ANWSD Board Meeting June 8, 2026

001Call the meeting of board directors of As Northwest School District to order June 8th, 2026. It is 6:03 p.m. Do I have a motion to adopt the agenda? >> So, is there a second? Any motion to amend it? Okay. And for clarification, we'll talk a little bit more expanded on H955 when we get down to action item E. All right. All in favor say I. >> Any opposed? All right. Um, not really slight out of order for the agenda, but you would like to make an introduction. >> Yes. Um, I'm very sorry that I didn't do this during the board retreat that we just had, but I want to introduce our director of finance and operations, Eric Leau, to the board. And maybe we could go around and everyone could say hello to Eric. >>

002Starting with you. >> Hello and welcome home. >> Thank you. >> I'm Erica Andress from Paris. >> Nice to meet you, >> Mimi Clark. Welcome. >> Hi, Neighbors. Mark Kennartsburg. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> I'm Mickey. I'm from Welcome. >> Michael, Virginia. >> Jim Busky from Addison. >> Okay, great. Thank you for being here. >> Appreciate it very much. All right, Gabe, you want to handle D1 proficiency? >> All right. Um, thank you for having me back here. I think it feels like it has been a while because it really has been a while, but I I brought this presentation to the uh policy committee for a preview and I was really appreciative because I got some good feedback and made some adjustments and most excitedly I'm back uh to help embellish the presentation and

003hopefully make it clear and relevant to uh your interests which of course are about student learning. So, uh Stacy's here to shed a little light on um the things that I'll kind of frame up and then I'll pass it along to Stacy to to really give you a sense of what what it means um what all this like higher level stuff that I'm going to talk about and introduce uh means in the classroom, which is great. >> Um so, yeah, go ahead. One of the things I want to um orient us towards is you know this is not new language um from um the state but one of the things that I feel like this presentation does differently that previous ones haven't is really allow us to talk to the portrait of the graduate which

004as many of you know um because you were here um we finalized our portrait um about a year ago almost exactly a year ago Um, and we've spent this year kind of like trying to figure out what that means. How do we actually embody this portrait in the work that we do? And I'm here to share some of the ways that we are are doing just that. So, yeah, go ahead. Next slide. So, ultimately um, this presentation, the D1 report is about proficiency based learning. And I think this is this is not my graphic. It's uh one created by the Aurora Institute, but it it really what it shows is all these interconnected components with students and learners of course at the center and it really is a meant to be a a practice that

005systems use to um achieve equity um in schools and equity in many different ways. So there's of course is a complex system as an educational system with humans at the center. Um and so figuring out how to do that well is really a challenge and the proficiency based system um helps us I think a lot in getting there. Next slide. So I'm not going to spend a lot of time on data. I've already given data presentations in the past, but I want to highlight a couple things just to remind us of of why we have proficienc and and speak a little bit to some of the inequities that we are working to overcome. So, um our why is essentially we want better outcomes for all of our learners. Um that being academic outcomes, social emotional

006learning outcomes, and and other things that I'll speak to briefly. But so some of these slides, you know, like for example, this one um is showing some of our social emotional learning data where we have really um we have strength um in in many ways in some of our things. So you can see over on the left um for grades 3 through 5 and 6 through 12, really high numbers um high percentage of students that are feeling that they have supportive relationships in our schools, which is something that we should really celebrate and be proud of. Um and then over on the um other side, the the right hand side, we have some areas where not all of our students are reporting through surveys like this that they're feeling really strong in terms of engagement

007and sense of belonging. So those are two areas that we're focusing on some of our work to to figure out how to how to get these better outcomes. Next slide. So similarly again I'm not going to go through all of it but this is one example of these lines represent different um disagregations or different groupings of students. So the in an equitable system you would see all these lines together. There would be one line if you will. Um and instead we see uh even over the course of three years this happens to be nth grade ELA. You see differences between certain subgroups uh and the rest of of the students. So what we're trying to do ultimately is close those gaps. Next slide. Similarly, this one looks a little messy, but I want to you

008I I put it in here to highlight a couple of things. Um this is uh over three years of data of um in this case, I think it's our math screener um that we give three times a year. And that blue line that is most uh up top is is kind of the all student line. And then again, you see these subgroups. So again, we would what we would want to see is increasing trends for all students in a single line uh going upward and um there's still gaps, right? So these gaps are persisting and I put this one on here to highlight one or a couple things in particular. There are some groups uh represented here. For example, the the light blue line is students that are um have been identified by our multi-tered

009systems of support to get extra intervention. that line has a a steeper slope, if you will. It's in it's closing that gap. So, we're seeing some successes that we again should be proud of. Do we have more work to do? Yes. But, um that's what this conversation is about is how are we working to further close those gaps. Next slide. And then we look at lots of different data sets. So, I just I have a couple more things I want to highlight. again a strength. Um this is from the VSAC senior survey which is given every two years. This happens to be the class of 2024. Um so you know that third one down there teachers um care about me uh in my as an individual we have like over 90% of our students are

010reporting that they agree or strongly agree. So that kind of correlates again to that s social emotional learning survey where students are feeling supported and those red circles indicate that not all of our students are so so there's there's some of those questions that you can see where we're not reaching all students. Some of that um is related to how they're feeling about their education, how they're feeling prepared for life after high school and so forth or so on. So when we think about the portion of a grad and whether we're doing the work uh that we need to in meeting all of the our students needs we we have some work to do. We have again things to celebrate in the sense that we have high numbers uh for many of these things and

011some students are not feeling uh as ready or or feeling as good about their experience. Next slide. And similarly, this is we now um uh are working with an organization called the National Student Clearing House that tracks student data after they leave high school and looks at like college retention and persistence and so forth. And so that's helpful in kind of helping us understand again how are we preparing students for in this case for college um which I know isn't um what necessarily everybody does, but it's another thing that we can use to think about and disagregate. So some of those show like subgroups on the right. I know it's hard to read. I apologize for that. But students that are um are identified as receiving free and reduced lunch, they have a less p

012they persist less through college than students that don't. So these comparisons tell us about again some of those equity gaps um that we're trying to address. Next slide. So what are we doing to address this? We're doing a number of different things. So this is kind of a multiaceted I've talked to this one um about kind of shoring up our proficiency based systems. So this has to do with things that I've talked about in previous presentations on this topic around um vertical alignment of our curriculum around being really clear about what we want our our outcomes to be for students. So we did some work um in both K5 and middle and high school um and we partnered with the career center. So the the high school teachers were working alongside of teachers from the

013career center and we um had some coaching support from great schools partnership and we used their beliefs and practices of proficiency based learning to do a series of workshops throughout the year to help um have conversations. Some of our teachers are new and haven't uh worked in systems that use a proficiency based system. Um and having alignment in terms of how we're approaching that is really important. So this is one way that we approach that uh or a piece of this. Next slide. Another thing that's connected is um a grant that Stacu was actually a part of this team. Um but we received a grant from the agency of education to strengthen our personalized learning plan process which again is really about um having students be metacognitive about the things that they're doing, how they

014connect to their future goals and aspirations, how they connect to what they're doing in their classes. And so we've been strengthening our system. Um PLPS or personalized learning plans are required for grades 7 through 12 in the state of Vermont. We have had some version of PLPS and have had ups and downs in terms of how it's landed with students and how implementation of it has gone. So, this team came together. It was a made up of folks from the middle and high school and we've really um they've really spent um a great amount of time thinking about looking at models um getting input from students and staff looking at that data to um plan a more robust uh PLP for the future. Right. Anything you want to add on that front? >> Here's hoping.

