001okay so we're gonna call the meeting to order at 606. um so first item is changes or additions to the agenda um i have two things um the first i'm gonna put under items for discussion but it'll be a brief discussion because i want to bring it back next month um which is uh our treasurer salary um and then we share the treasurer with the town and then the other one i was just going to put under public am i allowed to speak under public participation absolutely because it's kind of just an announcement it's not really okay so and then i want to talk like a few seconds about the after-school situation it's a situation okay so um anybody else have anything okay um okay so we'll move to approval of the minute so i'll
002take a motion for approving april 5th 2022's minutes my motion okay beth i will second hey heather okay is there any discussion i don't hear anything okay all those in favor of approving the minutes of april 5th 2022 please say aye aye actually you have to abstain oh god i wasn't there i'm so sorry thank you for reminding me i say all right so that's uh three eyes out to none and one abstention okay okay so i felt like i was there i know that's okay i've done that plenty of times um so public participation is there anyone here who would like to participate as public i didn't see any public no there is no public um okay nope it looks like that's about the size excuse to move i get to move sorry the
003screen is doing its standby thing oh this is my excuse to move because i don't like to stand up and make an announcement she's gonna okay so um i'm putting the after school situation under public participation because i got an email about it um it so the rec center had to close the after-school program because they didn't have enough staff um and they had every intention of running it they just didn't have enough staff and we had three steps that left all at the same time and they just didn't have the capacity to hire it so we don't have enough staff and so like it's really awful for the families that use it but it's not a situation that the school is in a position to help with right now because we can't even staff
004our own building during the days and hours that we are required by law to staff i mean we did help in the in the in the way of altering support staff contracts right people that wanted to work there right for this whole year um we also lost yeah and the same people yeah yeah um yeah so just we'll do everything we can to yes so the avail make those people available to the record yeah yeah so that was i mean that's kind of my announcement is that there's nothing from a hiring standpoint because we can't finish hiring ourselves and the town has every intention of restarting it in the fall and so i think at this point we're going to suffer through well what i'm hearing too is it's a timing issue and so because
005we end a lot earlier than other surrounding school districts so if they can't get high schoolers over here you know to do the aftercare or things like that yeah and i talked about that and we reached out or i reached out to windsor high school because i did um we do bring we do have a bus that comes back with our tk goes to get um kids at a program the ace program in windsor comes takes our tk's comes back with kids that are at a program in windsor heartland kids and and those windsor kids can ride that bus here and get dropped off the wreck if they choose to work there so we're trying to be so that would be good creative and flexible yeah except unfortunately so many high school kids do sports
006that it's like you can't stop it they're they're not going to be the ones probably that are going to take the rec center job so could val at four corners take anybody would that be a an option because the older kids require much less supervision she's just up to okay right yeah i don't know four corners i think there was an age limit from when other kids went there i'm wondering if she might be willing you know if she had any capacity because the supervision would be lower if she could take you know they might be able to take a few i heard from a couple families i know that one of the issues was it was it was really short notice yeah and i'm one of the families yeah and john was trying to
007i think he was trying to he was trying to let fire um and it felt whatever he had placed fell through um i think his preference would be in the future to have school employees also working at the wreck which is a great goal but nothing i can enforce i mean i can't make them right if they choose to we can work their contract to make that happen right um yeah but if they don't choose to i can't force them to work there right um so he yeah i spoke with the town manager dave fully intends to have that program up and running in the fall i mean he has said that as his intention but there's a hiring shortage everywhere so i can't guarantee it right well yeah and i think part of it
008too is is pay level you know and that it's a little unfortunate that you know the town budget already passed so it's kind of like right i don't know what kind of wiggle room they have it's 15 an hour that john pays um he is trying to up it a little bit he did a little research i think the hartford program starts at 15.50 an hour so we're not that it goes to 18 an hour so i don't know and they couldn't charge parents to make up the difference and offer a little more i mean that i suppose that would be the other it's 15 bucks a day right now yeah so you're getting basically from like two yeah you're banging an hour and it's what like 2 30 to 5 30 yeah yeah so
009he has he has put in some um field trip uh things that they're doing so they're coming to pick up kids taking the bands taking them to different places so that that provides some support for families it's more expensive yeah but i think some families have coordinated they're sharing kids on different days yeah but there are a couple families that are really impacted yeah it's the world right now not a good solution yeah so um so and there's sorry there's no chance that like we would like the school would run something i do not know that that would be amazing because we don't have we can't get people either right no and it's not that you can make a teacher do that work you know no no but i'm thinking you know there's other staff
010and teachers um i i know from before my time here there was a year maybe two one year two years where the program was run in this school um and i mean angie can speak and she can speak down that way because the program was on school grounds any um thing that had to do with harassment and bullying at the time i was the assistant principal i had to deal with and runs it's a different level of supervision out there that is not the same as the level of super vision that happened during the day and i think our staff really felt the impact of that as well because behaviors that happened after school were being also coming into the during the day so not only did it take administration extra time and effort um
011to deal with those kinds of things behavioral and harassment stuff and bullying allegations but then there was that whole behavioral piece that seems like like a total opposite of what i would think because you would think if it's in the school the same behavior expectations would be yes but the training for the staff well that's the same program was not present and prior to raising we changed prior to rey's death we were working on uh offering a training that was at that time we were adopting pbis yeah and yeah so we were working on that because we recognized that having some consistency from during the day to after school would have been very helpful um it was still a brick program it was just housed in the schools but it was also um i believe
012because it was free i think or it was great yeah jeff found something yeah so we found fundamentals i think it was that's their funding it was great well yesterday didn't exist oh it wasn't it was like a total one i think maybe yeah we did have um so i wasn't grant's manager then but it might have been some title one for after yeah that's right yeah and then part of the challenge was that there were parent volunteers because it was such a huge program yes where you had parents volunteer to do um sort of like enrichment activities yeah that was different than the after school care program that was actually pretty well integrated though but they could come and go yeah and we also maintained the after-school um help in the library that ray
013barrett that's right yeah yeah that was great there was like a yeah club it was such a great thing and it required so many more people and so much more training than we had access to i think that was my takeaway it was like yeah if we had unlimited funds it could have been awesome but it was it it would just was and that was the damage to the classrooms was a big issue too teachers were very upset about their classrooms got completely dismantled during the program then they'd have to put everything back and um yeah but it's you know it was a really cool vision and parts of it were amazing and it was the staffing yeah any a program like that running on volunteerism is very challenging to for longevity yeah people are
014willing to do it for a short time but to get people right yeah okay um so i just wanted to put that out there so the public knew what the school was doing um and where it kind of stood um we're i think we have another person joining us we're still on public participation if you would like to say anything and i don't know who is that it says in the bottom foreign okay i'm glad you joined us um okay so we'll move on to the principles christine you panicked me yesterday when you sent it out a day early i did it you totally did i know i was like what is the meeting tonight i'm sorry all right it is okay so a couple we'll start with a couple of awesome things that have
015happened at the school um it was last week that student council planned um earth day at the school they had a presentation they went into classrooms and and talked to all the kids about it and then they planned a competition of trash collecting competition so um where did they collect trash all around they took walks down martinsville road i wasn't first grade up to the um wreck and the fields and there was not a lot of trash there let me tell you if we were really there really that's awesome um yeah and then they uh measured the trash and there's the student council with the trash bags from each classroom and then the class that collected the most um got um dirt and worms you know what that is was it the second grade class
016because ruby convinced me that it was the second grade it was it was but i think it was miss pogs yeah it was great it was all student-led so that was one of the great parts about it um just want to keep you up to date on our taste test we had grateful gardens come in those are sunflower sprouts oh nice and they were delicious there's grateful gardens uh craig said they're down near brattleboro well so they came and um the kids were trying the sprouts which was that was great to see amazing yeah it was really good really good and the kids were you know they were up for tasting it which is awesome both cool yeah she was great so um this week is staff appreciation week um yesterday the ptsf provided breakfast
017for the staff they coordinated with poloko who's coming tomorrow with burritos for this stuff which is great a little thing for the friday so staff are feeling appreciated which is um yeah important so um just to throw it out there our ptsf has a membership of two and yeah well three if you include me and i did go um the treasurer cheryl bailey's um son will be graduating so i'm just anticipated that she'll be moving along so any any interest um about the lonely standing member is heather white she has three kids here so and heather white is she's fabulous she is she is so we'll be looking to grow that um yeah people can get together again it's been an issue for a long time we were meeting virtually but we've just lost yeah
018yeah um so tina's not presenting tonight but i just wanted to i happened to pop in the library and the kindergarten they were doing their horse and motion idea which was awesome there's tina in the middle of it um and they took a little video that i couldn't help but share hopefully you'll be able to hear it because that is i think when you share there's a share sound button i don't know if you might have selected it and you're different you can try it let's try it out they're just so cute i can't they're out in the woods nothing out there i hear something i hear there's something coming up yeah oh that was really fun all right i think yeah so taking the learning right out into the woods yeah i'm just great
