Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: We're fine.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. This is the Senate Education Committee on the afternoon of February 20. We're gonna spend the first half hour of our meeting this afternoon taking a little bit of testimony on the the community college of the community of careers. K twelve education. We had a little bit of testimony early in the year. But now I think we're to hear from people who have been involved in the program which is great. But I think we're starting we're starting with we're back in.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Sorry. Do

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: you mind if I have Joyce Judy joining me?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: First. I'm gonna do a quick introduction to

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: the two of us together and then watch these students. I just wanted to start off by sharing something that we have been gathering to talk to students around this year to ask them how they want adults to show up in conversations about career pathways. And because we're talking about career pathways today, I thought it might be relevant. It might push on some assumptions that you have or maybe just reinforce what you do know already. So I'm Rebecca Covance with the Windham Flair Foundation, and we are here today with students talking about the free degree promised. And I'll introduce Joy Stewart. Thank you, and thank you so much for letting us

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: come and talk about the flexible path we've built. I'm not giving much time talking today for two reasons. I have laryngitis, but I feel totally fine. But what's more important is we have some students here today and it's been very exciting. We've had like 30 students here. And you know, for many of them, some of them, this is the

[Brendan Swin (Student, U-32/Middlesex)]: first time they've come to

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: the State House. And many of them, this is the first time they've been able to test the opportunity to really talk about some things that they feel passionate about. So, we're pretty excited to have them here. But before we introduce them and have them share their stories, just wanted to just briefly give you an overview of the flexible the early college program and flexible pathways, though, because I think you guys hear so much and keeping it all straight, I can't imagine how much you get told every day. So, just as a reminder, the Flexible Pathways Bill Act 77, was passed by the legislature in 2013. And really the goal of that program was to really help more young people finish high school, be prepared for their next step, whether it was college or going into the workforce, whatever, but making sure that we could keep students engaged in their learning so they graduate from high school. And this is even more important today because Vermont, as liberal and as progressive as we think we are, we think we do a really good job and we do. But Vermont has one of the lowest school graduation rates and the lowest college going rate of any state, in particular. This is even more important as we build out of this. I also think that, and I shared this this morning with Senate Commerce and Economic Development, I feel like Act 77 is one of the best economic development straddle that Vermont has because they're helping high school seniors be prepared for what everything else. And I know you probably know this better every employer we talk to these days, they don't have enough employees. And if they can find people to apply for jobs, it's a mismatch between what skills they have and what they're looking for. And so really helping people stay involved in learning and get the skills that they need. And I'm a believer that not every kid needs to go to college, but they need to be, they need to commit to continuing their learning beyond high school. And so Act 77 really is about creating a lot of different opportunities for students. So, for many students, the traditional high school pathway works for them.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: And that's great. And we need to continue to support that.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: But there's a pretty big spot for students from home that doesn't work for them. And so I think this was the sort of background for creating Act 77. And so whether students go to a CTE program, they do a work based learning program, they do an internship, they do dual enrollment, they do early college. It really is designed to build on their passion and make sure they stay engaged. And so today, we're going to talk a little bit about early college and what is gratifying to me and the thing that has kept me at CCD for a long time. So, have to find we are an open end of the tunnel and for so many students that we serve, if we weren't here, they wouldn't ever have the opportunity to continue their education and they wouldn't think it was possible. And early college is one of those areas where you're already here today and we have two forty students enrolled in early college this year. A high percentage of them are low income and a high percentage of them are first generation. And they will tell

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: you over and over, if

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: they didn't have this opportunity, they wouldn't have thought about continuing their education. So, does plan to succeed. And it's I'm so grateful to the legislature for creating that program and continuing it in ways that are really important. You are here today and I just want to make sure that people understand because we use early college and then we talk about grade and grade. Sometimes people are like, what is it? Early college is part of Act 77 and it is funded by the legislature and it's designed to, it's part of the flexible pathways to help students get their high school diploma. So early college, students who are enrolled in early college do all their academic work at CCD. They stay, they can do all their extracurricular and stuff back at their home high school, but they take all their coursework at CCD. So that's early college. Thanks to the McClure Foundation. The McClure Foundation five years ago said to State of Vermont and Vermonters, look, if you do this and you do early college at CCB, we will fund the second year of your associate degree with three degree promise, meaning that students can earn an associate degree at CCD at no cost to them or their families. So, you combine Early Butch State Program with the McClure Foundation funding to do Early College and they can get their associate's degree. And then, you know, we have 26 pathways to UVM. They can transfer as a junior. We have many more than that at Vermont State University or Champlain, St. Mike's. So students, they can either stop after that, go to the workforce, stop after that and transfer. There's a lot of opportunity. But what it does too is it helps students and their families be able to afford a college education. They wanted to be clear about there's two, we're talking about two programs and sometimes people are like that, I don't understand the difference. But the free degree is for the second year of their associate degree. So you're gonna hear today from some students, Some are in early college, some have already been in early college and are doing free to group promise. So with that, I'm gonna stop and let So actually, you didn't do it. Oh, okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: For the record.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Yep. U r h. I'm sorry. I actually That's okay. Know that. That's better. I'm Tracy Spudien. I serve as president of the community college of Vermont.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: And Rebecca Covance with the Book Clerk Foundation.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. Let me go around the table. Yeah.

[Brendan Swin (Student, U-32/Middlesex)]: Not a machine. My name Kelly. Great.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Seth Bongartz, our Chief Executive Bennington Center District.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk, Rutland District)]: Terry Williams, Rawlman District. Steve Heffernan, Addison County District. Great. Okay, now I'm gonna turn it over to Rebecca. Yes.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: And she will be introducing students. Can I invite a couple students up

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: to speak with you? Sure.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Can do whatever you want.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Ruby, you wanna start? We'll just go right down the line. So just introduce yourself for the record and say what town you're from and tell us why you chose Ardentley College. My name

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: is Ruby Paul and I'm from Burlington. I chose to Early College because for a couple reasons. One of the reasons was that I was like, like I had gotten everything I could get out of high school. I had done pretty

[Unidentified Committee Member]: much

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: all of my credits that I needed going into my senior year. Only needed one more credit to graduate, so I was considering just graduating early, but then I didn't really know what I was going to do after that. Early college was presented to me as an option and I thought it would be a really good choice because it would let me be more productive with my education than the time I had. Also, the cost version, that was a big motivation because I've been really trying to find a way to go to college without taking out big loans. My parents both were still paying off their college loans. My dad's did just get forgiven. My mom was 46 and still paying. Trying to avoid that as much as possible has been a big goal for me. And CCB is a really great option to explore my interests because I think if I had really known what I wanted to do in terms of a career or path of study, I could have gone to college, like a four year, sort of like figuring it out, but I didn't really know what I wanted to do. It felt like just like really big risk or commitment to get into debt to not even knowing if I was going to like it. So, CCB has been great so that I can find out sort of what my interests are, take different classes, just without that big financial risk.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So, you in your senior year of high school right now?

