Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're live. Okay, Senate Education Committee on March 11. We're back after some break. We're now going to take up the new version of S two fourteen draft number 1.2. We have with us Lecture Council, James. Thank

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you, Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Council. And I would actually say that this is not just a new draft, but it is a completely, it's an amendment, like many amendments when the bill has introduced. It's a strike all amendment to S-two 14, so you would strike out everything after the enacting clause, and then you would insert this language in. And it's the language that AOE and DCF recommended yesterday. I should have taken this highlighting out, my apologies, I was just, for my own purposes, highlighting words that I was adding as I was draft, as I was copying this, just to provide some clarification, but otherwise, this is the language that DCF and AOE provided to you. The original draft, as the bill as introduced, Because of the way it was drafted required rulemaking and this does not require rulemaking, so you'll notice that that's a difference between the bill is introduced and your amendment. Otherwise, it is the language you walked through yesterday with an effective date of 07/01/2026.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: That's too simple.

[Speaker 0]: Thoughts, if we know what's trying to do. Yeah. Oh, no. That'll do here. Yeah. I think if we're ready for motion

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I mean, price snagging.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we give those a minute too? Yeah. Yeah. Price snagging. I think she's gonna be the evidentiary.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Momentous moment to get in here. There's always

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

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: are also. So how is your stress level, Christy? K?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think I'll answer that question off camera. Yeah.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: We're we're good. Oh, okay.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I appreciate the inquiry.

[Speaker 0]: So to say. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Alrighty. Have to draft everything and every committee. Good to go.

[Speaker 0]: So, you have Senator a new version.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: There somewhere in that final one page or one of the two pages actually. It went through and it's that's not. Okay. And it's just what we went through yesterday except for little kind of like you should say.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. You you put in education group, too. That's why you highlighted that. Correct?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And I did that for me, and I meant to take it out.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Just the highlights. Yes. Yes. Well, so

[Speaker 0]: we were on the verge of making a motion do it. Great. Thank you.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, I move that we pass draft number 1.2 S214. Second.

[Speaker 0]: Second. Anybody, any discussion? Okay. Berkshire commenced to call the rule.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Sergeant Brown Gogartz?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. The guards laughed usually.

[Speaker 0]: He was laughing. Well, anyway, city person.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Take it up. Right. Sergeant Heffernan. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Sergeant Rashim. Yes.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Sergeant Ram Hinsdale?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Sergeant Williams? Yeah. 656.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: 600. Zero So, obviously, yeah. Oh, sorry. Weeks. I was in the comments. Said, oh, that's totally fine. Time of weeks. Yes, sir. 600. See, I took it for a driver's machine. Good. Who's gonna record

[Speaker 0]: it? Any volunteers? Oh, you're reporting the other one, right?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, you can. No, I can report it. It's a single page. We'll see.

[Speaker 0]: If the other patient's easier, let's describe what it does.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. I do.

[Speaker 0]: I just got that. The extract.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So I'll get the warrant tomorrow and on the floor.

[Speaker 0]: Right. Yeah. The dentist is one of rules easy, and then this would be. Oh, it's alright. I don't think so. You can use that now. No. No. I think so. Once in while, I get surprised, but I don't think so. What don't you think? I don't think she's joining the next committee.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We're gonna surprise you

[Speaker 0]: on this.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, don't I think you guys I'll remember remember how that went forward, but that's not gonna happen at the end.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, so I will plan on Friday. You're right. Okay. So, now we will shift gears to Ruth. Kind of a a little refresher on S two thirteen. So, actually, if don't mind giving just give us a little refresher.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: On s two thirteen? Yeah. Or oh, I'm sorry. 313? Yes. Sure. Do you want me to share my screen or just talk about it?

[Speaker 0]: I think we all got this.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So S-three 13 is an act relating to transforming Vermont's career technical education system, and it is entirely intent language. It's section one or findings and intent. So, section one starts with findings. There are four findings and they take you through pages one and two. And then starting on page three, section two is the legislative intent language regarding creating a transforming Vermont CTE system and it kind of has buckets of topics. So, the first aspiration is to provide universal access, ensuring that every student can participate in CTE programming, including pre tax foundation courses by, and then it enumerates how you hope to do that, including increasing access, reducing barriers, providing consistency and admissions policies, addressing the wait list issue. The second kind of aspirational bucket of concepts here is enabling flexible delivery models, expanding beyond regional tech centers to offer multiple pathways for CTE students to access CTE programming by delivering programs at sending high schools or in hybrid format and utilizing shared resources and technology to improve educational access and transportation needs. Page four, line five is the third topic and that is aligning with CPE system with workforce needs. Number four is creating a sustainable student centered funding system that removes disincentives for participation and supports program growth and innovation. Number five is exploring the viability and impact of CE centers becoming diploma conferring institutions or comprehensive high schools. And then addressing the credits issue that you've heard testimony on. The sixth topic is maintaining a strong adult CTE system by building robust adult and continuing education pathways within CTE that meet Vermont up skilling, pre skilling and workforce development needs. And then the seventh kind of bucket or topic is coordinating CTE governance by establishing governance approaches that strengthen collaboration across districts, improve consistency and program quality, and better support positive student outcomes with an effective date for the entire bill of 07/01/2026. That is a very fast summary, but it is all intent language around those broader topics.

