001SBSD Helpdesk: {Just let me just check back there. Got it. And I'm not logged in. Do I need to be logged in? Yeah, I tried. You can… we can share. Why don't we share them here at the post?} SBSD Helpdesk: There it is, I got it. Okay, you got it, I got it. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. You're ready to go. SBSD Helpdesk: Here I am, Jenny, you three. SBSD Helpdesk: Just took this, and beef. SBSD Helpdesk: You're keen… Jennifer Lawrence: Alright. SBSD Helpdesk: Don't die! Jennifer Lawrence: And… Sorry. Jennifer Lawrence: My first time out of the gate, I'm just getting all the bits and bobs together here. SBSD Helpdesk: Okie dokie. SBSD Helpdesk: All right. SBSD Helpdesk: Good evening. SBSD Helpdesk: [ Agenda Item 1 Projected Executive Session] I call this meeting of the South Burlington
002School Board to order at 5.07 p.m. The Board will now entertain a motion to enter executive session to discuss a personnel matter, labor negotiations, and legal services to the Board, as permitted under 1VSA Section 313, because discussion in open session would place the individuals involved at a substantial disadvantage. SBSD Helpdesk: such. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion]Clerk Laura Williams: I move. * *Board Member Daniel Boyer: Second. *Vice Chair Jennifer Lawrence: Laura moves. Dan seconds. It has been moved by Laura and Dan. [Motion Discussion] Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: Yep. [No Discussion Heard] Hearing none, [Vote] all those in favor say aye. Aye. SBSD Helpdesk: Those opposed say no. SBSD Helpdesk: [Voting Results] Okay, the motion carries. The board will now enter Executive Session at 5.08. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Dope. SBSD Helpdesk: Good evening, everyone. My name is Jennifer Lawrence.
003SBSD Helpdesk: For we are. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 2: Call regular meeting to order] *Vice Chair Jennifer Lawrence: I'm the newly appointed vice chair of the South Burlington School Board, and I will be acting… serving as the acting chair this evening in Chairman Shameless's Absher's absence. I call this regular meeting of the South Burlington School Board to order at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, October 8th. SBSD Helpdesk: Prior to this meeting, the board held an executive session to discuss a personnel matter. SBSD Helpdesk: labor negotiations and legal services to the Board as permitted under 1VSA Section 313. The Board entered into Executive Session at 5.08 p.m. and returned to open session at 5.45 p.m. No action was taken in Executive Session. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 3: Announcements and Amendments to the Agenda]The next item is announcements
004and amendments to the agenda. May I have a motion to approve the agenda as presented? SBSD Helpdesk: *Clerk Laura Williams: I'm… I move to… Board Member Austin Smith: Second. Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: So it has been moved by Laura, and seconded by Austin to approve the agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion Discussion] And… is there any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: [No Discussion Heard] Okay, hearing none, [Vote] all those in favor say aye. Aye. Michelle Boyer: Aye. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Those… okay, those opposed say no. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, the motion carries. The agenda is approved. [Voting Results: Unanimous. Motion is passed] SBSD Helpdesk: Are there any announcements from the public? Oh, no fees, sorry, that's not yet. Are there any announcements? SBSD Helpdesk: What's… SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 4 Comments from the Public] Now, we will move to
005comments from the public. This is an opportunity for community members to address the board on any topic, whether or not it was on tonight's agenda. SBSD Helpdesk: If you make a comment, please state your name for the record. You will have up to 3 minutes to speak. The board will listen to all comments, but will not respond directly because this meeting has not been warned as a community forum. SBSD Helpdesk: Are there any comments from the public? SBSD Helpdesk: Anybody online? No, we're online. SBSD Helpdesk: Ready? SBSD Helpdesk: Moving forward, making good time. [Agenda Item 5 Focus on Student Learning] We will now focus on student learning and hear from our student representative, Hallie Ledoux. Thank you, Jen. Sure. SBSD Helpdesk: Sorry, I'm making sure that my slammed on. This Friday, freshmen at the high
006school will participate in SLAM Community Service Day. All freshmen are a part of the SLAM program, where seniors who have developed leadership skills in a class called Peer Leadership meet with 9th grade advisories twice a week for the whole year, with the goal of fostering community and creating a positive environment at the high school. SBSD Helpdesk: Twice a year, these freshman advisories and their SLAM leaders participate in Community Service Day, where they go help out local nonprofits, and then have a fun and competitive SLAM, we call it Olympics, on the turf afterwards. We're super thankful to all the organizations who are letting us come out and help them this year, including Shelburne Farms, South Burlington Parks and Recreation, and a bunch of other ones as well. SBSD Helpdesk: October 14th is testing day at the
007high school, so students will be completing several tests, including the SAT, the PSAT, and then the NWEA ELA section, and Math section. We wish good luck to everyone who's doing that. SBSD Helpdesk: And next, elementary schools have started their open houses, so this is an opportunity for guardians to meet their students' teachers and get to know their school community a little better. Chamberlain's open house is being held as we speak, and Rick Marcotte Central Schools is tomorrow, the 9th, from 6 to 7 p.m. SBSD Helpdesk: Since my announcements were pretty short, I wanted to address a proposal me and Moment have for the board. If I'm correct, we're not allowed to discuss it right now, right, but I can… SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. So our main proposal is that me and Molman would like to allow
008school board student representatives to informally vote during action items and other things, such as SBSD Helpdesk: like, we just approved the, like, announcements and everything for the day. The reason we bring this up is we feel like student voice is essential during discussions about our education, and by allowing student representatives to informally vote, the community will have an opportunity to clearly see our opinions on a subject. SBSD Helpdesk: And also it will hopefully increase us and future student reps' participation in discussion times, and create a sense of belonging as a member on the board. SBSD Helpdesk: details of this, we would just be allowed to say, like, yay or nay, or raise our hand when it's pliable or applicable. And if allowing us to speak, like, makes the count confusing in any way, we could
009always just raise our hand to signify. SBSD Helpdesk: us saying yes. And we understand that our vote wouldn't count towards the board's final decision, as we're not elected members, but we think it would be important for it to be in the minute notes and to let the community see. SBSD Helpdesk: what we are feeling, so… Can we put that on the agenda? Yeah, let's put it on for the next week, as we're building our agenda for next week. I'm not confident, but I think other boards let their student reps do this in other districts, so we could always see, like, if there has to be something in writing about it, they probably have something in another district we could call. Yeah, Burlington May School does. Burlington School District about that. SBSD Helpdesk: SSL beginners. Yeah,
010so that's all I have. SBSD Helpdesk: That's great, I appreciate that. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so the next item on our agenda is action items. SBSD Helpdesk: Before the board discusses or acts on any action item, we will invite public comment specific to that item. Speakers will have up to 3 minutes to share remarks related to the item under consideration. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 6a} So the first item that we have is Policy 2.9 amendment. Faculty and staff allowed to discuss any matter of public concern, and this is our fifth reading. SBSD Helpdesk: Would any members of the public like to speak to this item before the board discusses and considers action? SBSD Helpdesk: Anybody on mine? So, hearing none, I will… SBSD Helpdesk: I was going to share my screen, we can… it's a pretty…
011it's a pretty simple… pretty simple one here. SBSD Helpdesk: Apprentice. SBSD Helpdesk: I was gonna just share my screen, but I can… I can't… Up to him. SBSD Helpdesk: Sweet. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, there's a link to it. Is somebody else able to pull it up and… SBSD Helpdesk: I also want to share… Oh, I've got it. I've got it right here. I can share it. I got it. There we go. That's why anybody that's online can also be able to see it, perhaps. SBSD Helpdesk: So, if you guys can see my screen up there? Yeah, you can see my screen. So, here is the amendment, right here. Policy 2.9. SBSD Helpdesk: This is the final version. SBSD Helpdesk: And it says to be adopted October 1st. This was on the agenda last week, and we
012postponed it, to this week. And it just states, I move that the policy governance resolution adopted by this Board of School Directors be amended by adding subsection 10 to Section 2.9, Communications Support to the Board, to read as follows. SBSD Helpdesk: Item 10, prevent faculty and staff from communicating with the board regarding matters of public concern, including district policies, procedures, and budgets. SBSD Helpdesk: And Seamus has provided some information here in his statement regarding the purpose of this amendment, recognizing that employees already have the First Amendment right to speak about matters of the public. SBSD Helpdesk: Of public concern. However, there's been confusion and fear in the district around… surrounding this right from both management and labor. And so, by adding this executive limitation, we ensure that everyone is clear, and talking about matters of
013public concern is okay. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, again, this is something that I know there's been some discussion that our policies cover this, and this is not needed. SBSD Helpdesk: But I believe at this… my position on this before was that I do believe it's needed until we have an opportunity, perhaps, to go through and tighten up some of our policies and ensure that the… that everything is… is crystal clear for all involved. SBSD Helpdesk: So… That is the… Language? SBSD Helpdesk: And… I will now… Open up, does anybody else have any comments or discussion about this? SBSD Helpdesk: Come on. SBSD Helpdesk: I was wondering if Joe had any… Yeah, so I think that, as written, I don't think there's any concerns. I don't think it gives anybody any more or less rights than
014they already have. I would say I… SBSD Helpdesk: I'm relatively new here, but I think part of this came from maybe a, concerns about an employee's ability to file a complaint against the superintendent, and I would not be opposed to that being part of this amendment. I think it makes sense if, because SBSD Helpdesk: every employee in the district works for me. If somebody did have agreements for me, I think that it would be awkward for them to have to go to HR, because the HR director works for me. I think it would be totally appropriate if somebody had a SBSD Helpdesk: complaint about my behavior or my conduct, that they should feel free to go to the floor, to report that. Yeah. I think that… SBSD Helpdesk: Makes sense to me. I think it
015gives people, an opportunity to voice their spider. SBSD Helpdesk: I agree. I think that as… and we'll be talking about this in a bit here regarding SBSD Helpdesk: how we can leverage the BSBA to help support some of our review and audit of policy. SBSD Helpdesk: And I think for a district policy, we have some work to do with our grievance process, and I would say that, you know, could perhaps provide a little bit of clarity on something like that. I would not want that. I mean, I think anybody… any complaint about anybody else, I think, should come to the superintendent. SBSD Helpdesk: You need to go to the supervisor. There needs to be other channels. Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I agree, Jenna, like, how you put that in with really clearing up the chain
016of what the protocol is, because I feel like there's a lot of confusion about it, and that would, SBSD Helpdesk: It's extremely helpful, and I also just wanted to point out that maybe the public already knows this, but it would be confusing to me that it starts with prevent faculty and staff, and just that it's written as a limitation. So this is something that the superintendent could not do. It's not going to prevent that. Michelle Boyer: Yeah, it's connected to the previous sentence in the policy itself, which says, shall not. SBSD Helpdesk: Exactly. Michelle Boyer: Well, I don't think it says shall not, it says should not, or something like that. SBSD Helpdesk: It leads it in a way that makes sense, but I agree. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that… Now, when
017I was reading it, it was… so that's why I'm actually in 2.5. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I will now entertain a motion to approve Policy 2.9, faculty and staff allowed to discuss any matter of public concern. SBSD Helpdesk: Oh my goodness. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion by Daniel Boyer] Dan's making the motion. SBSD Helpdesk: [Second] I'll second. And Laura Williams seconds. SBSD Helpdesk: To approve policy, [Motion Discussion] is there any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: I guess I would just say that I understand what you've added to that, Joe, and I… I could… I think maybe that clear language would work well in what Jen was talking about, that particular putting forth the procedure that was accessible to employees, would help. SBSD Helpdesk: cover that, issue. That's an important one. Sure. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, any further discussion?
