Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We're live.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Send the education committee back after a short break. And we have back S two two seven. So this is the sanctuary schools bill, call it, that we passed out. The house has now done a strike call. It's actually on day, so we wanted to go through and fully understand what changes the house made. So it's always a little harder when it's a strike all, but council knows where the big changes are. Hopefully, it's probably most of us. Hopefully, you're on.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. So Rick Siegel with the office of Legislative Counsel. And in preparation for this, I knew you might have me in, so I made a side by side that is on the web page when you can website access.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We have hard copies.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And Mr. Chair, if it's okay, I just asked Stephanie to send representative Arsenault the Zoom link because she went or took a look at her child because she's been here and I don't think that that would be serious. Okay.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. So two twenty seven is the immigration protocols of schools that was passed by the Senate several weeks ago, came back from the House as yes as the chair. So the strike all, I have highlighted the pertinent changes from the House version to what you all passed. So on the left side of the screen is what you all passed, on the right side is the house proposal of amendment. So, section I was going to chronological order. Section one to purpose, no changes, the purpose statement. Section two, a few changes here. You will see frequently the addition of the term head of school or designee occasionally. And there was actually this kind of goes on throughout the bill that I think unintentionally parts of the bill did not apply to independent schools, just to public schools. So there's occasionally the addition of head of school to indicate that this is meant to also apply to inadministrators as well. Okay, on the definition of non public area of the school, the Senate version, again on the, getting confused on the left side, not have the language that the House added, which was includes an area that a superintendent or head of school or designee determines to be nonpublic. The committee had a pretty robust discussion about this, and there was debate about one of the high school gym teacher indicates that this is a non public area. And there's maybe disagreement with the principal or the superintendent. So the House version kind of narrows it to, it has to be a superintendent, head of school, or someone they designate to determine that a portion of the school is non public. That's the change there. So instead of just any area of a school, has to be those administrators have to make that decision.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Think it's a safe to say to ask this question, is it possible that the area could be non public some of the time, most of the time, and sometimes be public?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the definition, yes, would allow that administrator to make that determination. Yep. Okay. The definition of school was amended a little bit, And this is mostly because the way we use the word school throughout the bill, the way it was changed. And the House version on, sorry, on the Senate version on left side, school is a public school or independent school and includes employees, independent contractors, and school resource and safety officers working for the school. The House version removed those individuals. And just as the House took the bill, it became clear that that using that term school to include people became problematic. And I'll explain as we go on, that how that showed up and how we fixed it in the house side. Okay, onto page two, subsection B, the immigration resources. This was changed, it looks much more different than it actually substantively is. I'll explain what happened. But in general, most of the provisions that came out of the Senate are still in the House just restructured a little bit. So, a superintendent or head of school, the House adds or head of school as independent schools would also be required to do this. Distribute immigration resource guide developed by the AG, to staff, students, and family members of students. You see the Senate side on the left. The phrase and civil rights related was removed. So just specific to immigration. Then B.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Approved independent schools. Does that mean approved independent schools? Are we telling all independent schools even if they're not approved?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. So the definition under school on page one of the side by side, they must be approved under section one sixty six, title 16.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: And is that a we can we tell independent schools if they're not approved by the state? I mean, they can't operate? Or

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To my this may be a best in hand question. To my to my knowledge, there is a process that a independent school gets approved by the state. And I don't know why that's done, but there is some process that an independent school can take, which it's still independent, but it's been it's in an approved status as according to the state. And again, this is maybe a vestiged in question.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I think it's kind of a word order. That's all. We're just not used to seeing it as independent schools approved under Section 166. We always see it as approved independent schools. We never reference the section 166. I think it's just a word order issue. I mean, the word order is fine, but I think it's you may have initially confused good Senator Rutland.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So I guess my question then is, do we have independent schools operating in the state of Vermont that are not approved? And do we have jurisdiction over them?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So probably a question I can't answer. I can ask. They don't pay dilution. So sounds like that. That is a legally important distinction. So if they're not approved, then yes, they would not have to abide by these state laws, this specific state.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So we need to put approved in front of independent schools?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: The word approved is after independent schools. They're approved under section 166.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Whatever.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think the language is okay. I think, yeah, I think that's okay. Maybe worded differently, but I think it's the same, guess. Back to subsection B immigration resources. Again, have a couple of instances of adding head of school to sending out this information still provided by the AG, no change there. Subsection Subdivision C on the house side, is similar to Subdivision 3 on the Senate side. Language is mixed around a little bit, but importantly on the Senate side, you had that the guardian is detained by immigration authorities. This was more about just a student. If there's a student immigration issue, it could involve their guardian being detained, but it's not written that way. So, in some ways it's broader, it allows that immigration connection to apply to any type of student issue, as long as it's related to the student or the student's family. But you can compare the two sets of paragraphs there, there are some language differences. The immigration resource guide in the center version was in session law, and

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: there was a discussion about that is an ongoing Just to avoid backtracking too far, if I could, Mr. Chair. So paragraph C in the house version connecting the student. Connecting's pretty soft term, and I just wanna look at my colleagues and see if that's an acceptable term before we move on. And then I also would like to recommend that the words and the student's family, I don't think the superintendent has any responsibility to the student's family in this case, that it's really about the student when we're talking about the superintendent themselves, kinda widens the aperture. What if they take care of the student, but the student's family is not located? They've gone into hiding, whatever the worst case scenario might be. The superintendent by this language still is responsible for connecting them to an immigration advocate, and I'm not sure that's appropriate.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I have some thoughts, but Go ahead. And I didn't ask house education about this exact change. Could ask, I could send a message to representative Brady and get a sense, but there's two thoughts I have about why I think it's a good change. Number one, there will be some kids who are too young to have this conversation. If they are, I mean, there's best practices, of course, those best practices probably go out the window, but certainly elementary level, you're going to want to have, you don't really have contact with students about any parenting or legal matters, you know, you're going to be talking to the family. And two, that's exactly what happened in the case of South Burlington. It might not always be at the superintendent level, but it very much should be somebody who reports directly to the superintendent. And in the case of what happened in South Burlington, it was, I believe, their kind of equity and outreach director of the district who reports to the superintendent, because that person probably needs to get an okay from the superintendent to be involved in the way that they were, which was to remove very young children from out of the house and coordinate to have a guardian waiting outside. So, whether or not we like it, I don't want this bill to have to exist, but it does, and this is a practical matter.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Was just wondering, in the bill we just did yesterday on the floor, the clinic absenteeism bill, we tried to be specific and the word family can mean a lot of things. They're not, I wonder if it's guardian or family or parent or guardian is what we really don't wanna do. And I wonder why they dropped and maybe why don't they drop the part about including a situation where the oh, it's where the guardian has been. Wow. What is the difference between our It looks like there's a lot of difference between our three and their c. Or am I missing something?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The immigration advocacy institution it's restructured, it's The word foster is gone, but it's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Why don't we noodle on it and I'll ask Erin if they are okay with parent or legal guardian, which that might be the language when I was in elementary school, but it is true that we, if they are going to be, they should maybe based on my experience with the South Burlington situation, for the school to get involved in helping facilitate transfer to a standby guardian, they should be doing something to make sure that person has standby guardianship and that they're not.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And of course, that was what we did last year that came out of the judiciary committee Right. For the

