Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: We're live.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: All right. This is the Senate Education Committee on the afternoon, February 11. We're taking a little time to hear from people from here for the day, Disability Advocacy Day. So we'll start off by introducing ourselves. David Weeks, representing Rutland County. Seth Bongartz from the Bennington District.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Terry Williams, also representing Rutland County. Steven Heffernan, Madison County District.

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you so much.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Of course, it was.

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you. For the record, my name is Tammy Nader. I am going to read from some of the, do excuse me, testimony that I submitted, and there are a couple places where I will provide some additional information and illustrations. My name is Candy Naylor. I'm a staff attorney in the Disability of Vermont Legal Aid. Vermont Legal Aid is the oldest and largest provider of statewide free legal services for civil legal services in Vermont. At Vermont Legal Aid, I work in the Disability Law Project. We represent individuals with disabilities whose civil legal needs are related to their disability. The majority of my work over the last eight years, through my time at DLP, involves representing students with disabilities and education related matters. Thank you for the opportunity to address your committee as part of Disability Advocacy Day today. The theme of Disability Advocacy Day today is right to disability into every bill. And as your committee is considering Educational Transformation Vermont, I think that is particularly timely. The Disability Law Project is a sub grantee of Disability Rights Vermont. Through our relationship with Disability Rights Vermont, we, again, we advocate for children with disabilities and educational matters. Our efforts on behalf of children with disabilities involve both direct representation and systemic advocacy. For example, I am a member of the State Special Education Advisory Panel. Requests for representation in educational matters represent both our impacted the requests for assistance the Disability Law Project receives. In the last two years, due to changes in our staffing and increased case needs, we, the Disability Law Project, has played a less active role in the legislative process than previously, and I deeply appreciate the opportunity to be here to speak with you today. It is our perspective that the importance of addressing systemic challenges in the delivery of education and special education cannot be overstated in this moment. At the federal level, we are witnessing the systemic dismantling of long held systems responsible for enforcing the rights of students with disabilities and provide and supporting the rights of students with disabilities by providing guidance and technical assistance to students and school districts. At the state level, there is a fourth book called to transform our education systems and structures to address other increasing costs. Last year through Act 73 of 2025, your committee and the entire legislative body commissioned a legislative report on the current state of special education delivery. This report identified a variety of specific concerns and pressures impacting special education service delivery in our state. As your committee considers the ongoing educational transformation, we ask that you hold an understanding that from our perspective, addressing pressures on special education systems in Vermont requires holding schools accountable to see special education students with or students with disabilities as students first, not said students, students. In recent years, we've observed significant discussion and concerns over the rising cost of special education costs and extraordinary costs in special education. We do not have data available. However, we encourage you to consider the cost of special education and extraordinary costs not in isolation, not as an independent factor, but in comparison to the overall educational spending trends to better understand how these costs are increasing relative to general education expenses. We believe that considering special education costs in a vacuum contributes to a red herring that children with disabilities are driving the educational cost problems in our state. While aspects of special education are inseparable and distinct from general education, the rights of students with disabilities are inseparable. Special education must be considered as part of a whole, not an entity of education unto itself. We love the work that the Agency of Education has done to elevate our special education team within the agency. This was an important step towards ensuring that our schools are supported to take meaningful steps to dismantle the general education special education divide. There is a tremendous amount of incredibly complex work on your plate. As you continue to undertake and lead educational transformation in Vermont, we echo the concerns raised by the Act one hundred seventy Degree Task Force and in the initial report of the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont. That is transforming educational systems in Vermont is a complex problem to solve. We understand the pressure to put forth a redistricting math. In fact, we I'm looking at it right here, know the House has done so. But we also understand that the educational funding formula has not been modeled completely, meaning that your committee does not know the impact implementation of the foundation funding formula will have on the funding for educational systems that are already overwhelmed. We do not know if the maintenance of effort and maintenance of state support standard required