018SBSD Helpdesk: Nope. Okay. [Vote] All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Michelle Boyer: Aye. SBSD Helpdesk: Those opposed say no. SBSD Helpdesk: The motion passes. [Voting Results] SBSD Helpdesk: To approve that. SBSD Helpdesk: Chase. SBSD Helpdesk: Oh, got it all together. Why not? SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 6 Action B Permanent Superintendents Search] Second item is our permanent superintendent search. The action meant to be taken is the formation of a permanent superintendent search committee and decision on utilizing, potentially, the VSBA as part of this permanent search. SBSD Helpdesk: Would any members of the public like to speak to this item before the board discusses and considers action? SBSD Helpdesk: Please scumble over there. SBSD Helpdesk: Right. SBSD Helpdesk: Hi, Bridget Burkirk. Just a quick, just a suggestion, that, for a
019future board discussion, really, probably not even tonight, is just that in the past, it's worked really well to have. SBSD Helpdesk: to really big groups. I know that we needed a small, nimble group, in terms of the interim superintendent search, but to draw in a lot of community and a lot of staff. SBSD Helpdesk: So in the past, big searches have had a very big staff group that was very well managed by someone who was appointed who had done that before, Pat Phillips, who used to be a principal at the high school. SBSD Helpdesk: did a really great job for a previous principal search that we did, and then there's usually a very big community group. It just really helps everyone feel like their voices are heard, even if they're not voting, to just see
020a lot of the candidates and really talk about what they hope to see in the full-time superintendent. So, just a suggestion. SBSD Helpdesk: Great feedback. SBSD Helpdesk: Is there anyone online? Any comments? SBSD Helpdesk: Right. SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you again for those comments. Any other discussion surrounding this? SBSD Helpdesk: I'm having the phone call tomorrow. SBSD Helpdesk: the SBA. SBSD Helpdesk: Yes, concerning that. We are invited to the audit, if you could make that. Yep, I accepted to report… great. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I think the one thing that I would like to add, is… SBSD Helpdesk: you know, what… what we… when we went through the interim superintendent search, I remember we had heard from two SBSD Helpdesk: groups. One was the VSBA, and I cannot recall, it was, like, was it $12,000 for that
021search? For VSBA? For VSBA? Yes. And would it be the same amount? Can we clarify? Like… That's one of the things we want to get clarified, and the other group was ALMA, I think? The other group was the ALMA Advisory Group. SBSD Helpdesk: And their cost was 32% of the superintendent's base salary. So we think it was $60,000… whatever, yeah. It was like, it was like… A lot more. It's a lot more. A lot more. Like, 5 times more. So… SBSD Helpdesk: You know, and the thing was, I… I really feel like the… and we talked about this last week, the interim search that we did for those that were part of that committee, I feel like it went really well. And I think that the BSBA did just a fantastic job. SBSD Helpdesk: So,
022I would agree, get close to 60,000. And that feedback that we got from Daisy last week, that's saying, you know, originally she was thinking, like, that we would go with the SBSD Helpdesk: someone more like, the National. The National Research. And then after working with BSBA, she was really impressed with the professionalism and what they did, and that she thought they would be great to deal with. And specifically, they had national reach as well, but she did not expect… Well, yes, because we are now talking about. So, yeah, yeah. And I know there was discussion that if there was, and I don't know if any SBSD Helpdesk: I think it was a leftover from… the interim search. SBSD Helpdesk: was mentioned that it was $12,000, and if they spent 12,000, but I don't know what…
023if anything's left. Yeah, and it could… well, I mean, the permanent, I would imagine, is going to be a bigger effort, so… but that's a good point, because I think a lot of the legwork has been done. It's been done, like, and most importantly, like, I think relationships, too. SBSD Helpdesk: I think we can do it again, yes, and obviously be a bigger group, and we have free to do that, and… SBSD Helpdesk: But I am interested, I really appreciate your feedback, because I think you're spot on. I think we really… and we did have a really tight timeline on this last one. We had to be nimble and just… and even then. SBSD Helpdesk: you know, VSBA, it only recommended, I think, 7 people on the search, and we had 14. So, both these
024groups were… SBSD Helpdesk: all these groups will recommend 8 groups. Okay. So, I don't… SBSD Helpdesk: So we have this as an action item, not that we are specifically taking any action right now, except that we are initiating the search, and I think we wanted to put it as action so we could hear from the public. SBSD Helpdesk: That was part of the reason we had it there. But more to come, and we'll talk more about it next week. Right, and then, yeah, so there'll be presentations and… SBSD Helpdesk: So… Is FARMR actually to formally establish a committee for it? Not tonight, no, no, because I think we want to work with one of these groups, and they're going to guide us through that whole process, and… SBSD Helpdesk: and also form the… form the
025committee, right? Yeah, so, you know, there's, like, faculty, and then there's community. We just went through this superintendent search at Essex, and it was huge. So… SBSD Helpdesk: I mean, I think the only thing that we'd have… I think it's premature to do too much with it, you know, other than we are creating a superintendent search committee, but we're not going to identify… Yeah. Yeah, we are creating… so that is the discussion, and then again, the reason that this specifically came up as an action is because on action items, we have an opportunity to hear from the public, and we wanted the public SBSD Helpdesk: to weigh in as we're formulating all of this. And there's going to be a lot of time to weigh in. This will take a while to form the… SBSD
026Helpdesk: So… so no motion pa… no motion is being passed or anything right now, just… For that reason. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item Action c. Monitoring Report 2.6] All right, so the next item under our action is Monitoring Report 2.6, Superintendent Succession. SBSD Helpdesk: And my understanding is that this action is meant to be taken as an update of the current succession superintendent plan. SBSD Helpdesk: Before we get to that, would any members of the public like to speak to this item before the board discusses and considers action? SBSD Helpdesk: Anyone online? No. SBSD Helpdesk: What? SBSD Helpdesk: Okay? SBSD Helpdesk: Alright. SBSD Helpdesk: Turn it over to Dr. Joe. Yeah, so the last time this was updated, Kristen Romick was serving as the acting superintendent. I am now the interim superintendent, so we need SBSD
027Helpdesk: He said, get hit by a bus, you need to have a plan, right? So, this plan would include the three people that we know have, superintendent licensure, which is Kristen Romich, Nicole Carter, and Suzanne Grunling. It does not mean that all three would serve as active, it would, it would be that those would be options. SBSD Helpdesk: For the board to consider if anything were, could happen to be that we can pass it to take me, so… SBSD Helpdesk: I recommend you format so we can move forward. Pray doesn't happen. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, very good. So is there, all right, so I will entertain a motion to approve the monitoring report 2.6, Superintendent Succession. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion]*Clerk Laura Williams: I move to accept the report 2.6. All right. And seconded. [Second] *Board Member
028Austin Smith: Second. Austin. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so it's been moved by Laura, seconded by Austin, to adopt a revised Superintendent Succession 2.6. SBSD Helpdesk: Is there any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: Just wanted to discuss… really, the only thing that's changed was that Joe is mentioned in there as the inter superintendent, but it's… SBSD Helpdesk: there's nothing else that changed. Those are the three names that were on, or… No, at that time, there was only two in the session, because Kristen was the acting superintendent, so now there's three, and it's a success plan. Changed it, changed it, and then change… now we're changing it again. But yes, okay, thank you. How long… sorry, how long are the licenses good for? SBSD Helpdesk: I'm, you know, I'm new to Vermont. Mine has been for a year at this
029point, and I can renew it, and I don't know the answer. I wonder if there's anybody in the… SBSD Helpdesk: 5 years, 5 years, 5 years, yeah, for a typical person who has gone through the system here. I wasn't sure if he was saying, I know, or… Both! Thanks. SBSD Helpdesk: Excellent. Alright, so any other discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: [Vote] Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. SBSD Helpdesk: All those opposed say no. SBSD Helpdesk: [Voting Results] Alright, motion passes. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 7 Discussion A: Budget] All right, the next topic on our agenda are discussion items. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 7a Discussion] First up, budget. SBSD Helpdesk: So, during our special meeting last Wednesday, October 1st, we discussed the development of the 2026-2027 school budget. For those who were not in attendance,
030Jesse Baker, South Burlington City Manager, was present and discussed how the municipal budget and school budget are created very differently. SBSD Helpdesk: The discussion ultimately revolved around various scenarios the board would like to present to central office for creating the next budget, which includes… and I know this may not be the exact order, but this is the way I kind of got it in my head. Option number one would be no cuts to any roles or programming which may add SBSD Helpdesk: 10% or more to the existing budget. It was just, hey, what do you need to run the schools? What is… SBSD Helpdesk: What would be that ideal scenario? That's option one. Option number two is a 0% increase to the budget. It would stay flat as to what it was on the 2025
031ballot, which I believe was $71.5 million. SBSD Helpdesk: Option 3 would be a midway point between zero and no cuts, wherever that shakes out. And then option 4 would be an increase that parallels inflation, which was around 3.5%, or 3.3%. SBSD Helpdesk: Once central office has run the various scenarios, and the board has selected an option to pursue that we believe the community can afford that we would present. SBSD Helpdesk: central office would create a budget in working with the schools and the principals following the Toussaint model that best serves the children and students with the resources that are then provided. The scenarios will be available, those option 1 through 4 scenarios will be available in the next few weeks. SBSD Helpdesk: I know Jean Marie's not here, but what was the target date we