019okay um hiring updates and i know you it's on our items for action but i will share with you who they are now we've filled our 7 8 science position i can't see my notes so his name is jeremy martin he's coming to us with 14 years of experience 14 or 15 years of experience teaching um he has middle level science middle level math if i remember correctly so um he is going to be phenomenal he's local so um he's coming from somewhere else he lives in charlestown so that's kind of local robbers that's the word that's not that far so he's coming to us um and he's really excited about joining the team and the people that were interviewing so he was at charleston middle school no he's at claremont middle school he's been
020there for quite a while um some of our questions are tailored to collaborative interdisciplinary work because that's important so um yeah that's been that's been a challenge so he's very excited about that and does that um he is being joined by jc abbott who works on his team right now oh no who's the eo claremont medal is yeah stacy has like her k-8 she's got um her special ed she has her um in new hampshire it's a k-8 license and you get um your highly qualified status in different content areas so she's highly qualified in math science and she's taken the practice for ela and will get her um bla endorsement so has she taught has she yeah she has taught um not at the middle level but um she will she has a she
021has a passion for it yeah okay yeah she's gonna i'm really excited about the team um we did hear that our social studies teacher is moving back to where he came from and um yeah the one that you offered today no the one that we have today yeah he's so sad yeah he is look he is great the kids just they love them um but he and his wife his wife got a job that's allows them to go back to wisconsin so they are headed out um at the end of the year yeah and our intervention is donna hatch it will be here so um they are you know our middle we we've been working on the middle grades for quite some time as an su as well made some decisions about that this um
022recently i think david shared at the su board meeting we mapped out a timeline of what that's going to look like over the next three years it's not required this year but i think next year they will go to the middle grades institute but several of these people that we've hired and mr buds are planning to attend this summer which is great oh that's awesome yeah it really is and together together yeah that's the power of it yeah so you're excited about the person that you offered a position to today too yeah okay just waiting for social studies yes and they're i know so um nikki had put um i think step teacher staff retention on the uh suggested that one yeah but i did link um i attended a webinar this week on the
023workforce and the state has partnered with a company i'm not going to remember their name to really look at data around teacher retention and hiring um and it was an okay webinar they really were looking at a model that improved their teacher mentoring to keep new teachers in the district which is a great future plan it doesn't help me right now right hire people um and i feel very fortunate that we've had applicants to the positions and we haven't had we haven't had many but we've had some so it sounds like the ones that you've had you're excited like every hire you've had this year you're excited yeah so we're lucky because there are there are um there are people on the call yeah it's hard work it's doing a lot of hard work i'm
024doing a lot of hard work yeah yeah you gotta sell it um but there were people on the on the webinar that they're they're down like 15 special educators they're they're just really people losers down struggling three or four positions and that's not their interventionist right so it's classroom teachers and then they i know i have two title interventionists there so you know anybody who wants yeah position yeah so i did attach um the vsa and vsba i put out a a document about workforce we don't have to look at it now but it's for you to look at ideas they're they're creating pipelines support staff making it easy for them to to get the coursework necessary to become licensed teachers that's cool yeah so um they have some ideas but it's it's a problem
025across the state so um other if you have great ideas to share i just wanted to get there all right um i just want to talk briefly about floral hall just so you're in the know jim's been working on seeing if we can move crossfit out there so visvit has come and um they haven't said no that's how chip puts it up on the card he is waiting for fire safety to come the state has to come and say that we can use it we're not going for fall occupancy because crossfit isn't it's not in there i wouldn't be in there all the time that's going to happen this thursday but if they say yes we will have to um do some upgrading so that front deck there where you enter will have to be
026rebuilt likely the door um railing on it railing they'll have to put in a second exit likely he said um paint it'll have to be cleaned out painted and rubber mats on the floor so there will be a cost to that um he estimates one grand and then in the following year he would recommend if it if it goes through he would recommend that we allot some money from our capital reserve to pay for windows and just upgraded he thinks he can make it work for a year if it gets approval but it would be money and it would mostly come out of supplies and building repairs that's that's existing money in fy20 do we have like i mean we've got parents meaning that could help like i'm sure somebody's dad is your mom is
027a contractor and can you know build us some new front steps and stuff like that like is that being looked at and like painting and things like that painting probably um when you're building things there's just like so many codes and rules and so it's just more complicated um because it has to be up to to create up to code for student use yeah so i think they'll definitely look for contractors but for bids i would imagine you know what i mean i think something like that is more appropriate for the woods project um i'm tapping that through and contractors right now like we're not going to get somebody to volunteer you never know you don't know until yes yeah yeah you never know until yeah so yeah and he jim thinks a lot of
028the work can be done um with the maintenance staff that we have during the summer um but yeah heather i'll definitely bring that to his attention so i would like to know what you think about that because it is money that we didn't anticipate spending on flora hall and you know i don't want to move forward unless remind me again why we need to move them we just need that so yeah we need space so if we move crossfit out it will open up um you know where they are here on the far end those rooms that used to be early childhood rooms so kindergarten would be there kindergarten kindergarten tk so right now it's fourth grade crossfit tk um so we'd move kindergarten because we have an additional um our bubbles moving to the
029middle level so we need an extra classroom for um we have one fourth grade yeah that small bubble so we need we need two classrooms for every every grade level so okay uh k will be down there first through fourth would be in the middle hallway and five eight would stay in the orange hallway um we also have an autism program next year that needs space in this building uh which we're trying to figure out so will they be on the middle school no they'll be in the old lodge because they need a bathroom and they don't need a huge space but yeah for some reason space is just a commodity we just need new buildings yeah we do throughout the whole state everybody needs new buildings speaking yeah um so that would be the
030plan we have a plan b if it doesn't if it doesn't happen but um i mean my thought would be if you guys think it fits within the existing budget i think it needs to happen and i also think like and is crossfit used on a daily basis it's used not all day but yes it it definitely takes care of some of the overflow in the multi-purpose room so it's really hard to share a dining hall with your gym it creates a scheduling nightmare to be honest we can't it's really awful to have lunch going on with with which class on the other side even two gym classes at once yeah so it's not even maybe necessarily crossfit it's just another space they could do yoga they could do you know different things that's so
031good for kids that need a timeout yeah youtube brain breaks and that's kind of missing this year isn't it like it's still back yeah shut down yeah it's not completely shut down but there's not a lot of time in the schedules for it so um so i don't know what they'll say but if they say yes i think it's a great idea um agreed yeah i think more space better yeah okay and it's a building that it's it's only housing or other old fitters that's true that's true okay um look i've got the this is the tmp data the panorama is not in our dashboard yet so i can't share that with you and staff are finishing some of the stuff today so so the tnp this is the one that was just completed recently
032this is spring and i will tell you it's um it's last week's data a few more kids have finished so the data changed but i didn't have time to update it so wait a minute what just happened it's the last slide clicked on that yeah okay um and i will say it is wonderful having brittany enter this into um performance matters makes it really easy to get the data and putting it in our dashboard which has been a time saver for me i you know i take it and use it and format it in a different way but it's there for me to grab so um this is a let's see if i can slide shows make it figure for you hey this looks slow this is um student attendance data average monthly attendance during
033the year yeah it's pretty high um i mean the highest spike was in december and it's come down but but 10 um i feel like it tracks with copa though um it does it's still a lot it is but we're not having kids show up i mean i'm sure that there are problem kids but like if a kid sniffs most parents are keeping them home now so are you i mean are you feeling like it's something else like kids are staying home who no not because they're sick but you know i mean we have a handful that yeah right you know you know but that's been that's been stable for a couple years so it seems like this is pretty well we'll hope it decreases yeah yeah but i also think that it's a new
034awareness of spreading germs totally yeah and just embarrassingly bad you know like i like i had a kid who i know didn't have covered he felt pretty good but he was sniffling and i just i'm not i i think about his teachers who are gonna listen to him and think am i gonna you know i just like i'm not sending that kid and yeah i know i think right i think everyone feels loudly yeah no which is great he's gone her mask doesn't have coconut well yeah and the kids are afraid to cough yeah yes yeah so we'll we'll we'll keep tracking i mean you can see where our goal is where our goal is about four percent so we're about that is that goal based on previous precoc oh i think i think we
035pulled it from yeah it was part of our plan but i don't know that we had a methodology to why we picked that goal okay i feel like i mean i would it might have been like a 10 improvement or something i guess i feel like with a new attend like people paying attention to not spreading germs but that maybe isn't realistic anymore and i don't necessarily want to encourage sick kids in school so maybe it is higher and i yeah maybe our goal is to yeah it could be yeah we'll just keep it's interesting data to keep keep an eye it is interesting and it does look like the curve is yeah it's suspicious yes okay um so here's the track my progress over time um this is ela uh fall winter spring there
036are second graders there are some i know look at them go right there's some there's been some growth which is just great but there's been some dips as well we've had a chance the staff hasn't done their data dive with the intervention as we're planning that on friday to go a little bit deeper into the data we do know that we looked uh kind of from a bird's eye view and noticed the foundational skills are low and so those are the things that is one of the things that interventionists are really targeting with their groups when they're looking at the data with teachers and setting goals um the data for the middle school is actually really impressive because usually seventh and eighth graders they like just know they i know this but they just like
