Dresden School Board 02/25/2025

001so I should never ask you Tony you we were this close to starting to tell bad jokes you are the [Music] quum all right Zoom land okay perfect do you have any yes okay perfect um thank you everybody and welcome to the February 25th edition of The Dresden School Board my name is not Kim Hartman Kim was unavailable this evening so as Vice chair I am stepping in uh the first item on the agenda this evening is agenda review are there any items on the agenda that board members would wish to rearrange or even potentially remove from the agenda this evening seeing none then we will move on to public comment now is the time for any member of the public to offer comments I would request however that if you do have a comment

002and it Rel it is related to an item that is otherwise on the agenda this evening that you hold it until that moment in time um but that aside it looks like the policy of approval for sustainability [Music] was approving it we have a reading of it but not the approving of it oh all right so can we add that back in for a general review yes we were going to we will add back in approve approval of the sustainability policy um okay so sorry back to public comment so if there any members of the public here this evening that would wish to make public comment now is the time anyone online there is but no one's all right no hands online then we are going to move forward and straight to report of council

003council is currently discussing a revised form of the no school on Election Day motion which came to council um few months ago and was failed I I talked about the motion with the board and based on that information which I shared with the body we decided to fail the original motion um the revised form um instead of being a day off for all staff and students makes it a teacher in service day for students on an election day which would involve um some scheduling changes shifting around the teacher and service days right now I I don't think I can predict whether the will pass or fail there's been some good debate um but tomorrow at 11: in the uh in the chorus room which is just up the stairs if anyone is interested in coming

004to hear that conversation um I think we'll most likely vote on that motion tomorrow and I'm I'm happy to send anyone the language of that motion yeah if you wouldn't mind sharing that I think it would be interest AB any questions for council rep this all right thank you very much appreciate it um moving on then to our Handover High School neast desial update Linda desial every 10 yeah 10 years um and I sent out to the board members and I'm imagining it'll be posted um along with the board material um really a slide presentation that just talks about how this process happens uh what's included the parts of the report and uh any details related to sort of the hopes and dreams of why this is true and I'd like to just say a

005few things out loud just take a few minutes um for those who may not be paying attention the school's already been to a collaborative conference and has been neac credited but now the process includes an update in two years where like teaching practice neac team come back and say okay school but how doity goals you identify you know how are you growing them how what are your action steps what are the impacts been and what might your next step be so that's what this visit is about we'll have a team of eight coming we already have our chair we don't know who else is visit us they will be arriving on March 30th a Sunday some of them then they will start their work on tuay morning they will start with a tour that will

006be led by students they will visit classrooms in their time here now up before that they've already reviewed a report which is is pretty extensive and they will also meet with students who will talk about their work again this work will be assembled to give evidence of the growth areas that we have outlined in our priority goal the five area which two are dedicated to curriculum because that's one of the foundational elements that must be met to be accredited um and then the other one which must be included in our priority goals is the growth Improvement plan now what I want to say here is related to two really important facts I want to bring everybody's attention to one let me finish up with the visit that is an incredible opportunity to have another set

007of eyes that are not us looking at us and seeing how well we're doing with what we say we want to do so I'm inviting the board and others to send to me and administrator which include you know Julie Liz and Dave um if you have ideas if you're saying like boy we would love to have someone look at this you know for example time is always a problem how can we make better use of our time I'm sure that's going to be one of our questions fori so let's use these have look at what we're doing right and then the other part of it is this NE process has brought into alignment if you will and consistency sort of The Credo now of the high school what you all have set in motion with

008your strategic plan was your portrait of a graduate and aot with our school district's Mission and our own high school mission and making it aive in our classroom so you know that it couldn't be better timing in other words so I want to say thank you and thank you to the nth process for making that actionable and any questions you have I'm board memb question questions for Linda regarding the nas Bal Updates this isn't a question I don't recognize you this isn't a question this is just when I say how much I appreciate all that you have done in terms of getting the school ready for the initial visit writing up stuff pushing gently to get people to look at this and I say this as someone who um hated doing theas self review for

009multiple times you were so quiet about that I know isn't that funny you know exactly what I think but I do appreciate it very much I'll tell you the truth none of it could be done without the support of the administration and the teachers who also stepped up to the plate and made time to do this work and and to me that was the transformative process any other questions or comments we'll see you again in 10 years a report in one year okay a report in years we have a report six years all right again these again good teaching model all right so we'll see you in one three six and 10 years awesome thank you Linda y uh moving on to the Han High School principal report you can see it attached in board

010Ducks this evening we have the wonderful Liz Murray with us this evening to answer any questions do you want to provide any color commentary as well no big color commentary then to congratulate Genie cornfeld who just won the New Hampshire environmental educator award um which is a really big honor Deb Robinson was the one who works here at the school who nominated her um and there's a pretty elaborate vetting process for them and it seems very appropriate given all the work that she's been doing on the climate action plan um and it's sort of the the Capstone for her on all the work that she's done over the last 28 years in this school to bring us to where we are right now so whoos to her had we only known 24 hours earlier she

011was here just last night presenting the climate action plan with her students well and there could have been a congratulate her yes thank you board members any questions uh yes at the bath of Batha simulation um so part of our work every year at the high schools we come up with our um our plan for profal development and this year it's uh focused around cultural humility and the baffa baffa simulation splits our split our our staff into two separate groups where we took on two separate cultures imaginary cultures and then we integrated those two cultures together and experienced what it was like going into another culture so we had the alphas and the betas and we had our own languages within those cultures and our own rituals within those cultures so we learned about about

012the culture then we visited the other cultures knowing nothing about the other ones and then came back together and then um afterwards we we had a a really rich discussion about what it feels like to be in a new environment and sort of stepping outside of that and what it means to come into a school also in the same thank you yeah any other yeah what are level changes level changes in regards sorry P sense um so we had a conversation in CPP about um how a student makes a change in a level in a class during a school year so if for example they uh decide that they wanted to take Al toh and they start an al2 and then they figure out honors sorry and then they figure out that Al do honors

013is not the right fit for them what's the process for being able to make that switch so that it makes sense curricularly for them and also for the teacher teaching staff and for the class as a whole so we set parameters around when those level changes could happen Okay and then what is Elo um Extended Learning opportunities and so we actually um we have a position that's coming in we're moving the position from a point four position to a point8 position and we actually are hiring for a new ELO coordinator uh who will be starting in the 25 26 school year thank you any other questions thank you so much moving on then to the RMS principal report we have Mr Tim Bole with us tonight to add to whatever's there if anybody has any

014questions along with the U the Environ I met with the environmental club today so he went over to CIP in terms of um how it relates to the Richmond school and we had really long and good discussion about things that we can do to try to bring to fruition going forward um it was really neat to see students come back and talk about things that they were they understood um as we go forward to try to make everything better in terms of the district so that's the only other thing I would add the only uh one other thing uh in terms of congratulations we did have Middle School cross country ski team um won the state championship last week as well so keep your eye out TR Focus you'll get some pictures and some updates

