001There we go. >> We're good. >> All right. So, it is 6:31 on Monday, November 3rd, 2025, and I'm going to call this meeting of the Mount Stephanie School District Board to order. And the first item on the agenda is changes and additions to the agenda. And I know Elizabeth, you had mentioned that in one of the communications that went out in West Windsor, it had had it framed this meeting as being largely about Act 73. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, yeah. >> So, and you know, I talked to you and I I mentioned this Christine, but do we want to just start with a quick Act 73 update just in case folks >> I created a couple of slides and sent them to Christine to be part of her presentation today. >> Oh, okay. Cool.
002So, are we if we're feeling good to keep that in the in the um yeah, superintendent report, we can do that. But yeah, we will address it. >> Excellent. All right. Any other changes, additions, anything like that? >> Okay. So, next up, we're on item three, which is approval of the minutes for October 6, 2025. And I will take a motion to approve those minutes. >> So moved. All right. Any discussion on those myself? It look good. >> So, if there's no discussion, then uh we can adopt those minutes. Uh a simple voice vote. All those in favor, please say I or raise your hand to indicate. >> I >> oppose any extensions. All right. So, minutes from October 6th, 2025 are approved. Uh next up, we're on to item four, which is public comment
003on nonaggenda items uh or other community announcements. Public comment is not legally required, but we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns over issues. Through these meetings, our board models for our students how to conduct public discourse and that the board and members of our community can approach controversial issues in a civil and constructive manner and can demonstrate mutual respect. Having said that, please note the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed for discussion. Please start by identifying yourself and what town you reside in. And please limit your remarks to three minutes. >> Any announcements. >> Well, the dinner. >> Oh, for Monday. It comes up later, but yeah. Um, so we are going to be hosting uh the community dinner, support
004community dinner in the basement of Trinity Evangelical Church in uh Windsor right on Main Street. And I believe that starts that runs what from 5 to 7. Does that sound right? >> Set up at 4:30. >> Set up 4:30. >> 5:30. >> Yeah. 5:30 to 7. >> 4:30 is when it starts, but yeah, we'll we'll talk about a little later. Um, >> I will be there right at the start, but if you all need to trickle in, 59. >> Yep. Yeah. 5:37. So if you want to come and say hi, get some get some good food. >> Check it out. Uh this Thursday. >> Yeah, it's every I want to say it's every other Thursday. >> Okay. >> Throughout the year. >> Uh any other announcements? >> Yes, >> Elizabeth. >> Jennifer. >> Oh, Veterans
005Day is this first thing. >> We'll turn it off every time. Yeah. So, we do our traditional Veterans Day because we are not in school on Veterans Day, which is unusual. We're doing it on Thursday at 9:00. >> So, come students lead it. It's wonderful opportunity to share with our community. >> Thanks. Uh any other announcements? >> I'll announce that I believe we have all graders who've applied for the legislative program and they're excited and waiting for results soon. >> Very cool. Anything else? >> All right. So with that, we will move on to item five, which is our administrative report. So I will turn it over to our administrator. >> Oh, it's me. Sorry. Um, good evening. Can you Kristine, can you hear me? >> Yeah, I'm just gonna up here. Give me a
006second. Okay. >> Okay. Um, just highlighting a few things. We're going to give you some data information later. So, I just wanted to highlight a few things that have been happening in October. Um, we survived Halloween and we survived it well. Um, the students had their traditional parade around town uh which the weather cooperated and uh let that happen. It's always nice to see how many community members come out and line the streets just to see the kids go by. So, it was a great event. That is all the kids. And if you look close, you'll see some staff and super uh maybe the superintendent in classroom as well. Um, one uh really neat thing that happened this year, these are our preschool teachers, too. They do a great job with the little kids. We
007shortened the parade for uh kindergarten and preschool this year. It was quite a hike last year. Um so we shortened it for them this year and um it went very very well. But um this year the student leadership team from the high school um asked to join us and Katie Rainey who I just have to give some praise to did a wonderful job of preparing them to come and help uh classes. So we had one um high school student attend each class and it was just a a great exchange. Um you know we're lucky to have that opportunity to go across the building that way. they did an an incredible job and um we're hoping for some more opportunities like that throughout the year. So, it was really successful and um we appreciate them. Um
008I wanted to highlight number Corner, which is the uh math supplement that we've been using to try to um enhance our communicate our math communication and discourse. And this is an example. I think this is maybe a second grade. No, this is a kindergarten one, I think. Can't tell from the picture. Um each each grade level has a uh a patterned calendar that they work on each day. Um draw conclusions. It just they collect data and um have a lot of conversations about what they see growing across the month. It builds calendar and time skills, but it also has a lot of um patterning, a lot of predicting. Um and the teachers are really enjoying this conversation with the students and it's very fun to watch. um when that the students engage and they're up
009and active in math and I I always love to see them doing math and not just completing math. >> Um the next slide Christine, you know, this is our second year of um steam and it's led by our art teacher Maddie Vidila and Tara Kuster, our new librarian who came in last year and they've taken on teaching steam classes. They had the fifth graders working on some bridge construction and testing out whose um bridge could hold the most. I believe the top picture is the winner, but there were a couple more to test this morning. Um a lot of measuring, a lot of building um looking at different how different bridges are made. Um it's just a really all-encompassing program and this the students uh it's also a co-eing opportunity. Tara and Maddie co-e both
010grade both classes are scheduled at the same time and so they can choose to break into groups or in this case they were co-eing and had all of the fifth grade together. Our um instrument lessons have been in full swing for fifth grade for a little while, but our fourth grade just got their instruments the other day and they're so excited they even bring them to lunch. This is a student who had to bring her saxophone to lunch. Um, so they're very excited about that. And then, um, just an update on our student leadership team for elementary. Uh, we have a 25 member team, third through fifth grade. Uh, they will meet semionthly with the next meeting being tomorrow. And they're so large we're we're breaking them into subcommittees. Um, and hopefully, uh, many of
011them are third and fourth graders who we hope to grow into the leadership positions, um, and continue through fifth grade. So that's some elementary activities >> for the middle school. A couple things that have happened in the last month. Um we'd be happy to celebrate our student of the months every month as last year. This year we added advisory of the month and um our first month was lawyers advisory and second month was Mr. this for our first month is going to be like seven months in October. And um the goal for doing that was to just build more culture um and belonging into our middle school and giving the teachers um a celebration day to be with just their advisory. So they they ruin this lunch celebration together and um that's based on like
012their um activities and their challenges that they meet in advisory um their advisory period. Our leadership team is about 15 to 20 students who meet there every week with our counselor and they plan our first Halloween dance. Try to have one every year. um our mountain homeschoolers and our sixth graders from the bridge were invited and um it was it was really really went well this year was really um the something that's happening with our math and ELA teachers our intervention support period is happening um in the second half of our advisory block that's kind of a time pull students for services or extra supports um double double dosing and we're seeing a lot of nice growth in the intervention periods and students redoing some of their their star testing because they're challenging themselves and
013their scores are going up and they're super confident and proud and the teachers were really excited to share that news with us. um another for the second year um again we're offering the National Junior Honor Society to our eighth graders. So they'll be applying um between now and our December winter break and then right at the end of Janu right in mid January they'll look at the end of the semester um grades to determine their if they meet the membership requirements they're welcome to attend the first couple meetings for information look at service projects and the five pillars of the national junior society um last year was our first year and we have seven eighth graders inducted and Mr. Avent is our advisor for National Honor Society and National Junior Honor Society and since we
014have new students who come in at 9th grade and that's considered junior on society he is considering um having another induction for the new ninth graders to add to those eth graders from last year. So that's exciting but it's growing pretty quickly. um second quarter started today. So in the middle school, Ms. Lawyer, shout out to Miss Lawyer, she is our our lighthouse coordinator and she um supports most of the um advisory activities and um the leadership pieces and one of those is students leaving second quarter clubs. So once a month a group of students are leaving different kinds of clubs, Dungeons and Dragons and chess club and board game club and a couple others that started today and we won't see that again till the but we we've added electives to our schedule this
015year instead of clubs and so we want to get them in there somewhere so the kids had some choice and leaving those groups and I had mentioned just that quick announcement that um we had a couple students in eighth grade who applied for the legislative page program and they're very much on the edge of their seats waiting to hear the weekly results and it's supposed to be turning real soon is what I learned. Um some of the pictures here in the top left corner, Miss Lawyer is our ELA vulu and um mini librarian extraordinaire. So we have students supporting um a bullying display for the month of October of some books in the hallway. Um, we have our four students of the month for October. In the bottom left, we have students participating in spirit
016week dressing as twins on twin day. We have our Halloween dance. And in the far right corner, we had sixth graders and social studies class participating in the world culture feast. And so everybody brought food from all over the world to share. And what are some of the things going on with us? I was still muted. Um, I want to take a minute to highlight and really give a shout out to Brian Stamman. He's brought a lot to our music department, you know, during our interview process when kind of what we were what we were looking for was someone to build our build our music program and he's really done that. One of the things he has brought here is um the tri which is the arts um honor society program and this year we
017inducted some new students Cademan Hildrith uh Kurier Hilddrth Danielle Lowry Isabelle Mcclelay Autumn Reed and Kane Sylvia and um we also brought back the coffee house uh which is a performance night. He combined those two events uh this month and we'll have another coffee house in January. Um, and also big news in our music department is he um followed through um what those expectations were when we were in interviews. And for the first time in a in a long time, I don't want to give the exact year, our band was present at a sporting event, a football game to perform the national anthem. Um, and I know that was noticed by community members and staff members alike. It's been a long time since we've had that and it's nice to see our music program really
018starting to grow. And that's a big thanks to Brian. Um, speaking of sporting events, usually at this time I highlight kind of where we are in the uh, playoffs and championship games. And unfortunately, our seasons have come to an end uh, quicker this year. I'm incredibly thankful to our coaches um, for all they've done this season to make these teams positive um, experiences for our student athletes. I wanted to highlight new additions to our newsletter which I think uh these were both of these were teacherdriven um from a need that they recognized and from some of our staff being on the receiving end of elementary and middle school um newsletters and they said hey we want to show off what we're doing in our classrooms too. So, we're alternating every other week. We have a
019department newsletter which comes through that's um from our teachers and they include pictures. You can these are clickable link links. I can't click on them from here, but I think Christine can, but you can click on them later. Um I hope that you check check them out. I hope that most of you receive our parent newsletter. Um, so this has really taken it to the next level where it's not just about logistics, but it's about what is happening within these walls in specific classrooms from specific teachers, what the topics are um, and things like that. It's been really nice and it's also great that it was it was a teacher driven um, initiative um, and they really take pride in it and I really just want to get the word out there because they put
020a lot of work into it. I have gotten a couple positive uh feedback from parents on it. I wanted to make sure it was out there for people to see. Um and the last thing I'm thankful that Tracy gave that shout out to Katie Rainey because as a leader new position or a position that we filled in our with our leader May was our cultural action team leader. Katie has really taken this seriously. is doing a great job of bringing in all of our students, making sure there's events for all of them and she is taking a large role in our sending school schools day which is this Friday if anyone happens to be around and can stop in um at 9:00 and see some of our potential freshmen for next year and the presentation
021that our school counseling department and our cultural action team has put together for them. And that is all I have. >> Well, I finally got the newsletter up, so showing it. >> We alternate that. And then the next week is um Kim Goen has puts out a flexible pathway new newsletter which highlights um a lot of the opportunities and pictures from what they present and what upcoming opportunities there are and what uh students can sign up for and how they can. >> So great. Okay, back to the report. >> Way to go, Christine. >> I know the wrong one. >> No pressure. Okay. >> Sorry. >> Oh, it was me. >> Okay. Fantastic. >> Not show up. >> Jennifer, want to go there? It's empty. >> Um, do you want me to refresh? >> I
022can start. >> I can see it. >> So, we are um starting um our next club. So, we had a wonderful um running organization that Caitlyn helps um support with our kids. So, first time we were able to bring the program over here um finding our stride which includes both um all all students as opposed to what we used to do. Um so, this first year we've done that and there's a lot of success. Um all kids finished the 5K which was pretty extraordinary. Sounds like the adults did too. So way to go. Um so that's super exciting. Now we're moving into um Destination Imagination which just started today and their goal is to make it back to the March um experience and according to three kids bring home a bigger trophy. Um but most
023kids are super excited about just being creative and and exploring that kind of stuff. I want to give a shout out to, and I'm sure this happened at the um mouse or the uh SU wide thing, but the HHB hazing harassment bullying video that Brooke put together in a pretty short period of time is pretty cool. Um and I just wanted to reach out to, you know, all the staff around around the um SU who really pulled kids together to really talk about it in a way that was positive and uplifting and gave them some like tangible things to actually do. I thought that was great and I just loved seeing our own kids here um as they tried to walk through trying to create skits themselves and what they would do um how they
024might stop um and and intervene and be an upstander versus bystandard. Our Halloween walk was last Friday. It seems like so long ago um up at the mountain with Skip organization leading that um every year. I'm just amazed at how many people come through and how the town pulls together and the community pulls together to create a pretty cool experience. It used to be like in the halls here and the sixth graders would create this whole haunted walk and like it's a lot of work here. Um but what I love about there is we used to only see the kids who went to school here. When you're up there, you see kids coming back. You see new kids, you get kids from all over, which is really a a wonderful collaboration with the Scutney Outdoors,
025our skip organization in the school. >> And it was super loud. >> No, it was here. It was the gym was just is not conducive. >> It's not conducive. >> Our student leadership group is working on a couple of things. One is our upcoming harvest festival. Um, and if you as you walk out, you'll see their notes. They actually post their mini minutes, which is pretty cool, um, that they have. Um, they're really excited about some components. The other thing that they're doing now is they're now on our interview committee. So, we happen to be looking for a music teacher and they're on our interview committee for the first time, which is really exciting. Flex grouping is something that in a small school when you have multi-age and the curricula that we have, it's really
026essential that we have some extra hands to help support and teachers who can think about kids in unique ways. And they've been working they the teachers have a chunk of time on Friday during what we call exploratory time where kids are kind of exploring arts and stuff where the teachers have like a double prep. So, one of those two preps, they actually collaborate with each other and with um their either their um special educator, their interventionist, and each other. And really trying to think about how are we going to meet kids where they are? Because we talk about every kid should be growing. And to do that, you have to meet kids where they are because if you're already high flyer and you test and you haven't been taught at that level, you're not growing.