015>> Yeah, here's hoping. Right. So, that was great work um that happened. Next slide. some kind of really fresh uh work that's happening um is this New England um community consortium grant um that's uh we were invited to participate in and we have opted into and what this what this does for us is uh we are pursuing a pretty hefty grant. the the maximum amount of the grant is $500,000 um to help build community um and school partnerships. So, we're really excited about the possibility of this. Um when you opt into this grant, you get coaching support um to help a design team. So, you can see there's a very large design team. It was interesting. I I was told to have about 8 to 12 people in the design team. So, I cast out

016a net and not a well, I guess maybe a couple people said they couldn't do it, but most people that I asked were very excited about this opportunity. So, John um is one of the team leads, if you will. So, John and I are the team leads and then we have this design team and we have a a coach, the same coach it happens to be from Great Schools Partnership that's worked here. So, she's familiar with our system. She's done a lot of work with not just just proficiency based learning, but also some equity work that we've done. And so she's helping this group um come up with basically a grant proposal uh to to strengthen community and school partnerships. Um ideas are still percolating. We've only met once now um where we did some

017community asset mapping which was really great activity to think about what are the assets we have in our community. Um, and I'm really excited about regardless of the outcome of the grant, um, this is going to really help us think about, um, these connections that are part of prof proficiency based systems, part of our portrait of grad, um, elevates this idea of being connected to the community, serving the community. Um, and this is just feels like a really natural fit for us and it kind of intersects perfectly in terms of the timing of it as we're elevating our portrait of grad. this work will be really helpful. So, we've got um some community members um educators and students for um high school students are also so a great group and we'll meet the next time

018we meet is not till August um and the grant deadline is in September. So, we'll meet again in August and a couple times after that and and put together the grant. So, hopefully I'll be coming back in the fall and and giving you an update. Next slide. And then I um figured I'd talk about some like background relevant systems changes. We've I know in this particular um conversation we've talked about our communication of proficiency based uh learning through our grade book. Um and we've talked about jump rope and some of the pros and cons of that. So we are uh officially transitioning from now from jump rope to power teacher pro which is what we already use in K5. So that'll be a a change that we've already communicated with staff and we'll be uh

019working toward uh smooth transition um so that uh families can access the portal in a similar way that they do to jump rope and be able to track their students learning um in that way. We've also in this um in in in various meetings talked about um some of the challenges we've had with our screener. Um we've gotten feedback from students. We've gotten feedback from um teachers. Um and we we've landed on making some shifts that I think will give us uh more clear um and actionable results. So, I'm excited about even though transitions are hard and we've used the screener we currently use called FastBridge um for some time, um I think this will be a welcome change for many and give us some more actionable data that's aligned better with the curriculum that

020we teach. Um, we're also adjusting some data systems to really hopefully be able to track and disagregate and provide better data for our multi-tered systems in sport and just for data collection in general. And in general, what we're doing here really is we're taking four systems and whittling it down to two. So, it's simp going to simplify things for everyone involved. Um, which is a good thing as long as those systems are robust, which we we feel like they are. Next slide. All right. Now, I'm gonna kind of transition toward queuing up Stacy because I've talked for way too long. But, um, one of the things that, you know, when we when we released, if you will, or put out the portrait of a grad is the portrait of a grad, um, is really a

021lot of language. It's a document. Um and so what's important um with any document is really making sense of it and then the application of of what that what it really means in the classroom. So starting with this slide which is um just a hierarchy basically of how we think about the structure of curriculum. So at the broadest level we have this portrait of a grad which is really strong great language but it's not really actionable as it's written. not meant to be used with students directly. It it's like how do you make sense of of you know lofty goals that have a lot of um powerful words but aren't concrete. They aren't a benchmark for uh um to work with different levels of students and so forth. And so what we do with the

022portrait of a grad and what we do with our content proficiencies is we unpack them um into smaller and smaller grain size things. So we go down and we have these performance indicators um which are aligned to the to the national standards and we have learning targets and scales and that's where you really interface with the students and use them and that's how you once you have your learning targets and scales you can design assessments in your instruction to to support that. So, it's important to kind of like understand that that system and in just a moment we'll provide you with some resources to show how um some of our teachers are doing that with with our portrait of a grad. Next slide. So, I'm going to um pass around um this this packet of

023materials has uh a few things in it. The the first page is the portrait of a grad. So that's that broadest um description of what we are aspiring, what we want for our students when they leave our system. These are the attributes essentially that we want them to walk away with. And again, how do we get there? Well, next slide. You have to kind of make sense of what each of these things are. So one of the things we've done this year is we've taken some time to unpack those. And this is a kind of a landing page. You'll notice that it's oriented the same way. So there there's the and that's the second page on the packet you just got. But um the the transferable skills are the same four things as the portrait

024of a grad. So you've got personal development, community connection, innovative thinking, and effective communication. Under that are these domains, as we're calling them, which are ways of describing different pieces of of that portrait. So, I'm going to zero in on one in particular because it's going to be the one that Stacy's going to speak to. But, so under innovative thinking, one of the things that she's going to talk about is a project she did with um her sixth grade classes and they focused on a couple of specific domains. One being curiosity. So, you can see under innovation is curiosity. Well, that is a hyperlink that you would click on. Go ahead and change the next slide, Chila. Oh, I guess I skipped. Darn it. This one. >> Sorry. The next switch to the next page

025in your packet. I forgot that slide. Sorry. But it basically it'll zoom into how I just >> You want me to click on it? Would it work if I clicked on it or >> Oh, it might. Yeah. Yeah, it should actually. >> It's an image. >> Now you can click on click on curiosity. >> Perfect. So then that takes you to this is domain one curiosity. So this is just dedicated to that. And you can see that there's different learning targets based on the grade span you're in. So for Stacy who's a sixth grade teacher um that 68 grade span she has some choices in terms of how she wants to integrate that. Is she going to look at the performance indicator 1A or 1B? And in this case on your packets you'll see highlighted

0261B because she chose to focus in on that particular aspect of that domain of curiosity. So this is the way that we basically go from a portrait of grad that's again broad language into studentfriendly firsterson um language that's um benchmarked to the grade band that we're we're speaking to. So, if you can imagine this over time, right, this this alignment over time allows you to build these skills in a really uh intentional way so that as the student moves through our system, they're they're learning more and more of those attributes of that portrait. >> I'm going to turn it over to Stacy um if that's all right and and you can talk to specifically what that looked like and felt like. >> Yeah, sure. Uh, so where that led is on the back of your

027packet. He has one of my rubrics that I actually used today because it was our final academic day. And as is our custom in the sixth grade, we end every unit with a Harkness uh circle. And so >> could you just explain what that is? >> Sure. I know what it is. >> Well, I brought visuals. Beautiful. Uh, Harkness Circle is a chance for students to prepare uh, a reflection on I mean historically high school students at Exit Phillips Andover one of those prep schools they started Harkness. It's where you sit around you talk about a text. It's all studentrun. The teacher doesn't butt in and all the teacher does is draw pretty pictures. This is Oh, this isn't today's this is today's Harkness. Um, this is a Harkness. The kids are are um listed

