Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: We're live. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was just thinking of everything. It's really hot here. Is there anything we can do about that? Say crabby. We've been looking over It the says warm and cool. That's all those are the only options? Yours is just me, I guess. I'm gonna switch it. Well, I'm just wondering if you're presenting the ability to set the temperature. What about I don't see it. What about that laundry? Does that flip up? Can we send I can reach

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: let me reach

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: out if that's possible. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Can you put it to off? Is there an off? Warm and cool is all I see.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Then I'm

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: like, I need the No.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I was thinking the same thing. I was thinking the same thing. But if you'd be the one that's switch it. Oh, you can't do that. We can change your That might help. Do you want to yell at Sweeten. Yeah. Sending is on. Good. Actually not a gift. Okay. Well, let's And then So we are live. We are live. We are live. Okay. Now we have temperatures making lunch. It is set a little bit. So the Senate Education Committee in the afternoon of April 14. We've got a few things we're looking at today. Everything from our Act 73 follow-up bill to H nine thirty one, that's a miscellaneous bill, and then a little bit of time the technology, pilot spill, and H five forty two, PCB bill, and and we're I think and that's and that's even that today. So we're gonna start with, Beth James doing a walkthrough of the latest portion of Addison District follow-up bill, which is draft 9.2, and we'll get it at 04:13.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: The floor is yours.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you, Beth St. James, Office of Legislative Counsel. We're gonna walk through the changes in draft 9.2. They're highlighted in yellow. There aren't a ton. So, will skip to the first change, which is on we're gonna be just to orient us, we're gonna be on page 17, section five.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But even if we're looking at 9.1, did you read the CCI model?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yes. Okay. Good. Okay.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I have hopefully Yes. Okay. Everything that you have not reviewed yet is yellow. Good. So, we're in the transition to new supervisor unions report section. So now that we're oriented to where we are, we're gonna move to page 18, line five, subsection C. On or before 09/01/2027, this used to be, I believe, 12/01/2026, the State Board of Education shall submit a written report to the House and Senate Committees with the following: adjustments to supervisory union boundaries.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So just to stop for a second here, it had said September '26. I think it's almost obvious that that's soon for the board to make recommendations about workers of all gray areas, especially when we want to get the gray area to work on their own, coordinate with the board, and there's also no rush. So we're giving them because everything else takes a couple of years, just giving them a little time to focus on it themselves and get to a funded report a year later, just in retrospect, which it seems all all sales, obviously, if we need to get that done. Sonny?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I've just let's see. I've just on line 8, subdivision 1 adjustments is highlighted just because it was capitalized when I needed drafting operations to look at it to make sure that it was in alignment with drafting conventions, and so we're going to jump to page 19, line three subdivision two, same with the highlighting of school that used to be lowercase, now highlighted to keep with the drafting convention changes I made throughout, and the substantive changes to the subdivisions start on line seven. So, remember, this is the report back from the State Board of Education. First part is adjustments to supervisory union boundaries, and the second part is school recommendations for school district mergers within the new Supervisory Union boundary recommendations submitted pursuant to subdivision C1 of this section, which is the gray area only, which shall result in a recommendation of a total of 10 school districts as practical within the boundaries of the supervisory unions listed in Subdivision 1, which is again the gray area. And then the new language specifies that in making those recommendations, the state board needs to be taking into consideration any merger discussions already underway in the field. The Secretary shall also work with these school districts to facilitate merger study committees or informal merger conversations prior to the Board's recommendations pursuant to the subdivision.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: What kind of mirrors what's happening in the other end of 12, call it, districts where the seventh term was the agency works with districts that facilitates discussions about workers, which is making it be parallel so that's the agency getting involved early and helping to make that happen.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: And then the

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: next changes don't occur until section 12 on page 27. This is this is your appropriations and grants section. And so the study committee grant was amended from

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You know what? Think of this as a placeholder. We're taking some testimony today and tomorrow about what that rubber should be. So it's fine. It's just a place of work.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And so in draft 8.1, it was $10,000 and you bumped that up to 20,000 here.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That was actually well, I first did a test for this. One former superintendent.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then on page 28 in subdivision three, the merger's tort grant, we've removed some things here, so you can't see what we've removed. The previous draft, draft 8.1, had merger support grant calculated in one of two ways. It was either what

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: we

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: have here, a grant in the amount of $40,000 although in the draft 8.1

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It's also a question mark, so it's

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: a question I appreciate that. I feel like I have an obligation to be clear on what the changes I made were. And so, let's see. After about okay. So draft 8.1 had merger support grants calculated one of two ways. It was either 10% of the base education amount or $300,000. This draft just makes it a merger support grant in the amount of $40,000 And then it clarifies, let's see, previous draft 8.1, new school districts, I'm in Subdivision B. New school districts form pursuant to the recommendation of a study committee established pursuant to chapter 11, pursuant to Section six of this act on or after July 2026, shall be eligible for a grant under the subdivision three. Draft 8.1 had some qualifiers for eligibility. So, what subdivision B is saying is if you are a new school district that's formed pursuant to this act, you're automatically eligible for a grant, while draft 1.1 required an average daily membership of 3,000 students, at least 15 separate counts, and those were the two requirements. So those have been removed. And then there were no further changes to that section.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So this we have we're gonna get some testimony about the work that goes in before you get to a vote and then the work that happens after a vote and then what the amounts of because those are. We've got one superintendent coming this afternoon, former superintendent, and then a couple of who've been through the process. And by the way, also to describe the process and then where the money is booked up or when and so that kind of thing. Because this is not a big deal moving to get a big deal.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then jumping to section 13 on page 29, transition facilitation, study committee, and merger support grant. These are all the appropriations. Section 12, the grant programs. Section 13 are the accompanying appropriation. Subsection A is the appropriation for SU transition facility bond grants, and that went from $2,750,000 to $3,000,000

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That, by the way, that number is 12 S students times two fifty.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then in subsection b

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So notionally 12 gray area s units?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No. No. 12. Yeah. Because they have two fifty to have them do the laundry.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And then subsection b is the appropriation for merger support grants. And that went from $50,000 to $200,000 I'm sorry, that went from $50,000 to $400,000 subsection, and that was study committee grants, subsection C is the merger support grants, and that went from $600,000 to 200,000

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: During the first year, most of the work is going to be done prior to the vote. But again, placeholder numbers, circling placeovers, prepare some testimony.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Keeping on page 30, section 14 is only highlighted because it used to be section 15 because section 14 in draft 8.1 has been removed, and that was the change to section 4,001 subdivision 16 in title 16, which changed the face amount of the foundation formula. That language no longer appears in this draft. And then, there was some, I think along our journey to get to draft 9.2, there was some legacy language from previous drafts that I had not updated to account for the policy changes you had made in this bill. So subdivision, I'm in the last, on page 31, the last substantive section, is the amendments to the effective dates for Act 73. Subdivision one and subsection F for the effective dates of section 27 of Act 73 had been struck, and that should not have been struck. So, I have removed the strike through, and then in subsection G, the entire subsection had been repealed, but we actually wanna keep the references to section eight twenty three and so we've struck the contingencies and we've moved the effective date to 07/01/2029 to be consistent with the rest of the foundation formula implementation. And then previously, the effective date section had some different effective dates because you have the base taking effect at the same time as the foundation formula. You no longer have that changed, whole, right now, this whole draft would take effect on 07/01/2026.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So by the way, Seth, glad you said that because remember we had the discussion with Julia and Ezra right here, we're trying to figure out what has made sense to raise this. I think the I think the consensus was so you should just leave it where it is. Send. I we I experimented with putting in a higher base. The theory that there would be a cliff and then as you know that kind of got dispelled by Jolene as rather maybe that's not quite perhaps it was the best of words. Slow guy in the room. Which number? The the base remains now fifteen oh five. You're talking about the consensus was we should just look at that. Yeah, there's been some kind issues. Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So just to confirm, we're not doing anything in this bill that affects the class size minimum section for that, that's something pretty rare. Yeah. Is that something that we want to consider? Because I know we've gotten considerable testimony on it, I'm not closing anything right now, but I just want to bring it back up.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, fine. It's good for that question because it is a question. So it's in the miscellaneous building, and one question for us might be what we want to look at over here, study oral science. This is actually so, so any questions about about this? Yeah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I think you've already lined it up, but understanding the, you know, all these individual values for a central governance group, funding, free, merger, and that. Just understanding what the money really means, like, what they know or what they've experienced would

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: be That's very helpful. Okay. So we'll get it's not like you. Yeah. Otherwise, we're just gonna shoot. Yeah. But that that's exactly right. That's we have a new. I think the way it was happening, we had our first quarter retired Superintendent and through the merger process, actually talk about where, how it works, What takes she's yeah.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Okay.

