00110 or 15 there we go we are now recording in anne marie it's all yours okay all right um i'd like to call tonight's meeting to order um at 604 pm um we'll start with the pledge of allegiance and my little flags um i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay um first item here any changes or additions to the agenda i don't have anything i don't i don't have any g i don't know about gene do you have any note gene says no okay all right um then we have the approval of the minutes from march 9th did everybody get a chance to take a quick look at those i looked
002at them just before the meeting and they looked fine to me um do i have a motion to approve the minutes from march 9th i'll make the motion to approve the minutes from march 9th okay do i have a second second hi mark okay uh all in favor say aye aye are there any changes or auditions sorry i forgot to say that are there any changes or addictions to the minutes no okay so i don't not hearing any actually i hear like a weird echo now somebody made that sound on i don't know i don't see anybody okay um i don't hear any changes um all in favor of approving the minutes as they are for march 9th 2021 say i i any opposed okay i guess that passed unanimous um now we're up to
003public participation and announcements um i know the one item that we have on the list um are the is the eighth grade request um for the pride flag and uh and i know that bj has her hand up i'm not sure if that oh bj it's just something addition like a next step another um like b to this um we received a grant from new york life for oh and i just want to ask your approval for it the board's approval okay and i think there also was something from the pta too right yes so we'll put that under public as well yeah and i believe jamie richardson's here to do that okay great all right um well we can start with the eighth grade um pride flag request um jean marie do you want
004to lead that or i'd be delighted to lead it so um maybe a month ago maybe a little less i do have the original note to me from some 8th graders who felt very strongly that they would like to see a philadelphia what's called a philly pride flag flown in the months of may and june that flag is a combination of the black lives matter flag and the um gay rights and first off i want to tell you how proud i was of those students who after i read the note i went and talked with them they're pretty quiet unassuming boys and girls and they had talked amongst themselves and they wanted to have a voice and i am so proud of them because i think what they represent is diversity i think they represent
005change i think they represent acceptance and wanting to speak their truth and to let folks know that all are welcome at the weathersfield school so we've actually had two very nice conversations i think some of them are here with you today and they're here if you have questions for them if you just want to hear the voice ask what what they're thinking what motivated them i know they're willing to talk with the board this is very daunting for young boys and girls and i'm so proud of them because what they represent is courage they represent the voice of their school and i'm proud of them for having that courage i'll be frank with you i don't know that i would have had it at their age so and today as you all know is a
006historic day if you've been watching the news so you know that it's time for us to really look at the big picture and look at the way we do business and look at diversity and social consciousness and acceptance of all and i think that was the thinking behind this very thoughtful note that i received um does anyone have anything they want a brook hinting her uh yeah i just i think i have something to say and then um a couple of my friends are here um if they want to say anything after me um thank you miss oakman for that uh introduction uh like like she said um our goal in this is uh to show that weathersfield is a welcoming and safe environment for any student um it can make a big impact in
007a kid's life to have a school environment where they feel supported and accepted especially when they may not have a voice otherwise or anywhere else and for those of you that like that sort of thing i have some statistics that um may help show that um this could make a big difference um so uh according to the um gay lesbian and straight education network it's estimated that one in ten educators actually identify um as part of the lgbtq community so it may not only benefit students to have an accepting and welcoming school environment but also teachers and staff and other members of the school community and on the note of students in fact only 26 percent of lgbtq youth that took this survey say that they feel safe in their classrooms um and only five
008percent say that they feel their teachers and peers support them so having a school that goes out of their way to express their their support may make a big difference and on another note uh 67 say that their family makes statements that are negative towards the lgbtq community and people in it um and 95 say that they have trouble sleeping at night so um things like this don't bode well for academic purposes either so again having a school that could help with that may um in turn help with um academic performance and such um so thank you uh if anyone else my or abby wants to say anything thank you bro um i'm myra and i'm part of the lgbtq plus community and one of the reasons i would like to the school to fly
009a pride flag is to show that weathersfield is a safe place to express yourself without judgment i recommend the italy pride flag as it supports black and brown kids queer kids trans kids gay kids and questioning kids flying the flag will also show that the school is a safe place because 31 of lgbt kids in 2019 skipped school because of feeling unsafe according to the vermont youth risk behavior survey with the flag kids and adults will feel like they can be who they really are while in a safe environment the flag is only one step to one step treating minorities equally is our goal i know that some people might not exactly believe in what the flag represents but in this scenario the flag is just stating that weathersfield is a safe and open place
010for kids to be who they really are thank you milo does anyone else have anything they want to say um and then so the request is to fly the flag is that um how is the flag being supplied is that something that's being requested as well so i can respond to that um bj carrie and i looked up a variety of flags that we felt were representative of what the students were looking for and i believe the dimensions speech it correct me if i'm wrong but is that four by six four by six flag we can get for 14.99 plus shipping so probably under 20 i looked at the poll today our flags right now are at half mast because walter mondale died but i believe it can fly under the vermont flag i believe
011all three flags can fly unless there's some uh etiquette question around that and of course the american flag is always first and typically the vermont flag is second but if there is an etiquette question we don't know that but that's something we need to explore then the vermont flag could be taken down and the philly flag flown instead it's possible all three flags could fly for under twenty dollars and i think we're only talking about bt how many days of school do we have somebody thinks i count them i really don't it's about 35 about 35. so they're asking to fly that flag for 35 days and we don't have a policy i know that and i know you know david and i've talked a little bit and emory it's possible that this could create
012an opportunity for lots of different people to come forward and ask to fly flags i don't know that that's a bad idea either um i think we take it case by case there is no policy that would prevent this and and it's under 20 so i fully support it and i fully support the voice of students and i think they've i noticed both young ladies use the term safe it's about safety our school is a safe school and all people all people are welcome agreed um so anne marie i think what uh to get this on the table for discussion i think you'd need a board member to make a motion to authorize ms oakman as principal to to fly the pride flag for the remaining 35 days of the school year and to follow
013all flag protocols i think we would probably have to look at that but i i i think flying all three is not going to be a problem but we can check that out um but i think that would be the motion i don't know becky whether you got that or not i can repeat it if you need me to i think i have it okay yeah so it's just authorizing the prince [Music] i see mark's hand is raised mark [Music] um i'm gonna up the ante a little bit uh i'm gonna look for suggestions from the students uh the flag um i don't necessarily think that that's i mean for me personally that wouldn't be enough to really make me feel safe so i think step two to this after authorizing g marie would be
014what do the students need and i think it's separated by age the students are in a big broad group and you guys are at a point of understanding of yourselves and of society that kindergarten first second graders are not so these issues are bigger to you now um than they can be really for the whole school so i don't think a flag alone is going to be enough i'd like to see a club an activism club i salute what you guys are doing i just think it's going to need to go further and that's that doesn't necessarily speak to the individual issue on the table but i think i think we're going to want to make this more than just a symbol i think we're going to need to take a serious look at what
015what it is we do to support our seventh and eighth graders um because they are at a different point in life um than the lower grades so i just want to put that out there thank you um kids have created a um training exercise that we would like to do with some of the teachers if that's okay about um trains and lgbtqia right if that's okay i think that's a great idea and i'm willing to work with the students on a couple of issues one is i think this needs to be part of our educational curriculum and i know for example that the su is looking at an anti-racist policy which i've read and think is very good an equity policy and i also looked at current best practice or schools regarding transgender and gender
016non-conforming students and so i think mark hit the nail on the head it starts with education and that can be worked into the curriculum through second step through the guidance program next year we're really hoping that we have exploratories there could be an exploratory on this very thing so i do believe and i'm more than happy to meet with the representatives tomorrow to begin to explore and i'll ask our school counselor to meet with us to begin to explore what do you want and how would that be possible and like i heard both girls referred to the um uh euthyrs behavior survey and we actually review those results as a faculty and staff i want to say it might have been march so that's still fresh on our minds and some of it was concerning
017and i think we can take those initiatives and blend them and i do think it's very possible to move forward with a plan to make our school more inclusive have you given any thought as to how that might break down as opposed to or as far as age appropriateness goes because honestly that's that's really my only concern with flying um a specific flag for activism on the post not because i disagree with any of it i just i worry about uh the backlash of uh at some point someone wants to fly a religious flag uh god forbid somebody wants to fly the confederate flag um in response to that and that's not a reason not to support our students it's not a reason just to not support our community members it's just a question of