027If you are down here and you're being taught here, you're not growing. So, really finding where the kids are to help them grow. And I'm just super excited about how the team has like this is our second year of really having a full team together to really think about this and just the information that's being processed as a team and the students being able to really feel confident comfortable and confident in their growth is really exciting to see. Uh the leader in me I wanted to um just make sure everybody has a heads up. Um our leadership leader is uh Jackie Belli and she so we've got like the three teams. So our leadership leader she is looking at our play structures and how to create more natural play spaces um that are conducive to
028meeting developmentally um appropriate needs of large gross motor skills that also meet the requirements of like our insurance company and all those things. So, she is putting together a committee that meets um on Wednesdays every I think it's every other week now. Really looking at how do we meet those goals and create um expanded kind of natural play environment. So, I'm super excited about that. >> Yeah. >> Very cool. And then um do you have the pictures? >> Yeah, they perfect. >> Yeah, they were. >> I saw them. You want to talk about them? We'll go back. So the pink pink folks over here is our um running crew at at their event. Was it last Saturday? Was it only last Saturday? Two Saturdays ago, >> which was two ago. >> Okay. >> Unless that
029wasn't a Sunday, which case that was the wrong. >> Nice. I'm with you. And then um you know, collaboration is something we talk about for adults as well as kids. And anytime you can get kids working in multi-age units just working together is super fun. Um, so shout out to our PE teacher for if you go in there, you'll just see kids really engaged in in play that is around collaboration and all those skills necessary for that work. >> All right. Thanks. >> Excellent. All right. Um, I'm going to just highlight a couple things from the months. As you know, we've been um really focused on behavior data and um putting systems in place. So, um there's a video out there um on some bullying prevention that Jennifer mentioned, which is pretty pretty awesome. It
030came together very quickly, very collaborative collaboratively. Um the other focus this month was the administrative team sat down and we did a deep dive into our data, our behavior data to prepare for our our our first staff meeting um where staff were presented with our data and dug into it um while we were engaged in the work. We definitely found some places in the system that we needed to adjust um which we're working on. And then um staff got to dive in and look at the data and it was actually really fascinating I think for all parties involved and you know you can find trends you can see that sometimes it's just a few kids um producing many of the logs and that's behind to mention absenteeism as you know that is one of our
031strategic plan um falls under one of our strategic plan goals and our continuous improvement plan goals and we will be sending out this message on Friday in my newsletter it's previewing it tonight we have um purchased our school's MBA attendance monitor plugin to help us track um tardies and when kids are not in class and when they're absent. So, it's new. Parents are going to be able to receive alerts when their kids are late for class or party for class or not in school. They're also going to be able to log in um and instead of calling the school, they can log in and um mark their student out with a particular reason. So, fingers crossed that part wasn't working today when we tested it, but by Friday, we're really confident that it'll be ready.
032So, um, so a couple things and then Elizabeth is going to take over and share some updates, but I wanted to bring to your attention that the preliminary findings from the Commission on the Future of Publication, uh, public education are out and on the website. Uh, it's not too long of a report and um, I will put it in my newsletter Friday for the general public to have as well. Uh, we have three draft maps that are out. They will also go in my newsletter Friday for people to um, have access to. one is focused on um CTE districts. So that's career technical education. I think there were 13 of them I believe um in that map um presentation. There's a Boseies um which is board of >> cooperative education services. every minute. Uh which
033is um a way for uh people to merge services. I think um is a better way to say it. You can certainly find efficiencies if you are sharing um transportation or if you're buying supplies or if you are in need of um particular educational environments that we can't offer um in our own schools. So that is one draft with um with a component around regions that um where it makes sense for mergers to happen um strategic mergers to happen. That's also a component of that that draft plan. And then there was a final one which is strategic regional high schools and that one I think is going to need a plan for how those high schools will be will be built in many instances. So, uh, those will be in my newsletter Friday, but Elizabeth,
034you are up next with more information on everything act 73. >> So, I created a or I didn't create I didn't create this. I created the slide that has this information. This is a t what the time frame is that remains for the kind of decisions that need to be uh uh made for to um for the legislature to be able to have all the information by the start of the session which is January 6th. Uh uh once again, I've attended every single meeting of the Commission on the Future of Public Education in Vermont and the um uh redistricting task force. Um the commission met today. They are now so if you look at their all you have to do is Google Vermont Commission and it seems to just come up on its own. But
035if if you want to look at their website um uh they are going through their own report with a fine tooth comb. There are people who are trying to draw the line for the public between what the different bullet points um actually mean. Uh they have the commission has one more meeting to finish tweaking its um report before sending it off. Their deadline is December 1st. The task force's deadline is also December 1st. They have uh on Monday, November 10th, they will meet from 9:30 to 3:30 to talk about uh what maps they want to pick. They are allowed to pick up to three maps, one of which must be uh include supervisory union structures. Um they on Friday they had a brief meeting about um an open meeting law complaint and during that meeting
036they decided to add another public comment section uh which is great because they have not had any public comment that could respond to what they're doing. So um they haven't set a date for that. They will set a date for that at their uh meeting on Monday. And but for the people gathered here, the thing that is really important is that there is a Can you switch slides? >> So that's the commission that's redistric. Okay. On Friday, there is the small schools and sparse schools standards committee uh public input session. It's from 6:00 to 7 on Friday afternoon. So, uh they're >> on purpose so nobody goes. They actually um I won't go into but um anyway uh I'm working on a a web page that has all the stuff that I've already um provided
037to the public, but there's so much more and uh it needs to be all in one place. Um I haven't done it. I didn't think it was really important to have it done for today because I was at the commission meeting all day, but uh I will get that out. I have a stolen day tomorrow, so I plan to work on that all day tomorrow. Um and I also plan to have two um kind of public information forums next week. They'll be totally remote. Um and uh just to make it easier on families. Um and uh and that's it. It's all starting to sort of come together. Um there's a a big push to um just put it down. Um but we don't know whether who knows what the legislature will actually do. So uh
038there will be by the time of the forums next week there will be a lot to talk about and uh and respond to. Um >> thank you. Thank you. >> I think um well our data report is next so want me to go right into that or if anyone has any questions. Um yeah, I think we can do a couple questions since that as you folks here are interested to hear about that. So any questions and Elizabeth, are you are you happy to take some questions about that? >> Absolutely. Yeah. And as I said before, I at this point I have a little too much information. So I tend I it's hard for me to >> forgive me. I can't answer things very sinly at the moment. >> But >> does anybody have any questions?
039activity. I know it's >> it's Friday 7 just meant for us to listen. >> No, that is a public input meeting. Okay, that's where >> so please if you can show up that that um committee is deciding on the standard of what is a small school and what is a uh what constitutes a remote school and what constitutes a small by choice school and uh uh it is a com a committee of the state board of education and They just they don't have a very long charge. They're just doing that. They've already met once. If you um I'll send out all the information about it because they have a complicated name that printed. >> You can't just Google it. >> I was actually going to like are will we is there going to be some
040place where I could access like the different you just mentioned like four. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> I will I will put it I'll have it together tomorrow and I'll send it out everywhere I can think of. Okay, cool. >> Yeah, >> I hope I see it in one of those places. >> Will you be discussing our plans on how we're going to respond to Act 73 tonight? >> Uh, preliminary >> later on. >> Yeah, preliminary. Yeah. I'm just wondering uh if the district or the SU is going to weigh in on these decisions and and attend this meeting and give kind of a unified uh message around small schools or spar schools and if so what the message might be from our supervisory union around that. >> Bill Davis, >> that's a good question.