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: No, I'm in my second year at CCV. So, last year I did the early college program where it was my senior year combined with

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: And that, your first year, was paid for through

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: state Through early college. Early college.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Your second year.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Through the McClure Foundation for Free Your Promise. Can you just tell a little bit about what your pathway is? What are you studying and

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: what do you think you're gonna do? Okay. I'm in the STEM studies program right now. I'm set to graduate this spring with my associate's degree. I chose that because I'm interested in science and I wanted to just explore. I originally thought I might want to do computer science, but then I took some classes and thought maybe not. Now I'm really interested in environmental science and I'm interested in pursuing that. I'm hoping either to spend some time perhaps studying in Europe after or go to UBM, depending on how things work out.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: That's very helpful, because we're very interested, yes. Do you have a pathway that, oh, you saw it would be STEMCEF, so Europe, if you're going overseas, you'd find a college there to try to pursue the

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: Yeah. I'm interested in some programs at schools in The Netherlands for like, there's one I'm really interested in that's like spatial design and city planning. And there's another that's like land and water management that I'd be interested in.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Okay. But, yeah, if that

[Ruby Paul (Student, Burlington)]: doesn't work out, I'd probably study something similar at EDM. It'd be very easy to kinda transfer over because I did early college and pre degree. Great.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: And that's something that's really that really resonates with a lot of students. It's the ease of the transfer pathway from CCV to to EVM or VTSU or a lot

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: of the private schools as well.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: That's that's great. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Alright. Appreciate it.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Annika. Thanks, your team.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Do I introduce yourself for the record and say what time you found, and why you showed up starting college?

[Annika (Student, St. Michael’s College)]: Yeah, sure. So, my name's Annika, I'm from Colchester, and I am currently a student at St. Michael's College. I ended my second semester of my junior year, so I have one more year left, and I am only 19 thanks to the McClure Degree Foundation and Early College. I chose Early College, my degree, for a number of reasons. So, I have always known that I wanted to do college. My parents went to college, my siblings went to college, my extended family went to college, everybody around me went to college. Well, I didn't know what in the world I wanted to do. I was really nervous about jumping from high school to college because I did really, really well in high school, and by the time I was at the end of my junior year, well, curriculums were changing because the other people that were in my class weren't doing so well, and so instead of challenging those students, they did the opposite of students who were not being challenged enough. So, I felt like I was going backwards in my education, which wasn't really fair to me. I participated in

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: a number

[Annika (Student, St. Michael’s College)]: of mandatory meetings that we had to do to learn about what comes after high school, what opportunities are there after high school. So I heard about early college only once or twice, and immediately knew that that was what I needed to do. It was an opportunity for me to be challenged while still in high school, but it was also that stepping stone from high school to college. Because while I wasn't being challenged in high school, I also knew that, well, excuse my language, that college was gonna kick my butt. So I needed that little stepping stone, and I was really curious to know, before my junior year, like, there something in between? And so I learned about early college and knew that that was exactly what I wanted to do. And on the other side of things, the financial part of it, is also extremely important, not only for myself, but for other Vermont students. My family, both sides of my family have always, they haven't always been in a great financial position. They started working when they were extremely young, so in turn I did the same thing, and I don't regret it at all. But I, through that, have learned and gained this strong sense of needing to be independent and of wanting to be that child who can and wants to support their family and to support themselves. While my parents have always done so much for me, I think that this was an opportunity where I could go to school and they didn't have to reap the financial burden of it. So, through the Early College Foundation, through the Early College and the Free Degree Promise, I was able to get an entire degree for free. My parents didn't have to do that, and then thanks to CCV with my academic standing, I was also able to receive a number of scholarships from St. Mike's, so now I'm going to St. Mike's for a fraction, more than a fraction of what I would have had to do without this program.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So did you start in your junior year?

[Annika (Student, St. Michael’s College)]: So at the end of my junior year was when I applied to early college. Then my senior year I was at CCB.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Can you tell us so something that Annika has said that really just sticks with me, she has she has a shocking number of jobs. One of her jobs is our Bagel Cafe. There was. Do you remember what when you were talking to a customer about the early college program, what one of your coworkers said or thought about? Like, how

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: did that change how they thought about it?

[Annika (Student, St. Michael’s College)]: Yeah. So I was just it was just one day, I mean, I was working at that bagel shop for five years, so my, the owner, he became super close friends with me, his daughter is my absolute best friend now, and just, he watched me essentially grow up because I started when I was sophomore or a freshman, I don't know. And so, I think he was in conversation with me and I was in conversation with a customer who was just asking what I was up to for school and what I was doing after the bagel, and I was talking about early college and they had never heard about it before, and our baker has two kids, I wanna say they're maybe three or four years younger than I am, and he heard me talk about this early college program, he was like, what the heck is that? So I walked into the whole process and he, so long as the early college and the free degree promise is still up and running and in good standing and able to give these financial opportunities to students that he's gonna have his kids go down that pathway. I also have a student who, a student, excuse me, up here at my barn where I ride, who's actually in early college right now. So I've been able to share my story at the barn, at work, at, well, St. Mike's now, and getting these people, these parents to realize that their kids can go to college.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Really opens those those good stores to opportunities people don't quite know about or don't know if they're exempt. So thank you, Annika. Alright. Brandon. Alright. Last but not least.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So I'll just sail over here to dance with opiate sides. I was walking through the.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Oh, good.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: This program is really good.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Feel like it is one of

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: the bright spots in our education system. It's too well a well kept secret. It's something that we really wish.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Those those are two great stories so far.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So I

[Brendan Swin (Student, U-32/Middlesex)]: would I would agree definitely about the the well kept secret. I guess yourself? Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to. I'm Brendan Swin. I'm from Middlesex in Washington County, and I am currently an early college student. I'm also a senior at u thirty two middle and high school. I think, actually, it's important to talk about that fact that this early college and the free degree promise is sort of a well kept secret. Personally, in my experience, I heard a decent bit about early college, but not about what CCBs do, not about the free degree promise. I'd say a good chunk of the graduating class at u thirty two goes to Norwich for early college and has for a while. So, you know, there's a good amount of people who are utilizing it there. But I personally feel like this option to take part in the free degree promise is more invaluable to me than simply being at the college where all my friends are right now. Currently, what I'm doing is I'm on track to get an associate's in business, and that's going to be, I think, invaluable to me for a couple reasons. The primary one is that, in and of itself, whether or not I like flesh it out into, like, a full on bachelor's, I can use that degree as effectively job security or a fail safe. This is to, you know, get your foot in the door of a lot of different fields, lot of different jobs. And I think that that's really important for me now considering how the job market is getting gradually more volatile. And you really just need kind of a something in your back pocket in order to get a job when you need to, especially in the state where opportunities are more limited, especially in sort of, like, more even, say, more conventional degrees, but, you know, more specific degrees that might be more in line with people's passions. I was always told with regards to what I was to do after high school to follow, you know, to follow my art, to do what I wanted and get a degree that aligned with my interests. And that kind of brings me to my other point, which is I feel more confident that I can do that once I'm able to get my associate's. I might flesh that out into a bachelor's, my double major, but I'm confident now that I can at least think about getting a degree that might be what I'm interested in. And previously, I would have been having to make the choice between my freedom to explore my interests and effectively getting a steady job and a good quality of life. And I think that's especially important considering, like I said, I want to stay in the state, but that's I feel like that's gonna be tough. And ultimately, that's something that I think I need to sort of prepare for. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: But I think from all three of you, the thing that I'll say, I probably hadn't totally put my finger on just the notion of the glide path. I I knew it was an efficient way, and I knew it was saved money. It's a lot of great things for kids. But that part about the it's actually it's look. Kids are might not otherwise have gone to college. It's just such an easy way to ease in Yeah. That it actually makes it more much more likely. So that's an that's I hadn't really think about that in any event. So thank you for that. That's that's something. So,

