SU Board Meeting - January 30th, 2023

001need to think about a meeting that you could have a meeting that day February 9th which is a Thursday or and we would schedule we would schedule interviews with the final with the full board the following week um sometime on the 15th the 16th or the 17th so that can happen um so that's one thing to think about the timing if we don't do it then if if you don't want to do it that quickly we can wait and we can have you can meet um the week of the 15th so you know I'm just throwing a date out there February 16th you can meet and then we set an interview date for March 1st um after the break because I don't think we can do it I think you're going to have a problem

002with people's availability if you try to schedule during the holiday the February break that's my take I'm around doesn't matter to me but I think it's probably a problem for some of you with families and it may be a problem getting candidates in um too for for interviews of that time so I know I'm throwing a lot of dates at you but I'll be I'll say that again so it's it's special meeting maybe on the 9th you interview the following week or you have a special meeting on the 16th and you interview on March 1st so those are the those are the the two time frames um of course we don't know until we know how many um candidates will be moving forward to you how much time you're going to need but let's just

003make an estimate of saying say you had three candidates maybe you start interviews your first interview at four o'clock and I'd like to give an hour and a half an hour of interview half an hour of processing so you have your last interview at seven deliberations so you're looking at a chunk of time of about five hours probably um is my guess right now is what you need to think about as a board and again that's the full board going through that process the other thing we talked about um and and you don't have to make this decision right now but we'd want to make it um the next time we meet is what level do you want of stakeholder involvement so um one of the things we can do is if let's just say

004the interviews were um March 1st at in the beginning at four o'clock you could either do a site visitation day the day before and have the candidates visit the schools um set up some sessions with central office folks with a parent group with teachers with administrators so I could set up a whole schedule for you so maybe you there's four or five rotations with that candidate with the candidates they're all asked a couple of questions and then I'd get a feedback form from those groups and I'd have that information to share with the board when they get to deliberation after they've had their um their interviews so if if you want to do something like that again I'd like to get my start to get my head around that because we're it'll be a crazy

005day if we do it all in one day but we could but it would be intense um it's probably better to try to do it a day before gives me some time to pull things together for you but again so much of that is going to depend upon how many finalists are we bringing to you you know how how how challenging will that be so so so you have two things I kind of need some guidance from you on right now I want to know how quickly you want to move do you uh go with that knife as the day to have that special meeting do you want it the week after um so in one of these scenarios you might be ready to make an offer you might be ready to make an offer

006before February break and break it will be after okay right thank you oh my gosh so much to think about um we have a question from Nancy pedrick you answered one of my questions was how many candidates um I suspect there are more there could be more than three but three is probably optimal and um are the interviews in person with us or is it done by Zoom the interviews are in person with you okay so if it's probably going to be impossible with work schedules to get everybody yep so um is there an optimum number of people that need to be there at that time well you should have a quorum okay you should have a quorum so um you know what what I can do I guess right now if you if you

007give me some guidance on whether you know that when that special meeting is going to be when you want to know who those who those uh you know make that a public that because it becomes public at that point then what I would do so say Nancy for example you say okay Jackie we want to have our special meeting on February 9th and then we'll make it public and we'll know who we're going to interview what I'll do after that is I will send a scheduling poll to all of you and say here are some possible dates and times what works for you so we'll and it won't work for everybody but we'll probably get pretty close um so we'll do the best we can and um so that's that's kind of how we'll proceed

008with that and of course at the same time I'll be trying to coordinate that with whomever we want to interview to make sure that works but but the part so we can work on that details the part I'm curious about now too though from the whole board is do you want to do that visitation do you want to have other folks interacting and get some feedback that I can then funnel to you um about the candidates if you want that piece that's fine I'm happy to do that I just you know kind of want to start planning for that if I'm still on I would say yes I would definitely uh hope that there would be visitation that's just my opinion okay thank you Nancy um Caitlyn Gould I had to turn my microphone on

009um yo so I'm just curious as a parent and fellow Community member can I just um put in the recommendation that there's um either a community group that could be part of this to meet the candidates or a small parent group um that would be I know that would be greatly appreciated thank you yep thank you Rebecca um I I think Jackie you answered some of my um questions and that is how do you engage the if you know um the stakeholders and how you would do that I think that it is important um to have um um um in addition to staff I don't know how you want to do that but I I would like to see stakeholders from the community um participate in this I I would like to hear their voice

010um that's my feeling so I I appreciate that you you've already pointed out there there is a process and I I just need to know if you want it and this is what I would do but thank you and Bill I'd like to make a a suggestions now that I kind of have my head wrapped around the process I suggest we have a meeting as a whole board on the ninth and then that gives us the entire week of the 13th to begin to to to organize and have whatever site visits uh parental group meetings and things like that and then plan to have whole board interviews um most likely uh the week of February 27th um I it I'd love to have it done by um by March but at the same time um

011I think um it's really important to have a community and District stakeholders have that time to participate in setting aside an entire week um of the 13th I think will allow that so that's my suggestion so Bill are you are you saying have those type of experiences that week of the 13th and then you guys interview after break okay got it no I think that's you know probably makes sense okay I really think there should also be a small group of high school students that um meet with the candidates as one of the stakeholder groups um during the week of the 13th if that's what happens I just want to voice my support for that you're here um I would also say that I would like to have the stakeholders the meeting like a students

012group a parents group a teachers group a community members group we did it for the principal of weathers field and we got some really good feedback from those um that helped us to make our decision um we really loved hearing from the kids I think that group is incredibly important so um I would definitely want to see that happen and I think we owe it to the community and to the seriousness of the position to to do that historical when we have had um our previous interviews for superintendent we have had Community parent and Community as a group teachers staff and students so that is something that we have done um in the past so this would not be and I don't see that this would be any different um let me see Elizabeth thank

013you thank you now we can't hear you you can't hear me now we can I just wish to point out a couple of other things that are happening in that same time frame one is the screening of no small matter and the question and answer session is next Tuesday uh also the week of March 1st is the week that we have all of our um District uh annual meetings and uh so that just putting it out there that that creates a little bit of especially for parents on the board it creates a little bit of diciness as far as uh meetings overload famous um well I initially wanted to voice my kind of adding to the consensus that we should be doing as much stakeholder feedback as possible I think it is really important in

014this process but um illustrate that pretty well um and I was thinking the same thing you were Elizabeth though that the first week or the last week in February and the beginning of March is extremely busy already yeah um is it is it possible to kick that out maybe one more week um like after town meeting yeah the weekend elections oh yeah because then that's the problem yeah so we either it would have to be after 10 meeting and after all of the boards have reorganized right right yeah and then the Su board reorganized yeah or we have a lot of meetings yep and sometimes as a board member and active community members we unfortunately can find ourselves with a lot of meetings and that's right thank you no I I didn't I thought further

015far out but you were thinking further out so thank you and I just wanted to add too it's hard candidates when you have three or four weeks from between interviews that's that's going to be challenging no I don't think that's ideal so when is emotional matter uh a week from tomorrow okay so the night yeah wait wait it's the eight Wednesday Wednesday so I let me throw out an option here is that it it may be possible and we could always throw out a survey monkey or something to see if there is a quorum available to at least start some of the final interviews during February break and maybe one of the one or two of the candidates may be available um to do an interview during that week I mean I'm not going anywhere

016um but if that's possible then we may be able to split it so that um we lighten a load of the last week in February but I agree with Amy we don't want to put this out too far because we get into the mess of board switches and reorganization and I think we want to definitely finish this up before that happens but I'm I'm willing to to do during February break and maybe there's enough of us who can and so I mean let's just see yeah bill I can easily add a few of those dates and we see what happens when I do the scheduling poll please look at that week we also I'm not gonna wear that weeks out um yeah meant surprises okay are there any other um so I know our um

017information meeting is first first yeah Heartland when is your information meeting for the 31st right no 28th 28th a story wrong one I was looking at the Tuesday 28th is Heartland and Wethersfield we're Saturday the fourth I'm pretty sure I'll check that I don't have it on my calendar for some reason which is really bad um but I'm pretty sure it's the fourth at 10 30. voting is on the seventh right if floating is on the seventh then we're definitely the fourth we're always the Saturday before it's a reunion meeting is February 27th we could have that as an interview session it's the one we were going to do with the lsba consultant that's right okay but we can we can bump if that's the date that makes sense I didn't know about all these

