Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: We're live.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. This is the senate education committee on the on the afternoon of February 13. For the first half hour, we're gonna spend some time hearing from representatives of Upford Running which I assume will include telling us a little bit about what Upford Learning is. So I don't know how we want to do this. Who's going to introduce it? Are you going go to Teams or what do you want to do?

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: I'm going to introduce up for

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: learning and then we're going to toss it over to

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, so the witness normally sits. Sure.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: You wanna move a chair around?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah. Well

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: because what Kesha comes in this room down.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay.

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: Okay.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Can also pull chairs up together.

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: Like your arm up closer.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Put this

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: back around.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Go ahead and do it

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: right now if you want. Or when I'm done, finally.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah, swing that out the way and they can pull up with their chairs. Great. Off we go.

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: Off we go.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So first, so we'll introduce ourselves.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Great.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: First. I'm Nader Hashim representing Windham County.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Seth Bongartz, I represent the Bennington Center District. Steve Heffernan,

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: I represent the Addison County District.

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: Great, well good afternoon, thanks for having us. My name is Lindsey Hollings, I'm the Executive Director of Up For Learning, that stands for Unleashing the Power of Partnership for Learning. We are a non profit here in Vermont that works with schools and districts across the entire state on reimagining and transforming education through youth little partnership. So our work is to center youth voice in everything that we do to make sure that young people are at the table when we're talking about decisions both small and large, and we do that through, I know here today from our youth partners here, through youth participatory action research. So, with all of our school and district teams, youth and adults are using data from their community, the voices of their people, to really understand what are the needs of young people and adults in our community, and how do we create schools that are best for everyone. So, I'm gonna turn it over to Olivia, and then let you all

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: push up

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: here and maybe should I just stay here? Where are don't sit here.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So just to have so you're you're in Central Vermont. You're in Central Vermont.

[Lindsey Halman (Executive Director, UP for Learning)]: They're gonna tell you. Yeah. They're gonna you'll all help you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: You're gonna okay. You've got it all the time.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Yeah. So the

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: way we do this, everybody, is all people are gonna be testifying, you

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: go around right now and tell us your name,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: what school you go to, and what town you live in.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Perfect. I'm Olivia Scharnberg. I'm a senior at Montelier High School and also a youth program specialist with Upher Hashim.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: And you live in?

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: I live in Montelier. Montelier. My name is Allegra Mahler. I live in Montelier, and I'm a senior at Montelier High School, and I am here because I care about the education and how this one's affected through the residues. My name is Charlotte Haddon. I'm a junior at Randolph Union High School, and I live in Randolph Center.

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: I'm Zoe Trembley. I live in Brookfield. I'm a junior at Randolph.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: Name is Harold Coyle.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: I'm a sophomore at Randolph Junior High School, my career is because I believe that every student is different here than everybody is. My name is Scott Barnard. I live in Montpelier, and I live in Montpelier High School. My name is E. Kesha. I'm a junior at Montpelier High School, and I lived in Montpelier, and I'm here because education is always improved by student. My name

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: is Chittenden Armstrong. I go to Grand Alpheon High School, and I'm

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: in eleventh grade. I live in Grand Alpheon.

[Otis Taylor (Student, Montpelier High School)]: I'm Otis Taylor. I'm a freshman at

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Mont Belair High School in Delaware, Columbia. So, can start us off. I'm Olivia. So, are here talking to

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: you today to share the work from our youth adult team that represents the diversity of Central Vermont. We're called the Future Vermont Education Team. The purpose of our Future of Education Team is to attempt to bring student voice to the school redistricting process. We all believe that the redistricting process should include those who are directly affected by the changes being made, and should prioritize student voice. Students from three different school districts, White River, Randolph, and Mount Belier Roxbury, we hope to share our process of gathering perspectives from our community members and share the differences that we realize between our schools while we're connecting with each other. Point River is not able to be with us today, so we're going to be speaking forth. Yeah. So, for our project, from discussing with the other student representatives at our retreats from our three different schools, we've realized the differences between our school communities. There are differences in flexible pathway opportunities and educational opportunities that are available for students, and there are differences in the strength of our school communities and the relationships within them. I know that I wouldn't have been able to succeed as greatly without my school relationships, communities, and other opportunities I have earlier. So, we went back to our individual schools and asked questions to students, staff, and our communities in the form of circles and listening sessions that focused around the questions, what makes a great school, and what does education that prepares you for the future look like? We found that in every discussion at our respective schools, teachers and students reached the same conclusions that meet with,

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: that we'll share with you

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: at such implies. Some of us have already shared this presentation with school boards, flood boards, city councils, and other community groups in

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: our new towns. But yeah. This

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: is the participatory action research map that's used by Up For Learning when conducting research with groups, and we followed it while working on this project. So, I'm not gonna go over the whole thing, but we started off by building relationships with each other from our different schools as students because we had never met each other before this project. And then, we collected data through the circles we recently mentioned, but in our own smaller communities. And then we all brought the data back together and analyzed as a group the data that we collected through the circles, and then we're, the final step for implementing action for change, we're doing through presentations like this that weren't here

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: with you today. And yeah?

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: I'll pass it to you, Kesha.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: All right.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: Fair enough.

[Otis Taylor (Student, Montpelier High School)]: So, these are some of the ideas that, of how we can create future facing education that came up in multiple data collecting sessions. With more time, we could more fully understand the different learning opportunities between districts, flexible pathways, amount of support, sense of belonging, and the data around disparities. And one thing that we noticed a lot was that despite different backgrounds and experiences, we all have a lot in common. And so with the time and data that we had, we created this blueprint for future facing schools. These are five different elements that we found for a great future facing school, and they are academic freedom, variety of opportunities, real world community awareness and involvement, support belonging to a strong school community, and consistent expectations, and we're going to go into more detail on these things.

