 We'll call the meeting of the Board of Directors of the Montpelier-Roxbury Public Schools to order at 6.33 on Wednesday, August 3rd. I don't see any members of the public, so that takes care of public comment, I guess. Is there a motion? Migniz Connor is a staff person, so. But there are five participants, so, well, okay, no, I'm seeing now who the five are. So I think we can move on to the table. Oh, and somebody just popped up. Oh, great. Is that Amanda? I think it's Amanda. Oh, she's under an alias, though. Diana. I think it's amazing. Chappell. Amanda, welcome. We're just getting started. Okay. I'd like to make a motion. We approve the consent agenda with the addition of the co-curricular salary payments. I'll second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Okay. Okay. Wow. It can't over you, Mike and Libby. And I might know it. 26 minutes ahead of schedule. We like that quite a bit. That would be an agenda mistake. No, it was just a lot of time allotted for public comment and the consent agenda. So I think we can move on to the next slide. Thank you. So I have, I have pulled in Mike and Nick Connor. Nick is our community liaison who has never made an appearance at a board meeting. So. To meet the fabulous Nick Connor. And Nick's here basically to give some background to one of our goals that we're about to present to you. So we're going to move on to the next slide. And then we'll move on to the next slide. And our continuous improvement plan as required by the agency of education. It is a requirement to get board approval for this plan. And it also is due in a couple of weeks. So we wanted to get that in front of you. Just some background around this process has changed over. Several years, certainly since I've been a curriculum director. I've been working on the recovery plan from COVID. So there are some controls around us. As to some of the categories and things we need to choose and that kind of thing. So I will hand this over to Mike with Nick to add in any, any comments he feels necessary. So I'll just talk a little bit about the structure of the plan. One of the big changes is that the ALE used to have each individual school program connected to the comprehensive needs assessment. And the district do a CIP plan as well. They've changed that now it's one per district. And it needs to be addressing two different categories. Safe and healthy schools and academic achievement. The other change is that rather than doing this annually, they've changed the timeline now. So it's a two year plan. And I think they base this on a lot of feedback from the, the stakeholders and the groups in the schools in that it was hard to submit plans and goals in March. And then start the following year and the timeline never really worked. So a two year plan is going to work really great for schools and districts to be able to really push into these plans. I'm going to turn it over to Nick to introduce the first goal that we have on here around chronic absentee. Yeah, thanks Mike. So the first goal is really about reducing the amount of young people in our district who are missing too much school. And so the specific language there is really moving. The number of young people are chronically absent from 32.3%, which is where we were at last year, down to 20% by 2024. So to define chronic absenteeism, that's a really important place to start chronic absenteeism is when you, a student misses 10% or more days in a school year. What that means is that includes both excused and unexcused absences. It also includes suspensions. So really what chronic absenteeism is doing is looking at the amount of time young people are out of school, losing instructional time. The shift here is really going from a place of what has historically been a focus on unexcused absences. Really driving home. This is truancy. This is the law. We have to talk about court and then shift that really just talking about every absence is adding up and we care about that. So we're taking it to a more restorative place where we're not just coming at it with blame and coming at it from a threat of court, but going at it more from a place of how can we as a district be supporting you as a family, you as a student. So again, last year we had 32% of our students that were chronically absent. So they missed 10% or more school. I think some folks might be quick to say, well, that is just because of COVID. And while that is a piece of it, there's a whole lot more behind it. We're not talking about five misdays or 10 misdays or 15 misdays. To be chronically absent, you need to miss 18 days of school in our district. And 18 days of school is the amount of student days that we have to go to school. So that's what we're looking at in the month of October. So essentially it's like missing October is really what we're looking at. So this goal is going to be really critical as far as, you know, our students being able to be successful in our district. You've got to be there to learn. And so that's essentially what this goal is driving home at. The ways to get at this kind of the strategies is Mike has outlined in the improvement plan. So we're going to be utilizing that role to respond to students and families that are missing school. And using some systems that we've built, which I'll speak to in a second. This will also be supplemented with. Jess, our new director of social emotional learning and wellness is going to be helping kind of bring some of those components to some of the outreach I'm doing outside of school and also tie in those things are happening outside of school. Into the classroom. We're also going to be adding in some new mental health services. So we're also going to be adding in some new mental health services. And we're also going to be trying to really respond to young people who have named pretty directly that, you know, these last two years are hard and we need more support. And we have so many young people on waiting lists just to see a therapist. You know, that's impacting their ability to come to school and be successful in school. So really looking to boost that as well. As I mentioned before, we have a lot of people who are not in the school. We have a lot of people who are not in the school. We have a lot of instructional leaders across the district. When a student is disengaged or a student is out of school for quite a bit of time. While they may work with me and get to a place where they want to come back. It's not that helpful if the teachers on the same page as what's been happening and they don't have the context of what's going on at home. They don't have the context of what supports are in place that have been helpful. So we really need to tie those together because sometimes what can happen is they may reengage in school. They don't have that sense of belonging that we all know is really important. And then they're back out of school again. So really tying those together is an important strategy to work toward the school. The other thing that we're doing is introducing a new data system that we're going to be using, which is going to be kind of a early warning system, but it's really going to be able to identify young people early on in the process. So, you know, next week is a week of home visits for me, for example, because we know who these young people are just looking at our data from last year. How can we offer support before they get to this point of being chronically absent? So using this new data system will bring this to all the school teams as well so that we all know the young people are at risk of really becoming chronically absent, missing out on that education. Restorative practices is the other layer that I would put in there as well. So this really does change how we respond to attendance from a strictly compliance and unexcused absence perspective to a restorative perspective. What I mean by that is that we are really trying to take a holistic response to young people missing school. There are a lot of reasons and a lot of valid reasons why students are out of school. And we need to start with, tell me about how we can help. Tell me about what happened. Not start with blame or this is what's wrong, or here's a letter that's going to talk about language of state's attorney and court. That's not a good place to start. So it's really bringing in some of those restorative principles that we as a district have been moving towards over the past couple of years to really tie that into our systemic response to students missing school. The measures, I kind of mentioned that already. So that is kind of our database and our chronic absenteeism dashboard is what we