SU Board Meeting - September 26th, 2022

001our Southeast supervisory Union School Board and tonight is our regularly scheduled monthly meeting and it is now called the order are there any changes or additions to the agenda do you have yeah we were going to add a correspondence prior to items for discussion okay and we'll we'll add that um as a section of every agenda forward excuse me and let me see so that is one change to the agenda um I will take in promotion to approve the minutes from August 22nd that was make that motion and Nikki the second are there any um Corrections clarifications additions that need to be made to the minute of August 22nd hearing none I will start with the online people and then I'll go around the room Bev yay foreign Jamie Jamie left the meeting Rebecca yes

002Nicole yes Bill hi f is oh and Nancy abstain ing okay thank you the minutes have passed moving on to public participation and announcements is there anyone in our public who would like to speak on items not related to the agenda I would okay and your name my name is Betty Brooks do I talk now yes my name is Betty Brooks I'm a retired teacher for the last nine years I've been pretty much the only substitute teacher in Wethersfield and I can tell you I love the job that I'm getting too old and I'm here to request that to increase the pay the pay now is a hundred dollars a day minimally you need to be at school seven hours that amounts to 14 an hour it's not enough pain we need people to come

003in there to work and manage kids and teach it's not an easy job and I think that if you could raise the pay maybe you'd be getting some more people to do the job I'm 80 years old I've been doing this job for nine years I'd like to see I'm not asking for money I'm asking for more money for the next person who's who comes in to work especially hopefully we can find young mothers about a hundred dollars a day is not enough money fourteen dollars an hour if any of you think it's an easy job you're never never land it's not an easy job and people they can go to work from McDonald's in more than 14 an hour and probably talk about their set their own hours too I just would like to

004request that you consider at least a 25 a day increase thank you consideration when we're working on the budget well at the same time though we we already passed that we already as a board it was I think two years ago it just went up to 100. I think two years ago you just put it up to 100. when I first started working working 70 dollars and things a couple of years I've asked for a raise I never my life had to ask for a reason why I asked for a raise about two maybe three years ago it got raised to 100. okay but it's not enough oh goodness no my apologies I I was probably thinking of the future yes and I understand to the budget for the next year but it needs to

005happen now so that we can get somebody to do this job BJ I'm the only place I've worked is Wethersfield but BJ has to take Paris off of their other jobs in order to cover for classrooms that don't have anybody there and I just would like to say that you need to really discuss the fact that that pain needs to be increased thank you okay thank you thank you nice to see you baby nice to see you too and thank you thank you okay thank you it's it's not easy for the classroom teachers and for someone to come in and take over from that that we can all remember from our school days of substitute teachers right so thank you I was thankful thank you it is time for me to stop working thank you

006thank you yes and thank you for coming down oh you're very welcome to me it was just better than being on that I could have done that well thank you for coming thank you thank you that can be for a future agenda yeah are there any other public participation is there any other public participation we're on to announcement just an announcement um that the applications for the State youth Council are open will be um going through I think mid-october I believe was the date and we are advertising that to all our students the some will apply to be part of that Council so exciting all right is it okay yeah is it possible um if you're announcing into the study is it possible to um for the parents to get that announcement also so that

007they can encourage I mean so that they can maybe have a conversation with your students about it but also encourage them if they feel that their child is someone who can participate in it yeah absolutely oh great yeah foreign we are on to our administrative report oh I'm sorry I do have an announcement for all school board members this coming Thursday which is September 29th at six o'clock there is a virtual Vermont School Board Association regional meeting and the main topics of discussion would be looking at the governance requirements that the state will um the mistake has put together and also information about a mini Grant or Equity work and there will be a short business meeting as well for the Windsor Region and you can go online to register for that there was an

008email that got sent out hopefully most of you received it also has the link of how to register for that meeting so you'll get those in link for Thursday and I hope everyone has an opportunity to participate in that meeting and now just to superintendents go to that meeting they are certainly do you like the I got it so I was like oh do I think so I will sign up okay great yes okay awesome yeah because um secretary French Open attends and provides an update on what's happening in the state and now now all righty okay so um I'm gonna just start I know it seems like a while ago but um I said that I would share a little bit about the opening of schools in this report tonight so we started with

009new teachers on the 24th oh sorry um and we met in this room um we had about 30 new people in here I would estimate um we did a fun Icebreaker we did uh shared important information you could see Tina Canfield up front she was sharing some HR related information um some Frontline information that's where our teachers are recording professional development logging in for um coverage if they need a sub so that's our that's our all-inclusive system and then uh each new faculty member got time to meet with their mentors which was great they had lunch together and had the afternoon um in their buildings to their mentors so it was a great great first start we followed up the next day uh two days later the staff actually had their prep Day first this

010year their classroom prep day which we've heard really good um feedback around they they appreciated being able to put their things in order it allowed them to focus better on professional development we're all like that so they really did appreciate that um so we welcomed all staff in the 26th we had some introductions we really reviewed and celebrated the Strategic plan and the work we've done so far and we actually showed the video that we shared with the community at the community Forum last spring so they got to see that we did a little directional alignment commitment to see where we're at with staff um we're just looking at that digging into that data now pretty good on Direction and commitment our alignment needs a little bit of work so that's where we'll be focusing

011um Angie shared the curriculum work plan and uh Brittany shared the professional learning management system that that different differentiated professional learning plan which is new for stack this year a new system to house it and it gives them more voice and choice in what they're learning and we had a multi-tiered systems of supports update we kept it short it's the morning and staff had some time to do some building-based work as well but the but the feeling was very positive staff seemed happy to be back we kept it light we played a little kahoot game and learned about each other so it was fun I felt very bad for not being here to welcome everyone as I've been able to do in the past but I was at my own open school day for um

012new teachers at my job so and Amy let us know that she couldn't make it that day and we totally understood because she's been working in a school um on that day some individual teams met there was time for that I just wanted to let you know that the middle level folks got together that's Jacob in the background meager he's one of the leaders of the team and they really were talking about uh their goals for the year which is consistency in The Advisory program how they're going to implement the Leader in Me components personalized learning plans plps for students um and student engagement it was a really good meeting and and the three leaders of the middle level team are Jacob meager from Windsor Michael butts from from um Heartland and then jbila from

013Wethersfield so we have good representation and they're really leading Angie and I meet with them and kind of talk about the agenda but they're they're leaving the work which is wonderful that's that's so sorry uh Jacob neighbor yeah so it's really exciting to see um school graduates back um boys basketball coach oh wow that's great yeah that's great that's cool yeah he's doing a great job um we had some uh each building had their own Leader in Me Training Day depending on where they were at either it was either core one review or reboot we called it and um and and one school is ready to to move into core two so each school had their own individualized training I'm going to show you in just a moment a little bit of a video about

014how it's going from one of the teachers couldn't help it first day um kids were happy to be back staff are happy to be back the vibe was very positive I think the nothing would you know covered kind of in the rear view mirror felt really good for people and the focus has just been on you know was on getting to know students schedules that kind of thing but overall it was a really positive start um oh okay right I'm going to play the video hi Su board my name is Anna Brooks I am a first grade teacher at the Heartland Elementary School and I am also a lighthouse coordinator here at school I visited a leader in me school several years ago with a group and I remember walking into the school being greeted

015by children and being toured around the school by the students and remembering how amazing that was and thinking oh my gosh I want this from the the classroom data hung in the classrooms which at that point I didn't really understand fully and the mission statements hung on the classroom doors in the cohesiveness of the school was remarkable and now I get to say I get to do this I get to do this every day in my classroom and it feels feels so good to be a part of a school that's moving forward in such a proactive way in our 21-22 school year goal was to learn and live the seven habits and I think some of us did that more than others just from being a part of the lighthouse team I was able to

016really bring that into my classroom and I can say without a doubt last year was one of the toughest teaching years I've ever been through I've read a lot but those first graders left in such a good head space and as such leaders in our school and adults were recognizing it and the students were recognizing that recognizing it and they recognized that in themselves and that was such an important piece for them to see in their in themselves that the leader is in me um I love this year having students come into my classroom having some of that common language and really building off of the seven habits each and every day through actions and teachable moments having those displayed and just using language so frequently throughout the day remember your habits what are your

017habits good habits make good routines good routines make great leaders be proactive nice job having a plan you thought ahead work first then play just today I had two students who did not complete all their morning work it happens right we have things that pop up in our morning um and after literacy centers they sat down they completed their morning work without being asked and then came up so proud I completed my morning work look nice job thinking ahead you had a plan go out to run about nice job but just seeing them thrive in their own bodies and being like Oh my gosh I can do this I'm in charge of me this is this is my school this is my opportunity I get to be at school and do all these amazing things

018it's taking it off of Anna Brooks who likes to be in control and putting it on the students and putting it in their hands every single day we've created leadership roles in the classroom which has taken a couple weeks to try to tease out what the students are really wanting to take control of in the classroom and we've made a list of those back here and students get to sign up and try out new new roles in the classroom we take them off we add new ones and every day we're tweaking things and figuring out new roles that students like to try today I had the literacy centers going the timer went off and I had a student stand up and actually give positive feedback before we rotated to the next station just off a

019whim they came up and did a really nice job you're thinking ahead you're being proactive oh it looks like you need to clean up your center before we switch but they're first graders they're six and they're taking control of their own learning and it's so powerful to see working in your classroom and this that's not a Miss Brooks thing that's a um that's a student thing that's what they're doing on their own they're leading themselves um so leadership roles have been going great and then our mission statement has also taken a couple weeks to come to fruition and it's all about discovering their hopes and dreams and talking about being kind and respectful and responsible and safe all of those things that we've done all along at Heartland Elementary but now bringing it into a

020new light with leader of me and connecting it with the seven habits and really giving the kids um language to articulate what they want out of their year they have named it their first grade story and we we read it every single day um and it is just a great way to start our day in our first grade story if I can pull it up and see you at the same time goes like this we the first grade promise to have fun each day try new things make new friends and learn all that we can we will work hard to be kind respectful responsible and safe and to build new habits that will help us become great leaders and that that is what they came up with that is what they hope and dream for

021their school year and that is what they reflect on every single day even in the hard moment if it didn't go okay we let it go we take um a leadership lab moment so thinking about leader and me with behavior has really changed the Escape of our school I think um our seis now have common language to work off of so when a student is showing unexpected Behavior we talk about the habits we read the room before they come back where do you need to be what did you learn and it's really coming full circle it doesn't feel as choppy so that's a really it's a nice piece to add universally to our school just the cohesiveness that Leader in Me is bringing um to our daily routines at public school um I couldn't be

022more proud to be a part of the team and to be working and building these foundational skills because they are our future and I'm really excited to see how this plays out in the next couple years as it as we get deeper into wigs and goal setting and really giving the kids more voice and choice in their education um it's just a really exciting path to be on so thank you so I would like to start by telling you a story about being good yeah what I was growing up in Nigeria oh yeah right that was amazing [Music] I agree I think that sounds like an amazing first grade class I do have a question though if that's she spoke about um leadership roles that are created and I am just wondering if that is

023across all classrooms where leadership roles are created and all students have an opportunity to participate in those roles because I I think that that I mean first grade to start that sort of exposure is amazing uh yes that is part of leading me the students um again it's it's at various stages across the supervised reunion but but teachers work with students to come up with what leadership roles do you think we need and they get to try them out um eventually the goal would be to have school-wide leadership roles that the kids come up with and they can they can you know apply for those roles and test them up within the school it's a job descriptions and I think that that's amazing yes that's powerful yeah and Anna couldn't come tonight but she agreed

