March 31, 2026 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: Right? SBSD Owl Camera: Are you guys ready? SBSD Owl Camera: you know, I imagine if you guys are gonna meet for… Oh, they're gonna meet them for the 5 o'clock? He's gonna jump in for the… 6 o'clock, yeah. Cool, okay, great. SBSD Owl Camera: So I'd like to call to order the March 31st, 2026… SBSD Owl Camera: Regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board. SBSD Owl Camera: The first item on the agenda is a proposed executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: We are probably going… well, we'll talk about employment of a public officer, receive confidential attorney-client communication for the purpose of providing legal services to the board. SBSD Owl Camera: And we'll probably hear an update about labor negotiations. I don't think we'll hear about real estate. SBSD

002Owl Camera: So I would entertain a motion to find that premature public knowledge of the topics we're going to discuss tonight would put the district at a significant disadvantage. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm… sorry. Oh. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll move. Michelle moves? I'll second. Laura seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. Okay, and I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll move. Michelle moves. I'll second. Laura seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, all right, we're in executive session. We're going to be joined by Joe… SBSD Owl Camera: Clark, Superintendent, and Mick Letty, District Council. SBSD Owl Camera: And we will be back around 6 p.m. SBSD Owl Camera: They didn't know that. SBSD Owl Camera: 8. SBSD Owl

003Camera: I'd like to call the March 31st, 2026 SBSD Owl Camera: regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board back into order. We just had a session where we talked about employment of a public officer or employee. SBSD Owl Camera: received and received confidential attorney-client communication for the purpose of providing legal services to the board. We did not discuss labor negotiations or real estate, and we were joined by McLeady, District Council and Joe Clark, Superintendent. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the first item on the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. SBSD Owl Camera: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is announcements. SBSD Owl

004Camera: Does the board have any announcements? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item is to review and accept the agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: So we'll have public comment. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we'll have a student representative report. SBSD Owl Camera: possibly flowing out of the student representative report, we'll discuss and possibly take action, if necessary, on recruiting a new student representative. Not sure we'll need action there, we'll see if we get there. Then the next thing… SBSD Owl Camera: is the ENS Policy Consultant Presentation. So, this is a presentation from a consultant that the ENS Policy Subcommittee has identified, and is on the call and ready to give a short presentation to us. SBSD Owl Camera: Then we also have another presentation from the auditor. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we

005have a presentation from Common Roots Carol, who's with us here today. SBSD Owl Camera: Then we have superintendent report. SBSD Owl Camera: Then we have a general discussion of updating the ENS policy. SBSD Owl Camera: And so that would just be an opportunity to talk about the importance of community involvement. Then we have a communication social media guidelines discussion item. SBSD Owl Camera: And then finally… well, not finally, we still have an agenda after that, but then we have action items, to charge the Legislative Advocacy Committee, if we decide to do that. And also, if we decide to, we can authorize the hiring of the NS Policy Consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we have consent to stand up. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Are there any comments on the agenda? SBSD Owl Camera: My one

006suggestion SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not sure, how long does the presentation of the audit usually take? Is that, like, a 5-minute thing or a 30-minute thing? SBSD Owl Camera: 15. 15, okay. So I think all of our presentations are pretty much around the 15th. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: So I don't have any amounts. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: Hearing no objection. SBSD Owl Camera: We'll move on to the next part. Comments from the public. SBSD Owl Camera: So at South Burlington School District School Board, we have 3 opportunities for the public to comment. SBSD Owl Camera: During this section, which is comments from the public, and you can talk about any subject. SBSD Owl Camera: You don't have to be a resident, you don't have to identify yourself, it's pure free speech time.

007SBSD Owl Camera: Before the board takes action on any action item, but only on the topic being action, so this would be, during our action item section, and during community forums. Community forums are the only time when we will actually respond to public comment. SBSD Owl Camera: And we will only respond to the public comment that's on the topic that is mentioned for that community forum. SBSD Owl Camera: You'll be given up to 3 minutes. Please don't violate anyone's privacy, and official complaints and grievances cannot be filed during public comment. So, is there any public comment? SBSD Owl Camera: You know. SBSD Owl Camera: Wasn't opening on the ring. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, the next item on the agenda is the Student Representative Report. Thank you, Shannonis. SBSD Owl Camera: All South Burlington School

008District schools will be holding parent-teacher student conferences this Thursday and Friday, April 2nd and 3rd. So families, please check your school's calendar to see your individual schedule for those days. They're all a little bit different. SBSD Owl Camera: Some students at the high school will be completing the CEL Biliteracy Test this Thursday and Friday. SBSD Owl Camera: The Civil Biliteracy is an award recognizing high school students who demonstrate proficiency in English and at least one other language. That can be, like, a native language or something taught in school, so good luck to all the students taking that exam. And then other students will also be taking the BTCAP exam at the high school this week, so good luck to all of them. SBSD Owl Camera: And on April 11th, from 9am to 1pm, in the

009Gertrude Chamberlain School small parking lot, Chamberlain will be hosting something called a Fun Bike Rodeo. It's going to be an opportunity for people to ride, play, learn about biking, also enjoy food trucks as well. There's also going to be other community tables there for fun activities. SBSD Owl Camera: So, all students and families in the district are welcome to go, and you can learn more about the event on the Chamberlain newsletter that they post weekly. SBSD Owl Camera: It's on the school website So… SBSD Owl Camera: That's what we have for a report. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. You've got stuff about street representative stuff, too. Yes, okay, so we can… do you just want to move into that? So, does the board have any questions about the representative report, just the… SBSD Owl Camera: Events

010that were just mentioned, or any other comments? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so then the next item on the agenda is around recruiting a new student representative. SBSD Owl Camera: And I just wanted… Jen mentioned to me, since she's not here right now, that she is willing to help with that if we need help on it. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, I thought we could start by just going over what me and Moment's timeline is gonna look like for you guys, just so you have an understanding of when some of the important dates are. SBSD Owl Camera: So this coming Monday, the 6th, is when we're gonna post an announcement slideshow in the lobby and library, send out a link to the application over email. Like, just get the word out in general about, the application. It'll

011be open to all sophomores, or rising juniors. And then me and Momin will go into the social studies department. SBSD Owl Camera: and go into each social studies class within that grade, and then talk to them as well, just about what the role's like. We found last year that that's helpful, because SBSD Owl Camera: people see this, like, looming application, it's helpful to have, like, a student face telling you what it's actually about, and what kind of change you can make, so… Then May 4th, the application will be due, and then Emily and I will meet with the… whichever board members, are working with us to, look over the applications. SBSD Owl Camera: we'll select finalists and, look at the interview questions and kind of finalize our rubric. Probably be pretty similar to what we

012used last year, and then we'll just send out emails to everyone, set up times, and then the week of May 18th, we'll hold the interviews. SBSD Owl Camera: And probably decide the new representative that day, and after that, it will be… it will just be me with the representative, getting them up to… up to date, and then… SBSD Owl Camera: June 3rd, right, yeah, June 3rd will be their first board meeting. Yeah, so they'll come on June 3rd, and I think that will mean June 3rd and June 17th, you guys will have me, Momin, and the new representative here, and my last meeting will be June 17th, which is that when SBSD Owl Camera: day after I graduate. SBSD Owl Camera: And then you'll have a moment in the new person. SBSD Owl Camera: So…

013SBSD Owl Camera: I know I mentioned last time that we, like, made sure we moved the process up in years past, because we have found that it's easier if the student comes on before the summer starts. So that's important to us, but we feel pretty good about the timeline and everything. What we need from you guys is SBSD Owl Camera: To hopefully decide on the two of you that would want to be involved. SBSD Owl Camera: And what that commitment would look like would be meeting with me and Momin once, just to go over the application materials, make sure you guys like the questions we're asking, and then we'll meet again to review those applications, decide on when interview times work for you, and then we just need you there for the interview. SBSD Owl

014Camera: And that's about it. So, not too much of a commitment, but we do have to do it during the school day. SBSD Owl Camera: So students are there, so it would be during work hours. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm happy to volunteer. SBSD Owl Camera: And I know Jen said she would as well. I would love to. My job's a little bit different this year, so taking time off during the school day is not as easy as it used to be. So I think if Alyssa wants to step in and, I'd have… I still want to, like. SBSD Owl Camera: be part of the student, you know, liaison situation that I got going, you know, that, I appreciate… SBSD Owl Camera: He does. SBSD Owl Camera: You and Jen. It's

015super fun. Really, really fun. I think it's pretty cool. Yeah. The kids are really inspiring, and it makes me… SBSD Owl Camera: happy to see how far kids comes inside of the teenager. Yeah, so smart, engaged. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd be happy to help out, too, if you need a third wheel. If you don't, I won't be insulted. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Push on. SBSD Owl Camera: I do… are there… are there requirements? SBSD Owl Camera: of any kind, for students to apply. It's all interest-based. Yeah, it's pretty much interest-based. We kind of gauge out their level of interest, and not just, like, the SBSD Owl Camera: like, people are doing this for, like, a line on their resume based on their application, and then, I'm assuming, last year, it was pretty qualified candidates who

016we interviewed. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: We try to, like, not have it be all, like, student council. Like, we try not to go to, like, the leadership clubs, just because we want to give everyone the opportunity to apply. It oftentimes is those leaders in our school that end up applying. SBSD Owl Camera: the process, too, revolves around, like, can you attend Wednesday board meetings regularly? Because, like, it's important that we're physically here. So, yeah, so the questions kind of help weed out SBSD Owl Camera: People who are, like, really interested in doing and doing change. SBSD Owl Camera: Awesome. We'll have you look at them, too, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any other board comment or questions? SBSD Owl Camera: So I think the answer is that SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa and Jen will

017be directly working with you, and then Emily and Michelle are available SBSD Owl Camera: extra, but the primary people will be Jen, Alyssa. Yeah, maybe we'll reach out to you, too, about reviewing the initial, application questions. Yeah, whatever you… whatever I can put. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Russ. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, so the next item on the agenda, is… SBSD Owl Camera: She was planning to join at 6.30, but if you want her to join early… earlier than that, I can ping her and… Well, so I'm thinking what we could do is we could swap. Yeah, we could swap in… is the… SBSD Owl Camera: So John is on the call, so we can… so we're gonna do the audit now. We're gonna talk about the audit now. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Is that

018who this neighbor is? Yeah. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so we're gonna… so, is the board okay if we move that agenda? Okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna swap the ENTS Policy Consultant presentation and the audit. SBSD Owl Camera: And so now we're gonna do the, SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is the presentation of fiscal year 2025 South Burlington School District Audit, with John DeLay from RHR Smith & Company. SBSD Owl Camera: Move more proof. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh yeah, you have to let him in. Yeah, that's… I'll need to promote them. Are they presenting something? SBSD Owl Camera: I think so. Yeah, you can definitely promote it. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Let's see, absolutely. JohnBoulay: Hello, can you hear me? SBSD Owl Camera: Of

019course. JohnBoulay: Vict. JohnBoulay: Well, thanks for having me here today. Again, for the record, you know, my name is John Boulet with RHR Smith & Company. You know, I try and I won't take up too much of your time today. I do have a short presentation here, you know, and a little bit of background about myself. JohnBoulay: You know, went to school here in Vermont, just got my master's degree in accounting. I've been the audit manager for South Burlington School District for about 3 years now, I believe. JohnBoulay: So, I will share my screen, and I'll try and keep it under 15 minutes or so. JohnBoulay: Okay, so can you see my screen? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. JohnBoulay: Okay. Excellent. JohnBoulay: Okay, so we are talking about FY25, which is, you know, the period of

020time between July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2025. A short presentation here that goes over the opinion, touches on some of the major statements in the full audit report. JohnBoulay: you know, about the general fund, and then more specifically about some of the enterprise funds, and then at the end, I will go over some of the comments on the management letter, which are some recommendations for improving internal controls. JohnBoulay: So this first slide here… sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Someone say something? JohnBoulay: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: So my understanding of what we're doing here is basically hearing the auditor's opinion, which is like, you know, an auditor might give you a 100-page report, but there's one part in the report where they say, this is my opinion about how the whole thing is. And so that's

021what we're hearing right now, is the opinion, right? JohnBoulay: Correct, yep. So slide 3 here is our opinion, and if you're willing to hear some of the, you know, additional information on some of the major statements, you know, more specifically the general fund, school nutrition, Schools Out program, you know, I'm willing to go into a little more depth. JohnBoulay: But yes, slide 3 will be the opinion. JohnBoulay: So this first slide, you know, a couple of these first slides are just responsibilities. You know, this slide relays the district's responsibilities. Slide 2 here are our responsibilities for the engagement. JohnBoulay: Slide 3, now this is the, opinion right here. So, this is an excerpt from the independent auditor's report, page 1 more specifically. JohnBoulay: This excerpt on the right here is the second paragraph which provides

022our opinion. And in our opinion, you know, we have provided the district with an unmodified opinion, which is the highest opinion a district can receive. JohnBoulay: So you can kind of see that here in this first sentence. JohnBoulay: present fairly, you know, that… those are the two words we're really looking for. So, you know, in summary, we did provide the district with an unmodified opinion. SBSD Owl Camera: I've also heard that referred. It's a clean opinion. JohnBoulay: It is a clean opinion, yes, the highest, the highest and cleanest opinion that a district can receive, correct? JohnBoulay: This is a 3-year comparison of the general fund balance sheet. JohnBoulay: Couple notes on this page. This blue bar here is 2023, and you can see that these cash, total assets, and liabilities lines are much higher than