018venue um i think the support has to be there um i think the understanding has to be there i think the inclusivity has to be pushed but i think there's going to be a serious consideration as to what's the proper venue for that and that i leave in your hands as the principal i gladly accept that challenge i will tell you you've experienced some of that back in the fall before the presidential election there were many outspoken students that supported donald trump supported the confederacy supported things that other people did not and there were words i've had parents call me write to me tell me it's uncomfortable i think how the teachers handled it was was graciously and it was the notion was everybody's entitled to their opinion and although we believe in free speech
019there has to be an arena in which it's acceptable where people aren't criticizing the other for their belief i know in the primary for example part of the second step program is about loving yourself it's about acceptance and that really the beginning you know it doesn't matter what color you are what religion you are what gender you are what non-conformist you it does not matter it's about loving yourself knowing who you are having the courage to believe in yourself and and then we talk about bystanders and when cutting things are said having the courage to say we need to be accepting of all people so we've actually started some of that work through second step i think you see it again when uh the school counselor meets with the nurse and jay villa when they
020teach sex ed and safe safe and healthy choices so i do think we are on the cusp of that i really want to hear what the kids have to say i think you're right it's going to have more meaning for a seventh and eighth grader than it will a first grader but i hope that first grader asks what does that flag mean and i think what i'm hearing myra say and maybe brooke too is that they'd like to educate the faculty so when a first grader says what is that flag it's very colorful by the way and what does it represent i want teachers feel comfortable now the flip side of that is we could have a request to fly the confederate flag so there probably has to be a policy developed we won't worry
021about it right now because if the board approves this there's only room for one more flag for this school year but if the board would like to look at a policy then that certainly could be in place by the time september 7th rolls around and you know we do have to be respectful because not everyone embraces the same ideals and we don't we certainly don't want to exclude anyone nor do we want to be racist so we have to be very mindful of what that policy looks like and how this is managed for going forward we've got some experts on staff i think our school counselor is an ex an expert i can't wait to talk with students tomorrow to hear what they're thinking because i think all of that can be melded together with
022some good planning and i would be delighted to share that with the board at our main meeting mark is your hand still up or do you have something else to say okay uh brooke yeah um i just like to say like miss oakland instead just to reiterate that we would that we're not trying to make a political statement or religious statement by this flag everyone is absolutely entitled to their own opinion and belief and um by flying this flag we would never tell you that your opinion is wrong we're just um trying to show that weathersfield would never turn anyone away and just like we are a welcoming school for everyone thanks brooke does anyone else have anything to say on this matter um i would say that i agree with what was said from
023mark and um what was brought up also from the students about educating the teachers and just taking this further than just the symbolic thing of a flag to me is very important because i think we need to give kids options like if they're having trouble talking to their parents about how they're feeling you know maybe have someone at the school that you know i mean i know the guidance counselor is there but just you know point out to them that there are adults available or there are places that you can go and get advice on this sort of thing would be a good idea as well uh mark one more question to the students um were any other flags based on inclusivity researched um because right now we've we've got one small victory uh in
024as far as black lives matter uh is concerned today was a big day um but there's a lot of other marginalized groups right now that are suffering in this country um is there any other it seems like an odd intersection to me to just have the pride flag and the black lives matter combination flag put together are there any other all-inclusive acceptance flags that you guys are aware of not that i know of but maybe if we researched some uh one adaptation of um the philadelphia pride flag that i know of has a has the classic black lives matter fist in the middle that kind of i mean it's it's different from the adaptation that we were talking about um but it does show that you know all all races and everything are um united
025in this so that's one version but i mean if if this this seems like something that you guys would be interested in we could do some more research sounds good um mark is your hand's still up okay um okay um well if no one has anything further to say on the matter i'll take a motion to approve the student's request to fly the um philly pride flag or perhaps a version of it that they might come up with that's better in consultation with jean marie for the rest of the school year to be purchased by the school i guess is there anyone that wants to make that motion so moved if you if becky got that i know after she got it he's good do i have a second markle second is there any further
026discussion on this matter all in favor say i i i opposed opposed okay so we have one opposed um and i think jackie's still not here but so three eyes one opposed the motion passes yeah so the and the other just so i understand and jean marie i think you've got a pretty good understanding um so that you know that takes care of sort of the immediate and mark i understand what you're saying about ways in which especially given the work we're going to be doing on equity and anti-racism just kind of continuing this work because the reason the board is weighing in here is because uh and you'll notice that any time there's a suggestion about a particular flag being flown or a particular symbol being part of the public the public entity the
027board generally gets involved because this is you know the board is the entity that sorts out what you know what is political what is offensive what might need to be censored and and uh but what i'm hearing mark say uh and i think gene got the message you know pretty clearly is that this group can continue to work together uh to to just identify some other areas and resources that they might need uh you know i i i think uh you know they clearly have a perspective on this you know probably a better perspective than many of us at this meeting right now uh and it will be your generation that carries that torch beyond beyond today and and beyond the decision of today and i think you did a masterful job of representing your
028belief system and what you want so i if if i understand it right you know jean marie and and i saw tara offer some help and the school council i i will just continue to work with these kids and my guess is this group may be back to us you know either before the end of the year or is that is that everybody's understanding tonight we all have that understanding that this group's going to continue to work together yes definitely okay i also um i also agree with jean-marie that i think we do need to come up with a policy on this so that um you know we don't have requests for uh hateful flags and then you know then we have to it becomes an issue you know no that that's that's a good
029point and what we could do uh because as you know we've very recently switched our policy delivery and our policy uh development and implementation to the supervisory union level so that all of our schools are operating under the same policy so what we can do and maybe we can do it as early as monday night because we're going to be talking about the equity policy the anti-racism policy and uh in this i think there's one other policy but that might be mentioned monday night and see whether or not we can either incorporate something like that into either one of those policies or uh or we need something separate uh as we move forward yeah mark you have your hand raised just a side note uh i'd really like it if we didn't as a committee
030and even as a whole society not get mired in camps and groups and who's for what and what you follow what category you fall under it'd be really nice to me if we could push the idea that we have the two flags that are primary one is the nation and the second as a state and in the pledge liberty and justice for all there should be no other caveats to that it'd be really nice if we could get to the point where that's what we celebrated thanks okay um we'll move on to the next item um which was uh the pta so that is that is me hi i'm jamie richardson um how do you follow up that beautiful brilliant uh conversation so first i just have to commend the young people for um for
031their bravery and uh i'm a parent of a kindergartener so it is uh with great pleasure to know that there's these young people putting uh forth some um some movements and some just positivity and and inclusivity and welcoming for our little ones that are coming through so i it's just another wonderful uh check in the box of why we've chosen to live in weathersfield and and attend this school so i know that's not what i needed to say but those young folks are more articulate than i so major kudos to to all of them so anyway i'm here to talk about pto fundraising so thank you to the board for letting me uh pop in just for a moment and i just wanted to share with you um as many of you know the pta
032formerly pta now pto um we are a pretty awesome a growing committee and we recognize that there's been a lot of covert related restrictions in our abilities to fundraise over the last year that has not taken away our motivation and our excitement and our our want to do fun things celebrations for kids and teachers and obviously in order to do so we've got to do a little fundraising and one of the major fundraisers is the car show bringing in pretty much the bulk of our financials to sustain us through the year we were not able to do that in 2020 and so just looking at the things that we would need to complete by the end of this year just the very basics we are looking at um a few hundred dollars of a difference
033in what we would we would need and so we also recognize that there are very appropriate um restrictions on some in-person fundraising opportunities and and things like that so we're getting a little creative with a maybe old-school idea that some folks may be familiar with from the past and so we put a little proposal together for just one fundraising campaign for right now we have many more that we're vetting through and really waiting on some of the covid stuff to um to move along but the one that we wanted to present today for your support is called square one art so many of you may remember that this is something where you have a child create some brilliant artwork and you want to put it on a mug for grandma or you want to put
034it on an ornament for your christmas tree and you used to have to do all of this in the classroom or in art class and now this company square one art allows you to take your children's art and create that into a memorable keepsake or a gift all hands-free digital mobile uploads completely virtual um awesome promotional items and no expectation that teachers or art teachers or anyone in the school really needs to take from their day or their curriculum to do this yet us parents and community members and grandparents can all still get that fun little keepsake while the pto would be gaining a profit about 38 of um of what the of the proceeds there so it's something that can be kind of a plug and play we would advertise it minimally newsletters social