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

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: The question, just a question going back to Senator Hashim's point about class size minimums. The miscellaneous bill has a lot of miscellaneous items as people. So we'll be matching back to it. The class size does seem like maybe it is more appropriate to put it in bigger because it's directly related as opposed to being mixed in with it. So people are not necessarily critical.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I well, you're in this bill. Yeah. So what if if people want to, right, if we could switch over to the miscellaneous bill. We have a new miscellaneous bill. Number should be 9.1. Oh, no. We don't have a new. Yes.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Okay. So

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: we have a two page for example.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: It's a one page. Oh, so one page for the Thomas.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yep. Round two. Yes. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: here, this is awesome. Is 10. This is a this is so as we talked about this the other day, as Senator Hashim just noted, Senator, I think you should actually, the one sheet is all you need. Okay, just, your client's name I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: got a lawyer.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Pretty good bioins.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Sometimes somebody calls

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: me out.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The Remember the issue got raised by the state board with us early in the session. The House version moved in, because of that confusion, it to one of two ways. The simple way was 07/01/2017. The other way was that, what was it, all the contingencies had?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: The state board had adopted rules.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, the state board, okay. So for shorthand, we could say July, and what we talked about after we heard some testimony the other day was pushing it back so it doesn't take effect until the foundational formula actually goes into effect. And so the way I'll let you walk through it, but the way we're this is an attempt what this is attempting to do is to say that once all the contingencies have been banned and the vantage point goes into effect, does, the vantage point starts ticking. So his leggings have started ticking a few years from now rather than. So with that.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Thank you, Beth. James, I'll bring the legislative council. So you all have possession of HNI 31, which is the miscellaneous education bill, but so far, we've only made one change to it, so I have drafted that as the instance of amendment. Unless you are going to be making major changes to the bill in every section, I am going to encourage you to use instances, because it makes it so much more clear where your committee is making changes to the work that the House did. So, this is an instance of amendment to section 13 H nine thirty one as passed by the House, which in and of itself was an amendment to Act 73, section seven. The House added subsection B, that is just what your chair described. It essentially started the clock ticking on the secretary being able to hold class schools accountable to the clock at minimums. Can see on page eight that language. Until the state board adopts updates to the education quality standards rule series to reflect the addition of class size minimums or 07/01/2027, whichever date comes first. You'll see that on line seven, we're striking out those words. So, by striking out those words, you're gonna, on line 11, insert in blue thereof. There's an in missing, the following language. All contingencies contained in 2025 action resolves number 73, section 70 F, subsection F, as amended, that's the effective date section for the foundation formula, that are required for the foundation formula to become effective now that it's been met and the foundation formula is effective. So it would read, Schools failure to comply with the classifieds minimum requirements contained in 16 BSA section 165 subdivision A9 shall not count towards the three consecutive school years of non compliance that enables the secretary to recommend action to the state board until all contingencies contained in twenty twenty five acts and resolves number 73, section 70, subsection F as amended are required for the foundation formula to become effective have been met when the foundation formula is effective.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yes. So, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the phrase and the foundation formula is effective. It's very subjective. Who what if some people think it's effective and other people don't think it's effective? How would that how does this work? Theoretically,

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I should only be drafting contingencies for the you all where there is a subjective determination of whether the contingency has been met. And therefore, it would be easy to tell whether the contingency has been met and whether any effective dates based on that contingency are effective. I will leave it up to you all, I think that's a policy question, of whether the contingencies in Act 73 are clear enough for there to be no debate over, but you have what you have to work with. What I have been asked is to draft language that makes the clock start ticking on compliance with education, with classes and minimums contingent on the foundation formula taking effect, which in and of itself is contingent on the contingencies in Act 73. So, I hear you, but that is what we have to work with.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, thank you. You're working on. Yes. Mhmm.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: We're working on.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You're talking about. Well, that's come up, yeah, as to who wanted to take it out of the miscellaneous bills. Break that section to the miscellaneous bill.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yes. So maybe this is a question for you, or Beth, but when it comes down to it, it'll be the state board that determines what a class is and whether it's, you know, whether it's state of classroom, whether a paraeducator counts towards that, they'll be the ones determining that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Remember that I know it's in the audience.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So right now, the act 73 has passed last year and enacted last year, requires the state board to update the education quality rule series to reflect the statutory change, period. H nine fifty five, as it is traveling in the house today, does provide definitions for some key terms, including class, including school, etcetera. So, It depends on what you all pass this year on whether there will be any further clarity to the state board.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Did you say that the House bill contains those definitions?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: A nine fifty five, which is the big Ed bill, yes.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And just so people know that, we're doing a walkthrough of that bill on Friday. We won't quite have it. But it'll be at an election through second meeting on Thursday. We're bringing on Friday. So we're gonna go walk through. Some risk. I suppose there's a last minute or amendment, but

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yeah. The rumor is there's gonna

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: be quite a few before. They tend to hit on second. They tend to hit second, but we'll see.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: When do they start floor on Friday?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Friday, the house starts nine

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So we'll probably even

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: have the most of the whole bill. Okay. Well, makes

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: sense. So can we we heard remember the testimony we heard, which was in in some ways, the testimony was it was up to us. We probably just wouldn't have less than the votes. But if they're going to stay, having them start effectively about three years later, the clock start ticking, would take some pressure, all the pressure off us, some of the pressure will be able to get them off. That was somewhat the test for me. We have a new choice. The choice that we're testing out here is just pushing the quadrant, the start of the three year quadrant, taking out until the foundation for the last few weeks. So that's what's across. Yeah.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I I think we should be limiting our asks of these newly formed entities or our schools as they are right now. I I think think we should be limiting our ass as much as possible. I feel pretty good about limiting them to working with a foundation formula, and until then a spending penalty, and having a district size that we hear is the right district size. There just simply isn't a body of research that should indicate to us that we know best when small is too small for class size. That's not necessarily going to save us money. Yeah. So I I advocate for for I we're seeing this all over the place when you say, we're just extending the deadline. That doesn't make anybody's life easier.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Which is a a a a a a a

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I I just don't like the idea of deadline a a a extensions as a way to solve the problem. Maybe the house will reintroduce that if we move away from class sizes, but I see no value to the class size piece if we're already asking for a district size. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: what are you saying?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: The first option,

