001okay where we at here okay uh under under rushing this I will call this meeting to order at um 6:33 of the Lindo Southeast supervisory Union um any changes or additions to the agenda [Music] Amy um I don't necessarily have a change but I just want to let you know I have to step away for just a moment um my son just bought a house and we're FaceTiming him for just a moment so it's a big deal I'll be right back exciting life does happen congratulations Nancy oh that was your hands raised yeah that's was I try was trying to get my microphone on and it's right next to the micr trying to find the agenda here no okay uh no changes I will um take a motion to approve the minutes of November 25th
0022024 um there's a change there's a little tiny thing in the minutes that should be changed should I do that right now all right I think that's that's okay so moved okay thank you Nancy do we have a second I'll second thank you Mark okay Nancy um it's just um the part where I talked about the a program they wrote Ace is just delete the S it's the Ace Program that's tiny but it's not tiny let's call it doable um now I have the agenda I move forward with my life um did we note that Christine or did someone note that that you move forward with your life yeah no that the uh s comes off of Ace yes yes yes I wrote it are there any other uh discussion changes that have been noted
003cop minutes here no I didn't print them no do you want me to okay uh no further discussion uh I will take a r call vote Davis hi Nancy hi uh Elizabeth elab here yes she she is yes she is hello Elizabeth hi thank you Amy has stepped away um I am back this is minutes yes I okay um is Megan here I think she was said she was Ill or out Megan is sick tonight okay and I don't see Nicole Beth I andarine I and Mark um Sarah you forgot me I Sarah s Sarah I did you're crossed out on my on my list here from last time and I haven't I do apologize okay um I'm processing with Amy back I know we have a COR right I think we have one anyway
004two three four okay yeah you're good just a little concerned about that could you just let us know who's in the room it's hard to you can't see everybody uh uh Nancy and Davis and Mark and then we have Bridget and Patty gray Patty Gray okay thanks you're very welcome public participation uh 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 that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed for discussion please
005start by identifying yourself and what town you reside in is there any public comment yes sir um I will I will just shout out that I uh I was fortunate to attend but The Windsor high school music school they did me and girls which was fantastic I think I went on their closing night they put on a really great show which was the best of all it was were you at all of them there we go all right so I caught the best performance thanks for thanks for that Nancy uh and then I also caught the uh the high school I didn't get it to the grade school Winter concert but the high school Winter concert was really fantastic so it's really great to see all the hard work our students put in come to
006uh fruition with these performances I'm looking to catch a whole bunch of basketball I and um I'm grateful for the Su to uh have provided mics for the um actors because and they had to learn and that's why the third night was the best because some were a skew and you couldn't hear people anyway but it was great it was wonderful great job where did those come from I have no idea I think it was the budget that um had not been spent that's right they're expensive but they make a huge difference yeah and they only have eight places in the board so they want they need to expand the board because more people needed like they're trying to raise money to do that so you mean the control board yes okay Harland had an
007amazing um musical experience as well um we had our fourth through eth grade um Winter concert and um yeah our our staff running that is just phenomenal and so it was just so great to see and it was so amazing to see these fourth graders that had just started playing their instruments just a few months ago all the way to these eighth graders that are just rocking it um which is really yeah it was great it was just so wonderful and they are Miss B and Mr Foley are just amazing okay any other announcements okay thank you all items for discussion followed by motion if needed Community use of school facilities grounds and Fields um I will take a motion approv this as this is the third plus reading so moved Elizabeth second thank you
008um what were the issues last time that we were going to clarify um we were going to update um what we added was under administrative responsibilities yes okay the super intendent or designate we did put that in there because Jim does help with that we changed uh shall to Will and we changed um of yeah some of them to May yeah so Jim and I met and went over all of it and um he helped guide which ones say May and which ones say will good y I see a lot more Mays too now which is good I think that was the right move thank you any other discussion on this comments concerns okay we'll take a vat Davis hi Nancy hi Mark hi Elizabeth hi Amy hi and Beth hi and Marie I and
009Sarah I did I miss anyone that me I an I all right okay thank you and thank you for all the hard work you put into that I I think this is an important potion uh B7 first reading tobacco prohibition and it looks like it's truncated significantly yeah just a reminder Lor's um putting the strike through red line through what's coming out and the yellow is um the new stuff that they sent now y oh okay through the bsba I didn't see anything off so is is the yellow highlighted what's been added yes okay with the administrator yeah it looks to me like what was removed in that strike through under the statement is is more effectively covered under the administrative responsibilities I think it's a lot clearer that way a little less busy up
010[Music] top was this suggested by is the SBA yeah this one was up for review um yeah there not a lot of leeway here is already yeah monitored by love okay looks good Transportation another first reading and does that mean that that yellow is come down from on high too yes okay from um the SBA and and the red they they take out so the only um significant difference I see in this one is um the change used to say May and the new um language does not make that an option um has it been an update in the law no I look today so so why are we changing it as a policy that we will that's a very good question okay I sent a message to Shan Tui today but he didn't get
011back to me which where do you see the wills so it's the May is in the red um okay the district supervisor Union May furnish Transportation so the law says May the new policy essentially says will right right where which number in the top third line May furnish Transportation on public roads students who reside so this is a homework item for board members I think is to consider see this is just a first reading and that is the most significant portion of this do we as an Su do we as three individual boards well transport Su do we as a su want to require that the Su provide transportation for all students um partial or complete Transportation when it is not actually required by law that's sort of that oh questions about your homework we
012don't want to discuss this now well we can I think that if people have an opinion Beth do you have an opinion on this well I mean if you're if we're talking about as an equity issue then yes we we need to provide transportation to all our students and it's a legal obligation when it comes to special education I believe as well yes yeah yeah so that's that's not not under a actual I mean there's a couple different requirements for Trent Transportation there's uh homeless mcken vento and special end so but that's not what I don't believe that's what this uh policy is for and it if it is then then it should be written in there Katie you w to you seem to be frowning a little bit there what's your input sorry this
