May 20, 2026 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Owl Camera: P. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd like to call to order the May 20th, 2026 regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. SBSD Owl Camera: The first item on the agenda is a proposed executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: In this executive session, we expect to cover employment of a public officer employee. SBSD Owl Camera: That is the only topic that we're going to be talking about. I would entertain a motion, to find that premature knowledge of what we're going to discuss in executive session would put the school district at a disadvantage. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa moves. I second. Emily seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The motion passes. I would entertain a motion to enter into Executive Session. I move. Emily moves. I'll second. Alyssa seconds.

002Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, we're in executive session. We will return, around 6 o'clock. SBSD Owl Camera: I… I would love if Daisy could join us for the executive session, even Molman and Ali, if they are interested, because we're going to be talking about something they're familiar with. Great. Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Good? Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd like to call back to order the May 20th, 2026 regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. SBSD Owl Camera: We just had an executive session, and we talked about employment of a public officer or employee, and we also talked about labor negotiations. We were joined by Daisy Brayton, District HR Director, Joe Clark, Superintendent. SBSD Owl Camera: And Ali LeDuc and Mom and Wakwar, student representatives. SBSD Owl Camera:

003So, we just finished that. SBSD Owl Camera: the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. SBSD Owl Camera: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is announcements. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen, were you actually, I think it's coming up during this year. Great, of course. SBSD Owl Camera: Any, any announcements? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Then the next item on the agenda is to review and accept the agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: So, tonight is a long meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: We have comments from the public. SBSD Owl Camera: Focus on Student Learning and Student Representative Report, then at 6.30, SBSD Owl

004Camera: More or less, we'll have the community forum. SBSD Owl Camera: At 7.30, we'll have a discussion item update on the school board website. SBSD Owl Camera: At 8 o'clock, we've got a moderate action items, monitoring report on 1.0 ends, 1.1 disposition for learning, 1.3 personal development. We've got to review the continuous improvement plans for all schools in the district, monitoring report 2.5, financial planning and budgeting. SBSD Owl Camera: Then we have the superintendent report on viewpoint discrimination, student expression, staff responsibilities, and legal neutrality in public schools. And then we have the consent agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: So my suggestion on this is that if we find that we have time before the community forum starts, before 6.30, we move up things like the discussion item on the school board website. SBSD Owl Camera: And…

005If we have a lot of time, we could even maybe move up 2.5 financial planning budget. SBSD Owl Camera: Just in case, you know, we've got 25 minutes right now, so we'll see how long public comment and, student representative will take. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. Are there any other amendments to the agenda? SBSD Owl Camera: It's not amended yet. Sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, great. So the first item… the next item on the agenda is comments from the public. So, there are three opportunities for the public to comment at this time about any topic. SBSD Owl Camera: Also, before the board takes action on an action item, but only on the topic being actioned. SBSD Owl Camera: And also, this is especially worn community forum, and only on the topic worn on the

006agenda. This is a community forum. SBSD Owl Camera: The board will not respond to public comments unless this meeting is a specially designated community forum, and the comment is on a topic warned on the agenda. So, in other words, we won't respond to public comment until 6.30, and we will only talk about Nance policy. We'll only respond about that. SBSD Owl Camera: You'll be given up to 3 minutes. Please don't violate anyone's privacy. Official complaints and grievances cannot be filed during public comment. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any public comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Please. SBSD Owl Camera: Looks like John's not. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: My name's Mark Gable. I'm a community member. I have a daughter who's a rising senior, South Brendan High School. SBSD Owl Camera: Last Friday, the other

007paper printed a letter in the editor regarding the elimination of both Honors American Studies from South Bronx High School's curriculum. SBSD Owl Camera: Having had two children that benefited greatly from that class, and having worked last year, so now we can't keep the class. SBSD Owl Camera: I knew it would be an important piece to take the time to read. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know how many of you saw it or took the time to read it, but in case you missed it, I brought each of you a copy… SBSD Owl Camera: Excuse me. SBSD Owl Camera: The author of that letter has 3 children currently enrolled in South Roman schools. SBSD Owl Camera: And has served as a substitute teacher in good standing for the past 2 years. SBSD Owl Camera: Monday, she

008was called into HR and fired without notice. SBSD Owl Camera: For making a, my understanding, making a child feel uncomfortable. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not making any specific allegations against any individuals, but the timing feels suspect, and the reasoning behind the decision? Questionable. SBSD Owl Camera: Finally, as a parent, as a South Florida High School student. SBSD Owl Camera: a community member, and an employee of the district, and a vocal advocate for our schools and our students. This makes me apprehensive to show up and speak out at school board meetings or in public formats. SBSD Owl Camera: That's a dangerous precedent, given the board's current outreach to community members to get involved with their schools. SBSD Owl Camera: I hope all of you can appreciate that concern. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera:

009Is there any other public comment in the room? SBSD Owl Camera: You don't pull up? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, the next item on the agenda… Can I interrupt for one? Yeah. I'm sorry. As you were going over the agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: The mystery of why the wellness plan isn't on here, is because I think it might have accidentally been deleted because the continuous improvement plan update we were wanting to push until the next meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: And the wellness we wanted. So, I know we're not going to do wellness, but the CIP plan discussion will be at the June meeting as well. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I apologize. So does the word resemble to not talking about CIP today? Yes. Okay, so that's a great event. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: The

010next item on the agenda is the Student Representative Report. Thanks, Chris. SBSD Owl Camera: So, there'll be no school on May 25th for Memorial Day, so all students enjoy the long weekend. SBSD Owl Camera: Prom is coming up on May 30th from 7 to 10 p.m. at Old Lantern, so students make sure to get your tickets ahead of time. SBSD Owl Camera: On May 28th, from 7 to 8 p.m, the high school will be hosting 8th grade step-up night. This is an opportunity for 8th grade parents and students to receive more information on the transition from middle to high school, and parents will receive a presentation in the auditorium, and 8th grade students will get a tour and Q&A session with current high school student leaders. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, saving the best for

011last, we held an interview for the junior student reposition today. There were four wonderful candidates that we interviewed, and for the first time, we ended up choosing two candidates for the junior position. One is Oliver Coons, which is right here, and SBSD Owl Camera: And, Taru Magar, they both had really unique perspectives that we felt were necessary for the board to hear from students. Their first official meeting will be June 3rd, where I'll formally introduce them both to you all, and I'm looking forward to working with them both over the coming year. Yeah, that's all. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Does the board have any questions? SBSD Owl Camera: Is it representative? SBSD Owl Camera: So we're gonna have 3 student rooms? Yeah. SBSD

012Owl Camera: You know, of course. SBSD Owl Camera: You got that chair right there, I got the extra chair on the, SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I mean, it was… it was great. Alyssa and I participated in the process and reviewed, you know, and Moen and Ali did a great job going through all of, you know, soliciting the applications and reviewing the applications and providing us their feedback, and… SBSD Owl Camera: We met, was it last week or two weeks ago that we met? And we talked through the folks that we were going to interview and put together the questions that we wanted to ask. SBSD Owl Camera: And, and then, yeah, they just pulled it all together and coordinated everything, so they did a fantastic job. And I will say, to echo Moan's comments, I

013mean, they're really solid candidates that all interviewed, and I think that with the two that were chosen. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, there was a lot of discussion. I think we spent probably as much time discussing that as we did through the whole interview process. Just that these unique voices coming to the board, I think, will be really, really helpful. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think it's great for us to be amplifying those student voices more, so it is really appropriate for us to do that. SBSD Owl Camera: South. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. So, yeah, Oliver, I think your first meeting is going to be June 3rd, so you'll probably have a chance to do more of an intro or not today. Very excited for it. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Alyssa and Jen, for

014doing that. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so would the board be amenable to moving the discussion item update on the school board website right now? SBSD Owl Camera: Sure, sure, yeah. Yes? Okay, so we'll do the discussion item SBSD Owl Camera: Update on the school board website right now. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that between Jen and, Jill? I could… sure. I mean, I can tell you where we are with it. I had a meeting today with… SBSD Owl Camera: Our web host. SBSD Owl Camera: up right now, so I can remember. SBSD Owl Camera: Governor SBSD Owl Camera: Apogee, right? Apogee, I had a meeting with, Apta G, and there's a few things that are going on, and I have this in the board update also. SBSD Owl Camera: In the very immediate term, we're

015going to make a couple adjustments to the aesthetics of the site. In short, what we're going to try and do is get rid of that entire menu link where you go. There's a million different things. We're going to try and put SBSD Owl Camera: bars across the top, excuse me for not knowing the technical language, that'll make it easier to see. SBSD Owl Camera: the longer… and when I say longer, I know this is urgent, so I'm not talking about a year from now. Next Friday, I have a meeting with them again to now start talking about SBSD Owl Camera: redoing or re-imaging the entire website. So, instead of us doing it piecemeal, we'll have, our vendor come in, there will be, SBSD Owl Camera: I've done this in the past, where we've gotten a

016small committee together of people, so I'm sure Jen would be… want to be on that, and a few other folks, just to give an idea of what we're visioning for this, and then they would go in and really, SBSD Owl Camera: revamped the entire website. Typically, what they do is they set up one while the other one's live, and they flip a switch, and the new one's up. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think that'll be more efficient than us trying to piecemeal, and what I don't want is all of a sudden our board pages look great and everything else looks horrible, so I think, might as well do it, and this is the time to do it, so… SBSD Owl Camera: You'll be hearing more about that in the future. We were in a meeting

017where I talked to the city folks about it, and I just stood on it a little bit more and thought. SBSD Owl Camera: Let's do it, right? So I've met with FPG to figure out if he can do it. SBSD Owl Camera: Any board questions, comments on that? SBSD Owl Camera: One thought, would we, going forward. SBSD Owl Camera: Have, would a staff person be able to put the results of monitoring into the scorecard for us? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, yeah. I mean, it's… currently, we have, there are users that have the ability to update the website, and they'll continue to have that, and I will still… I will continue to have that kind of access, too. But the big redesign that we're doing needs to be done by a professional, so they'll do that,

018and then… SBSD Owl Camera: Any new users will be, like, new principals and whatever will be trained in how to update their website, you know, that kind of thing I can continue to do for the board. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that'll be good. Don't… I have no idea what their timeframe will be. Again, our initial kickoff meeting is next Friday at 1230. SBSD Owl Camera: And you have an intern this summer, but that's… that's… We do have an intern, and the intern is going to do some of the, let's get rid of all of these pages that… SBSD Owl Camera: don't exist anymore, broken links and all that kind of stuff. Not really doing any cleanup other than they're pulling the weeds, and what we're gonna do is planting the garden, if you like

019that analogy. SBSD Owl Camera: Right. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so, we have another 15 minutes. Would the Board be amenable to moving the consent agenda to writing? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Yes? Okay. So, on the consent agenda, the first thing… do… should we take a… SBSD Owl Camera: Separate action to approve the bid for the roof projects, or should we do that as part of it? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, it's not marked… we'll do it just so basically. So… SBSD Owl Camera: On the consent agenda, there are the minutes of the May 6th meeting, and there are also hires and resignations. Are there any objections to the minutes? SBSD Owl Camera: The hires, or the resignation requirements. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, hearing none, that part of the consent agenda passes. SBSD Owl Camera: So now,

020I would entertain a motion to approve the bid for the roof project. SBSD Owl Camera: Finally. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura moves. I'll second. Alyssa seconds. Is there any discussion? And this is an action item, so we do take public comment on it. SBSD Owl Camera: the discussion of the roof project? We don't have to rush through it. Yeah, the only question that I had was, I looked through the materials, and I didn't know if I was missing something, if there was any details provided on the bids, because I didn't actually see anything. SBSD Owl Camera: That was S. I don't know if I was allowed. SBSD Owl Camera: We began to start. SBSD Owl Camera: Was there information provided? Or were you going to speak to it? SBSD Owl Camera: It doesn't look like the

021bid award letter is in here. Okay. Is that what you're looking for? Yeah, I mean, just… I didn't see anything. I saw it, that it was on a consent agenda, but then I didn't see anything related to the roof bid, or what exactly we were… I'm noticing that now, too. Okay. I… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm happy to send it to you, and I'm happy to share it with you right now, electronically, and I'm happy to send it to you. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think the motion should fail, and then we'll come back to this. At the end of the meeting, we'll have a very short consent agenda item, and then we can take a minute to look at it then. And then… SBSD Owl Camera: We don't have to approve it. SBSD Owl Camera:

022We'll have a chat soon. SBSD Owl Camera: So… And how much time will Monitor Report 2.5 take? Is that fairly standard? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. Okay, sure. So, I… would the board be amenable to taking on, an action item, monitoring 2.5 financial planning and budgeting? This is the one that comes up pretty often. Can we get through it in 15 minutes? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. J. Marie Clark says yes. Okay. The board amenable? Sure. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, then yeah, we'll do it. Yeah? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Do you know. SBSD Owl Camera: Nick, I want to share a document, and I am going to struggle. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, I don't have campus. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. Yes, it is… hold on, make sure I did this right here. Take this one. Yeah. SBSD

023Owl Camera: Please. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I've been doing this, but I'm actually continuing to listen to them. SBSD Owl Camera: Let me make you a name one. SBSD Owl Camera: It's only going to take 5 minutes, but I'm going to spend 10 minutes doing the technical difficulties part of this, so… Oh, you work. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, here. Oh, God. SBSD Owl Camera: We're nervous in the springtime. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I was… why I was stumbling to come up here is because I'm not sure if this was shared in the board documents with you earlier, so I'll make sure that this is shared with you as well. SBSD Owl Camera: you're right that we keep… I keep showing you the same information over and over again, and we haven't made

024it a ton of progress, because that's just not how the world… the business office exists and, works. But the one thing that I did want to show you is our current year-to-date financial report. That's what I'm sharing on the screen here. A picture of where we're at as of May 4th. So May 4th is SBSD Owl Camera: When she ran this report for us to have it, to Delina in time to get it into your hands. So, what you're going to see is our current… SBSD Owl Camera: our working budget, our year-to-date expenses, things that are encumbered, pre-encumbered, and our balance. And so, the most exciting thing on this right now is line number 12, where you'll see the, SBSD Owl Camera: Transfer out of the general fund into the nutritional services that we, agreed

025to do at our last, meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: So right now, what we're looking at is excess fund… unspend funds of 1.7 is what we've got in excess. That is not being SBSD Owl Camera: like, held in a purchase order, is not being, used from SBSD Owl Camera: salaries and benefits, and so those… so the biggest thing, and I think I said this to you all last time, if you're probably like, how do we have 1.7 left? It's a pretty small number in our, as a percentage, about 2% of our budgets. The swing is… SBSD Owl Camera: fairly small. The biggest reason is we have many vacant positions, and that is really… you know from looking and working through our budget, we spend our money on salaries here, primarily. SBSD Owl

026Camera: And roofs and dillers, but, so that's, the biggest reason why we have this excess. SBSD Owl Camera: In the revenues, I'm just gonna skim down here quickly. We do have some swings, and the biggest is our, special ed reimbursements in our extraordinary costs, so those are coming in different than what we had planned, and then… oops, let me find it. We have another swing in… SBSD Owl Camera: our, the money that we get from the city, our impact fees, which is $1.45. SBSD Owl Camera: Right here. So, SBSD Owl Camera: our last… we anticipated they told us we were going to get $730,000 from them. Their last payment to us was $241,000, and that was… SBSD Owl Camera: As, included April, so the last payment that we will get from them will be just