023the last couple years, and that's just due to an outstanding short-term note payable of about $5 million that was not paid off as of June 30, 2023. JohnBoulay: But has been since. JohnBoulay: And then again, in FY25, the year we audited, you know, a fun little note is that your cash makes up about 70% of your total assets. So that just tells us that the district is very liquid. JohnBoulay: This is your fund balance. JohnBoulay: Basically tells us that 97% of your total general fund fund balance is unassigned, while the remaining 3% is non-spendable. JohnBoulay: you know, theoretically, I would say all of your fund balance in general fund is unassigned, because that 3% non-spendable is related to prepaid expenses. So that money has pretty much already left the door. You know, it's out the

024door already. JohnBoulay: You know, unlike any assigned or committed fund balance you can use in subsequent years, the non-spendable is, yep, you know, we have prepaid insurance, we prepaid it in FY25, that expense will be incurred soon after, I'm thinking July 2025, so, you know, that's money that's pretty much out the door. JohnBoulay: you know, different view on this fund balance, the 3-year comparison here. You know, the major notes here, this committed fund balance in FY24, JohnBoulay: That's… that is committed, or that was committed for the FY25 budget, and same goes for 23. These two committed fund balance lines were committed for the subsequent year budget. JohnBoulay: And then again, you know, 97% of your fund balance is unassigned, this green column here, which I believe is being committed for capital projects in FY26, if

025it has not been done so already. JohnBoulay: So now we'll talk revenues. This is a budget to actual for the revenues. You can see this number bottom right here. You know, you had under-received by about $1.9 million. You know, in the grand scheme of things, that's about 3%, so nothing really to turn heads about, and I think the major… JohnBoulay: Classification that was under-received was intergovernmental revenues. JohnBoulay: On the flip side here, we can see the budget to actual for the expenditures. JohnBoulay: Again, another good thing down here, the $1.2 million, that just shows you were under budget by $1.2 million, and again, that's 2%. So again, nothing really to turn heads about. But you know, something interesting to note, it was the third attempt at passing the budget, and that's what this $68 million

026is here. JohnBoulay: So… Changing up. JohnBoulay: you know, we're not going to talk about the general fund anymore, we're going to talk more about the enterprise funds, or, you know, what we like to call them business-type funds. More specifically, the food service or child nutrition, and then the schools out program. So, a couple notes on this slide here. JohnBoulay: You can see a decrease to assets and net position. So there was a total decrease in net position between the two funds of about $648,000. JohnBoulay: You know, which is not indicative of both funds combined. You know, while the school's out. JohnBoulay: program has seen an increase in their fund balance year over year for the past three years. The food service, on the other hand, has seen a decline in their fund balance over the

027past 2 fiscal years. The FY25 decrease JohnBoulay: Was mainly due to the higher food costs. JohnBoulay: You know, the food costs were much higher in 25 than they were in 24. JohnBoulay: And another decrease you'll see, if you're looking at the full audit report. JohnBoulay: Is that we had moved the fixed assets out of the food service fund in anticipation of it becoming a special revenue. JohnBoulay: So the reason we're moving it out of enterprise and into special revenue, JohnBoulay: It is just because the charges for services JohnBoulay: cannot sustain the expenditures in that fund. So instead of it being a separate quote-unquote business-type fund, it is going to now be considered a governmental fund. JohnBoulay: But again, you know, we are not completely eliminating the fixed assets. We can see those in a separate

028statement. So we have a statement of net position on Statement A of the full audit report. Those fixed assets will be shown there. JohnBoulay: Revenues for those two funds. Really nothing major to note, you know, although it does look like intergovernmental revenues increased a lot through the fiscal year. JohnBoulay: We just reclassified. We reclassified these charges for services into governmental here. JohnBoulay: And the total increase in revenue from year to year was about $103,000. JohnBoulay: Flipside expenditures, 3-year comparison. Nothing major to note here. Again, I just wanted to reiterate that the food costs have, you know, greatly increased through the… throughout the fiscal year, FY25. JohnBoulay: And lastly is the management letter, which offers recommendations for improving internal controls. There's a few comments here. Cash receipts, cash disbursements, student activity accounts, and procurement. JohnBoulay: you

029know, I'll touch on student activity accounts here quickly. Management, you know, at the central office has already indicated that they have JohnBoulay: corrected this, and student activity accounts, A, are now, you know, in the fiscal or financial software, and internal controls are now being housed at the central office. JohnBoulay: And for the other three, cash receipts, disbursements, and procurement, you know, management has notified me that they are currently working on corrective action, and these should be implemented, if not in 26, in FY27. So… JohnBoulay: That is all I had, and, you know, feel free to ask questions if you have any. SBSD Owl Camera: board questions. SBSD Owl Camera: My one, the… SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry, the superintendent, do you think that the procurement issues are sorted at this point that were mentioned here? SBSD

030Owl Camera: I think Jean Marie can speak to that, I think, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Hi, Jane Maureen Clark, Operations and Finance Director. Thank you, John. I appreciate your time and effort in explaining the audit to the team here. To your question, Seamus, I would say that we have come a really long way during this current academic and fiscal year in getting all those protocols in place. Before July 1, actually the next coming weeks, my team will be SBSD Owl Camera: completing an updated financial handbook with processes and procedures that are really clearly outlined. That's not been a fresh document in this district. SBSD Owl Camera: In quite some time. So, SBSD Owl Camera: We will get that in place and do some trainings with the big, users. SBSD Owl Camera: at the beginning of

031the new, fiscal year. So, we, like, again, we've come a long way, made a lot of improvements. I think we still have a little bit of work to do, but I'm really proud of the… of my team and the district in understanding and following those protocols. SBSD Owl Camera: You, SBSD Owl Camera: John or Jean Marie, and I see April, online there, I just want… the part I want the board to be really clear about is the assets in food service, because this is going to become an item for the board in another meeting or so. Can we clarify that? SBSD Owl Camera: I want to make sure everybody's crystal on what's going on there. Yeah, John, did you want to speak about that a little bit more? JohnBoulay: Yeah, I can, definitely. JohnBoulay: So,

032food service in years… SBSD Owl Camera: Switch to that slide. JohnBoulay: Oh, you want me to go to it? Sure. JohnBoulay: So am I sharing again? SBSD Owl Camera: We can see the… Yeah, we can present, but in present mode. JohnBoulay: So JohnBoulay: When it comes to governmental versus enterprise funds, in years past, the Food Service Fund has always been considered enterprise, because the charges for services JohnBoulay: have been able to sustain the expenditures. You know, in recent years, the expenditures have outweighed the revenues, and that only decreases the net position. JohnBoulay: So, you know, when it comes to accounting and the presentation of it all. JohnBoulay: We will end up showing food service as a special revenue fund, which, in hindsight, is a governmental fund rather than an enterprise fund. JohnBoulay: So, the accounting

033behind it, you know, food service still has fixed assets, they're just going to be shown on a separate statement. Meaning, for enterprise funds, for example. JohnBoulay: You know, if you're looking at the nitty-gritty and the trial balance and every single, you know, balance sheet and income statement account. JohnBoulay: Enterprise funds need fixed asset accounts, while governmental funds do not need those trial balance accounts. JohnBoulay: That's why we kind of separate those two on two different statements. JohnBoulay: Statement A is the statement of net position, which includes your current assets and your non-current assets, and your non-current assets are going to be JohnBoulay: be your fixed assets, while statement C is a balance sheet, which only includes your current assets, so it does not include any non-current assets. That's just a way for us, or for,

034you know, pretty much any JohnBoulay: Accounting firm to present, you know, an actual fund balance number at the end of the year. JohnBoulay: Meaning, you know, you can have, say, $295,000 of net position in your food service, which is related solely to fixed assets, while the remaining is basically taking your net revenues and expenses, so actually showing that ending fund balance at year-end. JohnBoulay: So, kind of, to conclude. JohnBoulay: You know, those fixed assets will still remain food service fixed assets, but they will be shown a different way in the audit moving forward. SBSD Owl Camera: They weren't included in the same sheet in the past, so there's going to be a difference of… SBSD Owl Camera: approximately 300,000, John. JohnBoulay: Correct. So, if I can… JohnBoulay: just quickly show you the audit here. This

035is the income statement, or, you know, change in net position for the food service, the school nutrition. JohnBoulay: down here, these net position corrections, we removed the $295,000 of net position solely related to fixed assets, and moved it to Statement A, which is the governmental side of the… of the, JohnBoulay: Audit report, I guess you could call it. SBSD Owl Camera: And is this some… somewhat related to… SBSD Owl Camera: how now everybody gets free lunch, or doctor. No, no, that comes out of the… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that's different. We'll talk… I wanted John to go through this with you all this evening, and then in our next meeting, we're going to talk about, child nutrition funding and moving forward, how this change and correction is going to impact their budget moving forward. But

036John has said a few times this evening, we do get a reimbursement from the federal government for our SBSD Owl Camera: child nutrition program. However, we won't be surprised to learn that that reimbursement is less than the actual cost of goods, staffing, and food, food, so forth. So, that will impact our numbers. So, for the general layman, former English teacher, what I'm hearing is that our change in that position is about $300,000 SBSD Owl Camera: Less, but it's… it's simply a matter of putting the $300,000 of assets in a different line. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. JohnBoulay: I would say yes and no. What… the reason I say that, yes, there is a decrease in net position due to the removal of fixed assets, but if you take the fixed assets out of it. JohnBoulay: you

037know, you start the year with about $1 million in fund balance in food service. The current year expenditures outweighed the current year revenues by $524,000. So that's where you're seeing that large decrease in fund balance. So, we started the year at $1 million, ending the year here at $514,000. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Any other board comment or question? SBSD Owl Camera: All right, well, if you have any follow-up questions, please just go ahead and email Joe. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you very much for your presentation. JohnBoulay: Yep, of course. Thank you, everybody. Have a great night. SBSD Owl Camera: News here. JohnBoulay: Take care. SBSD Owl Camera: So the next item on the agenda, is the ENDS policy. So would you rec… would you add Annie Davidson as a panelist? SBSD

038Owl Camera: And so the context for this, SBSD Owl Camera: The context for this is that the ENDS Policy Committee, which is Michelle, Alyssa, and I, recommended that, SBSD Owl Camera: We involve a consultant to help us make sure that whatever ends policy we write SBSD Owl Camera: is actionable, you know, in line with current standards, all that stuff. So, to be clear, we're going to hear a presentation from Annie Davidson, who's our recommended, consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: And, but we would still, as a board, write the policy. It would be Annie's job to help with a lot of things that would lead to that. Michelle, Alyssa, do you want to present the… SBSD Owl Camera: situation anymore. SBSD Owl Camera: I think that tees it up well. I don't want to take time away

039from, from any, it looks like. SBSD Owl Camera: It looks like anything better for me. She's there, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Son? . Annie Davidson: Oh, hello, everyone. I think I'm… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: We can see you. Annie Davidson: That's connecting. Good to see you, too. It's a pleasure to be with you this evening. Annie Davidson: I will, happily share a slide deck if we're ready for that. SBSD Owl Camera: Sure. I could get a little bit of an introduction if… Sorry, that completely went over me, sorry about that. Annie Davidson: No worries. SBSD Owl Camera: 30 seconds, and so I did want to say, I've known Dr. Davidson for more than 20 years. I know her to be an absolute professional in the field, multi-talented. SBSD Owl Camera: With pretty

040deep ties also to the Northeast. Her MA is from St. Mike's, her EDD is from UVM, I believe we have some books here, that have gone through that same program. SBSD Owl Camera: And she's really… she has spent the last, probably, decade or more working with states and districts as a consultant on similar types of projects. Not all exactly the same, they all have a different SBSD Owl Camera: labor and aspect to them, but, really heavy on policy, process, and research. And so what she's going to share is what we've been talking about in terms of how she can help us as an independent expert SBSD Owl Camera: walk us through some processes that help us understand and draw information and feedback from the community in really specific and informal and formal targeted ways, and

041I will leave it at that. Oh, and fun fact, her daughter… I'm gonna… I'm gonna share this, her daughter is our school board rep in… in her local hometown, too. Annie Davidson: What's that? SBSD Owl Camera: I will hand it over to you, Annie. Annie Davidson: Well, thank you all again so much for inviting me to come and share a few thoughts with you, as we, discuss your ENS policy. The South Burlington School District is actually familiar to me. Annie Davidson: As Michelle mentioned, I, started my career in the classroom. Annie Davidson: And it really began as I, as I worked through my program to get licensure to teach in the elementary level through St. Michael's College. I had taught for one year Annie Davidson: at a school in Maine that was private, and so

042I didn't need a license. So, St. Michael's College, that really, gave me the support to do that after, you know, at night, during classes that I could work into my many other jobs. Annie Davidson: And during that period, I had a chance to visit many different schools, you know, through the program. Annie Davidson: And so some of the South Burlington schools were on that list, and I ended up teaching at Barnes Elementary in the north end of Burlington for the beginning of my career, and that was very formative to me. Annie Davidson: And it was through, working at Barnes and being a classroom teacher, and deciding to complete my master's at St. Michael's, that I stumbled into Jonette Hartnett, who was a research teacher. She was at UVM. One thing led to another, and I

