001SBSD Owl Camera: You are ready whenever you'd like. SBSD Owl Camera: I know that. SBSD Owl Camera: Get started! SBSD Owl Camera: Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Jen Lawrence, and I am the Vice Chair of the South Burlington School Board. I'll be serving as the acting chair this evening in Chairman Seamus Abshare's absence, and I call this meeting to order at 6 o'clock p.m. on… SBSD Owl Camera: Wednesday, the 19th of November. Starting right on time. SBSD Owl Camera: We had… we had planned to have a executive session prior to this meeting, but that did not happen. It was canceled, and so we're just starting right out of the gate. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, so first topic on the agenda, SBSD Owl Camera: Let's see, yep, that did not happen. So, for
002those who are able and willing, please rise and join us and send allegiance. SBSD Owl Camera: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Do we have any announcements? SBSD Owl Camera: The only announcement that I would like to add is that we will be having a community forum on Wednesday, December 3rd, two weeks from now, at the Orchard School at 6 p.m. to discuss the budget and the permanent superintendent search, so I just wanted to highlight that for everyone. SBSD Owl Camera: Bye. SBSD Owl Camera: So, may I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, Dan is making the motion. SBSD Owl
003Camera: Do you have a second? I was working. SBSD Owl Camera: I lost in seconds? SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. SBSD Owl Camera: Opposed? SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, motion carries, and the agenda is approved. SBSD Owl Camera: Let's see… SBSD Owl Camera: So we will now move to comments from the public. This is an opportunity for community members to address the board on any topic, whether or not it is on tonight's agenda. SBSD Owl Camera: Please state your name for the record. You will have up to 3 minutes to speak. The board will listen to all comments, but will not respond directly because this meeting has not been worn as a community forum. SBSD Owl Camera:
004So with that, are there any comments from the public? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes! SBSD Owl Camera: Please come forward. SBSD Owl Camera: Hello! SBSD Owl Camera: My name is Alex McHenry. I served on the school board for 7 years, up until about March of 2024, I believe. SBSD Owl Camera: Earlier this year, several former board members criticized you for what they claimed was a lack of transparency regarding a meeting in which some current board members SBSD Owl Camera: on the board right now, met with school district stakeholders to hear their concerns. There was not a quorum at this meeting. I disagree with my former colleague's criticism, and I want to remind the public that SBSD Owl Camera: This meeting was a perfectly valid way to gather input and did not violate open meeting laws. I
005also found it absurd that one of the critics pretended to hold back tears as she criticized you. Beware, don't fall for that infantile manipulation stunt. SBSD Owl Camera: Since you began your service to our district, this spring, things have improved tremendously. I want to let you know that I support you. SBSD Owl Camera: You identified a problem with the district leadership and addressed it quickly, and are on your way to completing that process. SBSD Owl Camera: This could not have been done in the past because several board members acted as mere rubber stamps for the superintendent. It makes sense to exclude previously serving board members from a meeting with stakeholders as long as there is not a quorum, and there wasn't. SBSD Owl Camera: With new board members and leadership, I'm confident that you can
006move past the scapegoating, the prejudice, the bogus accusations of racism, the gaslighting and virtue signaling that has caused so much turnover on this board in the past. SBSD Owl Camera: The toxic trio that plagued my final year on the board has been reduced from 3 out of 5 to only 1 out of 7. Godspeed to you. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. Are there any other comments from the public, or anyone online? SBSD Owl Camera: No, I'm standing right now, Mommy? SBSD Owl Camera: Bye. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so we will now move, to our focus on student learning, and then our student representative report. SBSD Owl Camera: Duh. I'll get movement. SBSD Owl Camera: This weekend, the South Burlington High School Drama Department will be hosting their annual school musical
007at the high school auditorium. This year's production is The Drowsy Chaperone. Show times are Thursday at 7pm, Friday at 7pm, and Saturday at 5pm. Tickets are online this year at GoFan.com. Just look up South Burlington High School, and they will appear. SBSD Owl Camera: We believe there's no buying tickets out the door this year, so make sure to buy your tickets ahead of time. SBSD Owl Camera: All students in grades 3-5 at Central School were provided a helmet and a bicycle to ride during PE class through the local Motion Bike Smart program. SBSD Owl Camera: This program teaches students about ICP and road awareness, and it's a very fun opportunity. And lastly, the school district is out of session for Thanksgiving break this coming week, Monday the 24th, Friday at the New Eden. So, everyone
008enjoy the break. How we got? SBSD Owl Camera: some… Thank you, guys. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so the next item on our agenda is action items, and before the board discusses any SBSD Owl Camera: actions or acts on any action item, we will invite the public to comment specific to that item, and speakers will have up to 3 minutes to share remarks related to the item under consideration. SBSD Owl Camera: So the first item that we have is the ratification of the agreement between the South Burlington Educators Association SBSD Owl Camera: Teachers Union and the South Burlington School District. Seamus Abshere: Jen, I can speak to this. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, Seamus, great. Seamus Abshere: Hey, everybody. So, I am happy to report that the negotiating team, and the board, reached a agreement with
009the teachers' union and also the support staff union. Both unions have ratified their respective tentative agreements. Seamus Abshere: And so now is the time for the board to countersign and finalize those agreements. The teachers' union contract is a 3-year contract, and the support staff union contract is a 2-year contract. The, Seamus Abshere: You know, in any of these contracts, the… Seamus Abshere: The main item that you talk about is how much, quote-unquote new money there is, available for, raises across the, Seamus Abshere: Across the grid of seniority. And so, in the case of the teachers, it's a 3-year contract, and the new money is 4.25%, 4.25%, and then inflation. Seamus Abshere: And for the third year, when the increase is based on inflation, that inflation number is the Consumer Price Index Urban Northeast, or CPIU
010Northeast, which currently, this year, is running at about 3.4%. And in that third year. Seamus Abshere: the… Seamus Abshere: maximum amount that it could increase by is 5%, and the minimum amount is 2%. In other words, if inflation was 1% in the third year, then the increase would be 2%, and if inflation was 50% in the third year, the maximum increase would be 5%. Seamus Abshere: So, this reflects the board's Seamus Abshere: interest in returning to sustainable budgeting. For the support staff, it is a 2-year contract. Seamus Abshere: 5.25, and then inflation. The same deal that the teachers got in their third year, support staff get in their second year. It's, CPIU Northeast, and it's, between a minimum of 2% and a maximum of Seamus Abshere: 5%. And so I personally want to thank Seamus
011Abshere: our counterparts on the union side for a very productive discussion. I… Seamus Abshere: I think that, the negotiations were in good faith. Seamus Abshere: And I look forward to, you know, a productive… Seamus Abshere: few years together, as we, as we sign this, as we hopefully sign this contract, these contracts, actually, tonight. Dan was another… was the other member on the negotiating team? I don't know if he wants to say anything about the, negotiations. SBSD Owl Camera: No, the only reason… thing I have to say is we did 2 years on the support staff so that we could stagger all the contracts SBSD Owl Camera: So that contracts aren't… SBSD Owl Camera: for either support teachers or administration. It will now, each expire in a different year, so… it, SBSD Owl Camera: Saves us
012from having to negotiate two contracts at once in the future. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, I would just like to say I am just so grateful to everybody that's been involved, I mean, Seamus and Dan doing this, and, you know, thanks also to the unions that, you know, being present and getting this agreement, these agreements across the finish line. It's just bravo to both… to everybody. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, big round of applause. Round of floss. And Tim Jarvis was the big one. And Jim Jarvis, yes. And Joe Neal. SBSD Owl Camera: There's a motion and a second. What was that? There needs to be a motion and a second. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay, so, I will now entertain a motion to ratify the agreement between the South Burlington Educators Association Union and
013the South Burlington School District. Seamus Abshere: Jen, you might want to add… I put on screen a little bit more detailed motion, so maybe let this motion fail, and then, read out what I've got on the screen. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, okay, yes, and besides that, I just realized that I needed to also give an opportunity for the public to speak, if they would like to, before we considered action. Alright, sorry, what do you have on here? Oh, okay, I see it. SBSD Owl Camera: Let me pull this up. All right, so before we get to that. SBSD Owl Camera: I think you want to do a motion and a second, and then open for discussion for the community to weigh in, and the board to weigh in. We were talking about that tonight, and
014we were wondering if that's the way that we should do it, or should we open it up for the public to comment now, and then we… and then we do revoke? I think, yeah, what we wanted to do was, because it's kind of pointless after we take action to… SBSD Owl Camera: Or is it Cloibooster? SBSD Owl Camera: But, I would rather… I would rather hear the public has to say before we take action. Yeah, because before, what I did is. Seamus Abshere: Well, hold on one second. I think that what Joe was saying is that the public could comment during the discussion part of the motion. Seamus Abshere: And I think that what we were thinking about doing was, before we even make the motion. Seamus Abshere: So I think that it's up to
015you, Jen, whether you want to take comment before we make the motion, or… Seamus Abshere: during the discussion of the motion. And I'm fine with either one. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I would think now… oh, sorry, Ms. Chairmaneil. SBSD Owl Camera: Love to get a one. Excuse me, if I may. Under Robert's rules, there should be a motion pending SBSD Owl Camera: At all times, because… SBSD Owl Camera: you don't want to be talking about nothing, in effect. So the way Robert's Rules, indicate is that someone should make a motion to approve the… and ratify the agreement SBSD Owl Camera: there should be a second, and then it's open for discussion before the core action is taken. That is the protocol under the rules that you're obligated to follow. Okay, and so at that time
016is when… SBSD Owl Camera: Board, then public. Yeah, for the public, or even the board members. I'm just thinking the order during the discussion period. That's where both discussions occur, but we don't discuss with the public, so I'm just asking for that. SBSD Owl Camera: If you're going to hear from the public, the usual protocol is to hear from the public first, and then to come to the board, have the board make its final discussion, and then act on the motion. SBSD Owl Camera: Castia helps. SBSD Owl Camera: Agreed. Seamus Abshere: You should make the… you should ask the question again. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so I'm gonna… okay, so I would entertain a motion to approve the tentative agreements entered into between the bargaining teams for the board and for the SBEA's teachers and
017support staff units as per their terms and conditions, noting that… do I have to read all this? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: The teacher's agreement is for a 3-year term, and specifies in fiscal year 26, 4.25% new money. In fiscal year 27, 4.25% new money. SBSD Owl Camera: In fiscal year 28, inflation adjustment of between 2% minimum and 5% maximum, based upon the Northeast Urban Consumer Price Index, also known as the CPIU Northeast. SBSD Owl Camera: And further noting that the support staff unit agreement is for a 2-year term and specifies, in fiscal year 26, 5.25% new money. SBSD Owl Camera: In fiscal year 27, inflation adjustment of between 2% minimum and 5% maximum, based upon the Northeast Urban Consumer Price Index, also known as CPIU Northeast. SBSD Owl Camera: I'll make that notional. SBSD Owl
018Camera: Thank you, Dan. Dan makes the motion. Do we have a second? A second. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, Emily, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: And that was seconded by Emily, to… Approve the tentative agreements. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, and now, is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I'm recusing myself from the vote. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, thank you, Laura. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there any… are there any hands up online? No? Seamus Abshere: Not currently. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm very good. So, hearing, hearing… No discussion. Seamus Abshere: Is there any… Board discussion? Is there any board discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: There was… there was no Justice? There was no board discussion. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: So, hearing none, all of those in favor say aye. Aye. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry, what?
