001e e e great good evening um welcome to this Dresden board meeting I'd like to call this meeting to order at 7:04 p.m. our first item of business is agenda review um do we have anything you'd like to remove add amend just have one question is it possible to add something to the topic template for the Schoolboard calendar yes or is it just yes we can do that under 5 a perfect um because we'll discuss it first under 5A and then when we move under six to do the action we can approve what changes anything else no great um so then our next item is public comment anybody from the public um would like to make a comment now this is for items that we've requests that are not currently on the rest of our
002agenda um and we have a policy bedh that's posted on board doc which can be found online on our website um that can um kind of help guide what public comment is for anybody have any comments one one at a time who wants to go first um thank you so much for um do you mind standing up and saying your name and your person residence and if representing any particular group sure so uh my name is Leo I'm a parent of a uh ninth grader at Handover high school and a fifth grader at Marian cross I live in Norwich Vermont um I'm here I actually wrote to Dr bams earlier today um because I just wanted to make sure that this board and sau70 School Board is aware of um three anti-trans bills that just
003passed the Senate um that is they're all on um senu ask Governor to new DES for Signature two of those specifically are going to impact students here in Handover um and one of them you know one of them specifically bands it's effectively a band on transgender girls playing on sports teams uh that match their gender identity and the other really would Place some restrictions on um what you can teach around um sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom so requires um Advanced parent no ification and then also part of that is restrictions on schools creating policy to protect uh privacy for lgbtq students um so as parents it's extremely concerning for us about what what happened to our kids um I have a child that plays um Sports here in Hanover High School and
004and who's trans and the thing that I would like to say is that you know in all of her races she plays in the cross country team she came came in last and second to last so I just want to tell you that I'm here to really fight for children across New Hampshire and for our kids to have the right to be last on a team that makes them feel welcome and comfortable but also to like give opportunity for a lot of children in our schools to be able to learn and get the information that they need when they're growing and kind of exploring and navigating themselves and their identities and also to do it in a space where they feel comfortable talking to their teachers without fear of being outed before they're ready um
005and I say this because we we're here actually because we're residents of Vermont we don't have the kind of electoral process or leg we can't really call a legislator for help and so we're here because we would love to call on the the school board and people here at school to really um fight for the kids and for the families that actually don't have you know a vote in this or say in this so um I'll turn this over to you thank you for your thank you would you like to yes hi my name is alev um I also live in Norwich Vermont and I have a ninth grader who goes to school here at hover High who is a trans girl um she was on the swim team this past year um none of
006her swim teammates or coaches or anyone ever had any issue with her swimming on the swim team um the we discussed her identity with the coaches beforehand we wanted to make sure it wasn't just for her safety but also for the team building and we discussed a lot about honesty and about transparency as a way to build um team spirit um her coaches were very comfortable um discussing this with us and I worry that if she continues to swim for the high school that she will be at risk being harassed and maybe even humiliated um if she attempts to go to a swim heat in New Hampshire and again as we mentioned we're Vermont parents and we really don't know what um you know one of the reasons we live in Vermont is because we
007wanted our daughter to live in a state where we were sure there wouldn't be passing any legislation that would be harmful to her so we feel really lost as to how we can address this um and stop stop the Governor from signing thank you um and this part of you know our B so thank you for your comment as part of our BH you know policy really um because um we um we don't really respond to to concerns at this point and it sounds like maybe we seeing by your shap of heads you you understand that um so you know we um we hear your comment and we um will take action as appropriate and Jay seems like he's already acknowledging the issue so um so thank you um any other comments Neil So specifically
008to this I know that we we have a tendency to take a look at that provision in the compact as it applies to sort of like the financial situation of the district this one is very different but I think almost is is a little bit more pertinent than any of the previous reasons we've discussed about trying to pull that trigger um I would like to have the superintendent at the will of the board obviously um reach out to legal counsel on this specific issue on this yeah because and sorry just to to highlight a little bit I feel your pain like I'm from Norwich as well too and it is extremely frustrating to see uh our two states approach this issue very differently um one of the challenges that we've got especially on this side
009of the river is while we are we hover is a rather liberal town and the legislators that represent hover I think tend to share similar values to this board um by and large the state of New Hampshire and the collective group of folks down there do not um and that's been our challenge for many many many years despite you know what this board has done in the past and probably will continue do in the future in terms of advocacy I would simply say votes are much much much closer than you may realize on a whole host of legislation in New Hampshire and if there are I think residents of both the state of New Hampshire and parents whose children go to school in New Hampshire I would absolutely encourage everybody to call the governor's office
010and ask him to veto these bills I think it's entirely within your right to do that as a parent of a child attending school in New Hampshire so all right any other public comments seeing none um moving on um and actually I guess I neglected say an agenda review but based on the feedback um or discussion from our board retreat you know there are a little bit of adjustments and changes in that and we might kind of see some more going forward and feel free to um so if you see this agenda and it's not like exactly like the last time but it looks kind of similar um there that's kind of the reason why so part of that is for school reports which is our next section in which we'll still have our council
011rep give um you know nothing's changed report um but you know we're trying to um you know focus and and limit um kind of reports to actually be agenda topics um so we could have kind of more of a full discussion than maybe What's um put into a report so um so in that note Josh would you like to give your which I believe is this your final report is my final report so it might be a bit longer than usual in contrast to said but then you'll have like 11 short ones next year hopefully um so I first I just wanted to say I'm very happy that a student has voluntarily chosen to be here tonight this was my goal at the beginning of the year to have one student the entire school year
012voluntarily come to a school board meeting um he is the moderator so yes he counts still please give me this one thank you um but yeah I'm just very glad that hopefully this can become more normalized um as I've watched the for throughout my high school career I've always thought it's been a very important place to just be aware of and I think uh comments tonight really proves that and over the past couple years we've seen unfortunately I think for the most part the power of school boards um and I really think that uh it would be a great benefit for the school for more students to get involved or at least become more aware of uh going on at the board level um and I think this past year it's I've realized just how
013difficult that can be so I hope that we all continue to rise to that challenge over the next years um to share though what council's been doing this past month um so I we passed two I pretty important motions among other things but I'll just focus on those two so the first was an election bylaws reform motion um this really aligned what's written in the bylaws with current practice and then it also I think one important thing that it did was it uh mandates that elections last for at least school three school days uh historically what's happened is it's just one school day before Co it was uh in person in the atrium right outside from the library and then for a few years it was just it became electronic e e