043found myself in the EDD program. Annie Davidson: pretty excited about being there, and probably not being as clear about what I was going to do with myself, with that degree. I just… I just really enjoyed the research aspect. Annie Davidson: Which led me to California. I ended up following a partner to California, and worked with Michelle. Annie Davidson: for a short period of time in an education publisher out there, and that's how we connected. So it's been a big journey. I have many friends at UVM still, and I just find it delightful to be in this situation, to have both of these parts of my world come together. Annie Davidson: I did want to just take that moment to share a little bit about me, because it is a sort of unusually interesting connection, but

044I do want to jump right into your needs, because this is a public meeting and an important one. Annie Davidson: So I am aware at this point, from having talked with Michelle and reviewing the district policy, guidance policy, as well as some of the other materials that are available online about your monitoring plans and some of the past discussion. Annie Davidson: And I understand that the ENS policies, policy, which is really a foundational guidance policy, was written in, really over 10 years ago. And with that in mind, and part of the context. Annie Davidson: I also understand that time Annie Davidson: Brings lots of reasons why to re… it's important to revisit your guidance policy. Annie Davidson: Certainly community values can change, economies are changing around us. Many other factors influence what, schools should be

045doing to, to guide student opportunities and to Annie Davidson: Provide the kinds of supports that we need to include all students. Annie Davidson: And so, with that in mind, it's a very good idea to re-evaluate and to consider revision, or development of, indeed, new ends policy that can… that aligns with community values Annie Davidson: that also serves some important practical things for you. I understand very well, working in state government is another hat I've worn, that having policy that does not match well with what you can do Annie Davidson: creates all sorts of tensions and challenges when you're coming back to report on progress. So. Annie Davidson: Having policy that can be tracked, that is built around what is important to observe. Annie Davidson: And can provide monitoring approaches that will yield the kind of

046data that you need to make decisions will be critical. Annie Davidson: And so, ultimately, my understanding of your need is that you must, you would like to have some strong recommendations Annie Davidson: in which you can… with which you can put forward, a revised ENS policy by June of this year. Annie Davidson: And so with that, there are a couple of things to think about. My understanding is that you really would like this to be a process that aligns with best practice. Annie Davidson: The idea of ENS policies comes out of Carver's work, and there are many school districts and other kinds of boards, public boards, all over the country using this set of ideas, so being in alignment with best practice is a high priority. Annie Davidson: As well as making the policy, really

047serve the desires of… and engagement of South Burlington stakeholders. So, having that opportunity to have the, South Burlington community reflect back. Annie Davidson: The priorities and needs that will need to be integrated into this policy will be important to you. Annie Davidson: And then, from that, my understanding is that you really want to address this outdated nature of the current policy, that you need to have this strong link between action-oriented policy statements and the monitoring that you'll need to do over time. Annie Davidson: And… Annie Davidson: And so in that way, we really want to think about a policy that's measurable and actionable, on top of engaging stakeholders. Annie Davidson: Please interrupt me anytime if anything I say is, inconsistent with your understanding, or if anything I've said is unclear, so don't hesitate to flag

048me down if I need to stop. SBSD Owl Camera: Could I, just raise a couple things that I think will help move forward with discussion? So, SBSD Owl Camera: I think that we do want your review not only, you know, not only recommendations on what should go into the policy through focus groups, but also SBSD Owl Camera: We want feedback on the first draft of the ENS policy itself, and the first draft won't actually be ready until, like. SBSD Owl Camera: Mid-July. SBSD Owl Camera: Sure. So, it does go… so the engagement would go through beyond June. Annie Davidson: Thank you, Seamus, I appreciate that. I, that… noted. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the other thing is, SBSD Owl Camera: I think the… in terms of engagement of stakeholders, I think that there is a

049interest in SBSD Owl Camera: going beyond school community and just in every axis in which people can be different. You know, socioeconomic status, race. SBSD Owl Camera: You know, age. We want to get a very intentionally broad set of stakeholders. Annie Davidson: Again, thank you. Great. Annie Davidson: I appreciate that, and… and hope that by the end of our conversation today. Annie Davidson: We'll have, at least enough, enough to imagine what that sample might look like, what that group of stakeholders would be, that, as you say, goes beyond… Annie Davidson: Some of the maybe more superficial categories, and really reaches out into the community to represent well. Annie Davidson: And comprehensively. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Annie Davidson: Yeah. Annie Davidson: Thank you. Annie Davidson: I hope we'll… I'll come back to this question of

050who to engage and how, shortly. I wanted to give you these three process steps as kind of the major buckets Annie Davidson: Of the… of the process that I'd envision at this point. Again, we're in the beginning conversation of this, so I understand that there may be, more to it, or some things to clarify, but I wanted to organize our conversation around 3 major steps. Annie Davidson: The first one being an independent review, and that really would be our team reviewing the existing policies, and… Annie Davidson: from that review, combined with, really, this conversation and the conversations I've already had with Michelle and with, Annie Davidson: Looking at documents online, to pull together a rationale for the new policies that supports you in your going out to the community to ask for their engagement. Annie

051Davidson: As well as to be prepared and, feel on solid ground for anyone who might be in, who might be more contrarian and have a hard time, imagining a change to these policies. So to really establish a strong rationale that is, Annie Davidson: Transparent, and, that we can work from. Annie Davidson: The second bucket would be the collection of qualitative data, and so this process, could… there are some options for how to do this. We'll talk about a few of those in a minute. But the big picture is that we'll be employing focus group interviews. Annie Davidson: We'll be combining that with the transcripts and notes from the open forum meetings that I understand you plan to have and have already scheduled on this topic. Annie Davidson: And then also employ a community survey that

052will help in more of a confirmatory way, but to… once we have generated some draft material for the recommendations, that we would do a survey that could be broader, engage more people across the community than within the focus groups, and could… we could use that as a way to confirm some of these major Annie Davidson: findings and find out or press on any unresolved questions. Annie Davidson: So, in the collection of that data, those data, we would then, do an analysis Annie Davidson: and, come forward to you with a report that presents the key findings and recommendations. Again, this provides you the basis for decision making. Annie Davidson: You would have the final say, and of course, because stakeholders have been involved, I know that you will take them very seriously and do your best

053to honor those, that input. Annie Davidson: And that said, you also are decision makers that see across many different categories of, key topics that affect the school district in a Annie Davidson: And the enormous amount of resources that goes into it. And so with that, you do have decision-making power that can, if necessary, supersede Annie Davidson: the stakeholder input. And so with that, you would base your draft, and then we would be very happy to provide feedback on that draft before you finalize it or go forward to ratify it. Annie Davidson: Any questions or comments about the process in the big picture here? Annie Davidson: There's a… SBSD Owl Camera: sensitive. Annie Davidson: looking okay so far. Here's another view of it, so, Annie Davidson: Just to start off with some very immediate expert review,

054get that stakeholder input, and this really would be the focus on the focus groups. Annie Davidson: And the public forum activity, survey, and then that synthesis and analysis of the findings with a report. Annie Davidson: So, if I were you, And… Annie Davidson: I would want to know why Annie Davidson: why Annie Davidson, and why my team, and why our group, Because as much as, Annie Davidson: personal confidence and professional confidence is valuable. It is… this is a transparent process, and and you will want to have the best support that you can for the resources you can allocate. Annie Davidson: I think that I, can stand on solid ground that our group, which is a small, women-owned business here, and we are located in California. That said, I have a lot of family in the

055Upper Valley, on both sides of the river, from White River Junction to… Annie Davidson: To Plainfield. And so we… we do… we do come from far away, but we are, close to New England in… in our hearts and in our experience, and so we bring, a deep experience with school accountability. Annie Davidson: Across multiple states and communities and school districts. Annie Davidson: Across multiple, levels within education systems. Annie Davidson: And that experience allows us to have some flexibility and imagination for solving some of the problems that can come up when you have, consensus, or when you're working to build consensus across groups, and to guide, successful school accountability policy. Annie Davidson: We also have, our group has a knowledge of best practice. We work in the public sector, primarily in the public sector. We are…

056even when we do work for private companies, they are serving the public sector, so Annie Davidson: Just the basic, foundational assumptions that best practices are those that are, documented usually by professional or associations and organizations that protect the public. Annie Davidson: We would be paying attention, close attention to the, assessment standards, practices, as well as policy analysis practices, program evaluation, etc. Annie Davidson: We also have… Annie Davidson: been working with school accountability frameworks, for, yeah, as Michelle mentioned, for over 20 years. I'm going to introduce my team. I'm going to show you some pictures of my team in a minute, but collectively, we have been working on school accountability Annie Davidson: Frameworks, the technical requirements, the practical implementation, for a combined, 50 years. Annie Davidson: We also have, deep understanding of assessment, Annie Davidson: We,

057I often work on psychometric problems and just the technical and design elements of assessments. I have a particular interest and commitment to fairness in testing. Annie Davidson: And, currently I'm working on a couple of different projects in that area, and I'm more than happy to tell you more about that at any time. But I would say that that commitment is deeply and firmly rooted in my experience at UVM, working with Susan Azazi and, Annie Davidson: Katie Shepherd were… they were very, very important people to me in framing my professional perspective and my commitment to, fairness, inclusion, and, making sure that our assessments and accountability systems, serve, all students. Annie Davidson: And probably most significant to all of you is that our team has deep experience in mixed methods research. We do it all the time.

058Annie Davidson: Our projects range from highly analytic, quantitative studies, where we're looking at, or we're using large data sets and statistical assumptions to come to conclusions. Annie Davidson: Using whatever kind of, statistical methods we need to, from factor analysis to, various, theories that guide assessment analysis, etc. Annie Davidson: Including item response theory and… and so forth, all the way to… Annie Davidson: qualitative research paradigms where, we are using purposive samples, where we're, developing focus group protocols, we're developing in-person… other kinds of interview protocols. Annie Davidson: We, do a lot of survey work, and so we… this is the kind of, this is the kind of work that we just love doing, and we do a lot of. Annie Davidson: So, with that, I'm going to just introduce the two… two other team members that would

059be part of this, that would be supporting this project. Annie Davidson: Jess Drizzin is our research manager, and she has been, working for many years in Annie Davidson: the, mostly tech field, doing user experience research, and she and I teamed up, last year. She's just an incredible person, incredible researcher. She cares deeply about getting to the truth of people's perspectives. Annie Davidson: And she's gifted at, trust-building and building the protocols and survey instruments that we use. She's a wonderful human being. Annie Davidson: And then our data and analysis expert, statistician, Christina Elongacun, is also really wonderful. I don't know that she will be highly involved in this project, but she would be certainly in the background. Annie Davidson: Helping us keep track of data and, and doing our… checking our work. Annie Davidson: So, what

060we've… Annie Davidson: put forward in a short proposal to you involves the three of us, supporting you, but I wanted to, share just a little bit about, again, my background. I have… I do hold an EDD from UVM. Annie Davidson: My experience has ranged from program evaluation, policy development and analysis, accountability, and assessment. I do have classroom experience, I have taught in higher ed, I continue to teach in higher ed in our community college. Annie Davidson: And, my background, it ranges in, in, in various, aspects of education. But most of all. Annie Davidson: I really care about supporting all students, so I can tell from talking to Michelle that you do, too. And, I want to, come back to the question that Seamus brought up about the sample. Annie Davidson: I do think that the,

061Annie Davidson: The way that this project unfolds will very much depend on how Annie Davidson: much fidelity. We can, as a group. Annie Davidson: Muster to pull together a strong group… Annie Davidson: sample of South Burlingtonians to come together and put their ideas and their values on the table Annie Davidson: for schools and for students. And so with that in mind, I think there are a number of strategies that we can use together, and I think there are some, some of the design options of this, really depends on Annie Davidson: who does what? So this third bullet here of the degree of involvement with recruitment, I think this will have to be a collaboration, without a doubt. However, there could be various Annie Davidson: we could take on more of the routine communication, or we

062could take on less of that. So that's something… I think this is one of the areas where if… if your team… if the school board would like to be more involved with Annie Davidson: finding this sample, we could simp… we could really focus on laying out the specification, so to speak, or laying out that sampling plan. Who are the key Annie Davidson: stakeholder groups. Annie Davidson: How are we going to reach out to them? What will we use to engage them and provide them incentive to participate? How will they be treated as we go through this process, etc. So I think that we can talk about roles and responsibilities within that recruitment process. Annie Davidson: And we're very happy to put forward some guidelines on sampling and, who… the types of people, the categories of

063people, and then you can help us with the, the actual Annie Davidson: Contacts and, and, invitations. Annie Davidson: So… Annie Davidson: So we can come back to that conversation about the focus group interviews, but I did want to outline just some of the ways that this could go, within the resources that you have budgeted for this. Annie Davidson: we are in a day and age where many wonderful meetings happen, virtually, as is this… as this one is. So, we can leverage virtual meetings to keep costs down. Annie Davidson: That said, in-person meetings do have great value in, in this kind of, work, so we may want to do some kind of combination of in-person and virtual meetings. Annie Davidson: But I did share a couple of different options for how we could think about this,