018other complications we can bump the 27th I mean we might have to move that and maybe it'll make more sense to have that after the whole new board is seated yeah that's what I was gonna say yes you know so so that's something that we can have some flexibility with because I'm wondering too now listening to all of you is the 27th date that we we want to look at final interviews and try to get all the stakeholders stuff done the week or the two weeks before that yeah okay what's that yes and I Believe in Us yes hi how are we gonna get it out there to the to the community and stuff that they're their advice is uh requested perfect what I would do is is on the I'll come to you on

019the ninth if you do vote to have a special meeting on the ninth on the 9th I'll come to you with a draft proposal of what it might look like to involve the the stakeholders and then at that time I mean I'm not going to know how to connect with your different groups of people and who you want you know and any specifics on that so we'll have a you know we'll have to all talk and say how are we going to do that like how are we going to organize that I'm going to need some support from folks on the board with that organizing okay we can do that so um do you need us to put um agree let me see in February 9th is a Thursday um does anyone have a conflict

020with February 9th depends on the time it would be in the evening um Jackie like say 6 30 is that that's fine February 9 to 6 30. um and of course if something goes south with our screening process we'll let you know and we'll have to change that but we can shoot for that right now um where can we do it remotely so that could be a hybrid meeting correct Jackie I definitely think so I don't I don't think you have a need to do any yeah I think you can do a hybrid meeting on that that shouldn't be a problem at all okay great so unless I hear someone saying uh no um and then again you know it's having a form of the board on Thursday the 9th although we would like to

021have as many as possible because we are determining who the main interview leads will be there anything more that you need no but I guess I'll need to come back around with you regarding the um if this board has interest in that Equity awareness and building commitment training um and if you do we'll we'll need to look at some dates maybe in March so I'll need some guidance on what might work for the board so um I know maybe this board will will not be the same exact board but you could still it would be good for me to know if this board does have interest and wants to proceed with that um because then we can start to work on a date given other schedules I think we need to postpone that yep got

022it that's fine we'll keep working on it okay okay I'm good thank you I have my marching orders I'll see some of you tomorrow yeah bye-bye bye-bye uh I just wanted clarification on when um no small matter will be screened is that the seventh or the eighth I apologize um that is Wednesday What's the timing of that we've lost your sound Elizabeth hello can you hear me the film itself will go for 74 minutes we'll have questions and answers with the director and uh one of the teachers in the movie or the film great thank you okay moving on we have our administrative report favorite times all right so um we'll get we'll get right to it uh we came back from the holiday break this seems like so long ago but we haven't seen

023each other for a while um we came back from the holiday break with a teacher in service on January 3rd age in hindsight probably wasn't the best plan because Angie spent a good Affair notification preparing um because it was the day they forget yeah what's happening it's really hard to set that up against a long break like that but it really was a great training um it was our leader in ordering staff K-8 and um it focused on the four disciplines of execution which is really um discipline one is focusing on the wildly important so you'll see wig which stands for wildly important goal um acting on the lead measures that are going to help us reach that goal keeping a compelling scorecard or scoreboard and then creating a Cadence of accountability so teachers were

024engaged in in training at Wethersfield we had one at Albert bridge and one in Hartland I believe across the SU so we separated middle level and in K5 which worked out pretty well um as you can see here some teachers after the training got right to work and started doing some goal setting work with students and we know that really is an important strategy for Student Success setting goals and working towards goals so some teachers um started talking about goal setting with their kids and as you've heard me say before our academic goal this year as a supervisory Union is is in the category or the realm of foundational reading we've done our data dive and and we know that that's where we need to focus on energy and effort and so staff and students

025are setting goals and Lead measures in that realm reading foundational skills and you'll see there in the middle a student who is keeping a leadership portfolio in that portfolio uh it's almost like a little mini PLP it's like all about me this is who I am what my strengths are here's my goal here's how I'm going to keep track um and that's very private to the student and they work on that um keeping track of those things and then we are we are posting in our schools the public scorecards which are really focusing on um growth goals so every student has a growth goal that they can meet and we're keeping track not individually in public but as a as a class on how we're doing towards those goals and celebrating our successes so our

026teachers have come up with some pretty creative ways to show that you can see the climb to new heights Mountain we've got some on the next slide another wig mountain and the picture on the right is the kindergarten weathers field so they've got the bus that's um and they're working collectively on um uh sight words so which is a very appropriate kindergarten early literacy skill so so they embraced it um as you heard Angie talked a little bit earlier we did receive a benchmark assessment Grant and one of the needs uh that we really have identified um as you know part of our quest to become a data-driven decision-making School schools and system is really having the tools that we need to do that um so we are piloting star assessments in um classrooms across

027the Su with teachers who have volunteered to be part of that pilot so they took star assessment I think there's about 13 does that make sense across the Su some uh took tnp which is the current assessment we have in place track my progress yes yep in a star and acronym yeah you know it doesn't look like it I'm on their website yeah it doesn't look like it's an acronym it's just a star assessment um and this is a tool star assessment goes a little deeper it really helps you break down where um students are are falling down in standards groups kids it's pretty Dynamic tool and it can help us progress monitor so really show the kids are making progress along the way so you'll hear more about it um teachers are will get

028together and talk about how it went and what the um positive aspects are where the um where the assessment doesn't meet our needs come back to more information um Rebecca has a question Rebecca sure Christine I was just going to ask you is this will the star assessment be used in addition to the other um okay great it will it will replace it if that's what the committee decides it will replace track my progress all right so I'm sorry I've got a question um so if you're piloting it in some classrooms and you're not doing it with track my progress then what happens to the progress of track my progress in those classrooms if it winds up that you're not going to use star so I think what you're asking me is those classrooms that

029did not take track of my progress and engaged in Star assessment we won't have that that information that would have been generated by track my progress for those particular classrooms and you're absolutely right we won't but because we um do track my progress three times a year you know we'll we'll get assessment data from those classrooms in the spring does that make sense so they'll be missed that some classrooms have missed the testing or track my progress for the winter um application of that and did star assessment instead as part of the pilot process some teachers did choose to do both the star and the DMP for their students they wanted that comparable beta but they did not have to choose them how what's the fraction of teachers who did that I do not know

030and so we can certainly find out how many teachers did you say are doing I want I want to say it was roughly 13 across the SUV that's just coming to my brain is that in all four schools oh Brittany she's here she's running this pilot so she can answer all this stuff yeah I can help a little bit with some of these questions hold on let me get my all my ear pieces in okay um can you hear me okay yes okay so we had about yeah it was about 15 teachers from across the Su that did it and we even include some interventionists in some special Educators um because we wanted to get that perspective as well um the star I'd say of those probably a third of them decided to do both

031TMP and star um but not every single one of them did both math and Ela for example it kind of depended on you know teachers just use their best judgment based on what the students could handle um you know some some kids were like yeah I definitely want to do both let's do this together you know and other students they just they didn't want to we didn't want to over test either so we kind of wanted a little bit of a balance there um but regardless we have uh data day coming up on February 7th for our half in-service day and all the pilot teachers are coming if they have a counterpart that did TMP and did not do star those people are coming as well so that we can really dig in and look

032at and do some comparisons between both um the other and just to go back to the question about the the longitudinal data so Christine's right if um we want it we didn't want to stress that our teachers so we did not require that they do both assessments um so with that being said if we go with star then we would retest those students with star in the spring so we would have comparable data that's starting already with those pilot students um if they're doing TMP and they missed it and we decided we don't go with star then everybody would do a PMP in the spring so we would pick right back up and just continue on like what we were doing before um another benefit to star that we are piloting they have another component

033which is called curriculum-based measures cbms it's very much like an assessment called Dibbles which assesses the kind of the fine details of reading um so we decided that we wanted to Pilot that as well because fontus and pinell does not align with the science of reading and a lot of our teachers are really wanting to look more in-depth at what are the skills that our students need within reading and how can we assess those individually so the cbms are also a dyslexia screener and those teachers in K through four who would have given fontusa Pennell took a break from Qantas and Pennell this time around and are doing the star cbms so we're collecting that data and we'll look at that as well so far the teachers seem to absolutely love both components of the

034star assessment what I like about it in particular compared to track my progress is it drills down into the data allows you to drill down quite deep including to this the level of the standards so you can go in and say okay this is the standard I want to look at how many of my students did really well with that standard and how many do I really need to work on you can set goals right Within the play platform as well that you can track student progress it's also a progress monitoring tool so while it's [Music] um while it's nationally normed three times a year you can give it as often as you would like it's about a 20-minute assessment per subject and you can do the same thing with the CBM so we can