013is why I don't play poker um the transportation is not a requirement of special education I think there's a um there's a if a student's disability impairs their ability to Access Transportation than it is but other than that then no and and there's that if no one gets transportation and everybody H has something else so I think that there's some nuances to that mckin vento is a very different thing but there's very specific rules around that so I didn't want to kind of I was trying to figure out how to frame it so than Bill perfect timing because I finally came to my brain um so um no and my other quizzical look I I think just while I is does that include students who have school choice because that does come up frequently in
014special ed World on that yeah so if if if no if it's not included then it probably should be clarified that it is enrolled students students who have um school choice aren't actually enrolled in our Su they are enrolled if a student is tuition to Hartford then they are enrolled in Hartford that's their school um and that's how they're reported it says here about the definition of a legal pupil yeah and I think we need to go figure out what what they set forth in 16 BSA that's a good point n thank you and Marie yeah just as a weather field person um with school child place and also just with some more recent stuff that's come up I don't know that we'd want to really I don't know offer like make paint ourselves into
015having to do more than what the law says I mean I know we always try to do it but I don't think we want to make it a rule that we have to do it at least that's my opinion yeah that that's kind of how I'm leaning right now Amry just we we provide transportation for students who who need it and if if something happens again for example if if we hit get hit with a CO like situation um then that gets kind of difficult if by policy we demanded that we have to transport even if it's really not safe to transport or economically feasible if students have to be um like from the bus at one point there was no Transportation another time they had to be social distance yes is this vsba language
016the update comes from vsba yes okay yeah yeah just interested in it is a pretty notable distinction between like if vsba is recommending that we go above and beyond what's legally required I'd just be interested to hear like what the what led to that right um because I'm I'm just quickly looking at the statue that we have right now legal people and the other two citations in here which I think specifically refer to Transportation I think the homework is a good idea on this yeah and I I I understand be point I think possibly it might be good for for Tracy to uh chime in on this about the equity pce um and I think it's that's is a concern then definitely there should be some sort of equity language in there that we won't
017discriminate against students anyway Beth I'm sorry I kind of jumped in yeah I mean I'll just I'll just put forth the equity issue again I mean I know when we were short bus drivers at the end of last year um and our route got cut and it was like you need to get your kids to school and back and forth and figure this out it was a huge huge impact on our family and we are two working people that you know I think have our act somewhat together you know and it was still really difficult um and so I would just think about all those families that don't necessarily fit in that category that would even be harder if we just said we don't have to offer Transportation um that feels really UNP unpleasant yeah
018at the same time there are situations where well this is a policy this isn't law it doesn't necessarily it's policy yeah well then I mean you can't fault parents for not taking their kids to school I mean if we can't if they can't get them there they don't have a vehicle they can't get them there and we say we can't transport them then we can't hold them liable that they're that they're Trent that's a good point except that kind of goes up against an actual law which is I know that's why we get the kids butts to school yeah we don't really have a choice on that that that's defined by the state level what um an excused absence and versus a unexcused a um I hope that the school district wouldn't uh take action
019if a student misses a few days because of a lack of Transportation I don't think it would besides the fact there's no mechanism in place to deal with Tru with students anyway so that is a good point any other discussion Elizabeth I got a question um let's say that that did happened that the scenario that Beth is describing did happen does would furpa prevent a principle from um telling a another parent or tell making that situation known in case somebody can pick the student up like is the is a principal prevented from facilitating car pooling I know I asked that I asked that same question recently when I was just trying to figure out a carpool for my kid to algebra class in Windsor and they couldn't share contact him information really they could just
020kind of tell me what kids were in the class you know with and we kind of did our own sleuthing around to try to figure out who like emails addresses we already knew and things like that so Elizabeth the answer legally is no uh they would not be denied unless a parent has opted out of directory information okay uh directory information is um oped out by fur and so a school can share directory information uh with a PTO or any other organization like a they they can share it with uh parent volunteers for sporting events and so forth um unless a parent has opted out of that so but that doesn't mean that the principal can tell so in effect the parent would have to call everybody on the in the directory is that right
021unless the principal asked the parent Elizabeth would you like me to share this information with another parent with permission yes it's fine I got you okay yeah thank you yep but it would be possible for us a parent organization who has that parent contact information to take that on okay good question any other discussion so I uh just looking at this again and I I did I finished reading through those things the the legal citation at least the stuff that isn't a legal pupil really just says that we have to make this policy and we also have to keep records on um student transportation yeah um as far as the one thing that's highlighted specifically in this the option specify resident only or non-resident students I think that's what you're referring to with the enrolled
022students yeah so I think that might be something that we could we could feel today a little bit whether we're talking about I mean the language they're recommending here I think it's saying residing in right you know the towns that we serve so right and so if a student is tuition here from uh tumbridge then yeah were not legally required or even within this policy required to transport that student from temp yep yeah I mean my my only thought about that is that and this maybe there's some flexibility around it but if if we were leaning towards the enrolled students only do we want to stick with the resident language in here to make it as clear as possible that's you know students residing in towns CED by the Su we don't uh Cornish students
023aren't bust in are they they used to be used to be but W sent the bus because they wanted there which is irritated me because when they stop that our tuition from cornis plummeted so there's kind of a win-win situation because um for us because we just picked up at the elementary school so high school and middle school students no high school students could ride the same Elementary bus to the elementary school be picked up by Windsor bus and taken to the high school and so once that stopped there a significant number of cor students uh go to hctc so they would come here and then go to hctc afterwards now because there's no Transportation the parents have to drive them anyway they just enrolling Harford I'm sorry the other thing is you know to