037nose dive um and it's impressive that like it's not a huge nose dive at all like that's not you know super significant so yeah it's working it's good to know yeah look at that eighth grade yeah they've been and they've made some great progress in the kindergarten i mean they dropped from the winter but they did and you know the test gets harder yeah so right right um yeah and it's not always you know there's movements there's move outs it's not perfect it's not perfect yeah a kid or two can sway it yeah especially in the small class but um the math um actually eighth grade it got better but it's not as high as you can play to see la heavy class yeah bunch of readers they're a bunch of readers we're looking at
038the data we're looking at our um math um program i mean it's time to start looking at stuff like that so we have a plan for that which is great but but when i'm done a little bit deeper i'll talk about math programs yeah are you ready um i took the significantly below in winter and spring and so these are the kids that scored in the bottom um quadrant right so this is about are we closing the achievement gap right these are the kids that struggle and i mean i was actually pleased that there was some progress there's some important movement and there has been progress yeah those numbers everywhere everywhere but sex yep they haven't improved in kindergarten yeah look at third grade they did so those kids moved from either red to yellow
039or you know um green or yeah right so that's it was very encouraging you went up 100 points so i don't know what they're doing well i think i think our intervention plans are working that's awesome so that was that's good that was math this is ela um also some movement wow see that goes again the second greatest math and the eighth grade is the l.a did you see the seventh grade that's zero because yeah that's interesting significantly below what's really uncommon what happened before that's a question the data it's five yeah so we're in the middle of specs and i'll be able to bring that data but maybe maybe next month we'll see does the aspects usually take i mean yeah but the data is almost instantaneous you can get it i feel like
040it takes money it's not gonna get it we can't release it we can't release it it's often embargoed for a while so we can't really share it until fall meeting but yeah so we can't do anything yeah right okay so i'm gonna go back to this tab and then i'm gonna open i have one more slide and lindsay's gonna take over so just kind of some things that are happening we are having our last um community dinner it will be a barbecue outside get to eat together for those that want to come i've worked with john and the wreck and he's going to do some family games activities for people that want to participate so 5 30 yeah and i couldn't get into it okay she resent the lady yep and then i think it
041worked okay um all right i'll talk to you about that um the eighth grade trip the kids decided they are choosing fun spot in queensborough new york they're gonna go on a steamboat ride and some other things there they are working really hard to earn the 4 800 triple cost so um we have to we have to put some down payments down in a week and a half so they've started to raise some money they're doing um school clothing sales we actually sent out um just a blurb to the community and people have sent checks in which has been that's wonderful yeah um and then can you ask for donations at the community barbecue but yeah maybe you could ask the eighth graders to do something yeah at the community they could they could uh
042wait could they make it could they do yeah maybe they could do desserts or yeah i mean bake sale could be a bakery they would do a big city yeah instead of great ideas craig doing dessert yeah they they often do like the trip is normally tied to community service right but they just haven't been able to fundraise for two years so if we predicament if they do do a big scale can they bake in the school so it's not the parents yeah if it's the eighth graders that are trying to raise money like something else that they might want to consider is like because it's like spring cleanup time if they want community service things like i know that a bunch of our high school kids will do first like go rake somebody's lawn
043and accept donations that's a great idea so okay it's always it's a great idea someone needs to step in i wonder about burn foundation too she wrote to the bird foundation you didn't no no no listen unless she did great okay she wrote to the bird foundation i think lizzie you you um let's go right here yeah great excellent um okay so we've got k and tk registration coming up in a couple weeks we have 30. look at that 36 as a yeah that's great can we have three classrooms you know well you'll have to hire another teacher um but but if you think that includes tk so some of those will be in tk some will be in the autism program so it won't be um i know right it's great but okay nice
044russell's about to get like um so update on summer academy i shared last month 78 students qualified with winter tnp we did look again at spring tnp and made some additional recommendations and sent letters to those families um katie anticipates 30 to 40. she has 30 confirmed but she's still waiting for people to sell their permission slips which is great um they will be bust from here bust back here bus to the rec if need be is there anything like for those 38 kids who did qualify like are we doing anything for those 38 kids who aren't going to be yeah who who've opted out of summer academy like when they come back in the fall is like is there is there something that can be done with the kids who don't you know just
045to keep them moving because clearly they need the help the most i mean we'll reassess them and put them on student support plans if if they need them absolutely um and heather i think a good number of those kiddos are being serviced in some way whether it be title or iep services so some of them are already on a lot of them are already on plans thank you yeah we'll definitely keep an eye on them um we've started the fy23 schedule to align with the strategic plan goals middle school model we um the decision was made that six eight is middle grades and in the first year that that means sixth grade will integrate with seven and eight for um recess and lunch times and advisory but it's gonna be a slow roll because we
046know that sixth grade is some sixth graders are not really ready to be in with seventh and eighth graders at the beginning of the year but the goal is to enjoy what was it how how are we doing because how are we dealing with the staffing situation of that so there will be two sixth grade core teachers as there are now and then but and i know we were the fifth grade teachers were going to one was going to be or they were going to be taking international interventionists yeah so so they can do it in one of two ways and we haven't made that decision yet they can act as the fifth grade interventionist so one one's teaching one's interventioning at the same time right um which makes sense in terms of they'll be
047seeing the instructions seeing what's happening and being able to support that um and then we will have our other odd level interventionist um be primarily in six or six in another area of need um or they can work it out so that it's a share between five and six it can still do it it doesn't align perfectly yeah there's just a bonus of the sense of like the fifth grade teachers currently yeah know those these kids like and can move we like i think that's a real yeah yeah so they have to we have to meet and talk about that um yeah so that's um that's in the works right now um just so you know i'm sure you've heard about the pbc testing it's gonna be happening around the state um our tentative date
048is july 1st through september 30th of 23 there may be some costs associated with i actually haven't that well it's happening they're testing they're testing every single so you you heard what happened in burlington right actually i have no idea so they their kids are going to high school in the mall in the mall oh yeah yeah yeah okay high school yes because they had pcbs they found pcb's at the site so now they're testing all these goals so that's coming just to just to put it in our sights because it may cause some money i don't know what we're going to find out um so just uh talent shows coming stafford versus 8th grade basketball is coming and then your staff celebrations were starting to plan so just kind of things are coming to
049a close quickly and then we are planning on offering some summer work for staffy and she's been putting that together they will have a couple of opportunities to work collaboratively to work on um planning integrated units of study over the course of the summer get paid for that work yeah yeah okay so lens oh oh good news a little bit update only four cases only four cases since we met last isn't that great yeah whoa yeah we had a ton and then it just like well yes because it's huge we burned out we just kind of burned hot and then burned out yeah so we'll get one we'll get one get one but not like a ton which is great so okay now it's lindsey's turn okay so nikki i'm following back up on the
050know where to hide book that you and i think it was february i looked back was that right when you did that um book report i think so sounds about right i don't know i know they're crazy winter time so yeah so what i did was i pulled some behavioral data that could possibly speak to the work that he did and so what i did is i kind of used the following parameters i looked at a sample of kiddos that have been identified either with a specific learning disability or adhd and then behavioral write-ups coded as defiance disrespect or disruption those based on the coding system that we have i felt like kind of fit in the best way with the work he was doing um so i chose those because they they really i
051felt like they aligned with his you know his acronym face the fear anxiety stress and escape and there's just talking in the background you can go the next slide you've seen so this i kind of did it in two ways these are the school years 18 19 19 20 21 20 21 the the one on the left are five students that i selected that have a diagnosis of a specific learning disability or adhd um and what it should there's there's nine defiance write-ups nine disrespect nine disruption and i think with all of these you know not it's tricky because not everything always gets written up i pulled it from the the system that we have that gets that we put write-ups in so i wouldn't necessarily use nine as like a you know a hard
052and fast number because there certainly are others that are just addressed in the classroom that may or may not have a write-up attached to it and then the the chart on the right is five students that i randomly selected that do not have a diagnosis of an a specific learning disability or adhd and so it showed i mean the the defiance and disruption were similar a little bit lower but disrespect obviously was certainly much lower than it was in the students that were diagnosed with a specific learning disability or adhd and the next slide christine is this year alone and this i i had a tricky time so this one i only chose four students um so for this year only for students diagnosed with a specific learning disability or adhd there's i'm trying to
053look closely and i think it's 20 for defiance 27 disrespected nine disruption i'm sorry when you say 20 like of like those four students have been written up 20 times for defiance correct this year alone so yep that's 27 for disrespect plus nine together combined combined holy moly yeah and one and which is interesting which to me you know as i was looking at that data nikki it it really spoke to me you know in relating to that book that's how it feels with a child with adhd and a learning disability like that is how it feels as a parent and that's how it feels as the parent of the non [Music] the disrespect is interesting that seems to be uh well and that's one of the simplest objective how do you decide you're it's