015it's been a really good winter season I think for everybody both at the high school and um at the middle school we've really enjoyed having real winter back um which also brings that we do have uh we have enough snow so we have a snow sculpture contest tomorrow in the seventh grade and then in the eighth grade at the second week of March I think we're going to have winter so we're hoping the snow sticks around that awesome thank you board members any questions for Mr Bo this evening all right thank you but don't go too far here moving into business requiring discussion and the first item up in that is an update the RMS family survey and math with information board members posted in board and also for the folks watching from [Music] home

016uh Tim did you want are you uh walking through anything taking questions I can walk through things if people want if they didn't have a chance to look at it um obviously we we this is the probably the third year in the process of of working towards changing some of the ways that that the structure of the way math is constructed at RMS um and we've been trying to be really cognizant and conscious of what we're doing and trying to evaluate things as they move on and it started out really as um something that was organic that came out of what we had noticed in the e8th grade class a couple years ago in terms of the differentiation in the algebra one class so we structured um e8th grade math in a slightly different way

017in the second semester it seemed to work really well so we moved on from that and did that for most of the eth grade curriculum last year again it seemed to be very um successful in terms of student feedback in terms of placement of students in the correct math classes going inight grade um and so now we're trying to figure out if we that's a model that we can extend further from 8th grade to seventh grade so this year we have started that um so we started in one way we did sort of a a quick um survey of what people thought both students um and parents at the end of the first quarter and realized that the model that we had for 8th grade probably wasn't developmentally sound for seventh graders because they're younger

018uh they needed more direct instruction they needed more um sort of large group instruction having things being more directed for them um and less individually run so we started to do more of that in the second quarter um we've and again evaluated at begin of the second quarter and seen that while that is uh moving in the right direction we probably need to continue to do more of that because it is something that we want to make sure it's a little bit more directed in the seventh grade however the positive seems to um the positive seem to be quite significant in terms of building confidence in terms of being able to put back in um to our algebra curriculum uh more rigor and more depth spiraling so we have more students who feel as if

019they are in control of their own math future and feel much more confident about where they are going and their ability to do the math it definitely is a work in progress probably 45 number of Math teachers to say okay this is where we are how can we continue what we're doing well how can we do better what we're not doing well um and we continue to work on so we asked for more information we've got information we're making the changes based on with the idea that this is a process going forward and again the idea is that the end in sight is having students wherever they are placed um coming into ninth grade they're well prepared they're confident and they have a pretty good idea as to what's going to be expected of them

020and are able to move forward I think from some of those numbers you see that we continue to have about 75% of our students will be in Geometry or above by the time they get to ninth grade this year there's a little bit of work we have a number of students who are being a larger number of students who are being placed into a class called intro to algebra um that specific name of class did not exist at the high school um I think two years ago list they had it sort of everybody took Algebra 1 and then the students who were maybe not as well prepared also took a separate class with it so it part of it is um how things are named um but we also have a number of students this

021year who are who came in who are in sort of a specific situation where we never expected them to get that so just because of where they came in in terms of their IEP in terms of other situation so it's always a little bit quirky 140 seems like a lot of students until you start breaking it down percentage and then you realize that two or three students going One Direction or another would cause signicant thank you Tim um board members with questions and I will also um let you all know if you're not on Zoom that our assistant superintendent person in charge of curriculum is also on the zoom if you have questions related to that Robin is available but board members any questions yes so Tim I thought I heard you say that students

022are now more confident with their ability and so I'm looking at the document you provided where it says the current teaching style makes me more makes me confident that I can learn the math I need going forward and for seventh grade advanced math approximately 41% of kids gave that answer and in seventh grade math was 40% so it seem the majority of seventh grade students don't agree with well this seventh grade seems to be the the area where we're seventh grade is the area where we're dealing with the most change um because it was a significant change this year I I mean if we look at the eighth grade it's significant that there are a large number of eighth graders who are much more confident um the seventh graders that is true there aren't as

023many who are as confident but there's a large proportion of seventh craters who are neither agree nor disagree and I think from talking to some of those students they agree to sort of map this map they don't really feel one way or the other about it at this point um it is difficult it's a definite seed change and a shift with the way things are being done and we're trying to shift it back to a situation where it is more familiar to those students in the seventh grade with what they're used to we asked an awful lot of our seventh grade teachers this year in order to try to create um a curriculum so not necessarily out of here but they're trying to create a curriculum that's much more individualized much more uh allowing for

024students to go forward or move at their own pace which is much more it takes a lot longer to try to understand exactly how that's partly what we're hoping for is that the students who are in seventh grade who definitely had a learning curve at the beginning of the year have now gotten to a point where they feel like they understand what's being expected of them and as they move forward into the eth grade they will continue with that same structure and gain the confidence that they need going forward I would agree with you as a parent that it has taken half a year to set your expectations for the students um how many questions were on well are we going to get so here on the document we have data from two questions that

025were asked of students but I don't see any data from the parent respondents you g to get that shared or is it just the summary we can share that I can share the the summary I mean I I shared the summary in large part because um many of the parent responses were uh emphatic I'll just put it way um and some of the emphasis was not necessarily based on curriculum or structure but more on individual feelings about individual staff members and did not necessarily feel comfortable sharing that in public I can appreciate that and I didn't necessarily want to go through and react everything because and and to be perfectly honest some of the some of the personal responses were um enlightening um in people's desire to go back to something that's entirely familiar so

026we had a number of responses that were math would be better if I had the textbook at home we haven't had textbooks for a while so and the information is available um on the internet um but I think people are sort of firm beliefs in in the way that math should be done um and then this became sort of a a lightning rod was there a general concordance between the students and the parent responses or was there kind of a big disconnect there was a pretty big dis or either that or was that you saw it was a much higher response for the students why I haven't seen anything about the parents well the parents side the parents the response was about 40% the students was over 80% did they have like protected class time

027to fill out the survey no they did it in um they did it in Home Room okay so but we asked them to do it most of the students filled it out um most of the students seem to either be sort of said that seventh grade math definitely is something that we're working on I've talked to Robin about that we're talk to the seventh grade math teachers it's something that we need to move forward on eighth grade math seemed to be fairly straightforward and um they felt much more positive the structure of the eth grade math program than some of the parents in terms of this disconnect between the parents and the students what are your takeaways for like action I particularly for helping the parents feel comfortable a lot of it is I think

028a lot of it is uh communication and I think a lot of it is um we've had a number of parents who when they actually take the time to come in and talk to the teachers about exactly what's happening it's much more understanding if they sort of take the idea of oh it's just students working on their own from videos they have this idea of what that means in their head um but once they actually talk to the teachers they realize that it's much more involved so I think it's it's partly communication it's partly we probably need to do something at the beginning of the year to do almost like a mock math class hey here's what your student will uh experience when they come and sit in class this is what they'll do this