024to the video and I don't know gave me the chills watching yourself it's awesome very well spoken yeah yeah um those are her leadership roles she said a couple pictures so I just put those in for you to see um but but it is it is um I think the implementation is going well in all the schools even though they're at different places but that's the goal of core one um leadership roles class mission statements um so it's like understanding I think where you are now with that and um how far you've got is that part of the core one so core one is um being rebooted in Wethersfield um Albert bridge and Windsor school and then core two and then at Heartland is where the students are going to be setting their own goals

025the other three schools will be getting their closer training in January so our goal is that everyone is at core two by the end of June 2023. so that uh like students have had some practice setting goals that's K8 because 912 looks a little bit different so okay hold it okay eventually we'd like to bring some students to talk to you about it um so and I'm very excited to uh bring you a name tonight for the position of coordinator of diversity equity and inclusion as you know I reported we were interviewing we found the right person um his name is Ethan Lawrence he's here I think in the in the meeting tonight he is able to join us part-time this year and we have met and we've worked at a part-time job description with

026him and um he's ready to begin his work following your approval so I think we'll probably need to add that for items for action and uh we just met actually Katie myself Sergio Angie and Mary Gannon um we probably all remember from our very crazy I didn't do that but Mary has experienced Miriam has agreed to uh Mentor um Ethan in this role so we're very excited about that she's doing that for other Dei coordinators that need though the one at heart Hartford as well so Ethan comes to us with uh Bachelor of a ba from St anselms College in Manchester New Hampshire is a master of Social Work in transformative social work from the University of Vermont he is currently a special educator at Rivendell in the Expedition classroom and he chairs the local

027Jedi Committee in Windsor and he's done that for the past couple of years so that is Ethan um and we'll look forward to your approval of that position later on in the agenda does he want to enter sure Ethan do you want to unmute and say hello to the the board and the community members who are here sure hi can you hear me hi how's it going um well thank you so much for that wonderful introduction um yeah my name is Ethan Lawrence um I'm very uh honored to be considered for this position um I live in Windsor just a little bit more about uh I guess me if it's helpful um I live in Windsor I actually grew up in Hartford I went through the Hartford Public School System and I know the Upper

028Valley really well I mean this has been my home and as a home as a kid and then my Now My Chosen home and so um I really care about this community and I really love the people that are here and um and I've particularly worked with uh kind of disadvantaged kids for for pretty much entirely my career in some form actually really connected with a member of the public tonight that was talking about being a substitute teacher and the really need for really solid pay there and an increase uh definitely echo my support but um I did some substitute teaching and that was one of the first ways in which I started to see inequities in schools and and so I'm really honored to be considered for this and if you have any questions

029about me and my background uh what I'd like to bring to the table um please don't hesitate hesitate to reach out all right any questions at the moment okay that's excited yeah it's very exciting um just a quick strategic Plan update because that is our Focus moving that plan forward I've sent out an invitation to community members parents to join us for moving the vision forward there'll be four sessions this year with Mike Nicholson who was our consultant who helped us with our core competencies and our portrait and our strategic plan we have a parent advisory Council that he'll be meeting with we have about nine Community parents who have agreed to be part of that they'll be helping us with some staff professional learning as well when he's here and we have a student

030advisory Council that he'll be meeting with about I think I'm up to 11 students invited to 20. so getting them to check their emails and so the first session is um October 7th love for any board members who can make it to join us on the seventh it will be serving dinner at 5 30. it will be at Heartland Elementary School on October 7th I'll make sure you get that invite I'll send it to you at the end of the meeting if you haven't seen it um and then Mike will be working with us so we're very excited about that as well and then just a couple of other updates before I let Larry um do a little bit of uh updating on some central office things just to keep you posted school safety is

031of utmost importance right now always but we're just really trying to make sure that our um our buildings have been looked at and our staff is well trained and know what to do in case of an emergency I have been meeting with our SRO officer Paul uh Larry Jim uh we are meeting regularly really to make sure we have protocols in place and everybody knows what to do and it's very uh there are lots of moving Parts when you really start thinking about it and diving in or where will um a little triage be where we'll come in where will the command post be who calls this person you know so there's a lot of details that we're trying to flush out and get um laid out so that everybody knows and then we're going

032to practice because we have to um but so that's an ongoing thing that we're working on um when do you anticipate having some sort of a plan so Paul thinks it's going to take us a few months to get a real and and all the schools have Emergency Management plans these are the fine details of more of the Su what we're going to be doing okay if there's a an emergency and in schools I think the requirement we're back to to drills this year we've been on a break from them during covid so each school is responsible for three um three options based drills this year which means our new protocols children are taught that they have options and staff are taught there are options there's an emergency they don't have they don't um we

033used to sit them in the corner of the room and wait we don't do that anymore they can barricade they can fight back throw things or they can evacuate and run so those are the options and they get to choose in the in these types of situations teachers get to choose what to do based on where people are out in the building what's going on so we have to practice that okay in a non-threatening non-traumatic way which is complicated so and the first ones they're just going to talk through and talk through um so we are we are working on those as well there is a safety convening a Governor's safety convening in I think November that some of us are going to go to as well so doing everything we can um our Equity

034ad is underway data collection phase ends next week and then we'll move on to the next phase which would be some focus groups some surveys so we'll keep you updated on that you probably will get contacted for some of it I'm imagining and then our covet updates we've had zero cases at Heartland Albert bridge and Wethersfield we did have a small a number of cases at Windsor five students and five staff so and just to let you know nurses are working on setting up flu clinics at local schools it sounds like they may be um family clinics like on a Sunday you drive up and they're in the parking lot that's what Windsor's working on and the other schools as well so I'll keep you posted on those I know that the nurses what is

035the protocol the protocol now is um the the nurse makes the call the nurse gets to decide if the student if a student is sent to the office the nurse's office and the student is sick the nurse makes the call on whether the student needs to um you know call the parent can we test whether that student is sent home masked in the building they stay out for um minimum five days until they're starting to if they're starting to feel better they can come back I mean the CDC guidance is still wear a mask after five days and sick I think most people do that um and we let classrooms know if there are um if there's a need for that if there's a student with a particular health issue we let the families student

036situation know if there's a medical need okay so the kids that are in the classroom if there is a need you if there is a need yeah yeah we're not notifying every classroom every time okay and not every family in the classroom just if let's say student a that's only student A's parents will be made aware of because the student a May and the medical has a medical issue that needs to know if they may have been exposed okay so it's not a whole classroom notification and then that's worked out well where so far yeah so far yep fingers crossed fingers crossed okay Larry are you ready yeah all right Larry's gonna take over so these are the fiscal year 22 which was last school year the um they're not totally final financials uh they

037will change a little bit but not much uh based on sometimes we don't get special ed revenue for the state until it could be as late as December uh first previous fiscal year so barring that um what you're seeing up there is that there was a surplus in all the programs um and that's the bottom box uh the general fund is 265 000 225 Early Childhood which is separate fund is 91 358 Food Services has a surplus of 97 251. um so that's that's how we ended last school year and we hoped in October to have uh the first quarter financials it's like like we do for July August September this fiscal year Meanwhile we're also working with this beer 24 budget with the ascu budget committee we've already met once and we'll meet in

038early October with that so we're working on three different budgets at once yeah all right uh there were some questions at the last mouse got any uh meeting and I thought to we just do a quick overview um since everybody on the Madison County Board is also on the Su board uh and it will affect other schools which is everything in technology is an Su function uh just give you a heads up on our Chromebook deployment how it's rolling out so if you see um two years ago we did five through eight last year we did not do 12 and this year we're doing 43.5 there was a question of you know how how are we refreshing Chromebooks and basically uh you know I lean a lot on Mike Walker for what those grades are

039the average lifespan of a Chromebook we've been getting is about five years so for example if the high school gets new Chromebooks then they'll filter down to the other schools for five through eight and then so on and so forth knowing that the high school uh generally uses the Chromebooks more than say first graders therefore they would get the highest Ram with the best speeds um and it was kind of touch and go last during colbit obviously because the supply chain but we uh we got in early so we were pretty lucky last year to get what we got we're also running a pilot with uh one classroom and Wethersfield one class in Windsor uh for touch screen Chromebooks for kindergarten and see how that goes um we want to do it for a while

040and again it was hard to get it so we got some now they struggle with the mouse yeah that's why so uh yeah next and then um just to give you an idea is we centralized in 2018 uh 2019-20 uh all of the SU equipment at the Su and as you can see uh that 194 number on the far left that's when every school had their own Tech equipment line since 1920 we brought it under the umbrella of su tech and as you can see now I can't you know 24 that's going to be a little bump up on the 121 but it's in draft form we'll see what the budget committee does with it but right now you know uh you can see that there's been a lot of um you know consolidation savings

041uh if we had kept flatlined at that 194 number in 1819 if we had just had a flat budget um you would have spent among all the schools 169 100 and that's only over four or five years so that's what we've been doing with Chromebooks uh the next uh that came up was about transportation and just wanted a background give you an overview I know there's some newer people on the board we haven't been talking a lot about Transportation since uh during covet so just to bring everybody up to date act 153 uh which was passed in 2010 is the same law that uh mandated the special ed dfdsu and HR the Su level um it also mandated that transportation to be an Su function our current provider is student transportation of Vermont um and

042we're under contract with them they won the RFP back in 2020 uh through 25. so in the last year that contract we will go out with another RFP uh I manage Transportation that's part of my umbrella and my responsibility next to the next one yeah the next one is uh this is kind of what my life's been like because one thing that's different with um Su Transportation this year which was not necessarily the cases now we have different Su programs at different buildings so for example the ace program is at Windsor but students from other schools yeah academic Community Excellence is at house at Windsor and Katie oversees that program it's so but we have students from other districts coming so that creates a transportation challenge also TK which is transition kindergarten so what we're

043seeing by Katie is Alice at Heartland and we have students from other places coming we also have the interdisp choice that Albert bridge in West and Windsor have opened up at Madison School District we'll just provide another challenge and then Bridging the Gap um you know we've uh I think we've come up with a solution for that and so because students aren't waiting on a bus like they were we getting them West Windsor kids to Windsor for Bridging the Gap um and and not having it so it's a van um they're able to just let them out of school a little bit earlier and then take them right to bridge in the Gap so they don't have to wait or have Jennifer or April tied up driving the van which is what we were doing

044which we know wasn't a long-term solution the algebra bus yeah we have that and that's the end of the that report um Angie has occurred the curriculum report as part of the administrative report as well but she's going to share her screen on that yes okay okay good afternoon what what Angie shut up can I ask Larry a couple of questions um so when you say you manage the bus service you manage Roots no I I don't we we kind of work on the roots with the bus okay the but the bus company manages the routes uh and and it's it's sort of like um I want as much time as the principles can spend on academics and the teachers and everything else so obviously the principals are involved in some way especially when there's

045a bus and they need to like that will happen without a bridge I think it was last week but it was running late and Jennifer South a message but uh no I don't manage the rules okay the individual drop-offs do you um I try to help out with the uh the ace and the TK that's something I was involved in do you know of any other districts um in Vermont that function self-transportation kind of like we do the kitchen here there must be someone still laughing okay um I know there's fewer than there was 15 years ago right but there must be some left okay we have till 25 it might be interesting at least to investigate their perspective model yeah we have time and I can um I can look into that okay yeah

