SU Board Meeting - May 24th, 2021

001so now i will call the meeting to order this is the windsor southeast supervisory union reorganizational board reorganizational meeting and we are starting at 6 36 p.m i will start by asking for nominations for chair i have one yes bill amy mcmullen thank you amy mcmullen any others a second um oh i'm not uh oh so i think that we take nominations first there's not a second sorry about that okay so um does anybody have any other nominations please uh let me see i guess i can see your if your hand is raised but um hearing none i will ask amy if she will accept the nomination and then we can vote right okay and i will accept the nomination because i think we're a really good team working together thank you amy so do

002i hear a um a motion to uh approve amy mcmullen as the board chair or a sign i guess so thank you bill yates makes the motion and who seconds it markle second mark youngling seconds it and all how do i take the vote do i have to take it by verbal or do i have to um go around the room either way i i think verb asking for um yays and then nays okay okay so um all those in favor please say thank you all those opposed any abstentions thank you i now turn the meeting over to amy mcmullen okay and i want to thank everyone for your continued confidence and i will work very hard this year we have a lot of we have some really great stuff that we're working on and

003i'm thrilled that we're all working together on it so i will take nominations for our vice chair i nominate bill gates i second are there any other nominations hearing none all those in favor of electing bill yates as our vice chair say i hi hi hi hi and those opposed nay it's unanimous bill do you accept with bells and whistles thank you next we have clerk of the board i will take nominations for a clerk of the board who's our current clerk i believe our current clerk is colleen spence that's fine are there any other nominations hearing none i will take a motion uh all those in favor of electing colleen spence as clerk of the board say aye hi hi hi hi opposed congratulations colleen you are clerk of the board thank you next

004we have election of treasurer i'll take nominations for treasurer i nominate nancy federick who is the current treasurer is it scott it's i was appointed when another so i was not elected i was appointed a few months ago half a year i nominate scott richardson if if nancy is looking uh hesitant so yeah i would accept the nomination nancy do you accept the nomination um no i accepted this nomination there any other nominations for treasure hearing none although i was in favor of electing scott as the treasurer for the supervisory union say aye those opposed congratulations scott thank you amy and you have already signed all the paperwork so man yeah yeah sweet so we have um sometimes scott actually gets to take a vacation or do you i've sometimes heard that farmers don't get

005to but but you do go out of town every now and then don't you get a creamy yeah well in the event that you are that you take that week off to go get your creamy um we often had we have traditionally had someone a vice treasurer as such someone who can fill in and had scott were you taking that role before yeah were you taking the role of the assistant treasurer to fill in i'm sorry oh was i before i don't recall um yeah i guess i was yeah okay yeah just wondering good point yeah then okay um is there someone who would be interested in filling that role i i'd do that okay happily i'd nominate nancy patrick are there any other nominations all those in favor of having nancy as the fill

006in vice treasurer say i all right that was a post congratulations nancy so what scott would let you know when he's taking that week off or whatever in order and i believe that i've signed all those things too so that would be helpful okay great okay and now we have the signers of the manifest and that is the person or persons because again we like to have two in the event that someone is on vacation that's the person who goes to the su office and reviews all of the invoices and the check run to make sure that things are okay that there's documentation to support all of the accounts payable and signs off on that and then the check run is done so i will take nominations for two people signers of the manifest who

007is signing now i nominate rebecca riceman um i think i'm i'm the assistant to um to i think bill and for um masd that's what makes you a natural fit for the other one oh yeah i think i saw yeah i signed um the ascutney and the um uh board manifests so okay well but can bill do yeah he did both last year didn't you is there someone else who would like to have that opportunity it's it it's pretty um enlightening to see how um how our budgets are um so we have a nomination right now yeah we do we have rebecca is there someone else so well let's let's rebecca is this something you might want to do um well i would probably be doing some of it with you for mana scuttany school

008district um but not as often as you but i yeah i'd be interested in learning it and working with someone okay those are and to be clear those are different accounts payable okay then right mast and yes you so i guess the question i have is that instead of us voting on it which we will vote on it is rebecca do you want to take this over or do you want to continue with me doing it that's that's really my question i wouldn't mind continuing with you doing it and working with you okay if if that's you know yeah okay so what what i am wondering is because bill is our vice chair is if there is someone else from one of our other districts in our supervisory union who would like the opportunity because

009it's only every two weeks that you would go to the su office and look over invoices to make sure that if you have any questions about how um looking at invoices and the backup paperwork then you sign off on that and then it goes to the check run so amy what you're saying is that at least twice a month you need to present yourself at the su um at the administrative office correct okay so dale gail calls the person to like to let whoever it is and there would be a main person and then the second person is the assistant in case that main person is on vacation so amy what i'm hearing you say and i i don't disagree with you i i agree with you but what i'm hearing is that if you're

010wondering if someone from a district other than ascutney district might want to do this correct okay having the opportunity given the fact that you are the vice chair of this right so i guess guess what amy's asking it are there any volunteers from the other two school districts who would like to take this over knowing of course that i would not be deeply offended in any way or upset and it would be nice for some other members of the district to kind of get a glimpse of the inner workings of the uh the district i mean i've done it for two years ah mark you have your hand raised yeah jamie or anne-marie any interest in this jamie i'm assuming so you said this is twice a month and i'm assuming it's during like what

011are the hours that it would have to be done under between eight and four i mean the issue here is that it has to do with with convenience as well as i work at hartford and i drive through windsor it is convenient for me to pull into the office and sign it um and to be perfectly honest there really isn't a whole lot to learn from going through these documents but yeah so i did it for a couple of years as well yeah but if it's if it's inconvenient for anybody i would not suggest doing it and as i do the ascutney one already i would be willing to continue even i even though i agree uh with amy's point is spreading the love so if we have no other people who are just raring

012to get called in every now and then um i will um is take those who are in favor of rebecca and bill as signers of the manifest say aye aye hi hi any opposed and sorry to just drag that out way too long um now we have the um so this this is a very important one this is the election of budget committee members there are also two and these people will work together with david and administrators to put together the budget for the supervisory union and the budget for the supervisory union now includes olive special education technology transportation early education and the business office and i've probably left something out there but it is it's much more encompassing than it was when i first got on the board however many um decades or something

013yeah so it it's really helpful to have people from the board so that when we come to the board meetings in the fall to start discussing the budget we will have two people on the board who are more familiar and can help us all understand what's happening so i will take nominations or volunteers to be budget committee members what are the hours involved in this like when when does the work typically take place that depends it could be a day meeting it could be an evening meeting it depends on when people are available i'm sorry what was that it's nikki i nominate colleen spence okay so we have colleen spence i think if i remember correctly who who who did it with me last year or this this past year um i have a hard

014time remembering the difference between negotiations and it's colleen i think i was on it last year but i never received any invitations to any meetings so remember me and i will come we will remember that and i think i i think it's helpful to have amy you're talking about two i think it's helpful to have at least one member from each board yeah i think that would be very helpful particularly because once it it always turns into a crunch time of budgets we're working on our individual district budgets but a huge chunk of our individual budgets is the supervisory union assessment and it it does it turns into super crunch time which could also be why board members aren't always called but when we go to our individual district meetings to have someone who has

015been serving on that committee be able to discuss it at our district meetings and to assist in the explanation to our communities how the su budget is created and how the assessments are decided etc that would be good so how about we take some um i mean i don't i i don't mind doing it it again i'm i but you know i don't know if i really want to be on the negotiating committee and the budget committee at the same time um hopefully we can get a three-year contract done but yeah i would i would say being on both of those could be very um that was a little much but yeah just a little much so we have colleen from heartland do we have anyone from the i nominate jamie turner from weathersfield yes

016jamie you had your hand race was that you were gonna volunteer yay thank you okay so jamie turner and who do we have from the mantas gutney school district and i'm late elizabeth bird elizabeth who did elizabeth oh this is i don't know my camera isn't really working for some reason oh okay okay well and if i can't i really i wish you could but i can't possibly do it i'm sorry um i rebecca i think you would be great on it so i would nominate you i am nominating you actually yeah i would accept if you nominated me thank you okay you've been nominated so we have colleen spence from heartland we have jamie turner from weathersfield and we have rebecca from madness company all those in favor of this group to represent the

017board when it comes to creating the su budget say aye any opposed congratulations and i i think it's really important that we as a board just be um more um the the word that comes to mind is vigilant but i think more proactive to say okay david we're working on the budget let's have a meeting so that kind of thing that was going to be my question amy it's how do you know when you're supposed to meet and and who does that um well it's david who at a meeting probably in about august will say okay we are starting to look at the budget would you say angie that that's about when it happens when'd you say december now august um when when they start working we start working on the budget like as soon

018as we start going back to school is that was your question sorry i was a little distracted no it's okay yeah so it's really early on that the su budget work starts so yeah csu budget is usually finalized by the october board meeting so that and it's very fast right and there's there's usually yeah i won't even get into description of how it often goes um but it will start early and i will remind david to include the board members who are on the budget committee so when when all of the congress returns next we have designation of official newspapers i think currently we have the valley news the eagle times the vermont standard um let's see what am i missing i think at this point vermont digger is probably good to have am i

019missing any no all those in favor of having the valley news eagle times vermont standard and vermont digger as our official newspapers say i a post okay and finally establishment of the meeting day time and place i've heard a rumor that we might once we're all vaccinated etc that we can potentially meet in person i think that would be very exciting maybe even to have a summer meeting outside i don't know that makes it kind of hard for the um for the virtual part of it but um anyway um meeting day and time we have the fourth thurs the fourth monday sorry the fourth monday of every month at 6 30 has that worked for everyone yes and for now we are virtual and at some point we can discuss going around to the different

020schools once the schools are open for non-teacher student to to enter buildings but for now it will be virtual so meetings fourth monday at 6 30. and of course with budget season or any other sort of emergency we may or may not need to schedule special meetings but that will will cross that bridge when and if we come to it so thank you everyone for patience on the um the reorganization and we are now moving on to our do we need to we need to vote on that time the day we can okay it was on the agenda i just didn't yeah yeah we should so it's part of the record all those in favor of the meeting day as the fourth monday time 6 30 say aye any opposed okay thank you scott and

021a quorum is seven so it's always good to it's even better when all of us are at a meeting so thank you for everybody being here tonight we move on with the agenda changes and additions to the agenda i have an addition amy okay it's in the very low low levels of hierarchy but there was one action that i took part in as the su treasurer and i could it would take me about four sentences to tell everybody that okay so you'd like that under items for action um or just discussion more like a report okay yes so are you okay anywhere okay after the su goals and discussion sure okay um amy yes i actually have some of uh the exact same kind of thing that we did as an su that i signed

022off on so i'll go find that okay so you would like to announce something uh okay next we have approval of the minutes from april 26th i'll take a motion to accept the minutes so moved seconded beside you nikki yep okay are there it's been moved and seconded are there any changes comments clarifications to the minutes amy i couldn't hear but who moved it's gone no it's not jamie you have your hand raised i believe since our meeting started at 6 30 that the call to order at 602 is probably incorrect um that is that's entirely possible so who had their hand raised angie no you said 6 32 when you opened the meeting no business on the minutes oh oh sorry yeah so call to order was at 602 um i do believe that

