February 12, 2025 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Camera: Special meeting of the Supperlington School Board to order on Wednesday, February 12, th 2025, at 6 0. 7 Pm. SBSD Camera: Agenda. Item 2 is comments from the public. SBSD Camera: And so I just want to be clear right now. Public comment is for anything that is not on the agenda. And tonight we are talking about budget information. So any budget related questions please save them, for later in the meeting. And right now is just for anything, not budget related in terms of public comment. SBSD Camera: I'm missing any framing that the board goes over. SBSD Camera: Now now is the time. Please come up to the podium state your name for the record we have. SBSD Camera: How much time do we leave for this part of public? SBSD Camera: It's still

0026, 30. So we've got a half hour and seconds. SBSD Camera: Please come up to in the room. Please come up to the podium. State your name for the record. SBSD Camera: My name is Allison may know I live in South Burlington. Thank you for the opportunity to be heard. I would like to speak on 2 topics. SBSD Camera: A time. This I am like. SBSD Camera: gonna come in real close to 3 min. SBSD Camera: I am disappointed with the direction the High School intends to take with regards to embedded honors, and I hope my feedback tonight will be helpful. SBSD Camera: I think we're all after the same result here, which is, as our mission states, a commitment to excellence in education. You have heard, overwhelming opposition to the decision to fold honors, American

003studies into an honors embedded class from students, parents, and other taxpayers. SBSD Camera: Violet, as a superintendent. It is your it is SBSD Camera: who it is you who, under Section G, 3. Of instruction in the policy handbook is responsible for the development, coordination, and evaluation of the curriculum. SBSD Camera: The section states that the superintendent shall ensure that the curriculum is consistent with the School District Mission as approved by the Board, the mission being excellence in education and challenging learning environments to parents. SBSD Camera: I ask you to reconsider this decision, and please know that I would see this as a sign of strength from the leadership team, and I think many others would agree. SBSD Camera: We've heard from many different stakeholders that embedding honors into this coursework will lessen the challenge of

004the standalone honors, learning, environment, and will detract from the community commitment to excellence in education. SBSD Camera: I want to be a positive mouthpiece for South Burlington. I know our teachers are the best, the absolute, best underscore. Let's not make their jobs harder. We know that there's a national teacher shortage. We know that there are behavior issues that are tougher than ever. And it's unreasonable for anyone to suggest that managing a classroom, this broad will not make our teachers jobs significantly harder, which will ultimately impact our students. SBSD Camera: Reconsidering this decision is an opportunity to show this community that there is a feedback loop and that our voices do matter. SBSD Camera: Second topic. I've listened to the questions and feedback about renewing Violet's contract and the significant jump in salary. Since she was

005hired SBSD Camera: I have held back from talking, because this is a personal subject, yet it is with one public interest, and I do appreciate the tremendous hours and volume of work that go into the superintendent role. SBSD Camera: However, I feel this is another moment to show good faith to this community and opt out of this race SBSD Camera: this is something prior superintendents have done during hard times. The objects are not good when you're cutting meaningful positions most meaningfully. To me. SBSD Camera: The instructional coaches who are responsible for helping teachers to implement new curriculum that has just been rolled out painstakingly, and also the elimination of Jvp. Sports and community events, such as Nike games at the High School, which I just learned may not be the case anymore. SBSD Camera: I

006will be voting to pass the budget because I do believe anything beyond these cuts will be damaging. But, Violet, I urge you to reconsider, accepting a raise not forever, but for now I would also like to see the School Board's recommendation on the superintendent's goals for the upcoming year. A lot has been said about the monitoring process, and you are doing the superintendent a disservice. If you are not soliciting feedback from her direct reports. SBSD Camera: and presenting them to her in an anonymized format that calls out common themes. Just standard process. I understand that we have a different governing body. Here I would be happy to share more with you on this process. I have personal experience with this, if that would be helpful and of interest as a school board. We elected you

007to hold the superintendent accountable to meeting the mission of our district, providing just, direct and actionable feedback on what their superintendent does well. SBSD Camera: and what she needs to do to make our district. All that it can be is the single most important work of regarding inclusion SBSD Camera: any other non budget, related columns. SBSD Camera: Hello, I am Brittany, and I'm the mother of 3 kids in the district. SBSD Camera: one who's going to high school next year. SBSD Camera: and I'm here to talk about the academic rigor that Violet you've talked about many, many times. You say you're here for academic rigor yet in good conscious you are, or how in good conscious can you then decrease SBSD Camera: specifically the honors? American. But all honors classes across the board at the

008High School? SBSD Camera: You speak to academic excellence, but I don't see the path you're laying for students. SBSD Camera: You say that the ap classes and the advanced classes are being filled, they are being filled. But when you talk to the students in those classes SBSD Camera: you find out that they're coming from different districts, or they came from rice, or they're taking online courses. And that's what I'm here to address specifically. SBSD Camera: what's happening with your equity that you speak of. I think what you mean is equality. SBSD Camera: You're making everything just the same for everybody. When this equity you're doing is causing a bigger gap. SBSD Camera: You're causing the kids who you're causing the kids who are smart SBSD Camera: and whose parents don't have the resources to fall

009and who have the resources. SBSD Camera: are are going up. They're stepping up. They're seeing this need. SBSD Camera: They're filling it with online courses. They're filling it with tutoring. SBSD Camera: They're doing everything they can. SBSD Camera: And SBSD Camera: I am one of those people now who are available to do that. But when I was in high school SBSD Camera: I would have been one of the ones who are left behind. SBSD Camera: I would have been the ones who couldn't, couldn't afford to do anything, and it really hurts SBSD Camera: to see these children, and I know they have promise. SBSD Camera: and they do not have opportunities. SBSD Camera: And it's really disheartening. SBSD Camera: And I'm speaking for them because they don't have people to do it for them. SBSD

010Camera: Oops. SBSD Camera: Yeah, they're non budget related comments. SBSD Camera: So you can. SBSD Camera: Hi. My name is Jessica Hayes, Lucas, and I've been in the 6th grade, and I also have a son who's a freshman about the honors. American class. My son is in the honors American class. He's found it to be one of the places where he can really engage and lean in and learn and be challenged, and was so sad to hear that that might that class might be changed. SBSD Camera: That the honors component will be folded into SBSD Camera: a different kind of curriculum. He would love to take more ap classes as a sophomore. He would have really loved that he would have loved more challenging classes. So this is the one that he's been able to

011hang his hat on this year, and I'd really like to echo the comments to try to keep that as it is. Thank you. SBSD Camera: Hi, Erin Sutherland. I, too, am here for the honors American like I've discussed at donuts and discussions. I think that this course has been tremendously challenging for my sophomore with dyslexia. But he is taking it, and we are trucking along, and it was available to him. SBSD Camera: I think that SBSD Camera: knowing that everybody in the school may like to take a course that is Co. Taught and meets every day, I understand that that's kind of the driving force behind, wanting to maybe pull back on the honors component of this. And I think that's not okay. I think if that's really the case, and we need to find

012a way to offer a Co. Taught SBSD Camera: American class in a similar model. That's not honors. And then to maintain what we've had for 22 years with extreme success, and kids who are just SBSD Camera: flourishing and learning so much. We're just getting a d in the class, and we're loving it. And I'm a okay with that, because it's the 1st class that he's ever taken in middle school or high school that has actually pushed him. And he has teachers there to catch him. And that is why we want to be the best, because we have that in place. And so if it's because everybody needs a chance to have a Co taught class. This is not the way to get to that. SBSD Camera: We still need to have those classes that challenge

013kits, because I'm looking at what we're doing. We're rolling that out at Tuttle right now. It's embarrassing. SBSD Camera: my son. 6th grade and my daughter in 8th grade have choices. You can take. You can learn all 50 states, or you can learn 25. Well, guess what my kids are doing. The 25. SBSD Camera: That's a drag. I get that we're trying to do differentiated instruction. That's really not how differentiate instruction was intended to be a choice. SBSD Camera: So we need to get back. Take a pause and look at what we are putting forth to our students, because we want them to take the challenge. We want a 10th grader in the class with special needs and doing the best that they can. Those teachers have never turned a student away. SBSD Camera: They

014offer office hours just like we promise SBSD Camera: you have the ability to be there. The bus is there at 8 30. So office hours is running. It's not an equity issue in that regard. I really just hope we consider a pause and maintain our excellence because we are not doing that. If we're taking away those honors classes SBSD Camera: difference. SBSD Camera: Hi, my name is Susan Mclennan. SBSD Camera: I have lived in South Burlington for South Burlington for 24 years. I have 2 teens, one who graduated from Sb. Last year, and one who's in grade 10, and I have never been to a school board meeting before. I have definitely, never spoken at a school board meeting before. SBSD Camera: Our mission here is supposed to be excellence in education and removing leveled

015classes goes squarely against this mission. SBSD Camera: The decision to move to embedded honors classes does not promote equity, honors American studies as an example is open to all students, and the FAQ. From the high school that says that there will be more access to these classes that makes no sense. It's already open to all students. There are 95 kids in this class. SBSD Camera: They have not ever turned someone away from this class. SBSD Camera: Changing to an embedded model doesn't give us great. Doesn't give the kids greater access to this class or to other honors. Classes all students can already sign up. Mark Mcfadden is one of those legendary teachers whose students will remember for them their entire lives. This is not about entirely about honors, American, or entirely about Mr. Mcfadden, but

016it's about the level of academic rigor in this high school which is deteriorating. SBSD Camera: I grew up in a very small town in Canada, with many different socioeconomic groups. SBSD Camera: and our school had multiple levels of each of the core classes and academics. Excellence stemmed from that from those public schools, in my family and in many families of many different socioeconomic levels, South Burlington must continue its proud tradition, and it must not fold its challenging classes into mediocrity. In the name of equity. My children will be finished with honors, American SBSD Camera: and any other honors classes pretty soon, but I am here for the academic future of my neighbors and for the other children of South Burlington, and I think it is a terrible decision to move to to embedded honors. Classes.

017SBSD Camera: Thank you. SBSD Camera: the other public comment. SBSD Camera: Can we unmute Lauren before I please? Lauren McBride (she/her): Hi! Hi! There! Good evening. Lauren McBride (she/her): Members of the School Board. My name is Lauren Mcbride, and I'm a parent of 2 students in the district. Lauren McBride (she/her): First, st Lauren McBride (she/her): I want to thank you for opening this meeting up and having public comment and also taking time to answer questions from the community regarding the budget. This is an important step, and I want to acknowledge the effort that to and I want to acknowledge your effort to engage. Lauren McBride (she/her): However, I have to be honest. This step comes really late in the process, particularly regarding critical decisions that have already been made. True engagement means inviting the community

018into the process before decisions are finalized, not after Lauren McBride (she/her): while I appreciate the intent, I still remain dubious. Emails raising concerns, some dating back to December, continue to remain unanswered. Lauren McBride (she/her): If outreach is met with silence, it signals that public input is not valued. Engagement is not only meaningful if it leads to action, not just explanations for past decisions. Lauren McBride (she/her): I urge you to remain curious. The work of leadership isn't about defending decisions. It's about continually questioning whether they are serving our students, staff, and community in the best way possible. Trust is built through action, and I hope to see more than just acknowledgement we really hope to see. Follow through. Thank you. SBSD Camera: Which is our Fy 26 budget communication. So Nick, could you see? SBSD Camera:

019Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for being here. I'm gonna invite some members of our administrative team to come and join us at the front for the conversation and SBSD Camera: Come on up. We might have to add a couple more chairs. I'll bring some upper. Okay. SBSD Camera: they couldn't drive. SBSD Camera: Yeah. Okay, yeah. We just walked over the mic. SBSD Camera: Just wanna do some framing of how we're hoping to organize the meeting this evening. So we've broken down the different budget topics. Nick, do you mind? Go to the next slide SBSD Camera: into separate parts, and we've allotted time for board discussion and superintendent presentation in each part, and the topics are listed for each part, and then at the end comments related to topics listed here we have a

020lot of time for, and then we'll need to move on to our next part of the meeting. So if you're here for something here, you'll be able to make your comment about this, or hopefully get your information or questions answered. Now and then we'll move on to the next. SBSD Camera: We have 3 parts that we've broken everything down into this evening. SBSD Camera: And at the beginning of each we'll have this title slide where you can see the topics that we'll be covering. SBSD Camera: We start by introducing the team. So so we, you know, we worked really hard to develop this budget. In partnership. And we so we have a team here to just share a discussion tonight and make sure that folks have all the information that they need so I'd like

021to welcome members of the team if you if you kindly just say your name and your role, and what school? So that folks know who you are and what you do. SBSD Camera: Hi! Good evening. I'm listening. SBSD Camera: I am Tim Jarvis. I'm the senior director of finance in the Central Office, and I have 2 children who are in 9th grade at the High School. SBSD Camera: Hi! I'm Monica Deroscher. I am the Director of Diversity at the University. SBSD Camera: Her name. SBSD Camera: Good evening, Suzanne Brownling, principal of Eldon Middle School. SBSD Camera: Hi, there! Olivia Kane, the principal at orchard, school SBSD Camera: lecture, board, director and student activities for the High School and Middle School SBSD Camera: Kristen Roma, the executive director of Educational support systems. SBSD Camera: Thanks for

022being here appreciate the conversation, and please feel free to, you know. Jump in at any time. If you if you, wanna you know, speak to any of these pieces. Please feel free to jump in. We want this to be conversational and and helpful. And you all have, you know, a tremendous amount of expertise, and we want to make sure we're sharing with the community. SBSD Camera: I would also like to encourage my fellow board members if at any point SBSD Camera: I like. I'm trying to make sure that I wasn't here when this meeting was conceived. And if I'm missing a part that you feel is important, please jump in. Thank you. SBSD Camera: Do you want to start? What do you want us to start? SBSD Camera: So my understanding was, the board was,