[Unidentified Committee Member]: at

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: the federal level to continue to receive federal support for IDEA will be met. If these metrics are not met, we risk federal IDEA funds, which have never been fully funded at the federal level. We urge you to work with JFO to model the foundation funding formula and understand how even on a statewide level, the cost of special education will be impacted. So, it's hard to model the foundation funding formulas and their associated weights on a district by district or town by town level, because some of those numbers will be too small, you won't be able to get that. But if you model at a statewide level, you'll act you'll be able to compare the overall cost of intended, what that formula will do with what's being currently spent. It's incredibly important in the special education context because if the state does not spend enough money on special education, we will lose federal funding. Rather impacting our ability to fund and maintain the systems. And our direct advocacy work reflects many of the findings of the Special Education Delivery Report. I want to acknowledge and hold tension for the fact that I hear the worst of the worst stories. I hear the stories from people who are at Fairwinds End. That said, we believe that our experiences and our direct advocacy work reflect the systemic challenges. In short, schools, supervisory unions, and school districts lack the capacity and our students with disabilities pay the costs. In our work, this looks like inadequate staff to provide services. You may recall, and I use it as an important example, To my knowledge, no service letters have not gone out this year, but that doesn't mean that no services aren't happening. So, last year there were three Vermont school districts that didn't have enough staff to provide all of the IEP supports. And so those districts sent out no service letters to families. And the problem is that acknowledging that it's an impossible bind, those students are entitled to those services. And a no service letter doesn't meet the free and appropriate public education requirement. Service decisions are being driven by available resources, not individual analysis. So oftentimes I have cases that come through where families have had an evaluation and their child is being recommended for a related service of occupational therapy. They're being recommended to have some direct occupational therapy support. And oftentimes, despite a recommendation for direct services, those services are provided as consultative services. And so, the direct services, the child and the provider, and the consultative services being the provider is learning from the team about the struggle and then making recommendations. And that's a really important distinction. In our state, we have an over reliance on paraeducators to support our more complex learnerness. This often results in denial of faith and failure to provide services in the least restrictive environment. And in some cases, it creates extremely complex problems for future educators and the IT teams to solve. I think the best example I can offer you with this is, and this is not just one student, I've seen it happen repeatedly with students, Kiddos with certain complex learning profiles who have behavior supports written into their IEP in elementary school. And they still struggle with their behavior, but they're receiving support from the para. Paras do incredible work, but they are also the least trained person in the building. And so, we have the least trained person in the building working with our most complex child. And there's a behavior plan and the para is responsible for implementing the behavior plan, but they're often not given the support that they need to know exactly how to do that. So what we see is the para knows their job is to help support the student to be safe and be able to remain in class. And often the consequence is that instead of supporting the student in learning new behaviors, that parent engages in co regulation. That is, is that through the relationship, they help support the student to be able to feel safe and be in class, which is an incredibly helpful thing for that student. What it doesn't do is teach the student how to tolerate that environment. So then when that kiddo makes a transition to middle school, which is a more demand driven environment, where there are greater expectations on students, they often have kind of these catastrophic failures where they can't tolerate their academic work. They become very unsafe with their bodies, often harming themselves and others. And the problem foundationally was that they didn't get the supports that they needed when they were younger to learn how to tolerate that environment. And that is because of our over reliance on paraeducators and the fact that because they're trying to help and they're doing everything they can to help support that student to stay in the classroom, there's not a great analysis of, oh, wait, We're not teaching the behaviors this child needs to learn. Those foundational learning skills. We still see a lot of soft exclusion of students with disabilities and violation in their due process. Right? What this looks like is Tommy's having trouble at school today. He's had some unsafe behavior. He's really having a hard day. We know he's kind of, like, at this threshold. And so we