[Speaker 0]: Yep, discussion. Looks great.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I still page three, line fifteen, sixteen, 17. I still think we might be getting ourselves in a little bit of trouble here that a student who doesn't necessarily make their thought into the local CTE, would setting ourselves up with provisioning for transportation. And there's no boundaries, but it's like, you know, it's very aspirational. Although I think at some point the responsibility needs to be shared between the district or supervisory union

[Speaker 0]: and parents.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: We're just setting this up for it. It's complete responsibility of the school system and I'm not sure big pill to swallow to become 100% of the small footprint. So, again, it's a caution and how districts respond would be interesting.

[Speaker 0]: So your concern is that we're trying to transport this inexpensive endeavor and without without boundary. There's there's no boundary.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: That that's just cautious. That's the same here. Yeah. Go ahead. I think let's make sure I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: look at the same thing. Page three, line 16 fifteen and sixteen. I think the way well, first, it is legislative intent, you know, it does say it's locally accessible program and and viable alternative. So, I mean, I think that, a student in Bridalboro can't access the program, they're not gonna send them

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: two hours by or anything like that.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Let's do a sidewalks if you have a question. Yep. Yeah. Concern.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I have no doubt that the house commerce committee most likely will work on it more. And, you know, we had our CTE directors ready to come in and be more specific in these areas. They're constantly trying to figure out critical mass of students that are getting denied because of the number of seats in a place that's how to get them transported somewhere else, which I would argue ultimately can result in the kinds of economies of scale that help our education finance system as well. If kids get waitlisted somewhere, they don't continue to participate in the same way, they don't get on a career path that they wanna get on, we've essentially kind of pushed that student away from their flexible pathway to success. And we have we believe in flexible pathways to success because we want every child to grow up and become economically productive and spiately productive. So this is intent and it is aspirational in it saying, if we can figure it out and there are enough students who are getting waitlisted or denied somewhere just because of placement amounts and facilities, especially, it's in our best interest too that they be able to get the kind of education they're passionate about somewhere else.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: So I was here in time it was intentional to put that in there.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. And it I mean, it'll may an issue every time we it mirrors what we tried to do last year in just for a unique situation. But ultimately, this is one of the areas where we have I mean and I think we do need to talk about it again when we talk about the larger maps. There are districts that will say, I wanna send you to Essex because we already have a bus going to Essex. Essex doesn't have health care. So they they need to go to Saint Albans. And men and right now, they are figuring out how to get to Saint Albans by themselves. Maybe we'd like to say, is there a bus full of students that would like to do nursing in Saint Albans? That's good for our education system at some point.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: I can't even read it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you. I'm very passionate about this one.

[Speaker 0]: I can go. So, you know, go ahead. I was gonna say, what does provide consistency in admission policies across all CTE centers? I'm just thinking about the fact that they operate differently. Mhmm. And a comprehensive is going to have a different admission system for good reason than one that isn't. So is that what we really want to say?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, mean, don't know. I think the question is what are our admissions policies for academic centers? Right? Like when you do set admissions policies for CTEs, what we've heard is legitimate is safety and they're not mature enough to be around electrical equipment or something like that. So that's what you're talking about. That doesn't mean they can't be accepted to a CTE. That could mean they're not allowed around certain equipment.

[Speaker 0]: No, I was thinking about it differently.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. I

[Speaker 0]: was just thinking about the different models and the way that they work. Oh. The way that comprehensive works, for instance.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Was written out long discussion about you're denied because you can't be around the equipment you want to

[Speaker 0]: be around. But you're thinking

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: about it. Yeah. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, another, I'm gonna just load another collaging statement. We're getting testimony, and that is that certain students were denied seats and CTEs because of disciplinary issues at the sending school. And same page, page three, line 15, paragraph d. No student shall be placed or prevented, blah blah blah. There are some scenarios where it's the the student who has created the barrier to acceptance to a CTE and not the school. And we're not reflecting that some students have generated their own destinies and I don't want to ignore that.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Do you want to add a line?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I'm not sure. I'm just, it's again, another caution that, you know, everything's leaning towards the side of the student. What's the student and the student's family responsibility to perform? You know, everything is, you know, life Well, has

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the goal of this is to say that career technical education shouldn't be treated like such a privilege that you get stuck in an academic center where you're not succeeding. If they could if they could work through some of those issues with you. Right now, they are using a lot of reasons to deny our waitlist students because they have no space.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: One of the reasons was disciplinary reasons. I do remember the testimony. And what do you do with this language? What do you do with that student? Now here it appears that the student has the privilege regardless of private

