December 13, 2025 - School Board Retreat

001Owl Cam: I'd like to call to order… Owl Cam: the special meeting of the South Burlington School Board on December 13th. Owl Cam: 2025. Owl Cam: we… will… hello. We will start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Owl Cam: Give me a second. Owl Cam: Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Owl Cam: for us. Owl Cam: The next thing is announcements. Does anybody have any announcements? Owl Cam: I hope that my computer's rebooting, so I'll join you soon. Okay. And then the next item is reviewing and accepting the agenda. So, on the agenda today, we're going to start with comments from the public. Owl Cam: And then we have a training with

002the Vermont School Boards Association. Owl Cam: Debbie… can you pronounce that last name? Singhizer. Debbie Singhizer will be training us on, policy governance and other governance things, and then we're gonna adjourn. Are there any comments about the agenda? Owl Cam: Great. Then… We'll move on to the next section, which is comments from the public. Owl Cam: There are 3 opportunities for the public to comment. Owl Cam: During this section, About any topic, even if it is not warned on the agenda. Owl Cam: Also, before the board takes action on any action item, but only on the topic being actioned. Owl Cam: And finally, during a community forum, but only on warned topics, and this is not a community forum. Owl Cam: So the board will not respond to public comments unless the meeting is a

003specially designated community forum, and the comment is a topic warned on the agenda. Owl Cam: You will be given approximately 3 minutes to comment. Please do not violate anyone's privacy, and an official complaint or agreements cannot be filed during public comment. Owl Cam: So, do we have any public comment? Owl Cam: Nope. Owl Cam: Somebody in here now. Owl Cam: Alright. Owl Cam: That's Joe. Are many fans who didn't make time this morning? Owl Cam: All right, seeing no comments from the public, we will now move on to policy governance training and discussion. Owl Cam: So, welcome, Debbie. Thank you! Thank you very much. Owl Cam: I am sharing my screen behind you, Seamus, so you can… I don't know if you want to… Owl Cam: Do you want to turn around? I mean, or

004do you want to sit at the ends? Sure, yeah, I'll do that. And maybe before you get started… Sure. Joe, could you just kind of tell us a little bit about, Owl Cam: Why we are… why you thought it was a good idea for us to have a board retreat. Owl Cam: Yes, I can. So, I've… in my 15 years of being a superintendent, I've, had many, many opportunities with different boards to have board retreats often. Owl Cam: moderated by the state's school board association. It's a very common thing because the work of a board and the executive team is so important that we need to make sure that we have, really, an understanding of how we work well together, how we want to communicate. Owl Cam: just all sorts… those sorts of things. So,

005when you hear the word retreat, it's not like we're going out and playing golf and singing Kumbaya. It's really a discussion about how are we going to set the… Owl Cam: You know, kind of the ground rules for how we're going to interact with each other, and, you know, what kind of communication flow will we have. Owl Cam: I think when boards do that, with the executive team, that things run really smoothly, and knowing that this board is… and most of you have been on the board with less than Owl Cam: 6 months or so. This is something that I would typically do every year with a board, even if they've been on for years, and I think as you mature, the topics change, but I think it's always a good thing when you have

006a new superintendent and a new board to get this done as quickly as possible. Owl Cam: And do you have anything that… how will you know that we've succeeded today? Owl Cam: I will know that we've succeeded. That's a great question. Yeah. By, by the, Owl Cam: functioning of a board in a regular meeting. We will have… the board will have good discussion, good debate, but still treat each other in a respectful manner. Communication lines will be followed so that there are no surprises, so that, Owl Cam: We work through the chain of command if there are issues, of minutiae that need to be handled, just, just in practice. Owl Cam: You can tell when it's… when a board is working well, because, Owl Cam: just… things just go more smoothly, and that's really a

007horrible answer, I think, but that's my best… best shot at it. And is there any board comment about what they're hoping to give out of this, and what Owl Cam: In particular, you might want to get answered. Owl Cam: I would just say reinforce things that hopefully we know, or, you know, have an opportunity to ask questions, and have some examples for application would be really good. Owl Cam: And I would say, Joe, just… I think what you… what I got from what you said is that when we know more about what we're doing. Owl Cam: It's almost like, actually, there's less to notice. Owl Cam: So I feel like it's more noticeable when we… we were just kind of figuring things out, and that's when we were trying to, like, oh, little bumps along

008the way. So, like, I feel like my idea of us running smoothly is that Owl Cam: we don't really notice when things, because it definitely is working right, or smoothly. So that's what I'm looking for. Thank you for that. And I think I've also heard it said that, superintendents don't believe Owl Cam: districts, they lead boards, right? I think that a good superintendent-board relationship will cause continuity, which is good for the district. Owl Cam: Yeah, and we'll get into that, some of those highly effective, boards, and what do those look like, and what are some of the traits of those boards, and everything you've said is totally relevant to… to that, so… Owl Cam: I'm glad nobody said anything that I wasn't prepared to talk about. You've asked me to talk about meteorology or something,

009I would say, well, I think we're done. But no, this is… this is really helpful. And I will get into… I'll get a little bit more, concrete about our goals for today in a couple slides, so that we can Owl Cam: So, to answer your question, Seamus, how will we know if we're succeeding? What I like to do is set some goals at the beginning. Owl Cam: And then, it's kind of like that backward design in education, right? Like, where do we want to be at the end of our time together today? Owl Cam: And, and then design what we do to help us get there. And then how will we know if we get there? Well, that's really up to you guys to decide if we… if we feel like, how we did, and

010whether Owl Cam: And chances are, you do need more. Every board needs more learning. That's… it's a continual Owl Cam: process that never ends. So, thank you for having me. Thank you for coming on a Saturday. That was really great. I'm not used to getting up so early on a Saturday morning and driving one hour and 45 minutes and… and… Owl Cam: true honesty, I actually forgot my laptop this morning because I was so unused to this routine. So, thankfully, Austin had an extra one, and… and… Owl Cam: And Nick helped me set everything up, so I'm grateful to these guys for not making me look foolish. Thank you for making the trip. Oh, you're welcome. I love doing retreats. I love working with boards. I mean, that segues perfectly into my first slide. I

011want to tell you a little bit about who I am. Owl Cam: I know some of you… well, I know Laura, actually, funny story, Laura and I went to high school together. Owl Cam: We didn't even know that. Like, for 2 years, we've been working together, and you know, Laura Williams is a very common name, so… but then I was like, Laura, you played on the varsity tennis team at Rutland High School. She goes, we did! So, so funny. So she may know more about me than the rest of you, but she's not here, so, Owl Cam: So, I have worked in training or education pretty much my whole career in different capacities, both here in the United States, but also around the world. Owl Cam: I am a school board member currently. I've been

012a school board member on and off for about 10 years, I'd say, maybe a little bit more. My first, toe-dipping experience was in an international school in Kathmandu, Nepal. Owl Cam: which is when I first ran for a school board, which is very different from what we have here in Vermont or anywhere in the United States. Owl Cam: But I loved it. I loved the challenges. So when I came back to the United States with my family, we moved back to my home, like, not my hometown, but the town next to, where I grew up, and my kids started at Barstow, which is a K-8 school. Owl Cam: I decided to run for school board. And, so the Barstow Unified Union School District is in a SU, a supervisory Union, so different from you all.

013We are in a side-by-side with Otter Valley, Union High School Unified Union School District, so together we make up Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union. Owl Cam: I have, I have something in common with the South Burlingtons, Owl Cam: board, as you know, I know Emily knows this, and Jennifer and Joe, knows this, and I don't know if Michelle or Seamus, you guys know this, but we… I was on the board, and I was even chair of the Barstow board when we decided to adopt policy governance back in 2018. And I was so fortunate because at the time, John and Miriam Carver, John's now deceased, but, he had retired, his wife Owl Cam: Miriam was still doing some training, and I got to get trained by her down in Atlanta, and, with some of my board members

014and my superintendent. Owl Cam: And it was… Owl Cam: it was great. It was, like, it was the whole reason we decided, yes, we want to do policy governance, so we came back and adopted policy governance. It doesn't happen overnight, it takes a while. But I have to say, working with it, I was… Owl Cam: very enthusiastic about it, but I don't think I understood the value of it until the pandemic hit. Owl Cam: And once we had to navigate through that challenging time as a school board, and I saw the merits of it in terms of really understanding what our roles and responsibilities are as a board, and what the superintendent Owl Cam: Needs from us to navigate that crazy, crazy time. Owl Cam: that's when I really said policy governance is really something

015I truly believe in now. I felt like that was the test. So, I'm really happy you guys, Owl Cam: are using it, I, I applaud you, and I especially applaud you recommitting to it, because I know it hasn't been easy, and there's been some backward sliding, and that happens a lot. In fact, I got off the board Owl Cam: in 21, and I got back on, 3 years later because I saw the sliding happening at my own board, and so I'm trying to get it back on solid ground. Owl Cam: And I think we're getting there again. So it's not… it's a process, it just never ends. Owl Cam: What do you mean by sliding? Owl Cam: Like. Owl Cam: nobody had their policy manual on their desk, like, during a board meeting, so nobody

016ever referred to a policy. I mean, these are the policies that tell us what we should be doing as a board, what the superintendent should be doing as a board, and nobody even, like, knew what these policies were. Owl Cam: just, you know, a lot of things that, just, I felt like it was interesting. I mean, I'm kind of going off on a rabbit hole here, but I, Owl Cam: I needed a little extra income at the time, so I said, I'd love to be the board secretary for a whole $150. But… and I went back, and in all honesty, I was just looking for a little bit of money, and I was like, this… Owl Cam: board has slipped… has slipped a bit, and… and it's no fault of anybody, except the… it was

017really because we had had Owl Cam: two superintendents, or maybe one at that point, and, the board had turned over, like, to the point where I think there was only one person that was still there that Owl Cam: had served when I was there. So, it just… it's the turning over of board members and superintendents that makes the system, Owl Cam: sometimes… Owl Cam: It's… it makes the… the system has to be really strong, and that's why the continual learning is very important, because you… Owl Cam: you need… you need to do it every single… every year. In fact, we do it at every board meeting. We do practice scenarios at every board meeting. I don't want to get into policy governance too much today, because that's not why I'm here. We're definitely going to

018talk about it, and we'll refer to it a lot. Owl Cam: But again, in all transparency, I'm not a certified policy governance trainer. I haven't been certified to train. We have people in the world that do do that. Owl Cam: And, and so what I would like to do today… well, and we'll get to the goals here, but we will refer to the policy governance a bit, and, I'm always happy to talk about my experience with policy governance. Owl Cam: But there are more people… there are other people out there that are more qualified to teach it than I am, if that makes sense. We're gonna really focus bigger… bigger picture. Owl Cam: Alright, so that's enough about me. I hate talking about myself, so I want to know more about you guys in the

019room. Really simple. Owl Cam: would love to know, I know, I know you by name already, but how long have you been on this board? I'm curious, I think it's a very new board, except for Laura. And what do you do Owl Cam: When you're not here, like, when you're not serving as a school board member, are you… Owl Cam: I mean, you can tell… tell the group about your job, maybe they don't even know what you do outside the boardroom, or is it a hobby? You know, something… just something that you do when you're not a school board member. And then, what is something that you could teach us to do or learn? Owl Cam: And that could be anything. Again. Owl Cam: You know, I would use myself as an example. Owl Cam:

020when I'm not serving as a school board member, I work at the Vermont School Boards Association. Owl Cam: training school boards, I could teach you all how to cultivate dahlias, and how to store your dahlias tubers in the wintertime, and then how to use them year after year after year. I think I have 400 tubers at this point. I have so many, so that's something I can teach you. Owl Cam: I'm looking at you, Emily, but you don't have to go first. Hmm, I can't… I'll, sure. Owl Cam: I'm Emily Hoffman. I've been on the board since March 5th, 2025, so not quite a year, yeah. Owl Cam: When I'm not here, I am a… I'm a procurement specialist at 20 Graph Skincare, which is a remanufacturing. Owl Cam: company in Winooski, which is a

021new position for me. I'd previously been at the Owl Cam: hospital, working there for 10 years, so this is a brand new thing, which has been wonderful, but also has taken my attention away from many other things, because I'm just focused on this new role. So I'm excited to be here and kind of get reconnected with the school board. And… Owl Cam: One thing I could teach you, is maybe some yoga. I have a daily yoga practice that is, like, keeps me alive, and… Owl Cam: moving and taking, so that's what I would love to teach you guys, if you ever want to learn. Thank you, that'd be great. Owl Cam: Austin? So, I'm Austin, I'm the most junior member on the board. I joined in late August, early September. Okay. Owl Cam: What do

022I do when I'm not sitting on board? I'm an entrepreneur, so I run a web publishing company and do some real estate investing on the side, and what I could teach is, Owl Cam: skiing, backcountry skiing, and going out there in nature, and having fun woods. Great, thank you. Owl Cam: Dan Boyer, I am, I mean… Owl Cam: When I'm not here, the Executive Director at the Chipton Children's Advocacy Center. Owl Cam: Before that, I was a detective there, retired last year. Owl Cam: In the summer, I like, hanging out by my pools, and in the winter skiing. Owl Cam: I don't know if I can teach anybody. How to chill by the pool. That's, that's easy. How to do detective work. How to do detective work, yes. Yeah, actually, that is something I'm sure

023you could teach us. Owl Cam: Very valuable, too. Owl Cam: Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Owl Cam: Joe? I'm not on the board. I'm Joe. I have been a superintendent here for 3 months and a day. Yesterday. Wow. It was a 3-month anniversary. I've been a superintendent 15 years, though, in a variety of districts in Ohio. Owl Cam: I… Owl Cam: If I could teach you one thing, in addition to being a DJ, I was a camp director for 10 years, so I could teach you dozens and dozens of camp songs and games to entertain 115 kids at one time. Owl Cam: Amazing. Owl Cam: Hi, I'm Jen Lawrence, and one question? Length of service on the board? I have been on the Lawrence since also May… March the 5th, so… Owl Cam: Slide 9

024months, just about, a little over. What do I do when I'm not serving as a school board member? Well, I am a… an environmental hydrogeologist. I deal with groundwater contamination and remediation. Owl Cam: And, Owl Cam: right now, studying different research and development techniques for mitigating chloride in soil and groundwater, which is really interesting. It's a big problem. Let's see… I also… this year has been exciting. I've done a lot of volunteer work, so in addition to being on the school board, I took a Master Gardener class, and I would love to plant dahlias. I have not done that yet, but I… Owl Cam: did Master Gardening, and now I'm on the, board for the Friends of the Hort Farm. Owl Cam: The Morn Farm, and I'm also very involved in scouting, and I'm on

025the board for the Green Mountain Council Scouts. Owl Cam: So, trying to get scouts more visible against those and that kind of Owl Cam: And something that I could teach you that, actually, I could teach you how to make sourdough. So I run sourdough, had to deal with picking up and transporting 4 kids today, they're annoying and coming from college. I've got 4 kids. Owl Cam: Or 3 in college. Anyway, I learned how to make sourdough last year, and I love it, so this is hot, and I'm gonna stick it back there and run some butter. Owl Cam: I learned so bad. Owl Cam: We're done. Anybody who wants to make them. Do you have a sourdough starter? Oh, yeah. And the starter, actually, real quick thing, is a good friend of ours who's a

026Scoutmaster in Texas, who moved to Vermont. Owl Cam: He came up a couple of years ago, snowy weekend, and he brought his starter, which is from his family's Jewish bakery in New York. It's over 100 years old. Oh, wow. So I've been giving starter to people. I teach you how to make it, and then send you on your way, but it is amazing. Owl Cam: Happy to… Hello, Jeff, thank you for explaining that. That's so cool! Owl Cam: My name is Allie. I've been on the board as a student since May of 2024. Owl Cam: I wanna say. Okay. You're the veteran one here. Yes, me and Laura. Wow. Yes. When I'm not at board meetings, I go to school, obviously, at the high school. I'm playing volleyball, working at Bread and Butter Farm and

027the cafe that's on there. So, the thing I could probably teach you all to do is make a really good cup of espresso. Owl Cam: I'm really good at latte art, too, so I can teach you guys latte art. Yeah, that's very cool. Owl Cam: I'm Omen. I've been on the board since June or July. Owl Cam: When I'm not… doing stuff with the board, I… Owl Cam: spent a lot of time interacting with the science community in Vermont. I've been doing research at UVM, taking up a lot of time. And one thing I could teach is a little soccer. I play a lot of soccer. Good. Owl Cam: I'm Michelle Boyer, I've, with Austin, been on the board since the middle of August. When I'm not serving as a school board member, I… my

028area is educational research, measurement, and accountability, and I work for Owl Cam: a testing company based out of Minnesota. I've spent the better part of the last 3 years primarily focused on the development of an early literacy screener, screening for reading difficulties and dyslexia. Owl Cam: Among other things, I work very often with, state Owl Cam: departments of ed, and a growing number of districts, because that assessment is connected to an interim assessment, so we work a lot with, Owl Cam: with districts. Owl Cam: One thing I could teach… I could teach a 5-year-old how to ski. I coach on the weekends, the 5-year-old's at Smuggler's Nuts Ski Club. Owl Cam: have a ball. Started last year, and I don't know how I haven't been doing that my whole life, it's so fun. Oh, that's

029great. That is wonderful. Owl Cam: Do they still teach pizza? We tell no pizza. No pizza. No pizza. No, that's one of the primary things we work with them on, is to get their parallel turns. As quickly as possible. As quickly as possible, right. Do you teach a 45-year-old? Owl Cam: The difference, the only difference is the fear factor. The 45-year-olds are terrified to learn how to ski, and the 5-year-olds are made out of rubber. Yeah. If you bring a 55-year-old pizza? Owl Cam: So I'll join the pizza argument. Owl Cam: Spring as well. That'll keep you young, huh? Telling you. They're awesome. Owl Cam: Thank you, Seamus. I'm Seamus Absher. I've been on the boards with this recent crop since March. Owl Cam: When I'm not on the board, I'm a founder at a

030tech company here in Burlington called Faraday. Owl Cam: And so, I actually spent a lot of time writing software. Owl Cam: And I'll mention one thing I also do, because it's connected to five years, I started coaching my daughter's soccer team, and I feel the same way. It's like, why have not… it's like, it's the best thing ever. And one thing I can teach you is how to take… Owl Cam: documents, audio files, Meeting minutes, contracts, and, scan them, OCR them, Summarize them, search them. Owl Cam: all that stuff, which has been relevant. And organizing our whole digital lives, it sounds like. That'd be great. Owl Cam: That'd be very helpful. We might hire you at the VSBA, that would be great. Thank you. Owl Cam: Do you guys want to take a break and

031eat some of Jen's bread? Owl Cam: But while it's warm, I know. Grab it and bring it back. Yeah, grab it and bring it back, and then we can keep going. But yeah, when he says warm sourdough, oh my gosh. Owl Cam: With butter. What's that, Dan? Yeah, I know. I love bread. Owl Cam: I just learned, wonderful. Owl Cam: Don't you ever do anything like this before? Did you know this about your board members? Like, what they do for jobs and stuff? I don't think we had done it. Owl Cam: All together. Like, I had to pick up on things with individual conversations, but it's very nice. I love knowing what people think. Me too, I feel like that princess will all demise, too. Owl Cam: Here's the thing, college, I would… my college

032degree is anthropology, so I'm all about acceleration. It's important, because we are so much more than who we are in this room, during this period. Owl Cam: Seamus, tell me about Faraday. No, you're the CTO, the founder. Owl Cam: We basically will take a company's customers. Owl Cam: And sometimes also their leads or their prospects, and we will enrich them with, like, household income, age. Owl Cam: shopping style, marital status. So, like, we're a data bro… we're a registered data broker. Right. But then, in addition to that. Owl Cam: we also fill predictive models. So, they'll be like, well, here are my customers… they'll have, like, a CSV of their customers, and a CSV of their leads. Owl Cam: And we'll build a lead score on those. And then we can either deliver the lead

033score straight into their CRM, Owl Cam: and or we can reveal a real-time API that, as the leads come in, we'll score them immediately, and that'll use, like… Owl Cam: all the demographic data that we have, so we have 1,500 attributes of all U.S. adults. Owl Cam: And then they can also bring their own, like, you know, channel, source, whatever, and so we'll mix it all into the same model. What, what are some examples of companies you've worked with, like. Owl Cam: I know. Totally understand that. Owl Cam: Just curious what industries you specialize in, or if there's… if it's agnostic. So, like, Owl Cam: it's basically home services, insurance, financial. So, like, AIG is a client, Owl Cam: a lot of, like, Fool & Branch, which makes, like, so, like, e-commerce. Goryana is, like,

034a jewelry company, Owl Cam: And… but our… my favorite part of the business is… Owl Cam: Thank you. When, instead of serving brands. Owl Cam: We serve software companies, so we're like the predictive engine inside of, like, Korg Commerce, EverCommerce, WeCommerce, Owl Cam: like, the top mortgage CRM, the top… Owl Cam: field service management for, like, door-to-door canvassing. Like, we're like the… they sell AI features, and they're just reselling us. Right. And that's the best business to be in. Owl Cam: Very cool. Owl Cam: And recently, you know, we started in, like, traditional machine learning, and now there's this whole GenAI thing, and so it's been a humongous learning and total change of the world, because Owl Cam: We're all learning, and it's… so it's been, like, you know, learning how to, like. Owl Cam:

035you know, used Notebook LM for board work has helped me in my job, and then my job is, like, helping me with board work, because, like. Owl Cam: You know, how do you take Owl Cam: 15 years of minutes, and find instances of Owl Cam: non-compliance. I can tell you. You know, like… Have you started referring to Claude as a developer that you work with? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was me and Claude. Well, and anytime… it's like, anytime you're writing anything or doing any research. Owl Cam: it's like, I think it's… everybody should break through the barrier of… Owl Cam: like, you know, will I… will I know how to work with Claude? Like, will… or will it… or will I give up? And it's like, no, you should just do it, you know, and…

036Owl Cam: That's, like, what… with my employees, I'm like. Owl Cam: Now, my one-on-ones with them, I'm like. Owl Cam: show me how you use Claude and ChatGPT and all that stuff, and it's like, it's a totally different world than it was 2 years ago. Owl Cam: Let's see. Owl Cam: See, that's that beer reaction. Owl Cam: My eyes, you saw? Makes all my emails sound way better, I'll tell you. I know, right. Type it out, copy it, paste it, make this sound best, and stuff. So I'm on my way, I'm just switching baby steps. Owl Cam: Absolutely. Owl Cam: James introduced me to ChatGPT. I never… I mean, I heard of it, but you were the one that said, yeah, do such and such on ChatGPT, and it was like… Owl Cam: Your federal

037has changed. It really is. Owl Cam: I use synchronicity sometimes, even though on that one. Owl Cam: Yeah, that one's been helpful in writing testimony, because it helps you find… it sources every… it cites everything. Owl Cam: this is the world we live in. Like, you could hear about a tool like that. I'm… I actually need that for something I'm doing. Like, it just… you give it a text and it finds your sources. Yeah. Yeah. Owl Cam: That's pretty awesome. Yeah. And then you can look them up and realize, oh, this research is from Australia, so I don't think it's going to work in the Vermont content, you know? So, that's why, like, I think it's about… but don't quote me on that, because I may be wrong about the name of it. I'll find

038out and let you know. Owl Cam: All right, getting back to the reason we're here. First of all, amazing bread. Hello. Thank you for sharing that with us. That is amazing. When are we gonna have a class on? Yeah, you should teach us next time, especially with a 100-year-old starter. Good lord. Owl Cam: So these are some session guidelines, just suggestions that I use when I go around and work with boards, to help make our time productive, really. And these are good ones also, I think, to follow during board meetings. Owl Cam: So if you like these, then you could think about codifying them in your policies, or just putting them on your agendas, like at the top, just as a reminder of how we're going to behave. Owl Cam: And I like these, and

039we'll go through them one by one. So, listen with an open mind. Owl Cam: This is really about holding back judgment. Owl Cam: And really listening to each other. And I don't know if you've… I'm sure you've heard the Franklin Covey expression, seek first to understand before you're understood, so it kind of gets at that. Owl Cam: Take space, make space. This is kind of an introvert-extrovert thing, where some of us, we, might be more reserved and reluctant to say things right away. Owl Cam: So we need to challenge ourselves to get out there and say something, or ask a question, be a bit… a little bit more bold, whereas others, they jump right in. They feel confident, and they're ready to say something. Owl Cam: And so I like to challenge those people to

040just hold their comment and their thought for a moment, and then let somebody else jump in and say something. Owl Cam: So challenge yourself to kind of go against your natural instinct, is what I'm asking you to do. Owl Cam: Being fully present is as simple as putting away phones, or putting them on silent. Owl Cam: I think it's so rare, as we were just talking about technology, it's interesting, it's so rare that we as adults, not the students so much, but we as adults get this opportunity to do something just for ourselves, some learning, right, for us. Owl Cam: And so, it's really great, to be fully present in this experience that we're having together. Owl Cam: Practice this saying, yes, and, Owl Cam: When we are listening to somebody, and we're… want to

041give the… we want to give an opinion that's maybe not what they, are saying, that word, but… Owl Cam: can sometimes be very off-putting, and put your listener on the defensive. It's so amazing, when I became aware of this, yes. Owl Cam: And, instead of… But… Owl Cam: I was like… now I listen to it all the time in debates and meetings, and I just notice body language when somebody uses that word, but the person that said something just starts to tense up all of a sudden. Like, you just see them go into defensive mode. So I love this trying to say, yes, and… Owl Cam: Because it helps people Owl Cam: realize that you've heard what they said, you're not necessarily agreeing with them, but at least you're recognizing that they said something. And

042that word, but kind of just taking it out of that sentence really helps smooth the conversation out. Owl Cam: And then enjoy the learning journey. This is something that I hope you'll learn Owl Cam: things today, and I hope that you'll enjoy the whole experience. Owl Cam: Anybody want to add anything? Owl Cam: As a session guideline. Owl Cam: we don't have members of the public here, so it's kind of, like, relaxed and nice, you know, to be in this situation, so I'm open to any suggestions, but… Owl Cam: Hopefully, these might be ones that you might want to consider for some of your future board meetings, right? Owl Cam: Nick, by the way, do we have anybody online? We do not. Owl Cam: I, I have one additional guideline. Yep. Two of the, toilets

043in the women's restroom working. So only one is, only one is working, so, one in time. Four, go upstairs, or use the men's, because there's only a few of us. Owl Cam: That's a guideline. That's a good guideline. That's a great guideline. Owl Cam: All right, so I said that we'd jump into… we would go a little bit deeper into what we, what Joe and I talked about when we were planning this retreat. Owl Cam: So, when we were meeting, we talked about three, kind of, discrete training goals. Owl Cam: book, and they all popped up at once, you know, about that? So the first is creating a foundation for strong board-superintendent relationship, what I like to call a partnership, which is what Joe mentioned earlier when he was talking about one of the things

044he hopes to get out of this Owl Cam: retreat today. Owl Cam: This is a really important one. There's been some research on school board governance and what makes an effective school board. There's one paper in particular that I like, and I can leave you with copies of it. It's called Eight Characteristics of Effective School Boards. I'll even pass it around. Owl Cam: It was published by the National School Boards Association, and what it does is it identifies 8 different traits of what they call a highly effective school board. And… Owl Cam: These school boards operate in districts that tend to have higher student achievement than boards that are not as effectively functioning. They are in districts where the student achievement rates are not as strong. So they're really starting to find some correlation between

045Owl Cam: school board, governance, and student achievement. And there's not a lot out there, like I said, it's kind of a new area, but what they're finding is very interesting. Owl Cam: These 8 characteristics are all in that paper, but I find that one of the most important ones, they're all important, is this one, and I'll read it out loud. Owl Cam: It speaks to the board, superintendent partnership. Effective school boards lead as a united and united team with the superintendents. Owl Cam: Each, from their respective roles, With strong collaboration and mutual trust. Owl Cam: So, effective school boards lead as a united team with the superintendent, each from their respective roles, with strong collaboration and mutual trust. So, I know Michelle was at the conference, and Jen and Joe, that was really very much

046focused on this. Owl Cam: on this, trait of school boards. We talked a lot, a lot of the workshops and keynote speakers was all about how we build this solid relationship, hopefully a partnership. Owl Cam: That's based on mutual trust and respect, between the board and the superintendent, and this is really critical, in effective governance. So that's one… and with the new superintendent. Owl Cam: It's really great to get that foundation built at the outset. Owl Cam: And… and once that foundation is there, you're more… you're set up really well for… for future success, I'd say. Owl Cam: Roles and responsibilities? Owl Cam: We're gonna focus on good, or sometimes you hear the word effective governance, and what it is, how we know. Owl Cam: how we know it when we see it. And our

047end goal as a forward Should always be… Owl Cam: achieving this good governance, this state of having, strong governance. And, Owl Cam: while we will, as I said, be referring to policy governance because you are using it, that isn't the focus of today's training. As I said earlier, there are people out there who are certified to teach the technicalities of policy governance. Owl Cam: And, but since I've been using it for a long time, and I've had some training, and you guys are using policy governance, we're gonna still talk about it, I just won't be able to dive into the technicalities of it today. Owl Cam: Carolyn Oliver Owl Cam: And just to go a little bit deeper with this policy governance and how it is relevant to governance, have you ever seen this book?

048Owl Cam: See y'all got a copy over there. Great, I'm so pleased. Owl Cam: She describes policy governance, as a vehicle, and it's the means of transportation to get you somewhere. Owl Cam: So, she takes the example of a bicycle. Owl Cam: And where she says, walking and riding a bicycle are two very different means of getting somewhere. Walking your bicycle and riding it. And, similarly, governing Owl Cam: Using a traditional style of governance, which is what most school boards use, is one way of getting Owl Cam: To the state of good governance. Owl Cam: Policy governance is another way, but they're very different, okay? So, we're all trying to achieve this state of good governance and operating effectively as strong boards, and… Owl Cam: But the way we do it as a school board

049varies depending on those who are following, kind of, a more traditional governance model than those of us who follow the policy governance model. So it's really not the destination itself, policy governance isn't, but it's the means to get us there. Does that make sense? Owl Cam: Can I say something about that? Sure. So… Owl Cam: Like, I think in the founding of the U.S, Owl Cam: It's like, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Owl Cam: How do we get there? Separation of powers. Owl Cam: So, policy governance, I think, is separation of powers. Owl Cam: we're legislative, you're executive, you know? So, I think of it as a… An analogy to how… Owl Cam: the Constitution of the United States moves. Owl Cam: Could mention that, too. Owl Cam: your policy governance trainer, whether

050it's Susan or Jeannie in the future, because that would be interesting. Owl Cam: Yeah, I think… We're… every school board in Vermont is capable of, Owl Cam: practicing good governance. I think those that are truly following policy governance Owl Cam: Are more likely to be successful. Owl Cam: That's my biased opinion. Owl Cam: But… I mean, of course, traditional governance boards work very effectively Owl Cam: If you have a strong chair, who knows what they're doing, a strong superintendent, and you follow those 8 characteristics, you'll be fine. Owl Cam: I just think policy governance really helps you get there. Owl Cam: Sorry for chewing… talking with my mouth full. Owl Cam: Are you all doing the board accelerator now? Have you taken… has anybody finished it? Owl Cam: I started. You started. Owl Cam: So

051you know at the end of the Board Accelerator, after you guys have finished that, you're entitled to an hour free coaching from Susan Mogenson. And she'll probably do that virtually, because she's in Canada. Owl Cam: But she… she wanted me to remind you that that is part of the subscription fee, is that when you're finished as a board. Owl Cam: Let me know, or I can put you in touch with her. We're done. Now we'd like to have our free one-hour coaching call with you, if you will. Owl Cam: Time for… And that's a great chance to ask her some questions about policy governance in those modules. Owl Cam: I would think, if I can, just add real quick, that I have it, I have not started it yet. I know you've finished it. Owl

052Cam: I don't know where everybody else stands. I'm hoping to have some time over the holidays, but for me, I am driven by schedules. It would be nice to have, like, a… let's everybody try to get it done by this day, so we can do that. That would help me. Owl Cam: Because otherwise, I'm prioritizing other things over it that do have due dates. What was that? Don't the modules have due dates? I think the… I think they have dates already, so… Oh, do they? Yes, yeah, I mean, I keep getting the brown nod consulting reminder, but I, like… I don't think the actual modules have deadlines. I think the whole course has a deadline. Owl Cam: And it's a… it's a generous deadline, so you probably want to get it done sooner than whatever

053it was. Owl Cam: it doesn't take long, right, Austin? Like, the whole course takes 4 hours, maybe? It took me longer than that, but I did. It did. It's not dozens of hours. Yeah, yeah, it's not too… too bad. And you would probably zip through it faster because you went through the policy governance journey in the fall… in the spring. Right. Yeah. Owl Cam: If the board is amenable to a… Owl Cam: Addition to the agenda, we could take action. Owl Cam: Okay. And, set a deadline for Jan. I appreciate a deadline, too. I haven't finished it, no, so… and other things have, you know, tilted my attention. Should we agree that, like, Jan 1? Owl Cam: I'm done with mine, but I don't… I don't know if you need the board to tell her

054to get it done. Get it… well, I mean, even if we say when we're going to bring in the consultant from Canada, that would be helpful, because we can't do it until… Right. Yeah. Okay. Owl Cam: So, Seamus, we'll be in touch, you can let me know. We'll, we'll set up something with Susan, and then that'll be the deadline, yeah. Owl Cam: rate. Owl Cam: All right, so communication… Emotion pills. Emotion pills. We're removing it from the table. Owl Cam: So our third objective today is this communication skills as education leaders. Owl Cam: So we know we have so much uncertainty and division in our world today, especially in public education, so I feel like it's more critical than ever that we are strong leaders, and part of being a strong leader is really honing

055our communication skills. So I have some… an exercise that I want to do with you all at the end. Owl Cam: That's really fun, to work on these communication skills. Owl Cam: Can I say one more thing about that? And this is my opinion. Yeah. It's just my opinion. Owl Cam: We on the board are elected official politicians, and so when we think about being leaders, I think we should Owl Cam: Talk about what it means to be a politician, not just… You know, like a governor. Owl Cam: Just my opinion. Owl Cam: We can get food. Owl Cam: Okay. Owl Cam: Sounds like a good plan. All right, everybody fine with these goals? Owl Cam: All right, well, let's get started, then. So, let's dive right in with roles and responsibilities. So, here are

056two questions. Owl Cam: I want to consider these words. Owl Cam: Generically. Not thinking about school boards, or governance, or education. Owl Cam: But sometimes it helps to start with just the basic definition of words, of terms. We often use roles and responsibilities in the same sentence, and I do it, the roles and responsibilities of a school board. Owl Cam: without really thinking about the difference between these two words. So, let's just spend a couple minutes Owl Cam: Talking about what these words mean in general. Owl Cam: what I usually have you do is break into small groups, talk about it, come back to the group, but honestly, we're such a small group, and I just… Owl Cam: Shout, like, shout them out? Owl Cam: Does somebody want to take… A minute to think about

057them? Owl Cam: What's your thoughts? Owl Cam: should give you some scrap paper to write stuff down. I have lots of scrap paper. I'm a note-taker. Yeah, I'm too. I love… Yeah. And I'm happy just to share little scraps of paper that you guys can Owl Cam: used to… Owl Cam: Right on, and then just pitch them after you're done. Take some pass it around. This is really a great way to get rid of mold and paper without feeling guilty, except when they're double-sided like this. I can't… in one ear, out the other. Owl Cam: Yeah, this makes me feel less guilty about printing. I know people are going to use it. So yeah, write down just a couple thoughts about what is a responsibility, in your opinion, in your mind, when somebody says responsibility,

058what comes to mind? And what is a role? Owl Cam: And not the yummy, delicious kind that Jennifer might bake us, but an R-O-L-E. Owl Cam: Oh, excellent. Owl Cam: Just remember, anything you write down is subject for POIA. Owl Cam: Not if it's on scrap paper. That goes straight into the… Fairly on the ground. Owl Cam: Probably I can do this very fast. Owl Cam: That wasn't good. Owl Cam: Yeah, no chat GPT. Owl Cam: Sorry, is that nesting. Owl Cam: Generically speaking, what is a responsibility? Let's just start with that one, since it's first. What would you think of the word, what comes tonight? Owl Cam: something you're accountable for? Something you're accountable for, yeah? Or that you, like, have ownership over? Owl Cam: A specific area or task that needs to get

059done by the person in the room. Owl Cam: Specific area of task that has to get done by the person in the role. Owl Cam: Yep, Seamus. Owl Cam: So, the way that humanity moved from the cave to civilization is by splitting work up. And so responsibility is where you say, okay, you do this and I'll do that. Owl Cam: And the sum is greater than the parts, so it's… Everything's gonna come back to anthropology for them. It's gotta be helpful as a board member, in all honesty. Owl Cam: I said, like, an actionable expectation. An actionable expectation. Yes. Yeah? Somebody has an expectation of you, or you have it of yourself, maybe, yeah? Owl Cam: Yep. Owl Cam: Yeah, accountability… Owl Cam: Anything else people want to contribute? Well, one other thing is I

060had an employee who quit because they were given Owl Cam: responsibility without authority. And so, if there's a disconnect between the things that you're accountable for, responsible for, and the things you can actually affect, it makes your life very difficult. So, it's important that responsibility and authority go together. Or in this context, the role, right? So, like, the role… Owl Cam: The role implies the responsibility to exec… or the role implies the authority to execute the responsibilities. That's what… just to segue into that, I said that the role is a physician that has understood authority or something. Owl Cam: Not that if anyone else has a responsibility, but… I think the point you made relative to others, right? It's the area of authority relative to the other areas that make up… Owl Cam: Yeah. I

061mean, but ultimately, It's usually one… Owl Cam: person who has the responsibility to make sure something gets done. You can delegate the authority for somebody to do something. Owl Cam: So, you as the boss, you can delegate the authority to one of your employees to get something done, but the ultimate responsibilities Owl Cam: A product that you might be developing for LinkedIn. Owl Cam: Ideally. Right, ideally. Ideally. Right. Owl Cam: The role is the hat you wear, or responsibilities are the things you do while wearing the hat. The hat you wear and the responsibilities are the things you do while wearing that hat. That is interesting. Owl Cam: Yeah, I… Gemini. Gemini. Gemini, Gemini. I use this, I think, Merriam-Webster's dictionary. I love Miriam. Owl Cam: Some of these things we… we said, and speak.

062Owl Cam: I think, Allie said it was an expectation, or something that has to get done, so it's a duty to deal with something. Owl Cam: Or having control over something or someone is one suggested definition. Owl Cam: There's Michelle's word, or Emily's word, accountability, right? It's you're accountable for something. Owl Cam: whether things turn out well or not, right? And that goes back to what you were saying about the example, of Owl Cam: Or was it, Owl Cam: Dan that said it, where you give the authority to somebody to do a task or play a role, but ultimately, you are responsible. You have to be accountable for how the thing turns out as the big boss, right? Owl Cam: So, the role is the part that's played. As soon as I see the word

063roll, my mind goes to theater. I don't know, just, like, as a role that you play, a part that you play, Owl Cam: the job or the task that someone or something has in a particular situation, so it's, like, what you do. Owl Cam: When you're wearing a certain hat. Owl Cam: Can I just say one thing? Because I often do bracey charts, so responsible, accountable, consulted, informed. Yeah. And I always think as accountable is the person who owns it, responsible is the person who does it. Owl Cam: So there's a difference. Sometimes the responsible person is also accountable, but sometimes it's distinct. Separate, it's separate, right? So I think it's… yeah, considering that context. Policy governance training mentions that very thing. They have a good discussion about the… Owl Cam: Responsibility versus accountability. Owl

064Cam: the session. Yeah, I think one of the earlier sessions, they talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah, somebody owns it. Yeah. Somebody does it. Yeah. Yeah. Owl Cam: And sometimes it is one and the same. Sometimes it's not. Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. It really just depends. Owl Cam: on the situation. So, now that… let's… let's now think about these two terms. Owl Cam: In terms of our work as board members. So, let's take responsibility. We're going to spend the next few minutes just looking at responsibility, and then we're going to move into roles. But responsibility is a big one, so I just put the definition back up there. Having a duty, having control, being accountable or blamed for something. So. Owl Cam: In the context of our work. Owl Cam: What

065is a board responsible for? Owl Cam: A board generally, or our board specifically? School boards. Owl Cam: Hiring a superintendent. Owl Cam: Yeah. Approving a budget that the taxpayers report. Taking any action to ensure the sound administration of the district. Taking any action to assure the sound administration of the district? Great, excellent. Owl Cam: Other thoughts? Owl Cam: there are… it's, like, there's a Vermont law that says what… there's, like, a list, and it's, like, the budget, and it's… The duties. Yeah, setting educational policy, like you said. Would it be too specific to say we are responsible for making sure that the superintendent has Owl Cam: A clear direction in the authority and ability to execute those tasks? Owl Cam: Not at all. Owl Cam: I think the board also has the responsibility of having

066the interaction with the owners. Owl Cam: Right. That community engagement, ownership linkage, and policy governance parlay, yeah. Owl Cam: Very important. Owl Cam: Monitoring. Monitoring. Monitoring what, Michelle? Owl Cam: Compliance with the process. Compliance with the policy. Well, specifically the ends, but also the executive branch. Yeah. It's something we've never talked about. Owl Cam: board as well. Yep, your own board policies. Owl Cam: Yeah, we can… So, in the state law, it's determine educational policies, take any action required for sound administration. Owl Cam: Possession, care, control, and management of property. Owl Cam: Keep school buildings and grounds in good repair. Owl Cam: System of accounting. Owl Cam: Budgeting. Owl Cam: I love this one, and I think it's very interesting. Shall exercise the general powers given to a legislative branch of a municipality. Getting back

067to this thing that we're like, we are like a quasi-legislation, legislators. Owl Cam: We execute contracts. Owl Cam: We allow any high school student who meets the academic requirements of the high school to graduate and receive a diploma in less than 4 years. Oh, that's a very specific thing. I thought it was just general proficiency. Owl Cam: Apply for grants. Owl Cam: Engage in short-term borrowing. Owl Cam: Inform the electorate about the budget. Owl Cam: Yeah, those are all great… I'm so glad you pulled up the statute, because it's making me, think immediately of the essential work of Vermont School Boards, and the six different pillars that, a board, that, that, Owl Cam: The way… what we did, and it was before my time, what we did with that statue is we kind of grouped