035media you know any kind of place where we would be allowed to do so and folks could just do it whenever they felt like they had something they wanted to create with their little one and hopefully we just continue to collect some checks from the company um and so it's completely hands-free it's cost free so for us we just sign up and log in and do a little promotion and then it's good to go and so we're hoping that that will at least get started and that we can start collecting some fundraising as soon as we can to kind of make up some of that difference to get us through the end of this year and i just want to endorse the pto the pto has been one of the finest supporters of school activities
036and this covid thing threw us in a tailspin and we've not had the fundraising opportunities nor have we had the pleasures the field trips the drama productions the um visits to the various farms we've not been able to do any of that and those are all paid for by pto and even make it and take it that has been one of the biggest pto fundraisers parents love it kids love it and they really missed it this year so i just want to honor our pto for their insight their foresight they're looking ahead and this one fits the bill because it's virtual and i already know because i know carrie who is our beloved secretary is also a member of the pto and she's always sharing creative ideas so i know you're talking about things and
037i know there's more good things to come so this sounds like a kick-off venture and this principle gives that thumbs up thanks me oakman thank you um mark has his hand raised or not okay does anyone else have anything to add to this and jamie what you're asking for is just board approval for you to start this fundraiser that is exactly right yes okay uh david do we need to like make a motion for this or yeah but that's what we've done traditionally is just make a motion to approve the uh fundraiser as presented by the pto okay would anyone like to make that motion i'll make that motion thanks jamie that's jamie our jamie with two jamies did i have a second yes okay is there any further discussion i don't hear any so
038we'll move on um all in favor say i i opposed so it passes unanimously thank you everybody be on the lookout for your notice and save your kids artwork thank you okay and then bj mentioned that there is a grant that needs approval yeah about a couple months ago new york life contacted us uh david sent our names around our sent a little blurb around that says um there's a 500 grand available through new york life for grief sensitive schools so you could use this many to you know educate your staff for materials and anything that has to do with becoming a grease sensitive school so about eight people including the school counselor and i decided that this is something we wanted to pursue so we had a meeting with them part of their requirements
039to get the grant and uh we were awarded the grant for 500 so we would like your blessing to accept the grant and use it to buy materials and educate our staff and families for being a grease sensitive school sounds good are there any other requirements for the grant that would no it's pretty open that's kind of why we like this and new york life has a wonderful support system website where we can get all kinds of free materials which i've already received some free materials great children's books pamphlets that pass out and you know if we have the need for that you know unfortunately when when we lost laura um cody mcnaughton a few years ago we opened up the school we had uh jean marie with to lead us in that guidance to
040opening up the doors to be you know for that for to help the family and unfortunately she's leaving us you know and so we need to make sure that we have something in place for that sounds good um do i have a motion to accept the um new york life insurance grant so moved the second second oh second seconded by kristin allen um is there any further discussion no the only the only other thing i'll say uh anne-marie because you said anything else that needs to be done i think bj and gene probably know this but once that's approved then you can just send the grant to the business office um and uh because a lot of times those checks come in people don't know what they're for with maybe just a little it sounds
041like it's going to be mostly supplies right bj yeah dave i'm going to give you a little heads up i already sent it because of the time constraint because we've had the check for a few weeks now okay and i just wanted it off my desk for vacation so that's smart that's smart yep that's good i'm sorry guys i kind of went out of order yeah well yeah ed's ed's on tonight but you know all of a sudden uh and this is not the case here because bj's very organized but um you know a check will show up for you know two thousand dollars from mount scotty hospital and the business office has no idea what that is but it sounds like bj's right on top of it so that's good all right um so
042all in favor say aye i i opposed that's unanimous anne marie i just want to mention that i am trained in grief works and it's probably some of the most important work i've done these past 44 years as a school leader every child suffers loss whether it's an animal a pet a grandparent we've had kids who've lost their moms and their dads recently we had a few years back now we had a child who lost both of her parents at the same time so you would be amazed how often we go into that grief works mode and we have some beautiful books in the library and sometimes folks will ask us when a loved one dies can they make a donation and we do buy books that talk about grief and talk about loss and
043you'll see on the inside inscription it'll say dedicated to so and so but i think it's an important resource because we teach holistically we look at every aspect of the child and loss and grief is part of our lives and it's true for faculty and staff too and we've had to come together over very sad and serious loss in my 11 year tenure so i just want you to know that i was so proud of bj when she saw that and said we must train we need to carry on this tradition and i think it's wonderful agreed [Music] okay um so thank you next we have the principles report well the principal is going to keep it short how's that shocking um we have sback coming up sbac is the smarter balance exam in reading
044and math and we'll be giving that to grades three through eight we thought we had the dates and times and now we're taking a second look so i may be announcing that on friday if i don't i'll announce it by april 30th we also have what's called the vsat the vermont science assessment test and that's given to grades five and eight those are both required parents do have the right to opt out of state testing and we honor that when it happens we like to have as many children tests as possible there used to be pre-covered that if 95 of your population didn't test you were dinged so you got a negative mark so we don't want everybody to go out and opt out but the reason i mention it tonight is once we set
045the dates i'll get that out and you know i have a lot of books that i've purchased over the years i have a lot of books on testing i find it intriguing because i was a child who could talk my way out of anything but i got so nervous when there was a test to take whether it was psats or sats and i i thought that you know what we need to help kids look at testing it's just one more part of education and that's really been the thrust of my work with kids um maybe over the last 20 years particularly as a high school principal so our kids practice this year is a little different we're in covid so i don't know what the scores are going to look like but in previous years
046kids had what were called the interim tests and they talked about it i went in and gave pep talks and i showed them their test scores and we could set goals and it made a difference it really has made a difference i don't want kids worrying about it the state doesn't require time tests so i am big on giving kids all the time they need and if some kids finish sooner they can read a book i insist there be no homework during testing and that's hard for teachers because they're so dedicated and they want to make sure to get through all that content but i insist there be no homework if kids are going to test all day i want them out playing outside and getting fresh air and enjoying themselves so they sleep well
047so they can get up and we provide breakfast we believe in hydration so kids will have water bottles that helps with the synapse and the dendrites if you're familiar with the various powering the brain so we really push good healthy ways to prepare for a test and to take a test i will be sending home test taking tips and by the way i'm leaving all my books to brian martez i think you'll enjoy them i hope as much as i have i have quite a collection but those books have really guided the work that i've done in the past 44 years and he'll want the more recent ones i'm taking the anthology with me i think the copyright is 54. the literature anthology but he'll find a whole section on test taking and i think
048that has made a difference that we understand the psychology behind good test taking skills i'll be sending something home to parents and i'm hoping that they read with the kids what are some pretty common simple things kids can do to be prepared and do their best during test taking vsac is uh or the vsat test is just fifth and eighth grade that will happen before s back i think the test is about two hours in length over two days it's really i think two hours in length totally but again untimed so we're going to set the stage for success and give them the time they need starting on may 10th we're going to be doing something different and that is the whole supervisory union got together and mapped out what kindergarten screening would look like
049it looks very different than how we've done it in the past we're doing it outside we're giving each child and their parents one hour to go through the various stations we've asked that there'd be no sporting events on may 10 through 13 and the hours are between two and four so they can have practice at 4 30 they can have games whatever so that we just have our incoming kindergarten students and their parents coming to school we're going to be outside if it rains we'll probably be in the gym in a couple of classrooms so that will look different we are planning panther cub night this year because you know the new regulations guidance came out for april 8th and we still want to respect no volunteers in the building we want to respect uh
050minimizing the number of pods combining and that kind of thing so it will look different i'm hoping next year for all of you we're done with covid and we can go back to the way it used to be because it was fun and it was what we knew and what we loved so other than these at s back kindergarten screening we don't know about graduation um the risk management group is meeting may and they're going to be advising principals after may 10th so as you know our eighth grade advisor is diana stilson diana b.j kerry and i will sit down and look at the recommendation from risk management and then we'll be able to make some announcements on graduation we're hoping in person we still don't know and that's it for the principal's report you
051only have two hours all right um well that was very good jimmy good time um superintendents report is next right and i'll i'll be just uh as quick um because some of the things that i would have talked about are on the agenda tonight anyway so we'll talk about them when we get to them as as agenda items i just want to uh uh make a couple of quick uh announcements uh and then i i want to just report on a couple of pieces of legislation that are that are uh that uh that have moved through and have actually been adopted um the the first uh announcement basically is that we are moving forward with our our summer programming i know katya hearn who did not feel good this evening she would have been here