023gonna ask questions. And then the team was, gonna address those I'm happy to present or start talking through questions. If that's your preference SBSD Camera: in the link. SBSD Camera: So why don't we kind of what was your thought? SBSD Camera: Do we want to start with things that we've had SBSD Camera: much public comment. I think that'd be a great starting place. Yes, thank you. So would you like to address the pre-k changes? Yeah, I think that'd be great, absolutely. So we can address this as a team. Kristen is looking ready to roll here. Do you want to start? And I'm happy to to talk as well? SBSD Camera: Absolutely. So. I think there's been a you know, a lot of questions. Melissa is here with me as well as part of the elementary

024team. Who can SBSD Camera: talk a little bit about this? I think that part of what's been really challenging is that across the board we've had to make SBSD Camera: decisions pre, K, through 12 that are really really challenging and folks have felt like they haven't been involved in in the decision making from an administrative standpoint. We needed to make decisions early on and and so in regards to to Pre K. We looked at SBSD Camera: how to what? What our decisions were going to be in regards to cutting positions. Beth. Pelican, who is our associate director, the administrative team, Olivia Lissa, Holly, Ruel, and I all met together to talk about what our pre-k currently SBSD Camera: looks like. We talked about what precauts look like in other districts SBSD Camera: and with, in

025conjunction with with us as a team made some really hard decisions about cutting 2 classroom teachers. SBSD Camera: The question that continues to come up is, what is pre-k going to look like. And that's something that we're continuing to work on. We we know that we need to work within the parameters of of ensuring that we have the support that's needed. I know that our Pre. K teachers are really concerned. SBSD Camera: About how the restructuring and we've called it restructuring, because that's exactly what we need to do in order to think about how we're going to best support our youngest learners. We're going to have to think about this from a different perspective. SBSD Camera: And so we've been working on that as as an administrative team, and we're going to continue to work

026on that in order to support in order to support our youngest I don't know if Olivia, you or was that have anything for you or not. SBSD Camera: and no matter if there's any more specific questions. SBSD Camera: you have specific questions. I think, Kristen, you gave us a good overview. SBSD Camera: I can provide a little more information from a standpoint of looking at the data. So I want to thank, 1st of all, our elementary principals, Olivia, Lissa Holly and our pre-k associate director, Beth Peloquin, and Kristen, for you know, putting this together, and you know, bringing it forward for the budget. I know they put a tremendous amount of work into this. I wanted to provide some data to the community that was SBSD Camera: used to develop this decision. Currently, right now.

027SBSD Camera: in classroom one. We have one classroom teacher, one early childhood special educator, one speech and language pathologist and one paraeducator. We've got 2 sessions. We have 12 students in the 1st session, which is in the morning and 15 in the Pm. The licensing requirements require one staff member to every 10 students. SBSD Camera: However, when there are students with increased needs that ratio changes, and the State gives the flexibility for that to be supported by multiple staff members. And in 2 multiple students. So this classroom one has those, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 adults for 12 kids in the morning, and for 15 kids in the afternoon SBSD Camera: classroom 2 has one classroom teacher, one early childhood special educator, one speech, language pathologist, and one paraeducator. Those 4 staff members support 9

028students for the morning section and 11 students for the afternoon section. Again, the licensing requirements are is one staff member for every 10 students. And when there are additional needs, there can be multiple staff members supporting multiple SBSD Camera: students. SBSD Camera: Classroom 3 has one classroom teacher, one early childhood special educator, one speech and language pathologist and one paraeducator. The morning section has 13 students. The afternoon has 12 students. SBSD Camera: and we do still have openings. In our Pre. K classrooms. So SBSD Camera: there is currently availability. And the licensing requirements are from the Vermont child care licensing requirements. Section 6.2. That's page 84. I did link this information in some board backup documentation. So all of these questions tonight, we're going to provide some information for folks to review, so that you

029can see that, and we'll post these in the board backup SBSD Camera: materials. SBSD Camera: So I wanted to just provide that information here on actual hard numbers of enrollment which I know. The team looked at, and the team also looked at those licensing requirements, so I wanted to make sure that information was provided to the Board and community as well. SBSD Camera: Thanks, Violet, I appreciate that I was. I was thinking of the general overview at this point. And and again, I think the other piece that that you know in particular, some of our pre-k teachers have talked about is that we do have students with with varying needs and so that one to 10 is for for students, for typically developing students. And so we do need to be ensure that we're looking

030at our students across the board, and what that looks like. SBSD Camera: But those are our hard numbers. That's the information that that we have. And we're going to look at how we can best support our students. SBSD Camera: So I just have a couple of SBSD Camera: I guess more specific questions. So so we're giving up 2 pre-k teachers. Did they come out of like one out of section 1, 1 out of section 2. Or how did that work? Yeah, it's not as easy, Tim, to look at it in that respect. So so SBSD Camera: the-the-, SBSD Camera: the restructuring of of Pre K is really what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to restructure that. So pre pre K teachers, license pre-k teachers can also be special educators in

031the classroom, and they can teach as well. And so how we look at SBSD Camera: the the configurations of what next year will look like is part of that that conversation that we're having. That's how we're developing it. So so it's not as easy to say, is it that classroom teacher and that classroom teacher? It's the, you know, we have 3 classroom teachers. Currently, we have 3 classrooms. We have an outreach program. SBSD Camera: So we are losing 2 classroom teachers, 2 fantastic classroom teachers. And SBSD Camera: So we we have to restructure again. Special educators can act in that role. SBSD Camera: I don't know. Yeah. So I'm just curious when you say special educators can act in the role of the teacher. Do you mean at that point you'd have special educator acting

032as both the special educator and the teacher. So you have just one body or 2 roles potentially. But it also depends on how we, the decisions that we make in regards to what it's going to look like and how we're going to support our students. And so SBSD Camera: I I'm not trying to not provide you with the information we just. We haven't until we had the the plan that we, the the budget that we're working with? And now we're working with SBSD Camera: what's the best configuration for our students. Where's the best place to house our students? What can this all look like? Kind of the sky's the limit, and we're trying to to look at with what we have. How can we do this? And when I say, the sky's the limit, it's

033within within losing 2 classroom teachers so SBSD Camera: really important SBSD Camera: to to recognize that, to recognize that that's a significant loss. And we're looking at ways that we can continue to meet our students needs. So it may not be 3 classrooms the way it's booked this school year. So it SBSD Camera: for me to to lay that out once we have more plans, I can lay that out for you. And and again, we're we're working on it tomorrow, or you know we've we've got plans. I just don't have it already. I was just curious, because when you say when you sounded like that, that could be the the case. And so when you say we will be working on the plans or or the vice and the voice of the pregay teachers themselves.

034And these folks are going to be in this. SBSD Camera: So yeah. And I think that that so we've met. So Lisa Olivia, Beth, myself, Holly, we've we. We met with the Pre. K team. Maybe last week. Beth Pelican meets regularly with the pre-k team on Wednesdays, and is is getting their input and SBSD Camera: in full transparency. We're we're we're getting. Input and the decisions may not be the decisions that that good SBSD Camera: that everybody wants. And so that's a that's been a conversation piece as well. SBSD Camera: yeah, I imagine it will be somewhat dictated by enrollment, too, like, we have a pretty good idea of students in particular, students who are on individualized educational plans. We haven't. We have a good estimate of those students. We also have a good understanding

035of their need. And so when our pre-k teachers are advocating. SBSD Camera: that's why they're advocating for that and SBSD Camera: we also need to work within the A budget of our Pre K through 12 program. And so in looking at this, those are the decisions that SBSD Camera: that we're working with. We also have a really substantial outreach with 32 students who are in our outreach program. And and we have a special educator and a Slp who work. SBSD Camera: don't quote me on that. It. So we're we're also serving students within our- our programs outside of our our school. SBSD Camera: I want to add to a couple of pieces of information. What was I going to say now? I'm losing my train of thought. I was listening deeply to you, Kristen, on

036structure and amount of classroom time. So the morning session there's 2 sessions a day. They're 2 and a half hours each, and there is no classes on Fridays. So I wanted to make sure and SBSD Camera: so I wanted to share that information. So folks know about the structure and the timing of the support, I'll share 2, 1 more piece of information as we talk about. SBSD Camera: You know, we use the data to pop up the budget expenditures. The team and their proposal did provide information. There was an evaluation. So not only, you know, using these standards which talk about staffing requirements. They looked at students, individualized education plans, and the staffing required to support the students who are enrolled in the class. We will always attend those that's important. SBSD Camera: And there

037was an evaluation performed of our area districts and their pre-k programs and their staffing as well. SBSD Camera: Any other information the board wants to hear regarding pre-k! SBSD Camera: That's good. Thank you. Thanks. SBSD Camera: No, that was helpful recent time. SBSD Camera: Oh, we're not. I'm looking at the wrong slide. I'm sorry. SBSD Camera: I just one question here. This is sort of a general question, I guess, for SBSD Camera: or Violet. So we have district office changes here. And I. And this question would probably come up in any part. But SBSD Camera: is we? There's been a lot of concern from the from the community, and and insistence that we talk about administrative positions. First, st right? So I'm wondering if we can clarify. What's an actual administrative position versus something that's

038district wide versus something that's just excuse me, Central Office, because it's I think it's important that we clarify that distinction. SBSD Camera: Happy to do that. Yeah. So the district has 3 groups of union unionized members. The administrators who are the principals, assistant principals, and the Athletics Director are part of a Union. That collective bargaining agreement has a language. I think it's 9.2 is the section which refers to the the SBSD Camera: fact that administrate this administrative bargaining team cannot be reduced SBSD Camera: unless there is a budget fail. It specifies that numbers of days cannot be reduced as well. So those are. That is some contractual information related to that team of our senior leadership team. We have central office administrators, and those administrators are not unionized. It is SBSD Camera: Monica Derosiers, director

039of diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, Social emotional learning, Kristin Romick, Executive Director of Education, Support Systems, Judy Valancourt, Executive Director of Learning, and myself and the Vermont Labor Board, prohibits those team members from being unionized because of our access to financial information SBSD Camera: and the Central office reductions that are proposed in the budget is the pre-k director, which is a reduction of days. That's a grant funded position through the funding source idea, B, with the idea that we would reallocate funding again. It's a reduction of 260 days to 22220 is important to take note of, because the classroom SBSD Camera: days are are one. The school calendar is 189 student days. Well, 1 80 depends on the snow days. We have 189 teacher work days. So to give you that as a marker, so that

040you can understand that this person will be here for the school year, plus days. Does. The required number of school days is 175, SBSD Camera: and we are reducing in the business office a business office consultant. We are reducing one business office staff member, a transportation coordinator, leadership role, a groundskeeper role, another district position. We are reducing the instructional technology educator. This is a district role. SBSD Camera: Which is an instructional coaching role, who supports technology integration. We're reducing 3 instructional coaches. These are district employees. However, they very much have. Are, you know, in their school based employees. SBSD Camera: Our multilingual teachers are also considered district employees because they are to be allocated, based on media test results. Right? So we're looking at. We look at data. Monica Derosiers is a running spreadsheet where

041she looks at. For instance, Meta test scores, which is a multilingual assessment. Regarding proficiency and numerous factors from reading, writing, speaking, listening. SBSD Camera: and so we staff, based on that. Coaching, has been the same last year, the last few years. We reduced instructional coaching at our high school. Of course they do have their curriculum supervisor area supervisor model. Still, there is language in the teachers, collective bargaining agreement that is tied to the curriculum area supervisor SBSD Camera: model. That language in the collective bargaining agreement states that curriculum area supervisors will teach for no more than 40% 60% of their day, and they will have each day 40% allocated to curriculum area supervisor responsibilities. SBSD Camera: They also, in the collective bargaining agreement, receive an additional 8.5% of their salary as a stipend on top

042of their salary to perform that both teacher, leadership and instructional support roles SBSD Camera: with instructional coaches at the elementary level and the instructional technology educator. There is not language in the collective bargaining agreement for teachers SBSD Camera: which requires them to be a part of the role. Again, as we look at, you know, trends of other districts in our area who are making reductions. And we're hearing calls for positions who are not classroom teachers, we are forced to evaluate these. Our elementary teams did bring this forward as SBSD Camera: a proposed recommendation based on the target numbers to achieve our tax rate. SBSD Camera: the the instructional technology education team. Was 3 last year and we reduced that to one this year. Again, I'm illustrating. These are district roles, so that the District SBSD

043Camera: Ite staff member now supports all of our 5 schools and is not singly based in one building. So the instructional coaching model is is the same where they are, they can be directed based on need. Instructional coaching is a role that really relies on relationships and knowledge of specific buildings. SBSD Camera: The, we have wonderful instructional coaches, and they have built really strong relationships with the staff SBSD Camera: that they work alongside in their buildings. The if we were to reduce, to say one instructional coach. SBSD Camera: it would be one instructional coach who's been in one building for a very long time having to rebuild relationships district wide. We know with the coaching model that we have implemented, which is the Jim Knight coaching model. It is not an effective way of doing

044this because there would be that inability to 1st of all develop relationships. SBSD Camera: But SBSD Camera: more importantly, there's the operational and logistics challenge of supporting teachers who are commonly available during their planning times, and in all of our elementary schools these are all right in those same chunks, right? Itinerants are offered at certain times of day. That's when teachers have availability during the day to work with coaches. So logistically, we would not be able to provide instructional coaching support. During those times SBSD Camera: other district reductions we have a Pbis coordinator for the district level who is based at Gertrude Chamberlain. This 0 point 2 Fte came into play during Covid it was added to provide to meet requirements of distancing and staffing. During covid we can. We rolled this 0 point 2