027May and June, so likely will be less than $240,000 SBSD Owl Camera: which, like, currently they owe us… sort of owe us what they said they were going to pay us was $335, so it's going to be… there will be an impact there. There's a difference there. So our revenues are down, but our expenses are down as well, so that's why we have, SBSD Owl Camera: the excess funding, and… SBSD Owl Camera: So are we going to be in the red even after the payments with the impact fees? No, we are… we are in the green, and I miss… I misspoke our, our whole swing is $1.4 million in the green. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is right here, 1. Just with the impact piece. SBSD Owl Camera: The revenues are down. SBSD Owl Camera: On

028the impact fees, we don't know, because we haven't got that final payment yet, and when we get the number from the city of what they think they're going to give us for the whole year, it's… SBSD Owl Camera: a ballpark number. It's never 100% accurate, so we think that there will be a deficit in what we anticipated, what the anticipated revenue was from the city. So, SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: Currently, our excess is $1.4 million unspent, untapped in the whole budget, which is just under 2% of our whole budget. And the business manager and I had a conversation, and I… SBSD Owl Camera: I think maybe, Dan, you asked me this, as we talked about, will we be at a place where we put together a… an operational reserve fund, much like

029our capital reserve fund? And someone asked me how much SBSD Owl Camera: what I explained to you is it's very, very common for school districts to not have an operational reserve fund. SBSD Owl Camera: And someone asked me, well, if we were to have one, how much do you think we should have in there? And the answer to that is about 3 months. If we could have 3 months, that would be great. I can't tell you what that number is right now, but what I can tell you is, if we end this year with, let's just say, a million bucks left over. SBSD Owl Camera: we would probably advocate to put some of that into an operational reserve fund. And what that does is it allows us to be even more, SBSD Owl Camera: I

030was gonna say stringent, but, like, more cautious in our budgeting, knowing that if we… that we have a little savings account to use for our operational expenses. SBSD Owl Camera: Which are different from the Boiler Blue one, right? Our Copper Reserve Fund. So, that may be something that we… you would want to consider as we work towards budget next year. SBSD Owl Camera: Great, thank you. Is there any board question or comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Can you scroll to the top of this page real quick? I just want to see what the headers are there, maybe on. And maybe, can you just walk through? SBSD Owl Camera: what those… what those, headers mean, so people understand. The working budget is what you actually had proposed. Yep. And then your year to date is… What's been

031spent. What's been spent. Yep. What is… SBSD Owl Camera: like, being held, what's encumbered, right? So, for salaries, we budgeted $38 million. So far, we've spent $28 million. That means we've got $9 million left over, and even SBSD Owl Camera: Though we have $9 million being held in the salary bucket, there's, SBSD Owl Camera: 750 currently being held in proposed positions that are unfit. SBSD Owl Camera: So, available, not being held for anybody, is $159,000. So, this is the whole total of $1.7 million is the total of SBSD Owl Camera: not being held for anything in any of these columns, salary, benefit, purchases. So that encumbrance is the delta from the working budget to the year to date. I don't know if my calculator could plug that in to see that would… that, like, for

032example. SBSD Owl Camera: $38 million minus the $28 million gives you the 9.3? Yes. Okay, but then you're committing that $750 is… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, it's tied up, whether… it's not an accrual, per se, but it's… it's committed to… to being spent. And then that… SBSD Owl Camera: That balance there is… sorry, what's the balance? The 159? 159, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: is what's actually left over. So the… okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Bye bye. SBSD Owl Camera: Maybe count. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any other board question or comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Just that, I'm just following along with that, it looked like… looks like the biggest… SBSD Owl Camera: balances are in purchase professional and technical services and other purchase services, so that would… I would imagine that means we budgeted and

033we were expecting to do some work, or… and then those things didn't end up. Yeah, and there's a variety of things that fall into those different categories, SBSD Owl Camera: And I can't tell you exactly what they are, but they are some things that's related to education, and some, you know, how we educate our students, but also things as they are related to how we maintain our buildings, right? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, of course. So, it's all good news, and, you know, we were, we continue to try to be as accurate as possible in our budgeting, but there always will be different swings, because there are so many moving parts to this, but, you know… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm feeling really confident, comfortable about this. That's why we encouraged you to move that money over

034to the Nutritional Services Fund. SBSD Owl Camera: And we'll… as we get closer to the end of the year, we'll… I think we'll probably present this one more time before, the school year, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Any further board comment or question? SBSD Owl Camera: No? Okay, well then, I would entertain a motion to monitor Policy 2.5, SBSD Owl Camera: Financial planning and budgeting according to the rubric that we have in our board packet. SBSD Owl Camera: I moved. Emily moves. Second. Dan seconds. Any discussion? And this is an action item, so we entertain public comments on it. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: I… I'm sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, the margin path. SBSD Owl Camera: So, well, now we'll actually do the voting. So,

035monitor, so we have, remember, monitor report. SBSD Owl Camera: outcomes and compliance plan. So, on the monitoring report, I'm gonna go around and everybody's gonna say a number between 0 for not compliant to 4 for advanced compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: Does that make… does that make sense? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so we'll start with Moment boy. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? Ray. SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Item 3, Laura? Rude. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Down, 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. The next part is the outcomes in terms of, whether things are going well or not, however well it's reported. So I'm going to ask each person, 0 to 4 again. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I'll start

036with, Moment. 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Right? SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? SBSD Owl Camera: Three? SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a 3. Laura? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? 2. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, Dan, please? SBSD Owl Camera: Period. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, I don't think a compliance plan was presented, so I don't really vote on that. SBSD Owl Camera: Is the board in agreement with that? SBSD Owl Camera: Perfect. So, nope, I have fun. SBSD Owl Camera: Great, okay, so that concludes monitoring of 2.5. SBSD Owl Camera: So now, we get to the fun part of the meeting, which is the community forum on our ENS policy. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: Here at South Burlington, we are a… we are a policy governance district,

037and what that means is that we have decided to govern ourselves as a school board and as a school district, using ends, and ends are kind of like a special word for goals or priorities, right? And so, SBSD Owl Camera: The N's are supposed to represent, what the community wants for our schools or our kids. SBSD Owl Camera: It's the whole community, whether or not you have kids in school or out of school. SBSD Owl Camera: This community forum is the third of four community forums that we're holding before the board. SBSD Owl Camera: prepares a draft of edits to our current document that lists our ends, our goals. And so, over the next few months, we'll be working on that document, thanks to the input of board members and also people who show up,

038like. SBSD Owl Camera: yourselves from the community, and then the goal is to, in September, Pass. SBSD Owl Camera: changes to the ENS policy. That'll be the first time they've been updated in 10 years. SBSD Owl Camera: And then Joe, our superintendent, will be able to roll those priorities into a strategic plan where he actually makes the operational changes necessary to fulfill the priorities. And then there will be, presumably, changes in the next school year. SBSD Owl Camera: So, these community forums are a public… they're technically a public comment section of our school board meetings. SBSD Owl Camera: And the special thing about them is that as you and the public make comments, the board is encouraged to respond to you, have a conversation, so we don't have a speaker list or a speaker order,

039and so I would ask that people, SBSD Owl Camera: Insert themselves when they think it's appropriate. SBSD Owl Camera: And just, hopefully… SBSD Owl Camera: have a good discussion. So, is there anything, on the ENDS Update Committee? The three of us are tasked with organizing this thing. Does the ENDS Update Committee have anything that they would like to mention before we get started? SBSD Owl Camera: with this community forum? I just want to tee up one part. A few of us have been trying to kind of, kind of… SBSD Owl Camera: Beat the bushes and get some former? SBSD Owl Camera: SBHS graduates, to come to the meeting and talk a little bit about, you know, from their perspective, what prepared them well, what are the things that, as they transition to the other side

040of high school, into that post-secondary realm, whatever that may bring. SBSD Owl Camera: What are the things that, with that perspective, they can say. SBSD Owl Camera: prepared them well, or would have prepared them well. And so we tried to get a panel together, and I see that at least one… Jamin, did you bring a friend, also, or a fellow graduate? Oh, this is my campaign. Oh, okay. So maybe not. You didn't graduate from SB. So I think, it was hard to get folks available this time of year. There's a lot of things going on, a lot of kids traveling, and SBSD Owl Camera: So, but Jamin has joined us, so I wanted to introduce, if you would like to inject yourself whenever you feel comfortable, what we're really asking is just to tell a

041little bit about yourself and to answer that, you know, make comment on that SBSD Owl Camera: preparedness question of, you know, now that you've experienced life on the other side of high school, and you're making your path, what were the things that prepared you well? Because this is really what we're trying to understand is SBSD Owl Camera: When we look at our end's policies, are they spot on? Are there things missing? Are there, you know, what… what can we do to steer this district SBSD Owl Camera: And the, you know, how the learning opportunities and otherwise are structured within the schools to kind of point at that direction. So, setting the direction is kind of a big deal, and we're looking for input from all SBSD Owl Camera: all the community members that would like

042to participate. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: So, we have a number of people in the crowd that I recognize. Jeffrey, would you like to come up with the chair? Sure, I would love to start. And please, let us know, who you feel you represent, from the community. SBSD Owl Camera: Good evening. My name is Jeffrey Wilmette. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't… I'm not from South Burlington, I actually live in Fairfax for long. SBSD Owl Camera: We do have an office in South Burlington. SBSD Owl Camera: I am the business manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. SBSD Owl Camera: We represent about 1,000 IBW members across SBSD Owl Camera: Vermont. Some employers are, like, Vermont Gas, which is in South Burlington. Fremont Power. SBSD Owl Camera: All the electrical utilities, police officers,

043Ben & Jerry's, highway departments, wastewater departments. SBSD Owl Camera: And approximately 200 licensed electricians and apprentices that we train over himself in Arlington. So, that's a little bit about what I do. A little bit about me, I grew up in Essex. I did… I took tech classes at Essex Tech way back when. SBSD Owl Camera: I then went into the Army, I… SBSD Owl Camera: got an engineering degree at BTC, I got a culinary degree, and then after I got all done that, I wanted to get back in construction, so I joined the IBW and got my license… became a licensed electrician, went through the apprenticeship, got my master's license. SBSD Owl Camera: Got into the office. Now I'm part of the apprenticeship committee for what we do at the IBW. We run a program

044of about 40 apprentices each year. We bring in about 15 to 20, depending on what we can bring into the mix. SBSD Owl Camera: I sit on the Vermont Department of Labor Apprenticeship Advisory Board. I've been on that board for 15 years. I've been part of the Workforce Development Board for the Vermont Department of Labor for 15 years. So, I went through the system. SBSD Owl Camera: I took tech classes, I got a higher ed, I went to the apprenticeship program. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a staunch advocate for the apprenticeship program. I know you guys aren't running the apprenticeship program, but what we've found SBSD Owl Camera: in working with the Department of Labor, and just from my own experience, that individuals… we also work with 7Tech. SBSD Owl Camera: centers around the Mall. St.

045Albans, Rutland, Hyde Park, Barrie, Essex. SBSD Owl Camera: There's 7 of them that we work with. Montpelier. SBSD Owl Camera: So we bring in their tech students and put them out with contractors. SBSD Owl Camera: We've been doing that for probably 12 years now, and the tech programs have actually changed so that they can get more experience out in the field than what they used to get. Tech programs used to… I could only go out in the field one day a week, now it's 4 days a week. SBSD Owl Camera: So they're getting more training and experience in the field than what they were used to. They also, are… SBSD Owl Camera: Probably the best candidates we have, because they have the drive to do it, they have some of the skills and aptitude, and

046for the most part, the attitudes to be part of our program. SBSD Owl Camera: tech programs that we work with, if you have been in a tech program for a year or two years. SBSD Owl Camera: those credits for that time in service transfers to our apprenticeship program. The state recognizes those years. We have a… it's a… the electrical world is a four-year program. SBSD Owl Camera: And then you get your license. So those years are credited towards your apprenticeship, so you could theoretically have… come to our program with 2 years experience in a CTE, SBSD Owl Camera: I have 2 years left of your training, I'm now 20 years old, I'm a licensed electrician, I'm making SBSD Owl Camera: $38, $40 an hour. SBSD Owl Camera: Awesome. SBSD Owl Camera: Paid benefits. SBSD Owl

047Camera: to include medical and retirement. So, a 20-year… 20-year-old SBSD Owl Camera: an individual could be making upwards of $80,000 to $100,000 a year just by getting 2 years under their belt through a CTE. SBSD Owl Camera: I, again, am a staunch advocate of apprenticeships. SBSD Owl Camera: And we've all paid our dues with high prices of college nowadays. SBSD Owl Camera: More employers who don't require higher education are creating apprenticeship programs at their facilities. I work with the state. Again, we approve all the apprenticeships that come SBSD Owl Camera: come through the state by employers, and people are migrating and have migrated to the concept of earn while you learn. SBSD Owl Camera: It's… it's an amazing model. SBSD Owl Camera: 20… I work with 28 employers, 20 of them have apprenticeship programs, so,

048you know, they… SBSD Owl Camera: They enjoy it. SBSD Owl Camera: They enjoy the fact that they don't have $100,000 of debt. I just had two daughters, twins, graduating from college. One wants to be a teacher. SBSD Owl Camera: And one wants to be in public health, so they have their, assistance from us, but they have that college debt all lined up. But those are the careers that require higher education. SBSD Owl Camera: Many careers don't, and we love… again, I've been doing this for 25 years. I'll do it for another 25 years. SBSD Owl Camera: We… we worked with the Plumbers Union, the Carpenters Union, they're right next door to us. If you folks had a CTD program, we would absorb all of your… all of your kids. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, that's

049how much we appreciate what techs SBSD Owl Camera: tech center to do, and that's how many tech employees or tech students we need to fill the voids. I mean, we need 30 electricians right now, and we can't find 30 electricians. SBSD Owl Camera: But… SBSD Owl Camera: Jeffrey, if I can just ask you, from the perspective of a school board who's just setting the high-level priorities for the superintendent to then implement, what do you think is important SBSD Owl Camera: You know, what should a kid… SBSD Owl Camera: get out of school? Like, what… what priority… SBSD Owl Camera: Do you think we should have? SBSD Owl Camera: let them figure out what they want to do, and not be pushed towards… like, again, we kind of get stuck in this, hey, everybody got to

050go to higher education. I don't agree with it. I did it. SBSD Owl Camera: But I don't necessarily agree with it, and… SBSD Owl Camera: for those of you, or us, who have had children, we always start them out at an early age with toys to see how they develop. Where… which venue or avenue are they going to go down that makes them happy? You know, my father always said, I don't care what you do, just be happy. SBSD Owl Camera: He didn't tell me to join the Army, I wanted to redo it. SBSD Owl Camera: He didn't tell me to become an electrician, did it? He didn't tell me to get my engineering degree, I wanted it. SBSD Owl Camera: because of my experience with what I did and what I wanted to do,

051not because somebody was telling me to go get a higher education. SBSD Owl Camera: So the sooner people are… SBSD Owl Camera: Allowed to continue to experiment, which is what we do in education. SBSD Owl Camera: They have the ability to figure out what people want to do. SBSD Owl Camera: So, sooner rather than later, you know, multiple places do a two-year tech center or a 3-year tech center, but to expand it beyond that, I think the people are trying to get it into the middle school arena. SBSD Owl Camera: there's less barriers there, I think? SBSD Owl Camera: But… SBSD Owl Camera: I went to… again, I went to Fairfax, and we… I was… my wife was on the school board, and we were trying to expand the school board, and we had people