029is who they'll talk to um this is how they'll interact and one of the things that we did find is that I I think it it comes out in seventh grade in eth grade which we had started with sort of organically students will find other students who are doing the same thing and work in groups seventh graders for whatever reason don't do that organically they sort of all assume that they have to do it all by themselves and I I'm not sure if that's a specific thing to that class or developmental or the teachers but we need to be more directive in terms of hey yall are working on the same thing it might be good if you sat together and work on this together because one of the things the students in the seventh

030grade pointed out that they wanted more of was more time for group so we've tried to incorporate that but I think we also and not just sort of allow it to happen which is what happens in the for whatever reason uh one more yeah I like those suggestions strictly with the concurrent idea that's been sprouted every now and again at RMS is that people want more chances to talk to teachers directly and sort of a semi conference style and that seems like there might be a need there particularly for man right Deb I have a question um it's you it's a bullet point point that says anecdotal evidence shared by the high school points to students who are better prepared in terms of skills than in years past is there anything beyond anecdote that can

031be gathered to actually determine if skills are there we can assessments kind of thing we can ask I just know that um Carla and Katie talked to Corin on a regular basis and Corin has said Corin Benedict the high school had said the students actually had because there are a couple different parts to this um when we did algebra seventh grade 8th grade sort of accelerated there were a number of things that we pulled out of algebra to try to make sure that everybody could you could take an entire class and move it through an algebra curriculum in a whole year given that we had to get everybody in the same place at the same time when you have the students directing their own um how much they're doing you can add more back in

032So this past year the students who have completed the algebra 1 and geometry actually have a firmer basis in algebra and Corin has said that we've had fewer people move out of al2 who were placed into it um or no maybe we haven't this past year no we didn't this past year because we had students in geometry but the students who are in Geometry right um according to Corin seem to be doing well seem to be have a a better basis and more confidence in their algebra skill thanks this might uh relate to the previous question but looking at the data it seems there's almost a 12% decrease in the number of students recommended for alq this last year and I'm curious why that is and if it relates to the change in class structure

033it might relate to the change is so in the past we had basically students who were recommended for Algebra 1 and seventh grade went through the class took geometry in eth grade then your recommendation is either you have to take geometry again or you get recommended to 2 Age so students who had been struggling through Algebra 1 and then it's struggling again through geometry the recommendation is that the next step sort of logically is Al 2 you'll see that then there were a number of students who were in alge 2 who backed out basically went and said yeah I can't do an honors class I have to go back to Algebra 2 with the idea that I don't have the basis in order to be able to do so what we're hoping to get is

034that all of the students that we recommend for 2 are actually ready for it because they've gone through and they have the full basis for it so the idea being sort of um at least educationally that a lot of times from what I've noticed students who have who try something and then have to go back that's much more difficult than starting something that you're like hey I can do this and then move so you want people to move forward with confidence be like yeah I I tried it and a number of students and the research Bears this out who get to about Algebra 2 and then all of a sudden say you know I used to be a good math student now I'm not like all of a sudden I can't do math and it

035may just be that they don't they haven't spent the time that they need in order to build the basis for them going CL and that building the basis takes more time for it takes different amounts of time for different students Tony can you describe specifically what the change in seventh grade math this year was and then what your intention is for seventh grade math we're in the process of figuring out exactly what the process for seventh grade math next year will be because this year we had seventh grade math which is students who came out of sixth grade math who were exactly where they were supposed to be they have the ability to work through seventh grade math at their own pace but they have not necessarily and this is a seventh grade thing some

036of them haven't demonstrated um the independence or the ability to sort of work create things or create a schedule on their own to move forward so that's seventh grade MTH Advanced seventh grade math was the ability to access um through our in illustrative math SE Advanced seventh grade math which is sixth and seventh combined Advanced e88th grade math and then some of the students will be able to access the algebra one gr as well depending on how they move through that curriculum I think we'll probably have something equivalent next year in seventh grade math but one of the things that we've discovered is that the algebra 1 curriculum and Illustrated math needs to be made more robust to match up to what students are will be expected to do when they get to high school

037so we've had a number of students who went through Algebra 1 in seventh grade last year when we taught it who when they got to eth grade math did not necessarily their skills did not necessarily reflect what we would expect them do so we're going to have to add more to that part of advanc um just follow up so specifically what was the change from last year's seventh grade math to this year's seventh grade math and then the advanced seventh grade math is that the same kind of online modules eth grade math has now moved to it's a it's online module also depending on which group it's in there is specific teaching being done on those specific specific SK and and what was s my first question was um last year we had seventh grade

038math and Algebra 1 we had a class that was called algebra 1 that was illustrative math Algebra 1 curriculum so we had students who skipped from 6th to the algebra 1 and what we discovered was that there was a number of skills that were taught in seventh grade m and eth grade math that were they were gaps they didn't necessarily understand it or know especially when it came up on state following up on T's question this year graders to access algebra material any other questions from board members Kelly sorry for being late had to drive a kid around um I I think it's more more of a comment um been a question so I apologize for that in advance but I think um you mentioned the seventh grade sort of Developmental piece which I know

039we talked about in advance of last year that that was a concern right that eighth graders are developmentally much further along than seventh graders um and I think I would just add the parent piece of that I do currently have a seventh grader it's been very difficult to know how to support her this year because she doesn't know where she's supposed to be or what she's supposed to be doing and I was just looking at the log totally lost like I don't know where she's supposed to be what good progress looks like that's a really frustrating place for a parent to be so to Ben's point I think that's something that that we have to figure out for next year the educating of helping parents know what what does good progress look like or what

040is you know what are the Milestones one of the things that that came out of the survey that I thought was a really good idea was this idea of instead of Divi because we have for a long time divided and tracked in terms of ability based on how we decided F and I think it makes sense now to try to track at least Fe track of students in terms of a plan so when a student can sit down with a teacher with a parent and say hey this is my plan and this is something that happens in the eth grade like teachers will sit down be like what's your plan what do you want to take next year I I want to take gooh okay if you want to take that here's what here's the

041plan this is how you're going to have to get through it and that's something that we need to try to do with the seventh grade so and I think that that that will be way more helpful in terms of because it's also a pretty easy um Benchmark and parameter like okay you're behind is it behind because you know you just haven't been doing something or you really don't get it and if you really don't get it that's okay especially in seventh grade because there's still time to make it up and I think that's one of the other things that that this model that I think sometimes gets lost is that we had between eight and 10 students this year who did not right so they should not be doing they should not be ready to

042be through geometry but they're going to be through geometry because they they just did Regular seventh grade math this year they got to eighth grade math they're like I think I want to do this they got going they caught fire it makes sense to them they're moving forward so they're actually going to do algebra one in terms of all of their skills in one year and be able to do AG so that's sort of what that's what we were looking for when we went to this model is to not pigeon hole students who might be late developing and saying I'm sorry you weren't in Algebra 1 in seventh grade so there's no way that you can accelerate unless you do a lot of work over the summer this these are people who have done things

