001let's call this meeting to order so I'm serving as chair tonight in uh Rick and Neil's combined absence I've never served his chair before so please let me know if I'm doing anything wrong I first order of business today is to enter a public hearing to accept donations from the growing foundation and from Friends of Hanover Norwich schools I believe I don't need to take a vote to go into a public so um Julie if you want to speak to the burn donation surprise it was a donation um of 15 000 I'm sorry ten ten thousand five hundred to be applied to the March intensive Rwanda trip yes and March intensive accounts Dorothy sent another check um the Rwanda group had written to her about subsidizing that correct um and so she sent another check
002for that to make sure that that cost stayed low and we thank her once again all right um and then um to speak to the donations from the friends of Hanover North schools yeah we wanted to thank uh friends of Hanover North schools this is our first year that we have uh sixth grade English teacher on your life working with Jen Haynes in the sixth grade RMS and they're putting together a um an event involving recitation of poetry and having the students come together on Wednesday and practice within the roof people we have brought into the building to help them with sort of how you present poetry in a good way and then we're inviting everybody back parents students on Thursday night before that and this is something that the presidential Norwich schools are supporting
003and we're really thankful for that we're hoping it's the start of something that we can continue so to be sort of build bonds across the river before everybody shows up in September and not knowing each other thank you all right would anybody like to make a motion to approve the burn Foundation okay you want to approve the donation with gratitude from the Jack and Dorothy Byrne foundation in the amount of ten thousand five hundred dollars to be applied to the March intensive Rwanda trip and general Mi March intensive donation account so a second uh all in favor yes Tom uh Camden yes McConnell yes Johnson yes this is unanimously could someone please move to approve the friends of Hanover North Tony move to approve with a sincere gratitude through the generation of 6182.39 from the
004friends of Hanover Norwich schools as presented seconded Deb all right Tony yes yes Nelson yes Hartman yes yes great Johnson yes Simon yes all right and with that we will close the public hearing and move back to our uh regularly scheduled agenda so does anyone have any comments on the agenda friends I just like to welcome Carol velosa to the board fresh from Hanover and this is her first president meeting so thank you thank you uh all right if there are no other agenda review items then we can move on to the public addressing the board um if any month members of the public would like to address the board on topics not appearing on the agenda they may take three minutes to do so please give your name and town of residence and be
005reminded that the board will listen but generally does not respond we take your information and find the facts before we uh speak on it no one no one look seeing no public comment will come back to it at the end we will move on to reports so video shoots you want to yeah take it away um so Council has only had two meetings since I last gave an update we've passed the teacher has not arrived motion which requires that when a teacher does interrupt the class for 10 minutes after a class has started students will report the teacher's absence to the office to ensure that the teacher is okay and to determine how to move forward in their class and we also passed the town hall motion which requires Council representatives from each grade to
006give a presentation to their grade once per quarter to ensure that the student body is engaged and aware of what council is doing I also wanted to say that this is my last meeting as the council representative and certainly you'll have a new GSB rep this is like the home stretch of the last of this past Council year and I've really enjoyed the server here and um getting to know you all so thank you so much say I'm always really impressed with what you do and what you present every month it's going to enjoy learning what council does thank you are there any questions or comments seeing none actually okay it's more for your future um who you've kind of hand it off to it and just going forward um we're kind of I think
007experimenting tonight with having the SAU meeting being after and starting after you know Dresden at seven and just if we as a board think about what times we want to have meetings obviously we want to make sure it works for our student rep and so just if we could you know if we think about it we might have to you know make sure we connect with whoever our future person is to make sure that the time works as well so if we keep seven you know that's great but if there's any feedback we should hear that it needs to be later or whatever just um let us know I would encourage that at least as one member thank you anything else moving on Tim okay the report is not too much more than it's been
008written we've done a lot of things since the last meeting this is uh as always despite when we try to plan at the end of the year it seems to sneak up on us so we have a lot of things to try to cram into the end of the year so we have a number of we've done a couple of round tables with parents we had another one coming May 17th dealing with transition issues going to the high school we're working really hard on trying to one of the big questions that we have about in the Richmond School is math placement so we're working on some power talking about that and what we're trying to do and how we're trying to make sure that everybody knows that they can be a good math student even
009if you weren't great at math in sixth grade we have a lot of performances coming up we have a lot of field trips coming up we're um all of us are a little are very excited and a little bit nervous to see how we do with field trips after a basically a four year Hiatus so we'll be leaving tomorrow seven o'clock we got 75 students headed to New York City we have 45 students headed to Montreal at the same time we have our entire seventh grade while everybody's in Montreal going to the Windsor Precision Museum and uh so the school will be pretty empty so if you want to come by and tour the school without a huge number of students please come by and you know a week from Thursday and Friday or plenty
010of people there to show you around and not as many students but other than that it's pretty much straightforward we're trying to plan the end of the year of celebrations from what we have we had a long discussion this week in team meetings about sort of balancing um everybody's need to celebrate something that is important especially for 8th graders we are reminded as fifth graders did not really get any sort of a celebration from the ray School the sixth graders did the eighth graders who are fifth graders at the ray school didn't like trying to balance that with an idea of making sure it's Equitable for everyone and that sometimes certain things that have been traditional don't really fit into everyone's family so we're trying to figure out somewhere that we can go down the
011middle which is what we try to do so I'll leave it there please come by anytime if anybody wants to volunteer in the cafe we're still looking for help we only have Austin's running it by himself at this point which is pretty much the omen's work although he does have some parents come here and help him out but if you know if you want to come by and stock some stuff and pick up a free muffin on all underrated for that so let me know if there are any questions does anyone have any comments or questions for Tim I want to thank you for the email about individualized math I thought it was really interesting and it was something I didn't know was going on but now I do you're welcome thank you that's that's
012something that we we've done a lot of a lot of work with and sort of have gone back and forth but we haven't had a really really good meeting we had a meeting that was supposed to be half day with on the SAT Dave and people from high school and it turned into those are good things it turned into like the seven or eight hour meeting so I could follow about half of it because the math degree started talking about really they put me in a group about how to teach fractions and it was like okay I'll take notes it's the only time I've ever volunteered to take notes because I had no idea yeah yeah it was really exciting to see everybody sort of Fire thank you thank you because you guys I appreciate
