Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Hello.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, the Center of Education Committee, after a short break on the afternoon of April 9, and we are hearing from one board witness for today, that's Lydia Cochran, principal the of Peachman Elementary School. And on that topic, we start with couple of witnesses ago about what the minimum class size is start time. Yep. What what time when does it make sense to start to not not if but when? Right. Does it make sense? How do the clock start ticking because that's a bunch of perilous? Yeah. So, So.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Yeah, great. Thank you so much. I know I'm the last one of

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: the day, so I'll try to make

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: a brief. We heard from Tim this morning, so I'm gonna hear from Lisa tomorrow, but I want to thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak with you all about 09:31 and when to start class size and as you said, not if, but when. Just a little bit about my background. This is my fifth GQR as an educational leader in public schools. I just finished my doctorate through Antioch University specializing on equity and predominantly white rural schools. What that looks like, I'm currently in principal at Windham Elementary School. Previous to this, I was the principal for pre K through third grade at the St. Johnsbury School. Before that, I was an educational leader in Chelsea Public Schools, and I taught about public schools as a middle school math teacher. I have seen, as a teacher, I've had 19 to 33 students any given year. I don't recommend thirty three fifth graders teaching that, but in Vermont, I've seen class sizes from about 10 to 19 depending on the school, depending on the age as well. I've seen a lot of different class sizes, seen a lot as a teacher and as a principal, as well as school sizes in a variety of environments as well. Here with that in mind, my educational and my professional experience. I'm here to advocate for pushing the start of class size minimums to 2030 instead of having it start 2027. There's two main reasons. First is that class size minimums alone are not a cost saving measure, and so having them start before the other provisions of Acts 73 would cause a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion, and it would force schools to have to make decisions in isolation of future changes that are coming as well. It could double up on costs, but I think most importantly, what I want to advocate for is that having it start before the rest of the provisions would really cause schools to have to make decisions within confusion and not with a whole picture perspective. Last but not least within that kind of thought process is that the whole purpose of DOCSIS-three is for cost saving measures, to hopefully better provide students with an equitable education. If you start one piece before the other parts, it's not going to move you any closer towards equity for students. I think putting them together may be the right way. I'm advocating is the right way to go. The next reason I want to bring in my research and my educational experience and through my doctorate work, because what I found when looking into what equity means in rural public schools, I found that actually the lack of clarity with the term rural and equity has caused a lot of policy to fall short and to fall flat and not get anywhere. It may start the ball rolling, but then it might

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I love to read your word.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Yeah. When I read about class size provisions, I am left wondering, as the principal of the PGIM Elementary School, is a class the same thing as a grade? In Pugh M we have multi grade classes. This will be my first year working with multi classes and I see the benefit of it in this small school. I'm wondering if that is incorporated. If I'm thinking about class size minimums, do I have to meet the class size minimum for just fifth grade? If I have a five, six class, and do I have to meet the class size minimum of my grade six as well? If I put the two of them together, that would make a much larger class size, right? Way beyond the minimum. But if I have them separate, this year I have three sixth graders and I have ten fifth graders. It makes a great class together, a really strong class together, but separately, I wouldn't need the class size minimum. Then the next year I'd have ten fifth graders. Well, this year I have four fourth graders. I have eleven third graders, we have alternating classes. I don't know what it is about KJM. I don't know why we have such a small group and such a big group year after year, but that causes a lot of wondering and a lot of the future of PJM is uncertain when we think about those class size minimums. I think the time would allow for more clarity with that as well, because at the moment, even with the class size minimums, my teachers and my community are thinking about, Okay, well, we have to meet this. If this student lives in Barnett, but pays taxes in Peacham, they have to come to the Peacham School, but they have an older sibling that goes to the Barnett School in seventh grade, and it would actually be really great if they could go to the same school together or the same supervisory union, but it's causing a lot of tension between where is this kid going to school, will they count towards our class size minimum, will they count towards their class size minimum, and it takes the conversation out of what's best for that student and that family and that educational experience versus the panic of, Will this mean we have to go at least? I think that's the reality of what teachers and community members are thinking about right now when they think about the cost size minimums, but if it's in If we have three years after App 73 would start in 2030, we'd have a chance to make a big picture decision as a supervisory union with the other districts around us, and then make a really thoughtful decision about how we're structuring our schools, who we're merging, what we're consolidating, what are we closing, who are we merging with, and then moving forward that way.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Oh, yeah.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think you were first by a

