 You have in front of you a copy, this is something that John Handolph was starting to bury about six, eight months ago, and he told me the idea back in June that all the board chairs and the principals in case the superintendent isn't around, it's not that I would have this all on top of my head either, have a copy of open meeting law in front of them laminated. So if there's a question about process for the board, you have it in front of you, you can just keep that with you and the second sheet has the seven exemptions for why you would go into an executive session. Got it. Okay, so just keep it in the binder if you need it. You've got it and you can use that in your motions for stating why you would go into the executive session. I think our board chair should have that memorized and we should give them, you know, give me a test, a proficiency test. No, no, that's just a little cruel. That's why we gave you the handouts. I thought when John told me that in June. I think to be fair, if you really want to go down that road, every board member should know all of those. So just wanted to, trying to, when I get up to waste, I hope the sports board is better than trying to do it. I'm just saying that. No, I think this is a good idea actually. Yeah, it's John's idea. I want to give all credit to our creditors too. I think it was a great idea by Mr. Pandolson, by East Montpelier resident that he is. Yes, he is the type of the crowd. Okay. We are at the consent agenda, 2.1 approved minutes of 6.6.18, 6.13.18, 6.14.18, and 8.218, just start on page 2. I would make a motion to accept the minutes of June 6th, June 13th, June 14th, and August 2nd as a sleep. I'll second it. Is there any discussion of the minutes as presented? I was not at the 6.14 meeting. Does it matter? I was going to abstain on just that one, but what can I choose? It does not matter. It does not matter. Okay, so never mind. You can always approve minutes even though you're not there. Okay. I did read them, so. I'm not seeing or hearing any discussion. All those in favor of approving them as presented, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstain? Thanks. Discussion agenda, Act 46. We had our meeting for the State Board of Education, and it's probably right on the paper. So far, they look favorable as far as the meeting when Scott, Matt, and myself presented to a pretty full room. Bill was there in support, too, to a pretty full room of their, the capacity is 100, and they had to ask some people to leave from other towns so that we could all be there. All of the, you know, I don't know, except I don't, I didn't see the list, but, you know, most of the people are similar to our last, that's pretty sixth meeting, but there were a lot more people than before. I think it went, I felt like we were well represented. We went back and forth over the weeks on what to say and who to go first, and what to do. John Brainbite did that video. Happy to forward it to you guys. Also, Orca has a video if you're, guys are curious about that, and now in essence, so I gave, I started, I originally didn't want to start because I wanted Matt as the chair to start, but we went back and forth, back and forth. And I'm mostly just said, you know, more about, you know, trying to appeal to their humanity kind of thing. And then Scott and Matt were more concentrated on the debt issue. Janet Ansel was there, too, and we handed the chair original letter, the one she submitted to them and not just in all the town's behalf. We, you know, we gave them the, we submitted the written response that everybody had approved. And as far as, I don't know, I felt it went well. I felt it went well. I'm who are always asking people to watch their behavior, you know, like what they put I, I had a little bit of a hard time on because Scott and I had sort of rehearsed and we all had gone through what they're going to say. And Scott came to the meeting without his page, but at different blue notes. So he started, he started really, really good. And then towards the end, it was just, you know, it was a little, it was a little hard. But, you know, it's just, it's the nature of being in a meeting. I just, I mostly read because I didn't want to get, of course. But I think if you've read the articles, it seems like both the Dan French and John, they were both listed. I know you mean, I can't think of a class. John, I get car, I think, yeah. And I did, he asked us a very interesting question. And I originally felt like we didn't totally respond to it, right? Matt did good respond, but we didn't, he was asking what was the difference between that first district that presented and asked. And, you know, they also had debt issues. And it was, you know, it was good. We were able to talk to him a little bit after the meeting. So one of the other presenters had a similar situation. Yeah, the first one. So the past two board meetings, I'm sure they'll do a third. They brought in districts that emerged. Right. And so there was a comparison between Addison Central and Washington Central. And, you know, they had some... Between us and... Addison Central. Yeah, very similar, I would say. I think that was the right characteristic, I think they are. I think we, actually I know because Peter and I have talked about what they've gone through and what their debt loads were and all that. It is very similar. It's almost, it's uncanny how similar it is. Yeah. Yeah. But what was different from, what is different from them is that they didn't even have, so they have had to do more of the systems. So we have some of the systems in place, right? That we have, everybody has the same, uses the same computers. Everybody, in theory, we're all into one common five-year, we have a real booklet. So we're not like completely on the same page, but they hadn't, they didn't have that at all yet. So it's, it has been a little bit easier for Peter now. So what's farther down the road of cooperating and collaborating maybe than they were? Yeah. So, and one thing that I think Matt used to write, quote, and it was on paper too, is that sometimes people can't eat, you know, you can have all the systems you want, but people can also eat systems away, right? So, if you don't have that buy-in, and in any case, we were trying to make our case. So, regardless of how he's one failure felt, I feel like we tried to separate ourselves a little bit and say, you know, please approve our alternative, right? I mean, I think ultimately that's, that's the rub, right? Is that there are districts who not only aren't bought in, but are pretty dug in against. Yes. So, and we've done a lot of work to bridge those gaps. So the danger is that if we get glommed together, then all of that goodwill will go away. And it'll end up being negative. Everybody in their corner again. I'm digging under here, but maybe not. But, you know, so we are pretty much at their mercy right now. Yeah. So, I don't, I just want to ask, you know, what, what we think the next steps are. Can I merge the Executive Committee report with this? Yeah. So, Executive Committee, Matt, last week. So, we've taken two steps. One, we've authorized the board chair and the superintendent to outreach to Twinfield, to begin discussions with them about the possibility of the discussion, to initiate discussions about merger with Twinfield. And it's, so it's, it's a preliminary just to be, lay the groundwork. So, if they're interested in it, we can have discussions about, is that something we want to do or not? They bring, was it 150 high school students? 500 A.M. So, it could, it could make a significant impact if we added 150 students to U32. Because they would look at Twinfield now, not as a, they've already told us in a meeting that they would be willing, they're not willing, they're willing to talk about changing their structure. They told us that last spring. They told us a year, almost a year ago, they told us that. They said, where are you willing to talk about closing our high school? I just find it interesting that we, six schools, can't come together. How we bring some as a reward. Well, let me, let me finish with what the Executive Committee's doing. We'll also, we're, well, Chris McVeigh and I are, we're building a structure to begin discussions on articles of agreement. So, the impression, there was a general feeling in the Executive Committee that we're going to merge. So, we're, we're going to establish a framework to begin talks on two to three, maybe four articles of agreement. Just because this all happens, we'll find out about this the end of November, beginning of December. And if it is to merge, and we've done nothing, we're in, you know, the state gives us the articles of agreement, and we've got a month or two to decide if, to propose changes. So, we want to pick the most contentious things. So, well, the question tonight, it's pretty clear we're going to move in this direction. We'll establish two or three or four committees. I'm thinking it's going to be three separate committees, each to work on an article of agreement. So, it's going to require. So, I'm sorry, maybe I lost you. Is this to talking to Twinfield? No. So, for instance, the one I brought up, I said, I think it would be prudent, I wasn't looking for more, I was looking for one, that we should start having a discussion on articles of agreement around debt. Because in one of the meetings Janet was at, she suggested there were ways that we could potentially get a little creative around the debt. In the executive committee, it was debt, governance, and there were one or two others that came up. School closure. School closure, with a four. So, the executive committees have all been asked to go back to the board meetings this month. And considering those three or, I mean those four, or if there was another one, but debt, governance, school closure, Yeah, I mean, what would the local boards like, are saying the most critical articles? The most critical and prioritized. So, if we were going to work on one article of agreement, what would it be? If we were going to work on three, what would they be? And what would be our first choice or second choice and our third choice? So that I can bring that back to the executive committee to help frame what we're going to put in place. So, I know I'm kind of monopolizing some time, but is there any thought on two or three articles and what would be the most important? I think that's what has always thrown out through this whole thing. But I don't think that's our concern necessarily. We already have the debt. Yeah, no. We're the ones that are blamed and the public, as we don't want to pay some players debt. I understand. I think, at least for me, the most important would be governance and trying to bring, because there's a lot of people that have are heavily invested in the other boards and know more about the debt. And we already, like if we initiate the debt, we already are who are seeing us in closing this and bullying into that. So I think if we, I don't know how we're going to structure that, but one thing that we talked through at least through the 706B and could help us with the community engagement and the local control and governance is to look more in detail to the councils that we were talking about having in school. To try to get that by in, I think that we would, there were a lot of people really interested in that and that could help move forward our governance structure. It's just another fear of not having a voice. Yeah, and it's something important for the schools and some other districts, well, some other people have been involved in the F-46 are now kind of going backwards to trying to create them because they see the need. So if we, that's just my. I would agree that governance, I mean at the end of the day, this is a governance change. So the thing in my mind that presents the most opportunity and danger is the governance change. What does the oversight look like? How do we preserve what we're doing in this building that we know works that may not be the same as some of the other schools in the district? How do we, and I understand that that's also a double-edged sword, right? If you make too much room for individuality, then you end up with one board, one budget, and everybody doing what they've been doing right along, which may not always be best practice. So designing that structure by which those decisions, whether they're curricular or operational, and making sure that the community has a clear understanding of how to engage their local folks and all of those, I think, are really important pieces to this. And I would assume that we would be doing this parallel to talking to Twinville in two ways, if we would consolidate or if they would change the structure, keep their own board. Like we can't totally say we're just giving them both options depending on what our structure looks like. Yeah, depending where we end. Yeah, it's too early to suggest anything I would say on Twinfield. Twinfield is about beginning a discussion. Yeah. And I don't think, I don't mean to presume anything. It's about opening some communications. So there's no idea where that's going to go. Yeah, but what I mean is that opening that communication and giving them both possibilities, right? Because we don't know yet where are we going to end. I understood. I think they understand that. Yeah. That at the executive committee level, and Bill, you can chime in if you want to add. I think debt and school closure were the two big ones. And I think actually of the executive community members of which governance was a major concern for them, they expressed a bigger concern over school closure. I think what the executive committee was thinking is where are the biggest pockets of resistance in the communities? And if there could be, if the communities could see an article of agreement on debt that seemed fair, then there are a lot of people who are opposed because of debt. Yeah. And there are a lot of people who are opposed. You can hear it from some of the community members. Well, we don't want our school closed. They think that's what's going to happen. So there are articles of agreement that address that. And then I think governance was another one that was discussed. Is anyone thinking other than those three? And can there be flexibility? I mean, are we hard and fast that one of them is number one? I think they're all there on the list. So I'll say governance, school closure, and debt were the three. Yeah. For me, it would be that order, personally. Yeah, for me too. I'll bring that forward. So the basic thought is there'll be three subcommittees if there's, if all the other boards think three. We're at to be careful with that. I'm going to tell you that the boards you've got, you're going into a heavy negotiations year. Yeah, I said this to the executive committee. We're going to have to stop doing some things. But you don't have the board capacity. You don't have the support capacity and the personnel that need to support it. And I think the executive committee understood that. I think so too. But I just want to re-echo that. This has to be done. Yeah. Or we're going to be. So that's the executive committee in point on act 46. Ms. Doki. Ben. Yeah. Once you guys have questions. In all this act 46 in the state, has any school gone independent? As in pulled right out of the public school system, not independent of their district? No. And that's become harder since North Bend has been pulled out about five years ago. Well, it was it was one of the news people talking that the school was going to go independent. They're already talking about it. And I just was curious if any had I hadn't seen any in any of this act 46. I've seen where the Chittenden East South, whatever it is, where Huntington didn't join the merge in one. But I hadn't seen where school proclaims that they are now an independent school. The last time that happened was North Bangton. Since that time, the legislators made it has made it not impossible, but a lot harder to do. It seems like it would. And that was because of costs. They didn't want to pay to the supervisory unit in southwest Vermont. Moving on to 3.2 degree Florida tree. It was in part your report too. So I don't mind just Bill and I had heard Nathan speak in the spring. And it was pretty clear early on that we felt as to be something great for all of you to hear. So I was just curious, I have my own thoughts and I had actually typed them all up and shared them with Bill and he's like, just hold those. And so I would love to hear your thoughts from the day we spent together. Personally, for me, professionally, not as a board member. It was really good because in my where I work, they keep talking about the DMG says the DMG says and nobody has told me who the DMG is. So I left there very educated as to this report and what's going on and let administrators in my area know perhaps you could have shared some of this information because the report was excellent and his sharing of it was excellent. I thought it was very good. I felt the same way too. I got some input from other board members really that they had never heard this before really empowered by the by the information and really liked it. I feel like everybody asked really good questions and it was even back it up yet. We're always saying let's use data to make decisions and do all this and he had data in Vermont, not just in Colorado or something. Yeah. And also recognize that there are some things that we are already doing, but that more needs to be done across the schools because we would all be in the same boat kind of together. I thought it was good. I would just caution us that a lot of the good stuff he had to say likely means that there would be reductions in other areas in our school. I heard a huge thing on core and if we're going to do a good job on core, we're going to have to free up some time and resources from non-core areas do less do it better. That's the message I'd like you to take away and I've heard two boards actually talk about doing that and saying they finally have started to hear that what for you remind me I say all the time which is you have to prioritize it's not just about prioritizing instruction you have to prioritize the content areas and you have to be willing to do that and I know you get pressure from your community not to do that but we have to guarantee something to the kids. What are we willing to guarantee? I really liked the idea of a guarantee that was that it's a very clear expectation that we can set for every person that walks in the school and in business in other board interactions every time something goes wrong there's missing expectations there are expectations that we've had that weren't met almost always comes back to that so we set really clearly out what your expectations as a student teacher or parent are then it's going to clearly guide what we do it's going to clearly guide that work in terms of prioritizing and it's going to eliminate it will reduce opportunity for expectations and not being met and misunderstandings because we've said very clearly this is what we are guaranteeing and then we have to do it and a beefed up after school program for a lot of the arts and sciences that are you know the STEM kinds of things not that we wouldn't have that in school I'm not saying that I'm just saying beefing up to complement the core instruction is important and having it available is important I think we do a pretty good job of community connections and the fact that we have an after school program and we have opportunities but it needs to be more than child care yeah yes yeah it needs to be something that needs to be more kids will sign up because there is some because there's really great learning but yes but how was that funded because that's always the question yeah community connections is already expensive for me it takes me back to what I said that cannot be our priority if we like what we heard there it's core instruction is our priority and if if some of the other areas fall by the wayside or don't get the time that would be very useful for them and very effective we we've only got limited time and resources and where are we going to spend it I will say board members at my group were amazed at how we operate because we started talking about prioritizing and I said well I said I'm probably the biggest offender and maybe administrators don't like me but I said at our board we go don't bring a budget in over this and you can't touch these things they're like what and I said tier twos are our board baby you don't touch it and our administrators know if you've got to cut some money they're not cutting it from there and then a discussion was then as a board member you need to back that up and when community members say well geez you know that's an important thing I'd hate to I don't want to see that go the board has to say we think it's important and we don't want to see it go but something's got to go and that's what's going this thing is that's not our top priority and this is why it's not our top priority and we had that conversation not that long ago when we were at U32 and talking about schedule and sciences and social studies have right like we have already started that here um and also felt the pressure of we have all these SLOs that we need so there's this pushing it's definitely um not easy to figure out right and the other thing I you know and with talking that day with Nate and our table we talked about yes if core instruction matters then that means that we're going to have our priorities right right so professional development and having that teacher be able to meet 90% or 80% of the student needs also means that we can work and integrate in the curriculum so reading can be thought taught through you know social studies on science and you know like what the teachers have been finding that there's kids that not necessarily learn reading through your regular you know grammar class but are really excited about science all right you know so yeah so so we are gonna really support our teachers it doesn't totally mean that we're gonna lose science on social studies right because there's something to read about so you have to be it was words in isolation there's some comprehension there so what he said was differentiation in structure differentiating structure yeah structure differentiate differentiation of instruction yeah so you know so math you know like I was just discussing because Bill and I go around about this about learning math through music and you know and it just like you know I I feel like yes we're gonna have to give up some things and maybe there's less time of others but we have to be able to knowing our a how our kids behavior is affected some kids work better when they're you know learning in music so I'll say this really directly yeah please bring me the research that shows that because the meta-analysis from three different researchers that have done meta-analysis over multiple hundreds of studies has shown that a highly qualified teacher teaching the subject area is the most powerful thing you can have so that's why I get the that's why I support that the person teaching math needs to be the math teacher of the highly qualified doesn't mean they don't use music but it's not the music teacher teaching math it's not the art teacher teaching math I don't mean that they are teacher the music teacher gonna teach math but that there are certain concepts that you learn in in music class that is to the advantage of this that supports the math it reinforces the math so it opens up and there's kids that don't sit through the math class but it sits through the music class and so and so it is a balance is it a an aggregate if you want math don't be learned you have a highly qualified math teacher teaching no question yes and yeah there's times that you'll have to take that instruction from other places well and that's he made clear that the instructor needs to be a qualified instructor yeah and not someone else yeah in the classroom we have to make sure we have people who have the content knowledge and the background to teach I came away at the risk of sounding a little self-congratulatory about what we do here feeling really good about what happens at the school thank you and and talking with some of the other board members from other schools you know he was talking about these best practices and I kept like yep well we were doing that or we're piloting that or we're pretty far down that road so not to say that we have it all figured out I'm not saying that but but it really it it was sort of validating that all of these things that we've been talking about and and I'm wishing over sometimes because it really does come down to where do we put the resources um it it for me it felt good to see some really hard research and numbers that supported that what we're seeing so that was that was one of my big takeaways Steven can you share what you share with us at our other meeting one of you one of the members in your in your table said that one of the one of the phone in saback 46 said if they had had this presentation three years ago it might have yeah colored their approach differently I have a question about the so highly qualified instructors say math yeah because straight through our school we have teach you know multi-subject area teachers yeah are you talking about I mean I know the conversation was kind of a couple times but are you talking about needing to change that so that we have math teachers and so I'm not going to be particular about the structure I have a opinion on that but to be a highly qualified instructor of a container you probably need the equivalent of a master's degree so if you're teaching for content areas you need four master's degrees which is not realistic yeah I've took one set of not me but I took what he was saying was a reduction in para educators providing instruction for the special for the special education but I'm saying for everyone we used to have them doing reading interventions for tier one and if you look at the results of East Montpelier your literacy is close to 75 to 80 percent proficient pick your measure you're not there in math you have a ways to go and that's no attribute that's no criticism of any instructor here the problem is in the American education system to get a certificate to teach elementary education you might have had one course in algebra at the college level the the method off the not even the pet take the pedagogy off for a minute and just the content knowledge it went along with the amount of literacy work it's it's night and day so we're already putting ourselves behind so when you ask my opinion about what I think is best I would go for specialization as low as you want to go because we need to then provide a lot of training to our teachers and that and when teachers have made leaps and bounds when they've been able to focus it's to me it's it's about the kids it's about school it's about teachers it's all about focus the more things you try to do the less depth you go and that's been a criticism of the U.S. education system for years when we look at it against other nations we go we try to generalize way too much and we try to do way too much and if you look at the countries that have you know it's about your priorities and where you put your resources and effort and then my other question would be a statistic that maybe you know or don't know uh for programs maybe not here but like at the E32 level are there programs that you would see potentially eliminating or that keep kids in schools because that's so a colleague of mine about 10 years ago said something when they were just becoming a principal and they were in a district that um had some severe needs that was really wanted had a lot of parents um wanting kids to have many different experiences and he said to them he told me the story so i don't know who he really said it to but i liked what he said he said i want your kids to have lots of experiences but if they're not literate and numerate literate by third grade numerate by fourth grade i just took away a whole bunch of experiences because the remediation that will have to happen throughout their k-12 career so i'd rather give that up earlier on so i can expand their opportunities later on you know he's an elementary principal and that's the way i think about it i i'm right there with floor and wanting to have kids be multiple multiple multiple but once we get past and we start to get that divergence of where kids need to be and where they're performing the time to catch up is about at least two to one if not three to one and every year we go the gap gets further so if we don't close it early on we take away learning opportunities and experiences and choices that kids can have later and that's what i worry about so i'd rather basically depth that you're incurring there's a huge there's a huge interest rate on it right there's a huge interest rate so to say maybe there won't be an opportunities at the elementary school i'd rather say it then than when i had to tell a middle school student listen you're gonna lose one or two electives probably two and then high school we don't have many electives you can take because we need to remediate so much just to get you to graduate and short of graduation i don't the report there was just a report public tv or public radio i think that's where i heard it but i've heard the data other places if you're not literate within your grade level and i think it's it's either third or fourth grade then you're you're very lucky so i if you get any success it's not saying you don't graduate from high school but to be successful at all is very unlikely so i can't give you the general population because i've been doing a lot of writing on equity in african-americans in the past six months for an african-american boy not to be littered by the end of third grade they have a one in three chance of graduating from high school and by that or you mean on grade level at third grade they have a one in three chance of graduating from high school in the united states so how can we you know we feel like we're kind of supporting the work of dealership to human trying to be investors what can we you need to put it in policy across the su that we are going to make these guarantees just like made suggested and that we are going to do everything we can and that may mean not doing some other things to ensure that happens for every student right and i would say numeric by fourth grade because right now the highest correlation to ernie potential is a student's math skill in the united states of any content area it's not literacy it's kind of sobering sorry but no it's all if we want to attack it was a good counter to my self-congratulatory if we want full i agree if you want a lot of things if we want to if we want to attack the the the equity gap this is what we do right no and i think and and i can tell you that's been in my experience and two other issues we close that equity gap yeah but we said there are two we said those two goals right there yeah and it was and they didn't write a guarantee in policy it was just that's what we're doing and yes programs we're still programs some programs fell away i i i mean i understand and i agree that you're saying i just struggled because i know like i know my kids will experience a lot of things outside of here but i know there are kids that won't and but they're going to experience a lot less if they're not living in numeric i know i understand what you're saying i feel the same way and right now we what we want for all of the kids is different than what we can provide to all of the kids and that's the piece for me personally and it's a challenge for us as a board is that the fiscal reality is that what we would like to provide we can't provide but we can control nine to three thirty how much we make a difference for 180 days and that's nine percent of the kids life during their their pre-k through 12 career so remember we only have nine percent during school if you go into the math really yeah i challenge you even keep these numbers i challenge that this this spring and many many and this the my instructor looked at me goes get at the board and i did the math he says nine percent and i think as we counting non-winking hours too i'm thinking as we move towards budget and we've got a little bit of time but i like the exercise that no one at our table like i like the exercise of what are we going to guarantee what are we guarantee because if we say this is what we guarantee that prioritizes everything absolutely that is the number one priority and call us did that last week they said bring us a budget that guarantees literacy and numeracy to cat and i cat and i were related really that's the first time we've heard that from them i know i heard some middle six discussion around their treasure treasure sugar in and they started counting minutes and how much literacy and numeracy time was lost doing that event not suggesting one way or another but it started getting doing an evaluation if we look at you're right there's a cost to do something yeah right it's not always a fiscal cost sometimes it's just a time cost in the amount of time that you have to do other things it's and i'll tell you the example from the state where they're talking about mandatory i won't get the term of the state use but diversity training that takes time so something isn't going to get done if that's mandated as a standalone requirement something else will have to there won't be time to do something else if that's done and it helps if there's a guarantee from our board that we guarantee this would be best across the SUA but this is what we guarantee i mean i would suggest the last two years we've guaranteed we're going to have as good a tier two system as we can have that's been what our guarantee is we're going to that program is going to exist and stay and the driver hand in hand with professional development because it doesn't work yeah and what we're driving well first or instruction instruction yeah and what we're driving at even though we haven't explicitly laid it out is we're trying to get the kids later in enumerate we just haven't said explicitly the name right we've been coming at it from the you've been coming out you've been coming out you've been coming at it from the means you haven't guaranteed the outcome yet right yeah but we're still working on how we're going to monitor that outcome too like we are so so i think if we if we the way you were saying you know get one at least one guarantee that we want if we want that to have everything it would be just that it would be that core instruction the tier one that would have everything else under it or not no i think you say the things you want students to achieve i don't think you talk about tell me if i'm wrong maybe it is the board's role you know but if you don't put the student outcome somewhere in there you're missing the goal smart goals always have a measurable piece yeah and i don't mean to like micromanage what happens but if we're gonna we have to put the money in to support the teachers in order to have the outcomes that we wanted right so but we're in a pretty good place with with that staff professional is providing a professional time and shifting people if we make a guarantee then we need to do what we need to do to provide that guarantee and that provides that includes staffing and financially supporting it and structurally supporting it and building support it requires everything that needs to get done to support that guarantee right you don't have to say well and we're going to do professional development we're going to do everything it takes to make that guarantee right okay it's because it's a hard goal it's there's no wishy washy there's no um and this may be a bad example it's just something off the top of my head if if we're suggesting that music is a way that you can improve numeracy then there will be specific lessons taught in music about math it won't be a trickle down effect it'll be they'll teach fractions when they're when they're going over times but it won't be time signatures it'll be fractions and they'll do fraction work in music and they'll they'll do work on that and it'll be mandated that that area does it no i mean we're saying that we're going to guarantee something so we're going to guarantee proficiency in math that's our focus and everyone's all in and it doesn't matter if you're the librarian or the custodian or the or the pe teacher all everyone in the school is going to be working hand in hand on improving math skills of the students in Eastmont and it doesn't have to be that right but if we're going to make a guarantee it's all i'm meeting that guarantee it's all in right it's something that we're using to measure it not just feels like they know their numbers well i mean we're doing pretty reasonable the system that system is there yeah the system and we know that we're not making like we know we're not doing it right now right so so reading by third grade and math by fourth grade or is that what we're saying i'd say during during right this is this is a numerate at grade level numerate in fourth grade and the literate at grade level i think what you say is that you say numerate and literate tasks your leadership team to define what that is okay and say we want to know that it's pretty it's not hard to do we're going to come back as a leadership team and say this is what we define numerate is this is what we define literate as and then you're going to see evidence of that and you can decide as a board whether you accept or reject that evidence because if you try to get too far down in the weeds right you're going to pull we're going to be here forever it's a simple statement it's and we're not professionals so i would prefer that we one of us it is but but i am definitely not so that's i feel like our our job i know we've talked about this sort of to set the pin so if this is the pin and we want to define exactly what the pin is i think that's that makes sense so i'll ask if that's because the next step would be to develop a budget around that and i mean it sounds like we've got a reasonable consensus on that but i also don't want to make assumptions that are are not that are not reflective of what we're thinking i'm comfortable with it i i like the idea i the research is very clear to me um what we've heard from me what we've seen in our own school that this is the core function of a public education at at primary level right because everything builds on this and if you don't have this solid then you're you know then you have educational debt and it's i mean we've seen it over and over and over again i've seen it in my own kids i've seen it in other kids where trying to backfill is really really really hard and as an education system it's really expensive so if we can catch them early and get them up to speed then we're doing better by the kids and we're doing better by that and we're doing better in our role as fiscal stewards as well so i would advise you that you should you've had a good discussion on this that as chair rubin you should think or talk with the board some more right now about warning something i'm not sure if it's a policy statement or if it's a resolution or a goal that you want to add to your board goals of we want to make this guarantee the strongest way to make the guarantee is have it adopted into policy of all those different options i just gave you and that you as a board should decide whether you want to invite other boards to take that with you or you'd like to be leaders in that i think there are there are sounds like there's at least one other board who's thinking pretty strongly about this so i think we should try to do it together so i think it makes a lot of sense to not do it so you can decide how you want to you know you've had the reflection most most of the boards are having a reflection on the retreat and it might be something that you send a communication to your fellow board members saying or through steven to the executive board to say we would like to talk about how do we have this discussion at the supervisory union level what boards have met since then uh berlin and callus do you have a preference as to whether we filter this through the executive committee or if should it be a discussion seems like a logical place to have it doesn't seem like that way you have all the boards there it could be with a limited amount of time that you take back to your individual ones but for everyone to hear the same thing so maybe the first task is whether the executive committee would be willing to put that on the agenda for the next carousel and if the answer comes back as as no we don't have time or we don't want to do that or whatever um then we can then be grassroots a little bit mm-hmm yep that seems like having everybody in the same room makes sense so I would make a suggestion and if that's the goal you outreach to all the board chairs on the side to say this is what he's want thinking our rep to the executive committee is going to bring it up but if it's a if it's a guarantee and if it's a guarantee across the su then it no no longer becomes a question of is there time in a carousel me right something will be cut from the carousel me very important but it'll be cut and time will be found to do this and then from the executive committee and from the board su board chair it becomes pretty clear that's my district school boards chairs have communicated that this is a big priority and we want to deal with it and time will be found I think floor for the other area for that school quality discussion on the 27th which is the Monday before the as you are in just one one next step for us as a school I shared the um Nathan's article research report um with the special educators here and asked them to read it we meet once a month and our first meeting is early September um so that to bring a level of awareness to them and just start having the conversation here as a school where do they see us fitting into this and what you know one example and I think I brought it up that day was yes we have reteaching we have interventions for tier two at a separate time from core instruction but our tier three services don't necessarily do that right now we don't have a reteach block for tier three IEP services which is another piece that came from that report it shouldn't be a child gets their IEP services during literacy for literacy because they're still missing half the instruction or whatever so that's a that is a conversation that the special educators here and I will be having is just starting to think about so what does that mean for us board chairs in the morning see where we go with that anything else on the board retreat and thank you that was that was great I think a really productive discussion and tangible work product from that retreat which is pretty cool on to 3.3 trauma Ruben you and I we couldn't three of us couldn't remember well we had it on there but it came off minutes and haven't been able to really figure out I think that's because Brian brought up during the retreat the screening which was just tomorrow it's on Thursday Thursday of resilience yeah and Kelly's working on a date right now we had talked about whether it made sense to piggyback with the capstone presentation of this so Kelly's playing together I know she's asked the rest of our colleagues to say you know what's the calendar at the schools there are three or four dates we picked the end of September beginning of October feel like we've narrowed it down I think it has been I didn't stay on it so I just let it ignore those emails and say Kelly will tell me what you had the day like an evening type thing yeah I said an evening to to view it and then have brown tables discuss it so I'll preface this comment with saying that I can't dedicate my entire Thursday to the capstone screaming screening of trauma but one of the things that jumped out at me over and over again during the retreat is the is the difference between what we do in public education and what and part of it is that I'm chair of capstone community action and so I see the work that we do there up not close but from at least a policy perspective and head start does wrap around services for the families and what that means is they take these trauma measurements and all of these other things and they understand that you can't stabilize a child in nine percent of the day it's not possible and you actually have to stabilize the family and that is something that we it's completely outside of our orbit and public education which means that it's like putting band-aids on a arterial bleed you know we're not getting at the root of what's going on with these children that are walking in the door every day so going back to why I preface this was saying that I can't go to this on Thursday I think that there is tremendous value and more crossover in some way between these two parallel systems because the head start system gets at the kids who come from highly traumatized and difficult backgrounds and tries very hard with pretty decent success to stabilize them so that when they walk in our doors here that they're ready to learn and it's just it's something that keeps standing out to me which is that we have traumatized families and that's what's walking in the door every day it's not just traumatized kids these are families that are living in crisis all day every day and I know we can't solve this here this has to come from ultimately this has to come from our communities saying enough is enough and we're prepared to do something different than what we're doing right now and when or if that will happen I don't know but it's just one of those things that keep standing out to me in terms of I don't know where to go with that so I will tell you the place to go to that for me it's at the state level yeah because the AHS and AOE are constantly in battle with each other yeah and they're battling over the same dollars and that's what it's really about so until and the policies cause them to be and they cause them to be in battle and I'm not just talking about 166 there's plenty of the other instances of that so until that until that's forced to be solved and we're not the only state that has that issue there I hear about it from our New England colleagues but until we really solve that issue it's going to be a fight for what's left of money yep now that that's one of the problems with the system we have just it it is yeah there's been so I think you make you make you try to make inroads wherever you can little by little um as of right now that viewing is at U32 on the evening of September 17th but we'll get announcements out yeah okay I believe we are on to number three and I think for us it's beginning to move towards bullet two we're trying to stay on task for public for their input on the bullet number two I think it's a major problem because I don't think even within boards there's agreement on what community engagement is what it means I would tell you from listening to another board I would advise you not talk about how to do it yeah they can go down to a warm hole just what it is just what it is yeah yeah because even at this day board verification they asked that question and said that he really had a good community engagement and you know soon enough there were some people standing up saying sure you know not completely respectful that they are engaged so so I think we we is something that we have to continue to right does it mean physical presence does it what does it mean yeah I think we have to do that exercise that we talked about doing last year again you're really taking stock of what we do across all our boards what you know what you know how do we everybody is community engagement getting the community to our board meetings or is it finding out from the community what they want the board to do or is it asking the community on their own to begin to do work and prioritize stuff well I I think we need a little bit of both but we want the community engaged separately from us right that's what we've been learning that's what we've been learning in the different community engagement seminars that some of us have attended and too many we need the community which is part of reason I'm thinking that those community councils are currently important to talk about in governance because that's completely separate and has nothing but you have to have a purpose for the engagement to a purpose if you have a pta or pto or pto or any of those the purpose is supporting your child's school whether it's fundraising or whatever and those people gather to run those things that's engagement and has a purpose right you've got to get people but coming to a meeting that's yeah like this so I don't know it seems like the only time we have community physical engagement is the budget is rocky we're cutting something that people have emotions about yeah so one of the reflections that I had because I had a conversation I can't remember for the life of me the community member who is one of a group of folks who actually watches the orca videos pretty much all the time so one of the things that I realized is that we have no metrics at all for how many people watch these videos we may have a lot more community engagement than we realize because we've never actually looked to see what the views are what is it right don't tell me how you do it no tell me what you mean by it why are the lindy started to go there why but but what do you mean by it when you say the words without using the word the community or engagement but to me community engagement is more about if we want change to happen in our schools we need to have our families engage and the broader community engage to you know support the budget and support the work that is going on but what's the change that depends I mean like the school starting in time that got a lot of engagement when people thought it was going to rock their world with when you drop off kids or not those are the kinds of things and I don't know that that's community engagement well floor to hear what you said I wouldn't say that's community engagement I'd say that's community support and it is what we mean by community engagement is that we want to support of the community on things the board's doing I think for a lot of people community engagement means involvement they want to or input they want input from the community on this topic or this topic and I think the direction we need to go from our board is to say this is what we mean when we say community engagement and no matter what what that is I use the input example that you know in clean engagement means to us that we receive input from at least 50 percent of the community on our proposed budget and that's what we mean by engagement we hear from the community on things they're very interesting but floor if you think of the training we want to it's got nothing to do with that from that perspective community engagement has nothing to do with the school board nothing the community decides what they're going to be engaged about and I have to say as a community when this school and it doesn't matter what it is as anything it is the engagement of the community is incredible whether it's the I love you smell and peel your lunch and we have firefighters and you know Edie and Manny Miller and people who have no connection to the school whatsoever come religiously every year or it's any sort of a public gathering and it's historic you're never hundreds of people come every time the road is full and when I think of this community and their engagement I would say it's an incredibly engaged community but again from our perspective does community engagement mean attendance at school events is that what we mean for school I mean that's what you have to you have to decide as a board this is your definition so because if you look at the stuff that comes from public access it's not necessarily about the board if you look at the best research the best practice research it's not necessarily about a board or an authority figure doing it you know so you have to decide that and you have to decide what you mean by that you mean it's fine if you say we want it to be something with the board but you need to make that deterrent and what are you really and where Lindy was going why are you doing it what are you trying to do look I think especially because we're going to be involved in some sort of Act 46 again right and whatever that whatever whatever that is and you know Essex and you know Kim sits in the VSBA board with me you know it's uh it is separate from the board there's still you know one board member that takes part of of the meetings but it's it's again those just creating engagement around what was going on in in Act 46 and actually what Essex was doing was more about what their vision and mission was after they merged yeah so why why do they have education why do they have the school system that's what they were really looking at so I will use the survey as an example that I don't consider community engagement because I felt like I still even though we edited the questions I still felt that they were a little bit leading and for our community specifically like if you asked our community do you want to share that do you want to share our debt with somebody else who would say no I mean you know so but our question they didn't they said no I don't want to share that well it's because you don't realize that some of our debt would leave potentially right so I don't think the I feel like the community's the education of the subject matter matters so it's a it's a give and take from I want to hear their opinions and what they've heard from other sources and give them what we're seeing so to me that's what it is it's the give and take of hearing from them hearing what they've heard hear hearing how they feel about it giving our perspective and having that back and forth conversation but I think we we have to start somewhere right so we have several opportunities right now and we could start as for now just create an input while we get at something more advanced like what Essex it's been it's been doing but we could start in you know like what we're going to do in September 17 and the boards will watch the trauma we we talk about there are several community members that have been you know that we could let that lose there's several members of the community that are already interested in hoping so that's a how and a what but it's not a why but again because that will support the work that we're doing or or is it in core instruction so what I'm looking for again is what we're really looking for is community support rather than engagement but but you don't have an engaged community you're not going to have but I think that are without without getting into the weeds of that I think we we I think by some measures we have very engaged community by this particular measure which we it's very personal to us every month right nobody comes and so the fear is that people don't know what we're doing and I'm less I don't feel that fear as acutely I guess so it goes back to because because this community has a strong history of if we do something that they disagree with they're instantly engaged right so so so we know that if we do something wrong we've got an engaged community and so it really again it sort of goes back to the why what is it that we're looking for see I'm not so sure I agree with depends on if you do something wrong depends on whose opinion that it's wrong right I mean and that's where I'm sure I think the community engagement is important because coming in late to the act 46 conversation I hadn't really actually done much research to it I hadn't really engaged with any of you on it I thinking about it I you know like on my own I had my opinions I'd talk to a couple people after I got elected and had but I don't know if the I don't think there was enough in engagement I didn't to know if the community supported our stance or not so I don't think it's I don't think we're looking for community support I want I mean it's a little catch point to you right because they're electing us to represent them right so they must think we're have like minds if they're electing us right well that's what I'm saying right that's why I'm using air quotes but I think we do need to find a way to get the feedback based on educated conversation or and not just throw out a survey feeler and because it's totally trust that the school is being run yeah yeah and then we don't know it is just I don't I mean my definition of support isn't what I'm looking for when I say community engagement I want a back-and-forth conversation and without trying to go around and around if we are going to try to pass some policy right right right now there's going to be some sacrifices right that we don't want them all showing up like when we lost finish or we lost things right now we want to make sure that we so that is an opportunity that we have right now like we know that you know later that in memory it's important and this is what so I think we have to start somewhere I'm not saying that's the but to me that's an obvious we don't want this to be pushed back there's an immediate why yes right that's what I was getting at earlier like the what and the how we need to have a why behind it and bill has been waiting so patiently so I think you need to talk about two different definitions hearing this discussion and I think if I were an elitist chair I'd be worried about school engagement and by almost every measure I can think of not just for East Montpelier but Washington Central you have high degrees of school engagement very high degrees um and at all the six schools within Washington Central some of the highest I've seen so I don't think you need to worry about that you need to define what the differences between community engagement and school engagement and I think about this a lot because when I'm thinking when we're at 46 and public come out what I tried to ask myself is how many people in the audience are parents and how many are non-parents well look at our parents it's the same so here's the and and there's myriad of reasons that you could go into why that is um if you said something lindy about change so if you want people to change you're not going to get them with the how on the what I've tried many times myself and failed every time I do it it's how do you get to the why and just talking the piece about numer and litter until the education is provided on why literacy and numeracy are so important people aren't going to back that guarantee because there's an I think you're taking away from my child for those extra experiences so you have to show the statistics for me I'm a numbers guy as Alicia says to me she goes I don't know how you hold those numbers but I can't hold letters in my head but I can hold numbers in my head so I remember things like nine percent but those that's the work if you want to make change is how do you get people pulled into the change process and every time we started with a how on the what and we've gotten technical in Washington Central for my past six years we usually haven't done a good job then when we said to what are the possibilities or why would we want to do this so maybe the why is we want community engagement as guidance when we're considering policy change maybe that's a starting point maybe right because then we when we start talking about the how and the what we have a reference point that we can go back to say we gathered this input we gave these opportunities for input and and maybe that you know maybe as a starting point that's maybe that is one so that when we're considering policy change we make sure that we give opportunity for that we make opportunity for community engagement and then we can decide what that looks like whatever it is open forums it's a right because because the other thing that's sort of lurking in the back of my mind I don't know if it's in anybody else's but generally speaking in budget forums unless it's a really contentious budget here there's only a small handful of folks here so even when we're asking for you know controversy is what gets people here and one of the things that a good board tries really hard to do is keep controversy to a minimum controversy and turmoil tend to be something that boards avoid for good reason right you know if something's gotten controversial it often is because there have been missed opportunities or expectations met not met along the way I think a good example of the first impression if somebody is coming to a board meeting if there's a problem when Krista somehow we were copied that Tammy would be here tonight I didn't know who Tammy was did anything about note taking and I was looking to see if there's something that I didn't know about because the answer was I'll be there thank you Krista I'll be there I thought oh is this a parent is this what are we discussing didn't I I think Rubens suggested a pretty clear a pretty clear cut definition of what we might mean by community engagement and he suggested it's a start a starting point I don't know if you wrote it down or can remember it to say it again with something around informing us when there's a policy change so we wanted input from the community on policy changes that's what that's what we're seeking when we say when we talk about community engagement what it means is we're seeking input from the community on and policy is lack of a better term but it could the policy could be any different thing but right because we don't necessarily want to have community engagement every time that we do a reading on a whatever policy so we'll definitely want to I mean I'd look at that guarantee that and I think that's what you're talking about Rubens more like goals were the goals and aims of the board we'd like some engagement on that we have the right goals it's directional input right right it's making sure that when we make some sort of a course change this is in the back of this is what I'm thinking like if our hand is on the teller and we're gonna all right we're gonna move this we're considering changing course to this direction over here how does the community feel about that right because that is exactly in just to beat this analogy to death the wheelhouse of what a board that's a governing board is supposed to do we we set the long-term direction we're not down in the engine room shoveling cool we're not doing any of that stuff we're deciding as a group what direction it is that we're going and what we're sort of aiming at and so we want to make sure that we don't make big decisions like that in a vacuum right that's kind of the ultimate driver and in my summarization of this conversation and so then we want to make sure that we give opportunity for community feedback for when we make when we're considering those changes and something like this guarantee is an obvious an obvious opportunity to ask for that input could we simplify the language for if we're going to attract the broader community to something that we had talked about I was just going through the notes of other meetings of we had said engagement parent and family engagement with student for student achievement because if we say policy they you know most of the people that are going to be even watching the video are not going to know necessarily what that policy is right unless we spell it out like we were saying so do we want them just in well I guess it could be any policy so this is a broader concept sorry to be back and forth I think our definition is an internal definition it's not outward facing community doesn't need to know our definition but to me and if that's the direction we go and I would be comfortable it now defines what it is we're trying to do so if it's to get community input then and all the boards agreed on the same thing because that still has to happen then it allows us to focus our efforts on okay what are some new and creative ways we can do that if we want more community input we know forums and board meetings isn't getting it done so what other things do we explore what kind of professional development the boards need to increase the amount of input we receive from the community on things and to look backwards a little bit you know if if we had if we had sort of set this definition for ourselves a couple of years ago we might have gathered input about the tier two supports because that was not a huge directional change but that was a directional change and in my mind that might be something that would you know cross the threshold of you know maybe it's worth getting some community input on this and it's an opportunity to educate the community on why we're considering this I would say no it's not if it's to gather input it's to gather input yeah that's what we want we want to hear what they say it's got nothing to do with educate them it's hot you know one of the things I feel like is my role take the tier two it's my role to educate families right about what that is because it will be very hard for them and something that that term tier two would mean nothing to them to give you input on if they knew nothing about maybe not your role but I do feel like it is somebody fair to educate no yeah no I I think taking us out of the role of educators on every level is probably a good idea I actually disagree with you on that but I actually disagree with you on that Ruben I think it is your job as board members to educate your community it doesn't mean you do it by yourselves but I you are the representatives of the community you have a two-way communication I right I guess I maybe in a more formal and you have done we have you know you have been educated on topics that you probably never thought you'd be educated on that you are now able to speak of to your community no that's a fair point yeah so so we're gonna get trained or input which is what you were asking you know we you know we we do want that and I think all of the boards need more information and similar things that we attend you and I attended that other day to decide you know if we're gonna be asking we went through all of this before when we were trying to do it for a 46 like to decide if we want to be more proactive of what we do that day one day it's discussing and connecting a little bit just merely input so try to differentiate and really understand what level of community engagement because we we can never really get people over it like people get frustrated with us if they come and we have a ready make that you know like we always got input from you from different people or the agenda so so we need to relearn that you know we've talked a lot about about it in other frames but what are we you know are we doing small group like there's a lot to be learned and to try to follow through so the question is do we want to learn more yes and well I mean if we look at what this school outlines Ruben will get together with the other board chairs and Matthew and they'll come up with a written purpose and strategy so what is it we want Ruben to carry to that meeting kind of what he outlined as input on okay so I don't think there's anything else we don't even spend any more time thinking about what the chairs will get together and the decision will be made and whether we like you know either we're going to support the direction that the group wants or we're going to go our own way hopefully we support the direction the group wants and it might not be what we want and then then we start getting into the weeds on what it's going to be I guess I maybe I'm not quite understanding what you're but I want to make sure that there is from my perspective and I'll support you guys if you don't disagree but if you do disagree but I do think there needs to be not just input but back and forth like I think if somebody comes in and has an opinion about something and we need to be able to communicate that back to them because maybe their understanding of something is not what our intention is or so I don't think it's I just want to make sure it's not just a one-way street yeah and that's what they will you know my understanding is that's what we will define and we would learn more about you know engagement and how we want to do it and it will change depending on the issue right it doesn't mean that there's just going to be one way to do it keep looking at Stephen. Well that's why I just want Stephen's comment earlier was that if we're just getting input we're just getting input and I know from my perspective I want I would prefer to say back and forth. Well back and forth could be an important thing but it doesn't mean it's part of community engagement. Community engagement is going to go its own way it doesn't mean we can't encourage what you're interested in I mean I would disagree I think the worst thing we can do is have a back and forth between one community member and the board. I'm not saying like like a computational I'm just saying if somebody comes in and says you may paint on the wall green and I say well you know you're not going to ask me that. I feel like we need to be able to. Well I think it's informing if big comments say I understand this is being considered I'd like more information it's not on our agenda then we say we need to look into that and it'll be on our agenda next month and bring your friends or whatever I don't know because I don't know what it is I don't know if that's community engagement or if that's just I guess it is. Well I guess it's always dependent how we frame the conversation how we frame that community engagement and by saying community engagement doesn't mean that it has to be one way or the other. I think we figured out for at least in broad strokes the why I think we've got sort of what it why it is that we would want community engagement so I will bring that to the other board chairs and thank you for a robust discussion of board goal number three. I believe that we are on to the administration report to the board. So I did not do my homework I get to say that there's supposed to be a written report here for myself so I'll let Alicia go first and then tell you about some of the she included some of what I was going to talk about and I'll fill in the rest. There's nothing does there count as your no that's my colleague's essential office that doesn't have my name on it there's no superintendent I just thought it was the bottom of that but you know well that was separated that was really good to see what went on in the summer and it was great and I actually not having any here I feel like I spent as much if not more time at Berlin summer program and and it was a it was a wonderful experience it really was maybe you had a lot of your staff members working yeah a lot of staff members and some I sent so I was the acting administrator for a period of time there and realized pretty quickly we were short staffed and sent out a plea to my staff and it was incredible how many of them stepped up and said sure we'll come in we'll work very proud mom I have to say so one of the four U32 students was my daughter and she had an incredible experience and she worked with Mrs. Ganon so of course it was a great experience for her but so I was able to see it both as administrator and as a parent whose child was working the program what what was really nice and I don't want to say I don't want it here again but I will say the setup of Berlin with the library in the middle in the classrooms having it very contained this is a long sprawling building and it's hard to contain anything that seemed to work very well this year so that was great and having a new principal there Aaron did a fabulous job of just you know letting the troops come in and take over the school one thing I didn't provide to you and I apologize and I will email it to you this week I wanted to give you a numbers update Karen and I we had two students register as late as this afternoon so it's like really constantly changing we haven't had many move out but we have slightly smaller kindergarten classes and we have quite a few act 166 pre-k students coming here from other places which is great we have students from Montpelier Berlin various city because our numbers were down a little so we could take on some some students but I will email those two I told Karen before she left today in the midst of midst of in-service let's connect and so I can get updated numbers so one of the things I've been promising every board I know everyone's anxious we won't give them to you till after the fifth day of school they're just two variable they're very every day it's changing so until until we get to the Tuesday of after labor day so we shouldn't know that but you'll get our um the pre-k that's not jamie like the all-day pre-k that will take people from anywhere is that correct or yes we have been taking kids from all over I don't know how many of our schools offer it but I know a number of our schools don't offer it so we have been taking and we'll just one there's only one that doesn't do all that real sex um so we have taken kids from other schools maybe this year it's different but we've taken kids from other schools for the past few years to provide or on the off days um so we provide five day a week full day and and maybe that's what they don't do so even on the days where they come they can spend the full day here um which is an attraction and why I feel like we've gotten more calls this summer than other years because the word is out that we offer this service what was a person who lives in Montpelier and I were at a meeting and she said I was considering that and I said no you could do that yeah and then we talked and I said go for it if it works do you and we have parents from other districts who come and drop their kids off morning and pick them up at the end of the day and I think I don't remember that kid but it's because they're not a Eastmont player student but they are here for CC so I will get those numbers to you um I just it's it is constantly changing smaller kindergarten classes right now we have two classes of 14 so not not significantly smaller but last year we had large we had a class of 17 and a class of 18 which was pretty big for kindergarten um oh but that's smaller than you anticipated but smaller than last year yes okay preschool or for kindergarten this year's kindergarten is a little bit smaller than last year's kindergarten you get the cutest kindergarten I know we do miss Samantha's coming up I don't know if there were any other questions so we had a awesome day today we had everybody here including we had community connections people from kitchen staff everybody came we did um we have quite a few new staff members so some ice breaking getting to know you but a lot of work around the implementation plan and just a review of where we've been where we're going um working on our agreements as a staff and our commitments norm setting um we did some work around PBIS and just getting on the same page and planning for that a long day but it was it was a great kickoff to the a long week of in-service um I know you read in a couple different places about the world peace game that was held here that was a great week um some of the other uh there's been project based learning professional development that's happened with ninth grade teams at U32 we've had our usual responsive classroom and restorative practice training um and all our new staff were here all last week pretty much uh the elementary teachers from Wednesday on because they had responsive classroom a couple weeks ahead of time and the seven through twelve teachers we're here Monday and Tuesday for restorative practices and Wednesday through probably expanded to three days which still isn't enough time to do everything that needs to be done with new staff so they were drinking from a fire hose especially on Friday they had it up and I saw them um that morning the other thing um we've had a we had a great and that it's been alluded to in a couple places here but curriculum camp uh again at the end of school orders some really whittling down of performance indicators and standards the standards are steady but performance indicators really getting well down so in some cases going from 60 to 18 in literacy to really try to get refined and what does that mean to be proficient at that great point so those are some of the great things I was going to talk about is just all the great PD that's been done this summer we're also in the midst of hiring for an information technology director recording direction say and we're in the midst of that process for Washington Central and uh we're almost a full staff across the district but not quite everywhere if you read the digger the past couple days there's been talks about the teacher shortage is definitely true and principles and administrator shortages are even more acute my wife will offer some insights on why there's administrative yeah amongst in I'll be quiet thank you for the update it's great and it's nice to see the letter that was sent to the family too especially since yeah it's one me in school anymore I was like yeah yeah so it was good that you sent it because we were not getting it I haven't sent the email it's just been too busy but I'll try to send it out tonight I know most folks it's too late to invite people to their in-service tomorrow but we'll be filming that it'll be up on YouTube for you to see both the beginning the opening of in-service but also Dave now Mel next talk for tomorrow so we're streaming that on YouTube and we'll have it stored up there before if you'd like to take a look at that it's at eight right tomorrow it's 8 30 it starts and we're going till noon believe we are on to the fiscal report so this is the final report from last fiscal year the auditor's ran last week and it's pretty much I mean I can answer any questions but I know all of you know how to read these enough really just a little bit more income e-rate missed the end of the final year that's why you see it down on e-rate but that will come it's just missed the June 30th cut off for last year some of the changeovers from sovereign ed to first light have been affecting that we'll get that money and then you'll see that there were some savings and special education costs and then just closed down with the school so you have a pretty healthy fund balance along with the self the set of sides that you have a board has taken for the health insurance recapture that was you did a year ago based on what the legislature had done to try to capture some of the health care recost and what you've reserved for technology and retirement expenses so you're you're at a good place at 4.8 percent or 180-2,000 dollars glad to get any questions I went to that really quick but you've seen pretty much saw this in June as well you will see next month all of the changes from all this spring thank you the numbers look very good okay but we did a lot of hiring in the spring so that's all that lori bill and i met last weekend it's all getting rolled up so you'll see those numbers next month executive committee well i had one thing because policy committee is coming up i think what the executive committee said to the will will be carried to the policy committee is we trust and respect what the policy committee is doing and you you tell us what the priorities are and where you want to go is that kind of fair assessment you think bill i think so we didn't mean we just didn't feel like we could provide specific guidance on do this or do that there's some discussions about policy in general at the executive committee level but not necessarily work that the committee's doing policy committee so i will tell you that these binders um we were able to take some fun balance money that was left at the end of the year in the supervisor union and hire someone to come in and organize all the child and it's not in your policy but in some of the board policies the requirement of the superintendent to do this so we did it across all the boards i would ask your encouragement to help change that because i think we did a lot of printing that maybe we shouldn't have done but i was and if you could help your policy committee member express that and i will add that i think that came from that meeting that i shared wasn't maybe the most pleasant meeting of people wanting paper in a binder of stuff that is not even necessarily current policies and the discussion at that meeting this is the result of it i think so we have it now but i think it is something we need to address and talk about whether or not any going forward this is a necessary expense or i personally would encourage you to bring that back to the policy that we find this unnecessary and these are Washington Central and East Montpelier all in one book so each school got a different one with their policies and i think the charge of the policy committee is to try to get us on the same page and we're we've made good progress i think because most policy or a lot of the policy is mandated and the language is provided through the school board association and it's already been vetted through the attorneys and i personally trust that i mean we read it and check it out to make sure that our culture or whatever isn't that different so that's what how i've been kind of trying to give my voice in the policy meetings because i thought our board pretty much agrees with i just i just wanted to temper your statement to me this is crucial it's just shouldn't be an electronic form yes it shouldn't be on a paper yes it should be very clear yeah silently at e-m-e-s and it yeah yes you and you third you will notice that the board pages the board web pages have all been redone both on policy and on your board resources so that all the board resources on the board resource page you have a table that has the agenda the packet the minutes and the orca recording all in one row for each meeting and then you'll see another web page that the policies and they may not be totally finished at this point but they're getting close yeah and i think you know for those folks who prefer a piece of paper i don't think we want to shame them so i think we can put a or if they don't have the resources to print out 250 pages then they could come to wcs you and get you know right about a sense of page so you can get one right start time committee so they're meeting the last they're trying to set a meeting for the last weekend august they're trying to start a meeting for one they're trying to set a meeting for the last weekend august that's pretty soon yeah i can't remember which of the two days otherwise i'd say the day i just know there's two different dates did i miss an email somewhere no i think it's been really karen and scott have that conversation okay then you can do i have to no okay no okay um yeah from my perspective as one of the school start time committee members nothing has happened since the carousel that we that we reported out to you all on um school quality committee you've had the minutes there on page 24 a it doesn't show like i attended but it does show that i'm asking questions so i need to change that but other than that we that we were supposed we were supposed to meet september 20th but we were talking about meeting sooner than that no september that's september that's september meeting yeah whatever the date is i have to okay i'm sorry i said something about august and i was just like yeah no no i meant to say september if i didn't say it i meant september so so we're we've been you know asking several questions we took all the data that was given to us in october we talked about this our last meeting and we went in depth and asked more questions we're gonna try to get a preliminary report from bill in september right bill in october uh preliminary report for for reviewing for monitoring so yeah karri and i are meeting in the early in the month to try to plan out what that is what that is yeah so so we we're continuing to try to narrow down what is it that we how how do we are more effective admiring and then taking into account our you know that goal in that we have the three goals that we have we had we talked about you know what is the data what do we want a show you know and having less information instead of more information so that we could get at the point so there's sometimes in the year that we want more but sometimes that we just really want to narrow it down so it was at this last meeting especially we talked about a lot of different things so it was not as organized as our previous meeting because we had a lot of discussion also on you know is the data showing us everything considering that we are looking at trauma and what we put that in the behavior issues too and then what are we missing and then bill gave us some good advice that we were still gonna the data is still showing that if we're doing a good job of taking care of the behavioral issues so i don't know if you want to add something bill i i think we're pretty much just want to narrow down how we are monitoring right now so that we can really target and show that we're doing a good job especially we're going to have that policy and the mercy and we're going to have to get to what is going to what exactly do we want to see a support that shows that enforce most of that is how do we monitor that that's actually happening and i don't think we have any specific besides digging deep into the other data that was presented to us we are working everything around those three common goals yeah i mean i said it's uh i think it's going to be a combination of the work we did with me and really staying focused on student outcomes and and not necessarily how it gets done just that we have because we every time we get that how we forget the goal that we're trying not to get but we take our eye off the measure in the goal so and our job as boards is to monitor yeah so we want to look at the data look at the data and really understand what we're seeing and what is the data showing us so but none of us have you know we all have we're trying to i think we're doing a good job it's a really fun group and everybody's really trying to do their best at working together and it's so you know i like i said before i think it's one of my favorite committees because you really get to talk about what's important negotiations committee i have nothing to repeat there's some preliminary discussions between like the chairs of the negotiations that we would describe yeah there's some discussions on when things will start yeah one's the current contractor end of this year and then legislation requires that we only have a one-year contract after that again the state legislated in the army bus bill on act 11 that there is only one year allowed for the next negotiated agreement they all must sunset they all must sunset on july 1st 2020 all right now i am already so if someone feels strongly that they would really like to be on the negotiating committee they can talk to me in order i mean i want to but i don't want to probably do you want to see it yeah i do we need to make the motion for the follows that what you want to do i can i do all three yes sure you have to give those big big numbers yes she will oh i'll make a motion to approve the board orders um one for six hundred and seventy eight thousand six hundred and sixteen dollars and fifty seven cents do we need to date you know what we can do is just pass them over okay we do it yeah and then she can just read them off second one would be for two million three hundred and forty two thousand six hundred and seventy eight dollars and eleven cents and the third would be for ten thousand six hundred thirty one dollars and seventy cents oh you get to stand up okay special education we pay it to supervise unions so more interest can be made than on what it's costing us to borrow the money i just think it's important that when we're that's why yeah i'll wait to bring it back is there a second second and is there any discussion of the board orders all of those in favor of approving the board orders please say i i opposed abstain thanks um that brings us to future agenda items anybody have anything uh act ready six we already have those there got this place holder this place holder um i think you have one about um the guarantee guarantee policy board communication i think also related to the guarantee i have a request in is this a good time to say something sure to do whoever has time to go to the regional meeting for washington and orange it's going to happen on october 10th at the high school the steven has been a couple of times i guess so the regional meeting of what of the vermont school versus association so is when your board members get voted and i'm running for reelection so i would appreciate if there's people that actually it's the october 10th at the high school i think you have to sign up for it through the vermont school boards yeah because i think you have dinner don't they yes they serve you dinner yeah and you you say what you have received an email but it probably went on red but you said too many but yeah it's right on the website october 10th it's october 10th which is always not a good day i think it's first date that they happen every year they teach a course on last year positive yet but yeah and i'm gonna say everybody has to go but it would be good if we have the you know last year's meeting was pretty small i was not running last year a year before there were more people so there might be more people now that it's an election year but and i do believe that that brings us to adjourn