critical pieces of the foundation formula is that we would be more living into our equity model of people pay based on their ability, regardless of the town they live in, and the town's wealth does not determine the school's wealth. So, I don't know if it's encouragement or you have a reaction, but you're my superintendent, we're a very wealthy community. And I think it's incumbent upon us to think about the foundation formula on behalf of the kids who are not getting what they need because their communities are not building up their school budget.

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: Yeah, I agree. I mean, talked to folks, one of my colleagues up in Unisburg, Glen Cota, who I'm sure you've heard from before, you know, when I became a superintendent, one of the things, you know, she pointed out to me, like, Act 60 really has failed because my town keeps voting down. Even when we have savings, we're losing that funding. So I agree with you. I will tell you, you know, and we have a 2.7 per pupil, weighted per pupil increase this year, which is resulting in a potential, you know, I'm hoping these numbers are gonna drop. But in St. George, a 17% increase. Right? Like that's frightening. Some of our other towns. That's out of control. Thank

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: you. You. And And Jamie, don't it's okay. Why don't you testify now since you have to drive? No, I'm good because I live close to you. Okay. Okay. And I've seen the elements. Good. It's good. It's good. You. Thank you.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: It's a web of bad.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I've

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: afternoon everyone, can you hear me alright?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yes.

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: Alright super, So, thank you for having me. I am Pam Reed. I'm the superintendent of Rutland City Public Schools. I appreciate the work that this group is doing to look closely at how we structure the education in Vermont. I want to say a special thank you and shout out to the Senate Ed Committee who recently visited, Rutland City Public Schools. We thoroughly enjoyed having you and are grateful that you spent the time with us. Today, I'm going to share a few thoughts from, my perspective. I am a first year superintendent. I have been a Vermont educator for my full thirty three years in education. And I'll address the three key points, that were in my invitation to testify. Specifically, I'll talk about my response to the work of the Redistricting Task Force, my hopes for this legislative session regarding Act 73, and the key ingredients for excellence in educational opportunities. I was asked to address the work of the redistricting task force, and I'll start by saying that I agree with many of the goals embedded in Act 73. Increased equity and better educational outcomes for students are something everyone in the state should wholeheartedly support, and certainly I do. Our district remains open to redistricting conceptually, but as with any policy shift, the devil's in the details. Redistricting task force had an incredibly difficult and complex mandate and probably not enough time to fully carry it out. We would not have opposed all redistricting proposals outright, but we did leave the process a little relieved with the outcome, specifically because the CTE based district map raised some concerns for us. Our concern was not about the mandated regional collaboration. We actively pursue local partnerships and coordinate coordination with Rutland Area Schools, and we already engage in shared programming and services where appropriate. The issue for us was the governance structure that accompanied the CTE base map. Moving Rutland City Public Schools into a supervisory union rather than maintaining our current school district model would not be an effective would not wouldn't be effective for our operational framework for the needs of our students. I'm certainly not saying that that structure wouldn't work anywhere, but for our district, it would have disrupted a model that's already been working well in serving our students effectively. Rutland is here to collaborate, and we simply ask that any future plans involving governance change be grounded in true understanding of how every community functions. For us, the school district structure enables us to plan across schools, align services, and manage operations efficiently. It strengthens our our educational coherence, which directly benefits students. I underscore the sentiments that Superintendent Sousa made during her testimony. School districts support unification. Since I shared, the concern that I had with the CTE map, I'll also highlight the benefits of the CTE map from my perspective. In our district, we benefit from having the Stafford Technical Center integrated into our system and attached by catwalk to our high school. That proximity strengthens access, coordination, and quality for students. The CTE map preserves access to Stafford Technical Center for our Rutland area high schools. Becoming one district with our area high schools would bring continuity to our students that attend the Career and Technical Center as curricular decisions and credit acquisition would become much more cohesive and consistent. Overall, moving toward a more standardized and common practices across the state would help address some of the longstanding equity issues faced by our students in smaller, more isolated schools. These practices should not just apply to business operations at the district or supervisory union level, but also to efficiency at the school building level and to support available to outcomes and the out and the quality of instruction that they receive. I was asked to discuss the outcomes that I hope for for this legislative session. While I have many, I'm just going to focus on two. The prompt that I was given was discuss how the legislative session could support me regarding Act 73. Here are my couple of ideas. We need modeling before implementing any new funding formula. Vermonters deserve to see clear estimates of what the changes would actually do district by district. That includes modeling under the current configuration. We appreciate that this committee modeled a version of the formula for districts to review during the last legislative session. That kind of transparency was very helpful. But since then, the formula has the formula has passed has changed from earlier versions, We have yet to see new modeling. Under Act 73, the foundation formula was designed to take effect only if statewide redistricting process was triggered. That link was intentional. If lawmakers decide to move forward with the foundation formula separately without first redrawing district lines, it's essential for the AOE and the Joint Fiscal Office to release their modeling to show the effects of the foundational formula in Act 73 on school districts as they currently exist. We could compare the work done for Act 73 to the work done ahead of implementing Act 127. That process was grounded in extensive modeling from professor Tammy Colby and the UVM team. We had district level projections, estimated tax impacts, and time to review what the changes would mean. In Rutland City, for example, that modeling showed us a 22% reduction in our tax rate. District like ours have made significant progress under Act 127, which we are now only beginning to realize. We are concerned that without careful study first, this new model could have unintended consequences that might include reversal of some of the long awaited progress from Act 127, which has only been in effect for just three fiscal budgets. The second that I hope have the second hope that I have for this legislative session, again, focused only on Act 73, addresses the concept of volunteer consolidation. Over the past decade, it's become clear that most local communities are unlikely to choose to close schools or relinquish what they see as local governance on their own. If the state wants system wide change, then it must be clearly directed and likely incentivized. Leaving it to local decisions will not get us there. There's a lot of attention on central office consolidation. That is part of the picture, but it will not deliver enough of the results of what we want. If we're serious about improving outcomes and controlling costs, then we must examine how schools operate day to day. That includes staffing, curriculum, facilities, transportation, and the support that we give to students in their educational programs. I do want to be clear about one thing. Superintendents are not holding this back. The desire to maintain the status quo runs deep in communities and school boards. That resistance is understandable. People are attached to their schools and to their communities, but it means that voluntary change is unlikely without some kind of an incentive. The third request of my testimony was to discuss the ingredients for excellent educational opportunities. I probably would have spent my full thirty minutes talking about this prompt alone. I've narrowed my ingredients list down to eight. We need equitable and predictable funding. Schools must have resources that are aligned to student needs, not just enrollment counts. Students experiencing poverty, a disability, or language barriers require additional sustained investment. Funding needs to be predictable as districts cannot plan high quality programs when funding is uncertain or it fluctuates. One last point about equitable funding. Equity does not mean equal spending. It means sufficient support for every learner to succeed. We need high quality, supportive supported educators. Students thrive when taught by skilled and supported professionals. We need to approach we need an approach to compensation that is competitive to recruit and to retain our educators, especially in rural and high needs areas. An excellent system not only invests in students, but also in the adults that serve them. We need early childhood education programs and strong transitions between early education learning environments and their K through 12 partners. Achievement gaps don't begin in kindergarten, but they will widen there if we do nothing. We need to expand universal access to high quality early education. Early investment is one of the most powerful equity strategies that we have. My fourth ingredient addresses the need for comprehensive student supports. Students cannot learn if their basic needs are not met. Education policy must recognize that student well-being and academic achievement are inseparable. The fifth ingredient connects rigor and relevance as well as flexible learning opportunities. Excellence means preparing students for their future futures. Personalized pathways to success that honor students' interests, strengths, and aspirations need to be creatively incorporated into every student's educational experience.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: We

