 Yes, welcome to our meeting. Are there agenda revisions? Do you guys want to say anything? Yeah. We're here for talking about Black Lives Matter flag and how we effectively want all Black Lives Matter flags put up. Will you introduce yourself? Oh, sorry. I'm Carter Pelzel. I'm Tony Rao. And I'm Isabella Stiles. Do you want to introduce yourself? I'm Christopher Meyer. I'm just here to support. We're also here for the Black Lives Matter flag. So this is the time to make comments. We are also going to discuss our, what do we call it? Diversity, inclusion, and equity release statement. Just a little bit later on in our agenda. But if you want to make a statement now, now's the time to make it. Usually the board accepts those statements and we don't usually converse back and forth at this time when we have more comments. One more question before we start. What if all the other tables all go to this school? Why would all this be done all together at once so that everybody's on the same page and that you all don't make the decision for all the other districts? I'm not sure. Are you talking about the diversity? We introduced it tonight to all the boards there. We need more data. The flag is there. We introduced the flag to all the boards. I'm not sure what you're talking about. I think he's asking why we made the decision about the flag and didn't involve the other boards in that decision. Is that what you're asking? I guess. I just assume that all the other tables that do go to youth would be involved in this whole discussion. There are actually seven different boards. Each elementary school has a school board. Each 32 has a school board. And the meeting that was in there is the full board. So it's all the boards together. So there's business that each individual school does and then there's business that we do together as a full board. Next. I understand, but am I wrong, but didn't you all sit at the same table and not at each one of you at every other table? All the kids from each one of those tables go to this school, correct? All right, so. Eventually. Correct. You're taking the information to this district and going to your table, just like what the gentleman said, stood up and said, I believe that everything is in disagreement and that we're all done with this. And then the lady stood in the back and said, well, no, we're not all for this. You know, if you're not all on the same page and all at the same meeting, how do you get anywhere? So I'm going to back up for a second. This is time for board comment. I'm inviting you to make a comment. We're not going to engage in discussion right now. Later on, we have on our agenda the diversity policy. And so we can talk about it then. We've had three or four meetings that were warned. They've been videotaped so that the public can see the conversation that we've had, the discussion, the things that we've wrestled with over the last two months, three months. We need them more than that. So I'm going to welcome you guys to make a comment and then we'll go on with our agenda. And I don't know. Did you want to start, Carter? What would a comment look like? Just like saying like five or a year. Exactly. It's not an engaged conversation. It's not a question and answer time. It's a comment. I'm here to talk about the political nature of the BLM flag and how schools should be neutral. The three sides wrote kind of a short paragraph that said we are here today hoping you'll hear us out and raising all eyes on that flag. We think it's important to work together and unite to end racism. Looking at one race and just helping one, we can help all. Every single race has to deal with racism. Racism is awful and so wrong, but sadly still exists today. We can stop segregation and stop racism. We all need to work together. This is why we feel we should raise an all lives matter flag. This brings everyone together and brings awareness to every race that experiences it right now. My comment is I just feel like since the flag has been raised that it's putting school into more of a divide once before we raise that flag. That's all I would say. Did you want to make a comment? I'm sorry, I didn't think your name. Tim Fraser. Tim Fraser. My wife, Jim, I'm sorry. We have to work out. I think it's this is my belief and that's fine. I believe kids don't make the decisions. They don't pay the taxes and they're not 18 and you can make a decision on this when it did go out to people that pay taxes in the school. As a business owner, I go to a lot of places and the veterans are disgusted. I hear lots and lots of stuff. If you want to put any flag you want on a million poles out there then so be it. But we all everybody fights to be here or whatever it is and nothing should have been on the American flag and it disgusts me. My father was here fighting and everything. He'd be disgusted. Now my life I'd like to talk please. My name's Diane Fraser. The only way that I could explain how this flag has affected my family is by giving you a timeline of events so bear with me please. It's going to start with the week of May 22nd. My son was in a full class discussion on raising the BLM flag at the school. When my child voiced his concerns about why he felt the flag should not be raised, his teacher kicked him out of the classroom for not having the same beliefs as her. He did not we did not find out about this incident until we received an email from the school and the school board on the 28th sitting when the flag was when he raised. We asked our son if he knew about it and that's when he explained to us that he had been clicked at in class. So May 29th Tim and I went to Washington Central Supervisory Union to meet or to schedule a meeting with Bill Kimball so that we could discuss our concerns with the BLM flag and the lack of support that our child received at school. We were told that they could not help us that we had to go to the school to discuss our principles. So we went over to the school and asked if we could be seen and Jody did sit down with us and later in our conversation Steven joined in. We voiced our concerns about raising the flag with them and how our son had been kicked out of class and we were told that that teacher had been spoken to about it. To our knowledge she was not asked to apologize to her son and to her class for her behavior and to have remained neutral that day instead of allowing her feelings and her beliefs to control her and my son was publicly shamed for his thoughts and feelings. They assured us that our child would be safe on the flag raising day and every day. So let me jump to June 1st. My son is sitting at a table in the cafeteria with his friends listening to music from someone at the table's playlist through a portable Bluetooth speaker. My son was video recorded without his knowledge or consent singing in the song playing with the N word in it and other not so nice words. The person that proceeds to send this video through Snapchat to multiple people in the school. I'm going to call this next person Student A. It's one of the students that was shown this video and goes to a student at the cafeteria who proceeds to yell at my son calling him a redneck ignorant white in white trash. Leaves comes back 20 minutes later to continue to yell harass and verbally attack my son before going to the principal's office. My son is brought in to see Jody and receives a harassment charge on his school record and gets a two day out of school suspension effective immediately. When we found out about this we asked to talk to Jody and scheduled the time to meet because it was in the evening on Monday morning June 4th. So June 4th, we meet with Jody. She explained the incident to us and what was on the video. We talked about how our child was now being harassed, bullied and stereotyped because of someone else's behavior or actions. She told us that the student that took and sent the video had been recommended. She couldn't tell us what it was and we completely understand. We asked her if student A was disciplined for harassing and bullying our son and we were told that they had to look at the video again to see what actions needed to be taken. We again talked about the safety of our son and we're told that he would be safe. We told Jody that we were going to tell our son to see her if he had any problems at school when he went back the next day. So June 5th our son didn't want to go to school because he didn't feel safe. We stressed the importance of him finishing out his school year to hold his head up high and to keep his mouth closed and not to ruin his chances. I'm going to the tech center at Spalding next year. He agreed to go and we told him if anything was said to him that it may even feel unsafe to go see Jody. Well something happened and he did not go to Jody. Instead he tells me after school that Student A walked up to him first period while he was sitting at a table again with his friends, minding his own business and tried to start a fight with him yelling at him do you want to start shit again? And again my son asked her to go away when she continued to yell at him the other students at the table told her to go away. So Student A claims that she founded the multicultural group Lamb in her quote in an effort to stimulate a conversation about racism and intolerance in states this glad to me represents equality inclusiveness and most of all hope. Hope that in the future not just this school but the nation will learn the beauty of differences and important of change and that the racism needs to stop the police