 We have any adjustments to the agenda? Okay. I'm not going to assign specific times right now with this plan. Do we have any public comment at this time? Yeah, go ahead Chris Jarvis. Will the public have an opportunity to comment after the item in regards to the COVID-19 updates in regards to the start of the school year? Or should we do that now? You can go ahead and do that now I think. Because I see there was two public comments in there so that's why I was... Yeah, no. There is a second one. Yeah, you can do it either way. We both have a second public comment there. I was confused too. Yeah, so there is a public comment at the end of the meeting so it's up to you whether you want to comment now or later. I'll go now. How much time can I be allotted for a comment? Three minutes. Go ahead. Okay, so I had received the information about the COVID protocols for our children when they returned to school here in a couple of weeks in regards to mask wearing being mandated. As you know and most of the country knows it's a very hotly debated topic at this point. So I just wanted to circle back. So February, March 2020 COVID sprung. We didn't know what it was. We didn't know how to protect ourselves. We got guidance from experts. We went through the 2020 school season of masks being told to mask, isolate, and basically wait for a vaccine. And we all know that a lot has changed since then. There's been lots of data out there, case studies, we have the vaccine that's been out since April, etc. And what we do know right now is that COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that infects both human and animals. It's very commonly like the flu. And like the flu, what we're going to see and we're starting to see now is that these vaccines will probably be mostly ineffective just like the flu. The average flu vaccination is 15 to 40% effective a year. What we do also know is that COVID-19 carries very little risk of dying or respiratory intensive care in children under 18 years of age. It's very publicized, very easy to get the data. What we also know is that the virus is 0.12 microns in size. That is the size of the virus. We also know that an N95 mask filters out 0.3 microns or larger particles at a rate of 95% effective. And we do know that cloth masks like most of you are wearing there filter out the same size 0.3 microns or larger at a 70% rate. So I mean, quickly there, a little common sense tells you that right now we're trying to filter a particle in the air with a mask that is not intended for that use. What we do know is Vermont exceeded the goal of vaccinations already and leads the country. What we also know and should know as educators that by washing your hands is by far the number one way to combat not only COVID-19 but all diseases that we inquire that we have on a daily basis. What we do know that 4.3 million cases of COVID in children under 18 in the United States resulting in less than 2% of all the hospitalizations and resulting in less than a quarter of a percent of all the deaths in the nation. Why do I go through all these is because for years we've had the flu in schools. The flu on average, and you can look all this data up, kills between 50 and 200 children in the United States every year. But yet we've never done anything about it. Maybe at the worst if there's a big outbreak we go home for a day. What we are seeing in our children, and I would expect as educators, is the side effects of mask wearing. And they're starting to outweigh any type of benefits of wearing the mask. We're seeing bilateral headaches in our students. We're seeing rashes and irritations by the mask. We're seeing bacterial infections due to excess moisture in the mask for long periods of time and not being cleansed well. We're seeing a false sense of security by wearing a mask that we think that we're safe. We're seeing that our children have lost inattention in schools. We're seeing that and finding out by reading in articles that a majority of our learning is actually done by looking at someone's face and reading their facial expressions, not necessarily by hearing the words that come out of their mouth. We can't do that when we're wearing a mask. We also know that mask blocks emotional signals that we receive from people. And we also unfortunately are seeing that there has been an increased suicide rate in the United States as a direct correspondent of wearing a mask and our children being isolated from doing their normal activities. I really don't understand the methodology behind the mask mandate with our school and what the school hopes to get out of by our children wearing masks because clearly as the data that I have given you all, which is very easily to look up, we could probably take about 20 minutes on Google and find it all, the science behind the mask wearing shows that you're not going to get what you think that you're going to get out of a child wearing a mask. I would drastically, and I know there's many, many parents that have in the community that feel the same way. Unfortunately with the Google Meet system and not being able to see in person, you probably won't see a lot of people joining on to talk about it, but it's a very concern. A lot of us don't want to see our children in masks this year. There's been plenty of time to get vaccinations if you want to as an adult, and then we're just seeing that children are not greatly affected by this disease as other ones. And I think the question I have for the board at this time is, other than saying that the Vermont Department of Health or the Vermont Department of Education has mandated or, I'm sorry, not mandated, has suggested mask wearing, is what do you believe that we're going to accomplish by our children wearing these masks? All right. Thank you for your comment. I mean, I think we can, we will be discussing the COVID-19 updates and mitigation techniques later in the thing. So I think we can get into that sort of part when we get to that part of the agenda. Right now, we have Michelle with her hand raised now. So would you like to speak, Michelle? Hi, I'm going to put a face to my name just so people can see me. Thanks for letting me talk today. So I am Dr. Michelle Zama to my kids. I'm just mom, but I have 12 years of post-secondary education in science. I have a doctorate from a college of medicine, and I teach microbiology and chemistry, epidemiology, and kind of have been doing this for the past nine years. So I've got a lot of experience in this, and I've been really closely following the data and trying to hopefully help people to understand why some of these mitigation strategies are so valuable. And I understand, Chris, where you're coming from. And I totally agree that masks are not convenient and they can in fact cause some problems. But I also would like to report that COVID is not the same as the flu. That's the first thing. Second, the vaccines are working quite well. The data is very clear on that. So obviously, the more people we can get vaccinated, the safer our kids are going to be. Really, that's the best strategy. But unfortunately, kids that are 12 and under, they don't have a vaccine yet. So we've got to do the best that we can given the circumstances that we have. You're right that viral particles are too small. They're too small to get stuck inside of a pore size that a mask might have. But the interesting thing is that viral particles aren't like little helicopters. They can't travel on their own. They reside within the aerosol droplets that are coming out of our lungs. And there's a couple factors that the masks really have that keep that aerosol in. First, a water droplet. It's a polar molecule. It's why the electrostatic forces, it's going to get stuck. It's too big to travel through the mask. So that means that you are indeed trapping not just the respiration, the stuff that comes out of your lungs, but with it, you're keeping those viral particles on the inside. So that alone is the best way that we can prevent our kids from coming in contact with this virus. Secondly, there's been an unfortunate amount of data that's come out more recently. There are lots of schools that have gone back, obviously in less vaccinated, higher transmission areas. And what we are seeing is that right now up to 12% of cases are happening in children. And there are the highest amount of children right now hospitalized due to the coronavirus. And we've ever had even during the other peaks that we've had. It still hasn't been determined yet if Delta is more severe, but they are pointing to it being having more severe side effects and a higher level of secondary missy, which is a post inflammatory condition that is common in children, especially in the age groups between six and 11, which is most of our elementary kids. So I don't use Google as a source for finding information, but I have lots and lots of scientific reviews and literature that can show that masks work and that this is an appropriate mitigation strategy for keeping our kids in school where they really need to be. Because I would argue that having them in school masked is still going to be better than being at home and virtual because I feel like that's a lot more damaging for kids. So thank you for letting me talk. Thank you, Dr. Center. Tammy, you'd like to say something? Michelle's approach was significantly more scientific than I can. As a vaccinated individual, I recognize the fact that I can carry COVID and transmit it to a vulnerable unvaccinated population and the information out there regarding the masks, it makes an impact. And so I appreciated reading the update today. Thank you. All right, thanks. Is there anybody else from the public who'd like to comment at this time? Okay, so we're going to move on with our agenda then. First would be to approve the minutes of Tuesday, June 15th. I'll move it. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All right, approve the minutes of Tuesday, June 15th. Do we have any board comments at this time? Can I just go for it? This is my first in-person meeting in a really long time. I don't know exactly how many months it's been, but I just want to say that this facility is beautiful. The floors are shining. I just think our facility staff has done an amazing job and I'm so excited for kids to come back to school. And thank you. I just want to appreciate those people. Thank you very much. Okay, so we'll move on to the superintendent. It's great to have you all in person to see you. A few of you, I haven't met yet in person, maybe since my high-earth, like Chris. But it's been interesting building relationships this way with board members. So my report talks a lot about the work that's been going on. Your teachers and staff have been working incredibly hard and read this summer. I know the principals will highlight some more of that in their report, but it's pretty significant. So it's a huge celebration. I would say that one of the things we're working on in the SU is to create this culture of continuous improvement. And the way you do that, I believe, is you have to do your planning work in the summer so that you can actually act on it come fall. If you're trying to plan and act at the same time, there's not enough bandwidth. So I would say there's been a ton of planning done that now we can act on it from day one, which is exciting. We had all of our new teachers engaged in a literacy PV offering for elementary teachers that was planned by Amy Toth. And then we have over 20 staff and several of our new staff participating in math as a second language from VMI next week, which is exciting to work on their content area expertise in math. And then I would say it was a reprieve to not think about COVID for six weeks. I mean, I got to say it filled my bucket and let me do the work that I was excited to do when you hired me. And, you know, we're in the midst of COVID now and I'll give some updates on 8.2, but I would say that that's taking more of my time over the last week than it was prior. But on the Adams and that roads have been terrific hires. I'll just let you know their work ethic is incredible. I see the principal shaking their heads. They're really strong communicators. And even when my attention is getting turned on things like policy right now and COVID and sometimes personnel stuff, it hasn't allowed us to lose momentum on instruction and assessment. So that's exciting. And just to give you an example of the interdependence we're trying to create, all the admin assistants across the SU came today for a training at the SU offices that was really focused on procedure and process, but to also ensure that we're putting some procedures and processes across the SU around registration and things of that nature. And I do believe we're ready to launch an online digital registration process too. So there's a lot of things happening. The SU is going to unveil, I think, after the first of the year, a digital platform for substitutes. So we better utilize our substitutes across the SU. Right now, they just are going on paper list. And not necessarily, the way subs work is often you get your subs that you always call. Well, there's times that we're not calling those subs that other schools could use them. And so that's going to be done through an online system that subs can then sign right up for teachers across the SU. So there's some exciting things happening around interdependence. And I'll take care of questions folks. On behalf of parents with multiple students in multiple years, year after year, filling out those forms in triplicate duplicate. Thank you. Thank you, Ray. Thank you, Ray. Thank me too, but yeah. If it works, it would be beautiful. Yep, that's the goal to make it easier for parents. I mean, to give you a sense as an SU, when I first came on board, I said to Ray, I wanted to put out a Blackboard Connect call. The SU had no ability to communicate with all its stakeholders. That's where we were a year ago on July 1. So we've come a long ways in our ability to outreach and things and to better streamline things. So we're gaining. I know there's still a lot of work to do, but Ray's been working incredibly hard. I just missed you, but I appreciate the work you do at the SU. Say it's family. I'm sure they can't have them back either. Thanks, Jamie. That's cool. We're going to talk about our SBOT setup. And I also want to say though to follow up on Jamie's point that I just quickly counted on the document on my phone. So it's not exact, but we had over 150 staff faculty days this summer of PD. So 150 individual days combined, of course, groups of eight or 63. You can think about that as like the work that was accomplished. And every one of those folks, as you might have seen, you know, many of them probably give us more than that. And the work they're producing is awesome. It's nice to have great leadership or very strong leadership from the Central Office. I want to call it great. So we can always continuously improve, right? If you think you're great, no, good. So, heck of a recovery there. Drop that main boss. The link to our SDAC data is at the bottom of our principles report. And maybe we can kind of go through the goals if you have questions. We linked a lot of documents. We generate a lot of documents to serve as new systems, new ways of doing things for the coming year. Probably more information that you want to take a look at, but it's there if you want to put it over. The first document is the MTSS non-negotiable, which is a list of all the MTSS team structures that we'll be meeting throughout the course of the coming year to work on data, to work on alignment of curriculum across grade levels and math and in English, intensive and targeted intervention teams, how those teams are going to meet, who's going to be on those teams, how often they're going to meet very specific guidelines and expectations that we're going to uphold to make sure the kids are getting the support they need as part of our multi-tiered system of support. And so when somebody says, what is MTSS, this is like the detail of what MTSS is. Around the structure. There's still things in there, though, that you're going to say, like, help me with this. And we're ready to help you and the community understand that. Earlier, Andrew asked for an org chart to kind of talk about some of these structures, and we can work on that down the road. But just in case you missed it, Jamie referenced all the hiring personnel work we've been doing this summer. We are working on getting classroom-based case managers that would be one for each of the three alternative classrooms. And we think some of those folks are almost under contract. I think they're one or two that still need to be bound and recruited. But that would be each of the three classrooms, elementary, middle, and high school, having someone who has a bachelor's level of counseling, therapeutic intervention background to be there to work with the small groups of kids that work in those alternative classrooms. At a higher level, we each now have a Clara Martin school-based clinician that's a master's level therapist. So somebody could be with an MSW, could be a, you know, somebody working towards a psychologist's degree, what have you. But we'll have that support. So where we had one day in each building last year of a school-based clinician, we will now have a full week of a school-based clinician in each building. So it was a phenomenal increase in our capacity to provide therapy to students, which is super exciting. On top of that, something that we'd almost given up hope that would come together, because we know how scarce these folks are around the state. We are employing two SAP counselors through second broach, another community partner. So there'll be contractors who come into our buildings to work with students. The SAP counselor for the high schools now, but then twice. We started to talk about what types of services you can provide to students. And she comes from an inpatient substance abuse background. So she's really going to be helpful working with our kids who have substance issues and a whole slew of other things. She has that master's and social work. So I couldn't be more excited about the capacity that's going to be part of the support we can provide to high school students. And we'll have one on the Beppo campus as well to be healthy. One at the middle school, one at the high school. Then the beauty of some of these community partnerships is we're cost-sharing. So we're not paying the full salary of these positions. A lot of the costs are going to be picked up through Medicaid and being able to bill out for services, the insurance company. And then as for the pickups. So will we be able to retain them beyond? That's the goal. Okay. So we'll start budgeting for them, et cetera. What I've said to the principals is what I was saying earlier. I think we've got to figure out how do we reinvest some of the money we've been budgeting to cover some of these decisions. And we do have more CFG money, and