001SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, you're Great. SBSD Helpdesk: Whoa. SBSD Helpdesk: So I'd like to call to order the September 3rd, 2025 SBSD Helpdesk: school board meeting, for the South Burlington School District. SBSD Helpdesk: The first item on our agenda is projected executive session. SBSD Helpdesk: To discuss employment of a public officer or employee, to receive confidential attorney-client communication for the purpose of providing legal services to the board, and labor negotiations. SBSD Helpdesk: I would entertain a motion to find that premature knowledge of these topics may cause significant harm to the district. SBSD Helpdesk: No promotion. SBSD Helpdesk: Do I have a second? SBSD Helpdesk: Becky. SBSD Helpdesk: Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? Aye. All right. So I would entertain a motion to enter into executive session. SBSD Helpdesk: First motion? Okay. SBSD Helpdesk:
002I second. SBSD Helpdesk: Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? Aye. Aye. SBSD Helpdesk: We are now in executive session, and we will return to regular meeting at 6 p.m. SBSD Helpdesk: Hey, Ron. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you know also about the analysts? Jen, I'm gonna have a list of them. SBSD Helpdesk: I… do I printed this one out? SBSD Helpdesk: But you don't have to do it. SBSD Helpdesk: I can turn it directly. SBSD Helpdesk: Good? Alright. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, I'd like to call the September 3rd, 2025 SBSD Helpdesk: regular school board meeting of the South Burlington School District back into order. We had an hour of executive session where we talked about employment of a public officer, received confidential attorney-client communication for the purposes of receiving legal services. SBSD Helpdesk: And, talked about
003labor negotiations, and Joe McNeil, District Council, joined us in Executive Session. SBSD Helpdesk: So the first item on the agenda is announcements and amendments to the agenda. Does anybody have any announcements or amendments to the agenda? SBSD Helpdesk: I need to add, to the consent agenda, so there's a couple of names, so we can add to the agenda. Okay. So with permission, when we get there, I can just talk about those. SBSD Helpdesk: Is everybody okay with that? SBSD Helpdesk: Change this? Yes, remember we had discussed… SBSD Helpdesk: Adding to the purchase of the agenda. Oh, I'm sorry, this is September 10th. SBSD Helpdesk: Never mind. Nevermind. Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: For the subcommittees, but that's for the September 12th. SBSD Helpdesk: Right. So I have a couple announcements. SBSD Helpdesk: Next week, on September 10th,
004we have, regular SBSD Helpdesk: board meeting, it's a special… SBSD Helpdesk: The business meeting, and we are hoping to… SBSD Helpdesk: make decisions about the interim superintendent, so that's next week on September 10th. And then on September 17th, that's our first community forum. SBSD Helpdesk: And what's special about community forums is that, the board will hear public comment and then respond to it, and with the idea of going back and forth on the topics that are on the agenda. And so the two topics that are on the agenda for the September 17th Community Forum SBSD Helpdesk: are, meet the superintendent, Cross fingers, we have an interim superintendent, on the 17th, and also, SBSD Helpdesk: how we should set the budget number for, next year, because as part of the Tassant SBSD Helpdesk: process, it was,
005it was determined that the first step of the budgeting process is for the board to decide on a number that then we give to the central office to build the budget around. And so we want to hear from the community about how should we think SBSD Helpdesk: That number, you know, level funded, inflation, you know, 20% higher, whatever, people think, that we should think about. SBSD Helpdesk: So those are my two announcements, is meetings on the 10th and the 17th. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so the next… Item on our agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: is introducing the new board directors, Michelle Boyer and Austin Smith. SBSD Helpdesk: Michelle, would you like to go first? Introduce yourself? Sure. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm brilliantly here. My name is Mish. SBSD Helpdesk: That's green, that's red. Can you hear me? Okay. SBSD
006Helpdesk: My name is Michelle Boyer. I am new to the school board. Just, this is my first meeting. I am a parent of two students who graduated from South Burlington High School. SBSD Helpdesk: My family and I have lived here since 2009. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm eager to roll up my sleeves and get started. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm thrilled to… SBSD Helpdesk: My name is Austin Smith. I have two children in the South Bloomington District. I went to high school in Vermont, and really want to help this board succeed in all the ways I can, and look forward to working with the community and the members of this board to do that. SBSD Helpdesk: Welcome after. SBSD Helpdesk: Great. SBSD Helpdesk: Our next item on the agenda is… life… SBSD Helpdesk: Right. And I should note that
007comments on the public, it can be about absolutely any topic. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, we know we are limited on time for about 2 minutes, so we're gonna make this brief, but, good evening, everyone. My name is, John Allen, and I'm with Kate from our rotary. I am the Scoutmaster for Troop 611 here in South Arlington. I, too, am a South Arlington resident. I have two trolling. SBSD Helpdesk: One goes over to Chamberlain, and one is a freshman here across the street at the high school. SBSD Helpdesk: And I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about scouting in South Burlington. And there might be some facts that you might not know what happens at South Burlington, and I haven't asked for our school board at the end, because you never come to these things without
008an ask yet the other day. So, right now, between, the PAC, which are Cub Scouts between the ages of 5 and 10, scouting, which… SBSD Helpdesk: is both boys and girls, by the way, which changed a few years ago, between the ages of 10 and 17, and our crew, which is in the ages of 14 to 21, we have over 100 scouts. SBSD Helpdesk: involved just in the South Burlington units. These troops, these organizations, are all chartered by our wonderful Rotary, South Burlington Rotary, and we represent and support 9 different towns. We have scouts coming from Stowe. SBSD Helpdesk: To join our program every single week, because of the type of program that we put on. SBSD Helpdesk: Just in 2024 alone, South Burlington produced 7 Eagle Scouts. We've had 33 in 50 years, and
009in South Burlington, we did 7. And if you walk around the community, you'll see things like the benches on the soccer field by one of our scouts just did a few weeks ago. Henry Lawrence did the cleanup behind Tuttle Middle School. SBSD Helpdesk: We have to go on the Adirondacks and find, picnic tales on islands that one of our scouts did. This is a thriving, exciting program, and if you think about scouting overall, and why do we need it nowadays in America and in our republic. SBSD Helpdesk: Really, we focus on character, leadership, citizenship. SBSD Helpdesk: And there's many studies out there of how scouting has really made a child more well-rounded. In fact, the chance of a scout having a negative interaction with a police officer in their lifetime is less than a half
010a percent of those who have been scouted. Okay? Fun fact? SBSD Helpdesk: Every U.S. citizen that's been on the moon… SBSD Helpdesk: Okay? I can go down the whole list of what, Eagle Scouts and what's scouting overall, but it's just not about the Eagle Scouts. It's just not about that rank, it's about experiential learning inside the community. Being able to go out there camping, community service, in Green Mountain Council alone, we did over 13,000 hours of community service last year, which equated just under a half a million dollars of converted that to a paper, okay? So our ask for you as a school board is, some of SBSD Helpdesk: our schools have been wonderful. I really want to call out Holly over at Chamberlain allowing us to recruit, putting things inside the SBSD Helpdesk: The,
011the newsletters, being able to talk about how to get involved in scouting, but it's not equitable across SBSD Helpdesk: all of South Burlington, and we want equality, we want equity. That's one thing we're really aiming for right now in scouting. So I would ask the school board, as we work with our new superintendent, and we work with our principals, to be able to support scouting, to allow us to promote it. We're not asking for anything crazy, we just want to be able to SBSD Helpdesk: show it to the kids during open house days, and be able to have it in newsletters. And, there's also great opportunities for our kids to help the schools. If there's any projects that you might need to be done, there's one troop actually down in Maryland, what they did is,
012start of every year. SBSD Helpdesk: the Scouts are the ones that put the flag up. And at the end of every year, the scouts took it down. It's a great, great community activity. We get that out of the box as a community, and I really appreciate… Jennifer has been a huge sponsor of it. She's actually the founder of Troop 6110, our girls' troop, and has SBSD Helpdesk: Four eagles in the family? Okay, alright. Four eagles. Four eagles. Four Eagle Scouts. And so I can always come back and provide more, give a presentation, and we can go deeper. SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: Oops. SBSD Helpdesk: Hello, my name is Matthew Powers, I might be familiar to some folks, in front of me. I'm here to share some concerns of myself
013and other behavioral interventionists at South Burlington High School. SBSD Helpdesk: We feel that short staffing in our building, which has been going for some time, has reached a crisis level. Just to take a step back, for those who don't know, behavioral interventionists are, educational support staff who work one-on-one in small groups with students who need significant help. That might be due to trauma, autism, or another need or disability. SBSD Helpdesk: We help some students with assignments, some help students, we help with physical systems, with hygiene and toileting, we do all sorts of stuff. SBSD Helpdesk: As of late August, only one of the five open interventionist positions at our school building had been posted to School Sprint, and to our knowledge, the district is aware of many of those positions, though not all, being open
014as early as the end of the previous school year, and we feel that that's an unacceptable organizational failure. SBSD Helpdesk: It was particularly disappointing to watch the new interventionist hires from all the other buildings be announced at convocation, while our building, which had the most openings over the summer, had none to show. SBSD Helpdesk: We also assert that the district, has not made a successful enough effort to improve the retention of interventionists, both in our district and in our building. SBSD Helpdesk: Short staffing in our building has persisted since the pandemic to varying sense, at which time students have frequently missed services and staffing required in their education plans. The current ratio in our building of 9 interventionists to 14 students requiring one-on-one staffing SBSD Helpdesk: will create a unsafe environment for both students and
015staff until remedied, something I'm sure that, everyone involved in the situation could agree with. SBSD Helpdesk: We understand that ProCare, or a similar staffing agency, will likely be used to fill those empty positions. SBSD Helpdesk: In the event that permanent staff cannot be found in the meantime. We would like to assert that we don't feel they're a satisfactory replacement for district employees. Their workers don't attend our in-services or trainings. They don't contribute to our community outside of school hours through coaching and extracurriculars, as many of us do. SBSD Helpdesk: And they're often paid disproportionately to their skills and experience. ProCare should be no more than an occasional stopgap, and we reject their now regular presence, it seems, in our district. SBSD Helpdesk: All of this contributes to a feeling that interventionists are undervalued, overworked, and
016expendable. When we tell people what we do, we are often told something along the lines of, what you do is really important, or you must have a lot of patience. SBSD Helpdesk: If we're so important, I think it's time for the district to prioritize us as if that is so. SBSD Helpdesk: But ultimately, the people with the real patience in this situation are the students who are asked to go without the attention, resources, and services that they need to thrive. Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: Do we have anybody online? No. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, our first, our next item is, focus on student learning, so I'll turn it over to MoMA, our student representative. Thanks, Miss. First of all, sorry for being late, sorry traffic for a little late. SBSD Helpdesk: So students across the district
017are back in school, nice to see everyone again. But with school, new school year, we have a new bus schedule, so for families, please, check the bus schedules again, as many updates have been made. It can be found on the district's homepage. SBSD Helpdesk: And, we know Mr. Burke will be speaking more about the phone policy later tonight, but we want to share a student perspective with you all quickly. Allie and I both believe that although this new phone policy is a big change for many students, and obviously there was some hesitation at first, it has been a success so far. SBSD Helpdesk: We see some positive changes in the high school, such as increased folks… Could you slow down just a little bit? Yeah. Sorry, I'm still on… talk about it. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah,
018ali and I both believe that, SBSD Helpdesk: although there's, there's a lot of hesitation, it has been a success so far. We've seen some positive changes in the school, such as increased focus during class time, and increased socialization among our peers. And then, not here yet, but thank you, Mr. Burke, for continuing to have powerful conversations with students regarding phone policy. SBSD Helpdesk: And that's it. SBSD Helpdesk: Can I just make one comment? It's not a policy, I just want to make sure that we know it's a practice right now, so… SBSD Helpdesk: Just as far as the P words, it's just a practice right now. Thanks. SBSD Helpdesk: Great. SBSD Helpdesk: So our next item is an action item, and we will be monitoring, our equity policy. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, Monica… is it
019Des Rocher? De Rocher. Des Rocher will be… Monica will be presenting on that. And the context for this monitoring report is that SBSD Helpdesk: This board operates under something called policy governance. SBSD Helpdesk: which basically limits what the board is supposed to, do. And we define… SBSD Helpdesk: ends, like, goals for the district, and then we also, specify limitations about how those goals could be achieved. And then the superintendent is, responsible, through her staff SBSD Helpdesk: to achieving those things within those limitations. And so, the board's involvement is, supposed to be to then monitor the implementation of those ends and through those limitations, and this is one such SBSD Helpdesk: report, one such monitoring, and we do it throughout the year. There's a calendar, I believe that one of the SBSD Helpdesk: improvements that we
020are looking to make on the school board website in the coming months is to have a policy governance scorecard where we show SBSD Helpdesk: what policies we've monitored, and what the results of the monitoring were. So, we're happy to have you, Monica, thank you, and we'll be talking about equity. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm Director, I'm the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Social-emotional Learning. SBSD Helpdesk: And here are details of the equity monitoring report, which we do annually. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this report is in alignment, and it's reported out in alignment with our equity policy. So, if you go to our equity policy, there's a list of objectives on that first page of the policy, so each section of this presentation is aligned with the objectives. SBSD Helpdesk: Starting
021from 2.11. SBSD Helpdesk: We are gonna go through a lot of data, and so there will be some questions that I can answer on the spot and help naturalize it. There will be some questions that I might not be able to, and I'll add to the poll. SBSD Helpdesk: our director, I don't even picked those down, so I get into those more often. SBSD Helpdesk: But feel free to stop waving. SBSD Helpdesk: So you can see here, the objectives are written out, right? 211.1 is around academic achievement, 211.2 is around incidents of discrimination. SBSD Helpdesk: So on and so forth. We go to student engagement. SBSD Helpdesk: Student discipline, restorative justice. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, retention, curricular materials, strategic planning, co-curricular activities. So that's the Board of Diversity, and fair treatment reporting to horses and Groups,
022and policies and procedures within that. SBSD Helpdesk: So we're going to start with our definition of equity. This is on the front page of equity policy. In this presentation, if you click any of those links. SBSD Helpdesk: It will bring you to the document that I'm referring to, so if you click any of the link icons, you can kind of get where I'm getting the link right from, so hopefully that's helpful. SBSD Helpdesk: All right. SBSD Helpdesk: So, we're going to move into just student demographic data, so you can get context of who our students are. This is district enrollment over time by groups. SBSD Helpdesk: So note that 30% of our students are from the global majority, and 70% of our students Or one. SBSD Helpdesk: This graphic is the same graphic, but it
023takes out the white population, so you can visually see the kind of settled increase of students of the global majority over time. SBSD Helpdesk: This is student socioeconomic status over time. So this is students who are living at or below the poverty line. So 30% of our students currently live at or below the poverty line. It is important to note SBSD Helpdesk: that we have about another 19% of students that live in what's federally mandated as low-income households. So, just to give you context, it's for a family of four, it's, SBSD Helpdesk: a family income of around $60,000. So, about 50% of our students Kind of live in that. SBSD Helpdesk: Family for $16,000 or under benchmark. SBSD Helpdesk: This is students who qualify for English language services over time, so this is a count