013the email as well um did you guys get a lot of questions already and is there one okay because I was I was telling Katie it it's sort of like a over some of the old Robin Hood movie that's walking around right but I think people understand that especially middle school students don't learn math at the same rate to try to pretend that they all do maybe it's not the best model so is there a plan to do any kind of info session more detailed on that I'll just say as a as a parent with an older child who went through sort of the former more traditional traditional whatever that means right um organization and then getting this I'm intrigued I'm excited but I I would like to know more I would be interested in
014yeah we're gonna have to do a lot of sort of um education for everyone involved and to sort of having this work how is it possible what does it mean and we've done sort of the same thing that we talked to our teachers about which is starting from the back end and planning right this way like we want to get to here what's the best way to get there and what we found and this was from talking to the high schoolers that perhaps the way we have been doing it hasn't been the best route forever yeah it's been really good for some people but not for everyone so is there a better way it's funny I sent out a parent survey and the student survey this week because we've actually started this in some of
015our eighth grade this year and some of our seventh grade algebra this year much more individualized planning and it's it's definitely split yeah some parents are like this is absolutely the best thing ever that some parents are like this isn't like I want you to push my child more so we'll have to have those sort of discussions I think this is the opening of a dialogue as opposed to there's only one way to learn math or anything else but math seems to be the one that comes to the Forefront at this time of year there are multiple ways to do this let's figure out thank you thank you anything else Julie so we have our last visit next week on Tuesday and Wednesday and we brought you each reported if you have this electronically with
016all the links but some people prefer paper so we are pretty proud of the report so we brought you each one if you'd like it um they're coming um Linda's going to talk a little bit about it later in terms of that piece um also were the throws of the schedule build for next year and trying to we you know if you remember from before we had some conflicts with our schedule that wasn't blocked was blocking period and we're hoping that this will fix that and we're trying to remove most of the constraints that we're on the schedule to see if we cannot have that issue of a music student can take a World Language it didn't really work well and we want to make sure that doesn't happen again um You probably or you
017rob the public with these surrounding probably conversations about squirt Fest slash assassin or whatever that might be I want to assure you if you didn't read it in the weekly that it is not a school event we don't have anything to do with it we say that we don't want to have anything to do with it the staff are voting this week to make a statement that says we can we do not condone it but we've never it's not a school event so um when people have asked me like whenever the ccba calls and says your students are running around the parking lot ccba ASA call the police I mean I don't know quite what else to do or call their parents if you know them like anything that happens after school hours we're not
018in control of everybody their parents are hopefully in somewhat control of them and so parents might be more effective than we would be but if anyone asks you that's it is not a school event and they're differing I've gotten all kinds of emails love it it's the best thing ever it's bringing our kids together please don't do anything to get rid of it even though we have nothing to do with it this is the worst thing ever and a lot of people calling calling a Friday so I'm sure you're hearing about it too and then I wanted to thank Deb Nelson um because in my time at Hanover High School which has been a long time she's probably the most consistent board member at every single meeting she's supposed to be at so we have
019CPP and in my time here maybe a board member would come every other maybe once every four times and she's been there every single time and it is not a fun meeting on any given day and the same thing I hear from Linda with Council she's our council rep we've gone months without Council reps from the board coming and she is there all the time this isn't at least that you were amazing too consistency over time it has been great to have it so thank you thank you and maybe I have to make sure you get um [Laughter] this is pretty good too we don't have a t-shirt sums up my past two years Julie all right any questions comments for Julie seeing none thank you um let's move on so Linda you're up with
020the nesc hi everybody um Linda Dante I'm one of the co-coordinators for uh let me ask some deflection report at the high school and Jana penders is the other half and I don't know if she's on screen or not I know she couldn't be here tonight but she might be there so she might join in so you have gotten documents in your backup one is the goals of vision um and that was really uh intended and you know how you sometimes when you're doing strategic planning you do like a blue sky kind of event well that really is meant to say you know this is what we'd really like to see happen and and I thought it um Jana would play a really major major role she drafted that part and I thought she did
021a great job of capturing sort of that energetic experience of you know we this is what we want and we're really going to push hard to get through and then what we did is we took all the strengths and growth areas from all the parts of the standards and put that into the work of developing right side which is that are going to inform our growth Improvement plan so yoga goes ahead of time and I'm happy to answer questions uh the big news is yes they are coming on Tuesday and Wednesday and then sat through a CCP meeting where I walk people through the potential after which great brains informed us of everything that was wrong as we tweaked it and we went from two opportunities for them to visit our classrooms to three Julie
022was really great about finding more time and getting things into you know why have coordinators moved here whenever we have a meeting that's a lot being said for again many people contributed to the report that you see before Venom you couldn't have done it with all that all that work and all that assistance laugh at this so I I asked her chair I said so don't you want to meet our board they're really great because no okay so if you guys aren't even allowed to be on the parent Community if you're a parent so I think the part is this is where they really are they only have so much time and they really want to meet with the people in the building but he did say you could come by hi so I will
023be happy to share the final schedule with you feel free to drop in you're always welcome in the building anyways uh and and that's really all I have to say and answer your questions does that mean I don't have to be at the 740. no I'm not absolved reflection committee questions I just want to say thank you thank you thank you thank you um this is a lot of work and you did it with enthusiasm which is greatly appreciated so thank you truly joy for I think all of us right yeah [Laughter] well okay thank you um staff Appreciation Day Jay is that yeah we just want to remind folks that that's rapidly approaching in early May and um just wanted to throw out there for the board to consider what it might want to