068those different Owl Cam: tasks or roles into themes, so there's something in there called financial oversight, budgeting and financial oversight. So, and then there's something called, Owl Cam: policy, policy… just policy, and so that speaks to the law. So those are… that's a great kind of summary of our roles as a school board. Owl Cam: And we'll get into those But going back to this idea of responsibility. Owl Cam: I hear what you're saying, like, we're kind of… I liked what you were saying before about what we're responsible for as a board. Owl Cam: Sound administration, the community engagement part of it, blah blah blah blah. Owl Cam: Let's think about now the other side of the coin, which is our superintendent. Owl Cam: And in case of policy governance, we call them the CEO,

069right? So what do you think… if we're responsible for those things that you guys mentioned earlier, what… Owl Cam: in the world is the CEO responsible for? Owl Cam: What do they have a duty to do, or have control over, or what are they accountable for? Owl Cam: Meeting the ends. Meeting the ends, yes, good job in policy governance, that's exactly right. And if you're traditional governance, it would be, like, meeting the district's priorities, right? The goals that are set in the strategic plan, or the continuous improvement plan, yep, yep. Owl Cam: Yeah. According to the Vermont statutes, number one, carry out the policies adopted by the school boards related to educational or business affairs. Right. Owl Cam: to… Owl Cam: prepare for adoption by the school board. Plans to achieve the educational goals and

070objectives, nominate licensed employees. I guess that means, like, hiring teachers or people who need… Owl Cam: Provide data, to the Secretary of Education, I think. Owl Cam: I would also say to the board? Owl Cam: So you can monitor. Right. Prepare itemized report detailing Budget. Owl Cam: To help ensure that it's passed, that you adopt it as a board, and then it assure it's passage. Right, Owl Cam: develop… help to implement and develop policies regarding minimum and optimum average class sizes. Owl Cam: and arrange for professional training is required separately in the statute. Again, really good menu of Owl Cam: Tasks, rules that a superintendent should play. Owl Cam: What is the responsibility of the superintendent? Owl Cam: That's the operations. Operations. Owl Cam: Generally speaking, yes, operations. Operations, managing. Owl Cam: Let me look

071at this. Owl Cam: I like to think of it like this, looking at these two different terms, governance versus management. Owl Cam: So, Owl Cam: It's really important that we understand the difference between these two terms and who is responsible for what. Owl Cam: governance, which you see there on the left side, is very much the responsibility of the board. The board must govern. That is our responsibility, is to govern our district. Owl Cam: The superintendent must manage, and that includes those day-to-day operations and the different tasks, the many different tasks that go into running and operating a district. Owl Cam: And… Owl Cam: Are you… you're really… you're anthropology. I'm wondering, like, do you… did you ever do etymology, the study of words? Owl Cam: Not correctly. So, I'm a little bit of a

072geek when it comes to this. I like looking up to see where words come from, so I just happened to look up governance a few years ago to see, what does this mean? Owl Cam: And it's a Greek… it's actually from the Greek language, and it means to steer. Owl Cam: So that's why I put it in parentheses. And, so I think of, like, steering a ship, or in the case of a district, it's like steering an ocean liner, because it's big, and it takes a long time to turn. Owl Cam: But yeah, we're… we're definitely, as a board, trying to steer and ensuring that we're heading in the direction that is… where we've… Owl Cam: we are… that we, our owners, have told us to head into, right? We're really looking… Owl Cam: at

073the road or the horizon out in front of us, down here. We're not so much here as we are out there. Sometimes, because of statute, we have to be here in the present in terms of passing our budgets. Owl Cam: and monitoring, and all that business. But we also have that added responsibility of looking ahead to the future. What are the students of our district going to need to be successful when they leave here? Owl Cam: And what are they going to need, not just next year, but, like, 5, 10, 15 years down the road? Owl Cam: So it's… it's a really important role, an important responsibility, that if we don't do it, then there's really nobody else in the district who's going to do it. Owl Cam: Whereas management, is a Latin word. Owl

074Cam: And it means to hand, or handle. So that makes sense, right? When you think of managing, it's like handling all those minutiae, all those day-to-day tasks. Owl Cam: That have to get done. Owl Cam: And again, Joe's not doing all of these tasks single-handedly, no pun intended, but he's actually delegating a lot of those tasks to his team, to his admin team, and then they're delegating down below. Owl Cam: So, but ultimately, yes, you are responsible as the superintendent, as the CEO, of the successful management of Owl Cam: of the district. Owl Cam: So, they're different. Owl Cam: But they're both essential to the successful, to the success of this school district. And effective boards really focus on this governance role, and steps aside and leaves the management up to the CEO. Owl Cam:

075to do what they need to get done. And this is… remember I talked about pandemic, what we saw during the pandemic in our district? This actually was what saved us. I felt like we were very much, like. Owl Cam: There wasn't a whole lot for a board to do during the pandemic. It was about that day-to-day crisis management, so we just stepped out of the way and said, you let us know when we need to know something. Owl Cam: But we know the information coming from the AOE and from everywhere else, the governor. Owl Cam: Washington. It's coming in so fast and furious that you couldn't possibly keep us updated on everything. And that's okay, because we trust you. And so you just need to let us know when we need… when you need us

076for something. And so that was why I felt like Owl Cam: we were so aware of that difference of, of this. We knew our role was governing and steering, and during a pandemic, it really wasn't possible to steer into the future. We were, like, just trying to survive that year and get through that year. Owl Cam: So, the board kind of had a role that wasn't so significant. Owl Cam: We were called upon to make decisions, yes, and… and… but it wasn't, the day-to-day stuff was so all-consuming Owl Cam: That we just felt like we don't need to have a board meeting every single day. Owl Cam: We're fine. We know you got this, superintendent, CEO. Owl Cam: comments, yeah. Owl Cam: I think there's also… Owl Cam: a political responsibility on the governance side,

077in the sense of, like, if there's a controversial thing, then it's inappropriate for management to make a decision about it, because management should Owl Cam: Both have the legitimacy of… Owl Cam: having the community decide about something that's controversial, and also the political cover, to say, look, I'm just doing what Owl Cam: the community told me to do. So, I think that on the gov… on the school board side, when we differentiate between governance and management, we should also mention that, a big part about governance is representation. Owl Cam: and gathering… What the community wants, and also, to some extent, building consensus, which is Owl Cam: you know, actually, you know, I think people have objected when we say that our role is, like, selling something, and so I don't think it's about selling. It's

078about figuring out where the community is, trying to help the community to understand where it wants to go, and so that's very much… and that's important that Owl Cam: management does not do that, because management is not accountable. Like, management cannot be, Owl Cam: run out in an election. Like, you can't… Owl Cam: recall a superintendent if they're doing things that are controversial, and so, that's, a lot. I'll push back on that just a little bit, because I think it depends on the controversy, right? I mean… Owl Cam: the biggest controversies I've seen in my career as superintendent is, firing a coach or a band director, right? And that is… Owl Cam: not the role of the board, right? The superintendent is to choose the staff, and so I think where there's struggle is when

079Owl Cam: superintendent and team make the decision that we need to move on from this person, and invariably, all the people that love the people in the community come to the board to say, this shouldn't happen. That's, I believe, where the board needs to let the superintendent make the decision about hiring the staff or firing the staff. Owl Cam: I have a response to that, but I'll let anybody else go. Well, we're gonna… we're gonna… let's hold this discussion and, on… Owl Cam: put it in the parking lot for just a minute, because we're going to come to that chain of authority and accountability, which also looks very similar to the chain of command and chain of communication. So, let's… let's definitely… that'll help us with this discussion, and then let's debate this again. Owl

080Cam: Moving on, because I don't want to get too held up, because we've got a lot to do, I wanted to put this up here because you have, your policy governance board, so John Carver's definition of governance. Owl Cam: should make sense to you. It's the process by which a small group of persons… who's that small group of persons? Owl Cam: You! The board! Acting on behalf of an organization, who's the organization? Owl Cam: Organization District. Yep, your South Burlington School District, acting on behalf of the South Burlington School District's owners. Who are the owners? Citizens. Yep, yep, your voters, your taxpayers. Owl Cam: Cause that organization, the school district, to achieve what it should, and to avoid what is unacceptable. Owl Cam: How does those two terms, to achieve what it should and avoid

081what is unacceptable, how does that relate to policy governance, or what is that referring to in policy governance? The achievement or the ends, and what is unacceptable are the executive limitations. Beautiful. Owl Cam: I can tell you did a great job on that online course. Good job. It paid off often. Awesome. Yes, exactly. So you can see, I would show that definition of governance to a traditional board. Owl Cam: a board… a board that's following traditional governance, because this is what it is. The vocabulary is a little bit different, the terminology, owners, you might be like, what the heck is an owner? But, but this is… this is sound. This is very sound. Owl Cam: And I put the shift up there only because it refers back to that idea that we're steering our districts

082in a direction towards a vision that was, Owl Cam: Enumerated by our owners. Owl Cam: This is also the, kind of, the definition of representative. Owl Cam: Democracy Saver. Owl Cam: Yeah, yeah, for sure, absolutely. Owl Cam: But I am going to push back on the word representative in a little bit. You'll see where I'm going. So, this is something, that's kind of silly, but take a guess. How many school board members does it take to scrub? It's impossible for us to screw in a light bulb. It's operations. Owl Cam: Cool. Owl Cam: None! Exactly! And why is that, as Austin said? Owl Cam: It's operations. So, it's really up to the board to say, hey, we need light. That's all great use. Owl Cam: Putting us on a high pedestal there, don't let there

083be light. Let there be light, Joe! Turn the lights on, Joe! Owl Cam: Yeah, no… Owl Cam: But let there be light. The school board definitely, well, let's move to the next slide. Owl Cam: So it's up to the superintendent to decide what kind of light, once you say, let there be light, then he has to say, alright, I think we should buy fluorescent light bulbs, or candles, or whatever. Owl Cam: Then does Joe himself Light the lights? Owl Cam: No. Most of the time, no. He usually designates his or her staff to do that. So, Owl Cam: School boards are responsible for articulating the why. The why the South Burlington School District exists. Do you guys sit around and decide what that why is? Owl Cam: Hopefully not. Owl Cam: Hopefully, you're getting that

084input from your community, your owners, who are saying, this is what we want for our district, this is what we want. Helping… they help you develop your ENS policy, right? In traditional governance, we call it the vision. Owl Cam: You guys are here to answer… help the community answer the question, why does this school district exist? Owl Cam: Then once you have that vision in place, Then, the board… Owl Cam: Let's hire somebody very capable to figure out how that vision is going to get implemented. Owl Cam: So how are we going to reach our vision? Owl Cam: Our global end statement. Owl Cam: And, in the context of public education, this means that, Owl Cam: you're keeping… you're helping, Joe out by reminding him what the vision is, what the global ends looks like.

085You're holding him accountable for that, because, right, it's the CEO that's responsible for making sure the global ends are someday met. Owl Cam: But you're enabling him to get his work done. And how do you enable him? You step out of the way, and you let him decide the what and the how, if this is gonna… if this work is gonna get done. Owl Cam: You're not shirking your responsibility. Owl Cam: by saying, go have fun, you've actually set up some guardrails, and those are the ELs that you've set up, and you're monitoring. I'm looking at Michelle, because you mentioned the term monitoring earlier. You're monitoring the progress of the results of how the district is doing in terms of moving towards its ends policy. Owl Cam: And obviously, the superintendent isn't doing this all

086by himself. He's got his admin team behind him, and then below the admin team, you've got all the staff. Owl Cam: In, in the, in the district. Owl Cam: So… Another way to kind of look at this? Owl Cam: From a… another analogy or metaphor, if you will, is… Owl Cam: I always like to think of the board standing on a balcony, Overlooking the landscape. Owl Cam: And, we need to be able to look out and see the whole picture. We're less interested in seeing the individual rocks and the trees that are below us. What we're looking at is the whole picture. We're really trying to keep that big picture, that far-off future in mind. Owl Cam: So that's why we're standing at the balcony with the kind of that… that… sometimes you'll hear somebody

087refer to the board as being at the 30,000 foot view, like, we need to stay at that 30,000-foot view, and I think that kind of gets to this. Owl Cam: Because that's all part of our governance responsibility, is to stay up high and continue to look out and see that bigger picture. Joe's off the balcony, he's down below. He's down there, you know, he's very much interested in all those individual aspects of what's down there. But we… Owl Cam: are up here. Owl Cam: I love the analogy, too, of just… Owl Cam: we set the rudder, so you're… and you're looking at the map, you're, you know, looking at the horizon, you're on your ship, you're setting the rudder, right? Yep. And then there, you've got operations that are pulling sails, and all of that,

088all of that other stuff, all the hand, right? Yep. They do pull into the furnace that, you know, in a steamship or whatever, yeah. So you get the… you're steering and the hand, and just to have that perspective. Owl Cam: Yep. Owl Cam: But it is looking at the, you know, the map, and kind of figuring things out, and having your view on the horizon. Right, right. Right. And then, just to keep going on that analogy, if Joe Owl Cam: chose some coal that was backing up into the building and making everybody sick. The monitoring is how the school would… the board would look at that and say, this… this isn't going to work for the future. Like, when we… Owl Cam: You're killing us. People are falling overboard. I know, I'm sorry, Joe. I

089wouldn't do that. I'm just jumping overboard. I'm just, saying that there are ways that the future's affected by what the operations are happening at this moment, and, like, how the monitoring is the way that the board is able to… Yes. Owl Cam: to help get back into the course that we were on. Or maybe the future has changed. Owl Cam: And then it's up to the board to say, hmm, things are very different now. A post-pandemic world looks really different from the pre-pandemic world. We're changing our bearing. We need to, yeah, we need to get our owners back together again. Owl Cam: And really think about what is critical to, to, Owl Cam: to, our students now. I'll give you an example from our district. Before, the pandemic. Owl Cam: Our vision, our vision, our

090global end statement is, is very much about the holistic Owl Cam: Having a student who's prepared for the future, and when you… when we met with our owners to talk about what does that look like, a lot of it was Owl Cam: character… like, character building, right? A lot of it had to do with Owl Cam: be a good learner, a lot of, be, be happy, you know, find, follow your passion. I mean, the academic stuff. Owl Cam: wasn't rising to the top. It was all this other kind of stuff that people were talking about, wanting to see students, once they leave our district, to be on solid ground for the next step in terms of social-emotional. Owl Cam: And then more recently, we haven't rewritten our global end statement, but we have gone back

091to the owners, and asked them, what are your priorities now? And they said. Owl Cam: Back it down, I'm good. Owl Cam: Our kids are falling behind. Owl Cam: I mean, so there's an example of how the future has changed, right? And so we as a board now are very much focused on the act and getting that Owl Cam: back on course. We gotta get our kids to read at grade level. Owl Cam: And do math at grade level, because that hurt us. That pandemic really took us off our course. Owl Cam: So, I get this, but I like the idea of, like, a crow's nest instead. You know the crow's nest that's on the top of a boat? Owl Cam: That's what I'm thinking, like, what I'm thinking about, like, because you're up high,

092you're not in it necessarily, but you're up there to see that horizon. You see what's coming ahead. You see there's a storm on the horizon, iceberg. Yeah, iceberg, right? I know. Can I ask for some specifics? I mean, in this view, I'm curious to translate this to this board, and your experience. Owl Cam: if we were to say, you know, two things, right? One, let's say we adopt that same focusing back on academics. I'm curious how that has gone in your experience on the board, and how you would, you know, if that was a transition we wanted to make. Owl Cam: how you would recommend we do that, in this framework. And then, additionally, specific to our district, or Vermont, is the redistricting conversation. This is something we are seeing coming. I know. Or could

093be coming, and it's being how far it is off. Owl Cam: How, in this framework, should we think about that? Owl Cam: So, such a good question, and not easy to answer. Owl Cam: how are we doing in terms of repositioning ourselves in terms of academics? I mean, that… Owl Cam: as I said, the end statement is the same. I think what's shifted is the interpretation of it. So, like, before… Owl Cam: it was… Owl Cam: a broader definition. I think we're kind of… or a broader interpretation. I think what I'm hearing from the superintendent and what we are in agreement with, is that this really has to be about academic Owl Cam: Achievement at this point. Owl Cam: And are we there yet? No, because there's… the test scores are still not where they

094should be. But one way we can influence that, or impact that, is through the budgeting process. Owl Cam: And making sure that the resources are in place to Owl Cam: Ensure that there's enough staff in the district. Owl Cam: that can help the, what is the term when you… when we've lost ground and we're trying to catch up again in academia? It's called… Regression. It's… but it's the catching up part. Oh, the catching up. I forget, there's a term that we use, Owl Cam: But basically. Owl Cam: We, know that this is our priority, so we need to ensure that we have adequate resources so that there's adequate staff. Owl Cam: An adequately trained staff, the right type of staff in the building to help our students, with their academics. Owl Cam: making sure the

095right curriculum is in place, right? And so there's all that kind of thing that we're… we're putting in place now. Owl Cam: But the results, we just haven't had enough time to see the results yet. Would it be… Owl Cam: should we think about changing the end statements to reflect that? Because what I heard you say is, right, we've kept the end statement the same, we're interpreting it differently, but that feels like a human solution to it, where it's like, as long as everybody on the current board agrees with that new interpretation, and they've communicated that with the current superintendent, that's the agreed-upon way to Owl Cam: But as… but there's turnover, right? There's new superintendents, there's new boards. Owl Cam: So, in that situation, wouldn't it be better to… Revise the end statement so

096that it can be more durable for that? Maybe. Because as more people will come in, they might interpret it the old way, or a different way, and then you have to constantly rework that interpretation. Yeah. So is the end statement a vehicle there to… Owl Cam: to direct where this view is, right? Like, should we do the end statement every year? No. No. Don't do the end statement every year. Ask Susan when you bring her in. That's a really good question for her. I've heard, Owl Cam: Susan say, end statements Should not be revised or modified any sooner than 5 years. Owl Cam: And… or on it as a case needed, you know, kind of thing. So, I don't know how old your end statement is. 12 years, yeah, I think beyond time, then a

097little bit of end statements, quite honestly. Because once you have that end statement in place. Owl Cam: that really gives you, the board, the direction, right? You know where to go now, and it also informs your strategic plan for the district. So, if there's a little incongruity happening right now, then it might be… I've been thinking about doing… redoing the end statement, and asking our community to come back together and talk about this. Owl Cam: And some of you haven't mentioned that I feel is appropriate. Executive limitations feel, like, more tactical. Owl Cam: And it's like, one of the things that people respect about the U.S. Constitution is that it's short. And then you look at, like, the Constitution of Brazil, it's like. Owl Cam: 2,000, or it's, like, 200 pages, and then you look

098at the Constitution in Chile, and it's, like, 2,000 pages, and, like, so, like, ends should be short. Yeah. And… Yeah, and the ends should be short, and they are. They tend to be short, and your executive… let me… look at your policy. I mean, this is ours, our brother… this is our policies! Owl Cam: Most boards will have a three-ring binder full of analyses. So I, I mean, this is brief. I love that. That's another thing I like about policy governance, is the brevity of it all. Is it typical or atypical for boards to bring in consultants to kind of facilitate a process to define for Owl Cam: I did, we did. When we did it back in 2018, Owl Cam: Or no, we did… we revised our ends right before the pandemic, actually. And

099I remember we brought in Susan, actually, to facilitate that, yeah. And you'll remember that we just signed a contract with the SBA to do that. Owl Cam: to… to… oh, to do our policy review this summer, right? Okay. Owl Cam: I think… well, let's talk about that after, because that, I think, is not these… we can't do these. These are something different. We're going to help you with your mandated policies. Yeah, yeah, the mandated ones, the ones that you have to have on your books. Right. Yes, yes, and I think the… if the board wants to do… Owl Cam: review the ENS policies, which I think they should. Yeah. Owl Cam: it should happen before we do strategic planning. Yes, for sure, for sure, because that sets the whole context, the picture frame, yeah. Recoupment,

100is that the word you were looking for? Remediation. Recouping, yes, recouping. Owl Cam: Recouping. I think that's what it was. I mean, that was the recovery, yes. The detriment-specific is a positive growth. That's what it was, it was recovery, yeah, yeah. Owl Cam: AI. Can't trust AI. See? There's limits to that. So here's an important point ahead to kind of summarize what we've just been talking about, about board responsibility. Owl Cam: What do you think of that? Short and sweet. Owl Cam: Outcomes are, I would add another phrase of that. Yeah. Owl Cam: Let's here, and that outcomes. Owl Cam: are as expected. Owl Cam: Or something that suggests the outcome component. Owl Cam: Yeah. Well run is great, students aren't doing well, not so much, right? The heat is good, the food is good,

101right? Everybody's… Owl Cam: Everybody's happy, yeah, but nobody's doing anything. Michelle, I love that. I love that. I gotta think up in that phrase. A board's responsibility to see that schools are well-run, and students are achieving. Achieving. Owl Cam: But we don't run them, and we don't teach the students. Owl Cam: Were you gonna say something, Seamus? No, that… I think also a board's responsibility is to represent, which I think maybe you're gonna differ from me on, which is interesting, but we should… Owl Cam: represent… like, we have to connect what the community wants in terms of outcomes, and we have to make sure that what the community wants in terms of outcomes are the outcomes that we're getting. And I agree with that. Owl Cam: I agree with that. You'll get… the word represent