023that was so that that was like years ago back in april um does anyone know if we started i'm sorry amy it's on my calendar at 6 so my i think we started at 6 30. okay yeah so i would agree but also you could check the tape and there's a video of it but six i believe it was 6 30 as well right yeah i don't recall starting the meeting early last month although we occasionally do that but i don't recall doing that so with that correction are there any others all those in favor of approving the minutes with that correction of the start time say i i i i any opposed any abstentions thank you okay now we have public participation and or announcements this is typically public participation on items not related

024to the agenda and i'm not seeing hands raised are there any announcements from board members bill my daughter sarah graduated on saturday from wheaton magna lata oh wow wow congratulations thank you awesome very cool windsor held its prom on saturday and i believe it was a just a a very successful would you say wendy it was amazing my kids were so happy it was beautiful the tent was a great the in-house food from our own cafeteria staff was nothing short of miraculous i don't know if you were able to see the pictures but the fancy cup pineapple and all the chocolate covered straight strawberries i mean the kids were in heaven they were having the best time it felt the most normal i've seen the kids in a really long time yeah it it looked

025wonderful all the pictures i've seen angie you have your hand raised i must be click happy tonight i'm sorry it's quite all right no problem are there any other announcements um colleen deschamps i just wanted to add that we also were able to have the grand march at the rear of the high school and use our outdoor stage and we were able to have socially distanced families and it was nice to have community to come view it as well lovely thank you colleen oh and amy i will add i'm sorry that i was late everyone but i was coaching a softball game that we were down a run in the seventh and actually two runs and we had to come back and the girl hit the rock hit the run in and we won seven

026of six so sorry for my delay all right thank you that's a good announcement excellent and i have to shut a door i'll be right back one door shuts and thus another opens i know so thank you um let me see any other so we have the superintendent's report up next angie were you going to do that yeah so i i david's wife had surgery this afternoon and it was had been rescheduled at least three times um due to some issues that she was having so he is um safely tucking her away uh tucking her away tucking her in bed because she has to lay down and um he may be joining us um if he can uh get get her settled in but um i i know he really wanted to be here but

027as you know family first so i don't have a superintendent's report for you [Music] okay thank you i mean that is a report so yeah thanks so we are we are going to move directly to items for discussion the first item for discussion is recovery plan and esser update and draft and that is you angie thank you thank you amy i am going to present my screen i'm trying to figure out what and since i can't see the um the window of the chat if you could um just let me know can you hear me yes yes i thought i let me get this to the beginning there we go um i'll be with you in just a moment dear board members staff parents and community members here with us tonight and those of you

028who will catch us on the um recorded version in the days to come tonight the administrative team and i will be presenting our draft of our recovery plan with an outline of the budget for funds this is part of the process i want to remind you that the recovery plan draft will be completed and submitted to the agency of education in the next week we eagerly await your feedback on this plan and encourage you to join the conversation this is a draft and every time i meet with the agency of education they remind us that our recovery plans can be updated as we learn more so in order to provide some feedback if you want to if you have access to a internet connection right now you can go to tiny earl t-i-n-y url dot

029com c-o-m forward slash w-s-e-s-u recovery and you can submit your questions comments and concerns in that form that will probably be the easiest way to provide us feedback but i am going to ask that you hold your questions comments and concerns um for after the presentation um or you can please submit them via that link what is education recovery the vermont agency of education defines education recovery as mitigating the impact of this pandemic on the academic social and emotional emotional well-being of our students it requires that su su's build on their continuous improvement work that has been required um for the for as long as i've been in this job and prior to that for four or five years for regular federal funding sr stands for elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds it could

030not be more confusing there are three pots of money right now that um all have the esser label sr1 started when the pandemic started in march 2020 and then and that those funds go through um through the summer i believe esther ii funds provide funds for addressing learning loss and post-pandemic conditions of learning through september 23. and the third pot of money which we will be hearing about um we have been hearing about it from the agency of education and um we're getting more guidance on that very soon that provides for the sustainability of systems improvement to ensure protection against future pandemic situations through september 2024 so sr2 is what we're talking about tonight so throughout our presentation you'll hear from our students and our staff these quotes were gleaned from our recovery surveys the

031recovery surveys that we sent to staff a few weeks ago we had 152 staff respond and 543 students from grades 3 through 12. students said it's hard to learn through a screen i wish it would just go back to normal full days could we agree more i had to add some levity this sixth grader said i did like eating lunch in the classroom but i hate having special for two weeks straight and i do not like having special in the classroom at all i do not like remote learning but i do like going straight to classroom because it gives you time to get settled i like having recess at the end of the day a lot because you are not super sweaty and horribly smelling coming in from last period and i cannot stand wearing

032masks one bit i enjoyed being able to breathe nitrogen and oxygen so i wanted to remind you of our portrait of a graduate process that we started back in june 2019 and the portrait was adopted in fall of 2020 the portrait of a graduate provides the north star for our uh where we want to go with our students what we want to provide with our for our students the plan that will get us to creating the conditions sorry i'm trying to navigate the screen and my my phone the portrait of graduate identifies the attitude skills and dispositions that we want for our students but it is the strategic plan work through which we create these conditions our five competencies are communication critical thinking empathy persevering perseverance and integrity this teacher says this year was tremendously

033hard on teachers i think a really important part of supporting our students success is supporting teachers wellness and mental health anything that relieves stress creates community and gives teachers voice is necessary from the vermont aoe the priority and conceptualization of our recovery work will be student focused it's important to acknowledge however that staff will need additional support as we embark on this next phase of our response districts should be alert to opportunities to provide staff with support services and activities relative to implementing recovery plans for students state support teams will be alert to staff needs in this area and will organize communities of practice to enable networks of educators to share and connect more dynamically across the state creating the conditions for our staff to share and connect with each other is a key aspect

034of our plan so part of the recovery process the guidance the state agency um provided us were three key student indicators of recovery these areas that are in no particular order are social emotional health mental health and well-being student engagement and truancy academic achievement and success while all three areas are inextricably woven together in a path to student success the recovery plan requires that we address each area separately as we looked at the key student indicators as part of the recovery plan process it became clear that we would have no trouble aligning our recovery efforts with our continuous improvement efforts outlined in our strategic plan lucky for us they lie they aligned and this slide is demonstrating that alignment our work was clear we would invest time energy and resources and strengthening our student outcomes

035through the work of the strategic plan and address any additional needs identified for recovery my favorite part of this year was being with my friends and seeing my teacher that's what brings me joy this little girl went from remote only to in person halfway through the school year recovery plan phase one was the initial needs assessment in the initial needs assessment we considered the wealth of data that we have gathered across the supervisory union to determine our current level of needs we had numerical data in our power school attendance data and assessment data like track my progress we conducted surveys of staff and students however much of this data was anecdotal the stories we've heard about what was working and what wasn't working we were hearing from our stakeholders all along so i want to

036remind you of the four goals of the strategic plan the symbols that are on each goal in the next four slides relate back to the recovery plan so student success relates to academic achievement the brain is our academic achievement symbol wsu wsesu will improve students learning experiences because the personal educational vocational and civic success of our students are increasingly challenged in our rapidly changing world strategic strategic plan goal number two is culture wsesu will further integrate the whole student into their education so that students increasingly see relevance purpose and connection between their learning experiences and their individual and collective lives this strategic plan goal relates to student mental health and well-being as symbolized by the heart and academic uh engagement engagement and truancy as symbolized by the graphic with the students strategic plan goal three

037student wellness and engagement wsesu will further integrate the whole student into their education so that did i just read this twice it seems i did so my apologies there is another goal i will come back and correct that i forgot to collect correct the text strategic plan goal number four information and communication wsesu will improve the quality of and effectiveness of its two-way communication so that stakeholder trust understanding and support will continue to advance the education and opportunities for its students the strategic plan goal number two was the one that i omitted my apologies that one is wsesu will strengthen and broaden the connections between and among all staff and the core work of education in pursuit of greater staff engagement well-being innovation inclusion and resolve to sum that up our recovery plan includes student

038mental health and well-being the heart icon the whole child engagement and truancy and academic achievement as symbolized by the brain students really miss being able to engage in unified arts opportunities from materials to performing groups and instruments we need serious dedication to building these programs back particularly the instrumental and choral programs who were so limited and not allowed or not allowed by many of the structures and protocols that we use for the pandemic a wsesu unified arts teacher this student said it made me very isolated i have an incredibly hard time focusing with remote school and i get in the car to go home and i'm exhausted constantly from waking up early it is making my mental disorders worse my separation anxiety is through the roof as well as my depression and i want to

039hug my friends but there were some positives no mind exploding headaches from the lunchroom i get to see my friends i don't have to be dragged to my mother's work i have an excuse to not visit my father and my mom isn't worried about me getting a cold or head lice wsesu sixth grader and now our director of student support services katia hearn will talk with us about engagement and truancy katie um did i unmute it's always my challenge yes you are there just tell me when you're ready for the slide all right i'm ready for the first one um discussing the key indicator engagement and truancy the belief statement if we provide students with autonomy competency and belonging then they will become engaged leaders in their own learning this guided our investments in this

040area next the major investment for engagement was looking at increasing student-to-staff staff to student ratio in focused instructional time overall student learning outcomes as measured by our local assessment and math and ela show that students have not suffered significant learning loss we attribute this to smaller student staff ratios fewer transitions emphasis on core subjects learning and interdisciplinary projects as well as increase student voice and choice next um supporting investments we also have used other sources of funding to support interventionists school counselors and nurses and mental health we propose using our sr2 funds in the following ways summer academy interventionists assistant recovery coordinator looking at a middle level model increasing data tools and literacy and increasing teaching staff thank you katie this student said i did like eating lunch in the classroom but i hate having

041special for two weeks straight i do not like having special in the classroom at all i think i read this guy i do not like remote learning but it's worthy of repeating because it's so funny i do not like remote learning but i do like going straight to classroom because it gives you time to get settled i like having recess at the end of the day a lot because you're not super sweaty and horribly smelling coming in for last period and i cannot stand wearing masks one bit i enjoyed being able to breathe nitrogen and oxygen and the mask common the kids um was a frequent comment in the student data i think one of the biggest things that came out of this pandemic in regards to my students in teaching is how crucial project-based

042hands-on and group work is to students i also realized that i had more flexibility not teaching through a regimented program which meant some stress of the rigorous program was taken off both the students and the teachers backs a wsesu grade six teacher and now kate ryan and colleen de champ will talk to us about academic achievement here is my mic uh for academic achievement we use the first gate for our entire su is our multi-tiered system of support our mtss system and we believe that if we are using all of these pieces to support our students it is going to make them have a stronger academic academic achievement will increase for our students if we have the universal develop design for learning differentiation personalization flexible pathways for our students to choose their passions and what

043they want to study intervention co-teaching coordinated curriculum and engaging instructional practices next please the major investment for our academic achievement is the mtss system and this system of supports provides a consistent approach for all of our schools in our su in order for us to streamline our resources intervention tools practices and the way we collect data next the supporting investments in esser that are connected to our multi-tiered systems of support are as well our summer academy our interventionists the intervention support tools such as social emotional screeners and exact path assessments for our students working with our interventionists assistant recovery coordinator our middle level model after school tutoring and our data collection tools other supporting investments are for our professional learning for staff the learning framework professional learning communities which we call our plc meetings where