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: Yeah, so one of the most prevalent pillars of education that came up was academic freedom, or in other words, how our education should be shaped in a school setting. So academically, these students want classes that support our goals and ambitions for the future. For instance, students learn at different rates. It's important to ensure that no matter what level student is at, there are flexible options available for them to ensure everyone across this academic spectrum can receive the education that best suits their needs and future academic goals. The second pillar was variety of opportunities, meaning that we want opportunities outside of a class setting, more real world applications to support education. So, for example, want opportunities dedicated to exploring and learning about the world inside and outside Vermont, whether that be through real world community service trips or smaller scale field trips that introduce us to possible career paths for the future, the exposure that education outside of class setting offers is incredibly valuable to be embraced for the potential inspiration of Foster's students. These methods of learning offer practice for the future in team building, social skills, public speaking, leadership, real world experience, and fundraising, all which are schools that are essential for many in their futures. Delving deeper into what we need to be successful in our futures and post secondary pathways, we found that more opportunities around these possible pathways is incredibly important, as those pathways are the real world application of our education. The third pillar is real world community awareness and involvement. This pillar reiterates in a different light the fact that we want to learn about the world both within our communities, but also outside of them, the current events, stuff like that. A mix between the outside learning and inside the classroom learning. For example, we don't just want to learn about what occurred right before our generation, but we also want to learn about what's happened in the current and the things that impact us most.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Our fourth pillar consisted of a sense of belonging to a strong school community. A close community where students can voice opinions is important to building a strong community. Within that community, all members should have some sort of relationship where they can speak comfortably to each other's students, faculty, peers to get to know each other in some way. Creating more safe and inclusive spaces is also important because building a strong community and allowing students to explore their identities in school. A quote from one of our retreats is, Adults empower student voice and students empower each other. And our last pillar was consistent and reasonable expectations for students. The idea that it is important to ensure all students are given the opportunity to succeed include giving more attention to accommodations to individual students, allowing students to fail safely and learn from their mistakes, as well as ensuring communication between students and teachers to provide a foundation for good relationships to enable effective education. More preparation for the real world outside of school is important, as well as keeping consistent expectations to ensure students know what to expect from the teachers and their education. So we are here representing a small subset of Vermont, even the Central Vermont, and we know that the redistricting process is moving ahead very quickly, and we wonder how you will ensure that the priorities of youth throughout the state are being considered as you make these decisions. How can we help you consider our board as you make decisions rather than after you've already made them? That is our question to you. I welcome your answer to this, and then open it up to your questions for us. We believe that the next step should be connecting with more youth across your lot, noticing the similarities and differences between what they all are saying, and thinking about how we can do more with what been learning throughout this process. Thank you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Anybody else? Ben? Any questions? So May, before the session started, once the session starts, it's really hard for us to get out of here to visit schools. So we visited, we went to five districts before the session started. Rutland. CBU. CBU. The Windham River Valley and then Woodstock, whatever that Woodstock supervisory is, is that five, and each time we had student panels. That's one of the reasons we did. We had teacher panels and student panels because normally when we're here we only hear we tend to hear from, like, the associations, like all the superintendents with one person or all the principals with one person, and we wanted to hear more directly from the field. And what you're saying to us is reflective of what we heard about. All I can say is I think the committee is very much aware of simple way to think about it is we're really looking to provide excellent educational opportunity for every student in the law school system. So that's what we're trying to do, and we have to do it within the realities of what taxpayers can pay because your parents, some of them are probably a lot of them won't even hear about how often their property tax bills are. So we're trying to figure out how to simultaneously keep the rate of increase in spending, when you know a lot of homeowners can't pay their property tax bills now, so keep that rate of increase at a level that's sustainable. At the same time, we're actually trying to figure out how to improve the education while we're doing it. So I think what you're at least part of what you're saying. And do you feel like you have like do you have you have real feel like you have real opportunity to form relationships with your teachers and with each other? Is that pretty, yeah.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: What do you feel,

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: oh, yep, go ahead. You would start to form a topic.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Well, I was going to ask kind of on that line, you know, from your positions as students, how you're seeing the workload on teachers, and whether it seems like, you don't think that many teachers speak freely, but, you know, from your positions as students, feel like your teachers are overworked, or do they seem like, you know, they're pretty level with their workload? I mean, we there's a lot on teachers' shoulders, and so I'm curious as to what observations you've made in your positions.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: I know a lot of them do a lot to go above and beyond. Yeah. And they do everything they can to give us the best education they can. Think probably most of them try not to show it. And I would assume that they're overworked. I think Montpelier does a good job of like, there are very strong staff relationships between the staff at our school, there's lots of good support systems in place at Montpelier for staff when they're stressed, but talking with White River, and especially a teacher from White River that was a member of this group, but they're not here today, White River definitely struggled more with that overwork and stress from staff and students as well. So, I think it really depends on, even though Montpelier's larger than White River, Montpelier seems like you need to have a better kind of support system in place for that. I think the level of administrative support Montpelier has versus White River was really different, and I think that kind of is what contributed to the difference in feeling overworked and feeling

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: supported. I

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: know personally from many teachers who I've talked to, because I have

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: a very good relationship with a

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: lot of them, that almost all of the ones that I know are struggling with feeling overworked and feel like they have a lot on their plate. But then they're like, they feel like they can't complain because they know how much pressure the students are going to have. So then there's like a balance of both of the students and teachers knowing that they're very overworked and can't really fluctuate or like control how much like pressure they put on themselves because they're trying to put as much out to the students that they can in the short box or like the small box that they have.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Yeah, that, we certainly, when we visited the schools, plus we all live in places to know our own schools, so we visited the ones, but I think you really got a sense of how much teachers care and how hard they were trying to provide opportunities, doing things after school, helping with clubs and other things that they all take. We had a real sense of that. In some places it was very clear, I think, that what's required of them is really a lot of them and they're giving it. So we really picked, we really felt that I think. Around. Did you

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: have a question, Simba? Yeah, so did you, what do you believe is missing or are you pretty well fulfilled in your schools? Is there something like you go, I'm missing this, you don't have the option to have it, or does the school do a very good job of making to your individual needs, meeting your individual needs. I saw, you know, it's more it's really the only way you can I saw individual learning very important, but when you're doing, trying to educate, you have to do it at mass scale? If you're And really struggling, that's when you have your IEP's and that. But the general population, it's the fastest to do it as a group. So that's the way we've always done it. Maybe continue, maybe not. But are any of you missing anything in your education, I just cannot get that? Or is it being basically fulfilled?

