 We have a blank seat now. You're missing Steve. Oh, is Peter not going to go? Right. I don't know. Don't you need one more? Submit it to the left. Becky is here. We need five more. Becky is here. Becky is here. Becky is here. So we have. Oh, Becky is here. She's here. Oh, what about Michelle? Michelle is here. Michelle is not able to make it tonight. I'm going to text Steve because I have seen Steve. Steve's got like snow geese that creak. Yeah. To see him. To see him all the time. And then he's gone. Yeah. Then he's gone. Okay. Call the meeting to order at 640. First order business is public comment. Nathan. Yes. Thanks for serving. Quick concern is that my daughter is playing film hockey. She's going to be in the initial information session which was held here in the library. And there was a couple from Roxbury who were concerned about their daughter being able to participate because practice is at 430 to 6. The activities fan leaves at 510 from middle school. So I just want to make sure that's on people's radar. And as you know, I suspect it's one of those unanticipated inclusion issues. But it'd be a shame if the one or two kids don't want to participate in sports. It'll be it. See that microphone doesn't do anything for us. It does it for there. Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't. So the concern is so field hockey practice is 430 to 6 every day after school from middle school. The activities bus going back to Roxbury leaves the middle school at 510. So if the student wants to participate in field hockey at the rec fields and make it back in time for the 510 bus, they're going to get 20 minutes of practice. That may be only one student, but anyway, it's just one of those sort of curveballs that may or may not have been anticipated in the thinking about how this all comes together. But I'm hoping that folks can respond to that and make sure that we're including all Roxbury kids in all activities and getting home. Thank you. Perfect. Thanks, Ethan. And I know that's Pam is working to make sure that as a Pam is definitely working to make sure we accommodate Roxbury. So as many of you know, unfortunately, Peter Stirling has stepped down from the board and we want to thank Peter for his, I think, three plus years of great service on the board. It was, I think, a time of a lot of accomplishments and he played a large role both up here and working in committees and behind the scenes to, I think, make a lot of great things happen. So we thank Peter, but it also means that we have to replace Peter. There will be some, I think there's a notice on the website already and I'll send some reminders by social media. But the protocol for replacing a vacancy on the board is that the board places that they can position until then. It was a leftover in one thought. No. It's a new thing. Okay. It's particular to us. It doesn't mean that there are some people in the past who are sort of illegitimately on the board. Did you say confer or confer? Confer. The word in the statute is confer. It's unclear what exactly that means. We feel if we get a vote on it, that's about as much confer in the city council than we do. Got it. Okay. So then just to clarify for the audience, so we'll be advertising on the website and this meeting, will it be in any of the papers? Will the vacancy be posted anywhere else? We're not planning to put it in the papers. We will push it out on social media. The bridge did ask me about it. Yeah. I gave him the book. And I think it's amazing. Front porch forum? Okay. We can put it on front porch forum too. And I believe Steve Mills has already explained the process in an article. He at least asked me about it. I want to be clear because I'm imagining it in the reverse situation where let's say a Roxbury member needed to be replaced and there's a predominance of multiple votes on this board. So I understand the need for the select board of Roxbury to confer. But in a case as if it were that or in this case, what is it fair game for? It's a strict vote. So that means the Roxbury representatives in this case will have their votes on who replaces this person, even though it's a Montpelier person. And in the other situation, the Montpelier members of the board would have the majority vote in selecting the Roxbury person to fill. And that makes sense why the select board would have to be happy with that. So I think I'm understanding this, but it's new. Yeah, it's new. And I think that's probably what the legislature had in mind when it put that in whereas if there was a town like Roxbury that's not voted on the board and they wanted, say the Montpelier people wanted someone who was maybe from Roxbury but didn't necessarily represent Roxbury the way Roxbury would want to be represented, then Roxbury could put a break out. But for this case, Roxbury members of this board should feel confident in participating in this process. All nine members will vote on, well, except me unless there's a time, will vote on an appointment. And Peter who doesn't belong. Peter was no longer on the board. So he was officially doing something else this Wednesday. And then I think, is there any further questions on that? Can I just ask a clarifying question? Heather's not in the audience. Is anybody taking notes this evening? I told her because we were going into the sensitive session so far she's going to watch this part of the meeting on tape which she does anyway. So it's going to take her notes. So she's being kind to an employee who worked all day long. But she'll be here after the second session. Any other comments on replacing Peter C? And then next item before we go into executive session, I know Heather is patiently waiting, the consent agenda. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I think we approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? Excluding me, just not approved. I'll second. Any discussion? I was in favor. All right. Opposed? Great. Now we need a motion to go into executive session. So I think the person needs a motion that we... The purpose is for advice from our legal counsel. Exactly. No, we need two motions for that. You're going to just go straight into executive session? We just have to move to go into executive session. Okay. It's not the one that needs a fine. Do you have a motion to go into executive session? So I'll move to go into executive session. Second. Second. In favor? Aye. Aye. Any votes? Okay. No back. Here are the back results presentation. I grant one. Does that properly make? Of course. Yes. Thanks for having me. What I have prepared here is just an overview of our ESPAC results, an explanation of how we're going to use those results to our benefit, and I'll be able to answer any questions you might have, hopefully. So on the first slide, this is generally how we did in 2017-18. I have a scale over here on the side. This is the percentage of students that got a 1, a 2, a 3, and a 4. Blue is your ELA, and red is your math. They had about 64% of our students, proficient or higher in ELA, and 47% in math. And I'm going to dig deeper into those, but those are the results that go on the paper, that's kind of what everyone sees. And when we talk about ESPAC, one of the things that you don't hear a lot about are claims and targets. And claims are generally these broad statements and categories like writing or reading that they talk about in ESPAC. And when you dig down a layer deeper, there are these things called targets, which are essentially the skills or evidence that we want students to show that they're reaching these common core standards. So when we look at our results, we're able to dig down and see those results. Actually quite a great interface with ESPAC assessment to show us what's going on. And for example, in 2017-2018 in ELA, the claim of writing was our lowest area of the place where we need to look at. This is the state comparison, so this is us in the blue. This is the state average. These are preliminary results, so you may see some shifting eventually, but that's what's on there now. You can see we're above the state average in all grades. So in ELA, when we looked at claims and said writing, we dug deeper into the targets, and these are the things that we were doing really well. For example, there were more than I could