 We do have a quorum and it's 6.11 and today our meeting we are going to be doing a lot of planning today in our meeting to sort of map out our year and the things that we're going to be working on. So it should be a good and thoughtful meeting. I'm going to roll right into public comment and it looks like we have a nice group of folks here who I'm assuming would like to share some comments with us. I think we just shared with Heather but I would like to stick here for the whole board. Okay can I just interrupt just for one second if you could just state your name and the community you're from that would be helpful. Thank you. I'm overstrom Randolph is my town and I'm the Randolph area asylum seekers support volunteer coordinator and we're here to speak with Heather about equity policy. I have to tell you our family we have a family from the Ivory Coast for the whole last year. The school has been wonderful. The teachers have been wonderful. They have really made Esther and Naomi ages 9 and 11 now feel welcome. So kudos to you and we will be at your forums. We will be supporting the development of an equity policy which we desperately need. One two three four of us are all on the Randolph area asylum seekers board and that's what well volunteers and that's why we're here. I'm Wendy Ross. This is Cynthia Jackson. This is I'm Neil Richardson. I'm here partly because of the group focus of racial equality. Well yeah and I'm here because I'm concerned with the ethnic studies group and I understand the report from the working group has been submitted or something in towns are starting to act on at least that's what I've been told and I hope that Randolph will act on at some point. I'm not with this group but yeah I am with this group. I'm Mark from Westbrookville and my daughter got kid age 8 with the elementary school here. I'm right off the school. So I just retired from Norwich University after 32 years. So I'm curious not only how students are studying these days but obviously what I know in the colleges there's always this this focus on getting them prepared to enter a diverse world and I think if you're in college and you're just thinking that your problem will really turn to me. So I'm just curious getting back to public school system after my daughter is 38 so I'll let you do that. It'd be nice though if you could do what we're doing because none of your faces look familiar to me either. Sure. So we'll start over here. Sure. I'm Hannah Areas. I'm a Randolph representative on this morning. Thank you. I know your name. Scott Paul, I'm representative for Roofville. I'm Chelsea Sprague. I'm also a representative Yes. Ann Kaplan and I'm a rep for Randolph. Katja Evans. I'm the rep from Braintree. So you're going to be superintendent and Randolph representative. And Heather Ball and her assistant. And online we have can we can we let Megan. Can you speak, Megan? Hi. Yeah. I'm Megan Salt from Randolph. Okay. And we do have Susan Mills and Addison Pickett online it looks like. Do either of you have a comment for the board? I don't at this time. No. Not right now. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. So just for clarification, because sometimes it's very strange for folks to come, they give a public comment and we don't really respond or or do anything with it. And that's because it's public comment and we just are here to listen just to make sure that you're all aware of the procedure. So moving forward, we're going to move into our first task as a board. And from the last meeting, one of the things that we decided to do as a board was to take a look at the state's portrait of a graduate. And and look at it and figure out what aspects you like don't like. If you like the whole thing, if you wanted to add some so that we could take a look at that as well as our ends and maybe see if we could use that information to then go out and check in with our community in terms of where we are with our ends and giving a little more clarification to the administration in terms of the outcomes that we're looking for. So hopefully everyone has had a chance to take a look at it and we there are several different schools in Vermont that have a portrait of a graduate, but we just wanted to focus on the one that the state put out as a sample for for districts to take a look at. So I'm curious did everyone get a chance to take a look at that? And so I was I was struggling a little bit with sort of how we want to kind of come up what what we had talked about the last meeting was coming up with sort of our own sort of board version of the portrait of the graduate. And then as I was looking at it myself one of the things that I was thinking about was I pulled up a copy of our ends and I thought okay where do these different aspects of a portrait of a graduate sort of fit into our ends so that we could use that portrait of a graduate to just sort of be more specific in our ends policies because our ends policies are very general. I think not everyone in the room understands the concept of ends if there's a brief statement. So what we're talking about is the way that we sort of govern as a board is we are looking at the outcomes that we want our district to reach with all of the students and we're looking at the system K through 12 and so we have ends policies that are currently online they're fairly vague and one of the things we've heard from the administrators is it would be helpful for us for you to make them a little bit more specific and so that's sort of our next phase is to sort of as a board take a look at some ways to maybe be more specific and then over this year reach out to community members to say what do you think about this is this really what we mean is this what we want our graduates to come away with and um given your comments earlier one of the the outcomes in the portrait of a graduate is global citizenship so um that's that's one of the pieces that we have so maybe before we start sharing do we want to kind of brainstorm how we might want to do it like maybe um create sort of a have a piece of paper I don't know if everyone I mean what one of the things that I found was I like the whole thing so I was like I don't want to get rid of any of it but I wonder if uh okay oh sir I you know I thought this was a good place like a good starting point um there were I did end up looking at a lot of different examples of other Vermont schools that have created ends I or and um portraits of a graduate and I definitely felt like there was some language in here that was still rather vague and maybe you know obviously we're looking at when they're doing a Vermont portrait you're kind of looking at overall but I think that this is our opportunity to look a little bit more specific for our just nuances in our own community um so I think there were um yeah there were a couple others that I looked up that I kind of like the language and the wording and um a little bit more of the clarification and made things a little bit just kind of more firm in what they were looking for um and took out some of the vagueness of what I think this one can you give us an example of of what you saw um I saw what I like was collaborator respects divergent thinking to engage others in thoughtful conversation under the ethical global citizen acknowledges understands diverse perspectives and cultures when considering local national and world issues contributes to solutions that benefit the broader community promotes environmental stewardship demonstrates empathy compassion and respect for others um goal directed resiliency shows strong understanding and belief to self in of self to engage in reflection for individual improvement and advocacy I thought that was a good one for behavioral stuff um persists persists to overcome difficult tasks and uses time and financial resources wisely the second that you read um speaks I think very well to my problem with the global citizenship piece is in this one um because it does narrow down to uh well in empathy too for the local surroundings and then getting bigger and bigger and I think this it's just too umbrella so do we want to um do we want to take each sort of area and see if we want to narrow it come to a consensus on when we're talking about learner agency sort of so taking those headers and kind of right and create kind of our own based on that I mean I think it would work while I guess what what others what how do others feel about the process of trying to translate this to what our student looks like when they are walking on that stage are we doing it all tonight they were doing as much as we as much as we can yeah I mean even if we get two of these done that's a start right right in the time allotted right right yep I got my watch on perfect so learner agency student takes ownership of their own learning students develop their own voice and the ability to use it in a variety of settings students have high expectations for selves and see themselves as lifelong learners but you had one there that I thought again kind of hammered down more specifically it was about independent thought and sense of self oh shows strong understanding and belief of self to engage in reflection for individual improvement and advocacy that one yes yeah because there's something about how that reads that is a continuing it's not just have high expectations but that it's a developing because it's not done when they graduate right right right so what do you think of number two then do you feel like students develop their own voice and the ability to use it in a variety of settings that that that's covered in what what she said there as well students develop their own voice and the ability to use it in a variety of settings students take ownership of their own that sort of being calculated as well no so when you think about that student and this and in framing this kind of like learner the learner agency and that's you know thinking about how they themselves are um sorry um have grown as an individual um is there anything that you like any words any thoughts any like adjectives that come to mind that that we could kind of use to spur on some conversation around this they can do anything that you have thought of with that first learner agency specifically sorry sorry I'm having more time hearing once um or you're talking about number two on learner agency yeah just just just that first learner agency is there anything that kind of strikes you or that you feel not necessarily I was kind of feeling like I don't know when I'm looking at these I don't want to um I don't want to make them too broad when we're when we are looking at these but like how detailed that was kind of my overall question sorry and maybe you said this and I and I missed it I'm just wondering like how um this is a this is a good starting place for sure on this one um but it's there's I don't know like how detailed should we get for these so remember that when we what we put out so with our ends what we do is we're we're looking at some we're gonna always start on sort of the broadest level of of expectation and then then that leaves the professional educators to then interpret what that means and and as long as it's reasonable which and and they have a rationale behind that interpretation then we can understand sort of where they're going and if we think wait a minute that isn't really what we meant by that then we can always go in and and specify down a little bit further um so remember with with our with with the way our system works we do want to leave it fairly broad so that the educators can kind of be uh interpreting it down a little bit further and interpret it down through the grade level so we're sort of looking at the very very top at the end you know when they when they graduate when they go across the stage and get their diploma what do we what do we want them to be looking like and then now my other question um is I um who so we don't currently have like a portrait of a senior which is why we're creating this who um who is going to own this or are students gonna be able to see this you know like obviously a kindergartner isn't gonna understand you know this is what we're aiming towards but at what point do we take this document and do we involve the parents and the students and and have this information of what what our school community wants our seniors to graduate and and be able to achieve all of these like when do we include them in this so it's a good question so if you have a well-developed set of policies at the end of the process um after the interpretation that'll be translated into most likely the graduation requirements for students that they are responsible for for meeting and we're responsible for getting them there okay so that'll be there their student handbook okay it'll be part of their handbook and so um that and that would involve parents students teachers and then that they that gives them something to kind of focus on as they go through all of their years in school well I think that the purpose was to use this as a tool to build our ownership linkage right so this is a start a jumping off point to say this is what we think are we right on is this is this how you want our graduates to to look like when they graduate right or are we off track and then what we'll do is then we're gonna update these ends so so that's where there's gonna and we may end up sort of adding something to the ends because right now you know if we look at our ends as they currently are we don't have something specifically that talks about global citizenship now that doesn't mean that there is nothing happening in the schools currently