November 6, 2024 School Board Meeting

001We call the regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board to order on Wednesday, November 6th at 6.01 p.m. Agenda item two, announcements and amendments to the agenda. Are there any announcements or moments? I have an amendment. I'd like to add to discussion items Highland EBUS presentation. Just make sure we share additional information on that. Okay. Thank you. Agenda item three, comments from the public. This is the community's opportunity to share feedback and concerns with the board. We ask that you keep your comments concise, two to three minutes, and that you refrain from using any information that would identify a specific person Please raise your hand in the room or use the Zoom raised hand feature. We will only use the online chat to manage any tech issues. You're not able to take action on

002any issues brought to us during public comment. However, any board member may suggest tonight that the issue or question be added to a future agenda for discussion. We may also delegate addressing issues to our superintendent, Violet Nicos, and it's always helpful if you could email us a copy of your comments for follow-up. Is there any public comment in the room? Anybody online? move on. It's on the item floor focus on student learning and give our student representative report. Perfect. So after last week's meeting, Ali and I were thinking a bit more about resources that are currently available for mental health services both like I guess. Formerly mental health services and also things that are just available for students to kind of hang out with one another. And so we thought of this public library. It's

003pretty accessible, a walk from school for both middle school, high school, and RMCS. And they have a full team space. So Allie and I go there a lot to work on board announcements and things like that. And then they also have a library council of teens. And so if students want to get more involved with that. They can talk to any librarian and basically that council meets I think once a month And they talk about how the library can be more accessible and plan events for young adults. So yeah, we just wanted to give a shout out. And today, Gracie and I were actually meeting in the team space, working on our board announcements, and we were able to meet some middle and elementary schoolers from our district and a few seventh graders asked if

004we could give them a team shout out. So here's a shout out to Team Discovery at FHGMS. Okay. Both FHCMS and SVHS winter sport registration is now open and all high schoolers hoping to play winter sports should register by the 25th of November. And speaking of athletics, South Burlington High School's very own boys volleyball team won the D1 state championship last Sunday. Student support at all three championship games was incredible as girls field hockey, girls soccer, and boys volleyball all made the championships this year. And we're just really proud of the hard work and dedication shown by our student athletes this fall. FHCMS is having school-wide Spirit Fridays for the rest of November. So this Friday, November 8th, is Class Color Day. Sixth graders should wear gray or white, seventh graders should wear blue. Eighth

005graders should wear black and staff are going to be wearing bright colors to spread some love throughout school. Orchard Elementary School is holding an open house for kindergarten and first grade families on November 12th. This will happen right at school from 8.30 to 9.15 a.m. And families will be able to learn more about the curriculum students are currently working with and then see what's to come later this year. That leads us to agenda item five, discussion items. First up, things. Right. Thank you so much. So we currently have several e-buses, four of them. And we have been engaging in ongoing conversations with Highland. You know, we've had some time with our eBus is on the road. We've not had any difficulties with safety or battery concerns in cold weather. You know, and we're able to

006recognize quite a bit of cost savings and then also just environmental benefits, right? So the EPA's new round of grants have been especially enticing and having a lot of, you know, we've discussed, Tim and I have discussed EWUS is pretty significantly and worked closely with Highland, who's been absolutely fantastic. And Highland shared a slide deck with us and they said, hey, you know, we'd love to provide some information for the board and the community. And we were like, great, you know, come on in. I want to thank, oh, and I should add to that just some framing. So we're in need of some buses, right? We have aging buses. And so, you know, we're looking at alternatives that can align with some of our climate goals and the city's overall climate plan, as well as,

007you know, reliably and safely getting our students to school. So we are fortunate enough to have Emily Parrish here this evening. Emily, thank you so much for being here. And Emily is going to share some information. Regarding the egress proposal that we are currently looking at. So Emily, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. Awesome. Thank you so much, Violet. And thank you to the whole team here for having me here, I'll go ahead and share my screen. Just going to share a couple slides. And I'll try to keep it short, but also happy to answer any questions that anyone has. Can everyone hear and see the slides okay? Great. So I will go through some of these. So really? What we have here today, we wanted to just talk a little bit about

008your current buses, maybe some highlights on the project, and then we can jump into the proposal for two additional buses, what that timeline looks like and the pricing around that. be kind of extension of the project. So really, we just have a lot of pictures here to highlight the program This is, you know, the bus being delivered, kind of some training. We have these kind of large vehicle to grid charging stations that we've been utilizing to actually sell and and provide electricity back to the grid, which has been a really awesome pilot and Sean and the team, the transportation team has been really great in in coordinating all of this, along with Highland. We also, I know, had a community event in the South Burlington area and really showcased to the community, the buses and

009kind of the new technology here. These are some highlights in terms of numbers. you've driven nearly 60,000 miles with these buses to date, which was really exciting and saved a lot in terms of carbon emissions. And, you know, we've highlighted here how much electricity you've actually discharged back into the grid. And this is kind of a little bit of a large statistic, but you know. You could think of it as being ultimately being able to charge over 2 million iPhones with the amount of electricity we've been able to provide back to the grid and you know this Particularly this vehicle to grid pilot project with your district. This is the first some of you may know it was the first successful project with Green Mountain Power in the region to do this. It was highlighted

010in the New York Times where you had Sean McKenzie from your team interviewed and as a part of a program, you've had some other really kind of great press around the project. So we're really happy to hear that, you know. you all are kind of excited about what the prospects could look like to continue. So I'll move this along. Just as a reminder what it is that Highland provides and really the second phase of this project is exactly the same contracting structure, the same set of services. and equipment that we have provided you for your first four buses. And that is really including the buses themselves. So we build them to the district specifications, the buses that you all want. And we build out the infrastructure at the depot. So that requires, you know, upfront

011capital costs. that we actually finance over the timeframe of the contract so the district does not have to outlay that capital or kind of do any of the heavy lifting for procurement and installation of the school bus depot. And, you know, through that. that process, we're also able to take some kind of tax structuring advantages as a private entity when we own the vehicles. we can get tax benefits and we essentially pass those along to you all In the form of a lower contract price. And this is something we've kind of developed in our financing structure in the last year or two. And, you know, have been able to utilize that with our school district partners. And then Throughout the 12-year contract, which is the same length that you all have with your first four

012buses. We provide the charge management services software to ensure the interoperability between the chargers and the buses make sure everything's running smoothly, your buses are charged every day. We cover the cost of electricity to fuel your buses based on an annual mileage that you will be driving them. And we are providing essentially an extended warranty for the EV components of your of the buses. That's particularly useful kind of towards the end of the life of the vehicle when you know, you could be facing kind of high replacement costs for some of these electric components, and we cover all of those costs within our contract. So you really know what you're paying to continue to operate these vehicles for the life of the vehicles. So all of this is bundled together in the same way, the

013same structure we're providing you today. And This is the site plan, so you all may be familiar. Your first four buses are in orange here. So we're essentially just extending, adding two more under that covered parking area. It does require a little bit of upgrades with Green Mountain Power that we've modeled in and we're handling to be able to expand that service there. So it fits pretty well into the kind of existing infrastructure that you have. Now the timeline, and then I'll kind of go through the pricing proposal here. We're looking at about a year from contract finalization to actually get the vehicles deployed. a big next step in terms of if we move forward and everything gets signed and finalized, right? We'll sit down with your team and make sure we're aligning the construction

014schedule and the delivery with what makes sense for your operation. So it's really a partnership. Until the buses are deployed and obviously afterwards. This just outlines, right, you were all awarded the EPA funding in May It takes a little bit of time to figure out what you're going to do And we're obviously in November now. And the big deadline that we've been orienting around is the purchase order deadline for the EPA funding. So the purchase orders for the vehicles themselves are due at the end of the month. So that's why we're kind of tracking towards trying to get this stuff finalized this month so we can make sure we submit those to the EPA in order to receive that funding. And then from there, again, it'll take about a year we do all the infrastructure

015construction to align with the vehicle delivery And, you know, training and preparation before that. And you'll see your vehicles on the road By, you know, early 2026. And again, this is a little bit of a conservative timeline. It is possible to move this up. We just kind of want to set expectations that it's about a year at this point. to see the buses on the road. just moving along. So this is the pricing proposal. Again, it's a very similar structure where you get a fixed annual fee And we've put the per bus price in here It has escalated at 3% annually. That's kind of the typical structure we use. And then we put the total cost of the Highland contract for 12 years. We are looking at two buses. You all were awarded four, but

016just from conversations with your team, it seems like two might be the right approach at this time. We bake in the grant funding to lower that annual service fee rate. We're using some funding from the EPA that you all were awarded. And then there is a little bit of funding from Green Mountain Power Through their Make Ready program that we're also utilizing to reduce the costs a little bit here. Service term is 12 years and the annual mileage allowance is the same that you all have right now, and it seems to be working fine. I do want to touch on the fact that this is a higher price than the first set of four buses. And I wanted to talk a little bit about why. And there's a couple of reasons. First and foremost, the