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: last No, I'm here. Yeah. Well, maybe maybe you'll get to this, but, you know, this is your academic pursuit. This is something you can live every day. I I think I mean, I'll just speak for myself, but I found that this committee is really open to the flexibility based on what works best for a student. And then it's really hard to figure out how small is too small to be good for students. Right? Like, when we hear about ripped in, it is like, that doesn't sound great to, like, take kids to school. You know? Yeah. Do you like and then you're managing these big shifts in a population. What what flexibility do you need? Like, you're and maybe you're just you're asking, should it be by grade or or class? It should probably be what works best for your kids. Yeah. You know? So, if you wanna recommend those things, or you should feel free.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Okay. Yeah. I think I think having the flexibility to meet the needs of different communities is best. My personal opinion would be test kits at a school that's too small. What I find to teach them is that the multi age classes are great and they work really well. I think the two things that I've noticed is one is that when you're in a small school or any school you have In a small school, you have your class, and then you're with that class for your whole ten Yes. The multi age class gives you a year If you're a first grader, you're with the second graders for your first year, but then you have the next class a minute, and you're with a different class the second year. It gives them that alternating year to have a different class in a different environment, and that strengthens the educational experience because kids learn from each other, right? What if you have 10 kids in a class and there's just some dynamics that don't Well, giving them a year apart allows them to mature a little, change things, develop friendships in other ways, I think that's one benefit. The second benefit is, I think some people would be like, Well, it'd be very hard to teach a multi gauge class because you have two different grade standards. You have standards for two different grades. What it does allow for is it allows for more flexibility and to meet the students where they're at. You can go as quickly as the students need. You can go as slowly as the students need, but you're going based on what they need and not what you're told, I have to hit this standard, but actually if you have students that are behind and none of your students are ready, you can actually do some extension work or intervention work for all the kids. If you have some, you can do extension work and intervention. I think it provides a variety of flexibility that really becomes a student centered experience. That's what I see about multi age classrooms. I do think that A recommendation would be that it would be based on classes and schools could decide what grades are in that class. I do think the maximum of two grades per class is right. Think it's three. You have first through third grade in one class. That's, I think, too much, too hard. Having first and second graders in one class, I think, works for some students, at least for PGIM. I think allowing schools to define what their classes are, how they structure their classes would be the right way to give them that flexibility with the caveat that you can't have

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: three or four grades in a class

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: versus a grade where people are like, Well, they're 12, so they're in this grade.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I think that would be my recommendation. Yeah. I

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: want us to stall long enough for these communities to get more housing, grow, like have people there, have children. Yeah. You think your community sees that? Because I mean, I'm in the largest school district, but I still say like, you've got to build housing, too. You've got to be here for these meetings too.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Yeah, absolutely. The PGIM has been trying to build, or they've charged their elderly I don't know. The Pigeon Community Housing has been trying to open up affordable housing. They're working with rural edge, and this has been a topic of conversation for at least the past five years. They're desperately trying to increase more housing. I've heard from several community members of, This is really important. We need families. They are specifically reaching out and saying, I have this place available for families. If a family with children are interested in coming here and reaching out through networks to bring families in. We've had a wave of about four child's babies born in last year or so. All of their families are like, you think it's going to be open? Really hard to be able to go there in a few years. Honestly, they are like We're trying We're waiting to see what happens before we have our next child to see, are we going to have to get up and are we going to have to move? Yeah. Or should we continue grow our family and make our home? Wow. I I have mean, this one student who switched to homeschooling this year, which was the right move for that student, and they were planning to come back in the next grade. But they stalled because they weren't sure taking the, like, homeschooling the student would negatively impact us. Because they fully support the school, they're like a huge part of the community, but that was the bright move for their child at this moment, but it did impact whether or not they were going to do it. So families are definitely going be

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: proud and absolutely making sure. Seth Bongartz.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah, just a quick comments. I I think this is one of the things that we have to clarify. I I know it was brought up earlier in the session. In regard to the same issue and I think some of the other factors were, you know, what if there are paraeducators in a class and is that is that two teachers, the amount of students or does it still count at one? Yeah. Another question that I think was brought up was elective classes. If students are have a niche interest that there may not be lots of other students, does that count against the salary as well? If they're under the class size for that particular class? So I think there's a lot of aspects that need to be further clarified. So let's all just say thank you for bringing it back up to the committee.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Of course. I think I won't go into this, but I looked specifically at Vermont policy as well when I was looking at equity educational policy and the lack of clarity in those definitions as well. It has led to, I think, some stalled efforts for Vermont over the years. Very specifically in Vermont, the lack of clarity actually had to happen. Giving time to provide that, I think, would be really helpful so that students and teachers and communities know exactly what they should accept. I think everyone wants to make a really good decision, even if it's hard,

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: and so having that information would allow people to do that.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I mean, just we have you here, you know, Peacham comes up, everyone. Okay. Their parents, their parents, residents. Are you looking at either of the plans coming out of the house or the senate with any, like, you're not, I don't know, I thoughts while you're here. Think