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: whichever was the option of just not having a class size minimum for right now. It could be reintroduced any year people wanna reintroduce it, but it's a lot it's another input right now that's just causing confusion.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I agree with that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So if you go around to YouTube, you you say you just you have group process. Mhmm. Okay.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So I'm a project guy. Right? That's how I made my my my living. And timeline was always very, important. So all the muscle movements got plotted on when we're deciding to do this or do that and what influences this and what influences that. So that in one shot, you can see from today to whatever, four years out, five years out, and all the different decision points and all the things that have to correlate together to to lead to some successful conclusion. And if it didn't, we altered it, kept altering it, dynamic, very dynamic. And I I I submit that we need, it's just me, a visual on timeline through this whole thing. All these transformations to lead to, theoretically, better position than we are now, and when and where they happen and why they happen. That would be helpful. If you want, I could do like a first pass with some product software. It may have

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: been done.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: There is a timeline for Act 73 and there is a timeline that will come with H955. Five.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Okay. Good. Can can who did that? Who's the who's the

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Ledge counsel.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Someone in your office.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Multiple people in my office. That's good.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can I ask or do you want a timeline so so you can see how we're apting a lot of districts, like and it's all getting confusing? Like, because if we're so confused, we need a timeline. That's the timeline. Of course. Yeah.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yeah. We can't we can't but watching and the folks are getting a third person, etcetera, etcetera, they can't track what we're the whole process is.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So so what by the way, just to set this up, when Beth gets in on Friday to walk her through the house bill, we're doing it with the expectation that we might not finish because it's gonna it might take a while, so we're gonna get

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: gonna Oh, finish the walk through it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so there's gonna be, the reason I said that is that what we might wanna start with on Friday would put that as a walkthrough of the existing timeline, the Act 73 timeline, as a starting point, and then move to the bill. So we recognize the bill anyway in that first.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Can I submit that it might be helpful to get the Act 73 timeline again? Just That's what we're talking Just pass it on. I'll pass it on ahead of time. So by the time we see you on Friday, we're talking about a bill that's coming through the house, that we can see what their timeline is and start understanding where where they made significant changes.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I will send a draft or the link to the document. Yeah,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so why don't we sort of switch our thinking to doing that and start with on Friday then we walked through the timeline, then switched to the house, then we'd out their timeline afterwards. We'd get to school to get as far as we get. We had them picking up the phone, we were getting a little job on it. That's what we couldn't find anyone.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I didn't know if other people had a opinion on the class size.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, I, go ahead. Well, I'd like

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: to see where it hits. Yeah. Because frankly, we know what the class is all right now. We that we have that data. And I'm not submitting that we need three years or we don't need three years to then have it take effect, But I'd like to kind of see the sequence of decision points and

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think that one was 2027. Class size minimums take effect in the statute on 07/01/2026. They rely on current law, and then some amendments made in Act 73 for the timeline to get to the point where there would be any actions taken against a school. And so, as of 07/01/2026, it would be that the clock starts ticking on 07/01/2026, because they have become effective. And this would be you making no further changes to the law. Then, if over a period of three consecutive school years there is non compliance and it is not for one of the reasons specified, or they don't have a compliance plan ready to go, it's just taken them a while to get there, Then those three consecutive school years enable the secretary to recommend action to the state board. That's a may, not a shall, and it also requires the secretary after those three years of non compliance to provide an additional two years of assistance, if you will, hoping to get them in compliance before they could recommend that action to the state board. So, depending on whether or not the secretary used her discretion, we're talking at least five years before there could be action taken against a school based on class size minimums solely. The timelines that we have for Act 73 and for H nine fifty five, because these bills are so big, don't contain that level of detail for every policy choice, right? It's effective dates and it's the larger pieces, like class size minimums, become effective. The timeline doesn't include, and then three years later, etc. So, it may not be that every policy decision you'd like to see interpreted on the timeline is represented there, but I can do my best to speak to it as we look at the timeline. Okay,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: just to see what you got.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Could be mature enough to help us support the decision.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. So do we, it sounds like what we do is pick up this discussion on Friday? I mean, you're, you're, you don't hear about my drink, but you

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, I, I think, what I think we should make sure we're, we're all on the same page about is that what they said was these things just continuing to hang out there may be causing them to make conflicting decisions than what they would do if they were just given a couple of inputs to work with in a time when, frankly, we just want them to be educating kids in a different time. I would say, like, pushing things pushing things out is we can always return to things, but pushing them out says, like, we still agree that they should be hanging out there, and I don't agree it should be hanging out there. So

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: you're saying you don't think class sizes should be hanging out like them? Just so you're thinking.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: No. I, I, we not seen, I have looked through a lot of research and evidence and there's nothing to say this is the right class size. It could be very dependent on your community. Most people will say, we know when we see too small, but we're seeing classes right now that have one to five AP kits or whatever it is, and that's still valuable. That's still Vermont's size.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: But that brings back the affordable to valuable.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: But if we're giving them a foundation formula and a district guide.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yeah. And again, I'm not fully, if they can afford it, we're

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: not Trusting until be able the best workout. Can

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: you reduce the contingencies?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: For the foundation formula?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Because we have a, can do it on Friday. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's not that the contingencies or the, that the secretary can consider, or how class sizes work. Oh, sure.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Let me pull up the statute.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Because I know, like, this discussion that we're just having now, because I think some classes, some types of classes are exempt. Correct. Including AP classes. Okay.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: That's an that was an example.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I know. I know. But it's still

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And CTE is exam?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yes. Okay. Good examples.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think if I recall correctly.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: See, I don't know this stuff all in my life. It's like, why? Okay. So we are in section 165, which is the education quality standard statute. When we talk about EQS or education quality standards, we are most often thinking about the state board rules, but the state board rules only exist because you have the statute, and there are specifics in the statute itself. So, you have to think about both of them to have a total picture of what Vermont's education quality standards entail. So, we're in subsection A, in order to carry out Vermont's policy, etcetera, schools shall meet the following education quality standards. In Act 73, added subdivision nine, This does not take effect until 07/01/2026. So, the school complies with average class size minimum standards, provided, however, that my class size minimums apply to content areas and individual class may be smaller than the minimum average. As used in the subdivision, content area means a group of courses within a specific licensing endorsement area. And then subdivision A lists the class size standards for the grade bands. It specifies that multi age classrooms for grades K through H shall be limited to two grade levels per classroom. And then the following types of classes or courses are exempt from class size of pre K, kindergarten, CTE, flexible pathways, terminal courses, advanced placement courses, courses that require specialized equipment, and driver's education classes. And then also, small group services for the purposes of providing special education, supplemental or targeted academic intervention, or English learner instruction shall also be excluded from class size minimums. I am not an education expert.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Caps do.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So my understanding is that advanced placement is an actual regulated course, right, through the college exam board. Anyway, terminal courses is meant to capture those advanced courses that are not AP courses, but would be like, you've reached the highest level you could go. So, like Spanish five, if there were, you know, whatever that might be, but it's not an AP course. That term is not defined, so it doesn't necessarily matter what I think. So, and then we've got some language here that those class sizes should not exceed what's already spelled out elsewhere in the law regarding occupancy occupancy limits. Schools can ask for a waiver due to geographic isolation, or they've developed an implementation plan to meet those standards and they need some time to get going. And then state board action. So, if the secretary determines the school's not meeting class size minimums over the course of three consecutive school years, the secretary may recommend to the state board one or more of the actions listed in subsection B, which is the actions that the state board can take for non compliance with all education quality standards. And then the state board would be required to follow the procedures in subsection C. So, subsection B here is that the school fails to meet standards or make sufficient progress Oh, actually I should scroll up. So annually, the secretary is required to determine whether students in each Vermont public school are provided educational opportunities substantially equal to those provided in other schools. If the secretary determines that a school is not meeting EQS standards listed in subsection A of this section, which includes class size minimums, or that the school is making insufficient progress in improving student performance, the secretary shall describe in writing the actions that a district must take in order to meet those standards and shall provide technical assistance. If the school fails to meet the standards within two years of that determination, the secretary has to make a recommendation for the state board. So you've got three consecutive years, and then it's discretionary whether the secretary even does anything after those three years, and then if the secretary does make recommendations, the law requires two years of technical assistance, and then a recommendation to the state board, and then there are five recommendations that may be made, including continuing to provide technical assistance for one more cycle, adjusting SU boundaries, assuming administrative control of the school, closing a school, or ordering consolidation?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, order on Friday. Good, that was very helpful. I think we're good.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Any changes to either the Act 73 continuation bill or what we've talked about here today?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, here's one thought, maybe we'll right out this one, but one thought is what direction we go to decide we're going to go to the so it could trap 9.2 versus what should come 9.3. Yeah, that's chalky.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. You're gonna do what?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We do, whether it's push the date out or eliminate whatever, what times we do it in, what would be 9.3?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So you're referring to class size minimums. So you'd like to add?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Take them out miscellaneous. Okay. Can I point something out? Yep.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: The miscellaneous, the amendment we are looking at for the miscellaneous ed bill ties the clock ticking to the contingencies for the foundation formula, but your draft 9.2 removes all the contingencies and just does a date certain for the foundation formula to be revised. So, we could have both in the same draft.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, let's hang on then and think about that. So the way 9.2 is right now, talk about that again.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: The way your, I've been calling it your governance modernization language based on your original proposal. That language has traveled since whenever you made that policy decision, I can't remember, it may have even been the first draft, that all of the contingencies are removed for the foundation formula and the foundation formula just takes effect on 07/01/2029 period. So you could just say the clock doesn't start ticking until 07/01/2029. You just this I mean, having this language travel in either vehicle coming out of this committee would potentially pose a problem, but if you're putting it in the same vehicle, it certainly would be something we