041>> Yeah. This is the first time that it's uh it's come up with all of us here. Um we had I wouldn't even call them preliminary discussions with Parker. Um, and it was a really good meeting regarding our goals overall bringing this work together because the word came down the pipe um to Elizabeth is that this task force would take um acknowledge the fact that certain stats and districts have talked to each other. And so um and so we wrote a letter saying that we had met and we would be building a whether or not they take that into consideration. Um it's really hard to consolidate a plan and how to respond but we really have no idea. I guess what I'm hoping for is as a staff member here and as a parent and
042community member, I would hope that our supervisory would um put out a statement or join these public forums to say how much they value small schools like Upper Bridge. >> They're looking for public input. We are a large entity that could have a lot of input. speaking for myself because I think that's the >> Thank you. >> So, I'm not sure if I'm personally available on Friday, but as far as writing a statement and getting people to sign on to it, that's something that I think is possible. >> I plan to attend it. I'd be glad to read it. Sure. Thank you. >> This is seven on a Friday. >> It's I know. And actually I the way I found it was um I had to Google the minutes from the only other meeting or
043the last meeting because the minutes were not actually posted to the committee's website. I had to Google that. I found them and then at the very end of those minutes was mention of a public input and so I Googled that and that's how I found the they've since um they've since made it more public but at the time you had to Google the meeting time and date in order to uh be able to find a link to it >> was pretty I think it says a lot actually >> but Um I think one reality that people have to sort of sink into the fact that uh no matter what happens uh in consolidation the reality is is that uh schools need classrooms and they need teachers and they need to provide the services. And until
044whatever happens with consolidations, um, as the political end of it, there's no way they can just close schools because there's just not enough schools available out there that are in good enough condition to hold students. And so I mean when you look around the area, we have two major high schools within throwing distance that have considerable construction needs. And so um whatever happens in the near future is going to be highly dictated by the fact that we have major construction needs and the classrooms that are available are for the most part being used. um in some way as a whole state we have to begin to consider the fact that we have to start planning for new buildings for the next 50 years. Um and I'm hoping and this is you know that whatever transition
045happens a longer view will be taken for the material process of creating centers for education um regardless what happened because construction needs in the state of Vermont are just massive. So at at the moment there are not three maps at the moment. There's really only one map and that's the CTE or career and technical center or education map. And that map uh is deeply flawed. It has one one uh district which has 22,000 students and one district which has 2,000 students. Those are the outliers. Um but there are also it's based on where career and technical education centers currently are >> because there are 13 now, right? >> Yeah. But there isn't one down in uh Bennington County and there is one up in the northeast kingdom but it's not way up in the northeast
046kingdom and so that's it's got a lot of problems. Um and uh uh the other two maps, the Boseis map which they changed the name of or it's not a map, it's a proposal. >> Yeah. >> Uh when they made their presentation of that um idea, one of the thing it's a like a 40 odd page proposal itself and uh it's a great idea. It has a lot of um it could actually um achieve the dream of aligning our um our designated agency catchment areas with um which would be amazing. Um but uh it but it also you know one of the proposals is also or part of it is um to have sort of community you know quasi community schools where servicesers are provided at the school and uh it's kind of a a
047um or at each school or at each district who knows. Um, but it's a kind of more holistic um plan that it's the only one that actually saves money in any form or fashion. Then the third one is the um comprehensive high school. It's just sort of those two things could be combined. Um uh but the comprehensive high school one is a district a school district versus the Bosey's model which is the supervisory union and those are two different structures. A district is all um doesn't have local boards. It has only one board and a supervisory union has local boards that as as we have local boards that report up to a a bigger board. Um and so with the Boseies model that could keep all of the schools, you know, not build new schools
048until it is absolutely necessary where we are in the upper valley. Yeah, there's an urgent need and uh >> um and it would probably be addressed sooner rather than later if they picked that model, but it doesn't require the the um construction of all schools everywhere all the time. >> Um >> but my point is though that construction of all schools all the time isn't going to happen. That's that's that's just not >> Well, we don't have it. >> We don't have the money >> at all. The only thing the only thing that everybody in every committee um the money committees, the education committees, everybody agreed upon. The only thing that was not negotiated during the debate over H454, now Act 73, was the need for school construction funding. That is it. But they didn't
049do any they created a committee to look at the urgent need for it. Um but they haven't thought about funding or what you know capacity or any of that stuff. >> Right now the the laws it's funding law is skewed to stop construction. >> Yes, it is. >> Right. And if they're trying to save money and we have to build to do that, have they done that math? really they have not done much of the math, Katherine. >> Um that in fact uh uh Senator Beck said during the last um the last redistricting task force meeting, he actually said out loud that um none of these none of these maps are going to save any money. It's actually going to be the the foundation formula that saves money. And then everybody else said, "Oh, really?"
050because there's no modeling that says that the foundation formula is going to save any money. So, um that's where it is right now. >> I have one question about like so that would mean you said the Bosey's model is going to align like catchment areas with the designated a agencies. Would that also change like would that put would that align AHS like catchment areas with our designated agencies >> so that like it's a real it's okay. >> It's not a plan. it. >> It's annoying. >> It is. It is. And And there's an acknowledgement that it's wonky and annoying. Yeah. >> And there is a a thought process about about how that would work out, but it's not >> interesting. >> Not wholly thought through. None of it's wholly thought through. >> Um they did
051have a kind of narrative about um what under this model um what consolidation could occur. Like it's really super easy to imagine up near Mont Peelier the high schools consolidation because there's >> like five I don't know four or five schools that are all underused and uh they could consolidate into um a couple or you know um and so they've gone I think they did three exercises like thought what do you call it um thought uh experiments, >> thought experiments. Thank you. >> Uh uh they they did three kind of test cases, but they said, you know, this took us the last couple of weeks to do just these three. And we really don't have time to do all of it. And so uh but it's um it's more of a report and um or
052more of a proposal. I guess the thing that's good about those two the the um proposal of the Boseies and the and the um uh what are they called? The uh >> schools regional high schools. regional high schools is that they're totally um backed up by data. >> Okay. >> And the CTE map is not. >> So, any other questions before we before we move on? >> Just a just a clarifying question. I I heard Bill talk about um the need for buildings and um also Christine mentioned um there conversations with Woodstock and Hartland, right? >> Hartford Hartford >> Hartford. Yeah, sorry. Um but um to sort of put those together, Hartford High School um has been struggling with finding the funds to do the repair to their own high school given their PCB, right?
053Um issues which are mainly located in the CTV area, right? >> Hartford has PCB. Woodstock building is just falling apart >> and Woodstock's building is just falling apart. And um I read in the Valley News that people were really kind of excited about the idea of becoming a regional high school. And that just sort of led me to think I'm I'm not sure the people at Windsor and Brownsville would be really excited about ponying up to fix Woodox High School when Windsor High School is um >> you know dates back to 1994. Sure. Um similarly you know I imagine people would Wilder and White River Junction would be really happy without um having the people in Woodstock and in Windsor, you know, have to fix their school. Um so I wonder has like this becomes
054like a political and a kind of town meeting sort of a situation and I was wondering has any of that stuff been taken into account? >> I don't think any of that stuff has been taken into account at all. I don't um >> yeah the way the law is written down it's clear that they say like oh let's talk about this and let's ignore any construction needs >> and so what happens when they do actually do the math and realize that this is not fiscally responsible do you have any sense of that >> I don't think that I am the best person to ask about that um I I the hope is that um the we have a joint fiscal office which provides um kind of a their number crunchers. They're they they don't provide
055a whole you know uh economic analysis in any way but they will um provide a economic picture. Um and the hope is that they will they will uh oh um the hope is that they will be able to provide more um information you know at the start of the session >> but I don't get the feeling that they're going into this merger discussion with any sort of idea that oh we're going to build new schools we solve it and basically It's coming up with a fairy tale of merging governance in some way that savings will then appear magically because you only need one superintendent except the or you only need one business office or you only but the fact is the work just multiplies >> and then the kids go to the same schools and
056we all save a bunch of money which isn't a reality. Um >> just to clarify, I it just occurred to me that um at the penultimate second to last meeting that the task force had, uh the secretary of education came in to present the um data that had been collected by the agency of education. And one of the things that um that was one of the data sets that was requested was um the relationship between currently between supervisory unions or supervisory districts and um the catchment areas for the designated agencies and the AOE did not provide that and they were pressed about it and uh so the hope I think is that they will um they will come back with the data. Uh but that was part of the reason that that was not fleshed
057out in that report and I think it says that in that report actually >> from the data side of it which is where I worked on education is the AOE is so overwhelmed with trying to collect data that I can't see that happening. they're just completely unsafe to and >> it's a big concern with consolidation when the AOE is um >> not able to um do the job what they should be doing before consolidation >> put so eloquently I'll put it more realistically the airway is dysfunctional it's that that's any one of us that deal with them on a consistent basis industry now and that's come through years of ubitorial mismanagement. But again, >> is there a world in which they see that this is a bad idea and they just are like maybe let's
058hold off or never mind or is this just like this is a train that's going and we're they're just gonna like push. I think, you know, honestly, I think there's a world in which uh they, you know, I I I want to remind everybody that that bill H454 passed on a technicality. It was not popular in the House of Representatives. It was uh um if it had if it had been a roll call vote, it would have failed. But it wasn't. It was a voice vote. So um and there was a lot of confusion around when it actually took place. There was a lot of confusion about what was actually happening. And so people accidentally voted yes um because of a procedural kind of um the way the way that it took place was people
059accidentally voted yes. But so there remain a lot of legislators who are adamantly against this and um uh yeah there there is a chance that I mean they can't we can't come back to session and undo it but we can there were a lot of um so-called offramps included in the bill so that if the if the districts are not if if the um committees don't vote on a particular map and the districts aren't formed, then the new um funding goes away. There's like all these different decision points that could make different parts of the new law fail. And I think there's a a really predominant feeling that this is, you know, even watching the the committee, the commission and the task force and their proceedings, there's a really predominant feeling among members of those
060things those bodies as well as the public that this needs to be slowed down tremendously and and you know, everybody needs to because not only are the mistakes that could be made really um uh huge, but uh uh it's really like all they can come up with is a five-year plan. They're not really looking at they don't have time to look at a 20-year um view of all this. And if you're really going to transform the system, then you need to be able to take a 20-year view. And we don't have time to do that. And so I think there's a a lot of people who just want to slow it down. Um there's there are Yeah. Who nobody It's anybody's guess truly. >> Yeah. And I'll um just kind of cap off this conversation.
061I mean my from what I have observed in um the SBA meeting when they presented on this and the Elizabeth you know dutifully attending these and keeping us really up to date on what's going on. Um I think the talk of the 20-year plan needed and the five-year plan we have my perception the whole time that seems to reinforce every time I talk to somebody involved in this is that a lot of what happened is functionally yeah we need a 20-year plan and turning a 20-year plan into a fiveyear plan does doesn't work. um the scale of change that this piece of legislation is supposed to is supposed to accomplish regardless of any of the mechanics regardless of whether it actually saves money or not like there is just kind of a big question mark
062right consolidating to the extent that they are talking about and making the changes they are talking about in the time frame I mean the fact even that this task force was formed less than a year ago and expected to come up with three functional maps and be able to like demonstrate that they are useful in that time frame is uh I mean I I found it probably the entire time. Um >> yeah, >> you know, and it's an odd situation where I I have yet to run into anybody who uh represents this area or who is on this board who, you know, didn't did anything but advocate against this plan every step that we possibly could. Um >> but and and uh our current health care cost is double that of Maine. Our current health
063care cost is way more expensive than any other state in the country which makes it way more expensive or the most expensive health care in the world since we have the most expens our country has the most expensive healthare system. So, um, uh, you know, kind of taking that step back, um, I think there's a a growing voice saying we didn't ask for this. What we asked for was lower taxes. And uh we didn't ask to have our whole system be um I mean that's what I've been hearing lately in through some of the um the task force had three uh public input sessions and um it started the first one was in at uh uh Leland and Gray which is um down in what county is in Bington County. southern part of the state.
