 And first of all, is this Polatrona? I think we have a little bit of a talk about first block. Do you know that any of you desire about how you want to... Well, we've just prepared like a group statement that I'm just going to read. To read it in an effort to strengthen it. Great, that is perfect. And you can sit down and work then. Okay, it doesn't matter about the microphone. I think there's a microphone. Ah! My name is Emma Bay Hansen, and I have two kids in the district. And I'm here to testify on behalf of alternative education programs, EarthWalk in particular. A larger group of EarthWalk parents are here, and we met prior to this meeting, and in an effort to streamline our public comments on this issue, I will be representing them and summarize our collective thoughts and questions. And I'm just going to read. We are here to open up a dialogue about how we treat absences that occur because of enrollment in educational programs outside of the school building, such as EarthWalk and the Nature Center. We see tonight as just the beginning of a larger discussion, and thank you for making room for this on the agenda. In years past, day spent attending EarthWalk Village School were considered excused by the district. This year, day spent attending EarthWalk will be recorded as unexcused. Our sense is that this change is perhaps the product of a fresh interpretation of the rules by our new administrative team and does not represent a shift in the long-time support for the program by our school community. Our children's absences have prompted truancy notifications for many of us, which brought our attention to this matter. We feel strongly that participation in EarthWalk or other such valued educational programs should not be treated the same as a child skipping school for no apparent reason. We have always felt supported by the teachers, administrators, and community for our decision to provide a flexible solution to our children's educational needs. We hope to find a way back to that supportive environment in a way that balances with the needs of the district. We are concerned that treating participation in EarthWalk as an unexcused absence may have unintended consequences. Parents could decide not to participate because of these truancy letters, and this could make it harder for these programs to exist and continue to serve the many children that love and value the program. We hope that you will explore the following questions on tonight's agenda. One, how would EarthWalk garner the designation of, quote, unquote, approved education program under the current law? Two, how do other schools and districts treat attendance to EarthWalk and other such programs, and can we build on those models and our past policy to be more supportive of programs such as EarthWalk? And three, what can we, as parents, do to help move towards a solution? Thanks again for your consideration. I'm happy to have copies of this if you want. You need to give those to you next? If you have copies, yes. Anybody else who wants to make a comment? I know we have what I think is a pretty amazing policy, so both humans and public members are supportive of EarthWalk's speech. Feel free to do that. I guess just to take another minute, I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Nick Nicolay. My son, Rocco, is a first grader. This is Greece's class. Could you? Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm Nick Nicolay. My son, Rocco, attends EarthWalk on Fridays. He's the first grader. This is Greece's class. And I just wanted to speak in support of working together to figure out a way to make work that meets the requirements of the law to support the education of the kids that are involved in the school and the program simultaneously. And thanks. Thank you, Nick. Hi. This is EarthWalk here. My name is Annika. I'm the Youth Programs Director at EarthWalk. I came to be supportive and to answer any questions and help build a strong relationship with the school and with what we're doing down in the woods. Great. Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? So next, we've been on the consent agenda. And it's the request for people because I think we need to have something really special about this program with a couple of announcements about some policy changes. I think we'll write some follow-ups on it. And since Greece is not here, we've been in 400 committees with it. Thank you. I think I just, before we do, I do want to acknowledge all the great work from the students to much afraid to the policy committee to the rest of the board for putting together the proposed committee policy. I think it's a product of a lot of, you know, fantastic work and it's a real nice next step to some of the work we've done on the Black Lives Matter flag. It's very, very good students. It puts something a little more concrete and gives us some guidance to change the way forward. So it's really a lot of time. Thank you everyone for it. And we're very excited to be joining the board to take part in this policy and work to better achieve those values. I want to say thank you before I attend the portion of the group hold with that one student. She had a question about the agendas and warnings. Definitely could pull that quick from the consent agenda. Yeah, we can pull that too. I know that we approve the consent agenda. Minus the policy monitoring report and the declaration. All those in favor? Aye. Any of us? Great, thanks. And then let's go with the I just think super quick. The list is great but it doesn't include any of the school of websites. They've got which are definitely included all the websites because everything in it already is but it's going to make sure that I'm there. We also got a request from Tina that's posted at the senior center to add that to the board. We can certainly add that. That's part of the policy that the city posts there. The bulletin board there and the city posts or it's posted the agenda for the city council. Do you think you can email it to Jan but not me and he doesn't work there anymore so you can email it to Jan. Did you get that information Heather? So should we approve the declaration posted with those two additions that the school of sites and the senior center? Is that Heather? Is that okay? So I just have a quick question about that and I think I've talked about this before when we were called upon in the past to demonstrate that we had posted in a certain location on a certain day we were not able to document that because although it had been posted there it had subsequently been filed and so when people posted like the senior city hall or Jan MC I don't remember but they did a stand-up so that we were able to document that it had actually been posted on the day that it was supposed to be posted. So do you think is the place where it's posted responsible for keeping the record? Well but you just have to yeah exactly, but you have to think through like if we have to show that we posted in a certain place on a certain date and we have to have systems in place so that we can show that. Could that just be something that was there on that date that wasn't there? No. We were in violation? Let me! Let me! I think it's a getting in retrospect but maybe another time. Well we can't show you that it was there. What's the issue? The issue. No one's going to see all of us you and our identity. Does Heather send us our e-mail to those places? Yes. You can just return to see all of that. That doesn't agree with us that they posted it. Correct. Well secondly there's you have to have what's the two physical locations and then the websites were required by open meeting law to be posted. Correct. And that's all. Everything else on top of that is essentially a good guess on the cause of a half. This doesn't, you know, approach it. I mean this list is great but I don't think you know that part of it. Unless putting it on that list creates a serious problem. Well, should we we don't want to be clarity on that from the lawyer. We certainly need it by posting all the schools but that's the thing. And then the rest of the people wouldn't necessarily have to do that. Because we do not want a situation where we have to see what's going on. Yeah. Senior senator there's more we have to call people. Can we send it to people not only but they have to send it to people. This is the most distribution. If you can see pretty much all this is. We could just change the headings on the list that these are the free-forcing locations and everybody else is people with this list to do it well. I just heard about it. I just heard about it. I just heard about it. I don't think it's going to be as simple as that between the headings and the list. Okay. And then so that means those schools postings do already date it. When do we have for the project? Yeah, I would say where we need and it says to say as a courtesy we'll make reasonable efforts for the school to do that. That's what that is about. Should we approve