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: student in good standing? Yeah.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Unless. I mean, just just like expulsion or suspension from academic centers, we've had long debates about what rises to the level of denying someone their education. And, like, there are different layers of disciplinary. This is aspirational to say we should make a fairly consistent and understandable definition of what gets you barred from a career technical center, which probably are the same things that might get you barred from your academic center as well. Yeah.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: That would be a good thing to

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: put in there, but at least, like Senator Weeks is saying, we have you have a child or a student that's given trouble, and he said, Well, gosh, I'll just sign up and go to a CTE. They have no reason to deny me, even though I've been in trouble with the school, and it just protects the CTB, I believe, as well. And it makes the student say, hey, I have to be responsible for my actions if I wanna make a person to eat.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. They do have I mean, they they all have to meet a lot of federal and OSHA requirements to provide a safe space for everyone.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We're talking about the student getting there, not once the students there, is if you have a student misbehaving, right,

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: am

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I hitting you right, at at at school. Yeah. And they decided, well, I'm gonna, I see here, there's no reason to be barred from going to the CTE, so I had all this trouble at school. Now I'm just gonna pick to go to the CTE and there's nothing to say that I have to, my behavior has to change.

[Speaker 0]: Do you think?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right, yes. So we can't let the student use this avenue to continue their behavior and see if it's the itch.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I mean, this behaving is a huge range of things

[Speaker 0]: right now. So but just that's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: it it's Ram Hinsdale would

[Speaker 0]: say that. Not the same. Yeah. If you

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I think. If you're no, because they because we heard it. Yeah. Young. They listened and weren't prevented.

[Speaker 0]: It's all Or

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: you're about some AOE.

[Speaker 0]: Well, here's what I was thinking.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Because AOE gave us not

[Speaker 0]: great information. Well, whatever. We could say from line 16 from accessing for lack of capacity when there's a viable altercation to that, right?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Yeah, I just, I wanna get I wanna make a two two Yeah. Leading in the direction of

[Speaker 0]: Right. Yeah. I think that's the point. Yeah. No. Sure. Sorry. Didn't. Was like, oh, good. Right. Yep.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Can I go back to your Yes? Original point I made about transplantation? Yes. So let's say CTE center a has 200 seats. CTE center b had to turn away 200. Yes. So they don't we don't know why they were turned away, but transportation was the issue. And CTE center a was willing to provide transportation to a school within the district

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Mhmm.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: That couldn't support, you know, their 200 students. So I guarantee you, if if we pass this bill and that part of it's written, CTE center will find a way to either find more seats if they lose students.

[Speaker 0]: Mhmm.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: But in the meantime, you're gonna have CTE center a is gonna is gonna get the 200 seats. That's right. Right. And they said they can support the 200 additional seats.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the whole point of this is that kids get stuck in these financing pragmires and these other things that when they say, well, a seat might open up, and we wouldn't wanna lose their 2 ish of dollars, so we're gonna keep them on the wait list for four months. And meanwhile, they've lost another opportunity. And then we heard from the students, we lose them to other states eventually because the system makes it easier for them to get the education they want.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Well, to your point, they were good points. Did I? Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Did you decide if that's in turn? Well, think we, well, one suggestion's on line 16 after, after, from accessing CT, afterwards, or lack of capacity when they're accessing CTE. So I think that's what Right. The point That

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it's unique to they could get somewhere else and not have behavioral issues that barred up from.

[Speaker 0]: So Hope we'll still have a session. So if if there's an all the way in here, hopefully, we'll also take off the carrier.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: And we'll see you again.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Well, we like to make it the way we want it before it goes there. Let's let's make it and fix

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: it here. So I think those words up the trick. Grab a whole set of words.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That was the intent. It's not to say you have to take the student no matter what. It's to say there shouldn't be easy reasons to deny that that have nothing to do with safety.

[Speaker 0]: So if we add the words that I just had You would

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: like a committee to commit.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Got it. Just put those three words. Got it. Anything else? Move off the meds? Yeah. Don't want to go as well. I don't want to speak to a lot of these. Alright. Then I'll look for a motion.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The move? Oh, I'm not gonna be able to get you an amendment today. Oh. Oh. I have a meeting at four that I need to go to. Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Well I'm you're fine today. What was promotion?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Remember how

[Speaker 0]: I want to talk

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: about 10%?

[Speaker 0]: So we have to be back We do. We have to be back tomorrow anyway.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. Yes. We can.

[Speaker 0]: So the beginning.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So so we need to go to finance? I don't know. Try to think, like

[Speaker 0]: Probably will. No. It's okay.

[Committee Assistant (name not stated)]: Well, anyway, we'll make it.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We'll make it work.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Administration. Yeah. Unrelated to the failure. We we did see an email that came

[Speaker 0]: out about timing and what have you. Can you kinda you guys have a

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: little more experience. Quite a bit more experience here. What is the timing? Do have to get out of committee by Friday afternoon?

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then policy committees.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Out of the policy committees so it can go into finance. Mhmm.

[Beth St. James (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And then they have a week.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Good.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: I'll go back with a week or another, and we are done for the day. We're adjourned.