064Um, and uh that that uh public hearing was mostly focused on school choice because it had to do with which was weird because it took place in a public high school. Um there were a lot of public school or a lot of school choice advocates there or a lot of families advocating for school choice there. Um the second one was at Rutland where uh took place also in a public high school but kind of half and a half um public and and choice voices. But the third one was at Wooki and Wanooki High School and that was really uh there was a quite a few people who um uh there was a it was very well attended. There was something like 200 people in person and about 200 people online they said and uh uh
065there were there were more voices saying we didn't we didn't ask for this. So um you know maybe maybe more people will say that at the fourth and final one >> because we didn't no one asked for this. It's it's been pushed down our roads by the governor. >> Can I make one last comment? >> Sure. Well, the last piece I'm just wondering about is what impact um this might have on the towns looking at our individual towns and what the select boards um have to say or their involvement in this discussion with you as well because if schools might be closed or consolidated that will have an impact on the challenge that they happen or the challenge they're receiving um >> receiving students and so I'm just wondering if there's some collaboration there as
066well with the school and select arts these house. >> You mean ours? >> Yeah. I mean across our SU for sure. I mean if if we get down the road where we're talking about consolidating schools even within our supervisory union that will have an impact on our town structure. >> Absolutely. And I was wondering >> um how involved this um boards are in these conversations and if there's been any conversation that might influence your thinking as well around just another place to bring on more conversation. >> Yeah. Yep. That's a good point. what happened in other towns where they have lost their schools, you know, examples of women and the impact that that has had on those communities. >> And so, just wanted to bring that up as well. >> It's a good point. I
067I I would be just like I h the reason that I haven't had any public forums about it yet is that we we haven't had anything to actually grab on to and respond to. And I I um and that's why for me as a legislator why I haven't g you know gone gone there yet because um it's really hard to >> it's very nebulous right now. Um, I you probably this time next week it'll be less nebulous, but you know there's just everything everything is up in the air at the moment. And and it's not just up in the air. When they come out with their maps, it'll still be up in the air. Um uh but looking how things are done, again, this is me looking at with my rosecoled glasses. I anticipate they're
068going to come up with something and then there's going to be an uproar around the stage saying no, that's a stupid idea because it's going to be a stupid idea. So, um and they won't have any data to back it and they won't have the funds to to to do it and they won't have the classrooms to happen. And it's an election year. >> It's election year. >> And uh so the question is whether um people will think that you know it takes a strong political will to push this through or does it take a strong political will to stand up to it. >> Right. Put your tab on it. Um I'm glad we were able to have this discussion. Um this is our administrative report. uh we do need to move on to the
069rest of our agenda, but it's going to be a conversation and then hopefully it becomes a little clear >> a little a little clearer clear. Yeah. >> So, we're on to the >> Okay, Tracy's gonna start us off, >> right? Thanks, Christine. Um, so this is our Windsor, this is our K3 dibbles data, which is really our baseline data for the year. It's uh what we use to establish some intervention groups at the beginning of the school year. our groups um really were focused on digging into the specific skills that the students were missing. And now uh since those six first six or seven weeks have finished, we are in some targeted groups where we're really focusing on that um are our students that 16% of students that are in the yellow and those in
070the red that are that are approaching the yellow, right? The ones that are right on the bench on the um cusp of becoming yellow. So, those are um students we're looking to move. This obviously isn't data we like and I kind of look forward to bringing back a comparison. Um I I like the way we're tweaking our intervention to target specific students. Um I'm hoping to see some real growth to report back to you >> at our next report. >> Tracy, >> yeah. >> Can you tell me what dibbles means? Uh, I cannot tell you what those letters stand for. Um, Amanda, it's our early literacy. Um, is this an acronym, Amanda? >> Yes, >> Amanda knows it. >> Dynamic basic early literacy skills. >> Thank you, Amanda. >> This an assessment. >> Yes. >>
071Given individually. Yeah. To our students. >> What is it assessing? >> Early earlyit. >> Early literacy skills. Yeah. It's the screener that we selected to be in compliance with um act 139 early law. >> It it has um really good reliability and validity because at least when I get it's a one-on-one test >> and so there's a teacher there sitting with the students >> and scoring them as as they read as they ask questions. So >> Oh, I know. In class. Yeah, it's uh it's time consuming but um it gets really strong data >> and very different than our star results, right, which is a computerized test. So um I I think we find great value in the dibbles the dibbles data and being able to target the skill the students need. Um this so
072this is K12 which I want you to think about the range we're talking about students in kindergarten and student and seniors in high school is our K12 um star data. I th this is what it is but I find it really hard to speak about data that encompasses so much. Um I find a lot more value in the data that's specific to different groups or grade levels. But um the what this is is a comparison over two years. Right? So, these are our fall scores from last year and our fall scores from this year, which means it's all we're also not looking at all of the same students. Um, we're miss we have our new kindergarteners included and we do not have last year's seniors. So, these are our reading results. Um, sorry, I'm toggling
073between screens here. Um, so grade three through five reading. Um, this is uh we see small progress. It's it's not enough. Um but we're see five students moved from um red into the green. In this graph we are lumping those that are are almost approaching and those that are are well below the standard and then the the blues and the greens are students that exceed the standard. Um so we l lump them together into into two categories. Um I think this shows that we we moved five students um out of the red and into the green. Um again, we're across two grade levels, so we're not looking at completely the same um cohort of students. >> I'm calling at you. Yeah. >> Yeah. With our middle school students, um what we were noticing was that
074our students are coming in more proficient each year they work with the team. Our um eighth graders were 65% proficient. So this is obviously the average for the middle school here and a seventh grade is 60% proficient and our sixth grade is 50% proficient. The team sees the growth um over the three years and then >> sorry I was muted again. This is um our reading for grades nine and 10. This we only have the fall of this year because that's when we did it. We did it the fall of this year. the same thing will happen for math. This is kind of what we anticipated it being. Um, and now we're going to dive into it and make some adjustments at the reading level. We put a lot of focus on math and math
075intervention. Um, and we need to bring it over because as you know, high school courses um are a little bit different than direct instruction and in reading strategies. So, we need to see what we need to do to improve this. So I I kind of want to jump in sort of on a positive end that the type of data we see up here in reading and matter is the type of results from one year to to the other that you want to see after implementing MTSS. Okay. Um, and so just looking at those just, you know, you say, "Oh, it's a little bit a little bit better." But that's kind of what you expect and hope for. And so this is really positive. >> That's what I'm thinking. >> Yeah. So >> can you explain
076what MTSS is, please? um multi- basically >> it's it's looking at the data and looking at what students need extra help and and in where and so it's targeted instruction for certain students. And what happens is that what is hoped to happen is that each year those students get that targeted instructions and improve a little bit and are at a higher level for the next year and then that growth creates momentum and so you get that line of student because what they're trying this is a binary scale. It's they meet the standard or they don't meet the standard. It's not a scale scoreer, but what they're using behind the scenes is all the the um finite data in the different subs skills to create intervention. And so you want to see that four or five%
077increase in your students who meet the standards. And so that means that the schools are doing what they accomplishing what they want to accomplish. >> The systems are in place and they're working >> a year of really third maybe fourth year of really digging in with grade level themes, looking at the data, making student plans for intervention um and enrichment. So yeah, I think it's um something to celebrate. We're moving in the right direction. And when we get to math, this is for the people in the room in the fact that what I've heard over the past year is talking about really stepping up and and looking at math skills and creating systems to help students accomplish more in math itself, >> which you can see in the data on the screen. >> Yeah, pretty
078significant increase in that. Yeah, thanks for that bill. It's, you know, it's never enough for us, right? I think that's we always just look at um who's next and how do we get it for them, right? So, um yes, you are correct that it is showing growth and it does take time. Um it's just never fast enough for us. >> Okay. >> Um again, K12 data, math, school, um school w this shows a growth. I I did the math. I think it's 26 kids that were moved. That's that's a big move. That's that's great growth. Um >> right >> um >> just a moment Tracy is do you have a comment on >> just a clarification. Does this include ABS data too or >> No, we're separate. It's only >> winter. Hi. >> Yeah. So
079this is again last year compared to this year fall um math grades one and two. Um if you think about this is a computer-driven test. There's tech learning that happens for our first graders in this. We had um this shows growth in 10 students, 10 of our first and second grade students um from being below the standard to work approaching um the standard and exceeding and grades three through five a little less growth. Um I do believe our intervention mostly belongs at the younger levels, right? And that's where we're really focusing it now. And as those students progress through um we haven't seen that shift yet in the upper grades but I think as we build that foundation for our younger students um more will will come into these grade levels um this is where
080the um implementation of the number corner I think becomes really important in building that discourse and the spiral reviews that you've heard us talk about for quite a while um I think those will have a big impact on our third, fourth, and fifth graders. >> In sixth and sixth through 8th grade, in our math star, we had um higher numbers in our proficiency for the seventh grade, 49% proficient in seventh grade, 43 proficient in eighth grade, and 38 proficient in sixth grade. We felt that this increase was in the big push in our new intervention last year in Spyro Museum where students in math were not just sticking to just the Eureka curriculum. They were doing like all year math in like warm-ups so that kids saw everything all the time and that was something
081we were very consistent with. And in comparison to last year's intervention to this year's intervention, last year we were able to offer 30 minutes a day to small groups for math intervention and no ELA intervention. This year we're offering an hour a day of intervention to small groups in 30 minute sessions. That's two 30 minute sessions a day in MAC and um an hour and a half of 30 minute sessions in ELA to small groups. So just a shout out for EMA and math and and interventionists in our school are a huge part of supporting these scores in your students growth. >> Uh this is our math for grade nine. Uh to echo what Colleen said, we do have a system in place where we're offering math intervention every day. none of our math teachers
082teach a swarm class so that they are available during that time for either intervention or help with a current class. The other thing I wanted to point out is that we um are functioning thanks to um teachers like Tammy who who teach at both levels. we're functioning as a 712 kind of math department and like our math meetings and where we are looking uh to provide the intervention and who's the best person for it. Um so we do anticipate these numbers increasing. >> We didn't have that chart in our packet. No, we noticed this afternoon. Sorry about that. >> Go for it. Good eyes. >> Um, this is just data broken down by um across the system K12 free and reduced um and non-free and reduced to see if we're closing the gap. So on
083the left is free and reduced and on the right is non-preen and reduced and there's still discrepancy between the two. So um this is the same for math gap definitely a bigger gap between our free and reduced um eligible students and our non-f free and reduced. M is closing in math more. >> It's more according to this. >> It's a larger gap in math. Yes. >> From year to year. >> Yep. >> Yes. Yes. >> It's Yeah. >> Great. >> They're almost identical. >> It is. It is closing from 24 to 25. But if you look at non-free and reduced compared to free and reduced, there's still a gap. But if you look at 2025 to 2026, they're basically the same. >> If you compare non free, >> they're closer. Yeah. >> Right. >> I
084mean, it's like >> they're way closer than the >> 41 and 43. So getting closer. Yeah, definitely. >> Uh these are students on IEPs in reading. So again, you see growth from last year to this year, which is what we want to see. This is math. It still shows growth, but um a smaller smaller amount. And um this is our attendance and behavior data. If one of anybody want to take this? Oh yeah, I can take this one. Um so one thing you'll notice different in our reports is um attendance at the elementary school is only taken once a day, right? So um our numbers appear much smaller. It doesn't mean we have fewer tardies really. We just um we only take attendance once a day where it's taken between periods at the middle school
085and the high school. Um most of our tardies are unexcused. Um our students don't drive themselves to school. Um so we are working with our um engagement coaches uh reaching out really early to families. Um at the last meeting we had we sent emails to families who had excessive tardies and just said you know we want to make this a goal trying to get students to school on time. What they miss when they come in late is our u morning meetings and our social emotional time. So, it's really important that um we continue to build reach out to these families and try to get students in the building on time. I in uh just thinking about last year to this year, I think we've made great progress. Um these numbers really aren't shocking to me.