024do for that day we've done a variety of different things in the past we've had we have an ice cream truck visit the schools we've had um over the course of the past years the pandemic we've had we've given the gift of time given the sort of above and beyond work that all of our staff members have had to do to cope with the pandemic and so um as we as we move ahead this year we're contemplating what we might do as a board and administration to honor our our staff and um we're looking at some options maybe a deferral because one thing that happens every staff Appreciation Week is that multiple groups um create a deluge of food and and we um it's all wonderful and our staffs eat really well during that week
025and in some of the buildings are doing other things during the week too so sometimes gestures are lost because of this just the Overflow of support that comes which is wonderful so one of the things we've thought about is perhaps having an event at the end of the school year when we have the days set aside for snow makeup uh to be able to provide some sort of celebration for our staff we talk at more length about that at our Retreat I think if we were to defer it that way the other the other option that has been discussed is some sort of gift of time again this time some of the things we've discussed are possibly providing a partial half of a personal day or something as a gesture that and could be used
026during that time my personal opinion is that I like the idea of a celebration a way to bring people together and to honor them in person and actually have a have a fun cookout or something for them if the if the board's okay with that do you have any feedback from the teachers well we typically don't ask what sort of it's not a bad idea um I'm sure we'll get feedback I guess what kind of feedback have you done for this um you know it's a it's it's rained I think people really like the ice cream and there's thumbs up on the ice cream and I get to write an ice cream truck this is which is sort of a childhood dream come true so um so that was that was fun the truck we
027use that they they were victims of the the pandemic and I'm not sure if they're even still functioning but I wouldn't mind resurrecting that this is a weekly thing to do in the when the weather I was gonna say I think um one because I was able to attend one of the ice cream talk about what I heard from staff is they just really appreciated the time together outside you know outside of their normal time so the ice cream is lovely but it was also just this you know let's take a breather and enjoy each other so anything we can do to make that happen and that for me I was trying to see if it's on the agenda I don't remember um anywhere else but um snow days we have quite a few days
028right where we're Stafford here and students won't be at the end of the year right yes we do how many months do we have five five so there would be time yeah and we but I don't want to be I don't want to gobble up too much time because uh our staff our administrative staff and Robin have worked up a schedule sort of building by building schedule for those days and it's in a way a gift because we don't get a lot of time to work with our staff on things like curriculum development and other professional development and it looks like the buildings each have a plan that includes a lot of um TV that's kind of sorely needed and uh so we haven't been able to sit in elsewhere something we should just defer
029until later and right discussing the regular playoff parameters and see okay there's a suggestion um sorry I'm sorry yeah or I mean I know what we've done in the past too as we've said you know before as long as everyone's kind of lobbing our heads up and down saying the four chairs also because you mean right so um you can kind of make decisions about the staff appreciation day if that's okay suggestion all right moving on to reading of policy so this is a second reading of j-i-iib k-s-a-j-i-c-i-n-jf and then we also need to review revisions to policy gcia Dash R regarding travel and reimbursement procedures anyone have any questions comments for I think this is wrong okay well I'm happy to go over jfab because it was if you want to sure by all
030means so one of the big ones that I had actually appealed to the board to help me with was um uh jfab which is a mission of tuition and non-resident students we had a conflict in within our policy and at the Hanover policy manual gave the superintendent discretion to allow people to continue you know if they had left the district with no no time frame it simply gave me the power to um waive tuition and The Residency requirement period The Dresden policy was quite different it had the ability for tuition to be waived for a student whose family moved from the district after April 15. but didn't have the sort of more wide open ability to to waive tuition for folks who moved before that date and I just needed Clarity one way or the
031other and then we had a completely different policy in in Norwich where it's it's only it's the discretion of the board not the superintendent so in order to achieve some level of consistency we felt as a policy committee that it was appropriate to invest that decision-making Authority with the board um and so you'll see the changes that have been made accordingly can I ask Lisa just wondering why um you felt it was a school board decision and not a superintendent decision is it because of the money involved because part of me could argue that it it feels like an educational placement issue which is not our purview so um in a way I mean I know that it is eventually but not initially and I'm not arguing one way or the other I'm just I'm
032just wondering primarily it was it is it is a big expense you're basically um my argument was always that we've already passed this year's budget it's not like the students staying is requiring additional staff or any additional costs um but really it is it is a wave you're waving state law essentially because when it comes down to it like a legal resident of the district has the right to attend um and anyone else is subject to whatever policy you pass and again it was the inconsistency um and and truthfully it's it's sort of like a solomon-like task where some sometimes people have very compelling reasons um and I'm I'm a softy so when someone comes in and tells me that their student is going to be um upset because they're going to be moving to
033a new District mid-year um I tend to say okay you can stay um and um that's if I did that all the time it's probably not in the best interest of the district um and so we just felt and the truth matters we'll still be able to have these conversations I will still weigh in I'll offer my my take on it but you as a board will decide whether you correct the waiver and I'm I'm more than comfortable with that I think that's a good way to do it I just I just wondered why you went that way versus the other way for the consistency thank you Ben Rick and Tom yeah and also just at least just so we we have two other policies that actually apply to our resident students that actually so
034best interest placement and education manifest hardship both of those go to the board for decisions right so you know what's good for the goo to skip to the Gander right when we think about consistency across all of our policies right so if we require that to go to our own students resident students you know assume it seemed interesting that we would give a shortcut or an only one Voice vote for a student who isn't technically our resident at that time so no I'm not again just asking Ben uh same thing with it okay uh Rick two questions uh on the last uh last big paragraph how come that's not given uh to the school board for just making a decision the one the someone leaving after April 15th is given to the school board but
035if someone's leaving junior year and wants to continue senior year um so I just wanted to know is there is there a distinction between those two and then second of all while I I don't have a problem with us making the determination I would ask that we actually develop some criteria on how we're going to make these decisions because I don't want to get caught with someone claiming that you know we're we're abusing our discretion I would like to have you know the the family makes uh X number of dollars above whatever uh then the tuition is not is not waived or it's cut in half or whatever just so we're we're very consistent year to year then you want to respond to that um uh hi Rick so in terms of amending policies this