024be really clear that we don't we don't bus our our high school or our resident high school students to the choice school that they go to now right yeah so we'd have to be clear on that as well yep no that's a good that is a good point unless you want to just saying as it is now we do not we do not no okay that's some stuff to think about that's some stuff to think about very good points and completely lost where I am four yeah there uh four participation in home study students um very short I think this is just a cleaning up of of language because uh we can't deny curricular and extracurricular activity to resident students adding definition sections yeah for extracurricular activity it's really fascinating I I think a 03
025ADM per activity which is really really low but it yeah always found that fascinating they came up with that y any discussion comments okay we don't need to add anything on here like students that are attending private school and want to attend like I'm just thinking Waldorf School students that come and do drama like at the school like that that's its own separate policy right yes because it is it is a completely different we can allow students to come but they're not covered under this policy kind of like a student who um we hit the situation once around driver's at student went to Anover and they wanted West Wind School District at the time to pay for that student to take a driver's ed class um and they're legally an hampter student and so no
026we didn't have to provide it besides the fact they made the choice to go to to ano so if a student goes to um midmont for an example and they want to play uh football at Windsor um because infont doesn't actually have a football team then we can allow them we can choose to let them come and do it but we don't have to and if they do we don't get any ADM for them because they are not homeschooled students okay what a few times I actually know any other comments okay another first just really stacked them on here yep okay uh responsible Computing and network use this looks like a complete redo in many ways which is not a bad thing I didn't scroll down I didn't realize it was long um one question
027I have for Tracy to look into how does this overlap with our student and even adult harassment policy bullying harassment because if there's bullying in harassment over the responsible Community network and internet use how does that how does that overl if it um well if it if it happens in school it's and it's using a device it's hhb if it happens outside of school like social media yeah that doesn't that's not covered under this policy Network an internet use yeah so it doesn't that's not covered but we still investigate if it's impacting a students education I'm not asking I think would just I'd be interested to see her her structive on that's all she's here I mean she's online so right we'll talk about but I'm not going to put her on spot right now
028discussing or three different policies at um it looks like there's some kind of a typo under the enforcement section yeah in the event there's an allegation that a user has bio and then it says in the event so it seems like something got cut off I'll talk to oh violated this yeah oh there's probably some more another line there yeah yeah right underneath it oh it looks like that next yeah that is probably just an artifact there yeah look at that okay any any other comments okay last one on the list the end of first read curriculum development in coordination it looks like we are referencing this is a referencing Edition well this policy was passed last spring and um I think Mark you asked for it to be reviewed again the curriculum development and
029coordination at our Retreat this summer I believe um yeah that was more implementation clarify how how the adopted curriculum is implemented so much that the policy itself it wasn't so much the policy itself okay um just seem to be kind of muddied in terms of uh the staff's perception of of who essentially was responsible for the implementation and the calls on that um and some people are of the mindset that it should be more the individual building Administration some people seem to think it should be more theu um well it is by law it's it's Su yeah so so the policy is okay it's the I I didn't have any problems with okay my followup question is does the policy clearly reflect that fact under a under yep the supervisor Union curriculum is coordinated to
030allow students what the heck does that mean is coordinated to allow students to meet or exceed standard coordinated across the supervisory Union so we're using the same curriculum right I understand I read it I understand what the intent is that it means but it really that's not particularly but sometimes when I look at language I get a little too obsessive compulsive so any other comments okay moving on to B resignations okay you have in your packet under your under the agenda if you're here um a resignation letter which um I can read or Katie would you you like to read it or would you like me to read it me to read it okay I can I can read it sorry I was slow on my uptake it's short um uh dear Christine and school
031board members this letter is to inform me of my intention to resign for my position as director of student supports Services effective June 30th 2025 this decision has not been an easy one but after careful consideration is the right time for me to pursue New Opportunities I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with such a dedicated Special Education team and to contribute to the growth and success of our students I truly appreciate working with the entire administrative team and the continuous support of each of our school boards I look forward to ensuring a smooth transition in the spring Katie I I I want to State for the record that I it has been an honor not only to work with you um in a professional capacity but as a board member and as
032the board chair um you are truly a amazing professional knowledgeable and very well spe respected throughout the area so thank you and um I do deeply appreciate you uh finishing out the year and because of that uh this will allow us as an Su and you to close out in an organized way thank you thank you B okay Amy Katie as as you're aware excuse me um our Su has not always had kind of a smooth um student Support Services Department um there there have been multiple challenges through the years but when you took over at the helm um it it was almost a it it felt like everything just kind of evened out and your administrative abilities and your knowledge just led to a more even Keel of the the services and the educational
033opportunities that we're able to provide for all of our students and your voice has been very strong and we will miss you thank you for all your work I also anticipate that I I do anticipate that not only that Katie you've done an amazing job but I think you've put us in a a position to carry that forward um so your legacy will continue here thank you all and as I frequently say to people we work I feel very fortunate as I look around to work with an amazing team and I really mean it amazing School boards it makes a huge difference in special education um especially just because of all the nuances and I hope so I hope things that we've now settled and put in place um really good systems in place and
034I will miss all working with all of you so I've learned I've learned a lot it's been it's been an amazing six years so you're still stuck with me for a while though so continue to follow so I will take a motion with uh great regret great respect and great um appreciation for Katie to accept her resignation so moved Davis second yeah okay uh Davis how do you V hi Nancy hi Mark hi Elizabeth I with regrets Amy I with regrets and thank you Katie Beth I great appreciation for everything you've done and Marie I with gratitude Sarah I okay and I am an I um with you a feeling of great appreciation for having the opportunity to to work with it thank you okay I don't want to cry Talk Amongst yourselves what's this
035topic okay um is that it for designations thank goodness yeah that's enough yes administrative report all right I'm up sh the screen with you sorry it wasn't linked our meetings a week earlier this month so just caught up with me um this bigger there we go okay all right so to get us started um some of you mentioned that um pretty amazing performances that have been happening across the Su lately so there's a Mean Girls up in the corner it was spectacular I saw the matina and I thought it was wonderful so um can't imagine the evening show being any better um it was yeah it was it was really um a great a great um fun show to watch and there were there were lots of people there supporting the students and Lauren Warner