call it. And that's going to really tell us, are we hitting this mark or not? That's what's telling us 32% of our students, or about 362 students to be specific or chronically absent last year. That's what's telling us how many days students are missing. So that data is going to be really important as we look at how we're measuring this. We're also going to be looking at feedback from our stakeholders, from our families, from our students, from teachers, really making sure that are we hitting this target that we're aiming toward. And then the last column there as Mike has outlined, it's one of the resources that are going to go to this. So again, the community liaison position is really going to be focused on this quite a bit. Our director of SEL and wellness, Jess, who I'm super excited, will be joining some of these efforts and bringing some of her expertise to our students and families, both inside and outside of school, the data systems we're using, the guiding coalitions, the therapeutic supports that I mentioned before, all of these pieces are going to be really important components to be able to meet this goal. So I think that hits it, Mike. I don't know if there are other things that are on there for this school. The bingo there, Nick. Thanks. So are there any questions about the first goal? I guess we could start there if that's okay. I have a question, not so much about the goal, but just about the problem. 30% seems kind of high. Is that about average for, you know, across the country? Or is that, you know, Yeah, so thinking that's high is the good response. It is high. And so really what we've seen across the country over the past couple of years from the pandemic is the national numbers are, you know, it's like eight million students are chronically absent back in 2019. That number is up to 16. And so it's double. So there are 16 million students across the country that are now chronically absent. So we've seen the number double throughout the pandemic across the country. Speaking to our district, I don't have as quality of data as I think I would like from maybe three years ago to really be able to dial in on our chronic absenteeism rates. I would expect that we've followed that same trend of seeing, you know, we probably had a chronic absenteeism rate closer to 15 to 20% prior to the pandemic. And now we've just seen that, you know, really hit hard over the last couple of years. I have a question too that relates to that is. So have you dug into the, when you dig into individual students that represent that 30%, do you have any trends that you're seeing? Is it, you know, can you, can you share with us enough information to give us a snapshot without, you know, violating privacy stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I think that the reason young people are missing school is just across the board. Mental health is certainly a trend. Something that's been identified time and again with being out of school, it's hard to go back in. We are relearning the habits of what it means to be in school consistently to keep those relationships. So that's been one thing that's definitely risen to the top. Ultimately, the pandemic has exacerbated, you know, all of the things that we already knew and made them worse. Right. So if you're a young person and you were on the fence with feeling good about being in school or feeling like you have a sense of belonging with your peers, having positive relationships with your teacher, and you're maybe on the fence before the pandemic, you're off that fence after being out of school for that long and having disrupted learning. So we've seen that also dramatically increased just because students are not feeling as connected to their peers. They're not feeling as connected to their teachers. We as a district and across the country, rightfully so, put up quite literal barriers to people being in our schools. And we're now in a place where we need to shift that trend. We want to make sure that students and families know that they are welcome. Yes, we are still responding to a health crisis. And the mentality around is it important to be in school needs to shift across the country and here in our district. So I think that there are a lot of reasons we have young people experiencing homelessness. We have young people having panic attacks at the thought of wanting to go to school. We have young people that just feel like, you know, it's not that important. You know, I'd rather just do something online and from home. And we see those things fade away or disengage. So it really is across the board. It's just that the pandemic has pushed all of those things we already knew to another level. Is there, is there a sort of consistent number of kids who do things like that on a regular basis outside of school and then are counted in these numbers? Yes. And those numbers are pretty low. So we do have students that attend like the farm program, for example, and may miss a day. I know several years ago when my kids were attending a program called earth walk, they were counted as being chronically absent because they were doing one day a week outside of the school, but it was sort of a planned absence. Is there sort of a sort of a general static number of kids who attend a program like that? So it's a day, a week or every other day. Those families all know me because I've called and talked to them and make sure that they're good and that they need anything. And that number is really small compared to the number that we're seeing. It's really not a significant number of students that are maybe taking advantage of some other program that is in quite school sanctioned. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you, Nick. I have a question in relationship to the. Demographics. And like, are we looking at kids in special educations that are also in this, in this. Pocket of our youth by racial, by Park children. I know you can't tell us those numbers, but just like we mix all of those populations. What do we see? Yes, we are very much looking at that. That is built into that chronic absenteeism dashboard. There's dropdowns where you can select certain demographics. Be that type of status, whatever it may be. And we're able to slice it any which way that we have as far as demographics go to really be able to take a look at our systems as well. To ensure that we don't have those, you know, systemic barriers. And how are we responding to that if we do. Thank you. Thank you. Can I ask to do we have. Sorry. Nick, I just want to really appreciate one, just like this very intentional shift away from like shame and blame to this, like partnering with, with youth and families. It just feels really spot on and really supportive. And I'm curious like what it looks like in terms of like, yes, we know that like building strong relationships with staff and between peers is really important. And what does that look like when it's going to like hit the ground, right? Like there's a lot of academic recovery. We know there's a lot of need. Like that's the second goal. Do we have any like concrete ideas around what that's going to look like in classrooms? Yeah. Kristen specifically referring to like recovery after being out or just what that whole integration. Yeah, it just sounds like a primary start or something that we need. I know that needs to take place like when students feel like they really belong and that they're really connected both to teachers and to their peers that they're more likely to come to school. So I'm curious like what space is being made like in the school day or via what programs or initiatives or like fall kickoff events or school cook kickoff events that we know that are going to like get kids going, you know, feeling really positive about being back at school. If we know any teachers are still like, they're not back in the buildings yet. It's still unfolding, but I'm curious if any of that's. Yeah, there's a couple of things that I would speak to on that one is as I mentioned earlier, a lot of home visits happening in the summer. So again, we have a lot of data in front of us that indicate, you know, we know these families. We know these students that may benefit from that extra early outreach. So that's happening home visits. I'll be working with some of our administrators and folks in the district to be doing those home visits from a place of we're excited to have you and not from a place of why are we not here, which is typically when the first home visit happens. So that's the first thing. The next thing is I'm at every school's. Team meetings for student support and I'm reviewing the students that I'm