001we are now recording order the weathersfield school board meeting for thursday june 9th at uh 6 30 p.m and um we'll begin with the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god does anyone have any changes or additions to the agenda jackie i didn't see that we had resignations i think we're missing a resignation um yeah will that be just during your report brian on the agenda yeah all right well i'll we will be atmosphere discussion okay yes thank you okay um so then next we have the approval of the minutes and um i'll take the motion i'll make a motion okay marco second and uh that was nicole that first did it uh becky he
002didn't catch that um and then mark seconded and i'll um i have i noticed a mistake on it um our state representative's last name was uh wrong it's person it's uh that's under setting the next agenda if you go number a or letter a it should be arisen a-r-r-i-s-o-n i also had a couple things i thought we should probably add the barbecue date since we have the time under uh item vc oh yeah what was the data may 26th and my last name is missing an n in 8c sorry becky that's okay sometimes um i can't keep up with brian he talks really fast that's not your last name i like how efficient you are though brian it's very good okay um unanimous um up next uh we have public participation do we have anyone
003here that wants to see and then um any announcements from anyone okay we will move on to our lead learners report brian all right thank you all right so welcome to june 9th 2022 um sort of a special day for me it has been a year now since i've been out of california i can't say that i've been a year in vermont yet because we flew into new hampshire and stayed the night in manchester before we're actually in hanover before we came here the next day so it's been a year so it's been quite a year pretty exciting still loving it which is good so night all right so s back testing so sback testing is complete weather's field we've got it done scores are starting to come in but they're embargoed at this point
004so we don't have any new information as far as sports yet hopefully we'll get that information soon it depends on when the state does release that um unfortunately last year they released the information just recently not too long ago but we will take a look at we have some tmp scores here so our track by progress scores this gives us a breakdown of the scores from the last four years three years yeah um of it gives this year and we ended up with uh 80 of our students being meets or above which is a great 14 or below and then 5 were significantly below in language arts so we've definitely made some progress there and then these are for math so we're at 82 in math 14 and then 2 for significantly below so i
005really like to look at that red number because i always focus on why those kids aren't making it yet and to see that we've consistently dropped that number and move those kids into the next column so we started at five percent and four percent with two percent so we're making progress in that area which is really nice to see that so our kids are definitely learning older language arts into math and this is all grade levels kindergarten through eighth grade that's a quick snapshot of the entire school all right steam camp so we have two teachers and one paraprofessional so far we have currently 22 students as of this afternoon but i think we got another one registered so i think we're up to 23 which is good those are commit committed students those are
006students and families that are committed to the steam program steve camp um and so we did have a set of deadlines so we did say the cutoff for it was tomorrow so we've been saying that in the newsletter we'll send out a school messenger event because that tends to get people a little bit more voted motivated to sign up as well so we'll that we can have final numbers we did interview a couple more people so we do have some other staff members lined up i just want to have a few more kids before we sign up another teacher for that event so the kids are excited that we've talked to about it also the teachers that are doing it so we have miss smith from here and ms robinson and then um miss crystal
007sorrell who's going to be our fair professional so it's all in-house right now on weathersfield um staff as well fluttershy kids um so they've got some great ideas about students being able to build things looking at different things and being able to work together collaborate and definitely show off at science technology engineering arts and mathematics all right leader of me has been amazing we just met with barb from the leader of me so our lighthouse team we met last thursday we spent the entire day together and really start planning out some things for next year including not only our lighthouse team for students but a lighthouse team for parents and community members to be able to get more people involved with the school as much as possible we highlighted one of our so melissa cole
008our counselor has been doing our leader in me some of our leader in me lessons and so they've been continuing to synergize by completing the bean bag walk challenge so kids had to really work together and then they realized they had to keep a bean bag on their head and they can't touch their own bean bag and so after several tries of being unsuccessful they had grit and were able to continue to go in and they realized that they worked together and helped each other out they can get across the finish line together so really that teamwork and synergizing and making sure that they know that together is better so there's some pictures of some first graders that were working together to get across the finish line and have that bean bag challenge going across
009so a great way fun way for the kids to be able to work together as a teeny um enrollment and attendance for may 19th through today we're still at 240 bold and strong our average daily attendance went up to 92 almost 93 92.86 so that is up from last month we were at 88.4 last month so we're getting kids here um we've had definitely less sickness and so it's nice to have the kids here and getting more and more students part of our school on each and every day so with update almost didn't put this in knock on support here someplace cases have been fewer among students and staff which has been great we will continue to follow and monitor guidance and follow directions from the state and from our super impact make sure that
010we're keeping kids healthy and staff healthy and safe throughout the year and hopefully next year we will have a formal normal school year continuing to build community con keeping up with those monthly conversations with chief spaulding regarding fire safety like i said last month we're all set to do an october fire safety month which is great um i've met with brandon goldnick to discuss safety protocols at the school i've met with chief daniels a couple of times um this month once regarding internet safety and then another time just regarding overall safety in the school so it's really great to have that connection with all three of those gentlemen to be able to build a stronger community and make sure we have the town and the school work well together so community dinner and student showcase
