Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Hello. We're gonna

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: do it one at a time.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Okay, that's fine.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so this is Center Education Committee, March 13, and today we have a light agenda, but we have, it's great, we have two students, we're both student board members, SS Leslie Westberg, who are coming perhaps in that capacity to give some response to their take on some parts of Addison, pretty much what exactly you want to talk about, that's up to you. We'll just start with, Emma, do you have the help with pronounce your name?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Kappa Moody.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep. Yep. Okay. Kappa Moody, just the way it looks actually. Okay. So, so, Emma, you are from, do you live in the town of Westford?

[Emma Campludi (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Yeah, I live in Essex Junction.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Essex Junction, okay. Why don't we actually read? We'll first introduce ourselves. Oh, you welcome back to event.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Hey, Matt. So, good afternoon.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Dave Good Weeks, work center development council. I'm Seth Bongartz from the Bennington District.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Sergeant Terry Williams, also from. Steve Heffernan from Addison Counties.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Kesha Ram Hinsdale. It was nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So the floor is yours. I'm here.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: What year are you?

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: I'm a junior. My

[Emma Campludi (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: name is Emma Campludi and I serve as one of the student representatives on the Essex Westford School District School Board. As a student, I see every day how important special education services are for my peers. These services are in jeopardy with the upcoming Act 73. In our district alone, thirty one percent of students receive support through an IEP or a five zero four plan. That's more than one in three students. Over a thousand kids whose success depends on these services. Special education also represents about a third of our district's budget. Because supporting students with different needs requires real resources, real staff, and time. Under Act 73, EWSD could lose nearly $6,000,000 due to the Farm Bureau Foundation. Maintenance of effort requires us to meet the previous year's expenditure, which if not met, would lose an additional 1,400,000 in federal funding for special education. But in the interest of budget change, it's Bureau of Services and Bureau of Supports for students who already face barriers to school. Our district already works. We merged under Act 46, serving over 4,000 students, and our outcomes exceed the state average. Please protect federal education funding and their students who are in.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. Go away. I'm going smart for it. A Maybe couple of comments or questions. So, I think your your point about the importance of the maintenance effort, maintenance of effort, and not using the money for failure to meet that members of members. It's a good one. And want that as we go forward with this. To take care of about. So, your point is well taken about the need for that. Make us an

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: effort by any any anybody else. We do have a just a quick question. So, chair Bongartz's point, not really sure of maintenance about Brooklyn. Why why you why your district lose 1,400,000.0 in federal funding and how we can affect federal funding aspect of this particular issue?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm not sure on the details of it. I can get back to you on that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Think that there's a federal requirement that they'll spend less on special ed than you get penalized. So it's called payments of outburns. We have to spend at least the same amount, I believe, before you get penalized. So your caution to us is to make sure that we don't force you into tripping that and losing the $1,400,000 in federal funding.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So yes. So then your point is that that the new formula foundation formula for special education would sum up to 6,000,000 less than current than you currently see than your district currently receives. Okay. Right. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Thank you. Hello, everyone. My name is Cyrus Lynch. I am also a junior at Essex High School, and I am a student representative on the Essex Westward School District School Board. I have the same topic as Emma. Thank you very much. I am here to address my deep concerns surrounding the problems with special education funding that are associated with the new foundation formula that would be implemented under Act 73. Foundation formula, as written, will cut significant funding for special education. The EWSD will be forced to replace these funds or lose $1,400,000 of government money. The Essex Western School District was, just last year, forced to cut almost $6,000,000 from our budget, which has had undeniable effects on our community. We cut 100 staff positions close to school and made many other sacrifices. To maintain our special education funding under the foundation formula, something we are required by law to do, we would have to cut another $6,000,000 from our general education budget. Dollars 6,000,000 is over a quarter of Essex Westford School District's entire special education budget. To make up this money, what would we have to cut? Taking $6,000,000 out of our budget would be the equivalent of cutting our entire student transportation budget and our entire athletics budget. It would still fail to build the deficit. Special education is an important facet of the education of hundreds of students across DWSD, over 30% of all students in the district. I personally benefit from special education as a student with a five zero four Plan, which gives students with disabilities the equitable opportunities they need to learn effectively in the classroom. Having this plan allows me to make the most of my education and has undeniably improved my experience as a student in PWS State. While underfunding special education will obviously have the most impact on students, it also affects staff across the district. My mother works in special education, managing and supporting students with five zero four plans, and I see personally how hard she works every day to ensure that all of these kids get what they need. She loves her job, but her caseload is already huge, and I know that cutting this much money from special education would be devastating. It is easy to think of the grand scheme of things, monetary effects that will play out over years and years, but this thinking neglects students in our school right now. Our dedicated approach to special education is one of the things I value most about my district. For example, our high school offers programs that encourage both special education students and non special education students to collaborate and learn from each other in subjects such as art, music, cooking, and physical education. Without the funding that supports our wonderful and dedicated students and staff, programs like this would not be possible. You are claiming to develop and enact Act 73, the pursuit of equity for all students, but a plan to reduce funding for some in order to average out support for all hurts the hundreds of students who already rely on these services. I agree that we need to promote equity and reduce costs, but these goals will not be achieved by harming students in our top performing districts. We need to focus on lifting all schools up to higher standards with greater equity and affordability in mind instead of hobbling Vermont education. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Questions? Comments? Well, I