we're building up our Medicaid reserves again at the SU as well. Then my torque count isn't that bad. And so the SU in general receives about $1.5 million a year in federal grants in Title 1, 2, 3, and 4. And that's prior to Medicaid. So there's a base there to be pretty sustainable with the work that we're doing. And it's the management of the money that is really helping us out. What was the CFG thing about that? Consolidating federal grant. That's your title. It's 1, 2, 3, 4. We receive quite a bit. Like compared to where I just was out prior and came from at CVSU, which is similar size, we still receive about a half million more than they do. Well, we have, I mean, because we have need. Yeah, right. It seems like you're interested in these details. So yeah, should we keep going at this level of granularity for you? That makes sense. Or do you want to stick? I don't know. I just jumped in. So there's a lot of excitement here. Okay. For example, last year we brought on a coordinator of student support. We've had difficulty filling a position of intensive program coordinator to oversee the three alternative classrooms. We have a super qualified and experienced coordinator of student support. So we've added to her list of responsibilities helping us to manage the alternative programs, which she was doing a little bit of last year. She already knows the majority of the students who are in these alternative classrooms. It's just the position we didn't think we could fill or go without to start the year. And so we're in the process of putting Ashley Grote in charge of the three lead teachers in those classrooms, the classroom based case managers, the teachers that push in to support the academic learning of the students in those classrooms. It's a big initiative. It's a big initiative. It's a big initiative. Special ed funding to cover that. And what is a special ed endorsement? And she just finished a master's in psychology this year during the pandemic. So those three classrooms are all special ed funding, which are SU expenses. Their house here and what we've talked about is the idea of being that those students really need a sense of belonging and not seen as a separate offshoot program, but that they're part of the school. And so we're trying to see it as programming so that those students are accessing courses within the school setting. And specifically, like at the middle and high school, if there's high school students that are best served by that from, you know, other outside districts, instead of us placing them in a different alternative setting, that they would be placed here and be one of your students. So tuition dollars would follow. Plus we keep SUI, WLDSU, special ed money here and not funding a different program that's out of district. Older model had been isolated and boxed out. Our model is to have a very fluid and these students take classes with other students where it's appropriate. And some of the students in the larger group join in there for certain projects or for therapy. So it starts looking like, oh, that's the school. Right. It's just another classroom in our school. That's our goal. I think I'd be interested in kind of a report looking at how we're doing in that sometime. It'll be here like what percentage of the students are taking classes in the regular school. Well, then just kind of a, you know, it's not all about the finances. But next week, I'll be meeting with the second student who was enrolled in one of our out placement programs that attuned to $75,000 a year. So if we get the second student back at the $150,000 that will be in the local, that left our local budget, that will now be, you know, this isn't the average student cost program, but there will be substantial financial savings for us by keeping it in house. It also talks about over the year. It sends the message that you belong here. Right. And we care about you. Mentally healthy for them, for our community. Pretty excited to be able to get back to graduate with us. And there's also going to be some adventure-based education in those upper classrooms at least. So that's a good stuff. So that's MTSS. There's a little bit more in the report, but we'll save that for another time for where you can read about it. We have, under enhancement of our proficiency-based learning model, attention to literacy math and flexible pathways. We've put together a schedule for faculty meetings and professional development, especially with the half-day-in services for the next year. So there's a link in here to the monthly, well, the whole schedule for the year of how many meetings we're going to have of our data teams. Well, not all of the meetings, but more than half of the meetings are scheduled already. Some of them will be meeting after school. We've got to figure out when members of the teams will be able to do that. And we also want to include faculty in designing those. Our faculty leadership group. We're meeting with them. You want to talk, Anthony? Hey, you're doing a great job. Two white guys talking. So yeah, I don't know. You're doing a great job. We just tried to get snippets on what some of the people did over the summer. What do you care or don't care? There's the assessment calendar for the school year. So we usually report out after the assessment windows to use the board. We included our in-service plans so you can see what the teachers will be doing when they come back to school, our welcome letter to staff. My welcome letter that is unveiled today on this campus and I think yesterday in Bethel, so that should be going out to elementary families. Invitation to the ice cream socials that we're having in elementary schools. So yes, if you want, what's that? They're invited. Yeah. Well, more than invited, I do love when people come and scoop for me. So come and scoop with me. And then I think then we can just move on to reporting out on our results. So I guess a couple of people have the questions. So the letters, the welcome letter is going out, but families are wondering about, you know, who's going to be their kid's teacher. So there's a welcome letter. Those are in the welcome letter. So they get a letter from me and then they get a letter from their classroom teacher. Okay. And so there'll be info in there about like what they, if there's any materials that they need for classes. Yeah. And really. Should have my in the week. If they don't, no one really needs anything. Yeah. We provide everything. We're trying to get more of that. Yeah. There was a question on Facebook about high school students and what they needed from binders and things like that. So it's a great set that up. We had the binding version of it. On Friday, we sent out the high school letter. Right. And it included a supply list reaching the teacher's high school. Okay. So then parents have been super effusively appreciative the last couple of days about getting all that information. And I would say what's not in here is that, but as a week, we'll be sending out a survey about bus transportation needs with a copy of the bus routes. And also a survey about early morning drop off program. And these around that can be seen if that'll be done in person. I don't know if this one, it's in the principal's report, but it might be. I don't know if it's more of a superintendent question. So one planet. And I guess this question comes up after a year. Because one planet looks like it's supposed to start like was it 13? And so it's like 11 days after school starts. What's the reason for the delay between the first day of school and the first time that one planet's offered? Because I know that. I might carry about that. It came up in the executive board last week. It's really staffing right now. And that's what I was saying before, is just them getting up to staffing up that we can open up and offer a quality program. Because it's not childcare, right? Like the grants about enrichment. So getting up to staffing levels where we can actually offer a different mentor. And have teachers teaching. That's just when Kerry is able to get them to, you know, be willing. Most of that staff, there's some outside providers, but we also rely on our own teachers. And I think some people feel like, just let me catch my breath for a couple weeks. And I went to jump on board with that. I don't want to do it day one. I get just one more comment to add onto that though, is that again, those are weeks that happen every year. And it feels like as a school system, we should be better planning for that, because it is a hardship for families. And anything that we're doing that's a hardship for families is not going to bring people to our doorstep. I think we all agree. I think that in the future, we could do that. I just think also this year is not just this year is about to start. But I think we can better plan for that next year. Yeah, I'll again, I asked Kerry to give you guys an update on in the full board in September about all her reasoning around that. And then two with the half days, there's some days where one plan is available, but then there's other half days where one plan is not available. Stack them again, because the half days are geared towards support staff having professional development. Hyper focused on that. And so I'm not saying we may not provide one planet all the time, but part of the issue right now is ensuring that we have enough staffing to do it. And I think it's also important to know that one planet runs off of the same regs as your pre-k because they