046I'm gonna regret not having my water bottle so um tonight's presentation is to help you have present to you the things that are happening in the curriculum instructional assessment Arena my team is here Brittany and Patty and they have when it gets to their section of the presentation they'll be sharing you with you the activities that they are doing so I am Angie Ledoux for those of you online who don't know who I am I am the curriculum director and the federal grants manager um the presentation tonight is hoping that you get a sense of what we do in the curriculum office there's a lot of things big rocks and smaller rocks are the way that in leader in me that we refer to our big goals and our smaller goals so there are several

047areas in which we are working in curriculum you're going to hear about uh and I can't read it sorry I gotta just move that phone down uh we're going to give you an overview of the summer work that we did the work coming up on curriculum Thursdays various things that we're supporting the leadership teams leader in these um support and the Eureka 2.0 pilot which is our math program in instruction we're going to talk about instructional leadership the mtss upgrades professional Learning Management tools instructional coaching the mentor program supervision evaluation Universal Design for Learning and an assessment the behavior logging tool and the local assessment tools review and I'm going to tell you a little bit about what's happening with the Esser grants and the title grants the Consolidated Federal program grants so let's start

048off with building a strong foundation for the year summer work we did a lot of Summer work this slide and I will not read it to you this slide just shows you all the people that took advantage of um first of all the leftmost column those two columns are all the teachers that applied for and submitted work for interdisciplinary unit development the greenish column is the Eureka 2.0 pilot these are the teachers that participated in a training that Patty offered to get them set up to be successful in the pilot that is um throughout this school year the gray one is the leader in me online training I offered for all of any new teachers if they wanted to on their own Time explore the leader in need portal and uh there were trainings in

049the seven habits and also in core one to help get them up to speed and these were the teachers that took advantage of that training and then the lighthouse teams in the yellow they were the team members that came together in the second week of August to have trainings in planning their year and what it would look like at when the staff came back some other things that was happening and I'm not sure Katie if I got the numbers right but Summer Academy about 100 Kids yep 40-ish staff um maybe give or take um I didn't get the numbers right and then I'm like I'm Katie's probably in her presentation we're going to talk about summer Academy at some point this year yeah yeah about 35 including so it's pretty close very good um and

050it was five weeks four weeks it was four weeks okay um we did some software and systems work that uh that was the bulk of Britney's work this summer and she's going to tell you more about that we had 20 plus new teachers here at orientation and the mentor program is a little bit different this year from my perspective because Katie's uh running uh new program through the agency of Education to provide special mentoring for special Educators they they act they need more something different and more comprehensive and that's a program that she is working with her staff on and I had I am nine mentors um and two more being trained so that they are all working with people so curriculum Thursdays first second and third Thursdays of every month are dedicated to curriculum

051work after school uh it's starting with us building the foundation strengthening our proficiency-based system that will allow flexibility for all our students then we are going to reflect and plan forward looking at the content and and having our teacher teams make recommendations for what curriculum and program review may look like moving forward because we know that has budgetary implications aligning up aligning transferable skills the learning expectations are not aligned with the language and the fortune of graduate nor the language of the seven habits and leader in Maine and part of the work this year will be aligning that with our learning expectations for our transferable skills and then if we have time curriculum mapping is an important step as we strengthen our proficiency-based system more and then looking forward to fy24 we will be looking

052at assessment formative and summative assessment other priorities I am working with the principles on instructional leadership I meet bi-weekly with every uh principal every building principle to talk about a problem of practice and uh with with a student learning problem and then a teacher learning problem a teacher problem of practice and then we look at what the principal's practice is going to be in order to support that teacher or those that group of teachers that are identified as the inquiry group and then so that the principal can see the direct line to improve student outcomes of course leader in the implementation and then the self-determined learning project that we are working on with the professional development of Mike Nicholson and the visioning work I forgot that I had that's just great presentation skills I forgot

053that I was going to tell you a little bit more but I already told you all these things about instructional leadership um Leader in Me core One Core two I explained that a little bit earlier that we are working on core one and all the buildings Heartland is a little bit ahead of everybody else with core two but everybody will be working on four two five five I would say by Spring and moving forward into looking for a strong start to fy24 self-determined learning or half day learning sessions and it is going to be great work so we have leadership teams in the following areas we have the middle level team that Christine told you about earlier the trauma-informed team leaders are Patty gray and Jen Aldrich the wellness team is Annette Jennings and Elizabeth

054Martin Martens and the diversity Equity inclusion team is Sergio Katie and um Ethan Lawrence and Jen Durham which I didn't know is she going to be uh she's the leader she's the team leader so I didn't have and I didn't know that then I don't have to to this slide in Grants management sr2 we are trying to get that done uh fully spent it should be we invested in our self-determined learning consultant and our Equity audit with sr2 for this year and it should pretty much be we might have a little bit left to try to figure out how to spend but our goal is to spend that whole thing um and the recovery plan we did report out on the recovery plan at the end in May it was required by the end of

055May and I must I'm certain that would be another report out at the end of this school year title one we have two interventionists and two positions in both Windsor and Heartland we still have an open position in Windsor as a title interventionist a classroom teacher came out of the classroom to become a title one interventionist at the primary level here in Windsor which is excellent we're very happy that that teacher agreed to do that The Continuous Improvement plan really drives our title funding and so I'm going to be at the end of this talking to you a little bit more about the continuous Improvement plan I had to make a few changes in it and then I'm going to be asking the board to approve that and items for Action tonight just because the

056agency wants to see that we brought it to the board and then it's in the board minutes and I forgot to do that last time so our pastor three we had Summer Academy we have transitional kindergarten those teaching positions that are still in that and leader in me when we're during budget season will be moving some of those uh investments into local budgets and um then we have the rfesser plan which I as we add to it the sr3 budget has to be fully funded by the November 1st and so as I do that I have to inform the public and inform our our staff of uh any differences in the plan that we make um and of course all that information can be found on the website on the curriculum instruction and assessment website

057so Brittany you wanna come on yep I'm right here hi everybody it's nice to see you all um I'll try to move through things quickly but of course if you have questions along the way don't hesitate to to ask for those of you who don't know me I'm the mtss and data coordinator for the SE which was a new position last year formerly known as the recovery coordinator so it's kind of shifted into kind of what we're looking forward to for the future so Angie mentioned that I worked a lot this summer on a couple of different projects to get ready for the school year one was building an mtss resource centered website that is a staff facing website kind of a One-Stop shop with professional development opportunities listed it has our calendars on there

058it has a lot of different resources for how we manage our mtss systems so we've gotten a lot of great feedback on that and it's something that we're going to continue to build over the course of the school year uh Frontline uh you know we already had Frontline involved with uh Frontline Central and doing some of our amp sense management and now we moved into professional growth and um our evaluation system is now housed on there uh it's actually a really cool system we're doing the slow roll out but basically um I can add in all of our professional learning opportunities into the system for staff to sign up for um so we have a catalog of opportunities staff sign up they can track all of their professional development in there and um from an

059Su standpoint what's nice is we can see what staff are taking what strategic plan goal areas where you know we're working on most it will also align with our evaluation system uh which will be great so a principal can say hey we you know I could really use some work on this area why don't you go find a PD opportunity that aligns and they can do that all right within one system so um while we are rolling that out solely it seems to be catching hold and staff seem to really like it uh behavior management system that is a plug-in that Larry actually found for us uh it's called MBA and it plugs into power schools so it's kind of all in one spot staff can go in I was able to customize it you

060with a couple of different staff members over the summer to make sure it it matched what we want to report out on um and so all staff are using that now uh right now I'm meeting with each school's team to talk about how we're looking at that data how we're using it and how we're going to report out on it in the future so that we can really be using it to make effective change in our schools see perfect okay um next steps with Frontline um like I said we're we're rolling it out slowly uh we are currently just doing we are doing the essential trainings I'm also putting all of our PD on Frontline system and I'm using a Google form for staff to sign up for so that they you know we don't

061overwhelm people people can have a choice between how they're how they're doing that for now um however all of our course approval forms are on there and our evaluation system is on there um that that seems to be going really well we're not we're jumping into evaluations coming up pretty soon while staff will start accessing some of those things by February we're going to kind of gauge and get some feedback from people but we hope to be fully implementing Frontline professional growth within the schools we'll continue to provide additional training we can also expand our use in this to include trainers so um an instructor or trainer can schedule their own course they can track their own PD within there they can hold groups in in the Learning System so it's it's there's a lot

062that can be done and I'm really excited to see us continue to move forward next slide perfect differentiated professional learning this is something we had a team last year our differentiated professional learning team they worked really hard to figure out what our priorities are for this year and now we'll work to to figure out what it's going to look like for the following year this year we rolled out our foundation which is um a professional um I think can you hear me Brittany can you just back up you glitched out there for a second so just if you want to start again with differentiated professional I think all right can you hear me still or no yep you're good okay um so our foundational professional learning is just the skills that we want all teachers

063to have so every teacher got a professional learning profile that outlined exactly what they needed and um it's just a way for us to make sure that all teachers are speaking the same language regarding our curriculum collaborative problem solving trauma informed practice those kinds of things Leader in Me is another one we also wanted to provide voice and choice so they have a variety of opportunities that they can choose from on a different on RPD days we have a PD calendar that while certainly we can continue to add to it it's outlined for the entire year so staff know when some of our professional learning opportunities are going to be are going to be offered and they can sign up at any point and just providing as many options as we can for staff and

064we're going to continue to build that especially as we build some build in some train the trainers Brittany Rebecca has a question for you um with the foundational professional development um you indicated that um you want to make sure that all staff um have a foundational um um overview of programs that are being used in um and accessing you know talking similar language are you saying that all staff are have to take certain professional developing opportunities that the school is offering um short answer is yes so basically what we said is we have like collaborative problem solving is a great example a couple years ago we got all staff trained in the tier one for collaborative problem solving but during covid things didn't quite get kept up with and so we missed some staff and

065we want to make sure that all staff have at least a minimum so this year we came up with what we call exposure trainings so staff need to have at least a bare minimum of the exposure training which will be offered twice for collaborative problem solving twice for trauma inborn practices and they have to go ahead and they have to either take that or they can seek out to take something higher than that such as tier one in collaborative problem solving which is a class um so we just want to be speaking the same language and make sure everybody has has what they need and they can get it within our SU that's great that's good yeah next slide uh yes please um mtss we didn't change a ton this year however we did get

066a lot of feedback from staff that they needed a little bit of extra support so we added in our team leaders this year I listed their names I know I know it's probably fairly small but um so every school every pod or team let's say it's K2 where three five has their own team leader who kind of manages that system they'll make sure that you know teachers know what to prepare when they come into a meeting make sure that the data is all collected make sure that the paperwork's completed the way it should be and then we'll facilitate the meeting this will help with consistency predictability and also make sure that we're providing the best we possibly can and that our our and that it's sustainable over time that we're able to continue to move

067this forward I also outline just what our what our meeting structure is we have our Su meetings where we're talking about Su data and we're making sure that the system as a whole is working really well our school coordinators are then meeting um at our buildings to talk about how things are working within their building and then we have our team meeting leader structure so so far it's going well it's the first month so we're just kind of getting into some of those meetings now but it seems to be going well next slide yeah data use um so the only last thing I wanted to share is just we're really working on providing some additional supports for data use within our schools um we're going to continue to do our data Dives and set goals