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: think you brought up a lot of really important points that I mean, I also just think it's great when students testify. So this is meant to sort of bring you into the full conversation. I've really been a champion of the foundation formula regardless of the ultimate level we decide. I know that's a really important detail, but you said, you know, we need to make sure we bring all students up to these standards. Right now, without a foundation formula, communities often vote their budgets down based on their own political will of how much they think they want to raise property taxes, even if their property tax bill, honestly, nothing to do with their school vote. So the challenge for us is how to set it at an amount that is generous, which the foundation formula we approved is the most generous in the country. But how we approve an amount that's generous both for the base amount and also for special education. But do it so that we're also telling districts, you can't underspend on your kids. Everybody's paying now based somewhat on their ability, and I think we need to fix that part, for every student to get equal dollars for their education. I just wanted to invite you sort of into our world this session of how how we create equity when some districts have the political will to spend much higher and some, their political will is to spend much lower.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, some of those districts are, some of the poorest districts in the state

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: of It often relates to they don't think they can afford their budget.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, even though, as you suggest, there's not necessarily a connection, but anyway. But still the points, you know, points are good for us to hear. And well, echo. I said a lot about the skills comment about how really is that students come in and testify. That is a logical thing. Yes. So I'll ask you

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: the challenging question. Again, appreciate you guys coming in. It's one thing to identify a problem. It's another thing to identify a solution. Can you give us a sense, your thoughts on the solution to the problem that you've identified? That's the same question.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: I think I would personally need more time to get back to you with an in-depth answer, but I can certainly do that soon.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'd love like a student version of our committee that's like wrestling the same thing.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And you'll see that we know it's wrong, but fixing it is

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so one of the other, just to have, we're having a discussion now. Yeah. We're having a discussion. So one of the challenges for the committee, Senator Rutland is that we've alluded to this, is that we saw in 2024 especially kind of a tax revolt and a lot of school budgets getting voted down which does a lot of harm as well. And so the concern is that if you don't fix the system somehow and make it work at a level that voters feel they can afford, then we're gonna go through that cycle over and over and have ups and downs. And and so we're trying to figure out a way to have the rate of increase on school budgets go at a rate that voters will accept, make it more uniform as Senator Rutland was suggesting, and still do it in a way that hopefully we can say is improving education system quality. So that's the challenge we're facing. But we also don't want to make mistakes. So I think you could raise issues with us about your concerns or that is but I also appreciate Senator Weeks challenge to you because we get sometimes it's being able to identify the problem is one thing and then, okay. What do we do with that? So if you wanted to if you wanted to think about it more and be in touch with us, we could either have you on quite a different day or you could send us something. That's up to you, but that would be great. Yes, if

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: you and your student council can get together and see what you come up for answers for us. Great. I see, you know, IEP are one of the drivers of how things have gotten so expensive because the individual learning plan is geared to one individual, and it takes a lot more to one than it does 15 or 20. However, we wanna make sure every individual is getting the same information. So there's where the problem lies. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: alright. Thank you.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you for coming in. I forgot