035see progress in between those testing windows for those that we that we want to do that with so if interventionists wanted to give that assessment more often they could I think I covered it all maybe yeah there's a parent portal where parents can go in Brittany do you want to talk about the parent portal a little bit I don't know a whole lot about it yet um because we weren't we wouldn't be rolling that out quite yet anyway since this data is very preliminary and you know our students are kind of getting used to it and things like that but hopefully um that would be something we'd learn about if we decide to adopt so that we're ready to do that first thing in the fall thank you Rebecca thank you Amy um a couple

036of questions I have um um I'm I'm wondering what have you done to sort of notify parents that that you're in the process of changing up um how you're assessing students and and I'm only asking that because um I would imagine that if you've been talking to a parent and you're using track my progress and um if you're not thinking of maybe switching I so I'm I'm trying to find out if you're keeping parents abreast of the sort of changes that you're just transitioning into I I it sounds like a wonderful program and and that's great um but I'm just wondering um how how are the parents being kept abreast of this because it's important for the teachers to to find it um um user-friendly but also the parents need to know how how are

037you explaining to them how their their children are doing sure so um Christine has been putting it in her newsletters um every I think every ever since we started the pilot that just says hey there are a couple you know a couple groups that are going to be doing this some of the teachers have reached out to parents if they are if they have a student that's involved in the assessment um in terms of after the assessment is over if um at some point in time they do have parent reports we we have kind of gone back and forth on whether we feel like this first round is the right time to give that parent report and send it home without any sort of training for our parents or any sort of information on it

038on top of the fact that since it is a pilot you know some some of the work that we did with students was really okay how do you take this assessment how is it different from track my progress what are some components of that so it's also training our students a little bit um so hopefully that answers your question a little bit however with the um if if parents were to ask or or as part of our conferences we certainly have that information readily available and I'd say just based on talking with teachers here and there um the scores for the most part a line uh for most students there are some outliers align with track my progress however with the caveat that the star screener assesses significantly more standards than track my progress does

039so track my progress um in Star when they give a question it might be assessing multiple standards versus track my progress gives a question and it's only assessing one standard and so they get through a lot less standards per question per assessment um maybe I can help clarify Rebecca's question um these are assessments um these are assessments more for the teachers these aren't um as a parent these art assessments like TMP parents kind of barely notice unless they specifically ask for them um it's not your standards progress that you get on your report card it's just an internal assessment to see how the class is doing and from the parent standpoint um I guess at least for me and I think for a lot of others it's not um as critical and it's not part

040of their standards-based assessments yeah that's a really great Point Nikki and I think thank you for clarifying that um so with track my progress star any of those assessments they are just a very very short um snapshot of what a student is capable of to give us some very basic information it also gives us information on kind of class-wide trends that we use to look at our look at curriculum it gives us district-wide Trends and things of that nature so it's certainly when we when we present any of that information to parents at conferences let's say it is just such a small part of what makes up a student's learning it is not you know an assessment that this defines how your student is doing in school for example it would however look at it

041and say oh I see this student struggled a little bit with this one standard let's do a few more things let's let's try to do some practice let's reassess using some curriculum measures in the classroom and make some decisions from there my other question was um how long have we been used in youth progress just I I believe it's since does 2013 sound right Angie so it's been quite a long time there have been minimal updates um done to this system and some of the updates unfortunately that were done have made the system significantly harder to navigate for teachers and to pull out the information that they need so with that we kind of started looking at what what are some of the options other options that we might have and star is certainly an

042assessment that it's recommended uh to use by the state that's why one of the reasons we qualified for this grant lots of local schools use the assessment including Hartford so I see Bill has hins adding up too so I'm sure he can help me navigate some of this I know I only know what I know from very little experience from with with stars so far but yeah so we have used TMP for for quite some time thanks Brittany so uh and I appreciate getting so deep into this it sounds like I mean made a good case for why this is a good idea and the added features to it and uh you know being able to assess more than one subject area and one question makes a lot of sense um you brought up the

043parent portal is that now is that a feature that differentiates star from track my progress is that that's just not available yeah definitely it is not available in track my progress um at all there's no there's nothing like that in fact there's not even parent reports that you can print out that are easy for parents to read um even just one parent report that I noticed from Star it had just the basic information that they need it had QR codes where parents could click on it to get more information about what this the results mean I mean it's just very um I was really impressed with that part of it for sure that's great thanks Phil like finding a local assessment is always a very difficult Balancing Act in the simple fact that you know

044there are much more comprehension programs out there for example map testing is really a very complete the issue with map testing it takes students a long time to do it and it's very difficult to train staff to be able to understand what it is and basically what happens is that it's so complex most people don't end up using it um and that's what Hartford did when we we piloted star and um stars tends to be a nice middle ground it's a fairly short assessment it's it um it is an Adaptive assessment that is multi um multi-session adaptive which is very nice and it's it's fairly easy for staff students and parents to understand the results um but like anything coming up with a local assessment system is really a tough Balancing Act thank you Bill

045Caitlyn Gould yes thank you Amy um so my question is as as a parent um you know I have found it frustrating when asking you know teachers for results and how they're using it for you know for my child in particular um you know in her continued learning I guess my question would be would when you're looking at stars and and using this pilot what um what qualities or or measures are you going to be looking at when deciding if to move forward with it or to to continue with track my progress I've already heard a lot of prose I guess um to to the Stars assessment so I guess just look wondering what what are those um those measures and and criteria that you'll be deciding on um for this it's a really great

046question and actually a very long answer so so I don't know that if we want to get into all of the nitty-gritty details but we have um I sat down with a team of our mtss coordinators and um our curriculum team the other day and we mapped out all of that criteria so that our staff on February 7th can go in and they can they can analyze and compare each each of the components that we kind of said this is what we want to see in assessment and they can compare star and track my progress whether they're comparing because their students took both this time or whether they're comparing the fall TMP that they used and this the winter star assessment so some of the criteria are um alignment to the standards is huge um

047accessibility for teachers uh navigation for students um the extent the extent of the data reports some of it is the information that it gives you for um like your instructional planning you know so not only do you have the data but now is the data usable and what suggestions are given by the assessment based on the data you got star uses something called focus focus skills so what are the skills the actual skills that a student needs to develop um they have you know so so it's you know what about the administration went well for you come you know compared and there's all sorts of details which in within each component of the administration of that test that we're going to be comparing I hope that that was a very brief summary of kind of

048what we're looking at but hopefully that answered a little bit of your question you'll hear more about star um just to update we are going forward with the Middle School caregiver discussion circles which is a collaboration machine Windsor Southeast got any prevention practice we're going to have our first circle on February 15th it'll be just a remote meeting that was what the feedback we received from people that participated in the interest survey and at that at that meeting will review the data that we collected from that initial survey on topics for discussion and we'll set an agenda for the follow-up meeting in March so just to follow up on that we're excited about that people seemed interested so great um just to keep you updated this uh beer Bureau of the Veritas North America vvna

049has been retained to complete a facility condition assessment and an energy audit in all our schools Heartland completed theirs in December we don't have the results yet but every every school's on the docket and that's happening across the state so we'll share that information out when we when we have it um Equity audit update we are in phase three we plan uh with Insight education uh right when we came back from the break we're going to have 15 total focused groups or interviews during phase three the level of school leadership uh staff secondary students family and caregivers and board members so the interviews have actually started and and the groups have started they should be completed by February 10th um with some additional time added on if needed and then Insight will get to work

050writing the final report which will take three to four weeks to complete and then we can talk about how we're gonna dig into that data and roll it up to the communities so um covet numbers I just wanted to keep you updated we have seen a bit of a of an increase in our in our cases recently is this uh staff and students yes it's deaf and students yes um so I think people are be intelligent about washing their hands and trying to stay healthy and staying home when they're sick and this is not uh this is across the state so keep an eye on it um we talked about this a little bit and I think we're going to adjust that February meeting and we can come back to dates on when that will

051work so I will skip over that sounds like a wonderful opportunity uh I think you probably know this but I just wanted to let you know that uh age 42 governor Scott signed on the 25th which allows um which allows these meetings to happen remotely until oh my goodness right until um July 1st of 2024 it um allows Australian ballot and annual meetings to be um electronic as well and it does um change the language and the warning around the um increase in the for people spending costs so that language is coming off the warning next year it's too late for us this year because we've already already signed the warning um and and I know maybe Elizabeth next month we'll do a little legislative update for us if there's time yeah okay okay Larry