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: what I would want to advocate is that think Pichem could be a really great case study of how a small school can work and how a small school can work with the community. Pichem itself is a very affluent place. Peacham's school community is actually very economically diverse. The community members of the families in the community are not all coming to the table with endless amount of time to volunteer, endless amount of money to donate, and yet they're still showing up for days such as community work days or the fifth grade families are still playing sixth grade graduation. Those are community pieces that they take on because they're committed to the school, they have such a strong relationship. I think there's been some really strong leaders at the future in the past that have set that tone. I think I have grown to really appreciate and see the benefit of small schools, especially in a rural environment. I think future would be a great case study of how education can be equitable education within a rural space, relying on the community and the community relying on the school. I think that I'm just waiting to see what happens. We've done a lot of changes, so I hope that PHM is able to stay open because it is a huge rock to the community. And I can see that the community will continue to support it as we move forward throughout the years. I I've spent a lot of time in urban schools, in Chelsea Public Schools, Boston Public Schools. I was in St. Johnsbury for seven years, which is way beyond anyone's tenure in St. Johnsbury, besides Jerry Ross, who's still there. We still get together. I've seen what an urban ish, rural school environment looks like. I have seen the challenges that impact all the different environments. What I see the benefit PHIP has is that it is a manageable educational experience, and it has a strong connection with the community. Yeah. I hope that there is a way for that to continue to move forward, and that the community and the school can continue to move forward in whatever way shape

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: shape. That Do you know price per child to educate?

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: In PHM? Yes. It's about $15,000 That's

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: good. Yeah. So, you have a school that's able to do that, then it's like, if you blink in this the same way, they're doing multi age classes and and they're about the same. It shows that if you can do it combine this, then why should we mess with it? But at some point, if you do start losing population- Right. Then they have to have,

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: which I think like, that would make sense. But right now we have, have like, I could take some more, I would love to take more students. Yeah, exactly. But right now, like, the group is working. Last year we had 79 proficiency rate for literacy on the VTCAP assessment, which in my tenure across Massachusetts and Vermont, I've never seen a proficiency rate above 40. So, I'm like, This is amazing. This is working. Teachers are willing to step up and take on different roles. Families show up and take on different roles. Kids feel connected to their communities, and they feel connected to each other and continue to care for each other. I think that is something that's missing from a much larger school where the school has to operate you know, more in a routinized way to be efficient because of the size and scale.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We saw teachers doing it, I just stuck in my head, and, you know, was Yeah, and for me to give kids the experience and everything the teachers were doing, which was kind of mind boggling. Yeah.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yeah. So do you believe a CISA or that type of program would help save money as well.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: I'm really curious about it. I grew up in New York, so I'm familiar with BOCES, but I haven't done much research about them, but I am very curious because there's an element of that that makes a lot of sense, right? You're then being able to provide intensive needs, special educators, occupational therapists, physical therapists, to places that can't afford

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: to have them on staff on their own. So, if you can, I'll throw out my, is it one unified system rather than having any districts? That way you can,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: what would your opinion be of that?

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: A unified school system or

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: does Yeah, the unified school system. No districts. Just in Vermont.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: That's a really interesting thought. What I do think that Vermont needs is I think we need really strong leadership to help us move through this. I think we need a really strong vision. If that vision was one school district across the state that allowed for

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: flexibility, School Start, Unified schools, you're ready for universal health. The

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Unified School System that provided flexibility for teachers and schools to make those right to structure education for their communities. I think a strong leadership is needed in education in general, and I think in order for us to move forward with these changes, we need really strong leadership and vision.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: We've seen in supervisory units, when you have really good leadership, how well that supervisory unit does So, like I said, people, but you're right, it is whoever's running the helm. Yeah,

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: so I think, really, different systems could work if the leadership is strong. Yeah.

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

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Yeah, and thanks so much. Awesome. You. Yeah, I was talking about this all the time, so lucky for you, I have to stop times. Yes, have to keep talking now.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: All right, thank you so much. Thank you.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Have a

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: great afternoon. You too. Sorry.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: No, I'm so sorry. Daphne has just formatted better for us. Thank you, Daphne.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't think I've got. Yeah. Learning of god is a weird task. So what if people how do we want to attack this? What were you deciding to call it?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I would say that.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No, no, they weren't attacked. Mean, David and I were having a very spirited debate this morning at American Mellon. I mean, I enjoyed it. I think it's always nice when we get one layer beneath the ask to, like, what fund is it coming from? How sustainable is it? Is it a grant or a loan, you know, which doesn't look like much here, but I have strong feelings about AOE.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Maybe we think about We didn't notice. Maybe we think about just the organizations or the things that are here as a starting point for discussion that we think that we really care about. Like what's really compelling and then we can get into the other markets. Mean, we we have we have the agency. The way obviously the agency has to get funded. Whether we can do that or not just not. I don't know how to, we can either just go down this in order and say, this something we care about to start there, because it's really important, or how do we want to add? Figuring out what

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: topics would take the most discussion and potential controversy we address first to get the hard stuff out of the way. But I guess whether or not something is challenging or controversial is subjective. Hope that was helpful.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And we need the name

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: for this tomorrow, right? Well, actually, maybe you can add it to them on the weekend there. That helps a little bit. I did spend like, this morning just sort of saying, looking at this, that I we'll have to do five weeks tomorrow into a little bit better order if some of this information's stuck into it. But So if we want to use Senator Hashim's approach, it seems that we'd start with the agency,

