On Wednesday the House Government Operations Committee heard significant testimony on their draft bill that would, among other things, ban fusion candidates. John Rodgers (Former State Senator) testified first.

Rodgers stated that he believes in “One Person, One Vote, One Candidate, One Party” and mentioned he and Senator Alice White had meant to address these issues in the past. He believes this is a serious issue for primaries and he sees low turnout (27% in the 2022 primary) as being exacerbated by “hybrid candidates.”

Brad James shared with the House Ways & Means Committee on Tuesday that 93% of budgets are in and education spending is now projected at 7.8%. The December letter originally projected 8.5%. Burlington is still not in yet, and this has the potential to move the needle. Milton also out, their building manager has been out sick.

On Thursday the Senate Natural Resources Committee brought up the topic of possible amendments to S.5. It was a short discussion and no major changes where proposed, however they did discuss some minor concerns from Xusana Davis’ testimony the previous week.

On Wednesday, the House Education Committee took up the H.258, which would eliminate Independent school choice in Vermont. Andrew Jones (Assistant Superintendent, MMU) shared that he was also an education policy researcher at UVM and considers himself an expert on “school privatization.” As someone who strongly believes in the institution of public education, he voiced his support for the bill because he is “gravely concerned” about the 2022 Carson V. Makin ruling. He believes that allowing school vouchers to go religious schools undermines the public education system. He also argued that vouchers “effectively subsidize the wealthy” because research from other states with vouchering programs indicated that they were most often utilized by families who would have sent their kids to private schools regardless.

Representative Oliver presented his bill, H.278, to the House Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill proposes to require the Vermont State Colleges, the University of Vermont, and the State Agricultural College to give preference in admissions to eligible students who are residents of the state and who have completed a career technical education program in a subject matter or industry the postsecondary school offers.

Jay Nichols (Executive Director, Vermont Principals Association) joined the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. Chairman Campion said he had invited them to respond to the question: “Should we consider encouraging or requiring NEASC evaluation for public schools?”

The Vermont Principals Association is opposed to doing this, mostly because of cost and they feel like the benefit to them isn’t as great as independent schools. Read more…

Representative Dolan introduced her short form bill, H.275, to the House Education Committee on Wednesday. Her intention with the bill was to establish education grant pilot projects focused on middle schools for 8^th and 9^th graders to get them enthusiastic about going to a trade school and to understand the available opportunities. She believes this will be particularly valuable for rural union school districts.  

Representative Sibilia presented H.209 to the House Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill proposes to give elementary school students the choice to attend other elementary schools within the same Supervisory Union. The language models the public high school choice mechanism, which requires that both the sending and receiving schools would need to agree to the transfer.

Eric Henry, the CFO of the Vermont Pension Investment Commission (VPIC) joined the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. He highlighted that it's important for them to be separate from the Treasurer's office to provide more transparency.

The Senate Natural Resources Committee passed the Clean Heat Standard (S.5) on Friday, paving the way for $1.2B in subsidies to clean energy groups. Affordability and equity advocates cautioned that this bill was a blunt instrument and unintended harm would be done to Vermont's most vulnerable, but to no avail. Adequate safeguards were not included in the bill passed by the Committee.