 at 6.34, if I read the clock correctly. And guests, as always, most welcome. Move on to agenda revisions. Now, this is the point where I explain a change that doesn't necessarily have to lock you in. We're experimenting with moving public comments from up front in the meeting to the back end of the meeting, towards the end of the meeting, public comments and correspondence, I should say. Now, I want to stress this is not in any way a demotion of public comments or the public itself. From my perspective, the people are why we're here, whether it's old people or young people. We're here for everyone. And particularly those who take the trouble to come here, they do so for a reason. And I think, I hope, I speak for our colleagues that we honor your presence and the contributions that you make to our work. So, having laid that out, I just want to let you know if any of you have come with the expectation that you'd be able to say something up front in the meeting and then be able to excuse yourselves and go about your business, you're welcome to do so. And we will still have public comments and correspondence at the end. And in addition, if there are public contributions to be made in any of our discussions, those are welcome too. So, I trust this is understood, and Corinne. I'm not really hearing a reason as to why, because for as much as you are saying it's not to discourage comment or people coming, it certainly seems it. I mean, if I hadn't been around board meetings for the past 25 or 30 years, if I was newly getting involved, I'd look down and go, public comment towards the end. I'm not going to go sit through the meeting or how do I judge when to get up there in order to make comments. So, I'm a little confused. Yeah, there are a couple of reasons. And having to do more with the logic of the meeting, because a lot of the public comments and correspondence consist also of correspondence that we receive. And the idea is that having it right before future agenda items helps us to shape the next agenda. Whereas if we get this stuff, if we get sort of things new or seemingly out of the blue at the beginning of the meeting, there's nothing really that we're generally able to do during the meeting itself. It's kind of there as this amorphous thing kind of weighing, yes. But it's still at the beginning of the meeting where I think you have much more of a chance for people to get involved. You also have Lisa, who takes excellent minutes if you need to refer back to them before making those agenda items as far as what might have gotten mentioned at the beginning of the meeting. But right now, what with an unexpected vote coming up on November 5th and with additional board members being sought at an upcoming time to finish rounding out the board, it would just seem like you would want to be doing everything you could to encourage people. And for as much as you also have public engagement on tonight's list or there's something in the board packet about it, it just seems just totally bizarre in my mind that it would get pushed to the end of the meeting. Sure. One moment, Rick, consultation. Okay, yeah. Deborah is suggesting that we possibly have an agenda revision moving public comments back to its traditional place following agenda revisions so that since we're talking about public comments anyway, we might as well discuss it under that particular agenda item. I think that would just be a motion from the board if the plan was agreeable. Okay, Chris moves. Any second? I'll second. Marilyn seconds. Board discussion of this. I favorite public comments at the beginning for reasons of participation and encouraging participation because I think putting it at the end as an agenda item folks may not even show up. You know, we have the stalwart members who come like this and he won't show up, but others may not. And I think it helps us to have comment at the beginning rather than at the end when we're tired and we want to get out of here usually because at the very end of the meeting that's the way things have developed over the past couple of minutes I think. And I thought I was going to say that we would take comment during the meeting as well as we're pointing discussion items going through the meeting which I also favor. Okay, thanks. Other opinions, George? I was going to say it was kind of my idea just because we keep getting bogged down. Last meeting we just got so bogged down we got nowhere and we have so many things that we need to focus on right now that my idea was kind of to bump the public comments and input to the end for a few meetings until we can get caught up and we can really hammer out the meat and potatoes that we needed to hammer out in these meetings. And that was the whole reason behind the thought that we just have so many kind of hot topics that we just keep spitting our wheels in. That's all. It's a very generous idea, George, to take a heat off me. It was my idea. And I think it has merit. Before we go back to the public, what I'd like to do is, are you ready for a vote or any other comments on this? Just really just one. We can put public comments to two minutes per person. That would help at least facilitate movement and would encourage participation and discourage long-windedness or encourage being concise. Absolutely. I meant to the point of not getting bogged down. We've struggled with the timekeeper idea in the past, though. Things got me to gamble. I think the vlog down last week was bringing up the BSBA and not the public comments that we brought that up as far as if you're taking the heat off me. So I'm not sure that that was because of people coming in with a public comment as much as a topic that we hadn't resolved. Very soon, Rick. Flo. I'm okay with having public meetings at the beginning because people are here already. We just are good about what they're saying, keeping time, and then having public comments all the way at the end with sort of how we break being able to have enough input from the public. I think the part that is going us down is that the meeting is the meeting of the board to get some work done because we need to catch up and it's the comments in between like having that conversation back and forth is not helping us get the meeting. So we could like just at least agree that for now we'll take public comments at the beginning, public comments at the end and in the middle the board meets the delivery team and gets the work done at least for the next couple of meetings instead of the back and forth. I think that would help us keep the meeting because right now we're staying here and I don't want to continue this too long either because we're making a meeting. Shall we vote that? Over. Yes. I agree with having the public comments at the beginning and the end. My preference would be that the public comments do suck the tone of the meetings and if we could not let ourselves get engaged in a back and forth conversation listen to the public comments and then get to our business on our agenda. Okay. Thank you. Dorothy. I agree with Vera. Mostly what I'm thinking is it should be labeled as public comments not public conversation. What I'd like to hear is what the public has to say about when we get ready to vote on something you know a one minute and have you thought about this or whatever but we don't respond. They just give their ideas and then if it looks like it's well we might change our mind or something like that, yes but try to make ourselves not converse. I think that would be good. Ready for a vote. Okay. The motion is to have public comments brought back to the beginning. Am I right? Okay. So, Jan? Can we amend that to have a time constraint to that? Would I would prefer for that to be at the chair's discretion? Okay. If that's all right? Yes. Thanks. All right. All in favor of bringing the public comments, restoring the public comments to their traditional place up front in the meeting. Please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? None opposed. Okay. Great. Rick. I mean this is actually a good example of why you don't put it at the end right here. I'm going to take it before I could even speak and voice what I thought about that vote as well. I mean there's more than just future agenda items that come up in public comments. Mostly people come to meetings to comment on something that might be facing that agenda and they should be heard. George, I know that's an inconvenience. Most meetings no one will show up. You know, but when you get items that are of importance to people and it's important enough for them to show up, they have to be heard. There's not much of an inconvenience to this. I've been doing this for 30 years too in planning, where I've run meetings and many public meetings and sometimes they run long, but you have to hear them out. This is all about the public. That's what you represent. And the second you start shutting them out for convenience, you are no longer doing your job and you're also undermining their confidence in you as a board. They will not feel represented. I mean I know personally, you know, I care a lot about our communities. I care a lot about our schools. I take a lot of time and you don't like my tone a lot, but I'm upset with what's going on here for good reason. The point is that we bring good points and it's your job to really listen to that. And I don't care if you respond, you're handling that well, but you need to consider what you hear from every person, those sides. That's your job. You represent the public. You're a board. So you really have to hear those ideas and this is difficult to let the ego step aside to that. Don't let yourselves, let that inconvenience of the pesky public let you shut them out. There's a hell of a lot more knowledge there than you give credit for at times. It's often more than you've got in some areas. That's not a criticism, but it's because of expertise so take this seriously. Don't shut people down. Thank you, Rick. Dave. Dave Lawrence, Middlesex. I like what all of you all have had to say, frankly. I think every single one of you had bits of great points in it and I understand where some of the frustration comes from though in that leaving here at 10.30 at night has been for some super long meetings. So I think it would be a terrible idea to have all the comments at the end of meetings that are going to be ending at 10 o'clock at night but as George said, it was a temporary idea until things get settled in and it wouldn't be that all the meetings are ending at 10. But some of that's going to naturally happen soon too in that once you have gotten your tours of all the schools done there's 45 minutes out of each meeting that hopefully when I can have a tour every time we go to the same school. I mean I mostly I want them at the beginning of the meeting too but I think that part of this feeling about oh my gosh, it's been going on for so long is because there's been this kind of special thing of getting booted up, checking out all the schools that is making the meetings extra long right now. Thank you everyone. This has been a nicely meta discussion of public comments about public comments but I think we're at least in a place that will work. So if there is no objection should we move on to a tour of Stephen Deliger-Pitt's domain? This is the U32 domain. So we're going to do about a 15 minute walk today so we're going to try not to do the 45 minute