 Then I'd like to call the meeting to order at 5.03, subcommittee meeting to discuss a portrait of a graduate and ownership linkage of the board. Heather, are you taking minutes or is that something you'd like someone else to do? I can. That would be wonderful, Lisa, thank you. Thank you, Lisa, wonderful. Lisa will take the minutes. Great. So, Katya, since you're the subcommittee leader of this subcommittee, would you like to take over the leadership of the mayor? Oh, great. Yeah, I'll go for it. So I think with this committee, we discussed coming up with that portrait of a graduate and really working on the ownership linkage part with this as well. So getting input from the community and working on kind of this joint effort to come up with that vision of what our student looks like once they've reached graduation point and build off from there. So I think for us for this first meeting, it's basically like meeting for the first time, coming up with kind of a game plan for what that looks like, some ideas for what some of those community events could be. This is basically in our minds just that planning stage, and most of this work will be done in a very public setting with a lot of input from our community members and that really kind of comprehensive and collaborative situation. So, yeah, I mean, I think it would be just interesting to hear from other board members what the vision is for the end goal and then trying to work it back from there and the steps that we're gonna take to get it to that point and really focusing on the fact that this is gonna be a community endeavor and not a board endeavor. Yes, wonderful. Anne has joined us. Welcome, Anne. We just called the meeting to order at 503. And Katja has introduced the purpose of the meeting. Hi, I'm in a different space and I was having a little internet issue. I think I'm gonna be able to stay with wifi in here, we'll see. I may try and move rooms if I have to, but hopefully this will work. Do we have a new public comment at the start of subcommittees or no? We have to do public comment. So, we should have a brief public comment. Will you leave that, Anne, please? Okay, so it does look like we have a couple of folks here. So, there is a, I have to get my little preamble that we're just trying to say at the beginning of every meeting, just so that folks are clear about public comment, how it needs to be done and sort of what the parameters are for it. So, the board welcomes comments but is not able to take any action on them other than to direct the public to the appropriate staff member or to the complaint procedure. Comments are limited to three minutes per speaker. Time may not be seated to another speaker. Comments are to be addressed to, I'm gonna say Katja is sort of our, I don't know if she's gonna be our board chair or our committee chair or if it's gonna be you, Heather, but Katja's the committee chair as she's on the board and I am advising her and so, right. So, we'll say for public comment, you can address them to Katja, although we're in virtual land. So, they'll be to everyone. Let's see, please, there should be a raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen. So, if you can click on that to let us indicate that you would like to speak, that would be helpful and Katja, I'm gonna have you recognize whoever would like to speak. Please identify yourself with your first and last name in your town of residence. Please refrain from restating comments that have already been shared. You can express agreement with those comments that were already shared. Order in decorum shall be observed by everyone. Shouting and profanity are prohibited. As the chair of the committee, Katja will maintain order in decorum for the meeting. So, Katja, we are now open for public comment. So, we'll see. Is there anyone who'd like to make public comment? Lucy. John Hellfant. I guess it's, can you hear me first of all? Yep. John Hellfant, Brookfield, Roxbury have kids in the district. I'm wondering what ownership linkage is, what the definition of that is? So, I guess that is a good definition to kind of provide at this meeting, as this committee goes on. So, ownership linkage is really looking at how we are interacting with what are considered our owners. So, defining, first and foremost, who the owners are. That's kind of be one of the steps that we take. And then building that relationship and how we are helping to fulfill kind of our duty to those owners. Okay, so we don't know who the owners will be yet. Is that what I'm gathering? John, I think I can just interject. Like this, this is a new committee, which just is our first meeting tonight. So, yes, there are steps that we are going to take to define things in this committee. So, there may not be answers that we're able to provide yet. Okay. For something like this, I guess I'd make a recommendation that public comment be put to the end, because I can't comment when I don't know what exactly we're gonna talk about. So, just a thought. Appreciate it. Thank you, John. I appreciate that thought. Thank you. Do we have anyone else who'd like to make a comment at the beginning, and then we will likely open up at the end again for some comments, takeaways. All right, so seeing none, I guess we can kind of move into this. And again, as I just mentioned, this is really an initial planning meeting. Just, we are meeting currently for the first time at this new committee that's formed. And so these first initial meetings will be a little bit more on that planning and trying to develop kind of what the vision is for how we move forward with our community. So, saying all that, Heather, I'm gonna throw it over to you as there are some ideas. And we do know that there are other districts that have done this kind of work previously. Thank you, Katja. Good evening, everyone. I'm Heather Waller, assistant superintendent. I am so excited to get started with this board ownership linkage work and