In chapter one beginning at verse 18, Matthew writes, now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. Saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary, your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a son.  Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet.  Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn son. He called his name Jesus. Now as we look at this, I'm gonna give to you some things that are very basic. I'm gonna lay a foundation in and hopefully gonna move into some application of this particular portion of scripture that we're looking at. And I'll begin by simply saying that very few scholars believe that Jesus was born in the month of December. And the reason that few scholars believe that is because in Luke chapter two, verse eight, Luke tells us that the shepherds were living out in the fields, keeping watch. And so normally that kind of thing would be done during warmer months. December 25th was not officially recognized as the birth of Christ until the reign of Constantine, which was in the fourth century. And when you look into history, you discover that the date of birth coincided with the Roman festival of Saturnalia as well as a festival called Sol Invictus, which celebrated the return of the sun after days of increasing darkness. So believers appreciated that during this time gifts would be given to the poor. And as for celebrating the victory of the sun, believers saw that really as a symbol of their faith. Because when you look in the Old Testament in Malachi, for example, chapter four, verse two, it reads, for you who revere my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. When you read Luke chapter one, verses 78 and 79, those verses speak of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace. And so gifts were given. They saw this particular event, the Sol Invictus, which was representing the sun conquering the darkness and all. They saw that as symbolic. And thus they had no problem because those festivals had the giving of gifts and a victory. They just took those symbols and said we can use those symbols because what we have is we have the giving of gifts, God giving his son to us as well as the victory that we have because Jesus overcomes darkness. So for us here in the 21st century, the fact that Jesus was born is more important than the date of his birth. Somebody once said while December 25th is only traditional, at least it is traditional. And so we have traditions here in the United States that we've been celebrating for some time. And for us here in the United States, Christmas is regarded as a holiday that is joyful. And for many, and I've been hearing this on the news, there have been people interviewed and all, what is Christmas to you and all? For many, Christmas is about family, it's about friends, it's about gifts, it's about food, it's about Christmas parties, it's about food. It symbolizes a lot. You know, as I stand up here, I have very warm memories when I allow myself to and I travel back in my mind fond memories of Christmas and the season of Christmas. Like so many of you, for me I went with my father, I can remember going with my dad to buy a Christmas tree and I still remember going with him and walking through that lot and all. We always went to the same place and the smell of the pine trees and everything, that to me, still brings up some fond memories. I remember the things like the decoration of the tree and my mom would make a special chocolate for us on Christmas Eve. I do remember, of course, opening the presents, going to church. Those all have warm memories for me. And I appreciate that we live in a nation that continues to celebrate those values and continues to remember that this is a holiday. But I want to consider its scriptural meaning this evening as for celebrating Christmas Eve. And I want to spend time with you developing the heart of the Christmas message. We need to remember that a manger led to a cross and the cross led to a tomb. And so as we celebrate Christmas Eve, we really do so with an eye on the purpose of the birth of Jesus Christ. And obviously the message of His birth is found here in Scripture. And there is something that made His birth necessary which made Christmas, if you will, necessary and that is our need to be rescued. The Bible says to us in the book of Genesis in chapter three that Adam sinned in the garden and God made a promise there in that garden to rescue sinful man. In Genesis three, verse 15, the Lord God speaking to Satan said this. He said, I will put enmity between you and the woman between your seed and her seed.  He shall bruise your head. This is a reference to the seed of the woman and the seed of the woman all the way back in Genesis three 15 is a reference to the Messiah. This is really a prophecy of the virgin birth. You see Messiah will come by the woman and her alone without the involvement of man. Someone once said, this was said of Eve. It was in consequence of this purpose of God that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin. This and this alone is what is implied in the promise of the seed of the woman bruising the head of the serpent. This is what Matthew was writing about. And this is what you see in his account here in chapter one of his gospel. You see, Matthew was led by the spirit of God to record the events of the birth of Christ factually. And he does that by giving to us certain details. Here in this passage from the beginning, he makes it clear that his birth was not an ordinary birth. He points out that Jesus' conception was miraculous, that Mary, his mother was a virgin. Verse 18 says, before they came together. He makes clear that her child is conceived by the intervention of the Holy Spirit. She was found or discovered to be with child of the Holy Spirit according to verse 18. It gives to us insight into the child's name. His name is Emmanuel, which literally means with us God. And his name is Jesus. The word Jesus, so the name Jesus is Jehovah's salvation. And he said, his name is Jehovah's salvation because he will save his people from their sins. And these things alone make the Christian faith unique among other religious faiths. Because as Christians, we celebrate the birth of the Son of God. We celebrate a savior who gave up what he had that we might receive what we need. Christmas is a story of salvation in that Jesus is born savior, especially of those who believe. From the beginning, the child was presented as savior in the Luke, in the Lukean account in Luke chapter two, verses 10 and 11. It said, the angel said to the shepherds, do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people, for there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. When he speaks concerning these good tidings, this good tidings is another way of speaking of the gospel because it's the same root word for where we get the word gospel.  He's saying for those who have trusted in Jesus, his birth will produce great joy. Great joy will always be the fruit of receiving the gift of salvation. You see, the fact is Christmas is a commemoration of God giving to us his son, Jesus Christ. It's a celebration of God drawing near to man in order to offer the gift of salvation. It's remembering that God himself took human flesh and lived amongst men. You see, in the scripture, the Bible teaches us that salvation is never presented as automatic. It's never given because we sincerely try. The Bible clearly states that salvation requires repentance, a confession of sins and a receiving of the gift that is offered. It's offered to all, but it's received by few. In 1st Timothy 4.10, Paul said it like this. He said, to this end, we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God, who is the savior of all men, especially those who believe. He is the potential savior of all mankind, the actual savior of those who receive Christ as Lord and savior. See, Matthew was led by the Spirit of God to record the events of his birth and he gives us certain details. Now, we note here in verse 18 that Mary was betrothed to Joseph and notice again before they came together. So a young virgin by the name of Mary is engaged to a carpenter by the name of Joseph. Mary at this time was more than likely somewhere around 14 years of age. Think about that for a moment. Those of you who are raising teenagers. I'll let you think for that. She was 14. There are those commentators who state because during the time of Christ, a woman could be, or a girl could be married as young as 12. But most commentators would say she was at least 14 years of age. But that's a 14 year old young woman who is being presented an opportunity to do something that is beyond understanding.  Decisions for their future and insecurities for their present often clouded their judgment. We heard the words, I'm gonna run away from home many times and I'd say to Marie, you can't, you gotta help me. You gotta stay here. But their judgment was clouded very often. They were making decisions sometimes they ought not to have made. But Mary was given an opportunity and she said, let it be done unto me. According to your word, I will, she was saying, receive this as an opportunity that I will, she was saying, give birth to God's son. Now, she was betrothed to a young man, his name, Joseph. When you look at the Hebrew marriage customs of the day, the Hebrew marriage customs involved two stages. You had what is called the betrothal and then later usually at least a year or so after the marriage ceremony. So it was broken into two stages, betrothal and then the marriage. And Hebrew marriages were normally arranged. A marriage contract would be made, it would be sealed by a dowry paid by the groom's father. The price was based on the value of the bride. The engagement was an indefinite period of time, normally around a year. It served as a probationary period to test the faithfulness of the bride. During this time, the groom and the bride had very little social contact. Now, what's important about this, so we can get a picture of what's taking place, is they were legally married, yet they didn't dwell together until the wedding ceremony. And that's what it says in verse 18. It says, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. This is emphasizing the fact that Joseph and Mary had no intimate relationship. Mary's virginity was an important evidence of her godliness and purity of her life. And that's why her pregnancy is carefully presented as a miracle. Now, as this is taking place, it says, before they came together, she was found with child, discovered with child of the Holy Spirit. So how did Joseph respond, verse 19? Joseph, her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. He was shattered. This woman whom he undoubtedly loved has been unfaithful. And under Jewish law, her unfaithfulness was penalized severely. When you read the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 22, verses 23 and 24, it reads, if a man happens to meet in a town of Virgin, pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town, stone them to death. The girl, because she was in town and did not scream for help, the man, because he violated another man's wife, you must purge the evil from among you. You see, even in the betrothal period, they were regarded as married though they hadn't consummated it. And so Mary became pregnant. There's only one way to become pregnant. And Joseph believes that this woman whom he was in love with has become pregnant by another man. He was certain that she'd been with another man. Luke tells us that Mary had left the city of Nazareth for three months to visit her cousin Elizabeth. So in that period of time that she's gone, undoubtedly she'd been unfaithful, at least that's what he was thinking. Righteousness very often is revealed in mercy. And Joseph is revealing the fact that he is a just or a righteous man and he made a decision. And what he did is he decided to put her away. The term put her away is another word for divorce. He decided to divorce her, but he wanted to do so privately and he was doing it discreetly so he didn't bring shame on her. You see, Joseph was a righteous man but he wasn't a self-righteous man. He was a compassionate man and compassion evidences true godliness. In Psalm 85.10 it says mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed. So the kind of reaction that he has shows mercy. And this kind of compassionate response has saved many relationships because it provides for reconciliation.  It says in Psalm 40 verse one, I waited patiently for the Lord. He inclined to me and he heard my cry and Joseph took his hurt to the Lord. It says in verse 20, while he thought about these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you marry your wife for that which is conceived in hers of the Holy Spirit. She will bring forth a son.  This emphasizes a supernatural conception of Christ. And it also gives to us insight into where our comfort in hard times comes from. Our comfort in hard times originates in heaven. It takes the intervention of the Lord to bring comfort into the broken heart of this young man by the name of Joseph. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter one verses three and four, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Notice with me the angel speaks to him and says, Joseph, son of David, that was intended to remind him that is of David's lineage. And that would help him to remember a promise that was made to his forefather, David. All the way back in 2 Samuel chapter seven, where it said in verses 12 and 13, when your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seat after you who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. In verse 16 of the same chapter, he said, your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever. And so son of David is a title for the Messiah who will rule and reign forever. Now I want you to notice something here also. Notice what he says when he says, do not be afraid. In the Greek language, that's in a tense that literally means stop being afraid. Now as I was reading this and preparing this message for us tonight, I began to ask myself a question. I began to ask myself, what would he have been afraid of? What is it that he's afraid of? Do not be afraid to take to you, marry your wife. For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. What would you be afraid of, Joseph? Well, one, Joseph, don't be afraid of taking a woman as wife, whom you think loved another man. Don't be afraid to take a woman that you think has been unfaithful to you. Don't be afraid of taking her. Second, perhaps he was afraid that she was a woman who was not honorable. Because she had quite obviously at least it would seem so. She had obviously been untrue, unfaithful, and he's a faithful man. It could be that he was afraid to take a woman to himself who was not compatible with him because he is faithful and she's not. So the angel would be saying, no, that's not the case, don't fear that. And the third thing that he could be afraid of is that marrying her in the way that she is pregnant is gonna result in people speaking about them. So don't be afraid to marry her, even though it could reflect poorly on your family. Don't be afraid to marry her, even though people will talk of this. But you need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the things that they're saying, those things are wrong. You know, when you read your Bibles, you read the Gospel of John, and it's interesting how that in a conversation with the Lord on one occasion, his enemies said to him, we have not been born out of fornication, we have a father. And that would have been spoken over 30 years, 33 years later. Do you know that Mary, this young virgin who had had this conception from the Spirit of God himself, suffered with a reputation for all those years as a woman who had had intercourse with another man and married Joseph?  Because up to the point of Jesus' dying on that cross and being buried, as far as anybody could tell, this was a woman who had been unfaithful to the man she had been betrothed to, had become pregnant, and Joseph had raised somebody else's son. But when Jesus was put in that tomb, and on the third day he arose from the dead, Paul in the book of Romans chapter one verse four tells us that he was demonstrated to be the Son of God by the resurrection.  And though that is sadly more common today than in the past, and some don't understand it, at that time that was something that had brought stigma on her for her entire 33 years since giving birth to Jesus Christ.  Don't be afraid thinking that this is a woman who loved another man because she's not. Don't be afraid to think that you are more honorable than she because you're not. And don't be afraid of the gossip and the things that people will say because they're wrong. Don't be afraid of these things because the child has been conceived through the agency of the Holy Spirit. When Gabriel told Mary that Mary was to become pregnant, Mary asked the question, it's found in Luke 134 and 35. She said, how will this be since I'm a virgin? The angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God. Verse 21 says she will bring forth a son. You shall call his name Jesus. Jehovah is salvation. And he will save his people, notice from their sins. Again, that fulfills a prophecy in Genesis 315. Now all of this, verse 22 was done that it might be fulfilled, was spoken by the Lord. When you read your Bible, over 300 specific prophecies are fulfilled in the life and ministry of this one child. And he quotes Isaiah 714. He says, God will be with us. God will take upon himself human flesh. God will dwell with us. Even as John said in John chapter one, verse one, in the beginning was a word, the word was with God and the word was God. And he went on in verse 14 and said, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So he's speaking concerning the incarnation that God will be with us. And that's why we celebrate Christmas. Now obviously the question that could be asked is why would God do that? Why would God take upon himself human flesh? What makes that so significant? Well, somebody said humanity is lost, fallen. We're separated from God because of our sin. Our only hope of forgiveness was for someone completely innocent of any wrongdoing to take all the punishment for our crimes. Such a perfect life and a perfect love were impossible for any human to achieve. So God himself did it for us. He sent his son from eternity into mortality, from glory into flesh, from a throne to a manger. Ultimate hope was born in ultimate humility. It's this immense love that God has for us that is revealed to us in such an incredible way. God's son, given up the splendor of heaven that he might reveal to us his great love for us and his hatred for sin. His love for us in that he redeemed us, his hatred for sin because he couldn't have a relationship with man as long as man was walking in sin and had a sin that needed to be dealt with. You can't have a relationship with God when you're in sin. My sin makes a separation between God and myself. And something has to be done to reconcile these two. To reconcile me, the sinner, with God who was holy and what God did for us as he sent his son, Christ, to take upon himself human flesh and to pay the penalty that I couldn't pay for myself in order that he might redeem me. Paul said, you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he is rich yet, for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich. God came into the world that he created to rescue those who had rejected him. Christmas is a time of the year to remember the love of God. I thank God again for the family times that many will enjoy for the meals that are so often so delicious and all of that, I love it. But without Christ it would just be meaningless. With Christ it has purpose. With Jesus it gives to me an understanding of the depth of love that God has for me, for us. That God loves us. He hates our sin, but he loves the sinner. In 1 John 4, 9 and 10 it says, God showed how much he loved us by sending his only son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. See, God has his presence with us. God shows his love to us and God reveals his forgiveness of sin. You see, when Jesus is absent from Christmas, Christmas is absent of meaning. That's why a lot of people think that Christmas is just an excuse to get a gift or have a party to do something. But that's not the meaning of Christmas. The meaning of Christmas is God is dwelling amongst men, saving sinners.  And the word sin, there's various ways that it's defined, but the most simple and basic way speaks of just coming short or falling short of the mark, coming short of perfection. All have sin and fall short of the glory of God. It's simply another way of saying every human being fails to be perfect. And yet the Bible teaches us that God does not have pleasure in sin. He cannot look at it with any pleasure. And that sin separates man from God. And so God's dilemma, if you will, the situation is that man is falling in sin, cannot have a relationship with a righteous God. And so what God has done is God has said, I want a relationship with man. I created you because I desire that fellowship with you. And because of your sin making separation between us, what I've done is I've taken it upon myself as an offering so that you can receive from me that which you don't have, which is my righteousness and I can take from you that which is keeping you from me, which is your sin. And that's Christmas. That God sent his son in order that we might have the gift of life through him. Paul said, here's a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners and they knew went on to say of whom I am chief. Isaiah 59, 1 and 2 says the hand of the Lord is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God.  And because man is sinful, man is separated and man deserves judgment. But God demonstrated his love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.  Remember that Jesus said once in Luke 19 verse 10, the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. You see, Christmas is a time of giving and it's a time of receiving gifts but God gave to us a gift of life and that gift of life comes through trusting in his Son. He saves not because we work hard or try hard, he saves because we believe and trust in him. It's not by our works of righteousness, it's through his mercy that he saves us. It's by his grace through faith that we're saved. And when that happens, when I hear that message and I say, God, Jesus came to save sinners and I am a sinner, I'm not perfect. I have failed in thought word indeed. I've tried to be good but I always fail at that because I'm not good from the inside. There's something inside of me that needs to change. When you become aware of that and you say to the Lord, God, would you please be merciful to me? Forgive me, I'm a sinner. God says, done instantly, washed and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Again, this baby born in place in a manger was placed on a cross. Then he was placed in a tomb. He was taken out of that manger, he was taken off that cross and he came out of that tomb. And this is the savior, Jesus Christ. So I don't leave Jesus in a manger. Though we celebrate Christmas, my mind is also on Easter because Jesus was born as the Lamb of God to die for the sin of the world. The baby grew to be a man and that man laid his life down for us. That man came to save. That man sought us out. That man gave us the best gift we could ever have. That's eternal life. I have never received a single gift on Christmas that made me never want another gift again. I don't know about you but I never have, have you? I've never received a gift on Christmas where I said, you know, that's enough. You don't need to think of me next year except for one. And that's eternal life. That's a fact. When I came to faith in Christ, I didn't next, the next thing, you know, I didn't say, now what does Buddha have to offer? I didn't, I didn't say, what does Muhammad got to say? I didn't. Jesus said, when you drink of the water that I give to you, you will never thirst again. And isn't it wonderful to have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who has quenched your deepest inner longings, who has made you so filled with His joy. You know, Christmas is a season of joy.  I still remember after coming to faith in Christ, this upcoming Tuesday, I will celebrate my spiritual birthday. I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, December 27th, 1970. I've been following Christ for 46 years, 46 years. It's hard to believe that I was one year old when I got saved. Isn't that amazing? But all of these years, I have not regretted a single day of following Jesus Christ. All that misery, all that sorrow, all that hopelessness, all that pain, all that lack of love, all that lack of purpose, all that depression, all of that, when I gave my heart to Christ, Jesus Christ changed my life. That's the gift of Christmas. It isn't under a tree, it was on a cross. And I bless God for that. And His blood washes us and cleanses us from all sin. And He puts His Holy Spirit within us and He gives to us a hope, a hope that is beyond this earth. And we're just passing through. He said, I give to you abundant life. I'm gonna give you life, not later. I'll give you life now, but later on as you're with me, you'll never look back and say, oh, I wish I would have done this or I wish I would have done that.   Man, the day's gonna come when you're gonna look into the eyes of that one who wept in the garden for you. You're gonna look into the eyes of Jesus Christ who said, Father, forgive not only those people who were there when He was being crucified. Forgive them also, they know not what they're doing. And I was part of that where He's praying and yet when I finally heard the gospel, I was able to receive that forgiveness that He prayed for. And so when your sins are completely forgiven, you become a brand new creation and Lord Jesus Christ, you have hope beyond hope. You have a joy beyond joy. You have a future beyond a future and that is Christmas. Thank you Jesus for the gift of eternal life that you have given to us. How we bless and we thank you Lord.