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: perhaps. Yes.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, mine's it's related to me to Advance Mirabant, and David knows this, from what I said this morning, because sitting on both, maybe he disagreed, I feel like I can see which organizations are plugging real holes for different systems.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you're making Lester, why don't start at the top?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm making the pitch that we that there are more important things to fund than some of what AOE wants to fund. They've given us their new requests, and they've made sure they can share those as permanent positions, but they have already signed additional consulting contracts, like with APA Consulting again, that I think we wouldn't approve if it was a line item here, but now instead they want more money for other things. So I don't I frankly think there are a lot of areas where they have the money internally to do the work and should stop with the consulting contracts and have never gotten me great information on the cost of those. We know APA consulting was a million dollars over the last two years. I would give $400,000 from the AOE budget to Advance Vermont, because what Advance Vermont is asking to do with $600,000 is what AOE frankly said, start giving us $75,000,000 to do, which is embedding themselves with school districts to make sure that they, their counselors, know how to navigate career paths and know how to use their website to do that and give kids career exposure and pathway exposure. I did say this morning, and I think it's important to say here, on Monday, I was in a meeting with my school district, CVSD, the biggest school district in the state. They're in a little bit of a geographic desert between the other CTEs. It's not like they have one located. And AOE said they have to stop offering both ninth and tenth grade career exploratory. They can only have one. I think we need more career exploratory in our schools. So So I would take $400,000 from AOE's request for five more positions and move that to Advance Vermont to get them a total of 600. They have 200 coming from the House budget from Department of Labor.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So why do we have Advancement has 600 ks? That's the request.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's their request and they're at 200 in the House budget. And I just think this is good use of the Education Fund. That's why I'm specifically advocating it come from AOE's portion of the Education Fund because we're out of general fund money, and always, we always look at the education fund and think, well, we could move a little bit if you were there. We haven't really taken a good look at is AOE spending their money wisely. We've asked almost every district I've heard you

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: do a cross government.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, not with the school district.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Cross government. That can be applied to any Sure. I'm a one your bombs up review. You know, the target AOE at this moment, I think is

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: But I

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: will We're on the education committee.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I will say I get that, but I'm saying that the criticism can be applied to any agency at any time until we actually do something about it, and nobody's doing anything about it.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm trying to ask them how they're spending their money, and we did one PowerPoint budget presentation with them where I then had to get from the auditor the information about how much they were spending on certain consulting contracts, and we then learned secondhand that they signed a new consulting contract with APA Consulting, which I don't think is a good use of state funds.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I would argue with you on that. I'm gonna ask you about is the five permanent positions. What were they gonna use those for? Transformation. Transformation. Don't do that. We can't build certain spots already, so there's gotta be a surplus of money, nonfulfilled positions. Of course, pretty much should say. Maybe that's an ask and then, yeah, I agree with you. ANR, every time they think something, they want to add more positions to ask for more money. But if you've got, like, the state police where you got 50 positions now built, you have that extra money.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And if you ask someone like Tom Cheney, I was the biggest critic of his work when we first started funding it. I was the biggest, you know, he is this duplicative with the workforce office now. What are we doing? He has proven that he is doing work nobody else is doing that's really holding our career pathway development system together.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, I will say for what's worth, just looking at Advance Vermont, I think they're doing an amazing job for a very small amount of money. Yeah. And nobody else it's not gonna happen if they're not there.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Exactly.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And it's actually being utilized across everywhere. So I I have a proponent I I won't be the proponent looking at their picking me on how to beat their request of recommending to me beat their request of 600 because I I have to twice I impressed last year. I think they could help with the trust. And these just become recommendations that Yeah. Appropriation could Yeah, it was. You know, that We don't really have deep context for doing what we're doing. They're the only ones with that deep context because they've to balance it against healthcare or everything else. We just have to say we think this is money really well spent and we think it's important, that we should do it. Try to be as disciplined

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: as say anybody can do the re the kinds of reviews they're looking to do outside of committee time. I've done that with Department of Labor in the past. I'm trying to do that with AOE and talk directly to appropriations about all of their additional funding requests when they haven't really been clear how the money is being spent underneath those additional funding requests. And I've gone out of my way to try and learn more about literacy efforts because I don't know that they need $700,000 to do literacy work that we honestly haven't heard in my mind enough about how they want to drive that.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So what are, are, what are peep- do we want to, what's this, what do people think about this? Do we want to, so we have two people I think supporting the notion of, that we would like to support the $600,000 for beds of the month. It's, it was important to Board of Law, I'm saying. I

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: encourage you. That's all we can do because we've encouraged, in every committee, encourage certain things that the appropriation gets there, gets, as Senator Chittenden says, Oh, good. Good.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Does he say?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Butcher. Won't happen now because they're doing the budget. They're doing it next week, so it's

