Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Good afternoon. This is the Senate Education Committee on the afternoon of April 16. We're starting off the day, today is the Education and Literacy Efficacy Day, and we have with us today a good number of students who were involved in the Global Literacy Program. I know that somebody's going to introduce, so we have a half an hour and looking forward to hearing from him and learning about the program.

[Brian Kravitz]: Good afternoon, I'm Brian Kravitz. I'm Director of Outreach and Workforce Development at Central Vermont Adult Education. And I'm very honored to be here introducing our students. You you've had a heck of a session and I hope it's really wonderful for you to actually hear the stories of our students rather than from us. I do want to say that in this building alone, there are a couple of current and past students who you see every day. It's just the breadth of the work that we do. The other, last week I had an informational table in the co op here in Montpelier, and a woman came up to me and she asked about the work that we did, and I explained it, and she said, Wait, so in Vermont, you're telling me there's people who drop out of high school, there's people who have low literacy? And I said, Yeah. And she said, I thought we would have solved that twenty or thirty years ago. And that's the extent of the understanding of the work, or the misunderstanding of the work that we do that people don't have. And we are incredibly grateful for the support of this committee, for our work and our students. And with that, I'm gonna leave it at that. And we're gonna start with Dual, who's online, and he's gonna be our first testifier.

[Joel Tongar]: Good morning. Good afternoon. Sorry. Excuse me. My name is Joel Tongar, originally from South Sudan. I came in 2023 as a refugee. I spent half of my life in refugee camps and the rest inside civil war in my own country. My dad was a permanent chief, had nine wife, and over 50 children. Whenever my dad goes for his daily community service, he would carry me along so that I could listen to how he handled dispute. I would sit down listening the whole time. And in the evenings, when we are back home, he'd ask me whether he did handle some of the dispute well or not. Sometime I would give him my honest opinion. If there is a case, he would have weighed the fine or punishment. He'd call that person and adjust his punishment. My dad always wanted me to be like him, to serve the community because he believed in peaceful coexisting where issues are resolved in the absence of violence. This is where I got my inspirations to be a lawyer so that I can be arbitrator. At that time, my dreams was to go to school, but because of civil war in Sudan by then, excuse me, I never got a chance. And I've always found myself being displaced with my family. And sometime, I'm being forced without the children to carry South Sudan rebel logistics item in our heads, the front line, and would sometime come face to face with the enemy. That is how one day I I got injured by the Sudanese helicopter gunship. After surviving, I had to struggle to walk several hundreds of mile into far areas where humanitarian organization operate. I was then flown into Kenya without the wounded kit by the ICRC for treatment lasting six month. And after, I went to the refugee camp where I spent ten years before returning back to my country to go vote for separation from Sudan, which was oppressing us in the South. Someone may ask excuse me. Someone may may may want to know what about Sudan? Where is South Sudan? Sudan was one one country with Arab Muslim in the North and black African Christian in the South. After US Chevron company discovered oil in nineteen seventies And following the vacation because of war caused by the Sudanese government, who only wanted China as a replacement, the Sudanese government was made up of two powerful ethnic group controlling resources, power, and wanted oil, and national resources in the South, where I live with my family. They use forceful displacement using harmful forces and bombardment to pave way for oil ex oil production. In 2011, we got our independent from Sudan. But within one year, civil war civil war within one year, civil war broke out, and I end up in refugee camp in Kenya and

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Uganda again till I came here. When I arrived here, I enrolled

[Joel Tongar]: at the Monada learnings and start with English math. I then enrolled for other courses. I it's been almost three years now. I'll be graduating with my diploma hopefully this coming June this year and with college for economic degree. And then after law school, my level of education has improved since the. I'm being able to apply and compete in the job market easily because I know how to write and read. I aspire to be a useful citizen to the nation in United States. I am also volunteering for community service and charity organization around Bennington. Finally, even though my dad is not here to witness my history, the good news is that the education which I desperately want is here with me through women other learning. I would like to thank you for the support for the other education so that the people like me can get free education. And I know many of my community members are also in these centers, and refugees will continue to access this service should the support continue coming through. And the benefit to the state is much greater, especially refugee will find it easy to integrate into the local communities. They will in return contribute in the growth of the state. Meaning there will be less poverty, low crime, and there will be no relying on the state for support. Thank you very much.

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

[Brian Kravitz]: And next, we're gonna have Carl who's also online.

[Carl Coleman]: Yeah. Thank you. Members of the Senate Education Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to address you today and to submit my reading testimony. My name is Carl Coleman. I am a resident of White River Junction, Vermont, where I work as a peer support specialist for the for a small nonprofit. I am speaking before you today because I want to tell you about a transformation, not of a building or a road, but of a life, my life. And it happened because of adult learning program, Val. In 2002, I left high school at the age of 17 after after completing only my freshman year. At the time, I did not have a lot of structure at home and it did not feel like high school was giving me the support and guidance that I needed. For a long time after that, I felt like I was standing outside my own future looking in through a locked door. Without my high school diploma, I felt stuck. I knew I had to drive. I knew I had the drive in the work ethic. But without this credential on paper, I was invisible to employers I wanted to work for. In 2021, I was fortunate to obtain my current position as a peer support specialist, helping addicts seek recovery. I'm very passionate about this work, and I love what I do. However, to continue in this position and become better at my job, I recognize that I needed to improve my skills and finally obtain my high school credentials. When I first walked through the

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: doors

[Carl Coleman]: of Vermont adult learning in May 2025, I was nervous. I was not sure if I could actually get my GED, or if I would just be another number in a classroom. But what I found there was something I never expected. This was not a traditional school. It was a place that welcomed me in, accepted me for who I am, and never once made me feel that I could not succeed. I want to talk specifically about the teachers at Vermont Adult Learning. To call them staff does not do them justice. They are some of the most wonderful, caring, and dedicated people I have ever met. In a world where things often feel rushed, that these teachers stop and listen. They saw my potential even when I could not see it myself. Their willingness to help staying late to explain a math problem for the fifth time or offering words of encouragement when I felt like giving up is the reason I am here today. They don't just teach subjects, they champion human beings. They made me feel like my success mattered to them personally. As I write this testimony, I have passed two of the four GT tests, actually just passed my third one this morning. Social studies and language arts and just passed my science. These were the biggest hurdles in my learning since reading and writing have always been a struggle. However, I overcome them because I put my trust and faith in in the teachers at remote adult learning, and they encourage me to do the work needed to pass these tests. My teachers are confident I will pass the last test to earn my GED next month. In total, it will have taken me one year to do what in other times of my life I thought was impossible. I never thought I would get my high school credentials. However, because of Vermont adult learning, I will be able to advance in my position and be more stable provider for my family. In addition, I am more confident individual and more engaged member of my community. Adult Vermont adult learning has not just given me an education, it has given me back my future. Thank you for the time in supporting adult Vermont adult learning in this important and much needed work to provide adult education opportunities to people like me. Thank you.

[Brian Kravitz]: Yeah. Yimera? Oh, Yammerson. Sorry. Sorry. I was, I

[Unidentified adult learner (Vermont Adult Learning, Venezuela)]: was, it's too late. Hello, hello. You for this opportunity.

[Holm Arsen]: My name is Holm Arsen. I'm from Venezuela. I'm a refugee here in the context. Since I arrived in this country, I understand that learning English was something I have to take on right away. I knew it was essential to move forward, build a better future. If it enriched my community, at the beginning, it was not easy. However, I didn't get out. While working, I also keep going to classes at Belmont Artwork Clinic. This program, along with the support of my teacher Rebecca, has helped me grow step by step and build up my confidence. Learning English has also helped me a lot in my job. It allows me to community better with customer and coworkers, understand instruction, and feel more confidence while working. Because of this, I can do my job more efficiently and provide better service. Today, I am able to communicate more clearly in many everyday situations. I no longer depend on a translator, except when I come across technical vocabulary. I understand that I still have a long way to go, but I continue work on my pronunciation and keep improving my pronunciation every day. Thank you for your time and for support supporting programs like this that truly make a difference.

[Unidentified adult learner (Vermont Adult Learning, Venezuela)]: Very good. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. My name is. I'm from. My life is changing with this program, with. So I'd like to tell you some story about me and why is my changing life. My life is changing. When I arrived in The United States, I hear speak English, but nothing. Nothing. You can understand that. It's so hard. Just high. But what can I do with just high? Nothing. I felt lost and afraid because I couldn't communicate. Every day was very hard. Things simple, to go to the bank or to go to the supermarket. It was so hard. So if you want to buy tomatoes, I I couldn't pronounce that word. Oh, it's essential to know English. Yeah. My first first job was butchering cart at Walmart outside, and some customer asked me, hey. What can I find? Yep. It's so so okay.