086Um we do have frequent flyers and we meet with um Kieran Zitto and the engagement coaches twice a month to stay on top of all the tardies in the absences. Yeah, I would say um Tracy mentioned that we in the middle school and high school we're taking attendance every period. So this is the numbers are higher. They're more opportunity to be targeting for class. Um but when I print the tardy reports when we meet with our try officer and our engagement coaches you know it's it's really narrowed down to pretty small number of people who are ting these up. Um so we just work with the engagement coaches to help us um get students to school on time. Um unfortunately um our students have their advisory um like kind of culture building in third period
087so it's their target. >> I got a question. >> Yeah. Um, have you been able to, now that you've been collecting data on behavior, this and that, have you been able to map tardiness with um, uh, >> behavior? >> Not yet. Not completely. one um I did want to say I was going to say at the end but maybe it's appropriate now is I have the luxury privilege of knowing the names kind of attached to the data uh both academically uh with attendance and with behavior and it has me thinking can we brainstorm a better um to kind of look at the the money that we spend on summer school which is typically for credit recovery to look at making some kind of multi-week program in the summer to bring in students who are new
088to our school, whether um they attended a different elementary school or uh they are transferring into our school to start forming those connections and having a kind of finding a place to be in in Windsor High School before they walk in the door the first day. Um, I think it's worth a conversation worth having when I can when I can look at the whole of this data and I can see uh the names attached to it and I think it would be a good use of the of the funds we have now. And I think that we might have enough budgeted to do both this year to to do some of credit recovery and to to kind of do this welcome to Windsor summer school. So the answer to your question is um not formally
089yet um because we've just rolled out the attendance um plugin so we're just starting to use it but now we can >> and by what I meant by that question was um have you have you mapped attendance to incidents of bullying either um being a victim of bullying or a perpetrator of bullying? Right. um not I mean we we look specifically when there's a situation at a student's attendance but um we haven't you know the systems aren't set up to do that we have to at it individually but we can now which is great >> have you that was my question >> oh have we um on an individual when there are individual cases yes we look at attendance to see if it's impacting a student's education for Sure. >> Can I ask you a
090question? >> Do you do this each month >> at the board meeting? >> Yeah, >> we do it uh three times a year. >> Um because if we don't have context for like what percentage this is, like there's different numbers at each level. So, it's really hard to get a sense of if 611 is a lot or not. Also, what I think Colleen already pointed out is that there's seven classes, right? So, the number is going to be bigger. So, if we could like normalize that data somehow, it would make more sense. >> Yeah. And it would also just be interesting to see um for me if there's 611 tardies, how many students that actually encompasses? >> Yeah, that's what I was thinking because it's probably I mean, right, one student can rack up seven
091tardies a day by class. >> Yes, >> that's the way they roll. I know that in my data if you go back a slide 39 when I did the um last month's truency students >> yeah this came up at the SU meeting as well when we showed the the instances versus the number of >> students But uh we've just started tracking it that sharing it out this way this year. It's one of our goals. So um okay, the behavior data elementary Tracy, this is you. >> Yeah, this is our um this was I I can't remember the date. This is did not run all the way through the end of October. We were working on this last week. Um and it has left off Halloween, which does do something to our data or behavior. um
092you know, I think it's um typical for September to be a high mark for us with about six and a half um referrals a day and then dropping off later in the year. That's when we're teaching kids expectations where we're really sticking to um the guidelines and the expectations and being aware of them all. Um so we we are seeing and I think more importantly feeling a change um in behavior. I think the um segregating of the majors and the minors has helped and I know without a doubt that we have increased a lot of communication home both from staff and from myself when um we have majors or minors or when minors roll into majors. So um I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses through the rest of the year. I would say
093for middle school too, just decreasing numbers each each month, getting less getting more into routines, more structures, more more awareness of what the expectations are. >> Um the other thing worth noting is some of these um some of these are logged just as an FYI. They're minors at a classroom level that the teacher has taken all the steps. They've contacted the parents. um they have followed up with a the logical consequence of a lunch detention or something like that. What we are working on with now is um we're I'm working with uh Dennis I checked in with Christine first and she updated what the power school looks like. So now we can roll you know if it's if it's the same thing happening in three different classes we can roll that into into a major
094then that then becomes one that needs administrative uh response. Shout out to Dennis who's doing a fantastic job with parent communication and the the way in which he communicates with parents and looking at each thing um with the nuances and always acknowledging the improvement. Right? So if we have a kid who's coming late and he's documenting they're coming three minutes late whereas last year they were cutting entire classes. He doesn't want to destroy that relationship um when he sees the improvement student. Fantastic job um communicating with parents. I agree with Tracy that the responses to behavior has felt much easier and clearer and cleaner this year with all the work that we did on the handbook. This data here that we're presenting was presented to our to our staff um where then we can make
095an action plan. Something that we might notice is that kind of behaviors ramp up seventh period or a discrepancy in grade levels or things like that and where we could um target interventions or proactive measures. So, it's been great to have and look at >> I So, I guess as we've gone through this, we've also been um really working with the staff to um be consistent and almost calibrate each other with how we're um logging to make sure that the data we get back is valid. And this is a good example of um like this is showing that I had a report at 1:00 a.m. Um so, I think, you know, we're still we're working on the fine-tuning of things. these this is the time of day looking for incidents in the elementary school we're
096always transitioning there's always a class transitioning but I do notice that first thing in the morning and then around lunchtime seem to be um key times for student behavior so we've as an example we've put more people on morning duty um on the playground and we've increased the number of um teachers that are um assigned to lunch duty in recess so hoping to see that that maybe help to support the time of day. Um, and then, you know, we we're working on cleaning up why we have reports coming in at 12:00 a.m., 1:00 am, and 2 am. >> Yeah. And Tracy, I would say having having had experience with entering behavior data in systems like this too, I think that for folks looking at this, you can kind of in your mind move those five
097instances over to the >> PM. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Who hasn't set their alarm for 6:30, right? >> Depends on the system, but some system it defaults to the current time that they put it in. They just don't change the time. So, it could be just that you have a future >> catching up at midnight putting in their data because it's something to do. >> It's it's a drop down menu and sometimes people just ignore that because tricky to like tag the number. sometimes that like you out and see. I think people just they just it's more important to get the incident in there. Absolutely. >> Remind our staff like it's really helpful to try to get that clock to work on that drop down menu the best you can. But I would say on
098everything that's 12 a.m. 2 a.m. really probably around lunchtime. Got it. >> And um that's I think the the trends that we were seeing were structured time. >> It's good to be able to visualize those >> and then locations. Um this data doesn't show separation of major and minor. Um I think that which is why classroom I think is a high point for our behavior. It's where teachers are reporting, you know, disrespect or defiance um happening in the classroom. We know the playground and the cafeteria are are second highest hotspots. And um again, that's why we've shifted some coverage to try to help support that. In the middle school, the hot spots are classroom and hallway teachers are reporting. >> Is that because uh it's not happening in the hallway or because there are no
099teachers in the hallway? For the middle school, they're reporting it mostly in the classroom and hallways. So they they are there seeing watching you. >> I do for different reasons. In the classroom, you've got expectations >> and in the hallways you have lack of >> in the classrooms. We also have, you know, almost a second adult in almost every classroom era or a social emotional interventionist who can definitely log data a lot easier than the teacher teaching in class. >> I I'm I'm my office is up my laptop. >> Yeah, I think we just remember to raise our hands here loose for a while back. >> Apologies. Yeah, if you if you do have a comment, that's cool. >> I was just going to say there there often are middle school teachers in the hallway
100during during passing times when like I'm up there. That's where my office is and I I do see them. It's it's also just if anyone knows the Windsor Middle School, it's like everybody's going out and in doors that are like 10 feet apart. to like seeing what's happening in the hallway I would imagine is like a very difficult task for any any adult, you know, just because like they're not walking really anywhere. They're just like moving out and then they like switch places because it's just it's like one hallway. >> Also, there's only three minutes during the hallway where there's 47 minutes where they're in the classroom. So like again, we're not we don't have normal So these are the subtypes and it is a drop- down menu in P school which we showed you
101last week. The um you'll notice the M like where it says M defiance and there's O defiance. M is the major. So those would be ma what what were considered major instances at the elementary level. We've talked a little bit about um what's defined as a major and what feels like a major. Um, you know, with little kids it's different than it is with with some high school and middle school. And that's why our behavior matrix is um is really important, but we've also been um really focusing on some repeated behaviors, minors, and at what point those become majors. And I think that's what we're starting to see now when we've done the teaching and we've done the work with the kids and we've reached out to the parents through the through the teachers um
102communication ways and now those are kicking over to me because they're major. We've done what we need to do and now we just needed to stop. So um some of our minors are becoming majors. And then middle school, the defines of disruption in the um disrespect are the top three that are mostly in the classrooms. Um cell phones and not on time but out of bounds. I'm going along with the tardies. Sometimes they coincide with the non tardy to class right here in the behavior. That's like a direct correlation. sometimes, not always, but um those title pieces. >> Okay, on to up bridge. Jennifer. >> Yeah, let's go for it. >> All right, so our um basic early learning um data here. So, this is our K through3 students. So we have about 70% of
103our kids at that level who are showing below or significantly below um expectations. And then when you get to the 3 through six level, actually before I go, let me just give the quick disclaimer. We're looking at super small numbers. I think no matter what we're talking about within RSU, we're talking about small numbers and there's a lot of concern about how we talk and think about small numbers. when you're talking about some of these numbers at this school size, it's much more volatile in terms of, you know, outliers. So, one outlier on either end can significantly move. So, we're not necessarily looking at the most helpful kind of data. And our wigs are wildly important goals are that every child grows in reading and math. And this data won't show that. It's not going
104to show that. It's going to show is at this point based on some standard that star or dibbles has said are you meeting the standard or not and then at this level are you meeting the standard. So for example looking at our data in a different way you'll see a kid might grow a year to a year and if they're in the green they stay in the green right so from fall to fall if you've grown like the typical kid would you're still in the green. If however you're in the red and you're alone in the red and you've grown two years worth, you might still be in the red even though you grow two years worth. That data doesn't show up here. So just as a caveat, small numbers have some significant concerns, but
105we're trying to find ways to communicate um similarly and again across the SU we're still talking small numbers. Okay. So then if you get to the reading again, this isn't cohort to cohort, fall to fall. This is three through six. And then the previous years two through five, right? Shifting up. So we're looking at, you know, there's similarish data. We're talking a school this size, you're talking one kid um difference in this kind of stuff. So it's small numbers. And then if you go look at the math um where, you know, I mean it looks like there's a significant growth. Again, small numbers, right? We don't want to exaggerate the good, nor do we want to exaggerate the challenges. What we do know is looking at our data, are our kids growing a year, if
106they're at level, right, or above level, are they still growing that year's worth? Or if they're below, are they growing more than a year? So, they have to start closing the gap. And that's what we want to look at and that's what we are seeing with our intervention work. And I think that's happening across the issue. Okay. So, math K12. Um, again, you'll see some growth, but you're not looking at the same kids year to year. You're looking at last year's kindergarten, first grade this year. So, the second graders would be our first graders, but the kindergarteners aren't in last year's, right? So, it's just different cohorts essentially. There are third through six. We're looking at, you know, different a different group of kids and small numbers make a big difference. Okay. Then going by
107demographics, you're going to see significant gap for our difference between our students with free and reduced lunch and those who do not qualify for free and reduced lunch to the best of our knowledge. So significant gaps there. Um year to year, again, cohort to cohort. um we're not looking at the same data, but if you're looking at a larger picture, it'd be telling a pretty specific story that our kids, we don't have the gap closed for those kids. Um so math similar, right? So last year's comparison to this year's comparison and then students who are on an IEP. So small numbers, none of our students currently on an IEP are even in the yellow. They're all below grade level. But it doesn't mean that they didn't grow. And looking at our data, they absolutely grew.
