Dresden Schoolboard Meeting 05 24 2022

001all right um let me i just wanted to log in so i could see who the folks were that were with us so uh thanks everybody for coming out and joining us tonight uh i am not rick johnson uh my name is neil adel i am the uh vice chair of dressing discovery who wasn't able to be with us tonight uh for the board members here in attendance i'll just let you know that we do have um currently one board member tom camden um joining us online via zoom um we will do then all of the votes uh via roll call but you guys are all used to that so i don't think that that's a big deal um before we uh before we jump right into the agenda tonight i just wanna i wouldn't

002so um we had another school shooting today um [Music] and i don't know maybe if it wasn't just the very same day as a guy's meeting i don't know if we would have done this but um it might take like just a few seconds or a minute or whatever and just um if you pray pray if you always reflect i mean this is this is ridiculous so sorry just some reflection all right with that um i am going to move then into agenda review um i did want to add one item to the agenda tonight we could cover it um at the end of business requiring a discussion um but it's also an item for um action later on and that was a propose that sent it to board members via email a proposed letter

003to governor sununu um referencing uh house bill 1431. um so i uh with the board's indulgence would like to add that to the agenda both for discussion and decisions all right thank you any other items that board members would like to reorder or possibly add to the agenda this evening sure okay we held the policy committee today meeting today and we have a discussion item in front of us this evening regarding residency and tuition and we are hoping that we could do the expedited do a first read of the revision that we're offering and have the board make a decision this evening and add an action item if the board's willing following that discussion okay um we can do that um i mean you are aware about just like board members aware right so for

004provisions of president policy if we pass uh an item uh after a first read it's required to come back at a subsequent meeting or a re-vote just confirming the vote that we initially had so typically policies go we do two reads the first reason the second read and then vote on it this is the expedited process where you can't approve it after a first read but if that needs to come back at the very next meeting for another confirmation vote all right board members okay with that then we'll add that to the list i presume there's a expedited need for that i personally okay yeah i think based on the discussion that we had at a prior meeting there is a situation uh okay all right um those two items anything else for board members

005okay thank you for it then let's jump right in and i will open it up for public comments we will take any uh comment from the public for items that aren't otherwise on the agenda this evening no one knows marcelo in the room with comment anyone online okay seeing none then we will move right on into report of council representatives and are you in observation mode this evening or do you actually have a report that you'd like to share with us well i'll start by saying that my name is vidyashi sharma i am the council rep for this upcoming school year and um this past council meeting we spent just electing um rv leadership and so i thought i'd share that with you so the moderator is riley mcguire assistant moderator is soros treasurer is

006copy patel secretary anna healey i'm the dresden school board rep um the pr is shaina rothmore and the cpp rep is josh jones and i hope at some point that this body can meet those people maybe next fall and just maybe strengthen the bond a little bit and that's it for a report thank you i know we would we would love that opportunity so we'll have to work with rick and see if we can make it happen any questions for you this evening kelly just want to say congratulations and welcome and at for the board i've been going to the council meetings and vidushi is a wonderful member who brings lots of things forward to the council for consideration so i'm very excited to have you on this board because you're going to do a

007wonderful job sharing out to us too so thank you thank you awesome any other questions for council this evening all right seeing none then we're going to move into reports and the first one that i have on the list is the high school principals reports really quickly um this is my report was this week we're having lots of celebrations we are doing a lot of hiring you've seen that we're working on goal setting as a staff um i'm working on a survey for parents and we're hanging on that end of the year anyone's been in a school is quite a ride so here you go answer for any more questions for nearly 10 go ahead there's a mention here about a donation about a prom unified prom unified problem donation do you want me to

008mention that it's a burn foundation right yeah so we do a unified prom every year i think we missed it didn't do it last year um and it's a it's my favorite prom of all the proms it's a number of it's from a few people from different towns come who are on our unified teams and on other unified teams thank you that was unclear yeah yeah yeah and so and it's it's just a very it's a wonderful event they also usually have a candy bar that's really good at it i don't remember is that like everyone could take candy bars no no no like the stores you remember penny that's candy you see you had a question i just was gonna say congratulations on surviving prom yeah it was great it was great it was

009fun our senior class has been amazing really like very inclusive um what they said at the prom the people at whaleback said there was not a student who took a drink or food or anything that didn't say thank you and they were i mean they thought to mention that so just really appreciative and inclusive of the other classes too so we're not wishing them quickly any other questions for our high school uh moving along to the middle school tim okay yeah mine is less short [Laughter] you win uh yeah well at least because julie's tired um so just uh really briefly i just came from the meeting of ray school parents so our incoming sixth grade parents are at the school right now coming back into the building doing a tour in person we had

010mary across parents last night so we're sort of beginning that process of getting people used to coming back into the schools we've had a number of the end of the year things going on between plays and concerts and we couldn't do we we ran out of dates so uh we really won't be able to have a talent show this year um but other than that we we're just sort of continuing to move on uh trying to plan all of our transitional meetings for eighth graders for our fifth graders for our sixth graders um we have step up date coming and end of year ceremony for our eighth graders and other than that we're just basically trying to do this the same old sort of treadwater move forward we've had a number of staff members who've

011been out for a number of reasons it is graduation season so we have a number of staff members who have children or other relatives who are graduating so we've been juggling um and nicole's been doing a great job and we've actually thankfully had a number of people get done with college so we've got a number of um faculty member children who have signed up as subs who have been filling our building which has been really helpful and a lot of fun for our staff too like wait you're a former student of wood so we have a lot of former students in the building as well so that's been getting us through and we'll continue to sort of pedal as fast as we can going forward that's it i'm sure there are some questions or maybe

012there are some questions any questions for our middle school principal this evening okay for those who may watch this video at some point i know historically we've had our principles give longer reports there's been a lot more interaction around it but at a retreat recently we have decided that it's important for the board to get through its business and that the principals do a great job of providing a written report for each meeting and so those those reports are always attached to the agenda if and he wants to to read with more detail what's going on in the schools and we've also acknowledged that our principals do an outstanding job of communication communicating with families through their weekly newsletters and so in the interest of time we're doing sort of brief oral report but then

013attaching the written report yeah thanks and then um i i do want to acknowledge that there's the parent in the student surveys that are attached there's about you know dozens of pages of results um i guess what would be helpful is to un you know i could ask specific questions and whatnot but i think just what's your plan for kind of incorporating that data what were your key takeaways and kind of next steps so the the key takeaways that we had when we talked about it were one that communication remains key especially with students i think i put that in the student section that i think we as administrators sort of assume that the students know why we're doing what we're doing so we don't necessarily explain it to what they're doing so i think

014that that step will be helpful in a lot of things you'll see a lot of the students have questions about the cafeteria but if you read and you sort of know the students what they're really questioning about is the cafeteria for their friends right they walk through the cafeteria every day and they see i don't see anything that's vegetarian so there's no vegetarian option meanwhile the vegetarian student has talked to austin and gets something different every day i think we just need to be much more cognizant of communicating all of those things that happen here are the things that you can do here are the ways that you can change your assignments if you've yet an assignment and you don't know what you're doing we need to get you to ask for help there was

015one comment in there that the people in the front office are a little bit scary i don't think vanessa and i think of ourselves as being very scary at all but sometimes you forget sixth for to a sixth grader we might be a little bit scared so those are the main one of the main things we said is we're going to try to communicate we're going to try to regularize and sort of codify the structures that we have in place so that they're very clear as to what people if you have a question here's what you can do to get those questions answered as opposed to now i think we have some people are like i don't know who to call so they don't call anybody um and then it becomes sort of a question

016of um who do you do well and people who are a little bit more forthright and just pick up the phone and call somebody get the question answered so those are the main takeaways for that certainly communication around math i mean we talked about that um that people have these sort of questions about how do i accelerate my and a lot of times it's parents how do i get my student to accelerate with the understanding that in the middle school we're really focused more on the student and if the student is ready to go forward then that's where we're going to sort of put most of our resources but i think we need to make that clear to parents as well and part of this has been we've had a fair number of changes in

017the last two years so we're trying to now make sure that we are really clear and repetitive because the other thing that we've noticed is the number of times that you say things you have to say them more than you think you should it's not say it once and everybody understands it you sort of have to keep going at it so we had a number of people who were like it'd be really nice if we had a menu for the cafe and i wanted to be like you mean the one i send out every friday or the one that's on the website or the one so there are things that are out there we just need to remember that with the amount of information coming into people's lives we have to be a little bit

018more persistent so i mean i think most of the feedback we got was really positive the things that we have sort of pushed for people are noticing people talk about how inclusive and how welcoming the school is which is one of the things that we really push for there are certainly some people if you read the comments some people who are having some issues with sort of cultural change that's going on in a larger world and how that is reflected in the school we want to try to keep those people involved and engaged and discussing about sort of what's happening with the idea that we're talking about the students first and that's really what's the most important um and then we as adults can sort of hash out whatever disagreements um and just i want

019to make sure that the the teachers received all of those really really nice sentiments i know that they're blocked out with x's in the in the document but i just want to make sure there's there are some really sweet comments i i spent most of my day today sort of copying and pasting the unredacted parts and sending them to teachers and then sent the the more general terms to everybody and then they'll have access obviously to this after the presentation just a high level comment i guess i'm intrigued by both for the children and the parents the high percentage of neither agree nor disagree with the kids i wondered if you know there are words in here like stakeholders that i think some kids might feel like i don't know neither are green or disagree

