April 15, 2026 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Owl Camera: I'd like to call to order the April 15th, 2026 regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. SBSD Owl Camera: The first item on the agenda is a projected executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: The topics are… SBSD Owl Camera: Safety of persons or the security of public property, discussing non-public protocols related to crisis response, employment of a public officer or employee, receiving confidential attorney-client communication for the purposes of providing legal services to the board. SBSD Owl Camera: Labor negotiations, and real estate. SBSD Owl Camera: I doubt we will use the real estate one, but if we do, I'll… I'll say that later. We will probably be joined in executive session by, District Council Mick Letty and Joe Clark's Superintendent. SBSD Owl Camera: So I would entertain a motion to… And Monica and

002Jean Marie… Monica and Jean Marie. Greg Short's gonna be there, too? Yeah. Officer Short will be there, too. Monica Desch Rocher's… SBSD Owl Camera: Gene Ray Clark, and Officer… Greg Short? Greg Short. SBSD Owl Camera: And so I would entertain a motion to find that premature knowledge of some of the topics we're going to discuss would put the district at a significant disadvantage. Michelle moves. I'll second. Jen 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. A second. Emily moves. Jen seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The motion passes. We're now in executive session. We should return about 6 o'clock. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd like to call

003back to order the April 15th, 2026 regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. The next, we just got out of an executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: We talked about safety in person, or the security of public property. We talked about employment of a public officer or employee. We received confidential attorney-client communication for the purposes of providing legal services to the board. We did not talk about labor negotiations or real estate. SBSD Owl Camera: We were joined by District Council McLeady. SBSD Owl Camera: And, Monica Destrochairs, and Jean Marie Clark, and Joe Clark. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. SBSD Owl Camera: and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice all. SBSD Owl Camera: Are there any announcements? SBSD

004Owl Camera: From the board? SBSD Owl Camera: Come on, dope. SBSD Owl Camera: What you're comfortable? No. SBSD Owl Camera: We had every intention to take some time to thank Monica for all this has done. This would be our last board meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: Can't still do it, right? You can still think. Yeah, she's awesome, so… SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so we'll review the agenda, and I do remember, Jean Marie, that you had requested something on here. So, first item on the agenda is comments from the public about any topic whatsoever, whether or not it's on our agenda or not. SBSD Owl Camera: The next is the student representative report, followed by Superintendent's Report. SBSD Owl Camera: Followed by our community forum, talking about the end policy revision. SBSD Owl Camera: The next

005item is discussion of child nutrition. SBSD Owl Camera: And also, a discussion of the superintendent evaluation, that's a possible action. We may decide, to do something there. SBSD Owl Camera: Then we have Monitoring Report 2.4, Financial Planning and Budgeting, Monitoring Report 2.9, Communication and Support to the Board. We have, action on the Employee Severance Plan, and charging the Legislative Advocacy Committee. And then we have the Consent Agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: Jean Marie, would you remind me of the… the agenda change you were asking for? SBSD Owl Camera: Financial planning report and child nutrition funding, if I could speak about both of those at the same time, wherever you want to put me. SBSD Owl Camera: So I don't know if you want to put Tommy or whoever attended migration box at the top of your

006discussion item, and then I think we might next two. SBSD Owl Camera: So, would the board be amenable to moving the superintendent evaluation discussion item before child nutrition funding? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd like to ask if the board could also add the 26-27 school calendar to the superintendent's report. There's some adjustments, I think, that we're going to want to make, and then with the board's input before I make those changes. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. I was going to suggest to the board that we, given this is developed into a pretty long meeting, we kick the can on the Legislative Advocacy Committee. Now, we do have a legislator in the audience, so maybe it would be good to actually do that, but… SBSD Owl Camera: I will tell you, yeah. SBSD Owl

007Camera: Okay, keep it, or… What's… yeah, who's nice. SBSD Owl Camera: Kick it. Kick it, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there… does the board want to kick it or keep it? SBSD Owl Camera: We should do that. SBSD Owl Camera: So far, that's only 3. SBSD Owl Camera: He said kicking, but he said moment. He said lymph. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, that's only 3 so far. Oh. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, good. Move it? Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: then we will add the 2026 school calendar to the superintendent's report, and we'll move superintendent evaluation for child nutrition, and we're kicking out, we're removing Charged Legislative Advocacy Committee for today. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item in the agenda is, comments from the public. SBSD Owl Camera: So, during this section, You can

008comment about anything. There are 3 opportunities, Scott, to comment. SBSD Owl Camera: to this board at this time about any topic. Also, before the board takes action on an action item, but only on the topic being action. SBSD Owl Camera: And also, this is a specially worn community forum, and only on the topic worn on the agenda. This is a community forum, and that starts at 6.30. The board will not respond to public comments, except during the community forum, and only if the comment is worn on the agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: And official complaint agreements cannot be filed during public comment. SBSD Owl Camera: So, do we have any public comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Is there anything online? No. Okay. The next item in the agenda is, student representative report. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you.

009So, all schools will be closed next week for April break, and students will return Monday, April 27th. Everyone, enjoy your break. SBSD Owl Camera: And on Monday, April 13th, the High School Guidance Department hosted representatives from 16 different colleges from Canada. Students in grades 9 through 11 that were interested in colleges from Canada were encouraged to come learn more. SBSD Owl Camera: The South Burlington School District Fine Arts Night, will be starting at 6.30 today, which, this is a celebration of creativity across our whole district, so it includes student art galleries, as well as face painting and performances from the South Burlington High School Dad Band. SBSD Owl Camera: And the high school green team has been running a battery bonanza for the past week and a half. Many SB and school community members have

010already donated. We could always use more. If any students are watching at the high school, we need help shipping and packing them, so if you want to show up to a lunch. SBSD Owl Camera: either tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday, that would be great. And anyone can drop off any type of battery, all of them, car, whatever, in the high school lobby until this Friday. SBSD Owl Camera: Can you just clarify, is this, a donation, or is this a, please recycle my dead batteries? Please recycle your dead batteries. Oh, hey, I didn't want to bring you a bunch of dead batteries, but… SBSD Owl Camera: Any dead batteries you have, we're trying to win a competition, where if we ask the most out of, I think, 15 schools in Vermont that are participating, we get $1,000

011towards our club. SBSD Owl Camera: So… And we can drop them off at the lobby, high school lobby? Yes, anytime. Anytime. During school hours. And Friday's the last day. Friday's the last day, because we have to be done shipping Friday or the Monday after break, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, but, like, Friday morning's okay. Yeah. Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: I have less than two days. I can do notes. I'm ready for you. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, and then the elementary schools have a lot of exciting events coming up at the end of April and beginning of May, so students will be participating in spring concerts, fun runs, and a lot of other events, so make sure to look at your individual school newsletter and calendar to make sure that you don't miss any events. That's

012all. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Does the board have any questions? SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, the next item on the agenda is the superintendent's report. SBSD Owl Camera: The first item on it is, in response to a question that I believe you had brought up, Jen? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: So, my question, was just in regards to, understanding a little bit more about what a day in the life looks like for a student. I don't know if there's a way to evaluate what the schedule is for SBSD Owl Camera: elementary school versus middle school versus high school, and if there's a difference that you can see in… for the high school, like, how that can change what their instructional time may be, as they move from freshman to senior year. And the reason that that's coming

013up is because I have a… SBSD Owl Camera: I have a senior who… SBSD Owl Camera: does not seem to be spending much time in school. You know, he'll go into school, some days 12 o'clock, and he's home by 2. SBSD Owl Camera: And other days, he might go in at 9, and you swim by 1. SBSD Owl Camera: That kind of thing. I mean, his schedule is just so erratic, and it doesn't really make sense. I mean, I think of when I was a student in school, I would go to school, I'd be there from SBSD Owl Camera: you know, 8 o'clock in the morning until 3 o'clock in the afternoon, every day, whether I was a freshman or a senior, and I think some of it has to do with credits, and I

014just… I don't understand it, and I think it would be helpful to understand that. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I will, I did prepare to talk about the high school instructional day. I did not realize that you were hoping for me to do the other ones. That's okay. I mean, I'm… I'm just thinking, like, it didn't… SBSD Owl Camera: perhaps later to have, like, a day in the life, K-12, or whatever, it might be interesting for people to see. This is what you can anticipate, but… but yeah, Dr. Clark, I think now the big focus is on high school. Let me, share my screens. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so, before I even begin this, I want to… SBSD Owl Camera: talk about how, even doing this presentation has caused a lot of anxiety among our high

015school, staff. They are very, rightfully so, very proud of the work that they do. SBSD Owl Camera: The, the care that they give to our students, and, and they've… SBSD Owl Camera: they're aware that, you know, as I was making my 3Q meetings where people were talking incessively about the rigor is not there and whatnot. SBSD Owl Camera: I want to make it clear that this is not a discussion about rigor at the high school, it's not a question about, tests, or retacking tests, or any of those kind of things. It is simply a discussion about how much time students spend in classes, so you can, SBSD Owl Camera: see that. SBSD Owl Camera: So… so why are we doing this? Like, SBSD Owl Camera: the feedback from the 3Q meetings. I heard it often.

016Students are not challenged enough, there's too many study halls, too much time to spend outside of direct instruction, office hours are not always accessible. SBSD Owl Camera: The open campus can mean students are not actually in the school during unassigned blocks, and feedback from the bleachers, this is… this is not from my three communities, this is from me going to lots and lots of school events, and just meeting parents and talking to parents, saying things, Jen, like you just said. SBSD Owl Camera: But my kid seems like they're home a lot, so I want to talk a little bit about this. SBSD Owl Camera: And really, to me, the question… there are two questions, fundamentally. Are we making the best use of student time for learning, challenge, and support? SBSD Owl Camera: And how can

017we reduce the number of students who have unassigned blocks in their schedule? When we talk about, again, you brought up your students who, SBSD Owl Camera: has a couple of free blocks. There, there are reasons for that. Some is choice. Students choose what they have. Others is, SBSD Owl Camera: That kids might be shut out of courses that they had requested, that there might not be, SBSD Owl Camera: Of course, is offered that the kids won at that time, so there are lots of different reasons why kids might have those unassigned blocks in their schedule. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the first thing I did was I surveyed area superintendents, and I asked a simple question. I said, how much time in your district does a typical freshman spend in a typical English class SBSD Owl

018Camera: over the course of a year. And I chose English because every student takes English, and I sent it out to all the superintendents in the Champlain Valley, and I did not get a great response. But the response that I got actually surprised me. SBSD Owl Camera: I was surprised how similar the amount of time was. I expected, just based on my experience coming from Ohio and coming here to Vermont, that we would have been low, but we don't appear to be out of whack with anything else that the community is doing. SBSD Owl Camera: So, you can see the BFA St. Albans, their average, kid is spending 7,600 minutes in a, in an English class. South Burlington, they're spending 6,700 minutes. So overall, it's not… SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry about that. Not, that wide

019of a range, but it gives you a sense. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think it'll give you a better sense, when we look at some schedules here. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is… first of all, I want to repeat, this is an informal comparison based on a small survey set. I sent this out to everybody, I got 6 or 7 responses, so please do not treat this as definitive. It is just directional, it gives us a sense of where we lie with some of our neighbors. SBSD Owl Camera: We are at 6,750 annual minutes in English. That is simply based on 90 school days. SBSD Owl Camera: There's 180 school days, but because we're on a block, kids meet 90 times, and they're in class for 75 minutes. So 90 times 75 is 67.50. SBSD

020Owl Camera: Bfa was the most with 7611, the lowest was Mount Abe at 6424. We don't appear to be that much of an outlier in this group. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: Just one caution, is the schools use different scheduling models, so it's not a perfect comparison, right? Everybody had… most schools in the area are on a block schedule, but they vary differently, so it's hard to make a really good comparison. SBSD Owl Camera: So, this is the next thing I did. I said, well, how about this? I got the… SBSD Owl Camera: schedules for every student at the high school. And I said to my friends, Chad GPT, choose 5 random kids at each grade level, just to show me what their schedules are, right? There is no, SBSD Owl Camera: There

021is no prompt other than I want 5 random schedules, so I do not know who these students are. SBSD Owl Camera: But I can show you that this is the 9th graders. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I chose 5 students, so you'll see student 9A, SBSD Owl Camera: or student, 9A, the first grading period, the second grading period, the third grading period, and the fourth grading period. You can see that this student has two study halls, and… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, class for the rest of the day. And you can see in this chart how many courses they have, and how many study halls they have, or study sessions, or unassigned blocks. Now, the only unassigned blocks are at our upperclassmen's, SBSD Owl Camera: Freshmen do not get the opportunity to not have a class.

022If they're not in a class, they're in a study hall. So this student has a couple study halls the first 9 weeks, one study hall every… each of the other 9 weeks. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 9B, this person has same, same deal. One study all a day, throughout the year. In the second grading period, they had two studies. And you can see the courses that they're taking. They're all going to take science and English and Social Studies, and, SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, am I missing Science Studies, English, and math, thank you. And, and then they have some electives, right? Spanish, your photography, what have you. Oh, and I missed highlighting that study session, so you'll see… oh, I missed that twice. I apologize. So, student 9B, SBSD Owl Camera: ULC does have a couple of

023study sessions here that are, SBSD Owl Camera: They have two study halls in the second semester, so they are in… SBSD Owl Camera: You know, 6 classes and 2 study halls. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 9C, their schedule is booked. SBSD Owl Camera: No study holds. SBSD Owl Camera: student ID, similar. SBSD Owl Camera: Dude, they're naive. SBSD Owl Camera: This would be a student who, is, diagnosed with a disability, because you see the enhanced study session. So the study… planned study session is just a study hall, and an enhanced study session is where these students go to a study hall and are provided services by their, by teachers. SBSD Owl Camera: He moved to 10th grade. SBSD Owl Camera: 10 random, or 5 random students. SBSD Owl Camera: Look at this first one has three

024study goals. Can I just ask you about one? What is… SBSD Owl Camera: P1, like, what is… when does P1 start? SBSD Owl Camera: Period 1 starts at around 9 o'clock, and they go for, like, 75 minutes. Each period is, like, 75 minutes. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay? SBSD Owl Camera: And we'll talk about… we'll talk about that in a little bit, too. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 10B, full schedule. SBSD Owl Camera: Student Tennessee, They have an early dismissal. SBSD Owl Camera: And their schedule's full of student attendee? SBSD Owl Camera: They have a study hall on first semester, the second semester, they have late arrival, so they can come late. SBSD Owl Camera: Because they don't have a class until second block. Student 10A, also, pretty full schedule. SBSD Owl Camera: But these, again, completely

025random. I don't know who these kids are. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm sure you had to move this over the parking. All right, here we go. SBSD Owl Camera: Grade 11, SBSD Owl Camera: So, grade 11, this is where you'll start to see these, these empty blocks. Now, these are the kids who SBSD Owl Camera: by choice, did not select horses. And so, Jen, when you talk about your son, he would have a couple empty blocks. I believe his happens to be first block and fourth block, so he can come in later in the day and leave. SBSD Owl Camera: Again, what the administration will remind folks is that SBSD Owl Camera: They absolutely have plenty of courses for kids to take. SBSD Owl Camera: If they choose to take them. However, they also caution that

026there have been so many reductions over the years that they aren't able to offer some of the courses that they used to have offered. So it's kind of a blend of kids wanting to take stuff and us having reduced staff a little bit so that we can't SBSD Owl Camera: Alter as many classes as we used to. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 11B, look at that. So that student, 11B, on the gray days, they only have a third and a fourth period block, so they come in, you know, in the afternoon. SBSD Owl Camera: Let's see… This is 11th grade. This is 11th grade, yeah, so 11D. So this is… SBSD Owl Camera: Again, this is a student with a disability, I believe, because they have an enhanced study session, so that's what I believe it

027means to me. And again, I am not, SBSD Owl Camera: 100% certain about that, because the student's also taking AP Psych, right, and Math 3. I do know that they also have 1, 2, 3, 4 unassigned blogs. SBSD Owl Camera: And then Student 1180, peer leadership, they're teaching other students in that course, and they have a material. SBSD Owl Camera: Then gone to grade 12, similar things. You'll see, again, as the students get to the higher grades, they have more free time. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, or more time where they don't have classes in their schedule. So, student 12A, SBSD Owl Camera: You know, on the first day, they have a block off. The second day, they have two blocks off. SBSD Owl Camera: the students, Step 12B, That looks to me like it's a