fit on a slide, but this is an example of written information yet. We're doing pretty well with target 10 and word meaning, and it's kind of interesting because a lot of people assume that we're not doing a lot of vocabulary work and we're doing okay in that. Grade 3, target 11, reasoning and evidence, we're also very strong in that, but it also shows us what we need to focus on. So at target 7, language use, interpret and use language by distinguishing literal and non-literal forms, that's an area where we can focus in a little bit more. And the same with writing, great appropriate grammar and usage things like that. We're also very strong to us at each grade level, so we can really dig deep and see what's going on. These are some more of the target areas by grade level, just some examples. This is in all of them. But in grade 3, here's some areas that we might want to look at, grade 4, grade 5 all the way down to 9. This really helps us hone in our professional learning that we're talking about in good discussions and also helps us look at our local assessment data and understand what we can align and look at. Here's our math scores, same setup as before. So the blue is the us and the red is the stage. We were below the state average in two grade levels, grade 3 and grade 9. A couple things to know, and I talked about this on the next slide as well. This is the first year that we've given it to grade 9. It was grade 11 in previous years. And also we have an influx of students to the high school in grade 9 that haven't been in our system. And the area where we need to focus most according to this information concepts and procedures. And I'll dig a little deeper into that on the next slide. Just a quick clarifying question. Is that the current grade 3 and grade 9? Or is that grade 3 and grade 9 last year? So it's current grade 4 and grade 10? Yes. Yeah, the timing and the results is always kind of funky. That's what I thought, but it's one of the things you want to do. So the math targets, when we dug a layer deeper below those claims, one of our strengths was solving real-world mathematical problems. This is from grade 6, this is my example in grade 6. And in grade 6, one of the areas that we could focus in on was applying and extending previous understanding to number systems. And we have those examples for every grade level. I didn't put them all here, but we are able to get information about what we're seeing that helps really guide our discussions. And clearly, when we have any grade levels, but in math, these were our lowest areas that were in math. So we want to look at that a little deeper. This is our performance over time. You're changing the scale on these. We're starting in the 40s on the ELAs and starting at zero on the math. I'm getting confused by how we're doing it relatively. Yeah, I'm sorry. It just sets it to a fifth, basically, essentially above us. So it goes to the levels to whatever it is. These percentages are the percentages for efficient or higher. Right, but if we look at like a 46 versus a 52 in math, and then we look at, I don't know what it is in ELA, but see how you're starting at zeroes. So it looks like we're pretty close. And when you go to the other scale, it looks like we're gapingly ahead. I'm just like, wait a minute, we can't be that different than the average, but we're really not if you use a different scale. I'm just being... It just looked weird, and now I'm like, okay, it's not that different. Well, the other thing about this scale is the assumption when you look at it first off is that 100% is at the top and that is not true. Well, right, another point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, we were below grade three versus nine. These are the targets that we're going to look at for some of the targets that we're going to look at as well. Mike, can I have a back row question? Sure. If you're testing in 11th grade, you're compared to other 11th graders and we're now testing at ninth, and we're comparing to other ninth graders, why the difference, why the drop? Why do they change it? Well, not the function. Why did they move it from 11 to nine? I understand you headed at nine, you know more what it is you need to address. I concur with that. But then why are... If we do so well compared to other 11th graders, why aren't we doing so well as compared to other ninth graders? Yeah, so there's a bit of... I get to that later. I'm going to talk about what we're going to do with this information a little bit, but it'll remind me if I don't answer your question. So this is our performance over time. Sure, we assessed nine graders, but our general trend and achievement has been since 2015. And then we started to look at the subgroups. So we started to look really at those economically disadvantaged, that's the term that the state uses, economically disadvantaged students. They represent 21% of our total assessed population. 12% of our economically disadvantaged students are on an IEP, and 94% of those students did not achieve proficient. So it's definitely an area where we want to look. The red represents below the standard, so 52% of our economically disadvantaged students were below the standard in ELA, and this will worry for me there about 66% below the standard in that. Wait a minute, this is 94%. Oh, IEP. Never mind, thank you. So this is the what next part. One of the things that we didn't have time to do yet was really dig into those cohorts to answer that question. You know, why are we doing so well at 11th grade and 9th grade most different? Part of it is I think it shows the growth in high schools. The other part is Mike, the grade that I found out, we had 34 students move into our school in 9th grade last year that weren't in our school system. They were in private schools or home school for some other alternative situation. They were being factored in the DAP. So from 8th grade to 9th grade we had a bump of 34 students so we hadn't assessed the year prior. Well, the other thing is they did not have advantage of the curriculum presented in our school system. That's it. Assuming that was good. We have to look at the scale score analysis. So one of the things that you're going to hear from us in an ESSA, when we get our report card eventually from ESSA, is that they'll be looking at scale scores. They'll show year to year. A student could get a 2 in 3rd grade and a 2 in 4th grade. That doesn't show the growth. But when we look at the scale score, we can see how far students actually grow from year to year. Individual students. And cohorts and team members. That's something that's often missed when we just report out on 3s and 4s. That's another layer that we're going to go into. IAB administration analysis. So there are these essentially questions and tasks that you can unpack for students that are really good. It's not teaching to the test. It's not preparing for the test, any of that stuff. They're just really thoughtful problem-solving things to work through with kids. And we can gain a lot of information about how kids learn, how our instruction is going through using those. So we're going to look at those this year. And then more claims and target analysis. Really digging in at a deeper level. Looking at cohorts. Looking at kids. We can really identify these students and figure out what we need to do. So that's the next layer. Second week in September, we need to do it. But we're really working on it. And then there's some additional slides and charts. I didn't want to leave Roxbury out. You know our results from previous years. I don't include them. These are their results for grade 3 and grade 4. We're still going through some stuff with the state trying to get access to the results and be able to access their information. So this is the best I could do for the moment. But you can see definitely some of the same math concerns. So that aligns with the work that we're doing nicely in terms of the commentary schools. And then these lovely charts are a breakdown of each grade and each achievement level so that you can look at them and kind of pick it apart. You can get really lost in the data. It's really fun. Libby and I can geek out for a couple of hours if we don't look up. These bars should be represented like as stacks or