032were looking at for that? I believe the target date is by the end of October, if not the first week of November. Okay. And I would just, if I… since I have the floor, if I could just say, SBSD Helpdesk: there should not be any kind of, ranking or weighted given to the numbers of option 1, 2, 3, and 4. Right. We're doing four options, there's no predetermination. Right. SBSD Helpdesk: Yep, 100%. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, I would say that that would probably be something we can put into our parking lot for our agenda in November, from early November, I think that's going to be an important thing that we'll have in our parking lot. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Any other discussion or comments, Vaughn? SBSD Helpdesk: Beth? Budget? SBSD Helpdesk: Bye-bye. SBSD Helpdesk:
033[Agenda Item 7b Pledge of Allegiance] All right, so the next item for discussion is the Pledge of Allegiance, and I just want to set the record straight on this one. This was something that I had actually brought forward. This was not some… I know we've got a new interim superintendent that's here, but actually, this was something that I had brought up, and the reason I brought it up is because, SBSD Helpdesk: A couple of reasons. SBSD Helpdesk: One is in my onboarding part of learning about school boards, I've been watching school board meetings, and I'm seeing that there's… a lot of school boards are actually doing the pledge. The other reason was because, when we went to a city council meeting with South Burlington, they also were leading the pledge at the beginning of their
034session. SBSD Helpdesk: And so then I started looking into it, and I found that 98% of U.S. schools, public schools, have policies that require an opportunity for students to recite the pledge daily. SBSD Helpdesk: However, requiring an opportunity does not equal requiring participation. So just because it's offered doesn't mean that people have to do it. So students and the public at a board meeting may opt out for religious, philosophical, or other reasons. SBSD Helpdesk: But the reasons, the justifications for doing it are to, again, align with the city council, with the majority of school boards across the street. We have a flag that's right there, and a couple of other advantages from my perspective. Also realized, I mean, I'm very heavy into scouts, so I believe patriotism is very important, but, it promotes patriotism and
035civic SBSD Helpdesk: unity. It reinforces educational mile… our educational mission, and civic respect and action. SBSD Helpdesk: I believe, it encourages respect and reflection. It is tradition and community expectation, I believe. Many communities view the pledge as a long-standing tradition, especially in public institutions. SBSD Helpdesk: And I think it can help the board connect with constituents who might see the pledge as part of civic life and a respect for public service. And lastly, I do believe it is a nonpartisan symbol. Ideally, the pledge transcends political differences, it is about allegiance to the country and its ideals. SBSD Helpdesk: Not to any party or policy. SBSD Helpdesk: And when framed correctly, I believe it emphasizes unity and shared purpose rather than ideology. So it's just a discussion. I know there… it's come out on… on, I
036think there was an email about it just briefly that went out. And so now I will zip it in any other discussion. SBSD Helpdesk: I was curious about what this… what's the policy in schools that's out front in schools, and my first thought was aligning with what is taking place in our schools. SBSD Helpdesk: So I don't actually know what happens in the schools, because I'm not in there, and I don't know if… SBSD Helpdesk: If, Allie, if you feel comfortable telling us what goes on in the high school, that would be great. I can't speak for other schools, but in the high school, we don't do the Pledge of Allegiance. When I was in elementary school, it was a thing we did. SBSD Helpdesk: And I don't know… And at the middle school, too,
037right? Did you go through Tuttle? I did go through Tuttle, but we didn't do it while I was at the middle school. I believe, like, COVID happened when I was in sixth grade, so, like, half of my middle school, I wasn't even there. I believe they do at Tuttle. Yeah. At Tuttle, yeah. So they probably do, but I'm not a great person to ask about it. But he's like, oh, you know, couldn't tell me what he does. There is a teacher in the audience who might SBSD Helpdesk: I know that answer. SBSD Helpdesk: Please, anyone who has any insight into this, I would love, love to hear. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, this is just discussion. Just discussion. I'd be interested here. It is going to be… we had put it on action, and then we took
038it off of action, but we did say it's possible. Thank you. Teacher at the high school? Yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: For a while, we were doing it every Monday on announcements. SBSD Helpdesk: In the morning, but I don't… I don't feel like I recall in the last year at the high school. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Mr. Craig used to come on anyway. That's awesome. SBSD Helpdesk: Anyway, that's it. Thank you. Somebody else. Well, I mean, this is… this is… we're… this is a discussion item, though. We're not taking action. No, I asked your question, I just wanted to know if… I mean, I don't know… I just want to cut history, like, I'm not making any comment. By point of order, we are not addressing people from the gallery right now, are we? This is…
039we gotta stay consistent. This is… this is a discussion item. Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: I mean, we are planning to action it next week. It's going to be on the action next week, so there will be… there will be discussion. I mean, I think it was dubbed as potential action. It does, but it's in the discussion committee. We can discuss it, yes. I was going to say that I will be doing some research, because I'm very curious to find that out. Okay. So I'll… I'll get that in front. It used to be done here, and then it abruptly stopped. SBSD Helpdesk: And we don't know specifically why, I think. Michelle Boyer: There was one per- I was there, actually. There was one person who had a politically motivated objection. Michelle Boyer: And, said, No, and it
040was just never done. So there was no action. Michelle Boyer: There was no discussion. SBSD Helpdesk: Just add them. Michelle Boyer: It just ended, yeah. And Jen, I do want to say, as long as I'm speaking, I want to take 5 more seconds to say I… Michelle Boyer: absolutely support your rationale. That sense of unity and civic unity, especially, is compelling, and I… I completely agree. I couldn't have said it better. Michelle Boyer: Thanks. SBSD Helpdesk: Here. SBSD Helpdesk: I used to… we used to have to do it… Elementary school, high school. SBSD Helpdesk: And when I was in the military, when you went to the on-base theaters. SBSD Helpdesk: Before any movie started, Pledge of Allegiance was played on the screen. They had to stand up at the theater. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm not sure
041if it was the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem. It was one of the two, but it was just… Yeah. So I… I don't see why this is an issue. I… yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: It used to be done in Chican, we should go back to doing it. We would be following what the city does. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I'm… Right, I know the city does it, I know where the elementary schools, the, title SBSD Helpdesk: O. N. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I know what very… I did, I do appreciate your, your statement. Having been on this board. SBSD Helpdesk: Since 2022, SBSD Helpdesk: And, you know, I'm sorry to say that this has become partisan, it really should not be, and I would like to reclaim it. SBSD Helpdesk: I think… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I would
042love to see if maybe Dr. Joe could get a pulse on this, because… SBSD Helpdesk: I think… SBSD Helpdesk: It's been so tumultuous, sitting in this chair for over 3 years, and to make any big decision right now, and I'm sorry to say that this is a big decision, but it is. SBSD Helpdesk: I know it… listen, I know. It's just… I know. We're in violent agreement. I'm telling you, my brother is in the rain called me, so he's in violent agreement. It's just that this, and I don't, I don't know, I would like to know more of the history about, you know, what happened, and, and, I, like… SBSD Helpdesk: you know, I don't know if you feel comfortable talking to SBSD Helpdesk: Admin about that, to a better coming from. SBSD Helpdesk: We
043have a meeting on Thursday. Yeah. I would love to find out from that avenue. I mean, and again, going back to the idea of the civic respect even in action, I mean, personally, I will say that I've got two kids right now who just recently graduated from South Burlington High School, who are in the military. SBSD Helpdesk: And, you know, and they're… they're… SBSD Helpdesk: you know, they feel like they have the issues even sometimes going out in their uniform because of concern and this partisan issue, and it's really upsetting. I mean, these are our service people that we respect, and SBSD Helpdesk: So anyway, there's… that's another reason, I think, as well. Yeah, I don't think it's a big issue, either, because if… SBSD Helpdesk: We follow suit with what it's been done, the
044City Council does it. If we do it here, nobody would be forced to get up and do it, as long as it's optional, 100%. It's an easy decision. Of course. SBSD Helpdesk: I felt like it was an interesting… you know, when you brought it up, Jen, I've been thinking about it, and I appreciated the chance to think about it, because what Dan said earlier. SBSD Helpdesk: we had to do it growing up, and I did as well, and I'm only saying had to because I really didn't think about what I was doing. I stood up and said the pledge, and that was fine, but… SBSD Helpdesk: since this has been something I knew we were going to talk about, I started to think, like. SBSD Helpdesk: why is it partisan? What is the pledge? Like,
045let me think about the actual words of the pledge, and like, what do they mean? And… SBSD Helpdesk: I think most of us can agree that SBSD Helpdesk: their ideals, and we don't currently live in liberty and justice for all in our country. And so, when I think about what it means if I were to say the pledge, it's that I'm pledging to SBSD Helpdesk: worked for that. Until… SBSD Helpdesk: If it ever happens, but do whatever I can to work for this. So, I'm just saying, I really went through a lot of thinking when you suggested this, because I know it is, it is… SBSD Helpdesk: something that people have a lot of feelings about, one way or the other, and I just appreciated thinking about it from a different way. I do understand