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: need to have inclusive and accessible learning environments. Equity requires that every student belongs. This includes robust special education and multilingual learner services. It includes accessible instructional materials and programs that meet diverse student needs, as well as culture culturally responsive practices that respects Vermont's increasingly diverse communities. Inclusion is not a program. It's a commitment. Sherry spoke about this as well. Our facilities must be modern, safe and well maintained regardless of the age of the school building. Across all regions of the state, we need to provide safe, healthy and energy efficient facilities along with a capital funding system that does not disadvantage small or rural districts. The final ingredient is no less important than any of the others that I've mentioned, and that is the need for strong community and family partnerships, businesses, and community organizations. This would include regional collaboration among our districts to expand opportunities and reduce duplication. It was a long list I felt like when I was actually coming up with it. My closing thoughts. Excellence in Vermont education is not accidental. It's the result of intentional policy choices grounded in equity, sustainability, and respect for local context. If we commit to these ingredients, we can ensure that every Vermont student, regardless of their address, has access to high quality education that they deserve. Vermont's education system faces real challenges, and we cannot meet them without being first honest about the trade offs. We also must not break things that are working well in an effort to fix the things that aren't. Rutland City Public Schools and many other districts are thriving, and that success and progress, especially under Act 127, should be protected, not jeopardized. If the goal is better, fairer, and more efficient system, the state must provide detailed public fiscal modeling of what is being proposed. If voluntary consolidation is the path forward, districts will need real directives and incentives to make it work. I thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you very much. Do we have your testimony?

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: No, I'll submit that. I can submit it right after this.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay, that's fine. Have time for we're going to wrap up before we have time for one question and then move to Jamie. Is there a question for Kent?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Rutland County is often looked at as one of those areas where strategic mergers would be advantageous, especially at the high school level, because it has a surprising number of very small high schools. I guess one of the basic questions we need is does Rutland High School have the capacity, and do its enrollment trends show that it will continue to have the capacity if we were to move in that direction?

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: Yeah, that's a great question. Kind of thought that might come up. So we currently have about 700 students in our high school. In the height of, the high school's longevity, we had about 1,200 students. So do we have space? And I would say at 1,200, we were pretty maxed out for space from what I hear, but we certainly do have the room in our high school and our middle school to welcome additional students.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: And thank you so much.

[Pamela Reed (Superintendent, Rutland City Public Schools)]: Thank you. Thank you all.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So next, have Jamie.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: I did submit my written testimony, but I do have hard copies if anyone that would be helpful. I apologize that I didn't hit color for the charts.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: I know if I have enough for everyone. Senator. Senator, you