102how we use it is what I would be careful about, but we'll get to that. All right, so I like this. It kind of just helps me, as a board member, just remember that, you know, we are… Owl Cam: kind of responsible… we are responsible for assuring that schools are well run and our students are learning, but we're not actually doing that hard day-to-day work. So we luckily can delegate that, and we'll talk about that, what that looks like. Owl Cam: Don't you… let's see, we have till 1, right? And tell me, are we building in any time for another break, or should I just give a break as needed? I don't think so, whatever you guys… I think anybody who… Owl Cam: thinks that work coming up, if we all have glassy eyes, and

103you think it's a good time for a break, please suggest that minimal. Why don't we… I'm going to hand out an exercise. This is kind of… I call this the BS. Can I ask a question about your characteristics? Sure. Owl Cam: I love… are they designed to work with policy governance? Owl Cam: No. Owl Cam: They're not, but… And… Why do you ask? Owl Cam: Well, reading over one of them, and I agree with it, and… but it wasn't this way, and… Owl Cam: I took this to the past, we'll see. The one where effective school boards have a collaborative relationship, let's say. Owl Cam: community, and then some of the things you've highlighted… Okay. Yeah. Strong communication between superintendents, staff, and each other. Yeah. Received information from many sources, including the superintendent, directors, principals,

104teachers, and sources outside the district. Owl Cam: Superintendent was a primary source of FIDNAP informing, and then… Owl Cam: something that wasn't highlighted. In low-achieving districts, board members expressed concern that not all information was shared or shared equally. Owl Cam: You know, and I… Owl Cam: Yeah, I think this is great, but… Yeah, in policy governance, do you think it's different? No, I'm asking… I mean, I think this can work with policy governance. Yep. But is it designed to work with policy governance? That paper? Owl Cam: You mean that… Sega. Kennedy. Kennedy. Oh, yeah, for sure. I think the thing is, like, if it's kind of like, you know. Owl Cam: can we imagine a system of government that still produces life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And it's like, okay, the Dutch still

105have a king or a queen. And so it's like, yes, there are other ways to get there, and I think when you look at this, it's like. Owl Cam: the reason that policy governance has taken over many boards is because it seems to be one of the ways to accomplish those things. So, that's kind of saying what needs to happen, and policy governance is just a way to get there. Owl Cam: So it's compatible. Owl Cam: And it's hard to imagine alternatives to policy governments. Owl Cam: Policy governance is also kind of a call. No, I'm not asking for an alternative, I'm just saying. Owl Cam: what happened… Bad policy governance. Bad policy governance. Owl Cam: Does not follow this. Owl Cam: Absolutely, I agree with you. Yeah, and I don't… I'm wondering, are you

106asking, is there a conflict between that principle and policy governance? That's what I thought you were asking. And I think there's a conflict between that principle and the prior implementation of policy governance. Owl Cam: not actual policy. The way a prior application here. Okay. I mean, because there was another one where, you know, effective boards embrace and monitor data, even when the information is negative and use it for improvement. Owl Cam: But you have to have that information. Absolutely. If you go… so that was number 5, and I just read number 4 was the one that I read previously, so if you're not getting the information because number 4 is not being adhered to, you can't effectively monitor and then improve the negative stuff. I agree. I agree. You can't have all of your information

107curated from a single source. Owl Cam: No. Owl Cam: Okay. Yep. Owl Cam: Yeah, that paper, I don't think… Owl Cam: anybody… those two people that wrote that paper, Chuck and the other one, I don't think they were policy governance people at all. I think they were thinking about governance. They weren't thinking about… they were doing research Owl Cam: in school districts, and I don't know, maybe some of those school districts were following policy government. Research on just what the characteristics of… Yeah. Generally speaking, yeah, and as Seamus so well said. Owl Cam: policy governance is a way to help us achieve those eight effective characteristics. So what I put in front of you is just what I call the BS activity. See if you can, I know, I love it. I like it. You

108can identify these, these roles, these tasks as a board role, a superintendent role, or maybe both. Owl Cam: That's where the BS comes in. Owl Cam: I'm gonna use the restroom while you're doing that, and then we'll do… Owl Cam: One chat about these? Owl Cam: Are there any that are harder than others? Some of them are so easy. No, they probably consult your intelligence. Owl Cam: I'll tell you which ones I think are easy, Dan, if we get to them. Owl Cam: No, seriously, are there any that you were like, I don't know about this one? Because I don't know if I have time to go through all of them, but… Owl Cam: questions, and I gave away my last copy, so it might look over your shoulder. 14 for me depends… Owl Cam:

109at what level, is the question, right? Like, there's certainly… Review the audit. Right, there's certainly instances where I think we might want to review an audit, but then there's, depending on what the audit is, right, there's levels where Joe and his team… Right. Owl Cam: Yeah, I think this was meant to be a financial audit, as opposed to, like, a facilities audit, right? Yeah, exactly. Which would be for Joe and his team. Yeah, since it does say… well, it doesn't even specify… It doesn't designate the genre or the size. Yeah, so let's just say it's a financial audit from an outside Owl Cam: accounting firm, or an audit firm. So, does that make it clear? Owl Cam: Yes. Yeah. For me. Yeah. Doesn't mean I got it right, though. Owl Cam: No, it doesn't hurt.

110Owl Cam: 6 is a little unclear for me, too, because it doesn't specify a shared governance or operational policies, it just means policy. It's at what level. It's a level. Yeah, I did both. It depends on the level. Right. Owl Cam: Yeah, you're gonna have your policies, your board policies. Owl Cam: I would definitely say the creation of these policies, your policy governance policies, is a board role. Owl Cam: You don't want… Owl Cam: But I know that there are internal policies, or I don't know, maybe the district doesn't call them policies, do you call them admin memos, or… Owl Cam: procedures… We have board policies that go beyond the policy governance policy. Oh, you also have board policies, okay. Like, outside the mandated policies, even? I… that, I haven't been here long enough to

111tell you that. Okay. So, like, for example, public participation. It's not a mandated policy. Owl Cam: Right, right. But it was a board policy. We adopted Owl Cam: BSBA 821. As a board policy, so it's not… inherent. Owl Cam: So it is not… Policy manual. It is not in the policy governance or policies under governance. Owl Cam: Okay. It's, separate. It's a separate one. To help you with that work, yeah. Which is confusing, and it was actually when, in the pre… the previous superintendent. Owl Cam: We asked for her advice about where to put it, and we ended up going with Owl Cam: not putting it into executive limitations, or something like that? Well, it shouldn't… I don't think it needs to go into executive limits. This is definitely part of your governance process. Owl

112Cam: And I'm wondering, Owl Cam: when I say policies, I'm talking about we have policies for substitute teachers, for travel reimbursement, for professional development, those are all board-adopted policies, and then there are administrative procedures for some of those. Right, right, right, yep. That would be a good thing when we do the SBA policy audit, because right now, what we have is we have something on the website, and it says. Owl Cam: Board policies and procedures, and then there's this Owl Cam: table, and it kind of lists… and so, like, on there, we have, like, what you're talking about, and then we also have the board public participation policy, but we don't have any of the policy governance stuff, and so it would be… Right, that's on a separate page. Right, and so any amount of

113clarifying that we could write down, and everybody agree that it's true on the website, even if it's redundant, we'll… we should probably have that. Oh, I agree. Owl Cam: I agree. Owl Cam: But I would also say, some of your board policies, like that public comment policy. Owl Cam: It's fine that you have a separate policy for it as a board, but you could also build it into your governance process. Owl Cam: your governing style. Owl Cam: Yeah, I mean, I think we'd probably be open. To kind of streamline it, and not make it so darn confusing, because… It is confusing. It is. And even right now, I'm looking at our website, and we have… Owl Cam: you know, there's the ends policy, there's policies and procedures, policies and procedures, and then there's policy governance.

114It's like, you've got, like, what's what, what fits where? Well, and that's… and so I think that the board… this board seems like we'd be amenable to clarifying that. And also, I want to recognize that, like, having something that's simple is hard. So, like, what we're talking about is hard, as we get there. But you could even do, like, I would envision, like, you could have a Owl Cam: out and say. Owl Cam: you know, like, to show everything, and then this is what fits where. So this is policy governance. These are the board policies, like, what's separate. Owl Cam: where do the ENS policies fit through all of that? And it should be, like, understandable to an 8th grader. Very visual. Owl Cam: it could be understandable to a kindergartner. Well, that's maybe a

115little bit more. A visual, you could say, like, these are the rules, this is… this is how it all fits, and this is what we do, this is where the ends fit into it. I mean, I'm all for that, like… Owl Cam: Keep it simple. Which is hard to do. Which is hard. Yeah, simple is hard. But it goes a long way in terms of durability over boards and superintendents, right? Like, if the goal is to not experience what you experience, doesn't be then… Owl Cam: Yeah, yeah. But I think that is a really good work effort for us in 2026, as we're looking at a strategic plan, as we're looking at revisiting our ends, as we're looking at Owl Cam: mapping all of this out, perhaps enhancing our website. Like, all of these things,

116I'm like, I hope that these are work plan items we can tackle. Owl Cam: In 20 cents. You've got… that's a… that's ambitious. Like, everything you just said. That's huge. But, you know, it's a… it's a broad conversation. Work it through. Element at a time. But knowing, and having a work plan, and saying, at least this is what we have to do. Do you have an annual work plan? Do I know how to do a work plan? No, do you have one? An annual work plan? We have started… we've got the… we've got the foundation Owl Cam: of one with all the different pieces to it, but it's just a matter of them, like, going back and resurrecting that and putting our ways together. Certainly, my experience at my company is that just because you

117have a plan doesn't mean you'll… not even fall… I'm not even saying that plants fall apart when they make reality. I'm saying that, like, even Owl Cam: Having an actively managed project is no Owl Cam: walk in the park. No, I know. Yeah, but it's the stewardship, it's having it and bringing it up during every board meeting, and having your name. It's a time investment, right? Absolutely. Frankly, it means… Owl Cam: my opinion, more special board meetings that are just for work sessions to do that kind of stuff, because if the… you know, if the goal is we have to be out done at 8 o'clock on our board, we just can't get… we just can't get everything done that we need done. And I would say that that getting done at 8 o'clock is

118not… Owl Cam: the consensus of the board that that's what we need to do. Yeah, I would suggest… I'll send you examples of annual work plans from the policy governance, of our… I'll send you our example. The investment time is the first one. Owl Cam: And then after that, they kind of write themselves. And also, we… they don't just live on the shelf. Owl Cam: this is what creates our agenda every month. So, talk about agenda planning becoming easy. Owl Cam: If you have that annual work plan, and it's organized by policy, so we have the community, you know, linkage and, executive limitation reporting schedule, governance process, reporting schedule, and then we know what month we're going to do which policy, which month, you know, it's all mapped out, that first lift. Owl Cam: is

119hard, because you've got to get it on there, but then after that, during our summer retreat, we'll take an hour and look at the work plan and just kind of update it. Just to add some spice into this conversation, I don't necessarily believe that it will be self… Owl Cam: that are, like… I know that you're not saying that it does the work. Owl Cam: And so a human doesn't have to worry. A human's still, like… and I think also that if you set a plan at the beginning of the year, and things come up, you know, so I… I'm… I'm highly skeptical of… Owl Cam: Anyway, I… the board has to focus on Owl Cam: as few things as possible that are amiss, like, as… that are important. And so, like, a work plan…

120Owl Cam: should be as… just like a constitution, I think for a board, a volunteer should be as small as possible, it should focus on the things that really matter, and then we feel success because we're actually doing… like, last year, we passed the first policy in 5 years, which was public participation. We passed the first change to executive limitations in probably 5 or 10 years, and like, so we'll build… we should build on success, but in the same way that simplicity is hard. Owl Cam: also, project planning is hard, and so I only mean to say that, like, when… if and when we accomplish work planning and project management, I will be very impressed and thankful to the person who's driving that. But there has to be a person driving that. And… Owl Cam:

121I do think we have that expertise in the core, actually. Yeah, yeah, you do. You do. You do. I'm looking at you, John. Owl Cam: Oh, wait, before I go on, any other ones that kind of cause headache or heartburn? Not headache, but I, like, number 13, determining grade configuration for a school. I think, to me, that is also one that is contextual, right? If it's Owl Cam: And I'm just using our example specifically. If our… if our goal is to move 5th graders to the middle school, I think that's probably more a superintendent feel. If it involves Owl Cam: closing a building, which will then impact how we do rake configurations, I think that's a different… and I bring up now my… Owl Cam: I feel like that's a perfect… Owl Cam: So, when

122I had brought up before this concept that if it's politically controversial, the board should provide the guidance. Owl Cam: Both so that it has the legitimacy, and also so that you have some political cover to do hard and unpleasant things. And you brought up the example of, like, some of the most controversial things in your experience are, like, a band director, or a coach. Owl Cam: And I think that, like, If a board is listening outside of the parent community. Owl Cam: The parent community in South Bronze is only 20% of the voters. Owl Cam: That's pretty big, for some communities. That's big. Right, so I think if we are, as a board, listening to the broader community and not just the parents. Owl Cam: The broader community doesn't care about a bad director, and

123so it's our job as a board to stay focused on things that… it's in our code of conduct that says we have to Owl Cam: Maybe, but I had a… I had a text from a gentleman last night complaining about the change to Rebels. Owl Cam: Who's still 70 years old. So all I'm saying is, all I'm saying is that, like, as a board, I would feel like a quality board… no, no, I know we changed, but… A quality board will recognize there's, like, a change to a band director, a change to a coach. Owl Cam: walk. Owl Cam: is not our territory. Firing principle is not our territory. Owl Cam: However, on the other hand, school consolidation Owl Cam: Even though it does involve operations. Owl Cam: But it's gonna, like, if you move,

124like, and this is something this district may have to deal with in the next couple years, if you have to move grade levels from Chamberlain to Rick Marcotte or vice versa, that is gonna be a huge mess, and… and… Owl Cam: In a good way. I'm not saying in a bad way. And then the board has to decide that, and even if that's what you want, it's like, we can't… Owl Cam: we can't have you be the… like, that's a huge political legitimacy problem, if you make that decision, and if it's seen that you are making that decision. Owl Cam: As opposed to us making that decision. So I personally feel that that's very important to the proper functioning of democracy. I agree, I agree with everything you're saying. And would add that the… Owl

125Cam: like a long-lived coach or teacher has more constituents than just the current parents, and they become stalwarts, you know what I mean? And those do become controversial, where people go to the board, save this person, save this person. Owl Cam: She was my favorite 5th grade teacher 30 years ago. Those are the places where I see superintendents get burned, is that they have every bit of evidence they need to remove somebody, but they are beloved, and so the board will Owl Cam: the superintendent will make a recommendation, we need to non-renew this contract, and the board will turn it down, and then the superintendent ends up leaving, and somebody who was, you know… See, we just watched a movie last night with my kids, Miracle on 34th Street. Oh, yeah. And the concept of

126the movie is that Santa Claus is put on trial. Owl Cam: And the judge… Owl Cam: is put in the position of having to say whether Santa Claus is real or not. And his political… Owl Cam: consultants are like, do not decide that, because you will never be elected again. And so, in a way, even though it's backwards, the superintendent is the judge. Like, if it's about Santa Claus, you should not decide, because that will… Owl Cam: you know, it will delegitimate the whole thing. So, it's like the Santa Claus room. One that I was a little on the fence about was conduct site visits to schools. I originally put superintendent, but Owl Cam: because I feel like I had… since I've been on this board, there's been a lot of separation of board and

127schools, but I don't feel that that's really… Owl Cam: right, necessarily. I think board members should be able to go into schools and see what's going on there, and meet people and kids, and so that one… Owl Cam: What did you put down, BS? BS, yeah. What do others think about that? Owl Cam: that causal confusion. Well, I thought, I mean, superintendent's going to be going around to the schools, any superintendent is going to be going around to the schools, you know, pretty consistently, so… Yeah. But the point that Emily is making is she feels like it's also part of the responsibility of the role of the board Owl Cam: to go to see schools. Yep. Owl Cam: I think so. Owl Cam: So, in policy of governance, there's 3 types of monitoring, remember? Owl

128Cam: The policy monitoring. Owl Cam: Oh, internal, external, and direct inspection. The internal, yep, so, or, monitoring by an external party, so like a financial audit, and the third one is direct inspection. Direct inspection. Direct inspection. So you could say that part of your monitoring role is direct inspection. Owl Cam: What does that look like? Owl Cam: I'm going to the holiday music concert on Thursday at our school, because I haven't been inside our school except to go to a board meeting forever, you know? So I want to go see, like, how's our music program doing? If I want more than that. Owl Cam: And if the board decides I need to see more of what, like, what's happening in the school. Owl Cam: You need to talk about that with Joe, the superintendent, to

129decide what would be effective and efficient and appropriate, right? Owl Cam: Let's draw that out a little bit, like, Joe, I would love to hear how, like, what is your… do you have any stories about boards? I do, and I just… so, my… I do… I… I agree that, Owl Cam: that the board should be able to go in, but I think it is… it needs to be managed, and there needs to be reason, and it needs to be communicated. Even as a parent, you're a parent, so when you're a board member, you are see… whether you like it or not, you're seen different by the staff, and when you come in. Owl Cam: people will automatically think that they're under inspection, and that causes anxiety. It sure does. So, you need to be just

130aware of that, going into your own kid's building. Owl Cam: But I think, you know, if it's a public event, football game, choir concert, and… Owl Cam: I… you… board members can go there, and I think it's very well appreciated. It's not appreciated if board members show up and say, hey, I just want to… I just want to walk through. It would… it's… it is better received when I say, hey, we have some new board members who really want to learn more about what we're doing. We would love for you to show off your building. Can we come around as a group, or even an individual? Emily's going to come around. Owl Cam: give them the heads up, know what it's about, to try to decrease that anxiety level, you know what I mean? And

131Emily, I feel like you weren't saying that you wanted to be able to do unannounced inspections. I feel like that's not where you were coming from, but on the other hand, I think we just lived through an experience Owl Cam: where maybe we felt like we didn't have as much information as we needed. So could you talk a little bit about more, like. Owl Cam: why you think it's important, or what you meant when you said, I think, I really appreciate, Joe, you saying that, because it does not even occur to me that I would be seen as someone who might be inspecting or, like, trying to catch someone doing something… Investigating the assault and the former would get together and say, let's go investigate. In fact, I… one of my… I have a teacher

132friend who Owl Cam: was talking to me and said something like, oh, well, just so you know, this is why I'm, like, describing why they were doing something. Like, I had some sort of concern about their… I was like, I have zero experience in education. I definitely feel like the… the professionals are doing the job that they should be doing, and, like, they have all the Owl Cam: for responsibility, and education, anything. So yes, what I meant was, for me, I joined the school board because I love South Burlington, and I do love the schools. I am a parent, four kids, and Owl Cam: I want… the schools are the best. That's what I… I want to be able to go in there and just feel the energy and see how the… how the kids

133are doing, how the teachers are feeling. I mean, what do their faces look like? What is… is there a way we… we can help make this better for everybody? That's… Owl Cam: mostly, it's all about supporting schools. That's why I'd like to build and be able to see that, but… Like a demonstration of care, right? Yeah, exactly. You want people to feel seen by the district. And that we… we… Owl Cam: we want to work together to try to, yeah, to care to bring us to a place that… Would that be acceptable for you, Joe? I like the idea of being called out. I still want that communication to be, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I… Owl Cam: Yeah, that's absolutely the message that needs to be put out there, that this is why it is good.

