001it's all set okay I'm going to call this meeting to order at 6:32 um of the wior southeast supervisory Union on November 25th 2024 um any changes additions to the agenda oh wow I'm going for Davis record timing tonight um okay approval of the last time I tried to squish them together and it didn't work very well I will take a motion to approve the minutes of October 3rd 2024 that was the transportation subcommittee I'll make that motion okay do I have a second second oh everybody second okay okay um and I will take a go around the the Horn uh Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi I I I take it Hannah's not here yet Hannah's not here okay uh Nikki hi uh Beth Roy she here should this just be the people that
002were at that meeting uh no people can abstain okay um because it was an actual meeting [Music] so uh uh anarie hi and Sarah I okay um I will take a motion to uh approve the minutes of October 28th 2024 so moved again okay any discussion okay hearing none I will take a vote call oh by the way in the last vote I am an I sorry uh Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi Nicole hi uh and Marie hi and Sarah hi okay moving right along uh public participation 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 members for our students have I'm sorry our board our board models for our students how to
003conduct Public 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 know that the board is here to listen the public comment period is not designed for discussion please state but please start by identifying yourself in what town you preside in I'm glad to get through that I gotta move my uh owl window to the side because all this color here is causing my ADHD to kick my just kick my dyslexia in okay do we have any public [Music] comment I have an announcement or okay uh yeah and this is something that um Elizabeth had wanted me to bring up since she knews you probably couldn't make it but um she had sent me some
004materials about a um a Human Rights Commission training on harassment and bullying it's happening in Springfield I'm I don't know if she shared you the yet oh no I got it signed up oh cool fantastic Tracy myself another principal a teacher oh right on you just want to make sure that got that is being um put out by the Vermont learning Club yes Jill yep yeah yep yeah I saw her name on that and I you know she sent me materials I looked over it and I you know agreed with her that it looked like really valuable training so I'm glad to hear that folks are going to that down Springfield forward to it yeah okay thank you Davis Nikki I I just uh I gave a shout out via um email to all of
005our admins and all of our music um teachers but uh the district's music festival or one of them was um Friday and Saturday and uh it was just phenomenal um there were choirs there were 114 kids in the Middle School choir um and we had a fair number of our Su kids in there um it was just so neat to have all the Su kids on a bus together getting to know each other um and performing with kids from all over Southern Vermont so just really an honor and just really excited that of the level of music program that we have RSU and that our teachers are willing to give up their Saturday to spun with our kids to do amazing things with them so shout out to all of them thank you Nikki anyone
006else what was a should I talk about the the feast is oh this is a good time the Ace Program um put on a Thanksgiving feast on Thursday and it was uh amazing because they did all the cooking they and it was turkey and potato it was everything and desserts and it was wonderful aesome really cool yeah NC it very wellat can you repeat what program it's the Ace Program okay thank you at the high school or middle school yeah anyone else [Music] okay thank you um items for discussion people let's stay focused here this is going to be a roller coaster okay uh number one board member conflict of interest I will let me get to the right one I will take a motion to approve this I'll make a motion to approve it
007thank you Amy second thank you Amy discussion well I'll throw in really quickly um I think this is Well written um if it uh follows the letter of the law and it's really tight so any more discussion I don't hear any uh I will take a roll call vote Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi Nicole hi an Marie hi Sarah I and I am an I that has been I'm an I too here I'm just sorry I got here a two minutes late ah no problem I have to uncross you off on my list though uh control I learned how to do the cross out with my keyboard very excited little things in life okay screening volunteers and work study students I will take a motion to approve this the third reading so mov second
008Davis Nancy and Davis thank you um discussion I will throw in real quick this is a very well-written tight um policy any more discussion okay this is yeah is this one we added the definitions to I think so I yeah awesome yeah yeah I think it was the only question before here now yeah thank you d i i I'd forgotten about that and as I read it today it was like wow that's really that's really good okay vote Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi Nicole hi Beth Roy hi an Marie I and Sarah I okay option-based response to Violent Intruder drills I will take a motion to approve this same made thank you Amy all second thank you Sarah any discussion on this I guess my qu quick question would be um are we you
009I see that by by anual drills is crossed out is there a requirement for the number of drills you have to have or yeah okay we um from the state every year okay so we're going on that the um because that's crossed out we're just going on what the state requires then correct okay any other discussion okay I will take a vote Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi [Music] Nicole Nicole you didn't hear me hi oh y no I didn't hear you uh Beth Roy hi an Marie hi and Sarah and I am an i hi thank you Sarah um B5 prevention of employee harassment I will take a motion to approve moved second thank you Amy and Nancy um any discussion yeah I'm not sure I'd be comfortable changing all of this because it
010the law is very specific and so meddling with this I think would just be a vote no more discussion I will take a vote Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi Nicole hi Beth Roy I Ann Marie I Sarah I and I am an I thank you b41 field trip I will take a motion to approve don't move um do I have a second I will second okay thank you I think that was Beth Roy um discussion my first question can the can the draft come off the okay yeah it will after tonight yes yeah and I want to thank whoever um wrote the definition of a field trip I think that works really well uh to exclude um outdoor classrooms yep so any other discussion hearing none we will take a vote Davis hi Nancy
011hi Amy hi Nicole hi Beth Roy hi Ann Marie hi Sarah I and I am an i okay little quick uh um preil here for uh c42 school entrance age uh we have gotten a request from the Heartland um kindergarten teachers to review this um um and so I am not um I mean this has been out there for quite some time so I'm not inclined to stop to improve it but uh does anybody feel strongly about that Phil would it be okay if I just shared what they were requesting absolutely abolutely yes okay um it was I'm just going to pull it up so I get it right it was they wanted to discuss um the assessments and the person that wrote it was an intervention early at interventionist and the kindergarten teachers were
012were on the email um and and her request was to consider other assessments because she did not know um uh if there would be additional assessments that could be included in the decisionmaking process she also wondered if there could be an option um to review a student's Readiness if if they complete the diagn Tic and they are um they are given the okay they're ready for kindergarten she she requested perhaps there could be a Readiness a review of a stu of students Readiness after attending 45 to 70 days to ensure that it was beneficial for that the student to attend kindergarten um for the rest of that year which would be which would be tough on a student and a family I think yeah I'm not inclined to so using my chair position I am
013actually going to call for a um for a motion and if people don't think they're uh ready then they can just vote down the motion and we can look at it next month so moved can't we can't can't discuss like what the other assessments for the children might be or something like that like we well we can discuss it during the actual discussion after the motion is passed then then we can discuss it and then uh if there is sufficient desire we can just reverse the motion okay yeah I'm I'm open to options here I I want to have a discussion on their concerns but I want to have a discussion Within uh within emotion an Marie um it seems to me like the first part of what she's saying it's already kind of covered
014in the thing because it just says those are examples of yes yeah it doesn't say that those are the be all to end all so um it could use a different one yeah I think yeah do I have a second though if not we won't move forward what we're motioning and what we're seconding I don't know what we're motioning is to approve the um I'm sorry we're motioning to approve this um to approve it I'll make a second to approve it as to approve it as is yes okay I'll make that motion to second okay okay discussion um I'll jump right in here and then who is raising their hand is that Davis okay yeah Davis please I will I will wait yeah I uh my I noticed the same thing that amarie did there
015I think that it does it's not being it's not narrowing down just brigin uh Patel or you know whatever the only other thing I could say is maybe to kind of aay those concerns is add in those parentheses or similar because it's that I think maybe just clarifies that like we're not saying it has to be one of these two it's for examp example or these two or more y um you know just make it even even grayer for the benefit of folks who might be worried it's not gr enough yeah yeah Amy are you raising your hand there you go I saw a flutter there yeah I am so the other concern that they said um having a Readiness um test um exam whatever assessment thank you um 75 days in I'm not sure
016that that would be very beneficial overall for the child right I I can see the concern that a child who might have done okay on the assessment in the beginning might have you know might be prone to a few more meltdowns and cause a little little potentially a little bit more disruption in a classroom but if you were to have that assessment and then send that child home and then they come back to school um I I don't know where that is serving the child at all and I think the important I want to jump on uh add to what Amy said I think the important thing here is that these assessments are Diagnostics okay so the data we get is really solid if Katie wants to jump in and talk in about that as