036our director who's done an amazing job really revamping the program after Julie retired and that's hard to do Julie was awesome yeah um we've had our uh winter um concert the Elementary and high school band and chorus uh there's Brian stamman in the in the bottom corner there with some of the those are the middle schoolers and the other two pictures are Heartland they were all last week and that was an amazing show um it was it was it's really kind of exciting to see the growth of the program since Co we're starting to come back it feels like so this week we have abs on Wednesday and Friday weather's failed in the morning so um looking forward to those performances as well uh I'm going to give you a little bit of a budget
037update tonight although that thank you for passing the Su budget last Monday that has helped us move forward with the local budgets we uh have had local budget advisory committee meetings happening we haven't had all of the information that we need yet to really um bring forth a tax rate to those meetings but we intend to do that in January uh as soon as we have the final ltw ADN which is the long-term weighted average daily membership numbers which are part of that long that formula that we use to figure out the tax rate it looks like Weathersfield is in will stay under the threshold and it looks like Mount Ascutney will fall under the threshold uh at this time it doesn't look like harland's going to fall under the threshold so we got to
038figure that out some work to do um and that that those budgets will be presented to the boards in January it looks like there's a question Bill my I take yes Elizabeth do you have a question I do um I've heard from uh I I I sent an email out last week asking about the El long-term waited that 8m and uh it's been pointed out in several districts across the state that uh uh that they we're getting um changing numbers from the AOE about the ltw ADM and um uh what we legislators have been discussing is the fact that uh uh in act 127 we have pupils up to 185% of the poverty level weighted that way but it's a separate weight from um Medicaid and I just want to make sure that that's being
039Tred up in our supervisory Union so Elizabeth from from my experience which is pretty extensive um that many of the almost all of the students who are free and reduced are done through Direct Ser um are you suggesting that the direct search numbers may be incorrect I am I'm suggesting that uh they have been correct all over the state even on today's um Commission on the future of public education in Vermont um it was it the the data from the AOE um um being inconsistent and in many cases incorrect uh was brought up to the whole um whole commission so I just urge you to double and triple check the numbers one issue I had of course was getting well I think a lot of districts has this issue is a brand new state Reporting
040System um and so I just got hartford's uh free reduced numbers uploaded three weeks ago and so but Hartford and Woodstock are really good examples because in both of those districts they have uh uh 400 new students according to the new formula which is wrong I mean obviously but um they're trying to work it out I'm I and I'm just just trying to dot the eyes and cross the tees and make sure that we're working with the right numbers that's all 400 new students there are 400 fewer students I think in Woodstock it's 400 fewer students and in Hartford I think it's 400 more students I mean we we look both wrong obviously yeah and some of it's the weights like they're not actual students right they're the weights um but ours came in um
041I think Harland dropped we we checked because I was surprised by the drop it wasn't anywhere near that number but um so Larry is working with Ryan to to double check to make sure those numbers are accurate for us because they do imp yeah but thank you Elizabeth I'm just just because it is so widespread it's it's something it's like over 80 districts that are having this problem it's a it's a lot that's why it's hard to go to a board meeting and give back information on the budget um we're holding off um a little bit waiting for those numbers and you know they may change even after we set our budgets to be honest with you it can change up until June I think but okay um I wanted to let you know that
042um bill has approved this we've talked about it Heather Linn of lindland and Blackman is going to join us on our January 27th meeting she has a draft acts of hate policy for us to review we asked her to help us with with that after um the racial incidents that were brought forth in our schools against our black students so this is one response of of sever several several responses um but I want her to come and talk through it with with all of you I think Bill we agreed we would hold off on the other policy work in January and um hear from her on this on this policy so I just wanted to prepare you for that uh Elizabeth you have a question yeah I've got two questions actually um one is uh
043is this in followup to um finding some teeth for our our anti-racism policy it is okay great wonderful because that that was a question I was goingon to ask later and the second question is sort of related to that and that is are during this report are you going to tell us about the uh Human Rights Commission um meeting last week I don't have that in this report I can speak to it generally um I was there if that's helpful um I do it right now uh Tracy was Tracy price was there with me and a teacher from the high school one of our Equity coaches and um Brian Mart is one of our principes and lindsy lindsy Perkins one of our principales so we went and a lot of the focus of the afternoon
044was on how to prevent HH hazing harassment and bullying in our schools and the fact that we're you know we're in reactive mode most of the time in our schools around these things and so we haven't found the time to do all the prevention work that we that we need to be doing um that was one takeway the other um morning was more procedural um talking about you know the policy itself and how it gets implemented which wasn't anything new there was one one thing that I heard from um big from the Human Rights Commission that didn't line up with the advice that we've been given which was around sexual harassment and that was um that when we have sexual harassment in in our schools we send those off to our title N9 coordinator who
045then you know there's a whole process for Title 9 what we were told was we need to do both we need to do an um hhb investigation around sexual harassment and a Title Nine so we're going to get some clarity on on that um so that was um it was a good it was a good training I think it it would be good to maybe bring um and Tracy and I talked today about bringing a training like this to all our staff it wasn't anything or shattering for me because I've been involved in lots of hhb so um I know the procedure pretty well and but the prevention information was pretty valuable I don't know Tracy Price if you have anything you want to add yeah only that uh it'll be interesting to continue working
046with them and we have them coming January 6th uh they're going to do an afternoon session and they're also partnering with the education Justice coalition to do a student intervention training and so that's going to happen in April so we're thinking like how can we make sure that we get students to apply to be part of the training that they're going to offer for bystander intervention uh in April so yeah I think we're taking we're taking in advice from lots of attorneys and figuring out you know what makes sense uh for RSU so I appreciate Christine's leadership in that so thanks thank you I I wondered whether uh among yourselves and on the administrative team if you're bracing yourselves for changes to title n we we are yeah yep um waiting waiting to see what