017cost of the vehicles have actually increased by about $50,000 since we bought them a couple years ago for you all. You also had received a little bit more grant funding at that time through the state program. So we're actually looking at a increase in the bus costs of $100,000 per bus Again, you got about $50,000 less in grant funding and the cost of the bus increased also. by 50,000. So that's cost that we are financing for you all across those 12 years. So you're not outlay, again, you're not outlaying that capital at the beginning. Additionally, I think we just kind of wanted to note and make clear that For the first project, that was one of Highland's first projects, you know, in the electric school bus market and We did invest in that project because

018we really wanted to see it happen and we're So for this deployment, we're actually pricing it at what we are pricing all of our other projects at right now to make sure we're covering our costs Because the cost to kind of serve our districts and provide you know, technicians and be able to make sure that projects are successful have gone up a little bit. There's no intention to kind of recoup any of the investment from the first project. It's really just our standard pricing that we're now kind of putting out in the market for all of the school districts. So that's a little bit of why the price has increased. we still feel like it's an attractive price at an affordable way to do this deployment by working with us and financing it. over the

019timeframe. I don't want to take up too much more time. This is just the payment schedule. This is what it looks like over 12 years kind of on a on a per bus basis, on a total basis So this is, you know, what the district would owe Highland. And I think maybe the last slide here, there's a lot of numbers and text on this slide, but what we, and we can send this to you all to review on your own, but what we like to show is what, you know, a comparison of what it would cost you all to do this project on your own versus working with Highland. And really, if you were all to kind of embark on this project on your own, you hire a contractor to install the chargers, you manage

020the project. There's multiple scenarios, right? It could be a little bit cheaper to do that if everything goes perfectly and you charge your buses at exactly the right time. And you don't face any demand charges and you don't have to replace your chargers. But in a case where things do not go perfectly as should be expected, Highland is actually saving you money. Because we're fixing those costs for you. You don't have those out-of-pocket expenses. So that's what this is really trying to summarize. The last few slides just have all kind of the buildup numbers to go along with that. So I think I'll stop there and I'm happy to stick around and answer any questions. I have a couple. Emily, can you just explain to me really quickly how vehicle to grid works, what that

021is again Yeah, for sure. So essentially, during times when the buses are not being used for student transportation or do not need to be charged in order to meet your route needs. It's kind of first and foremost, we need to get your kids to school, right? But there's a lot of downtime. So really the vehicles are serving as a grid asset. And we install, we did install kind of more expensive bi-directional chargers And that means the chargers can charge the buses and it can also backflow from the bus battery into the grid when the utility asks us for it. And they actually compensate their customers for doing that, right? And it's typically to help with peak times to make more energy available for the community. So it's really a community asset to have these vehicles.

022To be able to do that, because really they're just mobile storage And they have a kind of a really cool second use. Does that help? Yeah, yeah, that's what I suspected. I just wanted to confirm that. Thank you. Yeah, I know we just kind of use that term and expect people to know what it means, but typically people do not. So, Violet, can I ask you a couple of questions about this? I'll invite Tim Jarvis as well to be a part of the discussion. But I'm all ears. This is the first time I've seen this information, so I just have a couple Okay. So we're currently leasing four buses. And are those 12-year leases as well yeah And just out of curiosity, is there a cost benefit analysis compared to like the diesel buses? over

02312 years that we've done so I imagine the electric may be a bit more expensive, but there definitely are yeah i mean we know we know the cost of a new diesel bus is around $150,000. There are four buses in our fleet which are at the tail end of their life They each have about 150,000 miles on them. And it's costing us about $100,000 a year And for our whole fleet, not just for those four buckleys. for repair also we don't have a diesel mechanic right now and we cannot hire one. Which has been problematic. We don't have a mechanic. And so all the repairs on all these aging buses are going out to third party you know locally. I mean, I think that when I was reviewing this. I felt that even though we

024were awarded four buses I think that's a step too far. you know, for a couple of reasons. One is that we have a lot of budget, right? And when you dispose of diesel buses, you don't get very much in return. You know, basically an auction where you submit it for auction somebody will bid $10,000 for it or something so And we also spend Before we had a bus driver crisis we used to spend about $80,000 a year in fuel for our fleet. that was cut down almost in half last year because we had no drivers and so That is an offset as well. Now, I think that if you did a cost benefit analysis to the penny, a diesel bus is a lot less expensive than mine. So I think the real impetus of going

025forward to this is the contract, the service contract that Highland has is replacing a cost for mechanics and repairs and whatnot clearly it's consistent with our environmental policies. And they will last a long time. And they've been The four buses that we have have been extremely reliable. We were concerned, I think we got them like right around the time I was, maybe we had some before I got here, but then we got two more and You know, we were concerned on these mornings where it's like 30, 40 below zero. Like, are these things even going to work right and they have We need to keep some diesel buses because of our tuition students in the islands and Georgia. These are really for local trips and are not currently until battery technology improves and everything else

026although i guess I guess there's hope. But these are really intended to replace the tail end of our current diesel fleet. promote our environmental priorities. And the reliability of this service contract hovering routine repairs and maintenance and whatnot that is very um that's the offset. It's never going to offset. it's never going to be cheaper than diesel. at least now, 10 years from now, perhaps. And also, you know, the other consideration is what is our long-term strategy with buses right and and One of the reasons why I recommended it to Violet that we only go for two and not for four, which we were eligible for. In addition to the cost that will be hitting our near-term budgets, it's also what if we decide to go in a different direction and change our transportation strategy.

027Having the six elections, I can't, unless you tell me otherwise, I can't imagine that in the near term, medium term, we're going to cancel our transportation altogether. We have certain obligations to special ed and And then would require a certain number of buses to satisfy those requirements at a minimum But I wouldn't want to overextend until we make larger decisions about busing in general. So I think that's That's sort of the context that I was thinking about when I made my recommendation pilot to take advantage of the two that we were awarded at this time. So just two more quick questions if you're okay. So we're looking at budgeting these two buses for the fiscal year 26 budget. Is that correct? That's right. No, so it would be, yeah, so they would be in the

028fiscal year 26 budget. Because the contract would be signed November and that would Yeah. Okay. And then out of curiosity, are other districts using e-buses or are we yes yeah there were there were six We can share the present. Julia distributed the press release on this i think in May. Our congressional team was totally on board with this. Sanders and co and In fact, they had to write sort of a letter of recommendations, so I can't remember the term. They wrote a letter to the epa advocating for Vermont to get some of these, a slice of the big EPA confidence And at that time, there were six school districts in Vermont that are in the same position we are right now. who were awarded, CBU was one of them, and then there were there were

029other smaller schools school districts. So there's six schools who were awarded in the same grant from the EPA, round three And also, we've been receiving emails like out of the blue. People have found out about this, that we have electric buses And these are people from out of state who are, you know, they find out that we are one of the schools that are using electric buses and they're excited about it and they like want to talk towards like how did you do it and how's it going and things like that so other vermont boards too i mean when we were in killington for the business official superintendent conference, I was approached by two superintendents who are like, hey, Violet, I got to pick your brain. You know, my board is really interested or I'm

030really interested. So that was Lincoln and Harwood just are interested. And it's cool because we're, you know, we're known for these and you know my response has been like, I don't know if we're going to get, we didn't know if other rounds of grants were going to come about. But now, of course, they have the agency of education has been submitting them to the superintendent listserv. So I've seen incredible interest from other superintendents inquiring about, you know, how's it going? Are they reliable? the cost structure. There's also an opportunity. The Volkswagen and I can't remember the full name. Volkswagen environmental trust which we got some of our funding originally from They've just, as we were talking to Island about this, the information came out that there's more funds available through them And you have to

031have to qualify in order to apply for that. they'll only they'll do a bus they'll replace a diesel bus or an e-bus. As long as the engine age is 2009 or less. or older. And in our case, we have a bunch of 2010s and 11s, but we only have one 2009 so If we decide to go forward with this, that if we win that money and it has to do with the timing of the contract and stuff because it's It's not supposed to be used like if you're like deep into the process and you've already signed contracts. We got 900. Just to give Emily a shout out publicly, I mean, Highland has done all the heavy lifting on this. I mean. they filled out all the applications. They've been a champion, they've created cohorts, they've

032done very great fun work so I'm certainly supportive of continuing the extension of our relationship with them through this If the board feels that it's revoked. That was going to be my last question. $965,000 that we were awarded for the original, the e-buses I ordered in 2000. 22. And it was the Volkswagen Environmental Mitigation Trust Fund. Which was a state grant. we're still eligible for that on top of this. Thank you. I don't know if it would be 965. Thank you. Do you want to just hang on, Michael? Okay, I might have more questions. Laura, do you have any more questions? I do not. That was great. So I don't feel like I'm clear how much How much of this are we having to budget for and how much is being pulled four or five?