043on their own during the school year and are now being able to accelerate and get to where they need to be before I go back to Michael any other board members who have not had a chance to speak or ask a question Garett I'd suggest that maybe we have a future board meeting that just talks about this with the actual math department here because I get the sense that we yeah we at the end of the day the whole issue here is that we did not have this curriculum adoption policy in place at the time and therefore this whole thing was done without you know most of our Administration being aware of it frankly and now we sit in these meetings and drill the principal who I understand you know I get it the CEO

044of the middle school but he's also not math person so I do think I mean we can sit here and continue to drive questions about this but at some point if we all want to know more about this because I can't even ask questions about just because you don't really I've had two kids go through it and I don't really know what's going on over there because it's like it's very complicated as far as what this new curriculum is so maybe we end up having a board where we actually have them come in and say Here's the curriculum here's how we're doing things here's what we used to you know tried to do here's what we changed or or you know I am perfectly happy to make that recommendation to the current or the next

045Dron chair that's I'm just saying I mean we can keep asking questions but seem like we now yeah um Michael two quick questions and one perative so when you look at the survey result when you pivoted from having the teacher teach in a traditional way to this way was there any sense in the survey results that the burden of teaching MTH has been pushed on to parents I believe that there was a perception that that's where the burden one of the things that is clear and I think Kelly brought it up in terms of our communication was this idea of where people should be and the students especially in advanced math and I think there's probably some interesting ideas to try to figure out there have a very strong understanding as to where they are

046in relation to everyone and if there is anyone who is doing something that is ahead of them they see themselves as being behind um and I think that that anxiety is then shared with families and families are like okay well we need to make sure that you catch up so we're going to make sure that we teach you these things to catch up um I think a number of from the pedological sense in terms of the teachers the teachers are more uh comfortable with the fact that students are where they are and they need to work through what they need to work through in order to understand how to move forward and it the idea of everybody being in lock step going forward is something that's really hard to share so it certainly is like

047we had this year I had we talked about it in the first survey uh our teachers had a list of where everybody was like okay you've done this you've done this and it was their idea was that you're just keeping track of where you are and the students are like well all that shows is that I'm behind so then we had to take it down because they saw it as a competition whereas the teachers saw it as you know it's just the a visual of where you are and what you have left to do um that is the the reframing part of it is communication and part of it is sort of like what trying to have a better idea of what the plan is going forward like where are we trying to get to

048if we're trying to get to there these are the things that we need to do as opposed to I think students are used to just I show up in class and I do what they tell me and then I'll be in the right place and it needs to be a more interactive situation and we probably need to do a better job of explaining that got so I guess my final question then is if I read your document and it says math remains contentious and then for certain me there's a lack of faith in the process do you ever have like a pebble in your shoe any doubt that you're on the right track yeah always I think any educator would have a pebble in their shoe on anything that if we're on the right track

049and the question is are we on the right track for everyone no like we're never going to be on track for absolutely everyone because some students do much better in a traditional I tell you what to do I can take notes my brain works that way everything's fine um and to have a little bit more freedom is is difficult for those students um does the pluses of being able to have a student who has caught fire in the middle of seventh grade or the middle of eighth grade and be like hey I you know I I really like math again I can figure it out I know exactly what I'm doing um I I think that those are I'm trying to weigh those things out I I tell you um Robin and I did a

050number of walkthroughs the other day and we walked into an eighth grade classroom and obviously eighth grade is is one of the things that we do really well I understand that we're trying to move it we had eighth grade classroom during a planning period so teacher doesn't have a class but there are four students sitting in there talking to her about what they need to do going forward one of them's taking a test two of them are working on something the fourth one is talking saying you know hey I'm here I think I'm ready to take the test tomorrow I know I'm going to be away I'm going on vacation so I'm probably going to do a bunch of like three or four units tonight so that I can catch up and be ahead so

051that when I go away I'm like this is this is great like is a wonderful thing for students to be taking that kind of responsibility and figuring out exactly it is what they want to do so those are the pluses I keep looking at is it going to be uh smooth sailing no are there going to be growing pains certainly because there are a number of students who like I said are used to I show up I do what I'm told everything's fine I move on to the next step so we probably need to do better we don't probably we need to do a better job communicating that and makeing making sure that we the idea is that we're all in this collaboratively together and that the main plan is that the students learn the

052math at a deep and understanding level so that when they get to their next step they actually feel as if they're confident going forward and hey I can do them I can figure out how to make this get done looking at the time I'm hoping that maybe we could bring this portion to wrap up was there a question in there for Robin because Robin is online thank you okay I did have one more question sure go ahead um for me I was in the AL one curriculum in seventh grade before this change and personally one of the things that I really appreciated about that class was the study skills that it taught me having to prepare for a test having to do the homework I remember my teacher made most of the homework optional but

053to succeed on a test we did have to do that homework and I think those stud skills that that taught me have been really helpful to me especially in high school um just having that knowledge knowing how to prepare for a test has really helped me succeed and I'm curious how those the teaching of those studies translates the teaching of study skills is actually a huge part of it and it's actually part of the one-on-one discussion that happens so we have students who are able to say when they're ready to take the test like okay I'm ready okay take the test do well and then as they if they do well or if they don't do well one of the things the teacher does is sit down with him and say okay you did really

054well how did it feel what did you do to study what were the methods that you used to ready for this or if a student takes a test and it's like didn't do well okay how did that be how did you study what could you have done better let's try it again like because you can take the test again so you know what do you think would work better for you because part of it is what study skills work best for each individual and so that's one of the things that the teachers have really sort of latched on to that allows them to do more of that on a more individualized basis in terms of like okay because you know now that you've done this you know when you're walking into a test okay I

055feel good about what do I need to do to feel good about a test as opposed to the horrible feeling I still have the dreams like walking into a test where you know you're not and you're like that's just a horrible feeling okay you had that feeling let's go from there and build on how can you make that feeling better so that when you get to a high school class you can be like I know how to do this I know what works for me I know even though it's hard this is what I need to do to prepare to give my you know s the best chance to success all right Ben I'm going to let you round out the board discussion on this one so given that this has been an ongoing issue

056of contention for a while I do think it'd be helpful if we saw the full survey results from parents and from students and the pretext um Choice options given if it's a Time issue for personnel I'd be happy to do the redactions myself I did it for the strategic planning and costing out and calendar so it's I have a I have a system but I think it'd be helpful if we were all to see that and make it publicly available which we have we have done in the past all right for the record I still dream every three months that I fail to test so that that can school and it's always math I didn't go to any class surprised by the test the one I have is that I show up to a class

057that I didn't know I was and then I have a test in it and I have no idea all right um before we move on from this topic any public comment any members of the public would like to speak um okay great um we'll start with you you can just uh step up a little bit closer so we can pick you up on the owl and just give us your name and the town you live in and we give you three minutes oh okay well Jim heran I live here in Handover I am the father of a seventh grade seventh graders and advaning and um I think that the school has failed our children in that um in a pretty way this year um and it's I think it's quite tragic um and and what