036came to our attention because of the inconsistency between policies among the boards and also there was an actual case that was sort of a test case for this that Jay had to deal with that prompted those amendments and generally when we're changing a policy in reaction to something we Don't Rock the Boat with the other policies that don't with the other aspects of the policy that don't seem to have any active concerns so we didn't particularly look at that paragraph in any great depth although we certainly can if the board feels a need um in regard to your second comment we went through a number of case examples that J has doubled his number as well as a number of theoretical examples that the policy committee came up with and one of the reasons that
037we had more discretion was to get at those nebulous confounding factors that I think you're referring to that are not necessarily going to be predictable and that is one of the reasons why we wanted to be board discretion not some softy oh there's some numbers and um foreign and I think it'd be very hard to have some sort of litmus test including on something like income where there'd be again varying factors there that we some of them we can think of probably some of them we can't and I would argue that should be more discretion as as well but noting in addition that if we do want some factors that we can put into play as listed that can be part of an R policy not on the actual standing policy yes yes sorry this
038is Rick so I just yeah so I still think if we could set some type of uh income level just so we have you know bands or whatever to work with and then are we saying that let's say there's a student that has been a pain in the neck for three years and he wants to finish up at uh the fourth year that we have discretion because we just don't want to deal with him or her that they don't come back so there is one yes you can respond there are a number of qualifiers within this Rick that holds it to we it's only a judgment not I don't say judgment called but it becomes a board discretion between April 15th and the end of the school year and according to internal conversations at the
039policy committee that has happened what one or two times a year at most yeah like this is a very rare event and we're just trying to match sort of board level of involvement across all the school boards um our amendments we can certainly do at the school level as you know we typically don't do our versions at the school board level with some exceptions like the one that James is going to do tonight Tim did you want to respond I would just say that it's it's helpful in terms of logistical part of it if there is and I don't know where this is but there's some sort of official yes they're moving because what we experienced this year was a student who was in school moved right still within the disc this is and this
040is an RMS thing right within sixth grade if you move from Hanover to Norwich you're coming to RMS and seventh grade anyway but what happens is then things happen and the address changes so then we have the people in the front office who look and are like well wait a minute like how is this possible this person shouldn't so if there could be some I think the board would be one of those like if we got an email it says Hey we've decided that this makes sense this person is moving in December why send them to MCS for six months when they're just coming back they've been here leave them there if we could get an email that says this is fine then there wouldn't be you know basically half a day chasing back and
041forth with phone calls so I don't know if that's the board or if that's Jay or what that is but it seems to make sense to me I mean from the school standpoint having worked in a number of schools where people move you're like yeah just just leave them here it's better for the student it's better for everybody involved not Transportation but we can figure that out okay so Tim congratulations you found one scenario we really didn't contemplate a sixth grader from Hanover before April 15th decides to move to Norwich um yeah that's that's that's gonna be now instead of being my decision would be the decision of the board we just need to make sure that as soon as we're aware of those things that we would bring them to the next board meeting
042or if timing wasn't going to be appropriate I guess we could always ask for a special meeting and then it will be up to us as the administration to flee the case before the the uh the jury here the money was in regards to that last paragraph that Rick mentioned too and I would suggest you keep the consistency in turning it back to the school board in that case tonight compliments on that so that actually should be deleted it was when it was discussed in policy committee but this is any student whose parent or legal guardian moves and this isn't they have the discretion of the superintendent schools that was not discussed because it doesn't make sense well it's different because the junior it's a junior it's about graduating that's a senior that that's a
043separate it would be different than the other policies when I I won't but I could name a few students to whom this has applied that I that I know of it and what I I mean what ends up happening is the student will often live with another family for the year I mean there's all kinds of situations I suspect whether we have this on the books I'm sure bring it back to the for consistency purposes that actually of course that makes sense to me why not um but I think that there if we didn't have it there would be ways around it anyway and so I think it's perhaps everyone's best interest to have some sort of vehicle for that foreign of legal liability to the district based upon this case by case determinations which
044may not always be consistent for different students over time sure no because because the law stipulates that you must be a legal resident to attend but it then goes on to say that you can allow non-resident students but you have to have a policy so they defer it to local policy so that's why if we if we developed this it essentially has the force of the local version of a law so as long as we are applying the the um the way that you would got around that before is like if you have these statements like um such requests may be granted at the discretion of the school board someone could always make a claim that you've discriminated against them um but essentially the people that would be bringing the case don't have standing because
045they wouldn't have the right to attend it's without your permission so but I think you're right I think we would have to be very careful that we're considering all the factors and that we're not that we're not discriminating in the sense of all of the various federal anti-discrimination and state anti-discrimination laws being a problem and again I'm brand new to this so if the student who is applying for this consideration happens to require special education and there are additional costs involved with that child's education there would certainly be an impetus on that part of the board to evaluate the financial outlay and say the person is no longer you know a legal Revenant and no we will not approve it and I could absolutely see that there could be a case for discrimination okay so
046that's that's addressing the law as well so we would the the the District of residence in the case of special education is What's called the local Education Agency they are responsible for any excess special education costs we have that stipulated in our non-resident student agreements as well with all the appropriate federal and state legal references um we have we have forms for private tuition we have forms for district to District transfers and we stipulate that in all of our agreements so we we would not if I'm thinking about a student who has successfully completed their junior year the budget or if that student was a special education recipient that budget would have already been approved for the following year right and we wouldn't know upon consideration of that student their special education status so it's
047not something the board could potentially consider at that point because that would be a I believe that would not be disclosed to us the student special education status if we were trying to approve their senior year continuance right that we wouldn't be given that information which would prevent us from being able to discriminate I'll try to wrap this up but so we have had situations where people have moved who had students with rather intensive special needs and that's always a conversation between me and the receiving District between our special ed staff and the receiving District um and often the conversation goes something like hey this this person is a junior they're going to graduate or they're a 20 year old they're going to be 21 and maybe one more year with them they could move
