Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Okay. It's the Senate Education Committee on the afternoon of April 10. Wilcox. We actually have some guests with us today. Where are you all from? Wilcox. Wilcox. Wilcox. You're in what grades?

[Unidentified student visitor from Wilcox High School]: 10.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: 10, you're all 10. Okay. First of how many of you first time at a state house?

[Unidentified student visitor from Wilcox High School]: Everyone, yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Well welcome. Thank you. Well I'm sure you got some history.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: A little bit, yeah, they're here to kind of just observe the process. Been looking at tracking different issues this session and so kind of watching how it all happens and sort of behind the scenes.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So what are some of the issues you've been tracking? Me,

[Unidentified student visitor from Wilcox High School]: Rob, and Carly, I accidentally did. We did housing. Okay. Okay. Call. She had Emily looked into healthcare.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Healthcare? Yep. Okay, you've actually picked it.

[Speaker 0]: The most important primary system. They're good.

[Unidentified student visitor from Wilcox High School]: Not the right place. And did you come up with answers?

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: Well, we tried. Mean, it's fine. At least you tried.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. And part of it I think is having people in the education community be part of going to meetings where they're talking about building new housing or bringing down the cost of healthcare because it has such

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: an impact on our education system.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah, we've made as we often healthcare. As you know, we've made some progress over the years. Not earth shattering but. Yeah. Actually some, well, I mean, almost is because we've actually brought down the rate of increase by quite a bit. Right. Taken some money out of the system that's held over the weekend.

[Speaker 0]: And we don't want to shatter either system.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Don't take that. Okay,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: so committee, we have, as you know, we've lost lead counsel to house approach in order for them to get the bill out which so I actually asked what they asked to seek input for them to be able to do that. So, we have a the spreadsheet that we were working on. JFO added on the right hand side, some information about as passed by the House and the Governor's truck event, so that might help us. I also took the memo that had, that I had passed out before the Quran for us, and I added, I used Senator Weeks, high, yin, and low, for us to go through and people can mark them up as we go. So we have so

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: so we have a new spreadsheet with Janelle in the short side.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: That new spreadsheet. The new memo, tried to fill in as much as I could, and I also added the community priority level behind the people I was. In the Natural Resources Committee this morning, we started with the results that came out of our committee. First thing on page one is education reform transition. And in the bill that we're working on whether these numbers will end up being exactly as they are, I'm not sure, but maybe close. We had some money set aside for the new, for the SUs to form. Gave a big modest amount, but enough that got some testimonials enough for them to be able to reconfigure the boundaries. And

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: then

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: grants that help districts that are looking to merge on the First, the charts, if it happens before they go to a vote, converge, and then the part afterwards, which is higher for them to actively work with the public journal.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: And did we use those numbers drawn from former mergers of, let's say, commerce? They're based partially and updated and moved up from

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: I think they're conservative if anything, I'm also gonna be cutting them up and they'll be able to take a little bit more testimony on before and after district mergers on Tuesdays, we could possibly block it. If it gets changed, it's not gonna be bylawed. Are

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: you referring to the five new positions or Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: No, this is not related to Well, this this money will go directly to the SUs.

[Speaker 0]: Good. Have money that goes to the OCC.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Directly to the all of it actually goes

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: to the SUs because it's and we'll actually because the SUs actually work with the district workers as well. So even the next part of Florida is really Well, they get services from the SU. The 2,000,705 What is that? The 2,000,750? Yes. That's for the SUs to consolidate. So as we move from, we're going in the map, we move from the 32 SUs of that area down to 12, this is the place to move out on, and it's $2.50 for each month. Yes. If anything is concerned with it. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: Any money going to the districts for consolidation support or service sharing or whatever it is.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So I think if we're gonna do our bill, we just happen to have this money.

[Speaker 0]: Or the districts that they supercharge.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: That's gonna be SUS, yeah.

[Speaker 0]: I think it's

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: We can

[Speaker 0]: I don't think the House funded the additional requests that they owe me?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah, this is for an hour, that's a different Yeah. Okay. So people

[Speaker 0]: I'm with you there.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I'm, yeah, I'm gonna keep you on. Go ahead. Clarification, Hypothetically, let's say, add 73 doesn't Sammy's money isn't used, then it gets categorized as carrying over. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Quick interruption, Cassie, you've got to shoot it like that.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Is this

[Speaker 0]: about a purplug situation?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Forward line.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Purplug. Right. Yeah. It's good.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: So is your question about priority AoE and line item? No, this is for

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: an hour's bill. This is the one who's in any hour's Okay, so you're not the who's the matrix working

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: for high load network?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah, we are. But this isn't in a matrix. This is our endorsement of Ness, but it didn't burn from place. Because it wasn't tested. Then we got them too. Then we got this. So agency of education. We have the 2,700,000 plus or in, by the way, some of those as well. Find new positions. So you see what I did here? We have the AQC and D and I put in to bring it down, however we wanna do this.

[Speaker 0]: Looking over your shoulders.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Got one.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I know. Okay. It so that some of those are included, right, in the 2.73. I don't I don't think the Vermont the Reed Vermont positions or the fire transformation positions are in the 2.73.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: No. We're we I didn't pick that up in the year, actually, did I? In Vermont.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, like if the 10,000,000 is part of the 2,730,000,000.00.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: The shift, yeah, so there should be,

[Speaker 0]: I

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: should actually have an fee in this, I think, before the week per month, right? That's a new request.

[Speaker 0]: Well, I'm struggling with, the 10,000,000 the transfer from outside of the education fund?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: I'm not sure. No.

[Speaker 0]: We just don't have oh, here. Oh, I have a topic. At least the house education knows what generally what they have. So maybe this will help to have a nice chair. House education. So

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: So what what I'm Oh, sorry. It's a last page of, like, this match up of daily education. The matrix. Yep. The 01/2013 appears to have been what was in the governor's recommended hand. The House budget, is that No.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: No. The House, the 113 is for the buy down. Right?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: the $1.13 is for the buy down. The house didn't happen. So that's a question in front of us. I suppose it's really, we could argue it's a, it's a finance.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go ahead back to, like, what

[Speaker 0]: I think is happening and maybe make the house complaint in. But there are certain costs that we are accepting in the education fund or we're buying down with other revenue sources. The house has one way that they've done that with the buy down over two years, but this represents the 4% increase. I don't know if that's that's with the full buy down or not? That's what

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: it is. Okay. The one for chance of full buy down.

[Speaker 0]: So I I don't think it is usually the between finance and appropriations, what funds

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yep.

[Speaker 0]: Come and go from where, although it helps us to know. Any new positions for AOE, I do not agree.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Okay. Well, let's do it 100 times. If we're talking

[Speaker 0]: At least everybody was wrong.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: If we're talking about maybe we should not get into the 113 because that's really a finance issue, or do we want to, I mean, I'm in favor of the 113.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: I'm in favor of at least providing a signal to them on how we think, whether it's, you know, mixed bag, you know, whether it's reported on support, but at least we ought to tell them what we're saying. Right.

[Speaker 0]: So we're not sure yet, fuck, is approving of the money that has been, voted on by all of our communities.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yep. We're not.