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Ahmed, early college choose students are choosing early college for a number of different reasons. You know, they may have outgrown their their academics in high school, like on a path. They may have all of the credits or most of the credits they need to graduate, like Ruby. They may just be ready to take the next step and really dig into what They know exactly what they want to do and they just want to get into it. Or they may just have had a social Outgrown their high school socially. There were about 30 students here. I bet every single one of them had a different reason and a different story about why they're choosing Early College. The thing that really resonates with me is the way that CTB has completely embraced this program through the Pretty View of Promise. They have created a really robust aligned advising program that has now benefited all of their students despite whatever program they're in. There's also a really solid career advising. This advisor say, how are you today, and how do I get you to what your goals are and what and how to in the most the most straight trajectory, whether they want to go straight into a job right after their associate's degree, or if they want to transfer, on iPad to St. Mike's or Ruby to who knows where they'll go. But it also creates there's also a stipend for the Free Degree Promise to help students buy books and pay for transportation. It's a really intentional intentional, purposeful pathway to get students from here until into the the jobs that we most need them in

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: our critical occupations at the moment.

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

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: How many are enrolled statewide? At CCB there's two fifty students. Statewide? Yes. And so if you think about the senior class, it's about 5% of the senior class of seniors. The other thing that I will say is that we've looked at the distribution of schools in terms of schools that are small, schools that are large, the average school sends, if you take out all the zeros, there are some schools that no one absorbs, you know, very severe. There's less than five students per school that attend. So it's not like a huge drain because, you know, early college isn't for everybody, But for so many students, it does offer that so many students and families, it offers an amazing opportunity. I'll share my story that is that gives you an example of how why just a huge difference of why a student chose early college. He told me he shared with me his parents got divorced. He he had to go live with his mom. He had grown up in a school in the Northeast Kingdom, and his mom had moved to Chittenden County. And he was very mature about he knew he needed to go live with his mother. But he said, if you think I was starting my senior year at a new high school, particularly a big high school from where I came from, he said I wouldn't drop. I wouldn't it wasn't a possibility. So someone had shared with him, he should try early college. That made just such a difference. So only because you never know what is behind your clothing, how someone presents. So people opt for it for many, many different reasons.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So, hushed perhaps on this with some schools, most of the kids, is the program actually available to every high school in Vermont? Is it, I, it, let's, so there's two parts to that question. One is technically available, the other is practically available. Is it practically available, I think, lab?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: It is. When you say practice so we have 12 locations throughout the state, so very strategically located. So if anybody wants to take in person classes, they're also we offered 600 classes virtually every semester. And we started online education in 1996 and it was all about access because so many of our students, it's winter, it's rural and all that. And so long before COVID, 40% of our classes were available virtually. And we have a lot of different flavors of virtual. So students can the traditional online work, but we have a really popular is synchronous online, where they actually are sitting in, like here, and they're meeting, they're on Zoom, they're meeting with a faculty member, and it's very much almost a classroom except you're not physically there. So students, and we look at that a lot in terms of early college students. What kind of classes, what modality do they access? And usually it's a combination. I think I saw a statistic eighty percent of our early college students take at least one in person class a semester. And so they mix it. They're very much like our more traditional students in terms of, you know, I bet all these folks are working. And so how do they manage going to school and working and all their other responsibilities? And so oftentimes it's a mix. So we're different than a lot of schools in that. There are a lot of schools that have an online program and an on ground program, and you opt for one. Ours is about modality. You want to take internal psychology? You can take it in Montpelier on Tuesdays. You could take it in Winooski on Thursdays, or you could take it virtually, and then there's different ways you could take it virtually. So it's available.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: We have to move on a couple of minutes. One

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: close and a plea. The McLaren Foundation supports the Free Degree Promise. Last year, cost us less than $150,000 for a universal debt free associate degree that is available to every Vermont high school student that goes through CCB in their early college program. Chair Markot, House Commerce Committee has introduced a bill that would sustain this program by creating a split four ways approach to the Higher Ed Trust Fund. Higher Ed Trust Fund is created to In statute, it says it's for non loan student aid, which is what this program does. Currently, the Higher Trust Fund is a has three beneficiaries. One is VSAC, UVM, and Vermont State Colleges. What representative Marckottsville would do is would take that to a four way approach. So instead of the Vermont State College as being named, would be Vermont State University. Is that right? Vermont State University is good though. And the Community College of Vermont. So they're both named individually, and it could fund this program definitely.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So you've done it as a short term

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: We have so we the McLartz Foundation raises big ideas and tries them out. We did that through the corrections education program. We partnered with CCB and and floated the balloon, and then the federal government said, Hey, that's a great program. They stepped in and funded it. We've done the same thing with this. We have two more years. We've committed through the current tenth grade class, and we're asking the state to say, if you believe in this program, and you believe in the data that is really speaking volumes to who this is serving, then consider funding it through the Higher Trust Fund.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: That's a bill coming in, or?

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: It's a bill that's been introduced. It's gotten stuck in house education. But if you have a moving vehicle that you want to

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: slide it into the link, it's already there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Alright. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Nice. Nice. Thank you for the time. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Here.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Thank you so much.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Thanks. You Thank you. Driving.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: How are you? Good to see you. How are you doing? It's Friday. Like your drink.

[Brendan Swin (Student, U-32/Middlesex)]: Takes you a long day.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: You too.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Do that. The amped up for you. See. I guess special ed isn't all that interesting.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's different groups. So

[Brendan Swin (Student, U-32/Middlesex)]: It's like some folks might

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: be joining by Zoom instead of at first. Alright.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. Because yeah.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's unusual custodians on the earth. Is that real snow behind you? No? Not

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: yet.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: It's gone.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So we have more people on the agenda than the two of you, or has it turned out to be the two of you?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Aaron and Zoe and Kelly Murphy should all be there shortly, I hope.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay. Are they in another hearing over here?

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: I'll check my calendar. I thought that they had it free.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Okay, here we go. We got. Adam Secretary.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Student. Should we stand?

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: I'll stand. I'll stand. I'll I'll

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: stand. Still live, so feel ready. You wanna introduce yourselves for the record? Hi,

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: good afternoon. For the record, I'm Zoe Saunders, the Secretary of Education.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: I'm Erin Davis, the Chief Financial Officer.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Good afternoon, Flynn Murphy, Education Finance Director. And Ted Gates, Senior Fiscal Analyst. Thank you.