047happens I mean we've talked about it we've had that came up at the training last week Title Nine may just may go away yeah under the new Administration so yeah definitely it's on our radar yeah okay thank you yep um speaking of January 6 uh Tracy's done an amazing job preparing we have some really great sessions that we're offering and and two great speakers in the morning I know the board's been invited the morning if you're available please um join us we have Su Susanna think I said it right Davis uh from the governor's office of racial Equity who Tracy and I um heard at um an eqs Workshop series that we're participating in she was pretty awesome so we're excited that she's coming to address the full staff and Laura Pasco who's a gender
048inclusion consultant who we're working with in our Su is also So speaking that day and then staff have some options for afternoon sessions so we're excited for January January 6 and we'll update you after it happens um staff seem pretty pretty interested as well uh I just needed to shout out Ed um he is retiring at the end of the month we we had a little celebration here at the office for him on Friday but I wanted to just thank him for his service he has been um part of the Su for the past 18 and a half years which is the longest uh CFO in the history of the Su that Larry could you know from all the history information that we have so um he's kept our districts out of financial trouble and
049we appreciate his service so I I just needed to shout Ed out to all of you publicly lot of lot of changes all you um and then I want to go over the process for the search that we're going to run because we're going to be running uh curriculum a search for the director of curriculum instruction and assessment and for the director of student support services so um and and part of this process comes out of the hiring practices work that we've been doing and that's essentially uh Tina myself Tracy Larry uh Britney was an original part of that group last year so for both searches we're going to um suggest that we and we're looking for board the board to kind of give give your blessing tonight so we can get these jobs posted
050we're going to have an initial screening Committee of a representative group they're going to look a little bit different depending on the actual um position but we want to make sure we have um you know voices from classroom teachers and support staff and um our Equity coaches um I'm going to send out an email to board members to see if there's anyone that would be interested in in serving on that initial committee uh a we hope to have at least a parent and uh a few students on the initial screening committee that committee will um look through the resumés their their scoring criteria they will select who they're going to interview and that's after um Tracy Tracy has started doing some training prior training to the interview committees before they interview just on um um
051being unbiased and um certain practices that we that we use confidentiality those types of things then that committee will um do their work a vetting interviewing and hopefully send top the top two candidates to the next round of um the process which looks like uh a second round of interviews with essentially the administrative team who will work closely with these people and I will put out for board representation on those committees hopefully we'll get District just before the meeting today Chris were talking about it my preference this is my just my preference and as the board chair I guess I can do this um I would really like a representative to be there from each of the three school districts I think that would be important not necessarily to to um run the interview but
052to be present so that when it comes time to for the board to approve then we have had um three members one from each School District be in the room and be able to put their their opinion to have heard those interviews so that's that's my preference sounds reasonable yeah t me okay so you'll be getting an email from me and we got two searches so um and they're going to run roughly around the same time we're going to try to post them well I'll get to that slide so then we check references and then obviously all the feedback comes to the team and we make a decision that comes to the board so our timeline we're going to post after tonight um we've got the job postings ready to go we're going to leave
053them open through late January uh we'll start interviews and all the steps in the process during late January and February and hope our our hope is to bring a final the final candidates you know one one curriculum and one um director of student Support Services to the board for approval in February that's our hope yeah another reason why I want board members in the room just for those of us who experienced the last time we hired a suu level leader pristin I mean we all all of a sudden realized how uh time is a huge factor and we can't fiddle fadle around to make our decision yeah so so we're hoping to get a a really um good group of candidates and hoping our timeline stays true but we'll see see what happens and our
054um uh compensation is in line with the rest of the schools around here um so those are at will positions and you know obviously I'll talk to bill um but we have I have all the comps from area from the areas all over the state so we'll we'll we need to be in line yeah I mean these these two positions are Paramount yeah to the success of this Su so you have to look at the comps and move forward competively yeah um so I had put the calendar on here just thinking that we were meeting next week um instead of this week but we're not so um I meet with the union tomorrow so I'll bring the calendar back next month if that's okay we just haven't they haven't brought me their feedback yet um
055and just to let you know I think Lori might have changed it in your calendar but we are um with Bill's permission going to start our February 24th meeting at 6 because Larry and I have to scoot over to Heartland for their informational meeting that same evening okay and I think that is uh nope got more the board goal survey went out I had I have six people that have responded so far out of 12 I can send it out again if you'd like I can share what we have so far for data which I have on the next slide um um so the four the four goals that the that are listed um from the summer survey our um The Windsor Southeast supervisory Union School Board will develop and Implement a structured process for
056Sol soliciting reviewing and responding to input from staff and Community stakeholders to ensure that policy decisions reflect diverse perspectives and meet the needs of the school Community that's listed as one up here and blue is that's a first priority for um however many people failed out the survey second priority and a third priority the second goal so it seems like that one's a priority just based on the feedback so far of the six people that have responded the second one is the Su board will establish and follow a structured process for the regular evaluation of its performance in meeting established board goals this process will ensure accountability continuous Improvement and alignment with the district's Mission and strategic priorities and you can see that was a third and fourth priority for the people that filled out
057the survey the third one is the Su board will ensure that student progress is monitored through comprehensive data analysis disaggregated by gender race and socioeconomic status this approach aims to identify and address achievement gaps support Equitable opportunities and enhance the success of all its students that one was a um a first priority for uh looks like three of the six people that took the survey and then the last one is the the board will conduct an annual evaluation of the superintendent's performance to ensure accountability support continuous Improvement and align leadership efforts with District goals and strategic priorities and that is a second priority for four of the six and a fourth priority for two of the six but again the superintendent would really love some some feedback so um so Bill I will give Direction