with that change? Or do you want to read this list? And then there was that I pulled out the fiscal management report because I think you should there's simple policy changes. But we should get the process in place to change those policies in the future. I was surprised that she didn't go back to the finder and look at them. They are and I don't know how we missed that or where we were in the process from the last March because of it how we just some of those policies are there. Is that something that's also going to just change this? Yeah, we've been all thinking of the policy behind it. No. Okay. Good. Otherwise, should you just make sure you cut that out. That happens or something. Motion to approve the fiscal management report. Second? Second. I am the new post. I also wanted to proceed further to based on the extension for Hope and Emma. It was not put on the agenda but we do plan to give you a through the So I was going to also suggest for your point in all the committees, just to make sure Do I have a motion to make a motion before this across? So now on to the discussion items and thanks everyone for coming. We do want to talk about the first walk and also some items that we have around extended vacations. I said around the local policy and local law. I just want to say one, I hear you on the going of the first walk, I heard great things about it. I know the program a lot of students have been from and a lot of students have really, you know, got that found, at least for the time it's been put out, a good rhythm it has, the whole experience. Obviously, as a district, we want to promote outside education and look for opportunities to do that. You know, we understand there has been a change in what has been happening in the past. It's clear that we have never had a policy regarding how we treat outside. Outside of institutions of law. So what was occurring in the past was, should have technically been occurring to our system, the attendance policy and for lots of people. We have a counter policy, we also, at least not from my knowledge, have not had any sort of formal arrangement with our block without how, you know, how we would handle students who want to go to the block. Including not just the attendance thing, but, you know, other questions that I think should come up around that such as, you know, who's responsible for ensuring that the class time is made up. Is that the teacher responsibility, the parent responsibility? What do you do for those kids where maybe that time out of the classroom is creating, you know, they need math. They need reading. Questions about equity? You know, right now it's de facto available to the families that can afford, to set the case at work, both from a financial position, but also from getting a transportation assistance. Not all families in the district are in a position to do that. So there's kind of, you know, fairness and equity issues around. Other questions, you know, why just, you know, first block is great and it does great programming, but it's out of the verification, which might not be a bit for every kid. You know, what about parents who might want to do some good things in our program, in a music program? So I think there's a lot of unanswered questions about, like, the burden of being out of the district, you know, that we have impressively. And then there's, you know, the legal questions, too. You know, the state law requires that students be in class for in attendance for 175 days a year. And then that, you know, the public school qualifies there's approved education programs and there's approved homeschooling programs. Excused absences are pretty, pretty clearly defined by the law. It's basically emergency, and I haven't dealt with what emergency means, but I'm guessing it's sickness, family emergency, and then out of town for 10 consecutive days or fewer. And then there's the ability to excuse, you know, for instance, our district goes 178 days. So those three X for days can be experienced, because all that's required are the ones that be bought. So the superintendent can excuse those three X for days. And that's it. Chairman, has the earth walked out of town? Yes. So if the clerk looks out of town, so it could be excused. I'm trying to get some case law on that, but I'm pretty sure there's a case law on that. The idea here is to prevent insurance. Yes. That's the whole point. So kids running around in town, you don't want that. Right? So parents take the child out of town for Disneyland or for earth walk. I believe it's excused under the law. If our superintendent allows it under policy, we did delegate that to the superintendent. The North Branch would not qualify to town. How would we decide which programs were allowed and which programs weren't? We don't have to. It's out of town. Do you qualify Disneyland versus something else? I don't understand anything like that. Out of town. It's one of the things that's allowed. I wanted to talk to my daughters to Costa Rica last week. Let's talk about a few weeks ago. Absolutely excused. 10 days. No less than. Less than. Less than. I'm just throwing it out there. I don't really have a... There are many telepoints to what you're saying. I'm just saying I don't think there's any law against what we're thinking. I think it's a policy that should have a district. I would want to treat that. And that is something we can do. We don't have to excuse things. But I don't think we have to deny these things. I don't think there should be a clarity on what absence from town means. I think we can just legislate it. If I might, we can see some baseball on our backs for those. So we can get those. Now, it's a valid question because it would give us some little room. I mean, I was reading an absence from town as a meeting. Family-based. Yeah, not. That's how it is. Not. Not to be warned. We'll see what it will bring. Because one of the fewer residents wouldn't be able to participate in the North Branch data center, technically a Roxbury child, because of the North Branch data center. And the law gives us that discretion. Well, there's a question. Which town? Is it the town of the county of Dyson, or the town of the district? Okay. Because we only did actually... Okay. Yeah. Okay. We can... It doesn't excuse that we didn't create a substandard ourselves by which it would delegate that superintendent. Right. So we just need to be really clear. That's all. It doesn't mean that we would say, oh, well, I guess we have to excuse our fault. Right. They're not saying that. Well, and also the board obviously would never ask the superintendent to break or even bend the law. The law. And so... Well, that's why we wanted to get clarity from Gidro about it. Right. And so it may be quite some time for parents who are participating in these programs to stop receiving currency letters that may just be part of the routine. That's how we are. And I think we also need to discuss what the impacts of currency letter are. I mean, my understanding is, and I know it's not a fun thing to get, but it is a way for monitoring basically any sort of educational deficit that may be occurring due to that absence to occur that we would have a degree in the absence of that. So Binocent is busy. And I would not like to get a transfer letter in the mail. But what happens then is ALE... My understanding is that ALE will basically will check in with the district. GCL, sorry. And say, is this creating an educational problem? Is the child falling behind? Are they suffering? Are there other issues that are cruelling from these absence to these absence? If the district says, you know, the child's doing great, the child's thriving, that's basically the end of the inquiry. And if there is an issue, then there is a means to take corrective action. If we counted these as these absences, I think we'd want, as a policy matter, some sort of internal monitoring statement to make sure that it was working both for the child and then for the classroom too, because as teachers, if you have... teachers teach cohorts. And if there's holes in that cohort on a consistent basis, and a teacher knows that, wow, on Friday I've got four kids who aren't there, and I've got learning that's kind of dependent on the whole class participation, that's a burden on the teacher. So I think we have to be mindful of... Can we do that for the family vacations? But do all families really take vacations every Friday? No. But if you take one for a week or two weeks or two weeks off an monitor of the year, it's the same as the school. And I'm not just talking about this having some sort of a check-in. It's no union there. The teacher would check with the principal, everybody would agree, no. These kids are up to speed, they're good to go, go. Most kids do not go on vacations outside of their vacations. They do all the time. They do all the time. They just turn off the big blocks. And sometimes they do. And I think the brushing on this is a really fast question. I'm