028on the outside. They've prepared um to answer some reflection questions about our unit and then the students run the discussion for a half hour where they call on each other and the standards are very clear that the idea is active listening, drawing others in, democratic participation and sharing evidence that they've collected over time. I like to think of it as like preparation to be ready to be successful and then 100% participation in a spoken showing of your understanding at the end of a unit. And not only that, but because of like the peer-to-peer piece of it, they all are getting ideas from hearing each other speak and then they're like, "Wow, I didn't realize we did that in this unit." So, it's one of my favorite things to do. It's always my second summitive to

029the projectbased summitive that we've done. Um, and uh, we've been doing this for about 3 years. I brought it to Virginia's Union Middle School about 3 years ago. As far as I know, it's now a practice across the entire middle school, which I really, really love. Um, and we've been doing it from the beginning. We've been using transferable skills to assess this. So, it wasn't that crazy to move it over to the portrait of a graduate because for a long time in the middle school, we've thought about um transferable skills as the why and then our content standards as the what and then we pair them together in meaningful ways and it helps kids understand the rationale for their learning. So, while I may have an ELA standard that's about analyzing a text or finding

030detail or that sort of thing, I tie it to the idea of curiosity or I tie it to the idea in this case of communication skills and how we speak with one another. Um, so, uh, Harkness was just a a pretty easy way so uh to to move it over to Portrait of a Graduate. What what happened with Portrait of a Graduate is all of a sudden we had it was like we had a like kind of a fi a a wide net of possible things to pull from with portrait of a graduate and it became a much finer more dense net with all these options when you're looking at Gab's handout. Um it can be really hard and I'm imagining as a board you guys experience this. It can be really hard to get

031your head around when you click on a thing another two open and when you click that one there's another four. And as a teacher, it's equally hard for us to get our heads around that. But when you think of it as a north star at the top, like if you just think about the I think about them as two social emotional like either I'm looking inward and working on my personal development or I'm thinking about my connections to community. And then I look at the other two as my bread and butter for humanities. like you can't do humanities without innovative thinking and inquiry and you can't do it without communication whether it's written, spoken, um hearing, uh speaking, listening, all four of them. Um anyway, so so that's the way we look at it. I

032we kind of find our north star for what we want the kids uh to be able to do or show at the end of a unit and then we drill down and find their partner um uh content standards. uh this also has shown up. So besides my hardnesses which you're all welcome to look I also included the students preparations. I call this making thick air with students. It's like where you get them to have a lot of think time and a lot of preparation so that even kids who are really anxious, shy, afraid to share, there's 100% success. Every kid has something even if it's just reading off what they have. And then the more sophistication is connecting with another person. We teach them to disagree respectfully. We take teach them to say same as

033that person but I want to add something. We're teaching them how to be citizens um with this discussion model. Um but oh I lost my train of thought. So if you want to see any of their preparation, I did bring samples of sixth grade preparation for both my Inquisitor's Tale and a medieval unit and my um most recent drama unit. Um but then Gabe asked if there was anyone willing to really play around with using these instead of transferable skills. and our sixth grade team uh said everyone does an end ofear project either capstone for eighth grade, service learning for seventh grade or passion projects for sixth grade. Yeah, feel free to pass those down or around. Um and sixth grade said we will do our passion projects this year moving all the way over

034to fully using a portrait of a graduate skills. Um it didn't feel that foreign. It just had there were just more colors on the palette as it were. Um, so we had a discussion about what lent itself most to passion projects for sixth graders. We actually came up with seven. I think it was a lot, but it was also kind of a big project where the kids picked their own projects, did research, used Noodle Tools, which is a digital research tool, um, interviewed family members, created a product, and um, had an exhibition of learning a couple weeks ago. Um, and we aligned each one of those standards to like having them write a little bit of a reflection essay where each one of those addressed how they were talking about that standard. So, if it

035was about analysis, if it was about research, um, they they talked about their research process and where they struggled with research and then, you know, the personal piece was why did you pick this? Why does it matter to you? Um, and so they actually had a very concrete way to go through the seven that that generated sort of a written reflection of their entire process from soup to nuts, from beginning to exhibition. Feel like I'm talking a lot. Um, do you want to pass one of these like jump jump rope down in case you want to see how bad sixth grade handwriting is? Um, well, I did pick some better handwriting for you. Uh, but I I think what's really important it's it's it's the why. And we also can then look at how are

036we cycling through these as a spiral. How are we making sure we come back to them time and time again. Harkness is a good example where they're going to say that see the same thing at the end of every single unit. They're such pros. >> They're so good at it. They're like, "Oh, Harkness. Oh, I got it. I'm good." You know, sixth graders, but they know the drill. They've done it a ton of times and they they just run it. It's um they love to see their charts at the end too to see how how active they were. Um when I first started it three years ago, kids were just seventh graders, eighth graders were terrified to come to the table and now it's just so normal. So normal. >> And I think they're taking

037it up in the ninth grade now. >> Blam. >> Yay. Harkness is my favorite thing. I love it. >> Do you do you do the charting? I do the charting as it's happening in real time. I sit silently and my pencil moves. I I'm I am a notetaker, so I take way more notes than like Harkness calls for, but I write down as much words as I can that they say. Um I also have shorthand like do not like disagrees respectfully, adds on to another student, makes a connection. I have a little shortorthhand like that, but it's actually one of my as an English teacher, you can pull allnighters grading writing. Um, with this sort of thing, the grade the grade and the feedback is instantaneous. It's just very clear. You've participated, you were ready,

038you did good work. Um, and the kids are fully in charge and they really love that. They're like, "Oh, this is like this is like fun. This isn't like hard work." But they're reflecting, they're pulling things together, they're synthesizing, they're sharing, >> and it makes the unit. Yeah. >> But maybe more. So on this chart, you have all these skills that you want students to get by the time they graduate. So how do you manage when they do these skills? And is it every year, every class, every year? >> How do you and how do you know that they're getting these things? like what you know the big picture. >> Yeah, great question. Um, so there's there's typically there's a a few approaches to this and the approach we're taking. So right now this was

039kind of like the pilot phase. We just developed these benchmark transferable skills so that and and put them out there to everybody and offered people to dabble in them and some teachers took up on that and some haven't yet. That allowed us to get some feedback and do we're going to do some tweaking. Um based on that feedback, we had a workshop where people could come in and give some feedback. We'll make some adjustments and then we'll, you know, galvanize that first draft that will everybody will be using next year because it's tied to that hierarchy in our grading system, grading reporting system. Every assignment that teachers assign, they tag the transferable skills that they're going to utilize. So we will over the course of the year we'll be able to map exactly what transferable

040skills are being used and where and that will allow us to have a reflective conversation about where there might be gaps and where there might be um opportunities for um thinking maybe differently about what skills or activities or we do. So it'll it'll force conversations basically um that we can periodically have to reflect on are we actually you know getting this over you know both uh in each experience and across experiences. That that's the beauty of it is it not every teacher has to do all of them but we have to be thoughtful about where they're happening. And in some departments, especially in the high school, kind of like they've had conversations already about which ones lend themselves to certain domains. And so you can already see that some of that happens naturally, but um

041it's a it's a great conversation to have and it's it'll take some time to get it right. Won't happen instantaneous. >> Um two-part question. first part. Um, what would you say is the level of fluency that students have when it comes to the transferable skills themselves? You mentioned that the portrait of the grad is is a little bit more perhaps teachers are engaging with them a little bit more closely, but when it comes to the transferable skills, I'm curious about that. And then the other I'm noticing the language of the transferable skills themselves and and and in some of the assessment is self assessment ever coming into the picture and and how does that play a role in students understanding where they where they fall in a certain moment? >> Uh yeah, I would say

042it it depends the transferable skills prior to the portrait of graduate that the version 2.0 I don't know what that was. It's not what I'm using right now, but what we had been using for the last several years. Um, some of that was day in and day out, especially in humanities, we had gone to using almost exclusively. Um, with one teaching partner, we were using almost exclusively transferable skills. So, inquiry 1, inquiry 2, and inquiry 3, we would use day in and day out for collecting evidence. Um, uh, like the CA, the the claim, evidence, analysis, writing was all tied to the inquiry standards. So the kids knew exactly what those were. These are a little new. Um so I think the familiarity is emergent and not there yet. Um although it's not foreign language.