011so if you had the opportunity to come i know a couple of you did it was amazing so we it was our first major event where we had families back in the building my challenge was to have the best community dinner possible so we put our 8th graders in charge of it and we had what we would call a mini leadership day so they helped pick out the menu they figured out what they needed they talked to heather in the kitchen into craig in the kitchen about what they needed to do so they were serving they put together all of the different salads um they were cutting vegetables of course with safety protocols and parent permission with using a knife that always scares me a little bit they were barbecuing they did the setup they
012did the cleanup it was so nice just to be able to say here you go and then one of our paras bethany keith took on that leadership role as the adult so they had someone to go to and really work with the kids well and they did a fantastic job serving our community that night and then it was great for me to have that opportunity because it was the first time i got to see lots of our families besides just going through the pickup line without a mask on to be able to have conversations with them and be able to just have that opportunity to show off what we've been doing here at the school since the doors have been closed so long because october so here's some pictures of some people waiting in line
013for food you can see how organized and how great it looked with the students some parents going into a classroom the kids working together and then we even had one um jackson spaulding because of his dad we figured he could manage a grill he knows a little bit about fire so we figured that was a safe thing to do um 8th grade graduation dinner and dance we had that last friday we felt it was really important for our 8th graders because they have had so much and so many restrictions that they really had something special here at school so we have still a little bit of it we decided to leave it up we have the lights up still and some of the balloon to make it a little bit more festive for the end
014of the school year but with our wonderful pto and other volunteers we have to transform our beautiful ap room into a magnificent room for our kids to be able to have dinner together and then be able to dance um the event started at five o'clock students started to arrive between five and 5 30 parents got to come in and see what the event looked like inside to be able to walk through some and take pictures and take pictures of friends um then we had some games set up for the kids between 5 30 and 6. dinner started promptly at six o'clock and we had one big giant table for the kids for 23 kids and it was amazing we had tablecloths we had china for them they had silverware they even had steak knives to
015cut the stuff the kids were so polite they were so well like they were such it was like a family we had kids you know talking about how much they're going to miss each other when they're going on the different high schools and it was truly sorry a beautiful experience it's been rough because they haven't said so um it was just really important from for all of us to make sure that they had something that they could remember thank you for making that happen we really appreciate it everyone who did it as well i thought the teachers came out and helped they even got on the dance floor it was awesome the whole event was just amazing our kids just deserved it and we're great so there's some pictures there's a dining room the dining
016table set up it was nice to be able to serve the kids they started to get up and punt get punched we're like no no you said we're taking care of you guys tonight um so am i the beautiful gowns the girls oh my goodness everybody was stressed out yeah everybody was dressed up so nice and like i said and just so i truly appreciate all the students and i know they appreciate it as well and it was great just to have that opportunity for them to bond one last time together i just want to say i was one of those eighth grade students that won many many decades ago it is an extremely important event when you have grown up in a school that is so small and so connected and my children enjoyed
017it i appreciate that everybody really takes takes that seriously thank you okay sorry okay i just get emotional sometimes um then on monday we got to do our talent show which was great so we had weathersfield scott allen um thank you to mrs youngling mr youngling as well who helped out quite a bit and then mr shambo so the kids did an amazing job it was our first performance that we had since i think it was december of 2019 is what zach mr chambeau said and so the kids there was a variety of acts for the kids we we started off with a young man that was singing when i'm 64. um and it was it just started off the event so nice and the kids did such a great job and we had dancing
018we had plate twirling we had then we even had because we want to make sure that we included everybody we had some students that had the opportunity to showcase some of their talents because they couldn't do it here at school so they were able to video themselves and they introduced themselves and we were able to show it on the screen so all of the kids did such a great job the the gym was packed and then we even had some talent here at the school um you know bj and some of the other um staff members to the dance um and they did it to greece which was really good that was fun i was there too i was trying to hide a little bit because i definitely got two left feet but um just
019a great overall event so it was nice to see families again just starting to get back to some normalcy here all right and then yesterday was field day so we've had quite a month here at school um field day was and i'm not just saying this it was the best field day i ever had um in all the years because all schools do or it seems like all schools do feel they have always been field days as a principal and as a teacher and um i'm going to be totally honest i'm very transparent i was a little bit dreading it yesterday because it's like field day but then i had to remember i did field day in california in june and it was like a hundred and something and if we played water games there's
020nothing quite like the smell of water on asphalt that's really hot it has a smell that you guys have ever smelled before you'll never forget it um and so i was like oh i'm gonna be so tired it was so great it was so well ran run mrs barry our coach pe coach did such a great job she does so much pointing to it mr shamble helped out we had pto there again i can't say enough about our pto they were volunteering at stations they provided um kona ice for all the kids so they got a snow cone at the end they were there just to support us so pto again amazing what they did chief daniels came out we played kickball with the eighth graders it was the staff versus the eighth graders um
021and the eighth graders won um it was not i mean we definitely had a good effort against them um but it was a nice little friendly competition nobody got hurt um which is always nice okay so the ball did get kicked by somebody and it happened to hit a student in the face i will mention who kicked the ball by accident and hit the kid in the face um it was not anybody on the screen though i'm sure you already heard about it emery um so but we we just had a great time with the kids and all of the students from kindergarten through eighth grade i mean they had tie-dye activities that they did with the shirts they had balloon challenges in here where they were popping balloons and running with balloons they had