brutality needs to stop the stereotype needs to stop and most of all the oppression needs to come to an end. So in her theory the flag equals equality inclusiveness and hope and she feels that by raising this flag racism, stereotyping and oppression will stop everything she says blam in BLM flag stands for is the opposite of her actions she is showing herself as superior verbally attacking, harassing bullying my son all because she was not reprimanded or punished for her actions back on June 1st and my knowledge has not been at all the school told us they would keep my child safe through all of this and have repeatedly failed how do you tell your child that he is safe at school and that the school supports him in his views when they are not treating him as an equal to his peers all because of a flag that was supposed to help with just that equality, inclusiveness and hope I agree that the issues this flag has raised are bigger than all of us I am not sure what the answer is but I feel that something that is as important as this should have been put to a ballot or a vote for the community not the school board to decide this BLM group said if we do not feel the support of our whole community then the whole community shouldn't have been given that chance thank you so I do have a comment I hear the same thing coming from Isabella when she is in class and there is a discussion about the black lives matter flag or any kind of you know going along with that Isabella gets bombarded by all the other students I haven't heard this once I've heard this twice these kids they cannot go ahead and speak their mind and how they feel without being a repercussion from these other students and you know for what they believe it seems like they don't believe the way the majority does they're the outcasts and I keep hearing about that and it's tough myself I don't understand why the black lives matter flag got raised like that I didn't know that schools were able to go ahead and support an activist group like that an activist group that will go ahead and fry them like bacon go ahead and block interstate and when police come to go ahead and try to get them off the interstates they go ahead and throw rocks and bottles and other objects at the police I mean they're I'm not saying they're all like that but this is all happened because of this black lives matter protest and I just had no idea that schools were able to go ahead and fly something like that and support of a protest group and from what I understand from what I hear from the kids and from you guys too it's creating a huge divide in the school and it shouldn't be like that I remember when I was in high school I mean that was the last thing we ever talked about or even thought about with things like that we're all like hanging out, going to school, doing our thing and I mean the issues that come up in schools nowadays I just don't get it I mean the kids should be able to be able to come to school and have fun and be able to go ahead and speak their minds about certain things without having any kind of backlash you know I just I don't understand I understand where you're coming from nothing else should be going up on that black hole the only thing I would see that should be going up on that black hole is the POWMIA flag you know it's tough and there's a lot of other if you don't mind me saying there's a lot of other students that feel the same way that these three of you are here but some couldn't come for other reasons, family reasons but some didn't come they said they wanted to but when the time came they were scared to because they were scared to because they were afraid of backlash and people labeling them as racist dates and that's why the other students did not attend today because they don't want to get targeted and I I want to applaud you three for coming in and you know showing how you feel and speaking your mind about this and not worrying about what other people have to say I mean that's great it's definitely scary some of my friends they agree with what we're doing and they want to be here but they don't feel like they can because they don't want they're afraid of being labeled as racist and like you said they're afraid of backlash and their peers like shunning them it's there was one point there was a scenario this year at school I was talking with another student about this political opinion and they were like they went to a teacher and I was like don't go to a teacher being scared they're going to think that I'm a racist now because I just said that oh no I can't think that now I remember that feeling I was like no don't ask the teacher that was I remember I made a point and they were like that's completely racist and they they were going to go to a teacher and I remember that feeling like oh no I had that teacher you know like could possibly like have like a what's the word like it's like oh that kid thinks this and I'm not going to treat him the same as the other kids I had that feeling I was scared and I feel like a lot of other students at our school feel that yeah I guess that's why we're here just to tell you guys that I couldn't get data and I will if it's forced through but I actually went around last week instead of working and I took it upon myself and a friendly manner to many people as I could walk up to and get their opinion just to educate myself and I was blown away so I went up to as many black people as I could and every single one said they were disgusted and maybe it's a coincidence maybe I just went on the wrong side of the tracks that they I don't know but they all were working class people they had family and kids most of them to be honest because they were young they were just getting in school I think one or two did not have kids but they all worked I was one of the questions I had do you work and they were all against it and they said that it was going to start a war it was a bill that was up with us and I really appreciate that she definitely keeps us in a loop even sometimes when she doesn't want to but she does she came home the other night and she was telling me about a student that ended up telling her that white people don't know we feel like they don't experience racism and that blew my mind myself I grew up in Southern California I was born in Los Angeles raised in Los Angeles and in San Diego I was a minority I never experienced an area where I was surrounded by most Caucasians I was older than a minority I was picked on because I was white I've been jumped because of the color of my skin called you f and white boy making fun of how white my legs are it's not just the white it's not just Caucasians there are races there's racism in everybody that just tells me a lot of people they don't believe that whites or other races feel that racial tension but we actually do I don't know if you guys ever felt racial tension towards you I have and it sucks and I totally understand where people are coming from but it's not just one race that's feeling it and that's where these kids come up with a good point all lives matter and it really does instead of dividing with just one not political group but just one group why not unite everybody unite so we can be stronger come together and work things out that sounds like more of a perfect world and it almost seems like it's out of reach why not start now why not try to get started now everybody unite I just want to make one more last point there was a counter there was a counter protest out there and one of the students was holding that an all lives matter sign and when he went back down to middle school he was told that he can't have that sign because he was white and fat people from that group said that they couldn't believe that he needed out there because he was so fat people from a BLAM member that I can't join the BLAM group because I was white and and yeah I feel that's the last point that's what many many more was what are we this is just the beginning and before any of this happened kids is definitely not a perfect child an artist but you can mind my words that you can take my child out of this whole equation and take all the other kids this is just the beginning this is icing on the cake here this is not mom's third school there's way too many different people in this community and I can only hope for the safety of everybody there's a lot of pissed off people I have a comment my name is Jennifer Micah I'm a resident of East Montpelier and I also serve at U32 on occasion and I wanted to say first I want to say you guys are really brave for coming here I know that it's really really hard and I would agree I am in support of the Black Lives Matter flag and I'm generally a liberal person but I will say this I think that teachers here at U32 are not well educated on how to handle these really difficult discussions my kids come home with similar comments to what you're hearing here today and my kids are pretty liberal and they come in and they say these kids were trying to have a conversation in class and everybody came and jumped on them and said you're acting just like you know the people you criticize are acting and so I think that this goes to the need when you talk about the issue of having a diversity policy I think before you have any kind of policy you need to think about putting some money into educating teachers giving them the skills that they need so that they can handle these conversations a lot of teachers don't know how to hold students safely in such a heated argument it becomes an argument there's huge discussions