064depending on what you'd like to prioritize for the funds. Annie Davidson: Another place that the design could vary, could be in the total number of focus groups. So, if it is more important to you to have more people involved in the focus groups, we can have more Annie Davidson: interviews. As you know, a focus group interview is… comes… is a tradition that really comes out of market research, but it's… the idea is that we pull together a diverse group of people, but with a common set of questions, and we interview them as a group. Annie Davidson: And because focus groups are… it's important to hear from everyone, it's therefore important that they don't get too big. Annie Davidson: Once you have a focus group get too big, it's difficult for, everyone to speak up, and

065usually a few voices dominate. So it's nice to have a focus group be a manageable size, 4 to 6 people, usually. Annie Davidson: And so, if it's valuable to you to engage more people, we could have more interviews. Annie Davidson: If, however, it's more important that we have a very deep dive with, a fewer interviews, that would also work. So there is some variability that's, available there. Annie Davidson: I mentioned the degree of involvement with recruiting. Again, I really see this as, would you like us to do the communication piece? Annie Davidson: with people, or would you like us to just give you the requirements and let you do that? So I think that, that, that conversation could really vary, just in how much do you want us talking directly with those participants? Annie Davidson:

066And then the last way… the last option here kind of relates to the first. Annie Davidson: If it's an… if it's a priority to have me, have maybe Jess and me, or just me, come out and be in person, I am always more than happy to come up to the Northeast, I will tell you what. That said, it is cost, and I don't, I don't make any presumptions there. So, I think those are the… Annie Davidson: the major factors I see that would impact the cost of our support. Annie Davidson: And, otherwise, I think this is a discrete, timeframe. Within a couple of months, we want to have some strong recommendations. Annie Davidson: It'll go pretty quickly. I know that you have folk… some, community forum meetings set up that will also feed into the…

067this… this set of, steps. Annie Davidson: And, and those would be, Annie Davidson: happening in the next couple of months, so I know that we really should have all data by, really close to the beginning of June, if not earlier. Annie Davidson: So, with that said, I will now… Annie Davidson: Stop talking, and look forward to any questions, or… Annie Davidson: Anything that you would like to share with me? SBSD Owl Camera: Would there be any comments or questions from the board? SBSD Owl Camera: We have a discussion item on this later on the agenda. Excellent. Any questions? Yeah, this is great. Thank you for all this information, and we'll talk more about whether these design options are something that, like, you know, the committee, like. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle's gonna kind of… SBSD Owl

068Camera: Spearhead, or if we're gonna talk about it all together and make those kinds of decisions together. SBSD Owl Camera: Excellent. Annie Davidson: That's… Annie Davidson: That sounds great, and I didn't mention, but I do know that there are some copies of a more detailed proposal document that I shared with Michelle, and I know she shared with others at the table today. Annie Davidson: That has much more detail on all this, so if you're wondering about the specific costs, or if you're looking at Annie Davidson: What our understandings are about timelines and, Annie Davidson: Feel… feel free to follow up and email or be in touch if you have any other questions. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Well, thank you for, doing the presentation, and yeah, we'll be in touch. Annie Davidson: Thank you so much

069for having me. It's a pleasure. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is a presentation about common roots. SBSD Owl Camera: When we carry over. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm gonna start with a little story before I say anything, because that's a lot of information, which is exciting. SBSD Owl Camera: And I'd love to hear down the road how you're going to gather focus groups, because being in the community a fair amount, I think it's, SBSD Owl Camera: Very diverse and very exciting to… SBSD Owl Camera: capture as much as she can with our communities and neighbors. But the story I want to share with you is a father of a first grader comes by the Wheeler House where my office is. SBSD Owl Camera: on a Saturday morning, and,

070he saw my vehicle, he knows who I am, and so he knocks on my door, and I'm… and I'm usually thinking of people, knocking on my door on a Saturday. So, Mr. I have to tell you the story. Because my first grade daughter. SBSD Owl Camera: was at the breakfast table with me recently, and I was trying to introduce her to, avocado toast. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, he says, I'm making her the toast, I'm cutting it in small pieces, and she goes to me, now, Daddy, am I gonna like the way this tickles my taste… my… tickles my taste buds? SBSD Owl Camera: And he goes, tickles your taste buds. She goes, yeah, that's what we do in Farm to School. I'm like, okay. So he thought… he thought I had to know that,

071so I thought I'd share that. But, kids are so impressionable, and tasting and testing is really an important part of SBSD Owl Camera: becoming aware of how we nourish ourselves, so thank you. It's been a while. I used to come every year, like, 15 minutes to the school board meetings to just give an update, and it's been a while, so I won't take long, but I wanted to just make sure I make time of a new, opportunity for our middle and high schoolers. SBSD Owl Camera: So, in the early days of 18 years ago, Prime to School would have been our largest budget. We're in all your classrooms every month. SBSD Owl Camera: kids leave the fifth grade with about 50-plus lessons with common roots, and they're not on your school budget, so we can

072raise money. And, but now our largest budget is actually our pharmacy and the food shelf, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm pleased to say that between our talented farm team, our chefs, and our food educators, we're at the food shelf. SBSD Owl Camera: with a lesson May through October, and then we bring food year-round, meals in particular, that are very nutritious and engaging, and I love what Peter said in the newsletter. He sends notes every Saturday after the food shop closes at noon. SBSD Owl Camera: to a large group of people, and he said, and people are taking longer and longer at this common rooms table, because there's so many options, and there's so much food. So, we're really pleased to be that. That's our mission. Food education, food equity, and organic farming. SBSD Owl Camera:

073In our farm to school, I had a wonderful conversation with Rhonda, and actually, commonness was… SBSD Owl Camera: We had 3 members at the table when we hired Rhonda. This is way back 10 plus years ago. SBSD Owl Camera: Your, your food, program was… SBSD Owl Camera: $357,000 in debt and growing, and there was a change. And then the school board knew that we were serious about the impact of helping our children learn nutrition before they leave our high school. SBSD Owl Camera: And with that, Rhonda, we had an opportunity to be SBSD Owl Camera: in the process, and Rhonda is a very hard-working woman. SBSD Owl Camera: And after COVID, she had no one to cut your vegetables and make those stir fries, and she was, like, beside herself, and she's getting her equilibrium

074and buying more local food from farmers, I forget which percent of her budget. I think it's around 20. SBSD Owl Camera: And, and now we're talking about working with our food educators in the classroom to do more bridging, like we did in the early years. We had a big bridge between the 4th and 5th graders helping the K1, 2, 3s. SBSD Owl Camera: learn about some new foods in the cafeteria. So, we were in the classroom and the cafeteria in the earlier days, and just over time, and then with COVID, we got away from that, and so now we're giving back to that. But that's a very powerful opportunity for kids to try new foods. SBSD Owl Camera: And to, like, hear the language of nutrition, and learn why some food's, good for them, and

075what it does for their body, where it comes from, how it grows, the cultural aspects of some of our foods. SBSD Owl Camera: Are important to teach as well. SBSD Owl Camera: In the middle school, we have the Farm to Go program. So in the classrooms, we're at 180,000 lessons, and we round down at the end of every year, because we never know how many kids were absent on any given day. But that's… that's pretty interesting. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the middle school, that's an after-school program. There's not a way right now that we've discerned SBSD Owl Camera: That we could be with all the students in the middle school by the way their curriculum is mapped out in teams, and how many specials, and music, and… SBSD Owl Camera: TA time. SBSD Owl

076Camera: But we do have an after-school program where about 8 student chefs come together. It's a 5- or 6-week course, depending on how the school year vacations go. And they go home with a meal that they've made to their parents, a full balanced meal with the SBSD Owl Camera: Recipes and the meal for their family. SBSD Owl Camera: My favorite story of 18 years is an 8th grade boy SBSD Owl Camera: would bring a towel in his backpack the day he did farm to go. And when all the portions of their meal are in a box to carry. SBSD Owl Camera: He would cover it with his towel, so his parents could smell what the food smelled like until he set the table. That's an 8th grade boy, I'm like, oh my god, that's crazy.

077So his parents were, like, tickled that he was that intentional about serving it, right? That was kind of sweet. SBSD Owl Camera: We're at 15,500 meals that middle stores have made for their families. SBSD Owl Camera: We have gatherings on the land, that's farm hops, field trips, summer camps, SBSD Owl Camera: We do the Abenaki Festival for Rural Van Link Farm. SBSD Owl Camera: So, the gatherings of the land, we have a devoted half acre on our farm. SBSD Owl Camera: For the gatherings that we do. And then our internships, while they're mostly from college, especially St. Mike's, we have graduates from other culinary programs around the nation. We've had a, interestingly, a graduate student SBSD Owl Camera: From… She was doing religious studies and wanted to be a pastor who taught SBSD Owl Camera:

078Who pastored from a stewardship perspective of land. SBSD Owl Camera: And when she learned that we were on the land and teaching kids and in the community with food equity, she spent her summer with us from Yale Divinity, and she, SBSD Owl Camera: did, some very deep work with us around telling the story, which was very helpful. And so the internships are varied. We mostly in the high school have volunteers, and we just did a project with the Cape Club, thanks to Allie and Kate. SBSD Owl Camera: And, and then we have your freshmen come to our farm in the Wheeler House during your pre-service days, in the fall, in the spring. So that's… that's been a very… SBSD Owl Camera: important part of them getting to know their community. When they come to the

079Wheeler house, they say, well, we're gonna get some work done at your house. And they're like, our house? I'm like, this is your house, because it's obviously a city building. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, we get a ton of work done. My favorite thing that we did recently, a couple years ago, when one of the freshmen SBSD Owl Camera: service days. SBSD Owl Camera: Is they dug… SBSD Owl Camera: a very simple river in the back of the wheeler house, like a pathway, and so when the kids are at camp or at Friday flatbreads, we turn the hose on in morning, and by the time they come. SBSD Owl Camera: there's… there's water for them to float boats down, or build bridges, or ferry houses, or slash, and make mud, and so it's a… it's…

080that was a really fun project, and the freshmen were so, SBSD Owl Camera: I'm going to say systematic about it. They wanted to know about the slope. Would the water flow down? I'm like, well, that's good thinking, which I hadn't thought about, so it's kind of good. But the latest is really, part of the reason I asked Dr. Joe if I could come is… SBSD Owl Camera: We have a very unique opportunity in our district from a very old company called the Vermont Agency. SBSD Owl Camera: And, I met them… I was invited to be… which I don't golf, but I was invited to be at a golf tournament at the Burlington Country Club last August. SBSD Owl Camera: And I met the mother of one of your sophomores, and she's a nutritionist by training.

081SBSD Owl Camera: about 20 years in nutrition education and practice in LA and Park City, Utah. SBSD Owl Camera: was back in the area, she started off at Vermont Agency. SBSD Owl Camera: But the Vermont Agency has expanded their understanding of what they want for children. Before, Maria brought the concept of nutrition to the agency. SBSD Owl Camera: They wanted to help young people in the middle and high school SBSD Owl Camera: Learn about financial literacy, and have an account for college. SBSD Owl Camera: And now they've expanded to they want them to understand how to nourish yourself? SBSD Owl Camera: And how do you, help them learn financial literacy, and how do you get them an account? SBSD Owl Camera: So we're on our second pilot. Tomorrow night, 9 middle and high schoolers will

082come to the Wheeler House. We have the capacity in the future to do many more, but this is, like, we had 6 in the first cohort, we have 9 in this cohort. It's a 5-week course. SBSD Owl Camera: In order for the students to be eligible for the points that they're going to get towards college. SBSD Owl Camera: they have to bring a parent, because a parent in middle and high school is still the one buying the groceries, and it's just… it's mindfulness. It's not a woo-woo, you gotta do this, you can't do that. It's very inclusive, but it's… but it's teaching some very simple research principles of how do we keep our health strong. SBSD Owl Camera: So… What happens in this program is… SBSD Owl Camera: And I had no idea when I

083set up to do a pilot how generous it was going to be. SBSD Owl Camera: every time a child in middle or high school finishes a five… five hours, if right now it's at the Wheeler House, it could be at the… it could be here, it could be in an auditorium, it could be places where we could serve a lot more kids. SBSD Owl Camera: They get 2,000 points towards college in an account through Vermont Agency, and their parents get 2,000 points. SBSD Owl Camera: It's worth $4,000 in a college account. There are 450 colleges, some of them are 4-year, some are 2-year, some of them are technical programs. SBSD Owl Camera: And if they decide to go to a college that's not on the 450 that they have a relationship with, they can give

084them to anyone on either side of their family. SBSD Owl Camera: And if no one uses them, they can go into their, estate. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that crazy? SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, I'm gonna… I'm gonna stay with this, and, we have some mothers and fathers, of… SBSD Owl Camera: the sport clubs, the teams, and they're saying, like, you know, we can't come at 4 o'clock, they're all in sports, so we're gonna look at a way to figure this out. SBSD Owl Camera: either at the Vermont Agency or in the school at a time when, sports people could come because, what was her name? Jamie, Kelly. Jamie Kelly goes. SBSD Owl Camera: you know, I want to see him to learn about nutrition. Like, he's a great athlete, but he's,