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: You got them. Alright. Everyone's good? Alright. So my name is Jamie Canarney, and I serve as the superintendent of schools of the White River Valley Supervisory Union. I'll refer to our supervisory union as the WRVSU for the remainder of my testimony. I'm now in the midst of my six year as superintendent of schools at WRVSU and previously served as the principal for seven years at the Williamstown Schools. This marks my fifteenth year as an educational administrator. I wanna thank both the senate and the house education committees for allowing me the opportunity to testify today on act 73. I wanna provide a little context of our supervisory union that I serve. The WRVSU serves 10 towns and six school districts. The town served are Bethel, Chelsea, Granville, Hancock, Rochester, Royalton, Sharon Stockbridge, Stratford, and Tunbridge. We were formed through the consolidation of the Windsor Northwest Supervisory Union and Orange Windsor Supervisory Union. We also consolidated from 10 town school districts into six, four unified in two single town school districts during the implementation period of Act 46. In addition, our supervisory union serves towns across three counties, Addison, Orange, and Windsor. I share all of this to provide you a little bit of a visual representation of the size and scope of the work that occurs at the WRVSU. The WRVSU serves approximately 1,700 students, and I provided you a chart on the different operational structures within the Supervisory Unit. I also want to thank the Senate Education Committee for your work to visit schools, supervisory districts, supervisory unions across the state over the past several months to learn in person about the wonderful programming, student achievement, and creative problem solving that is occurring throughout our school system to best serve our students, families, and communities. In addition, I want to thank you for your continued consideration and support of the Supervisory Union structure as a viable governance structure for Vermont schools. I wanna be clear that I agree and support the intent of act 73, in which I put in my written testimony. Therefore, I'm coming in front of you today to advocate that we make certain that the next steps we take are strategic, intentional, thoughtful, and measured. In order to make certain that unintended consequences do not result in a detriment to our students or the future of our rural towns and the greater state. To this end, I support many of the steps outlined in the redistricting task force report submitted to the legislature. I would also articulate the willingness of the school system to work collaboratively to find voluntary mergers in order to create better economies of scale, at the supervisory union and supervisory district levels. I haven't spoken with anyone in the educational system or constituent that I serve who believes that we need 52 SUs and SDs to deliver high quality and fiscally responsible education. But the means to how we address this is where I have some concerns within Act 73. There is strong evidence that voluntary approaches to creating collaborative systems and even voluntary mergers can create cost savings and improve educational outcomes in some situations. Cooperative alliances that facilitate cost savings and improve systems while still retaining deep local roots makes sense. This position statement supports a voluntary process by which collaborative efforts can achieve the outcomes of improved education for students at reasonable costs based on clear goals and expectations laid out by the state. The WRF's RVSU, for instance, already met with three different neighboring school district and supervisory district boards to discuss potential voluntary mergers by expanding the supervisory union, and they submitted a proclamation to the act seventy three task force. I share this as evidence that school boards and educational leaders are taking the steps already to create researched, sensible, and local democratic decisions on how best to meet the intent of act 73. Included in public comment to the task force are letters from boards representing a 100 towns detailing the public process that they're engaging in. Declarations of their willingness to work collaboratively with their neighbors to discuss voluntary mergers and support for moving forward in supervisory unions that are configured differently over time similar to the letter that the WRVSU submitted. I wanna give you an example of why I support this approach based on my personal experience navigating the aforementioned mergers that occurred within our SU. White River Unified District serves the towns of Bethel and Royalton. It's a merged pre K through 12 district within the WRVSU. It serves about six seventy five students. This merger occurred voluntarily in nature through the provisions provided via Act 46. It has been a success due in large part because it was voluntary. It allowed for local voice to occur throughout the merger process and resulted in a shared mission and vision for its students. All of those are critical to ensuring a district's success. The results have been increased student achievement in both math and literacy, more opportunities for our students via personalized learning and pathways, and documented documented fiscal sustainability. The long term fiscal trends for the White River Unified District is that the Bethel education tax rates down 1.1 over the last five years or $34 on a $200,000 assessed property value. And in royalty, the education tax rates down 12.6% over the last five years or $412 savings on a $200,000 assessed property value. I also provided you a chart to show our budget growth versus the state average, the five year growth versus the state average, our per pupil growth, and then finally, what our per pupil weighted spending is for this current fiscal year, which is all lower than the state average for those that don't have my testimony and are listening. I share this as an example that some of our smaller Unified District schools have and continue to work diligently to increase opportunities for our students while delivering on fiscal responsibility and sustainability. In fact, five out of the six districts I serve spend less than the state average in per pupil spending for f y twenty six. I am completely supportive of a change in the education funding formula and believe that our current funding formula consists of too many variables in order to provide predictable tax rates year to year due to the complexity and the significant number of variables at play before you get to the finalized residential tax rate. To this end, I do believe that the legislature should continue to study, analyze, and work to fix the funding formula with increased research and attention to the foundation formula. You've heard in testimony earlier. I'll give you an example. I have a district right now that our overall