 I'm going to go ahead and give all the meeting a quarter at 5. There will be three. There's a meeting over here. First thing on the agenda is reception of guests. So we have one guest, it looks like, this evening. Michael, first item on our agenda is reception of guests. So we are receiving you. I assume that you're here to listen in and possibly comment about actually six discussions or, yeah, OK. That's the last item on our discussion agenda. Are there any agenda revision or more comments? Comments or a quarter's run. OK, and I'm going to ask for a motion to approve the minutes of October 24. Are safe, thanks? Is there a second floor? Is there any discussion of the draft minutes of October 24? People in minutes, a blank over here. Hearing none, all are in favor of approving the minutes of October 24, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Motion carries. First item on our discussion agenda is going to be led by Floor, and I'm going to let her explain what it is and what we're going to be talking about. I'm just going to ask everybody to get closer because they gave us five to 10 minutes for this activity. So if you're eating, I'm going to explain how well you're eating right now. And then we're going to move around the room for just that few minutes. So this activity, just an activity that a Caroline Hill used at the Vermont School of Resuscitation in Agony. And I tried to work really good because you said before, in my class of her last nine months, she was happy that we were using it. And she said it was her. Caroline Hill is an educator, and she calls himself a chief partner for equity and has been working in that stage for the past 20 years. So what we're going to do is all of us know each other pretty well. But some of us don't know everybody's name, but especially some of us don't know where you come from. So activity is saying to the birds, so for example, if it's myself, I will say, I belong to Guatemala. And you go and introduce yourself to whoever it is. So this activity of ours is that I belong to Guatemala. My name is Floor. I belong to you. But it has to be meaningful, like do eye contact. And the one thing that people around the world said is that in North American culture, belonging sometimes, it doesn't stay with the session. It's almost as if it's going to be mutual. And it's not about possession. And then we'll, this is kind of like a surprise. And then we'll be brief when we're done. Do you hear that now? Yeah. She was talking about that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I'm all the way back to 15th century. My relative is a big Indian North American. Yeah. And when we did the workshop, when you say to me, I belong to Guatemala, even though my heart is here, my home is here, I still feel like that's who made me who I am. But for some people, the long game could be as far as where your ancestors come. But belonging could also be Vermont, because this is where you belong right now. So it's going to be different for everybody. So just say what you truly feel. And I'm going to time us. And we're going to go around. Is there any questions? And please try to do it not just with the people that feel comfortable with it. And this includes all our ministers, and benefactors, and beyond. So in all community members, Michael, that includes you, which are very destructive there, right? Something that includes you going around your room, right? It's for community too. I know you're looking at me like, I don't want to do this. And you should start to your right, OK? So that's your point. Like, not everything. So let's get started. You have to get up and move around the room. I was teasing Michael that he needed to start on it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. So. Kelly. Kelly. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. OK. Everybody gets to start walking back. Walking back to their places. Thank you all. We'll meet you quickly. A couple of years, they've one from the other side and one from the board members to just any comments to share of how they felt. Or if there was any awkwardness or anything, any comments. And I can make any situation awkward. So. I will say that as an introvert by nature, it's pretty hard to walk up to folks and say, I belong to them. It got easier as you through and coming up to work. Anybody else? Nobody else? So, and that's basically what is sort of radical by this activity. What I was hoping is that we understand our interdependence in each other and as we are embarking in this new, you know, in this new invention together this to me, radical activity is the start of how we write a new story. So, when we understand that we're interdependent in each other, we understand that our behaviors affect everybody. That our way of seeing each other affects the story that we write. So, as we embark in our meeting today, we need to understand how do we get people to think about each other differently? And through the process of Act 46 that is myself I've seen so many mindsets already made about each other. And each of us has more than one story even if you don't agree with whatever it is Act 46 or something else. Besides that, we have more to say and we have more to contribute. So, I'm hoping that we can use this as a start of that new story and creating that belonging to me what I was most afraid of doing this was that I hope that you understand that it's not a session. That belonging doesn't mean that you change completely your mind. That belonging doesn't mean like I belong to my kids and my husband it doesn't mean that I just do what they tell me to do. So, it's similar. So, we all belong in this together for the kids and the last thing I'm going to say that this meeting too was that the assumptions made as we're headed to monitoring the assumptions made by adults, by ourselves teachers or board members it has more impact in the achievement gap sometimes than any other thing. That's it. So, hopefully you enjoyed it. Thanks for not to turn to business like but we all belong to the same budget which has to be the next thing on our agenda. So, that's on page 9 and I'll ask Bill to take us through the presentation. Thanks Matthew. This