All right now time to take a trip through space and time to main New York City factory footage Being New York City factory footage unless you saw the latest boy is this Disney headquarters across the street getting big There's lots of welding. It's really noisy what it lacks in stories it makes up in noise and Then here is a beautiful autumn fall day outside the back window. This is our view here. This is New York City It's not for everybody, but it's for us That's main New York City factory footage


Welcome. This is the Education Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives on Friday, January 14th. We had quite a delay in getting here. So we have had to change our plan this morning. This afternoon we were to hear from Secretary French, but he has since needed to get to hit other appointments so it's not able to be with us today. He was going to report to us on the Act 28 Advisory Council on Literacy as well as Act 72 for school facilities, but we will have to postpone that testimony. We had also asked him to help us in the requests that we have heard to allow remote schooling to count as calendar days. We put that in our miscellaneous ed bill. And we heard from the secretary that he actually believes he does have the authority right now to provide a waiver. He's not here. He did send us written testimony, which is currently on our website. We can review that. Actually, Amanda, why don't you bring that up and we'll just quickly take a look at that have an opportunity to review that for those who haven't seen it. Okay, great. I'm sharing my screen now. Thank you, Amanda. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. Of course. And then paragraph two, he reports the law establishes that public schools must operate for 175 days attendance days and five teacher in service education days per year. When a school is closed for cause beyond the control of the school district, the State Board of Education has given authority to grant waivers for the minimum number of days with great requirement on a case by case basis. In the years posted here, the State Board has delegated this waiver authority to the Secretary of Education. He states that no change to the current statutes is necessary. I have existing authority to evaluate waiver requests from school districts, whose calendars will fall short of the statutory requirements for any reason outside the normal outside school district, including staff shortages, student absences, no days, etc. and tend to grant waivers generously for the current school year, given that we have begun to see closures resulting from staff shortages and we expect to experience impacts of the Omicron variant for at least the next several weeks existing process has worked well for the previous two school years in the pandemic context. Okay, you can take it down. So I wanted to hear from the field. If that same if that is sufficient, and if so then we will, we will go no further, no farther with our men in that regard so Jeff Francis, and you're muted. No, no matter how many times I do this, I sometimes. In any case, I am Jeff Francis I'm the executive director for the Vermont superintendent's association. I just get an audio check. Am I coming through loudly and clearly, you certainly are. Okay. I'm going to be brief, but my inclination based on secretary of French is written testimony and a meeting that I had with the Winooski Valley superintendents this morning. I'm not from Vermont region but it extends from Lamoille south, excuse me Lamoille north. In the, in the north, all the way down to the White River Valley supervisory union, which goes all the way down to exit to on 89. I raised the question of remote days with them. And it was a learning experience for me, because there were nine folks in attendance, and they spoke very persuasively about the importance of in person learning as compared to going remote. I've got 10 bullet points that they came up with through their own discussion that I'm happy to share with the committee but based on the emphasis that came from those superintendents and secretary French is explanation about his authority and how he intends to use it. I do not think that sections one and two of the bill that you are considering are necessary. So I could leave it at that but I could also very succinctly convey to you the attitudes of superintendents around the where we are at this point in time, the value of in person learning why we should be pointed toward in person learning as compared to remote would you like me to do that very quickly. Sure. Okay. So, I was a witness to their discussion but these are the points that they made. They believe that learning in school should be the highest priority based on effectiveness of learning opportunity equity of such an experience and student mental health needs. I think that superintendents observed significant learning loss and mental health instability as direct results of the inability to keep students in school and having to rely on remote learning. The second bullet point they said days in school, rather than remote days is better preparation for a return to the relative normalcy anticipated later this spring and for the 2023 school 2223 school year. The third point was that the Winooski Valley region superintendents noted the challenges for students in returning to a five day a week school week over the course of the pandemic, which is to say that the transition from hybrid or remote back to days in school is a challenging transition for many students and to support a dynamic of less stability rather than greater stability that could come with reliance on remote learning would exacerbate those challenges. They talked about the fact that equity is a huge consideration. In place when kids are in school, it often is not when they are learning remotely. The next point in lay person's terms, the dynamics associated with COVID are in quotes here to stay, and our collective effort should be to take all available measures to provide in person learning opportunities. We also noted that schools are comparatively safe environments, and the emphasis should be on making them increasingly safer through recommendations from the public health community and lessons that we've learned through the navigation of the pandemic. They spoke about the fact that remote learning is not an adequate or appropriate substitute for in person learning. They said a remote day is far from equivalent to an in person day. They said that it would be parents who will be forced to find play dates, double up care or other measures to go to work and older students congregating all day without appropriate mitigation strategies, creating greater spread than in school. They noted that isolation for students in remote settings is a huge concern. And they finally indicated that students who will remain unsupervised because their parents must work are at greater risk of learning loss, mental health crisis and overall safety. So my summary from listening to that conversation is that superintendents are in favor of doing everything we can to have kids in school rather than learning remotely. It's not to say that we don't understand the need for remote learning in the past. Going into the future, it should be have kids in school, have kids in school, have kids in school. That may be challenging given Omicron, but we believe that Secretary of French exercising his lawful authorities can work with school districts to help them manage their calendar, and that we can proceed in that fashion. I am really a mere, I'm voicing what I heard from them. They're the experts, but that's what they had to say this morning. Thank you very much appreciated. Any questions for Jeff Francis. Jeff, did you think that we should go to superintendent nice at this point or shed or move on to know I think that because superintendent needs extended us the courtesy of being with us. She can augment my comments I know she's got a perspective as a participant in that meeting this morning is in a very experienced superintendent so I'd be disappointed if we didn't have the opportunity to hear what she had to say. Thank you. Thank you so so welcome. We always appreciate hearing from superintendents in the field so. Thank you. It's nice to see you all. My name is Bridget Nice. I'm the superintendent of schools for the Harwood Unified Union School District. I've been a principal for 20 years at the same place in Johnson, Vermont. I'm in my 13th year at the superintendent in the Harwood district. So I'm happy to join today. I want to start by saying my remarks do not represent the VSA as a whole because we do not have a association position or statement on the matters that you're discussing today. And as far as the Winooski Valley, these are the comments that I'm going to make based on our dialogue with a little bit more specificity and food for thought for your committee following just remarks. What Amanda put up on the screen that was the first time I had seen that. And so I will tell you that the information and guidance that is coming out is changing daily, and we're doing our very best of course as you are probably to keep up with that. So as far as waiver provisions, I would agree with what is said except where we've been told to date that remote learning days will not count towards mandatory attendance and that the waiver process would be used if we would be very lenient if we needed to close because we simply could not staff. As I did one day because I had not enough food service workers to feed our students or for potentially other illness related matters. So I'm not sure how that does or doesn't fit into the waiver process. So I'll try to be succinct. I know your time is very important. So I'll read. Given what we know. Should we be accepting of and normalizing remote learning at home is an acceptable replacement for in person learning. The one who's give LA superintendents have 10 reasons why we shouldn't one remote learning is seriously inequitable from teacher to teacher and district to district. And it's best it is not an equivalent for in person days at school. Number two, increased isolation is bad for our students for a myriad of reasons, period. Three, our students are already in mental health crises at varying degrees. Four, students have a lack of support from nurses, counselors, social workers and some food insecurity when they're remote. Five, increased serious behavior needs were very prevalent this fall. And those are now regulating we're getting in rhythm. Six, more, more remote learning will set us back for successful reentry and startup in fall 2022. Seven, our students currently present with significant learning loss since 2020 as evidenced by state and local assessments. Eight, increased stress and anxiety for students and families who struggle to implement remote learning will make matters worse. Nine, more parents will unlikely more parents excuse me will likely but be unable to work, creating greater anxiety for students that are already stretched. And 10, ultimately, we risk a never ending cycle where remote days become a substitute for in person learning, the fault solution for future variants and tough winters with illness in Vermont schools. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. So it seems like having the secretary at least there to consider a waiver. Does help to just figure that someone is watching to see that this is not being overly used, given the importance of in person learning that you have so it's so succinctly outlined. So instead of just having it blanket school boards can decide, which is really what our bill was saying. This says at least the, at least the Secretary of Education is taking a look at what these, what these requests are, and what they're for, and probably how many they've had. So yeah, does it seem like then just at least having the oversight from the Secretary is better than just saying school boards go ahead you can count them. School days. I think the responsibility should lie with the secretary that questions probably best answered by Secretary French and I have no idea what the criteria would be as how one would determine that. Right. Um, let's see representative. Harrison. Thank you. Quick question. We know that remote learning is not an equivalent to in person learning. And I think it's an assumption at least all make is that a substitute teacher is not the same as the regular teacher. How have you been doing in your district with staffing. I certainly is desperate from district to district we've been doing well I have not needed to close school this year I closed one school one day only because the food service people were in quarantine one was positive and I actually couldn't feed the children at Brookside all the other schools remained open. So we've been fortunate. We've created on staff sub positions in addition to itinerant daily subs and we've also added some positions for testing assistance and other sort of roles by others that could come in part time so that our support staff and teachers weren't pulled to do those things as well. That said as a point of reference after the first week back from the holiday coming in January I had 1354 lost learning days in my population of students that could be multiple days by one student or one day for one student in a student body of about 1600. So the number of cases. The first two days this week I had 23. Yesterday I had 18 ish, but we've staffed. Every center of common. James. Thank you. So it's it doesn't sound like a lot of support for sort of encouraging remote days. And so I sort of asked myself well what's worse a remote day or no day, which I think is kind of the option that you're stuck with. And then the question becomes does that just non school day become fewer days taught or made up for like a snow day. Could you kind of help me kind of weave all that together. I'll do the best I can with these questions and of course I'm coming right off of my own thinking. The first thing I would say is that if you have a closed day. You're still required to attend a number of days. It's 175. I believe you made it 170 last year I would encourage you to look at that this year I think you are going to talk about that. So if you're closed, you're closed and you're going to make up those days so there's almost a replacement for the in person day. If you approve remote days, you're there is no replacement you are substituting a total day of in person learning for a remote day, which are not the same. So to me, the goal is to have as many in person days for the points that I made possible for Vermont students. And I think you'd have to ask yourself if they are substitutes for one another. Are they incentivizing. Yeah, thanks. If you had to close one of your elementary schools for a week, let's say. It would just be basically lost days that would have to be made up for as if we had a week long blizzard and it closed the schools. Is there a certain point at which you have started running into contract issues. Yes. So if you have. And I think that's where there may be a conundrum for the first semester. I think one of these this conversation today with the Winooski Valley group truly Peter was about the second semester, how we're going to get to June, and sort of what is in the best interest of students from now till June. So I think your example going back to the start of the school year, will those days need to be made up or not becomes an issue. 188 days in my district, 178 no more than can be student dedicated days. So if you've required your teachers to teach remote. They worked. You have no opportunity to make up anywhere along the calendar in person days instead. If you close, they don't work. And so you have an opportunity then under the contract to make up those days. And you know I think the thing that's coming to my mind and talking to you is there is no perfect solution here. Right, I mean that's. We're really looking at a student first idea as to what is overall best holistically for our students in our system. And one of the driving factors right now that's in our face is their mental health. Thank you. And that that was very helpful information. Appreciate it. Thank you Peter. I think clarifying the concern about incentivizing remote days is an important consideration representative James. Thank you I had a similar question I guess about clarifying. So you had mentioned that right now the guidance from AoE is that remote days don't count. But that waivers would be granted for under certain other circumstances so I was just trying to clarify in my mind. What guidance you're currently operating under from AoE and how or whether you think that should or could change. Sure, I will speak to my understanding and again I would direct you to Secretary French for potentially more specificity. My understanding is we've been told repeatedly since the beginning of the school year that remote days will not count towards the mandatory attendance standard. So we also have a problem with discrepancy where many superintendents would have adhered to not having remote days and others thought it's better than nothing for their students so they had remote days so now we have kind of tad bit of a mess on our hands right. I'm going forward but the waiver provision from the secretary that the state board has authorized him. My understanding was that those waivers would be lenient and they would be granted such that if the rule was 175 days the school district might not make that. They would not have to make up all of the days it could be summer could be all and that they would be leniently awarded to us or approved for us based on our inability to staff and the reason they occurred would have to be specific to being coven related. And just to clarify I'm sorry I think we have already taken testimony on this and I got confused or forgot is the waiver is the waiver process or authority new and will that be if so will that be retroactive. I don't know I'm not going to speak to that I think you should ask the secretary. I think what you'll see represent James is in his memo to us is that that authority did reside with the State Board of Education, and they have given that authority to the secretary in recent years it looked like. Okay. Okay, thanks. Yeah. No representative Austin you did have a question you're you're okay. Okay. Let us go then to Jay Nichols. Good afternoon everyone. Good to see you all. Representative erison I'm sorry for sneezing on you before this started I saw how you did the fake fall back when I sneeze so. So good to be here. Jay Nichols executive director of remote principles Association. My testimony today is based on conversations I've had with a few principles and other educational leaders. Our executive council has not taken an official position on this legislation. To this point. So after hearing other thoughts this testimony focus could change a little but here's what I'm thinking right now. As of today January 4 2022 I don't think there's a necessity to make changes to 16 vs a 1071. After listening to secretary of French and a couple of different settings. I think he has the necessary authority to grant waivers for closings that are beyond the control of the school district. That authority was granted to him this year as it has been throughout most of the pandemic by the state board and normal years the state board has an authority. In addition secretary of French has repeatedly signaled that he will be generous and liberal in his determination as to the need of waivers in this regard. I know he'll work closely with superintendents and making those decisions at the local level. And also heartened with conversations I've had with principles and superintendents who all agree that to the degree possible we need to stress the importance of in person learning. For both social emotional purposes and academic purposes in person instruction and simple human connection is vital for our students. To learn that when we move to hybrid or remote learning many students will be at a disadvantage because of parents having to work inadequate technological resources lack of supervision and so forth. If the school closes because of staffing considerations I hope that they will provide remote opportunities for connections among students as best they can if they can. One principle who opened up a big Google classroom for the entire school just so kids could enter throughout the day to connect with friends and available staff members when they had to close because of lack of staffing. It wasn't a remote day but they gave the kids chances to connect to see each other and to see some of their teachers that were able to join. As I shared testimony with you recently our children overall are in a mental health crisis, increasing remote learning has exasperated this problem and not less than that. Thus, as such, I think we need to stay in person as much as we possibly can be. And thank you for the opportunity to testify today as well as your continued focus on supporting our schools during this pandemic. And that's all I have. Thank you. I am going to turn now to Jeff Fanon, who can speak for the teachers. Thank you and welcome, Jeff Fanon. Thank you, Chair Webb. Jeff Fanon, Executive Director of Vermont NEA. Thank you for giving me the chance to speak with you. As others have said before me and most notably Jay just a minute ago, my comments here today are preliminary. Last week, the Vermont NEA Board met on Saturday and met with Secretary French. And this conversation didn't, the conversation didn't involve this at all involved the, the changes in contact tracing and other things that were released last Friday evening, Friday afternoon, I should say whatever. So the board converse with Secretary French on those changes that were proposed last week. You should also, you know, the Secretary of Education did issue just I think a little afternoon today three follow up memos to that change from last week so we're trying to digest those. As we speak and understand those and the changes over the week it's been a tumultuous two weeks since the start of this semester if you will after the break. My board for money, the board of Vermont NEA hasn't had a chance to look at this draft bill. The Executive Committee hasn't had a chance to look at it either so my comments here are just preliminary but based on discussions we've had with with members. Some of my peers around the state and trying to figure out what's going on. I think in large measure. We agree 100% that in person learning is the best that's the, the gold standard that we're trying to achieve. I think I said this on Wednesday when I testified to the committee. I think that superintendents need to have the authority and flexibility to pivot when they think necessary without fear of penalty of any kind. I think that Secretary of French has written submission of today seems to make that clear. And I think that's probably the right way to go as Jay just pointed out the changes to propose changes to 1071 title 16 may be a little unnecessary at this point. It may come a time in the future when we want to revisit that. So this is moving so fast that, you know, three weeks ago I don't think we would have been in the place where we'd be talking about this necessarily. This Omnicron variant has really whipped through the state and whip through schools. Superintendent needs just said you know 23 yesterday 20 ish today whatever the number was. It is fast moving through our communities at large in our schools