Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Seth Bongartz]: We're live. Okay. Steven, the education committee, what's the date? The date? '14. '14. You're looking to write that. And our hearing today from the Secretary of Education, mostly on, one way to put it is it's not on Act 73 but with particular focus on neurobenzation and then current technical education. And then we have short film introduction, and that's done, and that would be it for the day. So just for people watching the room who may not know everybody, we'll go around the table and introduce ourselves even though we all know each other. Anyway, we'll start with

[Zoe Saunders]: Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale, Chittenden County.

[Nader Hashim]: Laura Ashim, senator, Windham County.

[David Weeks]: Good afternoon, Senator David Weeks, representing Rutland County.

[Seth Bongartz]: Senator Seth Bongartz from Ms. Bennington District, which includes a few towns in Windham, so I'm a state district.

[Terry Williams]: Williams, also representing the federal. Steve Heffernan, Addison County District.

[Zoe Saunders]: Good afternoon. I'm Zoe Saunders, secretary of education. Thank you for having me.

[Seth Bongartz]: You're welcome. Actually, I don't know if we need to do any more introduction to that. The floor is yours. Okay.

[Zoe Saunders]: Excellent. Well, thank you for having me today. I was invited to present on an overview of the Agency of Education's reorganization and also to identify the key legislative priorities outside of act 73, and so looking forward to that conversation. I'll start with giving an overview of our reorganization. It's really important that we always start with the why. And we were really explicit in working with our staff and the entire team at the Agency of Education to define to answer that question. Why now? Why does the Agency of Education need to reorganize? And we recognized that there were increasing demands on the education to lead and to provide transformative leadership and direction setting to elevate academic achievement and improve operational efficiency. We spent a lot of time last session talking about the federal uncertainty, and it became very clear to us that the agency needs to have even stronger leadership at a time when there is uncertainty, given that there needs to be very clear direction and support to the field. We also recognized that there was there have been shifting priorities for the state of Vermont over the last decade, and that it's important for us to align our work in a way that we can fully leverage the expertise at the agency to support those initiatives and to deliver on the objectives for the state. Also important for us to reopen is to be more agile, be more resilient. You will hear me talk a lot about our intent to break down silos, and to foster greater collaboration across teams and across divisions. We see that as a really critical way to be resilient and to be more responsive to the field and the needs of education in Vermont. In addition to working really closely with staff over the last eighteen months in this process, we also got input from several other stakeholder engagement opportunities. The agency led the listen and learn tour, where we traveled all across the state. We spoke with educators and community members and students to identify how we will define student success and education quality. And we also took that opportunity to really reflect on the agency's ability to deliver on the needs of the field. And we received very candid feedback in areas that we felt we needed to strengthen our leadership and support. We also had a federal monitoring visit in the 2024. We had several findings that came out of that monitoring visit from the US Department of Education that identified areas we needed to focus on and address some deficiencies. We recognized that a lot of what we heard from the US Department of Education was really consistent with what we heard from the field, and that helped us to identify the specific areas where we needed to reorganize, realign our efforts to better support the needs of the field, not just from a compliance perspective, but from the perspective of being a strong partner with our districts to advance educational outcomes. In addition to act 73, the state of Vermont has passed a really substantive education reform over the last fifteen years. And it's really apparent that our focus needs to be on implementation. We've identified what the right best practices that are codified in law, and consistently, there's been a challenge with implementation. And so part of the role for the agency is to be really clear about where there have been shortcomings in the implementation of prior legislation and organizing ourselves to focus on those areas to ensure that we can support the implementation of those best practices to achieve the vision for Vermont. I mentioned earlier that we've done a lot of work with staff through this process. So every month, we engage with staff to reflect on our learning and to identify the path forward to make sure that this reorganization and our strategic plan is very much representative of the voices in Vermont, and is responding to the major areas of GG. So when we talk about change, you've also heard me say that it's not change for change sake. We wanna make changes in a way that's really strengthening our organization and helping us to achieve a broader vision. So we've organized the agency to align with our strategic plan. We have identified five strategic pillars of our strategic plan that include focusing on improving statewide academic performance, expanding college and career readiness, promoting safe and healthy schools, supporting operational effectiveness, both of the entire system and internally within the organization, and ensuring high quality special education delivery and differentiated support for all learners. And we believe that the way we've organized the strategic plan meets the most pressing needs of our state, and if we are able to deliver on these outcomes, we'll achieve our vision of becoming the best education system in the country. Sure.

[David Weeks]: Can you articulate a little further on what you mean by operational effectiveness?

[Zoe Saunders]: Yes.

[Seth Bongartz]: Any other realm? Yeah, so one way to, by the way, just for this discussion, one way to do this is if it's a sort of a follow-up question, should be able to understand what you're saying. Yes. Do it now, bigger discussion, we'll look to the end. Yes.

[Zoe Saunders]: Within our strategic plan, we've identified operational effectiveness as a four pillar. And within that area, we have noted several key performance indicators, and some of those are focused internally in terms of strengthening the agency's capacity and ability to impact the field. And so, key performance indicators that we have identified in this area include expanded professional development for our staff, also includes improving organization wide culture, and additionally, this affects both internal and external. When we talk about operational effectiveness, we also talk about compliance. We have been out of compliance in several areas of federal law for many years, and this plan identifies those areas and sees that we will be more operationally effective if we get into compliance. So, we have specific strategies to ensure that we can attain compliance in those areas that have been long standing challenges. So, to summarize, operational effectiveness is both strengthening the internal culture within the agency and our own internal training and support, and working with the field to address barriers for us to be in compliance with areas of federal education law and state education law. Do you have a new special education director since yours left? I'm gonna talk about the entire reorganization. We actually have really strengthened and elevated our focus on special education. So previously, the special education division was not sort of buried within the organization, and was not really part of the decision making that needed to occur in order for us to make decisions that are best supporting all students, including our students with an IEP. So, as part of the reorganization, we actually changed used to have a role that was the state director of special education that reported under another division director. We elevated that role to a division director. So now, special education is its own division, and that role sits on my extended cabinet. Additionally, we have added a position, which is our deputy chief of academics, which we will be recruiting for soon, and that will provide additional leadership and oversight over special education and curriculum instruction, and that's intentional to ensure that there is that alignment around the work we're doing in curriculum and the work that we're doing around special education. Furthermore, we've added additional team members to special education through this reorganization, again, to make sure that we're having that focus. But currently, you don't have a leader of special education? Currently, we have a vacancy in the role that was formerly the special education state director, which has now been elevated to a division director on my extended cabinet. So we are recruiting for that position. So this is our reorganization. For those of you who are not familiar with the prior organizational structure, this does represent some significant shifts. It also represents the creation of new divisions to align directly with the priorities that we've outlined within our strategic plan. So, I'll start with our legal area. This area has remained largely stable through the reorganization, and is led by our legal counsel, Emily Simmons. Under this team, we have our staff attorneys who support with a variety of review and oversight on compliance demands. They also partner very closely with the attorney general's office on any litigation efforts. Additionally, in this team is our education investigator who supports a review of educator licenses when there is misconduct and public record. It's all under the purview of our legal area. Alright, mister chair. I don't know. Who's doing civil rights investigations? The that's not under our purview. Are are you talking about the office of so what what civil rights complaints are you talking about? There's been a number of high profile civil rights complaints in our schools. Do you have anybody who works on repair or Yeah. So those fall under the purview of the Human Rights Commission. However, within our agency, we have recognized the need to focus on hazing, harassment, and bullying. I'll note that in a moment. We have created a special division to focus on that. So that'll be noted in the next area. Will that fall under legal counsel or So our legal counsel would would partner within whatever is our jurisdiction of that oversight, but I think what you're specifically referencing is under the human rights coalition. But you said it was gonna live somewhere else. Not that the focus on growing safe and healthy schools is a broader effort to ensure that we are building culture in every school and in every classroom that is supportive and welcoming of all students. So I'll touch, I'll kind of skip ahead to our operational area. So the operational area is overseen by our deputy secretary, Hilbergs Campbell, who also serves as our chief operations officer. You'll see that anything that has an asterisk represents a brand new division. So Safe and Healthy Schools was created as a new division to ensure that we could bring together the team members across the agency that support our most vulnerable students. And this team has come together and oversees areas of building culture. They are also leading efforts to develop a model policy around casing harassment and bullying. In addition to a model policy, the work is focusing on prevention, and identifying tools to support our districts with prevention. That's a really key area of this outside of what's required legally for compliance. We're very much centered on proactive practices to ensure that students feel welcome and supported and that knowing that they belong in our schools. Safe and Healthy Schools team also oversees safety incidents, and they coordinate very closely with our partners at the Commission of Public Safety, and alerting us to incidents that arise, and this team also looks at facility conditions as well. So that's the safe and healthy schools team that has been organized. Did I miss who is Torren Valor? Did I miss that? Are they You haven't allowed me to walk through my overall So organizational if you would just hold your questions, I'll be able to cover all of that, and then I can expand. Okay. So currently, I'm in the area of the operations. So a new division that was created was grants management, and this is to ensure that we are maximizing every dollar available. In the past, districts have left money on the table, and we know that it's important for us to leverage those dollars to drive our priorities. We've created the grants management team to provide an additional layer of oversight and support. This comes with more regular reporting around grant utilization, and also providing deeper clarity and training around allowable uses based on the different funding sources. Under operations, we also have finance and management team, and our DMAD, which stands for the data management and analysis division, and child nutrition. So that represents our operation. Moving into academics, through the reorganization, we have created a new position, which is the chief academic officer that is led by doctor Aaron Davis. Underneath that area is special education. So you can see here, this is how we've elevated special education within our organizational structure. We've also created a new team that is dedicated to instruction and curriculum. That team is helping to really look at high quality instructional material, developing a process for vetting those materials, sharing those resources with the field. Additionally, we created a new team called Education Programs. The idea there is we have a lot of specialized programs that we offer in education, from Pre K to adult education learning, and that we they all come with very unique compliance requirements. But part of the intention here is to ensure that we have that alignment from cradle to career and being thoughtful and intentional around creating a continuum of support so that the child has a high quality experience throughout every level as they move through our system. And the school improvement team also lives within the academics area. We're doing a lot of focused work here to ensuring we can be really effective partners with our schools that are identified because of performance issues to support them and maximizing the resources that are available, also sharing evidence based practices for implementation to drive improvement in the critical areas of need that are unique to each school in their data. We've created a few fold. Think I can proactively address many of your questions. So the next area is strategy and accountability. This is really a key focus, we're committed, as we all are, to promoting academic excellence and driving improvement. We need to, accountability simply is having very clear expectations, and being able to support that those expectations are met. So under this team, we're supporting the education transformation work, but that really is evolving to think about how we firmly are supporting with district and school support. So it's that field facing team that is able to be deployed across the state to differentiate the way in which the agency provides support to improve overall operations and academic performance. Accountability. Make