085like, he's eating crappy, and it doesn't fit. And she goes, but… but it's… SBSD Owl Camera: So we're gonna work out of time for the, for the sports kids. So it's very small right now, 6 and 8 is only… or 9 is only 15 kids starting, but it's… the pilot makes sense, and then it gets crazier. Every birthday. SBSD Owl Camera: They get 500 points in their account. SBSD Owl Camera: So you have a sophomore at your high school who has $19,000 in her account for Vermont Agency. SBSD Owl Camera: And one point is a dollar, so if you have 19,000 points, which she has, she has $19,000 towards college. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I don't know where this is going, I'm just making you aware. You might hear about kids, earning, college dollars with

086Common Roots and Vermont Agency, but I met with the owner of Vermont Agency and the nutritionist yesterday. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think… SBSD Owl Camera: we can do something special. I don't know how we work with this… with the social workers and the guidance counselors to really work with kids, families who might be struggling financially, but this shouldn't just be for whoever cares about it. I think if we have a chance to get dollars in the account for kids. SBSD Owl Camera: We want to get it across the specimen best we can. So, wasn't our, focus in the, pilot, but we are going to be looking at that as we… SBSD Owl Camera: Go down the road. SBSD Owl Camera: So, any questions, comments? SBSD Owl Camera: That's amazing. I was looking at the…

087the little pamphlet that you gave to us, and I know about Friday pizza Night, and there's also meals on Tuesdays at the… Yes, every Tuesday, tonight it was a, chicken curry. SBSD Owl Camera: Our chef is, a 30-year licensed executive chef. He left the Essex Resort when his son in our schools in 8th grade, said, I never see you anymore, Dad. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, he knew that, he knew that we had a chef. SBSD Owl Camera: in teaching, and in Wheeler House Kitchen, that's a part of our revenue to do this work, is all these people are to give. It's not all philanthropy, it's… it's… it's making fundraisers, that bring the revenue paid for. SBSD Owl Camera: You're educated. So, so he's, he's a very, talented chef of 30 plus years, and he

088left the Essex, and he didn't know we had an opening, but our chef from southern New Hampshire was going back to school at 29 to learn coding. SBSD Owl Camera: So, it worked really well. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, that's a great… any other questions? SBSD Owl Camera: So, I gave you the Nourish, brochure. We would love to have, 4 or 200 members this year, in our Nourish Card program. What happens is… SBSD Owl Camera: You buy your meals at the Wheeler House. SBSD Owl Camera: you can spend them at the Flatbread Fridays. We have Comfort Food Fridays in the winter, and then we also, have the farm stand open from May 1st till early November. SBSD Owl Camera: The secret of a… we're the only farms in your city, folks. So, I mean, that's crazy,

089but we are the only farms that are, but the secret of our farms, because of our… some people in our city along the way being conservationists for agriculture and for open space. SBSD Owl Camera: I think there's a balance there. We are on 280 acres when no one's allowed to use compost, so we're only cultivating 18 acres. SBSD Owl Camera: We cultivate 14 at the farm in South Village, but that's 220 acres, including the preserve, where no one's allowed to use chemicals. SBSD Owl Camera: And then at your Wheeler Park, which, you know, is, Hubbard Park. SBSD Owl Camera: That's 67 acres, and we use 4 of that, and there's no chemicals there. So we have 2 organic certifications. NOFA just means we don't use chemicals, but we have a higher level. It's the highest

090in the nation. It's called the Real Organic Project. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, you have to remineralize your soil, rotate low tillage, and make pollination. SBSD Owl Camera: And the key of our… of our nutrient density in our food is that every time our farmer, now back with beer, hallelujah, he's amazing. I did 4… 4 years with him solid and zero issues. SBSD Owl Camera: He's smart, he can fix anything. He… his seasonals are all coming back, so that's a great, SBSD Owl Camera: It's a great, foundation for the future. And, you can't get… you can't… SBSD Owl Camera: Say that your organic food is anything more than no chemicals, but when you're putting nutrients back in the soil, the compost and the cover cropping, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: If he's done with his

091cabbage, he's going to test that soil, and he'll know exactly what cover crop to bring the iron, the copper, the manganese back into the soil. SBSD Owl Camera: So, you have to come and see us, at least see our farm stand and taste our food, and… SBSD Owl Camera: Over time, we have the purchase and sale agreement. SBSD Owl Camera: We hope to buy the only commercial lot on Sphere at the light. SBSD Owl Camera: At the farm, because the smart man who thought of building a village around a farm said to the city 20-plus years ago. SBSD Owl Camera: That farm someday will need an outlet, and we have the purchases-sell agreement for, in the future. SBSD Owl Camera: To build a farm market where access for families and education, which is our mission,

092are at the center of that. SBSD Owl Camera: So stay tuned, I think we can do it. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Thank you very much. Come see us. SBSD Owl Camera: So, at this point, the board's been going for two and a half hours. Do we want to take a quick break before the superintendent report? SBSD Owl Camera: I'm interested, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so we'll take, like, a 5-minute break. We'll come back to the different parts. SBSD Owl Camera: We're just gonna wait until 7.30, for sure. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, we'll get started with the next agenda item, the superintendent report. So, Joe. Yeah, I just have two, short items today. SBSD Owl Camera: One is regarding the Early Separation Program, the ESP, the buyout, the early retirement, whatever folks have

093been calling it. It's the Early Separation Program. SBSD Owl Camera: The… it's a reminder that the election window closes this Friday, April 3rd, and after the election window closes, participants then have a 7-day revocation period through Thursday, April 10th. SBSD Owl Camera: After April 10th, elections become irrevocable. EPC has indicated that they can prepare an estimated post-plan summary the week of April 13th, which will align with the board's April 15th meeting as a decision point. SBSD Owl Camera: So at this point, at the most recent report, which I received yesterday, 21 employees have turned in their paperwork, opting into the ESP. 11 of those are teachers, 6 of those are classified staff, and 4 are administrators. SBSD Owl Camera: What the board will need to decide on April 15th, SBSD Owl Camera: After you consider

094the post-plan summary, which is the projected savings and assumptions. SBSD Owl Camera: You will need to decide whether this is a go or a no-go on whether to proceed with the implementation of the program based on the final election results. So again, early that week, I hope by the 13th, I'll be able to get you, SBSD Owl Camera: Their projections of the savings, and then on the 15th, we need to… the board needs to make a decision whether we can move forward SBSD Owl Camera: Second, I wrote in the board update last, before you move on, Joe, does any… did the board have any questions about the early separation? SBSD Owl Camera: You said it was… it would close, and then there was another period where they could change their minds. Is that opting out

095of their choice, or opting in, or both? Opting out only. They have to, you know, they have to sign up to join by this Friday the 3rd, and then they have 7 days to back it. Right. Good question. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, thank you. So last, Friday's board update, I talked about the school foundation. The school foundation has been… they've done great things for the district. They've been, relatively… well, in my time here, which is short, it's been relatively dormant, and Patrick Burke and Joanne Abate. SBSD Owl Camera: are the folks that… Joanne is the CEO of the organization, Patrick Burke is the president. SBSD Owl Camera: And with Patrick, planning to retire, and Joanne, we're taking her off district payroll, so she'll be going on to the payroll of the, foundation. SBSD Owl Camera:

096And my, my history in school districts is working with really, SBSD Owl Camera: robust foundations, and so the hope is to get our foundation up and running really strongly again. School foundations, what they… again, they're 501c3s, they're not affiliated with the school, they're not a… they're not a… they're not a branch of the school, they're a separate 501c3. SBSD Owl Camera: But the goal is to do things that are great for kids and, and staff members here. So, and also, they were instrumental in building the athletic, complex. SBSD Owl Camera: But typically, what a school foundation will do is annually give out lots of scholarships to graduating seniors, and also give mini-grants to teachers if they want to do something unique or innovative in their classroom. And so, with Patrick leaving. SBSD Owl Camera: With

097me coming on, we are looking to recruit new members to be on the board, to get it up so we're having regular meetings again, and doing fundraisers, and… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm being visible in the community. I'm really excited to say this. I publicized this yesterday, Monday. SBSD Owl Camera: I sent out something on, Front Porch Forum, and I put it on our Facebook, and I sent it in a parent broadcast. SBSD Owl Camera: And at this point, 16 people have expressed an interest in maybe being on the foundation. Now, of course. SBSD Owl Camera: We don't even know what that looks like yet. So right now, we're collecting names, and then I'll get with Pat and Joanne, and we will reach out to all these folks to kind of tell them, what does it

098look like? What is the commitment? What do we hope to do? And really. SBSD Owl Camera: really, impressed with the folks that are, who are expressing interest. I have a financial background, I have a background doing fundraising, I have a background in law, all of them, you know, not all of them, but most of them. I have kids in the district, or I'm a graduate, I want to give back, so it's really, really impressive. And I mentioned in the update, I would love for a board member or two to be SBSD Owl Camera: liaisons to the group, so you can kind of report back. I think… I'm really excited about the prospect of having a really healthy and robust school foundation coming soon. SBSD Owl Camera: That is all for my report. SBSD Owl Camera:

099Any questions? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that's exciting. I've done, participated in the George Cannon Walk Run a couple times that the foundation has been helpful to the dog, so it's been… SBSD Owl Camera: I'm excited to see them do other things, and I'm really encouraged by the people who've already reached out with interest after one day, so… Yeah, I am too. I'm shocked, to be honest with you, so it's great. It's great. Nope, you can't get 16 people to run for school board. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, yeah. Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Any other questions for the superintendent? SBSD Owl Camera: Next item on the agenda is a general discussion of updating the ENS policy and the importance of community involvement, since they are the owners of the organization. So, in this discussion, we're not actually

100going to talk about the consultant. That's another action item we have later tonight, but we just want to talk a little bit in general again about SBSD Owl Camera: The plan for the end policy update? SBSD Owl Camera: Gonna share my screen. SBSD Owl Camera: Seamus, can I just ask, is this underlined because of the length, or because it's really important? I underlined it because it was, SBSD Owl Camera: Really important, because, the feedback that we've gotten from past board members is that SBSD Owl Camera: updating the end policy is a major once-in-en-years kind of thing, and so we just want to have it. I just was wondering if it linked to any… SBSD Owl Camera: It is really… It's not LinkedIn, that thing. SBSD Owl Camera: Very important. Okay, so I wanted to have

101everybody look at this calendar again. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: again, the purpose of this is that we have a first draft of a Nuance policy on July 8th. SBSD Owl Camera: And in order to get there, we want to have as much time while teachers are in schools. SBSD Owl Camera: And, so that… so that we can just get… SBSD Owl Camera: during the school year as much, feedback as possible from the whole community. So, we are planning on having SBSD Owl Camera: let's see… 1, 2, 3, 4 community forums. The first one would actually be April 15th. SBSD Owl Camera: then again on May 6th, then again on May 20th, then again on June 3rd. SBSD Owl Camera: And, and so… There are a lot of dates on here that are

102important. SBSD Owl Camera: for us to try to bring people to. And something we heard earlier today, in terms of focus groups and how we could help to recruit people into that, SBSD Owl Camera: At the same time that we're going to be running these community forums over the next couple months, we're also hopefully going to be running focus groups, and so for both of those, we're going to need board involvement in recruiting community members to come out and SBSD Owl Camera: tell us what is important to them, and I think we all represent different groups, we all, you know, represent different neighborhoods, and so it's important to, SBSD Owl Camera: To really think about how we can get the maximum representation. SBSD Owl Camera: So, looking at this calendar, does anybody have any further

103thoughts on just the dates that are necessary to hit this? SBSD Owl Camera: I just have a question. We put out, something in the other paper to… is that correct? Yes, and I got it in the mail. SBSD Owl Camera: No, I didn't get it in the mail, but I did find it in the gas station. Yeah, I saw it yesterday. Oh, yeah, I saw it on… it's in there. It's in there. Yes. Okay, so we did… we are working on that. SBSD Owl Camera: that first heads up. I can do front, front forge form, too. I don't know if you… I have, SBSD Owl Camera: It refreshes tomorrow, so I pulled one post tomorrow, whatever. You have to work that out. SBSD Owl Camera: That's a… I think that's a really good place. SBSD

104Owl Camera: Yeah, like, having the schedule, I think, would be good, because that is a concrete follow-up to the heads-up, hey, we're going to be doing this in this general time frame, and then this is… look for these dates, we hope you can make at least one, kind of. Yeah. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Yup. SBSD Owl Camera: So is there any other board comment on the end policy update? SBSD Owl Camera: Things that you want to make sure that we take into account. SBSD Owl Camera: This is just a space for us to talk about it as a group. SBSD Owl Camera: Do we want to have any sense from the board before moving on to the, you know, like, actual action of identifying consultants, defining the scope of work and all of that, about

105SBSD Owl Camera: so, Annie talked about Four to six in a focus group being… SBSD Owl Camera: kind of the max that you want, because you get the more rich discussions that way, and then we could talk about how they're comprised, right? Do we have focus groups that are just one group, a mix of groups? We need to pay attention to, like, power differentials, like, maybe we wouldn't want? SBSD Owl Camera: leadership and faculty in the same meeting. I don't know that that's true, but just the things that we need to attend to, so I'm curious if there's a sense of, like. SBSD Owl Camera: how many, right? To guide that part of the conversation, because 3 with a max of 6 is 18 people, that might not be enough. 5… SBSD Owl Camera: is