046the optional thing, and I appreciate the optional thing, but that also, unfortunately. SBSD Helpdesk: put someone in a position to either choose not to do it, and then maybe feel uncomfortable that other people are wondering why they're not doing it. So, it's always… there's a lot of stuff around it. I love… I like that we're having this conversation, and putting some thought into it. And I would like to hear from faculty, staff. SBSD Helpdesk: and admin. I think that… and students, I don't know, Allie, what do you think? SBSD Helpdesk: I would say I don't know enough about it. I feel like I have a similar view to Emily. Like, I would have to do a little bit more research into it to be able to have the audit. SBSD Helpdesk: And that's what I'm
047saying. I would love to, like, Joe, Dr. Joe to kind of give us a report, because if there's something going on in the schools that we should know about, because we're not in the schools, so we don't… we don't know. SBSD Helpdesk: And at Essex High School, we don't typically go. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know why. But again, it does feel like it's kind of an innocuous… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, and again, I would just like to remind the board that the board meeting belongs to the board, so I can get opinions from, SBSD Helpdesk: teachers and principals about how they feel about it, but ultimately, the board… it's the board's meeting, and the board has… Oh my gosh, thank you. I was just thinking that you were talking about in the school. No, no, no,
048no, we're… Okay, sorry. Just here. Just here. I got very confused. Oh, no, we're talking about… Sorry. SBSD Helpdesk: Somebody who works for the district is uncomfortable with the fact that the board wants to do the Pledge of Allegiance? SBSD Helpdesk: you know. SBSD Helpdesk: If you're going to sit around and not do something because one or two or a number of people are uncomfortable, we're never going to get anything done. Right, right, right. And like Dr. just said, you know, this is the board's meeting. SBSD Helpdesk: citing… reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. SBSD Helpdesk: shouldn't be. SBSD Helpdesk: Something that is… SBSD Helpdesk: You know, setting somebody's hair on fire. Well, no, it shouldn't be… Sit there and don't say anything. You're right, but you know what? The subject that I teach, Spanish, shouldn't
049be getting people arrested, and it is. And so, that's what I'm saying, like, this is a loaded climate. Yeah. That is my job. SBSD Helpdesk: And so, I do think that it is right. We are… we are representing the community, and I would like to know. SBSD Helpdesk: So that is where I… And I agree that it's the board's meeting, and I understand what you're saying. I think it does seem like a little… we're the, you know, representing the district, but if the district isn't saying the pledge, but we're saying the pledge, it's just… it just… I don't know, I'm just… SBSD Helpdesk: about. Michelle Boyer: Yeah. So, we did take an oath to uphold the law. Michelle Boyer: That's a part of our board service, and there's nothing incongruent about saying the pledge with
050that. SBSD Helpdesk: lunch. Michelle Boyer: With that, oh, and I do, like, I really appreciate, Emily, that you brought Michelle Boyer: in the… a level of skepticism, right? Because I don't say this with a lack of understanding for the political motivation for… Michelle Boyer: folks to object, right? They're making a political statement that may be very righteous, but it also doesn't Michelle Boyer: necessarily negate a particular understanding of the Pledge of Allegiance as a civic unity symbol. Think of after 9-11. We saw flags everywhere. Michelle Boyer: And we treated them as a symbol that bound us as a nation against an external threat, right? And… Michelle Boyer: It's… to me, it feels very sad that it takes an external threat and death and destruction for us to… Michelle Boyer: see those symbols of unity. So
051I'll leave it at that. Thanks so much. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I'm wondering, so we've had this for 15 minutes, do you… SBSD Helpdesk: Do we want to put this on the action item for next week for our action item? It's on for next week. Yeah, I put it in the parking lot as an action item for next week, because… yeah, because… SBSD Helpdesk: You know, the discussion tonight was to hear all of this, and then next week we would action it, allow the public to speak next week more on this, and then we would take a motion to adopt it or not. SBSD Helpdesk: is the bot. SBSD Helpdesk: But this was good. This was a good conversation. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, so moving on… SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 7c Project Management] The next item for
052discussion on our agenda is project management, and during our meeting last week, we started creating a tracker of the various items that we are working on, and the question there was, do we have any updates to share? SBSD Helpdesk: I will share my screen. SBSD Helpdesk: Again, let me save that Jupiter screen. SBSD Helpdesk: Cheer! SBSD Helpdesk: Is it up there. You guys see it? Yes. SBSD Helpdesk: It's here. It's here, Jen. And I'll work on that. Okay. That's out of her control. Okay. That's great. It is on Zoom. Okay. So, I unfortunately do not have access, I only have you only on this right now, and this was something that Seamus had started to create. SBSD Helpdesk: And these were the topics that we had had. So, hoping that we can just run through
053these real quick. Michelle, we have you on point for monitoring reports, and whether or not you had any update on that to share. Michelle Boyer: I do, but I do want to ask the board, do you… do you want the… the two, three-minute version? I… I also prepared some slides for… in case folks are better visually, which is all to say that, there's… there's some progress. I don't have… Michelle Boyer: exact schedules and templates, but I can talk a little bit about how that discussion, transpired, and kind of where we're heading, and what we plan. And by we, I mean Dr. Clark and I plan to bring to the board for discussion and action at some point. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, what would you like to do? Michelle Boyer: Tolerance level. I know there's some, Michelle
054Boyer: anxiety, I guess, around the, staying on schedule. So, are we on schedule? Are we ahead of schedule? If we're ahead of schedule, I will do the 10-minute version versus the 3-minute version. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so I'm going to stop sharing. Are you able to share? And I would like to just a point of order. It's not an anxiety issue, it is to keep… it's professional, to keep a meeting on a schedule, so I just want to say that. Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: Can you… you should be able to share your screen. I think it… Michelle Boyer: Did a request come through for, there we go, multiple presenters can share, okay. Michelle Boyer: Let me do that… And then I'm gonna ask the question that I ask all the time… Michelle Boyer: Which is… As
055soon as I put this in presenter mode… SBSD Helpdesk: Overview of Plan to Improve Policy Monitoring. Michelle Boyer: Okay, and can you see the notes section, or do you see the presentation view? SBSD Helpdesk: Just the presentation view. Michelle Boyer: Perfect, okay. Michelle Boyer: So, these are really only a few slides, but I tend to be very visual, and for others that are, hopefully they're a little bit helpful. So… Michelle Boyer: Joe and I met on, Michelle Boyer: Friday. We had a great meeting to just introduce ourselves to this topic and think about what, Michelle Boyer: how we're going to approach it, like, get our arms around it. And so there are really two things, I believe, that we were charged with doing. One is to set a new schedule, because the truth is, we
056are now behind. And we have an almost… we have a majority new board. Michelle Boyer: And we have a majority new central office, so, starting this school year. So, we want to be realistic. We want to talk about that, in very specific ways about how to do that schedule in efficient and effective ways. And then we also want to create a plan for the substance of monitoring reports, and that will involve, as we understand it, perhaps, forming a kind of Michelle Boyer: template that we iterate on a bit, we bring to the board, we discuss, we improve, and then we, Michelle Boyer: you know, launch those, those templates. So, just as an overview, for brief topics, I wanted to kind of frame the discussion with what the goal is in terms of improvement and the
057benefits of doing high-quality monitoring. Michelle Boyer: a single slide, I think, on what policy monitoring is, and then, importantly, I think, what it is not. Michelle Boyer: And this is level setting. This is, you know, my understanding of policy governance, so there is… this is not me dictating, this is me presenting what I know, and we can talk about it over time. Policy monitoring schedule, and then our proposed… our specific proposed next steps that we ended our meeting with. Michelle Boyer: so, first topic. Our improvement goal really is as simple as bringing policy monitoring processes, Michelle Boyer: and substance into compliance with policy governance expectations. And there are some real practical benefits to that. Michelle Boyer: The two big ones are we increased the impact of monitoring in terms of transparency, and a so-called Little
058A accountability value to the community. Michelle Boyer: I can explain that, but I won't take time to do that now unless there are questions. Reduce the burden of monitoring on SBSD staff, and that is really in terms of shorter reports that are more narrowly tailored to communicate outcomes. Michelle Boyer: Traditionally, what we've seen is a long list of things that the district is doing, which is really valuable information, but it's not monitoring. Michelle Boyer: So what is monitoring? Michelle Boyer: it is the process through which South Burling… the South Burlington School District… I need to get rid of this, I'm blocking my view. Michelle Boyer: Through which the district exercises its duty… the board, sorry, exercises its duty to ensure that the district is making progress on meeting the district's ends and executive limitations policy