044we discuss student work universal design for learning curriculum development and leader in me and the most important piece to our investment is our team our people our teachers our instructional coaches director of curriculum our interventionists our coordinators for our mtss team our special educators our support staff in our recovery coordinators this teacher said having a qualified second adult to support and monitor the class so that i can address process support student engagement i think student issues incidents and social emotional incidents and therefore build relationships has had a positive impact on my relationships with students with social emotional skill gaps that was a what wsesu grade 5 teacher this student said one thing that worked for me was having more adults in the room i think more students could get help at once one thing that

045did not work for me was remote learning after christmas break different people were on different levels so it was not fast-paced enough for some people and too fast for others that's a wsesu fifth grader this primary teacher says a focus on social emotional learning was imperative this year it is what enabled my students to make any kind of academic progress this student a windsor high school student said when in person i can get help and have it explained to me better than i was thinking of in my head but in the online classes it's hard to understand what to do when the teacher can't show me and now christine will talk to christine born the heartland school principal will talk to us about social emotional learning okay um can you hear me yes okay so

046our belief statement that addresses the recovery key student indicator of social emotional learning mental health and well-being is that we believe if we have strong connections with students families and colleagues that students will be able to access learning at their most efficient level next slide angie we strongly believe that social emotional learning is the foundation upon which improvement in all the other areas can be achieved our major investment for this key indicator is leader in me which is a framework that aligns with our recovery plan and our strategic plan leader in me is based on a theory of change known as c the c do get cycle when you when you change the way you see things it influences what you do and the results that you get the work focuses on five core paradigms

047which are everyone can be a leader students and staff change starts with me everyone has genius educators empower students to lead their own learning and development of the whole person through this work educators begin to see their role student potential and the purpose of school culture in a new way that leads to increased student engagement well-being attendance and academic achievement so i we put the link here in case you want to do a little more digging around leader and me but we have a short video clip that really demonstrates what leader in me really is all about so angie's going to hopefully click it and it will work why leader in me you look in the eyes of your students you can see their need for security and hope in the future largely unknown your

048desire to belong and to matter you can see the hunger and the hurt you look in the eyes of your families and you see trust delicately given that you will take their place for these hours to nurture the worth and potential of their most cherished to partner in teaching and raising well you look in the mirror and you see a tiredness driven by the fire to change lives and not enough time to do it striving to guide and teach not enough balance to support it a hope that the learning they need is the learning you can provide and when you look at school today what do you want to see leadering me isn't as much about doing things differently as it is first seeing them differently when one principal reimagined what school could be for

049her students her teachers families for her community who would have thought that vision would see over 5 000 schools around the world transforming how they proactively create the learning culture they want to see in their buildings here we have demonstrated impact with measurable results and we're just getting started you're invited to join this community of seeing the power of leadership as a choice rather than a position one that everyone makes every day of enjoying the discovery and unlocking of genius where everyone contributes rather than compete of making change happen because you've stopped waiting for someone else to start it of adventuring into the satisfaction of classroom leadership and away from the stress of classroom management of taking the talk of whole child learning into whole person teaching practice and getting hands-on with real social emotional

050learning at school and at home that doesn't sure change academic growth but turbo charges it leader in me isn't easily undertaken or quickly done but leaders see what needs to change and take steps to make it happen doing what propels all of us in this profession helping others to see what they don't yet see in themselves that's the adventure thanks angie how to advance the slide there we go so hopefully that gave you a little bit of a picture of what leader in me is um it's pretty powerful especially when you see it in action which which some staff members have um so some other supporting investments in esser for the upcoming year are our summer academy which which you've been hearing about you know is well planned and we're very excited about that program

051i think we have about almost 100 kids that will be servicing our srsuy developmental kindergarten program a reduction in class sizes which will be made possible through additional teachers teaching staff we are planning to implement a social emotional screening assessment so we can really track how our kids are doing in that in that realm and hcrs school school school based clinician which we never have enough time in our current school based clinician schedule to meet the needs of all our students some some supporting investments are listed here i won't go over all of them some of them should sound familiar because we've been doing the work around trauma transf transformation collaborative problem solving those are things we've been continuously working on an increased fidelity to our social emotional curriculum we have a michigan model for

052health education which which ties in and relates in pbis and responsive classroom some some other staff that are specific to this this area we are hope our school psychologists our seis our homeschool coordinator school counselors all our staff really so thank you angie thank you christine this wsesu special educator told us that mental health has been affected in ways we don't completely understand yet especially in pre-teens and teens i think we will see the effects for years to come we need to make it a priority for all students not just a few with the most severe symptoms we cannot expect that students will retain all they have learned in the last one and a half years they've been preoccupied and their brains have been through a collective and individual trauma we must be willing to

053put the brakes on focus on the whole child meet them where they are and differentiate appropriately only then will we see true recovery this windsor high school student said having people to relate to and have support was important in maintaining some level of normalcy in these circumstances this wsesu grade 5 teacher said having a qualified second i'm sorry that's a i i thought i did a good job picking all the slides apparently i repeated a few but that's okay okay so now i'm going to talk about how what are the kinds of investments that we're making for our recovery plan um actually this slide i think jennifer's going to take a few of the first couple slides right jen she's going to monitor us about time thank you jen sure i don't know about you

054but um i can only imagine that many of you are feeling a little overwhelmed at this point we have tossed a whole lot out there at you um but rest assured we are spending a lot of time thinking about being very purposeful in the work that we are doing and one of the things we know in education is we have limited time we have limited resources in general and what we invest our time in is a pretty clear indication of what we care about and one of the things we do pretty well i think as a district is we try and look at what the research says both in our local experiences the data there as well as what the big ideas come out in the literature and in the literature we know that collective

055efficacy is the most powerful component to any kind of school improvement and i can share the resources with you on that but it's pretty clear that how we collectively work together as adults how we support each other and how we are collectively on the same page and able to learn from each other because we all bring strengths to the table and we all have our next places to learn how we do that is incredibly important um we also know in our past practices here in the su i'm now in almost in my ninth year and since i have been here we've tried multiple ways to do some collective work with some very limited success one of the ways we've tried to do is during the school hours when teachers are working with kids trying to

056pull them out to do some work and that's really hard for teachers to do they know the important of being there with their class and they know when they're not with their class but it gets really tough for their cloud so pulling them out of class is consistently a challenge and we get inconsistent results of participation we also know that trying to do after school hours and pace stipends also doesn't get the job done we do know across our system we have about 20 staff members who are consistently regularly those who are getting all the work done they're on every committee they're doing all the trainings and what we need is we need to spread this work out we've got skills that we can't access right now because we don't have time for that collective

057work we have talent and knowledge that we need to spread amongst all of us so that we can all continue learning because the biggest thing that we have to do through all of this is close gaps we're talking about recovery we're talking about education in general we're looking at closing the gaps and that's closing gaps from things like our what the state expects us to do in terms of state standards but even more than that they have a couple of very clear expectations of us which is a mtss system multi-tier systems of support that is functioning and right now we're in so many different places because to do that work takes significant adult time we also know that we are expected since 2014 sorry to have a unified curriculum at which at this point we

058have we do not have a collective unified curriculum across the board and a big challenge to that is that we haven't had good time for our staff to work on this it's not something that happens overnight unless we're going to go and purchase some curriculum already done that does not necessarily reflect what we believe in our local experience and we also know that we've developed a portrait of graduate as our local north star that we want to make sure we hold on to that was developed by teachers administrators but more importantly by the community which with which we serve the community with which we hope our students become at some point adults who are functioning in that system so we need to really look at how we're going to close the gap between where we

059are and how we can get to that north star the portrait of graduates five competencies in communication in empathy in perseverance in critical thinking and in integrity and then we also need to look at our individual students how are we going to close gaps for them and so in the research it's pretty clear the things that work are things that we have some talent in already but we need to make sure that across the board we're developing these and if we are to fully develop our collective capacity we need to do this in a way that works and that requires sustaining time we also know implementation um systemic implementation does not say the spray and pray or do one shot professional development works we know what does work is ongoing collective practice so when we're

060looking at what we're hoping to do is develop time and supports for this so we want to tap into our adult in our system as leaders in their own areas of expertise get a baseline for all of us in areas of the curriculum and areas of social emotional work in areas of use of data but then we want people to become experts in certain areas and doing this requires us to find the time and so when we're talking about how we're going to make this happen a part of it is investing in our students a part of it's investing in you know response to intervention or and intervention systems those are seen as very powerful but to do that well you need time as adults to talk through what is working and what isn't working

061so as we're diving into next year we're really trying to find what the research says what we think we can come up with and you know i think as we're heading to the next steps looking at these long lists that we've been tossing out at you all um it all it's they're not separate they're sort of different ways of looking at the same problem and in time i think over education in general we'll come to a better sense of how to make it look less branched off i think that's something we do really well in education is sit in our own silos um so as we move forward and you can go ahead to the next slide um the the practices that we're looking at the mtss is the state expectation that we are really

062trying to do that requires us to talk about data to talk in teams about data to talk about how we're implementing our curriculum is there gaps in our curriculum between what we are doing what we are expected to do other gaps in our curriculum with how we're teaching it so we need time for that we need time to really talk about unique needs of our students start very diverse learners so that we can make sure that we are providing um universal design for learning as best we can and then specific interventions for those things that require a very different approach to learning until we integrate those approaches to learning into our teaching looking at proficiency-based uh instruction curriculum and assessment is something we have been working trying to do for a long time but we

063have not had significant time to invest for all of our staff to get the job done we need time to co-plan in order to really develop robust universal designs for learning when we talk about our culture we've done some really good work and i've been talking to people across the street our system has already got a leg up when we talk about trauma informed practices when we talk about climate problem solving these are things that we have done a lot already and we don't want to lose those so continuing to invest in that work we've got some expertise in our systems that make it at this point i believe sustainable um our school climate of responsive classroom or pbis are other things that also require us to learn alongside each other and learn from each

064other so as we move forward this is something we need to pay attention to and we are hoping that um through this recovery plan we can start to be more mindful and purposeful in that work and angie i will turn it back to you thank you some things that worked for me is that i didn't get to spend i did is that i get to spend time with my class and my class only i don't have to do anything with any other classes which is nice one thing that didn't work for me is in the past few months i've been anxious and it's not from the pandemic and i don't think that there's anything the teachers can do about it but i've just noticed that i am just more anxious overall that's from one of

065our sixth graders i'm going to talk to you now about our esser funding how we put our dollars to work for us we invested in our human capital so we have investments in sr2 for interventionists teachers to reduce class size and mental health workers we invested in our academic programming through summer academy transitional kindergarten interventionists and coaches and after school after school tutoring so one thing i wanted to point out was that the answer funds can be used for a broad range of allowable uses many of which are beyond the scope of the recovery plan so i'm not going to read you through this list but here's some things you can see some are planning there mental health services vulnerable populations sanitation coordination with government for preparedness response those are not things necessarily that are

066going to all show up in our recovery plan but they will show up in our assertive budget this also recovery planning also includes funds that are served through our other programs like the consolidated federal program grant titles one which is about improving the student program for students at risk on our low-income students title two is about improving professional learning for our staff title iv is about well-rounded education safe and healthy schools and technology any investment that i can write in the consolidated federal program grant i can also write in essers um the our idea um funding which is our special education funding source any activity authorized by idea idea is also um could also be part of our recovery or our sr2 budget and then mckinney-vento which is our um grant monies for the homeless