[Seth Bongartz]: a make a note. The

[Zoe Saunders]: accountability division also is a new division, so these are two that are created. You probably noticed that, you know, we have a lot of different ways to monitor. That can create a lot of burden on the field if we're doing it in a disjointed way. And so this the effort of this team is to really design a coherent accountability framework that is, you know, pulling together the requirements from our ESSA State Plan, which is required by the federal government, district quality standards, education quality standards, special education, cyclical monitoring, all of that work to make sure that there's one coherent framework, and that we're doing it in an aligned way that is not creating duplication, not creating additional unnecessary data collection and documentation, but really doing it in a way that's going to focus on continuous improvement. The assessment team is now under the strategy and accountability division, and it formally was under data management. So, given the level of specialization and the opportunities to make some enhancements around how we report data from assessments to be meaningful, really important to move it under this area. Additionally, we've created another division called the Education Program Approvals. The intent of this team is to ensure that there is educational quality in every setting in Vermont where education is delivered. Under this team, they oversee the independent school approvals, also the approvals of BOCES, or Boards of Cooperative Education Services, which is a relatively new law that's been implemented, and licensure as well, or student licensure. Another component of the organizational chart is increasing the agency's support for policy and communications. So, Torren Ballard, who's joining me today, is our director of policy and communications. I introduced him previously at another meeting, and you'll have an ample opportunity to work with him throughout the session. This team has really expanded our support to communicate both internally and also to the field. And as part of their efforts, they're gonna look at different ways in which we can strengthen our communication based on the groups that we're working with. So, we have a regular weekly field review that we submit every week. We also have a superintendence update, but we're strengthening the relationships with other professional associations so that we can better communicate with them on updates and also to create that feedback loop so that we're capturing questions, concerns that need to be brought to the fore of our work. And then the focus on policy is critical to think about year round. So policy doesn't in our world is, you know, certainly we provide a lot of support during the legislative session to provide testimony, but we recognize that this is a year long effort because out of the legislative session, there are a lot of demands placed on the agency of education to deliver on reports or recommend or or studies that you have put forward in law. So this is helping us to have tighter project management over our policy implementation, particularly with the role of the agency in advancing the goals of legislation that have been passed. So this is the team that's been very supportive of many of the reports that you've received recently. So before the legislative session, we shared a number of reports and 10 reports that provide substantive analysis of our current education system and include research and best practices based on a thorough review of the literature and collaboratives from other states. And most importantly, identifies next steps. And I think that's really important and an opportunity as we are engaging in these discussions to really look at those next steps. In some instances, there are decision points that are are left to be made in law, and we've signaled those in those reports in the effort to be transparent around those outstanding questions and to offer you some considerations as you move forward with legislative decisions. So, the last thing I'll say is that all of this work is aligned to our plan. The benefits of the reorganization is that we have organized ourselves to deliver on the priorities that have been expressly noted in law and are part of our strategic plan, and improves our coordination and alignment. We focus a lot on collaboration at the agency, collaboration across divisions, but also making sure that we're increasing our customer service in the field. So we are in the process now of regionalizing our service delivery so that we can have a broader reach across the state. So it's not just that we sit in Montpelier and provide this support, but that we are organizing our teams and our delivery to be more embedded in communities across the state. So we're in the process of that, it will take time to fully come into place, but in the interim we're making commitments to being on a regular basis in different parts of Vermont and engaging with our education leaders, so that we have a pulse in the ground of what's working, and also what may not be working that we need to strengthen. In summary, the strategic plan, or the realignment, is very much aligned, very much focused on delivering our strategic plan. And it elevates our focus on special education, so I've already named that. We've really put a lot of emphasis in elevating the actual leadership roles around special education. What I haven't noted is that we've created additional roles outside of the special education team that are supportive of delivering education to students with IEPs. And that includes, on our finance team, creating a new position, which is the director of special education finance. It also includes standing up the grants management division because we recognize that there needs to be more support for the IDEA grant, and so that team is taking that on. And then accountability as an overall function is looking at the ways in which we can strengthen our compliance across multiple areas of federal law, which does include special education. For pre kindergarten, we have elevated that leadership role as well. Used to be the state director of presche, has now been elevated and sits on my extended cabinet under the education programs team. We have created a new focus on safe and healthy schools, again, focusing on building culture, focusing on ensuring that every student belongs, and providing the training and the support in that area. Curriculum and instruction, this was really a request from the field. We continued to hear in our engagement efforts that we feel would benefit from stronger leadership from the agency, particularly related to high quality instructional material, so that every district is not having to reinvent the wheel every time, and having to basically stand up their own community agency of education in 52 areas of our state. Education finance, as I mentioned, is really important in our finance team. So, we have a new director of education finance that will provide additional analytical support to the field as they're making strategic budgeting decisions. And accountability and school improvement is really critical. I mean, it's the full job of the agency. I mean, that's our, you know, that's our statutory responsibility is to ensure substantially equal education. And accountability and school improvement give us the leverage and the ability to work in concert with the field to strengthen educational opportunities and outcomes for students. And then education program approvals is also another area of elevated support.

[Seth Bongartz]: So, I think Senator Huffman is

[Nader Hashim]: first. Teacher evaluation, is that, where do we address that under

[Steven Heffernan]: your tongue?