059goals. Michelle Boyer: AKA the policies that instruct the superintendent. This is direct language from policy… from our own policies. The policy monitoring process is intentionally rigorous and outcome-focused. Michelle Boyer: Purposefully designed to define and monitor observable and measurable outcomes. Michelle Boyer: And it reasonably informs the board and the South Burlington community that the board serves about how well the district is meeting policy goals. Michelle Boyer: I think just as important is to define what policy monitoring is not. It is not an aspiration or hope. Our aspirations and hopes are really important. They guide our work, they give us a common goal, but they are not policy monitoring. Michelle Boyer: A list of everything that the district is directly or indirectly doing, as I mentioned, is important. Michelle Boyer: it's great information shared in appropriate forums,
060but when it comes to policy governance, it's… it's kind of a Goldilocks test, too much, too little. We really are looking more at the outcomes in policy monitoring than we are at the inputs. Michelle Boyer: And that's kind of the short story of it. It's also not a rubber stamp action by the board. We should be rigorously reviewing. We don't want to be overly critical. This is not necessarily our area of expertise, so we're not here Michelle Boyer: In any way to tell the superintendent how to run the district, but we're also not here to say that anything you do Michelle Boyer: Emphasis on any reasonable interpretation is okay with us. We are accountable to the community, and we really do need to have better visibility into the district outcomes. Michelle Boyer: And I really
061want to emphasize this, this is not punitive. We are not talking about accountability with, you know. Michelle Boyer: a hammer, or a… what's the expression? Carrot and a stick. Michelle Boyer: This is really intended to be formative in nature, where we all have a common understanding of where we are, so that we can improve appropriately over time. Michelle Boyer: Very quickly, there are really just 3 ways within our policies that we monitor, or that we're allowed as a board to monitor. Michelle Boyer: Either through internal reports, external reports, which would be something we would procure somebody outside of the district and the board to actually do the reporting. Michelle Boyer: that would be a cost. My personal opinion, that's not particularly productive, but there may be circumstances at some point for certain reasons that… that
062would be necessary, but I don't personally see any right now. Michelle Boyer: And direct inspection by the board, is the other possibility. Michelle Boyer: Our tradition is primarily internal reports, and I don't think we see in our initial conversation, and I don't expect the board would see any need to diverge from that tradition in any substantial way. Michelle Boyer: So, the first specific task that we're charged with is really to Michelle Boyer: figure out what that schedule looks like. And what we talked about, basically, was that the approach will be to understand what makes sense. And what I mean by that is that data is collected Michelle Boyer: For these various policies. Michelle Boyer: or related to these various policies that would be candidates for using in outcome measures that has a schedule itself. And
063so, you know, something like the equity report we talked about last week, to… to ask Michelle Boyer: for trend information on student achievement, when we know that we… that the results for the current year are embargoed until the end of October, early November. Michelle Boyer: doesn't really make sense to demand an equity report prior to that, unless we want to consider something like having a leg year-end reporting. Given that it happens relatively early in the year, to me it makes sense, and right now. Michelle Boyer: we're actually, planning our equity policy monitoring report for, about November, which I believe was the tentative agreement. Michelle Boyer: And so, what is happening is Dr. Clark is working with the leadership to draft a new reporting timeline for fiscal year 26, and then we will begin talking about
064what that annual process looks like as well, because obviously, since we are behind, fiscal year 26 is going to look different than any schedule that we set for the future. It's going to be compressed, it's going to happen. Michelle Boyer: Likely between January and June of 2026. Michelle Boyer: And then for my part, I'm looking at, drafting a template. And by template, this is not something prescriptive, this is something that lays out what are the parts of a high-quality monitoring report to kind of guide that process. Michelle Boyer: And that's it in a nutshell. So, guiding principles, the reporting schedule will be compressed, as I mentioned. Michelle Boyer: And, scheduled from January to 20… January to June of 2026. And then the annual schedule will be developed based on the assessment of when appropriate data
065is available to kind of maximize the reporting utility and the information that we're able to, Michelle Boyer: Collect from the district through monitoring and share with the public via public monitoring. Michelle Boyer: This is the schedule that is in policy. We will, I'm sure, use this as a guide, but we are fully free within policy, requirements to move this around. Basically, this is a suggestion, it's not a requirement. Michelle Boyer: But importantly, what this does is it defines the actual reports that need to happen, and the reports happen Michelle Boyer: on the ends policies by our policy, which are basically the goals for our district. A lot of aspiration, as I mentioned before, are in those goals, they shouldn't be in the reports. Michelle Boyer: And then the rest of them are mostly around the
066executive limitations. SBSD Helpdesk: Is that… I'm sorry, I just asked real quick. Is that one page? Should you go back, Michelle? Because, like, where's equity on that one? Michelle Boyer: Equity may have… let's see… emergency… SBSD Helpdesk: Can't see all the way to look. Oh, yeah, because maybe it's another page, or it's just… Michelle Boyer: Did I cut it off? I have it up, also on my computer, so let me take a look and see if I… SBSD Helpdesk: I'm guessing if I remember. Michelle Boyer: shortcutted that. SBSD Helpdesk: No, this is… SBSD Helpdesk: Nothing's been. Michelle Boyer: No. SBSD Helpdesk: No, it's good. Michelle Boyer: This is what's in policy right now. SBSD Helpdesk: expand the ends a little bit, so instead of one ENDS report, we're gonna have four ends reports, because we
067have four goals at the end, so we think that'll be smarter. SBSD Helpdesk: It's great. No, I really like this, and you know what? It doesn't have to be exact right now, too. I mean, this is an example of what you're showing, but I appreciate what you're saying about the timing of some of these monitoring reports, because I felt like we were really under the gun to do equity earlier, like, in July, and based on what you're now saying. SBSD Helpdesk: You know, if we're looking for year-over-year information, you're not going to have that until later in the school year, so it makes sense to do it at that time. Michelle Boyer: Yeah, you know what? I think this table was not updated to include equity… Michelle Boyer: there's not a date on the table
068in our policy, but I know that our policy… our equity addition to policy was fairly recent, so I suspect that this was not updated. So. Michelle Boyer: we definitely do want a whole new schedule, right? This is, as it's written in policy, this is a suggestion. I think it may have been followed historically. I have a feeling it hasn't been followed to the, you know, the letter of the month column in here. Michelle Boyer: For quite a while now, which is not a criticism, it's the reality, but we want to think… we want to be purposeful in how we… Michelle Boyer: Schedule, our, our policies. Michelle Boyer: And another point I want to make about that, too, is that… Michelle Boyer: To the shorter part of what I was saying before, in terms of focusing
069on the expectations about monitoring under policy governance, and it being about outcomes, and not these just Michelle Boyer: long lists and many, many links of all of the things that demonstrate what the district is doing relative to the policy, which, again, is not bad information. It just doesn't satisfy the purpose of monitoring. Michelle Boyer: Assuming we are successful in… More narrow… narrowly tailoring our monitoring reports to their intended purpose. Michelle Boyer: We could actually look at doing… Michelle Boyer: you know, more… they're going to be shorter, right? So, one of the goals is to actually reduce the burden of monitoring on the district, and make it more intentionally useful for all of us. It's not, you know, in that case, it's… it's by policy. It's intended as monitoring by the board, but it is Michelle
070Boyer: the mechanism for communicating with the community about how we're doing, and it's also really useful information for the district at a high level, to augment how Michelle Boyer: they're collecting data, how the, you know, operations are using data to inform their day-to-day work, right? To be able to step back into the big picture and see how we're doing. To me, that's valuable for everybody. SBSD Helpdesk: This is great, man. Great. Michelle Boyer: Yep, and so our target, what we did talk about, I know we're talking about getting a board retreat scheduled for December. We thought that that might be, although we're not being prescriptive about that either, right? It's a suggestion that maybe that is where we Michelle Boyer: where Dr. Clark and I are able to bring to you our specific schedule proposal
071and our specific template proposal that we've worked out for board discussion. Michelle Boyer: revision, improvement, updating, and, eventual action. But the goal really is to begin, aside from the equity report, begin monitoring in earnest in January. Michelle Boyer: And I don't see any reason that we can't, do all of the monitoring, although I'm gonna rely on Dr. Clark to tell me, you know, what's reasonable. Michelle Boyer: After meeting with his staff and thinking about, you know, what's going to be going into these monitoring reports, and when the data are available to kind of maximize their utility for all. Michelle Boyer: So, yep, that's where we're at. SBSD Helpdesk: Great. Thanks, Michelle. Fantastic. SBSD Helpdesk: Any other comments on that? Michelle Boyer: Actually, Dr. Clark, I would, like… did I miss anything from our conversation? I
072went blah blah blah, and I didn't… SBSD Helpdesk: nowadays. Michelle Boyer: on that. SBSD Helpdesk: We're very thorough, and it's good work, and I'm happy to be working with you on it. SBSD Helpdesk: So, one of the other items that is on the list is, so my name shows up, with the superintendent committees, and that may have been something that Seamus just SBSD Helpdesk: put in for under Curriculum and Finance. I don't know that there's any update. I don't know if you have any update to share on the superintendent committees? Yeah, that's going to be part of my report, if you want to wait for that, or I can leave it right now. Okay, well, that's fine. We can wait for that. The other items that we have, I'll just run through them real quick.