year's budget as you can see at the bottom most of you are used to seeing the budgets in format that we presented to you is a total of 1.96% increase for Washington Central. The biggest impact on that and has really been the cost of staff. There are other areas there that are re-emerged as state-based students and the biggest increase across there as you'll see at the bottom you can see that percentage but there's also changes in the revenue. So, one of the things we talked a lot in the executive committee and I know we talked to all the local boards about was that I'm going to go over here and I'm going to have you turn the page to page 10. You can see at the bottom the budget is 2018-2019 we have three assessments we have the SU assessment the transportation assessment and the special education assessment you can see the transportation assessment and SU assessment have been close to flat our biggest and as we talked about many times and local board meets in here at the SU we're seeing a tick in needs and SU needs so that's a response to those. Also the equalized pupils that are set on this page are estimates we still haven't been able to get from the agency of education the actual the work that Lori does with her team in the shell sub gun they I'm sure these estimates are probably within an estimated percentage or two but that's what is there right now and you will see at the bottom of there the increase or decrease in assessments based on the change I'll just remind you that last year this board changed the assessment methodology that we're doing for the thing the equalized pupils thank you thank you sorry I should use the page can I give you the short version of that more of a little more questions before opening up for questions discussion I would also just add the executive committee has formally recommended this budget to the SU board after two meetings on November 6th and November 20th where we discussed it there were a lot of issues that came up in our conversation about the budget but in the end we decided not to try to alter the budget as presented but rather to accept the budget that being said the next step in our agenda after talking about the budget is to kind of get into the various issues that came up because of those conversations so does anybody have any specific questions about the budget as presented not seeing any typically what the SU board would do at this point would be to consider a motion to approve the budget more recommended to the voters for approval this year I think everyone is aware and as I'm almost certain we will discuss a bit later there is a process that's been laid out for us whereby a transitional board or a transition board would be responsible for recommending a draft budget to what would become the new district board so with that in mind it seemed appropriate to make a motion to recommend the approval of the 2019-2020 budget of a certain amount assessed by equalized people to the transition board I do have a specific language here that asks somebody near me to make that motion but it's more like that we recommend this board recommend to the transitional board approval of the Washington Central Supervisory Union 2019-2020 budget totally $9,287,455 assessed by equalized people is there a second? is there any discussion? I propose that we hold on to voting until we hear the support from the subcommittee in case there's anything that comes up that may need funding or we think may need funding so I would say let's hold this up until the action agenda so that do you want to express that in the form of a motion that we table? friendly request to table is there any objection to table in the motion until after we end the discussion the educational priorities and goals so maybe just a point of order I don't think we need to table this call to be addressed in the action items and I think Chris's request would just be that he doesn't want to make an agenda adjustment and we should vote in the action items okay yeah yeah of course so we have one other motion that we need to save that one for later I think we just do about the action so with that we'll move to 3.3 which is the topic that's goal number two or student learning and just to kind of provide the context or the background on this I think everyone is aware that we've been talking about student learning outcomes and educational priorities and goals to some extent or another at least since June when the kind of mixing up a little bit the School Quality Committee memo and the Executive Committee report but again just to explain when the draft budget was first brought to the Executive Committee on number 6 and we noted that it had a relatively modest increase of under 2% we asked Bill if he could talk to the leadership team and consider investments and possibly contribute to improving student educational outcomes particularly in the area of math we talked a little bit about an idea that had been discussed in the past which is around professional coaching for math teachers specifically perhaps augmenting the coaching that's already happening in the system but also said to these it takes a latitude in considering the foundation for investment this board to consider essentially I don't know if you want to kind of give a snapshot of the response to the Executive Committee and I just want to say but this relates to this board and ask the School Quality Committee to come back and recommend some things that we can prioritize for making to educational goals so that's also in here I'm going to go step by step to get everyone's input here thank you Matthew I thought maybe the best thing I could do was talk to you a little bit about the process the leadership team went through talked to you a little bit about what we did that day I've asked the leadership team to be willing to jump in if they want if I miss someone from that day it was a I want to say with all sincerity they made us kind of stop and think for six hours along with many other things we do but it's one of those kind of like stop and the operations kind of step back for a minute I also want to foreshadow before I get much into this that this has only been discussed with the leadership