around global citizenship it's just that we have social studies but we didn't specify to the administration what in the social studies do we want you to prioritize now we've said we you we want you to provide foundational not knowledge and the administration has said okay our interpretation of that is we're going to follow the common core that the state of Vermont has developed and it means these standards in social studies and those standards include global citizenship standards so so there is some stuff that's happening but it's if we it's a little bit easier to to think about or at least it seemed in in theory anyway to think about what outcome and do we want our graduates to have what do we want them to look like when they walk across the stage what skills do we want them to have what knowledge do do we want them to have how do we want them to behave in the world and the ends are a little bit harder to to use to have that dialogue with with the public so we were thinking the portrait of the graduate might be a little bit easier and then we can use that input to then massage our ends to make sure that we're incorporating those things okay so my other question is as we are developing this and kind of making this part of the step of the ownership linkage plan that we're working on I know we talked about kind of doing one one small bit at a time just until we can get our hands on what we want to do moving forward so as far in my mind as you know looking at this this guidance from um sorry I'm having a hard time opening it on my computer so I'm looking at my phone but um as as we're looking at this um I feel like this this specific Vermont um version that we're looking at it's not a horrible place to start for sure I was thinking it was a little less um wordy than I thought it would be but in a sense that we're just using this as our first step um I guess as a group if we're talking about um you know what's here that we like and then what we feel like could be added to it and then taking that and not not making it too too much so we can move forward with you know figuring out what our next step is going to be but I thought in general this wasn't a bad place to start sorry that was really long winded I've had a long week that's okay so you in general you you liked you liked the sounds of this one you like any other reflections I'm curious what you're thinking you you have a graduate I know so I'm like what would I hope for my graduate as she's graduating this next year and honestly taking ownership of their own learning like all of all of these are important but really what do I want for her I want her to graduate I want her to you know be able to explore her next phase and feel confident in doing that so I think that starts way before your senior year and I think that could be done better at this school and um I feel like it's a little vague this learner agency piece of it like I'm like I think learner agency and academic proficiency should be combined but maybe that's not true because you know I'm having a hard time sort of pinning down specifics reading this but what do I want for her I want her to when she's in ninth grade you know have meetings with the guidance counselor saying this is what it's looking like these are the classes you should be taking and I and I think that that's supposed to be happening I'm not sure it's happening all that well so am I hearing maybe a little more guidance in terms of so we might want to add something in here about some guidance to looking toward the future I'm trying to think if there was anything well so in academic proficiency students acknowledge their growth and identify possibilities for continued learning so it's kind of in there you know but maybe you wanted career piece there it's it's not even career it's like it's like sort of what are you interested in and what are you excited about doing when you are out of our school you know are you excited about your career are you excited about college are you excited about your gap year are you excited about the possibilities of starting somewhere and it being okay to change your mind and go somewhere else but just to like guidance and fostering the future for these kids because I think sometimes they graduate in there just like I don't know like fostering independent growth in that sense too wonder is it under well-being at all maybe I don't know if I'm saying what I know well it's interesting that you say you think two should be combined because I see learner agency and I think it goes with communication because if they have their own voice and they need to use it in a variety of settings then they've got to know how to communicate right for sure there's yeah it's it all um there are bridges under all of these well honestly that's one of the things that I feel is very specific and this is I think just because I'm such a visual person um but I see this more as like the overlapping circles because all of these things are overlapping and the student that we want to and so I think when personally when we present this I just want to present it in a different format to show that these are all things that like we're looking at our students in that holistic way and these are all things that connected so your learner agency is going to inform your collaboration and your global global citizenship and there's going to be I think that's a good idea that kind of so like the first step is are we overlapping are we good with these being the buckets the circles these specific titles or categories or I I um I there was one that I I didn't see anything about artistic expression anywhere in here I was like where are the arts and music and there there doesn't seem to be anything and then I was thinking or is that just put up in foundational in that essential concepts and academic domains or so I added it under communication I added another a number four that's where I'm like oh no here I go I'm making it bigger instead of smaller but I added students communicate uh what did I write students communicate using the arts well it's interesting they included body language which I guess yeah yeah well well but see that's that I thought was more related to like a presentation to be aware of maybe your body language when you're presenting it seemed more academic focused rather than theater or music or you know yeah and so that's where I was like wait a minute there's I'm not seeing anything in here and to me that's a really important thing for students to have experience doing even you know I think students learn a lot about themselves getting up on stage in in a variety of different ways well I think that's where our ends that will be able to be more engagement draw down into that kind of specific stuff too right because I but I don't know if people would agree that communicating through the arts do you think the arts and communicating through them are important there's so many things that are important to organize them so that they're thoughtfully presented and I do I mean I I agree I do feel that when we start if we start to talk about things individually like that we're gonna we're gonna pull ourselves a little too specific into that whereas that's going to be able to be addressed in the ends and through what the administration interprets as the ends so I think that if there is there can be an expression of that through like inclusive you know you know I don't know how we say that but we can put it in the wording as being like all all facets of education are you know part of a student's learning experience and then we can drill down like we have this in our ends the arts is one of our ends right now right but I would I would kind of caution us to not start getting too specific with with that kind of language in our portrait of a graduate because I think we can we can relay that in in wording that then we make more specific in our ends that then is interpreted by our administrators so where do you see that fitting in I mean I think that would be part of academic proficiency yeah you know I mean you can look at global global citizenship too as far as you know when we talk about culture that kind of also brings into play like artistic expression and diversity I don't know not what I want it to mean um I don't know there's something dry about it or I don't have another I guess part of my problem with it like number three they'll learn another language that's still very academically focused and I think it recognizing that it's increasingly it these don't seem current enough I mean that's I think that's that's when I when I read this other one that was like the considering local national and world issues and contributes to solutions that benefit the broader community because I thought of that as like the broader community is like their community in school their community surrounding them they're you know like it kind of like it's that bring the ripple of levels levels all the different levels of what how do we define community you know and that again is going to be up for interpretation is it direct community within school is it reaching out right um well and I guess saying global takes away from or it implies taking away from the local also is understanding other people you know and I am not opposed to learning another language at all but that's like skipping the the school community the local community the the state community the national community it's skipping all of those mm-hmm and again but see that's where it depends on the interpretation from the administration and how we translate it into our ends policies our end's goals Scott what do you think all right I are we too far on the weeds I mean we're we're tasked to talk about something that's broad and we're just off on tangents in regards to being too laser focused let's focus on that broad piece you know is and this may be a stepping stone whether we change the language in it or not that's that's fine but that's too getting kind of focused let's stay that broad you know this is a stepping stone do we want to add something more to find it staying within this realm is kind of where I'm at where we're talking about other things that we're just not talking about what we need to talk about I guess that's what I think if that makes any sense so so are you thinking that we just sort of go with what this has I think this is a stepping stone does it fit our districts you know but I think if we're going to add anything to this we have to keep it broad not laser focused what we were just kind of talking about but I think we should use this as a stepping stone and add whatever we choose and then when you're talking about your ends that's where we can be a little bit more focused but we're not there yet let's do this first and then we can be focused in with whatever our ends may be so I'm a little confused though than what the the direction of this discussion should be you know I I understand although I'm really bad at not getting in the weeds but I wonder how we can have a conversation about whether these work for us without well yeah what I'm wondering is because I found this helpful what I found helpful as I was going through it because at first I was like well they seemed they seemed great to me for the most part except that the the arts part but then I was looking at the the essential concepts and academic domains and I thought okay well maybe that incorporates them but what I did was I then sort of looked at our ends and said okay um so our ends are students have the knowledge and skills or have the knowledge skills and tools to be prepared for the next stage of their lives which justify the resources invested by the community further our core focuses on the following critical thinking students creatively apply experiences and critical analysis to solve problems and make informed decisions so if you look at academic proficiency number one and number two definitely kind of fit in there well I'm critical thinking oh right right right so it's sort of like you know we could I mean do we want to enumerate a little bit more clearly and again maybe what we need to do is turn over to our administrators and say because because because part of the problem has been we've been hearing I don't know what you mean by pretty critical thinking and what we've given you and so I mean if we define it but it doesn't it's never felt like people were satisfied well I'm kind of wondering too like when I'm reading when I'm looking at this porch of a graduate and then hearing that I'm like that is just very very big um would when you have these like if you had an end it's the um students evaluate information critically like like these would these ever be appropriate across every realm across one realm in what so you you guys are having trouble with this conversation for the same reason that we have trouble with that general or I have trouble with how general the ends are you have this huge broad piece we have interpreted it or I have interpreted it based upon what research says invest best for kids and what you know common educational practices but but my going through the ends presentations over the course of time it doesn't feel like people are satisfied and so that's why I keep bringing it up I'm happy I'm happy with the interpretations that are there some of them need to be refined will be as the curriculum separate curriculum teams that started this fall but it my biggest my bigger concern is it never felt like the board was satisfied with those and I guess my question is if we come up with this portrait of a student like if if we had like the end is learner agency students take ownership of their own