[Speaker 0]: And buying it down in other ways, but if we approve those larger amounts, those are our education costs.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: No, well let's just do it one at time. No, let's do C. Let's just jump down to C. C means that we're using all the money we have available to buy down the rate from, the house bought it down to 7%, this would buy it down to 4%. The house was half the money.

[Speaker 0]: Okay, it's worded weird. Yeah, is,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: it is, but that's what's going on.

[Speaker 0]: It's transfer from the one time funds, or general fund, to I the education think

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: keeping it at half is wiser, because the more we buy it down now, the worse it's going to be next year. Don't know that mean, buying down the rate is often kicking the can down the road, but there has to be some. Maybe instead of kicking the keys, just kind of giving it touch. Even at a half of the 113 is what I would say.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: I'm in for the full amount, and the reason is that if we don't, like, property tax increases in this particular calendar year, I think that there's gonna be some public backlog. So the more we can affect the growth of property taxes now, the better, and we'll figure out next year how to affect the budget. That's just my view.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: And would add on to that, that two twenty came out of the finance committee that pushes down the excess spending threshold to help the next general. The other thing is 7% is overall, which is subdistricting at the point. Right. Political landscape,

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: That's why playing there is saying that we need to recognize that we were preborn two years ago, obviously. That's just my gut. You know? May go well for some, and I go well for others. Yeah. No. No.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I don't disagree. I just know it makes the problem multiply the next year. So it's gonna be an even bigger challenge to address bronchiectasis next year, but but

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Well, theoretically, the construct was supposed to be the two twenty push it down in the next years. It go far enough in my view. But We're

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: pulling several levers simultaneously to get the desired result. Desired result is two properties actually. And so that's why I support the full case.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Phone now. Kesha?

[Speaker 0]: Good question. I'm trying to remember, this is Eclipse one time phone?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: This is one time funds and then they're kind of, there's no real indication we'll have more next week.

[Speaker 0]: Right, no, like if we're not gonna get pennies from heaven from the federal government or an eclipse, basically. Yeah. Then we we're we'd be looking for some kind of deus ex machina for to find a lot of money, like $50,000,000 plus to put towards the property tax rate.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: For next year. For next year.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah, or more. We're putting $115 in next year if So we do

[Speaker 0]: I have a different perspective on what I think will help us with next year's rate, which is building more housing. And I think that's happening. We're seeing the permit spikes. And I always tell people what will actually make your property tax bill go down is that we have grown the grant list. So I'm okay using the full buy down this year because I think we are attacking all of the other things like health care and housing and other things that have been accelerating the growth of people's individual property tax bill. I think we are working on this.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Let me get a note that four on the high book, one for one half for this year.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I guess a formatted question. Are we making, how are we going to be ranking this? I mean, do you want us voting on high, medium, low, or are we making, You could

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: either, we can make edits to extend on something set up right or path correctly, but we could also just ballpark our own, or put them at of the day and beyond. The conversation's good, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because you like to see where people So, that's helpful. Do we sort of A is, I forgot to mute it on the sun, but A is the 7,300,000,000.0 across all the appropriations and that goes to your question, said on Rockland's Hill because that in that's all the bloody thirds that people voted for supporting our schools. Mhmm. And

[Speaker 0]: It's things that no one really has control over that have

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: seen In large retro although the AOE itself is in there. Okay. Know that most of it is going to

[Speaker 0]: It's a pretty round number, I don't know where it comes from, in fact, But I there was a if if AOE got, like, their COLA kind of increase time, but they I am aware of two requests that equal, like, 1,500,000 or so for more positions. And until they give us a better accounting of how they're using existing funds, especially for out of state consults Resources, I don't support giving them

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: That would be B. Additional.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: What's the sense on A? That's a high priority. Right, okay. Must do. Okay. B is the five new positions for educational transformation.

[Speaker 0]: I think you should take all that money and give it to the districts.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Subtitles.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: Yes, and Advancement.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So that's good. But high medium low high medium low for me.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: I put it right in there with the whole transformation in the overlay.

[Speaker 0]: Haven't they told you how they'd spent that money?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Well, can conceive of how they spent. It's a big transition, going from where we are to where we want to be. If there's a lot of moving parts, needs to

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: be affected. That's people taking decisions, socializing with districts, socializing with schools. They haven't socialized with districts about their plans to date.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: That's why we need some peace of mind to facilitate them.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: So I think that we give a lot of flack to AOEs saying that they're not doing what we want them to do or they're failing in some area. But how do we expect them to improve if they're not getting the position that they're asking for? So, I mean, I think that's one thought that I have, but also this is for the education transformation. And if that is to progress, that's not something that we want to have falling apart. There's also another part of me that thinks that perhaps the educate, maybe I'm pessimistic, but I don't think the education transformation is going to exactly pan out as they're hoping it does. So I don't know if five new physicians is necessary right now, or if we should consider two new physicians rather than five. I don't, are they having difficulties filling the current physicians that they have vacant in other areas? I don't I don't know but I guess that's not a question.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: We we could. We did a couple of concert. That Bruce would be interested in. We're not fully sure whether this is or isn't, you need

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: to do a little more work with all patients. And we're just to do whatever it is, three, three, buddy. We just have to communicate. I don't want to get all bogged down. Well, know. Seriously. But I mean, when it's obvious that, you know, if we're like, we're a regular issue, if we're kind of divided, let's just accept that we're divided.

[Speaker 0]: Well, because we're the policy committee jurisdiction, I do just wanna say, I could be wrong, but I heard from reputable sources yesterday that the house did not fund any additional positions for them because they failed to appear before house appropriations.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Hey. Look.

[Speaker 0]: I I'm just I'm like, that's

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I don't lot of really

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: I don't I don't really wanna hear anything. I do is pick up the phone, and I can talk to the discussion.

[Speaker 0]: I I actually requested a lot of information about agent's budget and not received it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: You have a low.

[Speaker 0]: I have a very low on this one.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Say low. The

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: positions? Yeah. Me. Because I'm looking

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: at their budget, and they get 41,000,000.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: I'll go with For 75. See, I'm kind of in the medium. So let's just on the we've got three three medium is one low.

[Speaker 0]: Two lows?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Oh, two lows. You're Yes. You're right. Okay. So, okay.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: I didn't get

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: that

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: right. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: the 10,000,000 for other Ed Fund increases, I just assumed makes sense.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: The what?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: The $10,000,000. D.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Yeah, I don't know what that is. Wasn't that 15,000,000 for a stadium? That's a different-

[Speaker 0]: Vice chair Brady doesn't understand that, but if it says transportation special, those are usually the overrun costs that we don't that are kind of like a block grant. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So they maybe they just put them in when they were talking to us when we don't have to well, let's just maybe we just take that out. So dad, how does it take time?