[Zoe Saunders]: Teacher licensure is under education program approvals. Teacher evaluation is part of our education quality standards and is the expectation that districts are doing review of educator quality. I will note that one of the findings we received from the US Department of Education is that we have inequity in terms of access to a high quality teacher, and there is an action plan that we have put forward to support that.

[David Weeks]: You. Senator Wilson, where does CTE reside?

[Zoe Saunders]: Career and Technical Education is under the Chief Academic Officer. That role has also been elevated as well within the organization and is part of my extended cabinet.

[David Weeks]: And then under Instruction and Curriculum, which

[Zoe Saunders]: It's under education programs, but this it's under education programs.

[Steven Heffernan]: Okay. And

[Zoe Saunders]: then Although I won't note that the directors report it directly to me. That's an intro. School construction, where will I reside? School construction is under Safe and Healthy Schools. Okay. So

[Steven Heffernan]: the, know, several weeks ago I've been here for two terms and one honest, And we heard a lot of times that Bailey was under understaffed because of funding. I understand right now with your new organization.

[Zoe Saunders]: So I think if you ask any secretary or commissioner if you would give them more positions, would they welcome that? Sure. So ultimately, it's the legislature that determines how many positions I have on my staff, and of course, there are decisions that need to be made across state government. There's only so, so much money, right, to, to find state government. So what we've been really intentional about is working within our existing resources to realign our focus and our efforts. So that does mean that certain team members, their scope of work has shifted because the projects that they may have been overseeing in the past are either we've provided the support that we need or they no longer are priorities within the state. And so that's a a shift in the scope of work. Additionally, it is important to note that, you know, our needs in terms of number of staff members at the agency does depend on the complexity of the system that we are responsible for overseeing. And I know today we're not talking about three, but, you know, when pressed to talk about what is the actual acute state of the agency need to look like in terms of number of physicians, it's very dependent on the decisions that are made through Act 73 to streamline our operation. It is more complex, right, to oversee 52 supervisory unions in a 119 districts and to provide the same training for for all of those, the same review, the same compliance, and it shifts our focus. There's also an opportunity cost there. So not only are we providing that at ProSype, but then instead of it it allow makes us focus more on compliance than focusing on quality. So it's really I would just encourage us to connect the organization of the agency to the organization of the overall system, and that we're more streamlined in terms of our governance, then there are fewer positions that are needed at the agency to support that. The last thing I would say is that through every effort we have, we are evaluating our existing ability to deliver on the the demands. And so this reorganization represents our efforts to realign our work, to deliver on those expectations. If the legislature is identifying a whole new scope of work, we need to have questions around how that will be delivered, whether that's shifting our priorities within our existing teams, or if there's additional resources that may be needed to deliver that with advocacy. So,

[Steven Heffernan]: I noticed that, you know, the whole government there are redundancies. You mentioned the fact that maybe some things are being done in the field that are your responsibility and if we can eliminate them just streamline it. Do you see it as a top down system or just a lateral, you know, being equally supportive?

[Zoe Saunders]: Yes. So I think our statute clearly defines roles and responsibilities, and it is the role of the agency of education to ensure accountability to those quality standards. It is the responsibility of the districts to organize in a way to deliver on those. So, think we actually have in statute clarity around those roles and responsibilities.

[David Weeks]: Just to follow on to Senator Windham's question, as a secretary of an agency, you have a lot of to to move positions both horizontally and vertically without impunity.

[Zoe Saunders]: Everything I do has to be substantiated and I have to prove there's a value of making those changes. There are some limitations related to funding source in terms of physicians that are funded either through federal funding stream or a state project, so there are parameters for how we make those decisions.

[Seth Bongartz]: Okay, thank you.

[David Weeks]: I just, I wasn't sure of the answer.

[Zoe Saunders]: Couple questions. How many vacancies do you have? We have, I would say, I wanna say, just gonna ballpark this, about 15 vacancies. And I'm gonna know for you why we have vacancies. So, there were some positions that were vacated, and there was a need through the reorganization to identify, those are the major job responsibilities that we need moving forward as an organization. So there was a lot of work that has happened through this effort to ensure that we are updating, and in some cases, creating new job descriptions for those roles that have been vacant. That does require a process of working with DHR or Department of Human Resources to review those positions, to review the scope of work, to ensure that they're at the right pay grade to justify those changes. So some of these vacancies are planned in that we were reorganizing and creating new responsibilities for those roles, which we're now actively recruiting for. And that's out of how many positions left. Have a 185 positions employed. Torin, I don't wanna make your job any bigger if you've just arrived. We're at last spring. Okay. So nice to meet you. What is missing from my experience with AOE and past education transformation is communication to the public. And I heard you talk about communication to the legislature and to the field, but we were joined by members of AOE, often Brad James, as you probably have heard, talk to Brad James, because a lot every one in Vermont, as you know, has an opinion about our education system and a valid one and want to be informed and part of the discussion. And we're really missing that right now. I would say that communication with the public is also a shared responsibility. We are all working together to communicate the changes that we're contemplating. I think it's important to note we need to be fact based with those conversations. Right? I actually think that that part of the work is our shared responsibility to make sure that we are clear in establishing the data, the facts, and the information so that as a public, we can engage in informed decision making. So, I would ask for you all and invite you to be accountability partners when you do see inaccuracies in reporting or inaccuracies that are coming up through conversations. And frankly, lot of that comes down to questions, right? So if you're hearing questions in your communities that you don't feel are being fully addressed, it's helpful for you to share that with us so that we can help to provide clarity around that message and to use every avenue available to us to do that. In terms of our engagement in the field, I think you're talking more, in addition to communication, you're also describing on the field support. So, let me just end on the communication piece. We did a pretty extensive listen and learn tour. We've been providing a lot of information out to the public to have full transparency on where we are in terms of a lot of recent reports. And what we're recognizing is, as you all know, those reports are pretty lengthy. And it can also be very technical. So part of the effort that will be focused on in the next month is really converting those into very simple, fact sheets to equip the public with easy, accessible, digestible information. So, with Torren coming on board to to lead this team, also expanding the support under him for communication, we are shifting to focusing more on that public communication in that way. And that also includes creating more of a presence on social media, which historically the agency has not had as much of a presence on social media. We know that that can be an effective medium. We have recently hired a digital communication specialist because we know video content can be really helpful in translating complex information. And we have a new leader who's joined in that role, who has that experience, and actually have had that experience working at a former district and having to communicate really complex ideas that the school board was entertaining related to decisions around the school. So you'll see more video content, you'll see more social media, you will see more distilled one sheeters with clear and concise information. In terms of the on the ground support, I think that's a lot of the questions that I've had since becoming secretary. You know, back in the time of the recession, there was a downsizing of the agency. That occurred a long time ago, and we've heard from the field that there's been a need for more of the on the ground support. That team that we're describing that's sitting under strategy and accountability is that field facing team, that the team that will be deployed to differentiate support across the state, that has been funded through the appropriation that the legislature gave us, that appropriation was for eight months. And so, as we noted in our reports, for that work to really be sustained, full time positions would be needed for that effort, because it's not just about delivering on some of the activities that are needed from Act 73, it is the team that's really supporting that on the ground, roll up your sleeves, continuous improvement. So that's an area that we are building out, and as we hope, really, we're building that in a way that can be sustained over time. Additionally, you've made a specific example around the budgeting support. So we've been really clear with all of our staff that our job is to be a partner in the field. And so that means that we are increasing our presence. We are regionalizing, we're working with every division in our agency to identify their strategy for how they are in the field. So what I've walked through today is our reorganization. That's all situated within our agency wide strategic plan. And now that we have those clear agency wide statewide goals, we're working with every single division to develop a division strategic plan. That's the operational plan. That's how we're actually going to deliver on that work. And key to that is identifying how we are enhancing our customer service, how we're providing targeted training in the field. Now we do that with our existing resources, right? And so that is important to note. But what you can see here is that we've been really intentional, resourceful with elevating our ability to make an impact in the areas that are most important to our state. I thought I know I'm sure literacy is under your chief academic officer. I've been looking around for signs of Vermont Reads, and I don't know if that's off the ground or or how we might help advance our our literacy programming. And then with accountability, are you still working on metrics? Do you have metrics that you plan to share with us this month? It's already been published. So I'll talk literacy. Love to talk about literacy. I wasn't invited to present on that, but I will say that literacy has been one of my chief priorities since assuming this role as secretary. I took the role as the legislature was finalizing act one thirty nine, and I immediately asked, because I've been part of statewide large adoptions, how are we resourcing this? How are we funding it? How are we gonna make sure we provide that state level, statewide professional learning? And so I've been very creative and resourceful with using different funding to stand up an initiative called Read Vermont. As you know, last year, we had some challenges with the federal funding because that was taken away, so that created a bit of a stop in that work. But true to how we work as an agency, we took that pause, we took stock of how that program was designed. What needs to be refined? How is it working? Need to make any pivots? So in addition to thinking about the funding for the program, we made some really strategic decisions on how to strengthen Read Vermont, and that includes specifically not just providing the coaching, the job embedded coaching to our teachers, but also to have an aligned cohort for the building leaders, so that they could support with that shift in culture. So the Re Vermont, kind of I guess two point zero, the Re Vermont Institute was launched and we have participation from supervisory and administrative districts across the state. Additionally,