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So maybe even if they haven't made it to court to do that or whatever the process is, they haven't that

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Is this only during a school school year, a school time when this could happen? I mean, like, if it happened mid summer and the student gets broken away from their parent because they get, does the superintendent step in then?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I think it can depend because in the situation that unfolded before our eyes, ICE went to a family's home across the street from all three of the schools, and there were children who attend those schools inside the house. I don't see how that school hours, but it was not on school property.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Because I don't see how the school How does the school even get involved in that? Exactly. Well,

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: the language is to the extent possible. And it would be as long as it's a student. So, the summer they would still be a student, right? So, but again, the language is fairly squishy and it's up to probably each unique situation of how the superintendent or head of school will handle it.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I understand the purpose and I like the purpose, but I don't understand how a superintendent could come in and say, oh, I gotta find parent or guardians for this child that school's not even since in session. But now I'm gonna become

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: And what relieves them of that obligation?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So What makes them

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: have that obligation?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: It starts to I don't remember it off the top of my head. But further on in the bill, it starts to refer to the school premises and on-site and nonpublic areas of the school. That I get. And there are schools are used when school isn't during the regular school year. So you've got summer camps, day care, sports. I

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: agree with all that. Off in school grounds, what authority does a superintendent have? In this case, like I'm asking you, Senator Hinsdale, what real authority, if any, do they have to be able to do this?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think what you're seeing from all the news reports is that literally no one in that environment had any real authority, period. Not ICE, not anybody. So when children are endangered and there is a school official nearby, I think we should on the side of allowing them to have that contact and to use what information they know about a standby guard.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Shouldn't that be child child services problem?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I wish child protective services were there, and I wish they did something about ICE.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You know, I I think the more I look at this, the more I'm actually comfortable with the house seat because the the superintendent, no matter when it is, that school is gonna do everything they can for that kid.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: They are.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: They're gonna want to, and they don't care whether it's summer or those those people are dedicated to those kids. And this is really just saying, honest, do it as much as you can. Well, just as much as you can, help make sure this happens, that they get connected. And they're gonna do it whether it's summer. They wanna do it. And whether it's on school premises or not. I mean, things happen to a child who is in any school, the whole school rallies around them, the family, and this is really just saying, help get them connected to services. It's pretty basic. Is. So I'm actually okay with, say, I've decided. I think it's pretty So let's move on and just getting through that.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. Beginning I to explain on the senate side, the immigration resource guys was put in the session law section three. There was some debate about this is an ongoing thing. And usually if it's ongoing, it should be put in statute. So that's what the House did. The language is virtually the same that the AG creates this guide that informs administrators about immigration and civil rights resources. They then give the students. None of that has changed. Subdivision 3 on the Senate side was moved to session law because it is a one time thing. It must be done on or before August 1 and sent to all superintendents and head of schools later on in the House side by August 31.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: The House side in what?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The house side. It's the same date, but they added head of school as well. Okay. And small superintendents. It'll appear. I didn't I should have added it here on the house side, but it's later on in the side by side. Subdivision B of the house side, there was discussion about the AEG typically does not communicate with schools and they preferred AOE being the distributor of this information. So while the AEG reviews the guide, creates it, updates it, they then send it to AOE for distribution to superintendents and head of the schools to then distribute to their That makes sense. Yep. Okay, subsection C, student records on the Senate was rewarded to student information privacy. Just kind of the same information, a few changes on the Senate side. The intro text was, schools are prohibited from using policies or procedures to engage in practices that had the effect of excluding a student from school. They took testimony on this and Julio Thompson from the AG's office suggested this might be a little confusing. And I think even some of the committee members suggested this could be confusing. So just kind of clarifying it by removing the words and adding school districts and not just schools, because they tend to be the ones that have the policies to implement the policies. So school districts and independent schools are prohibited from. One is the same. Two

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: If I could, mister chair, before you move on. Yeah. So here, I think approved independent schools is missing the word approved. Was that was that by intent? Was that purposeful to not have the word No. Word approved independent school? Because our our entire state system has kinda divorced itself of care and feeding of non approved remote schools, independent schools. So we shouldn't be directing them to do anything.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think you're correct here. Think that needs to be either school is defined to include independent schools, but independent schools are not cross referenced. Although, this is in title 16. Is there a definition?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Let's see real quick here.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have some definitions that apply to the whole chapter. I'm guessing this is not gonna be one of. Means a school other than a public school would provide the program. Okay, so yeah, it does not. And at the definition of independent school, it would need to be referenced to 01/1966. So, that would be probably change we wanna consider. Okay. Unless you wanted to apply to non approved independent schools.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: What was the house's, the house, that the house intended to be just approved independent schools?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's not an intent, that was not intended.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yeah. That was my point before. Okay. Yes. Needs to be named approved if we have jurisdiction over him.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And I'll talk to Beth St. James about whether that should be just approved or approved pursuant to 166. I don't know the correct terminology there. Okay. Subdivision 2 designating on the set aside disclosing. Just an important change that we're talking about information and disclosing is more, I think real life use of that information that you don't really designate, you disclose it. So, prohibition is against disclosing that information. Subsection D, law enforcement on-site, adding head of school, which is correctly associated with a approved independent school. Adding that a few times in the subdivision one and two. And then subdivision two, changing that last portion about the warrant. So on the Senate side, the subdivision ended with the officer providing official identification and a judicial warrant that named a specific individual under arrest or subject to a search. Rephrasing that to be a judicial warrant on the house side that authorizes entrance into a specific area of the school and names a specific individual located within the school, who is subject to a search or arrest. This narrows the warrant requirement quite a bit. And this was what the House Committee wanted to go with.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: If I could, Mr. Chair, the section or phrase that they appear to have really added is into a specific area of the school. The remainder of it is fairly consistent with the Senate language. And I'm wondering why a specific area of the school, is that common practice and warrants and such, as opposed to this is the school, but this is the cafeteria?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Can be. I've never seen a search warrant for a school, so I'm not entirely sure.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: mean, warrants are supposed to be quite specific. Don't know what type of testimony they took as to why a specific area was can't speak to that, but I can say that an underlying search warrants are supposed to be very specific. And you're only supposed to search the area outlined in anymore instead of going on a a wild pig's chase.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So if the individual is in a place where you're not specific, you can't go there and search. So if they don't know that says a named individual, I mean, they know who they're looking for. But if you just say you can only go here and here and he's someplace else, he or she is someplace else?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I think it depends on the situation. I think it's possible that you could, but it really depends if in a different circumstance, if you have a search warrant for a house and an arrest warrant for an individual and you see them run out to a shed in the backyard you make that observation even