pies probably as the alignment to 100, right? Each bar, each set of bars that's to 100. One of the things that charts like this tell me or jump out at me right away is that we have a roller coaster going on. It's not the same. So typically when I see roller coasters like that I start to ask questions like our scores on this particular assessment are based on the cohort of kid not on the teaching, right? So essentially if our teaching was right where the same in every grade level matched to the targets that we want them to get to you would see consistency. You would see this. But when it's like this it's based on the cohort of kid. So what I question impacts them. So we want to look at that trend data over the last couple of years and see if that's the same as the grade 7 cohort that was so strong. Were they strong in 6th grade and 5th grade? Is that a strong cohort of kid? And why isn't the grade 6 cohort that had such good scores what's going on there? When I see roller coaster scores those types of questions I ask. And we're at the question asking stage right now. I don't know the answers to anything. Thank you for asking the question. And those last two are consistent. The top line is 50%. Yes. Go for it. I noticed on the slide that shows the trend line going down. It also shows the trend line going down to the state as a four. And I just wondered No. That's the CLA in there. CLA and math. So that is just CLA and math. So the trend length of the state is not down. I'd have to look. I think the most part is static but I'm not sure. Thanks. That's a jump. Do you have more to go? The other piece of this as a parent I am faced with this testing question every year. Do you exercise your opt out kind of thing? And as a school board member we're going to contribute data. And it's good for our students to learn how to take tests but there's also a group of folks who feel like let's just do as little testing as possible for our kids. So the reason I said this is I want to know how we're doing on our participation percentages and are we seeing differences by cohorts there and is that influencing our scores by cohort in terms of who's opting out? So I have several answers to that question. Number one, so what I'm looking at is the number of degrees and on there it doesn't say who opted out what we did. So I'm not particularly sure of that. There were several exempt or expired notifications which means one of several things it means a student either started a session and didn't finish or it didn't take the session and I'm not sure there were several of those and we get a zero for each one of those. We get a zero. We grade it as a zero. If they begin but don't finish. If they begin but don't finish. You have the option of coming back to finish. But I understand that's important in the SPAC but if they choose not to participate it's not a zero. It is not a zero. Any child in our district in these cohorts that chooses not to opt we get a zero averaged in. Correct, yes. Well that's interesting. It's a tragedy to come. There are. Those went into like panic mode when people started talking of opt-out because they can pull our funding. They can pull funding from us because of that. Who's name? So there's other consequences to that action. But at the same time this is an assessment. It's not the only assessment we look at. It's a big assessment to show not necessarily individual scores and what we can do with individual kids does our program match the rigor of the standards that are out there? That's the major overall question that we're asking. And are we continually to increase our ability to meet that rigor? So a chart like this as a first timer to this district with Mike and I, that's a worrisome chart. We need to flip that around. And so it's an assessment that for programmatic measures is important to us as a district as a board member, I think that would be a message that I want you to tell the public. The other thing about this is if you do know assessments everybody might seem happier but you have no idea then how everybody's doing. So for the parents say I don't want so many assessments I don't want a lot of them but you have to have enough to determine whether your child is getting the information you're presenting. The complete assessment or perhaps the best assessment but I think it was a fear that the teacher started teaching differently because of the assessment. And I think communicating that that's not the case. But we want them to, right? Well I mean one of the teachers is rigorous but we don't want them to teach a test. We want them to teach. It sounds like we do. Actually we do the test. I think we want to do well on the test but we don't want them to teach to the test. No it's a good one. The SPAC is a pretty decent assessment but believe me I would be the first to tell you if I thought it was garbage. And we could say we want our children to know the questions, the answers to the questions that are around the test, right? Yeah I would say the targets. To ask this question I'm taking it from what you're saying that there's information in the data that would lead to interventions in the teaching process. For the individual. In the knowledge. I mean looking at this just off, like our math scores were considerably lower. So what's happening in our math instruction and what kind of learning do we need to provide for our teachers in order to increase their capacity to increase the kids capacity to understand conceptual and math, you know? But are you asking about individual and interventions? No, no, just district. It's district. We don't use the data to help the individual students. So the individual has no incentive. Not, well think about it, when we get this assessment scores to the level that we need to intervene with. It's not soon enough. It's more programmatic measures that we're looking at. Right. I think that's part of the issue here is to see it as right, this is part of being a good citizen in a community, really a lot of this is. And I mean there is a benefit to the individual and that students do need to practice taking tests. It's a sad fact of life. But it's true. But it is a community contribution to data is really what we're doing. It's not helping your individual student in that moment or in that school year get a better education. It's helping future students get a better education. And hopefully it's having us understand what's going on with a continuation of curriculum and a continuation of effort for years. I'm not saying test, we take tests. It's not that. I'm just answering questions that I hear regularly in the community about our kids don't need to take tests. It's over tested. And SBAC is the least of our concerns in many ways. But we have the kneecap still on the science. It's changing too. That's great. I don't even know what they're calling it. They're calling it the science assessment. And we assume it's moving more towards the SBAC kind of concepts? It's more interactive. Interactive at least. We've only seen it one time. It's on the computer. It's SBAC-like. And that one is that the state created? And we're part of consortium. Essentially it looks similar to what I believe Connecticut and Rhode Island have used in a couple of other states. I don't think that they've created anything new per se, but it's new to us from kneecap. The other thing I'd say about this is it does tell us cohorts, whether it's grade cohort or socioeconomic cohort where we have a problem. And then individually we can figure out when you say it's not helping the individual student. That then there's a curriculum change which actually does help that student in that course. The trend data is very important to us. It tells us a lot of information on multiple facets. About the program and education? A program about teacher quality, about cohorts. There's so many different ways we can look at that data. I can't speak for everyone, but some of us on the board are very excited about the quality of data here and we're very thankful. And also the longitudinal data, the cohort data, that sort of thing has been something we've been wanting for a long time and we're really happy to hear that it's a priority for you. And as we break that down by subpopulations I think that's really important too. To the