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. Sounds like it's trying to stay.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Or you put it in

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: as low. Well, I mean, because we don't have to. Well, think it's probably not even supposed to be here. Yeah. Okay. Right. The seven for the permanent positions to support Oh, that's the education. They

[Speaker 0]: have two position at five.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. Okay. Where

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: well, we were trying to pull are we pulling your paper or are pulling your Well,

[Speaker 0]: I think they pulled

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: back their rebroval request, they think.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: You think they pulled

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: it back? I we're

[Speaker 0]: not gonna speak for AOE, but that was a BAA request they did not receive, and then they did not receive it as a house addition either. So if you like, we haven't talked about Reed Vermont, and I've asked that multiple times to get me more information. So just heard.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. Let's just not even put it on here then. Right? Nope. Okay. Let's take it out. However, we have to get Okay, let's move on. State colleges.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Seth? Is the total what was in the houses?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Well, over here on the right. So I passed on the house, we changed the government to recommend base appropriation, 3% increase. That is deconstructed 4,000. Yeah. And so the 1.5 because of my my group credential language. And I yeah. Supposed to drop off the paper.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: The state colleges?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So, think there's a lot of strokes over here. Stakeholders budget. I'd be

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: the one.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: That's right.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I would say that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: I would like. Fuck, I've been I get the insensors.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: You're good. Shooting a flare.

[Speaker 0]: I mean, what I will

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: underscore from what senator Weeks has raised is

[Speaker 0]: we've there's been so much turnover there, we've given them a lot of one time funds and frankly haven't heard back after that how that went. So if we're giving them $1,500,000 from micro credentialing, I struggle with is is are we funding something that they're already doing that they need to do a better job of, or are we gonna hear back how that went?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: You can write that on that. Does the 59 include what this 1.5? Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: It does.

[Speaker 0]: Well, which the the number below. I think I'm still struggling, but I think the total is the two numbers added together.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. The two numb the no. The total actually is the 59 that I'm showing here.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: With the allied health. Yeah. I don't even count 59 on my spreadsheet. Oh, I'm looking at this. Well

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: This

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: it does include the one time, like the house didn't do. The

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: house didn't do that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: The house didn't do that.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Would on a partial size than medium.

[Speaker 0]: I'm gonna do medium low.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Well, we can also is the reason you're switching to high low, Ben, because I don't think we want us all to send I think we want us send a signal that we're not listening to the sympathizers. Yeah. So I think

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: what it is is taking out, you're saying take out the microbes. I think, distinguishing

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: Oh, yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Yeah. 59,000,000.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So should we just minus out the microbes and then change the number?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Yeah. And then so by

[Speaker 0]: I'm assuming that the allied health money went through health and welfare. Yes. That's what I'm assuming.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So micro out, that would reduce the number of the 59 lime in the banana. So two highs, one medium, two mediums, for the entire

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: System. We're doing this at entire state colleges? Yeah, so effectively. Mine is is the first first so for the entire college Penn system, I would say aye for the 1.5. Okay. That was Nader. So hi, and then Moving along.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. Okay. Good.

[Speaker 0]: Bye. Thank you for missing names.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Millions of dollars get moved this way.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Oh, that's right. It's 02:00. Yeah. Okay. Okay. We'll have to come back to this. We're going So to pick up with my features in a minute. Let's well, we have Senator Gipion. Good afternoon. This is our bit of

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Good afternoon. Can you hear me okay?

[Speaker 0]: Oh, come on. You have to make the screen You have to pin him. No. We're

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: we're glad you got dressed up for us. It's really

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Of course. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Great seeing all of you. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Thank you for taking the time to come.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: And I hear it's been a very quiet session, which is great.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. The the whole band has been pretty, pretty quiet. Great.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Great. Great.

[Speaker 0]: One's invoked your name in me. Oh,

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: I'm sure. I'm sure. I think the the only person I don't know in the room is the the good senator from Addison County. So nice to meet you, senator.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Nice to meet you.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Yeah. Hopefully, we'll cross paths at at some point, but I've heard good things. So I hope you're enjoying it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: They're all live. So just to remind everybody where we are, Senator Campion chaired this committee for the four years previous to this planning and was proponent of keeping the PCB language alive for the school testing group. Because we've had this debate that sounded in other years and there are members of the committee who are on the three. Well, he was chairman who said we should have him in. And so I gave him a call and here we are. So, as you know, we have a bill in front of us that would end the PCB testing program in schools. And I told you this on the phone, so I'm repeating what you already talked about. But we've had that, we had a couple of suggestions from the administration or from the time that Chittenden About ways to kind of keep it alive. And, but we wanted to get your sort of your sense about why you always took the position that you took those last four years and your feelings about them.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Great. Thanks for having me. For the record, Brian Campion. So this all started, as I think all of you know, with Burlington High School. And Burlington High School, I don't know what prompted their testing, but the schools tested and they found elevated levels of PCBs. The school shut down. And since then, I don't know where things are at right now, but they have gone through a process of rebuilding their high school. And the state invested $16,000,000 in that project. So the state was very involved in that project in terms of the rebuilding. And so at that time, it was great because we had Senator Teranzini and Senator Lyons on the committee, both of whom were in health and welfare. And so they weighed in on sort of, they brought their knowledge and their expertise from their committee as well as witnesses in to talk to us about PCBs. And so when we talked to Doctor. Mark Levine, who at that point was the health commissioner, very good health commissioner, and others, we decided to test all schools. And I realized that there are a lot of schools out there that were constructed before 1980 and had the likelihood of PCBs. But Doctor. Levine really, and I would recommend reading that testimony. I can happily share it with people if Daphne can't put her hands on it. But even as we went through the process and, you know, a couple years ago there was also a proposal to stop this, we heard again from Doctor. Levine and the NEA and many, many others, including Matt Chapman, that said, listen, this is serious business. This is, you know, you're talking about the health of children, you're talking about teachers, some of whom might be pregnant in the same classroom year after year. You know, these are developmental years for young people and we need to take this seriously. And so, listen, I, everyone in that room, take science seriously. And when professionals like Doctor. Levine came before us, and we did hear, I recall, from other medical professionals, said, keep testing, see what is out there. And so that has always, again, been what's propelled me is, you know, let's see what is out there and let people know what's out there and then let decisions be made. And again, I realize that this has caused some frustration and I know the House has struggled with this, but frankly, we struggled with the House Education Committee when we did the lead testing. You know, we as a committee, it was before I was the chair, but it was my bill, we wanted to test all the waters in schools to make sure there was no lead in those waters. Again, this is serious business when you're talking about the health of young people, faculty, and staff. We had a three parts per billion and the house kept saying, no, it has to be more than that in order to, it was a little bit of more lead in the water will be okay and they cut pushing to five and I believe Senator Ruth finally ended up having to negotiate four. So I realized that historically the House Education Committee, you know, might struggle with some of these kinds of issues in different way, but I still believed in the, continue to believe and grateful we did the Lead Bill, the administration, that was a big priority of theirs as well. And I hope that you'll all consider keeping this alive as well in some capacity. And I know Matt Chapman has proposed different things, I trust Matt, and again, just hope you don't end what I think is a worthwhile program for the health and safety of people, but also how do you start a program and say, all right, we're not gonna test the rest of you. That's just, you know, not a fair thing to do. And again, I would go back to Burlington and I'd say state, once it was found out that PCBs were, you know, in the environment, we invested 16,000,000 and you know, what's the old saying? If it's good for Burlington, it's good for the rest of Vermont.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Thank you. Questions? Yeah. Sure. Yeah, Brian, nice to see you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Good to see you.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: You are best. Wondering if you because you're aware of all these issues and you're aware of how they weave together. The continued PCB testing potentially woven into the school construction initiative. Can you at least comment on, like, you were still here or as a and I don't wanna put you on the spot with State Board of Education because I don't I don't believe you're you're trying to represent the the board today. But how would you weave that together with state school construction program, which is, you know, it hasn't been reinitiated, but there certainly seems to be interest and momentum in that regard.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Yeah, thanks for the question. And I would say, Senator, before any school construction starts, PCB testing should happen. And I'm sure there's probably a list of other known chemicals out, you know, that we would test for. And certainly PCB should be on that list. Certainly before, I mean, construction workers put a hammer into something and possibly expose themselves as well to harmful chemicals. And I would think that other things might rise to the top. I don't know where the federal government is on these things, but historically I'll say no matter the administration, the federal government, the federal government isn't great on chemicals of high concern. And I experienced that when I was involved with the PFAS contamination here in Bennington. So certainly that seems like, you know, before construction starts, I would say that yeah, any testing for PCBs beforehand would be great. And if those construction bills, those construction dollars, school construction dollars are gonna start up again, that'd be exciting, that'd be great.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: If I can, yeah, it's good, think about So