talking about spaces. At this point, I'm just going to put that out there right now. If you want to talk about... And then I'm going to go there because I'm ready to have stuff on the air. So I'm going to do two. I'm just going to let me... Thank you. I know you don't want to go to the sex, but at some point you're ready to hear that. Yeah. Well, I think it's all... I was about people having the privilege of dropping in to school and dropping in to school out there. We don't... Or home school. It's all part of it. It's all sort of the same kind of privilege. But there's a legal mechanism for home school. There is for this, arguably. Arguably. But I think what we're asking... I think we all want to give as many educational choices as possible. But I think at some point we have to be... We have school five days a week for a reason. And if people say, well, only three or four are in works for my kid, I think we better off moving to other places. I think we have a responsibility to educate children offering them a certain... a certain... a certain quality. And so if we are going on a regular basis, allow families to take their children out, then we would need a procedure for our policies to determine whether I'm a little weary of saying that after the fact we say your child isn't doing well, so therefore we're going to not let him go to the program. Whereas if your child is doing well, it's okay. Along with the fact I'm many on the fact that you can only do this if you have a car to take your children there and if you can afford to pay the bill. I'll be clear about it. Nobody's saying that the district is allowing or not allowing a kid to go. The district is allowing the attendance law and the procedure that was written way before we identified this procedure. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. I think Jim stated at the beginning that anybody can take their children out. Yeah, that's a parent's right. But we think that as a district, we're going to note it in the letter that says your child is missing at some amount of time. And the law requires us to report that to the district. I mean, we're going to put a little more into it because I do understand it by the way, but what we're really debating is are a few families who are going to afford to do this we're going to get a truancy level that has very little real impact in the fact that it's not that they don't want to use transport. Are we going to band the policy to accommodate those families to have to get that letter when it opens a huge can of worms around that way? The families are families of limited means who can't afford to take their kids out there but are not the families doing their work. And I think if we're going to sanction it as a district, we should do so in a way that allows everyone to access that opportunity. Right. And it may be that there's obviously the fact that during school that even if I'm out of town it should be an excuse. Right. I'm not sure there's any difference between Disneyland and Earth Walk. It's not. If you're out of town, this is true. It has to be excused at less than a year. I mean, I think we could clarify if we can drop one down. Well, Disneyland is clearly out of town and that's clearly one of the two standards that the district allowed you but are required to excuse. Yeah, and this is made for that reason. And I'm saying that that might be a good thing to be unexcused also. Right. I think I should the district go that way. I go back to Jim's point. I'm also going to need a lot of guidance from the board then of what I tell my teachers. Yeah. Don't do any learning on Friday because you're missing it. Don't do any assessments. Or you're required during your prep time to make up those assessments with kids who don't come every Friday. That's a you can expect improvements really quickly. And I think those are the necessary things. And I think there's a substantive difference between a one-time trip that maybe it could be for a variety of reasons. It could be, you know, to go to Europe. And regular absences where the main purpose is to supplement education. That to me goes to a passive enforcement of that as an alternative education that the district is sanctioning and giving a certain subset of families sanctioned access to them. And I think I think I'm advocating for making it an excuse to be on a family vacation when you should be in school. I'm okay with that. I'm not trying to create a choice here that nobody wants. I'm trying to be consistent. I agree there's a class issue here. I also agree that schools should not teachers should not be required to bend over backwards to fill that back in. That's unnecessary. Schools exist for a reason. You're the role of public school. Public school, right? So there's rules for being in public school. You can't make it because you've now been during school. So can I follow up on that with the rules for being in public school? I'm not very well versed in home school. But if I decided to fill my kids out of public school tomorrow in home school I would still have access to some of the resources within the district. I could bring my kids in for hard class because they can pursue it in sports. You have to file an agency of education to get an approved home school programming and then you could access certain pieces of our debt. But you're not considered part of this school. You're not. You're on the numbers. They're on the schemes like that for some families is that if you can choose an education you want to take advantage of some of the public education resources but you can't even get into the actual academic classes. You could take advantage of up to I believe four core content within the core content areas. But it's not, I'd have to really look at it. Mike, do you know off the top of your head? I'm sorry that I got distracted from this riveting discussion. Isn't there, you can take advantage of four core content areas and still be considered home school? Yeah. I don't remember off the top of my head. There are some limits. You used to have to have six to be considered full time to qualify to play in extracurriculars. But I think that that number is gone by the wayside in the last few years with flexible pathways. People not. It's keyed in on that number. That's in our handbook I know, right? Because I have addressed that before that there's a certain limit. There's a certain opportunity that can access and there's a certain limit that can access. So if you're home school you could get as much as you want to. Right. So it seems like there might be for some families a solution there by the point of yourself for my school students. And I do have concerns that people popping in and popping out it really is going to throw even though it might help you to do an extra workload but just a day to manage one of the classrooms. I don't feel good about having kids constantly shopping around. So people have been doing it for years and so the teachers must have been top day. They've got a duty to pin the data of any kind. I don't know. However, there's a I didn't change the procedure. It was the procedure is pretty clear. Our handbook is to what the district would consider a excuse absence and it didn't say other outside activity. So you didn't change the procedure you just started following the procedure? Yes. Yes. And so was I going with that? So before I'm aware that it was just so here's the difference. If the board says to me change your procedure and add that piece to it that adds a different level that gets contractual with the teachers to say you were allowing this and you will make up the I can't tell them to just skip the work you know just skip the learning that's inevitable. So we're essentially telling the teachers that it's okay for the child to not have your 175 days of school work that's allowable and you need to make up the extra time that they can show the kids somewhere. So in high school kids miss classes all the time and they make it up and that's expected. But in elementary school it's different and in high school we're really encouraging a lot more flexible pathways, alternative programming kids do in their own day. But in elementary school I don't think that I think people here in the district and the state in fact are doing flexible pathways but I don't know that that applies in the same way at the elementary level. Middle school is even harder in some ways than either of those. Right. Students are taught to be responsible immediately upon fifth grade. When you shift to you've got to make it up. It's really hard in middle school. And that's why a lot of them drop off in middle school. But the good difference with the high school is that the flexible pathways the structure in place is too supervised in the monitor. And some of these watching who are largely the individual students are responsible for their safety. But it's right by the district each time. Well I'm thinking less so flexible pathways is improved but a kids