going on about patriotism about the lives of black people in America about the history of racism about the reverse racism all of that is going on right now and we're asking teachers to go into these classrooms where there are these emotions and with you know the president that we have whether you like him or you don't it's undisputed that it's created a lot of problems in our society the difference of opinion about the policies that are being enacted and it started with Obama really because people weren't happy with Obama so we have this long period of time when people are really angry and I really hope that instead of spending your time on creating a policy right now really think about whether you can find money so you can help the teachers that they can in turn hold their classrooms safely so that people can in fact be heard that's what I'd like to say thank you thank you very much all of you for coming it's really important for us to hear all sides of issues and to hear from a diverse group of people we only know what we hear and comes here and I really appreciate you it does take a lot of courage and I appreciate especially the students to come so thank you very much I know that we're working really hard on this issue and we want everyone to feel safe and we want everyone to understand and be educated about how to handle difficult situations and how to treat everybody so they feel respected and equal and we're working really hard on that so thank you very much so classrooms to me from whatever you know what I'm going to we've done a half an hour of public comment so I'm just I'm going to stop it there just because we have a full agenda and we've already been sitting in meetings for two and a half hours okay thank you so the consent agenda to approve the minutes of May 23rd is there a motion to do that so moved Scott in a second second Kyle any comments or changes no I'm fine all those in favor say aye opposed thank you very much discussion agenda I heard Matthew say tonight he actually wanted us to adopt those three goals right I think that would be part of this yeah that's what I was thinking it's not actually on here but I think we can yeah I think we can add that so the the idea was that after the retreat in August that the full board has that the U32 board could meet even that same day and work on more goals if we needed more goals or decide that we only need those three and I kind of have these feelings about sitting through a meeting all day and then doing the meeting personally well you know I was trying to be open to what he said I think that we're in agreement on those three goals they're really well defined too and they're well defined and I don't know whether people have other goals if we want to discuss and knock around or not and whether we need to wait until August 2nd to do that or whether we could say that we have those three goals and we want to meet as a board to see if we have other goals I'm just going to add to all those ideas I suggested we have a fourth goal probably in this diversity and equity matter I'm not sure exactly what that goal is but I think we're going to be spending a fair amount of time focusing on that and so do we need a retreat in order to have a conversation and flesh that out better and kind of flesh out the work planning for the year I don't know especially because I can't make my second well I have a hard time thinking that I'm going to sit from 8 to 3 did we not see a healthy impact or anything different okay so and we want a date for our board to retreat whenever we want to be there because that's really important is there any reason we can't adopt these three goals and add a fourth goal absolutely not thank you and I guess my question is Carl do we want a forward retreat in order to flesh out a fourth goal if there's a way not to have another retreat I'm going to vote for that I would do at least explore so what if Zuhari and I try to figure out a goal that we present and we're not actually meeting again until August is it legitimate to do as like a Google doc that we could share? no Carl Kari and I could come up with a goal we two of us can work on it together and then at our next board meeting present it as the fourth goal for discussion and if we agree to do it we can just add it when is our next meeting, is it early on? we can decide that sometimes it's the first Wednesday in August and sometimes we wait until the third Wednesday in August about two months from now and I don't think it really matters whether we do the goal the first week of the third week in August it has made sense to do it closer to the start of school 90% of our monitors leave in the first two weeks of August I didn't even go to Maine they all go to Maine so I'm hearing that we could develop a goal, we could present it at a board meeting as a discussion item and we could put it on the action agenda also if we weren't ready to vote on it we didn't and if we were we could does that sound like a plan? I think so so I'm going to put on the action agenda to adopt the full board goals we'll do that you would need to as a board to amend your agenda but since it's an action item it's supposed to be more so why don't we just wait and do all four of them together it doesn't make any difference let's do it right I don't think Matthew will be too disappointed with us no well we didn't get on our action agenda you would have to hold the meeting the whole few before we go to the next topic I just wanted to relay there have been about three or four different public comments that came in via email I feel like you should at least say what they are do you want to do that now or do you want to do it later? are they to a particular topic are they to the university well there was Ben today was about earlier earlier when did it come okay so I haven't even seen that one yeah no I mean that speaks to what we're just about to talk about Jennifer actually I guess I just received this you didn't send this to the board but there's a question about cell phone use policy and request I know about I'm not aware of a cell phone policy is there a procedure for cell phone there's the handbook outlines some of the cell phone there's not a and Joe can probably speak even more specifically cell phone policy in the handbook it's up to individual teachers yeah it's how it's written into the handbook it's an individual teacher so we don't allow cell phones during the day or at lunch those kinds of times do you have a sense of that's been problematic in classrooms well if we say that do students always follow the rules of their classroom the teachers the teachers have to report to us if there's a problem with it in their classroom it's not something that we seek out and from time to time there's an issue I have sought out middle school phones during lunch sometimes to get a file we prefer and we tell them that we prefer that they speak to each other and actually our incidents of bullying and harassment in the middle school went down considerably when we don't allow them to have their cell phones during lunch because they don't have that time to actually snapchat each other and do all those things that we can't just snap up the discussion is that a new to see whatever you would call it it's three or four years old okay I wasn't around when I was at middle school it was three years old I remember I remember can I speak to it no I didn't hear what you said can I speak to it about cell phones what I was looking for did this letter go to Steven? I have not received Jennifer sent me a comment well the question really I just asked that there was any before I raised it as an issue I sent it to Carly to ask if there were discussions about cell phone policy we do not have a cell phone policy we have not discussed it and my gut reaction is that it's more a rule than a policy that's my gut I would say that's how the administration is viewed is that it's not a policy decision but it's a rule and a procedure but it could be a policy decision if you decided to make it that way I have to say as an elected official I don't really see it as my role to tell somebody what to do with their phone I do see it as a staff the administration a staff at the school meaning to establish a rule to manage phones if there are problems in the school I don't see it as a policy level our guiding principle is kind of to look at the mission and the policies and as a board to keep our discussions on that level I mean that's throughout the whole nation that's what most school boards do it's what they're supposed to do and in fact have implemented cell phone policies so I don't think that it is beyond the scope of what you could do that's as far as I need to go on it but I think that cell phones are a problem at U32 yeah they may be I think we're on the mind that that's a staff level we haven't really talked about it if you have a problem with cell phones I would suggest you talk to the administration first yeah okay and see where you get with the administration because that is definitely their jurisdiction as opposed to ours okay so really quickly there was an email today from Don McConnell to all of us about this is definitely a staff level about her daughter being denied lunch because of her balance or something like that I just want to say it came to us but I don't know if it's appropriate for us to respond I got the email as well but I haven't been able to I got it later in the day so I have not been able to to if emails go to Stephen I don't feel like we have to respond I feel like it's information it's