[Katie McCarthy (Early Childhood Special Education Program Manager, AOE)]: I'm Katie McCarthy. I am the Early Childhood Special Education Program Manager. I sit on the Special Education Division.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: We're pleased to join

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: you this afternoon. This is part two of our special education presentation. We had a really robust conversation last time, didn't get through the full slide deck, so we're delighted to come back. From our recollection, we ended right before we moved into the strategic plan for special education, so that's where we thought we would start our presentation, and then if you have questions about any other element of the first report, really walks through more of the data and the current state, we'll have time then to dive into those details. Does that work for you?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yes, maybe. Okay.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Katie, you have to share the data. Maybe Yes. I

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: need permission to share my screen.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: You have permission now.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Okay. Great. Thank you. And so as oh, great. Thank you, Katie.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: You're

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: welcome. Part of Act 73, the agency of education was asked to deliver two reports. The first report was to evaluate the current state of special education delivery. We shared those findings with you the last time we were here on this topic. A second requirement was to develop a strategic plan for special education to enhance the delivery of services across the state of Vermont. Katie, you're gonna need to so Anna joined us last time,

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: you may recall. She's now on maternity leave, and so Katie's stepping in. And so Katie, if you could move forward until the slide that says Special Education Strategic Plan report. It's a big title slide, so you'll know it when you see it.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Look how much ground we covered

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: last time. Yes. Did. We actually We're very busy. Last time. Exactly. Thanks, Okay. Excellent. So we'll go to the the first slide. We used the data and the findings from that first report to inform our strategic direction and to clarify the areas that we needed to focus most. One of the first pieces that we looked at was ensuring that the agency of education was organized in a way to best deliver and support the field around special education. And so the input from our environmental scan and data analysis informed the changes that we made through our reorganization. Our reorganization was intentionally designed to elevate our focus on special education, and that resulted in a couple of elevations in terms of roles and responsibilities on the team, along with new positions to focus on special education. We have added the Chief Academic Officer position, so Doctor. Aaron Davis has joined our team. Additionally, we have added a Deputy Chief of Academics. We are in the recruitment phase for that role. That role, in addition to the chief academic officer, both serve on my executive cabinet. We are recruiting for the deputy chief of academics to oversee both the curriculum and instruction division and the special education division, because we want to have intentionality ensuring that there is alignment across, so that as we're making decisions around curriculum instruction and providing evidence based strategies, that it's grounded in understanding of what our students with an IEP will also need and ensuring that those resources are accessible for all students. Additionally, we elevated the role of the special education director, which is a state director, is now elevated to a division director and sits on my extended cabinet. Additionally, we recognized that we needed some more focus and support around special education finance, so we created a special education finance director position that sits within our finance team, and we established a new team, which is the grants division, and that's specifically to have more support around the IDEA grant management, which are the funds that we receive from the federal government to support students with IEPs. And all of these actions are designed to help us to differentiate our support to the field, improve the monitoring, and overall being more proactive with how we provide training and support to the field. The next slide, in terms of how we put together the strategic plan, this was designed in coordination with the Special Education Advisory Panel, along with the steering committee of practitioners that we formed to support us with this work. We wanted to make sure that the plan for special education was not a a separate plan or a separate scope of work to what we're doing agency wide with our strategic planning efforts, and so what we'll walk through today is how we intentionally embedded our focus on special education throughout the agency wide plan. And so this plan will include, as part of the requirements of Act 73 and what we're delivering, is unambiguous measures of outcomes, a timeline for implementation, and also making sure that everything we put forward in this plan is informed by data and by the needs of our system. So, as we walk through this process, I'm just gonna share with you at a high level, there were really two groups that were formed to provide this input. One is the Special Education Advisory Panel. This is an overview of the times in which we engaged with that group to provide input to us around the plan. The first phase of all this work was evaluating the data. Let's evaluate the current state of special education delivery, look at the findings, identify the areas that we need to focus most to inform our work. And then we established a separate committee, which is comprised mostly of practitioners across the state of Vermont.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I think your slide deck may not be in sync. There we go. Since your slide operator is remote, just give her the signal.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Thank you, Katie. You're on, if you could go to the next one, I appreciate it. Yeah, this is Terry. So just to give you a visual, you can look at the level of detail, but we spent a really concerted amount of time with both committees to help us understand the data, help us to understand also the realities of the ground. So for us at the agency, bringing together a group of practitioners and parents is really important to us so that we're grounded in analysis and our approach in ways that are really gonna add value to the field and supporting our shared goals of improving educational opportunities. So if you'll go to the next slide, Katie, this is a framework for how we approach the development of the strategic plan. We started with an environmental scan. The data that we shared with you last time directly informs the work of this strategic plan. Step two was developing the framework. We rolled out the framework at our first, our inaugural statewide planning retreat in November, and we shared how the focus of special education is infused across all of the elements of our plan. The next part is looking at implementation planning and progress monitoring. So I wanna give some clarity as to what was included in the report and then what updates we can actually share with you now since that report was delivered. So the scope of the report on the next slide, for the December report really centered on the environmental scan. In that report that we shared, we really looked deeper in terms of what do the findings mean, terms in of work that we must do as an agency to move forward, and how will that help to shape the direction of our strategic framework. The strategic framework is organized across those five pillars that we've shared before, and we'll walk through a little bit more detail around that. And we identify key performance indicators for how we need to progress as a state to better deliver special education services for all students. And then after we submitted the December report, we quickly moved into the next phase of planning, which was focusing on implementation planning. We have, since submitting a report, have launched or relaunched in this case, the steering committee that's focused on special education and differentiated support for all learners, and the work that we'll be doing over the next six months will help us to refine the plan so that we are developing measurable targets and that we're creating initiatives that are really going to be shaped and informed by what is most needed in the field at this time. We're already starting to do progress monitoring on some of the early efforts that we've rolled out to build in enhancements, and then the steering committee will be engaged with us, not only for the next six months, but our hope is they'll continue to be with us throughout multiple years because that's an important source to progress monitor how we're doing on a regular cadence. So with these strategic planning, we started, as you know, with our vision statement, we've articulated a desire for the state of Vermont to be the best education system in the country, and doing that in a way that very much resonates with our values in Vermont. And we've been using a framework of giving all students both roots and wings. And in the context of, you know, really unpacking this vision statement with our special education advisors, they talked about how roots and wings, right, are, these are not just values of Vermont, it's actually based on research, the importance of students having a strong sense of belonging in the classroom, and how critical that is for our students with an IEP to thrive. And really when we're talking about roots, it's, you know, sense of belonging and with special education students particularly, it's a sense of belonging in the general education setting to ensure that they are getting the right level of support to access high quality tier one instruction. And then looking at wings is making sure that every student is able to reach their full potential. And so we do see in the data that we continue to have persistent performance gaps when we look at our students with IEPs compared to their peers, and we're working really diligently to ensure that our students both have the foundational sense of belonging and connection and are building those academic skills and are able to further refine their learning and take on challenging experiences. In terms of the strategic pillars, I think we've shared these with you pretty consistently of how we've organized our work. We are setting goals and developing initiatives that are helping us to advance academic excellence, promote college and career readiness, promote safe and healthy schools, improve operational effectiveness, enhance special education, and differentiate support for all students. So this is the framework, and it allows us to have an organizing principle to support and structure the work. But one of the things that's really important and that we're paying attention to is not to create more silos. And so our emphasis on special education feeds across all of these areas, and we're being really intentional about closing the gaps and making sure that we have a full and robust focus of what's in each of these specific domains. So within academic excellence, we have set goals to improve proficiency in English language arts, mathematics, science, and also improving access to a high quality teacher. As this relates to the goals for special education delivery, we are very focused on addressing the persistent achievement gaps, which I have noted, and improving the quality of tier one instruction. If you recall from our previous presentation, that was one of the main findings, is that we can't think about enhancing special education delivery and support without centering that in improvements of our overall general tier one instruction for all learners. We're looking to track the