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: At Randell, we have I know academically, since It's middle and high school. So since seventh grade, I've always coasted under the radar because there's nothing there to challenge me. And I came from a school in Minnesota which was like they didn't shut down necessarily when COVID happened or like they didn't struggle when COVID happened. They kept running, plowing through. So when I came to Randolph, I saw a decrease in the academics necessarily where I was just struggling to get hard work and I just couldn't learn, basically. And I wasn't given the opportunity to challenge myself until this year, my junior year of high school, when I was able to take APs, because we weren't allowed to in ninth and the only tenth grade AP was computer science, but the teacher caused it so not a lot of kids took the class. And then since I wasn't able to learn in the younger years, or really apply myself, it's kind of a struggle now trying to learn and trying to push myself because in the past I'd never had to. So I think definitely Randall, they have a lot of support for kids who need academic help, but they don't have a lot of support for kids who need the academic challenge. And we don't have like a variety of classes that would allow me to not be in the general class. So like, kids who need help are put in the class who are excelling.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: How many in your high school?

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: It's like three sixty

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: five.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: From nine to the twelve?

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: From seven to twelve.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Yeah, seven.

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: Including the Tech Center Grand Oak kids. That's

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: small. Yeah.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: I was gonna say that going to Western Europe, I think we're pretty lucky to not be lucky enough to have a lot of extra opportunities, but I was gonna speak for Mike River because in our meetings with them and in our meetings with other schools, they kind of were saying the same thing, that the No Child Left Behind kind of policy was leading to a lot of kids not being allowed to go beyond kind of feeling trapped. I can speak to that a little bit. I think that hopefully there's lot of extra opportunities, but I was always someone who in middle school and elementary school and freshman year, never really had to get I never had to do that much to do well. And then all of a sudden, when I started challenging myself to partner classes, was a good slap in the face, little bit of like, This is how you have to learn to study, you have to learn to do this. I had do it all on my own. So I think the same thing. Then also, mom and has a lot of flexible pathways, so that I think without those, a lot of kids would not be graduating high school. I think a lot of kids would not be coming to school if they didn't have those opportunities. Think that Randolph and White River, you guys both spoke to not really having those same flexible pathways. And I know a lot of kids who wouldn't show up if it wasn't for those opportunities to get them to school.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: And how many are you students in my opinion?

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: I think we have 400. 400. And that's nice.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Yeah, so it's around 100 per grade. Yeah.

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: I also go to Randolph, and I can definitely see what Zoe was saying a little bit. Freshman year in high school, I kind of tried to take as challenging classes as I could. Sophomore year as well. And so for my next year of high school, I don't necessarily have classes available to me that will actually challenge me because I've taken as many hard classes as I can earlier on. So next year, I'm not really sure on what I'm going to do because of that.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: And did they have oh,

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: you go did they have a chance to do AP courses? Yeah. I've I

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: took the hardest AP classes early on, which is why I

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: don't really have. And have they looked for avenues for you to continue to, maybe college courses in that? Have they

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: So there's it's called dual enrollment available for sure, but it's kind of hard because transportation and everything like that, there isn't there just aren't opportunities within the school that will kind of support kids who need more advanced classes, I guess. Like we have the beginning stages of AP Physics, AP Calc, stuff like that. We don't have the more advanced classes furthering into those subjects.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Right, thank you. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I'm on Pillar. There's no advanced classes up until ninth grade, Then for me in ninth grade, there's only the option to test out of Algebra I, it's called Integrated Science. So there's only two classes that you can take more advanced, and you'd have to take online classes. The school has offered any ways to actually learn to test the material to test out of them. So I think that having more advanced classes earlier on would be a good conclusion.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: And when you do tend to take those advanced classes, I think we have seven out of the 25 AP classes. It's scary when

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: you go on to think about college and you look at other states and their academic level and their opportunities, and then you look at your school, you're like, Oh, I'm scared to go up against these people.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So talk to us about opportunity, just a couple more minutes. Talk to us really about opportunities because one of the things that we're thinking about a lot with this legislation is how to provide more opportunities for students. How would we do that? Is it through larger schools?

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: I know at Randolph we have a lot of opportunities to travel, but we did have, obviously, field trips and the funding that I got cut. So we have to really support it, and Randolph isn't We have a large percentage that's in poverty. I think helping, like putting more funding towards field trips and exploring those, like the avenues outside of school where you get to travel a little bit and experience like how things actually function and new opportunities like that, that would help. Yeah. Other people want to talk

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: about any other things? I can speak for Mottfelier a bit for that. Mottfelier, we really pride ourselves on our flexible pathway opportunities, and I personally, I'm in a personalized learning study where you make your own course, and I've turned my work with like the learning as like a staff member into that, so I get like a class credit for that that'll count towards graduation while I get paid, which is very helpful. And I've noticed, dude, this kind of connects back to one of the first statements that you made about like teacher burnout, where you have a teacher that kind of oversees your personal class that you create, and they kind of help you create that course, and my teacher, Ms. Bello, really like, really invested and kind of inspired in my work, and I've noticed it makes her seem less burned out. She's more enthusiastic about having students help collaborate for these projects that are like this. So, I think kind of changing the norm that teachers have to go out of their way to create these opportunities and kind of making it so that students are more aware that they exist and students can take them on themselves will kind of reduce the teacher burnout and it will allow more opportunities for students to do things like this in the future.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I think that, so we have to books on paper. Not as true. Yeah. Thank you so much. We've actually learned something from this. Yes. Thank Thank

[Zoe Trembley (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: you for having us.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Think I can hear from you.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: Take some more M and M. Let me go.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: I get to take a picture. Well,

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: in fact, yeah, I represent.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Yeah. Oh, it's smart.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: They're like, they must assume the academic rigor.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Yeah.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: you so much. Good to

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: see you.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Yeah. It's fun to see you.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: I saw your name on the list, so was wondering if you're gonna be on Zoom or in first.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Are you kidding? I have a chance to come up here and see you. This is.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Great. I do have a manager.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: That'd be better sit in. I just wanna say Jason will not be there.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: That's okay. And No. I'm not sure.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Is is this happy? Yes. Yes. Dad. Welcome to. Go ahead, sir. No. I think there's a lot us being a long shot at the editor.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: No. Okay. Like, you could look on TV.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: I don't.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: A lot younger. Longer hair and you're a woman.

