 Yeah, a little impromptu marching band that we've put together even though we don't really have a marching band at MHS. So there will be like hundreds of kids through downtown on Piliar, so it'll surely be a sight. And since that's six on Wednesday, and then Thursday and Friday is the festival which is taking place at E32. And I know some people here are hosting, so with that. Did you say there's going to be a marching band parade in Montpiliar on Wednesday? Yes, and it starts at the middle school. I will be in it. Sol and Samba. How many of you think there'll be? My daughter will be in it too. How many? She's playing with this huge drum that's half the size of her. It'll be interesting to see. So six Wednesday. How many baton twirlers are in it? What's that? Just from Montpiliar. Just kidding. How many of ours? How many of ours? Yeah! We got them all? They're not all in? You got 20 maybe? Cool. To add to that, there's going to be buses parking at multiple schools, so they'll be at Main Street as well. So if you're trying to get through town, you're not coming to the parade, which hopefully you all are. But there will be some traffic congestion with all the buses coming in. Yeah, I'm trying to get the timing to vote. And this past week was prom, and I just wanted to give a huge shout out to the prom committee, because I know they went really hard to plan this, and I had a great time. And also, I know she had a great time. And Girls Ultimate played their first game a few days ago. And this weekend, Ultimate is hosting the Capital City Classic, which is this huge MHS tournament. And Club Action and Interact are banding together to organize the Power Vermont Festival. And it was something that Emma actually started last year, and it was the Livelihood Music Festival. And we renamed it Empower Vermont this year. And it's in the works, but a lot of different club members, underclassmen and upperclassmen, are working to plan essentially a music festival that will also serve as a fundraiser and benefit a Washington County-based organization to help survivors of sexual assault. And that's partially why we decided to rename it, just because we really liked the idea of empowering others and that being our new name. And yesterday, Mike News came to the Montpelier High School campus, and they're online, so they're like a national news organization. And so they came for the second time, which is kind of phenomenal. And last time they had come because we raised the Black Lives Matter flag, and this time they were coming to interview youth lobby members and members of the Montpelier High School Earth Group. And I was one of the students interviewed, and so was Mr. Tom Sabo's son, Matt Sabo, and he goes to U32. And it was great to talk about the sense of community that I feel at Montpelier and also how I've been able to, I don't know, grow as an activist and advocate and find support for my school community in doing so. And the work that we've done as students in the state house is also just hilarious, like being on camera and having to walk around the building with Matt Sabo pretending that he goes here. It's just like, when it comes out, it'll definitely be funny for the people who actually go here and work here. And AP exams, SBACs, and science assessments, I know that even though I technically have a late start, since I'm taking AP courses, while the freshmen are going to be doing their standardized tests and some students have a late start, I know that AP students in AP Bio and APush on Thursday and Friday will be coming in at a regular time and doing some practice sessions. And I took science assessments last week and I am taking some AP exams and so I know that essentially like all through the grades we're kind of experiencing standardized tests and so we can answer questions if you do have any about what that is like. And as for student concerns and student needs, it's essentially just remain the same in terms of students' educational support systems and how best we can promote equity. And I know that you all were just meeting in regards to that so I'd love to hear about any updates you might have and just how we can support diversity and inclusion in the MRPS education. And I think also in light of some recent events and just like a culture that I've noticed in some social groups at my school just how we can go about changing that and I think it ties into the work that we've done with restorative practices and what we're trying to implement in the MHS community it's a multi-year process because with restorative practices you want to implement them right and make a good first impression so that students and community members don't really become resistant to it and so we're really thinking this out well and it's a student and faculty-staff coalition that's working on restorative practices at MHS and I've heard it and we met yesterday with Lou Sissiri and he works in the planning room and Lisa and Amanda Payne and guidance and talked a little bit about small changes we can make right now and how that'll fit into the bigger picture of what we can do to foster community and restorative practices is not just a restorative justice piece it's not about what happens when something goes wrong it's also just about how we can foster community in a sense of trust between teachers and students even though teachers are authority figures and how we can know about that that's it I do have to take some questions to talk about the meeting you guys just had I'll be facing all of them right now questions for no we spent you okay? yeah thank you especially on the visually appreciate it do you feel optimistic about the restorative justice process helping with the current situation? I think so I think that it's kind of the only solution that'll I think that the I think that the problems that I and other students have noticed are a product of just a negative culture amongst peers and I think that restorative practices and restorative justice is perhaps the only or at least the most effective way to sufficiently solve the problem of that negative culture and change it but it's less toxic I guess and that is kind of the only solution I see there right now for the best how is the overall culture in the high school change during the standardized testing periods? oh does it get intense does it get grumpy does it is it none of the above is not a big deal I would say overall it's from students but I think that's essentially as bad as it gets and overall the school culture doesn't change in response to standardized tests and I know that for juniors perhaps it's a little bit different just because we pay a lot of money to take AP exams and then we have to deal with the stress of taking them they're like money's weak depending on how many AP exams you're taking so but we're all in this together kind of um thanks you have to pay oh yeah yeah you pay yeah 94 per AP family add it to the list Bridget yeah it's like 94 per AP you couldn't take the AP course and not take the test it's not necessary it depends my daughter is one where she has to take the course as part of the take the test as part of the course like her grade is dependent on that kind of thing on the test result I wonder if the is there a subsidy stream somehow if the folks need it for the AP test any idea am I talking next maybe you're talking right now well you're talking now somebody said put it on the equity list I put it on the equity list we've we've problem solved it at Huck but I think we just were talking about this recently the guidance concerns and myself around how can we take this financial hurdle and burden out of the situation there are College Board provides free testing for students based on interim levels for the SAT and the PSAT but they don't for AP and so it's a problem in my old district at MVU which had a high much higher percentage of kids I was pretty nervous we used Title IV dollars when that came out we wrote an investment to cover AP exams and SAT, PSAT and we made PSAT a whole school expectation I did during school so that kids could see that there's a possibility just not choose not to take it so we made some very intentional moves in that manner that are possible to do here as well so PSAT is not something that's done in our schools right now it's done but it's a student choice it's a student choice but it's not but if the student elects to take the PSAT does the student have to pay the fee and let's say qualify for voucher based on income do you have any idea what percentage is different here I don't know the exact percentage off top of my head but it's hot what's their fee they probably remember because I've been a guidance counselor in six years it used to be like 30 dollars I think it's 25 I think you take the fee when you're a I don't know if you pay it both sophomore and junior year maybe it's just when you take it as a sophomore if you take it as a 10th grader you can't qualify for the college board waiver because that's early if you take it as a junior at the beginning of your junior year then you can qualify for the waiver and not pay for it and this I think in the last two years we just paid for them all this is a googleable answer so the PSAT registration fee for 2018-19 is 16 dollars and what's the AP fee is it 1? it's 2 more it's 94 per AP and that's also unfortunate that's the one that isn't expensive ones are I think you can get a fee waiver for AP exams but I think that it's definitely there's like a stricter vetting process in determining that and your income level has to be substantially low and they can't there is a really flexibility in the exam fee waiver there's all sorts of equity issues in terms of people who access it and also if that's a money issue it's kind of like money issues but that's a money issue it's mandatory if it's not mandatory I can see someone skipping the test because they don't have the 94 dollars which means they don't get the AP credit but they lose the benefit of not having to take that and of course it can be expensive so that's exactly what I was thinking it's a good thing to put on the list to discuss thanks Hope we appreciate it we didn't really answer Hope's question Hope wanted to Hope asked about our discussion about equity do you want to sum it up? we talked about really like we're getting the true equity when we redistribute resources into groups that have sort of been marginalized it can be very hard and how do we uncover where we do that I would say even beyond resources I mean also things like narratives and power and perspective and decision making because I think in some ways you can perpetuate inequity by just distributing resources but keeping all the power structures making it hard it's a very good discussion we'll be real on it and the point that we came out of is that we want to be more intentional about thinking about equity in everything we do rather than having to be like an occasional side of the discussion in any courses do you think that's good anything else for Hope? thank you good luck so a couple things we have one from Gregory Craig on the agenda Sarah came in after public comment she did reach out to Libby and I earlier and said that she had some things she wanted to say and the equipment came out sick from daycare so the whole afternoon got changed yes awesome and you can sit or stay I'm way too short so thank you again for letting me submit public comment and for your comments submit public comment and for listening to my emails I wanted to have a discussion or just kind of relay my thoughts around the facilities primarily at Main Street Middle School the impact that that has on culture and learning and at least express my hope and desire for the board to really think about building and how that presents learning as a whole to our community but also what services providing for the middle school so my son is in fifth grade he's moved from UES which I think is a historic but beautiful school I've come now to Montclair High School several times to sit before you guys and I think this too is a beautiful school and that's not the feeling I get when I walk into Main Street Middle School there's a lot of concrete there's not a lot of light there's a lot of disrepair if you go down into the cafeteria it certainly isn't a place for mingling or socialization it's very cramped and tight and I see that there's a lot of work that needs to be done to that building and I think that that work isn't being done I understand you guys have capital funds and you make repairs but to me that's more of a repair in need of a complete overhaul in so much as you're really going to have to start planning on how you want to either revitalize that building or are you going to relocate that school and I recognize that that is not something that will happen in my fifth graders lifetime but I also have a nearly two year old and hope it's something that by the time he's transitioning to Main Street Middle School it's something that is being talked about or hopefully has been achieved I would recognize that in addition to that environment as a parent walking in the impact of that on the learning environment I've read a lot of research around how the learning environment is affected in the sense of where kids behaviorally fall the way that behavior is perceived I don't know how many of you have been to Main Street Middle School I'm assuming all of you if you walk on that playground there's like a basketball court where all the concrete is cracked so the kids can't actually play basketball because they think everyone's cheating because the basketball literally pops in the wrong direction there's a couple four squares places there's what Owen calls like a tent-like structure in the middle where there's a table but there's no chairs the gazebo thank you and then there's some swings and that's it and we have kids who move from Union in fifth grade who still very much need to run around and I know for myself my son has had some definite behavioral issues this year and a lot of those have taken place in snack recess and lunch recess and when I talk to him about it I'm going and then I went out to the playground to try and understand what he was talking about and I'm like well no wonder this is going on what is there for you to do what is there that's positive here it's no wonder that there's so much social behavioral interaction going on where he's so consumed with what everyone else is doing because really what they do at lunch recess is talk they're not interacting playing soccer so he said at Union his favorite thing to do is play soccer with the goals and they don't have that opportunity there he did mention that there's the field in the back that largely is covered in snow and these different type things so I think overall I just wanted to say I feel like this is something that the board really needs to address it's a long term planning issue but it's something that I hadn't heard previously in my meetings that I've been here and the engagement that I had with the school I also think there are things that we could do in the meantime to mitigate some of those issues you can add fresh coats of pastel paint and they show that that has a positive impact on behavior whether or not you choose to do that is up to you but I think that there are things we can do to have that impact and I know in my discussions with Pam and Matt around behavior in this culture at Union there's definitely my understanding is that I'm not alone as a parent in strumbling with some of the behavioral aspects but also some of the frustrations at Union and I don't speak for them So I think it's important to recognize that like that building has a huge effect on how we present ourselves, how the learning environment is perceived and what kind of environment they're