058on what you want me to do do you want me to send it out again for more um input possible to break down I because you initially s it out quite a while ago I'm wondering if people are having struggling remember if they've actually I can respond I think I can tell you yep well you don't need to tell us I can email I can thank you yeah I can do that because honestly I believe I answered that but they could be I didn't yeah okay I will do that uh yeah that's not the next part is um Angie Angie Bridget and Patty have the second part of the administrative report my part is over I'm happy to take questions or anything else before I turn excited for the next part okay hello hello Andie
059I'm oh thank you I don't have anything at this time to put up on uh the slides although so Patty is going to get us started in talking about her work this year um with uh faculty and Patty did you have something that you wanted to share I do Christine actually has it yep coming okay thanks Christie yep um for those who don't know me I'm Patty gray I'm curriculum and instruction specialist I have the very um Good Fortune to work with um Angie in the curriculum office and I instructional coaches and building principles in supporting and teachers in supporting instruction and curricul work and assessment all of the things um last year we really focused heavily on literacy and an opportunity came up for some of us to become involved in a math training
060that took place down in uh it two rivers or Twin Rivers I always get it confused two two rivers here um because they had grant money and they had open spaces and so it didn't cost us anything so a few of us went down and participated in some of these oap trainings and oap is the ongoing assessment project and really what it the focus of these trainings are to provide teachers with um strategic strategies to Forma of Assessments to improve student outcomes um to understand their research behind how students acquire math strategies and and learnings and how they progress through those strategies and uh skills and also just to deepen and strengthen teacher knowledge of the content itself um and being able to take all of that and make instructional decisions for the better of
061their students so we did that and then this past summer I participated in another one there are four section there's additive reasoning fractional reasoning multiplicative reasoning and proportional reasoning and so I did the additive last summer and then I took a week long training to become a trainer and having that license through ogap allows me to provide the training inhouse I can't do it for other districts because I'm not a national trainer but knowing that we had spent a lot of time focusing on literacy last year we decided to do the same thing for math this year and provide some support for teachers in the use of Eureka Square um and these programs are um ogap is program blind it doesn't matter what math program you use it's really learning the the progressions of skills
062and the research and the the content knowledge itself um and then deciding how to use your math program more effectively for your students so I put out out um a survey to see who was interested I got 18 teachers so we had classroom teachers interventionists special Educators um from K through actually we had a 68 math teacher join us for the additive training which normally additive training is more gear toward K3 teachers but for teachers who have students who struggle in math it's an excellent training because then they see where the gaps may be and they can support your students and so we spent four really intense days together exploring all of this um and I have to give a shout out to these 18 wonderful people because they it's exhausting at the end of
063the day I could barely even get words out and you could see the fatigue on their faces but they stuck with it and it was really engaging and very fun and one of the days was on our inservice day November 1st and probably some of the best um job embedded uh professional development that you can find um there will be follow-up sessions to support teachers in their work in the classrooms as well that I will be providing and I just wanted to give you some of the I can't even read it but stick my face CL I read it um but I just want wanted to share some of the feedback for you all and I'm happy to share all of it it's um it's participant line there's no names attached to anything but the
064feedback that we got was well this is really powerful you know understanding the research and the progression the skills is really helpful um I never thought about math this way that it could be so flexible and dynamic um people feel more confident in teaching math having gone through this and so that was really rewarding to have those conversations with folks um advancing and I'll just let you take a look at there's a lot on there and I was trying to pick and choose carefully so I'm not going to read it all to you because I understand that um your board meetings are very efficient so I don't want slow you down that's what it HS and so far it's it looks pretty good um but you know there's a lot of people saying this that
065this work is very impactful um increase their enjoyment of math instruction uh creates more flexible thinking for myself and a big part of this training is actually sitting and doing the work the math and then talking about how did you solve that how did you do it oh I never thought to solve it that way and that's the power of sitting down with group of colleagues and doing that work together because then the conversations that arise are really rich and very very meaningful and so I just wanted to share that with you um there's one more slide uh would you recommend this train for college and universally I received a yes that it it completely switched their thinking in terms of math instruction and how to approach um students who are struggling with particular things
066in additive reasoning so I'm happy to take questions I'm happy to share all of the feedback with you or if you want more information about OAB I'm happy to provide more information directly um and we are hoping to provide more sessions that's great well I think one really important piece is of course staff training staff beginning to interact in that but then of course to educate the general public who historically unfortunately has very stuck in the idea that mathematics is arithmetic and fact is no one does arithmetic anymore arithmetic and doing arithmetic is is part of the educational process of of learning the bases of math but what we are preparing our students for is is something else so and tying it into um mathematical reasoning that's kind of what the light bulb went off
067in my head I said this is something people non-math people non-educators can latch on to because it really make sense on the application of solving problems and how do you use math right it's providing strategies and so the research is that for addition subtraction students need at least two effective strategies in order to be able to flexibly work with those and they are not this us standard algorithm sorry if you a fan of that but yeah it's not that yeah it was a really incredible group of people and I am so appreciative that they took four days out of their very busy schedule thank you and very concise presentation thank you Patty I do want to point out a couple things um first of all when Patty um talked about getting the training uh to
068become a trainer for oap I was like and she told me about some of the requirements I was like I don't know how you're going to do this and and I am just amazed that she W that she got this group of people together and I think that the next cohort will be even easier and that this model of professional development we have an on-site trainer the the The Faculty are released from their classrooms for the training the training they did two days in one week and then a few weeks later they did two days not consecutive um and the sub situation almost conspired to um to get us down on that last day but we worked it out and um I think Patty you told me that all but three people of the 18