[Steven Heffernan]: in

[Zoe Saunders]: the next couple weeks, you will get a report from us, which is providing an evaluation of our progress on the goals of Act 139, which are designed to promote improved literacy outcomes. Within that report, you're also going to see some suggestions for how we're moving forward, including providing additional resources and tools to parents, so that they have an understanding how to reinforce learning at home, and some other ways that we can partner with the Literacy Advisory Council to advance this. Again, with literacy being a major focus, it is something we are prioritizing within our budgeting. There's also an opportunity to explore other funding proposals through grants, which we are looking at too. So, Revermont is is absolutely a chief focus of ours. And we, just earlier this week, we provided a recommendation to the Vermont Standards Board on how the science of reading needs to be more fully embedded in the curriculum for our educator preparation programs. Also, within that recommendation, we've suggested that there needs to be new standard and a new assessment for the reading endorsement, and we are revising our our peer review process along that way. So tremendous amount of work that's happening in literacy, and I really welcome the opportunity to come back when our report is ready so we can walk you through where we are and where we need to head.

[Seth Bongartz]: Go ahead.

[Zoe Saunders]: On the question of metrics, do you have do you have, like, one metric of success that you're really proud of from the last two years that's shifted? From the last Like, a metric that you look at that has moved. Yeah. So keep in mind, movement also requires the entire state to move. And so a lot of our work has been putting in those pieces in place. I think looking at, you know, improved grant utilization has been an area to maximize those funds. We also have been, you know, within our work, strengthening how we provide training and support and all of that comes with, yeah, definitely. But I think what you're asking is where are we headed as a state? So as a state, we've been really clear. We have identified a framework, we have the five strategic pillars within each of those pillars, have key performance indicators, and statewide, we need to move the needle on that work in order for us to achieve and elevate.

[Seth Bongartz]: So I just want to give you a chance to talk about this, the accountability, the sort of flip side of accountability, could say, is like unfettering, and just accountability can be and evolve to like home management, all of us that I understand of. I just want give you the chance to talk about this. So, you know, when you talk about accountability, is it toward big goals? Little micro goals to try people out of their minds, or is it Yeah. Okay. That's what I, I just want

[Zoe Saunders]: to, I

[Seth Bongartz]: just want to have the, have you talk about that a little

[Zoe Saunders]: So, thing I'll note, with our reorganization, we were intentional of saying, we're doing some big shifts in the way we work. That comes with a change management strategy, and we had really clear tasks around our thirty, sixty, ninety day plan. So we're at that point where we're evaluating where we are, and we're making some shifts. I say that because even the term accountability in the future, that might be a different term that we're using to promote broader understanding and awareness of what we mean by accountability. So at our strategic planning retreat, I led a breakout session to discuss accountability, and operationalize a definition of accountability that is more comprehensive. Typically, people think about accountability, they're like, oh, you're just talking about our assessment data. No. Or, to your point, Sarah, they're thinking, we're gonna be micromanaged. That's not what we're doing with accountability. In fact, I would argue that a lot of prior practices were in that in that vein of micromanaging, focusing on tasks, focusing on what I would call inputs. Right? Do you have all the right inputs? Mhmm. Where we're headed as a state is to talk about outcomes. We wanna make sure that we're prioritizing and focusing on what matters most. And that means actually getting out of the micromanagement, but being very clear and intentional on how we bring data together to evaluate the overall performance. So in a breakout session that I led, we shared some of the work that is underway to triangulate academic and nonacademic data to get a fuller picture of the overall health of our system, and we provided feedback on that. We collected input around what are the most important metrics? What type of analysis could be helpful from the agency in order to identify the areas of focus? Part of our role in accountability is also identifying bright spots. And I think you've heard from superintendents before that people feel like we lift those up as much. And we need to, we can't just look at statewide data and statewide results. So part of this effort in our role is really also strengthening our evaluation and research capabilities to lift up those practices in the field that are really effective and exemplars, and study them for scale. So accountability is much broader here, but in a really simple way, it's to to make sure that we're accountable to students and to ensure that our system has the right level of data and information to control. We've actually used a a pyramid model where we talk about the different types of data and how you transform data from just, you know, an Excel spreadsheet to actually generating insights that drive decision making. So that's what we're talking about when we're moving forward with accountability, and we're moving forward with enhancing our reporting, is to ensure that it's not just data that we're putting out there, but that it's done in a way that's really helping to guide decision making. And I would also note that when you talk about accountability, it's the quantitative data is really called the quantitative data, helps us to get a sense of where we are. It's a pulse check. It doesn't always tell the full story, and that's why context matters. So when you think about accountability, the work of the school improvement team also going in the field, facilitating conversations, asking targeted questions around what are barriers to making improvement? What are some of the contributing factors to the decline in fourth grade reading? And how do we develop strategies that shore that up? So what you're what we're talking about here for accountability is to really identify the outcome measures that are most critical to setting us apart as the best education system in the country. And recognizing that that's not just about test scores, but there needs to be a review and understanding of all the other data points and barrier, you know, success factors that need to be in place for us to achieve. So it's really exciting work, and we're going to be forming a working group, which I committed to, at this, the planning retreat, that I think will really help us. You also gave us an appropriation to improve some of that, the data dashboarding capabilities. It's important that we're doing that in a way that's actually reflective and responsive to the field around what needs to be organized to inform decision making. So there's a whole strategy and a multi phased plan to doing that work. With intention, you'll hear this a lot from us, yes, we always need to be thinking long term, right, about how we get that cheaper state, but there are immediate needs now, and that's why we've organized ourselves to support those immediate needs and to launch some early initiatives to improve.

[Seth Bongartz]: Yeah, there's a question.

[Steven Heffernan]: See, a lot of times people come to us, ask a question, and I don't know the answer obviously because I'm a layperson but do you have your communication specialist is going to start talking about like a two eleven for AoE where people can actually get answers? I don't feel comfortable referring, know, telling people, you know, I give them my opinion. You know, we need to have I don't even know where AOE physically resides in my period.

[Zoe Saunders]: We'd like to invite you to open. So we're actually in the process of trying to schedule that with the committees of jurisdiction to do a field trip at the agency of education. The open house is an opportunity for us to share, you know, the work that we're doing outside of of the current legislative session. Right? There's there's work that's moving forward now. Yep. And it's also a chance for you to meet our subject matter experts across the agency and to have that opportunity to engage in the discussion. We heard from the field also sometimes. If I have a question, I'm not sure who to go to. So part of what we've done with our improvement in customer service is developing an interactive directory that's now available on our website. So everyone on our website, everyone on our staff is in this directory with their contact information, and you're able to sort by an area. So if you want to learn about CTE, you can filter for those staff members that have specialization in CTE. So that's a resource that was primarily designed for the field, but is also a resource to you as legislators. Then I think to your question around two on one, it's getting to those fact sheets. Right? It's really being clear around here are some frequently asked questions that we're hearing, not just about legislation, but federal law and being able to create that on our website. That's what we're talking about when we're creating those digestible fact sheets.