054disrespectful so one of the lines of his book is if you're a teacher and you feel like this kid is preventing you from doing your job yeah then you need to think twice about how you're treating this kid and that lines up exactly with disrespect yes yeah and so these kids are being told they're shutting down and they're being told they're disrespecting the teacher by not doing what the teachers don't want them to do yeah like it could be just uh work refusal right yeah trip yeah yep yeah i'll get written down it's just right they might say oh you're that's disrespectful yeah and and often uh some of those i noticed with this year especially that one fell under defiance as well like a work refusal thank you oh gosh yeah so then the
055next slide i went um so i kind of wanted to walk through what we're currently doing so our admin team and the trauma champions meet with dave melnick on a semi-regular basis um he is if you haven't heard of him before he i don't even he's phenomenal he is this amazing amazing person in the realm of trauma-informed work our teachers utilize trauma-informed practices we build relationships um you know we use as much predictability and consistency as we can we give supportive feedback and try to foster any feeling of safety that we can for them we utilize collaborative problem solving and i'll go into that a little bit more detail in the next slide as well as responsive classroom which i'll talk a little bit more in about in a second as well so collaborative problem
056solving and if it's something we want to hear more about i'm happy to come back and kieran zito actually is and also a great resource with our um home to school liaison it would be an amazing person to invite if we want to learn more about collaborative problem solving but it's it's a way to have a conversation with a student or a person when there's a problem so each person names you know how the problem is affecting them and then together you collaboratively try to find a solution to whatever the problem might be instead of just a conversation where an adult kind of imposes his or her opinions or thoughts on a child it's more of a it's a conversation together to find a solution that both parties can agree on and if you want
057i'm happy to in a later meeting if you'd want i'd be happy to invite karen it it really is a wonderful way to to get student voice and to help them be a whole lot more invested in what they're doing every day i think my one comment on that is that that works when the kids are still receptive to engaging with the adults but once the kids are terrified of everything then it falls apart so yeah it could definitely become more of a challenge or real right nikki yeah and we also utilize the next slide christine is a responsive classroom and it's like a quick one-minute video that kind of really talks about what responsive classroom is and how powerful it is let me click on it yes please [Music] every child deserves a warm
058safe and joyful learning environment a place that supports them to take risks to learn and reach their full potential that's the core principle of responsive classroom which is now used in classrooms and schools across the country responsive classroom is not a separate curriculum instead it's an approach to teaching it offers educators practices that they can use throughout the day to expand children's learning and create positive communities both in the classroom and throughout the school responsive classroom techniques don't end at the classroom door they can be used to build a positive school culture as well two major studies concluded that the responsive classroom approach increases student engagement improves academic achievement decreases discipline problems and leads to more high quality teaching responsive classroom has helped me to become a better teacher i think it's totally changed my
059approach to how i interact with them i noticed a change in my effectiveness as a teacher with morning meeting and with responsive classroom as a whole my favorite thing about the responsive classroom is that it works i've seen it work as a classroom teacher i've also seen it work as a building principle everyone is invested in what we're doing for kids and that's the power of school-wide responsive classrooms [Music] and nick uh christine you can go to the next slide so and responsive classroom is a wonderful whoop that hold on music again okay it's so good you had to play it twice so and and what are we doing next um i wrote to the burn foundation and received a wonderful amount of money from that foundation to be able to offer the four day
060responsive classroom core course for teachers this summer so that i'm working through the logistics and the details to be able to offer that to teachers without them needing to use their pd funds so we can all use some of the really positive aspects of responsive classroom are we're working on an suy differentiated pd model in which all teachers whether you're new to the district knew the su or you've been there for a while and you haven't had the training we'll get training in cps as well as trauma-informed practices and we'll continue to look at data to be analyzed and look for patterns to provide proactive interventions around and what i had forgotten to add to this slide that i had just thought of brittany and i had started to to look at the systems in
061which we input behavioral referrals in and we're moving to an se wide behavioral referrals like it will get put into powerschool which will be really helpful it'll be an easy way for us to see it on our end but then it'll be a way that across the su that we can all have the same platform that we're looking at the data with [Music] what kind of support around this for like um like like learning coaches and classroom aids and all that kind of stuff because you know i don't know my experience is just that that's not the teacher's not the this is the one that's there that they and often it's not the person they're dealing with they they're welcome to join um i think one one positive going forward into next year the support
062staff contract mirrors the teachers contract so there are the same number of professional development days which has not been the case and so when we've offered trainings in the past yeah yeah um because you're right they're they're often the staff members who are dealing with kids that are um struggling in the moment so the teacher continued to teach so but we also presented or i presented the know where to hide book report that i presented to you guys on friday to um all the parents oh that's great and i ask you in the seo that's fantastic yeah and um and i adapted it specifically for the perez um and the feedback that i got was really good good i i got some feedback too that was said it was phenomenal yeah i did a really
063good job yeah yeah so i i think i think i mean just knowledge is power like if you know that now they can't look at things the same way that they did last week right did you happen to record that i didn't and i wish i did because it was a good one because then we could show it you know yeah i guess you have to do it again and christine you and i have toyed around with the idea and i'm sure we could either maybe uh dorothy byrne wouldn't mind another letter you know funding doing a book study for for the staff which could be a great way to do it we just need to find the funds to pay for the books yep thank you i mean like i would pull that data
064into the presentation yeah and i was just going to say could we show this to teachers i think that's a really powerful thing because you know then as you're writing disrespect it makes you think wait who is the who's the kid but they need to see the presentation first like they need to really understand how they're doing yeah wow yeah and we've talked we have talked about embedding that book study into the differentiated professional development for teachers um in that system but you know also maybe it's worth a staff meeting yeah okay even i mean yeah and i i can do it but i think it's really powerful coming from a parent who's lived it you know what i mean well because experienced a kid too yeah so um lots yeah lots of work to
065be done in that room but yeah we need to get this out to our teachers though yeah they need to know the difference in the way that kids are being like the kids that need help the most are getting the most behavioral referrals yeah so we can we can work on that yeah let's see i'm curious why this year was so different this year um well you know the trends over time for behavior in this school have um decreased right we put a lot of things in place yeah and then this year um everything just spiked kids coming back from not being in school in person that had something to do with it i think the stress of the teachers um certainly gets passed down not intentionally but but it's also their fuses probably are
066right you know everyone's faces they're a little shorter so yeah i will say i don't you pulled it from the whole year lindsay i mean at the beginning of the year was much worse um it's gotten better we've put some things in place for kids that really needed additional supports but um yeah the behavior i mean i think we brought you behavior data oh yeah was it had spiked considerably yeah across the state yeah across the street i can attest it's the worst i've ever seen it yet yeah yeah the um i know we talked about the pods and the lack of transitions last year being kind of protective yeah and i'm wondering i mean the kids are are the kids eating in the multiple term again no they're not they're not it's not that
067they're they're eating in the classrooms um many staff want to continue that family lunch they want a little bit they want a bit of a hybrid um which helps with the npr scheduling issue um but they they are transitioning to specials right they are and i mean it's again the data could be looked at i suppose to say where where's the inflection point like where are these incidents happening yeah is it during transitions is it well i i mean i think but never mind you go a vast majority of them are from the classroom which then makes it a little tricky you know when they when a teacher puts in a location most of the time they're in a class and so a large portion of them come from the classroom instead of a transition
068period i think because we had such small class sizes last year this year the academic feels like a massive ramble um yeah with the extra students and because we're trying to recover and i think we're pushing i think the teachers feel the pressure of that and it the kids i think are feeling it too yeah especially the ones that are struggling i would agree and you know the absences do play into it when you're after two weeks you missed two weeks of instruction it's your behind in it yeah it's just a lot of factors that go into it yeah so i i will say it feels i i think the data would show our behaviors have improved um over the last i think it you know usually it's the first six weeks of school yeah
069getting those routines in place and those structures and then things settle we didn't settle until after the new year like january it was it was pretty rough in terms of the challenges we were facing yeah but it's definitely it's it's definitely gotten better right yeah and in pulling the data you picked four and four um i'm just curious about that choice and i guess i'm thinking because statistically oh i get to move again [Laughter] statistically that's not that's not significant very yeah significant but um i didn't i'd love to see more pulled so that we could have a slightly more statistically significant number but i also recognize that it's really challenging to do that i'm happy to pull more yeah i was more i'm trying to remember why i pulled it was tricky to find
070some that were diagnosed either with a specific learning disability or adhd that also were i tried to be strategic on the kiddos that i chose um yeah i think and so i i can definitely pull more um and i'm happy to show you one that has a whole like making the you know the number of kiddos larger um i would imagine we might see similar data but i'm happy to do that if you'd like i just i feel like if we present it what i'd like to do is present it to the staff um and i feel like four and four is too small to it's not it's not enough to say i believe conclusions right it looked startling to us but yeah yeah well i can why don't i i'll pull those and i'll
071bring them to the next meeting does that work yeah and i'll pull it i'll just pull it similarly yeah like if we could even i mean i know that 10 technically probably still isn't statistically significant but at least that that's getting into the double digits what double digits yeah it's double digits and it's it's a little bit more believable um yeah happy to do it absolutely when you pulled the other four um are you pulling from the same grade level as the student that presents with um adhd or a specific learning disability they're i would say is a similar grade band maybe not exactly the same grade level but within the same couple grades of each other you tried to look school-wide with those four kids on each side yeah yes yeah i i think