067populations and to support homeless students in schools so this sludge is a draft um this slide is to show you that the bulk of our funding for the fy22 budgets and afford doing this work comes from our local budgets and then almost an equivalent amount is in the s or funds then we also have idea b the special education funding and the title funds which is through the consolidated federal programs and other grants resources this slide shows the way that the sr2 funds have been allocated in our draft budget so each you may remember that the key student indicators were academic achievement 28.5 of our budget is spent on academic achievement infrastructure that's 18.9 that's things like um sorry i'll think of that just a second um the other two areas are um social emotional

068learning and oh i'm sorry let me rephrase that these two the green and the yellow show where it the recovery plan area was at least in two areas social emotional learning and academic achievement or social emotional learning and um engagement and then the orange shows how our 34 and a half percent of our funds were for um all three areas infrastructure was like for our um we have an investment for a second year of our i can't remember a purchasing agent that we um we put in place last year when the print pandemic first shut us down and we needed to centralize purchasing so 18.9 of our budget is spent on infrastructure so by entity our entities are weathersfield school district heartland elementary s heartland school district mount of scotty school district and the supervisory

069union this slide shows how those funds are distributed 46.9 percent benefit all students in our supervisory union and then 12 and up 12.4 percent are for investments at weathersfield school 14.9 percent of four investments at heartland elementary school and 25.9 percent of those funds are for mana scotty school district which is both albert bridge school and windsor school su wide investments include our assistant recovery coordinator our supervisory union developmental or transitional k i think is what we're calling it transitional kindergarten leader in me year one summer academy and transportation our summer enrichment camp social emotional learning screening tool an hcrs clinician southeast special ed collaborative studies which is to help us katie perhaps you want us to talk about a little bit more about what that special ed collaborative studies is are you able to

070i am i just had to get the mute button um that is the southeast region of special of uh superintendents is are looking at alternative ways to collaborate as a region so they have start dr baker is more well versed in this i'm on the fringes of it but it is they are an enacting a study to look at some feasibility for how we can collaborate better in the region um both taking into account uh student needs staff needs transportation and other things of the sort so we are the all the superintendents agreed to chip in a certain amount of their esser funds to look at this because part of what we found during the pandemic is the need to work together and be pretty creative so this is the way that they're um we're

071participating it's a pretty small amount that we're contributing but it is something that we've agreed to do thank you katie this slide is our um this slide shows you how we just took a snapshot of the distribution of students across our supervisory union and the first on the left shows the student count by district as of may 17th do keep in mind this does not include our students who opted out of um out of either in person or remote only learning and they chose to go with a vermont agency of education home study plan those students we've heard from some families that they will be bringing their um students back but some of those students will not be coming back so we just took a snapshot of the time that shows you the breakdown of

072students across our supervisory union and then the slide to the right shows the percentage of funds as we distribute the as this draft budget distributes them across the district across the three districts in mana scotty the investments that we made there were three permanent permanent substitutes a k-6 interventionist that will serve as abs and windsor school the 5-8 math ela interventionist at that will service albert bridge school in with and windsor school district um an lna for weathersfield it well this is a split position but point two of an l a will service um madison county school district and then after school tutoring at abc at albert bridge school weathersfield investments included an lna a 0.8 fte at weathersfield after school tutoring funds friday interventionists a half time weathersfield fy 21 end of year perma

073sub they want needed a sub for the last five weeks of school and so these funds are going toward that position and then a third grade classroom teacher to reduce the class size of the third grade there which the current count was i think 24 third graders with one teacher heartland investments were two classroom teachers to reduce class size in a christine i can't remember i think it was a grade six classroom teacher and a grade i can't remember four four okay thank you a shorter day has helped lower fatigue related behaviors having breakfast and lunch available in the classroom every day has been helpful the students struggling well below grade level have had a history of struggling in the past students who have performed just below at and above grade level have had steady

074growth this year students have missed the unified arts classes that's the words of one of our teachers this student said i liked having breakfast in the class that was one of our third graders so we want to get this right we're not interested in being right we're interested in getting it right and how do we get it right is for we need your help our next steps are to get your feedback on this draft there's two ways that you can provide us feedback in the discussion that depends on the board's um time this evening how much time we can devote to a discussion of what they've heard this evening and then via our google survey again that is tiny dot earl forward slash wsesu recovery we will submit our draft plan and budget by june

0751st 2021 we can make changes and amendments to this plan throughout its life so that's through september 30th 2023 we will be working on esser3 which is that third part of money for um relief funds throughout the summer and we will be in touch for public participation and feedback much of what we've done in our recovery plan will will meet the um meet the outline of the sr3 funds but there might be some tweaks to that and now i will stop sharing whoops if i can figure out how to do it wow angie that was huge thank you that was probably the biggest thing that was probably one of the biggest presentations i've ever done 67 slides so thank you thank you that that was a lot of work there was a question from one

076of our attendees if the presentation can be available could yes i will i'll add a few more quote slides in there not the duplicates i'm going to make that slide available um make the slideshow available for you on our website um i think i will send it out to board members and then have larry blast it to our communities and our and our staff tomorrow thank you yeah along with the um earl so that we can get feedback yeah that'd be great thank you um i have a question just a description of three of the components so developmental kindergarten and then the difference between summer academy and summer enrichment camp okay katie it sounds like that's you um i could speak to summer academy i think there's a couple of different enrichment camps going on

077so i'm not privy to all of that information but summer academy is the combination of working with students across the su that were identified as needing um intervention over the summer through tmp scores and other measures as well as students identified for through the special education process needing extended school year so that's summer academy that's our five weeks during the summer that we've been talking about every board meeting and dr baker has been sending out in his blasts i do know there's a couple other camps going on there's one at the middle school level um having to do with the humanities maybe cater colleen could speak to that a little bit so there's at least that one going on as enrichment i don't know if there's other um opportunities and i don't want to overspeak

078out of turn better cater companies we were also thinking about there was some hcrs camp opportunities and that's for students who are already on their caseload right that we're we're partnering with them in the afternoons and those students from our community and other communities will be participating in their camp again for the five weeks um in the afternoon but that that's the other uh that's one other that we had thank you angie the three okay thanks so colleen i thank you um i know we have our humanities teachers who receive a grant um for the last three or four summers um for enrichment in ela social studies and the arts and i would like to gather that information before i speak about it specifically and i could put it here in the link as soon

079as i find it but they have received the grant again this year i just don't know the theme and the specifics great thank you and then what was the other one amy developmental kindergarten and transitional yeah transitional sorry christine and happy to start and katie can chime in because it came out of some needs from parents and pre-k teachers i believe um a few months back where kids have attended pre-k or or maybe not but they're age-wise they're ready for kindergarten but developmentally maybe just not quite there yet so we've actually brought all the kindergarten pre-k speech and language ot staff together over the course of the spring to develop a common kindergarten registration process and screening tools and we're going to get together and discuss what we what we discovered through the registration and

080screening process and make some recommendations for students that could benefit from a transitional kindergarten which is which is um a new program to us that we're really excited about and what happens in tk is students work on you know pre-k k standards through play and projects and they work on early early literacy and numeracy skills and at the end of the year we assess and work with families to determine if they're ready to go on to kindergarten or if they're ready to go on to first grade it's an opt in program for parents it's capped at 15 students it'll be located at heartland elementary school and staffed by a teacher and a support staff and katie what did i miss i think you hit just about all of it part of the discussion early on

081was also around students access to preschool programs both our in-house program and other preschools during covid a lot of places needing to be remote and trying to fill the gaps there for students entering um and all the other piece of preserving um our pre-k as a three four year old pre-k um which will be also extending their hours for next year so this is a little bit of a whole package of going we're going to have two pre-k classrooms and the pk classroom to address some of our early childhood needs and they'll be full-time um so that's that's not technical the pre-k is not technically an sr but um we had been planning that for a while and having those discussions and then leading to the tk so we are pretty excited um about both

082about all of the opportunities for our younger learners to get to them young in at an earlier age thank you i i see where elizabeth and anne-marie have their hands up but someone in our chat asked about who always as far as preschool programs included in the screening process um was it where any of the private this person says i do not believe private preschool programs were included in the process in terms of kindergarten registration the local preschools are notified through our universal partners about kindergarten registration and they have a pretty long-standing process on that the development of the registration was the kindergarten staff because that's what they do um but in terms of notifying and making sure people knew that was happening they were schools put out information as well as um it was

083shared with our partner preschools i'm not exactly sure how that was done um so but we try to get everybody if we miss somebody it would be good to know so that we know for future reference not to miss them okay thank you um elizabeth and then anne-marie thank you uh i just i first wanted to say um congratulations to all of you uh not just on putting this really thorough plan together which i know is required but um but you've really done a stellar job but my real congratulations comes from um having already being in the position to draw from what you have already created and and uh um enrich what you've already created and that's really something that's a lot to be proud of um so i congratulate you my my one question

084which i already put in the tiny earl but it's a simple question that is that is it only one um hcrs clinician being added we currently have two so we'll end up having three total um and two side school psychologists total so our mental health is it resources are being significantly beefed up um by the those two and all three um can you tell me uh how how um do you know whether that is uh um commonly used resource um not just acrs but but um local uh designated agency providers um i think yes generally it is uh there are some i think places vacillate between whether they hire in-house which is as you know right now for hiring it's pretty interesting to do um and then people will vacillate back to using outside agencies

085and community mental health the advantage of our community mental health we have a great relationship with hrs is they also can support if families choose to go beyond just school-based clinicians their family-based services their families counseling the community resources we we can't duplicate and that ends up for some of our families being an amazing resource um that we helped facilitate them getting that started but then they're able to take over so i think that's it's nice to have um and especially when you're dealing with some fairly intense situations as you get higher higher up on the ladder of need so um i don't know the percentages but i think we're in fairly good company to do that um for the clinicians okay i have more questions for you but i'll ask you offline okay thank

086you and marie yes um i actually have a few questions but um i'll just sort of do one and then i'll come back in line um how are we gonna how are we gonna pay for other years um i know this is the funds are supposed to go through 2023 correct but it looks like a lot of these positions it's only going to pay for one year of them um how are like the following year are going to be paid for yes anne-marie this budget is for sr2 funds only the sr3 funds are almost i think twice as much and that is so this the sr2 funds were to take us through the next school year and that summer so we used as her one funds for mo like probably maybe two-thirds or uh you

087know a little bit more than half of our summer program and then we're using yes or two to pay for transportation for our summer program and some other things in the summer program and esther 3 will do the same thing so esther 2 will will esther 3 will pick up where esser 2 is falling short okay yeah i was a little concerned because you showed that slide about what esser fun one funds were to be used for what sr2 funds were to be used and it seemed like so3 funds were pretty like limited as far as workers that scared us too when we first when we first heard it we're like oh shoot because okay we're looking for maintain ability of the funds and that's what really what the agency of education is asking us

088to consider how we maintain programs um and so uh the esser funds do have some restrictions about building uh many people are using their funds to to build their um to add buildings and to um fix the situation that you know for the many schools and they're still not five days a week because of their numbers so it's that sort of thing in sr3 we have to in our recovery plan we have to go back in and be more intentionable uh intentional about our maintenance of effort how we're going to continue to um support these programs and what our phase-out is i think we have to be more deliberate in our explanations for that so that's a lot of work coming this summer okay um i have some other questions but i'll come back okay