team and that's not a theoretical way that I would want to work in trying to move something forward so what I'm going to tell you is about is a discussion that happened with the leadership team that happened with the staff and I said to the executive committee and I said to some of the boards that I talked to about this are individual board members that one of my reflections on the past six years working in Washington Central is that when their boards get out ahead of where the staff is there's some there's some I think the best word is just disinformation and the same thing happens when it goes the other way if the staff is out in front the board doesn't know so I'm going to give you some themes you'll probably want a lot more details and I won't be willing to give it to you because we have a board with our staff all the time and it's not fair for them not to be in this discussion they need to be part of this discussion they deserve to be part of this discussion and therefore we're going to give you some themes from that day and I know I'm going to tap something by colleagues out here especially about some of the details so in the October 20, 2018 leadership Team Senate forced the math goals you asked for those we came back from working with every teacher of math one of the things that we know is effective it's been shown effective in district leadership work is that there's collaboratively set goals throughout the system so we asked every teacher of math we said you have so many students that are proficient in September how many will be proficient tell us what that is and then how many students can make a year's worth of work you saw that back in October in this room presented you that goal and that data our teacher did a great job of that work and we we got all that on November 6 you asked that executive to be on November 6 asked the leadership team made myself and the leadership team what resources do the schools need in the next year to improve student performance in math to that end the leadership team took up a question at their meeting on November 13 we are prepared to share with you the process that we did but really as I said before to fully answer this question we need to engage the entire staff of Washington Central and I want to ensure that that happens so I'm not going to say this is a finished project but we have work to do on November 13th the leadership team met for 6 hours we started by doing research we kind of took a step back and said what's the research telling us about what's the purpose of math construction and what works and quickly we got into a discussion what works generally in all of education and really at lunchtime we kind of refocused back on math and at that point one of my colleagues Amy Toss said hey we were using a protocol it's called the future protocol it's a good one for planning but she said we really have to ask why we're getting the results we're getting and why do we have the math results it's called the 5 why's and you ask why 5 times and I didn't bring the chart paper with us we started to brainstorm for other reasons and one of the things we didn't expect to come up because we were talking a lot about teaching practices and student scores and student performance we actually got to our community and our biggest why this game up and it's our number one force is our community engagement about why math is important we actually tracked back and we didn't literally go through minutes but most of us on leadership team said we couldn't remember a time that science, math or technology was talked about in the board meeting we've heard a lot more about arts and music and so we really came to a place that we're not sure that our community values math and values stem we hear a lot of adults that talk about I'm not good at math I'm not a math brain I don't have a math gene those last two that's not true that's been proven through cognitive science there isn't a certain gene or there isn't a certain brain for learning a certain content area it may be harder for me it's about writing really hard for me but with good effort I can get there and I actually can experience that in my doctoral work right now so it's really annoying that so after those whys we came to four major strategy areas we need to have a strong community engagement about why math is important I can tell you just tonight we have a theater performance whether it's an elementary theater or a U32 or a house there's a math line going up Berlin right now 13 or 17 13 parents let us know they were coming we have some community engagement to do about why math is important professional growth and support of high quality math instruction we need our best math teachers teachers students who need the most support traditionally in schools in the United States those who have the most experience get the choice of classes they teach we need to turn that around we need to look at structural changes in the system specifically more time for instruction and professional collaboration we know right now that the recommendation of best practice math instruction is 60 minutes a day of math instruction we do not have that in this SU and we need more work I could want to student work analysis or students studying how are students answering questions and why are they getting the results they are so we can look at our teaching practices that's about professional collaboration that's just one example and the last one is meeting students social and emotional needs I was in a conversation this morning with one of my colleague principals and we were talking about a student in math that was performing high they are now and it's not because of math and something has changed in their background and we need to attend to those social and emotional needs so they can be accessible so those are the four major themes and we went into a two hour discussion if you want to go watch the orbit take a site it was kind of interesting to see how long we were talking about this but Matthew if you want some more detail we'll be glad to get it but I guess those highlights just for people's reference those items that Bill just described are also outlined in