SmartTranscript of Senate Education 2025-04-22 1:30PM

[Speaker 0 ]: So this is the [Chair Seth Bongartz]: senate education committee, April Tuesday, April twenty second, about one thirty. For most of the day today, we are simply soliciting input on the House passed version of h four eighty four fifty four, if they were right. And, you know, things like that. Well, anyway, I won't I won't I won't suggest anything. Just getting reaction from people about their take upon the bill and things they like, things they don't like, things they'd like us to consider. And so I know that Jay Nichols has is here. I know it's the other places he has to be. We can squeeze this in, so we'll go for the Jay, you are with. I always forget. [Jay Nichols]: Executive director of the Vermont Principles Association, senator. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Forgot. Maybe one of these. So we'll we'll start with Jeff. And if you know, given the schedule, if we could think about everybody kind of being on and off, including questions in fifteen minutes, that would be about right. So, Jay, you're on. [Jay Nichols]: Yeah. I can do mine in fifteen minutes. If you have questions at the end, feel free to ask. So, again, for the record, Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principles association. I was the principal in both supervisory school districts and supervisory unions and I've also been a superintendent of both of those governance structures. My comments for this committee are around governance scale and opportunities for students as I believe these issues are most germane for your committee. My comments are directly related to h four five four as passed in the house and any related considerations. First of all, in making changes to the delivery model, we can improve opportunities and real outcomes for students. Simply, in my opinion, moving from supervisory unions to slightly larger school districts all by itself would be a step in the right directions. The house plan would eventually lead from well over a hundred districts to likely somewhere between twenty and thirty. This I think would provide economies of scale and increase the population of what we call a school community from one town to a greater number of towns without completely eroding local control. The bigger our districts the less local control we will have so I want to make sure that that's clear. I think the house plan has a balance between local control and state responsibility at least compared to the five district plan the administration has proposed. In the house plan, it's likely that over time some small schools would close, but at least citizens would have much more say than they would have in any mega district plan. With h four fifty four, it's my hope that we can increase opportunities for students by getting to a better scale without completely destroying an education system that has been placed for over two centuries and without a role in Vermont's commitment to democracy and some level of local control. So some specific reasons why our board supports h four five four or support at least in the house. We believe it's a thoughtful transitional approach that doesn't completely blow up the system overnight and we think this is especially important with the chaos coming out of Washington DC right now. We also think it strengthens the state board and seeks to make the board politically neutral which is critical to avoid administration overreach in public education. We believe it allows for district lines to be drawn up for a proposal to the General Assembly at least in part by experts who have actually worked in the field and understand the dynamics and local communities. We believe the plan recognizes that for there to be scale in many parts of the state, construction funding support will be critical. We also believe, it provides for required class sizes but allows for exemptions and waivers where appropriate. It protects independent schools that serve over fifty one percent of their students through public funds and who serve as quasi public schools in various parts of the state And finally, it calls for an Alliance School calendar, common graduation requirements, and common data systems across the state. With just over eighty thousand students, this makes total sense and should be accomplished regardless of what else we do. I do personally think some changes in governance need to take place. It's not likely that fundamental changes in opportunity will increase without governance changes in our state. However, as I've mentioned previously, the larger the district, the more likely that local citizens will feel less empowered. I think it's key to try and find a balance between using scale to provide more educational opportunity while keeping the small school district feel that Vermonters want. I believe with some work H four fifty four can achieve that balance. When I say some work, I mean work for you folks. Now I wholeheartedly believe larger supervisor districts that are a scale of two to four thousand were practicable in some places Vermont or not is the way to go. I do not believe that the supervisor union structure is an appropriate governance structure when the state is trying to guarantee opportunities and better academic and social outcomes for all students. I also believe that in the in the I say the wrong run here in my own notes. In the long run is what I meant to say. Supervisory districts are more likely to support schools that are small by necessity, while in a supervisor union, these schools are likely to eventually be starved out of the system. Let me share a couple of specific reasons why I believe SDs are better than SUs. The first is the Transient Student Supervisory Universe Supervisory District example. Students from low income families move at twice the rate or more compared to their higher income peers peers. And one national study from the US Department of Ed found that approximately thirty percent of low income students had changed schools three or more times by eighth grade compared to just ten percent of higher income students. Here's why this matters. In a supervisory district, if a kid moves from one school to another, the school board is still the same school board, same superintendent, same governing rules, same employees. They can allow that student easily to stay in that school. Whereas in a supervisory district, the student is now switching boundaries and going to another school and in very few cases are they gonna allow the student to continue in that same school they were at before and our most vulnerable population of students moves the most. That's one reason why I think districts are better than supervisor unions. Another example is in terms of teachers and reduction of force, teacher protection. Example is there is if I hire a new teacher at Anytown Elementary School and I'm my own district and we have to rift that teacher, that teacher's out of a job and they're looking someplace else. If we're a little bit bigger district consisting of three or four towns or more, we can actually that teacher has protection and they can have job protection to take a job in one of the other schools in our system. The larger scale also allows for more courses especially at the high school level. A perfect example my last year as a superintendent, Richford High School had two AP classes, Innisburg High School had nine. Richford kids could not take classes at Ennisburg. Ennisburg kids could not take classes at Richford because at the time they were a supervisory district I mean a supervisory union. Now those two towns are a supervisory district and they can share courses it's a much better model for kids. Online learning courses within a district without employee issues and issues around collectively bargain agreements are much easier in a supervisory district than they are in a supervisory union and special education services for students who move within district versus within SU are much easier to provide. If I set up a program for a kid at Anytown Elementary School and he moves two towns over where the Everytown Elementary School is there but there's busing available and I've already got a program for him I can continue to provide that program for him without him changing. Now the analogy I will give you is this if I go to Hannaford's through my shopping in St. Albans and there's a sale at Price Chopper just down the road. I can't say at Hannaford's, I wanna buy the Price Chopper Price Bananas. There are two distinct stores. The same is true with school districts. They have their own employees. When you have a bigger district, you have more latitude. When you're in a supervisory union, it's sort of like the articles of confederation. You're a loose configuration. You could do some things but you don't have the authority that a school district has. So to me, that's a much better model in most places in the state. Lastly, in closing up here, at commission meetings and political meetings which I have every week and in conversation with Vermont citizens, it's important to acknowledge that not many people are hollering for bigger school districts or closing smaller schools. Everyone supports some level of change, provided it's not them that has to change. That said, what we have heard repeatedly is that people want more transparency in the education funding system. They, by and large, want lower taxes. At the same time, they support their schools overwhelmingly. If we come out of this legislative session with a plan that will reduce costs at the very or at the very least slow down the rate of increasing costs in education spending, I believe many Vermonters would call it a win. Further, nothing in this plan really addresses the cost drivers that public education is facing, especially health insurance increases as the most glaring example. And we owe it to Vermonters to try and find a way to address these cost drivers that have nothing to do with providing a quality education to Vermont children. Finally, I would rather, very little happen this legislative session than for something bad to happen that hurts our schools. And then below, senators, I've, listed some sightings, including one from UVM that talks about that student mobility issue, which to me is one of the biggest issues in terms of test scores, in terms of providing academic outcomes for our students, is our most vulnerable population moves a lot, has to change schools, and fall further and further behind. And that's it. Any questions you folks may have? [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Jay, I'll I'll add one. You they talked about the SUs versus the SDs. If that's really a matter of scale. Right? Because a district within an SU that's the same size as a SD really accomplishes everything we've talked about. Would that be correct? [Jay Nichols]: I think it could be depending on the on the size of the scale. So if you have, like, an SU that I'm not sure I said yeah. An s u that was really huge and you had a bunch of districts in it, within those districts, you would have the opportunity to do the things I'm talking about. Cross co ops you, you would not. And I think that the other advantage of, like, the governor's plan of going to districts is you would have those advantages that I'm talking about, but they may not be really realistic, senator, because the geographical spread of the five district plan is way too much, so you wouldn't really be able to take advantage of those opportunities as easily. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Yeah. So in a weeks, can I follow-up? Yeah. So, Jay, the [Senator David Weeks]: this whole conversation about SUs versus districts, the reality is we're talking about districts that are larger than the current SUs by a factor of ten or more. They're big. Does it really matter whether we call them SUs or districts when we're talking about the largest group you know, the largest organization in the in the group? [Jay Nichols]: Yeah. I think it does because with an s so let me give you an example. Nothing says you have to come up with these mega districts that the governor's proposing. You could do something that's more nuanced like the health proposal or even something that's less than that. But by moving to school districts, supervisory districts, instead of supervisory unions, there's one governance, one superintendent, one set of expectations. You can share resources back and forth. A lot of those things sometimes you can do through partnerships and supervisory unions, but it's not always that way. And especially when kids move from one school to another or staff lose positions, they lose that lose that ability to have that protection. And I think in this time where we're it's hard to get teachers and our most vulnerable students are suffering the most, we should do everything we can to not have them have to change positions and and careers if at all possible. So if you were gonna go with a big plan the governor said, which I totally don't support, I don't think it probably would make a lot of difference. But if you're gonna go with a plan that I think is gonna be better for kids in the long run, I think you're better off going with school districts, supervisory districts. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: K. Thank you. [Jay Nichols]: You're welcome. [Senator David Weeks]: K. Do we still have a few minutes with that? Yeah. If I can. So, Jay, on your first page, you make a comment which ends with, quote, without without completely destroying an education's educational system, Can you highlight where an h four fifty four, which cost the house, where that completely destroys the educational system? Can you be a little more it's quite an alarmist statement, and I kinda wanna tap things down just a little bit. [Jay Nichols]: Yeah. Let me be really clear. I'm saying without doing that, we support h four fifty four because we don't think it does do that. We're saying that a something like what the governor proposed, we think that that would completely erode local control. With the plan that four fifty four is talking about where you had districts that were, you know, we think the number should be between two thousand and four thousand. We realized they settled on the number four thousand if at all possible. We think that districts of two thousand to four thousand, supervisor districts are small enough where you would have local towns that already have working agreements with each other and do a lot of things together. We think it would be easier for them to form this new governance structure because they would be neighbors, their kids already go to the prom with each other, they all know each other, as opposed to a big mega district like in the governor's plan, one of which is from Richford up near where I live all the way to Shoreham. We think that that doesn't make sense. We think that would erode local control. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that, Senator. We we think having twenty, twenty five districts probably makes sense. We think having five does not make any sense at all. [Senator David Weeks]: Okay. I just didn't wanna get you I just didn't want to gloss over the fact that that it's kind of a it's a very enormous statement. And I'm not sure I don't think anybody in this room is trying to destroy the educational system we've been on. But that's No. [Jay Nichols]: I don't either. That's why I said, I think, h four fifty four tries to balance that because if we become bigger, we are going to lose some level of local control. And I think we have to decide what is that matter. [Senator David Weeks]: I get that, Ben. Right? Yeah. That that point's very clear. It's just where your philosophy led to that comment about destroying the education system, I didn't think was completely necessary. [Speaker 0 ]: Okay. [Senator David Weeks]: Can I can I on the second page, you you threw in some data about students from low income families, like, moving twice the rate, etcetera? How's that relevant to the conversation that we're having? [Jay Nichols]: So if you're talking about that was that was in relationship to the conversation around why SDs are better than SUs. So the example is if I move we can use my old system as an example. If I move from the town I live in, Berkshire, to Enosburg, even if I live closer to Berkshire School, I gotta change schools. Because I'm in a supervisory union, I'm in a district. If I'm in a supervisory district where they're all one board and it all belongs to the same school system and we share resources and and we're all together, then I don't have to change schools. We have situations, senator, in this state all the time where our poorest kids move to one another and have to change schools. [Senator David Weeks]: Any data on whether these transitions of schools are, you know, job dependent that the the the parents picked up a job in a different area, and they're not even in the same district, same as you. [Jay Nichols]: No. This is about this is about kids [Senator David Weeks]: needing intersec, Jay. It seemed the comment seems to indicate that we're not sensitive to low income families, and they're assessing to move, and and we need to remain cognizant of that issue. [Jay Nichols]: Yes. We do. [Speaker 0 ]: So I'm I'm a k. [Jay Nichols]: Yeah. So that doesn't mean that every kid that moves is moving because they're they're in poverty and like that. It means that kids that are in poverty are three times more likely to move, and oftentimes, they move one or two towns over. If you've talked to superintendents that have been in these situations, I was one of a very poor district. We would have kids move from Richford to Enosburg, have to change schools, move over to Alberg or Highgate or Swan, Saint Albans City, and then come back a year or two later. And they're changing schools three, four, five, six times in their in their elementary experience, and they're starting all over again every time. With having bigger districts under the same governance, we could help that problem a lot. Could we eliminate it? [Senator David Weeks]: They're so likely to move they're so likely to move. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Absolutely. Parents are moving. [Jay Nichols]: Absolutely. But sometimes what happens is kids actually move closer to the school they go to and have to change schools. You know, Vermont maps are drawn up. So like at my area, when you live in Enosburg, up on Enosburg mountain road, you drive down the mountain road. There's no way to get the backside down. You come all the way down. You go right by Montgomery elementary school. Then you go by Berkshire school, but you gotta go to Enosburg because that's your school. If we are one district, those kids could easily go to Montgomery, five minute drives as as opposed to an hour and twenty minute drive. [Senator David Weeks]: So then there is is your point that you're driving towards larger districts or smaller districts? [Jay Nichols]: I think we should have I think we should have larger districts, as I said in my testimony. I think the goal should be districts around two thousand to four thousand where it makes sense to do so. There are some places like Canaan, of course, where it's not gonna be practical, and we need to do what's best for the kids in that system. Those are great questions, by the way, Sandra. Thank you. [Senator David Weeks]: K. And and the final question is on your third page. It's about reducing costs at a very slow or slow reducing costs or at least slowing down the rate of increasing costs. It's a it's a good comments, but there's not a lot of specifics in here about how you would support doing that. So you kinda leave us on the edge of go do it. Make sure this happens. But, oh, by the way, here's a couple examples of, you know, how we think that we should be affecting that. And I'm curious if [Jay Nichols]: I'm driving from here to South Burlington High School because I have a meeting there, and I'm testifying in Senate Finance when I get there. And in my testimony for Senate Finance, I give some financial examples. One of which is support for the class size minimum approach. If we're serious about cutting costs, senator, what it's gonna mean is having less personnel for the number of students we have. That's the only way that we're really gonna get to that. And in h four fifty four, there are several financial things that I'm testifying on in senate finance today that do address that. I did break up my testimony to focus on the education piece for you folks and the finance for them. That testimony is already posted to you, and you could look at that, and I'd be glad to talk with you more. But the key is the number of staff we have related to the number of students we have, that's one variable in the state of Vermont that we can actually address within the school system. The rest of them, things like health insurance and stuff, we really can't address those. [Senator David Weeks]: Okay. Okay. Thanks, Jared. [Jay Nichols]: You're very welcome. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Just gonna rush [Speaker 0 ]: into the question. [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I did. I was just trying to warm it to my head here. Just drilling off of what we just heard regarding personnel. So, Jay, [Speaker 0 ]: are [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: are you saying that in in the jurisdiction that we have in this committee for the bill that we're working on, are you saying that the only cost driver that we can address is staffing? [Jay Nichols]: No. I don't think that's the only cost driver. I think you can address the insurance issue. I'm not sure how you go about doing that. That's one of the things you can address. I also think if you put in a foundation formula, which is what what you're talking about doing, that over time that will bend the cost curve. However, as I say in my testimony to Senate Finance, the research across the country is pretty clear that in most places that put in a foundation formula, it usually leads to increased costs in the beginning. And the reason for that is people in the general assembly in every state, they don't wanna hurt kids, so they know that they need kind of a transition plan to get to those costs. And oftentimes, when you don't have an infusion of cash to help you start off the program, you need to at least meet education spending where it is, and that means you don't get to make a lot of major costs. Now, for example, the governor's plan would have saved close to two hundred million dollars. You know, we we know that. However, we also know that that would take many of the schools that are already at scale and make them have to do some drastic cuts. Many of those places that already are at scale and are already making cuts would have some immense pain and kids would get hurt, which is one of the reasons why we are more supportive of the Tammy Colby financial plan than what the National PICUS ODIN plan, which is the same in every state they put it in in terms of funding. We think Tammy Colby's numbers are much more accurate because they're more representative of where we are as a state right now and what we're already spending on education spending. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. [Jay Nichols]: I don't think this plan is gonna save a ton of money, though. I'm not gonna tell you that it will. But I do think over time, it could bend the cost curve. [Senator David Weeks]: Thank you, Gus. In that regard, it may not affect the total cost of education, but will it affect, from your perspective, the quality of the education? That's the prime time. [Jay Nichols]: I'm hoping. I'm hoping. That's that's I really hope that it will. We have some schools that have three, four kids in a classroom. If we can find ways to combine them with a close by school and get classes of eight, nine, ten, eleven kids in a class that's better educationally. If we can provide more opportunities for AP classes, exploratory classes for students and small high schools that right now don't have those opportunities that's good for kids. So I think by getting to a better scale, we are gonna be able to have better educational opportunities for kids, and I think we'll have better achievement in the long run for kids as well. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thanks, Jim. Okay. Thank you. [Jay Nichols]: Thank you all very much. Sorry to run. I really appreciate your flexibility. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Oh, yeah. Appreciate it. So, yeah, Chelsea. Thanks. Chelsea Myers. Next is Chelsea Myers from the Law Offices Defense Association. [Chelsea Myers]: Hi, all. Thank you for having me back again. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Just to be clear, we're really interested in reaction to that house best version. Yes. Not not the the house we bought. [Chelsea Myers]: And you got some very detailed testimony from us several weeks ago. So that, I think, still, in the most part, stands. So I'll try to stick to a couple of broad themes and, yeah, then beyond rules. So at the Vermont Superintendents Association, we know that building a better education system isn't about fixes. It's about doing the hard, thoughtful, and necessary work of aligning our funding, governance, and operations with the values Vermonters hold dear, equity, opportunity, and sustainability. We come to you with one clear message, transformational change is necessary, and it must be done thoughtfully, intentionally, and with students at the center. Vermont has long held high expectations for its public education system, and and rightfully so. We are a state that values equity, opportunity, and democratic engagement. But those values must now be matched with systems that can sustainably deliver on them. H. Four fifty four, as passed by the House, offers a framework for change that is ambitious, comprehensive, and grounded in years of policy development. BFA supports the direction of the bill and urges to finish further its essential education policy requirements. We urge Vermont to proceed with care because how we implement this legislation is just as important as what it contains. Major structural change is hard. Vermont learned this firsthand during the development and implementation of Act one hundred and fifty three, one hundred and fifty six, and forty six. Those goals of the law were sound, but exhaustion, opposition, lack of statewide support, and inconsistent follow through prevented their full realization. We are to succeed this time. We must apply all of the lessons learned. We urge the committee to proceed with a focus on long term coherence, not short term optics. Policy change of this magnitude demands intentional design, strong implementation planning, and continuous engagement with professionals and communities most have impacted. Senator, you mentioned, do you think this would have an impact on quality? And I would say the details of implementation are essential to whether that, results in quality changes or not, not just what's on the policy page. Change that lacks these qualities risks harming the very students and families we seek to support. Our association has testified extensively on the need to address the root cost drivers in education system. While H. Four fifty four and other legislation introduced discussions have begun to tackle some of these issues such as staffing levels, the broader systemic challenges driving education costs in Vermont remain largely unaddressed. We will continue to revisit these conversations year after year unless we confront the full picture. The lack of affordable housing, the rising cost of health care that consumes an increasing share of education budgets, the growing responsibility schools carry in providing mental health services, and the economic reality that without more livable wage jobs, Vermont will continue to face an aging population and a shrinking tax base. We also caution against the temptation to treat this district scale as a panacea. Cost efficiency will not be achieved by district merger alone. True scale must be addressed at every level of the system. Governance, staffing, school size, class size, administration, and yes, labor contracts. Moreover, we caution against the assumption that district murders will deliver immediate tax relief. In the short term, the cost of merging systems including aligning contracts, operations and infrastructure may exceed any savings. Pay parity is an important goal, but it also represents a significant and currently unquantified cost. As we restructure, we must ask, what are we doing about contracts and current debts? Without a plan for managing these realities, we risk building a new system on an unstable foundation. We must be honest about those short term costs. It is misleading to suggest that district scale alone will deliver meaningful tax relief, especially in the near term. It's also important that we not lose sight of the most important goal, increase opportunities for students. In what ways are we keeping students central to these changes? The working group group group group group group four fifty four will be tasked with keeping research data and student opportunities front and center of the work. There is no evidence to support that merging into mega districts will have any measurable impact on student achievement or opportunities. In fact, there is no evidence that a four thousand student minimum supports better student opportunity and operational efficiencies, especially in rural communities. Perhaps the most important shift we make in the moment is the philosophical one, To see students not just as the beneficiaries of public