extent it can be done and not be identifiable, we are very excited about that. So thank you for this and we do value data because I guess I want to leave that. It's super important. Thank you for doing it and keep looking at it. Don't worry. Mike says we geek out on it. We geek out on it. The longitudinal... No, no data today. The longitudinal piece is the part that I think we're dying to hear if that's productive or if it's fruitful for you as you get into the data. I know we have small samples here, but as you can find truth in it. Nathan wants to say something. I'm resisting because I want to try to keep public comment to public comment. Ooh, nice. Huh? I want to be mindful that there are people who are not able to make it or participate if we do have the... But if it's an urgent question if you want to do it otherwise you can do it. But kind of from now on that's going to be kind of critical. Good. Perfect. Great. Policy readings. I think we're moving around a pretty quick here. So we have five policies. Do you think... Did all of them come out of the retreat? I think all of them did. Yeah. Well, we'll have to retreat the all-day plan of the mission. Mission, vision, pledging board superintendent relationship board expectations and superintendent expectations. So let's go start from the top and... For the people that weren't at our all-day work session the board came up with this worked very hard to come up with this vision and then began the idea of a mission. And I think where we are now is to decide our superintendent had the suggestion that perhaps we have a district vision and that each school have their own mission. And so we did not have time to consider that. So before we spend any more time on the board mission, I think we need to talk about that. I mean, I have one... No, actually, I think we've decided on the vision. And so that's there. We've done it. But now the question is what do we do about this mission? What's the board's pleasure on mission? Yeah, I mean is it mutually exclusive? Can we have a district vision and a district mission and have each school also have their own particular mission? So one thing I noticed... You're looking at me. I'm not to decide this. This is a board decision to talk about that. I would just say this is less about whether it's school by school. I actually like it if each school having one very much. But that's going to happen regardless. That's going to happen regardless. I don't get having a vision and a mission that are basically the same kind of thing. We basically were trying to write two different sentences that captured the spirit of what we were trying to accomplish in the district under two different labels. So I think if we're going to have a mission... I don't know what they're called. I don't really know what the right word is for. But I need a better understanding of what this is supposed to convey that's different than the vision. And if it's just going to be another sentence that says something very similar, I'm not sure why we have had it twice. Is it more about values? Is it more concrete? Is it more directive? I don't know, but I need a better understanding. The vision is supposed to be the big picture and the mission is supposed to be how you're getting there. Is an outsider who was not part of that just very briefly. I'll say the mission adds only one thing, which is that it focuses on the individual of the child with talents and passions. And I think that it's basically talking about... It's basically saying that this is our method for getting to the vision effectively. These are the values we instill in getting to this vision, but it could easily be wrapped into a vision and be done with it. And the second half of this, to provide an education that empowers our graduates to build a better future, if we're not talking about empowering the individual for some reason, it fits right into engaged citizens and lifelong learners. So I don't know that that's even necessary. So that's just like, it looks a little bit redundant and it looks like it should all be combined into one. That was not part of the history of that. I did that, but it can... In one sentence it says, a vision statement outlines what a company wants to be in the future or a mission statement describes what a company wants to do now. Oh my goodness. Then it should all be a mission. Which is just... So... I personally lean towards one. Though I do think we're going to have to be explicit about what we're calling it, because the other policies that we have in front of us tonight refer back to whatever it is that's here. So we have to make a decision. We're going to have civil mentions and district missions, and we need to make sure that we're explicit with what we're calling this. Our policies can refer back to this, but I think I would personally lean more towards a single, would you say, vision for something for the discussion right now. Other comments? So do we want to take an action to a men? Do you want to just take a big... I want to ask a question then. If you maybe even more helpful to the people who weren't there is, if you cover up the mission and just look at the vision, is that good enough? Or is it missing something? Can you care about personalized learning in the vision? That's what it's out of the same. I think it's real close. Maybe our schools cultivate a caring, creative, and equitable community that has it more forward-facing. And I apologize that I was not there. I'm going to try to proceed on with this. So to say, I know it's hard and it was hard for us then, but the question is, I'm not sure we put in time today to have this long discussion about this, but we would know what we want to do next if we could make a decision on that. In other words, if you think we'd just like one statement, but knowing you're just going to have one, this vision isn't quite it, then we could decide on a process later that would get us there. So my thought, reading the vision, I don't like that all our schools are. I think we should have it be aspirational because I'm not sure our schools right now, I think we strive to be an equitable community. I'm not sure we're there. I think it should be more aspirational than declarative. Okay, I'm going back to the question. I'm going to call the question of whether you want two statements or one, and then we can work on what the one is at a different time with a different protocol. It sounds like it must be one. I think it must be one. Should we take a make a motion on that or a straw poll? A straw poll is enough because we're not adopting it. So who wants to edit out the mission and just go with the vision? I want one vision. Steve, are you abstaining? No, I'm totally under one. Okay, so we'll on another agenda of another time rework it together. But my question is, are you calling it a vision? It's very important for the next four documents you're doing. Are you calling it a vision or are you calling it a mission? Are you calling it a vision and have it be aspirational? Yes. Rather than whatever a mission is? A vision is what you want to be in the pager. I think a vision is at the board level to have an aspirational statement. So we're calling it a vision and we'll get back to it and now you can go on to the other things. Okay, good. Schedule a vision discussion on some aspirational point in the future. Budgeting. Budget policy. Comments, discussion on our In bullet number one, could you change mission to vision? Yes. Who's in charge of the edits? Are you in charge of the edits? I can be in charge of the edits. This has the procedure and format part of the policy? Or will that be separate and procedure only? I think it's policy as a procedure. Because it's so pertinent to us. The idea was to have it actually be part of the policy. You could actually call it a budget calendar, instead of a budget procedure. A budget process. Yeah, a project. It's kind of a synonymous procedure. But before we get all the weight down into that section, the last statement in the opening section, the board will create in charge of finance committee to ensure oversight and accountability for the district's finances. I'm interested in potentially clarifying that it would be a standing committee versus an ad hoc. So we should maybe say that