the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting at page 17 but basically as Bill said it sparked a fairly involved conversation part of the Executive Committee I think I don't know who would be right to characterize the response that Bill just gave for the question that we posed in this way but I will do that which is essentially that there are a lot of things that we could do as a board we could set aside some money for math coaching we could set aside money for extra service days we could look at lengthening the school day or the school calendar over the course of the year those are all things that kind of came out of that conversation but any of those things in isolation would essentially be a kind of ad hoc you know it provides stop-gap approach it wouldn't be systemic it wouldn't be driven by a kind of holistic view of the challenge how do we raise math proficiency in particular for all students across the board and then if you want to do that it requires as a very first-order business prioritizing that as a board saying that's really important to us and if it's if it turns out that we can't be all things to all kids which I think actually is the case personally then there are some very important things that we can be to all kids and what are those things can we name them and what are we willing to do and support and possibly trade-off in support of those things that we feel are deemed most important so that was the conversation I felt that the the school quality committee produced a memo separately which actually spoke rather well to a way to maybe approach answering as much as we're looking at Ms. Carr, if you don't mind I'd like to ask you to run through what you put in the memo Sure, so hi everybody I'm Cary Bradley I'm on the school quality committee with you hopefully moving forward to our goal number two which is really trying to advance using the honor report that we received back in October so the committee spent some time with the report and we spent a fair amount of time looking at this goal and reached the conclusion that there's a lot to like in this goal it has some specific targets which we appreciate it uses objectively measures performance it's time-based it ends up being a short-term goal originally we had thought of a longer time horizon but this is what the staff came back with and seemed to us so much ambitious actually as we were looking at it so remember that we're talking about the percentage of students that reach proficiency by the year end averaged across the SU we're talking about moving from 45 to 70 percent if we actually achieved that by the end of this year I think we should all be hopefully pretty satisfied with that and maybe most importantly described this came from the staff this came from the teachers we really like the fact that they're empowered and working together and using data looking at the same things that we are to the same map and we want to kind of encourage that and foster that kind of activity so so we have four in that context four recommendations for you to consider one is to simply adopt this set of goals or endorse it however we want to put it but basically say go for it and pursue these targets they're good ones and we will support you the second one is not to stop there but also to set a pair of goals that need to be felt like these two areas at least from the members of the school quality committee are top priorities and we really should be asking for more in both areas so again short term one year type goals but we're very cognizant not wanting to push you are but push the appropriate amount and ask for the third one would be calling for some reflection and formal reflection at the end of the year to see how did it go how did we perform what did we learn from this process of setting this type of goal and trying to achieve it and then finally to use all of that learning to then go and propose some longer goals three to five year type of goals along these lines again for significant improvement is what we're looking for we're seeing that map and I think one of the things that we're very aware of is that we are for the most part on the committee on the S.U. Board we're not the experts in how to improve education we know we can speak to the priorities and what we think we should really be focused on we're going to talk a little bit more about that but we really rely on our staff to define what are the appropriate targets over what time period and what are the resources we need to do that so we're really thinking of this as that iterative process where we define the priorities as our employees come back and say here's what we think we can do and what we need then we can respond to that and say okay that's appropriate or something else and then hopefully end up all the line moving forward so I can answer any questions you have and then we can talk about the recommendations this is a really tough problem one question I've got is you know in setting these goals should we be having really outside I mean goals can be set to be attained if you know what I mean math from my experience with math math is a it's a cumulative knowledge you cannot have you know if you have a bad influence for a short period of time it can really hurt your ability to advance in mathematics so you need a really good field without any weaknesses in the teaching and we assess ourselves we assess our goals should we actually have something somebody an objective source outside looking at that looking at levels of efficiency you know in our teachers or looking at even our goal setting to make sure they're actually realistic in terms of what we are what we need to end up with in the end and this is a tough thing I'm not throwing stones at anybody but I our system has been failing here and I but I don't see the solutions really fixing this problem unless we really get objective and we really look at goals carefully and these may be hard you know this may take a hard look at what we're doing is that working I don't think that's working probably dead I'll just talk louder anyway I think that that would be I mean perhaps that's one of the places where we need to really take a look at how we're evaluating