106probably better. My… my sense, just looking at the… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, and clearly, you know, we don't have to go with the consultant that was recommended to us initially. I think that's the most expeditious thing to do, but if most consultants would probably propose something similar, they just say, well, how many… SBSD Owl Camera: focus groups do you want to do, and do you want me to do them in person? And I, you know, based on the prices in the proposal that was sent out, you know, my inclination is that since this is something we seem to do once every 5 or 10 years, having 5 focus groups or more, doing them in person, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: the only thing I can compare it to is the superintendent search process, which

107was run by a consultant who was here in person. We had SBSD Owl Camera: lots of really good meetings, so I would be on the… I would be on the end of, more focus groups and doing them in person. SBSD Owl Camera: Can I ask, are the community forums the focus groups? No. Okay. Great, great clarifying question. So the community forums. SBSD Owl Camera: That's just what we run ourselves, and again, like, I'm personally committed to trying to get people here who I feel like SBSD Owl Camera: talk about school, but don't come to these meetings. And I want them to come and represent themselves here. But then the focus groups are, are where we might kind of, like. SBSD Owl Camera: get advice that, you know, we should be representing different age groups, and

108different socioeconomic groups, and different… and then we'll kind of, like, as I understand it, build the focus groups until they reach that level of representation, and only then kind of move forward with them. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, and the, a good distinction, I think, is the forums are more informal, where the focus groups are more intentional and focused on SBSD Owl Camera: getting a fuller representation that would get in just that kind of convenience of people who want to come, right? Like, I feel like there's gonna be a little bit of… SBSD Owl Camera: calling friends of friends and trying to entice a really diverse group of people, as best we can do. We always say those words, right, and we rarely achieve the kind of diversity that we want on these committees. SBSD Owl

109Camera: Or groups. But the… the forums are the informal, so people can come just SBSD Owl Camera: They can tell us, tell us what they, yeah, and say anything. Yeah, exactly. They can tell us what they want. We can bring questions to those, to kind of prompt some conversation, if we think that would be good. But the focus groups are really… SBSD Owl Camera: They're also more centered on the ideas of ENDS policies themselves, right? And, SBSD Owl Camera: probably a little more focused on, you know, what's actionable, measurable, what can be implemented versus what is aspirational. You know, those conversations will be really structured and deep. That's the intention, anyway. That's the hope that it would achieve that. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, thank you, I wasn't sure, but… so the focus groups are not

110on this calendar right now, are they? They're not scheduled yet. What did we say, April, May? We just marked the one, so we're basically saying, like. SBSD Owl Camera: On the assumption that tonight we take action to approve the hiring consultant, then we would want to, start recruiting SBSD Owl Camera: now, for those focus groups. You know, we'd have to wait a little bit to hear what we're supposed to recruit for, and then the folks groups themselves would probably be starting sometime in mid-May. SBSD Owl Camera: Any other board comment, or… SBSD Owl Camera: Joe, anything on this? I just… I think you made a really good point, that this is something you do every 10 years, so I think you do it right. You know what I mean? I don't… don't go halfway with

111this. SBSD Owl Camera: get as much feedback as you can. That'd be my recommendation. SBSD Owl Camera: Off. SBSD Owl Camera: It evolved. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, goodness, actually. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, and we'll return to this topic, at the… towards the end of the meeting to possibly take action on whether we want to authorize the hiring of the… SBSD Owl Camera: Of, of a… it's constant. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item on the agenda is communication and social media guidelines, and Alyssa asked for it to be put on the agenda, so I'll turn it over to you. SBSD Owl Camera: That's perfectly fine, even though. SBSD Owl Camera: The school board received two community… SBSD Owl Camera: emails, within, like, the past few weeks about Nope. SBSD Owl Camera:

112Or members being on social media, so that's what brought it up. I was looking over the… SBSD Owl Camera: social media guidelines that are posted on the website, and then Joe also provided ones that I think were revised in 2020, but never actually, like, approved. It sounds like… That's why, yeah, yeah, that's what it sounds like. The line, it says there was discussion about them, but it never got to the approval stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: So yeah, as we're adopting things and revising things, this revision was adopted in May of 2018, so I think it would be helpful to take a look at it. SBSD Owl Camera: No, I'm supposed to say. SBSD Owl Camera: So we have a social media policy, or we don't have a social media? We do. From

1132018. We have guidelines, it's not… I don't know if you're… I guess it's either policy, I don't know if it's an active policy. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I believe that we are largely not using Like, an official… like… you know… SBSD Owl Camera: we used to have a board Facebook page. I believe that that has since been shut down. I know that Joe mentioned earlier that he posted something on Facebook, but that's the district page, right? But I do, you know, I do think… SBSD Owl Camera: The… the 20… maybe I should pull the actual adopted version. It's… it's pretty good, SBSD Owl Camera: In terms of, you know, reminding board members in terms of the Code of Conduct, to… SBSD Owl Camera: make sure that what they say, they're not presenting the board's act…

114they're not basically single-handedly interpreting what the board is doing, and then claiming that that's the board's perspective. But instead are always supposed to say that it's there for them to do. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so I guess to be completely candid, I fully agree that we as human beings and board members and community members have SBSD Owl Camera: freedom of speech, that we should use that freedom of speech. But those two emails, it seemed to me like there was some confusion on social media about SBSD Owl Camera: Sharing board emails, too. We communicate. SBSD Owl Camera: Your personal opinions, or sharing, different information that's not necessarily SBSD Owl Camera: I guess it's public, but it's not necessarily, like, out there, and the only reason that we're share… or that a board member is sharing it

115is because of our position on the board. SBSD Owl Camera: And so I think that it can get confusing to the community as to how you're speaking, and what you're speaking about, basically. SBSD Owl Camera: work. SBSD Owl Camera: And what role you're speaking. SBSD Owl Camera: And even if there is a communication of saying, like, this is just my opinion, that… that maybe isn't always resonating with people? I think that makes people confused, saying that, like, this is my opinion, but then also, we still are holding a position of power. SBSD Owl Camera: I still think that. SBSD Owl Camera: we need… people still look at us with a lens of holding a position of power, so I think that we can be confusing for… SBSD Owl Camera: The team members? SBSD Owl Camera:

116Great, keeping one. SBSD Owl Camera: People are… Of course, they're clear. This is clear. SBSD Owl Camera: Something cool. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: Some people are still going to associate it with the school board, and… but the last thing you want to do is, like, shut down anybody's… SBSD Owl Camera: Right to express their personal opinion. SBSD Owl Camera: It shows 10. SBSD Owl Camera: I think, you know, the best thing to do is come up with the best, clearest policy. SBSD Owl Camera: Make sure that if… Anybody is going to post anything. SBSD Owl Camera: Social media that they put whatever the disclaimer is. SBSD Owl Camera: And if somebody makes a mistake, that's… SBSD Owl Camera: I will say one thing I… so… SBSD Owl Camera: I think you started

117adding a disclaimer to your emails, and so… SBSD Owl Camera: I thought… so I started… I copied that and put it into my emails, and I'm thinking that I will also put that in my social media posts. SBSD Owl Camera: Just like a explicit, you know, I'm an individual school board member, I do not speak for the board, and I'll just try to put that at the bottom of all my posts. SBSD Owl Camera: So I think that that's very wise. SBSD Owl Camera: And if I could say. SBSD Owl Camera: what my position on this is. I don't know, does anybody else want to say what their position in general on social media is? SBSD Owl Camera: I personally just don't, don't post, very often on social media, especially about these kinds of topics.

118I think… SBSD Owl Camera: it's not out of… I want to communicate with the public and the community, but I find that sometimes the conversations don't SBSD Owl Camera: Garner the kind of rich, cooperative, SBSD Owl Camera: collaborative communication that really is going to move us forward in any way, so while I see the importance to share my thoughts as a board member, or just as a South Burlington resident, I also find that SBSD Owl Camera: The communication, the conversation can devolve, and it just doesn't feel as… SBSD Owl Camera: purposeful as I'd like it to. So I… I don't have much of a presence on social media, and SBSD Owl Camera: I don't… I think other people have the choice to do it or not do it, and as long as they're saying they're,

119you know, this is my express opinion, I don't… obviously, I would never… SBSD Owl Camera: Chill, you know, freedom of speech, and SBSD Owl Camera: But I just would hope that SBSD Owl Camera: some of the communications I see, I have seen… I've read some of the pages, and I've read how people communicate with each other, and it can be a little bit disheartening, and that's another reason why I don't really get involved, because SBSD Owl Camera: I think it's a lot easier to say things on your computer than it is when you're having them face-to-face, and as soon as we all got in the room together, I feel like it would be so much different, and those people who would say things wouldn't really… they'd think twice, and I'd think twice before I… SBSD

120Owl Camera: type the thing and then delete it instead of sitting sends, so I just, I love more in-person communication and some other way, but, you know, right now, social media is a great way to reach a whole bunch of people and try to get that conversation going. It just lacks the interaction that I think would be more meaningful, so… SBSD Owl Camera: No, that's just what I'm saying. I totally agree. Like, it takes very few degrees of separation from the actual post. SBSD Owl Camera: Until you get to the point in the comments where people are just shouting at each other, but for things that have nothing to do with the post, or are only tangentially related to the post. At the same time, I'm… well, actually, I have a question. I just want

121to be clear on what we're talking about, because I've heard policy, and I've heard guidelines. SBSD Owl Camera: This is marked as a guideline. In the policy and procedure page, it is… There is no… SBSD Owl Camera: Apparently, it's not considered a policy. SBSD Owl Camera: It's unclear. It's just at that point. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: And I guess another question I have, and we don't have to answer this here, but something that SBSD Owl Camera: Personally, I'm thinking there's… no need for this, right? We're… we're all adults. We… SBSD Owl Camera: understand our role as board members. We understand that the things we say have consequences, and as long as we're all willing to accept those consequences, SBSD Owl Camera: that there's probably nothing we would say on social media that isn't covered in

122some way by our code of conduct, right? Like, we're bound to those core ethics. SBSD Owl Camera: And we're responsible, you know, even if we can't predict the consequences, we're still responsible for those consequences individually, not as a board. And I don't want to tell anybody, you can't say what you want to say. SBSD Owl Camera: I think we should all have the freedom to say that. There are certain things that were bound by other agreements, confidentiality and otherwise, that we can't say. We can't talk about personally identifiable information. We can't share embargoed information, like when test results come out. I mean, we don't even get those, but say we did. SBSD Owl Camera: we would be bound to not share those things. SBSD Owl Camera: So I'm not seeing any really compelling reason to

123put more regulation on the board that isn't already substantially covered by the expectation that SBSD Owl Camera: We behave as professionals under our own code of conduct. However, if we do want to, there is one line in here that I think is inappropriate, altogether. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is, if I can find it… SBSD Owl Camera: Post only content that the district has already released to the public. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't… I would agree to something like, post-only non-embargoed, and any embargo has to have a clear rationale, but I wouldn't want to be in a position where the board only is able to act in any way, or speak in any way. SBSD Owl Camera: At the approval of the district. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, I think it needs to be the other way

124around. SBSD Owl Camera: I… I don't disagree. SBSD Owl Camera: But that's talking specifically about posting on the school board Facebook page. Posting on the district site. Got it. I don't have access. Oh, that's number 2. Number 6 says, post only content that the district has already released to the public. That is not… SBSD Owl Camera: clear whether that is the district's site. Well, that's the… well, 6 is the one I was talking about. Oh, okay. It's the only content that the district has already released to the public. Yes. Yeah, number 2 is clear. It's… it's really… it feels overly restrictive. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, obviously, I say that with the expectation that none of us is going to do something stupid and release information that, you know, makes everybody's job hard, right? Like,

125the last thing I would ever want to do is do that, but I also don't want to tell people that… SBSD Owl Camera: You know, the board that they need district approval to post. SBSD Owl Camera: I would expect that that… that process looks like SBSD Owl Camera: The district presents to the board the information that SBSD Owl Camera: That there's some process around what can not be posted that is clear and compelling and agreed to by the court. SBSD Owl Camera: Or law… or written in law, right? And I could say the administration does not want to be the gatekeeper of what the board posts and doesn't post on social media. That's also what I'm thinking, like, why would we have something like that? We do want people… board members to be aware of

126the, SBSD Owl Camera: The impact of things that are posted. SBSD Owl Camera: Then… SBSD Owl Camera: Yep, absolutely. You want to say something? Would you come up the bell? Sorry, otherwise people can't hear you. SBSD Owl Camera: Hi all, my name is Monica Dropshirts, I'm the Director of DEI and SEL, and I just wanted to point out to the board a helpful resource that we've used in the past around SBSD Owl Camera: That's been released by the Vermont School Board Association, which is not a model policy, but is a social media reference guide for board members, so I'm happy to email that along to the school board. SBSD Owl Camera: And as if it was written in line with the Vermont SBSD Owl Camera: school board association code of ethics. SBSD Owl Camera: Not

127a policy, just, I think it's in the law. That's great, because I do want to just circle back to the idea of, like, I don't want to, you know, say what people can or cannot post, but also I would like to address community concern as well. I don't want to just be like, well, who cares what they think? I mean, obviously, there's… SBSD Owl Camera: there's some concern and some confusion, so I don't want to just… SBSD Owl Camera: say it here, but if we speak, it's just us, so move on, you know? Yeah, I also want to make it very clear that I, like, did not bring this up to, like, shut people down. I 100%, like, I use my voice, I think that everyone should, you know. SBSD Owl Camera: use their voice

