Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: We're live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, we're back after a short break. Part of the Secretariat's presentation this time, I think we're focusing on chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism.

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: This is another area of focus of our Safe and Healthy Schools team, is to support efforts for students to come to school more frequently. We know that chronic absenteeism impacts students' ability to learn, and we want to ensure that they are in the building, benefiting from the quality instruction of our educators. I want to start by providing the national context. There has been an issue with chronic absenteeism since the pandemic, that all districts and states across the country have been grappling with. The chronic absenteeism nearly doubled nationally during COVID, and it remains seventy five percent higher now, this is a national data point, than pre pandemic levels. We know, based on research, that this has a disproportionate impact on students living in poverty, and students with disabilities, along with students of color. We also recognize that this has an impact directly on students and communities. Chronic absenteeism is related to first grade reading, and ensuring that we wanna make sure students are in the building to benefit from that instruction. We know that there's a relationship also with chronic absenteeism and lower middle school achievement, and that it can reduce access to other programs that provide an enriching education, including extracurriculars, including nutrition, school based health supports. There's a lot of factors that drive chronic absenteeism, and they're both out of school factors and in school factors. Out of school factors get health conditions of the student and the family, and impact a student's attendance at school. Mental health and substance abuse can contribute to a lack of attendance in schools. Housing instability and poverty, sometimes transportation barriers can be contributing, and other demands on the family and the caregiver network. There's also in school factors that can contribute to chronic absenteeism, and that includes bullying, harassment, safety concerns. Some students may exhibit academic anxiety and disengagement, which we've seen more prominently after the pandemic. Weak relationships with adults. Research shows how important it is for students to feel like they have a strong adult advocate in the building, and the perceived irrelevance of schools. So are students disengaged? Are they not excited about the learning? Does it not seem relevant? And then exclusionary disengagement. So in Vermont, it's not surprising that we are also struggling with chronic absenteeism because this is a national issue. The chronic absenteeism in the state of Vermont has increased sixty seven percent since 2019, a little bit lower than the national average, but considerable concern. So from 2019, it was 18% chronic absenteeism to 30% in 2023, and we're seeing the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in students who are experiencing homelessness, students in poverty, and students with disabilities. Just

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: to make sure I understand what this, so 30%, 30% of what? Missing a day in

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: a month? So chronic absenteeism is defined by students missing 10% of school days. Okay. And the 30% number represents relative to the student population.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Transition to a basic year, right?