024of our multilingual learners. SBSD Helpdesk: Note that this is a minimum, so this just means that 7% of our students currently are receiving multilingual services. SBSD Helpdesk: Note that students test out the multilingual services over time, so I would estimate about 20% of our students come from multilingual absence. They're just not all currently receiving EL services. SBSD Helpdesk: Any questions so far? SBSD Helpdesk: Let me know if I'm going too fast. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you track? SBSD Helpdesk: For a certain period of years afterwards? Like, ex… El, EL exited plus one, EL… We do, we monitor. Two years, yep. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, this is students living with disabilities over time. SBSD Helpdesk: The tiny graph on the top, does not include Section 504 services. SBSD Helpdesk: But you can see that, historically, we've had about
02514 or 15% of our students, being served by MBEP, and this year, this past year, it was 7% of our students being served by Section 504, and then 78% of our students were not receiving services. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, so now we're going to move into the first objective that you saw in that list around that. And can there be students who are covered by both 504 and IAP? Very rare, very rare. SBSD Helpdesk: Is that correct? I want to say no, because there's probably right, but it's very rare. Great question. There is a possibility that students could be served under both, but historically, if they're served under 90 point, they don't also have a 504. It just depends on what the 504 is for. SBSD Helpdesk: The 504 is about equal access, so just
026make sure the student has equal access. So that's a great opportunity. Can you give the 30-second, what is my IP, what is a 504? SBSD Helpdesk: You would probably do it better. I would be glad to. My AP is an Individual Educational Plan. It's for students who are, who, who meet eligibility. They have a disability, it adversely affects their academic performance, and there's a need for specialized instruction, under some specific areas of, SBSD Helpdesk: for instance, a learning disability, they don't need to meet the gig for adverse effect. A learning disability just equates to having a learning disability and a need for specialized instruction. That's a new law that came into effect more recently. SBSD Helpdesk: A 504 plan is about equal access, so it's just ensuring that all students have equal access to what
027they need to learn, and that they have, SBSD Helpdesk: that we're providing that within a school, so students and wheelchairs have access to any of the floors in our buildings. They have access to any parts of our school. Students who may require additional support and time modifications are afforded those opportunities. I equate it… it's a more simple equation, but if you… if you took my glasses away, and I'm trying to read something, I wouldn't be able to see. SBSD Helpdesk: we aboard. SBSD Helpdesk: Whatever anyone needs to equally access their… their education. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: So moving to academic data, as we look at this data, we're zooming in on any discrepancies. SBSD Helpdesk: in performance data. We know that that does not indicate discrepancies of intellect. Rather, it shows
028inequities in our environment, right, that disproportionately affect students who are marginalized. SBSD Helpdesk: So this is overall, it's important to note that this is all 2024, Vermont Comprehensive Assessment. So that's a one-year, once-a-year annual standardized test that every district in Vermont takes, and this is 2020… SBSD Helpdesk: Spring of 2024, because Spring of 2025 is still embargoed until about November, and we can publicly release it. SBSD Helpdesk: It hasn't shifted much, but going back. Alright, so… SBSD Helpdesk: 1,244 students took the mathematics VTCAP in 2024 in grades 3 through 9. You can see this is their overall performance. SBSD Helpdesk: Level 1 and 2 being below proficiency, and level 3 and 4 being proficient or above. SBSD Helpdesk: This is… that same task is broken out into working students into two categories, those who qualify
029for free and reduced lunch, so living at or below the poverty level, versus students who do not live at or below the… or do not qualify for free and reduced lunch. SBSD Helpdesk: So this is showing that students who are… who qualify for a free lunch SBSD Helpdesk: 67% are below proficient. Correct. In grades free, they're not. SBSD Helpdesk: This is also showing in that same vein, SBSD Helpdesk: how I like to think about it is students who qualify for free and reduced lunch are about 4 times more likely to SBSD Helpdesk: Being level 1 than their non-brain reduced lunch sugars. SBSD Helpdesk: So, likelihood of risk was another way to interpret it. SBSD Helpdesk: Is there a lot of variability over grades? So this is everything combined? This is everything combined. There's… SBSD Helpdesk:
030That's a great question. SBSD Helpdesk: there is… there isn't an outrageous variability. There isn't anything that I wouldn't expect to see. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, oh, I just missed stuff. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so this is by gender. Gender non-binary was under 10. If it's under 10, then I don't report it. SBSD Helpdesk: And then you can see female and male. SBSD Helpdesk: Bye. SBSD Helpdesk: We moved to race. SBSD Helpdesk: This one is obviously glaring. SBSD Helpdesk: We can see that 49% of our Black students SBSD Helpdesk: In grades 3 through 9, performed at a level 1. SBSD Helpdesk: I took a quick peek at last year's. Isn't… but this wasn't reported. It wasn't broken, mathematics wasn't broken out by race, so I'm curious how this compares to last year. SBSD Helpdesk: this…
031So it's not… so it would actually be to 2023, this 2024, how does it compare to 2023? Because we don't have 2025. Correct. That would be… SBSD Helpdesk: That actually should be on the website in my last equity report. Okay, I can get you those. Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: I have looked at… SBSD Helpdesk: I can say that for 2025, these gaps still persist. You're going to see very, very similar numbers between 2024 and 2025. So, Monica, I have a question. Do you ever look at, like, trends over time? Like, all of this data, do you look at it? And I don't know if that's something that you can share, or if that stands part of the presentation side. SBSD Helpdesk: in the SEVA, that, you know, like, over the last 10 years or 20 years,
032what those numbers reflect. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, it's… the benchmark has changed. BTCAP came into the picture… Think about. SBSD Helpdesk: 5 years ago, but yeah. But we could get you that. Okay. Yeah, we could look at that. The test changes. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, right now there's a 3-year trend, but not yet, because 25 will be the new assessment, the new scale, the new standards. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm just curious how much this current slide maps to pre- and reduced lunch as well. Yeah, the intersection? Yes. You have that data. SBSD Helpdesk: That is something I'm working on, but that principal's also wanted to look at, of the intersection of students by race and by FRO. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, this is by students receiving English language services, so something to note is this is not the same
033cohort from year to year. Students test out this program, annually, so this is a very specific group of students SBSD Helpdesk: That pinpoint in time. SBSD Helpdesk: moving through our English language, our multilingual programming. SBSD Helpdesk: These tests are in English. SBSD Helpdesk: If you're a student who's been in the country for less than a year, you do not have to take the test. Anyone else. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, now we're going to move to the literacy. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this is a very similar end size, about 131 students in the same grade levels, grade 3 through 9, and this is how they performed overall in literacy. SBSD Helpdesk: Sorry, I just had a question about the last slide that you showed. You said, if you have been in the country only a year, you don't
034have to take the test, but… so if it's been more than a year, there's no interpretive, supports, it's just in English, and… It's in English, yeah, great question. SBSD Helpdesk: So, literacy overall. SBSD Helpdesk: This is literacy broken down by socioeconomic status, so you see less of a discrepancy within Level 1. You still see a really large discrepancy when you're looking at the summation of Level 1 and Level 2. SBSD Helpdesk: So, one thing I noted with, a comparison to last year is there was a really large increase in, SBSD Helpdesk: the satisfactory and thorough, which is something to celebrate, right? But I'm curious, is that coming from a particular grade band? SBSD Helpdesk: And I'm thinking of the new literacy interventions that have been in place for a fairly short period of time. Could
035that be explaining part of that buff, or is that just an overall grades? We would have to look a little deeper. I would be surprised to see SBSD Helpdesk: research says it takes about 3 years to see bumps in standardized test scores as a result of any kind of curricular change, so I would be surprised if it was tied to that specific, but we can look at it a little deeper. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, this is literacy by gender breakdown. SBSD Helpdesk: This is high release. SBSD Helpdesk: this data is really hard to look at, and I also think it's really… SBSD Helpdesk: It reminds me of the amount of work that we have to do. SBSD Helpdesk: I think to Jen's earlier point, it would definitely be useful to see trends, because my big question
036hanging out there is, how do you interpret this, right? Looking at a number at a point in time. SBSD Helpdesk: has limited value, other than the, you know, the meaning that's assigned to these… these levels. But what is the… is it… SBSD Helpdesk: Trending up, trending down… Yeah, I can… I can say that the gap still persists, even in 2025. SBSD Helpdesk: solar. SBSD Helpdesk: Sorry, but are we… Are they growing? Are we getting better, worse, or stagnant? SBSD Helpdesk: I would need to do a little bit more to tell you confidently, and I won't. SBSD Helpdesk: So maybe then it's just an anecdotal question, but… and obviously, you know, GreatSchools.org is not a… SBSD Helpdesk: be-all, end-all, you know. But, SBSD Helpdesk: you know, Burlington High School, for the last few years, it's… SBSD
037Helpdesk: quite bad on equity. It's 1-1-1-1, year after year. And then CBU, this is out of 10. CBU is, like, 3333. This is going back, like, 5 years. And we, in 2021, were at 8 out of 10. And now we're at 4 out of 10. And now they've stopped reporting it. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you have any just big… if you could just talk a little bit about the big picture here. Why… why would you… would it surprise you to hear that we had SBSD Helpdesk: gone from 8 to 4 on equity and great schools? Or is it, like, what's the big picture? Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me, because our enrollment of students of the global majority is growing. SBSD Helpdesk: One thing to know is that, in general, we… South Burlington performs higher than the
038state often in our testing and literacy and math, and so we've been getting those numbers this year of November, right, when things are on embargo, of how we compare to other districts generally. SBSD Helpdesk: So, there's something to celebrate there, right? That we perform higher in the state historically. SBSD Helpdesk: This presentation is really focused on the gaps, and so… SBSD Helpdesk: I think the big picture is that we have a growing population of students of the global majority, And… SBSD Helpdesk: That has a lot of implications. SBSD Helpdesk: Students with English language services, this… SBSD Helpdesk: We're gonna move on to discrimination. Any final questions about… not final, we've not gone for that, but… SBSD Helpdesk: I was just wondering, as… SBSD Helpdesk: the population is growing, what… what kind of supports are in
039place that kind of are trying to grow with it, and also how can the board help support that as well? SBSD Helpdesk: Bye. SBSD Helpdesk: I think that… Protected funding, this is going to be a really, really budget year. SBSD Helpdesk: We… have so many needs in a building, and we… SBSD Helpdesk: I think there's a lot of work to be done. I think there's a lot of will to do it. I think resources are a huge part of that. SBSD Helpdesk: And… SBSD Helpdesk: Monica, can you talk about some of the additions that we… so we… we added to our multicultural liaisons to see the SBSD Helpdesk: Yes. That's something that has a… I think having some understanding of some of the supports that are in place would be helpful, too. So, we added
040this year, for refugee grant funding, we added SBSD Helpdesk: multilingual liaisons that represent Nepali-speaking families, Sukhili and French-speaking families, and Spanish-speaking families. We have… SBSD Helpdesk: We are undergoing full district anti-racist professional development with the help of Brian and Kim, so all of our teachers, and this year, all of our administrators are going through that to recognize our own proxies. SBSD Helpdesk: Those are a couple of things. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, so this is going to move into reported incidents of discrimination, yeah. And, okay, so your first section was SBSD Helpdesk: You know, academic data. SBSD Helpdesk: And, like you said, it's hard to look at, and I think what you mean is that it's disturbing to see the disparities. So, what… what are your top three takeaways from the academic data? SBSD Helpdesk: We
041mentioned one, right? SBSD Helpdesk: Like, yeah, I… it's… it's hard to look at. There are supports in place, and there's still work to be done. SBSD Helpdesk: You can see the population increasing. SBSD Helpdesk: We're seeing the same exact thing at Essex, and the same exact thing. So, this is… SBSD Helpdesk: As a district, you know, we're up against it, and yeah, we need the funding to support it. SBSD Helpdesk: That's… Yeah, I mean, I think… I think what… what… SBSD Helpdesk: Monica has mentioned is that, you know, we are recognizing that the gap is either increasing or staying consistent, and we don't want that… we don't want that gap to be there, and what can we do to ensure that we're supporting our students? And, and… SBSD Helpdesk: I think what Monica was trying
042to delicately say is there's, you know, there's budgetary restrictions, and we have to be… SBSD Helpdesk: considering across the board what our budget looks like, and also considering the needs of our students who are continually showing that there's a discrepancy. So, what can we do? SBSD Helpdesk: I don't want to speak for you, but that's kind of what I… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I'm trying to say, like, if I could dream a million things, right? I would say that we need more staff that look like our students and speak the languages of our students. I would say that we need more people that have similar experiences to our students. I would say that we… SBSD Helpdesk: Are teachers taking time to look at their curriculum and time to meet with coaches and interventionists and start to
043build out an MTSS, like a multi-tier systems of support that really intervenes early when we start to see, kind of, the early warning indicators that students are slipping. SBSD Helpdesk: I would say that we would need some kind of strategy and strategic vision around how we allocate intervention sources. When there are 10 students we need to intervene on, how do we decide if we only have 3 spots? So, I guess my hesitancy is… SBSD Helpdesk: Because I have the dreams, but I'm also… SBSD Helpdesk: I know that we're in this tough reality. SBSD Helpdesk: Monica, I'm curious… Which… SBSD Helpdesk: which programs and systems have you seen help these student populations, both free and reduced lunch and minority students, excel academically? Which have you seen have had the highest correlation between SBSD Helpdesk: involvement with
044the students, and succeeding academically, and improvement in test scores, and which ones have helped the most, so that we know where to focus. I would say really strong representation of students. SBSD Helpdesk: And a really strong intervention. SBSD Helpdesk: Representation in the faculty and staff, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Have we seen different test score results in schools that have different representation profiles in the staff? SBSD Helpdesk: That would be the comparison with the Chitney County, right? It would be Burlington and UC would probably be the best comparisons. SBSD Helpdesk: And I'm not sure how we compare overall to them, but I can get you those numbers, historically. Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, we're gonna move into incidents of discrimination, 211, too. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, so when I say complainant, that means that
045the student that made the complainant, okay, so the student that reported the concern. SBSD Helpdesk: So this is a graph, you see our overall student population by demographics, and then you see our population identity, racial identity. You can see at the bottom, there were 79… 79? Yep. SBSD Helpdesk: And this data was our hazing, harassment, the link. SBSD Helpdesk: So this was all investigations. SBSD Helpdesk: So this is starting to tell a story, right? SBSD Helpdesk: This is by gender. SBSD Helpdesk: Some of these investigations were substantiated, some were not. You'll see the graph of percentage substantiated versus not substantiated. SBSD Helpdesk: students with EL services. SBSD Helpdesk: Students living at or below the poverty line. SBSD Helpdesk: So you can interpret this as students living at or below the poverty line are more likely
046to be a complainant in an investigation, right? Receive… submit some kind of complaint of hazing, harassment, bullying than their, than the average student. SBSD Helpdesk: or not. SBSD Helpdesk: Those are peer-to-peer cases, or do they include all? These are peer-to-peer, great question. Using harassment bullying policy only protects students, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: This is by grade level. SBSD Helpdesk: So about half of our cases 2020… in the 2024-2025 school year were in, I think, you know, five world. SBSD Helpdesk: And then 37 in middle, and 18 in high school. This is developmentally what I would expect to see. SBSD Helpdesk: You said the complainant is the person filing, right? Yeah. But does that person always say that a person has been wrong, or sometimes is somebody, like, bringing the complaint forward because they've witnessed somebody else?