launching a community engagement initiative to craft a portrait of a graduate that reflects the community and all stakeholders vision, a combined vision of what we hope for every graduate, the skills that we would like to see our graduates leaving our building with ready for their post-secondary choices, be those to go straight into work entrepreneurship, be that to go to college, straight into a career, to work the family farm, to go to the military. We as a community need to identify, here's a set of skills. We want students to be able to work with technology, we want students to be able to communicate, collaborate, whatever those things are. And so when we talk about owners, I'd like to propose we consider all stakeholders, our parents, our students, our teachers, every community member, every taxpayer, and students and teachers, faculty, parents. And I would like to emphasize student folks. So in beginning this work, I'd like to propose that we plan for an introductory meeting that would start at the community forum recently. Many community members asked for community dinners, gathering of people that would be community building and a comfortable space to talk about things in a non-confrontational way and build bridges between different portions of our community. And so I'd like to propose that we launch this with a community dinner. And at the community dinner, I'd like to propose that we have a considerable presence of students who can either do a celebration of learning or possibly help with the preparation and service of food. I'd like to propose that at that meeting, we explain what a portrait of a graduate is because that's educational lingo that many people may not know what that is. I'd like to share samples of other districts, portrait of a graduate as just models, like ideas, and start to collect initial input. And then I'd like to propose that we plan a series of at least three meetings subsequently, where we can refine and revise the work, also in a celebratory way with students present and a lot of community building. So I think I've said a lot. I welcome some feedback from the board. And if you'd like, I could share some samples tonight, but I don't know if that's necessary tonight. I'll jump in. I think I do really like the idea of this. I mean, I think it's so important for this to be like that collaborative community growth effort. And I don't want it to be something that just this like coming from the board. Actually, I kind of want the board like in a little bit of the background and really allow the community to step forward and say what their vision is, what they see. And also just make sure that, you know, it really is that ability for everyone to come to the table and be a part of it. Cause everyone is, everyone should be represented in that because we do have, like we said, that all the different stakeholders. So I really, I like the idea of that launch of doing these community dinners. You know, informal events like that that just bring people together. We can have small conversation, larger conversation and just hear from a lot of different people. And I love the idea of involving students too. Cause obviously this is, this is where they should be ending up. So yeah, I'd love to hear from other board members on some of the ideas about that. I agree. I think a phrase you use Katya was come to the table. I think a lot of times in board meetings and forums it becomes this kind of here are the speakers and here are the crowd that's gathered. And yeah, we're sharing ideas, but it's this very separated thing. But that last forum that happened in the elementary school cafeteria did not have that feel at all for me, especially once those small conversations started. So I think as much as we can encourage within a dinner like that cross, you know, getting cross genres at each table, a sprinkling of students, a board member. And I agree we should really take a backseat here so that it's very clear that this is to be a community guided effort with us as part of the community, but not speaking to or directing. Awesome. I'll jump in quickly. I agree with both of you. I think that's great. I'm wondering, and maybe this is too early in the process to even think about this type of option, but are there any ideas or plans around, and Heather, this is kind of directed towards you, do you have any ideas about maybe like student ambassadors who would wanna kind of lead the pack, you know, to join this community dinner setup or just a group of students who are interested in being part of this as well, kind of on an ongoing basis with us as we create this. I'd like to invite Principal Lisa Floyd to speak to that as I believe we have a plan to start exactly as you said that your phrase is perfect, student ambassadors. Today what we discussed was perhaps having our middle school and high school student council groups create regular reports to the board and be able hopefully to come to board meetings and present those reports from the middle school and high school perspectives. I think that that could give them a lot of investment in the process and there would be regular membership. Historically, there has been a lot of focus on what happens during the school day or fun events that our student council members plan, but I think this kind of work would really help our students feel like they were a part of a process to improve their school. So that's what we had been talking about, but we certainly are just in the beginning stages of sort of formalizing that work. So if you were thinking of something different, then we absolutely could discuss that. No, I think that sounds like a great plan. Oh, sorry, Heather. The only thing I was gonna throw in there was if you open, I mean, the student council groups are great. I just would like to see that anybody has an opportunity who might be interested only because not everyone is on student council for whatever reason. So just keep that