052is on his way his daughter had a game um but he's texting me that he's on his way and he was going to give the quarterly report and he said it's in the portal for you to look at and he's happy to answer any questions but overall I think we are in good shape um when we look at the numbers for the record or two yes they were I didn't really give them much information just that things look good and the information from the portal and you're happy to answer questions yeah if you have any questions but basically it's all there and we're in the black we're in the black and things continue as well we like that all right I do want to pull up the draft calendar for you um let me click

053on it here so this has um just make sure I have the right tab hold on one second okay so this is a calendar that and it is in the portal so you can see it a little bit better um that was created by the southeast superintendents they get together and they'll get tech center schedules and calendars and try to come up with um a calendar that's in alignment for all the sus in the Southeast uh region as much as possible it went to Union leadership which brought it to their membership it spent the administrative team there's nothing hugely significant I don't think to bring up except we did learn um that having an in-service the day after the holiday break might not be the best plan so we face that out um happy to

054take questions from the board if there are any but it's it's gone back and forth a few times with Union and Leadership and Administration yeah I don't want to open up a big can of worms but one thing I have heard from the general population is the question will we ever get back to building snow days into the standard schedule uh we have not talked about that Mark um do you have any insights on on why people like that method Amy yeah from what I've heard it just seems easier for parents to scramble and adjust for um extra daycare at the very end of the year than it is to cancel a family trip that's scheduled for the immediate end of school or or uh you have family coming in for graduation so it just

055seems like if we if we ever run longer because of snow days uh it seems to be more of an inconvenience than trying to deal with getting out a few days earlier gotcha Amy did you want a trip um have it um so both of my kids went K-12 here and the entire K-12 of both of them if there was a snow day that day was added to the end of the year uh we never at least here in Windsor we never had snow days built in and there was one year that we did have so many snow days that we we hold the community and they agreed to give up some days uh the April break and we also did a very controversial decision two years that we did not we had school for

056a half day on Memorial Day and it was focused all on Memorial Day including kids coming down and attending the parade so we we've never I I do not recall any year that there was a built-in built-in snow days to the calendar okay thank you and Bill questions yeah if we were going to start doing something that I mean we would have to plan because years in the head to try it because you it would involve changes to the contract um as well as um budgeting consideration for the busing company if any other services that we contract out with um I mean if we want to go in that direction which I don't suggest it would be I don't know a logistical nightmare um I don't know Christine was that something that happened in New

057Hampshire is that a New Hampshire thing I did a long time ago yeah Heartland used to do it well that's Heartland now come on I mean that's just yeah New York did it as well yeah Christine I feel like it was maybe right before you started or right when you started we had a Revolt because the teachers were required to work three more days than everybody else because we had built-in snow days that didn't have any snow days that year um in my experience if they're built in if you don't have the snow days you don't you get up earlier yeah that is not the case yeah but oh it was nothing I remember a really real anger so um the draft approved it on items fraction next month we want to talk more about

058it does that make sense and then it should be approved by February so put that on okay so let me go back to I think that is the last item in my report she is going to do her curriculum report Christine you just said something let me clarify it should be approved by February or during February if it needs to be approved by February then we should probably vote on it tonight a few more hours I mean if the board's ready to vote on it tonight that's great I think we we should have it approved are there any real changes that the board can make um I um I mean I don't recommend you make any changes yeah I mean it's just a formality to kick it out I move I make a motion to

059approve the calendar as it stands motion yes um thank you Davis thank you Bill um we could do it right now why don't we do right now all righty yes thank you that would be great not even as an item production you start in the room Elizabeth I Evans hi um [Music] I sorry I didn't hear myself there I just knew I'm a bee Colleen I mark I Nancy I oh not one I I can't hear you guys again hi um thank you Amy I I did you hear me you did hear me say aye you're welcome [Music] I'm hoping my video my audio will play hello everybody I'm here tonight to talk to you about the plans that guide the work and our supervisory Union hi I'm Angie Ledoux I'm the director of curriculum

060and the federal grants manager the purpose of this presentation is to ensure that our stakeholders have access and information to the following plans the Strategic plan the two coveted 19 plans The Continuous Improvement plan to understand the funding sources connected to those plans and finally the accountability measures related to those plans or how we engage our stakeholders you can find all these plans on the curriculum and instruction site from the wsesu menu so if you go to the wsesu site you will see that there is a menu that has RSU in it and going there you can find the link to the curriculum website curriculum and instruction and that'll take you right to the curriculum site which has all of the plans listed right there so when you're done with when we're done with tonight's

061presentation or you're watching this video at another time you can go there and find all those plans so first off I want you to know that all the plans I'm discussing tonight along with much more information can be found on the curriculum site you can find that site by going to where I just told you and I'm repeating myself and it's just the heart the Strategic plan identifies our priorities for the years for the years FY 21 and if I through fyb4 the Strategic plan has goal objectives and strategies goals are overarching Focus areas objectives are the results we will create to support a particular goal and strategies are the specific actions that we take to create the results I would I will briefly review the goals and objectives for more information you can of

062course go to that website I mentioned earlier the highlighted objectives indicate those objectives whose strategies are being addressed this year so in goal area one Student Success and engagement our objectives include learning framework an assessment system this year we're piloting a benchmark assessment tool that will help us identify student learning gaps and develop learning plans in accordance with that data an Extended Learning opportunities inventory student voice and choice this year that work includes our leader in me work our classroom mission statements and student leadership roles in the classrooms and throughout their buildings flexible pathways and finally student advisory boards in the high school this is the student Lighthouse team and we are working on building level student Lighthouse teams this year gold who is Uncle Trenton student loans in culture in this area we have

063an artist for NDA professional learning team consisting teachers and administrators is meeting this goal Our Big Ideas Summit is being worked on by our student group with our consistent Michaelson is taking place right now or as just new shop we're in phase two of that burst work student mental health and social emotional leader currently John Aldrich along with the team trauma Champions are supporting us work focusing on supporting students staff mental health as well as the work of our social emotional interventionists and goal three information communication we have in an information and Communications leader the data leader this position of recovery coordinator that has was funded with sr2 and 3 this year and last has been renamed to mtss and data coordinator this position is funded in the wsesu budget for next year that position

064is currently held by Brittany Preston progress reporting on the Strategic plan we are reporting on the plans at the Su board meetings as part of our schedule that we implemented this year we need to develop a progress report next student interest collection and finally a Communications review which is part of our Equity audit process and when the communications leader position is created and filled that review will go deeper I suspect the plans that inform our coveted response are the recovery plan and the ARP sr3 plan they're related to each other very closely they both serve to help our students and systems recover from the impact of the pandemic and to help us be more responsive in the future if we should find ourselves facing a similar Circumstance the recovery plan was required for all schools

065school systems in Vermont in June 2021 and the rfsr3 plan was required for all school systems in Vermont in June 2022 2021 and we updated it in March of 2022 it'll be updated and revised this spring and you can find both those plans on our website so this slide shows the three goal areas of the Strategic plan along the top beneath that are the Investments described in the recovery plan and in the rfsr3 plan and how they it shows how they align in that goal area for the most part the our passer3 plan reflects the same priorities outlined in the recovery plan Investments described in the recovery plan that address Student Success and engagement are in the plan itself it's called the engagement and truancy section those include reduced class sizes The Leader in Me

066student leadership mental health supports Summer Academy and transitional kindergarten kindergarten the our PS3 plan includes all of those things as well as a few other things like the Vermont Regional Regional special education collaboration and a behavioral data collection tool as well as funding the position of the Dei coordinator as it turns out when we support student academic success and engagement we are also supporting a healthy school culture and student wellness those arrows indicate that it's the same interventions and strategies that we're using finally we're using all of these things to improve our multi-tiered system of supports with the improved data collection practices that align to leave during me we have also made Investments to improve our internet access across the system the new addition that we have not put in the rfso3 plan yet is

067the purchase of materials to update programs in day eight months in the LA we're currently piloting Eureka 2.0 and next month we start a pilot in the ELA program amplify ckla and through a commingling of funding sources through our Consolidated Federal programs Grant Title One and through the our pesto three Grant we will be providing those materials for our schools The Continuous Improvement plan is a plan that is required for our Consolidated Federal program we kept our continuous Improvement plan very similar I did a presentation on this in September of 2023 uh 2022 and also I think in August we talked about it as well the continuous Improvement plan identifies the strategies we have placed in place to support the work of the entire system but the focus is on how we support student learning

068and improve student learning for students at risk so there are two areas of this of the continuous Improvement plan that align with our strategic plan goals academic achievement and our goal in this area is that we will have our students go from 56 to 79 meeting or exceeding proficiency on a track my progress reading foundational assessment by May and then in our safe and healthy schools goal we will go from uh no implementation bleeder in me to Core 2 implementation by June 2023 as measured by our MRA and self-assessment rubric we do not uh when we're writing these goals we start at the beginning even though last year we were making some progress on this goal so what are our funding sources that combine together to support all the work of our strategic plan and

069the other plans I mentioned this slide shows most of our non-special Ed Grant allocations so this is our professor three note this is sr2 and that Grant has been expensed for FY 22 and fy23 our title funding for Windsor Heartland and Weathersfield school is as is that amount for fy23 that includes carryover things that weren't money that wasn't spent in FY 21 and 22 and then our Title II funding for the Su is that amount accountability measures we have accountabilities to our grants through reporting but we also have accountability for our plans in the our best or three plan the following can be found an Lea must engage in meaningful consultation with stakeholders and give the public an opportunity to provide input in the development of its plan stakeholders include students families principal and school

070leaders other Educators School staff and their unions as well as tribes civil rights organizations stakeholders representing the interests of children with disabilities English Learners students experiencing homelessness students in foster care and other underserved students method of stakeholder engagement very wildly widely across our small Su we have public board meetings we have advisory councils to the superintendent we have four of those a parent advised Council a faculty advisory Council a supported staff advisory Council and a student advisory Council we also have information posted on our websites our student our superintendent newsletter and this year we are engaging in moving the vision forward Community Forum uh series that we are having our third meeting on February 7th if you haven't attended that I highly recommend it as we continue to do the work of developing our vision

071and Mission in moving that work forward we are also working with faculty and students on those same days during the school day to create and expand self-determined learning opportunities for our students building-based opportunities our administrators and our teachers and our staff keep us informed of the things that coming up for you and these are opportunities for our community to engage in the conversation so at the end of this there will be opportunity for questions I just want to say thank you very much for supporting the work of the Windsor Southeast supervised reunion and if you have any questions please don't hesitate to let me know my office is over the mask on the bank on Main Street in Windsor and you can reach me at the following thank you I just want to thank you

072Angie that was um a really oh good overview of what is it that is going on in our school district but it was also presented I felt in a way that community and stakeholders could understand um and I I don't know if this is something that can go on our website but I think it would be very valuable for it to go on our website so when I tell someone you know you want to know about our strategic plan they we can point to that but I do want to thank you for um the presentation you're welcome Elizabeth thank you I'm not going to turn on my microphone this time um I have a couple of questions Angie uh okay um I I I noticed that there was not no mention of um staff and

073teacher Wellness is that is that part of the Strategic plan at all yes where does that calendar um culture and student learners we really should call it culture and student and staff Wellness but we sometimes refer to them yeah that way it's just not really that way I mean in that that there's an investment for the portrait of a wsesu member there's um foreign groups so they can learn from each other that sort of thing more opportunities for people to work together in Java like groups I think are some of the strategies that we have in that yeah so is our I guess is our supervisory Union uh providing any mental health care for our teachers so they have access to EAP right through Nesbit um I know in some in some schools within the

074Su actually they've all done it try to engage in restorative practice restore storage circles which is a healing method that we found beneficial um and then one school visited every step when we start with a circle up um just really I know the lead Learners keep the pulse on their staff and support them in whatever challenges their their experiencing and those vary depending on the staff member and the situations at hand but it is something we take very seriously we know our Workforce is stressed um and that is across the state and across the country and so we really need to think about ways that we can um keep our teachers right keep our teachers doing what they do best and caring about our kids and making creating the conditions where everybody can be successful

075and so whatever we can take off their place is is what we try to do give them time because time is really critical for the work that they're doing we know the pressures on them are um have evolved as Society has changed and so schools are being asked to be um mental mental health caregivers themselves or students so it's an issue I mean the things we're thinking about are really making sure when we're onboarding new staff we have a very comprehensive plan for that um making sure we're of being very responsive to their needs doing creating check-ins along the way making sure that we're spreading out all of the training that they are required to take over the course of um a year even two years we've talked about um and just really creating cultures

076where there's Trust their questions um one is what does cfp stand for Consolidated Federal programs so it's titles one two three but we don't qualify for that we don't have a large enough ell English Learners populate population and then title four and you just to clarify um you mentioned in Title One funds that uh they were being used by Heartland Wethersfield and Windsor is West Windsor in that mix or no so no West Windsor does not qualify for title funding Wethersfield is in a targeted program which means it's only for a specific number of students um targeted students sense and then Heartland and what Windsor have a school-wide program so I was able to purchase um math in language arts materials for Heartland and Windsor and I um we'll be using Esser funds to purchase

077for Wethersfield and Albert Bridge school and I just wanted to add one of our motivations for getting these curriculum materials in even though we will have a we'll have a very differentiated roll out for this is to actually support our student our teachers rather in um having strong curriculum materials that require overall less preparation should relieve some stress should help beliefs and stress thank you Caitlyn Gould yes thank you um just a couple questions one kind of stemmed off of what uh Christine was just talking about with the mental health support for our teachers but um also wondering if um question that kind of goes in hand I guess with with Andrew's presentation as well is part of that is the mental health and recovery of of our youth and teachers post um pandemic um

078I see a lot of funds going into different types of academic programming and curriculum based things um has there ever been any thought or input around um you know connecting the gap between school and Community to to help assist with some of those mental health barriers that are in the way I think as um as parents and as educational professionals we all um you know have a basic understanding of if a child's um basic needs aren't met they're not available to learn so we can put all the money into different curriculum um Avenues but if these basic needs of these these kiddos along with their mental health aren't being met are these curriculums going to be um of a benefit for them as and same with teachers too you know we're adding an extra extra

079layers onto these teachers with having to to care for the mental health of these students um is their professionals that we can use to to help support that and take that off the teacher's plates we do have um several investments in the after our professor three plan it that includes mental health clinicians um a school-based mental health clinicians as well as we are hope anxiety coaching for students that's just a few of them we have been exploring ideas for different things to do for staff mental Wellness it is um a little bit more challenging to find things that would be that have been approvable that so that is still in our plan though some of the work Caitlin a great question um by the way thank you for bringing that up some of the work

080that we're doing around self-determined learning and empowering our kids through the leader in the framework and we know that when we give kids some autonomy and you know they have some competency and relatedness that that does impact their overall mental health so that's just another angle that we're going at um to help with those those issues that we that we know are um that have grown significantly they were there before the pandemic and now they're exacerbated thank you Rebecca I don't know I know in the past we've talked about different um options opportunities for staff and I I know that um most schools offer a teacher's room or teaches faculty um office I'm just wondering if um if we want to real seriously consider having a timeout um space for teachers I we have it

081for kids you know we have it for you know students who just need that space who just need to go away and and not be around and I'm just wondering if that's something that can be thrown out and it would be a special place for teachers and it would um not only have a chair and and a desk but maybe um other comforting um creature things that would make them sort of like you know feel like maybe there's someplace else in a good place for a short amount of time but um why not we do it for for students why can't we do it for staff and this would be separate and apart from them you know it's like we go to Teachers Lounge we know what that's like but this can be a space

082where um they can go by themselves and just you know hang out for a short amount of time it's a great great suggestion Rebecca and we do we do encourage our teachers to recall if you need to tap out you can let us know and and we provide coverage because everybody gets to that point sometimes but that's a great suggestion I'm writing it down space is a hot commodity in our schools I'm going to tell you that right now but there's not a lot of Open Spaces but we can be creative Davis yeah uh Christina I was glad to hear you bring up uh Leader in Me in the context of of you know mental health and well-being um I guess I'm just curious based on what I've heard about the results that we're already

083seeing from that and where that rollout is going over the next year or so um I know from from work that I've done outside of this cool setting that there is there are correlations between psychological safety engagement and Collective leadership cultures so I'm genuinely curious and based on what what you've shot us already I'm pretty hopeful that that will also contribute to uh you know the mental health and well-being of our of our whole school community so uh I'm glad that that's being considered that sort of shift in how the cultural mental model in the uh the school that's part of that yeah you know it all kind of it's all kind of a Continuum all connected yeah and we have we're now two items for discussion thank you it's been a very informative so

084far um so first on items for discussion we have the dni coordinator update and that is diversity equity and inclusion coordinator and we have Mary Gannon I hope Mary ganning is still here I think she is also in that conversation I I just wanted to say um publicly before Mary um chimes in that our our Dei coordinator Ethan Lawrence has stepped down from this position he's resigned um due to many factors um a big part of um a big part of his decision was the part-time nature of the position and not having access to the staff and the students during the school day that weighed into his decision and and some personal things as well so we are disappointed we thank him for his work that he did provide for the Su in the in

085the few months that he was here and we've been in touch with Mary on how to move this work forward in the best way possible and she's here to to um and she is our Dei consultant just in case anybody doesn't know she's been working with us for I think this is year two um and she's going to present some of our our thinking around where we go so Mary I will be quiet and let you speak great thank you thanks everyone for giving us the time to meeting in the district for some time now um I don't want to take a lot of time because I know you have a few other items but I am I wanted to start off um with an appreciation to the board and the school staff the admin

086team Christine teachers community members all the folks who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet but I know that there has been a great deal of energy and thinking and wisdom that's already coming into the district that's already been there certainly before I was there and um and certainly in this moment so I just again recognizing that the this body of work that we talk about the body and practice of diversity Equity inclusion anti-racism there's a lot of language that gets used to describe this it's really important work and it can be challenging and I think um you know in light of some of the lessons that I will certainly say I learned upon Ethan's departure but I think also the leadership team and other folks who have been part of that conversation Nation

087are recognizing that they're this is a really good moment to pause and think about what are some of the structures other opportunities that we can develop in the district to really operationalize this work so that we can really be sure that whoever we bring in into that position is really set up for success and that the co and that the district itself is is really set up for Success one thing that I want to say on the outset is you know as for those of us who are in education right now we know we're in some challenging moments and certainly there's an ongoing debate and conversation Statewide regionally nationally about the value of bringing diversity Equity inclusion into public education and what I want to say is it's already been there um the the the

088conversations that we are struggling with around history and literature and and math through an equity lens those uh lived experiences of of the people who have not been centered in our curriculum whether it's our students or our family community members and certainly I would say the curriculum that we often see in our schools um those challenges have been there and I feel like our work now is to really think about how do we create learning opportunities in a learning community where all of our children and all of our staff and all of our community members feel like they can bring their full selves to this work and that includes everyone I always say that anything involving Equity is good for everyone that we're not just trying to benefit particular communities or or people who have

089been historically marginalized that this work is benefits all of us so when we when I sat with the leadership team a couple weeks ago we realized that it was a good opportunity to pause and just to think about um how we want to reevaluate how we got to this moment Ethan was very gracious and and shared some of his own experiences um with us as well um but we also realized that there were some pieces that needed to be strengthened and put into place to really make sure that we set um the next person who comes through up for Success so I want to share a little bit of those with you and sometimes what I think is important is understanding um and I know for the Educators on the call and for other staff

090you're really like every day dealing with all this um emerging issues um dilemmas potentially or challenges that involve issues of diversity and Equity so you're really in the moment in these individual scenarios a lot of us tend to be at this 30 000 foot view which is really thinking structurally and institutionally about the full district and so one of the things I will touch on when I get to this board piece is I would really encourage the board and I think I started some of these conversations with some of you or most of you last year we had a couple of board sessions to really think about what is your work as a as a school board around bringing an equity lens and what are some of the things that you need to be exploring

091in your work as board members and I'll come back to that but as we think about the district you know as a whole and understanding that um that we all have a different part in how we um engage with this work and in different ways so one of the things that I like to always say is that in within this district and I worked in a lot of districts in Vermont New Hampshire and Maine um most districts this one included has an already an understanding of their core values so there's a set of core values or beliefs about how wsesu does business how you deliver education how you treat each other workplace culture norms and values and I think the important thing is beginning to read to look at those again and think about how

092equity and inclusion are aligned with those core values because oftentimes we will talk about ourselves or our organizational culture as one that's committed to anti-racism or diversity and um and then what we begin to see is that even though the core value speaks to that particular idea of respect or inclusion what we're actually seeing play out whether it's in a school or a particular school or interactions with families whatever it might be are not actually living out that core value and so sometimes it can be helpful to do some of that realignment just to see how is it that we're matching those and so in my short time that I've been with the district you know what I'm really seeing is there's some very powerful core values that we want to continue to align with

093the principles of diversity equity and inclusion so what I would share um to the board is as I said I think we started some of those conversations last year and I know that there's a new election coming up so I see this as a great opportunity um with the new board members um post-election season to really um spend some time building your conversation um your own group cohesion your board cohesion around what is what is your Equity lens look like what is your vision and Mission um and we started to do some of that by Prov by looking at a common vocabulary and what I encourage the board to think more about is these different places where you have you know where your spheres of influence are so one of them is your own vision

094and how you would um one of the protocols that you would use from that particular Dei framework to inform how you do policy work and I was starting to hear some of that tonight in some of the presentations so thinking about your work as a board is around policy and how can you infuse the policy conversations and the policy decisions with a Dei framework the other part that I see as part of the board work which was which will really support the district is building conversations and developing conversations in the community so how do we in the community how does the board and other folks who are stakeholders in that think about important conversations that need to happen with the community and I think the equity audit will be a really great entree into how

095we bring a conversation to the community when we roll out the equity plan um steps and recommendations and then again because I think this is different kind of work than maybe talking about funding or grants or or the budget or the school calendar is in order for you all to support what your staff and faculty and other folks in the district are doing around diversity inequities develop your own cohesion as a board how are you working together talking with each other recognizing that there will be a range of perspectives there already are and there will probably be more of that after the election so building your own timeline building your own goals and getting some clarity as a board I think could be really important and helps you get a greater understanding of the roles

096I have a couple more pieces um the other piece that the admin team leadership team and I have talked about is is really thinking about how do we continue working on developing a community of practice one of the things that I take responsibility for and I know Christine and I have talked about this that I feel like I dropped the ball on I think part of it things are moving so quickly is I never had a real chance to talk with the leadership team and the other administrators around some of the foundational understandings of diversity and equity in schools or just to get a sense of um who is the who are the leadership folks in the schools who are already doing this work or are comfortable with it where are Folks at who need

097more support so that when the equity coordinator comes in to start developing relationships with people in the buildings there's an understanding of what the level of awareness and knowledge is so that we're not setting people up so it wouldn't you know and this didn't happen but you know the fact is that we haven't had some opportunities to talk with admin and I'm going to be coming in to do that I think in a couple of weeks near the beginning or middle of February and just to have a conversation about what does it mean in their particular leadership roles the other part of that is with the teacher Dei committee which is a really important and another foundational structure that you have in this District which is really wonderful I was you know comparing to some

098other places where I am right now there's some really important structures that can begin to really operationalize this and that teacher Dei committee I think can really build relationship with the equity coordinator and get some clarity around what is their role with the equity coordinator and and begin to take some of the recommendations from the audit but also some from the work that was done with Melissa Crum a way back I know the anti-racism task force and that committee was doing some really important work and pulled out a lot of recommendations so you know there are different compositions of people within the district who can be relying on each other and leaning on each other um as this work gets rolled out and there's a lot of pieces that I think are already in place

099particularly I think of that work um you know from um the work of Melissa crum in those steps the equity coordinator I think the posting this is I think this is public is looking we're looking at July start um and so a lot of what we're talking about in the leadership team and with admin is what does it mean to really be preparing for onboarding a full-time person and I think the other decision that got made which I think is really important is that whoever comes into that job will be um answering to the superintendent and that was again I think another piece that we had not had a real chance to think about and get clarity on because in every District in every District that I work in it's very different and I think

100in this District given the um the setup and the leadership structure and also we you know recognize that bringing in new Equity coordinators into school districts is really a high-stakes um it's an opportunity and there's also some high stakes connected to that we want to really make sure that that Equity coordinator has connection to the person who is leading the district and I feel really strongly about that and I think that was a solid decision that um that Christine and I you know talked about and she's um you know that will be part of the way the job gets posted um the last thing that I would say to you all is that the um I I got to spend a little bit of time with the visioning session uh the Strategic plan visioning session

101on December 5th I was invited in um by the consultant um on that and did a little bit of bringing in that Equity diversity lens to that process and I think there's a lot of again opportunity sorry my dog is being a little Annoying um there's a great opportunity in the strategic planning process to begin to think about how we Infuse these ideas into that work as well so that it doesn't become seen as an add-on but it's really the framework that the Strategic plan process is working from and you know I'm happy to talk with you more about that and I'm sure I'll be talking with um the leadership team about it but I do think that one of the things that happens sometimes is the ideas of diversing equity get sort of compartmentalized

102or put on part of the list of things that will happen and what I would encourage you to do and it'll make the work much easier is if it's really flowing as part of the Strategic plan process so that everything that's being thought about um you know is really part of the Strategic plan and how that gets rolled out um let's see I'm just going through my notes and see if there's anything else I think I'm going to stop there and see if there's any questions um I do want to say again that one thing I would also Safeguard you against and I think about this from someone who works at the state level on this work where I really respect she was talking recently about how a lot of times what she sees in

103agencies and organizations is they keep creating subgroups and um or other committees and I would say or or bringing in other people to do pieces of this work um you have great resources available to you and some really amazing people already that just need some tools and some skill sets um you know some support and building some skill sets around how this gets rolled out so um you know as I think about like for example all the beautiful work that came out of the Melissa Crum you know exploration and all those recommendations I've been pouring over those and I think we can take a lot of that work and begin to think about how that gets infused in some of the other places where people are ready to do it so I'm going to stop

104there and see if there's any questions or other thoughts foreign thank you Mary um and and I'm really I appreciate it um you mentioning Melissa Crum that group that worked with Melissa um and I personally feel sad that we just stopped meeting because it was a a group that really talked about issues and continued to delve in issues that that around questions that topics that were really hard to talk about yeah you know that not having that I think that in some regard we we missed an opportunity there but my hope is that we can consider bringing that group back and it was a combination of community members um board members staff members so it really tried to take in all stakeholders um and so I I hope that we would consider um bringing them

105back the other piece you mentioned was which I didn't know um you talked about um a Dei Committee of teachers I didn't know that existed or am I did I just not hear right and I hope I described it correctly but yes there is a committee within the District of edge of staff and Educators who are championing this work and and thinking about how they're going to move forward I think taking some of the action steps from the outcomes of the Melissa I keep calling it The Melissa Crum work but I think we know what we're talking about and then to think about how what their capacity is um and given their particular roles um so that's a group that I'm understanding is meeting once a month I'm meeting with them and at their next

106meeting which I believe is the end of February um Katie asked me to come at the end of February and I do want to say something quickly Rebecca because I don't want to disregard um the anti-racist the work of that committee and how important and I'm sure there were some amazing you know Champions and thinkers um you know who really committed to that I also know that sometimes what happens is because of the evolution of this of the of this kind of work that districts or organizations will start with a group like that and then they disband only because some of those folks are being engaged it in different ways in another part of the district right so some of those folks and I think some of this is bandwidth like how much can people

107be involved in in terms of committee work and I would also say to you that doesn't mean there wouldn't be an opportunity for some group such as the such as that composition um to come back I mean if there's Community stakeholders parents you know I would love to see something along those lines and the other thing I just want to say quickly the teacher Dei committee I think is essential and I'm working at Hartford right now and there's a really strong one there and one of the reasons why they felt it was important to just do it to have the composition just be staff and teachers is there things that they're talking about they don't feel like they could talk about in front of board members for example like they're really wrestling with different kinds

108of issues that um you know there's a certain level of vulnerability and they want to be able to you know figure out how to navigate that and then maybe you know connect with board members at some point so thank you yeah thank you are there any other questions or comments thank you Mary thanks Mary we look forward to hearing from you again okay um moving on to update on students on the board Christie um um what I had um happened for next steps was for Brian to take the idea to his board in Wethersfield and for Lindsay um Perkins the principal at heart partly to take the idea of students on the local boards to her board Brian um discussed it with the Weathersfield board in January and I think it's a great idea so

109he's gonna base his process on the monoscopy process and put it out to students and Lindsay will take the idea to the Heartland board so spoiler alert Heartland board members you'll hear about this at the meeting um I think it's in a week um and so once that's in place um I think we talked about drawing from those kids for the potential wsesu student yeah right so more to come right Elizabeth uh I've got a question for you and that as as a member of the Vermont School Board Association Regional yeah um uh can you find out whether how how we can how we can make it possible for because it has to be an organizational decision how we can make it possible for students to gain access to board training if they are official

110members of uh of boards that are appointed by the board there official members of the board they should have access to the vsba trainings and also I have a question for you and that is that uh can you come up with some board training and I'll I'd be glad to help I have some materials pulled for already for people that um a new board members new board members but I think it's kind of important as well yeah what's up there's that great video on education funding I know I've watched that recently it's actually not at all so complicated okay thank you [Music] okay um moving on that um staff children benefit follow-up yep I can report out on that um so I did uh speak with legal counsel Pedro Len and I asked him the

111question and uh his is his advice is that he strongly discourages the practice of having um staff members who live in different towns um being able to bring their their own children to wsesu and I'll share his rationale um first and foremost that would be uh considered a taxable benefit and subject to the collective bargaining agreement because essentially students are being able to come into our district in that the tuition cost would be a benefit to that staff member that would be an unfair practice as many people in the workforce do not benefit from that or would not benefit from that so we cautioned on that he said we could not claim the ADM the average daily membership which would be an increased cost to the Su more students and we're not we're not being

112those don't count in our um equal s pupil and his um advice or recommendation was that if we did take in students we would become the Lea and there would be no reimbursement from the state or costs of their special education needs for those students who come into the into the district we would be responsible for those costs and so he essentially broke it down into a really you know he said he understands um why but um he does say he did kind of put it simply if you're trying to keep an employee that costs this much money and it costs this much money to educate this student you really it would be a cost um to the district yes I have a couple of questions to ask the question asked I have not spoken

113with him since we chatted yet okay so my follow-up questions are if it is a taxable benefit then why uh why does it not become part of the ADM right and I haven't had a chance to talk to him about that and uh uh and that is why the student would become part of the Lea I mean if the student becomes part of if if we become the Alias then that's because the student is part of our ADM it it doesn't work that way idiom is based upon Vermont law and so that's why um if they're paying tuition or if they're getting if they're paying taxes on it then they're paying then it's a tuition-based uh benefit and as such they should be part of they should be fine so if students for example at

114Sharon who tuition to Hartford Hartford does not get those students ADM Sharon gets those students ADM okay so ADM is assigned to resident District it is not assigned to the education school well no because because it's based on who's paying the taxes for the tuition and if we are paying the taxes for the tuition then we it is not based upon who's paying taxes for its tuition is based upon residential legally it's based upon the headboard of the guardian's bed I mean that's how Antiquated it is um that's yeah so no it's it's it's based upon residence and so it is it is a convoluted system and I do all the reportings on it but um it would become a tactical taxable income tax for the parent we would not be yeah no I mean

115pH was right it's that's just how it's set up in Vermont long um so then my other question is uh do we not have other benefits that not everybody benefits from that when for example maternity leave but it's available because it's you know I mean we do staff use their sick days yeah but there's family medical medically that is allowed the same thing so if if we have can say the the dad works here and mom works for some other total different company they have the opportunity to take these to be with mom and child yeah and they I think it's my understanding they use they can use up to six weeks of their sick time and then um if there are complications or they can take up to 12 six of them paid six

116of them unpaid if they have six weeks working the same time so yeah you know yeah so I don't know I think I think we have some benefits that are for the greater good um that delve at everybody and I think it could be argued that this is one of one of those um and I can see the argument against that as well but we do I mean ways of society have benefits that don't benefit everybody because they're I tend to um want to recommend that we follow our legal advisors advice um I think one follow-up question I have and this it is it to expand our housing base okay uh to be able to offer that benefit for to anyone who lives within the Su yeah okay fair question and so um that takes

117care of a lot of the Lea issues is because by law especially s is based within NSU and so that would be a follow-up question is that what sort of downfalls would it be yeah and and that's uh definitely something to consider I mean we have an intra-district policy right now bill on the books and that and the procedures that um go with that policy really it's used um in situations where you have a student who's really been in crisis struggling the school has tried to put interventions in place I'm aware of all that but when we start negotiating with if we find out when we start the next contract negotiation because this is also a contract issue if we want to offer the benefit so that teachers don't necessarily have to go through that