047Great question. The complainant in this context is the person that was harmed, reportedly harmed. SBSD Helpdesk: Great question. SBSD Helpdesk: We know that students at the middle level. SBSD Helpdesk: need more social-emotional support. This is a great direction on that. SBSD Helpdesk: And then this is substantiated versus unsubstantiated. This is a number that you'd like to see. You wouldn't want to see 100% substantiated, because it would mean we're underreporting. I mean, like, if we're getting it SBSD Helpdesk: If we're finding it that often. SBSD Helpdesk: We're probably not opening investigations enough, so that would be a healthy number. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you know if the breakdowns under the substantiated, the proportions are similar, or are we seeing in the proportions by student groups? SBSD Helpdesk: the subset of the 57% has substantiated. Are they similar
048numbers? Yeah, so if I'm looking at, for example, the reported instances of student discrimination for FRL identified. SBSD Helpdesk: that 45%. Is that 45% of the substantiated cases? 45% of all. SBSD Helpdesk: So then the question is, do you know, and maybe this is something you'd have to look at, too, is once you account for being substantiated, are these proportions different? I would have to give you that, yeah, I would have to do copy and substantiating that. I'd be curious to see that, too, what's on. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: And similar question, like, how does that compare with trends that we've seen in the past? Because I think it's hard to see just a snapshot in time, like, it's good to see, are we improving, are we… Our administrative team has done a lot of work
049SBSD Helpdesk: in the past two years of aligning ourselves and aligning within schools, around when we open an investigation versus when we don't. So I would say we're in kind of the initial phase of really being in alignment K-12, which is great. SBSD Helpdesk: I also would give a huge shout out to Monica, because she's done a ton of work in regard to that, ensuring that we're in alignment, so I don't know that we could… if we looked at trends, I don't know that that would be an accurate representation, because I don't… I don't believe we were reporting SBSD Helpdesk: as accurately as we should have prior to Monica being on board with us, so… I… SBSD Helpdesk: I want to make sure that that's removed. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, and now we're going to move
050this to the engagement map. SBSD Helpdesk: So, the student engagement is the topic that is on Panorama. I believe many of you have an account, so if you don't, view us know, because we don't have written down, I'm happy to make you an account. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, this is student engagement broken down by students in grades 3 through 5, and students in grades 6 through 12. This is on this from Panorama. SBSD Helpdesk: The answers are on a 5-point record scale, so varying extremely are 4 and 5, and not at all. Little and somewhat are about 2 and 3. SBSD Helpdesk: And then at the bottom, you can see the percentile. This is a circuit that's given nationally to SBSD Helpdesk: It's in tens of thousands of districts, so that wasn't helpful to look
051at. SBSD Helpdesk: This is a very strange result. SBSD Helpdesk: So what do you mean by determination? That… SBSD Helpdesk: 77% of grades 6 to 12 would say that they're not SBSD Helpdesk: And that that would be… that we're bottom percentile nationally for student engagement. Isn't that very strange? SBSD Helpdesk: It's almost like they were given the wrong test. SBSD Helpdesk: There are a series of questions. I can send you, kind of, the questions, and then they take the average of all of those questions, but it's like, how excited are you to go to class? How often do you talk about the content that you're learning in class? SBSD Helpdesk: So… Strange, I don't know, but I would say this is an area of growth. SBSD Helpdesk: What are the administration conditions? Like, I don't
052think we… SBSD Helpdesk: Case counts are… they're not the full population, right? So, what is the… is there a self-selection part of this? I'm wondering about anything that might skew the view we're looking at. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so 560,000 does not include all students, right? So they're definitely… we have work to do. SBSD Helpdesk: To increase the rate. I would say, though, that 560 students is 560 students. SBSD Helpdesk: And that is, let me think about 23%. SBSD Helpdesk: For preventing barrier to thoroughly engaged. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, I agree with you, it might not be the story, but I still think it's concerning, and there's bad validity with it. I definitely agree with the concerning, yeah. I have the same reaction. SBSD Helpdesk: That's the question, I guess, what I… so you can self-select and
053not even answer this, which you might say makes you even less engaged, I would assume, if I wasn't even going to answer the question. Right. So, there's more room to grow. Right, right. SBSD Helpdesk: This is typically given in an advisory or memorial meeting. SBSD Helpdesk: And… SBSD Helpdesk: What is your analysis of this? You know, I know you weren't superintendent for, you know, the period that this was SBSD Helpdesk: measure, but, like, How do you rate this? SBSD Helpdesk: I think I'm reading it very similar to what other folks saw it, but it's concerning. I also think about SBSD Helpdesk: You know, again, students in 6th through 12. SBSD Helpdesk: Great, the series… I… I wonder about… I'm… SBSD Helpdesk: I don't… I'm not clear on what it says, and I'm not sure exactly
054what it says. I think that there are times when people take these tests super seriously, sometimes when they don't take them really seriously, and I'm not sure… when do we start doing this? SBSD Helpdesk: We're in our second. Last year was our second year of administration. SBSD Helpdesk: I would also last attention to the overall, and more attention into the percentile. I mean, as a classroom teacher, I can tell you this does not surprise me. In fact, this actually makes me feel really good, because I think it's not me. I don't like it. SBSD Helpdesk: That's what we deal with, it's what I deal with every single day. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, I mean, we, you know, I think, like, parents like to criticize, oh, there's no rigor, there's no this, but talk to your
055child. SBSD Helpdesk: Because we are bending a little backwards by doing all these creative things, and we cannot get people to re-engage the school. SBSD Helpdesk: you know, All the intervention that's, that's done, that's being done here. SBSD Helpdesk: I mean, people are really, really trying. I don't think it's for lack of trying, but there is something in the culture, because this… this is what I see every day, and it's changed. I've been teaching… Well, can I ask you, I don't want to put you on the spot moment, but does this surprise you? Do you feel like kids are… are… SBSD Helpdesk: Would you… would you, as a student, look at this and say that… that tracks, or… And especially the part that it's… SBSD Helpdesk: It's 0 to 19th percentile, bottom percentile, bottom quintile,
056nationally. SBSD Helpdesk: Does that bring true? SBSD Helpdesk: I don't think so. I mean, I could definitely see that there is… SBSD Helpdesk: Maybe less student engagement, than we would like. SBSD Helpdesk: But, thinking 0 to 20 percentile, that's… I'd be surprised by that. One thing is… SBSD Helpdesk: Some students don't take this survey super seriously. SBSD Helpdesk: Others is… SBSD Helpdesk: they're administered in advisory, and so I can say to myself, last year, I don't think I took this. I was super small with homework, I was like, I need these 20 minutes, I'm taking… I'm doing my homework. And that… those could be the students who are, you know, maybe they're screwing me excited, or excuse me, investing in the work. SBSD Helpdesk: whatever. And then also, that somewhat category is probably a large
057majority of that. I could be completely wrong, but, like, I know when I've taken it, someone feels like a safe answer, you know, it's right in the middle. SBSD Helpdesk: Is there a part of the… Really helpful, thank you. Is there any more engaged to it than someone who's on the… Well, I was going to say, one I think isn't such… Right. So… SBSD Helpdesk: But I think going back to what Monica is saying, is that regardless of whether it's 500 or 1,200 or… it's concerning. And so, I think, you know, the idea is that the hope, the thought, is it… SBSD Helpdesk: maybe as… as low as this. Maybe, you know, folks who might have rated it really high didn't… didn't do it, and so that might have skewed it to some degree, but
058regardless. SBSD Helpdesk: students are feeling not engaged, and what can we do? Again, I don't know that that's… SBSD Helpdesk: you know, I want to be careful that we're saying that it's… it's not that teachers may not be engaging them, but what… what is… what is, what is the challenge? You know, what are… what's hard for students, and why does it feel like they can't be engaged? SBSD Helpdesk: You know, are other things going on in their minds? Are there other things that are happening? And so I think we just need to be careful that it's not necessarily a point to the… SBSD Helpdesk: to the teachers, or to what's happening, right, that it… that it… it could be… It's social media. Yeah. Well, I think you… for the… SBSD Helpdesk: Twee, sir. SBSD Helpdesk:
059it could be interpreted as being a failure of the teachers. And I'm disagreeing with that. And I disagree. 100%. That's not how I interpreted it. And my next question was going to be, do we have a sense, or just any opinion. SBSD Helpdesk: on what things increase student engagement, and is it things outside of academics? Is it, like, extracurriculars, or… SBSD Helpdesk: Like, what other things might lead to… SBSD Helpdesk: students who engage that are confident in the classroom. And I don't think we're going to solve this right now. Sorry, yeah, I'm not the linger on this. Dan, did you have a… So, that was my question. Is there a part of this survey or something else that asks students SBSD Helpdesk: What could get them more engaged? SBSD Helpdesk: No, that was a great
060question. SBSD Helpdesk: We have an open response question around belonging, and what makes students feel like they belong, and what would make them feel like they belong, but not specifically engaged in the reason for that is because our… SBSD Helpdesk: Cip, Comprehensive Improvement Plan. SBSD Helpdesk: Coming out and popping tonight. Let me talk to that. SBSD Helpdesk: You're good, I'll turn you up. Oh. SBSD Helpdesk: Honor… Comprehensive Improvement Plan goal is specifically around belonging. SBSD Helpdesk: So that's a lot of their work. SBSD Helpdesk: So that's important to note, too, that it isn't… it isn't explicitly engagement. SBSD Helpdesk: And then your point holds true. What are the access roads to students? What are mental health supports that we have that allow students to healthily engage with school? SBSD Helpdesk: what are… SBSD Helpdesk: preschool
061activities, after-school activities, what do healthy friendships look like, what do healthy teacher relationships look like? All of those things go into this, too. SBSD Helpdesk: And it's even also just… SBSD Helpdesk: Moment had a tidbit of information there that these were given during advisory, and it would maybe, like, we could check with Panorama to see SBSD Helpdesk: You know, because it would be good to make sure that SBSD Helpdesk: we're applying it the same way that other school districts are, because otherwise we're going to look really bad. Yeah. Or maybe, I don't know, but I just… that's a very useful tidbit of how it was administered. SBSD Helpdesk: Absolutely. One thing I want to add real quick, and… so I'm putting on a different hat for a second here. SBSD Helpdesk: is I am very
062involved in scouting, and we've been looking at this from a larger perspective, and what we're seeing is… I mean, I actually put some statistics together, students falling behind. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, there's a lot of number issues. Lingering effects of Great Recession, smartphone use, reducing cognitive development, decreased SBSD Helpdesk: School accountability with the phase-out of No Child Left Behind. Long-term pandemic loss. SBSD Helpdesk: learning loss. And so there's a number of factors that are there, and I mean, just when we're looking at it, it's like the… like a loss of sense of belonging. And I think that's a big part of it. It's like, how do you engage students, is having them feel like they belong to something. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, so I mean, I'm just… we're seeing it in other… I'm bringing that
063up only because we see it in other things, right? In… in things like these kind of community programs. And what we're seeing, like, in the work that I'm doing with scouting is we've seen that there's been an 83% decrease in scouts over the last 25 years. SBSD Helpdesk: And, you know, you see that happening, you see these trends that are going down, you see this. This is why I'm all about, what are the trends showing? Like, where were we 5 years ago, or 10 years ago? There's something in the culture that we're not going to solve here tonight. We talk about this all the time at school. Same thing you were saying. SBSD Helpdesk: And I helped. SBSD Helpdesk: I'll just make one other… I think that implicit in my comments that I want to
064make explicit is that when a taxpayer says. SBSD Helpdesk: Do I feel good about the money being spent on the school? SBSD Helpdesk: they're gonna look at comparisons, not absolute numbers, and they're gonna say, wait a minute, why are we in the bottom percentile… bottom quintile? And so I'm just particularly sensitive to making sure that it's not a problem in the way that the test is administered, stuff like that. That's very important. You know, like, stuff like that, it's like, does this… SBSD Helpdesk: Going towards non-compliance, you know, and that's very… Sorry. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this is student engagement separated by grade level, by gender. So you can see all students on the left column. SBSD Helpdesk: And then moving to female, male, and transgender, not by name. SBSD Helpdesk: Very minor point, but helpful
065if you can manipulate it in this kind of reporting. That, I think, is helpful for us, it's helpful for the community to look at this, is SBSD Helpdesk: Fix your line, right, because the 23 looks bigger than the 38, and the reason it does is because you don't have the top number fixed at the same value. SBSD Helpdesk: Right. SBSD Helpdesk: It can be misleading if somebody's not paying attention. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: This is… by race. SBSD Helpdesk: The less disparity, right? SBSD Helpdesk: Depends on what… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, early grades, there's less variability, less disparity, and then you start to see more variability. I guess what I mean is, there's less disparity between white and SBSD Helpdesk: other categories. SBSD Helpdesk: then compared, which is good, I think. SBSD Helpdesk: Compared to other data
066points. Yep. SBSD Helpdesk: But no one is over 50%. SBSD Helpdesk: Which is a… SBSD Helpdesk: strong interpretation of this, that I don't need to speak in those absolute terms. I know that this is… SBSD Helpdesk: There's nothing absolute about this. SBSD Helpdesk: And I don't make a student one. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, so this is from our 2024-2025 PowerSchool, suspension data. Anytime a student is suspended in our school district, we record it on PowerSchool, we record it to the state our overall numbers. SBSD Helpdesk: So we spent a lot of time and energy aligning ourselves on this, so you can see SBSD Helpdesk: Where our suspensions came from last year. SBSD Helpdesk: This is parallel to national… Research on, on what… SBSD Helpdesk: Developmentally or the grid and work rate plans, typically have more
067needs. SBSD Helpdesk: This is students by free or reduced lunch status. SBSD Helpdesk: So we can see that 63 of our suspensions were of students status versus where he said that weren't eligible, so quite a large disparity. SBSD Helpdesk: When only 30% of our students. SBSD Helpdesk: Our free and reduced lunch status in the district. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you have the total suspension number for 25? SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, this is an unfair answer, and it does look good. I'll get that to you. SBSD Helpdesk: This is by gender. Again, huge discrepancy. SBSD Helpdesk: We have about a 50-50 split, so you can see an overall representation on male students and suspension. SBSD Helpdesk: Students of the global majority. SBSD Helpdesk: I do have a question here. So I did look back at last year's, and
068I remember there being the comment that the proportions to the proportions of total students in the school by student group was really similar. SBSD Helpdesk: And that global majority percent is up 16% this year. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you have any comments or interpretation about that? So, about 30% of our students are SBSD Helpdesk: Students of the global majority, currently, in our enrollment. SBSD Helpdesk: And we have 38% that represented suspension, so they are overrepresented in suspension. But it's up 16% from last year. SBSD Helpdesk: That 16% wouldn't necessarily account for the increase of enrollment, though. SBSD Helpdesk: No, I'm talking about this just straight-up suspensions. Yeah, straight-up suspensions that are not… Right, global majority is 38%, white is 62% this year. Last year, global majority was 22%. SBSD Helpdesk: Of the total. Closer to the
069overall global majority population. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, and in the other direction. Like, this just looks like a really big jump. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. Before, yeah, lower the student there. Right. It was 22%. But had… didn't you share that the majority of population has now since increased to 30%, so in, like, 20%. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, sorry, I thought you had said it had increased to 30% this year. SBSD Helpdesk: students, yeah, it's 30%, but she's saying it only had, like, a 1% overall change. Yes. SBSD Helpdesk: Something to also know is that one student SBSD Helpdesk: I'll check on this, actually, but I think it's one student… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I don't know that. I need to check on that. It's also why that total count for this year matters, right? Because if… SBSD Helpdesk: So,
070in 23, there were 120 suspensions for the year reported. SBSD Helpdesk: 81 in 2024 celebration last year. I don't know what it is for 25, but if it's dropped substantially, that could totally explain, right, that shift, because it's just a smaller number. It takes one or two students to change by SBSD Helpdesk: 22%. Yeah. Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: And then, this is students… SBSD Helpdesk: that received a, students living with a disability that received a suspension. So you can see an over-representation in our students on IEPs. SBSD Helpdesk: Couldn't… In an IEP, is that, like, what's the breakdown between, like, behavioral and educational SBSD Helpdesk: So we don't break it down in that way, we break it down as… SBSD Helpdesk: We could break it down into disability categories that might
071be helpful for you to see, but we don't break it down as big as well. SBSD Helpdesk: So I guess your, the fact that SBSD Helpdesk: more students on IEPs are suspended. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you think that's because… SBSD Helpdesk: They are more likely to be in a lower socioeconomic class, or do you think that that is more because SBSD Helpdesk: the fact… SBSD Helpdesk: the reason they're on IP to begin with would lead to the behavioral problems. I mean, they're related, but… SBSD Helpdesk: Yep, I think that it would… it potentially has more to do with the reasons that there are RNAs. Yep. And I also think that that's something that we have to be really mindful about how we're… SBSD Helpdesk: Supporting students, and how our… our treatment of students. SBSD Helpdesk: In
072particular, our students in the global majority are students who are, Can I increase documentary. SBSD Helpdesk: again, when you think about equal access, which is 504, about what you want to have for everybody is that you have an equal playing field, and so that you're supporting them in the ways that SBSD Helpdesk: That makes it an equal banker. SBSD Helpdesk: And your, when did you join us? SBSD Helpdesk: Two years ago. Two years ago. So is this… So is this the second year that we have data when you're here? Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: So, can I just say, one of the things that I think would be really helpful for me, and as Michelle's talking, I'm imagining, like, having a table. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, where you would show, okay, this is 2022, 2023, 2024, etc.