019SBSD Owl Camera: Did you say aye? Okay. Yep, alright. Any opposed, say no? SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so that motion passes. Do you want me to get on the record for the four other abstains? Yeah. Ask for any abstentions? Yes, that's a good point, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: And Laura Williams has abstained. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so that takes care of those two agreements, and now the next item that we have as an action is the bid for the Rick Marcotte Central School Boiler Replacement. Seamus Abshere: Joe Clark, can you, give a little bit of, background for the public here? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I would recommend a motion and a second, and then we can come up and tell… Yes, so I will now entertain a
020motion to approve the bid for the Rick Marcotte School Boiler Replacement. SBSD Owl Camera: We have a motion? SBSD Owl Camera: I move. Okay, Laura moves. Do we have a second? SBSD Owl Camera: Second. And Michelle seconds. SBSD Owl Camera: And now, is there any discussion? And here's Jean Marie. SBSD Owl Camera: Hello, everyone. I'm Jean Marie Clark, I'm the Director of Finance and Operations for the District, and you should all have received a copy of the bid award letter. Did somebody have a specific question? SBSD Owl Camera: You may recall that we, replaced boilers at the Chamberlain School last winter because they were failing. SBSD Owl Camera: These boilers are… Chamberlain was, and I suspect, Marcat is as well, original, original boilers and, in some… in most cases, covered in asbestos, so it is
021a arduous process and an expensive process to replace them. SBSD Owl Camera: Gratefully, we have some funding, in our facilities budget and in our facility stewardship plan to cover this expense. So we sent this out to several bidders and personally only received one back, which is, like, historically our problem. SBSD Owl Camera: The good news is this is an organization we work with really frequently and have a great relationship and much respect for. So, this will be work. If you approve this, this would be work that would happen, during this, academic year, during this fiscal year. So, sometimes we work on bids that we are looking to do later in the season, but this would happen over the winter, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Any other specific questions? No, I mean, I just wanted to point
022out for those that it looks like the bid that we would be accepting is for Vermont Mechanical in the amount of $237,898. Yep. Okay. Seamus Abshere: So, my question is, having a bid process that's October 27th until November 10th feels short. Seamus Abshere: Is it. SBSD Owl Camera: That's pretty typical. SBSD Owl Camera: It's… it is… SBSD Owl Camera: $237,000 feels like a lot of money, and when I first got here, I, like, fell off my chair when we talked about money and that sort of denomination. In the world of a boiler replacement in a school building, that's… SBSD Owl Camera: This isn't an outrageous amount of money, and… SBSD Owl Camera: a much larger… this is a fairly simple project. If it was a much larger project, then there would be a longer SBSD
023Owl Camera: bidding process, particularly if folks needed to come in, and we do invite all these organizations were invited to come in and do a walk through the building if they chose to, and so forth. But so, for example, next summer, we're planning on doing some stormwater mitigation work on the high and middle campus. SBSD Owl Camera: And that is a really involved project that's being done by an outside organization for us. And so that… when that RFP goes out, that will have a much longer time frame for folks to ask questions, and sometimes there's meetings where folks, you know, all of the bidders can come in and hear about the project and so forth, so… SBSD Owl Camera: This didn't feel short to me, this feels pretty typical. And unfortunately, I don't think that
024the… SBSD Owl Camera: If we had lengthened the time that the bid was open. SBSD Owl Camera: That it would have gained us any additional bidders. Seamus Abshere: in the mail. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm sorry, Chavis, it met, board policy and state law? Yeah. Seamus Abshere: You're saying that state law requires a certain period? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Seamus Abshere: And that… and that… so this met the minimum period. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Seamus Abshere: And was the bid for the boiler at the other school, was it also just 10 days? SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, I don't… I could… I would have to look that up, I don't know that off the… because that was last… SBSD Owl Camera: That was an emergency situation, because the boiler had died in that school, so that changes
025the rules a little bit, and that was last winter, slash spring, so I'd have to look that up for you, Seamus. I don't know that right off the top of my head. Seamus Abshere: It just… it seems to me that, especially because of what you described, that this is a fairly simple project, that… Seamus Abshere: it could, you know, that an HVAC company Seamus Abshere: Well, let me ask another question before I make any opinions. Does, is there only… are these 3 companies that you went out to bid, are they the only companies that you're allowed to Seamus Abshere: ask for bids from? Is there some certification process? SBSD Owl Camera: No, we have to send it to a minimum of 3 bidders, and I have called other folks in the past and not gotten
026any… like, folks aren't just not even interested in us sending them to bid. I frequently get a thank you, but no thank you response. Seamus Abshere: And did we get the thank you, no thank you on the two others in this bid that did not respond, or did they just not say anything? SBSD Owl Camera: I got absolutely nothing. SBSD Owl Camera: This is pretty typical, Seamus. Yeah. So, I think this is fairly standard, and I think you're… Seamus Abshere: Did you… SBSD Owl Camera: One last shot. SBSD Owl Camera: We've worked with Vermont Mechanical for quite a while. Did they put in the one? Gosh, I… we do so much work. I suspect they probably did. SBSD Owl Camera: They did a bunch of work over at Tuttle for us this summer, changing out
027all of the valves over there. We previously worked for a long time with New England Air, which is why they're one of the folks that we send our bids to, our RFPs to. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I don't know why, but, you know, sometimes I think our projects are too little for some organizations. Sometimes we're too big for some of the littler guys. I've had conversations with, representatives from other districts about, like, so what do you do? Like, and… SBSD Owl Camera: We're all in the same boat. Seamus Abshere: And the… the… I, I… Seamus Abshere: I just… I'm not… I don't feel like… Seamus Abshere: I mean, you know, the thing they say about audits is that you should change your auditor every few years, because you get too comfortable with the auditor that
028you have, and they kind of let things pass that… Seamus Abshere: you know, maybe a different auditor would not. It just strikes me that since this is not an emergency, and since we could just as easily approve this bid Seamus Abshere: In, you know… in a week, like, I would feel more comfortable Seamus Abshere: doing this if we had an… we had a definite no from these other places with an explanation of why. Or, they might, you know, or calling them up and they're saying, well, yeah, we would have… we would have been happy to reply to this bid if we had just had a few more days. Like, I… I would feel more comfortable, Seamus Abshere: if we had that kind of confirmation back from at least these 3. Because I unders… I mean,
029what I think is being described here does follow the law, 10 days and 3 bidders, but I don't know why, Seamus Abshere: We can't wait just a little bit more to get, affirmative no's from… from these places. SBSD Owl Camera: Can I ask a question? I mean, so, is this the same… maybe I missed this if you've said this before, so I apologize, but did you… SBSD Owl Camera: Did you say that this is the same company that did do the previous boiler, or… I have to go back and look, I don't… I don't know that for a fact. We do work with them frequently, so they've done a variety of work for us, and they continue to do good work for us. So, when some of you folks came on the board before, and
030Seamus had some of these similar concerns, like, why aren't… we seem like a great organization, why aren't SBSD Owl Camera: people beating our door down? SBSD Owl Camera: we, one of the things that I had that discussion with our Director of Facilities, and we have done that before, like, really sent it out. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we have found ourselves in a situation where we were working with an organization that we've never worked before, and maybe they were out of state, and they bid, and they came in, and then something breaks, and you can't get them back, like… SBSD Owl Camera: So there is value in trying to solicit new bidders, I understand that, but there also is value in working with folks that you do have a relationship. I'm not saying that, you
031know, bless the Vermont Mechanical bid because we have worked with them before, like, that… I'm not trying to say that, but I am saying that SBSD Owl Camera: you know, you… you never know who you're gonna get, and tried and true. So, yeah, so I… and to your point, Seamus, I could take the time to call the folks that we sent the bid to to get some information from them on why they chose not to bid, but if you wanted to extend the bid. SBSD Owl Camera: We would have to recreate it and resend it out, because of the… it is… SBSD Owl Camera: the bid is created with a… it begins at this time, and it ends at this time. Yeah, so your… if your bid isn't in at, you know, Friday at noon,
032or whatever the day was, they know that they've missed the mark. So there aren't any… but there's no one waiting, thinking that, oh, I'll just send it today. So we have to… SBSD Owl Camera: scrap this and start over again if that's what you wanted to do, Seamus. Seamus Abshere: I just, you know, I… I have installed, I mean, and this is a really… Seamus Abshere: different example, but, you know, I've been in bidding situations where… Seamus Abshere: the bids are very different, and I don't… and if this was an emergency situation, then I would feel differently, but I feel like, especially if this is an organization that likes working with us. Seamus Abshere: you know, reopening this bid, or at least, even if we don't do that, even, you know, what I want is
033I want to know why these other two companies aren't bidding for a simple project. Because if it really is a simple project, then why can't they… Seamus Abshere: Why can't they bid on it? And I would like to know the why, because if we don't get the why now, it's going to… there's a million other priorities. Seamus Abshere: Right? So… it seems to me like there should be multiple bidders. It seems to me, at least, that we should know why there weren't multiple bidders. SBSD Owl Camera: Generally speaking, there haven't been multiple bidders. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's because it's not really lucrative for them. I mean, I… right? You've got to follow the money trail. I remember that. SBSD Owl Camera: For the last boiler. Like, I remember bringing that up, because I think
034there was only one bid. Yeah, it's the same Essex, too. And people are not clamoring to do this. There were, like, if you recall all of the painting work that we did this summer, we had multiple bidders for that, and we actually split the work out, which was a little bit of a hassle, like. SBSD Owl Camera: This organization got these lots, and this other organization got those lots, SBSD Owl Camera: And, you know, truth be told, those organizations work together. Like, they've… one's got a crew that does this work, and one's got a crew that does that work, so they're actually, like. SBSD Owl Camera: really working together at the end of the day. So we do… there are times that we do get multiple bidders. I think… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, this
035is up for you folks to decide. I think that I've never been in a situation where I have sent a bid award letter to the board that you have… when there's only one bidder, that you fail, so I don't… I would have to figure out what the process is to sort of bail on this and start over again, which… SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I'll do, if that's what you'd like. But I do… the easier thing to do, Seamus, is for me to make a couple phone calls. I can't promise you I'm going to get you the answer that you're looking for, but I'm happy to make the phone calls. SBSD Owl Camera: Companies don' They don't have to give a reason why they're not bidding. Yeah, that's true, too. Seamus Abshere: They don't have to
036give us a reason, no. But I just think, you know, maybe we don't vote one way or the other tonight, and we just give a little bit more time for the business office to get an understanding of why we're not getting more bids, because we, you know. Seamus Abshere: soliciting… look, our facilities are in rough shape. We're gonna need a lot of help over the next few years, and I think it's important to set a standard that Seamus Abshere: We're gonna, you know, sort of similar to our superintendent search, we're gonna… Seamus Abshere: Work really hard to find the right Seamus Abshere: person, or find the right bid. So, Seamus Abshere: I think that this is… you know, the buck stops with us in terms of spending the taxpayers' money, and here's an example of
037something where it's not… the heat is not off at Rick Marcotte, and so, I would recommend either we hold off. Seamus Abshere: or we vote… or… I don't see why we would need to fail this if all we need to do is hold off. So I recommend that we hold off on this. SBSD Owl Camera: we can still approve this. Gene Marie can reach out and find out why the companies didn't bid, and take that into consideration for the next time. SBSD Owl Camera: And speaking as a person who's at a school whose boiler did go, and there was no heat for 3 days, you cannot predict when these things will go, and you cannot predict when there's going to be an emergency. There's an emergency when there's an emergency, and so I vote for
038not putting this off. SBSD Owl Camera: So… Joe McNeil's here. He'd like to maybe get some legal opinion. SBSD Owl Camera: Somewhere. SBSD Owl Camera: If I may, I would just call to the Board's attention that public bidding SBSD Owl Camera: in Vermont as a very, by-the-numbers type approach. SBSD Owl Camera: And… If you were to, for example, after the bid time had come and gone, Speak to another bidder. SBSD Owl Camera: And have that bidder tell you, oh, geez. SBSD Owl Camera: We meant to get a bid in, but we just forgot, and… SBSD Owl Camera: So, we'll put it in next week. SBSD Owl Camera: That would void all your bids, because you were not following your own specifications. SBSD Owl Camera: You do have the right to reject any and all bids,
039and that's… that's an action you can take. SBSD Owl Camera: But that would mean that you run the risk of a higher price, potentially, on a rebid. You might get a lower price, but you also could get a higher price because SBSD Owl Camera: you couldn't… SBSD Owl Camera: not reject the bids and then bring it… bring it back, unless they bid the same amount. But it's very… it's very clear that if you establish SBSD Owl Camera: A bid time and a bid deadline. SBSD Owl Camera: It's only the… what we call the responsible and responsive bids. SBSD Owl Camera: Delivered during that time period, that can be considered, if you're not going to reject all bids. SBSD Owl Camera: And if I could speak, I think there's a message sent to vendors that, hey,
040we're going to participate in the bid process with South Burlington schools, and we don't know if it's going to be worth it or not. They have a policy and a procedure, they follow it, we get our best bid, and then it's voted down. Why would I… why would I bid? SBSD Owl Camera: That's fine. Piggyback on that a little bit, because it is… I appreciate the thought, about… SBSD Owl Camera: you know, adding some rigor and inspection to the process and understanding what it is that, you know, makes it unfavorable to bid. I think maybe that's more… SBSD Owl Camera: more usefully a part of a longer conversation, right, of the board understanding what that bid process is. Like, I heard they're invited, right? But there are probably other ways to get folks bidding, and
041maybe we talked about that, too, to widen the pool. But I think what Dr. Clark mentioned is spot on, being one who's in the middle of writing a bid right now. SBSD Owl Camera: it's an expensive process, it's a time-resource-intensive process, and it's already been carried out, so I do think that SBSD Owl Camera: it could… SBSD Owl Camera: in spite of the good intention, actually make it harder in the future to get bids if we're willing to just pull the plug on the process that's been completed right now. And I think hearing the board's feedback now will certainly inform how we do bids in the future. I hear you loud and clear. It was not expected, though. It's a bit of a surprise not to have this SBSD Owl Camera: Fun. SBSD Owl Camera:
042I would go through multiplics. I would agree. I've been on this board for 3 and a half years, and this is the first time SBSD Owl Camera: This has ever happened. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I don't… I don't… I understand where Seamus is coming from, and I'm not familiar with the bidding, process at all, so I… and I'm not sure, Seamus, I'm not gonna speak for you if you're familiar with it, but this… SBSD Owl Camera: everything that has been talked about seems like people are coming from responsible, fiscally responsible points of view, but also need to respect the vendors and the people who keep our schools running and our children warm and staff warm, so… And also, I just need to point out that next week is Thanksgiving, and then we're on our way
043to the holidays, breaks, and I don't think anyone's going to be doing any extra work SBSD Owl Camera: In the next couple weeks, in terms of, like, the idea of getting more information, or… SBSD Owl Camera: shutting this down and doing another bit of time frame. This does not feel like the time to do something like that, so… SBSD Owl Camera: That's all. I agree. I think out of respect for bidders and the process this time, I think we need to go forward and approve this, would be my recommendation, but I do think that it is an opportunity to consider, like, how can we pursue this next time? And do we need to cast a wider net, or consider others SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that, you know… SBSD Owl Camera: All of that. Yeah. I
044will, one thing that I was just thinking is, like, I think it sort of depends on what the project is, right? So, like, one of the things that, came up… has come up in our St. Ruth's School Committee is, like, we'd love it if we could SBSD Owl Camera: cover our bike rack at Orchard. So you and I have talked about, could that be an Eagle Scout project? Like, a little project, putting a roof over a bike rack. SBSD Owl Camera: if we only get one bidder, like, and you know, if it's under, you know, there are bidding rules and so forth, but if it's a larger project, then you first sure we do want to try to get as many bidders as possible. One of the things that, I saw from the district in
045which I live, they post their, SBSD Owl Camera: There are fees on Front Porch Forum. SBSD Owl Camera: And so I reached out to them and was like, oh, like, that's great, like, and it's kind of, like, cool PR, because it's free and comes to your inbox, and I regularly read my From Pearch form, and I was like, oh, like, is that really, like, work? No. We get nothing, but we get some good PR that, like. SBSD Owl Camera: Or we will get, maybe, and the one that I saw in particular was around snow plowing, and so, you know, they got, like, the local Joe's SBSD Owl Camera: snow plowing, and then the organization quickly realized, like, oh, this is a much bigger thing than what we can handle, but it, you know, helps with
046PR. So we are kind of in transition, in the communications world in trying to get our feet under us as far as, like, getting access to front porch Forum and putting more things there, and folks know all about that. So that's something we could potentially do in the future. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's an opportunity SBSD Owl Camera: to just improve or consider changing the way that we're doing it to get more engagement. Yeah, we can try. I can't promise our engagement. We can try. Okay. Right. SBSD Owl Camera: If I could just… Seamus Abshere: If I just have one, so I just want to explain in advance the no vote that I'm going to cast, is that in my experience in private industry, really focusing on having competitive bids Seamus Abshere: does… significant,
047does… Not only do you… Seamus Abshere: Potentially save a lot of money, but you also sometimes get better vendors. Seamus Abshere: And so, that's why I'm voting no, is because I want to ensure that as we go into the next decade of needing to renovate our very old schools, we have a lot of organizational focus on quality bidding, and for example, we, you know, we give Seamus Abshere: more than 10 days. You know, it's not 10… you know, we give… we give… Seamus Abshere: A significant period of time for bidders to, participate in these processes. SBSD Owl Camera: We moved 17 to vote. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: So, with that, let's take a vote. All those in favor of approving the bid for the Rick Marcotte School Boiler Replacement, to say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.
048Those that say no? SBSD Owl Camera: Any nose? SBSD Owl Camera: Boost? No? Okay. No. Seamus. Okay, so we have ayes, we have Seamus. Is there any abstention? SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so the motion passes for approval of the bid. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, next up is Policy Monitoring 2.11 Equity. SBSD Owl Camera: And I will now entertain a motion. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, actually, I guess… would I still… I would still need to have that motion, but we're about to discuss it, so I would still have the motion. All right, so I will now enter a motion to… SBSD Owl Camera: I would like to say find the superintendent in compliance with 2.11 Equity Policy Monitoring, but it seems like it would just be to discuss it. SBSD
049Owl Camera: You could… you… Sorry, Joe. Seamus Abshere: This is great. Having Joe here, I feel like he's correcting a lot of, things. Seamus Abshere: Glad you're here, Joe. SBSD Owl Camera: Thanks. SBSD Owl Camera: I believe you're fine if you just introduce the subject and have a motion to first, simply discuss the question of compliance, and then SBSD Owl Camera: If it is your pleasure, following that discussion, to take a motion to take some action. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, that sounds great. All right, so I will now entertain a motion to discuss compliance with, 2.11 Equity Policy, the Equity Policy Monitoring Report. I move. Okay, Laura moves. SBSD Owl Camera: Second. And Michelle seconds. SBSD Owl Camera: And… SBSD Owl Camera: with that, for a discussion. I think we're going to start. Michelle's
050going to give a little bit of feedback, or a little bit of history about what we're doing. As y'all know, we are trying to, revise the whole policy monitoring process. SBSD Owl Camera: So she's going to talk a little bit about that, then I will go into the policy, monitoring the new system that we've come up with. SBSD Owl Camera: And very early on in that process, Monica will give the data that our, SBSD Owl Camera: align with this report, so… Great, all right. So, I did, prepare a few slides. I'll share those, and being a more visual, person or not. If I can find the share button, big green thing. Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: Let's make sure that… Shanned… SBSD Owl Camera: All other stuff in the lab one? SBSD Owl Camera: I think
051there's a delay, yep, okay. SBSD Owl Camera: So I just want to very quickly, my goal is 5 minutes or less, share some of the framing SBSD Owl Camera: And background for what we're doing tonight, because we are doing equity monitoring, policy monitoring for 2.11, but we're also beta testing enablement. SBSD Owl Camera: And this is the format, we spoke of… SBSD Owl Camera: few meetings ago, I think it was in early October, SBSD Owl Camera: that Joe and I met, and, did a little brainstorming about how to bring policy monitoring into, more in compliance with the expectations of policy governance. And so, SBSD Owl Camera: Just very quickly, going back to a couple of those original slides to SBSD Owl Camera: frame what exactly policy monitoring is, because it is one of the critical
052roles of the board. And it is a process through which the South Burlington School Board exercises its duty, not its right, not its prerogative, not its, I feel like I might want to do this. It's our duty under policy governance to ensure that the district is achieving its ends. SBSD Owl Camera: And executive limitations, policy goals. SBSD Owl Camera: And it's accountability. SBSD Owl Camera: It is the accountability in our system. So it is intentionally rigorous, outcome-focused. SBSD Owl Camera: It's purposefully designed to define and monitor observable and measurable outcomes. It is outcome-focused. Can't say that enough. Reasonably informative to the board and its community about how well the district is meeting its policy goals. SBSD Owl Camera: And it is, by policy governance, the measure of superintendent performance as the solely accountable person for
053district operations. SBSD Owl Camera: to the board. SBSD Owl Camera: Policy monitoring is not, however, an aspiration or a hope. A list of everything the district is directly or indirectly doing to achieve policy goals, those things are really important. We like to ask a lot of questions, we like to understand, the community likes to understand, but when it comes to policy monitoring, that's not what it is. SBSD Owl Camera: It's not a rubber stamp by the board. We don't just come here and say everything's great. We look. The act of looking sometimes is really very important, just by itself. It's not punitive either. It's basically demanding and understanding, because… SBSD Owl Camera: Improvements happen over time, they happen incrementally, and they're really hard to achieve when you're kind of moving a large organization forward. SBSD
054Owl Camera: So our goal… SBSD Owl Camera: basically is to bring, as I mentioned, policy monitoring into compliance with policy governance expectations. And these are just some of the benefits. I'm sure there are others that you can think of, but these are the ones we thought of. Clear and coherent reporting of district outcomes, improved district accountability through application of SBSD Owl Camera: evidence-based reporting, and concise and focused reporting that takes less time. Not this time, I'm sure. I'm sure Dr. Clark and Monica will share a little bit about their experience with that. The first time is not SBSD Owl Camera: quick and easy. But I think in the end, you've all seen probably the report, a little bit shorter, a little more focused, a little more to the point, and, easy to digest as a
055board member. SBSD Owl Camera: So what are we doing tonight? We're doing those two things I mentioned. We are doing monitoring, but we're also doing the beta testing of this new template. And really importantly, it's beginning, not an end. We're not putting this in front of you and saying, this is the way it has to be. We're putting this in front of you and saying, this is our best first foot forward, what do you think? How can we improve it? SBSD Owl Camera: So we're collecting that feedback. SBSD Owl Camera: Quickly, parts of the template that you have already seen and that folks watching will now see, or may have seen because it's posted online too, is it lists the policy being monitored. SBSD Owl Camera: It very explicitly in, SBSD Owl Camera: I'll leave
056it at that. The superintendent's interpretation and its rationale… I don't want to get too far ahead, because a lot of this, will be explained during the presentation. So, district outcomes under the superintendent's interpretation. SBSD Owl Camera: The superintendent's report on compliance Superintendent's Compliance Plan. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's it. One quick note, though. We… we, SBSD Owl Camera: talked about this a little bit, and, basically, there is an error in the policy. You know, we can get to it when we get to reviewing. I don't think it's anything urgent or major, but just wanting to let you know that the policy itself says, ensure that the district's policies and procedures, both governance and operational. SBSD Owl Camera: are reviewed, yadda yadda yadda. SBSD Owl Camera: reviewing governance policy is not the role of the operations
057group, so it is the board's responsibility to review governance policies, so it's intentionally excluded. So, Dr. Clark and his team will talk about SBSD Owl Camera: Operational policies as related to the requirements in this policy, but not governance. SBSD Owl Camera: Last, some cautions. There are some hard truths in what we're going to look at tonight. So that comes with, I think, some obligations from us and from the community. We need to clearly and honestly acknowledge those truths if we're going to improve. SBSD Owl Camera: There is no single, I can't stress this enough, SBSD Owl Camera: there is no single cause for what we're seeing, and I don't think there's a single solution. I know there's not a single solution, and I don't think anybody here would think that this, but I think it's
058important to call out, because SBSD Owl Camera: we don't want to do finger-pointing, right? Our shared goal is to get better, so I hope that, as a community, we cannot point fingers, it's your fault, it's not appropriate, and it's not useful. SBSD Owl Camera: Do the actual improvements that we want to see. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Oh, and it remains true. We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. SBSD Owl Camera: Still wise words. SBSD Owl Camera: That's it. Can I just say real quick, I think this is really awesome, and it would be so great to have something like that that we post on our board website with SBSD Owl Camera: our policy governments, so that people that, you know, maybe they don't know, or if…
059I mean, I feel like a really big role is to help educate and inform the public, like, what are we doing here? And so I think having something like that, that explains it in really clear terms would be really helpful to put on the website. Maybe not that specific one, because you're calling out SBSD Owl Camera: 2.11, but just a more generalized, like, this is what we do. Oh, the template, that would be really helpful, because, like, when you're new and you're coming into this, or if you're an interested member of the community, you don't help. SBSD Owl Camera: I mean, I've been on the board, and I'm still figuring stuff out. I'm definitely not an expert on any of this, so I think having that would be really, really helpful. So I just wanted
060to add that. Good job. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. So, my part was really easy. You're gonna hear about the much harder part, because I know for a fact that a lot of time has been spent on this. SBSD Owl Camera: spent a lot of time, and I'm sensitive to the time the board's going to spend on it tonight, so you have had the opportunity to view this. It's… SBSD Owl Camera: Not my intention to read this entire thing to you, so stop me where you want some more explanation. But the very first thing we need to do when we're doing a monitoring report is talk about what is the policy being monitored. That is simply a cut and a paste from our policy that already exists. SBSD Owl Camera: So the equity policy, that
061comes… that is… that is no work by me or Monica or anybody else. It is part of our policy. It's copied and pasted here to tell you this is what we are looking at. It tells you, what we define equity as. SBSD Owl Camera: And it tells you, what the superintendent is going to do to deal with, equity, SBSD Owl Camera: and discrimination. So, again, it's a, it's a long, it's a long policy. SBSD Owl Camera: I think more important is part two. What's my interpretation? After I read that policy, how will I determine as superintendent if we are in compliance with the policy? SBSD Owl Camera: And so, I will read this to you. SBSD Owl Camera: We will be in compliance on this policy when we can demonstrate through verifiable data, documented actions,
062and evidence of impact that every student in South Burlington has equitable access to the resources, opportunities, and conditions necessary to learn and thrive. SBSD Owl Camera: And that measurable disparities among student groups are identified, reduced, and ultimately eliminated over time. SBSD Owl Camera: So, what does that mean? Success on Policy 2.11 means that we are going to look at student outcomes, and those are things like academic achievement, engagement, discipline data. SBSD Owl Camera: We're going to look at school experience. SBSD Owl Camera: the climate that students face when they go to school. Their feeling of belonging, their feeling of having voice. SBSD Owl Camera: And we are going to look at our direct systems and practices SBSD Owl Camera: Curriculum, hiring, resource allocation, policy development, to make sure that those are designed to meet the
063equity goals. SBSD Owl Camera: So, when you look at those three, and I call those domains, right? So, the component definitions and success criteria. The very first one is student outcomes, and under student outcomes, there are four items that came from that list up higher of the policy being monitored. There are SBSD Owl Camera: three, and they're number one, three, and four, that speak to student outcomes. And so. SBSD Owl Camera: Again, I'm not going to read the whole chart for you, but you can see what we're looking at. With the student academic achievement, we are defining success by achievement gaps by race, gender identity, income, and ELL status are narrowing year after year. That is measurable, and that is really clear. How are we going to measure it? We are going to look at
064disaggregated proficiency rates. SBSD Owl Camera: on the VT caps, the state tests, to show improvements for underperforming groups. SBSD Owl Camera: And these are reported annually. So, we want to improve student academic achievement, we want to reduce the gaps, this is what we're going to look at to see if we're doing that. And it goes through this for each thing. Student engagement. Those are things like attendance, participation, sense of belonging. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, we have measures for that. We do a panorama survey, so we're going to see that there's no gaps within the subgroups. We're going to look at our average attendance for our subgroups to see if students are engaged there. SBSD Owl Camera: When we look at discipline disparities, we're going to look at, are the discipline rates proportionate for the population
065of students that we serve? SBSD Owl Camera: And our restorative, responses. SBSD Owl Camera: Replacing exclusionary practices. And again, then you'll see, how are we going to measure that? Well, our expulsion rates by subgroups should not vary by more than 10% of representation, documented use of restorative service, etc. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so that's the student outcomes domain. The next domain is the school experience domain. So, climate, belonging, and voice. And again, we talked about a few things here. Incidents of discrimination. SBSD Owl Camera: Access to co-curricular activities, stakeholder voice, equitable scheduling and grouping. Again, you can see, what are we going to… what do we expect, for instance, with incidents of discrimination? SBSD Owl Camera: We expect that all reports of discrimination are investigated promptly, and restorative corrections, corrective actions are implemented, and that
066repeat incidents decline. Well, we have an annual report that will include the number of cases, substantiated findings, and resolutions, and we hope to see a decline of greater than 10% in repeated or unresolved cases over the time frame. SBSD Owl Camera: Monica's going to get up here to show you all these numbers soon, but I want you to kind of know what we're going to be looking at, and how they relate to what these, these goals are. SBSD Owl Camera: Co-curricular access, we want students to participate in activities, and we want to make sure that all students participate in activities, so we will look at participation rates by subgroup for all of those, for the football team, for the choir, et cetera, et cetera. SBSD Owl Camera: Same with stakeholder voice, equitable scheduling and grouping.
067And finally, district systems and practices. SBSD Owl Camera: So we're looking at curriculum, we're looking at hiring, resource allocation, policy development, that are intentionally designed SBSD Owl Camera: to improve the district through an equity lens. So when you look at number 5, restorative justice practices. SBSD Owl Camera: Victims and observers are included in resolution processes. SBSD Owl Camera: And staff will receive training. How are we going to monitor that? Well, we're going to have evidence of annual professional development. We're going to have reflections, summaries, shared with staff. We're going to see a decrease in exclusionary discipline from year to year, right? So those are the… that's how we'll measure that. SBSD Owl Camera: Recruitment, hiring, retention of staff of color. SBSD Owl Camera: We want our district workforce to increasingly reflect our student demographics, and
068we want to make sure that we are retaining the workforce that represents our student demographics. SBSD Owl Camera: How are we going to do that? Well, our goal is greater than 1% increase in staff of color, or progress towards parity with the student population, and we want to retain 85% of our staff annually. SBSD Owl Camera: And you can go through all of these with curriculum, assessing group shortfalls, transparent reporting, and operational policy review. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: now is the time where I turn it over to Monica, but before I do, are there any specific questions about what I've just gone over? Because Monica has a… I think it's, what, 600 or 700 slides? It's only a slight exaggeration, so she, I know, is going to… we're not going… SBSD Owl
069Camera: We are not going to be able to cover every slide in depth today, or every item in depth today, but I want you to have an idea that there are 13 things we're looking at, we have clear criteria for what we are looking, and we have clear criteria for how we are going to monitor those things. SBSD Owl Camera: This part three is where Monica is going to show you, this is how we're doing on each of these things. And like Michelle said, we're not, we're not happy with all of these things, right? We want to continue improving. But that's the first step, is identifying what the issues are, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Nothing else? Monica, I'm gonna stop sharing so you can… I think you can share, right? Seamus Abshere: And I… Question.
070Seamus Abshere: Just because… So… if… You guys are making… Competent, good faith efforts. Seamus Abshere: But the numbers are not looking good. Seamus Abshere: Should we… in your opinion, should we find you in compliance because you're doing the right things, or should we find you not in compliance because the numbers aren't there yet? SBSD Owl Camera: So, I… that's a great question, thanks for asking that, because we are going away from the old model of either you're doing it or you're not doing it. We've come up with a rubric that will say. SBSD Owl Camera: you, you're beginning, you're doing a little better than beginning, you're doing really well, but you're not quite there, and then you're doing outstanding. Now, those aren't the terms we use, but it's a rubric with four, four ratings for
071each of these, domains. SBSD Owl Camera: And the board's, the board's responsibility is to determine whether we are successful in our monitoring report. Not necessarily are we successful in meeting the goals of equity, but are we successful in addressing the equity goals as, SBSD Owl Camera: As the operations portion of the district. SBSD Owl Camera: However, there is one, block on the, on the board's final, SBSD Owl Camera: final evaluation of the superintendent is, are we making progress in equity? So, so you'll be able to have a chance to say, you're sort of making progress, you're making great progress, you're doing fantastic. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, ultimately, I believe you are required to say compliant or not compliant, and you guys will give ratings, and sum it up, and decide whether we're compliant or
072not. SBSD Owl Camera: Is that… Michelle, did I say that? Yeah, yeah, so there is a draft of what the board part of the rubric to… to rate is, and… SBSD Owl Camera: definitely want all of your feedback on that. The other thing I want to say is… I want to emphasize first that the idea of having compliant, not compliant, is really a part of SBSD Owl Camera: thinking about monitoring and accountability as something that is in a continually improving process, right? And take away that fear of SBSD Owl Camera: not being in compliance, right? Not being in compliance doesn't necessarily… not being in compliance may mean that we've all been honest enough to say, we have a problem. Here's the plan. SBSD Owl Camera: And we will continue to monitor that plan. The other
073thing I wanted to highlight, especially for our students here, is the rubric uses, language that is used to rate students on their assessments. So, we thought it would also be very good to be rating ourselves. SBSD Owl Camera: the way we rate you. I like, what you said about SBSD Owl Camera: When you have just compliant or non-compliant on all those things, what that gives you is people like us. SBSD Owl Camera: putting a huge list of stuff together of what we're doing so we can make sure that we get compliant. This is a more honest system, because we look at what we have, and we're comfortable saying, we're not quite there yet. SBSD Owl Camera: And we're going to point that out, and then that will be part… when Monica's done, I'll talk about
074what are we going to do to meet those areas where we're not quite there yet. So I think it's definitely more honest than what the system's been, and it is definitely a growth model. Seamus Abshere: If I could just make two more comments, Jen, unless you want to… So… SBSD Owl Camera: Nope. Seamus Abshere: I think that for the public who may eventually watch this meeting. Seamus Abshere: The reason that there is some… Seamus Abshere: Ambiguity about this is because policy governance is a governance model that the board has imposed on itself. Seamus Abshere: And so, to a certain extent, we can decide how we implement it, and so therefore. Seamus Abshere: you know, we have to make the call about whether we reward, quote-unquote effort, or we reward quote-unquote results. So, the ambiguity, I
075think, is natural, and policy governance itself is just the board trying to give itself a structure to be successful. Seamus Abshere: And then the other, Seamus Abshere: comment I wanted to make is that if you look at past board meetings stretching back 10 years, or at least, you know, in the early days of policy governance here at South Burlington, there were discussions like, you know, one of the things that we monitor is facilities. Seamus Abshere: And… So the board was having a discussion with the superintendent in real time, saying, you know, okay. Seamus Abshere: Facilities are not great, so should we find you not in compliance? Seamus Abshere: But, on the other hand, you can't fix the facilities, because we haven't given you budget to fix the facilities. And so, if there is some confusion
076tonight about whether we want to approve or not, I just want to say that this… Seamus Abshere: that that is a natural feature, and I think that the board is just trying to do its best to do the right thing. And there's no… Seamus Abshere: Clear… there's not necessarily always a clear answer. SBSD Owl Camera: Right, and this is a beta, because this is the first policy we're trying, this is, and when we have this kind of finely tuned, then we will go through this exact same process with all the other policies, where we… and so the format will look the same for each SBSD Owl Camera: policy. Now, the rubrics will be different because we're measuring different things, but it'll be basically the same framework. Yeah, and you… I'm sorry to extend this, but
077I think this is a really important point that you brought up, Seamus, which is that one… a goal here that we left unstated SBSD Owl Camera: is that, you know, when you think about making a decision compliant or not, and you have no idea what compliance means, right? The superintendents, that's one of the improvements here, is the interpretation necessarily says… answers the question, we will be in compliance when, right? SBSD Owl Camera: But the levels of compliance that we've proposed here that, of course, we can work with and change over time, have an additional benefit of improving… I'm sorry to geek out a little bit… our greater consistency, right? Like, it gives us a common conception SBSD Owl Camera: And then we can each individually rate according to what we see. SBSD Owl Camera: Right?
078But at least we know, you know, we make those ratings from a common understanding of what those ratings mean, as opposed to, yeah, I guess it's compliant, because it's sitting in front of me, and somebody did work on it, right? SBSD Owl Camera: I also just wanted to say, Seamus, to your point, and what we were talking about, the ambiguity that you were talking about stretching back 10 years, I've looked at monitoring our reports. SBSD Owl Camera: That 10 years. SBSD Owl Camera: During my time on the board, between different superintendents, and SBSD Owl Camera: I haven't seen the, interpretation change. I haven't seen the policies change all that much, and so I'm really excited to see that fresh eyes have been put on this, and that I think that ambiguity you were talking about,
079Seamus, might not be the same in this setting as it was SBSD Owl Camera: In the past, because it was so… SBSD Owl Camera: You have to be… you're either in, you're out, and somehow, if you're out, there's something wrong with that. You don't want it, you can't be out, or else you're a bad superintendent, and that's not the case at all. So I'm really excited. I'm really excited about this. You have 3 seconds per slide. SBSD Owl Camera: Honestly, though, I mean, it is… it's a huge slide, so you have seen a lot of it before, though, so, you know, if we can get through it in 25 minutes or a half hour, that'd be awesome, because we still have other stuff to cover. Should I be unmuting myself on this, or no? SBSD
080Owl Camera: No, you don't need to unmute yourself, because the mic… Alright, thank you all for having me, and I'll be presenting OC211. We have gone through… SBSD Owl Camera: Some of you. SBSD Owl Camera: slides before, and so I'll try to kind of go past the ones we've already gone. So, Dr. Joe Clark talked about the objectives of the report that is named in the policy, and we'll be covering them today. SBSD Owl Camera: It's glitching all that. SBSD Owl Camera: So, this slide just, defines what equity is in South Burlington. I'm not going to read it for you. This is also verbatim from the policy. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so here's our student enrollment over time. You've seen this slide, but the addition is 25-26. SBSD Owl Camera: So you can see that
081our Black student population is growing. SBSD Owl Camera: Our Asian American and Pacific Islander population is relatively stable, Latinx is stable, multiracial is slightly growing, and white is slightly decreasing. Seamus Abshere: Can I just say how much I appreciate this simple presentation and multiple years? This is fantastic. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. You are. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is… sorry, this is a bit glitchy. This is the same slide, but it's pulling out white and just showing you our population of the global majority flowing over time incrementally. So slightly over 30% of our students identified the global majority. SBSD Owl Camera: This is the last 4 years of students that qualify for free and reduced lunch. SBSD Owl Camera: Keep in mind that this measure is a little bit wonky, because of universal
082free meals and the dependence on collecting pretty emphasized information. SBSD Owl Camera: And this does not account for our students in federally low-income homes, so around half of our population, is living in a lone household. SBSD Owl Camera: The threshold is a little bit different for this, it's a little bit higher in terms of carbon rate. SBSD Owl Camera: Why is it still that hard? I can try. Seamus Abshere: So that represents a change in the criteria, not a sudden increase in poverty or something. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, that represents a change. I wouldn't… I wouldn't put too much, SBSD Owl Camera: precision into this change of 2% from the 30% to 28, that's… I would account for paperwork filling out. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's really what's 2022-23, too, because that was at the
083height of… people just stopped filling out the paperwork. Why would you fill out the paperwork? Exactly. If it's universally… Seamus Abshere: I see. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: This is students who qualify for English language services over time, and that's staying right around 7%. SBSD Owl Camera: of our students, qualify for English language services, and then about another 10% have exited from this program. So about 20% of our students are in multilingual households. SBSD Owl Camera: These are the last two years of students living with disabilities in our district, by IEP and Section 504. SBSD Owl Camera: Prior to that, data collection was a little wonky, so we'll start to have, annual data. SBSD Owl Camera: We're going to move into academic data. SBSD Owl Camera: And so, I said this last time, but discrepancies
084do not indicate, SBSD Owl Camera: Discrepancies in academic achievement or performance do not indicate discrepancies in intellect, and rather indicate disproportional impact. SBSD Owl Camera: Of inequalities and social injustice. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is our last 3 years of overall academic achievement on the VTCAP. SBSD Owl Camera: The green and blue level 3 and 4 represent proficient and above. SBSD Owl Camera: And you can see the left bar is the most recent. SBSD Owl Camera: And then it moves to sperm 24 and sperm 23 with a pretty stable end size. SBSD Owl Camera: This is our annual VT cap. SBSD Owl Camera: This slide shows how we compare to the state of Vermont. SBSD Owl Camera: And so… you can see… There's two columns for each grade level, so the left SBSD Owl Camera:
085Bars for grade 3 represent SV, how we did in the spring of 25, the spring of 24, and the spring of 23, in terms of proficiency and above. And then you can see that's significantly higher than the grade 3 state level. SBSD Owl Camera: So that's the state average. SBSD Owl Camera: And you can see, just across the board, we've been pretty consistently performing above the state of Vermont average. Seamus Abshere: But it is declining, except in… Like, are you, Seamus Abshere: It's because we have to read these from right to left. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: So… SBSD Owl Camera: So, I guess you would say it's declining in… sorry, if you just go back one… Yes. Yeah. So, Seamus… SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, can you go back one slide? Of course,
086yep. So, yeah, here, it's like, alright, so you're declining in… SBSD Owl Camera: 5th grade. SBSD Owl Camera: You're up in 4th grade. Oh, I'm sorry, even looking at… in South Burlington School District, you're up in SBSD Owl Camera: you're up in, 4th grade. You're up in 4th grade across the state, but significantly up, specifically in South Carolina. SBSD Owl Camera: 4th grade. Yeah, so in spring of 2025, in 4th grade, the state, on average, performed at 34% proficiency. SB, on average, in grade 4 in spring of 25, performed around double 60%, I should say, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Things you want to look at? SBSD Owl Camera: not perfectly matched samples, right, but the same cohort of students. You can look at the red in grade 3 versus the blue in grade 4, and
087you'll see what SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think you've got a strong cohort effect here for this group moving through, and you'll probably see that bump as you go through all of the years, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, interesting. Okay, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: And this is students in grades 6 through 8. SBSD Owl Camera: So again, every year is a different cohort of students, right? They come in at a different place, SBSD Owl Camera: But grades 6, 7, and 8 have performed above the state. SBSD Owl Camera: on 3 years. SBSD Owl Camera: Bye. SBSD Owl Camera: So, this is a graph of average scaled score, and this is disaggregated by subgroup. The line at 1750 marks proficiency or higher, right? So that is the goal for each grade. SBSD Owl Camera: And
088then you can see… above here… SBSD Owl Camera: The groups that performed below proficiency. SBSD Owl Camera: So, Black students, Students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, it's been a little staggered. SBSD Owl Camera: Students who are on IEPs. SBSD Owl Camera: Students receiving EL services. Seamus Abshere: So I guess… If equity is about… Seamus Abshere: Making sure that there are not big differences between different groups. SBSD Owl Camera: then I look at this and I say, yeah, roughly… Seamus Abshere: You know, there are… Seamus Abshere: Slight differences, but generally, groups are going up and then down, and there doesn't seem to be, like. Seamus Abshere: Just visually, a big… Different… a big inequity. Seamus Abshere: Is that… SBSD Owl Camera: I would disagree. I would disagree. I would… I would offer… SBSD Owl
089Camera: I would offer that this… this space between each line, right, shows… the inequity. SBSD Owl Camera: That's affecting that identity. Ideally, you want to see one line across the board, right? In the most, like, amazing universe, you want to see one line go through. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Work out. Seamus Abshere: That's a great clarification. So you're saying… Seamus Abshere: You know, a lot of the time when we look at these things, we're looking for relative Seamus Abshere: Like, they're moving kind of relative to each other in the same way, but you're saying here we need to look at the absolute difference and say the blue line is at $16.50, the orange line is at $18.50, that is inequity. SBSD Owl Camera: Yes, yes. That's, like, almost a third of the whole scale. SBSD
090Owl Camera: I also… I have a question. If that is the way we are supposed to be reading this, could we also see, right, that the… SBSD Owl Camera: the space between our lines, right, to make it visual, in spring of 2025, is narrowing relative to spring of 23, right? So while these cohorts are moving… while there are still space and gap, and that's the opportunity, right? If I look at the difference between SBSD Owl Camera: let's say the, you know, multiracial group in spring of 23, an IEP group, that is a huge delta, but all of the… they do seem to be SBSD Owl Camera: narrowing, right? Our delta between these groups is getting smaller, which is… would that be interesting? They're closer to 2023. SBSD Owl Camera: 2024 is that… kind of anomalous
091cohort there, and there's something wonky going on, I totally agree. SBSD Owl Camera: The thing… I agree, yes, it's smaller. Those gaps are smaller in 2025, but look at the direction of the lines. Oh, yeah, but that is… Seamus Abshere: Converging in the wrong direction. SBSD Owl Camera: I agree, but I guess to the point of if we are measuring differences between… if we are measuring variance and differences between cohorts, not absolute performance. SBSD Owl Camera: this would seem to suggest we are making progress on equity. Now, it might be for the wrong… for a reason we don't like, right? Which is all of our scores are converging downwards. The gaps are smaller. But the gaps are getting smaller, right? I want to make sure we're, like, dissecting what we are evaluating. Yep, yep. And
092this is grade 3 math. Right, but that is one way to read this view. This is not everybody, but that… at that cohort level, we could say. SBSD Owl Camera: That we are doing a better job SBSD Owl Camera: you know, be equitable, even if we don't like the direction of the chart. Yeah, and this is quite the opposite, right? So you can see there's more variance than this on the… in results on Spring 2025 for Grade 4, right? You can see the width is larger, however, the direction is moving us. SBSD Owl Camera: there are more groups performing above the line. Everybody's going up. Right, and these were the 2024 Grade 3s that are now in grade… they were grade 3, 2024, grade 2025. That's your strong cohort point, right? Is that… that's something
093about that grade is performing very well. SBSD Owl Camera: Grade 5. SBSD Owl Camera: You can see EL only has 2 points on here, just because the end size was too small to include things from 2025, so if you see the shorter bars, it speaks fat here. SBSD Owl Camera: Really, absolutely. SBSD Owl Camera: 6th grade math? SBSD Owl Camera: Something else to offer is considering the colors that you're seeing that are below, consistently below proficiency, and the colors that you're seeing that are consistently above proficiency in terms of identity. SBSD Owl Camera: 7th grade math. Seamus Abshere: That's kind of the biggest one, the biggest difference, right? The… what's the opposite of convergence? Divergence. That's the biggest divergence that we've seen. SBSD Owl Camera: And again, if you want to look at cohorts, you
094have to think about the graphs before, right? So keep that in mind as well. 8th grade math. SBSD Owl Camera: 9th grade math. SBSD Owl Camera: No, that's interesting. Can you go back and look at your 8th grade math? SBSD Owl Camera: and how many we had that were below proficiency, it actually seems like, if you go now to the next one, and you're looking at spring of 24, and then you go to Spring of 25… Yep, so all of the identities below proficiency Spring 24, and then move to Spring 25, there is a lot of growth there, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm on the third retest group, please. SBSD Owl Camera: So, this is, rather than scaled score, this is, SBSD Owl Camera: the ratings you saw previously. So the green and blue represent
095proficient and above. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is just another way to look at it, to look at the data. And starting from the top is the most recent. So, the top bar, students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch in the district, 382 students. SBSD Owl Camera: over half of them Performed the low proficient. SBSD Owl Camera: Compared to students not… Eligible for free or reduced lunch. SBSD Owl Camera: Where… About 30% of students performed the low production safety. SBSD Owl Camera: But you're seeing a consistent pattern of approve… of improvement with this student group. Seamus Abshere: So, red is not proficient. SBSD Owl Camera: Correct. Red is, like, level 1, and blue is level 4. Seamus Abshere: And so we're reading from bottom to top, and seeing that free lunch eligible kids
096in 2023, 37% in Level 1, and then Seamus Abshere: And two years later, there's a lot more of them who are more proficient. SBSD Owl Camera: That moved to yellow, yep. SBSD Owl Camera: And on a larger student size. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: So on a ratio and an absolute basis, it is. SBSD Owl Camera: Relative and absolute basis, it is improving. SBSD Owl Camera: This is by gender, so gender non-binary is still non-reportable, but you can see female and male. Seamus Abshere: That seems like a pretty hopeful slide. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: It's pretty consistent. SBSD Owl Camera: This is by race and ethnicity. I know there's… there's a lot on here. SBSD Owl Camera: But I like to kind of start at the bottom of the race
097category, so I look at Asian American Pacific Islander 2023, and my eyes move up, right? And I can see significant gains within that population. SBSD Owl Camera: I look at Black African American 2023, and my eyes move up, and I can see that it's been relatively stable and concerning. SBSD Owl Camera: And then I moved down. SBSD Owl Camera: So one way to look at this, too, just trying to take it in as, like, the big picture without looking at the numbers, right, is the… the green and blue are the target zones, right? Because that's generally where that proficient line is drawn. Seamus Abshere: And so this slide shows strong inequity on… Race and ethnicity. SBSD Owl Camera: Correct. SBSD Owl Camera: This is for students who qualify for English language services. SBSD Owl Camera:
098This is… SBSD Owl Camera: Different than the race, ethnicity flag or the gender slide, because this cohort does change. Students exit and enter the program. SBSD Owl Camera: But gives you a general sense. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, now we're moving to literacy. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is… you've seen this graph before, but in mathematics. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is all students. All students, grade 3 through 9, you got it, yeah. The 3 years of the current demographic. Got it. SBSD Owl Camera: And then this is… SBSD Owl Camera: Students by grade level, and how they're performing against the state for the last 3 years. SBSD Owl Camera: So there aren't any years where we're under the state, but there have been kind of some close SBSD Owl Camera: There's discrepancy in the variance
099between Our performance needs to… SBSD Owl Camera: And this is for grades 6 through 9. SBSD Owl Camera: I need my brain to read right below. I know, I know. SBSD Owl Camera: Alright, so this is scaled score, and you can see the line of proficiencies at 1750 or above, and then this is by racial identity, or, SBSD Owl Camera: Any… or any kind of identifying factor. SBSD Owl Camera: So this is grade 3. SBSD Owl Camera: So it's grade 4. SBSD Owl Camera: 3 to 5. SBSD Owl Camera: Really, the colors that keep coming to the surface. SBSD Owl Camera: are students who qualify for free and reduced lunch, Black students, students who qualify for English language services. SBSD Owl Camera: The students on IEPs. SBSD Owl Camera: Great sense. Awesome. SBSD Owl Camera:
100Grade 7. SBSD Owl Camera: Grade 8. SBSD Owl Camera: Great time. SBSD Owl Camera: There's just a dot in there. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or 25, SBSD Owl Camera: Anywhere? Down at the bottom, spring 25. Yeah, that was the first time the end size was more than 10. Okay. Yeah, thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: And they were at… it shows that number there. I hover over it, I can't see it up there. Is it 1645? 196. Yeah, and then it's 1645 is the… Oh, you're like… SBSD Owl Camera: Crap. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, 196, that's the total number of 9th graders, right? Yes. It's not the total number of Black students. Correct. Oh, oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, that took… but when I looked at it the first time, too, that threw me
101a bit. Yeah, if you hover over any of the lines, it will kind of give you the descriptives. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. So we're moving into the categorical graphs. SBSD Owl Camera: So you saw this in math, this is students' socioeconomic status breakdown. SBSD Owl Camera: There is an improvement in students who qualify for free and reduced lunch. The difference between 2023 and 2025 is… SBSD Owl Camera: This seems really encouraging. Yeah. And on a larger student base, right? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: to be celebrated. Yeah, absolutely and relative. SBSD Owl Camera: just to be… Austin, what you're saying is the number, the sample group as well. Yeah. Sorry, yeah, it is hard to… I mean, I would… obviously, all these things are difficult, but it's really hard to move any of these numbers, and
102even harder when more students are in the challenging, right, in that group, so… SBSD Owl Camera: Impressive success, is how I read that, or trajectory, rather. Not success. SBSD Owl Camera: This is by gender. SBSD Owl Camera: So this isn't as actually stable as the math by gender, which is interesting. SBSD Owl Camera: Fairly. SBSD Owl Camera: This suggests in 25 of that, male and female are basically SBSD Owl Camera: identical, almost, right? Yeah. Almost indistinguishable. SBSD Owl Camera: And it was a great jump that year as well. Yeah. And there was a lot of improvement. SBSD Owl Camera: And males from 2024 to 2025. SBSD Owl Camera: This is by race, ethnicity? SBSD Owl Camera: You can hover overly instead. SBSD Owl Camera: 5 person. SBSD Owl Camera: The numbers don't always add to…
103they don't always summate to 100 exactly, just for rounding. SBSD Owl Camera: So that's why it's not perfectly lined up on the end. SBSD Owl Camera: This is students with English Language Services. SBSD Owl Camera: Or if she goes a little thicker, or through 40 slides, and it's been… I know. We have 50 more slides to go. Yes, that's right. All right, this is the annual, assessment that students with English language services take. SBSD Owl Camera: And when they reach bridging or reaching, they exit the program. So this is the scores for the last 3 years. SBSD Owl Camera: Monica, I have a quick question. I don't want to slow this down anymore, so… but to help me frame the rest of these, when we see inequities SBSD Owl Camera: like we did on two
104slides ago, I'm curious how you parse Something that, SBSD Owl Camera: could have multiple contributing factors, right? At what type of an inequity is it? Or is it, like, if there is a racial inequity that matches a English language, like, is it… if it is explained by multiple factors, and we see the inequity on maybe free or reduced lunch, or English language, or racial… SBSD Owl Camera: how do you parse what type of inequity it is, or how do you know which way to interpret it? I approach it by the intersection. So, SBSD Owl Camera: So, actually, I've just been looking at the data between English language learners, who are white passing, right, like me. SBSD Owl Camera: And, who have darker skin, and, like, white English language learners versus Black English language learners, and
105there's discrepancy in those fours, right? So the intersection of being a person of color in addition to being an English language learner can make you more vulnerable to the system. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so these lines have not changed, so I think you can kind of… SBSD Owl Camera: These slides you've seen, this is our complainants, and by their identity, SBSD Owl Camera: as being subject to, potential student discrimination. Not all of these cases have been substantiated, so there were 79 cases last year. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I think we drilled down into this pretty deeply. I think so. Should I… I'll, it'd be okay if we get to… yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. SBSD Owl Camera: Student engagement, so this has been
106added more over time, so you can compare it over time. SBSD Owl Camera: And you can look at the percentiles at the bottom are generally a good way to kind of see the benchmark. SBSD Owl Camera: So, for school safety, we're generally in the 78th to 80th percentile. SBSD Owl Camera: fashion. SBSD Owl Camera: Sense of belonging. SBSD Owl Camera: You can see some improvement in grades 6 through 12. Winter of 2024 was 45%. Fall of 2025 was 57%. SBSD Owl Camera: Engagement. SBSD Owl Camera: Cultural awareness and action has remained relatively stable at 90%. SBSD Owl Camera: And then this is engagement by gender. SBSD Owl Camera: Sorry, I'm glitching. SBSD Owl Camera: Grades 6 through 12 is going up. SBSD Owl Camera: Youth Engagement by race and ethnicity. SBSD Owl Camera: Engagement by
107race and ethnicity in the higher grades. SBSD Owl Camera: Attendance over time. SBSD Owl Camera: All groups have remained above 90%. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: graduation rate, SBSD Owl Camera: This is not… this is a tricky number. This… this represents the number of students that enter 9th grade and graduate with their cohort in either 4 years or 6 years. So, for example, we have students SBSD Owl Camera: that elect to do… to join the Big Picture program, and they graduate from Mount Mansfield, so they would be dropped from this number, right? They wouldn't be counted in our graduation rate, however they graduated from Mount Mansfield. SBSD Owl Camera: Similarly, students who opt to go to Rice or to school choice to another school district are also not counted with their SBSD Owl
108Camera: Do you know the other emotion? Yes. SBSD Owl Camera: Should we… Oh, that, actually, no, the AOEA could not get the insides on those. SBSD Owl Camera: I know. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm still trying to dig that up. SBSD Owl Camera: It's on… if you click on that link down there, you can get those numbers on it, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: And then you can also see comparing districts, too, if they have all of the districts listed. Student discipline, these slides have not changed too much. SBSD Owl Camera: I just put a little bit more data so you can see trends over time. SBSD Owl Camera: low behavioral incidents. SBSD Owl Camera: Types of suspensions. SBSD Owl Camera: These are our top 3 behavior responses. SBSD Owl Camera: Suspension rate over time, around 3%.
109SBSD Owl Camera: Just because enrollment also fluctuates. SBSD Owl Camera: This is suspension by, SBSD Owl Camera: Kind of grade band, and overall is below, so you can kind of compare SBSD Owl Camera: I'm not sure. So, going back a couple slides, we're… You have, like, SBSD Owl Camera: conferences with the student in school and out of school suspension. Is there, like, progressive SBSD Owl Camera: And would somebody be counted? SBSD Owl Camera: If there is progressive, and they went from SBSD Owl Camera: The conference to in-school to out of school, will they be counted in all three? SBSD Owl Camera: If they had generally… oh, that's a great question. So, we only record one response per behavior, but if… if the student could be double counted, if one day they have an out-of-school suspension,
110and one day in another day they haven't count. SBSD Owl Camera: But this is, like, the primary response, so there's only one response to each wave here. SBSD Owl Camera: Moving forward… SBSD Owl Camera: Don't worry, we're almost in the 90s. SBSD Owl Camera: This is… oop, sorry. SBSD Owl Camera: These are new to the board, so this is, suspensions for the last 3 years. SBSD Owl Camera: So you can see the N on the left, and then you can see if it was in school, out of school, or the student received both types of suspensions. SBSD Owl Camera: In other words, 60% of our… 67% of our students last year that were suspended were suspended out of school at one time. SBSD Owl Camera: Is there a change in policy here that's resulting in
111that jump? It just seems pretty large. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, we, there's no change in policy, I think… SBSD Owl Camera: I think to be able to support in-school suspensions, there's a level of staffing and SEL kind of support that buildings need. SBSD Owl Camera: And I think principals could speak better to that. Seamus Abshere: And so, if we're monitoring equity, this… is this slide meant to set up a comparison between groups, or… Seamus Abshere: Like, what should we take from this, in terms of equity? SBSD Owl Camera: that… I would take, really, just the number of students that are being suspended over time. SBSD Owl Camera: and just the general pattern of if it's in school or out of school, or both. We'll talk more about identities, but this one isn't… SBSD Owl Camera:
112This wasn't… this one isn't, like, it wouldn't give me the whole story. SBSD Owl Camera: Those slides are coming, Seamus. Yeah. Is this… SBSD Owl Camera: Typically the same students each year. SBSD Owl Camera: We'll have that slide. Yeah, so this is… I mean, this slide is pointing out that in 24-25, 81 different students were suspended or out of school suspended, in school or out of school suspended. It might have been multiple times, but 81 different kids, the 2,500 that we have. SBSD Owl Camera: We're suspended. At least once. Seamus Abshere: Is it also possible that this is, because I… if I remember the equity… Seamus Abshere: Policy is much more specific about which graphs it requires. SBSD Owl Camera: In terms of, like, the breakdown of the types of students being suspended? Seamus Abshere:
113Yeah, I just remember that it's, it's, you know. Seamus Abshere: 2.11.4 may specify that you have to present K-12 suspension data. Seamus Abshere: You know, in certain ways. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, we will. It will go through each of the identities named in the policy. Seamus Abshere: Oh, yeah, sorry, I don't mean to say that you're not fulfilling it. On the contrary, I'm just saying that it seems like you are fulfilling it. SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, I'm trying. So, for this graph, I wanted you to be able to compare the overall population, so that's the top bar, right? And you can see 2024, 2025, for example, students living, students living in poverty were, you know, essentially SBSD Owl Camera: Two times more likely to teach. SBSD Owl Camera: And then this is by gender identity.
114SBSD Owl Camera: So you can see that males are over-suspended. SBSD Owl Camera: Or suspended disproportionately. SBSD Owl Camera: This is for students of the global majority, so while students of the global majority make up 30% of our population, they make up 38%. SBSD Owl Camera: Of suspensions, so over-representation there. SBSD Owl Camera: students with EL services, are underrepresented in suspensions for the last year, for 2024, 2025. SBSD Owl Camera: Students who are living with a disability, so you can see the overall population on the top. SBSD Owl Camera: And they're over-representation, historically. SBSD Owl Camera: That's the remarks. SBSD Owl Camera: And this is to your question around, students who were suspended once versus multiple times. So, of those 81 students last year, 63% of them were suspended just once, while 37% of them
115were suspended more than once. SBSD Owl Camera: So you can say… see, like, the repeat student list has been growing. SBSD Owl Camera: And then these slides are old, you all have seen these, so I think if the board's amenable, I can kind of move through those. SBSD Owl Camera: This is exit ticket from teachers. SBSD Owl Camera: After they're into racist workshops. SBSD Owl Camera: Hiring and retention, you all have seen. Wait, I'm sorry, can you go back one slide? Yes, yes. Go back, there are two slides now, just real quick. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so this was restorative justice practices. SBSD Owl Camera: Will it have an impact? So that's August, September, this year? Of this year, compared to October of 24. SBSD Owl Camera: No, October this year. So, teachers and support
116staff have four workshops throughout the year. Okay. And they fill out an exit ticket at the end. One of the questions on the exit ticket is this, do you feel that this anti-racism look will have an impact on your work with students? So, this is how they answered overall. But there were SBSD Owl Camera: 58 respondents in the August-September workshop. SBSD Owl Camera: And then there were 91 respondents in October. And then our next one will be January, and then April. Okay, so August, September was… was combined. Was one, support staff was separate from teachers, exactly. And I'll just kind of keep flooding that data in, so then you can kind of see exit tickets over time. Okay, thank you. Yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: Hiring and retention, we've seen. SBSD Owl Camera: Very amazing. SBSD
117Owl Camera: Curriculum materials, and we've also seen SBSD Owl Camera: While we don't have a strategic plan, we do have a continuous improvement goal, and those are our three continuous improvement goals. SBSD Owl Camera: This is a new graph, this is sense of belonging over time. I included teachers and staff, just so you could see that. SBSD Owl Camera: Obviously, that has an impact on our students. SBSD Owl Camera: And you can see a lot of work there. SBSD Owl Camera: That works good. SBSD Owl Camera: And then there's just a lot more. I don't know how, how much, Jen? SBSD Owl Camera: So many ways you can splice this data. Yeah, yeah, and I want to respect… SBSD Owl Camera: Co-curriculars you have all seen. SBSD Owl Camera: That's probably one of the spaces
118we have the most representation in. SBSD Owl Camera: Which is great. There's a lot of celebration in school curriculars. SBSD Owl Camera: This we have seen… SBSD Owl Camera: And this you all have seen, too. I can get updated data at the end of this year for enrollment this year. SBSD Owl Camera: All right. SBSD Owl Camera: Any questions? SBSD Owl Camera: It was excellent. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: I just wanted to say thank you for adding, timescales, and… which was one of the requests in the last presentation, that really helps us in progress and impacts over time, so thank you for damage to that. I can tell that took a lot of time and effort, so I appreciate that addition. SBSD Owl Camera: And I like you adding the teachers in there, too.
119I think that's really helpful to see. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you, Monica, that was fantastic. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so… Almost there. SBSD Owl Camera: That's part three. Monica told you all of… or showed you all of the data. And then, we come to, SBSD Owl Camera: the rubric, and this is where we look at those three domains, and all of the data that Monica showed, and then we determine where are we as a district in terms of compliance. So when you look at student outcomes. SBSD Owl Camera: Monica and I sat down, and we looked through everything we saw, and we thought that we were approaching SBSD Owl Camera: compliance. We thought we were far, we were beyond beginning compliance. We knew we were not at advanced compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: We did see
120that, we are seeing, we definitely have some targeted interventions, we are showing some modest improvement in some areas, but we don't think that we are, SBSD Owl Camera: narrowing across multiple indicators, so that's how we decided that the superintendent's evaluation of student outcomes is we are approaching compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: School experiences. We went through the same thing. We looked at all of the data, and came up with a rating of SBSD Owl Camera: proficient compliance. We think we're doing… we're not perfect yet, but we're doing pretty well with, students and families reporting equitable treatment, belonging, access, etc, etc. SBSD Owl Camera: And finally, district systems and practices. SBSD Owl Camera: We think that we are in that, that's approaching compliance section when we're… because we're talking about, we have some systems, hiring, curriculum, budgeting,
121are beginning to apply an equity lens. Efforts are fragmented, not yet embedded. Representation among staff and materials is improving graduate. SBSD Owl Camera: So, we look at all those things, we come up with these ratings, and then this part is where we come up with our plan. So when we look at our scores, when we look at our ratings, we look at our data, what are we going to do? SBSD Owl Camera: And so you can see, per student outcomes, what our plan is, is we will refine our multi-tiered system of support to ensure that every student receives the academic and behavioral supports necessary. SBSD Owl Camera: A lot of this is going to be providing professional development to teachers to strengthen their Tier 1 instruction that reflects and responds to the diverse strengths and
122needs of our student body. SBSD Owl Camera: Teachers are also engaging in ongoing training to analyze data and adjust instruction through an equity lens. SBSD Owl Camera: Ensuring that all students are supported in meeting high standards. That's… that's what our plan is moving forward, to see these ratings improve. SBSD Owl Camera: School experiences. We do remain committed to creating inclusive and supportive environments where all students experience belonging and dignity. We will, again, professional development, engage in professional development centered on restorative practices. SBSD Owl Camera: Focusing on maintaining student accountability while minimizing reliance on exclusionary discipline. We want to find ways to teach kids how to behave without sending them out of school. SBSD Owl Camera: Additionally, administrators will participate in training on evaluation practices and change management, so they can help their teaching staff, SBSD
123Owl Camera: Implement those practices. SBSD Owl Camera: Finally, the district systems and practices, we've talked about these committees, and we're going to establish an equity advisory committee to develop and recommend policies, practices, and structures that ensure accountability. SBSD Owl Camera: The committee will also guide efforts to elevate and monitor opportunities for authentic student voice. SBSD Owl Camera: Parallel to this work, we're going to implement a comprehensive strategy to recruit and retain staff of the global majority, which is going to include creating a grow-your-own educator pipeline, developing a candidate clearinghouse, and establishing support networks for employees of the global majority to promote SBSD Owl Camera: Retention, belonging, and responsiveness. SBSD Owl Camera: So again, these were… this will be the work that we do over the next year, so that when we give this monitoring report,
124we will see movement. I… I don't think that we are not putting effort into this work, but I think we are seeing SBSD Owl Camera: Stagnant growth, quite frankly, which is why we want to add a little bit more accountability and more professional development, so we can SBSD Owl Camera: like I say, stop… I like to say we're going to stop scribing the water and actually do something to, you know, to draw a life rack. So, that's kind of what the plan is. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, the final part of this new system that's now for the board. SBSD Owl Camera: determines whether I was successful in reporting this one for compliance. So, the board would decide SBSD Owl Camera: Was my interpretation of the, compliance reasonable? SBSD Owl Camera: Were the measures we
125used wrote? SBSD Owl Camera: For the, measures, defined adequate. Seamus Abshere: Okay, can you go back to those last two? SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. SBSD Owl Camera: So, measures of rev… relevance of measures defined. So, you would… you're… where this fits in the rubric is, did our measure… our… the lowest ranking is, our measures do not correspond well to policy requirements, or failure to caption. SBSD Owl Camera: On the far right, measures are highly relevant, outcome-focused, and reflect best practices. SBSD Owl Camera: And then, you know, moving down, measures directly align with our policies' expectations. Some measures are relevant amid key aspects. So again, you're looking at this in terms of our reaction or our implementation of the monitoring plan, not how we're doing with the equity goals. Seamus Abshere: Right, I see. Seamus Abshere:
126One is relevance, the other one is adequacy. SBSD Owl Camera: One's relevant, one's adequacy, one is appropriateness of compliance criteria. So, are the compliance criteria unclear, arbitrary, all the way up to… no, our criteria are precise, transparent, and demonstrate a sophisticated understanding. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the overall compliance level, you determine SBSD Owl Camera: how… how did this report… how do you feel that we did, I did, providing you this monitoring report? SBSD Owl Camera: Compliance plan acceptability. SBSD Owl Camera: And then you put all those things together, and you come up with an overall rating for the monitoring of the equity policy. Seamus Abshere: And I think the million dollar question, would you go a little bit up on your screen? SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. Seamus Abshere: So… Overall compliance level. Seamus Abshere:
127Is this meant to be… Quality of reporting, or… Seamus Abshere: Quality of effort, or quality of results? Seamus Abshere: If you could just kind of, Seamus Abshere: you know, what's the explain like I'm 5 version of the over… what is… what does overall compliance mean to you? SBSD Owl Camera: My take on this one, the overall compliance level is, are we, are we working on the right things, and are we being successful in doing that? So it's a little of both. SBSD Owl Camera: Right? We are… we're looking at the right data. SBSD Owl Camera: And we are making growth in the overall equity policy. SBSD Owl Camera: Right. SBSD Owl Camera: So the highest rating there, the report demonstrates clear, sustained compliance with robust data analysis and continuous improvement planning, one step down. The
128report provides sufficient evidence to determine compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: And highlight areas. SBSD Owl Camera: So as I read this aloud, I think it's still… I think it still leans more towards how are we doing on implementing our plan than it does on how our students are actually doing. Seamus Abshere: And I think the reason I was confused for a minute is because every one of those statements starts with the word, the report. Seamus Abshere: As opposed to, like, the organization. So if I read this as the organization provides, you know, like, this is a rating of the organization's efforts, and so now I understand that. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: So my job as superintendent is to tell you how the organization's doing. Your job as the board is to tell me how well
129did I do reporting out on that. SBSD Owl Camera: That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Camera: And you don't see any element of… so, when I think of monitoring and, you know, listen to the training modules and whatnot, that the monitoring is the way that we understand whether or not we're meeting our goals. I think that's still true. SBSD Owl Camera: if what we're actually rating is the report, right? We are understanding, we are observing, we still have the expectation, so we're not rating you on, well, you said you were going to raise it by 10%, and you raised it by 7%, therefore you're not compliant, kind of thing, right? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, this is… it's… it's a tough… SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. Think piece there. I think that, SBSD Owl Camera: if
130my report to you was that everything is the highest level, yes, we're doing all these things, then I… I think the board here would say, the board provides minimal evidence of compliance. That's where I… no, it doesn't. You're saying that… you're saying that SBSD Owl Camera: You are doing all these things that meet where we… what the equity policy says, but our data is still horrible. And you're saying that, yes, we're doing all these things. SBSD Owl Camera: That does not mesh. Therefore, your overall compliance level is poor. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I think it's a blend of how are our kids doing, but how honest are we in making the assessment of how well our kids are doing. SBSD Owl Camera: Now, ultimately, you know, I could be as honest as possible, and every
131year come to you and say, we are beginning… we're at the bottom level. SBSD Owl Camera: you would still, I think, be responsible to get rid of me, right? It's not enough to be honest and say, yeah, we're horrible, and next year, yep, we're horrible, right? There does need to be some, right? SBSD Owl Camera: So, yeah, I think, I mean, it's… I think that's a really good way to describe that notion of demanding and understanding, right? Because there's… SBSD Owl Camera: There's a practicality to this situation where we really need to, SBSD Owl Camera: Well, I don't… I don't want to put too much of my own thought on top of that, but I think that was really helpful for me. I think it also… just calling it out, I have a feeling we're
132gonna have to simplify a little bit. SBSD Owl Camera: at least remove one of those overall compliance rules, right? Because I think that that might be duplicated. SBSD Owl Camera: And I do want to throw one thing else out there for Board's consideration, SBSD Owl Camera: in doing the… the training modules, and we still need to ask our questions and be continually learning ourselves, so… but there is also the notion of the action that we take is to accept the report. SBSD Owl Camera: We could go through the motion of providing this as feedback, so this is where I struggle with it, because there is this need, this policy-governance-defined monitoring process, and the purpose of that process is for accountability, so the board is expecting SBSD Owl Camera: Performance, and is monitoring the performance, but
133not… SBSD Owl Camera: telling the operational group what to do to improve that performance. At the same time, if we are rating you. SBSD Owl Camera: And we just say, nope, didn't get it, right? Like, to not give you any feedback on why. SBSD Owl Camera: And that feedback on why is where we always have to walk that line of balance, right? Like, that seems unfair, but we also don't want to say in our why that this is what we think you should do. And so. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't think this rubric is there yet for the board, SBSD Owl Camera: But I would love to hear… What's that? I mean, aren't they working on the why? I mean, isn't anybody who's thinking… I mean, they're working… you know, I'm in school, too. No
134one's perfect. There's a lot of work to be did… to be done. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's, like, every day, you know, working on the fly. I don't think that's for us to say. SBSD Owl Camera: That's… that's operations, that's thinking on the… on the why. No, I'm just saying, if… if I… if me, Michelle Boyer, as a board member, I say, for compliance plan, I think the action plan is missing or inadequate. Timelines, responsibilities, or next steps are unclear. SBSD Owl Camera: to say what I think is missing seems helpful, not punitive, right? It's not interfering, I'm just trying to explain why I gave that rating. SBSD Owl Camera: And Dr. Clark can say, well, I don't agree, and I'm just going to, you know, or he can use that, right? It's still in
135the operational hands. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, are we supposed to vote on this individually, or present it like this? Sure. I know, but I want to know where we're going, because I don't know where we're going. Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately… Talk and talk, and just want to know where we're headed. I think ultimately, the plan is, is that we are going to vote on SBSD Owl Camera: whether or not this is in compliance. That's my understanding, is what we would do at the conclusion of this discussion. SBSD Owl Camera: And then once we hear from the public, just to kind of move it along, that was… that was my understanding. And I… honestly, I could go… SBSD Owl Camera: Either way, I don't think that we feel a need that we have to
136have the board say, yes, you're in compliance or not, because this is a new system, we're testing it out. If the board was… is like, thanks for presenting this to us. SBSD Owl Camera: Michelle's hearing feedback from people. We get back together and say, okay, how are we going to tweak this a little bit if we bring it back to you sometime in December? Not go through the whole thing again, right? But this is what the new rubric looks like for the board to decide where we are with compliance. Let me ask you a direct question. SBSD Owl Camera: Is having levels of compliance useful in your thinking, or is it not useful? I think it is very useful. SBSD Owl Camera: Because I think it shows where there's an opportunity to improve, and that's
137what I would say. To me, this was a great presentation, all of this is great, but at the end of it all, I would like a distillation of SBSD Owl Camera: here's where we are. And maybe you've got a couple of slides. This is why we believe we're in this place, and here is our closure. And I know you have that here, but I think it's putting it in something that's more readable, like, it can fit on one page, and we can see something that's, you know, just… SBSD Owl Camera: very easy to digest, because right now, I think it's tough, because I'm going back and forth, and looking at this, and looking at that, and… SBSD Owl Camera: Oh, between the slides? Yeah, and between the slides, but just to have, like, a distillation
138of everything that's like, here's where we are, this is what our score is, this is where our gap is, this is what we need to do to address that. SBSD Owl Camera: That, to me, would be very helpful. SBSD Owl Camera: You know? SBSD Owl Camera: Something sucks. SBSD Owl Camera: to kind of us. I think that a lot of us are… that was a heavy report. It's very heavy. I mean, I am not here to pressure any of you to approve or anything today. I, like I said, I'm completely fine with… you gave feedback. SBSD Owl Camera: I would like to sit with Michelle again to just talk through what we're hearing, make whatever tweaks we need to. Because once we get this right, then we'll be able to do this for all the
139other monitoring ports. I think the most important part is that SBSD Owl Camera: The acknowledgement of where we are is… is a safe thing to acknowledge during these monitoring reports, and without SBSD Owl Camera: Fear of it meaning you're… you're not compliant, or you're not working hard enough, or you're not… like, because we aren't never going to fix things if we cannot just SBSD Owl Camera: I don't want to come in and say, we're great, and here's a mountain of stuff you can read to see that they're great. Right. So is that something that, like, you would work on the rubric together? That's what I'm suggesting. We get back together, and then bring it back to the rubric sometimes. SBSD Owl Camera: very reasonable. And I like the tiers. I do like the peers. I
140don't get so extra work, but… And that's, you know, with the kids, did you guys… do you guys like having the rubric that allows you to see, like, the different… SBSD Owl Camera: levels of where you are. Yeah. It's really helpful when you get a grade back of, like, you got this grade because you didn't meet this aspect of whatever, too. SBSD Owl Camera: Most of, part of the goal of creating a different model, right, is to, like, help the community understand what we're doing. And also from Sally. I feel still slightly confused on how to write this, which I… SBSD Owl Camera: as someone who's, like, been on the board for a while, I think the community is probably also confused right now, so I would also say I would love if you guys
141made some changes SBSD Owl Camera: And then we came back to it. I want to feel confident right now. Do you mean on the board evaluation rubric? Is that where the confusion is? Yeah, I still feel slightly confused on how I would rank things that are under the board evaluation. But it is… but a range is more helpful than the binary, right? So it's in the right direction. In the right direction. The binary, that's stuck, because Allie and I have been on the board the longest. SBSD Owl Camera: And, yeah, it's just, like, a reasonable interpretation. Right. But there was… but it never really went… SBSD Owl Camera: deeper than that. So, I do think, like, and I write in bricks all the time for grades. SBSD Owl Camera: So, back to the drawing board
142on Part 5, the monitoring rubric, and bring it back at a future meeting, not the third, but one of the other December meetings, to see if… Yeah, I think with a different monitoring reporter just by itself. What I would propose then, though, because I've… SBSD Owl Camera: I would propose, and you can all let me know if you agree, that we need to take action on this monitoring, because we do not want to ask you all to come back and do any part of this again, right? So, can we simply… SBSD Owl Camera: Make a motion to accept this report, and leave it at that. SBSD Owl Camera: Or do we need to… do you want to rate? Do you want to try to rate through this? I like the idea of making a motion
143to accept it. SBSD Owl Camera: with the caveat that there's opportunities to improve this, and I would like to have some kind of follow-up on where we stand with how we're going to, you know, where we are with all of this, and to combat… With the substance of equity, or with the rubric? SBSD Owl Camera: Perhaps with… perhaps with both, to do a status update on this. I mean, specifically with the rubric, because we're going to use that again when we do another monitoring report, but, you know, perhaps with a status update, because I do think it would be helpful to have something that we can report back out to the community, because I think part of our transparency here is having something on our website to say, here's the monitoring that we did. SBSD
144Owl Camera: Right? And then… and if there is, again, something that's distilled, we are… SBSD Owl Camera: Approaching compliance, and here's the reason why, and this is what we're going to do to close the gap. Seamus Abshere: So, I have a couple thoughts. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. Seamus Abshere: Oh. Seamus Abshere: I think… Seamus Abshere: policy governance is not perfect, and I think we're… we're really down in the… the weeds of the difficulty of this, and I think that this rubric could probably be improved, to clarify Seamus Abshere: what it is we're… what it is we're judging. Like, going back to my question, are we judging the report, or are we judging the organization? Now, on the substance of equity. Seamus Abshere: I think that we have been presented with A huge amount of information.
145Seamus Abshere: And… My general sense is that there are… there's an inequity along… Seamus Abshere: racial lines, along gender lines, along free lunch lines, along, you know, English language learner lines, and so, Seamus Abshere: I think the high-level question about whether we Seamus Abshere: like, if policy governance means anything at all, in terms of, are we expecting the superintendent to achieve our means, it's kind of this question of, are we on… are we going the right direction? Are we doing enough to, Seamus Abshere: to close all those gaps that I just mentioned. And that's separate from the rubric, so I would be comfortable Seamus Abshere: Expecting the rubric to get better on the next Seamus Abshere: Monitoring report and making it more, clarified. But also, tonight, taking action to say whether we feel like, the
146district is making equity better. Seamus Abshere: So one of the things about our district, it being policy governance, is that it is the official way that we Seamus Abshere: evaluate the superintendent. So… You know, whereas maybe before it was kind of… Seamus Abshere: yes, no, like, pass-fail. Here, we're, if we were to vote on this tonight, I think what we'd be… Seamus Abshere: Doing is providing, like, 4 levels instead of 2 levels of compliance. Seamus Abshere: And, Seamus Abshere: I'm not sure that we could get more… well, let me put it this way. I think that if we… Seamus Abshere: we're going to get more information than what we already have, it would probably be along operational lines. It would be, like, more details about all the things that are being done to Seamus Abshere:
147reduce inequity, or improve equity. Seamus Abshere: I'm not confident… I'm not confident that I would be… Seamus Abshere: competent to evaluate that, and so I think that we really just have to look at the data we've already been presented with, which thankfully shows us trends over time. Seamus Abshere: And, you know, we do have to make a call about what we think Seamus Abshere: Whether we think the district is moving in the right direction, so that we can move on to monitoring other things, because there's, you know, more than one… SBSD Owl Camera: I make a motion to accept the monitoring report? I would actually like to explain one thing, SBSD Owl Camera: to, I guess, clarify one thing, that Seamus, in part, what you're asking for is actually in there, and it's embedded in
148the superintendent's interpretation and in his evaluation. The superintend… the… SBSD Owl Camera: The interpretation answers… finishes the sentence, we will be in compliance when? SBSD Owl Camera: And then the criteria describe that progression. SBSD Owl Camera: And that progression has already been rated for us, right? And so… SBSD Owl Camera: The other things are pretty straightforward for us to evaluate reasonability of interpretation. You know, I think I can safely say now, without influencing anybody, that I think the interpretation is excellent, right? This, the… SBSD Owl Camera: it gives us that exact visibility, I think, that you're looking for, Seamus, in articulating what it means to be compliant, and where we are at in our progression towards SBSD Owl Camera: higher level of compliance. It has those key things. It defines the measures, they are relevant,
149right? Where we're struggling is only on that one piece of, are we… are we evaluating the report? SBSD Owl Camera: And how well it fits the expectations of policy governance, or are we monitoring the ends, or are we doing both? SBSD Owl Camera: I think we're doing both, but that's the part that's really gray here. So. Seamus Abshere: I accept that. I think that's a good… that's a good argument. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I mean, we can make that motion, right? We can still… we can still do the overall rating. We're still not going to be completely synced up among ourselves, right, about what we are thinking about compliance. It's at least a move in the right direction, right? Like, having a yes-no, I can imagine what everybody was thinking in those, like. SBSD Owl
150Camera: on that. Maybe. 100%, right? Yeah, sure, exactly. By the way, I mean, all the data was… work done under a prior superintendent. I didn't do any of that, other than the staff SBSD Owl Camera: sense of belonging in the fall. That's it, right? SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, well, right, and in theory, it, you know… So, Michelle Smith, can you make the motion? SBSD Owl Camera: Well, before we do, is there any comment from the public associated with this before we… before we make that clear motion? And I don't know if there's anyone online that has their hands up. Yes, let's go ahead. SBSD Owl Camera: Related to this? Yes. So can you clarify exactly what we're voting on right now? Well, you've said… We haven't made the motion yet. SBSD Owl Camera: We don't
151know. Michelle's gonna do it. I think. I'm gonna try. I've never made one all by myself. There's no hands up online. Anyone? SBSD Owl Camera: Public? No. Okay, Ali, please. Oh, no, no. Go ahead. Okay, SBSD Owl Camera: I would like to make a motion SBSD Owl Camera: That we proceed with the board rating in each of these categories, reasonability of interpretation, relevance of measures defined. SBSD Owl Camera: Adequacy of measures defined, appropriateness of the compliance criteria, and overall compliance level and compliance plan acceptability. SBSD Owl Camera: I seconded. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, you made the motion. Michelle did. I made the motion. Oh, you made the motion. Okay, great. Right. And then I think there would be a second motion, just accept, not accept. Yep. Yes, exactly. I can do that motion. SBSD Owl
152Camera: Okay. Or you can do it. SBSD Owl Camera: So, I… I sent you all a spreadsheet. Would you rather… SBSD Owl Camera: I take the role on here, or… SBSD Owl Camera: How do you want to lead the… SBSD Owl Camera: Gathering responses. So, in compliance, they mean the questions. Right, so usually… If I say, Seamus, beginning, approaching, compliance, proficient, advanced. SBSD Owl Camera: I'm just responding at those, right? Seamus Abshere: Right. Seamus Abshere: Like, you could… SBSD Owl Camera: You would read… But there are four, so we're not saying yes, no, so we kind of have to do a roll call to do it. Seamus Abshere: Right, so Michelle, you could just go down, you could say Seamus, and then I could say, you know, 1-1-1-1, or 4444, and then you would just…
153and then you'd move on to the next person. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. Yep, no, we'll just say beginning, approaching, proficient third. Wait, we haven't discussed… we haven't discussed whether we're doing this, or, like… Yeah, isn't there any discussion on the motion? SBSD Owl Camera: She did ask about discussion. I have a question. Yes, so we are voting for each of these things right now. We're not going back. SBSD Owl Camera: you guys are not making any changes in our voting. Yeah, we're gonna try, because I think it will be useful information. SBSD Owl Camera: For… for you to hear from the whole board, rather than me just saying… SBSD Owl Camera: But if I can say, too, I think it would be really helpful to pull back up the compliance criteria so that we can
154see where that information is, I think. You've got it on here. You've got it right there. I know, I know, I know, but as we're going through, as folks are… SBSD Owl Camera: That's what I was saying. There's usually something that's a one-pager, I think that's what you're talking about, and then you… in compliance. SBSD Owl Camera: Reasonable interpretation, that's how we used to do it. SBSD Owl Camera: Well, this is the… so, we're still discussing this, and I'm sort of with Allie on this. I don't really know if I would answer… I like the idea more of just accepting the overall report. Can we do that motion first? Can we accept it first, and then rate it, or not rate it? SBSD Owl Camera: That's what I would prefer to do, too. And I
155would say we circle back, perhaps. Then the motion fails, and we can just make the motion to accept. To accept. And I feel like this would be a great thing that maybe… maybe we could talk about more when we have our retreat. SBSD Owl Camera: Would that be possible? SBSD Owl Camera: So, I would like to make the motion that we accept the report. SBSD Owl Camera: Second? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Great. So then, can we take a, the vote on that? Discussion. Discussion? Oh, discussion? Sorry. Is there any further discussion? No. SBSD Owl Camera: Nothing online. Nothing online? SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so all those in favor? SBSD Owl Camera: Aye. Aye. Any opposition? SBSD Owl Camera: All right, motion passes. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't she have interrupt. SBSD
156Owl Camera: Alright, so I would suggest, just looking at the time, and realizing that we've got, 45 minutes here for this… these next discussion items, I would recommend that we move these items. SBSD Owl Camera: to the, we have a community forum that's coming up in two weeks on December the 3rd, and I would suggest that we move the budget discussion until that time, if that's possible. SBSD Owl Camera: And then what I would also like to do is… SBSD Owl Camera: I can just provide a very 30-second quick update on the superintendent search. Is everybody okay? Seamus Abshere: So are you saying that you want to move on from this without, voting on the individual compliance levels? SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes, we're moved on. We're on topic number 5. We're on
1575. Topic 6. We're on discussion items. SBSD Owl Camera: You guys all okay with that? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yes, so that's what we're doing. And then the fiscal year 2027 budget discussion of chosen budget option, I suggest that we move that to our December 3rd agenda, and then this is… Seamus Abshere: Joe, you're still sharing your screen. Yep, okay, cool. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, and then my 30-second update on the superintendent search for the permanent superintendent. I just want folks to know that the posting is out. It will run… it will be running from November 3rd through December 1st on multiple national platforms. SBSD Owl Camera: And several candidates have already applied, which is great news. SBSD Owl Camera: There is a public survey that is open, and it is available on our district website
158for community to provide their input on what they are looking for in our next permanent superintendent. And, Seamus, you can confirm, but I think there's going to be a QR code posted in next week's other paper. SBSD Owl Camera: So far, when I looked tonight, I think we've only had about 146 responses from the public, so… SBSD Owl Camera: For everyone, please weigh in, and we will be taking that feedback very seriously, and we want to ensure that everyone is being heard. SBSD Owl Camera: We also held our first committee meeting this past Monday. The next committee meeting will be held on Friday, December the 5th, and we will have a full day of interviews happening on Friday, December the 12th. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the last thing is please mark your calendars, because
159we will have a meet and greet with the top two candidates on Monday, December 15th at 5 p. 6 p.m. at the district office. SBSD Owl Camera: And then the decision will be announced regarding who the permanent superintendent is at our board meeting on December 17th. SBSD Owl Camera: So there's a lot that's happening, but we do have those two forums. We have one coming up on the 3rd, and there will be some time to also talk about it, but specifically on the 15th for people that would like to come and have a chance to meet the, candidates. Okay, thanks, that's that. All right, moving on. SBSD Owl Camera: to the next item, which is the interim superintendent's report. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: I will make this, quick, because you've heard about, some of these
160things already. These three questions meetings I've been having, you've asked for an update on that. I've had 21 meetings to date with, about 250 individual people. Having attended those meetings, I have 6 more meetings scheduled, and anticipate there may be 2 or 3 more added to that. SBSD Owl Camera: So, when it's all said and done, it'll be about 30 meetings that I've held with various community groups. SBSD Owl Camera: I've asked 3 questions, and I'm going to give you the top 5 most common themes for each question. What do people like about South Burlington schools? Dedicated, caring educators and staff. SBSD Owl Camera: Strong community connection, high-quality academics and programs, focus on social-emotional learning, and positive partnerships. What people say we can do better? Improve communication and transparency. SBSD Owl Camera: Develop and clearly
161communicate a long-term facilities plan. Rebuild trust. SBSD Owl Camera: Strengthen academic rigor and accountability. SBSD Owl Camera: Address inequities and inclusion. SBSD Owl Camera: What do people expect of the superintendent? Be visible, approachable, actively engaged, lead with authenticity and transparency, provide a clear vision and direction, balance the needs of students, staff, and taxpayers, and rebuild community pride and trust. SBSD Owl Camera: Finally, we had our first Curriculum Advisory Committee, meeting. Really good turnout. There were, probably 30 people there, I think. SBSD Owl Camera: And Michelle and Jen were there. The committee brainstormed topics that they want to do more research into. Thanks to Ali and Moment for recruiting students to join that committee. Our next meeting is January. We'll begin to focus the work a little bit. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. That's my report.
162Can I make one suggestion? Thank you for that update. I'm really impressed with the number of community groups you've done. That's fantastic. And I'm wondering, would you be interested, or do you think there'd be a value in perhaps writing an article to the other paper as you get further along with this? SBSD Owl Camera: And just communicating what you've done, because, you know, maybe there's people that haven't seen that output, but I think that might be a really good way to advertise what you're doing, and perhaps also solicit, hey, you know, if I haven't reached out, or if you haven't, and you'd be interested in communicating, you know, maybe this is an opportunity. I'd be happy to do that, and I do plan, I think I mentioned a few times, before this is all said
163and done, to put together SBSD Owl Camera: a… SBSD Owl Camera: a 3Q survey to send to anybody that did not have the opportunity to come to. Yeah, that's great. Thank you very much. My pleasure. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so moving on to consent agenda and planning, in regards to consent agenda, we have 19 account payables invoices to, approve, to review and approve. SBSD Owl Camera: And then also approve the AP vouchers for Howard Center and New England floor covering. SBSD Owl Camera: And then approve a leave of absence for Deidre Fallon, and also a new hire for Deidre Fallon as the new assistant principal at Orchard. SBSD Owl Camera: and approval of prior meeting minutes from November 5th and 10th, 2025. SBSD Owl Camera: Are there any items a board member would like
164to remove from the consent agenda for a separate discussion or action? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, hearing none, I will entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. SBSD Owl Camera: I move to accept that you can see it. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, Laura moves to accept. Do we have a second? SBSD Owl Camera: Is that, Emily? Emily Seconds? SBSD Owl Camera: And is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: I would just like to say, if I could, that you should start seeing, starting with this meeting, an increased level of transparency. You'll be found, given all of the accounts payables instead of selected ones. SBSD Owl Camera: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. SBSD Owl Camera: Did notice that. It's a lot thicker. Yeah, so that's gotta be going forward. Thank you
165for that. Okay, so, let's see. SBSD Owl Camera: We have here. All right, so, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda? Aye. Any opposition? SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, motion carries. Consent agenda is approved. Congratulations to Deirdre. Very exciting. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, and then, next up is setting the agenda for the December 3rd Community Forum. And so, you know, right now, I would suggest that we do have the budget discussion, obviously, that's the purpose of that. And then we can also provide more of an update on the superintendent search. SBSD Owl Camera: And Dr. Clark, you had planned to bring forward the information on the NESDEC, SBSD Owl Camera: No, I don't think on the 3rd. I thought we were going to do that maybe later in the month, because we don't
166want to take away from that. Let's… let's put that, we'll put that in our parking lot. Yeah, this is good. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Can we keep the agenda simple, Jen? Yep. The budget and the superintendent, sir? Sure, yeah, absolutely. That's what I would suggest. Two most important things. Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, I didn't know if… Oh, sorry, go ahead, Seamus. Seamus Abshere: Well, you bringing up the best use study, that might, you know, and what Joe… Seamus Abshere: Said about it is that it's an analysis of how best to use the facilities that we already have. Seamus Abshere: And that that might mean… I don't know what it might mean, right? But, Seamus Abshere: At some point, we should probably talk about what it might mean. Seamus Abshere: And an e-form might be
167a good place to do that. SBSD Owl Camera: I wouldn't say, like. SBSD Owl Camera: I don't know, I would caution us about putting too many things on the agenda. We have this huge superintendent search and a budget, like, I just… I wonder if we could just stay focused. The reason I don't think it hurts to delay it a little bit is because it's going to take… it's… it will… even if the board were to vote on it today, the best use study would not be done in time for us to do anything for the next school year. Right. So… SBSD Owl Camera: We have a little bit of time. SBSD Owl Camera: The best use study, I believe, will help us make this… help you and whoever the permanent superintendent is make decisions about
168what you're going to do, school year 27-28, moving forward. I think what I was thinking about in adding it to the agenda, not so much to get SBSD Owl Camera: really into detail about it, but more because I think you're going to have… I mean, it could be, like, a 2-minute, 5-minute, whatever it is, just blurb about what this is, because there may be people that show up to that forum that have not been present, don't know about what we're talking about, and I just wanted to shed some light on it. Like, you're not going to have information to share, but hey, by the way, this is something we might be considering. SBSD Owl Camera: looking, you know, forward, forward-based, I think. That would be the only thing. Put in the superintendent's report, and talk
169a few minutes about it. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. Is that for the third, or for the ninth? We can do it for the third. I won't… I won't bring anything for you to vote on on the third, though. Right. I think you're right. I think we want to talk budget and superintendent search. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, so that's what we have, those three, those three things before. Okay, fantastic. We did not also discuss our project management calendar tonight, so this is more parking lot items. SBSD Owl Camera: But I think that that is something to keep up, and perhaps that could be another thing that we talked about during the retreat on the 13th. SBSD Owl Camera: And then we also talked about longer-term and shorter-term schedule. SBSD Owl Camera:
170And how we get caught up for this fiscal year, and I'm… from my notes, I'm pretty sure that regard… is regarding our monitoring schedule. SBSD Owl Camera: term… SBSD Owl Camera: Yes. Oh, that wasn't on our agenda. Yeah, we… we want to talk about… we wanted to have a discussion item. SBSD Owl Camera: But probably soon thereafter, an action item to vote on a schedule for the rest of the year so that we can get all of the monitoring in. Yep. And then what that looks like, what the schedule looks like on a more regular basis, annual basis. SBSD Owl Camera: Yeah, so that is in our parking lot, so that's… I just didn't want to lose it, because I remembered us talking about that, so I don't… it's not going to happen on the
1713rd. SBSD Owl Camera: But it may be on the next… The 17th, the 17th. SBSD Owl Camera: And… Okay. Seamus Abshere: Related to that, if we do want to come back and actually rate Seamus Abshere: according to the rubric, the four levels are, you know, adequacy, relevance, all those things for equity. I don't know where that would go. SBSD Owl Camera: Yep. In the parking lot, kind of down the parking lot, right? Speaking of the parking deck, so… Got multiple levels. SBSD Owl Camera: All right, and again, I just wanted to reiterate before we wrap up that our next meeting will be a community forum on Wednesday, December 3rd at 6 p.m. at Orchard School, and then we will have another community forum on Monday, December the 15th, to meet and greet the two permanent
172superintendent finalists. SBSD Owl Camera: And that's here. And that's gonna be here, at 6 p.m. SBSD Owl Camera: Okay, so, SBSD Owl Camera: Anything else to add? All right, so there being no further business, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Laura moves to adjourn. Do we have a second? SBSD Owl Camera: Sergeant. SBSD Owl Camera: Dan seconds, is there any discussion? SBSD Owl Camera: Nope, motion carries.