take subsidy. So what I mean by that is that they're staffing requirement levels. So it's not like if we just want recess. Case with ratios. And I think part of it is they also have favor requirement for amount of training that they have to have every year. And I know that some of these days that there's no program is because they're running mandated trainings for the public law laws and that one. So again, with the, you know, there are some summer weeks where it's not available the first two weeks of the year, some of these half days. I feel like it's predictable every year. And perhaps the pre-k task force could add this to their, the one planet issue to their stuff too. But if it's predictable every year, can we fix it? I think that's an answer. Can we offer something that's not one planet for those? That may be your answer as a board. Weeks of the year that it happens. Can we offer something that's not one planet and plan for that? I think there's two pieces there, right? One planet's SU-wide was not just run. So that's a good conversation for the SU board, if it's one plant. If one planet can't meet the need, then I think you should look at, do you want to do something as run? Right. And I think that's also. I think it's also a philosophical discussion, like, do you want to be a year around school? Yes, we do. No, I'm not kidding. But we're almost there. Sure. I think there's also, we need to realize when we know this, the pool is of people as well for a lot of good reasons. Yes. Yeah. And we got to be careful. I mean, what I keep trying to say is, I got to be careful, I don't try everybody. Exactly. And last year, and I hear what you're saying, this is not just this year, but last year, people carried a lot of water for us, as you know. Our teachers did amazing. We also have some parents in the community that are just as crying. Absolutely. Because they've got their kids at home, they're trying to hold down a job, someone else lost a job. So I feel like, yes, we all have been through a trauma, but moving forward, maybe there are some things we can do better. And think about that. If you get ideas about recruitment, I'm all yours. This is a statewide issue right now. We're actually in better shape than some of us use. I mean, we're open in school with all of our classrooms filled. We could be in other places where boards are talking about, that's not the case. We're also a continuous improvement organization, right? And with Jamie running things now, we are that. So this is important information. Yeah, I think if there's ways, we can find some ways to make some solutions for some additional coverage that would be good. Yeah, I know people are proud, but I know a couple of families in the community that the mom and the dad have both gone through all of their vacation and they're coming in one day away from potentially getting in major trouble and work for having to take care of the kids. You got to take care of your kids, but you don't want to lose your job either. And maybe for those two weeks, it's a parent co-op kind of thing where we bring in like two, three, whatever the adult to child ratio has to be to cover it. But that way you don't have to take every single day as vacation. You take two of them and you know that someone's watching your kids the other days. There's got to be a solution somewhere. Another question? The one other thing I had not on that topic, but I saw there was direct instruction training. Like, are we still sticking with Faunas and Penel if we're kind of the mainstream classroom or the instruction is kind of an intervention thing? It's an intervention program. Yeah. In addition to your focus. In addition to lots of other interventions that we use, it's just another like the tool in the toolbox that you can use for things. It's one of the pieces to our menu of adventure. Good question. All right. Anything else for the principals before we go on to the data report? Do you want to do that now or go through the rest of the reports? Oh yeah, I guess we have it up later on in the discussion. So why don't I just go through the report number? You guys ready to go break? Sure. All right, business manager. You have Tira's report. I'm really happy that she's taken a week off as well as her. She's worked really hard. Her and Chris LaCarno, just so you know, continue to meet through the MOU that we have with CBSU. And that will find Chris Jess last week together and then they have another meeting on Tuesday to wrap up year-end around all grants and things of that nature. So I want you to know that there's still is that level of support there with the business office. As you can see, there's a lot to do in August. So it's been busy. Tira's worked really hard to meet those deadlines. And if you have any other questions, I'm happy to entertain them if I can be helpful. September, you'll know exactly where your year-end was. And then we can use that to gauge how we want to go about our budgeting process as we move forward. The SU Executive Board will get the budget calendar again in August just so you know at that meeting about how we're proposing we go about it. They work fairly well for us. So I don't want to tweak too much, but if there's feedback, we can tweak some things on that. But we seem to work quite well. I assume like this year is just typically complicated because of the answer stuff and reconciliation. But normally we could get year-end reports kind of a little bit earlier, I would imagine. Year-end reports are done. I just want to adjust some of the year-end reports to answer. And so that's I don't want to give you a report and then come back and say, actually you got another extra $110,000 revenue. That's really what it was about. All right. Policy committee. I'll just real quick say thanks again to Tara for all the hard work and it's good that she's taking up some time, Papa. Yeah, I think she deserves it. Okay, thank you all. Policy committee. So the policy committee continues to work on our equity or anti-racism policy, which tomorrow night we'll have a special meeting on. It's in its fourth or fifth draft at the fourth draft at this point in time. We've been taking community feedback on it. And to date, the feedback has been more positive than negative, although there are a few voices who have shared significant concerns. And continue to stick with us, which I think is great that they've followed the process and been regularly in attendance at our meetings. So I think it's important to hear from people and for them to be present when we're having conversations. I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow night's meeting because one of the criticisms was that we haven't been as transparent and public about this policy and the drafting of it as possible. And I think that that goes back to what we were saying earlier about when people have concerns about things, they show up. And so I don't think it's for lack of trying or access because it's been a meeting happening via Google Meet. And so I feel like anybody with one of these, which is almost everybody, can access that meeting. So I'm hopeful that people will show up then we'll have a really good discussion. There's been a lot of time and energy put into drafting this policy. Right. And there's a phone number you can call if you have a landline. So or people can physically come in too, right? Tomorrow. Yep. We'll be right back in this space. Yeah. So. I agree tomorrow, right? Yes. Will we have the owl again? Very nice. I love it when it starts up. I think that's the most significant thing we have to report. Other than just Romani folks, it's the goal to try to take action on this at the full blow one way or another in September. So it roll out after that to local district boards. So in theory, could this be the last public feedback unless there's another one needed? Well, at any time it's warm. There's opportunity. Okay. Right. For the full board. Yep. I won't be able to make it tomorrow, but I just want to say publicly thank you to everyone who's worked on this. I know there are a lot of people around this table who have worked on it. And as a parent and a board member, I really appreciate having read the fourth draft. There's been a ton of very thoughtful edits through four drafts and it hasn't been easy and it's been wrong work. So thank you so much. Good discussion and important. It was really important. And that's not to say that other kinds of equity and policies around them aren't important. No. No, I think that the other policy committee talked about an equity umbrella. So this won't be the first of this type of policy that the board is going to need a way or not. Right. Won't be the last. Right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Unless there's anything else for the policy committee, we'll move on to the negotiation of this committee. I guess it's place on the 30. So well, Shannon's been one of the two. But I missed the last meeting. So what I can say is, is that we were successfully able to reach kind of agreement, which was really exciting. And I can't go into the details of it now, but we certainly will. We're waiting on the support staff to look to ratify, hopefully during in-service. And so we'll look to pull together a special meeting. Again, a wagon wheel in September, just focused on this, hopefully for ratification. And we did this without going to mediation, which was great. And so I think both sides left the table feeling really good about the work that was taught. It was a real positive