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Just to catch up with you.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yes.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So we don't speak tier one education, can you just elaborate? Yes, sure.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So tier one instruction is what we call our first time instruction. It's the grade level instruction for the content area. So it's what probably imagine when there's a teacher and the entire class in front of the teacher, or they're presenting new information, new content, and new learning for the students for the first time. So tier one means that it's accessible. It's being presented to all learners without significant differentiation or interventions like smaller groups or additional supports. Tier two would involve some additional supports and Tier three would move even beyond that in terms of the level

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: of support and intervention. Yeah, think it's another question.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Do you want to expand and talk about when the quality of tier one is not at the level we would accept, what happens in terms of additional supports?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah, I know last time I talked to you all a little bit about the downstream effects of when upstream, the tier one or first type instruction is not strong. So, if students on the whole, the majority of students, including those with IEPs, are not mastering the content when it's being taught. Their learning isn't reaching the level of proficiency when it's first being presented. Then we see that there's an increased need in the number of additional supports and interventions and number of students who need to access those supports. And so, I think last time I talked in generalities about some percentages. If students in kindergarten only master 8% of the 100% that they were supposed to learn that year, and then that happens again the next year, and the next, the compounding effect. Systemically, needs to happen within school then in terms of filling those learning gaps that students become a real challenge. Again, that's true for all learners. It gets compounded even further for learners with IEPs and disabilities who may already need some additional supports and interventions. Interventions too.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Thank you.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Absolutely. In addition, in this area, we're focusing on tracking the state's decreased reliance on paraprofessionals. So, within each of these areas, as we go into our steering committees, it's looking at how we can measure these indicators, and also identify some of those early indicators that we would actually want to evaluate before we can get to the outcome data. It is important to note that what we found, one of our big findings in our first report, was that we lack coherent monitoring tools now to fully evaluate the quality of tier one across the state of Vermont. And so that's why explicit in our plan that we must develop that approach. We're gonna talk a little bit more about how we're developing that, and as we do, that we're really clear in establishing those measurable points that you can evaluate our progress. What you'll really see as we go through, and I'm gonna go quickly through is, what you're identifying in our goals are directly addressing what we have determined are gaps based on the report that we shared last time around the current state of special education delivery. So if you go into the next strategic pillar, which focuses on college and career readiness, overall as a state, we seek to improve graduation rates, improve middle school acceleration. I will note now that this particular point will need to have some further exploration as we identify the best way to track middle school acceleration, and will likely be an area where we will seek some updates and amendments to our SS State Plan, so that that's part of our accountability framework. We are looking to increase the completion rates for industry certifications. It's so important for our students that are seeking to enter a high demand career after high school, that they've had the opportunity to earn those credentials so that they can be competitive in the marketplace. And also improving college persistence rates, so for our students that are entering post secondary after high school, we know that a lot of them may not complete their college degree program, and we need to evaluate both some of the factors related to readiness, and there may be some other factors too around the financial measure. So this is an area that we are going to have to review so that we can have a better way of tracking persistent rates.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Because you're gonna tend to hear women from kids who are doing well.

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: Yeah. Yeah.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So it's noted, one of the things we have identified in our framework is that some of these goals that we might, when we have in here, we currently don't have a way to evaluate, but we think it is important, and that's gonna be part of the work that we do over the next six months, is refining these goals and identifying the best ways in which we can actually track it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Going back two steps. Yes. What would be a KPI for middle school acceleration? What's that really neat?

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Yeah, so some states within their accountability framework, which is designed to measure school quality, there is a metric for middle school students taking advantage of courses that are advanced level courses in middle school, or courses where they can earn a certification that's appropriate at their grade level. And so there's a whole suite of programs which middle schoolers would be ready to take on and get a certification in, for example, like the Adobe product suite or other types of programs to really get them ready for a career. We currently don't have that within our accountability framework, but there are other state models that we can look at. And that will be further conversation where we'll need to have input around how we want to measure the success of middle school acceleration. And related to special education, we, as you know, have recommended statewide graduation requirements that was mandated through Act 73. That proposal is currently with the State Board of Education, and we have a committee that's been formed on ensuring accessibility to those graduation requirements for students with an IEP. That committee has already started their work, and is really making some substantive progress. The next pillar is focused on promoting safe and healthy schools. In this area, we've set statewide goals to reduce chronic absenteeism, to reduce dropout rates, reduce school safety incidences, and improve facility planning. How this connects to special education delivery is really evaluating the relationship between the inclusive environments and graduation rates for students with IEPs, including tracking suspensions and expulsions, and restraint and seclusion. So, those are all some of the factors that we believe need to be monitored in a way to be more proactive in addressing and reducing dropout rate and chronic absenteeism. And also, as we move forward with facility planning, we need to, of course, consider ADA compliance requirements for accessibility. Moving to the next pillar, is focused on improving operational effectiveness. In this area, we've identified a number of internal measures of operational effectiveness, along with some measures of effectiveness related to achieving compliance across the various areas where we have federal and state compliance. So one of the explicit goals we've identified is to accelerate assessment reporting. The state of Vermont has historically released our annual snapshot and state report card much later than other states. In my work, I'm very used to seeing those reports released in August or latest in October. And so we, as you know, just released that information this month. So we are working on an entire process to re engineer how we collect that data and report the data. It will involve some changes with data collection and data verification in the field, but it's important that we're able to get that information out earlier so it's timely and supportive of more immediate planning. It also has implications for access to funding earlier for the schools that would qualify for additional support. Additionally, we are working to improve grant utilization. So we recognize that some funds are left on the table, particularly as we look at federal dollars. And we want to make sure that we are maximizing all of those resources, that's part of the reason we've established our grants division. We're also working to increase professional development opportunities for agency staff, an example of that is we've done a lot of training around the science of reading for many of our team members, so that they can support with the implementation of Act 139 in our efforts to promote literacy outcomes. We also are really looking to achieve compliance in all federal areas. The state of Vermont has had longstanding compliance issues with many of our federal programs. And so, every team that oversees any sort of federal funds, we're working, looking really closely at why we've been out of compliance, and what actually needs to be rectified in order for the entire state to achieve those performance expectations. I often talk about how compliance is the floor, and I do mean that because we actually just need to be in compliance and then focus more on the work around improvement, but it is true that we're out in compliance in many areas, so that does create some operational difficulties because that comes with more onerous reporting, more onerous monitoring, and so we really need to get beyond that so we can focus more on the innovative work that we desire to do to drive improvement. And then improved customer service, this is an area as a agency that we've placed a lot of emphasis, and is part of our values, is how we work, and fusing our strategic plan, and that includes improving, being more embedded in the field in terms of training, the more accessible. And so the goals, as it relates specifically to special education in this area, are achieving compliance related to the special education funding around IDEA, and also, that means, because there are key areas, it's actually pretty comprehensive, the way in which we're evaluated by the Office of Special Education Programs, there are a number of indicators, and so we've looked at some of the key areas that we need to improve in order to be in compliance, and that involves increasing participation, and participation in the assessments, increasing proficiency rates for our students with IEPs, as we've noted that there's persistent gap, decreasing dropout rates for students with IEPs, and there's a number of other indicators that are more procedural in terms of how we process and identify students with an IEP.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: So much of this is the right place to ask this question, but it seems to me that I've got, like, the the students going from public school to middle school over to middle school to high school. The real issue is is perhaps the the improvement that happens because if you get a kid starting in middle school, let's say, who's two years in the whole they come from a school that's not doing well, and they're all two years behind, and then the middle school gets blamed because they're not students aren't really where they're supposed to be. And do we actually measure the rate of progress starting from either beginning of middle school or the beginning of high school? That's, intuitively that seems to me to take good measure.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Absolutely. So within our education quality standards, all schools are required to implement a local comprehensive assessment system, which will benchmark students three times a year to really evaluate their progress within academic year. We have done alignment studies with the local comprehensive assessment systems that are most used in Vermont with our VTCAP, and they show very tight alignment. So, that helps as you're thinking about tracking the improvement of your students, but more importantly, these reports help you to identify where students have some skill deficiencies, so that can be more targeted support. We also like to frame it in a different way of saying, it also tells you what students are ready to learn next. Right? Where are they, and where are they ready to learn next, in terms of meeting their goals, and most of these goals come with a traditional goal and a stretch goal that students can monitor and teachers can support. And then I would mention also beyond the requirement for evaluating progress, it's important to recognize that we need that early intervention, and that's what you're sharing, and Doctor. Davis has described. It can have a compounding impact if we're not addressing the skill gaps for our students, if they're not meeting those grade level standards, and so part of the work is also ensuring that there is a coordinated curriculum, when you think about elementary all the way to high school, and that there's opportunities for planning across teachers, and teachers across schools even, when you're really supporting that level of transition. I will note that another finding we have from the US Department of Education is that we need to do a better job tracking those critical transition years. So tracking out student form between eighth and ninth grade, we think about elementary and middle school, and it's really about ensuring a level of readiness that our students are prepared to progress to the next grade level. And so that's work that we're putting into place to make sure that there is that level of support.