call mom, and we say, hey, mom. Tommy's having a really hard time today. No. This is what's been going on. This is and that is not I don't believe there's nothing about that circumstance that is willful by the school, but that leads to educational exclusion. And it leads to a situation where Tommy now is not accessing all of his afternoon sports. He's falling further behind, which makes the learning environment more intolerable for him. And and then we have parents who are like, well, you call me to pick him up. And school's really, no. I didn't I didn't we called you to tell you he was having a hard time. And then we have these kind of impossible conversations of school and family and we'll it's a key set sheet bed, but ultimately that student was not in class and they were now receiving your services. And then we have an inadequate continuum of least restrictive environments, leading to an overlap reliance on alternative placements with significant wait lists. And having a significant wait list results in students with disabilities receiving interim inadequate services, lacking access to faith in the least restrictive environment. We do not believe that lifting a moratorium on the approval of independent schools eligible to receive public funds will solve this problem. We recognize that it may help. However, as disability advocates, we're extremely concerned about the limited oversight of independent schools and the privatization of services for our most vulnerable learners. You're talking about therapeutic schools. We do believe BrainRuse and Boards of cooperative educational services described in Act 68 of 2004 contained beginning at 16 BSA section six zero one, like the recently approved Southeast Regional BOCES, must be supported and play a primary role in addressing the inadequacies in the educational continuity fund. So, you know, I think fundamentally, when we're looking at a map, we echo and support the calls to the legislature to support Excuse me, the words just tumbled out of my brain. Voluntary mergers and voluntary cooperatives. Statewide and legislatively led efforts to contain educational costs and transform educational systems in the last decade have been met with resistance and poor implementation. In fact, the Census based funding formula approach to special education developed in 2018 has yet to be fully implemented. So, we have an educational funding system that is not fully implemented and we're in enrollment where we're continuing funding differently and asking district offices to make that adjustment. We understand the urgency behind needing to address educational quality and cost of Vermont. We ask your community to consider that rushed solutions to incredibly complex problems often result in failure, resistance of poor implementation and compromised systems. Vermont's children are our future. We must understand all implications changing educational governance, delivery, and funding will have on the systems and move forward with caution and purpose. Our children deserve systemic transportation, excuse me, systemic transformation that supports their successes. On February 28, I attended a virtual listening session with OSERS, the US Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services. As I listened to callers imploring the federal government to continue to fund, support, and enforce special education and rehabilitative services, I heard many adults share their experiences and life successes resulting from receiving the services they needed as children. The repeated message was, these systems are valuable because of their return on investment. This was both an effective and troubling message to hear. At Vermont Legal Aid, we believe all children have value and deserve quality education regardless of their future contribution. In a moment where so many rights are threatened, I leave you with this. The right to public education is integral to Vermont's constitutional form of government. It guaranteed and it's guarantees of political and civil rights. Further, the right to education is fundamental for the success of Vermont's children and a rapidly changing society and global marketplace, as well as for the state's own economic and social prosperity. To keep Vermont's democracy competitive and thriving, Vermont students must be afforded substantially equal access to quality basic education. However, one of the strengths of Vermont's education system lies diversity and the ability for each local school district to adapt its educational programs to the local needs and desires. Therefore, it is the policy of the state that all Vermont children will be afforded educational opportunities that are substantially equal, although educational programs may vary district to district. The reading from 16 BSA section one. We thank your committee for your work and investment in all Vermont's children, especially Vermont's children with disabilities. I'm happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yes, you bring up a lot of great points, but our issue, I can't put that, I don't wanna say but there, is affordability. That's what we're running into. The services that are needed and required is affordability. Can we, as a state, continue to afford it? And what are the best routes? Like you were saying, doing sharing and that, I think is gonna help. But that's what we're up against. We have people come in and say, it's like, he knows that.