makes sense to me that we'd be clear with it. It should be. Could we call that middle section the annual budget calendar and process? Sure. What would you call it? Annual budget. Annual budget calendar and process. Which where is their budget? It's a calendar. I call it a schedule. Or a scheduling process. Because calendar suggests that we'd actually set dates. At least it doesn't my mind. Are we setting dates? We're setting rough dates. So if we look in December, Jim, if you look in December, January, public hearing is set in budget calendar. Is that different than what we're doing right now? Because in September we'll have to adopt the actual calendar of what's being done. So maybe this is called a schedule and the thing coming up with very specific calendar. An annual budget schedule. So just because we don't have enough on our agenda Brian and I were talking about on the way in that this standing finance committee for our new board needs a charge. I don't know that we have one. I don't think you'd have one either. I think when we give Peter's replacement Brian and I are kind of informally trying to get a grasp of what all her committees are. And I know we also need to give you some help on negotiations. So I think in the 19th and 3rd we can probably do a committee red shuffle and give them all the needed charges. Other questions on the budget policy. Just an ending thing. The budget presentation format was found there twice once not in gold. How do we get it? And the capitalization is really uneven. I know we've talked about this in some of our last meetings. In May the multi-year plan we presented by the superintendent I know we have a CIP multiple year plan here. This wasn't sure if we're referring to the most appropriate plan or document. Since we're saying it will be presented I wanted to make sure that we actually were presenting what does make sense for this. For a budget. Right. Maybe I misremember it but I thought we discussed making this somewhat vague because it may it may vary depending on what we don't have to a future board couldn't say there needs to be a separate plan that's CIP plus our capital plan building this plan we're not making a superintendent discretion to defining another one. Right and the multi-year plan you know how I love plans the multi-year plan might be simpler than the CIP plan which is very hard for the average community member to catch up with so it might be clear as pertains to the budget. Yes. I was responsible for trying to draft this during the meeting so if it's wrong it's my fault but number two on the second page when I was looking at it again for preparation today I thought we're going this as emphasizes cost-efficiency measures I almost thought we had said to take that at the retreat. We've talked about it long before the retreat you're sure of that. We've talked about it for six months. We did talk about taking that out. Sorry. Also just this formatting thing we have we have two sections of this we actually have three sections we have the introductory section we've got the bullets we have the schedule section where we just have months listed and then we've got the budget where we've got numbers. It's walking. Is that okay with folks? Do you want consistency? Are we... So we could turn the last one to bullets pretty easy. That's at least one thing. The dates don't seem to let themselves to bullets but we could at least hold the date or something. Yeah. We could professionalize it. When you're working on those capitals. Other issues, comments, questions, etc. semi-colon missing on for the presentation for that. The very opening sentence. The district's annual budget will we need to insert be developed by the administration. Yeah. Hearing none we'll move on to board superintendent relationship. Any comments, edits? Under subjects of board's evaluation of superintendent six line down change mission division. Search and replace. Yeah. Can you open up my attention? Section 1.2, last statement of board must not direct the actions of district staff and must not formally evaluate any staff member. Other than the superintendent. Right. Because we wouldn't informally evaluate anybody. We're not going to evaluate anybody period, correct? I mean we're not going to I mean we could sit here and not write up a report but we could say that we heard the seventh grade science teacher was doing a bad job and we're not happy about that. It wouldn't be a formal evaluation but it could be. And the board shouldn't be doing that. Discuss. I don't know, I felt like maybe formally it was a little bit too restrictive in terms of like we don't evaluate in any manner. It was just simply we don't evaluate. It does clarify. Well, say we have an instance like we just talked about in our training where we do have to review whether or not an employee abused their discretion that technically could be a formal evaluation. We've evaluated an action. We haven't evaluated job performance but we've evaluated an aspect of their performance in a certain context. But it's pretty narrowly defined. And even in that case it is still a superintendent's position to conduct the actual evaluation taking that consideration as a participant. I think this also clarifies it for staff so that a principal cannot come to a board member to lobby on their own behalf knowing the performance evaluation is not enough for example. It makes the line very clear. I don't. There's a provision in discipline and dismissal below that has a nice way of saying it except where required by law or whatever it says. In other words, never unless you are required to involve them. I was going to say you never evaluate. You do make sure the law is followed. So something would come before us as we just discussed if someone was breaking the law. It says involved the evaluating in that lower 1.3 dismissal it talks about. It has legal obligations but it had to do with I think we're okay. It has to do with but I think someone could technically say that we were evaluating a job performance aspect of someone other than the superintendent in this situation. Now that I see the language you're pointing out, I'm thinking that these two sections are accomplishing different things. They're somewhat overlapping but 1.2 They're unintentionally overlapping. 1.2 is probably saying must not formally evaluate because this section is about formal supervision. The superintendent supervises everyone else the formal evaluations and then this is addressing the discipline and dismissal where it's clear that there can be sometimes a little involved to be involved. So maybe that was the purpose of the word formally. That's what I think. I'm not sure. I know that I didn't come up with the word formally. That either came from the policy governance language or from the VBA policy. So I'm just the BSBA policy. I'm just guessing that maybe it's as formal because this section is about sort of formal structures. I'm more wondering why the concept of evaluating is then restated lower. In other words, it's basically giving permission to evaluate employees in 1.3 discipline and dismissal. It's saying there are circumstances under which we will be evaluating employees. No, we may be participating in decisions or actions that involve evaluating. So we're not conducting a formal evaluation which is a state. So leading versus participating in? Conducting a formal evaluation versus having some role to play in a process. So formally evaluating is conducting? I'm not sure where you get the idea of conducting. Must not formally evaluate? I sort of read that as the board does not as an entity conduct the evaluation of employees and that section is kind of setting up that whole supervisory structure. And participate in decisions and actions involving implies to me there's been evaluation and now the board is asked to participate in decisions and actions based on that evaluation. And that too rarely happens but there are some circumstances where it doesn't. I just think the idea of conducting versus something that's formal or not is synonymous. That's what I'm concerned about. I like conducting. I think that's appropriate and I don't know what formal means. So I did receive just a notice from the public that they are not able to find these documents online. So I just want