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: Yeah, I do wanna

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: affirm the challenge that that presents for teachers. If the early interventions have not been provided, we actually are having classes in later grades where the majority of students are behind grade level, it becomes very difficult for the teacher to meet the need for the student and provide that first time tier one instruction that is on grade level. And so, that's not entirely a new challenge, but when we look at our overall results as a state over the last decade or so, they have been declining both according to the NAEP, the national assessment, and to our statewide, the VTCAP results. Best practices for that is to both provide the first time on grade level tier one instruction and what we would call a double dose. So, a second time during the day where the students with those gaps are having access to additional learning in the content areas where they have those gaps. What we're seeing right now in a lot of places is that the resources that teachers have available to them are intervention curriculum, meaning that they're behind grade level. They're designed with the intention of filling gaps that students may have. And so, if you are using an intervention curriculum in place of a tier one on grade level curriculum, those gaps will never close. It's just perpetuating the problem. So, I know I keep harping on the upstream metaphor, but if we don't go up stream and address some of these systemic issues, and that comes down to things like scheduling. How do you ensure that there are opportunities in the schedule for double doses, that students aren't being pulled out of tier one first time instruction for the differentiated instruction? Things like instructional materials. How are we providing clear expectations as an agency around which resources are for tier one versus which one are best used as intervention to combat some of the misconception from the field and make sure that teachers have the resources that they need. Those are all things that we're leaning into as an agency because we're seeing those gaps and it's the reality and it's very challenging for teachers right now. I

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: thought Sherry Souza was very compelling as a superintendent who saw herself as the instructional leader for her district and how important it was that she have instructional leadership over that entire pipeline so that whatever they saw in high school, it wasn't lost on the elementary schools or the middle schools what needed to be done. Would you say that's probably a best practice around the country that if you shade a school district or supervisory union, you have an instructional leader who doesn't have a lot of other layers in between them and all levels of academics in the system so that they're coming in relatively off the same page?

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So what the research shows is the importance of instructional leadership in terms of outcomes for students, but that's true at all levels of the system. It's not actually been correlated to how many layers there are. Okay. So I

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: think what I meant is, like, if you have a school board in between you and your elementary school and another school board in between a different middle school and another school board in between K through eight over here.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: That is part of the challenge that we're seeing right now in Vermont, right? It's the coordination, particularly in our K-eight systems than the receiving high schools have indicated to us that they can actually, without looking at a student's record, guess which system they may have come from and speaks to the lack of coordination across them. Yeah, what I was speaking to more is our principals, especially in our smallest schools, where a ton of math, They're supporting community involvement, partnering with families, they're supporting discipline in the classrooms. We know that rates of disciplinary challenges have been increasing. They're coordinating all of the operations of the building, and we also need them to instructional leaders. And that goes for the superintendents as well. There are so many hats, the curriculum director, but they need know, folks are

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: I think one of the

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: things that I've seen in other places that I've worked when they are at a larger scale is that folks are able to be a little bit more differentiated, and the folks can really hone in on the instructional leadership are in positions where that allows that to be their focus.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: The last pillar is looking at specification differences for fall burners. As we've described, our emphasis around this is infused throughout the plan. I'll just call out some specific goals around closing the achievement gap, meeting or exceeding federal compliance, and beginning to really measure the implementation of those best practices outlined in F-one 173, all of what Erin is describing, in terms of ensuring that we have that high quality tier one instruction, we have the coordinated curriculum, that there's a right level of support for intervention for the students that need that additional time, and also that involves scheduling. There are some operational and practical elements of that, that we can provide some guidance. We'll talk a little bit about how we're supporting in that area. So I'll kind

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: of front you because I'm

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: sure that we're getting to the point where you're eager to ask some questions so we can dive in. This is just a framework of really we're working towards alignment. So overall, we've established a statewide strategic plan. We've noted today how an emphasis of special education is infused across all of those pillars, along with being represented within our vision statement. And then there's work that happens to operationalize the strategic plan. So, we don't want this to be something that we put a lot of time on, and then we put it on the shelf, right? And so, the success factor is really thinking about the implementation planning. What we're doing with each of our divisions is identifying what their specific role is in terms of moving the needle around these goals, and identifying how they will work with other divisions in order to have a coordinated approach from the agency. That will help us as we get down to these other levels of providing the right level of support when we're doing improvement planning with our districts and with our schools, and goes all the way down to the student level, right, in terms of that alignment. So our special education divisions, do have to go through?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: On that slide, what is a CIP?