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: Okay.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Have one person online. Yes.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: The first is I think is I'll assume you might have.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So welcome, everybody. Absolutely. We have the law office of the School of Southern Education Committee on behalf of November 13. We're shifting gears. So One of the things we're doing is kind of doing a little work mirroring what's going on in the house, so we're sort of thinking things through sort of at the same time. We have had over the, so the first part of Act 73 passed last year, some of it's in place and some of it is dependent on what we do this year. I know you all know this. And one of the possibilities is that we follow through on what was called for initially in the legislation of a map of some sort. So we're, And the House has put forward a map with, I believe, 27 potential districts, all SPs. And so we're trying to get a feel for people. We've had some, we've had people sprinkled through the week and here we are on Friday with you being the last sprinkles for And the we're just trying to get a feel from the field. We always hear from the associations, the Superintendent's Association, the Principal's Association. One of the things this committee has been trying to do all year starting with our visit out to the field in December, visits out to school districts in December is really going to feel from people who are actually looking at people on the ground, principal school board members, superintendents, community members. And so I think you're kind of in that vein toward the last of that description. And that's been really important for us to hear from people like you. Theoretical order for today is for you to offer some insight and thoughts about both the math as,

[Chittenden Armstrong (Student, Randolph Union High School)]: and I

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: have to be, Chair Kondland wants to be made very clear, it's not a proposal, it's a concept. He knows the lines aren't right, but then there's the whole question. Well, anyway, and then there's all the accompanying language that came with it, which is equally important. I know you're all on top of this and thinking about it. So, yeah, so we're just trying to get some initial response gain, some initial thinking from the field. And so we'll introduce ourselves. We have a guest Senator here today.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Senator, yeah, Senator Pat Brennan, Grand Isle County.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Probably not the filling in, which was great.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Fill in. Not our history, I'm Senator Windham County.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Seth Bongartz, President Bennington Senate District.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: And Steven Heffernan from the Addison County

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: District. Eric I think you're first. In fact I know you're first. I don't know if you've testified before but it's always for the record your name, why you're here, what you're associated with and we always like to know your town, what the town do you live in too.

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: Okay, can you guys hear me good? Yeah. Great. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Eric Montbrian and I serve as chair for the Wells Springs Unified Union School District. We operate two pre K through six elementary schools serving the towns of Middletown Springs and Wells. And we're part of the Greater Wetland County Supervisory Union. You know, today I'm happy to speak about the work that our board has undertaken and the impacts of House Education's proposed map, you know, on our communities.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Can't help interjecting. My wife's school nurse for those two schools for a handful of years. And those are folks who told us that after she retired she had always wanted to be a school nurse and finally got the chance that it was with her two schools and she had the time for life as a remember, you know, she was sort of suddenly retired.

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: Small world. Yeah. Okay. Alright. So since the introduction of H4504, we have engaged in regular structured conversations both within our district supervisory and union and neighboring district. So over the past year, we've held joint board meetings with our neighboring district and to discuss common concerns and ways we might cooperate to advocate for a legislative change. First we had jointly submitted a letter to legislators advocating for school choice. Later on our district communicated to the redistricting task force the importance of remaining in a supervisory union and to extend the conversation to the supervisory union level and even neighboring districts. And later on we also communicated in a joint letter to the task force, you know, advocating to preserve school choice. And in addition, having community forums throughout this to ensure that all stakeholders are part of the conversation. So this house education map really isn't workable for our district. It threatens both our long standing school choice model and the supervisory union structure that allows small districts like ours to function effectively. As a pre K through six district we tuition our students grades seven to 12. And this gives families meaningful school choice while allowing us to focus resources on strong elementary programming. If we're merged into a larger fully operating pre K through 12 district under this map, that choice model would be eliminated or significantly restricted, fundamentally changing what families in our district have relied upon. And at the same time, you know, we support the supervisory unions eliminating SUs, The shared service framework that already delivers efficiencies in business operations. Specifically like special education, transportation coordination, curriculum support. Supervisory unions allow small locally governed districts to collaborate and control cost without surrendering community voice. Replacing that structure with large consolidated districts risk centralizing decision making farther from our towns while dismantling systems that are currently working. In our case, the proposal does not solve an existing problem, creates new ones by forcing mergers. So, you know, we recognized back in 2023 the unsustainability of, you

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: know,

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: the status quo as it was. So we initiated exploration into cost containment measures at that time, specifically engaging in discussions regarding our own consolidation within the district. So looking at the legislation now that's in place, moving forward with this significant education reform, we're just not simply asking for no change but more of a fundamental shift toward a collaborative and respectful process. Advocating for a more constructive path forward. And you know, we would encourage the support of empowering BOCES and CSAS. Also reinforcing the role and capacity of supervisory unions. And of course encouraging voluntary mergers. And you know, over our the work that we have engaged with over the year really identifies that our willingness to enter these conversations and this approach supports collaboration and respects local choice and is far more helpful and effective and thoughtfully and strategically reshaping education to better serve the needs of our communities. So I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Or I have any questions. So, your. Yeah.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Just a quick one regarding your your second point regarding the supervisory unions and finding administrative functional and functional efficiencies. Just frankly, can you lay out what a few of those efficiencies might be?

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: I think a huge component to that is shared services especially through education. We've seen that over the years. You know, as an SU, I think with the supervisory union's roles to provide special education, we've seen that this can be shared.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Have you been able to do that through the supervisory union, share those services with special

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: Yeah, I think there's, we've used, we've had a number of programs that have been shared throughout the supervisory union and yeah.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you. Thanks and you're very welcome to stay on the line and stay with us and if I come back to you, but if have to go to work that's okay too, but you're welcome to stay as long as you would like.

[Eric Montbriand (Chair, Wells Springs Unified Union School District)]: Okay. Thank you so much again for the opportunity.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: That's so important. Next one is isn't able to make it, so we're on to Lisa.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Gotta go. So I'm Todd Chittenden, we're kind of together.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Oh, so I'm gonna fill it right up. Did pull up two chairs. 18.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: You wanna switch chairs and slide out? Thank you for having us. So for the record. Yep. I am Bob Chittenden. I live in South Hero, member of the South Hero School District and chair of the Grand Isle Supervisory Union.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: I am Doctor. Lucy Kalatroud. I am the superintendent of Grand Isle Supervisory Union, and I live in North Darrow. How

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: many students in the ICU? I'm sorry? How many students in the ICU?