an information thing I usually check in with him just to see I'm not too sure and then the last one is Michelle McFadden asked me and asked me to follow up on the science request and I explained to her what we discussed last time that chemistry classes are full and that the solution is being developed as a new science class with sort of applied principles with some additional rigor and Michelle seemed to think that it may come to a vote and the way I responded was we don't view this as a board level decision I don't think we intended though so good thank you how long do you guys want to stay do you want to do your report first I can stay till the end I have I'm not competing with Kari of course but there are a couple of I'm sorry that's quite a right excuse me please I don't know I don't know this is kind of new have we always shared kind of individual board if it doesn't go to the whole board not always it depends on the subject whether it's appropriate I was certainly on the dodie board often got a phone call that was clearly meant to be shared with the board so do you think this one's meant to be shared with the rest of the board I think so it was from Cindy Gardner Morse in Calis and she's concerned she tutors a number of students including some special ed students here including among them at least one senior and she's concerned that the support that they're getting particularly towards the end of the year it is not as much as it needs to be particularly for the senior to complete all the work necessary she reached out to Kelly Bushy maybe today or yesterday I'm sorry to get back to her and they haven't connected so Kelly has responded Kelly just told me that this evening just as a point of clarification if any board member receives a request like that if we're not aware of that I'm asking this kind of as a point of does the board feel like they should or could forward that to us I have always done that so I would say that some of these like I don't know of these issues there's nothing I can do if I don't know so before the phone calls I would do some oh I'm sorry oh my gosh you said it was an email just this afternoon okay that's fine so do you guys want to stay through this diversity discussion or do you want to do your report first do you want to do your report just in case it goes too long well because one of the things on our report is a good like pre-diversity discussion thing I guess do you know sure is that okay with you guys and then if you meet sometimes these go and it's already late so I'm just trying to respect your time so we have some like less important things to talk about but our most important thing is sort of there's just been a lot of discussion about the black black flag at our school last time we had a bunch of facilitated callbacks with members of BLAM about like racism in our school what the flag might to them and they were pretty well attended and I think sort of BLAM had the idea to get this flag up as like a conversation starter and I think that's really been working because we've had a lot like important conversations but there was I mean it kind of goes both ways because there's been a lot of important conversations about race but there's also a lot of people who feel like the like talking about the flag as you know as a part of this conversation about you know diversity that maybe the decision was made before everyone could weigh in so for some of the things last week like people were really productive really good but when talking about the flag a lot of people felt like like why are we talking about it if it's happening and we can't do anything about it you know like it's sort of the discussions at least within the school have happened mostly after it had already been decided to raise the flag so there's concern around that and I also think that sort of I know we're not really supposed to talk about the public comment but I was going to share this anyway which is that a lot of kids against the flag feel like they can't share their opinions like sometimes they are but I was in a class a couple of days ago and we were talking about the flag and one kid said he said I don't feel okay sharing my opinion because everybody's just going to shut me down so like it's a very polarizing issue of the student body I guess and then I'm like a less heavy note we have some other things so um thank you very much for sharing that I know it's not easy and it's just really important for us to get as much as we can as much information so I'm lighter okay the boys trapped in one of the championships these are quite different they won the sixth time around with enthusiasm with enthusiasm and then both the boys and girls across team are going to the championships on Friday and Saturday so they've been making announcements they really want everybody there which one's Friday the boys how are we graduating Saturday I wonder about that and then also on Friday on Friday we have some spring day which is pretty exciting it's getting a boost this year I guess you could say so it's basically like the high school version of field day so it's at the end of the day and we're all going to go outside and like play all these games we got some bouncy stuff going on we put jeans and ice cream no there's like a little jousting so are you taking us to the bar on Friday morning to your school that's what we're doing Friday morning oh really and ice cream and bouncy stuff yeah so my last day of school was Friday and then we're doing in the senior week award ceremony Sunday, Scop, Monday, unity day Tuesday and then senior trip and then graduation so it's you know senior community outreach project right yes right and so all the seniors like they do every year are going to the community to help people to you know sort of give back before graduation organized by student council of course course that's kind of our report though thank you very much where's the senior trip this year let's see we're going to New York we're going to go to the greatest state and we'll stay overnight and go wait for our next day it's getting bigger and bigger and then our 8th grade is in DC right and just to note Shannon you can spread this seniors need to behave on that trip because we do not want any seniors in here at five o'clock on the day of graduation pleading to graduate because they've done something that they should yes it really has and it is hard we stay in five o'clock every year and it's really heart wrenching and I'm sitting you know I'm saying it in Jess but I'm really serious that you know kids just need to behave themselves have a great time but just follow the rules that's the beginning of my speech when we do our graduation rehearsal on the first day before they get off to do all of that and it just came from me and we sit here we sit here and agonize whether kids can walk in graduation because of something stupid literally stupid that they have done on a school trip and because it's right before graduation it jeopardizes walking or the good news is we haven't had to have that meeting the last two years I know that's great so we want to keep our record going and the other thing I want to really thank you Shannon for participating in the school board and being here is really important for us to hear your voice and we will miss you but I'm sure there's somebody in the pipeline may have actually seen one of them did you do a presentation the other day you guys all set okay thanks diversity inclusion and equity belief statements so last two weeks ago Karian Scott drafted a proposed statement that we looked at we had a few tweets to it so they have we have an updated version with not very many changes I kind of underlined there are a couple of words added and a couple things and the hope is today that we can adopt this as a statement of beliefs for the school board and from it will come lots of education lots of training, lots of discussions so that every kid feels safe, feels included feels welcomed in the school and understands how other people feel and how their actions impact other people and that's a huge education piece that our country has not figured out yet and we're just one little island here trying to help our students here and I don't know if you want to add any more yeah, I mean I'm not sure where to start this conversation it's already started right it's been going on for weeks but I guess one of the things I wanted to talk about tonight was what was our intent in making this decision and that's what this is about we're trying to explain our intent these are our values this is where we're coming from we can next get into what didn't we know, what didn't we anticipate what was our decision making process the legitimate criticisms of how our board is active or at least worthy of discussion but on this I feel more confident more solid like this is these are our beliefs and we seem to be well warned I'd like to sort of mimic that and say I was in my kitchen last night reading my email or something and I was sort of looking at the policy and thinking about the flag and stuff this weekend I just said I allowed my wife across the kitchen space I said something about you know we kind of stumbled into it but this just belief statement really to me strikes me as the strongest core of all this this is really where we're codifying our beliefs into making it a piece of the school community into and I was just talking about this really maybe more important than putting on the flag I feel like this is more important putting on the flag is codifying this direction for