048to your district and you could take up the IEP process and and provide services at your resident District or you can simply take these costs and um you know our excess costs especially if we're looking like an out of District placement which would be a weird one but but uh yeah there was a any significant cost we would then build back to the resident District okay so in in the interest of moving on from this since it's 7 45 and we have an entire other meeting to do after this do we want to put this aside for the moment and consider our bathroom policy committee or do we want to continue a discussion I know I've heard specific things that would prompt re-editing at the fall students and I've seen some people not even a
049great conversation but I don't think the policy has heard of tangible bring it back next just that last one yeah there was the distance yeah so that that and I don't know maybe the version we worked with as a draft didn't have that paragraph but that paragraph's been in the policy and has been long-standing practice that if a student is in good standing at the end of their junior year that and then they move a lot we've we allow them to and it's very common practice in other districts as well if this board would like to strike that uh I wasn't suggesting striking I was suggesting turning it over to the school board rather than the super sure and again for consistency sake I'm fine with that as well um we're not going to do
050that never mind so if it's if it's if it's a strict for example you'd have the words with a little bit I think right so we probably should take it back if that's important like foreign [Music] I think if we substitute um so you're still any student May requests from the super from the school I just substitute superintendent schools with addressing School Board so then we would say maybe the conversation would be done then we'd say we'll take a vote on this as amended [Music] Kelly for the question on different policy sounds good all right so we're going to be done with this one for the moment um what is your question um it may not be able to be answered without dating me I was just curious what the emphasis was for the um
051travel policy changes and um one I didn't understand if we need to do something different because they're to be implemented by July 1st yeah well I don't know if Jamie's with us I I can speak to it um me many years ago again when I first got here we had talked about uh modifying in fact it might have preceded me but we talked about uh requiring GSA as our Benchmark for lodging and meals and that sort of thing um and we have found that we are not eligible for GSA rates in practice and so uh Jamie uh wish to make make life easier for those staff who have to travel for conferences and so forth to comply with the policy without having to incur personal expense because often we'll get a conference rate and I
052believe she put a buffer in there of GSA plus 20 percent [Music] um which uh after she spoke with a bunch of different folks and looked at several conferences in places like California we feel comfortable that that rate gets us closer to what the actual conference rates will be and still keeps us mindful because she also included some language in there to talk about alternative lodging so instead of a hotel at the conference center um if staff can get an Airbnb that is below that rate and share it that that's a viable and Jamie brought it to our attention specifically because as you know our our versions of crosses do not typically come to the board for approval and there's no vote on it tonight but you wanted to come to our attention specifically because
053there's dollar amounts involved so she wanted just to kind of have our get a general head nod from us in terms of policy committee we did some minor wordsmithing on her additions caught a couple of typos but broadly speaking had a good conversation a lot of it didn't substantially change anything and just to clarify our like the letter yeah regulation so for Tara's benefit that is the regulation implementation version of the policy so sort of the day-to-day what does this actually mean 21st and then Lisa so moving on to a different policy um I had the same question and kind of like our somewhat covered world does it make sense to have travel insurance like have we lost money because plans have had to be shifted due to it just I saw that one of
054the non-reimbursable expenses is travel insurance and I just wondered if it would be worth it to pay 19 on every ticket based upon the world that we're living in or not I don't know the answer to that I don't need to that's the answer to that but that was the only question I had that made sense so yeah um that did not come up in the discussion I will note that anecdotally most of the companies I work with professionally also do not allow you to get travel insurance I'm assuming there's an it's not speaking for Jamie right I'm assuming there's probably an HR legal reasons I just wasn't sure if it would say this much in the long run Tony thank you KFA and j i c I just expressed my disappointment and our legislature
055that requires this change and my dismay at and her that this change is necessitated by state law and I um reluctant to approve this policy I feel obliged to because I don't believe we can be an intervention of state law but I do it under protest then agreeing full and this is what after extensive meetings including non-public meetings with Council Community policy it also has sort of a holder nose and take a vote approach to it institution um I had a question on a different policy the Athletics and co-curricular so I'm assuming co-curricular means clubs right yes okay so I plus co-curricular advisory should be appointed annually by The Dresden District principles um and to me that seems really unnecessary because like I don't understand just like at the high school first I am part
056of two clubs and we have although there's been like long-standing clubs um you can just have like a relationship with a teacher or if you start a new club you start a new relationship with the teacher and then in order to apply for funding you need to like fill out some like pretty easy paperwork and so I was just wondering like why would we have to get that kind of approval because you need you need staff you need a staff advisor in order to get like money in order in order to be recognized by the school okay sure so these are these are paid positions and so um what we typically do is um there has to be a process by which those folks come into their positions and so the reason the only real
057change to this policy was the board was being asked to actually hire coaches in particular and state law doesn't require boards to do to do that kind of hiring they're only required to hire a certified employees and superintendent welcome Superfly too so this is really just to bring our hiring of co-curricular and athletic employees in line with existing law so advisor like faculty or staff advisors of clubs are paid sure and then and just so fiducially you're clear this does not mean that those folks lose their jobs every year and yeah and that's not what this means I mean typically if someone is in a position I mean certainly the the principal could change someone out and reappoint somebody but the same person can be in it but every year for HR and payroll purposes
058we have to we have to have a renewed contract in fact Oliver our teachers right now are signing contracts even though they've been here 20 years with every single year they they sign a new contract yeah if I understand you correctly though it sounds as if this would require like if you wanted to start a new club and you wanted um Linda to be your Club advisor and you went up to her and you're like Linda will you be my advisor for the red book club or whatever it is um and she's like sure I would love to sounds as if from the student perspective that's been the end of the process I am wondering where does the principal approval come in then so a number of our advisors probably the majority aren't right so