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: to hand these out, but anyone Don't take a mask. Oh,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I can't.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Thank you. Take care. You too.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Alright. So, we have with us Julie, you're right. Good ball. So I got an email from Julie suggesting that on the map that we are taking our looks at that we thought we had or we wanted to make a suggestion about what might make more sense for her to serve. Julie, if you just introduce yourself for the record and then give us your advice.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Thank you for having me. For the record, my name is Julie Regenball. I'm superintendent of the Missisquoi Valley School District. Here we serve Swanton, Highgate and Franklin, and all of our pre K through six elementary schools go to Missisquoi Valley Union Middle and High School, which is a seventh through twelfth school. I have been lucky enough to live here in Swanton for twenty three years, serve as an administrator in Franklin County and merge in two school districts. I've been here in Missisquoi for eight years. I was hired the year the state board decided to merge through Act 46, what was Franklin Northwest into our new Unified School District. And as I referenced, do wanna be clear from the outset. Am happy to answer questions about my letter. In no way am I here to testify about the status quo or to have opinions about supervisory unions versus districts or the map itself and the pros and cons of that. I'm really just here to, as I had questions about why to me, did not make sense for us to be part of a Supervisory Union number eleven and a couple of reasons for that. Truly, I think we did merge in that process through Act 46. It was a tough one in our community. People were not for it. Although now folks that were against that merger admit that this has been successful and that we've become much more efficient and effective organization and are able to provide more for our students. And I love that that is the sentiment here. That makes me very proud of the work that our school boards, our leaders, our teachers, that everyone in our community, our families have done. I recognize that this is an incredibly heavy lift that you have in front of you. And so this is not a criticism of the map in general. I am concerned about a couple of things. One, during the State Board merger, Sheldon was removed from what was once Franklin Northwest Supervisory Union because it has a different operating system. They were K-eight with school choice for high school. And we are a pre K through 12 single district system. So to me, that really doesn't make sense in your supervisor union configuration. I certainly understand you're looking at the islands, you're looking at places that have choice and putting them together. We do not have choice except within our own district. Also, think my next biggest concern is CTE. We are part of the Northwest Career and Technical Center region with Maple Run. We send a lot of students there. We want to strengthen that even further. Have our Oh, own, please.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Maple Run is in what town of San Antonio? What town is the CTE in?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Maple Run is St. Albans City Town in Fairfield.

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

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Yeah. So BFA and MVU, although they're rivals, they are aligned in terms of their technical center education. And that's an important alliance for us. We are both pre K through 12 education systems. We have our Ag program that is a comprehensive high school model, which means we can't receive students, but we are a tech center, a standalone just for diversified agriculture. And alignment with our tech center would actually be able to strengthen that. We could partner more strongly and I think that would be a definite benefit to our students. So this is not about, we don't want to merge, of course, I know you're hearing that from lots of people. It may make sense, it is your remit to look at that. Just the supervisory union model in our place. I look at those that you have listed as not merging yet in your map with gray towns, many of which are smaller than our school district. We currently serve eighteen eighty nine students. Certainly understand that that may need to get bigger by adding other places, but my testimony really is that this particular configuration does not make logistical sense. We do not share any operating similarities with those other districts within the Supervisory Union eleven.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so, Osisko, remind us of the three towns you've set them.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Sure.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I didn't have SU 11 in front of me when you stutter me.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's okay.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: It's right in the middle of that SU. It's Franklin Highgate Swanton.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Franklin Highgate Swanton. Okay. Haven't figured out which of those who they are but but yeah, You're an SD right now, the three of you boarded SD right?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: We did, yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Through the You're state

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: currently a supervisory district and think it and your suggestion is that we not merge you into an SU. If anything, you should be, I think you're saying with the gray area. Correct. Yeah.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: And understanding that in your proposal, you're looking at then those gray area districts may need to look at partners. And I'm not here to speculate what partnerships make the most sense. I haven't talked, our boards have not conferred with one another, that's work that would be to follow. But yes, that would be my ask of the committee is that as you're working through this, Ms. Iscoy makes more sense to me to be a gray area.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You're doing what we wanted people to do which is come in and say you know this makes more sense.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So hear you noted. Any questions you got? So, thank you. So, you represent three communities now in your in your district. How many schools does that equate to?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: How many students? Schools. Oh, schools. We have four schools. An elementary school in each town, Franklin Highgate Swanton and, MVU.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. So one high school, three elementary schools.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Correct.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Thank you. And then total student count.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: 89.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So how many in the high school?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Seven fifty ish in that range. It's a middle high school, so it's seven twelve.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, seven twelve.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: The high school itself has over 500 students.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: How small is the smallest of your elementary schools?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Our smallest elementary school is our highest performing school. It is Franklin, and they have 130 plus students pre K through six. Our largest is Swanton and they have over 600 students. Highgate's right in the middle, two eighty something. So we real and they all go to MBU.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, fair.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, another question. Okay. So one high school, three elementary schools as a professional superintendent. I assume you've been in the education business probably for a career. Do you feel you could manage more schools? Yes,