the community and immediately from upstairs an outspoken teenager cried out but how can you say that this is more important to what you're doing is more important than the flag and blah blah blah and it took 25 minutes of conversation in my kitchen to bring that situation in and have everybody understand I was like wait a minute wait a minute I wasn't saying that we were more important than this flag blah blah blah blah it is a touchy it's a really touchy subject and I do I think that this this belief statement is I think we've sort of stumbled into however it really lands somehow codifying the importance of inclusion and equity in the school is the real core of what we're doing and I think it says that all lives matter you know I think that's the bottom line is that all lives matter the first three bullets are all start with all that's offensive that's offensive to raise a black lives matter flag and then say all lives matter that's the whole point of the black lives matter flag if you have a burning house that's the house that matters all houses matter but the burning one is the one that needs your attention and when you start saying all lives matter that is code and if you don't realize that then all this diversity stuff you're doing and I would answer that's why the flag is flying absolutely because we realize that there was a section of our population that wasn't feeling this way we recognize that burning house but you just said all lives matter as if black lives matter but all lives matter and that is the crux of the whole issue and that's the same conversation I had in my kitchen last night this is both great and slightly terrifying this is how much energy is being released out of this sequence of events and discussions and for me the connection is that it's only possible for all lives to matter as a conditioned black lives matter since those are the lives that have had the roughest for the past 400 years and the just sort of it's not words it's actions that ultimately matter in fact all actions matter the difficulty what I think is what's really good the belief statement is that it does provide a framework I hope for the administration to be able to contain all that energy that's being released I mean how are how are you feeling about how this is going do you feel like you kind of have it or so every now and then it's slipping out of your so so you've asked it was a rushed decision for our administration to be able to handle words exhausted so the one conversation that Carl had with his child is multiplied by the number of kids that are in the school and faculty and so if we rewind into some of some of the things that we need to do as a school I have to point Jennifer is exactly right our teachers aren't well equipped to have these kinds of discussions that's cultural that's because we're in central Vermont there are a lot of things that our staff has not experienced that they need to be trained on the good points right we have a foundation of advisory we have a foundation of restorative practice we now have a board who is aware that this is something that is at the policy level almost in terms of importance of what we do and now there's a higher level of accountability for what we do as a school we have so many layers of this you heard the first layer is just the raw emotion that we face around this from students who feel that these hallways were not safe for them because of the color of their skin you've heard that you've heard that we have other students who don't understand because the the issue of race is also taken up by the issue of class it's taken up by the issue of gender and all of these things intersect in ways that are unique for each and every individual within our building and so for us as a school we have to learn how to have those conversations around each one of those areas and how to support the student who finds themselves in all three categories to find the student who finds themselves in one category and can't understand why someone in another category might be might be shown a different approach to solving their problems and so I mean I wish I wish I could say that there's an answer to this but we've opened up the door appropriately to the discussions we are not good at the discussions we are two months into it and we are learning from our mistakes we're learning from the students and I would just point out too is that we don't need to contain it this isn't a containment issue and I know that you're not but it's not a containment issue this is an empowerment issue and we've started with the group of students who feel the least supported within our community and if we go by the idea that when we build those students and when we provide them with the safe space that we begin to create a safe space for other students as a result and when we acknowledge that we have racism cultural incompetency and bias within our programs the students are right we don't read enough books from authors that are not white male we are not using examples of African-American scientists when we talk about what's going on in our world these are all things that will take time to build a curriculum to build an instructional base and to build a common culture that lifts all of our kids up and by putting up the Black Lives Matter flag we've said that we recognize that this is an issue and that this is something that we have to deal with and we have to deal with now like it's not something that we can put off it's not something that we can say that we'll get to and it's not something that we can say that we want to dilute by trying to include all Lives Matter or all issues at one time we have a capacity to deal with things that's limited and right now we're at capacity and the discussions are going to continue we're just not good at it yet and this is what education is about right we started a level of not being very good at something and we grow towards being good at and unfortunately we have to deal with it from a not good standpoint right now we're being able to deal with this I know exactly what you're talking about provision we're not provision I really appreciate that that was what I was saying and I want to say now I feel bad and I suspect we all do to some degree with the rapidity at which the administration and staff have been called on to step up to this in this particular circumstance at the same time it needs to be dealt with it's not something we can wait to do the conversation just needs to start and I think it would be nice I would say I think it would be nice if you could convey the teaching staff and everybody that we the board appreciate the trouble that they're up against how hard it is the difficulties and the roughness that it seems with which this is just out of curiosity does this group or some configuration of this group have faculty advisor or we're generally the two people that this group of students sought out to hold their discussions with and we sat in on some of the discussions that were part of the discussions that happened during callback last week we were with some of these students to be supportive of them and their attempts to understand what's going on and what about the Krista and was it Adrian who worked here are they faculty advisors? Krista is the faculty advisor to the BLAM students okay is that what you meant? and she's been at least two or three of the meetings with the students we're planning for this is the time when we begin to plan for next year as soon as we graduate kids the next day we turn around looking at what we're going to do in August when teachers arrive and how do we our trainings around restorative practice for our new faculty our trainings that we're going to do in our opening in service what are we going to do throughout our Wednesdays next year this is one of the building of culturally competent staff as part of that plan now it's got to be part of it some of the students that were not here that were kind of talked about came last week and they wanted to start a group and basically they wanted anti-bullying we don't want it to be any specific group of kids we just want anti-bullying it's great started so it's partly it's also getting the message out that we support you to do the things that are good for the community because a lot of times some I mean when you mention class reinforcement classism is another big issue that doesn't really get much dealt with but there are certain families affinity groups that just withdraw from action, political activism which is a loss to all of us and it's much better if they're engaged and they develop the skills to have a kind of constructive debate and participation and I would question they don't necessarily pull back when we talk about issues of black race I'm not trying to challenge this but I do have a challenge these aren't families that necessarily pull back because they don't want to be involved these are families that are working two and three jobs and don't have child care and don't have a solid place to live or they have food insecurities this is not their venue when all of those things exist this is not what's important what's important is whether or not their child is getting fed what is important is whether or not they're able to pay their rent we have to be careful not to discount the inaction of a family simply because of they're not here because they may not be capable of being here right now we're also focused on are they welcome here and that's the issue I think that's first and foremost right now is that we have to make sure that