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: it sounds like your comment is more directed towards if you're going to make a particular facility the focal point for instruction, future construction, regional high school, whatever the concept may be. What about the other two or three high schools in the in the region knowing which one to kind of put your eggs into as opposed to just you know, picking the newest or the or the biggest or the fanciest. Knowing the knowing the landscape of of the other potential buildings which could be candidates could be rejected because the PCBs are so high. You you know what I mean? I'd say you have three high schools. One of which is really your target school for a continuation but the others they could be taken out of the running potentially at the PCB rates or found to be hazardous for our students. Does that make any sense?

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: So do you mean they might be taken out of the race for new construction because the PCB levels are so high?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Right, because we've continued testing and we've determined that that's a school at risk or the reconstruction or renovation costs are so high based on PCBs or lead or whatever other anomalies might exist and that the proper shift, the proper focus should shift to a different school which doesn't have those complications. That's all. So it's not all about just continuing on for where you think you're going to go with your regional schools, but also what are you going to leave behind?

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Right. So if you're a regional school, you mean in terms of like the school actually then not being taken down, sort of what could happen to it as it's empty?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Yeah, yes. So, let me let me back up a step, maybe a little simpler, hopefully. Say you have three high schools. Knowing the condition, PCB condition of all three of those high schools would be a decision factor on trying to figure out which school to continue with if you're going to focus on a regional, a single regional high school out of that group of three.

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: So I would, I remember we had some building experts in, I think two years ago that talked to us maybe a little bit about this, but I could be wrong. And so the scenario that you're running by me, correct me if I'm wrong, so one building could, two buildings with higher PCB levels could be just sort of left there, if you will, and the building that would be safest for people to take down and then reconstruct would be the one with the fewest PCBs or no PCBs in them, is that correct?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: At least that would be great, that would be part of the equation. The other parts of the equation could be size, location, etcetera. This you would know what you're going to renovate and what you're going to leave behind.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Yeah, so it's a great question and I think again, if you are doing this testing and have that knowledge, it very well may be that it becomes some kind of a, you know, not a super fund site per se, but you know, I don't know what qualifies, you know, something as a super fund site if it's vacant and can't be taken down safely. But I think your point's a really good one. We wouldn't want to risk the people that are, and it's a bigger job frankly, right? I mean to take down a school that has asbestos and PCBs in it, is gonna be a much bigger and much more expensive job than the other one. And one that might be able to, again, I'm not an expert, wait to be addressed, if you will. And can possibly sit vacant and safely and people aren't in it and people aren't doing work in So I think you raise a really good point and yeah, I would certainly go toward that school where it's going to be. Again, my gut is safer for people to be doing construction in it and less expensive and then deal with the others, when frankly we can financially. And nobody likes an empty building, we do periodically have those in Vermont that need to be either remediated or removed and they can be big expensive projects. So I think your point is a good one in that regard.

[Speaker 0]: Well, while we have a passionate expert on chemicals, you know, writ large, I I know the difference between PCBs and PFAS, but I was just, you know, talking to community members about a meeting they want me to attend related to a proposed turf field at our high school that would likely contain PFAS. Right? Like, just, I don't think they've created an alternative yet and things that say PFAS free are not necessarily PFAS

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: free. Any thoughts about how well some of

[Speaker 0]: these regulations of forever chemicals are holding up or can hold up, especially at schools?

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: It's a great question. I believe, I don't know if Senator Williams and Senator Weeks are still on health and welfare or if they got a ticket to go.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: That's a big no.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Okay. And

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: I know that they did do some great work as I recall on keeping PFAS out of certain products including makeup, in food containers. I don't know where things went with putting up a moratorium on turf, as I recall, there are turfs out there that are being sold that don't have PFAS in them. So I thought some of the clients may have proposed moratorium on turfs that have PFAS, given that not only what happens when the turf is destroyed and you've got to handle it at a collection center or at a local dump, but also that it can get in kids cleats and then they go home and that, you know, it's a heavy chemical, so it sinks and gets into the water. As you all know, PFAS, once it's in the ground, it moves fast and it can go through rock and stone and that's how it ended up in wells here in Bennington as it was able to make its way through concrete. So I would check with center alliance and I would also encourage them to look at field turf that doesn't have PFAS in it. And I remember Dick Sears and I, Senator Sears and I talked at one point, I thought that a lot of professional sporting teams were getting away from turf because of injury.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah, that's another thing we actually heard from AOE informally. Really hard on the skin and on, you know, it's just a hard surface. Any advice for us on education reform?

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: On what? Education reform? Hey, I'll tell you right now, you've gathered the state rock stars on that committee, and I trust all of you immensely. Is senator Williams there, by the way?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I'm glad to hear that. He had to

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: go to a medical appointment.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Bummer. I was hoping to say hello. I know he's done great work on cell phones and I know he started that in committee when I was the chair and I think something has come out of it. I just wanted to congratulate him.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Past Yeah, last

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: which is great. Know, when, And I always credit him with getting that started and moving that along. And when a lot of people start taking credit for it, you know it's good. So congratulations

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: on some of the things. Thanks for taking the time to come in.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: My pleasure. Great seeing all

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: of you.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Good to see you. My pleasure. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Campion — Former Chair, Senate Education Committee (witness)]: Stay in touch. Bye bye.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So who is you got some, witnesses on some relationship to the to the miscellaneous bill, but it's about that issue that's in front of us about the time that we want the storm clock to start ticking on for the new glass size. So we have a few people who want to testify. Starting with Todd, spot the other spot. Todd, introduce yourself for the record. You're muted, Todd. Turn your mic on.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Which phone number?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Oh, the miscellaneous. There you go. Can get one of the number?