[Holm Arsen]: I can't I couldn't understand. I can't understand.

[Unidentified adult learner (Vermont Adult Learning, Venezuela)]: My life began to change when I joined Vermont Adult. They opened their doors to me and gave me the opportunity to start English class for beginners. That was awesome for me because, you know, one year ago, I couldn't speak Latin English, but I can write, I can read, and I can speak English too. I know I need to improve some words because I can't pronounce perfectly. But my problem is helping me with that every Monday, every Thursday. My teacher, Rebecca, show showed dedication, care, and commitment. She never gave up on me even when I make mistakes. So sometimes it's good to know some words, but if you can pronounce, every person can understand you. She always say step by step. You can learn step by step. Now I can understand that that sentence. In a few months, I I was able to understand people and help customers at work. I gained confidence, and on the first time, I felt that I belong here. As my English improved, I was able to take dry medicines, follow instructions like to turn, to to left, to right, go straight, and I turn my driver's license. I'm proud for that. Okay. Okay. My progress was noticed at work, and I was given a new opportunity in the home department at. So I begin. I start. And right now, learning with with this program. Right now, I am a senior from my department in home in Edinburgh, Walmart. All of this happened in just one year. So you can you can imagine I can. You can imagine one year more or two year more. Thank you to my program for opening the doors to people like me who want to who want who want a better life and a real change. I want to you you too. Everyone wants a real change. Everyone wants a new life. I want a new life Every day. This program is teaching me how can I do that? I I want to help other person to support programs like this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Yeah. No problem. They're good. They're from. Please. Nice. Yeah.

[Brian Kravitz]: We have about seven minutes left total. So, Rachel? Hello.

[Zorita Melisin]: Thank you for having me. My name is Zorita Melisin. I live in St. Albans and I study English at Vermont Adult Learning. I come from Brazil, and I don't speak English. Sorry. I came to United States because a friend told me there was better work here. In Brazil, I was a professional cook at the general restaurant. The job here was not good. I came and lived with my Brazilian friend. She wanted me to care for her child with autism. The worker only paid $100 a week I need to live. I eventually got married to an American. He was that abusive. I came to a woman shouting, did a mantras cake. I learned about English every month I do to learn. I wanted to learn English. Today, I take English with my teacher. I want to learn English for different reasons. Number one, I need a job to pay my bills. Number two, I need friends to speak with. Number three, I want to study maybe medicine like a geologic or we work with animals, maybe. Number four, I want to write a book in English and Portuguese about overcoming obstacles and believing in yourself. Some problems I have with English now are transportation to class. I like to walk, but I have problems with the bus. I also need transportation for work. I do not drive. I have no Internet. I cannot afford Internet right now. I cannot take the online class my teacher wants me to. I want and need more classes. Right now, it is very limited. I hope that prolonged training can help me more in the future to learn more English, to drive, and to get a good job. Thank you very much for helping me, my daughter, and help me to get back to work and communication so better so much better. Thank you. Thank you. That's right. Very good.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Steven, next morning.

[Brian Kravitz]: And finally, have Alicia.

[Kesha Ivor]: Well, so happy to take you. I'm not calling you. My name is Kesha Ivor. I am a writer and administrator of short books. I am a parent, which explained my discussion, and I am former student of remote learning, and I'm a member of community that I think I've already played. About seven years ago, I came to Vermont just for vacation because I was living in New York City at the time. And while there's a lot of people there, I was actually pretty miserable and lonely because no matter what I did, I couldn't get a sense of community and purpose. I had a very good job, and yet I was pretty miserable. And while vacation here changed everything, I know a lot of people and culture and nature and everything is possible at the same time immediately. And yet, since I had little in between part of my life, I was thinking that maybe I can improve my English a bit. So I did what I usually do. If I'm curious, I Google it. And I Google Vermont, Burlington English classes. And that was the first link Vermont was learning. I show up, and I just said I want to just learn. I'm curious. Whatever I was there to learn, I will learn. I picked first art history class, and although I studied art history for my whole life, since early middle school till all the way to my master degree. And learning as an English is very different type of challenge, but I love my teacher back so much. And I was just fascinated by a whole different perspective because, apparently, history starts very differently from different countries. And then I took another class with her of persuasive writing. Although at the time, I had no idea what persuasive means. But because Meg was so amazing, I just took this abstract, mysterious, persuasive writing with the hope that somehow it will be helpful in the future. I took some English classes with amazing, barely, I am, just because somebody said she's amazing, and I just have to try. And I'm happy to report she's truly amazing. And I took civics class, and that was my favorite. And the first class was around about structure of the government and branches and what they do, what's supposed to do. And then we took different tours around quarantine communities. We learn about this profit nonprofit organizations, all this plan, and community centers. And we talked to people who actually started it all this some years ago, and it was fascinating. And then we met with some legislators. And that was wild to suffer from Belarus. And Belarus, you don't want to meet with your legislators. And in fact, they they know about you. It usually means that you're one step away from prison. So I was never really particularly inspired to interrupt with any politicians, and we worked really hard then. Belarus tried to be invisible because it's always trouble. But here, apparently, we can talk to you and share ideas. We can even challenge you or even hold you accountable if we think that's okay to do. And that was mind blowing and inspiring and sort of eye opening perspective of if I can do that, well, what else I can do? So this strange art history plots talking about different part of the history and the past, and all this Phoenix talking about community as it is, and this persuasive writing apparently taught me how to do research among my audience and pick the main arguments, and then we practice how to deliver reputable speech in a way that will be actually successful and lead to result of a book. I did that. And I loved that class so much. I took it twice. That's the commitment. And looking back, I see how all these very gentle small steps shaped the way I live now every day in Vermont. I'm a very active member of my community, and, you know, that's around. I participate in my child's school a lot. I'm part of PTO. I'm part of different committees, help to organize things, then help with different election things with people who I share views. And then I am a cofounder of Uplift Vermont the Vermont Network I advocate seriously for victims of violence because we all should. And I am just can't imagine doing all of this without this basic fundamental tools that I have there. Perhaps the most important that what I learned is that knowledge is not something you give to yourself. It's important to share it and spread. And, therefore, by doing this, the whole community benefits and become stronger and better. And how that's negative that this abstract persuasive writing that I have no idea what exactly that I'm learning exactly leads to this moment today. What I'm doing exactly that, hopefully. Mean, Right? But it's that's that's strange facts. But the Google research led to transitioning of the from this abstract destination vacation, strange place to my home. Thank you so much on behalf of me personally and my community. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Was really inspiring, so thank you for that. Did your are you in the House budget for what you had, what you're have budget for?

[Zorita Melisin]: Okay. Okay. Alright.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay. Well, yeah. Thank you so much, man. Really appreciate it and your support. Thanks. Thanks for coming in.

[Katie Black]: Chair, we're welcome. In the budget, but there's a CPE issue that may be coming away.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, for this population. Yeah.

[Speaker 5]: And make sure that helps everybody. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

[Speaker 10]: Thank you.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: And if it's corporal Stomp, goodbye. Yeah.

[Holm Arsen]: See you,

[Zorita Melisin]: brother. Bye bye.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Thank you.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Everybody. Yeah, I think we can. So we have, we are switching gears to chronic absenteeism, preventing chronic absenteeism. I don't- That

[Speaker 5]: one's dual valve piecing it off. Sure.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think that's what I like. Okay. Shifting gears to preventing chronic absenteeism, which is my age nine thirty. We have forty five minutes set aside for this, for four witnesses. And so, I take it you'll have the rest of your question.

[Speaker 5]: I'm

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: sure you're right, yeah. Okay,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so, for the record?

[Heather Hobart]: Yes, for the record, my name is Heather Hobart. I'm the executive director of Memorial Restorative Center, and I wanna thank you for inviting us to come speak. I'll also just for the sake of time, introduce the folks that are with me. So, Katie Black is a colleague of mine. She runs a school engagement program at the Memorial Restorative Center. Heather Freeman is the director of student support services for Orleans Southwest. So, that's one of the school districts that we serve.

[Katie Black]: Okay.