leaving coming from Union and then having that impact at Main Street So hoping it's something you're going to approach My second topic would be the use of detention at Main Street Middle School and the national move towards restorative practice the recognition of cognitive behavioral therapy or like processing so doing if you have a behavioral incident going through that with a student and then going through like what could you have done differently how can we repair the harm my son hasn't had a detention but he comes home every day with a list of kids who have had detentions even though I don't think that they're new kids every day it seems to constantly become his mind and it's almost idolized in his mind of like oh this is something that's weird and maybe I should try and get this or oh these are all the kids who did this today and this is what they did to get detention and it's like this rumor now that goes on and I surprised one by the fact that this is what consumes his social interactions but two by the fact that we're still using this practice in such a progressive community I recognize that the board has very little say over that practice but for whatever influence you do have I would encourage you to look at the national standards and the policy movements towards that and move towards more restorative practices and the last thing I want to address which I've talked to Libby about is my interaction in Main Street where I feel like there's a lot of just culturally there's been a ginormous shift between Union and Main Street and I haven't been able to completely put my finger on it but the kids are quite frankly just mean and the things that my son comes home with and he doesn't want to go to school and he doesn't find school to be a positive environment and we just spent nearly two weeks in England and he was a different kid when we were gone and I just checked in with his special educator today and she's like he's right back at it he doesn't want to be here he doesn't want to interact and when I ask him about it it's all about the social and behavioral interactions and the lack of support that he's feeling in this environment and I've talked a lot with Matt about this and I really I really value all the things that he's doing and all the work that he's trying to achieve and I think that there are steps that are being made but when I talk about it with Owen and I talk about it with other parents I'm not looking at it as a singular as a parent seeing a singular issue with my son but I'm seeing it as a systemic issue and there's a there's just you know we're recognizing a society we're moving on and we're going through this great evolution of change and there's a lot of meanness going on and a lot of bullying and a lot of kids are just not nice there and I think that's something that really needs to be addressed and I think some of that could be addressed by things like changing attention to restorative practices incorporating things like you know circles of poor accountability so that's what I came to say I really welcome all of the hopeful insight you might have on that issue and I hope you guys take some of those into consideration and your next policy moves and capital funding thank you yeah no thank you and we do have facilities is a subject that we're playing to discuss as part of our retreat and clearly MSMS is a huge need on that and I definitely want to echo your sentiments about restorative practice and attention there at odds and it's presently still after practice so I think you can do a lot with really small changes too thank you all thank you sir yeah good luck sorry thank you sir so next on the agenda is John Gruffray who has a request to look forward do you want to come up and kind of speak for a couple of minutes we can do it anyway you want to but I'm happy to give you a few words we can do it the easy way or the hard way and everyone did get your okay I won't fault any of you if you didn't go through the exhaustive length can't usually be faulted for not being thorough it was thorough so any I guess what I'd like to do is ask the board and I appreciate you having me here to consider my request for you to reevaluate the policy mentioned there I don't know I did put some speculation as my guess was that that was one of the easy merger policies because they were the same date and it was probably just let's move on to more important things however I think that it might have at least in our situation it seems like it's raised a potential question certainly a question in our mind about is this policy good as it is or should or is there a better way perhaps to do that so I don't want to go through all five pages of it I'm happy to answer any questions but I guess I want to make sure that the board understands where I'm coming from in my request and I certainly have thought through it on a variety of different levels and would like to provide my feedback as well as some other insight I guess into it I did try to find out from the Department of Education if they track the how many school systems used September 1st for those of you that don't know that the state mandates that you'd be 5 by December before January 1st so December 31st and that you're in between basically the dates are September 1st to December 31st and then it's up to the districts to figure out what they want to do so I've gotten an answer from the Department of Education they do not track that information generally I don't have that however in searching for that I was trying to find it online I did come across an article I think it was Vermont, Drow Kids should have brought the website with me there were several it was back in 2015 so a few years ago it was written and it mentions basically it was an article about when to start kindergarten the goods, the bads the research saying holding kids back is good advancing kids early is good there seem to be at least in this article three districts that have different ways of dealing with this so what I'm asking for you guys to consider isn't abnormal and it's not certainly an aberration Burlington does have particularly large districts but it appears that Richmond has one because they're mentioned in here with a parent who appealed to have their child enter kindergarten early and Winooski apparently at least at this time was using the December 31st date and mentions a kid that his birthday was at that point and it worked out great and then they'd also mentioned lots of kids whose parents held them back and entered kindergarten at age six and that's what I glean from this is that there is no correct answer there's no definitive data on it and that it's really on a case by case basis now as I mentioned in my letter to you I've been on in your seat denying one of these requests before when I was the poor chair at Roxbury we had to do this and the general consensus at the time was we got a lot on our plate we don't want to open up this can of worms and the answer is no and I think on further reflection now on the other side of that equation there probably wasn't the best way to handle that and not particularly proud of that moment on the board but it is what it is and I think that's certainly a reasonable answer to my request is that we just don't want to get down this road I guess I would encourage you to do that and I think that my mention about making good policies good policies in my opinion are based on objective data but also have room to evaluate special circumstances not on subjective means but on by objective means so while we have objective data which the state says January 1 we're choosing September 1 that as general guidelines amongst the education community being able to evaluate on special circumstances and requests using objective means which would be employing testimony say from the parents which is probably the least objective but then employing the teacher the current teacher, the future teacher the principal, the superintendent all the educational professionals are screening anyways but decide whether or not that that child is ready or not ready that's something that certainly some districts have chosen to do but it's different than what we've got now it's pretty cut and dry to say it's September 1 and we don't have to have any of these discussions and I understand that and I understand the board and a supervisory superintendent wanting to go down that road I don't think it will translate into a lot of a lot of requests if we're I do mention the structural differences between Roxbury and Montpelier which I think is significant in this case not just from the size of the school but the way the classes are structured there it's a multi-grade classroom building it's very different than what Montpelier has we discussed some of these potential growing pains as we merged how to manage the bigger picture within different school buildings that operate differently and you know we've had three and four year old Pre-K available five days a week for five years now at Roxbury and that's not what Montpelier has or is used to and I think that that's certainly worth considering and evaluating simply because in the case of our son he's missing the date of September 1st but he has in his case been in structured daycare since he's been three months old and he's been in a Pre-K program I would like to see him evaluated by the educational professionals in his life to see if he is ready to move and I think that would be an appropriate way to evaluate the request as opposed to just saying well you know John's making a good case, let's do it if I'm persuasive it shouldn't be about what I'm saying it should be about the teachers who are saying he's ready and or he's not so happy to do it, I'll keep dragging on so we just shine in I just want to say that when I first started on the board maybe or early on I thought that that was a very reasonable approach we got a request and I said why don't we just have the kindergarten teachers do an evaluation because they do that the preschool kids come in in the spring and they do a little assessment of some sort and I said they can tell us whether this child is ready for kindergarten the teachers the kindergarten teachers said A, don't ever do that again and B if you ever do that again they do the same thing which is say no they're not ready because we think it should be I guess I asked why it's not an appropriate response by an educational professional saying I don't want to do that no, it wasn't that they don't want to do it they didn't think that it was good practice John, I read your letter I wouldn't read it as deeply as a short letter probably I went quick I went fast I understood the piece about the cohort thing where in the multi-age classroom the rest would move on without him can you rephrase that again can you go over that fact pattern for me because I have to say I don't remember the details one of our concerns and this just has to do with the nature of being in a small building with 10 kids in a two-page classroom is your cohorts can be very small and we've had grades where there have been one kid and zero kids in that school in the past and in the case of his current pre-K class all of his friends are a month or two or three or four or older than him and aren't moving on to kindergarten all his friends are the entire group but the kids that he is interacting with on a daily linking up with socially and developmentally and I've heard that there are some fairly young three-year-olds coming into that class and so I guess given my son's particular situation I'm advocating for the fact that his mother and I both feel that he just be kind of spinning his tires hanging out with a bunch of young kids when the kids that he's basically developmentally at that level are moving on to kindergarten so isn't going to hurt him one way or another probably not we just feel that this is the best thing for him and within the context of not asking for a special exception that's why I was approaching it from can we look at this policy suit our needs or could it be done a little bit better so my concern is that he's going to be emotionally and developmentally ahead of the rest of his pre-k class if he stays there because he's already done it and that class will have to really sort of retreat into picking up for these young three-year-olds and the other component of that is managing and this is where Ben and the teachers at that school could chime in on this is managing those classrooms can sometimes be difficult and we've had over the last few years there to have to really think about which age groups are going together based on the kids that are in the classroom not necessarily just cut and dry on paper we want K1 or 1, 2 or whatever sometimes it just changes because and I think in fact they had some you guys could correct me and Lisa on this I think in the last year when we were with WSSU they had some of the kids out of like the kindergarten or the first grade doing part of the day with a class above because they were they split the first grade class into 1, 2 or K1 and they did it based on situations they won't do again it wasn't based on best practice so it's not my specialty I guess what I'm asking for is the evaluation based on that we have this situation now with a small building with small classes and multigrades and the situation where it might be appropriate to allow for this type of evaluation and I mean I get it and I understand why they might not want to be put in that position but you know that might be best for them but it might not be best for the kids and ultimately what we all do here is to create the best situation for the kids and you guys may all disagree with me and that's fine I'm just making my case that I think that this is a reasonable thing and other districts aren't doing it and allowing kids to join in who are born in the end of December at that age and the state has said that that's okay so I guess that I'm asking for you guys to consider that what's that about policy right so the superintendent doesn't have any authority under our policy to make exception that's where we are and really it's a boarding authority to make exception only to rewrite policy we have a policy to address for the policy so thinking about our conversation about equity and how the policy that we currently have versus a policy with more flexibility which would be more equitable to all students at first I was thinking a more flexible policy because that's what I was thinking at first but then I was thinking that the access to the process itself of a flexible policy has barriers for folks from marginalized groups so I'm interested in exploring that work good job of applying our learning I mean I'm a good teacher I actually like our policy and I have to admit I have bias towards not pushing younger kids into older because it's not just a question of is this child ready right now at four to go to kindergarten it's a question of we just heard about the tough sort of environment in middle school is it that a a nine-year-old is ready to go to middle school is it a 17-year-old is ready to go to college he's kind of have ripple effects through through the whole education and there's a lot of research out there that you know people on the younger end and the more you push it towards the younger end of the social spectrum they might be ready academically they might be precocious at four or five but socially there's usually challenges and they usually catch up at some point and I also think there's a fairness question I mean like my daughter even though I wasn't through pre-k the way that children's houses group at least at that time my daughter was a September birthday was grouped with kids who all went to kindergarten before her so she kind of had that year where you know her peer group had moved on there was a younger group that came in it was a slightly awkward year but now that she's now that she's like in third grade I'm definitely glad she's on the older side I mean there's like I'm seeing the clear advantages of her being there and I think it would be hard to create a flexible policy without just pushing it back to January first because you know where does that flexibility come in before? I'm curious if maybe Libby would be able to speak to what that objective guideline for tests would look like Michelle just shared her own story of the kindergarten teacher saying no we don't want to do anything because really like any flexibility would have to come back like John had outlined with a subjective test that all four-year-olds will take this test as they pass it, they're granted if they don't pass it well, so they're your preschool we could do that easily for academics we couldn't do that social social emotional, there's nothing out there for that but I know of and plus you can't predict the longer term as Jim mentioned in any direction I want to be careful that the board doesn't act like child development experts I think we all have our biases but we don't necessarily know what's in the best interest of children I know with my own child I had the same issue where I wanted to advance or fast and I was persuaded by a teacher to stop doing that and I think that teacher was right for my kid but that doesn't make that child right for John's kid and if our teachers are really good at being able to assess objectively the academic piece of it, that's great but I think parents can assess the social emotional piece very well, they may not be experts on that and they may need some guidance on it but I don't know that we want to put ourselves in the position to replace that and obviously we should not be trying to make an exception to anything and that this is a policy decision in terms of we would need to open up the policy, we would need to start the process of a rewrite based on research and do all that stuff and we need to be compelled we'd have to have some evidence that that was something that we thought was worth doing I think one thing I asked John was about the fact pattern around the cohorts and what I was trying to get at and I don't know that I got there John is that if there is something unique about the multi-age classroom that leaves the children coming out of that environment in a shock kind of a system or in an abandonment of their peer group somehow, you know, some unique situation then I think we might have a really compelling reason to open it up and say you know what the experience of Roxbury Elementary School kids is different than the experience of the Montpelier kids that we're used to I'm not sure we got there I don't know if we have that evidence but it's kind of a circumstantial thing that occurred in your family situation that may not be universal or even close to universal there's an adjustment that and have the same sort of have the same exact experience yeah I get that that makes sense so yeah I think that I guess I'm saying John I'm not hearing personally a reason to reopen the policy and I think we're bound by the policy and yeah I'm sorry to say that I'm also a deference to the policy committee I don't think we represent any policy I think we've discussed every single policy in our new merged district for quite a long time so I just wanted to state that front line thank the policy committee and I also think that if we open up the policy there's going to be a temptation for certain families for financial and child care reasons to want to push their kids to full day kindergarten because and I think there's better ways to address that problem that we need to address that problem but I can see families that are struggling to pay take care precast schools a half day with a kid with an octave of birthdays and boy if you could push them to kindergarten there's going to be a lot easier for a family situation yeah I mean the pre-k situation is a huge issue and they would these are two very different issues yeah and if they they need to say as their kid is emotionally ready they'll convince themselves that that's the case but thank you John it's an important issue and we haven't had a discussion about the policy that looks for a while so Tina I would never suggest that you abandon your duties just figuring that that was probably fairly low on the priority list in the policy review because it was going to be an easy one alright thank you thank you John okay so Sam are you sure and Matt before you start to Matt would you be willing to ask the school discussion if you don't have to have another board member just because we want input we'll follow that can I ask a process question before we get into it why is it just part of the budget you know in our second agenda earlier today the budget season is one that I think I've learned a lot from being my first run through this year I went with the process that was already in place it was a good process one thing I'm learning as the school year goes on as we learn as the school year goes on and it's particularly when you're new to a place I'm learning needs and principals are seeing needs they're getting to know new classes of kids more and better so we want this for this fall so I was just trying to understand why we have a budget request and we are going to address that a little bit so could we have the people sitting at the table introduce themselves for the people so I'm Pam Arnold I'm from the middle school I'm the assistant principal so the first thing we wanted to do was apologize for not being on the agenda and thank you for letting us share our proposal with you and as Levy said we've had this conversation around budget time and Matt and I will both acknowledge that this is something we feel is critical but we also thought maybe in a year trying to be as fiscally responsible as we could at budget season we really felt like maybe in another year we'll put the proposal forward and I don't know if you've had a chance to read it if it would be helpful for you to take a couple of minutes to read it before we start talking we've got it right before the meeting I think it might be helpful give me a couple minutes so thanks so again our apologies but there was a reason why we asked Levy if it would be okay for us to come tonight there were a couple in this item right now there was some there are some conversations you're going to have with Mike McRae it felt more appropriate for us to come and share our proposal at the same time rather than have another meeting where you're getting a request for something potentially as an increase so it just seemed to align well so that's where our apology is is that you didn't get a chance to read this ahead when Sarah left I said to her we did not know Sarah was coming and Sarah did not know we were coming however a lot of what she shared with her concerns aligns directly with what our proposal is for you tonight we are in our second year of restorative practices and it's a multi-year process to implement those particular practices you can't flip a light switch and have them all in place and so we are doing a lot of work around that area and a lot of the language that you see in the proposal the fact that we are calling our support team a resiliency team those are the kinds of skills we're trying to build with kids and what we're hoping to what we're recognizing is that there are a lot of kids every kid, every child has unique needs and diverse learning styles there are some students who need some kiddos who need more support than others and they need different types of supports and you saw in there a little bit we I would say are more in reactive mode in dealing with student behavior rather than proactive which fits with the mantra of restorative practices and the beliefs and the philosophy behind that we're limited right now in spaces not that we need any additions although I didn't know what Sarah was going to share about the facilities and she's identified some areas that we all know already and there are some plans with the facilities for that we have done a lot of conversations about shifting things around in our building and we are able to maximize space more efficiently than is currently happening right now so we have identified a space where we would like to create a center for kids to be able to have any student who has a need and Matt will talk more specifically about what some of those focus areas should be that we want to be but it's really a space for all kids and the other part that we're really focusing on is building the systems within our school at the different tiers. Tier 1 is for all kids, Tier 2 is for a smaller percentage, maybe 10% of our kids and then Tier 3 are those who have maybe more significant needs that we need to meet we absolutely need to build more supports for kids and we want them to be able to access what they need in the moments that they need it so they can then learn in the classroom and right now it's a little bit of shifting around it's who's available to help in an immediate situation and we're excited about being able to develop some core standards around social emotional learning with the new coordinator of that particular position for the district so there's a lot of systematic and I think Sarah used the word systems conversation happening at the middle school that teachers are asking for our help and we want to give them our help however we are being pulled to address the immediate needs for students and not having the time to get into the classroom to help teachers develop strategies to reach those kids in the learning environment so there are a lot of pieces to this we tried to condense it for you but overall we will be creating the resiliency center regardless of what comes out of this conversation and then we'll be proposing in a year from now we're hopeful that we'll be able to articulate that it is a big need at the middle school years past there was a planning room, planning room is not the concept that we're looking for we're looking for a place where kids can take the break that they may need to get the support that they may need for shorter periods of time until they can return to the classroom and also that teachers have been doing a great job at trying to monitor and address some of the emotional regulation challenges that are happening in the classroom and by the time that that has extended in the room all students are impacted and so we're trying to support them all in different ways based on what their needs are so that's kind of the broad picture and Matt's going to share a little bit about what some of the specifics are and then I'm quite sure you'll have questions because I saw Tina already raising her hand over there so let me just make a face like that, that finger went up I saw it so Matt's going to share some specific examples thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about this one of the things that's really impacted my push and my desire to have this position added, as Pam mentioned we talked about a fiscal year 21 so a school year in between where this would come up there's a few success stories that I'd like to share about things that have come up in situations with students that our ability sort of maxed out right now and I would say we're probably overextending ourselves as a resiliency team with our administrative assistants included with what we're able to do for students and those have resulted in some success stories and I think that we have a number of students with the opportunity to take sensory breaks movement breaks and sometimes behavior plans incentive based reward time or breaks that are earned those things have led to some success with students I think we have a lot of students that have a bit from similar types of plans and opportunities however right now within our systems within our staffing level what we have right now it's not really possible to offer those opportunities to our kids as Pam mentioned a lot of what happens right now is a reactive response to misbehavior or in some cases I think a lot of it's not misbehavior it's kids are coming into the building with any number of needs some kids are entering the classroom with needs that revolve around their attention and ability to focus some kids are coming in with anxiety that impacts their ability to remain calm or to sit quietly in a classroom and we want those opportunities for students so that a teacher knows there's a place for a student to go proactively where if they start to see those signs of student behavior coming up they can say hey I think there's an opportunity for a break a movement break a sensory break the student can access that space kind of hit the reset button and be able to go back to class and really access their learning without also disrupting other students I think our teachers are doing a great job of understanding that there's not really a space for kids to go really trying to keep kids in the classroom which is obviously our number one goal as well we want kids in the classroom so in some cases students are finding themselves sort of progressing through a warning or a redirect and then move your seat a student may be spoken to several times before finally it's reached a level where the teacher is like there's no real other option right now besides sending you to the office at times that student may end up waiting because myself or Pan might be in a meeting, he might be with other students very processing through some things phone calls with parents and various types of things where a student could end up missing significant time at times that puts a real burden on the office staff it never feels good to have a student in the office having you know for lack of a better term having some kind of breakdown where they're emotional they're upset and they're kind of in a public setting it disrupts it doesn't feel good on a confidential level for that student I think it kind of disrupts the business of the office and visitors coming in and seeing some of the students waiting to get support and waiting to come in most cases waiting to come into my office so that they can either process through behavior or in some cases they just need a place to be where they can kind of reset, they can talk through maybe things that are making to make just things that are stressing them out some of the things that they're bringing with them from home we're just talking about what do we need to do when we go back to class so that we can be successful and not disrupt other students learning sure so when we're looking at the whole restorative practices philosophy a lot of times these students who are being sent out because it's gotten to that level they're coming in with a feeling that they're in trouble but they're really not in trouble and the practice is about giving them that opportunity to have that conversation to work through whatever it is that they need and then return to their learning environment so right now that's a bit disruptive for the students who are getting sent out as well as the places they end up which is the main office and not the best location which is why the separate space will make a difference with that as well but I think it's also that movement towards we want kids to recognize that they have a need what's the best way for them to address it or to work through it and having the support folks there to do that I lost my train of thought but it'll come back to me it'll come back to me I brought something that I just want to show and I brought it we talked about this very strategically and it's not for I brought this for the purpose of being able to have the opportunity to talk about what this pile represents and so what you're looking at I'm not sure what it doesn't represent so these are office referrals and detention slips and what that's a big pile map let us talk through it though over what time period this entire school year and so to me what this represents is not or to us this is not of this amount of inappropriate behavior or there's horrible behavior of bad kids if you were to read through a lot of these or most of them a large percentage would have the words distracting disrupting a lot of these are connected with kids they're having a tough time in the class and it's not necessarily these don't represent consequences this is information for the office to have to talk with students about what's been going on to me it represents an immense amount of time for students out of class where for some of these students may have had to wait a half hour to just talk about really what are I would say like some quick fixes or where a student may have just for whatever reason been disruptive needs to get something off their chest needs to move around needs to burn some energy needs to kind of go through some grounding techniques or anxiety reducing type of strategies and in a large case what I would say this power represents is missed opportunities for students I think that the missing system to help support them that's the piece that that's the most important piece and kind of tying it in with restorative practices you know 80% of what we do in the restorative practices we want to be proactive and so we want teachers to be able to identify students that you know they're looking antsy they're struggling they're starting to get a little disruptive and be able to take that break and access that sensory space the resiliency center so that they can be more successful it would also give us the ability to schedule breaks in sometimes students particularly in fifth, sixth grade have a physical time identifying themselves I need to break right now some have that skill but you know having a space and a person for that would allow us to schedule those in so students have to request those breaks or figure out on their own what they need them but just have that ability to when we know there's a student that needs them and a lot of what we see in that file is developmentally appropriate in learning however they need specific strategies and techniques that they can access themselves to help them grow through some of these challenges and situations that get them into a place where they're not in the classroom so it's not an atypical type of it's not atypical behaviors but for some kids the length of time and their inability to final strategies is a piece that we feel like we're not providing for them at the moment and things like bullying or like physical violence substance type stuff that would be presented to me on a different form this is really classroom teachers communicating that a student is having a difficult time in class the last thing I'll mention that I'll talk about as far as what this file represents is a lot of time that students could be in class that are not a lot of time where students may be able to do a quick break and time at the resiliency center would prevent a lot of these things from happening and it's also it's a ton of time spent by myself, Ms. Arnold and at times our school counselor our social worker particularly I think that the time would be better spent with working teachers on teaching practices that also help prevent some of these types of things from happening where kids are more engaged where students are where there's more access to learning that's built into the teaching practice that's our insight Steve first I really have a few really little questions for you but I was hoping maybe Libby do you want to add any context to this before we jump into questions just because my only context that I would add is that I think it's an obvious need of more behavioral help at the middle school there's a significant amount there's a little need at the elementary school too but there's a significant rapper on team at the elementary school and there's even more of a rapper on team here at the high school and there's these two and a social worker at the middle school and so I want Pam to be doing something else I want Matt to be leading that process as terms of this is the system he's building and not the main person all the time so yes I see a definitive need I wanted to kind of ask you some questions that are critical of all of us as we do this but I wanted that pile what else it might represent we just finished a really great little training presentation on equity issues you guys have probably already gone through that as a team and really started you guys are probably all on the same team as we're just getting on to the team we're getting in the arena yeah we're gonna get bloody too so I'm wondering if that also represents our district's failure to really do this well in tier one or really meet the needs of all of our kids in that classroom before this ever happens I wonder if this pile represents the scale of our leaving kids on the margins when we don't want to be and I see in your preamble here there's a piece about that these are for are scheduled into student plans and I'm wondering how much of that you know I'm gonna ask you to ask you three in a row and then just look I'll be quiet how much of that represents kids who are on plans versus kids who are not on plans that would be the first thing the second thing is how much of that represents boys and then I would and then I would ask you like I really liked what you said at the end about that it gives you time to get in there and prevent this but I guess my concern is like I mean that's really where it's all at right is where we really want to be doing is best first practice best first instruction and to not have to not structure our schools in a way that starts dividing kids into ones that can sit in that chair well for six hours and those who cannot sit in that chair and so I just want you to kind of like wrap all that up a little bit for me and I won't ask any more questions I'm gonna speak to the tier one question and Matt can speak to the specifics so that's exactly what we are trying to identify as well in our proposal is that tier one our teachers they've been working some with universal design for learning strategies and practices which is providing information in different mediums in different ways to try and hit the diverse learning styles of all kids they need a lot more practice and a lot more time with that we need more time in helping to model that and to provide feedback to them in the classroom so our focus right now has been tier one which is all kids and all teachers so what that power represents I don't know that Matt will be able to answer some of those specifically but he can take a shot at it yeah I you know to give a definitive answer about the two questions I don't know that we analyzed it that way to get back to the board I'd be happy to get back to the board in those specifics I think that I would agree I think that in large part I think tier one practices can go a long way to preventing a lot of kids from being sent out of the classroom and getting them more engaged I also think that there are always going to be kids whether they're an ESG 504 IEP I think there's always going to be kids that on one day or another are just going to need a space to go whether that's somewhere safe to go to work quietly to get away from the classroom environment because for whatever reason that day they're really easily agitated or if they're coming in it was a really awful night at home and they're anxious about things and unable to focus on themselves and disruptive or distracting behavior I think those situations are always going to exist but I think what we'd love to do is have more time to work with teachers on those tier one practices that aren't just academic but also what are we doing as a school in tier one for social and emotional learning and there are different strategies for different genders that work and by no means be suggesting we're not included we could wait for some guesses but we're not going to do that I agree with Libby, I'm not this is by no means a proposal to be like I'm no longer working with kids on their behavior I think that this is more there are large parts of my day at times spent with students talking about behaviors that I think could be prevented and at times that seems like an inefficient use of my time but I know that there's a couple of questions I know that there's a lot of time here too with a few students that I've been able to provide some brains for both scheduled as well as earned mainly taking place in the second half of the school year I think one that has probably recently had the best streak of school that students had for their entire time that they've been with us I think other students we're seeing academic and behavioral success they're interacting really in some cases for the first time experiencing success at school I wish we had that opportunity to offer to other students I think I have a question I can't see me down here so I have a couple of questions that maybe just need a quick answer but of course what is is this person going to be a social worker or is this person going to be a psychologist who are you looking for? so we've talked about it being under the umbrella of an instructional assistant position but it definitely is a true facilitator you don't see this person doing counseling or anything no because by having this particular we would certainly be looking for a person with those skills to be able to build them before with kids and to be able to have that consistency but with this it allows our social worker and our school counselor to be freed up to be accessible to more kids because currently they along with Matt are doing the scheduled breaks for kids throughout the day every day so this person we would be a team so those kids who are in that space who need additional services that's where we would wrap in our counselors and the other people with the expertise that that student might need but we did not talk about it as being a licensed individual well then I'm wondering at the urgency of it and second the data is incontrovertible that the exact same behavior of a white girl will throw a black boy into detention and I'm worried about the subjectivity of what is identified as disruptive behavior and what is identified as behavior that needs to be removed from the classroom because as much as we couch it in terms of we're doing the student a big favor by doing this by putting them aside and letting them get their hands out of their pants it is still and will be recognized as this kid is disruptive this kid no longer belongs in the classroom we're removing this kid because the rest of you need to be protected from a student who has had a bad night at home and maybe needs to be with his classmates and so I would actually feel a lot better about this if you were bringing in a social worker, a licensed clinician of some kind, if you were bringing in someone that could actually move that child into a better place rather than babysit them I don't think we need any and I know you're dying to interrupt me just dying to but I don't, I think if we bring people into the school system to address the problems of students that are not otherwise fitting into the classroom by somebody's cloud based definition of not fitting into the classroom we need to demonstrate how it is returning that around in a professional manner and I don't even know about that data and how many of those kids are on a free lunch program that's another issue that has to be addressed with behavioral issues and how it's perceived by the teacher so I appreciate you pointing that out so what we've shared mostly today is tier one we do have tier two and tier three where we know those students who leave that specialized, that therapeutic those conversations those scheduled opportunities with our school counselor and our social worker we have those individuals I think what we're also trying to articulate is that any student and it's not a removal from the classroom like you're not welcome there it's we're hoping that the kids are going to recognize that's our goal that I think I need a little space for a few minutes and our vision is very short term like it's three minutes, it's five minutes and they're back in the room kids are doing that now for the kids who need that very intensive support that is at a different level and they're identifying that's built into their schedules it's all part of the bigger plan that I realize that and you can bring a kid out of the classroom he knows he's being disruptive for three to five to ten minutes the other students are going to perceive that and the other their classmates are going to label them as the kid that needs to leave the room and I'm just concerned you know there's another part of me that thinks well if kids have answered their parents just throw them in a recess recess maybe we need more play time in the school system even at the middle school level maybe there's a I'm just I don't feel like I have enough information to feel comfortable with this whole process one of the other pieces that we didn't share tonight is and I think this might address something that you're articulating we have an SST block which is an intervention block that's depending on the grade, fifth and sixth grade it's four days a week and seventh and eighth grade it's three days a week and we've talked about in our conversations at the resiliency team level there are kids who might need intervention in a variety of areas but their most critical one for this week or next week would be scheduling them to the gymnasium where they're actually down getting some physical activity and kids, all kids could be grouped into that too so that's a space that's already there so if I'm struggling with reading and my extra reading intervention is SST so I'm always getting that intervention I'm always feeling like here I'm spending all of my time working on the skill I need most which is critically important but there is a time where I need that physical break so that's another system that we're looking at we can share that in our proposal I appreciate it and I understand some of the concerns that you brought up I would offer as a thought and something to consider that a lot of the students or some of the students I should say perhaps a lot of the students that I'm thinking about are students that would really benefit from accessing this type of space in the resiliency center I would wager that a lot of those students really feel uncomfortable in the classroom because they know their behavior is disruptive to others they know they're impacting the people around them I think that I think that giving students the ability to taste some academic success is really powerful and I think that we have students that as opposed to I think no matter how hard I try at this point I need you to go talk to Mr. Roy down in the office is always going to have a negative connotation for students I think a teacher letting a student that only had things a really good time for a break really presents itself differently to the class and to those students and right now we have students that ask for breaks and we're not able to provide them so there's also students that want breaks and know that they need to get some energy to help and our self-aware particularly 7 to 8 grade students there's nowhere for them to go I'm just going to have to go on the record that I am opposed to this I don't have enough information in it I don't know how the current system is being administered I would like to know how many of those children are on the free lunch program I'd like to know how many were African-American I think having had this personal experience in my family I do not have confidence in how it would be administered and I'll just say that so it's my two cents worth uh I think Michelle Tina I think it's Michelle Tina Andrew and just a quick reminder at 8 o'clock we've got Mike we've got Adler School so but to in addition to what Jackie has said the pile of paper is like an interesting visual but it just doesn't mean as much to us as with data I don't know if that's the same 10 kids getting in trouble every week or if that's 120 kids each getting in trouble once and how if that could be turned into data and then we could see if we hire this person does it get better like that would really help I hate to even say that because I understand that that pile also represents that you guys are having to do too many jobs at one time and now I'm asking you to do data entry too but I think that would be really a lot more useful to us and I share Becky's concern about the quality of the higher proposing potentially paying somebody $13 an hour I think we did that a lot of ways at whatever problem we had and then we reversed all that right so you mentioned we used to have a planning program so tell me that sequence what happened to that person I understand it's a different theory of how we're proceeding but so enrollment dropped dramatically there were two people in the planning room at one time and then enrollment dropped and then I think we were at like 176 students or something like that and then when Steve Mears retired we changed that position the room disappeared so the rooms have disappeared from increasing enrollment and then we went to the assistant principal model instead of someone overseeing the planning room we have in the past had an assistant to the principal but not at the same time as we also had a planning room so those are two different those are two different positions there was never two there was only one person so there was the overseer of the planning room yes so my second question has to do with the implication of this it was a past read I imagine because they're on a plan so is this a re-immersible is this a special edition it's really about all students and not all students who have breaks or breaks is pretty much the big one or sensory needs or human needs are on high ups no that's not that's not the first paragraph we put all kinds of plans and so we put on an EST and buy before IEP or it's just a behavior need but they don't nest it's not something that's attached to IEPs okay before I go for various reasons I'd say I don't have enough information to make this decision so I think what's really helpful for us is we heard the data analysis of the referrals because we can tell you what the referrals are about so we can do that analysis which is fine we wanted to come at least get your thoughts before we can because we see it as a significant need we do feel like we are not able to meet the needs of all of the kids in the middle school can you tell me why this is May 1st and I have not heard about this before so as we shared a little earlier we had these conversations at budget season and of course budget season is on October before we get too far into the year we've been doing I think an amazing job of trying to find strategies and supports that work for kids but they're not all working and I honestly feel like we try to articulate this there's not enough people power to work with the number of needs that we have when those needs are happening I mean what I was going to say is very similar to what everybody else has said I think from a process perspective us receiving this with little information ahead of time without the types of substantive metric that folks are asking for I think it's problematic the general question that came to my mind is the same one that Michelle first said and it's the one that Tina just brought up which is why haven't we been hearing about this why are we just hearing about this now why are we just getting all this information five minutes before you request pitch this request for this position and maybe you're thinking okay this is heading into next year and that's fine but in terms of the quality of information and in terms of the process used here it makes me want to definitely pause so I think in the future when you're coming to the board with needs because I think everybody wants our kids to succeed and we all want to support you in the jobs that you're doing and we certainly want to support all of the students and families it's just how you approach this I think in the future giving a little more lead up time would be really beneficial to the board and for you and your cause we had talked about that because we had after you've done the agenda tonight that's why I don't want to break you guys because I know you guys are so upset sorry but I do just want to make sure that when we leave that we understand specifically aside from subgroup data I'm not sure what other data you are looking for from us that's just the one thing and I think subgroup data can also be you can look at it in a variety of ways so that's the one piece I've heard but I'm not sure what else or specifically what it is you're looking for so at first I want to say that I'm really glad that you came to talk to us and I think it made sense to be here tonight we're talking about other issues and maybe coming up in the budget and I thank you both for your very hard work on behalf of Kins of Main Street I know how difficult the challenges are that you're dealing with in terms of what I don't quite understand I think would like to understand more about the written proposal seems to be talking about someone who's covering scheduled breaks which I understood to me kids who had that built into their schedule or their plan not a kid who in the moment and after interventions is being directed out of the classroom which is what I think the referrals are so I'm getting a little bit confused between the point of the position and the schedule breaks I think that an added person gives us the ability to schedule for the work it's to have schedule breaks that are proactive and we know it's a need that they have that doesn't then prevent myself school counselor, social worker and times even our administrative assistants from like adding something else to their job which I think adding something else to their job which we all have full time responsibilities right now and so that's one piece I think the other piece is the ability for students to I would say kind of a way to look at is to try to access this space before they are disrupting the classroom significantly or before they get themselves in trouble and in a lot of cases it's the ability to go somewhere and sometimes they need to talk sometimes they need to move around a little bit sometimes there's different strategies that you can do with students that sometimes it's just the ability to get away from the space and just kind of regroup I think we can all kind of relate to that at different points and so it's not just schedule breaks it's a lot of those needs and it's also to have someone that can help process with a student some really low level behaviors that might not be acceptable in a class but aren't necessarily ones that need to rise to the office level and part of it is certainly providing more time for instructional learners to be in classes to be working with teachers to be working on those strategies that would also help engage all students in a really meaningful learning you know at at times I think there are students that just need somewhere to go and they just need some time away I don't look at this as a place that would be that's punitive that is something along those lines I think it's actually fairly common in schools to have spaces like this and it's done really well and we also feel like that pile is a systemic concern not a kid concern and so that's where you know the data pieces we understand that that's important but for us we see that as that's something that we're not doing right for kids and that's the part that concerns us more than anything else I feel like there was a part of your question that I didn't even get to I think you answered so the person staffing the center would also would be would be supervising scheduled breaks but also interacting with kids who are chosen to come there or whose teacher have asked or sent them there do you have any concerns that having a space like that will make teachers more likely to rely on it that's why we're not interested in it we're not interested in it being a planning room which I think does have that best sense in that context but yes we are also worried about that and we're worried in that we know it needs to be structured very carefully so sorry so what happens if this doesn't happen because I I'm hearing a lot of concerns from the board I think a lot of valid concerns I think Becky raises a lot of good questions just generally about you know how we choose these practices and how much they're influenced by preconceptions we have about kids and about certain kids who fit into certain profiles etc but I'm also wondering what's concerned about what's happening now and not acting based not acting because we have gotten information for the last minute and it's not perfect and as a result of that leaving something in place that is keeping all these concerns that we just expressed in the present and perhaps some additional concerns as well so that's that's my biggest that's my biggest take I think this is a discussion we need to keep having but I think it's important about if we push this off what what does it look like between now and the time we get back to it can we get a point of clarity though because my understanding is Mike's coming to us about an enrichment coordinator Mike's coming to us to increase FTE because of enrollment class size policy okay maybe the question I had whenever Pam could ask for what the board needs to see since before our last budget cycle we get requests we wouldn't see more of this we wouldn't see more of that people here people there let's fix all these things but we've been saying no no no we want to slow down look at the system figure out what's in place it feels like right now all of a sudden we're hiring we're hiring hiring but I haven't heard how it's all fitting together or what's happening and I want to appease Matt and Pam and it sounds good let's help and let's see what we can are we just putting the mandate on like we said we don't want to do where are we actually starting to implement the systems change that we talked about we're starting to implement the systems change we know more and we've talked as leadership team Pam's not here had more about exactly having the same mentality as to what these things need I think we're thinking systems during public comment Sarah mentioned restorative practices moving that direction moving away from detention I think this is really critical for some of that work I see this person if you look at some of the responsibilities some of the retrained restorative practices that you probably expected or hopefully a member of our restorative practices committee at the school our restorative practices committee is working really hard to really be able to do away with detentions not next school year but the following school year some of that work is the professional development and building our capacity and building our systems and not abandoning a current system without one to replace it I think that a big part of this could also be facilitating restorative conferences and working with students to create plans to repair harm that's been done and so I think that that is a critical piece of this work as well that they would create a first in the face and time for those types of things to happen so that it's not right now our system is in detention because it's behavior really you know people are affected but right now there's not the time the space or the ability to really go through that process the way it's meant to be within a restorative philosophy so that students so that we're really focused on repairing harm and building that plan is better rather than the opposite which is more of a Steve and let's try to so I'm not only speaking for myself I think what I'm feeling it's radiating from other board members but I haven't checked in with them is you have a labor shortage and we need to solve that labor shortage I think what are and I think we all support a solution for that labor shortage that's an immediate need but it isn't the it isn't the big picture that we all are starting to really discipline ourselves as a board on trying to insist on before we move forward I think that's something Libby has kind of introduced to us is this idea of whoa whoa whoa slow down don't do anything without a big picture right number one number two is we just had a presentation and we have all for years we've been committed to equity in our district and now we're starting on the bones on what that means and I think we are now running everything through that filter of how is this going to work how does this advance equity how does that advance equity if we're going to spend a dollar how's it going to advance equity and I think that what we want to what we need is that bigger picture context for if we're going to say solve the labor problem how do we solve that labor problem and are we really maybe we're willing to spend a lot more than this maybe we're willing to buy a different type of position that would be more robust than this I don't know but I feel like we're missing that back story and I think that this green paper didn't get us there and I think that what we need is I want to know what the philosophy is I'm not I'm not comfortable with that we actually have a a robust and comprehensive philosophy on how we're going to change the system around around discipline and support of students who are having these you know we're still using a lot of language that's been around for a very long time on these and and I don't know whether that's really the most progressive way to think about these things and I feel like we need to be convinced maybe and that's maybe Libby's job to kind of like lead us into a one or two sessions of here's why we're doing it this way here's why we're spending the money here so if we have three proposals for additions to our stocking tonight and we do have a quarterly report but we don't have a corresponding proposal to take these from the fund balance usually when we I assume that this could come out of the fund balance and normally we have to approve a this position because Grant has been in training since position hasn't been talked about the other positions have other funding sources that are not but we don't know about this because Grant hasn't been for two weeks so I mean I fully support having enough people in the building to look out for the kids but I do want to know what is in that style of paper I want to know is it the same 30 kids over and over is it the same three teachers over and over sending their kids out so do you want to write down the list of data inputs okay just because I feel like Michelle is about to start rattling some off I just want to better understand the problem that we're solving and then I want to see whether we actually solve it and I think the other piece that I hoped to articulate is that there is a need for teachers to have more skills around working with all students and right now part of that missing piece of the puzzle is my ability to do that absolutely and so that's another piece of it so wait I'm going to review I don't want to kick the can and leave you but I think it came to us too quick so I think we could right now put it back on the agenda with more data and with assurances I think we should start planning that's pretty critical but the issue is this an all over plan that has to do with how you manage kids in the building am I assured it's not an instruction problem or if it's an instruction problem you have a plan for how to solve that instruction problem I mean that bigger picture was what Steve and I think Jim was saying so I'm not saying let's forget it and I think in general though I really I know I really do think in general though to just add to what Michelle said though in general dropping new positions after the budget in this like urgent fashion when we haven't heard anything about it that process sucks it really does and we want you to know that it's not our intent but it's not it's not ideal and I think this was a tremendously important opportunity for us to share with you regardless that we didn't present it in the way that you would have liked however we could have tried to interpret and take a guess at what you would like to share and so I appreciate it but we do appreciate hearing us and I just want to make one comment we're not looking to do management we're looking to support can I add one more thing could you explain why we have detention and why we can't get rid of it we're fairly certain it doesn't fit in restorative practices we know that so regardless of that why can't we just get rid of it we probably can we still have to have a system for being able to process with kids and that's missing thank you for your time thank you we look forward to seeing you again soon if you'd like us to come back maybe he's going to tell us maybe he's going to tell us it could be more Mike, thank you for your patience and Matt since that took a while if you want to go is it coming up after Mike it is coming up after Mike it's totally your choice it's getting late do we have pizza? so Mike is here because because we have a significant enrollment increase at the high school in the ninth grade he was telling me some numbers earlier it's a pretty significant increase and our core subjects are busting out of our class size policy so it's the only time this has been said in the state of Vermont in this decade and this is not directly coming from eighth grade we didn't know this was coming hi hi principal yeah so it's pretty small so let me decide I have talked to Grant I had a chance to do that not that you are high on my list and close to my heart you are but I think I did go to see Grant first just to see what was possible and I talked to him about this in November and I said I think we're really close in English and social studies I was nervous about English and social studies and I said I might need like a 0.2 FDE in English for somebody that's already part-time and expand their job a little bit and maybe like 0.2 when I'm actually asking for 0.1 in social studies do you want me to put that up on the screen in the budget or would you just wait to see what the numbers are and come in the spring and I'm not trying to throw him on the boss today but you just I was that guy he just let everybody else get in trouble he said that well he'll be applying me in for stuff like for years he just said that's going to be so small just come in the spring and so here I am is this for the rising 8 rising 8 so we knew they're a big group we knew that we were going to be full and we knew it was going to be really close and basically we just need to add a section, one section of English for our 9th graders we have a part-time English teacher who has tentatively agreed pending your approval to add a section to her job and that will do it and then studies is also will be out of class size policy if we run it the way it is unless we cut economics and I don't want to do that it has 15 students in it and I'd rather push them into one semester we can just have them take economics first semester and have the teacher run a third section of social studies global perspectives global and international perspectives and then the second semester we can just run those same three sections in the second semester so that's why it's only 0.1 so it's not even 0.2 it's just 0.1 that's just what we need to make it work you're like it's just 0.1 it's just I mean it's very so that's what I'm looking for what about the MHS data manager for that piece we put that on the agenda Mike and I put that on the agenda when we got some information from a staff member that has not come true as of yet so we're going to cross that out for right now and wait on that piece you mentioned the 8th graders coming up and that was an unpredictable number no what's unpredictable is the number of students that we want to talk about okay so the transfer is in so it's 116 students that are signed up for the social studies in 9th grade some of those are 10th graders because we do we do have global issues and perspectives available to all 10th graders some 10th graders take it so there's a little bit of a higher number there and the 9th graders we it could be very tight and we could do that for what is likely to happen it's happened in the last couple of years we did another 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 students coming in and we'll be way out of the class size policy so I think that this will do it and then you'll see what your numbers look like again next year but right now this is what we need to make it because these children have registered to be here next year yeah and how will this advance equity well I'm not sure I almost just said the super honest thing the teachers that are going to have more FDE do some of our best work with writing they'll be making themselves more available to those students there will be more of them here and so the class size will be a little bit smaller they'll be within policy and so students will have more access to those teachers particularly around literacy could you just say that smaller class sizes improve equity I was trying not to that's true you didn't set any problems up for maybe for the future at all there I mean seriously don't we have an opportunity when we add people to look at equity issues I mean isn't this a chance where we could say you know what while we're at it let's offer some different classes we've got a whole bunch of new students come in oh my goodness the scale is better than it's ever been this is our chance to also look at what we're offering or how we're offering it I think that is coming but this year this is what we need to stay within class size policy and then I think in the fall and I've left a few notes for folks the drawer yeah there will be more opportunities to think about programming with an increased number of students and this place is just going to be fuller than it has been in a long time so there's going to be opportunities to rethink space as well you don't want point two on social I have a specific question about what ifs so if I say no I'm going to close economics okay so what about creative writing yeah maybe we would have to close creative writing there's 24 kids in it so it's back to the meeting the policy then if we didn't do this the class would be in the meeting yeah and I would have to collapse electives or the smaller sections teachers can only teach so many sections under their current contract so they would have to teach more sections of the core courses and therefore eliminate the electives electives how many sections are they teaching these teachers a full-time teacher at the high school teaches five sections so these two teachers are not they're not full-time so they're going to be that much closer to full-time you're getting one to full-time and one to point nine or what are you doing one will go from point six to point eight one will go from point six to point seven and both of them yes and you don't need point eight on the social studies why yeah I know I didn't get your scheduling math so basically you're not a high school principal yeah you're like I don't even get it have you ever played Tetris so it is and the money comes from the money for this comes from increasing enrollments there's a lot of places that come from places that are very small come on so do you want to know the do you really want to know that you're coming no I think Libby told me not to try she's smart she's speaking from experience she's like Steve and this is being hit for yeah so I move that we approve the request from the high school principal for these increased FTEs or English and social studies do you have a second second where does the money come from increased enrollments the grants answer if you were here would say the percent increase is so small and we all know grant his favorite word is conservative that he pulls it from tuition dollars or money that he's budgeted he's conservative budgets so much that he's going to hurt he's going to say retirements it's one savings from it's all it's fine if we're getting more kids in and we're there's always an efficiency of scale on that so it works Mike we didn't ask you to have this information in advance but do you have a sense of this year's exchange what's that exchange or tuition well exchange is just with you 32 it's not with the whole region of lottery yeah when you see about lottery that's different and this board has moved from 10 to 8 students that are accepted and there were 57 on our waitlist it's a good thing it's nice it's nice to be wanted so we're at max capacity doors closed and slurry paths no longer skip down um any further questions on this specific proposal as part of this discussion all in favor are you opposed thank you Mike is this our biggest class for the high school I don't know if it's overall so I'm guessing it's the biggest class we've had in a long time in the high school it's really a historic thing for our city that we should remember we're coming back up who knows how long it will last but we're there over 100 well it's unclear totally but you know we're gonna end up with over 400 in the high school pretty soon so the format versus sleeping bag that's fine that's very important let's turn to enrichment and after school I think we can probably give this as a combined yeah go ahead that would be great as a combined update I can start off on after school we have more members of the committee here so as as folks probably know we had this board set up a committee to work with solicit request for proposal for after school programming the committee consisted of Brigitte myself, Matt Principal Ryan Herady from UES two community members Rebecca Copans and Christine Zaki one MSMS student Sam Brondike and then she was not an official member of the committee but we had Cassie Wilder who works with after school Vermont who sat in on personal meetings and played a consultant role we got four requests for proposal one from the YPCA which runs which is a nonprofit that runs several programs throughout the state we got one from something doing business as part two after school collaborative thank you doing business as part two they became part two and that's what's in my mind which is a for-profit entity that was formed by two educators a few years ago and that provides after school services at several schools in county now although they are interested in expanding beyond Trenton County one from the rec department which runs certain youth programs and senior programs for the city and then one from community connections which is the current provider of both after school licensed programs and enrichment programs the committee asked went through all the proposals we scored them we asked repeated questions of all the providers to get clarity of affordability capacity quality of programming willingness to work with the district to meet needs the wages and rentals for their employees we conducted site visits to all four of the providers the rec department did not have a formal program we could go to a person who went on that site visit on all the other site visits not all the committee members went but most of them did we had extensive discussions about what we saw on those site visits with the exception of one provider those site visits entail substantial meetings sit down meetings with people who ran the programs where they were able to answer further questions it was a long and hard process there was a lot of quality work thoughtfulness given to it an incredible amount of thoroughness at the end and this was a long long time ago but I think it was less than a week ago last Thursday the committee had a long meeting where we went through all the information and came to a vote the recommendation of the committee which was unanimous and again a very difficult decision was that we recommended that Libby began negotiations with after school collaborative doing businesses part 2 the main factors going into that decision they met the capacity needs which has been an issue in this district they were able to significantly expand capacity from where we are now the people who went on the site visit were very impressed by the quality of the programming when we looked at the complete structure for affordability including scholarships and subsidies offered to families it was the most affordable for virtually all income brackets and significantly more affordable for lower income brackets people making 70 to 100,000 would experience a small increase but all the brackets would realize savings they also had other perks that were not offered for instance on in-service days and late start days enrolled students got covered for free there was automatic coverage and no extra charge they have quality summer camps including summer camps at times of the year when other people do not have summer camps like the last two weeks when most summer camps close that kind of gap between school year and beginning of the school year their wages were competitive and on par with our current provider and with the other providers and the recommendations around them were all excellent the principals that have worked with them that we talked to had all had very positive experiences in accommodating taking students but near etc so it was a tough decision the decision came with a couple further recommendations the first of which is that the cost structure which is not as easily it's not as easily understandable as a sliding scale which is what a current provider has even though it's affordability at the end of the day is more affordable that they work with the district to make sure that the cost structure is accessible and understandable to families and families are able to easily access it and understand it at the onset that there's not an impression that there's a cost there that's not there and the second is that there was a huge recognition that the current providers the people providing daily care to our students are doing an excellent job and we would like the new provider to make sure that there's opportunities for current providers to be employed with them if that's what the caregivers so choose so that recommendation was made again it was a very tough decision it was unanimous which I think speaks to the openness of the work but I also think it speaks to you know the decision it was people came in with very diverse use and came out with one job so I don't know if you want to add anything to it I would add that we had just two really exceptionally committed parent members community members were always really the way the community can step up and that was an enormous amount of value and I also want to thank Matt Roy and Ryan Heridy who also on the committee and really were some steady guiding hands keeping us focused on the needs of the kids I concur with all that it was excellent and people went above and beyond Matt you summarized it pretty well you know the I think there were some people that were really swayed by the site visits I think definitely the large role in the decision I think that the visit to part two I full disclosure I was not on that visit I'm somewhat familiar with part two for you know just from colleagues in Chippin County but the part two visit was exceptional by all accounts they were always really separating them I think from the back and just all the other things they talked about one thing that I would mention that I think factored into the decision for me a little bit somewhat of a small thing but going so far to talk about sending if wanted sending representatives that worked with the students to 504 meetings, IV meetings to CSPs and just the awareness and that ability to go to school and I think a big one especially with the middle school one of my big things going in was capacity wanted to increase the number of students they could access and I think hearing the answer one specifically asked about what if a kid moves into the district and programs have already started and the answer was basically we're never going to turn a kid down and so I think that's a big piece too but it was an enormous decision to go to the parks it was really a testament to the process and also the discovery test provider Is there a question about the process or do you want to introduce the enrichment position and just take questions let me talk about the enrichment because they're kind of related it might answer some questions people have because the enrichment piece is definitely correct so one of the themes that came out of this process the overwhelming themes that came out of this process was the desire to keep what I refer to as enrichment programming and after school enrichment programming at Main Street Middle School in particular with a slight connection to the high school as well that's very important to our community it's very important to me for our middle school staff recognizing that those kind of opportunities are what adolescents need for multiple reasons in terms of mentorship, in terms of finding a love and a hobby and we've talked about all those things before and I think we talked about them last board meeting so I'm not going to repeat that but I just want to say that's an overwhelming need and desire at the last board meeting I presented to you the possibility of a 0.5 position to keep that piece going and offered where's money, what's it look like that kind of thing went back and I talked to a few people and many people said what if it were a 1.0 and we've talked about that a bit last time as well I believe so taking that through the coordination we've quite honestly drew at the middle school who helped write this job description of what with me came up with the job description and what if it were what if it were and he had many more I kind of convinced it in here so we could see it on the page and then what would the contract look like and what would the potential monetary streams look like so this is using that if you flip over this paper to the chart on the back and yes I've talked to Grant about this just before anybody asks the district contribution already we budgeted just over $37,000 we just rounded it down to $37 I think it's $37,285 or something like that if you really go into the exact numbers that district contribution could pay this position salary as it's currently being paid now so the position that is provided to us by community connections is paid this salary and that is inclusive of like benefits in the head thing that wouldn't be a pay increase and we already have that money budgeted that's already there if we were to look at this does not have a sliding scale what I did was I took what's currently there and the $50 is the middle ground that's not to say it couldn't be a sliding scale it could very well be but for ease in this situation of just getting money to monetary ideas I just left the $50 and there's just the middle number if we were to run a certain number of ten clubs in a seven week cycle throughout the year and that's inclusive of the high school as well which is a lot of clubs and I think it's more than what we currently offer it's about what we currently offer parent contribution at $50 in a club would be about $37,500 that money could be would be used to pay oh I'm sorry the enrichment corner is $43 so you take some of that money to add under the $37 to do the salary stipends and club advisors a few other people that we would need to hire to teach these clubs would be about $280 of clubs since the seven week about an hour and a half after school that works out at $25 an hour so that's what the cost of running that amount of clubs would be we'd still have money left over for $6,000 of scholarship money and about $6,000 of supply of money to revamp when we needed canoes, kayaks Dave was talking about getting mountain bikes that fit in high school bodies because we only have high school bikes that fit in high school bodies so that kind of purchasing that is in the plan we talked a lot we talked at the after school advisory committee actually about Bridget brought up some good points of why make people pay why have that we've went back and forth on that a bit and I think that's still an open question Jim made a good point of let's keep what we have going now going and the way it's going for a year so we have some time to really think how we want to do that I still have the question the question hasn't been answered for me my dream is to grow this is to grow it between the middle school and the high school and and if we don't ask people to pay then that will continue to be a local budget expense we can't grow it as well or as easily we'd have to find out more creative ways to fund it so that would be a barrier to growth but I don't think it's a barrier we can't overcome I'm just saying it would be a lot harder to grow so that's this piece again I'll reiterate this is incredibly important to our parent community in our community after this experience with after school care the piece between licensed care that is a big need K-6 I would argue and this is unlicensed care Matt would you add anything to the enrichment I would add it's important to it's not just the parent community it's really important for the kids these are opportunities they talk about it at school sometimes it's the things that get them through the day but it's the kayaking the mountain biking the church to Bolton the sledding these are opportunities that the and some kids that otherwise they won't get those opportunities yep absolutely so this position as it's framed here is cost-neutral to our budget it's not in addition to our budget it's money already budgeted just using a different way in the memo it's about $50 fee per club is that only for after school clubs or is that all clubs that's for the club that is like what we have now so would you say all clubs are you going to soccer and basketball RJA the conversation oh no no no those things happen mostly they're some after school but it's during contracted hours that those happen well club actions after school they have those fall under that stipend that we talked so much about last time the co-curricular stipend this is all this question and I really think part of what we have to do next year is really think about these fees that are non-academic activities how we challenge them data, I mean data is really important I'm thinking about access is really important but we are trying to make sure that we roll something out so this is kind of a status quo world with the kinds of things that are currently being paid for on the sliding scale but it proposes basically a status quo it kind of takes that piece and moves it in house to talk about well do we want to continue these services and maybe structure them differently and have the people in our employ who we can have the conversation with it's a really tough question right and what the difference is between these enrichment activities and sports co-curricular private enrichment activities and other clubs we have a lot of questions to unravel so I understand that this is a money neutral issue compared to what you said you brought it back and said why not full-time so I'm asking why in other words you came saying not quite full-time this is what the person will do what was added good question last time with is a logistical coordinator so I came my idea last time with the 0.5 was collect the money put out the registrations make sure people get paid because I didn't want to put that out I already overstressed an overburdened business office that was what I came to last time what others made me think about was there's a lot of holes here that I know the community has brought up as well in terms of all the things that we offer or don't offer and a liaison between these so a liaison between Matt cleaning here at the high school and flexible pathways and other things that the high school is offering as well as with Matt Lane in terms of athletics and a liaison there somebody who can actively pursue grants it has the time and capacity to actively pursue grants to fund to find another funding system somebody who can actively and willingly collect the data we need around who are we serving when are we serving them what's really getting a targeted population what's really increasing their participation in that piece so those are some of the things that you see here that like the logistics coordinator that I suggested before wouldn't necessarily do because they wouldn't be paid to do that so this position would offer up more of that piece the connection of personalized learning plans how can we connect it particularly at the middle school level to raise the level of those through enrichment and developing interests at the middle school level that would be a completely nuanced piece that we probably not many people have that piece you know it would require a different skill set Steve so I want to shift gears to the other pieces which is the the whatever it's called the license so I think that I'm seeing these two components kind of moving in opposite directions a little bit and I want to kind of differentiate them a little bit I think that the part we were just talking about with the middle school I think is a really amazing thing I think from a public education philosophical perspective I think it's a very positive move because what it's doing is in a very small way it's expanding public education in America it's actually it's having the school take a little bit more responsibility for that whole child including the time they're outside of school because that time matters so much to the time they're in school and so I can't thank you all enough for moving that direction the license piece I have some reservations about and I want to be very clear about my reservations because I think the committee probably did without kind of I was at arms length but it seems to have done an amazingly thorough job but I think from a philosophical perspective I have some problems with it and I think that the biggest nut of that is that we're taking a function that has been in our area has been a public function has been provided by a school education and we're privatizing it and I think that that is we're now sending it off not just to a not just to a business but to a for profit business and as maybe the only person or maybe there's one or two other people on here who works for a purely for profit business and I own it and I I can speak from some authority here when I say that that's a very different animal and it is it finds it is very professional and make excellent presentations and administer programs extremely well and it finds efficiencies and I want to be very careful if this district leaves a legacy of privatizing a public function that that new entity that we contract out to do what has been a public function does not find those efficiencies by either paying employees less or charging parents more and those two places are where the revenue can come from most easily and the history of private businesses is that they tend to pay employees as little as they can get away with and I just want to be very careful about that one of the things that I mentioned during our public hearing beginning this process and our superintendent agreed to it or nodded her head was that livable wages would be one of the community values that we would insist happens during this process and I want to make sure that in the contract that we have livable wages so that we do not because right now our current provider the public entity is providing livable wages and if we don't insist on that going forward in the new contract then what we're doing is we're saying it's not a fundamental piece here we're willing to allow the new entity to subsidize this program or find efficiencies in the program wages I just want to be very careful is all I'm saying I think we can do it but I think it needs to be at a contractual level that the pay scale be in the contract and that it be very clear about that otherwise I think we cannot stand keep our heads up and say that yeah we privatized but we're not sure if it's going to be a livable wage they gave us assurances but that isn't the same thing as a contract so I want to be very careful about that and then the other piece is the provider the family contributions which I saw the thing it was very hard for me to kind of tear it apart because it felt like we had some of the cells in the boxes weren't quite lined up because they didn't really quake across exactly and I didn't know enough to really ask the right questions about it but it was complicated to me I know that I think that I understand in the subsidy picture the way that community connections has done it is that there are a few families on subsidy but mostly they just kind of internally subsidize is my understanding or at least they combine the two sources of income the public subsidies are very small usually like a few dollars but there has been some internal subsidizing too from what I understand and I understand that the new model would rely on the state subsidies probably more I'm not really sure and if that's true is there a bureaucratic piece to that that may actually leave some families behind they may not actually pursue those subsidies and is there how bureaucratic is that and if we're for changing from what is really a very simple system right now about how you get subsidized a sliding scale effectively to something where families have to apply to the state for a subsidy is there not just a not just a information packet but actually someone there to kind of be the facilitator to make sure that happens so we don't lose people in that transition so those are my concerns I want to make sure it stays it is equally affordable for families and that we do not subsidize it with employees and I'm hoping that the contract will include those two things if it does not have some kind of provision for a liberal wage I'm really opposed to it so I hope it's in there I just want to say that we have a very serious substantial and prolonged committee process to vet these options to consider all of these things all of the issues that you discussed were the subject of these meetings which being on that committee was open to any member of the school and those meetings were open to the public and I just want to assure the public that this is not the first time that anyone is talking about issues okay that was a focused intense discussion on a committee that had to make very difficult choices and again it was open to anyone on the board to be on that committee and it was open to the public to come to the meetings and many of the committees discussions would be around how the contract should play out focused on staffing focused on wage issues focused on the issues of have transparent the fee system is for parents so I just that's been what the process has been about so what's the result and the result is that the committee unanimously recommended that the superintendent negotiate with party out of the options and provide something in the contract I'm not sure if that contract is settled yet how about the wages did you guys suggest that in the contract well the wages were in the RFP so the wages are required under the RFP to be a specific scale the wages were in the response to RFP so we've seen their scale and those are livable they're on par with all the other providers that's not childcare providers are historically low wage what I'm wondering is are they livable wages they don't even have to be equal to whatever folks are getting paid now I don't care what I'm saying is are they do they meet the standard of livable wages by the congressional or the legislative think legislative fiscal office has done the study they do it on a biennial they establish a livable wage there's objective standards in Vermont this is an important point Bridget what I'm hearing you say is hey you missed your opportunity and I don't agree I'm on the board I'm saying that's fine it doesn't mean I can't speak up as a board member I didn't miss my opportunity these were the issues that existed I want to make sure that they are now in the end result that they are going to be in the contract that's all I'm asking are we going to have livable wages in the contract and are we going to make sure that parents aren't subsidizing this because of the bureaucracy and I don't have any idea about the answer to either of those I would love policy with regard to livable wage because this keeps coming up it came up with regard to the cafeteria employees the food service employees and it came up again tonight with regard to the new middle school proposal you know I think we all keep saying $13 is not enough then we need to look at what we need to talk about policy because I don't think that we can just dictate it or randomly what it comes with so a few things on the part to compare to our current provider for the there's two classes of instructors part two we might have in front of you part two paid I think $15 for the council versus $13 to $16 for community connections and then for the next level of classroom instructors they were on part $16 to $18 for both CC did something which part two did not do which they employed for $11 to $12 an hour high school students and interns to provide care CC does which means that CC is employing people at a lower wage to subsidize care and expensive people at a higher wage so on par so whether you consider those little wages or not the for-profit did not undercut the non-profit or Washington so there's some kind of established kind of structures that you could go apples to apples on it was different because they don't all staff in the same way and that's what I'm saying this was the subject of a lot of attention but it's not an apples thing you really have to sit down and try to figure out what roles these people play how many of them there are and they're not exactly the same for each provider they have different models on a level on an hourly wage CC paid higher I think 23 to 26 and 24 part two paid lower 1921 but part two structured the job more as a full-time salary position so the I think the people in those positions were actually making per year people higher per hour wage at CC but it was more kind of in the low 40s which is roughly equivalent to kind of the start of the teacher position I think I'm mostly concerned about the direct child care workers and how they are because they're going to be the lowest page people in the organization and we want to make sure predominantly women we want to make sure this is treated with as a government entity we need to make sure that we're not exploiting people absolutely and I think you know clearly that was not the case and I think if you're looking at these wages if there's anything that stands out it's the CC at 10 to 11 dollars an hour for high school care it's like how many people are they hiring at that level to provide care when they could be hiring is that called high school care we call it high school intern intern and what is the difference between the two tiers that two groups are using I don't mean relative to each other but I mean how are they stacking those tiers or is it like just a level one level two kind of thing they call them different things one calls them an assistant teacher one call like you know CC calls their kind of lower wage non high school intern an assistant teacher part two calls it a counselor for the next up these are missing yeah they call them head teachers and teachers part two calls them a site director for what would be like a head teacher assistant director oh assistant director sorry assistant director and then there's the site director which is the highest you know YMCA for similar position YMCA was a lower actually and they're a profit program staff and then assistant site director so the short of it is they both start the bottom of their scales for their regular folks at 13 yes those are all the same pretty much well the Y was the lowest the Y was the lowest the non profit for the one the counselors at part two were 13 to $15 an hour and CC was $14 an hour the one CC was 14 the what was the called 13 the name of the position counselor the counselors in part two yeah all three of them work directly with kids so the ones who are the site director so are wages in the contract yeah I know but would it be is it something you can put in there okay and the then for the subsidy piece do I have that vague understanding correctly correct that they're sort of using a pay scale it's sort of an internally subsidized partially and that under the new system there'll be a more of a reliance on state subsidies or is that just a butchering of the understanding it's a I would say it's a butchering part two has for any family that qualifies for the subsidy which is anyone under seven right now the way the state has it structured it's approximately anybody under $75,300 receives at least a 10% that's the beginning that's based on household size do you know yes it is yeah it's not an exact science because it's household so as soon as the family qualifies for the subsidy part two gives them a 50% scholarship automatically so all families fall under that $75,000 scale get that 50% subsidy so half goes away so they have to go with that that they've got the state subsidy basically the concept or because the income verification is something probably the contractors don't want to be doing but the state will certainly do it they help families work through the subsidy process the music district can help for that too and then the state would contact part two so the money goes directly to them and the bill gets changed so it's the subsidy and then the families get a 50% scholarship so as you go between the subsidy and the 50% scholarship as you work you know down lower into that subsidy your subsidy increases and that's where the that's where the cost comes especially for some of the lowering you might have to know it's significant lower do you anticipate more families as a percentage will be on the state subsidies I anticipate more families will apply for subsidy one of my hunches and I don't know if it's correct or not it's a hunch is that because of the sliding scale and because of a lack of advertisement about the subsidy I think that people didn't it was not transparent yeah and I think people thought that the sliding scale was the subsidy nobody was informed about the other piece really it was one on one sometimes and there was an acknowledgement that there will be a layer of more filling out and bureaucracy that will be involved in accessing that money which is why we had instructions that we both worked on the contract and the rollout with part two that would be made very easy for families that we make sure they have the information and that for families that need assistance walking through that process they get that assistance so that's easy for them it's not a barrier I think that's a really important part of the rollout I just don't want to underestimate the changes the color changes the challenges for everyone and this is the piece that's going to be starting May 13th so hot off the presses there's Jeff O'Hara who's the guy who runs part two will be at UES from 6 to 7 we haven't gone out yet it's gone out tomorrow flyer is being made now but there will be parent info night work he's very well versed today about what how he needs to really stress about his health and support and how we can collaborate in that and even though it is a for-profit the people leading it are are committed educators and I think everyone at least most of you on the on the committee have a level of discomfort with a for-profit entity I think we share concerns to you that privatizing elements of of our what we consider the public sphere of education I definitely have a level of discomfort around it that said there were there were some concerns with the public groups that we have to choose from that on balance for profit entity favorable here and you know I mean it's a for-profit entity but it's also a small Vermont business that is formed by educators who I think are very committed to education their vehicle for doing it is for profit but you know this is these are this is a homegrown homegrown business with people who are very connected to the Vermont community to Vermont education world and have a lot of depth and experience with kids I think to some of those concerns are also balanced and in times in some cases in our discussions offset by the organizational structure organizational capacity and sort of the ability to take it and go and run a successful and very you know positive after school program for students without without the district or employees or administrators or whoever having to go in and fix or repair or oversee and provide support I think the part of that was you know the one thing that they're able to provide it seemed like from my experience in our discussions a lot that some of the others didn't was a really solid organizational structure and professional development and the culture of the employees and within the organization was something that really stood out for the people that visited part two is just a tight knit group well trained I think there's those elements that come along with it that are some of the benefits there too that they're able to also in some ways do things that the public organization are not able to do at the same cost well hold on you would totally have me until you said a public organization can't do that and I disagree with that 100% I think that that's a question of nurturing public entities rather than putting them in competition with private entities however I do hear that this is a major benefit of the predicament we're in right now is that we have one out of four who actually can pull this off quickly and professionally and that we don't have the time or resources to build the public response to this and so given that it's obviously a very compelling piece of it is the quality of the part two see if I would agree with that I have a couple of questions first of all thank you Bridget, Jim, Matt everybody who was involved in this process I know it was very time consuming very energy intensive really appreciate your thought really important to the community in this position I fully support this position and I really appreciate I know I was frustrated a little bit ago when I was hearing about needs but I felt like we didn't have enough information in the process I really appreciated this process I thought this was a great process the past several weeks I've been explaining how this was put into a much bigger picture we understand the needs so I really appreciate this I'm in full support of this position without a doubt with regard to the subsidies going along with Bridget's thought of a concern my understanding is previously this money was used in part to help subsidize some lower middle income students and now this money is going to go fully to this investment we don't know exactly what this money went to quite honestly we have no budget a concern you used the revenues from the licensing program that you used $37 I thought that the misunderstanding was that some of that was used to that went into a pot at Washington Supervisor Union and no one including WCSU could tell us okay I know it's late I want to cut to this really quickly and Steve asked many questions what you answered many concerns and answering his questions that I had and thanks for your time yesterday too how long is the contract likely for bi-annual type things they would run starting in the fall year-round programming but when we enter into a contract with them for one year see how it goes in one year contracts and make sure that we have pieces in there that they have accountability measures that have to be reached which is not in our current contract in any way shape or form and that also ensures a certain level of accountability in addition to those measures would the enrichment coordinator work at all with setting up part two would they work at all with they want to be working with them to set it up they'd be collaborating with them certainly one of the questions still in this enrichment coordination is 712 or 512 I actually talked with Jeff about that today just we opened up that opportunities or some of the opportunities to 5-6 as well and Jeff Jeff's like we'll coordinate with that and we'll make sure kids can come in and out and kids can do what they need to do and sports teams and they're well versed in middle school needing that anyway because lots of kids are doing lots of things in middle school so they talked about a camel's hump that kids go in and out and they keep track of where they are and they make sure it's available and kids are safe and they're accounted for and all that kind of thing would certainly be working with a site director at the middle school in collaboration making sure spaces and their offerings because part two will be having those middle school kids out and about and doing things and using the facilities that we have at the middle school and so we want to make sure that everybody has their space and that we work well together and that's one of the benefits of bringing this position into district we can do that we have control over it that way would you envision one of the concerns from Steve and some like the committee had these concerns too which was access to these assistance programs do you think that this position would at all help facilitate getting folks access to this assistance this public assistance at all or is that totally outside? to the subsidy? this piece isn't connected in that way because the subsidy only applies to licensed programs and this is an unlicensed program and that position would not help at all that program is internally subsidized effectively with the revenues from the program would subsidize okay last thing if we identify along the way and I hope we will be looking for these things if we identify that there is an area of need if there is like a benefit clip for example near the edge of where the subsidies are families that are like at 250%, 300% of the federal poverty level all of a sudden paying hundreds more I was also thinking that might be an area where the board could step up and fund we can make sure that families have care so we this part is a question yeah so we want to break that one I know that we hired an original coordinator second any further discussion that's right that was a favor hi next motion adjourn second seven non-demainable that was a favor I don't have an agenda well