017well she's welcome to but you know when you use a diagnostic test the data you receive is quite clear Amy I'm sorry did I cut you off no not at all I just wanted to add a little bit um just so it's not always perfect I I know of an instance where a child the parents had all of the tests on this was a few years ago and said child even though he was cogni cognitively and somewhat emotionally ready he developed some pretty severe explosive behavior because of all the pressure and that according to teachers could possibly have been alleviated had they not been put into kindergarten so it all kind of depends on the child yeah but I think once a child has been accepted through all of the assessments that the school needs
018to put into place how whatever supports are going to be needed for that child and if I think of a child's going to have an assessment then it should be at the end of the or or review it should be at the end of the year if if if the school doesn't think that this student's ready to move on to first grade then that discussion could happen with the parents in that whole same process Katie do you want to jump in and talk about any of the the the what I mentioned about yeah the the the couple of examples we gave for early learning assessments do cover um some social emotional but it's not the the whole boat I think in the past we've also had we typically do with kindergarteners we talked to the
019prek teachers that had them we do a transition so to try to tease some of that out and I agree um the assessment tools are wonderful and they do also have limitations of knowing things but I um and they're only and they're only examples of diagnostic tools that was the other there there are there's not a whole lot out there that um but that those are the two sort of broad enough ones that we can use so so so Katie I I I think what you're emphasizing and correct me if I wrong but these students are still going to be doing the same kindergarten screening as all the rest this correct you we didn't write that in the policy if I just I just read it quickly we typically have had them all also do
020the kindergarten screening um steps but okay if they're not identified till June we did Kindergarten screening in May so but we we can have them also do the kindergarten screening um it'll look a little different um just because of timing but um that has been something we we've done both okay okay uh bill would we would we want to just add a sentence about that in the policy so it's clear that this process is in addition to standard kindergarten screening if that is the expectation well do we want it to be the expectation I kind of I okay Katie shaking your head yes the reason being um in addition to kindergarten in addition to the test there's OT PT OT and speech screenings that are done um so I would say yes yeah I was
021definitely going to shift to you Katie on that okay so um is there any other discussion bill just to be more specific on that I just looking at how this is written under waiver process procedure at the end of that sentence before the bullets it says are eligible to apply for a formalized entrance waiver we I think we could just say in addition to the standard kindergarten screening process yeah and I think that that sets the expectation okay okay so I don't see is there any other discussion before we move forward I would like I'm I'm gonna ask Christine to um sort of read the whole sections that we're adding to so we are clear on the edited version of this so under waiver process procedures it will say parents guardians of students turning five
022during the month of September are eligible to apply for a formalized waiver entrance in addition to the standardized screening uh kindergarten screening process okay and then under the first bullet we're adding this process includes a district approved standard standardized diagnostic assessment and listed for examples Briant Early Childhood Assessment 3 but tell early learning third or similar assessment and parentheses by licensed psychologist and then the rest of it Remains the Same okay I mean is that redundant is those no I don't think so I I don't think so I I I think what that does is what I feel it does what Davis suggested make it really clear that these aren't just the the assessments were're using and I think that might have been the confusion of uh um that the yes um you know my
023only concern when we started discussing this is that the level of assessment would have been around that diagnostic level in which you get real data about the student to be able to move forward at that age so I mean that's all any other discussion okay here ing none I will take a road call vote and um you know for those of you who wish the wait um another month you're you're more than welcome to uh vote nay okay Davis hi Nancy hi Amy this is to approve the policy as yes it is okay yes with the two changes right hi okay Nicole hi Beth Roy I an Marie I I Sarah I and I'm an i okay thank you good discussion next E20 Community use of school facilities grounds and Fields I will not uh
024take a motion because this is a just a second read but I will open the floor for discussions if I can find it here um in talking with Christine one thing I suggested is during um the superintendent shall establish procedures for use of school facilities so forth and so on and then there's a bunch of bullet points because we're adding grounds um I think some of the sh should be turned into May um for example shall include a fee scheduled for facility grounds and field use you know because this is outside it may not be required to charge a fee because there may not be whatever the activity is for example a uh Youth Soccer League wants to use the soccer field there may not be any cleanup cost for that or or maintenance cost
025um yeah the same thing with the insurance um that that it may be better to make that a May if someone wants to use the outside grounds for something but I'm not sure that I that that's just one thing I thought of [Music] Jennifer he so I just want to note maybe West Windor is different but the lands as I understand it do not belong to the school but they belong to the town and I don't know how that would impact this or vice versa just want put that out there you know basically it impacts it is that is in non-school times that's public property so that's a really good point the simple fact that Albert Bridge um those facilities would not be covered by the question would be if those facilities would be covered
026by um this policy the grounds [Music] part I don't think it can be yeah think that's maybe a part of maybe something somebody needs to research is is that all of a sudden the town responsibility versus the school responsibility yeah school I don't know where exact Davis yeah um I don't know if I have a solution but I I got an idea um is this something that maybe um could be brought up to the the select board in West Windsor um maybe something like like a memorandum of understanding could go out that's just like you know during X hours because yeah I think it does fall under their jurisdiction decide who can be there and when um but that might be that might be an opportunity to collaborate with that that board and come to
027an agreement there yeah simple point is that yeah yeah can we apply this even during school hours without the cooperation of the select board that's a good point Davis I think that that stops us from you know advancing this with some of those MA and shs or even passing if we get a third read I think we just want to consider that in in that case and is this are we talking about the outdoor classrooms or does the town of West wisor own the sports field my understanding is that they're in charge of all of the land that the school is on and the school board is responsible for the actual building struct yeah okay yeah that's more than your understanding Jennifer that's that's the actual yeah um any any outdoor I think it's I
028don't think the policy needs to address the fact that um but maybe it does the Outdoor Classroom is not on school property I don't think we can apply that to those because they're probably on private property then again there's that cooporation piece with uh the land owners as well if yeah the outdoor classrooms currently at albertbridge are all on public property that are owned by the town not any private lands yeah but that includes our playground and our fields are also public land yeah but I was putting it out there to all the other buildings as well for example if wetherfield happened to have or at some point down the road wanted to create an outdoor classroom off of school land uh but within that how would this policy I don't think this policy would
029cover that either but I don't think it requires because you just have to come up with a verbal understanding with the uh um with the land owners uh Christine yeah the Outdoor Classroom space at Heartland is owned by the town and I we drafted anou um for usage between the school and the town okay so yeah I can share that with Jennifer if that's helpful or I mean I guess we could change the language in the policy School owned grounds and Fields yes I think that's probably the simplest way to look at this policy is that it would cover Community use of school facilities school grounds yeah and school Fields don't forget to put a comma after grounds okay or no May no no that wouldn't be because that's grounds and Fields so no no
030comma after okay so it' be school facilities school grounds and Fields yep is that [Music] right I'm sorry this is where I need Elizabeth this where I need Elizabeth to put in that grammar I I think at the end of the day I don't know that we necessarily need to change the wording here because school facilities grounds and and Fields to me that implies that all of those are school things so I think I think the real issue here and I'm glad this got brought up is that we this will cover all of the school Etc but we know that there are grounds that the schools use that aren't necessarily owned by the school so you know as it seems like harland's done this already just going to the select board having anou I I
031wonder if you could even have in thatou a reference to this specific policy saying you know the you know ex select board will you know adhere to the policy laid out by wcsu E20 you know about use of school grounds during these hours or yeah I mean you can work that out with whatever select board but I think that's probably a decent starting point um but I I don't think we necessarily need to change the language to reflect that here that's is my I mean my yeah yeah I I guess I agree with Davis absolutely I mean I think that makes sense and it's simplifies the whole thing in which the policy itself covers school facilities grounds and Fields but it doesn't exclude the fact that if we want Albert bridge to have the same
