SmartTranscript of House Education - 2025-01-29 - 10:30 AM

[Speaker 0 ]: And you are live. [Chair Peter Conlon ]: Okay. Welcome back to House Education on Wednesday, January twenty ninth twenty twenty five. We're gonna take some time now for the committee to get grounded in special education, sort of where it fits in, the current status of special education funding. This is gonna be good information for us to have as we look at broader changes and also have to provide an opportunity for the Vermont Council on special education administrator to sort of talk about their broader range of priorities as we move forward. I think we will begin with Mary Lundin, if that's okay, unless you folks all had a different order you'd like to go in. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Good morning. Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to meet with you today and to share information about special ed in Vermont. I'm Mary Lundeen. I'm the executive director for the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators. I recently retired from the Vermont Public Schools, having served as a Special Ed Administrator for the majority of my career. I'm joined today by Pam Reid, the VCSEA President and Director of Equity and Inclusion for Rutland City Public Schools, Erin McGuire, VCSEA past president and director of equity and inclusion and co director of student support services for the Essex Westford School District. And Alyssa Barnes, VCSEA member and Director of Student Services for the Lemoille South Supervisory Union. I just wanted to provide some background information on the Vermont Council of Special Education Education Administrators. We have been active in educational leadership across Vermont for over forty four years. Our organization supports special ed administrators. We collaborate with state organizations and the Vermont Agency of Education. We stay abreast of legislative issues at both the state and the federal level. And our goal is to provide leadership, support, collegiality, and mentoring to all those who teach and lead in education and special education in Vermont. We advocate for high quality education and support for all children in Vermont. So I will provide a brief overview of special education and that will be followed by testimony from my three colleagues on their successes and challenges in Vermont schools. The Federal Individuals with Disabilities Act is also known. You'll hear the acronym IDEA and that is what drives state special education rules and regulations. In twenty twenty two, Vermont adopted new special education rule changes and those rule changes are now more aligned with the federal rules. So you may recall that was, around specific learning disability. It was around adverse effect, and it was around functional skills. Inclusive education for students with disabilities has been highly successful in Vermont. This is a significant achievement that we are very proud of. Special ed in Vermont has continued to be very individualized and this has driven high investment. Schools are required to create programs to meet individual student needs based on the students unique circumstances. Even if we do not have the necessary resources within our schools and all of these decisions are made by the IEP team and IEP is for individual education plan. That is the student's entitlement to a free appropriate public education. There's a federal legal obligation to provide students with disabilities what they need to be able to learn and grow in their essential academic and social emotional standards. And this legal, obligation is called the provision of a free appropriate public education. The acronym is FAPE and you may have heard that term. And that is really what schools are responsible to ensure that a student is receiving a free appropriate public education based on their unique needs. Meeting the needs of all students in special education can be expensive and it's more expensive when schools are not universally accessible for all students. Schools with underdeveloped MTSS RTI frameworks often have higher rates of students identified for special education services. We shared our legislative priorities document with the committee. VCSEA has identified three main legislative priorities for this year and those priorities reflect the current needs and issues facing the field. Pam, Alissa, and Erin will speak to those and they will also share some of the successes in their districts. So with that, Pam, I will turn it over to you. [Speaker 0 ]: Thanks, Mary. Thank you everyone for having us today. I'm gonna talk a little bit about mental health and well-being. The mental health crisis has created an overreliance on special education services, and, for us to be able to address the social, emotional and behavioral needs of our students. Without enough mental health professionals to support students directly, the system of support is overwhelmed, leading to delays and gaps in care for our students. Vermont must prioritize mental health and well-being in schools by investing in mental health infrastructure, training, and staffing to address the crisis effectively and to prevent further strain and expenses on special education resources. It would likely be helpful if we were to provide you with some context and examples of how schools are changing to better meet the needs of our students given the lack of mental health services outside of schools that are available. So here's some examples of