missed classes for other reasons. One of my daughters is a senior, she has missed a gazillion classes. And she's a real pro at making it up. She's on my list. For a wide variety of students and it's on her to make it up. But it does take some time for teachers to tell her what she missed or whatever. But that's a very different scenario from and there's also time within the high school day where teachers are available to ensure that the policies are from a school district not specifically from a school. So this alternative programming that we're talking about is kids who are in the middle of school. They can't put it channeled down. That's the interesting thing if you haven't received a course in government and maybe your daughter has missed as much of classes that you've had as university. Has there always been an excuse in middle school and I think it's really the only interest for it to be a kind of change of practice. Change is not here. I always have the procedure that was correct. The same procedure is in the place of each of the schools. No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying in the place that this is not practiced but the procedure is not the best. That's the only time. That's the only time. I can't imagine the family to say that. Which provides a different question as well. We have the same procedure all of our schools should be following the procedure and understand the procedure. There's a reason not to. Unless we change the procedure. Well, I think there's a different way to teach. The school is very different. Making something up in second grade is almost nonsensical to us. But in high school it's a lot of sense. So we have this I'm just saying it's very different. As a former second grade teacher I would say so. You miss a day in second grade. You might really miss them. You have children in third grade on IEPs. Missing a couple of days in the second grade makes a big difference. I just I want to raise an answer to you again after school on that. We actually do have some professors that are faculty in second grade days requesting the expectation that can the teacher give us the important work that we can do which is obviously a big burden on the teacher and I think a very unrealistic thing but fair one. Which again is kind of related to this. It seems very clear what that is. It's an honor to miss a few days. But I think it should be having a discussion about parameters around that. My instinct is that a lot of people are under time to resolve some issues apparently to deal with that gap What is everyone's health or absence of a father? I can say I'm going on to my second grade. Yeah Uh oh If do I get after the 10 days do I get a letter of that says I don't know what you're saying. The challenges are that families just have to go from extremely extended vacations for good reasons. I'm not saying it's not a bad thing to do with children. I don't know if I could I would. And then ask the teacher to say Spanish teacher my kid's coming back and he's going to jump you know, we have to get him to work. If a kid misses two months of Spanish and wants to go to the next grade level of Spanish then he's still missing a parent semester. So it's it's a common, I can't expect my teachers to make that work out whether they're going to do a kid for that choice. I agree. Yeah So Jim this is down to the agenda for discussion. What's our ending here? I guess what I would like out of this is whether we want to take for the action. The board kind of the issue around it because there will be questions I mean we can say okay we can say no we're fine with what the administration is doing we could ask some questions around it to see if we can learn more, if there's some other paths or we can decide if we want to make you know some changes and figure out what options for changes we have so I think that's and we are clear that we carry out this policy that in fact is the state's so if I'm gone for two weeks after 10 days I'm going to get the same notice as once a week again. That's true Yeah I don't think that's a problem because of the this issue of what out of town means and what we're actually doing on that I mean I really think that there is a problem directly right now Which is Which is if I take my kids out during the school year I should get an excuse You know they're getting an excuse to take them to some place that actually is actually really insisting in the educational I'm not talking about that I'm talking about the more typical we're going to round it out and take an extra couple of days around a holiday and you know they're supposed to be in school maybe they should be an excuse and I'm kind of coming around this idea that to be consistent that's not a bad thing and you know what does it really mean? It doesn't mean that much other than being very formal about the fact that we don't need these kids in school and we cannot be expected to have We certainly, you know, Morgan's here right now I have one daughter in her class right now and just recently we've asked her, hey can we get some homework at a time so we can get it so we don't have to come back to school for those three days, right? Is that her job? I'm sure she's willing to do it but it's not really her job, right? So maybe that isn't an excuse to also and it doesn't really hurt me to be on an excuse I just want to be and these parents they're doing what they think is really assisting in the weekly classwork. I know when I did it with my other daughter it was essential, it kept her from going insane in school, in third grade and to go once we get wasn't the earth one, it was somewhere else that was really valuable to get her to focus on a really good student the other four days If it had been an excuse, I wouldn't care So here's a question Steve, but I'm curious there are some students who have parental visitation through DCF that happens regularly it has to be taken out of school to do so because it's supervised by DCF not necessarily educational but yet beneficial to a kid though and quite honestly I'm not sure how we treat those visits right now I'm just kind of hitting on my head I think it's another indicator that it's a slippery slope quickly and so how I would need help from this body of how do I define that and how do I ask my principals to define that You do it now as what's the policy? Within our procedure that these are the what counts as excuses and anything other than that is not excused so the DCF idea I'd have to ask my principals exactly how they look at that so I don't know and how the unexcused absence is going to take very much of you though if you went to the clinic what would you take more than 10 days? policy or procedure what happens if I say I'm going to take my child out of school for a month and I'm going to ask the teacher to provide work and catch them after they get back you don't really have a policy or procedure about that but I'm not sure I'd want to ask the devil to do that what I have said is let's come on the labor relations of what I've said to you the best you can and no you don't need to stay after school or you can come to state schools at 3.30 because that's what your contract says and from that point on yeah doesn't actually say anything about policy other than people like that or is it another? it's the it's so so at 10 absences that's one that's currently going on DCF and then use the new Washington County judge it's actually two weeks ago with all superintendents of Washington DCF wants and the judge wants all 10 day absences all of those letters of copy goes to DCF and it's exactly the process that Jim tells you know what have you tried what have the parents said which is great and then at the bottom it says what is this kid falling behind but it's not going to go anywhere it's just a paperwork job but I'm going to be a you talk about the DCF work you're a supervisor at DCF you're going to go after another parent I'm sorry I don't see those procedures I see that the board gets you reported to make the procedures those are in the handbook that's what I'm going to do what is listed in the handbook has loudly not a loudest excuse I didn't get to the exact thing so me we have the policy we do that things to handle you know they don't want me out I mean back to Michelle's question of what's our action here we either make a decision that we want to do kind of advise what it's in I would be interested in hearing from other school districts like Ferdinand where there's a similar program that's a similar program that's a similar program that's a similar program that's a similar program that has policy procedures that self-all within the law but have flexibility or not do you think it's a good idea to have a certain kind of a wife I can get a wife answer to that I have talked to he said exactly what we said this is what happens if you give your wife what happens that's their policy that's how they follow their policy as well excuse is a good way to have that check