working with and really developing a plan with our counselors or social workers. The folks in our schools that are going to be kind of that first welcome, right? Like I'll be outside of school working with them. But when they walk in that door, there needs to be a good handoff and there needs to be a welcoming environment for that student, and there's a lot of things to do. And I'm not going to be talking about that in this context. And it really knows kind of some of the facts and some of the support that's really helpful to that student. So that bridge is also happening quite a bit because I'm in those students support meetings every single week with all of our schools to discuss these students beyond that, our students that have maybe missed an extended time. We're bringing in all of their teachers as best we're able as well to really talk about a, it's also going to be really hard. And here are some strategies. How can I be helpful to you in this classroom environment? How can other administrators in the building be helpful to this class, to you in this classroom environment? Again, because once that student is able to get to that point where they're able to stick back into school, it's not that helpful if that teacher is somewhat blindsided by this is a student I haven't seen in a month. I don't know how or what to even say to them or where they're at academically. So we're really trying to front load all of those things. There's several tiers that we're trying to hit prior to that student even stepping back into the classroom. Okay. Thanks, Nick. And then I have a question. I was just wondering if there was a presentation that we could use to follow along with this. I didn't see it in the board packet. We emailed it separately, but do you have it? Maybe could you get it up on zoom? Are you able to present? You mean the CIP plan? Yeah. Yeah. And the CNP or CNA. I can't remember. There were two. Emma, did you not get that? I was just looking in the initial email and then I was also looking online at board materials. So it's not in either of those. Sorry. I'm sure I did get it. I just didn't have time to read other emails tonight. But it should probably be post online with board materials. Yeah, I will be. Yeah. Okay. I think I sent it to the board yesterday morning. Okay. While Libby's pulling that up, Nick, I'll ask my question. I remember when we hired the district hired you. One of the things I remember Libby saying was that. Your sort of caseload was going to be a very small number of students and you could go very deep and build and do the great work you do to build relationships. Clearly the circumstances have changed. Do we have enough support for you to be able to handle this expanded caseload? Yeah, I think we do. I think the caseload essentially is still a smaller caseload. What we're seeing is it's over the course of the year that students are becoming crowned that so they may be in September where I'm really engaged with them and really on with them. And then they have, you know, housing all of a sudden that they didn't have and they're back at it. And I step back a little bit. So really it kind of ebbs and flows. So while we've got over 300 young people in our district that are chronically absent, caseload and case management, that number is much smaller for me. It's really the more intensive cases. Yes, I'm responding to all of those sending the letters, all of the things. But it ebbs and flows throughout the year. So I think that's a really good question. Certainly I think within my position, there's, there's capacity to do the work. Okay. Thank you. And thank you for doing it. Yeah. Any other questions on the first goal? All right. Let's move on to the second. I can I return to play with our screen setting. What can you see just after? Can you see the CIP? We can see the CIP with you along the side. Of the screen. Thank you. Our second goal is, is much similar to the first one that it's one. However, it addresses multiple layers of our system and improvements. So our cycle or academic goals that by June of 2024, we will decrease the total number of students needing tier three supports to no more than 5% of each school, total student population. And what that means is that by focusing on our tier three numbers and our intervention and remediation, we'll also be looking at our tier two. So better reteaching and rich compliance and also tier one, which is our high quality first instruction. So in order to decrease our tier three numbers, we need to work on that entire system, including special education. So we have a lot of strategies in place to be able to do that. I'm pretty excited about the work that we're doing this year. We have identified universal skills. In reading and mathematics so that we can target skills for students that need remediation and intervention, but really move them quickly in getting back into the classroom, which is amazing. We have, as I mentioned before, we've been working a lot on our data systems to be able to monitor student progress. To see how effective our interventions are, to see how effective our instruction is, and to be able to act on that quickly, to make it really accessible to our educators and students to be able to see where they are and what they need to do. We're going to move a lot of T's and our PLC structures, which I need to talk about before. Hey, Mike and Libby, the audio for you is breaking up a little bit. Okay. What am I losing? Let me turn it off. Let me turn it off the audio for a second to see if that helps. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Does that seem a little better? That is a little better. Yes. Okay. What was the last thing you all heard? It really was just like a couple of sentences ago. Okay. All right. So we're going to work with our PLC. Actors really work with our collaborative teams and schools. As Nick mentioned in goal number one, our guiding coalitions, which are our leadership teams and building will really be focusing on this work. Supporting educators and students in that. We are looking at how this impacts at 173. Our new special services coordinator, Peggy Sue and I and Jess. Murray are working together on all of this to see how it all meshes together into supporting students. Across SCL, academics and special education. We're going to get provide training for staff around these skills and strategies and how to do that. Our measures are going to be around academic data. We're really going to look at how many students do we have into your one, your two, three of any one time. How are they getting there? What are the skills that we're seeing? We're seeing the same skill across multiple months being referred. That's going to be really telling for us. We're going to be able to act on that. We're going to be able to combine that with our SCL data to be able to look really at what these students need in both worlds to make them successful in school. We're getting staff trained in a number of different particular strategies. Examples are the building and having a staff member that is able to use that strategy, that particular strategy tool that may work for students to be able to move them along the continuum. And in that last column, we have our human material and physical resources. We're really going to be working with our curriculum committees. Our intervention staff, our special education staff, our collaborative teams, our teachers, instructional leadership team. We are going to be using new data tools to be able to really access that easily. And then training in new systems for professional students development. Great. Thank you. Questions about the second goal? And then Amanda. I'm wondering what, so in the first goal, you told us what it, what the rate currently was for absenteeism. I'm wondering what the rate currently is for students needing tier three support. It's, well, I'm going to reframe it from needing to getting the students that are receiving tier three support. So the rate that they're receiving tier three supports currently is approximately between 20% and 30%. The national average numbers say it should be 5%. That's more of reflection of our systems than it is our students. Can you explain what you mean by that a little bit more, like the reflection of the system. So one of the things that we're trying to move to an example now is that, you know, I'm going to tell you that all of the people in our system are working really hard to help students. But one of the strategies that we have right now is a lot of small group intervention. And that group may be five to seven students, let's say. And when you have five to seven students in a