073We have Laura with the VSBA Policy Audit. I don't know if you've got any updates? No, no updates. SBSD Helpdesk: toward talking about tomorrow. Okay. So… I will say, if I can, I did have a conversation with the VSBA yesterday. I spoke with Debbie and Sandra. SBSD Helpdesk: And one of the things that they had suggested was a board accelerator course, or… and you have brought this up, Laura's brought this up many times before, that, you know, training is good. SBSD Helpdesk: There are 8 modules. They are 5 to 7 hours to complete. It would be done online. So this is, it would give everyone the foundation regarding what to know about policy governance, and… SBSD Helpdesk: You know, and then one of the questions they were asking me is if the board wants to
074stick with policy governance, or pivot to a different model. SBSD Helpdesk: which I don't think that's really what we want to do at this point, but that was something they brought up. The cost, because there are more than 5 of us, would be $300 a person. That's a reduction, it's normally $350, and we would look at, the 7 of us doing it, plus SBSD Helpdesk: Joe or Dr. Clark would also be participating, so 2,400 students, too? We could definitely, yeah, or not, you don't have to, it's a possibility. We could always do it together so that you don't have to… Yeah, they estimate about 40… Allie, they estimate about 40 minutes a week, so it'd probably take you, like, 25. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know. One thing that they did make very clear, and I
075think it's important to convey this, is that a weakness… a weakness of policy governance SBSD Helpdesk: Is that it is threatened by board turnover, which our board has gone, you know, undergone significant turnover in the last few years, and… SBSD Helpdesk: I think we're in a good place right now, but, you know, that training and continuity of the board and understanding policy governance and having that institutional knowledge is very important, particularly for sufficient handover and onboarding of new board members. It's really critical. And so, when I came on and SBSD Helpdesk: August… SBSD Helpdesk: of 2022. We… we never had training as a full board. I mean, I've had, like… like, I know Tabitha Moore did training, but we've never had policy as a full board. We've done it, like, two of us here, three
076of us there. SBSD Helpdesk: You never… and especially not with the superintendent, so this will… I think this will be, like, it's a huge improvement. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. They also will be sending over a… because I talked to them about a litany of things, and I think we'll talk about that again tomorrow. We talked about the policy governance, the module training, we talked about more specific policy governance training with a specific trainer that could come in and help guide us and answer questions. We talked about, SBSD Helpdesk: doing auditing of monitoring reports, which I would like to do after, perhaps, even we get through this initiative that you're working with Michelle, I think would be great. Again, all of this is to be lockstep with the SBA and just raise the bar on what South
077Burlington is doing in regards to policy governance and delivering on our ends. SBSD Helpdesk: And then the other thing that they also have indicated that they can do is, you know, the auditing. SBSD Helpdesk: policies, and helping support superintendent evaluation. Not just helping to find a superintendent, but then when we do the annual review of our superintendent to help provide some coaching and guidance on that. So they will be sending us a work plan and a 6-month schedule in the next few weeks, which then we can review and decide upon. Like, it's a la carte, what do we want to take and work with them on? SBSD Helpdesk: And so I think that collaboration with these experts is really going to be the key for our business. Yeah, the SBA for Tom Sullivan. Yeah. So,
078yeah, I think that, I think that would be really great. It just protects everybody. SBSD Helpdesk: And they also talked about, you know, having a mentor, so I don't know if that was something I've reached out, but getting a mentor for our new… our interim superintendent and having someone that you can work with also, just, again, professional development and having that support for you. SBSD Helpdesk: The last thing, and they suggested, is that coming up at the end of this month is the annual VSA Vermont Superintendent Association and VSBA Vermont School Board Association conference, which is happening in Burlington on the 29th and 30th of October. SBSD Helpdesk: The theme of the conference is Board-Superintendent Relationships and Strengthening Collaboration. SBSD Helpdesk: The first day is a half day for board officers and superintendents. There's a
079pre-conference workshop that starts at 3 p.m. The cost is $100 per person. And then there… the conference on October 30th is a full day for the whole board, plus the superintendent, and the cost of that is $315. SBSD Helpdesk: There will be several keynote speakers and workshops on how to center and elevate the student voice. SBSD Helpdesk: Working through conflict, continuous learning, and professional development for the board. And again, you know, the theme is all about building strong governance teams. Registration closes a week from today, on October 15th. SBSD Helpdesk: And there's details on their website. It's www.vtvsba.org. And, Joe, you had suggested doing a roll call to see who would be interested in going. By that, I don't mean both, but anybody that wants to go. SBSD Helpdesk: If you let me know, we
080can get you registered and get that paid. I'm already registered, I'm going for both days, and if you are interested in April. SBSD Helpdesk: Again, the deadline's coming up, but we can take care of your registration for you. It's a really good conference. I only get 3 personal days, and I've already used them up for the superintendent search, so I gotta save one for the next… I can't go, but SBSD Helpdesk: I would really recommend it, it's really good. I'll go. I'll go. I'll go, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Awesome yoga? Yeah, I think you're right. Michelle Boyer: Yes, please. SBSD Helpdesk: I just need to check my work schedule, and then I'll… Okay, yeah, let me know. So, you'd be there on the 30th, because I think the 29th is… It's the 30th. It's the 30th.
081It's the Thursday. You know, is there an option to go… is that all… when they say all day Thursday, what time does it end? SBSD Helpdesk: I think it's in the, like, at 4 o'clock. Okay, yeah, I think it is, too. And it starts at, like, 8. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, Austin, Jennifer, Michelle, and… Yeah, I'll just check if I have anything that doesn't. And check Shameless, also, if she's… SBSD Helpdesk: Thank you. Joe, should we follow up over email for coordination? SBSD Helpdesk: Sorry, should we follow up over email recording? I will make sure that the landlord reaches out to you to give you all the information you're gonna need. And it's local school. It's local school, it's awesome. Although Lake Maury was also good. SBSD Helpdesk: Other,
082other items that were on that action, we had, Seamus discussing IDP. He's obviously not here. Emilee, we have, student rep engagement. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know if there's any information to share. SBSD Helpdesk: No, I do want to just make sure I'm gonna connect with Allie, just to make sure I'm… SBSD Helpdesk: clear on, like, what it is that they would like to make sure that they're… I think I know, but it's better if we communicate, so it's absolutely clear. So I'll… I'll email you guys about that. Thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: And then I think… I don't know if we were… SBSD Helpdesk: adding them onto the distribution list for… with Delino, or not? I've heard of that. I think that's part of Emily's part of that. I mean, I think that, if that's possible,
083could really help… Right. …clear up a lot of, just get that communication to guests, so… SBSD Helpdesk: I guess one of my, I think, concerns is, well, what if something comes through, but I'm not sure if you want… if you need to know, like, the conversation that SBSD Helpdesk: Austin had two weeks ago, or a week ago, and you would have been like, oh, I would have been asked to know about that. I'm not sure I would have thought to let you know, so that's why I really want to SBSD Helpdesk: clear of how to best, and I think the distribution list would be, like, that would you have. I think that would be really good. So, yeah. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, well, that's where you know. SBSD Helpdesk: I'm not sure if there's any input.
084SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I think it will be fine, right? SBSD Helpdesk: Just let us know. I'll let you know. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, next up we have Austin Redistricting with legislators. I don't know if you've got a chance to… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, I have not done any formal work here, but I spent the last week understanding sort of the current state of play with the task force. There are some proposed maps that have already come out that I'll probably take a look at. I've done some own… my own, sort of, like, different assemblages of different districts to understand SBSD Helpdesk: The range of outcomes and combinations that would keep us in that 4,000 to 8,000 student range, just so that we can maybe appreciate, you know, the various different combinations we could end up in.
085SBSD Helpdesk: We are already starting to see some districts proactively express interest in partnering, so, like, the Upper Valley districts are, you know, raise their hand, and as I understand it, that's not binding, but I think it's probably good to be proactive now. So, as this is a discussion land for the board. SBSD Helpdesk: I have not yet reached out to the Redistricting Task Force, but I would like to quickly, for the sake of being proactive, and if the board thinks it's appropriate, I will do that this week, or if we want to have more conversation. SBSD Helpdesk: first, and gather insight from the community about what we want to bring into that conversation, we could do that. You can contact Martin, she's one of the co-chairs. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah. I just want to see
086if it was a board, we were ready for that, or… I mean, I think information is knowledge, and I think if you have the information, we're going to have a community forum coming up in December, and, you know, if you do some legwork and get some information now, maybe that's something you can report back on when we have that community forum. Have you signed up for the… SBSD Helpdesk: Go ahead. SBSD Helpdesk: meetings, like the, there's one on the template. Do you have… I can send you Martine's email, she'll go from… she's… SBSD Helpdesk: Sure, so you can send that to me. Thank you. Yeah, that'd be great. I'll do it right now. That would be my take. SBSD Helpdesk: Anybody else? No, I think, yeah, as long as you, you know, you're not going
087to make any commitments. I don't think there's anything wrong with you gathering information, you know, in this early stage. SBSD Helpdesk: He's gonna be setting up the distance. Yeah, right? I'm gonna come with maps at that one. SBSD Helpdesk: They'll hire you. I was gonna say, that's pretty fun if you're in a pocket at your job. SBSD Helpdesk: Great. And then the last thing we had is VSBA training, and again, we'll talk more about that tomorrow, Laura, for having VSBA potential training happening at the December retreat. SBSD Helpdesk: When that, occurs. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay… SBSD Helpdesk: Let's see, alright, so, I think that concludes our discussion items, so we will now move on to reports and receive an update from our superintendent, Dr. Clark. [Agenda Item 8 Interim Superintendent's Report] *Interim Superintendent Joe Clark: All