058I heard was that this is about communication and that you know the the school hasn't you know the parents don't understand that you've moved away from textbooks and that um the parents are appropriating anxiety from the kids and I think that the parents do understand and it's not about it's the substance it's the absence of teaching and it's the appropriation of a curriculum that really wasn't fully baked um you know one of the things that was said was that the uh instructional information and the questions and so forth are accessible online I tell you from our experience um the you you follow the link you get to a different question a different set you know a video that doesn't correspond to the lesson I mean it is a mess and the the illustrative math has

059by their own acknowledgement they haven't completed the textbook this is not a fully developed curriculum but you know and so this was my my main question to the school system is how did we adopt a curriculum that wasn't fully developed one number two did we evaluate this curriculum its implementation in other school systems this is if we adopted a new curriculum for our school system did we look at other school systems and evaluate how this curriculum was working for them and the results that they were experiencing I I don't that's that's a question I suspect because this is so new would be very difficult to do that um I want to strongly support uh at the expectation that we get to see the full survey of both students and parents I thought it was uh

060highly problematic that that what was published for this meeting was a subset of the questions and didn't includeed the parent survey uh results um and I think that you know the reality of the situation for the seventh grade student speaks are itself there have been several students who you know parents who pulled their kids out of the at least one or two I'm aware of pull their kids out of the program because they were so frustrated with it two there's a couple of tutors in town that are um swamped with Middle School seventh grade kids in particular um who who are augmenting the school or providing the instruction which to me is a you know an equity issue that you know not everyone can afford a tutor and we're um imposing that kind of burden

061on families and families that can't afford it so um I think this is a real tragedy and I I really would like to have some answers for how the administration uh the people who are responsible for implementing a new curriculum went about this without you know further evaluation in in advance because it just seems shocking to me that this could happen thank you any other comments yep so if you can come up and just let us know your name and where your from I'm Ben heran I'm a student here at hover high school that's my dad there so my question is simply I really think that can you scoot this way a little bit sorry just so I can see you better thank you sorry I interrupt you yeah so my question is really predicated

062on this idea of grouping everyone together right the heterogeneous grouping and the reason I'm wondering about that is because I feel that if we're talking about customizing education the individual student why wouldn't we group students with p who are at a similar level to them in my personal experience at RMS I never felt challenged until I entered the algebra 1 honors class and then when I entered that class it was lifechanging I literally do not think I would be anywhere near where I am in terms of academics now without having taken that class and then the subsequent geometry class because it taught me study skills but it also helped me to realize that learning is can be challenging and school is not just a something a chore but can be something that engages you and

063makes you curious and makes you want to learn more about um the concepts that are being taught and I didn't have that experience honestly in a in a major way until I entered these harder classes so I think that that's from my perspective is why I'm so concerned about this but additionally I think that the major problem here is I just don't understand the logic if we're customizing a curriculum wouldn't it make more sense to have students who are of the same level practicing in a classroom together students who are of the same Drive motivation wherever they are at the same level and I think the the Practical thing to do if we want to create more Pathways for students to move up and around would be to create different Pathways within that system rather

064than just scrapping the whole system create Pathways within the system so that students can move around more freely and have those opportunities but what really don't understand is how the system just got completely scrapped when it worked so well for so many kids and when it was so loved by so many kids and I think the other additional thing that I just wanted to comment on is that there's been a major change in teachers at the high school in the algebra 2 honors curriculum we have different teachers a different a slightly different curriculum so I think it's a little bit hard to make any judgments on the preparedness or lack of preparedness or the rates of students dropping out of that class I just want to caution that because the teacher has changed and that

065was a major factor in why students were dropping the class so those are the two points that I wanted to bring thank you so much for your time thank you any other public comment yep hi my name is Martin mazal I'm also a junior at HHS I was at RMS for three years um I wanted to give my own personal experience when I heard about this change um because I guess I really um relate to the struggle of being a student that was advanced in math and felt like at certain times it was really difficult to get the help uh that I needed to actually find success in math um I often find when I am like bored with a class or unable to achieve the level of rigor that helps me Thrive that I

066act out and that was really bad for my academic career and I guess speaking from my own personal experience in five years ago um we did something called aops and scan map um which was an online it was individualized you had your own worksheets everyone did their own um and I can tell you at least from my personal experience that it was the least fun I'd ever have doing math um it was very demoralizing I had to have my mom help me do so much of it and to me it seems like that system is now what is becoming the predominant way of doing it all three years of math um and I I guess that really uh rankles me and I just don't support that it also seems like the RMS uh curriculum has

067become a live testing ground to change things around like year by year and I just I don't think that's very helpful to students it seems like it's producing a lot of irregularities um but the the online individualized curriculum at least for me in the sixth and seventh grade I was not development mentally ready for that to run it at your own pace I really wanted to teacher to help me um I don't support that sort of thing and I don't I guess I think the rationale for departing from a more traditional curriculum seems to me underdeveloped um I guess I would support and changing this and I don't strongly oppose the uh individualized curriculum I don't think that's a good one thank you thank you any other public comment in the room tonight checking online

068you have a public comment online just raise your hand and we can recognize you okay seeing none um sorry I just wanted to add one thing some board members had mentioned supporting seeing the full data and that's something that I definitely agree with one of the questions that I have about the data on this sheet is that it's representative of the grade as a whole and I'd be curious to see how that data changes based on where students are in the curriculum maybe more advanced students how they responded to these questions compared to students who are a little farther behind so that's just something that I'd be curious to see yeah what I am hearing tonight is um a desire um not only from the board but obviously from the community as well too to

069dig into this a little bit um opportunity to see some uh survey results um probably have uh you know Robin and Tim together just to go over the curricular um aspects of this um at the very least to get the board a better grounding of um of the program and the decisions made and where things stand right now and the ability to sort of ask and get some questions answered I just tell you that ability disaggregate depending on exactly where you are is probably not available and we can disaggregate some of it in seventh grade but in eth grade I mean we basically just asked which grade are you in seventh seventh grade seventh grade Advanced 8 grade so students in the eth grade we really don't have an understanding of where they are particularly

070in the curriculum and to a certain extent as an educator and as an educator of all 365 students that I have in the Richmond school that is not the most important question to me most important question to me is how the students are accessing the curriculum that they need in order to be successful and if we have a curriculum that allows students who are incredibly accelerated to do well those who are not incredibly accelerated do not do well and feel badly about themselves and where they're going that's also an important thing that we need to look into so again I it I understand how all of this works and that's why I say one of the things that math is so contentious because people want everybody to be as doing as well as they are