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: Including our high school students, Ram Hancock. Okay.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: So I will start. Happy to answer questions. With over thirty years in the community, almost fourteen years as a local school board service, and a career leading an R and D software engineering team that supports instrumentation data analysis for medical research worldwide, I have a deep understanding of both complex systems and Vermont's school funding landscape. As a board member, I've worked through major shifts in Vermont education policy, starting with Act 60 and Act 68. I was able to skip Act 46, but now Acts 173, 127, and now our current situation. I've seen how that change affects rural communities differently. I'm also a citizen of the state of Vermont and know firsthand the affordability crisis that has developed over the last ten years. Because our residents are geographically isolated and deeply connected to their schools, preserving local decision making is not just a preference, it is essential to ensuring our students have equitable access to education and our communities maintain democratic engagement. Randolph County takes education and affordability seriously. When Act 73 was proposed, our supervisory union and member districts proactively engaged our communities and legislators through countywide and district public forums starting last April and continuing through the summer. We developed a thoughtful response that met both in our minds the spirit of Act 73 legislation and our aspirations for our students. This work resulted in a shared resolution across all districts and the supervisory union to merge into a single district. The resolution also indicated that we should reach out to potential partners in Franklin and Chittenden Counties to form a larger supervisory community for scale. We did reach out, and nobody responded or wanted to partner with us. We want you, the legislature, to treat us as partners in this transformation because we are part of the solution. Our island community operates differently. In Colchester and Milton, Route 2 is the only southern entry to the county, and it exits in New York State near the Canadian border. We have one connection, Route 78, from Alberg in the northern part of Grand Isle County over to Franklin County. This geographical isolation must be considered in any governance change. Our community believes the next step is further consolidation in our county, and we want to stay together and not be divided up and parceled out. We've already closed two of the county's five schools and understand how to balance strong learning environments with responsible taxation. With about 900 students across the three districts and only K-eight schools in the county, we recommend merging our remaining three districts into one. We support the consolidation either into a supervisory district, as was proposed by a map from Senator Beck in one of the governance map proposals. We would also support merging our three districts into a single district and joining a larger supervisory union. Given though our countywide enrollment has been steady over the last five to ten years, statewide demographic points to a further decline in student population. We can make tough choices to consolidate further within our county if that is what is required. We also believe strongly in a BOCES style model to support regional services and cost efficiencies in addition to what we achieve at the Supervisory Union level. This would be helpful in either of us being a supervisor district or joining a larger supervisory unit. We do not support the recent governance map proposed by Representative Conlon as it splits us in half. Splitting Red Owl County and Cap ignores both our natural geographic boundaries, and the social cohesion allows our small communities to operate effectively. Because

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: we

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: have already made responsible, often difficult global decisions, including closing schools, we have demonstrated that we are not here to avoid hard choices. In addition to the emerging governance proposals which promise structural change, they do not address the biggest ongoing cost drivers: healthcare, special education costs, inflation, wages, unfunded legislative mandates. Consolidation at the scale currently proposed will shift decisions away from rural communities like ours, increasing the risk that small communities without a voice will be closed by larger centralized governance structure. Longer bus rides and loss of local voice are real fears, but so is parent engagement at schools that are an hour drive away. One of the top three contributors to student success is when parents are engaged with their children's education. This is an important parent engagement factor will be reduced in my mind if schools are an hour drive away. We're not asking the legislatures to preserve the status quo. We are asking for a governance model that keeps decision making grounded in the communities directly affected, respects the unique geography of our Island County, and empowers us to continue implementing sustainable student centered solutions. Treat us as partners, not recipients, designing a system that works for all of Iran.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So, maybe, do you wanna go first and then we ask questions? Yes, of course. Why don't you go first because you may end up answering questions, so go ahead. Why don't you go first?

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: Question's This will be more the fact side and mine will be a little bit more a little softer.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So my understanding is that, so you as you said all your kids are, your high school kids are tuition relief and where do most of them go? I think my understanding is also that most of your kids end up going to public high, public tuition in the public high schools. Is that true? That is true. Yeah. So

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: there's a smattering that go to New York State because of geographic proximity, but then Franklin County and Chittenden County, Grand Isle, South Hero students mainly go to Chittenden County schools. Like, like? South Burlington, Essex, Colchester. Okay. Are our three top My granddaughter. Missisquoi, St. Albans, and Rouses Point, NCCS Rouses Point.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, so they really, they go to eight or nine high school. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And which, which districts did you explore? Could I feel her still?

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Franklin West, which is the Mississauga Mississauga School, SU, Colchester, think it's Mapleton Run is the other district that says that's St. Albans

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: area. So those are the

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: three that we directly, and Milton directly reached out to them. We at least got a response from Paul Chester, but it was, No, thank you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Because of Mr. Blatch here. Okay. Yes, Senator. Transportation.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: How's that work for the ones that have gone to New York, because they all go to separate schools, how is transportation involved?

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Yep, so the Grand Isle Supervisor Union does not provide transportation. Okay. It's not true of one district. One district, because of New York State, they do run a bus to New York State for those students. For those in Chittenden County, particularly Colchester, Essex, South Burlington, they do run a bus for drop off points, many drop off points in the islands to pick high school students up. And do you get much complaints about that, or people that's just the standard of life and that's how we're doing? Well, I can remember a day where there weren't any bus transportation.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Oh, this comes up. That's why I'm asking.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: This is It's a All right.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: And do the New York bound students, is there any comparison to the education they get, maybe the ones we get in Vermont?

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: Are they getting as good, better? Is there any data or analysis on that? I certainly have an opinion on that. I moved here last year from New York. I spent about fifty years as an educator and a leader in New York State. Did you say your name? My name is Lisa Rutland, Superintendent of Schools. Okay. There, in my frank opinion, I've done a lot of research in your state in terms of schools that have low poverty, challenging demographics, schools that succeed, those schools have considerably more than the majority of schools I've seen in Vermont. There are more opportunities that I've seen. I think when you can get to a larger district like Colchester or South Burlington, you can start to see some similarities, but in rural places, I'll speak to this a little bit, but New York also has BOCES, which was created specifically to help rural towns share services. There's infinitely more that's accessible in rural communities in New York than there is in Vermont.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: Sure. So

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: good afternoon members of the committee. My name is Doctor. Lisa Kalrud and I'm the proud superintendent of Grand Isle Supervisory Union. I serve five towns, Alberg, Isle Amont, North Hero, Grand Isle, and South Hero, communities that are beautifully surrounded by Lake Champlain. Our geography is our identity. We manage 113 square miles of water with just one road leading north and one road leading south. We are a unique collection of learners currently operating three schools, two k through eight and one k through six, while tuitioning our high schoolers off island. I'm coming to you today in a nod to Valentine's Day, so I'm