and setting our goals to increase that objectivity and both say that I mean I would actually be interested in bringing in some real experts in math not so much even teaching but saying you know are these realistic what do we need to be teaching these kids before we get to if we want to grow them into proficient users of mathematics in college and engineering areas like that we're really failing pretty dramatically here I've experienced my kid and I have in the past and I'm concerned that we just keep beating this pushing this down the road I know we're making effort here but I don't actually see solutions right now that I would necessarily trust you on I think there's a couple themes in there one is just on measurement you spoke about sort of using objective measures and take us back to the monitoring board and the system that we're developing uses at least three different sources right we've got report card data and we've got the local assessment which is really what this goal is focused on is the local assessment but then we're also using external assessments as well and so none of it is perfect none of it is really close to perfect right now but we're building a system that hopefully is getting us closer and as we go through this process of goal setting and refining I think that it will get better the other part of your concern I think is about what resources what outside the system are we using to improve the system that we have I think Bill or Jen might be better suited to it I'll start and I'm going to hand it off to Jen real quick for those that weren't on the board five years ago I'm looking at Jen Brad Litzel National Expert Math came up and did a whole audit of our math system he laid us out in probably five ten year roadmap of work to do it's actually been slowed somewhat to resources but that's what started our math coaching so that piece we would follow that roadmap we would be very aligned to the common core standards the other piece from what's showing in district leadership that works is that you really need to empower your staff bringing something from the outside really doesn't cause much change it causes a short-term bump but a long-term dip and that you really need to grow your professional knowledge of your staff so I'm going to Jen to add some more to this so there have been a number of inputs over the years in the area of mathematics and Bill mentioned a comprehensive and collaborative view that we engaged in we had some field specialists from the state of Vermont and that entire study was overseen by Brad Litzel that was a in some ways we replicated a model that had been well received and successful here a few years prior to that it was sort of an external audit overview of literacy practices that had been conducted by Marge Litzel that led to some effective PVN changes in practice and some hiring of internal resources as well for a while so we replicated that process so that we could get an understanding of what our current strengths were and what our needs were the other thing that happened was the adoption of the common core state standards and a lot of learning about the common core state standards not only the content in the standards but the mathematical practices we have hosted mathematics lab school we hosted that in 2013 and 2014 and actually all of our administrators over the years have participated in a math lab school either the ones that we hosted or since we spread that opportunity around the region we have attended in other neighboring schools as well many many of our teachers of mathematics have taken part in that math lab school we partnered with a neighboring district that was engaged in very similar work so that we could put a lot of heads together around creating some common benchmark assessments in mathematics that were aligned to what in the beginning phase of this work we called non-negotiables now that we have student learning outcomes and standards and performance indicators now the benchmark assessments are aligned to our performance indicators for kids we've done some in-house work over the years with an external facilitator but I think the biggest investment has been in learning about effective practices around instructional coaching and technical support to do that we have increased the amount of FTE in our instructional coaching area with mathematics and we're getting smarter and smarter about how best to deploy that resource in the very beginning we had one math coach for the entire supervised reunion she worked .5 FTE so two and a half days a week essentially over 6 schools was not much and so we've tried to structure that resource over the years and now we've invested a little bit more not just in math but in other areas of coaching as well in some of our schools I would say the other thing is that we've been engaging in some in-house professional learning around what we call curriculum topic study where we really do some unpacking of a particular unit or lesson together and plan and we engage in lesson study where we all plan a lesson together somebody volunteers to teach that lesson we all have roles and so those are some of our recent inputs thanks to both of you for sharing that context I just want to say as a board member I am a member of the school quality committee I really appreciate that what I see as a really strategic and methodical approach on the part of the leadership within our supervised reunion around improving instruction and student outcomes around math and as a board member I feel like it's incumbent on all of us to really support that leadership number one but also really nurture a culture of boldness with our staff and our faculty boldness in setting audacious goals and trying new things based on the best learning out there about what might work and also really fearless reflection and learning through the process so I guess I've been just really committed as a board member to supporting the work that the leadership team has been doing in setting these goals and want to really encourage them to be able to be very honest in their reflection around what works what doesn't work and what to do with that going forward and I hope we can all do that