[Todd Wilkins — Chair, Arlington School Board]: Which about that. Yes, my name is Todd Wilkins. I am the Arlington School Board Chair. I've been on the school board since 2008 and been the chair off and on for the vast majority of that time during that. Arlington School District is a is a what we would call probably a smaller school district comparatively. But although being a small school district, offer a tremendous amount of programs from advanced placement to accelerated programs, things like that. We all, we do it very well with a relatively low cost per ATM. And we're also seeing some very good student outcomes. And that's really kind of been what we have been trying to focus on the student achievements and student outcomes. With that, we're also trying to manage, you know, potential new legislation that's coming out and what that means for our schools. We're also in the middle of still dealing with a transition to a new Supervisory Union that happened a few years ago and and identifying efficiencies and how we can do better and become more efficient within that supervisor union with shared services, things like that. When I heard that there was an opportunity or discussion occurring

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: for

[Todd Wilkins — Chair, Arlington School Board]: the possibility of the class size and outcomes potentially being moved back, that somewhat, you know, that that was a positive thing for me. We're a school that sits right on the cusp, meaning that this year we absolutely may meet class size minimum. However, we can have a year where you have a lower grade level, you know, participation just the way the birth rates and things happen. So we'd have to make some tough decisions for that year, but then maybe a year or two after that, we're back in. So those are things that we're trying to navigate and figure out and how that works and how the the legislation won't work and all that so having some additional time to manage that would be significant. You know we I was sitting in a board meeting, the other day, and we're talking about student achievement, And you know, one of my comments to the member of the public was, I wish that our board could solely focus on those student achievements and student outcomes right now. But we have so many other things that we're focused on with legislation and governance, things like that. I feel that we're it's detracting from that. Any opportunity where we can have more time to really figure out this legislation and class size minimums and things like that would be significant for school boards in my opinion.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Thank you. Any questions? No. Thank you. That was helpful. So good. Thank you, Todd.

[Todd Wilkins — Chair, Arlington School Board]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Yeah. You're welcome to stay on if you want to. Next up is Casey Allen.

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Yep. Good afternoon. Can everyone hear me okay? Yes. Great. Good afternoon, senators. Thanks for your time today, and I wish I could be there in person with you all. Statehouse is such a great place, but thanks for the opportunity to provide testimony on class size minimums. My name is Kesha Ram and I'm the chair of the Crassery Town School Board. And before I get in my testimony, I just want to acknowledge I did receive recommendation that you all are most interested in hearing about how implementing class size minimums will work with the rest of the public education reform that's occurring, and I will get to that, but just first wanted to provide some context about enrollment and class sizes at Crassberry. So into the testimony. Crassberry is located in Southern New Orleans County in the Northeast Kingdom and consists of two campuses, a pre k through second grade campus and a third grade through twelfth grade campus. And the two campuses are about one mile apart. We are in our one hundred ninety sixth year providing education to students in Crossbury and our surrounding towns. And the twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty school year will mark Crasberry's two hundredth year. Pretty remarkable achievement for any school. Our total enrollment this year is 201, and that is approximately 10% higher than our average enrollment over the last twenty two years. That's just the number of years we have data readily available for. So thinking about that with the context of statewide enrollment declining significantly over the last twenty years, That stable enrollment is a a pretty notable indicator of the overall health of Crasberry Schools. When we look at grade groups, enrollment in the elementary and middle school grades is well above average with the high school enrollment lower but continuing to rebound from a recent low point caused in part by fewer births in 2007 between 2007 and 2010. It's gonna be great having a higher or larger high school enrollment in the coming years at Crossbury. Some other enrollment related indicators I wanted to share that point to the overall health of Crossbury Schools is the high interest high interest in attending the the schools from surrounding districts. So a few details on that. A neighboring elementary school tuitions their students for grades seven and up. Those students have several middle and high schools to choose from, and Crossbury is the second most popular choice for these students with about 20% of students from that school attending Crossbury. Crassberry has an agreement with another neighboring elementary school where we allow a one student for one student swap. 12 students from that neighboring elementary school district would like to attend Crassberry with currently zero Crassberry students wanting to go the other way. It's unfortunate that there isn't as much swapping happening between these two districts, but it's just another indicator of the health of Crossbury schools. Crossbury has another agreement similar with a neighboring middle high school. We have a similar situation with four students wanting to attend Crasbury and no Crasbury students wanting to go out to that other school. So to sum it up, Crasbury's enrollment is relatively small, and it really always has been. Crassberry is a strong school indicated by the strong interest from students in surrounding towns to attend Crassberry. And it's attractive because of the academic outcomes, which are higher than surrounding districts and higher than the state average in all grades but two.

[Todd Wilkins — Chair, Arlington School Board]: There's a

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: link there to the Crassberry Town report that has our proficiency results from the the most recent testing available. These high academic achievements are accomplished while the number of Crassberry students receiving free induced lunches is higher than the state average. Also, a note about facilities. Because our enrollment is stable and even growing a bit, we are currently officially using our square footage with very little space going unused. While our enrollment is stable relative to recent averages, it does have troughs and peaks, which will create challenges at meeting minimum class sizes in some years. There's a table here that shows cross rated class sizes currently as well as our historic averages and then what's proposed or what's included in act 73 with regards to class size minimums. And just summary that as quickly as possible, you see grade one. Act seventy three has a class size minimum of 10. We currently have 15. Our historical average is 12. Grades two through five. The act 73 minuteimum is 12. We have a range between fourteen and twenty one, and our historical average is 12. So you can see a, you know, relatively big bump there in elementary. Grade six through eight, class size minimum in act seventy three is 15. We have between seventeen and twenty. Historical average is 15. So right you know, hopping right around that act 73 class size minimum. And then finally turning to grades nine through 12, x 73 class size minimum is 18. Our current enrollment span is between eight and sixteen, and our historical enrollment average is six. So turning to h nine three one, the miscellaneous changes in education law, I recommend a delay, if not a removal, of class size minimums for the following reasons. Data from AOE linked there at the bottom that represents where schools stand relative to class size minimums show that most schools are gonna have some real trouble meeting these minimum class sizes. And to me, that indicates that those minimums and I I did pay attention to quite a bit of the the process of developing those minimums in the house. They weren't really developed to be achievable in the near term without some very, very significant changes to where students are educated and how. This would be disruptive to Crossbury Schools and other schools across Vermont with stable enrollment and strong academic outcomes. Also, class size minimums aren't really by themselves going to result in any reduction in expenses at Crasberry and will definitely cause a lot of chaos and confusion among students and and faculty. We operate a very efficient high school, currently employing four high school faculty, math, English, science, social studies. These four faculty offer a broad range of classes, including numerous APs and specialized electives, giving our students a broad foundation to learn and excel in. Because of this, we're able to provide strong opportunities with a very efficient staff body. And I just wanted to pivot briefly from my my testimony just to provide a little more detail around class size minimums and what what those may cause to our our school. You know, act 73 and the talk of class size minimums has slowed down the CrossBerry School Board's efforts to collaborate with neighboring districts around sharing services and expanding opportunities for our Crasberry students and and students in other districts. We have for the last several years well, prior to last year, have an annual meeting with a neighboring school district to explore how to collaborate. We canceled last year's meeting. We're probably gonna cancel this year's meeting just due to all the uncertainty that this is bringing. So, basically, there's just hesitancy from both boards to, you know, spend energy and time talking about how to share resources and opportunities just with with the current environment. And I can go into more detail later about what those specific areas of collaboration are, but I'll move on. So to sum it up, I recommend schools like Crassberry instead focus on efforts that are more likely to result in cost savings, specifically shared services as are possible in regional cooperative educational service areas ceases. I'd like to also point out that I think the most, if not one of the most significant cost increases at CRASPR over the last few years is special education. And this is due to declining enrollment in towns surrounding Crassberry that we share special education services with, and that decline enrollment is placing a greater financial burden on Crassberry. And so focusing on a CISA model is we've identified as a really important important next step toward addressing this critical concern. Finally, as we approach our two hundredth year in a couple years, Crestbury is doing very well, both in enrollment and academic outcomes. So I ask why I disrupt that with minimum class size requirements that really won't provide guaranteed expense reductions. Thank you.