072i i think that that is really powerful information that i think everybody needs to see yep i'm happy to do it i'll bring it for the next meeting okay and then we'll figure out a plan versus for staffing yeah yeah yeah and i'm happy to do a presentation prior if you want yeah we'll figure it out okay i mean that was so startling i'm like ready to do a presentation tomorrow so um yeah but hopefully i mean maybe now that the para educators it's something you know what i've seen is um it's also about shifting belief systems right and um and you can start to do that with with training and support and conversation but when people get stressed they reflect back to what they know yeah yeah i was going to say i would
073need like i just know you know and you almost need like like i want to say like meditation cards and plus like why is this child triggering me right now yeah you know and it's like you need to have those like in your head to ask yourself those questions when those things happen and that takes a lot of time like just to change that behavior yeah and you know you you avoid the power struggle right of course the student is not doing the work in that moment you know it's hard as a teacher because you do feel that responsibility like it's my job to help these kids be successful so teachers they put a lot of pressure on themselves which is um a good thing right i mean our attentions are very good but you
074know it's okay to walk away and say you're having a hard time right now i'll come back in a few minutes and see be able to talk about it yeah um so it's just learning different strategies to to work within the moment but it's not easy and when you feel disrespected i mean that's the thing like not to get your own walk away thing i need space for you right now because i'm not your your behavior is upsetting me don't take it personally yeah that's it yeah yeah but don't take it personally that's the part yes but it's also okay to say that i mean i say that to my own kids like i need to walk it's like phenomenal from the standpoint it goes right along with the dave melnick um yeah it does
075it really does so it's i'm guessing that there's collaboration there i mean they're both in the northeast yeah yeah i do think that a really powerful part of it too is the voice that the actual voice of an adult who went through this and the kids if it would be possible to you know to kind of give give you know paraeducators and and teachers like a glimpse inside the kid's head so like you know when i'm doing this what i'm what i'm thinking is i'm so i can't do the work so i'm stupid i don't belong here i you know and that is that's really powerful and then that connection is what i incorporated into the new internet oh good okay yeah and so that's great and so here's the funny thing and i think
076this is actually an idea i had during the question and answer part of the presentation we need to buy all the calvin and hugs books we can and put them in this building because there is no question that bill waterson was one of these kids like i literally was just like because i was like i wonder if calvin and hobbes would be a good example and i started i was like i want that one i want that then i was like ah i can only put three in here uh and so having books that these kids could read and i when and like i said this in the presentation it's funny that that was the first book that i could read and so it's just ironic that like now looking back it was a book
077about me in the classroom and it was the first book that i was actually capable of reading because you were motivated it was interesting i connected with it right yeah and i didn't learn to read till fifth grade so like yeah yeah so all right i'm on it i love cabinet hubs i know wait till you look at some of them i will go back there is one that is saving face like i literally put it in the presentation it's every step of saving face i just got rid of like the one of the speech bubbles yeah because wow it's like okay he even flips over the desk and runs out of the room screaming so yeah so um thank you lindsay that was really really helpful not a problem and i'll i'll bring that
078um that other data back for the next meeting okay stop sharing right okay so are we on superintendent superintendent wake up david david hour and 15 minutes in and we made this shot that was good well the good news is christine covers everything so there's not much left but let me let me just share my screen david we still haven't gotten to the items for discussion okay no i know we'll we'll get there uh let me okay so we'll go through this pretty uh quickly so let's just some updates some of these will be the similar to christine's but a little bit different um the equity audit proposals i think the equity audit is going to be an important way to start next year and we've got out of the 10 vendors we did get
079four decent proposals so we're partnering with springfield we have a process set up uh we've got people uh identified on our side i'm just waiting for springfield to identify their their folks so we can get together and vet those proposals we really want to make that decision before uh before the end of may if we can you've got uh certainly heather po we we took people from the task force and from uh boards uh to do this work um you've got heather pogue and um right now i've got colleen spence on the list i don't know colleen did you know you're on that equity audit review committee she's not here okay well i cannot hear you she did volunteer and i'll you know i'll keep everybody posted on this but it it should work i
080know christine is also going to be part of this so that's uh you know that because you know and and certainly uh that's an important part to just make sure we get the right vendor to do this work and we do have the funds because we have not hired a dei person we've got funds in essa to pay for this i want to shout out to tina canfield i think tina was a you know she's only been with us a couple of years but she was a great find and she's done such a great job getting contracts out both at will and union contracts good news that contracts have been returned and we're only dealing with a few extension requests or the ones in heartland that christine mentioned that aren't returning but i think christine
081angie anybody will tell you that tina is so responsive when you email her and uh and and and you want to get a contract written because a lot of times you know we're competing with other districts so the quicker we can get a contract out especially for a new hire the better we are friday i i've i've alluded to this i'll get some more information out to you but there's a parent gathering virtual it's on zoom with mike nicholson many of you remember remember mike he um you know he did our portrait of a graduate work he's no longer with battelle but he has created uh um this leadership center on his own and he's working with districts across the country uh and his big push is for this idea of self-directed learning which is
082very much a part of our plan and getting kids engaged in the learning by making them part of of of decisions around their learning and he's got a group of parents that have been involved in schools that do this kind of work they're going to share out on friday with par with parents you know from rsu and other districts around the country so it ought to be an interesting uh meeting and uh and and you do have a couple of heartland parents confirmed i don't have the list right in front of me but i know you sent me some names uh and of the last three names you sent me christine two of those have con have confirmed so um so you will have heartland parent representation there on friday so that that's good news
083um middle level work uh christine mentioned it it continues you have almost a totally new team which is difficult for historical purposes but actually for transformation purposes sometimes a new team is helpful because they'll all do that learning together at the institute this summer and i think it was just a sign of their commitment that they were all well willing to do that institute this summer because it's not in our timeline for requirement until next year so i think that's good news uh all the way around um and the calendar is final matter of fact i'll drop the link for the calendar in the chat just so you've got it but it's it'll it'll go out it's not any much different than what you got the last time i sent it out but essentially we
084sprinkled those four early release days uh throughout the calendar um and scheduled as pristine center in process the good news is because we've got some coordination to do between buildings especially with the algebra one kids and some itinerant teachers and special education that the principals are kind of sharing their schedules with each other and working on those schedules together but the day will be extended a bit further pretty much back to our pre-covert days it'll look a little different each building because schedules before we had a unified contract were different across the su now they'll all be the same but we're looking at somewhere between a 10 25 to 10 35 i'm sorry a 2 uh 2535 a dismissal and quite frankly that's going to beg the question of after-school programming and i i understand
085that that's got to be high on the priority in all of our schools right now though and i think this is key i'm glad to hear that uh you know that um dave dave is committed to trying to make this work next year because one of the things we found and i think angie spoke to this with bringing the program in to heartland for that one year even though it was still run by the rec department you then you then own it and and uh so what we've got with after-school programming across the su and the other buildings is it's always outsourced right so so we don't we don't have any after-school programming that belongs to any one school district and that was the beauty of the rec center is that the kids had a
086place to go which was different than where they went and so i think that's going to have to be a a high uh priority next year uh june 2nd so go ahead would we offer like like busting kids to windsor or something like that for after school instead like trying to combine our resources i did talk to john about that and because that was one of the solutions we were you know can they do it um and you know he we didn't get into it deep enough but i i think why wouldn't we i think if dave can pull it off that's the easiest solution but but i do think there are backups because windsor has they they have a bridging the gap program right in the building that's that's contracted uh with uh with
087a um with bright futures uh it's an after-school program and then of course the rec center so and we do have buckets that go back and forth uh that's the beauty of you know to some degree you know the high school kids going to to windsor and vice versa and those buses kind of do travel the road so i think if we had if we did come to that i think we could work work it out uh and again it would be capacity at the winter rec center and there would be some cost associated with it decay i think i heard somebody say the kids pay now for the for the rec program at heart they do okay okay that that's good to know i i wasn't sure how that how that worked 15 bucks
088a day per kid 15 bucks a day okay yeah and i they must have they must hit the windsor wreck too although i don't know do they what was that david do they pay the winds erect do the windsor kids pay at the windsor wreck for the after school i don't know that's a great question yeah so if it's an outsourced program they i'm sure they must i know that a lot of the kids well not a lot but some kids do go over there i think the younger kids tend to stay with bridging the gap and the older kids say grades five and six and up tend to go to the rec center and just you know shoot around there's some activities but it would be a good would probably be good to get
089james and dave together and just see what if there's a way to do some partnering uh next year right parents or parents were burned you know so it's like i think i think they're really looking for reliability so even with heartland i think there's going to be parents that say we're not going back to the heartland wreck because i we figured out this other thing or we got another spot someplace else and we just need reliability and so i think we just need to really be careful to be able to promise that for no that's true that i would i would be really careful because it's uh you know and it it's always been a a it's always been an issue in all of our schools to to get to keep that after school programming
090alive and well but uh you know we've we've tried and the other thing too is there are i mean not that you want to i mean it's it's it's not easy but there are also other private child care providers i mean marianne when she ran her program up in st johnsbury she probably had 20 to 25 kids that showed up after school it was just part of her and and and and they get the you know they get reimbursed for some of that rate they charge for some of that rate but so that's what i think parents will probably start doing is is looking around for after-school care it's it's it's not going to be easy to find but um yeah transportation's always an issue but i think in some you know and i don't
091know christine you would know better than me but a lot of times our bus routes go right by these child cares too so so sometimes we get these kids to the childcare then you know i know there's a lot of that that goes on in wethersfield i don't know as much about heartland and what the availability of child care is in heartland but that's important not they're i think donald trump has closed hers right i think so yeah i don't think that i don't know of any david really yeah i mean there's the four corners child care center yeah but that's about it right that's about it and that's as we know young younger kids that's not good and that that uh yeah the heartland for corners child care center too i mean again i
092mean we've you know we've got time but you know that would be another per a group to reach out to in terms of what's their availability to expand their programming and and take some additional kids because the bus does go right by there correct yeah it does yeah yeah but they're pre-k they're like they're they're like business and fans i can't imagine them wanting anything any school they don't do a school age program [Music] there used to be a couple of kids who had siblings there so they might have like three yeah but it's not a wide open program you have to you have to get staffed for that without a doubt the other thing is to save money [Music] yeah i know that west windsor is also thinking about expanding their adventure club program
093next year that would be another thing i mean i'll be honest with you and i'll say this to angie and christine um but i think that wouldn't make a bad you know retreat topic for the administrative team this summer to just kind of figure out ways to coordinate some of the fact this after school programming i know in springfield for example it's it's you know and i'm not saying this is what we need to do here but it is it is centralized you know it's it's it's contracted out it's part of a child care service so i don't remember the name of it does anybody know the name of that springfield operation it's called all for one david okay all for one yeah thank you lindsay i should have known you would know that um
094and you know dinner they were doing they were doing a meal every every day as well i would i wouldn't doubt it i've heard that it's incredibly successful but and again they're a single district so it makes it a little bit easier but uh i think they locate it in one of the buildings right lindsay they do and as far i don't know what it looks like this year but previous to this year it was located at the middle school there like there was a section and they did before and after care yeah because our the elementary schools start later than the middle school and the high school so the elementary kiddos would go there for a little bit in the morning for those that needed it and then could stay later after school for
095those that needed it too and they did yeah they did a dinner also yeah i've heard good things about it and and again i'm not saying that's the model but uh you know we've learned over time that uh the the resources and capacity if we try to do these things alone gets tricky and i think this is a perfect example all of a sudden we've got a program then all of a sudden we don't have a program and it it it's it's all about it's all about capacity but i i think it would make a great topic for uh either administrative team meeting before the end of the year or that summer retreat uh and uh and i reached out to that all for one lindsay when we were looking at this before and they
096were very helpful they were willing you know to come down and talk about how it's structured how it's set up um but again it's it's it's not easy but i know parents you know they do they do need it and i think that you know we just what we have to be careful of because we've tried this in heartland before too we have to be careful of confusing after-school care or child care with schooling right they're very they're very different animals and i think a lot of times there can be a tendency for parents to want to not not not not maliciously but they want to lean on school you know to extend the day extend the day extend the day and it's it's a question of resources and capacity and uh and liability and
097a whole bunch of other things like angie said supervision um and some of these century 21 schools where they get these big grants and they then they just open the buildings up till 5 5 30. uh i'll tell you the research the early research on that was a lot of burnout among especially building principles because principals feel like they're on or the assistant principle is on you know not just for the school day but for the after-school day as well and that it just yeah oh that makes a lot of sense i could easily see that yeah it's tricky really tricky and there's a lot a lot of research on on that burnout um let me just keep going then we can ask questions too at the end june 2nd is our first community forum
098you know the su board's been talking about this right uh the forum will start at 5 30. we have one more meeting tomorrow uh to uh just kind of finalize this but craig is willing to do a barbecue that night we're gonna have our parents barbecued out by the end of the year but um uh but food is always the way to try to get people there uh angie i don't know if you want to speak any more about it but angie's uh working on a on a very brief uh strategic plan uh presentation did you want to say anything angie that wasn't right i am working on it do you expect me to have something tomorrow no no no no no no you you no that's yeah yeah okay we've got time and we'll
099have another meeting after that what's also exciting david is that we're doing the freeza staff presentation on may 27th so brittany has um asked uh principles i think yeah to send in some documentation of how we're already doing our strategic plan evidence of our strategic plan um for a activity with the staff and then we can use that same video that same thing for the community forum oh that's cool two birds with one stone and quite frankly uh you know we worked hard on that strategic plan and it's and it's there and it's and it's it does get referred to a lot and there's a lot of work going on around it but covet interrupted it we know that so we got to get back to it that's the bottom line and everything's timelined out
100really well there and people worked really hard on writing that plan so i think would be ashamed if it didn't and i know it will get resurrected but the more people because the more people that know about it especially our communities i think the better off uh you know we're gonna be uh just awaiting the decision on an interim superintendent i'm gonna miss this work tremendously down here i know i've said that to all of you already i'll never put a team like this together again administratively uh and i'll never work with boards that are as committed to student individual students as i've gotten down here and i i don't want to short any other district around the state but you you have a very unique situation in in windsor southeast and i know we've
101worked hard to get it to improve it um but you know the way you all work together the way you all really care for each other and i'm not just talking about in heartland but the way you've grown that that collaboration across the supervisory union is is just it's just uh incredible and heartwarming and it's not happening everywhere trust me i just talked to a superintendent yesterday where one of the school boards uh has locked him out of the building can't go in there um [Laughter] he went to the building started pounding on the door and the administrative assistant came out and said i was told i'm not allowed to let you in um so that that's how crazy that's how crazy it gets in certain places and and wonder why it's hard to find
102people right exactly [Laughter] i know and i'm just hoping and praying that i don't regret this decision to work close at home but i you know i i just and i did do a lot of uh investigating about you know their boards and you know all that stuff but it'll it'll never look like this and i i'm very well aware of that and you should all be proud of that work uh last last day of school it's on uh but anyway getting back to the interim decision i think nikki this would be more for you but i think the board chairs somehow elizabeth picked up that responsibility of of of setting up interview schedules with jennifer and i reached out to a uh amy today and i said because elizabeth did send out an email
103to the three candidates on friday but then there's been no follow-up since then and what i'm worried about is the transitional work that needs to go on before the end we're already late we're already a little late yeah exactly so and nikki if you want to just light a fire uh somewhere that would that would not be bad either either with amy or with [Music] yeah yeah exactly which i think they're going to do but i don't want to say that too loudly i don't want to jinx it don't say anything now i don't go find real work yeah exactly so any on the last day of school on june 17th that's an early or noon release day and for your viewing pleasure and if you want some place not to be on the evening
104of june 17th uh there's going to be an su white seventh and eighth grade dance at the windsor rec center i i it has not been we haven't got the flyer up yet i i am not sponsoring this dance um but uh there's a group of parents i i guess that parent group that's been meeting uh you know this is one thing they thought would be good for our kids so you'll you'll hear more about this uh you'll have to make your own decisions about whether your 7th and 8th grader goes but it'll be well chaperoned well organized and probably a nice way to end the year for these kids i would think but and then the task force we are going to get the equity task force together again soon uh we've got we've
105also got a timeline there and and action steps and then mary gannon i think our first meeting with mary gannon as a board and i know not all board members can be there but i think it's may 10th if i'm not mistaken so she's going to work on you know really just helping everybody to find the terms and do the work that she's been contracted to do so it's just exciting that this work is continuing in our uh su and we we were also very blessed to be part of that vermont statewide leadership network network with lavelle brown and and we're gonna i think i mean it'll be up to the interim and the boards but i think we'll continue some of that work with him uh next year so that's it uh for me
106i'll stop sharing here i asked could you ask uh lori to get the um mary gannon's dates into all of our calendars yes yeah and i don't know whether i think she did that already but i'll ask her to do that i'll ask her to do that again so that she's gone i think she sent it out and confirmed them but i don't think they're not in my calendar yet okay i will i will have her do that um and i think you know what i think the problem was but she could send out a placeholder mary gannon wants to use zoom for those meetings because she's much more equipped to use zoom so we have to we have to wait to get her yeah she'd been in california until last night and but i
107i'll i'll i'll stay on that nikki okay yeah that would be really good um but you can block out the tenth and we'll get that link out to everybody that's the first one uh is that just for the board i thought that at the last meeting maybe elizabeth asked if anybody could go to that meeting well i think i think it'll be it'll be it'll be warned and so the public can come uh and i would you know i'm gonna i'm gonna try to to be there because it's virtual i mean i think i mean most of it's yeah it's essentially it's all virtual so i would encourage any community public you know i'm going to put it in my uh email blast and we can you know i think it would be nice to
108have you know i mean it's not going to be the public won't be able to interact it'll be the board that'll interact but at least they can be there and listen right and hear what everybody's learning and i thought mary gannon did a great job the last time and we had quite a few public on the last time awesome dude how long are these meetings supposed to last i think they're just uh let me let me look and see hold on one second i think two hours i think it's two hours yeah i think it is yeah 5 30 to 7 30. i know the time is not great but um but we'll get those locked into your calendars and uh i think and and we know that there are some people who can't be
109at certain ones but the laurie picked the best dates to get the most board members there each each time um and we will record them so that they'll be available to you after if you do have a conflict but i think it's just i personally think it's going to be important to just as board members administrators to just continue to show that ongoing commitment to staying on the same page with this work so i'll keep i'll keep you posted on that christine could you also make sure that you send your presentation your principles report to lori so she can link it because when she does the minutes she links it in the in the minutes and i'll do i'll do the same our minute taker has been doing i think a nice job she works
110off the recordings and let's just keep doing that okay so are you good david any other questions for david um okay you're coming to the next meeting in person right yes i did i was going to tell you that i think yeah of course because you know me nobody's going to get away without a hug that that's the bottom line so and i and these virtual hugs are not worth anything so yeah they're not mentioned yeah so we'll i'll be there in june all right good um okay so i think we're on to items for discussion brief discussion items for a brief discussion um okay so uh teacher staff retention um heather uh brought this up um but did you want to ask christine what we do or yeah i did i was just wondering
111like just in general because it seems like they're you know our middle school is leaving and i know a number of like paras have left and things like that and i'm just wondering like what is the process that we go through when we teach our staff wants to leave at the end of the year in the middle of the year like is there a interview like an exit interview that's taken what is done with that data like what just so that we are clear as to like what's happening with that um we've done some tina in hr we'll do an exit interview she doesn't do it all all the time which she does um some of the time and i don't know what that i mean she shares the data with me to some of
112it um the teachers i mean if i wanted her to do it i could certainly ask her um i mean i know why the staff are leaving um or i know what they tell me so maybe there's more to it right so i i mean i think it's a great idea to have it as a common practice i think it does i think it needs to be a common practice just so that we can see if they're and like what questions are being asked um just because you know like it does appear that there's sort of a large number of people who are leaving and it would be nice to know like like why are they leaving and like what are we doing to keep them like to keep teachers and staff like you know
113i understand that it's hard right now like everybody is having a you know like teachers are leaving powers or leaving like there's like a lot of movement but like what are we trying to do to like keep them keep them here yeah one thing we've talked about as a team is um our onboarding practices which are lacking to be quite honest um we don't have a lot of time with our new teachers to onboard them we have one one day essentially one painting one paid day and we try to cram it all in um we haven't in the past been great about um getting them up to speed on curriculum which is something we need to work on because in that one day right now yeah we do have a mentor program for them which
114is a one year can be two um if need be or requested so they do get support in that realm um you know we've offered open office hours for new staff monthly meetings just to check in um you know i haven't done it this year but i've done it in the past with with new teachers um so it's great questions i don't other than that just trying to build trust with them and relationships there's sometimes teams work well together and sometimes they don't i think that probably plays into it a little bit but for the most part the teachers that um have left this year some have gone back to where they came from and you know that was mentioned in the webinar i was at like when you're hiring people from out of state
115and they actually come here and experience it it's not something that that it can be different than what they expected and they choose to go back where they came from so that's um that's some of it i think we've i mean we've with the technology that we've been um using for remote learning it's opened up candidates from all over the place we never we rarely interviewed people from all this across the country in past years now it's like does that have to take all of us from oregon yeah yeah but it's a com it's much more common practice now um than it has been because someone doesn't have to invest in a plane ticket to interview right right yeah yeah we do it over and over you know i do think i do think the
116interview question is a good question though and yeah it has been sporadic um we've had different districts enhance it different ways um but it sounds like it might be something else that we want to be more intentional about and maybe have some sort of a either i don't know if we need another policy but some kind of a procedure for those kinds of exit interviews i do like the idea that it's done by whether it's hr tina or a couple of people we designate um because i think sometimes people will be more honest if they're not talking to the person that they you know the building or the board that they worked for for all those years and then maybe figure out a way maybe we have three or four or five set questions and
117we do try to keep some some data so i i think it's a great question and yeah i know i know the summer list is starting to grow but i think it would be it would be nice to talk about that i know yeah now and i like i like looking at beefing up our onboarding practices too like do we need to have maybe two days but i mean we need a week yeah i know that's what i'm thinking like what we've done for the for the um for next year is we have we have to give staff a floating day so that they can watch the seven habits and get up to date on that i mean to speed on that excuse me um and so they technically have two days one's a float
118day and that one's the day before that we arrest the staff return yeah um we're trying to do more with video yeah you know that's definitely uh britney's wheelhouse and um she's doing more with that to try to try to see where we can do more um like if you give if staff can have small periods of time that they could then do a training um because it all bounces off their forehead everything everything is just it's coming at them so fast so something that just hit me you know to throw out ideas like maybe getting the new staff together and it like wouldn't be paid but like for just an hour once a month over the summer like maybe just a cocktail hour or whatever you know just to all be on a call
119together and get more familiar with you christine um and lindsay and just to have more face time so that when they show up they know each other yeah and they know you guys really well at that point like i'm just a bigger sense of security i don't know so my experience coming into a school building as an outsider also mid-year was also really interesting and then a little bit pandemic um but i don't think you can repeat that not great um and i still um yeah it was very lonely and i think part of it is i'm a district employee and i work across several schools and no one i'm no one's responsibility to variant and so i was talking with like the speech pathologist and the physical therapist and all those people that like
120we share space with and we're all in the same boat we had to clear the halls drill and all of us look at each other what do we do what the hell do we do we do train them on that you know i knew that much but i was like is it my responsibility to go into a classroom like is that best for that so so there's just so many of those things that make it so that we are still the outsiders and so i think as a district really looking at those people that are moving from building to building and how do you make them part of your community um and have them feel like that's you're they're in your school they're not just like the service you know coming in and out i
121think is really important um too because there are kids in and out of our room all day um but then we kind of come and go and who's that lady you know yeah yeah sure do i mean is there any um is there any are there any patterns that we've seen when obviously if someone's moving back to their hometown right that's not that's not us but when but there are you know there are staff who are moving to other school districts and what you know i'm curious what are the are there any patterns that we've noticed what are the things are they moving yeah they move to districts that pay more they pay more right i mean i think that's you know that's lebanon are really hard for those three that pay more and they're
122in close proximity right and so that's if you live in new hampshire which has happened you and you work in new hampshire you don't pay vermont state tax rights a significant amount of money yeah to be honest with you so yeah that's happened as well yeah so yeah it would be really good data to collect so that we can make some decisions around yeah i have a couple of other questions yeah sorry um one of my other things is like the mentor program like i know i'm a new staff person mentor and like i feel like whatever you've got to do to like beef up the mentor program like do it like invest in the new people are coming because it's really important and like we've got money to like take them out for dinner
123and provide lunches and you know like things like that yeah and so and as a mentor like i did training with my mentee um like i went to those you know those new days that they have with them so that i could sit with them and be like yes and let me tell you about the clear the hall drills well and it's it's i hate to say it schools are clicky yeah it is yeah most of the staff were outside and i was like oh yeah yeah so it's like how do we make sure the staff aren't feeling like how do i be the cool kids like you know um so i think that really and then i think the other thing like one thing about teacher retention and staff retention is like a constant
124surveying of them of like what things are going well what things they want fixed and it's not just at the beginning of the year or the end of the year it's like you know bi-monthly of like what what's happening in the building because it it changes it changes from the beginning of the year to the middle of the year the end of the year and i really think that there needs to be like a survey that's sent around you know by you or by you know lindsay that just says like it's the same questions every time but just to get enough like both faculty and staff to just say like here's what i'm struggling with right now and here's some things that are going really well and just so that everyone is always sort of
125on board and it's it's their spot to sort of i don't want to call complain but it's a place for them to like put down their legitimate concerns because it it changes over the school year and if you're not constantly if you're not constantly in communication with your teachers and your staff you're never gonna sort of like know what's making them upset at certain times or what's making them really joyful at certain times and i feel like both of those need to be like focused on frequently because like happy teachers make happy kids you know like happy wife happy life it's the same thing happy teachers happy staff everything is better um so i think the constant communication and just like we want to know like what are like what can we do to make