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: glad that you showed up.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: And I'm offering my testimony as a love letter to our islands. Last year, moved to North Hero after fifty years in New York State. I chose Vermont and I chose the islands, but I'm concerned. As we see our state population decline, we must realize that when families see schools leave their communities, those with the needs are going to leave the state. This does not solve our problem. It further exacerbates our flood funding system. In the words of Doctor. Cornel West, I am who I am because someone loved me and someone targeted me. I am here because I love our schools and I'm targeting this testimony towards a future that ensures our kids are not harmed by administrative convenience. So we talk a bit about the geography and the operational reality. Grand Isle is the only Vermont County surrounded by water. Our geography is a physical reality that cannot be consolidated away. I strongly support Senator map, which recognizes our unique interlake geography designating Grand Isle as its own unified pre k district while preserving high school choice. We must be honest about cost drivers. Consolidation alone is not the silver bullet. We need to examine the actual drivers, healthcare costs, inflation, specialized service needs that result in equitable funding. Furthermore, we need realistic timeline for operational modeling. Consolidating is not just a boundary change, it's a massive operational shift. We need practitioner and foreign change to ensure student services are not disrupted. Any reform must adhere to a no harm principle. We must ensure that the advantages of scale do not become disadvantages of bureaucracy that dilute teacher quality and student opportunity. I oppose Act 173 as it's currently presented, but I support a path forward towards unity that is led on the ground. My formal request is this, that by, and this is a statement that reflects a goal that we've created, that by 06/30/2026, the Grand Isle Supervisory Union will develop and submit a formal reorganization proposal to the Agency of Education. This proposal will outline a transition to a unified union school district that preserves the operation of our local island schools, protects high school choice, and ensures fiscal stability. Think about your own journey. Who saw something in you that you never dreamt was imaginable? I'm here because people pushed me and believed in me. This is what I want for our kids. Please allow us the timeline to build a model that is operationally realistic, educationally sound, and rooted in the community. Let us move forward with a plan that prioritizes team over self and our students over the red team. I am who I am because someone loved me and targeted me. May your work be a love letter to all communities in Vermont.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: What is the tuitions between the three? Are they all about the same, or does URSU need? Tuition that we pay, It varies. High is the lowest?

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: New York State is the lowest. Correct. Chittenden County is about 23 on average, 23 ks per student. Franklin County is a little bit lower, 21.5

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: to 22. And New York.

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: Under 20, I think.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: Yeah, it's around $14.15.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: Any special needs students going with that degree? It's tuition? Yes. Certainly the public high school students. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So can you vote to pay additional tuition above the that I think 1,000 or whatever it's gonna be? Do we, I'm sorry. Do vote you have to pay the tuition?

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: We don't have any, if I'm understanding you correctly, we don't have any control over what schools charge us. Okay. We have to pay that. Can, we set our own tuition to our schools, but that's based on a formula.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay, that's only word because the Burrton Board, Burrton splits out a tuition that's voted on by the voters whether to approve that tuition or not. So you don't

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: go through that process. Okay, we're bound by whatever the AOE state formula is to calculate

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: tuition. Okay. So

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: that is helpful. There are only five did you say five temps? That's all at Grand Isle. Yep. Okay, it's only five towns. Okay. The rules are only five, his laws are only five towns at Grand Isle. A lot of space in them. That was helpful, thank you. Thank you. By the way, we have your chances, right? Seepal businesses. Can you forward that

[Bob Chittenden (Chair, Grand Isle Supervisory Union; South Hero School District)]: to us? We will. We will. Yep.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Okay. Okay.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Switch everything back.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: You're all set? Yes. All right. My name is Dan McArthur. I'm the chair of the Marlboro School Board, a member of the Windham Central Supervisory Union Board, and until this past year was a multi term regional representative to the Vermont School Boards Association. If I could, I'd like to make one correction to the testimony that I sent him. It says at the top, two thirteen slash twenty sixteen. Now, I'm thinking I'm 40 six here, because I sat in this very single. It's actually ten years ago. If we could modify that to say 2026, I'd appreciate that. Marlborough is a single town school district, and my board has placed an item on the March Australian ballot to see if the voters will vote to close our small school, which operates pre K through eight, and become non operating school districts. We feel like we're probably unique in the state for actually making this move, but a little bit like the people who spoke before me, if we feel it's a tough choice, but one that we feel will be beneficial all the way around, I'll get into a little bit more of that. But we did not make this decision lightly, and we've engaged the public as much as possible through multiple public sections to our options and preferences, looking as deeply as we can into our future prospects. You will all recognize that this is not an easy move to make, especially from a small town with a long history of educational independence, where our colleague was there for half a century or more. So we're definitely not advocating for sticking to the status quo. Reasons to move for making this move are both financial. We have really plummeting student populations. And the classes are getting so small that educators and parents feel that the classroom dynamics are suffering. And I should have included this with my testimony, but I brought it with me as a charge of showing projected numbers of kids in the various classes. And you'll see that we have fewer and fewer kids in the lowest, in the youngest classes. It's not, we could continue to run a school if we had five through eight, but it's our young kids, and we don't see that changing in the next three or four or five years as far as we can reasonably estimate. I went to the same school, my kids went to the same school, and all my grandchildren have gone here that seemed to be really. So my thanks for taking the time to hear me today. I wanna make three central points about small and rural schools in response to the recent proposal, was to create arbitrary maps, eliminate SUs, and eliminate non operating districts. Have spoken before me eloquently about the maps, and I'll leave that one alone. I think that representative Conlon was honest and saying it was just a way to start the conversation. But I'd like to start with the last item that I mentioned, the nonoperating district that was on the proposal. Small, nonoperating, single town districts are an important feature of Vermont's educational landscape. They can be both financially and educationally beneficial. As it currently stands, and unless the legislature pulls the rug out from under our planning, if the March ballot issue in Marlboro passes, Marlborough students will be able to attend any number of adjoining public schools of their choice. These are the towns that above Marlborough, each of which run small schools, Halifax, Wilmington, Billverts, Euthan, Dumberton, Battleboro, Guilford. They all run schools. All of them are elementary or through grade eight. But because we currently are a choice town nine through 12, that would change anybody. So this would just mean all of our kids able to choose amongst those various schools. We would pay the established tuition rate, which would be the state average, but there's no, as far as I know, it'd sort of like-