032level of control over their grounds during the school day we just have to work with the select board okay is there any other discussion did we want to just go through and make sure we had all the maze in there that we were going to put in I think you mentioned fee schedule uh insurance coverage would that also go I I I was hoping that I I was my my reason was to in mentioning that was to um have Christine sort of go through this and use her own best judgment to um choose which would be a shall and what should be a May because I'm I'm not 100% sure that shall require all users to demonstrate adequate Insurance Comforts is that something that the school district actually wants to require um with Jim I
033mean Jim help with us so yeah that's that's that's kind of what I thought yeah the only other one that I oh sorry no no I'm sorry Davis go ahead you the the only other one that just jumps out to me and I mean obviously look at this with Jim and and legal and whoever but um the firearm one I think that could probably also be a May right unless there's some particular reason not to have that as may I don't know that's other can of worms but check on it yep yeah because well yeah but isn't that Christine isn't your proceed doesn't your procedure cover that I believe so yeah I think we went all through that one point I think we I'll but that doesn't that doesn't negate Davis's point that making it
034a May because it could also be may not it it may could be just turned down so y but again I will I will um I would be happy to defer to um uh your judgment Christine and those that you could talk to before next meeting yep you got it okay any other discussion on this okay thank you we're going to transition to budget discussion handing it off to Larry or you is here yep okay you want to start well you want me to want read it so uh I'll just recap last month um Larry shared the the process we went through to develop the Su budget um and the new budget book which is pretty phenomenal um feedback from several members of the board I Incorporated that feedback and I think I emailed y
035you guys later that week of all the feedback and made those changes to the budget book so there have been a couple questions I know Bill you had a few questions um Larry got a question tonight from I think a weatherfield BAC well I think we got feedback we got some feedback uh so I met with the weatherfield BAC Tuesday uh and uh there was questions about the Su budget I answered them uh I followed up with an email to the wvi BAC with um answers to the questions that I couldn't answer while I was driving when I got the call and then um and I got some feedback tonight uh from W field BAC member um would you like me to read it it's not a long email I got it five minutes prior
036to the meeting okay uh Larry before you do that I I just want to clear up my questions um I had some questions about basically between um how we came up with the Staffing um and I got satisfactory answers and basically it was Larry was basing next year's Staffing based upon um this year's uh Staffing and adding some future needs and Katie also answered a couple of my questions quite well so thank you Larry I just wanted to point that out that all my questions were answered quite well go ahead Larry yeah no problem thank you uh so again I'm just going to read it verbatim Hello Larry Brian everyone I wanted to share some thoughts and feedback for your consideration in reviewing the draft Su budget the increase rep parent Professionals in Li of
037full-time staff merits a relook for a few reasons I believe most residents and parents would rather see a mod increase for full-time staff better paid full-time staff than Reliance on a large growth of pair of professionals it does not appear one it does not appear that the draft budget adequately documents the FTE requirement increase formula statistical rationale two the attached report from the Vermont agency of education has some valuable information that should be considered for example on page 50 Reliance on special education PA professionals may be seen as a result of other education teachers and Specialists that are spread too thin in many high- performing school systems there are no PA Professionals for students with mild to moderate academic disabilities and students with severe special needs are shared across PA professionals the above average Staffing
038of pair professionals including through one-on-one services and in small group settings may have unintended consequences potential impacts including students interactions with highly skilled classroom Educators and less interaction with their student peers end quote three and this the final bullet Vermont is in the midst of an affordability crisis and greater rigor can be exercised to put the budget increases more in line with that what the members of the community can afford the large increases in special education do not seem to be statistically in line with the increases in the demand for special ed IEP populations these are just some of my thoughts and offered and are offered in order to exercise fiscal constraint in these difficult Economic Times in Vermont sincerly Dr August T Murray and we just got this five minutes before the meeting so
039I want to share it thank you Larry yeah an Marie um I was actually at I don't know if you're planning to hold a vote on the budget tonight or not um I was just hoping that maybe we could hold off due the fact that we have kind of scarce participation there that maybe we should wait until we have a fuller Board of people to approve it and also wait to maybe hear what Katie if Katie has any response to the email that was just D um yeah I'll let you take that Katie because I I have a response and I uh I I prefer to keep my mouth shut on that because um but let's uh I don't know if anarie did you did you get your question about answer to um that's a
040possibility about uh delaying I'd like to hear from Larry after Katie about the important of the timeline of approval as well before we consider that point Katie um I believe the email the person who emailed um was talking about the GMG report and the recent report by um the AOE which does have the ideal Staffing ratios based on um a study that was done several years ago um and some of that has already influenced some of our initial reduction and support stat and increasing teachers several years ago um one of the things in this budget consideration is that we have to plan for what we have right now on paper for students on IEPs as we move and improve our system and look to um increase professional staff and decrease power professional staff and the
041Reliance on that it has to be driven by what's on individual plans as they're written now so I think that as we have to plan for next year's budget and as we have individual discussions about each student we we can't make individual decisions about each student's need for supports and services based on a report we can talk about some of the other aspects of that report and some of the um strategies that we can use to as a system to look at becoming more aligned with the information and with the ideal ratio um and I think we're have started those discussions and we continue to do so um but there's a lot of factors going on um and the ability to instantly just drop numbers and not have what's written on paper is just not
042something we it's responsible for us to do um to provide services for students so I understand it we we've talked Christine Larry and I have talked this through several times and we're looking at what systems pieces we can put together to move towards this but it is not something that we would be able to meet for next year's budget um by any stretch of the imagination um I it's just we we have what we have right now for students on IEPs and we're not the only District this is we're all grappling with this so it's there's my Christine that I some that we we've talked about it several times talking at length about it um Larry Katie and I and looked at it from all angles and kati's not wrong it's a it's a system
043shift that is going to take some time to implement um one IEP at a time to be honest with you one classroom and IEP at a time it's it is it's it's big a systems piece yeah 10 years that's what it takes to make this type of system shift 10 years it takes a decade and people could say five years that's not the case um when we moved to standards based grading it took about 10 years until it it really began to tweak in a little bit and so thank you Katie that's a uh you said everything I wanted to he I appreciate you're coming tonight and giving your input is there any other discussion okay now we're going to get to uh oops see where did I go I think um the next portion
044of the agenda is budget adoption um this this kind of gets into what an Marie was talking about um we do have a how many members tonight eight Christine have eight I think you have eight now yeah let me just double check two Nikki did have to leave seven oh she did uh so so seven if Nikki's gone we have seven do we still have a quorum we have seven yes Amy said we just need seven so Larry uh Larry what's your timeline yeah so as far as um making sure we have a full board here as Amry outlined I think uh it's a prerogative of the board obviously um I know that members of the Su budget committee um two of the people that are missing Sarah was on it uh Elizabeth is on
045it and Ryan from Harland was on it and two of them are not here so they work with with us on the budget um you know so so Ryan and Elizabeth who aren't here work with us on it as well as Sarah who is here um the Su budget committee has met since September 6th uh it's currently November 25th uh we had four Su budget committee meetings we um it was online uh on the website and email to the board since October 18th so it's been over a month if if you want to wait a few more weeks you could do that I don't know if there's if I guess if you're delaying the vote for changes that would be requested I'd like to hear the changes so I can make those changes before the
046next meeting um if there's if there's something that's going to be a material change to the budget that would be good for me to know if it's just uh to have it more public I mean it's been out in this superintendent newsletter I don't know how to make it I mean so yeah thank thank you Larry um I wanna um I want to take an Mar's concern quite seriously and I I will call on her in a minute but I am I think waiting for the next meeting uh next board meeting is is is probably waiting a little too long um but I am more than willing to call a um an additional board meeting for a vote just for this in a time in which we have um at least closer to a full
047board um if that would satisfy people more I don't really want to wait to the next I I agree with Larry I don't want to wait for the next Su board meeting um which is also in a crazy time um to to consider this if there isn't any significant changes to it and Marie um I don't imagine that there'll be any significant changes to it but um I just for the sake of transparency and I don't know just I just feel like the more board members we can have voting on it the better but I wouldn't want if we do do a additional meeting I would want to make sure that it's at a time that people can attend um you know the public can attend not um you we got some flak about the