[Steven Heffernan]: Mhmm.

[Zoe Saunders]: And the reorganization of our website is part of that too. Just to ensure that it can be easier to navigate to get information.

[Steven Heffernan]: It's it's it's across all state agencies too. It's not you know, like, I was in an economic development meeting in Rutlander. It's like, you know, we almost need to have a traffic cop that we can somebody we can call that says, you know, what what grants are available? And, you know, who we go talk to to get the application? So it's it's it would improve efficiency statewide. I think if we had each agency had a a number where they could call them, sometimes even talk to a real person.

[Zoe Saunders]: We do have a number of this and also an email address that's AOEinfoEd that does and support those type of inquiries. And so that's in the secretary's office, and they're very effective in identifying who you need to talk to if you have a question. So, there is that entry point. If you're not sure where to go, there's an email, can go ahead and email, there's also a phone number to call. Many of our divisions also have their own phone number or email address. If folks know, I really have a question, I know it's about child nutrition, I'm not sure to talk to, okay, there's an email that you can route your questions or for data, if you have data requests, there's a specific email in a process. All of that is in our directory so that that can be easily accessible and it is updated now on a routine basis with our assembly cabinet.

[Seth Bongartz]: So, should probably move on, make sure we have time to get to the teaching each part of your own.

[Zoe Saunders]: Yeah. As we move forward, this is really exciting work. I think we all share a vision and an intent to expand career and technical education. And I'm gonna start, you know, the vision in the future is that we have state of the art, regional, comprehensive high school. And what do I mean by that? Meaning that, yes, comprehensive high schools where schools are co located with career and technical centers, where learning is infused across the academic coursework or career and technical education work, but we recognize too that we don't yet have the infrastructure for that. So what I'm gonna share with you today is some of the strategies to get there. Within this vision, we wanna make sure that every Vermont student is ready for life after graduation. So every student, regardless of where they live, can discover their strengths, pursue their interests, that our graduates are prepared for college, careers, and life, that the learning that they're engaged in is meaningful, hands on, and it's connected to the real world so they understand the application of what they're learning to a future career. This vision also makes sure that we're clear in supporting those pathways from school to adulthood. In this vision, CTE is a foundation. It is not an alternative option that are, it's available to a few, but it is an essential part of our education system. So in this vision, CTE is embedded in middle school and high schools, also in the early age of ninth and tenth grade, that we have blended pathways, so that rigorous academics and applied learning are happening together. It's really infused in the overall educational experience for our students. Learning happens in a lot of different places. Learning happens in the classroom, happens in labs, it happens on the job site, on college campuses. And students are no longer forced to choose between academic, quote unquote, or technical, quote unquote. Because what we're envisioning is a system where, really, career and technical education is part of how to deliver education. It's a way that we're ensuring that the learning is connected to the real world, is connected to and aligned with industry. We know currently that we have an equity challenge. Access to career and technical education is largely tied to proximity to a technical center. Over the last two years, we have published two reports that continue to affirm that finding. And that becomes a real barrier for students in our state to access current technical education. Our studies have also identified that we have inconsistent program quality and the availability of those programs. So there are some programs that are highly concentrated in a particular region of our state, but then are not available in another part of our state. Also, there are some programs that are not as aligned to the current workforce needs that we have in Vermont. We need to make some strategic decisions around how to sunset some programs and offer new programs that are more aligned. Transportation is a barrier, and it's largely a barrier because of this issue of proximity. So a student, as we know, is more likely to participate in CTE if they are, their high school's co located to a tech center, or if they're sending school as close enough that they can make that work. That creates some challenges with transportation. So we know transportation has been a barrier in the past. In a separate report that we submitted last week, we identified some considerations for transportation. So I'll point you to that report for the broader considerations. They apply to CTE, but we actually need to think about transportation more broadly within our larger districts. And then we know that too many students miss early exposure and career opportunities that all middle schools are offering are group tech courses, so there's a barrier in access to that perspective. So the policy framework that we're putting forward is a statewide career and technical education service agency. This is very similar to what we described with the governor's original policy proposal. We have conceptualized that, if you recall, as a BOCES. We have evolved our thinking around that based on additional literature review that we have done on the way in which states effectively organize regional service delivery. I'm gonna talk a little bit about some of that learning and the way that we landed on this as a really helpful tool for us to deliver high quality current technical education. The policy framework focuses on quality, and part of that is ensuring that there is curriculum that's aligned to the industry and that we have a very tight accountability framework. The proposal puts forward a focus on middle school and early high school. So it's not just for our CTE concentrators in eleventh and twelfth grade, but that we're ensuring there is that earlier exposure in the middle school grades. This is intended to have an integrated pre k 12 delivery model. We also know that our personalized learning plans, which are codified in law now, are an untapped resource and lever to supporting this innovative pathway. I'll share a little bit about our work in that area. This proposal sets statewide funding for universal CTE access. Here, we're talking about CTE being available to all students, not just a few. And we recognize that to get to this broader vision, it needs to be, there needs to be a staged implementation timeline. So, I'm gonna walk you through how we're conceiving of that. If you recall when I started this, I began with the vision. I do think there's a shared vision for regional conference high schools. That came out in our listen and learn, which we reported last year. It's come out through a lot of conversations that have been happening on the legislature. But there's simply more time and resources that are needed to get to that future state. Right? Because that future state does require construction. And even if school construction aid were made available today, which there's no current funding source, it would take a time to actually build the new facilities and to think about where those facilities need to be placed. So we don't wanna wait until all of those pieces are in place to strengthen our career and technical education programming. That's why we're putting forward this concept of an education service agency, and in many ways is a bridge for us as a state until we get to the future state. So the education service agency is one statewide governance entity that would help us to deliver high quality CTE. If you recall, last session, we did a lot of work with the House Commerce Committee talking about this proposal, and some of those discussions contemplated potentially a district for CTEs. And there were a lot of questions, I think were good questions. Did that actually create another layer of bureaucracy? Does that create complexity? Did that make us too rigid? And so we've answered those questions with yes, we actually believe that's true, which is why we're not suggesting a CTE district, we're suggesting an education service agency that is more consistent with what the governor originally proposed at the beginning of the session. And so this would entail the legislature directing the agency of education to establish this education service agency, and then be accountable for the system quality. The education service agency would employ the CTE educators, manage curriculum, professional development, and oversight. They also oversee programs across centers, high schools and middle schools. This is a really important note. So the way that we're conceptualizing the Education Service Agency, it's not just providing oversight around the CTE career concentrators that are enrolled at our tech centers from eleventh and twelfth grade. This is actually ensuring that we can push in resources and curriculum in middle schools and in high schools that are not currently connected to a tech center. There are some programs that we can offer within our existing middle and high schools that may not require as much outfitting of a highly specialized lab, and so it requires this larger statewide entity to help in ensuring that that happening at every place where we're delivering education now. Also, in this model, access does not depend on geography or district capacity, and it's actually agnostic to the new districts that will be formed for K-twelve. There are some complexities that we need to think about in terms of program enrollment, but those are pieces that we're prepared to manage. Okay. Go ahead. How was this funded? I'm gonna go through that. Oh, I read through the whole thing, and I I didn't see a weight. I didn't see a It's not a weight. So I'm gonna walk so if you recall the I'll go through the funding So it's an appropriation. How much is the appropriation? Yes. So if you recall, when we initially, when the governor initially put forward his proposal, it focused on expanding CTE. During the process of the legislative session, there were changes made to the methodology for the final funding formula that's included in Act 73, and because of that, there has been some further reflection on how we can ensure that those dollars can expand and support CTE. So the way that the formula is currently working, is assuming the existing costs for CTE are going to be built in for the final foundation formula. That's about $70,000,000. What we're suggesting within this proposal is that we pull that out of the foundation formula and that becomes an appropriation by the legislature. That's important to ensuring that there is consistent access across the state of Vermont, and that we avoid the challenges that you have heard a lot about, in terms of competition of funding. It creates a unified statewide CTE appropriation that is reflective of a unified commitment of Vermont for CTE. From the general fund? You're just not speaking in our budgetary language, so don't pull things out of the education fund. In the future state, you will have a foundation formula. The way the methodology that you approved in the current language of act 73 has CTE included, that's about $70,000,000. So instead of that factoring into the base or being a weight, we are saying to move that out of the foundation formula and it being an appropriation. It never got factored into the foundation. It's not correct. So, the assumptions that are built into the cost factor analysis assume existing spending for CTE, so that is not correct. What we're saying is we want to make sure that that does not continue to be put in a position of it being a competition for funding. That's why we originally proposed a wait. But as we're moving forward with this new methodology, we think it's even stronger to ensure that those dollars are appropriated. What about the current state? So in the current state, how are you saying we pull $70,000,000 an So you're not speaking to the current state. So this is not a proposal for the near term. So if if, so I think Act 73 is law, so I am assuming that we're moving forward with Act 73, and that this would be figured into that. If the state decides not to do a foundation formula, which would be a significant challenge of ensuring equity, I think we've proven our system is inequitable. There would need to be contemplation around the funding. We can come back with what that appropriation would be. So if we move forward with the foundation formula, you're saying change the base metric for the foundation formula and take out x number of dollars per student. For that first year. Yep. And then there's a process where it would The like foundation formula. First year that this would go into effect, yep. And then you'll find in your memo that has more detail around funding, how that would be reviewed on an annual basis, where there is some calibration in terms of student participation, because ultimately, we would expect that there would be there would be more participation. And you're saying $70,000,000 is how much we're spending on CT right now? Yes. As a state? Yes. And what we're saying is that that's being spent in a way that is not efficient and effective. So when you're looking at the reports that we've published, there's great variability with the tuition costs from one CTE center to the other. So this does oversee the budgeting for CTE to ensure that there's equity in how we're funding programming, that we're ensuring those programs are aligned to the largest industry needs for Vermont, so that we can really see a great return for student opportunities. The Education Service Agency would also support with the statewide budgeting using the Perkins dollars that are available. And that's helpful to ensure that we can really think strategically about doing that comprehensive needs assessment, doing that statewide to determine where additional resources may be needed. It might be that there's a CT center that needs additional lab space, right, and that that's a priority. So this allows us to be also more equitable with how we do that work, and it takes away the financial program that's currently on the local districts. I think this is really meeting the needs that have been outlined, both from the field and the work that we've been describing. I'm sorry, can I ask one more question?