089thanks okay ethan mcnaughton you have your hand raised yeah thanks um so we heard a lot of good antidotes um about things that teachers and kids said i've seen the um the templates that the vermont um education department put out for kind of their example for how they'd like to see the recovery plans look like and so on theirs you know they'll give each category then they say the data used then the next section is the interpretation of the data and then the next section is to put in the preliminary preliminary ideas for it and it goes on and on and what i what i was expecting to see tonight was one you did all those surveys but we didn't hear a report back of the results of those surveys we heard the antidote you

090know a couple of things that were cherry picked out but i think would be really helpful for everybody and i hope it was actually looked at was okay what was the the thing that we hit the most from the students what was the things we hit the most from the teachers and even breaking down to schools where there were some schools felt that they needed x more than y and some student some schools felt that they really needed this other thing and so that we could then target what we're going to do based on what we felt that our needs were so that was the first and the other thing is the breakout that we got um i i kind of expect to say okay here's the need that we identified here's a specific issue

091that we want to tackle here's our plan for tackling it and then here's our cost for tackling that issue and the and the line items budget but there's no budget provided here there's no line items and i know that came up with the weathersfield school board meeting and that board members were very interested in seeing that the parents were really interested in seeing um actually the budget items there's no line item here so i'd love to see one i don't know why the results of the data haven't been shared i think that the state's going to require you guys to show your the data that you collected and present that and then um the budget actually spelled out instead of you know that pie chart and okay you know i can see why that could

092be helpful to present and stuff but for most of us we want to see the actual data so that we can see how that's going and then i wanted to get into the actual specifics of the recovery because weathersfield has gotten pretty in-depth on how this is going to look when they're on the ground seeing how it's going to get implemented so one of the real big concerns that came out from teachers and parents at weathersfield was that we've lost our after our tips program which was our homework support program that was right after school which was a really um successful program utilized by students but now with the new schedule that's presented by the district the teachers have to be in this um development i forget the exact name this being professional development right

093um for that hour that's right at the end of the day so the teachers can't coach they can't do their the homework help that they used to do anymore or spend time with the students after school and i did speak ethan i did speak with jean marie um before the meeting and there has been some um some movement on that um i believe that we they have um bridged that gap through the use of some um of the paradise and then there will be a pause program yeah and so pauses a different program which will be great um but again getting back to the teachers and as the teachers requested and were pretty um the teachers that spoke at the meeting were all um expressing their strong concerns and so getting back to the identifying

094the problem and then the solutions one of the largest problems that we faced last year was the decreased instructional time and it came up a lot in weatherfield and um we're going to lose i know the numbers kept changing around at the meeting um they got presented to us by the central office but my understanding is the the school day next year the plan is that it's going to go from uh 8 a.m to 2 p.m for the students their day right from the day that they time they have to be in their seats to win the bell rings and they're dismissed which is a six-hour day and pre-covered they had six hours and 35 minutes and i know the staff the teachers at weatherfield we're really concerned that where they can make the most

095impact is when they have time with their students and they're losing that time and i haven't i was hoping to see someone stand behind why they think that we're going to not only overcome the losses we had by reducing that time with teach students but that we're going to get it back by still reducing the time that the teachers have with their students and in weather's field our community feels very strongly that our teachers are very good teachers and that they're equipped to do the job and what they need is to be permitted to have the time with the kids and the number one the number one need for them is not to be taken out of the classroom to do more training but to be able to have more time with the students and

096they're asking it and they came to the board and asked for more time with the kids and to be given that time back and the presentation that we just went through it didn't even mention the shortened school day and why we're going to shorten the school day and how that lines up with any of the goals and and why it's going to um again still have those teachers paras are important they do a lot but to remove the ability of all of your teachers to connect with the students after school and instead pick designate a couple of other individuals to do it regardless of their training isn't the same as allowing the teachers to build those bonds so i'd love to hear those types of um issues addressed thank you ethan um they're the weathersfield

097school is also will be having a new principle coming on board and i believe part of the conversation administ the administration would like to include that new principle in that conversation and also when you were talking about scheduling that is coming up on the agenda okay the the school the day how long the day is and that stuff will be addressed later i believe there will be some discussion uh okay so if we can focus on the data stuff i'm sorry i'm sorry but we have several other people with their hands raised so we need to keep moving um you could put your question in a chat or also address it in the tiny url that would be the very best thank you rebecca you have your hand raised yes thank you amy so um

098yeah i just wanted to thank thank you um i i know angie that you work with a group of other individuals and all of the presenters today um wow lots of work and and you know it's been a stressful year so to be able to like remain focused and really come up with a plan that's um an attempt to to work with with the um problems that continue um to uh to show up it's amazing work that you're doing and thank you but i did want to ask a question so my question is will you be collecting ongoing is there a way that you're going to be collecting ongoing data to assess the interventions um that um that you are utilizing over the summer and then um uh so that's my question yes that's a

099very important question because our um our mtss and multi-tiered system of supports one of the things that we one of the things that happened that was an unfortunate um i guess what do you call it it was lost because our interventionists that usually helped with our data and our mtss systems in our buildings they were put into the classrooms to reduce class size so um we had gotten some very great training from jennifer patnode last january a year ago january on creating a multi-tiered system of supports and we were in the process of identifying a multi-tiered system of support supervisory union level to support the mtss work in the buildings now each building has a has a slightly different approach to mtss because simply because their staffing patterns are different their needs of their students

100might be different but there are some things that we share and one of those things would be data collection processes how do we analyze that data also we share programs what programs are we using for intervention are we using programs that are um data research based are we just doing what we call a double dose which is a child gets a lesson during classroom instruction and then comes out for another a repeat of that lesson may be delivered through a different modality for example they may have been practicing with numbers in the classroom and then they come out and they work with manipulatives in their intervention period that's an example of different modalities so we are going to have to um be very intentional about creating this is one of the reasons that we are

101asking for that time at the end of the day so that we can have robust multi-tiered system of supports we need to be able to do that work we need to have staff that are available to do that work and to look at the data so that the instruction that they do provide student students targets the areas where students need it most our staff have a variety of comfort levels with data we also have a variety of tools that we use for on that we get data from and we have a new tool in our power school called performance matters that none of our staff with the exception of the ad team last march that were trained on it because it had just come in to existence and had been operating in march last year

102so that's that's a tool that i've been using that i found really helpful because i can go in and i can look at free reduced lunch rates i can look at gender differences that's why i can confidently say that when we look at our winter trap my progress in 2020 and compared to our winter 2021 track my progress that we're not seeing huge gaps and learning loss when we look at students by gender and by their income status so those are the kinds of conversations that our staff and the skills that we want to build in our staff did i answer your question sorry yes thank you angie nikki okay try that again i just wanted to give a shout out um to the whole team that uh organized this plan i um i've heard

103most of the plan in other presentations um but to hear each of you present the parts that um you're most passionate about was just really impressive and you can see the heart that went into this um i also wanted to say that um i just this is a huge springboard to implementing our strategic plan um and to me it's it's really impressive to see that we're coming out of a pandemic i think heading towards a stronger implementation than our strategic plan than if the pandemic hadn't happened um i think the lessons learned through the pandemic that you guys presented um just really highlight the the issues that we had prior to the pandemic that just made them so much bigger that we were able to target them directly as a result so i just want

104to thank you for jump starting our strategic plan in such a strong way and for getting us moving in a really good direction thank you nikki elizabeth craig uh this is actually elizabeth's husband christian just a quick question where do i find the line by line spending for the esser funds or the recovery plan and then where do i find the data that was collected to create the plan angie hi christian yes i will i'll be sending out the slideshow from tonight along with the needs assessment that is what ethan was asking for that um was that was phase one that was sent to the state that shows our statements and and what our list of different um interventions might be or investments might be um i will be sending out the the draft of

105the recovery plan when it's written basically the pieces that were in the slideshow tonight will be transferred into the plan the advice we get from our agency of education team leader um there's a different team leader for each region of the state um was to select three two or three really um uh important like our priority uh investments and then to sh to only report out on that otherwise our recovery plan would be 100 pages long and we would be trying to measure a bunch of things so um i will be putting that plan together and sending that out to uh via through our staff our staff in our community email blast and that'll probably go out thursday or friday but what i don't understand if that's going to go out thursday or friday wouldn't

106shouldn't that have been presented this evening so we have time to comment on it or provide feedback i believe the recovery plan is due on june 1st so how are we supposed to provide comment or be a stakeholder as a parent and we are stakeholders in this process without seeing any of this information the recovery plan is represented in that slideshow so your comments and um questions you're not able to do that we're not able to see the data we're able to see anecdotes but not the data the data is not you're not going to see the raw form of the data what you're going to see is statements based on the data in the needs assessment i think that's a difficult process that is the process that the agency of education outlines for us

107they don't want us to turn in all of our templates i mean all of our spreadsheets all of our graphs um we are we are assigned with interpreting the data and putting our statements of interpretation in the in the needs assessment so that's just the district administrators they're allowed to see that no that's going to be shared with you when tomorrow okay so we have two days or three days to comment on that plan or that information to give you feedback that's right and you can always comment it after june first because the agency of education has assured us as i've assured you our community tonight that our needs our recovery plan is a working draft and it will change if there's something in that recovery plan that isn't working for us and our data

108says something different then we will look at it and we will adjust it it's a living document but you're hiring positions that can't be changed yes understanding changing the plan if you're hiring for positions that are contracted employees if you have further comments could you use the tiny euro please so we can move on i have two more i have another person with a hand raised certainly thank you jamie turner hi thank you um i work in the accounting field so i know how much work went into this so i thank you for that um however i was just wondering if i could get a little bit more clarity on how the purchasing agent fits in to the whole mix yes jamie i'm happy to talk about that so when uh prior to the pandemic

109each school had an administrative assistant or purchasing agent in the building that processed all of the purchase orders and then and made the ordering and then the invoicing was done at central office so when we shut down schools there was no way for that purchasing agent to work in the school no one was coming going into our buildings right so then we centralized that process and we hired a purchasing agent that and created a process where purchasing is all done through that purchasing agent so that's kylie taft and she um accepts orders and our and then she processes the purchase orders and then um orders items and they all are then sent i think during the pandemic the items like during the shutdown items were brought to the central office or delivered i mean i

110think custodial staff may have been accepting packages and things like that but that was the response so we're hiring that having that position for one more year and then that will either be locally funded well hopefully we'll be locally funded because it has streamlined the process of purchasing i don't know what the experience perhaps and some of our principals might want to experience uh to chime in on the experience in their building and how if that's improved um the ordering process for them i i don't know i'm happy to speak to that if the board would like amy is that a yes certainly yes um it's absolutely streamlined the process staff can go in it's all online now because before it was paper on paper and with staff not being in the building that was

111really difficult so we use efinance we use a google form now and the vendors are all in their staff go in and submit their own orders they come to myself or other administrators for approval and then they get invoiced and ordered so it's quick it's easy um it's much more efficient than it was in the past so i hope that helps thank you for the clarification great thank you and marie yeah um i guess that one other thing that i was wondering about is and it sort of deals with what christian was asking um a lot of what's on here um they are positioned so i don't see a whole lot of flexibility in this you had mentioned that flexibility was key but like if everything if so many of the things on here are