learning like is that more would that provide more guidance um maybe I think my observation is is that you're starting out with this huge broad thing that you're discussing right now break it down into smaller chunks decide you know to use the expressions from the readings that decide the pockets you want the general pockets you want and then go after whether or not you need to meet you as a board want to make them more specific if you have a general intent that you want to ruin in terms of what we do otherwise you know what you get in terms of our interpretation I will guarantee that it will be based upon you know best best practice and but it may not be what you want much more specific but again the only reason that I keep bringing it up is I always walk away feeling like people are satisfied and so I'm trying to get more information maybe they are they just haven't said it but it always feels like people are satisfied with the ends and so I'm just trying to get the information I need to serve the needs of you guys I think the question really is is the Vermont portrait of the graduate adequate for you to modify the ends or are you interested in doing a series of meetings involving the community um so they wouldn't be board meetings they'd be strategic like vision meetings to come up with a portion of the graduate that feels like it belongs in this place um we had both of them working for different districts and it's it's a series of meetings because it just doesn't get done in one sitting and there's lots of groups of people you should connect with along the way but it's fun it is fun the other other possibility again as a group you have to decide if you're satisfied with is to take the ends the way that I interpreted one at a time as a subcommittee and say or is this what when we created this is this what did the community intended because a community may have a different intention you know is that flavor of the community intent in there and how this is interpreted and those might be and again I don't the only reason I keep keep saying you folks as a board is because you're trying to develop that other this idea of your engagement conversations with them no no no no I mean the other thing to keep in mind is is um the ends we currently have that have been interpreted and that have been accepted from year to year to year to year to year um if we what you're talking about when you say making a portrait of the graduate that's basically the similar process that we went through to create these ends now and when we've had folks take a look at our ends they haven't really said oh gosh you should go out and redo your ends but it's I think what and maybe part of what we need to focus on as a board is looking at is bringing back to the community the interpretations and and the results and saying are we on the right track is this what you had in mind when I think this is a I mean kind of like trying to like tip toe into the pond here because I'm like do I want to jump in um I think this is a ripe opportunity to go out into our community and say what do you what do you see for our students like what do you like like let's come up with this portrait of a graduate and that is I think already going to bring in ownership on that end of the community if they're feeling like they're involved rather than just being told like oh this is what we see sitting here and this end and this is what we think like I mean I just feel like there is a great opportunity to get that feedback and to really like help kind of steer the direction that we see for the future of os sd and not kind of still just it'll it'll help inform your ends discussions it'll help inform my interpretations uh typically the portrait of the graduate way back when it was developed 20 years ago which is the first time I encountered it it was used for the NEAS process for districts to create their mission statements I mean your your ends is a little bit more specific than mission statement but it's along the same lines so maybe tonight we decide the process of doing that like in my mind I think like a survey to the whole public with these topics and then also meetings for like maybe two of them and then two more of them and two more of them with like a big whiteboard or something and you're just like writing down what people are shouting out and then we take that back or someone takes that back and compiles it into this category under learner agency this is under global citizenship and then we say is learner agency actually the right heading is global citizenship the right heading I mean maybe there's more humanity and a human aspect and a local aspect that isn't so global but more personal I mean I guess that is how I see the process going like we can sit here and talk circles about it but if we don't bring in the greater community then it really is just us philosophizing about what we want right right well at our last meeting what we had talked about was if did we want to just go with this or did we want to kind of create a board portrait of a graduate to use as that basis to go out and judging from from how we've all sort of managed with this with the exception of katcha who looked at some other ones and grabbed something from them the rest of us have sort of been like this seems okay um for the most part um and I don't think we need to go out to the public saying this is what we advocate what do you think I think we can say here are some ideas what do you think of those ideas do you have other ideas without it coming off as this heavy handed this is ours what do you think um right but make it more collaborative right or ask the question in a way that portrays an answer to learner agency without giving any answers like I don't know how would how to do that does that make it is am I talking making sense like that well and I think that this can be like like you said like the roadmap like this isn't that people can have as they're sitting there so they understand like what it is so we can stay broad and it's not like you know I want Jimmy to know Spanish like that's you know like we need to stay we need to also help obviously them then understand that this is a this is kind of we're looking at it from the clouds um but yeah I mean I I think that we just I think we set a date and do this who wants to do it with me beginning of september there are other pieces that um you know as board engagement you can still connect with the sd of facilitator and then the board participates in the crowd with um and that that's not who do you hire to do that yeah if you connect with the Moscow board this association it should be a little helpful I don't buy it yeah I can I can do that that may be a good idea yeah so when we did the ends that it was a similar was a similar process so uh how many years ago uh so the ends were developed in like 2000 um well this is saying 2016 but I also saw some other things that said like 2012 so it's been a long it's been a long while um and when we did it before so we reached out to we reached out to educators so we had a professor from uvm we had a professor from vtc we had um mighty have even had a professor from norwich we had we reached out to employers and we got sort of the employer perspective um we uh we had the staff so teachers um giving us input we had parents giving us input we had you know general community members giving us input so I would imagine I'm just wondering I mean that's sort of the way that I see it is that it would be more than just parents of students which is why a survey might be tricky like just logistically we want to be able to tap into a community that isn't just one email list the survey is is good for for two pieces the survey is good to either prioritize the ideas that came up you know which ones are more important than others we can only do so many um but it's also um after you've kind of crafted from all this input you know what's your final end statement is or what's your final mission is that goes out to get the community to see if you actually have some you know but 85 or 90 percent come back and say yeah you hit the nail on the head you know we should be running forward with it 20 percent come back and say you hit the nail on the head and the rest say 80 percent say no then it's time to go back and take a look at these so so then we create this portrait of a graduate and then you as the administrators take it to the next level of administrators and they take it to the teachers and then it one trickles down like that we have to then translate it into ends policies and then you take and then he takes that and he does the best process that i've seen um for the translation is you just get the basic ideas from all the different groups right you get a listed out you get a good team we used a couple of English teachers because they know how to synthesize you know narrative information um they were able to separate out all the ideas into the different pockets and put a category heading on them and then make a mission style or an end style statement for those buckets um and then what was nice is that all the ideas that folks have come up with that fell under those buckets are now you know acceptable means to achieve and now we have a bit of clarity of what they meant i think that makes sense to me so in an effort to just kind of like keep our preventive going here and movement into other parts of the agenda tonight it sounds like we are in agreement that we should move forward in some sort of collaboration with community and parents and all those um stakeholders um should we form a subcommittee that's going to be doing the work of this this is going to be work um that i do feel probably is not best spent during our board meetings until we have a conclusive thing to bring back to the board um i'm willing to be part of a subcommittee if there are others who are willing to work on this with me because it's going to be a substantial project if you want if you want me as a resource i'm happy so as long as the dates are in conflict you don't want me there because i can take things over by accident so you're great to say no to well i think we just need to i need i need i need help with the process um i'm willing to run with the process i just need help with and may i share the work of developing a portrait of a graduate is deeply connected to equity the idea of preparing all our children for success and just of two days ago on august 9th i became aware of a recently released um mini-gram it's five thousand dollars specifically for school boards to participate in visioning around creating more equity in schools and this would fall squarely in line with that you know having a series of meetings with multiple stakeholders saying what do we want for all our children what a success point for all our children um and ultimately adopting you know ends for policy that is aligned to this so um i did want to make you aware of this grant look it's an easy application i'd love to submit it let's do it right yeah oh we have to run on that great great and i'd love to share with you so i'm so committing i mean i think that's great i mean is like i also you could see it it's a two-page thing if we can do things or we're food if you feed them they will come i found a lot of events that i do exactly so we can feed them that's what we're talking about so um i i move for us do i have to make a motion for this for you i would say if you're going to form a subcommittee you have to do this yeah make the motion to form the sub-submitation and you have to define what powers they have what they're um so so i move to create a subcommittee to uh further in fact i i you guys and you know my words don't work after six um to further um this work on a portion of a graduate uh members of the subcommittee will be myself are you raising your hand scott kluat hannah i'd be part of it okay and to the four of us um yeah that subcommittee what do we say then that subcommittee has um we'll we'll reach out to find a facilitator to create the process of and a and a schedule or plan for creating portrait of graduate with the community community engagement yeah that subcommittee is charged yeah probably is charged with the um so really that's almost like it's a subcommittee to create the ownership linkage plan for the year really i guess that that will definitely come out my second potious motion awesome that she started about i gotta define yeah to go i just i don't know what yeah it's it's a tough one but thank you for second nana thanks for coming also we'll do that all right so also all those in favor hi so you passed unanimously um megan are you are you hearing all of this and are you on board yeah yeah this sounds good i'm fine okay so that covers really the next the next item that we were going to talk about was to actually start working on the plan um which we sort of have by by creating a subcommittee to start creating that plan um so next up on the agenda is uh getting our mandated state training so typically i just started every every school year um we go through this with with all the faculty i usually do a little training actually i really know that this year with the new teachers that are in um there is training that is required by the state to happen on a yearly basis to make sure that that all school districts all staff are compliance um in past years i had gone along with what um brend had done which was he had a uh kind of a survey quiz with some information in it as well which was pretty good but was very expensive um but the the board doesn't really need all that but the primary thing that you need to be aware of is FERPA right um