028CareerTech student. SBSD Owl Camera: Who, their day is full. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 12, C. Again, don't know who these kids are. That student has Intro to Business, SBSD Owl Camera: One period, first day, and then they take three classes this second day. SBSD Owl Camera: In the second half of the year, they have no classes on the first day of the block, and they have a couple classes on the second day. Again. SBSD Owl Camera: I should also remind you, students all have their credits. They're not in danger of not graduating. They have credits, it's just that either they're not selecting courses, or there aren't courses for them to select. SBSD Owl Camera: Student 12D, you'll see a few more free periods, 12D, a few more free periods. SBSD Owl Camera: So that's what

029that… that looked like when I asked… when I just looked at random… random schedules. SBSD Owl Camera: So, when I looked at, then, every student's schedule at the high school, this is what I found. I found that the average student at South Burlington High School has half of a study hall order, right? SBSD Owl Camera: That the average student has 1.12 unassigned blocks. SBSD Owl Camera: That combined, the average student has about one and three-quarters blocks not filled, and 81% of our students have at least one unassigned block for study session. SBSD Owl Camera: Now you can see by the grade level where we are with this. So, when you look at grade 12, SBSD Owl Camera: Again, these are the kids that have most of the credits to graduate, so the average non-class, they

030have 2.35 for the average senior. The average junior, just under that at 2.05. 10th graders and 9th graders, they take more courses because they're still collecting credits to graduate, and those blocks are typically, although we saw some late start and early dismissal for the 10th graders, typically those are study halls. SBSD Owl Camera: That, that kids have. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the bottom line is, our students at the high school, on average, take 6.3 classes and have 1.6 periods of unassigned time or study volume. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, I want to make this clear. So, is that this is not a judgment. This is not intended to be a criticism of the time they have off, or the office hours, because when you put this chart together, I think this was the question you were

031getting at, Shanimous. SBSD Owl Camera: The school day starts at… for students at around 9 o'clock, but they start the day with something called office hours. Teachers arrive at 8 o'clock. From 8 to 8.15, they have time to do IEP meetings, or 504 meetings, or, you know, prepare for the day, or whatever it might be. And then at 8.15, SBSD Owl Camera: to 8.55, they have office hours. So this is the ability of… for students to meet with their teachers. SBSD Owl Camera: To get, extra support, to go over homework, whatever it might be. SBSD Owl Camera: Students also have 25 minutes of advisory time. That is where they are in a class with students, other students and a teacher there, and they do various activities. And then passing time is 20 minutes. I want

032to be very clear what this is. Passing time is time between classes, right? SBSD Owl Camera: I am not, I want to repeat this, I am NOT saying that we should not give restroom breaks for teachers, or we should not allow them to eat, right? That's just… when you look at the amount of time in a day, seven and a half hours. SBSD Owl Camera: the amount of time that is actually given to instruction, take out the 40 minutes of office hours, the 25 of advisory, the 20 of passing time, and that first 15 minutes of the day, which are… could be meetings. So this is not a criticism. SBSD Owl Camera: Office hours and advisory may very well serve very important academic relations, relational and student support purposes. SBSD Owl Camera: This simply identifies

033how scheduled time is currently allocated so you can better understand the structure of the student day. SBSD Owl Camera: Joe, can I ask a question? Yes. The 25 minutes of advisory, there are… teachers do have advisories there. It's not technically teaching a course, but they're interacting with students. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, it's not considered teaching a course, there's no, like, lesson planning or whatever for them. It's kind of lesson planning. You… you… I want to show them. I have 19 kids, 30 minutes. SBSD Owl Camera: that's a lot of people to manage. So you're saying that you're planning to… in your experience, you're planning time for that 24… Yeah, I mean, it's not like I can sit down and, like, you know, read a book or something. I gotta be on. You still gotta correct the

034phone, you still gotta do all the things, and… Normally during advisory, they, like, have an advisory schedule that we follow, and we do certain things, like. SBSD Owl Camera: we'll do panorama surveys during advisory, like, that's the time we have to do it, and the advisory schedule changes for grades. Okay. So, like, freshmen. SBSD Owl Camera: and sophomores, correct me if I'm wrong, have advisory every single day, and then juniors have advisory Monday, Wednesdays, and seniors have advisory only on Tuesdays. So it changes. SBSD Owl Camera: And it also kind of depends advisor by advisor. You know, the activities we have. SBSD Owl Camera: aren't, like, a normal, like, every day you have something to do. It's like, maybe once a week you have a panorama survey, or fill out this thing, or whatever. And

035beyond that, it's kind of up to the advisor, do you want to plan something for your group, or do you just want to use it at a study hall? Yep. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: So, here, to me, is one of the biggest, one of the biggest issues is transportation. We, like we said, we run office hours at the beginning of the day, the first 15 minutes, IEPs, 504 meetings, whatever, whatever other needs teachers might have. Office hours begin at 8.15, SBSD Owl Camera: But our first buses don't start arriving until about 825, and the last bus arrives usually about 8.40. SBSD Owl Camera: So, there's a few concerns, frankly, that I have about this, which is that, unless a student has SBSD Owl Camera: transportation themselves to get to office hours,

036they're not going to be able to take advantage of the full time that is there for office hours, which naturally means that our kids, with the most need, the most, SBSD Owl Camera: who come from, maybe, backgrounds that don't provide them with the opportunity to get to school on time. They're not being able to take care of that, service, right? SBSD Owl Camera: making… but it's not an easy solution, right? Making office hours fully accessible to all students. SBSD Owl Camera: Or even eliminating office hours, if… and it's… it's not for me to decide or the board to decide, because again, I understand that the office hours are valued by the staff. SBSD Owl Camera: But if we wanted to start the school day at 8 o'clock with instruction to increase our instructional time, we

037don't have a way of getting kids there, so your options are, do we SBSD Owl Camera: hire more drivers and buy more buses? Do we change the start time of the school day? Which already starts late for our high school kids. SBSD Owl Camera: Do we just not… do we make a statement we're not going to transport high school kids, and you're all on your own? I mean, it's not an easy decision if the board… well, again, if the high school wanted to change how that is, it's really tough. It's really tough to change. SBSD Owl Camera: And so that is the end of mine. So, again, I want to be very, very clear. This presentation is not to pass any kind of judgment on what the high school is doing. It is not to

038say that there's time that is not being used well. It is to show you that the amount of instructional time that our kids have SBSD Owl Camera: is impacted by a few factors. Transportation, and, SBSD Owl Camera: In the, in some cases, the lack of courses that kids have, and in other cases, kids opting not to take courses. SBSD Owl Camera: Does the board have any questions? Thank you, Lauren. I'm curious if… SBSD Owl Camera: the… the culture of the high school encourages. So, you mentioned a couple of times, well, if we cut, and the student then doesn't have the opportunity that they actually… SBSD Owl Camera: is there any encouragement, too? And I guess this might be more for Mr. Burke or for, guidance, but are they encouraged to perhaps explore an alternative? You

039know, I'm in high school, I want to take Russian, it's not offered. SBSD Owl Camera: So I'm gonna do anything, or am I going to be encouraged to say, hey, maybe try the photography class, maybe try the engineering class? I can speak pretty confidently that I know that our counseling staff and our administrators over there want kids to be engaged in things, and I know that they recommend to them that, hey. SBSD Owl Camera: take this course. I mean, it's free, right? When you go to college, you're going to be paying for this course next year, so get a sense of what you want to do. So I do know that they do promote that, SBSD Owl Camera: Ultimately, though, some kids, I think, like the allure of being able to leave and come back,

040and, you know, again, they all have their credits, so that's not really the… SBSD Owl Camera: an issue for them. Yeah, I'm kind of dovetailing it in my head to, you know, the conversation we're going to have about the ends. One of our ends is to create lifelong learners, right? Do we serve that goal by saying, if you don't like those options, you don't have to? SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, it may not be a very popular decision here, but as a parent, I will say, I would rather that there is an obligation that you have to be in school between these hours, and even if you've got your credits. SBSD Owl Camera: you find something to take, and you fill your day. Because I'll say, I mean, if you're going to give a lot

041of… I'm not going to say all, but, you know, there are a lot of kids an option to say, okay, you can either take a class, or you can go home and SBSD Owl Camera: you know, read a comic book or something, whatever it might be. A lot of kids are going to say, okay, I choose to do that. Yeah, but you as a parent can overload that. You know, you can say, no, you're not going to be leaving early or coming back. Yeah, I can't, but I would appreciate the support of, you know, working in the structure of the school. Yeah. So that was unusual for me, so I… again, you guys are tired of me talking about where I come from. SBSD Owl Camera: We did not have the open campus. There was

042a time when there was an open campus, and in the district that I was in, a student was on their time away from campus. SBSD Owl Camera: We'll get and killed by a train. SBSD Owl Camera: And so they changed that. And open campus was really not much of a thing, so I was a bit surprised to learn that we had that here. So I surveyed superintendents. SBSD Owl Camera: everybody has open… I did not get one school district that responded to my survey that does not have an open campus. When did open campus start? Is that, like, a 90s thing, or a 2000 thing, or… I don't know the answer to that, but it's… No, you're good. I feel like it's been around for a really long time, and I wanted to add, too,

043that SBSD Owl Camera: I think we have to go back to the, do we have the staff to have all those classes? Because I know, even when I was a freshman. SBSD Owl Camera: four years ago, which the budget has increasingly kind of got worse since then. I, like, didn't get into a lot of gym classes and stuff, because there just simply wasn't space SBSD Owl Camera: to take those classes. So, you can fill your schedule to a certain extent, and you can ask students to be there, but once you're a senior, like, it's pretty hard SBSD Owl Camera: to find classes other than, like, certain things, like gym classes or the arts or stuff, and kids still struggle to get those things. Yeah, thanks for pointing that out. It's not, it's not because kids…

044it's not just because kids don't want to be taking classes. Yes, there's a lot… SBSD Owl Camera: I will say, as someone who was at South Burlington High School in the 90s, there was open campus. It was only seniors who were allowed to come and go, and then it changed to juniors, got some privileges. That's called senior privileges and junior privileges at that point. SBSD Owl Camera: But I think it's an interesting point, because you were saying parents can override it, and I know when we get into high school, really, we want the kids to be, like. SBSD Owl Camera: making these decisions. You don't really want the parents to be dictating what classes the kids are taking. It's supposed to be, like, led by this, like, desire for these kids to learn what they

045want to learn, and you don't really want… SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I should clarify, that's not the official position of the school board, that's… I would say, as a parent who's gone through this school district, I noticed and appreciated that my input was… SBSD Owl Camera: less requested as my children got older, and it helped them… I saw it as a way to help them engage with them, what they're doing, and not look to me to dictate what they were going to do, because they are going to be SBSD Owl Camera: becoming people in the world who have to make decisions for themselves. So… but at the same time, if you're a parent who says, I don't want my kid to have any free periods, I mean, you… you… they're just… they're still kids, they're

046not, you know, 18 yet, so you could tell them, like, no, you have to fill it up, go take a gym class with all the freshmen, I don't care. Or if they didn't have a class, they would be in the study hall, right? I mean, if they were to stay. Yeah. My concern about it is… is it's only safety-related… related, but… SBSD Owl Camera: like I say, I mean, if there's not a course to take, then kids are either going to be packed in a study hall, or they're going to be allowed to go out and take care of some other things to take care of. SBSD Owl Camera: I also think it's interesting to think about those free periods. It's gonna depend student on student. I really like school, so you're gonna get the

047perspective from me, who's someone who loves going to school, but, SBSD Owl Camera: like, as a senior, I need some of those free periods to get my homework done and have enough time in the day. If I want to be involved in sports extracurriculars, which are an important part of school culture, then I need to have those two free blocks that I have. SBSD Owl Camera: to manage that, so some… a lot of students do use that as a study hall. Some students leave, but there is a lot of students who stay in the library and use those free periods, so… Excellent. Yeah. And I think one thing else that I would say is that SBSD Owl Camera: You know, you still have the hour at the beginning of the day that you could use

048that time to increase the amount of time the students are in classes, but it's not cheap, because it does require a change in transportation. SBSD Owl Camera: But also, what's also true is that just giving kids more time in instruction doesn't necessarily mean different outcomes, right? It all comes down to what the instruction is. So, a student, SBSD Owl Camera: a student in a 60-minute class can learn as much as a student in a 90-minute class, depending on how effective the instruction is. So, I would not… you should not make a correlation that if we increase the time students are in classes, that our test scores are going to default. That's… I don't know if there's any research that would show that. SBSD Owl Camera: So maybe we'll… SBSD Owl Camera: And we can definitely

049schedule another discussion of this. Yeah, I know I went long. And I was going to suggest, if it's… if the board is amenable, to move the 2026 school calendar as the first discussion item, so the people who showed up for the community forum, would that… would that be okay with the board to move… SBSD Owl Camera: Joe's second report until after the community forum? Sure, I'm fine with that. I need to do it today, but it doesn't have to be now. Absolutely. Yeah, okay, so we're gonna move that… Okay. …until… SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, great. So I'm so excited to see there are people online, and there are people here. Thank you all for coming. This is a community forum. Community forums are an opportunity for the board to, in forum, talk with community members.

050So, SBSD Owl Camera: We will, take comments about what we're discussing right now, and the board will have a chance to go back and forth with people. So, what are we even talking about? Let me share my screen really quickly. SBSD Owl Camera: We're talking about ends, and I only want to show, one slide from this presentation that we gave back on… in March. SBSD Owl Camera: And that is to say, you know, like, what is ENDS? Like, isn't ENDS just a jargon word? SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: At our district, we're a policy governance district, and that means that we use the concept of ends SBSD Owl Camera: To… to go beyond the idea of a goal, and to say one where we say what the results that we want. SBSD Owl

051Camera: who the recipients of those results are, and what is the worth of the results for those… for those groups. So, what we're talking about today is updating our ENDS policy. It talks about, you know, what are the results and the recipients and the worth of those results for specific people. SBSD Owl Camera: So, with that… SBSD Owl Camera: We're talking about ends. I will turn it over to Ali and Momin, who are going to read SBSD Owl Camera: RN's policy. Cool. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Ends Policy 1.0 Global End Statement. Students successfully complete their education from the South Burlington School District, ready for their next step. They will show cultural and academic competence appropriate to grade and developmental capacity. SBSD Owl Camera: All graduates will be prepared for college, career, or

052individual determined next steps. The ends will be met at a cost that the community will support, and this section was updated on January 8th, 2014. SBSD Owl Camera: That ends Policy 1.1, disposition for Lifelong Learning. SBSD Owl Camera: Students will demonstrate the ability, knowledge, and skills to adapt and succeed by 1 demonstrating independent thought, curiosity, and creativity, 2 responding to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline. SBSD Owl Camera: Three, gathering and analyzing data to construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. Four, generating alternatives and considering options and different perspectives. 5. Solving problems and making decisions based on knowledge, thoughtful debate, and reason. And six, cooperating, collaborating, and leading others. SBSD Owl Camera: 1.2, academic proficiency. Students actively participate in a full and enriching academic experience that includes language and literature,

053math, science, social studies, the arts and design, technology, world language, and health and wellness. Students demonstrate proficiency within these courses by SBSD Owl Camera: One, building strong content knowledge consistent with state-approved standards and district-approved curriculum. SBSD Owl Camera: Two, comprehending, interpreting, and evaluating a wide range of written material, resources, and information. Three, writing in a clear, concise, and organized manner. SBSD Owl Camera: 4. Actively reading and responding with evidence to ideas, concepts, and opinions. SBSD Owl Camera: 5. Expressing themselves creatively, creatively, and effectively in a variety of forms. 6. Using technology, mixed media, instrumentation as appropriate. 7. Effectively solves problems while attending to precision. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, and policy 1.3, personal development. SBSD Owl Camera: Students will use self-awareness and interpersonal skills to effectively enhance their own performance and collaborate with others by, one,

054developing an awareness of their individual learning styles, interests, and passion, clarifying goals, aspirations, and post-secondary plans, building capacity to make informed and healthy decisions and choices. SBSD Owl Camera: Living 4. Living responsibly with confidence, resilience, and adaptability. 5. Demonstrating effective time management and organizational skills. And six, building supportive relationships and respectfully advocating for yourself and others. SBSD Owl Camera: And 1.4, citizenship. Students will understand the impact of history, government, law, and the economy on self and society in order to contribute to their community and participate in local, state, and federal government in an informed manner by, one, understanding and expressing how diverse cultures and people enrich the human experience. SBSD Owl Camera: Two, engaging others with honesty, humility, kindness, and good humor. Three, demonstrating respect for self, others, and the environment. SBSD Owl Camera: For