[Seth Bongartz]: That makes sense. Stand up.

[David Weeks]: Sure. I think it might be clarification. Sure, sure. If I can go and then if it doesn't get the mark, So my understanding is CTE costs more than the traditional education. Is the $70,000,000 so every student across the state foundation formula 15,000 or thereabouts is the 70,000,000 on top of it's just so a CTE student would still be recognized for their 15,000 per student but 70,000,000 is a CTE specific cost on Topica?

[Zoe Saunders]: So we're getting into the details around how the funding formula will be finalized, and I think to do that justice, there needs to be some more time to bring in actually some of the data there. So, within this approach, we are making an assumption that that base amount, or the foundation formula, will fund the teaching team that's needed to provide the middle school pre tech programs, the ninth and tenth programs, the counselors that we know are necessary to assist the system. And we're making that assumption because we've actually done that modeling. And we did that modeling on less money with the original proposal. And the dollar amount figures that are in act 73 are even more generous. So that is important to note. And then it's saying, in addition to that, we're going to appropriate money for the CTE to support the operation of the delivery of career and technical education, along with the quality and the training support that's needed, because it's very highly specialized. So going back to some of the other components of this policy, it would help us to ensure the boot rigor everywhere, right? So the ESA is also providing the training, the industry aligned credentials, helping develop the curriculum statewide, so that the programs have a consistent level of rigor, and that there's alignment across the state. And those middle school and early high school years are really critically important, and so the ESA would be providing the training and the support to the middle school and the high school team as well, to ensure. And so, you can see here that the foundation formula is allowing for the districts to deliver on the staffing requirements in the middle school and the high school years. We've modeled all of this previously, and I think it would be helpful, because that's the next phase of the conversation, with this proposal to think through the actual mechanics around the funding. But the principles of this work are to ensure that there are funding universal CTE, that we're paying CTE first, that we're eliminating the level of competition, and that we're providing a consistent oversight support for quality of CTE and expanding that into the younger grades. So that's how this is structured. The JFO is currently doing this study for the foundation formula. They have gone out to bid for a contractor that hasn't yet been awarded. But this would be important to identify, should the legislature go this direction, because those inputs are really critical for the study to incorporate when they finalize the foundation formula. But we have done modeling around how this would be put forward with the existing parameters that are even at 73.

[Seth Bongartz]: Okay, Courtney.

[Zoe Saunders]: Yes, I mean, I hope we get JFO in the room soon because the details are around how the policy structure would work immediately detached from your goals and vision, I believe. So No. You're saying so you're saying $70,000,000, but you also wanna expand exposure and programming. Yes. So you're saying we're gonna use the existing amount of money, expand exposure and programming, and if it changes from a per pupil amount to some base funding for the agency of education, the per pupil amount still matters when a student is able to raise their hand, right, if it's now sixth grade and say, I'd like to be put on a CTE track, does that money leave the district in sixth grade? So I'm gonna address a couple areas of clarification. This is being contemplated as a full integrated system. You are right to ask questions around the funding. There are foundation formula funding. It's important to understand what that actually delivers. We've done some of that modeling, I think it's helpful to come back and to do that. And then, what the additional appropriation for career and technical education was for. The existing, we're not talking about existing funding when we are moving to the foundation formula. Act 73 actually is identifying an additional funding source that's very generous for how we're going to support education. What we are saying is that we're going to apply the principles and the evidence based practices around how we actually deliver on those dollars, how we organize our system and operationalize those funds, which represent the second highest spending in the country, to ensure that we're delivering on the educational quality goals. This approach for the Education Service Agency is to help us to make the transition to the regional comprehensive high schools. We want to make sure that we have in place a process where we can push in the resources support needed for education for CTE now, at such time as a state that we have school construction aid, regional high schools are put into place, there will be a review of sunsetting the education service agency, and I would suggest that that be built into the review that you would conduct every time we review the foundation formula. So, best practice for states, and what we've identified, and the law have identified for Acts in B3, is that there would be an ongoing review of the funding, as there should be, to make adjustments that are needed to better meet those established goals. I think the viability and the need for the education service agency would be warranted to review, because at what time that you're in larger districts, and you have regional comprehensive high schools in place, either the Education Service Agency may not be needed, or it may not be needed to provide the full array of oversight and support to elevate CTE education. Sir, but this is a removal of resources with not a lot of specifics about how those resources That's would correct be at That not correct at all. That is a false statement. This is not You just said we take $70,000,000 out of the existing system, move it to an education service agency without clarity about how, when, and where those students would receive those dollars following them to career technical education. No. What I'm saying is instead of looking at a weight, which has not been applied within the foundation formula, we are ensuring that we are, as a state, funding CTE programs, that we are funding the delivery of that early exposure in middle and high schools. This is not divorced from our overall funding system, it's ensuring that we are addressing the barriers that have been persistent in the state around creating the competition for funding and creating the challenges with access for every student. So this allows us to create a more integrated system where every student is taking advantage of current tech accommodations. So to your point around middle school, I think the legislature has some questions that you could answer. Are you going to make pre tech required for middle school? What we're saying within the funding is that the intention, and what we can model with the funding, is this can be available to all students, and the legislature would establish the education service agency, or establish the agency to start this ESA, and ensuring that there are those quality parameters of what is required, and that would include having that consistent curriculum, having that training in the middle and the high school. But you intercepts the dollars to do that? Not intercepting the Perkins dollars. We are looking at how we're going to budget with the Perkins dollars that we have to better meet the needs of our current technical education system across the state. So this has actually been an interest, you see a lot of the training that the CTE directors are engaged in, they often do some creative ways in which they can pool resources to have more statewide training. So again, it's that concept around thinking on how we can better align those Perkins dollars to the needs of the CTE system.