family education privacy act um and then probably mandated reporting um that was a little bit of unclear i was i was looking at the mandated reporting going well should it should they or should they not and so i i picked up the law um it basically said anybody who's contracted or receives pay from a school district is required so it looks like um so we'll talk a little bit about this but as an aside all adults in my opinion that you know think that there's child abuse my mom should report um in the board's aspect you know that's probably the most common place you might come across this is when you're talking with your constituents um but mandated reporting uh was act 60 of july 2015 um and it just requires uh reporting of suspected child abuse um and neglect um if you reasonably suspect doesn't mean you have to know for sure but if there's enough data that are reasonably human being would say hey i think there's something going on there um you need to report and i always take the tact of um i'm always going to report even if i'm not sure because they'll they'll clear it out anyway they'll they'll tell me around for that now this isn't what you need to worry about but at least i've done my new diligence um on easiest way to report um for the board members is either you can talk to one of us but you can just google romant department for children and families um and then you know reporting for child abuse will be right up there was one of the tasks i find that the easiest thing to do is to download the reporting form um that they're going to require you to submit and i fill it out because it's got all the information that when you call them up they're reporting what you have to do as well as they're going to ask you um and so that way you've got all your thoughts great you've got everything down that you need um supposed to happen within 24 hours of receiving information that's important but again if you're ever in a situation like this and you're really not sure um because it's not something that most of you go through um just just reach out to have anyone else help process a couple of things um just to be aware of is that they will try to keep the name of the reporter confidential um if it is something that ends up in court um you know the parent violated um the law um and they need more information as part of the trial yeah just be careful with that because i see the end intakes that come through and your name is on it yeah so they're not they're not supposed to but they do so just that's up but they are supposed to keep the confidential if it goes to court though they may call you in and things are known but even in the case of a court hearing um they are only supposed to reveal who you are if they believe in the community same the people i'm actually going to put this up there for a second i'm giving you a moment to read the definition of abuse and neglect and we'll talk about it for a minute or two and then answer any questions that you have. Lane is this something that you can email to me because i can't see it? I apologize. Do you have that our attention around um on vacations? No i don't have that i don't have that i will email to you after. Thank you. We're going to talk about most of it anyway as well so good i'm glad you brought that up and reminded me so basically one of the things to be aware of is once a child ages out of age 18 matters of abuse become these matters at that point in time and there are agencies that are out there that support adult abuse especially elderly abuse in those cases especially kind of Louisville Vermont adult protective services and you'll get the information that you need for that reporting a couple of things to be aware of is that abuse is most often perpetrated by some of the child knows it's usually a caretaker things to look for are injuries that are kind of unexplained or that don't match the story that the child is telling the big one is sexual behavior where knowledge is inappropriate for the child or in our cases you know sometimes what we'll see is an inappropriate sexual behavior with other children especially one of the elementary students at times depression self-harm suicide attempts communicator trauma these behaviors i can do pretty good indicator too what those look like is it's it's typically a real overreaction to the situation either they get really angry they get anxious where you see the fight and fight behaviors kind of kick in you know that situation is is at this level with their reactions and then especially with the smaller students it's if they're always desperately neglects typically is poor personal effectiveness whether the kid has a shower in three weeks folks have to be cleaned lack of medical attention and follow-up care and then if they're stealing food so questions at all right so furpa this is the bigger one this has to do with protecting the privacy of student educational records and there's two types of records there's permanent records and then there's temporary records we actually touched on this a little bit people were asking well you know who has access to you know discipline records and things like that permanent records are things like your grade your s back scores and the ed testing that you go through temporary records that are like your disciplinary records those get removed when the student graduates usually within a year what most schools do is they literally put all those temporary records in the file and when kids are coming in for graduation rehearsal they hand the file to them if they're not picked up some schools will send out a notification and say hey do you want them because if you don't want them and don't pick them up within the next 30 days call me for sure to the student or to the offer to the parents to the parent it gets a little bit quirky because the rights under furpa transferred to the students at age 18 yeah and then if a parent of a student who's 18 comes in to wants information about the kids grades it's about the king of the children unless the students start to release so there's a lot of other parts of pieces to that this only affects records that were collected while a person was an actual student here so like we're collecting data on alumni and things like that it's after the time of being a student here that's what's important um the other thing that it does not protect against um it is if I'm taking my personal notes during the investigation the soul what were those notes those are about for the parents uh parents and students uh the right to inspect and review their education records and the right to request corrections if they think there's an error and so during that process there's a couple of perky things about the law we're not required to make copies for them if they request it unless they're like living in texas and it would be inconvenient for them to come in and inspect them in person in that case we could but if we knew we were allowed to charge fees for the copies if a student is bringing up or a parent is bringing up hey I think the record is incorrect and we investigate it and we feel that it is correct we do not have to change it but then they would have the right to have a hearing um and at that point in time if after the hearing is decided that the records remain unchanged um there's not too much that they can do except they can attach a statement to it so they can right yeah I believe that this you know record is an error because and then we would attach that to um the paper work that's in the file and the hearing would be with us Ben here yeah you are the quasi-traditional you are the court from Blatchford's version in terms of information that you can disclose without violating uh perklock if the student's transferring to another school we're allowed to provide that information to them if the student's applying for financial aid we're allowed to provide that information to the financial aid folks um school personnel will be legitimate needs to know um so in other words obviously you know IE the information should be kind of confidential that you're a teacher and you're working with a student in class you have a legitimate need to know what the IEP is otherwise you're not going to be able to see um happens with medical records as well that people have legitimate needs to know and we're going to share another report to teachers and staff it's really about protecting um the medical provider it's really about preventing the employer from giving information about that so a perfect example of this is that if I've got a student who's got about a condition of peace technology a coach would have legitimate needs to know to get stuck out of the field and also what all of that is true we can also provide this information to the authorities um the juvenile court system especially if it's an emergency or this matter of all this I'm just kind of again it's that legitimate need of peace and then directory information as long as the district provides the parents who have been looking to opt out directory information is named address contact we do that every year the school is actually setting up usually questions on the workbook easy stuff you're done and uh Meg and I will uh send you a copy of this with my notes okay as well as to the other board so no quits all right board orientation um and that we we uh the group that does board orientation we were not able to meet before this meeting I did print out what we've come up with so far yes we do have a plan of what we would like to cover in the orientation I guess when I'm wondering if we just table it table it to September yeah and September will be more sort of the end of the summer I think it's hard to do we have a second second by Hannah oh are you taking notes too oh because Chelsea is okay uh any discussion about tabling the orientation to September when everybody's here okay all those in favor say aye aye aye who is that second by Hannah yes okay okay so we're gonna move along um and this we may also want to um yeah she did two pages so um oh yes yes so we were gonna work at our annual agenda this is um kind of what Katya and I use when we go to um create the agenda for the board meeting so you'll notice on the august 10th one um we've got we sort of have the different tasks that the board is going to be working on so we just received our mandated training we're create ownership linkage plan uh do the board orientation so we've just moved that one over um and then so it goes month to month to month and part of what just my feedback on I guess is um are there some things that you see that you would like to have on here that are not on here um things that we talked about last time and we talked about really making sure that we the skeletons of that you understand like I really tried to flush out all of the stuff that we did in these that we can we can build on it when we feel like we need to or if there are things that we do need to end up adding to it so I just wanted to check and kind of acknowledge that these are all the things that we're currently seeing on here are the things that we are kind of like required to see by a board as a board based on our current processes is that yeah yeah yeah um because I know last time we had talked also about potentially not or um transitioning to not reviewing policy but on a on an annual or a lot of discussions we decide to go annually because it's part of our it's the only thing that we review right oh are you talking about the monitoring reports that ends or the EL monitoring um decided to keep those within a year I I put the yeah because we had we had a discussion about we didn't make a decision about that so I just kept them as as they have been um and I think what came out of that was because that's what we're that's what lanes the annual yes yes so if you're doing right to happen right to review right so they're they're here so you'll notice and and when we when we start it's review the first month and then accept the second month review the first month except the second month so I decided I added review and discuss the ends I added that for October because Lane uses testing data which tends to come out in October yeah yeah I remember the state was always way behind I'm worried this year that they may not be releasing state-run data they seem to be I am not sure they're keeping it close to the desk with basic hardware activities it looks like they may be changing from SBAC to some other unknown oh man they're going to change the test again yeah it was it's up for they have to bid on it like we do for the vendor when the contracts come to do and it looks like based upon some of the things that they're up to and their potential condition that may well the ends report partially out of the water I won't be I'll be able to give you data talk about progress but I a lot of this is based on how we are relevant in the state average right or to look over the long term from how a group is doing and if they change the test that changes yeah my interpretations work changes the ability to do that but those may change as like I said in the curriculum committees for each area of the foundational knowledge ends are up and running as of August 29th one of the things that don't mean so like when I'm looking at things on here like BSBA regional meeting is that just like letting us know that the meeting is yeah and I'm wondering you know like even like things like that I feel like do those have to be part of our agenda or is that just like a email well that's our professional organization that's our opportunity to meet with other boards and to learn what other boards are doing I mean we could continue