to... These policies? They wouldn't be re-adopted them yet. Would the... The packet be online for some people to review. They're red. How do we put the packets online traditionally? I think it's possible to use because part of the purpose of the readings is to have... ... Okay. Yeah. Anything in the packet that doesn't relate to personnel could go online? There's a question mark after this. This is still the very first reading. This is still discussion. So there's several readings coming. So yes, there's nothing... There's still plenty of time for the public to weigh in on all the drafts. But I think it is legitimate unless you're... It's not really public unless you're sitting here listening to it. You're not sure what we're talking about. Let me check on that. Let me check on that though. Because it's the board's responsibility to make policy. What I'm questioning is is that the public has voted you all in to create these policies. So that's what I'm asking. So let me just check. And I would say it's a matter of it's just sort of like having a packet here. They're going to come in and are going to listen to us. And we've talked for two hours about something you have no documents on. It's not very much fun. And so that would be the same thing. If you're home and listening to us online it would be nice to know what we're talking about. But if that's the case then everything ought to have a draft on it. Because if I go to the site and see this policy I might get myself as you just said are three drafts away. And I've had community members tell me before so you as a board member in Roxbury were policy governance you manage by the board. You don't tell the superintendent to do this. You have policy that directs. Will you please write a policy that includes language that would accomplish this. So I think people are interested in having us as a conduit to policy. My thought is I absolutely agree that we make the policy and we set the policy and we're likely to do that. But part of the reason of having the various readings discussions and having public comment is that if we're going to public read the policy we're considering but has not adopted and has concerns or questions they want to bring to the attention of board that's their opportunity to do so. We don't necessarily have to listen to them but otherwise they don't have a meaningful opportunity to do that. And we want to be inclusive as practical which we understand that there's a bureaucratic burden and cost to being super productive in terms of documents so we want to be sensitive to that but in general more is better. It's also just as a practical matter they're public records and so if someone asks for them we have to give them it's much easier to just post so that no one has to ask for them. I must have a factor pretty small but just be able to scan them as a PDF and tag that on the their word document so they can just be attached, right? Test to what? You mean like you mean post it? It's always better in PDF because that can answer a party cannot alter the text. Unless you had it. Yeah. Now we're beyond policy. Okay. So yeah, it's alright. Good point because I ever brought it up. Is there anything else on that? So what did you decide about that? The word formally Why don't we just take must not evaluate it. Formally it confuses things and I'm not sure it accomplishes anything. I didn't have a good example for an informal evaluation but it just caught my attention. So now I'm back to well then the next one is like contradicting. I realize it doesn't but it does, right? I don't think it does. I mean it does. Which part? Yeah. Okay. Now I think one is we don't sit down and evaluate the performance in place but there might be a disciplinary action or some sort of action where we're required to review a decision that was made based on an evaluation. We are allowed under 1.3 discipline to participate to participate in a decision evaluating an employee. No. Decisions or actions involving the evaluating. If it's required by law or an institution. That part I understand but participating in a decision involving I mean there's a lot of words there or actions involving the evaluating is the same as participating and evaluating. Okay. Because someone could come up and complain about their evaluation and a disciplinary action based on their evaluation we could actually be evaluating the evaluation in our decision that's required but we won't do the actual evaluation. We won't sit down with principle X and say great job or bad job whatever data that's on our job. You ready to move on? I put formally back in at that point but I think it's better than redundancy or it's better than contradiction but you guys I'm fine to be on the scale of 1 to 10 I care about a 3 on this. Let's go for. Okay. More comments on the policy draft policy. You good? Okay. Board expectations. This one I think has the most new sections added that we're not talking about. I think before we jump into the full discussion most of the new additions are included in the draft that was sent out in the packet. Well not most but I apologize the board committee section, section F I did fill in but I didn't realize I didn't read the section in the packet because I thought I knew it was coming so I didn't realize until that board committee stuff was not included. So there was some more information related to the other board officers, the vice chair record keeper, etc that's not included in this obviously the stuff that's in front of us now is the same it was just there are some additions that aren't included in this draft so there would still be more stuff forthcoming that would, yeah. So did you want us to discuss what's here now? The stuff that is here we could yes. I don't think the sections that are in front of us are up to date it's just that there are still like I really did flesh out the board committee sections there's a lot more details in terms of standing ad hoc what's required for us in terms of charges durations reports etc the same thing we didn't have anything related to the other offices we have a vice chair we've elected a parliamentarian record keeper etc we didn't have anything in regard to their duties someone really fleshed out the board chair duties I included the other officers in there as well so yes the information that is in front of us now is up to date with the exception of the stuff that's been accidentally omitted. So folks I don't know the inclusion of that next time comments on the expectations draft policy that's awesome we've never cut this much detail about the chairs roll before I wondered if some of it is really the kind of material we should have in a policy you know things like the chairs expected to be a strong advocate for the district and some of the stuff around you know it seems a little weird to me in policy it's more sort of how to be a board chair did this come where did this come from this was it was a combination so the sections regarding like you're talking about the advocacy etc that was information from the BSBA for best practices for board chair it wasn't in policy it was just I use it to kind of structure the responsibility of the chair so the BSBA would say that a board chair's primary role is the team building, goal setting agendas and running meetings effectively the community stuff as well that that was the BSBA's framework for this is how a good board chair operates and how it accomplishes board work successfully in practical terms the way a board chair functions effectively is that they remember that they serve at the pleasure of the other members of the board and that they check in with the board informally constantly to make sure that they are representing that their leadership represents the desires of the other folks on the board and so what I'm saying is that there may want to be a statement about the pleasure where the chair serves at the pleasure of the board ultimately that is the most important political point about being a chair and under community it does say though the chair can speak for the board the chair cannot act independently and direct any actions by themselves in practical terms that's the result as soon as you act independently you lose your chair but it's one of those things that you see the chair just simply says am I solid all the time so you know this is a good document it is a bit verbose I think it's helpful there's a lot of good stuff in there on the meetings some of these things I'm not sure we do I don't know what to enforce the rules relating to the big that's a roberts rule which section are you in right now Bridget protect the board from obviously dilatory motions by refusing to recognize them ooh they are both chair if he gets mad at us that would probably not have to be mentioned to stage a walk out when necessary and I wasn't sure about the authenticating by a signature if that's even something that is a power of a school board chair there are times there are documents that I would that the board chair does sign on I can't give you a specific example more than I have previously thought and it will be only your name on it even though Steve says you're representing the board you do that on behalf of the board not on the district because you don't need to do it it's not always exciting stuff it's a good document it clarifies a lot of things on D1 I would like to advocate that if we're going to have the exact language of 312H creating a new rank the exact language is at an open meeting the public shall be given a reasonable opportunity to express its opinion on matters considered by the public body during the meeting as long as order is maintained public comment shall be subject to reasonable rules established by the chair you're looking at D1 D1 oh D1 sorry so that's what that statute actually says because I'm finding that that's section 312 which is what's cited there so given the summary it's put in the actual statute it's just sort of because it says open meeting long I think that's really smart we don't try to create something that isn't true it's already established what is the taper video tape so I looked into that a little bit and Ryan and I talked about it they don't use taper video tape anymore I don't see that in the statute where you could cite Jim Kondo's the secretary of state says on their website that they can strew the law to allow taping or videotaping of meetings I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be permissible to record a public meeting and what means you're not disrupting the procedure but I don't think it actually says that open meeting long so we could add it to the policy to be clear that we're fine with it I agree maybe record is better than videotaping I don't know if it belongs in here to patient and board meetings and it's kind of a personal concern is the issue of participation in board meetings from afar and how do we want is that something we should be clear in policy or is it simply something the board does on an analog basis but through technology limitations it's often felt as if it's virtually impossible even though we also say that we do it those of us who've tried to do it kind of give up after a while it's very hard and it's not that big of an investment technology to actually make that work but it requires I think the board to either value it or not value it I don't know if a board member has a statutory right to it I don't think so so maybe not but I'm sure the board itself can establish the procedures around that and I don't know how that gets done or where that gets done but I would just say that as a board at some point we should know whether we're going to create the environment that allows that or not because right now it just feels like I'm out of luck if I'm traveling which I don't want to be so should we I feel the same way I've seen you try to call in and I also just feel it's something that the technology exists and there's a lot of entities out there that take advantage of it some of the video stuff is a little more clumsy but certainly good audio participation maybe the line reasonable measures shall be taken to allow for good comedy audio or virtual attendance by board members who are unable to be physically present then the question I have to say also having tried it is reasonable what is that and often if you're away and it's just audio this day in age putting me up on a google video is so super easy I mean I've presented that way to boards before so it's super easy on the wall I guess it's going to be my question is that technology not something it doesn't require a financial investment I've got to we are in google world it requires the imagination as of July 1 part of this will be is it's not that we couldn't we haven't done it well we can do it very easily my other thought on that is it's such an easy problem to solve that do we really need a policy I'm not saying we do I just maybe was getting a sense from the board whether the board feels something worth trying to accommodate or not and I wouldn't be insulted either way it's more a matter of let's just get it clear so we can move on kind of a thing given you travel a lot I travel a fair amount for others travel too it's something we can do it's something we should do and it will increase participation and we might have a quorum problem at some point that's what I was going to say there's a philosophical discussion about it's not here but in some boards they used to say you miss two meetings you're out or you know they used to write down how many meetings but what does missing mean are you here is it a quorum if you're here on google docs I mean you can have meaningful participation so that's what I'm saying it's a philosophical question when you first started speaking about the technology to allow the public to interact more with us at the meetings it's another level of it so it is another part of that discussion you can call Jim we got it tonight maybe there's a general consensus that or something that we want to use technology in general to increase participation in every way we can we don't want to create big financial burdens and that includes staff time to make that happen but if it's easy to access we should start to think that way about using technology to increase participation in every way so we're not going to put it in here but we ought to try I think we don't need to put it in the policy but we ought to give it a try I think you should make a board commitment to get it up and get it running I think once we make ourselves I don't think it's that hard I think once we do it a few times and you'll probably thank you so much be one of the first okay last one superintendent expectations comments or questions on the reading of this policy two of them over there editing this one Jim I'm just making notes of edits on all of them I'll ask one question 2.2 number 6 I don't know much about contract law but proposed contracts provide flexibility to remove non-unionized employees for cause is cause the best term to use there was performance or is cause the best is that the best you could also say just cause but cause is your right word I'm not terribly familiar with it seemed a little bit odd cause is a very well established word in law contract law in three foster district culture that is open in response to the concerns of stakeholders to me that's a really wonderful positive aspirational statement in there that just makes me want to do a happy dance we have some mission vision issues in this one since we don't have one it says 2.0 global expectation at the last part of the first paragraph says in a manner that does not have the mission and core values of the district we don't do we decide to leave it even though we don't have values we started talking about whether we wanted to have that you wanted to have values or not that was an unanswered question because we had a list before so that's another question we have to decide won't those be more like the ends our values go in our ends to achieve values how we live we were avoiding using the word ends still we have to refer to something here what is that we do two things it could be consistent with commonly accepted business and professional ethics and practices and with achieving progress toward the district it's going to say in a manner that advances the vision of the district it does not violate because it's back in the making of the world that's kind of cool you want to stick with core values I'm hesitant to have it in there if we don't have it it's just the vision which should represent your values and