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

[Speaker 0]: So I don't mean to I don't mean to peek on you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: You're Please do.

[Speaker 0]: You're a political leader in Crasberry. I sit on economic development in the morning, and I'm sure you're a victim of these same forces, but it's hard when communities vote down multifamily housing that would potentially grow their student base and would grow their grant list and then, you know, wanna keep a relatively small school. What I my hope for all of our rural communities is that they are fighting hard to get more multifamily workforce housing into their vacant buildings, into their communities that would allow them to have teachers and students, you know, be able to sustainably attend their school. So my hope is just that the political leadership of the school district is out there using political capital to support housing projects and affordable housing.

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Yeah, great point. I agree. In Crassberry, there is a community trust, Headwaters Community Trust, that is advancing those exact types of efforts. And you may I'm not aware of any squashing of any multifamily housing units that may be Greensboro. Is definitely, you know, an adjacent town. But think

[Speaker 0]: they were part of your school district.

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Nope. You know, Great Town. But just, that that's that has played out in in Greensboro. And it's yeah, you're you're just, you know, your summary of that is accurate and presents a lot of challenges to that that school district. We do. It is a separate school district. We do have students that do attend Crossbury schools through tuition or some of the swapping agreements I mentioned earlier.

[Speaker 0]: Okay. Okay. They're a separate school district.

[Lisa McCarthy — Principal, Craftsbury Schools]: Greensboro is part of We're we're the same supervisor. Okay. Greensboro is part of the Mountain View Union District. Mhmm. Elementary district was standard Greensboro, Hardwick, and Woodbury. Okay. And I used to be the principal there. And I would agree with you. Everything you said about the housing situation there. Okay. Crassberry is with you. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: But they voted it down, you said?

[Speaker 0]: They voted it they voted down a twin as I understand it, a 20 unit project in an old vacant town building.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: No. That's democry. Okay. I'm just gonna try. We need to keep moving. Thank you. That was helpful. Still makes a lot of progress. Lisa McCarthy. So we wanna so I just have to reiterate for the last couple of witnesses here. The the real issue before us is the start date for the group class sizes, because we're one of the kind of

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Stacy, push it out or get rid of it. Is that your opinion on the class sizes?

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Correct. Yeah. It's not going to result in any meaningful reduction in expenses or increased opportunities for CrossBerry students. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Lakhan, did you feel the same way?

[Todd Wilkins — Chair, Arlington School Board]: Yes, Okay,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: so for the record, you are.

[Lisa McCarthy — Principal, Craftsbury Schools]: Hi, I'm Lisa McGratheon, principal of Cross Grades, Wolsey. So I first want to thank the committee. I think that you've been incredibly supportive of rural schools in general. And specifically, I just want to thank you for providing a path forward for voluntary merger committee or study committees and not for study committees that have neighbors chosen for us. I think Casey and I are pretty aligned in our thinking that, you know, I think I appreciate that you continue to provide a path forward for us for local democracy via the Super visory Union structure. And I am going to speak about the complications of implementing minimum class sizes, basically this next school year. But I do wanna give a little bit of context first. I know I've spoken about Crassberry before, but I think that it's important that you understand kind of the community. So I was thinking this week, I was leaving our faculty meeting outside in the sun, which was of course welcome before our board meeting. I'm really thinking about how to convey to you what it means to be part of a small rural school in a rural community. And so what came up for me is that in front of me on the common, there were 30 middle and high school students participating in track practice. There were a group of younger students and families streaming out of the gym leaving indoor soccer practice hosted by a regional indoor soccer club. High school students were getting ready to start softball practice in the gym as they were leaving. Our Wonder Kids after school enrichment program was in attendance in the common room working on an art project. Dungeons and Dragons club hosted by two high school seniors and a high school freshman for students in grades five through eight was happening in the Art Room. And our drama club with 28 students, grades three through 12, we're finishing up rehearsal for our spring production of Peter Pan. And as I looked around, I realized that the image I saw before me was really what I wish you could see. Because it is like the image of community and what it means to be part of a community. It was 04:15 in the afternoon and when I sat down and totaled those numbers, about 65% of our students, K through 12, were still on campus engaged in meaningful activities after school. And I think the important part of this for me is that it's not only the students who are there, but it is all the adults who are volunteering and also hired to make this happen in our community. Sorry. Lost my place here. So I think that that and thinking about like, what do we want for rural towns in the future moving forward in Vermont? That to me was just really kind of a vision that really portrayed what I think rural Vermont is all about. So while we can capture data points to show the number of students participating in athletics and after school programs, At the state level, we're not looking at the data that captures what it truly feels like to be part of a community. In Crest Prairie, students and community members have a sense of belonging and to have students of all ages interacting not just with each other, but with healthy adult role models who are working and volunteering to make activities happen in the image of a thriving school community and also a thriving town. The strong relational health we have intentionally built and nurtured is a sign of a strong community, but it's also a resiliency factor for both students and adults in rural Vermont. It is the core of what makes rural Vermont so special. So we are a town in Crafts Ferry, and I'm a CALS resident, I'm not a Crafts Ferry resident, but we are a town that historically has really valued education. Sterling College is currently there, although it's closing. So it's a town that values education in general. And we, as Kesha mentioned, we have a very stable and even increasing school population. And there are, you know, there's been kind of like ebbs and flows at various grade level. And we're currently in a dip in our high school level, which was projected. We saw this coming and we have our class size averages in grades five through eight for next year are projected at 22, which is 15 is the average class size or the class size minimum there. So we're looking to kind of like boost significantly in the future. And in regards to the minimum class size requirements, I ask that you slow the process or eliminate the process honestly towards implementation of the requirement. This will allow school administrators the time needed to be thoughtful about implementation and how to meet these requirements without impacting student achievement and learning. A knee jerk reaction with implementation beginning in September will require us to make significant changes to our master schedule and courses, and I believe will lead to a situation where administrators are feeling pressured to comply with the law and are in a position where doing what is best for students is put to the side. I'd also like the committee to consider that there are currently other changes at the state level being asked of schools and administrators that are also coming down the pipeline. One in particular that is on the horizon is a change in statewide graduation requirements. The changes required for many schools in this area are significant and will require thought and intention around planning, staffing, and budgeting. Adding more to our plates in terms of change that will be overwhelming when it's kind of all at the same time. And I'll add to this, I was thinking about this on my way here. I think part of the challenge with this is that when we open up these conversations with our staff and our families, it impacts climate pretty quickly. They're hard conversations because there's kind of in this chronic uncertainty. And so, the not knowing is what's really hard for people working in education right now, and they're being asked to move forward with this plan of potentially teaching courses in different areas when we don't even know the outcome of the legislation. And we're hearing at the state level that a bill will be vetoed if there's not consolidation. That leaves us thinking, are we making this big change for two years for something that is going to impact student learning significantly and we might lose control anyway? So, we just don't know. So, that's one of the challenges. Sorry, you may think the situation I'm describing above is only relevant to the smallest schools in the state. However, AOE data on current class sizes demonstrate that only six high schools in the state are currently meeting the minimum class size requirement of 18 and they're all in Chittenden County. So I'm talking about how this will impact the vast majority of schools in Vermont, not just the exceptions. And then I just want to be clear that I'm not opposed to change at the state level in regards to education. I think we need to be a little bit more thoughtful and a little bit more slow in the process of how we roll it out. I think that Act 73, it was originally presented, really impacts rural schools disproportionately. And specifically, I have concerns about the quick turnaround and implementation of the class sizes, as well as the continued conversation around forced consolidation. I have significant concerns that change in our school district governance structure will not only significantly impact Craftsbury,