expenditure budget is less than a percentage increase, and I'm looking at tax rates in that unified district a predicted increase of 18 and a half and 20 Just due to the nature of the variables of the CLA and long term weighted average daily membership due to a decrease in free and reduced lunch numbers due to direct SERP via Medicaid. The important aspect of the work is that it needs to have accountability measures built within it, but not in a way that immediately results in the shuttering of schools or need to balance weights across incredibly large districts in rural areas in order to work effectively to educate our students. I've heard that to be the current issue that we're dealing with, that we're faced with the need to create much larger force merge school districts in order to comply within the current foundation formula framework of act 73. This has been stated as a means for why student school districts need to become larger. Well, that to me is a flaw in the foundation formula to begin with. The solution shouldn't be that we need to utilize a district that has a greater need for increased weights simply for it to equalize out with a less needy or affluent high spending district. That approach is contrary to the work of creating an equitable system. Therefore, I recommend a great deal more research occur on how best to approach this change to the funding system. The funding formula should match the education system supported by Vermonters rather than drive the shape of the education education system for the future. I think act 73 got it right to decide on governance first and then to create a funding formula that's a match for the system on the ground. I believe the school risk the redistricting task force has provided a road map to address some of the cost drivers to the education delivery system. And it provided reasoning for a why a top down approach to redistricting could cause more harm than good for our education system and for the future of our state. Vermont is rooted in the importance of local democracy and with it, the oversight and accountability measures that local democracy brings. To this end, I would recommend that you require SUNSD boards to enter into cooperative educational service areas with a special focus on addressing the special education delivery service model across our state with a date that you would determine this session. The AOE special education delivery service model report of 09/26/2025 clearly speaks to the fact that we have a reactionary system that relies too heavily on out of district placements and expensive adaptations within inclusive classroom environments, it is clear that we are not realizing an appropriate return on our investments. Therefore, this is an area that needs greater oversight and accountability specific to personalized student growth via student survey and IEP, close monitoring of extraordinary spending. I think we need a delivery model oversight specific to the providers to child count and stronger coordination of specialized transportation services. To address the specific concerns related to the duplication of efforts and inefficiency of 52 supervisory unions and supervisory districts, I'd suggest that OSU and SDs are required to explore voluntary mergers that result in greater efficiencies and an increase of the number of students served. These voluntary mergers need to be presented to the state board of education for consideration and approval for voluntary merger with a date that you would determine this legislative session. This would result in the reduction of redundancy at the supervisory union and district level without necessarily requiring loss of local democratic control or oversight because the supervisory and union model of governments could be enacted voluntarily by any and all boards. If failure to comply with this voluntary process were to occur, then consistent with what's in current law, the State Board of Education could take action to enlarge an existing supervisory union map. These steps provide the ability to continue voluntary conversations that have already been occurring while ensuring that we reduce from our current model of 52 SUs and SDs. Why the focus on SUSD governance now instead of school district force consolidation? I provided you a chart of average spending per pupil that's from the Rural School Community Alliance, but based on Vermont Agency of Education data. We need to fully analyze different governance models in Vermont and ground decisions in this analysis. In order to make informed decisions about potential new district organizational structures, it's critically important to understand how Vermont's governance structures are actually functioning rather than relying on assumptions about savings from consolidation or scale that may not be accurate. For for example, I'm one of the I believe we're the the second largest geographical supervisory union in the state. I am proud to say I am an instructional leader. I am in my buildings on a regular basis in at least three hours of walk throughs instructionally on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. That's rooted as hard fact and data. And for example, the chart I just provided you says that merged supervisory districts have the highest average per pupil spending, while the multi district supervisory unions have the lowest. Data such as this should be the starting point for further analysis and evaluation before we make decisions. We didn't meet we need to make certain we minimize community disruption by respecting democratic processes and local knowledge. If new governance models are indicated, local educational leaders and communities should be empowered to explore potential restructuring that aligns for Vermont specific evidence based cost efficiency and educational quality. Evaluation of new structures should not be a one size fits all process. Districts have to be able to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of larger structures, whether that is an SD or an SU, without immediate disruption to their existing governance. This approach preserves stability while allowing communities to make informed decisions about potential consolidation or restructuring at the school district level. Local districts with authentic community input should be allowed to reimagine Supervisory Union School District models in a way that reflect their specific needs while maintaining a balance between collaborative efficiency and local responsiveness. We need to strengthen effective local governance. Participatory democracy is not just a value tradition in Vermont. It is a functional and effective system that actually enhances public education. Maintaining local governance structures helps ensure the decisions are made or in the best interest of a must diverse communities. Any change to school district governance must be guided by the democratic process and the practical needs of rural areas. If we create overly large governance