055supporting, participating, and or initiating social responsible action to prevent the local… well, to benefit the local and global community. SBSD Owl Camera: 5. Practicing ethical behavior in all environments, including as a participant in the digital community. And six, being proud of our shared experience and having fun along the way. SBSD Owl Camera: And that is it. Thank you very much. So, at this point, we'll just… SBSD Owl Camera: Open it up for a discussion of… SBSD Owl Camera: how we should approach updating ends, as they are a very important part of our organization. So, do any board members have any initial statements, or would we like to hear from any community members who have thoughts about school priorities, school goals, school ends, anything like that? SBSD Owl Camera: And if you'd like to speak, just

056raise your hand on the Zoom. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm sorry I ducked out, I just wanted to make sure we… I think we had one question in mind, kind of a core question tonight, about, I think I'm just expanding on the question that you asked, but about… SBSD Owl Camera: organizing community learning, right? We've begun to reach out to people we know, but hearing feedback from others about how to reach SBSD Owl Camera: all community members or, you know, special interests in our schools, is also, very welcome in this process. And it will help give us leads as we kind of coordinate the more focused activities about how to reach the broadest possible SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, this is the first of four… community forums. SBSD Owl Camera: All of them will be done by

057June 3rd, the intention being to give staff as much time to participate before the school year ends. SBSD Owl Camera: And we will also be, conducting focus groups with a professional focus group consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: And those, also will wrap up in the beginning of, of July. So, again, open up for the community. Any thoughts? And I guess maybe I want to take a step back. Those ends that we just read, they kind of read a little bit like a legal contract. SBSD Owl Camera: or they kind of read like an academic document, and I just want to say that the purpose of the schools, the ends. SBSD Owl Camera: it's a much more, like, democratic thing. Like, if we want to just say what you think school should do, you don't have to

058put it in those kinds of words. SBSD Owl Camera: So, yeah, do we have any… come on, somebody's got a volunteer here to take the first… SBSD Owl Camera: make the first comment. Well, can I just say, too, I think that I've seen some questions regarding why are we updating these? SBSD Owl Camera: And from what my understanding is, you know, it hasn't… they haven't been updated in 12 years. SBSD Owl Camera: And it is okay to go and to look at these periodically and ensure that they're still aligned with, you know, what the goals are for the district, right? SBSD Owl Camera: And then also the fact that it is… okay, good, we've got your slide there. But then also that this is feeding into the strategic plan that Dr. Joe is planning to

059lead later. So, it's, like, sequentially, this is the way that we want to do this. Yeah, key point. The… the goal here is that the board will SBSD Owl Camera: update our ends. SBSD Owl Camera: which are kind of abstract. And then Joe, starting in September. SBSD Owl Camera: will have an approved set of ends on the assumption that we actually change them. Maybe we won't. Right. And then we can kick off a strategic planning initiative, and strategic planning is much more about, operational concerns. So, like, the nitty-gritty of, well, how do we actually get done what the community has asked for through the ends? SBSD Owl Camera: Wow. SBSD Owl Camera: Any bakers? Anybody is welcome. SBSD Owl Camera: Staff members are reminded that they have, free speech rights. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I

060wondered if, what we were just talking about… SBSD Owl Camera: Is there something that you want to… some way that we want to make the class offerings engaging, or help get students more interested in filling their schedules, or… I don't… I mean, that… SBSD Owl Camera: how to keep them on campus. Yeah, I mean, if you want to just do plain language, and it could be… I don't know, saying I… this is my thought, but if that's just like a… Jen says, maybe, why… how can we keep kids on campus more? So… sorry, the board's… No, but… SBSD Owl Camera: that could be something someone's interested in knowing more about, right? Right, and I was also thinking, if anybody here today SBSD Owl Camera: is… SBSD Owl Camera: In the community as an employer, as

061a organizer in some way, if they have ideas about how to get input from their… the groups that they SBSD Owl Camera: are participating, don't necessarily ref… SBSD Owl Camera: represent, but, you know, if… how… just how can we get people to come and tell us things? Because sometimes that's hard at the school board, you know? It's hard for us to get input, so if you guys have ideas about how to get input to us, we would like to hear it. SBSD Owl Camera: Please. Would you step up so we can put you on mic? Yeah. Just two comments I had. And if we could introduce… Oh, sorry. Name is Steve Colmold from South Carleton. SBSD Owl Camera: I just noticed at the beginning of your, of the pens, the pre-existing one, that… SBSD Owl

062Camera: The wording was a little strange in terms of saying, well, this is preparing students for college, or to, like, or other things. SBSD Owl Camera: And it seemed, like, kind of… SBSD Owl Camera: Like, maybe some of those other things, or the alternate calling should be spelled out a little more clearly, like… SBSD Owl Camera: Skilled trades, or what those other things are might make it SBSD Owl Camera: More, useful for other people who are choosing the college fair. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, I know that's the preferred path, or has been, but maybe it's not the path for a lot of people. It feels a little… it sounds a little dismissive for people who don't take that path. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the other comment really was. SBSD Owl Camera: Towards the

063end of the citizenship. SBSD Owl Camera: I think now, especially with… SBSD Owl Camera: things being, I would say, much more complicated than they used to be in the past. SBSD Owl Camera: Things like life skills, like students, like a goal could be, or an end, that students leave high school equipped to deal with the new world we're in, which is much more complicated than it used to be, you know, whether it be doing your taxes, dealing with financial things. SBSD Owl Camera: finding an apartment, all these types of things that used to be actually, I think, quite simple, are now seemingly much more complicated than they used to be, and maybe, SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know, life skills is what comes to mind for me in terms of a way to frame it.

064SBSD Owl Camera: And as part of that goal of the citizen, is being able to handle this increasingly complicated world. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I think it speaks to… so I'm sure you started out, I ran out, and so I'm sorry if I'm repeating anything, but SBSD Owl Camera: To… to the point that it is considered best practice, and at least in our training on what policy governance is, right? SBSD Owl Camera: To revisit these ends periodically. I think, Steve, you pointed out two really good reasons why it is so important, because things change so much, and they have. You know, think of all of the things that have transpired since 2014. SBSD Owl Camera: so, having… SBSD Owl Camera: that opportunity to think deeply about what those

065things are that have changed, what about the job force has changed, what about the skills that you need to be successful in those jobs, what can you anticipate about the jobs of the future, is the hardest one. SBSD Owl Camera: that all of that is both… like, we are so curious to hear from… from all of you about your thoughts, because we're all experiencing South Burlington from our own point of view, and SBSD Owl Camera: This is a good way to help us understand that, and find those commonalities, and just, you know… because obviously there are things in here that probably work really well. You know, we've got some really good statements in there that a few people could disagree with, but SBSD Owl Camera: The time to… to look is now. SBSD Owl Camera:

066Other thoughts, please. SBSD Owl Camera: One. SBSD Owl Camera: Say again. Oh, great. SBSD Owl Camera: Elizabeth Fitzgerald? SBSD Owl Camera: Oops, what's my, F. SBSD Owl Camera: I looked back when I first SBSD Owl Camera: became aware of N's policies, and the first date I have in my files is 2009, so it goes back a long way. SBSD Owl Camera: And I anticipated, as the board was going to review, Global End Statement and the ENDS policy supporting that, that there would be lots of opportunity for change. And like you, Michelle, I kind of went back and said, what has changed since 2014? SBSD Owl Camera: You can go through a laundry list, smartphones, pandemic, artificial intelligence, social media, natural disasters that have resulted in climate resiliency needs, the gig economy. SBSD Owl Camera: ICE

067surveillance and monitoring, Me Too movement, school shootings, cryptocurrency, Black Lives Matter, the list goes on. So, as I reviewed the ENS policies, I kind of kept in mind all of those major changes that were impacting, or had the potential to impact the ENDS policy in SBSD Owl Camera: I have to say, I was honestly surprised SBSD Owl Camera: that I feel they've stood the test of time in a lot of ways. One of the things I heard tonight was sort of the phrasing of the ends in having had the experience of developing this document from inception, I will tell you that there were SBSD Owl Camera: Probably… SBSD Owl Camera: I'd say hundreds, and less than 200 community members that participated in a number of roundtable sessions, and when it got down to each of

068the four, specific areas. SBSD Owl Camera: the phrasing was very deliberative that came, that came to the document that exists today. And, you know, I can… I can give you some of the specifics. The way that started out with Global Lens is it was, you know, that students would walk across the stage. SBSD Owl Camera: And that was a barometer for success, that they'd get a diploma, and, you know, then it migrated into students graduating from South Burlington High School, demonstrating readiness for their next step. And there was an intent to try to keep it very simple, but SBSD Owl Camera: when, you know, when it finally ended up where it is, there's so much deliberation in all of that, and I think Steve brought up a good point. There was an effort to incorporate

069SBSD Owl Camera: Things beyond college, which, had been a primary goal of high schools SBSD Owl Camera: you know, however many years ago, and it was intended to highlight careers, and I guess I would add, and or individually determined next steps, which would be vocations in the military, or whatever it might be. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, even the language around being met at a cost to the community, we… SBSD Owl Camera: debated many, many times, afford versus support. And afford really is a presumptuous term when it comes to funding. SBSD Owl Camera: public education, in that it's… that's a very, ambiguous. So, support is the word that got settled on, and that comes in the form of the guest voter. SBSD Owl Camera: So as I look through, you know, as I look through

070the ends, I think there's… there are some opportunities for tweaking. I do think the potential to call out financial literacy, as Steve mentioned, may be an update that reflects, you know, the current environment. SBSD Owl Camera: But I do… Think. SBSD Owl Camera: The challenge beyond some of the fine-tuning that might happen, through the process is ultimately going to be what are the metrics that'll be used to measure success and competency, and how SBSD Owl Camera: do funding priorities get allocated, ultimately? And originally, the four, ENS policies were weighted equally, and there was a lot of discussion of should those be in some, prioritization order, and I know the… SBSD Owl Camera: some of the discussion was that the prioritization of those could change over time, and might be called out in one period of

071time, or might be, equally weighted in other periods of time. So, those are kind of my comments. I'm looking forward to participating in the process, and SBSD Owl Camera: Again, I was pretty pleased that I felt like, for the most part, they stood the test of time. Thanks. Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: Online, we have, hand raised. SBSD Owl Camera: Did you recognize the oak? SBSD Owl Camera: Theo, go ahead. Théo (they/he): Hi everyone, can you hear me? Théo (they/he): Can you hear me okay? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. Théo (they/he): Okay, great. Hi everyone, my name is Theo, I work for Outright Vermont. My position there is the GSA Network Coordinator, so I work with schools across the state, Théo (they/he): And help support their GSAs. And my apologies if you hear my

072cat in the background, too. She likes to make her presence known as well. Théo (they/he): I was wondering if the board could speak… so part of why I was invited here tonight, was to ask about Théo (they/he): getting feedback from voices that are not usually present at the table. I'm wondering if the board could speak to what student involvement is going to look like in this process beyond focus groups. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think… let me pull that up. I'm sure that's not the end of your comment, so I'll just respond to that directly. So, my understanding is that that is primarily going to be guided by the superintendent as, you know, as it regards, SBSD Owl Camera: You know, students, but, you know, certainly open to ideas about, how to maximize student engagement.

073Théo (they/he): Yeah, I'm thinking about really intentionally looping students into this conversation. In my perspective, they should be at the forefront of deciding what the priorities are and should be in their lived experience. Théo (they/he): And that goes beyond just tokenization of relationship with them, but really considering them as meaningful partners in this work. Théo (they/he): It could look like, a class dedicated to student consultancy. Théo (they/he): for example, I know the Burlington City and Lakes Department does something along those lines as a potential model, and we've actually invited them into our office, to do Théo (they/he): consultancy work on a dilemma presented by community partners such as ourselves. And this speaks to… Théo (they/he): A little bit of the… Théo (they/he): Real-world problem solving that people are talking about, the need for in class

074programming as well. Théo (they/he): That's just something that comes to mind as a possible way to loop them in. SBSD Owl Camera: Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I'm wondering if the Superintendent's Advisory Council would be the group that would… they had some… SBSD Owl Camera: purposely selected diverse group of students that, I agree with Theo that it needs to be more than token, but I think it's important to get feedback from folks, but at some point, when the committee is drafting, there needs to be student representation, and I'm thinking that it might be a place for… SBSD Owl Camera: some folks, definitely our student board members, but also maybe some, some of our Superintendent Advisory Council kids to be a part of that. SBSD Owl Camera: You have another meeting before the

075end of the school year? We do, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I guess… so what… what I would love to hear more about is what people's thoughts are on how… how to encourage that, because we have heard in a lot of our conversations, there are plenty of students that don't feel the access. They don't feel… SBSD Owl Camera: That this is a place that they are free to come and talk, that we want to talk to them, when what we are saying is we absolutely do. So… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm thinking, I guess, more of the communication around that, about how much we really value that contribution, and to go to them. I think we really have to go to them. Go to the clubs, go to the… Essence, we call, alright? Go to the

076environmental club, go to… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, whatever. I think you have to really go to where they physically are. I was gonna say, meet them where they're at. Yeah, I think that's… that's the way to get people to talk. It can't be, like, a high state. Yeah, and this environment isn't gonna work. SBSD Owl Camera: It's just, it's late at night, fuel, I mean, it's amazing that you're here, but I don't even know how much work kids have after school, it's a lot. SBSD Owl Camera: And so I think… I think this environment was kind of weird. SBSD Owl Camera: So getting, like, a list of clubs, and then working with the superintendent to make sure that that access to those students is appropriate and known, and, you know… Our board is coming

077to Essex a lot, and they will come in and talk and ask us SBSD Owl Camera: speak to specific groups, so that's very possible. So, the one thing I would say on that, though, is that SBSD Owl Camera: me and Loman sometimes talk about how, like, going to specific clubs still… SBSD Owl Camera: you're still selecting a certain group. Like, it's still those students who have access to going to those clubs, because at this, like, at this time, we don't have a block anymore, so a lot of clubs, like, meet after school. So what I would say is that SBSD Owl Camera: I would recommend that it's more during, like, class time. I know that takes away from instructional time, but… SBSD Owl Camera: not everyone can go to the clubs, so then you're… But

078they're in those study halls. Yeah, so then, like, you go to study hall, Dr. Clark goes to study halls and talks to the group of students who are in the study hall, that kind of thing. SBSD Owl Camera: Also, just, like, advisory tasks regularly when we do things like that, you know? SBSD Owl Camera: a lot of the time, students aren't doing anything anyways, but they're in a classroom, so… And when we did it at Essex, this is about 15 years ago, there was, SBSD Owl Camera: the school board members would come in, and they would spend, like, an entire day. And so, I think kids would… people would fully express interest, and you would be excused from class. So it was kind of a formal thing… it was formal yet informal, right? It wasn't

079a high stakes, but… and they wanted just a wide variety of voices. So that… SBSD Owl Camera: that… that actually works really well. It's within the confines of the school day, transportation is not an issue because that… that's a barrier, let's face it. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I mean, that's… that's another way to get… get students involved. I think another resource available to you is the… all the data from the 3Q questions that I… I did. Now, it doesn't specifically talk about HEMS, but the question, what do you like, or more importantly, what can we do better? SBSD Owl Camera: that might give you, or the committee, ideas about… and I talked with a lot of student groups with their… there, a lot of different school groups, community groups, so that… I mean, you'll have

080access to all that data to tell them. And I think teacher input would be vitally important, also. We echo on the student input. SBSD Owl Camera: I have a question with Theo, too. Oh, you… Both Theo is here are still… Oh, actually, yeah. Is Theo… Theodore, you still there? I might not be… Théo (they/he): Yes, I'm… I'm still here. SBSD Owl Camera: Now if I can remember my question. SBSD Owl Camera: It's around how to ask the question, right? So, we are updating ENT, but we're talking to kids who may or may not be aware of what those are. It feels very heavy-handed to go in and SBSD Owl Camera: read the end, and talk about the rationale that they were in 2014, and that they are really great, and a lot of work went

081into them, but, you know, like, all of that lead-in seems, like, crushing and irrelevant to… at the same time, we are talking about outcomes, right? The outcomes that the community wants. SBSD Owl Camera: And the students are on one side of those outcomes right now, and the parents and community members and, you know, people not in K-12 are on the outside of those outcomes. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, I'm wondering how we frame the questions appropriately for students who SBSD Owl Camera: are, you know, admittedly doing very well, and we want to hear their thoughts, but yet have not experienced SBSD Owl Camera: what happens after high school. So I'm just… I'm looking for any kind of hook about how to, even initiate that conversation effectively. Théo (they/he): Yeah, I think, speaking to the concern