071but my job as the principal is to make sure that we educate to the best of our ability all 360 students that we have in the school at that time yeah so I you know um hearing a lot of things tonight but I do think that there is an opportunity for a more in-depth discussion uh with the board um on this topic and I am as I said before very happy to bring this forward to the next Dresden chair to get that scheduled and on the agenda but Tony I'm going to let you go one more timeing me I just had a process question because last year we had a lot of discussions about middle school math and I I guess I'm remembering but I thought the at the end of that the decision was

072they rolling that back and there weren't going to be changes to the middle school math this year that they were going to re-evaluate and um do a little more analysis and study before making any changes but it sounds like there was a change so I'm just wondering am I misremembering or did it happen despite that decision I would do my best with that one this this we said this year is going to be a year of evaluating and monitoring and that's that's what this evening is for and there's a lot more data to be digested than simply the survey data um I've seen the survey results and what I found stri was that there was a a really big difference between parent perceptions and student perceptions and there's also a big difference between seventh grade

073perceptions and eighth grade perceptions that you see in part here um we we have again it's I I know the the comment about this being sort of a live exercise anytime you make a curricular change we can't like run a test um on some group of um of subjects outside the school year so when we when we adopt a curriculum um we pilot it and i' would say that's this year is for seventh grade as a pilot year and um and we are evaluating the other thing that we haven't looked at surprised no one's mentioned tonight is achievement results and we have three now cohorts of eighth grade students who have have uh exited the the middle school and and entered high school so we should be able to take data I'm looking at Liz

074um and and do some more research on the high schoolend see what what is happening I've not seen a drop in SAT scores again these students haven't are just now hitting junior year um or will be hitting junior year so we have a lot more data to review before we either continue down this path or go back and and do something else and I'd invite Robin to add anything she thinks that I've missed Rob I don't think you've missed anything I would go back to we have been meeting with the teachers we'll continue to do so they have made curricular changes this year just based on what they're seeing and um have gone back to more direct instruction particularly in the seventh grade math class so I feel like curriculum is never constant we always

075want to make improvements to help all of our students and we'll continue to do that this year and continue to monitor it so this is just you know a snapshot in the middle of the road and that will continue to take place surveying students surveying parents so we can get more feedback thank you roban Michael you're about to offer a suggestion on what types of things we want to talk about on this topic in a future meeting right I think when you come back Robin and Jay um focusing on Tony's question important because at the end of these discussions last year there was an email that went out to all SAU families on February 27 that said we were not changing the CCS absolutely that while some instructional approaches that we've been using in e8th

076grade will be pated in other grads acceleration opportunities offer the past several years will continue next year and the across theboard revision of the middle school program discussed early this year will be delayed for year it goes on and so I think we're just B Twix in between because for that contention last year he said the curriculum's not changing and it feels like the curriculum has changed the the curriculum has not changed it's still they're still using seventh grade illustrative mathematics thing that was was to have all seventh did not there would only be one seventh grade M so the idea was that we would continue to have seventh grade math and an accelerated seventh grade math so we would continue to have tracking in seventh grade we have continued that students who are going

077to complete the algebra one ccum at the end of seventh grade yes Jay so again I think getting our terms right is important here and and there's a difference between curriculum and and then in the instructional approach and in this particular case the IM curriculum has not changed it's it's still the IM am curriculum and and I guess the one change instead of calling the course algebra we called it Advanced seventh grade math so that's that's essentially how it changed in terms of grouping and so again I I really believe we need to take a look at data be Beyond just people's opinions I mean we're sharing opinions tonight and many of them are informed only by what the people have heard and not what they've actually experienced and so um I think we do

078need we need a meeting that's probably not just a segment of a board meeting you probably need a public meeting um prbly before a board meeting so everyone's not blur eyed at 9:00 um and and to have the faculty on on Deck with examples of the curriculum uh with information that answers the question about further development of IM and where where that currently stands and uh and plan on making a night of it agreed um yeah I just want to add like I this was on the agenda tonight because the board asked for an update I think what we learned tonight was informative and it informed the decision that we would like to discuss this further at a future board meeting so this is not the end of the discussion just the end of the

079discussion of this topic for this evening and we will pick this up at a future dren meeting and I agree with Jay's suggestion that maybe it ought to be sort of a standalone item um in a singular Dresden meeting I just make one acknowledgement I just want to acknowledge because I'm right there with the people who have children in seventh grade right now where you know we talk about this sort of in a theoretical context and when it's your child who is being experimented with in a in a delivery method or a curriculum I understand that that's that hits differently so I just wanted to acknowledge that I guess that I I I feel that difference sure okay thank you board thank you members of the public for coming out and letting us know how

080you feel we appreciate it moving on then to our next agenda item which is Vermont educational reform proposal um I had shared with my colleagues on the board and the administration um my synopsis of the governor's current education form proposal in Vermont I am not going to read through all of that tonight unless some board members had a desire to do that my main purpose for bringing it Forward was for consideration on this board that we actually reach out and engage with legal counsel on our particular status as in an interstate school districts because in my view I am not convinced state of Vermont really knows how to handle the interstate school districts and that we would benefit from our own legal analysis of the situation which I will acknowledge is likely to be fluid

081for the remainder of the session um because obviously the governor's proposal is not simply just going to be enacted as law as is and there'll be a lot of changes and updates and horse trading that goes on throughout the session so that is the main reason why I brought it forward this evening um I am happy to add a business requiring action which would be this board authorizing the superintendent to engage with legal council on these matters if that would make folks feel better don't we um I'm coming from the New Hampshire side and there are all kinds of bills proposed in the New Hampshire State Legislature with lots of crazy suggestions including one school district Per County in New Hampshire which is the bill proposed I don't think that bill is going anywhere so

082I wouldn't advise you know getting legal council to evaluate that so I'm just wondering is this like a serious Proposal with legs that we think has a decent chance so that extending funds or is it just yet another air brain scheme that's um could it be both my insight on it I I think met with the house education Committee in Vermont I I have no doubt they're planning something it's the governor's proposal is one extreme but what they're coming back with it's like well not five but maybe 14 to 20 and so that that's a pretty huge consolidation when there right now there are 52 53 SU in in Vermont each with its own superintendent um and so um that's if if the house education committee is contemplating consolidation that's not as far-reaching as the

083governor's but pretty dramatic I think it's pretty likely that something's going to happen and honestly there's I don't see a way to really significantly reduce the cost of Education in a state with declining enrollment other than to consolidate to some degree yeah so I mean I shared Jay's view on this I do get the sense that something is going to happen um I also want to note for folks um I do think there might be some Synergy of working together with Rivendell on this because they've got to be in the exact same situation and maybe some of that legal analysis work could be shared between our districts it might be worth looking into um but the other thing to note and I think I included it in the in the the document I want people

084to remember Norwich which is a k6 district is a Vermont District Dresden is 712 if we're talking about some potential consolidation in Vermont it is likely that Norwich might get scooped up in that consolidation work doesn't mean that Dresden goes away but Norwich might get forced into consolidation with other existing school districts in Vermont um having spent some time at the State House my session um there seems to be an extraordinary amount of energy behind the proposition in education and health care that they need to do something nobody knows what that thing is but they know they need to do something I think it would benefit the district to be able to let our Representatives know about potential legal hurdles and to the extent we need to take legal action have someone who's been with