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: remind me again, the recommendation is to take some five positions.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was there, you know, I was just saying that I, at least from my part, been an investor on saying that 600,000 is so really reasonable, asking for a small amount of money that would create a whole world that wasn't happening.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, my midpoint in the argument is that they come from the Ed Fund because the original monies they got were for career navigation through economic development. And that still makes sense through Department of Labor, but their effort right now is meeting an incredible need, is helping guidance counselors and school administrators know the tools available to them to help kids make a plan to grow up to the graduation plan.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Is the 200 that's from the House, is that coming from the ed fund?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No, that's coming from the general circulated corporate labor.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Well, I mean, I support generally them having 600,000, but I do tend to hesitate on taking more from the Ed Fund.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm trying to take it from elsewhere that I I would advocate that they don't need this much money anyway, and that we should do a thorough review of their full budget, not just I thought their PowerPoint was really not something you could look through line item.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I have to agree with Senator Weeks. At this point, it's not just that department, it's every department that kinda needs that,

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: cause there's a lot of

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, you again, you can do that work on your committees of jurisdiction. I've gone through the auditor to get some of that information. So, agencies make it easier than others, frankly, but AOE's not a fee based agency, so they don't have to account as often for how they're spending their money as a fee for service.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, you're this concerned, as a committee, could the chair go, okay, who's

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: on a full breakdown and analysis on this to satisfy your one of

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: the I mean, I don't think they do have the opportunity to satisfy us by this point in the session. And maybe, I don't know if the house was satisfied, I don't know what happened here, but I've already been talking to our appropriations committee saying, can you seek this information? They better give it to you because at some point it becomes not just like, Oh, we don't get a detailed review, to, You're not giving us the clear information. We need

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: to make the financial decisions. So

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: let's, I think we're gonna try to stay, like, I think we probably don't wanna think about the same. Maybe what we could say about the education budget is we could make a note to them that we're not convinced that they need the 5.2 positions.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Can just

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: leave it at that, but and suggest they take a deeper look at that. That's where they might gain some of the money toward the 600. Mhmm.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We've also it says it was a callback to Act 73, which is gonna change considerably this year, and I'd give money otherwise directly to the districts to do the work at the unions rather than today. We actually

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: have and start doing some money for the transformation for the new SUs. So, okay, let's just sort of note that discussion. What are people's feelings about the value and the money looking that the interest is looking for? They're looking for a level funded seven eighty seven. I'm sorry, seven ninety eight.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Same. They're asking for anything.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I won't argue. The

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: $7.98, is that what the house sent over as well, or

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's the one place where a little, we don't really know.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Guess it doesn't even really matter what's happening.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: General consensus, does that make sense? Yeah, no, I'm fine with it. I just, this whole exercise, this time of the year really frustrates me. I learned this four years ago for the first time, but what we're saying here and how we prioritize this doesn't make Philippine detaints because it just goes into more committees and it shuffles and shelving on a little more.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I guess I just think there's only 30 of us. So if we individually even feel educated about something, it helps in our chamber to make sure we fund things appropriately.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It doesn't matter how well informed it is institution

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It only matters if you do something with it.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so nobody, I don't hear anybody saying that that's not what he was, okay, well spent, okay. Farm school, hopefully, Sheldon Network. This was, so this is, they're asking for both private funding for two programs, level funding and 500 for two programs. Yeah, and

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: then

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: in Ag, it asks for additional 500. 5 is, yeah. So $5.05, and 5? Yeah. Okay, they only ask us for five to five. Right.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I don't get the program, to be honest with you. We're fully funding meals, so I don't really understand what the addition of our students. They're really just some It's to make got universal school meals. I don't know what this is on top of it. It's to break the market. That's why we've helping the spectrum. Audit can speak on that.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can you just repeat the question for me just to make sure I know what?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So we've got SNAP, we've got university school meals. I'm not sure what the extra million dollars here in these two programs.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can you clarify which programs are you talking about? The CFP or Do you wanna you could she sit up here at the moment for a second so we can see this? I there there we were we've talking about this all week, and maybe Ag has too. There's a lot of money for food in a lot of different places. Everyone eats. Food money is usually the thing we'll be able to draw down until our country is, like, completely in trouble from the federal government. So a lot of these draw down significant federal funds. Plus, I think we heard this one specifically helped with the meat in the White River SU. They had they had a local butchery, and they were eating the meat from the local butchery in Royalton at the the White Wright River School District.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Why do need another half million to make that decision? I mean, the local purchaser, whether it be via a Boise senior or a seesaw or just a local food service officer, food service director, why do they need additional money to do this? Just to me, I just never really understood the rationale for why you need money on top of money to exercise this program.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: What I can say is that, so this is, now that I'm looking at it up close, I'm able to see it on here, so this is all farm to school funding, which is not directly offered for Vermont, and it might be part of the Farm to School Childhood Network so I don't want to speak fully on behalf of them so I think it'd be better to maybe have those folks clarify. But what I can say is this is a long standing program that brings local food into schools so it supports farms and kids eating breakfast.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: This government is all primarily long term funding and you know it's just we keep, it's like a self perpetuating cash consumer. We have all these programs and we keep adding programs on top of it and we never take a look at whether the program is necessary in the first place. We never go back and analyze from the ground up how much food, how many food programs and how much is necessary. It's just an example. So I just, you know, I know this is good work, it's good people, just another million bucks, and I just don't know.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So you were advocating for Vermont outdoor recreation this morning, right? Because they bring in billions of dollars in tourism. So I think ag has determined that for, you know, some millions of dollars that we invest in food systems, and in this budget it's about $21,000,000, it's an $11,500,000,000 system that we're impacting. Like nothing because food is different than outdoor food.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Food is food, we're buying food.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well food is not.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: No, we're buying food service director at a particular school or district or BOCE in the future can make these decisions about where to procure this food from. I don't know why would he doubt it.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't think it's just a procurement decision. A food system.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It's a