048time and it was mostly my fault probably for being on vacation but the time that we the bus um thing was uh discussion was during um so I just would want to make sure that we would schedule that for a time that was you know yeah in the evening as transparent as we can let people if they want to say something say something thank you and Marie Sarah I I was just going to say I mean obviously like I said Larry said I helped work on this um I think the transparency is there as far as the information I mean it was out there very early the um budget book is very very thorough um and all the information is there um for the public for board members um for the all the local schools
049so I feel like the information's out there and if we had more feedback hopefully we would have received it I agree I I would like more Su board members to be there for our vote um so I probably would request also maybe a separate special meeting where we vote on that and just just give everybody on the board a heads up that we really need attendance just to create more um transparency with that but I think the information has been out there um so people should be ready for a vote Andor the public has been well informed if they're if they're looking for it Davis thank you Sarah yeah yeah and I you know I hear I hear and I and I understand and I I agree within principle the idea of having a a
050more full quorum to vote on something is important in the budget but I I I guess I want to push back gently on kind of two points on that one is that as far as Community understanding transparency this this process happens roughly on the same timeline every single year um so I think that to me like you know we we heard feedback from a member of the of the committee that came in tonight um the agendas are out there it's not this isn't really a moving Target as far as when it happens um so I I guess I don't know what kind of value as far as feedback we might buy by scheduling another meeting I don't I don't know how much we're going to get out of that and then I guess I'm I'm
051a little bit cautious about doing a special meeting and necessarily expecting that we are going to have more of a forum because it's been my of a quorum because my experience with special meetings is that it a lot of times tends to be harder to get a full quum and I know that we're right on the eve of a holiday right now but the next several weeks we're going to be in that time of year where people's schedules I think are particularly difficult so what I I guess that what I wouldn't want to have happen is that we don't approve it tonight we go through the trouble of scheduling a special meeting and then we end up with like seven or eight people again because then that's just time spent on logistics for kind of
052the same result and and less time where we have an approved budget we can start working with that so that's I don't know that's that's my thoughts on that and transparency was brought up a couple times and I think this is the fourth year I think we've done the Su budget committee made up of board members and uh one thing I think that's been um really transparent this year we've gone above and beyond as far as I can tell in that we've worn the Su budget committee not just the board meetings all those meetings we've warned them that we've had we PID people to take minutes uh we' have video those meetings um so I mean I I I can't think a more transparent process by Roberts woles that we have done than this Su
053budget committee which I think is great as a citizen as a taxpayer myself I think it's great um so I want to applaud you know Sarah Ryan and Elizabeth for that because we weren't doing that before this was the most transparent Su budget we've created okay Amy thank you I I when an Marie first brought this up I thought that it's somewhat reasonable or understandable you wanting more board members so each of our districts has their full representation when we go to vote but at the same time holding it up as Davis was saying um we are the individual districts need to be looking at their budgets and the Su um is that this budget is a large part of the local budgets and we need to be working on that and figuring out where
054we need to be for those so I I'm not sure that delaying is going to do anyone any favors thank you Amy Beth Roy as the only Heartland School Board member here um I'd like to say see it delayed just as since I'm the only one here I really would like other ones here um and I know Nikki bowed out because she just is is ill so there's so I think there's considerations to be made I also know um me looking over the agenda as just a human I said holy moly are we joking are we really voting on the budget already and I think I've done this for eight years so I mean it just sneaks up on people as much as we say we've been transparent and this happens every year um you
055know like I I just don't think a a traditional Community member is out there thinking about the school budget right now whatsoever um they're going to work think about it as soon as the taxes are starting to be talked about so I mean as if we delay it a couple weeks and we are able to even get out more word around reviewing it where it is on the website where the meetings are um just to know that what the process is and getting you know advertising what the what the budget building process is for all our districts I think would be it can't hurt in my mind okay um now is there any more discussion okay um and anyone can disagree with me but not a butt anyone disagree with me I believe this is
056my decision okay um I am not particularly comfortable with one Harland board member voting tonight as well as the other school I I I think that's a really important point that Beth Roy make at the same time I don't feel that we need to actually get a lot of any more transparency in the budget process I am going to ask Christine to put out a Google poll to see if we can gather a vote in the evening same time as we always do 6:30 far out far enough out to warn it um for uh the week of uh December 2nd or the week of uh December 9th earlier the better okay and so that we can get more representation from all the school districts um so that is my decision yes Amy thank you um
057also to just remind all of the board members that that if having board representation to vote on this they need to be here yes thank you Amy it's a really good point um okay fy2 6 draft calendar yeah I think it's linked on your agenda but I just shared it with all of you I can pull it up on my screen and I just want to talk about a couple of quick things it is a draft um I have uh met with the Union once and by contract they um get to look at it with us all right can everybody see that um the exciting thing about this calendar is it is um we've been working as a region to get the same start date uh February break and April break this year that was
058extended across the state across the tech centers they really drive this calendar because they receive students from different districts so it's really helpful if the Calenders align um so I think um at my last meeting with them Friday uh there may be one holdout District but the rest of the state is in alignment with the at least the start date and the February and the April breaks and you will notice um the February and April breaks are a little bit later on this calendar um that was a a negotiation I believe between the tax centers um up north a lot of schools a lot of school districts take that last week in February and then they take Monday and Tuesday in March because often times school districts um take town meeting day off um we
059don't in in this area so those are not on our calendar but the but the February and the April and the start dates align um so it's just a draft I wanted to get it in your hand so you could look at it the unions looking at it I meet with them before our next I believe before our next Su meeting with their feedback and then we'll bring a final draft to you hopefully in December but if there are any questions um at first glance I'm happy to try to answer them absolutely um early release days yes um that was a topic last year I was hoping to get it down to five this year but that was just my opinion um I think we may have Bill we did eliminate one but maybe not
060[Music] five it's six yeah it's six was it six last year I I think it was six last year was it seven no it was seven we did eliminate one okay so I'm I'm I'm not gonna complain about that because you've made progress thank you we did no we listened we we talked about it I think at first glance the one thing the teachers noticed um was in November we've got one early release at parent teacher conference so the thinking is maybe moving that half that early release to Friday having Monday be the parent teacher conference full day and then because Veterans Day is a Tuesday and you have to hold Veterans Day on the actual federal holiday so that may be a change back yeah but in negotiations which apply to this year I
061believe we discussed removing that half day before negotia and allowing teachers I don't know if I don't know if we got that bill but I'll look a look we did talk about it at length I do remember that yeah we'll have to look at the notes because I thought that we were able to get rid of that half day and then allow teachers to schedule their conferences whenever they'd like so that if they were done Thursday the 6 uh yeah they could have that day off but we'll definitely check back on that one okay okay so that's it I just wanted it in your hands um early okay so Amber that I said it is in the wait Amber that went away it's in the it's in the comments section though yeah right but I
062was on a small screen looking at it so let me go okay so Amber it is in the contract that it's two full days one in the fall and one in the spring yes no half days no half days yep have to look at that I thought there was a change what a memory Amber yeah and then because it's just a single day um and then Within the contract and teachers can take say two weeks before and do conferences at the beginning of the day and conferences at the end of the day or in the evening if they' like um and get them done and then have that day free to enjoy their freedom because they worked really hard to get it done at times in which it was more convenient for parents and teachers
063that was sort of the point of it and allowing trust and um professionalism to re so we'll double check that and if that that's the case which I'm sure Amber has a better memory than I um that will be less early release [Laughter] days okay any other discussion on um the calendar okay kind of lost my place here budget budet dos it calendar resignation I am going to open the with your permission Bill Angie is here and she would like to read a letter to the board hello everybody I am uh reading an a bridged version of the letter I will be sending um the complete letter I just I mentioned it's lengthy because I mentioned a lot of names um in the spirit of gratitude it being Thanksgiving in a few days um I