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: That's the best price. Yeah.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Which is less than it cost per pupil for us to operate the school right now, so save the taxpayers money. And the parents and students will be able to choose by geographical and philosophical alignment. One of the things that's come up in our public discussions that parents have pointed to that they appreciate would be to say, there's a school right across the boundary from where I live, or there's a school that I like their outdoor program, or whatever. There'd be some some choice within the public schools. I should point out that as of now, few of our nine through 12 students will be going to private schools because of the changes that were made last year. So this would essentially be, our high school kids would still have the same choice of public schools that they currently have. Second point, small school district, whether operating or non operating, benefit by being part of a larger support system. In our case, we're members of the Windham Central SU, a long and productive partnership. Emily Long is on the board of that with me, and she's, as you know, is on house head right now. So we have been co board members of that for many, many years. WCSU serves only small rural schooling, so the issues facing the schools are similar, and the SU manages many of the programs that small schools can't do all on their own, all of which can be done more efficiently on a larger scale, while at the same time allowing the individual schools to maintain a sense of the community which they represent, and the community which pays for the operation of the school. When SU boards work together well, all students benefit, And the people testifying before me mention special ed, and that is one of the guns, well, it was consolidated by SNP mandate, but we really feel that that has been a huge advantage to have special ed coordinated from a central office. Thirdly, third item that I wanna bring up is that our supervisory union is a member of the recently formed first OCs in Vermont. It just got its recognition from the AOE a couple of months ago. This further consolidates into larger administrative units the needs of small schools, again saving costs and providing non educational support on a larger scale. For instance, HR, finances, all kinds of purchasing, transportation issues could also be done on a scale bigger than our Supervisory Union, allowing our Supervisory Union superintendent to be truly an educational leader. I heard it recently, superintendent say I moved boys, boilers, and buses. Well, we're paying these people good money, and we appreciate them, but they're spending way too much of their time dealing with issues that are non educational. So a BOCES would be a way to kind of take that out of their lap and give them a chance to be educational leaders. I wanna quote Secretary of Education Zoe Sanders, when, in the letter that came approving this BOCES, and this is a quote from Secretary Saunders, This is an exciting step forward in regionalizing and improving education services delivery, and I thank you for your sustained and focused efforts to stand up this first BOCES in Vermont. So in closing, my requests are, support CSAs and BOCES, they provide cost effectiveness for services on a reduced scale. Support supervisor unions, working with local boards, and provide the educational needs of the school is. And most importantly, from my and Marlboro's perspective as a school district, that is asking our voters at this moment to change the way we provide education. I ask that the legislature support flexibility for rural, sparsely populated non operating school districts. Thanks, and I'm happy to answer any questions. So what,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: does your can be set up differently? What does your OCEs take? What services does it apply for you?

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Well, you gotta recognize this is one month in now. Jeff's barely got going, but Jill Graham is the executive director of it, and they've been working to, you know, people can answer that question better than I can, but the point is they have been trying to figure out what they can do and ways that they can then take the loads out of SUVs. I wish I could answer that better, but I didn't see the point at this time. We're just so new at it. Are you the only assuming this move closes, would you be the only non operating town in your No. Stratton already in Stratton. You would know that. That would be just the two of us at that. Okay. Yes. Yes.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: Thank you, Dan. It's good to see you. Thanks for driving up here. And I know that this decision has been a hard one for Marlboro. One thing that was mentioned in your testimony regarding pulling the rug out, I know sometimes the legislature generally unintentionally can do that in some of the policies that we passed, and I'm wondering if you could be more specific on what we shouldn't do that would be pulling the rug out? Well, sure, because the proposal, as I understood it, actually used the words to eliminate non operating districts. And I think, you know, I hate

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: to say this, but I think it was primarily focused on private schools, because as we know, there's there's big move not to have public funding, so private schools. That was the only interpretation I can make of that. But because it was specifically stated that they would no longer exist, and we've gone through this process to try to become a non operating physician, these two things were converging at the same time. So my request is don't let that go any further than representative Connelly's, what he called, he's throwing it out on the table for discussion. So that'd be my hope and

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: my request. Thank you. That's helpful. The other piece, I guess this would be a question that I would need to ask more parents in the area, but I mean, there, and I guess the polling will determine this too, but is there a throwing inclination to send students to other places like Brattleboro or Wellington for school now at this point due to the declining student enrollment?

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: So we just don't know that yet. We're waiting for the vote, and we actually tried to set the vote up a month earlier, but we weren't able to, you know, the complications followed with that. We weren't able to, that would have told our teachers, everyone who worked for the school district a month earlier, and the parents as well. But immediately after the vote, we plan to have what you call school fair day, where other schools might come and say, well, here's what we offer. Here's we have room for your kids, so we don't have room. And then try to figure out where they would be choosy to go. And I also wanna point out that we didn't include it in our budget for next year. Obviously, we have to maintain the building and keep it operative from freezing in place. And we put in the same number of dollars for transportation as we currently spend so that once we figure out where kids are going, we would be able to continue to operate our own buses, which we do hire our own bus drivers, and get them to where it is they choose to go. We may not, again, it's uncharted territory. We may not use all that money, but we wanted to not just leave every parent in the lurch as to where you can have to even fry your kids or anything for the next few years. So we want to try to be as accommodating as possible. And of course Special Ed, we're still members of the Community Central as youth. So we would still be coordinating special ed as well. Thank you.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: What are some of the other towns in

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: the Windham District? Windham Windham Central. So, well, okay, I said I wasn't gonna mention the map, but I will. The map separates Marlborough from every other town in Windham Central. New Penn directly to the North, Stover immediately to its West, Townsend Brookline,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Wordsboro, Jamaica, and Strat. Okay. And where do most of your high school kids just, what what are like two, three of the high schools they go to? Primarily

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Brownboro. It's the closest one. We actually provide transportation for them to eat the railroad buses so they can get there conveniently without, you know, expense for the families. They do have the choice at this point to go with Leland and Gray, obviously, or, I mean, they could go any number of places because of her tuition, but Leland and Gray and the one in waiting, which is now called Twin Valley, options. But I would say, you know, 95% are going to Brown. And it's close by, and it's a, you know, it's, public high school. That's what it is. That's some great things there. My grandson is now a freshman here. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. And good thing.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: So, Stacey Peters.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: Variations today. Great. I'm just going to add to it. Add to it. What did you say? It's variations on on theme.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Oh, variations on theme.

[Olivia Scharnberg (Student, Montpelier High School; Youth Program Specialist, UP for Learning)]: And I will be contributing to that. So hello, my name is Stacy Peters. I am the chair of the Granville Hancock Unified School District, representing our two isolated towns along Route 100 in Addison County, where we made a difficult decision many years ago back in 2009 to close our village schools, and now we tuition all of our students. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to speak to you about my perspective as a member of the non operating district. So I don't think you've heard directly from many active non operating districts.