073And you put in there all of these numbers. SBSD Helpdesk: So that then when we go to the next year, we can actually see, like, how those numbers are changing, and it will allow us to quickly highlight, like, okay, we're on a downward trend, or an upward trend, or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think something like that would be very helpful, because it is just this, like, snapshot in time, and… SBSD Helpdesk: I think there's only 2 years of this. Right, yeah. But then, and also… Yeah, yeah, there's global… if there's more national information as well, that you can compare against a benchmark, or say Chittenden County, or you could say Vermont, or you could say U.S, but I don't know. But I just… I like data like that, to be able
074to kind of see where we're shaking out, I think would be helpful. SBSD Helpdesk: I also think that that was something either Monica was going to mention at the end, or that we've been discussing, is how… how would you as the board like to see the data? And what would be helpful for you to understand? SBSD Helpdesk: What this looks like. So we're working with what we've been doing, and so getting their feedback. SBSD Helpdesk: In particular, you know, having a trend, again, it may be two years for some things, it may be longer for other things, depending on how long we've been able to do that, but it is a conversation we've been having that we want to ensure, you know, so… so Monica's representing what we've done previously, and… SBSD Helpdesk: Having that
075feedback from the wall would be really important. Perfect. SBSD Helpdesk: I reiterate the request for trend data, it could be very helpful. And for me personally, I would also love to know some of the big categories we're targeting are, like, academic performance, suspension, engagement, harassment. SBSD Helpdesk: what your recommendation is, you know, which programs are most effective that we have seen in support. This program is shown to reduce suspensions, increase engagement, and, you know, maybe help our, English language students excel. So that would be for me to understand what we should be funding down course. SBSD Helpdesk: gas. SBSD Helpdesk: Everyone else, you're welcome. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, and so now we're moving to restorative justice. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, this is yours in the making. We're on year two of this work. SBSD Helpdesk: Last
076year, we had all of our staff go through, four anti-racist workshops designed, co-designed by several staff in the school district. And at the end of the fourth workshop, we asked folks SBSD Helpdesk: what PD domains do they want to learn more about? So they spent a year really learning about their own positionality, and their own, context in… in self and in their work, and… SBSD Helpdesk: This is how they voted. So, 71% of folks identified learning more about accountability versus punishment, so you can see the need for social-emotional clarity, right? Social-emotional learning and systems clarity there. 37% of folks selected curricular violence, so that is the under or lack of representation in curriculum, or not teaching honest history. SBSD Helpdesk: And 32% selected navigating racial trauma. SBSD Helpdesk: So you can see the topics of
077the four workshops that we're doing this year. SBSD Helpdesk: In the second row. We just had our first one around what connections can we make between academic justice and belonging, and the staff looked at the slides that you saw for the academic SBSD Helpdesk: Mortion to 11.1, as far as succeeding professional development. SBSD Helpdesk: Great question. SBSD Helpdesk: We have about 28 staff across the district that are working with Rianne and Kim and I, who's our anti-racist consultant, and we go design workshops for all staff to go through. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm sorry, can you go back for one second? So you said when we asked the question to staff 119, what is the total staff number? SBSD Helpdesk: Like, was that a full response? Okay. No, total staff number… SBSD Helpdesk: that underwent these workshops,
078I would expect around 250. SBSD Helpdesk: Is that a mix of, like, teacher support staff or admin, or… SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so last year is a May… last year was just teacher support staff? No, and support staff, yeah, so last year was the maximum teacher support staff, so that ended up 119. And this year, administrators are also going through workshops. SBSD Helpdesk: And still supports that? And still supports that, yeah. So why… I guess one question is, do you see a good res… I don't want to go on a tangent, but just for engagement from… SBSD Helpdesk: our professional staff, that… would you typically see a number like this? Is this average, or that people aren't responding, or does this go back to kind of engagement, I guess? SBSD Helpdesk: I see… I would say
079that's about… SBSD Helpdesk: potentially 30%, I'm doing the math off the top of my head, like, 30… around 30%, which isn't the worst response rate when you look at, like, what you expect for an anonymous response rate. SBSD Helpdesk: So I wouldn't say it doesn't capture every voice, for sure. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, now we're moving to hiring and retention. SBSD Helpdesk: So, on the left, you can see this is data from our, also, each part team. If you… SBSD Helpdesk: Like, if you, like, put the mouse over the quantities on the left below. SBSD Helpdesk: You can see, multiracial is 1%, Latinx is 2%, Hawaiian is 3%. SBSD Helpdesk: And, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: And then on the right is our student. So, ideally, you want the left to match the right. SBSD
080Helpdesk: Research shows that this is… that has huge impacts on student learning. SBSD Helpdesk: And student graduation rates. SBSD Helpdesk: of the global material. SBSD Helpdesk: Last year's… excuse me, last year's report mentioned a hiring plan to help Change these… these directions, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Is that… has that been completed? Is that… what's the status? There was a change of HR, so… SBSD Helpdesk: HR and I have been talking, about SBSD Helpdesk: Regrouping on that, and we are committed, to thinking about a strategic plan. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I feel like a lot of things you've mentioned in the past slides have, like, directly related to SBSD Helpdesk: what we're seeing here, and what… where we'd like to go. Dan? SBSD Helpdesk: Oh, I can't turn it up. SBSD Helpdesk: I love the question about a
081hiring guide is definitely… that is the strategy that we need to focus on. And yes, having been here since March, and… and… and notify… or noticing SBSD Helpdesk: I think everyone will acknowledge that the employment environment and the recruitment environment has changed significantly, in the past several years. Literally, I was just looking at, okay, when our workforce SBSD Helpdesk: In Vermont. SBSD Helpdesk: I should say, when our employable workforce and who we can go after to recruit, to become an employee of the South Burlington School District. SBSD Helpdesk: 85% are white, 4% Asian, 4% Black, and 5% two or more racist. SBSD Helpdesk: We don't have a lot of folks to pull into Vermont, because Affordable housing is so difficult. SBSD Helpdesk: We have a very, we have a very low unemployment rate. SBSD Helpdesk:
082Compared to the, to the nation, we are, we are significant, like, coming from Nebraska, we were at 3. When we here are 1.5, that's, that's an extremely difficult environment to recruit in. When our salaries are, are at a level that are not at the, at, we are trying very hard to have our salaries SBSD Helpdesk: a target. SBSD Helpdesk: That's extremely difficult in our bed… I mean, in our budget situation. SBSD Helpdesk: So we want AMR. The pool of money is only so much, so if we're going to be giving 5% raises, but then we… anyway, I won't even go into all that, so… And you're specifically referencing starting salaries, particularly for new folks we're trying to bring into SBSD Helpdesk: Correct teaching positions at the district. I am talking about not just teaching positions,
083not just talking about every position. Yeah, we are… our recruiting rates are where we used to see pools of at least SBSD Helpdesk: 15-20 for announcement rules of 4. SBSD Helpdesk: One that we used to see, SBSD Helpdesk: Actually, on the superintendent search, we've got 7 people. I was so ecstatic to see the interim superintendent at 7, I expected, quite honestly, anyway. But, yes, we are working together, we know that we have work to do. We have been a little busy over the summer with other things, but that's considered the least. Thanks for letting me share that. I'm extremely excited to… we need to reach broader nets. It is definitely… SBSD Helpdesk: When you have two people of color sitting at this table, we want to make a big difference. SBSD Helpdesk: I also just
084wanted to reference, so we… we did do some work around that a few years ago, Patrick, myself, and Karen Danter, the former HR director, did, we went to some fairs out state to try and attract, SBSD Helpdesk: a more diverse workforce, and we didn't… we didn't get a lot of traction with that. We didn't, find that that worked, so… so we'll have to find other avenues, other venues, that might… SBSD Helpdesk: might work better. We did a variety of those, and those weren't successful, so yeah, we did it. Like, coolers of life, and the jury going to buy screen, or anything. We did, like, we did bring things, but, you know, the people who brought pizza were, I should say, too, this is not a problem unique to us. Oh, yes. SBSD Helpdesk: I mean,
085I would just say, it looked more difficult. I mean, having been in the city of Summont for 3 years, yeah, we're seeing the same things. I mean, even with police recruitment and fire, fire recruitment, it's like, it's… SBSD Helpdesk: are really disappointed by the recruiting. Just to rely on education so that I understand. I mean, it sounds like the burden is shifting significantly more to, like, recruiting as opposed to, like, asset applications, right? Is that… I'm not sure if those are the right terms, but, like. SBSD Helpdesk: it sounds like, right now, the burden is just unemployment period. We have to go do significantly more recruiting than in prior years. You're absolutely right, where you used to have them come to you, you used to have a fabulous brand, everybody wanted to work for the
086school system. We have a great retirement program. People would come to you. School spring was the only thing we needed to do. Now we can't sit back and wait for people to come to us. SBSD Helpdesk: We need to go out to them. We need to actively recruit. We cannot passively recruit. I would argue that in order, if you want to diversify your workforce, that's been true for decades. SBSD Helpdesk: I mean, it's something I've mentioned to my administrators, too, that if you want to diversify your workforce, you need to get off course free. SBSD Helpdesk: I mean, that… that is just not the way to do it. EVM's been… since I graduated, UBM, they would tell me to do this, so it is… I would… I would argue that this has always been the
087way you should really SBSD Helpdesk: So, I know disagree, and I would say from a new monster. We are at a tougher spot, where we are by the second? SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, yeah, so… Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: And then the other piece after the recruitment is the retention, right? So, how to… how to make sure that staff of the global majority feel welcome to NC and care about. Sure. SBSD Helpdesk: All right. SBSD Helpdesk: Right now, material. SBSD Helpdesk: So last year, there were multiple things at play. First, we had the elementary literacy curriculum. Last year was the first year of adoption of CKLA Amplify, which is a structured literacy program. So, it teaches explicit phonics skills, it's based on the science of reading. SBSD Helpdesk: And this year will be the second year for
088teachers. SBSD Helpdesk: In elementary schools. SBSD Helpdesk: We also had an increase of supports for multilingual programming, so we added the liaisons. SBSD Helpdesk: Who are three staff of the global majority. SBSD Helpdesk: And we… SBSD Helpdesk: worked on strengthening our advisory and advisory and morning meeting schedules in all of our schools. So you can go into any of our schools, and, you know, there's a little, there's always the little exception, right? But… SBSD Helpdesk: You know, you can go into any classroom in the morning, and ideally see students in some kind of morning meeting, or reflection space or circle with their teachers. SBSD Helpdesk: And then we have… this year, we're piloting restorative circle curriculum at the FARCOD, so shout out to Melissa and Matt, where all students will be going through a 9-week
089SBSD Helpdesk: unit of restorative circles. What are restorative circles? Why do we use them? What are common values? How do we build them? How do we keep each other safe and feel cared about? SBSD Helpdesk: So those are just some artifacts you can see from middle school advisory. SBSD Helpdesk: So, examples of… SBSD Helpdesk: the standards, and then what it would look like a greeting, a share, and activity. So, how to use developmental designs, or under-teacher advisory, so it starts with a greeting, announcement, some kind of SBSD Helpdesk: You can see reference to an audit, in last year's report. SBSD Helpdesk: Has that been completed? That has not been nominated. SBSD Helpdesk: Is it still going in? SBSD Helpdesk: That… is… It is not currently going on. SBSD Helpdesk: What's the background? SBSD Helpdesk: The…
090so, we were making a commitment to have D be able to support teachers in auditing our curriculum. SBSD Helpdesk: kindergarten through 12th grade to see what representation do we have, what types of books do we read, what narratives are we telling? SBSD Helpdesk: And… that… Did not come to fruition. I was at Huddle last fall. SBSD Helpdesk: And so that took me out of the game for a little bit. But I… it's still on the top of my mind, and if… if we want to talk about next steps, or strategic planning, or what the board would like to see, definitely talk about what that could look like. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so strategic planning. So we have a CIP goal, you can see that at the bottom of here. SBSD Helpdesk: And you can see the
091measure over time. So a sense of belonging over time for grades 6 through 12 is slightly on the increase, which is the celebration, and for grades 3 through 5, slightly on the decrease. So this is measured by Panorama, and we'll continue to measure that this year. SBSD Helpdesk: That's… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, started winter of 2023, then we went for a full year last year, and then this will be our second quarter. SBSD Helpdesk: And I can give you graphs like that for each of the… for engagement, etc. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, that would be helpful. I was outside of trying… I was putting together some ideas about COVID and how long the kids have been together. Yeah. Different grades, and… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, that's very interesting. I'm curious, too, like, on that, do you have the
092splits by, you know, gender and ethnicity and all of that as well? Over time? Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: I can also show you how to access it. If it would be helpful, I can make you a video of how to access it again, I don't know. SBSD Helpdesk: But that would be easier. SBSD Helpdesk: All right. Moving to co-curriculars… So, you can see… SBSD Helpdesk: Tell Athletics and co-curriculars on the left, SBHS, Athletics and co-curriculars on the right. One of the other things that we talked about in regard to belonging is that there isn't a way… so, for instance, some of our students who SBSD Helpdesk: who may be on an IEP, who have communication challenges, or have challenges being able to take tests like this can't show whether they have a feeling of belonging. So
093we're missing a population of students when we think about belonging. So I just want to make sure that, you know… So, Monica and I talked about SBSD Helpdesk: perhaps other ways of showing students who are going to be able to take this test, who are, who can't accurately represent based on this test level on computer slide. Yeah, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: we have some ideas around that. You know, an example is a caregiver, you know, someone who's very, very close to them could kind of take it for them with the best information, but of course there's limitations, right? It's not at their whole point. So I just wanted to make sure we found that out. Thanks. Sorry for inter… SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, so this is Athletics and Co-Curriculars. SBSD Helpdesk: this is something… I think that's
094a huge celebration, to have this many students engaged in extracurriculars and co-curriculars, SBSD Helpdesk: is… an enormous shout out to Mike Jabour, Glenn Buttons, and the team. How's not working? SBSD Helpdesk: These are really my numbers, comparatively. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. Should this be… should the… SBSD Helpdesk: Should it be SVHS on the far right? SBSD Helpdesk: No, it should be… SBSD Helpdesk: It's like, one side is the middle school, the other side is the high school, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I just… I'm seeing the typo, I think that's confusing. You know, on the far right, it says SHBS. That's just SBHS, so… SBSD Helpdesk: Yes, motels and the lactites will come, right? SBSD Helpdesk: And this is by race? Can we go back to that, Rick? SBSD Helpdesk: So… Does this say that… Oh… SBSD
095Helpdesk: Do you want me to do that? So let's go to the right, right? So, SBSD Helpdesk: This says that in athletics, 54% of the students enrolled in athletics are male, and 46% are female. SBSD Helpdesk: in co-curriculars at SBHS, 46%. SBSD Helpdesk: enrolled in curriculars are male. SBSD Helpdesk: And 54 is the female. So male participation goes down. SBSD Helpdesk: In the high school. Well, called curriculum, right? Athletic increases. Athletic that goes up. Yeah. Exactly. That's… Okay. Up slightly down. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: But I think the number there is a little confusing. It's 324, 238, 378, 327, that's not the student population. SBSD Helpdesk: No. That is the students that are enrolled. Exactly. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm just curious, you mentioned this is a high ratio, it seems happy to me, without any context. Maybe,