069um completed the four days and those three people will get it in the next round the few days that they missed is that correct corre correct we had a couple illnesses unfortunately it's that time of year so yes they will be invited to sit in on the days they missed so this is uh for me um I was a Vermont math um initiative graduate and that was 20 years ago so the oap takes this The Next Step that VMI brought us to in terms of providing you with the mathematical knowledge but then it's the whole process for actually building it and practice in the classroom so thank you Patty I really appreciate that um Rich I'm sorry go ahead sorry I would like to add one more thing before I forget there is a push
070in the state to get funding and support from the AOE to provide oap trainings across the state they are doing that work in New Hampshire um you know similar to providing the professional development for literacy in the letters program or other programs um I think we we have an uphill push on that one but I believe it's really important that we get that work Statewide thank you thanks thanks um Christine is Bridget in the room she is awesome okay am I able to be heard yes okay hit itd never heard you that I know it's hard it's hard to know um so my presentation uh pretty much is taking a look at a high school initiative of beginning to implement a proficiency based system and um this sort of spills down from the portrait of
071The Graduate work that has been done in this district and um I want you to go to the second slide for just a moment I know at the Su level there's been a lot of talk about the education quality standards uh specifically in terms of curriculum I just heard some of that mentioned 21205 through 8 talks a lot about curriculum um having a written delivered in coordinated curriculum align with aoe's proficiencies uh learning opportunities allow all of our students to show proficiency demonstrate Proficiency in math literacy global citizenship um science PE health and artistic expression and then finally in the new eq's uh local graduation policy must Define what our proficiency based graduation requirements are so the work that we started this year at the high school level um is dovetailing perfectly with the new
072eqs and I'll talk a little more in depth about that so this uh last spring into this summer onto the next slide we had a chance um to partner up with the agency of education and um they have done honestly some incredible very specific very clear work around Prof efficiencies um they've created a document that has um proficiency based graduation requirement hierarchies uh they started by looking at the Vermont portrait of the graduate which thank goodness has very similar competencies and skills that ours has um but they wanted to take those competencies and skills and put them through content lenses so we've really struggled with transferable skills such as analyz critically well what are we analyzing critically and what Vermont has done was take those transferable skills and competencies and embed them into content and
073it has made our work at the high school um so much easier um so in a second we'll refer to the document they created one PBG for each discipline one statement of what they want to see in their graduates after they did that they took a look at what critical proficiencies would support these statements and then they developed uh priority performance indicators I have a hard copy I don't know has everyone have it in front of them in their packets so if you would pull out the science PBG I just put science in here as an example um what Vermont did was take one statement with which they want to see if they if they think about our graduates being scientifically literate they made a single statement about what they want to see in a
074graduate and then they identified what in this case four critical proficiencies would help support a student getting there in in terms of that statement the priority performance indicators which is really our work at the high school level at this point in time is a measurement of how do we know our kids have gotten there our students have gotten there in each of these areas uh structure and function cause and effect energy and matter and also systems and so these are very similar to what you guys knew in the past as Next Generation science standards um those are kind of the categories and these indicators are what are the most powerful aspects under each of these um that we would like to see our students demonstrate Mastery in so um this is kind of an example
075of document the AOE has them for every single of the areas that I mentioned earlier uh literacy global citizenship um Ela and and the rest so um we as a first step met in terms of the AOE um we started planning last spring all over the summer um Pat Fitz Simmons is the head up there of this project she had a team of individuals who collaborated with our team leaders at the High School to plan out professional development for August on through so every one of our professional development days has focus on First and you can go on to the next slide if you would like first to look at um um these documents as a whole so the high school staff was able to review these documents as a whole they made some revisions
076to the documents uh where they felt that there might be some things missing um but overall were they were very impressed with these documents partly because they came from teams of teachers across the state so I think for teachers it's really important to feel as if um teachers have a voice in the development of documents and that's how these documents came about we're we're a committee for every single one of the disciplines um to create these documents so after reviewing the documents and uh making any necessary revisions uh they began to take a look at the priority performance indicators and began to map those against uh where they would appear appear in various classes so one thing we want to make sure is if we're asking students to demonstrate Mastery in these performance indicators where
077is that occurring is it in biology is it in Earth in the environment where where will students have an opportunity to do a performance task that is going to demonstrate Mastery so that mapping work is is pretty much done in most of our uh departments and they are now beginning to work on assessments um and the great thing about this document is it has a scoring it has a scale what are known as performance scales that go with every one of these indicators so we're not guessing what does a what does having met the standard or met the proficiency look like Vermont has already developed those for us um so the work has been absolutely amazing it's going to eventually lead to student uh student portfolio of demonstration of Mastery of all of the indicators
078that will be um maintained um and eventually as we hope our seniors will present their portfolio as part of sort of their exit out at graduation but that's a few years down the road um so it's been very exciting work um I think that uh if you go to the next steps um thing at this point in time you'll see that uh High School staff will continue working with performance assessments um making sure they're aligned having conversations about that and again where there will occur in what classes um how will we handle the student portfolio how will we manage it um is a both a technical question and also Staffing question um we're going to take a look at what the implications are for courses so let's imagine geometry was not required which by the
079way is now required by the new eqs um and also by the um performance indicators there's implications if we're going to allow students to demonstrate Mastery they have to have had some kind of learning experience that lets them you know go through the learning process and so we're looking very carefully at what our course requirements and graduation requirements are and then the most exciting thing is this work has continued as you think about a flow downward we have our qut of The Graduate it flows into the uh proficiency based graduation requirements which flows down into the middle school and down on through to K through 5 so the Vermont has already started their draft I think you guys have a copy of that also this is the science uh six through eight uh work that