064am submitting my uh I'm formally announcing that after 30 years I will be retiring on June 30th 2025 this decision comes with immense gratitude and pride as I reflect on a fulfilling and transformative career serving the students staff and families of WSU has been one of the greatest privileges of my life my journey began in 1994 as a pair professional at State Street school now started W now part of Windsor School the following year I joined Hartland Elementary School where I spent 18 years in the classroom teaching grades three through eight not all at the same time um was 16 years devoted to middle school math a passion that shaped me as an educator during that time I work with so many amazing teachers and administrators who shared my values challenged my thinking and helped
065me to grow in 2013 I transitioned to the academic intervention coordinator role under Dr David Baker's leadership which expanded my impact with encouragement from Principal Jeff Marino and later the support of Mary Margaret Hitchcock and principal Shawn picket I pursued administrative roles culminating in my current position as curriculum director of Windsor Southeast this is my eighth year this role has allowed me to bring my passion for student centered learning and teacher empowerment to the Forefront I hope my work has reflected my values of authenticity meaningful collaboration and empathy leaving a positive impact on our system I'm deep deeply grateful to the many colleagues and mentors who have shaped my career to name a few here Christine Bourne whose leadership and positivity have guided me through challenges my incredible team Patty gray Wendy Moody and Tracy
066price for your Insight and dedication the central office and Tech Team we have the best going out there you've made my work enjoyable and impactful to the instructional coaches and administrative team your dedication and vision inspire me you truly represent the best of what we strive for in education lastly to my family Brett Jacob Sydney and Whitney thank you for your unwavering support I look forward to spending more time with you in the years to come to the students families staff and the boards board members who have been at the heart of my work your resilience curiosity and passion have been my greatest and motivators it has been an honor to serve alongside such such extraordinary individuals in pursuit of public education's Mission a brighter future for all sincerely Ang you do thank you Angie
067you're welcome that was that was well written um my assumption here that is that we have to vote on this Christine yeah you're gonna accept Angie's resignation tonight I will uh Angie's resignation um um as of the end of the fiscal here yes okay make that very clear which is um the day before yeah 230 okay I will take a motion oh Amy yeah so this the motion is from Amy to not accept no not really um to accept with great gratitude for all that you've done and just for helping all of us to better understand how the um curriculum and student data all work together to make us a better board and to help our administrators and to Make a Better Learning Experience for all of our kids thank you Angie you're welcome any
068other comments no do we have a second I'll second it yeah okay seconded gratitude yes okay I will call the vote with gratitude uh Davis hi Nancy hi Amy hi Beth Roy hi Ann Marie hi Sarah I and I am an I thank you Angie oh it's also um accepting With Envy Envy yes yes goodness gracious you a lot of people have been saying that so yeah I I'm I'm I am jealous the simple fact that unfortunately well I won't say unfortunately because it's with the addition of a young child i' I've had to put mine off in the unforeseen Future Okay so congratulation Angie absolutely okay you so much moving on superintendent report all right let me share my screen oops let me get back to the beginning that's the end hold on one
069second preview all right okay um included in my report tonight there are two procedures sorry sorry sorry um d22 is a selection of Library materials and C15 procedures for student conduct in discipline um I will let you know that the selection of Library materials was created by the um Librarians across the Su they worked really hard to put those procedures together and if you haven't had a chance to look at them they're well thought out and pretty pretty clear the procedures for student conduct and discipline really match and outline what we do in terms of um conduct and discipline so those are the two that I just wanted to bring to your attention tonight obviously if you have questions or concerns you know reach out let me know um they're always a work in progress
070and get tweaked as needed so I wanted to bring those to tonight um my second slide I wanted to share conference data we just completed our fall conferences and the data across the Su is um to be expected and I guess some areas where where we're looking at um why the percentages were were low and what we can do to increase those so typically K5 conferences are very well attended they start to um taper off the middle level and really taper off at the high school I know currently the high school team is talking about student Le we're all going to do student Le conferences in the spring and we hope that having the students lead the conversation with their families will will increase those numbers um even more so that's a work in in
071progress um I know there were some conferences that were offered as remote and that did certainly help um to create some um uh ability for for PE parents to be able to attend pH did you have a question or was that your question yeah the remote piece that was my question so yeah yeah um this is the dibles data as you know we've been talking about the literacy the new literacy law that's gone into effect we were just told by the um agency that we need to send out parent letters um within 30 days of delivering the assessment that we're going to um use and that was a little surprising to us as the AOE has been mentioning that they're going to be sending out recommendations for assessments to use so we did we did
072um dible our students and this is the data came out of edge of climber um as you can see in the red that's those kids and this is K uh first second and third grade um scores we have a significant amount of students in the Intensive support realm so we've got some work to do to make sure that um we're meeting the needs of all those students but if your child is in that realm you will receive a letter from the um from your school district letting letting parents know where their children are at and some opportunities to support um their their children at home through early literacy work as well so this is new I plan to bring the data to you um regularly as we as we work through it and hope those
073those Trends start to um improve and they do you know by by third grade the a number of intensive support needs are less but there's still too many for our liking we know how important literacy is so what is the 25 2425 is that the date yeah that's this um it's the Fall 2 the follow the 2425 school year yeah that's what that means um I wanted to let you know that we are um working with local budget advisory committees they are scheduled which is good news um Mount of scotney is December 17th Heartland is December 9th I believe um Weathersfield uh Brian is Brian is running those um on his own so I don't have the dates on those um with with Larry's support as needed or my support as needed but they're scheduled
074they'll be warned um our goal in these budget advisory committees is for the Committees to bring recommendations to the board um Larry and I have talked how difficult it is when if you're in a budget advisory Comm Comm and you're directly um having recommendations we feel like those need to go through the board before before Larry makes any adjustments to the budget so hopefully people think that makes sense um and we are waiting for the December tax December one tax rate letter to come in and the tax sheet that Larry has to go through before we'll have tax rates and per pupil cost but that should probably be late December mid to late December mid to late December yeah the December 1 tax rate letter will tell us what the yield is but that's doesn't
075really help us right I mean it's it's good because if it's a higher number that's good for tax rates it's a lower number that's bad for tax rates so it'll give you an idea all right um I linked this in my report and I'll share it with you um Lor's off this week so she didn't link my report to the agenda but I'll get it to you uh if you didn't see this already she did send it out to you it's a pretty pretty well written I think document that explains the funding system to so that more people can understand it because it's pretty complex in Vermont so that is just for your perusal um and I did put it in my it'll it's going in my next newsletter for the public to be able
076to look at as well and Larry you put it on the website last week I believe yeah so it is out there um I wanted to follow up at the Su level as you know we had some acts of hate or some hate speech that we were um working through at the beginning of the year um I will say we had visitor at um we had some student visitors at the M es scotney board meeting a couple of months ago but these acts are not just um in isolation at Windsor they are across the Su so we've been working with um Heather Lyn and her team on a policy an acts of hate policy that she has drafted and um she shared with me Tracy seen it um Kate seen it she's she is coming
077to the administrative team meeting on December 17 to really go through it with a fine too come home and then I would like to invite her to a board meeting if the board would allow that in either December or January because I think it's important for her to walk through it with you there's a lot of um legal stuff involved First Amendment rights Etc so um if that and I can talk to you offline Bill about that um but I think it would be important for her to come and talk to you as well so I just wanted you to know we're haven't forgotten it we're still working on it um the board survey I have the results to share with you let me just pull them share the screen instead hold on and I
078can share this out um five board members have taken it so I think we need to get some more input from board members so I will send it out again but this is what it's looking like so far in terms of priority of goal goals um the first goal I'll just remind you quickly because they're not up there the first goal was for the board um to develop and Implement a structured process for soliciting reviewing and responding to input from staff and Community stakeholders to ensure that policy decisions reflect diverse perspective and meet the needs of the school community that one scored pretty high first and second priority out of the five that took the um survey the second goal is the board will establish and follow a structure structured process for the regular evaluation