to you know work in a vacuum over here I'm not saying we don't go I'm just saying like does it have to be something that is on our agenda well it's there just as a reminder you also have to go sometimes have to be off the board right that's why at least do that spend the experience so right if not everybody goes if there's only one person from us if he's going to show up and the board gives them new authority to vote on so I'm not sure I have the right paper can you can I see oh maybe no you don't you have you have the old one so the old one this is the one this is what you guys have been this is what we've been fabulous awesome okay yeah great and and we may Linda if she has a chance she might change them it's in a google spreadsheet which is really hard to manipulate it's got words in it and spreadsheets are really for numbers so it's it's kind of frustrating to have to work with this thing so she may move it back into a word document I don't make it a little bit easier to read and to kind of be aware of but it's it's how we plan work and that's where you know the ownership linkage I mean a large part and as we review you uh our governance policy 4.2 you'll see that a large part of our work as a board should be doing that ownership linkage so you know we have been kind of coming here and doing a meeting but we might once we sort of have a plan in place our meeting may be that ownership linkage and then we'll add a few things on there but but that'll be the bulk of our meeting so you won't have two meetings a week you'll or a month gosh not a week you'll have two meetings a month you'll have one meeting a month and we'll be doing the ownership linkage work and then we'll just add in you know either at the very beginning some things or at the end you know because it it shouldn't the the bulk of our work should be our ownership linkage or a board education or revealing the policy so if we're going to have ownership linkage and I agree I think it would be great to have it more consistently almost at every single meeting like a dialogue about what our owners want from the board and I mean how do we fit that in your your subcommittee that you the subcommittee that you just set up that should be reporting out regularly to the board on what is discovering and how one's progress is and that's how the board is able to consider okay so it's not the public coming here and actually having the ownership linkage in this space it's it might be it might be saying okay our meeting for October we're going to be doing our ownership linkage and that will be the bulk of what we do and then we'll add in you know I mean a review of the EL report we don't really that's when we first get it Elaine takes five minutes to say hey this is this is the the report that I'm sending out and then we have a month to sort of look at it and make sure do we understand his interpretation do we understand his rationale for it does his evidence seem okay do we feel like we need to go down and take a look at the evidence further that's what that is so unlike these months we're actually we don't have a lot on our agenda and that's been part of the whole purpose has been to sort of get some of this clutter out so we can actually spend our time doing the work of the board so they're not creating like multiple meetings now that we need to go to in order to connect with the community so we might you know have a board meeting where we're meeting with business leaders or a board meeting where we're and the subcommittee will plan those yeah the subcommittee is gonna be looking at that linkage how are we gonna do it when are we gonna do it and then we can put it in here and then so it might be that we that we warn that the meeting is not going to be at Braintree maybe it will be so should we do it every meeting like have a thing a little piece of it be at every meeting ownership linkage I kind of think since that's the biggest problem that's the best way to address it and I definitely think that there are some ways that we can pull in like I'm thinking about you know I typically attend the community forums but I mean a lot of times I'll be honest like there's no other board member on there I think that things like that that are already in existence that are happening like that could be great ways for us to bring that information into this sphere like oh I attended the you know community forum on this and there were only eight you know community members present but this was a discussion like how does this fit into on a broader again on the in the clouds focus but I think that there are things that are happening that we can also kind of do more yeah you're triggering a memory which is scary sometimes but what I've seen boards do in the past is just about just saying is that um there is kind of reporting out it's usually close to the beginning of the meeting that's kind of the linkage means to talk about a bunch of experience about the schools or things that you saw just to bring it up and it's really just this is what we heard this is what we're concerned about this is what people said was going on really well it was awesome and typically that's where if you have a student member on board that's what they speak up to they talk about what's going on in schools and that's a reporting to do with every meeting not explaining it very well but it was it was interesting to see that it was in the process and that was one of the ways that they established that linkage because it would entice people into conversation it would also I think they actually even did it before community comment because in the community to comment on those things yeah I was there too I had concerns about this so I really like that um in that information we've taken into account is the work plan future objectives so there's going to be some really critical piece there again you're not quite that type of a board policy governance but yeah well my concern with that is we're going to end up looking at you know hey we don't we don't like how the the the humanities curriculum is or we don't like how the lunch thing is and and we need to be looking at the outcomes piece and your forums are well the principals are doing ones that are sort of what are your concerns or they're switching it up this year because they're doing a lot of policy changes around discipline and master's schedule so we'll be having a lot of more directed conversations right in this community mine are going to be much more focused now the COVID is over back on the things that we're working on it's kind of similar to what you're talking about right so maybe some of yours we could we could link up with you if it's at the outcomes level not how you're doing it but this is what we're focusing on in terms of the outcome versus because it's very easy for the board to get dragged into how you're doing it and and what you're doing and and we're looking at the the outcome piece but I think I think in like the reason obviously I tend the community forums because I'm a parent but I think as a board member it's so important to also be understanding like what's like those are my constituents who are attending those meetings too and like here okay this is the so I do and I just feel like it's kind of ripe for ownership linkage of that sense as well as understanding what and again we don't have to look at the specifics of like okay we don't like pizza lunch room and there are things that we're not going to be applicable to how we address them here but I think you can again just kind of help from that like the another level yeah our global perspective of like okay this is the this is the common theme that we're hearing how does this play into what we've just worked on with our with our unfortunate student how does that play into our ends are we missing something like that's going to influence and what we as a board are able to address or take on or or manage and I was going to say one more thing because I'm going to forget it yeah I've written it um one of the other things and I was like looking at this is that I'm wondering if there are things on here when we at our superintendents report from Lane which is helpful we read it before the meeting if there's any questions we have on and we can ask them is there a way on here are there things on here that potentially could be almost like board chair report like I'm going to report that this month is the VSBA meeting we should all be signing up if there are things so it's almost like that document that we're able to read before the meeting and if there's any questions on it we can say oh and do you know who's going or or we need to vote on this thing but but that again I'm just thinking of ways to like streamline things and make things a little bit more efficient in that sense of let's read through it and if I have questions I'll ask it's a good idea rather than having a 20 minute conversation about where is it what time does it start what are they going to talk about okay so we have things on here as a chair and I can work with you at our next meeting identifying okay this doesn't this needs to be somewhere in our meeting that maybe doesn't need to be actually like an agenda item it can be compacted into this like bullet pointed it could just be in a report yeah um things upcoming things yeah like a need to know yeah so I mean I think I think this annual agenda as it's been kind of shrunken down a bit I'm happy with it and I think if we work to make it more efficient with things like like a chair report on things that we need to know about but maybe don't need to discuss um I'm happier with that yeah that would be that would be easy enough to do and I like to give that collaboration with things that are happening to help inform the conversation right so that would be communication well and the super the principles reports that they mentioned in I'm sure they're mentioning in the principles reports when they're having community forums or does that come out separate they do ask us to their school communities and it's on their calendars that are on the website the other place where I've seen board involvement for community engagement is one of the things that we're we're working towards is getting the the principles that are re-engaged in terms of having an advisory council and and or a PTO PTA and those are places where really rich discussions that are specific to a school to get ideas from from community members and typically in a lot of districts board member will sit on that but as a board member it's just a community member as a parent so I'm not trying to work out I'm just trying to do that so they've got some engagement because they're going to be more are they looking to stand at the PTA this year or is it just because they're I the requirement that I'm laying on them is they at least need an advisory council but if they would like to do a PTO PTA lots of times yes they have a fundraising component typically but they also serve as that that advisory it's great to create those groups because those fundraising activities just bring people together and like yes there's a culture and that's all the way to yes for sure it's gone I'm I have been interrupting all meetings so I just am acknowledging and the thoughts are so pleading thank you discuss any discussion all those in favor all right okay so and I've got a little note on there for myself okay so moving on we have just the review so again this is just the first reading of Blaine's um monitoring reports on three policies so EL 2.0 2.8 and 2.9 so again the board's job is to read through those look at his interpretation look at his rationale for his interpretation and then look at the evidence and decide is the interpretation reasonable and is the evidence sufficient so Blaine do you have any yeah things you want to tell us about these so just in general EL 2.0 that the global executive constraint really what that policy is designed to do is to make sure that the organization is acting legally properly appropriate and typically in terms of my interpretation I always look at an organization as it really is the people that make it up and so I am working with the staff to make sure they're informed you know what proper compliance is hoping them accountable that's the basis for your report compliance 2.8 communications support to the board that one is really designed just to make sure that I'm giving you the information that you need and helping to the budgetary process then make sure that you have the resources that you need to report the functions and my report compliance on the 2.8 2.9 this was actually a pickup on the D&H it had not been on the annual agenda for time out of the line and it was funny I was trying to figure out how it was missed I went and looked at the policy manual it's not as able to contents it's actually in the in the think of it right but it's not in there so this it really is making sure that I'm informing you about when there are our policy changes you know federal policies and things kind of a lot of work you've been doing lately luckily it was covered under two other in the ELs anyway there were two other impeccable mutations and interventions that have reported this as well so is this redundant I know I'm being rid of it no I think you know what I think it is you know that especially ahead of the EL I don't mind doing them just making sure they're valuable but it is good the yearly piece because that's when we all sit down to go through it again and remind ourselves of what we're saying you know we do look it up when we need to if there's a question and whatnot you know we have a general knowledge of it