020right right i'm thinking i'm a little 11 year old or whatever they may not know that um but the numbers are pretty high for parents too which i found really interesting i the the feedback the the sort of anecdotal feedback that we got is that the parents say we neither agree nor disagree because of cobit because the only feedback we're getting is through my emails okay like they're not able to come into the building there hasn't been a lot of interaction with teachers so for whatever reason that interaction hasn't happened as much as we would like it to so i think that's sort of the next step and i think some of the parents are clear they're like look they're in eighth grade i'd leave it up to them i don't know right you know

021so the other thought i had on that that came out of our student support subcommittee um just sort of a high level again is one of the things that parents mentioned in the focus group was um making sure that kids are starting to understand their own learning styles and i found that a really interesting thing in here that you know clearly that's something the kids aren't i think they kind of look at that question we're like yeah if you know my learning and it's again a lot of times what happens in hanover is you have this sort of split is that there are some students who are really specific they know exactly what their learning style is um and you would hope that their answers would be positive and then some of the other students

022are like i don't know i just go to class and that's what happens so i think we can sort of move toward that and that would hopefully be one of the things that would come out of our new structure for next year as well as we would be able to spend more time on things like that the sort of meta part of the work thank any you questions for tim this evening thank you so much you did good it was the board members thank you well hey 49 pages is pretty quick okay moving along then board we're into business requiring discussions it's only going to take us 35 minutes ready set go board meeting schedule and topic template um what you see in the packet for new and old board members is essentially sort of

023a blueprint of what we follow throughout the course of the year so that we know what topics we need to talk about in what months and this way we make sure that stuff doesn't fall off the radar i don't believe that there's any change to any of the topic template stuff if i am remembering correctly and then the other one is just the board meeting schedule and i don't know was that adjusted because i think we did have some conflicts related to some of the jewish people from the holidays yeah do we know if that got adjusted yet or not i believe so i gave the dates to ryan and she went through and made alterations i'm hoping yeah she hasn't noted on here okay i can see well um board members any comments on

024the template or the uh the meeting dates just the days have not been adjusted for 2023 only 20 22. oh right so and not even twenty times january well i mean december 20th right it says hanukkah is between december 19th and december 26th and we have a tuesday december 20th meeting really first and last night of hanukkah is that okay no i'm not i'm reading what i'm reading okay so maybe we need one more review of this just to make sure i'm just i don't see the the high holidays noted on here though this is the this is the one where it says we've got a meeting on the 20th but then we'll know what the tonic because in the 26th it actually starts the 18th because it starts the evening before whatever you have

025in your calendar probably so we did have a discussion dan rockmore previous board member had brought to our attention the holidays and said that hanukkah wouldn't necessarily have to be off limits so okay well not so we missed the first night board members for the past the first night and the last night is also fairly important but the middle nation so we're okay so then yeah let me double check then is this does this schedule look okay from a jewish holiday perspective yes okay okay thank you um is there another perspective that we might want to look at this with that we uh have any concerns with or does this look good to folks yeah just wanted to make sure with um i guess since you two are here with our building principles that those

026early days and then the last day that those look like they're gonna be okay i know you've been crystal ball right but i know sometimes we've had like it's the first day of school or it's the um you know like we have to move our june meeting because of conflicts so i just wondered if anything jumped out from that standpoint for our building leadership i mean it looks like a meeting on tuesday august 23rd which is probably the first time 29th is the day the teachers report so we're good there okay um as long as the superintendent can deal with hiring over the summer um or figure that out i think from the meeting any time sure let me just say that as you've done many times before if you have an emergency need for

027hiring we can always schedule a special meeting yeah absolutely okay so we're going to say the top then um i have a thought that that came up at in march with the elections sometimes we're not always the hand over elections are competitive and there is a time when previous board members don't get a chance to speak if they lose the election but only if they're retiring before the election occurs i'm not really sure how to do that structurally but it'd be nice if there was a way they could say reporting words somehow yeah for the topic template okay um if our minute taker could so note that i mean ben i think the easiest way to do that is just to invite those board members that may not have won re-election just to come to

028that very first meeting afterwards and just say see y'all later right i mean other than that you're not going to know the end result of the election until after the election though right preemptively yeah just in case we're not going to do that all right um so with uh you know maybe with that potential modification it looks like those two things are good that's right okay moving on then to the waiting study update um so uh there is a presentation attached in the packet we've talked about this and i know i will admit i have been the one that keeps saying to rick can we please talk about this addressing meeting so that my dresden colleagues on the board can understand a little bit about what's going on in norwich related to this thing we

029keep called keep calling the waiting starting point um so the presentation is attached to the fact that and let me um i might just ask a favor tom do you have a screen share ability in your role as a panelist not currently i if you give it to me i can share actually i don't even have it but perhaps uh one of our one of our hosts wow lovely ca tv would you be able to give tom camden um screen share um tom cannon yes yes um the pie slices in the presentation are amazing um those are uh artwork from marion cross incredible we every year we use uh artwork from the kids for the town presentation and uh that was from this past year i believe i'm waiting in a very different sense so

030um tom if you can if you could just share the um slides and if you wouldn't mind just flipping through stuff for me um that way the folks that are participating online can see it as well as the folks that are here in the world um so what i wanted to just cover and this is sort of a very abbreviated version of a much longer presentation that is also on the sau site um if you just look under the north waiting study title but i wanted to cover three things one was uh just a quick overview of education funding in vermont from there we'll go into what the new equalized people weights are and then finally really quickly the impact on norwich so tom if you'll move us forward one that would be awesome um

031so the pie chart no this doesn't show up too well to the folks online because it's a little there we go beautiful this pie chart actually shows the sources of education funding in vermont the numbers that you're looking at in this graph are from fy22 but one of the things i want to highlight here is that there are actually several different sources of education funding in vermont um you'll see that there's uh sales and use tax we actually get a hundred percent of the revenues from the sales and use tax go into the education fund um a bunch of smaller ones but then there's the two other big ones which is the non-residential property tax and then the homestead property tax and when we're talking about the tax rate impact on norwich it's that homestead

032property tax that we're talking about the non-residential property tax in vermont is set it is the same for every non-resident no matter what time you live in vermont it's the same rate for everyone if you're a non-resident so tom if you've moved forward then for the next slide so there's a few things here um that are helpful to know when we take a look at vermont education and funding and one of them is that it's actually the state it's the state that has the obligation for funding education in vermont and that was the result of the uh brigham decision back in 1997 supreme court case you can go in and read more about it if you want to but the way that it works is that the local spending so what individual towns in vermont

033decide to spend on their education is determined by those local voters but it's the combined amount of all of those budgets across the state the state is obligated to fund so the the spending decisions are local but then it's the state's obligation to raise that amount of revenue so that everyone can pay their school system as i mentioned before the non-residential rate is the same for every property in the state this applies to businesses as well too and so what you end up with is the system where the spending in one town actually affects the spending in all towns so if one town decides that they want to spend more because then the state then has the obligation to raise those funds it happens through this thing called the yield rate which is applied to

034everyone right so more spending state has raised it and so what's what is spent in norwich affects the taxpayers in heartland what is spent in heartland affects the taxpayers in norwich and that just goes throughout the entire state now if you go to the next one please so this simple way to look at this is the funding formula and so we take net education spending so you take the look at the net education spending that's that a town has which is the budget minus any revenues that come in and you divide that by this thing called equalized pupils was determined back in 1997 again with the brigham decision and it's meant as a way to capture the differing costs for differing types of students so students that are from poverty students that are english language

035learners students that are in middle and high school those students cost more to educate than the average student and these weights then are designed to take that increased cost into consideration in when you determine your tax rates there are also weights that are not pupil weights but they are um associated with rural schools and small schools i will add both of those things norwich is not we are not rural we are not small by vermont standards um tom if you go to the next slide please so this is the slide that i essentially already covered under that previous discussion but this is what equalized peoples are considered we have grade level weights for both the elementary and the secondary grades we have weights associated with economically deprived students they're students from poverty and we have

036great great weights sorry associated with english language awareness time if you go to the next slide please then yeah that's just one quick clarification um does that include special education is that it were they pulled out there's probably a whole complicated answer it's a yeah it's kind of complicated um that's uh there are two the the waiting study that occurred recommended two different sets of weights one that incorporated special education and one that did not so the reason that the weights are changing is because there was a study that was done in 2018 essentially to take a look at the weights that we already had in place that originated from that supreme court decision in 1997. that study that was done by some researchers from uvm and rutgers university and a few other places determined

037actually that the weights that we had in place currently do not reflect current educational circumstances so they uh the analysis they did said that they had weak ties if any to the actual costs for educating these students and they also determined that those weights were not empirically derived at the time we think that what happened at the time that the original law was put into place some legislators in a back room just said yeah i think it costs more i think it probably costs about this much more and that's how the weight was developed so that's what led us to then um a proposal that the weights actually be changed and so thomas you could go to the next slide so a a group of um uh senators and representatives got together in a waiting

038study commission over the last summer and they worked for several months based on the study that was originally done and came up with new pupil weights so a way to adjust the weighting of those students and so we've now got updated weights for students in poverty english language learners and secondary grade levels and we also then have new weights as well for the small and the rural schools so tom if you go to the next slide so what is then the impact of those changed weights to norwich well you can see here that using fiscal year 20 budget data which was the data that they wanted they wanted to use data sort of pre-covered because they knew that there was a little bit of an anomaly from the cover data our equalized people numbers potentially