128and say their speech, but I do think that there is some concern. I mean, I don't know, I think everyone got the emails. I do think that there is some concern, and then I was also looking into a Supreme Court case that SBSD Owl Camera: When there's blurred lines of, like, providing your school email, or, like, speaking about… speaking as a school board member one time, but then saying that this is my personal opinion another time, like. SBSD Owl Camera: It's not all protective free speech, like, that's a very, very blurred line that… SBSD Owl Camera: When you start blurring those lines, like, they cannot, while I'm protected, to be disciplined. SBSD Owl Camera: So, that's something I want to do for now. SBSD Owl Camera: I'd love to see what Monica's gonna send to

129us. She's so smart and has the resources, and maybe we could review that and… SBSD Owl Camera: See how it compares with what we have, and if we want to SBSD Owl Camera: Borrow from it, or talk about it more. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I just wanted to put in a plug for Facebook. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is shocking. SBSD Owl Camera: Given the state of online discussion on Facebook, but I believe that Especially post-COVID, SBSD Owl Camera: It's one of the only places where you can find people from all ends of the political spectrum in the same space. SBSD Owl Camera: And they do not treat each other well. SBSD Owl Camera: And it takes a lot of, it's hard… that's the worst part about posting anything on Facebook, is seeing how people react

130to each other, and just being like, oh my god, just like, you guys literally live two blocks away from each other. But I think that there is… SBSD Owl Camera: A process of getting used to talking to each other again that can happen if you kind of, like, just… SBSD Owl Camera: gut it out. And, you know, there was actually a post fairly recently on Facebook by a community member who just was essentially saying. SBSD Owl Camera: Who's… who's saying, I've seen some of the recent posts and the subsequent discussions, and… SBSD Owl Camera: I just hope that we can have some more positive discussions. He was basically not posting about any particular thing, just saying, I hope we can have some more positive discussions. And so I read the comments on that page, on

131that post, and there were people who had previously only just screamed at each other, and they were SBSD Owl Camera: They were on the… they were in the same space. SBSD Owl Camera: commenting… SBSD Owl Camera: without ad hominem attacks, and I just thought that that was, like, a little ray of light. So, I do view it as a… SBSD Owl Camera: a place of, more equitable representation than, for example, our school board meetings. And so, for as much as it is painful to watch, for as much as there SBSD Owl Camera: is some, you know, concern about, being confusing, it's definitely worth the discussion, and I'm glad you brought it up, Alyssa, and, you know, I'm looking forward to hearing what, you know, BSBA has to say about it, but it's something we should,

132I think, engage with very seriously. SBSD Owl Camera: as a way to call people. I wonder if there's the strategies for crafting your posts in a way that would SBSD Owl Camera: garner less… You know, combative… SBSD Owl Camera: communication. I'm just saying, there might be strategies, there might be… you know, because you never know really how you come off in a post. You might think you sound in a certain way, but it sounds actually different, and you'll always have that, but I would be curious about learning strategies for SBSD Owl Camera: Putting facts out into the public and having them received in a way of SBSD Owl Camera: that doesn't get people on the defense right away, but… Right, and doing that in a way where you still come across as an authentic voice,

133as opposed to, like, an official spokesperson, or like a… you know, yeah, that's threading the needle. Very important skill in the 21st century. SBSD Owl Camera: It's like a PR class. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, but then the comments are gonna be, I must have taken that PR class. SBSD Owl Camera: The taxpayer dollars. SBSD Owl Camera: Any other thoughts on… I'm sure we'll discuss this again, but any other thoughts? SBSD Owl Camera: if it's… if we go this route, I would just say I would be in favor of language that is the least restrictive possible, and… SBSD Owl Camera: the most conscientious about, interfering with distraction, right? Which, I just… SBSD Owl Camera: You can't predict that. Right back to my original point, we all each own the consequences of our own missteps. But

134I don't think that means we no longer have the chance to make that misstep. SBSD Owl Camera: Great, so the next item on the agenda is to charge a legislative advocacy committee. So unfortunately, Jen was gonna try to… she had an issue tonight, and she was gonna try to make it, and I think she was one of the main SBSD Owl Camera: advocates for this concept, I propose maybe we move this to a later agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, all right. And then the next is, authorized board chair to hire and policy consultant. So this is an action item, but we can also discuss it. There's multiple options. We could say, don't hire anybody. We could say, let's talk about it later. We could say. SBSD Owl Camera: Hire somebody, but not the person that

135we just heard from. SBSD Owl Camera: We could say, hire the person we just heard from. So, what's the sense of the room in terms of what they want to do for the ENS policy consultant? SBSD Owl Camera: And I think… were you gonna abstain, Michelle? I don't want to talk money, which means I'll probably scope things. That's why I asked the question to the whole board about the number, right? Like, I'm not… SBSD Owl Camera: trying to… this is about presenting what is best for us, so the only other thing I wanted to add is that, SBSD Owl Camera: I did contact two others. SBSD Owl Camera: One is another small women-owned consultancy, and the other is a larger organization called Ed First, and neither of them are taking on new work at this

136time. I have a list of maybe 6 or 7 more between either close contacts. SBSD Owl Camera: Word, you know, like, recommended by close contacts or larger organizations. SBSD Owl Camera: I have a feeling under our timeline, larger organizations would not be number one, because in the… in this area. SBSD Owl Camera: When folks are working with states and districts, this is often planned out in advance, and so, when they bid on work, they bid on the largest pieces they can get, first off, and in… with a lot of lead time. SBSD Owl Camera: So, it doesn't surprise me that the two other people, or two other entities that I contacted said, I couldn't do this under your time. SBSD Owl Camera: I thought that Annie's proposal and the team looked really great. I think

137my only real concern was just the distance, and not because I don't think that California people can tell us what to do here in Vermont, but just simply because of the travel expenses and how that would add on to the expenses overall. But, SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, other than that, that was my only concern about it, and if you, you know, tried to speak with other entities and… SBSD Owl Camera: Didn't really come up with anything else when… That makes sense. SBSD Owl Camera: I would really like a consultant hired, I think that would be important to form. SBSD Owl Camera: Questions, and focus groups, and kind of making sure that our, SBSD Owl Camera: biases and, like, agenda aren't within those questions and things like that, so that's why I think that a

138perspective is very important. SBSD Owl Camera: Awesome. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, it sounds like the consultant's the way to go. SBSD Owl Camera: I always like to give. SBSD Owl Camera: You know, like, a couple of… two or three. SBSD Owl Camera: People they look at, or companies they look at. SBSD Owl Camera: So we can, like, you know, visit the time crunch. SBSD Owl Camera: That might not be possible. SBSD Owl Camera: So your options are to go with… One, or change your timeline. SBSD Owl Camera: Looks like Monica's gonna volunteer to service the DEA. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't have Monica. Just to kind of… SBSD Owl Camera: build off of Michelle's comment, we do use a consultant, Great Schools Partnership for a lot of mission and vision and more innovative directional

139work. They're a consultancy group based out of Maine, but they have Vermont folks that we work with. SBSD Owl Camera: And that might be helpful, too. They specialize in gathering a ton of feedback. I've worked with them in the past. SBSD Owl Camera: Our, executive director of… Yes, we're a non-profit. We're learning, also, and supported, but maybe, interaction. SBSD Owl Camera: We are currently taking podcasts. SBSD Owl Camera: So one option we could do tonight is we could, SBSD Owl Camera: We could essentially ask the committee to SBSD Owl Camera: Get another bid, to try to get another bid. SBSD Owl Camera: And then pick between the bids up to a certain dollar amount. SBSD Owl Camera: So we would authorize the committee tonight not to hire a specific person, but just to hire somebody

140at a certain price, and as long as we've been able to at least request a bit from somebody else. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that something the board would be comfortable with? Oh, not just a bid, but also some type of presentation. So you want to have another presentation at a board meeting, or do you want just the presentation to us? SBSD Owl Camera: No, what I'm saying is that we've received one presentation You wouldn't want to just… SBSD Owl Camera: Take somebody else's faith without… SBSD Owl Camera: Knowing what they're about. Right, so they would present to the committee? Yeah, whoever. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: But as long as, yeah, we get some kind of… Right. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, to make sure we're focusing on the in-person and the diverse focus groups and the

141things that we really want to… SBSD Owl Camera: Soon. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so… I would entertain a motion to… SBSD Owl Camera: authorize the ENDS Policy Committee to hire a VINs policy consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: At a price up to $22,000. SBSD Owl Camera: after… Conducting a further search. SBSD Owl Camera: For any other consultants that might be available And… SBSD Owl Camera: Able to present to us, and… do a comparable. SBSD Owl Camera: Offer to what we occurred tonight. SBSD Owl Camera: Like, at least one. At least one more consultant, like… SBSD Owl Camera: So you're saying the motion should fail unless… or, I'm sorry, the… we're not allowed… You said more consultants, so, like, at least one, like, one more. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, okay. Great. Okay, sorry, I'm not hearing anything.

142No, no, no, no, that's good. So are you saying that you want to make it, SBSD Owl Camera: So I guess… SBSD Owl Camera: Are you saying that you want to make it so that if we are not able to talk to and get at least one other VID, then we should come back to the board? SBSD Owl Camera: That's what it sounds like. SBSD Owl Camera: Is it… how does the… does the board want to be consulted again if we're not able to find another bid? SBSD Owl Camera: Or does the board want us to be authorized to go ahead and hire a person we've already heard from? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, if we don't want to change our timeline for… I mean, everything backs up to this strategic plan and goal. So, I

143mean, I feel like… SBSD Owl Camera: if the committee tries to get another bid, and I mean, and Monica's already mentioned some… one person who is accepting bids, so it seems like it could be a strong possibility that you would be able to get another bid, and then as the committee, compare and decide. Check with Great Schools Partnership. Essex used to work with them. They're great. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I think the motion that I said fail, that's fine. And so, I think… SBSD Owl Camera: And so I'll do the motion again, but just to be clear, we are okay if, for example, we contact Great School of Partnership SBSD Owl Camera: But they're not accepted, but in spite, for whatever reason, a meteorite, they're not accepting new word. Yeah. We're okay with… the

144board is okay with us nevertheless signing with a consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: Right? Okay, great, alright. So, I'll restate the motion. So… As long as you make… we make a good faith effort… Yeah, sure. …try and get at least one more… There we go. SBSD Owl Camera: There we go. There it is. All right. I thought that's what you said. Well, I was missing the good faith, yeah. So I would entertain a motion. SBSD Owl Camera: to authorize the ENS Policy Committee to hire… a consultant. SBSD Owl Camera: At up to $22,000. SBSD Owl Camera: After making a good faith effort. SBSD Owl Camera: To attempt to get at least one other that SBSD Owl Camera: I'll make that motion. Dan, motions? Seconds. Laura seconds. Any discussion? And this is an action item, so we

145are taking public comments. Nobody on… nobody on our… SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, except… Hi, Dave. Sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: Hello, I'm Daisy Braden, I'm the Director of HR. My question is, how did you come to 22,000 ops? SBSD Owl Camera: So, last meeting, I think we threw around some just spitball numbers, like 15, 20,000, and then in the… SBSD Owl Camera: 15. And then in the proposal today, there was, op… there was 3 options. The $15,000 option did not include… it was virtual. SBSD Owl Camera: and the… SBSD Owl Camera: $22,000… or $21,000 option was in-person 3 focus groups, and they handled the recruitment. And I think that what we'll probably want to end up doing is us handle the recruitment, which brings down the amount of money in that bucket, but then we might

146want to increase the number of focus groups SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think it'll probably end up around the upper end of the bid. And now we've just released publicly the information about the first bid. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Now you just shared that you're setting the limits based on the first bid. SBSD Owl Camera: Which I don't think is appropriate. And we've also concluded that what I've done already in terms of reaching out to others doesn't satisfy the multiple SBSD Owl Camera: speaking to multiple consultants. Yes, but we also, at the last meeting, we… SBSD Owl Camera: talked about whether or not we needed to bid this out. Like, we don't need to bid it out, so… SBSD Owl Camera: There was, there was at least a discussion of… SBSD Owl Camera: how we

147wanted to do it. I mean, I hear you, I'm all about procurement in the right way, so… Yes, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Thanks for the question. Please, Amory, if you'd like to… $40,000 is the limit. Anything over $40,000 has to… we are required to go out to pay. SBSD Owl Camera: But not for these kinds of services. SBSD Owl Camera: Honestly, yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I also feel like… I know that people want to talk about exact numbers, but I feel like it is helpful to at least have an understanding, because I've never secured this kind of service before, so I don't want to… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, come in with an unrealistic expectation of how much I would… we would pay for something that we really want from, you

148know, the service we want. So the truth is, what we're asking for is we're lowballing. SBSD Owl Camera: our limit is lower than what most people… well, what everybody I would contact that I know of. SBSD Owl Camera: would cost. I don't know about breakfast. I don't know what their fees are, but now they know what we have to spend. SBSD Owl Camera: So, are we good? Any other… Discussion? Any comments, Joe? SBSD Owl Camera: No, I sent the board, the three of you on the committee, Great School's website, so you can check them out, and also, just a reminder that we need a PO before we can do any work. So, that's when the board decides who the vendor's going to be, and the cost, you need to make sure Delina gets that information.