134Exactly. If you're a parent, you should have whatever parental rights you have, even as a board member, but if it's anything beyond that, I would not want Owl Cam: Joe Public coming in, just like, I want to see the smiling faces. This is why this person's coming in, because they are very supportive, they want to learn, you know, and that, I think, is… Owl Cam: Just to ease that anxiety level. Right. And one of the first things you said today was superintendents don't leave districts, they leave boards. But I think that also. Owl Cam: What that means is that the boards can help the superintendent Owl Cam: Be more effective. And when there's people on the board who have special abilities. Owl Cam: And so, like, you know, boards will turn over, so it's important

135to have consistent and simple ends and executive limitations so there can be continuity there. However. Owl Cam: It's like, take… we should consider Owl Cam: taking advantage of individual strengths on a particular set of school board members. And so, like, for example, like, on this school board, it's like, well, Jen has a… Owl Cam: long background in organizing work, and Emily has, like, a strong energy for, like, connecting, you know, whatever she can do to help the schools feel more… and so it's like. Owl Cam: there can be active management, I feel like, of school board members where, you know, you've heard this message from Emily that she wants to be helpful. Owl Cam: And so it's like, it's a little bit… it's not just like, can Emily ask you? It's also, can you ask

136Emily? You know, to go and say, hey, it's a quarter, let's… every quarter, I don't know. So I will… use us as resources, because there won't always be an Emily on the board, right? Yeah, right? Owl Cam: And I think also, to me, I know I don't have control over what goes on in the school, but there's so much confusion about what school boards can do, you know? So, that's another reason why I wouldn't understand that I would be, intimidating. Right. I wanted to ask the students, what would you think if you saw a school board member, if you weren't on the school board? You're the average student, and you saw a school board member walk into the school. Owl Cam: what would you… would you think anything? You would know who they are? No,

137I think that's the problem. I think… Owl Cam: that's why I would like the idea of you guys walking around. I think it's different from the teacher's perspective, but I think students don't know who you are. And then, if there is a problem, and they want to come speak at a school board meeting, they feel intimidated to do so, because it's like. Owl Cam: they've never been in this space, they've never seen your faces before, like, there's none of that, like, trust to come speak about something vulnerable. Do you know what I mean? Totally. Like, the idea of, like, coming to a board meeting, it sounds, like, very professional and, you know… Scary. Owl Cam: Yeah, no. Yeah, I just went the other day, actually, this past Monday, one of the scout requirements for a

138rank is you have to do citizenship in the community, and they had to talk with an elected official, and they asked me if I would come and speak with them, and so I talked to them about the school board, there were, like, 15 kids. Owl Cam: And it was awesome, because Owl Cam: they didn't know anything about, like, what is a school board? Why… what is the role? So we went through, we kind of drew a chart of, you know, here's the school board, and here's the superintendent, and what I learned from policy governance, right? And here's all your principals, and then here's all your teachers, so understanding what that, you know, kind of work chart is. Good for you. And then the whole idea of policies, and I still struggle with, like, okay. Owl

139Cam: which ones are which, but I remembered the hourglass. We're going to get to that. Yeah, and I think that is so helpful, because it's like, this is where the board is, these are the policies, and then the superintendent is that point for the operations, and explaining that, and then we went through some examples of Owl Cam: you know, things that might have happened that may have been a board decision, or a superintendent decision, and it was really interesting. I mean, they had some great questions, but to your point, like. Owl Cam: I didn't… I mean, they didn't know who the school… and I think also because there's so much turnover on the board also, like, it's hard to know who's who. Owl Cam: So this is something I was hoping to get budget for,

140maybe next year. It's like, FBI Ray Jacket. That's not even… Owl Cam: What is it that I have to have the… Hilarious. Owl Cam: Yeah. I think that might also help with something I feel like the students on the school board have to work on hard every year is misinformation about the budget. And a lot of that stems from misinformation about who's making the decisions around the budget, and that's kind of the not understanding the structure of, like, is the superintendent making those decisions? Are the principals Owl Cam: schools, is the board, so… Owl Cam: I think that would also be helpful. Or, yeah. Can I say one thing, too, on that? Shout out for you guys, your Instagram is awesome. They've got it going, and you started it, and it's really cool. I mean,

141I see that you've got updates, and you've been doing a really good job. Owl Cam: Good job. Good job. Props. Everybody follow them on Instagram. Alright, S-BS-B… Student Reps. Yeah, Student Reps, thank you. Yeah, look them up on Instagram. Owl Cam: All right. Well, the school circulated, shared something, that's how I knew. That's amazing. I think just, Owl Cam: I don't want to sound defensive, but I think that it's… I think it is important that, you know. Owl Cam: Students know who the school board members are and all the… Owl Cam: I need school board members who, when people do come to them and say, hey, I have a complaint, this teacher's doing this, that just that the response from the school board member is appropriate to that person about… Yeah, like we talked about

142that. This is who you should talk to about. I'm very empathetic to your issue, please. Owl Cam: reach out to the principal, superintendent. Yeah. So, yeah. Like, I don't think a student would know to go to you versus to go towards the school board. So having the understanding, yeah, that could be part of your… a student would typically go to a principal for help, but if the problem is with the principal, then it comes to the school board. And that, for you guys, could be the… Owl Cam: part that you play as a student rep is to educate the student population about how you get an issue heard in the district. That would be huge. It's the same… we're going to go over that… it's the same way that any member of the community would

143approach it, right? Because it's really important. What Joe said is that the Owl Cam: That he is not circumvented. Owl Cam: So, just to sum up this, this whole, kind of. Owl Cam: roles and responsibilities, I would say… Owl Cam: It's more of an art than a science. Owl Cam: Right? Because there are so many gray areas, and areas where it does overlap, and so many cases, like Austin pointed out, it just depends on the situation, right? So. Owl Cam: it's hard to say this is a right answer or a wrong answer. If you kind of remember what your ultimate responsibility is, the governance role is really to focus. Owl Cam: And think of that governance versus management, that can help you avoid stepping into some of these pitfalls. And the other thing I would

144add to that is communication and trust. Owl Cam: with your superintendent, and, having that dialogue like you're having right now with them is… is also critical. And so, Owl Cam: Once you have, Owl Cam: you know, those elements in place, and you can have a productive conversation, then you're going to avoid these disagreements, or when you have one, you're going to be able to resolve it more easily than… than if you have that foundation of trust and respect. So, what I'm hearing here is very positive, very, Owl Cam: very, it portends for a wonderful… Owl Cam: future for you guys. So, did we go… I heard you ask about one, and I've been taking notes and things. I don't know if I missed something else. Are there others where we've had the S? Did we

145go through? Which ones did we all say were… were yes? Owl Cam: Board superintendent is what that means for people online. Owl Cam: I mean, I had, for myself, I had put down, developing the vision, I said was the board. Owl Cam: Conducting the performance review of the principal, I said it's the superintendent. I wonder what you guys have? Do you… is there one on here of superintendent, goals? Yep, 8. Number 8, setting goals, that was the board. Oh, setting goals for the… oh, sorry, that would be the superintendent. Owl Cam: Yeah, BS. BS. BS. BS, yeah, right. Mutually agreed upon goal. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, but let's clarify that. Okay, that's actually very, very… so, there are two Owl Cam: kinds of things. There's, like, personal goals. Owl Cam: And so, in the

146past, this board has had contracts with superintendents where the superintendent is allowed to set personal goals for themselves with advice from the board, and then those personal goals Owl Cam: It can be about professional development, it could be about… and so, like, there's rules for the superintendent, can be something that is board, it's superintendent, it has nothing to do with Owl Cam: policy governance, it has nothing to do with, like, how the superintendent is evaluated from, like, a policy monitoring point of view. And then there… the concept of, like… so as long as what this means, cycles for the superintendent, is, like, that personal goals thing, I agree it's BS. Owl Cam: Or stand super into the bedroom. Owl Cam: But then, like, setting goals for the superintendent, like, in a policy government… policy governance,

147like, if you look at the FAQ of the policy governance website, it says, why don't we talk about goals in policy governance? And I think it's because Owl Cam: goals don't always include the why, and so that's why instead of goals, we have ends. And so, like, in terms of setting ends, that is board. And so, the con… the whole… it's almost like a trick question, like, goals in a policy governments context is, like. Owl Cam: very different thing. You have to be clear what goals you're talking about. Sure. Yeah, because I… as I went through that… the policy governance training, I… I thought that very… Owl Cam: I think what I'm saying is similar to what you're thinking, is that I don't know why there would need to be separate superintendent goals. To me,

148the ends are the ends that I strive for, and if we have a strategic plan with goals, like academic goals, that would come up in our monitoring reports. I can tell you why there would be superintendent goals, it's to give you a bonus. Owl Cam: That's why you have superintendent goals? I mean, in the context of our contracts, historically at the district, superintendent goals are a way of having executive compensation. Okay. Okay. Do you know how many… I don't know. …that goes? I'm just saying that… I'm not sure if that's a practice that's been happening for many years. Yeah. Owl Cam: I'm just saying that that's… Owl Cam: you're saying, like, well, it doesn't make sense to me that, as a superintendent, I would have to meet both the ends and also some separate set

149of goals, and I totally agree with you, and the only, in my personal opinion, the only way that I would support a separate set of goals for you is if they were personal goals about, you know, you taking an online certification or something. Professional development goals, got it, okay, yep. Owl Cam: Yeah, yeah, yeah, normally in a policy governance world, you don't have separate goals for… for a superintendent, the CEO, because you are being held accountable for implementing the goal, the Owl Cam: ENDS policy, and in that ENS policy, you have your strategic plan, which has goals, you have the continuous improvement plan, and goals. I read often was. Owl Cam: what they really stressed in there is that the monitoring reports are your evaluation. That's true, true. Can you say what you just said

150again? In policy governance, you should not have separate… I didn't say you shouldn't. I said it… boards typically don't have goals for their superintendent. Owl Cam: However, I do know superintendents that do like to have some goals. Maybe I didn't understand for the bonus reasoning, which is a good one, but, also for, I know that my superintendent and her policy governance like to have her own goals, because she wanted to keep improving as a professional. So she had areas of… that she wanted to work on. Professional goals. Professional goals. Owl Cam: At the beginning of the meeting, when you said that you felt your board was slipping, and I asked what you meant by slipping, I think an example of policy governance slipping is when the board Owl Cam: instead of changing the ENS policy,

151which is tough, they're like, well, let's just set some goals for the year. And that's where you've gone off, you've gone off the ribs. Owl Cam: Okay. Yeah, so our policy actually says the board will view superintendent performance as identical to organizational performance, so that organizational accomplishment of board-stated ends and avoidance of board proscribed means will be viewed as successful superintendent performance. Owl Cam: That's right. That's how you do your superintendent evaluation. And the contract, superintendent contract would… Owl Cam: to a greater or lesser extent, incorporate that definition of performance. But in the current, you know, like, our contract with you, we don't have a performance section outside of policy governance. So, like, if you succeed in policy governance, you're good to go. Owl Cam: Okay. Owl Cam: Can we move on? Because we're running

152a little short on time, and this is so good, so interesting, and we could say so much more and spend a couple minutes on each of those, but unfortunately, we just don't have the time! Owl Cam: So let's talk about the role of the school board a little bit more concretely, the… so we know why we… Owl Cam: do it, let's talk about what we do, because we have this governance responsibility, so how do we do that? What does that look like in a practical sense? So, the school board acts as trustees, and I underlined that word, and I'll come back to that, on behalf of the community, or the owners, to provide oversight of public education and assuring that three things happen. Owl Cam: That we set the vision, expectations, or goals to assure

153that every student in our district is successful and has high… has access to a high-quality public education. Owl Cam: We make sure that the taxpayer is getting a good return on their investment. Owl Cam: and to enable the system to operate efficiently, effectively, and ethically. Owl Cam: So those are kind of the… the three things that we… that word assuring showed up again. Remember, we talked about how we assure that schools are well run, but we don't actually run them? Owl Cam: So we assure that we work hard in our governance role to assure that these three… sorry, these three things happen. Owl Cam: The reason I underlined the word trustees is, Owl Cam: this is where I want to talk about that word, representative. I hear what you're saying when you talk about what

154you mean with a representative, and I think that's absolutely correct, what you're saying. I think what makes me nervous is when we think of the term representative, Owl Cam: In… in government. Owl Cam: especially, like, in the legislature, right, whether it's Montpelier or Washington, we really are thinking about a voice for a particular constituency or group. Owl Cam: And, represent… representatives often advocate on behalf of that constituency or group, for the interests or the concerns of that group. Owl Cam: And typically, representatives are not entrusted with fiduciary responsibilities. Owl Cam: a trustee… Owl Cam: is different, and that's what I think a school board member is more similar to, is a trustee, and a trustee is somebody who Owl Cam: Is entrusted by the community, by the voters, to stand in their place. Owl Cam:

155And… and to be here, because they don't want to be here, right? Not every single member of our community wants to be helping run, helping assure that our schools are run efficiently and effectively, and ethically. So they ask us to do that work, and that's… they vote us onto the board. Owl Cam: They, put us in our, in our offices, for sure, by electing us. Owl Cam: They are a very important, I'd say, group of stakeholders. Owl Cam: And… I think that, we, as trustees, are entrusted to do what's best for the district. Owl Cam: the South Burlington School District. That's what our job is, is we need to assure that they think that everything here is going the way we envisioned it to go. Owl Cam: sometimes those two things can conflict. Sometimes you

156might have, like, think about budgets, right? Owl Cam: The property taxes are too high! The board's gotta do something. Let's cut, you know, lower your budget… lower the budget so that our property taxes aren't so high. Well, is that in the best interest? Owl Cam: Of our district? Owl Cam: it may not hurt it, it may not harm it, but it may. Like, there's sometimes this rub, I think. Oftentimes, there's a rub, between what they want Owl Cam: and what we think is best for our students and for this district. And so… Owl Cam: I like to… I'm in a two-town school district, and I live in one town, but I have another town, right, in my district. And I don't sit there and I think of myself as a representative of just my town.

157I say I have this… I occupy the Chittenden seat. Owl Cam: But I don't say I represent Chittenden, because then it makes Menden, the other town, feel like they're not… I'm not representing them. And I'm not really representing them, I'm actually there helping the district to do what it needs to get done. Owl Cam: And part of that, as you said before, Seamus, is Owl Cam: that connection, I can't remember how you said it, but you're the bridge, I think you might have used the word, the bridge between the community and the school district. Totally, yes, yes, yes. So when you say represent, I think that's what you were talking… that's what I heard you say, and I was like, yeah, he gets it. Like, you are the bridge between the community and the district.

158Owl Cam: And that's so… Oh, you got me all riled up here. Somebody else should go first. I just want to ask a clarifying question about the word trustees. Yep. What's the source of that? Is that in the law? Is that in policy governance? Is that… No, that's the policy governance. Because that's an interpretation, I think, then, if it's not a… It's not in statute. We are directors in statute. What's that? Directors, because I think that's what is in statute. Yeah. Owl Cam: Trustees, there is your interpretation. Cool. Yeah, no, no. I think it's the SBA interpretation. Owl Cam: It's the… I think this seems to be what I've heard from PSBA. Well, it's also around the country. I would say that this is often the term I see for it to describe school board

159members in, other states as well, that we are entrusted Owl Cam: To, to serve. Owl Cam: on the behalf of those that elect us. Trustees are often appointed or elected to oversee the overall direction of Owl Cam: an organization Owl Cam: In this case, it's our school district. And, can I… can I start the bidding, or does anybody else want to go? Well, and how much time do we want to spend on this? That's a good point. Till 1 o'clock. Till 1 o'clock? No! No, no, no, no, I don't want to do that. I think this is really important, though. Owl Cam: It's… Owl Cam: Very first likes to be quieter. I know, I'm working… you always go against your natural instinct. I'm trying. Owl Cam: to not say anything. But, I mean, I'm trying

160to be the first person to speak, so if anybody else wants to take a seat, please speak. Well, I think that I heard the words about the policy governance training that I took. They didn't talk about the board members. Okay. Owl Cam: specific, specifically that, it's… it's not necessarily… school board members are not only representatives of the people that elect them, because the work they do impacts, people that do not have, those kind of decisions for any students. Yep. That's right. Owl Cam: That's right, and that's why I feel more comfortable with the word trustees and representative. So here's the thing. If you… Owl Cam: If you truly wanted to design a system that took into account, first and foremost, the interests of students, you could have an appointed board. Owl Cam: However. Owl Cam:

161In the United States, we fund our schools through property taxes, and if we didn't have school boards, it would be taxation without representation. So there, like, there is a fundamental Owl Cam: like, the Boston Tea Party, like, you know, if you're going to tax property owners in order to pay for schools, you need to give the property owners a voice in how that money is used. And so I think that that is the most fundamental… and it's… if you look at the statutes, the one word that they use is Owl Cam: shall have, you know, it's legislative, and so I think, for me, I don't disagree with what is on the screen here. I just want to insert that, like, you know, we are representatives of the people Owl Cam: that vote for us, and

162now, in our case, there's no conflict there, because everybody in the community votes for us, so we represent everybody in the community. Well, not everybody in the community votes for us, not non-registered voters. And we're not their representatives. Like, by law, we're… we… But do they pay taxes? Owl Cam: I mean, I would say that we're probably representing both the taxpayers and the voters. My neighbor is actually not a voter, but he is a taxpayer. But, like… Yeah, okay. I'm just saying, like, we should embrace the idea of Owl Cam: advocacy for the community as a whole. Yeah. And that is… and the most, like, I've now been through 3 superintendent search processes, and it's very disappointing when I get on an interview with the superintendent, and the only word that they mention is, our

163families, our families, our families. I'm like, dude, that is… Owl Cam: 10 to 20% of the people that the school board represents is our families, and everybody else Owl Cam: is the people. So, I'll stop there. Owl Cam: 10-20% of the most vulnerable. They are the most vulnerable, which is why it's so easy to fall into the trap of representing the parents. We're all here representing, like, we all came onto this board because we felt a strong representation for maybe certain parts of the community, which is great. That way, we do get to reach Owl Cam: uncover everyone in the community. You're… you might be more thinking… focused on certain people. I might be more focused on certain people in that… Owl Cam: how we all come together. Yeah, but I think some… I can't

164remember if it was mentioned in the training or not, but I've known school board members who have said, well, I represent the very conservative part of our community, or I represent the athletics. I disagree with that. Sometimes you have to put your political beliefs away, your… whatever affiliations you have away, because you are representing everybody. Owl Cam: Including the student. Well, yeah, and I think what comes into that is that there's obviously a natural inclination certain ways or the other as a human, what you feel strongly about. But just the other day with the budget, I was the only person who wanted to do a 6% budget increase, and so that didn't happen, because I did not run… I didn't have the greatest representation on the board, which is totally… that's what we're all here

165to work together, Tigers, so… Owl Cam: I felt like I was glad that I got to say how I felt, and I think I… Owl Cam: shared some people in the community shared my feelings, but not… maybe not everyone. So, that's sort of what I mean, like, you were… and I understood. Owl Cam: Right. That I said my piece, but that's not what the top majority wanted. When you said, you know, sometimes you have to put aside your political Owl Cam: like, there… when I came onto the board, there were some board members who would say things like, you know, oh, well, sometimes as a board, we have to take unpopular decisions. And I think that there's a fundamental contradiction between being an elected body Owl Cam: And unpopular decisions, which is the problem of

166democracy, but it's better than any other system we've come up with, is like. Owl Cam: It's very problematic when a board takes a quote-unquote unpopular decision, because you are literally going against Owl Cam: the people, like, the voting public, and what that does, and what it has done, I would argue, in our district, is it's eroded public trust, and it makes us look like a conspiracy, you know, so… Owl Cam: I just want to say that we should embrace Owl Cam: being representatives, you should embrace… Just be clear what you're saying when you say representatives, because, again, go ahead, I know Austin wanted to say something earlier. No, no, please. Owl Cam: No, I thought you said you… I thought I saw you wanting to advance. Okay. I… just be careful when you say who

167we represent, because I… I do feel like, we are different. Owl Cam: from those that are elected to represent us in our statehouse and in our national government. I do think that we are more of a trustee than an actual representative. Our duties are a bit different from those types of representatives. Owl Cam: And when we are… Owl Cam: we, of course, we should be listening to those that put us in office, and if we want to, and we should be, very, solicitous, like, we want to, we want to get people's input, we want that to happen. I totally get that. What I'm saying is that sometimes. Owl Cam: There's groups of people that are… that are not in agreement with what we Owl Cam: think is what's best for the district, and we have

168to be okay with that. That's the hard part. That's the unpopular decisions. I don't know, I don't know if that's… I'm just saying that I think that there is reasonable people can disagree on what you just said. Owl Cam: In terms of whether it's okay for a school board to say. Owl Cam: 80% of the community is against X, but we're gonna do it for the good of the kids. I think reasonable people can disagree about whether that's okay. Owl Cam: I would say it's not okay, because you'll end up hurting the kids down the line, because… But at the same time, there's also information… oh, you go ahead. Just that there's information we might have, like the person who needed to be let go, but the community loves them. And you even said, like,

169we should take that on, and I… so I think you're kind of… Owl Cam: you do agree that there are certain situations, but the level of communication and transparency that we are able to offer, I think, is the important piece to keep… try to keep the trust going, and I don't think those happen that often in our role. Owl Cam: No, I don't want to get into debate for debate's sake. We need to get through this. I think trustee is just a better term for the role we play. Owl Cam: we can wordsmith around, like, being a representative and what that means, but if we take it too literally, and we are just, like, the extension of the voice of the community, like, we absolutely need to consider the community, but that is… part of

170that is making unpopular decisions that might be better for the community in the long run. Owl Cam: that no community member wants today, right? Like, we need to think about reserves, or how we do budgeting for the future care of, like, the future community. Current constituents may not want that, but we may need to do it for, you know, as a trustee, because we have a broader mandate to, like, not just execute the priorities today, which will be Owl Cam: I want a 0% tax increase, right? Owl Cam: every year, right? That's always going to be… if we were just strictly representatives, those are the type of, like, you know. Owl Cam: fat absurdum, like, logical thing you can take it to, which is… Owl Cam: So, I would push back on the notion that

171we are Owl Cam: representatives of the community. I think this is a better term, which means we need to incorporate the community's feedback and incorporate their best interests, but trustee implies interpretation and longevity in a way that, like, representation to us. Owl Cam: In my opinion. Owl Cam: Can we leave it there? Owl Cam: Okay. Owl Cam: We agree to disagree a little bit, but it's a good discussion to have. I love this discussion. I do, too. This is what really functional school boards do, so I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, because everybody's rational and reasonable without slamming things, or walking out or bad, so… And you're following those session guidelines to a T. I heard the yes and several times, and listening with curiosity and not judging it Owl Cam: judging.