082about accessibility as well, it's really relevant here, because students who, you know, the students who are going to raise their hand and jump into answering Théo (they/he): Any prompts or questions you're asking them for are the students who are thriving in school, who are excited by leadership opportunities, and who see themselves as leaders already? Théo (they/he): And the people that you really want feedback from are the students who are maybe Théo (they/he): A little hesitant to see themselves in a leadership position. Théo (they/he): I think the way you really need to reach those students is through relationships. I heard you all talking about meeting students where they're at, I think that's also really important, but, getting teachers to maybe nominate students, and the teachers have the relationships as students already, and can really uplift them

083and say. Théo (they/he): You know, maybe this is something that you… Théo (they/he): wouldn't have considered otherwise, but I can really see you thriving in a position like this, or giving feedback, would be really, really helpful. We'd be excited to hear from you. Théo (they/he): And then scaffolding the support, like, just dumping the information on them about ends and, you know, outcomes will be overwhelming, but… Théo (they/he): Seeing themselves as, seeing them as meaningfully integrated throughout the process, and, Théo (they/he): scaffolding the support so they can build in their understanding. That's why I suggested the potential of, Théo (they/he): a consultancy, course, or something along those lines, which would allow for more long-term engagement, and then… Théo (they/he): a teacher facilitating the process of, here's what goals and outcomes are, here's how they structured, here's

084how they apply in a school setting. And then allowing the students to give input along the way, rather than just all at once. Théo (they/he): I don't know if. SBSD Owl Camera: Victoria. Théo (they/he): answers your question. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so Theo, I'd like to address, like, the… SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know what the word was, but, like, don't think this on kids. That… that is so not what I meant. That is absolutely not what I meant, so I'm going to explain. So the way we did it at Essex, it was over… and it's what Theo was just mentioning, relationships, right? There's… SBSD Owl Camera: So teachers have relationships with kids, and they can recommend them, and then the way that we did it at Essex League was over a period of weeks

085and months, so it wasn't like this whole, like, decide. It was, you know, bit by bit, building trust, getting ideas, and then formulating. It took a year. SBSD Owl Camera: So… but we don't have a year. So that's… that's… that's what I was… SBSD Owl Camera: saying. I don't… I do not… I'm not in the business of scanning children. Should we hear from Julie? SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much, Dude. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, thank you, Bill. SBSD Owl Camera: I hope you stay involved. SBSD Owl Camera: I guess my question is why we don't have a year, because I know that when the ends were updated last, it took months and months. Sorry, Bridget Burkhart didn't introduce myself. SBSD Owl Camera: Parents and former board member, SBSD Owl Camera: So I'm not understanding

086what the pressure is to have this done in such a short time frame. This is a really challenging time of year for families and for students that you want input from, and this is, like, culminating events, AP exams are starting. SBSD Owl Camera: spring sports, all of that. It's really challenging in the next 6 weeks to feel like you're gonna get, at least from SBSD Owl Camera: the school community that's already engaged, it's a hard time for people to really deeply engage. So, I'm a little concerned about that. I would love to hear more about the consultant and the facilitation and, like, what that is going to look like. And I would just urge a little bit of a… SBSD Owl Camera: Slow down since this is so important, because it sort of drives a

087lot of other things in the district, like a lot of other policies and a lot of other things that SBSD Owl Camera: are tied to the ends, so resource allocation, operations, all of that sort of, you know, is meant to support reaching the ends, and so I just… there's a lot of impact for SBSD Owl Camera: what the ends look like and how they change. It's going to have a lot of downstream impact. I just want us to… I would advocate, for a slow process. The other reason I would advocate for a slow process is it's hard to tell what's going to happen at the state level, but if SBSD Owl Camera: H955, which is the big, sort of, net steps in education transformation, goes through in the form that it's in right now, and

088that's a big if. Like, it's getting voted on SBSD Owl Camera: tomorrow and Friday in the House, and then, you know, it has to go through the Senate, and so it's going to be probably another month and a half before we know what the outcome of all those deliberations are, but if it were to go through in the form that the House has it laid out in, we would be in a merger discussion SBSD Owl Camera: whether it came to fruition or not, it would be in a merger discussion with Burlington and Winooski. That's how it's laid out right now, with Burlington and the bill. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is a whole nother set of… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, questions for the community, and a need for community engagement in those discussions, and hopes

089and dreams and desires to merge or not merge, and why, and all of that. So, it feels like a pretty heavy lift to be, changing, or really in six weeks, you know, going through a whole update to the end. SBSD Owl Camera: when we're going to have this other bigger discussion coming along. And also in the bill are things like, statewide graduation requirements, you know, that would feed into what we would need to have addressed in the end, so even if we didn't. SBSD Owl Camera: enter into a real deep merger conversation, or that didn't come to fruition, there would still be things that are coming out that would need to be reflected, probably, in any ends that we would come out with. So… SBSD Owl Camera: Those are just some thoughts. I'm just not

090understanding the urgency. I definitely understand the need for an update, and, you know, it's a different… the community changes over time, and there may be different wants and desires over time. I'm just not understanding why it needs to be done right now before school ends and before the faculty are gone. I don't understand why this can't be a process that, continues into the fall and continues into the next school year. Just so you can kind of see SBSD Owl Camera: how the state-level stuff plays out, and… and give everyone more time to be engaged. On the student engagement side, just one little piece of experience that Elizabeth and I had when we were working on, sort of visioning for the middle school-high school project that happened several years ago. SBSD Owl Camera: One thing that

091was really effective, which I think you've already touched on a little bit, and I would just go one layer deeper, maybe, is we did have classes of kids take some time out of class and come through, and we would sort of say, these are some things we're thinking about, what do you guys think? And we got amazing ideas about very specific things that kids wanted out of new buildings, because they had a trusted adult bring them in to SBSD Owl Camera: another group of adults and introduce them, and because they were with a teacher that they trusted, you know, that sort of made them feel comfortable really expressing themselves and laying it all out there in a way that doesn't feel as comfortable when they come to us and they don't really know us. And

092so I don't know if at the high school they do the same thing, but I know at the middle school, they ask kids to sort of write down who their trusted person is, or their trusted people are in the school. SBSD Owl Camera: And that might be a way, if a whole class isn't, you know, sort of pulled together to do it, if you can sort of find these little pods of people and their trusted adults to sort of bring them along, that would be a way to make kids feel more comfortable really expressing themselves. SBSD Owl Camera: The other thing I've seen Winooski do, just because I've been over there for various, other, education-related things. SBSD Owl Camera: They try to make a lot of these things very community-focused with childcare and hot luck

093and, you know, just really making it almost like a little party, and so you've got the little kids running around. SBSD Owl Camera: You've got kids all the way from elementary up through high school, you've got parents there. They try to have translation services for some of the major languages that are spoken, because Manuski is a lot more multicultural than we are, even. And so, just really trying to make it, as opposed to a formal meeting, like, more like a, let's come together and really think about our schools and where they're going in the future. So, those are just some… SBSD Owl Camera: Scattered ideas, but… Thank you very much. And we have… how many languages among us? SBSD Owl Camera: We don't have to do. SBSD Owl Camera: So one thing I wanted to

094point out is that, we're also going to be reaching out specifically to non-school community groups, SBSD Owl Camera: So, just in the same way that I think these are great ideas to engage parents. SBSD Owl Camera: And students, another group we haven't talked as much about is staff, although I think that's gonna, again, gonna be largely the superintendent guiding us to how the staff can provide input, although SBSD Owl Camera: the staff does have free speech right to say whatever they want at any time, without fear of any kind of, consequences, as long as it's a matter of public concern, which the ANS policy is. SBSD Owl Camera: But the other groups are, you know, Retirees… employer groups. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, trades, organizations, there's a lot of places that, I think that we're

095gonna have to go out to, because I don't think they're gonna show up here. SBSD Owl Camera: 150? SBSD Owl Camera: The Southampton Business Association, I think, is a great place to look as well, because I know they have some very specific thoughts about what they would like to see in students from around the state. We've heard a little bit of that at the state level, and Lake Champlain Chamber of Commerce, some of those folks who are seeing our graduates afterwards are… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I'll follow up, if you wouldn't mind, to ask who you think I should talk to, or those… Yeah, you've connected with, also, with the SBVA. SBSD Owl Camera: I did a 3Q with them. They were only my first. And they were going to be here tonight, but there

096was a conflict. There was a conflict, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, that's right, that was… okay. Yeah, they're very interested in being at the bottom, absolutely. And we had, one person from… that participated in the, the economic development work that was done by the Council, who is also interested. SBSD Owl Camera: So good. SBSD Owl Camera: And I also agree with. SBSD Owl Camera: virtually. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't think we should rush this. SBSD Owl Camera: We have a deadline, but… SBSD Owl Camera: If I remember correctly, the old one was updated in January of 14, was it? SBSD Owl Camera: January the 8th? You know, it doesn't have to be done by the beginning of the next school year. It's put into place in the middle of the school year. It's not going

097to be the end of the world. I'd rather take our time and get it right than try and rush SBSD Owl Camera: To me, it's helpful. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, and we did discuss that at, I believe it was the March 18th meeting. We put our goal to be, you know, 6 months from now. SBSD Owl Camera: doing a third reading of it. So that is a tight timeline, 6 months, and this board is not obligated to even change SBSD Owl Camera: Dan's policies and all. You know, so it's, SBSD Owl Camera: I know some of that pressure's coming for me, because I'm anxious to get a strategic plan. The new superintendent wants to get a sense of where we need to go, but I would also agree that let's not… we should not SBSD

098Owl Camera: make a timeline just to make a timeline. It needs to be a quality product where a lot of people have input, so that delays the strategic plan, delays the strategic plan. Right, and the strategic plan was then going to kind of inform the budget, right? That was sort of where our timing was coming, but obviously. SBSD Owl Camera: It doesn't make any sense to have that path. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, for example, I mean, if one of the ends ends up being that we want more life skills, then that means our strategic plan will be we need to offer more courses in that, which means we need to budget for it and all of those things. Yeah, so it sort of pushes that kind of back, but that's… Right, but again, I don't,

099SBSD Owl Camera: I know I'm, anxious, but don't, don't go rush through it for me. Well, that's good to know, like, that was what was driving my, you know, like, my engagement in this. SBSD Owl Camera: is to support you in getting that connected to those next steps, along with when we look at these things, and I think to Elizabeth's point. SBSD Owl Camera: connecting to… SBSD Owl Camera: what's achievable that we can demonstrate through metrics, and how we do that. Doesn't mean we don't have the more aspirational things in our vision, but to get a little bit more… SBSD Owl Camera: tight on some of that language to support you in building that strategic plan and in the monitoring process. And nor does it mean that we are not going to work until we

100have a strategic plan. I mean, there are certain things that we know that we need to get done, so I'd like to have a plan so we can know where we're going, but SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, it may be an ambitious schedule, but I figure we're going to start somewhere and let's just get cracking. We can always slow it down. Yeah, we can always do that. We should inform the community if we're going off of the stated 6-month schedule, you know, because the goal of the… SBSD Owl Camera: what we discussed on March 18th was, let's make it possible for the superintendent to update the budget. SBSD Owl Camera: based on a community process this year. And if we don't do it this year by September, I don't think it's reasonable for him to

101really look at that until next year, which is… SBSD Owl Camera: gone, I think, from a short time horizon to a very… maybe an over-long time horizon. And I think another point here is, too, that this is not going to be the, pardon the pun, end-all, be-all. SBSD Owl Camera: This is evolutionary, and this is us looking at it now. SBSD Owl Camera: And maybe… hopefully it's not going to be another 12 years before we look at it again. But let's just start so that we can get to the point of the strategic plan, because my concern is, is if we stretch it out too long, then these… then this just keeps getting kicked down the road, and I think there's some bigger things that we need to be going after as well. SBSD Owl

102Camera: That's my thought. A part of our planning, and maybe this is a really good time to bring it up, is that we kind of had it in the exploratory phase and confirmatory phase. SBSD Owl Camera: And what I mean by that is, first week, gather as much information as we can do that, and we're doing it informally in this kind of process, and we're going to do it formally with external focus groups, and that is under that, like, two-month SBSD Owl Camera: timeline. The goal being to do a few more schools out, and completely acknowledging that that can be challenging this time of year. However, it is at the end. Then, policy will be drafted. SBSD Owl Camera: what the hope is, is that that second part of surveys, which maybe now it's more

103than a survey, right, what it's actually SBSD Owl Camera: we put those words in front of people, and then the next wave of feedback is on the actual proposed language. And so that by the time we get to the end of the third reading, that we're sitting in a place where we have hit, you know, that kind of numbers of people that are input. SBSD Owl Camera: Achieved as much of the, SBSD Owl Camera: Diversity of that input as possible. SBSD Owl Camera: And I just… I feel like we'd be in a much stronger position to make that final vote, right? If we have just as rigorous and a confirmatory SBSD Owl Camera: Part of this process, where we say, this is our draft, let's confirm and correct. SBSD Owl Camera: and iterate a little

104bit more. Anyway. SBSD Owl Camera: So shall we, call it a day on… on this one? Is there anybody else in the Zoom call who wants to make a comment? Anybody else in the room? Okay. All right, well, great. Thank you very much. I really… SBSD Owl Camera: Hope that, also, you who have thought it's important enough to show up tonight will ask your friends to show up and, you know, make their voices heard, because it's very… it's the most effective way of making change, is to have us hear it directly from different people. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, the next item on the agenda… SBSD Owl Camera: It's gonna be the 2026 school calendar. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we're gonna do superintendent evaluation, and then we're gonna do child nutrition, and then we're gonna

105do Monitoring 2.4. SBSD Owl Camera: Awesome, so thank you very much. The 2026-2027 school calendar, I'm coming to you to let you know that I believe we're going to need to make some adjustments, and one is simply a, a error on our part, and the other is feedback from our community. SBSD Owl Camera: The error on our part is that, Yom Kippur, which is, I believe, September 21st. SBSD Owl Camera: the Champlain Valley Superintendents Association had that as a non-school day, and when we adopted the calendar, we had that as a school day, so we need to make that adjustment. SBSD Owl Camera: Well… SBSD Owl Camera: The other thing is that we've got a lot of feedback from the community, and I can… I can tell you, again, through… I… you know my level

106of, joy with the process of the Champlain Valley Superintendents, dictating, calendar and all that. SBSD Owl Camera: They had Eid and Diwali as school days, and SBSD Owl Camera: And what I didn't know as a new guy here was that there was a lot of, work SBSD Owl Camera: put in this community to, get those as non-school days. And while, there's a lot of districts covered by the Champlain Valley Superintendents Association. SBSD Owl Camera: There's only a handful of us that have a significant level of representation, the folks that celebrate. SBSD Owl Camera: those holidays. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, when the… when the calendar first came out, SBSD Owl Camera: Winooski and Burlington submitted a waiver for those two days, and they were given the waiver. SBSD Owl Camera: And since we published our

107calendar, we've gotten feedback. It turns out that other school districts have gotten the feedback, too. So I had a meeting this morning with all of the Chittenden County superintendents, who all, including us, requested a waiver to make those non-student days. SBSD Owl Camera: next year, and we will grant it that way to her. So we have the ability to do that. SBSD Owl Camera: I have not yet spoken with the administrators about it. That is on my schedule tomorrow. I have not yet spoken with the union about it. That is also on my schedule tomorrow. But what I think is going to happen is that we will alter our calendar, which will SBSD Owl Camera: make those 3 days, Yomp for Diwali, and as non-student, non-staff days. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, here's the problem. SBSD

108Owl Camera: The problem is, we, have… there's very, very little flexibility in the calendar to add those days back in. As you know, we have… we're supposed to have 100… up to 180 student days. SBSD Owl Camera: and 189 staff days. And the way the calendar is, right now, we have a short Thanksgiving break, we have a short winter break, we start in August, and we're done in June. SBSD Owl Camera: So I don't know what the calendar is going to look like for those 3 days that we need to make non-school data. SBSD Owl Camera: But I want to throw something out that could be a possibility and get the board's read on it before I take it tomorrow, and that might be, if the last day of school next year is, like, Friday,

109June 11th, I think. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm thinking that if we made those three, days that we're taking off during the year, after that weekend, listen, as, staff days, and… SBSD Owl Camera: student days, if needed because of snow day, because we would all… with all of those changes, we would be down to 175 student days. That's the minimum. So if we took a snow day, we would have to make it up. So those could be on the calendar. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm… I'm sure the staff would not be too thrilled with having to come back for 3 additional days. This is… it's… I think it's unusual that most places I've been, there's always been a work day after the student's… like, the student's last day would be, and then the… do you guys have

110a workday after the student's day? SBSD Owl Camera: We do, we have exam make-up day, which is on a Friday, but then we have to do 3 days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, which is… which is, like… Yeah, I mean, it's not… yeah, it's not necessarily… it would be a change for staff, I should say, but I think that they might be student days, and they might be professional development, stuff that we can get done before the school year begins. It could also be a time for them to shut down their classrooms and get it cleaned up and whatnot. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I… again, I have not spoken with the administrators yet, I have not spoken with the union, that they might very well have better ideas than that, but I wanted to give you the