068using um the data that we have coming in all the time whether that be academic or behavior we have data practices meetings once a month now at every team where they're just bringing in data to look at classroom their own classroom instruction so they might bring writing samples or they might bring track my progress data or math data and then they're looking at that and saying okay what could I be doing differently within my classroom or what's really going well that I want to share with others um we're going to continue to review our assessment tools very similar to what we're doing with curriculum to make sure that our assessment tools are doing what we're porting out on what we want them to report out on and that they are based on the most current

069science of learning um and then we're going to continue looking at better ways to collect data and report on that data um right now I kind of manage all of those systems using a fancy Google forms and shared drives and um it's it's working it's going well people are getting the information they need but of course we want to continue to make sure that we're we're moving forward with that and getting better and then providing training for our staff I think that's all I had unless there are any questions thank you Brittany next up is Patty gray our instructional coach for literacy and math so Patty if you want to unmute yeah uh good evening um if I cut out I will apologize now my connection's a little glitchy as is my throat um but

070I first of all wanted to give a shout out to Anna Brooks because that was a really well spoken eloquent um sentiment about the value of leader in me and I remember touring the school with her and a team from Heartland when we looked at the school in Manchester and just being amazed at what they're doing down there and to see it in our Su now is amazing and it's because of teachers like Anna um and other and many others that are just bringing it to fruition so um very proud to be a part of that and to to see that happening and then I'm not sure if he's still on but I did want to say welcome to Ethan Lawrence um really looking forward to working with you and it's always nice to meet

071a fellow Hartford grad so that's nice too um I am the instructional coach for the Su in case you um don't know me I work with teachers and administrators and we look at instruction we look at problems of practice we look at data all kinds of things I work with teams and individuals um kind of a jack of all trades if you will um one of the things one of the major things we're doing this year is looking at our Mass curriculum we had a lot of teachers asking last year about Eureka Math which we have been using for and Angie helped me out I think six years yeah since 2015. um and while it's a really rich fabulous program it's it has some drawbacks to it and thankfully the the um creators of Eureka

072Math which is called great minds great minds listen to the feedback of thousands and thousands of teachers Nationwide who said listen the it's it's to you know the verbiage is too much for young children it the language is not appropriate it's it's overwhelming visually it's you know it's too dense and they really worked to revise it and what they ended up with was Eureka Math 2 or actually they call it Eureka math squared sorry and so we had a lot of teachers asking last year can we please look at it can we can we just give it a try and after a lot of consideration in looking at a research-based uh best practices for teaching math and comparing the old Eureka with the new Eureka we decided you know it might be worth giving it

073a go and so we have actually even more teachers than what Angie had on her list because I think that might have been just one list but we actually have 18 teachers K-8 who are from all right schools one three of the schools who are piloting um we did have a bit of a glitch getting started in that a major component of Eureka math squared is the digital component and that is because it's very much meant to be interactive visually so that teachers can use their smart boards and display the information in the slides and and work with that and have practical models for students and work models for students and we couldn't get into the system and it was because our clever um had some glitches and I'm still getting texts currently from teachers

074you can hear my phone dinging probably who are they're dinging me saying I can't get in today and it's because clever's broken today is what I was told um but at any rate we're able to get into the digital component now and we're really starting to look at how rich it is and how much more appropriate it is and so the hope is to look at it this year we did all that comparison last year and so for fiscal year 23 the 18 teachers who are working in the pilot we're going to be meeting monthly they'll meet with me and we'll look at uh professional learning around the program around best practices for math instruction and I'll also be meeting with grade level or pod level teams once a month to really look at what

075are the problems with the program how can we tweak it if we do end up with full implementation in fiscal year 24 what do we need to do to make that really effective and less stressful than we've seen other programs in the past because we know when we adopt a program there's always tweaks you have to make and then toward the end of the year that the hope is that this team of pilot teachers will have had enough time with the program and will have enough data to really look at that and the scope and sequence and look at the pacing and does it meet our needs of a math program and give that recommendation to the ad team for next steps do we adopt it next year or is it just not the right

076thing and so that remains to be seen but I'm very excited that so many people were were very optimistic and and enthusiastic about piloting it so that's a big part of my year this year into you can go ahead if you don't mind um and then going back to what Brittany was talking about I'm involved in some of those essential trainings this year this foundations um some of you may know is our K3 um foundational uh reading skills program trauma-informed practices and other things uh professional learning that some of the things I provided last year around specific instructional practices student engagement things like that this summer and last year we I worked a lot with the team with Angie and Brittany around the new teacher Academy and how to make that more supportive so that

077the induction practices we have for new teachers both brand new to the profession and to the SU um is more supportive so that we can retain teachers because we know teachers are we're losing them at a pretty rapid pace and we want to retain the teachers we have um and then um the mentor program Angie mentioned there's been you know some tweaks to that and then how I as an instructional coach can support those new teachers I'm going to be meeting with them throughout the year and then my usual one-on-one coaching with teachers which includes planning lessons curriculum support and so on and then working with teams working with principals and then the curriculum work either through a writing pie we had a writing pilot last year that the recommendation from the pilot team was

078no this is not the the best program for us and so we're kind of back to square one point B if you will in that we have to look at that again which is perfectly fine I'd rather that than not make the best choice as a team for our SU and looking at our Assessments in Reading in other areas and the math pilot and Foundation support so I guess you could say I've got my fingers in a lot of pies I kind of like that I thrive on that Angie next please that's it oh that was it oh yeah yeah I think that's a lot so thank you Patty thank you and um thank you uh everyone for money and share and we look forward to reporting out the end of the year how we

079made all that happen this thank you for sharing all of that information is it possible I mean because it's just great information but to get some of that information maybe in half of the year before as opposed to getting it all at the end of the year um well we have our schedule of when we are going to be which department is sharing out so I'm not sure when my next share out is and um I can check that um it might be more grants related though at that time um it's just such great stuff and I will you don't want to wait till June yeah I will send the um the PDF of the slideshow to Lori to post with the notes and the video of this meeting for so everybody can read it

080if they want to yeah and ask Patty a good question penny yes of course um and you may not know the answer now but at some point I'm wondering if uh while the teachers begin to study it whether or not Eureka 2 has um not necessarily online but digital assessments embedded in their curriculum because you did mention there is a a digital portion of it yeah great question in part of that it's a two-part answer so it depends on the grade level in the upper grades currently um and I think it's six through eight if I'm I might be mistaken but I'm pretty sure it's six through eight students can take the assessments online and the teachers can see the data that is um created from that those assessments which does inform their instruction there

081is another component to Eureka's math squared and it's called equip and that would allow it's an additional purchase which is twelve dollars per student and that would allow students to do more interactive things online with the math currently we have mass workbooks for all students k through eight who are participating in the pilot but again those sixth or eighth grade students have that that one piece that allows them to do the assessments online which gives the teachers a little bit of instant feedback and can help them tailor their groups and their instruction um skill wise so it's yes it to answer your question yes there is a little bit more to it and I know that the parent company great minds is working to make more of it online the original Eureka um I don't

082know if they actually worked with zern or if zern took their it I don't know how it came about but they had their information and their lessons um on a site called zern and students could get on and interact with that um which was really great but the at the K3 levels I thought it wasn't quite as student friendly but I do know that great minds is working on collaboration with zern and probably another platformer too to make that possible the Eureka math squared is really new within the last year or so so I know that they are still in a lot of the beta process if you will yeah that that would be good to know because I know how much work it is for an instructor too incorporate it into a learning system

083such as canvas and so if they they do that already it's sort of a it's a big jump yeah exactly if you're ever curious I'm happy to give a demonstration of what is online for teachers currently so all the lessons slides are online and there are some videos um that demonstrate some of the concepts and they're not they don't have one for every single lesson but there are some of those within the program that that teachers can show and so and there's also um and forgetting the site right now but there is there are um interactive uh digital manipulatives I wish I could remember the site but teachers can access those as well to use with the lessons so if you're ever curious I'm happy to show you those thank you you're welcome okay thank

084you very much um moving on is correspondence and we had spoke at length at our last meeting about how we were going to treat correspondence and in the case where a person [Music] someone from our public a parent a student a Community member send an email to the full board then that will be treated as part of the meeting that will go into the the minutes of the meeting and as such um anyone who is looking at the um the packet for tonight's meeting there is an email that we've received from Mr Daniel Bortz which will become part of the the minutes to this meeting so again it's when we receive an email that is addressed to the full board and Davis you have your hand raised yeah thanks Amy I I don't want to

085get too semantic here but does it become part of the minutes or part of the meeting packet well it becomes part of the record of the meeting okay so when a person goes to look at the minutes they would have the minutes they would have all the background material just as we do it's part it's in the um on the Su board page for meetings okay that's my question thanks gaming bill has a question um so I I think I emailed this this to you but not to the whole board but I think it's really important for the public to understand that these correspondence at least from my perspective these correspondents do not automatically mean that it becomes part of the the physical meaning that it's not necessarily going to be discussed right exactly yeah

086yeah but just it will be it will be perfect anyone who wants to see the correspondence that the board has received will be able to find that and you've you've said this a few times during during meetings and I think you put it very well um and I think I think occasionally be a good idea to bring it up again the fact that these are not public meetings these are meetings being held in the public yeah and on the um on all of our agendas we have a statement that says the Windsor of Southeast supervisory Union is interested in hearing from the community comments or questions for the board can be shared during public participation at a board meeting or send in a letter to board members letters sent to board members that pertain to

087school board matters may become part of the public records placed on the wsesu website in the board packet for the month and may be addressed by the board in subsequent meetings just to let our community know how we are treating correspondence that is sent to us so thank you so is this this procedure or is this part of a policy right now or is it part of a procedure it is a procedure okay have we voted on it we've discussed it at length at our last meeting and I know this was kind of where we were leaning at but my question is it's something that we want to not now at some point more to to solidify well given the fact that we have our statement on our agenda it is solidified okay Beth I

088just want a little clarification around so if there's correspondence to the board and there's specific questions that people ask within that correspondence when are those questions answered Nikki so I think the board directs the um discussion in the meeting and so I think if board members feel that it's important that they bring those discussions um into a public light then they should discuss that with the chair and have it put on the meeting agenda or bring it up at a meeting to have further discussion on those points um but I think that if the majority of the board feels that those have already been discussed or feels that the comments are not appropriate for a board meeting um then I think the board can just choose to not address those comments okay so my understanding

089so then is like if somebody sends in a letter an email during public comment it has a specific question the board you know is not obligated to you know address those questions um at that time right correct okay so I think that's that's something that needs to be really clear um in public to to the public because that's um not usually how normal conversations nothing do you have a question it gets answered you know like it's just um and so it feels a little odd in that in the structure of Robert's Rules and stuff so if there's a way we can try to convey that to the public a little CL more clearly I think that might also be helpful it is also um when we have public participation of the beginning of a meeting

090um it is a person who is providing information to us it is not a moment of um interaction we thank the public for bringing the information to our attention and then it may or may not become part of a future agenda yes that's that's really clear to me but I can see how it may not be um this is my like sixth year doing this and it's just finally like made it clear to me so I think it's it's not always that clear to the public at times that's awesome I don't know what we can do to help with it we can add that to the statement yep they I know um and they do that in Hartford yeah I believe so that's the thing that it is quite common for board chairs is to

091refer the question because many questions aren't so more related their Administration relating to refer that question to the appropriate administrator correct are there any other questions or comments thanks Amy you're welcome we move on to items for discussion and top of the list is the hiring and employment policy and Elizabeth is not here this evening and she unfortunately she's not here she wanted to be and had all content to be here and part of an email that she sent to me was that she and Beth Roy did not have an opportunity to meet regarding the hiring and and employment policies but she would have a draft to share um I have not seen that draft Beth are you aware of I haven't seen a draft either so yeah Elizabeth and I have been like two