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah, and you do know that.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: What are some answers? You have some answers.

[Sheila Soule (Superintendent, Addison Northwest School District)]: I have

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: a spot. I don't necessarily have some answers. That's fine. But I do think that the crisis at this moment wasn't part driven by Which crisis? The the funding. The the crisis. We have a lot of Or contribute. There are a lot of crises, I apologize. Know, at least in part some of the tax, the conversation around taxation and the concerns about the volatility of tax rates, were contributed to by the changes to how students were counted. And so, I don't have a solution, but I think it is important to understand and hold that there is a tension that actions were taken that escalated the urgency of solving the funding crisis. But again, I think I can't stress enough that if as a state, we underfund special education, we risk federal dollars. And so I don't have a solution except to say that in a moment where we're incredibly concerned about costs and about making sure that we have a stronger education system that is funded in a more reasonable way, don't put our federal dollars at risk. And so, to that end, I think one of the solutions that I can offer is asking JFO to truly model the foundation formula and how that would affect and be affected by the categories and what the leads would look like. And we understand that if that number is lower than what we are currently spending on special education, we rest our federal dollars.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yes. Do you talk to the AOE about this? Is it I mean, how do you think this fits into Act 73? Act 73 could address that, the issues that we have with special education?

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think the AOE has started to work to try to address some of the systemic challenges in special education. I think one of the kind of driving forces behind the complexity of the challenges that we see is that schools and the professionals in schools are asked constantly. I mean, I I have been doing this work for eight years and and around I had a politics in Vermont since 2017, so just a year more. But in my time, spending time at the State House, this is like the third or fourth major educational transformation in eight years. We had Act 46 and that had its struggles. We had 173 and that has had extreme struggles. And now we're talking about just totally, you know, finding a new system. Right? And what we have seen repeatedly is poor implementation of sound policy. And so no matter what happens, the AOE needs the resources to be able to meaningfully engage in technical assistance with schools. And meaningful technical assistance does not mean publishing really great materials. It means engaging, actively engaging with schools and collaborating with them and being there on the ground with our educators to help stand up what are intended that's really struck and important these systems. So, I think the work is starting, you know, and also the AOE is responding to what's being asked by the executive. And so, it is imperative that as a legislative body, you engage with decision making that makes sure that one, all voices are heard, not just the executive. And I think I want to acknowledge and hold tension for the fact that our educators and our educational systems, who you see and come talk to a lot, they're being asked to constantly be very agile in talking about a variety of policy changes. And I don't know that they are being asked, as the people who are deploying educational services, what is going to work? I think they're responding to policy conversations.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: And

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: maybe it's areas I or glasshouse with me, or glasshouse with me, but I wonder if it would make more sense to start from the bottom up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I agree with your advocacy, particularly on that somebody needs just put a special eye on the problem. Think sometimes money, you know, funding drives it for sure. Yeah. But to the point where we started losing federal dollars, that's definitely that's not a good thing. What do you think about special ed students staying in the mainstream in the high schools?

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think inclusion is extremely important. I think inclusion is federally required. And I think that students with disabilities should have the same access to a variety of educational opportunities. For example, our students with disabilities have very different access to our technical centers. And that is not equity in education. When our students with disabilities can't receive their high school education for the time center.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's a balance balance of art for sure. Absolutely.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm hearing two major messages. One is that you would hope that the agency would be more deeply engaged with the health and schools meet their obligations. So for everybody, I hate to use the word obligations, making it work well. And the other was for us to pay attention as we're working on the foundation to make sure that it continues to provide the dollars necessary to carry out. Definitely

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: make sure we definitely have any federal funds in the table. Yeah. And I think for your first point, yes and. I think that, yes, those structures and the supportive structures to schools, which need to start at the AOE because they have the general supervision authority over our supervisory units in our school districts. And also, I think it's important to recognize that districts are so in the weeds, schools and teachers are often so in the weeds, and so, in many ways, unfathomable, doing incredibly difficult jobs, that when a really challenging circumstance occurs, or a really complex student is for them, it's very easy to kind of get stuffed in their throat like, oh, we can't do this. That and and one of the things that I think that the IOE has taken steps to do, and I think should be supported and continuing to do, is being a really agile thought partner for supervisory aides and school districts and for teachers in those moments where they're not seeing the forest for the trees, or they're not seeing any other solutions, but the most restrictive environment, and being able to partner to have a variety of solutions. And that is happening. I know that is happening from the conversations that I engage in on the Special Education Advisory Panel and also from my direct advocacy work. I do think that there's a stronger opportunity. Schools need to not just be told what needs to be changed. They need to be meaningfully supported in making those changes. Thank you for the

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: good example. Don't if you have any questions. We are right on time.