172You guys are a very high-functioning board in terms of your interpersonal relationships and skills. We could just skip over the communications exercise I had planned, but I still want to do it because it's really fun. And you've seen dysfunction here. I've seen it in my career. This is… I'm very, very pleased with this discussion. Yeah. Owl Cam: I've moved to South Burlington just to serve on this board. I love my board, though. Owl Cam: So… Owl Cam: just going to touch on those. So that's how, the VSBA, based on statute and what you read earlier, all the things that we have to do, we've categorized those things into six different themes, pillars, and… and I don't want to go into each of these right now, because they could… each of them could take a whole,

173retreat, but you have tons of resources to… if you're feeling a little shaky on, say, monitoring progress. Owl Cam: for us, go to our website, and there's the Essential Work of Vermont School Boards Toolkit on the website. Owl Cam: Students, you guys should have access to our website. Do you know if you do? Like, the locked pieces of it? I wonder. Owl Cam: It would be good for you. I'm going to check… I'm going to ask Amy in our office if you have access, because there's a lot of good resources out there. So, just look and, and, and dig into things that you're feeling weak on, and, Owl Cam: And then let me know if you have any questions, okay? I just had a question. And I need to follow up, because I reached out

174to you guys about the National Student Association, and I'm just remembering, I don't think I ever followed back with you about that. Owl Cam: Yeah. Because I had reached out to them, and do you know much about that? They came to our conference. You remember that? Yeah. We are going to have a conference. We're gonna… I don't know what their plans are, but we will have a webinar. In fact, I may be calling you guys, to be panelists for it. The VSBA will have a webinar, I think, in April, if I'm not mistaken, on student voice at the board. Owl Cam: So… and we'll probably invite that group to be part of that, too. Yeah. I'm just remembering. I'll follow up with them, because I know I had reached out, because I wanted to provide

175you guys some information. They're great. I want to make sure they're looped in. They're connected, yeah. They're a great organization. They're relatively new. Owl Cam: But they are wonderful, and yeah, so thank you, thank you, John, for bringing that up. All right, let's apply a little bit of what we're learning for, like, 20 minutes, if we can, do some scenarios. Owl Cam: This is called oversight, overstep, or not a great idea, so I'm going to put up some scenarios of board members, and we're just going to talk about them. Think about them, and this is where we can think about Owl Cam: those who want to jump in, and you're doing an excellent job at that too, Seamus, like, holding back, I've noticed. Owl Cam: And then letting other people… I love that, you're definitely

176following that session. In ancient Egypt, so anyway, you know, I'm taking that approach. I know, I know. No, but you're doing a great job. So, Owl Cam: Let's… yeah, here's a… here's a low, low-hanging fruit on a kind of a… okay. Owl Cam: I don't want to say easy, but… Owl Cam: All right, at a meeting, the board is discussing the first draft of the fiscal year's budget that the superintendent has just presented. Hey, have you done this yet? This will be coming up. Coming up this meeting? This month is when ours is Monday night. A board member wants to know how the first draft budget supports the district goals. So that board member says, hey, can you let us know how you think this budget is supporting our goals? Owl Cam: our ends policy.

177Is this something that is part of our board, responsibility to oversee? Owl Cam: Are we overstepping by asking that question, or just not asking… it's not a great idea? Close our eyes and vote for each thing? No, you don't have to do that. Owl Cam: I mean, what is your gut? Oversight. Anybody see it differently? Owl Cam: Not totally what you should be doing in a budget. Owl Cam: presentation, is if it's not clear, if the superintendent's not presenting it that way, then you have every right to say, I don't get it, how is this aligned with our goals for our ends policy? Owl Cam: This one is not great for Policy Governance Board, because you guys do superintendent evaluations differently, but let's… Owl Cam: forget about that for a second. So, at a meeting,

178a board member inquires why a superintendent evaluation hasn't been done recently, and the chair agrees it's not been done in over a year, so they will put it on the next meeting agenda to conduct one. Owl Cam: what is this, like, oversight? Is this part of the overseeing, overstepping, or not a great idea? Oversight. Oversight. Oversight, absolutely. And in our context, again, which probably is different, we did have a contract that did allow the superintendents to be evaluated separately from policy governance. Owl Cam: We don't have that anymore. Okay. It'll come back in the future, but we do have such a thing as that. Owl Cam: Like, you're doing a formal evaluation, or you're not doing a formal evaluation? Not the current contract. Okay. In the past contract, we have. Joe, what do you think

179of this? Owl Cam: And you don't have to… I think, yeah, dang, if you don't want to talk about that. I think not a great idea. I think it's… I think it's knee-jerk. I think that there needs to be a… Owl Cam: To say that, let's plus, Owl Cam: evaluate them at the next agenda, I think is not a great idea. I think they're putting in the agenda the decision about whether or not to evaluate, not to evaluate the next agenda. I think they're deciding… the way I'm reading this is at that meeting, they're saying, should we conduct a superintendent evaluation? Owl Cam: Yes, we are electing to do that. If the meaning is, they will put it on the agenda to discuss Owl Cam: the next… I agree. If it's not, if it's… let's

180put it on the next agenda to conduct an evaluation. Let's do an evaluation in two weeks? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Joe, I thought it was not a great idea, too, because I was reading it the same way. We don't know what we're going to say, but let's do it. Yeah. I think that's an important thing. Owl Cam: Well, we will have a superintendent evaluation. Owl Cam: Not according to the current contract. Well, it's an inter… the current contract… Don't we have to do it for the bonus? Isn't that required? Oh, in this one, yes, that's right, sorry. So, like, for example, in the past, the board has been through a problem where Owl Cam: The contract required us to do a superintendent evaluation by May 15th. Owl Cam: And we didn't meet that deadline, and so

181it would have been very good for board members to be like, guys, we need to get this done, it's in our contract. So this is kind of like a special trick question, or a district question. Yeah, I know, I know it doesn't apply great to a policy governance board, but I will say this, that there's still some things that do apply to you all, as a PG board, and that is, Owl Cam: supervision of the superintendent and, giving feedback on his or her performance shouldn't be a one-off thing. It should be done just once a year. It should be done consistently throughout the year. Owl Cam: And that's exactly the beauty of the monitoring reports, is we're actually evaluating it every single meeting by looking at those monitoring reports that he's submitting. So yeah, so

182in a way, policy governance helps with that. Also, I would say that Owl Cam: this scenario doesn't really tell us, but what is in the superintendent's contract? Right. Owl Cam: Right? Maybe the contract says they're… it doesn't even speak to an evaluation, so they could come back and say, well, hang on, there's nothing in my contract about this, so you guys can't do this. Another thing I would mention is, have you… have you set some goals for your superintendent, some mutually agreed upon goals? Because it sure is hard to evaluate if you don't have some goals for, which to… to… Owl Cam: to measure against. So, again, just throwing out, oh, shoot, we forgot to do superintendent evaluation. We really should do this at the next meeting, or even put it on the agenda at

183the next meeting. This is where I would go back to an annual work plan. This is a perfect thing where you could plug into your work plan and know, and that's where you look at the superintendent's contract. When did they have to have an evaluation done by Owl Cam: So they have enough time to decide whether they're renewing a contract, and then work yourself backwards, right? Owl Cam: So, not a great idea. I would say probably a pretty bad idea. But this is kind of more the traditional Owl Cam: governance, world, and what you guys are doing as policy governance, and just what Dan said, this, you're monitoring every single meeting through the policy monitoring reports. Owl Cam: So this is kind of interesting, Owl Cam: This one goes to something somebody was saying about,

184I think it was you, Seamus, about different members on the board who have different skill sets and experiences that could be very helpful to the superintendent. Owl Cam: So, this kind of speaks to that a little bit. A board member comes in to meet with the superintendent, and the member wants the district to change the math curriculum. He has heard about a great curriculum from his brother who teaches in another district. Owl Cam: And he has a lot of information, blah blah blah blah, they don't even use textbooks anymore. Sorry, Ali Momin, they don't even use that textbooks, do you? I do. Oh, you do? Okay. I told my son, my son's in college, I was like, don't forget your, you know, I just saw him recently, he's studying in Spain. I said, okay, we're

185going to this place, but don't forget to bring your textbooks. He's like, what the Owl Cam: How long? I don't have a textbook on my computer! But you guys still use textbooks, okay. Owl Cam: So this board member has a lot of information that he wants to share with the board and the superintendent. What do you think about this? Should a board member do this? Owl Cam: Or overstop, sorry. No, I think I wanna… I think that, like. Owl Cam: in a healthy PG board, with a healthy relationship with the superintendent, it… Owl Cam: This would be an example of, like, this is… adds a little bit of… Owl Cam: If the board… if a board member, for example, knows a lot about policy monitoring, then they might make suggestions to the superintendent in the

186spirit of asking the superintendent how it would be best to bring it up at the board level. Owl Cam: So that then we can work on it. So I don't think… That's different than what this is… This is different, yes, it's different. Yeah, the board level is not the place to be discussing, in my opinion, something like this. There are other addicts, and this… Owl Cam: that it seems like it's bordering on an abuse of power. It's like, well, I'm here, so I'm going to circumvent how things are normally done, and just go right to the top. Whereas. Owl Cam: A parent who isn't a board member, who might have the same information, can't do that. Owl Cam: There are other avenues for this to be done. Owl Cam: I would, I would just say,

187I agree with you. Owl Cam: And I think that it also… there could be information that you may have, and it could come up during a board meeting, potentially, and it could be something, especially if you have, like, a curriculum advisory committee, that it could be a recommendation to the committee. Owl Cam: You know? I… but I don't think that… I think this is definitely an overstep, that… Owl Cam: we want you to change the math curriculum. Yeah, that's… Well, but, like, let's say that I knew about this amazing math curriculum. I might go to Joe, and as long as it wasn't Joe implement this, it was Joe, this is interesting, do you think it's appropriate for me to bring this up at the board level, or what's your advice? And then you could be

188like, dude, that has been… Owl Cam: you know, that's bad science. It's like whole language, as opposed to… That was used 30 years ago. Exactly. You know, and so I think that using board members should feel that they can talk to the superintendent Owl Cam: about how to present ideas, because we are not educational experts. So I do think there's a little bit of… But that's different than what's presented here. That is different. It's going to change the math curriculum. Your thing is, what's your advice? When you think about that, that's what I think, yeah. This is a directive. Yeah. But I liked how you're bringing that up, that, like, we still should be able to talk. Owl Cam: And it only works if we have… if the superintendent trusts us to not be doing

189that on a regular… or to be… yeah, every meeting? Owl Cam: And to not be, Owl Cam: there to be negative consequences if I were to disagree, you know what I mean? Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I am… I know superintendents who think. Owl Cam: I have no problem with the board coming to me with any kind of ideas anytime, as long as it's, hey, do this. It's, hey, I heard about this, I heard about that. I want to learn too, so let me explore it. Owl Cam: But yeah, you start to get pressure when they start saying, hey, I got… here's some stuff, and what do you think about this? What do you think about this, and what do you think about this? Get some swag. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, and it goes back to that… Conflicted

190interest. Well, it goes back to that R-word. It's relationship, relationship, relationship. If you have a good relationship with your superintendent, and the superintendent is open to your expertise Owl Cam: I was a college and career advisor in my past life. Owl Cam: I might want to talk to my superintendent about things I think that our district could be doing better with college and career advising. Owl Cam: But I'm just doing that because I have a whole lot of information and knowledge about it, but I'm not saying we've got to do this, but hey, have you looked at this group that I used to follow, and have you, you know, considered this? And, you know, so it's all about that trust Owl Cam: and respect Owl Cam: the professional respect for each other, I think that's

191the key, where this… this is, yeah, this is not okay, but there are situations where it would be fine to talk to your superintendent about something that's not governance, yeah. I think… I think similar to this is the kind of thing that Owl Cam: maybe you have a facility question. Yeah. Like a path. We have a path that needs of snowed, or that's… that needs plowed, and it's snowy, and that kind of thing. Owl Cam: I am of… I'm fine with… Owl Cam: when we talk about board members having discussions with, like, other people other than the administrative team, right, the principals, or the business manager, or whatever. Owl Cam: I'm a person who is… Owl Cam: fine with that, with just a heads up or a bunch of, hey, do you mind if I…

192or is this an issue? And I would say, oh yeah, give them a call. I'm fine with that, let me give them a heads up, kind of thing. There are some superintendents that do not want the board talking to any administrators ever other than Sabrina. That's not me at all. And I've told my team the same thing. It's like, if you need to share something with the board. Owl Cam: I'm okay with you doing that, just… Owl Cam: tell me first you're doing this, I'm not shocked, or CC me on the… whatever the communication is, because as, like, early on, when we were working with each other, with Ken and the website, you would send me this, and I'd send Ken. And finally, it's like, do you mind if I just talk to Ken? I'm

193like, no, that's fine, that's fine, right? Because I don't need to know all of the stuff, so… Owl Cam: I'm very comfortable with that type of thing. Owl Cam: It's good, and it's good that they know that. It's good that they know you're comfortable with that, because, like you said, some superintendents aren't. Owl Cam: that sets you up for a good relationship with your superintendent. You know what their expectations and comfort levels are before… I just don't want surprises. Yeah, you just don't want surprises. And I'll tell them, so they're not surprised. Absolutely. But I had a call from Emily because she might ask about the… Owl Cam: I feel like that's a little bit of an earned… Owl Cam: That's like, in terms of, like, again, going back to that concept of policy governance

194slipping, it's like. Owl Cam: there has, you know, like, that default is that I never email anybody on your staff. I only email you, even if it's, like, the toilet's broken, yep. But… and so… and then you give me permission to go beyond, to go around you. So I just want to say that, like, your willingness to do that is a reflection of your confidence and your competence as a leader. Owl Cam: But it's not necessarily something that's… it's a little… It doesn't mean that I could just unilaterally start picking up the phone and calling your staff, right? No, no, absolutely not. But if you had a question about, hey, I have a question about what this math program… what this math program is, and I'm not an expert in that. Sure. You know what?

195You really need to talk to Nicole. Let me tell her that she should expect you to reach out. And do you mind CCing me on the email? Yeah. Owl Cam: Perfect. So you guys can have those discussions. I kind of know what's going on, but I'm not… Owl Cam: Perfect. And this sets us up all for the next slide. That's really helpful. Owl Cam: We don't even have to do it. You guys already know it. It's all there. You did it. I mean, what you just said, Joe and Seamus, your discussion right there, and Michelle piping in at the end, that's exactly right. This is just a… Owl Cam: Heads up, Owl Cam: It doesn't mean… that point is important to remember that the CEO is the one employee of the board, and that that

196is… they are the link to the rest of the organization. Owl Cam: So we don't want to forget that, and it's really important we don't, but there are times when we do have to talk to staff, or we wish to talk to staff, and as long as your CEO is aware of that, the why. Owl Cam: Then, that's fine. Owl Cam: Do you want to go over that at all? You guys have seen this, right? Well, I would just say one thing, the one executive limitation that we have changed in the last many, many years is that we added an executive limitation that says members of staff may Owl Cam: that the superintendent shall not limit staff from communicating with the board about matters of public concern. And so… right? Wasn't that… Was there matters

197of public concern. So, for example, if, according to our executive limitations. Owl Cam: If a staff member thinks the consolidation should have been an alternative to teacher cuts. Owl Cam: But the superintendent does not want to do that. Owl Cam: Under our executive limitation, they are allowed to tell that to the board directly. Owl Cam: in any form that they want to, without… and so I'm just saying, like, they don't have to CC you if what they're saying is, like, this is a minority report, this is a, you know, Owl Cam: This is my opinion, yeah. And then what, as a board member, would you do with that email? So there's two things about it. First of all, it has to be about public concern, so it can't be about, like, I wasn't promoted for

198this. And second of all, in our code of conduct. Owl Cam: it specifically says we have to, like, with… of all the information that comes in, we have to minimize and only look at the information that's relevant to the board. Okay. Owl Cam: Okay. Owl Cam: That seems like a good guardrail to me, those two. Owl Cam: Yeah, and you just revised that ADL to reflect that? Okay. Well, that was a big point of discussion, though, from the community, that they didn't feel that that was something that was needed, to have that, because if you're following policy governance. Owl Cam: Why do you… why do you need… why do you need that? There's sufficient protections. People said that, well. Owl Cam: it should be obvious that if you… we don't have to rehash it. Okay.

199Okay. Owl Cam: Well, as long as you're clear on what that policy says, and your community is clear, then I don't think there's a problem there. I just wanted to say, my interpretation of it is that it's… It's an EL, though. I only ever email you. I'm never allowed to call somebody in your staff. However, if somebody from your staff calls me. Owl Cam: they're allowed to do that as long as it's a matter of public concern with no threat of retaliation. Right, that's the bottom right. Right. Am I, like, let's use the example that you had about somebody came to you talking about, hey, have you considered a retirement incentive or something? And you said that to me, this is a perfect example. This is public concern. And my response was that, was… Owl

200Cam: That's great. Also, let that person know that… talk to the superintendent about that. That might be a good idea. We happen to be considering it also. Now, if somebody's saying. Owl Cam: Joe is harassing this person. I don't want you to tell me that. I want you to do your investigation. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Was that a… was that a staff member, or was that a community member? A very decorated teacher messaged me on Facebook and said, have you considered buyouts? Okay. Owl Cam: Time. Owl Cam: Yeah, but I thought that was… I mean, you did the right thing, you told me about it. But that, exactly, is, I think, the guardrail that I like having with that… with that policy. That they have… that people have the freedom to do

201that without the concern that Owl Cam: Right. It's gonna come back. That it's gonna come back later. Right. So, to our students sitting here, does this make sense to you? Like, if you were to just talk to your classmates about approaching the board. Owl Cam: that… they wouldn't start at the board level, obviously, right? Like, if they had a concern, they would… Owl Cam: work it up the chain. So they could work with the teacher, or the principal. Owl Cam: Then, if the principal isn't… Well, you know, if they feel like there's… there's concerns not being redressed. Owl Cam: You could, they could take it to the, to, to superintendent. Owl Cam: Clark, and then… Owl Cam: If then they still were unhappy as a bot… as a person or a group of students, you

202definitely would come to the board. Owl Cam: Right, that's the important thing, is, like, making sure it's being addressed, and if it's not, then… Owl Cam: needing to move upward to make sure that it's being parked. Right, exactly. So, Debbie, do you have the other visual of what it wouldn't look like? Because when I went to the stakeholders this week, I was showing them, and there's another cartoon where it shows you, if you don't have this kind of process, the mayhem that exists. I don't have that here, no. I think it's in… oh, maybe it's not. It was in the book that we got. Owl Cam: But imagine you have, you know, all of your… imagine you've got everyone that's here on the lower level, and then you have, like, lines going like this. So

203it's like, if you don't have this kind of… Owl Cam: process in place, then that's… that's me. It's like the… the core CEO has multiple bosses, right? And there's no clarity, and… and really, they only have one Owl Cam: supervisor, and that's the board. And it's the board as collectively, not the individual voices of the board, also. Right. Yeah, that principle of whole… Owl Cam: Wholeness is really important to policy governance, and to good governance in general. That's something that we talk about with boards of any, Owl Cam: system of governance in Vermont, as we talk about speaking with one voice as a board. Yeah, for sure. Owl Cam: That's a whole third. Owl Cam: Oh, it's a whole… that's a kettle of worms right there. Owl Cam: A couple more scenarios, and then we'll

204move into communication. So, while shopping, a parent approaches a board member to complain. This is such the classic example, right? And I chose the PE teacher because I love PE teachers, so I wanted to pick on them. They're having issues with the PE teacher, the child feels left out, the teacher never allows the child to be the team captain, the parent asks the board member to help. Owl Cam: And the board member says that they will speak to the superintendent about this on Monday. Owl Cam: Oversight, overstep, or not a great idea. Overskip. Yeah. Yeah, both. Well, it depends how it's presented. Is it, let me help you, I hear, I care about what you're saying. Owl Cam: please, here's the superintendent's information, get in contact with them. That's okay. Yeah, I would say that.