in mind. Megan, you are speaking exactly what I was thinking. So in addition to, yes, in addition to any student who's sort of like nominated as an ambassador, we want to recruit diverse voices, students who may be influencers, but they're not in national honor society, but they want to be involved, they're interested. And also beyond that, a student who just wants, say we run three or four of these meetings, any student who wants to attend and have a voice is going to be welcome. And we also want to bring in student groups such as we have a science teacher who's raising money to take her students on a marine biology trip and have them come in and talk about their vision for their future and serve food and maybe accept donations. So we don't want it to just be, okay, we've identified this student who always says everything exactly in line with what we want to hear and only present that voice. We want many, many voices. So it sounds to me like we're almost talking about two different things. We're talking about sort of an ongoing community dinner type of thing where students are sharing what's going on. And we're also talking about the portrait of a graduate which is gonna be an end result that by June we'll have the OSSD portrait of a graduate. Am I understanding that correctly? That- Yes, the portrait of a graduate will be an aspirational document documenting our end's vision at this time for a graduate who'd be ready to proceed to beyond their secondary education. And that aspirational document will be an outcome of a series of community events. So it will take at least three. I anticipate possibly four before we could say, here's our draft, here it is, this is the thing. And subsequent to that, we can move forward with your ownership linkage efforts to other projects or just a continuation of community events, but yes. So there's an initiative to create more community outreach but with a structured desire for an outcome, an outcome at this time to have a shared community vision on one piece of paper that says, this would be wonderful if we can achieve this for every student. How can we then inform our curriculum, instruction and assessment to get there? How can we inform special education? How can we be equitable for every learner despite poverty or disability or any other complications? So it will be an aspirational document. It won't be like once we have it, we're there. I had another question. So are we bringing in facilitators or how, because a lot of times if you're gonna do community discussion, especially if you really want people to feel comfortable sharing and if there may be people who have differing viewpoints will we have facilitators or are you planning on training some people or how is that part gonna work? And that may be, I don't know how far along you are and kind of thinking yet about like when the different dinners would take place and how they would be organized. But that last forum that happened I think everyone saw that it allowed for better communication to do it in a location where people were face to face. They were in smaller groups. And I think thinking about, again, I like that you're already sort of planning ahead a little bit to be making sure that we're hearing from all student perspectives because just like everyone in the community may not all be on the same page, not all students are on the same page to sort of make sure that we're sampling kids from a variety of different groups with different perspectives. So I have reached out to an organization called Betel for Kids. Betel for Kids specifically leads this work and they've done the work with multiple organizations in the state of Vermont. And they're currently just beginning the work with Essex Westford as well. And so I've reached out to them. I think they, I've actually been led by them previously when they did the portrait of the graduate for the Woodstock Union High School and Middle School. And as you said, their leadership was very helpful in facilitating conversations and making sure all voices were heard. So I'm hopeful that they will lead our work. And if not, I have some other ideas but that would be my first choice given their experience in our state. And I was going to ask the board. I understand there are some funds allocated to the board. We have this small equity grant, which is $5,000. And then I understand you have some funds at your discretion as well to fund a portion of the community dinner. What I'd like to do is offer a base meal like an entree and a dessert and invite community members to also if they're able to bring a potluck offering. But I'd like to pay for at least the base meal with some of those funds and possibly to set aside funds for a consultant to lead some of this work. I realize that may need to go on the consent agenda for the next board meeting on the 14th. So I think what will be beneficial then is to do like, the goal is to have this completed by the end of this school year to this June. We're talking about doing potentially up to four of these community dinners. So that next step of kind of planning when this work would begin, what that would look like. Maybe doing a monthly do it once a month or four months. I mean, I don't really, I mean, I definitely think this isn't going to be beneficial. I want this done. It would be great to have this done by June. So, but I also want to make sure that we're taking that time to really be thoughtful about that process and making sure that people can join and not just having like one, two, three in rapid succession, but letting people kind of think about it and be able to bring their thoughts to it as well if they're not able to join some of the earlier sessions. We have an opening on December 21st, if that would be agreeable as a possible first community dinner, or if that's too soon, we can book it for the subsequent month. I feel like if we start this in January, I think that trying to plan anything right before