079of its performance and meeting established board goals this process will ensure accountability continuous Improvement and alignment with the district's Mission and strategic priorities so that's just checking in on how how your goals are are going the third was the 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 students and then the last one is that 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 so thank you for those of you that were able to um complete the survey it's really quick so I'll send it out again and then hopefully
080next month we'll be able to really select the goals that you want to focus on five so far it's a busy time year so totally understandable um just get back to where I was uh quarter the first quarter financials are in if you um if you notice that um we are there there is a difference but we're not worrying because um all the revenue is not in yet according to Larry we haven't covered most things yeah the major sources of revenue being um state from the state for special ed intensive needs Revenue the block rant which is not given out one time a year it's given out throughout the year and then um the local assessments which we don't encumber all of it we do it uh as budgeted per cash flow but we are
081um pretty confident that we're on track budget wise yes um the audits are on the website I just wanted to point that out to you um L's done a great job of making sure everything is out in the public um and you can see it fy22 and 23 are on the website we will receive 24 later this year but we do not expect any material findings um we are considered a lowrisk audity correct Larry yes we don't we don't get many findings which is great awesome so those are on the website for everyone to look at um I just wanted to briefly end my report with my plan for um and I think Angie just jumped off which is she knows this is coming but probably less awkward if she's not online um uh I
082intend to post the position sooner rather than later for the um director of curriculum instruction and assessment so I've outlined some steps I wanted to run through with you and get your feedback and if if you want changes now would be a great time to kind of voice those uh step one will be to develop a screening committee consisting of a representative uh group and so suggested committee members CIA admin assistant you know these are Angie's team members um curriculum and instruction specialist classroom teachers obviously we want representative representation from each district mtss leader uh support staff member special ed representative Equity coach board member student um that committee will be provided some um prep and some training materials as you know Tracy and I and Larry and Tina have been working on hiring practices
083so we've got some good materials to use for that process uh this committee would be in charge of reviewing the resumés selecting and interviewing candidates and identifying two top candidates to move forward in the interview process step two in that process would be interviews with um the second tier team which is would be myself principales the director of special education Dei coordinator I think it's really important for all of those people all those stakeholders that work closely with the CIA director to have an opportunity to be part of that committee to interview um at the second level and then we would check references complete this form that goes to human resources and we would put forward a candidate to the school board um my question for the board is do you want a larger role
084in that process or is representation on the interview committee um feels like enough or would you like something different would the board want to have a select group of board members interviewing the person so I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on that I think we should have yeah I think we should have some level of of of board participation um what are you thinking B I put I put one on the the initial committee a board member if someone chooses to do that but yeah I mean if there's um the board would like to interview the person you know I think that's I think that's that's great too so to have a committee and then have uh the bo yeah I I I think it's really important that the board participate as much
085as possible and this this position is nearly as important as a superintendent position and so um and so I think that coming up with two or three candidates and then having the board into viiew that's my opinion and I'm I'm I'm more than willing to hear other opinions do you want um just a clarifying question you want the whole Su board or would you want representative board members on the second interview committee with the ad team at a minimum I'd like uh I feel it would be important to have representation from each of the three districts but that's at a minimum um I think the I don't know I I I'd like to hear from other people Davis yeah bill I I I agree um largely with what you're saying I think that because we're
086doing this at the Su level I would even say uh a representative from each town that's how we look at the makeup of this board yeah that's that yeah that's what I was saying as a minimum though someone else just raised her hand and I kind of they disappeared on me let me stop sharing and then you can see Sarah s Sarah sorry it was me Sarah um I agree maybe a representative at the minimum from each town would be helpful um yeah Sarah sorry no I'm just getting happy with my raised hand I didn't mean to double click sorry yeah so I I don't think this is something we have to decide tonight or even that we're going to decide so um well I think we are going to decide so I think that's
087our minimum at this point um got it that's helpful anarie I also feel like more than one board member on the initial committee but I don't like maybe maybe one from each town on the initial committee also yeah I can do that okay that is really helpful um we want to get the right person it's an important job so um that concludes my report happy to okay turn it over to you Bill back to you Bill oh back to me and then I'm going to hand it off to Tracy all right so um thank you all I uh I do want to share I'm just we're doing everything that we said we're going to do so I feel like we're we're on track and that's my report uh no but uh I will share my
088screen and just um share a couple of updates all right so please uh stop me at any point if you have any questions or want to share anything and one I just want to say I just want to note that um feels like people are feeling lots of different things these days lots of different things I mean our students our staff you all as board members um things are uncertain about what we can expect coming next year you know and um I want to say and I think a lot of these slides really speak for themselves in terms of the support that you all have offered as a board and our administrative team in really doing this work and when I say this work when I think about diversity equ inclusion I'm really amazed how
089there are so many people who seem to know what that is exactly you know um I think that there are a lot of people who think it may be this or it may be that but at the end of the day it's really about building a culture of belonging and safety and so um I just always want to think about how we come back to that and frame it within that way of thinking about safety and belonging and how when everybody is safe and thriving we are all better for it um so really have a heart of this work that's my belief is that we're stronger together we're meant to be here together and this is a little bit of um how we can help support some of that what's possible so this was something
090um Christine may have shared this with you all during your summer Retreat this was a graphic that I promised to share or put together uh that represents some of the intersections between things like diversity equity and inclusion and all of these other things that we've been doing over these years right we've been talking a lot about restorative practices and Trauma informed and transformed approaches and social emotional learning and collaborative problem solving they're all part of this they're all part of this work right of creating authentic relationships and belonging and so this was just my attempt to try and capture how some of these things are interconnected could have been moved around a little bit differently but the whole point is is that there's so many things to think about in terms of identity in terms
091about our lived experiences and what will help support us in showing up as all of who we are right so this is again when I think about like Dei some people are like well that's just about race it's not just about race it's about all these aspects of identity and a lot of these come into play when we think about like the educational quality standards that are coming you know coming out of the state that we're going to be required to meet all of these things are support it lots of different ways so this was an attempt just to show some of the interconnectedness of all of these and how they work together uh lot of words on the screen you all have access to the slide so it's just breaking down uh the just
092the different parts of of of that graphic this is also something looking um back from 2013 I know there was also work happening before then this was something um thanks to Jennifer aldr really for putting some of this together looking at like the trauma champ I as they came to be so this is looking if we think about that pedal of Dei and the connections to all those other things that we've been doing over the years this is just some of that work so that's a lot of work a lot of Partnerships um and a lot of support again from you all as board members and from administrators making sure this kind of stuff is happening um so yeah a bit of a timeline uh and this is the part where I said I i'
093share you know this is the instructional leadership plan that we had worked on this is the way I thought of reporting back to you like where we're at so all the things that you're going to see in green are things either that we are working on that are in progress that are in process um and I can just tease out a couple of highlights one being that we have our first uh all day Dei in service dat coming up January 6 and so did want to actually invite you all as board members to um join us for the morning session we'll have two speakers um one is um one is a new consultant who we're working with who does gender inclusion work and Bill I I'm guessing you probably had a chance to work with
094Laura pascow she worked with Hartford schools um looking at alignment with like the with transgender non-binary um policies how that was supported by staff and schools and so um she's going to be one of our morning speakers so we have a couple morning speakers in the afternoon we're going to have five breakout sessions that we have already released to all staff to start to sign up for these sessions and one of the sessions includes like Davis you mentioned the human rights um commission they're doing they're doing a short session in the afternoon that relates to the all day training they're doing December 12 so it's giving us a lot to think about right in terms of like the like the the hate incident policy right how are we thinking about how are we puzzling all
