SmartTranscript of Senate Education 2025-03-27 2:10PM

[Will Slattery]: You were live. Alright. [Seth Bongartz]: Senate education committee, March twenty eighth, Tuesday afternoon. We're spending some time this afternoon. We're meeting for a second time with the some directors of the CTEs of Vermont. And as we are thinking about how to fit CTEs into a governance model that might as we're thinking about this whole education form package together, I think we wanted to spend a little time with with the directors, really getting clear about kind of what you think and what you see as being the most helpful? What are the another way to put it is what are the ingredients for you in order to run successful CTE centers? And so we're starting with Patrick, who could be if for no other reason, then you have to be back with parent teacher conferences. So and so I think you know us all. I do. Problem here. Thank you. Assuming you have a good memory assuming you have a good memory. And so why don't you just introduce yourself for the record and we're in. And so, by the way, I think we have rep I think we end up with representative of all three models here today as well. And it's worth noting that mister represents one of the comprehensive CTE. I'm not sure. We had enough disruption. That confused us enough about that yesterday, but I'm not I shouldn't say that. You represent a a comprehensive CTE at St. John's Brewery. So that's you also have your own thoughts to bring to them as CTE director about what what are the ingredients for success, but you also represent one of the comprehensive a comprehensive CTE. So Yes. Forward yours. Introduce yourself for the record in that four years. [Pat Gookin]: Thank you. My name is Pat Gookin, and I'm the career tech ed director at St. Johnsbury Academy. And that is from the St. Johnsbury service region here in Vermont. We actually share that region with Linen Institute, and they're seven miles to the north of St. Johnsbury. And they are considered the same model where they're a comprehensive high school, where we are a tech center that provides education for the whole student. We're gonna have all. Our campus is big. We don't have a, like, CTE wing or a building. It's our our section of CTE is interwoven with the science department. So if if I gave an example, we have chemistry lab, electrical class, robotics, astronomy, actually, biology, and then human services. So we're mixed into the same building. So what what what ingredients work for that is that all students are treated the same in the sense that they're all just St. Johnsbury Academy students. They all get a label of maybe being the CTE students or the tech students. They they don't have to go off campus to a satellite satellite site or they don't go into a different section on campus. A lot of my classes are spread out amongst other buildings too. We had three kitchens, so they're in, like, three different buildings. We actually have a restaurant that's on Main Street that is not too far away. So but the big part about it is being comprehensive in the sense that students can come right from English class to business class or woodworking or automotive. So that that that those that works for us because the students feel like everyone else, that they're welcome, that they're not sort of different in our culture. So there's a culture piece that is developed with that. At our school, we have a morning assembly every morning, and all the students are mixed in based on their grade levels. And and we have a forum every morning that's sort of goes through daily announcements and highlights of the school and the message to the school. It's not separate from the the population or anything that has a model like that. This model works for us in our region because of of of Linden Institute is the same school. So students either decide to enroll in one or the other, and students can also enroll in our region into Danville High School as well. So we we have, like, sort of Danville that's a smaller school. We have Institute that's a medium sized school, and then St. Johnsbury Academy is a large school with population around nine hundred and fifty in our area in St. Johnsbury. So we offer all the programming at other tech centers. We really focus on six programs, And most of them around the trades with electrical, plumbing, automotive, culinary, human services. So those are the programs we focus on. We don't have, like, ten programs where some centers are bigger that way with, diversity and programming. So we have a lot of, pre foundational courses. So all those programs have, like, introductory level courses to get students either interested in them or to build basic skills for those programs. So those are those those pre foundational courses are one hour courses, and we offer a lot of them. And I don't really have the statistics of other tech centers, but I scheduled teaching assignments two days ago. And I had to schedule thirteen secondtions for intro to culinary, which is I'll go out on a limb, but I I think I'm in first place with the number of classes for intro to culinary in the state. And and that's a direct result of our comprehensive high school sort of model because I have accessibility to nine hundred and fifty students that get scheduled the same way. Their tuition is paid the same way, by statute. There's one pay for tuition to St. Johnsbury Academy, and that covers everything. It's inclusive. And, if you're a shared time person, we share students with Linen Institute. I send welding students up there. They'll send me electrical students or culinary students. And then we we just we have both have set tuition rates. And it's I don't know if it's simple, but it is simple, where, you know, students come for the program, which is two hours long. And we have five sections, so it's, like, forty percent of the tuition. So it it's really basic with that. We have Danville High School that sent us one student this year. They're sending us four next year. You know, Danville's probably a high school around a hundred total. I'm not quite sure on [Seth Bongartz]: the house. So when you say send you four, does that mean that they come for the day? [Pat Gookin]: They're shared time students, and they would come just for our CTEs. Alright. Just for They would receive their academics, their English, math, science at their host school or homeschool. We call them shared time students because we're sharing them throughout the day. [Seth Bongartz]: How do they have time whether it's with with LI or with the how do they have time to get there? How does that work? Because I I know that's an issue with every it's kind of all submission to [Pat Gookin]: the schedule. So we we trans we kinda have a agreement where we transport our own. So if there's an issue, we'll go pick them up. You know, if there's a student that can't get there. But we will provide transportation no matter what. I have a bus that goes to l I, London Institute every day. They have a bus that comes to St. Johnsbury Academy every day. Dan, though, we only have one student this year, so he drives himself. And so and and sometimes students get permission to drive themselves, and we go through all the procedures based because they got maybe the job after school. So we do it by a case by case basis with transportation. But what's wonderful is that, like, we're only, like, seven miles, seven miles, seven miles. We don't have some of the maybe transportation issues that maybe some other centers have where it's forty miles or thirty or twenty of [Seth Bongartz]: that nature. So Yeah. Questions? Yes. So I know when I was in school quite a [Terry Williams]: few years ago, we had a fabric pack at the time. A lot of the students that went there afternoon, they couldn't they couldn't participate in sports because the the distance to get back. With you your situation, a lot of your CTE students can can participate in your in their sports programs too. [Pat Gookin]: Right? Yes. Yes. I [Terry Williams]: don't know. Melissa may straighten me out. Maybe maybe that's not the case anymore. But [Seth Bongartz]: Alright. Good time. Never mind. [Pat Gookin]: Unique to our center Yep. Being, you know, seven miles to one another. We have a student in construction class right now, and we celebrated his Danville State championship basketball Yep. In class the Monday after they won it. So it was as if we wanted to with him. Right. You know? So if if they he has some travel or with, you know, with spring sports coming up Right. You know, we just communicate with the school, and they've gotta leave early to get back to catch a bus. It it's it's it's it's sort you know, a lot of our own students at St. Johnsbury Academy have to leave early because we play majority of our athletic events in Burlington because of our division one status, and they gotta leave early. It's kinda just, you know, make up your work. You know, we got stuff for online and credentialing that can be done for students to participate in both. So that hasn't been a major barrier with AflAnnex. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. [Steven Heffernan]: So building trades, it's is it structural as well, or you just said electrical? [Pat Gookin]: So we have we have construction technology and electrical and plumbing. I missed the construction. Yeah. And I may I may have missed it myself. Yeah. [Will Slattery]: I teach you the [Steven Heffernan]: You're we Yeah. [Pat Gookin]: Walked to the flat by beach. No. They they involved in the most. [Steven Heffernan]: Did they build a house? Sorry to get [Pat Gookin]: behind you. So right now, we we are in a little transition period with construction, but we we would we're building some bridges for the Fairbanks Museum to put out on their nature trail. Like I said, they had some land donated. So we try to create as many partnerships with our community as possible because it's part of our school mission, which, which is character inquiry and, community. So we kinda built that into our programs. And and we're working right now with, a vacant commercial space in our downtown area to have our plumbers and electrical go there next year because they're gonna build a food co op in town. So we're working through the CTE loan that was created couple years ago. I think senate have done. Representative Mark Cott had something to do with that. But, anyways, we're helping do some commercial work. I guess so many things going on. But so we partner with our community a lot to so we our our students will get experience in the class out on the job site. And then once those students become proficient enough, mainly seniors, they they'll go out on work based learning and, work under local, like, electricians and get paid. So we'll have, like, three we have three students out in automotive now that are working at the dealerships. They're getting paid. Instead of going to class, they go to work based learning. We have three electrical students that are doing that too. And construction, we have eight because there's plenty of need for that. So Right. It's just there's a lot of opportunities. Right? You know, sometimes, you know, St. John's Bridge is only so big, so the opportunities are sometimes limited. Yeah. We get all kinds of plumbers, but plumbers move around. How do we get a kid to, you know, partner with that local institution or business? But we're working on it. But so our plumbing teacher, he was at a a camp on Joe's pond this morning, you know, turning on water, tell him gets out to do that, make sure there's no leaks and things like that. So they get on the job training at St. John's Berry Academy. Transportation's a little easier for us with our independent status. We own our own buses. We have little buses, mini buses. We have big buses. We have vans, which bases on our model because we have, you know, a boarding program that we have to provide transportation. We have full time drivers that are employed by our school. And, of course, we our independent status, we own all our facilities and and so forth. [Seth Bongartz]: Talk us a little about your curriculum and where it comes from. Do do you develop your own curriculum, or do you rely on the coding from the state? Or how's that how's that work? [Pat Gookin]: Okay. So at St. John's Great Academy, we have all our programs have proficiency, proficiencies to meet that were established by the AOE. And, the AOE actually established most of them working with the instructors in the in the programs. So our teacher at the Saint John Gray Academy will use them as a guide to make sure that we're teaching students certain skills and proficiencies. But we of our independent with independence nature, we do our own curriculum in the sense that it's up to our teachers. Master plumber, he should know what how would it be taught in the right way, master electrician, and so forth. Right? And and we have ASC certified automotive teacher who's been certified in everything. [Seth Bongartz]: Right? So So so you have so you have goals and proficiencies to meet, and then you let them do it and they're gonna figure out their they want to get there. [Pat Gookin]: Yeah. Like, in plumbing class, we we will we have we use a textbook that is approved by NCCER, which is they build curriculum, and our teacher will use that as a teaching tool. But he's not gonna go page by page, chapter one or chapter two. If he thinks in his mind that he should do chapter three and then chapter six because he knows the concepts in the systems connected with that proficiency, then we have the flexibility to do that. With the AOE, we try to have there's recommend recommended, like, industry recognized credentials. Right? So, you know, some some of our programs are student students, like, in human services. They're gonna earn six credits of dual enrollment credits or have the opportunity with CCB. K? And then our electrical kids are in the apprenticeship program. So that we we want them to at least have first year done by the time they leave school. And at our school, we're trying to get, twelve kids through year two of the apprenticeship for electrical. So we're and that just saves money for kids. It moves them along and with their earning potential increases as they move forward. So but but like plumbing, maybe we just started two years ago. We're hoping to get some more kids through after at the end of two years. So and all the students took their midterms couple weeks ago, so they're on track. All the electrical kids passed. So, you know, the curriculum that my teacher has established in his environment is working. Right? We want them to ask, either the apprenticeship exams or we want them to earn credentials or we want them to earn college credit. You know? In culinary arts, kids have the potential when, to earn eight credits through White Mountain Community College, and that's sort of the closest culinary school to our location, our [Steven Heffernan]: tech center. When do they start is it normally sorry. No. At junior junior senior, or can they start all the way down at freshman for the CTE? So [Pat Gookin]: majority of students are gonna start their junior year and and and just especially if there's you're sharing students with other high schools because they wanna get us maybe some of their graduation requirements fulfilled. I I we have we have sophomores can start. It just doesn't fit very well. I've had two sophomores. One's one's a senior this year. So because he started as a sophomore in electrical, he's has spent the whole year out on work based learning. And we're earning money all year, senior year. He had half his day. He has spent work based learning as a senior, and I still spent pluses and minuses. He's a feel so much in part of the school. It's kind of weirdly growing up, but I'm gonna try another sophomore this year and see how that works out. So [Seth Bongartz]: But thanks, Sarah. We used [Melissa Connor]: the. Always. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: But You're good. My remember. Yeah. [Melissa Connor]: Me just tag on what's happening to this. And then so Yep. So do you offer, like, CTE intro programs where freshmen, sophomore would Yeah. Be aware of what [Pat Gookin]: what Ninth graders will take career exploration. Okay. And, you know, they'll they'll do inventories and so forth and learn about themselves and maybe find a career pathway to explore at the during their ninth grade year. And then we will actually say, okay. Then they'll go and do shadows in our programs for six weeks. So they do, like, two weeks in welding and two weeks in auto. And and now we've even expanded it to our building that we have and say, oh, you're trusting our school. Okay. Let's do a shadow there because it's career exploration. It is a CTE exploration. So students will do two week shadows in business, and and it's their choice based on sort of the the data they collected, learning about themselves, and exploring different careers. And then, really, during their sophomore year, that's where we see all the sophomores. And we have a lot of students that take all of them and and take all the intros by the time they leave. You know, they they they if they've shadowed and they like auto, they're gonna take intro to auto as sophomores. And then as juniors move into the automotive program, it's pretty typical that way for students in CTE at St. John's Grand Academy. [Melissa Connor]: That's true. [Pat Gookin]: You know, we encourage the auto kids to take well intro welding because that goes along with automotive We teach kids that there's actually programs that sort of, you know, run parallel to each other so they'll have opportunities and options when they're done. [Seth Bongartz]: So by the way, just in terms of people thinking about questions, we have three other people. So if you depending on what your question is, how how it relates specifically or not, not but I'd say that for any reason other than that. Just a so yes. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, that I was thinking about that because [Nader Hashim]: I feel like I have a handful [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: of questions that it would be great if everyone could answer because I think it would help with the painting of the picture. My specific question for you, you started to touch on New Hampshire, but would anything that's currently being discussed in the educational reform proposal harm your relationship the cooperative relationship on the New Hampshire side? [Pat Gookin]: That that St. John's Gray Academy, it wouldn't. Okay. The majority of students that we have from New Hampshire are choice towns that don't have a high school that are on the border. Mhmm. And and they're coming to St. Johnsbury Academy, Monroe Line, New Hampshire are the two big ones that we get students from. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And you do you send students to New Hampshire? [Speaker 8 ]: We do not. Okay. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So We do not. Really, it doesn't. [Will Slattery]: You can ask me that one later. Yeah. That's [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: that's good. Great. Yeah. Maybe that's an everyone's question. [Will Slattery]: I'd like that. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I think it's helpful. I mean, there has been a proposal to use the CTE map to look at district boundaries. Do you have specific concerns or thoughts about that? I see your region has Linden Institute as well. Do you all have some kind of cooperative agreement? [Pat Gookin]: So we don't have we we we have duplicate programs. [Nader Hashim]: Okay. [Pat Gookin]: The only one is automotive. And I know I was speaking with someone earlier to today and they're like, why? And I was like, I don't know. I think it happened in nineteen seventy one and everybody was working on cars and they said we could have duplicate programs. And it was the most popular program, but we don't have like, where I have intro to welding Yeah. A foundational course, and Linden Institute has the welding program. [Nader Hashim]: So Oh, okay. [Pat Gookin]: I'm sending, four female students there next year for welding. Just women is [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: what you're saying. [Pat Gookin]: Yeah. We just send women up there. No. [Will Slattery]: I have it. No. I'm proud of it. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. Yeah. So you're you're sending just two or, like, a guy? [Pat Gookin]: I'm sending two boys up there that are that are there this year. Yeah. They're gonna go up there for the second year or [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, okay. But four women. [Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. [Steven Heffernan]: That's cool. So That's great. [Pat Gookin]: We took them up for a shadow. I and or meet the teachers and so forth. So and and Linn Institute would do the same thing. They'll send students down in maybe groups of four or five to shadow electrical and and kinda meet the teachers and so forth because, you know, we we have a rivalry with our two schools, like a real rivalry Okay. That is, like, hundred years of football against each other. Right. So that that's pretty big. Okay. You know? It's so we we try to break the ice by doing visits and pre pretraining opportunities with kids, and it's worked really well. We're gonna have over, like, twenty two kids, that are shared time next year, and the majority of them is situated. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I'll just say these broadly, and it's maybe someone else is the right person to answer them. Economic development has long had a concern about driver's ed programs that a lot of students aren't career ready or ready, you know, to move on because [Speaker 8 ]: we don't [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: have enough driver's education. Have the CTE centers specifically looked at that as maybe becoming their responsibility? [Pat Gookin]: It It is our responsibility. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Driver's education is your responsibility. Oh, it is at my school. [Steven Heffernan]: Oh, good. [Pat Gookin]: So driver's education is under CTE at St. Johnsbury Academy in two different ways. Mhmm. It's a the a day program [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. [Pat Gookin]: That the students says sort of give their entitlements for free. And we so students will take their drivers in the morning and get their driving hours in through during the school day based on their free blocks or study halls. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And you're not having a problem finding teachers [Nader Hashim]: for your business? No. [Pat Gookin]: I I I hired that teacher three years ago. And then I have another teacher that teaches to our adult ed that we have through CTE. And he teaches by quarters kinda in the school year at night. So and so there's four sections of those. Great. And then then then we have two sessions in the summer where those teachers will pick up those sessions too. That's wonderful. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: What is your what is your banner metric for career readiness or attainment? Like, what makes you feel like you're successful that you could use to measure? [Pat Gookin]: Well, I think it's it's really differentiated, to tell you the truth. Because for one student, it may be that you want that student to be employable. [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. [Pat Gookin]: And then another student, I may want them to be career ready. [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. And [Pat Gookin]: then another student, I may want them to be ready for post secondary education. Mhmm. And I and I really feel our programs do that really well. [Seth Bongartz]: Right. [Pat Gookin]: You know, some programs all have a student that's taken AP US history, and they're in our electrical program. Mhmm. Right? So you have all these different opportunities to explore and be prepared for whatever meets your personal learning plan. Right. Right? [Seth Bongartz]: So [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So you wanna them just feel ready. [Seth Bongartz]: Right. [Pat Gookin]: Here. That's It's like some students are, you know, and may not get all their credentials in culinary. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mhmm. But [Pat Gookin]: they're gonna be employable. [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. So just to make sure we have Yeah. Some weeks that's a question or two. And then [Melissa Connor]: we've got, again, so back, I [Seth Bongartz]: wanna make sure that we [Melissa Connor]: Yeah. Asking John's very specific questions. Because just for clarity, did you say that your academic classes or your academic classes for CTE students are the the same academic classes as the college prep? Mhmm. The same teachers, same classrooms, ages. Yeah. [Pat Gookin]: We have different levels and, you know, algebra one, algebra two, and so forth like that with sculpted sequence. [Melissa Connor]: But and then I think you said that you charge the same tuition for a student who's in CTE as one who might be in college prep. [Pat Gookin]: Yeah. You just said you were in the same time. [Melissa Connor]: Because we're you know, some of our conversations are financially related. I have your you know? Okay. Thank you. That's good. That's all good. [Steven Heffernan]: Back to Oh, okay. So the what time do you have to leave? [Pat Gookin]: I don't I'm here [Will Slattery]: until you [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It means you can always say these are questions [Seth Bongartz]: that are [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: answered by [Pat Gookin]: either talk forever about this. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Do you have any unmet facilities needs, or do you feel like that's a benefit of being independent? [Pat Gookin]: Okay. So we are just like all the other tech centers, you know, will not yeah. Like, we're busting at the seats. [Nader Hashim]: Okay. [Pat Gookin]: Right? And the the difference with us is, like, we have to pay for it with our own bonds. Right? Mhmm. But in which but then again, we're a part of everyone else as a a CTE center for the state of Vermont. Okay. So if there was some sort of fund that helped with some facilities and I have plumbing and construction say, but not sharing the same space. Mhmm. It looks like a really interesting worksite, and it works. And they have to learn to work together and not get in each other's space, but we we need more space. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mhmm. [Pat Gookin]: And sometimes it's gonna get to the point now. We're growing every year, and we're gonna run out of space. You know? We were like, I have everyone has wait lists. Mhmm. If we had more facilities, we would not have a wait list. I I there is some difficulty hiring teachers. [Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. [Pat Gookin]: But most of it's because of space and safety regulations and and and a number of oh, so a lot of things. Yeah. But [Steven Heffernan]: Okay. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So my last observation or question that anyone can answer is I was very impressed visiting a med school in Providence, Rhode Island. I went with Berlin to I was a chaperone for Berlin to Winooski High School when we were doing the Nellie Mae reimagining of school. And the med school, they stay really connected to their campus through a small advisory, but they're gone three days a week working in the field. Mhmm. And it's, you know, it's still essentially a a functioning high school. So I just didn't know if you all have tried to take some best practices around like having a campus community while having students out in the field. Have, you know, just, like, the best practice if you all talk about that? [Pat Gookin]: So at St. John's Mary Academy, we we have advisories. [Speaker 8 ]: Okay. [Pat Gookin]: I have I have seven advisees. Okay. And they're seniors, and I've been their adviser before here. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yes. That's [Pat Gookin]: great. And we meet every morning in our assembly Mhmm. For twenty minutes. So I'd always tell parents, like, I'm gonna tell them this afternoon when I meet with the parents. Say, I I actually see them more than their parents. So because I see them every day for at least twenty minutes. I don't know if you remember having teenagers, but they're gone. Right? And then we have scheduled in times in our schedule where they meet in my classroom, like, our classroom space on Wednesdays for fifteen minutes personal. And then we have an advisory period on a Friday, and then it's a half hour long. And we'll do activities for them, and we we do activities through class functions [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. [Pat Gookin]: And and so forth over four years. So and at St. Johnsbury Academy, because of us, you know, being around for over a hundred and seventy five years, we got all these traditions. And there's certain traditions where, you know, the sophomores sell wreaths. And and and then the junior sell something else and then and it bonds us together as a group, but it also bonds us as a community that, you know, entire year to do it Mhmm. Or whatever it is. And so there's a a lot of culture building at St. Johnsbury Academy based on our mission and [Seth Bongartz]: and [Pat Gookin]: which is character inquiry in communications. [Speaker 8 ]: Great. [Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Thanks thanks thanks for coming. I know you haven't slept out in a couple of [Steven Heffernan]: Hang on. Slipped out now. Or It's a big. Yeah. That would be great. [Melissa Connor]: Awesome. Yeah. Bye. [Seth Bongartz]: Melissa. Melissa. [Speaker 8 ]: Hey. How are you? [Seth Bongartz]: Good afternoon. You are, Melissa, you are on. So introduce yourself for the record, and you kinda heard that discussion. [Speaker 8 ]: Absolutely. [Seth Bongartz]: Alice, you know, talk to talk to us about your model and some of the things that you do. And that and this whole notion we're trying to get our arms around, I think, of what do you need to be sick what are the ingredients for a successful CTE? [Speaker 8 ]: Absolutely. So my name is Melissa Connor. I am the director at Stafford Technical Center in Rutland. This is year thirty for me in career and tech ed here in Vermont. So I've been doing this for a long time. I started my career as a business education teacher in the, career and tech ed world down at the technical center at Springfield, which is now River Valley Tech Center. So I taught there for many years. I did one year of, as an assistant director in an interim capacity. And then for the last ten years, I have been here in Rutland at Stafford, four years as the assistant director, and six years as the director. So I appreciate the shift in focus where we're focusing on the positives, and the things that we wanna see in a new system versus kind of picking apart all of the legislation. So this is exciting to be to be able to talk about this. So I sent you my testimony, and I'll kind of highlight it and try to capture some of the questions that I heard as, along the way. I'll start with sports. Our students, Senator Williams are able to participate in sports. Many of the sports buses will pick students up here at Stafford or we'll have early dismissals. So, they do fully participate in sports, theater, any of the arts programs, that they want to participate in at their partner high school. So curriculum is a big love of mine. Anyone that knows me in the CTE world knows this is kind of my wheelhouse. Some of the things that I think that would make for an ideal CTE system is that if a high school graduation requirements are the same across the state. I serve up to eleven high schools here at Stafford, in addition to homeschool students. And it is really challenging to give every student the same opportunities here at Stafford when we have up to eight different sets of high school graduation requirements. You know, it requires us to pull them from their CTE time to either take an elective class over at Rutland High School because it's one of the things that they need that we don't offer here at Stafford. Or we're having them do independent studies, which are not always the best learning modality for a lot of students. So that is one thing. I think it creates an unnecessary barrier for a lot of our students. I think also, you know, we have state approved programs by the Agency of Education. Our teachers have worked really hard with the agency of education to document the embedded academic credits. We have many high schools. Well, the way the statue is written is that we simply recommend academic credit to our partner high schools and they are the final decision maker as to whether they're going to award that credit. So for instance, English, math, science, social studies, and whatnot. It it creates challenges because we have, and I'll speak just for myself, we have some high schools that really want to dissect our curriculum that has already been approved by the Agency of Education. We aren't dissecting the curriculum of our partner high schools, when they send students to us and saying that they're on track for graduation. So again, it's another unnecessary barrier. We may have students from six different high schools in one program. Some of those students are going to earn a math credit. Some of them are not going to earn a math credit. Now we recommend those credits. It is up to that individual high school, school counselor, and principal to decide whether they want to award that credit. So it would be nice if in the change that if we have, recommended credits that are coming from the agency of education, that those are recognized, and it's not an optional thing. So that would really help our students, as well. I mentioned, the state approved standards, and Pat alluded to those as well. Our teachers all participated in a process over a couple of years where they really trying to make it so that although our programs have regional differences, the core curriculum is the same. My opinion, and I may be alone in this, is that we now need to work towards how we are assessing the students, so that we are, you know, a calibration process. So a student that I'm deeming proficient or a teacher is deeming proficient here at Stafford is being assessed in the same way in the Northeast Kingdom. We have a lot of students that will move throughout the year, and they may bounce from one tech center to another. And it is really challenging sometimes to take a student from another tech center, let alone, you know, a half day versus a full day program. But when we're looking at some of what we know when we get some students, what we would consider proficient is not always the same. So I think the next step that we need to take to have a dynamic system is to statewide kind of be aligned on how we are assessing students. When we talk about, funding, you know, there's there's so many different, thoughts on this. But, you know, the modeling that's been proposed with the twenty five thousand dollars, it's like, for my tech center, my proposed tuition next year is twenty two thousand six hundred. So twenty five thousand sounds great. But when you start crunching the numbers and we've kind of, like, preliminarily done that, losing some of the state assessed systems that we will lose, under the current proposal, looking at there's still unknowns as far as how is overhead assistance will be calculated in terms of am I you know, what will I be paying for rent, for the space that I currently occupy now? What will I be paying for services to the superintendent's office, the business office, regardless of whether it's a BOCES or whether it's a single district. Those are some big unknowns, and it would be very helpful to us to actually be able to have some answers to these questions so that we can sit there and take, you know, our FY twenty six budget that we already have done and be able to kind of run the numbers the way the new system and see how we, you know, end up. That would be very helpful too, in my opinion. Staffing, you've heard this over and over, and I've testified to it previously. We need a salary schedule that pays our instructors an industry wage. We are losing. I have been trying to hire a health careers instructor, a second one for two years, and I've been unable to because I cannot afford them. Our salary schedule does not allow us to pay them what they're used to making in industry. And I think most people who have a love for teaching and education are willing to take a small pay cut to come to education. But when we're talking thirty to forty thousand dollars of a pay cut, that's a lot, especially for somebody with a family. So that is something that I think we definitely need to work on. When we are talking about middle school career exploration, I'd love the idea. And I think we need to do that in a planned and purposeful way. We have to have clear expectations and outcomes. What are we hoping to get out of that? And then thinking about the roles, being very clear as to who is responsible for that. Is it the middle school educators? Is it the CTE educators? Or is it a combination of the two? Because obviously if we're going to have more staff, involved in middle school on a much more structured, that's going to add to our staffing needs. So we have to be considering that. But middle school outreach and career exploration is definitely a positive thing, I think, in this plan. In looking at governance, I will say right from the get go, I have no preference as to whether we are one district, whether we are five, whether we are aligned by the regional things. I think the biggest thing that we have to look at and the things that I think that would help us be successful is really having a CTE focused central office. There are so many I I just spent an hour and a half meeting with our business manager, who has been on the job here in our district for two years and he's still after two years trying to wrap his head around how CTE financing works, around the six semester average, allowable tuition rates and all of that. Having a business office that truly understands how we are funded, understanding our regulations, and how varied our needs are in a tech center versus a traditional high school or school, would be very helpful, and I think create more efficiencies for us. [Seth Bongartz]: We have a we have a clarifying question. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I just wanna make sure you understand. Is that do you mean central to all CTE programs at AOE or central [Speaker 8 ]: A central district, whether it's one district, five districts, however, you know, so many proposals out there right now. Not at AOE, separate from AOE. So [Seth Bongartz]: A clarifying question? [Terry Williams]: Sure. Yeah. [Melissa Connor]: Thank thank you, Melissa. [Seth Bongartz]: What was the last what was your last question? [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, I I was trying to understand. It sounds like at first, I thought, oh, that does sound helpful, but then I didn't understand what I what the what was. Like, is it I'm trying to understand what a central a central office That's right. In each district. [Melissa Connor]: So So so hang on. So I'm gonna lead you to a very, very specific question and see if we already have the answer in our hands. When AOE gave us some matrix about costs [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. It had [Melissa Connor]: a lot of embedded you know, it had all the manpower from essentially, from AOE down to the essentially, the principal. Was there in there what was in that spreadsheet? Was there a CTE specific, like, I don't know, division? Or how how did they address it if that detail was in there? [Seth Bongartz]: Yes. [Speaker 8 ]: I'm not sure if I've seen the spreadsheet that you're referring to. I've seen roles and at which levels, but I haven't seen anything around the funding of that. So there may be a document I have not seen. [Seth Bongartz]: No. But I think just to make sure that we're understand what you're saying, I think what I and you tell me if I have it right. What I think you're saying is that it would be helpful to have, for all the CTEs, one kind of central office that did back office work for you. [Speaker 8 ]: Correct. And what I'm trying to say is there's conversations about one single CTE district. There's conversations about having five CTE districts. There's conversations about having seventeen districts, school districts around the the seventeen career and tech ed centers. Whichever model, whichever governance structure, we need to make sure that whomever is in the business office and whoever is the superintendent has a real solid understanding of CTE regulations, finance, because it is a very different animal than regular, ed financing. [Melissa Connor]: K. What I'm what I'm alluding to, Melissa, is that in the secretary of education's proposal, there may have been there may have been only a AOE specific CTE coordinator for the state, but there also may have been at a district level a CTE coordinator built into that whole hierarchy. Again, I think we have the answer in our hands. We we're because spreadsheets aren't that [Seth Bongartz]: Right. [Melissa Connor]: User friendly. I've asked for we've asked for a work chart to show that very clearly so we can all move forward. [Speaker 8 ]: Yeah. And I think that would be very helpful. I think there's so many different variations of what it could look like. And, you know, what I've been asking for, you know, I I served on the advising committee with APA for the one and a half to two years. I served with Jody, and Pat and Eric Remmers on the sprint teams. And one of the things that we keep asking for and we still have not received is, here are all the the menu of options that are out there. Let's model them so that we can see the actual impact. Because, you know, I think here at Stafford, I I think we would make out okay. But I know that some of my colleagues around the state are very worried about a negative impact. And I think, you know, before we make this huge decision, we really need to know the impact. And then we really need to have people that are, you know, in our whatever that central office is, whether it's a BOCES or whatever it might be. In my opinion, we need people that know CTE. So there's that. I know there's been a lot of conversation about the comprehensive comprehensive local needs assessment, which is a huge amount of work. And I know it's the nemesis for many of my counterparts around the state. I've decided to embrace it, and use it as a reflective process. We're required to do this every two years. I've structured it here at Stafford in a way that we do, we do parts of it every year. So for instance, yesterday we had about eighty employers, business people that work with our programs on the program advisory committees here, and we were reviewing student performance data. It is something that, you know, I feel and our staff feels that we need to be in a constant reflective state in order to constantly be improving and aligning it with not only our Perkins plan and the CLNA, but also our independent strategic plan that we have for our school. So that's something. I think moving to a regional Let [Seth Bongartz]: me clarify again. Are you talking about so it sounds like some of that is what you are doing in portal to your school and what you that isn't that isn't mandated that some of the things you wanna do on your own. Is that correct? [Speaker 8 ]: So we everything that we're doing is mandated as part of the CLNA process. We've just changed our approach to it here at Stafford, so it's not a one year overwhelming process. We spread it over a two year period. Okay. So would you [Seth Bongartz]: be doing that if that were not are you at the point where if that were not mandated, would you be doing it anyway at this point? [Speaker 8 ]: We would be doing many parts of it. [Melissa Connor]: Yes. Okay. [Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Okay. So you thought [Speaker 8 ]: Did someone else have a question? [Seth Bongartz]: Nope. Nope. You're on. [Speaker 8 ]: Okay. And, you know, and thinking about it, you know, if we were to go to five districts, one district, whatever it might be, I think, you know, I've been working I worked with Jody this year