039will drop using fy 20 data you'd see that we would drop from 580.19 students to 475 and because if you remember from the formula that i showed you before because that number is in the denominator when that number in the denominator goes down the tax rate goes up and so for us we're looking at a potential a tax rate increase of somewhere between 20 and 30 percent um if you go to the next slide so what does that look like depending on a house site value so you can see the numbers in this table here um you know the impact is actually quite serious um and so this is the thing that's been keeping me awake at night it worries the norwich board members it worries the folks that live in norwich and pay the

040taxes um but it was important i think to let you guys know what was going on um because you're the you're the partner in this band right so tom if you can go to the next slide so the stats of legislation this has even changed i can say as of yesterday the governor signed the bill so it is no longer a bill it is law it is in place um in fact tom tom and lisa and i all got contacted by wcax this afternoon wanting some sort of statement now that the governor has signed this into law about the impact on norwich all of us were too busy to be able to respond to the fellow for for a tv interview this evening and then i passed them off to you [Laughter] the details of

041this though is so it would begin in fiscal year 25 it would have a five-year phase-in period and over that five-year phase-in period the tax rate increase um could be capped at a five percent increase per year a few notes on the cap um because it's a five year phase in period the way that the legislation the way that the law is written is that you need to trip that five percent increase in year one if you don't trip it in year one then the cap is not available to you in the out years so we're in this weird position now right where norwich you know we're to want to trip that cap especially if we're looking at a 20 to 30 increase right we don't want it to all hit in year two so

042we don't trip it in year one it's not good we want to trip it in year one so we're in this weird position where we might need to be going to our voters saying hey you know an eight percent increase is good like you want this increase now so that we've got the advantage of the cap in the out years the reason why i say something like eight percent and not like five and a quarter quarters because invariably what happens is that town meeting we typically present voters with the worst case scenario through the numbers that we've got available to us at the time of town meeting those are all estimates the actual numbers aren't set until all budgets in the state have passed and then the legislature has set the yield rate which is

043another item that you guys don't in hanover don't need to worry about too much now right invariably what happens is the number that we sort of estimate at time meeting it usually comes down at least the tax rate increase increase by the time you actually get your tax bill in the summer and so i worry that if we go in that town meeting with about a five and a quarter percent increase by the time everything's done it's going to end up being an under five percent increase and we will give you get the advantage of the cap in the outdoors and i would imagine this is a little bit of this game theory right because everyone kind of wants the eight percent but as you just described you know the state collects everything and then

044kind of register so you kind of can raise it on yourself so i don't even know if that's a likely scenario for it to come i mean it comes down because there's other revenue sources and they kind of you know shift some yields but i'm just curious to what what's gonna happen with if we're expecting it you know not expecting but if norwich would like to see an eight percent increase because of this would everyone else kind of think the same way or even if they're the opposite they're gonna be receiving more um because if norwich is paying more others aren't so i guess i'm just trying to figure out what the if we even can think about what a possible scenario would be if it's even up or down or um because of this

045yeah so the anticipation is that sometime later this summer the agency of education is going to release some modeling numbers uh based on fy23 budget data that once we see those modeling numbers then i think i'll have a better sense as to what things are going to be looking like you're right there's a little bit of a gain theory here there's a little bit of forecasting that needs to happen one of the things that's actually though in the law now is that if a school district trips it by more than a 10 percent increase then there's this other body that reviews that school district's budget to make sure that they're not trying to gain the system and so you could get penalized if you actually try to if you go above a certain amount um

046with your increase and they've got mechanisms in the law now that sort of address that as well is that also true for those because there are towns that are on the opposite of norwich they're going to be receiving some benefit so but they could increase their budget but not so i guess i'm just wondering right so the the towns that benefit they benefit by what is being referred to and this is excess taxing capacity their equalized people counts go up which means then that they can raise more money with the same tax rate the reason that they're but the way that they raise more money is it's just coming from [Music] this every place else in the state yeah right yeah so they won't get a penalty they'll just get to that but potentially right

047right all right so if you can take me to the next slide um this is just a quick example you guys have probably seen well i know my norwich colleagues have seen this before right in order for us to do the tax rate calculation there's two pieces to it there's the marion cross budget but then there's also the dress and assessment that gives us total expenditures we take out any revenues and that gets us to our net education spending and then tom if you could take me to the next slide um this is where that equalized people number comes in right so we take our net ed spending we divide it by the number of equalized pupils and then we get our net head spending for equalized pupil then the two other pieces to the

048equation we then divide a profit property yield number uh that yield number for my hanover friends is determined by the legislature at the end of the session and is set in part based on knowing then how much money the state needs to raise in revenue to cover all the budgets that the test and then finally that gives you your equalized homestead tax rate the 5 cap is based on that equalized homestead tax rate number prior to the application of the cla in vermont we have this thing called the common level of appraisal or cla that's meant to adjust local towns property tax rates based on the sale prices of homes over the last two years right meant to adjust for property valuation changes based on sales that's where things that's that's there are a couple

049more slides but that's where basically this presentation ends bob thanks for doing the slides for me i appreciate it any other questions yeah tony can you talk about how potential impact for residents and what are the scenarios that would impact residents based on this um so the uh a couple that i can see right um one scenario is the the the hanover members of this board might be very frugal when developing a dresden budget um sorry nor which members of the united states norwich you know we realize whereas the hanover members are not feeling this same pressure and uh you guys might not be likely to feel the need to maybe pinch his pinch pennies as much as as we do i will note that i mean a lot of this though i think at

050the end of the day um will just ignore which when it comes to to voting day on the budgets on the school budgets traditionally norwich has had a bigger turnout than hannover i say that traditionally because in this last election um it didn't end up being that way right there was quite a substantial turnout in hanover for the last election so you know it's one of those things it's it's it's difficult to say how this is all really going to pan out other than to say stay tuned right we'll have a better sense of what the potential tax rate increases will look like once we get the modeling data from the aoe at the end of the summer but i have no reason to suspect that it's going to be much of a change between

051the 20 and 30 increase that we've been looking at so far with the data i think the other thing that you know it's important to just point out you don't probably know this already but for the listening audience as well is the reality is when this has come up in years past when we're not um when our norwich colleagues are being a little more frugal the reality is that many meetings the hanover numbers can drive the bus so i think if i'm putting words in your mouth but i think you're also asking for us all to be aware of some of those pressures as we consider decisions and consider financial decisions and when we're asked to add money to the budget um to consider some of those factors at play legal specificity yeah and of

052course keep in mind that um norwich is only 30 to a third rough roughly a third of you know kind of what helps fund but with which what supports the dresden budget so therefore we'd have to if we were to have um nor to realize a certain amount it would be you know three times the amount we'd actually have to cut for norwich to feel whatever that target dollar amount is so um it it's in a tough situation right because we'd have we you know as the dresden school board all of us would have to say yes let's cut three million to have norwich save one million you know in something and so i just just want us to also acknowledge that as well any other questions or a rosy picture yeah all right um

053with that then i am going to move along in the agenda which takes us to uh an update on march intensive and i believe we have mr prince with us this evening to provide said update yeah so hi everybody i'm matt prince i'm one of my roles to high school is that i'm the march intensive coordinator so does anyone need an explanation about what much intensive actually is every year in the fall no good so you know i'm happy to report that uh we had a good year you know i think it returned uh more to what typical march intensive looks like first of all it was in march and not in may right so as we went back to our name um we were able to bring back um some of our regional travel

054options so we had you know three different groups that went collectively down to uh new york city which was you know i think a bit of an international experience of sorts the students that kind of participate in that but we had a number of students getting back into our local charities and out into our community in ways that it wasn't possible to do uh in the previous year so that was really good um other thing that's really positive is that our numbers are holding really steady in terms of the feedback we're receiving from students so this year it was 91 of kids said that they would recommend their class to a friend which is you know i think probably higher than what our traditional classes i don't know madushi like it was a sense on

055that but it's a really good number we feel really good about that 92 were no reported having a valuable experience so that was that was really good um and then i think you know kids largely vote with their feet and attendance was strong in fact our np list our non-participate was smaller than it was uh in the uh in the previous year so so we do have students engaged and you know reporting that they're really satisfied um with the experiences that they're uh they're having um we do get feedback from students you know and uh the the the sort of there was a range of comments but the ones that um came back more often was one was uh they want more march intense to take place outside of the school particularly um you know

056we haven't had any of the distant travel uh in the last few years and i think that there's a real um demand for some of those and kids are hoping that those are will be able to return uh in the uh in the years ahead um the other one comes up every year i'll say it is that they it's you know much intensive is a four-day week we have an in-service day on monday they want it to be five days and then the other topics were more comments from kids were more um topic specific like you know marine biology came up as a course that they would like to see offered so hopefully we can get something like that another one was music production came up so um you know hopefully we'll get those courses

057into the program study for uh for next year um staff you know we're the staff feedback is more narrative and it's about sort of how the process um worked for them i think overall staff remain um supportive of march intensive their their biggest feedback was one was the they'd like to see more active options for a particularly ninth grade males um you know the way the lottery system works is that 12th graders pick first and eleventh graders and sometimes with ninth graders you know it's not necessarily their top choice and you know some of them particularly want to be active so we're sort of brainstorming uh constructive ways that we might have a ninth grade group that might be more activity based uh for next year um because that can it's hard when you're doing