043Um I really really love independence over here in the blue column and collaboration in the um word collab. See you have to go oh no collaboration in the yellow column. Like I'm always toggling between am I asking them to work on their own? Am I asking them to work in groups? And what does that look like? That's pretty common language in our classroom. And yeah. >> Yeah. And I would say that so those four transferable skills or portrait of grad at the highest level, the um the personal development, community connection, innovative thinking, those have actually been around for some time now. It's really how we interpreted and unpacked those over the course of our portrait of grad um process. uh where we took input from community members, from students, from teachers um to really think

044about what we were aspiring to towards. Um so at the most basic level, starting I guess four years ago, all of our ele K through prek really through 12th grade were engaging with those four main areas. Now that we have the set of transferable skills, everyone will be engaging with those transferable skills within the grade band from those columns. So they will now teachers and and schools will now be utilizing that to frame the work that they do with students. And sometimes that is it's not just in classrooms like a lot of times in the elementary schools they use some of these attributes to think about their PBIS or positive behavior intervention systems and language that connects. So I think over time we're going to build that um fluency that you were speaking of. Um

045we're not there yet but students are aware of them at least at the at the broadest level through our system. And about the self- assessment, um, I was just laughing because we asked our students to self assess on those seven portrait of a graduate skills two weeks ago and we gave them a single point rubric with the proficiency right down the middle and we just said, you know, if you think you reached proficient, go ahead and circle that exact description of what you did and if you felt, you know, if you don't feel you quite reached it, describe how you how how, you know, what were the qualities that had you falling below the proficiency or if you think you exceeded did it at what do you think you did specifically that made you exceed

046that written that's a single point rubric and um I was just laughing because there were a lot of very confident young children who gave themselves a lot of force um uh without a lot of written description who uh had been pulling together their projects that morning. Um uh so self- assessment is also a skill in and of itself we're working on with sixth graders but it is always really interesting to ask kids to self assess and then have discussions about what that self- assessment looks like >> to come at the assessment question just a little bit differently. Um, I feel like these the everything you're talking about makes a lot of sense and but it's kind of geared towards, you know, these are the things that we want the students to do. And I'm curious

047more about the like process of doing the assessments because um I I know that um universal design has been a really important um you know approach the past few years. Um but I also have seen that the process of having you know formative assessments that are low stakes and repeatable um works really really well for a lot of students. But for some other students who have different learning styles or different approaches to learning, uh it doesn't work at all. Uh because of the idea like this is just busy work. Um I'm not getting a grade. Why should I do this? Right. Um, and so I was wondering if there's been any any questioning of that or any discussion about that sort of approach as it relates to proficiencybased teaching and learning, but like is there

048some way you know if students don't thrive with that summitative versus formative approach and part of this I'm saying as a parent, part of it, I'm also saying as a teacher of firstear college students who sometimes have really strong difficulties adjusting to a college approach where you you don't get to retake the test, you know, until you show your proficiency. Um, so I'm just curious about if that's come up at all in your discussions. >> I mean, I I think Obviously, I'm not in the classroom every day, but from from what I see that the the conversations that I witness or talk to teachers about or talk to students about, um the focus does seems to be more on the learning. Um, and I think more and more the more that we exercise this muscle

049of of self assessment of understanding where they are on the learning scale, the more they see the relevance and value of that work that it doesn't feel as much like busy work. Um, and and now that we're we have proficiency based practices throughout our system and to some extent throughout the state, there's variability, but I think students are becoming more and more understanding of why there's value to doing things that don't count, >> if you will. I mean, that's just my sense as an educator over the past, you know, 12 years that we've really been engaged with this concept of standards based grade and space learning. Um, is it perfect? No. Does it does it still require um intentionality and more exercises to provide those opportunities for those conversations about metacognition and understanding their own

050process really internalizing where they're at and why they're where they're at and what it might take to get there. I think that's that's the work. And just to be clear, the students who I've seen struggling are not virtu. It's just it's more of a blanket statement. They're you know, they come from everywhere. >> And I was going to say I I wasn't resonating with your question as much. I think it's less I less pronounced at the sixth grade level. Yes. Um, I see a shift just when I was teaching eighth grade a difference like the the way that they orient themselves to uh focusing on their grades is is you know in the sixth grade we're just busy making we're just busy making stuff and and we downplay grades a lot and we're really just

051having a question of like is this good? How do we know if it's good? And we're just talking about that. So um I I think maybe that becomes more prominent as the grades start counting on transcripts and is not a conversation we're having at sixth grade level because the kids are just deeply engaged in making stuff and um you know are not going to check their jump rope all the time which is great. >> Yeah. >> Do you want me to go on in the presentation? >> Um there's just a couple kind of closing thoughts. Um thank you Stacy. I I appreciate that context and I should have led by saying that I that Stacy mentioned and I mentioned that teachers could kind of opt into like taking this risk and and trying these things

052out. And so I'm really appreciative of Stacy and the other teachers that were willing to just like roll up their sleeves and get right into it. Um, so this this is actually a document that I created that was born out of the work that is happening with back grant that I was speaking to that that John and I are involved with. But I mean this is really kind of like where we're headed in terms of this work. I think I think the portrait of a grad has given us a really nice um destination if you will and now we're really starting to think about like how do we actually pull this off and how do we get that data of you know students not reporting that especially in the upper grades that they're engaged in

053school. How do we help them feel like they belong? And it's really about this idea of uh establishing a culture of doing with is kind of the theme that we're thinking about. If students are really feeling like they're doing it for for their community, for they're engaged with their community, their values are important, they get to bring their whole selves to the table, um and it's relevant to them as individuals, then I think we're going to um make some movement. So, I'm really excited about how lots of different things seem to be coming together in a really interesting way. Um go ahead, next slide. Um, and so you can kind of see across uh on this vertical alignment hub that we've got this portrait of the grad. We've now got these transferable skills and now

054we can start using those things to really think about things like student agency where yeah, students are engaged in their own learning. They're making choices uh about what they're doing through their PL processes. They're engaging with the community by showing the work that they're creating and they're um as we grow our flexible pathways, they're quite literally engaging with the community as part of their learning experience in our system. So, this is kind of like the vision um coming together, bringing together lots of different pieces of the work. >> Thank you. Have some questions. >> Awesome. >> Have some questions. Yep. Um, is Power Teacher the old Power School? >> Yeah, Power Teacher Pro is the Power School grading program. >> It's an add-on. It's a module. >> Power Teacher Pro >> and and that's the