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: though you

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: most likely could go to the shed in grappling but it really depends on the circumstance.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So the house narrow, right, to a specific area? Yep, okay.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I propose to strike out into a specific area of the school.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I agree.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Continuing in the same sentence, it says, located within the school, you know, a specific individual located within the school whose subject, blah, blah, blah. It seems like it's trying to create an unworkable scenario. I fully support the concept of what we're doing here. I just wanna make sure that we're not kinda like repeatedly poking everybody in the eye with a sharp stick. Yeah, just my thought. I'd remove into a specific area of the school one.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, real, let me just play it out. The real point of this bill is we don't want ICE in schools. We want kids to be left alone. And it's a little less likelihood of a wild goose chase in a specific area of the school it's named. So I'd actually prefer living in that one part.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay, so I respect that. My point is only if this action is, you know, if it's got the appropriate warrant, search warrant or what have you, they're not gonna know if the individual is in the cafeteria or in the theater or classroom X. It's just not, that's not.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: They tend to, I mean, school officials tend to have to know pretty quickly at the front desk, like what class they're in and where that

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: class is. Right, but the agents wouldn't.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Oh.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: That's the point. I know that the administration may, okay, It's the agency who's ever wanting to conduct the search. And if they've done all the legalese necessary to do it, they just simply don't know if they're in the cafeteria or in the theater. And if they list the cafeteria as a specific area of the school, but not the theater, it just seems like we're just trying to purposely create an unworkable scenario. That's my point. That's Shane.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: In this context, is school defined just as the structure of the building, or does it include the adjacent school grounds and any adjacent structures, like stadiums or anything like that?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it's not defined as either. It's just defined as a public school. So presumably, it could

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: be the school grounds. If we said premises, does that cover everything on that?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: For the warrants? So that authorized entrance into the premises of

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: the school? That the of the school pres

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Of the

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: school premises? Yeah. Because in that anywhere that the school think premise premises would cover the whole footprint of the school, be it just the school building or all the fields.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That's I think one way to do it is to word it. If you wanna broaden scope to the school property, basically. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I I'm not interested in broadband. Yeah.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I agree that we're here to protect the children. Yep. Okay? However, if they've done all the legalese, as senator Rick says, the school should not be hindering if they have an actual criminal they're trying to get. 16 to 17 to

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

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: younger than that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I feel like most of what you're talking about is hypothetical. In the well documented situation that happened in the state, even local and state law enforcement will tell you everything that ICE did from start to finish was unclear who authorized it. They picked up no one or theorized no one who had their name on the warrant. They caused a bar collision. I would like us to air on the side of protecting public safety, especially about.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And I agree with that. We're not disagreeing with that.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay, well, if they have all the all in ICE our streets All the

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: documentation, then we should not impede them. In this case, you said they did not, which okay. So I think we're actually on that level, we're in agreement,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think, because the correct documentation would be the areas of the school that they can search.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, for the specific individual who

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yes, yes.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That they That they're asking. Brian Descamp doesn't have to look at a piece of paper and say, I don't know who this person is, they are not here. And have ICE continue to push forward, which is what happened. Because it turned out, they had the name of someone, they were not pursuing at all the day that they came to an elementary school.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: We've addressed what the warrant says. And the warrant, if it's well drafted, should say on the specific alias and the specific individual. And if it doesn't, then I've got, you know, lot of I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: was gonna say something similar to you, chair, that, if you're doing your due diligence and you're taking steps as significant as going into a school to get somebody, you should know where they are. And if it's that urgent, you will have presumably done the investigation and gotten down the information to

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: know where they are. And if you can get the judicial warrant that says the entire school, then you have that's what the warrant says. If it doesn't say it,

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. But then the judge could push back and say, well, no. It says here by law, it must be a specific area of the school. What area of the school do you want this written for? That's the the scenario that I'm trying to highlight. Are you in Room 10 or are you in Room 20 Step? Well, we're in Room 10 right now, but our normal assignment is in Room 27. Again, here the the scenario is they've done all of the due diligence. They've got the judicial warrant. They've gone through the process. They know who the person is, and they're and they're proceeding.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think all this says, though, is that when you say it's when they say they've gotten a warrant, the warrant will say where they are authorized to search. And if it says the entire school, well, then that's what it means. But if it if it doesn't, then I guess, you know, we don't want ICE cowboys doing whatever they want. Everybody agrees with that. Yeah.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Nobody's pushing back on it. Just trying to create a workable a workable document.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So yours just to make sure I understand. So you're just saying that if they have any kind of award, they get access to everything?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I would simply like to strike into a specific area of the school. Still names the individual, still names the school, and obviously would name the, would outline the purpose and would have gone through judicial due process. I don't think it needs to be more complicated.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I think you would say that authorizes entrance into the school, that names a specific individual. Is that

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: your suggestion? Yes, that's all I'm saying.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Authorizes entrance into a specific area of the school that.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: And that names. Pardon. So Senator Reitz is