126your lives better like what are the things that we need to change constantly is is something that i really feel like should be happening um because i really just think it's important yeah i would agree yeah and if you want i'll come up the survey for you no no no and we were we were doing a wellness survey every month last year we did last year two years i think we started and we didn't do it this year we are doing the leader in me survey which gets at some of the culture um in the building but that's beginning and end it's not in between um we certainly lindsey and i make a point to you know get to meetings talk to people have that build that relationship with them but it's not necessarily a
127format for them to be giving individual feedback so i think it's a great idea yeah i agree christina i think our staff in general at least that uh that i felt i feel really comfortable coming to either uri when there are problems but there is likely staff that are not as comfortable so that could be a good way for them to do that if you did do they do that at your school we do we do have some sort of like thing that's been happening more frequently than it has yeah i mean if you have a template with great questions i'm not going to say don't send it to me i have a template for really great exit questions for exit interviews that our superintendent uses which she stole from somebody else so cheering yes
128yeah no that would be great and i would pass it i mean i think did you put that on a trouble yeah because i you know i think tina is a great person to do that that's excellent yeah because she will get at she's just a a person a neutral person right so there you go that's your job yeah so great suggestions heather i'm glad you're here thank you it's great moving right away um organize retreat um organize return uh so what just new person what do we do what is it we have a retreat um and it's usually is there fire involved um [Music] like sleepover parties no we don't give a oh come on okay none of us have time i don't even know when we're gonna be able to do this because
129i'm like leaving a whole summer but i'll be on time so um let's go ahead and put it on the may agenda so that yeah let's do it like right after school ends um yeah i mean so do we want to pick a date right now our june meeting would be june 7th yeah holy moly yeah so wait it's just like a dinner party yeah okay i'm sorry i just i i hear retreats we usually start four hours okay because when i hear retreats yeah like there's like dinner there's like a camp dinner and yeah kid's birthday book launch date can't well there we go um how about july like july let's see well our july meeting is july 5th what about that i won't be here oh you won't be here okay i will
130be here for half of july um we go back to june yeah let's go back to june um what the week of the 20th 24th is anyone around could do the 23rd which is a thursday um i could do the 23rd oh what about no no don't suggest another date let's let's let's agree on the twitter colors right here ellie's not here um okay so i'll send out an email seeing if june 23rd is okay it works for calling does it work for you yeah are we going to be meeting in july or not i'm only asked because it is the 5th which is the holiday week so that's actually the only week i'll be around in july let's do it i won't be here for most of the month and we have previously taken
131august off like when i first started as a board member we took august off yeah yeah um but i think it makes more sense to take your life off because august you're like right there's nothing together into things yeah yeah i would be in favor of that um and we have not taken a month off we haven't in a long time it's like a career four years yeah because there's between teachers you can always you can still do a remote meeting no i don't think we take a month off since before act 46. i think you're right i think you're right there just has been so much it's just been like constant bombardment so let's take jose i'm so glad we get paid so well i know exactly wait you get paid for this yeah
132you get a stipend yeah 500 bucks we're in charge of that budget but like that's like how like here it doesn't even pay your gas money to get here it doesn't so you could do carnivals you could ask for oh i have we are the lowest in the supervisory union by more than half yeah and you've been in the supervisor the other ones are like a thousand when i was really like are you serious yeah a long time ago yeah i think we've been at 500 since like this i did not know that this is just like [Laughter] okay we're putting the 23rd [Laughter] tough time getting there at 4 30 but yeah we'll see how we can do and this is not instead of our june meeting it's in addition to yes so this
133is really our july meeting um okay uh so that's tentative and i will email jalen okay check that one off the list organize okay what is what is we are hope we know yeah i mean they have a contract right uh david who's working on that um it's it's yes but the extent of their hours we have not defined yet right okay no there's no contract signed yet but they'll be back okay great okay great jack treasurer's salary um new hires increasingly treasurer salary oh yes thank you the thing off to the side that i won't be seeing anymore thank you um treasurer's salary so uh we have a treasurer that we split 50 with the town um and the town has been giving her raises and we have not um she could have told
134us yes well she did so i'm bringing it here so um she would like us to look at giving her some braces yeah like what timeline can we do that in this entire fiscal year what do we do all the things that get paid right someone to just kind of keep an eye on things and make sure that the receipts match the yeah so we don't we don't have any like an accounts payable yes but each town has to have their own treasurer yeah the town treasurer yes so how is that associated with the school then the school district she's the each school district has to have their own treasurer that does all the backup looks it's like a checking system okay so there's the su is for all three districts and they have they
135have accounts payable and they do but then there's someone just to keep an eye on the just the school district which is also the town basically in most in most districts like heartland the town treasurer does the school treasure will work right and and when i did research on this a few years ago it's all over the place a lot of town clerks just do i mean a lot of town treasurers do it just as part of their town treasurer job so they're not getting anything from the school some there is some charge here and there um but i i i guess we just really need to know what she's getting paid now do you think it's a 60 40 split nikki i have no idea um so now can you see in the so
136that's why i want to bring it to the next meeting um okay can you see what she's getting paid i'll find out um i know what she's getting paid for the town um and so in the next meeting we'll match those and figure out what the split kind of is yeah and dave would know or ed would know yeah yeah ed will now yeah okay christine you'll do that research yeah well and christine darius myself yeah um yeah i'll let you know what i'll forward her did i forward her email to you already no i didn't think so is she fairly new like within two to three years yeah right that's what i thought yeah yeah um i'm glad she said something like i'm sorry i'm moving right along items for action new hires um
137i don't have those names in front of them jeremy martin for um seven eight science and stacey abbott 78 ela i would move that we hired jeremy martin and stacey abbott oh second okay so that was sarah moved and we'll hear back about the social studies teacher like we want to hear until the next meeting but we offer contracts yeah yeah yeah um okay is there any further discussion i think we had a lot of discussion okay so all those in favor of hiring jeremy martin for science and stacy abbott for ela please say aye aye all those opposed so that was forward thank you um okay so you got that done uh setting the next agenda so um we have the treasurer issue treasurer um retreat um yeah we need to develop the retreat
138agenda right we need a trade agenda um uh we need a floral haul update but that will be in here from my report yeah i'm still gonna write it down laurel hall can we get like as an agenda item um i feel like one thing that might be missing besides community is like like a teacher to come and like be part of this we have been having yeah like we've had quite a few yeah we just don't tonight okay i think spring is like yeah i don't know i mean like yeah i was like they usually um share that role like they make a plan who's coming yeah yes and like you know like does any like i know at our school like the president of the teachers union is the one who like goes
139to the board meetings just to like be faculty representation and like they have a little spot on the agenda too um so i don't know just something to put out there yeah as like to encourage this is the first meeting that they have isn't the lowest attendance meeting we've had in months and months i think there's usually at least okay um so i know that they were taking part they were taking turns yeah yeah i mean everybody's just like participate they just listen yeah um uh we need a an update on the nowhere to hide from lindsay um i want to come up with a new title for that but that's okay um and do we want an update from jim on anything that needs to happen over the summer um i can ask him
140i know the work that will be done on you know the sinks he's going to be doing the all right service line is okay okay for the summer work um is that there's going to be some carpeting redone nothing major of my major besides those two things okay and we'll have a massive superintendent update hopefully let's hope with that we're all going to be okay um yeah so we have um the treasurer salary um retreat organization floral hall update um lindsay's update on nowhere to hide and then uh i guess just a building update from jim does that seem reasonable christine yeah okay do we need anything about like end of year like end of school year something to be i don't i don't know just because it's i mean it's june 7th right so
141i'm just trying to think of like oh graduation day graduation what date date we have that already yeah it's on there um i know in the past um i would love to since i have an eighth grader graduating i'd love to give him his diploma if possible um that would be nice to see your joy okay so the 15th yeah and um we our members try to go okay yeah last year yeah what what's the date or the next meeting nikki is it gonna be on that yeah uh the seventh okay yes and then the retreat on the 23rd tentative retreat on the 23rd okay um okay um so sorry the other thing i was just thinking about around agenda and i don't know if this is more an su thing but if universal meals
142does not go through um food service is going to have to have a scurry of how the heck are we implementing our new meal program how are we advertising it how are we doing um pre-introduced meals so let's put food up there so i don't know if it's just more like just to be updated or how we can support i mean it's not our role to scurry around necessarily but just give the kids well definitely well yeah we'll definitely know by then yeah i mean it's it's happening now they want to get it done before the closer the session so yeah i mean if everyone can just literally call the senators like if you call no i think our senators are pretty good but they like literally just want like a pile of notes on
143their desk saying oh yes on s100 um because s 100 is the universal store do you have a i have a list of all their emails yeah you can do emails i can actually i can forward to you um the the most current email i got from hunger free vermont that had like call this number say these things oh yeah that means actually one of the uh an effective way too is to just call the state house and that's all i i left a message for all three of them this morning and it took like a minute oh okay cool um okay so uh executive session and i'm gonna say that we need a five minute executive session to discuss personnel um five minutes so we'll scurry on down um lindsay and david i think
144you're good um yeah you don't you don't need us no i don't think we need you um all right i'll just make sure i stop recording