052in the SBSD Owl Camera: The old school folks not wanting us to expand the school because SBSD Owl Camera: the tech center that they grew up 40 years ago was still good enough, or like, no, it's not worth it. SBSD Owl Camera: We want better for our students. SBSD Owl Camera: So, it took us a few years, but we got the expansion we needed to accommodate our students for the future, not for the past. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Sooner the better. SBSD Owl Camera: And we'll take them all off. SBSD Owl Camera: She really will. So… Oh, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you for your thoughts. Yeah, thank you. If you do it, great. We need more of them, because, again, there's not enough… there are so many students that want to do it

053that don't have the opportunity to do it. You have 23,000 residents in South Burlington, you have construction and businesses going up all over the place with all the technology. SBSD Owl Camera: You guys are, like, in the hub. SBSD Owl Camera: Go for it. SBSD Owl Camera: Good, good. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, thank you, and have a good night. If you have any questions, you got my email? SBSD Owl Camera: We're good. Thank you. Thanks. SBSD Owl Camera: Any other public comment in the room? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, thank you for having me today. I appreciate the time to sit before you, and you are speaking to someone that grew up on Woodland Place in South Burlington. SBSD Owl Camera: I attended, SBSD Owl Camera: both the middle school and the high school. Fortunately, my

054parents chose to move to Shelburne when I was a senior, so I do have a CBU diploma. But I did spend a lot of time here, and I was really hoping that I was going to see Don Marabella tonight. I haven't seen him in years. Someone I have a lot of respect, he was… SBSD Owl Camera: part of my journey, he was our vice principal, I believe, when I was in the middle school, and when I transferred over to the high school, he came along and started his duties there. Just the amount of care that he provided to the students, I think it's just remarkable, and I wanted to mention that before this board, because I know he's still around. SBSD Owl Camera: If any of you see Antel, Matt Musgrave said hello. So, I'm,

055with the Associated Builders and Contractors. Like I said, I started my… I want to just start with a personal experience. We talk about outcomes. SBSD Owl Camera: And where we're trying to get to. So my personal experience was I graduated high school, and I was one of those, I waited another year to go off to college, and I explored the private sector, I looked what was out there, I went to school for business and computer programming, and I fell out a real estate agent. SBSD Owl Camera: I fell out of college as a real estate agent at age 23, and I didn't have any money, because I had just spent it all on going to college for a degree that I wasn't ever going to fulfill. SBSD Owl Camera: And I was selling homes all

056over Chittenden County, here in South Burlington, Shawburg, Bolchester, and I never really understood when I was a 23-year-old that I would meet other 23, 24, 25-year-olds that were buying homes from me. SBSD Owl Camera: I never really understood that. It was puzzling for me, because I was struggling to make ends meet. But what I didn't realize at the time, and I now know, is they were all driving contractor trucks. SBSD Owl Camera: They were pulling up in these big, hot pickup trucks full of tools. I didn't really know enough to know at the time, but rather than following the path that I went and taking out student loans, and then there's nothing wrong with that, that's absolutely a very valuable pathway. SBSD Owl Camera: But there's also other pathways, and I didn't realize the pathway

057that a lot of these individuals took was to fall out SBSD Owl Camera: to learn a trade, to have pride in the work that they were doing, and by the time they were 23, in the industry, some of those individuals were making well over 6 figures, whether they were owning their own businesses, or they were working for some of the great companies, like, at the time, Pizza Galli Construction, DEW, Engelworth Construction, those are some that we see here a lot. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I joined the construction world about 12 years ago. I worked with another construction trade association, the AGC, which is operated out of Montpelier, and I'm now with the ABC, which is the Associated Builders and Contractors. We are the state sponsor for the NCCER program, which is SBSD Owl Camera: the

058National Center for Construction Education and Resource. And what that is, it's the industry-recognized credential that we've registered with the Department of Education, also with the Department of Labor, and we certify the career technical education centers, as well as their teachers. So when a new teacher is hired at a CTE, they call us, we chaperone them through the process. We also work within the prison system. SBSD Owl Camera: We certify them. We also certify a lot of employers across the state. Whether they're members or not, as the state sponsor for the program, we do get involved and help not only construction, but electrical and plumbing and other groups set up these programs. SBSD Owl Camera: So that's a little bit of the background of what the association does. We do other things, but workforce development in

059Vermont is one of the most important things that we do, because SBSD Owl Camera: to, in our estimation, to have a healthy construction market here in Vermont, we need to have about 20 to 21,000 souls in the industry. And right now, we're lingering around 17,000, and I'm well aware that by 20 or 35, we're going to lose about 40% of those individuals to retirement. The average age in our business is SBSD Owl Camera: When I started, 12 years ago, was 55. SBSD Owl Camera: add 12 years to that, because they're… they're just aging out as I just aged 12 years. So, we're looking at this pitfall that we have coming up, and we have needs, we have to build hospitals, we need to build more housing, we need to build… SBSD Owl Camera: A lot

060of school construction needs to be done. We're starting to identify districts that have different challenges with the way that these buildings were built 100 years ago. And so, we recognize that the demand for this industry is only going to go up, and we see people going down. SBSD Owl Camera: So what happened when I came over from the other association to ABC about 3 years ago, was we all recognized that we had an issue, and we at that time, Seamus, if I start going along, just wave at me, but… because I get very passionate about this topic. SBSD Owl Camera: We have to remember that we have to write SBSD Owl Camera: These ends, these priorities, these goals. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, if you have thoughts about, like, what we should be prioritizing as

061it ties to the story that you're telling, drop that into your story. That's exactly the plan. Yeah, perfect. But I want to set the stage, because this is something that is a big, serious issue that we're dealing with, and about 3 years ago, I was approached by some of the largest general contractors and subcontractors in the state, inclusive of DEW, PC Construction. SBSD Owl Camera: Engelberth, H.B. Cummings, Richard Electric, among a few others. And they sat us down in the room and said, we really appreciate the apprenticeship that we're running, and we were working with several different companies at the same time out of their buildings doing training. SBSD Owl Camera: they said, ABC, we need you to develop a training center, and we need you to start putting people out into the workplace, we

062need to build a workforce program, and we need you to do this. So, private industry put up a significant amount of money for us to be able to go acquire a facility over in Winooski, it's 10,000 square feet, it's right off the exit that you would go and get off of St. Mike's. It's known as the Vermont Construction Academy. SBSD Owl Camera: We've got 10,000 square feet there, two large, fully outfitted classrooms for in-class learning, and about 8,000 feet on the floor that right now, if you work in… walk in there, it looks like we're building an apartment building in the middle of this other giant building, as you saw. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the purpose of this originally was to work with employed individuals in the apprenticeship program, but we discovered through our research

063going to the CTE centers and also talking to school districts like yours. SBSD Owl Camera: that there are some challenges with getting those individuals who are raising their hand, saying, I want to learn a trade, into programs. I know that, you know, when I went to school here in South Burlington, we have an auto shop. I'm not sure if that exists anymore. When I went to CVU High School, we had a wood shop. That definitely doesn't exist anymore. SBSD Owl Camera: The CTE programs are now becoming over-provisioned. We have, in Essex, CTE, on average, about 120 applications every single year to get into their program, where only 35 people make it. In order to get into that program now, you have to have the same grades and attendance as you would to get into the

064University of Vermont. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the challenge that we identified there was there was nowhere for these young boys and girls to go when they were coming out of school, and so what we did was work with the Department of Labor and the Department of Education, and we rolled out the first pre-apprentice program. We call it a pre-apprentice boot camp for commercial carpentry. SBSD Owl Camera: That program has since morphed from just commercial carpentry to the core curriculum, I think, as the last speaker just mentioned, the core curriculum that's going through the CTE programs SBSD Owl Camera: Which gives you the safety certifications, you're learning power tools, you're learning hand tools, you're learning about different types of employment, including what the difference is between working in a union shop or working in an open

065shop. So we're giving them this full picture, and when they come out the other end of that program. SBSD Owl Camera: they're… we're having employers come in and give TED Talks, you know, electrical firms, plumbing firms, HVAC firms, traditional carpentry firms. SBSD Owl Camera: So that the individuals that are in these courses are starting to ask questions, they're starting to… SBSD Owl Camera: identify what their personality might draw them to, and once they've completed that program, they get a certificate from us, and they could go jump into the union. Or they could go jump into an open shop that has an apprentice program and just keep going. So, I think the last speaker said choice. What we're doing is creating choice and educating these young folks. SBSD Owl Camera: we were doing this with people

066that had graduated high school in our first year, but what we discovered, working with Essex, Colchester, these are all schools that are active with us now, CBU, now Rice High School, Burlington, that they have a bunch of SBSD Owl Camera: young people that wanted to get into the programs that are now, we're calling them, you know, lost young people. They don't have the CTE to go to. They're in their junior year, they're starting to say, what do I have going on at the other end? SBSD Owl Camera: And now we've created memorandum of understanding with these schools that I just mentioned, and they're coming to us, and they're taking that CTE curriculum one day a week through their semester. They're doing it through different programs right now. Some are IEP, some are flexible pathway programs

067that are getting there, and schools like Rice have actually added the cost of the tuition to their tuition that they charge to the consumer. SBSD Owl Camera: So, they're coming to us while they're still coming to the school, getting their normal high school diploma, and they're coming out and they're learning the trades from a licensed teacher that we have as an instructor in our facility who actually came from a CTE program. SBSD Owl Camera: So, really, if I was going to urge, the district to look at pathways for people, is to create those opportunities that are out there. We're right up the street here, and to be able to supplain some of the work. And to be clear, we're not competing with CTE. If you have a place that you can put someone into a

068CTE, that's the best place for them. They're going to go there and do that. SBSD Owl Camera: We're here to help out with the same curriculum, with the same expertise, and on the back end of that. SBSD Owl Camera: What we have is a large swath of employers who are members of our association, and they're vetted by us before they come in. These are employers that are responsible contractors. They pay the best in the industry, they have all those benefits. We run an ERISA trust so that employers can put money into this trust fund that actually comes back out, and they're paying for this additional training on behalf SBSD Owl Camera: half of those individuals. And oh, by the way, when you go through the apprenticeship programs, you're also guaranteed that you're going to get

069a raise at the other end of that. That's part of the deal that we have with the state of Vermont through that apprenticeship program. SBSD Owl Camera: So really, what we're able to do is, with some of those individuals that may be lost in that junior or senior year, we can bring them over for a very, very low cost compared to building your own center. SBSD Owl Camera: And we can actually give them that, and some of the results that we've seen so far, you know, I had one of the teachers from Essex came in, and he had 7 people, I believe they were on IEPs. SBSD Owl Camera: And he walked into my office, and he said, what did you do to our boys? And I said, well, what do you mean? SBSD Owl

070Camera: They all have pencils in their hand. They're taking notes. I don't understand how you got them to do this. We've been trying to do this for them for a very long time. Well, I'm gonna hand it to our instructor. He's had a lot of time. He grew up working in the construction industry, he's passionate about it, and then he went off to, Vermont Tech. SBSD Owl Camera: Became a construction manager, opened his own company, and then fell in love with teaching. SBSD Owl Camera: And then he went back to the school. So, what we're able to do with some of these young people, in addition to helping them out, learning those tools, learning the trade, introducing them to employers, is we're also helping them up here, too. They feel that someone, and they identify

071with somebody that cares about them. We've done things like bring in our own clothes so that they can go get interviews and stuff like that. We put together funds SBSD Owl Camera: that can't afford to buy boots, so that we have a deal with Danformed shoes down the road. So, the best part of this is those individuals that come through this program, and this is a frustration that I've addressed with the CTEs, is when you're done with them, and when the CTE is done with them, they go, and you don't know where they go. SBSD Owl Camera: When they come through our program, we match them up with one of our employers and put them into an apprenticeship program. We now track them in rapids through that practice that they go, so we're able to

072see what they're doing for the next several years. Our apprentice program is 18 months. SBSD Owl Camera: Over a year and a half period, so we're able to actually track the success of these end-of-built pitules as they come out. SBSD Owl Camera: And really create an ROI, not only for the employer, not only for the students, but also for the community that they work in. So, I would second what he says. We really stand by apprenticeships as a way to help people learn the industry. We've found that it's a way that employers can give back and help them grow. SBSD Owl Camera: Because at the end of the day, that is the lifeblood of these companies. Whether it's an employee-owned company like PC, or a privately owned company like DEW, their lifeblood is the people.

073We're growing them, and we would encourage you to hop on board with us. SBSD Owl Camera: It's the Vermont Construction Academy? Yes. I signed the MOU yesterday. Thank you. Okay, I could have been the last runner. SBSD Owl Camera: We're very excited about this. Thank you. Thank you very much, and I'm sure that we have more questions. SBSD Owl Camera: And I'm sorry that I have this CDU diploma. I wanted to stay here. Thank you. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Good evening. My name's Kendall Smith, and I'm the Commissioner for the Vermont Department of Labor, which you just heard a lot about from the previous two speakers, so that was great. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm thinking about your question on priorities, and so I'll try to focus my feedback right now there. I live in

074Barrie, and I'm actually a Spalding High School graduate, but my drop of South Burlington is my sister and her husband and their kids live, like, 2 miles down the street, Sunny and Lennon, and they will be South Burlington students, so I also offer this SBSD Owl Camera: you know, personally on behalf of their futures is my little anecdotal connection here to your community. So anyway, SBSD Owl Camera: We tend to think about workforce readiness SBSD Owl Camera: In terms of what are you doing when you're 30, 40, 50? You know, what's your career? So it's a straight path. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, we should think about how we're preparing people for that, but it's also more immediate, and I think, I'd encourage you all to think about it more immediacy, especially with high school

075students that are working right now. SBSD Owl Camera: that have part-time jobs, that have summer jobs, that are trying to do internships. There is an immediate connection to this for the school to be supporting those situations, in addition to what does your lifelong career journey and pathway look like. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, nothing I'm going to say right now is necessarily novel. It's things that you all are probably dealing with outside of your role on the South Burlington School Board on a daily basis in your day jobs. SBSD Owl Camera: But one of the things that I really want to think about, and I encourage you all to think about as you're doing this priority work, is that soft skill and that professional development. SBSD Owl Camera: One of the things that all of

076your students are going to likely have in common is they are going to work. SBSD Owl Camera: at some point in their life, either for a little amount of time or a long amount of time. They're all going to do different things, right? Some of them are going to go be biologists, some of them are going to be engineers, lawyers, some of them are going to own their own businesses, some of them are going to be in retail and restaurants, but that's all work, and you all need that foundation of professional soft skills in order to be successful. So, whether that's show up on time and accountability, making eye contact. SBSD Owl Camera: Can you communicate clearly and in full sentences? Those are things that you all at the school can work into every subject

077that you offer. It doesn't have to be a one-off conversation or a one-off event. I think there's lots of ways to apply this, even if SBSD Owl Camera: art class… we're in art class, and I just made some really cool pottery, and now I have to stand up, and I have to present to my class about this piece of pottery, and why I made it, and what it represents to me. That is public speaking. SBSD Owl Camera: And that student can get recognition for public speaking and communication within the context of their art class. So there's lots of ways to think about this creatively, through that thread of K through 12 in all settings, and I would actually encourage that approach, and that not be these one-off events, one-off conversations, or only the type of

078development you'd get if you're in a CTE program or a work-based learning setting. SBSD Owl Camera: or having your kind of check-the-box conversation with your career counselor. Think about how, through K-12 and age-appropriate and developmentally appropriate ways, you can be instilling accountability, you can be instilling communications, you can be instilling adaptability. SBSD Owl Camera: Homework deadlines, another great one, right? I am a parent of an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old. They're only in second and fourth grade. They don't have a lot of homework yet, but I am trying to learn something about the deadline, you know, and so I'm trying to find ways just around my own house, you know, to, like, this thing needs to be done, and this is when it needs to be done by. Because later in life, you're going to have

079a boss that's gonna say, I need this thing done by 3 o'clock on SBSD Owl Camera: Thursday, and that should not send you into, you know, an existential anxiety crisis. You should be able to have those time management skills and be able to produce. So there's ways, again, this can be applied in multiple different ways throughout your curriculum, throughout your experience in the K-12 system that you all are shepherding. SBSD Owl Camera: You heard a lot about, kind of, career-connected learning from the last two people who spoke, so I won't necessarily go down that rabbit hole, but I would think about prioritizing, whether it's internships, CTE, work-based learning, job shadowing, mentorship, any of those opportunities are great. I know that each school kind of has their own approach to how they implement these, pieces, whether

080it is work-based learning slash SBSD Owl Camera: internship slash community service learning, but make sure you are offering those experiences, and you're offering them early and often. So again, not a one-off conversation, check the box, you're graduating, what are you doing next? And then the student thinks about it only that one time, and it feels like a homework exercise that's not reality. There's ways, starting in kindergarten, you know, that good old career day. SBSD Owl Camera: You know, what do you want to be when you grow up, and you're bringing in people to talk about what they do in the community. Do it every year. Do it clearly every year, K-12. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll be there. Department of Labor can help you get some employers or others to come in and do that work.