092ships Crossing um and have not actually bumped into each other um and I don't know too with the new Equity coordinator I don't know the timing of Ethan coming on if that's something also to have him be part of that discussion it seems I'm not shirking my responsibility I'm saying join him with us I'll just add it to the next okay yeah so we will this will be on our next agenda yes one of these days thank you I don't I don't remember was there a a Kismet um what are they called the suggested policies okay [Music] I didn't remember but that unusual for me not to remember as I scramble looking at the SBA question [Music] okay so moving on thank you Beth um students thank you for not doing what I said I

093was going to do well now for giving out uh completely understand um it's it's busy times you have your classes as well and exciting times okay student breakfast times yeah there was a question I think from Bill last time and um I did a little bit of research and chatted with Nikki a little bit because we implemented breakfast after develop Heartland when I first actually prior to my taking the position um in Heartland and what the research says is that uh and there's been extensive research on breakfast after the Bell basically says that the single most effective intervention the school can make to increase breakfast participation is to move it after the bow and that really impacts kids that are don't get breakfast at home afraid reduced students so that's the rationale for doing it

094after the bow really isn't equity could be a potential Equity issue if you're offering it before school and kids can't get to school to eat the breakfast if it's served before the start of the school day so we've um effectively I think been doing it in all our schools since I've been here I would recommend that it that it it's days after the Palomino it ensures that all kids are getting breakfast but certainly we can talk a little bit more about it yeah my my point wasn't so much to remove breakfast after the bail but that allows students opportunity to eat before the valley if that was a gotcha a better fit for their needs bill they they do okay so if you come into like I know for Heartland if they come in early

095um there's Breakfast there and sometimes it's more like you actually can have like a hot option or something like that before the Bell um so maybe I'm an egg sandwich available whereas your breakfast in the classroom maybe cereal and milk or something which is you know maybe easier to transport um something like that so generally it's basically just offering food for a longer period of time to get as many kids to eat um and then it's also you know those kids are constantly like the families that are just 10 minutes late for school every day they still get their kids to eat and also in Vermont that time that kids are eating um are is considered instructional time so it's not like you have to add 15 minutes to your school day because they're doing

096breakfast after the Bell it's considered instructional yeah part of my concern was um drop off at the schools when it started the year was still at that 10 minutes before the battle and so that transition made it really tight or any sort of heating option before the battle so yeah lots of times it's also just like a grab-and-go situation so maybe the kids can head to their classroom before you know that time and can have their their bag and head to the classroom I just want as many options to have a very large period of time for them to be at least yeah it also has to depends on just like what supervision is like before school you know if you have 20 minutes before school with supervision great they can you know you can

097get more kids there early and eat but if literally what happened yeah they were able to Extended by 10 minutes and so yeah then you have a little more time but it comes down to Staffing that's working better yeah yes it is all right thank you um superintendent search at our last meeting there was considerable discussion on whether or not we wanted to look Beyond Vermont School Board Association to assist with our or to facilitate our superintendent search and Larry assisted with a little bit of information he spoke with his counterpart at Windsor Central which is Woodstock um about how they conducted their superintendent search and the response from Woodstock was we used Jacobson and McPherson for their last search our central office staff wasn't happy with them they felt like Jacobson and McPherson were

098part of the central office to do most of the work and they paid approximately ten thousand dollars for that I also received more information from Vermont School Board Association in terms of timeline template and the screening committee charge document from the person who would most likely be assigned our superintendent search and a timeline the consultant provides templates for a job description committee charge and job posting and they post it on school spring facilitate screening committee meetings and notified partners of postings and they um and then the board time to that contracts with vsba they finalized the job description they create and adopt the screening committee charge and established the date for finalist interviews and then the screening committee Alexa chair and a clerk reviews the committee charge and this is all under the facilitation of

099the consultant from Vermont School Board Association and the week five so they considered this um how many weeks here it a nine week process that they would be at our side um so week five is facilitate screening committee meetings and communicate with all applicants and the screening committee would then evaluate candidates individually um be consultant and week six invite semi-finalists for interviews and assist the screening Committee in determining questions for those interviews and the consultant in week seven performs reference Types on proposed finalists informs candidates status and notifies the agency of Education and week 8 rep recommends interview process to the board to finalize the interview process and assists with determining the final interview questions and then week nine a consultant oversees the site visits arranges faculty and staff and public forums collect stakeholder input

100and also facilitates the creation of what we want from our stakeholders and facilitates board interviews and notifies unsuccessful candidates and that is what the Vermont School Board Association does to assist in a um superintendent search and the Vermont School Board Association charges 8 500. foreign well I appreciate the extra effort going into it I personally have never been particularly impressed with the Vermont School Board Association but this may be an opportunity for event to wow me in any of the other superintendent searches I have never been there so okay my um hesitation to put it very monetary is is based on the general annoyance and not being very oppressed with what I've seen from my school Association in general but uh I'm sorry did you hear that yeah yeah we are all entitled to uh

101yes we are but that should not stop us from allowing them to shine and I know that had had um Vermont School Board Association was doing in terms of equity and how they hire their own hiring practices and how they assisted schools and the Vermont School Board Association in conjunction with the Vermont superintendent Association and principals Association I think it was four years ago it seems a while ago it might be but yeah it's it's got to be at least four years um had a a series of workshops with the Vermont School Board Association board and again we're not superintendents and principals and we worked extensively on creating an equity definition and I can read that to you um the equity definition that is used by Vermont School Board Association and superintendents and principals and

102has also been approved by employees of the agency of education is each student receives the resources and educational opportunities they need to learn and thrive Equity means that a student's Success is Not credit predicted or predetermined by characteristic characteristics such as race ethnicity religion family economics class geography ability language gender sexual orientation gender identity or initial proficiencies Equity means that every school provides and every student has access to high quality culturally responsive curriculum programs teachers and administrators extracurricular activities and support services to meet the needs of each and every student Equity goes beyond formal equality where all students are treated the same achieving Equity may require an unequal distribution of resources and services Equity involves acknowledging and disrupting inequitable practices acknowledging biases employee employing practices that reflect the reality that all students will learn in

103creating inclusive Multicultural School environments for adults and children foreign assisting the Vermont agency in developing the equity lens tool and you can find the equity lens tool it's part of there's a link to it on the Vermont School Board Association website under resources and let me see thank you [Music] um no the more will come later and in our discussion so um for items for action because we need to um take a proactive step in initiating our superintendent search I will be asking for a vote to approve engaging Vermont to Vermont School Board Association to facilitate our search but that will be an item for action does anyone have any questions on the superintendent search thank you next up is no small matter and that was the screaming of the [Music] early early education and

104when that was going to happen and how that was going to be paid for um part of [Music] this also connects to part of the correspondence that we received there is a question on whether or not we should be showing this because it was felt that Elizabeth was asking a friend to present it and that that was a conflict of interest which we have already had that conversation on whether or not there was a conflict of interest ing um so in that correspondence there was a question you see so the question was if there was no Financial exchange or benefit and there is no Financial exchange if I understand the question and Elizabeth is let's see so Elizabeth's response to that question was The Windsor South the southeast supervisory Union was not awarded a grant

105from the Vermont Community Foundation because the film has been shown around the state so many times thanks to funding from both Vermont Community Foundation and let's grow kids it is a seminal film on early on early childhood and the only benefit that we will receive from Elizabeth being acquainted with the person who created would be a better speaker lineup and nothing more the price would be the same for everyone else and she has applied for Grants from both Mascoma and Dorothy Byrne foundation and she's waiting to hear back so that is where that no small matter [Music] I'm sorry to say I just got the last used one on Amazon oh my gosh you can't download it and then um check out an extended teacher family wouldn't allowed me to share it with others and

106Equity declaration for the winter safety supervised reunion I think the Mount of Stephanie School Board adopted an equity declaration and they believe the question was does the Windsor Southeast uh supervised reunion board BL compelled to adopt that that Equity declaration or a similar one as the other school districts had a chance to read what we adopted Heartland has I mean Heartland read what you adopted we have our own discussions at the Heartland board and decided that it was better if our community adopted it because then it would cover the school as well and that's the whole Community yeah a community flavor to it I can totally respect that yeah and um yeah um yeah I guess I am I feel like that's a I don't want to take the backwards stuff because it's not a

107backward step but it's also not really a forward step either like we're doing so much and we have our policy and equity and we're pushing forward on Equity so much I feel like the Declaration is just a checkbox I'm not actually cool I don't know we're already doing it I think it's so much I think it's more meaningful to be in line with the select board in the community then within the issue right which is the amount of school district that was what we adopted it was good to clarify my statement like four years ago yes I think we should have adopted it because we weren't where we are now right we'll save it wasn't a negative comment um just for um if people have here it is so many pieces of white people um

108so if people in in our community as well as school board members are not um acquainted there was and it was act one that was passed by our legislature in 2018 19 I believe and one of the one of the items that is charged to schools is to report and I'm going to read this from the that this is from the ACT just so in case that there are some in the community who believe that we as a school district have decided that this is what we're going to do yes we have decided this is what we're going to do but we are not the only School District in the state in fact it is due to act one that was adopted in 2019 by our state legislature and signed choir governor and we are

109charged to report annually on the condition of Education Statewide and on school by school supervisory Union and School District basis the report shall include information on attainment of standards for student performance adopted under subdivision 9 of this section number and types of complaints of hazing harassment and bullying made pursuant to chapter 9 sub chapter 5 of this title and responses to complaints Financial Resources expenditures and Community social indicators the reports shall be organized and presented in a way that is easily understandable by the General Public and that enables each school school district and supervisory Union to determine its strengths and weaknesses to the extent consistent with state and federal privacy laws and regulations data on hazing harassment or bullying incidents shall be disaggregated by incident type including disaggregation by ethnic groups racial groups religious groups

110gender sexual orientation gender identity disability status English language learner status so this is information that we are gathering under act one this is why we are doing an equity audit to ensure that the policies and our practices and our curriculum and our day-to-day activities align with equity and this is also why we have we are about to under items for Action approve the import appointment of our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator that is just in case anyone was wondering why it is besides doing the right thing that we are doing all of our equity are there any questions though well it's also much more extensive to that exactly yeah it is yes um because act one is not only asking schools or charging schools to report on all of the activities incidents Etc but there's

111also the agency of education is updating all of the educational quality standards to um for a an equity lens which is why I also brought to the attention of everyone um if you go on the Roma School Board Association go to resources on Equity there is there you can spend at least an hour if you want to look at all of the um the links that they have provided not only what's happening in the state of Vermont what the agency of education is doing but also what is happening in other states in New England as well as across the United States and how we can observe oh my gosh there's professional development opportunities there there's so much you can just yeah we'll ask you know one of the the information provided we will also for

112providing you grants oh yes there is a mini Grant that's being um so school boards supervisory unions will have an opportunity to apply for many grants for Equity work it's a 12-page bill yes it is it affects all levels of Education including board work yeah and workplace and yes but you know it's huge it is and Davis yeah I appreciate the outlining of the complexity of act one and how much it touches and you know I think Bill sort of underscored that it's you know it's long it's complicated it actually goes a lot deeper than just that top that top level right like it uh it would be a long conversation to really go through all 12 pages of this bill and really and point out all the different things that it affects I think

113I think one of the benefits of having something like an equity declaration um and you know this is part of why I supported it on the on the matasutney board level is that you know it it does reflect work that we're already doing right now and it does tie into these initiatives that that are mandates on a state level but I think that if we if we had that as a Gateway into those resources that we could post somewhere like on our Su page and say this is a voluntary statement the board is has you know decided to sign on to and put it up here and then connect it to all of those different things I think that sometimes when there's that much content and that many resources tied to something having some sort

114of primer to draw folks in and say like this is an encapsulation of all of these things that we're doing here's more information here's the depth of information here's what the state mandate is here's what all these different resources are um so I think there is some value to you know there would be some value to adopting it at an Su board level um and I think it's actually all the more powerful just to push back slightly on what Nikki said is because we're already doing this I think that that actually it we're kind of walking the walk before we're talking the talk I think it actually might have in a way had we done it the other way it would have been like okay well you're saying all this but what are you doing

115and at this point we're working all these things and it's like and we're just sort of summarizes and encapsulates all those things so that that would be my you know my perspective on why it might make sense to adopt it on this level thank you Davis you make a good point um would you be interested in working with anyone else who is interested in looking at mountas company School District what was adopted by the madness company school district and what's been adopted by the select Board of Heartland and see what is happening in Wethersfield and create something that you can bring back to our meeting next next month that perhaps we could vote on sure that's a waffle too much may I put in a caveat there it might be nice to have a report

116from where this field to see where they're at um and to really respect the fact that they have their own process to go through uh and quite possibly when all communities have have all three communities have have passed something uh then that might be the appropriate time to then look at what all three yeah I'm in agreement with Bill in this I think that I think that it it would be good process to let each Community sort of have this conversation in their in their space before bringing it here um and I think that this is one of those things that it's an important conversation I think we should keep having it but I don't see a reason to rush it through at this meeting or next meeting I want to make sure that you

117know communities have the time to discuss these matters so uh yeah maybe jump the gun and saying sure there but uh once we get there I'd be happy to sit down with some folks and look at everything and maybe uh you know put something forward at that time again I I apologize for having the assumption that all of our towns have had that conversation and you're both correct that we have not heard from Wethersfield as to what is happening in terms of equity statements by either their school board or select board and Marie I see that you are here yeah um I don't know what's happening at the select board I would only assume that it has not been discussed there but I I really haven't had a chance to attend a meeting since the

118summer so I'm you know virtually attend a meeting since the summer uh so I don't I don't know but I have never heard them discuss it um I could look at some of their agendas but I don't think it's something that's even on their radar to tell you the truth thank you I I just want to um share within Marie that there is a um a particular person who the Equity caucus committee Al I'm not sure what his last name is but he has approached most of the town's select boards and has had a discussion with them and maybe it would be a you know a good idea for for you to maybe be connected without to have that conversation Al and two other individuals have have gone throughout the state of Vermont and have

119met with the select board and I think at this point um it may be like half of the towns in Vermont um have adopted the policy of the statement um so um it may be a good idea for you for her to have a conversation with Alan I can get that continue playing games yeah as opposed to just going at this alone right yeah yeah and he's done it he's been through I I don't know how many towns in Vermont but he's already had um something like half of the towns in Vermont adopt the policy so he's been to Windsor he's been to West Windsor he's been to Heartland and many others to Hartford so he would be a really good person to do this with thank you Rebecca yeah and I just wanted to

120add and forgive me if you if you said this and I didn't hear you Rebecca but uh it's worth pointing out too that the uh the Windsor Equity declaration is adapted from that that state level Equity declaration um some towns have adapted it the way the Windsor did other towns have adopted the the direct language from that uh from that Statewide initiative but that that's another connection that this does have to a larger Vermont initiative um so just you know to underscore again that this is not necessarily something that uh that we've sped up on our own in this community or space this does connect us to a larger Vermont um community and and communities you know around the country great thank you Davis and thank you Rebecca and we will move on so this

121will continue to be a conversation for our board um next on our agenda is social media and I believe Christine sure um I um recently had a conversation with some local parents about our um open network I guess that's the right term infinite Larry um and they they have concerns about the network being open to all students which allows them access to social media sites um I don't think we've been in my experience great about communicating that to parents that it is an open network um I think we probably did it one time but it's not something that we revisit often and so um they wanted to have it put on the agenda for discussion tonight at the board at the board meeting and I think a couple of them are here and they want

122to speak about it and Tara Howard your hand is raised hi I'm Tara Howard and I'm here tonight to ask for social media sites to be blocked on school Chromebooks that are issued to our children my husband and I were shocked when we found out that the Chromebooks had all of this access we along with most parents assumed that school-issued devices would be protected and safe considering they're given to Children parents don't even know that our kids have this access the main issue here is how dangerous social media is most of these kids that have this access are not old enough or mature enough to be on these sites it opens up chat rooms where children can end up kidnapped raped or even worse we already have had several students in our school end up

123in the hospital for harming themselves and having suicidal thoughts and tendencies I personally know a few of them and it all stemmed from social media there are groups on social media platforms that cut themselves and they encourage other people to cut themselves and there are groups that even encourage people to kill themselves this is very real and it's already happening in our school I spoke with a mom who pulled her kids out of Windsor School due to these unsafe Chromebooks that are issued her child created a Facebook account on her Chromebook and her parents had no idea the Chromebook was issued by Windsor School and this child was actually lured out of her house at 1 30 in the morning by someone online this mom came to the Windsor School and spoke to the principal

124with her concerns and she was shut down just like so many of us parents have been she ended up pulling all of her children out of Windsor school because of the unsafe Chromebooks that you require them to have it seems that quite a few sets of parents have come to the school with these same concerns and every time it just gets shut down it's not going to get shut down this time because we're not stopping now until something is done about this social media is a distraction for students to do their schoolwork this also violates a lot of parents rules in their households regarding social media I've spoken to so many parents and not one of them knew that our kids have this access raising kids and keeping them safe is hard enough without our

125school giving our kids dangerous unsafe electric electronic devices to force kids to do their work on the Chromebook is bad enough but to give them an unsafe device that they also bring into their home is just unacceptable I'm very happy with your new cell phone policy that you have in school this year because last year I heard from several students that kids were bullying each other on social media during school hours my husband and I attended a play last year at the school and we personally witnessed a group of boys sitting behind us literally bullying another student while the play was going on we heard their whole conversation we were honestly disgusted when we left the school that this was allowed and we wondered how safe our children really are in your school there's one

126small step that our school could take to keep our kids safe and that is blocking Facebook Snapchat Tick Tock Twitter and messenger for clarification purposes Facebook and messenger are two different sites other local schools already have these sites blocks on their school-issued Chromebooks when you're an adult and you have a job these social media sites are blocked on most work computers I always hear you guys say how you care about the kids and you care about their safety at the beginning of this meeting Christine talked about how school safety is the utmost importance if you really care about our students safety then show us by taking the simple step to block all social media sites making the Chromebook safe for all children social media for children should be up to parents it doesn't even belong

127in school and if you guys don't want to keep the Chromebook safe for our kids then it's time to talk about other ways for them to get their work done that don't include the Chromebooks there are a lot of us really hoping that you will take the appropriate step and do the right thing by blocking social media on the school issued Chromebooks thank you Tara and that was a question um bill so in Larry can can correct me up here I'm wrong my understanding of blocking certain sites is that a network has the capacity to block a site yeah which means that at school if a student logs into our Network then the school has that that capacity to have filters yeah and if the but if the Chromebook is taken outside of the school

128then we could do it both ways okay so uh we've always so the history is we've always been this open um going back previous administrations previous superintendents for many years uh and um this was brought to our attention uh last year and this year we have a better filtering system where this year we created an opt out uh for parents um who want to block social media either at on the Chromebook at home it doesn't matter whether they're home or at school um I think what these parents are asking for is the ability to block it completely for everybody um and uh I think that's up to the administration and if from an I.T perspective if that's if the administration decides to do we can do that and it would be bought at home and

129that's on school grounds for student requirements question yeah I have a question and this is just from my experience as a parent so this is going back quite a few years because my kids are older but when they were in elementary school and they had their Chromebook they could not receive an email from someone that wasn't part of the school so if I use my personal email to send my daughter an email when she had her school Chromebook it would get sent back to me saying it could not be sent could not be received so that was the case K-8 for many years and the administration changed it to case six I believed our code okay so k6 cannot receive outside emails from outside BSU but 7 through 12 came out okay yeah because suddenly

130then when they became high school and also right when I was working at the Heartland library and trying to communicate with some of the students who wanted to do coding I couldn't yeah because my Library email would not be received by okay and we had kids who are uh high schoolers taking Dartmouth classes who meet Max yes emails they called and so that's that's uh separate the social media but we also we've been doing that for years outside yeah and I also understood that you guys were watching what sites kids were on weekend we're not watching we can go back and see okay so anytime it's an administrator brings it to it and says we want to see for these two weeks what this child is doing we always export that and send off the

131administrator it does not get involved in disciplinary but we're like you know we can go back in time and see what they were looking at and then let the principal handle it from there they do have access to light speed the teachers the teachers also have access to like state so theoretically if a teacher wanted to uh they could make it so that they're locking every so if I was in the classroom and I was teaching high school English and I wanted to work on a Google doc that only they could work on I could block them from using any other sites while they're in that classroom a lot of our teachers like it they could also see what their tabs and students have open they can close stabs on the students yeah [Music] so

132my question is if you could block certain sites because you have students who are doing research work yeah and they made they need need access to um certain sites but is it possible to block certain sites like Facebook yeah so if if the administration decided to block social media it would be the category social media it doesn't really want to get involved in whack-a-mole in deciding that tick tock's okay but Facebook's not Twitter's not I would rather if we're going to do it do it or not do it and then whatever it is is the way it is we don't want to decide that this social media site is okay Instagram's okay but Facebook's not there'll be another Instagram in 2024 that we're not even just thinking about so if we're gonna block it we're

133going to block it or not do we make it as a category yep I know and I I understand that but do we know how others you know what group what this other schools do most schools block social media is from what we've found and that was the case years ago when we never blocked in to made that decision and uh most schools do lots as Tara said it's not uncommon especially at the community level the other thing that Hartford does and this is just with YouTube is it only allows uh YouTube videos that have been approved by uh teachers yeah and teachers can go in and it's just a simple button right there approve this um because there's a lot of YouTube content in which teachers use right yeah and my understanding is that

134and again I don't want to speak to these parents but my understanding is they're more concerned about social media and the less concerned about YouTube we all agree that there is stuff on YouTube that is not appropriate but there's a lot that many teachers use for uh flip in the classroom as they call it okay um there is Misty button your hand is raised hi thank you can you hear me I'm outside so I want to make sure you hear me you can't hear me no I can hear her Misty oh okay okay good I ra really really can you hear me I cannot hear you how come some of you some of you can all the remote people can hear you mystique and the people in the actual office here you go for it

135okay bizarre okay nobody can hear the people that are virtual can hear me yeah we can we can hear Misty those of us who are here remotely can hear Misty just fine yeah I can't hear you've never seen that bizarre that's very strange yeah um try on muting and muting I don't know it's just a guess I'm logging out logging back in yeah I would leave the meeting and come back okay I'll leave him to come back it looks like she's and Beth you've had your hand raised for a moment yeah I mean I just would love to hear I guess from any of the Educators what's the educational advantage of allowing social media access at school because I'm I'm unsure that there is any got her yeah can you hear me now yes okay