052to report out um but uh she and her staff and and actually the administrative team they're trying to put together a robust summer program as part of our recovery effort uh and uh it'll have an academic uh certainly an academic emphasis but also a social emotional and recreational emphasis too there is a cap on that because you have to staff that um and and uh and that's why we tried to centrally locate it so we could get all the staff in in in one spot and handle maybe even more more children so that's that's happening and i thank katie for all the work that's going on in terms of recovery angie ladue is on the line tonight and she's working on submitting our recovery plan which will be based on uh data that we've been
053looking at over the last uh uh well we compared 1920 with 2021 uh with both our track my progress obviously there were no s backs last year but just but also a lot of anecdotal data from teachers survey to staff what kids have fallen through the cracks and how can we recover those students in the upcoming year or two as we move forward and there's also recovery money attached to all of that that we've talked about before at this board level it's going to be a fair amount of money and ed's going to talk a little bit in the financials tonight about you know how that money uh impacts angie did you want to add anything to the recovery piece at all um just that we are um in the process of um gathering data
054from staff and and all staff regarding their work with ch with children and the effects of the pandemic that they have seen um one thing to know is that it's interesting when we think about our data because overall our students seem to have fared fairly well um and but that also i think goes as a testament to um the fact that we've had smaller class sizes we've had um staff smaller student-to-staff ratios that means fewer students per staff person because we've had extra adults in the classroom those are the things that when i'm looking at the comments from this in the staff survey that they are mentioning as being a if they the question was what is one thing that you think impacted um learning in a positive way and a lot of uh responses
055are that that smaller class sizes and staff student ratio we also ask staff to conduct a survey with our third through twelfth graders this week and we are starting to get results back from that that is so i mean the recovery um planning is required to have to we have to show evidence that we have included all voices um so we are doing our best to uh gather that data and that i have to have that needs assessment reported to the state by may first and our recovery plan um is submitted june 1st and so you'll see that you'll see both of those pieces probably in the may in the main meeting we'll be getting closer to that but i i want to echo what angie said i think it's a tribute to our staff
056our reopening task force that worked all last summer i don't know if they've forgotten what that work was like last summer but uh i i think that people basically staff basically you know even though very anxious uh did what they had to do and and they we were one of the few plans that had school for all of our students five days a week even though at the high school level it was a little bit more of a hybrid model but and i think that's paid off because i think the instruction was pretty consistent we didn't have a lot of days when we were you know when we were hybrid or remote unless we were quarantining a group and i just think that's a tribute to everybody and our data is showing that our data
057is showing that our kids haven't fallen that far behind and we'll give you more on that uh next month i i want to thank jackie antonovich who continues to represent this board in negotiations we're trying to wrap negotiations up if we can by the end of the year we'd prefer not to go into another year like we did last year without a teacher's contract and i think the teachers feel the same way so we'll keep you posted but jackie's putting some real time and energy into that uh effort uh it's it's uh it's time consuming and it's and it's tedious but she's she's done a a great job i just want to talk about a couple of pieces of legislation um the uh the health care bill it began as h81 and that was a
058bill that was going to provide because you know right now the state basically uh negotiates our health care for our teachers and for our support staff uh and there was an effort especially with our support staff particularly with our support staff statewide to try to cap the cost of health care for them at a certain percentage they want to keep it in the 80 range so there'd be a sliding scale based on um based on what those support staff makes so i think it's going to help our support staff the governor the governor uh allowed that legislation to pass he didn't sign it matter of fact i think one of the reasons he didn't sign it is he he wanted the cap to be even a a little bit higher but anyhow to make a
059long story short that it did uh become law um there was there's also still the universal meals bill uh and i think we're gonna get a one year hiatus on that to wait and see what happens they're going to set up a task force our kids have really done much better in this covert environment with being able to to eat uh you know in our food service program under the able staff that is in that kitchen at weathersfield and craig lacano's leadership has provided some great food we just got word today from uh the us department of agriculture usda that then they're going to continue at a federal level with universal meals reimbursement for one more year so uh so the legislation doesn't become quite as immediate because it looks like we're going to be
060under that same regulation and and what we have to remember when we do that is yes all kids will eat uh but also we still have to determine our poverty factor for uh grant purposes and certainly angie will tell you how important that is so we're gonna have to put out an all-out effort in the fall to have everybody fill out that free and reduced lunch form i know sometimes people don't want to do that especially when they know we've got universal meals but i think we're going to whether whether or not we have an incentive for that or figure out a way to do that but we we were we were down on our applications this year and and we we need to improve that next year because it it has a whole lot
061of implication for grants and title monies uh and and services and support uh at at the building level so we we will definitely uh work on that uh two more real quickly the waiting study you've probably heard about that it's gonna the waiting study was sort of and i think uh uh i think we had some information about this at uh at town meeting or at our school informational meeting um john harrison did a good job explaining it but uh it looks like that's going to go into a task force what i find with the legislature and i don't blame them because they've got a lot of covet stuff on their plate and you know the retirement system's a mess and the financial you know there's a lot going on right now so when they
062can't agree on a piece of legislation sometimes they'll kick it they can down the road again and and have a summer task force that works on that so that waiting study it looks like is going to get more study just to determine what are those waiting factors that are critical i know there were some that were in the in the uh in s 114 which was the original legislation that was really going to help weathersfield out there was a there was a waiting factor around rural communities uh and and that would have certainly fit us and we would have gotten an adder in our per pupil block grant for uh for that uh for that equalized pupil uh edition song i'll keep you posted on that and the last one uh is on state funding
063for literacy you've probably heard that the state is putting an emphasis into literacy next year i don't know whether that's based on their understanding of recovery or data they're looking at across the state it makes me a little nervous though because i think uh our especially our primary teachers and we've got a few of them on the line right now do an excellent job with with literacy our scores have been reasonably strong and i just hope that this doesn't turn into a state i don't think it will but a state mandated literacy program uh that uh you know we're all gonna have to adopt so we'll just hope that that doesn't happen i i think there is gonna be some money though for literacy support um you know whether that can be personnel or whether
064that can be additional sort of research based a look at literacy um but uh you know i think that right now you know i was in the school the other day and i saw an excellent lesson in one of the kindergartens i don't want to embarrass her but lyanna's on now but i was in that room and i just saw those little five and almost six-year-olds uh just working phonetically on the alphabet and it was just amazing and heartwarming and i know that that work goes on intensely every single day in our building and we do produce some excellent readers out of weathers field and that doesn't mean the kids aren't falling through the cracks they do and we have to work on that but but i'm just hoping the state is careful with that
065and offers incentives for us rather than uh rather than mandates um so anyhow that's that's it for me unless one other but you don't have to worry about it school construction is also going to get kicked to a committee this summer and but i will tell you certainly heartland's watching that and albert bridge is watching that because there is some school construction that's going to have to go on but you can't do school construction without state aid or as you probably learned when you built your new building um however many years ago you know you had and i know even that was a bit of a debacle from what i've been told but but uh but anyhow that's that's going to get some summer study uh as well so if there are any questions i
066saw laura barry look like her hand went up but if anybody has questions that's fine to either gene on me but i'm i'm done laura maybe um i did have a couple of questions um david uh the email that you sent out um i don't know if you were meaning to talk about it today with as far as the plans went for next school year and you know using the esser funds did you want to discuss that at all because i know there are a lot of i've heard a lot of scuttlebutt and a lot of people are kind of not happy with some of it yeah well the i mean i mean the essa funds are going to go uh well we haven't decided exactly how the sf funds are going to be expended
067yet we're working on that now and some of that will get pulled from the data but some of it will go along with the recovery work right and we'll and so it's going to mean some you know hopefully support for our instructional coaches interventionists you know that that that kind of work so um i i don't think it'll be awfully uh controversial but you know you never know maybe it will were you talking specifically about the calendar of the school day or what day yeah so the school day work i mean there's a there's a team that's working on that right now um and uh they have we have our last meeting or what i hope to be our last meeting on thursday and uh essentially trying to look at how we can capture some
068of the things that really worked this year you know less transitions for kids setting up pods doing some of the outdoor you know outdoor work that we uh that we did um and uh and still leaving time for uh uh for for team planning and collaboration and the kinds of things professional development staff development that we that we normally uh don't don't get so i would expect by as early as maybe next weekend or early next week you know we'll have more specifics on i just want to get i want to get the feedback back from all of the schools about how that's going to work i i can tell you that we are also and gene alluded to this but i really think we need to pay attention to this uh yes adults are
069getting vaccinated and and the vaccinations are going pretty well in vermont we've had a couple of little blips in the screen and the j j vaccine has gotten pretty controversial but we also know that not all adults are going to get vaccinated we see that in our own school we also know that right now even with students 16 and up being able to be vaccinated under 16 no child is vaccinated i don't know that any child will get vaccinated over the summer under the age of 16. i guess only time will tell my point in saying this is that when we open the doors in the fall and i think gene was alluding to this i don't think we can expect a completely back to normal environment it's not going to happen we are still