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: A continuous improvement plan. So district develops a continuous improvement plan and then the school, yes, the school develops a continuous improvement plan, and then that goes down to each individual student's personalized learning plan, right? So, you wanna make sure that as you're establishing key goals, so, you know, we have a key goal as a state that we are going to improve literacy rates. So, you're gonna expect that there's going to be an emphasis on literacy in these continuous improvement plans at a district level, school level, and that those students that are struggling are also identifying goals for how they're going to improve their literacy. And so what we look at with this cascading framework is to ensure that we have that tight alignment on those areas that are strategically important to the agency. And you often hear me talk about this framework of tight or loose, right? And so the agency, we need to be really tight on identifying what those priorities are and providing that level of support. Then And we need to be loose on the areas where there needs to be more customization and innovation, because there's other goals that districts and schools and students will have depending on their needs and their interests.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Do you think about using summers for Yes. You've said this, I remember talking to the principal the district, and she was saying the same thing about 20%, 20%. She said, By the time they're in sixth grade, they're gone. They've checked out their gone because they've fallen, the equivalent of a year behind, 20%, five times or whatever. And it seems to me that one, because if that happens, that every year is the most important year, the first year, the second, third, or fourth year, that's where it's really important. Do you think about using summers for Absolutely. Real catch up so that they're truly where their peers are by the time the next year starts. We're fantastic

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: at that Absolutely. So you're naming it, right? I mean, students will need more time to really master the standards, especially if they're operating multiple grade levels behind. We are in a really unique and wonderful position in the state of Vermont, which we have established universal after school. And part of that is ensuring that we have those extended learning opportunities, and that includes both during the school year and during the summer. And so, on our team, we've been working very closely with the After School Advisory Board to talk about how we can really expand that portfolio of after school and summer programs to ensure that that time can be maximized to support students with tutoring and additional enrichment that will help them to catch up so that they are ready and prepared for the next grade level. Can I Yeah, go ahead? It's not just about time though. I can

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: make a plug for it. There are instructional practices that help students with recovering learning loss. For example, if you look at the progression of the math standards year over year, it's building on conceptual understandings early on, so kinder understanding one to one correspondence. When I touch one block and then the next, I don't go back and touch the same block again. Well, if we don't have that conceptual understanding, it becomes very difficult to actually do simple addition with abstract numbers as the representation of that. But if you notice that that's the gap that a student has, going back to the conceptual gaps that they have in their learning will let you accelerate closing the gaps that they have significantly. But that requires that teachers have done deep study of the progression of standards across the grade in order to diagnose that and intervene appropriately to close the gap of a garden. That's some of the work that we need to do as well, is make sure that teachers are equipped with that and are very familiar with the standards and the content areas that they're teaching. Yes, time and there's ways to catch

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: them up on their eyes.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So within each division, they're identifying how they connect to supporting that aspirational vision, what their role is in helping to advance these key performance indicators, and what are some of the things that they will be focusing on as a division to enhance. So within the Special Education Division Plan, they have reestablished strong cyclical monitoring, so to ensure that we have a level of rigor in providing support in evaluating all of our district and schools on a regular cadence, according to the indicators by which we are evaluated the federal government. Also, they're working to address gaps in service delivery. So as we noted in our initial report, we have a large number of our students that are in a fully inclusive environment, and we have an above average rate of students that are in a separate school, and so one of the things we're noticing as we look at our overall performance, as a state, we've seen an overall decline. So if the majority of our students are in an inclusive setting, and that we're seeing overall our academic performances declining, this is pointing to a need to have higher quality general instruction, but also recognizing that there's a missing gap there, that students might need some additional targeted interventions that are in between a fully separate school and an inclusive environment, so that they can better access that general instruction. And what we've heard in talking with the field is there are a number of programs that districts are developing in house to provide that more integrated continuum of support for all learners, and right now we don't have great visibility to that in terms of the data, because it's not something that we're required to collect. So, as districts develop those programs, the agency doesn't have a role in overviewing, you know, or approving those programs, so we have limited insight. But what we're learning is it's really important for us to understand how those in district supports are benefiting students. And just from the initial work that we've done in focus groups with districts, the scale of the district does contribute to their ability to pool resources and design these specialized programs of support, and part of the Special Education Division's team's responsibility is to learn more, because we want to understand what's working well, and how we can leverage those best practices to ensure that all students across the state of Vermont are getting that access to HIPAA, but we've been calling that missing middle, a different search report that is warranted to create it in the district. We also are seeking to improve accessibility and caregiver involvement, and this is a key area. We know that the parent is a strong partner in their students' education, and it can also be very overwhelming and intimidating as a parent to navigate the system and ensure that your student get that individualized education plan that they need. And so that comes with making sure that there's clear guidance and plain language around the parents' rights and the process to work. Additionally, the division is focused on integrating and improving quality, and agency coordination. So we've talked a lot about how our focus at the agency is to break down silos. Every organization has silos, right? And it requires great intention to ensure that you are overcoming those gaps. And so as they're developing their division strategic plan, they've outlined areas where there's interdependency with other divisions. Really strong connection with curriculum and instruction, a lot of the work that Erin or Doctor. Davis is describing in terms of ensuring that there's access to that high quality instructional material. There's tremendous overlap with the schools and all of the pillars that we've identified. So in the report, you'll see that there's some tighter descriptions around how the special education division is being intentional working with other divisions to operationalize our plan. And then we have a number of major initiatives that are underway, and I'll let Doctor. Davis expand on this, and I wanna also commend her for bringing together the field to evaluate how can we best deliver this training in a way that's going to add value. So now that we've reviewed the gaps and we understand what additional training is needed, we're developing programs that are really focused on statewide training on evidence based practices, but we want to make sure that we're not overwhelming the field with a bunch of disconnected opportunities. And so we'll outline for you how we're approaching this work, but over the next few months, there's going to be a lot of refinement in terms of ensuring that there's really that cohesion and that we're rolling out these opportunities statewide for training that are really adding value and are really contemplating the best way to impact results given that there's a lot of limited time to participate in training and support.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So, we talked about NAEP scores. We've been told in testimony that NAEP scores don't really show the truth story. Actually, to compare it naturally, I guess they do, right?