education, but as co designers of the future. We deeply appreciate the committee's decision to hear student testimony this Friday. This is more than symbolic. It's foundational. As Cashel Higgins wrote in a recent op ed MBT digger, no one understands what's working and what's not better than we do. We're the ones in the classroom every day. We're the ones who experience the outcomes of these systems firsthand. H four fifty four offers a rare opportunity to move Vermont's education system toward greater equity, opportunity, and sustainability. We support its direction, but successful, we're fired more than good policy language. It will require deep listening, long term investment, and the courage to lead through complex communities rather than around it. The work ahead will be hard. Change of this magnitude requires patience, clarity, and deep respect for the complexity of Vermont's educational landscape. We will take serious collaboration, and we're ready to do our part, and we're grateful for your commitment to getting it right. Okay. [Speaker 0 ]: Good. Patricia, questions? [Senator Nader Hashim]: I think the superintendents association was kind of the theorist in underscore school construction. Mhmm. That's a really important point. It's my favorite conversation. Yeah. Because I think if we are going to see any regionalization that creates greater opportunities, it's gonna be state of the art high schools and CTE centers and, you know, just state of the art facilities that give kids different opportunities. I am going to be reviewing that section of h four fifty four with legislative council. I just don't want us to make work and sort of, you know, just go over ground we've already gone over, but maybe look at the Massachusetts School Building Authority, what kind of experts we actually need to to to have a meaningful conversation and come back ready to create financing mechanisms and build in the kind of incentives. I think that would look at more more secondary level regionalization. Mhmm. So I just I'm seeking maybe you all's partnerships or, like, I know you don't want that amount of h four fifty four, you know, but that section does feel like it needs work. If you all have any suggestions, you [Chelsea Myers]: wanna send it along. I I think the premise were in general support of because it's grounded in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. But in terms of line by line, I'd have to go through it again and look at it. All could. That would a long time in the making. So Right. Yes. That would be Yeah. Me too. Thank you. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So are you so are you in support of the notion of getting a foundation formula in place sooner rather than later? [Chelsea Myers]: Yeah. So sorry. I included that in my finance testimony as well in that year. So that's available on a finance website. Yeah. We think it needs to be thoughtfully sequenced so it has not to completely erode, student opportunities, in, school districts. And I think getting the nuances of that foundation formula are essential. We have some recommendations in the our senate finance testimony to make that well, how we feel would be a little bit more aligned with what, we're looking for, in terms of aligning education policy goals with finance goals and really thinking about how are we funding a system in which we wanna be over time without eroding student opportunities. Generally, in support of the foundation formula, but in support of getting it right. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. Did you mention class sizes and school sizes in your testimony? [Chelsea Myers]: We did not in this testimony because we came in several weeks ago and did a pretty big dive in to scale and. K. You've heard a lot from me already. [Speaker 0 ]: Senator, thank you. [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Regarding district sizes Yes. I'm hoping to hear a little bit more on that because I'm I'm looking at the line on page two about halfway through where it says, there's no evidence to support that merging the many districts will have any minimal impact on student achievement or opportunities. And also that there's no evidence that a courthouse of student renewal supports better student opportunity and operational efficiencies, especially in rural communities. So is is it correct to say that the takeaway from that is try to not mess with the district sizes, or do you have [Senator Nader Hashim]: additional funds? [Chelsea Myers]: It's more to suggest that it I think the approach to have a group looking at this and thinking about all the nuances of property, geographical, speeding patterns, and all of those things is really important. The more I look at a map, the more complex these emerge and the more I have conversations with people, the more complex things that emerge. And the four thousand minuteimum thinks about, like, the Northeast Kingdom of how big of a geographical spread you would have to come to to make a district of four thousand students and what would be the implications for a being connected to community and then also for transportation and special ed services as well. And so we did not recommend that four thousand minimum as you have heard from us. Like, we testified on some of the research based on this scale and nothing suggests at the minimum. So potentially changing to, like, your coverage. I although I'd have to look more closely rather than a minimum because accounting for those rural communities, I think, is really important when we do this work. Yeah. Where in Chaney County, it might make total sense, right, to be slightly larger. [Senator Nader Hashim]: But when you're talking about some [Chelsea Myers]: of our rural communities, you're talking about a huge geographical area. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: I think this committee has two issues. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. Well, I'll [Chair Seth Bongartz]: get to that, but we would agree or let people say, what's your position on? We have a hundred and nineteen districts now. [Chelsea Myers]: Yeah. We are in support of the working group going towards greater district scale grounded in research, which is around two thousand to four thousand. But, again, like, some of those nuances might not put you exactly at twenty or exactly like, it like, a little bit of flexibility there, I think, is really crucial for Vermont Okay. And all of its uniqueness. So [Speaker 0 ]: Thank you. Thanks. President of the North School. [Gloria Gomez]: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Gloria Gomez. I'm the president of the North School Work Association, and I appreciate the chance to speak with you today. Thank you. Everybody hear me okay? Sometimes my voice is low. You sound. Everybody good? Yes. Yes. I I'm here to talk about age fifty four as fast as the house. The decisions that you make or choose not to make will have lasting consequences for public education in Vermont and for the long term viability of communities. As we shape the future of education, we're also shaping the future, you know, the democracy in our state, and we want for the nation. Just yesterday, I was at White River Valley Supervisory Union Board meeting and heard from many thoughtful and concerned school board members. Their comments reflected a need to worry about the pace of the change and the likelihood of the repulse needed them. Those voices underscore the need for inclusive and deliberate conversations. It is important to remember that school boards across Vermont bring a wide range of perspective to the table. ESDA inspect that diversity of thought and we encourage each of you to actively reach out to foreign members and citizens in your regions. Hearing directly from the most impacted will help ensure that the final outcome of page four fifty four is aligned with the values and goals of our communities. We appreciate the time and effort that has been taken already to respond to the administration proposal and the subsequent bill, page four fifty four, which was undergone has undergone significant revisions as a result of months of testimony by all here and have conversations. In its current iteration, it is evident that the legislators have worked to incorporate feedback and legitimate concerns from different communities. This bill communicates a desire to take measured approach to ensure that decisions about district scale are informed by public input, data, research, and geography, and to reflect a genuine understanding of the challenges our educators and school leaders face every day. Our hope is that as you continue this work, you will keep in mind the importance of realistic and compassionate timelines for implementation and support, that you remain open to incremental change to ensure consistency and continuity for student learning, and that you maintain a community standard approach, honoring local voices informed by data and research and understanding the minority differences that impact specific changes in the system as a whole. This bill is also about equity and sustainability. It lays the foundation for a fair funding system with the base education amount guided by the work of doctor Tammy Pope, An additional resources for students with greater needs and furthers removed from opportunity. Regular reviews, you guys are familiar with this, but regular reviews to keep the formula responsive and relevant over time. H fifty four promotes better coordination across our state, aligning calendars, data system, migration requirements, and access to barrier and technical education so that every student, no matter where they live, have clear and more equitable platform. Most importantly, it will open or to lock over to construction funding even for the community to properly infrastructure. We were just talking about that. Here's our constructive input to the changes to the to improve the bill. I'm not you guys have a longer version there, but I'm not I'm not putting you to sleep. So this is trying to try to summarize every section there. So on section one, it should be a little longer there. Right now, there are only there's only a possibility of one retired school board member on the nine boundaries of committee. Even that school board center at local legislative bodies for education, that isn't enough. We certainly recommend that at least two former or retired board members have guarantees. Also, we believe that appointments should only should not be overly political. One solution could be that the commission recommends members to reduce bias and broaden expertise. These decisions are too important for partition choices. And because as a committee and the school district board task force are doing closely linked work, consider overlapping these numbers or even combining them. This will help ensure the process is aligned and informed by people who know what school governance works, how school governance works. Like, today, you know, like, we want all of us wanted to be in two places at the same time. We would have a great to be with finance and you guys and be able to hear that cross expertise at the same time. So in section in section one, so if you look down to a section one, it's also school boundary subcommittee duties. The current address says new district should ideally have four thousand students. We urge you to remove that number and instead require that district's access be based in solar needs. There's no magic enrollment number that guarantees quality or cost efficiency, especially not in rural states like Vermont. Research of Brexit both show that leadership context and smart resources use use matter more. Let's keep the focus and actually keep students succeed at the top. In section two a, school district voting war task force. This group will recommend a number of school board members per district and how voting words will be drawn. That's for democratic representation and to how well school boards reflect and engage to their communities. We recommend that adding at least one more member as we were talking about to the stats for school boards are closer to them. In sections four and seven I think I was just repeating that part there. Sections four and seven, the minimum class size, the school size must be set carefully. If the goal is better education, not just class savings, we need to understand what the research says and take into account the unique geographic and demographic of our state. We are also concerned about the timing. Seven different groups are working on overlapping issues at the same time under this bill. Many of the reports are due at once by December first of twenty twenty five, which makes coordinating difficult and risk mixing important insights. Let's take a step back and then you do that backwards planning. Make sure that standards for small by necessity schools are in rush. This decision should be based on full information, including input from the commission, the subcommittee, the agency of education, and the communities affected. Rural students will have a constitutional right to education. We need thoughtful and well supported systems to protect that right. And there's a little more information in your section there. In section six, rulemaking and standards, the state board of education plays a big role in implementing h fifty eight four fifty four, including class size minimums and graduation standards. We support instruction in the state board to reduce political influence and ensure broader, fair representation. Local school board members should have a voice here, and the board needs to the resources to do its job well. I think several people have mentioned that, where it's an increase in budget support or the collaboration or the collaboration with the agency of education. In the construction of and rulemaking, the agents of education has significant responsibilities under this bill. Before transferring rulemaking to for school construction from the state board to the agency, we're urging to ensure that the agency has staffing and capacity to handle this work. In section twenty three, you guys okay. You go for the last in section twenty three, the state board of education membership, the VSBA task force mentioned, and you guys are familiar with that report, mentioned above, I would recommend a restructuring the state board to ensure that it it can act in a nonpolitical capacity. We appreciate that age fifty four takes a step in that direction, expanding the appointment structure to so that the governor does not have the sole authority for appointments. Additionally, the state board makeup should should be more unfortunately, represent local school board members from districts that operate a school board and a public school and should have adequate resources to conduct this work. Data so getting to the end. So in data modeling and the cost drivers, which