081And then it obviously can ramp up in its intensity and its structure as you get older. But if we treat it like one-off, it's, you know, it's not going to work. It's got to be something that we're speaking with kids about, again, in ways that make sense, depending on their age, the entire way through. So I'd encourage you all to think about how you prioritize that. SBSD Owl Camera: Kind of modernize your career guidance approach that you're doing. SBSD Owl Camera: The last two things I'll mention, again, digital literacy. We don't need to go down, like, a large AI rabbit hole necessarily right now, but every sector can benefit and will use AI. SBSD Owl Camera: booking platforms and hospitality. Trades, again, I… we're big fans of the trades, I hope that goes without saying,

082and a large part of what I do is also encourage, just like you've heard from Matt and Jeff, SBSD Owl Camera: taking up the trades out of your path for people to be successful here in Vermont. But, drone technology, right? Safety on the work site. Like, it's not necessarily all chat GPT and software engineering. Every sector, I know if you guys have been to the doctors recently, and they say, can I turn on Scribe and report our conversation? SBSD Owl Camera: Right there, that is a function or a use of AI, and again, involving technologies. So think about how, again, from a young age, students are taught to interface with it, to use it, understand how to be efficient with it, responsible with it, and effective with it. SBSD Owl Camera: Then, lastly, your partnerships.

083So right now, again, we've had a few of us here talking about workforce readiness, SBSD Owl Camera: I'm curious if you're thinking about what your feedback loop is to sustain this into the future, and if you work with the regional chamber of commerce, so Lake Chamber, or GBIC, or RDC, or what and how you invite employers to come in and speak directly with you about what they need. Because the future of work is evolving, it is changing, and this is a, you know, snapshot in time. SBSD Owl Camera: But, do you have kind of some sort of employer think tank group that you're regularly tapping into for feedback as you're trying to develop approaches? Again, I assume many of you have day jobs in your own businesses, and you can apply your own experiences to

084that, but what is… SBSD Owl Camera: Do you want a formal structure, or process? And I wouldn't say overthink it and have the perfect leading enemy as a good, but to create that sort of feedback loop to sustain this over time. Department of Labor would be happy to be part of that coalition if you ever put it together. We want to be your partner and appreciate this opportunity to come in and meet you all and share some thinking. I also have cards, but SBSD Owl Camera: If you were just to Google. SBSD Owl Camera: Department of Labor, you'll find me on the website as well. But thank you very much for your time. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: Summit? Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Boop. SBSD Owl Camera: Good evening. My

085name is Sreenivasan. I'm gonna make comments on two topics. SBSD Owl Camera: I think one from my association with the South Burlington City on the Economic Development Company, I believe. SBSD Owl Camera: Nicole Labrath and Ivanak will participate today. I don't know when he will participate in the future, sessions. SBSD Owl Camera: But I just wanted to, connect, board, SBSD Owl Camera: Three people are head up in Spotify. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know how much… how many of you have followed the economic development plan, development effort by the South Burlington City. SBSD Owl Camera: So it happened over a period of a year and a half. SBSD Owl Camera: I would encourage you to go and look at the plan itself on the website. It's one of the most impressive economic development plans put

086together in Vermont. I believe it won an award recently. SBSD Owl Camera: And what… what I want to emphasize around this Is the fact that, SBSD Owl Camera: The plan really focuses on what does the city need to do to develop coalitions and alliances. SBSD Owl Camera: To promote proper workforce development. SBSD Owl Camera: Like the two gentlemen who came up and spoke here, number of CEOs and business managers over the last three years came and spoke under the Economic Development Committee about their specific needs. SBSD Owl Camera: Of what type of workforce they need going forward. SBSD Owl Camera: And how do we actually retain, you know, that type of talent? SBSD Owl Camera: So, I would encourage you to… I mean, you have some of those CEOs as parents in your school. SBSD

087Owl Camera: on Logic, beta. I mean, so I would say seek out those parents and develop some coalition around what specific skill set SBSD Owl Camera: would they like you to develop? So, please reach out, and please look at the economic development plan. There's a significant workforce development aspect. I think the South Burlington School District can play a significant role. SBSD Owl Camera: The second part that I want to speak about, Aish filled out the survey and, you know, gave my input on the process itself. SBSD Owl Camera: There are really 3 things that I highlighted. SBSD Owl Camera: As part of the process that SBSD Owl Camera: That is important, I think. SBSD Owl Camera: I think the first one, is historical performance. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, I think you're on this journey

088of developing new priorities and new goals, But do we understand SBSD Owl Camera: How did… how well we did in the past, with the current SBSD Owl Camera: And I have not seen anything. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, if I'm missing something, please guide me. SBSD Owl Camera: So, with that comment, the reason I want to focus on that is accountability starts with SBSD Owl Camera: Having metrics that you can track and report on. SBSD Owl Camera: If the community and the board is having difficulty SBSD Owl Camera: in tracking how well we are doing, that says something about accountability. So, so I would say accountability should be the fundamental theme. SBSD Owl Camera: of these priorities. You can have a lot of fancy priorities. SBSD Owl Camera: But if you don't hold people accountable,

089the lady ahead of me spoke about The importance of homework. SBSD Owl Camera: It's accountability. SBSD Owl Camera: Right? So it's a simple concept, but I think, as adults, we should be thinking about how we hold people accountable. So, the second aspect that I wanted to emphasize SBSD Owl Camera: Is around, when you're trying to go through this process, what is the benchmark you're trying to emulate to? SBSD Owl Camera: Is it a specific school, or is that a different standard set by Vermont? SBSD Owl Camera: I think that is important. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think that checks your aspiration on how far you're trying to reach. SBSD Owl Camera: And the third one is around excellence. You know, I see the word excellence being used very lightly. SBSD Owl Camera: Excellence at infrared

090cost doesn't make sense. SBSD Owl Camera: Excellence at the cost that the taxpayer is willing to pay is the right approach. So, from a process perspective, I would suggest that, you know, the committee looks at those three aspects. SBSD Owl Camera: Before you finalize your priorities. SBSD Owl Camera: As far as benchmark, I did some homework, and I have to say, the benchmark you could use is not too far away. SBSD Owl Camera: It's the Burlington School District. SBSD Owl Camera: They have an INS policy, that is about 6 or 7 years old. SBSD Owl Camera: They have a 5-year strategic plan. SBSD Owl Camera: That is based off of the RAMS policy. SBSD Owl Camera: And I will just highlight what stands out for me in their approach. SBSD Owl Camera: They have specific

091targets. SBSD Owl Camera: Not vague aspirations, okay? SBSD Owl Camera: They are focusing on disparity reduction, which means they take a focus group and make sure that that focus group is consistently performing to a specific standard. SBSD Owl Camera: They have clear milestones, which means timeline, right? What time, whether it is 50% improvement or 90% reduction, you know, whatever metric you choose. SBSD Owl Camera: And they have, SBSD Owl Camera: They have four areas. I think it's similar, somewhat similar to South Burlington. One is academic proficiency, it's clearly spelled out with metrics. SBSD Owl Camera: Second is equity and achievement gaps. SBSD Owl Camera: Third is outcomes and accountability, and the fourth is belonging. SBSD Owl Camera: And all of them have good metrics. SBSD Owl Camera: So, my second part of the comments is

092really around the process. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not an expert on defining outcomes in the school district business, but I do know when I see accountability and when I don't. SBSD Owl Camera: So, so thank you for the option. So, can I ask you so that, so, Burlington is the part of a community of schools collaborative. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think… and that's what you're talking about, and so what it… I'm just learning about it now, and it's basically how Winooski operates as well, and I think what you're saying, I don't think it's any accident that the community is… SBSD Owl Camera: very supportive of their public schools, because they feel like they're a part of it. The schools are a hub of the neighborhood. And so, you know, we talk a lot here

093about, like, radio ads and this and that. SBSD Owl Camera: I think what you need to do is make it part of the community. When you go into Winooski High School, there's a dentist in there, there's a clothing shop, there's a cafe. You can go there, and you can be at the garden. I think Burlington does that as well. Sure. And I think if people see… SBSD Owl Camera: everything, I think it's… it's with… it's with UVM, and it's… and there's some… there's, federal money that… that goes along with it. It is a very powerful program, and it's very clearly outlined, like, as you said. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so I would encourage you to look at the 5-year strategic plan. So, it spells out specific programs and activities. I mean, I have no basis

094for comparing SBSD Owl Camera: As far as performance, some will improve, you know, bullying them, but on paper, they seem to have a good process. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Real for nothing. SBSD Owl Camera: How's it going? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, it's good to be back. It's been a few years, oh my gosh. I, I'm Javin Sears, I'm a 2020 grad from South Burlington High School, you know, what a year to graduate. Covid year grad, that was a journey. I eventually got to U of M, started in 2022. There, I'm studying business, also part of the debate team there, the Lawrence Debate Union. SBSD Owl Camera: Finishing up here in the summer, and well, what else have I done? Gosh, I've done too many things. I'm also an intern

095at the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies, which is, under DSET, which is a venture capital firm which also, gives money to, you know, small tech companies to, you know, be successful. They're also, like, 24-7, free advising for tech advice and whatnot. SBSD Owl Camera: And, but yeah, I'm from South Burlington. I went through, you know, the elementary school there in Chamberlain. I went through the middle school at Tuttle, obviously went through South Burlington High School for 4 years, and I really appreciate the question that was asked, because I really do think students should have an opportunity to really be able to explain and articulate what was their experience that they got through, you know, high school. SBSD Owl Camera: Especially in today's climate of, like, education in general. And especially when you go on to

096college, and now you're faced with a whole bunch of different expectations, and trying to get ready for the workforce, as well as going into the community, and be able to actually make an impact on not only young people, but just also in general. So I do appreciate this opportunity to come here and look forward to being at the next one. SBSD Owl Camera: Just on… I don't know the definition of what you guys might consider end policies, but I will at least give you, my articulated… as I… also, I should have announced this first, that I'm running for Vermont State Senate as well. Probably been the first thing I should have said. But yeah, so I decided to run for Vermont State Senate here in the Chittenden Southeast District, which consists of South Burlington, southern

097part of Burlington, Jericho, under SBSD Owl Camera: Richmond, Shelburne, Charlotte, Hinesburg, Bolton, St. George. SBSD Owl Camera: And there's one more, I'm probably a little small, I'm forgetting one. Williston, of course. And so, the reason why I'm kind of running before I kind of get to, you know, why I think education is a big part of my platform, is that because I think that a lot of our standards have been kind of reduced. SBSD Owl Camera: And, I think that has a lot to do also with our public education system, where we're spending $28,000 per kid. We have seen, in the last two decades, a decrease of almost a third of our K-12 students, because families can't afford to live here. Families are really hard to… difficult to live in South Burlington, difficult to live

098in Williston, all over Chittenden County. Forget about Burlington. SBSD Owl Camera: But I really believe that the standards have been lowered, and why is that the case? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I would say through my high school experience, I wouldn't put myself in any political box, necessarily. But as I've gone throughout college, I'm one of the most liberal states, one of the most liberal towns at the most liberal university in the country, arguably. And I've come out on the other side as a conservative. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think the words playing with, you know, progressivism or conservatism, you know, you can get really confused and, like, what do these, what do these mean, and why? Like, you know, especially, you know, conservative politics today, obviously. But, you know, I became a conservative because I

099kind of realized a lot of our, SBSD Owl Camera: expectations in the school system have really decreased, and what are those things? Well, you know, I was part of the first ever class to have to go through a, what do they call it? The proficiency system. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, the regular education system, you know, A through F grading, and then, you know, proficiencies are graded on a scale of 1 to 4. You know, we were part of the hybrid system where, you know, it was basically, I don't know, it was 50% of your grade was one or the other. SBSD Owl Camera: I could be a little bit wrong in that. But, you know, I was like, why are we being graded on 1 through 4? You know, for what things? And I

100think a lot of the… even teachers, or you want to say we're overstaffed, you know, we have one of the highest staffing to student ratios. SBSD Owl Camera: in the whole country, Vermont in general, you know, we're paying absurdly amount of money. I think here in South Burlington, it's, $73.9 million a year for our school budgets. And I've been in the community, I help out in the community. I helped run the South Burlington Dolphins, which we're in our 60th year, celebrating our 60th year. SBSD Owl Camera: Way back when I thought, oh my gosh. SBSD Owl Camera: And we kind of see, I think, throughout this program, it's like, what are the kids also being taught? But, you know, what are they like? You know, what are their values, and what are the families that

101are actually moving into South Burlington, and, you know, what are they getting year to year, year out? And we haven't been seeing a lot of great outcomes, to be quite frankly with you. I'll speak personally about myself, is when I kind of look back, I feel like there's a lot of these SBSD Owl Camera: you know, the surroundings, the political climate in South Burlington and in our school system, which is under the progressive moniker. You know, at our elementary schools, you know, we fly the LGBTQ flag, we fly the Black Lives Matter flag. Not to say there's anything necessarily wrong with those two things specifically, but, you know, do businesses fly those flags around, you know, in businesses across communities across Vermont? You know, I'm kind of not sure. I'm left to, like, what are

102those really SBSD Owl Camera: small things that we're allowing to kind of get into our classroom, especially when you walk through those front doors. SBSD Owl Camera: And especially with, you know, families, you know, with young people, is that you don't really get to see what's on the inside, you know, with your kids, how many hours they are spending, you know, with students. You know, I mean, you're spending 7 hours in the classroom, 5 days a week, for the most part, and in Vermont, we obviously don't have school choice, so if you live in South Burlington, you know, you gotta go through the South Burlington school system, and it's extremely hard to pay for SBSD Owl Camera: non-public school education in South Burlington. And so families, it makes it extremely hard for them to be