reflect that. But having said that in person learnings needs to be a priority students well being is certainly about most importance. But as you just had a few minutes ago there are contract implications for for staff, particularly hourly staff teachers are salaried. But the support staff are hourly and and this would affect this could affect their their wages and that's of concern locally. And I think it ought to be concerned at the state level to we don't want to harm anybody in react overreacting if you will to the COVID pandemic so those are concerns we have. I certainly think that the superintendents in conjunction with their local associations can navigate those issues. Won't be easy necessarily but I think they can do it they've done in the past. And I think that it's a little bit premature to say we need to change 10 section 1071 right off the bat right now. And I think the next week holds this week I would you know Monday I would have said something very different about today on Friday and, and here we are so it's all very fast moving dynamic, and I think the secretary's memo today is helpful. And if he's going to be generous with the waiver requests. We'll figure that out so with that I'll stop and take any questions you might have. Thank you. Let's go on to Susa Glowski from the State Board of School Board Association. Good afternoon Susa Glowski Executive Director of the Vermont School Board Association. Thank you very much for asking for the SBA's response to the committee's COVID-19 miscellaneous bill specifically sections one and two regarding student attendance days and remote learning. As a starting point, utilizing the existing waiver process with authority delegated to the Secretary of Education by the State Board of Education seemed to work in the 2020 2021 school year. We're now in the 2021 2022 school year. Section one of the bill provides that retroactively going back to the beginning of this school year through the end of the next school year. The school board of a district decides to operate one or more schools remotely than any day operated remotely would count. If it qualified as a student attendance day, if it had been operated in person. The VSBA doesn't have a official position on this proposal since none of our resolutions or guiding documents address remote learning directly. I can confer with the VSBA Executive Committee which meets weekly and I could report back to you. What they would likely do is look to existing resolutions that we have relating to equity and quality, equitable access to meaningful and rigorous learning experiences, emotional wellness of students, and a commitment to the success of every student regardless of family economic status. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. So it seems like we have a fairly, fairly organized view that what the Secretary has should be sufficient. I know that we're hearing questions to reduce the number of school days my own thought is that's a little bit of a premature conversation at this point. Thank you very much for many of you on tabling that discussion for the future. I know we reduced it last year I forgotten by how much Jeff Francis. I was just going to agree that I don't think it should be taken off the table at this juncture but it does seem that it perhaps could be deferred a bit while we wait to see what the course of omicron is and how things play out. General view from everybody. Yeah, it is only January. We have a few more months to go. Okay, this is very, very helpful. Are there any other questions we've got a group here any other questions representative Brown. Thank you chair web I just I did have a question for the folks in the room just to clarify what I thought I had heard earlier this week in the testimony around tests to stay. Can someone just maybe clarify or remind me as we move forward under the new guidance that was issued this week and sort of continues to evolve. I have a plan for the deployment of rapid tests to families around children who are close contacts in a classroom with when there's a COVID positive case I thought, I thought I had heard I know that the current program gives rapid tests to students who aren't vaccinated and I thought there was going to be a move to expand that but I just wanted to see if I could get some clarity on that. Anybody able to respond. Great. I just wanted to draw your attention to guidance that just came out about an hour ago because it breaks it down in multiple levels we just really received that a super intense and we'll just be messaging that out. Probably this weekend, sort of in a nutshell current contact tracing goes away surveillance testing goes away. And tracing doesn't wholly go away though because you will send a letter or notice to an entire classroom of a positive and each school is told that we will have enough supply of antigen and or lamp PCR test to administer those with the specificity that is told to us in this guiding document as to whether a student is unvaccinated or not or staff members unvaccinated or not. So quarantine goes away which means more in person days will be essential very few kids will quarantine essentially only those that are symptomatic or ill. Otherwise they'll test to stay it's called test to home. Now instead of test to stay and parents will be doing the testing. Thank you so much for that clarification. And Amanda and I are working with our Senate sister committee to invite the secretary in to present the guidance to us. So we are able to be more up to date and he can do it in one round. Brittany yes. I can I after hearing from Jeff and I just want to put in a plug also for all of the teachers in Vermont, and in particular the support staff and our food service staff and the sort and tie it into remote learning. I don't think we should draw strong conclusion that remote learning is at any time preferred by teaching staff, or even okay with teaching staff I think our staff has been so remarkable since the pandemic began in 2020, frankly at least in my district they'll just do just about I ask of them, so that our kids are well taken care of. But teachers weren't trained to teach remotely teachers weren't trained to have the entire learning experience be a technology one. And to ask them to do that at home when their own students are also in a remote setting, and their children are at home is nearly impossible. So I in as far as support staff it really does create a big concern for that the other thing is let us remember that if we do that they're also isolated. So there's something to be said for the adults in the system, receiving the camaraderie and the support that they need to sustain this pandemic by coming together and being in contact with one another easily. Thank you. You mentioned food service and you have this year had universal breakfast and universal lunch. How is that going. I'm bragging I say enough about my food service to tell you the truth, participation is really high. You're extending free breakfast and free lunch, our participation is really high, and it's amazing what they've been able to pull off. We've only had I say said the one day where we just across the entire district could not satellite out of Harwood or have enough hands on deck. So it's been a good, a good program. Yes, wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. Great. Jeff Fannin. So I would just want to echo that with Superintendent Nese just said I think that's great. It's a testament to what we can do when we put our mind to it and and so to pivot that a little bit in the, the testing component. So I apologize for stealing anybody's thunder here but you know, I'm not a great teacher I'm not I'm not a teacher. I work with teachers. So I put the into the chat the three documents and just came out an hour or so ago for your edification but I certainly think that letting the medical experts explain this is probably the best thing, and it's no offense to anybody in the school system. But this is a lot of medicine and epidemiology expertise that we need to hear from and I think it would be really good to hear more from Commissioner Levine and and Dr. Kelso and others explain this and the rationale behind it I think that's really important for the entire school community to hear. I don't think there are probably many medical doctors who work in schools and I don't know if anybody, but I, this is important stuff we need to hear from the medical experts, and hopefully that this these three documents will calm the field a little bit but it's a, we need to hear more and explanation and rationale behind it. I think it'd be helpful so I'm sure that's coming I hope that it is. And we'll see how these documents play out in the field. So, equities and I just like to also add equity of students and others have said this but it is really so important. And that goes with testing I heard from a teacher the other night who said students who we know aren't vaccinated are likely to not take the test or at least take it well. And should we be doing this in schools to help those kids who are most at risk. There's a segment of the population of the student population where we as a school system need to wrap our arms around them in a caring way and help them through this pandemic more than a lot of other kids who have a lot of strong family supports at home perhaps. So, we'll see if there's enough testing kits out there for everybody I know it's an issue. And we'll figure that out but we need to make sure that all students and all staff have access to these tests so they know he's bringing it into school or bringing it home, the virus that is. So, thank you. Thank you we are actually working to get some information on supply. Representative Austin. I know this is exactly directed to but I'm curious about the dual use of the technology that's used remotely. And if it's also used in the classroom. So, if you know we never saw COVID come we were blindsided by COVID if we have to had to go back to remote learning with students and would staff be prepared to make that switch and would students be much more familiar now with the technology or the content or the programming. Do they use it at all in the classrooms at all the same technology that they would use when they're using when they're teaching remotely. Thank you Brittany. Good question and I would tell you that I'm pretty sure it would be vastly different from district to district and from grade level to grade level I'm pretty sure that's what that you would see. If it were my district I think that we had some very sophisticated remote planning last year. But I would probably need to close school for a day and turn that into a teacher preparation day to even begin that process. So our littles for example K through to don't take devices home. They used in person time to learn how to navigate all of those applications and their Google classroom that would have to be taught to them. So I do think thank you for bringing that up because I think there's a misunderstanding at large in the community that oh we did it before it's like a light switch just flip it back on and you're going to be ready to go. And that is just simply not the case the the older students yes they probably have more capability of almost to the light switch, but not the littles and not the kids in the middle. Thank you. Thank you. So just question on contact tracing we definitely heard from a school nurse who was wanted to have no contact tracing whatsoever. So my understanding that is contact tracing really is just notifying parents that someone in the class. Has covered and that doesn't sound like contract tracing that just sounds like we're giving you a notice that you probably you tell me I've been exposed. Yeah, please. I'm doing too much talking