Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, Senator Education Committee on February 10. We're packing after an update, and we're gonna take, do a bill introduction, S-two 59, typically with drivers and we have with us the bill sponsor. Thank you, Mr.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Chair. So, I am Wendy Harrison. I represent the Windham District and happy to be here. When my children were small, focused on the kids, pediatrician told me that being a parent means that now your heart can walk around outside of your body. I think about that a lot. One of the most terrifying times as for a parent was when my kids reached the age of driving And that was a reasonable fear. Crashes are a major factor in early deaths. I'm sponsoring this bill with the intention to increase the availability of driver education and to help our kids be safer. In the Senate Transportation Committee last year, we heard that there are not enough teachers to provide driver's education to all Vermont high school students. We heard that a school in Vermont to certify drivers ed teachers had closed and that the New Hampshire school was not adequate. This bill came to me from AAA and it's based on a New Hampshire law. Vermont law currently requires that an approved driver education course be available to 15 year old Vermont students who are enrolled in a public or independent high school. S-two 59 would allow that classroom portion of the training, not the behind the wheel training, to be online as well as in person. I am acutely aware of the harm to our children by social media and excessive time online. I'm also very aware, as I'm sure you are, of the anxiety that our kids are showing these past few years. So my support for this bill is based on an assumption that in person training is preferred and that online would only be used when in person is not available. Online is preferred to no instruction at all. That condition is not yet in the bill, and I would ask you to consider that addition if you take up the bill. If the bill goes to transportation, I will certainly advocate for that provision, if that's my intent. The challenge will be how to define when in person is not available because that's something that means different things to different folks. I recommend that the committee hear from both AAA and the Vermont Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association. So there is an association of driver education providers. And then as an aside, to ensure that education committee, I want to mention that other specialty schools have closed in the last few years. I just want you to be aware of this. We lost our only pharmacy school a few years ago and had a recent issue with commercial driver's license training, CDL training. I think that's better, or it is better, I don't know if it's efficient yet. And then we also closed trade operations in prison. There was a wood shop that produced furniture up in the state and provided, trained individuals. So, I just wanted to put that in your heads.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, wait, what was the connection there?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Just that this is the San education and I'm not here that much.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, oh, you're, okay. Sorry. Okay, veiling over, okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Yeah, I'm just letting you it it seems to be a pattern that these specialty schools are leaving, so I don't know what's up, but I thought if I mentioned it, you might see a pattern also.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It used to be 1968 when I first got my driver's license. You had to take driver's education to get your license go public. And if got a discount on your insurance, if you have nurse education.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Right. And you still get a discount on your insurance, your parents do, which is really important, and Damian can double check if I'm saying this incorrectly, but if you're 18, you don't need driver's head. Correct. Which is interesting, but the insurance benefit is helpful and motivating, especially for the parents.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So just back up a little bit, what this bill does.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: What this bill does, it's a very concise bill. If you're looking on page one, the first provision, it just says the driver's education and training course made available to students may be an in person course or an asynchronous. Asynchronous, asynchronous, I was getting there. Not at the same time. Online course. So, it doesn't say that the asynchronous online course is only available if it's the primary option or if there's barrier to doing in person. And then there's explanations following that about the standards that the course has to abide by, which seem very reasonable and makes sense. And there is data privacy in it, which is important, appropriate measures to prevent unauthorized access to private information and just provide the metrics that you would want to make sure the student performed

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: in the course.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: And then again, that's just, that's the course, that's the classroom course. And then the person would have to do the, part of the, behind the wheel in person, obviously.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, and you're suggesting that we add to this a provision to the impact of that if it's available in person, it must be in person.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Yes. I very much believe that in person is preferable. So whatever mechanism you can add to make that, preference a part of the process, I think would make it a better. And then the folks, the Vermont Driver and Traffic Safety Education Association, they've already, they've contacted me and three or four folks contacted me.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Would you help so you you have some people that you think we should have in?