112actual positions where we have to hire somebody i don't see a lot of flexibility to make changes like if something isn't working there we have hired positions we have offered contracts that are contingent upon federal funding um if the community said no this isn't going to go then we would have to adjust because the funding wouldn't be available so that would be how we would address that and then also um just a lot of the spending seems to be at the su level and the schools themselves are getting you know a lot less i'm wondering if in the s or three funding if that will be adjusted at all so that you know now that these positions at the su level have been filled through this will some more of the s or three money

113be available for schools i do believe that will be the case i mean the the summer academy is a big piece of our um and transitional k um the recovery coordinator those are supervisory union investments um the leader in me investment is substantial for the first year and then is a slightly is slightly decreased in years two and three um so i would i would think that would be the case anne but i don't know for sure until we have those monies budgeted out and i really don't know um if the agency is going to require that we have a three-year budget for s or three so it would be fy 22 23 and 24 um which is very odd um to think about having budget beyond the you know the year that we're going

114into so we'll see how what the guidance is the agency of education has been getting the guidance and dribs and drabs on ester three so that's just been a little slow in coming thank you angie kate ryan i saw that you had your hand raised a couple of times and then it went down yeah i raised it but then you said the scheduling was coming up next so i'll just talk about it if necessary at the scheduling part okay great thanks kate thank you ethan you had another comment yeah thanks um couple so first has been again going on the templates where it talks about you know your stakeholders that you're going to have to list like your school board members students parents teachers administrators cte partners mental health agency representatives and other community members

115so that that's one of the part that they want you to list for your collab collaborative stakeholders represented so i'm hearing this and i don't recognize all of you on there but i know a portion of your central office but i'm not hearing from my like weatherfield school board for example like which ones of them are are um members of this team that put this together and weren't they presenting it in fact i didn't hear any of weatherfield presenting it here that i recognize and i'm sorry if one of you was a weathershield person that was presenting any of this um but certainly all of this outreach and the stakeholders part i don't feel that any of this was followed in terms of having the stakeholders of the parents and and the school board members

116um and everybody else on this committee i'm not even sure who was on the committee just maybe they just picked the people there on the central office to present it but i i would like to see the other the teachers and stuff who were the stakeholders presenting this to us um the other part of it that's really frustrating this is a public meeting and there are public meeting laws to require people to actually take their comments offline and not allow them to get public responses and hold the public meeting instead to have them all other people can't hear their concerns and to submit it through this this thing and then you guys do it behind the scenes that's not how the public meeting is run or work even and another yes i've got one more

117comment before you cut me off and another one so and first of all you guys ignored all my questions the other piece of it is that this is supposed to be an su meeting and we're hearing a ton from the um the presenters which is important and i appreciate they put a lot of work in but i'd love to hear from more of the su board members to find out from them okay what were their goals what were their thoughts how are they spending the money i knew from our weathershell school board meeting we had recently that our school board hadn't even been shared the numbers behind us so even they haven't seen it yet and the problem is when nobody has seen the numbers there's no approval process here for many stakeholders there's no

118even opportunity for the school board member members to represent their communities and they're who make up the su board and if our members didn't have it it seems like the other school board members probably didn't have it either and so i don't know who's running this but we're way off of what's supposed to be done and the presentation didn't include any of the data or any of the goals that how we're going to hit the needs so that's what we want to see and we're so up against the gun now thank you ethan just a reminder this is a meeting that is held in public it is not a public meeting so thank you but it is a public meeting subject to the public meeting laws absolutely yes but it's a school board meeting i'm

119not going to get into a discussion with you on this but it is a meeting that is held in public it is not a meeting for the public that would be a community forum and that is not what this is so thank you were there any other board comments on the presentation hearing none we will move on to scheduling and let me see kate ryan did or angie and kate i think i just wanted to clarify two things that i thought were really important that i heard before the student school day is going from 7 45 to 2 15 not 8 to 2 o'clock and the time after school from 2 15 to 3 15 is not being used for trainings um which i think was the term used it's used for teachers have to

120go to these professional learning communities so when we want to do that mtss that systems support a teacher or parent puts in a recommendation and then a team gets together and they say well these are problems these are the solutions that we want to find for them when we did not have that time um at the end of the day which we did this year it could sometimes be a three to four week turn around between handing in that paper and um getting a team together and forget it during the winter because with the snow if the snow day hit and then a february break hit or something like that you could in theory turn in that paper and not have any response for four to five weeks when we know better we do better

121and we learned this year that that collaboration time for the teachers at the end of the day was necessary to get supports in place quickly for the students so it's not necessarily used being used for training it's being used to do the work to meet our strategic plan which could include leader in me which which could be a training but the majority of it is being used for collaboration among staff to meet the needs of the students through iep meetings or um 504 meetings or all these other meetings that typically take place after teachers contracted time and is super stressful to our staff and not getting the the the attention that they necessarily need so we learned through this year that by giving those teachers that collaboration at the end of the day it makes

122them more effective teachers thank you um so angie were you ready to talk about um scheduling or no hey amy yes scott yeah this is scott richardson is it okay if we if i step back to the agenda item that we just left before scheduling because i was just kind of gathering my mind there but oh certainly yes okay yeah i just i think one thing that the um [Music] that our community would appreciate understanding is that um one thing that the board members got tonight and i cannot um was a more somewhat more detailed budget and so in that in that um when so far that this is a board meeting and not a meeting for the public and we we have that information and i'm happy to see that and i hope that

123the community can understand that and trust us as elected board members to have that in front of us at this point um that is one thing um secondly it's not my understanding that the recovery program that has been outlined is an entirely different system it's more like some planned spending and efforts uh within within a system that we have our our school district's governance system that we have and the reason i bring that up is because you know you do see um like a significant amount of spending at the su level and that's because that's where special education is housed in vermont school district governance and that's where transportation is handled and and uh technology and software and the service of of that function in the district and uh and i said transportation so i

124mean that it's logical that you're seeing a need of these esther monies in in at the su level i'm not sure why exactly sure why heartland is one of the smaller ones but i trust that it might it might actually be a recognition that we've done some spending you know already and so we didn't need to do additional spending but i i don't want to say too much but i think that um i just wanted to you know uh put that out there that the board members have a little more information in front of us and and it really does seem very logical to me and i appreciate what i'm hearing tonight thank you scott um anne marie you have your hand raised and then billy yates and then nikki yeah i just kind of

125wanted to give a little information to people in case they wonder why weathersfield and representatives and um some people from the town are here and are upset um the main feeling um from weather's field on this is that we've been at least on the administrative level left out of discuss these discussions um not that anything particularly has been done that's wrong or not right but we just feel like um our principal is leaving um and so she was not included on a lot of things and a lot of us really feel as though she should have been um she knows what our school needs just because she's not going to be here next year doesn't mean that she should have been not included and um that's just that's why weathersfield is upset about this just

126so you know hey thank you bill gates yeah i thought it might be helpful for me to put in a perspective from a whole different end about that the administration had to face up to i was the one in hartford who was tasked with gathering this information for them to make these type of choices and it was an extremely rushed job what the administration at windsor southeast supervisory had to do was gather the information in an extremely short amount of time compose the information in extremely short amount of time and then present the information to the state in an extremely short amount of time i spent a good week some late nights pulling data out of everywhere so i would like to commend the administration and the administrators david and angie and all the building

127principles for the hard work that they've done um for what the state put them through um that's it thank you nikki going back to scheduling if we're there again um in my entire time um on this board and the heartland board um i've been hearing from teachers that they need more time um and that they don't have enough time to get everything done that they need to get done in order to be effective with the students and so when i saw the scheduling plan with the release um between 2 to 2 15 um at i will admit from a parent standpoint i recognized that this was going to be a challenge um and i also recognize that this is going to be a challenge for all parents um but from having seen the schedule christine

128presented a potential schedule of what the teachers were going to be doing um in the hour after the students leave um and to me that is what teachers have been asking from us for a really long time um and i personally am excited that um we are looking at giving them that time um to do that extra work that they have often done off the books after hours or that they just feel overwhelmed they don't have the time to do such like um and creating project-based learning um and so to see that in a schedule that explicitly says that you're you're going to have that time to work on problem-based learning or um mtss or trauma any of those things um i think it's just really fantastic and so i think that that part of

129the schedule is commendable i know that it's challenging um some people um but i think it's going to be worth it and i think that that time i hope that that time will lower the teachers stress levels so that the time in the classroom is even more effective thank you nikki um i have a question um just seeing in the chat there's a question about what the actual schedule is going to be like when will the day start and when will the day end there seems to be some confusion on that i can answer that amy um the drop-off period will be from 7 50 to 8 o'clock so staff arrive at 7 45 that's the contracted start of day for them students arriving from 7 50 to 8 o'clock school starts at 8 o'clock

130and then depending on how long it takes your school to dismiss the goal is for dismissal to end at 2 15. so in heartland we learned this year through the health check stations that we can really do drop off um you know in in 10 minutes or less so we're going to you know our hope is to continue what we put in place this year and we will start our dismissal to meet that 215 departure time so whatever that is in your school it might be a few minutes um longer if it takes you longer to dismiss does that make sense so in years past we in years past you know in heartland we would start dismissal at 2 30 2 35 and end it by 245 that was the goal buses rolling out at

1312 45 kids you know picked up by then so um i think that that is the goal across the su that students are um dismissed by 2 15. great thank you sure let's see bill and nikki you still have your hands raised no okay and kate ryan you had your hand raised briefly yeah then christine's are talking so okay great okay ethan you have another comment yeah thank you so and that clarified and we we spent a lot of time this on our local board meeting so weathershield used to be 750 that the kids the bell rang and their class began as opposed to when they can home in the building i know there's a lot of different things about coming and building all that and then the 225 is when they started to dismiss

132them to go to the buses and so now on the weathersfield inn this is what was presented to us and i think was just confirmed when they actually start their day not when they arrive and doors open any of that but when they start the day is eight o'clock and when they begin dismissal is two o'clock and so that's a six hour day so again that is 35 minutes less time during the day and that was one of the concerns that our teachers were consistently bringing to our school board saying that they did not like this change and then the other piece on the professional development i know we've had professional development i'm not i'm not saying that it's a bad plan to have professional development the big push from the teachers that came and

133spoke up at this at the school board meeting and it wasn't just one it was multiple was having it that last hour of the day prevents them from being able to have do their their extra homework help with it with the students that they used to do from and and my parents brought up the coaching that they can't coach anymore and also to meet with parents if they come in and they want to grab them and meet with them a little bit about things they're seeing or worried about so if that was at a different time of the day whether it's at the beginning of the day before the day starts whatever it is but putting it at that last hour means that they can't meet with those students and they'd have to actually have

134a student leave and come back if they wanted to meet with them after hours or something it really just eliminates that opportunity i'm not saying that professional development isn't important but we had very strong voices from our teachers they did not pick this that they are concerned what's more important is to be able to do that tutoring in the one-on-one time and give that kid a little extra help or when he had a really bad day to be able to talk to them and work through that with them and get them on track and that they're going to lose that because that's such a important time is that little bit of time at the end of the day when they could have a student have one-on-one time or meet with their parents or do the