111heads up to that. SBSD Owl Camera: might be coming, and I guess my question for you is, you've already adopted the calendar, would you like me to bring back the calendar for re-adoption, or are you comfortable with us making a decision and publishing it to our fans? SBSD Owl Camera: As long as there's no problem with the legal validity of the calendar that we haven't directly approved, would anybody want it to come back to us anyway? No. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I guess as long as it's legally valid. Awesome, thank you so much. So I will… I meet with… we have administrators meeting in the morning, I'm meeting with union leadership tomorrow afternoon, and then we'll make a decision within the next couple days, because I know our families are anxious. SBSD Owl Camera:

112to learn about that, and I want to get that news out to them. So, Joe, just to clarify, was Yom Kippur… SBSD Owl Camera: Eden and Diwali, were they on the calendar as non-school days, and then they were removed? They were non-school days this year. Oh, okay. But I think part of that was because one of them fell on a Friday. So they're not on Fridays, and so I think when the committee was making the calendar, they thought, well, let's just make those school days, it's… SBSD Owl Camera: Not an issue for our district. SBSD Owl Camera: So, yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, it's a good thing. I'm really grateful for folks that reached out and expressed their concern. In a moment who spoke on behalf of the students. Thank you very much

113for reaching out to me. Advocacy works. It absolutely does, and I think that, SBSD Owl Camera: again, it was just my, ignorance of what the process had been, that I never even thought we should ask for a waiver for this, but I… people pulled me. SBSD Owl Camera: As did your place. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is going to also make that change. It's also… because the problem is, is that I actually wasn't aware either, because they added the… I didn't… I wasn't cluing into the fact that they were rotating holidays, because it's really hard to give a holiday… grant, you know, Diwali's off. It was really exciting for a lot of my students, and then… SBSD Owl Camera: And, and, and eat, and all the things, and then… SBSD Owl Camera: And then to take

114it away. That does not feel bad. And I didn't really… I tell you, I just was not… Yeah, I didn't realize that either. You can't give and then take away, that… SBSD Owl Camera: that leaves people feeling really bad. Yeah, and that was the message that came loud and clear, that we feel really disrespected, that this was a day off, and now you're taking it away. And again, I'm the superintendent, I'll take… SBSD Owl Camera: blame for everything, but… Well, no, I didn't even take ignorance of the board, too. I mean, we all looked at the calendar, and because I didn't know… I didn't know the days, and so… I didn't even know. Yeah, I really appreciate you listening to the feedback and making these changes, and I, for one, am… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm

115happy to hear about us adding days as possible snow days again, instead of having SBSD Owl Camera: these extra days that I think South Burlington had, as opposed to other school districts, and I was like, what is going on? And I don't know if you have any influence of that, but you know what? It's a lot easier to take away days at the end than add, because every year at Essex, every day has to be made up, and those buildings, we don't… and I think you've got the heat pumps. SBSD Owl Camera: It's like 95 degrees in those buildings, and we sit there, and it's… it's just… SBSD Owl Camera: It's terrible, and anyway, yeah, so… So there, if this is what comes to pass, it'll be 3 days… Yeah, but you're gonna end June

11620th, and then, oh, surprise, get another 15th. I mean, that's a lot better than, oh, you're ending on the 15th, oh, surprise, just kidding, now it's June 20th, and that has happened to Essex. But we're sort of saying we could do that. SBSD Owl Camera: The days are going to be there, so people will know that these could be the day. Oh, could be, yeah, yeah, you'll know these are possible, and we don't have to use them. We do have to show up, but we're gonna have some really dynamic… Well, we've got no snow toe, so no snow day, Joe, so… I do like a good snow day, but… Well, me too. SBSD Owl Camera: Anyway, thank you for your, just keeping me on that, I appreciate it. Great. Next item on the agenda is

117going to be superintendent evaluation. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the Vermont… SBSD Owl Camera: District quality standards requires, at least annually, the board formally evaluates the performance of the superintendent, And, SBSD Owl Camera: So, if I can share my screen… oh, well, I… Zoom. SBSD Owl Camera: Reaching line. SBSD Owl Camera: So, anyway, we're required to do an annual performance evaluation by the state, whether or not it's actually in the superintendent contract. SBSD Owl Camera: And so the proposal on the table is that we would start to use the BSBA, to use their service to help us, coordinate that, this year, and then perhaps as a… on an ongoing basis. SBSD Owl Camera: So, let me just pull up the exact… SBSD Owl Camera: wording. Save… SBSD Owl Camera: These look very familiar. Oh, yes. SBSD

118Owl Camera: I'm gonna remove the bus. SBSD Owl Camera: Is this… SBSD Owl Camera: Is this a BSBA word, or this is, this is from the state. This is from the AOE. So… SBSD Owl Camera: Right, I recognize this from our monitoring reports. Yeah. So anyway, long story short, my proposal here is that we should go with the Vermont SBSD Owl Camera: School Boards Association Superintendent Evaluation Services. Joe, did you have an opinion about whether this was a good idea? I think it's a great idea. I think I… I've gone years without being evaluated, and I would really love something back. SBSD Owl Camera: There you go. So, the last question? Can I ask, what was the process like in the POPS dealer? I do. I do know. And we… we did really want to

119use this service, but there was resistance. So, basically, SBSD Owl Camera: There was a rubric SBSD Owl Camera: and… or questions, I think it was a questions, I did it 3 times, and you filled it out, and then the board chair compiled it. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, like, gave, you know, gave up. Gave, like, a… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, they too won't break with them. SBSD Owl Camera: So, if you got 3, like, being proficient, 3 more proficient. So, it was… but it was just among the 5 board members. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I, I think… SBSD Owl Camera: And we didn't have any outside, and we didn't get, staff input, and we didn't get community input, or parent input, or student input, is what I recall. It was just the five of us

120doing the review. So there's no, like, evaluation… there's no, SBSD Owl Camera: Honestly, asleep. SBSD Owl Camera: going out to look at the job. You guys were just doing it… We were just doing it. Okay. And I think, like, you've been on the board long enough to know, I mean, we only know Joe in this capacity. Like, we don't work with Joe. So it's… that's why I think that the SBA would be really great, because then you get input from SBSD Owl Camera: From staff, which is critical, students in the community. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, and I think it's really important. That would be helpful to you, right. If we, you know, if I thought it was going to be, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: terrible and awful and mean, I would say, no, but

121I actually think the VSFA does a really nice job. I know Tom Flanagan, he's quoted in the VSBA info as saying, and Claire Wolf, who's the board chair, Tom Flanagan's the super ed at Burlington, they… they're very positive about it, so I think it's worked really well for them, and they do that, they do it every year. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think it's… I think it's a positive. I think it's a really good thing. Okay, well, I think that's potentially an easy decision then. So the fee this year is $2,000, the fee going forward next year is $2,500. So is the board amenable to amending the agenda to turn this into an action item? So, and just, and then I would make a motion to authorize me to SBSD Owl Camera: engage the VSBA

122to do the superintendent evaluation? SBSD Owl Camera: Just need two-thirds. Well, do you want to make a… are you making a motion? I'm not making a motion, I'm just saying, is it okay if we convert this into an action item? Oh, convert it into an action item right now. Yes. Okay, so we're going to amend this to be an action item, and so I would entertain a motion to authorize the board chair to sign a contract SBSD Owl Camera: with the Vermont School Boards Association to perform the superintendent evaluation Process with us this year. SBSD Owl Camera: I move. Laura moves. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa seconds, any discussion? And this is an action item, so we will be taking public comment on it. I have discussion. Please make sure that you give Delinda the news

123so she can have a PO by Friday, which is the deadline. For this year you want to do it, or for July 1? This year. For this year. Good job, Chelsea. SBSD Owl Camera: I've only been on the job since January 1. And you already know that. Okay. I would just say, I know $2,000 is not nothing, that is a cost, and the idea that we could do it is an idea, but in my experience, I just feel like a… SBSD Owl Camera: everything that everyone said here, it is well worth that money for Joe to get the feedback that could actually help him understand SBSD Owl Camera: what he's doing great, where his opportunities are, and and keep things moving along and improve our dose of drugs. So, I think it's a great investment.

124Yeah, and it's an objective third party, and yes, $2,000, that's not nothing. That also speaks to the fact that it's… take a lot of food, and so that's… that's why, you know, and you do get what you pay for, so I do think it would be… SBSD Owl Camera: rather than just the seven of us filling out a form. And I will… oh, sorry. I guess I did have a question, so it would be for… SBSD Owl Camera: Fiscal year 2026. It would be this year. This year, so 25-26, wow. SBSD Owl Camera: This year. The year that we're in right now, the fiscal year that we're in right now. SBSD Owl Camera: That's ending in 2 months. SBSD Owl Camera: So we would be reviewing, or the BFDA would be reviewing system products. We

125review it, they guide us through it. Yeah. We… we're the ultimate… Got it. We, you know, yeah. But we're looking at the past. SBSD Owl Camera: 12 months, I guess, that. Although, in Joe's case, it's probably… that would go since September. Since September, so… The first year would be shorter. Yeah, yeah. I just… that was a good question, because I thought we would… SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: I know the SBA says that timeline will work for them. Yeah, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: So is it done at the end of the year, or… It should really be doing it right now. We're a little bit late, it's usually… but that doesn't matter. And then we're reporting the results to him by June small time frame, right? Yeah, yeah, ideally May, but…

126yep. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think that helps, like, for us to have, like, we keep going back to, like, having a scorecard for the board, but to have, like, some of these key dates, like, this is when you're doing your superintendent about, you know, review, you know, so that we can stay on the schedule. It's a good thing. All those in favor? Aye. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, the motion passes. So the next item on the agenda is child nutrition funding. We only moved… we only took action to put it… to make it an action item. I think we've got to actually… did not move… Yeah, she moved. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura, Alyssa, then we had public comment, then we discussed. Sorry, it was so hard. So the next item on the agenda is discussion

127of child nutrition funding. It is related to the following action item, Monitor Report 2.4, Financial Planning and Budgeting. So, Jean Marie, you may address both at the same time. SBSD Owl Camera: Perfect. Thank you so much. SBSD Owl Camera: I just wanted to… a random comment related to your last topic. SBSD Owl Camera: I appreciate your being so fiscally minded, Emily, because, that… I appreciate that. But also, you all are fairly new in your roles, and Joe is fairly new here, and so you might determine that a year or two with VSBA guiding you, that then we could take a year off, like, once you know the process, right? None of you've been through, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Just a… SBSD Owl Camera: additive feedback. So, are you going to do the monitoring report first?

128Yeah, I'm going to start with the monitoring report, which is going to lead me into child nutrition funding. Can I start with the state next to it. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is a reminder that this is the monitoring… this is one of the monitoring reports that we do four times a year, and I think that you'll see, after we do this that not a whole lot has changed, and that starting with the new fiscal year, Jean Marie and her team are planning to provide the board with monthly updates with some of the significant questions, so this… SBSD Owl Camera: just keep in the back of your mind, is this one that we can reduce maybe to once a year or twice a year instead of four times

129a year? Right, and that would be a policy in that number. SBSD Owl Camera: All right. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it. And so, to clarify, just because we had a board question. SBSD Owl Camera: The child nutrition funding, which is the… technically the item on the agenda, is very related to the Monitoring Report 2.4 Financial Planning and Budgeting, and so we're merging the two topics into one big topic. SBSD Owl Camera: That's what we review four times a year, is that monitoring, financial planning version. Yes. Yeah, she just did a couple months ago. Yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I'm just sharing with you a presentation I shared, what was in your board packet was the report and the sort of scorecard, and… SBSD Owl Camera: What was not in your board packet,

130and I think I hit the send button on it, is a copy of this presentation. So, I am gonna really speed through this, because as we ask the team to go through this monitoring report again, what we learned is that SBSD Owl Camera: All of the guiding materials that we use to, to score ourselves in this. SBSD Owl Camera: are annual documents. For the majority, they are all annual documents. So what we've done in this report is, in the presentation, we have freshened the materials that can be freshened, and I'm going to open just one of these for you, this year-to-date financial report. But before I do that, I wanted to, SBSD Owl Camera: tell you something that I forgot. Oh, I wanted to tell you that as they went through the report, they determined,

131the business office team did not change any of the compliance statuses that they assigned themselves the last time that we did this. SBSD Owl Camera: Because this is a bit of a long game, and we have done so much, to put in a lot, you know, we have changed our employees around, we're changing some of our processes around, we've changed our software around, we've made a lot of headway, but there's really nothing dramatic that, made the team want to change their compliance reporting status in any of those SBSD Owl Camera: avenues that we examine. So. SBSD Owl Camera: there's a whole lot of the same that you saw last time in the document that was in your board packet, and there's only a few things that are changed in this document. And I don't like

132to open up these links because they are a bit of an eye chart, but I… in particular, what I want to tell you is in the SBSD Owl Camera: this year-to-date financial report, and I'm gonna stop sharing this. SBSD Owl Camera: And then… share that… SBSD Owl Camera: No, that's not this thing, no. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry. I am fairly technologically challenged. SBSD Owl Camera: Sweet. SBSD Owl Camera: Should be happening. SBSD Owl Camera: Nick's coming to your rescue. I think I got it. I think I have… I slowed down. Okay, thank you, Nick. SBSD Owl Camera: Too many windows open at the same time. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so what you're seeing is, as of April 6th, a, up-to-date, SBSD Owl Camera: view of where our… our budget is, and… SBSD Owl Camera: So,

133one of… this is no surprise to anybody here, or anybody listening at home, the biggest sort of swing factor in our budget is our salary and benefits line, right? Like, that, of course, makes all of the sense in the world. So, as you look at this, chart. SBSD Owl Camera: In our working budget for salaries, we had $38 million. Year to date, we've spent $25 million. We have encumbered SBSD Owl Camera: We've put a hold on $12 million, and so what we haven't spent yet is $900,000, just under a million dollars that's unspent. And so that is… SBSD Owl Camera: and this isn't new news either, that is positions that we have posted that we were hoping to hire for, and we haven't filled yet. There's a lot of positions, particularly around, like, interventionists and

134paraeducators, that remain open. So that… and I think I can pretty confidently tell you on April 15th. SBSD Owl Camera: that we aren't going to quickly hire and spend almost a million dollars in salaries on those folks. So, so that is unspent as of right now, is that $904. So that's good news, and… SBSD Owl Camera: Let me scroll down a little bit here. SBSD Owl Camera: in this… this section of revenues, you'll see that we have just about $800,000 of anticipated revenues, that are… is short. So we have a shortfall of just under $900K in revenue, which isn't uncommon. I mean, sometimes SBSD Owl Camera: These numbers are a little bit of a stab in the dark as we're trying to plot for these things. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: In total,

135right now, we have unspent and unencumbered, sort of not… like, you hear Joe and I joke about this PO. So the way our system works is, we decide that it… we budget for SBSD Owl Camera: $15,000 in toilet paper. On the beginning of July, the head of the custodial services puts in a purchase order for $15,000 worth of paper products or toilet paper. Over the course of the year, he buys $1,000 a year, and it gets charged. We're sort of… PO, like, puts a hold on that money. So what we are working with, and we have had guidelines. SBSD Owl Camera: the district has had guidelines for many years of how that system works, and when your POs need to be in, so that I can come to you and say, hey, we have X

136dollars left over, or we have Y dollars that we're in the hole, which I never want to be here saying that. So we have a picture of really what our financial window looks like. SBSD Owl Camera: And we need those POs to be in place in a really timely fashion, so we can get our books closed in a timely fashion. So, we've put a lot of pressure on the team, on the SB team, to put their POs in SBSD Owl Camera: at… in a timely fashion, and we gave them a deadline of last Friday that they all have to be in, and people are… not everyone loves that idea, because they will say things like, but I don't know… for example, we had a request from an employee today, like. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a

137person who manages different pieces of equipment that students use, and what if they break? And I have money left in my budget. SBSD Owl Camera: Totally fine. SBSD Owl Camera: put a PO in right now to that vendor you normally would issue your repair services to for the amount that you have left in your budget, so it's held, and it's ready for you when you need it, or if you need it between now and the end of the year. People sometimes don't understand what a purchase order is versus, like, submitting their bill for their… the invoice that they've received, right? SBSD Owl Camera: So, right now, again, we have… SBSD Owl Camera: this number here in the box, $2.3 million that's uncovered, that we have not assigned to anything yet. SBSD Owl Camera: I also