136I'm sorry did I interrupt something I don't know if it's still my turn um okay um so Tara really pointed on most of the things um that we were concerned about we met with Chris well first we went with Kate Ryan then we moved up to Christine and then we decided that we needed to bring it to the board um I Tara really hit most of my concerns on the head um as far as the school monitoring what's happening that is not happening and so um yes if there's a concern about a particular student they can go back and look but they're not looking at you know kids like my kid who does her homework she plays Sports whatever is she she's not allowed any social media at my house um she actually didn't have

137a cell phone for a year we took it away from her um I don't want to go too much into her personal story in this public setting but I can tell you that she did get into some some trouble with social media about a year ago and so um we took her cell phone she was not allowed anything and I had no idea that social media was on her Chromebook until Tara brought it to me and she said do you know that they can get on social media on their school Chromebooks and I said there's no way you know we came from Claremont a few years ago and everything's blocked there everything my son went to high school there they could not access any social media I don't even know if they do YouTube there

138they may um so I pulled my daughter's Chromebook and I said can you bring your Chromebook downstairs I want to check it so I I could log on to my Tick Tock I could log on to my Facebook I was amazed I honest she was at the time 13. and um I I couldn't believe she had access to this she's not allowed in my home she got into some some trouble um took us a while to get her out of it honestly so um so I think that the big concern for me number one parents don't know you know there's a lot of parents that don't know there's a lot of parents who monitor their their kids social media their phones they check their kids text messages they have their kids text messages sent to

139their phones they check their kids social media they check their kids messages emails because where parents are keeping their kids safe right we're making sure they're not talking to strangers they're not going out meeting people they shouldn't be meeting but but now they have this extra little bit of access that parents don't even know that they should be checking one and two a lot of parents just assume they can't access that when I was in school and I'm going to age myself here like the the Yahoo chat rooms were just becoming a big thing and we could not access that in school so you know at home you'd be like your parents didn't know because we were smarter than them so you'd be a home you're on the Yahoo chat right but but I I

140did my parents didn't know and I didn't have any idea and I need to know that they're my children's Chromebooks are a safe place for them I need to know that when she's doing her school work she's doing her school work and Tara and I had our children blocked when we found out so our children are no longer able to access social media on their Chromebooks my biggest concern are for parents who don't know this is happening don't know to check their children's Chromebooks I would prefer that you just block it like the majority of the schools in our area I've talked to Bellows Falls Springfield Claremont I even reached out to some friends I have in South Carolina and even Hartford Connecticut none of them Mascoma no there's not I don't know I haven't

141found any that actually allow it so I would prefer that you take it away but I'm I'm begging you to at least have an opt-in form if you feel that these kids have to have it and opt out form can be missed an opt-in form isn't missed so block it if parents feel their kids need it the school feels they need it sign the form send it in your kid can have it I don't feel kids should have it personally but anyway that's my tidbit I appreciate you guys listening to me thank you thank you Misty bill so and then we have a student social media policy already um I think to move forward responsibly and I I'm wondering if the administration could throw out a survey to teachers to survey them if there is

142any particular social media that they use educationally and or do they feel social media is educational beneficial okay so we hear from the the Educators and if and if the answer is no I mean I have no problem adding this particular piece to the um social media policy regarding School devices I think that would be a very mature path to take um and so that that would relieve the responsibility on the administration to make that decision and then support whatever decision they make because it would be part of a policy Tara you had something more yeah sorry I just wanted to touch real quick because you guys were talking about how they monitor you know everything that's going on with the Chromebooks but when we met with Kate Ryan she did tell us that she

143only goes on there if a problem arises so she just kind of pointed out that no one's monitoring our children on their social media access and it's just really scary at this point thank you Davis um yeah I think uh Beth Beth and Bill sort of both read my mind and what my initial question was which was is there any perceived educational benefit to having social media available um I think I I agree that it would be good to at least touch base with teachers to see if there is some sort of use case for it being available um my default to it is that I I have trouble thinking of one um and I would frankly be surprised if one did come up but I think it's worth doing that a little bit of

144due diligence um and I you know I want to thank Tara and Misty thanks for bringing this to my attention because I also I was not aware that that was an issue in this way um and you know I think Terry you you outlined some some particularly extreme examples but there are a lot of just subtler ways that um you know social media can be really damaging during this developmental these developmental stages um and I think that having it widely available is uh in my opinion probably not the best idea um I I particularly wanted to point out Misty I I like your idea of having an opt-in form because the only thing that came up in my mind is that you know different people use communication tools differently and different family cultures are you

145know there's different family cultures where maybe the way that you text is through Messenger um I know I've run into that I've you know I would not probably interact with anything that meta does if it were not for that and that there are some people who I have to communicate with and that is the only way um that's I think the one caveat and I think that it I agree with Misty I think it would make sense that if that is a real issue like a safety issue within a family or a key communication issue there should be a way to do it but assuming there is nothing that comes out of the blue from our our faculty that would justify having social media available I have trouble thinking of any reason to to keep

146it so Tara I'm gonna use for a moment and go to Beth yes thank you Misty and Tara for bringing this up and I have to say I didn't realize that was even um an option like so that was a little nerve-wracking for me and I think in the meantime I know policy review and policy changes can take months at a time um and so I think perhaps getting it I don't know if the administration would feel comfortable you know putting out an opt about you know notice you know in the list server or to in newsletters or something I just don't I mean I just don't remember seeing it I'm I very well may have passed right before my eyes and I just never saw it um at the beginning of the year and

147so I don't know if that's something we could do again as we're work on the redo of this policy if that moves forward thank you Beth and Kate Ryan okay yes so I want to appreciate uh Tara and Misty and how easy they are to talk to um so they kind of made me start looking into this and have more conversations because we kind of always defaulted to well we communicate a lot about our Athletics through this um but in my job I deal a lot with social media problems they're always on the phone they're never on the Chromebooks but what I like is by blocking it we're sending this message that this has no part in the school system right now and we don't want to deal with it I just think the message

148it sends the kids would be nice um that we don't want this in the school and like I said all the times I'm dealing with social media it's always on their phones it's always outside of school hours or like on the bus or something like that but I like the consistent message that it sends if we don't tolerate this in the school Nikki I want to follow on to what uh Kate said that I haven't really griped about before but I don't use social media and I'm always frustrated that I have to go to Facebook to figure out what I need to do at school like mad and I'm a board member and a parent like I should be able to find that information some other way besides Facebook and it drives me absolutely vulnerable

149um so I think that that's just a break up to us that maybe we need to provide other ways of I always go to the website first and then I go through all my emails both on the board side in the personal side and then I go to Facebook and I have to find the information I would love for people who make those posts to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram to use the website more yeah that we've created and built yeah for the school and that's like so me when we talk about blocking social media that's gonna take away a lot of information about our own schools it would only but it would take away the ability for students to learn about their own school yes right if you want to be able to go

150there and see it yeah that would be really frustrating or use their phones or yeah yeah pay attention I was going to say oh my gosh exactly yeah the teacher can say okay this is the policy and now you need to understand that you're not going to be able to access information this way anymore I I think it's a great lesson and if all the teachers are doing this then all the students are getting the same message so I I think that you know it should just not be taken off and well besides the fact Facebook's Pharmacy is supposed to be 13. you have to be 13 yeah so that takes a huge pressure but I'd like to kind of look at a timeline here here and hopefully that's possible to to ask teachers just

151because I agree with Davis I don't really see any um I can't imagine any reason the teachers disagree with this but then again I think due diligence but I'd like to bring it up to the next board meeting and possibly even vote on that to you do you mean the policy or the decision that I think the decision should be an Administration no I don't think it should be do you think it should be the board decided when you have a we have a policy we have a policy okay yeah yeah and so I agree with you why can't we just yeah it's their bill you could add it under the acceptable use of information and communication technology there's there's right there's a space for it um and I'm just saying it as an option

152other board members may not agree with me but at times like this oftentimes it is it makes it easier for teachers supervisors like yourself to be able to say I'm sorry but this is a policy yeah right this this has been this has been decided and that takes away the argument uh that's a good point and this may be something in which if the community is behind it and teachers are seeing a use in it that we add this to our well social media policy if the decision was made like you said to it you I think you would have to update the policy by it's yeah very nature like right it doesn't it could flip it would conflict right so either way if this were to be done I think would have to be

153the next board meeting I think yeah right we'd have to move that one up and review so does it do you think it falls under I was reading the acceptable use um don't we have a student's social media plan we have another but doesn't the staff want to allow for students mostly staff like staff shouldn't befriending students but this one but it was allowed it allowed Facebook groups right students we have to change that if it's if you agree it says in the acceptable use of information and Communications technology it says under the first policy board the superintendent shall be responsible for developing and implementing administrative procedures concerning the following I don't even know what that that's a child information protection accessed by miners to inappropriate matter on the internet and the World Wide Web

154I don't know if you consider social media inappropriate I I could easily consider it inappropriate um I mean the fact is though our if we allow access to social media without filtering the content and that's that's the real key here yeah could we filter the content of a social media site and the answer is of course yes but it would have to be uh you could filter so that only school-run social media sites would be approved yeah it wouldn't that because that would be really difficult yeah no we can't um because of uh SSL we can't allow uh winter School Facebook and not Facebook so if we block on student Chromebooks it would be Park launch uh blocking um and again I think the the long the longer term answer Way Beyond one board meeting

155would be uh what Nikki described which is you're kind of sending mixed messages when you're putting everything out on Facebook and only using the website for newsletters the ideal scenario would be the way our vision was and some schools were doing it some other support and now very few are which is uh you post everything on the website natively first and then it repost the social media so that somebody's you know but then everything would be on the website too uh the question that Bill's saying I don't think that I think I don't think you're in touch with the policy the way I read that if if the if it was decided but I do agree with what Bill said about having the backing of the board yeah no I agreement Quicken it yeah that's

156right and but then where you need to go back and adjust the staff social media because it says that yeah related social media activity that is either school-based with a principal establishing a Facebook page for her school his school or a teacher establishing a Blog for his or her class um or non-school based to Facebook or for athletics so I mean this is like to get rid of like it's yeah this is a this is a complicated issue and I'm not saying that next week we're going to pass it but I think that if it's a direction we want to take uh we could start with on an administrative level and then um allow the tech department to begin to to enact it and then you know look at the policy and clean up the

157contradictions and and give the support of the board through policy and I really like what Kate said I mean I think that kind of hits it on the head is that it we're not going to be 100 protecting kids from social media we can't do that it's not possible today but it's that statement that these are school-bought devices and they are for educational purpose and I also um concerned that we're one of the few schools that allow this that most other schools most schools yeah I mean sometimes there's great cutoffs right so they'll open it for high school they'll walk it for Elementary in Summits K-12 but most school we are one of the most open su's around I I think they need to look at that yeah you like it well I just like

158like I mean I I respect that we need to look at Banning this but uh that's contrary to what I think I really want to trust our students I want to teach them appropriate use and digital citizens yeah yeah yeah but it's also become excessively dangerous so it kind of goes like I'm conflicted yeah and I agree with you at the same time with a six-year-old right control issues I mean there is an age issue and the age issue especially with social medias most of students have to be are supposed to be thirsty so that is an easy cut off yeah and that by the way I have no way to redetermine what the administrative team will decide or it's affordable back but if anybody cares we can do a K-12 we can do a