your policies which are down and it's also it continues to speak in the positive rather than in the negative in this way so we didn't really resolve this it's the same thing in the last sentence at 2.0 that can be deleted that can be deleted and then it says did we just state that though the way we did 2.0 it's kind of now established in a manner that advances the vision of the district and must lead and manage in a manner that adheres to the district's vision or cut the first there you go because there are two different ideas they're two different ideas so we could cut two off after ethics and practices we've last one in with vision instead of values that what so it appears to and reflects the district's vision wow there's some pretty high bars here the superintendent must employ best practices for retention of staff that's actually not new I think you should say the superintendent must not fail to employ best practices was in there okay it's a little short the fact that it was there it has to be there not second best practices the best practice you guys have a list of those where do I see that list well I don't think I remember noticing some of the policies have we referred to policies in the past as district policy or board policy it's totally inconsistent at this point we need a decision as a retreat that we can start going to district policies but we haven't gone back and fixed because there are no other policies for the district we're doing district policies I think I have a note on that I forgot I'm sorry I missed this before but we've completely gotten away from that that standard of that the superintendent that the board is judging that the superintendent shall be the judge of these things I can't remember how that's worded we're not really away from that the judge of one thing the board superintendent yeah that's where I was missing it that the superintendent in managing the district under superintendent's discretion the superintendent has discretion to use any reasonable interpretation of the district's policies the board must respect and support decisions made by the superintendent that reflect a reasonable interpretation that's where best practices for staff attention that's why seeing how that ties together you need a standard to judge things by so that's fine that's the no second guessing line well yeah it's that very high standard of that is totally not reasonable that's the standard because we have all new terribly clear policies so he knows exactly are we okay? the only other thing is emergency superintendent's decision I think we discussed this maybe we decided against it I'm just remembering she has something in there about just not assuring that the administrator designated as potential interim successors aware of that designation but the board is aware of the designation too or at least the board chair is aware of the designation that's fine and therefore the board should be aware right but the duty from the superintendent is filled by telling me the idea that I told all of you it stands until it's changed it's done at least continually and then it stays should something happen to the superintendent where this succession is quick and unplanned I win the power ball there's many other things that may occur we don't have you've been at administrator designated as a potential and after that before the is and the board chair the superintendent must ensure the administrator and the board chair is aware are except then then it's not a the change to a potential interim successor is reasonably proficient and that the potential interim successor is reasonably proficient for the role get rid of that comma and is reasonably aware of the board's superintendent issues another sentence we tried to put too much into that yes it's just a period the superintendent must also ensure attention is there a this person I guess the superintendent is appointing this person whether they like it or not and they have to be told I see it there they can be told but they don't make them willing but willing makes them willing the superintendent must ensure that an administrator designated as potential interim successor and the board chair are aware of that designation the potential interim successor must be reasonably proficient for that role and reasonably aware of the board and superintendent issues so what's capable mean? it means that they have time I think it means that they have the skill set and we discussed if it was true it doesn't require licensing because that's not typically necessary they probably wouldn't have time they'd probably be someone with another full-time job just going to have to step out of their job I'm just wondering why it has to say reasonably proficient for the role they have administrative experience but they're capable they have to be someone with administrative experience I imagine that's what that means someone who can step in are there questions or comments? only 40 minutes over members of the public are hanging in here members of the public are hanging in here members of the public are hanging in here members of the public are hanging in here I'm an adjournment that's great that's a good policy perfect let me know I loved all of the first day of school stuff the presence of social media was great the memo was great getting a copy of what you share with the staff was really interesting to see just a kudos to on all of those friends thanks everyone in the district for a great start to the school great communication I heard from parents great things about how pleased they were with the start of the school and unions looking good and that's not an easy feat to pull off right now and stay tuned very shortly for a picture of the vestibule that we got today the colors and everything yeah everybody's a fantastic job it's just just a great start so how I didn't think about this but the email I sent about how are we doing with Roxbury how are we doing I don't that was not a question that was appropriate I think we talked about not putting people on the spot without oh okay warning that someone can't come up I don't want to cut off Jim or the superintendent but I just want to say I thought Jim said we would hear that that's why I asked we'll do it later I can answer them some of them are quick do you want me to just answer the quick ones it's up to Jim good the next situation right now is that so Tina asked how food was getting to Roxbury so currently Jim and the kitchen staff here in Montpelier are cooking this at the high school and then busing it, trucking it over to Roxbury until October the reason being is that the hood project got messed up in the kitchen so the hood is being installed in October the stove over there and all that kind of stuff so everything's pretty much ready to go except for the hood so then we'll click there yes good and how's the busing going the busing is I would chalk it up to first days of school busing challenges that most places experience, the bus from Roxbury to the mainstream middle about 15 minutes late every day so it's something that we're talking the bus company about do we want to change the route so it's not going directly through middle of Montpelier a time that's very busy for traffic so we're trying to work out some stampos around that, I mean there's their first day issues that happened some of it was merger related some of it was just first day school related so we're working on trying to get that there 15 minutes earlier then it is currently showing up and I do just want to reiterate we're kind of poor decorum and I know that you did send an email on this so that you got lost in the mix but let's try to stick to the agenda to the extent we can and read stuff beforehand ask questions but email beforehand so if it's a simple question to be answered or if it's something we've discussed there's perversion for it and Heather and I are getting those packets together on Friday morning so if any questions for the next Wednesday board meeting should be to me before Friday so we can get it in the stuff given in the packets thank you for those answers and if there is an email that was overlooked and it's something that you're waiting for so you know it can go after the meeting and and we do need to inform the Major Major? Thank you Thanks all