138will tell you we have plenty of needs and things that we can do with that money, right? And that… SBSD Owl Camera: That dollar figure equals 3.18% of our whole budget, which, when you talk about a $76 million budget, to have 3% SBSD Owl Camera: like, that's pretty… you're 97% accurate in your budgeting, right? So, I'm pretty proud of that. Like, $2 million does feel like a lot of money, but I also think that, that we're doing a pretty good job being stewards of that money. Go ahead. So, Jean Marie, so that money, though, that $2.3 million or so, was earmarked for something. It's just a matter of people have got to put their POs in to say that SBSD Owl Camera: this is where it's being committed. Where I want to hold it for

139you. So, yes, that is the push, that the email that you sent out that we happened to see with staff, that was where, hey, we're pushed back. I forget that you get those. To say, get it in. It was due last Friday, but ideally want it this Friday. That's some of it. The other part is the staffing that we haven't been… Yeah, exactly, right. It was interesting that Joe and I have kind of discovered SBSD Owl Camera: And we talked about this before town meeting, as we worked to put a ballot item in front of voters around moving so those excess funds into the capital reserve SBSD Owl Camera: there seems to be a fallacy living in the SB world that SBSD Owl Camera: Folks were told, like, okay, we're gonna give you a budget

140of $50,000 for SBSD Owl Camera: this service, but don't spend it. I want you to save it. SBSD Owl Camera: We… that's not a thing. We have to spend it in the year that the voters have approved us to spend it in, right? And if we don't spend it in that year, we have to go back to the voters and say, hey, we have this leftover money, and that's a whole year-out process, right? So, we want folks to spend the money that's been allocated to them for the different things, for the different services, you know, to be mindful and spend it appropriately. SBSD Owl Camera: But the idea that I'm going to save it for next year only rings true in your personal budget. That isn't how the school budget works. So, a couple other

141questions. Do you do a reconciliation of your POs to see what the balance is, and if you have a delta? Yep. That's the first thing. Yeah. And then, beyond that, if you have SBSD Owl Camera: POs that are not being exhausted, what happens to that money? Yeah, so that's some of this, like, you know, that is some of these unencumbered money, or, like, we definitely can see that. And so when we tell people. SBSD Owl Camera: So, for example, in your next board meeting, I'm going to come to you with bid award letters for roofs, and the air handler, and, like, tonight we're going to talk about the van, right? SBSD Owl Camera: I have already put POs in for a random vendor for a ballpark amount to just hold that money, because I need

142it to be held, and we could go back and say, oh, you know, Jean Marie took a shot in the dark and thought it was going to be this evergreen roofing would get the bid, but in fact, it's some other. It's Rod Roofing, right? And we can change the vendor, we can change the amount, but we need folks to go in SBSD Owl Camera: before Friday, and put us on that amount. What's the expiration on those POs? Like, what… The end of the fiscal year. June 30. Well, it's actually… it is June 30, but we have people that are traveling for conferences, and Joe's having the student advisory group in again in June, you know, before the year is over, so… SBSD Owl Camera: bills come in beyond June 30, which is why those POs

143are good through June 30, but, we need to… and our… the other thing that is part of this report is, like, our accounts payable is, like, they're so on top of it that we're in really good shape there, and SBSD Owl Camera: There will be less… SBSD Owl Camera: slop over into the next fiscal year, but the sooner we can close the books, the more accurate we are in them, and the sooner we can be audited. Like, this year, we were very late in our audit because we weren't holding folks' feet to the fire to get your POs in in time. And that's one of the critical things, too, is you have to have a PO before you can go do that expense. That's right. SBSD Owl Camera: I just wanted to say, I really

144appreciate you laying this out for us, because I do remember at the steering committee meeting before the budget vote, a gentleman, very SBSD Owl Camera: rationally asked, well, you have $2 million left over, so shouldn't that come off of the top, and you can start less? But seeing this, I see, well, it's good that we have almost a million dollars left in salaries. SBSD Owl Camera: That also means that teachers have been overworked, and there hasn't been enough resources in the schools for the students. So, it doesn't mean we have the extra money because we didn't need it, it's because we weren't able to allocate it, and it's still important to the budget, so I really… SBSD Owl Camera: Clarify, though, that that is also your interpretation. SBSD Owl Camera: Just what you just said

145is your interpretation. We had asked for the money to cover those students, and the voters said, yes, you can have this money to have those people in the classroom, because that's what was deemed necessary. So, yeah, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, sorry, go ahead. Can I ask a question? We were talking about, like, how interventionists were not hired, where some of the salary money is saved. SBSD Owl Camera: But I also understand that, like, special education funds are reimbursed for federal dollars? Yes, yep. Does that affect, like, our… SBSD Owl Camera: excess fund at all? It doesn't necessarily affect that, no. And there… some of those costs can't be as accurately SBSD Owl Camera: forecasted as other costs can be. You know, we talk a lot about what different… if a different student moves into

146our district and the needs and so forth. So, Nicole this afternoon was like, but Jamer, I don't think I can get all my POs in on time, right? So, there is… there is some swing in there, but we need to try to keep folks to be as accurate as possible. But our reimbursement from the… the federal government SBSD Owl Camera: has been coming in in a timely fashion. Like, we're not, SBSD Owl Camera: We're not seeing any delays there, so, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: it's just the struggle… It's actually hiring people to feel those positions. I can feel this better than I can, yeah, for sure. So, the other thing I was just going to say that Tim Jarvis shared with the board last year, and I just said to April again today, like, I

147can't get this out of my head. SBSD Owl Camera: But, SBSD Owl Camera: The… he said, you know, the average employee, or the average educator, like, as we were doing our budgeting, is, like, 100 grand salary and benefits, or even now, it's, like, 130 grand, so it only takes, like. SBSD Owl Camera: people to equal $1 million, right? Like, that… SBSD Owl Camera: okay, I… I get $100,000 for a person, like, I… but, like, it's the fast math that that adds up so quickly to 10… to a million that is striking to me that… that I can't get out of my head, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I'm gonna stop sharing this, and I sent you all this, and I… I know you have a lot on your agenda, and I talk a lot,

148and I don't want to take all of your time, so, I… SBSD Owl Camera: And… I really am not going to go back through that presentation that I shared with you, because it's a whole lot of what you saw the last time. There's very little that's changed there, and again, the compliance reporting status, the ladies didn't want to change anything because they don't feel like we've made SBSD Owl Camera: There hasn't been enough time for any real progress to be made there. SBSD Owl Camera: So, as… Can I just say it real quick? I'm sorry, just to interject. I just want to say, I really like that table. That's exactly what I've been looking for, is something like that, to say, here's the budget, and I don't recall seeing something quite like that format before,

149where you roll it into the buckets and say, here's how much we allocated to each of them, and here's how much we've spent, and here's how we're tracking. I mean, to me, that's SBSD Owl Camera: really helpful, so I appreciate that. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, happy to. SBSD Owl Camera: So I am going to stop talking about this monitoring report, and I want to now talk about child nutrition funding, and I want to make sure that you all know that my friend and colleague, Rhonda Kettner, who's our director, our amazing director of nutritional services, is on Zoom with me. So I told Rhonda that, I was going to talk about this, and I asked her to be ready to answer any of your questions. SBSD Owl Camera: So I'm… with Rhonda's permission, I'm going

150to give it a shot first, and then Nick will allow her to type in whatever she'd like to. SBSD Owl Camera: So, and so, to clarify, we're not moving on from the action item, it's just that we're incorporating the child nutrition discussion item into this action item. That's right. So… SBSD Owl Camera: The first part of the story was, we have some money left over in our budget right now, and we know that there are other places where we can reallocate and use those things. And I always talk to you guys about facilities items. At our last meeting, one of the auditors joined us to talk about how our audit went last time, and he sort of SBSD Owl Camera: planted the seed up around, how we were accounting for our child nutrition funding. And

151one of the things that came up in the audit last time that our team found is that SBSD Owl Camera: We had, for many years, had a excess of funds to approximately a million dollars in our child nutrition fund. SBSD Owl Camera: And, per the state guidelines and the federal guidelines, we aren't allowed to just keep this, like, big pile of money in the bank. We have to have a plan to spend it, a spend-down plan. And Rhonda has been with the district for, around a decade, maybe a little longer, and Rhonda, when she got here, we were in a big deficit. So, to her credit, she is the one who SBSD Owl Camera: got us in a good place where we suddenly have a million dollars excess, essentially. But she has said, in the

152time that I've been here, it's not right. I know that we don't have… I know I have money left over, but I don't feel like I have… I shouldn't have a million dollars. And so that really came out this fall, that of her million dollars, there was $300,000 in fixed assets. SBSD Owl Camera: That had been previously, attached in the, like, cache SBSD Owl Camera: So it's not actual cash on hand, it's $300,000 in equipment and. Rhonda Ketner: meaningful. SBSD Owl Camera: And so that has suddenly her spend… so she's been spending her money to spend buying equipment, and we did a lot of renovation in the high school kitchen last fall… last summer, rather, and so we've been fast and furiously trying to spend Rhonda's money, and then all of a sudden it was

153like, whoops! SBSD Owl Camera: you're $300,000 short. So, the business office team met with Rhonda recently to talk about how much she has currently in her budget for this year, and how much, is planned for next year, what her staffing looks like, what her costs are, and so forth. SBSD Owl Camera: I should also tell you that it is incredibly common in school districts across the state, and likely across the country, that SBSD Owl Camera: Child nutrition programs are not fully self-funded. The amount that we get in a reimbursement from the federal government is not as high as our staffing costs and the cost of foods, which any of you that are buying groceries know that to be true. SBSD Owl Camera: So, or hiring people. So, as… SBSD Owl Camera: amazing as Rhonda is

154in being really mindful about where her… where she is spending her money on her cost of goods, that sort of, like, the cards are laid out against her. So, what we're looking at right now, and actually I have one other thing I'm going to share… SBSD Owl Camera: with you, and… Rhonda, I know that you're there. Did you want to… have I said anything inaccurately yet? Rhonda Ketner: Not really. Rhonda Ketner: I do, I do just want to… I want to clarify, Dean Marie, just for the board, that the figures that you showed before, do not include anything for nutritional services. SBSD Owl Camera: That's right. Rhonda Ketner: That's right, okay. So, I'm sure the board is aware, but Nutritional Services operates as an enterprise fund, which means with Rhonda Ketner: Unless there's extenuating circumstances,

155we are expected to produce enough revenue to cover all of our wages, benefits, food costs, and now, apparently, equipment repairs. So, it's not included in the amount that you saw before. Rhonda Ketner: So we… this is what Jean Marie is showing you right here, is where… Rhonda Ketner: luckily, the business office, can you scroll down a little bit, Jean Marie, so I can see where… Rhonda Ketner: when you share your screen, I… okay. Rhonda Ketner: No, I've not seen that. So this is what I got from the business office, after… Rhonda Ketner: They did the audit, and they took away the… Rhonda Ketner: $300,000 that, I thought we had, and I had budgeted, for that. Rhonda Ketner: So, to give you a quick overview, when I started in 2013, the Nutritional Services Department was almost

156half a million dollars in debt. Rhonda Ketner: We paid off the deficit in February of 2020, just before COVID hit. Rhonda Ketner: Since then, we have not had a deficit. Actually, nope, there was one year, it was $25,000, but that was, 20, 2019-2020. So when COVID hit, and the district was, having to keep people employed, we needed people. Rhonda Ketner: because we were, all of a sudden, we went from serving kids in the cafeteria to the very next day delivering meals to their homes, so we needed some additional staff. So the district assigned the people to nutritional services. We employed them at their current rate, which was way more than what Rhonda Ketner: most of my staff was making, so that we could package up thousands of meals and send them out with buses, and

157keep our children fed so that they could engage in the online learning. Rhonda Ketner: But that… that was, again, a measly 25,000. So in 2021, our… Our end note was $57,000. Rhonda Ketner: No, excuse me, 20… 2020-21 was 57. 21-22, we had $688,000, in our account. Rhonda Ketner: 2022, 23, we had over 1,100,000. Rhonda Ketner: And in the 23-24 school year, we had 1,200,000. Rhonda Ketner: So, and in 24-25, we had 1,035. So we've been really very fiscally responsible. The problem that we have is the USDA does not allow nonprofit school food service accounts Rhonda Ketner: To have more than 3 months' worth of operating expenses in their nonprofit. Rhonda Ketner: food service coffers. So… For us, that's roughly, on any given year, between 340,000 and $360,000. Rhonda Ketner: So, we were put in a

158spend-down plan, way back, in 2021-22. Rhonda Ketner: So, I was a little skeptical about the amount of money that I was told I had, and I'm glad I was then, because we'd be in real trouble if I wasn't skeptical. Rhonda Ketner: So, we had to put together a spend-down plan, and we've had to do that now every year since the 2021-22 school year, and the state approved it with a realistic spend-down plan of how to get us back down to $350,000. Rhonda Ketner: Last year, I was told by the state that Rhonda Ketner: You know, it'd gone on long enough, and we needed to make a more significant amount of, expenditures to bring us closer. Rhonda Ketner: So, we did that. We bought some beautiful new walk-in freezers for the elementary schools, new salad bars,

159new ovens. Rhonda Ketner: We even paid for plumbing, that really should have been covered by the district, but it fell in that gray area that we could fund it, and I knew the district was struggling, so we thought we had this money and, you know, we'd be collaborative. Rhonda Ketner: Then, all of a sudden, we find out that $300,000 of that. Rhonda Ketner: really wasn't real money. But we'd already spent and had purchase orders, and Rhonda Ketner: In this year, that brought us down to a situation where Rhonda Ketner: You know, we're gonna end the year probably still in the good, but just barely. Rhonda Ketner: So we're kind of looking for a little bit of help and a little bit of relief, to keep Rhonda Ketner: keep us from a situation where you're not

160forced to have to cover any deficit. Right now, I do not believe we're going to end in a deficit. Our revenue for last month was $20,000 more than I had projected. Rhonda Ketner: And for this month, I expect it to be another $10,000 to $15,000 than I originally projected, but in the end, we're only going to end with a little bit between $20,000 and maybe $35,000 to the good, and that may not be sustainable for next year. Rhonda Ketner: If we have additional funds, this year that the district could slide over to help fund, I'm very confident that we could then go on for 2 to 3, even 4 more years without having to ask for any relief. Rhonda Ketner: I apologize that we're in this position. I was spending, you know, based on what

161the state and federal government was telling me. Rhonda Ketner: If we had known that that $300… $300,000 wasn't real, we would have adjusted what we had purchased. Rhonda Ketner: But we didn't want to lose any federal funding, and didn't want to leave any money on the table. So we were caught between a rock and a hard place. Rhonda Ketner: And it was an unfortunate mistake, and I'm really glad that our business office caught it. Rhonda Ketner: And the auditors caught it before it became devastating. Rhonda Ketner: Because it could have been, where we ended up in a deficit of $200,000 to $300,000 this year. And, like I said, we won't end in a deficit, I can promise you that. Rhonda Ketner: That's all I got. SBSD Owl Camera: Thanks, Ronka. So, to clarify, is the

162board being asked for a suggested amount of money? SBSD Owl Camera: So, I would say that what I'm showing you right here is… let me scroll up just a little bit. SBSD Owl Camera: this is kind of a quick and dirty sheet that the business office and Rhonda worked through to figure out where she was at, and they worked on this a few weeks ago, so to her comment, I think that the numbers may be changing a little bit, but… SBSD Owl Camera: So here, coming in with, just $367, unovers spent, but she's got this fund balance, Here… So… SBSD Owl Camera: we find ourselves in a situation this year where we have this money that's unencumbered, right? And in next year's budget, which is already approved, we didn't plan to support nutritional services. SBSD

163Owl Camera: like Rhonda said, we are able to transfer money to nutritional services, and it can live there for quite a while, unlike the money in the general fund. SBSD Owl Camera: Because it's an enterprise fund. So… SBSD Owl Camera: what we would like to do, and what our auditors are comfortable, and they're encouraging us to do, is to transfer out of this… to… before the fiscal year ends, to transfer $350,000 from the general fund to Child Nutritional Services, and that will support Rhonda and her team for the remainder of this year, and all of next year. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we will be able to look at, next year, when we're working on the budget, how we, you know, what kind of supports that we need to offer. And again, like I said,

164it is incredibly common, it is uncommon SBSD Owl Camera: to be in the situation that we've been in many years, where the general fund did not offer any support to child nutrition services. It's very common for school districts to have to support child nutrition services, and it's to Rhonda's credit, and I was smiling while you were talking, Rhonda, because SBSD Owl Camera: she… we are so lucky to have her, because not only did she steward us out of the deficit situation that we were in when she got here, I mean, who wants to walk into that, right? But she is such an amazing steward of the… of the money and the staff, and she treats this… she feels so bad that we are in this situation, like it's her personal checkbook, and SBSD Owl Camera:

165you know, I'm just grateful to have her, to have, to be going through this with her. And you don't need to feel bad, Rhonda. You and your team work so hard. You know, she explained to me in the meeting earlier, like, she's changed all the menus around, like, okay, we're only offering chicken nuggets, because if we offer patties and tenders, like, that's costing us, you know, like, she's doing all of the nitty-gritty to make it be as cost-effective as possible. SBSD Owl Camera: That's why chocolate milk is back on the menu, guys, because it's helping us out in the hole. SBSD Owl Camera: The kids brought it up, and it helped us. Oh, sorry, go ahead. So, what board discussion or action is needed? SBSD Owl Camera: So I don't want to push you into

166making any decisions this evening. I want to prep you that we would like to request that the board authorize us to… is okay with us moving funds from the general fund into child nutrition funding. I'm happy to table that and have that discussion with you again at your next meeting, if you would rather have more discussion about that. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean… Rhonda Ketner: And I would be… I would be very happy to give you a complete report with charts and everything showing the history, so that you can make an informed decision. But I also need to… to let you know that Rhonda Ketner: The state of Vermont requires that, if we go into a deficit, that the district cover whatever we are not able to. Rhonda Ketner: And, you know, pay off all

167the people that we owe. And we felt that right now, we could possibly be in a situation where it would be easier for the board to fund with general fund money. Rhonda Ketner: As opposed to where we are in a deficit, and you don't have a choice. And that's a horrible place for any of us to be in. So we're just kind of throwing that out there, food for thought, you know, because we have open positions and have left, you know. Rhonda Ketner: possibly up to $2 million on the table, replenishing the $300,000 that we thought we had when I did my budget and did my spending. I… I can assure you that those funds, Rhonda Ketner: We have a lot of people that are actually taking advantage of the buyout, and they will not

168be replaced Rhonda Ketner: And we will not be making any bold moves or purchasing any equipment for at least a year, unless we absolutely have to, to ensure that we have stabilized and can continue on. So, if we have the money this year, I would appreciate it if the board would Rhonda Ketner: would help us out a little bit, and you know, if we don't, then I will do my best to keep us above water, you know, next year. So it's just kind of like food for thought, we're throwing it out there. We don't want to shock you later. SBSD Owl Camera: So, would the Board be okay with adding an action item to the mat fix where we discuss this? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Does that work for you in terms

169of schedule? Totally fine. Okay, so let's… SBSD Owl Camera: let's move the discussion of this particular issue to May 6th, February. I can just make a request. I think it would be helpful, because I'm taking notes and thinking about everything, but just to have some… a little more clarity and conciseness in exactly what happened, that SBSD Owl Camera: You know, where this… SBSD Owl Camera: potential deficit is coming from. I know it was kind of brought up in the beginning, and then as we're tracking along, and there was work that was being done, and things that were happening, but just to have that, and what happened to this 300 that we thought we had, and where did that go, and… I'm still not entirely clear on that. Yeah, it was miscoded. SBSD Owl Camera: it

170was coded… it's fixed assets. It's actual items that are of value in Rhonda's work house that, like, it's ovens, and it's equipment that she has that was calculated as cash. SBSD Owl Camera: Jim Marie, can you… I know you're jumping on a plane at 2 in the morning or something, but can, Rhonda and maybe an auger give me something in writing that I could add to a board update? Sure, for sure. I don't know if we could get it in this week or not, but it'd be great if we could. Yeah, yeah. And if not, then next Friday's a board update. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Ron. Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: So, at this point, would it… do you want to go through the monitoring report more, or is the board ready

171to monitor? SBSD Owl Camera: Board's ready to monitor. Okay, so I would entertain a motion to monitor, 2.4 financial planning and budgeting using the metric, that the board has used before. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, did I… I did hear that, in terms of self-reporting compliance level, that you consider this to be the same as the last? That's correct. So, if anybody needs the last, I pulled that up. SBSD Owl Camera: Or we just vote independently. I have no preference, I'm not making a recommendation, I'm just letting you know I have that information. The motion fails, but I would entertain a motion to monitor 2.4 financial planning and budgeting using the metric that we have, in the board materials. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll make a motion. Then we move the motions. I'll second. SBSD Owl

172Camera: Flora seconds, and I think what you were saying, Michelle, is that you have the numbers from the last time we did this, in case people want to be refreshed on what they voted then. I apologize for that. Oh, God, no, no. Totally fine to kill motion. No problem. I don't understand how to put it. It's okay, it's okay. Let's just move forward, I don't need to understand, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: It's… it's late. I'll take the hit, let's just go. So, would any board members like to hear how they voted last time? It's Michelle, so as they offered? I… I would… SBSD Owl Camera: Appreciate it. Don't you right now? Yeah. Yeah. So, can you share? Can you share it? Oh, so we can see? Yeah, that might be helpful. SBSD Owl Camera: Quite

173soon, particularly soon. SBSD Owl Camera: So, Shannon… One document. SBSD Owl Camera: We were very consistent, so it's not hard to follow. SBSD Owl Camera: And this is from March, which is the last one, correct? I pulled up the right one. SBSD Owl Camera: Joe, do you know? We last did this immediately. Yeah, no, it was March, that's right, yep. We have one in February, too. Well, she does two. Yeah, I have two. SBSD Owl Camera: Is this, this is the first one? This is the first one. I think this is the February one. I don't think I've heard this before. SBSD Owl Camera: Which one is it the same as, February or March? February. February the 25th of February. Let me stop sharing, because I don't know. Sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Nope, that's okay.

174SBSD Owl Camera: My bad, I should have asked at the good one. SBSD Owl Camera: And to clarify, we are in the discussion section of the motion, so the public is welcome to come. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: And also, I think once we take action, that's when we'll actually start the process of voting. So… SBSD Owl Camera: We're discussing that. We're discussing. SBSD Owl Camera: I can't sleep as well, I want to see if I have the right emergency rooms just rain, I don't want to lose the pool. SBSD Owl Camera: I opened up the same ones. SBSD Owl Camera: Do you want to just tell us, Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Or… No, I can do it right this time, because it's a 50-50 shot. And it's the same. So this one

175is the… Nope. It's still the same. It's 415? SBSD Owl Camera: I could be… Alyssa's on both. SBSD Owl Camera: So maybe it was March. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm gonna close… Because were you not there for March? SBSD Owl Camera: I was here. No, listen. Oh. I wasn't. I wasn't here. You weren't here in March and February. I have been there so long from February. I have no idea, Shane. I guess I wasn't here. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, I know what it was, it was parent-teacher conferences at Essex. That's right, it was March 17th, it was not here. SBSD Owl Camera: There we go. There we go. There it is. Yeah, there we go, you were right. I was one of the question. SBSD Owl Camera: You're free to leave this on screen. SBSD Owl

176Camera: Well, we hope. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any other further discussion before we, so, all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: And all we're doing is saying that we're gonna… Monitor it using this rubric. SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, the motion passes. We're now going to monitor the policy 2.4. So, the first section is about the monitor report, and this is about whether the interpretation of the policy and the, you know, just the report is good. SBSD Owl Camera: So I will start with, Moment. Yeah, yes. 0 to 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Third. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: D. SBSD Owl Camera: We're here. Jen? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm, I'm a 3. SBSD Owl Camera: More than 3. SBSD Owl

177Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? Right. SBSD Owl Camera: Dan? Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. The next section is about, district outcomes, which is to say, like, is the work of SBSD Owl Camera: The financial planning and budgeting arriving at the actual, goals that have been set. SBSD Owl Camera: So Momo, we'll start with you. 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? I'd say too. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm a 2. Laura? I'm a 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: them to… Okay, and then, to the extent that we saw a compliance plan. SBSD Owl Camera: I think that basically means, like. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there an indication of how things are going to be made better? Was

178that helpful? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. So, moment? Yes, sir. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: And, yes, okay, so unanimous support for the compliance plan. Great, okay. The next item on the agenda is Monitor Report 2.4. If you stop, sharing, I will start… 2.9? 2.9. 2.9, I'm sorry, let me restate that. We're now going to do Monitor Report 2.9, Communication and Support to the Board. SBSD Owl Camera: So, let me bring that up. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Monitor and report 2.9. SBSD Owl Camera: See it there? It is a direct… SBSD Owl Camera: monitoring report, which means that under policy governance, it's one of the ones where board members are expected to go and seek

179out our own information, as opposed to having it presented to us by the superintendent. So I guess I'll start by asking the superintendent if you have any comments on SBSD Owl Camera: this monitoring report as… I read through it, and I thought, too, it was accurate. I appreciate the feedback. Okay, so for this monitoring report, Michelle and I, independently reviewed a bunch of evidence around the, superintendent's communication and support to the board. SBSD Owl Camera: Roughly speaking, what that means, there's actually 10, executive limitations. SBSD Owl Camera: Starting with, superintendent shall not cause or allow the board to be uninformed or unsupported in its work. And these are things like neglect to submit monitoring data, fail to report in a timely manner actual or anticipated noncompliance with any policy of the board. SBSD Owl Camera:

180neglect to submit unbiased decision information. Well, you've all read this, so I'm not going to go over the whole thing, but that's the executive limitations that are being monitored here. SBSD Owl Camera: The, interpretation of that SBSD Owl Camera: is pretty extensive, as you've all read. And the reporting… that, SBSD Owl Camera: we did, Michelle and I, was this findings column. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, in each case, there are some suggested evidence for direct inspection, such as SBSD Owl Camera: how does the superintendent keep us informed? Well, board packets, the things that we received before a board meeting, agendas, minutes, written superintendent updates that we get every Friday, and all that. And so, SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle did… Large amount of work analyzing each one of these evidentiary SBSD Owl Camera: things. There were

181a couple things that we're not doing right now, such as, for example, this concept of decision memos. There's this concept that we might SBSD Owl Camera: for an important district decision, have a written memo that says why we took the decision. I don't think we have been doing that. Anyway, long story short. SBSD Owl Camera: the recommendation from Michelle and I, in terms of the, SBSD Owl Camera: Direct evidence that we saw was that the superintendent is in compliance with keeping us informed SBSD Owl Camera: With 2.9 communication support to the board. There are a few strengths listed here. SBSD Owl Camera: Consistently open about risks, problems, and mistakes. SBSD Owl Camera: Fully answered questions, and encouraged more. SBSD Owl Camera: brought items to Board's attention in a timely manner, and provide high-quality monitoring reports

182on schedule and with appropriate levels of detail. SBSD Owl Camera: Gaps and risks observed is, again, this issue of decision memos. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: of particular interest to the board in the monitoring reports is being able to see the data over time, because often we'll see a number, and it doesn't make sense out of context with other numbers, and so the easiest way to deal with that is longitudinal, you know, data over time. SBSD Owl Camera: And also, relating to external or national trends benchmarks. SBSD Owl Camera: Recommended corrective actions, SBSD Owl Camera: Help us decide if we want to continue, or if we want to use decision memos. SBSD Owl Camera: I might add, you know, even as we're speaking now, I think also just, like, you know, recommit… recommitting

183to, longitudinal analysis and all the monitoring reports, always having the comparison, you know, to previous time periods. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, that's it. So, are there any board discussion of the policy 2.9, its interpretation, the evidence we've reviewed, or our recommended findings? SBSD Owl Camera: I guess I just have one question for the board. So, since this is a direct report. SBSD Owl Camera: Do we want to… SBSD Owl Camera: go with compliant, not compliant as the benchmark, right? Or the thing that we decide, or do we want to try to apply the rubric that we apply to other reports? Where we say, you know, how's the report? 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, how are the outcomes? 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. SBSD Owl Camera: So, basically, the question is, do we just say

184yes, no, or do we go through and do this? SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, I like it from a consistency standpoint. SBSD Owl Camera: I think would be helpful. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I was gonna ask, do we use the rubric for, like, every other big one? We have used it for every other one. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: I think that makes sense, too, also. I mean, it's… SBSD Owl Camera: a little awkward for me to… like, we wrote the report, so to… to rate the report, but it's great to hear from everybody, right? Like, I'm not suggesting that the board can't be exact, that's what I'm thinking, is like, should… should somebody else… if we don't vote on the moderate… Just you and I, yeah, don't vote, and everybody's just… okay, yeah, sounds good.

185SBSD Owl Camera: Joe, are there any comments you have about the discussion that we've had about this? SBSD Owl Camera: No, I appreciate the feedback, and it's very helpful. I'm always open to more feedback, and I try to be as communicative as I can. I don't always… SBSD Owl Camera: Remember to say things, but I do my best to. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, actually, the little jazz decided to fit in with the students. SBSD Owl Camera: To vote on the… Say it again? To, SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not sure if breaking protocol is a problem or not, I'm suspecting it's not. Could we ask Joe to rate the report? SBSD Owl Camera: Sure, you'll be in a non-voting. Yeah. A non-binding vote. I have Ali Moam and Joe feedback, they're very helpful to have. Yep.

186For sure. Yeah. Right, because you can… is this… SBSD Owl Camera: useful for you? And if not… Well, how do we make it useful? Because Michelle did… I mean, I also did, but Michelle did a lot of work. SBSD Owl Camera: So it's, you know, it's like we want to make the board's use of time efficient. So I would entertain a motion to monitor 2.9 communication and support for the board using the rubric provided in the board materials. SBSD Owl Camera: Hold on. SBSD Owl Camera: I move. Laura moves. Seconds. Jen seconds. Any discussion? And this is a public, forum, so… Nothing wrong. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, the motion passes, now we'll monitor 2.9 using the rubric. So the first question is about the monitoring report and its

187adequacy. So, moment? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen? SBSD Owl Camera: I would say 3. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not voting. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura? I don't know. 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Joe? 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Melissa, 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle, I'm not holding… a dam floor? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, the next section, this is actually about district outcomes, so this is evaluating the superintendent in terms of his communication and support to the board. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Moment. Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? SBSD Owl Camera: Emily? 3. SBSD Owl Camera: 3, and can I change my other one to a 4? SBSD Owl Camera: Jeez. The answer is yes. I'm totally going to blow that. Okay, before you move on, let me finish changing. Sorry.

188SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, I'm a… Emily, you were… sorry, what was your number? Emily was 3. SBSD Owl Camera: Jen was 3. Yep. I'm a 4. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura. We can vote on this. Alyssa? Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Joe? Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, you can't vote on the compliance plan. And I don't think we should vote on compliance plan, because there is not… and you can see that as a deficiency in this, but there is no compliance plan in here. SBSD Owl Camera: Warren. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think the thing is that sometimes we have compliance points, even though… even when the scores are high, in the sense of just, like, getting better, but that's just… we didn't even think about asking Joe to

189put anything here, so I think we just… SBSD Owl Camera: No, it's… it's really the… so would the compliance plan be, like, continuing… Continuing, continuing. I'm considering. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: So, Joe, would you… okay, so, let's go around compliance plan. SBSD Owl Camera: Lowman? Well, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Allie? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Emily? Yes. Yes. I'm a yes. Laura? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa? SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle? SBSD Owl Camera: Damn. Okay, fair enough. All right. The next item on the agenda is… Oh, let me just say thank you, Joe. I mean, I truly feel informed SBSD Owl Camera: And when we come and we have to make a decision, the information that we share with us feels sufficient and above sufficient to, to actually make that decision in a way where

190we're not just shooting that. Thank you, John. SBSD Owl Camera: I totally agree. And I have a comment, and I don't know if now's the time to bring it up, but it does have to do with monitoring reports. But I was just looking at our board website. SBSD Owl Camera: And we were tracking, like, we have the scorecard, which I wouldn't necessarily call this a scorecard, per se, it's not quite what I was thinking, but we do have the monitoring reports, and I'm just thinking it would be helpful to have these other ones included in there and updated to those, with those scores. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, just so that it's current, we can… Would you remove that during the work week? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes Who else? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, and I also

191just would, say that we've already had some difficult Issues to talk through, where… SBSD Owl Camera: people that have made mistakes, myself included, and I just think that your communication style is open and direct and honest and humble, and it's an example to me, personally. So, thank you for that. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: Next item on the agenda is taking action on the employee severance plan. I believe Joe provided us with some documentation before the meeting, but maybe you want to remind us. I did, and Katie Rose from the company is here with us, and she's a… Katie, you have the ability to. Katy Rose: Yes, can you hear me? SBSD Owl Camera: Yep, we can. Katy Rose: So, I'm planning? SBSD Owl Camera: the board a quick overview of, you know,

192the… what… how many people signed up, what the projected savings is, and what your recommendation is. Katy Rose: Good evening, nice to see everybody again, although I'm not there. I wish I was in Vermont. So I do have the, post summary. Is that something I can… Katy Rose: share, or… Okay, let me just… Give me one sec… Katy Rose: Boop. Katy Rose: Cheer. Katy Rose: Okay, can you guys all see that? SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. Katy Rose: Okay, wonderful. I'm not going to take a lot of your time, but I'm very excited to share the results with all of you, of the employee severance plan that was recently implemented in your district. Katy Rose: some of the things I want to… and I hopefully all have a copy of this, it's good information. So, if

193you all recall, we projected 18 certified professional staff to elect, and we got 17 to elect. Regarding the classified employees, we… Katy Rose: we got 9 that elected. Originally, we projected 15 with that group, and, you know, in retrospect, we've learned a few things. Obviously, you guys are… you're our very first, client in Vermont, and the way the classified group Katy Rose: Has their, retirement not through a a state… Katy Rose: funded, or not state funded, a state pension, it's… it's done a little bit differently, and I think that had to do with the… the projections, but even with getting 9, when we projected 15, and you see the numbers here in a minute, I think you'll be pleased. Katy Rose: So, of the 17 that elected, one, professional staff, one's gonna be exiting a

194year from now. Katy Rose: And then for the classified employees, there are two that will be… oh, and the remaining 16 will be exiting at the end of the school year of your certified staff. Katy Rose: Of the classified staff, 2 will be remaining until December 31st, and 7 will be exiting at the end of the school fiscal year. Katy Rose: So what this chart, and I'm not sure how well you all can see it, but, I'm, I'm… Katy Rose: fairly certain that, you guys have this in your packet, but we just wanted to kind of break down by building, by group, to kind of give you an idea, you know, where the positions are coming out of, building-wise. And that's what this graph does here. Very quickly… SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry to interrupt, but

195just a reminder that the ones that have been… have delayed exits, that can change when we… when we post the positions that we're going to fill. If we cannot find suitable replacements, we still have the ability to hold those folks back for a year. Katy Rose: Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Katy Rose: Yep, no problem. So, with 26 electing and, getting some guidance from your administrators, in this model, we're gonna give an estimated 23.5 replacements of the 26. Katy Rose: It's estimated that the district will save $6.2 million over 8 years, so that's cumulatively. To kind of show you, by, each of the groups here. Katy Rose: These numbers that you see here are net of all plan and replacement costs. So, as you look at these numbers, you can kind of think to

196yourself, okay, this is the bottom line saving. This is after we've replaced, this is after we paid the plan cost to pay out the benefits. Katy Rose: So, with 17, certified professional staff electing and 14.5 replaced, you can see that the district will save approximately $1 million in that first year. Katy Rose: And then going out cumulatively, approximately 6 million. Katy Rose: Now, regarding the classified, at this point, I was directed to show full replacement in this group. Keep in mind that this model that you're looking at will… is kind of a work in session, because as the district actually replaces. Katy Rose: I will work with your administrators on continually updating this. Katy Rose: So with 9 classified, electing, and replacing all 9, you can see in that first year it's about $26,000, or

197cumulatively over the 8, about $156. So, when you add in the savings from the, professional staff. Katy Rose: And the classified staff, that first year, the district is saving about $1,073,27,000. Katy Rose: Or cumulatively, about 6.2 out over the 8 years. Katy Rose: I have a couple more pages here that have a little more detail, on each of the groups. Katy Rose: And I don't know how much you want me to go through this, Dr. Clark, as far as the numbers, but just so you all know… SBSD Owl Camera: Go ahead. Yeah, I think I just know that we're running late. I think if there's questions, whatever the board wants to ask with questions, I think is right now. They've been given the report, and they've been able to review it. Katy Rose: Sounds good.

198Yeah, I'd be happy to take any questions that you may have. SBSD Owl Camera: Any board questions? SBSD Owl Camera: Save your money. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I… it's… it… it feels… SBSD Owl Camera: a good note. I actually read… I wrote some questions on me to see if there's some of it. SBSD Owl Camera: So… I think my… SBSD Owl Camera: Well, one question is, will any of the retirements be for possibly attritive positions? Is that known now, or is that something that you can't know now? What does attritive mean? And I'll tell you the answer. But when you say that it's better to reduce staff by attrition, that's what I mean, yeah. Yeah, so that's where the two and a half are coming from. So, and I can tell you exactly what those

199positions are. The Christian enrollment position will not be SBSD Owl Camera: replaced. SBSD Owl Camera: The Joe McDonald PD teacher at the high school will not be replaced, and there's a half of an English, teaching position that will not be replaced. SBSD Owl Camera: So that's where your savings is. Right, and then my other question is, SBSD Owl Camera: what… I know we talked a lot about pros, or you all talked a lot about pros and cons, and now we kind of have the numbers in front of us, so we have a more realistic view. Are there any lingering things, like… SBSD Owl Camera: hiring pools, or, you know, like, are we at risk? I think you probably control that through the right to defer… Yeah, so we're going to find that out, because we

200started this a little late in the process, so the intention is for us to, like, as soon as tomorrow, start posting all of these open jobs to see if we can get people to fill them, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, there are certainly some jobs that are harder to fill than others, like your maths and your sciences and your special education, so we'll see where we go from there. SBSD Owl Camera: The three that I've allowed, one is a music band teacher, because that's incredibly hard, I know already it's going to be tough to replace. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the two, ladies who really run the entire district, Meg and Delina, who do incredible work, we're going to let them go in December, with the goal being to hire their replacements now so

201they can work together for SBSD Owl Camera: You know, the rest of the year. So, we get a good transition there. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry, Rachel. They have so much, yeah, they're incredible, so, yeah, that was, say a no-brainer, that was a no-brainer for me. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, I would entertain a motion to approve the employee severance plan. SBSD Owl Camera: What the actual… what you're actually approving is the resignation of those 26 folks that were listed on that document that I shared with you. Okay, so motion fails. I would entertain a motion to accept the resignation of the employees who are being included in the employee severance plan. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll move. Michelle moves. SBSD Owl Camera: A second. Laura seconds. Is there any discussion? And this is a public comment period.

202SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, and then we have an audience person. Warren, do you want to come up and sit? Yeah, sorry, introduce… SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm Lauren Bartlett, teach at the middle school. I'm just curious about the 16 exiting this year, and the one that's been approved already to exit next year. I don't know if that's… if that's the right wording, or… Yeah, that's the… that's the band, teacher. She splits, two buildings, SBSD Owl Camera: Music is incredibly difficult to fill, and I am confident that to get somebody who is able to take on both programs at any kind of level, we're going to need to do a more extensive search. SBSD Owl Camera: I would love to be one of those people. I know you are. I said science,

203so we'll see. Yep, yep, yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Any other public comment? Rhonda's on board, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Hello. Rhonda Ketner: This is Rhonda Kettner. Can I ask you to scroll back to the initial page where you broke down, Katy Rose: Right here, yeah. Rhonda Ketner: Yeah. So you have Nutritional Services, Rhonda Ketner: you only have 1 person, and I have 4 people that filled out the stuff, and 3 of them that handed it Rhonda Ketner: To… the people that came and helped everybody. Katy Rose: Yeah, I understand. It could be… so, those locations we get from the district, and sometimes, they… Rhonda Ketner: be in a school? Katy Rose: Correct, correct. Rhonda Ketner: Oh, oh. Katy Rose: They're accounted for here somewhere, but yeah, that's just how it came in. We

204only have one person in Nutritional Services, I mean, I know you have more, but that we actually had a label for their building. So the others are probably affiliated with their buildings. Rhonda Ketner: Okay, and then the other question that I have, because it was really unclear in the whole process, is I do have some key staff that took advantage of the buyout. Rhonda Ketner: But there was no guidance on how to request whether or not we could keep them, longer. I mean, you've talked about staff that's not going to leave until, you know, December, people that aren't going to leave until the end of next school year. Rhonda Ketner: I have my assistant director, who did take advantage of the buyout, and I could really use some help, you know, for at least a

205couple of months for her to help train somebody to do what she does, but I was very unclear on how to do that. So how does one go about that? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, first thing we do is we post the positions, and we see, how people that apply and what their qualifications are, and if we come to a determination that we need to extend somebody, we make that… we make that decision at that time. Rhonda Ketner: Oh, okay. Thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: Thanks for having us. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, thank you. Any other public comment? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Say aye. Aye. Aye. The motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: Awesome. Thanks, Kate. Thank you very much. Katy Rose: Thank you

206all. You all have a great evening. Appreciate your time. SBSD Owl Camera: You too, thank you. Bye. The next item on the agenda is, consent agenda and planning. SBSD Owl Camera: So, we're gonna group these into, SBSD Owl Camera: Well, we'll just, does anybody have any objections to the March 31st minutes? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. Right? SBSD Owl Camera: Hearing none, the minutes are approved. Does anybody have any objections to the accounts payables? SBSD Owl Camera: Right? Hearing none, they're approved. Does anybody have any objections to the payroll warrant? SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, the next item we'll take an action on, SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to approve the AP voucher check to Howard Center in the amount of $77,000. SBSD Owl Camera: And $31 was 65 cents. SBSD Owl Camera: I

207move. Laura moves. SBSD Owl Camera: Second. Emily, seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: mostly pipeline. SBSD Owl Camera: No. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. The next item is a bid for a minivan for the Transportation Department. SBSD Owl Camera: Did you want to say anything about that, Jean Marie? SBSD Owl Camera: It's fine. No, you don't have to. You don't have to. Only if you wanted to. SBSD Owl Camera: I saw the look of your face, I didn't stay right there. SBSD Owl Camera: So, just to remind, this is a recommendation from the school district to buy a 2026 Honda Odyssey from 802 Honda for $42,597. SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to approve the bid for the minivan for the Transportation Department. Now move. Laura moves. SBSD Owl Camera:

208A second. Emily, seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those… I was just gonna say, I'm a Honda girl, so good choice. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Any objections to the hires? SBSD Owl Camera: Hires are approved. Any objections to the resignations or retirements? SBSD Owl Camera: They're approved. Now we're on to agenda planning for May 6th. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the May 6th agenda… Is, first of all, there will be a… thank you very much. SBSD Owl Camera: First of all, there is a community forum on ENS Policy. It's our second ENDS Policy SBSD Owl Camera: Definitely need an all-out effort to get people here, because it is hard. SBSD Owl Camera: We have a discussion item on two different policies. SBSD Owl Camera: Superintendent, are these required policies?

209SBSD Owl Camera: I'm guessing, F5 wellness, first reading, F20, student use of cell phones, first reading. Yes, first reading, both required. SBSD Owl Camera: So these are probably model policies from the BSPA that we're… The cell phone policy is a model, the wellness policy was a huge undertaking by a large committee here, including Rhonda, including Sarah Pineda, that is based on model policy, but is a little more inclusive. Okay, so those are both for screenings. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, an action item that I'm gonna suggest for the May 6th agenda is I would like to discuss budget for radio ads. SBSD Owl Camera: for the dance policy update. SBSD Owl Camera: the superintendent report, we currently do not have a topic for that. I'm not going to be here on that May 6th day. Just

210a reminder, I'll be down at Folly Beach, and Suzanne Grundling will be here in my stead, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I can ask her to do a superintendent if you'd like. Okay, so if any board members have any ideas for a superintendent report, let's send those to Joe, and if Joe's okay with it. SBSD Owl Camera: You can send us… Great. And so far, that is it on the agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: Dan, bring a couple middle school kids here, because it's a community forum. I like that idea. I do, too. Would that be a great idea? Yeah, that's a great idea. SBSD Owl Camera: Talk about the phone calls. For the, so, will you take a note of that? SBSD Owl Camera: Also, you wanted to put the legislative policy committee. Right. SBSD Owl

211Camera: She's in the school. And also, did we ever have in the parking lot, what are we doing with the school board website? SBSD Owl Camera: We were going to get a small committee together that would meet with me monthly to take two or three items that you wanted updated each month, and I would update it. I need to do a committee? Well, either you or one or two people who SBSD Owl Camera: You should… I think that we agreed that we don't need a charge… I asked that we could take it one bite at a time, so every month, if there's two or three things that you say, hey, make that better, I can do that. So you're allowed to… SBSD Owl Camera: Go directly to Joe on that. Okay. Does anybody want to

212participate? Well, we can't charge any, can't we? I like the idea of having… SBSD Owl Camera: It's good, you're so… have great ideas, and then come, you know, if there are things you need to run by the board, bring it to the board. But if I had, like, an idea, I could email… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. This is for… But we're talking… we're not talking about the entire website, we're talking about the board's website. Oh, yeah, it's only the board. And we've started, I mean, like, I've gone… Give me some ideas, done nothing yet. Headshots from everybody. Allie's the only one who's on there. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Well, that's fine. Okay, now I know what I have to do. Oh, yeah? Wanted to add to the agenda? Child nutrition. Oh, yeah, yeah. Funding. SBSD

213Owl Camera: And I have a slate of RFPs that'll be due, and I'll send you a bunch of bid awards for you at that. SBSD Owl Camera: Which I already kind of forward, Deloned to. Oh, SBSD Owl Camera: Seamus knows this already, but you folks all approved, the bid for the front loader at the last time we were here. Well, man, let me just tell you, I'm trying to buy things these days, it's like a hot mess out there because of… SBSD Owl Camera: Things outside of our control. SBSD Owl Camera: So, low bidder, forgot the snow plow, next bidder wouldn't hold to his price, so we have reposted that, so I'll be back again with the… So you can just add those in directly, right? Any other… so what happened with the second one?

214Jack? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: And so we… I went back to him and said, you… the big documents say you have to hold your quote for 60 days, and he said. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think one other thing we might want to have for this is, the first… SBSD Owl Camera: Discussion of superintendent evaluation. SBSD Owl Camera: But that will probably happen in… SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I'm gonna check… I'll check with the lawyer and see if we have to do that executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: Probably we do, but I'll get… so I'll put that as an action item myself. I had one other thing, I asked Joe this earlier. At the last meeting, we were bouncing around the hire a consultant to help you with the ends policy. Did you… we need

215a PO for that? SBSD Owl Camera: Did we settle on by Friday? But we will have a PO by Friday. Did we do… did you settle on somebody yet? Or… okay, so I just want to make sure… So that could be an FY27 PO, right? I don't… it's perhaps… I don't know what your plans are. I said that could be an FY27 PO, because… SBSD Owl Camera: Will that start after July 1? SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know. I will send it to you as soon as I… in fact, I think I sent it to you during the meeting. You sent me the number, and I said, I need a vendor. Oh, we don't know it yet. We haven't picked. How was the final decision? It was delegated to the committee by the board last

216meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: We delegated that you guys could… Yeah, we did, we voted to… it just… yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: I remember delegating the final, I thought we had delegated. Do you guys would discuss it all? SBSD Owl Camera: If you have concerns about it, definitely bring it up, but my current understanding is that it was delegated to us. It shouldn't be more than, like, $900,000. Yeah, but there's no opportunity for any other board member right now. SBSD Owl Camera: Because we're putting the purchase order in by Friday, there's no opportunity. I just want you to, like, if anybody has a problem with us deciding on it, let me know, and we will, of course, listen. SBSD Owl Camera: And just for clarity, remember, we can put a purchase order in… And change. …and

217change the vendor. We just want to put a hold on that money, or however much that is. We need to attach it to a vendor, we can change it later. So you can change your… Acme Consulting. Acme Consulting. There you go. We might put it in… I know that, like, the VSBA was one, and they're already a vendor in our system, so we could just put a PO in with the VSBA SBSD Owl Camera: as the vendor for the approximate amount that you think it's going to be, and then we can adjust it once you've settled on it. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you for the information, right? SBSD Owl Camera: The note to myself was that we would… SBSD Owl Camera: So, whether… whether we need… I'm just gonna put it

218directly onto the actual… Agenda is… Discussion item… SBSD Owl Camera: Superintendent, the population… Let's do a wave. SBSD Owl Camera: Due to this executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: That's financial joy. SBSD Owl Camera: So when… Understood. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, great. So, James, can the three of you decide, and you… SBSD Owl Camera: It's gonna be done by Friday, you said? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: You send it to us with who, and the reasons why, and the place, and everything. Okay, we don't need to know who by Friday, we just need to know what the board? Yeah. The board. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Ready? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, as soon as we can. It's been a… we've been multiple… many phone calls. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, laura's ready. SBSD Owl Camera:

219I am so ready. So, I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: I move to the beginning. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura moves. Second. Emily, second. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: And this is an action item, so we'll be taking public comment. No, we won't. So just diving. April Fools. SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. The meeting is adjourned.