022pizza delivery boxes that they had to carry stacks of pizza do a relay like things and everybody just had such a great day we were a little bit concerned because it was starting to you know it was scheduled rain and we're like it's gonna stop running by eight we know it's gonna stop running by and it did and then it ended up being just the most amazing day um and then even having the police chief out here like i said he was kicking the ball he was our designated hitter for a couple of our runners and we're playing kickball but it was great to see him out here with the kids as well just building that sense of community so just absolutely loved it some of our pta right there helping serve kona ice kids
023got to choose who i went really quick kids got to choose their flavor flavors there's tug of war again there's the gona ice truck and she was so nice and so efficient with our kids um the different games there's the pizza set i love the pizza stack i don't know why i thought it was we had 50 pizzas out there so i'm you know losing my way out there and then i was a little disappointed when the pizza boxes were empty but that's okay i still still had fun with it so that was great um so that's what's been happening at our school the last few weeks it's been a lot of stuff going on so we have a very special guest here today we have ashland rice i'm going to embarrass her a little
024bit but you ready to come up ashley okay so let me tell you a little bit about ashley so we're pleased to announce the recipient of the mario baba scholarship award for 2022 mario was the principal of weatherfield school for 20 years he was dedicated to the belief that every child deserves a well-rounded education he served as a positive role model for both students and staff through his passion good humor and generous spirit each year weathersfield high school senior who exhibits these same qualities could be chosen to receive this 500 scholarship funds may be used for tuition room and board or books and will be dispersed at the beginning of their second semester of college um is with great pleasure that we congratulate ashland rice for winning this award stand up on it come on
025over here um where she will be working on her master's degree in special education and honors program and i've already got first dibs on her and hiring her back here as a special education teacher and ashley has been working this year in our paws program where i've witnessed her compassion gentleness and enjoyment with the students we wish fashion the best of luck and we're so proud of our good luck in your future endeavors okay thank you yeah sure where'd you get the middle okay ashlynn thank you all right and then today to top off everything we had a special guest at weatherfield weathersfield school we had ben fuller musician come to our school today he came to see his mom candy fuller but then what was the really great thing was is the young lady
026with him pictured the left at the talent show she sang one of his she's saying a song and so she called her down so that she could meet and gave her an autograph walked her back to class so she was definitely a superstar so that was awesome so great it was nice to meet them today i've heard so many wonderful things about him so it's nice to come and meet him in first couple of upcoming events we're still doing with the book fair the books are actually that's a typo on my part it goes through monday june 13th it's not on tomorrow but it goes through the 13th so if you need books it's the buy one get one free you can come by on monday pick up books windsor high school graduation is tomorrow
0277 p.m ashland will be there you'll be in green right she actually goes to stream oh i'm sorry sorry i thought when you said yeah i'm sorry springfield sorry when is springfield's graduation tomorrow when you said tomorrow i sorry ashley's over here andrea in springfield tomorrow so you'll also be wearing green joe ashlyn it's still crazy that the high schools cannot get it coordinated within our district so that families and friends can go see the kids from our our district and the other districts at different graduations that really needs to be worked on yeah springfield used to always be saturday and either was friday night i suspect it's because our pto didn't organize them get christine on that put that on the checklist for our uh board board retreat so we work that out a
028little bit better okay i'll do that and i apologize actually my assumption was and you know what happened so all right um 8th grade graduation tuesday here june 14th 7 p.m it's excited for our eighth graders it will be in the gym um it is a regular graduation there's no limits on guests be there support our eighth graders we're excited that to have them pass this next milestone in their lives all right and then the last day of school hard to believe june 17th next friday all students get out at 12 p.m what a year it's gone by quick all right that's it for me thank you thank you any questions anyone have any questions for brian at the moment thank you all right up next is david baker for his final weather spiel superintendent's
029report whoa yeah well that's hard to believe isn't it yeah i know and uh i'm gonna try not to cry through this because it is it is uh you know but brian didn't help me with his uh with his with his tears so i'm already i've already pretty much got the watery eyes so i can't uh uh i can't guarantee anything at this point but um let me share my screen quickly mine is never as exciting as brian's uh i don't have all those great pictures um when i see brian give his report uh i am um i am always feeling bad about the fact that um i miss my principal days you know when uh when those things uh when those things are happening you know good stuff um so anyhow general updates let's
030get through it here uh brian's already talked about a lot of the stuff graduation season and uh jackie's right we've talked about this with the two graduations i don't know who had the friday night tradition and who i mean and who had the saturday morning tradition but somehow somewhere it got changed i know ever since i got here it's been friday night at windsor but it's a good thing to put on your radar list to talk to you've got basically starting next year two new superintendents maybe they can put their heads together and and try to work that out but anyhow uh weathersfield graduation june 14th i agree with brian come on out it's a great chance to celebrate all those kids uh and i'm told that there is still a parent group we were
031this was confirmed at our su meeting and at our moniscutane meeting on monday that there is an su-wide seventh and eighth grade dance at the st johnsbury rec center in i'm sorry st johnsbury yeah windsor rec center you can see what my head is um and uh and uh i think it's courageous for the parents to do this but again it's just it would be a nice way for those kids to end the year i know they've got some games planned and a little bit of snacks and food and so um there'll be more coming out on that i'm sure through the schools in the next next few days we talked about this at the su board meeting but not all of you were there the equity audit proposals are back we have four proposals