[Heather Hobart]: I do have handouts, although the handouts that I have with me were sent to you all, so it looks like everybody has what Great. They Again, thank you so much for taking the time, and I also wanna thank you for your work on this issue, which we know a lot about, having done the work in our community for nearly three decades now. Our mission is to, with this program, is to address chronic absenteeism, and we, for the record, support your work on H-nine 30 and the amendments that you're making to the statute. We also, just for your knowledge, have participated in the Agency of Education's stakeholder meetings that

[Katie Black]: led up

[Heather Hobart]: to their policy brief that was issued at the March. And again, we're hoping that you can just hear a little bit about the program that we offer and consider it as a model as you move forward around the spiral absenteeism work. So just for a little bit more background, our organization is a restorative justice organization for our community, and we've been around since 1979. We, through the school engagement program, serve Orleans Southwest, which Heather is an administrator in, and Lemoyle North, Supervisory

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can I? Yes. I was waiting for the background because I have a certain sense of what a restorative justice center is from Chittenden County. Yeah. But are you funded through the, do you work with the state's attorney's office? We have,

[Heather Hobart]: we received funding from the state's attorney, from Department of Corrections, from Department for Children and Families. We actually have quite a few funding streams, but primarily in the restorative work, those are our three funding sources. And besides this work, serve victims of crime in Memorial County. Correct. We have 15 programs under our umbrella. Half of them are legal focused programs, and half of them, like this one, is a prevention program upstream from the legal system. And just for the record, last year we served seven forty two people within our organization. More than half of them, three fifty, were youth and young adults, so so we're very familiar with this population. And to your point, Senator, we work in the legal field and also outside of it, which is a little bit different than some other justice centers who are focused only in the legal field. We have more of an umbrella organization which provides prevention services. So this program, the school engagement program, has been around for twenty seven years, which is also as long as I've been at the organization. So I have a historical perspective, and when the program started in 'ninety nine, it was funded through a federal grant, great grant for three years. We were serving lots of schools in our area. Within that three years, those schools found the benefit of this program and began finding ways to help support when the grant was sunsetting the program with their own school funding. Last year, the school engagement program served 130 students in our community. A significant number of young people between the ages of six and 16. And the program is very successful. So last year, 75 of those 130 students, or animal care students, reduced their chronic absenteeism. So we have data from years that shows our level of success. Before, Katie's gonna talk, Katie, a little bit about the program, which I'm sure you have lots of questions about, I would just like to focus on three elements that I hope that you hear throughout Katie and Heather's testimony, which we think are our elements of success, which are very critical. One is that we're community based. We have independence from the school affiliation, which is very important for families to engage with us. We have a familiarity, as I spoke of, with working with the most at risk youth and hard to reach individuals, and we partner with many human service and education partners within our community, mental health, health, housing, food resources, employment supports, etcetera. And we're very familiar in this program and other programs we offer, and coordinating, as the agency brief talks about, education, legal, and health systems. We have expertise in this area, so the staff that function in Katie's program, the School Engagement Program, have combined forty years of experience between the three of them. We're working on specialized training for that staff around restorative interventions, neuroscience, motivational interviewing, and the like. They also receive clinical supervision within our organization, and are in support with each other around that work. And we utilize best practice guidance. So, have always sort of been working alongside Attendance Works and learning, for those of you that have heard about that national organization, about their best guidance. And we say upon truancy statute, education and child protection policies, that sort of thing. We work with our local DCF office in many different programs within our organization, so we're familiar with them too. The funding is also critical, which I want to just draw your attention to, which is that it costs about $135,000 per school engagement specialist on the union to the districts. And as I said, right now, primarily those districts are carrying that cost, with LRC supporting some of that funding with DCF, Legion Prevention Grant, or Barge. Going forward, ideally, it could come in the form, I would love it, if it could come in the form of state grants, and all communities within our state would have that opportunity. So,

[Katie Black]: I'm gonna

[Heather Hobart]: stop talking and let Katie talk about the program before Heather speaks to the value of it for her district. Thank you for having me.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So, we also, between the three of want you to also touch on the takeaways that you want us to be thinking about as we're thinking about the film. Great. Advise us about changes you think would make sense.

[Heather Hobart]: Yeah, so could, Katie has a few suggestions. Okay. In general, we would say we're very supportive of the changes that you've made. We haven't hasn't made made

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: haven't made any?

[Heather Hobart]: Well, house has made, yeah. Has changed. Yeah, Thank you, yeah. Okay. So I'll let Katie speak for just a second.

[Speaker 10]: Thank

[Katie Black]: you for having me. I'm gonna take a few minutes to kind of explain to you how our program works. This is a unique program that's only happening in the Memorial Valley. There is some work similar to this happening in Newport, but as you probably know, it's not happening across the state. So, I'll share how our program works and then I welcome any questions that

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: you have about our work.

[Katie Black]: So, the L'Oreal Restorative Center employs me as the director of the program plus two school engagement specialists, one in each supervisory union. So they work in all of the schools in that supervisory union and collaborate with school partners to receive referrals of students who are chronically absent. So, our approach starts very early with early intervention to try to help students address the barriers and attend school. So, a lot of the work we do is social work and human service work. We have very close partnerships with school staff. I often work with superintendents, director of student services, school principals, school guidance teams. We work within the schools to create attendance teams so that school partners can work really closely with students and track their attendance and really work within internal systems to flag students who are struggling and then work within the school and with us to communicate to families, to work directly with the students to resolve these issues so that they can attend school. Oftentimes, there are issues that are basic needs related and we are able to help the family and the student identify those and address those pretty quickly and resolve the issues. So, our school engagement staff are the boots on the ground workers. They are in the schools every day. They are providing intake of referrals. They are triaging referrals. They're providing case management through Memorial Restorative Center, and they're providing direct service. They build communications often between the student and the school or the family and the school, and they resolve any conflicts that's happening and that's kind of unique to our training at the restorative center. And as the director of the program, I provide support and supervision for the school engagement specialist, but also provide support to school data managers, school leadership to create policy and procedures to follow so that they are able to track attendance and work with students who are becoming chronically absent. And then our school engagement staff provide those early interventions to resolve the issues with their attendance. So, in the packet, Heather had included this sheet with a blue pyramid on the top. We created this so that we can work more streamlined with school staff. It aligns with the school's MTSS structures. And it lays out kind of this tiered approach to where the school will be responsible for work in this arena and where our school engagement staff and myself will be responsible for some work. So I'd like to take a couple minutes just to walk you through what this looks like, and then I'll kind of tell you a little story about one specific family and how it applies to them. So you feel free to look at this later. I know the font's kind of small, but I'll run through it in the next couple minutes. So, the foundational supports and that sense of belonging for families and students is happening at the school level through the school personnel. When we get into a tier one approach to universal preventions to chronic absenteeism, we're working closely with the schools. Mainly me working with the schools and the administrators to create policy, to enact policy, to keep it rolling, to work to support their attendance clerks or their receptionist or their guidance counselors to be able to communicate expectations to families, clarify expectations in their handbooks, be able to communicate in ways that support the state's attorney's office if a student does become truant and we have to file for truancy. So, is some background work that I spend a lot of time on that's been really helpful in the County to really resolve some issues of chronic absenteeism. When you get into tier two, that's mainly where our school engagement staff are working, trying to provide constant communication with school staff, but also early interventions to improve attendance. So, this is the boots on the ground work, responding to referrals, gaining consent to work with students in schools. Our work is very different than what school personnel can provide because we are often working early in the day, late in the day to contact parents, early in the day to coach kids to get to school. It's often hours that school personnel wouldn't be available to work with families, and that's another reason why it's so effective because we were able to communicate with the parents and build those relationships. So, do a lot of troubleshooting for transportation with the school or with busing contractors. We make community referrals to alleviate basic needs or special needs that families might have. We work with families and students to improve their ability to communicate about what they need from the school, whether it's accommodations in the daylight, accommodations in the class structure. It's a lot of extra choreographing that my staff is able to do. And then when we get so the bulk of the work is there in tier two because we're working really hard to avoid truancy. We're working really hard to help these kids cultivate their goals and their future planning and be able to access their education in whatever way that makes sense to them. When we get to tier three, then that's where I kind of step back into the cycle and act as the area's truancy officer. So again, at that stage, I do a lot of communicating with the families about compulsory law. I communicate with the children about setting goals and how to get themselves back on track with their attendance, assessing what types of needs they have. Oftentimes, when we get into tier three, the family may not have previously chosen to work with our staff. Our program is voluntary until we get to that tier three truancy. So, it may be like the start of communicating with the family once we get to tier three. And then I walk with the family through the truancy process in court. I file the affidavits for superintendents and for our organization. I work with the legal partners and the GALs and work closely with DCF and Easter sales providers to support the families because these families often have big needs that needs truancy is a symptom of something else, it has to be often in my experience. When we get to that tier three, there's a lot of things that still need to be worked on with community partners.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is there an age

[Speaker 5]: group that seems to be more from what's going on with younger, middle, older that drive the numbers.

