001It's just me. >> All right. Good evening everyone. It is Wednesday, July 30th at 5:30 p.m. and I'd like to call the Southwest Vermont Advisory Board of Directors meeting to order. Um, first on the agenda this evening are public comments. members of the public in the room and to my knowledge none see any computer none online. >> Um item two on the agenda are operations or is operations there are none. Finance there's a treasures report for June in the packet. Um and I have a motion to accept the treasur report. >> I'll make motion. >> Motion made by Glenn. Do I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Second by Jeff. All those in favor, >> please say >> I. >> Those opposed, any abstensions? The eyes have. Um item four on the agenda,
002the Ben agenda, minutes, which include minutes, warrants, retirements, leave of absences, resignations, and nominations. There's no objection to move those all as one. Um do I have a motion? I make a motion to do I >> have a second made by Nicole, second by Katie. Uh any discussion? >> Were the minutes in there? I couldn't find the minutes. >> I think that last meeting we had that June. Yes, those last meeting from shortive session. >> Something should be said. Can I have an amended motion to remove to strike the minutes out of the consent agenda? >> Amend my motion and approve the consent agenda minus the minutes. >> Second motion made by Nicole and seconded by Katie. Any further discussion >> with a question? Um E under resignations. Did that person not resume or >>
003Elementary board. >> So my guess is there. >> Okay. >> It's correct. >> Good question. Any other questions? >> Okay. Hearing none. All those in favor? >> I opposed. >> Any abstensions? Okay. Um, moving to item five, which is policy opinions none. So, we will skip right to the board retreat, board work, the good work this evening by this group. Um, and I'd like to introduce Tracy Ren who will be helping lead us through this conversation. I think if we can move over here so visible to anyone in the public even though I'd rather stay off stage. So it's a pleasure being back with you again. Um, for those who may not remember me or folks who are new to me, I um am here to support the board with something of a mini retreat
004that ideally will lead to goal setting. Um, just want to tell you that I am an educator, a Vermont educator with 31 years in public schools. During that time, I was a special educator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. I was a director of student services, which now would um uh a director of education support systems rather, which now would be called the MTSS. Um I was also the director of student services. I was principal of a very small school and I was superintendent for 14 years. Um, since retiring from full-time public service four years ago, I have been executive working as an executive coach and mentor and supporting education leaders across Vermont. And as you know, I've been working as a consultant doing a variety of things ranging from superintendent searches, meeting
005facilitations to assist with goal setting, strategic planning, um, specific projects, and board and administrator development. I enjoy helping others develop their potential in ways that make sense for them and for their organizations. And I remain very passionate about public education in Vermont and its role in supporting a vibrant democracy, strong communities, and um successful and well children and families. So, uh, that's what I'm doing now and that's why I'm going to be looking at my notes because I have a lot of things I want to say and I don't want to miss them. Uh so in the spirit of developing your potential in ways that make sense for you uh I'm here broadly to assist you with what I frame as the goal of a supervisory union which is to ensure high quality governance and
006services by the supervisory union in support of the member districts um and your communities that you serve. When you think about high quality governance, there is a huge scope of potential focus areas um generally and in SVSU at this time and you may have a wide range of expectations and hopes for where we go. Um, I've worked with Scott and Tim on a starting place and uh, ultimately you will have the opportunity to decide the direction we go and what your focus areas might be going forward. So, in my consultation with Scott and Tim and given my little bit of experience in the district last winter and early spring, what I've planned is work to establish a starting place that can set the foundation for this board's work for the year, developing a shared understanding
007of some essential content uh concepts, setting board goals, and setting superintendent goals. uh as a starting place for a superintendent evaluation consistent with what I believe is your new policy. Um and you can go in the directions you choose from there. Want to say something briefly about goals. Um board goals and superintendent goals typically overlap and also typically have some unique goals. I I think of it as a ven diagram where there are some goals that are unique to the board, there are some that are shared and there are some that are unique to the superintendent. And uh a collaborative process is really important because there is uh a need for support by each by the superintendent for the board goals and the superintendent goals need to be supported by the board. Um, I also
008want to mention that those goals are often in addition to the systemic goals for improved academic achievement and for nurturing safe and healthy schools uh, which are articulated in your continuous improvement plan. Oh, good. I see nods. Um those overarching goals are shared across the system and um are also typically differentiated by school and the responsibility for those is shared by everyone. We're going to focus on the responsibilities that are uniquely board and superintendent in our conversations. Um, and the way that those roles and your growth and development can also support those bigger systemic goals around academic achievement and safe and healthy schools. Um the combination of the continuous improvement plan goals, your systemic goals, board goals, and superintendent goals can become the basis for an annual work plan, which maps out your work for