the holidays is just a little hard for everyone. Wasn't something- But I think if we kind of- I think it's the 21st. Yes, well, here's what's happening. That's the night that the superintendent is having a community forum. And so we could do the community dinner, starting at five and then do an introduction to the portrait of the graduate and then Lane's event would start at seven. Oh. No, so it was- I didn't realize we could piggyback on something else. Yeah, so it would just be like a gentle introduction. Here's what the portrait of a graduate is. Here's some samples. Next month we wanna get together and hear your ideas. That's a long night for kids with, for people with young kids. Yes. Good point. So it seems that the agreement is we'll start in January. So you were thinking start at five and then go through. So that, yeah, that would be, except that the kids would be fed, Hannah. You still think it would be too much? I think that there would be too much of an expectation of, and validly so, childcare. I'm talking about a very chastity. Oh. So, yeah, I think trying to do two, when we really want people to engage and bring energy to both of these things, right? And I think trying to package it up is asking a lot, especially with my chatty six-year-old in the room. That's really helpful feedback. Thank you. Heather, do you have any idea, you've reached out to Battelle for kids, but they haven't responded yet too. That's right. So that may, I mean, that might be another reason why if we put it off because there may be some initial training that needs to happen. Do you foresee using, I know with some other districts, some board members were trained as part of the group sort of facilitating, or are you gonna have an outside, or does this Battelle group not train facilitators within the district? They just bring their own facilitators in, or do you know at all how that works or not yet? I don't know the answer. The way I experienced it when I was in like the audience, I was a principal in, right? I experienced it as they had provided the superintendent with all of the resources to lead the work. And it was like even though their name was on things, and there was one representative present, like to support and facilitate, it was almost like they had just provided all the tools and the structure and they were just there for support. And I may not have seen everything that happened behind the scenes you see. So I, and I will, as soon as I, if I don't hear back from them tomorrow, I'll get them a phone call and I'll get more details on their process. But I remember, I do remember that it, there was room for every voice. There were a lot of turn and talks. There were a lot of opportunities to write things down. There was a lot of opportunity to vote. There was, it felt very designed to facilitate all voices in multiple ways so that no one felt I was too nervous to speak out loud and I never had a chance to write, right? Like so everybody, it's a well-designed process and they're a nonprofit organization. So I don't anticipate the cost to be highly expensive. Their focus is on helping schools to achieve this vision. I'll get you more information and have it for you possibly. Should I add something on this to the agenda for December 14th or is it too late? I think it's on there. Didn't we put it on there, Ann? Did we put something on there? Yeah, yeah, we said a report out from the ownership linkage committee. So yeah, you can add to that. I think the only thing we might have to change on that agenda is possible vote if we're gonna be voting on using the finances for. Right. Yeah, I think just having that structure will be helpful. And I know for the board, that's been part of always sort of struggling with how to reach out and get community engaged and get stakeholders engaged without sort of having that extra sort of feeling like the structure is there. And just for board members, we don't have the time. So that's where having you as sort of the point person to sort of lead this process will be really helpful. I think it's also will be really important for us to make sure that we're inviting local business owners, especially business owners who are employing our students or doing like internships and whatnot with our students maybe working with our TCC so that we have those voices involved as well. And I know when we created our ends, we also tried to incorporate, I mean, because there's limited access but some professors from the different colleges in the area just because they run into our students as students in higher education. So in addition to our community members, parents, students, families add business owners and college representatives from local colleges and trade schools. And so all we can do is invite people. So that's another thing I did add into the equity grant in my proposal was that the creation and distribution of marketing materials may be an expense on that equity grant. So we will make sure to create marketing materials and distribute them broadly. Yeah, and I think honestly, like the emails, it was good. I mean, I know like with doing events here, if we have an email list for sending things out to or if there's, that's always a nice way to get the word out. I'm thinking of all of your, I know with senior projects, there's people who are leading those individuals, whether they're, again, those would be a great group to have invited as well. So, but I just also wanna stay mindful of our timing with this meeting tonight. So it sounds like we have kind of a nice rough plan of what this will look like as far as these community dinners involving our groups, bringing potentially this group to the table to help facilitate this, a plan to start in January. So we would have January, February, March, April with the potential for those community meetings with our rough draft then landing right in May, which would be great as far as the timeline goes. So is there anything else