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: suggesting that it re that authorizes entrance into the school and names for a specific individual. He's saying he's suggesting crossing out the words a specific area of. That's correct. Thanks, sir.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Let me just ask the house if a specific area meant a lot about If they have more teachers on their committees.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: You should, I mean I don't want to beat the force, we're talking about terrorizing the school.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And I just assume take any opportunity to limit the authority in school that gets sterilized. Yep.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm looking at this like an active shooter on campus.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I mean, more so with the legalese, if a warrant says you may search the classrooms of such and such school, is that not specific? I mean, it would encompass all of the classrooms, but it is a specific area of the school that being the classrooms. Or if you were to say on your warrant, you are permitted to search the classrooms and the cafeteria and the gymnasium, those are all specific. It encompasses most of the school, but it is specifying the areas of the school that can be searched.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think it's going to be a judgment call. I think that's one way to look at it, that you could say classrooms could be specific. Maybe it depends on the size of the school as well. How many classrooms they have? Are the different wings of the school different?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I think in that sense, I mean, if it I'm fine with the way it's written.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I would just like to object to one thing, if I could. So we're talking about a process here of the judicial system, which I fully respect, conflating the term terrorist terrorizing with the concept of judicial warrants. I know we're in a bad place in The US, but I don't think we're that far out. And I do take exception to, from a judicial perspective, conflating terrorism and judicial warrants in in the same sentence. I'll just leave it at them. I think that's a bridge too far. We're trying to prevent the the terrorism of anything with this language.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: And still I the

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: kids are I meant the kids are gonna be terrified, and they will be. That's what I meant.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I I do wanna remind people, what we saw was people in unmarked vehicles with hoodies and semiautomatic weapons.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: You know what would have held that ever from happening? Having the person be here legally and it would have never became an issue. So I don't wanna get into that argument. I don't wanna get into that argument.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I'm just saying what I strongly recognize.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: That's what triggered it. I do not wanna get into that. And it's it's it's bad day. And yes. Are they operating sometimes terribly? Not argue with that at all. But it's still the law, and we should allow, as long as they're doing everything under the letter of the law, judicially, I don't see how I'm with sergeant Weeks, with senator Weeks that, you know, us trying to make it so it's near and nearly impossible. I don't believe that our should be our agenda.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: We have heard that our local and state law enforcement spend all of that day trying to manage a threat to public safety. And that threat to public safety was federal chaos and semi automatic weapons in the hands of people who had almost no identification. That is a public safety threat.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: But instead of specific area, we said specific areas. And then we move on to the next

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: segment. Okay. I'll take it. Okay. Just trying to soften this a little bit. Mean, everybody's kind of a this is not should not be a a polarizing moment. We're all trying to get to the same goal, I believe.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Yeah. And I think, you know, when I was thinking about this, you know, if it's it says specific areas and they're granted permission to search classrooms or the cafeteria or the gym and they're looking for a 17 year old male, they're not going to be also checking girls bathroom for example and trying to narrow it. The elementary school lane. Yeah or if they're looking for a 17 year old and it's a k through 12 building they're not also going to be looking in the elementary for the elementary building.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Question. Can we put discrete can we put in the law that it has to do it in a discrete manner?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The law enforcement?

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: This bill would be a strange place to do that because you're talking about law enforcement as far as

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: get, but I hear what the chair was saying and senator Hinsdale is saying. You know, you want them to come in to it's like come in in a very discreet manner into the school to not even let people know they're there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think it's still those it's about school officials and their relationship with I don't think I don't think there's anything we can I don't think

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: we can be prescriptive on federal tactics?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe just something that I wanna maybe make Do you know about No, do. I think it's gonna be helpful. We're talking about immigration related requests, civil warrants. We're not talking about criminal activity here. So there are times where you get a criminal warrant for an immigration matter. There are a couple of crimes that are related immigration that would require a criminal warrant. This bill does not address that. These dress and it's defined if you look at the next page Subdivision 4, what an immigration related matter is. So the likelihood any kind of warrant is going to be granted for one of these instances is very low. So just keep that in mind as. But happy to draft up an amendment that fixes the independent schools as approved and then the maybe changing area to areas is what I'm hearing from the committee. Okay. All right, onto Subdivision 3 on the house side, just addressing a cross reference to the previous subdivision. And this is earlier mentioned the definition of school, we're moving the people that work for the school. This is one instance where you had to add that back. No school or individual working at a school. The center version did not have that. It had school staff member, actually just had no school because school included employees. Shall reveal any information about a student or school staff member, and then adding the phrase unless otherwise required by law. Just ensuring that federal law is not gonna require some type of information request. No change to the definition of immigration related matter and immigration related request. On the Senate side, Subdivision five on or before 01/01/2027, AOE in consultation with the Vermont Superintendent Association shall develop and review at least annually model administrative procedures for the policies that are in this subsection, the law enforcement on-site. This has been delegated over into the model policy. And I'll reference that when we get to it. So it's not gone, but the details are not going to be copied over. You'll notice that the procedure shall provide a process to follow that is not in the past version.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And the assumption is it will simply

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That it will be addressed in the procedures, correct. E, immigration agreements. Understanding that sometimes it's not the school that enters into these agreements, it could be the school district or supervisory union, adding those other two to the definition in subdivision 1. Also striking the sentence, the school superintendent is the sole individual to approve an agreement required by federal state law. There's at least one agreement that the governor must agree to these two eighty seven gs agreements. So, was concern that you didn't want that to conflict with existing state law. 2A and 2B. This is again because the superintendent or head of schools involved in this, but they don't make the decision. They review the agreement along with the AG's office. And then instead of approving it, they suggest either it'd be recommended or not to the school's governing body, whichever that would be depending on if it's an independent school or a public school. So A and B are new, but that's because the house changed the decision making process for those agreements. Subsection F, sentence was added that matched existing state law in the same area, that if there is some type of school policy that violates federal law, that policy is abolished. That was recommended by the Attorney General's office.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: You say that again?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Sure. There is, on Substitution F, there is existing state law language that has similar context to where if a state practice program is doing something that violates one of these two federal laws, that that practice is abolished. Here, if a school is doing something that interferes with federal law, that that school practice is abolished, it's conforming to another similar state provision.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, next page, subsection G, policy required. Still, AOE still must produce a model policy, but again, including the recommended procedures, instead of just separating those out. The policy shall reflect the requirements set forth in subsection C and D of the section. So, is also a change. The Senate version, the model policy would have required the entire statute to be put in policy. And there was discussion that this entire statute does not require policy, that is really C and D, which are the law enforcement on-site sections and the student privacy, the student information privacy sections. These sections on the immigration resource guide, the section on the agreements signed by the superintendent or head of school, those aren't really requiring policy. That's just very specifically things that will be done by those two entities.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Good, sir. I recall the Deputy Secretary of Education being in here talking to us about the differences between policy and procedures, etcetera, etcetera. And I don't fully recall the kind of guidance she gave us. My only recommendation is on that particular paragraph, make sure that the model policy and procedures is all doable by 01/01/2027. That's all. Because she made a point of differentiating between the two, and I think there was also a third category, guidelines or something to that effect, that's like a sequential rollout. And I remember if this potentially would hit a speed bump or take longer, but just my only recommendation is have AOA at least comment on the doability of the perimeter.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So you're just saying, so your question is really, can they do this much? Yeah, do.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, just because they've added the word procedures and that wasn't in there before, I just wanna make sure it's