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: would want to rectify. Okay. Reconcile us.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Reconcile, yes. Silence too. Yep. Okay. Back to the war on Friday. Okay. I think that's where we're headed. We'll just have to figure out how.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Okay. Then I won't make I won't have a new draft for you on Friday unless we talk in an interim. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And do you have me in before then?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: We might. I think you do. We would have you in for an hour to work.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We don't need anything. Right? Oh, do we have other of our other live bills? That is on H-nine thirty.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: What was that? Chronic absenteeism. That

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: one. Let's

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Last. 01:30. Oh, it's just a.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: You have me from 01:45 to three tomorrow.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Let let's analyze at the end of the day where we are, like, now. Yeah.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I have no change. I have not been requested to draft any changes, but I'm happy to come and do markups with you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm wondering whether we'll be ready for that. That might even be what we were thinking. Why don't we book it that way for tomorrow as as more of a one. We'll work let me have this one. We have some tomorrow. We have more we have more on first day. That makes sense. Yes. But if we wanna get ahead of ourselves. We'll talk to you at the end of day. Okay. Yeah.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. Thanks.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And I'll see you on Friday.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Maybe, yeah.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Let me I'll see you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. I never know whether we should start fully or not, but let's start if people are good to go. Thanks, Beth.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Welcome.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We have a good start, so we'll switch our side to H650 and start taking Anybody who needs it? But we just go do it online. It's gonna go.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: It's not something we have.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We we had it passed out last week.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Oh, yeah. I've been looking at it. Yeah. It's 06:58.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Who's that? 06:00.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Who's the draft for 06:15? It's point one.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: The gray. The gray? Okay. That's right. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay, going to go at 06:50. It's got that couple of P-fifty areas. Yeah. With that, our first witness is Abigail Wilson? Director?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Good afternoon, Yale.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: State Policy Information Association. You're on.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Thank you, Chair. Chair Bongartz and members of the committee, SIIA represents nearly 400 companies delivering educational technology to K-twelve schools nationwide, including Vermont. We share the legislature's concerns about children's well-being. That shared concern is precisely why precision matters and why age six fifty, as currently drafted, misses the mark. The concern driving this legislation is legitimate. Parents and educators are right to ask hard questions about technology in the classrooms. But the correct question is not how much screen time students are getting, but it is what they are doing on those screens, who governs it, and what evidence shows the outcomes. That distinction matters enormously because the technology these bills target and the technology that genuinely concerns most parents are not the same thing. What disappears under blanket device restrictions is specific. The reading assessment that flags a struggling second grader in time to intervene. The adaptive platforms that gives a student with disability the access the law requires. The only high quality instructional content available to students in Vermont's most under resourced communities. In a roundtable convened by New America's Teaching, Learning, and Tech program, students recognize the risk of technology, including distraction, AI overuse, and less critical thinking, but distinguish these risks from complete bans. One participant noted that decision makers may overlook technology's support for learning when parental concerns are primarily centered around their children's use of consumer technology outside of the classroom. This call is not for removal, but thoughtful integration based on research and teacher training. The evidence for institutional educational technology is currently rigorous. RAND found blended learning models can double typical annual learning gains. SRI International documented 75% more learning from digital feedback tools by closing achievement gaps for struggling students. Sixty eight percent of educators report saving five hours a week with ed tech, time that is reinvested directly into students. And the nations that consistently outperform The United States, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, are not low technology education systems. High performance and thoughtful technology integrations go hand in hand. Institutional ed tech is not an unregulated Wild West. Vendors serving Vermont schools already operate under a variety of federal laws, including FERPA, COPPA, ESSA, SIPPA, IDEA, and the ADA. It's a rigorous framework covering data privacy, content filtering, evidence of effectiveness, and accessibility. Critically, EdTech purchased with federal dollars must meet ESSA's Evidence of Effectiveness Framework. Consumer technology faces no such requirements. School managed devices also operate within a supervised environment. For example, under SIPA, schools are required to filter content and block harmful material. H650's certification layer duplicates this existing accountability without adding any meaningful student protection, imposing compliance costs that risk driving smaller providers out of Vermont and leaving districts with fewer, yet more expensive options. Institutional ed tech is a purpose built for formal learning environments. It's anchored in pedagogy, governed by school contracts, and prohibited from using student data for commercial marketing. Consumer technology, such as social media platform streaming and general purpose apps, carry none of these requirements. By defining educational tech product to cover any software that may collect, process, transmit or student data. Age six fifty applies the same regulatory regime to ESSA compliant adaptive reading platform as your consumer app with no pedagogical governance whatsoever. Effective legislation should reflect that distinction, not erase it. H650's restrictions do not fall equally. Students with disabilities depend on EdTech as legally required accommodations under IDEA and the ADA. Restricting certified tools directly compromises the access to the curriculum. Students in rural and lower income Vermont communities frequently rely on EdTech as the only access to high quality instructional content. The students most affected by the imprecise restrictions are often the very students these policies seek to protect. SAIA agrees with the problem that the bill is attempting to solve. But the answer to the concerns about the technology in classrooms is not the blanket prohibition. It is educated, governed, evidence required, outcomes accountable framework that the institutional ed tech already operates under. We strongly urge the committee to adopt a study first approach modeled on Virginia's SB five sixty eight, directing the agency of education to develop evidence based model policy and consultation with educators, researchers, disability advocates, and ed tech providers. This would give Vermont the precision it needs protecting students from genuine harms without eliminating the tools its schools and most vulnerable students depend on day to day. We welcome the opportunity to work with the committee and are available to provide additional information at your request. Thank you.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Thank you. I am so admittedly I'm still learning all the nuances of this bill. It just came to us recently. I'm not understanding how there's necessarily necessarily a blanket prohibition. I'm looking at page three specifically lines fifteen and sixteen, where the AOE would be able, would have a role in creating a list of educational technology products like 50 news across the state. And maybe I'm still trying to figure out the different parts of this bill, where are you seeing that there's a blanket prohibition?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: So I think their concern is not necessarily a blanket prohibition, but the way the registration is, is that it would could and would prohibit certain educational technology and create this additional layer that it's unnecessary given the additional federal protections that are already in place. So the initial, it would initially create a prohibition until an educational provider would go through the process with the state to become registered. That's the way that we are reading the legislation.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Okay. Thank you. Yes.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I I don't know who this came from, but it's like a list of all of the different types of things that might be considered ed tech. And it and it does it as you said, it includes some some things that could be considered social media already or are more tailored towards kids. I'm looking at other states, and I wonder if you have any comment. For example, on Utah, it's my understanding that they just set specific parameters around what was acceptable, which really can vary by age. So I guess, you know, what I'd say out loud is I'm not I think the definition of of what we're trying to capture in our in what cons constitutes ed tech could use some work, but I'm not really even as passionate about that part as I would be trying to make sure that we look at some of our past work, like the kids code and trying to get a lot of screens out of schools, which we just passed last year, and really prohibit the use of of ed tech for kids under eight and make sure that no ed tech has paid advertising or pop up advertising on it. How does your group and the folks you represent feel about some of those provisions advancing at various states?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: First, we appreciate the question. And when it specifically comes to Utah, we can follow-up with specific information. We follow a lot of bills and I can't recall the specifics off the top of my head, but I appreciate