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: Yeah, so, when this data point, just to note, is from 2020 through 2024 school year, we're in the process now of finalizing and updating the data, which will be available soon to you, so you can see the difference. I mean, we would expect, given a lot of the focus and kind of the distance from the pandemic, we're hoping to see that reduce, but we know it needs to continue to be an area of focus. So, the challenges, we think specifically to Vermont, we've had a lot of engagement with educators, social workers, and principals and superintendents across Vermont to understand what's contributing to chronic absenteeism. We have noted some major themes. One is we've had inconsistent practices across districts. Sometimes the roles and responsibilities are not clearly defined, and some of those decisions are variable, when we look district by district or school by school. At times, the expectations for families have been confusing, and there's limited effectiveness of escalation pathways. So, I want to be tangible with what I mean by that. We need to make sure in this future state that we are giving very clear roles for everyone involved in the system, so that the superintendent understands what needs to be done before the issue could be escalated to a truancy officer, for example. Right now, there's a lot of variability with how that process worked, particularly as it relates to when things are escalated. We also know that our current system and our current statute is contributing to some of the data quality gaps. What you'll see in our recommendation is to have clearer definitions, so that we have consistency with how they're reporting. And so, the actual definitions district by district or excused unexcused absences will vary by school. There's inconsistent data reporting in terms of what's included in that data, and again, when that's escalated is also variable. And there's a, what we've heard from the field is families feel that they have unequal treatment because of that variability district by district in terms of how chronic absenteeism is addressed. And then we've had a limited, at this point, ability to recommend interventions. I noted earlier our reorganization efforts, that's part of why we organize the Safe and Healthy Schools team. An area of focus for that team is on chronic absenteeism, and working closely with the field to bubble up some of these innovative practices that are underway. I'm gonna share a little bit about that work later. So the goals for the statutory change are to really reframe truancy as part of the continuum of chronic absenteeism. So, truancy is a tool. Truancy is really looking at absenteeism for, you know, unexcused absences, but chronic absenteeism is recognizing that we need to pay attention when students aren't in school for a variety of reasons. So that could include an excused absence or an unexcused absence. So chronic absenteeism is really a focus to be more proactive with identifying when students are missing the opportunity to be in the classroom to learn, because we know that that has an instructional impact. The goals for statutory change are also to clarify expectations and to be really clear on the responsibilities for school districts, for families, and for state partners. This work is designed to establish consistent and documented intervention pathways, and to reduce the inequitable and punitive responses. So, certainly, there are legal components of this, involving a truancy officer, But what we're looking to do with this statutory change is to move away from not just focusing on compliance, but to paying attention to students' attendance in schools, and being proactive in developing strategies to increase students being in schools and classrooms. So, the changes proposed through the revised statute are related to new definitions so that we have consistency, clear prevention and response expectations, standardized escalation and reporting, removal of ineffective penalties. There's been a lot of research, as you can imagine, across the country, given this challenge of really identifying what's effective. A singular focus on truancy has proven not to be effective, that we really need to take a broader lens on this to also look at chronic absenteeism, given its impact on instructional opportunities, and also recognizing all of those in school and out school barriers you identified, really learn that early, is helpful to, for the schools and districts and partners, partner with families to come up with an approach to support them in school. And making sure also within this, as we do with all the legislation, that there's alignment across settings. So, future implementation support, we are developing a model policy with tiered intervention. We have partnered with an expert in this area who has helped us to facilitate focus groups between September and November. Those focus groups have involved a variety of education leaders across the state. That's how we identified some of those major themes, along with some of the other work that we've done. You will have available to you in the coming weeks a comprehensive report around what we found through these focus groups, what we are identifying are the major challenges, but also opportunities. There's incredible work that has been happening in our districts and some real exemplars that have been part of these focus groups to lift up strategies that are effective in reducing chronic absenteeism. So we're really excited about bringing those to light and thinking about ways those can be scaled.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: A lot of people believe that CTE is the solution. If you expand access to CTE schools, all of us would have some tiers, and we'll go away.

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: So we identified one of the in school factors is engagement, and we know that we have higher graduation rates for our technical education concentrators than those students that are not in CTE. So, we can assume there's that level of engagement and excitement that's part of it. And there's also other ways for those students that may not be interested in being a CTE educator, but really ensuring that they have that engaging coursework and that they are psyched to go to school because they see the relevance to their party. In addition to some of these reports, I want to note that this effort goes beyond the agency of education, and we have approached it as such. So we have been collaborating with the statewide health network, including the University of Vermont, and including our partners within state governments, such as DCF, to all have a role to play as we are developing improvements to the statute that will enable some of these effective strategies to be put into place. And while we've done these focus groups, we have included all of those stakeholder groups, so healthcare providers, attorney generals, fluency officers, educators in schools, because we know, looking at those out of school and in school factors, that this does require a comprehensive approach. While there may be some other statutory changes that would be required, that would come out of the AHS versus the DCF practices, what's being proposed this year is not contingent on those changes being made, because it's focusing on ensuring that there's the clarity of definitions and decision making process to support And that we're also very proud that we've been able to host some statewide convenings in November. We had a conference focused on chronic absenteeism, where we were able to really dig deeper, good participation across the state. It was still hosted with the University of Vermont to ensure that we're not just flagging chronic SMT as a challenge, but we're working to come together, identify strategies that work, look at research, and look at strategies within Vermont that are really effective in reducing chronic With that, we'll open it up to questions.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Very good. So, you are thinking about few statutory changes to help get this out.