059okay so so those people sign a form that says they're willing to be an advisor I sign off on it okay I think this is referring to the ones that are okay so just sell me the paid position we pay those advisors but all the other clubs I just wanted to clarify for the students out there who might be panicking that suddenly they have to like run to you with every Club they want to start and get approval and they remind me when we don't have to run to you okay okay recognizing time constraints very quickly yes I want to say thank you for the question because I haven't thought about it it does not say paid just to be clear so that might be something we want to clarify but it also I mean
060I suspect I'd hope anyway that the principles which is what it says right The Dresden District principals are aware of clubs going on in the building and I imagine that is the case yeah so I don't think it's actually adding anything additional it doesn't have to come to us it just says Julie needs to be aware right if if there's a club going on she needs to be aware of it and stuff for good reason all right wrapping this up Ben I have one sort of or future reference comments so I think some would inadvertently at today's discussion we didn't really have sort of a then intros each policy yeah and should we do we like or do we like to understand strength of what's the question I think for this every time I kind
061of like this but I can understand why having an introduction would be good too I think on a second reading I like it when you do it on an entrepreneur yeah all right we have members of the public present does any member of the public want to comment on any of the uh policies presented here you see nothing we will move on all right so we are down to approval of the Union agreement between Hanover SD and local number one three four eight I think this was meant to be Jamie's yes right this is we're just we're um yeah and then the budget report and tuition approvals just want to carry that in yes [Music] so the ms-22 report is coming up the annual financial obligation we have and I believe we all need to
062sign it actually can I sign it we all signed yeah no there's people on this one that are missing so I meant on this side of the table there were two documents foreign okay moving on yeah we'll note that for the approval of policy that it's before we discussed not the r version but also the investment policy which the city boards all discussed so move to approve items B C D E and F by consent seconded by Lisa um I have a question for me is it as amended that when policy thank you for that yeah um read those are my statement items B C D E and F including the invented policy by consent yes all right Johnson yes all right so on to reports I am not the real chair so I have
063really nothing to report except that we do have our um Retreat coming up in May and it's the 13th right yeah okay from 9am to 1 P.M details DVD that's it that's right okay a public service announcement on the special approach oh yeah there's an election in Norwich on May 2 sometimes so if you're a Norwich residence and you're listening in help Tom vote on Tuesday May 2nd 7 A.M to 7 p.m at Tracy Hall I'll be there running the election it's my first election so that's that all right can I ask what the purpose of the retreat is wonderful each year the board has a retreat to give them an opportunity to have less structured discussions about issues that they're likely to face or to receive training in the past we've had legislative updates
064or we've invited members of our legislative delegations from Vermont and New Hampshire to meet with us um we've done bonding activities or we've done some things to try to get to know one another better um and so they're they're sometimes one year we went to the helper effect before I officially started went to the Hubbard Center and actually had like a team building day so we've had a variety of different content but it's a just really a chance to get together in a less formal situation to edify the board all right um are there any committee reports uh the athletic advisory committee was going to give a report but there is not here so I had a question on that though and I was just curious if anyone here maybe knows anything you might know
065I was curious about the Middle School sports discussion we did not have any yeah spring break and now we're here we're working on it thank you for that update all right our middle school students playing sports thank you all right okay so uh for the Hanover meeting I I shared with um the board in the public some feedback that I got on the Strategic plan from the from the students at the ray school and I'm finally have transcribed my notes from my three meetings with the high school students and I thought I'd share them with you again this is feedback Loosely tied to the Strategic plan essentially the format of my like sessions with the students where I had 40 minutes over lunch time with teenagers which is kind of tricky um we did a
066pizza at most of the meetings which helped a little bit but two meetings I had about 40 minutes to an hour and then the senior meeting in the middle was really just went on and on which was awesome so the first group I met with were eight students from grades nine through eleven and I started out by asking them what they appreciated about Hanover High School and right out of the gate the first thing I said was really good teachers they listened to criticism and feedback they make school seem family-like um and they said curriculum is strong in the major subjects and they they sort of echoed that and sort of elaborate around a little bit and then we went on to what could be improved um they that particular group thought the curriculum could
067be more Diversified and some of the thoughts they had were to offer more career-based courses at a college survival course some said build up the hact job-based model um need more slash better options for kids who need a slower pace they said we have options but they're not well known it can be better explained and in terms of options I didn't dig too much deeper into the idea of options but I think choices they talked specifically around the freshman year because there's so many pieces of the curriculum that are required it doesn't give them the opportunity for as many electives as they apparently like um they said classes with multiple teachers vary and sometimes vary in difficulty content things like late work rules and felt that in those instances where several teachers teach the same
068course that there should be more standardization um and again they said access to electives was too limited for grades nine nine through ten uh there were some some constructive criticism of counseling um they thought there should be more focus on mental health and some reported being brushed off or having their concerns dismissed and what was as we elaborated on that it was more like there's a there was a big advice given that like this is normal teenage behavior and well that may be true as adults when we when we see a hundred cases of the same sort of general complaint for that one student I think it's just a reminder that we need to remember that that's the only time they've experienced it um the uh they did talk about um a perception of sometime
069in cases with bullying and harassment of sweeping things under the rug or or victim blaming which um I certainly didn't dismiss it's it's a lot of times when students report those sorts of things though they don't know what happens on the investigation side because that information often can't be shared um and uh in terms of culture and climate they some several of them had had suggestions about what they'd rather do than our existing circles and advisory program um and others thought that maybe more Circle time could be devoted to school itself and I'm not exactly sure exactly like what that meant but I think maybe more localized conversations about how these various topics impact the school um there was a vote to let Cassie supervise the weight room to allow more use um there was
070a lot of discussion about limiting practice time in sports or limiting how long practice can go or to allow late arrival the day after and this kind of pinballed around the room and with lots of stories about how I don't get to to eat dinner on this night or I've got a test the next day and there was a lot of angst around having enough time to have a life and be in sports and maintain their academics um I asked them then how to imagine graduation and how do you hope people would describe you as a student in person and that question was again to sort of get at the portrait of a learner work that we've been doing um a lot of hard work I put the work in proud hard worker respectable hard-working