205I would say oversight. In that sense… But the board member says they're going to call the superintendent on Monday. No, no, no. Owl Cam: In fact, I would say, I would say, have you talked to the principal? Start at the lowest level? Yeah. Told you that you need to… Go back to this diagram. Start at the lowest level, the principal level. Owl Cam: you don't get satisfaction there, then bump it up. Yeah. But, yes. Yeah, agreed. Owl Cam: you know, from a parent in the store to the board member to, you know, absolutely. Yeah. Owl Cam: Yeah, and there's great… like, you know what I suggest is that you have, like, a canned response for a scenario like that. Owl Cam: So that… because it can be… especially if somebody's visibly upset, I mean, God,

206people… we're… we really protect our kids, like, you want… you don't want to come across as Owl Cam: unsympathetic. Right, and this is why, because all I'm going to do is call the principal anyway. Yeah. So now the principal knows that the board is in on it, and that adds stress to them to think that maybe they're in a corner about how they need to interact. To address it, yeah, yeah. And this is, like, we tried, we… Owl Cam: I think it would be cool on our website if there was a page that's, like, who to talk to, and it's, like, curriculum. That's a good idea. …who to talk to about curriculum, and, you know, yesterday, a person on the community who has been on two superintendent search committees Owl Cam: former elementary school teacher,

207highly connected to the board. She came up to me, and she's like, I'm not sure who to talk to about this, like. Owl Cam: there's this particular position that the budget might be cutting, like, do I… you know, and I think that this… this position could be shared with the city. Owl Cam: And so every… the answer to the question that you were just asking the students about whether they know that you're supposed to talk to the superintendent before the board, the answer is nobody remembers that, ever. Yeah. Owl Cam: Well, a board brochure could be something helpful. I was just saying if I have mine there. We have a trifold that we… I haven't done it for… since before pandemic, but we used to have a little tri-fold that we just put around the

208school, in town offices. Owl Cam: and hand them out at meetings, and it showed that, that whole… not that hourglass diagram, but that whole how you get your issue addressed, how you get your concerns… That's a good idea. …considered. We just… you guys probably all saw, we just sent one out to the entire staff about who in central office is responsible for it. But even, like, on the district, and I'm not telling you what to do, but, like, on the district website, there's, like, a complaint form. Owl Cam: And I think the complaint form, a problem in the past has been that the complaint form doesn't… doesn't say how it's going to be routed, it doesn't say, you know, and so, like, kind of like a flowchart. Owl Cam: Well, yeah, and so it's like,

209there's probably opportunities for, in the point where a community member would come in and file a complaint to educate them about, well, this complaint's gonna go here, and then they're like, oh, I don't need to file a complaint, I can just go talk to my principal, right? Well, and even on the complaint form, I had tried it before, back in, like, May timeframe, and I plugged in something and said, you know. Owl Cam: I'd really like to know when this is received, like, where does it go? Hit submit, never received a response. So it's like, to me, it loses a little bit of credibility if you put something out there, and then there's nothing thickens. Owl Cam: But that is a good point to try to head off. It may not need to be a

210complaint. Have you thought about changing? Feedback. Feedback. Like, I think we use a tool Owl Cam: what's it called? Where it's just a form that you fill out. It doesn't have to be a complaint, it could be an issue, a question, it could be anything. And, well, it was because of our training. Owl Cam: That we went to. Emily and Laura and I went to the train, and we heard that, and there was a demonstration, and somebody had put it up, what they had, and I was like, that's a great idea. So we came back, we started something like that. Yeah. But that's my point. It was like, oh yeah, here it is, this looks great. Yeah. Owl Cam: But you gotta promote it, too. But there's nothing… Owl Cam: coming out of the back

211side. Yeah. Throwing it into the black hole. I mean, our homepage has something called, get in touch with SBST, have a suggestion, concern, or question, would you like? Use this Google form to send your comment. I don't know, I'm gonna put in a test, because I have no blue or gold. Yeah, that's… I love that. That's… that could be… if nobody's watching that Google form… Just go ahead, it says, Joe, please return, would you like to receive this comment? Owl Cam: I'm gonna put everybody. So, I think that that, like, I go back to the work plan. I feel like there's an opportunity just for a website Owl Cam: I don't want to go off the topic, but I just feel like that's why we need a work plan, is… Owl Cam: I keep saying,

212like, the parking lot, but it's all these things that… Yeah, to capture in one place. Yep. Owl Cam: That's… Owl Cam: Time check, 30 minutes. No, 55. 55. All right, so we're going to get through my exercise on communications. It kills me. Owl Cam: Okay, I'm gonna do that one. I wanna do this one, and then get the students to say something about this one. A proud board member posted on his Facebook account what the local… when the local high school basketball team won the state's championship game. He posted a photo of the team and congratulated them on a well done. Owl Cam: On a job well done. Where did he get the photo? Owl Cam: Huh? Owl Cam: Here's my fault. Well, they were at the game, and they flashed… they took a photo

213of the team, and they put it on there. As a student, my question would go to… Owl Cam: if the board member's only posting the basketball team, why are they choosing, that's that specific team in the post, and… It was the girls' basketball team. Owl Cam: And none of the other teams. Yeah. So, why are you… The cheerleading team won the state championship, and nobody posted… no board member posted their photo. Yeah. So, congratulate them. Yeah. Owl Cam: I think posting photos of students is not a good idea. Because you asked, where did the photo come from? If it came from the newspaper, then it's a can of worms. There's no… It's a can of worms. Right, it's neutral in the best scenario. Owl Cam: Unless your child's on the… Yeah, that's a… If your

214mom… And also, like, if you… Owl Cam: if it's a news report where there's consent from the photo already from the news, like, as a politician, you are, I think, absolutely allowed to increase community engagement by promoting success Owl Cam: And of course, like, that's a consideration. Are you doing it equally across teams? But as a politician, you have leeway to Owl Cam: As long as you're not by, you know, you shouldn't have taken a picture. This is a weird question, because number one, it's… Owl Cam: Oversight, it's, you know… but if you're just a board member, and if it's your kid on the team, and you're at the game, and it's your private Facebook. Owl Cam: Yeah. I don't see the problem. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but if I'm there, my

215kid's on the team, the team poses for a photograph. Owl Cam: there's no expectation of privacy in public. You take the photograph, and you post it on your personal with a congratulations. I don't see the problem. I would agree with that. I think it's easy to be very conservative on this and say no, but I also think that Owl Cam: you know, yeah, even whether your kid's on the team or not, but if it's going on your private Facebook page, I'm not putting it on a district page. Owl Cam: Yeah, I don't have a problem with this either. To Holly's point, I think you need to be self-aware about being inclusive of other groups, but just to take a photo of a public… a public event, right? You go to a choir concert or a

216band concert, that's open to the public. So even if those kids have, do not disclose my… that's… Owl Cam: That is not the same, because they are participating in a public event. I don't profit it. But again, I think you're right. Owl Cam: All I'm doing is I'm posting the Varsity Boys team every time, as a… even if it's my personal Facebook, people know I'm a board member, hey, you know, what are you supporting? Right, yeah. I was just gonna say, like, not… maybe… I don't know if I would put Owl Cam: I'm such a proud South Burlington board member, you know, it's like, he fit just about… Congratulations. Kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. It's really hard to take off that board hat, to Joe's point, I think, is that, like. Owl Cam: Even though

217it's your private Facebook account, and there's nothing wrong with that, you have every right to be proud. Owl Cam: It's… people still see you. Owl Cam: as their elected representative. Yeah. Owl Cam: This feels similar to me, like, as, like, when Emily said, you know, I'd like to come into the school just to celebrate what's going on, right, and Joe's saying, well, hey, you know, it's hard because people in the building might only see you as a board member that's very well intended, it's within your rights as a parent, but, like, you need to be aware of that. Owl Cam: And I agree, this shouldn't… this should not be a problem. I don't personally have a problem with this, but I think it just creates… Owl Cam: challenges as a board member, and, like, you

218know, there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's in the no, not a great idea category, where, like, somebody could make a complaint about it for some reason, right? Oh, I want that photo of my student on your page, you're a board member, you said this thing that I don't agree with, like… Owl Cam: That's my stance, is just this is where, you know, it is possible to be too conservative here, and I wish I didn't have this view, but I think it's just easier not to do it because of what it opens up Owl Cam: and the inability for you to designate in public to people who might not know you, I'm a parent, I'm a board member, I'm a community member, right? Like, they don't necessarily know the context of how you're publishing

219this, so just don't do it. So it's… Owl Cam: And I respect that point, too, and would not disagree with anybody who decided I'm not going to force that. I would say that Owl Cam: visiting inside a school is a completely different dynamic, because that is not a public open forum, and there, we do need to make certain of that there will only visit photos of kids who have given that. True. And even outside of school there. In other words, just because you're not in the building doesn't Owl Cam: If you're on the playground playing, there's still a school activity, but a public concert, a public game, those kinds of things. Owl Cam: where anybody can come in, take a picture, the press could be in there, take a picture, and they don't need the…

220For instance, when the press does a news story, right, the news comes in. They will… they will only film kids' feed, you know, they'll make sure not to do that, but they don't worry about that at a football game, because… Owl Cam: It's a public event. Right, right, okay, yeah. What that has… I realized that something that, when I say that a board member might post something on Facebook in order to, you know, in a political sense, and going back to this trustee thing, I've been… keep coming back to that. Owl Cam: I'm like, there's something there, but I'm trying to figure out what it is, and I realize that my belief is that the thing that we… Owl Cam: Our trustees of is, like, the legitimacy of the school district. Owl Cam: in terms

221of, like, taxation without representation. So, like, if there is a way to use a public event of the school district to, like, make the community feel like this is a valuable Owl Cam: asset that we are taking care of well, and that their tax dollars are well spent. I feel like that is a case where you want to do it. Owl Cam: And it's like… and being really risk-averse and not doing it. Owl Cam: what you're doing is you're, you know, you're maybe avoiding some risk of being misinterpreted, because maybe it'll make staff uncomfortable that you're only posting a certain team, but on the other hand, what you're doing is you're not defending the legitimacy of the district, which will then be very problematic in the future. So. Owl Cam: I think that… Owl Cam:

222that you… like, in the past, I know, when I got on this board for the first time, I felt like there was a high aversion Owl Cam: to saying, you know, it was like, the social media policy was set in 2018, it says, don't go on social media, it's dangerous, so everybody on the board never went on social media. And that was just the default answer, it's too dangerous, don't even go there. And it's like, well, what's happened is that most of the Owl Cam: met a large portion of the non-school community. I mean, there's… Owl Cam: There's, like, 8,000 people in the Facebook groups for South Burlington, many of whom are not school community. Owl Cam: In order to reach those people and build legitimacy among them. Owl Cam: You have to post. Go

223where the people. Go where the people. So, here's a question for you. Does the district have its own social media accounts? Like, do you have Facebook and… The school board? Instagram, no, the district itself. Yeah, we have Facebook, Twitter, and post stuff. I was gonna suggest that. Awesome, that's exactly what I… I… that's what I do, and I'm not on social media anymore, but when I was on Facebook, if I saw something Owl Cam: related to the district, had the district posted, I would just repost it, share it. But here's the thing, the district is not political. Owl Cam: The district is not allowed to be political. Owl Cam: Like, the school board itself, this whole concept of the school board speaking with one voice, in the statutes, it says that we can only inform

224the community as a board, and so the board itself is limited Owl Cam: in what we can do to build the legitimacy of the school board… of the district. On the other hand, individual school board members have free speech. Owl Cam: And can politically advocate for the interests of the school board. Owl Cam: Or for the school district, and so I think that that's where Owl Cam: a policy where we said the board speaks with only one voice, and the board only, posts through the official channels, we're actually dramatically limiting our ability to build legitimacy for the school district. So, I'm gonna, Owl Cam: not… I want to push back, but I'm not going to because of time, but I made myself a note. I'm going to send you, on Monday… no, not Monday, Tuesday,

225a social… our social media resource. And you… you… and… Owl Cam: take it for what you will, but I do remember one thing in that enhanced resource that says is, of course you can't… you're entitled as a private individual to do these things, and, you know, Owl Cam: There's nothing illegal, there's maybe arguably nothing unethical about posting Owl Cam: But there could be consequences, and unintended consequences that you don't even know about. And so that's… that… that doesn't… so you just have to square that somehow, like, it's not right. Owl Cam: And I… I should be able to do this, but there could be some consequences, positive or negative. So just be aware, and I… so I'm going to send you that social media handbook for boards. Owl Cam: And just take a look at

226it, and it's very short, and you can decide what you want. But it's, it's a, yeah, it's a big topic. I did a whole training on 2 hours just on the use of social media, so it's a huge topic. So, if I don't have social media, do I have to take a train? I say, you don't have to come to the training, and I shouldn't have to come, because I don't have it either, so… Owl Cam: But anyway, yeah. Owl Cam: Alright. Owl Cam: Do you want to take a stretch? Because we're gonna… we're kind of coming into the home stretch. We're going to get you out of here even maybe a little bit before 1. Owl Cam: Before we go into communicating as a school leader, and we leave roles and responsibilities and everything

227else that we talked about behind. Owl Cam: Any final questions, or for the good of the order? Owl Cam: Anything you want to say, ask, that's not too big. Owl Cam: Have a question or a topic? Owl Cam: You good? Feeling good? All right. Owl Cam: All right, do you want to take a 2-minute stretch break, go to the bathroom, everybody, before I give directions? Because that way, nobody misses directions. Sure, that'd be good, huh? Stretches, please? Owl Cam: It's been on the other side. Owl Cam: No, no, no, no. It's like a republic where senators are unable to, like, do what they think is fascinating. Owl Cam: But yeah, yeah, it's… I think it probably has that layer, too. I don't know how to put enough people. But there are… Owl Cam: But what

228I'm saying is too many people say that America doesn't have to… And so the public is aware that there's more agency at the level of the legislature to do things that is not what the public necessarily asked it to do. Anyway, I'm agreeing with you that there is a little debate. Owl Cam: Yeah. And I don't believe that it's solved here. I don't believe that we can plan to be on one side or the other. But when I think in our context. Owl Cam: The notion of salutary democracy is absolutely 100%. Owl Cam: Because the community votes on the budget. Right. We don't do everything by round of movies, and how does that look non-functional, right? So there is a level of trust to be shed. Owl Cam: But because we have that participatory part…

229I know. Owl Cam: What we will never is do that in a representative… Oh, no, I, yes, because we only have 30% of our regulation that is roast and far too negative, but no intention of anything we say. I mean, so… It's… Owl Cam: It's not completely solvable. It's a great theoretical conversation, right? That's all we just do is do our caps, and I thought we're on the side of… Owl Cam: We need to hear what people are, and that needs to manage, is what we say and do, and it needs to be your best priority, not listening to just the loudest, or one frequency, or one set of… Owl Cam: Yeah, so… Yeah, it's… but that participatory part is the part that I think Newark gives us that. Owl Cam: To… that expected length.

230Owl Cam: Yeah, we could operate in isolation. It's gonna be, you know, we've seen it, so, right? Owl Cam: I think I voted yes on the one that was plus the percentage. Owl Cam: That's always fun, so I have to FaceTime around. Owl Cam: I wanted to do that this year, but I understand that we came… Well, maybe we could have, but I think that's not… it doesn't matter. Last time I went to Thanksgiving, Owl Cam: If I'm only stopping to use the restroom and gas up. I mean, I think that the thing about… Yeah, that's fantastic. Owl Cam: And there's a little bit of a doubt. Owl Cam: Like a drone politician, all they do is, they just do this. But then, like, a good transformational politician helps to shift what the public wants,

231and a little bit more towards the power of things. And so that's, like, towards the past efforts so exhilarating. Owl Cam: Yes. I mean, it's like… Here we are. Well, this is it. But it has followed our policies, so therefore that's when you'll never say. Owl Cam: I think it's a dispute, I felt like the girl didn't. Owl Cam: The biggest… But that, yeah. Owl Cam: Are we all back? I think so. All right, we're going to interrupt here, and jump in and get us going on our exercise. Owl Cam: Alright, are you guys ready for him? Owl Cam: Okay, I was splitting you guys in two anyway. Okay, good. Alright, so I'm just gonna have you count off by twos. So, Seamus shared one. Owl Cam: Michelle's 2, 1. Oh, sorry, Joe, I'm not

232gonna have you do this. Okay. I'm so sorry. That's great. That was rude of me. Sorry, you're getting kicked out. 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2. Okay, so two… Owl Cam: Emily and Michelle. Owl Cam: Austin and Seamus. Owl Cam: And… Owl Cam: Momin and, Laura. Jen. Or, sorry, Jen, and Allie and Dan, okay? Those are your working groups. So, this is called the Snowflake Activity. So, you guys have done it, both of you? Okay, well then you're going to be experts at it. So, whoever's paired with them is gonna be good… good… Owl Cam: position. So, basically, very minimal instructions. I'm going to give each of… you guys are going to be sitting back-to-back, where you don't see each other, and you're each going to have a piece of paper. Owl Cam:

233And you're gonna fold it in half. Owl Cam: And I'm also going to give you a pair of scissors. Owl Cam: And I'm gonna give you 10 minutes. Owl Cam: To talk to each other. Owl Cam: Back to back. Owl Cam: The only rule is, you cannot look at each other, and you can't look at each other's work. And you're going to try to cut out similarly shaped snowflakes. Owl Cam: And we're gonna see who comes closest to that. Owl Cam: And then just talk about… How this applies to what we do as school board members. Owl Cam: See, I think I used to do this in primary school. I feel like this was something… I did it recently at a conference, and we had a lot of giggles over it. Owl Cam: Yeah, not

234an easy task. What are the rules, Ian? So, the only two rules are you are not allowed to look at each other. Owl Cam: And, you are not… Allow to look at each other's Owl Cam: But we're allowed to talk. You're absolutely allowed to talk. Owl Cam: I might have to somehow come up with the same snowflake pattern. Owl Cam: And Joe is gonna go around and… with me and make sure the rules are being enforced. Owl Cam: Thanks. I don't know. Owl Cam: You are in good hands! Owl Cam: I have scissors. We do this with our peer leadership classes, so when you're a SLAM leader as a senior, and you're going into freshman advisories, we do a very similar access. Owl Cam: Are there, like, a limit or a minimum number of cuts

235you have to make? Because you can't just say we have to slice them, we're done, right? That's where you have the executive limitation. Owl Cam: Alright. That's… that's taking shortcuts, haha. Owl Cam: Alright, so, let's go. Grab some scissors, grab your papers, put yourself wherever you want, with your partner. I'm gonna give you… you want big scissors or little scissors? I have both strength. Owl Cam: Right. Depending on… I don't want… I'm so stupid. Owl Cam: Big or little, whatever. Although that may impact… it may impact the outcome, but I'm assuming, you just… I'm not left-handed. Owl Cam: Thank you. Otherwise, the distance… Right, right. Owl Cam: And we're gonna start, now, and we're… and we're gonna go to… hold on, not that big flock. Let's do… Owl Cam: I mean, that's so, like… Owl

236Cam: Just before the big hand hits the ear. Right? Okay, okay, we just have it. Go ahead. Owl Cam: Where is it to explore? Owl Cam: So you want to make a long… Or we could just put you on board, then while you make it as a triangle that we use the picture, so that it's given some rectangle of the movement package. Owl Cam: So, proud of this, no. I was interested in everything. Owl Cam: It's the bend up front again, where we take the top right of the corner and go. Owl Cam: Anywhere that we're still on the sides? There are… see how it makes the life on the right triangle? Yes. So that it aligns with the size of the left. I know, right? Exactly. Okay. Owl Cam: Yep. Owl Cam: Oh, no,

237five ways. So… So the bottom, and put those paper. Owl Cam: It's, like, a triangle. Owl Cam: There's so much. Owl Cam: It's definitely worth, like, left in the middle. You should have something that wasn't set up for you. Owl Cam: a huge undert plan for it. And then you have that, like, representing one shape. So then you want to talk all of that table, so you only have expanded by ounces. Owl Cam: So you only house that are trying to figure out about the centimeter parts. Yes, yeah. Owl Cam: And how far in? So, kind of go out to them. Owl Cam: Okay, great. So now you're going to take them to the two corners, that is not going… Upside down. Do you know, for the bottom of that Owl Cam: Okay, so the

238two other quarters, you're going to fold those so those are not together. So it's just going to be small, long, having gone up. And then we want it about as much… Perfect. Owl Cam: Like, any side of using that nip that we did that, knocked out of the Owl Cam: Okay, so I… thermals that are… Owl Cam: So now, you know the side that has the bound, and then the sides that, what do we want to do is we want to make triangles that are left. Owl Cam: So you're just gonna have that line. You're just gonna try to space that out. Owl Cam: Yes, you're not right on the middle of that. Owl Cam: Maybe, like… Yeah. Sure. Owl Cam: Might not go… I'm not gonna go off the front end. Owl Cam: Yes.