085us the entire way through the story I appreciate you's point about synergies because like you I Rivendell is in the same situation um but I would be very much in favor of adding a action construct superintendent any other questions or comments on this one I just want to thank you this is taking a big amorphous blob and making it more Focus well the irony is right it's a little bit mad to be on these calls is is that when they talk about you know School consolidation Ideal school sizes the sizes that they recommending which is what you have here I think on page four are pretty much in line with what MCS and the Hanover High School are as far as having an OP school size of you know this is saying 450 kids I

086mean we are the largest Elementary School is that right in the state of Vermont I don't know I thought that's what someone said in our last call anyways doesn't seem quite right surprised yeah but we're up we're in as far a very big we are a large elementary school already so yeah Tony sorry I have not read through the whole all the material I'm just looking at the map the like sort of five districts and there look like there are two little unlabeled districts is that norch and Rend so are they not contemplating consolidating them within this uh um it is uncertain so when I reached out to the agency of education's legal council and I asked them that question they acknowledged that they were considering the possibility of making the interstate school districts involved

087in the consolidation while at the same time acknowledging that it appears that it would require an act of Congress and so they're not quite sure whether it could happen that's the the bigger um with this body's approval I would look to um I I can add it separate business spring action you all are willing to entertain that okay nothing else on that topic and no other public comments because our public is now gone for the most part except for Linda Linda thank you any comments Linda okay um moving on then to midyear update on goals and I believe I'm gonna hand it off to the superintend let's see or is that for the board to update ourselves on our goals that is supposed to be the board's goal those are the goals that you as

088a board okay just so you know we've been doing pretty good EXC right on our strategic plan goals um there's a couple of things that are coming up in June um which is adopting the uh plan goals into an implementation plan for Dresden I believe that work is On Target yeah in fact some of these you can check off nice um also by June we're going to adopt a revised curriculum policy that clarifies the board's statutory role in curriculum development and approval sure done we're going to charge the athletic advisory committee to develop a proposal for Middle School sports I believe they have done that and it will be appearing as a separate warrant article in just a couple of weeks by January it's just passed we're going to address the renewal of Li School

089District's tuition contract which expires in June I believe that one is still outstanding it is and I believe there is a meeting being proposed we're waiting for the the board to be reorganized okay and oo this one particularly hurts me we're going to establish a committee to investigate affordable housing we have established the committee committee has unfortunately not scheduled any meetings yet no so uh wow that feels a little bad there I have to admit that number five was not accomplished but got you've got a few well okay right we've got some time dang it you uh all right start betting on these board meetings on only fans or not only got my wrong that was the wrong one B interesting video yeah not only am I embarrassed for saying that but I'm embarrassed that

090the rest of you know what it was this is pretty awesome all right gang if we are done with goals we're going to move on to school calendar all right um we have got the revised and finalized 2526 school calendar any come yes ja just to reiterate that we we can't fit all the holidays on this nice little colorcoded template but we are creating a companion document to list all those uh holidays we want our our staff to be mindful of as they're assigning students work and as they're trying to better understand students cultural and religious practices and how they interact with their school responsibilities you any other J and up oh no okay if there are no other comments or questions we're still getting over that last comment that I made if there are

091no other comments or questions on the school calendar it is coming up for approval later we're going to move on to donation from the burn foundation for back calendar second yes you may so what would happen if on on the council sense of what Ella talked about were to go through in terms of an inservice type thing on on Election Day so it would still my understand it would still need to work its way through the approval process so the the motion is phrased as a recommendation to the dist school board so if that passes in Council it'll come here um right now the motion is phrased to include federal state and local election days there was a um an idea bouncing floating around the room about amending it to just be federal and state

092elections to minimize the number of days that would need to be shifted around since there I believe there are five inservice days and some of them were strategically placed next to March intensive or other vacation times so U right now we're discussing it in Council but if it passes tomorrow it'll most likely come to the war yeah any other questions on the calendar all right now we're going to the donation from the fern Foundation I don't know Liz if you wanna I'm happy to answer any questions um fiz is going to the National Tournament again because they're awesome um so we would love to be able to accept this donation so that we can have Hanover High School and the Dron School District represented nationally and a very generous donation of $99,000 from the burn

093Foundation de once again I would like to find out how much we get from the burn Foundation each year in these peac meal requests for assistance because we're always happy to take it but I think at a certain point it's not going to be available and I don't think we adequately understand how much money she provides or the burn Foundation provides I don't think we adequately thank her for the enormous gift of the money but I I worry that when it's gone we're going to have a big hole and a lot of expectation that our students our family our community has relied on getting money from darthy Burn and it's not there anymore so I do know from my understanding um Julie Works closely with Colleen who's our um administrative assistant in the main office

094to keep track of the donations and every any donation that's asked for on the school's behalf has to go through Julie first um so I believe we can ask Julie and Colleen for that data I don't know how far back it goes Colleen's been with us for three years now so I don't know if there was if Julie was asking for that data prior to um I suspected somewhere know it's a little bit more complicated um because there's also outside groups that are still School groups so for example friends of right that are not like so friends of Hanover crew is outside of the school and not they they can ask separately from having to go through can high school um and so I think the net like you were talking about is is wide

095in terms of what this community has been able to access so my suggestion would be that we ask Julie um and Colleen for that data at least from the specific School related requests thank you CH I just made note to um prepare a a report back to the board on that because it'll be easy on the on the receivable side for the business office to go through and search the burn Foundation yeah yeah okay and I will note that we have we have done that analysis uh several years ago because we were having those exact same discussions that we were worried about what would happen when the fing went away can I ask so I don't know if this the appropriate board that we do the same thing for RMS and Ray I'll do it

096this requ thank you all right sorry y go ahead this would be more than just a burn that would just be all donations that come into the school I'm sure we could try to figure that out because we have to identify all the different sources but um in terms of recognizing the generosity of the burn Foundation that that one will be easy search okay we can do it across all four of our buildings my understanding is people can make donations to the school through the nonprofit and then obviously you've got all the friends of stuff which some are nonprofits some aren't and those are going to be completely outside of any accounting system we school but right the ones that actually come to our school entities will be able to be identified on the revenue

097side are in a special category for for donations so I'm sure we can we can search that up yeah um yeah and a lot of the donations that are CED to the programs that they they're obviously CED to the programs that they belong to so I know that Jamie we had discussion because it did come up a question about funds like said um that she had said that they had done that but it been quite a few years ago but it is possible so I made note for us to go forward and just try and pull that because again same thing I've heard the rumors that burn Foundation wants to start winding that [Music] be interesting know just all of it have to go Name by name but just all of it and maybe what