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So we're switching gears and gaining we started yesterday just taking a perfect look. So by the way, welcome everybody from the television land. We are starting to take a look at the map sort of which is you know as the chair of the House of Education Committee made clear is almost a concept map of you know some attempt to draw some lines but recognizing there's no way isolation got them right so with that and then the accompanying language

[Unidentified Committee Member]: that came with it

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so we're just beginning to get a sense from the field about reaction to school district mapping or the I guess we're not even supposed to call it quite a proposal concept or I keep using that word so we have some superintendents with us at this moment. And I don't know which one of you would like to go first. Should I just put them in order the way we have them? Oh, there's Chelsea. Okay. Didn't know she was there. So we actually have Chelsea listed first, the executive director, superintendent's association. Will, quickly before we start, we've had, Have we had all of you in before? Yeah, we've had you all in. Yeah, you all, yes. Okay, so we don't Well, we'll assume you remember who we are and we believe you are. Chelsea, you are up. Good start.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes, hi, sorry about that. I was having a hard time with my internet, so thank you for your patience. My name is Chelsea Myers. I'm the executive director of the Vermont Superintendents Association. We're actually giving joint testimony today, so I'll ask if it's okay that the superintendents also introduce themselves for the testimony.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Of course.

[Brooke Olson-Farrell (Superintendent, Slate Valley; President, VSA)]: Hi, I'm Brooke Olson Farrell, superintendent in Sleep Valley and president of LACDA of the Superintendents Association.

[Lynn Cota (Superintendent, Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union; Treasurer, VSA)]: I'm Lynn Cota. I'm the superintendent for the Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union, and I'm the treasurer of the Vermont Superintendents Association.

[Sheila Soule (Superintendent, Addison Northwest School District)]: Hi, everyone. I'm Sheila Sole. I'm superintendent in the Addison Northwest School District, and I am the Secretary of Vermont Superintendents Association.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Well, thanks. So you're saying you kind of all want be able to be on together, Chelsea, and just interject with you if you want to. That's fine.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah, Brooke's gonna kick us off and we'll answer questions together and which I'm sure you'll have and Lynn and Sheila and Brooke also can talk a little bit about their experience. They all have some kind of experience related to consolidation and redistricting. I'm going to just let them kind of take it away and I'm here to answer any questions if you have them.

[Brooke Olson-Farrell (Superintendent, Slate Valley; President, VSA)]: Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and get started. But thank you for inviting testimony on the district consolidation conversation starter introduced last week by Chair Conlon. At the outset, the Vermont Superintendents Association appreciates that this proposal reflects key elements raised repeatedly in our prior testimony, most notably a more reasonable attention to scale and a clearer focus on creating school district structures that are operationally effective and efficient in the context of Vermont. For VSA, this proposal represents an important turning point in the consolidation conversation. Earlier proposals beginning with the five district concept were non starters for our members. They failed to account for Vermont's geography, took scale too far and would have effectively erased local governance while likely increasing rather than reducing costs for taxpayers. Those proposals did not align with how school districts actually function on the ground. This conversation starter strikes a more appropriate balance. It acknowledges the need for greater efficiency and effectiveness in governance and district operations, while not moving so far away from local identity that communities feel disconnected from their schools. Democratically elected school boards could continue to play a meaningful role in decision making and remain close to schools and the communities they serve. While we cannot speak today to specific borders drawn in the proposal, we do recognize this is a far more earnest and grounded starting point. Even though we do not have a uniform solution to education reform that all superintendents would support given the context each exists within. BSA have a clear has been clear that change is needed. We will not oppose progress in the name of the way we've always done things at the same time, we believe it is important to reiterate that district consolidation is not an end in and of it by itself. Consolidation must be a means to broader reform focused on achieving the right scale at every level, improving the quality and breadth of opportunities available to students and ensuring that all students have access to a high quality education regardless of where they live. We also want to acknowledge the proposals general approach to contracting and designation. While we cannot yet speak to the specifics, we agree with the underlying recognition that Vermont's historic academies and certain independent schools have long played an important role in serving regions without access to local public schools. That said, preserving inefficient governance and operational structures solely to maintain access to independent schools should not be the policy goal. We urge the legislature to explore alternatives to the supervisory union structure that respect the role of historic academies within the broader education delivery system, while avoiding outdated structures that are not serving students or taxpayers well. Once again, the idea that school districts are far more efficient governance model is a very commonly held belief by VFA superintendents, but it is not unanimously agreed to. As this conversation moves forward, VSA believes it will be critical to support policy decisions with careful analysis and data. In particular, we recommend further examination of the following questions: What new opportunities, programs, and efficiencies could realistically be achieved across larger districts by building on the strongest offerings that currently exist in individual systems? How will the transition be supported for districts, families, students, communities? How will local governance be determined? What would the proposed districts look like from a collective bargaining perspective? And what would it take to align contracts across new districts both monetarily and logistically? Given concerns about lower spending districts experiencing tax increases under Act 73, what are the projected tax implications of the proposed