058something that's really sort of intellectual and replacing other kids maybe not as enthusiastic to be there um more prep time for staff and i think that's probably true for every single class that we teach but it's something that they put out there um you know i think it's important to acknowledge that it's a big lift for the staff to put together the march intensive program there's a lot of work that goes into it i think people do it because they love it and it's really rewarding and satisfying um it was interesting in our sort of retirement celebration uh last year when people were sort of acknowledging big moments in their career or connect or you know moments they share with colleagues march intensive for staff actually came up uh quite a bit when they were

059talking about uh their uh their highlights so i think we do it because we love it but it is a lot of work um and then you know there were a few staff who also talked about wanting to see it return actually to may i would say that they're in a minority but it was a comment that was that was there there were some benefits to may versus uh versus march but i would say again more staff um wanted it probably about two-thirds i would say would say would say keep it in in in march um unlike other times of the year uh well i come in october right and i present the program study and at that point um march intensive is more or less a finished product right you can review courses you

060could you know in theory like reject a course if you didn't want to see it run um but i think in terms of you know if we're ever going to shift directions um if there are things that you would like to see included in the march intensive um this is the time to get that feedback uh because obviously you know we're starting the crowning process for next year we're reaching out to uh to community partners but there's time right too to uh to to make adjustments so i say that you know one is as uh you know one of the goals is always to sort of bring in our we live in a community that has incredible talents and interests and basis of knowledge and we want to utilize that as much as we possibly

061can so you know one's an invitation that if you know people who you think would be good right like you know you could send them my name but if there's something that you know changes that we wanted to make to the program this would be a time that we could not discuss it but i think it was a really good year i think that next year hopefully will be even more normal and i think we'll have to see where we're at in terms of uh the the pandemic and what the doctors are saying in terms of whether or not we're able to venture you know sort of further than that six hour radius that we set um this year but uh i think that's a decision that you know probably want to make when we

062have the information uh and yeah in the fall so i'll throw it open to questions or comments or thoughts any questions on march intensive this evening i've got [Music] yeah um just yesterday in the portrait of graduate meaning for the strategic planning process march intensive came up as a place where kids have an opportunity to do many of the things that the portrait of the graduate is trying to get the kids to be um and i just wanted to throw that out there as something maybe to look at for alignment and as an it you know yeah it was mentioned again and again as something that just a place where we need to give kids a chance to learn how to be more critical thinkers and empathetic and better listeners and all those things um

063and just making sure that the you know as you're thinking of things for these ninth graders to do um maybe looking at that like yeah got some something i think that you know certainly one of the goals is cultivating a love of learning you know i didn't i didn't share it i'm gonna share it really quick there's a short email that we got unsolicited just a few weeks ago but it just it was going to a teacher but she just said i just wanted to personally thank you for leading this much intensive the takeaways and experiences will sit with these students forever my student just wrote a 600 word essay for a summer program about a time that he was forced to see something in a new way he wrote about his experiences in the

064haven in food insecurity in the upper valley i was incredibly impressed with his story and the lessons he learned and his resolve to help as a volunteer what more could a parent ask for so i just think that those types of things that come out of march intensive and particularly i will say the ones that we have that are service based whether it's at cover home repair whether it's at listen um some of the international service trips that i rescue i mean the experience for kids i think is is a really positive and powerful one i think it does you know start habits and there are kids who have gone on and said i joined the peace corps in part because of an experience i had during march intensive so it's a it's an impressionable

065time sorry i went on a long answer but i wanted to sneak that in there i'm going to go to tom first though thanks um now i had a quick question and then a follow-up question and comment the first quick question is if there is a survey that goes to parents too uh i may have just missed it this year i thought there had been in the past and if there's not i think it'd be worthwhile addition we did not do that this year we have done it from from time to time it's hard because the parents aren't i mean we certainly want feedback from parents right you know they're not you know attending the courses um and we didn't learn in the past too much that you know sort of gave us actionable information

066but but i do think it's been a couple years and it would be good to reinstate that i guess i would i would say i would want to do that in you know following the next march intensive it seems a little far after the fact now but uh you know i don't know if it was something if the board would want to see that data every year or every two years or every three years but you know it's certainly something that that we can do great well yeah and i want to commend you and the team on pulling together a great intensive this year i thought it was excellent for the students to have as many opportunities as they were provided i do have to admit though i get a little bit concerned when we

067talk about trips more than six hours beyond the hanover area and i've brought this up as a concern in previous years with regard to equity issues because obviously a lot of those trips are going to cost a significant amount of money kids can't always afford them we've always debated it and said well there's a you know there's a tuition fund you can you can ask for to pay for some of these things if you're of needs but i'm not sure how many people in the area would really apply for those funds if the time came i also get concerned too that and maybe i'm off base here but i and the independent study portion of this program to me seems like it may in some ways be migrating into this opportunity that's really not equitable

068in which some students are able to go off for these adventures that other students wouldn't necessarily be able to do because they've been approved of these independent study programs that don't fit necessarily within the context of what other people are doing within the regular structure of the march intensive program so a couple of questions how many independent studies do we have going out currently and what what is the mechanism for approval on those independent study areas it's between 20 and 30 students will participate in an independent study i think it was it was it was 30 this year was it was certainly i think a larger group um i think some of that there were some circumstances where families were doing some things in part because they hadn't been able to um for the last

069couple of years i will say the committee reviews the independent um uh you know applications and we tend to try to focus exclusively on sort of the learning goals and outcomes you know and what are they saying that they're going to to learn and do and not so much about where this is going to take place and i think there are a range i mean there was an independent study group that was actually meeting in part in the uh in the high school every day there were some in other parts of the state and new hampshire they're not all distant um but there were some that are distant um but uh uh you know again like we're we're trying to say like okay well what are they trying to learn do they have a reasonable

070plan um and and not again think about the the location because you know some of the students are doing you know they're doing different things and it's we think that that's the sort of the prerogative of the the parent the the financial aid piece that you mentioned earlier you know this year you know we certainly had students applying our policy is that every student who qualifies for free and reduced lunch automatically gets a scholarship and that includes even a distant travel experience even you know they don't have to apply but they get one of those but any in any year any course that has a fee will cover those two-thirds of the places this year i believe did not have a fee at all this year part of that's because of course it was it

071was a little closer to home um you know even with the limited amounts of travel i think we it was it was definitely a smaller scholarship amount this year i want to say the total was about 3 600 um those were for kids who were not involved in the free and reduced lunch program um the free reduced lunch program of the total i think it was about twenty six hundred dollars for what they uh what they signed up for in the past but they're notified ahead of time that they can sign up for what they want um you know i think one of our goals is to try to provide sort of you know premium educational experiences for all kids and uh you know i've had a number of times where it's like you know

072it's a really kind of a fun thing to sit on an airplane with a kid and it's their very first time on the opportunity i think you know some of our kids are gonna have opportunities to to go off and go about in the world that's fantastic right you know and i really want to create a program that gives students who won't have that opportunity a way to uh to get there at some point in their high school when it's you know again i think they're incredibly impressionable and having sharing experience with their peers i think can be really powerful i will say the independent study piece you know was one of those things that when march intensive was created 15 years ago it was actually something that the board had originally wanted to uh

073to put in um and it is hard because we don't extend any financial aid to the uh the independent study if that's something you know we i think our hope is in our expectation is that the vast majority of the hanover high school population is going to participate in the learning experiences that have been designed by um you know our students and our staff and our community members because i do think that you know while the learning is also important the the you know the the sense of community that it creates within our building is one of the biggest benefits of it so so you know it's it's something that we struggle with a little bit but we again i think we focus on the learning um and try not to consider as much the

074the destination or the location well i'd welcome a more detailed just i don't think we need to go into it here necessarily but i would welcome more detailed discussion on how the independent study has been working recently i mean i think you've highlighted a lot of the uh beauty beautiful points of the program itself and where you're bringing together lots of kids not who wouldn't normally hang out together in the school year and they're experiencing new things uh with new people and i don't that seems to me that the independent study is totally separate from that mindset to be honest with you and uh there are just some other things that seem to be evolving with the use of the independent study program that i'd really welcome a more in-depth discussion about how that proposal

075process gets used the committee would be you know open obviously to uh i mean we'd be happy to listen i think the heart of march intensive um are the courses and and and you know what happens in the program of studies that being said i mean you know there are some really neat things that happen in some independent study programs too as well and it's it's a great opportunity for kids to be able to take charge of their own learning uh and pursue their own goals and uh some of them use it really really well and do some impressive things so it's sort of how do we balance it and are there some you know we can sort of think about as a committee are there some uh policies we can put in place that

076may uh make it seem more like the regular march-intensive experience um so first just wanted to again say thank you to all the teachers who make this happen because i saw that sort of firsthand and it is a daunting task and so thank you to them um i also just wanted to i guess um point out in addition to students who otherwise might never have the opportunity to travel outside the united states or you know further than six hours away i think there there are a fair number of students that i've actually heard this from students who have you know larger families who couldn't ever travel together they're not free to reduce lunch students but this gives them the opportunity to travel they might not ever have you know in their young adult high school