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: listen,

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: superintendents manage many schools. I mean, some of them in other parts of the country have hundreds of schools, right? But then there's layers of bureaucracy with that. So I think that's what you all have in front of you to consider is the size we're at, at 1,800. I have a very lean administrative team, they're highly skilled and we all work very closely together. And I can be reading to fourth graders and testifying with you all in the same week, right? So it's much more hands on in a school district of this size, and you can actually move without delegating to lots of assistant superintendents. If we had a countywide district, which I know lots of people have talked about, in some ways that may make sense or not make sense. You then just have to weigh how many more layers of administration to do the work of running schools and making sure students have what they need. I think that we're very efficient and we don't have lots of layers of administration. I don't have an assistant superintendent at this size. And I certainly understand that we may need to get bigger. It's not about me. I'm at a certain end of my career. I can look back and think about what's best for kids in Vermont and not be thinking about myself or just my own district. But I do care very much about the children of this community and their educational outcomes. That's why I wrote the email.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I appreciate that. Senator Heffernan has a question in a second, I was gonna say, we have heard that your echoing testimony we've heard before about the, and I'm not, I don't know where I land on all of this, you just, I'll say your echoing testimony we've heard from at least one of the superintendents about the, you begin to get too much larger than you have, then you end up with middle management. Right now you don't have any middle management. So we'll just note that that's a point we understand. Senator Heffernan. Price per student.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Average price. We

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: did not pass our budget, so we're going out again. Our proposed spending per long term weighted ADM is $1,200 $173 So we are one of the lower spending schools, more than $8,012,000

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: dollars

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: 12,000 yeah. Dollars

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: If you're doing it for 1,200, you're gonna

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: say No. That'd be swell. I apologize for that.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: We're in the twentieth percentile or below for our spending per long term weighted NEM and moving our outcomes toward the average range and moving in that direction. It's never good enough but we're moving in the right direction. Any

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: other questions? So that Thank you. Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. I'm just curious if your school district has initiated any conversations with nearby school districts regarding OC's concept.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: No, we haven't because we're certainly intrigued by the idea. I was a special ed administrator in St. Albans for ten years and I was interim superintendent there as well before the merger. We certainly talk a lot about the need for shared services. Looking at what the configuration ends up looking like as a state, If we were a county system, I don't know that we'd need a BOCES, we'd probably have a shared service. So it really depends on what the map and the governance system ends up looking like to see where the sharing needs to happen. But it's certainly an intriguing idea. I think that schools like ours, I can't find a nurse right now. There are speech and language services that we have to contract out with companies to provide. BOCES would be very helpful as long as the gaps are analyzed and they're providing the services that are really needed.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Brian, if I entertain what I was talking about through one system, so you can ask whatever you want. Okay. Thank So you, I've posed one unified school system.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Yes.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And from there it breaks down, it's like, there'll be, you have one superintendent up top and then basically break down who, admin, but it'd be another superintendent, broke into areas that you have that would rate it per how many students they have to take care of. So each administrator, let's say 2,000 to 4,000 students. That way everything, all of our, losing my words here, shared services would be under one where that if you needed a nurse, you don't have to worry about another district. You call it if somebody has a nurse that you can use. Would that be possible? Do you think, believe that that would be a good way to go as well? That you'd still be responsible for 2,000 children to 4,000 students, sorry, but you're all under one unified school system?

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Don't know that I can really comment effectively on that. It's an intriguing idea. I did watch your presentation. I don't know whether the layers of bureaucracy would be and logistics would be a barrier or not. Those would be my questions.

[Cyrus Lynch (Student Board Member, Essex Westford SD)]: Great, thank you. Of course.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think that's it but your testimony's been helpful. That's good. Doing exactly what we wanted people to do. So by the way pass the word around to your colleagues if they've got any if they've got other if they look at the map and go, we should be here, we will need to hear that.

[Julie Regenball (Superintendent, Missisquoi Valley School District)]: Well, you for the opportunity. I appreciate it and I wish you luck in this tricky endeavor.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. So that's it. That's it. Yeah, I think every other committee is trying to get bills out there, but we did it early. That's how efficient we are. So we

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: are