what's working. I'm going to talk about what we do in Rutland city and, Aaron and Alyssa are going to share examples from their districts as well. So in Rutland city, we have created programs both within the traditional school environment and external programs for children who struggle within the classroom and school settings. We have a long standing program that has served older students with intensive social, emotional, and behavioral needs. It's called our Allen Street program. And that's been around for over twenty years. But about five years ago, we needed to expand both our Allen Street campus program as well as we added to our continuum of services for younger children by adding our PurePoint personalized learning center. So we now have programs within the traditional school building and in alternative class campuses that are rich with therapeutic support. These programs are small group settings that include instruction from a special educator and a counselor as well as support from a paraeducator. In every classroom, there is both a teacher and a counselor. Experiential learning is embedded in the programs. Hands on learning allows students to learn academic concepts and grow in their behavioral regulation and mental health. Initially, the Allen our Allen Street campus, started with a partnership with our designated agency. However, given their staffing and budgetary restraints, they were unable to fulfill the the needs that we had at that campus. So the school system shifted to employ all all of our own counseling staff. We utilize both grant and local funds to support these programs financially. Our goal for every student participating in the programs are obviously to transition to a least to the to a less restrictive restrictive setting. We set transition goals for students as soon as they start engaging and participating in these intensive programs. And we include staff from the traditional school, in all decision making. But one of the barriers to transition is the availability of community mental health supports, for our children and families. It's hard to recommend a student transition to at least a less restrictive setting when they lose that therapeutic component. We serve about fifty children in these programs. They're highly successful and they come at a significant cost. [Witness Pam Reid ]: Thanks, Pam. And I without repeating all that Pam said, we'll just say for our, school district, we run very similar programs. I'm gonna talk a little bit about, the development of them and the reasons that we develop them, knowing and understanding that the design is actually quite similar to, what Pam just described within the Essex Westford School District. Essex Westford has had a long history of partnering with independent schools in order to meet the therapeutic needs of children, and the reduction in available independent schools that are available to serve students with special education needs has resulted in a need for us to build our own programs. We are in our second year of a third through eighth grade program called the ARC Center, academics, relationship, and community. Again, it's it's built very similarly to what Pam described. It's been very successful. And next year, our budget proposal includes the lifting up of a nine twelve therapeutic school along with building out some therapeutic classrooms. None of those will have any supports from outside community providers through designated agencies for the same reason that Pam described and, we really have had to build our own mental health structures and therapeutics into our school district because the designated agencies have, really struggled, I think, to provide the kind of community services and reps that are needed. But it is a real success that we are building our own continuums and, and so we too have lifted up, one school and will be lifting up another as well as some increased, potential therapeutic classrooms with a high level of wrap. [Witness Erin McGuire ]: Okay. Hi, everybody. I'm here to talk about the STAR program that was recently developed and implemented as of this school year in August. The STAR program stands for the Students Transitioning to Academic Readiness at the Morristown Elementary School. Last year, the school year, last previous school year, just in September, Morristown Elementary School struggled with having over nine hundred major incidences of behavior for young children with mental health and emotional behavioral needs. This put a huge strain on their system of supports and the local mental health designated agency for Morrisville and Memorial County. And so the STAR program was developed as a therapeutic program, that enrolls eight to ten children. And the aim, and the objective is to provide a safe environment where kids can build protective factors and experiences, for their confidence, for learning and for practicing how to collaborate and problem solve through experiences both as learners and as friends and community members. It's a trauma informed care model that is used and it's centered around building three protective factors, relationships, regulation, and leadership. The originally we were, working hard to also partner with, independent schools as Pam and Erin referred to as well. But at the age of sometimes first graders to third graders, getting them to be set up in transportation at their young ages was really something that we struggled with feeling good about doing. And so the importance of also