[Speaker 0]: but would have

[Lisa McCarthy — Principal, Craftsbury Schools]: far reaching impacts in our ability to maintain viable rural towns across the state of Vermont. And then in closing, want to remind the committee of, you know, Casey's testimony on the historical class size averages in Grasberry. We're a small school, always have been, always will be, but we are kind of meeting a lot. I mean, we're achieving at pretty high levels academically, and we are in most cases at the class size minimum or willing, you know, in the long run to kind of reallocate resources as needed to meet those. We've always, you know, I know the board's been really dedicated to complying, you know, with all state requirements. So it's something that, you know, we're looking to do and what we're really looking to do is to provide, you know, the best possible educational and learning outcome while also being able to be physically minded. And it just feels like it's all coming together really fast for us to be able to do that well.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Questions? Oh, you got it. I did. Thank you. You were echoing what we hear almost yesterday and from everybody. My question is what per student, how much is cost per student? Basic.

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: What's the question? I mean, how

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: much? Cost cost per.

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Pure pu per pupil spending?

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

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: Yeah. Yeah. Crassberry is at 15,923.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Do need me to look at that? Okay. I think And just,

[Casey Allen — Chair, Craftsbury Town School Board]: you know, the just to comment on that, you know, those that is below the minimum or the, you know, the threshold, which as a as a board member is a very important number that we look to. So we strive, we are always below that and it's, I just want to just make it clear that that's a really helpful guide as a, you know, as a member of our board who helps to develop our budget annually. And just another note on that, you know, there are district schools and districts in RSU that are higher and lower than that. But yeah, we're we're at 15,900.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So we have, Chris Holtz.

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: Hi my turn.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Can you

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: all hear me well?

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

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: First of all I want to thank you for providing me this opportunity.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So I

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: am here in my capacity as the chair of the Bellows Falls Union High School Board. But I and the executive summary of this is I agree with what everyone else has said, which is I think that with everything else that is happening in terms of changes in education coming from Montpelier, I think that there really is room and time for us to see what some other changes, some of the impact of some of the other changes that are being considered, which may make a mandatory class size requirement less necessary. I do want to provide a little bit of context here. While I am here as the chair of the board for the Bellows Falls Union High School. This is my second year of doing this. I've got a wealth of experience in education in Vermont, beginning with the fact that I graduated from the Bellows Falls Union High School way back when I was I've only lived out of Vermont for the twelve years that I went to college and was in the Navy. I got a master's degree in teaching math, came back and taught math at the Bellows Falls Union High School, was assistant principal there for six years, was principal there for sixteen years. I currently teach at a career, the career center in Brattleboro. And so I'm coming at this less from the data perspective that particularly Casey and Lisa brought to it and more in an anecdotal sort of way and the impact of class size mandates at the building level, at the district level. So if you want to bear with me, I'll try not to take up too much more of your time trying to make the same point that other folks have been making. But there's really four points that I wanted to make relative to the impact of those class size mandates. Because of the rural nature of our state, if we imposed and faithfully committed to class size mandates, smaller schools would certainly feel the impact because they would, in order to meet that mandate, may need to consolidate, join with other schools, which again, I know there are other initiatives out there moving in that direction as it is. But in our district, we already have students driving a half an hour or more one way just to get to classes. So I think that there's going be an impact there that needs to be considered as this class size mandate is under consideration. If those consolidations don't happen and we go with class size increases that may limit the offerings that students have. Again, others here that have testified have brought sort of an elementary school perspective. I'm coming from that more of a secondary school perspective, so it would limit opportunities for for students. I think most of us are aware that a way around that might be some online learning opportunities, some virtual learning opportunities. Folks are probably aware of the existence and the high quality work that's done by VTVLC, the Vermont Virtual Learning Collaborative, providing lots of additional opportunities for students when class offerings, course offerings get limited for any number of reasons at their school. But I would also acknowledge that virtual learning is not for everyone. In person learning certainly accommodates more and different and varied learning styles. And so I don't really see that as a solution as much as it is an opportunity for a different approach. But I think we'd be looking at more of a need there as class size mandates impact the course offerings at individual schools. But the last thing that I want to say on this is as someone who spent sixteen years building master schedules at the high school and caring about the number of students in a class, to faithfully commit to those class sizes is really going to sort of throw a monkey wrench into that process in a variety of ways. I have experienced having to build master schedules, trying to keep class sizes you know, for local policy reasons at certain levels, and then having the school year begin with folks moving out of schools or students making decisions that I'd rather not take that class, but I'd rather take this class. And now this master schedule that was maybe attending to class size minimums has gotten blown up a little bit. Do I do I accept whatever consequences might go along with that? Or do I cancel the course because I don't have enough students to run it? So those are some of the concerns that I think hit schools where the rubber meets the road, you might say. And so again, I'm encouraging the committee to sort of sit on your hands on this topic while we wait and see how some of these other legislative initiatives play out in school buildings. I appreciate you giving me the time to talk to this.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Thank you. Yes, Bennington.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Chris, it's good to see you again. Quick, very quick question. Are you still teaching the aviation classes in Brattleboro?

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: I am. So this is my fifth year teaching in Brattleboro. I started out as the math teacher here, but had the opportunity to open up an aviation careers program. And the focus is helping students get started on that career path, either as drone operators or as pilots, but also exposing students to a wide range of aviation careers.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: If you look up on the sand, you would have saw Those

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: are helicopter blades in the back back there. So we're talking about flight stability for helicopters, which is not my forte, by the way, but I can fake my way through it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: For

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: helicopters. Yeah. For what? Yeah. Once. Yeah. I knew that was.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Senator Okay. Rutland District.

[Speaker 0]: So, it's Friday afternoon, and I just wanna see if there's some agreement on this statement from a lot of the thinkers in this room and what you've shared and the committee. The foundation formula is one of the only tools we have to provide some level of certainty to districts and taxpayers. It is a political challenge, but probably the right thing to do for kids. Everything else is kind of trying to avoid the difficult politics of that or meddling in the districts further about, well, we want you to

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: do the foundation for a little bit.

[Speaker 0]: Also want you to do this to to find some more magical baby. We can have a separate conversation about how facilities dollars, bonding, and school construction also create an incentive for consolidation. But in the current conversation about the foundation formula, everything else we're doing is plant window dressing for ourselves or the governor. What money does it save to ask districts to do more than accept the Foundation for?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: What money does it save?