108and they grew more than a year's. So, doesn't tell the accurate story, but it does tell a significant story. We also know that until recently, in order to be on an IEP, you actually had to be two years below grade level to show up. So, of course, you're going to show up two years below grade level or more. Um, I made that point as >> Yeah, I made that point at the SU meeting. The fact that that the IEP is kind of self-defeating the data because when a student moves off uh reaches grade level for the most part, they come off an >> I see slightly higher in math. Our math is still very um language based, heavily language based. Um but a few more kids are able to grapple enough with the context and
109we present it in enough of a way that some of them are successful there. Okay. So then behavior data similar to the elementary school we're looking at about 96% uh attendance which is fairly good. Um, we're we just recently shifted to trying to gather data more closely to the 8:00 time slot of being tardy versus what we were looking at before. And so we're starting to log that a little differently. So our next report should look significantly different in our tardies just so that's um on the table. And then our logs. So you know our three days in August we had had some kids come back to school. It was great. Um, September, October looks low as everybody said because we only got half the month of data in. So, I'd say we're we're sitting
110pretty steady about one and a half per day average for logs. Um, time of day, uh, that little red thing there would be recess >> followed by lunch followed by I'm done with school. Um, so and and for the most part that is as you get into the one o'clock time, we're talking about our younger kids to begin with who are just starting to get into the rhythm of I'm staying a little later and not taking a nap or right. It's it's a lot of stuff. So then if you go to location, same story, right? Classroom and hallways are big places. Classrooms, that's where we're spending most of the time. hallways is where the transition is. And we know transitions for um folks is it's just less secure, less um less scripted, more nuanced, and
111social interactions um just require more cognitive skills. Uh playground is certainly a place our specials, our music and art room happen to be a super busy, active place, and it's really hard for some of our kids and we're we're working to try and problem solve that. Um okay and then for subtypes um defiance and disruption are big ones. Disrespect shows up. I think something we want to talk about disrespect looks different for different people. So um you know what maybe disrespect in one classroom doesn't sound like disrespect. It may sound like dis defiance. Now that's an interpretation thing. We have some majors showing up right now. So you see the out-of- bounds. That's when they leave the campus um without an adult. Verbal threats, physical threats can also be in the major and that's yes.
112Is that the end of the administrative report? >> It is. >> All right. So, we are moving on to item number six which are items for discussion followed by motions if needed. and we start with 6A which is March intensive. So if you want to share with us. >> Yeah, >> we worked up a little. Um, hi, I'm Kim Brent Johnson. I teach social studies. Um, the uh, >> thank you. the thing. Um, so the we are here to I guess ask for your support or approval um for a uh proposed March intensive trip to Norway. >> What Iceland? >> Yeah, that's what you're thinking. Um, so here's the the deal, the um background anyway. Um, we have I talk about Norway every now and then um in class because I was born there. Um,
113also it um bring it up provides kind of a contrast when I'm talking about US history. Um, Norway shows up in newspaper stories and stuff like that every now and then having to do with prisons for instance. um Windsor had a prison on her relatively recently. And so talking about like approaches to prison and terminology, but it giving them something else as a contrast enables them to see their own sort of environment in a new light. Um and so it yeah so so I brought it up in world studies. I brought it up in US history, you know, um immigration with stuff like that. I'm an immigrant so I talk about my own experience. Um so anyway um last year um I was approached by um a couple of students who were like you know
114what would be fun for marching concert really great you know there's a trip to Costa Rica there's a trip to Mexico but like you know what about Norway would you want to do that I'm like you got to get it >> I was actually in Costa Rica when we were talking about this >> yeah so um so anyway um they uh the students began to talk to me about it and I was talking to Katherine who had um just done this trip to Costa Rica and uh Catherine teaches science and some of the stuff that I had in mind was um sort of scientific, agricultural, biological um also um the male sort of female combination when you're on a field trip works really well number of issues that way, you know, like dealing with, you
115know, different people. and we get along. Um, we worked too well as a team. Um, so anyway, we we began to work this up. So, here's kind of our proposal, but that's the that's the rationale. It's not it didn't begin with me is what I'm trying to say. This reflects student voice and choice and I I approach you with some presidency. >> We might say >> yeah. But anyway, here's right. So, um, okay, we can talk. Um, okay. So, anyway, like having Vermont firmly in mind, um, what we were sort of thinking about, um, is that Norway and Iceland are both small nations with long histories of agriculture who have worked hard to come into the 21st century. And I kind of think that that parallels what's going on learn from them um with a
116couple things here. One um both nations have built on traditions while embracing technology that has helped them project their societal values into the future. And we think that showing students what small nations um such as with 5 million people but Iceland has a population of only 400,000. So like it's an entire independent nation smaller than us. Um you know anyway what these places are capable of could inspire our students to take some of those ideas and apply them to our state and our communities. often we hear that Vermont is so small or they're like problems of scale or they're problem right and I what I'm hoping we could show to them is that it's really um more a lack of imagination you know but anyway uh so the visit would combine a trip to Norway
117we'd go to Norway first um we do some things that um I think would be really interesting and I talked about that in a minute um and then a trip to Iceland on the way back um it occurred to me we could do this because Iceland there I'm not a fan of Iceland there but they um they're a state supported airline so they offer this free layover um which you can extend for like multiple days um as part of an additional >> so you don't need an additional thing but you can do it all the way back um so we would visit major sites um museums and cultural sites of importance as well as things having to do with agriculture or science or >> or uh energy areas Norway is paradoxically a uh one of
118the world's largest oil producers, but they also have policies in place to prevent the consumption of oil. They're the I think the the world's leader in electrical automobile use or subsidies and stuff. So like they have energy stations and supposedly gas stations, you know what I mean? And that creates like a particular culture around the charging of vehicles and stuff. Um, something else that uh showed up in a number of newspapers lately is something called the Northern Lights uh carbon capture facility that is a a sort of visitor center and stuff like that where um uh CO2 captured, frozen, and then pumped like deep underground as a way of like reversing >> uh trying to solve a global >> gas kind of thing which is it's really sort of wild. Um but anyway, uh Norway
119is big on aquaculture. Um it's big on hydroelectric um wind farms and stuff like that. Um but also with regards to our own area, this is our paragraph here. Um uh I became really interested in sort of I don't know I read a lot but there was this book um I read a while ago called The Shepherd's Life by a British guy named James Reebanks who runs um uh he's sort of a traditional shepherd in the Lakes District in England and I had a conversation with Amy Richardson um the wife of Scott Richardson who's on the board for a long time um she was in charge of farm to school at Windsor schools for a while and we had a number of conversations. >> I I mentioned that book and she's like, "Oh, wow. That's
120really interesting. We're going to this district and stuff like that." So, she connected with him um and I sort of have had kind of sheep farming um on the brain since then. Um there's a national book award nominee called The Salt Stones by Helen Wra about uh sheep farming in Wakefield. Um there is a sort of national um I think she came out third um sheep shearer here in the upper valley. There was a recent article about her in the valley news. Um Shine Cracker Icelandic uh sheep farm in Hartland and Fat Sheep uh farm and cheese in also in Heartland. And then also former board member and personal acquaintance of mine, Sean Whan. He also has sheep. There's kind of what I've called here a wool renaissance. Windsor historically was a place where Marino
121sheep were first introduced in the United States by William Jarvis and I think it's in 1815. But hence uh Jarvis Street Jarvis you know like everything in um so anyway uh you know woolands sheep farming all that kind of stuff that seems to be making a comeback. Um part of what they do in Europe is um through the European Union is highlight and focus on um specific things like parmesan or like champagne can only come from here or this kind of cheese. Um Vermont cheese, you know, uh Jasper Hill, do you know what I mean? Like all these kinds of right like I think these are ideas that our students might see more clearly from elsewhere. you know what I mean? Go see it. It's like, wow, they do that. You know, it's like, well,
122did you know that even in your own era? So, anyway, um trip to Europe is a little bit expensive. We tried to break things down with numbers really kind of quickly. Um our because of the the money and we can sort of get to that on the back, but um we're thinking eight students, two chaperones. We're thinking a little bit longer than our regular march intensive thing which is four days when you went to Costa Rica and you were there for 10. Okay, we're thinking nine. Um we would fly from Boston to Oslo, Norway. We do some things around Oslo which is capital. We take this famous uh popular uh train trip from Oslo to Bergen that is called Norway in a nutshell because it highlights fs, it highlights mountains, it highlights uh Norway's two
123major cities. Um you travel on a train, on a boat, on a bus. Um so it would have been planes, trains and every um Bergen is Norway's second largest city as a major airport with daily flights to Iceland. We would take one of those for the return leg of this Iceland trip to to uh yeah to go um do some things there. Um there was this really interesting New York Times article about um young people, high school age people rescuing puffins. I don't know if anybody saw this like puffin video. Um, but it's really kind of like a really interesting like young people saving these baby puffins that are like landing on the tops of buildings so they can learn how to fly their brains, right? It's like really really heartwarming, really kind of cool,
124but like individual I mean we're talking about a nation of like 400,000 people and a rural area where there are like groups of teenagers with cardboard boxes kept in the bird, right? you should see the video, you know, like puffins, Iceland, mirrors, um dial, okay, I want to find that. >> All right, brass tax. Come on. >> Okay, so um so we dialed up uh I saw air flights, they're about 500 bucks. Um the lodging in Norway, we looked at a couple different tour groups. We like sort of zeroed in on things. Um the numbers are there. Seven days, six nights in Norway with travel on this railroad thing, 21,100 per person. Uh, Katherine, while I was typing this up kind of slowly with my two fingers, was able to bring that cost down to
125like what, 1,800? Yeah. So, uh, cost savings might be available. Um, the same thing in Iceland with this Nordic visitor site, you know, 1,100 per person. We may be able to do a cheaper one. Um, we would do external fundraising. Um there would be some like writing letters looking for grants. I'd write to Norway. Um you know also the Norwegian consulate there also groups like the Norwegian American Foundation, the Scandinavian Studies Association and stuff like that. Um we you know student fundraising at basketball games that are coming up. Um and then um what they did for Costa Rica were individual student contributions to the tune of like what we're going to do. So, we're thinking like a topline kind of a thing at $5,000 a person. So, that's >> but we're I don't think we're
126asking. So depending on what funding we can secure, then we can cut things if we have to like skip the Iceland card or schedule each one of those things individually, which would save money, but it's such a quick turnaround that it is a little bit more attractive to go with something that has the whole package. >> So that's our pitch. >> Excellent. >> All right. So I will take a motion to approve the proposed Norway Iceland trip for the Marsh intensive and >> this is Amy. I make that motion. >> Yep. >> Say we'll give it an answer to you. All right. Uh any discussion on that? I can Well, I'll just start off by saying uh it sounds like a really fantastic plan. I love I think that the really direct connections that you've
127made to some of our our local landscape and agriculture industry is really really fascinating and I agree with you. I think take >> sometimes taking students a little bit out of familiarity to understand to get gain perspective on what actually is happening in their own backyard, right? It kind of racks the focus a little bit and then they can come back with some greater understanding where they're already at and the sense of place here, right? By kind of seeing it happening elsewhere, >> right? that there's actually an Icelandic sheep farm in Heartland. You know what I mean? It's like they're doing >> Yeah, absolutely. >> Uh it's Shin Cracker, not Shine Cracker. >> Okay. >> And which makes more sense, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. That must have been a typo in the valley. Uh
128uh I I really love the the I I refer to the comparison between Iceland and Vermont all the time in my work at the legislature because I'm like look at what they're doing and look at what we can do. But the the difference is that it's something like more than 90% of Iceland's population lives in one city and Vermont our biggest city is actually like 50,000. So what not not technically a city. >> So um but >> that being said the the um so it does change the notion of of uh scale in a way because they are dealing with just one city really. Um but they have been able to innovate in a way that Vermont has never thought about doing. And and when we think about um you know the big lifts that
129we could be doing, >> right, >> we have a model for that which is um I think I I think really important for um student Vermont students >> to understand. >> I'll throw in too I I think it's it's been really fascinating and really heartening to see the different places that we're getting students do. It's not I think it can be, you know, there's nothing wrong with this necessarily. It can be easy to find like a great trip and just kind of run and run and run it, but I seeing the diversity of different experiences that we've been uh, you know, providing our students has been really fantastic. >> Also, for me, I think it's important to give them an opportunity to go somewhere they probably never would go. No offense, Kim, but Norway, you
130know, it's not like on your top five places to visit in your lifetime, right? So, this gives them an opportunity to go some Sorry, Kim. This gives them an opportunity to experience something that maybe lifelong never would be able to take. >> And Bergen Bergen is one of is one of the most awesome places I've ever been to. I'm so glad you're going there. >> Be going there. It's just not it's it's not in the like mental space of of United States people. >> Absolutely. Kate's brother was >> Yeah, I know. Great. Any other any other comments from >> I just one like if if fundraising went really well could you take more than eight like is that >> like it like you know what I mean like not like I'm just curious >> right
131>> so um the reason we came up with eight so when I went to Costa Rica the two times we went we had 11 and we had 10 and we had two chaps but on that trip there were other adults that were managing the kids and So going out to dinner, right, is just going to be hard. Everything's going to be hard with a group, especially without like a company that's like setting it all up. Yeah. So we were thinking of keeping it small. So >> are we open to taking more? Sure. >> I'm just curious. No, I think that's that's a good assessment. >> I'm just picturing also on the Costa Rica trip there were 14y olds and so that really changes things. So we've been thinking about that as well because there's fewer
132adults like could we have an older population? >> Sure. >> Uh any other comments from the board? All right. Well, I will uh take a roll call vote to approve the proposed Norway Iceland for March 10th of 2026. How do you vote? >> I uh Amy >> I >> Elizabeth >> I >> Bill >> I >> and I as well. So you are approved and thanks so much for giving us the us. >> Thank you so much. Let us know the fundraising. >> All right, so we're on to 6B community dinner check-in. As always, we can make this one brief. Um, it's mostly just because it's later this week, I want to do a little bit more of a touch point on it. Make sure we got everything. Nothing we discuss in person here, but
133it seems like everyone can sign up by now. Um, uh, Elizabeth, you got a sign on the grid yet? >> I did. I signed up on the grid. >> I think I signed up twice actually. >> Oh, was it the right grid? I'm looking at >> what you bringing. >> Chardonnay, right? I'm I'm bringing a gigantic chocolate cake and I'm bringing uh a vegetarian entree. >> Okay. Yeah, you're the the cake made it on here. Your name did not. So, I'll just figure >> Well, the important part. >> And what was the what was the vegetarian entree? >> I don't know yet. I like it. Lentils kind of thing. >> That's cool. >> It's It'll be a protein. >> That's great. Yeah, because I'm doing cabbage soup, which is decidedly not a protein. Uh, cool.