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, mean, I'll just say what we heard from them was that they very quickly turned around guidance after Minneapolis. That was like two page guidance to schools. So this probably does need to be done quickly. And they have shown that when a public safety risk like this is imminent, that they were willing and able to turn that around without being asked by us.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I acknowledge that. I just

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: That's a subtle I

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: think that we have, you know, we're not out of runway completely to be able to make sure that what we've got here is executable. Well, I'm gonna assume they're watching

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: and invite the agency to let us know that current model policy and recommended procedures by 01/01/2027 is what is not a mission.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, I would say that everyone has spent considerable time, everyone involved in what happened on Christmas Eve on March 11 has spent considerable time since then thinking about what the right procedures should be. I hope AOE is already doing that because other schools may face this situation. So I would imagine this is something they should be able to do.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Agree. Just I'm hesitating to commit on anybody's spec.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we're There's only one more change, Mr. Chair, and that is the effective date. So on the set aside, it was 07/01/2026 and the house side on passage. There's a little bit of discrepancy I mentioned earlier about the sections three because some of the language moves in the statute because it's an ongoing obligation of the AG to update that guide.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So we have the changes as far as I remember are the qualifying

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: independent school fit and

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: specific areas.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So I was reminded that all independent schools that operate in Vermont that have a license to operate fall under the 2200 series of rules. So generally, when we are talking about rules and legal guidance, we are talking to all schools that are licensed to operate in the state, not just the ones that receive

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I actually don't know how that plays out. Well, perhaps, think, by the way, I'm fine. The whole point is we want schools to be better, no matter what they are. So, I believe the school, the term independent school, to go through the same thing, because it's kind of like approved for tuition, for the seat of tuition, which does mean there's a lot of other independent schools in Vermont that would fall outside this category. Think And they'd wanna do this. I don't know.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Right, I would think they would too, but are they obligated based on the fact that we've kept them more than an arm's length away be a policy for decades.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Me, Rick will check with Beth about exactly what that actually means and what it doesn't, then we can take it from there.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It's just the student information section too. That's the one, the student records. That's the one area where it's just in the schools without being clear. That would be, the disclosing information or sharing it with someone else.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: So now it's If I could, just because I know we're trying to wrap up this two twenty seven bit. Going back to the second page, the top paragraph on the right, well, actually a couple paragraphs down, but connecting the student with the student's family. I think we did at least talk about, instead of student's family, given the generic nature of the word family, that it be changed to parent or guardian. We kind of skipped it. It was mentioned, but wasn't mentioned in the summary. And I'm okay with that, but I do hesitate about the fact that, and I do recognize that our schools and our superintendents' staffs are magnificent. I just caution that we're requiring, we're obligating the superintendent or the head of school to become responsible for connecting the student and the student's family with immigration advocates. I think that the responsibility ends with the student, not the student's family, or excuse me, parents or the guardians in this case. The student, yes, and it should be a handoff. I don't think superintendents are trained for this type of environment, and they need to basically shift responsibility to a different agency, whether it's DCF or whomever. But in any case, my perspective is simply that we should be focusing up the student, not the parents and the guardians in this case. But

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'll leave it at that.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: You're a bond, Natt?

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

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I'd like to say something about the the search warrant again. And I I don't know how many search warrants any of you have been on. I've been on a few. And to tell somebody that they're gonna go participate in a search, for an individual, but you tell them they can't they have to be restrictive in where they can go, that puts their lives in danger. Because they're even though, you somebody just moves to a different designated, undesignated area, and it puts that team that's doing the search in jeopardy. So I'm in favor of leaving it the way way the Senate has it, and I I reject what the hell has put in there.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: You know that the person that you're seeking has moved to another area. You can still pursue him.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: So that's not the conversation I just heard.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I did mention that a while ago at the beginning.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: They use the shed analogy.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Well, if you see them run into a different building, you have probable cause to believe that that's the one you're looking for. Right?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I I believe it's positive. I don't think there's anything in that language that prevents a judge from saying the premises. That's specific. If that's what the judge decides to do, then that's what it is. There's nothing that says the judge. It's just the judges are going to tend to be as circumscribed as possible. And if that's what the warrant says, then that's the only areas to which they gain access. If the if the agents are able to convince the judge, say, the premises, go inside grounds or whatever, that's still specific.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I I think we're just causing our own problems if we allow the languages in there to designate the people that are trying to enforce the policy that come up against these individuals who have jurisdiction or have the authority to do what they're doing, you're we're creating an environment where there's gonna be conflict instead of deconflicting it. So therefore, I think that it's not a good idea.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, we're really talking about ICE trying to come and get a student, not talking about a dangerous situation.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And we're also talking about many schools that have co located elementary, middle, and high school facilities.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And again, it's just following what the warrant says. Yeah. Making clear that the school follows what the warrant says. You you've been around this.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Quite. I I trust the judge to

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. The judge will say. Yeah. If the judge thinks it's appropriate to say buildings and grounds, then that's what the judge will say. The judge thinks it's appropriate to say, it's Southern Wayne because of the high school is, then that's what the judge says. Yeah.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: We do need to think about the superintendents, they're the ones that are going to be seeing the warrants. They make the decision whether or not to allow the officer, right? You have the ID, you have the warrants. And if I'm a superintendent, not a lawyer, I look at a warrant that says if there's no location, sometimes the arrest warrants don't have any location. And then that's a pretty easy call. There's no, you can't come in, because you don't have access to the school. But if it says, if the judge issued a warrant that says into this XYZ school, If I'm a superintendent and I say, well, the law says into a specific area or areas of the school, to me, I don't know if I would agree that a school is a specific area. I might say, well, I think this has to be a room or a classroom or I think we need to think about, it's not a judge reading these when they come to the school, it's gonna be the school administrators, and maybe need to be intentional on what you wanna do. As written, it's gonna be very hard to have a warrant that looks like this. That's gonna have a specific area in the school, which I think sounds like is what you want for an immigration Yeah,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: so let's think about our objectives here. So my objective when thinking about this is to simply make clear that the school officials have to allow the agents only into whatever the warrant says. The warrant says the premises, it means everything. And that's what the So I don't know. So you're saying that the way it's written, it could put the superintendent in an impossible situation because the word will likely not be that specific. Right.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: It could be. Like Senator Hashim said, they can be specific, especially if it's a house warrant. But if it's at a workplace, I don't know how specific they would be.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, I guess this is a judiciary question and that since we are talking about an incredibly sensitive area, Can we ask the judge to be very specific in the warrant?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: To me, that's not the issue, it's not the The issue is the superintendent reading the warrant. And if you write a statute or whatever, however you word this, the superintendent head of school is gonna be reading it, presumably in the policy, right, that AOE makes. So the policy will be what they look at. And I think you all, as lawmakers, need to be clear about what you want to prevent or allow in this case. And maybe it's you don't wanna allow, cause the way Britain currently, again, I think it's gonna be very difficult for law enforcement. And I said this on the record in the house, it's gonna be very difficult for an officer to have that type of warrant, for an immigration related matter. Not common.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Say what to you before?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So we're in the world of immigration related matter, which is a civil warrant. It's basically, it's mostly going to be ICE. They don't really get criminal warrants. They get civil warrants that have someone's name.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: That are not allowed to access non public area. It's usually, you have to get permission from someone to go into your house or go into a business. In this case, you're saying there's never gonna be consent. You have to have a warrant to enter into the

