 Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us at the Straight Talk Remont Show. I'm Bruce Wilson, Executive Director. And before I start talking to our wonderful guests here, I wanted to give you some updates. First of all, our Art So Wonderful Art Gallery at the University of Vermont is going on incredibly well. It's a performing center as well. It's over 5,000 square feet. And come check it out. It's so much beautiful art from artists from around the state of Vermont. What we've had in there for performing is a Youth Symphony Orchestra, Jack Hansen Jazz. We had just had a Latin dance there. How incredible was that? A lot of people came and Shelton Vineyards is one of our sponsors. They had a good time there. We've given out Raffles. So look at our website, Art So Wonderful, and see what our next upcoming event is. Actually, in August, we're going to have a big comedy show at the Marriott in Burlington. It's going to be incredible in the Harbor Room. You know, we do a lot of cool things, and we want individuals, youth and families or any member, to get involved in what we do. You know, we don't charge you nothing. We just want you to be helping with your goals and your aspirations in life. So here we are here. So we're here with Tom Flanagan, Burlington School District Superintendent. And what a pleasure, man, to hear you talk about your wonderful kids at the Burlington High School and the school district, you know, the things that you're working on. So for many, many years, oh, God, a lot of years, I've worked with your Burlington students and the principals and superintendents. And one thing I normally or I still normally still do is work with your students around helping them get community service opportunities. Put on any 10 hours each year to graduate. And so we give them student opportunities to work with our programs. A lot of our students from our youth board president go to your school and we have youth advisory boards who make the decisions on our programs, projects and events. And so I'm very happy to say that Burlington High School is our, you know, most of the students from Burlington High School work with us. So you started, you're a superintendent. And so this is your first year. This is. How high was that with you? You came into college, right? What much you come in last year? I came in in July. July of this past summer. Yeah, it's been a great year. I mean, I think the one thing that I was really fortunate about was to be able to have some time last spring to be able to meet lots and lots of people. We were virtual. The world was virtual. So I had the opportunity to get on a million zoom meetings. Met with over 50 people from Burlington. I asked three questions. I asked people what were the strengths of the district? What were the needed improvements? And what were those opportunities? Wow. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot. So since you said that, what are some of the strength answers? Yeah, the strengths, people told me the strengths that they felt we had in Burlington were the diversity of the community. Number one, almost everybody started there. And then I heard from lots and lots of people about the strengths of the engagement of the community. The community was very engaged and wanted to be a part of decision-making and a part of the school and the way that the schools function. And then, you know, there were a variety of other types of strengths that I heard from people. But a lot of people really gave a shout out to the staff, people who are working in the buildings and the commitment of our staff. And I saw that, you know, right off the bat, coming in, in the middle of a pandemic, the world had shut down. We were in a really tough, tough place. Happened, right? Yes, we're just coming out of it. I'm telling you, Tom, those zoom meetings, you know, man, I was in a zoom meeting every month for three hours. I have a meeting, you know, I asked them please cut it back, you know, so they did it in two hours. And just last, well, two weeks ago, we met in person. So how wonderful was that? Because that's the type of person I don't like to meet in person. I like to talk in your face, whatever you know. But God, those zoom meetings, man, they get you down. I can't stand them. I only have one more, one more to do, and I'm going to do it with a person, Dr. Jane Morgan. We're going to talk about the COVID-19 vaccinations and all the things she talked about on LinkedIn. Right, right. So I'm happy to talk with her. Now, so people who look like me, you know what I'm saying, at Bronson High School, you know, you guys are getting better, because I know you believe in equity and inclusion. Absolutely. And we're going to talk a little bit about that. And hopefully, we'll get it right, you know what I'm saying, because when I came in Vermont in 1989, it was the widest state in America. And the people who looked like me really didn't feel like they were part of Vermont or part of Burlington in a lot of ways, you know, because there was nothing really offered to them. There was nobody really could understand their language, you know what I mean? And they had to, you know, they hired interpreters, you know, but it wasn't people who really, you know, people who worked with people who looked like me. And so, I guess you're, you know, getting it right, you know what I mean? I guess you're going to get it right, you know, because your first year you're going to be hand boots, like you are boots on the ground, here you are on our show. And I know you're going to get it. Two of your students are right in the audience. Where they at? There they go. What's your names again? Olivier. And Jermaine. Jermaine from Bronson High School with a town meeting studio getting some work in. Thank you guys for being here. It's good to see them. Second day of summer. Second