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I think you touched on assigned age bands and what is the loudest.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Yeah, so we were following it. I just don't have the exact specifics and I don't want to give any incorrect information. When it comes to specific ages and what's included, I think it very much, we don't want to create strong prohibitions. There are cases for under eight, let's say, that's about a second grader where there may be a need. A Learn to Read software does provide and can provide benefits. Do we want

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: What kind of software? Sorry. Learn to Read. A Learn to Read software. Yeah, I use this. I have a one year old and a three year old.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: I use that Yeah, my daughter's 10. I completely understand. I learned many, many moons ago, I won't tell you how many, learned how to read on Learn to Read software. So there are uses, but it's depends on the effectiveness. And I do think there's a role and a place for making sure that we are using software that does have that study behind it. We shouldn't just blatantly throw technology into the classroom without some of that pedagogical study behind it to ensure that it works. I don't think we are very We don't want to blatantly put in those bands. I think there are also some tools that teachers use that may not directly fall under ed tech. For example, a first grade teacher may show, a PowerPoint to go through words or go through the days of the week, showing the weather. You know, there may be ways that a teacher is using new technology or technology in the classroom where it's educator led, but it would still technically be a screen, but it is still useful to the students.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: I mean, think that probably would have much more to do with the definition of what we're talking about when we talk about classroom learning versus like, a a teaching I mean, I don't think if yeah. So I do think the definite if you have any thoughts on definitionally what we're talking about here, that's helpful.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: We would be happy to follow-up with that.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: But but yeah. I mean, we we have a cell phone ban in schools for a reason. You didn't really address the pop up advertising.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Yeah. So on sorry. Yes. I appreciate you following up with that. On educational, you're not allowed to use student data for commercial purposes. I think I can follow-up about specifics about how student data is used. But as far as I understand at this moment, I don't believe our members who specifically provide ed tech services are doing that, but I can follow-up about that.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So there would be no advertising on any of the I would

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: have to follow-up on specifics, but I know that student data cannot be used for commercial advertising.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: It probably wouldn't be a huge issue then to your members if we banned any form of advertising on it.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: I would have to follow-up specifically, but off the top of my head, I don't think that would be the crux of the issue. Issue.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Well, just to like, maybe I feel the need to defend myself. I think I used reading, learning you know, reading software growing up when I was a child. I do it with my three year old daughter who just turned three yesterday. But it's just like a book. It's a best practice at that age to do it with a parent or one on one with a teacher or an adult. So I just still can't imagine it'd be good for our kids in first or second grade to en masse in a classroom setting just to be using devices for learning to read. I don't even like having the tablet. And let me just let me try and give it back.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So, So maybe No,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: no, no. No, no. Would you go back

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: to Computer, laugh out. Computer, I'm like, you think the term of the record is about this.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So, and I understand you may not know the answer to this question, but does FacebookMeta, do they have educational products that are used in schools?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: I believe Meta has a few programs, but they are used in higher levels. So nine through 12 are college based, but I would have to follow-up specifically about those programs, but I think it's a very small portion of their business profile.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: And do any of those programs collect data on the students?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: That I do not have an answer for you at this moment, but I can follow-up.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: And so same question for Google and Amazon. Do you know if they have similar products?

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: So all of our members have, yeah, so Google and Amazon, they do participate in different programs. Amazon, for example, provides digital reading programs, particularly to underserved communities. My niece, for example, goes to a rural school that doesn't have a library with physical books. They do have to follow, as I mentioned, all the federal guidelines in regards to student privacy. Vermont, as previously mentioned, does have the kids code. Any state privacy laws, they would also have to abide by any additional regulations I would have to do additional research and can report back to the committee.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks for coming in. We may have you back.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Absolutely. I would appreciate the opportunity.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I have a follow-up. We'll look for some of those answers we do in one.

[Abigail Wilson — Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)]: Absolutely.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor. Wilbur? Keep moving. Realize you should get through this by the briefest one. Part of the Pull this slide forward. So for the record, both of you

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Go on, sorry.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Sure. I'm Doctor. Arundhesh.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: I'm the Chief Academic Officer at the Agency of Education. I'm Josh Lundberg. I'm the Educational Technology Program Manager at the Agency of Education. Okay. So here's I'm gonna kind of take people through the testimony because it kind of came in last minute.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: We're gonna get some questions. So thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on page six fifty. The Agency of Education shares the goals at the heart of this bill, protecting student data privacy and ensuring that educational technology used in Vermont schools is high quality and well chosen. The agency appreciates the House's movement toward a study and report structure in the version that has come to the setting. Age six fifty reaches towards two distinct goals, student data privacy and educational technology effectiveness. Combining them into a single mechanism serves neither well. These goals require different solutions, and Vermont is well positioned to act on both. The agency proposes a two track approach: enact the privacy track now, where the infrastructure already exists and needs only to be made universal, and redirect the bill's report requirements to study curriculum coordination related to the effectiveness of educational technology. Data privacy is a legal and contractual matter with established standards and compliance frameworks. Educational technology effectiveness is a question of curricular coordination, structural context, and implementation quality. Each deserves a serious response, either served by a single certification mechanism that treats them as the same problem. Vermont has a robust and cost effective student data privacy infrastructure since 2018, anchored by the Vermont Student Data Privacy Alliance and the National Data Privacy Agreement. The agency funds the Vermont Student Data Privacy Alliance membership for all Vermont school districts at no cost to districts. Vermont school districts current so there's a database in that. And that database currently has active data privacy agreements covering nine and twenty three unique educational technology products representing 2,438 individual district vendor agreements across 44 supervisory unions and districts. Through participation in the National Standard Data Privacy Consortium and with the partnership of the Education Collaborative, benefits from legal expertise and vendor leverage that no state specific certification system could replicate. The infrastructure works. The gap is that participation is not yet universal, and not every district has the legal and administrative capacity to manage data privacy agreements well. The most effective steps the legislature can take on student data privacy are to close those two gaps directly, require all Vermont supervisory unions and districts to participate in the Vermont Student Data Privacy Alliance, and to use the National Data Privacy Agreement process for educational technology vendors. This makes Universal what is already funded and already working. Fund the Agency of Education to procure and provide statewide DBA implementation support for all districts. A useful funding benchmark is approximately $1 per student. That's what most districts are currently paying, which is sufficient to cover current costs for the entire state through an established multistate collaborator. The legislation should fund the function rather than name a specific vendor, allowing the agency to procure through standard processes. Together, these two steps would give Vermont universal data privacy coverage through proven infrastructure used by 35 states at modest cost without building any new state mechanisms. This is the strongest action the legislature can take to act on the privacy concerns, motivating H650. Separately, the effectiveness of educational technology cannot be evaluated in the abstract. How the tool is integrated into instruction, how teachers scaffold its use, how it aligns with the curriculum, and how it serves diverse learners is integral to whether it is effective. Poor implementation of a good tool produces poor results. This is why a SNAEP certification mechanism focused on product attributes is the wrong instrument. It would create the appearance of quality assurance while doing little to support the implementation work where outcomes are determined. The right framing is curriculum coordination. Educational technology should be selected and used as part of a coherent instructional zone branch, the same way the agency is approaching high quality instructional materials. In this framing, the stage role is to give districts visibility into what their peers are using, support shared professional learning, and over time, build evidence about what is working in Vermont classrooms. The decisions remain with the districts within the context of state standards, but the information available to support those decisions becomes meaningfully better. The agency already collects data on EducatePlan technology in use across Vermont schools through two annual surveys, technology surveys sent to district technology leaders and a K-three survey that captures literacy and math screeners with strong response rates. The agency also plans to add questions on AI platforms used with students to this year's survey cycle. Building on this existing foundation, the agency proposes to expand and improve these surveys with a focus on curriculum coordination in the areas most consequential for student outcomes. Local comprehensive assessment systems, including literacy and math speakers. These questions will be redesigned and routed to district curriculum coordinators rather than IT leaders who are not the appropriate respondents or instructional questions. Computer adaptive learning platforms used in mathematics and English language arts. Math and ELA are priority subjects for improving student outcomes. And this aligns with the agency's HQIM, so High Quality Instruction Security Obscurity Institute. AI platforms used by students. So this is an emerging area where state level visibility supports the implementation of Vermont's AI guidance for education. The agency will publish annual results in a form that districts can use for peer comparison, professional learning coordination, and curriculum decision making. The agency is comfortable having this annual survey and reporting commitment reflected in legislation. Yes. Of the pieces of