135homework help so that's why it's about where it was put in the schedule not not the fact that we're gonna have development time and is it really that necessary that has to be right there okay thank you thank you for expressing your concerns and teachers concerns it sounds like administration needs to have some more conversation with teachers possibly probably but thank you for bringing that to the attention i can respond to it so hi ethan my name's kate ryan i'm one of the principals at windsor school um we did have teachers on the committee that worked with us the union rappers the union leaders represented the teachers on here the response to the hour was that need to ask for more collaborative time i want to be real clear that all parts of it will

136be used for professional development not the bulk of it will be used for professional development it will be used for collaboration to meet the students needs and the last thing i want to mention i didn't i don't know if the email went out to all the schools yet i only have that intimate knowledge of my school but there will be like in our school we have btg i believe you have paws so that child care and homework help will be provided by those outside agencies and the staff from 2 15 to 3 15 and then the certified staff will pick up the tutoring and the one-on-one so the kids don't have to leave the building and come back to get those services thank you kate that helped clarify a lot of the concern that i

137was seeing in the chat mark you have your hand raised uh yeah this is primarily for the principals um if it turns out the set schedule um isn't working for you professionally i just want to make sure that the individual principals have the flexibility to allocate that time as they see fit because they're the ones that we search for we have the search committees for and we interview we want to make sure that our own principles have to say over the building that they're in charge of i just want to make sure that that's part of the thinking as far as we understand this is what everybody wants is best practice i just want to make sure the control is still in your hands i can answer that if you're asking for an admin uh

138yeah i guess that wasn't really a question please feel free oh was it just a statement then i can keep quiet well no no i i can't i can't assurance that it is that'd be great thanks i i think it might be important to amy and i talked about this briefly to kind of point out contractually that the um the school day is not based upon this there's this there's the work day and then there's the school day the school day is not created by the principal um that the school day is actually decided by uh the school boards um so i think that that's where that flexibility would probably come from on the su level or on the school level within the contract with the professional staff it is um within the school boards

139and within the contract it says the board in the preamble of the contract it states within that the um the the boards the the board the escatney board the heartland board and the weatherfield board will create the school day the workday is um well that's yeah okay bill thank you that almost creates more confusion in the scope of this so we have many items to continue on with our with our meeting here tonight or is there are there any other board questions on the scheduling let's see mark is your hand still raised or and bill we have i believe it is a community member carrie jewell and then nikki buck yeah i just was hoping bill would finish his statement about what that means for the work day bill can you do that now i

140i think i agree with you amy i think what i was trying to say muddled things more than actually clarifies anything it yeah surprising to say it's contractual bill yeah it's it's it's it's not just contractual so i i guess my point is is that the there's there's nothing within the teacher contract that states that um states on when the school day starts and when it ends that is uh within the contract based upon the school boards um but that's not the only factor with setting within this that the school day is the contract it's also [Music] the administration presenting it to the boards and making those choices okay thank you i just want one follow-up so there's room for each individual school board to work on the start and stop of the day or

141how the teacher's time is spent it is up to clarify try to clarify my statement there is nothing within the contract between the school boards and the school district employees that sets when the school day is that is within the contract up to the school districts it doesn't mean that there's wiggle room between um the the districts that have it different there are so many moving parts in creating a schedule that it's nearly impossible to say oh the the different school boards can set their school day the way they want there's busing there's shared services they're special ed those are all factors that have to be taken in the plan is extremely complicated thank you bill um nikki then anne marie and then mark and then we have to move on um christine i'm going

142to put you on the spot because i know you did a lot of work on this so i know part of the contract um also includes um breaks and planning periods for teachers and i'm just wondering how that fits in with the schedule um and are students losing academic time or are we shifting um time that would have been lost anyway to a different time during the day um great question contractually teachers are are guaranteed a 30-minute duty-free lunch and a preparation period so those have to be built into the daily schedule i would say students are not losing time we're trying to be more efficient with time less transitions there were times in heartland and and this might be vary by school where a student could have an additional related arts or special as

143we call them during the day that no longer is the case in heartland so i can say that they're not losing time in fact we hope that the benefit of the collaborative practice time with teachers will allow them to go deeper with students and and learning will be more meaningful and students will will make academic gains actually so i hope that answers your question nikki thank you christine that's what i was hoping might be the answer thanks anne marie um i was talking to uh one of our middle school teachers uh mr villa and um he actually was talking about that um that the middle school teachers in our school would prefer to have this planning time in the middle of the day like a lunch they used to i guess i'll take a few

144years back they used to all take lunch together and then um and then the middle school teachers wouldn't be involved in recess time um like why instead of taking time away from the kids aren't we trying to think of more creative ways like this to sort of find time rather than taking that uh 35 minutes from the kids i can answer that if you want amy please so as you heard bill say schedules are incredibly complicated and whenever teachers are not with students somebody has to be with students to to you know supervise um so it's really really difficult to get teams together when you have to ensure that parts of that team are working with students so you might be able to do some small group work anne marie but you're not going to

145have large teams or pods together because we just don't have the resources to cover that amy can i pipe up here too yes please i mentioned this earlier in my entire time on the board one of the biggest complaints that i've heard from teachers um is that they don't have the time and under the way that we have been doing things which is trying to find an hour here and trying to find an hour there those hours just aren't being found um and so i think it's time to try something new i think that we are shifting out of this pandemic and it's time to try a different way of scheduling those hours in so that those hours actually can be found and hopefully that this way um we'll make it work but um i've

146heard for years like five plus years that teachers are not getting enough time to work together and they're not getting enough time to do project-based learning coordination and all of that and i just i don't see the current system as sustainable um and i don't want to go back to that system and i want to have our teachers be able to work together and learn together and i think that this is the best way forward thank you nikki angie you have your handwritings yes thank you i just wanted to say that the other um challenge that presents anne-marie is that when we are doing supervisory union level work which is everything that has to do with proficiency based curriculum instruction and assessment we have to have all schools represented at the table and when we

147don't we run into issues of alignment and coherence across the supervisory union part of the mtss is to develop a local common assessment plan we need teachers at the table to do that when we could go to each building but then the collaborative aspect of that in having grade two teachers meeting with grade two teachers in other buildings is extremely powerful and um i think that some of those meetings like we're we're trying to build something new looking at the past and in the past we didn't always do it so great so i think we have to be willing to uh look toward the future and build what we want it to be and then we assess it and say okay did that work the way we wanted it to i think we can do

148it thank you angie i think we can too rebecca i i just want to say that in in my years in education both as a guidance counselor as um assistant principal um i i heard both sides i i hurt the size of um educators who um just wanted to dedicate all the time they had in the building with their students they just and and and that they were passionate that was their love and that's what they were there to do and i also heard the side um where they they did need the professional development but where were they going to get the time to to really do that and and most of them did not want to take away from their the time with their students um and and i just it just sounds like

149um it's just a really hard um a hard uh balance to try and come up with but it just sounds like from what i've heard from the principals in the last um several months that they have really attempted to address both um and that is um that time that precious time with teach with students and at the same time knowing what what is important for their teachers um to to continue to grow um in a way that that um that is important so um i i don't think it's an easy conversation but i'm so glad that it is um that that that their their teachers and and principals and administrators are moving ahead and and moving and trying to come up with a balance that's going to [Music] support um students teachers um community members

150and parents thank you rebecca um let's see i believe it's getting late and we have still some very important conversations nikki did you have more your hand is raised still no we are going to move on to policies our first policy is the windsor southeast supervisory union anti-racism policy the second reading do any board members have comments or questions on the anti-racism policy we've heard a lot from the public um just hoping to hear from board members bill yates um i've done a lot of reading today um including the policy and in some of the concerns from the from the public um and i i'd like to say that uh i i feel the policy is quite well written um and simplistic in a way um yet specific enough to um move the district and

151the community forward i i think the group did a wonderful job thank you i just wanted to read something um so a lot of the work that we are doing with both the anti-racism and the equity policy come out of a law um it's called let me see um act one and act relating to ethnic and social equity study standards for public schools and the let me see i had to okay so one of um so the attorney general and human rights commission held three stakeholder meetings and i'm reading from the act here they held three stakeholder meetings and found quote a surprising amount of coalescence around the most important issues and the quote primary overarching theme was that we will be able to reduce racial disparities by changing the underlying culture of our state

152with regard to race and it goes on to say one of the main suggestions for accomplishing this was to quote teach children from an integrated curriculum that fairly represents both the contributions of people of color as well as indigenous people women people with disabilities etc while fairly and accurately representing our history of oppression of these groups the other suggestions were to educate state employees about implicit bias white privilege white fragility and white supremacy and increase the representation of people of color in the state and school labor forces by focusing on recruitment hiring and retention as well as promotion of people of color into positions of authority and responsibility on boards and commissions so if people are wondering why at this point in time we have an equity policy as well as an anti-racism policy is

153because we are working within the state law that was passed in not only that but it is the right thing to do where there are other comments from board members rebecca well um i just want to say um that um for those of us who are on the anti-racism um policy committee with community stakeholders and and meeting with dr crum um around this issue and and and informing ourselves um around this issue um one of the things i i walked away from our discussions um was um a video that we saw where you had middle school students who were who were saying this is not an issue that i'm comfortable speaking about and i think that um when you have students at that age even younger seeing what the news media is putting out what

154their parents are talking about what the community is talking about and they can't comfortably have that conversation on in a setting with their peers um it's it's it's it's not a good it's not a good thing because we we know that that is where many of us really form our our ideas about um what the world is about and how do you move forward at it in it and how do where do i fit in it and how do i contribute to it so i i hope that um that at some point that if you were to sometime down the road if you were to survey our students and ask them those questions and they can say they can speak about it comfortably that would be amazing and i hope that that's something that does

155come about as a result of implementing this policy in our district thank you rebecca scott you have your hand raised yes and colleen did i don't know if if she's still there if she wants to go hi scott thank you can you guys hear me i'm sorry yeah sorry colleen and then that's what no my hand went down i got booted off of the internet and had to come back and then my hand was down and you know i think i'm just wanting to reiterate what other people are saying we have had some comments come in from the community that have questions about this policy and that i i just want to say as a board member of heartland and as an su board member that i like bill i feel like and rebecca that

156this is a solid document that's really well written and meets what i think we want to bring forward as a community based on conversations that i've had with people too that's it and really appreciate the work we're getting to do with our the workshop that we're participating in that some of us are getting to participate in thanks great thank you there has been a request to share the the um the drafts of or what these policies are um i was about to go in and look but that also really distracts me from running the meeting could someone go to the agenda with the the documents that were shared for this meeting and share that link in the chat for people if someone could do that that'd be great thanks and scott thank you amy i

157just want to i want to bring the board members attention to the last page in the bold section and just remember um i brought up that subject or the timing there and i think i used an example of uh quarterly as we see financial reports or some wording like that and and so we ended up with this you know there was more discussion than that i would i want i want to say that it was just what i there were a number of board members that tossed that around and it ended up being uh this quarterly uh concept here i i just i think that what i was trying to say last month was that it seemed like this subject matter was would be wholly in the realm of the superintendent and administrators building administrators