118policy to have their child go to the school that they teach at that would at least extend housing opportunities for Su staff and to allow them to have their children within their own the same building that they work in there are other issues to work out with that but at the same time I believe that would take care of a lot of the legal issues around um funding and so forth because um basically what would happen is say a parent lives in Wethersfield but they teach at Windsor Wethersfield would not lose that ADM because this child goes to Windsor so that is a little more expensive winter but at least Windsor doesn't bear the risk of a large special ed bill would the board like me to ask Pietro that question and is that part

119of negotiations in the next round I I think this would have to be part of of negotiations to work it out within the contract but before we take that step we have to really find out what are the legal ramifications within a a um a inter-su uh it probably have to be a not a policy and within the contract allowing um staff to have their children go to the school in which they work at okay I'll follow up on that yep that was follow up on your questions that had also been on my list of things that we talked about okay Rebecca um I was just um Christine when you mentioned that Patriot Pietro had had commented on the potential financial implications um I I think that it's really important that um we we look

120at that because we need to look at whether our town is willing to take on those additional Financial um cost um and I'm not saying that they won't but I think that if if this is part of what ends up happening there's gonna need to be a really good presentation to the town to inform them that this is in our best interest um it's not about just keeping teachers but you know if they're gonna have to pay more money then you're gonna have to really share with them why are you paying more money um so I you know I I your comment about it's the you know Pietro's um consultation is really important what he's saying in terms of um there are many implications to what you potentially are doing and one of them is

121financial and and we as a board need to pay attention to that piece also thank you Rebecca Davis uh yeah I first got a second what Rebecca just said I think that just communicating that if we choose to go in that direction we definitely want to have a community conversation also Larry is right in my line of vision as Hannah Sanders for a while so I want to check out last night I think Bill spoke to what I was going to say is that as an Su it was a lot cleaner inside the Su yeah that being said I think uh it would be great to provide this for people outside the Su too if it was possible because I support I support this idea the question I would have is for vehicle would be

122uh Jeff Francis from the VSA said that all their school districts do this how are they going around the taxable benefit from the employee uh Pietro I asked that Pietro said there may be a few Su is that it's a long-standing practice and he said buy something stop it yeah that's what he said I don't know if they listen to him but well I'm interested in Europe guys to say about you know expanding with Nest YouTube and these you know like Larry said I think you know several of us feel if if we can do this it would be fantastic to do it but uh you know we really you gotta totally be careful and uh really understand what the legal ramifications are yeah if we decided yeah and you put it simply and I

123don't mean to minimize it at all that if you're trying to keep an employee which we are we value our teachers greatly and it's a sixty thousand dollar cost and by doing that you incur the cost of of students that need more that could cost you a hundred thousand dollars or I don't remember what a realistic amount for that would be you know are you willing to incur that and you just never know right yeah and if it's that too and you're adding what like 1.5 50 per student that could potentially be out of the district which you know is consideration right yeah yeah so I will follow up um and ask him about the legal legal ramifications around expanding the um housing base to anyone who lives in the SEO being able to bring

124their child and I will ask the if it's a taxable benefit why does it not the control of the idea okay thank you Caitlin Gould thank you Amy um just a couple questions around this I know um you know a couple years ago when we were doing the ACT 64 in the in the restructuring of the district um they were two two schools regions that opted out of the the Mountain School District and that was Wethersfield at Heartland and I just I'm just trying to get some clarification if if this is more around you know teachers outside of the wse wanting to bring their students their their children into these students of Windsor or if it's teachers of outside communities from the district wanting to bring their their students I know that there's already a

125policy for and a procedure for if students are out of District wanting to come to to Windsor and there needs there's criteria that needs to go through and it goes to committee to you know to decide if these students can be accepted out of District um you know I think that when the when the restructuring of the district happened Windsor already took um there was already financial implications of that with with Windsor losing students that you know in families that wanted to have school choice um to go to Springfield to go to Hartford to go to Woodstock um to go to these other you know Lebanon even across the border um so I think really taking into consideration what these financial implications are going to be now with bringing these students in and what that

126impact is going to be on Windsor in West Windsor residents within our district when they these other two areas made the choice as communities that they didn't want to have that benefit um it's really I I feel having Community input on it is going to be really really important um so that they have an understanding of what is happening because financially we as members are going to feel that burden Kayla just can I clarify so the question is if you are a staff member in our SU to a teacher or support staff or maintenance staff or kitchens to any staff member and you live in another town outside of our Su like you teach in Windsor but you live in Claremont or you preach in Heartland or you teaching Wethersfield or West Windsor it's not

127just right here in Windsor right in any school with banking in our in our Su the question is can you bring your children with you to work to go to our our schools one of our schools so it's staff members who live in a different Community than the communities in Windsor Southeast supervisory Union [Music] I don't know what that is and can you mute yourself please that's Nancy's clock yeah so just just to sort of clarify about students who who live in Heartland and live in Wethersfield intuition out to Hartford Hanover Claremont those school districts Wethersfield and Heartland still receive those students ADM okay and so granted we don't get there we within the Su don't get their high school students at the same time we are still they're Lea one of I think I

128believe Pietro has been um conservative in his criticism of this and to to understand the the lines of the risks I'll go through this in which if we allow this to happen if we do this then then basically we can never then again say no to allowing a a student of a parent who works to go into our district and so basically if a parent lives in Claremont they work for an Su school they have a student in which has it's not unrealistic for them to have a annual price tag of a hundred thousand dollars the other thing is that when we accept that students we also then accept the legal risk as parent Pro what is it Christine and local yeah parentis um so that then we would if we went into litigation then

129we would bear the entire cost of the litigation with with absolutely no Financial benefit of the residential um the the residential location of the student it just opens up a school district and an Su to a huge amount of risk that's going to be very difficult to justify to the taxpayers um of the towns and I have a hard time overstating that because it really is a huge risk it's a great idea but the risk is is really extreme for the benefit um that's just my take on it thank you for your clarification on that and Bill thanks for um for reiterating that as well I appreciate that just to clarify I I also agree with all of these I I just want all of the information yeah yeah thank you and oh my gosh

130yes [Music] okay so we have policy review which in the hour that it is and we we can move it if you think that's wise I think we should I'm sorry no should I think we should move it to the next meeting okay okay [Laughter] I do want to point out that I sent a paragraph from The Substitute Teacher policy the last paragraph there's some conflicting information I rewrote it and sent it to you Christine um because the conflicting information is based upon that the substitute teacher will be paid wages by determined by the superintendent and then the last set sentence it says wages for daily substitutes will be approved by the wseau my paragraph cleans everything up and still gives you the the Supreme you the superintendent the ability to make adjustments based upon

131planning and so forth so kind of that the same thing I've been bringing up for the last three times we read it I just did um so Bill you sent me those I wrote them out is it not corrected in the policy that's posted in the portal I can check yes it's not correct yeah I mean you did a basically what happened is it's a a sentence at the end was added which clarifies it but it contradicts the first sentence and so I cleaned it up so there's no contradiction sent that back to me yes so we're postponing all of these readings until next month so that's a good thread yes thank you so we are at items for Action yes um first item we have is a resignation the board make a motion to

132accept the resignation um yes if um I'll take a motion to accept the resignation of even more Davis and seconded by Nancy yes okay um any further discussion I know we talked about this as far as how to pursue yeah how to proceed so um I will start online this time with our voting on Anne-Marie hi thank you Colleen Spence I I Nancy I Nikki hi Rebecca hi hi Elizabeth I and we accept his resignation with a lot of regrets thank you and we wish him well and to still be part of our community conversation let's see are we already we already agreed on the edition of a special meeting so that one is done policy adoption no we are setting the next agenda and our next meeting our next meeting for February is the

133interviews right so this would be the March agenda okay and that March that's also the reorganization Yeah March yep the March meeting is reorganization foreign so it's the 27th so that gives all the words the opportunity to meet and have their reorganization so March 27th reorganization and policies I will just move what's on today to March for the policy War okay yeah that's great and the update on superintendent so um on our plan for the year February was going to be the special education report by Katie and March was going to be the data update by Brittany so we can certainly um adjust accordingly being short not shorten anything split it yeah because people will March like to ask questions okay so we'll do the Katie will do the special ed report March in March

134yeah and we'll move Brittany to um April and that'll be part of this yeah the data okay okay all right I'll let her know and that will be a full meeting yep yeah okay and let's see do we need an executive session this evening I um I want to thank everyone we had some very interesting conversation and discussion I think we've learned a lot from all of our discussions so thank you for coming this evening and I will take a motion to adjourn so what second and Nikki sorry sorry okay um so all those in favor can um leave the meeting all right [Laughter]