[Katie Black]: The research says that if we can connect with students by the time they're in third grade and help the students and the families recognize the significance of their education and get on the right track and build those steady habits to attend, that's kind of the tipping point. So, we work really hard with area elementary schools. We do small groups in schools. We do individual consultation in schools. We do home visits with families to try to get them to develop those habits early, so that then we're not seeing it become a pattern through middle school and high school. We work with kids of of a range of ages. So, you know, that's an idealistic view for the future that if we catch more children in elementary school. We all

[Speaker 5]: heard basically the same testimony yesterday that they they they up the little one to kindergarten then go stand and as you think towards grade, it goes back up because seniors and juniors may just get school.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Mhmm. Because whatever their class schedule is.

[Katie Black]: Mhmm. And it becomes hard if if you don't get that foundational education and knowledge in elementary school. Middle school becomes very hard. High school becomes even harder. So you can see it kinda has this kids' gaming effect.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So keep on still.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Two questions. One, we heard what I heard in other forums as well, but we heard yesterday from Australia Roxbury that there's not a lot of use anymore of the penalty for the families or the kind of criminalization part of truancy for families. I think I had a bill some years ago to just get rid of the criminalization piece, but it may be useful as like a final, like, you have to talk to us kind of thing. So I imagine you need some form of something that sticks at the end, but maybe it's not the penalty and maybe your thoughts on that. And the only other thing I wanted to ask, I didn't see it to the bottom of like, do you have a GED support arm? Because you said six through 16, and I don't know if by

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: the time they're 16, you're

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: just trying to help them get out of school well.

[Katie Black]: Well, the truancy statute applies to six to 16. We do work with a lot of students who are over 16 and working through other programs at the Long Island Restoring Center to either reach employment goals or access GED services. GED services do not start until kids start 16. So, it's and if there's a bit of a

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: hiccup and you think that's

[Katie Black]: how their funding works. So, they won't work with students until they're 16. So, we are able to resolve that by working with the kids even after they're 16 to help connect them with alternative education options in our area. For your question about the effectiveness of the state statute, I've been working with this program for over a year and a half. So, the entirety of last school year, I was working with truancy positions and going through the court process. I found it was very effective in reaching students and families who might otherwise fall through the cracks. So, these are students that are not showing up at school. So, the school staff wouldn't be able to get in touch with their family or wouldn't be able to work with the students to understand what is the barrier, what are your goals, how can we help you reach your goals, how can we help you get back to school in place that fits for you academically? So, think it is useful. We saw last year, we we saw, worked with 135 students and I think only five percent of those students went through the truancy process. So, we're doing most of our work in that tier two section and then when it doesn't work, then we can lean on the state's attorney and the judge to set even higher expectations than what we're able to set. And it does move to that compliance side and that's okay because that's necessary for some families and some students to reengage with their education. And I have found it to be effective. I'm happy to answer other questions about

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: what I've learned working for the court.

[Katie Black]: I have found it to be pretty effective. So, any questions about that tiered approach? I just wanna illustrate one example of a family that we worked with because I know it might be helpful to imagine the rural nature of the Lemoyle Valley and how this works. So, there isn't necessarily busing everywhere in the Lemoyle Valley. So, this is a family who was referred to us in January. They live in a rural town outside of a bus route. The family has two school aged children and two young children and a mother with some serious health complications. We were referred these students, in January when we were heading right into one of those real severe cold snaps and part of the referral was to address this family's need for some shelter. They didn't have any fuel oil. They were heating their house with, kind of dangerously, with electric space heaters, and it was going into one of those weekends that was gonna be negative digits. So, we immediately got to work calling for warming shelters anywhere between St. Johnsbury and Ferry that would take a family, how could we get this family in to stay warm through the weekend. We've continued to work with this family for months now, on coordinating with school partners to help these kids feel safe and supported at school, address their basic needs. We immediately set to work connecting them with Capstone Community Action to get fuel assistance and to connect them with weatherization teams to kind of bolster their housing. We at the Memorial Restorative Center have a philanthropic fund that we can use for concrete supports. So, we were able to help this family get clothing, bedding, alarm clocks, all these things to help these kids get to school and feel good about themselves when they were able to get to school. The school engagement specialist who works with this family was able to address these needs and then DCF became involved with the family. So, were able to coordinate with DCF who works with the family once a month. We were able to get them a referral to Easter Seals intensive family based services who work with the family once a week for thirteen weeks. So, we were able to surround them with services and Easter Seals is able to do this really intensive work with families to help them build routines, increase their food security, help them with basic planning and parenting skills. So, that's stuff that's kind of beyond what we do, We're able to coordinate with them in a really effective way. These students are attending school. The eldest child is working with our school engagement specialist to plan to get her license. She's working with another program at Memorial Restorative Center that's an employment readiness program called the JOBS program. So she's thinking about her future, how she's gonna reach her goals while simultaneously helping to care for her siblings while her mother is ill. This is just one really incredible example of how complicated this work is. In the meantime, this family's one vehicle kind of fell apart and we were able to work with a busing company to be able to get the youngest children to a busing room to get to school from a very rural place in our community. So, it's all these little bits and pieces that we're able to hold together and it works because we are outside of the school. We don't have responsibilities at the same you know, every day in time within the school, are a community partner, so it really works

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: pretty well.

[Katie Black]: So, final bit of the most recent work with this family is just another example of how what we do is different from what schools do is this mother is undergoing a significant surgery today and our staff has been able to work with the school staff, the Easterseals staff, and the family to communicate frozen and prepared meals for these kids while their mom's in the hospital. So it's like very thorough human service and it's it's really effective. So I'm happy to answer some questions. I'll let Heather Freeman talk first and then if you want to

[Speaker 5]: ask questions.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'll answer other questions. Switch

[Katie Black]: to Heather.

[Heather Freeman]: Will make it quick. I just think it's important, Kai, thank you again for having all of us. My role as Director of Student Support Services, I don't just oversee special ed. I have a lot of different departments under my domain, one of which is around school engagement and truancy. And this collaboration with LHC preceded my time as director, but what I've quickly found, especially in my collaboration with my community partners, I think that really my connection and the ability to understand the partners in our community really helps us serve kids and families so much better. And so, I think, just to touch on the four areas that Heather was talking about at the beginning around community based, the fact that this agency is in the community, it allows for those folks to be a neutral party. So, they don't pit the school against the family and the family against the school. It's they understand both sides and they bring us together. Most recent example of that is we had a high school student that was not quite 16 yet and just has a lot of anxiety about school. Couldn't even get the student to walk in the building. And, the school, trying to offer all of the resources, trying to offer her from a, you know, would say, Vermont Virtual Teaching. Couldn't be VLP, virtual teaching. It just really lack of engagement. As soon as we were able to get that referral into the preservative center, immediately our school engagement specialist was engaging with the kids. This week kid not only showed up at the school, but has a plan to return to school, and that wouldn't have happened. Under our best efforts, it wouldn't have happened had we not had this partnership. They also had many access, so much access to other resources and other community agencies that I feel like it's just, it's so powerful. Around speaking to their expertise, and again, schools typically aren't social workers. We don't employ social workers. We aren't by nature social workers. They have that clinical experience and expertise that is really needed. Another way we've used them is, not use STEM stuff, but yeah, I get my point. Our boards are making attendance policies and what Katie referenced this as well, what the restorative center was able to do with us was align our internal procedures with that policy, but really put a chronic absentee lens in not being punitive. And back to that high schooler, the sort of joke at the end of the meeting the other day that we had with that family was, I'm glad we're going through this plan because I don't really wanna go to court. And the kids said, I don't wanna go to court. And the mom said, I don't wanna go to court. And our school education professional said, I don't wanna go to court. It's just a waste of time and money, but we want you to get your education. So, that kind of relationship is amazing. Again, to have this organization understand enough about our policies, but also understand explicitly the law and the regulations around this and having us align those two things. The other piece is that, certainly around funding, we are required as a school system have, per the statute, to have a truancy officer, and that has always been locally funded. So, we realized during COVID that a lot of these referrals we were getting for our federal protection team were around school engagement, and that's really when we switched. So, we were able to think we don't just need a third of a person, because historically that truancy officer was a third of a person in Memorial Valley. We said we need a full person. We really want to switch that lens to school engagement. So, we were leveraging a lot of grant funds. Grant funds are going away, and grant funds aren't intended to be long term. And so I think, you know, this is one of those expenses that is it should be in the local budget, and yet it's also hard for, I think, taxpayers to understand the impact. Our principals and our schools know the impact of this contract, but when you look at that cost, especially if most of it is not offset by grants, it's a high cost. I think my ask in this is like, how do we make sure that the law is pretty clear that there is an emphasis that we need to do this? How we fund it in a way, blend funding in a way that can really make this sustainable? Because I know in OSSU we are committed to continuing this contract for the long term, and we all know it's hard because this is what works for kids. Is one of those. Methods. The other thing I'll just say around that funding piece is that we also use the resorted center work as our, that school engagement specialist, as our McKinney Vento support counselor. Those two most, a lot of times, families who are experiencing homeless are also, right, students who are not engaged. It's not always, but it's a lot. So to have that connection and have that immediate resource available. We had an example last year, a family's house burned down. We, as a school system, do have funds set aside to provide them with things. We can't give out gift cards. We can't give out, you know, the Memorial Restorative Center because of their collaboration and the funds that they have. They were able to immediately get these kids closed. They were immediately that, you know, work with Capstone, got them into temporary housing. Again, all work that we just don't have the capacity to do at the local level. Then we can, it also provides us time to get through our proper channels, follow the paperwork and the procedures that we need to, to get those long term supports in place. I think that's it. Unless there's any questions.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, if you can stay, and do want to add those. Sure. Okay. And then we can maybe have a few minutes for a discussion. I'm gonna