096you know, Kristen, what… SBSD Helpdesk: what has gone well, and which… why have we been able to achieve this? This would seem at odds with the engagement data, so I'm curious what's working well. Or no, because it's… it's not… it's not academics. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, maybe that's the question there, because this seems to me to be a form of engagement. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I would see this as a positive, but we're getting reported statements and feeling disengaged, so I'm just curious, what's working well here, maybe why is that not being required? I think for those, the engagement questions you were asking is academic classes, particularly in class. I think part of what's… what this is, is these are… these are activities that students choose to participate in, so if it's a… if it's a, you
097know, curricular, it's a… it doesn't actually SBSD Helpdesk: activity that they are choosing of their own decision-making to engage in. You know, it's a sporting event that, you know, some moment, like, soccer, and he's… he's choosing to participate in soccer, and so… It's fun. There's some choice there, too, at school. Sure, but I think it's, you know, it's within the SBSD Helpdesk: These participation ratios are similar, which is good. It's great. I think we historically have done well, and again, I don't want to… I say this anecdotally, not… but that I think we historically, have… I think it's why our, SBSD Helpdesk: our middle and high school, administrators will advocate hard for our co-curricular and our athletics, because it's something our students really enjoy as they engage in. So I think that that's part of
098what that looks like. And I do think this is money well spent here, because this is a lot of what keeps kids in school, because I'll tell you, they don't want to be in class. And that has changed, and I'm not blaming our girl, I'm done with that. SBSD Helpdesk: But there's something else. But this, this is what keeps a lot of our kids. And I'd like to say it's not just the varsity sports, it's, like, JV, sports-wise, it's, like, it's a diverse anything. And then, all the kids create their own clubs, and that's, that's, you know… SBSD Helpdesk: Is it in a later slide? What percentage of students are actually involved? SBSD Helpdesk: You think this breaks down… Sorry, kid. SBSD Helpdesk: 50% or 56 male, 44 female, but what percentage of actual students
099are involved in athletics or co-curricular activities? You have to do that manually with the top numbers over enrollment, so… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. Yeah, 327 over… And before I… 8, 20? SBSD Helpdesk: around age 1 enrolled in our high school, in high school, and we're close… I mean, the difference between high school and middle school, there isn't… SBSD Helpdesk: It's not a huge difference. Well, middle school is… is… you're looking at over 15%. Yeah. …are enrolled in, SBSD Helpdesk: in an athletic, which is huge, right? Students are forming their core co-curricular, yeah, so your students are forming, kind of, their own communities with their coach. Does that drop them? SBSD Helpdesk: little in high school, or is it running? The portion drops a little bit. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: That's what I was trying
100to figure out, because it's how many total are we looking at? And if you've got, like, how many students are there? You're saying 1,600 in the high school? No, around 825. In the high school? Yeah, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: And then titles around 580. So these numbers right here, if you add those up, that's a little over… SBSD Helpdesk: That's a substantial percentage. Some students will do athletics and circumstances. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: So if a student plays a sport in the winter and a sport in the spring… They're only counted once. Okay, great. I could do that. SBSD Helpdesk: But it is… these are really involvement numbers. SBSD Helpdesk: Stop. SBSD Helpdesk: This is the breakdown by race. SBSD Helpdesk: These are also really positive numbers. Out of the entire presentation, you'll notice this has the
101least discrepancies. Correct. Almost verbatim. Almost verbatim. SBSD Helpdesk: This is by EL-identified students receiving English language services. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this is a little bit lower. Students receiving English language services are less likely to join this board. There are implications around transportation. It's a huge one. SBSD Helpdesk: students from multilingual families, especially that live in the area of Orchard or Chamberlain, that don't have busing help. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, I mean, I'm thinking of, like, the Toussaint conversation we're going to have down the road, but I think this is so important to consider from a budgeting perspective. Like, what is so important for our students, right, is having these athletics and co-curriculars, and ensuring that that is something SBSD Helpdesk: Protect in our building our budgets. SBSD Helpdesk: Right? Oh, I would agree. And to
102the goal of equity, right, this seems to be one of the programs that is… I think all this to buy very evenly, right? Nice. Plus one. SBSD Helpdesk: This is students, broken down my brain, reduced lunch status. So you can see this is actually pretty parallel. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, you had said it's 30%? Sorry, I was going from athletics to co-curricular parallel. But yes, underrepresented, because about 30% of our population. But still, large percentage. Still a large percentage, and I would say transportation also affects us. SBSD Helpdesk: Students do. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Occidental communication. SBSD Helpdesk: But it was… what I meant was parallel is the athletics of the COVID regulars, which is really cool to see in a celebration. SBSD Helpdesk: Any more questions on action figures? SBSD Helpdesk: Hey, we're moving
103through this. SBSD Helpdesk: Fair treatment and reporting. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this is… SBSD Helpdesk: Just a graphic I put together to kind of show the flow process of generally how things rise up. So there's a concern. SBSD Helpdesk: A parent or a person, right, an employee brings it to the supervisor or teacher in the case that it is the student. SBSD Helpdesk: The next level would be the building administrator. SBSD Helpdesk: And then the next level would start to move towards central office. SBSD Helpdesk: the arrows aren't rigid, right? There's some… SBSD Helpdesk: sometimes where I get a call from a family member, right, and I talk to the principal or the superintendent. So it's not always to this level of blow, but in general, I would say the majority of cases kind of follow
104this. SBSD Helpdesk: It's not going. SBSD Helpdesk: And then there's collaboration, you know, between different offices, so a parent might reach out to me and also reach out to our Director of, Students for the Word Services and whatnot when there's overlap. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, student courses and groupings. So this is data from our high school, and this is courses for last year, so total courses last year. SBSD Helpdesk: are those end sizes. So, there were 125 sections of honors, 253 sections of AP, 750 sections of general education, and then you can see the original breakdown. SBSD Helpdesk: This drives pretty well with the representation of different student groups in the overall population, correct? SBSD Helpdesk: So when we look at the percents over the student groups, they, in, say, the AP Honors and general
105classifications, they track really well with the proportions in the total, with variance, some. SBSD Helpdesk: With the total population of… SBSD Helpdesk: So what's the total population of Asian students, for example? Here, it's probably overrepresented in the… not over-represented, it's… there are more students proportionally. SBSD Helpdesk: I was just asking you if my observation is correct, that… But this is… SBSD Helpdesk: This is pretty good. It's pretty representative of what we have. Do we have spots here that we're concerned about? SBSD Helpdesk: I would say that, no, this is fairly representative. I would say what I would be concerned around is the discrepancy between AP enrollment and general education involvement. SBSD Helpdesk: There are licenses there. SBSD Helpdesk: This is also something that I can start to track over time for the board. SBSD Helpdesk:
106And it's a really strong link of Twitter. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, fair, it's easy to count, and it's meaningful. SBSD Helpdesk: And this is by students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch and not eligible. So you can see discrepancies, like the general education is parallel. SBSD Helpdesk: general education is parallel to our general population, and then you see disparities, with AP and honors compared to our general population. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, if you click that link, it will take you to the 2023-2024 data work club, and… SBSD Helpdesk: I believe our Executive Director of Learning will be giving her an annual report sometime this year that will include the data workbook for last year, 2024-2025. SBSD Helpdesk: So you'll see many of those flags kind of rotated, the pressure data. SBSD Helpdesk: And
107then I can also start to put, data together based on specific questions I've asked today. SBSD Helpdesk: Anything else? SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you so much for putting all this together. It's a lot of data. SBSD Helpdesk: So, at this point, since this is an action item, we will accept the comments from the public, if there's any. SBSD Helpdesk: Thoughts from the public about this building? SBSD Helpdesk: I'm being scared. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm Cindy Tan, I am a teacher at Chamberlain, also my kids went into the school district. Just a couple of comments about the Penn River survey, having dealt with elementary kids taking them, but I just want to clarify, some of the questions are really confusing for 8-, 9, and 10-year-olds, the way they're worded. SBSD Helpdesk: So you have to take a lot
108of that data with a grain of salt. SBSD Helpdesk: Also, it also depends in the world of elementary school. I've just come in from recess, and I had a fight with my friend, it might make a difference in how I answer a question. If… I think the last one we gave is in May. SBSD Helpdesk: And VT caps are not that fun for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, so we're giving panorama surveys. At the time, we're doing a lot of testing for young kids, so I think some of those things, when you look at the data of engagement. SBSD Helpdesk: you need to really think about what else is going on in the world of elementary school. And I also would agree with Roman. I really have a problem with the very little and somewhat
109being grouped together. I think that's hugely misleading, and I think a lot of kids just kind of click SBSD Helpdesk: through the somewhat, without really giving it a lot of thought, at least at the elementary level, and to me, that's a really misleading data point. SBSD Helpdesk: And then the one other comment I would make is about the suspensions. One of the questions I had is, do some of that data reflect one student having multiple suspensions, or are they all separate students? SBSD Helpdesk: Sometimes happens in general. Okay, so that's not cumulative suspensions, that is students who are suspended SBSD Helpdesk: I triple check that to make sure I'm answering correctly? SBSD Helpdesk: That was my other question. Thank you so much. SBSD Helpdesk: Any other public comment on that? SBSD Helpdesk: So… So, at
110this point, we have the, SBSD Helpdesk: The voting on the policy compliance? SBSD Helpdesk: And the way it works is that there's an overall stage, man. SBSD Helpdesk: And then there are sub-statements, and for each of them. SBSD Helpdesk: We are… we are asked whether the superintendent had a reasonable interpretation. SBSD Helpdesk: Whether there is adequate data to support any conclusion. SBSD Helpdesk: And whether the conclusion is that we are in compliance with that subsection. SBSD Helpdesk: And I should also say that, obviously, you have not been the superintendent, so we're… SBSD Helpdesk: So we're not, I think, reflecting on your… SBSD Helpdesk: personal performance here. I think we're reflecting on all of this, and I think we ought to take ownership of this, so… SBSD Helpdesk: I can answer two quick questions. So those
111were students that were suspended, so not cumulative, right? One student could be suspended for 3 days, so it doesn't… SBSD Helpdesk: Calculated all the days out of school. So, students that were suspended, and it was 81, 81 cases. SBSD Helpdesk: 81 and 25. 81 students in 24 and 25 that were suspended. Oh, 24 and 25, or the 24th out of class. Okay. Which is how the state reports it. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: so the 20… Somehow there's a mis… SBSD Helpdesk: communication, I think, of the numbers, because the one reported… oh, maybe it's because there's only two reports. Okay, so it did drop, so that does help explain why there was, you know, that 22% to 38% for the… I would have to confirm that… SBSD Helpdesk: The last time you got those numbers,
112it was also one student represented for N. SBSD Helpdesk: So I would need to confirm that first. Could you stay up, Monica, just in case the board members have any further questions? So, I want to… We have… SBSD Helpdesk: I believe 15 minutes. SBSD Helpdesk: Still our next… Yeah. Scheduled item. SBSD Helpdesk: So, would any board members, like to ask any further questions about this? SBSD Helpdesk: I don't have questions, but I have that comment that… SBSD Helpdesk: Yes, it's okay to… Depression. SBSD Helpdesk: So, before we go to this quote, there's something that I want to make personally very clear as being here for the first time, and sitting down and getting a monitor and report. SBSD Helpdesk: I want to say that I completely acknowledge that you're working from the perspective of expectations
113of a totally different group of people. SBSD Helpdesk: And I can speak for myself that my expectations are probably going to be different than what you've heard before, and I want to make sure that everybody understands that I'm not pointing fingers, and I'm not saying. SBSD Helpdesk: this person's responsible on that part right. This is systemically about policy governance and being transparent with the community about where we're at. And so the questions that I will very commonly ask are about SBSD Helpdesk: what's compliant, and how are we doing against that? And I just want an honest answer. I don't want an answer, you know, the… I don't have an answer in mind, and I don't have a judgment attached to it, right? I just… I want to know the honest answer. And this is on,
114you know, in my role on… SBSD Helpdesk: So, I just wanted to preface going into this, because otherwise this might sound like I'm being… SBSD Helpdesk: intentionally followed, so… And I also think that that goes into what, you know, as a newer board, what the expectation is as far as SBSD Helpdesk: our monitoring reports and how we can best share the information with you all. Historically, our reports have been done, if we look SBSD Helpdesk: through, they've been done pretty similar, and I… I want to just ensure that if you all are looking… so you've given us examples of things that you're looking for, but if you're looking for things different, that we can ensure that we're responding to in a way that's going to meet your needs. SBSD Helpdesk: So, and I would like
115to add, I think it was a very good presentation, I appreciate all of that, and I need to now look at the monitoring report, but I will say, in looking at policy governance, there's, you know, 13 points that are called up, you know, at least annually, report to the board, student academic achievement. SBSD Helpdesk: As measured by standardized testing. You know, there's, like, specific things that are here, and I… I feel like there was a lot of information, but it's, like, drawing and mapping things back specifically to SBSD Helpdesk: what policy governance says that we need to do, and maybe that will be captured in here, but I think that's where one of my… SBSD Helpdesk: discrepancies is right now. Like, so, for example, you know, number 5, I heard you talk about restorative justice,
116but one of the questions is, you know, or, SBSD Helpdesk: requirements is employer restorative justice practices that center the voices of victims and observers when redressing incidences of discrimination and disseminate the learning from those practices across the district through professional development and advisory activities. SBSD Helpdesk: Did we do that? SBSD Helpdesk: We're not dumping that. Oh, I think I read this report, too, and there were many things, transparently, where I was like, yeah. Yeah. Okay, and that's fine, and that's fine, that's okay, but it's like… SBSD Helpdesk: I think it helps to answer those honestly and say, okay, no, but this is where the opportunity… because the next one is, like, make significant efforts to recruit, hire, retain faculty and staff of color, and report to the board on an annual basis the status of
117those efforts. It's like… SBSD Helpdesk: So we went, we tried something, it didn't work out, or it did, you know, like, how is that going? Is there more of an opportunity to do that? Like, that's where I see… SBSD Helpdesk: again, just kind of lining up, this is what it says, and how are we doing? Red light, yellow light, the green light. Right? Yeah. And I have a… so, on other monitoring reports, there's an indication of whether you report compliance in each section. SBSD Helpdesk: And… Would… is that in here? SBSD Helpdesk: I did not know that I was supposed to do that. Well, I think it's the superintendent reporting to compliance and not compliance, and so it's… I understand that SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. I could… SBSD Helpdesk: go off the top of my head.