103able to do anything else with their kids, and sometimes it's really only their only option, unfortunately. And so, you know, when we see $28,000 per kid, and we look at what are the outcomes of when kids get out of high school, and what are their values, and are they going to school, is college, you know, worth it even nowadays? It depends for what. SBSD Owl Camera: I think one thing that, you know, is really, is really important, I think, is obviously the, you know, STEM in general. And I think South Burlington, I think they just, we just, what, the math championships, I'm pretty sure they just won? I'm pretty sure. Robotics and math. Robotics, yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know, really good programs. I, I think I almost went to one of those robotic tournaments that

104was in, UVM at the, yeah, at Gutterson. SBSD Owl Camera: Who won that? SBSD Owl Camera: You won that? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Maybe I shouldn't know why. See, he's proving my point. Oh my gosh. He should join my campaign team. But I say that all to say, because, you know, South Burlington has one of the highest graduation rates in, you know, in Vermont. You know, I think it's about 90% or something like that, compared to the average, about 80%. And, you know, obviously, I graduated, I skinned my teeth, but just because it was COVID. SBSD Owl Camera: But I feel like a lot of people get through education today in public school just by just getting through it. And I don't think there's a focus for the… or there's not even an accountability system

105with students to just SBSD Owl Camera: not… just not, just to get by. You know, they're just going to get by, but there's nothing preventing them from actually being able to say, okay, let's make it really rigorous and difficult. And I don't think we should be reducing standards like our proficiency systems and stuff like that, and also allowing these ideological biases to be, you know, playing into our school system. You know, and I think I support students being able to actually have, you know, their voices heard in SBSD Owl Camera: you know, protests. I think that's a good thing, and I think that really… but at the same time, you know, kind of raises an ear of, like, or an antenna of, like, okay, what are the values that may be going on, you know,

106in school systems? And I would be really curious to hear more, especially with… when it comes to, like, raising, you know, school budgets and whatnot, and how that actually affects. And, you know, I was… I remember I came up in a time, well, not only with the, name change era in 2016, SBSD Owl Camera: But, you know, also with the, the school budgets going through the roof, and we wanted to put together a, you know, South Bronx wanted to put together one of the most expensive schools in the country. I forget how much money it was, it's about $300 million. SBSD Owl Camera: That was proposed. And I was told, as a senior, junior, senior, I mean, they talked about it for years, just kind of like how they did Market Street for 20 years,

107took them forever to do that, that, you know, this was going to be a good outcome, and that we need this school, and we need this, and I was hearing it from, you know, staff, and as well as teachers, like, this is a good thing. SBSD Owl Camera: And then I get older, and I get to the real world here, and I'm like, gosh, we can't afford that! Property taxes are going through the roof. I know tons of people who are paying tens of thousands of dollars because, you know, because of the spending that has to go to the education system. And now I know that's obviously not something that the school board or the school district can fix on their own, because that's a state policy. SBSD Owl Camera: But I know that the

108pushing of these school budgets does go on as well in school systems. And, you know, it goes on the front papers of, you know, of our local papers and whatnot, and, you know, we kind of just look at the outcomes of that spending. You know, I think we are spending too much. I think, you know, we're also giving, you know, HRA plans that are, you know, super premium for also for teachers that don't go as well to, you know, regular citizens. SBSD Owl Camera: And… and overall is, like, if we would have, you know, got a school system that was that much money, people would have been gone. I mean, we were already losing in enrollment, and I think we're also losing in the outcomes of when you get out of school, when you go

109to college. SBSD Owl Camera: I feel like I could have been, you know, done pretty well going to college, you know, with going with an alternative non-public school education as well. And it's hard. I want to see what would be the balances between those two aspects of, you know, comparing and contrasting. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, I kind of say that, and also, I'll kind of end on this point, and, well, I'll end on two separate points, but before my last one, you know, I'll say is when it comes to teachers trying to advocate for the increasing school budgets that are hurting families in Vermont, my family, other families that have lived here. SBSD Owl Camera: And, you know, can't be able to afford it, is that, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, people

110who are talking about it, especially our teachers, I would love to know, because I love my teachers. I came up through, you know, I had really good teachers, really smart people, you know, I love them. But, you know, at the same time is, you know, how… I would love to know what the percentage of our teachers are actually living in South Burlington. SBSD Owl Camera: You know, how many of them actually live here that actually are going to be affected by such tax policy in there? I don't know what the exact number is, not necessarily public information, correct me if I'm wrong. SBSD Owl Camera: But I think that's very concerning, because if teachers don't want to live here in South Burlington, what does that actually say about, you know, why should we give tax…

111why should we force taxpayers, or, you know, propose to them when we all know who's going to come and vote for these SBSD Owl Camera: These, increases in the school budget is… SBSD Owl Camera: is, you know, it's a hard thing to deal with. So, on my last point, I'll kind of just say is, you know, South Burlington has done a lot for me, and I came through elementary, came through middle school, went through the high school, did a lot of different clubs there, you know, still friends with a lot of people there, you know, have been also involved in, you know, helping out the track team, as well as volunteering earlier this year with the debate team as well. And because I've been doing debate at UV SBSD Owl Camera: for the last few

112years, that's been, you know, amazing for my education that maybe I should have done here. I believe that was Ms. White that was running that. I might be misinterpreted on that. But anyways, I think it's very concerning for, you know, especially as I run for office, is especially the spending and the overspending, and I would love to see something get done about that, because I don't think it should be this high, and I don't think it needs to be, especially with young people coming SBSD Owl Camera: through here. If you're doing a robotics, I'm sure you're learning a lot more in the club than you are probably in the classroom. I don't mean to put you on the spot, dude. But, you know, or computer science or math, I think… I went to school, I

113shouldn't call them out. SBSD Owl Camera: But I will. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not calling it out, he was a really good friend of mine, Rubulin Sivakumo. You know, he's a really good friend. He went to MIT, you know, super smart guy, was a math champion, was a chess champion, and, you know, I asked him, you know, I asked him because I knew what his, like, kind of homeschooling life, or home life was, and it was really a lot of homeschooling when it comes to math and when it comes to a lot of these STEM-related things. And so, you know, you're going to learn a lot more, I think, in the real world, is what I SBSD Owl Camera: thing I could say as a high school student, or coming out, now being a college

114student. And the fact is, if that is the case, and to be able to be better prepared for the real world, and the fact that I could just learn that elsewhere, go through non-public education. SBSD Owl Camera: Then I think, you know, young families should be able to do that, and I don't know why people who just try to move here, or… because South Burlington has been struggling demographically for many years, is, you know, why are… why are we, you know, paying so much for this? SBSD Owl Camera: We were forcing people to pay it. SBSD Owl Camera: So anyways, that's a lot to say. I know there's a lot there. But I appreciate this opportunity to be able to speak here, and, do have a lot of respect for the school system as well,

115helping being involved, and also helping out my computer in South Burlington. SBSD Owl Camera: Being from here, having grown up here basically all my life, I think it's my job and my responsibility to at least articulate, you know, what are my values and why is that so important, especially as I run for office. I think people in office should really try to be as clear as possible on what they believe in. And, you know, we don't see that a lot. But I'm going to try to do my best to do that and represent South Burlington in a good way, and I really SBSD Owl Camera: really look forward to the campaign trail. As a 24-year-old, you know, I would be… I'm the youngest to ever run, so… or youngest to run. I don't know about

116ever to run, but if I were to win, I would be the youngest spot. SBSD Owl Camera: Anyways, so I appreciate the opportunity, would love to talk to, you know, NMU anytime. Please, reach out, even if you're in the robotics. You should go to the VSET, too. You should, you know, you should go check that out. Anyways, thank you guys, appreciate it. Thank you very much. And if any questions, please let me… SBSD Owl Camera: Do we have anybody online, you know? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Is there any other comment in the room? SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any board comment, board discussion? This is meeting 3. SBSD Owl Camera: I would say, just from everything I've heard tonight, I came back to some of the feelings that I had when

117I was first learning about SBSD Owl Camera: and policies, and strategic plans, and how lofty and impossible they seem to be. Every single student will do this, and I… I was… SBSD Owl Camera: Seems to me that it would make more sense to have an actual goal that is attainable with benchmarks, with… SBSD Owl Camera: Real aspirations that really, SBSD Owl Camera: aren't so high in the sky. I understand we want to shoot for the best you can get, but I really feel like what I've heard tonight has made me, SBSD Owl Camera: it's really resonated with those first feelings I was having when I was looking at strategic plans from school districts and how they… they were all really SBSD Owl Camera: seems to be absolutely impossible, and so it's sort of like, why?

118We don't have to work that hard, because we're never going to achieve that. So, I love the idea of something that is more attainable, SBSD Owl Camera: with, SBSD Owl Camera: That the kids could also see as actual goals, and in language that people can understand what… what we're trying to say, and what we want for our kids. SBSD Owl Camera: So, yeah, it's been… it's been really great to hear everyone… everyone's opinions and experience, and… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, I'm inspired. SBSD Owl Camera: One downside of having aspirational statements that we can't measure well is that you don't know how far you off are from them, right? And that's kind of the key, is to know. SBSD Owl Camera: Can you just speak, Eric, just speaking with that, then? SBSD Owl Camera: I

119just want to make, two comments. I believe with the education reform that Governor Scott is, leading, there is an aspect of, SBSD Owl Camera: N standards. I think it's called gold standards, I think. It's going to come out. They're going to have some type of SBSD Owl Camera: policy with… Outcomes… some outcomes could be universal. SBSD Owl Camera: So, in this process, I'm just giving you a heads up. As you finish this process, you may hear something from the state. SBSD Owl Camera: on some mandatory outcomes that you need to be part of. I'm happy to forward you information on that if, SBSD Owl Camera: The second thing that I… I didn't talk much about my background. SBSD Owl Camera: You know, I manage businesses based on manufacturing, you know, globally. SBSD Owl Camera: And,

120SBSD Owl Camera: The biggest issue in, you know, the two gentlemen who represented the electrical industry and construction industry talked about, I went through that in my professional career, 15 years ago. SBSD Owl Camera: Hard to find people. SBSD Owl Camera: There was a whole bunch of… SBSD Owl Camera: Manufacturing sites where we had leg… what we called them as legacy sites. SBSD Owl Camera: People in their 50s, they've worked for the company for 35, 40 years. SBSD Owl Camera: There is no one in the pipeline. SBSD Owl Camera: And you go around to the local schools. SBSD Owl Camera: this was 10, 15 years ago, you know, people were not interested in becoming a chemical operator or a master electrician. Everybody was aspiring for some academic program, and there was a huge mismatch. SBSD

121Owl Camera: And we, you know, we suffered through that, and, you know, so I just want to reinforce that, that SBSD Owl Camera: But schools need to be aligned with what is happening around SBSD Owl Camera: from an industry perspective, from a workforce perspective, so I would encourage you to reach out to more people and, you know, get input on this. And that's why I think being connected to the economic development team would be very informative. So, thank you. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: But, Gerald, do we… does the school offer any kind of, like, career testing that might show where a person's interest on? SBSD Owl Camera: It's the ACT, isn't it? No, I'm talking about career testing, like, that's what the ACT tests… that's… it will tell you what your… SBSD Owl Camera:

122We have not, like, super mandatory or formal, but I know when the guidance sets you up with the store, which is, like, the… SBSD Owl Camera: the things I use to manage college applications, they, like, send out a, like, career quiz type of thing. Like, what? Like, you answer a bunch of questions, and they give you some things that they might be interested in. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so I mean, I don't know the answer to that specific question. I remember when I was in high school, they set us down, and we had to take the little nuts and bolts and put them on. They measured all that kind of stuff to see what our activity was. I don't know what, if anything, we're doing here other than, SBSD Owl Camera: I know we do

123HT, SAT, but that's not… some of the problem. Yeah, I mean, it would just be… SBSD Owl Camera: redemptive to, you know, for… like, I had a cousin. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't want to say he was a drift, but he just wasn't… didn't know what he wanted to do. SBSD Owl Camera: He was given a test link, can't remember what it was. SBSD Owl Camera: And when they were going over it, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: his top score was, like a chef. He's like, I love to cook. Oh, he went to a culinary institute. He's been a chef for 30-something years, so… SBSD Owl Camera: And he's happy, but I was just wondering if we had anything like that that might be able to point kids who aren't sure where their interests lie.

124SBSD Owl Camera: Have you heard of… I mean, there's a book, I remember reading it years ago, What Color Is Your Parachute? Yeah, and it's the… and it's, I mean, I'm just looking, you know, Interactive Career and Self-Discovery book, and we have it for high school and college students. It helps young adults identify their favorite skills, core values. SBSD Owl Camera: and ideal work environments to plan their future careers and college majors. And some schools, I'm just looking it up, actually do have it where they integrate it into the curriculum, starting young. SBSD Owl Camera: And as, was it Kendall who, from the Department of Labor had said, you know, it's… so bringing this in consistently throughout school, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Not just… You want to discover that early. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's

125not because we're trying to, like, have people decide what jobs they want. SBSD Owl Camera: when they're in kindergarten, is that they wanna, like, you wanna, you know, like, for in my case. SBSD Owl Camera: I stayed in from a recess in middle school and did the thing that I now do for my day job, and I love it, you know? And it's like, you gotta discover that early, instead of waiting until junior or senior year, you know? I mean, if it's something that we can establish here that could help… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, I'll ask our folks to see what we do. I'll put in the board update if we do or not, but I think, yeah, if not, I'm hearing the same thing. You are. There's a huge thirst for more of

126these. SBSD Owl Camera: exposure to a lot of different, skills and classes, and allowing kids to explore so they can figure out what they want to do. Yeah, figure out what they want to do for the purposes of living in joy, not necessarily getting paid back. Exactly, and it's like has been said here by many people, you know, everybody… not everybody. SBSD Owl Camera: But a large majority think that, you know, well, you have to go to college, and that's just, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: the case. You don't have to go to college. There are… and some people just aren't built for it, but they are built for going through an apprenticeship program, or, you know, that's… might be where their true interests or passion lies. SBSD Owl Camera: And I will say, too,

127during this interview process with students on the school board. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, one of the things that really impressed me was there was a student who had indicated that they really missed the hands-on learning. They said, we love, you know, elementary school, middle school, you're doing hands-on learning, and then all of a sudden, you get into, like, high school, and it's… here's a test, and… SBSD Owl Camera: You know, or study this, what was it? We just talked out all day, or something like that, and it's like, yeah, school's not fun. And so, part of the, you know, part of that is, you know, that's part of the reason we wanted to have this diverse perspective, and someone who's going to be studying at the CTE next year, so it's like, we want

128to hear these voices. SBSD Owl Camera: And bring mine in, something that's really important to others. Like, yeah, my nephew, he… SBSD Owl Camera: college, boom, wasn't for him. Now he… he went through an electrical apprenticeship program. SBSD Owl Camera: And I was making the big bucks. I know there used to be a career… maybe it was called the Career Development Center, in South Burlington? SBSD Owl Camera: when I was in school there in the 90s, and it felt like it was very much geared towards people who were not choosing to go to college, but I could see it could be incredibly helpful for all students, and this one woman, I think her last name was LaVonde? SBSD Owl Camera: She was amazing, and she made… she developed these really… SBSD Owl Camera: relationship with