[Speaker 0]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Say

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: figure your question again.

[Speaker 0]: What money does it save to do anything more than implement the foundation formula?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Think I'm Well

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: And I was gonna Can I reframe the question? Is it Absolutely. Why implement class size minimums above and beyond?

[Speaker 0]: I'm ready to let all the

[Unidentified participant (overlapping diarization)]: class size fit all together.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: What you're saying is you gotta work with foundation formula. Don't worry about anything else. That all of begins-

[Speaker 0]: uncertainty you're creating out of mind. You have to live with the foundation formula, but you also have to be in a new district or a new seesaw or a new school or a new class size. Is it going to make anyone feel better? Is it going to save us money?

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Why don't we have GFO run that? We know it

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: won't save We know the foundation formula is what it is. It's the starting point, so that's the extent.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Right, right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So that's, in some ways, that's the answer to your question.

[Speaker 0]: And almost all of the districts we've talked to are under the foundation formula level as it stands with the NIFA increases that you've proposed. And I can't wait to see those schools get a little bit more money to serve their kids, if that's correct. If that if if the ones that are spending below average will get a little bit more money. The rest is politically challenging.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So so just to put this in a little context, I think the question before us, just in this regard with this issue with the class sizes, is do we start when the House says the House version or do we go a few years out until perhaps the foundation of what we've is in place and then start the clock making?

[Speaker 0]: I'm ready to let go of class size So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: you'd be able win on any event of those two.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I mean, was going to say I would also support getting rid of the class size minimums. If we're going to instead delay it, I do think there needs to be a lot more clarity in class is, and, I think a number of points have been brought up the whole session regarding, are we talking about students per teacher or students in a grade or a student, does a paraeducator in a classroom also count against the number of kids, you know what I'm saying? So, I think there are a lot, there's a lot of questions that are left unanswered and what I've seen especially in Act 73 but also other bills is when you have something as expansive as this and there are lingering questions, like what's included in tier three, for example, it creates a lot of doubt and uncertainty. Let's

[Speaker 0]: reduce the uncertainty.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: So I see. I see anterior.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Oh, yeah. Have two. Okay. I want to see the senator.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Okay.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: So pretty big question. It's kind of like the overarching question of the whole conversation about Act 73, believe. It's a big question, but I'll address your comment about class size and minimums. I think it's germane to analyze in schools. I don't think it's a primary driver necessarily. I do think part of the conversation is the definition of small by necessity and how you react to small by necessity, which by design, Act 73 hasn't provided the answer, but required State Board of Education to work on that answer.

[Speaker 0]: The small by is that?

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Okay, so that's all part, that's

[Speaker 0]: I class size think that's for the weighting.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Okay. Oh,

[Speaker 0]: That's different.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: Okay. But you asked a bigger question about, well, what are the aspects of X-seventy three are important, germane, relevant, etcetera. I come back to the same perspective I've had since the very beginning is what I want, what I desire is a superintendent who's got a view on a larger geographic footprint so we can start making decisions about which schools we should be fortifying for academic programs and facilities. That's very, very important. You don't want to continue this looking through a straw at a very small community or a community or a group of communities. Really want a professional superintendent to start moving down the path of what's right for the larger community, for the region, whether it's the size of a county or what have you, I'm not sure what the right sizes are, but that's the outcome that I'm looking for in addition to foundation. That's what I'll have.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: Yeah, I'll To add that point, think, you know, when we're looking at that, you know, greatly expanding the size of SUVs and it's not, in terms of administration costs, you know, superintendents are still going to need a lot of help in in making sure they're doing their job as a superintendent for a much larger union to be having deputy superintendents. So, that's that was just one thought I had based on a conversation I had very recently for the superintendent.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Your point, point, though. My point's

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: a little different. I'm not talking about the staffs, although I do think that it would be appropriate to have fewer superintendents with fewer staffs. Will every SU or superintendent just that may be not included in the future picture, will all their staffs weigh? No. Not at all. And that's not really what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for is a professional who's looking at who's looking at all the schools in that region and then beginning to socialize with the community. Which ones serve which ones get enhanced? Where do we put the money? Where where should we be working on academic programs, whether it's aviation or otherwise, where do they belong? Right now, we got seven high schools, and they're all bumping into each other. We'll leave it at that.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I get

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: you. Thanks.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Thanks everybody. We're coming in. You all had a similar. It was really helpful for us to hear it.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: What I hope we really absorb is not just the ask of pushing things out or etcetera, but the uncertainty

[Speaker 0]: that we're creating, is it worth it? Like, should we I'm gonna propose that we stick with superintendents told us a district of two to 4,000 means high quality instructional leadership or units, whatever. A a unit of two to 4,000 allows for instructional leadership and economies of scale without getting to diseconomies of scale. That is bigger than the mean district in the country. Most districts are about 1,500. It is just under the average district size in the country of 5,000. There's that. We're a rural state. We have the foundation for it. Is everything else just someone's desire for a political win because they don't like one of those two things?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Let's Happy Friday. Come back to this. By the way, we're going to start to be able to have access to Ledge Council next week when that bill goes out of the House, we'll really pick on us back up. Ahead.

[Sen. David Weeks — Vice Chair]: I'm to make just one comment because I think it's, I'm really trying to get a sense of community, sorry, committee vision. Vision. I don't think it has anything to do about number of students. I think it has everything to do with the number of facilities, leads directly to the number of principals, which is what superintendents are charged to lead. They don't lead students, they lead principals, and they lead facilities. So this whole conversation about gluing anything against the number of students, I think is, it'd be better served to dedicate superintendents to the number of facilities.

[Speaker 0]: So those numbers exist as well, right? And if we're talking about facilities next year, it's still a conversation have about how we

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: that data.

[Speaker 0]: Right. But but the average school district has five school school facilities. Let's just figure out what metrics are we really trying to get at. So,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: I think actually they're both relevant. That doesn't help.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: It does. That's exactly what you're saying. Because that's the Yeah, one that's the ones that, you know, yeah

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: having a what we're looking at in this committee right now is having SUs and SVs that are all over 2,500 kids. Right. So it has that scale. And that at least that there is a rationale for that, I think.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: There's a quality rationale. And and also

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: just the ability to move things around. Mhmm. Side which so Yeah. But I also get so I'm not arguing, sir. Lee's point, I think they're both relevant.

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: I hope the chicken egg is.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Let's move on because this is in Scott. We're going be out of the couple of weeks. Let's try to finish our budget. Have a 03:30, one row that's at 03:30 for the same coach.

[Speaker 0]: Chris, do you have any advice on trying to build a plane as you fly it? Because that's what we do a lot of here in the building.

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: I try to not do that. Try to make sure that the plane that I get into is already not only well built but tested by other people.

[Speaker 0]: Here, you go. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: Let's go back to the budget. People need a break.

[Chris Holtz — Chair, Bellows Falls Union High School Board]: Thank you for hanging out, folks. I'm going

[Sen. Nader Hashim — Member]: to head out. Thanks. Thanks, Chris. Let's make

[Sen. Seth Bongartz — Chair, Senate Education Committee]: it quick. Okay.