118Oh, no, I would like to make a proposal here. I think… It's all there. It's… it's there. No, that's the policy. That is not… it's not an interpretation, it's not a rationale for the interpretation, and it doesn't provide any indication of what it would mean to be compliant. Like, when do we know we've reached… Well, because we just heard the… SBSD Helpdesk: We heard the data. We had a great data. Yeah, I agree. We heard the data, but I don't know that you can then draw back and say, based on what the policy says, we are compliant with all of these things. That's my… that's my… I'd like to make a proposal. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, certainly for the ones where the reporting is the matter of compliance. Some were maybe not. Like, the access. So
119let's talk one at a time here. SBSD Helpdesk: This is bringing it back to policy governance. Yeah, I understand that. Hold on one second, I understand. Go ahead, Laura, please. I just want to know where this is headed, because if people are just… are we gonna table this and vote on it next time? SBSD Helpdesk: Or… Yeah, this is a completely radical departure. I've been on here for 3 years, so… SBSD Helpdesk: Dan, would you like to… I'm in trouble. No, I was just asking Monica when she… SBSD Helpdesk: was given, I don't think it was given, when she saw all this in comparison to when she started putting her report together. Because, yeah, like I said, I mean, the report's got a lot of information. SBSD Helpdesk: armed. SBSD Helpdesk: But… SBSD Helpdesk: as
120it's been stated, I'm not sure that the information answers a lot of questions. I'd like to make a proposal. I think that we've gotten the payload of… in terms of the data, I think a big question ongoing has been. SBSD Helpdesk: just seeing the trend, even maybe since last year. But overall, I don't… I personally am not ready to vote. SBSD Helpdesk: on compliance with this tonight, because I feel like I want to know what the superintendent's interpretation of compliance is for each of these, at the very least, right? So I would suggest that what we do now is we decide not to take action, and we, SBSD Helpdesk: wait to get… That's an excellent point, because this is addressing… I mean, this is… the superintendent is supposed to be giving us the… whether we're
121in compliance or not, and is not in a position to make that decision right now, and that Monica gave us the information, but it's not her responsibility either to tell us that information, so… SBSD Helpdesk: I… I agree with what you're saying, 100%. So, did you have to take a motion to not take action? Yes. Okay, so I'd entertain a motion to not take action on this tonight. Sorry. SBSD Helpdesk: And a discussion. SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Thank you very much. SBSD Helpdesk: I think at this point, we have a recess. SBSD Helpdesk: And, so I'd like to propose that we come back at 8. SBSD Helpdesk: Maybe 8.05, or should we come back at 8. 8.05. 8.05? 8.05 was 5 minutes. Yeah, all right, so we'll come back at
1228.05. SBSD Helpdesk: about is the interim search. Yeah, so you're good there. Am I okay right now? You're totally fine, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Are we back up? It's a hot mic, though, so I won't see you. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, so our next discussion item is on the interim superintendent search. SBSD Helpdesk: I guess… Do we want to stop? Nick, can you stop sharing this? Oh. SBSD Helpdesk: Yes, it is you. No, you're fine. I thought it was… I thought it was… SBSD Helpdesk: I thought it was the equity report, I evolved out. Yeah, temporarily stop sharing it, and then we'll bring it up in the next one. SBSD Helpdesk: So, the… The status of the interim superintendent search is, as Daisy mentioned, we have, SBSD Helpdesk: a few candidates. A number of them have been
123invited to be interviewed tomorrow. The whole committee, SBSD Helpdesk: representing lots of different stakeholder groups is, gonna be here all day tomorrow in person with the interviewees. SBSD Helpdesk: And they will be making their recommendations to the three board members who are on the committee, by the end of tomorrow. So, SBSD Helpdesk: We will proceed from there. Our intention is to have something that we can take action on at the September 10th SBSD Helpdesk: School board meeting. SBSD Helpdesk: Is there anything else we wanted to discuss or announce about the interim search? SBSD Helpdesk: Just that the schedule seems to be moving along as we expected, and, you know, the community can expect that that… what we've described at our last meeting of their timeline is looking like it's SBSD Helpdesk: Yes. Fingers crossed. SBSD
124Helpdesk: Yes. Great. Daisy, any… good? Great. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so, we will move on to our next SBSD Helpdesk: item, which is the acting superintendent's report. We're a little bit early for it, so I'll hand it over to you. I just wanted to very quickly say I wanted the majority of this time spent, with Principal Burke, to be able to talk about, the cell phone practice. SBSD Helpdesk: At the high school, but before we went into that, I just wanted to say we've had, you know, a great start to the school year so far. SBSD Helpdesk: Dorset Street, my understanding is all is completed, so that's great news. Orchard is still under, a little bit of construction, and we have another, I think, week on June Murray SBSD Helpdesk: shared some information with me today,
125but the hope is that, the paving's gonna take a little bit longer, but that folks should be able to go back into the parking lot in about a week. So that's good news. SBSD Helpdesk: I just also want to say, as an orchard parent, the orchard administration is doing a great job at getting the drop-off and pickup in a different location, and parents are rolling with it, and… Parents have been amazing about it. I have to say, Jim Marie, myself, our Lawrence, folks from our facilities department, we've all been trying to… SBSD Helpdesk: to be around and be available, and parents have been amazing, so it's been… it's been really great, and so I'm super appreciative of that. SBSD Helpdesk: And I think that's it. SBSD Helpdesk: Pretty? SBSD Helpdesk: Principal Burke! SBSD Helpdesk: Ready?
126Ready. Alright, good deal. So… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, my name is Patrick Burke, and I'm… SBSD Helpdesk: Proud to be principal at South Burlington High School. We haven't met Austin. SBSD Helpdesk: Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thanks for having me here, everybody. SBSD Helpdesk: And if you get a score at any time, just let me know. Especially if it's a W. Okay. And so… SBSD Helpdesk: My goal tonight is to just… SBSD Helpdesk: give you an update in terms of where we are at your request, really, or at Kristen's request, to come in and give you an update on where we are with SBSD Helpdesk: our cell phone procedures, I want you to know that within the high school vernacular, we use the term policy and procedure inter… SBSD Helpdesk: changeably, so if
127I say policy, I… we know the difference. We'd like to say things like small p policy at the high school level to distinguish it between capital P policy, capital P policy is in your sandbox. SBSD Helpdesk: small fee policy is… is ours, so… We talk about practices early. Procedures, practices, whatever, but I'm using the term… if the word policy comes out of my mouth or shows up in the presentation, it is, school level policy. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I should open my side. SBSD Helpdesk: So, this slide that is up right now is the exact slide. I cut and pasted this from a presentation that our two assistant principals have been giving as part of our class meetings. Beginning of every school year, we have these class meetings where SBSD Helpdesk: A fair amount of it
128is, compliance-driven, in that we have certain SBSD Helpdesk: policies that we're required to, review with the entire student body at the beginning of the school year. And so those are typically what you would expect, like hazing, harassment, bullying, things like that. SBSD Helpdesk: That sounds pretty tedious to bring, you know, one quarter of your school into the auditorium and talk at them about policy, so we do mix in other kinds of, like, operational things, or, SBSD Helpdesk: you know, it's a far cry from a pep rally, but nonetheless, there is some, like, spirit building that… in bringing the classes together. And so, for example, this morning we met with… we did seniors first. SBSD Helpdesk: In some ways, they're kind of the easiest, because they… they've been through this presentation, you know, multiple times, they
129kind of know the drill, they know who the faces are, they're also… SBSD Helpdesk: chill, they're not as worried about what's going on around them. And then we did grade 9, SBSD Helpdesk: We still have, sophomores and juniors left. So, this slide is straight from that, slide deck, and SBSD Helpdesk: Within that, that last meeting, those presentations, we also will include new information. If there's, if there's, you know, hey, just so you know, you're not allowed, you know, please don't walk through the gym to get to the art room anymore if we're trying to change flow with SBSD Helpdesk: students, or if there's a change in parking and driving, just whatever, like, kind of operational things that we feel like it's good for us to get a message to everybody at the same time, so
130that's what's kind of… we'll slide those into that, class, opening class meeting. SBSD Helpdesk: For the rest of the school year, we use our advisories to give communications to students that, maybe comes from student government, or comes from the teaching faculty, or it comes from SBSD Helpdesk: Who knows, that, SBSD Helpdesk: DEI coordinator, you know, things like that. So, and in those smaller groups, it's great, because a lot of times you can have discussions and whatnot, but because of the importance from a compliance standpoint with HHB, we have to make sure that every student gets the accurate, same information. SBSD Helpdesk: The stakes are a little higher, so that's the reason why we… we don't… SBSD Helpdesk: do those in an advisory meeting. So, anyway, that's what you need to know. SBSD Helpdesk: this, like,
131this is our cell phone policy. We like to use the phrase bell-to-bell, that, SBSD Helpdesk: I believe also is, stated in Act 72's, miscellaneous provisions that included, SBSD Helpdesk: some future restrictions on cell phone use on school property or at schools in Vermont. And, bell-to-bell for us is 9am to 3.25. SBSD Helpdesk: And I can talk a little bit more about the future of this, for planned future of this towards the end of the presentation. SBSD Helpdesk: It's really… it's really pretty simple. The, first time a student, when we track the occurrences down to the student level, so if a cell phone is seen in a student's hand or bag or on their desk at any time between 9 and 3.25, SBSD Helpdesk: That's installed at the office, and then they come to the office,
132and we have this SBSD Helpdesk: I think it used to be, like, a hangover the back of your door shoe bag, right? You know that, right? That hangs the main office, and in each one of those, there's an index card with a number on it, student puts the phone in the thing, they come into my office. SBSD Helpdesk: John Gregg's office, or Ben Hunkard's office, they're the two assistant principals. Candidly, it's also them. And they'll have a conversation with the student. It's very, SBSD Helpdesk: It's very matter-of-fact, and then we tell a student to come back at the end of the day, and you can retrieve your phone, and because SBSD Helpdesk: We're often out and about a lot, that's the reason for the receipt, and then the main office assistant, you know, will exchange
133the receipt for the phone. That's first fence. Second fence. SBSD Helpdesk: Same thing, however, the only person that can retrieve the phone is parent or guardian, someone from home. SBSD Helpdesk: And then a third offense requires an extended meeting with the admin, parent, and the guardian, and the student, the parent or guardian, and the student. And… SBSD Helpdesk: The last bullet on this slide we threw on there, even though it's… it's really more closely related to hazing harassment and bullying, but it was kind of a nexus to the next topic, and… SBSD Helpdesk: There… there is, you know, we've had ongoing concern SBSD Helpdesk: With phones on campus that, SBSD Helpdesk: The potential for students to be filmed, and then for that to be used in, either a bullying context, or just, making fun of
134another person context was… was a real thing, and we just wanted to SBSD Helpdesk: include that as a little bit of the why, one of the whys behind cell phone policy. SBSD Helpdesk: The next slide… This will show you how it's gone. SBSD Helpdesk: This is, 827 was our first day, and so that, you can see we had the bulk of the, violations. We've had 47 cell phone violations, so to speak. SBSD Helpdesk: In the opening days of school, and the most were a day when anybody could want to guess what the number one reason why students had their cell phones out on the first day. SBSD Helpdesk: All their parents? Nope, I didn't know. Nope. SBSD Helpdesk: What's most in the class? What do you think? Close, no. SBSD Helpdesk: They were either checking
135the time, or their schedule. SBSD Helpdesk: Because, SBSD Helpdesk: we printed, for the first time in a long time, every student's schedule, because previously, we would say to the students, your schedule's on PowerSchool. SBSD Helpdesk: And they could access it on their phone, or they could access it on their laptop. And… SBSD Helpdesk: like, in the lead-up to school this year, I was like, oh, we're gonna print everybody's schedule again, you know what I mean? Because that's how we obviously used to do it, when SBSD Helpdesk: Emily was. We'd go to our… mentor locations, and you'd give everybody a copy of their schedule. And so, nonetheless, that was the number one reason, was either they were checking the time, or they were checking their schedule. Didn't matter. SBSD Helpdesk: We, we took their phone, and
136then again, we processed those as first violations. And you can see it drops, it keeps going. SBSD Helpdesk: Of course, tomorrow is already on there, and you'll see that tomorrow we have none. So, like, tomorrow's gonna be our best day. But we are, by way of decree, this evening, all in favor, I don't know if we're gonna have no file violations. We'll see. So now, the next slide… SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you. He talks about the location, and… SBSD Helpdesk: This is kind of interesting. I would have assumed the cafeteria would have been higher than it is going in, and, but the library is… is the highest, location, and so shout out to the librarian, because… SBSD Helpdesk: She's new to our school community, she's especially new to me, she started middle of last year. But
137she's a real relationship person, and she's amazing. And we're, like. SBSD Helpdesk: giving her the cheerleading, like, just do it, you can do it, just, you know, like, just keep sending them, keep sending them, we know it's a pain, you know, don't worry. And the kids, again, when they come down after they've been said there, like, you know, it's… it's… they understand, and I'm going to come back to some of the reasons for this later, but they're like, we know, we know, trust me, we know, we've heard. And so they'll… SBSD Helpdesk: I'll pop it in there. And, you'll also notice that, you know, we've only had 10, violations from the classroom. SBSD Helpdesk: That's not a surprise to me. That kind of tracks with last year. Last year, there were no cell phones in,
138academic environments, but they were permitted in library hallways, cafeterias, and so, SBSD Helpdesk: Even though our students spend most of their day in their classrooms, obviously, it doesn't surprise me that that is a place where there's not been a lot of violations, and also, obviously, they're engaged in instruction and learning a lot, so it's like. SBSD Helpdesk: It's not… it's not a time that we might try to sneak a Pikachu from Everett, I think. SBSD Helpdesk: And then the next slide just talks about first, first to second. You know, I can promise you that first violations will go down, because the 45 students that have had first violations will never have another first violation. And so, we've had two second violations, and obviously those SBSD Helpdesk: Resulted in someone from home coming in to pick
139up the phone, and SBSD Helpdesk: you know, that… that's a… that's a pretty small sample size. However, as you would expect, families, when they have time, they're… they're like, we got, we got it, we're gonna talk, this is, you know, we've already talked, and SBSD Helpdesk: And it's good, you know, it's not… it just feels like, that partnership is really, SBSD Helpdesk: transparent, and the students understand that that's what's gonna happen. The next slide is, by grade level. SBSD Helpdesk: And this… SBSD Helpdesk: is… there's some interesting points here. I think, one, the 9th grade being the lowest is not a surprise to us. Typically, actually, when it comes to school policy, SBSD Helpdesk: interactions with the school policy. The 9th graders kind of lead the field. However, in this case, they're coming from Tuttle
140and other middle schools that have had pretty restrictive cell phone, policies in place already, and so shout out to the, Tuttle staff, because SBSD Helpdesk: You know, obviously about 80% of our Grade 9 students come from Tuttle. SBSD Helpdesk: And also, students on their way in from other middle schools seem to have experienced, more restrictive cell phone environments there, and they're less there in 9th grade, and they're… SBSD Helpdesk: At least in terms of this. SBSD Helpdesk: We definitely want to stay out of the assistant principal's office, etc. So then. SBSD Helpdesk: And the… the juniors and the seniors like that, again, most of those were, what… not what I would call, like, SBSD Helpdesk: They're typical reasons that people use cell phones for, mostly convenience, time, schedule, Checking the Yankees score, whatever. SBSD Helpdesk:
141There was, I think, was it the Champions League draw? Yeah, so, like, it was like, we gotta get the Champions League draw on the TV, because there's, there's a high level of interest, so things like that. Keep the incidents down, but… Yeah, you don't want David's pulling away, but we're gonna do it, that's the other thing. There's no… and this is something that, we'll talk a little bit about. SBSD Helpdesk: But, when it comes to, SBSD Helpdesk: you know, the teaching faculty and then other staff on campuses, everybody's like, we're not gonna do the convenient thing. Like, you know, you're late for… I'm rushing to class, I have 2 minutes to get there, I… or I gotta run to the copier because… SBSD Helpdesk: I grabbed the wrong handouts, and I gotta get the right
142ones, and I see a student with a cell phone, and I'm just gonna pretend I don't see it. We're not doing it. And so, it's… and there's some… there's some challenges within that, because, you know, it's a big school, there's 850 students, and not every SBSD Helpdesk: staff member knows every student, and so there's a lot of relationships there, and… and typically when… SBSD Helpdesk: you're in an interaction with a student, we lean heavily on relationships in terms of the first step in processing any type of situation where we're trying to manage students. If that relationship is active, it can be a little tricky, but so far. SBSD Helpdesk: So far, so good, and… SBSD Helpdesk: the… the teachers have the ability to really just be like, hey, I'm just doing my job, you know
143what I mean? Like, this is my job. You kind of know, like, this is my role, you know, I'm Tom, you're Jerry, whatever, like, we're all playing our part, and I have to do this, you know? And so… SBSD Helpdesk: The other thing that I think is important to mention, and this SBSD Helpdesk: parallels both our, our drug and alcohol policy, as well as, our policy related to tobacco, nicotine, vaping, things like that, is that, we loop in our prevention coordinator. There, there is developing science relative to actual technological technology addiction. SBSD Helpdesk: And for some students, like, we don't want to just completely dismiss that as something that they may be challenged by, and so any student that has a second violation. SBSD Helpdesk: We loop in our prevention coordinator by way of referral.