055program that parents will look to for >> Okay. >> Um, what were the main drivers for moving away from Jump Rope and going back to our school suite? Yeah, I mean there there's like lowhanging things where you know like one system for our our system uh for families so that they could go to one place and whether their kid was in third grade or ninth grade they could they could access the information. A lot of our we have always as a jump rope is not a student information system. So we had to go to two places for lots of things. So there's the efficiencies and so forth. Um and we've been exploring the shift for a long time. Um and I actually even went and attended a conference put on by P school to really

056un better understand their proficiency based capabilities and kind of we felt like we they were at a point where we could make this shift in still maintain our um emphasis and beliefs in space practices that we've been working on for a number of years. So, um, yeah, we're excited about, uh, about the change. Obviously, it's going to be takes some training and it's going to be a lift for our middle and high school teachers, but I think it's a pretty intuitive program that, you know, look a little different, but in many ways it'll look very similar. >> Um, what time of day are the screeners given? Are they given during um like a core class? Like is the math one given during math? What if a student doesn't have math? When is that given? Are

057these generally in the morning, generally in the afternoon or all over the place? >> It's a 15minute screener, right? >> The the old screener we've been doing up until this point is about a 30 minute screener. I mean, it it's it's highly variable. um the screeners we're moving towards will take a little bit longer, but they give a lot more um the instead of just like overall scores in a few different areas, these these the new screeners we're moving to will give us a lot more information that teachers can use immediately. >> Um to answer your question about we've been trying different schedules. Um, in some schools it's been pretty consistent and in other schools they've been adjusting things. Middle school is always with content area teachers. Um, in the high school it's it with

058the content area teacher unless they don't have a class and then they have an alternate space for those in time for those um students. In terms of time of day, it's it's been variable. We've tried different places in the day. um depending on the grade level might have been adjusted. Some career center students like there's schedules that have to be worked around accommodate that. So some students might take it in the morning, some might take in the afternoon if they're in the career center. Um will the new screener be done three times a year as well? >> Yes. Uh yeah. Have you been able to determine anything with the pattern where fall is a lower score and then winter's a higher score and then it drops down to a lower score in the spring? >>

059Yeah, I mean I think that testing fatigue is is an issue. I the spring is really tough in the sense that we most of our students grades three through nine and then 11 have VTAP as well. So they've they get the the screener, they've got that. Um so it's a lot of assessment. Um, but I yeah, I think we're trying to figure out like how much of it is is student affect and student engagement with the assessment and how much of it is data to be really believe in in the sense that like it does drop a little but it's it's not like dropping dramatically in the spring. Um and we have different students. Um let's see how we we always see a drop from uh spring to fall because of the summer slides. So

060it's hard to make sense of and that's that's one of the reasons why we're changing assessments. We found it really difficult to kind of like pinpoint the the causality of some of the scores that we've seen. But we want to make it obviously as meaningful and relevant to students possible. And I think some of these changes are trying to to achieve that. >> Do the students know that the assessment is like low stakes to no stakes to them? >> I mean I I'm not do they know in the sense like do we >> it's not I mean it doesn't part of their grade. >> It's not part of their grade, right? Yeah. Yeah. They know that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's not something that's learned throughout the year. They they know that from the

061beginning. So that >> and we've done some you know again we're trying to like more and more we're especially with um through the PLP process we're having them think about their scores and reflect on their scores uh score reports are now being sent home so that families know what the scores are. So we're we're trying to do some things to again increase relevance. these things are helpful for individual and systemwide um data tracking like they they're one of many measures that we have to kind of tend to and look at and um so I I think we're making steady improvement and we're we're making some changes this year to get even better. Well, I think you've gotten more engagement with student voice coming in and saying this is what's happening in the classroom and what's

062happening in the hallways and how can we engage better so that we are getting usable data not just well VB done >> right literally one of the reasons why we started looking at other options was the student feedback piece right and one of the highlights of the assessment we're moving toward is the ease of understanding of the results. So that will automatically have more I think more meaning for students and like you know even Quincy Missell were speaking about their experiences taking the old test. So >> I love that the data is available to teachers. Uh when my students my students they're my kids when my kids were students here um we we did not get that information. >> Yeah. >> Um so I I love that. that seems to be another way that you

063can kind of make it mean more to the student than than it might currently. Um on the um report that you gave uh it only showed um math screeners and no um SLA screeners. Is there there reason for that? >> I mean this wasn't a full data presentation. So, I was just I was just showing pieces of the data. The data workbook, the most updated workbook, which I'm just finishing up, will have because we just finished the spring window. So, I still was putting it together, but I just did the data inventory with the grant application. So, it's now done. Um, so that data is now available. In our meeting before this, we did talk a little bit about um how we could possibly get some more comparative data put into some of the reports

064that were given through the year. Um and that's still something I'm looking for, although um I do continue to be updated that there's just not a lot of comparative data out there. Um, uh, the one thing I did like, uh, was the VSAC one that did give you some comparison to, uh, statewide, but it's, I mean, that's a tough one because just students that are going to college. Um, so yeah, just uh I would ask you to continue to look for ways to present us with some comparative data either statewide or um regionally or um schools that are other size or makeup. So thank you. One of the concerns >> screeners is that you lose that connection to the historical data. Have we found a way to address that so that way next year we

065don't come in and say, "Well, we don't have anything to compare this to to see if it's up or down or >> I mean, we've had those conversations." So, we pulled together a group of about 15 educators from district conversation and that came up. Um, and I think we'll continue to when we're looking longitudinally, all of the screener assessments are um are common core aligned. And so, yes, we need to distinguish like this was this screener and this is this one, but we'll have, you know, some level of general proficiency comparability. we'll just have to be clear that we're not comparing an apple to an apple in this case, but there's some differences. So, I think we that was part of the hesitation that that has been around and we finally got to the point

066where there was enough data, if you will, street data, um, on how this greener was going that it felt more important to choose something better than to hold on to it because longitudinal. and uh the I call them level one surveys that how do you feel about um the questions about academics? It seemed like there were two groupings that there was a group that disagreed that they felt prepared and a group that agreed that they felt prepared. Those are the two highest scores. Is there any followup to say why don't you feel prepared? What is it specifically that you don't feel prepared for? Because I know people say, "Oh, school never taught me how to do my taxes, but there's a thousand tax forms and so we can't teach all of that." But is there

067something that they feel like they are missing that? >> Yeah, we >> talking about the BAC survey, >> pardon. >> Are you talking about the >> Yeah, the agree disagree. Yeah. >> Yeah, that's not our survey. But >> we do have we have student groups that will like take some of these survey results like whether it's the panorama and they kind of dig into it and they it's their like focus groups where they we try to like dig into that a little bit and get some sense you're going to have a as as many opinions and voices as you are students in the room in many cases. But yeah, it's something that's important for us to understand. So like what's the root of this and and what do we have to you know so how

068can we respond >> right because if if it's the kids who are going into trades after this are saying they don't feel prepared that's different than kids who are going into college saying they don't feel prepared and so the >> important right yeah >> if there's a distinction there and what where we should be focused question. >> Thank you very much. >> Could have used more cowbell. >> Yes. >> Say it again. >> He could have used more cowbell. >> Oh, makes a harsh. >> Yeah. >> In my other job, I played the cowbell. >> Yeah. Stacy, thank you so much for being here on the last week of school. >> Yeah. >> You're welcome. >> Very much the graduating scene. >> With a graduating senior. >> Huge. Thank you. It makes a big difference.