people are welcome to be in our school and that they feel that they have value and that's the work we have to do can I just add something too that just reflecting on all of this what's really to me so incredibly discouraging about nationally what's happening and what comes out of the mouths of our leaders it almost provides a license for people to be increasingly more uncivil and indecent and awful and I think that spreads and is spreading unfortunately around the country and I think it's spreading here too to some degree I mean kids are kids kids are all going to pick on each other when does that not happen right I mean that's so that's a given but it's changing a little bit now just the sense that I have just looking I mean we can name the examples of leaders at many levels of government that it's almost free license to just be awful and then you combine social media and these with which people can throw darts at each other with us we don't allow that in middle school that's good cell phones so you know it's really to me it really and I know you guys are working on this I'm just saying anyways but this whole aspect of civility and decency and listening being able to listen to somebody that you really don't agree with just to keep your mouth shut and listen to them and think before you it's so important and it's something that I feel like our country is really starting to have a serious problem with at every level and it's just awful you know so I mean that's my view of a lot of this the kind of the big picture of is civility decency acceptance so I think the word that I would also throw in there is empathy is the core of what we need to develop both in our students in ourselves and our society I can't fix all of society I can only work on it here at school but there is a deep and driving desire to build empathy and this is a discussion that has already started in the course the teachers in the course in the middle school as to how do we develop that how do we create that kind of space I'll say that the admin team so our administrative team has been reading a book called Better Conversations which is built around that same idea it's because we realize that if we're going to be engaged in this work at this level we need to have all the tools that we can for it you know so these are you know there's small pockets of it right now they're not big enough they're just you know we're barely getting a foothold but we're trying to expand that and start working on that with our teachers and working on it with our students you know this is this is a conversation topic that's going to be on the table for years to come and it's not a bad thing it's just right now it's a very exhausting thing so I think that we you know the end of the school year there's a lot of anxiety around the end of the school year that is added into this right now and so once we get some fresh summer rest and are able to come back I think we're going to be able to develop some better ways to work with our students and to create those spaces for conversation and I just want to reiterate what Scott said that I think it's important we really appreciate what we threw you into and you know maybe we didn't know at the time we said this is opening up the discussion this is it was kind of the opposite of Montpelier they spent two years and that was the culmination and for us this was kind of the beginning and it was getting everybody aware and I don't know you know we just started it if we hadn't done this maybe this conversation would have taken years to percolate to the surface so I would appreciate all the effort put into it and kind of the learning and stumbling along the way please don't hear that at all I don't hear that at all but I do know the energy that it's taken and kind of the brain power that you've had to put to this and I'm wondering where are we going right now just one more question before we do that and I could so one thing I didn't I don't think we anticipated was any kind of safety concern and I know law enforcement was here on Monday and we heard some things in the comments tonight that were you know we heard the word war so do you have safety concerns about the flag being up against the school year do I have concerns on you I guess no there's no there's no immediate threat we did not receive so in our conversation with Montpelier High School their threats were very real and very clear we have not faced those kinds of threats most of what we have experienced are students who don't feel safe and express concern but we have not had direct threats that have been against the school but we also appreciate that our law enforcement was available and here for us and in particular I would say that also know our kids so we have one of the sheriff's deputies here who is a regular member of law enforcement who knows our kids and can be a few that's very helpful and it's a difficult thing law enforcement has a very different view around the Black Lives Matter flag and so these are continuous conversations that we have to have and this is the difficulty in navigating this world it's very difficult but doable so where are we headed with this do you have an answer okay I think we know where we're headed tonight I'm talking about and that's sort of where I'm going to speak to you I think we've been through this draft I don't know if Jonathan was that wasn't at the last meeting I did read it and do you have any any personal challenges with it can you stand behind it I was thinking about one and I don't remember if it's like third or fourth I don't remember reading glasses I'm sorry about that all students have the right to an education free of bias and discrimination based on that our schools must be committed to honoring students and staff diversity in all its forms that's the fourth one I'm sorry we don't have to read the whole thing but there was something about all students have the right to an education free of bias and discrimination based on their identity we recognize that bias comes in many forms explicit and implicit historical and contemporary we changed that a little bit we added we added and discrimination no I think that's good yeah that's good there was one line we want students to feel where's that we want students to feel safe or feel all our students should be valued and feel they belong does those feel safe I might just say that all students belong maybe more affirmative rather than you know that was my sense all students are valued all students are semantics perhaps and I think we had discussed the language around explicit implicit historical contemporary and how to make that easier for people to read so I think there's some word smithing still to be done but I think if we as a board feel that this goes in the direction we're hoping to take this conversation and we feel that it would be valuable to let the community and the other school boards I think we've discussed the fact that that we might like to see this adopted across the supervisor if if that works and I think maybe we're where we need to be now without you know maybe we've been sort of rushed to the beginning and I'm feeling like maybe really crafting this and getting input of others if it's going to be adopted without a supervisor we're probably going to get some input from others who have feelings about it and perhaps we just want to believe that where it is now until we have an opportunity to get that input and have the larger converse I like where it is now I think that it's easy reading, easy understanding it's very clear I feel comfortable with how it reads just the first statement maybe this is looking at it as a glass activity but all of our students and other stakeholders make a positive contribution to our community that's not true but they can make a positive contribution based on your own individual's experiences and backgrounds some of your individual experiences and backgrounds are horrific and you therefore don't make a positive contribution but you can so all of our students can make a positive contribution because otherwise I think it's a little too rose-coloured glass which we're aspiring to do thank you for what you said what I wanted to say about the policy is something that I just share about the executive committee is that it should just stay still with the draft format we don't have a policy at all so say I know that you're working on it we haven't even begun this is the first step working on it can it get involved in the same work that the staff will get involved unless we have had the bias training and maybe do a partnership with Montpelier trying to create that policy together I think it's just fair to the students and the staff to go through the address our own do the work with them before you draft the policy before we carve it into stone that's my only and I'm noticing that there's no adoption on our agenda anyway so everybody will sit with it mull it over the summer come back to it we'll think about a goal yes a goal for the board which probably should come before a policy discussion okay thank you this is really hard work I appreciate people's input and thoughts people have wordsmithing or substantial please send them along take the summer to purple age great can I echo Kari here for just a second and just ask you also to think about when you use the word accountable in your last bullet what does that look like to the board if you're going to hold this if you're going to hold this accountable let's just be clear about what those things are that you want to hold this accountable well