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Brooke, you froze.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Brooke, if you can hear us, maybe go off and rejoin.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I can pick it up where Brooke left off. If you just give me one second. Oh,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: so you can Okay.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: What debts and assets would each system be contending with? Another essential next step is being candid about the timeline and the scope of work required to successfully consolidate districts. Meaningful consolidation does not happen on paper alone. It requires time for governance transitions, contract alignment, staffing decisions, financial system integration, community engagement, and trust building. Superintendents caution that setting unrealistic timelines risks undermining the very efficiencies and opportunities consolidation is meant to achieve. An honest phased implementation plan will be necessary if this work is to be successful and sustainable. We also want to be very clear that school construction aid will be a prerequisite to the success of any meaningful reform. Without addressing the condition, capacity, and flexibility of school flex facilities, even the most thoughtful governance changes will fall short. Our students deserve learning environments that support the educational opportunities policymakers are trying to create. Finally, we want to address a recurring critique of past consolidation efforts, particularly Act 46, that promised savings and expanded opportunities were not realized. We hear a different story from superintendents who have experienced successful mergers. They witnessed reinvestment of resources into student opportunities, increased flexibility in staffing and building use, and more resilient systems overall. While education spending has increased statewide, there is no credible way to causally attribute that increase to Act 46 mergers. No one can say what education spending looked like today had those mergers not occurred. What is clear is that Vermont's current governance structures are overly complex and increasingly misaligned with declining enrollment. Reforming these structures must be part of a broader strategy, though, to increase student opportunity, improve system sustainability, and provide long term relief to taxpayers. The public deserves to see a clear through line between governance reform and operational changes to improved outcomes for students and property tax relief over time. This proposal is an important starting point, and BSA is committed to supporting the work further. Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. So I think we, is there more from?

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yeah, so I don't know if you're interested. I invited Lynn and Sheila and Brooke to join me to just share a little bit more about their experiences in their own systems with consolidation. We could do a quick couple of minutes of that and then answer questions if that works for you.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sure.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Go ahead, Lynn.

