On Tuesday, Chairman Campion brought up H.483 for the Senate Education Committee to see where members are at with the bill. He noted that the provisions related to discrimination were addressed in the 2200 rule series and “seemed to be working effectively.” He added that people had been asking about the moratorium on new schools receiving approval status. He thought it might make sense to move forward on that piece and then “assess” next year “how many [schools] are in the queue.”

On Friday, the Senate Education Committee welcomed Mike Smith. Chairman Campion thanked him for coming in person to talk to the Committee. Smith was born in Rutland County, went to high school in Woodstock, and then pursued military service right after high school. When he came out of the service he went to UVM for a graduate degree. Most of his career was spent as CEO of several companies and held a number of positions within state government.

On Tuesday, C.J. Spirito, Head of School at Rock Point School in Burlington joined the Senate Education Committee to talk about H.483.

Rock Point is a small independent school with students ranging from “high-flying, college-bound students to kids in the hospital because they can't function or are not getting to school.” They are not competing with public schools or larger schools for students, he noted.

He was there to raise concerns about some of the major provisions in the bill and how they would impact his specialty school. He noted that if they “took any kid without an admissions process,” they would not be able to “protect the space for the kids that are here now” and continue to successfully serve them. The bill would put the school in a difficult place because they would have to deny publicly-tuitioned students that they could help, in order to protect the current students.

On Friday, Oliver Olsen (Former Chair, State Board of Education) joined the Senate Education Committee to speak on H.483 as a parent, former legislator, and community member from Southern Vermont. During his tenure, he oversaw the “significant effort” of updating the rules governing the approval of independent schools.

On Thursday, the Senate Education Committee heard from Heather Bouchey (Interim Secretary, Agency of Education) and Chris Kane (Interim State Director of Special Education, Agency of Education) on H.483. Bouchey stressed the nature of public process and 2200 rulemaking stakeholder engagement. She believed this needed to be “implemented and experienced” as independent schools engage with that newly developed process.

Chairman Campion welcomed Jay Badams (Superintendent, Norwich/Hanover Interstate School District ) to the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday, saying they wanted to know about the “whether there is ever any admissions process in our public schools.” He described H.483 as asking for “a kind of open enrollment where public dollars follow kids to whatever school they want.” He added that he thinks that is happening now in a lot of schools.

The Senate Education Committee were joined on Tuesday by representatives from the Vermont State Colleges to discuss their Transformation Plan. Chairman Campion invited Chancellor Zdatny to outline for the Committee what the colleges will look like going forward, noting that "there is a lot of competition out there." Specifically, he pointed to Southern New Hampshire University as a competitor.

Legislative Counsel reviewed H.494 for the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday. The bill had already passed the house and the much of the discussion was focused on the forgivable loan incentive programs (subsection 6)

Wednesday

On Wednesday, Chairman Campion asked Legislative Counsel to share, with the Senate Education Committee, background on Act 49 and Act 173 and how they relate to independent schools. Act 49 was passed in 2017 and created a task force on independent schools. The task force was split and could not find a consensus; instead of offering a comprehensive report, each member issued their own recommendations around enrollment policy, if schools should be required to deliver special education and which categories should be required, and special education required reporting. The legislation also paused rulemaking until the legislature could act on these issues.

Chairman Campion asked Legislative Counsel to walk the Senate Education Committee through H.483 on Thursday at a high level. During the walk-through, Senator Hashim questioned why therapeutic schools were excluded from the bill. Legislative counsel noted that those schools were highly specialized and may not be able to meet the requirements in the bill. The intent of this bill is to address general education independent schools who receive public tuition.