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: And I I'm one of them. Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: So we spoke last night. Yes.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We did. So will you maybe you adapt and communicate Sure. About further tests within the blood Okay. Thank you.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Good. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Let's talk more questions.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Well, no,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I just want to say I appreciate the spirit in which you've brought this, and I really hope we take this up. I just feel like it's been talked about for years and this is probably the biggest barrier to opportunity that young people face. Think that one economic policy institute once said, you are 50% more likely to get married if you own a car because so much of your stability and your economic stability in the future relies on something like timely payments, the ability to keep a license, etcetera. We should not ignore how important drug use education is to the next generation stability in our economy.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: That is very interesting. And I would just say own a house and take the bus. Well,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Your but ability to make time like eight weeks early in life and pin down

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: a vehicle. I could do that. That's a

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: lot about you. Yes. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: we'll walk through with Damian. Yes. You're welcome to stay at work.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Thank you. Well

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Good afternoon. A

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: year or two since I've been in here. Different faces around the table since the last time I was in this committee. For the record, I'm Damian Leonard from the office of legislative council. As senator Harrison said, it's pretty short and straightforward bill. On page one subdivision two, What it allows is for the driver education and training course, which is the classroom portion, to be made available to students as either an in person course or an asynchronous online course, which basically means it's an online course where the enrollees don't all have to be present online at the same time. So you can work at your own pace on your current schedule. So this could include things like videotaped lectures or lesson units that can be completed by the individual at their a time of their choosing. Oftentimes, these courses are time limited. So you have to say within three months complete a certain number of units, but you get to choose what you do it. And I don't know the specifics for online driver's ed courses, but that just gives you a sense of how an asynchronous online course might work, and I'm sure your witnesses can provide you with more input about the particular courses we're talking about here. On page two, what we've got here are really the requirements for the course. So the first one is that any online course has to meet the content standards for driver's education curriculum in the most recent edition of the Novice Teen Driver Education and Training Administrative Standards, which is sort of the standard curriculum for driver's education as I understand it. Then the agency of education and the Department of Motor Vehicles, similar to the regular classroom course, would work together to approve online driver education and training courses. They would have to include a means to measure student outcomes. They would have to use a pool of rotating exam questions so you can't post the exam answers on Reddit or something like that and then give everyone a next year's course Allego. They would have to incorporate accountability features that verify the identity of the student while the student is engaged in the course of study, so you can't have your friend or your sibling take the course for you. They have to measure the amount of time that the student spends in the course, provide technical support to customers, store course content and any student data on a secure server with adequate safeguards in place to protect against data breaches and data loss, and adequacy would be determined by the department and the agency in this case. And then they have to incorporate appropriate measures to prevent unauthorized access to private information, and it goes along with include the ability to update course content uniformly throughout the state. So if we change the laws here in Montpelier and there's something new that drivers ed courses need to teach, they have to be able to pull that out statewide. And that is if there's an effective date of 07/01/2026, that's the default effective date. Obviously, depending on your testimony and how you decide to move forward, that could change. Questions?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, go ahead. Just curious, three or four years ago we were opening up a flagpole on Driver's Ed and I just tried to do a search of that legislative session on driver's ed and came up with the big t bill and it was you know it's a big bill and I couldn't find do you recall what the activity was in that biennium and what we might have accomplished?

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't. I was in my prior role at the time, so I was covering covering labor and employment law instead of transportation law at the time.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Great. I usually don't see it

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: to train.

[Damian Leonard (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I got to spend a lot of time in senator Ram Hinsdale's committee at the time. So I can look into that though and find an answer for you, but I don't remember what the specifics were. There's a good chance that Beth may remember. I think she did work in the past with Anthea, my predecessor, on those issues.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It would be helpful just to know what we did, if it had an impact, because we'll we'll be back with

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: if you wanna ask me specific questions, not regarding the bill, and I'm not testifying because I wanna honor that, I can speak to what my testimony was before that bill and and what that bill was attempting to do, but I would not want to step into this situation unless you have really specific questions, and I'm not augmenting or taking advantage of the situation.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Remember it was a white mountain at a exportable package so they were gonna.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So any questions for?