units, I worry that the distance between local taxpayers and the schools that they serve of the communities is is gonna be one that we lose accountability measures due to. School boards play a vital role in supporting schools, solving problems, and ensuring local effectiveness. Local school boards provide oversight and they provide accountability. As the only directly elected member of our educational system, their connection to the communities and voters is vital. They provide a locally informed and essential check and balance for the system. The education accountability system must include benchmarks for increased academic growth year over year. Per pupil spending oversight via the implementation of requiring school districts to comply with an excess cost spending threshold if we're not able to enact a foundation formula this in the upcoming you know, via of the next upcoming sessions and continuation of the implementation of minimal class sizes as a guideline for staffing. Failure to meet annual accountability measures should result in technical assistance from the agency of education. That includes that school boards need to provide annual progress monitoring benchmarks that indicate transparency, strategic planning, and SUSD leadership accountability standards that need to be aligned to the superintendent annual evaluation process. It is critical that we are transparent with our communities on the state of our schools. And we need to make certain that continuous improvement is a transparent system to the end of implementing high quality school improvement. We should create accountability measures to combat cost drivers that hold school districts accountable for delivering on a comprehensive system of supports and an early intervention system that is fully operational and implemented with fidelity. With special attention to child find numbers related to specific learning disabilities and other health impairment as examples of some measures that could be used to monitor implementation of our response to intervention work and our multi tier systems of support throughout our SUs and SDs. We should create a plan of stability and sustainability that looks at the broader picture of an interconnected framework that brings together in partnership the Department of Health and Human Services with the agency of education that focuses on preventative and proactive models of student support instead of reactionary measures that result in increased spending due to significant inefficiencies and a lack of collaboration across service providers. This interconnected framework should be implemented and supported at the state level to facilitate and speed up the work that is already occurring locally. We ought to organize these structures and align them with the newly configured cooperative educational service areas. We should implement school accountability visits that result that in visits by experts across the field and that are supported by the agency of education to progress monitor continuous improvement, but to also support with technical assistance in the areas of academic and social emotional growth, fiscal sustainability, student support services, declining enrollment, etcetera. These visits would happen every five years with more immediate technical support if annual benchmarks are not bad. I wanna conclude by indicating that I'm in agreement that something needs to occur in order to alleviate property tax pressures, increase student achievement and social emotional growth, and assure increased accountability and efficiency across our educational system. The proof though is going to be in the pudding. And therefore, I suggest that we need to pause, analyze the parts of x 73 that provide a road map to reaching the intent of the legislation, and adjust the parts of the legislation that are creating barriers to reaching the intent. I hope that some of the aforementioned suggestions and thoughts regarding Act 73 that I just provided assist you with this incredibly critically important task. I wanna remind all of you, and I've had the privilege to testify in front of you before, that I'm a product of our public education system. I'm a first generation college graduate who was raised by incredibly hardworking farm family. I attended both Linden State College and Castleman State College, where I was provided an opportunity to receive my college education while being supported by my teachers and professors as an individual. Hence, it's why I'm so incredibly passionate about the importance of our rural community schoolwork. I'm a product of those efforts, and that personalization is why I'm able to sit in front of all of you here today. I've asked and will continue to ask that we all pause during these reactionary times to make certain that we have an educational transfer transformation plan moving forward that doesn't allow for any students to fall through the cracks. Ensures a personalized education, and delivers on the solid and commendable intent of Act 73. There's a way to move forward that will result in education transformation. A top down approach to forcing school district consolidation to the drawing of maps does not provide for local democracy to be at the forefront of the solutions, nor provide a road map for a majority of Vermonters to support. I do not believe that it's allowed minority that has an issue with a top down approach to drawing maps. I believe based on what we've seen with public comment through the task force that it is actually a large majority that has this concern. I believe that Vermonters understand common sense solutions, the power of local democracy to solve difficult situations. And they've asked for and need a more transparent educational funding system, not a top down mandate. The good news is there's still time to implement changes to act 73 that will increase fiscal responsibility, preserve local democracy, increase school accountability, and result in increased student achievement and social emotional growth. Our students' futures and our state's viability moving forward are counting on it. Thank you.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Just in your last comments, you talked about there are ways to use or not use Act 73, but in terms of achieving fiscal responsibility. Could you give us some for instances?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Yeah. I think that example, research on the foundation formula more is a great example within x 73. I think that you guys requiring the special education report and using that data than to take the work that the task force did, which I know the task force didn't deliver with maps, but it's a pretty good policy document. And so I think there's measures that Act 73 have already put into the works that will allow you to start to move this work forward this session to reach those metrics that I think that the intent of the law is without necessarily needing to create new maps this session?