070going to be having to follow some restrictions i think there'll still be some health and safety measures around distancing and masking and sterilization and hand washing i just don't think that's going to go away for a while i really don't and i don't know if that's the scuttlebutt people are hearing and they're getting nervous about it or not but you know we're going to continue as a staff and as a community to we're going to err on the side of caution and be safe and so the schedule will reflect some of that i will tell you that you know the dismissal time will certainly be later than it is right now i think we dismiss now between 1 and 1 15 but if in fact we're going to have periods of time when kids are
071going to be masked and distanced and and we're going to have to worry about sterilization and keeping kids in pods then we're still going to have to have an opportunity for some level of break uh that'll it'll be beyond 115 but it's not gonna be it may not be till 2 30 or quarter three because it's just it's just too long a day so i don't know if that's part of what's out there but i just hope people i think it was with the parent with parents and um and with teachers and just you know being concerned about the students and how much education time they're getting um and they need to you know in some cases to catch up a bit to still have a shorter day if other schools are going full full-time
072yeah and i don't know what other schools will be doing and you know and quite frankly i know that they'll be we'll be back to 175 days i think what's worked for us and what and gene can speak to this too if she wants to but i think when we look at a at a day even if it's a little bit shorter day that doesn't mean that we can't next year have you know some level of after-school programming some intervention work uh you know we're gonna have certainly the the sum of programming and the other thing that we found uh this year uh is with the arrangement that we have and hopefully we can keep some of this with less transitions there's more instructional time we did a little study a couple of years ago
073with with passing time going from one class to another class and when you take that you know that two or three minutes and you multiply that by five or six classes you're losing a certain period of time in the day that's non-instructional so you know those are the kind of things too that we want to we we want to look at and and i really think again a credit to the staff is that uh the instruction has been reasonably intense and the fact that you know sometimes t you know in some cases teachers are moving and not kids uh and and that the instructions getting delivered in a more concentrated i think that's why we're seeing some some of the gains that not you know that that we're seeing but uh yeah but i understand
074i mean there's there's going to be a certain level of anxiety about what it's going to look like and there's going to be a certain set of people that agree with it in a certain set that that don't i mean i i just we've got a lot of teacher voice at that table and a lot of administrative voice at that table and uh you know and we're just trying to do it uh we're just trying to do it carefully and intentionally diana so i i'd like to make a couple of comments on what dr baker just said um one is and i know there's a group you know a variety of staff members and administrators that are working on the schedule for next year i i do hope um school board members that you keep
075in mind what we had talked to you all about last fall in regards to his teachers and i'm going to speak about me personally um this 20-minute break in the morning and mine is 9 10 to 9 20 just to let you know my time and then my kids are with me until 1 30. now i understand where some teachers are able to eat with their home rooms i have 24 busy 8th graders and i have mrs dana my para in my room i've lost two pairs this year right now so it's pretty busy in my eighth grade class so i am unfortunately not unfortunately i'm not able to eat with my students because i have to be keeping an eye on what's going on in my class so to wait until 1 30 or
076140 for lunch and a break is very stressful to the board and some of my colleagues know this um and just to let you know that i had to go to the hospital a week and a half ago during the school day because of my health and so i have some things going on with my health which i'm i blame on the whole covet thing and the stress level so i am trying to keep my stress down for me personally for my health which is very difficult so i'm a little nervous about the schedule for next year and where everything is going to play out and then the other thing that dr baker made a comment about is we get more teaching time if we're not switching classes and and i agree with him on
077that aspect but i do know switching classes is good because the students right now are in one room all day unless they go out for lunch or or break or anything having that switching the classes and i not saying we can because we don't know what cove is going to look like next year but switching the classes gave them that two or three minutes of movement time and they were also able to see maybe somebody in another class that they were friends with so they'd pass them in the hall and say hi as they walked by or something so there's there's an advantage also for switching classes i know students miss that and they wish that they were doing that so that they could get i mean you imagine staying in one room all day
078pretty much um so those are my only two comments thank you i would agree with that diana i was thinking that same thing um just it's our little exercise whatever a little bit it is but at least you get the blood moving a little bit and just sitting in your chair all day and i think just to just comment on what diana said i think that some of that as she said will depend on you know where we sit with with you know with with covet at that point and you know the restrictions and the cdc in the vermont health department and we've got we'll you know we'll be hearing about that as the summer unfolds and you know we'll be ready to make adjustments i'm sure there'll be more movement than there is this
079year and and i think that that's that's important for all kids i also think we want to continue to get kids outside i know teachers have been really good about that that movement is really really critical and the other thing i'll say just real quickly to diana's other point is i think the committee that's meeting this restructuring task force or scheduling task force is uh is certainly representing you know you well diana because the the the one of the non-negotiables uh that we put on the table was that uh you know the 45-minute prep time and the 30-minute duty-free lunch has to be woven into the schedule so it's not going to be a 20-minute break for you anymore and no no duty-free lunch so you know i think i think that's the beauty of
080having this team at the table is there you know we're hearing the voice of the people who are on the ground and i think that was part of what was stressful we had to do it because we were responding to a pandemic hopefully you know the emergency ban will be lifted and we won't be in a pandemic but i'll tell you one thing we will still be in somewhat of a of a of a an awareness that there's a virus out there and we'll have to pay attention to that but i think i think in the end and you've got some very good voices on this team diana from your building um i i i think you're not gonna you know i i i mean i can't i would like to say i can guarantee
081it but nothing's nothing nothing in life is guaranteed but i think you you know the duty-free lunch and the planning period will not happen at 1 30 or 1 40 or or 2 o'clock and i think that's a really important point i think that was adding to the stress was there anyone else that wanted to say anything on this matter on the regards to anything in the superintendent's report okay um next we have items for discussion and the first one up is financials yeah i know ed connors is on and he's been getting really good at sharing his own screen so i don't know ed if you want to try that or do you need me to do that nope ed is sharing it it's all yours okay so uh i sent out um an
082account summary or object summary of the budget at the end of the third quarter which is uh march 31st and if you go i hope hopefully everyone will have that but uh what i'm showing here is a surplus of a hundred and seventy thousand four hundred and twenty dollars and eighty five cents which is two point seven seven percent of the budget at this point which is uh pretty close to be quite frank at this at this point um some of the highlights of what my projection are is we go to the revenue which is the very very top piece here you'll see that the education spending grant which is the significant or if not most of the the budget that you get or revenue that you get for your school um there's 36 887
08352 that you're not gonna get and that's because the uh state has clawed back some of the money that they gave through the covid grants and uh some of the expenditures that were put into the general fund were moved to the covent grant so roughly 36 887 52 was moved from the general fund to the covid lea grant and that's why that's short the next one down is the stated for transportation that grant is um all going to the supervisory union at this point and when we get into the expenditures i can show you more closely what uh how that's going to be balanced out if we go down to uh wages wages are 234 397 21 uh in the black primarily because you had a couple of uh teachers more than a couple four
084i believe retire and the replacements that you got were less expensive um in terms of experience so they were newer teachers so their their salaries weren't matched with the people that retired who were pretty pretty far along the pay scale in addition to that you had uh savings with uh substitutes and savings with um well right now you're showing some savings with uh the athletics so you didn't spend as much to date with your uh what you thought you were going to spend for coaches your co-curricular um you budgeted uh a lot but because of covid you weren't able to uh spend all of that and also you have uh i don't know whether or not these stipends will be paid but you've got about a nine thousand dollar surplus in stipends that uh hasn't
085been paid to date now i don't know whether at the end of the year they get paid or whether or not they didn't get paid because of the covid uh restrictions but those are the numbers that make up that 234 000. moving down the benefits usually follow any surplus in wages because the benefits range from health insurance all the way through professional development so what makes that up is that the health insurance plans that were taken by the people that retired were significantly more than what we had to pay with the new hires um in addition to that uh we budgeted so when we budget for a family plan say we budget also forty two hundred dollars for a health uh hra account um and that account is there and they draw on that as
086they to pay off some of their uh copay and uh right now we're seeing in that particular area a savings of about uh let me see here yeah so the hras we budgeted 87 000 and right now we've spent 35 000 now that doesn't mean so that's a 52 surplus right there that doesn't mean that we won't we'll see that uh that that's going to change as we get towards the end of the year because more people will draw on that but that i don't expect it to go down that much another 20 grand is on fica because of the wages or the health care i mean excuse me uh medicare and federal taxes uh the other one is um the tuition reimbursement for professional development right now uh there's a surplus there of 22