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: the bill that did concern me was with or without a contract. It said so EdTech EdTech companies, and and I I do think we need to work on the definition so we're clear, and so we're not impinging up academic freedom, especially for older age categories. But it said, you you know, you have to register whether or not you have a contract with a district. Don't know how that's achievable. I don't know if you've given that thought. Because I don't know what it means if you're a software without a contract. Right.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: And so it's it's very hard to imagine that every worldwide ed tech vendor is gonna come to Vermont, register, and then we would have the capacity to audit them for all these future Every single district has procedure with FERPA. Right? You're filing FERPA if you don't have a DPA agreement with your vendor. Mhmm. And it has student data. So the difference the the the way H six fifty lays out educational technology is it's student facing and it has student data. From our perspective, it doesn't matter if it's student facing. In terms of data privacy, whether it has student So your registrar system, your finance system is just as important and secure as what's sitting in front of a student in terms of their state of privacy. And all of those require DPA. And almost all districts are using that DPA agreement system through the Newmont State of David Privacy Alliance. What that means is we're playing a piggyback game. So New York, Colorado, Illinois, they all negotiating, right? And TEC, who's the organization that most of them are using, is willing to say, Hey, you're not willing to sign and agree to this. We can't support you. And all those state agencies and districts are saying, Yeah, we're gonna have to end our contract with you unless you're willing to do this. So that provides a lot more legal leverage. So recently I was in a meeting with text lawyers about a specific vendor who had pushed back about a clause, and they're like, We're not gonna budge on this. We know they're gonna move, but it might take a little while. So it's making Colorado and Illinois a little nervous because their contract was coming up sooner on it. Having that leverage, you just can't pull that off on from them. I see.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Kind of similar to the like, wanna make sure I get everyone's feedback on what I rate that other states are contemplating or doing as well, is banning ed tech or a significant amount of screen time at all for kids under a certain age. Maybe you have thoughts on really appropriate uses of ed tech for kindergarten for second grade. That could be subjective, obviously. And then two, we're, you know, we're getting the kind of anecdotal, there was a pop up ad for vapes or whatever. That just shouldn't happen. Right? Like Right. And the more they're tied to your system or your agreement, like, should not have any paid advertising to kids on

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: And any device, a lot of our schools would filter it out through those advertising networks so they won't push through. But, again, there's teachers who may turn to a tool that has no student data, Right? Maybe it's an interactive science simulation or whatever it is. They pull it in for that one activity.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Mhmm.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: That doesn't go through a DPA agreement. The students don't have logins to the system. It doesn't have So that's why that privacy really needs to be separated from that educational effectiveness. Right. Because in the class, it's still has that information. Right? Yeah. And so that's still a concern, but just isn't that privacy structure doesn't cover it? And I think what we wanna ensure is that people have a high quality police curriculum so they're not glomming on to resources every day because they don't have good instructional materials. Right? And so that's where we need to kind of start as a baseline.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: And so your the the tools you have through the agreement as as offerings wouldn't have a pop up even if it They didn't have a There's no way. No advertising. They can't No advertising.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: Right. They can't be student data tracking, and they can't sell that data either. And it goes down to their subcontractors. Yeah. Because they store their stuff on Amazon Cloud. They use a Microsoft database on the back end, so they have to have all those subcontractors sign their same DPA agreement Right. Down the chamber because otherwise it's gonna fire away.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Can I ask one more? So to so so let's say this was a, you know, this was a scenario I don't know the details, but this is what we heard about this bill. There was a scenario where a student in middle school was was using a school Chromebook, and they got an ad for a vape cartridge. Would that be because they're on the Internet somewhere they shouldn't be? Would a parent make a complaint to the school? Would the student even say, like, oh, that's not cool or something? And, like, how do they how do they try and limit that experience?

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: Yeah. So that's on the Internet. Right. It's not coming from some app. Right? So that comes down to the internet filter that the schools are putting in place. And every district has internet filter that's in our tech survey that they right? To make sure that's compliant with and everyone's got it.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is it like McAfee or whatever that

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: one's called? Because that's like a personal security.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Is like

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: on your network. So if you go in with your own laptop and you hook to the wireless in the school, you should be routed through that filter as well. Mhmm. So anyone's coming in and they're able to get it. Okay. Right. But the thing with the Internet is fast. So what they're doing is they're selecting categories of sites to say, okay, so no porn, no illicit drug use, or no, right, no violence. So they're they're picking these categories, and they're subscribing effectively to these lists that are built and maintained at

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: the try to look at those filters that's at stake to make sure they're not filtering out, like, kids understanding their sexuality or Yeah. So LGBTQ. You know? Like, that's not like both bammany.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: So every IT department in is deals with getting a request from teachers like, hey. I wanted this site. We're all blocked from it. Why is this being blocked? And then they're And then

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: they can they can change that, or they can block us. Yeah.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: And there's ones that are challenges. Yeah. In general, like Wikipedia. Right. 95% of Wikipedia is great.

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

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: But maybe in elementary school that there's the little corners of Wikipedia that people are more nervous about. So those types of ones get debated a bit. Interesting. Right.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It's imperfect.

