INotes from Montpelier
by Rep. Bill Frank

For the month of January the House membership has not been meeting on the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday and Thursdays. This has given committees full days to schedule people to come and testify. My Human Services committee has made very good use of the extra time to hear from a wide range of agency representatives and many advocates. The Vermont Protection and Advocacy Council presented the "Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center Report", a report they worked on with the Department of Children and Families who run the facility. Woodside is located in Colchester opposite the west entrance to Fort Ethan Allen off Rt. 15. To better understand the concerns raised in the report and the needs of the facility the Human Services committee had a tour of Woodside and had the opportunity to eat lunch and talk with many of its young people. Woodside has two wings and operates two very distinct programs. Wing D is Vermont's only locked juvenile detention facility for both boys and girls, and maybe the side of Woodside we usually hear about. This is intended to be a short-term facility. Woodside's other wing is a long-term, 12-18 month intensive treatment program for aggressive male adolescents. This program uses long-term interventions and strategies to encourage behavioral changes. The treatment program also operates a transition program, which includes a transition house in Burlington and individual mentoring components. We were very impressed with the facility and the very dedicated staff.

Education Funding and what to do about our high property taxes, has been discussed in every corner of the State House. The House Education and the House Ways & Means Committees have been making good use of the extra committee time to get up to speed with the current system of school funding and how we got here. In the Education committee's room is a list of three questions they are going to answer in the next couple of weeks. The questions are:

٠  What do we expect of our school?
٠  How can that be delivered in he most cost-effective way?
٠  What is the fairest way to pay for it?

I am very confident the committee will answer these questions.

Last session the legislature created a Pre-K study committee and last week they held a public hearing at the State House. They are going to submit their report on January 30; their draft report includes the following recommendation:

The pre-kindergarten education committee believes that the time has come to step back and examine our entire system of early childcare. Although we have been charged with looking only at pre-kindergarten education, our study has convinced us that we do our children a disservice by thinking about early educational services as separate from other childcare services. Young children grow and develop best when all parts of their lives are integrated so that transitions from educational services, to social skills services, to simple nurturing care services are conducted in a seamless fashion guided, as much as possible by the parents, and without having to move the child from place to place. Therefore, we need a funding and regulatory system that encourages this type of integrated systems.

It was very exciting to see the Jericho Elementary School's forth grades at the State House. I introduced them in the House chamber and they received a rousing round of applause.

If you would like to discuss these or any other issues with Gaye and me, please join us at the Village Cup in Jericho on Monday morning February 5 from 7-9 am. We will also be at The Cup April 16th same time, and at the Deborah Rawson Memorial Library the evening of February 20th at 6:45 pm. Feel free to contact me at Rep.BillFrank@verizon.net, 899-3136 or 19 Pokerhill Rd, Underhill 05489.