087000 so that's what makes up the 150 the contracted services you can see that there are three areas where we haven't spent as much as we had budgeted that was in four wins we are hoping referees um maintenance and repairs running right on budget uh the transportation you can see there's a two hundred and forty five thousand sixty two dollar uh surplus there that that's because the expense for all transportation was now paid a supervisory union okay and your transportation also includes the the field trips and things like that so none of that happened so that fell to the bottom line so that's why you're seeing transportation with the 245 000 surplus going right down the insurance and communications is running pretty close because we do still have the rest of the year to go
088that's another three months tuition is overspent we talked about that when we were budgeting significantly higher it's also what drove the fy22 budget to be significantly higher it's because you had a lot of people move in a lot of people with high school age kids that went to high schools that we hadn't anticipated um travel pretty self-explanatory we haven't used a lot of travel the assessments are 138 000 in addition to so what that means is that we took the whole amount of transportation and we subtracted out what we will get in the grant and the balance is what's going to be paid for by the school district in terms of a new or a higher assessment so the reason that it wasn't put into the original assessment is because the change that took place
089for transportation happened after we developed the budget and uh supplies and textbooks we're running uh 25 000 into black uh energy 9 800 dollars in the red now that's because we've had to run essentially all your air handlers wide open so in the colder weather we're heating the air and we're drawing in colder air so it's cost more in uh energy to heat the building because we had to do the air circulators to the point where we were constantly relying on the heat and then capital equipment pretty self-explanatory it was in there we haven't spent it use these in transfers we're showing an 81 000 surplus uh that's because the food service program is running uh better than they thought so you're you're um portion of this food service uh transfer is going to go
090down the food service program now their reimbursements are based off of the summer reimbursements which are significantly higher than the school year so it's showing like for instance in march we're getting 99 000 in reimbursements that's the largest reimbursement i've seen in a month since i've been here so uh you're going to be in a position where that is might change as we get towards the end of the year but i think there's going to be significant savings on what you budgeted for uh the food program in the general fund and then finally the debt service and that's running as you would expect right on budget uh questions i was wondering for the energy one is that something that we can apply for covered funds for since we're having to do this due to covid
091no so they don't make any accommodation for the fact that schools are having to spend a lot more money to heat their air to have the kind of um air exchange that's necessary no i think part of it anne-marie too is the fact that they um they they did invest in in all of our buildings and upgrades on our hvac systems uh and so i think there was a size i don't even know ed maybe you know but across the su i don't know what the amount of money was but it was a lot of money that came to us to upgrade those systems but yeah you're not the first one to ask about those heating costs because others have asked about those heating strokes but that but the so far it's not it's not
092reimbursable i will say that as as as we point part of what's in the energy right now is a a 19 000 uh encumbrance for electric uh that will probably go down because of the fact that you've got the uh array on the roof so the nine thousand dollars that i'm showing the 9 800 that i'm showing here as a deficit could be lower as we finish up the year because what i do when we pay our electric bill we pay the electric bill so it goes to the actual column and the encumbrance column comes down so if i budget if i've got a 19 000 uh encumbrance but i end up only paying 14 000 say and there's gonna be close to a six thousand dollar savings there but i left it in there
093because it's an unknown right now so you could it could be that by the time you get to the end of the year it'll be significantly lower than the 9800 bucks okay does anyone else have any questions it looks like candy fully up it's not candy it's dave um i just wanted to share with you and i don't know whether um dave you or ed or anne marie or anybody knows this i i would like you to reach out to um john harrison who sits on the house education committee um i had a conversation with him um a couple weeks ago and he confirmed to me because i asked him if he was sitting down and i was sitting down the amount of money that is going to be earmarked to the wssu um and
094i don't know if you guys have talked about it but he shared it with me and when i just heard i just came in from outside so when i heard the town for instance and and these funds are all secured and they are going to be dispersed i sat in on a conference call with our town manager through the legions cities and towns for instance and we're getting a check in the town for covert related things this is the 1.9 trillion dollar package that was passed and signed um the town on its first check on june 11th is going to get 270 000 um that i've heard now i asked john like five times because i didn't really know whether to believe him or not and i hope you guys reach out to him but
095he has said that the and that's just one part of money for the towns it was and i can't remember how many million dollars it was but for the schools it was 200 million dollars to all of the s news in the state he claimed to me that the wssu that windsor was going to get i remember him saying between 10 and 12 million dollars um so you need to spend this money you know within a couple of years and so i we're going to sit down with the town and come up with a committee they're urging you not to spend it on annual operating expenses but those things that may have been displaced for years so i don't know where it's going i don't know if you guys know about that or not and
096if you don't you you really need to reach out to john i know the the sessions still in and they won't get out until may but this is money that's not state money this is the federal money that is allocated right now so so david uh what what we uh there is a the funds that you're talking about are the uh elementary and secondary school emergency relief allocation there's three phases to that that's esser one s or two and s or three ester one has been budgeted so what with that money we got the notification for how much that was gonna be back in january all right and that was 000 or excuse me 276 000 and we've used that money for uh the summer program and in addition this coming summer summer program and
097in addition to that we've used it for the uh lnas that have been the schools and we've used it for uh long-term subs that each one of the schools has so we've covered those costs so that 276 has been budgeted and spent what you're talking about there's another allocation of 100 that the windsor southeast is going to get is 1.165 million dollars and that's after two money and that after two money should come out uh shortly i don't know they just announced today that the first round when they put out what the allocation was was wrong so they restated the allocation so what we got originally was 1 million 000 and now it's 1 million 165 615 so it's higher than what we were originally told but that goes to show you where they are
098at the state level with allocating out this money now there's some three money too so that s or three money is they're estimating that the windsor has sells south supervisor union is going to get 2.6 million dollars two million six hundred and ten thousand six hundred and fifty four dollars now we know and have a team of administrators working on that right now so the yes or two money the 1.165 million money has been they've been working towards creating a remediation program for the kids that lost a year essentially because of the covet crisis so that money's being spent on that the 2.6 million nobody's talked about yet because we're still trying to figure out what to do with the 1.165 and the state hasn't formally given that money away so if you add those
099three together the total amount of esser elementary and secondary school emergency relief allocations is four million fifty two thousand three hundred and ninety nine dollars and it's coming in three phases so again esser 2 so 1 was 176 130 ester 2 is 1.165 615 and s 3 is an estimated 2 6 five 2.610654 for a total of four million one seventy four or four million fifty two three ninety nine now as far as the money that you're saying is going directly to the town i would say that money is going to the town itself not to the school district because the money coming to us for the esther money is coming through the aoe and there's a significant amount of paperwork that is involved in accessing that money as angie can can is well aware
100of so we've we've got money so far we've gotten crf money crf lea money crf hvac money crf summer food money crm equipment grant for the food service program we've gotten allocations for all of that money and i've been audited in three of the four so there's a lot of work that goes into getting the money and then they turn around and they want you to spend it fast because the money's coming at such a rate so they they give you some some pretty fuzzy guys then they slap an audit on you so you have to be really careful how you spend this money i i just listened to you to talk like and you you kept saying state state state so i would urge you to call john i've been in touch with john
101david i talked to john regularly but this is this is federal money and the state doesn't disperse federal money the federal government disperses state money so no no no the state is the the federal government gives the state the money and then the state allocates the money well then then apparently i asked five times for john and the the state did get 200 million dollars now for for education and they he told me they dispersed between 10 and 12 million dollars uh of that now i don't know all the definitions of the federal money i took him at his word i don't want to argue um and and but that's what it is and and i did make it pretty clear that i know what i'm talking about with the town and the school and
102i'm really not happy you had to point that out i did get really clear on that i said the town was getting 270 thousand dollars not the school i know the difference um but i'm just sharing information with you about i learn that's it yeah no david i i i think what david's saying is exactly you know it's it's it's correct the state received from the federal government in excess of 200 million dollars that's exactly right now that now they've they've already given us two different printouts of how they're going to allocate that that amount of money and and what ed just went over was was how that allocation is going to work uh for windsor southeast supervisor reunion and and and uh and and so i think i think in some ways was you
103know we are saying the same thing david and i think that uh you know we will right now we've been promised between the three allotments and they're going to be given out over time uh of that 200 million we're going to get just in excess of i think about 4 million dollars so so so so you're absolutely right and we're trying you know we're trying to sort through this because the pressure they do keep the pressure on because like ed said they award the money then they audit you then they so it's it's tricky but but john just just so you know and i know you know this david but john's been on speed dial with us and we really he's been great in in helping us out so uh and and and i appreciate