day of summer. So, you might get extra points because, you know, you know, top Mr. Platkins here. Well, anyway, so it's good to know that you believe in that, you know. And like I said, I sit on a, I live in Winniesky, so I sit on a Winniesky, I guess, school district, racial and anti-racial advisory, you know. And they got a lot of different things that they're working on. So, do you have resource officers in your school? So, we have a... I know you did. We did. We did. We, right before I got here last summer, there was a big question about the resource officers and whether or not we were going to continue to have resource officers in our school. And so that was a big question that came up with the activism that was happening downtown and the advocacy to think about how we're allocating our resources, right, towards students' mental health and well-being, really listening to our students, particularly our students of color, around how they feel about having police in the building. I was new to the community, so I wasn't sure how they were operating in the community and what it looked like in our schools. And so, one of the things that the school board did actually before I got here was asked me to commission a study on our school resource officers and what they did, what the memorandum of understanding was and what that all looked like and to make a recommendation on what we should do moving forward. So, I asked our director of equity. So, one of the things that I did right away when I got here, right before I got here, was created two new offices. So, we had a director of equity and safe and inclusive schools, director Sparks, who was working on a number of important initiatives. And what I did was I asked him to become the director of equity and to report directly to me and I gave him an office. So, he has a group of people in a budget who are working for him now. Now, Henry Sparks has been a friend of mine for many, many years and his wife. Yeah. So, director Sparks put together a group, a task force to review our relationship with school resource officers and the memorandum of understanding and really understand and kind of look at that. And that was a community-led process. We had a parent and a student who were co-chairs. And we ended up with a recommendation. It was a deep study of where we are. We heard from students. We heard from the community about their thinking about school resource officers. We had principals. We had school resource officers. We had students, community members and families on that task force. And they ended up making a recommendation this spring. And that recommendation said that we would move from having two. We used to have two school resource officers. That we would move from having two to one. And those two school resource officers used to be stationed in the building, right? And so, the recommendation from the task force was that they would no longer be stationed in the actual building. That they would schedule visits, right? To help schools work through their crisis plan or work through drills that they have to do. Some of the mandatory stuff that we have to do to make sure that we're staying safe. That they would continue to do that. And so, that recommendation was made. We have to develop a new MOU to really articulate what that will look like moving forward. But in the meantime... And that's a memorandum of understanding with who? The agreement between the city and the school department. And in the meantime, though, we actually have... One of our school resource officers is not operating as a school resource officer now. And another one was promoted. So, we did end the year without having school resource officers in our buildings. And we have to work on what the relationship would look like moving forward. Well, thank you for getting those studies and promoting Henry Sparks, Director Henry Sparks, and working with the resource officers and the community to create ideas and how you're going to move forth. One thing in the ministry what there are a lot of schools, a lot of schools too, are trying to do are having a restorative justice in their schools, as well as still using resource officers, but they use restorative justice in social service members, like social work individuals. Whereas students or individuals who are going through some situations can talk to go through restorative justice panel to determine what their harmony might be committed to a community or individuals to make amends to those individuals or a social service person who can help them. I guess it's all mental health. We all have mental health stuff. We all have work, right? I'm going to go on this couch. Tom, talk to me over here, please, man. I need some help. But anyway, I think that's a good way. For me, I was born and raised in Chicago and even though I went to for a year and a half, a regular public school, I went to a private school downtown in Chicago. But we had resource. We had police in high school, like in the school. The thing about that really, I don't know some of my advisory members that I sit on in the immunities go and might agree with this because one of the things they want our resource officers to do is dress down. There were sort of pieces, I mean, disciplinary pieces might go to the sort of justice as well as a social service person talk to the individual. But for me, I've been working with SS police on our national night out and every resource officer, he's dressed down, but he don't care his side out. For me, I guess come from Chicago and I really want somebody in their school that like a resource officer with a gun on his side, I really do personally because, I mean, you know, you can't compare nothing, or you can compare other school shootings to that, but, you know, one officer may not be able to stop the trouble, but he do know a protocol what the drills