080they've done it is quote in draft form all of this by the way has gone before the you um the Vermont board to approve make sure this is these documents are are approved but um so this is a 6 through eight which flows naturally out of the work we're using at the high school and they are now working on um performance scales to measure these these indicators and so there's also a draft for all the way up through in fact I think Vermont is really close to quote being done with these documents they are online if anyone is interested you can see all of them and it's made our work and make will make our future work just so much more seamless and meeting the education quality needs and meeting the needs of our students
081I feel like it dovetails so perfectly in the direction we were going both with our portrait of The Graduate um and all the rest of our work it just feels like such a great fit I do want to do a shout out to the team leaders um in the uh so that would be Tammy psyche Jeff Bach Lissa McCrae um we have um Christy Keeny helping us Steve Malloy Kimber and Johnson um these folks have they are the team leaders they have worked uh extensively with AOE counterparts and I must say that it's been a very positive experience for them very positive feedback and I think it's just a matter of uh structuring a process where you trust teachers and you have sort of end goals in mind and overall I I can't say I
082could I am so happy with the way things have gone and I've really enjoyed this work so that's kind of the perspective um Angie you may want to reflect a little bit more on next steps that's right thank you thank you Bridget I think one of the things that um you said had said Bridget early on in this process was the colleagu ship that you saw developing between the teachers on their teams um and that how encouraging and exciting that was because there is nothing like being in a room of teachers who are excited about the work they're doing am I right am I right did I capture that right Bridget correct correct I think similar to what Patty feels is that when you see an enthusiastic group of teachers it's it it's one of
083the best feelings there is so absolutely great thank you so much Bridget for providing us with that overview of the work um I have taken the work to the 68 team on November 1st there were a couple um goals that I had first of all that was to lay the foundation for the work that they will hopefully be doing next year um with the agency of Education with Pat fit Simmons team um and uh I gave them a overview of the language but also I gave them a peek into time to explore the website that the that Pat's team has put together there's a variety of resources on there and much of the comments made by the by the teachers was like I didn't even know that this resource existed and the idea is that
084we are laying the foundation that they know that when this team of uh folks comes in to work with them and of course at the exate level it's across our supervisory Union um that they they are a team that um does high quality work and really supports teachers through the process the other exciting uh thing is that the AOE has done this work through the K5 Le level it might not all be finished but um so we are looking at the K5 um folks being able to start that work probably in FY 27 one thing I have to say is in 2014 when the education quality standards were first published this work didn't exist and this is the kind and then we had uh supervisory unions and school districts going all over the place with
085how they approach proficiency Prof efficiency based um education this work that the AOE has done here is going to help us um build our systems more efficiently and they will be stronger and they will have this strong Foundation we are so lucky to be partnering with this team and I really appreciate Bridget and also Kate Ryan's support for bringing that team to our faculty this year and that is all I have for you everyone so thank you very much okay so let me to chime in here real quick one of the issues with um pbgs is the fact that sis systems are designed within a school okay and for this teaching and learning and assessment to be genuine it has to start at grade nine go all way so the students have to have that
086opportunity to do these final assessments throughout now this is a common issue across the state regardless of what sis system they have but SII systems are attached and contracts are attached to State Rep so until pbgs are part of the state reporting process I don't foresee this generally taking off effectively so once PBG standards based assessments are required right now State reporting in high schools are still creditas I mean the state reporting is still a single gender that's that's what they accept and so I think it's really important for the state to look at their state reporting requirement and require high schools to report within each individual student what pbgs they have completed and at what level and then that way that forces the sis systems to push that data to the state store that
087data within their individual calendar blocks and allow that data to be available to individual school districts so yeah and I and I definitely think one thing we can always we ourselves are responsible for is making sure that these indicators right that these indicators are an essential part of our assessment system right right so when we design a bio class and you say the child's done in walking out the door we know that let's say these three indicators the the student has shown Mastery because that's what we as a you care about so I think that when the state catches up your point to the fact that this is what's important really from for some members of the state right they very clearly have done the work um what's really important is that our student show
088Mastery of this even though the reporting mechanism Point well taken isn't up up to up to speed at the state level so I've only seen one high school do it successfully that was u32 to be able to track that data from the day one that a student becomes a ninth grader through where they are a 12th grader and to be able to pull that data to see what gaps that student has what successes they've had um and it's it's it's it's just based upon the ability to leap over that gatekeeper of this happened in 2024 this happened inue 2023 you can't [Music] search super exciting though it is exciting yeah we've been talking about this for a long time a decade and a half so yeah really good thank you edone I'm gonna go watch
089ubm hopefully have a victory playing soccer so thanks thanks for all your work Bridget You instrumental in getting this getting this work done this year so got it okay than you next agenda yes I've got um January 27th I've got the um anti-hate draft policy view with Heather Lynn then I've got on items for Action discussion uh the calendar quite yeah um and then I've got my report and then we have a special education report by Katie okay sound doable yeah okay it's all I got I'm sure other things will come yeah I'm sure they will yeah okay we have a need for executive session Andie hi not a need for executive session I didn't get my hand up soon enough uh there may be um some continuous Improvement plan updates by then we're waiting
090for the agency of education for the grants management people to send out more on that so I might just take a few minutes to update folks on that I've got you in February on that you want you want was when the continuous Improvement plan was for the supervisory Union I would like to um I talk about what it means now that it's going to be at the building level I mean we might have it might be a moot point it might be that I have to go to the district level board meeting so so it's CIA report on Contin Improvement plan CIA on the CIP I was going to say an acronym okay thanks a I'll put that down thanks y try to figure what that means I will take a motion to adjourn this
091meeting so moved second okay all I will take a Voice vote all in favor of Journey please say I hi those post say nay okay we are happy New Year everyone happy New Year thank you Katie h