but you can't keep detailed information on 68 different provisions of you know 15 different policies and a few of them don't they have to have certain personnel listed on them and so if you don't update it at the beginning of the year all of a sudden you don't have the right we just went through that right you don't have the right person there and then you're like oh shoot so I'm just I'm just going to run back to this one quickly just to clarify what 2.9 because you said it you know we kind of overlooked because it wasn't content but you said it was addressed in other EL policies so is there anything specific to this policy that you feel other EL policies do not directly address so then my question is so your global constraint policy covers it anyway right we gotta act legally and ethically so we have to follow along these policies and you would be able to use your rationale to support oh yeah and you you know real quick if you weren't following but that's what I'm why I'm asking when you're talking about like the efficiency of your EL policies and writing your reports if this is reported on in other EL policies do you feel that it is essential that we have let me let me do some more thinking about it and looking at it in a variety of different ways before I can do my thoughts just to be the green light to get rid of it yeah no listen if that were going to be a decision then let's make sure it's the right one yeah exactly I definitely agree so I'm just thinking about what you're talking about and if you're I don't want you to have to write an additional monitoring report if you're already reviewing all of these specific items under other monitoring reports that seems redundant I did have I was just curious do we ever get gifts that was my we do they don't typically hit a thousand the place where we see it the most is great program people they'll have a beat up car that's been sitting in the farm field for a hundred years you know I they're bringing the kids don't fix it up nicely and so you know most of those because of the condition they're but we do get it just got an ancient it's not actually not an ancient it's just it's more happening a lot more than a speed boat so it's kind of like that do they ever do anything with that um right the where are they where are they good news good news garage right um typically what they do is they sell them they usually use it for scholarship money or something for the kids and I was just thinking because in my line of work I know there's a lot of people that need transportation they also do a lot of uh a program to work um if uh you know elderly folks in the community they don't have a lot of funding if the car is broken down and the lawnmowers don't work it don't go out because it's good experience didn't even work in other questions um the last piece here was uh was 2.7 that was from um probably a couple of months ago I just brought up at the time the the concern that it was leaving in the hands of the superintendent um the ability to change uh you know retirement is those things um there is a good argument to be made that it is kind of covered over the comparables piece that I gotta be comparable the thing with retirement benefits especially for non-union folks is it's pretty variable across the state um so I did check in with Pietro he came back he said yeah that's going to be a lot of power to be vested in one person so what I did so that the policy didn't need to be changed is in this uh final private draft that I gave you I changed my interpretation um to basically say yeah um it won't happen unless I inform you so I think that that's got I've got at least a concern that I had so that policy that uh monitoring report we actually have to take a vote as to do we accept that interpretation uh change interpretation of 2.7 compensation about it do we have a second seconded by Hannah all those in favor I I so it passes okay um uh the monthly financial reports were sent out separately lane do you hold on this is not on our agenda right oh that'll be down in your closing usually it's not yeah we'll wait okay um sorry and then superintendent evaluation um so I created a form and then I forgot to um can I I wonder if I can email it to you Lane and you can project it um so if we want we could take a little five minute restroom break if folks want stand-up break while I email this over to Lane and he can just project it it's basically just the form showing our evaluation on looking because it's a policy okay so um as you know in our policies um if you look at policy for evaluating the superintendent we do that by looking at the EL reports and the ends um so if you look at monitoring the superintendent performance systematic and rigorous monitoring of student a superintendent job performance will be solely against the expected superintendent job outputs organizational accomplishment of board policies on ends and organizational operational operation within the boundaries established in board policies on executive limitations so basically um what we have on our and this will um be in a file we'll keep it in a file um in the central office but this is basically a review of this past year so we had an ends report last October um and we accepted that report as you can see from all the yeses and then the EL monitoring reports we accepted all of them except if you go down you'll notice that 2.7 we don't have a date there yet um that will get filled in and then on this next page um there is a sign off um so but before I sign off on it are we all um in agreement that we have accepted all of the monitoring reports and the ends report we also I put in there also that we had our um external report from the auditor we accepted the letter from the auditor and the report from the auditor so I use that also as um part of the evaluation that um he is in compliance with the accounting for the finances of the district so do I have a motion to or any questions about the evaluation uh so do I have a motion to accept the evaluation I don't know do we need to do that or do we just need to have that right I just I do have a question though um kind of just a general question is this the only is is accepting monitoring reports the only way that a policy governance board can conduct an evaluation or like are there other I'm just wondering if there's like I'm just wondering if there's other process this is the only maybe unless we added something in here if you wanted to add something in here but basically if you're following the policy governance model what you're doing is you're using those ends to push the system and you're using the executive limitations to give them the guidelines for where he right and and that's how you're evaluating whether or not you're getting what you want from the system so again it's the the ends piece is really the driver and we haven't we haven't spent a lot of time on our ends we I mean we're starting to but we haven't we've gotten reports and we've accepted them but I think and I'm not only I'm only bringing this up because I feel like there's been some discussion about um and I guess this can get addressed with as we do as we work through our ends and stuff but um I also want to acknowledge if this is the most beneficial way for us to provide feedback or you to provide feedback on how that I think the the policy governance the feedback would happen during the discussion of the reports which isn't a bad thing because then it's ongoing and you can adjust to it in real time you know as opposed to you know finding out in the end of the year that hey we wish you done this or not but I I think it might be you know that beneficial especially the ends conversations that's where the clarity is to just have a conversations about those reports hey I don't understand this or we're not in agreement with this you need to or we'd like to see you and we raise a more than this change or yeah and those would be valuable helpful but my understanding is that those conversations would happen during the conversation and I think we talked about last time too how that yes we have our we have our like calendar of ends but if there's ever any time that we feel like oh we'd like to have this reviewed and have this report we don't have to wait until like oh it's not happening next may like we can say we'd like you to run a report even if we just had it run yeah okay yeah especially to think something's not right or not being straight up about something you're sure you're not implying that you are so we have we we have the ability to use that process in a way that we feel might be a value unless you know if we feel the need for having it right and that's where too I mean if you have a concern we need to look at our policy and you know see where that concern falls and if there's a specific concern it may be just like again those those the policies are they start fairly broad and then they get more specific as you as you go through but remember that if you tie his hands too much then he doesn't have the the the freedom to sort of manage in the way that he feels is gonna is gonna work as long as it's ethical prudent and and legal so you know it depends on how much you want to dig down into and specify exactly I want you to do it this way I mean because then we would be holding them accountable to that and he would have to show that he's doing it exactly the way that we want him to these are still rather vague they're specific and yet they're vague I think one of the things that may and I may be alone in this thinking may be helpful as I I mean I understand this is a this is a look back I find it helpful sometimes to be able to say like what's what's the look forward like and that I know I mentioned this in our agenda planning meeting of seeing if there's the potential of like that self-evaluation of like these are the goals I'm setting them for this year like I love I enjoyed hearing how you were saying you know now that COVID's over with your with your community forums like your goal for the community forums is this I feel like having some of that knowledge as we work on your work on I don't say your work on the superintendent evaluation is helpful for the board because I think also that that holds some accountability of us to say mid through the mid mid way through the year you know one of your goals was community engagement on these these issues have and I don't know if that's you know that can I understand that can come in your EL policy as well on the look back I'm just talking in circles no I have a conversation about but I always appreciate like because I think I always think about it's helpful to look back but as the individual it's helpful to look forward and say okay this is what I accomplished this year yeah these are the goals that I'd like to have in place for next year now you know what they are help me stay accountable you know I'm saying like that I think that there is some value in that as well and I don't know how to bring this into the discussion of the EL report since we're always looking backwards we're always looking backwards on those well the ends and again I I think you'd have to adjust your policy the ends are what I'm working towards those are my goals but you're digging a little deeper one of the ways that I'm attempting to achieve those goals is to increase you know student engagement and staffing each so you could look at his strategic plan I'm sure he'd share it with you I mean we could look at it you got my CID because again we're up here we're looking at if he's if he's achieving his goals he's meeting our ends so what you're looking at is and he's moving the district forward the goals are the means I'm using yeah to get to achieve the yeah which yeah which is fine I mean we got a lot of stuff we got a lot of stuff that was a long strategic planning session we had all this stuff that we wanted to be working on folks with like we got to about half of what we intended so will be continuing those conversations yeah I think part of it is just it's a foreign right this is foreign to most processes that people are familiar with including themselves change the policy I just want to make sure that this is beneficial for you as well as understanding and I guess this is just the circle of conversation that I'm talking myself into right now because obviously it all has to do with our ends and our the monitoring conversations when reports come up yeah so like next month I mean it's so it says accepted by the board 9 2 9 2 11 4 11 4 so those are the months when we accept accept them right okay right and he has an ends report coming up for the treatment of students parents the guardians community that's the next one and treatment of staff no that's last year these are the ones we already accept right but then they come up at the same time so they're coming they're on all the October 3 of these and then the month after that'll be the right and that's when we would have discussion about that specific end and it's always a look back yeah so is that how it's a look forward if if you find a deficiency or then my job is to state this is what we're going to do with this rectifying being compliant so that's all right or if if we had he has a reasonable interpretation but we're like ah shoot that isn't really what we meant we can then adjust and review the policy and make changes to the policy to say in that first reading it no when after we've accepted the report because we if we haven't said specifically and it's a reasonable interpretation we can't suddenly change the rules and say wait no you were supposed to do this we can say that's not what we meant but for next time