088right, so the first, I have several items, but the one there written on the agenda is the update on the superintendent committees, and, you'll probably recall that the board, asked to start with two committees, the Curriculum Advisory Committee and the SBSD Helpdesk: Budgeting Committee. I would say the Curriculum Advisory Committee is well underway, in its planning. The finance budgeting is slightly behind, due to its budget season, and Jean Marie is SBSD Helpdesk: vacation this week, and there's a lot more stuff going on there. The Curriculum Advisory Committee, Nicole is running that, and she is, SBSD Helpdesk: has started soliciting, members, and really what we're looking for is a good representation of teachers, administrators, a board member, or two, or a board member or two, and some community members, and we'd really like, maybe community members
089who have some SBSD Helpdesk: Maybe some insights into curriculum instruction, maybe they're professors, maybe, SBSD Helpdesk: maybe they have some role that they could be, you know, add some insights. And just a reminder, there's… sometimes when you form committees, there's some anxiety that comes up, and it's… SBSD Helpdesk: Just a reminder, this is the Superintendent's Advisory Committee. These committees will not be making decisions. We'll be doing a study, we'll be looking into, you know, new trends and, possible, you know, additions, or maybe what can we scale back, those kinds of things. SBSD Helpdesk: The agendas will mostly be driven by the, by the administrative, team, but we do absolutely want feedback, and it is advisory for me, to see if we need to make some, SBSD Helpdesk: You know, make some changes or whatnot. SBSD
090Helpdesk: So again, that… and I guess I should also say, Nicole has been an absolute rock star in terms of, you know, she's covering for somebody on LEAD, she's been doing just an amazing, amazing job, and… SBSD Helpdesk: that is also putting the, committee a little bit behind, and I thank you for your patience and understanding with that. So, can I… can I just ask a question? Like, on the Curriculum advisory committee, what would be some examples of things that, like, you might discuss? So, we might say, okay, you know, AI is this thing, what… should the district adopt some sort of… SBSD Helpdesk: AI platform that is what we adopt as a whole, so that we purchase it so we have support among, for our staff in using it. Or maybe it's… SBSD Helpdesk:
091You know, what kind of… I've heard in my meetings that I'm going around to the community that there's really a really, SBSD Helpdesk: a desire to have some of those hands-on classes, maybe at the middle school. So should we look at, you know, I don't know, shop and family and consumer science at the middle school? And… SBSD Helpdesk: It'll all be, you know, it'll be research-based and data-based, so that whatever topics come, we'll do some research. Also, there'll be some presentations, you know, hey, we have this new, program, we want to share it with the community, and we're going to spread it through the Curriculum Advisory Council. SBSD Helpdesk: Maybe we want to adopt a new math program, or a new English textbook. Those are all the kinds of things that would be screened through
092the Curriculum Advisory Council. SBSD Helpdesk: Great, thank you. SBSD Helpdesk: So, those are the… those are the committees. A few other things. Really, really exciting. Congratulations to our boys' golf team. They won the state championship yesterday. Congratulations. SBSD Helpdesk: It's really outstanding. I just want to say, I've been the superintendent for 25 days, and we have a state championship already, so… That's good. Not bad. Yeah, you're getting your money's worth. I have nothing to do with it. That's gonna be great. SBSD Helpdesk: It is Principal Appreciation Month, October is, and we have 10 outstanding principals and assistant principals here at South Burlington. I don't think people really appreciate the amount of time that goes into their work and the amount of stress, but also the level of empathy and care that they lead with. They
093really are focused on increasing educational opportunities for our kids, and SBSD Helpdesk: caring for the staff who work in the building. So I'm really, really grateful for our principals, and I wish them all. Happy National Principals Month. I can't give them a day off, but I'm gonna tell them thank you. So are we doing anything for our principals? Is there… are we having people volunteer and bring in chickens, or baked goods, or how could we reach out to people to recognize our principals? SBSD Helpdesk: Well, I don't… Do I hear volunteers to do the principal, SBSD Helpdesk: Honestly, I don't know of anything that's going on. They are absolutely appreciative of anything that we do, and I think they would be more than grateful if anybody in the community wanted to SBSD Helpdesk: you know,
094to stop by, shave their hand, or bring them a donut. I know in the past, PTO, at least at the elementary schools, has always done something, so I wonder if they're… I know teacher, I mean, I'm new here in my past. SBSD Helpdesk: Teacher Appreciation Monthly, was always really well attended by the PTO principals. Not necessarily always so. SBSD Helpdesk: Pretty good to know. Yeah. So, for anybody listening, it is National Principles Month. The whole month. They do get a whole month. They do get a… SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. Okay. And, yeah, it's a long… the great big full moon, too. There's 10? We have 10 principals and a sister. We have 5 principals and a 5 assistants. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay, so, I did meet with, Sophia Babbitt, she's the new Executive Director of the South
095Burlington City Center Collaborative, and they are, you know, her job is to find ways to make the new downtown area vibrant, and SBSD Helpdesk: We've talked about ways that schools might be involved in that. What kind of resources? SBSD Helpdesk: I think that schools too often ask the community, what can you do for us? If we don't say enough, what can we do for the community? So I talked to her about, you know, the possibility we have with music performances, or art, or whatever it might be that we could help with the downtown. You're… I am going to have an item in this week's board update, because they do have memberships, and you can buy an individual membership for $50, or an organizational membership for $100. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know how things work necessarily
096up here, but it wouldn't be uncommon, where I've come from, that a school district would buy an institutional membership so you can get in on their news and be part of their meetings and those kinds of things. And typically, the superintendent would SBSD Helpdesk: attend those kind of things on behalf of the school board. So, be thinking about that, whether you think it'd be more appropriate for me to join as an individual or the district to join. Again, it's a difference between $50 and $100. SBSD Helpdesk: We had a, I was invited to the South Burlington City Council on Monday, because of, you know, the recent safety concerns there with needles at, SBSD Helpdesk: Marcotte, and I just want to say again what a great relationship we have with the city and the police department.
097I was also there for Chief Rose. SBSD Helpdesk: Swearing in, so that was really nice. And they've just been really… SBSD Helpdesk: really helpful. I know we have families that are frustrated because this has been going on for some time, and I think the folks that spoke at the meeting had some really good ideas about how we might even make the SBSD Helpdesk: area safer in terms of some… maybe some legislation that the council might need to pass, and I know that they're considering it seriously, and I know that they are as concerned about SBSD Helpdesk: student safety as we are. On any given day, there are more, South Burlington citizens in our schools than in any other place, right? So they're not just… they're not just our students, they are their citizens, and I
098know that they care deeply for them. So I thank them for their partnership. SBSD Helpdesk: Our own Monica DeRochers here, is, a finalist for the Athena Young Professionals Award, so we want to congratulate her. SBSD Helpdesk: And finally, this listening tour, I've been going on, my 3Q meetings, my 3 question meetings, those have kicked off. I had 4 of them so far, 3 yesterday, 1 today. SBSD Helpdesk: at this point, there's probably 12 that are scheduled. My goal is to have 40 to 50 between now and Thanksgiving, and I have a lot of stuff in the works, and it's great. And Jennifer asked, is there a chance that the board can come to those? And the answer to that is yes. So what I will do is I'll put together, as the calendar gets filled
099up, I will share with the board SBSD Helpdesk: when and where I'm meeting, if you would just like to come and sit and just hear what people are saying. And if you're part of the group, you're welcome to participate. Also, you can be a fly on the wall and just listen to the feedback that we're getting. But you should expect, whether you come to those meetings or not, I will absolutely keep you informed, as we move along about the feedback that I'm getting, so you can really get a sense of how many people have participated and what are the things that they're saying. SBSD Helpdesk: Because eventually, we want to take this as part of, SBSD Helpdesk: As one element of data for a new strategic plan. SBSD Helpdesk: Awesome. SBSD Helpdesk: So, it's been
100a busy, busy week. That's great. Well, that's great. If you can create that calendar when you get it all together with all the dates and share it, and then, if people have the opportunity to weigh in, because I know we've got to be careful to avoid quorum, so, you know, I don't think we're going to have SBSD Helpdesk: more people necessarily showing up, either. Yeah, and I'll probably do it as a Google Sheet, and I'll share it with you, and I'll just keep updating as… SBSD Helpdesk: I'll only put the ones that are confirmed there, the location and the place of the organization, and as I confirm more, I'll just keep uploading it. Yeah, and maybe if we want to make it to one, we could let you know, and then you could add our
101names to that day, so we know who's there, yeah. And I think you had the right to be on the show name. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, I don't know what I'll have that. SBSD Helpdesk: Right? That's my understanding. SBSD Helpdesk: They're really a good… people are very, very thoughtful, and I can tell you, after 4 meetings, people love their schools, and people realize, like any school, we have work to do, and that's exciting. SBSD Helpdesk: But the first step is the bottom of the… I make 3… there are three rounds when I go, and I tell them, first of all, I want you to be, SBSD Helpdesk: Well, first of all, I'm not going to solve any problems today, right? I will not solve problems, but I need to hear about the problems before we even
102solve anything. Second, I ask the people to be as candid as they possibly can. We can only get better if we really know what the meat of the issue is. And then third, I ask them. SBSD Helpdesk: No names, please. If there are any personal vendettas, please reach out to me individually, but this is not a meeting to, yeah, to talk about personal experiences you've had with people. It's an overall general kind of thing, so people are really respectful, they're very thoughtful, but I'm grateful, to them. SBSD Helpdesk: It's fantastic. SBSD Helpdesk: And that's my report. Great. SBSD Helpdesk: Do you have questions or comments? SBSD Helpdesk: Come through. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 9a] Okay, moving on to agenda planning for our next meeting, which is, next Wednesday, October 15th, and I just want to
103state that I think typically our meeting schedule is the first and the third Wednesday of the month. SBSD Helpdesk: My understanding is the meeting last week was considered a special meeting because we wanted to start talking about the budget, but the reason that was not a regular scheduled meeting was also… was because it was younger, and I think that the special meeting got called in towards the end there in order to start talking about the budget. SBSD Helpdesk: And so we will have… so this… so we want two meetings every month. That's this… SBSD Helpdesk: tonight, and then we will have them on the 15th, and then beginning again in November, we'll get back onto our regular schedule with quite so many special meetings, because we have definitely heard the community, and the board is