077years because of their family situation so there's a whole gamut of students if you ask students they actually see this as as an equitable thing that we offer so i just wanted to point that out i know on the surface it doesn't seem equitable and i understand that but i think when you drill down into it there's actually a lot of wonderful opportunity that's being created and the last thing i have is just a thought i guess um that perhaps there could be you guys may have thought about this already but a focus sort of ninth tenth grade and a focus sort of junior senior year i'm thinking you know that the awesome experiences that kids have with service for example and they call for more active march intensives for the younger years perhaps it

078could be service and action for ninth and tenth graders and then more exploration and uh i can't think of english where that people won't be small what's the word i'm looking for like going more in depth on something yeah um for this sorry 11th 12th story i think we have a committee and uh you know we'll certainly you know take what we're hearing here and uh and discuss that too as well yeah i think one of the questions that might get at the independent study equity piece is to look at what types of students from what types of families tend to do independent studies and if it tends to be all of our wealthier families then that feels like a problem so um which i think is kind of what tom was trying to get

079at it's not that an independent study is a bad thing but just who has access or who even thinks like that yeah um you know like people from certain families tend to think like that and people who don't have resources tend not to think that that's possible and so just trying to figure out how to make those families that may not have the resources think that that independent study might be a possibility for them as well but i don't know that that's the case it could be that of the 30 independent studies 28 of them are free and reduced lunch kids and i don't know that so yeah neil i actually did an independent study last year um and i ended up spending no money at all and i ended up doing an internship and

080it was virtual um but i think that i view independent study much differently than i view traditional um march intensive courses i think it's much more like self um led i organized you know what i was going to learn and i created a presentation and very early on in the process i was you know aware of how much money i would spend and you know all of this and my parents were also you know i was saying you know i'm gonna be home every day like is that okay like all of this stuff so i think that certainly there could be some maybe there could be like a fund for students that want to do independent study because certainly there were kids that were going on camping trips and that's probably not something that not

081not everyone can consider so so i i think there could be like a way to make it more equitable but there's also certainly a way to um be involved in independent studies where you don't need to spend any money you still have a very valuable experience and um i think that people who got who guide independent city certainly allowed those those yeah resources center that's really vital thank you thank you any other questions on our march intensive topic this evening all right being done thanks for coming out thank you all right moving on then to residency and tuition policy update yeah ben i'm going to hand it over to you i see we have policy attached yes and is um so for those who don't see it please refresh board docs and they'll see that

082item and that pdf so this print this document goes about intuition students and changes within that sort of thing we're not revising the whole document or adding a specific carve out on what happens where people move out of the district as it stands for most cases if students want to remain in the district after they leave they are welcome to be tuition students that is what happens for the great majority of cases as of right now there are two carve-outs from that both of them requiring superintendent approval the first one is if the family moves away after april 15th of the school year while school is still in session if that happens we waive their tuition they're welcome to finish out the year here just it seems like they do that is the existing policy

083the second existing carve out is if people move all the way out of the school district after the student has finished their junior year of high school if that happens we allow them to stay it's an andor situation for waiver of tuition according to the superintendent and certainly the right thing to let them finish out through your hair the new proposed carve out we're adding which is in blue on the second page of the document is what happens if they move within the school district like they move from hanover to norwich or norwich to hanover what should we do there and we spent about a half hour discussing this at the policy meeting coincidentally this morning and what we as a committee unanimously agreed was the best thing to do was that if they're moving

084within the school year of a transactional year or transitional year what people were putting it so if they're in fifth grade at ray and they're moving to norwich or their sixth grade at norwich and they're moving to hanover what we're proposing to do is to allow them to finish out in that year in their home district no tuition charges or anything like that again at superintendent approval so that is it in a brief nutshell so just clear it's almost like you're treating them as sort of having finished their junior year of their current school um was there discussion about the articles of agreement the dresden articles agreement um piece so what what i'm um scratching my head over because i'm assuming our interstate compact that we have and voters vote on when we amend the

085articles of agreement would supersede any policy we have so if it's in conflict i would have presumed that the articles of agreement would i it's a question but that's a question i'm thinking about specifically i'm assuming it would um and just because in the article which was actually approved just a couple years ago by voters um you know it says here quote no tuition students shall be received from norwich and hanover school districts privatizing school districts except pursuant to a tuition contract approved by the receiving and sending districts and so i guess i'm trying to circle that by saying we can waive tuition by the superintendent in our policy and um i'm just struggling with with that and i was just wondering if that was the best well no we have i have the ability

086to waive tuition in situations right now uh if a junior is in good standing and moves out completely out of president moves to claremont for example they can wave tuition by policy so we could certainly have an attorney take a look at that prior to the confirmation vote that we would have in the subsequent meeting yeah so it's because it's the interstate part so it says from norwich and hanover school districts um it's it if it's anybody else it actually doesn't fall into this agreement it seems like it's just ignorance in hanover so at least this is how i'm reading the language right i am a lawyer so i just announced it would you mind just reading that one that sentence one more time and there's a larger paragraph actually if anybody wants to look

087at at least an expert excerpt of the articles of agreement it is in the 2021 warrant articles for dresden which was approved so um it's the like last sentence or in the paragraph or something like that it says no tuition students shall be received from the norwich and hannover school district by the dresden school district except pursuant to a tuition contract approved by the receiving and sending districts we do do that we we have tuition contracts that we that we do use and again i have in the body of the contract it gives it gives me the ability to waive tuition so it's it's an issue that we might want to clean up with an attorney if there's a conflict here but i would yeah i would just suggest looking at it i would have

088to admit i mean i know i haven't looked at this particular the first reading and everything but you know it would actually kind of surprise me a little bit that we had the ability for a superintendent to waive tuition unilaterally when usually best interest placements or other things that we tend to negotiate tuition is actually at the school board level so um and actually it says later in this thing non-resident student shall be charged tuition another app will charge us at a rate to be determined by the driving school board not the superintendent so i yeah i just have some questions i just wanted to look at so i changed so i will say i was trying to look up um the language that you referring to the way that you read it to me

089i have a different interpretation of it and that's the receiving of tuition by either of those districts from a another district that is from outside of our current configuration is how i interpret but i was looking for the actual worst i just want to make sure my recommendation would be that we can so here's the way they would work right we can bring this up for a vote this evening um you know vote your conscience on this right so if you think that this might be in violation of the articles of agreement certainly you know register that with the vote knowing that it's going to come back at the next meeting anyway for a confirmation vote that gives us another well probably not quite 30 days though to double check this concern maybe with an

090attorney just to clarify everything it's not currently on there to be voted on tonight was it no it wasn't that was the discussion that we had during the gender review yeah so the oh i'm sorry i said that he was before me i'm sorry i didn't understand the point of um allowing it the grade before richmond middle school students attend kind of her high school because there is only a dress in school so that was us moving quickly jay was trying to fix the pdf if you refresh i've eliminated that yes the hell went this morning was us working quickly and then we ran out of time and was hoping for action [Music] i mean i just think just the board should be aware that we were trying to solve a problem which is kind

091of in the student's best interest if their parents move from one side of the river to the other and they're in their last year at the relative school should we basically make force them to come you know change school for a year or even less than that and then switch back again what we didn't want to do is have unintended consequences ben made some great points today about we don't want people all the time saying oh i'm just going to choose my school right that'd be a disaster and obviously we have to put some sort of bound on it too that well can't do it when the kids in third grade and say well i'm going to have him finish out his last three years like it does have to be reasonable but we're also

092saying in a day by the time they've reached sixth grade and marrying cross or seventh grade or fifth grade i'm sorry give it one more year it's very similar to what we already do with the seniors so therefore it seems like it's what we call heart hardship that's interesting best interest sorry that was the term so that was our discussion yeah really i just can you clarify if a student moves from a student in fifth grade in hanover moves to norwich in the middle of fifth grade do they then move on to richmond middle school for sixth grade right they're great they have the option of finishing out the year at rey even if they're physically living in norwich near the end of fifth grade and then but then they're physically in norwich and shouldn't

093they go to sixth grade at mcs but you're saying no they could just go with their current class to richmond yes yeah intention the intention jay from a best interest standpoint having the student have to undergo that many transitions in such a short period of time is i don't think in the child's best educational interest and so my recourse that i would have right now to do this sort of immediate thing would be because the move is from hanover to norwich our students in new hampshire are covered by new hampshire law so a hanover school district kid would have access to a best interest plan and then i would come to the board and say i believe it's in the student's best interest and i would ask you to approve that student being able to

094attend rms instead of going to norwich and then i just bring it for an up and down vote i'd make the case that having a fifth grader have to move in late september after already enrolling at rms and then going then being forced to then withdraw and go to marion cross for the rest of the school year and then come back the very next year rather than simply moving it moving up with their classmates and staying there that's to me a pretty easy call as as an educator and i would i would advocate that with the board and call the question then you can simply vote but this there's there's enough of this potentially um it could go the other way too somebody who is going to move during 6th the sixth grade a year

095in order to have their child stay for that to finish out the sixth grade year at marion cross again it would be in this student's best interest but moving from norwich to hanover that student wouldn't enjoy the same opportunity under vermont law there's no such thing as best best interest placement so we thought that policy this amendment to policy would catch this very rare circumstance and not harm kids so yeah a couple of kind of things so um i think one i am kind of a little hung up on the superintendent approving the waiver um versus the school board because if it's basically a best interest placement we do at the board level and this is involving a budget waiver which we tend to do out of you know kind of board level and typically