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: Definitional, they're largely definitional changes and process changes, again, to make sure that there's that clarity around roles and responsibilities and how that's escalated. We are approaching this from a prevention lens, but recognize that along that continuum, truancy is also part of that, but we need clearer definitions to support with reducing chronic absentees.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So, I can take a, for instance, a set of parents, they get their kid, child to go to school in the morning, and after a while, and either because of scheduling, what have you, they always get their children there, don't, that people gets a walk over the bus, the kids are away. Then the school comes after them, Oh, you're being truant. And we're gonna have to send somebody up to investigate When the you know they both had very good jobs, it's just scary. What's the school do? Do they look at that as, are you recommending to look at that as open eyes about, okay, yes, they're missing fifteen minutes of, and then I guess you're late after fifteen minutes, is that correct?

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: So, think what your point is, need consistency in definitions, and then we need consistency in terms of an approach. So, better tracking chronic absenteeism allows us to be more proactive and preventative, so before it gets to the point of what you're describing, where there's a for a truancy officer to get involved, we have districts across the state who've been really effective in doing this work, and they're coming to the table to share some of those suggestions. So, a lot of that involves really proactive outreach to the parents, to your point, asking those questions, what's creating the delay? What are some of the barriers? And then that particular example, the ways for us to think about the transportation depot differently or the timeline, right? I mean, so those are the conversations that are happening, and we have districts that are part of this and showing us those practices that work, that are taking that prevention lens. But it is important, and I think you're also pointing to what we have heard as a theme, is it feels from the parent perspective, sometimes the caregiver perspective that the policy would be unevenly applied across the state, and that's why we need to have some of these updates to definitions, we're clear and also process so that it's not just the district's clear, but the family also understands what their responsibilities are and the actions. And I think it would be wonderful to have our Director of Safe and Healthy Schools, Courtney Bryant, be part of the discussion. She's really an expert in this area and I think could provide some additional information. The reports that are coming out in the next couple of weeks will be really helpful because that's what we need to dig into so that we begin being more strategic and action oriented around how we implement strategies. So the statutory changes kind of create the enable us to do this work as it creates that consistency. But I want to note that beyond statutory changes, there's work we're doing now with the agency in partnership with the field and experts in health and other areas to triple out some of the recommendations, the work, including policy.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: And the of protections. And we recognize that. We recognize that.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So can we ask any questions? I gotta

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: You can ask any question and I might need to come back.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. I'd give you

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: some resources to answer certain questions if I don't have it at my fingertips.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I've asked before about equity in teacher salary. We're gonna come up with a or do we have a system in place that's gonna we're gonna pay teachers based on qualifications and not, because I know some school districts have higher paid teachers than others and it's inequitable.

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: It is, it is inequitable. I think that was a lot of our focus last session when we talked about equity, we talked about it in terms of per pupil funding, but then we did that additional review of teacher compensation, and we found that in some of our most rural parts of the state, teachers are making $22,000 less than their counterparts in more affluent areas of our state. So, we know that there is a huge gap. We also recognize that contributes to recruitment challenges. It can contribute to turnover. We know of districts where, you know, a district will hire a teacher, train them, and then they'll move to go to a district that pays more. Right. And Coaching. And so, are all, that's all part of the reason that we're moving towards, you know, the goals of act 73 is really ensuring that we have parity in terms of teacher pay, because it's the number one in school factor for student learning and student achievement.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I heard one story about a teacher who came into Vermont, fairly recently educated, got her teaching degree and came to Vermont, got hired and then had to leave because she couldn't find a place that she could afford to save.

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: Yeah, so this work doesn't happen in a vacuum and we recognize that and we hear that from superintendents as well that housing can be a challenge in the affordability of the state. It's gonna be a challenge, right, for recruitment. So, as we continue this work and we're really thoughtful around how we incentivize and compensate for teacher recruitment. I think that should be part of the conversation.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yes, going to follow-up on Senator Williams' question. So, what didn't pull out of your response was thoughts on how we address that. Wonder if you can just give that a second more, because the fear that we heard out on the road was, okay, the teacher pay parity means everybody goes up to match, but that's obviously a very expensive solution. So

[Zoie Saunders, Vermont Secretary of Education]: in one of our reports we've added that this continues to be a question that has implications for collective bargaining with people that has not been within the purview the agency, but we did make some recommendations within that report, was the murder support document that we provided, to think about statewide salary schedules, so we have reviewed other states that we've been standing by need to share that. There's been discussions around a statewide teachers' contract being part of that. And I also think it is important