149SBSD Owl Camera: And I would just add one final comment that, I would want the board to be as open and transparent about this process as possible, because SBSD Owl Camera: Former boards received a lot of critical feedback around SBSD Owl Camera: funding, you know, where did that money come from, and how much, you know, why was that revenue needing to be done not in-house, that sort of thing. So, I would just encourage this to be as open and transparent as possible. So, would you have recommendations for SBSD Owl Camera: Something that we're not doing now that would constitute open and transparentness? SBSD Owl Camera: I think your idea of requesting additional, sources gives you some additional, quotes, I think is a great thing, and being transparent with the community around why you, want to

150have a consultant help you with this process. SBSD Owl Camera: In writing, though, because we have said those things. Yes, yes. We've provided, like, we've discussed all of this openly, so do we… we need a document that says we did this, this, this, and this? Not necessarily, no, and I'm not… I'm just trying to… SBSD Owl Camera: prevent any… It sounds like you're speaking as a former school board member. No, I'm speaking as an employee who has been here long enough to hear criticism of SBSD Owl Camera: the district office and former board members, or not board members in particular, but just the decisions made by the board. I just want you to make sure that we're really clear about all that. So I'm not saying anything specific… I'm not… I don't, in my mind,

151have, like, a document or any, like, specific requirements. I just want us to be really open and transparent, so that when you decide that this is a SBSD Owl Camera: $30,000 project and not a $15,000 project that SBSD Owl Camera: the world, the SB community, knows why we went down that path. And that may be… go back and listen to the recording meetings, that may be something that you put on the website, it may be something that's included, like, particularly in the minutes, so I just kind of wanted to put that out there. SBSD Owl Camera: Vice work, thank you. Yeah, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, well, all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Say aye. Aye. SBSD Owl Camera: So the motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you all. SBSD Owl Camera: The

152next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think, let's see, how many different actions do we have to take here? SBSD Owl Camera: One action to approve the minutes and the accounts payables and the payroll warrant. SBSD Owl Camera: One action to approve the AP voucher checks. SBSD Owl Camera: And another action to… SBSD Owl Camera: prove the boiler replacement and the snow removal. Do we need one action per for the… SBSD Owl Camera: I would do one action for that, yeah. Okay, so there's actually four actions. It's the minutes, the accounts payables, the payroll warrant, the hires, the resignations. SBSD Owl Camera: That's all consent. So are there any objections to the minutes of March 18th, 2026? SBSD Owl Camera: Were there any objections to the accounts payables?

153SBSD Owl Camera: Your payroll warrant. SBSD Owl Camera: I've got two questions on currents payable. SBSD Owl Camera: One is on 1436. There were 3… SBSD Owl Camera: Separate line items, different amounts for the same… all on dental insurance for the same one. SBSD Owl Camera: And I was just wondering why it was broken down into 3 separate line items for the same thing in the same time. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't want to answer that, but Dan, I'm sorry. I can find it. The other one is on 1438. SBSD Owl Camera: the Green Mountain Power, It has estimates for each of the schools. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Are they actual estimates, or is that… The bill? SBSD Owl Camera: I will have to find answers to that in prayer. I don't

154want to answer it. So here comes, here comes the pickup. SBSD Owl Camera: when I looked at them, Orchard was $7,500, Marcotte, $7,400, Chamberlain, 11,003. I was wondering why… SBSD Owl Camera: one elementary school… is that elementary school that much bigger that it consumes that much more electricity? Or are we doing something SBSD Owl Camera: wrong at that elementary school? We did just, emergency replace the water heater there, so I don't know if that had impact… But this just says for the electric estimate of electricity. Yeah, I don't know, I'd have to look into that and look at other bills to be able to give you a better answer to that one, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I… I don't know the answer to that one. Okay, yeah, if you could, please. If you… I'm always

155happy to answer these, and happy to answer them… yeah, have them before the meeting, because I have a little bit of time. I'm happy to, if you want to email them directly, or if any of you do, just so that I can answer them here in the moment for you. And I'm thankful for your questions, and that you're looking through them, for sure. SBSD Owl Camera: I didn't… I wasn't trying to put you on the spot, I just know that… SBSD Owl Camera: For stuff like this. It's me. Yeah, and, you know, I'm happy to wait for the reply. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. SBSD Owl Camera: It was just, you know, if we could… SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, if the school's that much bigger, which I don't think it is. SBSD Owl Camera: you know,

156I could understand it, but it just… that's a pretty big disparity. It could be an efficiency thing, it could be a school thing, it could be lots of things. Check the meter readings and see what, how much the usage is. Yeah, and I don't know… I haven't looked at them or have the brain capacity to remember their usage over… month over month to know if that was an exponentially different month, so… SBSD Owl Camera: I'd have to look at them and give you some feedback there. Yeah, for sure. SBSD Owl Camera: It's a… Thanks. Okay. Any, any, anything else? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so hearing none, the consent agenda passes, and now we'll move on to the individual items. So, SBSD Owl Camera: First of all, I would entertain a motion to approve the AP

157voucher checks to Burlington School District in the amount of $118,538.76, and Vermont Mechanical in the amount of $115,564.48. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm… Emily moves. I second. Laura seconds. Is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Aye. Aye. The motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: The next item, this is the boiler replacement at Orchard School. SBSD Owl Camera: So I will just pull the camera here. SBSD Owl Camera: So… That's pretty cool, right? Vermont Mechanical came in under the other bidder. Great. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's… I just would like to point out that's a new, bidder. So, we've really tried to up our, advertising of, our… our RFPs. SBSD Owl Camera: And, I actually have put a, request in to the facilities director at the city to. SBSD Owl Camera:

158squeeze in on his contacts to be able to share our bids with his contacts as well. I've made a little bit of headway there, but I haven't, he hasn't closed the loop with me on that yet. But, SBSD Owl Camera: I honestly have no idea where this energy enrichment Investment folks found our RFP. But I do really think that SBSD Owl Camera: I'm glad that we advertised in the other paper, I'm, you know, having things on our website is easy for folks to get to, but I really think that the Front Porch Forum just gets such wide traction, like. SBSD Owl Camera: I feel like that was a really good move on our part, so… So yeah, we did only get two bidders for this, and Vermont Mechanical did come in under the new bidder,

159so our recommendation is that we move forward with Vermont Mechanical doing the work on this project. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm personally very thankful for all the effort we've done for that. SBSD Owl Camera: So I would entertain a motion to approve SBSD Owl Camera: The bid recommendation for the orchard. SBSD Owl Camera: School boiler replacement. I moved. Laura moves. SBSD Owl Camera: Second. Dan seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor? Aye. The motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: That's the next one. SBSD Owl Camera: It is… The snow removal equipment. SBSD Owl Camera: So I shared an updated… I don't know if you would allow me to talk… Yeah, please. I shared an updated, bid award letter with Seamus earlier today, so you'll see that what we're looking for is a piece of

160equipment to do some, snow removal. SBSD Owl Camera: In-house, and right now, we do some of our soil removal in-house, and some of our soil removal is done by a, contractor to the district. And, we've had some issues in particular at the Rick Marcotte School. It's just a really tight, SBSD Owl Camera: parking lot and property of removing the snow, where to put the snow, getting it into a safe spot, and so we would like to do that in-house. So we put this piece of equipment out with an RFP, and got 3 SBSD Owl Camera: three companies that bid on it, you'll see that the two lowest bids came in from Wood CRW. The lowest one is a brand called Yanmar that SBSD Owl Camera: My team is unfamiliar with that brand, and we're pretty

161hesitant to go with that, so our recommendation initially was to go with Wood CRW and the Volvo that is there for $111,000. SBSD Owl Camera: We discovered this morning that both of the bids from Wood CRW did not include the snow plow. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is a really important part of this piece of equipment. SBSD Owl Camera: So, because of that, that negates those two bids. Neither of those bids included what everyone else included in the bid. So, that leaves us with the next bid up, which is the Bobcat. SBSD Owl Camera: And, we're… so that's what we would like to recommend. SBSD Owl Camera: is that we move forward with purchasing the Bobcat. What, SBSD Owl Camera: makes my team really happy with is that we have other Bobcat pieces of equipment here,

162and so by purchasing another Bobcat, we're able to use SBSD Owl Camera: universally, some of the other attachments, like the forks and so forth, that will be able to go onto this piece of equipment as well. Yeah, they're all interchangeable. So, SBSD Owl Camera: So that's why those two bids were significantly lower than the others, because they weren't complete, unfortunately. Seamus and I, chatted a little bit today about SBSD Owl Camera: we couldn't go back to that… this bidder and ask them to include the… to correct it, because we've publicized all… everyone's bids. So if we wanted to, we would have to scrap the whole thing and start over again, which… SBSD Owl Camera: Lazard… Proposal, or whatever it was gonna be. SBSD Owl Camera: the RFP? Yep. Was it not clear enough that it

163should… you know, you would think that… When you're looking for snow removal… It's very specific. Most of the bids are really very specific, you know, snow removal equipment, roof, boiler, like, it's really specific about what the need is. SBSD Owl Camera: I believe it was as accurate as it needed to be, as two different vendors were able to produce a bid that included that. I think it truly was an error on this salesperson's fault, just he forgot to include it. SBSD Owl Camera: And unfortunately, with the laws and the timeline, that's… we're sort of… we're at where we're at. SBSD Owl Camera: I was able to come in at 1.30. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, honestly, I think it's about $20,000 to add that piece of equipment to this, if we were to have allowed him

164to add it to his bid. I think both of those numbers would have gone up by about $20,000, which would be right in line with the Bobcat, which I probably would have asked for permission to purchase the Bobcat because of SBSD Owl Camera: The ability to interchange all those other attachments. SBSD Owl Camera: I would entertain a motion to approve the bid recommendation for snow removal equipment. SBSD Owl Camera: Laura moves. Laura Moogs. SBSD Owl Camera: for the Bobcat. SBSD Owl Camera: For the bot, yes. Let's be specific. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll second. SBSD Owl Camera: Alyssa seconds, any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. The motion passes. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. SBSD Owl Camera: So the next… item on the agenda is to look at the

165agenda for the April 15th meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: I will pull that up on the screen. SBSD Owl Camera: Do we have all the standard stuff? SBSD Owl Camera: We have our first community forum on ENDS policy. SBSD Owl Camera: Looks like we have a policy on wellness first reading. SBSD Owl Camera: We have another… Monitor report, 2.4. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we don't have a topic for the superintendent's report. SBSD Owl Camera: And, that's… That's it. SBSD Owl Camera: Any suggestions on April 15th? I will absolutely find something to talk about, and SBSD Owl Camera: Jan actually sent a question earlier to me about, High school students, and… SBSD Owl Camera: Study halls, and free periods, and that kind of stuff, so that could be… Do you… so… so… SBSD Owl Camera: Do

166you think Jen wants to discuss it, or does she just want you to report about it? SBSD Owl Camera: I think that probably… my… my impression was she wanted a report, and then if that led to discussion, it would lead the discussion. I'll ask her what that was about. The other thing I would ask is that, SBSD Owl Camera: If we could, at executive session that day, I would love to have some of our safety committee members there to talk to the board about safety plans. That needs to be an executive session, so we're not disclosing it to the public. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so I believe… That we need to… Executive session justification for… Holy crap. SBSD Owl Camera: But I don't know what that is, but… Yeah, we'll still do something. I think

167also you were gonna move the… SBSD Owl Camera: Legislation? Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: I think we probably need a discussion item about, SBSD Owl Camera: folks groups. This, this, this is also getting really long. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: We are 15 minutes early today. 8.45, I'm saying, is it's still too long. It's lost. Vermont School Board says 2 hours, so… So we can use the community forum to talk about the folks groups, so we don't need a separate item for that. SBSD Owl Camera: Could I ask that, child nutrition, budget be included as a topic that I get to dismiss with you? SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any clarification I can just put on that point, just to remind people about what it's about? SBSD Owl Camera: Maybe I'll ask… I'll

168ask Joe to add that. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm sorry, I visited because I was… Child nutrition funding. Oh, yeah. I asked to have that added. Right, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: We tested if we were paying attention to the audit. SBSD Owl Camera: Right. Well, yeah, that was important because of what we were going to talk about, but I was… Did say we were going to talk about it later. I did, but I was disengaged because I was turning down my computer when she said that. I just want to confirm that the community forum portion is only the agenda item 3 of… SBSD Owl Camera: Like, we're not having a community forum. SBSD Owl Camera: During agenda item… So, the way we've traditionally warned it… Just during step 5. During agenda item 5. Yeah, the way

169we've traditionally done it is… is marked as a specific thing, and then we also have, like, this, SBSD Owl Camera: Cert, special, oh, this is about community forums. We generally have, like, a special little box up here that says SBSD Owl Camera: It's a special meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: Right. Great. SBSD Owl Camera: We only have one more page of agenda items. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, I would entertain a motion to adhere in the meeting. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm ready to move to adjourn. Laura, moved. All set. Alyssa seconds. Any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: Jen, usually, this is where Jen types in, right? Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: So…