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: Very quickly.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Well, not very quickly. So I often look at your district as both a great success of Act 46 and a failure of Act 46. I think the Bethel Royalton merger showed that you can merge schools, keep buildings open, increase opportunity for kids, and save money all at the same time. But I think that there was an Act 46 failure, and this goes to the voluntary versus mandated districts, in that it didn't include districts who could voluntarily pull out Rochester, Pittsfield, And wish, if those kids also had been part of that district, could have made it more robust as well and provided perhaps better opportunity for those kids. So I guess maybe that's my concern with, we've got proof of concept. I think Bethel Royalton is just a great example of that. But we've also got proof of, if we sort of make it fully voluntary, we don't actually sort of, we get an incomplete result. And that's not what saying. I did watch it. I agree. Yeah.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: So I would say, why I think White River Unified District has been successful is that it was voluntary. And during that process, actually, Rochester was going to be part of that district. But during that visioning exercise, there were some concerns about increased cost of keeping a high school open in Rochester for some residents in Royalton. And during that time, it they didn't feel like that made fiscal sense. It resulted in the closure of the Rochester High School because of a merger of a pre k six district with Stockbridge that then resulted in nonoperation of grade seven through 12. We now are receiving about 80% of the Rochester Stockbridge Unified District students into the White River Unified District voluntarily through school choice. Originally, there was a large contingency of students that were traveling over due to family travel patterns to Middlebury. But, like, next year, I don't think we have any students electing Middlebury. The 80% are coming to us, and then we have some students that sometimes go to Woodstock or actually Rutland due to travel patterns of those families. So I would actually say it's been a success in the regard to that the choice that's been provided there has aligned with the travel patterns of students' families in order to necessitate a rural area and where those families work and travel every day. That increased revenue to the White River Unified District has allowed us to reinvest and create better programming and outcomes for the students of the White River Unified District Bethel Royalton students. I would also say that within the choice of RSU, one of the things that I've seen is that it has created some competition within RSU to ensure that we're really clear about what we need to do well and how to best serve our students at our high school. And I see that as a success for students that are choosing our high school, but also for the Bethel Royalton students that are in our high school. Now we have some students that access and utilize public school choice, which we know we have. Public school choice across the state. We actually have some students choosing us from Randolph that are coming to our public high school, and I believe part of that is is that we've really worked hard to make certain we're attractable public school within the region.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you, Jamie, and I wanna thank all six superintendents for their testimony today. It's really it's really very valuable. I keep hearing the word incentive in relation to voluntary district or SU consolidation or the reduction in number of districts or SUs. But I haven't heard any specifics on what that incentive might be. And I'm wondering if you or if any of the other superintendents are still here or online could chime in.