is kind of the last section. Finally, we want to stress how essentially it is to have clear data and modeling to understand how the proposed foundation formula will impact school districts over time. Without that information, we cannot fully assess all these proposals. We appreciate that the bill focuses on adequate funding and want to highlight the need for a formula that reflects the actual cost of health benefits for school employees, costs that continue to rise each year. Right now, health care is one of the biggest driver of educational costs. Due to due to the foreign statewide bargaining process, school employees, we were here just last week, so to testify on this, the school employees pay no deductible thanks to the health reimbursement arrangement, the HRA. Layered on top of the pipelines, these costly benefits are consuming more and more local school budgets, which forces school boards to forces school boards to take a tough cost in in other areas. And if health care costs keep growing and aren't accounted for any of the new format, it would it could seriously squeeze critical programming for students. This is why we urge you to take action in this session to reform the law governing high school employees health benefits of bargain. Thank you, buddy. It's a search. The next round of bargaining begins in the spring of twenty twenty six and will shape benefits through two thousand and thirty. If you want to make a meaningful impact on this issue, now is the time. We're also submitting a two page document outlining steps the legislature can take to revise this law in a way that supports students, schools, and sustainable budgeting. I may add it also supports teachers. Age four fifty four offers a chance to a conclusion. Age four fifty four offers a chance to move our education system forward, where only we proceed with care, compassion, and clarity. We urge it to slow down just enough to get this right. Let's make sure all the voices are heard, especially those from the smallest and most rural communities. Let's face this decision on data research and what truly helps students. I'm excited to hear that you're gonna have students testifying. Most importantly, let's continue to invest in public education as a cornerstone of our democracy, one that is inclusive, equitable, and resilient through generations. Thank you for your time and where you're going, and to all the students in Vermont. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Budgets. Yes. [Senator Nader Hashim]: Thanks so much, Laura. I I wanted to address the school district voting war task force with you all because I think this is very much where where school board members, you know, should have a voice. And it looks like you were while we're trying to get yourself into the box of this task force. When this came up going through it, I said, I just have a concern with this whole section, and the chair might have had a different concern with the whole section that that he would express. But my concern is that I don't know if we have to standardize this for each district. When we did act forty six, I thought it was really important that Addison County took it off very differently than than Chittenden County might, and they wanted to figure out unique ways that certain small communities wouldn't lose their place. And I worry that trying to have one task force decide this for the whole state isn't even a productive thing to do. [Speaker 0 ]: So that [Senator Nader Hashim]: we craft language that creates the container in which those districts have the conversation, maybe. So I think we've had to do that for accurate things. We you know, but we didn't tell them how they've had to structure their school boards. Jeff is looking at me like but that's what I remember. [Gloria Gomez]: Yeah. Well, I I I think I wanna you know, sort of walk us back. Yeah. Yeah. So if I I think what what we're trying to say is that we we just wanna add one more school environment to that task force. I think it would be very because of the timing that we Mhmm. Have, and I'm gonna look to to suit it. Because of the timing that we have, we we're not we want this task force. I think we we support this task force. And I think Okay. How you're moving forward, what we're trying to say is, like, we wanna be part of this conversation, and we need at least one more school board member. And we're not saying that we don't think this dashboards can't get this done. So you think you and [Senator Nader Hashim]: I just wanna make sure I hear this from VSBA. You think we should have a standardized way that each district votes coming out of this task force? [Gloria Gomez]: I'm looking at at you guys. A standard is way that this because the task force is gonna is gonna propose the districts. [Senator Nader Hashim]: But what they're okay. Sorry. What they're gonna Oh, yeah. [Gloria Gomez]: Talking about different task force. ASI? Okay. I'm not sure you're both talking about the state. Yeah. I think that's why. [Senator Nader Hashim]: I'm talking about the school district voting word task force. There are a lot of words in in this bill. But what I maybe okay. So above, you're saying that, you know, you or is it whichever section, you're saying, hey. School board members add a lot of value. Right? Yeah. In the boundaries of the committee. About their community. Yeah. But what I see this and maybe I'm wrong. What I see the school district voting board task force being tasked to do is create equitable representation within the district for each community and each, you know, each voter. But I believe that could look different in different district. Right? And does the school board's association want it to be standardized? Because that's what I think this task force would end up doing. It's saying you each get to have ten wards and they have to, you know, be proportional this way and you should have one student on there and blah blah blah, [Gloria Gomez]: which I want a student on there. [Senator Nader Hashim]: But, you know, unless we just gave parameters to the districts, we would be tasking this group with saying [Gloria Gomez]: every can do it. And you want This is the work group and unless I'm I'm wrong, this group can can can do that because I think they have the expertise to to set like, I have a board of fifteen right now. Like, I could give you an example of, right, of right. Like, I have a a board of fifteen. Do we do I need a board of fifteen for a fifteen hundred student? You know, we don't have the hundred students anymore. You know, we have about thirteen hundred. Right? Uh-huh. So is that is that a sustainable way and that's that's governance for my district? No. Right? It's just it's it's a lot of a it's a lot of people to to manage for for not just the board chair, but for the Sprint Denon and for, you know, to to just get a student hearing. We need eight people. You know? So I think this committee Yeah. Can come up, you know, like, with the right expertise sitting at the table. You can't look at at at all of the have a them prior presentation and and still maintain an effective school board size. Mhmm. Or I I [Senator Nader Hashim]: don't see why they couldn't. So they should you're saying you the VSBA agrees that they should set a standard way that warts would be defined for every district in the state. You send appropriate data [Gloria Gomez]: and Okay. And and in collaboration with your communities. Right? You know, so it has to be the that that's where it has to have what we're asking is that it has to have school board representation on that task force is really important. [Senator Nader Hashim]: Uh-huh. You're gonna be making those decisions. But when you said in in collaboration with their communities, [Gloria Gomez]: I don't know how that would work. Would happen. Because the school boards are engaged with their communities. Right? I'm looking I may confuse myself. Okay. [Senator Nader Hashim]: I don't wanna click the VSP. [Gloria Gomez]: I know. I like to use it maybe because it's like I'm not just confused how [Senator Nader Hashim]: Yeah. It it it to me seems like this would be trying to create a standard for governance in every district that's the same. But it says that you would create so [Gloria Gomez]: if you go into I'll just read that section. The school district's quote because I think might be the school district's rewarding award task force is tasked with recommending the optimal number of school board members per school board to maximize public representation and democratic input while maintaining effective school board size, which is sort of the example I was trying to give you. Mhmm. And second, the boundaries for school district going worse within each school district with alternative options if necessary. Right. If necessary. So including detailed maps clearly and unambiguously the delineated work boundaries that respect current municipal boundary line. Right. So there's a lot that goes into this. Given these duties and their direct connection to school board governance, we strongly advocate for at least one more school board member represented [Senator Nader Hashim]: Okay. In that task force. So I'm not trying to belabor this, but so everyone's clear for the future on what my concern is. I'm gonna try to use the example of, ward redistricting in municipalities. So Burlington, you know, several years ago decided, hey. We need another ward. We don't want it to be all UBM students even though it's kinda what ended up happening. We then now have eight wards, so we want four district counselors and eight, you know, ward counselors, and they created a system that works very specifically for Burlington. So we usually rely on the local board of civil authority in a larger population center, for example, Rutland, anywhere to come up with their own government system that feels right for their political needs. We don't tell we don't have a task force that tells municipalities how to structure their local voting systems. This would be a departure from that. This would be saying, we, as a state task force, are going to tell each of these district communities how to structure their government. That I I I don't know that. But I can't [Gloria Gomez]: You know, you did it throughout forty six. Right? Well, when you I don't think we did. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. We did. Well, that point six because it was voluntary workers largely. [Senator David Weeks]: Right. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And they put the whole system together because they're very different across the state. Right. As fast [Gloria Gomez]: We were merging. So when my [Chelsea Myers]: vote was there, So you did it in The [Chair Seth Bongartz]: district the district boards when as they merged, figured out their own governance structure. [Senator Nader Hashim]: Exactly. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And they are different in different parts of the state, and they and they work well, you know, like, the one that where I am is very different, I think, from what you're talking about other than for other parts of the state. Yeah. And so that's a I understand what you're saying. [Senator Nader Hashim]: Okay. And [Gloria Gomez]: and we can't read [Speaker 0 ]: we can't [Gloria Gomez]: read that that is our connection with the the with our communities. We want the representation to be fair. Mhmm. Because that's how we engage with our communities. That's how we all understand our vision, our mission, student outcomes. So it is important for us Yeah. That we are connected to our community. So how you balance that. Right? Alright. Yeah. It's okay. Because it the executive director for the Vermont School Board Association. I just wanted to add that this piece came in at the very last minute as an amendment at the end in the house. So it's not something that we, you know, testified on in the house or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. So the big awesome one today really is if you're going to keep this in, we need more school board representation. [Senator Nader Hashim]: That's how I cook it. But then I'm worried I may have confused everyone after that. But I that I did take it as you're not wedded to this task force. [Gloria Gomez]: No. No. No. Okay. Just one person. [Senator Nader Hashim]: If it existed, you'd not. Alright. [Senator David Weeks]: Questions. Yes. On the first page, about halfway down, I think you say that you're in right with the most impacted, obviously, is critical to the process. Who's the most impacted? Is it admin, teachers, students, parents? You left us hanging. [Gloria Gomez]: Yeah. And every everybody. Students at the end. Right? Students are the most impacted in our community. Right? But at the end, this whole thing, as I see it as an as a as a as an immigrant, you're stating the the future of your communities. Right? How we [Senator David Weeks]: Yeah. But I thought you were kinda leading us to what group is most impacted. Who is most impacted? I wanted you I wanted you to actually say it. [Gloria Gomez]: Most impacted is our students, our future citizens. [Senator David Weeks]: Much of it. [Gloria Gomez]: You know? So we all should be thinking about that. Okay. Thanks. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And and just to sort of get a sense from you about urgency that you're feeling on this or not. You know, it it [Speaker 0 ]: two [Chair Seth Bongartz]: years ago, a year and a half ago, we had lawyers across the state voted for twenty percent increase. And that that both were resolved at both. So Japan stepped in and tried to lower it, but it resulted in a twenty percent increase. Now we're in an era of cuts, and we saw that across we saw that across the state this year. And I think it would be fair to say that an era of cuts is not healthy either in love itself, especially if it's, you know, constant. And so I guess the you know, then we had so a lot of what I kind of heard you say is slow down and go with that. You never really talked about when we should get a foundational formula in place and what's the urgency there. And as you're trying to balance or figure out where you think the you know, on the one hand, we have this we have something that's coming on wood before our eyes, and we're trying to get to something new. And I understand that, you know, we always wanna try and get it right. So but but I I couldn't really figure out the new testimony other than kinda slow down and do data and other thing else. You know, what what actually you're you're where you are on that on that or if [Jeff Bennett]: it's I I [Gloria Gomez]: think you said I think we want you to continue to collaborate with with all of us and be thoughtful about how you move forward. You you just brought that point about construction. Right? Like, look at it and look look at it with with intention. It's the same when you're talking about the to be sub updating you committee for for rewards. So I think that we need to slow it down. The urgency this year should at at least to to us when we were first testifying before age fifty four, we wanted this to have gone to the commission for future public education. That's where we wanted this. We can't do that. Right? So this is where we are right now. We're giving the testimony of where we are right now. So be thoughtful of the process. Make sure we're having the data. Make sure that you model the foundation formula. [Speaker 0 ]: Yep. [Senator David Weeks]: So [Gloria Gomez]: so make sure you're making data driven decisions and that are gonna impact for generations to come the future of public education. So how do you slow down the processes, How you're getting all that information and how you're getting your accuracy in the data and and making sure that if you're putting something in the AOE, that they're gonna be able to be resourced, have the people necessary to help us implement it in the district. If you are telling us that, you know, we are gonna merge in a certain way, make sure that we have enough money for construction so that we can take care of that. If you're telling us that you wanna I don't I don't know what what is this gonna look like. We we really want anything thoughtful of how we move forward. This is a good start. H four fifty four, we were able to testify in the process. There's still a lot of things as we said. This is constructive feedback that you have in it there, and we're gonna go from this to the the finance, but we need more modeling in order to really test it by ML. [Speaker 0 ]: Okay. Thank you. Got two short questions for you. [Senator David Weeks]: First one, o for three, the the testimony today focuses at health care as a cost driver. We get it. We agree. You're as a school board representative representative or president of the school board association. You're a member, I believe, of the negotiating parties. We're not really in a position to affect that directly, but you've highlighted the zero zero deductibles zero dollar deductible. Are you anticipating a conversation with your the other half of the negotiating party to positively affect health care costs. [Gloria Gomez]: What what we're asking you we we were here just last week. What we are asking you is for a change in the composition of the negotiation, and we're asking you to allow Think [Senator David Weeks]: that's sufficient? [Chelsea Myers]: I think, [Gloria Gomez]: yeah, that would be great at least to start. And if if if when it goes to arbitration, if we're they're able to not just pick one side or the other side, but pick the best pieces of both and come into, you know, an interest based decision at at the end [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: of that. [Senator David Weeks]: That's a that's a [Gloria Gomez]: better actionable [Senator David Weeks]: Yeah. That's an actionable request as opposed to just stating that paying zero dollar deductibles. That's [Gloria Gomez]: But it's just giving you an example. Right? That's what we do. Like, the urgency is because of, you know, spending. Okay. [Senator David Weeks]: Thank you. And then second question is, we've had two tasks for task forces on school construction. [Gloria Gomez]: Yes. [Senator David Weeks]: Two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. K. Good. Lots of good stuff there. On that topic, do you have recommendations on elements of those reports that you support or elements of those reports that you reject? [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I I You gotta go there. [Gloria Gomez]: I I I'm not prepared today. I would love to be I work on the search engine. I'm I'm not prepared today to answer that question. I've I've saved a life. View. [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. No. No. I don't. [Gloria Gomez]: I don't have the information in front [Chelsea Myers]: of me. [Gloria Gomez]: I don't know. Sue [Senator David Weeks]: We're getting there, though. [Chelsea Myers]: Yeah. Just to put [Senator Nader Hashim]: you there. You send it to us. [Gloria Gomez]: Yes. Right. I think to look to look at that, but I'm not prepared today unless you could want to do a comment. [Senator David Weeks]: If I'm not mistaken so remember those boards [Gloria Gomez]: that you [Senator David Weeks]: guys have representation on the board, on those task forces. [Gloria Gomez]: Yeah. So I participated in the first task force, like, two weeks three years ago? [Senator David Weeks]: Two years ago. Yeah. One year ago. [Gloria Gomez]: So then it was before that because we've been doing this for as long as I've been in Vermont. Three. [Senator David Weeks]: Okay. This stuff's pretty fresh. I mean, it's Yeah. [Speaker 0 ]: There's no good report. [Senator David Weeks]: So I just wondered if you do support or you don't support certain aspects because that's the issue. That's and we're on instill when it's off. That's where we're going. [Gloria Gomez]: We we we want support. Construction. Yes. [Speaker 0 ]: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Good afternoon. With record, Jeff Bennett, executive director of Vermont NEA. Thank you for giving me a few minutes to speak with you about our preliminary thoughts about h four fifty four. [Jamie Kenarney]: First, I'm gonna start with [Speaker 0 ]: a little bit of a level set and and talk a little bit about where we are, I think. In word, Vermont's local public schools and the educators that work in them are doing great things. In fact, despite the rhetoric, they are more than they can bring. Our public schools are a place where all students [Chair Seth Bongartz]: from all walks of life [Speaker 0 ]: can learn and thrive and do learn and thrive. Vermont should be proud of its investment in its children as Vermont is at the top in several measures of success. On the nation's report card, Vermont is top three in eighth grade literacy. Vermont compares favorably to larger and wealthier neighboring states, Massachusetts and New York. But we punch above our weight, I would say. Vermont is near the top in graduation rates, and we have some of the best and brightest graduates in the world. In fact, Nais Mitchell, Vermont Aid, Sean Tubb, Harwood, who between them won ten Tony Awards, and Victor Ambrose from WisDOT who won a twenty twenty four Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. And, of course, have any of us ever heard of Grace Potter? She too is a proud product of our local public schools. So as are countless teachers, plumbers, doctors, electricians, and even politicians, including negative view and the governor. All the success comes from a system that funds more than just academics. The education fund pays for services that most states do not, for example, social and emotional student health, and we are seen as as the most inclusive state in the country when it comes to educating students with disabilities. Ensure we are much to be proud of when it comes to Vermont's publicly funded school systems. The Vermonters who work in our schools, foster teachers, special educators, school counselors, librarians, bus drivers, paraeducators, custodians, food service workers, psychologists, occupational therapists, among others, have worked through a pandemic, through decades of long nationwide educator workforce shortage that results in staff vacancies in all buildings that are all r and d significant repair as the buildings. But they show up every day to support our youngest citizens, their students, and meet their needs, learn and realize their potential. Sometimes this includes supporting them through major milestones, and more often, it's about being stable, supportive, and caring adults in their everyday lives. Make a mistake in a relatively poor rural state, our educators, our students, and our public education system is something to be proud of and something we should preserve and strengthen. Vermont has routinely vote to increase taxes on themselves themselves to pay for our local public schools, and we should be cognizant of that deep investment local communities have in those schools. Additionally, Vermont school boards and administrators are very vigilant when it comes to using limited resources wisely. Most recent town meeting day budgets, for example, reduced staffing by almost four hundred educators. There was some discussion about that earlier. This if this type of mass layoff, Vermont was getting a pink slip, were to happen in any other employment sector, it would have been headline news. This was done intentionally, transparently, and surgically, and locally, which is to say communities throughout Vermont reduce staff to control cost, but hopefully not reduce academic opportunities for students. While this is the second year of staff reductions and it is a worrisome trend, it was done with approval of local voters, not done to local school communities by the state. Layered on top of this, the state of schools is the tumultuous nature of events happening at the federal department of education. Indeed, the chaotic and unknown nature of the events in DC has educators, administrators, and school boards walking on eggshells and anxious about doing anything to further upset the system. Just last week, for example, schools were threatened with losing federal funds for simply complying with the act one from twenty nineteen that was passed and signed into law calling for all Vermont's schools to teach an honest curriculum about our history and to do it in a racially sensitive manner. It's with this backdrop that Ramonier reviewed the bill four five zero. And through a lens of doing no harm to the educational system, Shaking the system snow globe even more after surviving the pandemic, including the loss of federal fund pandemic recovery funds and the new student weights that are still be becoming better known could do affirmative harm to our students and the education they receive. This is not to say any change is ill advised, but change for the sake of change is not helpful. Four fifty four has a timeline for implementation that, while aggressive, is realistic in addressing the current challenges facing our education system. The bill protects educators' right to collectively bargain, who are feeling under attack by the culture wars and the educator shortage, which is real and extremely troubling now and well into the future. In other words, the education shortage educator shortages is have been around for a while, and there's no anticipated end in sight. As there is no pipeline of educators stepping forward to fill the innumerable vacancies, notwithstanding the four hundred layoffs, and the bill does nothing to exacerbate that that that educator shortage, that's good. We do have some concerns with the bill. The class size section is concerning because we know there is no perfect size. And in fact, we know that this is one of the characteristics that makes our schools special and often the goals of other states. Make no mistake, micro classes are not good, but setting a class size number in statute may have unintended consequences for students. Additionally, it may be used for small rural schools without community buy in. And while the exemptions may allow some schools that just cannot ever meet the goals of the bill to remain open, it is a concern that, again, there could be unintended consequences. Furthermore, the intent language to achieve schools' size targets needs to include school construction fundings and support funding support to ever be achieved. Without school construction funding, school size targets will never be realized. The finding financing aspects of the bill, again, are mixed. The cost factor foundation formula does achieve equity in the moment, as I think Jay spoke to, and reflects the real cost of educating Vermont's kids. But as with any formula, the inflator must be realistic and must have teeth if it is cast aside for political expediency. Further, we have concerns with the political appointee adjusting the foundation point level even with guardrails that are in place as is found in section thirty four of the bill. So I'm venturing a little bit of finance world, but That's our section. Pardon me? That's our section. Okay. For example, there is no appeal process. If a school district believes the inflation isn't what it should be. And even if a district or any interested party believed the amount wasn't accurate, the language gives the secretary the authority to set inflation to set the inflation rate, and a court likely would give that language by the sect quote, by the secretary of education his full intended meeting. Moreover, relying on the US Department of Commerce for data right now more than ever is a mistake. Moreover, professor Colby suggested using labor market inflation tool using a labor market inflation tool and not a generic inflation device. Additionally, as you've talked about earlier, suggest we suggest adding a health care to player aspect of section thirty four so as to recognize what we all know to be the single largest cost driver of the cost of health care. Vermont and EA has been suggesting for some time that the state move to a reference based pricing structure for hospitals that have more than two hundred beds as has been successfully implemented in other states. That alone would reduce education property spending by upwards of thirty million next year. And, finally spell that. Sorry. Because the finance committee still has the yield built, rather than doing a universal rate buydown, it would be it buydown should be used a portion of which to reserve monies to reduce property taxes in a targeted way for working class Vermonters, but leave as is the current tax in the wealthiest among us. This would allow some Vermonters to see their tax bill lowered, while those Vermonters with means to pay would otherwise keep have their tax set at normal rates. A better approach altogether would be to adopt an income based education tax for all Vermonters. Vermont NEA has long advocated for a three step approach to lowering and then eliminating property taxes for Vermont residents. First, adjust the income sensitivity thresholds to account for inflation, which had never happened. Second, examine what is now coming out of the Ed Fund that was not previously coming out of the Ed Fund. And finally, move to an income based education tax for all of the monitors, which is fair and more understandable and more understandable taxing system. Thank you for the opportunity to address some of your our concerns with h four five four. More importantly, thank you for recognizing the excellent work our educators and students are doing in Vermont's local public schools. When all is said and done, publicly funded schools are Vermont's most important resource, a resource our kids depend on and deserve on their journey to becoming happy, healthy, and productive adults. And thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions. Yes. [Senator Nader Hashim]: So I think we're struggling. I'll just pick it up. There's a struggle around honoring the data informed way that that Tammy Colby came to the weights that she came to and the reality that some of our districts just answered the call of a different waiting system. And they would have to they would be responding to incur new information in the last two years that would change the weight score. High schools or, you know, just different weighting systems. And I don't know if you've seen what JFO has done for us, but it it does show potential winners and losers in whose district would lose more or gain more. [Speaker 0 ]: Under the foundation? [Senator Nader Hashim]: Under the foundation formula, and we just used one approximation to counties that was the BSBA map that was not in the proposed map in this process, but is is close closest to county because of everything we're looking at. And there were winners and losers. I don't know if your members have discussed the foundation formula and what it could do when it's implemented to make this some districts go through a new mathematical calculation about their budgets and what that means for Kirsten, Alec. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Can I just jump in? Because I think what you're saying you also said that implied what you said is with doctor Volpi's weights. [Gloria Gomez]: Yeah. [Speaker 0 ]: Because that's one twenty [Chair Seth Bongartz]: seven. So that's no. [Chelsea Myers]: Right. Yep. [Speaker 0 ]: No. No. New weights. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Because the hospital used the new weights. Okay. Right. And I think [Chelsea Myers]: Yes. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: I think what you're asking is kind of just went through new week new weeks two years ago. We have some districts just getting used to that, and now the house version has a whole new set of rates and and has another round of great search disruption in some places. And so and I think implied in that question is is, you know, we have the existing weights that we can convert from tax base tax capacity to spending and keep them sort of steady looking what people just begin to get used to or go to whole wholly the whole new set of weights. [Senator Nader Hashim]: And I guess I would just say, like, the last conversation I had with teachers in my district, which from what I saw, my experience had cut CBU in South Burlington would experience a cut, the teachers were like, we thought we just got to a district that's stable. Right. And now we're being cut. So and that was without, you know, another education report proposal. So I'm I'm just trying to record with the reality that I have a lot of teachers in my community who would probably struggle with a formula that yet again changed the landscape. [Speaker 0 ]: Romani took no position on the bill in the house, just for the record. [Senator Nader Hashim]: Okay. [Speaker 0 ]: And so one of the things we struggle with is, as you pointed out, there are winners and losers in every contract. And in this contract, they're in this, you know, proposal. Again, there are winners and losers. And some of my board, for example, would see this as a win. So take, for example, some of the lower spending schools in the in the state. I'll just say it that way. They might do really well under the new system with the foundation formula plus weights on top of that. And and that would be that would be a a service to those communities and those students truly. And there are others, as you noted, are are not doing so well in the new system and and coming out of the new lots of new weights. Number of those usual weights. I'll say it that way. That is more change upon change. One One of the things I didn't talk about is the timeline of this bill. I won't compare it to any other bills that are or ideas that are out there, but I will say that we like this timeline better than some other concepts that are out there because it does allow for phasing in and time to sort of digest what is being proposed. And and, you're right. CBU, for example, in the last two years, I think, has lost eighty educators. And so they're sizably, affected by risky waste, loss of ARPA funds, and other backers. And so they are significantly challenged in this moment, and adding further challenge to that might not be in their best interest or nor their students' best interest. I know that they've lost their music director, I guess, at CVU, and I know that some parents are not happy about that at first. So and that's what the current Right. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Right. And that's Yeah. And that's not [Speaker 0 ]: that's not applying anything from act four fifty to age four fifty four. Right. So adding to that might really not be a good idea. So, again, the timeline, the space is in a lot slower than some other ideas that are out there. That's we think is a good thing. It's a long minute answer to say. It's complicated. It's next. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. [Senator David Weeks]: It's like good. So I I understand the the intro in your in your statement was very positively responded. I appreciate that. At the same time, I'd I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that forty eight OE statistics, fifty percent of our from all grades, fifty percent of our kids are below proficiency in math and reading across the field, all grades. Regardless of how we stack up against, you know, in one eighth grade, I mean, both literacy. That's a [Speaker 0 ]: good thing. But It's excellent. Yeah. I mean, it's it's But in both topics, then [Senator David Weeks]: all the grades are fifty percent below proficiency. That's really shocking. That got a lot of attention over the past year or two years, and that's what a lot of folks are reacting to. So so I understand that the intent is to spin positive. I get that. We all wanna hear that. But It's not [Speaker 0 ]: a spin. I I believe it, actually. And I I think the NAEP test is what you're talking about or or alluding to is one test that schools don't even get the results of. So I don't know that Yep. [Senator David Weeks]: You're relying on Statewide statistics from the AOE. I I got it. It's not school specific. It's it's purposely not school specific, and we all know why. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. Right. I I the other day, just so we've, you know, had a meeting, a commission of the future of public education, and we had a breakout room with the secretary there, some others. And we talked about whether we should be doing I I firmly believe we're testing the the the wrong things. Right? I mean, I I based it on what Raj Chetty is a professor out of Okay. Harvard, now Stanford. We're testing the wrong thing. So I think that we have to look serious about what we test and what Okay. [Senator David Weeks]: And we'll be doing that. Conversation. But currently, the testing that we're using, we've all agreed to use, is showing some pretty dire indicators that need a reaction. That's what we're trying to do is that's one of the issues that we're reacting to. But I wanted to go back on the third page. You had three recommendations for lowering the cost of tax property taxes, and I appreciate that. You're like one of the few guys who's come in here to give us some very specific examples. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And No. That's true. I appreciate that. Yeah. [Senator David Weeks]: But I think in summary, you're looking to possibly move from property tax funding for education to income tax, fund in British plain and explosively. I hope it's I just wanna make Yes. You know, you know, there's a lot of a couple words here that make it a little bit ambiguous, but Alright. I wanna make it very [Speaker 0 ]: I'll say it more accurately. For mone n d a, we'd like to abolish the property tax for residents and move to income based tax to pay for education. Okay. [Senator David Weeks]: Thank you, Joe. [Speaker 0 ]: Is that I mean, I I [Senator Nader Hashim]: For year round resident? No. [Speaker 0 ]: For residents. Right? Residents. [Senator Nader Hashim]: For, yeah, for people who claim Vermont residents, which is like [Senator David Weeks]: Yeah. So what what I was reacting to was move to an income based education for all the. You know, that's that's close, but it's not quite Okay. K. I wanna be very clear that residents. [Gloria Gomez]: Or you [Speaker 0 ]: can say for all residents, Vermont residents or something like that. Okay. So thank you for the the added either I saw an another misspelling there, and I I will try to do better in. [Chelsea Myers]: Can you send a Rausch Chetty? He's Sure. MFA Raj Chetty. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. I've I'm thinking of I haven't looked at him a lot, but he's he's he's he's amazing. [Jeff Bennett]: Yeah. He is? [Speaker 0 ]: He's also the one who advocated for paying kindergarten teachers three hundred sixty thousand dollars. For that. Love froge chatting. Yeah. I am a big fan. You you wanna see what success kids have later in life. Yeah. Look to their kindergarten teacher, and we should be paying the value of a a great senior teacher three hundred sixty thousand dollars. [Senator Nader Hashim]: He'd be a great witness for us to get for a joint hearing. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. [Senator Nader Hashim]: I took classes at the Harvard Graduate School of Education with some of his colleagues who do economics and education in the club. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. I think that's fair. It's just really proactive and and not provoking at it. You know? I'd like it to it's interesting. I will get you I think it's a. [Senator Nader Hashim]: That's probably even better right [Speaker 0 ]: now. Yeah. It's honestly. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: For for my doing on [Speaker 0 ]: the podcast. We all Yes. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Any other questions? No? Thank you. Thank you. So [Speaker 0 ]: sticking to the Nicole, are you on, by the way? [Nicole Whalen]: Yes. I am here. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Miss Fuller, are you okay waiting for a few hundred services? I know you're at work. [Nicole Whalen]: I'm fine. I can wait. [Speaker 0 ]: Okay. She okay. Two. No. No. We'll we'll do it in order then. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So one more in front of you. [Speaker 0 ]: Okay. Stuff there. Yep. Order record? [Jamie Kenarney]: Yes. For the record, my name is Jamie Kenarney, and this is my fifth year serving as the superintendent of schools of the Weber Valley Supervisory Union. And prior to that, I served as a principal of the William Sound Schools for senators. I wanna begin by once, again, thanking the Senate Education Committee for allowing me to testify on h four five four this afternoon. And I'll refer to our supervisor in as the WRBSU for the remainder of my testimony. I'm gonna focus my testimony today on my concerns specific to the provisions provided via h four five four regarding section three, skill intent, class size standards, and section seven, school size intent. The beginning of section three of h four five four states, it is the intent of the general assembly to transform Education Vermont by leveraging attainable and research based scale to increase equity of opportunity and promote efficiency and affordability. I wanna begin by pointing out that the definition of equity does not mean equality or that we're going to create public schools that ensure everyone will have the exact same classroom experience. Instead, I've dedicated my entire career to advocating for the importance of the personalization of the educational experience. I believe that the class size minimums introduced in the h four five four are nothing more than a tool for larger depersonalized district boards to have the means to act on on closing smaller elementary, middle, or high schools within a newly formed unified district. I believe this because we have proof that this has already occurred within some unified districts that formed in HACE due to act forty six, And it most definitely occur again if we are to deliver on the property tax relief pro offered as the reason for why we need to transform Vermont's public education system once again. The class sizes provided via the bill don't they do not take into account significant cost drivers though. For example, it doesn't take into account academic interventionists, behavioral support services, paraeducator supports, mental health supports, or related service provider supports like SLPs, OTs, PTs. Yeah. When you look at the increase in NFTs that my colleague, Ryan Hearty, provided you a few weeks back from across the state was in his his, slideshow. The areas that have grown the most are excluded from this provision of the bill. For example, from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four, behavioral specialists across the state have increased by seventy one FTs, behavior inter behavior interventionist by a hundred and forty five, reading interventionist by a hundred and fifty eight, math interventionist by a hundred and three, and in service training staff, which the AOE notes is noninstructional by sixty two. I share this information to be clear that we need to get a lot better at how we measure efficiency. And equity needs to stand for more than only utilizing average class sizes that would more than likely within the WRBSU close the Newton School in Stratford, Vermont. The Newton School has a long history of serving its students in a fiscally responsible manner that delivers on high quality student outcomes. Newton School traditionally performs well above the six standards in math, literary, literacy, and science. It also qualifies as a title one receiving school. Yet due to the intention of creating equity, h four five four determines that Newton can no longer meet the needs of our students based purely on the class size standards. I also have a great deal of trouble within the provision within h four five four that allows for a newly formed unified district board to be the one to apply for a waiver if the school doesn't need the class size minimums. That process relies again on a depersonalized board to advocate for that rural community school, and the definition for geographic isolation is yet to be determined. That school could end up closed because of its size and nothing to do with academic and social emotional performance metrics, community satisfaction, or efficiency in regards to that per pupil cost. I also remain concerned with the arbitrary nature of indicating that it's the intent to create schools that operate during six through twelve to have a minimum average daily membership of four hundred and fifty students. I have the same concern with this requirement as I do with the minimum class size numbers because it communicates that the school of two hundred and sixty students cannot provide for the same high quality education as a school of four hundred and fifty. My experience as a principal and superintendent would indicate that that is not true. I've shared with you testimony two weeks ago about the success of the White River Unified District. That success is evident in student achievement measures, increased graduation rates, and fiscal responsibility. Yet this provision indicates that the three hundred and sixty five average daily membership in the Lake River Unified District six through twelve is not providing for an optimal educational experience. I would argue that our community and the surrounding communities that's wishing over eighty students to our in in grades six through twelve at our public low high school have a differing opinion. I'd also be remiss today, if I didn't mention how important I believe it is and include the supervisory union as a viable governance structure moving forward. My previous testimony focused on that, so I wanted to reemphasize this but not speak to all my reasons to support the SU structure and the equity for which it allows. It is my hope that you continue to advocate for the viability of the supervisor union structure and include them in any bill that you move forward for reconciliation with the house. Finally, I ask that we ensure that any bill we move forward has accountability measures built within it to ensure greater personalization, increased outcomes for our students, results in increased financial efficiencies because all schools are held to the same accountability standards, and does not indicate via the provisions provided that smaller schools are resulting in less equity, increased cost, and undesired outcomes. I strongly urge you to strike any and all language provided with h four five four, class size standards, and school size intent. Thank you. [Speaker 0 ]: Yes. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: I I have one. When you talk about the SUs, retaining retaining SUs, is it your view that you should retain SUs everywhere or that SUs are a vehicle that makes sense in our structure? A structure that makes sense in some parts of the state, not necessarily all. I I haven't really thought that for myself. [Jamie Kenarney]: So No. I I appreciate that. I mean, I think in order for the SU structure to be viable, I do think it needs interdependence and partnership. Right? And so if there was districts that would prefer to operate within a supervisory district structure, I would understand that. But the notion that SUs cannot be efficient or allow for one superintendent I mean, I'm a superintendent across ten ten towns. I just wanna clarify that when Jay was talking about one superintendent, supervisor meetings have one superintendent. And so I would say, though, I think if you look, you could create SUs that may partner two to three districts, still allow for local voice and decision making, but get you to that two to four thousand size that [Speaker 0 ]: if you're looking at. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Yes? [Senator Nader Hashim]: If if you understood my question about the ward advisory task force, do you have thoughts on one group coming up with that structure for every district? [Jamie Kenarney]: I mean, I would say to you, the articles of agreement, which I think is what you're getting to, that we all created during mergers of Act forty six. Right? That allowed for local voice to come together to decide what was important in regards to those mergers to occur and holds those boards into the future accountable to them. Mhmm. Right? And so, therefore, I think it's critical that we get allow that to happen locally if we're gonna say that there's gonna be those forest types of mergers. Mhmm. Because they're gonna create more buy in. Right? And and and as someone who became a superintendent five years ago that was my RSU had just merged and districts were formed the year prior, I've heard some folks say, well, the supervisory structure is not as viable because I'm not able to do instructional leaderships. I I would tell you that's absolutely false. I'm in schools every day. My s u colleagues are in schools every day. I meet with principals every Tuesdays and Thursdays in their schools to do rounds from nine to noon. I did not today because I was working on this. But what I would say to you is I'm getting to your this point. If you do forced mergers of districts, Mhmm. That superintendent's gonna be putting out fires in regards to folks feeling like harm was done because that was a state level decision [Speaker 0 ]: Mhmm. [Jamie Kenarney]: And they're unhappy about it. And they're gonna be doing everything in regards to management and nothing focused on increase in academic outcomes, paying attention to efficiencies and cost. Right? Like, my ex I mean, I'm in there meeting with my principals and my business managers to build those budgets, to present to my boards. We're doing zero based budgeting. Like, that's the expectation that I have in regards to how we do our work. If I'm spending time trying to navigate in regards to a lot of folks upset about their local school being closed because of a larger district decision, and we're gonna that's gonna take me away from being able to do that work around just to monitoring financial efficiencies, right, and being responsible, but also making certain all those kids are growing individually. [Speaker 0 ]: Mhmm. [Jamie Kenarney]: Okay. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So the [Jamie Kenarney]: more we can increase local voice in regards to these decisions, I think the more successful we're gonna be as a state. Did I [Gloria Gomez]: answer Yeah. Yep. [Senator David Weeks]: Senator Wiese, just a curiosity question on the first page. You you were talking about significant cost drivers at the bottom of the page. You said it doesn't take into account, and you listed a series of different education practitioners, but weren't always highlighted in the the detailed labor spreadsheets that the secretary of education provided for the theoretical structure of schools? [Jamie Kenarney]: These are labeled in regards to classifications, how we would fund them with the weights. I'm speaking specific to h four five four. The provisions are on class sizes. It does not take into account any of its positions. All it takes into account is and I know he says it in the bill that these these FTEs do not have anything to do with the class sizes. So, really, what I'm saying is you can't say that the only mesh metrics to use in regards to whether a school is being efficient is grade level or content area teacher. [Senator David Weeks]: Okay. Another question on the Newton School. Not familiar with Newton, and I'm just curious if there's gotta be a little bit more here to help us digest this. Is it I assume that it's the total student population or the class sizes are below what's being discussed in four fifty four. But are there any other mitigating circumstances, like it's small by necessity, like geography or any so you're just worried that it's too close to another school that's also below the threshold that's in four fifty four. [Jamie Kenarney]: Not necessarily below, but maybe could take those just scoop those things up. And my concern is if you look at the mesh metrics in regards to, like, the foundation formula, that schools that, let's say, have four hundred students nearby, would if you look to analyze what they're gonna have decreased revenue resulting from this, frankly, because they're spending more than even a school like Newton that may not make class sizes. But if you ask me, like, can you introduce the foundation formula? Yeah. We can. Like, we we operate really efficiently. [Senator David Weeks]: So why would they they will lower foundation for their total budget [Senator Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: if [Jamie Kenarney]: Because they're spending more than that foundation's gonna provide. So my my whole point is just because the school is right sized, right, by the bill, let's say four fifty and maintaining above these these minimum sizes, does it mean that they're efficient? So I'm just saying that we're really gonna get at, like, what are the cross drivers? We're gonna make certain we we build in to this legislation. What I think is is one of the things is, like, are we actually looking at what the per pupil cost is? There's this s there's this idea. I've got larger districts and larger schools are gonna result in decreased cost, and we just don't have good metrics that share that. What I would say is we wanna be after the cost. Let's say, like, this is what you should be spending per pew. [Senator David Weeks]: So that's kind of one of the primary premises for the [Jamie Kenarney]: I'm not opposed I'm not opposed to the foundation. [Senator David Weeks]: We know it by school by school what the budgets are per student. You you do that math all the time with our superintendents. [Jamie Kenarney]: I I'm I'm saying [Senator David Weeks]: Half of them are below a four day you know, conceived four day foundation equivalent, and half of them are above. And then [Jamie Kenarney]: And you need the reasoning for these larger districts, I believe, is to create enough scale and size around these weights to allow for that district to not to, like, possibly continue to operate the way it has been because you've you've got enough size now and scope if you close some smaller schools that and you gain those pupils, then your base amount is gonna be okay. And if you look, some of our larger districts are spending a lot more than some of our middle and smaller districts. And so what I'm saying to you is that may not change our behavior. Am I making sense what I'm trying to say? By closing the smaller schools and just push moving these students into a system that we know is not operating efficiently, I don't believe that that's, like, alright. They've gained those people's weights, but I don't really believe that that means that that district's gonna tighten its belt more. [Senator David Weeks]: K. Does that make sense when Yeah. I hear you. [Jamie Kenarney]: Yeah. I believe that that's why the waiting and the introduction of the new districts have to go hand in hand, right, because they need to spread out those larger districts to increase the weights to make this work if you look at those maps. And that is something I'm really fearful about. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks. [Speaker 0 ]: Well, I I wanna go back to you. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: I wanna jump into the call. Thanks. [Speaker 0 ]: You're on because I know she's I just wanna go to Nicole. Actually, some work for for no reason, I do some work for that. I wanna be here for for the whole system. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So, Nicole, can you introduce yourself for the record? [Nicole Whalen]: Yes. My name is Nicole Whalen. I am on the school board for the Arlington School District, and I'm one of three representatives from Arlington for the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And just to be clear so the committee understands here, so you're from the sort of the northernmost part of that SU, and you are in a district with Mount Anthony, Union High School, the middle school, and and and others. Other others as well, but that's your faith. Yeah. Okay. So you're you're a you're a smaller school in a larger district with a larger high school. [Nicole Whalen]: Correct. And part of what I was I I feel a little out of my league with everyone else who has spoken today, but I I believe my my place for being here is to talk about what our small school, the importance that we play within the region. [Speaker 0 ]: Yep. [Nicole Whalen]: And I have some information to kind of demonstrate how we fit within the overall structure within the southwestern part of the state and also some some data about what our small school has been able to do. [Jeff Bennett]: Thanks. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: That's it. I think, frankly, that that's great. You framed it well, so you're you're all. [Nicole Whalen]: Okay. Okay. And these are my notes. I honestly, this is the first time I've ever been through this process. I didn't really know what was expected. This was what I was going to read from, and then I saw everybody else submit testimony, so I sent Will my notes. So here we go. The Arlington School District operates grades pre k through twelve and is part of the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union. Arlington previously operated within the Battenkill Valley Supervisory Union with Sandgate as a nonoperating district. We were the smallest SU in the state. And through Act forty six, the State Board of Education dissolved the BVSU and moved Arlington and Sandgate to the SVSU. It should be noted that while there were some operational efficiencies gained with a larger governance structure, there were no cost savings and no improvement in educational opportunities for Arlington schools with this change. Within Bennington County, we have the SVSU with just over three thousand students and the Bennington Rutland Supervisory Union, the BRSU, with about two twenty two hundred students. Arlington is the only pre k through twelve public school district in the county, and Arlington Memorial High School is one of two public high schools in Bennington County. Bennington County has thirty seven thousand residents. AMHS has an enrollment of two hundred students, grades six through twelve. Mount Anthony Middle School, High School has an enrollment of fifteen hundred students, grades six through twelve. I don't know how much you know about the operational structures within our region. Arlington is pre k through twelve. Sandgate is a nonoperating pre k through twelve. Southwest Vermont Union Elementary District is pre k through five. Mount Anthony Middle High School, six through twelve. North Bennington is nonoperating, pre k through five, and a member of the MAU Middle School High School District. And then within the BRSU, the Taconic and Green operates pre k through eight and is in nonoperating nine through twelve. We also have the Southwest Tech Center, which is on the campus with Mount Anthony High School. To give you some sense, through Act one twenty nine allowing for public high school choice, Arlington usually has eleven to fourteen students from MAU in grades nine through twelve. No tuition follows these students, which impacts our ability to provide transportation and therefore limits access