you're talking about someone outside the district or the district must review at that point you're going to go before the transit so you better go before you're going to sit in this the transit judge is not going to hold anything unless it's potentially but I guess what it does for you is we're at 10 now setting a letter to the transit judge is this kid really okay? it is a trigger for us the more of those issues you accumulate the better rather than a whole bunch of excuse because if they're excused you're not keeping track of it that's kind of what I'm saying the transit letter is not pleasant to receive but it's an automatic check and we have to put in place asking all these questions about faculty, fairness, which program and I actually I like the idea of an excuse for disney lines I mean there's a move towards equity is what it is no one's going to disney no one's going to disney no one's going to disney and then at 10 and then at 10 of those this really isn't good for this kid you're not really succeeding or it's disruptive or it's creating too much pressure on the teacher or you know there's like all of a sudden there's an excuse to do that so I'm going to compromise according to the handbook I have high schools and full of UDS who put it in the same language excuse me for illness, family emergencies, religious observances and world appointments that cannot be scheduled after school hours so no one can that's not the one what is that what is that look this is a permission for the district to do what they want that's different than what we're doing we don't have the college to be more restrictive than the law a law is saying if you want an excuse out of town we're saying no we don't excuse them so what happens what food you know depends on how many days well it doesn't do you want me to talk about it sure yeah so you brought a fewer students going to Disneyland and you're following the handbook right yeah well yes so students come to me constantly sometimes I feel like the only purpose I serve is to sign their planned absence but at least I'm signing sometimes and I always check unexcused when students are going to Thailand or whatever because they're going on vacation so it's unexcused and we accommodate them because we want to you know if a student is going to be gone for an extended period of time which is why this is coming up that's different to me because you're going to be gone for a month or two months just slow down and say wait a second like is this reasonable to put on us but if a student is going to be gone for a couple of days then you know we say check in with your teacher see what you're going to miss you're responsible for the work that you miss you're going to make it up but it's unexcused the question then is it going to trigger a truancy letter and the answer is that technically yes and there are so many absences which is a plea that I make in my opening letter to families each year please, please come to school please come to school please plan your vacations carefully so that it's not I think there's like an element of respect about the challenge that that poses for teachers in schools where they're just gone all the time and you're trying to hold a class and half the kids are there because people are out doing good things but they're not there so yes we I ask that of families in the summer letter please come to school and when people have good reasons for not being there we do our best to work with them at the high school there are students that are constantly engaged in really good stuff that takes them out of school and they're older and they're at a different developmental level and so they are navigating the executive functioning skills necessary to plan ahead and to make up things and I think that that is good for them in some ways but when the piles of unexcused absences come in for this or that there is an editing process right? to say like is it makes sense to go to truancy court for this family or not is there a concern that we have you talked about the trigger and I'm sorry but I'm not concerned you know and if they have good grades I mean it's not just like oh we like them they're doing fine in school but if they're not and we are concerned then it is a piece of the puzzle to try to support a family I think there is an element of practicality that does come up for us with truancy and the other thing that I think is worth saying maybe you know this and I feel like you kicked it around a little bit truancy for schools a lot of times is very much a dead end it's a ton of work with almost nothing on the other side so what do you mean by that? it means that often times it's not taken up by any community partners particularly at the secondary level that's where most of my experience is and so if you have a 16 or 17 year old school you file truancy thinking that you're handing the baton to DCF or Washington County mental health the baton is not quickly or easily taken it's low on the scale it's very low on the scale and in fact sometimes they just say we're not so then as a school we have to make a decision about how much energy are we going to invest in pursuing that path or are we going to put our energy into re-engage in this student so I mean I know that that's not quite the discussion about missing a day of school in second grade but my dad's daughters have some unexcused absence can I make a radical suggestion I actually suggest that I kind of trust the media ministry's judgment on this and kind of let them continue forward I think the wonder because I would make is just making sure that families that want to do this that there's really good communication with families about what truancy means what the process is that this is not a it's not a discouragement or an encouragement of it it's simply a check you know to be candid you know if they're going to disney world we likely have the same so families know what they're prepared for when there's letters come it's not a scary thing and they know that as long as their kids can find it's just a piece of mail how does that sound to folks totally supported but I have one thing I don't think that what Mike is doing is being done and I think that's probably the way we can do it which he used to just call them students I think that I'm just looking at our schools from this school to see what happened with my daughter and I don't want to be in power schools but I'm pretty sure that it says that she's excused and so you know you find a head, you do everything else so probably it was considered doctrinal but I think that probably should be on excused under the way you have to it's in a handbook that way going way on family vacation is not one of those things that's excused Steve I think her sister was on excused actually there's a third option that teachers can pull down and it's called planned absence and I don't know how that one gets recorded I think that's up to five days that's under the tenth and second of the day that can be approved by a principal in policy it doesn't say that he have to have for any amount of time can be excused yeah it has that with prior knowledge the principal for about five days I honestly think that that's not accurate it's not it's not that's already excused there's an emergency there's less discretion for emergencies I mean in policy not in the law I just think it should be tight I really don't think there's any difference between Disneyland, Thailand, Costa Rica or or Oroquac I don't think there's any difference I mean especially when we're talking about the scale that some of us do and I just think about it I think that that idea of tightening it up so that we're clear that we're supposed to be in school we have a calendar I think that people regard athletics as school I consider vacations as school apparently not accredited but people see it as school people see vacations as an educational you have to take your educational vacations they say you're going to learn more on that trip than you would in school which is true but it's different they just think it right I think it gets me slippery that's a good idea it's the impact on the rest of the classroom the impact on the rest of the classroom is that it's a couple of weeks out and there's space to go back that's why it needs to change I answered your question I'm fine with leaving it to the media as long as she feels okay coming back since she needs our help good to mission although it's the law of order just the questions that are already on that list so question number one that's the agency of education it's hard to have good agency of education and do that I'm not sure my question is actually about the agenda because I apologize but I did not understand what the consent agenda means and I know that Hope and Emma aren't written on the agenda so I'm wondering if you could just say what the agenda is moving forward and I think the public comment section is done so we have hope and Emma would give the student the next