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: school, So

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think my point is that if it's a non lawyer looking at these, you just need to be clear on what the warrant needs to say for the person to let them know. What if we said

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: that authorizes entrance into the school for limited areas of the school as specified in names.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You need the or if you have the entered the premises of the school. It's not Well, I was saying, if it's

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Well, you know what? The superintendent's guidance would be I'm thinking if a judge did do a saying the southern way, you'd only wanna learn the southern way. So I was thinking of You're saying it's gonna tend to be general into the school. And the only thing I was thinking about is adding order limited errors in the school, if so specified. Dave's.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: So, well, I don't know if this is changing what people are picturing or considering, but I think I heard something that I'd like a question further because I don't think it's accurate. Haven't seen warrants for children. We've seen warrants for a parent taking their child to drop off or pick up. So actually don't think that warrant was designed to allow ice onto school premises at all. They were discreetly lying in wait in the parking lot and went to grab the parent as they dropped their child And then that person fled and they pursued them down a busy street and thought they had pursued that person that they never were pursuing the right person into a nearby home. So I just like, I don't think we're trying to allow them to have warrants for children. I think they would enter school premises if they had a warrant for, God forbid, but a teacher or parent. And we should probably limit their entry into the building at all. Like they should not be there interacting with children.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It's what we're trying to do.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Right. So I do wanna make sure we're clear, like there's no children's warrants, this quote.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: My understanding was a while ago, there were at least four of us that agreed on, per phrase, specific areas. Is that no longer

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Well, it's like a lot of parents.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think council's worried. That's gonna create problems. I guess I'd be comfortable going into the school.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Counsel, is it, if being that this will be a federal warrant, would anything we say really have any impact in this law?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So it could also be a state warrant. This applies to all law

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: enforcement, right?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So the federal warrant, federal employee, ICE agent comes to the school, the superintendent will still request the warrant, right? Because the law says you must ask for ID and a warrant. So it would be then up to the law enforcement official if they would want to abide by the instructions of the administrator.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: So I guess my question is we we may be it obviously will affect state law, but if it is ICE per se with a warrant, does this law have any jurisdiction over that?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: If they have a criminal judicial warrant to enter For federal? Yes. With this law Yes. What we're writing right here It would be allowed to enter. So if they had a warrant that had a specific area for a specific person at the school, they would be allowed to enter.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I understand, but would this law have any effect on it, being it's a federal law?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Well, it had an effect on the superintendent and or head of school issuing that decision. And like I said earlier, if the law enforcement disagrees and they enter anyway, then that's a different problem. Okay.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But a federal warrant or not, if the warrant said Northern Wing only, then you could at least attempt to lock them out of the wing. And if they broke down the door, they'd break down the door, with or without the warrant. So I think we're down a rabbit hole here, and we just need to figure out What we're really saying is the warrant controls. I mean, the warrant says what the warrant says, and we just want it to be confined to the specifics of the warrant. We're just trying to figure out how to say it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Sure.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Maybe you could Maybe that would be

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I'm looking at the center, I'm looking at the center version, how you how you all worded it. It was a specific individual. It wasn't worded correctly, I said around him. Senator Rutland still caught me after the third reading and told her we fixed it on the house side, we fixed it, Senator Rutland still. But so the Senate version was basically a specific individual subject to a search for arrest. So it was much broader. The House narrowed quite a bit. Yeah. Maybe find something that works.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Let's just think about it. Okay. So we can shift gears to six fifty. Okay. So

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: draft 2.1 should be posted on the web page.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yep, our copies. Okay. Which one? Somewhere. Underneath your Nope. Now let

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: me see Terry

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: should've got it.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. I have my screen share too, senator. Not many changes to this draft from one point,

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think it was 1.1 from a

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: week or two ago. So no change to page one. Again, just to remind everybody, this enforcement language isn't a different sub chapter, this is a technical correction. This is not part of the substantive portion of H650. Page two is where the substance begins.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: This is the

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: educational technology registration, which I need to strike that word enforcement, which I will do in the next draft, because the enforcement has been removed from this section. You may remember the committee met on Monday on Zoom to discuss this bill. And there was debate about the enforcement mechanism through the Vermont Consumer Protection Act. So it was subsection C enforcement that has been removed from the bill. And there's no other changes to this section. So you still require EdTech providers to register with the state, which would give the state more information about these entities, what they do, their products, that they meet the standards set forth in state law already, kids code and student privacy standards, but there would be no enforcement if they failed to register with state. Section two, this is the chatbot provision. The change highlighted, it was a five year prohibition, now would be a two year prohibition. Subsection A intent language has been added. Again, this is in session law, so this can be amended however you want, this intent language. It is the intent of the general assembly to replicate within the education context, the thoughtful and deliberative approach Vermont previously took regarding the use of artificial intelligence in state government. Chatbots have been known to cause children to engage in academic dishonesty, and to suffer from mental health harms like addiction and suicidal thoughts. Therefore, the general assembly enacts a two year pause on the usage of chatbots in schools, to provide schools with the opportunity to research, test, and endorse certain technologies to ensure the safety of students. The prohibition, it was 2031, I'm trying to do math in my head. It is now 2028, making it two years. Subsection c, there are still

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: As

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: far as that goes, but if the school has vetted a chatbot use because we've heard from a group that have been using it, it will be allowed or is this