071good person ready for the future independent resilient resilient strong and ambition good person works hard successful acknowledge my growth and effort this one was fun on the outside introverted rude disrespectful what would friends goes the extra mile nice person fun and positive uh and then the the last one I had in that group was hard to describe um so they were imagining and hoping people would say hard to describe um the second group were the seniors and the seniors like we got into this really great conversation and they just didn't want to stop talking and at some point I think I saw Julie or Debra one of the administrators and I thought well maybe you folks should go back to class but but they just kept on having great ideas or concerns that were really
072important and um they began with a lot of discussion about diversity equity and inclusion and sensing that there were some real so really a lot more work for us to do um as a as a as a community and that that discussion could have gone on the entire time and so rather than uh not have room for other parts of the conversation we agreed that probably warranted a conversation of its own but there was a lot a lot there um and I start I flipped it I started the whole thing with what do you hope since graduation's in a month uh were you were you hope um how do you hope people are going to describe you as a student and a person and same thing hard-working not grades but personal success thoughtful wish I
073was a better communicator kind prudent digest thoughts positive effective personality culturally of color strong in identity sassy attitude and confrontational it's all one um well-rounded okay academically approachable person problem solvers either personal or school and positive role model leader show change and then okay concerned about racism what do you what do seniors appreciate about HHS they said many resources the freedom to teach is great when the teacher seems into the subject students have a lot of choice Administration is a lot better than others um academic not sure who the others are academic academic and extracurricular resources teach your student relationships came up many times uh resources College help connections with staff teachers and connections with staff teachers and counselors what could be improved and I said each of these led to a great deal of
074agreement and discussion in a box we don't experience Dei we live in a bubble eurocentric curriculum PowerSchool leads to bad parent pressure several agreed to this not culturally aware support lacking need to teach greater cultural awareness educating about sexual assault and conflict counseling department needs work worried about confidentiality and mental health lack of diversity and maybe add an Asian studies course was another another comment um I told them that I've heard a lot of concern about stress and pressure at HHS and many have suggested that we need to think about how we define success what are your thoughts uh they said there's a lot of pressure to be successful academically and athletically which I hadn't really thought about that much so they said there should be a range depending on students interest um and then
075they said they kind of uh threw their parents out of the box they said parents are tied to this parents create pressure is it the kids success or parents question mark um success should be having fun in class uh grades could be based on goals and then this led to an extended discussion about grading uh they thought that accommodations should be made and there should be individualized plans for students and that we should reevaluate how grading is used and I just said what else would you like me to know and they said maybe we could have senior advisors and have seniors partner with incoming Freshmen um and stick with them they thought it'd be great to increase the time they have to get to know teachers so either find or build on connections um they
076thought some kids have a harder time at HHS than others and and then they told me I should talk to the hactc kids they said we should have career and Tech options here they also said we should have more internships and Extended Learning opportunities and then they gave props to the RMS Woodshop program and said they'd like to see the same quality of program in in a wood shop program here um group three was the hact students so I met with them uh the next week and we had a little more time in about an hour uh not as much not as much time as the seniors but more time than we had with the 9th 12th graders but I I really was curious to know what it's like to live in Two Worlds I
077asked them what it's like to be an HHS student and a career and Tech student they said that at HHS there's a lot of stress especially around grades and at hactc it's more relaxed and the Building Trades are more chill uh it's challenging in senior year coming in halfway through culinary arts was one comment I wasn't sure if that meant halfway like having your day split or if it meant coming in like joining the program at the career in tech center in the second year I wasn't any clarification on that um they said there's a statement there's a stigma to going to hctc and some of my non-ct friends pick on me um jokingly but I've heard and I've heard people call us losers some of the HHS kids are interested in what we do
078which I thought was really cool and it was neat because the kids talked some of the kids said that they have like an even mix of kids from career in Tech and here and then others said that their friend their friend group was primarily the kids if they go to HACC with um and they suggested that that some of the things they do at the career and tech center that are wonderful could be replicated here in miniature and they thought that maybe if we had like a Friday or part of a Friday each like every week where we did things and they even describe it like March intensive things what if we had a Friday where we did even once a month where teachers got to teach something other than their subject there that they're
079interested in like we do with March intensive or that a student could teach something and then some neat ideas can kind of flew flowed from that they also thought that teachers and I know some have but they said they think teachers should Shadow at hctc and see what it's like um some of their other challenges um they also had some insights about counseling again most of these counseling criticisms I want to be clear weren't that the counselors weren't great at what they do but it was that there's such a college Focus that they felt like there's more of a need for some of the other things that they they thought were important um and they it gave some a real shout out to one person on our staff who they were all excited about so
080it was really great but not everyone knows they can go to this person um the ideas they have help us they said can you help us balance HHS work and HACC one per one student gave the um example that she misses geometry she does get a math credit at CTC but misses geometry um she also then went on to say that the HACC medical program is boring and needs more hand on so I'll share that information with Erica the Career Tech Center um they said bring back trips I'm not sure which trips they were talking about specifically but they they then seized on the fact that they thought it'd be really cool if freshman had a trip to bond in the beginning of the year um they uh they said sometimes they as Career Tech
081kids missed announcements and if there was a way for them to get announcements this probably already away but if they were aware of that that'd be good um it was a lot of discussion about culinary arts and how it'd be fun to run also like a Friday culinary arts program where maybe kids made some stuff or there was a meal that they shared every once in a while and then they just asked flat out can we do career and Tech education at Hanover High and that was that was it um my notes are partial the conversations like I said were a lot of agreement and and they'd get an idea and just run with it very similar to when I was to raise school and they started talking about the bathrooms needing work and then