having a program, within our local elementary school where students are also able to be still connected and feel like they are part of the, the school community was very important to us. So thanks. [Speaker 0 ]: So a couple of other, activities or approaches that have been successful and that is when we invest in, early intervention for social emotional learning. So with young children, when we can have an early response, when trauma or behaviors are arising as well as when communities come together to support each other. From the other side of the coin, we can also share what's not working and the implications for the education system. As we've mentioned already, the lack of community services, especially, direct services from the designated agencies, and this is true across the state. Took me a little while to realize that it wasn't just Rutland that was struggling in this area. When students, when, when, community supports aren't available, districts are finding themselves in a position where we need to employ our own staff so that students behavioral health can be taken care of so that then they can move forward and learn academically. There's, an increasing number of students who are not eligible for special education who need these supports. I mentioned that in our alternative programs we have special educators, counselors. There's a growing number of students who need this type of instruction that are not eligible for special education. Finally, there's a lack of experience in teachers to address significant mental health teachers. We also have a growing number of beginning and provisional educators who are in the early stages of developing their toolbox of, and strategies for how to help students, with their social emotional health in the school setting. I'm gonna turn things go ahead, Mary. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Oh, Pam. I was gonna say thank you. Alisa? [Witness Erin McGuire ]: Thank you, Mary. So I'm gonna share with you our, second priority in terms of the attracting and preparing and retaining of high quality special education staff. Currently, Vermont's public schools face a severe work shortage in the recruitment, preparation, and retention of high quality special education teachers, related service providers, paraprofessionals, and other support staff. These shortages really leave, many schools, vacancies unfulfilled throughout the year, and force districts to reallocate a lot of our staff to cover a lot of those essential services, disrupting a lot of the implementation and of IEPs and meeting the needs of students. The National Center for Education Statistics in twenty twenty three reported that seventy percent of the most frequently cited teaching vacancies were in special education. So we're not alone. This is definitely a national crisis. The high numbers, the high numbers of special education teachers are working under provisional licenses currently, and that is a challenge because they really lack that deep expertise necessary to work with and support students with disabilities. Many are still in the process of completing their education, which impacts their ability to effectively teach and manage special education classrooms, and needs. Many new general ed educators are not adequately prepared to work with students with disabilities in an inclusive classroom, contributing to gaps in inclusion and Our licensed and veteran staff are really shouldering a lot of the significant additional responsibilities including mentoring those provisional teachers and managing a pretty excessive amount of paperwork as well, as a part of the job. And overall, this is really increasing the stress and leading to the burnout of our, of our teachers. There's a significant number there's a significant number of trained educators, required to work under the compliance of Act one hundred and seventy three and effectively implement NTSS, particularly at tier one and tiers two and tiers three. I believe that that's something Meaghan will be illustrating and and elaborating on a little bit later. But this staffing shortages in general are making the actual full implementation of a multi tiered system of support significantly challenging. As a result, there's a tendency to refer those students to special education, sometimes prematurely, before adequate interventions, have been provided and implemented. Lastly, I want to just mention that the lack of affordable housing in Vermont is a significant barrier to attracting qualified teachers to the state and especially in our rural areas where housing availability is is very limited. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Thanks, Alyssa. Erin? [Witness Pam Reid ]: Thanks. I'm gonna talk a little bit about education funding, a ripe topic for this year for sure as it relates to special education. So, a couple of things about what we feel like is working right now just as you continue our conversations about this topic. The high cost student reimbursement at the state level is a really helpful design in the context of special education funding. Those costs, particularly in smaller districts, can really create some challenges if they are not supported at the state level. We really support the flexible use of funding that was added into act one seventy three. There used to be some very strong boundaries around what a special educator could and could not do related to what was in IEPs in the service plan that promises the program to a child an individual child. And now that flexibility of who can do that body of work and what special educators can do has really been freed up. And that really was through a funding structure that special educators may only do special education that was freed up, and we really appreciate that flexibility. Nate Levinson has also done a fair amount of work in Vermont, has worked on behalf of the Vermont legislature, is working to support the agency of education, and really has a a core feature of his message around thinking about group size and the, the fact that we don't have enough resources to do one on one services all the time. Again, those decisions are made at the IEP table to decide whether a small group or one on one services can be implemented and his encouragement to school districts through his work related to focusing on groups, guides, and schedules is something that we think has been helpful and supportive. Related to the challenges in funding for special education, I think we all acknowledge that the expense on property taxes is significant and special education is a component of the overall picture of funding in Vermont and we agree we need to talk about that. The expense, though, where education is not designed in a universal way makes special education more expensive, and the lack of comprehensive universal design for learning implementation in Vermont from the perspective of VCSEA increases the cost of special education. Special education is as expensive as education is inaccessible to inaccessible to people with disabilities, and that's just what special education is because our job is to ensure that the classroom and the learning is accessible to students and that they are growing based on those needs that they have, in that context. We also, want to recognize that, there is a a lack of services available that are specialized within small school districts. There was some action taken last year to encourage school districts to work together to form sort of cooperatives or, it was often known as the BOCES bill, although that's just a New York framework, to really try to build out some more comprehensive approaches but there it is valuable to say that you know the the types of services available within a small school district can be a challenge where there are not as many students. The local and legal drivers of special education will maintain expectations on investment. So that's a challenge that I think is important to enter into our conversation about funding in Vermont. And this is something that I have testified on several times, and I I just wanna try to do this in a way that helps you understand the reality of the federal law, which is that Vermont schools must maintain the same level of local and state investment in special education that they did the year before and it's called maintenance of effort and it is tied to the ability to accept federal funds. So we are we get federal funds from from [Speaker 0 ]: the from [Witness Pam Reid ]: the feds under IDEAB. It's a grant and that grant requires us to invest at least as much as we did the year before in order to get those funds. If we do not we need to return federal funds. It's called maintenance of effort. It can be a little hard to enter into the conversation just because of the nature of it but I think as we talk about the relationship between our spending in Vermont special education costs and where we find ourselves moving forward with desire to discuss decrease in funding for special education it comes with a federal implication that is important to bring into the state conversation and if you have questions about it I would just encourage you to ask. Some of you may already know and understand this dynamic but the idea that there is a federal expectation of continued investment in special education at the same level as the year before otherwise the variance has to be returned in federal funds is an important part of the conversation. [Vice Chair Chris Taylor ]: Can I stop you for [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: just a second here and there [Vice Chair Chris Taylor ]: with a couple of clar couple clarifying questions? So on the specific piece you're talking about right there in maintenance of, the potential policy implication then would first of all, would be sort of don't think you can go cutting special education in Montpelier because that actually won't lie with federal law. Right. So the goal is how could we better you? So if we know we're going to have to have a maintenance of effort investment, how do you use that to the absolute fullest potential to better serve kids to be more efficient? Like, that part of bending the cost curve is different than literally lowering the cost curve. It's more about how you are more efficiently or effectively using the investment. [Witness Pam Reid ]: Yes. And I would say that there is an absolute conversation to have about the cost curve. Right? Then that is a viable discussion. The increased percentage year over year in special education expenses are real. They are statewide, and they are worth a conversation. The reduction year over year, though, is part of the conversation that is harder. And I will just notice that there is less state funding being allocated to special education in some school districts based on the move toward the census model where everybody sort of gets the same amount and so what you're seeing is a replacement from state funds with local funds to meet maintenance of effort in local school districts and then you are also seeing sometimes where school districts receive more as there's a a trying to get kind of everybody to that same level. So the interaction of the census grant, the current investments, the cost growth versus being able to hold things stable, and the future of funding in Vermont are all intertwined and understanding how they relate, as you said, I think is really important. [Vice Chair Chris Taylor ]: And so I wanna ask a second follow-up question to the point just before that about BOCES and what you have in the testimony here about I think it's on page four. [Member Joshua Dobrovich ]: Ensure [Vice Chair Chris Taylor ]: let's see. Recognize the plan and plan for the level of need through state resources to ensure therapeutic schools and alternative opportunities that are available for students who cannot needs cannot be met within a regular public school, work on the design at the state level rather than rely on individual districts to create solutions to the growing need. And I think we're hearing today some of your solutions to the growing need. So how in your mind do we get from here to there to have more either regional through BOCES or or some sort of regional mechanism or statewide so that districts aren't now all also creating their own therapeutic programs. That seems counterintuitive into the direction we're trying to go in so many ways. [Witness Pam Reid ]: Yeah. I mean, I I wish I had sort of a a direct answer to your question. How do we get districts to pick up on the structures that have been provided by the legislature to do what you're talking about? And I I think that certainly is part of the conversation around the optional opportunities versus required opportunities that the legislature places into your conversations as you think about the future of education in Vermont. I would just take a moment to reflect on the importance of connection between local schools and their communities while at the same time valuing collaboration to be more effective and efficient at more regional levels. And the idea that one is better than the other or that we're in a binary about that conversation for me, and I'm this is not I speak for my perspectives at the moment as opposed to all of VCSEA just because I we haven't necessarily had this discussion. But I I think that it's important to recognize the very deep importance of both of those things and think about what that means as we move forward rather than choosing one over the other. [Chair Peter Conlon ]: Were were you all done with your presentation? Can we continue with questions? [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: We are. We're we're happy to answer questions now. [Member Joshua Dobrovich ]: I I have a little bit of a follow-up to to, like, Brady. Seeing how we do have an environment right now where schools are kind of being forced into having to start their own therapeutic school within the school. You all have you all heard if that is more of because of a space or a staffing capacity from the designated agencies and the other therapeutic schools that are out there? And I'm assuming it's gonna be a combination of both, but is it heavier towards one or the other staffing or space? [Member Erin Brady ]: From [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Pam, do you wanna answer that from your area of the state? [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. We've always had the space, so the school district has had the space. It's the staffing that they have not had to be able to provide either in school support or in school. Yeah, in school support to kids or even in our therapeutic programs. They haven't had the staff to be able to accommodate, having folks on campus as needed. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: And that was my experience last year as a director. I was in, Chittenden County and it was more about the staffing to support students that needed that level of support. So that's one of the reasons that there are such long waiting lists. [Speaker 0 ]: I'll touch on one other piece. There was a question about community resources. So the programs that we have are relented city public schools programs and when available, we also will accept or welcome children from other, districts that are near us. It really depends on the needs of our residents. But we, you know, currently we have, I think, five students from other schools. We could fill that ten times, not ten. We could probably fill that three times over. At the beginning of the school year, mid school year, we probably get a call a week asking if there's any availability in our alternative programs. The need is there. I think the incentive for school districts to start at small school districts, it's, it's really difficult. It's financially difficult to start a program and hope that either you're going to have enough students from area schools to help fund it. But to take that leap if you only have a couple of kids, But it's a couple in many of our communities. [Witness Pam Reid ]: I will also just add that, the amount of direct service available in community partners while it's on the decline and has been, and I wanna make an assumption, although you all would know better than I, that that has to do with some funding, around mental health community providers and DAs that we you know, our reliance on the success beyond six funds and the partnerships with our DAs has been helpful, but with the closure of independent schools given the moratorium on independent schools. So if one closes, there isn't the ability for others to open, and I think that's been, you know, part of just the reality of of the decreasing available slots. The special ed directors in Chittenden County and and the Champlain Valley took a look at how many slots we'd lost over the last four years from that, and it ended up being about a hundred slots. And so what that meant is that we needed we those students didn't go anywhere. We are seeing an increase in acuity, and so we needed to build out. And, our ability to, bring in students from other school districts are are part of those conversations and we do this in collaborative dialogue. And the idea of being in collaboration to lift up a program under the bill requires the development of a new board. The the complexities of the interdistrict collaborations, I think, contribute sometimes to the lack of them just because they're very complicated. It is much easier to, for example, a school district open a program and then provide slots to other programs for cost versus develop a whole new board and a whole new collaborative structure. I I applaud the bill to create those structures and give that a try and the complexity under the current sort of situation in education and the pressures and the political challenges to go doing brand new sizable projects can be hard. So I think I think that contributes probably to us moving into, like, a all open one. If I have slots, I'll let you know. I hope that helps too. [Member Joshua Dobrovich ]: Yeah. No. That's exactly what I was kinda leaning towards. I know that last last legislative session, we, put a moratorium on independent schools, which encompasses therapeutic schools that I didn't know if we inadvertently caused this kind of crisis where schools school districts are having to figure out how to do it on their own now. [Witness Pam Reid ]: I think you must probably know that the conversation about independent schools is very complex. Right. And and because of the dynamics of what it means to be in a private school you know, we're talking private schools, and the wrapping in of special education private schools with the other conversation about private schools, I think, has created some complexity and, and has a relationship to the reduction of available slots and therapeutic schools for students with high support needs. [Member Joshua Dobrovich ]: Okay. We only have a few [Chair Peter Conlon ]: minutes left, but we'll go with rep Dobrovich and then rep Law. [Member Beth Quimby ]: So I'm gonna do my best to turn a bunch of questions into one. So when I hear conversations about therapeutic classrooms, therapeutic programs, it brings me some some concern, and and and I'm gonna give you an example to explain that. So if the school takes on a curriculum for dialectic behavioral therapy, DBT, to help the students learn skills. Right? So you have a DBT circle for learning skills and techniques. Now there is a fine line between providing skills and techniques and turning into a therapy session. Right? Now that if a teacher does this and turns into a therapy session and they're not a licensed mental health provider, that's an ethical and potentially legal issue. So I'm seeing some head shaking yes to that. So I my question is, is it are those types of services being provided in these scenario in these places by nonlicensed professionals or teachers? If so, why, and have we looked at the ethical and legal implications thereof? And if not, what is the oversight to ensure that a teacher unknowingly, because they have not been trained, are not crossing that line and putting themselves, the school, the students, the parents, and everybody in the ethical or legal position? [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: I I can start with that. When I was in the Winooski School District, I had three therapeutic classrooms and we did provide group therapy to students. And what we did is it was provided by a clinical psychologist who was on staff in our district. Now not every district has a clinical psychologist, but what you could do is you could contract with someone to come in and provide that service, but you're absolutely right. That service would not be provided by a special educator. And Erin, Pam, Alyssa, do you wanna add to that? [Witness Pam Reid ]: I'd like to just say that wherever we're doing work that touches what we might describe as clinical work directly, we look for clinical staff to do that. We also provide clinical consultation to teachers who are running a classroom in a way that recognizes the therapeutic needs of a child or as a student, sometimes a young adult, and that it is not appropriate for teachers to be delivering therapy. We do, though, seek to create environments that are sensitive, trauma informed, recognize the individual needs of students who are experiencing these challenges, and think about education structures that are, you know, we have consultation from clinical staff to help us think about what it means to have a very trauma informed and clinically sensitive classroom that is not necessarily providing therapy, as you describe. [Member Beth Quimby ]: Awesome. Thank you. Do you provide any oversight? Do you would like to spread check ins while teachers are providing these services to or or helping through these situations to just ensure that they're not unknowingly crossing the line between therapy and [Witness Pam