096these types of things so i just if i were to make it a friendly amendment i might consider that um and then the other thing is it doesn't limit the number of these which is kind of why if you do it at the board level it's not it's not and i know it says the word may not shall um without paying tuition which is similar although different language in what we currently do with junior year um because it says you have the right to continued enrollment and or waived tuition so you might just be able to continue enrolling not necessarily with tuition um and so i just um you know we can think of all as soon as you make it policy right you can think of all sorts of scenarios where we might have

097an influx of fifth graders moving let's say to give the example of a fifth grade hanover student going to norwich and or maybe they've opened a large affordable housing in in norwich right and you might have actually a lot of folks moving for one reason or the other um or something right i'm just trying to think of some scenario that um we might want to think a little harder on because it might actually have more of a impact so i guess i'm i'm i i think my i think where i am right now knowing i need to you know make sure we're clear with the articles agreement i think that's my number one is i'm not sure i'm in support of a policy but i understand on this case-by-case basis you know kind of seeing

098what the situation is and that kind of thing but the way this language reads currently is a little bit troublesome to me um and i just i would have a hard time approving it tonight um i had two comments one i'm a little confused with the so this would allow a race school fifth grader to complete fifth grade at the race school as i understand even if family moves to norwich but then i think you said would let them come back on a best interest scenario to the richmond school which to me if you could do two years still at norwich that's not an unreasonable transition it's not just finishing up the year that's a two-year move which is not such a hardship it seems to me as opposed to finishing the part of the

099fun they move in late september of their fifth grade finish off fifth grade and pray and then do sixth grade at richmond no i think she's talking about no she's talking about the other way moved to normal yeah no but it could move to norwich as a early fifth grade race school so then we'd allow this possibility and finish up the year at ray but then in sixth grade they would go for richmond and not marion cross well i think she's actually arguing just the exact opposite yeah it wouldn't be a hardship for that to actually just begin at marian cross in that fifth grade year again or i mean if it or it would require some other policy exception to allow them to go to trusted i mean you're saying it would have to

100come before the board as a best interest i guess is what you said right and then my other question was this is if the parent or legal guardian moves permanently during the school year of her transitional year and i know that this is sort of being rushed for particular cases but my understanding is that move like are we talking about a move that they have to have already enrolled as a hanover or norwich resident in their school district and the move comes after the first day of school yes school years in progress marcella um thank you neil yeah i was just gonna say that you know there are it's hard for me to imagine an example where there would be um like a drastic surge of people like manipulating this one year uh grace period

101um and i know that that was part of your concern kim and i hear you but i mean i've been thinking about this since our meeting and i can't think of even when we talk about like mortgage prices or something like i can't imagine like it would be very costly to move there are checks and i guess what i'm trying to do is there are checks and balances built in because there is a degree of costliness for any parent who's going to take on all the transportation all of the additional sort of time costs of sending their child to a school um that they no longer have all of the you know amenities for right um so i just i feel like it's not opening like a pandora's box um which is sort of the

102sense i was getting that your concern is kim like manipulation like i'm not sure what like what that would be and it was sort of like an example of like if there's like low cost housing that opens somewhere like first of all that would be awesome if low-cost housing opened anywhere in the area and that would probably mean a lot of changes to the community which is great um but i don't i wouldn't want to look at that as like a a problem necessarily um uh okay uh j and then so i i would say in in terms of our interpretation of the articles uh the fact that the the two paragraphs that precede the the one that we're hoping you'll support adding already grant me the ability to waive tuition if someone completely leaves

103the dresden district after april 15th and also allows me to to deal with people who leave on good standing in their junior year i can grant them the entire year as a senior and and this again seems so rare um if i had that discretion it's fine if you want to take that discretion and have it be reliant on a board action but if um i have a situation where there was an influx the policy gives me the discretion so um if i had 10 families that all wanted to take advantage of this at one time we'd certainly be having a board discussion and there's no way we could waive that much tuition the other thing we've had similar scenarios where you've been quite flexible with this if you think back to when we had

104remote learning and we had rms with a need for a small number of kids that norwich then took in and it's just when those these odd things come up and i go to policy and when there's nothing there for me in policy to say yes or no to the request from the family that's that's why we're having this conversation and then yeah and then this has been followed marcelo's great point which i think was a follow-up to ken's break point um and for those who see me in a lot of these policy meetings i talk constantly about unattended consequences and gaming and all sorts of aspects that i think is especially what kim's alluding to and that is one of the reasons why the transitional year of languages is in there um i'm i actually

105came to concerns if there was any like sort of any student who leaves goes back and forth nurse hanover i have similar things like they really wanted french or or they'd like a better playground or something like that um you know anything i want a septic system in my school [Laughter] [Music] okay i am trying to make sense of this discussion to try to figure out where we are on this matter at the moment can you remind sure well i i believe there might be some urgency because there might be a particular situation and i am all for having the school board discuss the situation and happy to view favorably upon it um i just think this policy might need a little bit more work but others disagree and i kind of feel like that's

106the situation what we're talking about yep and i um i don't disagree that i was actually trying to find out i'm trying to get a sense as to whether there is um a sense of agreement on this at this moment or if it's a little bit not there yet kelly i guess i'm wondering if if we need a policy immediately to solve the current best interest issue that we may have potentially in front of us or if we could punt this policy until we feel more comfortable with the wording of it and rely on the messages to handle the current situation does best interest apply in the immediate need uh oh the other um i was trying to help if that doesn't help anymore sure well just going back to going back to our discussion

107in the policy committee today we're also mindful of the fact there have been people who have moved and wanted to keep their kids in difference in one school or the other and paid tuition but this this scenario is is a is so peculiar we wouldn't be talking about like someone being granted the ability to go to school tuition free for two three years it's it's this it's this timing of a move that creates this little tiny window that we try to capture with this with this clause and then that excludes any comparison with previous cases that we're aware of um [Music] let me just so i i will admit that i have some hesitation here but it's from a different angle and that is um when the policy committee discussed this did we also intend

108that there would be reciprocal policies in both hanover and norwich related to this yeah absolutely okay because then i just want to then i want to make sure that there that any scenario whereby a student would essentially be counted in terms of equalized pupils in norwich while they're really not there that [Laughter] a valid point i didn't i didn't want to just clarify when we say trend because i know really dropped that and i suddenly start being like did we get our math wrong this morning the idea is it was the transitional year of their cohort so just because you're moving from the grade school to the middle school that's not a transitional year it would be if you're moving from sixth grade right and you want to move over if you're in sixth grade

109in hanover and you wanna and they're moving right then they're gonna only be here for one year with their kids it's not intended to go from fifth grade right and then basically be able to stay two more years in hanover because that's what was that's what you two were implying i think that's not the intent of this it's the single year old single year transition so it's not transitioning from race school to rms does not count as a transitional either all right so i think that's not what the wording says because it's a transit transitional grade is the grade before marion cross students or ray elementary school students attend richmond middle school you're talking about sixth graders at richmond middle school i'm sorry i don't think i'm sorry but i need to correct that no

110the issue is we have we have the transition of moving the it's the moving up it's the cohort moving up to the next level so it's the transition from the works so it's a transition from fifth grade to sixth grade at the ray school from sixth grade to seventh grade the demerit cross that we're talking about we already have the transition through graduation covered so basically it's if you move from hanover to norwich after your child has graduated from the fifth grade just say to make it easy right right would there be an opportunity for them to stay with they've already gone through all the transitional meetings to go to richmond school but now they're gonna have to go to marion cross for a year would there be the possibility for them to stay with

111their cohort that's it that's what this is trying to do that's exactly what we're talking about it's not if they leave halfway through their fifth grade year then they get to finish fifth grade at the ray school and then sixth grade at the richmond school we're not talking about that it's just the year that they're in right right i don't know yeah i don't think the language reflects that yeah do you if anyone has some suggested clarifying language we can certainly revise it you know i am remind me again of the time sensitive nature of this we have um we're on boarding students at this at this point and we've i've presented this to norwich presented it to dresden and now we're trying to solve it i guess the other thing that board could do

112is simply give me the authority to make a special consideration in this one case for now [Music] when i have concerns about making a policy specifically for an ad hoc base that's not the point of policies so i have you know rushing this through to address a issue a family doesn't make sense to me um i mean i appreciate the hardship whatever but this policy only applies to somebody who has already started the grade and then their family moves so i also don't understand the urgency even given my concerns if you just show those concerns because we're not talking about like an if they've already started and it's after april 15th they could take advantage presumably of well i guess that's out of the district um that we're talking about finishing from now until the

113end of the year otherwise it's they would have to move after august 26 or 27 for this to be applicable right so the language either needs to reflect that someone's already being onboarded with their cohort which would be at the end of their previous year or that it just applies to like that one year you know in this case it's because the the cohort is being onboarded that's the issue right i'm ignoring the policy for a minute but like i'm pretending this this document doesn't exist um so for this case we're not this person isn't in the current school year so this policy doesn't even help them at all right the way that it currently reads correct we did this not to just kind of solve this problem the reason was is because we didn't

114want to keep coming back to jay when there was a kid that was moving the district for the last year because it just seemed like if we're doing it for the high school then in this case here like let's just take that example there's a kid that wants to move their parents are moving to norwich and they're in sixth grade so the question is if this was your kid are you gonna make him leave the race school and come to norwich for sixth grade then come back again so he's gonna have a new school of new teachers as well clarify is the kid in sixth grade or he's gonna be in sixth grade he's in fifth right now the point is this policy doesn't cover that right now the way that it's written it it