095of these things together and making meaning out of it so they going to be a bnch bunch of sessions for folks to pick from in the afternoon the idea being that schools and groups can break up into the different group uh sessions bring back what they learn for the benefit of the rest of their teams uh so we'll have restorative practices we'll have collaborative problem solving we'll have something around prevention of harassment more around gender inclusion um and oh and education quality standards so Mike McGrath from the Vermont principal Association lead are talking about the education quality standards um so we have Equity coaches in place this year which is amazing having a team of folks across RSU who are getting into the practice of coordinating and collaborating with each other across RSU because this
096is new right I mean they haven't had people to to learn from or find out like what are you doing in your staff meeting and field and how can that connect to maybe something that we're doing in Heartland so I just keep thinking of like how are we working smarter not harder um and each you know each each school has its own culture but there are certain things that can connect across all of our schools right like how are we how are we talking about and starting to implement like group agreements or Norms right for adults in our buildings how are we able to give and receive like feedback with each other have difficult conversations all of that is really part of the work so um still meeting monthly with our administrative team leaders uh
097for an hour we also have a couple days throughout the year where we've been getting together and doing um it's not quite a full day A Little Less in the full day uh meetings to deepen our shared understanding around uh diversity Equity inclusion and how we're working together to do this and all of this in in support ultimately of our policies so we did uh first first the first e training with all staff this year we actually reviewed some of our policies and for a lot of people that was the first time they had seen right like oh we have an anti-racism policy or we have a transgender policy or an equity policy and so um it was like scratching the surface and on work I think we can continue to deepen but everybody got
098that everybody got common language some of the same um things that I've been doing with you all over the last year um yeah oh what else uh we're also talking about ways to collaborate around school assemblies uh across the Su we've been looking into some anti-bullying um uh assemblies which could actually pair the Human Rights Commission is doing these bystander intervention they're starting I don't think they're done with the program yet but it's a a training program for high school students for community members that could pair with an anti-bullying assembly it's like all the ways that we want to really engage especially students to be leaders in uh disrupting hate as it's happening in our schools right so that we don't have to rely just on a policy and process but that we actually have
099a culture of people who are engaged in supporting all that when it happens uh we let's see this is the creating and sustaining safer braver spaces right like I said we're really working to um operationalize some norms and agreements in our schools because that's going to ultimately help support our like having like when things get really challenging and difficult being able to have some agreements to fall back on uh is very essential uh still exploring um like the counselors across our Su are doing cultural assessments but we're we're starting conversations about what's like the one cultural assessment that we can do each year in the fall and the spring that's actually going to give us information that we can use that we can do something with um I don't know if y'all saw I think
100Elizabeth bro sent out an email about the yrbs data you R Behavior survey data that was from 2023 where yeah that's now out it's like nothing surprising in there right I mean we're concerned about the mental health of students right and and it's no surprise that students of color LBGTQ plus students students with dis abilities are the ones who are consistently experiencing disperate impacts doesn't mean that everybody else isn't feeling something too right we know that it's not like we we work with one group at the expense of another right it's like how do we support everybody where they're at because a lot of people are struggling a lot of people are struggling um we're doing we may be revisiting like training students and hazing harassment and bullying you know looking at how are we
101doing all of that in our schools are do students know like what's going to happen you know we keep saying like out in the real world if you say some of the things that you may be saying in schools you're going to have very different outcomes you know so how do we how do we get more in the practice of that um what else I think we still have uh have a lot of work to do around looking at an audit of our physical buildings you know even signage within them working with Kate to to look at like is there signage we can put on our ramps right to help prevent them from getting blocked for people who really do need to use them so those kinds of things um like Christine mentioned you know
102we're always looking at Behavior protocols and ways we can update those I mean it's those handbooks and our discipline guides are really uh continual Works in progress so that's why you see that in Orange on the bottom there it's like these are just these are ongoing uh for how we can continue to update these and then um like I mentioned you know having this team of equity coaches is really um it's great we have a team of support across our schools they are uh leading some staff meetings um getting some input from staff about what they think or what their needs are what kinds of capacity building or trainings they're interested in how we support students uh there are a number of different schools that actually have students who need trainings things like microaggressions or
103uh hazing harassment and bullying so um yeah working to connect with those student groups to see how we can um like how we can get some of our students to become members of the bont student anti-racist Network or maybe if they experience a student L training from another group you know maybe they'll see that this is something that's possible um for us to to build to here also um yep we've been working like Christine mentioned Christine Larry Tina and I really working on hiring practices and bringing in there is I've mentioned before the diversifying the educator Workforce in Vermont is this Coalition of folks in the state who are developing a toolkit to help support all of us in really thinking about how we are not just recruiting but how we're recruiting retaining promoting a
104more diverse Workforce right we know that we know the benefits of that and the complication like housing and all the other things that go along with it so those are all parts of the conversations that we're having in the Coalition as well um family community nights uh we know that uh Laura Pasco who's our gender inclusion consultant is going to be leading a couple family uh community events sometime between January and June of next year so um I'll keep you posted when those are happening uh Additionally you know um Christina's probably shared how a number of us we've been going to these sessions around education quality standards and really uh thinking about how are we going to integrate these um and they're they they really support so much of what we're trying to to do
105I mean they're explicitly you know supportive of things that are anti-racist non-discriminatory uh culturally responsive um a lot of what we've been saying that we really want to integrate so uh we're just and we know that there are there are already teachers in our schools and places where this is happening so how do we um how do we take what's already happening and maybe use those as models or ways to start to look at where there are some gaps like how some teachers are able to do this and maybe some might need some support um and I'll just say that there's a lot more that's going to come with this because I think we're also looking at um there are train the trainer programs that are being developed and how to implement these and Statewide
106Network that I'm connected with of folks in positions like mine are talking a lot about this and how can we learn from each other how can we look at how this may look in one school which may be different from how it looks in another school but some examples for how you actually Implement and integrate this stuff with uh you know it's a great idea but so far I don't know that there's any funding really that's going to support this so I know that's like a lot of Education mandates it's like great ideas but not a lot of funding so um it's good that we have what we have in our budget next year to really be thinking about again support for that continued capacity building and shared learning so that we can get and
107continue to get better at being culturally responsive also really taking into account the lived experiences of um of all our students so they can feel seen and acknowledge who they are what else oh these are just a couple things uh group agreements again these are some of what we're working on this was an attempt at looking at how this also intersects with uh leader and me and with our uh portrait of a graduate they they all align right these ideally all of these things connect and we're not we're we're integrating right that we're integrating these things aligning them more than starting new initiatives but like how of all these things really line up to support what we're already doing these were a couple other things thinking about Behavior response disciplinary con consequences again these are
108Works in progress but how can we create um like the Burlington school district has these incredible resources for education and learning Pathways for students who maybe don't know better right who may say something hurtful or may say something harmful or just may say something that they didn't understand there was going to be an impact so how do we support the education learning that can happen as part of that process right and that it's we don't see discipline as just something that's punitive so Burlington school district has uh it's I just shared these out and because they um uh gave us permission to share them but if you have say there is a student who said who made a homophobic statement you can actually search and find okay here's what's appropriate to share with like a