144His name is Gar Smith. He's… SBSD Helpdesk: excellent at his job, he's really well thought up in the student community, and he'll make sure that he talks to the student, and if it is something that the student is like, look, I'm really… I'm having a hard time with this, I'm experiencing some, like, generalized anxiety when I can't shut up my phone, whatever, then that's a confidential process that he'll work through with that student and family. SBSD Helpdesk: We do have also some allowable exceptions within, either by way of 504 plan documentation, so, for example, some students who are, type 1 diabetic, they may use some, SBSD Helpdesk: technology that helps them manage their insulin and blood sugar levels, that's fine. Like, those students are known to their teachers and staff and whatnot, and I've had
145a couple of other one-off SBSD Helpdesk: conversations with, people relative to physical health. There's no real science that talks about, mental health being supported by, technology, and so we are, SBSD Helpdesk: we have not really experienced, any recommendations from mental health professionals that, allowing for a student to have a cell phone is, like, an appropriate coping mechanism for some type of, mental health or, localized or generalized anxiety challenge that they're facing. So. SBSD Helpdesk: That has not, been something that has come up for us, and I was not expecting that it will. SBSD Helpdesk: And this, again, this kind of reiterates some of the data that was on the deck, the rest of the slide. SBSD Helpdesk: In every case, first offense, second offense, third… well, second offense, obviously, the families are coming to the
146school to get the phone, and third offense, there's a meeting, but even in the first offense, we do notify home that the phone landed in our office. And so… SBSD Helpdesk: And we've created a way to do that that shouldn't be, that shouldn't be too… SBSD Helpdesk: Are just on the two… primarily two people. SBSD Helpdesk: 2+, a little bit of me, that are really charged with implementing this. SBSD Helpdesk: So there's a little bit of automation in that, and so far, so good. SBSD Helpdesk: The final slide before I answer any questions, and I will answer any question. This is just some other points, and this is to keep in mind that even within SBSD Helpdesk: the new policy, whether it comes from, you know, influenced by Montpelier, influenced by a best-selling book, influenced
147by community expectations, all of our student management strategies are going to remain SBSD Helpdesk: Based on our… SBSD Helpdesk: And grounded in caring relationships, and reflective processes, and inclusive problem solving. So… and that extends to our entire school community. So, caring relationships with students. Ultimately, they need to know that we're not doing these things just to be jerks, we're not doing these things to be some kind of power play, we're doing these things to care about them. SBSD Helpdesk: We want them to be free from distractions, we want them to develop. SBSD Helpdesk: Healthy relationships with their peers and their, adults around them. SBSD Helpdesk: We want them to be able to go to school free of worrying, is somebody filming me when I'm giving a presentation? You know, etc. So, SBSD Helpdesk: So the
148why behind what we're doing needs to be grounded in how we interact with SBSD Helpdesk: our students. And then also the reflective processes, and that's… SBSD Helpdesk: that's, for your first offense, and even to some extent your second offense, those are conversations that happen with the student, or John's student, or Megan Hoggart, the student. And if… and if that doesn't go well, like, if we're just feeling like, man, that was a little aggressive, or… SBSD Helpdesk: That student seemed a little too upset about this, when it's really not that big a deal, whatever, that… all those things happen, and we expect will happen. SBSD Helpdesk: That might be something that we bring in the school counselor, just be like, hey, like, I had this interaction. SBSD Helpdesk: Seemed like an outsized response to this, this,
149like, run-of-the-mill cell phone virus and things like that. SBSD Helpdesk: And then… SBSD Helpdesk: we will circle back to the students and be like, hey, I've been thinking about that, have you thought about that? That didn't feel good. What's our plan for the future? And then. SBSD Helpdesk: Inclusive problem solving, you know, that's the, SBSD Helpdesk: our expectation to partner with families on this is, embedded in what we're doing with that, second violation, so to speak, and the third violation, bringing families in to help us with this. The other, SBSD Helpdesk: Groups that are included in this would be the teaching faculty, and the teaching faculty was really clear last year, at the end of the year, that, you know, this was going to be the year that we were going to take the next
150step, and, SBSD Helpdesk: And so, that was a little bit of a compact between the… whether it's, like, the school administration, the guidance staff, and the teaching faculty, like, if we're gonna do this, we gotta do it. Like, all of us, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna have each other's backs, and it was… and that has felt pretty, SBSD Helpdesk: ingrained in the, faculty community. And then finally, SBSD Helpdesk: working with the students on that, and I think this is the one that we have more room to grow. Some of this has kind of, SBSD Helpdesk: come onto us pretty fast in some ways, and I think… SBSD Helpdesk: We're looking forward to… I was talking to the student council, SBSD Helpdesk: teacher advisor today, and I was like, we've got a meeting, I
151have 3 things I want to talk to you about, and one of them is this. SBSD Helpdesk: And, I think, we're going to continue to work with the student body on this issue. And in the end, my experience right now, in just kind of man-on-the-street conversations with students is that they get, you know, they understand. You know, we know what's going on, we know what the expectations are. SBSD Helpdesk: We might not like them every moment of every day, but we know where you're coming from, you're clear, you said you're gonna do it, you're doing it, no surprise, you're predictable, Mr. Bird. SBSD Helpdesk: And I wanted to make mention of that, how we were building on last year's efforts, because, you know, I wasn't there last year, so I did not experience SBSD Helpdesk:
152The deployment of… The cell phone policy in the academic environments last year. SBSD Helpdesk: But that was successful in those environments. It didn't necessarily… like, this is a logical next step for us. SBSD Helpdesk: And I think… SBSD Helpdesk: Next year, talking about, like, dismissal to departure is the logical next step. You know, this year, we're… we're in Bell the Bell, which is slightly different than dismissal to departure, so if you happen to come by the school at, like, 8.30 in the morning, and kids have their phones out, you could be like. SBSD Helpdesk: everything Bert told us was not true. They're on their phones, look at them all. Well, it's not 9 o'clock yet, right? 9 o'clock is when it starts, you know, and so, anecdotally, I have noticed fewer phones are out, even
153at not… even during the time they're allowed to, but that's pure anecdotal. Me in the lobby, looking around. SBSD Helpdesk: But, but that's not easy. SBSD Helpdesk: And I don't, you know, I can be a little Pollyanna with, presentations like these, and I… I do, want to just let you know that it's… SBSD Helpdesk: It's not easy, and those of you who are parents know, right? Like, you've had… I'm sure… if you're a parent, and your child has a cell phone, and you say you've never been frustrated by their use and their cell phone use. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm gonna put you on a bike, because I really don't think that's… and Chris and I were laughing, because SBSD Helpdesk: I'm not gonna say which one of my kids, but… SBSD Helpdesk: I have thrown one
154of my kids' cell phones off the deck. SBSD Helpdesk: it has… you know what I mean? Right? Just, I'm like, that's it, you know? Like, I mean, that's not my best dad moment, but, you know, we… it can be frustrating. It's harder than it sounds and seems, and so the people who are doing it, again, primarily John. SBSD Helpdesk: Craig and Meg Ughart, SBSD Helpdesk: they're doing a great job, and I appreciate the fact that they're taking this on, and they are both, SBSD Helpdesk: John is a… is a really, really clear finger on matters of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and I would rather he be focusing on that than, being the cell phone guy. And… and Meg Hogart is a… is a, SBSD Helpdesk: school counselor background, and has all sorts of knowledge and
155experience relative to that, and I would rather she focus on that than be this, you know, be the self-help person, but this is what we're doing, and SBSD Helpdesk: And we have had, you know, we have had a decrease in staff that would… the people who would typically assist in an effort like this, so it's a… it's like… SBSD Helpdesk: It's quite literally doing more with less. SBSD Helpdesk: And, I think that that, warrants, being mentioned. SBSD Helpdesk: The last, SBSD Helpdesk: I do think… I don't think the legislation… sorry, Representative Burkhardt, I don't think the legislation really, helped as… but the coverage of the legislation, so shout out to the media, I'm going to say something good about the media, that really did help, because SBSD Helpdesk: Almost every student had heard about it.
156SBSD Helpdesk: had heard that there was a law, and I'm not gonna… like, that just… that did make it a little easier in terms of the why, SBSD Helpdesk: And so, I do, appreciate that that happened. And also, like, shout out to the media, shout out to Jasper McGinley, who's a South Burlington High School student, who wrote an article for 7 days. If you haven't seen it. SBSD Helpdesk: It's on, SBSD Helpdesk: well, you can look at it, look, Google it on 7 days, but, Jasper wrote a great article that, was really, balanced, and interviewed some of their peers, and, SBSD Helpdesk: And so, and Jasper was again mentioned in this week's 7 Days, in a, kind of… SBSD Helpdesk: Talking about student journalism, and SBSD Helpdesk: And so, in some ways, that also helps
157us, so that it's not like students are coming in to say, like, I had no idea this was any… was a problem. SBSD Helpdesk: And then lastly, this data collection, that was pretty, easy for us to pull together, those three slides, and we… I can provide that through the superintendent, to you all, quarterly, or at the semester, I'll come back. SBSD Helpdesk: whatever, whatever people want in terms of, I think you have more important things to do, but if, SBSD Helpdesk: if that is, your desire, I'd be more than happy to provide that kind of hard data for you, you know. And, SBSD Helpdesk: And then I'll answer any questions from any… I don't know if people want to… I just wanted to… SBSD Helpdesk: Wow. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, certainly it was an important conversation.
158I think Molman and Allie really wanted to be able to, SBSD Helpdesk: to be able to ask questions. They've been involved before, so they just… SBSD Helpdesk: I don't… again, I don't speak for you, but I… I know Allie had been involved last year at the board level, and, just wanted to ensure that you all had a chance to ask any questions, and since Allie's not here. SBSD Helpdesk: You, you get to speak for both of… both of you, if you… if you would like. One question I had… SBSD Helpdesk: why not lunch and, study all of their free blogs? I… I think that the… SBSD Helpdesk: it became… So… Only juniors and seniors have grade blocks. SBSD Helpdesk: So that… that became, from an enforcement standpoint, that made it almost impossible. So that situation
159that I described before, where it's like, the teacher's walking down the hall, doesn't really know the student. Now the calculus includes, wait, is this a junior or a senior? I think that is a junior. Okay, they can have their phone, you know what I mean? So that was a little bit of… SBSD Helpdesk: Like, playing out the possibility of allowing for differentiation between grade levels. SBSD Helpdesk: And and, you know, it felt like in the, study halls, it felt like… there was… SBSD Helpdesk: There was nothing that a student's cell phone could help them with academically that their laptop wouldn't. SBSD Helpdesk: And then lastly, the, so, in terms of lunch. SBSD Helpdesk: We just wanted to see more students interacting with each other during lunch, and fewer students maybe disappearing it with their phones.
160SBSD Helpdesk: For whatever reason, you know, and SBSD Helpdesk: I have been to the CAF during… Now, in 9th grade, lunch, mostly, and SBSD Helpdesk: you know, it's a little louder? I don't think it's that different, but, SBSD Helpdesk: It is, it does feel like… SBSD Helpdesk: There's more conversation that's gonna… Oh, and then, if… SBSD Helpdesk: if you want to hear a fun story, I'll tell you a fun story in a minute, but the other thing that I did that I didn't mention, that I talked to teaching faculty about, is SBSD Helpdesk: I'm as bad as the kids, if that's a thing. Real… And… And, SBSD Helpdesk: We have to, teaching faculty and administration and all of the adults in the building, we have to walk this talk, because students can sniff out SBSD
161Helpdesk: phony, like, from a mile away. So if it's like, oh, I see you can have your phone out, but I can't, and then the whole, like, well, I'm important, you know, I got things going on, I mean, I'm, you know, I mean, I don't know if you know, I got a few health issues, I got aging parents, like, I do need… and I'm also the principal, I do need to be SBSD Helpdesk: breached, right? So… so… SBSD Helpdesk: So, I… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, watch this happen? You know, better flip phone. I have flip phones. And… and not only do I have a flip phone. SBSD Helpdesk: I… Did some research, and so I also have my smartphone. SBSD Helpdesk: And… SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know if you knew this, but you can forward your
162calls from your smartphone to any other, phone number. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, when I get to work in the morning, I take my smartphone, I put it on my desk, I plug it in, I push pound 73, I dial my flip phone number, and anyone who calls me on this number, it rings on my smartphone. I mean, it rings on my flip phone. SBSD Helpdesk: So, if Kristen needs me for something during the school day, I am reachable. If there's a crisis at the school, and I'm in a location that I can't get to my smartphone, I can still, use my flip phone. That's not the funny story. Go ahead. Oh, no, I just wanted to address… well. SBSD Helpdesk: Moments, comment, and SBSD Helpdesk: because I've been collecting phones for 10 years. I've been
163alone. I was… when my daughter was her freshman year, she's 24 now, when I got home one day, she said, you are all over Snapchat. I know, it's not funny. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know what happened to those videos, and what they did with them. They were manipulated. I was humiliated, and I had no… and nobody backed me, but I started collecting phones. So, as an adult, I felt that. I cannot imagine what students feel. SBSD Helpdesk: And I know, Mom and I know it's a totally reasonable request. The thing is, if you want to talk about engagement, if you look at the countries that are performing the best academically around the world, there's a cell phone ban. SBSD Helpdesk: Bam! You do not see those phones ever out. And so that is… I do
164think, because everyone just thinks they can use AI, I do really think that's a lot of what lack of engagement I'm seeing. I can just put this in the video. SBSD Helpdesk: So that… and so I also want to say, like, thank you, because it is not easy. You… we… a lot of these kids are addicted, and we are being asked to get in between their drug, and it's what it is, and them, and it's… sometimes it's really scary. SBSD Helpdesk: And kids react really, really strongly, so I do want to say thank you. So… Yeah, I mean, that's the not easy part, and also, you know, I don't know to the extent that SBSD Helpdesk: it's not too different from drugs and alcohol in the back of it. I can't tell by looking at
165a student who's interacting with one of those policies. I can't tell if SBSD Helpdesk: that… what the degree of their challenge is relative to an addiction matrix, you know what I mean? I can't. And there have been times where I've been like, I think the student really has stroke power, they've gone somewhere, and they've been assessed, and the person's like, they're okay. SBSD Helpdesk: And then I've had other students where I was like, man, this kind of feels like I'm a teenage or something, and they've been assessed. SBSD Helpdesk: And it's like, Skid has a real problem brewing. We gotta give them some support, so… SBSD Helpdesk: So, your point is a good one, and I don't want to extend the metaphor too deeply, because I think drugs and alcohol are more serious. SBSD Helpdesk:
166And… SBSD Helpdesk: Also, we can't tell, and so when you can't tell, it's like, let's just not do it. It's not… it's inconvenient, but beyond that, we're gonna be okay. And I love how you talked about the second offense, there's gonna be people roped in, so there's a problem, because I feel like it was, when I worked at the high school. SBSD Helpdesk: 15 years ago? You said then, and I don't think I even had a smartphone at that point, how you had to put your devices away when you got home in a closet and hide them. And that was, like, just the beginning of technology. Now, it's, like, so much more ingrained in our daily lives, so I really appreciate it as well, and I… and I… SBSD Helpdesk: I was wondering about, you
167said, you know, collecting data. SBSD Helpdesk: this is just… I'm just curious about, sort of, like, a non-scientific but anecdotal survey, of the student population of, like. SBSD Helpdesk: Today, and then taking it again at the end of the school year, in terms of, like, anxiety, and belonging, and, like, those kinds of things, and if that has been affected at all about not having your cell phone on you 24-7, because SBSD Helpdesk: I'd be curious about myself. If I had a school year of not having my phone, I feel like I would be a changed person, so… SBSD Helpdesk: That's just… No, it's great. I think it will be… it will be fun, retrospectively, especially, to ask the students. We have data from them that told us they were trying to reduce their screen. Like,
168we had… we have heard that from students, you know, not across the board, but to a statistician extent. SBSD Helpdesk: And our peer schools that we talked to that are, like, a year ahead of us, so schools that did what we're doing this year, last year, have told us that their students, when surveyed. SBSD Helpdesk: not, again, not to a person, but when surveyed retrospectively, provided the insight that they don't want to go back. You know what I mean? And that's usually a great, tip, you know? If we could just make it the way it was, would you want to do that? SBSD Helpdesk: different things in some of the peer schools that we talked to, and I didn't talk to them. SBSD Helpdesk: other folks may, but thanks, Dan. This is really good. SBSD
169Helpdesk: Can any other board members have questions? I have a question. So, is the flip phone a loophole? SBSD Helpdesk: Can you have a flip phone? Well, you… no, it's… you can't have a flip phone either. Okay. And because I'm a problem, because I'm as bad as the students, if I have this in my pocket, or if I have this on my desk, or whatever. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm gonna look at, like, or by habit, almost, or it's gonna be like, oh, I have to send this email quickly. Right, gotcha. And so, SBSD Helpdesk: So, for me, it just takes it out of the equation, so that's maybe what you need to know about me, but, SBSD Helpdesk: But it also… it also ensures that you… that there's access, because… But I have to be… like,
170people have to be able to reach me, like, and so that's the only reason I have… And that's all that's available… the flip phone's only available to… to use as a… as an access point. It's not… you can't hook up your emails, you can't… No. I'm mentioning it because two things happened last week. One is my son Henry bought a watch. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. An actual watch, so he's like, because that's what I use my phone for. Right. And then he also bought a flip phone. SBSD Helpdesk: And he was telling me, he's like, oh, but part of it was that he recognized that he's like, I'm on my phone too much, and he has a flip phone. He was actually planning to get, I think, get rid of a smartphone, I don't know, but…
171and he was mentioning that you had one. I'm like, is that a loophole? I don't think you're even supposed to have that at school, so… Thank you for the clarification. I mean, it's out of sight, so, like, if he has a flip phone in his pocket for some kind of emergency, or whatever he needs it for, even SBSD Helpdesk: for convenience, that's fine. The reality with the smartphone is, and I've been living at that high school long enough that I remember, like, pagers, so do you. Yeah. And, SBSD Helpdesk: And, you know, those weren't the disruption. It's when the smartphones, it's the apps that are the problem. It's not actually the connectivity as much as the apps. And so, there's… I don't have any apps on this. And, so… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, they're… SBSD Helpdesk:
172That was very good, thank you. And I would like to hear it again later. So… Yeah, and I think that's great, and I think what will be good is maybe a mid-year data, I'll provide you with the data. And then, at the end of the year, we'll come up with some real simple survey that we'll get a high response rate to. Maybe we can even look into panoramas somehow, we can ask a couple questions. SBSD Helpdesk: So the quick, funny story is, when I got the smartphone, this, I went to Verizon. Shout out to Caleb, great guy, helped me, asked me bad. Help me with the smartphone, $29. At Verizon. You have to be on the same network as your other phone. This is my phone to my person's phone. SBSD Helpdesk: My personal, and
173I got the flip phone, Caleb helped me out, nice guy. He's like, oh yeah, kids go to school, that's great, this is a good idea, whatever, let me show you how to do it. So he showed me how to do it. SBSD Helpdesk: And the last time he does, he gives me his card, he writes down his phone number on it, he's like, listen. SBSD Helpdesk: the number on the card is for this… is for this store, but my number's on the front, so you need to just call me directly. So I'm like, okay, so I'm not paying attention at this point. I grabbed the guy's phone, the car… I grab the card. SBSD Helpdesk: put it in my wallet. I get home. SBSD Helpdesk: Next day, I get to work, I'm like, oh, I
174don't know my smartphone number. Oh, fortunately, the guy has written it on the card he gave me, so I forward my phone to Caleb. My wife's calling me back. Caleb's answering the phone, and she's like, I think I'm trying to call my husband. He's like, I'm definitely not your husband. So then, somehow, they figure it out. SBSD Helpdesk: And somehow the guy calls my wife back and is like, wait a minute, is your husband the principal? Yes. He's like, I know what happened. He brought my number in and said it is. So then, I'm still in this vortex, because my wife can't get in touch with me, and she needs to tell me something. SBSD Helpdesk: So she calls John Craig, she calls Brad at the main office, and ends up talking to John Craig,
175and so I'm in a staff meeting bragging about my flip phone workaround. And John's like, you gotta hear this. He's, you know, it's Caleb from Verizon, and so… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, so at the end of that, my wife sends me a text, I finally look at my smartphone and says, yo, flip phone genius! You forwarded it to the wrong number. So I've figured that out. But, you know, in the long term, I don't know, like, I've talked to some folks about the potential for if there are some students that are really struggling, you know, could we do some kind of flip phone thing? SBSD Helpdesk: There, I'm so worried I'm not gonna… I'm gonna miss a phone call. I was like, okay, fine, it's in your tab. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, but… but you don't,
176SBSD Helpdesk: We don't need it, but I don't… I don't think we're gonna need it since things are, well, thank you very much. Thank you. Anytime. SBSD Helpdesk: I also just wanted to note the support that you mentioned, having support from the state makes your job easier, and just, like, having support from you makes the teacher's job easier. Everyone's just like, just doing my job. SBSD Helpdesk: Anytime we can say support from the state makes our job easier, we should say it. SBSD Helpdesk: Pat, you connect with Allie since she wasn't able to… Yeah, she's in my advisory, so… Perfect. I'll, thank you. I'll make her watch. SBSD Helpdesk: All the important parts. Thanks, Pat. Thank you very much. All right. All right, the next item on our agenda is agenda planning. So, I have
177the draft agenda for the September 10th meeting up here. It starts with an executive session. SBSD Helpdesk: We find that we are continuing to have to have these, both because we are in the middle of hiring a superintendent, and also because we are in the middle of two different labor negotiations. SBSD Helpdesk: Thanks again. And then the other items on the agenda, different from usual, we have an action item. SBSD Helpdesk: For the interim superintendent. The fervent hope is that we will be able to approve a superintendent contract, here. There's no guarantee. It's very important that we hire the right person. It's far more important to have the right person than to have somebody, you know. SBSD Helpdesk: Out of there. SBSD Helpdesk: Sorry, put the opinion there. And then we have Policy 2.9, third
178reading, we're not taking action on it, it's just another, reading of this. SBSD Helpdesk: Policy governance amendment. Acting Superintendent is going to, tell us about new social media restrictions, SBSD Helpdesk: Representative Burkhardt mentioned that we should definitely brief people, make sure everybody knows about the social media restrictions, SBSD Helpdesk: And that's what's on the agenda, in addition to all the normal stuff. SBSD Helpdesk: So does anybody have any agenda planning thoughts? SBSD Helpdesk: Yes. So, I only heard back from two people. Thank you, Dan and Michelle, for responding, but the one question was, should the board add to the September 10th board meeting agenda the topic of South Arlington subcommittees? SBSD Helpdesk: Which would be opportunities for the public to engage with the board in a more formalized manner on a variety of topics. SBSD
179Helpdesk: And… and then, should we add this topic to the subcommittees to the September 17th Community Forum? So, SBSD Helpdesk: it's really just trying to gauge the public's interest in forming subcommittees. And so the thought… they responded, and I'm fine with that, but that's only 3 people that are saying we should add it to the agenda, the subcommittees, which would be an opportunity to engage, just to… So the ask is, there's a concept of SBSD Helpdesk: forming committees that include community members. Yes. Right? And one idea… so the default action would be to not add it to any agenda, or not add it to the 10th and the 17th. If we don't do anything right now, it doesn't show up on the 10th and 17th. SBSD Helpdesk: One thing we could do is we could
180add it as a third discussion item to the community forum. This concept of, do you guys… tell us what kind of committees you guys want to be on. If any. If any. And then another option would be on the 10th. SBSD Helpdesk: which is next week, discuss the whole… just the concept, as a board, discuss the concept of, committee subcommittees. So is there any interest in adding any of that stuff right now? Or maybe both. Addressing out of 10, and then… Yeah, we've had committees with community members. I've run two of them. SBSD Helpdesk: So, it's not… we just form a committee, and then you ask people to join it. SBSD Helpdesk: It's not really that hard. SBSD Helpdesk: So, if we had the discussion, would it just be about, like, what we were interested
181in making those? Well, we're gonna need a budget committee, probably. Well, we shouldn't talk about the content. The question is only just, should we… should we do nothing, add nothing? SBSD Helpdesk: Right. Should we do nothing? Should we discuss it as a board? Should we discuss it as a board and talk to the community about it? Should we only talk to the community about it? So we're talking about the concept of a standing… SBSD Helpdesk: What's the difference between standing and… I asked because I probably saw the same price for… They would be particular issues. Ours was, like, the one that I did was the 5th grade. SBSD Helpdesk: So it sounds like we should discuss… so it sounds like we need to discuss this if we're gonna discuss it with the community. We first
182need to discuss the support. Mid on the 17th? SBSD Helpdesk: No, on the 10th, rather, yeah. So, on the 10th, we would add, to our discussion items, SBSD Helpdesk: concept of… Subcommittees, or committees with the public. SBSD Helpdesk: So, is that broadly acceptable to people? SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. Yeah, I mean, and I think part of it is, I mean, there may have been committees in the past that started and ended. Is it about the content? Yeah, no, I mean, yeah. Yeah, we'll just talk about it. Yes, there have been. SBSD Helpdesk: And that's public knowledge. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, great, so we'll add that. SBSD Helpdesk: Are there any changes, Superintendent, anything that you want to add to this? SBSD Helpdesk: I don't think so, I went over the… went over the agenda, and I think…
183What? SBSD Helpdesk: Importantly tab, nurse. SBSD Helpdesk: The one thing I will say is I know Delina and Kristen and I met this week, and I think she took that and put it into the different format also, so just keep that in mind. SBSD Helpdesk: She moved things over to the other format, which has the check marks and SBSD Helpdesk: So… I'm gonna show that. I'm gonna show that because that is related to… Gotcha. SBSD Helpdesk: Did she, but she sent you the link to it? SBSD Helpdesk: I think one of the things that we wanted to make sure that SBSD Helpdesk: we were talking about was the 2.9, and SBSD Helpdesk: how discussion items would be discussed by, yeah. Yeah. So let me share out. So, what we were just viewing was the September
18410th agenda in the traditional format. SBSD Helpdesk: And then here is the same agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: But with a different format. SBSD Helpdesk: And there's things… I mean, this is working, this is a draft, right? There's some comments that are in there. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, the one issue, as Kristen was just saying, we put in there, at the discretion of the board chair, the public may also have the opportunity to comment prior to decide action being taken on an item. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I think we just need some clarity regarding when the public can weigh in. SBSD Helpdesk: Same thing. SBSD Helpdesk: Just saying, this is not intended, like… SBSD Helpdesk: No, just… this is the format that we're looking for. Okay, right, right. I think what we should do here is not discuss
185the problems or good things about this, but I think that what I should do is… SBSD Helpdesk: Received feedback from all the board members about whether they think that we're ready to adopt this new SBSD Helpdesk: format as is, and, so if you would all send me an email about that, or with your concerns, and then, not to the whole board, just to me, and then, we'll move forward from there. But I just wanted to contrast that for the… SBSD Helpdesk: for everybody. So, for now, we're still using… SBSD Helpdesk: This, and what we've said is that we're going to add one discussion item. SBSD Helpdesk: So, any other thoughts? What about… Jared, will you add that question that you just asked that we didn't answer about the agenda? SBSD Helpdesk: to when you respond,
186Seamus, do we need to re-clarify it? SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, the question… About when people can talk. Yeah, okay. SBSD Helpdesk: I think… SBSD Helpdesk: it'll depend on… I think it has a lot to do with 2.9 and when, so I don't know if you're ready SBSD Helpdesk: to do that yet, because you'd have to adopt 2.9, or choose not to adopt 2.9. So, just for clarity, I'm not sure you can answer that question yet. SBSD Helpdesk: Perhaps you can. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so no, no more additions. Is there any, any thoughts about September 17th, Community Forum. SBSD Helpdesk: Again, we probably need to start, letting the community know about that, because, and, and… SBSD Helpdesk: We've only got two topics on the agenda right now. I think that's fine. I mean, I think our biggest
187goal is the superintendent and that person may have some ideas. SBSD Helpdesk: So, because I've had to call for the rest of the day, because we're not… SBSD Helpdesk: Anything else related to agenda planning before we move on? SBSD Helpdesk: Right. SBSD Helpdesk: So, the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: So I had… in addition to that, I just wanted to let you all know that Jennifer Zamora has resigned from, being the French teacher, at Tuttle Middle School, their last day being September 12th. SBSD Helpdesk: And Ryan McCormick, who was on a previous agenda, he opted not to sign his contract, so those are two pieces of information for you all to have. SBSD Helpdesk: Typically, we put those on, SBSD Helpdesk: The other, parts to the consent agenda are
188the approval minutes. SBSD Helpdesk: Sort of, you know, the 13th through the 20th minutes. SBSD Helpdesk: And then, do we, I also have to do this last time. Delete, take a promotion. SBSD Helpdesk: Where I list out the AP orders. The AP orders that we need to take action on is what we would want to talk about, which are the… the Vermont Mechanical, and because it's over 50,000. SBSD Helpdesk: And those are for the walk-in freezers. SBSD Helpdesk: At Chamberlain and up of Marcotte, so, that's what the check is for them, for… SBSD Helpdesk: Board approval for ground mechanical. So that, that is an action item. SBSD Helpdesk: Any questions on anything? SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, the orders, or the minutes. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright. So, I would entertain a motion to approve the check to Vermont
189Mechanical, the amount of $69,648.04. SBSD Helpdesk: I'll move. SBSD Helpdesk: What a second. SBSD Helpdesk: Second. SBSD Helpdesk: Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? Aye. All right, and then… You also want to just approve amendments for August 13th and August. Right, and I can just do the entire… Yeah, absolutely. And then I would entertain a motion to… SBSD Helpdesk: That's the Senate agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: You'll have a second. SBSD Helpdesk: Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? No, it's aye. Aye. Great. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, well, with that, we are just sometimes. SBSD Helpdesk: I would entertain a motion to adjourn the, meeting. SBSD Helpdesk: promoted Germany. SBSD Helpdesk: Next slide. Alright, any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: All those in favor? Aye. All right, adjourned.