104anytime you get any additional information what john does to you know to let us know because this thing changes i didn't even know till ed just said that that the allocations changed in the last you know few days i i didn't you know so this is a moving target but it's it is going to be a lot of money uh to be to be spent but it's also has to be spent in certain ways i don't know if there are i don't know what kind of restrictions you have on that town money dave whether it or or whether you do you have to present like a plan is that how it works at the time that's exactly right there's going to have to be a plan and we're going to have to have a committee
105because you can use it for building projects um like i said i i don't think they like you to use it for like uh like annual labor that's that's really not we're going to look at the water system in ascutney um we may combine it with a uh with a bond i'm not sure um but there's a lot to talk about hey i look at this is opportunity i don't know where everybody sits politically but it's money and and and it's money above and beyond the uh tax rate and the annual budget so i you know we're going to fit we're going to fit it in somewhere so i don't know i don't have any idea how they came up with this formula it's something like 194. i said in the conference call i can't
106remember whether it's 194 or 294 dollars over a two-year term for all the residents in weathersfield so i think we have like 22 or 2300 people and it's going to be that factor we're going to get somewhere around four or five hundred thousand i thought i heard brandon say yeah that's good yeah that's great yeah yeah and as soon as angie's on the line and and we we don't have to necessarily get into the details tonight but um you know i think there's a group that's going to report out reasonably soon to the supervisory union board because all the money is getting channeled through the supervisory union but just like david said we have to be careful how we spend it and we are trying to be careful not to not to spend it on
107reoccurring costs or or costs that we can't sustain i think that's going to be the real the real challenge so we'll keep you posted yeah that's something that i've been passed by pester you know that's what i was talking to to david about when he was talk about the esther money whenever i asked him about the esther money that's what that's what i'm bothering about is that money that's coming from from the federal government through the state um but thank you for that um is there anyone else who has anything to say any questions for ed anyone else okay um ed are you done then thanks ed see thank you any other questions no i didn't get any other questions does anyone else have any other questions no thanks ed well thank you we'll look
108forward to your end of the year report see how it all shakes out um the next thing up for discussion are the kova 19 updates ed's gonna stop sharing his screen too here i know he is while he's doing that um we i think we basically covered most of the covet 19 updates we've been pretty our staff has been pretty good about vaccinations and getting vaccinated uh statewide you know vaccinations are running at about a you know about a 60 to 65 percent clip i mean we'd like it to be a little better than that uh part of the problem is you can't really you can't survey staff you can't really ask staff at this point about you know who has and who has not been vaccinated but i think that uh you know that's
109you know aside from people's political views i mean that's going to be what you know what uh continues to to pull us out of this mess a little bit i know that we did open the portal on monday to 16 year olds and uh i've i've heard anecdotally that at the high school level a lot of the 16 year olds and 17 year olds are you know are registering and that's you know that's that's uh that's good news um so we're just following you know the the governor's three phase uh model which is going to lead to quote unquote a reopening of the state and a relief from some of the mandates uh on july 4th and we'll see how that goes um but again each district in each community you know through their board
110members and through the administrative team are going to have to decide you know even though mandates get lifted you know even something like a mask requirement you know that doesn't mean you know you have to because my guess is even if that mandate is lifted there'll still be strong recommendations to uh you know to to do some of this stuff so i think we're just gonna have to pay close attention as it um as it unfolds i think the school nurses will tell you uh not that masks will be a way of life but i think they'll tell you that not only did it help us with covet containment but we just didn't have the flu epidemics that we've had in the past we we didn't have cases of you know severe cases of strep
111throat which can which can you know really take over you know ear infections other other kinds of things that normally schools face i mean again we have a certain number of kids at home learning remotely but the kids that are in the building this year i think the nurses would report out that uh that you know they they've uh you know they've done the the the kids and the adults have done uh incredibly well you know so i think that's where we are right now i don't through any other questions or jean marie uh or or angie if you have anything to add i know the next item is around i think if the next item is related to covert i think it's the cove and stress yeah covet stress i think angie and if
112you want to combine those angie's angie's been doing that that work and collecting that data and we did have a vacation so the data got a little bit skewed but angie do you want to talk to us a little bit about that yeah i just have to pull it up sorry um in our so we did send the wellness survey out um i've got so many surveys that it brought brought up the wrong one um i sent it out march not march april 9th that friday um and we had about 55 responses and um the good news is is that their the data even though 55 is is still not i mean that's not even what that what's that 25 of our staff really so i don't know how much of a representative sample it
113is but it is showing us that um stress levels are decreasing um the uh of the 55 responses about 31 are reported a moderate level of stress and about 27 reported a moderate to high level of stress and then 21 or 20 about 22 reported um no i'm sorry i take that back seven percent reported uh at a five or a high level that is a lot lower than what we have seen in terms of the five number um in in the past and so of course to be thinking about um vacation was a big factor in what was positively impacting people's stress level the break was much needed and much anticipated for our staff the other thing that happened that week before break as you might um remember is it was parent teacher conferences
114so in the comments some of the some of those um uh conferences were stressful and usually our spring conferences are um can be more stressful because we're we're facing like the deadline and the pressure of the end of the year and um if students aren't aren't performing where everybody expects them to be it can be very stressful and so i think that there might have been some hard conversations that had to happen around student learning um because despite the fact that we've been in a pandemic and our learning opportunities have been shrunk a little we still have expectations that students will do the work that's being asked of them um so that really is basically what people were talking about i think the weather change also was a factor in people uh responding positively to
115that although probably friday's snow wasn't really helpful so we'll find out that when we we send the survey again this friday so that's what i have there thanks thanks angie um the next thing up is end of year activities and i think jean marie already kind of mentioned that there's a meeting coming up regarding that so i don't know if there's anything really to report do you have anything we won't we'll have something i don't even know if we'll have it by the may meeting yeah we might i think our next meeting is may 11 and the um task force or the risk management meets on the 10th so i might have something to report the night of the 11th um and then we have uh spring sports yeah um it's a couple of quick
116things um and i i think jessica kish goes on the line as well and i don't know if jean marie wants to add anything but we um we clearly uh you know we clearly um did a lot of work in terms of uh the the the seventh and eighth grade sports and and some of those combinations and there were was the first time we tried this but uh what we realized when all the ads got together is a lot of these teams wouldn't have gotten fielded at heartland or weathersfield or windsor had we not done the combination and i think uh what we're finding now is that we have softball at weathersfield we have baseball at heartland and we have track at um at windsor i know i jessicano if you want to talk about
117the numbers at 7 8 level in those areas and and how it's going so far yeah thanks david everybody hear me okay um baseball has great numbers i think they have a good group of all three schools represented at heartland they actually i think have enough for two teams which is really great and it won't be an a and a b team it'll be colors so they'll try to break it up based on skill so it'll be evenly distributed and for softball at weathers field we have 10 athletes registered and more coming in actually i just got two emails today with two more seventh and eighth graders and it's been really well received our team and our coach is really excited about new shirts it's amazing what new gear will do and get people excited
118especially athletes so they're excited i showed them the picture of what our shirts look like and it has the wsu on it with all three school colors which is really nice and then our coach actually had the recommendation to get team masks so we're all getting the same mask david approved it and that's going to be sent to all the 7th and 8th graders in the su so we're all going to have the same masks for when we practice and play and everybody's really excited about that yeah and i know that the report from track because trek and and by the way track has been important to weathersfield but uh andy tufts reported to us uh that i think there are between 38 and 40 kids who are uh who are involved in track and
119uh again part of the reason we have it at at windsor is that's you know that's where the track is and so i think the kids have really liked having access uh to uh to that track and that has always been traditionally five through eight and and we kept that tradition alive uh with uh with with track so again this was a pilot i mean i know there was some you know some concern i mean it wasn't you know uh widespread but certainly i heard from some folks that were just uh a little concerned about you know whether or not uh this was going to continue sort of the seven and eight wsesu model uh next fall or into the winter and i think that uh you know we wanted to get through this pilot
120first then kind of reevaluate it with you know with with administrators and with the ads and just see what we think i know the frustrating thing for principals and for me over the years and i would say for the ads as well is that just from year to year not knowing whether or not you're going to have enough kids at certainly at the seventh and eighth grade level to to feel the team i mean i think it's probably true across vermont and certainly across uh new england that as kids get older um you know that and less dependent on you know on uh on parents or less invested maybe what their parents want want them to do at times that the numbers can start to wane a little bit right and uh uh and and
121and that's you know that's always been the concern but but so far so good there are some things we're going to have to talk about i think if we were going to move this forward and that's you know first of all the investment that we want to make in transportation we want to make sure that no kid gets left out because they can't get you know they can't get transported but um so that's one thing that's on our agenda but i uh uh i really appreciate the support of all of those ads in trying to make uh you know and trying to make this work um k-6 is a little bit different because k-6 uh in heartland and k-6 in windsor are run by the rec department we've had this conversation before weathersfield has always