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So those are local farms and

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: meat What's preventing the local food director from buying from the local farms, the meat producer that was in that school? It helps,

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: for whatever reason, it helps offset the cost to bring it so that it's worth buying it from Vermont, not just subsidized.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It can be subsidized. Mean, everyone knows who does procurement, that it's really difficult. You're not buying widgets, you're trying to collaborate with farms to It's

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: how they live. It's what I do, but I'm just, my hesitation is putting money on top of money. You've already spent the, we've already allocated, you've obligated the money for these meals. Why are we putting them up?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, didn't for early childhood, that's the separate Well, that's in here. That's one of them. Okay. So which one are you out of

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So, so if you wanna talk about that specifically, we have, we have SNAP programs as an example. Why isn't

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's not an in school setting.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I know, but it's families. We've already given way to the family for that, that, for that need. So that money's already allocated for that purpose. Why do we need to put money on top of that for, you know, with an additional expenditure? That's the only question.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's the 180 something thousand. That's a different

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No, but one of these 500,000 is early childhood.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Out of the $2.55, it's the other five? Right.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I'm questioning both or the third one. Which

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: one are you?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Well, we're we're probably talking about farming.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Just gonna

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: focus on that. I'm I'm just saying that I I put that as a lower priority when we have higher priorities on top of it. That's all I'm saying. Okay. And and I I frankly think that you it's, know, it would be maybe more appropriate to have, like, these are high priority, no priority, lower priority.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: So this one we've left a bunch

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: of money. We didn't. I'm worried that this one is a really good job. Good.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you're okay. So you're saying, oh, well, this is what this is it. For you, this is Nevoxif's level priority. Actually, since we're on this topic, why don't you stay on the

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: next day?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I'll go for it.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The next thing is we'll skip one since you're here. Go to This was, I think what Senator Rutgersdale was maybe at least a part of the two. This is the, I remember the testimony, probably always remember the testimony, so Given this much, they'll get millions from

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: This is right. If every home based center and other participant fully utilize this, it would draw down $5,000,000 from the government. They're currently drawing down 2 and a half million. What I I mean, what I think is this other one, one of them is for early childhood because it still goes hand in hand with universal school meals that we draw, also draw down 18,000,000 doll, I don't know, some millions of dollars from the federal government for universal school meals. One of those grants helps attach it to early learning centers, which is different than the home based.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But this one is for the home based.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: This is for, yeah, for family childcare homes, and I spoke about this in my testimony, just for a refresher, they need to have the sponsor organization in order to participate at all in the program, but the federal reimbursement for the sponsor organizations themselves is not nearly close to what the operation costs are. We're working on advocacy at the federal level as well. I'm going to see you in a couple weeks. We're definitely going to talk about this with folks, but in the meantime, these family childcare homes might not be able to offer the program at all if the sponsor just dropped out of offering the program, which four of them had in the last two years. So, this is kind of supporting the program to keep it operational at all and make sure kids can get the needles and snacks at their childcare hours.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Out of that 182, how many homes in Vermont do you think is effective right now?

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: So, or the 182,000? Yeah. Yeah, so that will be split between the three sponsoring organizations, and it will be split based on how many Family Child Care homes they sponsor. So, Capstone sponsors the majority of them, and then Brock sponsors about 40, and then Winston Prouty down in Southeast sponsors the rest. So, we broke it up proportionally based on how many they sponsor, and about half of Family Child Care homes currently participate in this program. They're just kind of at capacity and cannot continue to do outreach and onboard more programs with their current funding that they have. They can barely stay afloat as is. So, we're hoping they will be able to do onboarding and outreach to additional programs and bring more of those family childcare homes into the fold with some additional funding. And we've heard that there are programs out there that want to become sponsoring organizations if they're able to get a little additional funding to help with it. It's just quite the undertaking, but there are really passionate people who want to do this work before they compensated for it.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: That's right. I think we've said that every program student has actually, so it makes it pretty hard to fit. Yeah.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: This one seems like a small amount of money to get a lot of benefit from

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the Yeah,

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I get drawdowns, I get it, I'm fully support drawdowns, I guess when there's not a drawdown, there's not another compelling reason to get cash on top of cash.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Well, it's not just drawdowns. It's coordinating volunteers. I mean, lot of these but they're still trying to feed thousands of people, so this is not nearly enough money to feed thousands of people who we know are going

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: to That's where you have SNAP.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Well, SNAP is getting cut, and SNAP is getting harder to access because of the federal government, and we have