[Nader Hashim]: But that, the students dollar, the base amount, that follows them to that CTE and that 70,000,000 helps pay, afford the training. Yeah. I'm trying to get this clear, but that 15, our training number, 15,000 is used at the CTE as part of the money to afford the CTE?

[Zoe Saunders]: So, the expectation is that we would identify, this would be an appropriation that would be funding the programs that we offer across the state. There is a relationship with student participation. I think that's what you're

[Nader Hashim]: Well, that is. Senator Hinsdale, I'm just trying to get it down to my basic level. Yep. That those dollars, that basic amount, that still goes to falls to student with that CD and that CD center uses that money and 70,000,000 is just additional money to make sure it can operate and teach? We're

[Zoe Saunders]: saying that the funding, so the 70,000,000 I said it is the beginning of the modeling, and we can go into those details. That is to fund the entire CTE system.

[Nader Hashim]: Got it. Now the money that

[Zoe Saunders]: goes Now when when the JFO study, if this is the direction you go, contemplates the base and weights that will be included. Right? The base is not assumed to cover the cost of CTE because the state is fully funding CTE.

[Nader Hashim]: That's you you But the base Kesha, do you understand what you're saying?

[Zoe Saunders]: No. She's The money is

[Nader Hashim]: still allowing the student for the

[Zoe Saunders]: base in terms of participation. You you had previously said that built into the foundation formula that we passed was CTE. Yes. And you're gonna take it out. That's the opposite of what you a concern that I put forth with the foundation formula was that it was not designed to expand and fully focus on CTV because it was embedded. It was not a separate weight. So this is ensuring that we can fully meet the statewide priority of actually funding CTE. If we believe in ensuring CTE access for every student, then this is a way for the state to guarantee that we're offering that. Taking it out of the base amount from the foundation formula and moving it elsewhere. That's what you've said. The the mechanism by which this is delivered is through, in this proposal, is an appropriation, as opposed to a wait. So, I think what I would suggest, there needs to be some education on how the base works. Well, there needs to be education around the methodology that was adopted with the foundation formula in Act 73, and what is included in that. If you recall consistently last session, I urged us to identify the inputs, the outputs, and the outcomes that we expected within the foundation formula. This is a way to ensure that we are delivering on a very specific objective of funding career and technical education at a high level. And it's also getting us to be very clear around how we need to resource the system in both middle school and early high school, so that it's integrated. The actual structure of the ESA is ensuring that we have the right level of governance and support to do that effectively statewide, and that there's that level of expertise to ensure a consistent quality in every place that a career center or program is offered. Also, in the moment that we can actually build in programming at existing high schools and to create that training and exposure of teachers and the middle school grades that are delivering this contest. Sorry, but that's not true. And you we of all of this. You came in on the last day we were discussing the foundation formula and you said you'd like an 8% weight to go to the high schools for college and career readiness. That was the last proposal you made about how to include college and career readiness in in the foundation formula. What are you saying is not true? I wanna make sure I'm clear on that. That it was that it was baked into the methodology to face amount. My recommendation. So, was an 8%, that was a recommendation for So, 8% for high you're saying it's not in the face I think it's important and we can go through the history of how Act 73 evolved and what research and methodology was used and applied to land on the final proposal, which by the way, not finalized because the legislation calls for JFO to conduct a SETI incorporating cost factor analysis and other inputs that are important to delivering on the state educational goals. I have been incredibly consistent every time I have talked about funding to first identify the objectives, and then to apply evidence based principles in our budgeting to show how those dollars could fund those objectives. The proposal that you are referencing was an evolution of the enhanced evidence based model based on input that we heard from the field in areas that we could look at expanding our support and resources. And that was modeling both the objectives and the goals, and how the dollars would be sent to ensure that was delivered. So I've been incredibly consistent about identifying current technical education as a goal. The moving goalpost has been how the methodology has been applied, or the foundation formula, Irrespective of the final funding, the base amount, and the weights that the legislature approves upon, the agency of education will rely on evidence based practices to make recommendations on how we can staff and resource the system. So, that continues to be constant in everything we're doing. This proposal for an education service agency is a way that we're thinking about funding differently, and to ensure that we are actually guaranteeing access to current technical education. I think it is complicated to talking about this because we're also discussing this approach at the same time that we are finalizing the foundation formula. That is actually good timing. It is important to really clarify what are, again, those inputs into the system, and how do we need to model that so that we land on a final funding formula that is fair, equitable across the state, and ensures that we're delivering on our objectives. So having this conversation early about another opportunity to fund career and technical education is helpful and should be included in the study and the ongoing evaluation of the final funding system. This is all about a system. If there's different ways that the legislature or JFO would like to explore how to fund this, I think that's great. And there's other ways that we could think about funding it. The the main part is to identify how are we gonna establish that that governance system, that level of support to ensure quality. And it, again, is trying to address the reality that we all, I think, share a goal to move to regional high schools. But we can't get there overnight, even if we had school construction aid. So we do need to have a process in place where we can kind of reset, strengthen our system, push in additional resources that are consistent, and be more equitable and efficient with the way that we are investing a significant amount of dollars so that they go further across the state in providing opportunities to students. That that's the proposal. If there's additional questions around the funding and different mechanisms, there there's a lot of different things we can explore. It's the right time to do it. And once the JFO solidifies the contractor who will be supporting that, I really welcome the engagement of fielding those questions, exploring different methodologies, but our main intent is, within CTE, to ensure that we don't just talk about CTE being a priority, but we fund it, and we support it, and we ensure that it is delivered actively and in a high quality manner across the state.

[Seth Bongartz]: So, I'm excited about it.

[David Weeks]: I've only learned a few things around here in a short time, but one of them is that words matter. So what does the service agency mean and where is it embedded in the hierarchy of your transformed agency?

[Zoe Saunders]: So, there's been a lot of conversation around regional service delivery, and so we have been clear from the beginning of the transformation discussion that certainly larger districts help us to achieve scale, and that that's important. It's important for quality, it's important for equitable funding, so that's been established. What we also recommended from the very beginning was even when you get to larger districts, there are certain services that are very specialized, will require more statewide regional delivery. We talked about that in terms of special education. Last session, we also introduced that in terms of career and technical education. When you're talking about this number and size of students that we serve being about 4,005 students, Being able to replicate the oversight and support for that in our current structure creates difficulties. And so what we're talking about is actually ensuring that we have that level of expertise, that level of focus to elevate the importance of career and technical education, so that there is more programming that's aligned to the needs, that there is more uniform support for consistency of quality, and that it would be established with clear goals outlined by the general assembly. Right? So the general assembly would say we're going to establish this education service agency to oversee current technical education to meet these goals. The agency of education being responsible for actually standing up, being an education service agency, and providing a layer of quality assurance and support, which is within our purview as a state agency to deliver on these expectations.

[David Weeks]: So it's embedded in a way?