but we're just going to see the event space of the school so we're going to go through the auditorium and then back through our music space and through the gym I just want to point out a couple of things to us at that point in time but I figured that a long tour tonight would probably not be in the best interest of all the comments that need to be made. So if you guys can join me we're just going to head down the hall through the auditorium. One more piece of this by giving you guys an update on the track. That's the other big space. So as of yesterday we had a meeting with Dubois and with Conica who is the subcontractor for the surface of the track, the actual rubberized surface Conica has informed us that they will not be able to come out until May to complete the track and so the temperatures required to lay down the surface need to be at 40 degrees or better. We told them that October would be tough and so they have said there's nothing they can do. They won't warranty the track if they try to put it down now. And so Dubois is not pleased because they fulfilled their part of the contract. Everything is ready to go out there for the surface to be laid down but it's not going to happen. We understand Conica's misunderstanding of Vermont weather when they said that they would be back in April to complete the track and we told them that that is very kind of you but we're not going to blow the snow off of it and April is worse than October in Vermont. And so once everybody around the table stopped laughing at the Conica gentleman who was very apologetic but certainly we held his feet a little bit to the fact that we're not going to be able to have a track until we've told them that it has to be in place by June 1st at the very latest and so they understand that Dubois is actually going to work with them to hold some of their materials so that they have a financial stake in the game to get out there and get them done quickly. The one caveat that they gave us is that we had through the bid process we were going to end up with a red track but Conica has said that since we are able to ship and be able to do things this winter we will be able to get a black track like we had before. There was an oversight in the bid process where they had bid a red track and nobody noticed that in page 145 of the 160 page document and so but they're going to bring us a black track instead so the one pay off which is not very pleasing but at least we got something out of the hole. If we weren't to go with Conica as our provider we there's still no one who would place a track surface at this point in time because of the weather and our previous bids indicate that there could be anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 more to get us another company in here there are some others that do the surfaces and Conica has already certified that this the work that has been done is at their standards for being able to lay down a track surface so we're going to Hank is desperately trying to figure out what the spring season will look like and we just informed him this morning so he's going to get out some ideas around how we're going to take care of our spring track program and in the meantime we are going to be able to get the final home games for seniors onto the field so it's going to be they're going to release the track to us because it's still under bond by Du Bois until they complete the job but we're going to work with them to be able to get out there and complete games and do playoff games so we'll at least get our seniors out there for their senior games and soccer football and be able to use that space so sorry don't like to be the bear of bad tidings we told them so kind of thing when they kept putting us off but you can really blame Thayer Academy in Boston because where the track company is trying to complete their track right now they were delayed by a lot of rain so that's interesting because we didn't have hardly any what's the one expectancy of the 20 years so I think waiting a few months for 20 years is worth it I can have it put down properly it's the right thing to do it just doesn't feel good it's the right thing to do to get out to the seniors it's going to stop the senior here for all the sports it's going to be a disappointment sorry Rick we do a lot of contracting is there no performance clause in that contract I mean I would have had that if you don't have that they're going to they'll defer you to every other job around we got pushed off that hurts our school the contract does have clauses for completion dates and there are liquidated damages that we can pursue I would do that they should be held accountable well thank you I appreciate it's always good to know what's going on even if it may not be broken Jonas you asked for the bad news too that's right okay so Steven anything else before we move on not unless there are any questions any questions great so floor what perfection so actually I'm not leaving it I have a quick question how much time is allotted for this how many minutes to get that's about 30 minutes if you fall for it all together okay I think it was about 5 minutes okay that's what I wanted to what I wanted to just double check so Deborah there have been talk about rejiggering the groups and how opportunities to talk with and work with each other and I thought I'd written a large pick on the board but if people want to check out their groups and then spread around and then I actually wrote up a modified version of the making meeting protocol and perhaps you know 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 groups and then we can group what's the group stuff there oh it doesn't you know what the groups are when you just said 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 oh like one group, second group oh okay what if we have a language program I'm pushing you thank you thank you we have extra time to check if anyone needs to there's so much okay alright page 19 okay and hold on were you here last time so do you want to know what you're supposed to say sure yeah page 191 in order for PLO to work effectively the governance teams must be by providing direction to PLC teams by establishing and I kind of got a archive of different things that can be read including well just historical information about the board but it's about things that you get to know okay it actually seems like people are getting into the part of talking about the meat of the passages so don't make me do that I still have a teacher okay so the purpose of using a protocol protocols help structure conversation and we use them a lot in faculty meetings or in our teamwork we also use some very simplified versions of them with our students because when you follow a protocol what that does is it helps you sort of go beyond the I really liked it and it gets you sort of more into the analytical and substantive thinking about whatever the topic is so the way the rounds work they're all the same is that you choose whoever goes first and okay so anybody's having a hard time deciding who should go first you can start with the person with the longest hair so anyway the first person starts off raise the passage or the longer passage shares the gist of the passage and then what was it about guidance that spoke to you what questions did it bring up for you what was the significance of it to you what were any aha moments that had and then the next step is thinking about okay then what does this mean for us in terms of our work in education and then after the first person speaks then that's the opportunity for the other members of the group to respond to and build off of what they heard does that make sense should I do a check for understanding sorry but that is a problem in the evening so anyhow five minutes per round given that we had a half an hour and there are four rounds so are we all set on who's going first yeah way too many years in middle school you guys can jump ahead okay go so here's how thank you our religious group of PLAs and the governance team we're also wondering what other groups can provide support in connection to those two areas and whether or not their leadership and their support is positive or negative that was one of the things I circled was the right norms because if you started with norm and was ever facilitating the treatment I think for getting away from work that to me is also a really I think is something to be doing where I was at the beginning of whatever cycle we're on a piece of paper and if you're treated right you feel comfortable saying the norms does share the space we're not seeming to do that so I think I agree with I don't know I ran I came first board knowing nothing and then we didn't have emails we didn't have we didn't have we didn't have we didn't have we didn't have we didn't have we didn't have whether or not you know the student has been successful because other than cookie cutter man so I could totally foresee that as a problem thank you I think it's been really interesting because we read this Google article so and I actually my staff I gave them that saying there's a huge body of research that went into it and so I gave this to the staff here at the beginning of the year as well to show what it all boils down to how people treat each other and the norms just outline how people treat each other and so I thought that that whole passage just so I'm going to go next because of what I've done on the next page the next page we're not necessarily that sure but I'll be starting in that part but as you also see as you start going into that chapter and talk to the staff the student can also be very effective for the information so that we're all collaborating on those points of view but even before that in the superintendent search I think we want to make sure that we bring people from the teachers so this whole community that we have right now kind of takes this approach which is not isolated but I'm just going to think or something like that I think that's protection to go together and meet with the media just to see what's going on I don't know now but tonight I had a exact answer but you stuck with it so I'm glad you're here I'm just going to take a rough break when there's the PLC teams what do those look like kind of fractal versions of this in other words they are little circles around the district say the administrative team or the teachers and so forth how does that connect sort of the work industry I'm not asking you to answer that but yeah this is the question I think we're going back to just initially educated themselves as experts rather than each other as we resolve this I think something we really have to be careful is that parents and often automatically go still into their norms part okay your second person hasn't started talking we're still on the while you might be ahead I agree with you I hadn't really a part of that but so that makes me wonder do groups like these and meetings like these do they create a list of rules and we're doing that we're just like because I have rules of conduct probably but we're creating a definite set list strictly for defined norms of cooperation and people's ability to understand each other I think theoretically I think that and the previous board did adopt norms or agreements it requires not only the adoption of them and the establishment of them but the commitment to follow them and revisit them to evaluate what the group is doing or how you individually are doing in accordance to your norms and agreements so I think establishing them is the first step and it's important and then keeping them alive and committing to them is another really important part of what I experience I found that well it's hard to read it is hard to read and then finding the headings that told you what you would be doing I feel like we have parent engagement in hiring committees when we first started developing the standards there were parents involved in that committee and then I know that on the individual level there are parents and teachers that discuss things but this seems like it's different and they're learning together and I wonder what that would look like for us we just got a parent last Wednesday on the 8th week and we had 7 staff members a couple of elementary staff members a parent two parents that don't work in them and four people who came to support the person and that felt like an opportunity for us to learn together and I sort of feel like that's what this might be school day I know they plan well beyond because they're often presenting it in service so I think it would ask them once or twice a year to come to address a goal but I think that they'd be open to that and the other thing is we did this with our leadership to actually build the educational units to sign back but we're seeing this is part of a professional growth opportunity so with this many hours of leadership which could be once or twice a year it will be a receiving professional I don't know if you'd buy this but it would be a good opportunity to see what that would be if you wanted to accept it and that's not for me but I wonder if it was potentially distorted in some ways because of school sometimes it might seem like it was but most of the time it's not what it's about so anyway these are just questions how and that the motto of this kind of you know do you feel like with no structure have a top stand have a circular motto is worthwhile to continue to look at I think collaboration is definitely better for them for them it is a good one actually calling us to task I didn't see it but I'm going to say I think the state of us right now as a team I'm going to refer to it as I miss this and I think not in a sense of missing I think we are just all coming together from different communities and the only relationships are how to work with each other and how to communicate with each other and I think in the end I have faith in everyone else that we can get the work done for these to be done and I think we will be very confident in a few months to get to that but I do think the work that gets the work done in respect to each other in respect to our administration we respond to that last thing, the respect for the administrators and the teachers that's I hope that's beyond question but I don't think it is right now I don't think we have gained that trust then we need to get there and that's what I guess I'm referring to what I tell people what I tell people who ask me how it's going on this meeting voyage in the school board is that it's incredibly humbling to be around professionals who continue to learn and keep up with the literature so it's like everyone is always changing and flexible and adapting to policies and procedures and I haven't seen a single person rest on any laurels that's I'm just going to go part of it part of it makes me want to just get the hell out of the way it's so true right at the bottom but that's part of what this is about a board whoever is on the board we are representatives of the community so it's got to be like 10 years ago now when Google really just became big and we went to the technology seminar down in Randolph and it was this guy stood on the stage basically said all your kids are going to use their cell phones one of the first things they want to do is to take the easy way out so they're going to go to the first source they're going to go to the one that's easy to read and understand and then what do they do they quote almost and that's why you need to educate around you know what this is is know how to evaluate and analyze that's the biggest point about anything snow we've got one more we've got to see if the government learning team is one of those that have been working together so school board members and superintendents the school board clarifies the district's purpose by aligning a provided district and values what we just talked about I feel like that is we can reaffirm mission and vision and understand that everything so if you move all the way down understand that everything is connected to everything else so we wrote about this up here so I'm going to try to evaluate everything that was there so if the government's learning team understands that we would understand one more part but not jump once school board hire superintendents charges him a third of tax caring about the district and managing the day to day information so the district can provide it when I was I can tell the tracks are laid down that's not great news it's the western blowing reports about student performance and like position where I can tell which of your teachers are doing the right job and which are not where you're falling down and where you're exceeding I just don't have the tools and that's why they're paying exactly and that's why for me as a board member the micromanaging like that that's not what I want I have my micromanaging and I have my micromanaging and I have to take care of my kids in my household so I think there is a lot of what we offer going to that table as board members and a lot of it is just our daily experience with our own community our own connections with other kids and what they're going through and I do think it's important to have the opportunity to bring that knowledge to the table to help formulate other decisions that have been made for the decision for any type of vision. Oh, but I do think we do bring a lot to the table, even unknowingly. All right, we'll start the final round. Oh, I appreciate that. What do you ask questions? Other than that, I think they're up and trained. So the first set of two groups, we had about five dispositions of behaviors. So this is our group. This is what we bring to the table. And then we also had about five operating procedures for one particular meeting. So the behaviors and dispositions as well as some of the operating procedures really could apply to any meeting or group that happened there. So I appreciate that. There have been a set of norms that have been in practice operating in their shiitimes in the past. And we reflected on these things that we still subscribe to that we still believe help us achieve what we're working on as well. One of the questions I have is just thinking about the morning process that we do. How is what we share with you helpful in the work that you're doing? Is it helpful? Is there other information that would be more important for you to know in order to do your work as the big umbrella in the PLO? So I felt like there's great information in here. Like you're saying a lot of it's common sense on what we should be doing in schools. And the work that's a little bit more important to me is the work that the board now takes time to do. You and me too. I've been in that situation where I was like, you know, where the superintendent pretty much got fired right in front of me as we were presenting data and the board just blocked up and just said okay, we're done. And I was in the wrong chair because I was just a prince, but I was presenting data. And so the norms just did, you know, that's not how it should work. And then people got called for that. I think that any board that establishes good work in the norms means that it's a safe space for us to be able to bring all that information in so that you can deliver. Because I don't want you making decisions on data. That's terrible for you. And so those norms are going to protect all of us. And I do think it should be a safe environment. Being in the school district doesn't help for me. So, you know, we're trying to work the focus of that. You know, this really needs to be on the students. And, you know, that's what we're here for. So this was kind of a good reminder of that for me. Because it's easy for me to get sort of lost in IT operations and it's all computers and hardware and software. But then I really like this because this is also sort of what I've seen in the last few years, isn't it? It's not enough to just have that knowledge to do the same thing and improve it. And that's it. You know, it's really, you really have to prepare. So it's sort of like, you know, ever, ever, you know, how do they sort of work, you know? So, you know, just, you know, it's sort of like this. This might require some, this might be completely not connected but also might require some background information. Mr. Michael, yesterday I was in a museum. All right. We're at the time. I just want to wrap up their thoughts and trickle them. Yes. And I've been there seeing them for two months. So that person was in the job. He said that going over things and they said that one of the most important things that prepared for this job was 14 years of being a parent. And that, like, we were talking about how skills and experience is more beneficial than what we talked about. Kind of about what, like, because in the job description that said that you need a bachelor's to talk about if that was really necessary and what's more important to demonstration of skills and overall communication or versus how you can measure those different things. We also talked a bit about the way that a wide variety of personal and interpersonal communication skills can work together and that you can gain from daily life to that can better help you and better fit you. Record it out? Yeah, we record it out. Yes. Yeah, and Gillian, did you want to facilitate the report out or ask for us to do that? Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about that part. I got all excited. My people, if one member from each of the groups, I don't know, maybe just to work your case in. Okay. Okay. The person with the shortest hair either. And people could report out. I will say facilitating was really super interesting to wander around and listen to the common threats that were going through the conversations and then hear the things that people pick out. I highly recommend it. It's much easier than facilitating students. Somebody from Scott's group, I guess. Mary Lynn? She's right to the bathroom again. Oh, for what timing? Aaron, would you like to? Yes, I'll start. So I think some of the big thing that we talked about was, I guess just, well, we were thinking globally at first that then we started talking like mini-gritty, like, what does it really mean? Not just understanding these teams, but how do you actually make it work? The size of our communities, what's the level of parent involvement currently? Just generally, I mean, you see parent involvement sometimes low depending on the activity. Five parents do, like, get involved in other things. So how can we embrace all of these teams to get enough people participating? When we kind of get into how do we make the model work that we have with what's required to kind of get a little more of the box in terms of the big ideas we talked about. Thanks. I just wanted to have a few words for you. I think that the common thread for us, no matter what we're talking about, is the importance of really building a shared understanding of our purpose and our direction. So whether it's articulating expectations for students or creating a budget or hiring a superintendent or functioning as a governance task or establishing norms for a particular purpose, knowing what that purpose is and not assuming that everybody knows it, but really unpacking it to ensure a shared understanding is done. I'll say we live in a very similar place. Jen, we talked about norms. We talked about having the collaborative work that we do be a safe space and that people feel supported and able to say what they need to and ask the questions that they need to. And we also talked about the necessity for shared vision and shared goals. Making sure that we create the space to do that and also fulfilling all of this functional obligations. Senator Hill-Christens group? I was elected. We had a wide-ranging discussion beginning with a member who was new to the board, the value of board member orientation and how we might improve and enhance that in the future. We also spoke about some of the big ideas in relation to the infrastructure that might be required or need to be created to operationalize the teams that are associated with the governance learning team and how to implement it. And some excitement and interest in jumping right in and getting started, which was very good. And then we segwayed into a discussion about teams that were very highly functional such as the Google research and also norms, which are very, very important in terms of ensuring that we can accomplish the goals we set. And we even use a sports analogy. And what was that analogy? Oh, I'll have to go back and read it for you. I mean, it doesn't come trippingly off the top. E-mortems championships. Oh, oh, oh. Talented teams. Right. Like with George. Right. I remember that one. And finally, we have here from Dorothy's group. What? Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Dorothy. I think our overarching theme was communication and we really didn't all hit on one thing. We were all over the place. But communication between students and teachers about expectations. Communication with parents and teachers and keeping lines of communication open and even and trustworthy. And it was really about communication and how we make that happen. Thank you very much, Gillian. Most grateful. Thanks. So we're on 4.0 reports. You have the superintendent's report on page two. I might first just ask Deborah if there's anything that you want to highlight particularly or and then go to questions. Yes. And I'll be brief. But the most important factors I think are around communication, speaking of that focus. First of all, thanks to Mary Lynn for... Sorry? No, thank you. Okay. Thanks to Mary Lynn for providing us with the summary of the meeting which we published on Front Porch Forum. And we'll be looking for another volunteer or a continuing volunteer at the end of the meeting. So you can hold your hands down until later when you're called upon and then we're looking for those people to jump right out and offer. But that's very helpful getting more information out about our materials. And for the first time in a while, I understand we are going to be permitted to have a full page of the Times Argus periodically every few weeks to feature student activities, not sports related but educationally related from the Times Argus. And we're thrilled about that opportunity to reach out to us. So we're already beginning to put that information together and I'll let you know when it's available for your review. And then I think most importantly, our communities know is that at our last board meeting, the board had voted to post a warning in relation to some technical corrections for our Articles of Agreement. And those are included in my report. They're also posted on the website and they're posted at our town halls, et cetera, to let you know that we will have a vote on the second Tuesday in November, November 6th. And it's very important that the community comes out to assist us in bringing around some necessary changes so that we will have our town meeting held, I'm sorry, our annual meeting held on a day that's more convenient for both our citizens and our members of our board, which is the evening before our town meeting. And also how we vote for various officers and for our budget is also spelled out there. So please take a moment to review the information and mark on your calendars to our community the fact that we are hoping that you'll come out and vote on the 6th of November. The votes will occur at your town offices or school. The warning states which of those is relevant to you personally based on where you reside. If you have any questions, you can call my office or any of our board members. Thank you, Deborah. Questions on the superintendent's report? Deborah? Yes. The meeting with legislators, we should perhaps... Talk about that? Sure. So I've met with every one of the legislators now, senators and representatives that serve our communities and spoke with them about how periodically the board has interacted with them around their own ideas for future initiatives and possibly future legislation. And I asked when would be the best time to accomplish that. And they said really February is not the best time. The best time might actually be in the fall in November. So there's a recommendation on the part of the legislators that we try to convene that meeting and invite as many legislators who are available to attend this fall. And part of the reason for that is because there's an earlier start date now for, or I should say end date, for when new bills can be proposed. And it's the first of December, I believe. So if we don't have some feedback or information to share, suggestions until February, we'll just be in a reactive mode, rather than a proactive mode. So if there's no objection, that'll be the meeting preceding our budget discussion. So we will still have a little time on our agenda. And I'd be happy to go out and make that invitation if you would be agreeable. Great. Thank you very much. So I would suggest that we may have a discussion item on our next agenda, just preparing for the legislators. Whether there's anything specifically as a board, we want to have for them. So, anything else for Deborah? Yes. Last meeting I asked you about emotional, wellness, support, stuff. I forget the exact term. I'm wondering if there's any change in that front. You mean the teacher? Yes. Yes. Well, we have a few things going. I'll just check my calendar. But as I mentioned in my last report, our leadership team has expanded this year, and once a month we are including an afternoon with the curriculum council, which is comprised of teachers from across all the schools, and another time of the month we have a social emotional learning committee also aligned with the leadership team. And they are meeting, I believe it's, I'll have to look at my calendar, but in a few weeks coming up. And part of the work that is underway with that committee is continuing on some of our trauma-informed practice work. Our leadership team is also meeting with David Melnick, who is one of the people who did a quite a lot of professional development here in this district for our staff, and we're meeting with him four times this year. And we also have a small group of people who are doing a book study on one of the recent authors who was very helpful. So, yeah, I think that work is well underway, and I don't know if we had, as a team, talked about whether there's a way to have student voice involved. Perhaps, or in the past, if anyone helped me about that, or would... We can, specifically, but I would like to open the inclusion to Newtown, so we have a conversation more in depth about it and outside of the board meeting to talk about your interests, and about how we might include you. Kelly, are you offering to have that conversation with the town? Absolutely. Alright, awesome. Can you reach out to Kelly in the central office? Okay, perfect. I do believe that our health teacher, Megan Fowley, is working on building a school health advisory committee, as well, so I'm not sure if that's what you might be interested in, and she's looking for parents and community members to join into that, so I'll make sure I share that email with the town's students. That's a good question. There are the increases, four more, really, seven. Since they've been schooled by school, somewhat of an assessment. Is that an assessment by the individual schools? Yes, so I'll speak about... Yes, you're moving on to the next... That's the next part of the report. Well, part of it is, up to the end of page four, then the leadership teams report follows, but they are directly connected because we were the first portion, which is the chart, was actually the result of the consensogram that we spoke of a few meetings ago. Our staff gave us feedback about how well we're implementing our implementation plan, and Alicia and Steven took the raw data that each principal collected and they developed this information, which I'm sharing with you in our report, so that you can see that we are still in the process of working toward implementing several of the objectives on this plan, but the following page, beginning on page five will be turning over to our principals, and they'll speak to some of the more details about implementation in particular of MTSS. Okay, sure. So, Chris, did you have anything in particular that you wanted to sort of probe? Yeah, it seems that there's some expression of need for resources in some of the results, and we're wondering if they're more sufficiently comprehensive to what I wrote at last time about allocating some money from the fund balance to address those needs for this year. So that's some of them address questions like that. That's very true. And I noticed, Deborah, in your report, there is an October 8th 16th an October 8th meeting of administrators to discuss the budget. And then we're, the finance committee is getting together on the 10th. So, perhaps there's an opportunity to kind of work this through that sequence? Absolutely, yes. We had just had an opportunity to review this data for the first time with our leadership team in the last meeting. We're meeting again, well, we meet up twice a month. So we'll continue to probe that. And as you know, this is the point in time when we are examining budget to make recommendations to the board for next year. But I think you're speaking about an immediate response, which is something slightly different. But which will connect of course. Sorry for that. I was just going to say that we want to get a better understanding of what the students' needs are. And so it's not like a one-time money move to one place, but we would be planning for all student needs. The money would be used effectively. So just by transferring the money doesn't mean that we would understand. So we just made that statement right now and transferred that amount of money. It's not comprehensive. So that's the only reason to wait. That's why we would staff it out as administration and then finance committee. So when we come back with something we have something that you can actually look at and sink your teeth into. That's