115needs it needs i mean if that is our intention to create that policy then we need to amend the amendment to cover where that kid is right now and i think that we do need a policy for this situation i do think this is going to come up more and more i think that people i mean especially if we have a 20 increase in norwich there might be a lot of going across the river all of a sudden so it feels as if having a policy to cover that scene i i personally think that's a good idea i'm just saying that i don't the way i read this it doesn't help those kids right now because they're not in the current year they're in an onboarding year so to speak i guess if you want

116to call it that am i i mean yeah so that's also like a solution to this and frankly if we're worried about everyone leaving norwich moving to hanover then we probably should just say you know what you've got to move your kid too i mean that's what that's what it is as of today that's what would happen correct correct you've got to leave you've got to change schools and again i'm not i'm personally not arguing for too bad so sad like i like i i don't think that we should ask these kids to do three transitions in 18 months that seems unfair so again i'm arguing that i i like the intent behind this policy my only point is is i don't think this policy helps those kids so it just needs to be amended

117if that's what we're trying to do right so what i think i'm hearing around the table is general board agreement that they would like to [Music] that they unders i think they understand the issue and that they're amenable to a fix right i think folks are in support of that fix possibly coming in policy i think the only negative here is that there's some concern that maybe the language no offense right that the policy committee drafted might not hit the sweet spot and so i think the good news out of all of this is that maybe with a little bit of review with some of the input maybe from some of those that are at the table tonight to the policy committee we might be able to get there fairly quickly um to the extent

118that maybe it can even come back before this board if time is of an essence you know maybe even prior to the next dresden meeting if we want to attack it onto a banner if that makes some sense so am i getting the sense from folks like i don't think folks are opposed to this i just think there's a little worry that this language might not get it just right okay and i think i also might want to just take the opportunity to one of kim's points before and make sure that we don't see a a noticeable conflict with the with the language from the articles agreement okay so essentially what we're doing is throwing it back to the policy committee i think the good news is i think you got this right i might

119suggest those of you that have some comments as to how to fix this that might be a great meeting to attend yes um but if folks are okay with that i think that's the the best way forward at this point in time we will then not vote on this tonight and uh and but we should see it in short order is that okay policy committee that's not in the basement [Laughter] so with the more exigent circumstance that i'm dealing with um i'd like to give this family some sort of assurance that something will happen that will be able to support this once we can get the details right and i'm a little bit in limbo that way not knowing if what we ultimately put together is going to be something that's going to be amenable

120to the board or not um and also for example the policy meeting policy cannot be till after the next dresden meeting because all of us are traveling okay [Music] what i what i believe though i heard tonight was sort of broad support for addressing this issue in a positive way right but we meet the non-public to discuss the specifics of this case i guess that's what i was there the other part that i was leaning to is if necessary we can't have a non-public discussion about the the specifics to make sure that what i think i heard around the table you know it's heading in the direction that you could then say um based on the discussion that the board had the meeting on tuesday night i do believe that this is going to be

121resolved uh it's going to take us a little bit more work in the policy to um tee up the language sure but the board was not against this notion okay i think i could that would be good enough i mean i know that we need to have a non-public if that's unless i i see someone shaking their head violently that they don't agree with what neil said um i feel comfortable going back dotting the eyes crossing the t's revising and bringing the policy back as long as i can give this family some comfort okay report good board i think we're about to make up some time so we are on now to uh school board self-evaluation um i will admit that i did not have time to review the self-evaluation results um and i don't

122know if there are many board members that did what i would like to do then is for those that may have looked at them and have something that immediately came to mind they saw in the results that they just want to get on the table i'm willing to hear that now um otherwise i do think if you're like me you're probably going to want a little bit more time to review these uh survey results to be able to talk about them more intelligently and i'm going to firmly suggest that rick handle that in the june meeting [Laughter] we're going gonna move on to nhsba resolutions then and this one's gonna go quick as well too i sent an email to board members um saying that i was gonna bring something forward i ran out of

123time i wasn't able to craft that to get it all out to you the good news is that the resolutions aren't due to nhsba until july 15th right so um i will have time to try to craft something i think even dev might be working on something as well too and we will definitely have those available for the board in june packet for discussion and approval assuming that we will not meet in july all right um just to give a heads up for board members uh this the one that i have in mind has to do with nhsba's participation in a national level school board organization um i'll give you the background in full detail in an email and we'll post to the fact that before there is a national school board association called the

124national school boards association uh if folks are not familiar with it there's a little bit of a crisis going on in about 22 states have withdrawn from that organization and started another one new hampshire happens to be one of those states and so uh one of the things that i'm thinking about is possibly a resolution whereby the joining of a national level organization must be done upon approval of membership um but i wanted to work through the thought process and the details and all of the whereases that typically get tacked onto a resolution so that you all have it to review okay moving on then you have to make this really quick please okay so the calendar revision that we're asking you to approve is to have dresden and hanover slightly different the elementary school

125would have it since service day on the sixth we'd like to move the dresden in service date in the 13th because that will be helpful to the high school in preparing for march intensive right i see hands up okay so i had um pre-circulated a question to our current chair neil um just making sure that this was vetted with principles at all buildings it sounds like it was and then my second question was just from a philosophical standpoint the point of in service um in the sense of you know our teachers will now have in-service days on different days at different buildings and are we then um undermining you know full district potential to get together et cetera so the answer is no we typically this is this is something that the high school routinely

126does and and so that march in service day is typically not one that we pull everybody together that's more likely to be in the fall okay so thank you did you consider moving the pan over in service day to coincide with this because parents now will have two if they have kids in those schools would have two weeks in which they would have kids out of school yeah yeah so we talked to them and julian did you just have so for the folks more in-service days than we do in terms of like with marion cross also and so what it would mean is they would have two in-service days that week if they moved it so they didn't want to have two in one week so now they're gonna have one each week um so

127that's your conference yeah right well that's right you guys do them differently right so there's there's something different already they're different already in march it seems and they didn't want to move elementary schools but 10 was okay moving lisa yeah just a quick question i i thought we heard from matt earlier that the students wanted march intensive to be five days and so um this would mean that that wouldn't happen so i just but it sometimes is five days for students like some of the students leave early okay right so for some students the reason the insur service day is good is to prepare for your march intensive but also if there's a march intensive that's going farther away they use that day okay so the teachers work days actually spent with the students for

128the merchandise okay i just was kind of like oh i listened but didn't hear some it's not underlined teacher and service days and there are no school days or the kids come to school even though it's a teacher and service dance so it's just a family i was trying to figure out birthday all right everybody at october 7th to your calendar so that we can send uh tip any other questions though on the on the calendar okay you'll see it show up in a few seconds here under business requiring action all right moving on then to business requiring action we're going to remove obviously h from the consent agenda this evening so the wording's already right yes nice all right so i think we are all feed up if a board member would like to

129make a motion move to approve items b c d e f g by consent is there a second second by death any discussion on the consent agenda yes i'm sorry i thought we were taking d out yeah i thought so too foreign since the beginning of the meeting all right um any other discussion [Music] just want to express gratitude to burn foundation for their support of the just unified problem thank you and yes huge thank you all right any other discussion then all right seeing none we're doing a roll call vote i will start with lily and we'll go around this way this evening yes mcconnell yes yes nelson yes aries christie s and tom cannon yes marcella he lost yes and odell yes all right we're going to move on to reports and communications

130first up is the report of the chair i have no report next up so what about that letter to submit oh thank you yeah i am sorry so board members go to your email it's really exciting stuff right um so uh uh why don't you actually turn it over to deb if you want to explain how we got here okay well the i i unless you weren't ready for me to do that no no that's fine i just have to kind of rotate my brain into position so i think many people know about house bill 1438 which is being called the parental bill parental consent bill and it seemed like it had died and then the republican leadership switched out republicans who were voting with the democrats and put new ones including themselves onto the

131committee and they basically cast it and the concerns have to do it's basically new hampshire's version of don't say gay it would require schools to notify parents if a child joined a club joined an organization spoke to a teacher about a personal issue spoke to a counselor so it presumes a world where every parent is supportive and loving and kind and that is not the world we live in and the governor has said he is going to veto this bill it's expected to be on his desk on thursday perhaps friday and what we wanted to do or thought would be appropriate to do is to thank him for his intent to veto this bill and the language that has been quoted is from a document that was circulated from the new hampshire uh school administrators

132association and it's it's just very succinct but it's trying to give weight to the governor's decision and be supportive at the same time but you know we're watching you and we really hope you do what you say you will do although the language doesn't quite say that and there was some hope that the hanover school board could maybe get in and and say something but i think it's appropriate entirely appropriate for dresden to do that um kim first name just a process point can we copy and paste that language and put it into board docs just so folks can see it the the letter that's being purposed good point i don't know how to do that yeah i'm just kind of looking at [Laughter] i it we would need to delete the references to hanover

133yeah sure the android store could not logistically right in time or what there were efforts but we couldn't do it so it would just be dresden and our board is also very concerned and then just presidents numbers i do have a question with the actual letter okay go ahead so with the very first sentence it isn't just reason let you know that school boards in new hampshire because i read that as like the school boards of new hampshire stand behind your decision i think you mean to say our school board absolutely okay makes sense all right can you can somebody else edit this and you need me to edit it you sense me and i'm about to post it so if i just do it okay yay our school board yeah yes unfortunately yeah yeah