033um yep so the um Emily, do you want to pull that back up in your slides, the finance structure? Yeah, of course. Oh. Do you have any questions? I just realized I haven't been watching the Zoom grid very closely. I was watching, so I was going to receive any humans So, and I can just explain this for a second because it's a little convoluted here. essentially so I would ignore the base price and the fixed annual repair credit. It's just the way we have to structure it, you are only going to be paying us the net payment due to Highland. So that's the 34 500 times two for the first year and then it just escalates at a 3% rate for 12 years. Bye. So I'd focus on the last two columns. That's what South

034Brands and the school district is in or that's a This is what our total cost, so $979,250. over the course of 12 years. And what is the EPA grant? The EPA grant is that they're awarding us $200,000 off the price of each bus. And then plus an additional 10,000 from June. And then the repairs and the maintenance is included and they also provide the chargers. So those pieces are included in the total cost. Yeah, and just to clarify, and maybe this is understood, we've already baked in those grants, so it would really be another $420,000 on top of this if you didn't have those grants. I have not. which was really… And I did that too. That was cool. Yeah. They're extremely quiet. And I think that you talk about um social emotional learning and

035sort of just like how we start our day and how we end our day. The quiet of those buses is something that I get a lot of feedback on. And it's noticeably different. I mean, as an adult when I'm on those buses, I'm like. Wow. Peaceful. Yeah, right. Any other questions for Emily? So thank you, Emily. Emily, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time and presentation. Of course. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Not with you. Thanks so much. All right, so up next we have finance committee So I believe we need to schedule our community listening session because we canceled yesterday's. Because it was voting day. So why don't we start with that unless Preston, I do have an update. No, I guess… I just want to establish what the go

036forward strategy is. I think there is a little bit of confusion following executive. where it got mentioned so i'm just Not quite sure who's scheduling, who's kind of managing the logistics And I fear for the people who are participating in this that we're not quite as organized as we should be with this committee at this point. Oh. so yeah so uh Just for anyone listening to understand Chris and Tim are going to be our chief negotiators. from the board for our Teachers, contracts, nurse support staff contract. They are also currently chairing and vice chairing the finance committee, which is a huge amount of work. And since Laura and i cannot negotiate. We were thinking of transferring transferring the responsibility of finance committee from Horsington to myself and Laura. And so we need to work out

037the details of that so i um I would still really love your input as much as possible. I know because it would wind up being a board discussion. It would always have to be an open session, which I think is fine. I don't feel like finance is my super strong suit, but organizing is something I can do. So I'm happy to facilitate, but I would still really appreciate as much perspective as we can offer. So I guess my question would be like, who is the one person on the board who is going to lead this? Because I feel like it's sort of been Chris and I have been kind of ships in the night sometimes on this. And so when it comes down to who's communicating to the participants and setting dates and such. Is

038that me or is that going to be Chris or will that be you? That's what I just want to try to determine this evening. And I'm happy to continue supporting, however, right? That's near and dear to my heart at funding, right? At least trying to understand how it works. We're also, from a district perspective, having to provide any resources, communication, financial. advertising. so um Do you have a set time? We don't at this point. We had our first meeting about two weeks ago and we had inadvertently scheduled um our listening session right on election night so and then and so i don't think we don't have a firm date for our next meeting so And coming out of executive last week, I was just a little confused and didn't want to start sending dates out.

039Which will be confirmed tonight with the go forward once. We're about having it. on Wednesday nights. Cool. I don't mind. How long do the meetings go? We ran it an hour last time on our first call. And it may depend upon what's being covered in the call. So I just want to you know i guess my question is like, I just want to know where I begin and end on this going forward. Am I participating in the meetings going forward or all that or just be the two of you or is that how is that going to work Just so I know. Right. I'm just kind of confused. And I apologize. It's been a struggle here. I feel like I am constantly trying to take work off of your plate because I'm worried you're going

040to get overloaded. And you just keep telling me that you're good and you got it. And I trust you and believe you. And I would definitely I can schedule and I can send emails and I can facilitate if that's a problem. I would just like the I would like the content support. Chris, what's your feeling on this, just from your perspective? I think we're quickly finding out that to give the negotiations the proper time and support needed to do both preparation and once that ramps up The sooner that we could pivot to Chelsea and Laura supporting the finance committee. So to build that um that momentum uh it's just the time gets stacked up pretty quick. But I share Tim's uh commitment that we have a familiarity with the documents that have been provided and

041I think just some guiding themes on finance, just like just what you said, Chelsea, like, uh. Let's just talk about the kind of the core issues um and but i think One of my biggest takeaways from the first session is This is probably going to be less about getting to know the financial numbers. And this is going to be more about community engagement. You know, I think there's a baseline of kind of we understand what some short-term goals are, but a lot of this is going to be community engagement and i um I'm really excited about. Chelsea Laura's skill set that you'd be able to provide in that area. So I see a nice, I kind of see a nice handoff uh there. The sooner the better, though. Times overlapping. But my hearing chris i

042mean are you saying you and I are off the committee and it will be taken over by Chelsea and Laura to handle going forward. No, I see Tim as the, you would express an interest in continuing to provide some of that financial background. And we can kind of come in um As needed. But we don't have to be involved in two negotiations and the finance committee like that plus the school board ring that just that just feels like a lot and That's how things get missed so i Yeah, we're on finance committee and we're not on discussion of board member openings, but we do have a vacancy on the board. Right? Exactly. The community engagement piece I felt really confident about. One thing that we really struggled with last year budget season was numbers changing

043literally like every day, every week. And a part of the finance committee that I was really looking forward to for this year is being a source for the community to access for the most real time accurate information and numbers and that I feel very comfortable with. But in terms of like understanding what the community wants in like finance, that's where I can only listen at this point. I don't feel like I could answer questions. And I know we have district support to answer questions Tim, it would be great. If you feel like you have the bandwidth, if I organize all of it and facilitate, but you can still just yeah absolutely absolutely okay so if you want to be our organizer. Yeah. Okay. Sounds good to me. Okay, let's do that. Yes, we have finance

044committee member Kate Bailey in the room if you'd like to come and comment on this, that would be great I don't remember. As a member that i had schedule on my calendar Wednesdays from six to seven on the off weeks from board meetings. So I think that that was the expectation that was shared at our first meeting that that stuff felt like a good goal that we were working towards for scheduling so Just wanted to share that because if that's going to be something different then We should definitely communicate that. That's all. Thanks. Looking forward to the community. Awesome. What is my role, Chosen? I mean, yeah. I mean, it sounds more convoluted than it is. Basically, all the time I'm trying to protect Tim's piece and he just keeps telling me Chelsea, I'm perfectly

045peaceful. I'm just trying to understand like logistics, right? Like who's scheduling the meetings and that's where Chris and I, I think, have better shifts in the night and it's been a little confusing. So there can't be three of us on the committee. There can only be two of us or less. So I do think like wednesdays like that's already like set you know people kind of expect wednesdays And if you want to schedule it and if you want to I don't know what's going on with negotiations because you and I accused ourselves so i guess if Jim and Chris want to if that's where if you want to just keep running it And just let us know when we want to do the handoff. That's also fine. I mean… I'm trying to keep up with

046what's going on. I know I can't. Chris, I know you've had a bit going on. Would it make sense for Chelsea and I to manage this going forward I'd be fine with that. I want to make sure that If I'm supporting both to negotiations that that has the time needed and I just don't want anything to slip on the finance committee stuff. And so that's my concern. So if that's sustainable for you, Tim, because I know you've got an equal share here. then I trust your judgment. I won't be able to commit to all three of those. Yeah, let's do that, Chelsea. You and I. And then if you can help with the logistics piece and absolutely that would be great. So, okay. I also think, Chris, like to your point about negotiations, something I'm

047thinking about as we approach budget season is the amount of legal fees that we pay for negotiations and the longer they last, the more those labor fees go up and so having diligent attention as a board member, being able to have conversations to support negotiations and try to negotiate use legal as needed, but like mitigating unnecessary legal costs would be great. And Tim Warren, here's your fun fact of the day reviewing the board's budget, which I sent to Chelsea, $55,000 is budgeted for negotiations. In legal abuse. Wow. just you know i'm just I'm scouring all of our lines, so I just thought I'd share the fun fact. I know you appreciate a finance figure. So there it is. Last year, we cut our stipends and I think this year we did. cut quite a bit

048more in the board budget so School board budget. All right. Are we more clear on finance committee then? So am I on standby then? Okay, so just let me know. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, not doing anything. Yes, I do have that, which could work together. Yeah. So I am going to send out a newsletter tomorrow and I'm happy to put a date and time. should I put in there um So I'll put Are we planning on doing a week from today as a, do you want me to put that in my newsletter? Well, I think if you could put whenever we have our community budget or like listening session, put that in your newsletter. I don't know if the finance committee meetings need to be in the newsletter because we don't want just anybody

049right because you have the committee right I have a listening session for next week. So should I keep that I definitely think you should. And I'm wondering if we are prepared right now to schedule the next community listening stuff like the the budget listening session or if we need to have a committee meeting before we can circle back. So I would recommend we do the budget listening session first because that's most important because the 20th coming up where We're going to be talking about the budget. So I think then I've been working on a presentation for the budget and so um you know principals are working with staffs. We are um and producing lists of producing productions, which the business office and I have been having those meetings with administrators And… we are reviewing data.

050qualitative and quantitative data, assessment data, social, emotional, and academic data. And looking at the community feedback So if we had any feedback from the listening session I was… What I was trying to communicate is could we have this listening session one week from today so that I could have that information to provide to the board included in the initial budget presentation of priorities on the 20th? That was what I meant. There are two Wednesdays between one Wednesday between now and the 20th so what i what i would think we might be able to do, and Kate, if you can speak up here is our other member here, it may be beneficial if we do our community listening session on the 13th, and then we schedule a one-off meeting with the finance committee just to go

051over the feedback and make sure everybody's in the loop and we don't go too long without meeting as that committee. And then we get into the Wednesday cycle, the off-week Wednesday cycle. All right, I'm going to put it in my newsletter right now. Will you remind me of the time and location? Well, good question. Does it make any sense to have the listening session and then a short committee meeting following the listening session so it's all on one minute? that that would actually that would work really well. See, this is why you Expert organizer here. Wait a minute. But Laura, your listening session is also on November 14th. Yeah. So that's what I was wondering. Should I keep that or not? That's what I was asking. It was like 545 to 645. I think you

052should do once you're not competing with yeah i mean you're getting feedback from the same community. Yeah. Could we call it a community budget? Could I just change this to be community budget listening session and it's at the library in the quiet room from It does 545 to 645 work for folks? Yep. So the only problem with that is we the committee would not be able to meet following the session because the library was at 7. So I couldn't leave. Well, we did Zoom last time as a committee, right? So I think that worked pretty well. So if we had to do a full Zoom meeting afterward. that that would be an opportunity as well. And I think we'd have if we did do the budget community session. I assume there's going to be a

053zoom link coming into it. So I would imagine some of the finance committee member meetings are meeting members would participate via zoom to begin with. So it would just be two zoom calls Okay. Should I put a you tim as the contact for the newsletter blurb for the folks that have questions For Chelsea. me, I guess. So CC News, I can learn. Yep. And then I'll have to get the room at the library. Yeah, so Laura may have already reserved it. I have not reserved it. That's why I was going to do that tonight. It's very easy. It's a lot of exhibit we're using, but I wanted to make sure that So I can just reserve the quiet. reading more. All right, so community budget listening session at the library in the quiet reading room

054from 545 to 645 on the 13th. reach out to Tim Warren with questions. And then immediately if someone could take notes and then immediately following that send them to me so that I can, as soon as I get my hands on those, I'm going to put them in the November, I'm going to integrate that feedback into the November 20th initial presentation where I talk about However, to be shooting up. Did you say you wanted a Zoom option? Because I haven't been doing any of that. I think we need to because I just don't see how the community, and I think Zoom would work great so we need two Zoom links. Can I work with Julia to get those set up or Yep, absolutely. Is there a computer in that room? That gets a little bit

055more complicated, but I'll reserve it and let them know that you need… There's actually a really great room in which it can all be set up and all that other stuff is super helpful. So I'll just reserve one of those. Do you know what if I do it? No, great. Because I'm also wondering, like, I've seen rooms in the library that have kind of like board tables. I'm wondering if a room that might have more tech set up might be helpful. Well, the community room, that's where the reps will meet and they'll set up their Zoom link there You can just do chairs you can just set it up as like an informal meeting or Yeah, yeah. But the community room is actually a really nice one and that you can set everything up there

056So yeah, so that's great. Okay, this is great. So as we've talked about like three agenda items at one time. Just kidding, only two. So Chelsea, just let me know what you need from me. Okay, so to recap, I'm onboarding onto the finance committee to help with facilitating and organizing and communications and the staying on hopefully in perpetuity, but maybe just for now. to help with the finance discussion as a whole. We're going to have to tag it. Yes. We're going to have community budget listening forum next Wednesday, November 13th from 545 to 645. hopefully in the community rooms but there will be updates about what room it is in particular along with the Zoom link. And someone will take notes during that forum to send the notes to Violet, but also to be able

057to have a wrap-up meeting with the full finance committee following the listening session. And most likely the finance committee meeting will be at 7. And on Zoom. So we may need to take a look 730 if we have to leave the library and find a place to log in. I think you can sit right out there in the hall. Yeah, I think I'm not going to include finance committee in my newsletter. I'll let you communicate. Chelsea will communicate that to the members of the finance committee. You will provide me with the emails. Touch base with me tomorrow on it. That sounds good. All right, great. Any questions? No. Okay. So next up we have discussion of board member opening which We still have a vacancy on the board considering being a school board member, I

058highly recommend now is a great time to join the board and help us out with this very important work we've been doing. Applications are due on the 15th, so next Friday, not this coming Friday, but the Friday after. we can find the application and where to submit it on the website, the school board website. You can email anyone on the board with questions, comments, interests of any kind. I'm happy to answer questions. It's a great team, important work, fulfilling, very important work and need it right now in particular. All true. And we have fun too. I just promise you. Yeah, I was promised soup also. So I left my house very early this morning. This crazy thing happened where I've had to just like work for the last 14 hours. So I need special soup

059for everyone tonight. in my refrigerator so the central office is going to have soup tomorrow. I know. I really try. Nice idea. I know. And you got Kate here, so… No beans. It's not vegetarian or gluten free. Oh my gosh. But it's a little spicy. All right, so that brings us to listening sessions which Laura, next week we'll cancel the session yep um pivot. Yeah. So we did that. Okay. Do you want to schedule your next one now or do you want to talk about that on the 20th? Let's talk about that on the 20th, but I think the next one that I have would be December 18th, but we can talk about why don't we talk about that next to see how this goes and then it's not good Yeah. we're using some interesting

060yes Okay, next we have a second reading of revisions of firearms and weapons policy. We did read the full policy out last week. So at this time, we would just review any changes. The only changes is that I added the corresponding policies that are cited, the related policies, which is search and seizure. And let's see here, student contact. And they're consistent with others. No, I looked over it. changes at this point so All right, so that brings us to agenda item six, placeholder for brief recess. Would we like to take a brief recess? We're still 12 minutes ahead of schedule. It's 658. All right. We will resume at 7.40. Thank you. So folks, we're now going to welcome Jodi Valencourt, Executive Director of Learning, to share her Monitoring Report 2.1. Which is curriculum development and

061review, a policy that is near and dear to me, and I truly think is one of the most fun, I have to say. So welcome, Jody. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Right. So the objectives for this presentation are to review the curriculum development process itself and then share some progress that kind of the trajectory of the path that we're on, progress with curriculum development, and then identify continued needs. So I wanted to start with our continuous improvement plan goals. I'm sure this looks familiar to you. Because the continuous improvement plan was actually a multi-year plan And so you have seen these goals before for sure And this great graphic that talks about the roots being safe and healthy schools. And these are some of the goals related to safe and

062healthy schools. And then the trunk being social emotional learning And we also have culture related to that. And there'll be some more kind of specific connections these coming. And then the fruit of that. the safe and healthy schools and the social emotional learning are academic approach and see. This probably is really where the bulk of the curriculum report dives into, but they're for sure overlaps and connections to safe and healthy schools and social emotional learning as well. So a typical curriculum development cycle has teachers and curriculum developers using the standards that were adopted by the state board to agree on priority standards and that process is necessary because the sheer number of the standards are actually we don't have enough instructional time to teach all of those proficiencies. So identifying our priority standards where we're

063really going to focus our time, energy, and effort in ensuring proficiency and then taking a look at the vertical trajectory, that is very important. And then engaging in the actual instruction and assessment. and recording the operational curriculum. So you have the planned curriculum and then you have the operational curriculum. The operational curriculum is what actually happened. And that also is very important if you're familiar with any of Robert Marzano's work on guaranteed liable curriculum. It's important that the curriculum is guaranteed in the sense that all students have access to similar experiences. And then the viable part is ensuring that we actually can make that happen, that it does happen. So recording the operational curriculum, very important step too. And then after a period of years, we take a look at data and multiple points of

064data, multiple data sources, and taking a look at horizontal and vertical alignment and also what kind of gaps are we seeing in our assessments. going back to the curriculum to see what's happening operationally with our planned curriculum and making adjustments and refining that. And really that should be an ongoing cycle. Typically, you have that scheduled out so that not every content area and grade level is in review at exactly the same time, but you have a really thoughtful plan for that. So that it's sustainable. And that is the typical curriculum development for you cycle. pandemic and other things did throw a wrench in some of that. But now as we're coming back. it's time to get reorganized and to get back into this regular review cycle. So interestingly, speaking of the pandemic, during the pandemic,

065the Agency of Education actually released some technical guidance documents that are specific to implementing Act 173. And one of those documents is about coordinating curriculum. And they provided a definition of curriculum which Prior to coming to South Burlington, I was a curriculum director in another system for 11 years. And I had never seen an actual definition. And it's something that educators don't always agree on. There are lots of different interpretations of what curriculum is. So in this technical guidance document, you can see, and I actually bolded it for you, that there is a definition, a common definition now of curriculum as both the content and the instructional activities within a course of study or school. And a course of study would be something like second grade math or English 9. So both the content and

066the instructional activities are contained in this. definition, which I actually found very helpful to have a common definition. Also within that same document, because that document was about coordinating curriculum, they talk about both the horizontal and the vertical alignment of curriculum. And I think oftentimes people do think about that vertical alignment. Are we using our precious instructional time effectively by building on prior knowledge and building that knowledge from year to year really thoughtfully and purposefully. But the horizontal alignment is another really critical piece, particularly when you're thinking about equity. Ensuring that all students have consistent learning experiences across the system. is important. So as you are doing curriculum work, there are actually important regulatory and legislative considerations that I'm not sure are always visible to people. And particularly within the last decade. The last decade

067has been a period of activity when it comes to both regulatory and legislative processes that do really directly impact curriculum development. So I'm going to start with the regulatory guidance, which is the education quality standards. And that is sort of the regulatory piece of Title 16. And those are also slightly changing. We are going to be having some revised education quality standards shortly and also some district quality standards. But school districts are responsible for ensuring that we are being in compliance with those education quality standards. So that regulatory piece is important consideration when you're doing curriculum development work. And then we also have had several apps recently that have had an impact on curriculum. Starting in 2013 with Act 77, which was about flexible pathways, personalized and proficiency-based learning. And then all the way through

068to just this last legislative session. When we had Act 139, which is relating to reading, particularly in the early grades, and using evidence-based literacy instruction. So again, when we are developing our curriculum, we have to take this legislative considerations, pieces into consideration when we are working on it. on our curriculum as well. So we also have Act 173, which is about the effectiveness, availability, and equity of services provided to students who need additional supports. That's been a really important one, the timing of F173 was tricky. Because again, that was supposed to be implemented during the pandemic. It got pushed back a little bit, but now we are in full implementation piece of F-173. And so not only is that act about ensuring that we have the systems to support all of our students and equity

069within those systems, but also that is related to funding specifically to special education. So lots of legislative activity as well recently. And then we also have to work within those standards that were adopted by the State Board of Education. way back when I started my career in education 35 years ago, it was free range teaching. And then a few decades in, we had the Vermont Standards, the Vermont framework of standards and grade level expectations. And then starting in 2010, we had this flurry of national standards that were adopted. And so, of course, the national standards that the State Board of Education have adopted really are the basis for the curriculum. And so you can see all of the different national standards that we are working from. And Interestingly, just this past year, we've now encountered

070our first revision of those with the Shape America Physical Education Standards. They just released a new version. And so this year we are actively reviewing And that new set of standards or that revised set of standards and And aligning that with our current curriculum. So it's an ongoing process. That's one thing that I think does frustrate people sometimes is they're like, oh, we just did this. Or haven't we already done this work? And yeah, we absolutely have. But that work is never done because as soon as you know we well first of all, we need to be on a regular cycle for that based on our student learning data to improve our curriculum to be more effective, but also we are constantly having new sets of standards adopted or new revisions of standards or new

071legislation or new regulatory guidance. So it's always a little bit of a moving target. which all has budget implications. Yes, absolutely. So now I'm going to take you a little bit into a multi-year zoom out perspective of what's been going on and then kind of where we're at this year and then where we're probably headed for next year. I would like to just remind you that I'm new to this role as of July. these historical slides, there may be omissions or things that aren't you know 100 accurate um did my best to pull those threads together and provide you with the context, but it really is important to know kind of to see the trajectory of where we've been and because there was, when I came in, there was a multi-year plan in place, which

072is great. It's been very helpful for me. And so some of the work that we're doing right now that I can speak the most willingly to is a result of the work that the educators in the district have done previously. So some of the curriculum development work that was done two years ago included the middle and high school teachers working to learn about brain-based principles, which are student-centered instructional methods. And they're really great connection to the lifelong learning and policy, the citizenship ends policies in there as well. It really helps students to take on a piece of the learning process. So teachers developed and departments developed learning progressions, learning targets, and also some common instructional practices. the teacher development group was working with the high school math teachers around math habits, routines, and actions. And

073those also, there's a strong connection to the lifelong learning and policy as well with those it's helping students understand that in addition to fluency with mathematical processes, that there's a logic things behind all of those things and so that's what that is digging into is making sure that we're providing instructional opportunities for students to learn and engage with justifying their reasoning to examining other people's reasoning, identifying places where The reasoning doesn't align, having great debates about the reasoning and that kind of stuff. So those things are absolutely transferable outside of the content of math. And also into lifelong learning. And there are also some structured literacy work going on with elementary teachers. They work with the Stern Center for Language and Learning, and they're also that year was the development of a comprehensive literacy block.

074a common conference and literacy block and some priority indicators for literacy learning targets and success criteria. And then last year, that brain-based principles work continued with professional development and also the teachers upgraded their units with those principles and then we had a exhibition at the end of the year. So that we could spread those promising practices. Monica DeRushi are um Director of Diversity, Inclusion and equity anti-racism, social, social learning, diesel. Also had a work group who to did a crosswalk of several different standards related to social emotional learning and they created a draft for our system of social emotional learning standards last year. And that was brought to our educators for feedback as well. We did a literacy program pilot and selection process. At the elementary level. teacher development group is still working with high

075school. We did an illustrative mathematics pilot in elementary schools and then our art teachers and our world language teachers also were exploring. some curriculum resources. And that brings us to this year. And this is kind of the final year of essentially a three-year plan related to these pieces of the curriculum development so um In finishing up the brain-based principles work with poor sketch development. So our sixth through 12 grade teachers are working on creating for sketch documents that will allow us to then do a really good meeting vertical review. So it's the core sketch documents are the horizontal alignment piece of the curriculum so that all of the teachers who teach a particular course of study coming together and agreeing on the priority standards, the topics, the units within a course. So that's the horizontal

076piece and then that will allow us to really look at that vertical trajectory. And identify any places where there might be gaps or overlaps. Again, the shape standards that the state board adopted have come out with a new version, and so we're reviewing those. We have some implementation happening as well. So the world language and art teachers are implementing some new curriculum tools and we are implementing a new program for literacy. at the elementary grades and also expanding our vertical progression with our math as well. And… moving the teacher development group math habits, routines, and actions down to fourth through eighth grade of this year. That's kind of where we're at now. So. For next year, we know that we do need to review and revise our elementary science and social studies curriculum. in advance

077of next school year. And then working on some common assessments for middle and high school. putting together an implementation plan for those SEL standards that were developed last year, the draft. And then expanding our vertical coordination. But the big thing is that we will be engaging in a data inventory and comprehensive needs assessment this winter. And as a result of that, we will be able to identify other curriculum areas that may need some more person review. So these are the things that are kind of a continuation of where we've been in the past that we know, you know, we need to attend to. But there will also likely be other things as a result of that continuous improvement work. that we do with the data inventory and the lines of needs assessment to create a

078new multi-year plan to go forward. A really important consideration as well is that our district and our individual schools have been designated as in need of improvement and support. due to achievement gaps. And I'm sure you saw that in the data workbook as you were looking at that. that we have gaps between students who are members of groups that have been historically marginalized. and students who are not members of those groups. And that is absolutely a trend. That's a multi-year trend. It's a trend that we see across assessments. It's a trend that we see across content areas. and grade levels so um we will need to ensure as we're doing work with all of our systems and including budget time. that we are attending to and protecting those systems and structures that we have in

079place. to serve the students. who are most at risk in our system. And attending to the continuous improvement process specific to our equity designation. And again, a little more information about that as a result of the equity support designations, we have to set goals about closing those gaps. We have to identify action groups. action steps rather and the action steps oftentimes do require adjustments to instructional practice. So that would require an adjustment to curriculum as well. two-tiered system of support is robust. So that we really can meet the needs of all students in our system and particularly the students who are most at risk. And then we also will participate in a resource allocation review with the Agency of Education to ensure that we're allocating our resources. to improve the student experiences and outcomes and

080to close those gaps. So that's something that It's coming up shortly. So this is just a reminder about our multi-tiered system of support. You've probably seen this graphic before, but I thought I would include it Again, to take a look at, we have to ensure that our system as a progression that is accessible to all students And based on their learning needs so that they are getting the support that they need to achieve academic proficiency. And so the continuous improvement plan process as i said This winter, it'll be late January, early February that we begin with the data analysis. for the district and for each school, we'll do a comprehensive needs analysis and then develop goals, including those equity goals and action steps. And then that continuous improvement plan comes to you for approval and

081then goes to the agency of education as well. And here's my source links for you and It's time for questions. Sure that we do. Thank you very much. We'd like to start. So I was just wondering about the economy. Do you have a vertical team meetings as well as horizontal or in the middle we had it had a Right now, we're more focused on the horizontal piece because at the elementary level, they're implementing a new instructional program. And at the Malone high school level, they're working on developing that horizontal course sketch. And then later this year, once the core sketches are well drafted, that will give us the opportunity to have those vertical meetings, we have a plan for doing that during one of our Late start. Oh, so is horizontal, do you mean is

082that middle and high school? Would that be considered horizontal? That's for the course of study so that all of the teachers who teach English 9. Yeah. um are aligned and the priority standards that they are teaching and the content and topics that they're teaching with their scope and sequence as much as possible. I have a question. Could you do that nicely. In thinking about statewide education funding and education quality effort, like we're trying to have equity in education across the state. And I'm thinking about education quality And I'm imagining that if you have several English 9 teachers who can meet and can share their experiences about teaching, share their diverse learning, share their different activities or conferences or seminars that they've been to. I'm imagining there's a ton of learning that can happen between teachers

083about offering them the best course that they could as a team. And I'm thinking about rural schools where there's probably one teacher who teaches that And so is that really equity in the quality of education from school to school. Do you have an opinion about that or it's like And my aunt, do you think I'm on the right track or just as a curriculum director like What do you think about that? Yeah, I have worked in a system where it was mostly you know single teachers of a course of study And that does make it more challenging. That was a place where we had to rely more on the vertical grouping so that teachers could take a look at a two or three year vertical span and have those conversations and share practices. But yeah,

084absolutely. It is to the benefit of our students that you know there are multiple teachers who get to collaborate and share their wonderful ideas about curriculum and instruction. I have such a high opinion of professional peer groups, you know, just like getting together with people who maybe don't share your views necessarily I just think there's so much positive learning that happens when different like I am a small business owner and I work directly with clients and I'm in their I live with a teacher. And so whenever I'm trying to help someone learn something, I'm thinking about like, how do they learn best? And I'm always trying to add to my wheelhouse of not just how to explain something, but the resources I can offer you know And I'm just thinking whenever I've had the opportunity

085to work with other professionals that do what I do and we can share those resources or learn you learn so much when you teach someone. You learn to, right? And so I'm just thinking about all the teachers and all the experiences that they have if they can share that, how much better off students and teachers would be yeah So what is that opportunity like for teachers? Is it Because I agree with Chelsea, I think when it's free flowing When you have to, okay, now you've got to take notes and you've got to submit this and you've got to do that and you've got to document this that takes away any kind of creativity and kind of stifles sharing. So I'm just curious how it's I mean, we have a lot of expertise and there's buildings

086Yeah, so we have um start signing everybody to do this, do that, do this, do that. Yeah, we do have opportunities for teachers to meet during our late start and early release monthly days. And they do meet sometimes with their department And sometimes it's cross departments as well that can vary to exactly, you know, do curriculum development together and also to share promising practices. And that has been well received the feedback for that has been positive. time with their colleagues to share those. Some practices have been so beautiful and thinking back to when you were in this session um there were high school, middle school science teachers, and they were just sharing things that they've done in their classrooms that were super engaging for students that were awesome and Like I was so drawn in,

087you know, just hearing about some of their lessons and then how they graded it. And then teachers were asking each other. track, hey, you know, how did you handle this standard? How did you look at this? And they'd be like, oh, interesting question. You know, we stumbled on that. And then we came together and decided But it wasn't like template you have to fill out XYZ. It was allowing or they were genuinely learning with each other and grappling with the same sorts of questions in implementing you know, standard-based grading. And it was really cool so that's and Jody and I were just talking about the curriculum or the professional learning plan for next year too and wanting to really focus on prioritizing that time for building base time for doing just that as teachers to

088work together, learn together, and to be empowered and inspired. The teacher collaboration time we know builds collective accuracy. And those exhibition groups were put together specifically to include different content areas and different grade levels. And it was really inspiring to see the group that I was with to see how well teachers were able to translate or transfer an idea that a science teacher had had to a world language classroom and so on. And they had previously spent the bulk of the year working together with their departments or content alike. And so to have that opportunity to then share how they had upgraded their units in this cross grade cross content way was is really exciting and really a lot of fun tribute. to be able to observe that. So kind of thing where I walked

089in and I mean, I knew on paper who's facilitating what, but if you walked in off the street you'd be like We don't know who's running this and it was it was teacher run. Right. Teacher run. Cool. And to your point about, didn't we already do this work? Are we doing this again? Anytime I've reviewed anything that I've made. after a year or two of learning, I'm like, oh, I can definitely improve this. So I'm glad to see this is a something we do on a regular basis. More questions? Yeah, so I do instructional design at the corporate level and I'll share just a quick anecdote because I'm kind of making my brain churn listening to what you said here. By the way, I just want to say they read the report that you sent,

090Violet. This presentation is much more engaging. I'm listening to her speak and I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, Violet talked oh yeah oh there you go. Okay, I get it. So I was Jody brought life to the written version. Very nice job. So quick anecdote, I developed a course one time around crystal reports that was delivered, stand up, blah, blah, blah. Same materials set. I had a couple of different trainers that I debriefed with after about a year or two of running that course. And I swear they were teaching two different courses. And I'm wondering how often that happens even with a process like this that is, you know, how much of this is top down versus bottom up and And how do you bring along those teachers that just don't seem to want to move

091on, right? Because I have trainers who are like that. Well, it does have to be both. Because you, you know. there's a book called The Art and Science of Teaching, and you do want teachers to bring their expertise and their passion and their knowledge what they're doing, their creativity that's so important Absolutely. And I think, you know, the line that we need to walk is ensuring access to equitable experiences. It doesn't mean everything has to be lockstep and exactly the same. We don't want to take the soul out of what we do. We don't want to take the humanity out of what we do. And also, teachers are responding to the students in front of them, the human beings in front of them and human beings variable. But we do want to make sure that

092you know if If you had twins who were, you know, in the same classes for a year, you know, that they didn't have completely different experiences, right? We want them to have equitable experiences, but that doesn't necessarily mean exact. There are disciplinary evidence-based practices that I think you know we could make sure that we are ensuring that our teachers are all doing. But in terms of everybody having to be on the same page on the same day, you know. that's maybe less important than consistent language, consistent instructional practices, and then you know you looking at similar assessments Because that gives us the opportunity to compare. And what can come out of that are these great professional discussions about, oh. wow, I see that Violet, you know, her students did really well with this thing that

093I have been really struggling to get through to my students. And so Violet, how did you do that? What do you think was the magic element there that helped your students to succeed so well? And so that kind of cross-pollination too is really helpful and important. And as you mentioned, I think back to my anecdote. I don't think either of those two trainers ever sat in with the others to watch their class or even talk about it. So I had this very, very digress sort of approach to both in the same course i think it's I think it's making adaptive changes too. So when you implement something new, like in curriculum, you know, we're implementing a number of new programs being responsive, you know, making time and space to hear teacher feedback about what's working

094and what's not and making those small changes, implementation is still moving forward, but how can it be something that teachers can buy into? How can it be easier you know hearing the logistical difficulties And then making those adaptive changes. by Harvard Business School class last week, it's been great because it's ed pertains to everything we're doing. And there is no perfect you know magical program or curriculum because if there was, we'd have 100% proficiency with everyone. So adaptive changes are really important. Jody's implemented a lot of those with the, you know, just sheer number of programming. programs we're rolling out right now. time to hear feedback in particular, to be in compliance with Act 139 um the structured literacy has been you know a man project and you know last year prioritizing the funding for

095interventionist positions or specialist positions, literacy and math. in alignment with all the budgeting pieces. So as we talk about budget, you know, attending to the fact that we need equity supports, we need to fund MTSS Act 173, you know special education and volunteered systems of support in it aren't correct. And ensuring that our program does provide the additional support for students who require that additional support. Chris has a question? Violet actually touched on a little bit of it. She heard that budget thing Shaking in my head here. You had mentioned jody uh the agency of education, there was going to be some kind of gaps analysis, a staffing analysis And early 2025 and I'm thinking about we're going into budget season now, but we won't have that data for for this budget um All right.

096Yes. Jodi said that to me three hours ago. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It doesn't it it feels like, yeah, the timing is not aligned. We don't really have a control over the timing of this particular review process or even the continuous improvement process necessarily because of the deadlines by which we have to submit them to the agency and they are connected to the investments of our consolidated federal programs money, our Title I, Title II, Title II, Title IV. um so that funding is specifically meant to help meet the needs of students who are members of historically marginalized groups and But it's not enough to meet all of those needs. But those allocations happen late spring, shortly before the new budget year happens, and it's not in alignment with the budget

097development process. That's confusing. Yeah. And just a quick follow up. If we receive some kind of staffing recommendation that comes forward with a budget. I just thinking about budgets in the past where sometimes those are the positions that are on the list for consideration and You know, I just… It would have been awesome to have that info to kind of tie in um But something to be protective of that we're not meeting some of those goals and the staffing is needed, it sounds like. That is, you know, Chris, I think your point is really well taken. I think part of the, I think this is twofold. The agency is trying to gather information to really understand education delivery statewide. and connected to a study of ed funding to see who has what. But the provisions

098of Act 139 and 173 are very clear that we need literacy specialists, right? So we know that those are positions that we had to build in last year and will continue to have to keep our specialists in order to be supporting our students on equity supports, right? So those are pieces that we have in our budget already. For fiscal year 25 and are absolutely mandated, you know, through state board policy, through, you know. all of the It's interesting. I'm making all the connections, even through board policy, you know, our ends policy, our equity policy, there is that alignment of preserving those supports for students who have been identified as needing equity supports. Please. Thank you so much, Jody. one and one hand. online. Can we unmute HR assistance? Hi there. This is Kate Jarvis, as

099you know. And I just have a question and I apologize if I've missed um the specific detail that Jody was speaking about but i I just wanted to comment about something to do with curriculum that I'm experiencing with my ninth graders Juniper is in a class taught by Mr. Kelby. who that's with science. And he uses the most incredible hands-on interactive tools to teach rather complex you know nebulous scientific principles that for many people are you know just are really difficult to grasp And I was so taken aback and impressed at the open house that we had at the high school. to see how he was explaining sort of ionic compounds and sort of this very complicated looking you know equation up on the board by having two pieces of cardboard that fit together in

100a certain way and that and you know only those two pieces would fit together in that way. Another two pieces would fit together in another way. And it just made this kind of Strange concept. about how ions fit together very concrete. And I just wondered to what extent things like that Which could be so helpful to kids, especially at this general level where you know they're not specializing in science yet And you're still just trying to give a foundation to what extent, you know, things like that are sort of taught or are sort of shared amongst his his other ninth grade teachers as like best practices and you know. Yeah, so that's really my question because it seems like something like that would be terrifically successful with ninth graders who are still you know at

101the general level and still learning these rather complex scientific concepts. Thank you. Any questions? Are we… Also, while we're talking about your report specifically, because I just had a few questions. Yeah, happy to take any any of those So in your report, I'm really curious, PLPs, personal learning plans, right? Is that what it is? personalized learning plan. Right. Are we only doing those at the middle school levels. and high school. And high school. The implementation of PLPs, I hesitate. And Jody, you know, please feel free to come back to the discussion My opinion is that the goal behind personalized learning plans has been to really engage students in determining what direction they want. I think the intention from the agency was good. I don't think that the implementation has truly inspired or provided real agency

102in our students Do you have one? I do not. I think I worked on one maybe for student teacher conferences in ninth or 10th grade yeah yeah but i mean it kind of just felt like an extra chore and I think it was super what you're going to find out. handsome and helping you with your direction. talking about the same thing, my advisory teacher often brings it up around conferences, but it isn't really brought up in other Situations. So is it a mandate from the AOE? I mean, it's not a graduation requirement. It's in VSA. Right. So it's bsa So, and I was curious because so my eldest had an elp four years straight doing it every year to look at it. And it struck me as sometimes a little busy work and whatnot. And

103I always kind of wonder what training teachers got if that was you know i mean it was it seemed like a bigger thing than what they were being asked to do, right? I think it's a great idea because I think you're kind of following you go through kind of asking them those questions right But I was just wondering because my current girls who are seniors haven't even experienced it. So they sort of like fell off and then I was just looking at the statute and it still says we're supposed to be doing them for grade seven, grade nine, and then following them through so I just wanted to make sure. Yeah. I mean, I think like I would say we're technically in compliance. I don't think that the impact, I mean, as you heard, like,

104oh, yeah, we've talked about it at conferences. But it's not. I'm sure there are students for whom these are meaningful, powerful, and provide agency. I don't, I think they're It's kind of checking the boxes. Because they haven't unless you tie it to graduation there's very little buy-in. Yeah, so like the the average teacher isn't trained on it Somebody will have some expertise in the school but We tell teachers, okay, do this. It's not very inspiring, to tell you. Yeah. Anything else? So this time we will read our executive limitations monitoring report summary. There's just the one policy detail, so I will read it out and then I will ask We have a reasonable interpretation, adequate data, and compliance. A 2.1 curriculum development and review. The superintendent shall not allow the district to be without written

105curricula aligned with Vermont standards and District M's policies that are coordinated across all grade levels and schools. Further, the superintendent shall not fail to review the curricula periodically based on student performance results learning opportunities data, new research, and updated content knowledge with the goal of all students meeting the district's policy. reasonable interpretation? Yes. Thanks. adequate data? Yes. Yes. In compliance. Yes. The 2.1 curriculum development and review monitoring report is approved. Chelsea, can I ask just a board question? So what we just did, 2.10. That's our review of policy g3 Is that correct because we have Policy G3, which is curriculum development and review posted on the website. So this is our LaPros and 2.10 is our review of that because the wording is slightly different is the district's policy, and this is the board's policy.

106Correct me if I'm wrong but This is the, so we're an executive. So there's the district policies and then I'm charged with implementing them, which is the executive limitations. So based on G3, this is based on So did we write this up? Okay, so that's sort of filtering down from g3 because G3 just, the only reason I ask is because I'm just I'm just looking back at the actual posted policies and there was talk about in that in g3 curriculum dev and review there was reference made to coordination with sending and receiving schools. And I didn't see anything in this review around that specifically. So I'm just wondering if it got left out or if that's just This has been one of the most fascinating parts of this work for me, which is understanding policy

107governance so like the way that I see this is this is the policy that the board is holding our one employee And then Violet is tasked with having policies and procedures for the district that ensure that she is doing what we have tasked her with and so Does that? Right. I'm just trying to map what's posted in G3 online to what we're doing right here Technically, I don't think that they have to align because they have to the way that I kind of think about this is policy G3 would be violence way um completing her job tasks which we could certainly offer feedback on, but we are actually just tasked with is she doing what we've asked her to do. Does that make sense? No. Well, because the G3 is what's signed, underscored by all,

108you know, and the reason I mentioned this is because if you look at G3, that was last reviewed in 2007. right and and uh So I'm just trying to draw the connection from that, which is the signed policy by the board to this right here. And it's not verbatim. So that's very sound logic. There isn't um so for the executive limitations of what you monitor. For some of them, you're monitoring a broad variety of policies, right? So think about like I don't like treatment of students many of the policies could apply to that. And so it's Violet, make sure that you're implementing the policies and we're going to monitor, you're not monitoring me on every one of the policies because we wouldn't have the time in the world. We could meet twice a week. And

109so these, the executive limitations are broader. And so there's pieces of this report that pertain to the equity policy, right? As well, in addition to G2, there are pieces in here that certainly pertain to treatment of students, right? Think about extracurricular, you know, co-curricular participation. So it's um This is the one, for me, when I first came here, you know, four years ago and i was trying to do this report. I was trying to line up G2 with this report, and there wasn't that consistency. And so I didn't understand after being executive director of learning there for a year until I got on the board that executive limitations is a broader bucket of any variety of policies. This is just the one that seems to be the closest. Okay. I think that's also the financial

110ones are here as well, too. like two four two five So, okay, I know I want to go on a rabbit hole. But it does lead you down the rabbit hole. This gets back to that, like. that question with the whole cell phone policy thing of like, what is the point of a policy and like, where is it most effective? Where is it needed? Where is it implemented? What does it cover? I think that it is a rabbit hole, but it's like the philosophy of policy. I think it's a broader interpretation. of multiple policies and procedures and operational executive limitations so and we're i would consider it d2 plus yeah yeah so My observation is that we just you know we've got a policy g3 And we're we're evaluating you against not that policy we're