fine. Yeah? Okay. That's great. So should we go then to the leadership team report? Once again if I may just say I really like this static approach which being able to look at at the different schools through the same or at least similar lenses I find it very helpful. Again perhaps if there's something to highlight or just to raise questions about maybe do that because I think the report itself is quite understandable. Sure. I guess we didn't actually look for a spokesperson but if someone from the team would be willing to make a few highlights or we can simply respond to questions. I guess I wanted to know so what we in the empty SS we have 44% level 2 score and a 52 level 3 score. How does that correlate with what we're seeing like if we are using that data to provide us some information do we need do we want to get to a 70% what is this telling us as a board? How do we interpret that from the descriptions here? So the descriptions are really good and I was just trying to figure out how the percentage Well just to I can explain a little bit deeper on page 3 so what that 46% means is that 46% of our staff fully purchased at the beginning stages of implementation so there's a lot more to do and about 40% feel like we're doing it we just need more time to do it what that wrench is that we should get a level 4 according to the implementation plan so we're not quite yet nobody believes where we should be and does level 4 mean 70% or greater is that no so there's no under data analysis there's no teacher there's no scores of a level 4 I know but in the key there's a 70% or greater so when I was looking at this are we trying to get to that for that last section okay I was just going to say are we trying to get to that so when you look at the next sector where we have 80% level 3 76% level 2 the one that really jumps out is the 97% of level 3 and 4 that's where we feel like our teachers feel like our mentoring or training programs are implemented and just need a little bit of maintenance or need some maintenance to them to make it a little better and so that is that's probably our strongest single spot in our data is that we do and let's just say the commitment is high we do 3 days of training for all new teachers in our district to bring them into the work that we do as a district around our student learning outcomes our evaluation process and just the nubs and bolts of how to be in our district and so that shows that our work there we are in a good spot and so that's why that's in the 70% category I think your other question was around the variations like why is there a difference and some of our differences can be looked by buildings so we looked at like okay was that the difference in U32 and all the elementary schools were one of those where U32 was at a level 2 and elementary schools were at a level 3 and that tells us just that okay that's something that the elementary schools have gotten further along in the process and the first question we just ask is why is it something that we didn't focus on here at U32 as much or is it something that needs to grow from the elementary schools to U32 itself and so that's kind of the difference but these are also rather subjective measures yes that's how they feel it it's where the teachers feel like we are as a school how do you feel in our school that we're doing in this particular area which is a good barometer are we communicating well enough what we're doing yeah thanks any other questions in terms of the deadline of the specialization that was committed to the budget for this coming year by October 15th to the agency of education correct why is the agency of education involved in that and do they end up like what do they do with the budget then do they approve it and does it come a finding budget on the district so the service plan is our overall best guess of what we think the needs will be for the following school year so right now that budget that I'm working on is for FY21 and that's used within the legislation to determine revenue for us across the state they take over the overall cost and spending across all of the state and determine the percentage of reimbursement so thank you for the agency of education correct and it will inform our budget good question anyone else and I think this was really well done so thanks very much now spotlight on towns yeah my student report yes we're ready okay so going back a bit in time about a week and a half ago was the finance strike I sadly didn't get arrested we're all sad about that but it was it helped many students that would be 32 help to plan a lot of people showed up can't say exactly how many it was a lot of people though and they marched from high school to the city hall and rallied there for a while and everyone was very excited about that then there was a YATS meeting I'm not entirely sure what YATS is an adult transforming schools together yes yes yes you were some people went on a field trip to go YATS yes then there were auditions for the middle school play and the theater programs are both fully implemented now I checked in on the tech program and they were sorting screws and making sets looked very interesting our seeking social justice program held a community dialogue night talking about hate symbols and hate speech and changes they made to the handbook and I hear that went very well and that there was lots of great dialogue among community members so I don't know how many board members here are in the policy committee another student group that focuses on consent and sexual health among students is planning to present policies of the policy committee on the next meeting to allow teachers to provide condoms dental dams and lubricant to students if they ask for it this might be betraying my own personal bias but this is a very important issue that I know lots of students care about and I know people are really looking forward to talking to the policy committee about this let's see the SATs are October 12 so get ready for that everyone's really excited and the PSATs I believe will be held the next Wednesday at the school of the day is going to be all weird it's pretty exciting another student group that focuses on helping middle schoolers met with middle schoolers they discuss their issues and how to help them and yeah I'm very specific that's my student report it's peer mentoring peer mentoring that's the official name for it yes thank you towns and it's my understanding that you and me are going to alternate attendance is that what in the future well I don't know that's what floor he had to sit they've asked for that because of their so that's why we're here today so we'll see you next minute with the following you're always welcome you're always welcome and we'll keep you posted as well are Mia in towns on the WC UU the SB at U3 2.4 we'll make sure we will we'll get your exact email you can't imagine how long I had to practice that it rolled right off the town yes thank you towns very much any questions for towns actually yeah at the last meeting you asked the question of your principle what would happen if you got arrested for the protest and that sort of led to this discussion of what the policy is that it's an unexcused absence just that you were sick and couldn't play sports and on Friday you could do it on Saturday there was a post I think on middle sex about that policy and I spoke to a teacher at a high school who said look at this and talk about changing that policy they looked and found some way to give students who participated credit for community activity community engagement or something so my question in here is you know really honestly how many of the kids who missed school that Friday were doing it to engage in the issues and engage in the protest and not as sort of not that I would accuse anyone of doing this but I think you know what I mean as an excuse to miss classes for a day and the second part of that is is there a sentiment among the students who did sincerely participate that policy AD32 should be looked at and changed so to answer your first question the majority of students who have a me 32 I talked to didn't miss the whole day they went and then they returned to the school and they participated in the rest of their classes I missed the whole day and I know some other people who did but the majority of students I talked to went back to school so maybe they were using it to skip some amount of school but they did return so I don't know the second part I think that there was a lot of conflict between people specifically and sports teams who wanted to be able to pursue that activity I know I understand a lot of people didn't attend the strike because they wanted to be able to participate in the sports that day and I think that the overall consensus we got from them that was that they found it irritating but they weren't they weren't going to pursue anything to change it and they didn't think it was necessary to really change it that much thank you I appreciate it interesting can I expand a little bit I got several emails from several parents about the policy and I directed them all to speak to Steven but while we were in the protest I was going to say that I was there and most of the students that went totally wanted to be there and some didn't participate in the Manchester meet and stuff like that like they really wanted to be there and there were a few members of the community especially Terry Allen who's a reporter for the New York Times and she was very strong and I said to send you an email too and I said I hope you guys didn't do permission to the kids I hope that they understand that you know what consequences are and that they're willing to break the law for their beliefs so I just want to share that because she was and it was really interesting to hear from her and it changed the mind of a bunch of students as she was speaking they were like okay we'll accept the consequence so it was an interesting point at least for me because I received a lot of meet parents you know like that were very upset about not giving them permission so it was I feel comfortable that whatever you know we just need to be clear so that Steven gets out of the policy I had a conversation with a community member along those same lines right this is civil disobedience right civil engagement there are consequences in the real life this is not a safe space right you're talking about going out in public and protesting they're a content that's what the policy committee decided it's very interesting I did hear that there were some students preparing some sort of statement to present to the policy committee but they haven't come forward yet so I'm curious if other board members had any communications sent their way I did I received a comment on one but I think it was handled you know very well by the students too yeah exactly I think that needs to be said as well I would just offer one of the ways that I thought about this because these decisions are never easy but one of the ways that I thought about it is that one of the things we want students to do is learn how to make tough decisions and if we have some opportunities to make decisions then we don't prepare them for life in which they have to so I know that it was difficult the kids see it as that one event too and we really have this as a policy across the entire year for a variety of events and a variety of students and so I