negotiations. I love hearing that. Thank you. Anything to add, Shannon? Oh, it had its moments. But yeah, overall, it was a very positive thing. All it does. One thing I realized, we probably should have had, as a discussion item, figuring out a replacement for plan for weeks. I'm sorry, what? Oh, we can do that for other, maybe? Yeah. Okay. All right. As fat data reports. Ready? Yeah. It's the babies right here. I don't know where. You want me to share it? No, I've got it. So there's a ton of numbers, but I think we can just go right down to the bottom. Up to you. So there's general. And let me drop it down a little bit more. And then we need some observations. So the observations that we lean from these are that at DES and SRES, the fourth grade seems to be underperforming compared to the SU and ELA in math, so English and the charts in math. Fifth grade math is also a particular concern that elementary more often than not, female population outperforms male. Well, our fifth graders outperform our overall SU on science assessment. Our eighth and 11th graders are underperforming. I suppose you often raise these. Anyway, I don't want to read them. But so what I'll say is that moving on to what we observe, I think it really makes me feel good about the work we did this summer on math and what we're moving forward to doing for intervention for literacy. And I'm excited to see what having a consistent and that approach across the both elementary will do charts for it. In addition to that. And if we want to go chronologically, you can see that the again, the math is the issue for the middle school, the bigger issue. We were talking about it today. We've talked about it almost at every one of our Tuesday meetings over the summer. And you know, there's a lot of talk you can do, but there's a bunch of action happening like I'm just saying. And part of it is, and that there's a lot of reading in the SBAC test. So we have we have the prediction that the better our kids can read and the more they can do close reading and discernment, the better they'll do on the test. But it's also we were talking about today how there's a stamina piece that we don't always expect our students to sit for 45 minutes to an hour to do one thing. So we have we are know the issues and we're addressing the issue. I think Andrew's point about like aligning math is really important. I sat in on some of the elementary math training this summer and there's a lot of reading in it, which was awesome because I saw that connection also and the teachers were breaking down those sentences and talking about how a kid would see it and what they might confuse. The teachers are building their literacy skills, which they're going to help kids with, which we believe will transfer to the math skill and testing in a sense. We have intervention plans in math as well, which we really haven't put in place hard like we have now. But we feel like our intervention is pretty lined up right now too. I would say too you heard me say one of the first things we're going to do through our PD through upper value educator data-wise out of Harvard is to dig into this data to look at our curriculum. I think we're going to see if we start to look at the subset skills in these areas that in certain grade levels across the SU, we've got areas and gaps in our curriculum. And so those are things we're going to be continuing to report out to you or what we're finding, but then we need to address the curriculum accordingly. I would say that our expectations and writing are not well articulated and this is a writing assessment as much as anything. Pretty much across the board. Math and, yeah. So we haven't spent much time on it as an SU as far as PD and or really articulating what do we expect the student at the end of second grade to do and what do we expect us to do at the end of fifth grade to be able to do then. So there's also some calibration I think we need to do with writing around expectations. What is a proficient writing piece look like at the end of third, you know, in third grade and fifth grade. So those are all the really exciting things. I think the key for us is that we got to just continue to take it one step at a time. And so the money that you invest in to found some panel was important in the PD because you need your kids to be able to read on grade level at the end of grade three, right? The problem is this assessment doesn't measure that. This assessment's about a whole lot more reading on grade level at the end of grade three. So now it's time to take it to the next level. Around our expectations in PD and instruction. So are we going to keep reading on grade level? Now we can have them be reading to run and reading close reads and responding around the main close reads, which is what this assessment does. Besides the testing, is there any other like assessment that gets done like, you know, whether it's an assignment or some piece of work that the students do throughout the year or like, you know, again, things that, you know, I know they get the report cards and stuff, but like later on down the line, like a month after it, do you all ever go back and like look at one set of work those students did and again, look at, do an assessment of it of, you know, this is something that should be, you know, that should be a good measure of if they're meeting their goals or not. And yeah, our group is just like, ESPAC says they're missing it or maybe this shows a little bit different than the ESPAC that they are achieving better. It's just that maybe they're not on the exam. I think this is an area for us to dwell in. I think we have done a lot of relying on the ESPAC and STAR and up till now we've had like two, two, maybe three, maybe four different math programs and we haven't been able to have common conversations or do like end-of-unit tests and say like, wow, how did all of our fourth graders do? But I think that now we can, because we're launching in kind of the same program and we're able to talk about the same things. We all taught this, had to go. So I look forward to that. I don't think we've had that in math. We've had more of that in other students' math school year. No, I mean, and so I do think we can develop performance tests, right, that are SUY, that we're going to give and then bring our third-grade teachers together and say, let's look at this performance task in mathematics. We could say, all right, we're going to have our students do this in fourth-grade and around writing and bring our teachers together. I think the more we can bring our teachers together to calibrate that, the better, right? Because expectations look different classroom to classroom, right? But you think proficient, what I think proficient would be different, even if we have a rubric, right? So that calibration piece is important. It's also why those early release days across the SU were so critical. So now that we can do that. I think we also give back to instructional rounds with the pandemic close or different, right? So teachers can go in and watch other teachers. And they can learn about themselves by seeing that, but also learn about that person. And then those two have that higher-level professional conversation. And what we usually end to organize this a couple of years ago, maybe three teachers go in and watch one teacher. Then that group of three teacher talks about what they just saw. We give feedback to that teacher. None of it's evaluative. It's all about raising the performance and feedback. Pretty powerful. We are doing it in this year. Specifics are not. Yeah. It's pretty powerful. Yeah. So is that good now? A lot to do there and a lot to unpack as they say we're on it. I would say this too. I think we're trying to shift the culture to say that the ESPEC data is worthwhile and we need to utilize it to improve instruction. I think there was a culture here. Well, it's certainly when I taught here that, all right, no big deal. It's just one test. Well, actually that test is built upon the common core state standards. We can't just say it's one test. I mean, we should be analyzing that test to see again, where are curricular gaps? Like, where are we now rigorously? So building that culture now to say that test isn't bad. There was a culture in schools that that test was bad. Test is not bad. It actually does somewhat assess some habits of work right around grit and stamina. And to say, we're not teaching the test, but we're still going to use that as a data point to assess where are gaps in curriculum. And so I think really in general, my sense is we didn't do that a lot. We didn't dig into that role as an SU. And that's, so that's something we're going to start to do. I think this class we're all taking, all the principal, I think there's about nine or 10 of us from RUD because it's principal and teacher. That's, and the idea is, is that there's be another cohort that we keep getting everybody thinking about and understanding data. Because we all think we know it, but we also can learn more. We need to continuously improve. Yeah, because during the retreat, so we were not very active, but it was quite tough for the end of the year. But for engineering, where you have to be accredited for our students to be able to become licensed, professional engineers down the line, if they want to and stuff, but we have to do assessment and I gripe about it and stuff. But it's more about the self assessment report that you have to write every six years that's going with the painting, the black. But the assessment of the assignment or something that's useful. But in the moment, you're just worried about grading stuff and getting it back to your students. So it's nice to keep the copy of it. And then, like I said, like a month later or something like that, when we have a little bit of time, sit down and look at it reflectively and say, okay, how did they do on that goal or whatever that we were working for? And did they hit it? Was it something that I did wrong? Or is it just something with the group? Why did this item everybody missed? What's going on? And then what can we do to fix it for the little students later on? So it's definitely helpful, but sometimes it seems like a lot for you. Also hard not to personalize it. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we, Jamie and I work with middle school teachers because the scores are so low and they're holding it themselves. And I appreciate that, but that's not helping us at the moment. Right. But let's honor that you're holding that and that you're that invested and let's make that investment important. Yeah. Well, I think that's part of it too, is like, you know, if we can, you know, maybe what they're doing in the classroom maybe a different assessment that they can use to help show them too, but it's not necessarily them. Right. Yeah. You know, a single exam, it's tough. Right. Even when you get the college and graduate school and stuff, you know, it was, you know, it's, everybody knows that, you know, it's not truly reflective, but unfortunately, that's where things are professional. Yeah. Um, so when we selected the math program, like, I know we were trying and I ready and probably did we use some of those data to see, like which one performed better? Yeah, we actually, so we had teachers that have been using the program Friday and we talked about a couple different points that I surveyed all the staff. And talked about what we value in the program and rigor and a bunch of different pieces. And the staff actually came to picking this program based on those, the points that they reported out on and said, this program seems much more rigorous. Let's go with this. For now, no program is perfect. We do know that. I think that the exciting thing for us is that we're all coming from similar place. We can talk about how it's going when we're teaching it and where the, where the gaps are and attack it as a team and not be saying, well, we're doing this, we're doing this, but we're not talking the same thing. And then when a kid transfers between two schools, it's a whole different system of learning. So I think it's good for now. But there wasn't any way to, like, look at the student data. Well, it's kind of hard this year. Sort of a hard year to do that. And yeah. All right. I would say that, you know, one of the things that I think we were focused on is not just the program though. It's really about the PD. And so really trying to strengthen our elementary teachers understanding the mathematics and content knowledge of it to understand if the students struggling or that milestone maybe have been missed. A lot of elementary teachers don't get into elementary education. No offense here, Tracy, by the way. You may have, but to teach math, right? Like a lot of them really love teaching literacy and feel much more comfortable about literacy. And so one of the things we're looking to do is try to give our teachers really more confidence in math. And so part of that, the focus PD is not on a program, by the way. It's in deepening their content. No, I'll follow up to that and say, well, Owen saw, you know, he's talking about teachers like talking about math. There's actually an Honda suggestion. She said that, why don't you start all your meetings doing a math problem and talking about it? Because, you know, there's even people who say like, oh, I'm not good at math. And so we need to take the people that work in our school so that everyone feels comfortable and confident in that. So that's really what you saw was them tackling a math problem and talking about how you would do it with a class. And so we're trying to just normalize it. And it's so cultural. I was reading something from Dr. Biden the other day. And she said her least favorite subject was math. I think it just reinforces that concept, right? Who would say that they're no good at reading, even if you are? We don't say that culturally. But it's okay to say culturally, I'm not good at math. I now say like, all this math is about reading. So you're not good at reading. I don't want to shame anybody, but it's really a mindset of if you're not strong in it, say it and that's okay. We're going to build it. We'll help you build that muscle. And a program like the program they chose is not the curriculum. We know that. So it's a tool. A lot of work to do. Any other questions on the SBAC data report? Okay. Why don't we move on to COVID-19 updates? And it adds to mitigation techniques. So the executive board met last month and Chris was there to use your proxy and voted, which was great. And what I did is I approached the executive board and said, the updates around mitigation are masking inside. At that point, I was hoping to have some additional information from the Department of Health or AOE that has not been forthcoming. And so we're still awaiting some additional quarantine guidance from them. We're still awaiting whether or not they may give us some guidance around cafeteria use. That's a question that superintendents have asked for. We keep getting told that it'll be forthcoming. And so... Yeah. We need outside for Halloween. So, I mean, I will share this. I shared it with the executive board. I was in front of all the superintendents. I was really pointed, the secretary French, about the fact that I really thought the approach early on, I think they're strengthening their approach, was to say, here's guidance. We're not in a state of emergency there, so we cannot say that these are mandates and or requirements. And oh, by the way, it can be a local decision. I think that they'll really put school boards in tough situations. And so I said to the executive board last year, the executive board empowered me to make decisions in regards to operations around safety. It is in Title 16, as part of the superintendent's role, is to ensure that operations are providing a safe learning environment for students. And so the executive board continued to empower me around making decisions around operations. I think that there's... It showed strength in that across the SU last year. I don't think everyone has to agree. I think that they should ask questions. And I'm certainly always welcome questions and to discuss the reasoning of why. I don't make these decisions alone. I make these decisions after being weekly update me into a secretary French. I'm a part of a Newsy Valley group who's meeting weekly again to discuss our approach regionally. And I meet with the SU nurses and Shane Oaks. And so I met with the SU nurses and Shane Oaks last week. Right now, we're using the guidance around requiring a face mask to start the school year. We'll relook at it. I will tell you that the 80% threshold proves some difficulty in the two buildings. And what I mean by that is that you have an ecosystem of elementary and middle school students in it and elementary and high school students in it. And so the guidance is that once the population that's eligible to be vaccinated reaches 80%, that that population no longer is required to mask. I have a lot of concerns about our older students not being masked in front of elementary students. And so at this point, we're going to stick with everyone's masked and we'll continue to revisit that in that group that committed. And we share buses. Buses, federally right now, you're still required on public transportation to be masked. And so students wouldn't need to be masked on buses. There's no right now guidance for all sports outside just so you know in regards to masking. And what about recess? Because I did read your notes. Outside, there's no masking requirements. Even within our district. That's what our decision. As of right now, inside indoor masking at this point. That doesn't mean it won't change. I believe that I'm going to have more guidance that's going to come out over the next week or two. You know, Ray and I joke. We had to like on a fly a day before Thanksgiving say to folks we're not supposed to travel, right, because of an announcement, which was really difficult. So I'm hopeful. I got a superintendent's meeting on Thursday with Secretary French. He tends to release guidance just before the meeting or right after. I'm hoping there's some additional updates on Thursday. But at least I know that the masking was a hot button topic for folks. I met when I said in the letter, you know, it's something that I wasn't looking forward to. I was hoping the data was going to be better. And I was frankly thinking that masking was going to be an optional thing. And that if folks weren't comfortable that they could mask. And we'd like that be a choice. But the Delta variant data showing that that's not something that we should be doing. And I do take the safety of our students and staff unbelievably seriously. And you know, the idea that one kid could get sick due to the decision that the end of the day I have to make that is something that I don't, you know, but that weighs on me all the time. And so, you know, I think if folks wonder what lens am I coming from, it's