129the kids and help them realize that there are careers. It reminds me of what you were saying about bringing people in the community in to say, this is what we need in South Burlington, this is what we need in Vermont. SBSD Owl Camera: thinking, well, I could do that job, or that one sounds interesting to me, and just… SBSD Owl Camera: So, I can't remember exactly what it's called, but… Is it the Vermont Student Assistance Corporation? No, this was, in… actually in the school. There was a person, she worked in the library. It was, like, a little office within the library, and kids would go and work with her to find… they would get jobs SBSD Owl Camera: while they were still working, like, or while they're still in school, you know. Anyway, just, I

130feel like when I was in… going down to college, there was just not… not this idea of what a career was next. It's just, well, I go to my lawyer's degree, then whatever happens from there, but… SBSD Owl Camera: I think it could be really helpful, to have some… something like that. Little schoolers, I think, said that when they were here a couple of weeks ago, when they're thinking about it already, so there's the appetite. Yeah, there's something called, like, the strong test, strong interests. SBSD Owl Camera: Pastor a strong interest in inventory there. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. I'm looking at a second account. Vermont Student Assistance Corporation, they have a planning and college do a career self-assessment to learn about who you are, what you enjoy, what you're good at, academically. SBSD Owl Camera:

131Let me send an email to our, guidance, if they'll find out. What do we do? Yeah, great, thanks, Deb. I'll let you know. SBSD Owl Camera: So maybe this is a great transition point for us to go into an action item on monitoring ends, yeah, which is our monitor report for today. Is there… is that… is the board amenable to moving on to the next item? I just want to say thanks to everyone who came here. It's really great. Thank you very much. It's nice to meet you. We continue to… SBSD Owl Camera: Come and make comments about it. SBSD Owl Camera: And we are monitoring an ENS policy. To Srini, your point on accountability. This is… this is our accountability. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry if I'm out of order,

132but we already moved out in line. All right, so the discussion item that was originally scheduled to happen after the community forum on the school board website update, that happened, around 6-15. SBSD Owl Camera: This evening, so we've already covered that, so we're now going to go straight on to the action item monitoring report 1.0 ends, specifically 1.1 disposition for learning, and 1.3, personal development. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, we're gonna start with 1.1. And I will, Nicole's gonna do that one, and I will state that this is, the first time that we've looked at the SBSD Owl Camera: There are four elements in 1.0, and they've always been combined for one monitoring report. SBSD Owl Camera: This is the first time that we are breaking them down into four separate categories, and also, we've

133learned that there has not been a monitoring report on Policy 1.0 since 2022. SBSD Owl Camera: It was the first time in four years that we've even talked about this, so Srini is going to be very disappointed that… There's no… her responses are going to be there's not a lot of them. All I have to say is, timing. Yeah, because yet's the big word. So, Nicole, I'll turn on the human accountable. SBSD Owl Camera: Ice cream. One sec. Yeah, yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Boom. SBSD Owl Camera: Hello. Good to see you. SBSD Owl Camera: I see it on… I was gonna say, I see it on that computer. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Nick, for… Figuring out the infection. SBSD Owl Camera: And he wants to compete. SBSD Owl Camera: And the… while we're

134waiting for that, for the, SBSD Owl Camera: more information about the roof is in your… SBSD Owl Camera: I don't even see my list, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Okay! SBSD Owl Camera: Disposition for learning. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Nick. SBSD Owl Camera: If you click with my voice, I'll try to… Okay, so monitoring report, so this report is, SBSD Owl Camera: about a framework for measuring student readiness to adapt, to think independently, to reason with evidence, to collaborate, and to grow as lifelong learners. On some level, in my head, I want you to know I sort of call this the executive functioning report. It's not exactly aligned with the definition of executive functioning, but it has a lot of mention points. SBSD Owl Camera: So, breaking it down into six categories, disposition for learning

135is… for lifelong learning is currently defined as students being able to understanding and have the skills for inquiry and creativity. SBSD Owl Camera: For adaptation to the context, right, depending on who your audience is and what the task is. For evidence-based reasoning, for taking perspective, for reasoned problem solving, and for collaboration and leadership. SBSD Owl Camera: I think earlier, the person from the Labor Department was talking about the quote-unquote soft skills. This is also, I think, an action point with that. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: And to be clear, the things that you just showed on the screen are the words of the ENS policy that this board first defined 10 years ago, and is up for discussion. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: The superintendent's interpretation that I'm sharing with

136you is that we would be in compliance with meeting those ends when we can essentially do five things. We can show the students routinely demonstrate these things, so we have evidence that they're doing it. SBSD Owl Camera: When they can adapt their communication, when they can use evidence, and when we can show growth over time through multiple measures. That's sort of… SBSD Owl Camera: the biggest piece in terms of the accountability part of this. And then, when the gaps are identified, right, so when we're looking at the data over time, then we implement something to attend to the areas that are not growing or not taking root with kids. SBSD Owl Camera: This is your compliance rubric in different colors. Beginning, approaching, Proficient, and Advanced. I don't think there's anything new about the rubric. SBSD

137Owl Camera: And I put it there because I want to say, once again. SBSD Owl Camera: With the no shame, no blame, we're at beginning compliance because I, was unable to find anything that had multiple measures where I could accurately say where we are with monitoring lifelong learning. SBSD Owl Camera: If you go to the next one, I'll show you what I did find. What I was able to find, and the Gertrude Chamberlain Principal Holly, helped me find this, is that currently on our report cards, K-5, those of you who have K-5 children or have recently been SBSD Owl Camera: through K-5, know that at the top of the report card, responsible, reflective, cooperative, attentive, accountable, and resourceful. SBSD Owl Camera: Are measured for each individual child by their classroom teacher in all three schools.

138SBSD Owl Camera: And the charts that I've provided for you are out of EduClimber, showing how kids were doing, in the most recent iteration of the report card. And I'm not showing you necessarily to say, let's talk about the data, but instead to say that, this was, at one point. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, a colleague could tell me the year, I can't remember. This was a response to this policy, that individual teachers would be, grading kids based on these. Consistently, satisfactorily, unsatisfactorily, and one other. SBSD Owl Camera: So… There is evidence that there was, an approach that it's still being implemented. SBSD Owl Camera: And, as you can see, it's not in all of our schools, it's not multimodal, and it's by individual teachers. I'm not clear when I looked into it if there's

139even an alignment amongst teachers about what the things mean and what you're looking for. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is a good example of hard to measure. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, well… Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, hard to know why. We're gonna recommend a way to measure it. That's why I was sort of like, yeah, it is hard to measure, and that is why, my recommendation to Dr. Clark is that, we measure it in multiple ways, so that we can have, SBSD Owl Camera: many different measures of informing progress. So if you go to the next slide. SBSD Owl Camera: These, I did a lot of reading, a lot of listening, and I brought these to Joe as my recommendations. I also brought them to Kathy DeNatalie and Tom McKinley, who are the curriculum coordinators

140for feedback. SBSD Owl Camera: That if the district were to, direct leadership to focus on instructional rounds, Which, SBSD Owl Camera: our… when you think about, for those of you who watch TV shows about doctors in medical rounds, the focus isn't on, is the teacher doing a good job, is the doctor doing a good job? Instead, it's what's the presentation, what's happening in the classroom, how are students doing, what do we see that their instruction looks like, and it's a group of people. SBSD Owl Camera: who are not just administrators, so it's teachers, administrators, sometimes stakeholders, community members coming in and all looking together, and then having conversation about what they're seeing, not in the teacher's performance. That's not the goal. The goal is instead, what does learning look like? What are… how are students,

141right, what are they showing? What are we… what do they see? So that's one. SBSD Owl Camera: The second is to increase student and family voice, to have leadership bring in regular feedback from students and families about what's happening. SBSD Owl Camera: In school, and to, at a minimum, do it twice a year in every school. SBSD Owl Camera: The third, which is right now, I think, the strongest one in the district, in fact, I think almost every school SBSD Owl Camera: does it in some iteration is looking at data, right? Where are the gaps? What's going on? And to some degree, the state mandates we do it. It's also best practice, and so a lot of our schools do it. So you would have what's going on in the classroom for students. SBSD Owl

142Camera: What are students and families saying about what's going on? What is the data showing us? And then lastly, and I think I've heard you all talk about this. SBSD Owl Camera: But that's… SBSD Owl Camera: Is, auditing what's going on with the curriculum and with the tasks that we're asking students to complete to… to figure out, SBSD Owl Camera: what are we doing, how are staff doing implementing it, and what do we need to support our curriculum with, to strengthen it for disposition for lifelong learning? So these are four practices that I guess, here, right now, I'm recommending to Dr. Clark that we bring forward two administrators. SBSD Owl Camera: Where they can then say, what does this mean? Is this going to do the thing? How do we want to do it? What

143would it look like? And really begin to flesh it out, as a part of our, instructional improvement. SBSD Owl Camera: And it feels like these are things that would apply to more than just SBSD Owl Camera: like, you know, 1. Like, these meth… some of these methods are pretty… SBSD Owl Camera: applicable problems, so you might kill multiple birds with one, so… Yes. Yep. Had a very similar thought, that these are really transferable, given the state of our discussion, to possibly new ends, but these are really… and I… I very much appreciate the multiple measures kind of profile approach. SBSD Owl Camera: Given that there isn't, you know… you don't measure these things like you measure how much math is due, because I'm… SBSD Owl Camera: So, I have a question. Would this happen to

144get to the topic of leadership review sample tasks across grade levels? SBSD Owl Camera: audit checks if rigor is consistent with staff experience levels, and whether accommodations maintain cognitive duties. I get that. And I'm wondering also, like, the output-related testing, because some of the feedback that I've heard at, like, student council meetings that we've sat in on is. SBSD Owl Camera: we're seeing, you know, different teachers, there's grading that's different, and will that help to drive some of that? Okay, that's where that would come from? Yeah. These are, I mean, like, in their essence, what you all are noticing is these are very high-leverage practices, right? Like, in a complex system where there's many things happening at once, even within one classroom, these get to many of all those different things, and are not just

145going to impact this position. SBSD Owl Camera: Right. For learning. SBSD Owl Camera: It's gonna, right, it's gonna raise where there's red flags about X, Y, or Z. It's gonna help us see that. Where there's places where there's green flags, where we are doing a really good job, which is happening in so many places. How do we strengthen that, right? It's really easy for us to get focused on what are our problems and how do we fix them, but most of the research says, look at what you're doing well, how it's working, and make more of it happen. And that's what this will surface. SBSD Owl Camera: And then also, I think, complementing that with the student and family voice as well is important. Now, how is that going to be different than what we

146see from Link Panorama? Like, how would that… That's a great question. SBSD Owl Camera: Panorama, as we implement it now, and there's lots of ways to implement it, is students, anonymously fill out the survey. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we have another set of measures for staff to fill it out, and then I believe we have a family one. SBSD Owl Camera: which is a… which is, all software related. This, I think, we could find a way, the part about it that I have to tell you I have a bias towards is the family focus groups, so bringing people together. SBSD Owl Camera: I think that could be different. SBSD Owl Camera: Could we use Panorama for some of this? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: But I don't think we want to limit ourselves to Panorama.

147And the questions we're asking in this are different than the questions that we're asking in Panorama. Panorama a lot, like belonging and those sorts of things, where this is your preparation for learning. Right. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I guess what I was thinking is, would it be rolled out in a similar platform like Panorama? Is that kind of the vision? Like, how would that be… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, perception survey. When I'm thinking of surveys, like, how are you getting a good distribution? SBSD Owl Camera: Right? An adequate representation of people in that. I think that's a good question to bring to… that we're planning to bring to administrators. Okay. Because I think SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, you all know this, that what makes something strong in a school district is when the

148people who are implementing help build it, and so if Dr. Clark says, these are the things we're focused on, then it'll be our work to say, so SBSD Owl Camera: How Julie want to do this? SBSD Owl Camera: Which I imagine we would then share with you. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I mean, when we say there's a lot of work to do, there's a lot of work to do. Oh, yeah, this is a lot of this work to do, and that's why I know we've been coming a lot with beginning compliance, beginning… approaching compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: It's because we have to do this work to get us to the next one. It's exciting, and it's… there's a lot of it, but we're gonna get there. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, Gunat. I think there's one

149more slide. SBSD Owl Camera: So this, again, is a proposed report schedule, so as we built this out and talked about it, the idea of, finding ways to spread this throughout the year so that accountability measures are spread out. And so the idea of having walkthroughs on a monthly basis, SBSD Owl Camera: The research suggests that that's the right cadence for it. SBSD Owl Camera: Quarterly, right, so that what we would look at the data. We're all… we're doing it right now three times. We have set times because of our universal screener, so we… we can shift that up. SBSD Owl Camera: twice yearly for parents, and then, to have everything completed to report to the board. I also built it in, so that there would be a mid-year report to the superintendent and an

150end-of-year report to the superintendent, because I think it's easy in schools because so many things happen, as I know you know. SBSD Owl Camera: To lose sight of something if you don't have to report about it till the end of the year. SBSD Owl Camera: I think that concludes my report to the Bullet. SBSD Owl Camera: The next step from here, if Joe says, yes, move forward with this, would be, we have 5… 4 or 5 days of administrative PD development this summer, that we would bring this forward to principals. SBSD Owl Camera: To talk about if this is the framework, how do we want to implement it? Do we want to implement it all at once? Do we want to break it down in sections? And to make a plan? SBSD Owl Camera: For

151the next 3 years. Good. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, into, SBSD Owl Camera: give the spoiler, yes, I'm in favor of it, and I also think that we need to… we definitely, like Nicole said, to make this work, we have to have everybody work together on it. So, we are coming up with these lofty ideas and principles. SBSD Owl Camera: will help us, focus those and tell us things that have the local quantity. But there needs to be SBSD Owl Camera: my opinion, some consistent, fundamental, things that we do that will, next May, we'll begin this report and be able to show you that SBSD Owl Camera: We have actual measures that we can tell you about. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Can I share my screen for just one second? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Would it

152be advantageous to sync up that timing for a rollout with… SBSD Owl Camera: the work that… that we're doing, so that's… isn't that interesting? Because if the end's policy changes, then this changes, right? Well, that's what I mean, that sounds like a pretty heavy lift. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: I… I don't imagine… again, I… you'll do the ENS policies. I imagine that there will still be some sort of academic focus in our ENS policies, and this is good work to do, because it will help us, SBSD Owl Camera: be stronger academically when we're doing these things, even what the policy is, right? Yeah, and I just wanted to tie it back for the board. SBSD Owl Camera: For everybody, this is the document that we're editing over the next few months, and

153the thing that we just talked about, it's… SBSD Owl Camera: 6 little bullet points, but… They really cover a lot, and so it's an important thing to read them. SBSD Owl Camera: And I guess, I'm not sure if I was clear about this. With a plan like this, you know, for instance, if you just, like, the data SBSD Owl Camera: would be a medium lift, but instructional rounds would be a huge lift, because it's a change in practice. So that might be that we just spend the next year learning how to do instructional rounds, whereas we can definitely bring all the data together, and we could have SBSD Owl Camera: more parent and student feedback, so I don't know that it's all gonna go forward at the same speed, just to be really clear. SBSD