that's where policy comes in that's why I say I'm echoing it's one thing to have a candy land statement exactly it's another thing to say now I shall do this that definitely that was good thanks okay something very mundane one of our goals was to try and fill out board observation forms as we go to events just as part of the monitoring piece of the school to get a board perspective and I'm as guilty as I know the rest of you are sort of filling this out when we just go to school events what we notice in terms of learning outcomes we're not evaluating how it is but do we see evidence that transferable skills are being used thank you so much Shannon good luck see you in graduation oh yeah we'll give it to you you get it in a bigger audience than this thank you very much and it's just kind of a piece of the monitoring that the board does a third sort of piece and I know it's hard you guys that have students here come to events all the time and do a better job and I'm just guilty we were doing a good job for a while and we're not doing it but at least to think about when you go to events put your board head on for a few minutes take your parent head off does this exist electronically that we can like snag in the moment because I don't we can each have a copy it can't be a google doc but we can send you a copy of it it's just a word version there is a word version somewhere I'm just thinking that maybe you could just put up a word version on the website yeah that's what I mean so I meant something and I could pull it up oh wow that's a great idea I'll be doing fill these out well they're supposed to come to me how long will it appear with ones from the past few years and when we were getting student presentations here we were doing them right after the presentation and that was really effective and then we had a quick conversation which actually was really good and we should have done that last month I didn't even know that were you here for that? no but we had musicians yes but we had a presentation of an Algebra 2 STEM project pretty much really impressive so that would be the process we would process them collectively after yes if I had thought about it I would have done that yes and we just sit here for 5 minutes and you actually in the best of all worlds you kind of look at this as you're watching the presentation and yes I'm noticing that I guess I see evidence of that just jot down what it is and then we can talk about what we noticed and go with that well if we were doing it diligently and we had a whole lot of evidence then we as a board could say we're seeing that kids are what might be the using their transferable skills we notice the transferable skills are being used in presentations and we feel confident we see evidence that kids are being taught those skills to complement test data or cards it's another piece of evidence of learning outcomes my bigger question is where do we go with that evidence is that just to satisfy I suppose if we were really good at it it would be included in a monitoring report I think so it would go to bill as a piece of here's we're monitoring this kind of learning that was a really good question we are here to fill out the form exactly I put that on there because it was part of our board calendar just to kind of check in it's part of the monitoring it's probably a part we didn't do as well reports to the board Central and Ron Career Center they had their last meeting 4 o'clock Bill has had a discussion with John and hopefully that will improve student we got administration do you have any more? I did want to share something with you so we've been talking about having a guide to report cards and transcripts we have a guide that will be going out this hasn't been disseminated widely yet just let me know our teachers haven't got a comment John's got a report card and transcripts that will be coming out primarily for 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th grade because this is really around the standard space report card and transcript and it tries to give a little bit of the background but then this is the report card explanation with some information and the back page is the transcript information and transcripts home of those kids also have done that in the past transcripts usually are not something that's sent out very regularly but that is a part of our reporting in the proficiency system because we want to see growth over time and as you look at the back page the left-hand column that will be there there's 3 bubbles below that but the left-hand column are the courses and the scores that students give in courses and the right-hand side is their progress towards meeting our graduation proficiency so the proficiency based graduation requirement and so that's what their transcript is going to show in all of the SLOs so that's important this is just an example of one SLO the literacy and so that is the guide for that there is still obviously a lot more to explain in proficiency based learning and so I'm going to hold it up at a great distance so that you don't see it but there is a guidebook that is coming out that is going to be more along the lines of proficiency just showing in a lay language and I would highlight this little section right here which is the actual pathway and what it looks like and so it's a very simple language around you begin in seventh grade starting to develop a personalized learning plan and then as you move towards high school you start to develop an interest in an area that you might want to study for a goal that you have towards college, career, military trade, any of those kind of things and it just tries to plot out some of that course in general and then some of the additional information so the transcript guide will still be in here to help people understand and then just more information about what a proficiency and based learning system looks like and what it is and this will be ready for our families as we return in the fall and so this will be provided to our teachers by the time we come to in-service into our families as we get started in the new school year so that we just these are the questions that keep being asked and so we're trying to get more answers to them and more clear so the clarity was really important I can't say any more because I've said it too many times working with someone else who is not familiar with it to help with this into a better language has been very helpful and it's cleared up some of the misconceptions and some of the things that are hanging there for us it's also putting together this guide has helped us understand also some of the shortcomings in the way that we're using infinite campus in reporting the scores and we're developing at our in-service next year we're spending a full day around the grading reporting into the campus use so that we can clean that up and have a common message across all teachers and we feel like that's really important because that goes back to the goal of communicating with families and if we can't get this right this is going to be the downfall and we don't want that to be what ruins of what we feel is a really good proficiency system and that we're building well enough with our families and so that's kind of where we're at right now we felt like this was an important guide to get out immediately because we're putting out report cards and transcripts in another couple weeks and so that's why we're kind of the border of how these things have occurred When do you anticipate then the other document? This document we're shooting for the beginning of August so I mean this is a pretty good draft at this point in time but our goal is to have this ready and some of the changes that have been made to these documents in their draft form have come out of my student group so they've been looking at this stuff as it's been coming along our department head, some of our teachers we've been trying to share this as much as possible so that we get feedback from to try to create messages that are succinct We also need to hit up some parents around this one, that's one of the next stages we just hadn't taken from the school year and then we'll talk to some of our parents and say okay, does this make sense doesn't it seem helpful? Can I have a brief comment about the internet campus just really quick I had an issue with my son's math class and I was trying to figure out why he had the grades he had and I went in and I found that the entire month of May had not been reported by the teacher but the interesting thing about that was not so much that it hadn't been reported I talked to the math department and there was something that teachers have to do that is easy to forget to do or to not do, to get the grade measure an entire month had gone by and not one student or parent noticed which said to me, people aren't looking at the internet campus it's way too confusing It is absolutely agree with you on that and so there are ways that internet campus has improved the product a lot in the last few months even and we are going to let our teachers what parents see that's one thing that our teachers just are not they're not clear on and it's part of the training so it is but we're trying to get ahead of that because teachers would really use it for a grade book and not as a communication tool so we're turning it to more of a communication tool because as you're right it's terrible layout the way it is right now and we're going to try to clean it up even some more before next year we have to it's not communicating what we need to