134All right. So, as long as we're all set, there's no questions we need to talk about in person. >> Yeah. >> Yep. Bill's bringing meat. We know that. Um, >> what's new? >> I'll forward you all. Mary, you know, she sends Mary is particular in her planning. She's gonna send out the logistical email earlier. So, I'll forward that to all of you. But, um, I'll be there 4:30 and uh >> 5:30 to 6:30. >> Yep. I'll be there right at the beginning service time. >> Yeah. Yeah. I gota beh. But yeah, I'll be there right at the beginning. So, you know, if you need to trickle in between 4:30 and like 4:45 5ish, that's fine. But I'll I'll kind of start it off and be working with Mary Space. Yeah. So, we've done it before
135now. So, it's a little bit less of a less of a mystery and looking forward to it. >> I hope the kids are coming. I am bringing Hannah. That's okay. Yeah, and they are like the most important members. >> Excellent. Okay, so uh we are on to 6C which is the bud budget advisory committee followup. I think that's our administrators. >> Yeah, Tracy taking you want to talk? >> Sure. Um we have three meetings scheduled. Um we did have some community um interest on both sides. Um Jen, you'll have to help me with the Albert Bridge names. I know Amanda, who's in the room, is interested in being on the building uh budget advisory committee. Um Britney Preston um from when from um I think she lives in Brownsville, actually, is um has is joining.
136And then uh Jen, you had two other families who I don't know. Um, so we have Ryan Thompson, uh, Chris Nesmet who served last year, and Liz Frederick, who showed interest, >> right? And we have, um, meetings scheduled for um, >> Sarah Higgins. >> Um, so I mistakenly said Sarah Higgins instead of Ryan Thompson originally. So, sorry. >> Did you not >> Sorry, I flipped them. >> If you don't need me, that's fine. But I was I got it on my calendar. >> All right. >> Jen, did you you added the new the newest names to our meeting list? >> Did you invited them to the calendar invites? >> Um I'll have to check see who I've invited to the calendar invite at this point. >> We can touch base tomorrow. Our first one is
137November 21st. Um and then again on December 5th and and December 19th. So we have scheduled three three meetings. Um >> bye. Great. Any other budget committee update or is that just kind of >> I think that's where we are. >> Primed on the groups together. We got meetings planned. >> Excellent. All right. >> So, I guess that kind of leads us into 6D, which is preliminary budget conversation. And Christine, I believe that. >> Yeah. I can give a brief um >> Yep. summary of kind of what we've been up to. Uh so as you heard tonight um a lot about act 73. There's another piece of act 73 which is the capac minimum legislation which goes into effect next year. Um and it is my understanding that that goes into effect regardless of whether
138there is a map selected or not. Um the class sizes are um at least that that happen next year. So those minimums are uh as follows. Grade one uh there are no requirements for kindergarten. Grade 1 uh 10 students. Grades 2 through 5 12 students. Grades 6 through 8 15 students. Grades 9 through 12 18 students. And um if a if a school fails to meet these class size minimum standards for three consecutive years, the Secretary of Education will have the authority to recommend that the state board of education take a range of actions that include providing technical assistance, taking administrative control of a district or requiring a school to close or consolidate. Um and then there is some um language around if a school is deemed geographically isolated, you can request that. >> Yeah.
139>> So um Larry and I uh have been meeting regularly um and working on the numbers uh to see that we uh where we are in compliance with the law and where we are not in compliance uh with the law. So um there is some impact on our high school courses. There is some impact at Albert Bridge um where we where we are not in compliance. So we've been working with the administrators to figure out um how that impacts the budget and staffing and um our our plan obviously is to present a budget that's in compliance with the law and then it's We'll present it to the budget advisory committee obviously and go through that process and then um come back to the board in December with the budget um for you to um go
140through with us. So backing up the budget committee is not going to decide the configuration of Albert Bridge School are they? >> No. Okay. No. And so are you deciding on are you deciding the configuration of Albert Bridge? >> I >> who's deciding the configuration of the school? >> You mean what the grade levels are? >> Yeah. >> Um I think that uh Jennifer and I met with Larry. Um, we talked about some scenarios that might comply with the law and um, >> but the law it just as a reminder the law is a it's not just one year. It's two years of of the class size. It's not >> it's not a one year average. >> Yeah, it's three year average. >> I've been looking for that language and I cannot find it anywhere
141where it says it's an average. So if there if you have it, please send it to me. I've asked um you know what I read to you is what I've um found in the law itself. So I know that it's if a if a school fails to meet those numbers for three consecutive years, that's when administrative action can can take place. But um I would if you have that, I would very much appreciate you sending it to me. Anybody? >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, I um so we are we are doing the numbers to see where we're at for next year in terms of um class sizes and staffing. And no, I'm not deciding the configuration. I'm presenting um where we are in compliance and where we're not based on the law. And none
142of this is easy and none of this is anything that any of us really want to be doing. But um >> because we're merged with Windsor the classes size has be merged. Could they be merged too? >> But is it I guess your question to clarify your question is it uh building based or is it district based? >> Yes. Um I think the way that um Larry created a spreadsheet um and I pretty certain he did it by school. >> He did it by school. >> Y >> we can certainly look at it in um >> that's a question. >> The law is um >> well you're looking at we're talking about classroom sizes. Correct. We're talking about um we're talking about teacher to student um ratio. >> Okay. So I think when we say
143class all the students that are at a grade level >> we're not talking about teacher student ratio. They decided not to go with teacher student ratio. >> They decided to go >> cohort, right? >> Yeah. Student population >> by the cohort, >> not the ratio. >> So it's how many students in first grade? >> Yeah. Yeah. So it's not like, you know, >> it's not per classroom. >> Right. Right. >> And so you could have one classroom with 20 students and one classroom and that would meet the need for students but still meet the law. >> But the question would be before you go too far forward, is it district based or is it building based? >> The way we figured it start the work was building based. We can look at it. Can I
144ask you a question? >> So what you just said I'm a little confused about. If it is classbased like first grade, how does that affect high school classes of certain subjects? It's by subsets by content area. So it's like math, science, the basic the basics, the state required basics are exempt and then the more special unfortunately the more specialized classes uh get cut. >> Oh yeah. >> Can I ask one more question? >> That's not the way it should be, but it is what it is. >> What do you mean get cut, Elizabeth? Let me just clarify. Um because there are the the way that the law reads like terminal courses are exempt from the class size minimums. >> Yeah. >> So they don't count. Okay. Okay. I just want to make sure I understood.