[Josh Lundberg — Educational Technology Program Manager, Vermont Agency of Education]: So you said that your two requirements, which Currently, the districts, some districts do not go through what you're saying here. So we have contracts coming. I can see active contracts for the past, I think it went back two years Mhmm. From 44 districts and supervisory meetings. That's almost everyone. Right? And it could be those others just aren't signing contracts recently. But that's all I can the problem is the way that database is set up, it's a little funky. Alright. So if we end an act of this and say, oh, now the district would say, oh, hey. We want we'd like this at. They would have to call up to the AOE and say, no. So what they what they literally are able to do through that privacy alliance is if any other district in Vermont has signed a contract with that vendor, they're effectively just paid me back. Okay. They they can just be like, check. Now what happens if I find one nobody else has? Then that's where that either they're talking to the vendor or if they pay that dollar per student towards tech, tech their lawyers are gonna negotiate that. And what they're what TAC is doing effectively is they got there are about 14 states that are that are using TAC. So often, it's like, well, Colorado has has signed, and it's easy easy for them to piggyback on bond, right? There is a space in the way that Student Data Privacy Consortium is written for states to add extra clauses effectively. So for instance, New York has a clause around criminal background checks. It's weird. We're in there. A lot of our stuff is coming. So let's say you I wanna make sure I get this one right. I think it's New York that's this one. So it's a criminal background check. So let's say you have an app where the students could call in for tech support. Does that tech support person on the phone have a criminal background check on? So that's actually a requirement within their state of law. They've added to their contracts. And then of course, we've added kind of, but it's not actually in our contracts. And you said roughly, so $83,000 a year it costs Vermont to peak back onto? Yeah. I think we're up It's like, sporting districts are paying for tech services now, so it's the vast majority. And then you say tech again. Oh, The Education Cooperative. B. That's one of

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: the initiatives which throws me off. So,

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: we apologize. In committee when folks start to give testimony and they read, they said they kind of fade back. So, but I think I caught your point. I wanna summarize it. Yeah. Tell me if I missed it or if I got it. So so there's a system already in place that could be used. It's bound to be effective, but it's not universal. Correct, across the state. And I didn't hear a central funding request, but given the minimal amount of money that it's necessary to exercise program, could be effective, it could solve most of the problems. Correct.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Now, that's on the privacy side. That's on

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: the privacy Well, privacy on here. Yeah.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: I'm I'm I'm hoping that we kinda think of them separately because I think conflating of this Okay.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: That's where that's where I'm trying to and then since we have the sponsor in the room, I figure with that said, with what AOE has just offered, is there more more in that section of the bill that is necessary to survive for any particular reason given that AOE has an effective, at least has access to an effective program that seems to exercise largely what I think is your angle.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (D–Williston) — Bill Sponsor]: So Angela R. Snow from, a representative from Williston, sponsor a of the bill. We are, of course, aware of the Student Data Privacy Consortium, and feel pretty strongly that it is not enough. It's not at all touching on efficacy of the products, and other types of safety concerns that aren't addressed through data privacy. So nothing in the data privacy agreements can really get to the simple existence of the products in the classroom and the types of doors that opens up for for creditors and other folks reaching students on school to shoot devices. It just is it's through no fault of anyone who's trying to do the good work. It's just too easy to get past district firewalls and things like that. Students are being approached by predators and drug sellers and they just fall on foolish devices.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Okay. But thank you. And how do we actually have this good this moment where you're both in the same room? Can you respond to what proportion was Yeah.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Think my concern is on what's on the Internet and access to the Internet versus educational technology that the district has contracted with. Right? And so that's those are the district can only cover with those DBAs. Right? Those are software products. They've said, This is exactly what want to use. But if a student goes to a website, then that's really the only stop there is the internet filters that the school has put in place. And those filters are always gonna be a little bit of a rough hammer, right, because it's like take for instance email. If you want the students to have email, you're either giving them email or you're not giving them email. You can't block Gmail, and then it's like, can't choose from that internet filter what piece of the site is blocked. That's why Wikipedia was a challenge, right, for schools, and then a number of them had blocked Wikipedia because they can't pick and choose amongst Wikipedia articles. It's just not that fine grade of control. But

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: yeah. So, blah blah blah. No, I was just curious. Okay. So you need the opportunity to have the same rooms, and that's good. This is where let's just go back and forth once more, your response.

[Rep. Angela Arsenault (D–Williston) — Bill Sponsor]: I totally agree that the filters can't get down to that, you know, can't protect every kid from everything. I think to crudely paraphrase what you might be saying, Josh, absolutely agree with that. And that's part of the reason that we're saying, let's take a look at the presence of these products in the classroom at all. That's one of the considerations in what we're asking the AOE to look at is the benefits of using some of the certain products at, say, at certain grade levels over an analog. And so there won't be an analog version for every EdTech product understanding that completely. But when you think about, you know, does a does a young person, know, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, even fourth grade, do they need to be reading a book on a computer, or could they be reading a book in their hands, on paper? Those sorts of considerations are what we're trying to get at as well with this bill, that it's it's a much wider lens than just, the data privacy piece.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Senator Ronen, Bill, then Senator Hinsdale.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So I know I'm gonna take a look at what Utah just just passed because I feel like there's a certain age at which we can agree there's not a lot of educational value for devices. And then there's probably another age band where we don't want them on the Internet unless they're in a supervised kind of library research setting, learning how to use research tools that have an online component. But there I mean, I maybe I'm too old now, but may there's still really good research tools on on a device that aren't connected to the Internet. And we I mean, what I what I worry about is that we're like, I don't really wanna learn and know who all of these organizations are. I just wanna say we're we're following some best practices here that kids aren't just on the Internet in fourth, fifth grade. That's not a good idea from my perspective. And then by middle school, you know, we're teaching them digital literacy and some responsible use. But I think what we're seeing are other states saying, I'm not gonna I don't wanna wait for all of this to just be out there. I think anything on the Internet could be harmful to our kids, and there are probably a lot of reasons to limit their use of the Internet during school hours.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: You gotta agree with that because once they go home, it's a lot of waste. Gotta agree

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: with that or disagree.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: I agree with you, but at school, yes, Because maybe you should just get rid of the Internet, but then it's hard to a lot of people use it as a learning tool. But as far as trying to get rid of everything that we want to get rid of, you know, as soon as they leave school, they're opened up to it. And all we're trying to say is, while you're in school,

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: not parents are making decisions based on research and best practice about, you know, you can have a device with me. You can have a device that connects to the Internet or not. All of those things, and I I think they would be concerned to learn that that they're just their kid is just connected to the Internet.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: So it's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: just a little resurgence in landlines for that reason.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Exactly. Yeah. Flip phones are coming back. But all

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: we can really do is so what this bill can do is why they're at school. You know? That's that's how it

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right. And I'm just this bill doesn't do anything while they're at school. This bill says, let's let's, like, look at what's out there. I'm trying to make sure that if you are trying to lead a best practice, you have some parameters right now that that are generally saying to schools, don't just we're not a passive feedback of, this is good. This isn't good. But we're we're starting to work with you on the research that, like, there should only be limited settings where they're on the Internet and supervised, and they shouldn't just be sitting with with no one behind their screen on the Internet in some of these grades. Right? Like, you you all believe that. So then can't that be just made into a better guidance for, like, what we do and do not do with ed tech in our schools? Speaker spoke to this a little bit, right? But we do need to be careful as we approach that. We wouldn't reference those. I'm gonna do that. Yeah. Where we do need to be careful about exceptions for tools and resources of students with disabilities. Sure. Absolutely. Then could you make those exceptions? Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm gonna end this conversation after Senator Williams by saying, can you give us not to but just give us draft language so we can pull up against this and have a discussion?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Like, what is your guidance?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You've got

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: Right now.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Draft language or the bill, let us know what it is. Okay. We just pulled it up against it. Makes sense. But Senator Williams, Steve Waiting.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I just wanna back up a little bit and ask representative Archim a question about the bill because I haven't read it. And you know my biggest concern is that somebody's checking the basic comps competency level of the students before they're allowed to use their stuff. In other words, you know, kiddos are pretty ingenious about using devices to to get by when when they don't have basic competency and STEM. And I wanna make sure they know how to do their math and do their, you know, their reading competency because they can use if they can get the AI, they can get AI to do it for them. So I guess my question is that is there any provision in the bill that would require AOE to make sure that there was a curriculum or how to how to use this technology? If you've got I I equate it to teaching having somebody walking through a minefield. They don't really does not doesn't have a designated path, and kids can get hurt without that. So we need to make sure that they have their basic arithmetic grading skills down before they get to use it because they're gonna bypass that if they don't have it. How do we start it that way?