239I did a little bit. And you're always… Yeah, yeah. Owl Cam: I think… I'm trying to figure out Owl Cam: Okay. Which should have, like, the third edge of the kids together. We should do something there. How about we do some, like, we… Owl Cam: Do you want to do 3 squares, 3? 2 squares. Owl Cam: Yes. And how far you are facing to travel. Owl Cam: Yes. And then to the right, there's the first corner. I do want to go back? Okay, same size. Owl Cam: That's not fair. Yeah, no, that's… yeah. Owl Cam: So we're cutting it into this to now. My heart's working. Owl Cam: How are we doing? We have two minutes to go. Two minutes, sure. So, take the half fringe, half the folded, and triangle. Okay. Owl Cam: So

240that part, the bottom that is, like, facing one. Okay, I'm thinking half the eye on the left. Owl Cam: Those left notes at all. That apart there. Owl Cam: Between the, like, the square goes out, and then you have a front that goes on that. Owl Cam: Kind of across from… Owl Cam: Oh, no, I don't have a… I don't have one there. Oh, okay, then you kind of hard that guy. Owl Cam: And if you're done, you can turn around and look at each other's work. Owl Cam: Are you ready? I think it's ramped up. Owl Cam: Are you there? Owl Cam: Are we all done? Okay, what are you ready for that? Oh, I wore the whole thing. Owl Cam: Alright, last thing you have to happen. Owl Cam: I mean, look at

241the scraps that came on. That's what I was looking at. I had a different notion of what to achieve. Sure. Your measurements were all, they're different. Owl Cam: I think we do a pretty good job. Owl Cam: I know, I thought… We only had one thing about it, and that was that I'm gonna show off your own side. I sent three sides, and I didn't think about, yeah, so if you pulled it up, she was saying you said that we are… So, let me show you… Owl Cam: It's been this for most of us. Owl Cam: Oh, I forgot. I just forgot to cut into it. I put the funny thing in. I was worried about you. Owl Cam: That was… yes, thank you. Oh, thank you. I think at some point, I just pulled…

242I just put mine on it. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Wait, I want to see. I know. I used to have Allie, huh? Who's done this before. You gotta bring her, it's not fair. Alright, so hold up your snowflakes, I want to see everybody's snowflakes. Owl Cam: I bet. Owl Cam: So, good snow plain. Our only mistake was that we switched our sides for where we put the, Owl Cam: the squares and the circle. Very good. Okay, let's… yeah, you guys are very close. These two are pretty close, too. Oh, yeah. The only difference is that this circle is more horizontal. Owl Cam: Austin's is more birth, they kept it… That looked like an anthropological mask more than a snowflake. Yeah, I went with the masks, yeah. It looks like a lutatorium. And how did you…

243let's see… Mine's a little bit more rounded. We've got the triangles. So who… which two groups do you think did the best? Owl Cam: I think it's a… these two and these two did a really good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that consensus? Owl Cam: You guys get my very last Ben & Jerry's coupon. I only have several left! Owl Cam: Look, can we expire! Owl Cam: Oh, sorry, wrong one. So, out of curiosity, so that you two… did you two go back and forth with directions, or did one person take the lead and say, this is what we're doing, and everybody… and I'm just curious. She, I was like, just… Owl Cam: She's like, oh, do you want to, like, just tell me… So she told me she was in charge. I gave direction,

244and then asked questions. Okay. And that seemed to work well. What about you two? Exactly. Owl Cam: Yeah. And we tried to focus on a… on fewer number of cuts. Yep. So we're, like, limited steps, one person. Owl Cam: the direction, one person asking questions. Neither Michelle nor I wanted to be in charge that we went back and forth. I think that's a really good point. Like, you've got to know, like, who's driving the horse, right? Yeah. Like, you can't have two people sitting, you know. That I was a little worried about in this situation. Like, we couldn't do it. Owl Cam: what… one thing I noticed walking around is those that got a slower start did better in the end, and… Owl Cam: Because you guys spent a lot of time with that one

245fold, the way you were telling Dan how to fold, and then you guys were trying to get your terminology correct. I heard you talking about radios… Owl Cam: Yeah, and I… and I heard, I was like, oh gosh, they're gonna run out of time before they even make a cut. And yet, look at how well you, like, those came out really well. So some of that planning, I think, and that trying to get on the same page… Measure twice a couple months. Yeah, measure, exactly. Measure twice, yeah, yeah. Owl Cam: Or was it at… was it Edison, or, washington, the Cherry Tree. Owl Cam: No, I was thinking of the quote that… Oh, no, I was thinking the quote that says, I think I spend 80% of my time thinking about the problem, and 10%,

246like, trying to fix it. Like, I think it was Edison, I can't remember, but it's… Totally true. But I also think it's really important to start with the end in mind, and think about what do you want it to look like. And for us, we were trying to figure it out as we were going. Like, we've never done a Owl Cam: like, so it's hard to… like, I think… Owl Cam: you know, going back, I'd say, let's go look at what a snowflake should look like, and then how would you create that? Okay, now we can align on it, versus Owl Cam: You know, figuring that out as you go. Yep, yep. So the question you have on the board is, what is leadership? And when you had the question on the board of governance

247versus management, I think another thing that can be confused is management and leadership, and governance and leadership, and I think that Owl Cam: You can be a, Owl Cam: you can be both a good leader and a good manager, and I think that that's required for a superintendent, right? Leader and… Yeah, and I don't think that's an honest dichotomy, to be honest with you, like, that it's… you're a leader or you're a manager. Oh, it's not a dichotomy. And I think that this is what… and I also feel this, that if a bad leader and a good manager can keep a job forever, but not be necessarily Owl Cam: very successful. A great leader and a bad manager, Owl Cam: to be very motivational, but not a job, right? I think that you have to

248have a good life. Not only set a vision, but be able to get things done. Get things done, and that's the same dynamic on the governance side, is that you can be good governors and bad leaders, and you will lose all the legitimacy that you ever had. And that's what I think has happened. Owl Cam: sorry, past boards, I think that's what's happened, is that they focus too much on governance and not enough on leadership. Owl Cam: And I think the government… leadership on our side means political effectiveness. Owl Cam: Yeah, and I think too much leadership without management is chaos, and people will not stand for chaos. Owl Cam: So, in taking this activity and what you've learned about communicating and how hard it is, especially if you can't see the other person, you

249can only rely on your words. Owl Cam: That's… Owl Cam: not the way it is in a board meeting, right? You see each other, you… you're able to… to have that body language, but how could this make you more of an effective communicator among yourselves as a board, as well as with… between you and your community? Owl Cam: I'm sure to ask for questions. Ask for clarifying questions. I heard that a lot, especially with Michelle and Emily. I heard you talking… What does 2 inches mean to me? Yeah. Owl Cam: Well, that's why I said, the size of your thumb. But we have different thumb sizes, I didn't think about that. Owl Cam: Yeah. We use the, scissors. Owl Cam: We did, but we had different sized scissors! Should have thought about that. Success papers

250are prepared, and we… In terms of, lyrics. Owl Cam: Sorry, I heard somebody say before, I thought. Owl Cam: you know, well, there's different sized scissors, so it's like, we made sure. You had the same size. Yeah. Well, you know, I think we heard you guys say that, and I was thinking, because we have to calibrate our equipment. Yeah. Owl Cam: Like, what does this mean to you? Well, where's the fist scars? We're like, see where that is? And you cut to the F? Owl Cam: I heard you say that. I didn't understand what you were talking about. Did you have the same size scissors? I thought Viscars was some technical snowflake. And we were calculating, like, okay, now cut to, like, if you're looking at a clock, 12 o'clock, go to 3 o'clock. I

251heard that, too. And now berry to 11 o'clock. Owl Cam: So how does that translate to when you talk to members of the public? Owl Cam: How would that… Owl Cam: When you write an article for the other paper, or a posting on Facebook, or an email, there's a tool that can test the grade level of the language. Make sure that your grade level is 8th grade. Owl Cam: Yeah. Because it's not just for 8th graders, it's also for my neighbor. You know, I walk in, I'm showing my neighbor an op-ed that I wrote. Owl Cam: It's a husband and wife. They're both in their 80s. I hand it to the wife, she reads it in about 20 seconds flat. Owl Cam: Hand it to the husband. It takes him a minute and a half

252to read it. Owl Cam: because there are just different, you know, and so you go… and so, like, I think it is super important for board members to… Owl Cam: Just right to 8th grade. Owl Cam: Yep, and also, I was thinking about the terminology that we use, all the acronyms, and especially in budgeting season, it's crazy. It's like we're speaking a whole different language. CLAs, SAs. Owl Cam: LTWADMs, I mean, like, there's so much that… Owl Cam: When we go in front of our public, our owners, and present our annual budget. Owl Cam: I think being really clear what we're trying to, like, what we're saying, and try to avoid some of those technical terms, or have a glossary of terms, if you have to. I think… Owl Cam: even board… new board members

253get lost, and I'm looking at a lot of you are going through the budget season for the first time, and it is going to be tough, because there's a lot you have to learn, but Owl Cam: after a while, you become desensitized. You're like, everybody knows what a long-term weighted average daily membership is. Or everybody knows that when the CLA goes down, your taxes go up. Like, you start to realize that you… no, people don't all know this. So, to your point, Seamus, which is good, is, like, remember. Owl Cam: Meet them where they're at, meet your public where they're at, and really try to speak normal, you know, everyday language. Owl Cam: And, make it digestible. Make it digestible. And, like, that comes back to being short, Owl Cam: And simple is hard. Being

254concise. Owl Cam: It's hard. And I think that talking like that will also help people feel less intimidated to ask questions, because if they're assuming that you're assuming, that they know what you're talking about, I don't… I, as a board member, haven't wanted to be like… I've even thought to myself, am I allowed to ask this question? And of course I'm allowed to ask the question, but there's been so much… Owl Cam: like… Shroud over the budget, like… Yeah. Owl Cam: process, that it… it feels like, if I'm… if I'm asked this question, then, like, it makes it seem like I don't know what I'm talking about, or is this something that I even have the… you know, there's a lot of, just concern about what you're… what you're allowed to say and not allowed

255to say, and you don't want to sound stupid, so I think keeping it Owl Cam: at a level that feels friendly for other people to communicate with is really important. And also, it's your job to ask… it's your job to look stupid on behalf of your constituents, literally. I agree. I mean, I feel like it is a vulnerability that you have to have to show up and say, I don't understand. And I think you've got to be okay with that, and it goes back to, are you in an environment… in an environment where you can trust the Owl Cam: People that you're with. Owl Cam: Right? Because if you say, I don't get it, help explain it to me. Owl Cam: And hopefully, the people that are explaining it to you, you know. Owl Cam:

256they could be operational people, are going to do it in a way that's kind, and that it's clear, because if we don't get it, and we're in it all the time, I can't even imagine what your neighbor is thinking, or others that, you know… Well, I remember here at policy governance in the beginning, when I first got here, and someone said, well. Owl Cam: nobody can get it, even if you've been in it for years. And I thought to myself, what's the point… why are we using it then? If no one understands how to use it, this doesn't make any sense? And I don't believe that to be true. We can make it a place where people can understand it. And the dark side Owl Cam: is if, like, there is such a thing as

257a board being captured by the organization that it is supposed to govern. Like, I remember my first CEO Owl Cam: She would get on with her board. Owl Cam: this is a private company, and then she would call me back, because I was one of the founders, and she'd just start chuckling, because she was a long-term corporate executive, and she would just chuckle about how she had the board in her pocket. And one of the ways that a well-meaning board can be captured by an institution is when the institution makes the board feel uncomfortable about, like, well, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the LTADM. Owl Cam: of the CCP, and… and then the board is just like, oh, yeah, and the board starts to believe that its job is to learn all the acronyms. CLA,

258December 1 letter, you know, what's the tax burden versus the whatever, and it's like. Owl Cam: That is a very dark path to go down, because I'm deliberately confused. Yeah. Owl Cam: And… and so I think it… but it… so as long as we think it's… it's… Owl Cam: we should look stupid, because if we feel like we don't understand what's going on, and somebody's listening, or… That's to me, you're getting snowed. You're just like, all this stuff, and you can't decipher it. That's like getting bombarded with… Owl Cam: Information. Information. Too much information, which I've gone back and looked in policy governance, and one of the things that's very clear in there is that from a superintendent for policy monitoring and the information. Owl Cam: It's enough that they can… that your board can

259understand, that it's clear, that it's not just, here's pages and pages with links and links, I mean, it's… Owl Cam: are buried. Yeah, you don't want to have your superintendent bring in evidence that they need a truck, a U-Haul, to unload, right? I mean, yeah, that's so… that's so… that's true. And then you're thinking about, how are we getting through this timely, effectively, and then… Owl Cam: how is there a transparency to what's happening? If it's so complicated, then it's not. And I was thinking about what Joe was saying about shutting off at 8pm, and how that's been something we've been talking about, and I do think time is important. We came from a place where we were having 4- or 5-hour meetings, but nothing was getting done. And I think we are not opposed

260to going over 8 p.m, as long as we're… Owl Cam: Moving forward in a direction together, instead of just Owl Cam: Do you have one meeting a week, a month, or two? Two, two, okay. But what I heard also… More like four to five. Also, lately, but I feel like that's gonna scale back. Owl Cam: But what I've heard and seen is that a good functioning board should be able to get through their meetings in a few hours, a couple of times a month. So the fact that we weren't is also, I think, an indication that there was something that was broken. That wasn't working right. It wasn't working. Yep, agreed, 100%. 100%. One of those things where it wasn't okay to ask questions. Right. Owl Cam: And that is… Owl Cam: fundamentally, structurally, in

261terms of getting good outcomes, is to be able to answer those questions, right? And it is completely aligned with what you were saying, right? That that's how you get a CEO that's running the board, and everything is upside down. Owl Cam: Nope. If you can't ask questions. Owl Cam: hard ones or not hard ones, but the questions that we have. So, I think that's related to the time, like, that pressure. I know that I have felt that pressure of Owl Cam: You know, but I have a question, but I don't ask the question because I don't want to be told I'm running over time, and I'm… Owl Cam: I know, it's hard, because 2 hours is not a lot of time. Twice a month, I mean, we only meet 2 hours once a month, and

262we do tend to go over 30 minutes, sometimes even an hour, and I always feel, as a chair, like, I failed, I failed, like, we should have kept it to 2 hours, and the superintendent said, you know what? Owl Cam: You meet once a month, so if you go to 3 hours, you're not doing a bad job. Owl Cam: One thing in terms of time management I could suggest is read those board packets and really digest them as much as you can ahead of time. And if you already have questions before the board meeting, try to get those questions answered before you get to the board meeting, because I… that will save so much time. Now, sometimes those questions Owl Cam: are really important to be asked in at the meeting, so everybody, all the

263board members, for the benefit of the board and your public. But sometimes there's just something that I know that not other people are going to be interested in knowing, but I just want to know for myself, I'll ask. Owl Cam: the superintendent or the business manager ahead of time, because it saves time, even if it's a question that you will want to be asked in the meeting. You can still kind of start that conversation. It avoids that gotcha. That surprise, too. Exactly, absolutely. I'm going to be asking this question, you know, so, Joe, I'm going to be asking this question on Monday. Owl Cam: You know, just so you know, and so that he can have the information he needs to answer the question, because he may not have, like, bring it with him. I'll

264bring that time down, yeah. Austin and I had a good discussion the other day about when, you know, emailing questions back and forth, and I… my… Owl Cam: If any of you email me a question, I will always respond to everybody, so you know what that question… unless it's what time's the football game, right? But if it's something substantive, I will email everybody. Don, you guys know, we can't have discussion about this outside of the board, but I want people to know what the questions are, in case you have those same questions. Yep, yep, absolutely. You know, I don't have the notes, but we were at the… Owl Cam: retreat, or the conference that we just went to. There, it was the school… Owl Cam: superintendent and the board chair that got up and they

265spoke about what had happened, I think it was Mr. Laura. Remember that one? Oh, yeah. And one of the ones… one of the things that resonated with me was when they were talking about specific things, and this is more, perhaps, of a burden on the superintendent, but what they had said was. Owl Cam: they would reach out and ask if there was particularly complicated information that might be coming individually to the board, and say, like, do you have any questions on this? Like, are there any questions that you may have? So, it's not like just the assumption that, hey, we're going to give you the material a week in advance, you're going to review it and be all set to go. But I think having that dialogue Owl Cam: And having that connection is also

266okay. Owl Cam: I remember that, too. I thought, poor superintendent, that's a lot of emails to have to send, but, you know… But it depends on, I guess, what the topic is. Yeah. You're not gonna have to do it every time, but it depends. And with a relatively new board, with lots of new board members. Owl Cam: That might be a more efficient use of the superintendent's time than coming to the board meeting. Owl Cam: to talk about the budget when there's going to be lots of, lots of questions. I don't know. But it also comes back to the relationship building. It does. Because that's another opportunity for that touchpoint, for that relationship building to happen. So, but it's interesting that we've talked about the concept of new board members a few times. Yep. And…

267Owl Cam: I think there is an argument that a board member Owl Cam: Should never become so read in and such an expert that they know what the superintendent's talking about almost without having to have it explained to them, because they're breaking the ability for Owl Cam: the public to follow what's going on. And so it's like, yesterday, we were in a superintendent interview process, and somebody asked a question, like, what does the community think about academic performance? And… Owl Cam: You know, and they said something, like, along the lines of, you know, because, you know, we can ask you, you're an informed perspective, on the board. And I said, well, actually, like, I'm an uninformed perspective. Like, I'm not an educational expert, and I don't want to… Owl Cam: I don't… so it's like,

268it's just related to the CLA and to the terminology, it's like… Owl Cam: If we could preserve long-term where we are now, in the sense of having to ask questions about everything, every time, that is going to help the community members who call in every week, because Owl Cam: we're not being like, oh, yeah, yeah, I remember you told me about that last time. It's like, we should always ask the question of, like, what is this basic thing that needs to be repeated? So, new board member, there's some bad things about it, but there's also some good things about it. Some benefits to it. Yeah, I would agree with that, yeah. So keep asking those questions. Owl Cam: Keep saying those very powerful words, I don't know. Owl Cam: There's no shame in that. If

269you don't know the answer, you can refer the person to the person that does know the answer, so there's no shame in that. We are not… Builds credibility. It absolutely… Ironically. I know, ironically, yeah, you're absolutely right. You know, I've been watching for years now, and the way… Owl Cam: that… You have all responded. Owl Cam: has been incredible in that capacity. I think it is building trust. Yeah. I mean, it's not going to be absolute, it never will be absolute, because there's always a suspicion of something, right? I don't know the three most powerful, five most… I'm sorry, I was wrong. Yeah. You know what I mean? Those… Owl Cam: Yeah. Absolutely, and you make that part of your regular Owl Cam: conversations, and you guys will be in great shape. And we're gonna

270wrap up now. Owl Cam: Just letting you know there's extra resources out there. Owl Cam: for you to continue your learning. I'm going to check on the students' access to our webinar… to our, sorry, website to make sure you have access to all of our toolkits, which would be helpful. Owl Cam: Shay Massari knows about our board chair. Who's your vice chair, Laura? Owl Cam: So there's a board chair, but… Jan, you are, sorry. She's the clerk, okay. So there's a chair, vice chair forum every 6 weeks, which I think is very beneficial to… to chairs, and those dates just went up on the website for 2026. Owl Cam: The webinar schedule will be coming out at the end of the month. You'll be getting a membership guide in the mail, all of you as

271board members, and Joe, you will too, which shows all the, the dates of the conference next year, all the webinar dates and topics. You know our Tuesday newsletter comes out every Tuesday. Owl Cam: So, just… just give yourselves a lot of grace, and know that the learning never stops. I mean, it truly never does, and there's no shame in that, and… and reach out if you need us for anything, okay? Owl Cam: So thank you very much for coming on a Saturday. I hope this is helpful. Yeah? Okay. This is a great discussion. I really am very… Owl Cam: thankful for the board to be so thoughtful. Yeah, and it is just so nice, the feelings in the room, I just have to say. It's just been a very pleasant morning, and Owl Cam: great

272to be able to build trust and relationships and just feel comfortable together, so… Yeah, really good, and thank you for the bread. Thank you to Ali and Milwin for coming in. Owl Cam: These two are amazing. Yeah, you guys are impressive, really impressive. Owl Cam: Appreciate you guys being here, especially on the weekend. Yeah. Can I ask a question while we're all together, actually? That's it. Can I give you a little bit of personal feedback? Yes. You are always allowed to ask questions. Any context you're in where you're not allowed to ask questions, like, why are you there? They don't deserve it. Well, I'll give you the background of… Being on the board last year was a very different experience than being on the board this year and asking questions. Owl Cam: I asked probably

273more questions in the first week of this year than I did Owl Cam: all of last year. So it's a… yes, it feels like a change for me, though, of having to grow into being comfortable asking. So I am sure. One of my questions is, I had emailed Owl Cam: Joe Clark and, Seamus about this, but we're having a student come talk about student representative voting at the meeting this coming Wednesday, and we only have 10 minutes allotted within the meeting time. Owl Cam: And I know it's a really busy meeting on Wednesday. Is there any way we can get an extra 10 minutes so that you guys can discuss a little bit with the student who's coming and us? Owl Cam: So, I think that's an appropriate question, because it's scheduling. Yeah. Owl Cam:

274And, we can… Do we… are we fine with… Owl Cam: changing, or with adding more time to it? Do you have 10 minutes of my superintendent, or not. Do you have to do a motion or anything, or can we just say, yes, it's fine? I think for scheduling, we don't have to do anything. The change of scheduling at the meeting? Have you warned your agenda? Yeah, yeah. It's been warned, so you'll… You would tell my meeting. Why don't we just do it during the meeting? And we can change the agenda at that time. Owl Cam: You can add more time to this. Yeah, so on, like, a meeting-by-meeting basis, if it's just that, like, small time, it's okay if me and Mom and bring it up. Owl Cam: the day of. Owl Cam: Yeah. And

275not email you guys. Owl Cam: Yeah, I think the… Owl Cam: We have many opportunities to fix schedules when they are out of alignment with what's necessary. Like, we're not… there's no, like. Owl Cam: open meeting law allows us to always talk scheduling, and so, like, it was appropriate for you to send the email, and it's also appropriate for you to bring it up in the moment. Is it… Owl Cam: Is it a potential solution to just always set it at 20 minutes, and you guys can take what you need, and if you only take 5 or 10, the rest of the time we can move on to the next thing, that way we don't… Allie and Woman don't have to request more time. Owl Cam: Further discussion? Owl Cam: How often does it happen

276where you need more than 10 minutes? Rare. Rare. Yeah, yeah. Owl Cam: the liner… Has… good… Owl Cam: estimates of how long everything takes, I've noticed. Owl Cam: And to be honest, I'm not even sure you need a motion to extend that part of the agenda. It's not like you're introducing a new topic. The topic's already there. Fair point. Yeah, you just… I mean, you could… one thing we say at the beginning of our meeting when we open it is. Owl Cam: Here's the agenda. Does anybody have any, do you think the right amount of time has been allotted to each? Owl Cam: agenda item. Owl Cam: that's the question that we have four questions we ask at the start of each meeting, and then nobody ever says, oh… nobody really has anything to say,

277but that… I can think of you all saying, well, actually, we need 10 extra minutes. Could we have that? Owl Cam: Yeah. Did you have a second question? No, good question, though. Owl Cam: Right. All right, go about your business, go about your fun weekend, whatever's left of it. Enjoy. Yeah, you need to adjourn. Thank you very much, Debbie. Thanks. Thank you all, very much. I would entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting. Owl Cam: Motion, second. Jen, motions, Dan, seconds. Any discussion? Owl Cam: All those in favor? Aye. The meeting's adjourned.