[Zoe Saunders]: We would, we are proposing within this that it would have an executive director, and that there would be boards attached to it. I think there's a really kind of interesting and exciting opportunity to talk about this. You know, with the regional advisory boards now are really focused by their name, by region. In other states, the advisory boards are organized around content. So if you think about these boards being organized around expertise industry around aviation, expertise in industry and manufacturing, for example, to provide that level of industry aligned support across the state, across all programs, so that you're having that level of expertise. So the executive director would be charged with overseeing that. There would be the boards. We are there's a lot of different ways I would share to establish the boards. We're open to exploring and how to do the appointments and all of that. We've done a preliminary literature review. I think the main point that we want to start having is the evaluating the benefit of the approach, there are decision points that we're still going to make in terms of the staffing. We do have some sample staffing models that we put together for what this would look like with the education service agency as well that we can bring forward. But there's decisions to be made about that in the three year work. So the idea would be the 2026, for the legislature to direct the AOE to establish the education service agency. The work involved in that does include a review of existing program, development of additional curriculum and support that's needed, and then the hiring of that executive director in 2027 is all there. That's also the time where we'll be standing up the regional advisory boards to support with the content areas, and then that central office being in December 2047, with all of the CT frameworks that they've been established, and that go live in 2048. Again, all of this is aligned with assumptions, and I'm not understanding that that's something that feels long, that's the current timeline that's put forward. I'm going to note that we recognize implementation is challenging, and when we say go live, not all the things are in place. So what we thought through is that even after that 2028 period, there's still some work that needs to be done in order to fully implement this approach. And so the first year would really be standing up and strengthening. So that would be developing that unified CTE budget, establishing standards of following curriculum, improving equity data, student services, and updating programs using the guidance of those advisory boards. So those advisory boards may say, actually, that curriculum is not aligned to the existing best practices within my industry, and these are areas that we would ask that you strengthen your curriculum education. And then the second year that this would be in effect, to expand and to modernize, so expand that CT exposure. So this is where you're shifting to providing that support to the middle school teachers, to the high school teachers, to providing that on the work training, who also evaluating where there's additional resource needs to stand up more integrated work in CTE for the early grades. And this would be the area where we start launching new programs. So if we identify that there's a lot of programs that are in cosmetology, but there aren't as many jobs in cosmetology, maybe that's a need to stand up a welding program, for example, and we need to think about that so that we're preparing our students, we're investing these dollars in ways that are helping to train our students for the jobs that they need after high school. And this is the time period where we can continue to align credentials, those post secondary pathways to inform the long term infrastructure planning, right? A lot of this work in the early years would help to inform how we get to that future state where we have the regional high schools in place. There's some contemplation now, right? If this is the direction that we're going, there should be clarity around those facility education specs for when future high schools are built to incorporate a focus on career and technical education alignment. And so having the education service agency with expertise in CE and an understanding of the statewide resource needs is helpful in informing that longer term work.

[Steven Heffernan]: So you're talking about a decision point and you have time on. You when see this you gonna wait till the full four year period of the implementation before we start the business?

[Zoe Saunders]: The intent would be for the Education Service Agency to be implemented when the large addition of the foundation of the has put into place. This is all connected to the overall funding. So, I think that being question, certainly from Senator Ram Hinsdale, and it is important that we think about the overall funding, that's what we're talking about. There are decisions that need to be made as we finalize that funding formula to ensure that we're delivering on the objectives. That's the work that's ahead with JFO, and the parameters that are in place currently in Act 73, we can do some initial modeling around how these budgets would work.

[Seth Bongartz]: Thank you.

[Zoe Saunders]: One other initiative, do you want me to

[Seth Bongartz]: take Oh, I do. I'll just say for this section, for this section, thanks. But I think to the extent that you're thinking about how we make CTE available, obviously, and get away from it being only at some places also removing the pressure that it puts on districts to have $7 as you begin So to solve to that extent, I don't understand how to fill these North Chip, but we'll get to that. Yeah. But I I appreciate that that want for your what you're trying to achieve there.

[Zoe Saunders]: A lot of that could be done now. That's what AOE is for. Well, that's actually not true. We too are not able to receive any work in's dollars and to make those questions Right. So you'd be intercepting them from the district No. We're not. We cannot do that. You know, we, I wouldn't ask that we do that, but what I'm saying is, you can work on quality and consistency around the state right now, that's the charge of AOE. This proposal is getting beyond the function of the agency of education and is a governance proposal for how we deliver CTP. So, this does, this eliminates the existing CTE districts, and this is moving towards a statewide governance. But we're not calling it a district because if we name it as a district, that has some limitations for us to get to the future state. So that is not accurate that what we're describing here can be done within the Agency of Education's existing authority and purview. This is a new governance approach that helps us to be more efficient and equitable with how we deliver CTE education. It allows us to be more strategic with how we are leveraging Perkins dollars and state dollars to support and build budgets that deliver on these goals for expanded CTE programming. So, is not true that this represents the work of the agency. This proposal is a new governance framework that is outlining consistent and clear objectives around expanding CTEs. The agency of education continues to have a role, as we have now, in providing accountability and oversight of our districts, so that part doesn't change. This is a fundamental shift in how we govern CTE. The difference from some of the conversations, this is actually what we originally proposed, the governor's proposal, was this concept that has been refined, and I really want to acknowledge and appreciate the work of the House Commerce Committee, because we spent a lot of time in that committee last year, thinking about roles and responsibilities. And that was so critical. I think a lot of that information would be helpful to this committee and has informed and refined our approach to making sure that we're doing this in a way that is implementable, that is efficient, and supporting the goals. So there's a tremendous amount of additional work that's happened coming to this proposal, but it is I just wanna be really clear that this does not represent the work of the agency. This is a new way for us to govern career technical education. The agency of education continues and will maintain the oversight of accountability to the system as we do now.

[Seth Bongartz]: And do you have this

[Zoe Saunders]: in the, is this legislation? So, we have, started that, I think the intent of the House to introduce that through House Commerce. There's an interest for that to start there because of their involvement, and really helping to shape this approach. Feel like a lot of the dialogue that we had last year was really helpful in identifying pieces of the original proposal that weren't quite fully, fully baked and needed to be refined. So we're looking forward to that and can build upon some really productive work that happened in session.

[Steven Heffernan]: So I go back to my previous question. I was thinking out of the box, say the Department of Education holds it down. Actually, I think they were talking about granting money to the state so they could take funding and use it where they can gain it if necessary. Know, talking about parallel planning, I just talked to the CTE folks up in the cargo and one of them just said, you know, so how's it going? Well, I still haven't got dad still haven't got any my addition on my building. And she's a former conferencer in high school. And is anybody doing any parallel planning so if in the event that we end up do we do get some money that some of this additional stuff that we know we're gonna need to do to get the CTE incorporated into the education program can happen.

[Zoe Saunders]: So I think there's probably two parts to that question. One is around The US Department Of Education changes that are happening there and the impact for us.

[Steven Heffernan]: I'm thinking like what they did with ARPA. You know, ARPA money came in during the COVID and the state got so much and they gave it to the towns. Towns didn't have a plan. They didn't know what to do with the money.

[Zoe Saunders]: So, we cannot expect that we'll get more money from the federal I think that's been evidence. Like the shifts that are happening is yes, the discussion is moving more responsibility to the states. That has not translated into additional funding for the states, at least at this point in time. That would be wonderful if that would occur, but there's no indication that that's the direction. We're absolutely in a position where we are monitoring and concerned about potential cuts to federal programs and support to the state. The Department of Education, as you know, has at The US level, has been downsized and they've also entered into interagency agreements where certain work that teams that previously reported under the US Department of Education are now under a different department, such as the Department of Labor. So I'll be joining a virtual meeting with the US Department of Education next week to talk about those interagency agreements and from seeking input from the state chiefs around what are the concerns, what are the additional questions, and our intent is to be really reflective on how those changes have impacted our operation in terms of access to systems and training and knowing who to go to, so that we can inform future changes. I will say that we do, we did receive the money that we expected. There was a delay. I know we talked about that a lot last year, we did receive the money from the federal government that we did expect last year. And then in terms of the planning for the future, the school construction aid working group really has put forward an approach to that of being very strategic with evaluating facility conditions and the facility needs, so that people prioritize where the state investment goes, right? What makes most sense? And I think understanding this vision is important, because we need to ensure that the investment in construction is resulting in this type of, supporting the type of programming of integrated career and technical education. Additionally, our team, and a position was approved by legislature last session, is to bring on a facilities, additional facilities resource. And the intent of that is really being in the field, working with the districts to evaluate the facilities and think about also the operational capacity. What do I mean by that? You can look at a building and say x number of kids can fit in the specialty, but from an education perspective, that may not work. And so it's really thinking about, from an education lens, how do we actually organize our classrooms, organize our programs, what are the deficiencies, what are the needs? So, we know that there are school construction needs, and that's been widely documented. We also know that we're gonna have more buildings than we need to educate the number of students in Vermont, and we have to be strategic through our next phase of planning to prioritize where those construction investments need to take.

[Steven Heffernan]: To answer the question, do we have that next, that lateral parallel planning going on in just in case, you know, something does transpire or so when we do finalize the plan and if the money's available, then we can actually I mean, the other thing is the instructors. Then there's a shortage of instructors too, so that's gotta be Why don't we

[Seth Bongartz]: take a five minute break, and then we'll come back and do

[Steven Heffernan]: that enthusiasm. Certainly. You can face it.