159base on grade we can do it any way you want yeah so I could bring back a recommendation next one with the administrator's um feel and what the teaching stuff is okay yeah I'd like to hear yeah yeah I don't want to make an investigation bring back information on what what schools are doing it and I think I I did some research no school that I contacted has an open network I guess the question is do they have to have access to it to teach them right right yeah yeah and having having the opt-in you know if it was blocked we could do that to begin with and the parents are sent with that initial paperwork uh on the first day of school that I think one thing that's different Rebecca is that we when

160we were open we've always had a really good bandwidth a lot of schools and that's used to struggled with family so that was never a concern and then also I think the ubiquity of phones has made it less necessary for the school network to be open because as some of you have said and is that they're just going to use their phone anyway if they want to see the sports score they're going to pull out their phone and look on Instagram and like it they're they they're it's not as necessary for example eight years ago very few students were walking around with phones just pretty much high schoolers now they're big ones yeah fifth graders fourth graders I am concerned though about the often I I I know I shouldn't say this or you know

161some people will do that but I at first I said no the opt-in is a good idea but um you may have you know some Savvy kids um being able to get their parents to sign these forms and without them even realizing what is it that they're signing I'm just concerned about the opt-in but I I think your teachers will probably be better able to respond to that you know so you could decide to opt in at the six eight or the 912 one they could be blocked for example without an opt-in pre-ka and then if that's what they wanted to do my point is you have a lot of granular ability yeah with the system we have now yeah it is let me see it's nine minutes after nine nine o'clock and I would

162like to be able to go home and I think maybe a few other people here I'd like to as well so I want to thank everyone for all of this conversation um our administrators are going to have a meeting regarding a recommendation for the board for our next meeting and it will be um probably top of our discussion at our next meeting so I want to thank everyone and we are moving on to item G 70 restraint and seclusion policy review and that is um let me see I think that's the first free day yes so that is a first reading everyone received it and their board packet um are there we still have to go through at least a second reading so are there any questions or concerns otherwise we can wait for our

163next guests I know you want to get out of here um I um I feel like this is the bare minimum um and it all right my family's been traumatized by restraint and submissions in our schools and this is traumatic to me um but I I guess I I really like to beat this out um I think one of the things that's severely lacking from this is some way um because it's it lists the procedures that have to be followed so the policy is essentially a list of procedures that the administration needs to develop and there's nothing about fixing the harm that's caused by restraints questions because restraint exclusion for students is traumatizing and a single restraint and secludes or seclusion can cause further restraints and seclusions because the student is going to be hacked

164behave in a traumatized way and then you get to a point where you're just restraining and secluding the student weekly and there's no reparation in this policy there's no healing um and it's so damaging that it's just mind-boggling to me that there's no healing process um I also feel like I mean the state's talking about getting rid of seclusion I don't see any reason that any child should ever be secluded um it's damaging and um some students don't recover and like to cause that harm in our schools to mean is so um I would really I guess I'd really like to see this beefed out I feel like it's too personal for me to be involved in and that's where I am okay thank you so seclusion is a complicated as a teacher who has

165run an alternative classroom um did seclusions and restraints daily just to keep myself from being stabbed um of course none of you students I have my program should have been anywhere near public school but you know that was a whole nother issue I'm I'm fine with looking at it more closely yeah I just like I mean because it says that students can be you know and so I dug into everything and students can be secluded or restrained restraints have to happen first but the threshold is that somebody needs to feel at risk but there's no I mean like a five-year-old is a risk it needs to be secluded no and like and that really bothers me that this doesn't address the policy doesn't highlight the trauma that this causes and I'm not sure that Personnel

166in our school understand the trauma that it causes well that's I'm hoping and this may not be the case I I'm hoping teachers who are doing their strengths are CPI trained or or equivalent yeah um but that doesn't mean they can't just say I felt enough the definition of imminent risk and harm has become more highlighted we just had our 4500 updated training from the Amy which reflects back to pre-covet interventions which is where they did mention that there was a move to um not have seclusion as an option any longer and it is and that was before only during covet we used seclusion more than restraints because of the risk of transmission and not knowing everything and whatnot but um that they were very clear and I think we have been crystal clear in

167the past couple of years especially that what constitute imminent risk of harm to themselves to staff and to students um so that we minimize any Hands-On intervention that needs to happen we just actually are going to be spending a certain amount of time to spending extra amount of time in the past month updating looking at a new program that is different than CPI it's called Safety care that is more based on consent models and actually more aligned with some of the student population we see that needs physical intervention more about keeping them safe students on the Spectrum as maybe to guide to move um and the emphasis being on releasing and not holding not looking at seclusion as an option well that's good and I think that's we're moving that way it's really good because

168CPI definitely has some yeah we we made a big switch this summer which took this little scrambling help to share that of of lock screen a lot of an overhaul which when we also um trade six staff members in the Su to be trainers so the niche building we can hold to the Fidelity and consistency that we need um so that that has been a huge shift for us so I think that the the conversation is there people are equally concerned and I know some of this is straight from the law which has to be which right right I just would like this to be broadened to be more reflective of what we're trying to do and it could be addressed in the in the procedures that I were working on today yeah this is

169the first reading and so it is procedures of this attached to the policy people can find it okay we're working on those today but we want to based on what we're hearing from with that some of those procedures are going to morph depending on what goes through the legislature especially around solution and other states are moving to you and restraint and seclusion altogether and I think that and I was been in by Vinnie being I think we're heading there yeah and I think it's just it's shocking like the Valley News had an article on this yeah oh my gosh yeah yeah and um so I just I I feel like this policy is the bare minimum um and I feel like we need to have I would like to see a reparations part of the

170policy and that I'd also like the procedures to be attached to the policy so that parents can find that information but one of the things maybe this is a conversation that Ethan Wars um should be part of because when we're talking about reparations I think that he may be a voice that um can can really um speak to that so I agree I agree um yeah Nikki and I uh I think that let's do this right because you're right it is traumatizing and I feel like that means have you stated at the beginning that that has her hand yeah Grace yeah um I just you know I I agree totally with what you're saying Nikki and I've just seen it on the the other end too um this year um been working with a student

171and his homeroom teacher has been hit things thrown at kicked and beaten daily by a student and she's traumatized she cries almost every day because of this student and so I think we just need to be really aware that it goes both ways in this situation as well and that that I really like this idea Rebecca that you brought up around reparations because I think it's it's both ways in that that we need to go deeper and I don't think you know seclusion is the answer absolutely as well but um just being aware that that that staff are being traumatized as well in these situations and that it is um it's it's they're just no good either way and there's a lot of work to be done before you get to these types of situations

172to to try to negotiate that exactly and there are other students in the situation who are also being traumatized where I am we've had at least three shelter in place because of behavior of students and it affects everyone in an employer before yes and Davis and then we need to move on to our items for accidents yep yeah having having worked in a couple of different specialized settings where where restraints and in some you know really difficult case exclusion seclusion were used I mean you I I agree with every everything that is being said here you can't use enough of a fine tooth comb with this I think that I think that bringing in considerations about reparations about restorative justice um particularly and that that addresses all of these sides you know as Beth kind

173of brought up there are when when there is physical harm kind of happening people people are traumatized and regardless of whether you are a student or an instructor or support staff or or a peer or whatever so I think I mean I think that bringing a Dei Dei angle to this would make sense um insofar as restorative justice touches upon that um but I'd also like to see some of the procedures and processes that are being referenced here because it's kind of hard to conceptualize what a lot of This Means without without getting into that granular detail um and I mean this isn't important enough uh policy that I think we should we should really understand what we're what we're talking about exactly I think he gave us and thank you thank you and Bill

174I bet so this will be on our next agenda moving on we have items for action and before we can have our Dei coordinator insult on obviously when we have to appoint our Dei coordinator so I will take a motion to approve the appointment of Ethan Lawrence as our take a motion so moved okay Davis we're fighting over this one [Laughter] I am going is there and and are there any further comments or considerations thank you I am going to go with the roll hell I'm going to start in the room Rebecca hi Nikki hi Bill hi and online Anne-Marie I uh I Colleen hi Davis hi mark hi thank you Nancy Nancy did you say I hi that's okay you raised your hand thumbs up okay we're good um so James I hear you

175Nancy the remote people hear you oh that's so weird okay so thank you very much and I am excited to announce the approval of the appointment of Ethan Lawrence as our diversity equity and inclusion coordinator yay we have work to do and we appreciate Ethan coming on board to assist item for Action is the engaging Vermont School Board Association to conduct our superintendent search so that was Nicole many of the motion and Rebecca seconded that motion I will go through the roll call again starting in the room Rebecca hi hi Nicole all right bill Anne-Marie aye Beth I'm going to abstain I had to run away and Tuck a child in during that time period Colleen I aye Davis hi mark hi and Nancy a thumbs up [Laughter] thank you um it has been approved

176to engage Vermont School Board Association in our superintendent search I will um [Music] contact Sue suglowski and we will get things in motion and I will let everyone know at our next meeting what our next steps are what the first steps of the facilitation so thank you everyone and it is now time to set our next agenda can we approve the CIP before you do that just formally normally okay um yeah I think Angie sent it to you yeah I did send it to you the only change I made was I and the resources I had repeated Leader in Me in both boxes and I had to put director curriculum instructional coach for our reading goal you may recall it was a safe and healthy schools goal for Leader in Me implementation and then a

177reading goal for our academic goal and so that's curriculum director instructional coach and title funds not answer funds okay um I just yeah I just I don't know how you all do it but just know in the meeting in the notes that it was continuous Improvement plan yeah yeah that the FY 23 continuous improved Windsor Southeast supervisory Union continuous Improvement I will take a motion to approve the Windsor Southeast supervisory Union fiscal school year 23. continue with continued improvements continuous improvements so moved Davis thank you and I'm going to start with our or are there any questions or concerns I'm going to start with online beginning with Anne-Marie I Bev hi Colleen I VES hi mark hi Nancy thumbs up Rebecca hi Nicole hi and Bill hi it has been approved thank you thank you

178very much you're welcome and now we go on to setting the agenda okay I've got administrator report under and then I've got items for discussion hiring employment policy update on no small matter subpay increase recommendation on social media policy or or acceptable use whichever one makes or both um restraint and seclusion second reading and we'll bring the procedures along with that policy next time okay that will be another full meeting and let me see who just raised their hand that was that was me Davis one small and I don't want to over complicate this meeting but a slight addendum of the social media thing if we're talking about that a lot of what I heard come up was was the communication difficulties that could come from changing that up um would it be POS do

179we need to add to the agenda touching on the communication plan or can we just assume that'll be part of that discussion I think to be part of that discussion okay so I just wanted to voice that Point thank you David thanks Davis I'll add that just in case um are we in need of executive session [Laughter] before we um I have a quick admin thing um can we have is it possible we could have chat available to just the board members when we do meetings I don't know the answer to that I don't think we will ask Larry if that's possible yeah I realized my I have my question but Larry's gone when you click the button it doesn't tell you it just shuts it all off it doesn't give you the fear to

180shut it all off but there might be an add-on for it thank you it would be nice if we're if we're busy or there's just times when it would be helpful to have chat yeah which is why no I I realize it can get taken over and I appreciate that and don't want that but but there are times when I just like to agree with something somebody else said without having to raise my hand and get recognized um or just type a short thing that helps me if I'm remote I have I have a little bit of a bug or I'd be in the room but anyway I feel better I I'll be fine next month is the Special Report uh special ed report as well what's on our schedule okay all of those in

181favor thank you so much