009the year. You do have to leave space for the required things that you have to do that aren't always fun. Um and for the new things that are required as an outcome of um the legislative session and the unexpected things that you know come up and can derail your timeline. Um but hopefully you'll be in a position in broad strokes to map out how you advance your work towards your goal in a way that supports one another by the end of my time with you. Uh in terms of timeline tonight, my plan is to focus on learning and developing that shared understanding of some of those essential concepts for goal setting. And I hope to end tonight with a plan for board self-evaluation. I will be back with you in August and hope to be
010reviewing the board self-evaluation um and or doing it and reflecting on it. that we'll talk about processes at the end of the meeting um and prepare for superintendent goal setting in the September meeting and in September currently I expect to assist with superintendent goal setting as the first step in that evaluation process and we may decide to use some time then to polish the goals that you roughed out in August uh poss and possibly in broad strokes identify some of the big elements of your work and a potential annual calendar. My role is to facilitate so that everybody can participate fully, including Scott and Tim. and I will give you information on law, regulation, research, best practice, and I will share options that I've seen across the state. If I have a recommendation, I'll make
011it if you ask me to. Usually, I tend to chime in on things that are legal, like how best to follow open meeting law. Um, but I want to be clear that you make the decisions. and I'll assist you in identifying those points in time. If you have questions at any point, I'll do my best to get answers if I don't know them in a moment or I'll support Tim in following up with you. As you should for any need at all, please reach out to Tim between meetings or after meetings. he will either connect you with me or get back to you depending on the need. I also welcome your feedback and ask that you give any feedback you have for me to Tim or Scott. Um, the reason I'm doing that is not
012to be unapproachable or open, but because you have um a new superintendent and it's a good time to lean really intentionally into protocols for roles and responsibilities and problem solving. And generally, the superintendent or the board chair, depending on the issue, is your one point of contact for anything you need in your role as a board member. Um, once partnerships are well established and you've developed good working norms, Tim and Scott may delegate more things, but until they do, I want to support you in really leaning into those best practices to build that strong partnership. I also wanted to mention um that I'm working with SPSU this board only right now. Um there's a wide scope of work that all of the district boards could work on around governance and but because of the complexity
013of the system and because you have a new superintendent um it seemed to make sense to um start at the supervisory union level and I've talked with Scott and Tim about being really intentional about giving board updates to the member boards and perhaps building some two-way reciprocal feedback as these three steps of work. Um progress um and Tim has indicated that he's already started planning and thinking about how to do that with you. uh protect perhaps with all of your support so it's not just board chairs um to keep your member boards informed and able to chime in when it makes sense. So are there questions about the big picture broadstrokes plan for my work? No question specifically. I'm just grateful to have a resource to kind of guide us through. It can get very
014complex and we've talked about this for so long it seems that to know that we've got a plan on how to get to where we've been saying we want to go is really helpful. >> Great. Well, I'm excited to be able to share that with you. So, we're going to begin today in a circle. Those of you who were on the superintendent search committee experience some circle practices with me. Uh, I want to say before we transition that I use those to create the conditions for boards or any group of people I'm working with to do their best work by building a sense of belonging and connection and practicing listening and practicing allowing all voices to be heard. Um, circle like practices can be helpful for boards at times when you're seeking consensus and at
015times when it could be really helpful to ensure that the board is really listening well to one another or members of your community. Um, so it's a it's a useful practice you can lean into at other times. We were intentional about it at certain points in the superintendent search. Uh, literally checking in with everybody at the table and listening for their perspective before making important decisions. and you and the committee were amazing exemplars I think of good governance during that process in my opinion. So with me we'll continue to practice to maintain those great skills. Uh I do want to note that as we do the next parts of the meeting we're stepping away from the reporting space. Uh I want to be very clear with you and with anybody who is observing the video
016at a later point the recording um that we will not be discussing board business away from the table and we're not going to be making any decisions. We will be doing board development and learning which can be done outside of the formal open meeting setting. That said, anybody who's here in person, there isn't anybody, but if they were, they'd certainly be welcome to join us and to observe. Um, I do expect the only decisions to be made tonight to be about how the board would like to proceed for a self-ealuation and expect that we'll return to the table. you can highlight any um key ideas from the work we do in the learning context and we can publicly affirm um your plans for next steps. Uh throughout the process, I'll work really hard with you
017to make sure that decision making and discussions about board me business happen here in this setting and in a time and a way where the public has an the opportunity to observe your work and to comment when it's appropriate. Questions about that. Great. So, I would like to transition to the room next door to start our work in circle. The only thing you need is a writing implement. If you're a notetaker and you want to bring things to take notes, you can. But I'll also give you um things that you can write on as we're talking um outside of circle. You're welcome to bring water, whatever you need to be comfortable. >> Recording. You are recording. >> We are recording and we have come out of our retreat session. Can I have a motion to
018adjurnn? >> Motion made by everybody. I have a second. >> Everybody else. >> All those in favor? >> Thanks everyone. Thanks everybody. Travel safely. Yeah. can vote.