communicate I have a question about graduation you said Leslie was going to send us a schedule Leslie has been out a little bit so I'll have her send it tomorrow just tell me what time the award ceremony is on Sunday the award ceremony on Sunday is at three o'clock thank you and yeah okay I just last time you said that was coming so I had that on my mind I didn't realize Leslie was going to be up for a few seconds it's okay finance committee I think I think seeing Jennifer here reminds me that we're going to talk about flags under the administration report can we just leave that for right now it's nine o'clock I'll talk to Stephen and we can raise it at the next issue at the next meeting if we feel like it's a board issue well if the flag doesn't matter it's a board issue then all flags a board issue that would be great finance there's a report in the larger packet we're doing well I think there's a proposal to spend some money so we're going to put together a request to move a fair amount of that so I know the board wants to give a 4% cushion we have some pretty big expenses in capital coming up and rather than we think we've done really well in terms of building a capital budget but we're going to need to transfer some of that money over to capital for things like track and parking lot and those big expenses that we're going to incur so that we don't have to go borrow any money but I think that overall the biggest part of our gains in our fund balance are because we underestimate the amount of money that we're going to take in for tuition so also along the lines with some spending just areas of savings that we can do but that accounts for a smaller fraction the biggest gains that we have are around tuition and that's why we have such a comfortable balance right now and specifically we're currently in our fund balances at 4% and our target is 4% putting us about $490,000 over and there's actually, Lori wanted me to let you know it's actually only about $425 once we correct for a couple of other pieces that are coming in here so not to overspend ourselves but we are going to ask for some of that money to be transferred over to capital I'll bear on that can you do that in the fall? close the books before we can actually ask that of you and so we're going to do that and I think also speaking back to Jennifer's point earlier some of the training we're going to ask that some of this money be applied towards some training for our teachers and also some interventions for our students as well so we do have some things that we'd like to bring there and things like a steamer for the kitchen because the one that was going bad was this appointment we just got one of the cars they're really handsome actually the interesting thing I'm sorry to take the time but eSplot Peelier doesn't use theirs they just got to do one when they had the renovation so we're probably going to buy theirs off of them so we don't need to keep the money in the district and give you a go for some reason they want to charge us full price but we'll negotiate that and schools start time subcommittee do we need to hear any more than we know I think you heard it all explore the service so action agenda we have a bunch of things to do we've got explanations for them in the full board meeting the first one is to approve the blanket authorization for check orders for FY1819 in case we don't need it as a board and we've decided that passing around there's several now we've already signed these are all signed to approve the blanket authorization unmoved questions about that all those in favor say aye aye and then do I have to read this do you have the motion to award the revenue anticipation note isn't there a motion I have to read somewhere maybe in that packet do you want to read it to us okay so award revenue anticipation note bid to community bank NA for the time period of July 2nd 2018 through June 28th 2019 for the following amount in interest rate 4963 dollars in 75 cents and the interest rate is 2.7 percent 4,000 4 million oh yeah it is 4 million couple of dozen points so the projected interest being 132,000 and that's the difference between what we borrow the money from and what we invested and Florie alluded to about a 1% gain in interest is there a motion and a second Carl and Jonathan any questions about that all those in favor say aye aye motion carries and then there's an investment bid I'll let you catch up investment bid says to award the investment bid to community bank NA for the time period of July 1st 2018 through June 30th 2019 for the following interest rate and it says so this whole thing belongs to 32 where is it there the investment bids on page 9 in this big packet I know I read it in here this is just a simic to us so there's a summary bid result on page 9 I know I read it somewhere yeah so a motion for the investment bid seven Karen and a second a second Carl discussion about that one all those in favor say aye aye motion carries a motion to reserve $35,555 from technology I assume that's coming from the fund balance yeah so it's technology funds that were not fully extended this year but to be held over for next year for additional technology expenses generally we've held it as part of the capital fund and so it's still held in that area haven't you moved have you moved from capital to fund fund technology did you get that motion a motion to reserve $35,555 from the technology line general budget this year to next year's budget correct and Carl moved to the second I'll second that any discussion about that but I know it's getting late I'm trying to go as fast as I can all those in favor say aye and then we have a job nomination form for a work based learning coordinator do you just want to quickly give us this something new to me it's actually non good so Kelly Keller has been working here as our internship coordinator and that was a non teacher position but she now has her work based learning coordinator teaching certificate that she received through peer or is receiving through peer review she hasn't gotten the actual paper but she's been approved and so we are moving her into the teacher category now so that she is actually we're improving her from part time .5 to non teaching to .6 teaching this is an important position actually any student who's in an internship or activity that is outside of the school their program really has to be signed off by work based learning coordinator somebody with this certification that's why she's been working on it we helped fund it so that we could have it because we don't have somebody on site we have a contract with the career center where they have somebody with this to be able to do all of that work so especially we have somebody in house because it's just so much easier for us to do I would suspect over time given the multiple pathways that we have and the work that she does that this position will be increased as we can increase because her workload is pretty big if you came to our mentor appreciation night you saw a large bit of work that Kim McKellar does all of those mentors shouldn't really come through her and the work that she does and so she is a great asset to our school and I could go on for days about what a valuable part of our program this is she certainly is a great part of our faculty so is there a motion to accept her nomination Scott and a second Carl discussion questions all those in favor say aye opposed motion carries approve the board orders motion this is I did $169,957 and 61 cents so a motion to approve the board orders a second questions about them comments all those in favor say aye opposed motion carries future agenda items should we decide on the third Wednesday in August for our next board meeting as opposed to the first Wednesday I'm here we have teachers back doing work by the first Wednesday I'm not going to be here the first Wednesday in August I'm not here either I'm going to be here I'm going to be here come back first Wednesday I missed the first no it's like 7 or 8 the second is Thursday oh so the first is the Wednesday I am we better retreat let's go let's do the third Wednesday is the 50 August 15 that's early is that doable for people we'll be resting so so August 15 for the I will be I will be joining the I will be joining the I will be joining the okay so we're all set on that okay so we're all set on that I think we have plenty of agenda items and we'll figure out after the second or after the 15th whether we need a board retreat or not and we'll go from that board communication maybe that's where all those emails should come in and board communication as opposed to board comments yeah okay yeah I was just thinking about that can I ask the communication question? yeah how many people got the news out this week? so I don't think I got it so I just sent it to you because I knew you probably didn't get it tried to send it to you and I don't know how to write Comcast I have to know it and I'll address it to George and he'll be sure to just buy it it's not showing up on I have to build both of them okay if you email me and ask me all right can you just forward that to me? I can do that I'll put it on my little list here did that come this afternoon? uh yesterday there it is I didn't get it I just sent it to you oh right now okay I haven't seen that okay I can do that mine says yesterday the parents thank you very much that was a long hard meeting I've been sitting for a long time no I I got it no running out of money anymore did everybody sign all these except the baby thank you very much