082I got story after story after story about bathroom problems at grade school um but uh some really cool sophisticated well thought out ideas and um it was it was it always is but it was just impressive to talk to young people and hear their solutions to problems that we wrestle with as adults um but my 58 year old eyes and brain are a lot different than theirs and it's just really cool to have the time to spend with them that's my report thank you any questions you mentioned that that some students were saying that um there's like differences um in between classes when it's like the same class but different teachers yes and I just wanted to mention that last year Council passed a motion that standardized um grade weighting retake policies and maintenance policies
083and so perhaps it's still being implemented because that is quite a bit to implement especially in like Humanities courses where there's just a lot to do better if anyone's concerned about that that has sort of been resolved that's great thank you I just it'll probably come up in our next discussion too but I'm struck by you know we talked a lot about the stress level and that comes up in a lot of our conversations and hear them say that they want people to recognize them as hard workers and that kept getting repeated that's fascinating too yeah me too all right Ben I'll note you from the survey last year this treated planning survey which captured the parent perspective of a lot of these issues is there was more people that said there's not enough academic
084rigor from the parent perspective than there were people who said there's too much which is and we've heard their stuff as some discordance parent perspectives and student perspectives right and that but that broke down didn't break down grade levels at school level yeah right when it did capture grades for privacy reasons but um it is interesting discussions [Music] thank you so I had some time over break when everyone was off to work on France which was nice I never have that much time to work on them and um we have done several things for the high school and middle school recently which has been wonderful through title four we've been able to acquire activity which is very expensive the instrument if you are not aware of that ours was 40 years old and we have
085more people that are interested in playing so we've been able to purchase that it's in the hands of students now and I've been hearing great feedback about that so that was exciting for Middle School we've added some technology for the new um creative engineering the science plus class for the seventh graders over there and we were able to purchase a 3D printer laser cutters and some um micro bits which are these little quotable computers that they're using and it's really it's a great tie and because we've been able to do the same thing and purchase some of that equipment for our elementary schools so it'll be a nice transition into the middle school and then through some of our other title grants we are doing a camp this summer for 8th graders moving into ninth
086grade again which will be nice so we'll provide us with that that transition piece that has been missing but was started last summer so I'm excited about that and then we will also continue with some tutoring this summer for our math students and in writing and again those will be supported by some of our title funds and then uh in the area of professional development we've been able to plan for some block scheduled training through those funds as well as continuing with the coaching training the instructional coaching the mindfulness CD and continuing with the instructional Playbook Sally hair and Julia Gardner started a few years ago so I'll be funded through our title too and along with that I've been working on the PD with the principals all of our principals for the end of
087the school year so we've come up with a nice range of plans and we are hoping to do some good curriculum work in that time you know I'm always talking about how we're trying to get into fit some sports here and there so hopefully this will provide us with some really good devoted time to that and then um also for the two days of our instructional coaching and that's all I have for tonight but I'm happy to answer any questions thank you Robin any questions tell me first thanks for all the grant work and getting all that funding and to do all these things sounds great what is what does that involve so what they're going to start with the students who are brand new to the school district for the first day which will
088be nice to have that introduction and um speaking of some of the seniors they are trying to get some students to work with the camp again this year so I think that will help with that transition and then doing some of the circled curriculum and you know towards the school and things like that so a whole variety of activities over I think they're doing it for three days this year so thank you you're welcome and I want to say hey thank you to Linda and Yana because I know what you've seen the work that they put into this but I've been through me ask in other schools and I've never seen it as well organized and seamless as what they've been able to accomplish and win happy faces [Laughter] great work for them thank you
089thank you all right uh Garrett is online so Garrett if you want to give a very very quick update for the athletic advisory committee sorry I've been in meetings for the old day here I wasn't expecting that [Music] um no no actually in full disclosure the athletic advisory committee hasn't met in a um I don't even know since the last meeting because um we had a vacation and then a bunch of people couldn't meet this past week and I'm not there this week um the main topic for the meeting that was canceled was to continue to evaluate the Middle School Sports effort just because again that seems to be something that Middle School continues to focus on I keep hearing feedback from the community as far as something that is definitely needed to at least
090evaluated all right thanks we'll look for an update next month I'm hoping to have a meeting next Thursday um so I guess we don't have a business administrator to report to Pages as we can read all the documents but without Jamie to interpret that I would hesitate to draw any conclusions um all right the next thing on the agenda is to move into non-public session um Julie and Jay is there a need to discuss any of the items presented here we probably should take it yeah all right then I would entertain a move into non-public schools before before that can we just officially thank fiducity because she will not I'm sure still be here I mean she might be but that would be really weird you're welcome foreign [Applause] [Laughter] [Music] Johnson yes Garrett you
091don't get to do this traman yes okay that was for meeting foreign could I please get a motion okay anybody um I'll say what I'm saying it's all there yeah move to approved hiring Dan Bornstein as a 1.0 FTE health teacher Samantha Seibert as a 1.0 FTA social studies teacher Ellen Fisher and Elizabeth Susie is part-time social studies teachers and changing ftes administrative roles and benefits at Hanover High School as presented soon [Music] all right all those Universe Tony here yes Nelson yes Johnson yes he's there Garrett sure I actually don't vote on this I only vote to go into it yeah reminisce all right give me support though and then there's a comment just part of that like discussion later um just wanted to clarify when um Kelly said you kind of administrative roles
092what we're meaning is that essentially it's a reconstration from a union position to a non-union position to help with special ed coordinator I just wanted to make that clear thank you all right with that we have come full circle to public comment would any of the public link to address good morning nope okay um please get Rick agenda topics for next meeting um which is May 23rd at which point we will have the reorganizational meeting so Tom doesn't want to participate the question we adjourn this meeting at 8 44 pm second is Lisa all right [Music] um Nelson yes Hartman yes Johnson yes Simon yes and um rest for a very very quick bathroom break so we will adjourn for five minutes for a bathroom break before the SAU meeting begins thank you