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Expectation is that we do do it. And I I would say that those 100 boards and towns that provided comment to the task force were not looking for an incentive in order to do it. I think they're saying we hear there's a concern. We hear that we need to get better economies of scale. We're willing to roll up our sleeves and get to work for what makes sense for our in regards to our neighbors. So an example, we've had talks with OSSD, which is a supervisory district to the north of WRBSU. It was really positive talk. And so that OSSD district serves three towns, Braintree, Brookfield, and Randolph. They met with our supervisory union and the conversation was, if we were able to remain a supervisory union governance structure, you would get to keep your district board and oversight that you're accustomed to having. But those functions of the supervisory union offices would come under the guise of one supervisory union office. But we weren't looking for you to have to incentivize us to do that. What we were really looking for is you to say, you need to roll up your sleeves and do that.

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: Senator Williams. I have a question about the cooperative school services, HO six thirty passed in law, and everybody was entitled to participate in that, and that would save money. Can you give me any idea why that why nobody took advantage of that? I mean, we didn't mandate it. It was

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: I know I know you didn't mandate it. So I think that not mandating it, and I'm suggesting you ought to, because we're relying on our regional district boards to all want to jump in this together, right? So there could be some of us that are ready to go on this, but that regionally there's others that are not, right? And so my suggestion is that you no longer make that an option. You show all the research that says that we could find a better economy scales by doing that and say, by July 1, you've entered into one. Like that's the expectation. And so I think that would help us get the ball moving. I would also say education has been anything but static over the last ten years, right? Act 46 was just ten years ago. Plus we're coming out of the pandemic, plus Act 73 was the talk last session. I think that that could have distracted some of the regions from actually taking that step forward because now they're in this like wait mode. Are we just gonna become a consolidated district or not?

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: Follow-up. Yeah. So and then you mentioned voluntary consolidation. I asked a question Friday in our in our joint session was if there was any prohibition right now of school districts consolidate and the answer was no. No. So, so, you know, and that what I hear a lot is don't I don't want to give up my school choice and we don't want the state mandating consolidation. So why why haven't school districts started to look at consolidation?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: I think there's some school districts that are willing. Right? And that's why, example, WRBSU provided a proclamation. I need other districts to say that they're going want to be dance partners, right? As an example. And I think some folks are waiting to see what happens in order to be those dance partners. But I would say to you based on those 100 letters, I think people are serious about wanting to dance.