and then we've got very exciting board schedule do we have a comment around specific agenda items were you going to respond to Hope and Emma is that what you were thinking actually didn't know what they were doing on the agenda but I just and I didn't I think I even missed the moment where the consent agenda might have been approved I saw things get pulled off of it but not there's the policy that the board is adapting for diversity, equity, and inclusion I will just maybe email my comments to the board at some later date like this evening thank you did I miss the moment I totally missed them we're not talking to you so it doesn't happen so this is for future thank you so we have a public comment period where you can comment on anything that's on the agenda the consent agenda are things that we have discussed and are things that need don't need discussion that we're ready to approve that discussion so the reason that we didn't discuss the diversity and inclusion is because we've actually been discussing that really over the course of most of this year so we've got to a point where that was we arrived at language and we've heard from many voices over that that course and so we're just at a point where the board discussion was done so we could approve it without discussion unless another question arises which would have done is that's when we called items off many the other thing we missed we did sort of narrowing on this group did you want to say anything for a public comment and there was a set of people over here oh I did say you did say that okay because at the beginning there was a chance for anybody to come about it okay good thank you but it passed yeah I just I missed that I was like so when the consent agenda is approved it's just everything there without discussing it didn't know that it's okay I learned a lot of things about a school board I'm not a sworn in so I cannot make an motion but if I were sworn in I would make this motion I would say I would make the motion because we stop providing the class privilege to people who are taking their kids out of school and excusing their absences and instead do that the way you might do that at the high school which is unexcused which is more consistent with what we're trying to achieve and that would also stop sending a negative message to the parents of the earth watch who are getting unexcused and family vacations are going to be excused that's the motion I would make that somehow we direct the administration to clean that up and make that more consistent to avoid the class problems well a lot of reasons is that necessary because I don't have the procedure like in front of me but what I'm saying is we don't have that provided for us to receive an assay so my quality we have up to five days and we but it doesn't have to be limited it's sort of principles and isn't it in practice I mean I'm going to confess and I apologize for coming to the discussion I'm going to confess after eight years in the district until this discussion was put on the agenda and I asked I just didn't really understand the difference because you're an excused and an unexcused absence I thought unexcused was like my kid just didn't show up and he was running around town and they would call that has happened I was under the impression that I called and said he could be out of school today and that's how you're doing it that's how the district does it it's not right but it's how the district can do it so I'm not I think consistent I've said that is my understanding of how it worked and it sounds like that isn't some policy it's not a procedure but it's the practice right now sometimes sometimes for some parents so this is provided this will provide you with the opportunity to bring yourself up to my leadership team I'll tell you all that you will get many questions so one question that I have is just on the unexcused absence so aside from okay there's the potential truancy letter and we can see in power school that our kid has X number of unexcused absences or whatever is there ever any kind of consequence for unexcused absences I can tell you that when I was a principal of an elementary school it was different truancy portraits change all the time I sat in a first grader who lived in a 60 days of school I sat on a hard fourth bench for five months one time a day or five months while I watched the judge say to my mom get a better one oh jeez so rarely does something happen even if we go to court it's one of our absolute frustrations as educational leaders that we do the effort we put the time in we try to put the plans for kids we try to go about moving on our effort for kids who are not succeeding in school with multiple absences truancy court does happen but also they would so if the kid was not succeeding in today they were not going to be promoted to the next grade because they were not needing the proficiency to move on that wouldn't they wouldn't be held back just for excused absences right but if they had 60 unexcused absences but were meeting proficiency they would still be lost in life we have a bigger conundrum bigger conversations just check we have a conundrum there I can tell you that we have a very small number of students that we have a job with around and they're suffering for it so it's not happening right and we won't get any help from anybody I mean principals spend the majority of their time trying to get kids to come to school right in preference to sending them to court or my question around attendance is more like does the attendance itself ever matter or is it really the performance that always matters I you have to say have you had the experience of a student who has missed significant days of school and for underserved absences has it been proficient? have you had that experience? I understand I'm back in I haven't had that experience but our fundamental concern is always whether the kids are succeeding in school whether they're present in school yes and I agree that there's a small number of students probably larger at the high school as kids get older that just like yeah I'm not going and it's almost always we shouldn't not say always but it's frequently connected with any other issues addiction digital addiction is the thing that I'm most keen in I think that I will not belabor the point but when I was a kid if I played hooky that meant that I was watching Days of Our Lives you know which I did not particularly care for for that out loud and if a student plays hooky now it's incredible what their options are for entertainment and pretty unlimited and digital addiction I believe it's very real and we'll continue to see more effects of it so often times again this is like a little bit of a soapbox but I'll zip it in a second sometimes we see this huge spike nationally end here in depression and anxiety and diagnosis and I think that the digital addiction piece is really connected to that and so often times students that have school refusal also have a diagnosis of depression and anxiety and I think it's all sort of mixed in there with digital addiction and nerves about social interactions and pressure all mixed in which is really what Lisa Noss's role in fellowship was about building a culture of wellness and risk taking and resilience so anyways yeah yeah so I agree with you Michelle that it does sort of come down to the performance especially we struggle with truancy not having many tools to utilize with that except the start reality of well now you didn't earn proficiency in this so you're not moving on and at the secondary level that gets very real so yeah no student yes thank you again I'm sorry sorry so I'm just going to follow our usual format of some just updates of what's going on in the FDRPS district and celebrations and then we'll we can talk about our trip to Jackson with that excuse that excuse is actually awesome I can't say that I am taking the boat to a conference on Monday Tuesday next week that's also an excuse for and the first student celebration that I'm going to introduce is also deals with some students being asked it's for the New England music festival and that's starting tomorrow and so they're traveling down to Connecticut and I think it's so cool that we have some students representing Montpelier our district there because it's really exclusive and hard to get into so that's exciting and the conference that I'm presenting with other students and Libby will also be there at is the New England Secondary School Consortium Consortium and the workshop that we're going to be doing is about how putting students at the center of learning sparked the Black Lives Matter library and it's similar to the workshop that we did at the Roland conference and so we're just excited for not only the opportunity to connect with people from New York and New England but also just to share our story with them it's going to be exciting and that's next week and so students have also been working on partnering with listen us and