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: I want to set the stage for what that actually looks like. That your perspective is Increasingly relevant to the statewide discussion.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: We've heard a lot from Essex. Yes.

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: You've heard plenty of testimony about how we are all rural in Vermont. Everyone says that, But I wanna set the stage by defining what rural looks like in my accounts. Hancock and Granville are towns surrounded by state and federal land. About 85% of Hancock is owned by Green Mountain National Forest, and another 10% is privately conserved. Grandville itself is also an order of 50% conserved. There are nine people per square mile in Old Antelope and six per square mile in Grandville. Choice is often spoken of as a luxury or some kind of cat's dodging loophole. It's spoken of in quiet circles. And indeed, in the national discourse, it's become synonymous with privilege and inequality. But in reality, in our small, isolated rural towns, it is not a luxury. It is a necessity that our towns are just fine. I'd like to take just a couple of minutes and let you know what this looks like in my district, where I represent between eighty and one hundred kids between the two towns at the end of the year. This year, our children are attending 21 different surrounding schools. In the ten years that I've been on the board, between 09% of those kids end up tuitioning to independent schools. The overwhelming majority of our schools attend the public school that is located in the direction that their caregivers are traveling for work. And our caregivers, nearly all of us travel for work because our towns, no small part, thanks to having closed our schools, have become employment deserts. When I moved to the area, Hancock had the kind of usual small businesses that you see in many the mock towns. We had a rescue service that provided ambulance service up and down the valley. We had a small home healthcare with nine rooms that provided employment for healthcare providers. We had a building supply store and a lumberyard. We had a nice B and B. Our Naples in Granville had a really nice pub, and they had a general store. And all of those businesses have closed. Now, I know that the conversations that you're having are stemming from the reality of population decline, but I can tell you through this example that closing towns doesn't reverse population decline. It exacerbates

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: it as others. Closing schools.

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: Closing schools, yes, I'm sorry. We will never get our schools back, and we'll never get those businesses back. That's okay. When the difficult decisions were made to close our schools, our families were offered choice, not as a means of sending our kids to private out of state boarding schools on a town dime, but to allow our working families to stay together during the day and to give our kids the best possible shot at integrating into their school communities. We are very fortunate then that the Supervisor Union governance structure allows us to support this reality. We are members of the White River Valley SU, we are offered shared resources from the SU Center locus, as well as a voice at the larger SU board table. We are able, a board, to find creative solutions to problems that directly help our families, who are neighbors. They are our neighbors, and we know them. We benefit from the shared resources of superintendent, a business manager, and technologist support, amongst others. We work closely with these education professionals to find solutions to the problems our communities bring directly to us, which comprise everything from absenteeism and transportation to issues around food security and access to driver's ed. Because we were given this concession of school choice when we last consolidated and closed our schools, we as caregivers do not have to choose whether to educate our children or to earn a living. In the maps presented by the chair of House Act a few weeks ago, Brownville and Heffernan were removed from the WRVSU and attached to a bigger Harwood District. Our small district would be dissolved and our children would be bused into Harwood's schools. That district's new board, which likely would objectively not include members from our small towns, would then decide the fate of the neighboring small schools around us and be allowed to close them. I want to stress one more time. In our towns, you'll find families who work in Middlebury, in Randolph, in Royalton, and in West Ladd. All of those are over an hour's drive from Harvard's space. This is not tenable for our working families, who would then be upwards of two hours away when their kids are at school in Waterbury. And if school is called early for weather or for security issues or for illness, parents will have to lose work in order to accommodate, drive to collect their children. Because of the nature of unnecessary employment travel, this issue remains regardless of which district you place this in. So you can pick us up and put them in another district, and it's still the same for them. Our livelihood just depends on the flexibility that we currently have. I did want to add that I really appreciate the hard work you've done thinking through how to implement Act 73. Nobody understands the need for funding reform like the residents of our towns, which as St. Catherine and Noah saw 2024 increases of nearly 40%. Brantle's was the highest in the state, Hancock's was third. So, beat us by a cut. And those are for reasons beyond our control, indiscensibly, to have to do with the CLA. And our residents are amongst those really calling for real tax reform. We were charged these increases in property taxes without having anything to show for it as we don't operate as we do. The tax relief was promised to us under act 46, and it wasn't delivered. I hope you will strongly consider the fate of those of us in towns who have already had to make these decisions. I hope that you will maintain the super busy reunion structure where it works effectively, which is in our most isolated towns. And I hope you will allow us to continue to make the decisions that serve our own family and those by our neighbors. Dissolving our SU and dropping us into a larger district would turn our employment deserts into ghost towns while not guaranteeing tax relief and not serving our children. We may not operate a school building, but we have school for children. And it is common on you to implement legislation that does not ignore those children who are already amongst the most disfranchised. In the printed testimony, I also included maps of Grandville and Hancock with shading to show the percentage of land that is conserved, so that you can see where people actually are, where they can and can't go, and what actually constrains us, which I think is more useful than just looking at town boundaries sometimes.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: It's much like Grand Isle. It's not just an example.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: You've got 100 that are in South then,

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: and then 125 that That's right.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: In your testimony, very interesting because your testimony almost mirrors some of the testimony you heard, especially last year from presidents of Essex. People have the same issue. Again, you're talking about the same thing you're talking about in a different part of the state.

[Dan McArthur (Chair, Marlboro School Board; Member, Windham Central SU Board)]: Great dead center. It's very interesting.

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: I promise I did not play drums. If you have any questions, then.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: I would

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: like to make one. You know, on the closing of the stores and that, it's like everything we're running into the state were getting smaller. So the school closing didn't really affect them closing. It was just that a small store can't make enough money selling a soda nowadays. Yeah, there's some places.

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: It might have had a little

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member, Addison District)]: bit to do with it, but

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: I- It's a little cyclical, for sure. But

[Stacy Peters (Chair, Granville Hancock Unified School District)]: not so saturated. And then it's that pump. Just like the hole. It's a nice

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member, Windham District)]: little The moment. Yeah. The holes. Yeah.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Okay. Thank you. Oh, yeah. You can do that. We'll take a five minute break.

[Dr. Lisa Kalrud (Superintendent, Grand Isle Supervisory Union)]: So actually,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair, Bennington District)]: we can be back by 02:30.