today. I think actually right now all the questions are directed to you. Alright, thanks. You can control me Kate. Well, that guidance really kind of just came out. And if I had my, my druthers, I wouldn't state contact tracing is going away goes away, like it's all done now. I think it's modified is what we're saying, because it, it's going to intersect with test to home. So we're not going to make line lists, we're not going to have to be partnered with BDH to get those lines lists responded to. We're not going to make individual calls to each family, hundreds of calls. Because of the way Omicron spreads. What we are told is if Billy Ray is in the third grade classroom, and he becomes positive. We will send a letter home to all of the classmates within that third grade class. At the same time, because they're now consents considered pre presumptive positives, we will provide them with the antigen tests or a PCR test at school that goes home with them. And there will be a different amount of those distributed, whether they're vaccinated or unvaccinated. They'll be identified through a group letter, the testing will be sent home with them, but they will continue to come to school and not be in quarantine, as I understand it, unless they become symptomatic. That's a big shift for us, right. So, contact tracing in my mind is modified an example of a seven to 12 model for that because as you would know, the students would have multiple classrooms throughout the course of the day. So we have a way to go in through our swift reach and power school tools that we use and we could find Billy Ray schedule, and we could figure out exactly all of the classes that he's been in. I picked Billy Ray Jeff because I don't know that I've ever met a Billy Ray in 40 years in an education so that's that's kind of my everybody knows that when I'm going to talk about students I go with Billy Ray Ray and Mary Fran, because I haven't met any. So that's my little moniker. Anyway, so you can you can very easily and quickly determine all of the classrooms then that would get the letter, and then all of those students will receive the test kits home. They will keep coming to school if they're asymptomatic. They will take the test at home with their parents. So that's contact tracing modified intersex test to home and replaces surveillance testing, essentially, and the contact tracing as you might have known it to be. So in terms of the percentage of time that it would take if we consider what it was let's call that 100% what what what's left, what percent of that time now would their time be, I don't know what their time was before but I mean percentage wise, I can't really tell you that because it would deter that would be determined by how many positives you have simultaneously. Right. And usually contact tracing in the old way where we're calling every family and managing that that is like five people in my district working the entire weekend if you get a case. It takes that long to narrow it down get all the close contacts and call those families. So setting out that quick letter and then knowing that they can pick up the test or send the test home is much simpler, much faster and easier for our employees to to manage for sure. Thank you that's very helpful and understanding how are you doing with supplies of masks. That's to you, Bridget Nice. I think I'll just leave the volume on the mute button on Kate. Yeah, that's going to probably very district to district now in our district we have an ample supply for all of our staff to have KN 95 masks and they do. And we've ordered another 10,000 masks and they should be delivered any day maybe as I'm speaking to you for all of our students to access them so that that supply has not seemed at least difficult in my district and secretary French was asked and he said if we had difficulty that we should reach out because the state supply is quite huge he said so I don't see that as a problem. Great. Thank you representative James. Thanks. Just reveal how long it's been since I've had kiddos and school. How do you guarantee that that parents are going to receive the letter and I'm thinking of the crumpled up letter in the backpack that you find two weeks later. So how do you know that the info is going to reach the parents. No question it's not really a ladder so we have a service it's called Swift reach, and we have the capacity to text their phone, email them, or send a voice recorded message out, and we utilize all three. And that's technology that all of our s us and sd's have now I assume. Maybe so they might call it something different but I never use the word all. And as a superintendent you mentioned guaranteed I don't ever guarantee anything. Thanks I just revealed my age. That's okay. Thank you. This has been very helpful. Thank you for your continuing discussion on what it so we've got Bridget needs we've got you in the room. What would you like the legislature to do and what do you want us to please not do. Oh wow. Yeah. Wow wow wow. I, I, while I agree with the team that spoke I think reducing the 175 days is premature, but I also think it may well be needed so I would really ask you to look to that. And in my district, our board is already talking about what we might do to be able to support our teachers. We can't say enough about what they've done what they've endured. I'm so proud of them and our district and I know most of my super all my superintendent friends must be in the same. I will use the word all, all will be probably in the same boat. And it's been a long time. We've been doing this now since 2020 and asking people to do the impossible. So last year when you went to 170 that gave my school board the opportunity to tell our staff all staff from our support staff up through our vacation that five days of work day pay which was already in the budget would be would not be reduced in any way, but those days became an extra five days vacation for every employee that worked in the school district as a sincere thank you for stepping up repeatedly and doing what they did. Not only do we need people not to go to school till July one, because all of these other tentacles are going to show up. But that is a way that's cost effective for school boards to consider if they're so inclined to give a thank you and more to teachers and help help us to get out at a very reasonable time in June, which then helps us to ready for the fall. That would be one. Thank you. We'll keep us posted if you think of more. I will. Okay. So you're looking for us to do a whole lot of really cool new initiatives that no no no let's let's thank you thank you for leading me right into please no new initiatives. It's a stay put as we say we have all that we can handle. Now we really at the point we can come up and breathe we really need to focus on learning loss and students social emotional well being. And I can't emphasize that enough kids are most kids are not okay but we don't know how not okay they might be and what we're going to do to support that. And I think the answer money has been incredibly helpful, but you are also hearing we can't hire. There aren't enough people, whether we need home school coordinators or social workers, teachers support staff, I mean it's just so very difficult to hire that we are hearing it's national I'm hearing as well. National concern. Yes. Thank you. Thank you Madam Chair. I brought up learning loss and it's brought up. Almost daily from, from everywhere. How are we going to measure learning loss. with our younger students, our K through three students and maybe graduating seniors even. How are we gonna measure this? Nice to see you, Larry. You know, I don't know that I have a succinct answer for you or a comprehensive answer for you. The best way in my mind's eye to measure learning loss, we need to have the kids in school. There's a start and our local assessments that we have across school districts in Vermont are very powerful. And yes, they're time consuming often to administer, but it can tell us where students should be based on their sort of chronological and grade placement and where they're actually functioning, especially in literacy, especially in math areas like that. Social emotional learning now has some excellent screening tools that we're able to use through student surveys and observations and things like that that sort of help us get a pulse of where our students are from a social emotional perspective. There are the statewide assessments, but they don't really drill down in my opinion, Larry, to a point where you can have targeted assistance and tutoring for that learning loss student to student.  Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, thank you. This has been a very helpful conversation, I think for the committee. So committee, are we comfortable in letting those two parts of our bill fade away? And we've deferred to the secretary's authority. Could I just see a, if you disagree, yeah, get thumbs up or some such thing, everybody's okay with that. And people who want us to continue on with a bill. Okay, thank you. I think that sounds like a good plan going forward. We'll leave that. I think that your point about one of the reasons why we might want to consider down the road, reducing the acquired number of school days is something to consider. That's the reason I haven't actually considered. So with that, just going to move to committee discussion, give you an idea of what I'm, some of the things I'm looking at for next week. And those of you who are not on the committee, if you would like to stay, please do. But otherwise, we will say thank you, but please stay if you want to hear more of what's happening. Thank you so much, Superintendent Nies. Thank you, it's nice to see you all. Really helpful. So, just a few things going on. Number one, I am working with our Senate counterparts, Amanda and I at a joint meeting to hear from the secretary on update on guidance. We were going to have Representative Cohen-Heiserin to talk to us about the waiting study. I think the best use right now, I'm just going to ask, I'm going to ask members, I'm not going to suggest, I'm really going to ask you to go view the testimony that Senator Hardy and Cohen-Heiser gave, you can see it in two places. One of two places, either in Senate Finance or in House Ways and Means, they presented that. I think there weren't any questions. I think that they just presented their information and asked for questions not to happen. But I think that would be a good way for us to kind of get up to speed with what their report is about. So, can everybody just agree that they're going to be watching this before Tuesday? That would be great. Thank you. Representative Austin. I just wanted to say, I watched it a couple of times and also read through the slides again. And I think it will really help to pay attention to our conversation, to listen carefully to the discussion or the presentation about ELL students and why they're recommending away from weights and towards more towards a grant for ELL students. And I'm not positioning either way, but there's a really good portion of the discussion around that. Thank you. Representative Brown. Thanks. My question was just, was it the same presentation both times that it doesn't really matter which one we choose? Right, no. And for the most part, you could often, I don't know if this one works as well, but I often when I'm watching these, I can put an awful lot of them on double speed and then slow it down and go, wait a minute, I didn't quite get that one. But very often you can do that. So, those are two things. I, we will be following up on a few things. I'm going to move forward with chapter 11. It's going to take a while to get through that. So we're going to set