On Tuesday, the Senate Education Committee walked through a side-by-side comparison of H.461 with current statute. Senator Gulick asked about the “Home Study Program,” wondering if it was always called that. She commented that she doesn’t “see there is any mandate to actually study any subjects in it.” Legislative Counsel was uncertain if it had been called something else previously.

The Senate Education Committee resumed their work on H.461 on Friday, with Representative Hango joining the Committee to speak about the National Guard tuition benefit expansion.[1]

The Senate Education Committee returned to H.461 on Thursday, hearing from Ken Gragg (Deputy Adjutant General, Vermont Military Department) on the college tuition benefit program section of the bill. This provision would allow for funds to be used outside of the state when a class or program is unavailable in Vermont. Specifically, he mentioned the Physician’s Assistant pipeline as a program that has created a bottleneck. The National Guard would benefit from the expertise offered by these positions but there are no programs in-state.

The Senate Education Committee met on Wednesday to review H.461, which makes a number of changes to education laws.

On Friday afternoon, Representative Conlon (Chair, House Education Committee) provided the Senate Education Committee with an overview of their committee bill, H.461.

The Senate Education Committee reviewed the home study provisions of H.461 on Tuesday. Chairman Campion asked Retta Dunlap (Home School Advocate, Vermont Home Education Network) to share some basic background information for newer members of the Committee. She shared a presentation showing some historical trends on home study students. The data was provided by the Vermont Home Education Network because the Agency of Education (AOE) only recently started tracking some of these metrics.