069Thanks. >> All right. Well, we don't have students for student report. Isabelle. >> Oh, and please take some food. Sorry. Please definitely take some food. You got a lot of food. >> Isabelle's currently at my house with 50 other people for the end of this season track party. And I'm not sure where Quincy is. I know she was at a wedding over the weekend. So, Mitch, she might not be back. Um, I do want to say that at the end of last week was the D3 state champion track and uh our own Isabelle is the winner of the 400 meter girls. or the state. So >> that's great. >> Wonderful. >> There were a few other people got on to platforms, but nobody hit number one. >> Superintendent report. >> All right. First of all,

070we're graduating our class of 2026 this week on Friday. So very excited about that. It's also really great to still have seniors in the building in the past. They haven't historically come to school this week, but I'm very glad that they are here through the week. and um they're not but they don't have anything to compare to. They've only ever been seniors just now. So this is the new normal. Um I was able to participate in the humanities roundt um this morning. I was in with a group of four students and they presented their um personal connections to their papers that they wrote and we had a big group discussion. Um it was a basically a two-hour discussion with these kids that we could have taken even more time. It was so um meaningful and

071I just thoroughly enjoyed my time. I'm in awe of our students and how well they um represent their their work but also can connect with each other and um and have the kind of meaningful conversations that uh Stacy was speaking about with her harkness. So uh it was great. Um I wrote a thank you to Principal Matt Deoy. Um we're um saying goodbye to him. He's been here since 2001. Um he was a French teacher here. He's been a principal at Addison Central School as well as for Jensen's. And um I can't imagine him not being here next year, but I've been very grateful to overlap and have this opportunity to work with him over the last eight years. So he'll be right down the road, so we know where to find him if we

072need him. Um but yeah, this is a heartfelt goodbye. uh he's having a bittersweet, you know, time closing out the year, but we really appreciate all that he's done for the district. And I listed all of the other retirements and um or folks that are moving out of the district. So, just to call them out, Randy Barry, uh Ferrisburg, elementary teacher for three years. Jeremy Brooks, a special educator here for seven years. Laura Kvassus, elementary teacher at BUAS for three years. Allison Deika, Ferrisburg Elementary just this one year, but she worked in the district before, so we are sad to say goodbye to her again. Matt, as I mentioned, David Grabben, high school social studies for four years. Janet Capez, German teacher for 19 years. Uh, Susan Olivera, school counselor here 30 years. Um, Ireina

073Pavlin, math here for three years. Sue Rowski, speech language pathologist here for two years. Brienne Wells, school psychologist for 11 years, and Gwen Wickle, reading specialist for 11 years. So, we're saying goodbye to those folks and very grateful for their work here in the district. We have three hirings for you to approve tonight. Um, replacements for some of the folks I just mentioned up above, a Ferrisburg elementary teacher and two Vuees elementary teachers. So, I ask for your approval of those. Then I talk just a little bit about what's going on with um 955. And I'm not going to go into great detail here, but um as you know, H55 initiates um merger study groups if approved, merger study groups in the region as well as the CISAs that we spent a little bit of

074time talking about um in our retreat tonight. There is a timeline provided here such that um the merger studies if recommended would be voted on March 7th of 2028 and then they would go into effect July 1 of 2029 um just ahead of the uh foundation formula and you'll be appointing at least one school board member to participate to the U merger committee. Uh I think it's before September 15. So that's something we come back and do in the fall. Um our merger study grouping must include Edison Central, Addison Northwest, Lincoln, Mount Abe, and also the Hannerford Career Center is part of our group. It could include others um but that is at minimum what who would be in the group. It doesn't necessarily mean that that's the group to merge, but that's the group

075to first get together and discuss the idea. Um, the CISAs extend beyond just that merger study group. As I mentioned, our CISA, our cooperative educational service area includes um Addison County and Champlain Valley School District and Mount Mansfield School District. and um the CISAs will get together and um think about what services we would want to collaboratively prop up and and offer in the area and then those would be um services we could pay for um as needed within the district. So that will um start this summer. Um the study of that will start this summer. So, the board tonight will need to appoint uh a member to that CISA group and most districts are putting their superintendent forward for that process. Um we discussed a little bit in our meeting that the foundation formula

076and future budgeting will will begin in 2030. Um and we discussed the impacts of the yield bill as it was passed most recently resulting um because of the 101 million property tax buy down it resulted in a further reduction to our homestead tax rate of about 9 cents or 5.33%. And I did sort of map that out um using our slide presentation what that would mean in a town by town. This is pre any um reappraisals that are being done. So I think Ferrisburg is in that process right now. So as you get closer to that $1 in your assessment, your tax projected tax tax rate will go down. Your property value will go up, but your projected tax rate will will go down. So either way, I mean, this is good news for our

077taxpayers in the short term. It's tricky for us in the longer term to have to think about what those impacts will mean for us. It makes our work even more challenging going forward. Um not sure what else you want me to discuss in detail here. There is more information around tuition caps and things that we haven't discussed all that much. Bonds, um there are some other things, but we can talk more about what those might mean for us. I think just in the short term our job is thinking about scale and sustainability and um you know what we need to do budgetwise to stay under that threshold as we go forward. That's it >> questions. our own business. >> I've included in my full report ending on May 31st, uh our overall expenditures are very

078compatible and comparable to last year, which is kind of surprising because usually they're higher. Um as we approach the end of the year, uh we have some expenses that haven't been allocated yet, like the H for June, which is around 30 to 50,000, and we have revenue that hasn't been encumbered yet. uh with uh estimating the expected revenue and if we spend all of our uh incumbrances, we're looking at 500 to 700,000 as a surplus. Currently, the child nutrition program will end in a deficit, but we don't actually have to supplement them at all because of their fund balance from FY25. Um, I've also included our new uh visit statement uh going in for FY27 coverage for property liability, auto, cyber, crime, and workers compensation. Um, it's an increase of 6% from this year leading

079into next year. Uh, later in the board, uh, we'll actually approve the line of credit from Mnt and you guys will get to sign that in three different places. They're all labeled. And other than that, um, everything has been met. Vicki did reach out to the finance committee again for the May review. I'm not sure if we're still doing that. Um, if not, then we'll finish that in August like we did this year. And this is my last meeting. So, I wanted to say thank you for this year. It's been great getting to know you guys and learning this process. So, I hope you guys all have a good summer. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, on to be me starting. So, as Chila said, we've got a whole bunch of kiddos graduating the

080end of the week. Um, you'll be in the gym 6:00. This is thing that I always do since I got on this board. I go to the graduation because it's the culmination of why we put up with all this stuff. See them walk across. It's a little bittersweet for me this year cuz I've got one coming across the stage. Um, it's going to be in the gym. It's going to be hot, but it's supposed to be thunderstorms outside, so it's what it is. And uh I believe Chris Wyoff is talking and Bernie Sanders. So, you should come in here. Um I had mentioned before we have signed the two-year master agreement with the staff and we'll be meeting with the teachers and mediation at the end of this month. Hopefully, we'll have something to tell

081you in August. Um, we might actually have to have a special meeting to approve ratify the agreement if we reach one, but that would be short and sweet. Our board was nominated for the 2026 VSBA board of excellence award. I did talk to the awards committee because there's little conflict of interest since I work for the VSBA and Michael is one of the VSBA representatives and they said, "Well, we don't want to punish boards because they're more engaged than others, but neither I nor Michael should be the one to process the paperwork." So, if I could have a volunteer or two, there is a sheet to fill out. It's lots of like yes, no questions. Does your board do this? If it's yes, then can you show us a minute showing that you have done

082that? like you know have board education and things like that. So, it's it's fairly simple. Walks it through fairly easily, but be great if somebody else would be able to do that so that our fingers can be clean and might be able to get it. Have any takers >> and and we can certainly help you find the relevant meeting minutes if that would be useful >> too. If you want to help that would great. I will send you the link and walk you through it. But and I can help. I just can't touch. Uh we'll do this a little later, but the this superintendent evaluation committee met um as kind of an ad hoc because that's closest we had to a search committee and we would like to put forward the idea that we would

083like to have a search committee formally formed um get started with just maybe two or three of us because we're also going to have teachers and principles and students and community members. So it's going to be a fairly large sort of a same way we do principles. Uh but to start talking about it, we did kind of discuss the idea of have hiring a search firm to help us do this. Uh VSBA does it. Uh I know that Hannerford used a different firm to find uh >> Mac and Jake probably. >> Yeah, that's who was I think there might be a third one that others have used. So we can that group can kind of talk about things. I did reach out to Mac and Jake. they have not responded because they have a little

084thing that says fill out this form and they haven't gotten back to me. But I might give them a call later to see if they got my email. And then I obviously have a connection with the SBA, but that's not part of the group that I work with. So I don't I don't know what exactly they do for it, but we can have somebody come in and and present. And then if we decide to do that, we can bring again it might be a special meeting or it might just be August because we do have a pretty good one runway. >> This is the third one that's commonly used in capital since they've done a lot of searches in Vermont as well. >> So we can look at what they all offer, what they cost,

085and what we think might work best for us. Um, but we'll think about it whether or not you want to be part of that and we can get to that on the main agenda. Uh, and we have the end of a legislative session. There's about 15 major bills that have something to do with education that may or may not be signed. Still waiting on those. 955 obviously is the biggest one, followed by the yield bill. Um, the two things that are most in front of us right now, we've discussed it tonight. The ceases go into effect. You have to pick somebody 30 days after the bill is signed and then that group has to meet 15 days later. And then we all have to pick somebody to go to the merger study group by September

08615th and that merger study group has to have its first meeting by October 15th. So it's off on a process and we can think about who that would be in August. They tell you you have to be a current member. So, I could be, if you were to pick me, we can have at least one board member. It could be more than one. If you were to pick me, I could be on that committee until town meeting day and then I could not be on the committee anymore because I would not be a current member. So, just food for thought and we have a summer to think about it. Um, I am actually meeting with all of the board chairs in our CISA region the same day that the SBA is having its regional meeting,

087which we are all invited to, which is not it's just they're hoping to get they've done it with two or three regions already in the state. There's 11 regions in the state for the SBA just to have board members meet each other and say hi and get to know each other on a personal level. So, not really trying to do work, not talking about mergers. This all happened before 955 actually finished. It's just a way to better engage on a regional level. Um, and then if you want to know more about the legislative session, next week on the 18th at noon is the next uh webinar and it's a wrap and we will be able to say at least what we think is happening because not everything will be signed by then, but it it

088will be what we know when we know it at that point. And so that's my report policy >> went quicker. We had a meeting. >> Okay. superintendent evaluation. I kind of just gave you what we talked about. So, we did talk about half of it was what we do about superintendent search and the other half was what we do about evaluation. And we're we were thinking we going to do kind of more of an exit interview. What's good and bad that we can pass on to a next superintendent? What kind of how do we do with our goals this year? So, just sort of a wrap-up. So not a formal uh evaluation like we've done in the past because it is a transition but we still will do something so that there's continuity of this

089process. There's also discussion we've talked for years about having a different type of evaluation. So we might try and create a different tool and work with the new superintendent about how that might be and that person would be walking into this new so it wouldn't be a change to them. it just would be what it is. So, we may have some discussion on that, but we will probably meet once or twice over the summer and then bring you some results in the early fall. And Hannifford would be Christina. She got stuck in an airport. She missed her connecting flight by six minutes. So, she is not here. She said she she probably landed by now if she made her her next plane, but she said she wasn't going to get into Burlington until 7. Um,

090so I will just say that her report speaks for itself. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Is there a second? All in favor? Any opposed? All right. So, discussion. We kind of already did that. got ahead of ourselves, but um Eric and Mimi will help fill that out so that we have a shot at maybe being that. If we do get it, then I would hope as many of you as possible would be at the annual meeting in late October. It's just in Burlington, so not too far and it's just for the day. Um it's a good one-day program. Lots of interesting things that you learn in different committees or different presentations. Um, and there's usually some student group or two that puts on music or other things. It's fun. Our

091kids did their rock band this past year. They they jammed >> Psycho Killer in the dinner hour. It was pretty entertaining. >> All right, action items. Uh, do I have a motion to appoint Vivian Audi as our student board representative? And let's move that we appoint Vivian as our student representative. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion? Any public comment? >> How many people apply for it? >> Vivian. >> They went out. They asked numerous times. They went out. No, I'm just cur I'm just curious if there was if if there ended up having like >> two or three kids who were in it and it there were like what the criteria would have been to differentiate >> or if two or three would have been. >> No, it would only been

092one. That's the way we have it set up. There was just just her. >> So that's what we have and she's a good kid. >> All in favor? Any >> opposed? Welcome Vivian. We do not have any VSBA resolutions that I am aware of. Going once, going twice. All right, we will skip IB. And I have a motion to authorize all loan documents associated with the tax anticipation line of credit. >> So moved. >> There's second. Do we want to explain that or discuss it? >> I think we should explain it for new people. >> Just one sentence. Uh it's a line of credit that um if we need it, we have it at uh Mnt. Uh usually it's when we're in between the beginning of the school year and the end of the calendar

093year just because of when we get our tax um monies from the certain towns. There's three places to sign for everyone. Everyone has a line. So please just pay attention. Any further discussion? Public comment. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right. I have a motion to authorize the expenditure of $18,800 from the capital improvement fund for necessary upgrades to the security cameras at Ferrisburg. >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Discussion. >> We discussed this at facilities. Um the number is a little bit different than what we talked about in committee, but it's pretty much right there in line. There's also one camera that's being purchased through um the facilities and crud. >> Yes. In general. >> Oh, general. Okay. Um this is something we've been talking about for a while

094as uh is something we need um and the um committee sends its recommendation. >> So is this like adding more? >> Uh it is more and it's also replacing. Okay. Um, the ones that are there at SCS might be the ones that I installed like a long time ago. >> The quality in them are actually too. So, these new versions will I think be more helpful when it comes to security footage and what's new to schools. >> Further discussion, public comment >> from an employee perspective. I like having quality cameras because that adds clarity situations that sometimes there's muddled clarity too. So I well I don't want to spend the money on that. I also from employee perspective appreciate that they're there because it's an added layer of safety for me. I'm not a fair

095spiritual no literally me but you get the gist. Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. >> Thank you. >> Um motion to appoint the superintendent to be our representatives to serve on the Champlain Valley South CISA board. Second. There discussion. Well, each board is appointing their representative at a meeting like this. So, as I said, I I imagine it'll be mainly superintendent that are appointed and the um the appointee from the largest school district has to initiate the first meeting. So, that would be Champlne Valley. So I imagine it will be the superintendent of the Champagne Valley School District that initiates the date and so forth for the first meeting. >> Now that has to happen within 15 days of >> the meeting needs to be announced. Yeah. And that has to

096be within the next month. >> So it's so this is preemptive because I didn't want to have a special meeting. So assuming that the governor signs the bill, >> right? Then within 30 days of that signature we have to appoint somebody and within 45 days of that signature they have to have their first meeting. We have the choice of rep no of putting forward a school board member a superintendent or a designate. This is all the business of operating a district. And so while one of us could do it I don't think any of us would know what we were doing. So it made sense to appoint the superintendent. It may be that we change our minds later on and we appoint business or we appoint one of us. It can change, but at least

097for getting it off the ground, it seemed like people who actually have to live and breathe this on a day-to-day basis should probably be the ones to try and set it all. >> Does the CISA have be like a separate standalone state or like one of the school districts take on the responsibilities that CISA would take on? like could could CVSD take on payroll for all of these districts I mean >> these are created by statute so they have to exist. I think that the only way at least in our region that it could become the same is if all seven school districts that are part of our CISA became a school district and then the school district would be the CISA and the CISA would be the school district. that that they have to

098I mean we could it might operationally work out that way. They might decide that's how they want to structure. You know, our board of representatives might say, "Oh, this is how we can divide these things up and not have to but that'll be it's it's wild west. No one really knows how it's all going to work. They're going to have to sit down." I had discussions today like, "Well, will Visbet be ensuring the CISA?" Don't know. but they're already talking about well what ifs. So there's there's lots of things that are going to have to be figured out over the next year and a half or so and then hopefully it'll take effect and save us all. >> Fasto has also been discussing it every meeting since April I believe too of the impacts. >>

099Yeah, Elizabeth was on the call but same thing. >> Yep. >> All right. Discussion, public comment. Uh yeah, my uh my only concern is that this seems like this is a multi-year venture and um I wonder if having superintendent um as an advis with her wealth of of knowledge being more of an adversar adversary advisoral role and having someone who will be there for not only the next you know whatever six eight months of volatility of something new, but also the back end um and having that consistent voice for our district because there's going to be a point when um you know we're going to we won't have Sheila as source, right? And trying to create that continuity um and not lose the continuity while still being able to take advantage of her her tremendous

100knowledge and report that should give to that person. That would be that would be my question of this of that piece. >> Understood. >> All in favor? >> Opposed? >> Congratulations. I move that we establish a superintendent search committee and appoint up to four board members to serve with the understanding that representatives from other interested groups will be added to this committee at a later date. >> Have a second. >> Second. >> Okay. Discussion. Anybody interested in taking on this role? I will sit in on it >> and other people. >> I am interested. I am curious what the board thinks because I have a child who's also very engaged and would probably be interested and I I feel like it might be a conflict of interest for both of us. So, I would like

101to hear what others think of that. So, I would definitely defer to him to be able to be on that. Um, I will say too, just I mean for those of you that maybe didn't speak up quickly, you usually in in this search process, if you're actively engaged with an outside search consultant, they're going to want input from the whole board, even though some of you would be more actively engaged throughout the whole process. I can't imagine them skipping the step of of engaging with the board on some level. >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean all of us are going to be in this. The the main work of the people who are putting their hands up right now is really to figure out which search company we're going to do if that's the way we

102want to go and then advertising to get the rest of the committee together and have a more robust thing and then we'll just be part of that larger group. So do not feel like if you are not on it, you're you're not off the hook or going to be engaged in doing this work. >> Yeah, I think uh thank you for saying that, Sheila, because the basic reason we exist or the the one thing we have to do is have superintendent. >> Well, at the end of the process, whoever gets put forward, we have to approve and enter into contract. So it's not just the committee can say we put forward Joe Smith. If this board says no, then that's not who we hire. So we do have the final word on it. But we

103also will all be engaged in figuring out the process as goes along. >> If it if my recollection serves me correctly, the board had three finalists and I and the board made the final decision. So the committee brought forward the three finalists and then the board was the final interview for the three finalists. It's very >> for me too. >> I really don't see any conflict with Carol being on it. That was an actual question to the board. No, I if your kiddo doesn't mind being in the same room with you, >> that would be a totally different discussion with him. >> You can check with him if he was just like, "Oh god, I know mine wouldn't want to do that." >> All right, so we go with Nikki, probably Carol, myself, and Yeah.

104Does that feel fair to every like I'm also if other people want to do it I feel like names in the hat would be a fairer you know I I don't want to just because I jumped the gun and open my mouth >> are you encouraging me to join one more thing >> whatever you feel the need to do >> no sorry >> further discussion >> thank you >> public comment >> um I'm curious as to what uh the anticipated cost is going to be if you go to the search committee and where that comes from. >> We don't know yet and when we do we'll be able to go to board. All right. All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right. A motion to adjourn. Oh, public call the comment. Public comment. Please state

105your name for the record. Address your comments for me. Three minutes. Sean from Panton. I work here. Got a kid here. I live here. I pay taxes here. So, I'm kind of the trifecta. Um my my com mostly a statement of concern. Um my concern is that um the the decisions that this board is going to have to make um are are going to be exceedingly challenging uh because it seems like there's only when 70% of our um expenditures go to employment of some sort. um in order to um keep the pressure on that spending um um you're not going to have a choice um but to either cut or hire low um and both have the potential to have significant impacts on the um education of the kids and I start to think well

106gez maybe we need to to uh kind of keep it simple in terms of we have some lofty goals with the technology and data and and and those are all great things but I don't I I I look at districts around us and um that just the economics of it it it just feels like we're in a ever growing weaker position to hire um uh to be a competitive hire and I don't know what the solution is that because it costs what it costs right there is a cost to it and and I don't necessarily think this is a community problem um I it's a state issue um I know there's concern about the cliff Um, to me it seems like it's if it's politically expedient to do another buy down, they'll do another buy

107down. And um I feel like trying to manage trying while I understand the need to be fiscally responsible, I also understand that our students need a particular set of supports academically, socially, whatever, food, all all these things together, right? And at some point we have to say, "Okay, what's it going to be? Are we going to pay the penalty?" I I don't know. I I don't know. But I don't know that this is this is sustainable. Um I'd also like the board to start pulling back from the state a little bit. It seems like the state has lies, great ideas, and we get all freaked out by it. I got freaked out by it. I'll speak for me. and a year later can's kicked down the road. Nothing significant's happening, right? Um, so I feel

108like we almost have to just kind of put ourselves in a bubble and do what's right for our student population. And I I've just have concerns whether whether we're looking at students as you're 16,354 hours instead of you're need you need this support and this is what this support costs. So, I would just ask the board to look at that way in terms of what the needs are first and then see what the money is versus seeing the money is because it feels like we're always going from the money back. And I think it would be um better for our students if we kind of did it the other way. And somebody's got to stand up for the state to say I mean that's the reality. There's no there's more districts than like us out

109there and we're getting run over. So I that that would be my suggest motion to >> move. >> Second all represent pizza on your way out >> and sign the loan documents.