up several sessions with best St. James to walk us through the 115 page bill of which some of it is essential. Some of it, it's really just technical. It'll just have capitalization here and there, which we don't have to spend too much time on. At the same time, we do have a bill introduced by representative Shaw and I've forgotten what the bill number is, age 493, which actually looks at some of the policy issues we've talked about in changing changes to chapter 11. So we'll also, we're also working to get him in to present that bill to us in the context of the work that we're doing around chapter 11. We're also just trying to get more information on where we are with masks and test kits. We may end up inviting someone in to help us understand where we are with that since that we keep hearing that's, those are major parts of mitigation. I was looking at my list here. There were two bills that I introduced. One was to bring retired teachers, that representative Hooper and I introduced to bring to retired teachers, allow them to come forward to teach for a year without affecting their pensions. That bill has gone to government operations. I'll follow up on that. There was another bill that I introduced related to speech language pathologist and audiologist being able to participate in an interstate compact. That also went to government operations. But we have heard that schools are worried about not having access to SLPs and audiologists. So I'm following up on those things. I think, oh, and Act 173, we're gonna be taking testimony next week to decide if we'll be hearing more from the field on whether we should delay that, which is the remainder of our bill, which is all adjusting all of those states that Jim DeMarie went through. So that's on the, we're looking at for next week. I think we're looking, Amanda, at the schedule being a little bit, a little bit more organized than this week. This week has been a little bit of a challenge. Yes, ideally that's how next week we'll go. We'll keep you posted. Operative word, ideally, there. Representative Austin. Yep. So we're meeting in Peristen on Tuesday, back at the state house. And I'm just wondering about the on the wall bills. Will they be up? And if not, is there a way we can just see them, just have something sent out just with what is on the wall, what remains on the wall from last session and what's come in? I know Amanda was working on that. So Amanda, I know you were working on that but we thought we were going to be in person. Do you have any update on where we are with that? Yeah, thank you, Rev Webb. Yeah, I was in the process of working on it. My last in-person day at the state house, I actually printed them all out. So they are printed and in the committee room, they just have not been put up on the wall yet. And so during my, all of the free time that we all have, I will be attempting to put them on the wall as soon as possible. Great, thank you. I may try to be there on Monday. I don't know, we'll just have to see if I could make that work and help you out a little bit. Yeah, so we will be in-person. You will be getting your test kits. I think that that is, you can work that out with your caucus on how you're doing that. Any other questions that I probably don't have the answer to but are willing to find? We're gonna be wearing our masks. Good masks. Okay, and 95s. I think we will try to not have us meet for long sessions to give us breaks to be able to get some clean air. The acoustics in the room are not good. We're gonna have to keep working on that. A good question. Yeah. Madam Chair, do you suppose there are any plans to have microphones when we're on the floor? Because if you recall the other day when we had the vote about masks, it's kind of, seemed like certain people in the room were, they continually were saying, speak up, use your microphone. I wonder if we have anything kind of to put on your mask. Do you have any news about that? You mean to put it while we're functioning in our committee room?  Right, right. I wonder if you couldn't put one on a mask. Good, good, that's a good question. I don't think we have an answer yet, but I think we're gonna be working out those problems this week and I think that's a good question so that we can actually hear each other. Representative Austin. Sorry, just one more question. Is it okay if we lunch in the committee room and if we are in the committee room to listen to the floor, to be on the floor? Yes, my understanding is yes. Do you have a sense of what time we'd be starting on Tuesday? Floor is at 10. Would we be before that at all? I think the floor is at 9.30. Usually it's 10 on two. Yeah, that's Friday's coop. You've been in the legislature for like 50 years. I thought I heard 9.30 today, but. I thought it was 10. We usually, you know, that usually allows time, but we'll check on that. I think it's 10. When we're remote, I usually have no problem in having testimony before then. I think that we probably won't do that for this week while we're trying to figure out how this is going to work. Here. I think just getting there and being in person. Yep. Oh, thank you. Amanda says that reminded us that floor is at 10 o'clock on Tuesday. Thank you. Okay. I think unless we're 100% remote, we really can't ever be before 10 on Tuesdays. Yeah. No, I agree. And usually it's 10, which is what's allowing people to get here. Representative Toof. Thanks, Madam Chair. Do I see that we have a joint meeting on Tuesday at one? Did that work out? Is that on the schedule? Well, we have the governor's address. Governor's address. Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. Governor's address. That will be the whole body. Is there anything that people would like us to be considering or we can take some time next week as well? Other things that we want to be considering. I know waiting, there's a good chance that we don't have to be fully involved in that until after class crossover. That's what I'm currently hoping that we can work out, that the first bill will actually start in the Senate. We'll be working on some of the education issues. Education policy issues while ways and means we'll be looking at more of the implications to the education fund. There'll be more on that part. We'll be looking more at actually impact on education concepts. We also have the S 100 on the wall, which is the universal lunch bill. I'm hoping that we can get to that. We don't have to do that now. We can do that after crossover. So that's, it's up there. I don't intend to ignore that. I heard from the committee that that's a bill of interest. We still are going to be getting updates from the administration on literacy and facilities inclusion and community schools. We will be hoping to build that in as we go along. And I believe there's a good chance we'll be able to get Ted Fisher from AOE into our committees every Friday. And I would like to be able to do that before floor. I don't know what people's travel deals will be, but the fact, yeah, so. Well, we'll work on that. Kate also suggested just to fill it, if we have gaps in the schedule, it seems like there's been a lot of bills referred to our committee that need to be presented at some point in time. Right. And looking at it, looking at a few of those, one of them is representative James Bill, which I'm, we're pulling up. So representative James had left, I spoke with Amanda about getting you and who did you, who are you working on that one with? It depends on our, both of the CTE bills should have popped up by now, right? I hope. I think so. So we would like to get both of those at the same time. Okay. Great. You can work on that with Amanda. Cause I think Reptoof and Dickinson and Kimball and I are on one of them. And then I think the other one is just Rep Kimball and I, but that's just because things were moving so quickly. And that's the one that dovetails with one of Rep Coupoli's bills. So basically we've got it all covered, I think. So if you can organize that so that we can and work with Amanda and me on how we will present all those at the same time. Sure. It'd be great. And Representative Toof, you're just agreeing, right? You didn't want to say something. That's correct. I was just giving a thumbs up. Okay, great. The parochial and independent schools questions are in Senate education. I don't expect that we are going to be addressing that before crossover. That would be an after crossover issue. And... We are under the obligation, right? To pass something on waiting. Is that correct? We're never under, we're under obligation to do what we do. Well, of course, but aren't we kind of like, isn't the threat of lawsuit kind of imminent? Oh, there's always a threat of lawsuit. Most of the things that we do. Some people might even prefer that take that route. Some people would like to let the courts decide. Some people would like to see us and kind of hash it out. Well, the reason I ask is because, I mean, I am totally confident that the Senate will send us something, but I just wonder if we want to keep track. We'll be preparing and most of the work will actually be done in the money committees. So we will hear from Kornheiser sometime next week, I'm assuming. I think so. We do have two members. We do have one of the co-chairs. Excuse me, we do have two members in our committee who were on that. Past course. It was a really impressive group. And we'll be leaning to them to be guiding us through the issues that our committee should be addressing. And I keep looking over here because I have a big white, big yellow piece of paper with all of the issues that I can think of that we're addressing. Anything else? So Amanda, we made it through week two. Let's everybody do a big thank you to her for sticking with us. Thank you all. I really appreciate it, Amanda. Thank you. Representative Austin. And I don't know if the committee members, you know, feel this way, but I would just like to gain a better understanding about the mental health impact because of COVID. I feel like this is never, I mean, not that I'm aware in my teaching career has ever happened. This kind of disaster, this type of crisis. And I have to believe that there are researchers that from the beginning have been doing research on this particular crisis and how it's impacted children and how it's impacted learning and what the best methods are for treatment, for children to, you know, bring them back, you know, to a healthy mental health state. And I, you know, I just would love, I don't know if it would be positive just hear from someone who, you know, nationally who is doing research on this and has come up with, you know, an understanding of what school-aged children are experiencing, you know, this is, I feel like this is normal behavior in the context of a crisis, what our children are exhibiting, except for some. I think some would need more serious intervention, but I'm just curious, I have a lot of questions about in this particular instance, you know, we keep talking about mental health and we keep talking about getting them treatment, but I'm not clear what that means, you know, what the treatment is, what works, what doesn't work, what they've learned, you know, just. A lot of that for us is gonna be what we as the legislature would, how we as a legislative body would respond as opposed to we're not the ones that are gonna get into this therapy approach works better than this one over here, but we do have additional ESSER funds to appropriate this year, the recommendations on appropriating that, so it's certainly something that we can throw into the mix. Okay, thank you. As we're hearing mental health and learning loss are the issues that we're hearing from the field. So anything else then? Okay, we will see you bright and early.