at our RAC TED meetings, which are our director meetings, you know, each month to have a different section of the CLNA. And in the afternoons, after our meetings are concluded, we have conversations about best practices around the CLNA. And there's many parts of the CLNA that do not have to be done independently at a tech center. So I think about labor market information. There's no reason that each one of our each center is reaching out to the Department of Labor to partner with Matt Barrowitz or whoever it is to get information on labor market information. That's something that we could be doing as a state and doing that as a collective effort. And I think having a larger district of CTE centers would basically create an economy of scales in a sense and allow us to be more efficient in our work. And so that's something that I would look forward to as part of a larger district around CTE. There's been lots of conversation in the different proposals about, eliminating regional advisory boards. I have a regional advisory board here because I'm part of a host district with Rutland City. I was listening to some of the testimony in the in house commerce and economics yesterday. And, you know, it's RABs are very different in every tech center that has a RAB. My RAB here at Stafford, we have twenty four members, which is a very large board. But we have several we have four subcommittees, and that's where the real work happens. I think you can have an effective regional advisory board if you structure it correctly. And I can't take credit for it. This was the structure when I came here to Stafford. But we have a program committee that really is looking at all of the programming that we're offering, is looking at the labor market information. We every year we look at that information as a committee, and then we report it back to the full RAB. We have an adult ed committee. So adult ed is something that has been missing in a lot of the conversation. We have a committee that is looking at our programming and again making sure a are we running cost effective programs and b are they meeting the needs of industry in our region. We have a finance committee that is made up of all the superintendents in our region or their designee that does everything for our budgeting. We meet about four times a year, and they are the ones that kind of set the stage. Like, this is the maximum percent increase we can have in a budget, and they go through it with a fine tooth comb along with the administration here to set our tuition rate. And then we bring that back to the full RAB. And then finally, we have an outreach committee that is about the recruiting and retention of students, for here at Stafford. So, you know, I I think I've heard a lot about RABs about how some feel that they're ineffective and and it doesn't have to be a RAB, but I do believe that there has to be some board at the local level that has the regional representation, because we we are working for the regional employers. We are trying to produce the next generation of employees for them. So I do believe that there has to be that strong connection. But I also believe, and this is something that I say to our executive, team of the RAB all the time, is I don't wanna have a meeting just for the sake of having having the meeting. We have to have purpose. They have to be goal oriented. There has to be actionable items and actionable items as far as recommendations that we make to our governing board, which is the Rutland City School Board. So that's something that I think having some sort of local oversight, I think, is a good thing. [Seth Bongartz]: Hang on a second. Got a question? [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Sure. I'm just trying to understand ideally ideally, it sounds like AOE being your umbrella agency isn't necessarily a good fit, and it should be like ACCD or, you know, the working with the Department of Labor, we just created, like, an office of workforce management. I don't know. But it it just it I'm not hearing that you need AOE to be more to you, that you need to to answer to somebody else. [Speaker 8 ]: I I would disagree with that. Okay. I I believe you know, I am an educator through and through. I went to school to be an instructor, and I believe in the agency of education. I believe that especially when you have a workforce of instructors that have not gone to school to be an educator, we need that education accountability and the professional development that they provide. I do think we need to partner more and maybe more purposely with the Department of Labor. My board chair is a regional manager for the Department of Labor. So I have very strong representation on my regional advisory board from the Department of Labor and the workforce lens. And she also serves on our program committee, which is all of our programming. She serves on our adult ed committee to make sure that there's a strong connection to our workforce. So I think it's really, you know, picking and choosing the right people to be on your regional advisory board to make sure that you have those other connections outside of the agency of education so that you have that balance. I kind of look at it. Our our bylaws require that we have fifty one percent industry representation on our regional advisory board. So we make sure that, you know, we have GE Aerospace represented. We have, OMEA represented. We have we we really look at every one of our program areas and try to make sure that we have representation from each one of those cluster areas, as well as having post secondary representation as well. So [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: So do you want more from AOE? [Speaker 8 ]: I think that we need a lot of the work. And I I say this all the time at back tech meetings. A lot of the work that we're doing, in the centers really should if we want consistency around the state and we want commonalities around the state, that work should be led by the agency of education. So, for instance, when we switch to proficiency based graduation requirements in the state of Vermont and we receive these documents that set the standards for each program, To me, the next logical step would have been the Vermont Agency of Education leading the conversation about creating the proficiency scales for the standards that they set for each program, talking about the assessments of how we are assessing our students so that it's common around the state that was left to each individual tech center to do that work. So now we have probably at seventeen different tech centers, seventeen different ways that we're assessing a lot of the student work. We do have some common curriculums. But as Pat alluded to, every tech center instructor uses that common curriculum in a different way. So again, consistencies across the state where we're trying to create common systems is not necessarily happening. But if we did have more support from the AOE around curriculum, I think that could happen. And and it takes, you know, I say all the time, it takes it puts a lot on the play of the administrative team at each tech center when we can't be out into the programs, you know, seeing our teachers in action and working with students and really being an educational leader around teaching and learning, giving feedback to our instructors because we're kind of in the weeds trying to work on systems that the AOE, in my opinion, should be working on for us. [Terry Williams]: So I'm thinking back a couple of years ago when we first started hearing about CTE. AOE only had one representative that rep one person that worked for CTE. And they there was a a model for more. [Speaker 8 ]: Yes. [Terry Williams]: So did they ever get that additional [Speaker 8 ]: So as long as I've been around, there's always been at least, in the last ten years too. They have added a third person, and they have a part time data person that they share with other departments. But in terms of, you know is that enough? When I and remember, I've been doing this a long time. When I first started, there were content area specialists. So as a business teacher, all of the business teachers from across the state would get together, a couple of times a year. And somebody who had an expertise, who was an industry expert in business, would be working with us on our curriculum development, our the creation of assessments, common assessments across the field. You know, Ruth Durkee, she's great at a lot of things. I would not want her advising as far as auto, you know, auto tech curriculum. That's not her wheelhouse. You know, Doug Webster, the same thing, and Julia Shuster. They do a great job of bringing the right people in that they have to contract with from outside. But it really would be nice if we had some content experts to help our teachers, you know, really bring the curriculum alive and kind of take it to the next level. [Terry Williams]: Thank you. [Pat Gookin]: Yep. [Speaker 8 ]: Any other questions before I keep going? [Seth Bongartz]: You keep going. [Speaker 8 ]: Okay. You've heard this one many times, a common statewide calendar, particularly around that professional development. Right now, the way our professional development days are set up for career and tech ed teachers, we are taking away from student learning days because they are happening on student learning days. So we are having to get substitute teachers for our teachers, which is very hard to do these days. Typically, I will have six teachers needing to be out of the building on the same day just for professional development. Forget about anyone who might be ill. And typically, I'm lucky if I can get four substitute teachers to cover. So that is definitely a struggle. So we have teachers that are missing out on professional development, because they are happening on student learning days. Big physical space, that is one, that is the big question. And I think looking forward, we have to have some sort of a plan on how to expand high demand programs. I am busting at the seams. I'm at capacity. We have I just looked at the number, so I'd give you the right number. We had four hundred and forty seven applications for next year. Our max capacity is two hundred and seventy eight. So that's four hundred and you know, that that's a lot of students that we're having to say no to. And that's hard. Right now, we're still going through applications, but we are at ninety seven percent capacity for next year. And all but two of our programs have wait lists and they're lengthy wait lists. We expanded our electrical and plumbing program, two years ago to have thirty two students. I could fill two more sections of that program if I had the space and if I had the instructors. As it is, my electrical lab is in our old school store, which is very small. It is not the right space for it, but we're making the best use of it. We had started a feasibility study as far as looking to renovate our nineteen seventy four outbuilding that currently houses natural resources and construction to expand so that we could build modular housing in there to be able to provide affordable housing for our region. And then also to house natural resource and have a new space for our electrical program. We were in the midst of that feasibility study when this governance conversation started up and Rutland City said, well, we're putting a pause on that because we don't know what's gonna happen. And they didn't wanna be financially on the hook for something if they're we're no longer gonna be part of the district. So we're in this kind of tenuous spot right now. We have a willingness and wants from our board to expand, but until kind of all this governance is figured out, we're on hold for that. [Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Okay. Senator, I have no other question. [Terry Williams]: Sure. [Steven Heffernan]: Thank you, Melissa. Two questions now, actually. On a calendar Yes. How long if we came out with a calendar for all the school system, when do you think it should be implemented? First year, second year, twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven? [Speaker 8 ]: If we could get all of the bargaining agreements, to align, which would be a a big task, I would love to see it for the first year of the transition, so that we can really I I think there's a lot of once we start this transition, there's gonna be a lot of things we didn't even think about that we're gonna have to be able to bring our teachers together to figure out, and administrators. [Steven Heffernan]: And the second question is on what you just spoke about. Has any of the CTEs and this goes for all all of you or, CTEs. Have we started reaching out at all to the private sector to say because, like, in electrical construction, oh, there's big companies out there that would you might be able to get endowments from in that that we don't have to always go to our tax dollars to to build a electrical wing, to build a a construction. Help do that? Do you know if any CTEs has created or reached out to our private sector to to try to tap that resource? [Speaker 8 ]: We have not. We have a policy within Rutland Studeburg Public Schools around donations. So it's pretty hard to get things like that, in ours because of local decisions. So [Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Yep. So senator Williams had a question, I think. No. Okay. [Melissa Connor]: Okay. And then the senator? I'm not sure she's done. [Seth Bongartz]: Oh, I know. Yeah. It's okay. Just keep going. [Speaker 8 ]: You know, so one of the things that we've talked about here is, you know, do we need to look at our scheduling model? And if you look at states like Massachusetts and Connecticut, who have four year comprehensive models, the way they are able to kind of almost double capacity in the same building is around their career tech ed programs is that they will have their level one students in, let's just say in the first week, they're in all of their academics, while level two students are, in their programs. And then the following week they rotate. The students that were in academics are then in their career and tech ed programs. That's going to take some regulation change because of the way current things are and the number of minutes per average that they have to be in their technical program. But that is one you can definitely I think it's easier to find academic space than it is to find program space because that is the most expensive part of building a career and tech head center is having that adequate program space. So I I think that's something I think with some of the models that we're talking about in terms of, you know, I'm thinking of, you know, Rutland region. If some of our smaller high schools were to, let's say, consolidate, could one of those, you know, Stafford, the technical program stay in our current facility, but maybe