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Wait, do make up all those different They're between

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: them and hunger. And then I don't know what it does to fund $2,700,000,000 of education money if kids are hungry.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: We already took care of that too though.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Had two Did we take care of it? We have no hungry kids.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Universal school meals.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: These are

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: If it didn't take care of it, then we got a real problem.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Neither of these things we were talking about are about the school food program in the K-twelve system. Child and adult care food program, at least in this context for childcare, will be all kiddos that are under kindergarten age, so they're going to be in childcare settings, and so this is kind of the child and adult care food program, in

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: a way,

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So, this not is kind of like WIC.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: It's more, I would say, like the school lunch program or school breakfast program, but for littler kids, who aren't able to tap into that program. We understand. Yeah.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I'm just saying that if we've got a SNAP program, we're already providing for the full family including the children.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: We're not. SNAP does not provide for a full family for a full month.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay, that's a that's a different different,

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Okay, so this is, we're still making sure people aren't hungry, that's something our basic

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: No one's ever said that SNAP isn't sufficient to cover.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Oh, okay. No one's sent.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: As an alumni of health and welfare, that was never a topic, that snip ups are not needed, SNAP is insufficient.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: Well, think in the, if I may, sorry, just sitting here, but, and a lot of our outreach around 3 Squares Vermont or SNAP that we've done in the last few years is really trying to tell that story because it is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. So, it's really from design supplement a family's grocery budget and not necessarily be an entire grocery budget. So, some of it's full

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: and some of it's part.

[Anore Horton (Executive Director, Hunger Free Vermont)]: And for most it is, part especially with rising cost of groceries in the state being a high cost of living state like we're in, it's, we've seen most folks, their SNAP budget is not enough to buy groceries till the end of the month, and people end up visiting their food pantries and their food shelves at the end of the month to help supplement. So, programs like school lunch and school breakfast and the Childhood and Adult Care Food Program, all of these pieces work together to make sure that families are as close to whole as we're able to make them. So I think that's just, yeah, that context of like, it's all working together to try to make whole and try to make the best possible outcomes for people, even though we know, like, to your point, we can't replace every federal dollar that's being lost right now, but we can get as close as we can.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So, what I'm advocating is kind of putting the brakes in some of these programs the so treasury that we can, we do have, we can apply appropriately as opposed to, for the state overall, as opposed to putting money against, to a family that's already got coverage in a variety of different programs. That's all I'm saying. Well, that's a No one's convinced me that this is necessary. It's a great idea, but it's not, no one's convinced me that it's absolutely necessary.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: What's an alternative, appropriate use of the 182?

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: God, we have, there's 100,000 different programs that people want to get funded. You know, I'm not going to try to stack them up against each other right now here on the fly, but you know, you know, every committee we're in, you know, we're stacking up priorities.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I will put feeding kids and seniors at the top of the list in any committee any day of the week. So I don't know if we're not convincing each other at this point. Gonna feed kids.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well this one, I think he, you know, 182,000 estrogen will draw down. Yeah, good

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: to go. Good outcome. Yeah, good return on smoking

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: those. Language for the SCC. Thank you. I know, right? You're doing a great job.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Do we want to? So We can talk about 15,000,000 for 15,000,000.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. It's not on the list. Can't did we come up here? This come up in this committee. Yeah. I can't really find two out of the computer or

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I've been saying someone should talk about it. Economic development took a tiny bit of testimony. I mentioned we could talk about it in here. I think they offered to come in. And officially, besides appropriations, it is a government operations call to use what type of money from the Higher Ed Trust Fund.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, at least what we get The

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Higher Ed Trust Fund is government operations.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I would think we get to say something.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, that's the thing. I don't it's just I like, it's not like they have waited coming in here or something, Jay. Made a good pitch in economic development

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: as I asked each.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah, I'm opposed to 15,000,000 coming out of the higher education trust fund to build an arena in Vermont.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I agree. I I think that I think that we ought to finish that multi purpose center. Any kind of education fund whether it's the Ed Fund or the Higher Education Trust or whatever the name of.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yes, not just for sicker.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: I think I'm not opposed to there being an arena. I think that's great, and UVM's awesome, but that's 15,000,000 that could go to a lot of different students to That's go to

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: pretty much know, the fix with using that for others to make even other for instance. But I don't

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Could defendant I don't want people to think I'm just saying silent, but it's getting late. I mean, this could be a long discussion. I don't know if you want to have them in. There's a lot to do with the timeliness and matching, it's been twenty years that they've been trying to do this frankly, and it's been decades and decades that somewhere near the airport has needed to be like a large event center. Not to mention if you go to UVM's athletic facilities now, they are many cases not meeting NCAA standards. And then so that's it.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: I've done my part. Yeah, we

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: fundamentally support the creation of the Walter Burk Center. Question is where is the funding? Right,

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: No.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: And again, we're not gonna answer that again because we don't