are if that happened and he knew who to call and he maybe get a couple shots to help on somebody who's shooting for me, I just somehow just want to keep that part, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you know, I feel safe, I mean, I make me feel better, you know what I mean, I make me feel better that there's a resource officer in the school that's working with a sort of justice and social service and they do carry a gun, you know? Yeah, I would just say that it's my tiny brain that's working. No, but I think our task force is in a middle place with their recommendation, right? We had to, we could have said we're gonna not have school resource officers, they landed with one who would keep a close relationship with the district, work closely with the district and continue that relationship and that support that they provide us. So we see them as a partner, we definitely want to continue to partner with them and we've prioritized restorative practices, so I told you I met with lots and lots of people in town and I asked everybody what the promising opportunities were and the one thing that really stood out to me was restorative practices. So we're committed to restorative practices and that's the thing that, you know, we put, it's our number one goal is that our communities are restorative. I'm proud to say in 1989, I'm a founding member of creating a community just around the state, starting in Browlington. So I believe in the principles and I believe in making amends to the community or individuals that you fit in restorative way and circle in this restorative way, you know, and so that's a good, I believe in that, you know, totally. So, you know what I had an interview with Sean make man in My mentor. Your mentor. I'm gonna tell him that. We also have some coffee up to date coming up. But to talk to him about he's have a situation where he's built an incredible school. God, he had, I think, three to four year olds into his, also within the school to something, an age group and when you go past that school now, oh my God, it's incredible it's a whole new, admitted to their building. It's like it's an incredible addition. And so I said to him, I said, I said, Tom's got to build a whole new school. So Tom, God, man. You've seen our buildings, beautiful. I love that school. I know my way around that school, man. Bro, you know, not as much around the technical school, but I do know I do my way around and I work with Rosa with some other things. She's with the technical school and some with youth around with the DEA and different things about how we can keep you safe around drugs, drug prevention and things like that. But anyways I love VHS, man. I know my way around that school. I have dancers in the school we have youth advisory meetings and I don't know how many graduations I went through for, you know, kids who have been on my youth board. Man! So you gotta tear down the whole damn school and then you gotta dig in the ground or something because you got some problems with something. What's the problem Tom? So we learned, I got a call maybe five or six days before school started there was a problem. Wow, man. Yep. We were preparing for COVID so I was thinking there's a something with COVID. And it turns out no air quality PCBs I had never heard of PCBs before. Me either. What'd that mean? I don't know that. Polychlor... I don't know Some, but it's a chemical that has chemical that was used up to the 70s in building materials. Oh, really? Yes. Like the plaster or the bricks? So it was used in where we found it it's used in a lot of different materials it's kind of an oil that's used in some materials and where we had it was in the window caulking. So around the windows, keep the windows in there were PCBs in the window caulking we learned about that and that's the first place that we learned that we had those PCBs and this was all the reason we learned about it was because we were doing a renovation so when you do a renovation you have to study the building we started studying the building they looked for PCBs and they found them they found them in the window caulking and then they kept looking they found them in the wall so what happens with the PCBs they can move so they spread into the walls well then we learned that they also can be in lights in the light ballasts in lights made in the sevens and then we most recently learned that and this was what pushed us over the edge to make the decision that we're going to have to build a new building we found that they were in the glue underneath the floor tile so the glue stuck the tile to the concrete and they have sunk into the concrete they're in the floor 1963 so they're in the walls they're in the floor they're in the ceiling they're in the air, they're in the soil they're everywhere so we learned about this problem and that they could be airborne back in the summer and so we did some testing we learned that there was possibility that they could be in the air we wanted to get the testing done before school started so we got testing back from F building where BTC is in the back and there were some very high numbers there in the thousands one room up to 6,000 so they were some really high and they measure it in nanograms per cubic meter per cubic meter and the Vermont Department of Health's screening threshold is 15 nanograms per cubic meter and so we had some classes in the thousands so we had to close the building because we didn't know what the rest of the tests were going to show but we knew the F building was extremely high but then we did more testing we came back and we learned okay the Department of Health has a screening threshold and so does the Environmental Protection Agency so the EPAs was between 500 and 600 so we had some in the thousands and then we had some coming in some rooms coming in, they test areas some