[Holm Arsen]: move back

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: now. Okay. Kara, you are up.

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: Hi, thank you. Can you all hear me?

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

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: Okay, good. For the record, I am Kara Gleason Krebs. I'm the Director of School Services at the Howard Center. Thank you so much for having me today and for taking up this bill and all of the testimony that you're hearing. It's really exciting that the state is taking a leadership role around chronic absenteeism. So before I start, I wanna just tell you a little bit about the program that I work within very briefly. So Howard Center School Services is a Success Beyond six funded program where we have co hired school services clinicians in all the schools in Chittenden County. So we work with all eight school districts. We have 65 clinicians and about 900 clients. And those are the students that are struggling with the most complex mental health and socioeconomic and social determinant of health challenges, much like the young folks that my colleagues from Memorial County were talking about. And in addition to our client work, the way that we see our school services contracts with our school districts is also to be mental health consultants and to be partnering with our school districts around major systemic issues that are impacting not just our clients, but all the schools in the district, all the students. And so that's how we came to work on chronic absenteeism as a systemic level. So chronic absenteeism, as you've heard, lots of testimony is an issue of great, the way that I think about it, great breadth and depth, right? So many more students than we want to are missing more than 10% of the school year, right? Which is just two days a month. When you think about that, we all might be sick or miss two days a month, and that really impacts students' learning long term. And so we have to think about this in terms of reeducating, reengaging the whole population, right? A tier one intervention and really talking with folks in general. And then it's also an issue of great depth. So we have students that are far more than chronically absent, right? Like my colleagues were talking about, they're missing half the school year. They've missed half the school year for the last three years, right? They're really significantly disengaged. Situation is incredibly complex. And so when I think about this issue, like most complex issues, there's so many ways to define the problem. There's so many points of intervention, right? There's so many ways in which we respond and different people working at it that it can start to feel like quicksand when we start to think about how to respond and what to do to move forward. So the state taking some leadership around making definitions, creating a model policy, really supporting school districts and communities around this like most basic framework is really exciting to us. I just wanted to put that out there. And I heard you asking about what recommendations would you make. I support the legislation as it exists, as it came from the house as well. I mean, I think what feels most important to me is that model policy and what gets developed and goes into it. And it feels important to me that the legislation's not overly prescriptive about that so that we can continue to evolve over time as we're working with this. So just a little bit of history. I'm not going to talk about my program. I'm always happy to, but I actually came today to talk about what we call the CWAG, which is the Chittenden County Chronic Absenteeism Workgroup, which we pulled back together seven years ago, actually pre pandemic, we started coming back together about this. Folks that have been around a long time will know that twenty five years ago, there was a Chittenden County truancy work group that created sort of the original policy that is used a lot around the state with the five, ten, and fifteen day letters. And that had been amazing, and that group had been disbanded. And about seven years ago, we really were recognizing chronic absenteeism increasing and the complexity increasing. And I think because people care so deeply about kids and they were working so hard on these issues and like the folks were describing, it can be so complex and everyone felt like they were failing. When situations were really complex, we started to see some real splitting and splintering. So we would hear things like the state's attorney won't get involved, DCF doesn't do anything, schools aren't doing anything to support kids, this family isn't responding, the kid doesn't care. None of which I think is true, right? I think that is all coming from places of real frustration and overwhelm, which was our motivation to pull the, what we call then, the truancy work group back together and start bringing folks together to think and talk about this, issue as a community issue and make sure folks are really paying attention to that everyone else was working just as hard as they were, and it was just a complex issue. So that was the impetus for that. And over the years, we've evolved in different ways, but started noticing pretty quickly it was hard to find data. School districts struggled related to the collection and review of data, which is a really important first intervention for school districts in terms of combating chronic absenteeism. I heard you talking about that K-three and how we need to intervene and really get involved with kids. And if we're not paying attention, September, October, November to the kindergartners through third graders that are already starting to miss a couple of days a month, we might lose them going forward. So the best point of intervention, right, is to be having the teacher call home in October when we have a kindergartner that's already missed five days and say, wow, your your student is a really important part of our community, and we're wondering what's going on here. But if we're not collecting and looking at that data, we don't even notice, right, really significantly that something deep is happening until maybe February, right, and now we're starting to lose a school year. So those are some of the first things we started to notice is districts need to be collecting and reviewing this data, which is a big ask when everything that's going on. And so thinking about creating systems to support districts around the collection of that data and then figuring out all the definitions. What's an excused and unexcused absence? We see in all of the chronic absenteeism best practices that chronic absenteeism is about absence, not about excused and unexcused absence. It is important to pay attention to those things in terms of root causes and interventions. And regardless of why a child misses school, it has the same, well, not same, every situation of course is different, but it has a significant impact on their learning and their growth and their evolution. So it's really important to be looking at the data for all absences and then tailoring a response that's gonna engage that student and family. But if we don't have the data, we can't get that done. Another thing that we've noticed and we've learned along the way is that much like you all were asking about truancy court, and that as an intervention, we would totally agree. It should be an absolute last resort. I wouldn't say that I see school districts referring arbitrarily to truancy court. I would say that school districts are working hard to do everything they can and overwhelmed and frustrated and have no other options when they're sending things to truancy court. And if we can start to put more supports and provisions in place earlier, we can come away from that. Because even folks, a lot of folks know sometimes, at least in our county, sometimes it's not this miracle intervention that we all are hoping it's gonna be at that point, right? Things are entrenched, they're hard, and we can't move forward. And so one of the things that I'm always thinking about is if we move away from that mechanism, right? Court and DCF in terms of our response to chronic absenteeism, we have to be really careful then that we don't leave schools and families alone at the table to solve this problem. Because courts and DCF are the only other mandated folks in this conversation, right? And so how do we because it really is a community issue and it's not gonna be solved when it's really tricky just by schools and families. That's really deeply unfair. And so how do we create avenues and expectations for the rest of the community to stay involved, which are things like the medical homes, who I think are very much more interested in paying attention to this, the designated agencies, like the program that I work within, community agencies, Vermont Family Network, police colleagues, right? Like how do we all remember that we need to continue to be engaged in this solution process as we move away from truancy work? I talked a lot and I know we're running out of time. I'm gonna stop there. Have my testimony and you also have our model policy that we created in Chittenden County about a year ago.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We're gonna take a couple extra minutes because this is a good conversation. And I wanted to hear a little bit about those rare crimes that you've had to use the court system. How does that work? Go ahead. In

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: Chennai County?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, no, was 61. Yeah.

[Katie Black]: In Memorial County?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Because you talked about and alluded to it.

[Katie Black]: Yes. What I find really effective about the truancy process is it is a lever for me to be able to talk with the families who previously wouldn't come to the table. They wouldn't talk to the school. They wouldn't talk to us. And then when we go to court, we are able to surround that family with a DCF worker, oftentimes a GAL, myself and my staff, the support of their lawyers, the support of the judge to really set some expectations and talk about why is this compulsory ed law in place and really open the door for them to be accountable to someone else because before that maybe they chose not to answer the phone or answer the door if I came by, but it just creates that accountability on another level and I've seen it be really effective because then what the judge at DCF can do through their investigations and conversations is they could ask for psychological testing, they can ask for academic testing, like things that haven't happened for the student that might be required to get

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So back to you have found, if I can quickly preface, you have found that even when it gets to the point of the court process, that the court process itself is actually supportive rather than punitive?