[Lynn Cota (Superintendent, Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union; Treasurer, VSA)]: So I am a superintendent that went through Act 46 in a supervisory union structure where we had a side by side. So we formed two new merge district boards and we received another town from a neighboring supervisory union. Sheldon became a part of Franklin Northeast. When I reflect back on that work, I think that I went into it not fully understanding the depth of the work that would need to be done in order to operationalize a merger. And we had to do that across two districts. So made a list just thinking about some of the things that we had to contend with. And the reason I wanna share some of that with you is because I think that as we move forward, it's very important that we set a realistic timeline so that we could do this work well. I think all eyes are on us as we move forward in this process and it behooves us to do the best we can for our students and for our staff. So just thinking about the work that would need to be done by the newly elected board or an Act 46 that would have been the forming board. There's a lot of work that has to happen to stand up the new business entity. So those are pieces that our business office has to contend with. We also need to think about the amount of time and work that needs to go in with collective bargaining agreements for merging collective bargaining agreements for support staff, teachers, looking at your administrators as well, curriculum work. There's all kinds of work that needed to happen around technology, new domains for emails and so forth. We have to think about the financial system that we need to stand up, thinking about merging student information systems, policies, how we're going to govern, are these gonna be policy governance boards? There's a superintendent search that has to happen within a timeline. We have to think about our common assessment plan, any sort of absence management system. And then you have to build a budget. And you have to staff a central office and you have to think about your school level staffing. So in the proposed timeline, that's a lot to do in just a few months. And if any of the new forming boards are going to be run by sitting superintendents, they'll be running two entities while also trying to stand that up. So I just ask that this committee really consider past experience around consolidation as you're moving forward. Could I speak a little bit to the supervisor union structure as well? I think one of the barriers that we have found in our supervisor union is that we are not allowed to own property as a supervisory union. Any spaces that we have in terms of our central office or our alternative programs, those are all leased spaces. So not the most financially efficient way of doing business. We also are not allowed to borrow money as an entity. And there are a lot of duplicative services that we do, whether it's at the board level, payrolls, audits, things like that as well.

[Sheila Soule (Superintendent, Addison Northwest School District)]: So I can speak a little bit about Act 46 and my experience. So I am currently the superintendent for the Addison Northwest School District. I've been here for eight years, but prior to this, I was a curriculum director for thirteen years, the last nine in the Harwood Unified Union School District, where I was involved in the Act 46 work from the teaching and learning standpoint. And I can absolutely say that that consolidation made a significant difference in terms of student outcomes and student learning experiences to be able to align the learning experiences, especially across two middle schools that were feeding into the same one high school, had a significant impact on students. And it made it much easier when we were a district. So I was both working there when it was a supervisor union and experienced a lot of challenges trying to bring seven schools together versus doing that as a district where we were able to really make a lot of improvements along those ends. We were also able to share staff in new ways that we were unable to before. So, a lot of those challenges were resolved once we were a district. Coming into Addison Northwest as a superintendent after one year of the district being consolidated, we continue to experience declining enrollment and other things. So, years ago, we had nine eighty three students in the district. Today, we have seven ninety eight. So, that's 185 students still lost since consolidation. So, also, think someone earlier in their testimony pointed out that health insurance costs have increased by 230%. Lynn, I think that was your fact. So, it's difficult to sort of point to those factors, you know, and say, I think a lot of people just sort of assume then that Act four forty six didn't work. Like, here we are having this conversation again, it must be that consolidation didn't work. And I think, you know, if you take into context all of the other things that have happened, that's a hard through line to draw. But I can say that in our district, we were able to be very resourceful with our partners in the Mountaine District to stand up some shared special education services and other things, but we've taken that about as far as we can without further consolidation. We're going to continue to struggle and continue to keep the learning opportunities that we already have. So more change needs to happen for us. We're too small and caps are going to really hit our district hard going forward. So without some other change, we don't have the tools to further adapt within our own system.