045Fte into the budget. SBSD Camera: and it was originally slated in the middle school. But we couldn't make the Chamberlain and Middle School schedule work with that point. 2. Obviously the structure at the middle school and our elementary buildings is significantly different. SBSD Camera: So SBSD Camera: The person who is in this role has a stipend for a Pbis site-based stipend at Chamberlain, as there is someone at the other 2 elementary schools who also are site based Pbis coordinators who are stipended. All 3 of those schools will continue to have stipended pbis support. Pbis is our elementary behavior system, and it stands for positive behaviors and intervention systems. SBSD Camera: and what we are removing is strictly the District Coordination piece. Those wonderful professionals work collaboratively together, and each support their building with similar strategies

046that are well supported by Pbis statewide. SBSD Camera: And finally, there is a district change in the school-based clerical assistance. We currently have 2.5 ftes, and we will be condensing that down to one some folks have said, Hey, Violet, why are we adding these? So in our board presentations, where we've shared, we've noted these as ads, but there's also it's a SBSD Camera: it's a net reduction of 1.5. So I wanted to provide that clarification. This. These staff will be supported through supervision and evaluation of our executive director of education support systems. SBSD Camera: And again, that one role will support district wide. What is now the work of 2 and a half ftds. SBSD Camera: so what I just sought to do was provide clarification on district based SBSD Camera: reductions. Why, there are

047district positions and some information on some of the collective bargaining reasons, and that certain decisions were made. If I can provide further clarification, let me know. SBSD Camera: So can I. Just some. I'd like to just summarize really quickly. So when we talk about administration. SBSD Camera: we have our unionized administration under the Cba right, and those are the principals, assistant principals, athletics, director. We have our, we have non unionized administrators, you and a couple of others who by law can't be unionized. We then have our central office staff SBSD Camera: right? And then we have our district based roles. SBSD Camera: Then that's instructional coaches, multilingual. They're kind of considered administrator, you know, which is only, I think, what I'm trying to clarify is when we say admin, you know, these aren't these district

048based? Roles aren't necessarily admin right? Or the only administrators in the district is the Central Office Central office administrators, Me. Special Ed. Director, curriculum, director SBSD Camera: and diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, sel director. So those 4. And then there are the 11 principals, assistant principals, athletics, director. There is district Directors, for instance, Tim Jarvis, our senior director of Finance. Tim is a member of the non-union Staff group, and he does not hold an administrative license. SBSD Camera: You can put our senior director of Hr. In that same role, not on the administrative side. These are, you know, backbone positions that prop up the work of the organization and are not on the Ed side. So you're gonna see the licensed administrators all on the educational side. The other directors we have. We have an it

049director. Our Jean Marie Clark, our operations director. SBSD Camera: And again, those folks are maintaining the the fiscal, clerical, operational sides of the district where the licensed folks are education. SBSD Camera: And then I guess my final point is, we also have teachers, and it sounds like we have the cast positions, and they fill somewhat of a quasi administrative role in there for some of their particular duties. Is that true? The Cas are high school staff, and they assist with curriculum, leadership, curriculum development. Looking at things like pacing common assessments. SBSD Camera: planning evaluation of student data, they make recommendations on programmatic changes, such as honors, American right, or whatever else it might be. They also conduct evaluations of teachers who are not new teachers. SBSD Camera: and they share that information with high school

050building administrators who then complete evaluations. They are their curriculum area supervisors are both teacher leaders and curriculum instructional leaders. SBSD Camera: It's it's almost like a department head model, only far more support than a traditional department head. And certainly they have 40% of each day to provide that ongoing support to the departments SBSD Camera: and the sorry. The instructional coaches are not supervisory. SBSD Camera: Those are teacher positions. Okay? I think that's important. Yes, they're not supervisory, and they do not provide input on any other teachers evaluations. In fact, our our Gym night coaching model is really clear that they're not evaluative in any way, and they do not provide information to any administration on teacher performance. SBSD Camera: Thank you. And I, just, I just wanted clarification, Violet, because again, we get a lot

051of questions about that. And you know it's about talking about admin and non-student facing positions. So I just wanted to make sure that the community was aware of these distinctions. So when we talk about admin, we're talking about a very specific thing. Yeah, I'm happy to provide this clarification, and to speak to the issue, too. I know that. SBSD Camera: You know, we have a lot of positions, and there's different groups and different Cbas. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to talk through this systematically. SBSD Camera: Yeah, I was, gonna say, I've consumed quite a bit of time. SBSD Camera: Okay, well, so if is there any like last board questions SBSD Camera: about these topics before we move to public comment for 10 min on these topics. SBSD Camera: because our team is here. SBSD Camera:

052would it be possible to through all 3 sections, and then do public comment at the end, just because it would require a significant amount of shifting apologies for the request and the change. I just think logistically, it would be a lot of back and forth. No, I think that's okay. Great, yeah. Thank you. SBSD Camera: Okay, so then, just to clarify, we're going to do all the public comment. We'll leave about 30 min at the end of the meeting for public comment on all topics. SBSD Camera: We move to the next silence. SBSD Camera: I'm sorry. SBSD Camera: Sure I mean let me try and see how this was. The was there. SBSD Camera: or Chelsea. Do you know, if you have something here that you have a current question. SBSD Camera: This is my 1st

053time seeing the groups here. I've got. My questions are sort of organized a little bit differently. SBSD Camera: I guess my question is, and this one is kind of near and dear to my heart. I look at the 9th grade Dean position, and having managed the Richmond Center years ago, years ago, we ended up with a lot of 9th graders for for help in that room, and I think this idea was floated even 30 years ago. I'm wondering this is hard to see. Go, and I understand. Are there any plans in place to potentially support 9th graders in particular, or we just kind of losing that support at this point. SBSD Camera: Great question. So we don't have You know anyone from the high school here. But you know, if anyone on the panel wants

054to speak to this, you know, feel free to jump in. What's that? Is? Jc, on? Yeah. Oh, awesome, fantastic. Jc, do you wanna can you hear me? Okay? SBSD Camera: 300. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): I can. Can you hear me? SBSD Camera: Yes, thank you so much for being here. So, folks, we've got acting principal, Mr. Craig, on the call. Thank you so much for being here, and we have a question regarding the loss of our 9th grade Dean position. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Yep, I'm sorry I'm not there in person. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): It's a John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): like, Tim suggested. It's a pretty significant reduction in our support for not just 9th graders. But John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): students who work

055with our current 9th grade, Dean, develop a pretty long, lasting relationship with her and John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): so it it's gonna be a reduction that's gonna be felt pretty hard throughout the school in terms of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): next steps. It will be John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): taking her responsibilities and splitting it between the 2 assistant principals, and also looking at our school counseling team and our school-based clinicians to help support students in their transition from middle school to high school. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): and then, with, you know, with the added responsibilities on the assistant principals, you know, that will have a trickle down effect into some of the things that they are able to do and support in terms of John Craig, SBHS

056Acting Principal (he/him): social, emotional learning and behavior. Management. SBSD Camera: Are we aware? Do other districts have a 9th grade team in place? SBSD Camera: Yeah, it's a position that is certainly in other districts around the state, Suzanne, you look. I don't want to put you on the spot. A specific 9th grade at Essex westward. Any other folks want to chime in. SBSD Camera: I can. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Burlington, Burlington High School does as well. SBSD Camera: Yeah, there are. There are schools around the State that do have the 9th grade, Dean, and there's a reason for that. Jc, correct me if I'm wrong. But the transition from 8th to 9th grade is tremendous. SBSD Camera: And moving from a middle school model to high school model and moving towards that independence.

057So SBSD Camera: having that support really really helps students who would traditionally struggle next week. SBSD Camera: Alright. Now, I'm looking at Monica because we share that we both used to work at Addison Northwest, where they do not have a 9th grade. Dean. They have SBSD Camera: one principal and one Ap. Much smaller school, but wanted to just share that with that connection as you chimed in. That's 1 school where I know the answer to that question. SBSD Camera: And look, we have this the list here. I assume that the substitute coordinator is another SBSD Camera: administer, I assume that's an administrative role of some type. SBSD Camera: will those duties be then spread amongst the the system, principles and principles. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): That'll be something that we will have to.

058We're in the process of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): re-envisioning what that's gonna look like. Part of it will result in less coverage for teachers when they are out. There's there's no way around that our current substitute coordinator manage. It's not as simple as you know a sub coming in and covering just a 4th grade class for the day, but it's we plug substitutes into, you know, all 5 periods of our school day. So John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): they'll just be. It's 1 of the John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): consequences of this reduction is that though there will be less coverage in terms of teachers and students will be in study halls during those times. That being said, you know, the system principals will be working to do the best they

059can in terms of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): making those coverages happen. SBSD Camera: Melissa has incredible institutional knowledge, which is extremely beneficial to our team. Would you be willing to share? SBSD Camera: the the history on how this position came to be, what it is today, so that folks can sort of go through that, you know. Understand that process of how we got where we are. SBSD Camera: but real quick? It's a quick question. I need to step away and go to the hockey game. Can we cover? Can we pause this and do athletics quickly. Yes. Do you have time? I'm so sorry. I want to hear what you're going to say. Let's pause, Mike. Could you please just hit it with athletics. Tell us the what's going on. Yeah. So SBSD Camera:

060at the beginning year, when we're building the budget, you know, I was asked to look for some cuts within our athletic department, and just going through the numbers just trying to figure out where we could, you know, save the district some money. There were some decisions that were made around. Jpb, there was, fall cheerleading. Jb. Football, gymnastics. And what have you? As we were looking through that. So I presented those things. But as SBSD Camera: our numbers roll out because our roster size always change, people are interested in this. People are not interested in this anymore. It constantly SBSD Camera: evolves within one season and one year. So I'm always constantly looking at our numbers. I'm always constantly looking at. You know what our students are doing and what our students are thriving in. And

061I know there's a huge importance, not only to our Jv programs, but to our Jv football team and building up a football team and rebuilding a football team. SBSD Camera: We have had a co-OP with Burlington that has been very successful SBSD Camera: between our schools, between our community. We also have wine that helps out with us as well that send kids. It's just an opportunity to provide opportunities for students. And that is talking about our Jvb programs as well. We want to provide opportunities for our students. And a lot of times those students are. Our freshmen are our sophomore students that are involved. SBSD Camera: And looking at the overall budget, you know, if we're, you know, taking away the 9th grade, Dean, we're taking away some opportunities for our 9th graders to adjust

062to the high school. I felt with, you know, with our group, with our advent team in the district office that we need to find ways to get our Jvb teams back into the full, and Jv. Football SBSD Camera: and fall cheer is actually one of our up and coming sports. And it's 1 of our most diverse diverse sports teams that we have. But I want to create SBSD Camera: opportunities for those students to have a place for our sports teams and for them to excel, and what they love and what they like. So I was able to play around our budget again and find ways to save money and keep the number of 140 k. At that number, but also be able to bring in to reintroduce Jvb programs SBSD Camera: to reinduce cheer and

063Jv football to our budget and still get that target number that I was asked to hit SBSD Camera: in addition, the other piece when it comes to talking about night games, night games not so much about, you know, saving money on electricity bills. And what have you and all that stuff. It is a huge event for our communities, a huge event for our kids. They absolutely love night games. I love night games as well, too, losing the site. Supervisor positions for the fall, winter and Springs is growing. If you ask SBSD Camera: any athletic administrator, it's growing tougher and tougher for crowd control and supervision. People are saying wild things to our student athletes, to athletic directors that are supervising those games. So, having a site and a lot of times they'll have it at

064night having the site. Supervisor positions that were stipend positions were a place for someone to help me supervise large crowds. SBSD Camera: Anytime we play against Cvu. Shout out to Cvu. We're playing them in hockey tonight in the Csb cup. I think we are. Well, 7 years running away. Just a quick shout out to that team. But you know it's our. It's our rival. It's a huge game anytime that we play them, and having that extra help having that extra support has always been something that's been great, especially when you have all these supports SBSD Camera: from 3, I mean from 8 am. To 3 30. We have all these people within our building that are helping run the building. SBSD Camera: But after 3 30 is me my athletic trainer, and coaches that are

065supervising the entire building. So, having extra help, was very, very helpful for me. It was a need but to get to that target number. Those positions were cut. So it's now back on on me supervising crowd supervising games which is totally fine with me. SBSD Camera: Doing it because it still provides an opportunity for enjoyment for our kids and for our SBSD Camera: other schools. You know other schools that don't have flights. They like coming to our school and having that experience. So I want to continue that experience. And our boosters have been phenomenal in supporting our teams. And that's a huge SBSD Camera: fundraiser for them. We're selling money, I mean, so not selling money. Pretty fun, but selling food. Concession stands at the game and everything like that. It's just a huge opportunity

066for the boosters to continue to support athletics at South Burlington. There! So that's just a quick overview SBSD Camera: of athletics that my hope and my goal is to continue having Jv programs, Jv, football fall cheer and continue having night games. SBSD Camera: And if any board member wants to come, hang out and help supervise. That'd be great. Mike will need volunteers to help supervise Mike alone. He's graciously what he's saying, and I want to highlight is that Mike alone is saying that he will supervise every single night game by himself to make this work, and SBSD Camera: and I think logistically, that's not possible. So we will call on the many, you know, community members who said, we're going to volunteer to help bring these back. Because, Mike, you know, physically cannot work. You

067know, he cannot sustain that alone. So we're gonna have to look at partnerships and how we can get folks to support Mike. Because again, this is he's graciously saying, he's bringing these back by volunteering to single handedly support all of these events. SBSD Camera: And he can't. He can't. He's not. He's pretty good, but he's not omnipresent. Right? Yeah, thank you, Mike, all right. Got the ticket taker calling me, and they're looking for the cash. Thank you so much. Money, Mike. Thank you so much. Appreciate you SBSD Camera: right. SBSD Camera: Some folks have asked, you know. Is there latitude in the budget. And on some things like this. SBSD Camera: And again, we've got processes in place where we look at data to make decisions and and go from there. And Mike leads that