[Katie Black]: I find it's very supportive. We've worked with

[Speaker 5]: We have

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: seen God on the screen.

[Katie Black]: Judge Mary Morrissey and Judge Justin Giron in my experience and it has been very supportive to family.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Thank you. Because we heard some testimony yesterday that suggested we just get rid of all of that. I'm hearing today that we should keep it and understand its role, is limited, that everything underneath is more important. But yeah, okay. So yes, so anyways.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So thank you all for your testimony. You guys are showing great work. It's critical, but I want to bring it back down to something which we can, in fact, not sure if you really had the opportunity to review through age nine thirty, but if you had any concrete feedback on were we in the right direction, or were we, something goes, you know, certain section going sideways, we don't know. You guys are the experts. Just hoping that if you have feedback, this is the opportunity.

[Katie Black]: I I've spent a lot of time working within the statute with the data managers and superintendents in our areas. So I'm familiar with the way it's constructed now. And then when I looked through the revisions to this, I approve of where you're going, what you're thinking, how you're redefining and adding to definitions of how absences may be excused, that will really help schools and support their work. The question I had is on page three line two, where, it suggests that people who are in my position or maybe in in working within a school might be able to look back cumulatively from one school year to the previous school year to apply truancy law and I'd like to hear, a little bit more about that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We may not know the answer, this is a house bill.

[Katie Black]: Okay, that strikes me as very difficult.

[Holm Arsen]: Because Does

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: it take a different perspective?

[Katie Black]: Yeah, go ahead. Why not? Well, in my experience, I'm not saying it's impossible, but that, and Heather can probably speak more to this, but data managers who collect that school data, close out the school data at the end of the school year. So the way that we currently operate our program, we close out our case management with the school year and really articulate the families. We're giving you a fresh clean slate in the new year, go for it, like show us what you can do. So, they're not necessarily referred year after year unless they become chronically absent again. So I was just curious how in the development of this, how we would track that back year to year. So it kind of indicates that we could look back to the spring of, you know, twenty twenty five, twenty six when we get to the fall and accumulate absences in that way. I think that might be tricky. That caught my eye. And another thing

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: What makes that tricky? I mean, sounds like you look easy.

[Katie Black]: Do you want to talk to how that is? Well, mean,

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: I guess it's more, to me, it's more of a philosophical thing than it is a technical thing. Right? Yeah, I think we could pull that data and, I mean, I know for our teams, we're we were we are looking at historical data. Right? Academic data, whatever it is. Right? We're looking at that from year to year. But to me, it's more of a not necessarily, like, adding that to get to true in city, but knowing and understanding that previous year data to start the year off. Like, I think what our practice my understanding of what our practice is then is saying, well, if this family was referred last year because there was struggle, we're gonna start meeting with them at the beginning of the year, right? Our school engagement specialist meets with them at the beginning of the year, make sure they're on the right track. So again, didn't, I'll be honest, I didn't read as thoroughly the the letter of the law. So I I think it's a possibility, but I wouldn't want to, like, sort of have it mandated that we have to look back in order to file a truancy. Right? Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: That's a follow-up question. So we took testimony that some states, I can't characterize it as most states or other states are at a chronic absenteeism definition of freed attendance. So what if that paragraph that you just cited about the definition of truancy, which is on page two, line 10, that instead of saying regardless whether the absentees are within the same school year, which to your point could be a breach over two year period, that we've reduced it to ten days in the current year or something like that, where the pattern became clear early. You do get a fresh slate, but the pattern became very, very early, and then there's intervention.

[Katie Black]: Tell me again which page is lining with me.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Page two, line 10.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Page two, this is as passed by the house, so make sure we're on the same page.

[Katie Black]: Okay, maybe on a different version.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: It's in the definition of truancy.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Okay, this one, okay. Truancy means a student who accumulates 20 or more unexcused absences. True.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: The of that sentence is regardless of whether the absentees are within the same school year which is the point they're trying to make. Get it but it's gotta be a balance somewhere. You can't, you know, twenty days, that's a full month. Kids are kids are gone and.

[Speaker 5]: Yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Twenty days in one year would be

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: shocking. Yeah. I mean. I see you on the internet.

[Katie Black]: Yeah, I just, I, it feels a

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: little nuanced in that, of course, we're not going to wait till the twenty days to start triggering all of the chronic absenteeism focused interventions, right? That twenty days in here is really about, could you send an affidavit in, right? And so that's what feels hard, I think, about what folks are talking about that, you know, if we This definition feels less important as we're moving further away from using the affidavit, the, you know, the punitive type focus in terms of a first intervention. I think historically, of the issues that I would hear folks complain about is, well, it starts over every year and this kid has been truant every year for the last five years. Now they're in fifth grade, right? And we're basically waiting in February for them to hit that twentieth day so we can intervene and we would never wanna be doing that anymore, if that makes sense.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah, don't think we're criticizing your tier intervention.

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: No, yeah.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Best case, good practice. It's the tier. I'm trying to respond to your point about reaching over some, you know,

[Katie Black]: two groups. Right. Yeah. And I welcome criticism. This program is constantly evolving to try to figure out how to best support families and children in accessing their education. So I welcome I welcome suggestions and criticism.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So one other thing we heard, I think it was just yesterday, I lose track.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: It feels longer.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah, think that's probably right. I think it was yesterday. It's the whole notion of excused absences versus unexcused absences has its downsides or has its problems. The excused absences and to meet with middle class or middle class or whatever families doing things well well in and if they can be delayed smart And, you know, it's a tricky you know, it's one of those things where probably you you can't have it. I mean, my blind is not the way I don't know what the way it goes, but their point their point also was that the real issue is lost school time, not excused or unexcused absences. So, you know, I've been tossing that around and trying to figure out what to do with that. And so any thoughts for many of you?

[Katie Black]: I think it's really important.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Heather- What's important?

[Katie Black]: It's very important to define those two things, excused absences versus unexcused absences, because of if you if you define them, then you can hold them up equitably. So there isn't any question what's excused and what's unexcused. And I think it's important to maintain excused and unexcused because I can tell you how many times I've called a family member and said, your student has 15 unexcused absences, and if they accumulate 20, they will be truant. And that's all it takes for that parent to work harder to get their kid to school. So, think if you didn't have unexcused absences, even though we recognize it may be compliance or punitive, it creates some guardrails for families and a little bit of expectation that, okay, you can do this, you can get your kids to school and we want you to, we don't, you know, we want you to avoid truancy by trying hard. It opens up a conversation.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And I think the thing that makes me less concerned about it than it might otherwise be is that the whole process here is not designed to help It's designed to help kids. Kids. And so it worked truly a punitive approach to this. I made you think more hard about the work yesterday, but you're getting some. Okay. So, yes.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Sorry, can I just, I do have a worry and a concern, right, about the excused absences being inclusive of days in or out of school suspension because that is that is counter to chronic absenteeism as a as a

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Isn't suspension normally in school suspension?

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: It could be both. But this is, like, this is sort of a revelation for people in the school system now that we're learning more and more about chronic absenteeism. If we, as a school system, are perpetuating the chronic absenteeism by suspending. Right? Then it feels like if what we're saying, that's an excused absence versus Where do you see that? Well, it was, again, I'm not sure if this is the most, it was line 12 on page two? At Bethlehem House. In under the definition of excused absence.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Well we have 13 different instances. Is it one of, what number is it?

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Oh, sorry. There's you're talking about the the examples of No. Is. Sorry.