one of those smaller high schools becomes the academic school for Stafford. And so on the week that our level one students are in academics, they're at, you know, one of our, partner high schools that has merged with another high school and that becomes our And then we flip flop. And so there's transportation things. But, you know, thinking about the number of tech centers and schools in general that need to expand or have modifications, that could be a temporary solution to explore. And it is, you know, something that we could look to Massachusetts and Connecticut for more information. And I first learned of that when we were having our NIACC accreditation visit and the chair of that was from Connecticut. And he spent a lot of time, you know, sharing how they do things. And [Pat Gookin]: we did [Speaker 8 ]: kind of a quasi approach to that in our first year back from COVID when we were in hybrid. And we we did a model like that. And, you know, it was successful in a way that we had never done it before. We were in every other day. And teachers did enjoy having students for a full day just in program and not having to shift to academics. So that's a possibility of something to explore. The other question, it's just a question that I have is in the proposal, there is conversation about having to have both pre tech foundations and pre tech exploratory. Pre tech foundations being those intro courses to all of our programs. And then tech exploratory being an actual program where they explore where you have tenth grade students exploring all the programs within your center. And again, it comes back to space and staffing to be able to do all of that. That would be a challenge for my center to be able to have the space and the staffing for all of that. And then the final thing, and I think there's been a little bit more conversation, but really having an adult education system, which has not been a part of a lot of the conversations that allows flexibility for our adult learners to learn a new trade, update an existing skill set, and working collaboratively rather than competitively with Vermont Adult Learning, Vermont Department of Labor, CCV. A lot of we're all going after kind of that same And we all want to be the one that's, you know, teaching the manufacturing or teaching this. And I think we have to kind of come up with a system and I think we could do it, where we're working collaboratively instead of trying to compete for the same students, over and over in the adult world. So I will stop talking because I know you have two more people. [Seth Bongartz]: Well, thank you. That actually was very helpful. But then maybe our questions are on the table. Are there? [Melissa Connor]: Yeah. I have a I have two questions. First, real simple. In relation to St. Johnsbury Academy's how they approach CTE, that stopper, the the academic classes the regular academic classes, math, English, etcetera, for CTE students, are they held in your facility, in your way, or are they held in the high school? [Speaker 8 ]: It depends on the high school. So if you are a Rutland High School student, some of the Rutland High School students take their academics with us here at Stafford. Some take them at Rutland High School. Some do a combination. If you are an Otter Valley student, you do all of your academics with us. If you are a Fairhaven student, you do all of your academics with us. West Rutland, Poultney, and Mill River, they do one academic class at their high school before they come to Stafford, and then they do the rest here. It it gets kind of chaotic. [Melissa Connor]: Okay. Thank you. Yep. Yep. Different different question, different topic. So the regional advisory board, I was I was very excited to hear that GE and Stafford had a relationship. [Nader Hashim]: Yes. [Melissa Connor]: I've been a navy chief engineer using GE engines at sea. That's very personal, very special to me. But my question is for the for the regional advisory board, I know you like to have kind of like so Stafford specific at this point. Stafford region specific. [Seth Bongartz]: Right. [Melissa Connor]: We would go up to a larger district, and you and we would potentially have both Rutland County and Bennington County in the same district. Is that too large a geographic footprint for an RAB to really understand the potential business partners in the community? [Speaker 8 ]: I don't know Bennington as well. I do know that Wendy Morris, who is my RAP chair, she is the regional manager for the Department of Labor for both Bennington and Rutland counties. Her her take, and this has just been casual conversation, is that it is a very different economic sector in those two counties. Our kind of in house conversations with my superintendent, and with other people within our district is that and this is my opinion. I think each tech center needs some sort of a program advisory committee that is really core around their area. I think that helps the number of connections we're able to make around work based learning, for instance, through the members that serve on our, regional advisory board, I think are critical to getting students. We have about just under seventy percent of our students participate in work based learning every year, and a lot of it's from those connections. They're here in our school. They're serving on our program advisory committees for each one of our programs. So so they kind of are dual purpose in a lot of ways. So they're really connected. They're here for student interview days. We have students doing job shadows projects. Hoverton Forge is a great example. Our engineering students work to design a cart system for them to use in their warehouse. And so different people from Howard and Forage were being able to interact with our students. I don't know how helpful that would be for them to be doing, you know, partnering with somebody down in Bennington. But having that local person where Steve Wiggers can, you know, on a whim, like, hey, we have a question about this and he can drive thirty minutes over here to meet with our students, is very helpful and I think rates create great connections for our students. I I think there could be, you know, a smaller board at each of the tech centers and then one regional board that would cover both counties. I think that could that could be work. [Seth Bongartz]: So [Steven Heffernan]: how many schools does your CTE have coming to it? [Speaker 8 ]: So this year, we have eleven. We have we have eight primary schools that, we serve too. We also will accept students from Middlebury High School for programs that, Hannaford Career Center does not have. So we typically take students for electrical and plumbing and cosmetology, and also public safety. So those are the programs we typically serve for Middlebury High School. And then we also have, Rutland Area Christian Academy, which, we're seeing, a larger number from. And then we have students typically for electrical and plumbing from Burn Burton. And we also have a large, homeschool population that seems to grow each year. [Seth Bongartz]: So touching on that again, I think you've already answered this, but I'll make sure I understand it. Do some of those students from some of those schools come to you for the day? [Speaker 8 ]: Yes. [Seth Bongartz]: All the time. You you you are effectively, at least for the year or whatever, you are effectively their high school. [Speaker 8 ]: Correct. We just don't we don't award the credit or give them their diploma. Our students arrive here at nine fifteen, and they're with us until two twenty. [Terry Williams]: Okay. Got it. They're in the state of Boulder in Florida. [Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. Good. I have one quick question. So this may [Melissa Connor]: be a bit of a nuance, but the homeschool homeschool students that come to to Stafford, How's tuition paid for them? [Speaker 8 ]: It's based on the town that they're enrolled in. [Melissa Connor]: So the town potentially paid. Okay. Correct. Okay. Thank you. [Seth Bongartz]: Thank you very much. That was really important. Very helpful. [Speaker 8 ]: Thank you. [Seth Bongartz]: Thanks. And, by the way, you're very welcome to stay on and listen to the next people who will come out at the end of the table. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. That's where they drive. [Nader Hashim]: So Okay. [Seth Bongartz]: You can sit together if you want to. It doesn't matter how you wanna do it. [Nader Hashim]: It's all good. [Will Slattery]: Okay. Go ahead. She's the president. I added [Seth Bongartz]: what she said. So I'm [Will Slattery]: Scott Barr. I'm a superintendent director at the River Valley Technical Center School District in Springfield, Vermont. This is my twenty first year in administration. Last eleven is a superintendent director, and ten before that as assistant director. Prior to coming to rural rally, I spent sixteen years in the Job Corps program, mostly in Virginia, Blue Stops, and Baltimore and near Buffalo, New York. We have about a dozen programs at the tech center in Springfield, culinary, advanced manufacturing, engineering, industrial trades, which is a mix of plumbing, electrical, welding, carpentry, business, information technology, human services, law enforcement, human services, audio video production, horticulture, natural resources. Did I say health sciences? [Melissa Connor]: Yeah. No. Yeah. It's okay. [Will Slattery]: And then we have intro classes, two different varieties of the previous we have a what's called pre tech and exploratory. Those are kids that come for a two hour session and try out all the different programs. Those are primarily for our three two high schools that have to that are low colocated with us. So that's Green Mountain Kids in Chester, and that's kids from, Dulles Falls Union. Prime and we get some Springfield kits for that, but then also we have PreTech foundations, which is our shorter experiences and multiple trades, and those are now along. And Springfield kits come primarily for that, and it really depends on their interest. So we get about a hundred and fifty different enrollments for our pre tech foundations. And the pre tech exploratory, we've been full every year with thirty two kids in that. And I think that that shows a lot of ninth and tenth graders wanna try stuff out, and their and their schools want them to come to us because they can't wait to come to the tech center program. I'm happy to report that enrollments are up about this year. About a third to a half of our programs are full. Microfury program is full. Industrial trades is full. Health sciences is full. Business and criminal justice are very, very close. And, again, I said pretext is very close to full. Things I would wanna add, we are a different version of governance, but all of us are very similar to franchise. So in Pat's talk and Melissa's talk, and we're all nodding over there because we do a lot of the very similar things. I get worried about certain things when we talk about changes in the future. Like Melissa, I want barrier free access to us, and it all comes down to multiple schools with different graduation requirements. And what we do, is it good enough to meet your requirement when it's probably good enough to meet the kids' goals, and we're supposed to be in a student centered kinda universe here. I think I'm pleased that the secretary is looking to go down the road of some sort of statewide uniformity there. It would be great that some sort of language that would say local graduations requirements can't be a barrier to access a career intended education. That may be a quick way to get there till we get to what the secretary is talking about. Other things I think we could do in the short term and the three percent base rate cut, I'm optimistic about what I see as far as maybe some more funding coming to education. I'm not sure how that all filters out to career and technical education. If we're trying to grow career and technical education, it makes no sense to cut three percent right off the top. I think we're looking just to be even with where we were last year. If we gain on that, that's great because costs are going up. Like Melissa, I remember sitting in committee with Dave Sharp, back from Bristol Hubert. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Oh, yeah. I was just [Will Slattery]: He was really, really adamant about doing something as far as middle school. Like, Melissa, we should all be doing something in middle school. We have a robust program, but I know that we're not getting to every kid. We do all kinds of different things. I highlighted them last time, after school programs, fun kind of visits. We have a robotics program that has revived our engineering and advanced manufacturing program. That program is pretty close to full, and a lot of it is because kids have learned the stigma that comes with advanced manufacturing in particular has gone away because they're realizing there's a lot more to it, and I can do it. And the coding is cool, and I can create things. And engineering isn't that as hard. And so we have about forty kids in the aerial and on the ground robots. They're qualifying to go every tournament everywhere. I'm doing that all on grant funds. Those are the middle schoolers? Those are middle schools and some high school kids. High school kids that we started with four kids about three years ago. We're now up to close to forty in the program, couple different coaches. It'll be great that if and I'm doing all the grant money and donations from industry. The man advanced manufacturing companies are donating to us for us to make this happen, it would nice be nice to have consistent middle school programming as part of what what we provide. And, like Melissa said, I don't know what form it takes, but it's important enough to dedicate resources to it. Right now, I'm using, the Perkins grant for that. Access for students that are in early college. I lost a handful of kids to go to early college. I am not against early college, but I'm against early college when the kid also wants to take advantage of the college credit center in the programs that we have and as part of their career goals. We we should be able to find a way to have the flexibility to do both. And as Melissa said, it makes no sense that if a kid has decided that they wanna get their high school diploma through adult basic education, but they also can't access career and technical education. And we're on the cusp of having our local adult ed office be collocated with us. And now I think that would be great. Come work on your diploma stuff and then get your CTE and career headed in the right direction. But I think that's a federal thing is what we're being told. Governance, I'm kinda like Melissa. I I don't care at this point as long as we're able to have an identity within the system. I get