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So, I would say that the bill certainly, the intent of the bill is to hear from the AOE on those sorts of concerns,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: sort of,

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: absolutely, that especially with the advent of AI and the ease of cognitive offloading, we, and I have read the AOE guidance on AI and education, and I'll point out that that guidance and other types of guidance buried within that or embedded in that is the presumption of use. We need to be examining whether or not, again, it's grade level specific, it's ability specific, I don't mean to gloss over the nuance here, but we are asking the agency to tell the legislature what it would take to establish state standards so that we can know what products are being let into schools, we can know that the products at a minimum are legal, safe, and effective to be used in education. That's really what the bill does. I'll just say one thing. I think people should read the kids code and should wait for their response to the kids code because the important thing was designing for the future, was saying we have to have parameters that work into the future, not let's be retroactively looking at what exists and how bad it is because they're just gonna come up with the next thing. So if we need a kid's code for, ed tech, great, but it should have principles, no ads. This is appropriate for this age. This is not appropriate for this age. I'm worried about a potential time suck of trying to find all the ed tech companies that I just don't know exactly what that does for us.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So if if you can do that for us, provide us with language that you think would be helpful to what you're navigating, we can hold it up against this and make some decisions. That would be helpful. Okay. Nice. Thank you.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So next we have a little bit separate together but Robert Ripley and Peter Griffin.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Say correct. Wrong.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, yeah, we'll introduce ourselves for the record and I can tell us what Peter Werner is.

[Walter Ripley — Slate Valley; President, VitalLearn Board]: Sure. That's a good starting point always. So my name is Walter Ripley. I'm the data assessment tech coordinator for Slate Valley and also the current Board President for VitalLearn. Essentially, we're a nonprofit that operates in the state of Vermont that consists largely of the EdTech folks from all the school districts around and trying to help ensure effective and safe use of education technology in the schools in Vermont.

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: Good afternoon. My name is Peter Drescher. I am the director of technology and innovation at Essex Westford School District. I'm also the vice chair of the Vital Learn board.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. So the floor is yours if whichever order you wanna it, Ben.

[Walter Ripley — Slate Valley; President, VitalLearn Board]: I I think we're tag teaming it so we can kinda go back and forth a little bit. And I just start off by saying I think, you know, having listened to, Josh's testimony from the AOE, I think we find several parts of our written testimony sort of duplicative. So I don't know if we really want to take the time to fully read through that as much as much as I think listening to the discussion today. I would just maybe try to bring it back to the conversation that the AOE was proposing that initially we were talking about this as a consumer protection bill. And I think as part of that aspect of it, using the education collaborative tech is Josh was using the terms that we're all familiar with it. You know, I think trying to bring that to have that as a resource everybody can access in the state is certainly something as an organization we see the value of, because that's a tool that leverages agreements across multiple states. And for example, if you look at New York, they've directly partnered with the Department of Education for the State of New York to create that framework of what data privacy looks like in the schools for that state and those kinds of things. I think that's a really key starting part to it. Part of our concern, I would say, when this first came about was around the idea of certification happening at the state level. Not so much that we don't trust the AOE's ability by any stretch, but rather just recognizing EdTech is evolving and is constantly, you know, new things are coming out, people are exploring. So I think we were concerned about the time frame and the capacity of that work to be able to be done in a time frame that was realistic and plausible and allowed schools to try to be innovative. So I think that's kind of where we were coming with the perspective today. I will say kind of on behalf of the organization what the AOE's testimony proposes, we would be all in favor of and I think would be a great first step. It recognizes a lot of the work that's already happening in our Vermont school system and creates that formal process that we all know, hey, when we talk about the vetting of ed tech software as a Vermont system of education, this is what it entails. This is what it looks like. And so I think that would be a huge step forward on everything.

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: I would agree wholeheartedly with Walter and with Josh what he had proposed in his testimony. I think that would be very beneficial to the school districts. And I don't think it would be I was actually encouraged by maybe, I believe, senator Heffernan saying that, you know, it it it doesn't seem like a big leap to get the go from 44 to all of the districts kinda following this model and working towards it. It works very well for us, especially in the piggyback model that Josh outlined, wherein, you know, a district can begin a process and then other districts can follow suit on the same parameter. So that's very helpful. I wanted to go to listening to conversation in the room. I wanted to go something that I think is important and we might be missing out here is the teachers in the room. And I I worry a little bit that some of the conversation that that just transpired was that, you know, that we put devices in front of students and, you know, it's willy nilly and they can do whatever they want. You know, I think I think we we try very hard Essex Westford to have a robust and strong filtering system. We work on that all the time to make sure that it that it works correctly the way it should. We also try to empower our teachers in understanding, you know, that they don't have to use technology all the time, and that there are appropriate times for it. Have moved towards younger students using technology less and less just because they've asked about that. The teachers have. So I think we need to put it a little bit in the classroom and let those professionals make some of those decisions. I think that's really important that we weren't really talking about in that particular exchange.

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: Yeah.

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: I don't know. I mean, I think many things have been said already that were in the testimony that we put forward from VitalLearn. I don't know if it's appropriate to maybe just answer some questions you might have or to dive deeper on some of the other points that have been made. Would that be appropriate?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I just so I understand it, am I understanding your testimony to say that you basically are on the same page as the agency?

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: Yes. We submitted some written testimony that yes, has some things that mirror that. Yes. But yes, I can say that, you know, reading and reviewing Josh's testimony, I mean, Walter is in agreement, I believe, that, you know, we're we're we're behind what mister Bloomberg had put forth. So yeah.

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

[Walter Ripley — Slate Valley; President, VitalLearn Board]: I think I would just conclude by saying from our side, a lot of the conversations you folks were having today are certainly ones that in the school system we're having on a daily basis as well. It's a constant system of looking at what's working well in EdTech, what isn't, and trying to refine those processes and recognizing that things do change and you think something is going to be a good solution. Then on reflection, you realize, that didn't quite go as planned. So, know, it's it's a worthwhile topic and I would say I'm excited to see that happening not only at the school level but at the legislative level as well. So, I would commend everybody for bringing this topic up.

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: I would say not regularly, but we often abandon software or products that we believe to have had, you know, we believe they were a solution to something we had been trying to solve, and we often will ban those

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: and we

[Peter Drescher — Director of Technology & Innovation, Essex Westford; Vice Chair, VitalLearn]: see that they are not effective. So, we we do, you know, lean on our teachers for that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We are representative or excuse me, Scott May of London should is going to set aside, I'm sure, list of additional witnesses. You

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: got it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And you want to test up, we'll have you in to testify as well. But good next step on our understanding of this bill today that We'll make it up. Like, it is probably good. Could be next week. Right?

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: So you can have some time.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, I have some time this week. Okay. Cool. Maybe squeeze a couple more words to this week to get this thing moving. This is on our list of bills and we want to get out of here.

[Beth St. James — Office of Legislative Counsel]: So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: we actually have a few minutes. So why don't we take a break until we have enough for us? We Next, we're switching back to the follow-up bill. We have former superintendent testifying about that closure process at 03:15. Actually, he has limited time, so make sure that we're back after a couple of minutes before we can actually start the neighborhood fifteen. So we can go

[Unidentified (committee staff/member)]: off