122had to run their own k-6 program and that becomes a little bit of a challenge because well not not so much a challenge but it's just different than the other the other two towns and it operates under different regulations the wreck programs in heartland and the rec programs in uh in windsor operate under uh rec guidelines and recreational guidelines which are different than the aoe guidelines for schools so it's always a balance between what we can do and what we want to do to allow these as we said earlier um you know give these kids as much outdoors as we can as much movement as we can and also to develop to develop those skills so i don't know gene or jessica if you want to talk about the k-6 program but i think that
123you've got a fair number of kids that have expressed interest right yeah we have 40 athletes signed up so far for k-6 which is really great considering traditionally i believe spring is our lowest turnout people are in into other things and not as interested in softball baseball and track so 40 athletes just for k-6 just for softball and baseball which i think is really great we have 15 in kindergarten and first grade which is really great to see those big numbers as we remember our first graders missed out on this opportunity last year so they've never played t-ball and so it's really exciting that we're going to be able to put them together much appreciation to jean murray and david for the opportunity to combine these pods um it gives the opportunity for us to
124have these teams and we're gonna have softball baseball combo of boys and girls for the second third and fourth graders with 12 athletes so far and more signing up actually got an email while we're on this call about how do i register so i'm excited about that and then 12 athletes for fifth and sixth softball which is really great we had to release our fifth and sixth baseball because we didn't have enough interest but overall really excited about the numbers and the kids are excited to get out there i think i'm bummed because tomorrow is supposed to rain so we we might not have our first fifth and sixth grade softball practice but it'll get pushed to next week and we'll start again fresh um the kindergartners and first graders will start this weekend and
125saturday so far fingers crossed 66 and sunny so very excited about that yeah that would be nice and and the last thing i'll say uh is that um you know the the snow stayed on those fields for a long time and a matter of fact we might get one to three inches tomorrow who knows that's what the the they're talking about i mean i doubt in the low-lying areas we'll we'll get that but i don't know how many low-lying areas there are in vermont i always love when they say in the higher terrains and i'm thinking to myself geez as i drive through vermont everything looks like a higher terrain to me so we'll see what the weather does uh it does tomorrow but i know that there's a commitment on the part of all
126of the ads and our entire maintenance department to try to get these fields in good shape and uh i know that jim and his crew have been working uh hard to do that and and certainly that's gonna also happen at weathersfield so and i think we'll you know anybody that's played on those fields or seen those fields will admit that they definitely you know they're going to need a little bit of work without a doubt and i think the commitment is there to to get that done and also at the k-6 level and 7-8 level i think it's important to remember that we're outside there's no indoor practices we're trying to be careful with spectator participation still we want to be careful with that and thirdly the kids still have to follow those restrictions and
127you know you heard jessica mention the masks and the distancing and all of that stuff so you know the ads have to watch that closely and the coaches have to watch that closely so um you know i think that we appreciate that that work as it goes forward and we'll you know we'll see whether or not you know any of this partnership can continue or not we'll we'll take it one one season at a time so to say are there any other comments on the sports program spring sports okay we'll move on to the recovery plan yeah and i don't know we did sort of we alluded to that during my report um and uh and angie i don't know if you have any more comments you want to make again katie is sick tonight
128she could have given us more details about the actual summer recovery program which is going to be the kickoff of the recovery plan but angie did you have anything else you wanted to add about the recovery plan um not really i think i shared the timeline at her last meeting that i have i did ask for an extension on our needs assessment because last week was vacation um and so i have till may 1st to submit that um but i mean basically it's once we do the needs assessment get the data in um it's it's writing out writing the actual recovery plan so i will be we'll be able to present that recovery plan and our budget i think by the to the su board by the end of may for sure because we want
129to submit it by june 1st also our our consolidated federal program grant for fy22 is is open which is the first time it's been open this early since they put the new system in which is very exciting um and so that that's another one that we're gonna be i'll have to be reporting out to you guys on do you guys have any more questions about it right now i feel like we're sort of in this weight mode we have our our small version of our planning team meets um on friday afternoon we did hire an assistant recovery coordinator i don't know if we've told you guys that that's brittany preston is going to be coming to the su in jul as of july 1st um from heartland elementary school where she's been the assistant principal
130um and so we're very excited about that she will be helping implement the recovery plan and oversee um the what's happening in the buildings and and the data and all that to um help help me manage the grant um so if you don't have any questions that's all i have right now and somewhat to dave fuller's point i think that what you're going to find with the esser money which is going to support some of its recovery work is that it does have to be tied to that level of of recovery and intervention and anybody that we're hiring uh including the assistant recovery coordinator is very well aware that there's a time limit on on on on on these money so there's no guarantee beyond 20 22 23 i think that's where it goes out
131to september of 23 if i'm not mistaken if you add up all three of those that those positions are going to be sustainable but it this is really to to to to beef up supports for kids to look at you know i think eventually that we'll be talking about some after school programming the stuff that uh you know is going to have to be a little more intense than it's been in the past so we'll we'll keep you posted i wonder if i um well i we are looking at hopefully getting wethersfield school um uh targeted assistance out of our title funds next year which so part of an investment in our esser funds is to provide after-school programming funding for our schools that are not title funded because as you well know that the
132title did provide that for your after school program first for many years and when you lost that that was a became a local expense the good news about esser funds is that it doesn't have the supplanting rule which means that if it was something that you have covered in local funds you can you can also use the esser funding to cover that that's not the same for title funds so for example once you've started paying for a position like the math interventionist we couldn't then go in and start paying for that with the title funds we'd have to fund a whole new position that's the planting so we're not supplanting can't do that so that's good news that is good news um does anyone else have anything to add for the recovery plan discussion or
133any questions yeah um items for action i think we already did all of our actions that we needed to do right yeah and i did i did want to mention just because we i forgot about it during my report or maybe i did but this sort of uh speaks to the students that presented uh tonight and the fact that you know they so eloquently supported you know presented their case for uh for making everybody feel safe and i just wanted to make sure everybody knows that you know the supervisor reunion board uh and which has solid representation from weathersfield continues to work on those issues of equity and we are going to be addressing those policies on monday night maybe i already mentioned it but i just wanted to say that and there is an
134internal equity task force that's going to meet on friday the next well four more times basically to build some capacity toward empowering staff and our community to tackle some of these these uh these tougher issues around equity and and and racism it's it's as you know it it's it can be controversial it can be political but we don't want it to get there and i think that we've got some good people working on this and i think uh uh you know we're gonna move slowly and carefully as we do this starting monday night when the board looks at that policy and friday night when that task force gets together uh for the first time there are some really good people on that on that equity task force um so then we have setting the next
135agenda um i know we're going to want to have the covet updates on there again um i think the recovery the recovery plan recovery plan yeah um end-of-year activities jean-marie said she might have something on we might have something for graduation yeah gene do you think have you what about uh were you thinking about not that you have to do this but a little bit more detail and track my progress whether i track my progress for you know presentation would be necessary or do you think not necessarily i'm actually disaggregating the scores now but i got busy this afternoon then had a dentist appointment um from what i've seen i've disaggregated k 4 and those scores were amazing so when i'm thinking recovery however i will say when i really dig deep there are kids
136who fall in the red and the yellow and that's considered at risk and those names were given to katie for summer school invites and bj worked over vacation because i know it was one day last week and they only finished the test on the eighth and bj had those names for the april scores we'd already given the january so i haven't disaggregated five eight but i can certainly give you an overview on may 11 if that's of interest [Music] yes that would be and we'll probably have a more detailed report too maybe even before that but i mean you certainly can put it on the agenda that you know that scheduling slash restructuring task force so we'll have a better sense of our daily schedule uh you know by next month without a doubt i
137know that jean-marie's done a lot of work already on teacher assignments and and you know some of those class loads and looking at that stuff so we can we can report out that plus the organization of the school day because i think it you know everybody wants to know what that's going to look like at least in a broad perspective okay um does anybody else have anything to add to the agenda for next month okay um i guess i just wanted to have a real quick executive session i just have a question to ask the rest of the board yeah that that's good so yeah so marie do i have to be in attendance for that no no it's fine i could because my thank leave me alone all right we're all done yep good
138night jean-marie can i have a moment into executive session so moved mark martin i'll second and okay and i'm gonna stop recording and becky i'll get back to you with the adjournment time uh i don't anticipate any decisions so let me stop recording um