for families who can't provide their own transportation. I know this is not the topic we're discussing, but just as an aside, I had mentioned to Seth previously. Although act one twenty nine only addresses grades nine through twelve, for those students who are considering Arlington as a smaller high school option, it would be beneficial if they could make the transition in middle school during this critical developmental stage. For Arlington families who are looking for a larger high school, they can attend MAU in Bennington, and there have been a few students in the past couple of years who make that choice. There are also some Arlington families who elect to send their students to BBA or Long Trail in Manchester. In these situations, the families are paying out of pocket twenty plus thousand dollars as a nonresident tuition. Or in some instances, I believe BBA has made arrangements to offer scholarships to certain students. Arlington receives tuitioning students. Pre k, we have five students from Sandgate and Sunderland. Elementary we have sixteen from Sandgate, one from North Bennington. Middle school, high school we have seventeen from Sandgate, three from Sunderland, one Manchester, one Rupert, two Dorset. Arlington may be a smaller district, but we're an important part of our educational system in our region. And I have some just information to help put that in some context. We are three fifty students enrolled. Our long term weighted ADM is six thirty five. Our total budget for FY twenty six is nine point eight million, which gives us a thirteen thousand four seventeen ed spending per long term weighted ADM. With that, we are able to offer, we have two full time art teachers and full time music teachers. We offer art and music across all pre k through twelve grades. We offer Chinese and French as a foreign language at the high school. We have STEM and woodshop classes offered at the high school. We have seven AP classes. We have twenty three students who attend Southwest Tech. We have five students participating in internship programs, and seventy five percent of our students participate in co curricular activities. For our graduating class last year of thirty nine students, we had a hundred percent graduation rate. Fifty three percent of those students went on to college, nine percent went into career education, three percent into the military, twenty seven percent were employed, eight percent undecided or took a gap year. And we were fortunate we, in a small town, we had four international students, which was a wonderful experience for our small community. I won't read through the list necessarily, but to give you a sense of how well prepared our students are, Of those fifty three who went on to college, the schools that they were accepted into, I will read for anyone who's listening. American University, Clarkson University, Duke, Franklin Pierce, Hudson Valley, Lemoyne College, MCLA, MIT, Notre Dame, Rhode Island School of Design, Russell Sage, UVM, Vermont State University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Williams College. So when it comes to finding the right fit, a bigger school isn't necessarily a better school. Each of the schools in our region brings something unique to the table. And with the statewide conversations about structural changes, we have initiated conversations across the different districts and supervisory unions and intend intend to include the independent schools and the tech center to see how we can collaborate to ensure that we're providing the best educational opportunities for students in our region. And I believe my reason for being here is to say the changes that are proposed would negatively impact the Arlington School District, which would have a detrimental impact on the quality of public education opportunities in Arlington and in our region. Hopefully, as you craft your your plan going forward, you understand that one size does not fit all and that there is a place for strong small schools being a critical part of our public education system. And that's it. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thanks. Nicole, can you comment, on you you said that you've got students coming up from Bennington or Powell, wherever they're coming from, who would otherwise be in Manhattan. Can you give the committee a feel for why those students are making that choice to make the tracker rather [Nicole Whalen]: than You know, students no one size school is right for all students. These are students who have made the decision whether it's, small class size, overall small school size, program offerings that we have. For whatever reason, the family made the decision to elect to have their student be part of a smaller school. Mount Anthony's big. And I think for for some families and I can only speak anecdotally for the students who have made the decision to come. In the graduating class last year, we had two who were coming specifically, I believe, for the AP program offering. And we have kids who fall through the cracks at MAU. And we're not necessarily on the path to graduating and have found success in a smaller environment where they can receive the attention that they need. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Any other questions? [Speaker 0 ]: K. Nicole, thank you. [Chelsea Myers]: Yep. Thank you. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: That looks, like, helpful. Thank you. [Gloria Gomez]: Yep. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: You're welcome to stay on, by the way, Anne, listen, should you not trying to do that. I know you're at work, but so [Speaker 0 ]: doctor doctor Cheryl Charles. [Jeff Bennett]: Well, thank you. Thank you, senators. Thank you for the opportunity to join you today. I am Cheryl Charles, and senator just said, I'm in my tenth year as a a school board member. I represent Westminster. I chair the school board in Westminster. I also chair the board of the Linda Northeast Supervisory Union. And very recently, with the formation of the rural school community alliance, which you've heard about and which you've had testimony from in the last couple of weeks, when it was first formed, I was asked to serve as the chair of the steering committee for this newly formed alliance, which I'm I'm happy to do. Westminster was one of the first towns to join through our school board, now our select board. And in the beginning, and this was in January, there were a handful of towns, I think you know. And we're now they're still coming up every day and asking to join us. So we're now more than ninety. And what that means is that either a town school board or a select board put a word item on their agenda to decide whether or not to join this alliance. And I think what that represents right now is the concern of many of the rural townspeople throughout the state about what has been proposed in terms of education transformation. Initially, with the governor's proposal and then more recently with four fifty four. The rural school community alliance today provided you with two documents. One is very specific to school classroom sizes and school sizes, simply a chart that looks at some of the considerations around that and our recommendations to you about that specific to the law. The second document is a more detailed listing of concerns around four fifty four. And so there are a variety of topics that are addressed in in that document in particular. What I'll start with is really class sizes and school sizes. And it's just to reinforce that in a requirement for class sizes is not an effective way to approach this issue. What we have currently we have currently and consistent with the law are guidelines, and they give us a range through which to serve children through class sizes, and that remains an appropriate way [Gloria Gomez]: to go. [Jeff Bennett]: And we as board members look at that, and we look at our class sizes at every level, every we do it routinely, but we certainly do it during budget season to see what's the distribution of the number of kids to teachers if you're out of the school. And we we just wanna say that please don't put in those mandates. Allow it still to be a a range that's appropriate, that's age appropriate, that's instructionally appropriate. In retrospect to the size of schools, we think that the numbers proposed in the legislation, again, are not reflective of what's appropriate in Vermont, in terms of population distribution or geography. And and in and in both cases, research is not there to support the recommendations in the law. You know, there are there are there is clear evidence in the research to support small class sizes, and those are tied to educational outcomes. But there is not evidence, as you know, and you've heard this a variety of times already, I think. Consolidation doesn't necessarily save money. We know that. We've seen that historically in Vermont. And, those class size numbers that were provided by some of the external consultants are not as relevant to Vermont. So I would really caution you about putting too much weight around those, certainly not four hundred fifty for a given school or or four thousand for a larger a larger district. I'm happy to say more about those things. I have heard a number of things today. I'd love to be able to comment on also, but I I my I came to focus on cautions around creating mandates having to do with either class size or school size. [Chelsea Myers]: If I can make a couple [Jeff Bennett]: of other comments, I'd love to. [Speaker 0 ]: Of course. [Jeff Bennett]: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One is listening to Jay Nichols today about supervisory unions versus school districts, and I would love to have this committee really dive into the strengths and the merits, the pros and cons of each. One comment that that that Jane made today, I have an alternative example of something that is working. He talked about in a supervisory union if teachers move from one school district to another. I have that situation in Wyndham Northeast where I shared that board. We've got Athens and Grafton and Rockingham and Westminster. We made a change in the collective bargaining agreement a year ago with our teachers to allow any teacher who moves from one town school district to another to not lose their seniority. And that was an example we gave today. So we have amended that through a legal agreement to protect teachers. It just struck us as not being fair to penalize a teacher who works for ten years here and then is needed in another school, or let's say that school size population changed. So we wanted to make sure that a teacher throughout the supervisory unit was not penalized by having to make a move like that. And there are other kinds of things like that. You know, we we know the difference between a locally elected school board for a a rural town that has that then participatory democracy, that meaningful relevant engagement by the citizens versus when it's so farther so far removed. And and we've seen that. You know, our friends and neighbors to the south with Wyndham Southeast when that forced Berger put together all of those school districts, dissolve the local school boards. One of the risks there is is it is it is an erosion of participation at the local level. We in Westminster, you know, were an independent town school district, then we were merged with Athens and Grafton, and then we successfully became once again a town school district. And I've seen the difference. You know, again, in my tenth year, I've seen the difference in the engagement at town meetings. The senator may have also seen that since he comes to those those meetings. So so I would really want you to look and recognize that there really are benefits to our supervisor union, especially in the rural areas. And and the point that superintendent Kurnari made a few minutes ago, you can have larger school districts within than ever larger supervisory union. But but we we just want on behalf of the alliance, we just wanna make sure that the value of supervisory unions in some areas continues to be recognized and not to dissolve all of those as some have some have suggested. That might also be helpful if I made a reference to some of the budget issues and cost considerations. We all know that a year ago, March, that town meeting, I thought that there was this concern throughout the state about a twenty percent increase in in school budgets and such. And I wanted to refer to the fact that Westminster school budget at that time went up by four point two percent And that we have throughout the supervisory union, Linden, Northeast, there were no towns in double digit tax increases. None. And this most current year, we actually brought our budget down a little bit. Even with the rising cost of health care insurance, even with new teacher agreements having been settled, even with rising cost in special education. So this is just to say that you really do have high quality, low cost rural schools and rural school districts doing a good job for kids and for taxpayers. And so with all of that, we really we wanna be we at Rural School Community Alliance wanna be of help to you. We're happy to take silence and to have you tell us, could you give us your your your alliance's opinion on something? We have a number of us, I mean, that have expertise that we can draw on a lot of different areas. And so we're happy to help you with evidence, to help you with specific recommendations. But for today, it was just please don't mandate either school sizes or classroom sizes. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: And any any position or anything to say about the notion of switching to a foundation formula? [Jeff Bennett]: We actually do think that that is worth trying. We actually support your effort to do so. We recommend adding the idea of professional judgment panel, that external review group that would help. Before we change the rates. Exactly. Yeah. And and to look at actually the recommendations that come up. I think what we have looked at, others in the alliance are more prepared than I to speak to this, but I do know that our position is to support explanation of it and to use the professional judgment panel idea that was built into it. And to start with current budget levels, where you are with current rates back and if they're not to try a new system at this time. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Thanks. [Jeff Bennett]: Alright. Thank [Chair Seth Bongartz]: you. Thanks so much. [Nicole Whalen]: You bet. [Speaker 0 ]: So I think [Chair Seth Bongartz]: that if you're listening, [Speaker 0 ]: Yes. Yeah. That's good point. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Good question. You do have Beth coming. I think if we go in, if she is. Okay. Not otherwise.

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