first so that's why last year we started this idea of let's let's go through the monitoring and then after we've accepted it let's then review that those particular policies and make sure we're still on board with them but the board wasn't feeling comfortable enough with using the policies to feel like they could that that we could do that that we could adjust the policy so perhaps this year we're feeling more ready to do that and and I think another way to think about it is what is your concern and to think about what's the concern and what policies do we have that would might address that concern and then look more specifically what specific thing within the policy addresses that concern and then when you go to to look at the interpretation it the interpretation and the rationale could be reasonable but the evidence you could say well wait a minute you said this was your interpretation but it's not reasonable or whatever or it doesn't seem to fit and we can we can have a conversation with him about the interpretation we could say that doesn't seem very reasonable or we could say that evidence that you're showing that you've met that interpretation doesn't fit or explain how that evidence shows that you're in compliance because it's not it's not fitting the interpretation that you've put forth or if my interpretation is reasonable but again it's not what we want we want then we've got to adjust the policy so we could squeeze it down a little bit further and then and we do have an ends report coming up so again that's another time for us to look at how ends are being interpreted and it sounds like and maybe part of what we need to look at is for the first time in my experience of being on the board we have a superintendent and assistant superintendent who are actually taking the ends and driving them down to the staff level and getting folks to sort of flesh them out from the professional standpoint so we may over time get a more a more nuanced ends report that says that gives some benchmarks because remember part of what one of our discussions we had earlier I can't remember which board meeting was it's awfully hard to and it's a little unnerving to feel like we're holding the the system accountable when the ends report is really focused a lot only on what happens once a student is a senior you know and to have an idea of you know are there checks along the way you know at the end of third grade at the end of sixth grade well and we just talked about how the portrait of the student is going to help right right and flush out of more it's a backward plan if you tell us what you want for a graduate it's our job to figure out how through the 12 years we get them there so in terms of like goals you know the one two three four five six seven eight nine ten files that are up here this is the totality of the program it's designed to meet all the foundational ends get them all up and running and get them moving in the right direction this year so this is what the it's a seven-stage process that the the curriculum team is working on so and that I will just I'll just add one other thing and that's where I think as a board we need to be a little bit cautious about you know he started this work and then if we suddenly then sort of change those ends around that means he starts all over again now that has to be done regardless of so okay so interpreting the ends was trying to stick to stuff that has to be done regardless of so we change stuff I'm still gonna have to do this work but I'll have to do okay good good good that was one of the goals excellent excellent because I know in the past that's been part of the issue is wait a minute you go around change you change those ends up to specifically then you're gonna have to go back to the drawing board no right exactly I'll just come to the conclusion that those ends need to be reevaluated anyway because if you want to everybody approach they've been standing in place right right okay um so moving on uh we have uh the assessment of our governance policy so this is when we ourselves rather than doing the meeting evaluation we are doing the reviews of our our policies the policies that are that are governing the way we behave and what we do so this particular policy was score point two so it's basically outlining and again it sort of falls in line well with the idea that we are going to do some orientation at the next meeting because this really outlines for a new board member what your job is so um and it's again although it's it's broad it's also fairly specific as well um so uh would the board like to do we've all had hopefully had a chance to read through um and sort of assess how we're doing on the different uh aspects of the of the policy um and then looking at examples of that sort of thing um did anything stand out for people in terms of we could move um all the way to which areas were rated as some of the time rarely or never um and look through it that way rather than going through each section um I think that would maybe make the most sense so um do we have a volunteer to go first the only thing I will go first the only thing that I saw that was not happening was seeking input regarding owner values on issues of ends and ethics which is what we've been talking about all night right right thank god it's just but that was it yeah I agree I said that was I mean I said that whole number one wasn't happening I said it has some of the time um and I also said some of the time was creating maintain written governing policies because I said refocus on the ends to be more um specific i.e. review and portrait of a graduate to help inform our ends which number so one and two I fell in two we were doing some of the time I also with four four I said some oh four I said always um because we have directed owners uh to complain procedures several times we're in number one number one four isn't it oh one four I don't have one four on you I have one three oh four sorry never mind yeah so and then that's I thought that's like yeah I said yesterday I didn't yeah yeah oh that's our procedure for people who have I said yeah I was telling him yep um I did not still that we I don't feel we're we're nudging any reporting so one three on the organizational performance because we're not having those community right I the only one I said some I said annual report to voters which is really pretty pathetic um so I put that's why I put some there and then I put educating owners on issues impacting the organization I put some because we did that whole flag policy discussion and that was sort of an issue that I mean it didn't originate from us but it came from Lane asking us to help the district create a policy due to the stuff that's been going on so I I said some there for that but I said never for number one so then I think the next question is at the last page right we're select one area for improvement I said ownership linkage okay um what actions will we commit to take in the next year to improve our application of this policy I said defining ownership linkage and the steps that we'll take to get to that place so surveys open forums etc and will it be accountable by forming a subcommittee which we did and we'll reassess mid-year so nice I said creating an ownership linkage plan actually linking with ownership because it seems like we've been talking about it for a long time but we just don't actually do it what if we assisted at every meeting instead of assessing it halfway through the year like I feel like I should be talked about well again we could because we've got ownership linkage on our agenda it's a category in our agenda itself we're gonna have to we will have check in on ownership linkage plan yeah yeah so we will be in a way holding ourselves accountable um in that sense and then hopefully we will reassess again in August of 2023 when we create our next ownership linkage plan and I think all board members need to need to make sure this is happening we all need to keep ourselves accountable okay um was there any there was one thing on here that I what was it oh that I wanted clarification I don't be familiar with all required policies in effect to me that was unclear what does that mean how did you guys interpret it I was like is that mean all required policies meaning all of our all of our policies or all of the policies of the district because remember that's a little bit different I read it as ours you read it as our policies so I think it's our policies too would people be willing to have it uh are they called governance policies yeah would just for yeah I'm I'm wondering if we want to amend that to board governance policies in effect does are people in agreement with that no objection just to be clear about what that means uh so we probably need to vote that as a as a change to policy or will we call that first reading first reading okay so I will make sure that gets on the agenda for the next what is it wanting to read so I I changed it to be familiar with all required board governance policies in effect and we'll put that for a second reading and acceptance uh at the next meeting all right moving on uh we do have a new um policy so this is one of the ones that lane keeps track of in terms of policies that we have to have in place in the district um to be in compliance so Lane you want to take it away well this policy update where we do a lot of money from the government for the school lunch program so they have a lot of things that they like this to do this was actually a fairly minor change we're meant a wellness team this is supposed to be for them who is the wellness team and so that's that's pretty much the only change there um it's important it's a required change how many was required before i don't remember i was doing caring caring the resource who is the wellness team uh caring resource is that only related to nutrition education the wellness team or is that related to all of the it connects a little bit on pp on health curriculum because their components are required of the policies in this this is okay any other questions okay moving on to the consent agenda uh in there we have our board meeting notes from the last two meetings and we have the professional contracts um that have been issued since the last board meeting and these remember at the beginning or the end of last year we gave Lane permission authority to just keep moving forward and hiring um and so how are we doing are we better sheet than most districts uh a lot of districts had about a 40 percent turnover that seemed to be about the average they did a survey with uh superintendent's association of where every district was at uh our turnover rate was about 70 percent nice um we have i think we have one more house standing special educator um but i remember because we did fill in three that were open the last time we had a board meeting that were like uh you know regular education teachers teachers that weren't um being paid for under federal grants um and i think we remember great so the um when on what is the school spring or school yeah we've expanded beyond that um especially if we haven't had any nittles yeah we use the the paper that's associated with the Rotland area we use the values we use the local even go up to a relatively relatively good it's expensive no are those all the currently open positions though in school spring or yeah there are there are a number there that are above and yet like you see it separate amount into regular this is these are the the staff that we normally use just to run our normal operations so you know like i said last time we talked down three um i think we're down to one now um there are others there that are title funded that are above and beyond that we're trying to use to meet some of the um recovery planning um pieces that we put in place to recover recovery kind of stuff so there are a number of those but you know we're just glad we got our regular cadre okay so do we move to a group consent agenda as submitted and congrats on the health nurses grant well done that's fantastic what will that be used for to develop leadership in our nurses to provide them with um additional access to professional development and um to help them to develop supervision and evaluation tools to ensure that we have excellent nursing across our schools and because a lot of times nurses are evaluated on a teacher's rubric with the same benchmarks and it's not really effective in promoting their practice and so they'll get to do that work um of developing them with a team i've been saved so it's going to be really nice that they're a part of that um just quickly what is the time spent like at brookfield school of school nurses like are they here ever yes um they you have 2.5 days 2.5 and do you ever have the school-based clinician in these locations a lot of locations health outcomes directly here um the dental clinic is run at randolph and the busing for the students down that's correct at least that's what we did yeah that's happened for a couple years i thought my first or second year we started that because we put the electrical connections out in the muscle yeah are you finding students and families are taking advantage of that program um the dental program less so than um there's extensive use of our nurse without a doubt and um significant of the physician but i would like to promote the opportunity of the dental more it was assessed but i don't know i got the sense there were more students who needed it we'll be in touch all right so i do that okay do we have a second for moving the uh consent agenda yes by hannah all those in favor say i hi okay so the consent agenda