think that us holding true to the one standard that we have for participating in co-curriculars which is U-10 school which is a great requirement or anything like that and so the kids were thoughtful about it and there were some that chose not to be in school so that they could be at the climate rally and in making that decision they also knew that they could participate in co-curriculars and it wasn't just kids who were in sports and we had a robotic scene and we had some other events that were going on as well so I think all in all the kids do well yeah good very interesting very good sorry Debra as I may mention to you before some of our administrators well all of our administrators have early days in the morning so if this is an appropriate time I just wanted to know if the board wouldn't mind excusing any of them who wish to take their leave and journey home if that's all right unless there's more questions for them I know when we have our budget season they will be here for the duration we can kill them who anybody object to that I certainly don't object or also you that's I might have to take you up on that offer okay so we're very I'm going to move to officially say if any administrators want to leave they'll end time they are free to do so thank you yeah so you want to move it and do it as a formal action okay so Chris has moved to release our captive audience okay release administrators captive administrators and student if they wish to be released do we have a second Dorothy seconds any further discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposed none opposed okay go in peace so now 5.0 consent agenda we have the minutes of September 18 on page 12 are there any changes to those minutes you want a motion please yeah thank you floor moves we need a second Chris seconds great now any changes to the minutes just one small typo at 4.1 floor is listed as Daz Smith oh I didn't see it thank you maybe that was your hip hop name so that should be Daz Smith and then on 4.2 on the last paragraph for Yast it talks about the gap between students and teachers is that what Yast is about bridging the gap it's not the gap between students so actually there is part of their mission is to bring students and teachers together to work on issues and so bridging the there was a term that was used called bridging the gap for a group of students who did this work in the past that might be where that comes from okay okay good but that's correct characterization okay great good that's all I've got what where is that oh I see no in right you're right if you can do a global replace Lisa wherever there's J A E I L if you can replace it with J A I E L oh yeah yeah thanks channel anybody else okay if you're ready all in favor of approving the minutes of September 18 please say I opposed none opposed okay so we have now the board orders yeah thank you we would need a motion I'll make a motion to approve the board orders one for 188,550 with nine cents 188,550 with nine cents and one for 129,650 with 54 cents second I'll second it okay any questions about the board orders I do have a question but I'm assuming there will be something I asked for in the beginning of the board there's several great amount of power and there's one in there for 441,550 it's not legal for the waiter my question is is that one month in central office where as the rest are actually probably I actually have our own meter but we can certainly find that out and email you back sure it stood out to me too as a really high number $400 for that building over there for one month I mean it's almost as much as a building I don't know if it's one month or but I'll definitely look and we'll look into it and get back to you thank you my name is Bitcoin on the side I have one I have one question listen thank you for those surprises okay actually I noticed also that there's a lot of orders for Amazon and I'm wondering are these purchases necessary to go through Amazon or could they be procured locally I don't really look at them individually but generally we use Amazon because of the speed and they're usually the least costly of all available vendors we use them often for supplies and for technology but if you wanted a fuller accounting I'd have to bring those in a future I was assuming it looked more like excessive this month just because it was a lot of the beginning of school or stuff that teachers yeah I don't know if there's a procurement I wouldn't go so far as to call it a policy but you know a tendency maybe just to procure locally wherever possible if it's if it's way out of line and of course it has to be reasonable part of it is the convenience of online versus traveling we have a very large selection of instructional materials here in the Montpelier area some would probably have to travel to Burlington and you know we just sometimes have some highly specialized needs but I could certainly understand the desire to raising it to the level of awareness I would like to just say as a board that we be careful of questioning much of that because I think quite often the convenience the speed the no shipping cost if you order through some of the educational materials you're going to order anyway and there's going to be shipping at 10% or whatever so I just think yes you can bring it to awareness but as a board I don't want to question much of that I think point well taken I guess I was thinking along the lines of in the summer school project where it was learned that the herbs that we ship in from California could be grown in our own greenhouse but the pencils and books can't yeah yeah goes without saying the no you don't you know environment policy with all the with that increase environmental hazard or not but if we're going to have environment policy of trying to be at least intrusive then we would contact these things I'm aware of well there's contract prices places that schools get to through either WB Mason or Staples or any of those but they're being shipped from wherever so I think we have an expert opinion over here so just so you all have some context as well whenever we use federal funds to make purchases we are required to go through a procurement process so we have to look at at least three vendors and do some price comparison and then provide the rationale for why we're going with a vendor that we're going with so there's a lot of scrutiny and due diligence it's a requirement of being a steward of federal funds good thank you no every single time you see federal funds in the procurement materials and we did a search on sam.gov to make sure that whoever you chose is allowed to be paid there's nothing outstanding that would not allow them to be paid in any way so it's really thorough and we're monitored on a regular basis for that great wonderful I think this is the most the best back and forth over board orders that we've had in a long time so we're ready for a vote all in favor of the motion that Floor made and Lindy seconded please say aye any opposed none opposed good all right committee reports negotiations so we had a meeting with Suzanne Kulver myself and Debra in the room over at the central office and Shawnee on the video conference which I think worked quite well I would recommend that the camera be moved to the bottom of the TV so that the person watching isn't sort of watching from above we didn't really you know there was a lot of familiarization I had met Suzanne before for some reason they elected me chair they promised it was pro forma I'll hold you to that thank you the first thing we're going to do is together on October 29th I'll talk about the interest based bargaining process which I'm looking forward to learning about we spent some time in the executive session talking about previous negotiations and things that should stay in the executive session and that was all the action we took I look forward to working with Suzanne and Shawnee with George and Lindy on this as this is along with everything else and I made an approach that's all I'm saying do you have a standard time and date for your meetings or just the next one we don't just the next one but we did receive the letter that I have signed from the union they're intense to negotiate the successor agreement we look forward to joining you for the IPB training October 29th and just one addition the regional the association has formed and they've changed their name to the Washington Central Educators Union including teachers and support staff from all the member bargaining groups they've elected co-chairs for both teachers and support staff and they will have eight representatives on the teachers and support staff side for negotiations so we will they'll be prepared to join us and we'll be looking at setting dates within the next few weeks do we know who the co-chairs are for negotiations John on that letter that you have is the chair co-chairs of the leadership team as a whole but they didn't have available all of the negotiating team members that's okay thank you great thank you anything more for for negotiations rather well in the answer to your answer we couldn't set dates until they send us the email saying they were ready and then once we're all together the dates would be set and they'll be there too for that October 29th yes they will my question October 29 the IVB is that the one that you were saying that was open as does that reminder it is it's open and it's really helpful thank you so that training is three to four hours in length it starts at 5 p.m. and it's going to be here at U32 of the members of our team but we had said earlier if there are any board members who wish to join out of interest you're welcome to do that as I've said before I think this is one of the best things we do it's really very very good so October yes great are we ready to move on to policy so we had a meeting on the 3rd of September it was well attended actually enthusiastic about wow and we didn't do any policy making or proposing at that point but I think during this go around we'll be talking about the election spending policy the library policy and and section A of the booklet as well and we'll get right section A of the book it's open work our way through the various policies and proposals that we do is as we get through them presented to this board so that you're not in and out dated all at the end great go through them in a systematic way and either adopted or not adopted or proposed changes to them but as we move along rather than waiting at the meeting since June when we have that and all that so as we get them done we'll be listening to you folks and our next meeting is October 22 is when town stands town said we'll have some interesting policies to grapple with that one is earlier at 4.30 and we will meet at the central office for that one great those are all open meetings yeah alright thank you very much anything else for the policy committee good then let's move on we have a board organization and planning number one superintendent search consultant okay we have you've seen these documents before we have them in a hard copy here's the situation I will ask floor to back me up from this if you would please what we had initially wanted to do was in addition to Mark Andrews whom you remember briefed us we're not going into executive session did you want this is fine well we have the camera so it's anyway that's right we wanted to be public Mark Andrews briefed us in executive session and you saw documents that he I sent around electronically documents related to his proposal to us to help as our consultant in the superintendent search as I try to open an envelope and talk at the same time so Stephen I think he needs a watching bin yeah really so what we wanted to do is not just go necessarily with Mark just because he did the last one and it worked out well right we wanted at least to investigate the possibility of another and this is what floor undertook yeah so we reached out to try to get different proposals but they were unable to commit and send another proposal and because of the timing so it's up to the board our recommendation would be to start sooner rather than later but we were trying to get a Brian O'Regan to help us and he was unable to commit the time right now at this particular time and so we at the moment have just one proposal for Mark Andrews so you know yeah rather than mess around and for what seems like not much potential gain we figured we would just propose to engage Mark for this one as well known quantity I think he developed I understand that a good relationship with those who worked with him last time and we can get up and running with this pretty quickly so what I would entertain is a motion to empower me to inform Mark that he is I was just going to take my shoes here you go there's more more more different yes anyway getting back to the motion the motion would be to approve engaging Mark Andrews as our consultant for the superintendent search for a non-interim superintendent permanent superintendent beginning in the 2020-2021 school year if someone would be willing to make such a motion I would make that motion to sign a contract with to engage him formally as our consultant thank you Dorothy he has proposed $5,500 SSV and he has basically a description of the services that he is going to be providing us that you have before you the question is well whatever questions you ask seems perfectly reasonable to me he helped us before he spent the vast majority of his career in I expect the consultant with this CV is going to ask at least $100 an hour 55 hours I think that's not an unreasonable my time or an unreasonable cost some of the things that he said was at meetings things to happen to do things not just meet have it resolved at the meetings he actually proved that last time so we'll move the process along pretty well it's just an impression except for the cookies cookies okay what I want to know though does anybody is there any uneasiness about this anybody no okay I think the clarification that we should make is that this is just for hiring a consultant it doesn't mean that the process is set this is just a proposal the hiring committee hasn't met so we haven't decided so it doesn't mean that you're signing on exactly what this is what he plans to do but it doesn't mean that there's not going to be more participation that you're out of it says to complete other tasks necessary that results the election and apply them to be superintendent yeah good all right in that case are we prepared to vote great all in favor of approving the contract with mark andrews as our consultant in the superintendent search please say aye aye any opposed none opposed great can you tell me who made that motion yes chris and dorothy and dorothy yes there's another there's sort of a subheading to the same to the same item we need to inform or I as chair need to inform the secretary of education of our action this is part of the rule 3000 series so that the secretary of education can consult with the state board and see if they want to redraw the lines of the supervising or the the superintendency I guess before we hire one so that's the purpose of informing the secretary of education I don't expect it will be much more than a formality but just so that you understand would you can we just have consensus am I sending such a pro forma letter to the secretary of education great it's required thank you very much so 8.2 schedule for board goal monitoring page 22 so in our board work plan there have been different touch points in which the board is looking for information and in October there was a request to have an update on the math in particular because there had been concerns about that it's also the time that we typically reviewed the overall performance for the district by looking at a triangulation of the data including our local assessments primarily the star 360 I think you've heard us talk about that and then of course our progress report outcomes and our ASPAC which is a result so the myself and the leadership team are pulling that report together we're going to be reviewing the first draft of it which I've just finished a few days ago next week when we meet and then we'll present that information to you which we hope will also inform discussions about budget so that will help I believe so I also wanted to point out that just to help us the board keep focused on our goals that I thought I would structure my report around the three goal areas and if there's anything in particular that anyone would like us to focus on or have me to report out or our administrative team to report out please let me know and I will do that anybody want to take up Deborah on her offer so the questions that would be about what is the data telling us how we feel about that is our current performance acceptable if not what would be I'd like to hear what would be the proposed plan to improve performance and how that the full load is effective or is anticipated to be effective because you never know until the end whether it is but just the how to achieve a different result sure I have just the options like that you're welcome I believe we went to a new math program yes yes so I'm not sure the data would be effective in showing any outcomes of that change yet no but as I look back at the last monitoring report the board received in October of 2018 it was recognized that math was an area of focus and there was a goal set to try to achieve a year's progress in a year and while we didn't have the new program we had updated the curriculum which as you know is content information that drives the how we move forward with our day to day practices and the math program is really a set of materials which provides further guidance but so there were some adjustments made last year there were at least one school had some additional math intervention support and as you saw from the report that was reviewed earlier more schools are seeking additional math intervention support in this next round of budgeting so but in addition to that we have been working on practices so we're hoping to see improvement and so when you report this out will you also report out on what professional development is taking place in mathematics I think that's important and just to reflect on this too this is not completely new so there is try to help us keep up to date with what we did in October so the questions came from the quality committee that is not existing right now but we spent a lot of time between all the schools thinking about what we wanted the data to say and then we narrow it down to this for questions because we wanted to have enough information to be able to you know do what you're saying what would we need to make it to make it better and then the last thing would be that we can't we didn't want to wait so I was pretty preachy about this because we said we wanted to know because every school set up different goals but last year and we said we will report back in October so like to hold ourselves accountable and not lose track because we have had so many other things so we keep track of the kids which is what we want to do great and it'll just be helpful understanding equity too and that's the most important part it would really help us understand where each school where we are all together academically one thing that we were discussing was when we look at data we want the good the bad the ugly I just want to reiterate when that comes to us good news and bad news you'll get it all great it's highly confidence building actually I don't think we can improve unless we recognize where our challenges are agreed other points that you'd like to see highlighted at this point sorry the focus I'm not because that was identified as a specific area of me correct in prior years is there data on other subjects yes we will focus on literacy mathematics in particular this time can you is there somewhere on our website that we can read about the new math program that we just implemented just to have an overview of it I don't think it is but we can definitely post information about it absolutely no problem so could anyone point me to where those goals are yeah that was yeah we can send I can send that past can you send it to the board of us yeah we have it was that in that email that I sent no I wasn't I'll find everybody if you want to send it to me I'll send it out send it to them but we looked at it last October 18th last year we were all like yeah everybody is she yeah for good times everybody so we also I think the general goal from our implementation plan is one year's growth in a year for every student that was another one of them I'm not sure if that was one of the goals that you set last year but it was set back in 2016 yeah I think Jen probably has that cause he's cool yeah yeah I did ask but she returned me back to the documents I already seen well anyway we'll track it down don't worry I have faith excellent so this is listed as an action item but I think if we're in agreement about doing it this way we don't have to necessarily vote on it yeah so you're okay with me just as we speak changing it in our four goals yeah you get a print out of the four goals it would be in there sure okay so dates for community budget forums page 23 so these were some dates that Scott and our board had our board steering team had recommended for your consideration so the idea would be to have early input while the budget's still in process by January 15th we will likely have voted on the budget because of the timing required to warn and publish the budget so the remaining meetings would be for information and then your final informational meeting would be the annual meeting and that's the night before town meeting but open to suggestions yeah how does it look to you I think it looks reasonable my question is how were the locations selected based on where the board meets those are board meeting dates they would precede except December 11th it's a special meeting so that could be a different location if you wish but we talked about U32 being a central place but we could certainly go to any school yeah I was fine with it if they're on the regular rotation I have a question on this memo it says the annual meeting Monday March 9th the town meeting is the third so isn't it Monday March 2nd yeah absolutely that's a mistake good catch thank you we don't want to be meeting a week after that will not help us not at all and that would also be the 5th March 2nd we had unless the board wishes to choose another date so that would be March 9th if you want to make a note of it and the annual meetings are typically I don't know about you but I think in many schools they're later in the evening to allow for more participation but you can start it whenever you wish if 7 is too late we can go earlier use your regular meeting time at 6.30 we just have to be sure we warn it that way we don't have the point of doing that when you 32 did it on the night before was it at the normal board time like 6.30 but you guys started earlier meetings 5.30 or 6 I think it's got to be like 5.30 or 6 for the elderly people too that don't want to be out too late no it's just that it was coming that's why we moved hours through the morning and there may be snow that time we hope that there will be snow there will be snow would you like to change it to 5.30 well this whatever the annual meeting it says at 7.00 p.m. oh it says at 7.00 I see that 5.30 or 6.00 p.m. what goes up your schedules close community members like working at work at 5.00 p.m. I see both sides of it but I'm a little reluctant to change that annual meeting time I think 6.30 or 7.00 p.m. 6.30 is our normal log 6.30 6.30 not a lot is going to happen you're going to think about the budget and any other reports about the school district you wish to make usually do a celebration of exactly correct yes it's a very celebratory I believe Steven shared that it's usually just a party of two who were here on the night before the night before town meeting wasn't it at town meeting no we had a free town meeting everyone every Monday before Saturday we had quite a picture in 25 we can talk about this at greater length later and maybe try to do it up in style for starters I think it was in March it should be sugar I'm smelling that's close to this really do you want to take action it's up to you we'll just do it as an agenda as far as the consensus whatever you want do we have a consensus on this do we need to January 15 is probably the last budget right exactly and then January 15 we really have to have it nailed down so consensus on the dates everybody's okay with it great wonderful thanks do we have hires to approve not to approve but I would like to just make an announcement and express appreciation Alex Rob who has been the director of the community connections program for five years is leaving in about a week to take a position at community financial part of his background was financial he's going to be going back to his roots we have already located a person who can take over for him it's one of our current site coordinators her name is Kim Bouldock Kim Bouldock and she has been with the program for 18 years since its inception and we're very excited she will have about a week of overlap with Alex before he leaves so I just would like to publicly thank him for his devotion to the program he's an excellent been an excellent leader in continuing that program over many years so thanks to Alex for his hard work I could have told you that 6th grade there we go you knew he was going to turn out well so you did fantastic alright so anyway just a welcome and a farewell thank you great anything else on this before we move on to public comments okay I think so I think you're right so future agenda items we still have a CV fiber which I think it's seems like a can I make a suggestion please just saying it on it take it off one is December 1 let them on the agenda I don't want to talk to them all about me don't get them on the agenda it's just going to keep getting dropped I think we can cover today but the others I know that the board had talked about the renaming done over winter to try to get input and then maybe make a decision by the end of the school year to rename the district I think that would be a good combination to put in some of the budget meetings where we're getting community input and student input I think getting the word out there that is a consideration and having an opportunity to make feedback would be a good time to incorporate that during the budget meetings yes and the policy committee had also spoken about possibly having a discussion about the elementary school choice option during the budget meetings as part of a community conversation about the future we don't looking back at our articles of agreement that's not an action the board would take this year but having some feedback from the community about how they feel about it would be helpful this is good we have other ideas in the same vein I would love to have that conversation as a board just to kind of get a feel I don't even know how everybody here feels about the school choice I would love to have that conversation we'll only put on the next good time absolutely very good along with legislative that is preparation for meeting with the legislators can I ask a question about that where would I find bills that might be coming well we're at nine session right now in the future it would be on the website for the legislators there's a section that talks about bills that are under consideration that have been filed bills that are in committee it's well organized most of them are most of them are out of education for us there and Vera CV fiber we're waiting for them to complete their survey because their survey is underway and then that was what I was told by their callous rep what about solar power solar power is there another winter issue it was a topic that was brought up in the summer I don't know what do you mean by that well Stephen there are a number of things that were kind of in the works if we could in U32 okay I'll check with Stephen I think that there one thing that has held up a lot of schools are moving forward with solar panels because there has been some of the incentives have been reduced and when they were in place it was you know, I think easy for for example Efficiency for Monit one time was funding 50% of the district's investment if you were to move ahead with the solar installation now most people are looking at it as a lease arrangement and in order to do that you have to sign out to a very lengthy contract which is something that you would need to discuss about usually 20 years in length and then at the end of that time you would own the product so that's a much different question than purchasing financing it on your own and probably not really operating all that well by that time they say that they have a life of 20 years but that point you'd have to re-place that so that's the issue right now is that there's not a great field for solar just one more question do you have a conversation with the fellow who was concerned about the snow types yes we met with the bus company we met with some folks from the school or the town that had concerns and we've actually got a plan to move forward with some change in the way that the tires are being utilized right now moving toward replacing the steerage tires with snow and we had a lengthy conversation about the different options available given all the road conditions that we drive over so I think everyone left with the we had no guests tonight so I think that means that we're making progress and when it's finalized I'll write a report back to everyone we're about two weeks away from getting it all finalized yes we're excited the key indicator here yes so anything more on future agenda items reflection in summary of meeting Marilyn did a great job on the last one but well I was thinking I think the deal was that you wouldn't yeah that it would be shared around and I know I will do it but I do have to wait till I see the rough draft a minute so we don't forget something that's reasonable we usually we have to have them ready out in five days so we don't get them by then they often make sooner than that yeah often just so you know future agenda item I would like to have a report out on proficiencies degrading and where that needs for the graduating class of 2020 because I know there were some hiccups a long way and I haven't really heard how they've been addressed or solved or where does that mean graduating class good one, yeah this is the first year this is the first year this is the experiment class did you want that next meeting or a future we never fits in okay we'd be happy to the proficiencies I would like for it to be well prepared if it's I would defer to you Debra well our plate is very focused on budget at this time and providing the monitoring report which will include some reference to proficiencies and grading but I would prefer if we could wait another few weeks before we had that in-depth discussion if that's all right yeah is the notification going to be out about the committee meetings the dates we have not set regular dates for negotiations the finance committee dates are already on the board calendar and the policy committee has a meeting coming up which I think yeah that one we haven't set meetings regular meetings yet with that group but okay that's right I found the reward of the website to be very helpful okay perfect thanks for the input the meeting resources page is terrific okay well we took your suggestion as you can tell we have a very responsive team they had to go home but they're very responsive that's right there are proficiencies are there sort of things that you want stressed because that might inform who comes to present or what's going to be presented same with you same with you so one of my specific questions is there was definitely a gap in meeting a proficiency that wasn't offered in a math class so I would like an update like I know over the summer some of it was addressed but I also want to know future wise how is it being addressed and there was a staffing issue I'm not sure that that staffing position got replaced because I think this it was a reduction in staff in last year's budget so I just want to know the standards for proficiencies for graduation have been addressed for the next class and where we stand right now at our senior class okay is this correct? and if needed can I give you a call or send you an email there's follow up questions okay thank you great anything more reflection and summary of meeting next steps for board members Dorothy thank you very much finished before 9 o'clock pretty close really but yeah so anybody has anything else just want to thank all of you very much as always and look forward to seeing you next time this setup seems much more engaging than what we had in Doty Doty went too far apart too much space in between and the audience members too so whenever we are just coming up to have more closer quarters just to whether it's easier to talk to each other and hear each other it fills the distance I couldn't agree more doing meetings in gyms the Doty library is small we could have done it there or one of the classrooms with bigger furniture the 5-6 classrooms have furniture that's a little bigger than the kindergarten and first grade or I could tell us I think we could use a musical because there's not a whole lot of stuff there right I like the library it's hard to have them but it's not as spacious the musical we'll explore and also there have been suggestions that we purchase or procure a speaker system so that people can hear one another and the audience can hear us so we're looking into amplifiers and microphones for us for the future and whatever we purchase it'll be portable so we can bring it with you wherever you go we could be examples of what not to do in a public speaking class like 32 which is big up more and make sure it is in a room like this right, but in a room like this with a lower ceiling the acoustics are much better as we know good so if there's nothing else shall we adjourn by consensus at 908 thank you