intervention group for three weeks, you're kind of forced to generalize a little bit the instruction that's happening there. So you're not able to take a particular student who needs to move them in a group of five to seven students. So systemically what we're trying to do is get to more targeted groups of two to three students or one individually be able to move them on their particular needs versus having to generalize because of a group structure or group size. What that means is if we do that at tier three, it means that we need to beef up our tier two instruction where students are getting reteaching in the classroom, not from an interventionist, so that's a systems thing that's impacted by a lot of things. It's impacted by staffing. It's impacted by master schedule. It's impacted by student group size and tradition. Yeah, we've done this forever. So that's an example of a systems thing that isn't really particular to us. It's not reflective of student need. So can you just repeat the national average is five percent. So with tier three instruction where we should be is five to 10 percent of kids needing tier three instruction. So keeping in mind that go back to the pillars that I've done a few times for the boards and when we're talking about timely system to intervene, tier three is remediation. So we're talking about universal skills, which are generally skills that would typically be two years behind. I mean in most basic sense skills that priority standards that might be two years behind where the priority standards are at a great level, right? So two years behind their great level priority standards. We haven't done a good job articulating those in the past. So we didn't have those skills or interventionists. You know, when we say tradition and what we've kind of always done, they may be team teaching on the reteach section of tier two and not necessarily targeting on kids who need remediation. And so what could happen in that instance, as we've talked about before with the board, we're not going to go back missing, you know, with gaping holes in their knowledge base. So by tightening those structures, we're actually doing heavy duty professional learning with our guiding coalitions next week around these structures. That should help move us forward in this area. Amanda. Double audio and video. Thanks. Can you hear me? Yep. Okay. So the question is around testing. Does this include any of when we're talking about those interventions and some of the families were talking about testing for dyslexia and testing for all these other things. Is this included in there? It's connected, but it's not part of, sorry. You ready? It's connected, but it's not part of. So a piece with first, for students who has a special need. We have to show that they've gotten appropriate education, that they've gotten the appropriate teaching. And so if we're doing our jobs in terms of the system with support for kids who gets, who have universal needs, then like universal skill needs, then we have a lot more data and information about what we've tried to do for a student to support them. And right now we're, that's a piece that's lacking. It's a lacking thing in our system. So we're working on that piece considerably. But this goal specifically does not, does not speak to increasing testing for students with special needs. With potential special needs. So is this, so the remediation is not connected to special needs. It's connected to just academic achievement. A student who has a determined special need may very well receive tier three services and tier two and tier one. So it's not an either or kind of thing. It's a both. Any other questions? Brett. I have questions about how. The sort of assessments. Well, I think that there was one point where I heard. Something in a meeting about there being sort of two specific windows for assessments. Is this as we measure our progress towards meeting this goal. Are there going to be. Specific blocks in the school year where we have. Essentially like. Specific assessments that, or is it, or is it just going to be kind of a continuous data. Measurement, like, is that, if that makes any sense, I mean, there's, there's sort of specific tests or specific times in the year where there are specific tests or assessments, however we want to put it. But there's always. A lot of the things being done and so that's sort of. The same. A lot of the things being done are in the same collection, I guess, and are we going to. So we're working. We're continuously looking at what students need, especially now that we have our universal skills nailed down as well as our priority standards. And we have a local assessment plan that. Does certain diagnostic and screening assessments three times a discuss how things are looking three times a year or or or somewhere near those windows. Yeah, if you look at the agenda planning for the year that you know that doc that I create every year. We've already put in Mike and I've already put in dates for presentation to the board about those local assessment windows and the results of that and what's happening there. Thank you. I have a couple of questions. One is a little bit related to the one Amanda asked you know as we have done some listening sessions and then also had parents with concerns around literacy or math come and speak and during public comment. One of the things that's been sort of a theme is the desire for parents to be sort of part of the process sort of kept in the loop and then also maybe. Not something we can expect of every parent because life at home is different, you know, no matter what home they're in but we have heard a lot of parents saying I really want to be able to support what you're doing at the school. With my kid at home if they're receiving intervention to help them get back on track so I'm curious to know. I see that caregivers parents and students are part of your stakeholders in this plan but I'm also I'm curious to know any examples you have of what you're how you're thinking about engaging them in the in the in the process and not just like hey how's it going okay good I'm glad to hear that but but more like how you're engaging them in the process. Yeah, this is actually a gaping hole that we're trying to correct. So, when a child receives two or three services going forward or isn't, you know, we've named it as a need for a child the parents will be part of that team, and a plan is developed so do you want to talk more about the plan. Sure, so we met with schools to really address that concern and to put into our system, a particular stop and process moment where we're able to communicate with families about the need. There's a range of needs. So, the, the range of notification may look different so for example, sometimes a student needs a little tweak like I just need to see him for a couple of days we're going to get this solved and they're back into it. So that's going to receive a particular level of communication to the family and involvement versus something that's like a significant need where we see a student that we're really seriously concerned about hey we need y'all to come in and have a meeting with us and let's sit down and look at this together. But we also put into place where when those students are receiving those interventions we're going to have progress monitoring that's going to really describe here's the skill that we were looking at here's where your student is right now. Here's where they are at the end of this. And here's some suggestions of how you can become this at home, depending on what it is. So we built that into our systems at the school level and made it clear that this is your step one your step two. That's that's what's going to happen so we're pretty feeling pretty confident about that one. And that it's an expectation that it happens. Yeah. That's great to hear. Thank you. Yeah. So that's, I noted in here that you had, I'm paraphrasing here but that you're naming this as a year of experimentation assessment adjustment. I really appreciate that framing of it though like hey we're going to we're we're really working on filling some major gaps here and we're going to try a bunch of things out we're going to see what works what doesn't and make adjustments as we go. I think that makes a lot of sense. And I'm curious to know what you're doing to set that expectation with staff and with with students who may think like, Okay, I'm learning a new thing, and I'm entering a process. And then if they don't know, oh, we're going to change up the process if it's not working then they might feel like it's more of a jarring or like a, you know, they're