154Owl Camera: Three, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any other board comment or question on 1.1? SBSD Owl Camera: then I would entertain a motion to… monitor… SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to monitor report… SBSD Owl Camera: 1.1 disposition for learning, according to the SBSD Owl Camera: Monitoring rubric provided in the board materials. SBSD Owl Camera: We'll make a motion. SBSD Owl Camera: Dan, motions? SBSD Owl Camera: We'll second. Laura seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: ask a question? Please, follow up. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I've… the rest of them, I felt like I've understood the report great. This one, I have a question. I feel like… SBSD Owl Camera: I feel like the interpretation is really good at everything, and I would rate that really high, but since the poll couldn't

155find that much data, does that even part… like, would that make me rank lower on the compliance? SBSD Owl Camera: if that's not available. Do you know what I mean? It's a… that's a great question. The way I think about it is, does the report allow you SBSD Owl Camera: does it give you enough information to make a rating? And technically, even the absence of that information gives you enough information to make the rating, right? And they've also provided an indication, Nicole has indicated that SBSD Owl Camera: She feels that she's the… where our district is at, beginning compliance here, because we're really just… SBSD Owl Camera: starting to steer the ship in that direction, where it hasn't been before. There was nothing really to fill around. SBSD Owl Camera: Gotcha. Perfect. Thank you. SBSD

156Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: So, again, there's a monitoring report section and a district outcome, so I'm going to go around the room. This time, I'm going to start with you, Dan. SBSD Owl Camera: And, you're gonna give me a 0 to 4. 1. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so, monitoring report, Dan… Warren. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, sweet. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? SBSD Owl Camera: Laura? Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Number two. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? SBSD Owl Camera: I would say I am a 2, also. SBSD Owl Camera: 3. I want 3. SBSD Owl Camera: book. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so Allie is a 3, and Mom is a 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, and then the next section is the actual district outcomes. SBSD Owl Camera:

157And so I'm gonna start with you again, Dan. SBSD Owl Camera: A… Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa… so it was Michelle won, Alyssa won, Laura? SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, sorry, could you do know what you said? Okay, Two… I'm a 2. SBSD Owl Camera: So, Laura 2, Seamus, 2, again. SBSD Owl Camera: 110. Here. SBSD Owl Camera: Go on. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily, who… Allie is 1. SBSD Owl Camera: moment, too. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. And, the compliance plan, I believe that would be the four, the walkthroughs, the data-driven, all that stuff. Compliance plan acceptable? Dan? SBSD Owl Camera: What the plan is to… fixed, really? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: true. SBSD Owl Camera: It's, it's a yes, Janice. Oh, sorry, or yes? SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Dan, yes? Michelle? SBSD Owl

158Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Seamus, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Moment, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, all right. Thank you very much. We'll move on to Monitor Report 1.3. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is… SBSD Owl Camera: Personal development. Yep, and that would be me, and it would typically be Monica, but she's gone. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, so, let me share with you what I'm doing. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I, I, took… SBSD Owl Camera: Jen's advice from our last time we did this, last time I was here, that it was done, and I put together, and I used your four slides, Jen. So the first slide is, what is policy

159governance, and why does it exist? I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just a reminder to everybody, this is why we're doing what we're doing. And this is the, SBSD Owl Camera: These are our policies and our executive limitations, and the one we are working on today is personal development. SBSD Owl Camera: So, and I did the one… this is what you're going to see. Am I right before? What you're going to see is that our key takeaways is SBSD Owl Camera: We also are beginning compliance here. We need to set some baseline measures for this policy. Again, it's the first time these items in Policy 1.0 have been addressed individually, and it's the first time, this policy's been monitored since, January 19th, 2022. SBSD Owl Camera: At that time, the data that

160was presented for this was the things that you have talked to me about that you don't want, a giant list of all the different stuff that we're doing. So what we need to do, similar to the report that Nicole just gave, is we need to decide what our measures are going to be for each component, develop a timeline, and the principals would submit a report to me. SBSD Owl Camera: to give to the board. So that is why I believe we are, we are beginning compliance. Our big gap overall is we haven't been monitored for 4 years. SBSD Owl Camera: We do have some practices in place. Some of these things we're going to do naturally, but it's not in any kind of, SBSD Owl Camera: deliberative or intentional way. So our, again, our path

161to improvement, determine the measures, develop a timeline, and submit the data to me. So I'm gonna… SBSD Owl Camera: Let me stop sharing that one. I'm gonna start sharing my other… SBSD Owl Camera: When I get… when I get tired, I said. SBSD Owl Camera: Keep in No? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so the, SBSD Owl Camera: In Policy 1.3, the policy being monitored, that is verbatim from what our ends policy is. Students will use self-awareness and interpersonal skills to effectively enhance their own performance and collaborate with others. SBSD Owl Camera: By developing an awareness of their individual learning styles, interests, and passions, clarifying goals, aspirations, and post-secondary plans, building capacity to make informed and healthy decisions, living responsibly with confidence, resilience, and adaptability, demonstrating effective time management and organizational skills. SBSD Owl Camera: Building supportive

162relationships and respectfully, advocating for self and others. Again, I think we're doing a lot of this stuff, but very few, probably other than, number two, are we doing in any, like, meaningful, meaningful, purposeful way. SBSD Owl Camera: So, sure. Emily, when you look at this, is this what you're talking about? SBSD Owl Camera: When you're saying, like. SBSD Owl Camera: it's too… it's too much? Like, is this, like, too high of a goal, or is it improperly praised, or… SBSD Owl Camera: I love all of these things, I think they're amazing, but I feel like, yeah, it's hard to pin down exactly SBSD Owl Camera: high level, and… And that's how I feel like it's just… it's… SBSD Owl Camera: Hard to bring down exactly what we're trying to want these kids to do, or,

163like. SBSD Owl Camera: I guess that's what I'm saying. And hard to measure. Yeah, better, and hard to measure, yeah. Hey, second grader, do you know your learning style? Right. Or… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. The stuff you mentioned. SBSD Owl Camera: But it's our current end policy, so we're going to find a way to do it. Yeah, living responsibly with confidence, resilience, and adaptability. It means different things to different people, like, you know, the idea of lifelong learning. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. I can learn how to change a tire, right? And I can… it's so variable. Exactly. But I do love them, so I… That's the thing, is they're… you can't look at them and say, oh, that's bad, right? It's not bad, it's just… SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so then you'll see my component

164definitions and what it looks like to be successful, SBSD Owl Camera: But I think, more importantly, this is what we get down to, you know, the outcome is that we have not really done anything since 2022. SBSD Owl Camera: So, let me talk about… SBSD Owl Camera: well, we can look at the rubric. There are a couple things we're doing, like self-awareness, beginning. The goals and aspirations of post-secondary planning, I would say, approaching… that might… that might even be… SBSD Owl Camera: I would say it's proficient, at the high school, and we actually had a great, communication with Patrick today about the… the goals for seniors as they graduate. That data, I thought, was fantastic that they prepare. So they do some stuff like that. It's just not ever… it's not at all places. SBSD

165Owl Camera: Informed healthy decision making, limited, or beginning. Evidence of coping and Perseverance. SBSD Owl Camera: Limited, limited, limited. Continuous improvement response… actions taken, but we do have a response to continuous improvement, and we can get better at that. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so when we look at… what I really want to get to is, what's our executive summit? What are we going to do to get better here? So, first of all, we need to come up with a… and I'm reading from the second paragraph here. We need to establish a small set of common measures aligned in each component of the policy, using two types of evidence for each. I want to have SBSD Owl Camera: two, measures for each of those six or seven items that are there. Student evidence and system indicators,

166like, are kids participating? Are they completing things? Are they engaged? SBSD Owl Camera: What are some other quantitative measures in addition to what are the students' ability with their performance or different artifacts that they provide? SBSD Owl Camera: I… and again, this is yet to be built, right? This is, like Nicole said, this is the big picture, we'll take it to our administrators and say, okay, how are we going to do this? But I do see an annual cycle, including a fall baseline collection, a mid-year review. SBSD Owl Camera: And then a spring collection to see how have we done? Have we made progress over the years? Principals would then submit an annual report to me, talking about all of these things that we're measuring, how the kids are doing. There's always, of course, going

167to be an equity review in these to see if there's any gaps between different subgroups. SBSD Owl Camera: And I'll compile these reports for the, monitor report. SBSD Owl Camera: Hopefully, what this will allow the board to do is see that we are making consistent gains in student personal development, that we're understanding what our trends are, and we're evaluating our progress using the rubric. SBSD Owl Camera: It creates an accountable structure for us, and of course, we'll continue to work on things that show us that we're not hitting there. SBSD Owl Camera: Again, I know that that is all incredibly nebulous, because it is incredibly nebulous. At this point, what I could say is, it hasn't been measured in 4 years, we haven't done anything with it this year, but, as long as this continues

168to be an end next year, there will be all available. SBSD Owl Camera: It'll start over the summer on those 5 days. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any board questions or comments? SBSD Owl Camera: Just really excited about you guys, kind of, about these, and just gonna make them… SBSD Owl Camera: Something that students could actually SBSD Owl Camera: And, like, they're doing, probably doing it all day… all day long, or many students are doing these things, but we're not capturing them. This one particularly, I just think it's more complex than it needs to be. When we could find a simple way to measure these things, that would be so much better than what we're doing now, which is just throwing stuff at the wall. I… I also think that it's, SBSD Owl Camera: It's

169like, SBSD Owl Camera: it really gives us a sense as a board, like, imagine if these were your goals, you know? Can I share the screen? Can I grab the screen again? I'm just gonna bring up this document. SBSD Owl Camera: So, what we're talking about is 1.3 personal development, right? SBSD Owl Camera: Imagine if this was what your boss told you you had to accomplish, you know? And obviously, like. SBSD Owl Camera: There is a whole very highly educated and competent and experienced administration team behind our schools, so you can assign them difficult goals, but when the goals are SBSD Owl Camera: so officious, and, you know, it's just… it's a… we can see the pain of trying to, like, accomplish these things. Yeah, how confident, resilient, and adaptable are the people that report

170to you, or are your customers? Yeah. That's a tough… that's a tough challenge. SBSD Owl Camera: But I also appreciate that you're saying, if we don't change these, you will… We're gonna do it. Yeah, that's my job, is to do what these policy are, so… I think it's also interesting, I don't know if you're going to bring up the… SBSD Owl Camera: survey that we took before coming here today. I need to go back and take… Okay, well, I just… looking at the policy, the ENS policies, and me realizing that my least favorite one is the academic one, in terms of just, like, the future, and what I think the kids need SBSD Owl Camera: Of course, they need all the academics, but the soft skills that Kendall was talking about, and, those are, like,

171so mean to me, and so, like, important to kind of put some real focus on, because it's always been academic, but… SBSD Owl Camera: That's a couple pictures, so… Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Anything else? Some short and sweet, and beginning component. Okay. Thanks, Ken. SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to monitor 1.3 personal development. SBSD Owl Camera: Using the rubric provided in the board pack materials. SBSD Owl Camera: I move. Laura moves. Second. Jen seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. The motion passes, so now we'll do the monitoring, and this time we'll start with Moment again. SBSD Owl Camera: So, first we're asking about the monitoring report itself. How… SBSD Owl Camera: like Michelle was saying, to what extent does it allow you to make a judgment SBSD

172Owl Camera: on their actual outcomes. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: So, moment. SBSD Owl Camera: One. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? SBSD Owl Camera: Cute. SBSD Owl Camera: Jamie. SBSD Owl Camera: I would say 1. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a 2. Laura? 2. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? 2. SBSD Owl Camera: Bjourn. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I'm true. SBSD Owl Camera: Let me ask a question. I mean, I'm glad that we're all going through and doing this, but Joe, in yours, did you not provide what you think it is? SBSD Owl Camera: Did you not provide… you had indicated that you were a 1, right? I think that's more in the outcome. Which is important. There's no dumb questions when it comes to policy governance, because I think my report is genius. SBSD Owl

173Camera: Excuse me. SBSD Owl Camera: The board… does anybody want to change their vote based on that discussion? Totally fine. So that… so I think that your… what you wrote… SBSD Owl Camera: I would say is… is a 2, but the outcome there, I would say, is… is a 1. So, were you a once? I was a once and over. Right, so I'm just gonna move here to a 2. SBSD Owl Camera: Great, okay. So the next one is actually on the outcomes, and we'll start with moment again, one. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Allie? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: One. Emily? 1. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that someone. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a 2. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura, so on. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? One. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Once… Yeah. SBSD Owl

174Camera: Okay, and then, is the compliance plan acceptable at the moment? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie. Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Evelyn. Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: John. Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a yes. Laura? Yes. Alyssa? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Dan? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: One thing real quick. If you can, can you share your screen again? Because I would like to show folks SBSD Owl Camera: when we're talking about measuring and accountability and some of the transparency, I don't know if the audience has seen, or the community has seen before, on the website, when we monitor the policies, we're actually putting up there SBSD Owl Camera: all of this information and the numbers, do you know what I'm talking about? On the school board website? Can you

175just… It's not totally up to date. No, I know, but just… that's okay. Realize it's not totally up-to-date, but it will be. But I just want to show people, you know, as we're going through and we're looking at these monitoring reports, it's nice that you have this SBSD Owl Camera: Kind of value now, so you can quantitatively see how things are… are changing. SBSD Owl Camera: Just very quickly. So the standard school board website… Yep, and then you scroll down, and there it is. See, there's the scorecards? This is where I was asking for a little bit of help to just SBSD Owl Camera: calculate the average, and then put it into these, and then just… Yep. But then, what we want to do is put in here links to the actual monitoring report. You

176can click on it, you can see when we reviewed it. SBSD Owl Camera: you can see what that score is, and I think we need a legend somewhere in there to say what that interpretation means, and what the compliance means. But it's… SBSD Owl Camera: In the process of being updated. Oh, yes. So the actual rubric. Yeah, that's the most explanatory. People know what it means. But then you can see, like, alright, if there's a gap, then what's the plan to get it to, you know, to proficient or advanced compliance? Right. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Can I just make a quick comment on that? We can't do it right now. Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Okay, so, at this point, I'm gonna suggest that we take a one-minute break just to walk around. SBSD Owl Camera:

1773 minutes. We'll be back here at 8. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Probably… I think it's me. SBSD Owl Camera: get started. We're on the homestretch. We've got two more agenda items. The first one is Superintendent report, so I will turn it over to SBSD Owl Camera: Yup. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I am going to, SBSD Owl Camera: give you a report that Seamus had asked me to look into, and I was happy to do that, and it's about, SBSD Owl Camera: what I titled, Student Expression, Staff Responsibilities, and Legal Neutrality in Public Schools. SBSD Owl Camera: And so… Welcome, sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: I need to move this way, you'll change the cell. SBSD Owl Camera: Our responsibility as a public district clearly is supporting student learning, and we need to constantly remind ourselves that

178we have to treat students fairly, regardless of their beliefs, their identities, their points of view. Every student that comes to school has the right to a quality education. SBSD Owl Camera: Regardless of whether we agree or disagree with where they stand on, on a variety of issues. SBSD Owl Camera: Why does this matter? Because we are a school district that serves students and families with many different beliefs, backgrounds, identities, and life experiences. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, our goal is not to avoid disagreeing with other folks, but our goal is to make sure that any disagreement is handled in ways that are lawful and, respectful and developmentally appropriate. SBSD Owl Camera: So, our core principle when we talk about this is students do not need to agree with one another, their teachers, or the school district

179in order to be respected. SBSD Owl Camera: And, at the same time, student expression does not protect people from harassing or threatening, or intimidating, or bullying other folks. So there's… sometimes that's a fine line that we need to monitor. SBSD Owl Camera: What's the legal framework for this? Well, the First Amendment, right? The First Amendment applies to public schools. Students, particularly, the Supreme Court said, do not lose First Amendment rights when they walk into the schoolhouse doors. SBSD Owl Camera: Students retain free expression rights at school. SBSD Owl Camera: But those rights exist within the school's responsibility to maintain safety, order, and an appropriate learning environment. So therefore, you know, kids can't say anything they want if it's going to cause a safety risk. You can't… you can't yell fire, right, in a crowded theater.