worried that we would lose our identity, and I think our identity is important. First of all, it's the public. Where budgets are voted on by the public, career and technical education passes with more than a seventy percent rate. Addison County know that's true. I know it's true. And, Barry, and for us, folks want career and technical education. We need to have an identity. The second part is as part of that CLNA that Melissa talks about, our students report to us. They really like us. They like what they're getting. So let's not water down this let's water down what we're doing by smooshing us with the rest of the system. Let us have a unique role within the system because kids like it. And when they like something about their public education, they're engaged. And we can't lose that in looking for cost savings and geographics and all of that. We should be smart about that. I am not up to speed with all the testimony, so I may be a day or two behind. I know that the agency gave a overview of career and technical education. They talk about three different governance models. And maybe that's too many governance models that that's what I'm hearing. We should take the opportunity to look at those governance models and what are the results of each governance model. Is there something in there? Because right now, I don't know how I'm performing versus Jody or Melissa. If if there's something in a governance model that gets dynamic with more results that improves students' outcomes, then we should view that. Right now, I don't know that, and we should know that. We're gonna make these important decisions. I think it's important with whatever governance model we have that aligns best with what's happened in the rest of the system. I will say, having been from part of the Springfield School District that arrived in Springfield to moving to a a technical center school district in o seven, When you own your role in the system, the the chances are you're gonna be more engaged with your kids. You're gonna be more engaged in the outcomes. You're gonna feel more urgency about it. And I think it's important that we don't forget that that having a clear defined role and is very important. And I think if they we get pushed together in some sort of I'm not gonna say comprehensive high school is bad. I'm gonna say we should have a a role that that that the voters have showed that they support and the kids through RCL may have overmelt me saying, I love my tech center program. And if the results are behind any unique any kind of the street governance model, that should be part of our conversation. [Seth Bongartz]: So, Sarah, William, to that question. [Terry Williams]: So you guys are unique. You're in you're small. I mean, you're and you've talked among you're already organized. [Melissa Connor]: Mhmm. [Terry Williams]: And you you work together. You pretty much could already you could pick your own government's model. I mean We [Will Slattery]: have our own government's model. We serve three hundred and fifty kids in a year. We're not that small. [Terry Williams]: So if it's working [Seth Bongartz]: Right. [Terry Williams]: I'm not in favor of changing it. [Will Slattery]: Right. [Terry Williams]: You know, we we need to sit down and get it make sure that we get it all included into our point. [Will Slattery]: I I in talking about this for a dozen years, I I think the directors are at a point where if governance models could take what we do Mhmm. Further, serve more kids, serve our state, then I think we'd be up for it. I know that there's a few that are not in line with that, but any big change is gonna do that. I just sat with the superintendents all morning long, and there's big changes, and the same thing has happened there. Some people don't like the change. Some are off we're talking. It's just what happens as a natural course to human beings and big change. I think the data piece would help convince some of the people that are wondering if it's the best model. I was talking with Jody. What does the data show that if your governance model is you own the school district? Is it better, significantly better? Then that may convince some of the people that aren't convinced that that's one district, three districts, five districts, twenty districts, districts around the transportation agency. I've heard a range of one to twenty. They data should inform all these decision, particularly when we're talking, we want better outcomes. But what do we get now with the outcomes that we have the the models that we have? Maintain identity. Yeah. [Steven Heffernan]: So thank you, Scott. How many schools do you your CTE service? [Will Slattery]: So I have three Vermont schools, one New Hampshire school. We can't forget about that. And then we serve some smaller independent schools, the Black River and the Compass School. Like Melissa said, an ever growing population that's homeschoolers. [Seth Bongartz]: I [Will Slattery]: think homeschoolers have heard that it's a pretty good environment for kids to be in. That's maybe why they chose to go within the rest of the system. So all of the tech center, that's okay. But yeah. [Steven Heffernan]: And the name New Hampshire, they just paid the tuition cost? New Hampshire's cost [Will Slattery]: pays a tuition that is kinda described in the state rules. Now Fall Mountain Regional School District, it has it's the largest high school that I could possibly serve, but there are only four programs that I can serve them with because they all go to King even though it's forty minutes a day of less instruction in King and twenty minutes more of a day on the bus. But when you do the math of how much I charge them, we look like a lot more. But when you break it down to the minute, we're about the same. And some of it is everybody's under stress for tuition dollars, and they wanna keep the New Hampshire tuition dollars in New Hampshire. Part of the restrictions that I've heard from the Route thirty of New Hampshire is, well, you don't send any kids to New Hampshire. Fall Mountain has they have an ag program that is more aligned with animals, whereas ours is more of a forestry horticulture program. They have a ROTC program, which some people choose that career path. It would be great that if the kids from my high schools could attend that. But right now, the rules and and state for education don't allow me to send kids to New Hampshire, which makes it hard for me to bargain with them about going beyond four even though it's further for the kids to go to get the same thing in Keene. We used to have a hundred percent access from kids from Keene I mean, excuse me, from Fall Mountain, but that that changed, and there's a lot of politics behind that. But essential essentially, it is New Hampshire dollar should stay in New Hampshire. [Terry Williams]: Your governance procedures, are they in writing? [Will Slattery]: Yeah. Are they what? Yeah. Sixty version. [Melissa Connor]: Yeah. What? [Terry Williams]: The the way they operate, the government Yeah. You know, is the last one. Is it in writing? Oh, writing. Yeah. [Will Slattery]: Yeah. It's we have to have sixty percent of our representation from the schools that we serve. Forty percent are at large members, all from industry. My board share is the local economic development personnel out of Springfield. We look to get industry from each of our different towns and different industries so that not everybody's coming from Springfield that we get, one from industry from Ludlow, so on and so forth. We meet monthly. We have school board meeting. We have program advisories. Just last Friday, I had a meeting. We had sixty to eighty people from industry, and then we broke out into that advises each program. That's a requirement of career and technical education. The other data piece that I wanna wanna touch on, and it came up in one of the last tech director's meeting, is the perception is that is that a small school district is more expensive. And if you look at the data, my tuition per FTE is right in the middle of the pack with the rest of career in technical education. Jody's is right in the middle. So some of the narrative that I've heard from the agency over the years is small districts or small independent tech tech center districts are more expensive, but I think it depends on the district. I think it also comes from sixty percent of my people on the board are school board members. And if we increase, they increase. So there's a lot of urgency to make sure that we have a budget that's palatable to them, and we can still operate or center in terms of students. [Seth Bongartz]: You know, one of the one of the things I think I'm hearing here between all of you who are not done yet, but is that you're all different and but you have different advisory boards. You may have different access to different industries. And so you kind of partially tailor, you know, what you do to opportunities and also to get you needs you've identified for your specific communities. And that sounds to me like a strength. That's why. That sounds to me like a strength that you're all that that you're different in some ways. I mean, not that I I think you're all in favor of having the same having outcomes and requirements of people who are out outcome based terminology, but Mhmm. Efficiencies. But then you but you all do it at least in part to get there differently, and that that's because you understand your communities. [Will Slattery]: I I I there are elements that we all have to have in place, and we may approach to get to the end differently. [Pat Gookin]: But [Will Slattery]: we do have to get to an end. We have to have dual enrollment credits. We have to have industry recognized credentials to certain levels. But the franchise is the franchise to a certain extent, and we have to be very closely tied with industry. And it it's just part of what we have to do. But so I wouldn't do it any other way either, though, because Yeah. [Terry Williams]: So So it's it's about the the standard who evaluates you. AOE? [Seth Bongartz]: Evaluaries. Yeah. So [Terry Williams]: So make sure the quality standards are the same and that. You can you can do things differently, but as long as they meet the same standard, that's there's gonna be exceptions to every rule. [Will Slattery]: Oh, yeah. So there are standards that we have to meet for every program, multiple different areas that come out annually. And if we're not where we need to be, then the agency of education says, what are you gonna do to fix it? Sure. And that's part of our comprehensible needs assessment. And we all have that, and we have to put a plan together. You're not meeting it. Not enough kids are getting to enrollment in your x program. Okay. What is your plan? And that's fine. We're meeting all our goals, so I feel good about that. But people do expect quality for what you're doing and the amount of resources that go into the schools that we run. We should have outcomes that matter. [Terry Williams]: So so is any of that requirement based on how you fund how you fund it? I mean, you you said you write the grants for you. [Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. [Terry Williams]: So do you if it's federal money every, you know, every time you you have a different source, you have different set of regulation here that's combined. [Will Slattery]: Yeah. The parameters on Perkins are pretty consistent, but there are some specialty grants that we have. As far as Perkins, if we're not meeting a goal after a certain amount of time, then maybe we're required to spend, I think, the number is thirty percent on addressing that particular deficit area over we get some time to fix it. But if you don't fix it over time, then they're gonna take the money that you get choice about what you wanna do, and you have to put it over here. They haven't even threatened that if a program over time isn't meeting goals, then they may not be eligible for the ed funding that we get as the biggest stick of all. We haven't had to worry about that. And and Melissa did talk about industry competitive wage. We have a great amount of pride in how we compensate our teachers that is a tech center school district and having industry people on our board. They are have been very intentional that we are allowed to recognize industry trainings, industry hours, industry time towards movements of the salary schedule. So you may have not have a master's degree, but you're a master in your field, then you should be compensated at that level. And that that helps us be a little bit more competitive with industry, but it doesn't get us there all the way. And I still have to you get summers on. [Seth Bongartz]: One more question. Okay. But I'm gonna have to move on. [Melissa Connor]: This this will also be a common question later on [Pat Gookin]: throughout the [Melissa Connor]: year as well. But so to to paraphrase, are you in favor of the common school schedule, common bell schedule, and common graduation statewide? [Will Slattery]: I am I am in favor and pushed very, very hard to try to coordinate the calendar as much as possible from from grassroots, so we might be close to that. I don't know if it's turned out that way about the the bigger chunks of time. We should have a coordinated calendar statewide. We should coordinate our schedules in our regions the best we can to serve our students. I know that in some tech centers, there are kids coming and going throughout the class periods all day long, which must be pretty hard. Ours kids come out for two hours and they leave, and the other set comes for two hours, which is awesome. But as far as the calendar, we coordinated about as well as you can, but now we're getting into into these half days and all of that, which I'm a little old school, and kids kids and I may not be popular with the rest of the superintendents were saying this, but how are we gonna have kids have great employability skills if they get a half day every other week? Right. Or the half days that they have happen to coincide with long vacations. Work ethic is putting a solid in for eight hours a day for five days a week, and our employers, our advisories tell us that that's what they value the most upfront, and then we'll get to the rest of it. If we structure a system where all kinds of part weeks, part days, and all of that, we're not really contributing to developing great employability skills. So as much as we can coordinate the system where families don't have a hardship for half a day every week or every other week, we should do that. I know that's not popular, and I'm it's weird to be the old school guy. But And then How'd that happen? I don't know. I mean, Rebecca, but thank you. [Melissa Connor]: And then for you, for for your school, your your CTE and your academics are two different facilities. Right? Because you have a senate school. They knew the academics. Exactly. Okay. Half the model. And then the last question, very brief. Do you ever you said you had a regional advisory board. What type of industries [Terry Williams]: for this business? [Will Slattery]: So we have a school board. So sixty percent of our school board is school board members. Forty percent of our school board are are local economic development guy. We have a a IT person. We have a a person that works for the Vestas company on our school board. What's Vestas? What industry? It's the the Vestas place in that mining place and level. It's changed names three times. Maybe you know it. They're on our school board. Then we have program advisory, which is about eighty seventy, eighty different people from different industries that we meet twice a year to talk about our our programs and what what we should be doing and where we're gonna place kids on co ops and all of that. So there's two different interactions that are happening with the public. Thank you. Yeah. [Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Thank you. [Will Slattery]: Go, Melissa. Go. [Nader Hashim]: Melissa already went. [Will Slattery]: Now go. Cody. [Nader Hashim]: And she said it all, so thank you, Melissa. [Will Slattery]: You should use that as Yes. [Seth Bongartz]: For the record. [Nader Hashim]: Hello. I'm Jody Emerson, Central Vermont Career Center superintendent director and president of Act ten this year. Just a little bit longer before I hand it off to Eric Roemer. I'm looking forward to that. [Will Slattery]: You knew that, and then I'm looking forward shortly. [Nader Hashim]: I do. Yeah. I thought about your question a little. Like I said, a short list of basically our big list. I don't know if I sent it last night or this morning. And then as I thought about it sitting here and having been at the super tennis piece, I think one of the things that's missing from the agency's presentation and and ideas and maybe some of maybe all of them is what is our goal? And if they say equity, what does that mean? Because when I hear that word, sometimes I think it means that we all have to have full day or we all have to have half day. We all have to be the same. And I don't know if that's what they mean, if that has been unclear. But it would be nice to know to know what the goal is that we're working towards to be able to say what's the best way to get there and to use the data that we have across a system of very different CTEs across our state to figure out what is working best. I think that we have success in CTE overall from our accountability data that we get every year. You can see that we're doing well with credentials, with credits, with different groups of kids that, our graduation rates for students who attend CTE are much higher than students who do not and are safe. If you look at our comprehensive local needs assessment surveys that we do every other year or Melissa does every year, and I started doing that this year as well. Yeah. A few of us started just doing those surveys every year. We have in the ninety percent of people who feel like they belong, that this is the best opportunity, sometimes it's because they got out of a system that wasn't working for them or they got to, like, reinvent themselves, kinda like if you go when you go into a job or college or somewhere else after high school, you could you could be whoever you you feel like you are. So the CTE center is sometimes that just enough distance to give students the ability to reinvent themselves. But it also is a place where they can understand all of our students know how what they're learning is gonna impact their future. I think any of you who've had students before who your your own kids that went through high school said why or maybe you remember when you said this, like, when am I gonna use this ever in my life or why do I need to know this? Everything we do in our centers, it's it has a clear connection to why you need to know this. So when we're looking at math or science in our programs, it's very clear how that impact why angles matter why measurement matters, for example. And so I think it's really important to think about transformation in general. If you're just tugging governance and money, you're not transforming education. But if you're focusing on ways for all students to have meaningful project based, problem based education, then you're transforming the whole of education. Right? You're giving more students access to CTE like training even if it's not in a CTE center. So I, like, just wanted to set that kinda tone. I've been thinking a lot about it. I too have a a struggle of lots of students applying and not enough spaces, and I've talked about this over the years here. We had three hundred and now I can't even remember. Three hundred and thirty five, I think, applicants in our first round for two hundred and forty seats. We do have a couple of programs that aren't full yet. We had another eighty students that applied in second round. We do have long wait list for several of our programs. I've worked with Randolph Technical Center. They're gonna send us a bus next year, and so they have been accepting some of our overflow. They had low enrollment this current year, and they've already I heard from their superintendent this morning. Thank you for sending more kids to us because we are now up over a hundred in our applications. And so I know that we've been able to say, okay. You couldn't get in here. You're on a wait list or you got denied. Here's another option. And I've also sent several students up to Green Mountain in the same way, but not every student has access to get to another center or the transportation available. And so trying to find ways to build more space and capacity for CTE centers is really important and that's gonna cost money. It's not gonna save money, at least initially. So we've talked in over the last three years about noncompetitive funding, but then I also heard you say that it's sometimes having that little bit of competition helps your board to set reasonable budgets for the future. So thinking about where does that balance come from as we continue forward. I'm gonna echo statewide graduation requirements would be super helpful and making sure that CTE is represented in that in some way. There are plenty of standards that could apply to traditional high school classes and or CTE and students can meet them either way. The statewide calendar that we've already been discussing, very important, especially for our teachers to be able to have professional development with their colleagues across the state. That doesn't require us to get subs and for students to lose that time by their instructor. I if you didn't see, the AOE's presentation in the Department of Labor yesterday to house commerce, Ruth did a really great job of walking through, the comprehensive local needs assessment and talking about the Perkins requirements. So I think that's a really good place to just kinda take a look at that, listen to what she says because that makes a it it, like, lays out the entire format. But it's federal funds for Perkins. It's handled by the AOE, so she does determine if we get them or not. And a lot of times, we have to get it back. We apply for it. We get it back. We have to make some changes. If we're not meeting goals, then we do have to spend a a portion of that money towards that. And if we continue to not meet goals, we could lose that funding. You also Scott mentioned that they could close down a program if we're continuing not to meet the goals. So I had a program in Barre that I opened, Design and Fabrication. Was meant to be a partnership with Norwich University with a new program they were starting. They didn't get started as fast as we did, which sort of held things up a little bit. But it ended up that the students who had indicated an interest really were not as interested. And so every year, we had low enrollment. We had two students the first year. We had five students the next year. We paused it last year because we didn't have enough to run it. We were trying to gather the students for this year. We had four that we had accepted in the first round, and then the board needed to make that decision. And Ruth was very clear with me, if you have less than seven students, you cannot count them in your FTEs later. And that if you're looking at a six semester average, you need to count all your students. My center has had sixteen percent growth over the last three years and we can't count all the students that we have. We have two hundred and seventeen students in our building now. We can only count a hundred and eighty six, I think it is. Next year, we can count a hundred and ninety four even though we'll be well over two hundred because of that six semester average. So losing a program of students even if it's seven, it has a negative impact on us as we continue to try to grow. So finding ways to help support us in growth is really important. [Terry Williams]: Is that because of the Perkins funding? [Nader Hashim]: It's part of the yes. Because there's program quality measures, and so you have to have at least seven students in our program. Yep. I have a little bit of a bias towards a full day. I I envy what Melissa has. I think you have half day, but with academics or full day with academics. [Speaker 8 ]: For a full day with academics. [Nader Hashim]: Lovely. I envy that. I think that would be best for my students. They currently come to my center. They start their program day at eight thirty. The program ends at twelve thirty. They go to lunch, and then they go back to their sending school. And so for the majority of them, they're getting on a bus, going twenty to forty minutes back to a school to take a class that they're not gonna be as engaged in as they have been in their programming all day. So I would rather have the capacity to have them on-site and to continue programming and classes that are more related to their technical study. I think everything else that I was going to say has been covered by everyone at Hennese. Benefits of going last. [Terry Williams]: So any of your instructors come from from the trades? [Nader Hashim]: Yes. [Terry Williams]: So do they get a break if they let's say I mean, are they currently working? Like, do they get any incentive from their their employer? They come in and teach to to grow? [Nader Hashim]: Oh, no. So they all come from industry, and they switch over to become educators. I have one exception story, but for the most part, they leave their career to come to us and then they because at the same time they're teaching, they also have to take courses to become a teacher. The one exception that I had over a two year period was that I couldn't find a plumbing teacher. And so I got an emergency license for one of my lab assistants, and he got credentials so that he could do the NCCER, which is the the core instruction curriculum, and the plumbing. So he could deliver that online, not necessarily know a lot about it, but could deliver it. Mhmm. And then I worked with BHB, and they sent in one of their, master plumbers. Mhmm. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And he came three days [Nader Hashim]: a week, and we just contracted with them and paid Yeah. For for his service. Yeah. And he actually retired and is now my teacher. [Terry Williams]: Oh, good. [Nader Hashim]: So we benefited from that, and BHV would say they did too because they're getting students from our program as a result of that. Like, they've built that in actually because of it. [Terry Williams]: So you don't have a shortage of of instructors. I mean, you did have. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I did. [Terry Williams]: So if you would, you know, what what type of financial benefits could would help you get more I mean, if they had a because, I mean, they're making forty bucks an hour as a toner. [Nader Hashim]: And I think my because I'm an independent district and we're new, we were able to negotiate our first agreement a couple years ago, and it was much better for industry folks to come to us. So now the pay is much better. It's not as big a pay cut. That helped. It's also just trying to convince someone who to not only come in and work with teenagers for four hours a day, but also to take college classes. That's that's part of the barrier, I think. I have an add out right now for a second electrical teacher to try it because we have a full program with a very long wait list. I could fill another program. I probably could have filled two other programs, and I'm not getting applicants for that that are actually electricians. So it's [Terry Williams]: Just I'm just thinking that maybe [Nader Hashim]: Yeah. [Terry Williams]: You you have some kind of an aside financial. [Nader Hashim]: Incentives wouldn't hurt, and I think I saw that in the APA report that they released at the end of February that there was a an incentive component to that potentially. Okay. [Will Slattery]: And, Tony, maybe think of something that I could add. We just left the superintendent's meeting across the street, and they were going over, Bill. And I don't know if it's the house side I think it is that has to do with class size policy. In the back of my head, I'm thinking, yeah, we if if we could take the funding away, that would be one thing. But then if the class size policy, could that serve as a barrier that you're a small school and you wanna get to your class size numbers, would that be a a it seems like it might be a disincentive to send the kids to the tech center because then if you send four kids to the tech center, then maybe that impacts your local class size. Is there an unintended consequence on the other side of that? You know, it's you do something over here. What happens over here? Just makes me wonder. [Speaker 8 ]: If I can ask Pat about the financial incentive, I think one thing that's not consistently done center to center is how, our teachers courses that they're required to take as part of teacher licensure are paid for. Some centers pay the entire amount. Some will pay for one course, and then they, you know, go through a reimbursement model through their union, their, bargaining agreement. And some centers don't pay for any of those. I think if there was, you know, whether each tech center received a grant to pay for that. When I first started, we were able to put those courses into our Perkins grant. But with the transition to Perkins five, we're not allowed to put in things that benefit an individual. It has to be a whole faculty or nothing. So I think having some sort of way to take that financial burden off of teachers who have potentially left industry and are already taking a pay cut, and then have to take courses on top of that, that would be helpful. [Melissa Connor]: Yes, sir. So I do not have a question for Joan, but I do have a question potentially relating to St. Johnsbury Academy. I was wondering if miss Pelosi can see if she could feel the question. So the question is so I'm trying to find some common if folks are commonly support the yeah, common school schedule, bell schedule, and potentially graduation requirements, in relation to the CTE and burn. [Speaker 9 ]: So, Laura Pelosi, for the record, I represent the St. Johnsbury Academy, and Pat did submit some written comments that get to this. With respect to the calendar, slightly challenging for them in the sense that, you know, they accommodate the schedule of a hundred and seventy five roughly boarding students, a hundred and sixty seven actually, boarding students. So for their vacation schedules and things, they build in a lot of travel time. They have coordinated with the their regional superintendents to the greatest extent possible. The big difference for them is that most of their CTE students are on campus full day at St. Johnsbury Academy. This year, they only have a couple of, students from Danville. Next year, they're gonna have only twenty two only, but twenty two students out of the four hundred kids that are taking CTE courses. So for them, it's they've done everything they can to organize with those superintendents to make sure they don't you know, they can address kind of that off day here and there when they may be in full day school, but the but maybe Danville or might have an in service day. And so the kids aren't in school, so they figure out how to work around those few days out of the year where there might be a a slight difference. So I think it would be, challenging in that way, but they don't, you know, have a lot of kids coming from a lot of other schools, if that makes sense. With respect to graduation requirements, they certainly think that the homeschools should recognize the CTE courses for purposes of graduation requirements at their home school. [Seth Bongartz]: That's been a common paper. Let me go ahead. So I actually so I thought about you you all sort of talking about that. You used the term graduation requirements. I sort of you think about it differently. Is is it really graduation requirements, or is it integration of credits in between the this your your school sending to you and yourself. And so maybe it's one of the same thing, but it seems like, you know, you're quite for a few times, you know, some schools will accept what we do as a credit or this and some won't. Is that really the issue is in integration of how grants work or the courses provided at the CTEs? [Nader Hashim]: I think that's true for some of my colleagues. For my six standing schools, we have agreements of what's integrated and the students get that. [Terry Williams]: So you've [Seth Bongartz]: done it that way. [Nader Hashim]: So I don't have that problem. [Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. [Nader Hashim]: What I have is a problem of a variety of amount of proficiencies at different schools that have to be met and students who are with us for half the year and then end up having to leave and go back to their Sunday school and not complete because they're missing out a PE or a health or something that's not integrated into our program. So that And so that would be a barrier. So having, like, statewide, no matter where you go to high school, the same set of graduation expectations would certainly simplify our opportunity to say, here's the ones we meet. You know? So if it's proficiencies, here are the proficiencies that are met by this automotive program here and across the state. Our automotive programs meet these ones. Here are the pro ones met by our plumbing programs, for example. And so that way, we have that. I think a lot of people don't think about the literacy level required for CTE, but most of what students are using to get their industry certifies stuff, their credentials, is college level material. And kids that may not be accessing that at their ascending school can access in our centers because they're motivated and engaged in the learning and it matters. And so we we can help build those skills up. And so to say that they're not meeting literacy skills in our center because maybe they're not writing the same essays is not necessarily accurate. Right? Like, sure, they're not writing the same essay, but they're reading and comprehending it at the same level. And we can have them write essays or portfolio reflections that show that they have met those proficiencies. [Will Slattery]: I think some of it is the stigma that may still hang around about the rigor of our program versus what is happening at the settings of all of that has changed quite a bit, but it would be easier to get credit for what we do if it wasn't a different target with every school. [Seth Bongartz]: You know, [Will Slattery]: I think it's a little bit of both sides of your question. Okay. [Melissa Connor]: Yeah. Okay. [Speaker 8 ]: And I'll say from my perspective, we have several high schools that have a very specific, sequencing of courses that they have as part of their graduation requirements. So it could be that you have to take integrated math one, two, three, and four in order to meet their graduation requirements. And so if they choose to come to the tech center, it's then them saying, but they're not doing our integrated three curriculum. They're not doing our integrated four, so they're not meeting. So we're gonna give them math elective credits that don't count towards graduation. That's where we kind of have a rub. [Seth Bongartz]: K. Okay. Understand the problem. Now understand the issue. [Will Slattery]: Even though they're doing a lot of great math in their engineering program, it doesn't Sure. Right? [Nader Hashim]: Right. [Melissa Connor]: Right. [Seth Bongartz]: Questions? Yes. Something that I've just been wondering about, if you [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: have [Seth Bongartz]: that [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I've just been wondering about if you have, like, a closed loop with students, the ones who are with you most of the time, all day. We've been hearing a lot about mental health, but, you know, like, holistic skill dominance. Are you all finding yourselves and your instructors that's kind of thrust on you and you don't have any underlying infrastructure to to support those students? Do you tell them, like, we're gonna talk to your counselor? It's Well, how do you [Nader Hashim]: We do have we each have a a counselor. Oh, okay. Counseling coordinator Uh-huh. Who's trained as a school counselor. And so in my case, mine is very adept at working with students. She worked at Stowe High School prior to coming to us Right. And works with students who have those needs. I think we we may see less of it because of the interest and want to be there Mhmm. And the engagement in the programming that it's an opportunity to kinda step away from some of the the pieces that would impact that in a traditional Mhmm. Setting, or it's getting away from those, behaviors of peers that because because safety is so important Yeah. There are less behaviors that are tolerated in our thing. Yeah. And so I think that gives a level of support. I would say that of my students, if they feel the most safe in their programs, the programs develop a really strong culture. They're together four hours a day every day. So that's a lot of time. It, like, it doesn't take long. Within the first two weeks, that program has a culture. We struggle more with the cross to center wide Mhmm. Culture to try to blend programs and not have these clicks of one program versus another sort of piece, but it's different than what you would see in traditional education. And so I think there are lots of benefits to that. The struggles are in the hallways and particularly in the hallways with students who are in the high school that at work collocated with because they don't know one another. Mhmm. [Will Slattery]: Yeah. That's one of my favorite parts about current technical education is the culture and the bonding that have it's like a one room school that has more auto mechanic. [Seth Bongartz]: So we're Yeah. [Will Slattery]: You know, that you have sixteen people included in the instructor that are passionate about what they're doing and really great environment. And then, like Jody was saying, we have a counselor. But if we need a specialized service like substance abuse or something, we coordinate with the sending school for those services, same with more in-depth mental health stuff. [Seth Bongartz]: So And [Speaker 8 ]: I'll just add, we have two school counselors here at Stafford, and we have conference rooms set aside that our partner high schools will send, mental health counselors here. And we also do telemedicine, as needed for our students, and we have spaces for them to do that. [Terry Williams]: So that was my next question. So how often do you need mental health counselors or interventions? Because what you do is more of a discipline. I mean, kids that come there, they understand that there's safety issues. They have to listen because somebody get hurt. You you don't have the same problem as some other crisis. [Nader Hashim]: Right. I I think it's a lot less than we need that. There's a couple of instances I can think of, and both Scott and I lost students this year, and that that's when you need to bring in those extra supports, from outside. [Terry Williams]: Yeah. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Just you know? [Seth Bongartz]: And and that [Nader Hashim]: would be true no matter what school they're at. But in general, I think we have the supports in place or we coordinate well with our sending schools to be able to support students and and getting those outside needs met. [Will Slattery]: Intrinsic motivate intrinsic motivate motivation and engagement that, you know, makes a lot of great things happen. [Speaker 8 ]: And I think, you know, trauma is trauma, and we have a lot of students who are coming from home lives that we can't even begin to imagine. Right. And I, you know, I think like any school, we see an uptick in need the week before the week before a vacation. You know, because they're used to coming to school, getting breakfast, lunch, snacks throughout the day. They have a support system. And about a week before vacations, I and I've seen this in thirty years, and I I don't think it's any different at a tech center. They're starting to get nervous about where that next meal's coming from, what their home life is like. So that's when we see an uptick. [Terry Williams]: Yeah. [Nader Hashim]: But that the community in their program is so supportive that their peers will sometimes step in and the teachers are able to kinda wrap around, and then we bring in our additional supports as well. [Terry Williams]: I think a lot of times because the kids are doing what they wanna do too. [Nader Hashim]: Yeah. [Terry Williams]: Yeah. That really you know, and I can relate to that because I I wanted to go to Stafford in high school. And I went guidance calls for a little more. So I fixed him. I went out of school. And I you you know, and really, it was I think a lot of that has to do with why we lose kids that don't graduate. It's because they decided at some point in their life, they wanna change the way they're doing things, and somebody don't wanna do it. [Steven Heffernan]: So So I was very fortunate. I have a repair center. And I got a student that actually came, and the teacher asked him to come and apply for the job like he normally should. Yeah. And he did come. He sat down. He said he'd like to apply for an auto opening if you have it. And he goes then he goes, if you do hire me, it helps toward my credits to school to get through. So, one, I hired him just because no young person does that. Sure. I said, you're just coming and asking for a job. It it's huge. So then when he you know, there's certain his credits were he had to watch his attendants for being there and sign up sign up basically an affidavit, if you will, that he put in the time that and you could see that he he was definitely in his crew what he wanna do for career, you know, having older mechanics and one younger mechanic that he really bonded with getting into what he wanted to do for his career. And to that show is that's what I did too. I went through forestry class because I was more hands on than academic. And it's great to have CTEs that our children can go and learn about what they may wanna do in in their career, and it does get them ready. And like you said, there's a lot of times we do stuff in school. It's no different going to college. Like, why am I taking this course to pass school? But the CTE, at least, gives that child more room for success because they put them in the environment they want. And if they don't like it, they can obviously opt out of it at a younger at a younger age. But mine was just to tell what a success story to have that student come in. Then I hired him after he graduated, and he stayed with us. And then he got an an offer for better pay and more benefits, which I couldn't offer. So I'm like, I never mind losing anybody that's stepping up and and to this day, he's still a very good mechanic. So just CT is is is great. Yeah. [Nader Hashim]: So it's heartbreaking when we have to turn kids away or send them on a wait list and they don't get in and, you know, they want to, and it Right. [Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: It probably isn't the right fit. Right. So that's that's a problem where we have to solve is how to [Steven Heffernan]: make sure there's more access. Well, [Seth Bongartz]: Today, even though I think we had the same four of you in Mhmm. But I have to say, maybe it was just me, but I got, like, twice as much. Not doing anything wrong the first time. Maybe this just at the end this month. Okay. And it really you know, I'm I'm just realizing if I have to say on a whole another level impact these centers make on kids. And in some ways, saving kids would otherwise not be in the right environment for success in providing the environment that can that allows them to be successful and truly successful in learning everything. If you learn, we're just doing it differently. And that those opportunities are critical to kids. And and, actually, it's great for everybody to do quick. And but, anyway, I just kinda I guess I'm coming away today thinking that I had my arms around it, and now we have a deeper appreciation of the of the real of the really deep value of what you're doing. So I just wanna say thank you, and Yeah. We I think this is helpful. I hope it was helpful for me to understand to to get down to this level and to really think about the ingredients. It's a it came through today, I think, the ingredients that make you all successful. So

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