they're expecting just expectation setting I guess is what I'm asking about. There's a couple of things I can speak to with that. And I want to make sure I don't forget either room but there might be. So one thing is the work with the guiding coalitions. So we've beefed up our guiding coalitions did some work with our new administrative team this year around the expectations of guiding coalitions and just because I know that's an educational jargony buzzword there. So the guiding coalition at each school building has one and it's made up of the, the administration teachers. And it's basically the leadership team of the school to help drive instructions about or help drive change efforts. Right. So, change efforts in both of these two areas, as well as, you know, the big ones that we're always kind of working on as the leaders and the like so these teams are the ones that are going to be looking at what's coming in in terms of data and information and helping to make decisions about next in their job is to go out to their colleagues. So it's not always the principal coming to them or the assistant principal but they're the job of a guiding coalition if you want to be on it you understand what we're trying to do and that you know it's your job to go to your colleagues to get feedback. And to bring that back to the team to work on. So it's one way for that continuous conversation to be happening. The other thing we started last year so one thing I think we really need in terms of both these goals for students and our staff are some really quick wins to gain some confidence again and what we're doing. So, one thing we did last year with our interventions who were left a lot of them had to move into the classroom because of staffing challenges, but we were able to say to them, they almost needed permission to say find two students find one or two students who are we've got the universal skills name let's just really look at one or two students who need who have a need in a universal skill, and just go after it try some different things out. Think about the affirmative assessment what's going to happen. And for the interventionist who are able to try that out. We had some monster successes right at the end of the school year. And we as an administrative team have talked a whole lot about how do we celebrate that and how do we get that word out to people, because one thing we know around the burnout and the overwhelming nature of school systems right now for both students and staff is that they need this confidence building quick win idea that they can make a difference in the life of a kid or a kid can be successful quickly in school. So that they want you know successes and adrenaline things that they'll want to come back for more. So we've we almost had to give people permission to step back and do that. Last year and we had some good success with it. So we're hoping that you know that permission has been granted again, even though they didn't really need it but they they definitely needed the articulated idea of changing the system up from what is traditionally been they needed they needed Mike and I basically to say it's okay, you know, try this out take some risks. And it was really helpful I think in that sense. So from a student's perspective, what that particular example. So we have some students that are receiving tier three, kind of indefinitely, they're just they always seem to end up in that and so one of the, the trials that we did with the students was one of those students. And by picking one skill at a time and really drilling in that student progressed quicker than they ever had before, working with an interventionist and reported to us that it just felt amazing. They, they thank the interventionist this is that mainstream middle school, and that's, that's kind of what we're looking for they didn't feel like they were just always getting the intervention and always the one going to see the interventionist. They knew what their goals were that's another thing that research tells us is when students know where they are and where they need to go they do better. We articulated here's the skills that we're going to work on with you here's how long we're going to do it and here's how we're going to do it, and we check them off as we went and that student felt great about that experience. That's great. Amanda. Thank you so much for that. My question around the full of community engagement you feel like in this plan, you heard from like a lot of parents who are in tier three right now. Not parents but like families and students that you got their feedback around other other needs needed to fix the system or like to cater to the system as you're changing it. I think it's a community. Does that play a question. It's an accumulation of the past year and a half of input, right we've gotten tons of input from caregivers over the last year and a half. And the board has done a lot of that work too. Right. So it's a, it's a accumulation of all of the, the information that we've received over time now it's our job to think, how do we put this into a doable goal. So our goals this year are super tight there actually Mike is Mike is very proud of our goals this year so they're super tight because they're looking at a specified defined the thing like chronic absenteeism and like tier three remediation. And we know that by if we can do these things well. Again, we can build the confidence of our students and our staff. And so kids want to come to school and they know they'll be successful in school and teachers know they'll be successful with kids, and that we have a system to pick, pick everything up. And so I'm confident in the, the engagement process because of the last year and a half and the hard work that the school board has done, and our administrative team have done and listening to, to what people have said of the real challenges that they face in our school system. Any other questions. I have a question. I don't know if it's a granular but just in terms of like implementation. The, the, our staff was delivering tier three services are those largely exclusively interventionist, or is that also delivered by the classroom teacher, and then just thinking about this in terms of like staffing levels do we have all of our interventionist roles, filled at this point because I mean the success of this has a lot to do with the, you know, just people on the ground and really skilled people to deliver it so just how are you feeling about that are we are we well staffed up to do this. Excellent question. I would say the person who is the responsible for doing this type of service for for kids is the person with the big largest expertise in the area. Okay, and the new special education law act 173 is gives us a little bit more freedom with that. Which is beautiful. Right. That's why I was really supportive of that law personally. The second thing I'd say is most of our staffing is in place for this, not all of it. Each building does have some staffing. I also can say in the last three years, all of our budget presentations have, have me have built up the human resources needed. So it's not a matter of budgetary matter. It definitely, it could be a staffing matter in some areas, but we do have people we just have to be really smart about how we use them. Yeah, how many we I think we have two positions in the intervention is open. And this is again granular but if you're receiving tier three services. Are you also on an IEP like are they exclude like you can be receiving tier three and not on an IEP. Yes. Because I saw the staffing level say that you know we have everything that we need to deliver the services of IEP and just trying to understand this. Yeah, okay. Peggy Sue could be shaking her head at me right now. Any other questions. It is the duty of the board to approve this plan do folks feel ready to take a vote tonight. Okay. It's under more sections. What is that those are the two, the two. Okay. So we're going to approve the continuous improvement plan. Second. Any discussion. All those in favor. I any opposed. Okay. Congratulations and thank you very much it is clear that even getting this plan written was a huge undertaking, and it's exciting to see what y'all are going to do with it. Thank you. Thanks Nick. Thanks for joining us Nick. Okay. And now on to policy monitoring. We have three monitoring reports the board member conflict of interest policy the budget policy and the hazing harassment and bullying policy. Should we take them one at a time or we've done it both ways I think and if my memory serves when it's comes to accepting and approving these. It's