111evaluating you against executive limitations. Exactly. Of the 2.1 of language. We want to make sure that g3 is fully covered, we need to look at executive limitations and make sure that if there's something in there that's referencing sending and receiving schools and we really want to monitor that, that should be an executive. That should be call-outs in place and executive invitations because your interpretation doesn't include sending and receiving schools that was mentioned in g3 Can you read that specific letter? Yeah, give me a second i actually Is this regarding CTEs? Give me a second here it said Jody, are you listening to this one too? I want to hear your thinking. Tim's got a question. So policy G3, the curriculum of schools in South Bremerton School District shall be coordinated to allow students to meet

112or exceed standards established by Vermont frameworks in the district. curriculum plan shall be coordinated between sending and receiving schools within the district. Oh, okay. Yeah, so this is so just as this is horizontal alignment okay so if you go from the elementary school to the middle school to the high school. Got it. I was like, wow. I was like, are we talking about school choice? Well, that's what I thought for a second. Okay. Okay. Thanks. yeah so that so that was directly addressed in the report. Got it. Yes. Thank you. And that's actually why my decision exists. Yes. And we appreciate that. And then you have the horizontal um alignment in case you have students who move from school to school, right? And the state framework supports that too. So if you have students moving

113from Shelburne to South Burlington to Waterbury, they can expect similar programming, right? Which is why we rely on standards Opposed to programs. Thank you. I appreciate that. I apologize if I… No, that was good. Yeah, great question. I actually feel like we need to break that question down because I'd like to address it in March when we do our policy governance training because I think it's a really good question and it's It's part of an ongoing policy discussion. I view these as I try to cover we try to recover in these reports multiple policies a lot of times and really a broader definition, which is my interpretation that I mean, again, many pieces of the equity policy you could And you could look at with this report too. You can think about the data workbook

114here. I mean, I created that with the every slide that presentation make sure that there's the backup data for every one of those equity provisions. Great question. Okay, thank you. Appreciate it. So I've actually have reports by the board Agenda item eight, recent or planned community engagement activities. We've just planned our community budget listening forum for next Wednesday. O key article we were going to write a blurb, I think each of us when did you need that by? Well, I thought we could continue discussion this week. It's meant to be for the December article and I'm thinking that we could either all answer the same question or we can all answer different questions that all relate back to What does it mean to be a board member? So I think Okay. I think we have

115to think about what's the intent of the article. Is the intent to try to communicate to the community what they might get out of being a board member if somebody would like to fill the role. Or is it just an opportunity to share with the community why we do the work. which could be construed as campaigning so I think December would be like the last month for any sort of narrative like that but um who is which seed is officer? Well, Chris is an appointed seat, so if you'd like to continue run for the seat currently holds. Wow, so lines are wrong. globally? No way. No, I don't think you are. So we could have so we could have so four of seven seats will be up Because I had the campaign. I'm sorry, five

116of seven seats will be up because whoever fills the vacancy is only in place till town meeting day. Right. So you two are the only you two are the only seats So I got you, right. It's kind of terrifying from a superintendent's perspective. Yeah, yeah. So you and I are you and I, so four are So I have these five spots are going to be on the ballot. I filled in for the like three months and then I ran to fill his final term is up. this year so i need to run so again you and i are up again Yeah. And then to do a custom run and then the two peeps yep So you're the only one. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's terrifying Boy, while that could be a little uncertain for you. Seriously.

117Oh my gosh. Okay, so the point is going to say, I feel sick now. So we all want to answer different questions or do we all want to answer the same question? the same, I don't know, the same question. I think a nice question would be like Why do you serve on the school board? Yeah. But I'm open to hearing other ideas. So just to cap off that conversation, everyone's running, right? Well, Chelsea's not. No, she wants to know, are you going to run? Oh, Pam, yes. Some level of assurance of any kind of stability. You could say, yeah, she's not going to do it. for election and I will do it. I won't put you on the spot, but we can move forward. I just would like to remind everyone currently on the team

118that this difficult budget cycle is the last thing we need is for all the projects. We need a stability now and always. Okay, so are we all answering the same question or When we all like to choose our own. I think it would be nice to introduce the article with the same question as then see our different responses. Right. Yep. And… to me part of it is kind of to, again, to sell the open positions, especially with two new positions in the charter. And to kind of give people an idea of like it's it's work but it's i mean we want to sell it a little bit, right? That's my feeling in a paragraph Sorry. So it's the why literally volunteered. for time to do this work. That's what do you think about happening. I

119think it would be a fantastic opportunity to answer one question and demonstrate the unique different perspectives that each of us bring to the board. I just love the conversations when i hear from Tim and then Laura and then Chelsea it's just it's it's that breadth of diversity of opinion that I just I think that's an important quality to demonstrate to the community And, um. while we will disagree on things, just that perspective helps us have just a stronger I don't know, camaraderie of how do we move forward to get the job done. I really love the answer one question and then different responses. It's kind of in response to that, Chris, something I'd just like to express in this moment is the respect and kindness that we've all shown each other, that we're modeling for

120our students I really appreciate it. And I've been really enjoying working on this Okay, so I'll email, I'll put it in a board update email when the deadline for this article is, but why don't we all plan 150 to 200 words Why do you serve on the school board? And I'll send out email reminders for each of you so that you're not worried about putting it And just as a reminder, I'll put all of it together. I'm not going to edit your responses, but I'll just compile them in one document to submit to the other paper. And then we're also still okay with the formatting change for Front Porch Forum of our two post prevent we'll use one to kind of tell the community about what we're working on in that month. And I'll use

121the second one to post whatever article we submitted to the OC as another opportunity to share that. Is that still with everybody? Anything else in reports by the board before we move on? All right, agenda item nine, agenda planning. Set agenda for the November 20th meeting. Laura, we're going to add listening sessions so that we can just wrap on that. I'm going to add a revised E2 policy first reading, which is security cameras We already have our third reading of the firearms and weapons eligible. finance committee update listening sessions. Theoretically on the 20th, we're going to have board interviews and selecting a new board candidate So that also will take a decent amount of time. We have 2.5 financial planning as well All those things actually started on. Okay, anything else would be the only

122addition is just the first reading of the revised into security and policy. I think we could also strike OP articles for agenda item nine because I feel like we have a solid plan and we don't need to do anything with that until December. Okay. The 20th wasn't when We're presenting budget stuff, right? It is. It is. So what item is that under? pop it up now. So we need that. We need to add that. About how much longer. Of course. I mean, at least on our discussion Probably 45 minutes we should plan for. So is there anything else that we could Or push. Items one through three. Make sure you do not take very long. We have to keep our discussion item updates pretty brief, I think. right now we're budgeting 40 minutes for them.

123I don't think it'll take that. Okay, we can do more of the time stuffing offline but That is a pretty big agenda so Okay. reading the policy, approving the policy or and the monitoring report. school board interviews. And the budget conversation. That's a lot. That brings us to agenda item 10, consent agenda. Has everyone had a chance to review the October 30th move minutes? Yes. Any questions, comments, changes? the October 30th meeting minutes are approved. So everyone had an opportunity to review the rubbish removal bid? Yes. Any questions? Weird. It just surprises me some of the variations. what they were charging across the different So these companies have any idea what other companies are pitching? No. I mean, if they connect with each other, that's not impact. Sure. Honestly, typically in small areas like ours

124and it's rubbish removal, they know what the competition charges you know So everyone had an opportunity to review the retired IT equipment? So this one is not, there's nothing written here. So this is something we do annually. It is where we sell retired IT equipment and it's taken for parts and bits and pieces and um it's often for very little money and we typically sell it back to Okay, so that wasn't a document. There's no document there. I'm happy to answer any questions you have on that. And then we return 187. All right, approval of contract extension with Highland Electrical Suite to secure two additional electric school buses via the EPA clean school bus rebate program. Do we have any questions following that presentation? No. None, approval of that contract extension is approved. Has everyone

125had an opportunity to review AP orders 1132, 1137, and 1147? Yes. Questions? None? None. None? I know. I was ready to roll. Okay, hearing none, AC orders 11321137, and 1147 are approved. Which brings us to agenda item 11, Executive Session. Bear with me for a second i didn't pre-open the executive session minutes. I have a motion to enter into executive session under one VSA section 313A1 for the purpose of discussing labor negotiations and premature public knowledge we put the district and clear. So moved. Second. 7. Who seconded? Christian. And… I'm trying to get better. Okay. Any discussion? on paper. Okay. over the same. The motion passes unanimously. Laura, Chris, Violet, Tim Warren. And Chelsea will be entering into executive session and we will not return to open session adjourn the regular session. Are we leaving

126the Zoom open for press or is Just… We have a separate link. Separate link, okay. Yeah. This will help us. Or phone call is fine. Okay. Thanks, Chris. Yep, thanks.