Welcome to Digital Asset News to get top stories in crypto and bring it onto bite-sized pieces. Today, just the thumbnail suggests there was a hack. Yet again, another DeFi platform gets hacked. We're talking about how $120 million was hacked and how it all happened. Also, I'm going to take a look at Cardano or ADA just past the $20 million transaction mark without having any hiccups as far as shutdowns. Also, I'm going to take a look at a topic that we covered yesterday that I thought for sure would play out today. When I saw this, it's all about the traditional markets. I'm like, are we taking crazy pills? Then lastly, we'll talk about some good news, Amazon and their partnership with the cryptocurrency StormX. We'll get into all those things. The first thing to look at was going to market. Today is Thursday. It's a beautiful day here in Puerto Rico. This is what we have for the market. Kind of boring. I'll be honest with you. We've got a market cap of $2.62 trillion, which, remember, not too long ago, we had a market cap of $2 trillion. I was excited. Then we went past $3 trillion. Now we go back to $2.6 trillion and people are like, man, this is awful.  It is what it is. It's very pretty flat. We'll see how the month plays out. Actually, in all honesty, if you want to get some pretty good information about where the December could potentially go and how to prepare for that, we're going to do our DCA, which we do every week. For this one, it's me. It's Ben from Into the Cryptiverse, Benjamin Cowan, and James from the Best Answers. We're just going to talk about a couple of things that are going on in December, how we see things and where things could potentially go and how to prepare for that. That'll be tomorrow. That's in 21 hours from now. I'll put the link in the description so you can check it out. You can also find it on Twitter. As far as the market itself, again, very boring little bit sideways. There are some winners today, as there always is. Usually, there's some that'll pop off a little bit. We take a look. Bitcoin's at 56, almost 57. Yon, Ethereum, 4500, which is great compared to what it was. Solana in the last seven days, up 60%. 8% for today, almost hitting that 250. Cardano is up 11% for the day. That's pretty darn good for a Cardano and what they're doing. Then Polygon's up as well. 8% for Uniswap and so on and so forth. Pretty much just sideways, except for, man, Elrond took a beating. 14%. Ouchie. That's what's going on in the top part. That's all we have for the actual market. Let's just jump into today's top story because this, it seems like this happens again and again and again and again. We have a DeFi platform. We have something going out there. Not that it's rushed. Not that there's a problem. Well, there was a problem because they just lost 120 million and there's problems all over the place. This is what we have. Badger Dow protocol suffers 120 million exploit. Not to get too far on the weeds, this is what happened. On Wednesday nights, Thursday right now, an attacker drained funds from the wallets of dozens of users of the Badger Dow yield vault using malicious contract permissions. Blockchain data and security analytics company Peck Shield conclude that total loss was 2100 Bitcoin and 151 ETH. Ouchie. That's a pretty good payday for just a couple of weeks' work for those scammers. Speculation in online channels that the hack is the result of an exploit in the Badger.com user interface and not in the core protocol contract. So when we're complaining, mostly me complaining, that things aren't moving fast enough. We have to take a step back and go, you know what? There's a reason that things go a little bit slower because if we don't go just fast enough, then we start to break things. And usually the money that's lost, I can tell you right now, a lot of the money that's lost was a lot of people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into this Dow.  I'm sure they lost some money too. But the majority probably were people just like you and me. They just want to just put that in there and they have trust and it didn't work out. So in all honesty, sometimes we should just take a step back and go, you know what? Okay, it's a little bit slower. I'd like to move faster. But you know, geez, we keep hearing about hacks. And this isn't the first one. I mean, just think back of all the different DeFi hacks and just hacks in general that have happened over the last year. So in this one, I'm like, okay, I get it. So it wasn't even the protocol. It was the interface itself. So it uses report that while claiming yield farming rewards and interacting with bad revolts, they noticed their wall providers prompting spurious requests for additional permission. So they would go on there. And then of course, because the user interface scammers with thieves, what's just called thieves, thieves in the background, did something with the actual interface itself and said, oh, we want your we're going to get your data. They took their data and they ripped everybody off. And there was this one part down here. It says, though the protocol contracts are paused, community members are advising that depositors use tools like debank and UNRECT to revoke permissions. And I was like, I've never heard of this. So UNRECT, you can, it's a smart contract checker. And all you got to do is find in all the addresses you can that can spend your token. So you put the actual smart contract address in and forever, wherever it went. And you can connect and stop it, which is pretty crazy. I know you can actually do that. But that is what we have. So again, not going to beat a dead horse, but sometimes we should go a little bit slower. Speaking of slow Cardano. So Cardano passes the 20 million transaction mark without a single outage in four years. It's a pretty good record. I got to, you know, you got to give it up to him, right? So this is what's that the whole story is right there. And they just reiterate the same thing, right? Same thing. But there was this one comment from Charles Hoskinson that I found quite interesting. And he states what people don't get about Ouroboros is that it's a protocol family that already has the hard stuff figured out 2022 is about optimizing throughput transactions per second and connecting side chains. It's not theory. It's just code from pipelining to input endorsers. It's going to be a pretty fun year. So again, when we talk about things that are moving kind of slow, Cardano does that, that thing. But in all honesty, it hasn't, you know, hasn't had issues as far as like shutting down the entire chain. Now, when Nim Swap came up to try to do a decentralized exchange, running off of the Cardano blockchain did have problems because the way that it integrated the code and it looked like there was some things that weren't optimized. But the actual protocol, the blockchain that is Cardano never has shut down. There's been other ones that have and that's that I'll let you talk all about that in the comment section, some pretty big ones in the top 10. So when we take a look at what's going on, maybe it's just one of those things where it's just super slow. But I mean, it is what it is. Let me just think about that in the comments. And then let's move on to our next piece, crazy pills. And this is really getting to the crux of the roots of why I think we're into crypto.  So you have Jeff Bezos and you have Elon Musk and the main players and the hierarchy of some very big businesses and they're selling off like crazy. And then the insiders that are part of those corporations are also selling off like crazy. But you have to understand when you have money printing, where does it go first? It doesn't go to you or me. I mean, stimulus package, let's suppose, if you're qualified for that. But usually what happens is that when all that money gets printed, it starts off at the top and all those people get all that money and they do whatever they want to then it filters down to us, the serfs. And then we get to do whatever we want with it. But at that point, all the buying power is all the way up here. And then of course, now that we see that the Fed is propping up bonds and traditional markets and buying up and swaps and things, I mean, they're really propping up everything. And I think the smart money knows it like we better get out and they're selling everything like crazy. And when I when I heard that, and this is the article, I'll link it as well in the comments section, but or in the description, excuse me. When I heard this, I'm like, ah, it'll go down, you know, it'll, you know, the market will figure that out. Like that's not right. Here we are today, S&P 500 almost up a point, NASDAQ up a little bit, Dow up over a point, Russell 2000 up 1.53 and the Bitcoin index down almost 2% and the US dollar index pretty much flat. Amazing. And when I look at this, I just think to myself, it's like that scene in the big short where Michael Burry, he's talking about like, well, you know, things should go down because, you know, this, this can't be correct. And and there's no way that this could happen to government. And then he finally concludes, he goes, maybe the government's just corrupt because everything should be collapsing and it's not. And the Fed is propping up everything. And it's the same type of thing here. I don't want to go down a rabbit hole, but it just seems very odd that we have this many problems. And, you know, these CEOs, which I have no problem with them selling, but they're selling like crazy. And then, you know, if you see like in the crypto market, people sell off like that, the market is collapse not collapses, but we see a dip. And of course, over here, what do we see? Mania. So I just find it odd. Let me just think about that story and where you think we're going. And then to finish up, ah, friends of the show, Simon, you and StormX, they could just land a big massive deal. And I want to say congratulations to those guys that have been around for years. I think they've been around since 2015, 2016, and they've just been grinding the whole time. So StormX, you get up to 80% crypto cashback with the StormX debit card. And just says here, hey, with our US debit card rollout, plan for Q1 2022, right on the corner, our user will be able to shop and earn up a whopping 8% on Amazon. I shop on Amazon. I also have StormX on the app. I will be using this because I like to get cashback or crypto back. Apart from being able to spend around up to 15% over 15,000 physical storms, StormX debit card users can still benefit from utilizing their debit cards while shopping online. So you can go check that out over at the StormX website. Very easy to do. If you're going to download anything, go to the official website, so I'll link it in the description. And then also, I'm going to link this as well. This was me and, man, remember the pool? Ah, the pool was great. Remember the headphones? I used to wear just headphones to do interviews. This was back in April. It was me and Simon just talking about where StormX could potentially go. It's funny. At times, just, man, they just fly by. And now here we are. So I think it's going to be big. Hopefully it works all out. And I just want to say congrats to the team over there at StormX. And that's it. So look, a little bit short today. A lot of things going on, but I want to say thanks for sticking with me. If you like today's video, give it a thumbs up. I'll consider subscribing. A lot of things we talk about are time sensitive. And that's it. And also, if you're so inclined to, join us tomorrow live for the DCA show. Links in the description. And that's it. So thanks so much. I appreciate it. See you in the next one.