rooms coming in in the hundreds and so we were under the EPA threshold so we pulled the EPA, the Department of Health our experts who are studying this and no one thought it was safe to be to be in the building so that led us to downtown BHS it took a while to find it but we learned about it in May Season and off we were awesome, one of my good friend and so glad that he had that location for you guys and so how students are, what are they saying about this building? I was there the first day, I've been there quite a bit and everyone was wearing masks but you could still see the smiles on their faces what we heard from students really loudly was they wanted to be back in school and so just to be back in school even if it's a quirky building they wanted to be back in school and so students were happy we do have some noise mitigation, some noise stuff we have to work out but it's a nice building it's built around the escalators there's a central location the old high school was spread out they love that escalator stuff there's a good community there so I took a tour I took a tour through there and I'm like dang I didn't see it was right there I used to get my shirts so what do you think? I'm like where's I see no, I think that you know I thought the ceilings don't go all the way up at the time there wasn't no doors you put over doors there 50 doors in there now so I think it's good, it's a good location and so one thing that I've been working with individuals around youth what I do is help youth with safety and safe places to be with there's no drugs not called tobacco I had open up youth centers around the state called the chill out center in loft 89 and living rooms for free for all the different around the states all the malls and all around the pretty much all around the state and so I know for a fact Burlington helped me help I had one in the Burlington mall where L.R. Bean was almost 8,000 square feet but anyways I know for a fact the reason why I did that because I wanted to give my safe place to be where there's no drugs not called tobacco as well as have a place where they're sitting chill and do their homework and have tutoring and computer and what you do safe places where you do and one of the reasons because they used to hang out downtown right down on church street marketplace and some students would call they would be sitting there smoking or cussing or all these things so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to give my place to be and a report from at the time Ron Redmond said that kids don't hang out downtown the police said they had less tickets to smoking so they had a place to go they had a place to go and so now I'm thinking dang these wonderful kids when it's summer they're going to go straight home good thing the bus station is right there are they going to go straight home or are they going to hang out downtown on church because I know for and I've been watching I've been kind of just seeing just for me just do my own do diligence and I'm trying to figure out do we need to do something more of after school programs or or something else outside of the school now one thing I know about after school which is awesome every school should offer them but a lot of kids who I work with and I'm more of the a lot of them are economically challenged living in a higher environment all of you far and high risk don't even every single one and tend to not follow the rules and so those are the ones that we want in part of in a safe place because when you don't see them you want to know where are they and what they're doing in the woods having unprotected sex or risky behavior or maybe in somebody's basement or something doing and so for me I always know when we have events for you we always have over 300 and so I can see 300 kids in the room at least I know maybe it's still going to be something in those places I know they're there and they're safe so when I don't see no kids it bothers me because what are you and what are you doing maybe we should maybe get rushed to somebody or Bonnie do a survey what do you do at the school? I can feel better so what school programs do you have so one of the one of the things that has really held us together as a community this year has been sports sports was the one place students could be out close together running get in their energy out and being in a kind of supportive and productive place of sports sports were really important for us as a community we won the state championship soccer game we have the fields we can still use them we won the state championship of soccer boy soccer lots of really good sports were really important for us and then there's a lot of after school activity happening too after school coordinator and after school coordination of activities I was really excited at the end of the year to be a part of the social justice book club we read a book called Dear Martin where we had really deep conversations about systemic racism and how that plays out in our country and how that plays out in our city and what the youth and the things that we should do so that's one example of an after school club that's really positive and I would encourage students to be a part of that that's right I think after school is definitely a great opportunity for students to connect with peers and also with adults in places that are not necessarily you know with the whole class you can build relationships you can do a little bit more we're also excited about the summer we've got a lot of summer activities going on so one of the things that districts across the state and country are getting right now is funds through the recovery through recovery the American rescue plan so we're getting recovery what the state is calling recovery funds and they asked us to really think about how we develop summer programs so we have a bunch of really