people in the administration to work on restorative practices and that is not just from a restorative justice standpoint but it's also how we can sort of build community in our school and in our entire school community as well and it's not just about what happens when harm is caused or someone does something wrong but how we can use restorative circles just in our daily lives a bit more to connect students with each other and also connect students with their teachers and it does tie into restorative justice as well though and how we treat our students and in making sure that whatever harm has been caused is resolved and so we students presented I was one of them and so did two other students presented to a faculty meeting at the in-service that we had I think just last week so students gave testimonies and it was also sort of a more formal introduction to what restorative practices are and how we're going to go about implementing that at MHS specifically for the next few years I'm going to so the spring play at MHS so about three nights in a row which is amazing and it was a very moving performance and well done Adam congratulations and Interact Club is I think tomorrow is going to be helping with a dinner at the warm shelter at St. Augustine's and they spent today yeah they worked with me today yeah right after school so and I was there and it was pretty amazing to watch them in the small kitchen all of them were like kind of all these things and our classes and MHS group and I think a few of the student groups are partnering up and we're going to try and organize a clothing swap over the next month or two I'm not sure what is happening but I know that it's in the works and it's coming up soon also MSMS I found out from a student there today that they're celebrating National History Day by creating personalized projects and she's a fifth grader and she's been really excited about it and since all of her friends are really excited about it she's doing hers on the Vietnam board and it's just a very cool way to explore whatever learning they want to explore that's it for the first section of the student celebration so we're going to talk a little bit about our time in Jackson and we're going to talk a little bit but it's also important to think of questions you might have for us and it's more of a conversation to even though we are presenting on it so I was able to go last year and I for my second year I wanted to I had the opportunity to invite some students from MHS and so I invited Emma and also Mary Ann Songhurst from the Racial Justice Alliance and she's my president and she's done a lot of tremendous work in racial justice advocacy at both at the school level but also in helping push for ethnic studies standards which just passed and so the conference itself is a nationwide a group of teachers and progressive educators and some students nationwide and they all go down to specific locations each year and it's usually every two years they'll switch location and so we the group originally formed in sort of trying to it trying to deal with standardized testing and trying to make it something that was productive for students versus something that they struggled with or just impeded upon their development and then it slowly progressed over the years and so this year it was really focused on the state takeover of Jackson public schools and how the politicization of how like just public school communities also relates to the power dynamics especially with largely white state leadership versus a very like I think Jackson is maybe the third or second blackest city in the nation and so the conflict there and also in just how we can support public education and specifically in Jackson there's a funding issue and a lot of Jackson public schools are underfunded and then that's the excuse like horribly underfunded and I think Emma can talk about that a little more if she wants to but like horribly horribly underfunded and then and there hasn't been much progress made on that in recent years and then charter schools would open as a replacement for like failing schools and a lot of times like the charter school movement and how that originated there was also after integration when I don't know if it was specifically charter schools but I know it was just education outside of public education and a lot of times white families didn't want their students going to school with black students and so they pulled them out of schools and put them in I don't know like how they were able to get around it but I know that the private education was largely I think it was voucher research of some sort but I know that it was a waiver on white families who didn't want their students going to school with black people so navigate that and yeah it was about sort of what's going on in Jackson but also just a place to brainstorm how we can support public education and make sure students are just being supported and how that deals with learning but also how it deals with discipline and funding just to pull in some language that we use here a lot I think the two words that I associate with that conference are equity and inclusion and specifically the conference focused on giving equal opportunity to students in who navigate a system that is currently a national system that is currently set up to favor students who have privilege and and I think that one of the ways that we do that as a district is by providing resources to students that they might not be getting at home and that can be like those are the first things that come to my mind as a high school student but that's also a warm place and food and support from teachers and inclusion is like a huge one but also safety and I think that there are always phrases that we could improve on all of those and making those resources accessible to students and teachers to provide them and yeah that's what I really took away from that conference open to questions because Thank you. Questions? What did you think of the positions of the schools Jackson compared to them here? We didn't actually we didn't end up, I think that one of the workshops that filled up quickly was to go to a high school but we didn't actually end up going and seeing high schools in person we were able to talk with some students and saw presentations from educators but I don't remember what the actual numbers were but do you remember for the funding? Yeah. The district the Jackson district school district is under a million No, no, no. It's half a million It's half a million dollars for the entire school district Like 50 schools? No, it's just serious No, no. And they already recently like maybe a year ago got like a bond approved but isn't even enough to like it's a huge It's just a thousand a year per student This is a huge barrier in education It's very intentional to Oh, it is very intentional and the whole fight-flight that some of us are holding up unfortunately, I remember when all this was happening is so that happens Yeah, you created You created a whole separate system Yeah, you created a whole separate system for one student and then to get away from having to desegregate the public schools The textbook is 20 years old and now you're working back years when you were in the year 2000 they were under 25 years of desegregation still when I was working there and if you were if you had any kind of money you didn't have that public school you just didn't do it and the taxpayers have no regard for the money How are those from Jackson involved? One of the main organizers and leaders was Albert Sykes and he was actually mentored by Bob Moses I don't know, or Robert Paris Moses His house is like literally around the corner of the Mecca Evers' house so he's Jackson, Gordon Redd he's a huge civil rights leader but point being they make sure that the town that they're staying in is very involved in the conference and just recently I think we could probably speak to this more but they're trying to involve students and so Albert Sykes did pull in some students from Jackson schools and also there were panels where we could hear from educators who work in the Jackson public school system and that was interesting I think it was also about learning about the really rich history of Jackson Mississippi and I think it was important for us as more donors to go down there and learn about the south from a new lens I mean we went to some museums and just being there we also went out to Hulu college campus and that's a historically black college and that was formerly a plantation and so it was just also about learning about the history of like and the huge hub of the civil rights movement that operated there I think it's interesting how these conversations between the being in school and public education they kind of go to what you guys experience to education as a civil rights movement public education as a civil rights movement and of course everyone everyone in one school we're rarely getting out of schools in the