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: have Well, let's live

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: and die by arena. I don't want, like, the Dunkin' Donuts fund, I want the UVM arena, and I do think it has public value. I get that the further away you are, the less compelling. No.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: No. That's not the distance.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah. It's I mean, I think, you know, this is the the higher endowment trust fund that is, as far as I understand, supposed to be used for non loan student aid, and I mean, I hope that everything gets billed, but I hope that it doesn't, that the 15,000,000 doesn't come from the trust fund, because I think that's 15,000,000 that again could be used for students all over us, whether it's Windham County or Chittenden or Bennington or forever, that's 15,000,000 that can make a huge difference in many students, directly in many students' lives for aid, through whatever process they're going through to get an education.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Hearing the numbers about an hour or two ago, that's about 25% of that trust fund, the current numbers. That's a big hit to Senator Hashim's. I just hasn't, I like the It's

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: interception of someone's money from death.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Money from?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's a windfall. It's a one time amount from a large estate. So it's not a hit. It's a we're not putting this large one time amount in.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah, the fund got filled with a lot of money because it was one deficit and that's why

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Didn't know that part.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So it is actually in there. Why did he just give it

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: to you, to him, to do the addition?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Didn't have that because statutory, under certain circumstances, goes into that pond.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Oh, yeah, this person just died, and their

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: money goes to the state. Maybe if someone had known to go ask it, you know, maybe this person should get a naming right somewhere. Do

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: we

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We actually don't have it. We could could say that we have little bit of concerns without using

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I I will say I just think that one is gonna come down to people's individual, you know, advocacy with members of appropriation.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: That doesn't have to be

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. I mean, but I have advocated for this discussion about the arena and getting the details to happen in all of the committees of jurisdiction, I'll say that, and it did happen in economic development. And economic development has spent money studying what it would mean to have a large event space because we lose conferences, because Right, we we've lose

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: all of that. And I actually believe that if we put state money into it, we'll get the money back.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, once you I mean, interestingly, once you said that Senator Collabor said, you talk about the trust fund with the CCB inclusion, maybe at some point it doesn't make sense for Senate government operations have jurisdiction over the parent trust fund. Maybe they don't want it and maybe that's a weird anomaly.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Did they have another day?

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: How did they get jurisdiction? How did that happen?

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I honestly don't know, but the second I said, Hey, who's gonna talk about the arena? The Pro Tem's office was like, That's the Seneca office's higher interest one.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Okay. Do we have We're gonna have to wrap up. So we'll continue tomorrow. We got the Governor's Institute. They're looking for 10% increase over level funding.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'd be curious with that one, what the House did, because the appropriations is not only now starting from the GUS rec then, but what the House did. Many of them are gonna leave a renewal and most of what the House did. So it just depends what

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: are we fighting for. I think

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: it comes from a step it's almost like the discussion for us, I think, is the 10%.

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: It's hard I love the governor's institution It's hard with everything. It's hard to agree to the full 10% to expand. I mean, I'd have to go back and look at my notes for what they presented. I mean, I hope that they can expand, but I don't know if the full 10% is necessarily what's feasible and something against the government says, go ahead get some

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: of their events

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: in the past. If there's a lower number that we can find that will still allow them to operating and maybe expanding a little bit less than what they're hoping for, I don't know what that number might be.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Like 50,000 something. Or you

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: could be you could just be taking out inflation 4%. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or you say it's tough times. It is. And it is tough times. So this is why this is why I talk to one member of the appropriations committee and it's just like, you guys have a, you're gonna have to make the rough decisions.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, always think like, what is even helpful for that? The hard-

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think it's really like the same. Don't think it's the yeast two or three are

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: really Exactly. Important to

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We think they're extraordinary opportunities.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We would like get up on the floor and

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We do would stay, too. Okay, well, should be ready to make quick decisions tomorrow as best we can. We have, hopefully we got somebody coming in from UVM at the State College of the Ford Foundation, Brian, to get the van.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: UVM, we let off the hook, I think I mean, I didn't reach out to them because Wendy gave us the information on the the UVM requests in here. Do you want them to do the the arena presentation?

[Senator Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah, the arena presentation.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, I don't think

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: we want to do it.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Oh, okay. I've a lot time around things. Okay.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Do we have, do we have a quick check-in? The Vermont Outdoor Business Alliance. What is that on Northeast? Why, that's a fair question. There was a reason they were in here. They were on

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: our list this morning, economic development. Want to take them off then? Vermont Outdoor Recreation. Yes, my other, my other. And I fully support you guys.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Don't know why I just thought

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: of it.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Remember them saying, here's the education connection, but I think it was pretty tenuous in any event. I think it was almost excused for coming, just I guess.

[Lydia Cochran, Principal, Peacham Elementary School]: Oh, good.

[Senator Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So let's just put an X for them.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, yeah, I knew about this request, and it's in the governor's bucket.

[Senator David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Good. We've submitted yeah.

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. Do. I don't know. Know. Right. Was I oh, I was just gonna check what Wendy did.

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Skip up. Happened? Still

[Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: long. So

[Senator Steven Heffernan (Member)]: so