that. And as far as speaking to our attorney. Half a percent or two percent to end up in the hospital, those are kids. Those are still, and that's multiple kids throughout our S.E.O. if kids, if there was a major outbreak. The, and I did navigate a major that's pretty significant outbreak in Stockbridge. And we mitigated it and we get kids back. What we did last year worked. But I will tell you that dealing with a pretty significant outbreak at Stockbridge was not fun. And it was, it was wearing. And so, you know, we got to take this stuff seriously. We are, we know how to do this. We've done it really well. We know the mitigation techniques that we used on positive that there was asymptomatic students in our schools. And we didn't have widespread issues. We had one issue and, you know, a lot, if you look at it, it's my smallest school and the most condensed populations, right? In that one building. So. And health screenings. Health screenings are not required. But what I will tell you is, is that I've met with the nurses and that if student is exhibiting symptoms, they're going to once again be asked to isolate and go home. And I will clarify that with families. So that's not just for one of your nurses. We are going to ask parents if kids are sick to please keep them home. We're going to ask parents to use due diligence around these things. I think it's important for folks to know another big change is, is that our approach here was that if we had a positive case, we paused for three days. We did our, our quarantining and we came back. I'm not saying that that's not the way we may approach it, but what you need to know is right now, that due to the fact that we're not in a state of emergency, the secretary doesn't have the ability to wait those days. And so I need 50% of the students in attendance in order to count it as a student day. So we cannot pause and just go remote. And so that may change our approach possibly. It's something that I'm continuing to work with the nursing staff with around how we may approach that. And I'm again looking at how our folks are going to approach that region. I would say we had a very conservative approach to that compared to other districts in regards to some folks just would shut down and quarantine a class, which would be permissible. So we could quarantine a class, go remote with them and still count it as a student day. So that is probably going to be some type of model like that that we employed. I hope they come out with some revised guides on that because I listened to the press conference today and a reporter asked about what if a school needs to go remote or they decide the going remote is the best thing to do. And the secretary of education said, well, we'll be very supportive of the schools and allow them to make sure that the students are educated the way that they must see fit and stuff. So, knowing what you had said at the SU executive board meeting and then what he said at the press conference, hopefully they revised their guidance to allow for some of those things that's what we did last year. So that would be great. He's certainly hearing that from superintendents and I'm sure constituents. And I don't know if a state of emergency could get put back into place part of the opening of the school. I think it's going to be based on data. Do you think they make their decisions on it? A lot of those things are going to require that because he doesn't have the ability per law to provide that waiver at this time. He's made that clear. So by him saying that, maybe there could be a forthcoming state of emergency. I don't know, but Chris, but certainly I liked our approach. That's an approach that I thought worked really well and it's something that certainly if we're provided the opportunity, we would continue to do the twice. I think it stops spread. Like we were able to navigate some positivity in our schools and not allow it to be widespread because we did hit the pause button. Any other questions around it? I mean, there will be more guidance forthcoming. The board will always get the letter up before it goes out to the public. So if you have a question or comment about it, email us. And there won't be any surprises and we'll continue to talk through it for the entire time around our approach. I don't know of any districts at this point who have not decided to mask, but I don't know if there will be or not. Anything else? Thank you. There certainly won't be any districts within the disaster, but I'm talking about across the city. Yeah, I haven't. I've heard of protests, but I haven't. Not so much COVID related, but like last year, using the blizzard bags, potentially for snow days and things like that. It sounds like that's not an option. Well, that was guidance. I was allowed over the state. So it's no days of snow day. It's no days of snow day. It's a good job as well. See you on June 19th. What's your life worth? All right, moving on to, I guess we don't have any action items today. Resignations, new hires, what's that? Do you want to do that discussion about Lisa's letter under that? Is that an action item or is there any action we need to take? Well, we do need to do some sort of action. Yeah. Yeah, why don't we do that now? Can we just use the process we used to fill Bob Gray's seat where we put an ad out and we get letters and people come to the board and then. Yeah, I think that works. Let's try and let's try and get that done for next month though, like letters. I'll get it, I'll get in the hairless for next week. Perfect. And we'll have the due date prior to there. I usually do it like the Friday before and then we can send them to you and then you can have them come. Put out on the school Facebook pages as well. Yep, we can. I'll have Christy send you guys the ad. What do you want to put it on? Like the Bethel Community Forum or? Yeah, we can share it from the school page too. Yeah, we can share it from the school page. Lisa was our front porch forum person. I don't use that, so I don't mean I could learn, but should I? No, I mean it's front porch forum is great. I know. And it's funny, each one of our towns have a different platform. Some have a listener and some have a form. Yeah, Lisa used to put things on front porch forum, but I never go there. I don't either. I don't either. Okay, if you sign up, you get in your email every day. You don't have to know who you are. Yeah, I eventually unsubscribed. That's enough lost cats. Hey, I can I can talk to Kate McClellan. Okay, she's going to be our. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. I guess we don't need any further action on that then. Other than we just regretfully. Yeah, I was regret for sure. All right. We have a staff resignation that we could add to that list that happened today. For a resignation of ours. Yep. You want that now? Just there on the edge of their seats. We were here. Remember that? Jamie texted. I got news. Charlie Watson, who was hired to be a high school flexible pathways coordinator, has retired from public school, public education. And it is going to become the principal at best. A good move for him. Colleague of yours? Yeah. So we have posted that position. And I reached out to a couple of our part time staff to see what interest they might have and adding to their hours and maybe cover the position that way. I think we might have a good solution in-house if something doesn't turn up in the next week. What sort of certification are you looking for? The ideal qualifications we've posted for were somebody with a school counseling background. Okay. But somebody who has a teacher certificate and could be somebody who's been personalized pathways and signed off on as a teacher of record for somebody doing science or social studies or English. Doing certify is beautiful but I understand where we're at right now in the highly game, right? And that was what certainly Charlie was a known commodity but he was also doing certify, which was a bonus. We have had the amazing luck in the last couple. We've been finding incredibly qualified people. We've hired a music educator with 18 years of experience if you had a chance to see that who's moving from West Virginia this Saturday to be part of our community. We couldn't have gotten left here. My .45, .4 English teacher had a master's degree in counseling and an English license. He's really excited about the high quality of some of the staff. The inflexible pathways, of course, here in the middle school is supremely qualified to be graded. That was reasonable. That was reasonable, yeah. But the, what I would say is, is that I've interviewed all these folks and what I've been really impressed with is that there's one student center, right? That's what we want. Two, collaborative. And three, I've been really clear about this is a school system on the move. Like if you want to have an autonomous practitioner and not work as a team and or focus on continuous improvement, this is not the place for you. We want folks that are coming in that want to learn, be continuous learners and who really want to be great. And so I would say that these candidates that the committees and the principals afforded to me have met that bar and been really impressed. So it's a really solid candidate pool that you guys got. The only other update we have around new hires is that, I was trying to get the camera to go. The other update I have on new hires is that we're still short of few special educators in the S.U. That is a statewide issue right now. We're