068process to evaluate enrollment every year. So thank you so much, Mike. SBSD Camera: Thank you for allowing that conversation to occur. We were in the middle of discussing the 9th grade, Dean and you know we're fortunate enough to have SBSD Camera: Principal Mcdonald, who is the proud principal at Rick Marcott Central School. However, she's been with our district for a long time, and the majority of her career was at the High School, and I would say she's got incredible institutional knowledge. And as we work on our budget development process, one of the things in our admin discussions that came up the other day SBSD Camera: was around sub coordination. What does that look like in each school? So at Rick Marcotte, there's a stipended person who does this. It's baked in at orchard school. It's

069baked in at Chamberlain, and it's performed by administrators, administrative staff, and some teachers or teacher leaders. Right? So it's a variety of folks who perform that at the middle school. It's also baked into Mr. Button's role. SBSD Camera: So that's something that he does within his role at the high school. It is a standalone position, and Lisa shared with the team the origin of that. And if you're you know, if you want to share any of that information that'd be helpful. Just so folks can understand. You know what we're looking at and how we got there. SBSD Camera: Okay, trying to do this quickly, because there are a lot of other SBSD Camera: positions up there. Just basically, historically, the substitute coordinator was a Para educator who for a stipend would help to organize the

070substitutes when they came into the building, and they would come in and and she would send them out to cover classes. SBSD Camera: She retired, and there was a person who was serving in sort of like an interventionist role, helping with the helping the attendance team. That person was super organized and was able to help us fill SBSD Camera: positions with. We have fewer and fewer subs coming into the into the building. So that person's organization helped us. For example, if you have a chemistry teacher out, and their schedule on that particular day is to teach the 1st block in the last block. We realized that substitute was there for the whole day. And how could we use that utilize that person? So a substitute might come in and SBSD Camera: teach those 2 chemistry

071classes? But in between then in between SBSD Camera: that time also teach an English class, and maybe teach a Japanese class, so that one person, the sub coordinator, would have all the teachers schedules and be able to plug the substitute. So the substitute does work 4 periods a day, but not just for one teacher like Mr. Craig said, if you come in to my school, you might substitute in the 3rd grade classroom all day. SBSD Camera: So that is a a position that we've been fortunate to be able to utilize, I think, since the when we came back from the pandemic, when there were so many absences right? SBSD Camera: Teachers having to be out for 5 or 10 days. The substitute coordinator was on call all the time filling holes. So like John said,

072without the substitute coordinator. Somebody has to leave in the middle of the day, and you don't have somebody available to to help pull a sub and and fill that opening. SBSD Camera: Then, students, you know, classes might have to have a study hall and be supervised in a different way. SBSD Camera: Thank you, Alyssa and I. I'm also thinking about special education. My understanding is that the curriculum area supervisor, Allie Gingris for special education does organize subs for Special Education Department and students who have individualized education plans. SBSD Camera: That's correct. SBSD Camera: Can I ask? If they're in a study hall? Presumably the teacher who's out as long as it wasn't planned. SBSD Camera: Yes, even when it's not planned absence, they would have sub plans. So a study call but could just sub

073plans still be? SBSD Camera: No. SBSD Camera: it would be a loss. But because if you have 2 teachers out that period that aren't covered in, their their students are being added to a study hall that currently exists. You get a supervisor of the study hall, and that supervisor can't take care of all of those students and teach the 2 classes that need to be SBSD Camera: copy. SBSD Camera: So that's the so pre pandemic. This was a point 5 Fte Lisa. Is that accurate? SBSD Camera: I don't mean to put you on the spot. If you don't know. I definitely don't expect that. And I I've been. I've not been there for 3 years, so I assume this person still helps with attendance. So. Yes, there's another. You know. You still have to seek

074the students who have been have been absence, and ask them why they were absent and try to develop a plan to help them come to school and attend class more regularly, so that person, when I was there, did some of that. SBSD Camera: and coordinated the subs and ensure that classes were covered. SBSD Camera: Thanks for that. Yeah. So now you have all the iterations. I appreciate the the information there. It's really helpful to have that understanding of how that position came to be what it is now. And again, you know, we know that it's baked in at 2 of the elementary schools in the middle school and stipended at one of our the other elementary school. So you have that information for each of the buildings and how that is handled. SBSD Camera: So

075I have one other question. It's about a role that I don't see listed here. But we were talking about admin before. I'm trying to be conscientious of the time, because I want to make sure it was public comment. Can I just clarify that the sub coordinator is not an admin. I think you mentioned that. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Support staff. I appreciate. Thank you for clarifying that. SBSD Camera: so and then I have one more question, but it's in the next slide. So I don't want to get to this one we're here to. We're here to discuss it. And happy to take the questions. We also want to share some celebrations about like, why, this district is supportive of kids. I want to make sure that we have a chance to do that. SBSD

076Camera: So SBSD Camera: One of the positions in the proposed budget that's garnered a lot of attention is your assistant Special education director, and I. I would SBSD Camera: not not be doing my diligence if I didn't ask about that one, so I know many in the community have questioned that, that we're adding in a role for 100 and what looks like $180,000 when we're cutting student facing positions. So I guess my question is, I want to frame it correctly is. SBSD Camera: what's the problem we're solving by adding in this district wide administrative position. So if you could identify the problem, and then and then I would say, How how is this going to work? Right? And why are we adding in just a special educator SBSD Camera: would be directly student facing. Can

077I? Can I start by requesting that our Tim Jarvis, our senior finance director, provide a cost breakdown on that. I want to make sure that that's covered. There'll be a quicker answer, and then certainly Kristen or and team can provide the rationale. What problem are we solving? Why couldn't we hire a special educator? And I know we've discussed this before. I just want to make. I think it's important in this particular meeting to SBSD Camera: to make sure we get everybody here. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes, thanks. So whenever we are adding positions. SBSD Camera: new positions. SBSD Camera: we try to be as conservative as possible, because we don't know what are the qualifications and salary requirements of the individual. SBSD Camera: And we also don't know what insurance plan they're going to select SBSD

078Camera: so we don't know if it's a young single person. We don't know if it's a person who's covering their spouse or a family. SBSD Camera: So we estimate that role with a higher number in order to ensure that we have the money in the budget to audit. SBSD Camera: I think that in retrospect we probably targeted the base salary of this person higher than necessary, and it's something that's controllable because you hire the person you want and hope to align their salary. But SBSD Camera: the the point that I think a lot of people, miss, is the district expenses associated with hiring anybody and SBSD Camera: people look at base salaries as sort of the the the number that it costs the district to hire somebody, you know, and this is akin to my

079father telling me when I was 16 years old. It cost more than just putting gas in the tank to drive a car, but in addition to the base salary there is. There. There is a lot of taxes associated with that. So SBSD Camera: you look at social security tax and unemployment tax SBSD Camera: childcare tax that the district is covering, although we don't necessarily have to. But we've decided to and that alone is over 8% of someone's base salary. SBSD Camera: In addition to that, we've shown in other board presentations the cost of insurance packages that that we that we offer our employees which are negotiated by the State SBSD Camera: and which can be in some cases more than the individual's base salary. So, in order to estimate the cost of a new employee,

080we? We assume that they are going to take the most expensive insurance package because SBSD Camera: we can't shortchange ourselves. You could take the other approach, and you could say, well, let's assume it's a young single person, and they're going to have a low salary, and they're going to take a single, you know insurance program. I don't think that's the right way to do it, because if that's not the case, then you're going to be stuck with a budget that's insufficiently friendly. SBSD Camera: Thank you, Tim. All right. So to answer is, we've gotten the the salary address in detail. And so we're now going to answer the question of what need is this position addressing? And why couldn't we hire a special educator? SBSD Camera: And whoever wants to speak to that? Or we

081can do it as a team. Jump in. Kristen's like, I know it's me I'm in the hot seat, but I'm not going to turn that back on again, so if you can't hear me is that on the Fritz it sounded like, just talk loudly, and we're recording it so it will help with, I think, the audio for SBSD Camera: great so I'm gonna try and answer this. I'm hoping that maybe some of my colleagues might step in and and help with this as well in regards to the support that's needed. You know, there's an increase in needs across the board. And in particular, we've noticed that there's a significant increase in special education, in behavior and in challenges that we've had. And I think post Covid folks have noticed that quite a bit. We currently

082have 466 students on Ieps and SBSD Camera: think got my phone here with some information. I left my paper that had all my information on it upstairs. I apologize for that. SBSD Camera: and 192 students who we serve. Through section 5, 0, 4, which is equal act is a civil rights, equal access law. But many times special educators are are needed to provide supports and services for those students as well. SBSD Camera: so the reason we need this. Have your notes? So the reason part part of the reasons for fulfilling this position, or having this position, is to ensure oversight to ensure compliance. And these are all things again, that that folks don't necessarily see as boots on the ground, and they are boots on the ground. SBSD Camera: But so so that's part of

083what this person would would need to be doing. Also collaborating with school principals, working to to develop supports and systems. When we're struggling to figure out, how are we going to support some of our really challenging students and what that might look like? It might be riding the bus. It might be you know, doing paperwork that needs to get accomplished. And that's something that SBSD Camera: that I've done this year and in in years past. It's it's things that you know. It's kind of, and other duties as assigned. The special educator. The the we've we've renamed the position. But the assistant special Ed director, is somebody who can fill SBSD Camera: all those slots. Most importantly, I think it's it's really working to support our special educators, our educational support systems folks, because that's special

084educators that's slps, that's our OTS, that's our Pts, our Vcbas it's helping provide oversight and support for all those people currently SBSD Camera: in our district. I'm the person who provides support and oversight to that. In other districts there are a director and an assistant director. In some districts there's a administrator at each level, each building. Sorry. SBSD Camera: Kristen. In the district where I live. Cvsd, there is a special Ed director in each building. They call it administrators. Yeah. So they're in each building. Overseeing special Ed to those buildings. And then they have a special Ed director, who oversees SBSD Camera: in its entirety. And my understanding is that there's also intensive special needs directors in our neighboring schools. Can you speak to that? Yeah. So I think, again, thinking about how we're supporting

085our students who have some of the highest, highest needs? It's supporting what. SBSD Camera: what programming looks like when we think about our multi tiered systems of supports, and how we're going to support all of our students. What does that look like for some of our more intensive, intensive special needs students? SBSD Camera: In thinking about in conversation with Lindland and Blackman, who is a firm that supports school districts. In variety of capacities. And has expertise in the area of special education. SBSD Camera: My understanding from Heather Lynn, senior managing partner is that this year, and only trumping last year we have had more lawsuits regarding involving special education and mediation. Kristen spends a significant amount of time in mediation with families. SBSD Camera: Times. Those are 8, 10 h sessions. SBSD Camera: I want to.

086Speak to a few things that I've seen Kristen do that are, you know, really direct service to students. In addition to these, you know, a lot of, you know, grants management. It's something that happens through this office. And submitting a significant amount of State reporting, which seems to be increasing with new administration. SBSD Camera: I have seen Kristen ride a bus with students. I have seen Kristen serve as a 1-on-one interventionist with students. SBSD Camera: I have seen Kristen accompany students in crisis to medical settings to support students when they're working with parents directly. Is this position someone who would do similar tasks? And then, maybe, you know, principals are there ways SBSD Camera: view when our special Ed director is doing things like working with an escalated student. How does that provide the opportunity

087for the schools to continue to function effectively and free up school-based administration to support as well. Because I think those are pieces, Kristen. I know that about your schedule working very closely with you, and I think those are important pieces of information to highlight. SBSD Camera: And SBSD Camera: yeah, I think that this is is going to be another person who can help serve in those in those roles. I think about we've had, you know, some SBSD Camera: expected and unexpected leaves of special educators. And so this is somebody who could potentially step in and help support those those positions. When we've had unfilled positions, the potential was, this person could also, again, I'm I'm not suggesting they can do it all and and be in every one of these positions. What I'm suggesting is

088that there's this is a way for them to help support SBSD Camera: along with some of those other things that that we've talked about in regards to compliance in regards to SBSD Camera: collaborating, collaborating with the principals hiring, you know, I think we've we've talked a little bit about our administrators are bogged down with hiring and and trying to. You know, when when folks leave the positions, interventionist positions, specialist positions. SBSD Camera: regular ed positions. It. It's really incredibly time consuming, and that takes them away from the hard work that they're doing as well. So again, the hope is that this is something that's going to support, not just special education, but also support our administrative team. SBSD Camera: For several years we've had SBSD Camera: chronic special educator vacancies, particularly at the middle school.