109middle school student here are some lessons you can review with them right and have them some demonstrate their learning so anyway it's great that's what we're we're in the business of Education right um that's what we're here for so anyway great resources for all that uh again just thinking about how we're sharing all our policies out with staff and we will be working on procedures for the transgender gender non-conforming policy uh sometime I'd say before the end of school year for sure Equity ticket is being used uh which is exciting we talked a lot about using it and putting it into practice and so I'd say people are still trying it on you know uh we have some places where students are using it for things that like someone said that just was mean right
110which is like it's great that they're using it and it's like if we compare that with other things to deepen the way that they understand Equity even better so it's helping give us give us a little bit of a sense of of some things that I know I might not have known were happening in our school so uh again it's it's a I'm glad that we're trying this on and we do have some feedback on it as well this is uh one of the sessions in the afternoon this is you know that integration with the folks who were part of our trauma Champions team is helping to um H helping to build a toolbox of practices um you know it's like deescalation or trauma practices right it's like so that every teacher every staff member
111right has their own tools of whether it's mindfulness or grounding or collaborative problem solving and so they're going to be leading a session uh that'll be in the afternoon on our inservice day which is great because it's like then we can resource each other that's like that's where we really want to um there just there's so many folks within our suu who have amazing expertise and so much to offer each other how can we be more of a resource to one another so this is just to share that this was also something they put together uh slides for um like required or was onboarding it's called um oh gosh Tracy mandatory training mandatory training this was part of one of them so this is just one slide that I pulled out from there um just
112again thinking about how we're always thinking about like being trauma informed and Trauma transformed Equity coaches shout out again to all the folks who have taken this on who are experimenting with us this year as they try it on and uh Lindsay is really being um she has been joining our Equity coach team meetings as she's able to which is great having another administrator um who's engaging in that way so uh yeah I I I can't say enough about of how much of a game changer having Equity coaches in our buildings it's it's awesome Teamwork Makes the great work um this is just an overview again of a bunch of different dates dates that the administrative team needs the all staff meetings that are led by Equity coaches Dei and service day you can see
113is coming up January 6 um with the themes generally being like you know can we put some agreements in place talk about identity values and then you know maybe move into being able to actually give and receive feedback um that would be great having difficult conversations and realizing like things are not going to fully implode you can do this can do hard things right um these are also just seating like the idea is for us to also be able to integrate an equity filter or Equity lens which essentially are just a set of questions that we can continue to ask this is one that builds off of um these are competencies and like social emotional learning and what's so cool is that the way that these questions align with the education quality standards right these
114are the things that we're just going to start to put more and more into practice already been lifting up some of these questions with staff right asking people to think about like how am I in reflection about my own identities and emotions uh where are the places that I get activated right knowing if there are certain behaviors where people get activated like it's you know knowing again this this this fits with the toolbx what tools do we have at our disposal when something comes up right for us even as adults have I a reflection about my own identities identities of my students what assumptions am I making who's most impacted how are they included and how will this Advance more Equitable outcomes I mean these basically are uh questions meant to help support us in
115thinking about right I mean we're um we have policies this is from our Equity policy right that we want to prohibit the unlawful harassment of students based on race Kor religion read this I think this is also on hhb aing harassment bullying but thinking about what are the questions that we need to be asking on a regular basis so that we know if and when we're doing this um other questions I've been asking in our um administrative team leadership sessions right again is like how am I building a safer more inclusive uh Su for all right we know again at the end of the day this is for everyone and when we think about patterns history uh examples of folks even like I said in the youth risk behavior survey assessment right it's the data
116that we keep seeing that there are certain groups of folks and individuals who may not be feeling as included right who may not be feeling as safe so if we can continue to keep asking ourselves how we are creating safety and inclusion for folks who may be least feeling it then we're actually going to be doing that work and creating it for everybody uh couple highlights couple pictures uh we took a bunch of students to outright Vermont's GSA conference this year we had 15 students we had every school across our SE represented um and on the bottom right was a student leadership conference that Woodstock High School puts on every year and this was one of our students in the middle there who was debating cell phone policy it was really cool to see all
117these students um it was like they organized this within the theme of Dei and then they pick up a a topic each year to focus on so this was about cell phone policies and it was really interesting hearing students you know assigns like Pro or Con on cell phones and just some of the some of the things that they were sharing so my takea away from that day is just you know the importance of continuing to really like we say student voice matters right so where are the ways that we're getting input on the regular students have a lot of great input so a cool day and uh Ed amazing debating so that's um yeah I'll I'll pause there I'll stop scen sharing um thanks for listening and thanks for the support that you all
118um yeah are providing this work so any comments questions uh Amy yeah hi Tracy thank you for taking the students up to the GSA conference I'm not sure that our Su has participated all that often or as much as they could have and that just being with all of the different students across the state I think as a really good experience for everybody so thank you yeah thanks Amy it was amazing and you know shout out to some of our Equity coaches in the schools who really helped and and our GSA leaders in schools who recruited students for that and some of the students I mean we don't have uh it's not it wasn't just from gsas that they recruited students but like student leadership groups you know like uh Albert bridge I think brought
119their whole fifth six like leadership team you know and so it was really really cool having that many students last year we went with maybe a handful of students this year we went with about 15 and it grows every year there were like over 300 people I think at this at this conference so yes yeah yeah I um you know addition that I just want to share my appreciation for uh that that graphic you showed us near the beginning I thought was really fantastic and I know you you said earlier you're going to bring something like that but I think it does illustrate really nicely how you know de or de fits into this Continuum that you know the end result we want is students and staff and anybody in school Community to be able
120to be their authentic s and and experience this as a blong um so that's yeah and I appreciate you know the just the kind of high Lev look at you know what everything that you have been doing I think we all kind of know that it's it's been a lot and you've been very busy but I seeing all in one place and the sense of sort of where where we are at right now and where we can still continue to to grow is really important so and I and I think I'll be available available on January yeah um another question the with the yrbs um I think it's up for learning um promotes um getting to why is that something that are supervisory Union has considered putting a student group together we did you know
121we went last year we didn't go this year we were trying to get like to organize a group to go this year uh and last year I think it was like you know we brought student teams which was great they came back they shared out some of the data um and I think it's maybe somewhere we could structure a little bit more like for next time but I thought it was a great I mean it seemed like a great program I mean it's training students to be the ones to then be the bring back and share out all the data um so yeah definitely a valuable program all right all right thank you everyone and I'll send it back to you Bill thank you Tracy can anyone hear me muted okay good because I un
122muted myself and I could if I turned it on um setting the next agenda all right um so just a reminder that we meet on December 16th next month which is the thir Monday instead of the 4th due to the holiday um we have some policy work uh we need to do our third reading of E20 which is community use of school facilities we have on the docket and Bill tell me if you think this is too many based on what we just went through okay with the number of policies we were working on so theba has recommended that and that's where we get the list that we update um V7 which is our tobacco prohibition policy C3 Transportation policy C6 home study students D3 responsible computer internet and network use and then we did
123have a request from a board member to revisit D2 which is the curriculum development coordination policy so do you think that is too ambitious of the list well one five it's five first reads and a third read let's I mean that's a lot but I'm I'm willing to look at the draft before I kind of make that choice see what else is going on around the Around the Horn so to speak okay and then we've got um the admin reports which is mine and next month Angie is back for proficiency work update so I'm exciting work going on at the high school that I'm sure she'll want to share about um with you all and then hopefully the budget will be adopted by then so we won't have to talk about the budget so yeah
124um and the calendar May maybe I don't know I think the union I meet with the Union on the 17th so the calendar might need to wait till January for your official approval yeah but that's it okay thank you sure okay do we have a need for for executive session not that I okay I will take a motion to adjourn this meeting so moved second okay all in favor please say I I hi okay awesome thank you everybody thank you happy and Happy Thanksgiving oh