145>> Can you clarify what terminal means just to make sure I'm >> Yeah. It's like the end like the high upper level end of like a kelp 2. >> So it's basically the high level is exempt and then the basic >> the core content. >> Okay. is exactly the core content like >> everything that you're taking to meet graduation requirements >> falls under the law. So you have to have 18 18 kids or in that across that content area content isn't exempt. I know correct. Okay. Core content is not exempt. That is part the only thing that's exempt is the top level like EP classes. >> These are the these are the exempt following classes. Um act 73 exempts the following classes from the class of minimum standards. Kindergarten and pre kindergarten career and technical
146education. So CTE courses need specialized equipment, >> flexible pathways, terminal courses. So those upper level high-end classes, AP classes are exempt. Courses that require specialized equipment, so like Aaron Day's um >> wood shop, um driver's ed courses are exempt, probably a good thing. 18 kids driving um and uh content area classes, i.e. courses within a specific licensing endorsement area. So, I think that um has to do with some um special education. I believe I've read something about that, but my understanding is >> like the classroom. >> Yeah. My understanding is if it's a graduation requirement, we've had lots of questions about this um at the superintendent level because we want clarity. Everybody in the state is having to wrestle with this. And from what I have heard back and and I heard back from uh
147other superintendents and Chelsea Meyer at the BSA, you know, the state board should be defining it. And um so it's my understanding that we're going by those required classes that everybody needs to graduate. Those are the where the law um is in place. ask question. Yeah. The earlier Elizabeth talked about the small boards or the small school fighting Friday. What is is that going to have any effect on this? Like what is the purpose? Sorry, I'm going back but >> I don't know. >> Is that going to have any effect on >> on class sizes? Like it seems like the small class sizes. >> Small schools. You mean >> small schools? Yeah. Like >> by necessity, right? Small by necessity. >> Small by small by necessity versus small by choice. >> Yes. >> Um uh
148will >> so that affect this? >> Yes. Like if a school is small because of necessity, >> right? >> Are they is there going to be like is that committee? >> There's a waiver process. >> Yeah. >> I'll just throw in there. I think connecting some of the dots. I think when we talk about the waiver for geographic isolation, I think it's not using the same terms, but I imagine that's some of that's a same consideration is that >> and another another thing is that uh West Windsor's population grew in the last decade. And so while 10 years ago it was uh it fell under geographic isolation, it no longer does um because we gained 120 whopping residents um in the last decade. >> Does it take into account just second home >> that it's
149voters? >> It has to do with the the voting population. >> Okay, that makes sense. And but at the same time uh you know it um there are still a lot of possibilities up in the air. For example, if we were to um get a merger with Woodstock and Hartford together at just as a frame, you know, framework as a supervisory union, we might be able to finally merge with Reading. um which would be better for both towns. >> It still does not make sense to me that uh we are side by side. I can walk to Reading Elementary from my house um but we can't even talk about um blending those two schools. When it says three consecutive years, does that mean that if like one year it doesn't mean it and the next
150year it does that it would start over again the third year? Go back. >> That's how I read it. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> So it was three it is three years in a row that it doesn't need it. So every year it means that you start over. >> But again I think it's really important to decide does it the district not mean it or does the building not >> and is it an average building? That's the other question. >> No, >> that's what >> but but that's the question. It is >> Yeah, Elizabeth said it was the average. >> It's a three you you said threeear average or twoyear average. >> No, I'm no longer sure. Thank you. >> I don't want to give out this information. >> So, it sounds like >> it
151sounds like one thing that'll be valuable during this budget meeting process is to is to get some clarity around exactly what >> these things in the legislation. I I know you >> Yeah, I can find I can find it as soon as I get home. >> Um because there are things that there are known knowns and there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns. >> Donald Rumsfeld. >> It's one of my favorite poems. >> yeah. So there there are definitely areas that still are are remain to be defined in in all of this. Um uh but that being said um the people on members of the commission who wish to close small schools as quickly as possible were all about um today in the meeting today uh how they can rely on uh the
152class size thing to do the work for them. Well, so >> I think that's why they um adopted it. >> Of course it is. Yeah. >> Uh it it doesn't like I was lying in bed last night thinking about how it that it doesn't actually make that much sense um to have a one class size in a whole school um be the reason that a school shutters. But uh but anyway, I will find the par the actual parameters and um and and there's also there's an appeals process um that does currently exist >> and uh uh um and I think there are we'll find out whether it's two years or three years and whether it's an average Um, I don't think it actually makes that much sense to have for it to be an average
153>> over three years. >> I don't think so either. >> It's three years running. >> Find it. But if you find >> I just looked online. It doesn't use the word average on the AOE website. It uses the word average on GBT or here. >> Oh, you can't you can't trust Chat GBT. No, I couldn't find it. I've looked, it's come up, but then we've met with people >> and it doesn't say anything about over the three years of of an average. It says the numbers in the classes that they're giving like 10 students to grade one, 12 students to two through five, 15 students to 6 through 8th grade, 18 students to 92. We're saying that those numbers are averages like the size. >> Yes. within the within the grade level or within the
154content area, >> but they're not saying >> so you could have a class of of of geometry with 15 and a class of geometry with 20 and you would meet the requirement. >> Yeah. >> But they're not saying the average isn't pertaining to the three years, >> right? >> Okay, that makes sense. It sounds like maybe those two concepts just got >> Yeah. So, that's what we've been working on and that's what we were tasked with. Like I said, it's hard work. Not anything that um any of us really want to be doing, but I feel like it's my job to bring you the information and according to the law. Um uh knowing it's really not necessarily coming from I mean, we're I feel like we're doing what we've been told we need to do.
155>> And then um we'll come back in December with a draft budget for you >> and talk more. >> Well, I am glad this particular year um we have I think this is the biggest budget we had. >> Yeah. >> Considering what two three years ago we have one at all, right? >> So, I'm glad that some of the folks are involved especially with >> a lot to talk about this year. >> See where we're at in December. >> Sounds good. >> All right. Okay. Okay, we have made it to item seven, setting the next agenda. So, we're going to talk about we're going to look at the budget >> and hear from budget committee. Um, see anything else on the work plan? >> Uh, that is budget. Um, we had a tentative presentation from
156students at ABS. Is that on your >> It is on our radar. Okay. >> Yep. >> Um >> I don't know your staff input on topics for discussion boards. We were going to revisit staff >> staff input. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. board outreach to the community and staff. Find opportunities to engage with community and staff. I think that that was u um a strategy for working on that goal. We need to put on topics for discussion. >> Sure. >> How would you like to do that? >> Um I mean I think just putting it kind of broadly. >> Sure. Yeah. >> Yeah. Okay. brain's going. >> Is there any engagement with the staff you'd like to have prior to the meeting about input? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> If I think just putting a general
157question out there is I mean yeah. >> Awesome. Thanks. >> As an agenda but is that broadly that's where my going but yes >> and I can bring back or we can bring back and registration any top at stake. Davis. >> Uh, yeah, Elizabeth. >> Um, I don't want to spend any more time here tonight. I do want to honor Amanda's request for there to be a letter that um our our board brings to that meeting on Friday. >> Yeah. Uh but we can't we can't like circulate a letter amongst ourselves between now and Friday. >> That is the >> it's not legal. So >> yes, that that is the ch it's it's the challenge of when we're talking about a meeting that is in four days we're discussing today something that really wasn't an
158agenda item that it gets tricky. Um the thought that I had about that um I think that what what's important here is that we have some something that is coming from somebody in our district. I think that like it would be fantastic if we had the ability to get together and have everybody like do something official that said this is coming from the capital board. That being said, um I mean, well, I guess I would solicit your advice on this one if it could be I could work with you on a letter that is coming from from members of the board. Um but again on a short time frame like or we could draft a letter and I have a stolen day tomorrow as I mentioned earlier. Um, we could draft a letter and like
159try to meet for five or 10 minutes as a board to look at it together. >> We do. >> I I would love to. I just It depends on what time it is. I don't have a stolen hour. I wish I did. I guess it depends on what's happening. I'm also volunteering for what's >> Oh, we could just do it on Well, >> you're having a dinner. >> We could do it on Thursday. We are seeing each other on Thursday. >> Don't we have to if we're talking business? That's different. >> Yeah. But can't we warn it for five minutes to special meeting? >> I don't know. Well, I'll be we'll be there. >> Um, >> we we could do that. Yes, it's >> I'm not I'm not trying to drive anything. I'm just >>
160No, >> throwing suggestions out there because it's late. That's all. >> Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Um, I see a couple hands up over here. >> Yeah. Um, Katherine and I are both teachers, but Katherine is also president of the WSEA, the uh, educators union. I'm the vice president. Um, I we were invited by Superintendent Thorn and the principles to like um, hear some of their thoughts and to provide feedback. >> Yes. Um, so we did write some something up which we shared with uh Christina earlier today and we have copies. I don't know if that's appropriate >> or wanted >> but but we do like I'm I'm awkward. I mean, I have I have trouble crossing some of these lines and like I'm not entirely um comfortable with a lot of it. Um so
161I'm just saying if you're if you're looking for certain kind of input >> Yeah. And I got distracted because we were I was looking for the word average. And the very last bullet point of things that are exempt says content area classes, ones that require specific licensing endorsement areas, which is what all of high school is. So I'm just confused what that means. And so I potentially missed my opportunity to share this letter with you. And Kim's like elbowing me and I was like, what does that mean? Content area classes, that's entire high school. I mean, mine is 7th through 12. That's a specific endorsement. Also, I would argue we have specialized equipment like microscopes, but any we could argue which things should be included and that's very important for determining if we're compliant or
162not. So, >> um Christine and and the uh the >> principal I was going to say president the principles met with us to say what they saw as far as the way it wasn't being interpreted. And then I wasn't sure if we should be responding to this because of the specific superv at this point, but >> yeah, >> like how flexible is your plan, I guess, is my question. >> Oh, our plan is uh the task that we were asked to complete was to see if we were in compliance with the class size minimum laws or law. And that's what we that's what we did. Um, clearly we're going to go back and look at districtwide because we weren't I don't think we were doing it that way. Um, and to get clarity around content
163area. I'm quite certain it's not content area. >> I know. What does it what does it mean? >> Well, are you reading the law or >> I'm reading the Vermont AOE website? >> So, look at the actual law, find H454 and um it does say a little bit more about the content area. My understanding and you know >> don't look at H454, look at Act 73 because they're two are very different. >> Um my understanding was it from the questions that I've asked at the meetings that I've been out at um we were we were what was shared with us was any class that is a graduation requirement falls under the law. But I'm getting my information from people that are interpreting this law. And it's the state board that should be giving clarity, which
164is >> what I said to Chelsea, which is not her fault, but I'm like, we are supposed to be building budgets right now. >> And what does this mean? And so that's the information that I've been given. So, >> but you also need a certain number of arts classes, not specific classes to graduate. So, how does how does that work? >> Say that again. So, in order to graduate, you have to take one and a half credits of art. >> Yes. >> But those weren't part of the conversation, >> our conversation. No, we did we were we we did not bring art we did not bring related arts into that into that conversation, right? It was just it was just the core um subject matter. >> I guess that's my point. It's open to interpretation
165and so we we do need time to sit down and agree that this is what they are going to be expecting of >> or what is I mean it would also be a good thing to bring to that public comment thing on Friday. >> Yeah, for sure. And but it also there there are a lot of it it just like everything else in that act in that um law um it's muddy and so it it's something to ask the state board of education about. >> It's not necessarily >> Yeah because it can the the it it can already be according to the statute it can be appealed. >> Um on what grounds can it be appealed again? Can it you know what can can each school in our district appeal it? How how long will
166um appeal process take? What do you have as an appeal process? And so on and so on and so on. >> Which is why we're reticent to sign off on risk. >> Yeah. >> As a as an education. But it is >> but it is our our understanding and this is the nature of what we were writing up that uh that Christine is in the budgetary process based on classroom minimums that that's the engine that's driving the bus. >> Yes. And I do want to point out that they worked really hard to have the least impact possible to be fair and we appreciate and understand that. >> I and I appreciate I appreciate the timeline in which this conversation is happening. It is important, but I just want to remind we we had that discussion.
167We closed it. We've moved on to deciding next agenda. Um I think the budget committee is going to get to talk about this. >> I I I want to hear more discussion on this when you um All right. So, >> other thing just because I was left up in the air as far as advocacy at this not quite not quite setting the next agenda, but I think uh I how about this? I will reach out to you all because we don't need to be in the setting to logistically schedule things. So, I will email the board. we find a time to whether it's directly before or maybe directly after we do a community dinner that we're all going to be at, we can warn something very quick, come together, you and I can draft something,
168we can agree on it, and that way there can be a collective sign off on it. Um, and and have that before the meeting on Friday, >> which >> is there an entity to send a letter like that to? Yeah. So I will do that. >> Um any other any other items for the next uh for the next agenda? >> Uh I didn't see any others. I think budget will be >> Yeah, budget. Budget. Absolutely. Um we're going to talk about you know we're solicit feedback from staff and make sure that we're >> seeing how we can >> probably want to talk about the budget. >> I Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think generally, you know, having more conversations, we just make sure that they're explicitly cited as agenda items to make it easier
169to plan for. >> All right. So, and if anything else comes up between now and then be in touch >> and task to set up that brief, >> just let me know. >> Yeah. Yeah. And we can do that. I mean, okay. All right. Uh, okay. So, we are on adjournment. Um, all those in favor of adjourning this meeting, um, we'll just do a horse vote. So, please say I. >> I. >> All right. So, we are adjourned at 9:07 p.m. Uh, That's one.