exciting summer programs that we're going to be offering this summer we have a racial justice institute first ever it's going to be kicking off this year Autumn Bangora and Director Sparks again working on that piece we have a bunch of partnerships with local partners, the Boys and Girls Club King Street all the local partners the Brooklyn City Arts and Flint Theater so lots of opportunities that are available and that's going to continue next year with after school programming I think there's a huge opportunity I also think being downtown gives students an opportunity to do other things right it's good for business going to get coffee but also you want to go to the Flint to do an apprenticeship no doubt about it no doubt about it we've been a member of Flint for many years with our PAC program we've been bringing students there for how many years so that's a great opportunity but even more if you're running programs we run programs all the time but we do we've done over 700 events in this city in this state actually so racial justice that's awesome how do you relate to it about the saying that you believe in equity and inclusion what does that mean to you how does that work with racial justice so when I came in one of the things I heard in all those interviews was a commitment to equity and a commitment to engagement and a commitment to what we call what we're calling deep learning experiential learning project based learning learning that has depth that can connect to so we in my 100 day plan and my team this year has been really focused on these three priorities of equity engagement and deep learning and what we're trying to do is really make decisions that are based in fighting inequities so one of the things we did right off the bat with the way we needed to operate in COVID we couldn't have all the students so we had to go and students alternated we was doing that before that for COVID wasn't it well that was for high school where they alternated but they were in school every day so in elementary and middle school students were only in school in the very beginning every other day so one of the decisions we made as a team that was an example of the commitment to equity is making sure that students with IEPs students who have disabilities and students who are English learners were able to go to school four days a week and that was a decision about resources let's make sure that the students who need us the most all students need to be in school every day particularly our students who are learning English and who have IEPs need need more right we need to support them more so we brought them in four days a week we also set a series of six goals and all those goals have and have a measure to reduce a disparity to reduce so the first one is that our schools are restorative and the goal is to reduce suspensions for students of color so that's about building restorative practices so that we are not having to suspend it was a strange year this year because of COVID so fewer students in school many many many fewer that would lead to suspensions so we'll see next year about our commitment there but that's one example of how we're going to do it and it's not doing brand new things the district has been committed to restoring practices this isn't brand new but it's something that people want to keep doing and it works so it does work so many bad things that people can say COVID it was the worst thing ever and I think it was the worst thing ever but my degree I always got to find out what's good with something that seemed to be bad or that was bad I always got to find out what's good about it and so I thought about it when you said that like working together they just want to be back in school and this one relationship there's a little low risk because I think it can have to do a lot with COVID people don't understand anything they can look at social media they heard about Black Lives Matter they heard about how the world is all these people dying they might have been affected by people in their family who got sick and maybe passed on and how pitiful is that but I think if I look at what's good you got to find something that's good about it you have to I think people have come together a lot of people have volunteered their time to understand a lot of things understand the issues more about what's going on with certain things that they might have looked at like equity inclusion or racial justice looking at Discovery Channel and say wow I only got rolling green mountains green grass just things that we got smarter on you might not want to be in the house but we've learned so much I think what happened was what it does for me because I'm always doing some of the things I do and so I had a calm came over me I'm more like and now I'm calm even though I need to do that thing I need to kind of take this person I need to send this email I got to do these things I'm like calm me down because first of all you can put that if you want to but you want to do some events in the park who's going to come bro who's going to come nobody can come right now in an over scheduled world sometimes it's good to have a break so I think my last thing on that is and you can answer that I think that people are more understanding we see people on the street they're more like how you doing throw it up the air bowls come on we can high five now that's right I need a hug too bro that's my thing we'll do that after the interview alright I feel so here we are we're the first ones telling me the show in the studio baby we're back man we're winners we're always winners we're back in yes I think so I'm new here but community felt so strong and I think the community really rallied around our schools and rallied around the city we were a very safe place to be in school in Burlington this year I give huge props to our teachers and