032we met we're partnering with springfield we met with the screening team we're down to two vendors now it was easy with the rubric we used to get it down to two vendors those vendors are meeting with us on the 21st for a very quick kind of interview format they're sending us sample samples of equity uh audits that they've done in other districts we'll look at those samples and we'll either send uh both of them on to the su board or we will um pick one and send them on uh uh but but the two that that are now there are very reputable and seem very thorough um and uh i'm looking forward to getting this decision done before i leave so that at least that audit can begin over the summer and that audit will
033be a big part of uh will be a big part of the information that gets gathered to again move forward with our equity and anti-racism work i mean you got to know where you are before you know where you want to go so i'm looking forward to that and thanks to the people who are on that uh screening team uh we've got a couple of teachers a couple of board members both superintendents christine's part of that team as well so she'll be able to carry this across the finish line um area law enforcement i know we're probably going to talk about this later on today but area law enforcement are going to be invited in july for a well-focused emphasis on school safety chief frank is organizing it but she's going to invite emt fire
034rescue state police other local police departments and they're going to gather at one of the schools probably the biggest school windsor but they they might move around too i haven't she's in charge so we're not messing with her her work but uh you know in light of all of the events you know we got very focused on covert and as i said in one of my letters to the to the to the parents we may have taken our eye off the ball with with respect to school safety i will tell you though the work that we've done especially weathersfield over the last uh a couple of years several years um makes our schools incredibly safe and as long as people are following protocol and nobody's putting books or rocks in doors to keep them open
035it's a pretty tight uh and secure facility and i know that brian and and uh and bj have worked hard to uh to make that happen and and it was a big focus for jean-marie when she was here as well so stay tuned more uh more on that and we are putting our emphasis we'll talk about this later you know back on school safety and reviewing our protocols we didn't think this had been the last few weeks would be good times for drills um but the staff is certainly going to be updated with re-establishing our relationship with all the alice protocols um that were in place and we will be doing safety drills certainly uh in the fall um first board forum was it was on june 2nd um folks uh we didn't get as
036good a turnout as we hoped but uh craig's been barbecued out between the barbecues and end-of-year celebrations craig's staff has worked well beyond uh including what you saw brian present tonight with that uh student uh dance and dinner um again we don't want to take them for granted because uh you know the the weathersfield kitchen crew is phenomenal and and and craig and and rodney are phenomenal and i know that they are a big part of what we've built over the last couple of years and i just want to take hats off to them they were part of the they did that barbecue at the forum and even though we only had 20 20-ish people i think it was a good dry run the video is out it's going it's been shared if it it
037will be shared if it hasn't already been shared um and i think it was a good sort of a good rehearsal practice session for the forums that we may want to hold in the future we've got other topics that are of interest to our public things like equity school safety right that that we can't always have those robust conversations during board meetings because we're making decisions but i think uh forums are a good opportunity for that to happen i know that all of our boards are committed to that and i know the esu board is committed to uh to to more public input i finished brian's review for 21 uh 20 uh 22 uh i'm sad to report he will not be back next year no i'm i'm only kidding uh you you know better
038than i uh the work we went through to search for a principal for weathersfield school and i'm just gonna say and try to say without you know bringing tears to my eyes um i think you hit the ball out of the park i mean i think brian is just what weathersfield needed i think he's put his heart his soul his family right in the middle of weathersfield uh and that's been it some you know personal uh you know expense but he wouldn't have it any other way and uh i hope you have him for a long time and i know as i leave the district uh one place i won't worry about a whole lot is weathersfield because i know between brian and christine you are going to be an incredible uh hand so his
039review was excellent and uh and um and and again uh his experience has shined uh in in in this community so congratulations brian on a year well done uh speaking of that i should have corrected that typo because this was i did this at the su board meeting born christine born as our new interim superintendent she's currently the principal at heartland she's going to be here she's not already uh it's so that we can introduce her and meet her um when i stop sharing i'll see if she's on the screen but it's actually b-o-u-r-n-e christine born and she has been with us for five years and has been a part of all of our initiatives all through the strategic planning process all through a good part of the act 46 process and certainly the last
040couple of years of the challenges with covert and she has never never shied away from being a part of any study group committee task force that's been out there and that's why i think she is she is ready to go and uh we're doing some transition work we've already met a few days we're going to meet a few more days to do those to do that transition work sharing folders names introducing her to people she doesn't know going over those kinds of things that superintendents do and the things that bring joy to superintendents hearts and things that keep superintendents up at night so christine will be will be ready to hit the road running uh when uh we move forward here and you're right this is my last weathersfield meeting where this field is an
041incredibly uh special place uh and i wanna thank you for all of your years of support i'm going to miss you all and i really appreciate everything you've done for me over the last 10 years thank you thank you david we wish you the best on your new adventure thank you um we'll move on to items for discussion and the first one up uh is building safety um i guess do you do you want to go over we wanted to um we wanted to reassure the community that uh weathersfield school does have several things in place we don't want to give away all of our secrets though so so we'll have to you know we're not going to tell everybody everything that we have but um but our school is a very safe school we've
042um we have been uh see what i have here is that we received um reports done by the um the vsva i believe it was um and we received very high marks for our preparedness um and so everybody should feel very confident but if uh brian would like to just kind of briefly go over some of the things that we have yeah i mean one of the most obvious things that we have and this is something that i wish i had in california but didn't any of my schools it's just the double entry when you come in and having to be buzzed in um it's very reassuring that nobody can just walk in off the streets that they have to be able to we have to recognize them um and then we buzz them in
043and then they come into the office so we know exactly who was here on campus if we're not sure where the person is we can do it through an intercom to talk to them or we also go out there and address them as well and then even when um like i think it was last week we had somebody come in that had a badge and they came in i did not recognize them so i immediately ran out like can i help you as they were heading up our stairs and you know stopped them and they had to explain who they were showed me the badge and so they were an employee before but i always like to be better safe than sorry to make sure um so also just that we don't have um outside
044classroom doors um so there's no point of entry into a classroom from outside there is only points of entry from the inside all of our doors are locked um the one thing that we always have to be careful was human error and to be able to make sure that people are keeping the doors locked they're not propping them open um employees have access to the doors through key cards because the keep ups are great if an employee no longer works there we just turn off their key fob they can't get back in it makes it that simple so those are just some of the the safety protocols that we have in place we're also going to be um revisiting alice training like dr baker mentioned um it's one of those things that we have several
045employees here that have not gone throughout some trading myself including i know what to do in a disaster but every state has a little bit different every district has a little bit different protocols it's a little different in california than what we do here in vermont but that way we're all up to speed and exactly what to do and just to be proactive about our environment to know who's around and what's around and to make sure that our kids are aware if what to do in any type of you know scary situation jackie um i i just wanted to maybe clarify something if we could maybe remind the community of who's on the safety committee and who within our community is on that that meets and talks so that there's a little reassurance as to
046what goes into it i have a couple other things um i'd be interested to know if there's an alarm that sounds if a door is open in a classroom and where it sounds no there is no alarm that's out of any class in the world is it within our alarm capabilities to have that turned on um i am not sure if we have an alarm set for are you talking for classroom doors during the day during instruction time yes um because there's you know how we would do that the exterior doors let me let me clarify not the interior the exterior doors so that if a teacher was propping a door open someone would know right um there is not a capability that i'm aware of we could check into that i spoke to larry
047today from the su and talking a little bit about some safety measures again we talked about some different lock type systems where doors could automatically be locked at a push of a button instead of having to turn it with a mac we do have a camera system that's also being updated this summer it was already in the plan um overall maintenance um so that's how i i would just add to that jack it's a good question it is on our list i think it is possible it'll just be cost benefit you know and again i know right now the heightened awareness of what can happen if somebody does leave a door ajar but um you know we've we've looked at and investigated a lot of different vendors um all the way from you know you
048could put a half a million dollars into a building and have you know fog fog producers that you know so nobody can see in the car it is and all that stuff so i i think it's a matter of keep getting our list together chief frank has also told us that you know after they go through the drill she'll have some suggestions for us of other things to think about and look about i'm sure there's going to be a full full report that comes out of a you know a couple of these recent disasters that have occurred that will kind of that will kind of update our safety protocols so but i i think it's a good question that one's already on our list jackie and uh and i think it's doable it's just a
049question of you know how much and and and when but it's a it's a great question yeah and the and the only other thing that i wanted to add is something that i have asked for and i do feel is important um is that when the su has a new hire that we get a sheet with um and i always use the example of the company that i used to work for because we were we had several offices and people were coming and going and walking into different places throughout different states and you didn't know who they were but what we instilled we started a uh you know here's you know joe smith and here's what he looks like and here's what he's there to do and and a little background on them and i
050do think that's important if we're going to have people walking into our buildings we need to be comfortable with that you know as brian said he didn't recognize that person it's a simple thing it was like it's a one-page sheet that i will be um asking for again you know jackie's been consistent with that and i think in a matter i think you even had a sample i did and it it's just a matter of you know and again i i i think i've got that somewhere if you want to send it again jackie feel free but i think we can get that on christine's radar and uh you know again i think too we were we were in the process of doing a lot of these things and and and you know i it's
051not an excuse because it's absolutely a top priority because i remember we had even designed off of that sheet we had all the pictures taken we did a better job with ids and then covert hit and we got you know we locked people out of buildings anyway so it got crazy but i think we need to revisit that and and do it it's not hard to do it it could be both electronic and have a database and it could also be a hard sheet if we wanted it to be so that you know new employees hiring picture goes up to everybody let's welcome so and so aboard i think it's i think it's very doable jackie yeah and i mean it was neat too because it gave some of the background like here's what you
052know joe smith likes to do on his days off he goes hiking and this and that and it starts talking points for people as well so it does make a more comfortable setting when they do walk into a new building or they we also did a fun fact you know about that person and one little sentence that you know you never know who you're going to meet kind of thing so i i i realized covid stopped everything but now let's move past it and it's a it's a simple task those are both very good ideas jackie thank you uh brian did you have the list of um people on the she wanted uh the safety committee um i don't have that list in front of me right now yeah it it doesn't need to be
053right now it's just a matter of like we we do have the fire chief we do have the police just just assuring people that you know it is the principle it is you know bj participates in it um i couldn't hear that pj's gonna come closer to the owl awesome i was gonna say bj would would know for sure we have uh the local chief police local fire chiefs are both of them are invited we have the vermont state police we have um sometimes the town manager has been involved and then we have school personnel and that's local and house now brian and i also belong to the town of this field which is a different emergency advantage thank you i just think that it does uh kind of help the community and like rest
054you know rest assured like like i like to say if bj's in that office don't you worry um i did uh i shared with the board members that are here today and i will share with them with those of you that are at home on some links uh to some information that i found online regarding school safety and things that we can do um you know in the absence of our federal legislatures doing anything about this issue um there are things that we as a school board can do um and one of one of them being um helping everyone to feel included at school um that that's more for like an in-school situation where a kid might bring a gun to school or something it's preventing that sort of thing by making sure that everyone
055feels welcome in our school and feels safe in our school and feels included um in our schools and so that's something that we can definitely work on and we can have an impact on so that makes me feel a little bit empowered as to something that we can personally do um and then um it just goes into how effective some other things are as far as um metal detectors and uh uh so sros and um that sort of thing so i'll share that with all of you um and you can read it over and we can talk about it uh our word retreat or in our next board meeting um the other thing that i was hoping that we could have um arranged is that um is that we have another one of those audits
056done it's been a while since we've had our school safety audited so um and i believe it's free for to have the the sba or the so yeah it's actually yeah and it's actually uh the vermont school board's insurance trust because there are there our insurance company and and so they they're the ones that do it they did do the rating i mean quite frankly weathersfield was a flagship it had you know and you've even done some other things that like you said nobody needs to know that even since that audit so um so yeah we could and i think that's probably something you know su-wide that would be good so we'll get you know again i it's easy for me to put these things on christine's list but i think we can get back
057to an audit you know to to uh uh to uh to make that happen right across the issue this bit will do those audits or they'll find a consultant who will do those audits yeah because if there is something else that we can add you know i would like to know about it that would be a good thing to do that i think that should actually be added to our five-year plan and then just you know only so it doesn't get lost but really done but every third year every two years it is certainly a priority or on that radar that the radar list stays right on on that agenda so that's not that um and then let me just see and then next week does anyone else have anything to say about building safety
058or school safety any other questions okay all right um we'll move on and um up next we have an update on um education legislation that was passed at the vermont legislature this past year um we had invited um john eric harrison to be here um unfortunately he couldn't be here today but he did send a letter to me and i forwarded to the rest of the board but it just sort of summarizes uh what they've done and i will read that point number one um the weighted study implementation for years vermont has struggled with implementation of the 1997 bringing decision that all vermont students deserve an equal education opportunity so that was um s 287 has several components that will affect the distribution of state funds to schools some districts will receive more some less
059by far the largest change is how students from economically challenged homes will be counted english learners will also carry a heavier weight rural population and school size are also being adjusted for his best guess is that weathersfield will probably see a decrease in funding because our community seems to be better off than it has been in the past we have a lot less reduced reduced and free lunch recipients in our school than we used to but also i would like to just ask the community that if you have not filled out a form and you think you might qualify or you're not sure if you qualify please give the school office a call and they will help you to fill out those forms because that does help our school especially with the new legislation uh
060students that come from economically disadvantaged homes i believe they're like almost a double weight correct now so um so it's like two students and that uh that really could help us a lot when it comes to budget season um and i believe also there is a program again this summer like last summer covered related where um anyone that qualifies for free or reduced lunches will be given an extra like almost believe it's almost 400 if you fill out the forms if you qualify so everyone if you think you might qualify for that please fill out those forms we would appreciate it um point number two um s283 is what um what john calls the cornucopia of various ed law changes education law changes there's a section that changes how and who can expel a student
061the dates for completion of radon and pbc testing has also been extended to 2025. pcb is being pcb testing is being paid for by the state radon is not being paid for but esser funds can be used um his hunch is that our school will be clean for both pcb and radon however um we should have been clean for lead but we weren't because of some fixtures that apparently came from somewhere where they had blood in them so um but those have been replaced we no longer have lead fixtures in our school but uh so we should pass because our school is newer we should pass these two and fingers crossed that we do because uh remediation for those things especially the pcb um let's see uh aoe is to draft rules regarding remote learning
062and when remote learning will be counted as a school day i believe this past year that were learning was not counted at all correct yes um so that would be good um number three the aoe will be issuing a universal school calendar so i guess that means that we will so you won't have like some of your especially in weathersfield where we're ascending district for high school some parents have like one kid with one schedule another another for days off during the spring time so uh i think everyone will appreciate uh having a universal calendar for the whole city i'm not sure if they'll be able to implement that for next year probably not probably not until the year after but uh they're working on it number four universal preschool breakfast and lunch has been
063extended through the next full year so that means there will be free lunch and breakfast for all students next year we'll be continuing the program is being paid for from last year's budget surplus and it's not sure if the program can be sustained after that but i guess the legislature is looking into other ways of funding that number five the ed tax numbers came in even better than expected and a portion of the surplus was used to lower the number to a point to a 1.466 for our homestead rate so that is good saving on our taxes um number six also passed into law is the thousand dollar child tax credit the tax credit does not directly affect the school but it provides uh relief to all of our parents so that's great um and
064uh john also announced in april that he will be running again in 2022 and uh hopes that you will support him thank you and uh it will be coming to our august meeting if anyone has any questions on any of that we'll be here to answer those um does anyone else have anything to say right now about the education legislation okay we will move out on um well you already gave us a update on the the dinner so we'll skip that and we already did the mario debacle scholarship um our next item is our new interim superintendent said she is here uh christine bourne yes would you like to tell us a bit about yourself yeah i'd love to um well i'm christine born i'm married to jason bourne it's always a big deal because
065that's his name uh yeah it it is it is he gets it gets old to him gets comments about it all the time um i'm a pretty local girl i grew up in claremont and i um after college i started teaching which is something that i knew i was going to do from the time i was wee high my siblings were tortured by me playing teacher with them when they were young um so i knew i wanted to be a teacher and i spent over 20 years in the classroom and i loved it um and about well five years ago more than five years ago i started preparing to be an administrator because i really wanted to affect more change and support kids more globally and that was an opportunity to do that so for
066the past five years i've been the principal at heartland elementary school i loved it it's a wonderful school and a wonderful community as is weathersfield i've been able to spend some time here this year with brian i was lucky enough to be his mentor so i've been in the building um almost every week we meet and have tried to share institutional historical knowledge with him about vermont and how education works in vermont it's a little bit different than california and i'm very very excited and honored to be the intern superintendent i am passionate about the work that we do in in this su i'm proud of the work that we do we are student-centered we are about um supporting our kids and giving them the best educational opportunity that we can and i'm just happy
067to get to know the community and the staff and very excited to be part of weathersfield for sure and the rest of the seo so thank you i'm sure i'll get a chance to meet all of you i'm happy to be here i'm glad i made it we had a concert at heartland tonight and i had to be there for that as well so we totally understand and we're excited to have you joining yeah um does anyone have any questions no it was it was my background my son was talking to my husband but you know it'd be really great if the camera for sappo would get lowered because we see a great view of the stage curtains but you know i'm barely getting brian and christina it's pretty funny actually it's kind of comical
068bobbleheads is that better yeah that's that's good i think it is better and i actually you can hit that little pin on your screen if you hover over it and that pin will bring that owl picture a little bit bigger that that helped a little bit too but i know i'm using a chromebook so they're kind of tiny for my old eyes kind of kind of small yeah i like that okay um so i guess we will move on to um items for action because we don't have test scores correct oh is this this spot yeah this is the line of credit okay it's here let's head down get it back okay um are there enough of us here or do you need sheets remember yeah she said she needs a drawer okay so okay
069um so for items for action today um we have the fy 23 line of credit which um i believe everybody except for you maybe knows what this is um it's it's not necessarily going to be used it's a line of credit that in case um like taxpayers are maybe slow getting their their taxes paid or the account is doesn't like just in case things don't quite line up exactly with like when payroll's due and when money comes in we have a line of credit open to us and um and it's available i don't believe we've ever actually but at least in the years i've been here i don't think we've ever actually used it but um yeah i think it's necessary that we have it available just two days so um so we will uh
070i'll sign that but um yeah yeah just one other thing again first of all i remember when anne took the board chair uh position and uh that was amazing the way you just explained that because i remember in the beginning years just trying to figure all this out and understand what it is but you did a great job another word for that is that is a tan it's called a tax anticipation note a tan and it's very common uh and it's exactly what anne marie described aside from the signatures uh you'll you need at least three signatures a majority of the board but certainly bj can yeah pick them up tomorrow but it does also need a vote so somebody would just need to make a motion i don't know if you were going to
071say that or not anne marie but somebody should make a motion that we authorize a tax anticipation note in the amount of and then you just read that amount in and then it's it's in the minutes and the bank needs it as a vote would someone like to make that motion i'll let you know what the amount is the amount is hundred forty 857 dollars and seventy two cents um did anyone like to make that motion so moved okay um second and say aye that was unanimous and did you get that come out again did you get that motion i did i just have background noise so you might not be able to hear me well um 72 849.72 you say that one more time 857 000 or i don't know i may be saying
072it wrong 849.72 is that right perfect okay of course emery we're not hearing you uh i will i think i maybe i'm not talking loud enough for the owl um the three of us who are here we'll sign it and then we'll get it uh back to laurie the office okay um you see up next we have um a couple of resignations right so we had two resignations that were given to us within the last week we have our athletic director and our assistant athletic director that are both there are two types of positions here at the school and they both decided not to do it for the next years with jessica kishko and then um alicia crain yes so if we have any members of the community that are interested we've already put the
073ad out on school spring the ad is on school spring um we are looking for an athletic director and an assistant athletic director and um that's all um but i know we did have we had some like people that stopped by a couple meetings ago that seemed like kind of gung-ho about sports and things so maybe if any of you are interested the position is open um the athletic director pays um it's a fifteen thousand dollar stipend and thousand dollars is five thousand it's the way it's set up right now um but it is a lot of time and uh i know uh jessica spends a lot of time organizing things and uh but she has it running a pretty good like she's gotten us up into the 21st century with as far as young