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So maybe coming up. Yeah. We'll see what you think about the exceptions. So there are exceptions in subsection c. A school principal or head of school shall have the authority, and previous language that highlighted, shall have the sole authority. And I removed sole because of subsection or subsection two coming up. They shall have the authority to grant an exception to the prohibition provided the chatbot is strictly necessary. The previous word was used, the recommendation was necessary making it very narrow for educational purposes. The principal or head of school shall track any and all exceptions made to the subdivision and provide a list of AOE. The list shall include the name of the provider of the chatbot along with an explanation of the educational purposes of the chatbot. So that's one, it'd be up to the administrator to make that exception. And it must be a very narrow educational use purpose. Should should the principal or whoever the authority member have to get verification, like the school board?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, amazing, you know, I'm glad we're talking about strong strengthening this section. I feel like they could be asked by the school board, why is this, you know, retroactively. I think it would probably be kind of a new wrinkle in school governance to say like you have to get curricular approval on something from your school board. Think You understand my worry,

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: just having one person be the sole

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: making the sole decision.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I think because you need to be able to go to one person and say, who authorized this?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I'm live with that.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: I just wonder why we're not having it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Like a double two factor authenticity.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: Take us for instance.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: You might say, oh, I think this thing's great. And then I turn around, I don't think it's that great. You were the sole person to decide that. Yes. Where's the checks and balances that one of us has made the right decision?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I mean, guess, like we've heard from some of the stakeholders, gotten emails from them, and they, I think what I heard is, this is happening. They're erring on the side of letting it happen. And this is saying, we're gonna hold you responsible if you kind of casually made that decision. So I guess the check and balance is that there's a lot of people in classroom and the school building who are making the case for using these technologies, and the school board, if they hear complaints or concerns, should have one person that they could go to with sole decision making authority. Okay. That would be my, they're not gonna be in trouble, maybe casually, that teacher or IT director goes to the superintendent and says, I think that was a bad call, and they have a conversation about it, but I just think we're trying to locate the responsibility for approving this in one person, so it doesn't proliferate with nobody taking responsibility.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And you're saying she's the principal of that school?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I do think so, yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I agree with that.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Subdivision two is straight from Act 72 that is includes as many things, the cell phone restriction that you passed into law last year. This is specific to chatbots. A school may allow the use of a chatbot for a student if such use is required as part of the student's individualized education program or five zero four plan, which shall be documented according to applicable state and federal law, provided if that such use is required to meet an international student's special education needs or as part of a disability accommodation, and the international student does not have an individualized education program or five zero four plan, the need for such a use shall be documented in a manner that the school deems appropriate.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So that's why now the other statute, okay.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: My understanding that meets the accessibility, requests. That's my understanding. I don't know for sure, but that's the attempt to meet those exceptions. And that would not be a decision of the principal. That's why the principal has the authority under one for that. For number two, that's a different process I imagine.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Did that change come from the house?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: It's highlighted because we wanted to make sure we got the language The right about

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: entire section, this section came from us.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: The Senate, this came in after the House. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: The highlight is new today.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes. This is a strike all amendment to the House's passage of A six fifty. No change to the definitions that chatbot or a school chatbot is, again, still fairly broadly defined. AOE still must provide guidance on or before notice and guidance on or before 08/21/2026.

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

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: So I'm on the exceptions part on page four. And I know we've heard a little bit about this, why are we making principals or heads of school provide a list

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: to AOE?

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: Like, what purpose does that serve aside from it just kinda seems like busy work that we're putting on the principles, and then AOE says, all right, thanks for the list. And then what?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So policy choice, You have a prohibition, and these are exceptions to the prohibition. I don't know if you want that stored for when the prohibition is over, if you wanna somehow certify them or address the governance in some other way, but certainly you can remove that, change it. I

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: don't know why it's needed. I'm going back to some of the conversations that we've heard earlier on both this year and last year just about administrative burden that we put on teachers, principals, and superintendents and just the stacks and stacks of paperwork that they have to do. And I don't know doesn't seem It's creating this list and then sending it to AOE, and then what happens after that?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: It could

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: be a vestige from when we had AOE doing something, and they repeatedly said they're probably not fading away.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So I'm with you. And so our point I think, as I understand it, the big point is, we want the starting point to be no for two years, but if the principal at a school says, yeah, it makes sense because you heard some testimony about it being used in a way that's productive, then the principal or at a school can say, That's all we're doing. That's it. That's what we're trying to do. So, you know, we don't do a little busy work. I agree.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: And and the other piece I wanted to ask about is on line 11 regarding strictly necessary. Just wondering why we have the qualifier of strictly necessary rather than just necessary

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: because it's either necessary or it's not. I'm always said of taking qualifiers out.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yes, do have any more so?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: I did, I do. Yeah, I'm still pushing back on the whole chat bot prohibition. Talking about unnecessary bureaucracy and what have you. I trust the educators. I think that we had enough testimony that they understand, they seem to understand the tools that they're using and have them vet the academic utility while this working group forms and evaluates technology on a bigger aperture. I just think that we're complicating the use of a fairly common tool now and increases the issues which the administration and the teachers have to deal with. I think they can handle this. I think they are handling this appropriately.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I don't know if we wanna get into a debate about it.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: The straw polling, I'm just saying I'm not in favor of the section.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. No, I don't Then I

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: No, we can have a discussion. I am on one level if I had to choose, I'm with senator Weeks. But I got kind of comfortable with this because it's just that the starting point is no, but if the principal at a school says, yeah, then that's all that's it. And so they will have access.