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So I'm not sure what, you know, where that is coming from in terms of what the search was that they're not valuable. So to clarify, the NAEP results are, they're valid results, and it is the only data point that we have to compare the state of Vermont's performance to other states. The assessment is done through a sophisticated sampling process to ensure that it's representative of the Vermont student population. And so it is really valuable data and gives us an understanding of where we are. Now, not every student gets a result because of the sampling, right? It really is giving more of a statewide measure of our performance, and so that may have been where some of the critique was coming from, the discussion you had previously. So that's why the BTCAP, which is our state assessment, is important because every student is able to get a result, and so you can identify where that student is performing and what some of their growth goals would be for the next year. We do see that our state results are largely consistent with national results, but they're used for different purposes. And then we know that not any one data point will tell the full story of a student's learning experience, but it definitely wants to give a better of quality, and it helps us to support data driven school improvement planning. And when we engage in school improvement planning, we look at a number of other factors to understand what's actually contributing to the performance. That's where the real world work happens, is really diagnosing, okay, well, maybe we had above expected levels of performance. What went really well? What was the strategy that we'd want to learn from and replicate? Versus, wow, we really saw a decline, or we expected that we would have more growth in English language arts than we did. And then there's more questions around, well, what might have contributed to that? Was it about adoption of a curriculum? Was there future turnover? Was there chronic absenteeism? What are some of the other factors? And then that continuous improvement plan that we mentioned, it's designed to set really clear goals and the strategies to achieve those goals to do it well need to contemplate the full set of factors that are contributing to that performance.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I noticed you're evaluating the whole scope of it, but you see any one particular thing that could be contributing to what the majority of the problems around, like, is it reading? I mean, I understand if you can't read, you can't do that because you can't you can't logically read it and explain how to do the entire equation. So

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: we can talk and expand a little bit about what we see as the major areas of emphasis are ensuring that there is clarity around those grade level content standards, that's really important, and to ensuring that there's access to high quality instructional materials, along with training on evidence based practices. That's really where we're focusing our efforts with the initiatives that we're rolling out.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: You. Well, your point about literacy is well taken, that it's interdisciplinary. It's not just the English language arts teacher who should be teaching it. It shows up in every other content area as well. That's been an important aspect of the Read Vermont initiative, is that it shouldn't just be literacy teachers who are engaging in that training. We've been modeling that at the agency level. We had over 30 members of our staff who engaged in that science and reading training that the secretary mentioned earlier. And it included our extended learning opportunities team with after school and summer. It included our CTE folks. It included all of our different content areas. It included our Special Education Division. It was very cross sectional. Our Licensing Division as well. I mean, it really was a wonderful turnout for that many folks to engage in

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: it because of this important. Some

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: of the updates to the initiatives. One? So, one of

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: our major findings around Act 173 is that what you can so want is the right content. It's that the implementation of it has not been successful

[Rebecca (McClure Foundation representative)]: yet.

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Act 173, of course, is through 2017. And so, we were in some early stages of implementation as a state when it was interrupted with the pandemic. And so, we do know that there's a need to relaunch the work of Act 173. We also know that some of the strategies that were in place previously could be improved upon. So, for example, it's not sufficient to have a playbook that spelled out what needs to be implemented from Act 173 if you don't also have a framework for measuring the progress of the implementation. Folks need consistent toolkits for how they will know if specific look fors or indicators of implementation of Act 173 are actually in place in their building. I briefly mentioned the scheduling earlier, right? That's a fairly straightforward look for whether or not your students who need that additional intervention are being pulled out during that first time instruction or not. So, there's some that are a little more check yes or check no. And there's others that are a little more complicated, like the teachers level familiarity with the progression of the standards from one grade to the next, right? So, we're being very intentional in the design of the supports that we're preparing to roll out. Based on the results, we do feel that it needs to be a statewide initiative. So, we're also being intentional about being able to offer it at scale. And yeah, we are coordinating it with other professional learning and supports that we know are necessary, such as our literacy initiative, being intentional about mapping which specific roles. Like she mentioned earlier, the superintendent similarly had talked about all the hats that principals are wearing. They can't engage in everything all at once and meaningfully implement all of it at the same time. It's just too much of a fire hose. So, we're putting together a working group that's gonna help inform who we have participate and which professional learning experiences went and making sure that it got input from the field and it's designed that we can be intentional so that as many people can participate as possible to ensure that it's being implemented while this go out.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Good thing that I missed. And that also connects with the Green Vermont Initiative, right? So, of it is really thinking through as we're delivering this training and there's opportunities for the embedded coaching, what we know is so valuable, that we're really aligning these experiences in ways that are meaningful and not creating another thing for a training that's disconnected from our efforts to support literacy for example. And

[Dr. Erin Davis (Chief Academic Officer, Vermont Agency of Education)]: we know that there's benefits to using a statewide and a cohort model, especially if we look ahead at some of the changes on the horizon around Act 73, that folks are going to need to consolidate if they don't have experiences and haven't had the opportunity to engage in some shared learning together across SUs and SDs, it could make it more challenging. So, this could provide us with a meaningful opportunity for everyone to start building some of those relationships and for the change that's coming. We know there's still some important decisions to be made, but it's still a little less intimidating.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: I do wanna, it would be remiss not to call out that there's a resource question when we talk about statewide training. Historically, the agency's focused on smaller, more pilot programs or cohorts of a select group of supervisor districts, but what we're recognizing is the need for statewide training. And so we're leveraging the resources that we have now to start to model that, but it's just something we really need to think about because statewide training is definitely more intensive, and that's forcing us to evaluate our budget, reading online, the way that we work, so that we can deliver more statewide training. There is a request in the governor's budget to revert some funds to support literacy. That's the reason, is that we're really making that shift as an agency recognizing a statewide approach. I would name, but that's still a very small value compare how other states are investing in these type of implementations. But what we're really modeling is kind of squeezing every penny that we have to expand the level

[Unidentified Committee Member]: of

[Joyce Judy (President, Community College of Vermont)]: training statewide to really deepen that. There are resource questions. So good briefing, appreciate you guys coming in on the topic

[Unidentified Committee Member]: again. So special education's really sensitive topic, everyone's very passionate. And there are lots of, not lots, there are several constituent groups that have come to us and said, hey, look, we didn't feel represented or we're not heard in the process, development of the strategic plan or maybe implementation of Act 73, etcetera, etcetera. How what would your advice be to those folks, because I know they're listening, how can they, how can they get engaged? Who is the point of contact that they should start with in your team, say, hey, got something to say, it's my observation.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: So certainly, if there's opportunity to reach out to me, or reach out to Doctor. Davis, but I would note that we've actually had really strong engagement from our practitioners, our special education practitioners across the state, along with parents and community members in this process. And that's reflected in the report, in both reports. We have lifted up the feedback that we have received from the Special Education Advisory Panel, and the feedback that we've received from the steering committee to ensure that we're emphasizing those points that are really critical to address, and that we're designing our strategies in ways that are really helping to address those areas. In fact, I think when we did release our report, many of the associations actually released an accompanying press release saying that they really valued the level of collaboration that the agency in education took with the field to evaluate the data and to inform the reporting. So I think that's very encouraging in showing that what we are reflecting back is representative of the data, but also around the meaning making that are, that is supported by our practitioners, by parents, and our involved. So right now, there's a number of ways to engage. Our special education advisory panel meets every month and we provide an update on our strategic planning process. We also have invited participation on our steering committee. The steering committees have launched, and I always say with any committee, you start by saying who else needs to be around the table, right, so that we have a diversity of perspectives, and then there's just ongoing ways to reach out to the agency and to the division if you have questions.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Good, that's fine. Thank you.

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Anything to add to that?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: Yeah, Thank you for that, and good briefing,

[Zoie Saunders (Secretary of Education, Vermont Agency of Education)]: Well, thank you for having us. Yeah. We're having a great here. Well,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair, Senate Education Committee)]: let me take a five minute break.