[Brooke Olson-Farrell (Superintendent, Slate Valley; President, VSA)]: And just piggyback on what Lynn and Sheila said, hopefully everyone can see me and hear me now. I'm sorry about that earlier. I have been had the opportunity to be part of three different mergers during my career. One, the first mergers in Mill River when I was assistant superintendent there, and then two mergers within Addison Rutland or Slate Valley as we're now called one a voluntary merger and then one a forced merger when Orwell was forced into the district by the State Board. I have a lot of experience with this and I will say hands down slate valley is in a far better position today than it was when we were Addison Rutland Supervisory Union. We've been able to be extremely efficient. We've been able to reduce 45 positions in those eight years, close a school, open a new middle school. Our student outcomes are higher than they've ever been. So we have been able to make some real change and increase opportunities for students throughout the system. Would say all three mergers that I was part of was a supervisory union whose districts became a single district. When we're talking about this scale of mergers, we're talking about supervisory unions merging or perhaps other school districts merging and that's a far bigger ask. Because I will say in this, in the supervisory unions that merged at least in my experience under act 46. They already had contracts, similar curriculum, similar master agreements, there was was some were something that needed to be worked out. But this would be a far bigger undertaking when you're merging in different entities.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. So one question, Sheila and Lynn, you kind of spurred the thought here a little bit, talking about SUs and SDs. SUs are creatures of statute. You know, like you talked about that they can't borrow money they can't own property. We actually can fix that. We actually can make that because you know they're creatures of statute. So are there to the extent that the committee is considering allowing some areas of the state that want to remain as use what are some of the things that you might suggest that we think about as or changing the SU structure or what they're allowed to do and give them a little bit more authority or ability to do things that made sense if you were still running an SU. Anybody talk about that? You don't have to just, or you might.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: I have a list that we generated at some point when this conversation was happening in the redistricting task force. I'm happy to share it with the committee and pass it off to Lynn and Sheila and Brooke too.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That'd be great if you could do that.

[Lynn Cota (Superintendent, Franklin Northeast Supervisory Union; Treasurer, VSA)]: Think when I have a hard time with the question around supervisor unions because I think there's, have, by having the side by side structure that I have within my supervisor union, I have greater flexibility than I had before in each of those districts, but I can't cross the districts. And I think that when we have needs that, so we have a very transient population. So emerging multilingual students, for example, it is a barrier when you have multiple employers under one umbrella. It makes the most sense to have the greatest flexibility to be able to utilize both your human and your physical resources in a way that's really responsive to student needs. I think what many people would have previously said is one of the biggest drivers for a supervisory union had to do with students being able to attend some of our historic academies and some of our independent schools. I will say one thing that I appreciated in Peter's proposed, well, it's not a proposal, but in what was written is that the designation contract piece of his proposal still allows to create a less complicated governance structure while still allowing a pathway for our historic academies and some of our independent schools, which we all are supportive of because we know that we have a heavy reliance in some parts of the state for areas of the state that don't have public schools that students could attend. So I think that it is kind of a mixture of both, the best of both worlds.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thank you.

[Sheila Soule (Superintendent, Addison Northwest School District)]: I think one thing that I would add in my recollection of the biggest issues that we had as a supervisory union, too, was the local communities not being able to vote on that budget per se. So the central office costs were assessed costs out to the schools, and there really wasn't a way to provide, from their opinion, oversight into those charges, right? Whereas now, as a district, we have one budget, and so there's more transparency, possibly, into what is driving those costs for the taxpayers.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: So I pulled up the testimony that we did previously. We did an exercise with our members on what were qualities of effective governance and operational structures, and it's a shared unified mission and vision, coordinated curriculum and instruction, increased student access to academic programs or equity amongst the districts, providing staffing flexibility, streamlining financial management, strengthening leadership capacity, so when your leadership is being pulled away to repeat multiple processes operationally and in governance, there's less time for instructional leadership promoting equity and cohesion across communities by ensuring the fair distribution of resources and supporting student continuity so that families moving within a governance structure boundary do not face unnecessary school transitions. A student can move a couple of houses down and be in the same supervisory union, and they still would have to move schools. And then just clarity of roles and transparent decision making, which Sheila just talked about. That was our list.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Do we have some of She's gonna send it.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: Yes, I can do

[Cammie Naylor (Staff Attorney, Disability Law Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: that. Yep.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Any other questions? Okay, thank you. That was helpful. Thanks for your time. Thanks for coming in and we may well see you again.

[Chelsea Myers (Executive Director, Vermont Superintendents Association)]: All right, thank you very much.

[Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Thanks. Thank you.

[Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Thanks. So, we can go off. We're also, before you do it, we can go off. We're, we have our next witness is at three. So, we're off until three. Good. And we're shifting gears so we can be ready. Again. To 02:32.