Reid ]: support. For my programs, I have full time clinical staff who are in classrooms all day long. So, yes, although I I haven't tasked them exactly in the way that you've described. Do you see what I mean? Like, it is a collaborative environment where roles and responsibilities are made clear, and we have supervisors and administrators who are also making sure people are staying within their roles and responsibilities. But my clinical staff are not necessarily the people to handle a situation where a teacher has stepped over a line. That's the role of an administrator just given the nature of supervision and evaluation in the context of public schools. So I just I just wanna draw that distinction related to inappropriate practice and how that might be handled. [Member Beth Quimby ]: Thank you. Brett Wall, [Member Erin Brady ]: is there a question? Real quick. I I was I have so many thoughts and questions, and I'm not gonna go here. We're gonna be hearing from Megan Roy about Act one seventy three, but I was on the committee when we wrote Act one seventy three. And I remember some and and, Erin, I know you played a big role in our work there. I wanna I I wanna remind I'm reminding myself of the the conversations we had so often what drove that law was the increase in outside placements of our students and the need and the benefit for children to be educated as, you know, as close to home or in their own school buildings as possible. So a lot of what you're talking about is really what the goal was to make sure our kids were home and being taught in the buildings. We have to do so much work to provide the the services they needed in the building. Miss Reed, you've mentioned you you I'm I'm gonna maybe paraphrase, but I think this is what you said. You said mental health needs have created an overreliance on special ed services. And so I I'm I'm just curious about your thoughts on that because it's very clear. You know, IDEA, the the special ed law has very strict requirements around whether a child qualifies for special education services or not or or even down into the five zero four. So I I'm I'm curious about your perspective on that. And the last we don't have to go too deep into that. I just wanted to hear that. And the last thing I just wanted to ask you a very simple question anybody could answer. How much are we getting on the percentage for ID IDAB grants from the federal government? I know we talk about this all the time, and I've asked the question before, and there was a guess that it was around ten percent. I I'm curious out of the forty, the law was written to provide what is it we're getting. I've heard since single digits now, and that is very disturbing to me and Yeah. Has great impact on on our kids and the services they do. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Yes. I so when, the federal special education law was passed in seventy five, Congress promised forty percent. We are not receiving forty percent. I believe we are around seventeen. Erin, you served on the national organization. Is that correct? [Witness Pam Reid ]: So I just I wanna caveat this by saying that if you look at national numbers and national percentiles it doesn't represent where we are in Vermont. So for example I get like I think one point four million dollars in idea b right now and my spend on special education is up closer to twenty five million so one point four to twenty five million is my ratio for federal funds. When you look at the nation there are school districts who spend very little on special education, and then there are states who spend appropriate amounts on special education based on the expected legal process. And that's a whole other conversation that we could have but, you know, I so I think that sorry. I'm not sure if I froze. So I think that in Vermont, the percentage is in the single digits. It used to be higher because we haven't seen sizable increases and yet we've seen special ed costs in Vermont grow. And I think that I think that the the federal investment in special education is woefully underfunded at the national level given that this is driven by national legislation and statute. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: Pam, did you wanna answer, the next question? Okay. [Speaker 0 ]: Yes. Certainly. So, the question about, the my perspective on the overreliance of special education. So, given the needs of students who are not eligible for special education but still have have significant needs. We integrate them into our small group structures, our counseling groups, our instructional groups with special educators. As I mentioned, we have, several students who are not eligible for special education who participate in our, our alternative programs, that are majority, our special ed staff. Does that help to answer? [Member Erin Brady ]: We have another it it is. Thank you. It it but but it it how does that relate to funding? We don't need to answer. We're we're they're cutting all of us. [Speaker 0 ]: Over time. [Member Erin Brady ]: I appreciate the response, and I believe that we'll follow-up with you. Thank you. Thank you. [Member Beth Quimby ]: Thank you. [Vice Chair Chris Taylor ]: Thank you very much. [Member Joshua Dobrovich ]: Appreciate it, everyone. [Witness Mary Lundeen ]: You. Have a great day.

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SmartTranscript of House Education - 2025-01-29 - 10:30 AM

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