[Katie Black]: I don't know that it's mentioned on that in the version that I have, but it was mentioned in the beginning for all the reasons about out of school suspension, which is, in my experience, currently is marked as an unexcused absence. But in this draft that I was looking at, there's a note that that will be marked, that will be coded as an excused absence. So I think there will just be some education necessary to catch the schools up if that's changed in their data management. Yeah. It just

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: needs to be really clear. Again, because our board current based on the current statute, like our board policy is the the statute, right? Like, pretty much. And then our procedures are aligned with the board policy, is aligned with the statute, which is like, sort of, sorry, enacted in the way that's, like, in our beliefs around chronic absenteeism and how we're doing it. So we're we're think I just want I think it just needs to be super clear, whatever decision is made, it just needs to be covered in life. So

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: thank you all for coming. It was really helpful, all everybody. So, thank you. Thanks. Actually, I can print that, one of these really helpful. So, you.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Thank you very much for having us. There's any follow-up or anything you

[Katie Black]: gave us. Yeah, our numbers

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: are on the back. Hope that testing leaves. Anytime. Thank so much. Sorry, we went long.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, that's okay. We had some questions. So if people in the committee can just stay with us for a few more minutes, we're gonna do one more little quick shifting of gears, then we'll make a break. And we have Michael coming at you fifteen minutes later. Okay. So we we took some testimony yesterday on, from some superintendents who had sent through the process from district mergers, and I remember, I remembered Jerry Susson when we were in Woodstock talking to us about the virtual process that they went through and what made it work and what made it successful. And so, so Sherry, and I talked to the phone about this, but what we want to understand is, I don't know if you listened to any the testimony the last couple of days or not, which doesn't matter, just some process leading up to the vote, what's required, what's involved, what supports are needed, and then same record after and with vote, two separate pieces. We are in that trying to figure out what numbers to plug in for a system, but that's secondary to the real point of what's involved, the help that you need at the district level since you're working, those kinds of things. So thanks for coming in Thank

[Sherry Souza]: you for having me and it was interesting going back down that walk of memory lane. Is it okay if I share my screen?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Of course. I think.

[Holm Arsen]: Making you go. I was

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

[Sherry Souza]: All right. Oops. I'm gonna do that.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The co host.

[Sherry Souza]: Yeah. Do this. I'm gonna do this. Well, good afternoon members of the Senate Education Committee. Thank you for opportunity to share my experience in achieving a voluntary merger through the Act 46 process. I am Sherry Souza, superintendent of the Mountain View Supervisory Union. We are a district of seven communities, including the towns of Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Pittsfield, Pontford, Reading, and Woodstock, just over 1,000 students. As Pittsfield is a non operating school district, their relationship with the other member towns requires Mountain Views to be considered a supervisory union. So as a reminder, Act 40 was designed to encourage local school districts and supervisory unions to explore the potential benefits of consolidating their existing school boards into a single unified district responsible for serving, in our case, every student in Windsor Central Supervisory Union. The intent of the bill was to restructure school governance throughout the state of Vermont in the interest of improving educational quality at a more affordable cost. Overall, the goal goal about Act 46 was to improve student outcomes and equity by creating larger and more efficient schools governed structures similar to the goals of Act 73. WCSU's bold aspiration was to improve the overall performance of our districts to make our good schools absolutely great. During the exploratory stage, in the 2015, the school boards of Barnard, Bridgewater, Pomfret, Killington, Reading and Woodstock voted to form a seven zero six study committee. I'll just do this. Sorry.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We lost your voice.

[Sherry Souza]: Oh, did you?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, not here. Okay.

[Sherry Souza]: I was just changing my screen a little bit and voted to form a seven zero six study committee and assess current patterns of governance within WCSU. Over sixteen months, the committee met bimonthly three hour meetings and open session. It attempted to maintain a transparent record of its work through ongoing postings of the SU's website, including its meeting schedule, minutes, working documents, and draft findings. Prior to completing the Act 46 report, the committee held multiple public forums in participating communities on a variety of issues related to district unification to elicit feedback. The committee used that feedback to revise and strengthen its final report and recommendations. Finally, the committee submitted its report to each of the school boards in Windsor Central for review and comment. Through numerous meetings, Windsor Central's Act forty six committee explored the potential benefits and challenges of unifying the school districts into a single district governed by one school board. This work centered on one overriding question. How would unification benefit our children? Specifically, how would a new unified government structure provide better, more equitable instructional opportunities and better support students in achieving or exceeding state's educational quality standards? The committee expected that any comprehensive study would fully address these questions and clearly articulate to parents and students and community members what would change and what would remain the same under a recommended governance model. The committee identified and examined the central questions guiding their study of unification, The opportunities and challenges of unification, educational, cultural, financial, and operational. Current enrollment and staffing patterns in each district. Financial and tax implications of a merger among WCSU districts, including potential incentives under the law and possible loss of whole harmless funds and small school grants. Beginning in May 2016, the committee held 14 public meetings in Barnard, Woodstock, Killington, Reading and Palm Creek. Using feedback from parents and community members, the committee worked to identify a coherent set of educational, financial, and operational principles to guide any unification process should it be recommended to voters. Create a clear vision and educational model to ensure every student in Windsor Central had an adequate equitable opportunity to achieve a world class education. Based on study committee discussions and community forum input, the group noted that each school district and the supervisor union faced instruction challenges requiring creative, thoughtful and focused attention if students were to reach their full potential. Collectively, the recommendations were designed to improve instructional cohesiveness, equity, and opportunity, thereby enhancing outcomes for all students. Examples of potential opportunities included a coordinated pre k eight standards based reading and writing curriculum, a coordinated pre k eight standards based mathematics curriculum, cohesive support for teachers in pre k through 12 literacy and mathematics, instructional coaching for teachers, development of a standards based pre K through 12 NGSS science curriculum, a uniformed assessment system, a system wide supervision and evaluation model, and collaborative opportunities for teachers to work on curriculum and instruction. In addition, the committee believed that creating a single unified school board would strengthen governance and accountability across pre K through 12 by improving opportunities for teacher leadership across content areas, strengthening instructional practices through a coordinated professional development system, coordinating the delivery of school programs, expanding options such as universal pre K and ensuring common academic and behavioral expectations, developing a common report card system and strengthening alignment of special education services. The committee saw significant potential to improve student learning and outcomes. It concluded that disparities and achievement among students living in close proximity were unacceptable and that a more unified system could better serve all learners. By thinking of the districts as part of a whole rather than independent components, the committee believed a pre K system could be developed to maximize student potential. The committee also found that accountability and transparency would result in shared educational experiences across academics through a uniform classroom practices materials, equitable resource distribution, student to teacher ratios, and administrative support, and easier transitions from elementary to middle high school. In terms of our workforce, a uniform salary, consistent working conditions, calendar, benefits, schedule, standardized job descriptions, enabling staff mobility, a clearly defined MVSU organizational chart and district wide resources, such as facilities director, school nutrition director, literacy and math facilitators, and facility upgrades. The committee then drafted our articles of agreement addressing the composition, representation of the Unified School Board, financial implications, including assets and liabilities, a first year operational plan, transportation, staffing, contracts, curriculum, leadership, and additional community concern.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Sherry, oh, wait. Getting to that point, did you have a consultant? Did you have a facilitator? Did you do all yourselves? Did you have attorneys involved?

[Sherry Souza]: Yes we did and I'm coming to that.

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

[Sherry Souza]: Yes. I'm just trying to get the full scope of all the work that's Yeah and how much it takes to do this work. Thank you.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Senator Ram Hinsdale would like you to go back a slide.

[Sherry Souza]: Oh sure. This one?

[Katie Black]: Yes. So

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: in some cases, some of the concern about unification and workforce is that it could end up costing more overall for the district and people, and like we're in a political environment where people are asking us to show how we're going to bend the cost curve. How hard was that part to untangle over eighteen months or, you know, that part might still be ongoing?

[Sherry Souza]: So we couldn't even begin that part until we realized a unit, a voluntary merger, which took till 2019. Once that was voted and approved, then it took a six months to a year of negotiations with our union to realize a unified grid and contract. There are still we are now eight years in since 2019, seven years in. We are still there are remnants of previous contracts that exist in our current contract. Okay. It is a lot of work and it is it costs money. Yes.

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: No, that's helpful. So great.

[Sherry Souza]: We had six different contracts. So, and multiple calendars and different benefit structures. So that was a lot to, and again, bringing everyone up to the highest level of benefits contract calendar. Yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Can I it's kind of a question for you and the group because I'm trying to make sure I understand the costs and benefits of CISA's supervised reunions and district models? I have to imagine it would be There would be morale costs and other kind of fairness challenges if you were trying to unify the workforce in an SU.

[Sherry Souza]: Can you ask that in a different I'm not sure where the relationship with a CESA is in that question.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't either, honestly, because we haven't gotten the House bill and seen what they mean by a CESA or a CESA. So, let's just take SUs and districts, you know, because I know so far we've had discussion in here about those two models being side by side, you know, that some want to do an SU and some want to do a district and maybe we should just let that happen. But some of these elements, I mean, the case for unification includes all of these elements, that if you don't have these elements, you might have some costs and benefits that look different between an SU and an SD. And I was just waiting to work for us as one where I felt like you probably can't have an SU that doesn't have a unified workforce at the very least.