[Sen. Steven Heffernan (Member)]: It's just Is that a true statement, being it says individual education? Yeah, I guess it does because of the individual education program or a five zero four plan.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I would be against a blanket prohibition, but with the ability for the principal to have schools, yeah, it actually does make sense. They're not, I came around being okay with it. I had the same starting point for several weeks.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Think so. No, no, no.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I was also just gonna say, I you've also widened the scope a little bit by one, reducing the administrative work they have to do regarding AOE and also taking out the words strictly. But I mean, we're talking about a new and emerging technology that changes exponentially every couple of weeks. There should be some checkpoints that they go through before it's being provided to our kids for educational purposes.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: It is. It's the teacher. That's my point. Teachers are already vetting it. Students don't just use this in their classroom of their own volition. It's academics.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I wanna go back to, I think Senator Hashim was making a good point that I was also gonna make about how we define a chatbot. There are a lot of instances at this point where even I don't realize I'm talking to a chatbot, that we should be really clear about this as someone potentially impersonating the likeness of a human. And I said this in healthcare before as a tangent, the biggest killer in this country isn't alcohol or tobacco, it's loneliness. I think this is a very new frontier of kids who are vulnerable, they're mostly online, they're seeing record suicide, depression, etcetera. And we should know more about this before it is let loose on our kids in our schools.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Again, we're talking about an academic setting, like a social media after school boredom kind of endeavor. We're talking about academic programs driven by professional educators who are licensed.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: I guess I try to not deal in hypothetical, and that's why, thank God, no school reported having a contract for inanimate Alice, but that is a program where you are somebody interacting with a chatbot as your main friend. I want a school to have approved that they think that's educational before that's offered to my child.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Mr. Chair. Yes. If I could say something, this goes back to what I said back when we were having the debate about cell phones, is that if you want students to be able to exist in a technological world, then we need to build a curriculum that shows them how to properly use it. We haven't done that yet. And these are dangerous to children's brains. I really are. And we need to make sure that if we allow them to use them, particularly in a public school or environment, that they have guardrails that they have to keep. And and we gotta make the educate the educators, responsible for setting those guide guardrails and keeping people inside them.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, so at the very least, the part we know equally on is striking that strictly and the rest of that paragraph. Mhmm. And we can continue this discussion. But but but not done. We just narrow it down in the next draft. So then we go on to

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: There's just really one more change in this draft. It's in the working group. You may remember there's a EdTech legislative working group made up of six legislators, three from each chamber. The one change is on page six, page six line 15, because of the chatbot prohibition. I think it might be a good idea to ensure that the working group specifically reviews chatbots in their ed tech certification process, determining if those should also be certified or not. That's something I added because I thought it made sense, but happy to remove that if the committee doesn't think it makes sense there.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: And can I add one more thing to that?

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

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: That last week, I mentioned that we want I wanted to put the opt out in the miscellaneous ed bill, and I was told that it needs to be in this bill. So I think, Beth St. James is gonna go back and find the language that we had previous to that to make sure that the language for opting out was appropriate and accurate. Anybody remember that?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I remember you bringing it up, I think you're also right that if we were gonna do it, this would be the place.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Did you want it in the study, Senator Williams, you wanted us to consider the opt out?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: I want you to consider putting it in this bill so that parents can have their children opt out of of it.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Yeah. Okay. Well, but but I'm

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Is it opt out of all?

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. Let him let him articulate. Yeah.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: But yeah. Senator Williams, what what do you mean exactly? Do you mean all technology?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yes. All technology.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I think we could make, I mean, I'd be willing to have that to be part of the study in some fashion. I think it's really, though, because we would have to take a lot of testimony to understand the impact that would have on the ability to teach a class, Half the kids are doing this, half art. How does that work?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yeah, like are we requiring printouts of things? Like, I mean, are, I don't know, my brain is letting me know.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I understand the point. I think I'd be willing to go towards having something like that be included in the study. But I'd be very careful about doing it without a ton of testing on.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: I'm with the study, but I wouldn't wanna put it in as an actual mechanism.

[Sen. David Weeks (Vice Chair)]: Yeah, I would support the study too, but I think it would be appropriate to ask Senator Williams if that satisfies the itch.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yes.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Okay, that's good.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: That's the best I can get. The study. We

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: do need to talk about what this is. I might have an email from somebody about this, but it's like, are they opting out of ever being asked to use a screen in the course of their school assignments.

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: That's the intent, unless you have a curriculum so that the student can learn it the right way.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: But like someone might have a computer, like a desktop or something, people are getting.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I don't study it.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Okay. I mean, I'm looking at Rick.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The idea is to study a parental opt out of their child using technology in the classroom?

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: Yes.

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

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: We did have language in the original cell phone bill.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Oh, I'm almost

[Sen. Terry Williams (Clerk)]: for that opt out.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I have other questions going back to the beginning. The registration part. Yep. Never really got my arms around. What happens with with, like, technology that's ubiquitous, like Apple, whatever. Do they have to register just because they're the underlying platform in which everything is built? So are they educational technology?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So, yeah, I guess that's Alphabet, right, that owns Google. I think it's the way that's structured. Whatever entity that they deem is the provider of Google Classroom or whatever the application is, they would need to register as a entity doing business and then signify that they're an ed tech provider and then give the information that is in this bill, which is a link to their privacy policy and then each product that they, EdTech product that they provide, which are known to be used in schools, things that are in bill. So yes, these big companies would also presumably have to register if they're not already, but now registering with this information.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: And for specific parts of what they do?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So yeah, the way this would, I think work, and we just did this with a franchisee franchisor bill that passed a month ago, where if you're a business, if you're a McDonald's franchisee, you would register as maybe your name is XYZ, LLC, but you're a McDonald's franchisee. So you register as XYZ, LLC, and then you signify that you're a franchisee and that your franchisor is McDonald's. That's a very easy one. This one would be that you're XYZ Corporation and are, and here's all your information, your address, your privacy policy, it would be part of your registration as a business in Vermont.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: And if I may, I was feeling a lot of concerns and there's now no enforcement. So similarly to most of what's on the business registry for the state, quite literally like OpenAI isn't on there. They are getting to self define. And right now there's no enforcement mechanism if we feel they've done that incorrectly. I think we're having this similar debate in economic development around the California Data Privacy Act and delete functions. These registries all become more potent if there's a penalty for not being on there.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Think since it seems to be that.

[Sen. Nader Hashim (Member)]: To wait. That emerge.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Yes. To see what happens organically and to work with the secretary of states with this task force or whatever it's called, the legislative group to see the user experience that they're creating in this contract.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: So do you have some Rick, do you have enough?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: So I need to add that Senator Ram Hinsdale reminds me, there was previously language about the registration when AOE was doing the study. That they were gonna communicate with the Secretary of State about the registration and to figure out, do we have a gap as far as number of entities operating in Vermont that aren't registered? With the legislative working group, that's not in there. So if you want the registration system to be part of the study, I would also look at the date. They're gonna wrap up by the end of the year. You're not gonna get many entities registering. You can still talk to the Secretary of State about future of this system and how to better build it, but I don't

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is there some reference there about that?

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No, but I can add something extra. Okay. That makes sense.

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: Is everybody brain dead? Okay. Yes, yes, yes.

[Rick Siegel (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Okay. If

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: you need one more brain cell.

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

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: I want make sure everybody's officially brain dead. Okay. We'll call it a day.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale (Member)]: Oh, we will? Are we voting?

[Sen. Seth Bongartz (Chair)]: That's me. Oh, no.