community's corporate schools you know it's not luck Jim we're working at it Jim working at it it's luck that we were handed the social and political pressure where we were but it's bigger than that in terms of self segregation and so on real estate markets did you did you have any did you have anything else? thank you thank you yeah these these are very sorry but it was good I thought it was good so moving on I actually think we can do this more quickly but it's a lot of fun it's definitely wonderful to be involved by me and also we have I was just going to look at that I just read that actually Ryan we put that on there because we thought that we could have had another conversation with you and I think there's a need for that we could very briefly share but as we're inspired in the last week I think it's concrete necessarily but we put it where we are let's take five minutes for a hand on Jim so in terms of board planning this is really the time of year where we want to give us some kind of the virtues about where we want to go a couple on the agenda we can talk about some others facilities obviously if you want your communities as well as advancing equity diversity inclusion we've also talked about healthcare for something why don't we discuss RBS and facilities I think there's kind of like the main topics and I think they kind of fall into two buckets I think some board training around communications and equity in general and then kind of some directional discussion around where we want to go on issues like equity but also health and kind of looking at our facilities and the direction that we go there so would you also have a discussion sometime about how the school year went and any look back and what's happening next and what would next year look like well we definitely want to have the one with next year look like and I think that would involve some look back and we can put a little bit more in that does help as a topic substance abuse I'm thinking substance abuse and well we might want to some of the issues that Mike was working on too increase digital addiction and mental health issues depression anxiety the numbers are pretty scary and things like that those are problems both our health curriculum and our districts educating the board about district concern exactly and those type of equity issues because a lot of the groups that are suffering the worst part some of the groups this was first brought up or whatever thought that part of the emphasis was going to be on the gender equality piece the health education curriculum the sex education that kind of thing making sure that that's an approach from a more feminist perspective everything or at least it's guided by that and I don't think that's the complete work you're saying equity and health together so that's not a very good topic so what I was just going to say so you're setting aside 45 degrees is that professional learning around what or is that the board of gang and curriculum classes that would be my question I don't think we would want the former before I think a little the former I think we have to approach it we're not going to bite off in one half day but it's I'm increasingly hearing it from the community from a variety of angles and I think some education and then something that we want to kind of continue to have a subject that we talked about and examine our policies around it etc does that make sense maybe Libby you could I mean this is putting a lot on you but kind of guide us into what's a chunk that makes sense to go first on and then to solve those problems is more than a one year strategy anyway it's really being reasonable it's asked us probably two years ago to improve the health curriculum now and I don't know that we have in every month since we say us doing the board or the school the board which constantly meant the school we need to talk about what maybe you can tell maybe you could give us some background on where you see that we are I don't think probably as board members we even all know except through our kids experience at what point kids receive health education what that consists of and whether you or Mike see that as remotely adequate I don't think anybody does and how what plans you might have already for doing something about what are our options for doing something about I know we have limited time I'd throw Pam in that discussion panel that's where it should be done so I had the candidates for the high school principalship to a writing task and this exact topic was the writing task yeah it was a what would be your plan so let's maybe start with education there because I think we can figure out what's happening and some numbers too what are what do we know about it's from education about what we are doing but the behavior of our students the addiction issues mental health issues I think there's new IRBS data they just took it so I'm not sure if it's out yet or not the students at the middle school did a presentation this year's data though or last year's data last year's data it sometimes takes two and a half years to get the data I was going to say did you all just take it a week ago I have it, I'm taking it tomorrow I mean that's not, no but some the previous round did just come out and for anyone who hasn't attended the parent, the kids presentation at the middle school they do a great job so the scope question then there's the plan what's realistic in terms of time my preference would actually be to get a lot of this done toward the end of June because I think it's hard to coordinate around summer and maybe we could pick up like either last week of August or kind of first week of September do another like more in diet and it sounds like a lot of the game maybe two extended sessions and a day so Jim I don't have I don't remember and I probably should because we talked about the budget process policy a lot what is our timeline because the directives a lot of this stuff does align with how we might impact the budget for next year so whatever planning we do should do on these topics should be in alignment with that budget calendar that's what needs to be done this year so we're ready for typically our first our full day meeting in June I think is on the budget calendar as for discussing budget priorities pulling it up right now are we going to squander our budget priority discussion talking about our children's health and welfare it just says summer well are you talking about board superintendent leadership discuss budget priorities and Jim are you talking about doing this at a board meeting or are you talking about in addition to a board meeting I was thinking of having two extended board meetings that we might shift earlier into the day and then doing a return that would be separate from a board meeting and so you're suggesting that we do that in between now and June okay should we do a doodle poll does that sound too ambitious to folks and then we're going to set it around a doodle poll to see which dates work best I think it would probably be challenging if you're trying to include principals to have anything happen in June well we could get he wants it done by the June first board meeting did you say by June first? because you started really when the staff still around and then they leave yeah it's perfect I was just thinking I can pull principals for when we need if we have the agenda set we can pull principals for when we need them they'll be fine with that she says they don't love that so why don't we set around some doodle polls and see which dates work best on the subject of scheduling are we going to try to have a board meeting in April or are we just going to skip we never have a meeting in advance on the agenda during the spring break which is almost always a board meeting now we have scheduled at least I have down April 3rd and April 10th I think we did we did do that April 10th so the first two weeks in April on Wednesday we have a board meeting come on April 10th it's going to be a non-excused absence wait a minute why aren't you going to be here maybe I'll be excused I think they're ready to go I may not be here I think I will the one on the 10th doesn't run so we better not extend the one on the 10th if it's it's absent if already which has limited space for us to extend it I'm just the building itself is limited we'd be hanging out with them and I will be coming from but it's trouble so maybe for example May 1st is a good one to extend I can do it on Doodle but we don't have you don't have a ton to choose from okay okay great thank you so we need we need two motions on occasion one that will be in our detrimental to the board if we discuss in public and then a seconder should go into so go to the first one and we have yet to post Bridget is really good at this I move that the board find discussing contract negotiations in open session put the board at a disadvantage a second all in favor? aye I move that we enter executive session I'll second all in favor? aye