[Sherry Souza]: So we had an SU, and we didn't have a unified workforce in each district, and we had seven districts, had a different contract and way of negotiating and language. Are the morale, I think was one of the questions you asked, coming I'm to sorry.

[Holm Arsen]: Yes, Okay,

[Sherry Souza]: so when we unified and had one set of language and one set of expectations, our faculty staff were incredibly appreciative. It is easy to, because we have point five point shared positions. And at the previously, that was different sets of benefits. That was different number of personal days, different numbers of vacation days. Having that consistency so that moving from one building to another is not something that is happening in the business office, it's happening in what's the need of the school and building. So for faculty and staff, having one contract, having one calendar, having one grid has been greatly appreciated. And it's interesting because the union president who negotiated that transition is now our school board chair. And she was the one that was able to bring the faculty forward and they were very appreciative to have one CBA for the entire faculty.

[Katie Black]: That's really helpful.

[Sherry Souza]: Absolutely. It has made a great difference. Our faculty and staff are very appreciative of having one district that they respond to and one set of expectations. It doesn't change from building to building because we have a shared vision of what the work is.

[Holm Arsen]: Okay.

[Sherry Souza]: Great. I'll keep going. So I think we did this. I think this is where we're at. So after four task force meetings, 27 study committee meetings and 14 community forums, the Winter Central Joint seven zero six study committee voted on 01/18/2017 to accept the act 46 report and articles of agreement. Upon approval by the state board of education, the question was then presented to voters in March 2017. Due to two initial oh, typo there. Due to initial no votes in two towns, the merger was not finalized until July 2019. During the study process, the committee had access to a facilitator. However, this individual lacked a sufficient understanding of the regional context and complexity. Access to a trained facilitator with Act 46 experience, particularly one who served as Vermont superintendent or business manager would improve the efficiency and effectiveness of merger discussions. Additionally, a state level led facilitator can provide regional support and intervene when necessary. Recommended compensation, I believe that is the recommendation of a 50,000 per facilitator knowing that a facilitator would operate with multiple communities and within a region, as well as one lead facilitator is really critical to the successfulness of mergers. I was asked also to look into the legal component and costs. I reviewed the legal things for Windsor Central Supervisory Unit from 2016 to 2019 just for purposes of merger was over $30,000 A churn and achieving a voluntary merger across seven communities required extensive meetings and votes. Now these are seven communities who were already working together and were sending all of their students to the same middle school and high school. It would feel like this would be an easy merger. This was neither a simple nor a quick process. I had the honor of participating in every meeting as the director of student support services at that time. These conversations were deeply personal and constructive. As a result of becoming a Merge District, Mountain View Supervisory District is now a vibrant and successful learning community. I do not believe this level of student achievement would have been as possible without unification. Converter enables a unified contract, curriculum, strategic plan, portrait of a graduate and policies, unified instructional practices, board supporting instructional leadership. We have 18 board members, a unified budget aligned with strategic priorities, and a unified faculty and staff aligned with district goals. In my experience, unified is synonymous with opportunity, efficiency, and effectiveness. As you can tell, I am proud to serve as the superintendent of non abuse people advisory in the Union District and confident that this merger has made a meaningful difference for all of our students. I want to thank you again for your time and consideration as you explore further opportunities for voluntary mergers in Vermont, and I welcome any questions.

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

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I feel like we need to have, like, a debate between someone who's die hard about their supervisory union and someone who is I mean, this is a really strong case that includes all the elements that I can't think of as someone who hasn't been intimately involved in school administration, that make a supervisory union problematic. Maybe, I don't want to use the terms, it's just all those things do need to be unified. Or I don't know how-

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It can be unified under Supervisory Union. The superintendent's contract's firing.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So since it's one superintendent

[Sherry Souza]: And I can speak as someone who's been in education in Vermont for more than thirty years. So I was in this district as a teacher when it was a supervisory union, as a special ed director as a supervisory union, and now superintendent as a supervisory district. So I think I can speak to both sides. And at one point in time we had one school board member for every four students in the district. The number of opinions, perspectives, the challenges of operating between different school boards. There were eight different boards and myself and there was no other central office team but myself and the superintendent. We were attending meetings consistently and often saying the same thing over and over again.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah. And kind of saying, hey, I mean, this is what we just negotiated with other districts, and it would, and you kind of have to. I mean, that's the problem. It seems like it breaks down at some point with having to convince multiple boards to unify all the time. Something changes and you have to shop it around.

[Sherry Souza]: And I appreciate, I mean, I say, and I attend conferences, I have an 18 member school board and I appreciate those 18 members. We have deep discussions and they've come to a position where they represent all communities in all discussions. And we were one of the identified as the least productive school boards And then we were school board of the year two years ago. So that process of seeing and how we represent students through policy, being policy driven and viewing the progress pre K through 12 as one system has really allowed us and Senate Education visit us. We really have made significant changes in the last five, seven years. And I really speak to, I tried really hard when we were in SU with my superintendent to make these changes, having one board that we communicate with and represent and present to has really made a difference in terms of how we've grown.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right, I agree. I don't think you can have duplicate decision making processes.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: All right.

[Sherry Souza]: So it's a lot of work. I will just say, I just hope my testimony more than anything reflect the depth of the work and the number of decisions that merger committees. I don't think people understand and appreciate the range of conversations, the time it takes to bring in different boards with different points of view, even in communities who live right door, teams who play together, families that are sharing, there is a depth of work that I think is unrecognized and conversations that I've heard recently. This took us from 2016, really 2015 to 2019 with seven towns that were already working together.

[Kara Gleason Krebs]: I mean,

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Sherry, it just you don't really know me, but you have been such a helpful voice for me in this process, so thank you.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Because I think

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I heard, are you retiring?

[Sherry Souza]: One more year.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Oh my gosh. Okay, so we don't have long to fully gain your wisdom. We touched on the CESA, CESA thing. It looks like it's what we're getting from the House proposal. Do you have any feelings about it?

[Sherry Souza]: Absolutely. So before forty years, when I started education forty years ago, I was in Massachusetts. And so we had lots of opportunities, collaboratives. When I moved here thirty plus years ago, there were opportunities and I'm a special educator working at a high school with students with emotional disabilities. The first thing I did was work with an existing collaborative in Vermont. So, collaboratives are not new to Vermont. I worked with Hartford Collaborative. We identified opportunities to meet the needs of our students closer to home and we developed really deep systems. So, when the opportunity to develop a BOCES CISA with the rest of these superintendents, I jumped on board because I knew we developed high quality programs that were building based and it gave us our students resources that we never had before. So I am a full, we use our Vermont Learning Collaborative every single day. They, we have like a red phone. When we have a problem, we're calling our partner. They're offering resources, consultation, giving us those models that we don't have. And I really don't want to blame the education of agency of education. They are, and I will say clearly underfunded and under supported. So we as superintendents came together and said, we need to build a bridge. We need to bring these resources to bear. We have that that those opportunities and the learning collaborative has created those additional supports that we all need desperately. And it's providing us even cost efficiencies with a supervisory district that has already used a collaborative well. So absolutely, it's another resource and we need resources that are not individually developed, but developed with eight different supervisory unions and school districts coming together.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I ask one more Sorry.

[Katie Black]: What would

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: you be your reaction to like a voluntary period of supervisory unions that all eventually at the end of that have to become districts?

[Sherry Souza]: Well, I think this work takes time, and having the time to have those conversations and to have voices of communities come to the table was a very powerful for us. I know that's really important. Voluntary and it's voluntary in a very different context than it was nine years ago. There are even more pressures on school districts. There are more pressures in terms of cost effectiveness. I think that maybe some communities are more ready for those conversations than they may have been years ago. And I think if there are incentives built in to add to making this a little more enticing, I know that the incentives in terms of F46 and having a reduction of taxes was helpful. I think there are other opportunities for that, but voluntary, what I've come to know as a transplant, Vermonters want choice, they want voice, they wanna be part of the conversation. And when that happens, we have opportunities for good dialogue that are not rough, then we come to really good decisions.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Thank you.

[Sherry Souza]: I'm an advocate for school districts and just because I've had both lived experiences. So I would love for that to happen because I know students benefit. May not serve adults, but it definitely serves students.

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: Thank you.

[Sherry Souza]: Thank you. I appreciate Thanks you

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: for coming in.

[Sherry Souza]: Absolutely, anytime.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, we're gonna go take a break for, take ten minutes. We've been here

[Unidentified host/moderator (transcription artifact)]: for