that we need to, as this is our, again, our first meeting of kind of coming together, is there anything else that we should be looking at or addressing tonight? No, I think you made some good progress in identifying who the stakeholders are, right? Or the owners, as you say. And also in creating a rough plan for the creation of this document. Yeah, and I think it's, you know, again, important that this is like an ongoing effort. I mean, this is the first step in many as far as trying to have that connection with our community. And this Portrait of the Graduate is just one part in defining that ownership linkage and all those other aspects that go into it as far as stakeholders and everything. And I think that this conversation will be good to kind of help us really define some of those things in a more community-minded way too. So, any other comments from the board? I will spend a few minutes opening it up to comments now that we've had some discussion first. So any board members have anything else they'd like to say before we open up to public comment for a few minutes? So I just want to make clarification on, so with our policies, when we talk about owners, owners are the taxpayers in our region. We haven't, and in the students to a certain extent, when we talk about stakeholders, those will be teachers. Sometimes a stakeholder will be both an owner and a stakeholder. And sometimes they will just be a stakeholder. But in this process, our linkage is really, we need them in this portrait of a graduate process, but they may not be owners in the sense of owners of the district or when we look at defining that. Thank you for that important clarification of language. That language is very precise, and I really appreciate that. I will keep those two terms separate. I was just gonna say quickly, this is great, I'm really excited and I'm glad that I was able to kind of step into Scott's role here. So looking forward to how we move forward with this. Other comment for the board before I give us some time for public comment? So I also don't, I wanna make sure that we don't lose sight of the other aspect that I think we're talking about, and that is the student representation or student involvement with the board. Cause I really, the way I'm looking at it, that almost seems like it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit separate from just the project of creating the portrait of a graduate. Having student input and a regular basis on the, within the board is a, I see that as a slightly different process or something that we need to clarify because one of the things from, again, the BSBA meeting in hearing from students who have been involved with boards and other districts, one of the things that they really said that was helpful was to understand their role on the board. So I think we need to think about that and clear, you know, and be clear about that. Again, because we're a board that works on policy level, not on sort of how the, you know, the things that oftentimes students have issues with involve sort of the day-to-day operations within the school. And so we need to make sure that we're clear about, as we present this to students and try and get them involved with the board that we're clear about their role and how their voice will be heard on the board. So they're, because otherwise you set them up and they're like, why would I do this? This is stupid, you know? So I think we need to just, as we roll that out, I think, but am I the only one who's sort of seeing that as a little bit separate from the development of the portrait of the graduate? I see these as two things that are important to develop, but they're not exactly the same. Yep, I agree. This is specifically our portrait of a graduate committee. So this is all that we're looking at in this committee right now. Is this process that we're getting to in June? And then there can be other conversations as we've had in the past about having student representation on the board, but that's gonna be separate from the conversations that we're having here in this committee meetings. All right, so it's 5.40. I'd like to give some time for public comment as I don't really feel like we need to restate the rules around public comment since they were stated earlier. So everyone knows what those are. So I will open the floor for public comment if there is any on this discussion today and just raise your hand. You have the floor. So I didn't hear a lot of talk about parents as owners. I don't know if it's because it's just a foregone conclusion or not, but parents I think would be significant owners along with students because we are the main guidance for students as they grow. And once they're out of school, we'll continue to be for an extremely long time. So we have a serious vested interest in what a graduate should look like. Other than that, I do have some significant thoughts on what a graduate should look like, but I think it's way too early for that with this current meeting. So thank you. Thank you, John, I appreciate your comments and I look forward to having you join us then for these dinners if you have some great thoughts about that. So I hope that you will be there for those as well. Are there any other comments tonight from public? Seeing none. I think we have a good start to this meeting tonight. I'm gonna give us an extra 15 minutes early. We will report out at our school board meeting at our next one in December. And hopefully we will have some dates at that time that we can start rolling in a January 1st meeting for the public. And with that, I will call the meeting ending at 5.43 against, since this is our first committee meeting I will apologize. I'm assuming that we need to take a motion to adjourn. So I'll hearing one. I would take a motion to adjourn. I move we adjourn at 4.43. Thank you. I second. Thank you. And all those in favor to adjourn, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All right.