going to have a sound to see if her head's shaken. And so I'm confident that we have a plan B if we don't get every single hire in place. We will be able to start the year and meet our kids needs. I'm hoping that we're not going to have to do that. Hopefully that we're able to lock in another person so that we're appropriate. I think the state is being a little more flexible with emergency licenses and provisionals. In special ed. Yep. Which normally there's no flexibility there. I can't read what you just said. But yeah, definitely a shortage. Great. Could you give me a reminder on what the flexible pathways in the middle school, like what that position is going to be doing? Just take it there. Sure. So we, Nicola Moth was transferred to the high school where her strengths are going to sit very nicely with Anna McShinsky leaving. And so we did not fill that school counselor position. And we created a flexible pathways coordinator and their position will work in concert with the high school one. The idea is to engage students in ways that we may not be engaging in traditional set, but also to build community connections and to work on the personal learning plan programming. Okay. So is the idea that like individual students would meet with this person if they wanted kind of unique experiences or something like that? That could be one way. But and also we want that this position, this person, Mr. Snow, to help coordinate our personal learning plan to the entire 148 with the advisor program. Yeah. If a student, I mean, I think there's lots of ways to pathways. I think one of it is creating their own personalized path toward demonstrating proficiency. Right. So like if the traditional science class is not working for, it could be a number of reasons. One, you just want to push yourself further possibly. Right. My expectation is that Owens connecting them with Mr. Snow so that they're designing their own independent project. That doesn't mean they're just on their own. He's facilitating that learning. So there's a facilitator. Could be a mentor in the community. Could be that it's even work-based learning. I don't think there's anything wrong with us getting our middle schools involved in that. And the teacher or record would still be the science teacher. But the science teacher is not in charge of facilitating. Science teacher is in charge of assessing. Right. We had also with COVID and prior to COVID, we have students that have a hard time getting to school. So the recovery mindset. We want to work with those kids and their families also to, we're not going to retain kids because we know that's a dropout recipe. So we want to help them get up to efficiency in the academic area in a way that works for them and meets our requirements. That helpful? Yep. I guess what I'm curious about is like how this is communicated to the parents and students as an option. Like the sort of thing where the teacher identifies, you know, this kid needs some extra help. So we're going to send them there or this kid could use some extra enrichment. So what's on them? Or is it the sort of thing where like you advertise as an option and then people decide, that sounds like fun. I want to try something different. It's probably going to be both of those and more. I would expect Mr. Snow to be reaching out for the entire middle school community at some point. Parents, kids, and the teachers are already aware and that people will be sending or kids will be like, oh, I want to look at this. He's also has a vision of creating something called an innovation center, which would be about maybe STEAM STEM makerspace, but more than that. It could be a place where a group of kids could, he has this idea that they run a podcast about our school. So that they're talking about education from a middle school mindset, and they're maybe interviewing other kids in other schools with the help of parents and whatever else. They will design a big piece of that. This is they own that part of the education that they're getting. Another one is an example is we have a kid who's an archer and he's very good at it. And he's a deer hunter. So there's a lot of ways that he could learn about archery, but also about physics or the art of the ball or the history of the ball. So we can start drilling into places. We don't want to make them a hate archery eventually, but to a point where it works best for him. And so what we've done is we've got a K-8 school counselor. So instead of having two school counselors, K-8, we are certainly within the opportunity around the number of students we have that we meet school quality standards to have a K-8. So based on the timing of Hannah's resignation, moving to Cole, knowing that we wanted to bring this on board, just utilizing currently budgeted funds to be able to do that and just looking at the model a little different. Great question. Well, this would be another thing that I'd be interested in that update. It would be an exciting year. I'm sure he and his whoever, whichever kid is working with will want to come for the board. All right. So is that everything for resignations new hires? Okay. I guess we'd have a final public comment. Is there any public comment at this time? First of all, thank you for that email today and the COVID policies. I was really excited to see that. I actually wanted to comment on the one planet. I can raise my hand. I'm one of those parents that uses one planet as childcare. And I guess I'm going to sell myself out even more in this meeting tonight. But we don't have any other options. There's no YMCA. There's no boys and girls club. I'm a New Yorker and those are all options where I'm from. So I think it's common in Vermont for the schools to kind of pick up that role, whether they want to or not. But one suggestion that I have that I've noticed is that we have the most half days out of all the other districts around us. And for me as a working parent, it doesn't matter if it's a half day or a full day in service. That's a day that I have to take off work because a half day is not a full day of work for me. So I just want to put it out there that I know that it's a contractual thing, but it would be awesome if maybe we could have less half days. I could get into the science behind how they're not great academically. You know, I'm sure that there's probably some teachers out there that could comment on the fact that learning is really hard on a half day. We might actually be doing a disservice to our kids by putting them in school for a half day instead of just having a full day of no school. So we should go ahead and do that. Thanks. Hey, Michelle, I may reach out to you in regards to if you had any availability to speak as eloquent as you do around the science of COVID and masking, and if you'd be open to assisting me in some possible other district board meetings. So there's no pressure just if you'd consider. Yeah, and I'm going to come to these meetings. I'm going to come to the meeting tomorrow night. You know, one thing I should also say is I agree with what was said earlier. I feel like the process that you went through for the anti-discrimination policy was amazing. I can't say any more than I'm incredibly impressed. I think y'all did a great job. And I'm going to show up in support of it tomorrow night too, but I'm happy to keep popping into these meetings. And if I'm needed, I'll talk. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Any other public comment at this time? I'll just agree with Michelle that last year, was it last year? I think last year we took away a number of the half days and put them on the beginning of the year because we've had to, because we had the part for COVID and it was this great. As a parent, I loved seeing that. I was like, oh, well, that's great. I don't have to worry about all those crazy half days. Those were full days, I think. Right. You made them full days on the beginning of the calendar. So it was full day professional development and took away the half days of professional development. And as a parent, that was awesome. I'm not sure we can do that, but... Yeah, the calendar conversation started because we had one district, two districts that had half days every Friday. And we asked you and other districts who didn't. And so the union approached me about trying to rectify that. And so we put together a committee that had administrators and members of your teaching staff that came up with this concept. And so I think stay tuned and I'll think it's forever. But this is where that was how we get there, just so you know, there's a backstory as to why we needed to address that. And part of that had to do with... We are a SUI collective bargaining agreement and there were some equity issues around two districts having PD every Friday while other districts didn't. So that's the why. Is there anything else on the bottom of the agenda? Yeah, I noticed that it didn't print from the back. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think unless there's anything else, I think we can do it. Roger. The next meeting is Tuesday, September 21st, 6 o'clock. Yep. It feels so long the way I think. Yeah. What's the date right now? Tuesday, 21st. September 21st, 6 o'clock. Thursday of fall. Is it really? Yeah. Goodness. All right. Thanks everybody. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the food. Thank you. Yep. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. For the day. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Stay in the training.