098burn is sure all right any other questions on the burn donation all right seeing none thank um moving on to parting words from retiring board oh come on didn't we read it last night um so yes there's one policy up reading a policy which is the sustainability policy Ben can you remind me last night we discussed this and there was some proposed changes for definitions can you remind us again what those changes were so it was passed unanimously but there was a motion as part of the motion it was to move two paragraphs to the front of the document to help provide definitional context and what we are seeing tonight is the exact same thing that we saw last minute correct without those changes so I would hope to hear motion with similar language which

099I can I can provide us I would yeah I was gonna say I would hope that you would provide said motion have to take care of that all right or any other questions on the sustainability policy all right seeing now we can move on to parting words from retiring board members um I believe well so I believe that a resolution was read in your honor the Handover meeting I know that a resolution was read in Lily's honor at the Norwich Meeting those resolutions still stand here I am not unless people are upset I wasn't going to read through them exactly tonight but I did want to give each of our retiring board members an opportunity to provide a few comments reflect on what an awesome time that has been for you how sad you are

100to be leaving and really wish that you could have figured out another way to continue your participation but I believe I'm putting words in your mouth so welcome back any would you like and the board meetings are just getting interested uh I just want to thank uh my fellow board members for all the hard work that you put in as I said in h her I think everyone else puts in more work more committee work than I do and I am very appreciative of all the committee work that you all do as well as the board meetings and um I hope our schools continue to live on and prosper with their wonderful staff um and students thank you um you all do amazing work and I am constantly impressed with how much time and effort

101you put into all your work on the board um and I feel terrible that I am leaving the board just when I think I understand the Vermont education funding formula thanks toil presentations over the last 10 years that I have watched um and I understand that it's going to change again so I will be completely in the dark but thank you for everything you've done I've had a really good time serving no both of you thank you so much for your service we really appreciate it my board members we going to give them for a position that rarely gets any acknowledgement or accolades um thanks to both of you we really appreciate it and good luck and whatever you're going to do with all that free time now so all right uh bo we're going

102to move on to business requiring action um my suggestion is that Jay did you change things because I have not refreshed my view yet um if you haven't that's okay um I would just suggest that we approve the consent agenda as it is list here at least in my view which is expenditures minutes calendar and the burn foundation and we can handle the sustainability as a separate motion and then we can also do a separate motion on um legal counsil currently have an F that says new agenda item I'm typing as we speak that's okay don't bother Jay you can just leave it if we just have a board member that's willing to make a a motion for the consent agenda which is B through e currently Kelly go ahead move to approve items B

103through e as presented thank thank you is there a second for that second but Deb any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand that is unanimous Ben can you do this the honor of the motion on the sustainability policy approve policy AE sustainability after repositioning the two paragraphs defining sustainability into a section titled definitions okay is there a second seconded by Deb any discussion on that no disc session all those in favor please raise your hand that is also unanimous and then finally I would say if there was a board member out there that would be willing to make a motion that sounded something like move to authorize the superintendent to engage legal council in review of Education reform proposals in the state of Vermont throughout the remainder of the legislative session that

104would be an awesome motion I would move that the superintendent engag legal council to explore and analyze and keep up with remont education Finance reform through the rest of the session nice is there a second for that second in from Lily any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand that is unanimous thank you bard that concludes our business recording action for the moment I'm going to move on to report of the chair I would like to announce that voting will take place at the Richmond Middle School gym this year not Anover High School go to the Richmond Middle School gym please on March 4th to register your Dres in vote if you're in Handover if you're in Norwich just do it right in Norwich at Tracy Paul but oh yes but come to

105the Handover High School auditorium on Thursday night for our annual meeting where we go over the warrant articles yeah this is two nights away yes yeah it's Thursday night five o'clock for Handover seven for Dres all right thank you for that reminder Deb I appreciate it uh committee reports are there any committee reports this evening seeing none going to move on to the superintendent report I'm pleased to report that my report that I gave last night stands the only difference one attached to this particular agenda has a different heading um if you have any questions about the items that I discussed yesterday happy to answer them any questions on the superintendent report and I also see an assistant superintendent report in the package and I see Robin Steiner I'm happy to answer any questions it's

106fairly similar but I have been doing some walkthroughs I did several today with Julie for about two hours and everything else is there awesome thank you Rob and board members any questions on the assistant superintendent report seeing none Robin you left them speechless nicely done thank you we're going to move on to the business administrator report I only have a couple things tonight um we attached a document that Jamie and I put together the department happenings um between the c main food service the business office whole and then the finance part and then um transportation so that'll be for your review um and then we've also attached all the ms26 documents and I did pass along the ms26 form um just the signature page that need to be signed for a submission that's all I

107have question any questions for our business administrator tonight yeah thank you for the report all right board um where we thought we were going to get out of here quickly we do have need for a non-public session this evening um it is going to fall under the a32 C area some would be so willing to make a motion I move to enter into nonpublic session at 8:36 p.m. under RSA 91a col 3 to C thank you is there a second second in from I'm G to give it to Michael this time but we are going to do a roll call vote and S with Tony yes Nelson yes yes key yes Odell yes malal yes see okay thank you we are going to do a non-public session be back in a bit e e e

108we have returned to public session and we do have need for a couple motions and votes um I'm going to stall just briefly to see if it comes up on Deb's machine I have one of them okay you is it the best interest placement yeah if you can go ahead and do that one first okay I move to approve the best interest placement for student do I read the initials y ah to attend Fusion Global Academy at a tuition not to exceed the high the Hanover High School tuition rate pro rated for the remainder of the 2425 school year is there a second second by Ben any discussion all those in favor please please raise your hand that is unanimous thank you board and then D do you have the one for the okay I

109moveed to approve tuition waivers for student JH and La at Richmond Middle School and Hanover High School respectively for remainder of 2425 school year only is there a second seconded by Michael any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand that is unanimous thank you board uh please reach out to Jay for any future agenda topics any other public comments this evening can I sorry change the vote tostain not voting sure we can okay so that for the wa so that yeah uh for the folks that are uh doing the minutes or watching online the tuition waiver motion was no longer unanimous we had one exstension which was Tony Barry all others were in favor okay um no more public yes it just occurs to me do you does the notetaker know who is

110not present at the meeting tonight because when you talk about unanimous we don't have everybody here so some meetings we we announce who's not there some meeting otherwise they I could quickly note though Tony Barry Deb Nelson Marcel the blasy Ben Keeny Neil Odell Garrett Palm are non voting member but that's okay we like him still Elly McConnell willly tryman Michael Costa for the record all right board members any other agenda topics for future meetings seeing nna look for a motion to adjourn hey which one of our retiring board members would like to do that sorry I to adjourn at 8:58 p.m which other retiring board member would like to Second it all those in favor please get up and leave thank you hi I'm sorry we'll do it roll call Costa Costa yes yes

111Odell yes all right thanks all right thanks NE and just a reminder Thursday after our board meeting we will be retiring to s p