089Suzanne, would you be able to speak to? You know that hiring process? Why can't we hire? What are you seeing for applicants? What has that process looked like? Any of that information for the community to understand? Need to address this question, why aren't we hiring a special educator. SBSD Camera: That's the faulty mic. Let's actually perhaps we could just remove this one completely. And that way we can. We can bring this to the the old elementary teacher coming out and the music hospital at our classroom libraries. So this has to go to the It hospital. SBSD Camera: Good evening. So this is day 104 of school. So I will talk from my 104 days of experience in South Burlington, and I think you know we've we've seen this throughout. We saw this before this trend

090before the pandemic in Vermont, during the pandemic, and and as as we are in the later years here, where our pool of special educator SBSD Camera: applicants into Vermont is a very small pool. Our area colleges have really been working on boosting that boosting on dual licensing, but it remains an area where you know. Back 10 years ago you may have a whole list of applicants to look for a whole list for a variety of positions, and now we look from a very small pool, or even a pool, where you might wait SBSD Camera: weeks for an applicant to populate in the pool. And then, whether that's a viable candidate for our students or not, I can definitely speak to that, and that has been for several years in the State of Vermont, and I

091do appreciate that our partner colleges are working on helping to boost that with some some incentives into the special education field. Our special educators. SBSD Camera: Certainly the numbers that Kristen just said across our district, you know just I kind of want to hear those one more time, 400 6,466 students, entitled to additional support through an Iep, an additional, almost 200 for 5 0. Fours. And the compliance that goes with that. And you know, one thing that I did see here. SBSD Camera: but I was, I, I imagine, is is part of it is the amount of professional development needs that we have for our special educators to make sure that they have the time and support to attend professional development and the number of areas that that are really annual annual training and support

092around for special education is is pretty pretty wide SBSD Camera: and requires expertise to come in and deliver that special Edu, that that professional development for them. SBSD Camera: And certainly when we we have situations where where we, as building administrators, need additional support with expertise in special education regulations beyond our expertise. It it is important to to have some pretty immediate help to situations. SBSD Camera: Thank you. That's really helpful. SBSD Camera: Any further questions regarding this position. SBSD Camera: I have a question. I just I have. SBSD Camera: It's been very clear to me in my time on the school board. I've heard this time and again, that we have administrators and principals and people who are doing jobs that are not their job because there's such a shortage. And then we hear

093the strong message from the community don't cut student facing positions which SBSD Camera: I I deeply understand. But when we have SBSD Camera: folks not able to do their job because they're having to do student facing jobs. I think that just really shows systemically that we don't actually have enough admin, like we don't have enough support to do the work that we need to do. SBSD Camera: And I just I want to try to start to at least get the message out there. That admin is maybe not student facing, but it's student supporting and it's slack supported. So SBSD Camera: I am. Thank you for explaining all of that. And when you said like. Certainly this person won't be able to do it all, and it's I'm sitting here listening to how you attempt to

094do it all as one person so, and not not that you're not a team, but just like in your role with your duties. SBSD Camera: I just feel like that needs to be said. SBSD Camera: It's interesting work. SBSD Camera: I wanna I wanna say. SBSD Camera: you know, publicly as well. Our administrative team works incredibly hard, is incredibly dedicated and will always do whatever it takes to support students and staff SBSD Camera: around the clock. Always. And I I cannot SBSD Camera: thank them enough for their incredible work and support of our systems. It's an exceptional team of adventurers. SBSD Camera: Time check already. We just have part 3 and one question for that. We probably can answer it quickly, so I'll make sure we have SBSD Camera: I guess I wanted to ask

095about the school counselor. SBSD Camera: our high school school absent position, and because SBSD Camera: I mean, I do have. I've had a high school, or both, in high school, and I have 2 there now. And I know that they're already strapped. SBSD Camera: and so I'm just curious about what the plans are for SBSD Camera: for supporting our counselor. Ask you to speak to what the expectation of the role is to, because I don't want there to be confusion about. SBSD Camera: Could you just be very clear? Yes, I'm going to provide information pertaining to the education, quality standards and rule the rule. 2,000 series, right? And I'm speaking from a compliance perspective. And then I, jc, will will team up and he'll provide information on what this you know. SBSD Camera: The impact

096of this is because it is significant. And all of these reductions come at a cost. As you've heard SBSD Camera: the education quality standards. Section 2, 1, 2, 1, dot, 2 dot, one has staffing requirements. Student, I'm going to read directly from this requirement. Student student counseling staff shall be sufficiently filled by licensed school counselors, and other student support personnel to carry out the school's counseling service. SBSD Camera: such as guidance counselors, student assistance program counselors of which we have homeschool coordinators, which we have through the Howard center, multilingual learner coordinators, Monica Derosiers. We also have liaisons and school-based clinicians, which we also have SBSD Camera: at the elementary level. There shall be no more than 300 students per school counselor. We're in compliance and other student support personnel. To be clear. It is counselors

097and all of those other positions, from school clinicians to multilingual supports, to sap officers, homeschool coordinators who count towards that ratio SBSD Camera: schools with fewer than 300 students shall employ. That doesn't apply to the high school. So we've covered that for the elementary school at the secondary level, which is where there is a 1 0 board approved production for the fiscal year 25. At the secondary level there shall be no more than 200 students per school counselor and other student support personnel. SBSD Camera: At the High School. We have a full time. Sap. Gar. Smith. We have 5 counselors now. We will have 4 next year. We also have multilingual teachers, the district's Dei Sel director, and how many Howard School clinicians do we have at the High School? SBSD Camera: Great, so that

098it will be so let's do the math on that. That's force. And the current enrollment of the high school is 801 students next year projected to be 813. So you would need by that 4 staff members. We have Garsmith, Sap, Monica Dei, 4 school counselors, 3 saps and then in addition to SBSD Camera: I don't know. Are we drawing a distinction between school based coordinators and homeschool coordinators? SBSD Camera: Our school services. Clinicians, I think so. That is, that is twice the required staffing to support these, and I'm strictly speaking, to compliance and the education quality standards of what we must maintain. SBSD Camera: the impact, of course, is significant. And all of our students and all of these reductions, and jc, you know, can share that in detail with you. John Craig, SBHS Acting

099Principal (he/him): Hey? Can everybody hear me? SBSD Camera: Yes. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Great. Yeah, while we have all those other additional sel supports for our students. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Losing a school counselor comes with a significant impact for our students. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): this is gonna increase our caseloads for all of our John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): kids. And it's actually just to be clear. It's we'll have 3.6 counselors point 4 fte John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): that is, for our director of school counseling and John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the roles that you know, as many people know, whether it's from your own personal experience, having a school counselor or those school school counselors of your kids. The high school level. John

100Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): you know, with our younger students. It's helping them develop their schedules, making sure they're taking the courses that they need to take. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): And with our older students, it's, you know, a significant amount of post-secondary planning and our school counselors. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): It's gonna be less time because their caseloads are going to increase. And that's gonna be. It's gonna be a strain on our system for sure and our ability to be responsive to the needs of our students. And just as important, be proactive. I think it's also like, I can't not say this, but we'll be losing a a John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): a black young male school counselor, and in a time where we're trying to diversify our

101staff. In his short time at Sb, he's made a significant impact John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): on our student on our students of color. And that's going to be John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): significantly missed. So there's a bunch of levels to the impact that this particular reduction is going to have John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): on our school. SBSD Camera: Thank you. Jay Z and SBSD Camera: Jc, I appreciate you adding detail to the 4 Ftes our director of school counseling is you heard what Jc. Said. She's a cas so he's you know, sharing that information that that one fte is point 4 cas great thanks. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Right, and so she has a reduced caseload as she's overseeing all those other components of the department that

102file spoke of, whether it's our clinicians our sap. So yep. SBSD Camera: Thank you any additional questions on this particular topic. SBSD Camera: But I want to be respectful of your time, and we're supposed to go for 20 more minutes, but we still have a whole. Another part, and we said we would do 30 min of. SBSD Camera: and the celebrations which are critically important to the folks who, you know, our team came here tonight really wanting to share those. So I want to make sure that that is a part of this, you know, while we're we're having airtime to talk about some of the hard adjustments. You know, our team feels really strongly that we can share some of the reasons. Some of the ways this budget is supporting staff, and I want to make

103sure that that's SBSD Camera: part of the conversation tonight as well. When our team met yesterday. That was something we felt really strongly. We wanted to share with the community. SBSD Camera: Okay, so what's the best use of? SBSD Camera: So what's left on the Part 3. We did athletics. So we have big picture, and then the loss of the math. That's sort of what's left that hasn't been offered up. SBSD Camera: Nick, do you mind going to the next slide? SBSD Camera: Oh, okay. SBSD Camera: so let's get this. Let's do, and then move on to celebrations. Thank you so much, and we'll be mindful of time. Jc. Would you be willing to speak to math English teachers at Sbhs. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Sure John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): in

104terms of math and English reduction in math. The the main piece with that will be increased. Class sizes specifically at our math one and math 2 levels we will still be able to maintain John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): our Ap offerings in terms of the English reduction. That is, also, we'll see, increase John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): class sizes, but we are still able to maintain our Ap offerings. We'll also have to in this piece. We're in the process of figuring out, and that is John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): our literacy supports and how we will be able to provide those and in terms of Japanese that is a John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): you know, we've had declining enrollment in that program. But it's also been a really special part

105of our school, and with John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the elimination of point 8 Fte and world language, Japanese. That is elimination of the program. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): big picture has been a school within a school here at Sb. For a long time. Now we've had a partnership with Mount Mansfield in continuing that program for a number of years John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): one of the things that has been great about having big picture be part of our school is that many of the philosophies and the pedagogy that makes big picture what it is has become more part of our curriculum in terms of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): project based and independent learning. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): that being said, it's a special program, and

106it serves a really unique purpose and John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): in terms of trying to figure out ways to continue to support those students will, we will try our best whether it's through independent learning opportunities, such as John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): internships and then John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): sorry I got this and athletics. Mike already spoke to those pieces already. I think I think the last thing I'll add is, these are like pretty, significant reductions that have real impacts on John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the student experience at the high school. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): And I just want to highlight the importance of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the need for us as a community to pass this 1st budget, because I really shudder

107to think John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): what deeper cuts would look like for our students experience. SBSD Camera: Thank you. Jc, I I want to add to John Craig and his team as well as Teresa Mazza, the Curriculum Area supervisor. Who supports world languages, are SBSD Camera: really, as always, trying to support students, and have been in discussion with me about alternate, you know, models, you know. What could this look like? Is this something? Where? You know? How could we continue to maintain Japanese and and look at other reductions? So I wanted to put that out there. You know, the team is really still thinking about how to support students. SBSD Camera: And then I want to provide strictly again, financials specifics regarding the big picture program and Mou. I've had a lot of

108questions on the staffing and the cost and the mou. The memorandum of understanding with Mount Mansfield, and I want to provide those actual figures. We currently have 3 South Burlington High School students enrolled in big picture. We pay 2 staff members to run big picture. The total cost of that staffing is 242,000, and $67 SBSD Camera: we have a partnership with. We have a memorandum of understanding with not Mansfield. They have 13 students enrolled in our program. They pay us a flat rate of $84,000 annually. SBSD Camera: The tuition cost to attend South Burlington High School is $21,734. SBSD Camera: So I I think that's important information for folks to have SBSD Camera: because I've had questions on the figures. As John Craig said, our staff is dedicated to always supporting students. Independent learning opportunities

109and internships are available. We cannot replace big picture period unless there are significant changes in the funding formula. We cannot keep doing the same thing. I want to be clear. There is no replacement. However, our dedicated staff has several options SBSD Camera: and partnerships. Those range from sb explore Career Development Center bridging career, technical education, dual enrollment, aggressive Leap project Search, South Point. SBSD Camera: None of those are the same as big picture. I want to be clear, however, those are some options that we have, in addition to the traditional tracks at the high school. So I want to be there. I'm not saying those are comparable programs. I'm providing information on all of the programming available to students who attend SBSD Camera: any questions on these 3 expenditures. Yeah, I just, I think big

110picture is a phenomenal program. We heard significant testimony from students on it. So SBSD Camera: the Mmu students don't tuition into something. It's just a flat fee. So that's correct. It's a flat fee of $84,000 this year that covers 13 students. And again, our tuition rate is just under $22,000 per pupil. And it's the idea we've got 2 full-time educators is there like a ratio that we were trying to maintain of like one educator to 6 kids or 5 kids? Or what was the idea behind SBSD Camera: to enrollment has. So the enroll. The staffing has been tailored to enrollment. Big picture has changed significantly over the years with decreasing enrollment over the years. There are fewer staff members now than there have been in the past. SBSD Camera: So it's not something we could

111run with one educator. We we really need to do that it's correct. SBSD Camera: Thank you. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): I'll just. I'll just add to John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): our current. Big picture teachers have been in commerce like we care about these Mmu kids like when they're with us. There are kids, too, and we've been in conversations with their sending school, Mmu. And making sure that John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): their program for those aren't, who aren't graduating this year that they're able to continue some of the John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): great things that they're doing. SBSD Camera: Thank you for saying that. Jc, that's important. SBSD Camera: That was my last question. Actually, picture. So I appreciate it so much. SBSD Camera: Yeah, so our team

112feels it's really important to talk about. Some of the positives and heard Jc, just say, really clearly like he shudders, or he shudders to think about what would happen. You know, if there were further reductions required. And so, you know, our team has said, Hey, we want to come and share with the community some highlights. And you know, positives about this budget, how we are supporting the students in this budget. So I want to open it up to the team to to speak to that at this time SBSD Camera: I'll jump in. SBSD Camera: Okay, so I have some really exciting things that are happening simultaneously. I say I am, because I'm very excited to share. But we at Orchard School, SBSD Camera: 1st and foremost, we have a wonderful Pto who is super invested

113and orchard school. You know, we are currently in building K, 5. And really value student voice at every level. And both things I want to share tonight are really highlighting student voice, and our Pto works phenomenally with our teachers and our students to help do that. SBSD Camera: you will see in Wcax tonight that we had 5th graders interviewed because, in like the spirit of Valentine's day and just kindness week and belonging as a district goal, and also just the spirit of our school and community. We had a parent in our Pto. Speaking with her 2 students at Orchard, and brought it to the Pto. And also to other students and our art teacher to talk about. So we SBSD Camera: are setting the world record or attempting to set a world record of how

114many hearts that we can place in our entryway at Orchard school to let everybody know when they walk into our building, that they are welcomed, and that they deserve love and kindness. And I say setting, because there isn't a current world record of this. So we're going to create it. And we have had parent volunteers, family volunteers, and the great students after school SBSD Camera: tool, the past couple of days, putting together SBSD Camera: different posters to count the number of hearts we have our current enrollment, I believe, is 4, 15 students. Right now we have over 415 hearts, and that means that kindergarteners to 5th graders have been making hearts in our class and other times. With Susie Ely, who is wonderful and has been working with Rp. To do so. So we are

115not fully set up yet. But Wcx did come today, and if you see the clip it's awesome because we've got, I think, 5 5th graders who really speak and are quoted SBSD Camera: in the interview. Along with that we are simultaneously running a fundraiser because we have a extraordinary sel team. Our social emotional learning team with counselors and our Sel coach, who in the past believe it started 3 years ago, and I think it took SBSD Camera: a year or 2. And now we're fully functioning as a student leadership council for 5th graders. So they have many different subcommittees in our student Leadership council. And it's completely student driven. And so we have 2 facilitators and one of our school counselors and our Sel. Coach. SBSD Camera: But we really take the lead of the

116students, so much so that our fundraiser right now from our Humane Society Charity group, is fundraising to pie certain teachers or adults in the building in the face at an all school Assembly and their fundraising to donate to the Humane Society in winter months different things that they need so just to really special SBSD Camera: things that are happening right now that really come from our students. And that really couldn't also be done without people in our buildings and our families. So without our Sel team members having going above and beyond their job descriptions to help facilitate these things, it wouldn't be possible for it. And yeah, I just think that those are really special things that we get to take part in. And we're bringing in our community partners as well. And our students

117are leading the way for us, so. SBSD Camera: coming to Orchard, you will be bombarded with hearts as you walk in, and also a really beautiful mural that was owned chalk paint by one of our or actually several parents. SBSD Camera: Very exciting. SBSD Camera: I'll just briefly tell you about our event today, and I think you know any day that you're in the district you can catch something special going on today was a day where we are a facility that we cannot put our whole school together. In one place, we don't have risers in our our gym. We don't have the capacity, and, thanks to South Burlington High School hosting us today, our big activity as part of our spirit. Week was SBSD Camera: a winter winter carnival that went on all day long.