104saying the same thing, like, we've got to limit that. SBSD Helpdesk: And actually, that's also, like, out of… SBSD Helpdesk: Respect for our staff, too. Yes. It's a lot to ask people waiting since 7 o'clock to still be here 12 hours later, so… SBSD Helpdesk: So we think in regards to agenda planning, we… we floated around an idea of a potential new template. SBSD Helpdesk: for planning our agenda and… or for the agenda, that breaks out more specifically where public can provide comment and… and just a slightly different layout. And I know, Dr. Joe, you're talking with, admin about that right now, as to whether or not that may be SBSD Helpdesk: used, or if that would be something that may potentially come out next week, I don't know. Yeah, I've shared it with administrators,
105haven't gotten a lot of feedback, and I think generally that's a good sign, right? If they didn't like it, they'd say, no, no, no, no. But I think it's clean, and I think it makes sense, so… Okay. SBSD Helpdesk: Folks, you may be seeing that beginning as soon as next week. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright, so for the agenda on the 15th, we will have student report, a superintendent report, we will have the superintendent search update, a project management update, a consent agenda, those are kind of the big topics. SBSD Helpdesk: And then, for parking lot items, some of the things that I've captured is when we are going to have our retreat. SBSD Helpdesk: I… I just needed confirmation for when that's happening. I think the next… SBSD Helpdesk: community forum that we're planning to do
106is Wednesday, December the 3rd, I think is our community forum. SBSD Helpdesk: But I… and I think Seamus had sent out a, SBSD Helpdesk: Whatever that thing's called. The doodle. The doodle, for our retreat, and I don't recall when exactly if we have any confirmation on that. No confirmation. Okay, so… SBSD Helpdesk: unless it's on a weekend, I can't go. Yeah, I think we were looking at a Saturday, okay, yeah. Then I think, Emily, you needed it on a weekend also. So those are… so for the parking lot items is confirmation on when we will have our retreat. SBSD Helpdesk: confirmation on the community forum, which again, I think is December 3rd, but I think it's nice to have that out there so people will have it on their mind. SBSD Helpdesk: We're looking to
107move the Pledge of Allegiance to an action item on the agenda next week. I think we should also, consider adding the student representative vote as an action item on the agenda next week. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 9b Future Agenda Items/Parking Lot] And then add to the agenda in early November, so this is definitely a parking lot, the discussion of the four budget options. SBSD Helpdesk: And then, I would also suggest, unless there's a reason otherwise, that we remove the executive session from next week's meeting, unless people are aware of something that's coming up. SBSD Helpdesk: As we were tonight. SBSD Helpdesk: As long as, you know, I guess I had anticipated something that did not happen today in Executive Session, in terms of an update. That would be the only reason, if there was any
108kind of update. Okay. But other than that, I am 100% in favor of… I would agree. And we can move that to another day, it doesn't have to be. Yeah, it doesn't happen. That update could be better. Because I don't know when any of those things are happening, so… SBSD Helpdesk: But that would be… that would be the recommendation at this time, unless we hear something that would… Yeah, I know nothing right now. SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, why don't you get rid of it for now? Yeah. And then we could put it on if we need it. If we need it. SBSD Helpdesk: Alright. SBSD Helpdesk: I don't know who's giving that. I mean, I've got all the notes, I'm happy to start putting that together, but I think Seamus will be back, so… Yeah, I
109think typically Delina, has a draft, and Seamus adds to that, and then I kind of review it. Okay. Okay. And we'll just get all these comments there. Sounds good. SBSD Helpdesk: All right, any other topics for agenda planning that needs to be brought up? Michelle Boyer: I would like to just… hmm… Michelle Boyer: inter… well, not introduce, I want to build off of, what Dr. Clark shared. I did also attend the Michelle Boyer: presentation and discussion about safety with the City Council this week. And, one thing that occurred to me, and that I have absolutely no answer to is, a question. Is there something… so the, the, the prevailing comment Michelle Boyer: and request of the City Council, which they could not address there, was, can we… Michelle Boyer: Consider, develop, and pass a city
110ordinance Michelle Boyer: that, you know, and they use very specific terms. Within 500 feet, around, school play areas, so on and so forth, these activities are not permitted, and that actually then gives, you know, the opportunity to actually act on removing people from that area, or removing that activity from that area. We all know what we're talking about. Michelle Boyer: I don't know that… there's probably not anything specific we can do, and I'm not… I'm not remotely interested in virtue signaling, right? Like, spending a whole lot of time talking about, oh, we support, and we're in favor of, but is there anything practical that we can do Michelle Boyer: to be a part of that conversation and advocate for assuming… not even assuming, like, do we make it a discussion item? Is the board in
111favor of advocating for… how do we advocate for, if we are in favor as a board, of… Michelle Boyer: any particular ordinance or aspects of ordinances that we would want input into. So it's a really general thing, but it seems to me that there could be an opportunity. Maybe not. I don't know the details of how school board and city work together on something like this, if at all. Michelle Boyer: But I wanted to throw that out there as a possible, maybe, discussion topic, or something that somebody follows up on. SBSD Helpdesk: I think, well, I think Dr. Joe said, like, you've got… this is really great, because this has not been my experience up to this point. There's a really positive relationship with you and the City Council, so Michelle's point is a big
112one, but… Michelle reminded me of two things. Actually, if I could say those. One is… SBSD Helpdesk: we are doing something very specific. I have… I've already written in this week's board update, I forgot to mention it today. SBSD Helpdesk: The, police, contacted me today to say… to ask if I gave them permission to trespass any loiterers who they caught there, so that there could be, SBSD Helpdesk: sanctions if they were to return, and I gave them that authority to trespass anybody who's on our school property doing various things. So that will start immediately. The second thing is, I have a, SBSD Helpdesk: lists of McDonald's. SBSD Helpdesk: is giving me and Jesse Baker and Newton Police Chief Pro, we're gonna take, like, a two-hour walk around the entire city center and school tomorrow to
113not just talk about the needles and things, but also, dangerous crosswalks for kids, and all of those sorts of things. San Francisco is important, yeah. Yep, so, but we have that planned tomorrow, 3.30. SBSD Helpdesk: taking a long jaunt around town to figure out what else can we do to keep our kids safe. We never, you know, we're making these steps with the needles because a kid got poked. Yeah. We do not want to wait for a student to get hit by a car for us to take steps, so we're going to be proactive with that, too. SBSD Helpdesk: I know this is out of our jurisdiction, but there already are federal laws about drug sales within 1,000 field of schools. SBSD Helpdesk: Sure. So… I was wondering about that, like, drug-free school zones. I
114feel like I've seen those signs before, and so I didn't know. Unless the law is changing, yeah, drug sales have been a thousand things for drug sales, but from what I understand, here's what I'm saying now, Laura, from experience, nobody… SBSD Helpdesk: gathers in one spot, bringing all their own stuff, and doing it there. SBSD Helpdesk: there are sales going on. Yeah, right. SBSD Helpdesk: Okay. Interesting. So… But could it be extended, could be extended to usage? And, you know… Yeah, at that point, yeah, he's asking. Yeah, so that would be a city… Yeah. Or maybe, you know, the state… SBSD Helpdesk: Yeah, this law goes into effect about it. SBSD Helpdesk: Drug use, sales, whatever, within a certain distance of the school. SBSD Helpdesk: Well, I think… I think a good crisis is a
115bad thing to waste, right? We have… we have momentum now because of a horrible thing that happened, and I think we need to continue pressure on legislators who can help us get things done, in addition to whatever we can do as a school. SBSD Helpdesk: So, circling back for the agenda planning, is there anything specific that we should add to the agenda to further explore this? SBSD Helpdesk: Because that's how… Well, it seems like it's… you're on your walking tour tomorrow, so maybe you can just give an update on that. Yeah, I can give an update. As part of the superintendent, okay. I'll keep you posted if I need you to make some calls. SBSD Helpdesk: All right. If anything else, gentlemen, topics? SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 10 Consent Agenda}] All right, next item is
116our consent agenda, which includes approval of prior meeting minutes from September 3rd, 9th, 10th, and 17th, 2025. SBSD Helpdesk: Also the approval of 12 accounts payable vouchers, and the approval of the hiring report for, Becky Fontana, Danielle Gomes, and Lee Juan Markel. SBSD Helpdesk: Are there any items a board member would like to remove from the consent agenda for separate discussion or action? SBSD Helpdesk: All right. Hearing none, I will enter a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented. [Motion} *Laura Williams: I approve to accept the consent agenda as presented. All right. SBSD Helpdesk: [Second} *Austin Smith: Second, Second. SBSD Helpdesk: Austin? SBSD Helpdesk: I think so. SBSD Helpdesk: Laura accepted, seconded by Austin, and all those in favor, please say aye. Discussion. Oh, I'm sorry. You're doing a great job. Oh, yeah, I
117got that part. [Discussion] Are there… is there any discussion? Is there any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: No. Discussion? No? Okay. [No Discussion Heard] [Vote] All those in favor? SBSD Helpdesk: Aye, bye. Michelle Boyer: Bye. SBSD Helpdesk: Any opposition? SBSD Helpdesk: No. Okay, this motion carries. [Voting Result] Consent agenda is approved. Welcome to the South Mills State School District, to our new fires, Mississa Montana, Ms. SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 10b Consent Agenda Action Item] Okay, now also there is an action item that I understand requires separate approval, and that's payments to the Howard Center in the amounts of $143,914.95. SBSD Helpdesk: And $57,809.11, as these exceed superintendent's signing authority for tuition. SBSD Helpdesk: Or contract services, so we're going to take that out separately. SBSD Helpdesk: So, I will now entertain a motion to approve the accounts
118payable order checks to the Howard Center in the amounts of $143,914.95 and 5780911. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion] *Laura Williams: I move to accept for Howard. SBSD Helpdesk: So, sign up. SBSD Helpdesk: [Second] *Emilee Hoffman: Second. SBSD Helpdesk: A survivors. SBSD Helpdesk: Approved by Laura, seconded by Emily. Any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: Yep. [No Discussion Heard} SBSD Helpdesk: [Vote} All right, all those in favor? SBSD Helpdesk: Aye. Any opposition? SBSD Helpdesk: Oh, sorry, Laura, Michelle, that was odd. Michelle Boyer: Bye, yep. SBSD Helpdesk: [Voting Results] Okay, motion carries, consent agenda is approved. SBSD Helpdesk: Right. Any further discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: [Agenda Item 11 Adjournment] Okay, there being no further business, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. SBSD Helpdesk: [Motion] *Laura Williams: moves to adjourn. And who is, who is next? Who's second? [Second] *Daniel Boyer Seconds: All
119right All those in favor? [Discussion] Oh, any discussion? SBSD Helpdesk: [Vote] All those in favor? SBSD Helpdesk: Aye. Any opposition? SBSD Helpdesk: [Voting Results] Great, the motion carries. The meeting is adjourned at 7.35. Thank you to everyone. SBSD Helpdesk: And our next regularly scheduled meeting will be on Wednesday, October 15th at 6 p.m. here in the district office. Meeting materials and agendas will be available on the District website. SBSD Helpdesk: Beautiful.