074adults and things like that that kids that parents can um register using and uh that helps a lot um so that will all that information will be passed on to whoever takes the reins next um next thing we have up is setting the next agenda oh sorry oh we need to vote on accepting the resonation um would anyone like to make a motion to accept the resignations of the athletic director and the assistant athletic jamie will second that um all in favor say aye aye aye unanimously um okay and then uh we don't have any other items for action um up next we have setting the next agenda and um i was hoping for the next month's agenda for it to to instead of having a formal meeting next month to have our board retreat
075um i think we have a lot of things to talk about and we can if any of you have any ideas of things that you want to talk about um i would like to update our radar list i know we've we've accomplished some of the stuff on our radar list currently and i think uh be good to add a few new items so um come with your ideas for that uh does does anyone have like if we did it the second tuesday is that good for everyone we talking about july 12th i didn't check my calendar and uh i don't know we were there kind of late last time we were there to like ten maybe nine thirty ten o'clock i'm just working sports okay uh july 12th is open for me i'm happy to
076host again if you guys would like when you volunteer because your place is perfect for it i love your fire pit out back and everything it's so nice and it's pretty centrally located for everybody to get to um that will be is that so everybody is good for next tuesdays as well i mean not next tuesday 12th you can come next tuesday too um july 12th at this start at 5 30. and it'll be at jackie's house 5 30 works so just so christine you are but i mean just let laurie knows she can either you or she can put out that invite i assume it's in person for everybody if possible i think that's the way it was last year so um so i don't even think you need a conference link necessarily uh
077uh it's usually just board stuff we don't usually get much public at those retreats because it's all it's all kind of goal setting and that sort of stuff but but just me we just got to make sure that invite gets on everybody's calendar jackie let us know what it is we can bring that sounds good do we have any need for an executive session no i don't nope not on on our end okay and we don't we don't need enough for the board retreat we don't need to provide glory with like an official agenda or anything right no no you could just put goal setting and radar discussion i keep it real simple and just let laurie know she'll she'll put that simple agenda together and make sure that gets on everybody's calendar i'm doing
078that now okay great perfect can you ask david if you're feeling real lonely you could attend to for one last hurrah yeah i was gonna say i might crash that party and just say hi to everybody you know i think of effect i believe it i think that's a date of one of the board retreats in orleans so it probably won't happen but it brings back nice memories that was that was a great night uh last time um well it'd be good to get your input too yeah yeah and christine and i will stay in touch you know because a lot of times yeah that has to happen because you know somebody will say to her well dave said and she's gotta she's gotta make sure that she's got me on speed dial so david
079did you really say that no i never said that so so that'll be helpful mark do we need to do any kind of exit interview with david at all um or anything like that that's an su board that's an su thing okay yeah it probably wouldn't be a bad idea and i was thinking that too that you know at some point if the four board chairs wanted to just talk a little bit because you know as you're going out you can i can tell you all the real secrets you know that i couldn't tell you before so i don't want to add more meetings to people's schedules i just wanted to see if that was something that was customarily done thanks and i i just wanna and i wanna say to anne too i mean
080first of all she's done a great job as a board chair and i'm not just saying that because i'm on my way out but it's not an easy job and the four board chairs you know nikki ann amy and elizabeth work so incredibly well together i mean i i know i say this often but i'll i'll never see i don't think i'll ever see that again i mean i've talked to the board chairs down there about the way they all work together and their eyes just kind of glaze over they can't fathom how that how that works because they're still kind of hunkered down in their own little world but i think anne-marie is an example of somebody who represents weathersfield incredibly well but she also sees the bigger picture and she knows that there
081are some things we're just gonna have to do together and and i just think that's a tribute to all four board chairs and all four boards quite frankly well said david those are not easy uh that you they're not really women you can push around either so those are four strong women that work well together absolutely i i will tell you i do not mess with them [Laughter] thank you david all right that's uh i guess we don't need an executive session so um i see becky's hand is up i just wanted to tell david that he's been a joy i just um it's a great loss to us but i wish you the best david um you have been such a rock for this su and you're just such a man of integrity so
082i just wanted to say that i'll miss you greatly and best for you and your family thanks becky i appreciate that and and i i didn't have to pay becky for that either but thanks thanks i'm so s so outspoken tonight um excuse me david but you're at home and i know your guitar is there you could always give us one last serenade what one last rendition aren't you i don't think brian's ever heard it no no he'll believe me brian has heard it definitely heard it and actually my guitar isn't right here so that i can't do it oh we can wait i'm gonna i'll send the words out to everybody so and i've been told i can't use that same song in the next in the next su either side i don't know
083how that's gonna work but we'll see i may sing tomorrow night though at the high school graduation so i know that our springfield graduates won't get to hear it but i've got an idea for tomorrow night i don't know if i'll have the guts to do it but i'm thinking about it weathersfield graduation on tuesday perfect hey and david you only go this way once man that's right and if it's horrible they're never going to see me again anyhow so who cares right that's that's good all right well i'll take emotions with you at um eight twenty i mean sorry it's 7 40. i'll make a month uh nicole made the motion to adjourn i'll take a second jamie seconded all in favor say aye hi thank you that's right and christine if she's still
084there if you want to give me a call on your way home christine that would be great and so it begins and so it begins or continues fast thanks everybody i'm sure i'll see you at the graduation take care thank you