118I saw the smile there. Do you remember that winter? Did you open a carnival? Yeah, my little brother was awesome. So and imagine where the almost 600 students arrived at South Burlington High School for over 2 h today, where the very exciting staff students. SBSD Camera: basketball game took place with all of our students. The excitement there was musical chairs. There was just everybody in community together, you know, a feat for Spirit Week with the activities and the cooperation and the interdependence. And the 1st day of this year that we had, we had kind of random lunch. We had 6 7th and 8th graders. They just were assigned a color for their groups SBSD Camera: for the day, and it is a pretty magical place to be to see students feeling that sense of belonging. And

119I think you know one thing I look at as a building administrators. I look at what was our attendance rate going into today, we are at the height of cold and flu season. You have, you know, that almost 600 students, and we had only 31 absent today. SBSD Camera: which is which. You know that if a student could be at school today they were at school today to be in the the company and build relationships, see their their staff, their teachers in a different way. It was also wacky Wednesday as part of spirit week. Add a little creativity to it, and a really fun moment for me. Not knowing our high scores. I'm really excited to get our 5th graders that, you know. SBSD Camera: learned even more about from Principal Kane is. We also

120saw so many of the high school students peeking around the corner because they remember what it was like to be at at the basketball game for Spirit Week, and it was pretty much a a continual kind of flood of high school students just checking it out and seeing if it was, you know, as great as they remember to hang out. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): I will add that a number of students came to me this morning wanting to watch the John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): faculty student basketball game, and I had to remind them they weren't in middle school anymore. SBSD Camera: And it's a little last minute plug to the teachers. The staff won the basketball game. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Correct. SBSD Camera: John, did you want to

121plug the high school before I go. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Sure I can do. I can just say a couple of things. One is, we were happy to host the middle school, and we continue to John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): wanna John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): build the relationship across the parking lot. And it's been great working with Suzanne and Dave over the last the school year, as our students. Reps have been keeping everybody in the loop on the high school side of things. We had 2 students who were honored a couple weeks ago as Vermont 2025 Presidential scholars. Yeah, the quick update for the robotics team. We did host the John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the State Championship this past weekend, and our robotics team came in second in

122the competition, but also won an award that is kind of just as if not more impressive in terms of John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): their work leading up to it, and that was the inspire award. And that has a lot to do with the community outreach they've done, and not just building and competing with their robot. But how passionate they are about sharing John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): their love of stem with the community! We also had another student who Dave Grippo, who's a retired jazz band teacher, but he's been coming in to teach jazz band on Tuesday mornings, and I've been able to sit in with them with my trombone for this school year John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): an incredible drummer, and for the second year in a row he's

123been selected as an all State jazz band drummer, which is like a pretty big deal, especially for a 10th grade student. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): And then one other piece, just highlight, is that we had a student, Mohman Wakar, who won the 16th Annual, Vermont brain bee at Uvm, and he's going to be heading down to New Jersey to compete at the national brain bee competition, which is also just some really great things. So across the board, our students are doing really amazing things. And I say this quite often. But John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): one of the things that makes our high school. So special is the relationships that our teachers and staff John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): have with our kids and just working to make sure that all

124of our students feel seen and supported and cared for. And it's really it's pretty genuine. And if you spend any time in the high school. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): and if you spend any time in high schools in general. In general, the the vibe and the energy. At 5 50 doorst it just feels different. And and it it's a place where we really believe. And we see all of our students thrive on a daily basis. And that's because of the relationships that are at the center of our community. SBSD Camera: Yeah. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): I can keep going, but I keep bragging about the school. And I know if Patrick was watching he could. He could keep going as well. But I'll stop there. SBSD Camera: Are you sure. John

125Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Yeah, I'm good. Lisa. SBSD Camera: Central school. We also are a school that really values student voice and choice. Our students have a lot of they're able to participate in a lot of big decisions that we make at the school. I think everybody knows that we named a city street in South Burlington. Ditelio Drive is now our driveway. We just got our address. We are 61 Ditelio drive officially. SBSD Camera: We're even. I think we're on Google Maps, too. They just notified Google maps to change that. And our students. They led that effort, and it was really important to them to name a street. After a valued long time staff Member Sue Datilio. We have a great Pto. This year. We put on a circus. We're planning to do that

126again next year. That involves every single student SBSD Camera: k through 5 in learning how to to SBSD Camera: become proficient in a skill and then perform it in front of our community. Our students and Pto. And our families participated in a playground cleanup day to help our facility staff and custodians. In the summer, when we had some cleanup to do before we open the school day. Kids were painting side the the yellow SBSD Camera: strip on the corner of our sidewalks. SBSD Camera: Moms and dads were helping repair our picnic tables and paint them up, paint them, and spruce them up so that we can have a really solid school opening. We have concerts, not only our our winter concert, music, concert at our school. We also go out into the community and perform.

127We perform the last 2 years in the auditorium at the Public library SBSD Camera: last year. We also performed at Allard Square. They were booked this year on the day that we could go, but we have a really good relationship with the neighbors along Market Street and drive. SBSD Camera: My Pto. Said, listen. You should talk about academics because we are really excited about the new Ckla curriculum, which is our literacy curriculum and our school wide. SBSD Camera: delivery of illustrative math we work with not only our specialists, but our instructional coach to help our teachers be able to deliver a really solid, horizontal, and vertical curriculum. Our teachers are reporting that our students are months ahead in their skill development for both Ckla and illustrative math SBSD Camera: kids are super excited about the

128curriculum. They love learning about Greek mythology and the Renaissance and the human body. These are, you know, we're not sure if this content would be appealing to students, but they are really diving in and loving the curriculum and feeling really proud about their effort. In 4th and 5th grade we've begun to specialize. So every 4th and 5th grader they have SBSD Camera: home teacher that maybe they are literacy teacher. But then the next part of the day. They have a math teacher, a teach. These teachers specialize in content SBSD Camera: so that they can become really good at the content and the delivery of the content. Our 4th graders entered an after school experience, a math program called Prodigy, where they completed math challenges after school, and they are the State champions this month for

129the prodigy competition. They've been entered SBSD Camera: National Championship, and my math teachers say they have a really good shot at this at this national championship. So this is the 1st time this has gone public. We just found out they've got some prizes that we're going to share with 4th graders. SBSD Camera: My, my students really want to be involved in school wide decisions. So we had a little bit of a problem with our with the cafeteria. You know it's hard to supervise the cafeteria. There are a lot of students in there. Mr. Currier and I are the cafeteria supervisors because we have been short staffed in that area. And so we depended on our students to help us SBSD Camera: develop a climate that we want in our cafeteria. And this is this has

130developed into high competition for students to have jobs at the end of the cafeteria time. They want to sweep. They want to help with the compost. They want to. SBSD Camera: clear, wash the tables we've had to have use bear sticks to decide who gets to do those jobs at the end of every lunch. They are table callers. They are a door holders. We have so many jobs in the cafeteria. It is amazing to see students be so involved and care so much about their school and what goes on in around in the school. And we're developing leaders at the Central School. I could go on and on, but SBSD Camera: time is taking away, so I think that's enough for me. SBSD Camera: So this has been lovely. My face hurts from smiling, which

131is something that is a welcomed feeling. I want to share a quick shout out for Gertrude Chamberlain School, so you'll notice Principal Ruel is not here tonight, and it is because this evening is the SBSD Camera: 1st night of performance for the younger students at Chamberlain. They're having their school-wide play of finding Nemo. They don't have a space like Suzanne was saying, large enough to accommodate the full school. So they have a. The older students. 3 through 5 will come tomorrow, but tonight is opening night for students, and I also want to say that SBSD Camera: Holly has said the play will go. The show will go on tomorrow, rain or shine. So. But tonight students are as we speak when we're probably wrapping up finding Nemo and incredible work of so many people. All

132tickets are free. Each parent was given. Our guardian was given a certain 3 tickets so really exciting, and Holly wouldn't have missed this high SBSD Camera: not been for that, and she'll be doing that tomorrow night as well I want to share. I do have also a student centered celebration. I'm looking at Gracie. She's like what's coming. So my student centered shout out, is that I have a meeting on Monday with Senator Hinsdale. We're going to SBSD Camera: advocating for Budget, and Gracie is going to be joining that meeting and that call to advocate and to provide student voice, and Gracie's good friend is Senator Hinsdale's intern, and Gracie reached out to me, and she said, Hey, Violet, I know you've got this call. I'd love to be a part of it, and I want

133to just praise that SBSD Camera: that tenacity that you know drive and interest in doing this in her free time to advocate for our schools and to support our schools, and to you know what an incredible student who's gone through our system. Who says, Hey, I'm gonna reach out to my superintendent and I'm gonna get on that call because we need to make change. And I'm so just SBSD Camera: filled with pride, you know, knowing that that's who you are, and you know, could say the same thing about so many of our students. And so that's my shout out. We were just connecting over that. And so, you know, that's a that's a student center connection that's near and dear to the board. So thank you so much, Tracy. I'm looking forward to this call.

134We should do a check in prior to that. SBSD Camera: and, you know, compare notes and divide and support. That's what I call it. We don't divide and conquer. You divide and support. So that sounds real. And then I had a quick shout out, yes, I wanted to let folks know that we hired a physical therapist who was a former student. So that's really exciting. So we have a new physical therapist, and that was a former student and super excited to be a part of the South Burlington community. Again. SBSD Camera: I wanted to mention that one of our former school services. Clinicians did some training and support for our Pre K SBSD Camera: for our Pre K folks, and SBSD Camera: around play, which was I, I've heard, was amazing. Yeah, so and that

135was pretty amazing. Our k through 12 special Ed department came together and did some training with our administrators, which was a really great opportunity. I SBSD Camera: from a kids specific perspective. I was invited to go to a girls hockey team, so, as many of you might know. South Burlington unfortunately lost their girls. Hockey team! SBSD Camera: So some of our students are playing for a cohort in Burlington, and they happen to be playing at Karen's Arena, and one of the students invited me to come play. Unfortunately, when I got there the timing was later than anticipated, but she was able to share with me SBSD Camera: a video of her playing hockey. So while I didn't get to see her live playing hockey, I did get to see a video of her. My final

136shadow is, I happen to be at dinner in Middlebury, and I'm pretty sure it was through Ditelio's niece who said, Did I know about Datilio Lane drive? And she was so excited. So even in Middlebury, we're all talking about datilio drives. So anyway, those are online. SBSD Camera: I don't have a shout out, but I think that SBSD Camera: what? I'm here. There's so many from a bird's eye perspective. I see so many spaces where belonging, where we're making huge strides and belonging amongst students. And SBSD Camera: I can't help but continue to think. SBSD Camera: Strong schools being strong communities, healthy schools be healthy communities. And that's not just one moment in time. That is cyclical. And so we have generations of students moving through and doing incredible things. And we SBSD Camera: need

137to come together as a community and invest in every single one of our students. SBSD Camera: All almost 3,000 of them SBSD Camera: have unlimited features, and they deserve that. SBSD Camera: Thank you so much to our exceptional administrators and to our incredible teachers for making all of this possible every day. It is a true honor to work alongside you. SBSD Camera: Yeah, thank you. SBSD Camera: I was. I've been talking to, you know, my support systems. And I'm really tired like this has been a lot. And it's a lot of hard work and hearing some of these highlights really just helps. SBSD Camera: like, I know why I'm doing the work, but it helps to hear it. So thank you. SBSD Camera: Thank you for giving us the opportunity. SBSD Camera: Okay, are we

138ready to move on? I'm good. Yes, thank you very much. SBSD Camera: So we're gonna move to the public comment portion of this evening with SBSD Camera: scheduled 30 min. And I would like to prioritize clarifying questions 1st over statements, because the intention tonight was to clarify questions. And of course we can have budget questions and budget comments. But if you have questions, please. SBSD Camera: that's nice. SBSD Camera: Great. Thank you very much. SBSD Camera: Go ahead. Hi! My name's Brian Daniel. I'd like to start out 1st with an apology. SBSD Camera: At a recent meeting I informed people that there were procedures for superintendents, reviews. SBSD Camera: I did. I was wrong. I wronged a lot, but I do want to apologize to all of you for spreading bad information. We have enough of