our staff every day they're coming to work it's scary you're right there you're close and in person and they really rallied all of our staff so I'm grateful for them grateful for our parents sticking with us and students I've seen a lot of schools I was in DC public schools 110 schools I saw all the schools I've seen lots and lots of joy in the classroom this year students just happy to be together happy to be learning teachers being very positive I've been really impressed by what's happening I know we have work to do we have a lot of work to do in a lot of different places I think we have a lot of really great people who are really committed I don't know if it has to do with COVID but the community was strong and really pulled together I think it was a time like Michael just a man in the mirror type deal you know what I mean how often do you see the man in the mirror you weren't rushing to grab the coffee let me look at my teeth cut out your hair we had a chance to stop let me put that little hair back this way kind of look in the mirror a little time I was at Burlington High School and either Munozki and some other high school wow when you see those kids together they're just like wow they're from all everywhere around the world they all hang out together how wonderful is that what a huge asset I don't see them wrong that's where it should be it's not the way it is it seems kind of weird because I'm from Chicago it seems kind of weird to see that I'm just so happy to see it I'm sitting there like melting watching them they laugh having a great time the community is amazing I've been really impressed with our students and the way that they've come together and just how positive they've been throughout it all we're fortunate to have 48 different languages from our school our multilingual students bring so much strength to our community and I think that we need to continue to make sure that we're supporting our students our families we have a wonderful group of multilingual liaisons I've been fortunate to meet I met with all of our groups of multilingual families in the beginning of the year and I learned from them the things that they wanted me to know wanted me to focus on and I had the chance to meet with them again at the end of the year we did a series of five different meetings and I've just learned a lot and I learned that they really want us to challenge their children they want us to engage them call on them have high expectations for them that's one of the traps high expectations for some students well that's just some because it just came back to me how did the students the virtual classes how did that work did they pass I don't know ask Olivier not the virtual classes they were tough really hard really hard virtual 3 o'clock I got to tune in did I study you know they were hard I visited some classrooms it was really challenging I think for everybody for students, for staff you know question of cameras, should cameras be on should cameras be off, can cameras be on it was really hard I love that star 6 star 6 star 6 or you bring up your own it was really hard we're fortunate to be out of that now I'm so happy so now you didn't say though so do you have to tear down the school or are you just going to pick away and shell it out we're doing a site assessment right now so the site assessment is where we look at across the city that's the first step where can we build on the property at 52 Institute Road which is where the old BHS is but we don't know exactly where we can build there we will have to take the building down yes I think it's more likely that we're not building on that same piece of land where the building currently sits there are other spaces in front of it and other spaces we've looked at in the past down in the baseball field so we don't know exactly yet where it would be but anywhere on that land is a possibility right now you can put a parking lot over there where the school is you can switch it around this is about the last thing here you can add anything you want to so my organization the service really incorporated created youth on boards for the city of Burlington they sit on police commission school boards and so we just amended the resolution our youth board president Veronica Lindstrom who goes to your school she's a sophomore and I and counselors Max Tracy, Bryant Pine Zariah Hightower Karen Paul Jack Hanson we're known as sponsors so it was unanimously approved to do amendments to add more boards and commissions which is awesome because I believe you should be on boards that's why they're on my boards that's why I've been doing this work for getting youth on boards and other cities going to sign on too like on South Burlington when you see I work personally in our organization primarily with Chitty County cities so we're going to have youth on boards all of these places that they already said okay Bruce, let's do it so we just got that done they just sent me the resolution with the mayor and everybody Veronica Lindstrom who's a student at your school talked to the city council they wanted me to say something and she just told me why it was important to be on youth being on boards and what's important to you Superintendent Flanagan is that we're going to be coming into we want to come into the Burlington High School and recruit students to be on these boards and so we're working with Pet from Cedar right now because she's our liaison through the city to help create application process timeline what's the job description for planning commission teaching school board so we got to get all of those job descriptions and be able to put it down in a small way on some paper sit in your school and recruit you I'm always boots on the ground so it's got to be part of that making announcements doing maybe some video or something or come in doing something cool in the