not reading. Oh, it's not reading. It's not reading. It's the reports. It's not new policies or updated policies. We have taken a break on policy monitoring reports for about a year now so. So we're back at it. Yeah, he is back at it. Yeah. I wanted to propose something. Sorry. No, don't worry. No way. Hold on one second. I just had a question about the conflict of interest doc. I was just reading the language, and I was wondering if it would be easier for instead of saying like he or she, if we just use like a neutral pronoun, because that's definitely possible and like legal documents could also save space. I noticed that policy. What did you say let me, I noticed that too. Yeah. Yeah, we should thank you Zach I'm on the policy committee and I'll make a note of that we have to to make a change to the policy I believe we have to do readings and approvals. A one a to a three and a four are all sort of on our docket to potentially be replaced with other policies so as we're doing that we will make sure that the new language. Thank you. Thanks Zach. Amanda you had a proposal. Yes, I would like to propose that we look at. Can you hear me. So we look at the now the balloon harassment hazing tonight. To be able to have have the policy monitoring report with some of other questions that we have around the data around how it connects with the social emotional and just wait for that one, and then we can approve the other two. So I am making a motion I guess to postpone that policy monitoring report until a further agenda where we are going to tackle the balloon harassment. Why don't you, Amanda why don't you propose approving the other two. Okay. And we'll make a motion to approve the other two will take care of those and then we can talk about. I make a motion to approve a one and he or three policy monitoring report. I second. Any discussion about either of those. Okay, all those in favor. Hi. Any opposed. Okay. So, Amanda, let me see if I'm so you're imagining, I don't think we have anything on the future for an agenda item, but I don't have the plan in front of me right now that we could you that that addresses bullying or okay, so we're talking about something that is still certainly a possibility but nothing that's actually on the agenda or on a future agenda. I think I understand you saying Amanda is we would hold the monitoring report and our acceptance and approval of the monitoring report for a time when we were able to have a broader discussion about bullying and behavior and discipline and etc etc in school is that what we're looking at. Yes. All right. And Emma, I am looking at the yearly board calendar and we do have something scheduled for October 5th, a social emotional learning with focus on harassment hazing bullying talk space with linen land. I wanted to have a little more time with this policy monitoring report based on a lot of like public comment that we had at a recent board meeting, right, it felt like that comment. Those comments that those testimonies showed some potential non compliance in at least our procedures as I read through them. I'm going to take like a deeper at look at that and make sure that we're not, you know, getting ahead of ourselves reporting compliance. Okay. Any other thoughts. Yeah, to can I add that I think there is a piece around just the conversation as the board about how we look at the policy to so is just to combine everything. There's one meeting where we can look at all the different pieces where bullet harassment intersect with other things and what it is our, you know, our lane to be able to move and tackle the issue that we're seeing. Right. Well, yeah, what we can do within the role that we have. And then, okay. Yeah, go for it. Sorry. One other just comment on the policy monitoring schedule that's laid out on our on our board calendar. And maybe this could be something for you and Jim to look at or talk about, but the A01 A02 A03 A04 are all being have we've been really working hard on sort of some replacement policies for those policies. And so those are going to become where what what we're envisioning is adopting a new policy that would replace adopting a new set of policies that would replace those. So I'm wondering if it's not really worth your time to monitor those over the next few meetings and maybe to. Yeah, I am. Can you tell me which which one's not with the number but with the names. Yeah, it's so for the next meeting you have board superintendent relationship policy, and then the board. What's that. Yeah, right. It's all the board ones so then it's superintendent expectations and expectations for Montpelier Rocksbury board members. So we've been working to align our policies more closely with the VSBA policies and so that's, you know, we have like five four or five policies ready to be to go in for first reading soon, and those will replace these policies. And so I just feel like it might be busy work for you to monitor these policies when they're about to be obsolete. I don't know if that's maybe a PhD question. Maybe. I don't think you need to I think that I think we'll just replace the monitoring with the readings. Okay, so and in that case that would free up if you remove those from your calendar would free up some space to potentially push this ahead and do it slightly deeper dive on some of the questions that the board has. I think one of the conversations with thoughts that we had in the policy committee was for us to brainstorm what kind of data. We wanted us a board to look at some of these policies before the policy monitor report maybe. And I don't know like this could be a further conversation or this could be a motion now or a conversation another time but just for us to be able to look at the policy and it's like what would the board need from this policy rather than I like the compliance but looking at the numbers. For example, the will and harassment I would like to see how many reported cases we have and like whatever information you are able to share around that but I can send an email with those thoughts later. I would recommend if you wanted in the monitoring reports, because the monitoring reports monitor the policy right that language into the policy. So there are some policies that do require data to be presented with the, with the policy monitoring report document. So, so that's what I would recommend to the policy team as you're looking at policy. If there's specific data you want like, for instance, how many HHB investigation throughout a year, and how many were founded might be one piece of data in regards the HHB policy that makes sense right to put into the monitoring document. So I would put that into the policy, so that it's not you're not requiring you're not relying on institutional knowledge of what the board is expecting during that time. Does that make sense Amanda. Oh, she might be frozen. I will say based on I can speak for a month I think on this just because we're both. That is as we're revising these policies and putting them in for more readings to add a section that talks more specifically about what we're looking for for policy monitoring on that specific policy. Yeah. Yeah. So let me pause here is there anyone on the board who really thinks we ought to approve and accept the policy monitoring report on the hazing harassment and bullying. Tonight, I mean, okay. So then that proposal is accepted by the board to delay the acceptance and the approval of the of this monitoring report. But we spend, we'll just take like, maybe 15 minutes at the most to go to say what it is we would be wanting to learn from that deeper conversation around bullying harassment and hazing and behavior issues and conflict resolution and that that gives Libby the, you know, like starting point for what the presentation would be. Does that. Yeah, I mean I don't think you know it's unfortunate that we don't have the time because this is a policy that's like on the public's agenda right now. Yeah, you know they've been coming to public comment and they're wanting some to see some action on this it's unfortunate that we don't have the time to be more thoughtful about what types of things we like like Libby said to put it into the policy about and change the policy around what types of things we would want to see in a monitoring report. So, you know, in a way, I wonder if there's a way for us to push it out far enough to have time to look at the policy again, and be more thoughtful about what we would want to see in monitoring reports. But I'm kind of like, either way, you know, it's okay because it's like we're always improving. So it's okay for us to not have it right this time and then for the next time. You know we can learn from this experience and make it better from there so either way I'm good with but things I would want to see. I mean, I, I agreed with Amanda it's sort of like as much I know that the data is sensitive on these types of things and there are laws around privacy and but as much data that could be provided around the number of reports that were made, and of those how many were substantiated. It would be interesting to, for me to see that that data be broken down by school. But I don't know if that's possible. I know Libby is, you know, working with a lot of really tricky privacy stuff when it comes to this so I want to be respectful of that and just putting it out there as sort of a wish list and not sure if she's able to do that. I would like, you know, just to honor to honor some of the testimony that we heard, I would like some of that to just be publicly addressed as to, you know, and I don't know if that's possible to publicly address a specific case. But you know there was an example that was discussed around a complaint had been made. It was being investigated and then that student ended up on a bus with with the person or persons that they were saying had bullied them and and that is in our policy on procedures. It's in the procedures of the policy. And so it's under investigation three C. And it says, for instance, if a student alleges that they have been sexually assaulted by another student, the school may decide to place the students immediately in separate classes and or transportation, pending the results of the school's investigation. So it was not necessarily but in this case it was that the student ended up sitting right on the right behind that person on the bus and that doesn't feel quite right. Clearly the person that brought the testimony didn't feel like it felt quite right. So it's those types of anecdotal stories that that make me wonder, you know, how do we decide compliant, you know, there's clearly people that feel like we're out of compliance, how do we decide that we know we are in compliance. And it's not quite adding up to me. So I guess I would like those examples to be addressed, since they're already part of public record, I don't know if it would be possible to do that. No. Yeah. We could come up with a fictitious example or something but just to highlight like how do we, how do we say we're in compliance when there's people complaining that we're out of compliance. You know, how do we reconcile those. So then we have Amanda and then Jill, and I'm going to put myself on the list to hear me. Sorry. Yes, we can. Thank you. For me, I think you will. So the data will be great just to know in relation to what kind of bullying harassment do we have and and how like proactive like what proactive measures as district I know that we are looking at the policy of what we do in the case of bullying harassment, but what happens before then what happens when it escalates. And then how, how do we look at conflict in our districts like how are we looking at how we resolve those conflicts. I think it will be really great to see how we can improve this policy on what is happening on the ground in relation to what is happening on the ground. And I had another thought but I lost it because I'm having technological issues. So I'll raise my hand again in a minute. Thanks, Amanda. Jill. Thank you. I think it's really helpful that we're talking through this to learn the difference between a policy, a procedure, and then a circumstance and so this has been a really helpful conversation I think Emma you kind of hit what I was wrestling with is I actually in reviewing the policy and the procedures in the lens of what we've been hearing. I don't necessarily have a problem with the policies or the procedures that are written out but it is that we have a discrepancy between what they say and at least what we have heard from some families and so then what do we as a board do about that. So I appreciate having a little more time. I'm not sure having more data will really give us the full story, but it's more what is the path from okay as a board we're seeing that we're holding we're holding this policy and this procedure up as our district policy and procedure, and we are, we are finding we are hearing we are observing that we are not following those then there must be some sort of. What's our next step right do we address that, you know, in that in an evaluation to address that in a holding that holding space and in the board meeting to have the discussion. So I'm not sure just having more data alone would be all that we would need I do feel like what we've heard does not line up with what these some of these procedures are. So I'm glad we're taking the time to look through that and and also to understand I'm not sure that the policy itself is problematic. It's, it's the what you do when you're not in compliance with the policy. So was there anything more you'd want to hear during a presentation, Jill, that would. Yeah, and I, I, I, I know we don't want to talk about specific examples I don't want to hear specific examples that could do anything to undermine anything but I would like some sort of a generalized response to the discrepancy between some of these procedures some of these actions that were supposed to be about clear communication to families within five days. You know, actions to to sort of remediate the issue versus some of the examples that we did here in a public meeting. And maybe I know the administrators have been working a lot this summer so maybe there have been some generalized lessons learned or procedures that they have learned from these past couple years that they're putting in place. I think, I think for me fundamentally I would love to just hear at a future meeting. How families are involved in a decision and how students are treated when a response or a complaint is made. I hope that's helpful. Amanda is that the, I do have myself on the stack but Amanda is that the old, a new hand because you remembered the other thought. Okay, I'm going to take that as a no. That's the old hand. What I wonder is whether or not we are actually in compliance with the policy but that the policy isn't enough to establish safe and safe school, you know schools that are welcoming and safe for our students and so I think one of the things that I would like to hear in a future presentation is, I think it builds off of what you were just saying Jill the as administrators have looked back on them, the times where they have followed the procedures that are as written. Are there any gaps that they've identified that they would say to us listen if this is a way for the board to back us up or set up some more guidelines for us in a updated policy or a, you know, partner policy or whatever around behavior and discipline, or something like that so that's so I guess it's more of like, and what I'd be hoping to hear is like an analysis from the administration who's been trying to enact this policy to tell us whether or not they think it's working or if we need something more. That's what I would be looking for. That would be really helpful. I meant to add to the volume of concerns that we heard that don't seem to be following these did seem to be focusing on one of our particular buildings so I do think it might be helpful it's probably a relation of the age group or something but I'd love to hear specifically about how in the middle school years. What some of the best practices are for managing these sort of conflicts. I'm going to nudge Zach and Merrick a little bit to see if there might be anything from the student perspective that would be helpful to hear. Yeah, I mean, you were talking about data and not being sure how helpful that might be but I mean I'm not totally sure how many more instances of behavioral challenges we've had this year or when compared with the past years. So I think seeing some of that data in a report would be pretty useful and seeing the trends as a result. And then just adding on to what you were saying Mia when looking at that data. And if it has increased or so forth or if we've had more challenges than looking at the policy again and seeing, well is other gaps in the policy that there are things that more things that we could be doing. I agree. I think, mostly for me, it's right now seeing like the perception, or at least like the policy on paper, and sort of how that is being worked through and worked out and sort of comparing that to like my experience as a student. You know, I think just generally a lot of this information needs to be more accessible to students. It's not exactly