139it in our society now, and I shouldn't be contributing to it. So my bad sorry I did contact the agency of education, and they set me straight. So it doesn't mean I've changed my opinions, but we can agree to disagree. Hearing the story of big picture SBSD Camera: and the Mount Mansfield students. Has there been any serious conversations with them about a serious cost, shifting? SBSD Camera: So the Mmu. So not for fiscal year 26. Mmu is in a I'm so sorry I'm speaking out of term. Yeah. So Mmu is not in a position to be able to you know. Pay that tuition rate per student. Which is why we came up with that Mmu so many years ago. So the conversation has been really around SBSD Camera: supporting those students who are currently enrolled

140in our program at Mmu. And that's where the focus has been on supporting them. As you know. Likely Mmu is facing difficult budgetary constraints as us. And for us to say, we need nearly 22,000 per. You know, 13 of your pupils is really a significant change from $84,000. SBSD Camera: Total. SBSD Camera: Too bad! The principal. There is a cousin of mine. I'll have to talk SBSD Camera: in listening to the discussion about district employees and student facing employees. I'll just say SBSD Camera: that conversation happens in any business when you start talking about reductions. It's, you know, the people who produce the work, who are seen by the clients, serve the customer, and so on. And what's behind the curtain over here that supports them and makes them able to function. I kind of

141got lost when all the names were coming out. Not names, position. Do you have an org chart somewhere SBSD Camera: on the website SBSD Camera: reach out to Karen Dancher, senior director of Hr. She's working on that. We've had, you know, some changes this year, and she's got a slide deck that has all of that information that she's finishing up just updating changes. So feel free to reach out to her and the SBSD Camera: the physical org chart is not depicted graphically at this point in time. Online. However, that's in the works. What we do have online is a full listing of all of our employees and their job descriptions. SBSD Camera: That doesn't give you the picture, though, to, you know there's 500 people there. You know, when when SBSD Camera: we looked at

142these type of decisions in our business, we took a look at okay, we're a construction company. How many carpenters, electricians, and everything else has to go because our business is slowing wasn't the same as yours. But the money wasn't coming in. It was a budget. And how many people do we need here over here? It might be interesting to the community to see SBSD Camera: what you're running and what those positions are, how they lay out, and they may get an appreciation, they may have the opposite, they may say, Oh, God, it's too much! But they may. You know, we used to do this with our field forces in both groups. Where do we cut folks? SBSD Camera: It has to happen. Yeah, I appreciate that internally. We've looked at that and we've had those

143same discussions, you know. Ratios one to 500 with school counselors, you know, at the elementary level, one to 300 high school, one to 200. So we're definitely attending to those as a full team. When I so I asked, you and I are aligned in our thinking when. SBSD Camera: I asked, why aren't these on district org charts? Some of you've heard me say publicly a lot of the work that our team has done has been evaluating the org charts of other systems. SBSD Camera: You will not find work charts on district websites in the area. It's not something that's consistent in every district. In fact, I don't know if there are others other than Burlington, so we've had to do a lot of reaching out to the districts directly to find that information. And, like

144I said, we are working on those graphics. I think you know, it is one thing to SBSD Camera: have all of the jobs listed with their descriptions. But to see what you know how they work together visually is really supportive. So that's in the works now. And again. I I appreciate. You know, that question. And and I I think that's valuable information. SBSD Camera: People who are used to looking at businesses. SBSD Camera: the flatter they see an organization the better they feel about it, especially if it's the behind the scenes. Side support admin making the place run. We used to get the question, why do we need such a big accounting department? Do you want to get paid weekly? Was the 1st response. Do we need to pay our bill that type of stuff.

145The final issue I have is a year ago I posted something about the district's insurance program, about the cost of it, not questioning cost. SBSD Camera: and my daughter followed up with Tim. Got a very prompt response. You know you buy your program from visbit. I made my living 30 years buying insurance and putting together risk programs. That's what I did. I'm not questioning visit. They've been in business for 40 years. They provide a service. SBSD Camera: The issue I have is that it's never been taken to the market. SBSD Camera: And I looked at so. And Tim, by the way, provided my daughter Carly with a lot of information. And in the market is what it'll tell you what things are worth. And I'm not questioning again their ability to do anything. SBSD Camera:

146They've been around for a long time, but the way Tim calculated it back in Fiscal 24. It was costing 584,000. Roughly for this program. SBSD Camera: looking at some of the budget detail and finding 3 line items in it that would fall in this category. The number is 700,000. So almost a 20% increase. And I'm not questioning that because the insurance market has gone haywire in the last 3 years SBSD Camera: between property and SBSD Camera: California fires and Vermont disasters. We're having them here. Property insurers are getting their money back. No question workers Comp is escalated because payrolls are SBSD Camera: but SBSD Camera: don't have a market test, and I would say to all of you if you were renovating your kitchen. And someone said, counters, cabinets, appliances, 35,000, SBSD Camera: just sign

147up in a minute. I don't think so. That's not how we think so. My, my thought is, you really need to get to the market. SBSD Camera: because if I add in 2 line items in Tim's report. We're now at 800,000. SBSD Camera: If there's a 10% savings out there, and the numbers you're talking about cutting, or sometimes, you know, single digit thousands. SBSD Camera: You got $80,000 that's out there for you. SBSD Camera: and the bottom line is visit does a good job. But 2 of the biggest districts in Chittenden County left them 10 years ago. SBSD Camera: and they didn't leave because they paid more, or their coverage was worse, or their deductibles were higher, or their service was worse. There's there's just insurance. SBSD Camera: it's out there. There are hundreds of

148companies selling it, and all you need to do is, find one with an appetite for your risk. SBSD Camera: and the savings can be significant. And in the times you're facing. SBSD Camera: I would think, a 10 to 15% reduction. If you find the right carrier work with the right agency, who has those relationships? If you found 15%, you're talking 120,000 SBSD Camera: that SBSD Camera: fill some of those gaps that you're trying to cut now. So those are my comments. I thank you for your time. SBSD Camera: 30 min is what we have a lot of reviews. SBSD Camera: You probably recognize us. We're from preschool. My name is Stephanie Duncan. I am a special educator in the preschool program. I just want to start by saying. SBSD Camera: when I interviewed for this job

149SBSD Camera: it was a very intentional choice. I had the privilege of working with families in this district for over a decade as a babysitter, as a nanny, and they are some of the best children I know, and I do not say that lightly. SBSD Camera: and that is not just. I said this in my interview. This is not just a Testament to their parents. It is a testament to the schools. And I stand by that. I, when people ask in this current climate like, Oh, are you going to stay? And I always say Yes, because I believe in this district. I believe in the work that teachers are doing just like you were saying about administration going above and beyond. I see every single day. SBSD Camera: teachers, interventionists, paraeducators, lunchroom staff going above

150and beyond to support students in a way that does not happen everywhere. And so I want to recognize, I want to start by saying, I really really feel pride in working here, and it was a very intentional choice for me to apply to this job. SBSD Camera: I had been in a job that I loved, and I probably would still be in but when this came up I knew I had to take the opportunity, and so I do feel very privileged to work in this district. SBSD Camera: I also want to acknowledge that SBSD Camera: the school didn't have an administrator at the table tonight to talk about the celebrations going on in pre-k. There are a lot of celebrations that we witness every day. They might not be as big as finding Nemo and

151naming a drive or a world record or a world record. But like we are potty training kids that we never thought were going to be potty trained by the time they went to kindergarten. And we are doing that. And we are collaborating with outside agencies to support students in a way that is SBSD Camera: so comprehensive, and what they need to be successful in moving forward in their education here. SBSD Camera: I am not one to speak up, unless I truly truly believe in what I'm saying and SBSD Camera: cutting the classroom teachers from the preschool program is a huge detriment to this district. Not only that. SBSD Camera: It's going to actually be a cost addition. When we look at moving forward like Kristen said, we have pretty good data, both historical and projected

152data about what our preschool enrollment will look like, and the support needs of students SBSD Camera: moving forward. So our current classroom model, as you pointed out, Violet is, we are well staffed in the classroom. We have a special educator, a classroom teacher, speech, language pathologist, and a Para educator. That model has professionalized the interventionist role. So we don't have interventionists. SBSD Camera: so what that means is because we have the professional level staff. We don't have that quote unquote lower level staff. We all know, interventions in Paris are SBSD Camera: in like. You cannot describe the work they do, they are so so important. I'm sorry I'm stumbling over my words. My one year old has hijacked sleep recently. So little foggy. But SBSD Camera: So we have professionalized that. So we don't have

153interventionists. But, like Kristen said, we have some pretty good data around what our classroom models consistently look like. There has been a decrease in enrollment this year in Chamberland, too, and that is directly impacted by their move from orchard to Chamberlain, and how that impacted families. SBSD Camera: But our state, our data shows we stay pretty consistent with that data in mind what we would need moving forward for interventionist support in the preschool classrooms, thinking about in reorganizing our model. We're looking at a minimum of 6 interventionists that aren't currently in the budget. SBSD Camera: the 3 interventionist positions for kindergarten that were put in the budget on January 8th were listed as a net increase of $208,238. So by doubling that we would be looking at $416,566, whereas cutting the 2 classroom teacher positions

154is a net savings of $167,000. That was what was put in the budget presentation. So SBSD Camera: a question my team has, and the team the classroom team that I work with is, would you consider SBSD Camera: looking at the numbers we know, like the board, has approved, the percentage increase and the budget, as is but, as we heard with athletics tonight, there is Wiggle room within that budget of what is cut and what is not. SBSD Camera: because keeping the classroom teachers would actually be a savings of almost $250,000. Would you consider putting that back in the budget SBSD Camera: it especially looking at if the 1st round doesn't pass? And you're looking at rework, redoing the budget in general. Yeah, yeah. So I know it's not I know. It's probably not a clear

155cut answer, but one that I feel like, yeah, and even too sorry just to add, even like conservatively like, if you said 3 like, we all agree. SBSD Camera: Admin, you guys, there will be a need for interventionist. So like a conservative number like, would you consider that? Yeah. SBSD Camera: so thank you for your questions. I wanted to start by saying, Thank you for just saying what you did about. You know your passion and love for our students and district and you know we certainly feel the same way, and are glad to have you here. The board meeting setting is not where one where we would negotiate any kind of this isn't the appropriate venue to have detailed conversation. SBSD Camera: The you know, the team of our 5 administrators who brought this decision

156forward to me has had no discussion about what you've talked about, so I have the number you numbers you've shared are not numbers that the district is familiar with or acknowledges the you know I know the you've had a lot of meetings with the pre-k director, SBSD Camera: with our special Ed director, and with the principals who have evaluated this model change. Who have, you know, in their model, reported the cost savings. Again you pointed out staffing. We have, you know I shared the information earlier. You know we have SBSD Camera: 4 and 5 teachers to support 12 or 15 students. We know the ratio is one to 10. And for students who have, you know. SBSD Camera: needs outside of that it's greater. So that's the information that's been evaluated. SBSD Camera: I do

157know that there's ongoing meetings with you all to answer your questions, and I think the team has done, you know, a good job of making sure to communicate with you. I've seen a ton of communication between the pre-k staff and various administrators SBSD Camera: pretty much daily. So again, I would say, and you know I have a meeting set up as well. So I want to reiterate that you know the district is in compliance. There is, you know, no information that has been presented to suggest the numbers that I don't know where those numbers came from that you discussed, and that. SBSD Camera: you know this information will continue to be supported outside of board meetings, but I certainly, as superintendent, am not it wouldn't. It wouldn't be appropriate for me to sit at a

158board meeting and and negotiate positions. I will say to the the Union. So when you asked about, is there flexibility? So the way the district is responsible SBSD Camera: to our Union members? That and the Union will hold the district responsible for the positions that we have discussed in the budget, whether it's additions or reductions of members of the Sbea, the Sb. And the Educational Professionals Union. So the district can't negotiate outside of that. SBSD Camera: and when we are responsible for sharing rif information with the Union, they will compare it against what we've shared, so we don't have the ability to deviate from what has been shared publicly. So we can't modify what we have communicated publicly regarding unionized positions. SBSD Camera: That's helpful information to have. Thank you, and by no means am

159I trying to like negotiate in a board meeting? It was more so, just trying to ask the question really directly, and the numbers I pulled were all from SBSD Camera: board slides. They were not something I just made up and the number of interventionists that we SBSD Camera: framed of 6 is based on the data that we have of students as well as but both historical and projected. So I I know it's in a conversation that we had with Beth. SBSD Camera: Yeah, just I can see, I think I see, where, like the breakdown in communication this year, it feels like from your experience and knowing what you're looking at, you're ahead of already figuring out like what your next year is going to look like. And I feel like at this budget level discussion.