school and getting youth on boards and so I want and I can get Brian to talk to you about it as well I want you to be a part of this because it's very important to have youth on boards and making decisions on the programs and projects and events that's them creating agenda items where they can say if they're on the finance committee which one of the things we learn come on but you are youth on the finance committee and they go all over the thing and they go out to the city or somebody some contract so you're like this you know yeah yeah okay I'll vote for that so how boring is that the good thing about it is that you can put in your platform scholarship from college put in your resume these wonderful things you've done it will help you grow you can get some places for doing it but it's meaningless it's time wasted to talk about what our organization is to make sure that she's going to be working with right hand by hand with CEDO so CEDO and her and people who own the commissions they'll meet with them and talk about well how was your day, what did you do so they'll be connected but the main thing is that we want youth to come up with agenda items if you got $200 left in that finance budget and figure out ways how they can use that money for their peers somehow you know education or seminars or playing on the school have some Ben & Jerry's you know whatever you know so now we want them to create they're going to be more creative and have their own agenda items that's what youth board they need to make do that for things that they sit on so that's going to be important good let's do it we have two students on our school board now like I said one of the individuals who led the SRO task force was a student, a BHS student and actually one cool thing that's happening now down at BHS is we're working with the Harvard Graduate School of Education and they're helping us build lessons that are deep learning and we're actually bringing students in maybe they're now they're in there this afternoon working with teachers and kind of giving feedback and being a part of the development of the lessons that they're going to get students need to be given the space the opportunity to have leadership in a way that really directly impacts their experience they'll fly and give us the best information we ever wanted if we just give them the space to do it especially when we make a decision about them nothing too like how important is that that's so important I learned that years ago because I had youth from Boards in 2000 I had them on my board in 2001 we started doing youth from Boards in the city of Bronson in 2003 it kind of fell off because the youth was bored being on the finance team but you get prestige from them you say you can bid on college like that doing jobs like that but you want to have an impact no doubt about it I'm excited about that let's do it it's all done now we're just moving into the process I don't know what it is but I'm sure Veronica and Pet will figure it out for you you might have ideas and Max Tracy Brian Pine and those guys want to be a part of when we sit in your school they want to sit there too and talk to you Brian is not a counselor anymore he's a CEDO director thank you Brian for taking that job you're my friend we good baby so I'm glad he took that job so they can vote to get another person but we have enough counselors to do that he done already but I also told Karen Parr was out there with Pain Black Lives Matter she orchestrated that and put it all together and she was out there just painting like crazy and then I told her and I suggested to her that we need city counselors every single one of them to be mentors to our youth form boards because they need to hang out with you you need to help them with some of the decisions they need to talk to you about I'm on a school board I'm on a Proxen Rex advisor what do you think this is some of the issues they need to talk to them about some of the answers they need to answer maybe they can help them with it and she was like oh man she was so happy that I said that and I already told all the ones that sponsored anyone that needs to do it but it was so important that you have a person like city counselor because for me it's about building building of youth into a successful person in life and if you got to you work with city counselor, you work with businesses you work with communities, you sit on boards you work with the schools you're doing community service opportunity there's nothing to do with those youth commissioners on board they have to create community service opportunity and that wonderful working with student life whatever in your schools help these students get their 10 hours oh man so we're going to I'll tell you because students just come to me they graduate in May or whatever Bruce I need 40 hours I'll say when right now, I don't want to graduate are you serious? you need to spread it out you need 10 hours a year you need you got to be hit you messed up we're not at work too we help shop on our youth center give them some powerful stuff for themselves in life it's so important though if we want our students to be civically engaged when they leave us we've got to give them opportunities when they're with us we don't want them to say we're a superintendent flat again he did this and we're going to scrap everything that he did we want them to say the other thing is when students say they want something when they've put the effort in to research it to come with a recommendation it's hard to fight that there's power there you got anything to add you've been an incredible guest Tom Flanagan, superintendent of the school district the school district of Burlington you got a lot of work thank you Bruce I'm a mother come on you're awesome thank you for tuning in to State Talk to Marks great talk with Marks Joe, see you next time