is passed um so we're down to um superintendent's report um and you have financials that they they came in late these are from the end of june right yeah and then there's some being is that at the end of this financial year so there's a huge closeout process um trying to question probably the most important things here like i said i had sent an email out earlier um just to keep the board in the loop that there was a issue that came up and we're doing our checking that has been involved um so we are in compliance um if you go to see the page here so it starts off on southwest 2021 summary that's the revenue information you'll see the next page over is expenditures on the back of the expenditure page down at the bottom on the right 2.396 112 that is likely going to be our surplus once this money auditors so again what i've been doing you know as folks are in the loop because i typically have been putting a chunk of it into our reserve funds for anticipated needs and then the remainder is usually sold out over a three-year period to subsidize taxes you know if i save a million to put into taxes each year that's taxes that people don't have to pay because technically they've already paid that's why we have this if you flip over to the variable last page to the technical center you will see that they have a 680,000 again that's the numbers you know Robin has generated um they have to be confirmed by the auditors right so what will you do about that money so typically as we go through the budget process um probably best we can kind of look at last year we had to i don't remember what it was maybe 1.6 million last year actually it was about two we took a million of it and put it into the reserve funds so the reserve funds the money sits there uh people voted in for his intended purpose um a good chunk of that was in anticipation of the PCV testing that is going to happen this year we have two schools that likely because of their age you know may have hits one of them is the one we're sitting in now the other is the RUHS or PCC complex and so that was an anticipation of potential remediation that would have to happen there was if i remember correctly a quarter of a million that was put in the operational reserve fund and that's supporting some upgrades that we were doing across the district to digitize our workflows um we have to revamp the financial software that was in the superintendent's report that discussion about that but one of the nice things about the software package is that it gets us away from a paperwork on everything will be digital there is inherent viability in keeping student records for into perpetuity which is required in the state um and human resources records you know for seven years now is that basement will they get the story or any vendor that comes through even though they're fairly secure you know it was working in that basement we have access to so it's it's a great new plus we'll just make the front office more efficient there was money as part of that it was put aside to redo the district website which is in the works right now this year we will be maintaining the old website also known as built and then once we're sure everything is up and running we will transition over um there was another chunk of money in there i forgot does any of this money ever go back into like curriculum and teachers and supplies and programming and what we need in the regular budget so that we have the million for those long-term projects um then we took a million of it split it up over the next three years to subsidize people's taxes um to try to make sure that you know they're you know we're helping people out and raise and raise the budget so to put money into programs or no we've been doing that through the regular budget so it's sustainable um you know whether or not we always seem to have a surplus but whether or not we have one I'm wondering if there's this is kind of I think this would tie into some of what you're talking about to Chelsea if there's like and I know we have like these little pots of money that we put some of the surplus into if there's a pot that we could we could either think about doing like like an enrichment fund kind of where where there is some money just earmarked for like you know um if there's you know I don't even know if you could do like teachers could apply for mini grants for things that may not be that may be outside of kind of the normal but we have a pot that we can then say you know yes this fund you know this teacher applied for a mini grant out of the enrichment fund for you know subsidizing an additional field trip that wasn't on the books you know what I'm saying like things like that there's an operational fund that we developed uh two years ago that has the ability to support that but typically that function that you're talking about comes about through the operation of the PTO or PTA right they are usually a fundraising organization as well as their advisory capacity um and then the money that they put aside in my experience that the ones that I've worked with over the last 20 years um they will set aside some money so the teachers can apply for those little mini grants do something special in the classrooms. Remember my focus in terms of building the budget is making sure that I'm achieving the answer. And so by changing the ends last year when we put in the arts and other things like that in your list and yeah you've never had a you've never had an art personal cut in this district um you've never so yeah and I also created a K to 12 professional development um line in the budget about two or three years ago in anticipation of eventually having an assistant superintendent there's 106,000 that goes in there every year and that is used for the purpose of supporting the academic work of the teacher. So how the budgeting process typically should work and that's one of the things that that list of um thing uh documents that we're working on for the curriculum stages that we're working through how it should work is we are charging the teachers with with creating a specific level of performance from the kids in specific areas. If the teachers are falling short that it's their job through the budget process and through the process it's being set up to be able to communicate back to us this is where we're falling short these are the reasons why um this is what we need um to to to mitigate those problems and then we use the money that's in that K to call PD line to support that work. We asked for more if we needed but that I built that line specifically because I'm pretty good at strategically figured out what we need. We may need more at some point but it is there for for the use so I don't still don't know if I'm answering a specific question you have. Yeah the rest of my questions are like how do we get new uniforms for the basketball team? Well that is not an end it is it is a priority it is it is an important piece. Typically you know if that is a priority it comes to me through the budget process when I talk with the athletic director and we try to get through the budget process. But that's where we could potentially you cannot use the operations fund for the money that was loaded in there for athletics because that was not exactly but that's why I'm that's why I'm wondering if if we have this surplus if we have the ability to say okay we want and we want an additional enrichment like we want an additional fund where we can we can put money in and then we can already seed a PTA that can do work like what you're talking about right? A PTO or PTO has to be a 501 C3 yeah that's I understand right so it couldn't it would have to be separate independent from the school yeah but a school couldn't give a school couldn't help fund that through a that so we used to have a school club here and I think we were the only school of the three schools that had that and we it was for artists and residents like the big auction and all of that was that a 501 C3 separate from the school because it might not no no because I went through one of the auctions and it wasn't a I didn't get a tax receipt yeah so this hasn't been brought up the budget process is a priority the reason I'm going a little out of sequitur here is because again my brain's always focused on academics and hence these are valuable things we just need to get people together to kind of talk about it so these are valuable things the opportunity for that so what would have to happen is in the budget season when it comes up this year um you would have to get the town to vote to both create pot a surplus pot to put this money in that defines you know potentially in general what it's going to be used for and then get them both to fund it my concern is is that if these are ongoing things that should be addressed in the perpetuity it should be in the regular budget we shouldn't be going about it through this way but that's what I'm thinking is that these are not things that maybe yeah if there's special things above and beyond or one sort of balloon things that that would be appropriate because remember for me to access the money once it's there I have to come to you but if it's ongoing issues then that needs to be communicated during the budget process to me by the new 80 that this year is really good that was good too um so that I can get it into the regular budget and try to get it in the regular budget so those are the things that create a good culture right engagement which is what we're working on so that's a good idea so you could talk to the new ad and say hey are you budgeting for new uniforms and encourage him to do that and then there is a sports boosters and I believe the sports boosters we're looking for in strut in strut last year yeah yeah I think they're looking for for parents and community folks to be a part of the sports boosters and the sports boosters don't play any sports so I feel like that's a little bit strange but I mean I don't know Chelsea what I want you to do should be an email as a reminder okay because it has not come up in like my open forums I'm not saying the basketball team actually needs new uniforms but I'm just thinking like no those are the things that make them proud to wear the uniform because it's new it's current it looks like the and these are things that get over over look throughout that community and age you won't feel yeah on our side too because of COVID yes I'm looking forward to just so you know there is a vision for the athletic program okay if I can hit the RUHS up the numbers up we can never get it up to a thousand kids you're going to have a turf field out there with lights with a fence around it and we are going to be since we're central in the state any of the year-end big championships okay there is been a goal that's been discussed for a number of years but we gotta keep getting new moments up how many what is the enrollment right now eight depending upon who you count in there around eight ninety seven it has been going up on average 12 students per year basically what it does is it sits level jumps up the year it'll sit level so it is for sports teams is is Randolph division three three three three and where when does it jump up to two uh I have to go look at the this one the student body and it usually depends upon the student moments because usually the bigger uh the more students you have in the school the more likely you're going to have higher level you got a bigger group of people and we have a higher number of folks yeah well the baseball team's looking good for the future huh yeah so good and if the state ever comes through with the funding to to rebuild it we're going to rebuild that so we can hear on what the study committee is back with such a study session and new management firms so that's all the before I die that's that's exciting sometime in the future hopefully for our future I got a job asked okay next so uh any questions about any other reports none we'll move forward so uh action might item recap um we're gonna we're gonna do the orientation oops was there something she wanted right I was going to get to that okay no no this is just I'm just recapping what we're going to be working on the orientation or the orientation committee is going to meet we're going to figure out how we're going to do our little 15 minute orientation at the next meeting ownership linkage committee is going to meet um and start creating the plan we're also I will reach out or the committee will reach out we'll reach out to the VSBA and see if we can find a facilitator facilitator to help us with that I'm I'm thinking Jackie might be a good person I think she was she brought up uh portrait of a graduate I think um if I remember correctly when she was doing her stuff with us so she might be somebody that we could use I know the VSBA is using her um and we'll start working on that ownership linkage plan um and then I just we just had on here a reminder that negotiate we are going to negotiate again this year yay um so uh the negotiating committees um I have a new list so in case you were wondering what committee you are on um teacher negotiations that's Chelsea Hannah Megan um support staff negotiations is me uh Katya and Sarah and uh that is it so those meetings if I remember correctly Lane um you will be reaching out I'm going to reach out in the next try to get the month to to just figure out when we might start the process you know the lead negotiators so just be prepared to be thinking about dates and times when you're available so that we can get that moving all right and um that's it move to adjourn so seconded seconded by Hannah all of the favor I