Education Secretary Zoie Saunders at the Statehouse in Montpelier on April 23, 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Vermont’s special educators have a unique problem. Students with individualized education programs, or IEPs, are spending more time in regular classroom settings than the n ational average — a positive for the state’s public education system. But concurrently, Vermont sends those students to out-of-district schools at a rate more than double the national average, a practice that’s costly and generally not ideal for students. “What do you think is driving that gap?” asked Rep. Bridget Marie Burkhardt, D-South Burlington. Erin Davis, the Agency of Education’s chief academic officer, said that was “an area of further inquiry, and it’s a reason we’ve identified this finding as a critical one in our analysis here.” During a joint meeting of the House Education and House Ways and Means committees on Thursday, officials with the Agency of Education presented the findings of a report published in September on the state’s special education delivery system. The report found that while overall student enrollment in Vermont’s schools has decreased, the number of students on IEPs has increased at a rate outpacing the national average since the 2019-20 school year. Students with autism, and students who are labeled as having emotional disturbances, are driving much of that increase, the report found. And more of these students are now qualifying for the state’s extraordinary cost reimbursement, a program that provides financial assistance to districts and supervisory unions serving students with disabilities that are more expensive to address. Since fiscal year 2018, Vermont’s total special education costs have increased by more than $76 million, to $473 million in fiscal year 2024, according to Agency of Education data. That’s more than $5,000 per student — not just special education students, but all students whose education is funded by taxpayers.  The state’s extraordinary cost expenditures for the highest-need students, meanwhile, have increased by more than 60% since 2018, from $53 million to more than $86 million in fiscal year 2024, according to the data. Thursday’s testimony comes as Vermont lawmakers are working to implement Act 73, Vermont’s education reform law, that — among other things — required a review of the state’s special education system. Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders has overseen much of the reform plans. The agency is developing a strategic plan that will include advice from national experts on how to build state-level capacity to support schools and give them the tools and guidance to support their students. The agency has also been in conversation with districts that have been developing therapeutic programming in-house “to evaluate the advantages of providing those services, and also what it takes to be able to actually pull those together.” Saunders on Thursday said that “we definitely see that scale impacts a district’s ability to do that,” she said. Larger districts are able to provide more comprehensive continuums of support for their students, she said. “It’s an area that we’re focused on,” she said. — Corey McDonald In the know Lawmakers in the House Corrections and Institutions Committee are considering a bill, H.294, that would require the Vermont Department of Corrections to pay incarcerated people at least the federal minimum wage for their work in prison.  Incarcerated people who work while in prison currently make between 25 cents an hour to $1.25 an hour, Linda Ladd, the financial director for the Department of Corrections, said Thursday. Their jobs might include things like cleaning hallways or cells, doing laundry and shoveling snow.  If those people made the federal minimum wage, they would make $7.25 an hour. If they made a livable wage, maybe they’d have money for a month’s rent when they’re released from prison, said Rep. Troy Headrick, I-Burlington, who is sponsoring the bill. The bill does not currently estimate what the raises would cost the department, or provide the department with funds to cover the costs.  Headrick is concerned that prison labor is saving the state a significant amount of money. “I think we’re exploiting labor in a really really significant way,” he said.  — Charlotte Oliver Rep. Gina Galfetti, R-Barre Town, attempted Thursday to force a floor vote on a bill that would add land enrolled in the state’s “current use” program to the definition of conserved land in 2023’s Act 59. That’s the law that lays out a goal of permanently conserving 30% of Vermont’s land by 2030 and 50% of its land by 2050. The current use program provides landowners with a lower property tax rate for undeveloped land. Galfetti moved to strip the bill in question, H.70, out of the hands of the House Environment Committee, where it has sat since last January. The rarely-used procedural move would have then put the bill, which is almost entirely sponsored by Republicans, up for a vote before the entire chamber in the coming days. “We have a bottleneck in this building, and it’s time to break it down,” she said.  Galfetti’s motion failed on a 48-86 vote. Notably, House Minority Leader Pattie McCoy, R-Poultney, joined the majority voting against the move. Several Democrats said in floor remarks that the legislation needed more scrutiny in committee before it could possibly be considered on the floor. — Shaun Robinson On the move The House voted to pass a bill, H.626, that extends the statute of limitations for acts of voyeurism or for sharing nude photos without consent. Next it will be sent to the Senate.  Under the bill, someone could press civil charges, regardless of any statute of limitations, for sharing nude photos without someone’s consent, or for watching someone naked or while they’re having sex in private. The bill also makes it illegal to threaten someone to produce nude photos or videos.  After two approved amendments from Rep. Anne Donahue, I-Northfield, someone couldn’t press civil charges for a crime covered under the bill if it was committed before the bill’s passage. One amendment changed how an “intimate area” is defined under the bill, removing the possibility that it could include genitalia covered by underwear.  — Charlotte Oliver One for the road Amid a salt shortage that’s been hindering de-icing operations in some parts of the state, the Vermont Agency of Transportation is planning to … stop taking new deliveries of salt? “We dare to take a gamble,” Ernie Patnoe, head of the agency’s maintenance division, told the House Transportation Committee on Thursday. Compared to some cities and towns — which often source their own salt for local roads — Patnoe said, VTrans likely has enough salt to keep state-maintained roads safe for the time being. So the agency is “trying to be a good partner,” he said, by telling its suppliers to pause deliveries to agency salt sheds for a week. “It’s us being willing to take the back seat for a few days,” he said. The agency hopes salt suppliers will instead prioritize delivering the good, white stuff to other entities that might need it a little more than the state does. — Shaun Robinson Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont’s school enrollment is declining. Students needing special education are on the rise. . ...read more read less