180SBSD Owl Camera: And schools can respond when that speech materially disrupts with school operations. That's been held to be a very high standard. What materially disrupts school operations is more than just, it's making a few kids mad that you have that shirt on, right? It needs to be something that substantially disrupts what's going on. SBSD Owl Camera: In the school. SBSD Owl Camera: These are the important cases that when you, when you're, an educator, education, administrator, school administrator, you learn about these in your law classes. Tinker Des Moines, that's the, shirt, shirt case where students have a constitutional right to school. SBSD Owl Camera: Hazelwood Kuhlmeyer, schools have more authority over school-sponsored speech when the decisions are tied to legitimate educational reasons. SBSD Owl Camera: And the, Mahano… I can't say this… Mahanoi Area School

181District versus BL, schools have some authority regarding off-campus speech, but it's really, really limited. So, in general, for the most part, kids can say almost anything they want outside of school. SBSD Owl Camera: Even on social media, as long as they're not, you know, using school equipment, or if it's not causing SBSD Owl Camera: substantial disruption in school. There's a famous case about some cheerleaders who were just ripping a teacher, and the courts found that that was not substantially disrupting school, and when the school wanted to discipline them, they were told they could not. SBSD Owl Camera: There are also federal civil rights laws that impact this sort of thing. Title VI, of course, protects against discrimination based on race. Title IX is a sex-based discrimination law, and Section 504 protects students with disabilities from

182discrimination. SBSD Owl Camera: So, now it gets to the point where I think, is really, I think, what Seamus was hoping we would get to. Student clubs and equal access. If a public secondary school allows non-curricular student groups, access must be handled consistently. SBSD Owl Camera: We can't… SBSD Owl Camera: treat student groups differently simply because adults agree or disagree with the religious, political, philosophical, or other content of the student's speech. Therefore, you know, to be extreme, if you have a Fellowship of Christian Athletes group, and a Satanist group wanted to form, we would have to allow them. We cannot discriminate based on what the beliefs of the people SBSD Owl Camera: Paul. SBSD Owl Camera: Vermont law also has a few things that are unique here. There's a lot of protection for student journalists

183in school. Of course, they still can't libel or violate privacy or those sorts of things, but other than that, Vermont student journalists, if you're in the year bone group, if you're on the school paper, you have a lot of flexibility to publish what you want. SBSD Owl Camera: And the Vermont law also protects school library materials from being removed simply because of partisan disagreement, right? So if you have somebody, you hear somebody in the community that, I don't like that book, it's inappropriate, there's too much, SBSD Owl Camera: Sexual content, there's too much violence. SBSD Owl Camera: That you can't remove it simply because it is objected to by, by somebody for those sorts of things. SBSD Owl Camera: harassment, hazing, and bullying. Of course, this is a Vermont law also, that we need to

184make sure that our kids are not being harassed, hazed, or bullied. We need to protect student expression while also responding appropriately to harassment, hazing, and bullying, discrimination. So if we take it SBSD Owl Camera: You know, really, SBSD Owl Camera: down home, right, to something we saw this year. If there's a, like, an ICE event that goes on, and there are students who are concerned about, ICE thinking they're overreaching, and there are students who are thinking that ICE is doing exactly what they should be doing. SBSD Owl Camera: you can't discriminate based on either of those things, nor as an educator should you support, or can you support one or another, unless it gets to harassment, hazing, bullying, discrimination. And… SBSD Owl Camera: Treating people neutrally does not mean that you ignore any things, any

185harm that might be done. SBSD Owl Camera: Vermont Educator Ethics, they require educators to treat students with dignity and respect. Educators are expected, under Vermont Educator Ethics Law, to understand students' needs, values, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds, and also maintain professional boundaries, communicate respectfully, and act in the best interest of students. SBSD Owl Camera: So, what does that mean for our educators? Educators absolutely have the right to have personal beliefs, and they have constitutional rights as private citizens. SBSD Owl Camera: But when educators are acting in their professional role, educators have a responsibility to maintain the trust of all students and families, which means SBSD Owl Camera: They should not use their position to pressure students towards a personal, political, religious, or ideological belief. Again, students have more of those First Amendment rights in a school

186than a staff member does. Why? Because we are employees of the state. SBSD Owl Camera: Professional neutrality does not mean avoiding difficult or controversial topics. Doesn't mean we can't talk about this stuff. It means that presenting instruction in a way that is educationally grounded SBSD Owl Camera: age-appropriate, respectful of differing perspectives, and consistent with district expectations. So, educators absolutely can guide discussions about these things. They can ask students to support… if a student says something, that is SBSD Owl Camera: seem… are apparently objectionable. They can ask to support your claim with evidence. They can correct factual errors. SBSD Owl Camera: They can address harmful conduct while still avoiding personal advocacy. Again, I'm not saying that's easy to do, because we're all, you know, passionate about beliefs we have, but that's what's expected of educators. SBSD

187Owl Camera: So what does this mean in practice? In classrooms. SBSD Owl Camera: staff may teach complex and controversial topics when it's tied to the curriculum and the learning standards, right? So, if you're going to be talking about, again, like, maybe the ICE issues, that's probably not related to math class. It might be more appropriate in a social studies class. SBSD Owl Camera: In discussions, staff may require evidence. They can read direct disrespectful comments. They can correct misinformation. SBSD Owl Camera: And maintain a productive learning environment. But in discipline, we should not focus on the… we should focus on the conduct, the disruption, the harassment, the threats, not merely whether a student's lawful and is popular or unpopular. SBSD Owl Camera: So how do we address this? Well, we do not have SBSD Owl Camera:

188a board policy on this exact topic. We do not have one standalone board policy. However, we do address these responsibilities through several systems. First of all, we have the student code of conduct. SBSD Owl Camera: Which talks about the things that students are allowed to do and say. We have harassment, hazing, and bullying procedures, which applies to all stakeholders here, not just students, but also staff. SBSD Owl Camera: we have to comply with civil rights, laws. We do curriculum review and supervision to make sure that what we are teaching, to students does not have a, that is, is, SBSD Owl Camera: not… Pushing a political view. SBSD Owl Camera: It could be factual, but it can't, it can't, persuade. SBSD Owl Camera: There are procedures for student clubs. There are procedures for student media. We

189have procedures for library materials. In fact, I think the board adopted an updated policy on that earlier this year. There are educator ethics and professional expectations SBSD Owl Camera: And the administrator consultation with central office on legal counsel. When it gets really to a tough question that we don't know the answer to, and this stuff changes all the time, right? That's one of the most exciting things about being a school administrator, is there's always something new. If you told me, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: 3 years ago, that 6-7 would cause people to get free out sometimes, right? That day, when I started teaching, it was pagers. Kids had pagers, and it was gum, and it's just amazing how every year there's something that causes people anxiety. So, when that comes up, SBSD Owl Camera:

190When you have to talk to legal counsel, we absolutely take advantage of that. SBSD Owl Camera: What's our commitment to students? We're going to be fair, we're going to be lawful, we're going to be consistent. SBSD Owl Camera: Students should not feel they have to hold a particular belief to be respected by adults at school. We need to respect all students SBSD Owl Camera: No matter what they believe, even if they wear a t-shirt that goes against our political beliefs, our religious beliefs, our philosophical beliefs, we must treat that student respectfully. SBSD Owl Camera: Students also need to understand that their expression comes with some responsibilities also. They can express their beliefs, but they cannot affect the rights, safety, dignity, or learning environment of others. SBSD Owl Camera: And our role as a school is

191to teach them, guide them, protect them, and respond with fairness. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that what you were looking for? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, and my question on that is, with regard to SBSD Owl Camera: Greeting different, you know, that careful, difficult, like you said, difficult handling of complex topics. SBSD Owl Camera: do teachers receive periodic training on how to deal with stuff like the ICE raid? SBSD Owl Camera: I, I said, you know, teachers, all staff, we have a variety of trainings, and some of it is tangentially related, you know, when we remind them about the hazing, harassment, and bullying policy. SBSD Owl Camera: I would say that when it comes to things like the ICE raid, that we were not prepared for that to happen, and we're not proactive in telling people, hey,

192this… SBSD Owl Camera: Not the first time. The second time we were, we said, okay, this is what you're permitted to do and not permitted to do. So some of it is… is, honestly, it's time-based and it's contextual. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know the training that our staff does. I don't know the catalog well enough to know if they get any of that there. I can just say, I've been teaching for 30 years. SBSD Owl Camera: There have been one incident after another. I don't know where this request is coming from and what the purpose of it is. It seems to be focused on, like, teachers not doing their jobs. That's kind of how I'm interpreting this. And we are trained. That's when you go… when you are trained as a teacher, that is

193part of the training. No, I mean, yeah, no, you don't… you are encouraging children to think. SBSD Owl Camera: and think critically, and come to their own conclusions, and give them facts. That is the job, and we all know that. And I'm a little… I'm getting a little tense about this, because it sounds like… SBSD Owl Camera: You don't think that's what teachers would do. SBSD Owl Camera: That's kind of what I… The fact that Seamus asked for this, that's what I'm hearing, because the job is to grow people's minds. It is a public service, and we are to SBSD Owl Camera: Give children facts, and have them come to their own conclusions. I cannot believe I'm sitting here and having this thing questioned. SBSD Owl Camera: that this is my profession. So, no, that

194is what… that is… that is not what we do. That is not the job. Alright, I want to state unequivocally, I believe that the vast majority of our teachers do this incredibly well every day in very difficult situations. So, my intention was not at all to be offensive. SBSD Owl Camera: to you as a teacher. I myself as a teacher, and, and I know how I do, so I apologize. SBSD Owl Camera: No, it's not that, because I don't know why the question was asked. I mean, there has to be a reason why you asked the question, and this is where I'm like, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I just can't sit here and listen to it anymore. It's just… it's not… I'm excited, so… Is there any forward comment before I respond? SBSD Owl Camera:

195I appreciate having all the information in one place. That's with, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, we kind of distilled a lot of material and just presented that, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm thankful for that. Yeah, I mean, it does… it doesn't… SBSD Owl Camera: It's hard to get the emotion of what it actually takes to do this every day, and when… SBSD Owl Camera: unexpected events occur, and emotions are high, and… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I think it would be very challenging for me to not get… SBSD Owl Camera: To be in that kind of a place where people might… someone might be wearing a shirt that SBSD Owl Camera: goes against everything I believe, and I still have to… SBSD Owl Camera: not… not get emotional about it. But I do think it's interesting

196SBSD Owl Camera: talk about, you know, the First Amendment, and you mentioned SBSD Owl Camera: people can say what they want, kids can say what they want, but it's also… that's not exactly the end of the First Amendment, like, there are also consequences that occur with your words. So, like, that's the important part, I think, for kids to understand. Like, yes, you can have the freedom of speech, you can say anything you want, but that doesn't mean that people who you say it to will say. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that's fine. That has no effect on anything. That doesn't make a difference. You know, I think that's an important lesson that teachers are teaching kids. SBSD Owl Camera: Every day, and this is an incredibly hard topic, so… Yep. SBSD

197Owl Camera: Is there any other board comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Could I share my screen for you? Oh, yeah. Yes, I can. Just to respond to Laura's question about why I brought this up in the first place. SBSD Owl Camera: So here's an example of a, pretty… SBSD Owl Camera: good reputation research, think tank, the Pew Research Center, and they do a lot of, research on SBSD Owl Camera: how the public perceives K-12 public schools. SBSD Owl Camera: And… I think one of the most concerning pieces of, SBSD Owl Camera: One of the most concerning pieces of evidence that I've seen Is that, SBSD Owl Camera: Support, or having a positive view about public schools. SBSD Owl Camera: has a strong partisan divide, and it has dropped by almost 10 percentage points among Republicans in

198the last 10 years. So I think that there is a perception problem SBSD Owl Camera: That a good portion of the public holds, and it's important when there's, SBSD Owl Camera: a matter of trust. When people don't trust public schools. Not every… many people trust public schools, but for the people who don't trust public schools, it's valuable for us to talk openly about what ethical commitments we have, what training we have, and so that's why I wanted to talk about that. SBSD Owl Camera: That's interesting, because I would say that part of that could be due to, SBSD Owl Camera: ideas that are being put out in the political environment about what schools are like that might not be accurate. Right. And so, having this conversation allows that information to be put out into the

199world as well. Yes. We should talk about it, because there's misperceptions about it. SBSD Owl Camera: And I actually… and I do think, you know, some of these conversations might be tough, but I do think it's important to put that out there, because you've got a diverse group in our community, and you're trying to reach and represent all of these diverse thoughts, and, you know, this is… this is big stuff, right? So… SBSD Owl Camera: I appreciate it. Thank you, Joe, for putting it together. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, I think we're on our last agenda item, which is the remnant of the consent agenda as regards the bid for the roof project. SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to approve the bid for the roof project as presented

200belatedly in the board materials. Jen moves. SBSD Owl Camera: Second. Dan seconds. Is there any discussion? So, if there's any discussion based on what we've seen. I just have one… is there any kind of, SBSD Owl Camera: Guarantee, the warranty on what dealership? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, I think it's at least a year, but I don't know that off the top of my head. It's included in, the RFP and in their place today. Was it the same warranty guarantee for both companies? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Likely… SBSD Owl Camera: the companies that… they're all very reputable, and they always come, but, like, we haven't had issues with any, not putting their honor, in their work. Which is really why I'm a big proponent of SBSD Owl Camera: working with local, at least the state of

201Vermont vendors, because long ago, they did do some work with out-of-state vendors that they did have troubles with, SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Say aye. Period. Aye. Okay, the motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: So the next item on the agenda is set agenda for the June 3rd meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: I believe I have a June 3rd. SBSD Owl Camera: Expect them to do that. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I don't have a draft of it yet. The one thing that will certainly be on it is the… SBSD Owl Camera: The final… well, okay, so one thing that'll be on it is the last community forum before the committee presents its suggestions for edits to the ends policy, so that'll be the last chance before we do our first

202draft. SBSD Owl Camera: There will also be a second reading of wellness, the wellness policy, which we first talked about at the last meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: Are there any other… and I'm sure there's going to be other things that are generated by the superintendent. Yeah, continuous improvements. Continuous improvement plan. SBSD Owl Camera: On, Daisy's primary reports. SBSD Owl Camera: 2.2 treatment of staff. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any board… are there any issues the board wants to see, definitely on June 4th, besides just what we've talked about? SBSD Owl Camera: Definitely making sure that we're… we have a time to welcome the news. Yeah, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: And your student reps always bring donuts for… My last meeting will be, June 17th, so… SBSD Owl Camera: to Morgan Center. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright.

203SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to adjourn. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa moves. SBSD Owl Camera: A second. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily Serkans. And Mrs. Captain? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye.