May 17, 2025 School Board Meeting

001SBSD Owl Cam: And then SBSD Owl Cam: good morning. I call the special meeting with the Sotron Municipal Board to order on Saturday, New 17, th 2,025 at 10 0. 1 A. M. SBSD Owl Cam: Any announcements or notice to the agenda. SBSD Owl Cam: Anybody else doesn't know. SBSD Owl Cam: Not a moment to know comments from the public. But there are any comments. SBSD Owl Cam: Would you come, sit next to Bridget to make it public? Comment that way that hopefully the owl. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm having trouble hearing you, Chelsea. I don't know if it's just SBSD Owl Cam: mark Gable, community member. Thank you. That's all SBSD Owl Cam: great opportunity. Thank you. Guys for spending alright. Thank you. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm not doing any raised hands on mine. SBSD

002Owl Cam: So we will move right on to agenda. Item, 4 panel discussion with former School Board members. Thank you all so much for being here. I really appreciate it. We've decided to convene with these former board members this morning to learn from their experience and ask them some questions and hopefully, learn a lot of valuable things to know about SBSD Owl Cam: effectively working as a board and serving our district. So thank you all so much for the time. SBSD Owl Cam: I was thinking that I to stick to the agenda. I can ask each question, and then, if you want to just answer, I'm sure, looking at the agenda. You have different questions. You have more points, or maybe less. And so just SBSD Owl Cam: whatever you'd like to share. And then,

003before we move on to each. But to the next question I'll give board members or the superintendent opportunity to ask, follow up questions based on what you share. SBSD Owl Cam: And then are we gonna do introductions, too. And then also, like, Yeah, do we get to ask you guys stuff? And I'm curious, too, all like to briefly introduce yourself SBSD Owl Cam: before I, can you hear me? Okay? Or need to? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. Yeah. First, st I wanted to say, I'm really happy. Chelsea and Violet here. SBSD Owl Cam: allowing us to meet you. There were several people who wanted to come. You may still see Diane Bugby, who will show up later. Julie. Beatty was interested in coming, and Patrick was also interested. But I think it really is a reflection

004on you have a lot of folks in the community who have shared the experience you're having now, and several of you that are relatively new and onboarding and SBSD Owl Cam: there's a lot of empathy for the School Board role, and a lot of sympathy for the School Board role. I would also say that each of us has SBSD Owl Cam: shared a lot of different experiences, and to the extent that our lived experience their lived experiences can support through both your onboarding and the circumstances you may find yourself in today and in the future we're happy to serve in that capacity. And yeah, this is more like a table of survivors, more than anything. So SBSD Owl Cam: so if I can start with introductions, I mean Elizabeth Fitzgerald, I served on the school

005board for 15 years. Served in the chair capacity for about half that time. You know. SBSD Owl Cam: Introductory words are why I even got introduced, or was interested in running. In the 1st place, was I kind of came on with an agenda around financial management, and I was looking at budgets that I was being asked to approve as a community member, and seeing a lot of surpluses and not really understanding SBSD Owl Cam: why those didn't get embedded into reducing the tax rate versus getting rolled over into more spending. And so I came on with a little bit of a SBSD Owl Cam: you know chip on my shoulder around financial management, and what I learned really quickly is, and I SBSD Owl Cam: subsequently counseled many board members that were interested in running,

006and it that ran successfully is, don't come on with an agenda, and it largely is, you know, you. You're here to do the work of the board, and you're here to represent the community, and SBSD Owl Cam: nobody joins a School board without valuing our public education system and educators either. And there are circumstances where it feels like you're challenged in that capacity of both valuing education, the cost of education as well as those employees within the district. And you need to. You know, we all have had to learn to live with some of that SBSD Owl Cam: tension. Over the years. But anyway, I I love my service. I loved all of the people I've worked with. We all don't re agree on things. And SBSD Owl Cam: I think we found really positive

007ways to work together and move the district forward in our various capacities. So thanks for having, did you all serve on the school board at the same time, at any given point we did overlap. We're only missing. Alex. Yeah. Otherwise the band is back to go. Yeah, well, we overlap. But we all serve with different people. SBSD Owl Cam: So I'm Martin Malone and I served on the school board for 11 years. SBSD Owl Cam: I think it started around 2,009 to 2,010. I can't quite remember exactly when I got on the board at the time. Rich Cassidy was the chair, and and I got on the board because there were a group of parents 4 of us were meeting to get out the vote for the budget. Yet another difficult budget, I think, way

008back when but it did pass, and we learned that Ted Menazar was not going to be running again. SBSD Owl Cam: and I grew the short straw and and was put up to to run. So so that's how I ended up on the school board, although at the time I was very interested in the negotiations and the impasse that was about to be reached with the Union, the teachers Union. SBSD Owl Cam: and that was kind of an interest. I don't think it was just my, that wasn't my only agenda, I don't think but that that was a hot topic at the time, and continued to be a hot topic for all 11 years. That was on so. SBSD Owl Cam: or echo Brian manir. I had the shortest tenure of anybody here. I only

009lasted 3 years, so SBSD Owl Cam: sorry, and thanks to all of you for what you're doing, and stepping up at a time that was also not too easy. So I have 2 kids who went through the district. One is now a software in the high school. One is a software at Uvm. SBSD Owl Cam: And I really liked our schools, and they came up through orchard. And that was a wonderful experience. And when they got old enough. I finally said, Okay, I got a little bit of time. I want to do something, and in this town, if you raise your hand someone will find you, and I didn't care what it was, and so Martin found me and lied to me and said it was going to be 2 meetings a month it'd be

010about 3 h. You do a little homework. SBSD Owl Cam: not a problem. And that was true. SBSD Owl Cam: For a couple of months, maybe over that 1st summer and then we got into the master, planning and visioning and trying to build a new Middle School high school. SBSD Owl Cam: And I think that attempt at the bonds along with Covid SBSD Owl Cam: along with. There was a racial incident that probably everybody here knows about, but still can't really talk about. I think those 3 really colored my tenure, but it was that failed bond effort that really hung over everything. And then Covid just sort of exacerbated it. SBSD Owl Cam: I think either one of the bond effort, or Covid would have had me leave after 3 years. But I was just fried

011by the end of it, and SBSD Owl Cam: so step down, having not achieved much of what I wanted to do. But the failed bond effort influenced what I wanted to do, going forward, and so, when the opportunity appeared to go work in the Legislature, I thought I would go in and fix school construction in a couple of years. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm no longer on education. SBSD Owl Cam: They kicked me out and so I passed the baton to Bridget, who was going to fix it the next 2 years. SBSD Owl Cam: So just so, you know I've been working on that for 8 years. I think you have Elizabeth to fix everything at the city level on all fronts. SBSD Owl Cam: but that's all for me. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm Bridget Burkhart.

012We know everybody. I also was lied to by far. And Elizabeth no, I got involved in the school district and 2 kids. One is now a sophomore with Brian Cedric. My wells is sophomore, and I have a 6th grader. We were just starting to focus on the schools more heavily. We can focus on them enough to move to South Burlington for the school. SBSD Owl Cam: But the kids were very little, and Wells was actually at Renaissance School at the time, and he was looking to transition into Rick Marcott. He knew that was going to happen at the same time. Some of you will remember the whole push to consolidate all the elementary schools SBSD Owl Cam: based on the idea that our enrollment was declining. And we just need all these 3 schools, and

013they really wanted to rip Mark on property for City Center SBSD Owl Cam: for lots of different reasons. And I got nudged by a fellow community member to start going to school board meetings to learn more about it. And then I started asking a lot of questions, and, as Brian said, if you raise your hand, and you ask a lot of questions. Someone will find you. And Elizabeth found me and Dan Fleming, who was on the board at the time, who was an engineer and was focused a lot of numbers and a lot of SBSD Owl Cam: budget, and on instruction was stepping off of the school board. And so I thought that maybe I would be a fit, so I served 3 terms 3 2 year terms on the school board, and I always

014thought I was going to. I was a stay at home, mom, at the time that I ran, and I thought I always thought I was going to go back to my career in finance. SBSD Owl Cam: and I delayed that a little bit extra because of Covid. So I stayed on a little longer than I probably even would have because of Covid, and although I guess I had already made the decision, so really SBSD Owl Cam: it, I was starting to think toward work. But I thought I would do one last term, and then transition out, which is what I ended up doing. And worked for a few years of finance again. And then SBSD Owl Cam: that job was winding down, since a fund that was not raising another fund, and SBSD Owl Cam:

015Martin had already talked to me at 1 point about thinking about the legislature, and so Noah Hyman decided not to run for this. I sit in now in the Legislature, so I decided last year to run, even though I saw Brian at SBSD Owl Cam: State Band Competition the day after they adjourned, and he had been on board till 3 o'clock in the morning. I still signed up to run for legislature. Yeah. And so my main issue. When I came on the board, I wouldn't say it was an agenda, but it was the issue. That sort of got me going to school, working these regularly, was master planning, commissioning, and really thinking about what we needed in terms of facilities over the long term, and I spent a lot of my time working on that.

016SBSD Owl Cam: But yeah, once I got on the board was very quickly sort of ensconsced in all the different issues. So SBSD Owl Cam: I guess it's him 2. SBSD Owl Cam: Alright. With that shall we move on to our 1st question, and any follow up questions or comments. SBSD Owl Cam: I just wanna say I, I find it interesting that several of you got on because of one issue or one interest. And then it suddenly the door opens, and it's a whole different story once you're on. So SBSD Owl Cam: I think most of us, I mean, we all had like an interest that drew us to really get more involved. But I think all of us ran, knowing that board service meant looking at all the different issues that you can't be

017a 1 issue person on a board, especially, you guys know, 7. But even with 7 you can't really be a 1 issue person aren't enough people to have one person be the person on a specific issue. And the 5, we definitely couldn't. There just wasn't the bandwidth for anybody to sort of be a single issue SBSD Owl Cam: percent. SBSD Owl Cam: There we go, and I was naive enough to think that I was gonna get on and mostly talk about pedagogy and how things are going, and it's you know. Here's your 1st fire. Here's your second fire, you know, and so maybe someday y'all will get there. But kind of doubt it. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. And we can go with the agenda Chelsea. But I encourage anybody. If you want to deviate from

018this, it's really meant to be interactive. So SBSD Owl Cam: don't worry. SBSD Owl Cam: Let me start with those questions. I thought they were great. SBSD Owl Cam: Right? So the 1st question is, why and why did the district decide to move to a policy governance system and the follow up questions under that are dealing with policy, governance, and potential contentious issues which fall outside of the monitoring report calendar and what challenges, what challenges did you have with monitoring reports? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, why don't I start with that? Because I think it started in my tenure and kind of went on from there. There was. I can't remember the year there was a community strategic planning session that really focused on SBSD Owl Cam: defining what the values were from the community with

019public education, and that is really where the ants policy came from. And at the same time policy governance was being evaluated in school systems across the Us. But in Vermont as well, and there were other districts that adopted it before South Burlington. Did. I believe Burlington? Maybe not. Mansfield did, I can't remember but the the intent of it was to really keep SBSD Owl Cam: the board out of the weeds, and it was to differentiate where boards really define policy that administrators and staff would execute. SBSD Owl Cam: and SBSD Owl Cam: the the struggle I have always struggled with the negative language around it, and and I think we all did. Where? What you're really defining is what the superintendent, as CEO of the district is not allowed to do to accomplish here policy,

020and SBSD Owl Cam: what the challenge with that. There's a lot of pluses to, you know, defining where the board stays and where Superintendent staff stay. The challenge is in a couple of things from my perspective one. The monitoring reports are scheduled on a calendar basis. So if you start to have feedback bubbling up from the community. SBSD Owl Cam: the 1st challenge is, the board is really needs to define the feedback that's coming in terms of a policy. So it may be treatment of community or treatment of staff. And so that would be the conversation the board would have at that level. SBSD Owl Cam: And then, if the monitoring port is 10 months out, a decision really has to get made around. Do you accelerate that monitoring report, or do you say we'll

021have a modified discussion? And I always described the way we use policy governance as modified policy governance. And you'll hear other districts say we'll use the framework of policy governance, because it's still SBSD Owl Cam: keeps you out of the weeds. But that's that is probably one of the conflict areas or areas of tension that I noted, which is policy. Governance isn't intended to lock a board in. SBSD Owl Cam: but it is intended to frame conversation at a higher level, not at an operational level where the superintendent or staff are really implementing policy. So that was the sort of start of policy governance. And it was also focused on the community's input around the value to education. I have to say, I am not aware SBSD Owl Cam: of another conversation that happened since

022then, which probably was in the 2,000, SBSD Owl Cam: you know, before 2,010, SBSD Owl Cam: certainly around Master Planning. There was but another conversation that didn't sort of tap into is this what the community still values in terms of what public education is delivering? So I'll stop there because I know we all have some experiences and opinions about it. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. So so when I, when I started the policy governance had only been in place for a very short time and all the policies, monitoring reports and and such were in place. But there wasn't an ends policy yet. That we hadn't defined what ends we wanted. And and we so so early on my 1st term, that was a focus of the boards coming up with the ends policy which we did

023and SBSD Owl Cam: then struggle to figure out how to monitor how we were doing on the answer. That's probably an ongoing SBSD Owl Cam: consideration, and I'm sure that's evolving. And at 1 point we revisited the ends, probably in my 3rd term, and got more public input, on those ends. SBSD Owl Cam: And then we continued to try to figure out how to best monitor, and how we were doing on the ends. Meanwhile, as we were looking at monitoring reports on all the various other issues. So I'm a little out of touch over the last few years. Where where that ends policy monitoring is. I think we were getting getting there and our ability to monitor hands was was better, although it was still difficult to connect. SBSD Owl Cam: How well we were

024doing on the 4 categories of ends which. SBSD Owl Cam: shockingly, I can't remember off the top of my head, and how that connected to the various monitoring reports. That was another challenge that I felt was there so but I agree with Elizabeth as well. Another challenge was, in fact, as issues came up trying to fit those really into the policies was important to get a structure in as board, and how we were SBSD Owl Cam: governing the the district. So yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know that I have a whole lot to add. SBSD Owl Cam: I was really grateful for policy governance, I came on. These folks are on the board. There was a great deal of expertise already there. I had this framework that they could help me walk through having

025done it themselves. And so I had this SBSD Owl Cam: Crutcher assistance, or whatever. Basically, none of you all have. I mean, I know you have policy governance, but I had somebody say, here's how you do it. Here's what it means. Yeah, I know you can read the paper, but it's not the same as having these folks, and here's what it really means. SBSD Owl Cam: it is useful. It is a crutch. It is something to help guide you, but it does sometimes feel like a straight jacket, and I don't know SBSD Owl Cam: if you felt like that. I think it'd be perceived as a shield SBSD Owl Cam: by the public like that. You don't want to answer a question that you're stonewalling, and so it's tricky. And so I was grateful for

026this notion of modified policy. Governance in particular, as it related to the racial incident that I mentioned earlier. SBSD Owl Cam: We went through an examination of the incidents. It was dealt with correctly according to policy, and the outcome satisfied exactly no one and the board the the public. And so another investigation was done. And in this sort of modified policy, governance world, we said, Well, yeah, you know this, that and the other happened as they're supposed to. SBSD Owl Cam: But the outcome. It's it's not acceptable. And so we're going to deal with it slightly differently. And I think that got to a better place with the public. But it really SBSD Owl Cam: did make the relationship with the superintendent a struggle, because it's like I have a contract. I did my job.

027I hit my marks. SBSD Owl Cam: and so I think you need to figure out what sort of relationship you want to have with a superintendent, and where the problems are with the public, and let that guide you into what kind of policy governance you want, because it seems to me SBSD Owl Cam: it it's useful for like doing your homework and then having a guide. But I think SBSD Owl Cam: there is a perception that SBSD Owl Cam: it's it's it's not going directly, and I don't know if that's your perception, or if that's just the public's perception. But I didn't believe that's out there. There. SBSD Owl Cam: 1 1 comment with that is SBSD Owl Cam: within policy governance anytime. The Board wanted to modify it. SBSD Owl Cam: The question came

028up of who's going to do the work? Because if it's if you're taking away something from delegating into the superintendent staff, it means you're taking it on this board, and that is something to think long and hard about, because there may be a capacity issue. There may be a skill set issue that you know there may be a funding issue to bring on consultants and support that effort. So that's always another point of tension SBSD Owl Cam: within. If if you want to maintain or have more control over something, it's going to be taking it away from your CEO. SBSD Owl Cam: I won't talk too long about it, because I think everyone's covered a lot of it. I will just own that when I came on the board it did feel there was a

029tension for me. I've been on boards before and understood the role of a board versus the role of operations. But then you're an elected official as well. And so you feel like you have all of these bosses in the community sort of watching what you're doing and asking you SBSD Owl Cam: to represent them. And the 1st meeting I had with our former superintendent was basically, it felt like to me he was putting up a wall like it was like, Here's policy, governance. Go study it. SBSD Owl Cam: You stay out of my business. Basically, you know, like we have this, this, that, or the other touch point. The rest of this is my stuff. You stay out of it. And it it wasn't framed exactly that way. But that's how it landed. And it

030was. It was training, and I was still trying to understand SBSD Owl Cam: policy governance specifically, because I've been on boards that didn't weren't so formal about like what structure they were using. It was. But they were more like corporate type things. And so people understood what their roles were. You know, the board wasn't even in the building. Most of the time they were off in different States or different places before they would get into a room once a quarter, or whatever it was with the CEO, and they were very, but they were very specific SBSD Owl Cam: reports that were happening all the time, and SBSD Owl Cam: everyone just used to that structure. It's a little trickier here, so I can think of the 2 main places we modified policy governance I can

031think of. While I was on the board were master planning and visioning, and that had already kind of been modified before I came on the board, and it wasn't that the board completely took it on, but that even before I came on the board. It was more of a team effort, if you will, with the superintendent, because it was such a big SBSD Owl Cam: ask of the community that we were probably going to have to make in terms of bonding. And because we were talking about changing the whole structure of where kids went to school, it really felt like a conversation that the Board needed to be part of in a different way. SBSD Owl Cam: And then I will say, a different racial issue, the changing of the rebel name, because, the Board

032had delegated to the super that was within the superintendent's power. In fact, if you read back through our old policy. Technically he had the responsibilities of this, the principal of the high school. He had that in his purpose he wanted to. He could have just made a blanket statement at some point. We're changing the name, and that's it. SBSD Owl Cam: But obviously there was a lot of community feeling about that. And before I came on the board the superintendent had been instructed to try to rebrand the revolution that had been the whole community discussion. That's where the board had landed, and then it, just for various reasons, had not happened. And the board really, I would say, at the. SBSD Owl Cam: at the behest of one of our students, members kind of pushing

033to the students who are normally here. Really, said he held our feet to the fire at the board and said, you promised. This is going to happen. It's not happening because something needs to change. And that's when the board. SBSD Owl Cam: I wouldn't say that we just did it. But we did get firmer direction. Let's just say to the superintendent of this, now has to be changed, and we have to do a process. And we did really leave that process for the most part up to the superintendent SBSD Owl Cam: structure. But we did give a pretty clear directive that, like the main institution, to figure out how to best make that happen. So there are. There will be some times, probably, where you need a lot of us think very carefully about SBSD

034Owl Cam: when you decide to modify, because I've watched other school boards around us who don't necessarily adhere to policy governance. And as a board, it can feel okay to feel like you're not adhering to policy governance. But you have to think about future boards that might be sitting in your place, and I have watched some other surrounding boards, where people can have very different views SBSD Owl Cam: on what should be taught in classrooms like what curriculum should be used, whether there should be a student, just opinion whether there should be the black Lives matter, flag, whether there should be all kinds of different things done within the schools, and if you don't have a very clear policy, governance structure, and folks like that manage to end up on the floor, it can completely

035change the face of a school experience overnight in a way that maybe the community doesn't want, because a lot of folks. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, they're a little checked out of School board SBSD Owl Cam: election until something like that happens. And I think policy governance is kind of a framework to protect SBSD Owl Cam: the district from any of those kind of, you know switches back and forth just because of which members are sitting in the chairs that you're sitting in right now. But it is. I will own that it is a learning process, and it feels completely uncomfortable. It's not that. Okay. I was elected to represent people who are really wound up about some specific issues with my role as a board member policy governance. And SBSD Owl Cam: oh, no,

036I had a couple of questions for Seamus. I think you have a question. So SBSD Owl Cam: I have 3 questions. But I'm only gonna ask 2 right now. So when you say, like, I remember in the executive limitations, there's like shall not change the name of the school. Was that something? You guys added. SBSD Owl Cam: oh, yeah. 2.7 asset protection once modified, enabling school. SBSD Owl Cam: If we did, it was very early on. I think that was always so. I guess. Yeah, I guess the real question is like. SBSD Owl Cam: when you guys say that you modified the policy governance? Was it ever reverted? Or it's still, it's still kind of when you say, Oh, we say modified policy governance. It basically means there was no sort of place. I don't

037think that we ever wrote down like, here's how we're modifying policy, governance. It was more. I remember Martin was also always very clear when he would start to make a statement about something. I have a very strong, especially about master Planning division. SBSD Owl Cam: This goes outside of the bounds policy governance. But here's why I think it's okay for us to be going out of the bounds of policy governance on this specific issue or this specific moment. We never that I can recall, ever said. Here's a you would know better, because you're steeped more in the current policies. I don't think there's any policy that says, this is how we're modifying policy governance. I don't either. I think I see I don't see a violation of 2.7 asset protection, because you can change the

038mascot, but not the name of the school. SBSD Owl Cam: And it and it talks about altering the image. And you know that was a contentious issue, and folks, some folks in the community did feel that that was detrimental to the image. Others felt, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: really strongly in the opposite direction, and I have to say, from A, you know, superintendent's perspective, to have board support in leading something like master planning, commissioning. We don't have the staff to do that alone, and to have Board Directive. To SBSD Owl Cam: think that support must have been really great for the superintendent at the time. But you can't imagine going that? Well. SBSD Owl Cam: this position I still just a follow up question was asking. Because you say modified policy governance. And do

039you mean, like you're actually going to go in and change the wording of a policy, or is it? This is an instance where we need to usurp some of the responsibility. It's really process. Okay, okay, there's like a really important issue here. So the board is going to step outside of its bounds. Normally, it would not do this. But in this instance it's going to well, and with recognition that I mean that should be very deliberate and strategic. SBSD Owl Cam: When a board decides that in generally speaking, I would say it's also situational. So there's a finite start and end to the boarding engagement, that modification, as it were, and it tends to be with the projects Bridget mentioned. Kind of bigger issues that come up, and and sensitivity to the community, too. I

040know I'll speak to the rebel name. SBSD Owl Cam: That was a situation where I had to change my mind on that. And some of it was evidence based. And the initial impression was. SBSD Owl Cam: This is Vermont. For goodness sake, it's like, what's the big deal? We're not aligned with the South, and better, you know. And then all of a sudden evidence started being presented of yearbooks that had, you know, Confederate flag in them. And SBSD Owl Cam: Dixie was sung at games, and you look back 50 years, and it was, oh, gosh! There really is some foundation that was certainly, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: not ill intention by any means, but a history there that recognized current times and sensitivity, and at the end of the day it's about the students.

041And you know, I know today the folks who graduated from South Burlington prior to the Mascot name change still refer to themselves as rebels, and that's their right and their purview. And there's a lot of pride with that. And students that were engaged in the name change in a very thoughtful way, led by administration. SBSD Owl Cam: Are very proud of that as well. So, but it was a very contentious issue with the community. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. So just to get back to what Tim was asking or saying, like, right, there's no, it's fuzzy. But you know, is there a community outcry. Does it feel like this is a big issue? Are things going in a way that you don't like? Then you probably need to have at least a conversation between the board

042chair and the superintendent to say we might need to step out of our lane a bit sorry, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: So anytime something like that has happened since I've been on the board, and I've served on a board that has almost SBSD Owl Cam: the entire time been completely new. So it feels like we're not a deep bench of people who have a really strong foundational understanding of like. SBSD Owl Cam: what is a new board member feeling public pressure for the 1st time, and what is like legitimate public pressure. And so I feel like my philosophy along the way is very similar to parenting, where it's like, if we bend the boundary now, why can't we bend the boundary later? And so I've sort of really held to like, what are our

043policies? And this is what we have to stick to, because we'll be setting precedents for future boards if we can just bend the rules when we want and SBSD Owl Cam: whatever issue this is, maybe it means that we need to rewrite the policy or consider the policy differently, so that the Board has more latitude to. But it's so like all these issues that we're talking about that like you don't put those policy. You don't put like they're too granular, but they are a community SBSD Owl Cam: outside of a problem. So I, this is really interesting perspective, because I think. SBSD Owl Cam: at least for me, this whole time. I've just been like, can we come back to policy. If it's not in the policy, we're not doing it. And I've held like

044really strong to that. To my own downfall. I've gotten a lot of criticism for that. And that's it's okay. I can handle it. But SBSD Owl Cam: it's just interesting to hear that perspective from you all. And SBSD Owl Cam: what's your retort to that. I think what you're saying about being so new sorry. In addition to that question, I mean, you know, I keep coming back to. I don't know how to cite this. I'm not a lawyer, you know. Section 5, 6, 3 SBSD Owl Cam: point to a school board may take any action that is required for this administration school district. And so that would kind of be. It's like policy. Governance is something we choose. But we couldn't take any action, so I'd love to hear some comments on the interaction between

045those. Yeah. So I mean, maybe these 3 disagree with me. But SBSD Owl Cam: to your point SBSD Owl Cam: you don't want to modify it all the time you want it to be super rare. It has to be one of the really interesting instances. And I think what you said about people being so new. I mean, I'm thinking about. When Bridget and I stepped down there was entire board turnover, there was Superintendent Turnover. There was finance turnover. There's special Ed Turnover. I believe there was director of education. Turn, you're decapitated. SBSD Owl Cam: and on the 7th day, and so in that context, at least for a while. I think it makes sense to be reliant on it, maybe even overly reliant on policy governance. But maybe there's time to revisit that retreat as

046people get, you know and say, like, Do we want to take a little more liberty with this? But I think we're going to make sense. It's hilarious that you said you think there was executive director of Learning Turnover because that was me. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know if it was helpful for me to make the trip over to Montpelier a couple of different times to do Vsba training with folks from other districts because they just have different issues, and it was just helpful to sort of have on the table different issues and how to react to them within the framework of policy governance. Because the Vsba has been very strong, you know, advocates for implementing policy governance, and and I find them a great resource. SBSD Owl Cam: And then I lost my second.

047But yeah, that was the main one was, was really SBSD Owl Cam: going and training alongside of other people was really helpful for me just to get out of the South Burlington context for a moment and see what people are doing at a different level. Yeah. And I think the other tension. And I know this board and other previous boards have struggled with this is SBSD Owl Cam: that the public comment side of it with really understanding. Are you starting to see an issue bubble up to the level? And it it can't be the, you know, noisiest or the loudest voice in the room. It probably will happen over time versus, you know, a a point in time. SBSD Owl Cam: but you know, one thing I know I would encourage is really I I

048know you know it. It's SBSD Owl Cam: easy to sort of say this is, your meetings are a meeting of the Board in public, but I have my own experiences found that if you give a lot of opportunity for people to voice SBSD Owl Cam: what's going on then? It it helps you understand what's a trend and what may bubble up, and what sort of a situational complaint or issue. And your meetings may take longer in the beginning. SBSD Owl Cam: and but it does build and establish trust with the community as well where you can respond to those issues. And SBSD Owl Cam: you know, I think that's a fine balance, but it to me that was always worth the investment time. SBSD Owl Cam: So I I just would make one other comment

049about the executive limitations. The policy. So so we did along the way modify those policies given. We would see what monitoring reports were providing, and but that was a very deliberative process as well. And and we thought very hard when when we were looking at and I'm not remember which ones. But it was usually really more tweaks than anything else. So don't be afraid to. SBSD Owl Cam: If something's not working in one of the monitoring reports. One of those policies. It can be changed. There's a process for it. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I I think you know, I I think while we all while we have you here, you know I want to get to the elephants in the room, and one of them for me is that policy. Governance is kind of like

050an executive order. The next administration, I don't think, is bound by it, and so like. SBSD Owl Cam: when a set of board members comes in and they're given this straight jacket of policy governance. SBSD Owl Cam: you know. I I think that in the background kind of unstated is that if the majority of the board on its 1st meeting, said, we want to get rid of policy governance. They could SBSD Owl Cam: and so like, you know, and and so like. SBSD Owl Cam: On my 1st day. I feel like what I wish I had heard was SBSD Owl Cam: policy. Governance is a choice that we made. It's a good idea in the same way that, like separation of powers, is a good idea, like you don't want the executive. SBSD Owl Cam:

051you know, messing with the courts. And so, and when you cross those lines, and so like it just feels like policy. Governance. Part of the weakness has on the board not talking about the community. So much is that SBSD Owl Cam: the board is like. On the one hand, we know in our hearts that if we didn't want this we could get rid of it. But, on the other hand, we're being told that, like we have to be really strictly following it. And so it would be good to like, emphasize the SBSD Owl Cam: parallels to our own system of government, and and I go back again. I love to hear, you know, you know, Martin, I know you're a lawyer, you know, like may take any action that is required for the Sound Administration

052School district. If I'm like a a board member who's feeling very empowered. SBSD Owl Cam: you know, and I'm like, oh, sound administration of the school district, I'm gonna SBSD Owl Cam: you know. Tell the superintendent that we are not going to fire that person SBSD Owl Cam: like. Where like isn't that truly, where the line is, it's not policy governance. That's the line we can cross that line like we've been saying anytime we want. The line is really something like section 2 or something SBSD Owl Cam: not sure how to answer that one. Well, I mean, you oversee the superintendent, but you don't get into the operational stuff, I mean, and I think you can certainly at any time have a conversation about how you want to run yourselves, remembering that you're always overseeing.

053But you're not doing the superintendent's job, you know, and if you want to see something different in the future, you feel, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: Super is not doing it right or something. That's when the contract comes up. And that's the other thing I'd be really careful about. If you are trying to get away from policy governments or alter it greatly. Make sure you look at the contract. First, st because, yeah, I think there are metrics. I'm not suggesting that I want to get rid of policy governments. I'm just saying that, like it feels improperly defended to me. It feels like it has not received the SBSD Owl Cam: defense that it deserves, and I think that you could make arguments like, for example, separation of powers. You could say, Well, Board, listen. Even

054if you go beyond policy governance. You. You know, the section 563 still restricts you from doing operational things. For these reasons like that would be something that's like more real than just this kind of phantom like, well, don't break policy governance. So so I would. I would simplify how I looked at it is that SBSD Owl Cam: we are not experts in education whatsoever, and we shouldn't be micro managing education. And that's what policy governance provides is a structure so that you're not micromanaging. But you're holding the CEO accountable, and and that that SBSD Owl Cam: I'd like to talk a little bit about the ends policy. Again. I mentioned a little bit before, because that was probably my biggest frustration in the whole policy governance realm. For the 11 years that I was there

055was establishing those SBSD Owl Cam: those ends and then figuring out the metrics for those ends, and the 3rd item being able to tie that to all the other executive limitations. And I don't think we got there in the 11 years that I was there. It was improving, and I think that's the critical part is is to be able to look at. How are we doing? SBSD Owl Cam: And and that all should be with how we're doing with the kids and and where they're going. And and so that's a part that I also feel often would get lost with all the fires that we had to put out along the way, and it was hard to really focus on continuing to try to get those the ends metrics right and and have them involved.

056So so. But backing up again, I think that that's not micromanaging is taking SBSD Owl Cam: what the community wants for their for the district, the outcomes and then figuring out how to monitor how that's going and then connecting it to how we're overseeing. You know the the operation without micromanaging complicated SBSD Owl Cam: kind of how I look at, and I think I look at it as SBSD Owl Cam: if you recognize that you have that authority as a board member. You know. SBSD Owl Cam: What is the alternative if you eliminate it, you know. Do you want to come up with some alternative of governance, and I would say the policy governance and the strategic planning community was probably about 4 to 5 year process. And so it's it's a long runway to

057do that. SBSD Owl Cam: You know. Specific example that you brought up. Obviously, that's a personal issue. There is nothing preventing a board from better understanding the CEO's decision making process in those things in executive session, and that, you know, building that relationship of trust. And I will say all of us have situations where we need. We SBSD Owl Cam: didn't understand certain things, and we either individually went and sought that information out. We either collectively did it in executive session, or it was brought up a public session, and good examples would be a monitor report. There'd be something presented around SBSD Owl Cam: a monitoring report that looked at some data, and I remember many times one of us saying, Yeah, that just doesn't measure what we're looking for. And you know. And we

058requested Superintendent go back, and we, we might brainstorm some other ideas of data that might be more demonstrative of a monitoring report. Oftentimes it wasn't available. Yeah, I'm assuming more. There's more data available now. SBSD Owl Cam: but really fine tuning the monitoring ports to really become SBSD Owl Cam: a tool that the community could look at and say, Okay, when I look at academic proficiency as one of the ends. Here's how they the district is measuring it, and I agree with that, or that falls a little bit short of the mark. So how do we improve that over time? SBSD Owl Cam: So I just want to say that was like, my next question was about the content of the monitoring reports themselves. And again, executive limitations is about what you shall not do.

059Right? So it's sort of this backwards look, or you want to see what you are doing. But you're actually looking at. Here's what I'm doing. This. I'm not supposed to like, you know what I'm saying, I guess. But I guess my question is, is, as you work through the monitoring reports. SBSD Owl Cam: And this is one of my 1st struggles and continues to be a struggle. Is you really get no training in what you're looking at in a monitoring report, or what should I be looking for? There's there's a lot of information. So when you work with Dave Young over time. SBSD Owl Cam: It sounds like you went back and said, Well, we kind of need this, so we can kind of explain it to us this way or that way, and sort

060of that was an ongoing an ongoing process. I guess. My question is, too, when you looked at a monitoring report. It was scheduled for a certain board meeting you were going to look at, and I assume you get the report ahead of time. SBSD Owl Cam: When you got to those points personally where you were looking at it. And you're like, I I just don't quite get it right. I'm not. I can't connect the dots SBSD Owl Cam: at that board meeting. Did you say? Let's push this out. I don't quite understand, or or we have to vote on it tonight, or how did you do that? Logistically, if you didn't feel you had enough information to to consider it? SBSD Owl Cam: I yeah, I mean, I think typically, if we got to a

061board meet. Well, 1st of all, I think a lot of us availed ourselves of the opportunity to send an email to say, Hey, David. SBSD Owl Cam: this isn't resonating with me, or I feel like I'm gonna need more information. Just so you're not surprised in the board meeting. I'm gonna bring this up. It's just a polite thing to do so that you're not surprising your superintendent in the board meeting, and then, yeah, in the board meeting we would say, this doesn't really hit the mark like this isn't showing me, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: the one that for some reason stuck my head is like the cameras like there was like this whole policy about like cameras, and how we could use them, and how many incidents. You know the South Burlington police used

062our cameras to investigate, and that kind of thing. And I do remember us like sort of coming and saying, This is a field to us like this. Monitoring report is explaining why you made the decision, or how you know which incidents were allowed to be shared with the police and all this stuff. So there were situations where we come to a board meeting and say the monitoring report doesn't SBSD Owl Cam: really hit the mark in terms of what the monitoring for is asking for, or we can't really decide if you're doing a good job, basically on this particular policy. And then that would get pushed to the next board meeting, and David would come back with more information about that. Sometimes, if we got the report far enough in advance, he might be prepared

063to come with, you know, additional stuff at the Board meeting, all of that needed to be done in public, so the public could see how we were monitoring the report. SBSD Owl Cam: But all the sort of like not surprising him and then asking for more information can be done ahead of time. Same for Violet, I'm sure. Yeah, that was. And that jog my memory. My second point previously. So it was on the training thing SBSD Owl Cam: was, I found it really helpful, and I don't know how much. Chelsea you and Violet have done professional development together. But David and I did more than the required hours, like there were some required hours. I don't remember what it was policy or law, or whatever that we had to do, some professional development together. And

064it was really helpful, because being in that situation helped us each understand how the other person kind of approached SBSD Owl Cam: things, and it just sort of put us on the same page. On a lot more things, or at least help me understand what, how I needed to ask a question, to, to get what I needed from him, or or how I needed to help give direction. SBSD Owl Cam: Can I ask, like a follow up on that? Yes, I feel like the superintendent and I have an excellent working relationship, and we communicate very well, and sometimes I'm trying to advocate on behalf of board members that have questions, and SBSD Owl Cam: I don't always feel like I'm effective at interpreting your question in the way that so like, I actually feel like

065the need is for board members to potentially have a better working communicative relationship with the superintendent to get their questions answered, and I don't know if I'm doing a poor job of. I'm trying not to overwhelm the superintendent with all the questions at once, so ideally. It would be like, send all of your questions to me, and I'll organize them, and then I'll ask SBSD Owl Cam: Superintendent Nichols and then report back, and often. I also want those questions to be asked in public sessions. So sometimes it's like, I'm going to forward your question to the superintendent. We'll address it in meeting SBSD Owl Cam: but that I just I that's felt like a struggle sometimes is to effectively SBSD Owl Cam: effectively ask questions on behalf of other board members and see, I never

066saw it as board chair. I was only board chair for a year, so maybe I wasn't doing that right, but I never really saw myself as like the the gatekeeper or the organizer of other board members. Questions. That's where it really came down to me to feel like we were all elected separately to be representatives of the community, and so I felt like SBSD Owl Cam: sometimes you could do a little smoothing over if there were some rough edges on things, but like mostly it was to just make sure there was space board meeting to make sure that questions were asked that board members had, and that there was space to get those questions answered, even if it meant holding over an agenda item for a second meeting to make sure that questions were answered.

067I never wanted to feel like I was speaking on behalf of other board members, or trying to SBSD Owl Cam: navigate that in any way, even if it was challenging for for David it was. That's part of his job. Right? Was interacting with all of the board members. And they all got elected for different reasons. And so I felt like I needed to let them have their own clear voices, and I was not afraid to use my own as well. And often we were on the same page, and I would ask a lot of the same questions that other people had. But I didn't feel like I needed to be a gatekeeper, and maybe you invite them a different arrangement. But I yeah, David and I were pretty SBSD Owl Cam: clear that that was

068not my role. And I think before I if I'm remembering right, Elizabeth can correct me if I'm wrong. But but if I have questions I will copy the chair. When I was asking the question to the superintendent. Currently, we have a culture of board. Members can directly ask the superintendent, particularly if they know it's not my wheelhouse if it's operations. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm wondering if you could take a stab at like, how many different requests and questions before numbers would send SBSD Owl Cam: each week to the superintendent. SBSD Owl Cam: 15 to 30 per day. No, I would wait for something big I never shared. I served under both Bridget and Elizabeth. I never felt that either one was a filter or a funnel. I won't flag them or copy them somehow. When

069I was writing to the super just because I wanted them to know SBSD Owl Cam: but no, it would have to be pretty big. It's not going to be a minor point it's going to be. I think the data is wrong where there's really a big problem where we need to do this sooner than you think we do. So SBSD Owl Cam: not even once a week, I think. Yeah, I was on the High End because I nagged a lot about numbers specifically about, especially around budget time. So SBSD Owl Cam: I know David got sick of me because he told me. No very nice way. Yeah, no. Actually, in all seriousness, David was actually very patient with me. I even before I was chair, was running him. SBSD Owl Cam: not every day, but

070more than once a week, probably, and the main thing for him. He was happy to take all of those emails. He didn't necessarily get to all of them because pile of things to get to the main thing was not. SBSD Owl Cam: or reaching out to his staff SBSD Owl Cam: without him being okay with that. And so I would never, ever, ever reach out to a teacher or one of the principals, or anybody like that without his say so or not his say so, but his sort of just yes, that's okay with me, or here's the conversation I've already had with that person. Just so, you know, and he was very open about sort of facilitating that if I felt like I needed to talk to Pat about something, for example, I will say

071that SBSD Owl Cam: he did give me a little bit more of a direct. You can just copy me on your emails to the Director of Finance and Operations because a lot of my questions were about finance and about the budget, and I do feel like the budget really does sit squarely with the board in terms of having to get comfortable with it, and, you know, represent the community in that regard. So most of my questions were about SBSD Owl Cam: budget and negotiations, numbers numbers that you know we needed when we were at the negotiating table, and a lot of times those sit with, you know, the director of finance and operations. And so David was. He got to the point where he was comfortable enough with me, not overstepping terribly, and like asking

072for report after report after report he got to the point where he was comfortable with me, just emailing Gary Marcus at the time, and SBSD Owl Cam: you know, just copying him on that. But you have to build that trust right? That you're not going to just ask for this bit of data today and that bit of data tomorrow. And that bit of data the next day there needs to be that kind of understanding. That director of finance and operations has a whole lot of other things to do. And yes, negotiations are important. And yes, the budget is important. But you have to be just respectful of people's time. And so. SBSD Owl Cam: yeah, yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: should we move to the end policies because I'd love the. I think we've heard a

073little bit about how they were developed. But also there's a question about. You know why they haven't, why they didn't change and how do you change them? I had a question about what what did you folks mean by the words leadership or trades? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, Seamus can talk on that just for the record. I'll leave the question out. So how are ends? Policies developed? Why did you not add the ends, policies? The question is, why did you not add the words leadership or trades to the ends, policies? And how does the board change the ends. SBSD Owl Cam: and I can clarify that. SBSD Owl Cam: I I think that you know it could be. Why didn't we add the words. SBSD Owl Cam: car to that? You know I don't. I don't

074think the actual words matter in particular. I think it's more like if you look at the end policy, it says last changed in 2,014, SBSD Owl Cam: and also like was was that because you felt that it was difficult? Or if you felt that it was not important. SBSD Owl Cam: or that other things came up or like, just how, why have they not? Did they not change? SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, my recollection is 1st off, that it was the community who decided on the 4 areas through pretty long process, and SBSD Owl Cam: the the ends itself. Really, I remember a lot of discussion on being broad enough SBSD Owl Cam: to allow for our students when they walk across the stage to be going to whatever their next step is because it needed

075to encompass those folks who might be going into military service, into vocations, into, you know, not necessarily a college oriented outcome. SBSD Owl Cam: So I do remember that, being very deliberate, and that was intended to be as inclusive as we knew at the time. The process to change, I would say, if there was an interest in changing any of the 4 categories. I would definitely include the community and on those discussions. And then the the SBSD Owl Cam: typical process would be sort of SBSD Owl Cam: a warning and 3 hearings before anything would be changed. So it's a pretty standard. Lead up to any policy change. But if you're looking at the high level, it was intended to be SBSD Owl Cam: as inclusive as it could be. And then this 4 specific

076areas were really directed by the community after quite a bit of discussion, and I would say SBSD Owl Cam: in my tenure on the board, I don't remember the community giving us push that I mean, people seem to be happy with how we were operating, and seemed comfortable, that they were broad enough, as you said, to sort of be a guide for what we were doing. I just don't remember there being a lot of energy behind a change to the ads policy. Now, the metrics. I remember some pushback, you know, where the data we don't trust your data. We don't believe your data. But yeah, I think that was part of the issue as well of not changing the ends, because we had SBSD Owl Cam: quite figured out how to fully monitor the metrics.

077I mean, that was the focus is trying to understand how we were doing on the headset. But we really had a lot of. SBSD Owl Cam: and I believe that was in the superintendent's contract as a goal like multiple years in a row, we will have a clear ends policy monitoring system that tells us clearly whether we're meeting the answer or not. SBSD Owl Cam: So I remember in a discussion an earlier board meeting we were talking about making a change to the executive limitations, even if it's like a word or 2. And the superintendent brought up that, you know. That's all interrelated set of SBSD Owl Cam: concepts. And so if you change, if you unbalance it here a little bit, push it here. You have to kind of take into account how that

078might impact all of the other executive limitations. So that's like a considerable change that has to be considered, you know, carefully, maybe employers. And so does that also, you know. Does that also apply to ends like, you know, my understanding is that executive limitations and ends are somewhat orthogonal. SBSD Owl Cam: you know, like you change one thing, you want one thing that doesn't necessarily mean that they have to act in any different way to get to it. So would you say that changing ends is easier than changing executive limitations is executive, changing executive limitations harder, like SBSD Owl Cam: reflections on any of that would be. It depends, I mean, if if the SBSD Owl Cam: ends are being changed in a manner that SBSD Owl Cam: we don't have the teachers, or whoever

079to. You know the administrators to achieve that goal. If we wanna end in there with the experts in AI, I mean, are we able to accomplish that with the resources we have? So I mean, that would be the consideration. You may want to do that, but but that would be the consideration. So it could be SBSD Owl Cam: a big change for the events, or- or like not just really depends. SBSD Owl Cam: Is there a particular and part of the ends that's like not working at the moment, or that it's come up as a problem. I think there's, you know, my, I have an interest that I think that the ends policy SBSD Owl Cam: and this me, you know, it's not you know, and I'll advocate for it. But it's not like I'm

080you know. I'm not representing a board or somebody want to say this, but like I think that SBSD Owl Cam: you know, right next to the word college should be the word trades. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. Sure. Cool SBSD Owl Cam: makes could make sense. Put it off the community as a community member. I think that makes sense. Yeah, there are lots of different paths. I mean, they talk about that a little bit. But sure that's totally valid. SBSD Owl Cam: It's it's not like they're not excluded by language currently, but naming them isn't, I think? Sure. So I think that's the as Elizabeth was saying, there, it's written currently to be as inclusive as possible. But I think there's an argument that if you're going to list, you know college or university, that listing

081trades would would elevate SBSD Owl Cam: that profession to the same level of. I think it was always contemplated that, and I would say that that would probably be a non-controversial change, that specific change, the challenges you're going to have. As Elizabeth said, the method to change the ends is to open that policy up, you know. And that is where you're actually going to run into a bigger challenge. If you open it up to try to put that one non-controversial word in. SBSD Owl Cam: It's a community process of having to have a hearing, and, like, you know, have it heard a number of times? Are there other things that are going to come up. Are we, then, litigating like the entire policy, to try to get that word to it? And I don't have

082the temperature of the community on how they feel about the policy right now, so you would have a better SBSD Owl Cam: chill our speech. No, I don't think it should chill our speech, but my point is just that you know. How strongly do you feel about having that specific word? If the trades are already contemplated under that big, broad category. How strongly do you feel about that? And and maybe the community right now is, is perfectly happy with the ends for the most part, and I would say that SBSD Owl Cam: I have only ever heard expression from the community of more emphasis on trades and vocations and things that are not necessarily college pathways after high school. So I don't think that's like I said. I don't think that specific thing will be

083controversial. In fact, we'd be celebrated for it. The question is just whether there's anything else in the end that people are worried about SBSD Owl Cam: political points for the board, so that we can do things like propose spending more money on things like new facilities. And so maybe something like that would get us some political points because we're emphasizing that. But, on the other hand, like you're saying, there's this balancing of well, does that open up the opportunity for there to be a big fight about adding equity SBSD Owl Cam: stuff to the end that maybe wouldn't be supported by the Feds, but would be supported by the community. I think also, it's just the environment that you're in that is being emphasized at the state level. We all know that you can't get

084a tradesperson when you want one, you know, and so we're trying to incentivize that sort of development. And there is a focus on career and technical education. So I think, partly, that's just going to happen. But yeah, it's the same question, you know, is, what's the phrase that everybody's using recently is the SBSD Owl Cam: juice worth squeezing. Oh, my God, if I have to hear that one! SBSD Owl Cam: That's the new corporate lingo. It's tired. Corporate lingo. It's a tax department lingo. They say this all the time. We want to change policy related to taxes SBSD Owl Cam: and SBSD Owl Cam: Oh, yeah, and I would. Just. I would also just question a little bit about scoring political points for the board, because, SBSD Owl Cam: I found as a board member.

085Maybe your experience is different. There's always half of the community that's mad at you about something and half that's super excited about what you're doing. And sometimes those 2 have switched, depending on what the issue is, and so I never felt like I was gaining political capital for the board that was then spendable on other things, because it was sort of like the people who cared about this one particular issue were paying attention when that issue was being talked about. SBSD Owl Cam: And they were not supporting me or like helping me in other areas when I needed, you know, potentially help on other areas. So I would. Just, yeah, I would just be focused on SBSD Owl Cam: really the ends, you know, like what we're doing for the kids. And you're gonna have

086tricky political waters as a board. Just because that's the role of school boards. Right now, yeah, I think capital comes from competence and communication. That's that's SBSD Owl Cam: yeah. 1 1 thing I'd add, because we just sort of talked about. This is part of establishing that trust with the community, and we talked about sending questions in and getting things answered ahead of time. SBSD Owl Cam: I do think the community wants to see the Board deliberate in public. I mean, that is part of a transparent open meeting law, and it's not necessarily to argue. But there's many meetings where I think we all and former board members went in, knowing it was highly likely we're going to agree on a topic, but we often SBSD Owl Cam: one of us or somebody else, would

087sort of bring up. Okay, let's play devil's advocate here. Who? Who are the people who are the stakeholders that might be impacted adversely by this decision. And let's consider that, and at least acknowledge that as we move forward and take action. So I think that SBSD Owl Cam: considerate, deliberate, you know. Consideration of SBSD Owl Cam: all the stakeholders that might be impacted by a policy policy. Decision also establishes serves to establish trust as well. SBSD Owl Cam: Well, especially in this very thing that you're talking about. It seems like there's at least some loud disagreements on the board, so have a polite disagreement in public, you know. I would want to see that. Yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: we have lots of polite disagreements, I think. I think that's a very helpful piece of feedback,

088because I have in my experience in the last 3 years. I have found often the whole team agrees on everything, and it is just real, like, we've not been good about SBSD Owl Cam: playing devil's advocate or explaining why we agree. We've just sort of been like, well, yeah, okay, moving on. And I like in retrospect. That's not. That's not helpful. But again, I think a lot of it is due to the fact that we've had such high turnover, and you have people who are constantly in learning mode. When you have a 4 or 5 people and 2 are relatively new all of the time, you're simply just not going to have that in depth discussion at all. SBSD Owl Cam: Right? So I think that's been the challenge for the last several years. There's

089not a lot of political nuance, at least for me, or I don't. I don't know what the right word is, but SBSD Owl Cam: I have found that I'll do something, and then I'll receive criticism. And I'll reflect on that criticism. And I'll say, Oh, I should have done this like maybe performative action, just so that the community understands like I can give a very SBSD Owl Cam: brief example of SBSD Owl Cam: as the chair. I could add something to the agenda outside of a meeting right, like I'm the one who compiles the agenda. And sometimes it's a really good idea to add that agenda item in the meeting, so that the community hears you add it to the meeting or to the agenda, so that community members don't look at the agenda, maybe

090at the last moment, or something for the next meeting and go. Oh, what's this like? This is an important topic to me. I didn't hear this added at the last meeting. SBSD Owl Cam: That can seem very intentionally, you know. Deceptive. Sorry I'm not. I'm just a dry throat. SBSD Owl Cam: and like that, I think that's those are the kinds of awareness or SBSD Owl Cam: I don't know what the word I'm looking for is but just political. Is it political? It's transparency. And I and I also would say I would go another step further. I tend to SBSD Owl Cam: overstudy in the background before I come to a board meeting. I do this right now in my role as a legislator as well, and I've been asked by people before to as

091it like, you said that word performative. Ask questions, even if you don't have questions anymore, sometimes because sometimes people at the table or in the public SBSD Owl Cam: might not even know the questions to ask if they have not like dug in. So I'm sure all of you each have your own, like separate issues that you're most passionate about, and it can be really helpful if SBSD Owl Cam: people get in the habit of asking questions, even if maybe they already not all the time they know the answers sometimes. That's really annoying. And you don't want to. I mean, so we don't do that on the floor. But but it can help in a meeting to draw other people out, and and it will help them create other questions to ask, too, sometimes. SBSD

092Owl Cam: and I'll speak to my counsel onboarding when I transition. SBSD Owl Cam: I part of my own learning process is I ask a lot of questions. And SBSD Owl Cam: it it was intentional on my part, because I've got to learn more. So I was asking questions about like Ap. Orders and things like that, and I know some of my colleagues. Oh, God! And you know the feedback is that you just have to get comfortable with is, if you SBSD Owl Cam: are thinking of questions. There's likely somebody in the community that has the same question. So ask it, and you know it helps on 2 ends, and you know one it establishes trust that you get the information it informs you. It probably informs somebody else that SBSD Owl Cam: didn't think

093to ask the question, and you know the other thing that you can do in board meetings is if there is some community feedback on an issue, there's nothing wrong with making a suggestion. Should we consider adding this to a future agenda SBSD Owl Cam: and not making it a big topic, but making it. SBSD Owl Cam: We would like to be more informed about Xyz, because you're hearing a little bit about it. SBSD Owl Cam: whatever it might be. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm just gonna speak to what you said, Chelsea, and and ask folks about transparency, which I think has been SBSD Owl Cam: something that the community is hearing for from the School Board and administrators a lot. And so I think you pointed out a great idea of performative, but it's more like

094just because you could add it by yourself. SBSD Owl Cam: It doesn't mean you should, or that can't speak to it, because that I think the more information the more that some people don't care. But I think community appreciates that kind of thing. Maybe we're just talking about and this board in general, doing things, even if we could do something that might be more SBSD Owl Cam: in our realm, I think getting out to the community as much as possible, and taking that route is always the best to build work. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I think in teaching or acting, you talk about exposing the device sort of showing how it works, and to some degree your role is to do both of those things, you know, and to bring people along to make them

095do it with you. Kind of show that it's not just, you know, Lockstep certitude. And we're done. SBSD Owl Cam: And just like to that point, as in my experience. This chair I'm trying to demonstrate to fellow board members that I'm receptive and willing to take their suggestions. And so sometimes it's like, Well, I need you to add this to the agenda now, because I want to discuss at the next meeting, which means that I can't go back and say it at the previous meeting, and then also to your point about sharing information with the community. I have at times gotten feedback that, like, we're pushing too much information. And what we're sharing is SBSD Owl Cam: helpful. And so there's always going to be feedback about like how you do everything. And finding that

096political subtlety, nuance of like SBSD Owl Cam: striking a good balance is difficult, but worth it. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, I want to build on. I think SBSD Owl Cam: you know what you were saying, you know, like, what's the right word for it. I think you also said like, what's the right word for it? And I think SBSD Owl Cam: we're not, and this is more for us. So not as much for you. But if you have any reflections on it, I think it's like we're not in the age of, like SBSD Owl Cam: Walter Cronkite and Peter Jennings, and you know, like there's not like a mainstream media that people trust. SBSD Owl Cam: and there's also not a fit like trust in institutions and official numbers just SBSD Owl Cam: cratered, and

097so like, I think that people want to see their elected representatives out in front of them SBSD Owl Cam: talking, performing. SBSD Owl Cam: and that will be good for the district, and I think that we should not be afraid to call it what it is, which is, you know, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: gathering, you know, trying to build consent and support, and maybe like SBSD Owl Cam: for budget votes. I think when I was talking about political points, I'm thinking about swing voter, because I think that generally the the parents will vote with us most of the time. It's that swing voter. I don't know how it's going to work for bond votes, because, you know, in 2019, it was that that was not swing voters. You know, they the community. SBSD Owl

098Cam: you know, and I don't know how you you get over like a 1,500 to 6,000 with political points like that doesn't sound sufficient. But we do have to, I think, acknowledge that we're in a New age after Covid. People just got sick of hearing from fauci, even if you might personally trust him. And so like, we have to be a little bit aware that SBSD Owl Cam: us acting officially can come across really out of touch right now. That's my opinion. SBSD Owl Cam: Well, I don't want to use chair, because you're running the show. But I feel like we're basically getting into the communication. Your sense, I think, is correct. I think everybody here feels it that there's this sort of antipathy for expertise, or for eggheads, or whatever, and I think SBSD

099Owl Cam: that makes it all the more important to show how you arrive at a decision as opposed to being imperious and saying, Here it is. SBSD Owl Cam: but that gets back to how do you communicate with people? And I? SBSD Owl Cam: I had a great deal of struggle with that. I actually got off socials during my 1st year on the school board, because things got so, you know, lots of heat, very little light, I guess. Are you tired of that one, too? SBSD Owl Cam: No, it's okay. A lot of people raise their eyebrows that oh, no, it's SBSD Owl Cam: But but how do you push out information because you cannot respond to everything, and I think Bridge will probably be better able to speak to this because you did try

100for a while to engage in that forum. And well, maybe you can talk about your experience, but the volume is going to be too great, but there has to be some way, and I think is the communications person. Julian Mcguire. Is that right? SBSD Owl Cam: That has been helpful, I think, pushing out more information. I wish it could be done on even a greater variety of subjects, and people aren't going to be spoon fed. They're not going to accept it all, but at least, you know, here's why we're doing this. Here's why we're doing this, and they can put it back in whatever form they want to. But yeah, if you are doing anything on socials, make it very clear that I'm pushing out information. It's not a place to engage. Please show up

101at the meeting SBSD Owl Cam: we're meeting live. So I'll leave it there. I didn't have a goal in in my chair role at the time to respond to community emails like within 24 h, and it was often received. Your email, you know. I'll I'll if you're okay with it. I'll bring it up at the next board meeting or something to acknowledge racie and SBSD Owl Cam: I did find, you know, getting in too detailed in an email. SBSD Owl Cam: could it? One? It took up too much my time but 2. It could also sort of document something that hadn't been flushed out by the board, so it was not appropriate to make those commitments, or even register independent because it hadn't been discussed by the board. And that's 1 of the challenges, I think,

102with communication, is SBSD Owl Cam: you you want to foster those relationships with constituents and hear what they have to say. But you also have to recognize, even nodding can imply agreement. SBSD Owl Cam: And that can be problematic because you haven't acted as a body at that point. And you know SBSD Owl Cam: you, you have that right to agree as a private citizen. But there's caution in that, too. I don't know if you folks could answer that, but just a thought. SBSD Owl Cam: another thing. Oh, sorry. Well, maybe this will, because one of the 1st things you brought up today was the idea that we're elected representatives. And and when we were talking about talking to the superintendent, you said SBSD Owl Cam: many people felt that they were elected independently. You

103know we're not elected together, and so SBSD Owl Cam: on that theme of like. Well, what do we have to do versus? What have other boards traditionally done? SBSD Owl Cam: You know. I know that the Board cannot act individual. You know. Individuals can't SBSD Owl Cam: in, you know. Evaluate staff. They can instruct Staff to do things SBSD Owl Cam: but it feels more in the realm of tradition that, like a board member, couldn't SBSD Owl Cam: offer their opinion except as private, you know, and so like you. And so I guess what I'm getting at to go to what you were saying, Elizabeth, about SBSD Owl Cam: the you know you couldn't even not, and I think that that is as as SBSD Owl Cam: elected representatives, you know, as a pseudo legislature

104like it's, you know, it's in the law like we're a pseudo legislature like, I think it's actually more okay SBSD Owl Cam: to agree with things. Even if as long as we don't give the impression to a staff member that we're telling them. Yes, this is what we're going to do. So where is that line? I? Yeah. And I think it is a. It is a tricky line. But I think it is. SBSD Owl Cam: We had a communications policy. I don't know what the communication policy is right now, especially around social media and it was an official policy. It was a guideline. We had a social media policy. SBSD Owl Cam: It is almost impossible for the community to hold in their heads that you're speaking as a private citizen when you are a

105board member. SBSD Owl Cam: And so I pulled way back from any kind of social media engagement that had any kind of opinion, any kind of steer, about how I was going to vote on something, or what. I really, you know, I had an opinion, because I realized that when I was out there on the socials. SBSD Owl Cam: even if I said, I'm not speaking for the Board SBSD Owl Cam: because you're a board member, the community assumes that you are. And even if you put the disclaimer out front. SBSD Owl Cam: it's really hard not to look like you're speaking for the whole board, and you don't, because you don't represent the whole board when you're out there on socials. And the only thing I was doing a lot of social media engagement

106because we had some really big projects. SBSD Owl Cam: and that social media engagement was meant to provide facts. So there's a lot of misinformation that circulates in the community about what the Board has agreed to or not agreed to, and most of all there was a lot of misinformation when I was on the board about what was in the budget or not in the budget because people weren't following it line by line by line, as we were going through the budget, and so I would jump on to say, Hey, I'm not going to like SBSD Owl Cam: engage in big debate. I just want you to know. This is this data point that is not quite correct. SBSD Owl Cam: Have that keep yelling at each other if you want on social media, but,

107like just so, you have the facts, or I would go on to just point folks directly to district resources and let the district resources that were up there sort of speak for themselves SBSD Owl Cam: without a whole lot of like opinion about it, because it's just too hard for the public to try to hold those things in your in their heads that like, oh, this is. This is Bridget as a mom or as a community member versus Bridget as a School board member, and I really don't think it's appropriate for the board to be out there one at a time. Yes. SBSD Owl Cam: Did you ever consider having a School Board Instagram account where we had a school board? Facebook? We're so old that Instagram wasn't much of a thing yet. It was

108just coming up. So we had. We had a school board, SBSD Owl Cam: Facebook page, that. That I think that Mark and I were originally the administrators of, and then, I think and then it got handed over to Alex Mchenry. When I went off the board. It just kind of sat there not doing SBSD Owl Cam: anything. And then I think it was decommissioned eventually, because it's sort of dangerous to have it out there, potentially hacked, or whatever SBSD Owl Cam: So we did, and we but we used it very, very sparingly around very specific things. So for example, when we're in the master planning and visioning process, and there would be a new document that was created that all of us had agreed to that. You know, the architects have prepared for the community,

109or whatever we would use it as a place that people could go to get stuff like that. SBSD Owl Cam: And we did make very clear in board meetings, though, that our methods of communication as a board, because we did not have unlimited bandwidth and unlimited time as complete volunteers, our methods of communication really to come to board meetings SBSD Owl Cam: to call us on the phone because our phone numbers are all of there and to email us and and the Facebook thing was kind of an added bonus. But that was not gonna be a method that we were gonna SBSD Owl Cam: push information out to the community. It was not going to be a meeting warning system, like all of that stuff, still stayed with the district, it was really just sort

110of a nice to have in terms of additional information, additional resource for folks. And we also said on Facebook, we are not going to reply to every comment on there because we just like, I said. You know, as SBSD Owl Cam: volunteers without staff there was no way to like keep up with what would happen on that. But as I recall, and tell me if I'm wrong, like a fact would be pushed out about some line of the budget or whatever, and within 5 min SBSD Owl Cam: they would come back, you know that's a lie. Well, what I would do is I would make sure that David and Gary Marcus would have online somewhere where people could find it, the actual data. And then I would say, here's the link to the actual data. If

111you still have questions, if they're, you know SBSD Owl Cam: if there are sort of operational questions they need to go to David. If if they're like what the heck is the board doing, then come to a board meeting and and ask us. And and that was one thing I would say, that was really before I forget, because my brain is a little scattered today. SBSD Owl Cam: There also is a balance between sticking to the policy of public comments only at specific, you know, timeframes, and there are moments to expand, and we, I think, tried to find that balance. I have failed at it. Elizabeth was great at it, like I had a tendency to let board meetings go to like 11 o'clock at night, because, especially around budget time, because people have such

112strong feelings about specific parts of the budget. SBSD Owl Cam: and especially in this unfortunate era that we're in, where we're making cuts every year. SBSD Owl Cam: It really, people need to be heard, you know, and even if you make a decision that's different than you know. All of a sudden you're hearing in a meeting like they need to feel that you're listening, at least, and sometimes those restrictions about 2 or 3 min, and only in a very specific framework. About like, oh, you missed public comment at the beginning, so no more chance to talk about stuff or SBSD Owl Cam: yeah, just sometimes the boundaries could be expanded a little bit, especially around budget time. And if there's a specific issue like when we were hearing about the rebel name. There were meetings and

113meetings and meetings that Elizabeth sort of like let 50 people talk, even if they were saying the same thing or 2 different things. But you know, 25 each. Because people need to feel like you're listening to them. Yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: I think there's a big difference between not listening and not SBSD Owl Cam: acting on that testimony. Right? So I totally agree with that point that it's we have an obligation to listen to everyone. We do not have an obligation to try to follow and act on everything we're hearing. That has been my favorite part of chairing. The School Board is figuring out when it's okay to bend the guidelines and when it isn't because we we harm community members. When we say, Okay, now you can talk. No, you can't. Just kidding. It's

114it's SBSD Owl Cam: my least favorite part. And in this role it's often trying to read the room and also maintain a strong team with the board members who often have very different opinions on how should be SBSD Owl Cam: handled. So, yeah, yeah, you need to make it clear like this will help to inform me. Maybe it helps to inform my decision. But I remember things were pretty tendentious. One meeting, and I think it was. SBSD Owl Cam: Martin was told by someone from the public that you know the the town has spoken. I was like. SBSD Owl Cam: there are a lot of voices out there. It says, Hold down thanks for the info, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: So you know, if one of you spoke like, or one of the legislators

115spoke. SBSD Owl Cam: nobody would assume that you're speaking for the legislature. SBSD Owl Cam: and so I'm wondering what guidelines did they give you as legislators in terms of your public presence? SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, I think so that you know it's quite different. You know that. Yeah, we do. Active SBSD Owl Cam: as a body, but with a hundred 50 legislators. SBSD Owl Cam: I don't think anybody thinks that you're speaking for the Legislature, even even if it's on a bill that has passed. And this is your opinion of the bill that's passed into law. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean, there's there's all sorts of precedent case law on how to interpret legislative intent, and essentially, whatever the words say, in the law. That's what counts most, so it doesn't count what

116I say frankly, even as chair of one of the committee. So so there, there it's a it's but it's but I don't think people perceive SBSD Owl Cam: my monthly column as speaking for the Legislature, and I think when I was on the school Board, they would see me as speaking SBSD Owl Cam: on behalf of the School Board. Whether I was or was not. So I was very cautiously, Bridget as well. But there were times where? Where we would SBSD Owl Cam: identify one of the School Board members as our spokesperson, and gave some leeway. So, for instance, in the strike, whenever that was we met 17th that long, long ago. I you know I was kind of the spokesperson because she ran and was out of town. The 1st and only board meeting

117that I shared was SBSD Owl Cam: during that week with the strike. We had 250 people at that board. Thank you very much. So so there are instances, and and I think Bridget was really the person for for Mon that, you know, was SBSD Owl Cam: but the public spokesperson. So there's that flexibility as well. I think there's also a parallel shame this maybe not at the whole, like legislative legislature level, but at the committee level somewhat, and I think along the way. If I were talking to someone I could say, you know, I don't like this idea, but it seems like the committee is going that way. But then, once you pass something out of committee, and you're on the floor like we think this, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: but not necessarily like

118not necessarily. Your political opponents would say, We support this, you know, like the ranking member may not say, Oh, I agree with what we SBSD Owl Cam: passed out of the committee. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean? Well, so we're in mind corrections and institutions. We're split right down the middle. We've got 6 Republicans, 6 Democrats, basically one independent, leading our way. So there are lots of different opinions, and the ranking member SBSD Owl Cam: can and has said that he doesn't like the way that something is going while it's still in motion. But then the committee, you know, votes it out. Then that's what the committee has done. And you are the committee. Yeah. SBSD Owl Cam: I do think there's, I submit that for us in this political environment. SBSD Owl Cam: We might

119want to not take for granted that the community cannot tell the difference between a single person on the board, and I think that you know, as SBSD Owl Cam: we try to act more effectively. SBSD Owl Cam: we might want to try to get more to that point where people know that like, if I say something in the other paper. SBSD Owl Cam: I'm not speaking for the board, and and that may just unlock a lot more communication and engagement. That's in my opinion. Can I ask a follow up to that? This current board and its current structure has struggled to agree on board statements. I think we've issued one in this current arrangement, and, as you know, open meeting law makes it very difficult to edit a statement SBSD Owl Cam: without it turning

120into a meeting, and so the process is very clunky and takes a lot of time. SBSD Owl Cam: I. My perception is that the the community would not SBSD Owl Cam: think that you're speaking on behalf of the entire legislature, because you represent our community in the State realm, whereas board members, we represent our community at this realm. So I can kind of see that distinction being a problem. But I wonder if this Board would engage more effectively with the community if, instead of board statements in the other paper we had SBSD Owl Cam: board member columns in the other paper, where it was like, I'm seamus, and this is my opinion, not the Board's opinion. I think that you're experiencing, that you don't think the community tends to SBSD Owl Cam: distinguish a board

121member from a board position. But also, right now we're struggling to get board position statements out because we really don't agree on everything. And building consensus has been really challenging. So from my standpoint, the real place to have that is, in board meetings where your individual views and personalities come out, and people have a lot of venues to participate in that. Even looking at tape meetings. SBSD Owl Cam: As far as the statements go, I know in my tenure as chair. SBSD Owl Cam: I think I somebody would draft the statement. SBSD Owl Cam: We'd send it out to the board. Members asked that reply only to the chair or through the superintendent, and it often had a time stamp on it like within 24 h, and then I know I would often send out, so

122speak now or forever. Hold your peace. This is the statement that's going in on behalf of the board. So that allowed for some of the time issues that came up. And people either really felt strongly about it. Or I'm okay with that type of thing. SBSD Owl Cam: But I do think you know one thing, you have a lot of talent on the board, different strengths, and figuring out where to leverage people's strengths on the board, whether it's in a spokesperson capacity, whether it's on writing capacity, whether it's a financial capacity, I think that's going to be really important, and that's a great way to sort of divvy up the board work, too, and establish collaborative relationships SBSD Owl Cam: for what it's worth. The other thing I I don't know. This didn't really come

123up, but I know I and I don't know if anyone else did it. SBSD Owl Cam: But SBSD Owl Cam: early on in the chair role, and I think rich. Maybe in his rich Cassidy, his role as chair would meet with Union representation like once a month or so, and I know I did that with co-presidents of the Union, and it was really just a way to keep abreast of what were the concerns. What was going on. It it sort of SBSD Owl Cam: phased out over time, and I think some of it SBSD Owl Cam: was related to. I think there was an effort to push a specific agenda, and when that might not happen, I think there was less interest in that. But that was certainly something that was done in the past

124that could be done in the future, too. SBSD Owl Cam: So when when you were doing that SBSD Owl Cam: what what came of those meetings besides just hearing them like? Was there any actionable space or actions or positions like what? What was the result of those meetings? I can't recall anything specific except reporting back. SBSD Owl Cam: This is this came up, and it's on, you know, on the union's mind. And SBSD Owl Cam: it might have made it to an agenda item at some point. But I do think SBSD Owl Cam: that's a little bit where it phased out, because I think there was an interest in being more influential around policy change, and SBSD Owl Cam: it was more of a listening venue from my perspective. I know. SBSD Owl Cam: and

125I will say I got severe push back on that. SBSD Owl Cam: I tried to. I did meet with leadership right before I stepped on the board. The day before I came on the board I had made a point because they had reached out to me to sort of peel me out as a candidate when I was running and I thought it was important to sort of, you know, reach out, because, as I said, I came on like a year after there had been a strike, and he SBSD Owl Cam: shiny new board member, I thought, you know, what can I do to sort of help SBSD Owl Cam: the situation, and I sat down with the Union President, who is long out of that position now, and is retired from the district. And he

126said, Yeah, we won't do that ever again. And it wasn't based on their in their minds. It was, we're done. We're not doing these meetings, the School Board anymore. And it became a much more adversarial relationship. And I. SBSD Owl Cam: We struggled to sort of heal that in some way. We felt like we came to the table with very open minds and and and things that we thought would be compromises and stuff. But it was a struggle to build that relationship. So I'm not sure I have. Very stuff comes up. I assume a lot of that is operational SBSD Owl Cam: right. Were they bringing up a lot of operational stuff. So at that point are you just saying, Look, that! That's SBSD Owl Cam: that's not what we were dealing with here. I

127guess what I'm trying to differentiate is from a policy governance perspective. You're meeting with the Union. You're meeting with Staff. Essentially right and and a lot of their issues are going to be around, hey? You know we don't think this is working or that's working, but that a lot of that falls under the purview of the superintendent for policy governance. My recollection is, whatever might have come up was more operational, and to me it was really just establishing relationship and SBSD Owl Cam: listening. But, as I said, it wasn't sustainable. And did you bring that back to the superintendent at some point? Or how did that? How did that? It would be communicated that I would communicate what came up. But that was yeah. I certainly had sidebars of that sort impromptu, where I viewed

128myself as essentially being a conduit, who said as much. SBSD Owl Cam: and then, yeah, we communicate it back to the board chair. The superintendent, if it seemed important, so informally. Yeah, just another avenue, you know. SBSD Owl Cam: Say, it wasn't sustainable. Why wasn't it sustainable? SBSD Owl Cam: I think it was kind of a mutual decision. It started out where I was meeting with the Co. Presidents, and then one wouldn't show up. And and it it just sort of waned. And SBSD Owl Cam: you know, I mean, I'm not going to surmise what you know the Co. Presence, the time we're thinking. But SBSD Owl Cam: to me it was having a relationship. And I I think I did have that with 2 individuals who ran that role at the time, but in

129terms of the issues that came up it really SBSD Owl Cam: It wouldn't come up in SBSD Owl Cam: in negotiations if it was a negotiable contract issue. That's 1 of my primary concerns is having conversations that are met with negotiations table outside of negotiations and closed doors. That's 1 of my primary concerns about the Board meeting for co-presidents. And so with that understanding what in your experience would be potential risks or or problems with the board meeting SBSD Owl Cam: as long as you don't have a quorum and don't claim to be representing the board. I don't see a problem with it. SBSD Owl Cam: That's just me, and I guess it would be what? What would define purpose in the scope of the conversations. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. And there, there's a concern.

130If if you're in negotiations. My concern would be that SBSD Owl Cam: the Union is going to try to divide the border. SBSD Owl Cam: I mean. In fact, it's a high likelihood if it's if it's difficult, difficult negotiations that that would happen. So I'd be very careful if you're in negotiations on whether to have those kind of meetings. SBSD Owl Cam: We're gonna I don't know Chelsea. We need to segue a little bit. I wanna everybody's time here. But I don't know. I was just wondering if you, when the strike during the time of the strike. Was the board meeting with the unions at that point, you mean. SBSD Owl Cam: yeah. Like, it just didn't align with it. Had you already stopped. Those those informal meetings had stopped, had stopped. Okay. SBSD Owl

131Cam: and would you to go back to the time when you were meeting with your presence regularly? Maybe not in your time, but during that time would you say that it was like a kind of an escape out for for pressure SBSD Owl Cam: in terms of totally just people, feelings, emotions like, you know. Frustration. SBSD Owl Cam: No, not really. It was. I would say it was effort to influence somewhat and inform SBSD Owl Cam: but the same. The co-presidents were not on the negotiating team, so those became very separate, you know, at the time. So it was definitely more. My goal was information sharing, and I think SBSD Owl Cam: but again, I'm reticent to speak, because these folks are long out of the system, and it's ancient history at this point. But

132I SBSD Owl Cam: would surmise it might have been a little bit more. SBSD Owl Cam: Did you just say that the co-residents of the Union that you would meet with were not part of the negotiating team. Correct. There was a close distinction. Yeah, they kept them much more bifurcated in the past SBSD Owl Cam: than they are now. Yeah, so we are actually past time SBSD Owl Cam: I'd love. Do we have a little bit more time just to make sure that if there's a question left that's really important to anyone here or to you to share on. Yeah, I'd like to just make sure we stay on the schedule to allow time with the executive session. So it's 1139 right now. But I feel like the things we haven't covered our School board

133interfacing with the superintendent and staff SBSD Owl Cam: evaluation process. Input why did you decide to leave the Board work requirements, effective time management and effective subcommittees? Are there any of those topics that anyone feels very strongly that we cover before we adjourn this part of the session. SBSD Owl Cam: Oh, go ahead! SBSD Owl Cam: Been a great conversation. SBSD Owl Cam: I do see. We have a member of the public with a hand raised. We took that question and comment. Could we unmute Jerry Silversteen? Gerry Silverstein: So I could say a lot of things. But I'll just correct if I will. One comment that Miss Burkhart said. Gerry Silverstein: She said something to the effect of making cuts every year. This is a misrepresentation of reality. Bridget. Gerry Silverstein: We we know about

134slide in the recent budget which showed in Fy. 2425, and 26. There were a total of 45 ftes, cuts, reductions, and everybody talks about that. Gerry Silverstein: but noticeably absent from that discussion is the fact. In the year before, in the Fy. 23 budget there was an addition of 39.1 9 ftes. Again, an addition, not a cut. Gerry Silverstein: If you compare the fte count in Fy. 21 Gerry Silverstein: to the fy to the fte count in Fy. 26. The difference, the difference over that span of time is 0 point 1 8 ftes. That's 0 point 1 ftes. So you can talk about cuts in Fy 2425 and 26. But if you don't talk about the additions in Fy. 23, then you're deceiving the public Gerry Silverstein: in that interval from Fy. 21 to Fy.

13526 spending was up. 36% inflation was up, 20% and ftes were decreased by account of 0 point 1 8.1 8 ftes. So you talked about communication with the public. If you can't communicate accurate information to the public, then you should probably not communicate any information whatsoever. SBSD Owl Cam: Terry, this is Seamus after. When are you gonna run for the board? I'm looking forward. I'm and that is a sincere question. Gerry Silverstein: Can I answer that. SBSD Owl Cam: Yes, please. Gerry Silverstein: People often ask me that, and the reason has always been the same when the Board will talk about education, when the Board will talk about learning. Then I will run for the board. That rarely happens, and evidence of that is the Legislature won't talk about the Vt. Cap. Scores in 224

136local communities won't talk about these scores. Nobody wants to talk about academic learning Gerry Silverstein: as determined by standardized tests. At the recent board meeting. You all heard me quote more knowledgeable individuals, that myself, at prestigious universities across the country have all said the same thing. Grades and grade point averages no longer document. How well a student will do both in college and in their careers! What will determine how successful they are Gerry Silverstein: is standardized tests. Yet there is an intention to deny talking about those at every level of government in the State of Vermont, and when somebody starts talking about those poor performance scores, then I will consider running for the board, otherwise it's a waste of my time, and it would create enormous dissension within the board if I kept bringing this

137up. That's why I don't run for the board. SBSD Owl Cam: I would welcome you as a colleague, and that's a sincere thing, because I think that the only way democracy works SBSD Owl Cam: is precisely if people bring issues up in a in a way that they can make change. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah, perhaps I misunderstood you, Bridget. I thought you meant custom, services and opportunities. SBSD Owl Cam: I I think we don't need to mitigate it right now. SBSD Owl Cam: Can we unmute Yama, please? SBSD Owl Cam: Could you please state your full name? So we know which you know what we're talking to. noah: I am Noah Everett. I live in Heinzburg. I'm 1 of the current co-presidents of Sba, and I just wanted to offer kind of as a memory

138aid noah: that after the strike in 2,014 those meetings did end. But I believe my memory is that we began them again when I became President, to try to reestablish that trust. noah: And a lot of the work at that time was around statewide healthcare. And that's a lot of what we discussed. Thanks. noah: Don't go. SBSD Owl Cam: 1st oops comments. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you. Thank you for your service, and I'm pleased to do this. So you want to do it again. If you want to get in touch. My information is public, and I'm happy to, unless you have it anyway. But yeah, folks on the board reach out to you all personally with follow up questions, or, you know, in a mentoring capacity, should there be true interest? I think you all

139know where we live. Yes. SBSD Owl Cam: I really appreciate you all being here, I always learn from you all, and really appreciate the discussion this morning. Thank you for your time on a Saturday. Can I ask just one quick question. SBSD Owl Cam: So the board members that weren't able to be here today. SBSD Owl Cam: will they be reviewing this meeting online? Or it will be recorded. So they'll have. Director Dan Boyer has been on virtually. SBSD Owl Cam: Yeah. So again, thank you. Thank you all. SBSD Owl Cam: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. SBSD Owl Cam: Soon as well. Dan Boyer: Yeah, I'm here. SBSD Owl Cam: Hi dan nice. Dan Boyer: Good morning! SBSD Owl Cam: Okay? So yes. With that I would take a motion to enter into executive

140session for the purpose of discussing labor negotiations. SBSD Owl Cam: And and let's do so, and it will show me. SBSD Owl Cam: and not to do so in closed session would put the district at a disadvantage. Do I have a motion SBSD Owl Cam: so move to, we'll do an executive. SBSD Owl Cam: Second show me second SBSD Owl Cam: so just to be crystal clear. Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Martin Londe, Brian Lanier, Bridget Berghardt, the Full board. Dan Boyer. SBSD Owl Cam: who's on virtually, and Superintendent Nichols, will be entering into executive session. And then, at some point during that executive session the former board members I've just listed will leave SBSD Owl Cam: whatever you can play this way all in favor. SBSD Owl Cam: Okay, the motion passes and we will adjourn the

141regular session and picks up the session. But we'll come back online to do so.