what we're trying to do in this, but it's sort of on my mind when I'm looking at this. I'm like, I think a lot of people could benefit from having this more accessible format. I think having it accessible to students is really important to just spread awareness about what's going on and there have been more instances of this lately then perhaps that awareness is more important than ever. So I see we've had a number of folks join us just like in in recent minutes. So I just wanted to say welcome, first of all, we're glad you're here. And then just to give you an update the board had has on the agenda of a policy monitoring report for policy F20 the hazing harassment and bullies bullying policy and the board has decided to postpone a vote to approve that or not approve it I guess. So a further conversation can be had that provides more of the context for what happens in our schools around behavior conflict resolution discipline bullying harassment and hazing. And so right now we're just brainstorming what we would like to see in that presentation. I could just add a look back to America's point. This is reminding me of our conversation back in June that sometimes we need a little more sort of plain English or more accessible access to this sort of stuff like hazing harassment and bullying each have very specific like legal definitions that things have to meet. And my family may not say, oh my, my child had this experience or my child is having to repeat the experiments. I'm going to go look at the hazing harassment and bullying policy and see if this fits in, you know that's not how you know there's there's either things that are happening in the moment where I think a lot of students also try to problem solve these things on their own, and then families try to problem solve them on their own and the chances of them sort of navigating their way to finding this and then interpreting the legal language to help them understand what their rights and responsibilities are. I know it's hard to sort of boil things down to make them more accessible but I definitely think like at the very least our students who are, you know, maybe middle and high school should sort of know what are my rights, what are my what are my steps I should take if I feel like I'm experiencing XYZ and I'm not sure that that's really clear until something is escalated. So maybe it's as simple as having plain language things that are a little easier to find or proactively shared with families at the beginning of the school year or something like that. Any other thoughts on what would be helpful in a presentation and discussion around this. Yeah, I think Amanda has her hand raised. Oh, thank you very much. Yes, Amanda. Can you hear me. I, I, and I don't know how to do this, but I want to make. I hate statements but something a letter to the community as a board. To say, you know, we got it kind of to basically before school starts, I feel like we need to do something to start the conversation as a board as a community about what is happening in our schools. And just to say, you know, like, we've got to talk to our kids at home, and this is what's happening and, you know, we'll be working through this in the next couple of months as they come. But we really need to make an effort as a whole community to tackle these issues. And here's some points around bullying harassment. Here's the policy. And, you know, that's something that you know that I feel like we should start that. And as we will work through the rest. I feel like we shouldn't start the school year doing nothing. So, I don't know. I guess it's a proposal that we do something that is that we can send out through different channels, maybe, you know, we can write a letter to the editor or not or you know, maybe, but we need to do that. So I guess it's a proposal. I don't know what have we seen an agenda get further retreat and how build out that is at this point but that feels like it could be a good topic for conversation when we really have like the space and time to kind of dig into what that feels right that makes sense that's, you know, responsive, and is also like prudent, you know, it's like, let's work with the information that we have without assumption without bias but is absolutely recognizing what we've heard from the community, certainly more than once. So, I would suggest that if there's room within the retreat schedule that we build that conversation there of what's an appropriate and meaningful board response at this point in time. It does seem to naturally build on what we worked on for our first retreat and sort of prioritizing safe schools and if kids aren't feeling safe, you know, maybe this becomes a priority for us as a board. So do you have the agenda for the retreat written up yet or drafted. No, Jim and I have not spoken about that. Okay. All right. Let's include it as an idea then read. When we go through with monitoring this policy. I'm wondering if I know that there are a lot of cases in which there's sort of, there's sort of kids that are having a hard time, let's say, and maybe discipline is the sort of the best approach in this situation and other times when sort of a whole lot of the best approach and not exist and maybe not exactly discipline and I'm not sure I know that those two, there are sort of situations where those can overlap. And I'm wondering if it's possible for there to be sort of a hypothetical situation that describes how the administration sort of swings between those two approaches to dealing with challenging behaviors, because it might be helpful for. For me to know how that I know it's a, it's a balancing act, and it would be helpful for me to hear how that might look. And I, and I, I'm guessing that that would be helpful for community members to hear how that might look because it's a very delicate thing to sort of swing between someone needing a whole lot of support because they're really struggling and then they're being the sort of discipline of that's necessary. And I know that if I'm, you know, the parent of a child who has has been treated, you know, unkindly. I sort of want to know that there's been discipline and I, and I might benefit from understanding how additional support and discipline can kind of overlap or sort of where some circumstances where one is more appropriate than the other, I guess. Are they relate to each other? Yes. Is that, are you back to the presentation itself? Yes, the thought of like a sort of hypothetical situation where to help, just to help make that explicit how those two, how that that happens. So that's another request for the presentation and then onto the what the board can do at the, at the start of the school year to sort of respond to and maybe set the tone around this. Amanda, are you, does that, does Kristin's idea of using time at the retreat to talk about this? Oh, I see thumbs up. Okay, great. That's funny. I'm still looking at your phone icon over there, but I see you now. Okay. And I just want to note that I, you know, I really appreciate the, the community input that we've heard on this topic. And, you know, we, it's one thing to be on the board. It's another thing to be an administrator. And it's another thing to be, you know, family member or a student that is experiencing this policy through a lived experience at a school. And I really value those perspectives and I want to make sure that we, you know, use, use this as an opportunity to engage these families that have come forward and want to work with us as a board and the administrators to improve our schools. And I think we have a really great opportunity with a new principal to set the tone and I'm sure Libby and that principal have a lot of plans in place, you know, to change the culture and to set a tone culturally at the middle school, specifically. So I wonder if there's just any way for us to partner with this, these community members who have already come forward to help inform us how their lived experience has been with this policy and I would like to somehow, you know, capture this as an opportunity to partner with them. So maybe that's discussed at the retreat as well, or maybe Libby already has plans I'm not sure. Okay. With that, our next agenda item is actually to go into executive session for the discussion of personnel, specifically in this case the annual evaluation of the superintendent. Can I have a motion to move into an executive into executive session to discuss personnel. So moved. Great. Sarah second. Thank you. All those in favor. Any opposed. Okay. Thanks everyone. And thank you everyone who popped in to join us for the meeting. We're going to say goodbye.