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: That's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I could find I this mark. We should get in for what this is. Yeah. So I know Senator Harrison has suggested this person here and Somebody from the agency of education because they're Yeah. And also AAA, you mentioned And DMV. Mhmm. Yeah. So and do you have, Senator Harrison, specific suggestions for those people who are as you put this together

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: No. I'll to know. No. Okay. But I I have people who just have other names. Can I ask a

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: question? Maybe at the So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so let's so for the record, you are?

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: I am Joseph Parch. I my current role now is I teach part time at Mount Manns for Union High School. I am the ex executive director for the Vermont Driver Traffic Safety Education Association. Last time I was here, I was president or past president of the American Driver Traffic Safety Education Association. Like I said, I'm here to listen, to observe, and answer specific questions by your guidance only and not to try to stay away from testifying or giving my opinion.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. You try. I think you're the person

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You can try.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I wanna ask this question of, I have heard in the past that one of the barriers is we don't teach driver's education instruction anymore in the state, and you have to go to New Hampshire to take the training to become a driver's education instructor.

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: That is true, and that was something I was involved with a number of years ago, and it moved to Keene, and the bottom line is the cost of a four year college education or credits for a four year institution were far more than what, people were willing to do, and there was a time commitment. Green Keane had their program, but that was undercut by a two year program in terms of cost, and White Mountain Community College took over that training for both states.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Windham District)]: Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And so we simply do not have enough special education. Mean, It's not on a Friday, it's Tuesday. We don't have enough drivers education instructors.

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: In the public schools, most of the I've got to get I don't have numbers. It's difficult to find out what's happening in New Hampshire, but I can tell you from experience that Chittenden County and along the Connecticut River, there are quite a few number and numbers growing of private or commercial driver educators.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And so what you're saying is that each school is still responsible for hiring a private

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: trainer? There is a ruling, and I don't have I'm not very specific, but they're allowing that to happen under the auspices of the school, but I don't know the technicalities of that and how that's working.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So there's no one requiring this? There's no one requiring that, the lobbying?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yes,

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: or they're having difficulty filling those, so they're doing the best they can. Like I said, I don't know about those programs. I I certainly can go back, and one of the things I do is research that and get more information.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So that that'll be a question for the agency.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. I mean, even if we did the online portion, you know, online.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Still hurt having drugs. Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I still see I mean, you need the hours of the

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: True.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, yeah, I could see passing this but not solving the problem.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, so an interesting question for us to think about, I know you don't wanna testify yet, but is is what does this actually do for us if you because you still need the person to be in the car with the student. You can't do that online. I hope not. Okay. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll fix it.

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: That would be part of testimony, and I I think I was wait on that to honor my

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Senator Hashim, do you have a thought on that?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Don't know if Jamie might know, but my understanding was that having the course, the the, classroom part online would free up time for the for the instructors, but I don't have any evidence of that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Any other questions? Okay, so wolf, how soon would you be able to test the clot?

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: Probably within a week to ten days, to be honest. Certainly could do that. Know we've had time constraints in a lot of units to do.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Submit to late next week. Yes. Okay. So if you could, before you look, come and make sure we're happy to get your contact info, that would be great. Do you think of anything else we should have?

[Joseph Parch (Vermont Driver & Traffic Safety Education Association)]: Yes, I do. I think you should invite some students. We have one driver educator who proposed throughout bill to her class and had a lively debate on it, and I think she has a couple of young adults who could speak to what their viewpoints are, and I think that would be most enlightening. Maybe more enlightening than enlightening. Okay. That would be good.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Can you get us those, that contact information? Yes, I will. Okay. So just make sure you adapt, you will need to show that and connect before you go. If you could do that, that would be great. Okay, anything else? Anybody else? Okay, thanks.