160SBSD Camera: That's like that. Those decisions haven't been made a a good translation of what's happening. Not sure exactly what you're SBSD Camera: I'm not sure I understand. What I can say is that there has been a significant amount of attention put toward supporting questions and comments from the prepaid team and the administrative team. 5 administrators who evaluated enrollment and requirements, brought forward this recommendation with strong confidence. SBSD Camera: They they know as I support. We want to work. You know. I, the teams are going to work collaboratively together to determine what that looks like, and those are in ongoing meetings that are already happening, and not at the stable. And that's what I'm trying to just just be clear about. I just I think what I heard was. SBSD Camera: we're restructuring, and there's

161there's there's meetings like these, decisions have yet to be made in terms of, like how the actual SBSD Camera: job duties are going to be broken out. And that's just not with Budget. I oh, I think it was more about budget. So, looking at the SBSD Camera: sorry before I even jump into that, I just want to like publicly. Say, thank you to Violet and Tim for coming to our staff meeting. I think like having that presence there was really important. And I emailed Violet for a meeting, and she responded, within 24 h, and we have something on the book. So I've been, you know, critical of leadership. And I also want to give like kudos work. Kudos is you? I really appreciate it on both of you and the follow up. SBSD Camera: think, Budget

162wise. The question that we have is, you took out teachers, and it's very clear that interventionists will need to be hired, whether, like there will. Why was that not reflected SBSD Camera: in the budget. When we have students from this year who are coming in and staying. So we have data that supports that hiring. Why was that not reflected in this current budget? SBSD Camera: That, I think, is the budget question. Yes, so I'll try to address this really succinctly. And again, thank you. We want to work collaboratively, and I hope that that I think what I see is a disagreement from what you all are presenting, and the team of administrators who presented this does not see it that way. So I'm understanding or saying, this is the need. And there isn't that agreeance

163SBSD Camera: based on the staffing that is there, and the ratios that are required. I very much hear and understand your points. However, that is not the information. That's not the agreeance of everyone who is looking at this and evaluating enrollments and regulations. So I really hear you when you're saying I'm adding up numbers of what interventionist cost the team of folks who evaluated enrollment and student needs SBSD Camera: do not agree that there would be a lack of compliance or a need for 6 interventionists based on enrollment student needs ieps and the regulations. And and that's what I'm trying to say. Again, I want to be really clear. We want to work together with you. I know there's ongoing meetings set up, and and we want you to be a part of this. These

164ongoing discussions again. SBSD Camera: The other thing about you know, incoming students is, we don't have all the information on who's going to be in our programs next year. So these are conversations we're going to continue to have. SBSD Camera: We're always going to meet, you know. We said this the other day, the staff meeting, and we're always going to meet the needs of students and ieps. We have that legal requirement. So that's the the best I can provide. At this time. Cool. Yeah, I would just if you could like, as people in power here like, ask our administrators and hold them accountable for that information that would be helpful. One of my questions is SBSD Camera: So this school year we added a preschool director position. As soon as it was done I turned

165to my coworkers and said, Wow, I'm really excited for preschool. If I'm a taxpayer in the district, I'm upset. If I'm a staff member who was cut, I'm upset, how is that position funded? And is there flexibility? So I heard days were reduced. SBSD Camera: and that money is being applied elsewhere as a cost savings to the district. How is that position funded, and is there flexibility to reallocate that to more student facing opportunities? Yeah, great questions. Grant funding is something that's really up in the air right now, idea B funds a broad variety of really critical SBSD Camera: support for our entire district. We have bus drivers in this funding source. We have school. Our homeschool clinicians, Howard center. Clinicians are in this funding source to the tune of half a million dollars. And

166beyond, we have bus monitors. We have a ton of really critical staff SBSD Camera: in this grant, and we do not have the assurance from the Federal Government or the Vermont Agency education that this is going to continue to be a viable and consistent funding source. So we are very much having to look at evaluating the Admin team. You know a meeting twice this week where we're talking about grant funded positions. And you know how that is. Gonna you know what is going to happen should these change. SBSD Camera: the Vermont agency of education has been really clear with us that we can expect shrinkage in likely all of our title funds as well. We know that we have Dei grants drying up, and we have rolled those critical positions funded through grants previously into

167the fiscal year 26 budget SBSD Camera: the all grants have pretty clear parameters on what they can fund. We do know that the heavy leverage on idea B needs to be addressed. And if there are position changes, we're going to look at the positions that support students most directly. And we're going to make sure that we're in compliance. SBSD Camera: Great. Yeah, I think our team is when I think about a set like Covid. The word essential. What is an essential position? As much as it's nice to have someone as a liaison to our program. I look at the position, and I don't think that is essential in the budget situation that we're in. I think, making sure our classrooms are staffed. SBSD Camera: Whether that's interventionists or teachers to me is a priority. As

168a staff member, I like having someone. But if I'm a family and a you know student who needs that support. That's something I'm hoping you all can think about and can have like ongoing conversations about that. SBSD Camera: Yeah. And the other thing I just wanted to add to was our preschool team absorbed a lot of that job. And so when I opened the brickmark hot classroom I worked with licensing. Our classroom teachers do stars. So a lot of that position? Granted Kristen, Rome and Joe have a role in that as well, which they do because they meet more frequently with Beth than they ever, you know, met directly with us. SBSD Camera: and we also absorb that. So I think our team is standing here saying, like, we will absorb more. We will, you

169know, take on more for the district and our team. If that means SBSD Camera: having the capacity to support students. I appreciate that I had the privilege of working with a lot of really excellent pre-k teachers. You all are no exception to that. When I was the curriculum director, where I wore too many hats. There I was at Addison, Northwest, and I was the director of Learning and Technology, which was terrifying because, the whole technical piece, you know, having this Ed background. SBSD Camera: One of my greatest joys in that role was working directly with our pre-k program. And our pre-k teacher, who you probably know, because it's a small educational community. Was. She served as classroom teacher for all sections, and she's also the director of the program. It's a model we see in

170a lot of places in the State, and I think it works SBSD Camera: really effectively. So. I have good knowledge of that. How that works and appreciate that feedback. SBSD Camera: Thank you. I just wanna add, last minute. I know it seems like we're really squeaky wheels, and I just want to put out one. Yes, and 2. SBSD Camera: Our families can't be here. They're putting their kids to bed. Our kids can't be here. They're asleep. So we feel like it is our responsibility to keep showing up to advocate for our students. So thank you for SBSD Camera: be so recognizing that we feel like this is our responsibility as their advocates and teachers. That SBSD Camera: we need to try to support them in any way we can, and our team is fortunate to

171like we in the riffing process. A lot of us have seniority and we'll bump other classroom teachers out. We have dual endorsements. So I'm not even sitting here asking for my job. I will have a job. I'm just yeah here advocating for our students and our families and our program and our, you know, our district. So thank you all. And to that end, you know, I appreciate the collaboration. And and I would note that. SBSD Camera: But you know it's not. SBSD Camera: We are advocating for the same thing for all kids, and that we are not sitting on different sides of the table here, and I and I really don't want this to feel like it's a must SBSD Camera: press at board meetings. I mean, the real work is going to get done

172and collaborating together in meetings which won't be right here, right? This structure simply prohibits that collaboration and dialogue. So I'll reiterate again. You know we are on the same, on the same pizza team for all of our kids. And you know it's not. I don't want you to feel that it's necessary to come to a board meeting to have that SBSD Camera: level of collaboration, because again, we're constrained in doing so in this room, but have a greater ability to do that together as a team. SBSD Camera: So I thank you all, and I appreciate your time to being here, away from your families. And obviously, I know you're tired. It's you know, we've all been working since 7 am. So thank you so much for sharing. Thank you and Alex, and to see Tuesday.

173And whoever else wants SBSD Camera: we were going to hop in the car and drive over after the kids get on so we can meet them. Very good. You can come to my office and see my pre-k photos and my hanging on my walls. I appreciate it. SBSD Camera: Okay, any questions on my end. SBSD Camera: Okay. SBSD Camera: know, we're 41 min. SBSD Camera: I think we're doing very well. Yeah, I appreciate having the opportunity to engage in. Thanks for allowing it. SBSD Camera: Yeah, I SBSD Camera: I was sick in bed listening to our meeting last week. They did a wonderful job sharing, and I SBSD Camera: I don't know how we have more meetings, but like special meetings or information sessions. Q. And A's like this. But I feel like this is the

174piece that we've been missing. So I think that it's really, you know, board meetings are are SBSD Camera: what this? This is not a board meeting. This is a community forum, and what I would say to the board is, Have the community forums have the public engagements, you know. We have donuts and discussions, you know, like, have the listening sessions have the regular engagements that aren't the board meetings, because this is not a board meeting, as you just heard me say, we have a governance model, which is really clear about what business is discussed. We have SBSD Camera: open meeting law, and you know we have parameters about public comment when we can and can't engage, and we can't make our board meetings be our engagement opportunities, and I feel like we got to the

175place we are now, because we haven't had those robust engagement opportunities. But this is really a community forum and not a board meeting again with public comment. It's this is that is not, you know. SBSD Camera: appropriate time for the QA. So that's my SBSD Camera: you know I totally agree. I think we made that engagement, and outside of these meetings, and I know you all are committed to doing that as well, and Laura's been offering listening sessions, and you all have supported, you know, donuts discussion, and I greatly appreciate that. And I think you know, I want to acknowledge that you all are really committed to doing those engagement opportunities. I don't mean to say, you know, this isn't the time, but SBSD Camera: this venue is obviously meant to be the the business

176meeting, and not that forum. So and I really wish we do had. We did have Retn here tonight, but I will share that. Thank you to nick for SBSD Camera: recording this, and we will put it on our website. Check it out. So SBSD Camera: let's see if you raised hands. SBSD Camera: I'd just like to say, since we've had SBSD Camera: I know this is my last meeting, but I'm also going to say that since SBSD Camera: there seems to be the sense that coming here to talk about honors, American is the thing to do, and it has now happened at 3 meetings. That it's really time for the high school SBSD Camera: administration to create a public forum where those SBSD Camera: comments can be heard appropriately in an appropriate forum where someone

177can actually SBSD Camera: act on them. I agree with you, Karen. I talked to acting Principal John Craig this morning, and he and his team are working on solidifying a date. And they're going to share that information out. So appreciate that. And that is in the works. We'll share that as soon as possible. John Craig, are you still on. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Yep still here. SBSD Camera: Did you hear that? I just wanna make sure. Did you hear that comment regarding honors? American. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Yep, and we are, we're working on figuring out that date, and we'll be John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): making sure that's widely known John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): when it is, and there'll be a a good group of folks there

178from John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): the High school there to answer questions and concerns. SBSD Camera: Thank you so much. John Craig, SBHS Acting Principal (he/him): Also more than willing to continue kind of answering questions via email or phone calls leading up to it as well. SBSD Camera: Appreciate that. Thank you. SBSD Camera: This is your last meeting, and I respect your decision, and I'll be very sad. So thank you for SBSD Camera: all of the work that you've done in your short time. I hope you'll continue to reach out and support with your SBSD Camera: wonder who it was. SBSD Camera: and I just have to say I'm I'm a little upset here because your last meeting you prepare this whole thing like this, and then you leave us. SBSD Camera: and I'm

179just a little upset. There's always, you know, for the folks at home who enjoyed the conversation right answer, and often I have to say, too, a special thank you. We have been. The board have been advertising for the vacancy that you filled for some time. SBSD Camera: and when you came to do your interview you said you know, I'd been watching this, and I felt it was really time for me to step up and fill it, and you came in at an extraordinary, arguably the most difficult possible time, right at the very end of a difficult budget season, where we've had to make cuts across the board SBSD Camera: that no one is happy about. However, the alternatives, as you've heard many folks say tonight, are quite. SBSD Camera: Don't go up when there are

180defeats and I just really want to thank you for hanging in there on a lot of tough meetings and having hard conversations, honestly working with constituents. SBSD Camera: And I just appreciated our time together and want to recognize, you know the the tough criticism that you face stepping on this board. When a board member comes to the table, they instantly own all of the work, past, present, future, and it isn't always easy. But the amount of time that you board members give is is absolutely SBSD Camera: so. Thank you. Reach out. We're here. I'm well, I'm happy to. SBSD Camera: I'm happy to continue to to help in terms of. SBSD Camera: you know, experience with public meetings. I just feel like. SBSD Camera: you know, as everyone says, for personal reasons. SBSD Camera: for

181personal reasons, I did not collect the signatures SBSD Camera: understood, and I I understand and respect that. And I and I also appreciate that. So thank you so much. And I'm yeah. Thank you for having me SBSD Camera: no pleasure. SBSD Camera: Have some. SBSD Camera: You know I didn't. I didn't necessarily want to be chair, but I feel like it was fair to ask everyone else to do it last year, and this year. I've just tried to clean things up, tighten up our governance, try to make things more clear, and we win as a team, and we lose as a team. And you have offered such helpful feedback. And and I am going to take it forward and SBSD Camera: and if you continue to offer feedback, it's very welcome. SBSD Camera: Thank you.

182SBSD Camera: Hello, the chair did look pretty good on tim last time, yeah, it's a really challenging role, I've, worked, you know closely with 4 chairs. And it's a very challenging role. And I kudos it really is. And I think you know the amount of you know the command of Roberts rules of order and open meeting law SBSD Camera: and and our policies is significant and often under intense pressure and public scrutiny. And you know the need to make air traffic controller like decisions constantly when you 2 are just people who care about our community and our schools. So it's my, you know, I have to say. SBSD Camera: I always thought I'd be a board member. You all are better than me, because I don't think I could do it, knowing what I do

183so. Truly, I have a deep respect for each of you every time I think. Okay, now is my time. I can step down any further discussion. SBSD Camera: Tracy, how you doing up there? SBSD Camera: We should wrap. My 1st meeting is at 4 30 tomorrow morning for a weather. It's a weather related call. Speaking of. I don't know if there's SBSD Camera: snow or ice or wet falling. I hope everyone is a safe drive. Oh, wait! I have the snow day. Oh, let's hear it. We have to do some snow day for anyone watching. This is not an official Snow day discussion. SBSD Camera: It says there is a 49% chance of a snow day in our Zip code. Are you going to give the caveat that this is not accurate? This is not

184valid data. I will say. I often get from one of the girls. Hey? Can you talk with Violet? SBSD Camera: Now, if anyone thinks Budget is contentious, you should hear the feedback on any weather related. Call, yeah. SBSD Camera: we'll be thinking of you tomorrow morning. SBSD Camera: I won't. I'll be asleep. I'll wait for that 6 Am. Call. You'll hear me bright and cheery. What were you on? SBSD Camera: No, we don't know. No problem. Evaluate the information. We have the data we need a motion to adjourn. Yes, we do. I move that we adjourn, we adjourn the special meeting of the School Board. I'm the second person standing there. Yes. Is there any discussion SBSD Camera: all in favor? Say not sure that we can try to thank you. Everybody. SBSD Camera: Thank

185you. Everyone.