134um the other thing that i might do it and it doesn't sound like we're going down this path but if we are about to wordsmith this letter i think in general what's a better approach is to just if the board is happy with the general content of this and just needs it to be tweaked a little bit to authorize either the chair or deb um to make those modifications and then that thank you very much for uh alerting that because we do also then want to vote on this connect to make sure that the board approves so that we can have um we'll just add board members names to the bottom of the letter when we send it out from that position we'd be asking any other document that we haven't seen at this completion

135reporting on it before someone edited it and uh there is historical precedent for that within this board we have done that previously with some public hearing stuff that we've done where at the time he board authorized the chair to finalize the document and make sure that it was you know so it's not it's not like this is an uncommon practice um oh this is what josh malloy feels like when he's getting pressured to do something for it things that's okay um we're gonna uh it's okay we'll come back to this for a vote um in the meantime i'm gonna move on and see if there are any committee reports is there an athletic advisory committee meeting i thought they weren't doing reports but sure i will talk quickly we've had two available meetings it's not

136that we weren't doing reports we're actually thinking about getting rid of the entire committee so what really that was one of the discussions that we had with the retreat but that's not [Laughter] i guess if you want to get rid of it [Laughter] no actually to that point we've had two meetings now and actually wasn't the last one um i think where we're at is is is coming up with you know trying to focus on a few things so the first meeting was really kind of talking about facilities budgets um and sorry i'm playing the thermostat it really wasn't a pair tonight but um what i came away with and what i think is where we want to take this is is really relying on getting some direction from me again but really trying to

137focus on a maybe you know really just kind of three real bigger issues that we can help her with and then communicate those back to the board so one of them for example i think as we were at the meeting is going to be talking about all of our programs and kind of getting our hands around our programs because of the discussion that i think is going to be coming you know fairly fast and furious that we're going to need to figure out and that is the rms sports program um the second one is really facilities and that's not so much looking at our existing facilities and what needs to be repaired or not that's being done by the strategic plan this is really to focus on the future and what negan thinks and the

138t and folks thinks that we need to be preparing for so the next new track or the next new whatever right down the road so that we can start putting those things in place that would really be our our second thing and then the third one is around budgets okay so which is really around the funding of all of the um welcome booster programs and that's not to get rid of them but just to talk about them and kind of figure out how they interact with the budget maybe whether there should be some more policies around you know which ones we have and you know which pro are they fair how much you know because it sounds like those were something that existed before media came and they are a necessary part and we can't

139just get rid of them but they need some more thought so those are really the three areas that i've kind of zeroed in on i didn't you know tim you've been there so i'm happy if you wanted to speak but that's really in full disclosure i kind of sent megan that note um last week coming out of our second meeting as far as areas where if we were to continue to exist i think that would be areas that could probably be useful to focus on versus just kind of bouncing around and then maybe again to the end of the year and kind of everyone getting frustrated at you know what were we really doing so it's really i went back and read the purpose of why it's there and it's really to support the athletic

140director and also make sure that you know what the athlete director is doing is being communicated to the school board so that we're not that's what we can plan and you know have some statistics we did a little bit of work too after the first one collecting at least starting to collect all of the data around all of our k through 12 programs so wreck and all of the you know lightning soccer and hammer hockey and just getting a sense of numbers which i think is going to give us a little bit of insight into what would be the implication if we did the rms sports would it be all in would it be just a few sports you know what's it going to impact their rec program or some of the other i'll call

141them the private special you know programs that exist yeah i think we sort of agreed some of us who have been on that committee for a little while that it fits into the wider or larger path of the strategic plan because otherwise you end up with 66 programs but lord knows how many fundraising events trying to come up with facilities all over town there's really no time or place within the athletic department to have sort of a plan so you're running from behind the entire time and i think what we're trying to do is sort of be like okay just like with curriculum just like with everything else if we can try to centralize this and move it forward in a way that makes sense and have some we know that there are some discussions

142out if we talk do we need this many teams or not what's the purpose of the athletic of all these teams for some people it's one thing for other people it's another thing so those discussed there needs to be sort of a forum for those discussions rather than just the sideline of whatever game you happen to be standing with so it would seem like yeah i mean garrett we all sort of looked at it and like this is a lot but uh i think with sort of a good focusing of how we're gonna try to do it it makes sense that we can go forward with it the next day which is on the 14th was probably to really kind of discuss those three things i just talked about and you know kind of put

143a plan in place for the rest of the year so we kind of get negan's feedback too to make sure that this is where she should use some assistance that's right no thank you um good yeah um as the chair of the academic subcommittee for strategic planning just wanted to let you guys know that we're going to be sending out a survey approximately late next week to two parents and it was spearheaded by the academic subcommittee but all the other subways have sort of added bits and pieces to it and if anyone wants to review it out of interest just please email me we'll send it out to you okay thank you ben any other committees who are short are we still uh we're good we're good oh yeah okay so board members if you

144can refresh your board docs nope there it is i think i've got all the edits right i think i think mrs ross for being an excellent typing teacher um so what i might suggest is a motion um authorized uh sending up the letter to the governor um and perhaps the motion might also want to include language that would authorize the vice chair to provide any edits it deems necessary prior to sending it out and you're sometimes good at this for purely for sake of time this is purely a letter to the editor not a valley universe not a website no this is going to the government sorry yes but not to other parties no the intention is only to send it to the government you want to try motion oh jesus um to um approve

145the letter as written with granting additional authority to the vice president school board vice chair to provide edits as necessary and sent to the government sends second by death any further discussion all those in favor i'll start with lily carmen yes mcconnell yes cartman yes and also yes terry yes christy yes um then jay i don't mean to hit you up again but we find ourselves at the superintendent's report i am happy to report that strategic planning is going great we had our last portrait of graduate meeting last night and we will be working to involve students in the design of a graphic to capture that work so that's my report thank you any questions for jay this evening is there uh jamie is not with us tonight so no business administrator or support network

146and robin is out as well so [Music] um board members we're going to give this i'm going to give this a try so for those of you that were at the retreat one of the things that we talked about with hires was that if if if board members were collectively didn't really have any detailed questions about the personnel in the higher list we could move right into just approving them without the need for a non-public session that being said if there is one board member or our superintendent perhaps that would like to go into non-public session for discussion amenities that is perfectly fine okay i would just say that that in case anyone is concerned about any of these candidates i've interviewed them all and their certification status is one of the things that i

147paid the closest attention to and everyone on this list even if they're pending are on track to be certified in time for the beginning of school year uh tom you've got a hand up yes i i do not request non-public but i have one question that doesn't need to go there and that's just a clarification from tim i do is one of these hires the higher that we approved at the last meeting the additional higher yes yes okay can you just which one was that just remind me which position sorry which position you approved it's social studies science social studies uh science and math we had we upped a little bit of math too but not both social studies no one right okay the first social studies teacher is actually a replacement for i don't

148know how much i can say right somebody's being a replacement and then the other one is a new one where it gets confusing is that the person who is new is actually the person who's currently in the building so that makes it a little confusing so my only general question is whether any of these represent departing situations that we should know about or or my other question was positions that we've previously approved but then those hires fell through that would be my only other i might request an unpublished if that was the case so let me just say this if any board member wants to request the non-public you should not feel guilty about that that is within your rights and your responsibility as a board member so if you would feel more comfortable then

149somebody should just make a motion to move into not public and that came up with strategic planning too about the hesitancy no board member should feel guilty about calling for a non-public i call for a non-public i'll be the guy okay let's use the correct link yes oh nelson yes barry yes christie s and yes neil can i send you a link for marcela and i to join i was just going to ask you tom what the best way to do it is and that is the best way yes okay i'll cc you marcela thank you nice to have you come on [Music] [Laughter] oh there's stuff like that to go wrong [Music] for me today um that's true yes all right we are back in the public session i will apologize to marcella and

150tom i was unable to get the zoom operational and the non-public so they did not um unfortunately have the benefit of being in that and are they still i i can't get back into our current zoom as well too if anybody knows if tom and i'm here you are hi tom i would completely understand if you felt the need to abstain from the vote since you weren't able to be a non-public but i will leave that up to you um so we are back in public session and at this moment in time i will look for a motion on our new hires a long motion i move to approve the following new hires as presented ellen fisher as a .40 fte one-year social studies teacher elizabeth soucy as a .50 fte one-year social studies teacher

151ilsia casanova as a one point is a 1.0 foreign language teacher kimberly higgins is a 0.40 fte science teacher jane soderquist as a 0.50 ft english teacher and a 0.20 writing teacher daniel mannix is a 1.0 social studies teacher suzanne lee kiyombra apologies i got that wrong point was that chalmer thank you as a .60 digital learning specialist and 0.40 department coordinator hiring melissa mitch mitcheller as a 1.0 math teacher jennifer frederick as a 1.0 science teacher and jane officer as a 1.0 social studies teacher thank you is there a second second by lisa any discussion all right seeing no discussion we still need to do a roll call vote i will start with lilly yes who's colleague yes hartman yeah nelson yes very yes christy yes and tom i'm gonna abstain only because i

152couldn't get into the non-public section okay and odell yes then so those hires are approved moving on if uh any board members have any items for future agendas please reach out and let chair rick johnson know that yeah to adjourn move to adjourn at 9 30 p.m second is by ben aldo's in flavor let's start with lilly yes yes nelson yes sir yes christy yes yes oh yes thank you thank you neil thank you