158regular conversations and i didn't want anything in the policy that would um kind of push that aside and make it seem like the board was had just a quarterly expectation um do you follow me now so does any other board members have a opinion on that i have i have in my notes from what you said last time the following okay um uh you said that uh first you said that maybe it should be biannual and then which i think you meant semi-annual um but then uh uh then you said that uh and i'm not you said that you thought it should be quarterly and then it should be tied to implement implementation procedures and i think that's actually that was the reason i wrote it down was that i think it was a really

159good point um that uh we that we have the policy then we also have the procedure document and i think last time we looked at both side by side and uh and the procedure document has a bunch of steps in it um and to to like mark mark the steps i think should be part of the policy i agree i just i think it might be something that might happen very often almost every board meeting or perhaps every board meeting um that's what we decided was that we would put it in the policy quarterly but at least for the beginning we're going to have to have it be every meeting we're going to keep it a standing that's what we decided but we wouldn't put that in the policy we can we can decide to

160talk about it on a you know weekly if we wanted but yeah well i'm glad i just wanted to bring that in front of the board again okay thank you and and i think what um as far as monitoring the policy um there are as we the board create our schedule which we're going to do once we have a little bit more free time we're going to have a schedule of policy reviews and there will be some policies that we will look at maybe annually this will not be one of them this will be at the very least you know once implementation has happened this will be reviewed there will be some sort of report on this policy on a quarterly basis does that make sense yes that that makes sense yeah so so we

161could decide and this is just i'm just saying this so don't hold me to this but it could be the um the the first meeting of every quarter once implementation has happened you know that the first meeting of every quarter that this will be discussed there will be a report on this policy that if that makes sense you know when we put together a policy report schedule that this will be it will be a schedule so that our administrators know to have the report prepared thank you amy yeah and just my notes from the last meeting i think what he's trying to say is that it'll be in the policy part of the agenda as a quarterly thing that comes up for review just like we're reviewing things every three years and whatever but i

162think based on the nature of the content from my notes from the last meeting is that he's trying to reiterate based on the content of the topic that it very likely would come under maybe a superintendent or a principal's report in another facet on a general day-to-day level as well so that those two things are not mutually exclusive they might occur simultaneously is that right scott yes that's well put wendy thank you very much and i think i was also getting things confused terminology oh my gosh and interpretation of terminology so we do have a policy review where say every three years a policy gets reviewed but there is also a reporting on policy to make sure that we are implementing our policies adhering to those policies and that's what i was talking about with

163this that it would be quarterly that we would get a report from our administrators that would possibly even be separate from a superintendent's report if that makes sense just to muddy the water in my brain yeah and let me see so are there any other comments or questions at this point on the anti-racism policy this is the second reading nikki i'm just going to reiterate what everyone else said i saw comments from the community and reviewed them and reviewed a lot of their um sourced material um and just felt like this was the right answer um and that the materials that i read and the work that i did in response to community questions just made me feel stronger that this is the right direction and i'm excited that we're moving forward because thank you

164mark i just wanted to announce publicly that i read all the input as well um and i seem to be on the same page with all my other committee members um seems to me that the biggest complaint i've was hearing from the public was that um equality was not the theme and it just brings me back to the picture of the three different height individuals with the no box medium-sized box and large box and the biggest complaint about the policy seemed to be that it didn't address all the world's problems but i still stand by it i think it does what it needs to do and i think it needs to be done at this time so thanks that's my two cents thank you so much mark colleen i don't mean to drag it out

165i know you have a very busy agenda and you're trying to wrap things up amy but i just wanted to say one of the things that i really appreciate about the anti-racism task force is working alongside our board members and having the time to have discussions together and talk through how difficult the work is and that we can all be aware of all the perspectives we are trying to represent when we work together and for me all of this work is about us working together as a whole su and i really enjoy working with the board members on this committee thank you colleen elizabeth thanks amy i agree with you colleen i think it's been really gratifying being able to um to work with everybody in the same way that portrait of a graduate was

166and um in the way that portrait of graduate purposefully lifts up our students this is this is the same sort of thing like all gathering arms to to uh make this this uh kind of lift and uh i'm really proud of the work that we've done we've worked really hard on this and uh uh it's been a really it it it predates the the committees that we've been um on it's been you know kind of wafting in and out of our supervisory union for six or seven years now and uh it's really uh hard to believe that we're here but it's wonderful that we finally got here and uh uh we've so all hands on the big rock everybody plush yay yeah thank you yeah we have we have the policy um well i mean

167there's still so much work to do but um so this is the second reading would people feel comfortable voting to approve the policy now or would you prefer to have a third reading i'm ready i thought this was the third reading no the third reading is on the equity policy oh okay yeah would someone like to make a motion to adopt the anti-racism policy can i comment first oh chris certainly yeah um i'll be honest with you um i'm ready to vote on it now but to be honest with you given the the type of pro of question that it is i think that leaving it for another for that for the next for the next board meeting have a third reading gives an opportunity for a little bit more public comment and i think

168that whether we you know whether we agree with the public comment or not um it's worthwhile to make sure that the public feels like they've been they've had an opportunity to be hurt so uh that would be my that would be my suggestion would be the way to to wait one more time right um a lot of this meeting has been taken up i mean it's it's 9 30. um we could have this at the top of the agenda at our next meeting so that it all happens up front as opposed to on the tail end would would people be okay with going one more okay sure thank you chris and nancy i so agree with chris because um i i thought many of the things people said needed to be thought about um and

169and i agree that we should wait thanks chris thank you so we are moving on to the equity policy which is this is the third reading so we will be i'll be taking a motion to approve or adopt the equity policy again this is a policy that was developed with the vermont school board association the vermont superintendents association the vermont principals association and the aoe amy are you talking equity or english learners as the third reading equity um this is going to be really anal or obsessive but there's a dash above the to realize this commitment to equity the district will yeah so that's my complaint right above the t and that's just going to bug me also yeah yeah i if if if we could get that fixed at some point i will move

170to uh pass the uh i will make a motion to pass the equity policy i will second that and with with bills with bill's correction i believe that can be fixed i thought that was just a smudge from my printing it okay it's been moved and seconded is there any further discussion on the equity policy nancy oh no that was an old hand okay so all those in favor of adopting the equity policy with the um strange little typo corrected say aye aye anyone opposed to adopting the equity policy thank you we have the equity policy approved such a good girl next oh my gosh we are um are there cobait updates or have the covet updates come through all of the updates that we receive every friday sunday and monday can i just amy

171in place of the covet update can i just tell the full weathersfield and heartland boards about um on the excess spending threshold oh certainly yes so uh at the i'm not gonna put my pin on it's a legislative update uh hopefully it'll get signed into law here pretty quickly both the house and the senate passed a bill concerning the um the equalized people waiting study and but what's really they're going to look at it how to implement it that's not what's important for you at the moment what's important for you at the moment is that the bill includes a two-year pause on the excess spending threshold retroactive to this year so uh it's not yeah so your taxes will be reasonable this year so write those letters to the governor and get him to sign

172it into law quickly anyway great thank you elizabeth it's always good to hear good legislative news yay um next on the agenda is su board goals it is really late can we have this on our next agenda please thank you next um scott you would ask to provide some information yeah it's really really not a big deal it was so hard i don't get asked to do much as your su treasurer but so the um it was brought to my attention by the um payroll coordinator in the central office that both weathersfield and the su accounts are in the same bank and that the bank has their regular run-of-the-mill rules for things like withdrawals in a day and we were we were running up against that and it had to do with both of the

173districts being in housed in the same bank and and that writing and doing payroll for uh in the correct fashion uh monthly and and just bumping up against that uh ceiling you might say and so all i did was provide uh once that was explained to me it made perfect sense and i just signed a piece of paper so that the bank knew that there was at least one community member from the su board that had talked to the central office staff and seen that and and so now we have a higher spending threshold to make that work it's not a big deal excellent but good to know thank you scott yeah because without your report right now we would never have known that there they're just so many little intricacies to the the running

174of a school district yeah well that's a good point you brought that up and it definitely doesn't include scott richardson so it was the i was gonna say you know that's just an amazing central office human resources accounts payable payroll coordinator administrative assistant and of course the chief financial officer and it has very little to do with a board member or but it's it's a it's a it's a good thing to uh see once in a while so i'm glad that we have there's some new faces going down there to sign some of the manifests and stuff so it's going to be it's going to be good yeah thank you scott nancy you had something you wanted to report on when i found the letter it it involves only our mount of scrutiny school district

175so i'll hold it off to our meeting okay great thank you nancy um items for action i believe we already did our item for action at the time of action and i am i'm fading um so how about we set our next agenda top of the agenda will be the anti-racism policy and board goals and will will we need yes i'm sure we will need more discussion on recovery or just an update on how that's going we'll probably need a discussion on recovery and likely esr3 i do think tonight's meeting made me think about the importance of having a public forum which other school systems my colleagues have done for their um communities okay thank you and that reminds me just this is totally completely off topic of um setting the next agenda but there

176was a question there was there were some comments about public meetings and open meeting law and i just wanted to read something that is part of the the work of a school board and that is that board meetings are public meetings but they are not a meeting of the public and that we are we provide an opportunity for community members to to share their opinions and their views but we can also because it is not a community it's not a public forum we can put reasonable um restrictions on that and that means that we can say okay you have one minute or you have two minutes etc and that it is well within the expectation of a board chair or another board member to ask a person to stop talking for wants of a better

177term again i'm getting very tired um are there any other items bill you had a comment yeah i think we should probably plan to have an update of negotiations be it either hopefully it doesn't have to happen in an executive session okay thank you and katie to remember to unmute uh i talked to dr baker about doing the resignations and new hires at the su level at our next board meeting so if you needed to put that on but that was okay oh certainly yes thank you i'm fading too amy so we're all there with you okay i think that is going to be a very very full meeting because there's always something else that comes up surprises so um real quick sorry yes today i think i meant to send it to all the

178su board members so i hope you all got it that winter's a little bit beyond eight ball so we haven't done our leader in me presentations yet so ours are coming up this week i know that's a big chunk of the esser funds and i know that people might want to know more about it so i invited you to our both our ke presentation and our 912 presentation so i hope you can make it if you want to i saw that thank you kate it looks it looks really interesting especially after the um the short presentation we got tonight anne marie i was just wondering how long those presentations are it's at 2 30 the one i would want to see is at 2 30 tomorrow but i'm at work then so like is it

179like something i can do like in a half an hour i can tell my boss i just need a half an hour or is there somewhere that i can watch it online later in the day sorry i think if you went on for the first half an hour you'd have you'd get the a really good idea and then the next part of it so we only have it scheduled for 45 minutes and i think that last part will just be questions and answers so if you have any questions you can just send them to me and i can get them to dana jean thank you great thanks auntie i think one of the things we might want to think about probably i don't know when the date of the next meeting is but i'm sure

180dana jean who is our leader and me consultant would be happy to bring a presentation to the board um so i think she offered to do that so maybe not for the next agenda but maybe before school starts okay yeah that would be great um with that um our i do not believe we are in need of executive session so i will take a motion to adjourn our meeting i want to thank everyone for all of the comments and your patience and um just the the courage and the strength that all of we have all of us have together working as a team so thank you and before you adjourn just to confirm you're still talking next meeting is june 28th with that is fourth tuesday or monday rather correct correct motion to adjourn bye

181second i i i paul and rebecca hi hi thank you so much thank you guys everybody sweet dreams good night good night good night