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: So at the end of the last session, I think you were in the room when we asked, you know, what could the superintendents do? And I recommended that we lock all you guys in one room, all 52 of you with no bathroom breaks. Because you know all the, you know, as far as district boundaries, you know, which schools, you know, what's worked in the past, what hasn't. We don't know that. So would you be interested and willing to participate in that?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: I'd be more than happy to participate in that.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: He'd probably want

[Senator Terry Williams (Clerk, Senate Education Committee)]: that. We'll give you a bathroom break, so and water. Thank you.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Senator Heffernan. It kind of follows up on the senator's question on voluntary and then, like, in the military, volunteer or we can make you volunteer. Do you believe that if we said, okay, districts have been looking at volunteering to merge. But if the data because everybody really likes to hear data driven evidence. So if the state brings data driven evidence to say, this is why we're thinking this school should murder this school, you don't want to, but we're showing you why it's important for the community and you. Do you believe that would be a better way to approach it?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: So community buying and local democracy is important with these unified districts once they're merged, because you can spend the next six years as an educational leader putting out fires due to that top down. And representative Collins, right, I've had some districts in my s u that felt like they were mandated during act 46 and it wasn't voluntary. And it took me a solid three years to build trust to get them to start looking at what the actual vision thing of that district should be. I use White River Unified District as an example. They did the visioning ahead of time. That allowed us to move a lot quicker. That's why I think they've seen better outcomes for kids and more efficiency, is that they have the roadmap to work from. And so what I would say to you is provide the data, but say to districts, go work with your neighbors, find efficiency, create an actionable strategic plan and road map that you're gonna implement year one, and then bring it in front of the state board and do it. And, oh, by the way, you don't have endless amount of time to do it. Do it. And I and Superintendent Sousa was absolutely right. Those long meetings set the groundwork that she was discussing to successful Unified District mergers. If you skip over that step, what you'll find is is folks are upset. They felt like it was done to them, and it results on the educational leader sitting in meetings moving forward for hours and hours on end, talking about constituents who are unhappy because it was done to them, of which that person didn't have any control to because it was top down. They didn't feel like they didn't have say, they didn't have buy in. And I actually worry that's when we'll lose kids that will fall through the cracks and we won't get the education quality we're looking for. That's my worry about that approach.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Just one quick question, just to wrap up here. Just thinking about, with the approach you're talking about, do we have the potential to end up with the working districts that nobody wants? And what do we do with them?

[Jamie Kinnarney (Superintendent, White River Valley Supervisory Union)]: Well, I hope there's no How do we work? Districts. But yes, that you're absolutely right, senator. That could be the outcome. That's when I would say the state board would would then utilize what's already in statute to say, we ought to be looking out, do we need to broaden that SU governance structure, which is already provided to them?

[Adam Bunting (Superintendent, Champlain Valley School District)]: Adam. I was just going to respond to the question here. I think providing the data to districts is vital, think, and that's why I was recommending Megan, Getting a set of data really matters, getting creative about that. I'm still nervous to say this, I haven't worked in Mont Belier for eleven to twelve years. I love Mont Belier High School, I love the people here, and I do remember during act 46, I was principal being like, hey, there's this other school over there called U32, doesn't that sort of make sense that we become one high school? And I remember the response I got was, well, East Montpelier Montpelier kids can't really learn again. And I remember being so appalled by that coming from like, well, that's our vision of the world, we've got some serious problems. But two, like I'm coming from a district that, know, I've been in the CVST or CVST District saying, no, this can be a wonderful experience for kids. The reason why people don't do, I mean, the political pressure on superintendents, on principals is as real as the political pressure that you feel. I think the question is who's willing to step up and have those hard conversations and can they be data informed? I like the idea of locking all the superintendents together. I think we would figure something out and at least it would be a partnership, which we haven't seen a lot of partnering in the past year or so. So both of those suggestions I think are interesting.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you very much. Thank you all very much for

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: your time and your preparation.