and let the new board can continue in that spirit so I'll just add to mine part of the same thoughts that I share in the Executive Committee I agree completely with this Who Quality Committee that there might be a few board members that have some expertise but I think in general we're not the ones to say how to get there. I think as boards it's our responsibility to say and Rick I use words very similar to yours that our math results are unacceptable I mean a point of blank blunt. I think I was pretty blunt in that being said I have to apologize a few times but they're not acceptable. As a board as boards we need to say those math results are not acceptable so the staff got together and came up and said this is what we want to accomplish at the end of the year I'm in agreement with some of the other discussions that I've heard they seem a little ambitious but if we get there then awesome but as a board it's our responsibility to say this is a priority and if we establish it as a priority in the Executive Committee we weren't even confident saying across all board members this is in fact a priority. If it is a priority then we all need to express that priority and when the inevitable conflicts come up with finances or time we as board members need to say this is a priority it has it's higher up it's more important than these other things and if we've got infinite if we've got a set number of resources we may need to reallocate some of those resources we've only got X number of minutes in a day and if we're not spending enough time instructing math in a day we need to spend more time instructing math and where is that time going to come from and as board members if we establish that as a priority then we need to hear back from our leadership and staff to say to make that happen this is what has to occur and we have to support that. I agree that math is foundational just like literacy in fact literacy and numeracy because they're foundational they can be developed in just about every single thing that a student does throughout his or her school day whether it's art with perspective proportions geometrical relations whether it's social studies with statistics it just there's no limit to it but what you said Bill earlier made sense to me that the real core of this has to be the teachers most of the people I know who have were really excited about math or who detest it can trace that feeling back to a school experience they had with a teacher who was either very inspiring or who traumatized them in math class so I think although the idea of setting a goal of a certain proficiency goal I think is great I'm a little bit worried about the law of reversed efforts here that the harder you try to reach to push everybody towards proficiency the more difficult it will actually be to get there I would be very happy to see a goal of 80% of the students will love doing math even if they're not particularly good at it if they love doing it then willy-nilly will get somewhere with it if they hate it it doesn't matter how many hours you give them or how much money you throw at the problem it just won't work put on my peer leader hat a little bit because I agree with everything that's been said I agree to see that the numbers that are received are not acceptable I looked at East Montpelier and yay 74% of our students made years of growth but that means the 26% didn't and we're leaving those kids behind and that means the next year is going to be harder and that means that the year after that is going to be harder so from an educational perspective that's a major, major problem so that didn't sound very intuitive in life in every problem and I think that I was reading down through this and the thing that really let down with me is that societally it's acceptable to say I don't do math how many people in this room have said those words at some point probably just about everybody I'm in a STEM field and I said those words and it's culturally acceptable to hate math and the community there maybe this school system needs to become math positive we're a lot of other things positive we're really cheerleading about a lot of things and it's great but you've got a great drama program at the house but that culture is not in place so there's a clear opportunity to change the way that we think about that and one of the things that struck me is the bus stop conversations that I've had from the time that my now college student was going to elementary school continuing on through this day which is the parents say I have no idea I'm going to get into this homework and this is third grade so it may be little things that cost nothing or a knee-jerk reaction is often to throw money in a problem and say okay I'm going to throw some money over here and bring any consultant to do this stuff but I think there's opportunity to think creatively and say maybe we need we're likely going to be unified district maybe as a district we do parent math night a couple of times a year and we teach the parents what is that we're teaching the kids so that when the kids bring the stuff home the parents don't throw their hands up to the parents and say I hate math and instill that same we're going to get into the next generation so I guess that's much of it it seems to me that there's a pretty clear opportunity for sort of changing our approach around this and yes professional development and all of those things of course are critical but I think we need to change our mindset around this as well I know that I always feel like I'm a step behind but I'm actually not entirely clear what goal, the goal number two that we're supposed to be endorsing is so I've looked at all the materials and what I see is I see discussions of well develop a more thorough database understanding of student learning and RSU to inform board level strategies, budgets, monitoring and communication so I definitely see a lot of talk about things that we should do but I don't for me in goal feels like a concrete thing and I'm not I also we've had some talk about improving our student performance outcomes but I haven't ever heard a specific number so I don't know exactly what the goal is that we're talking about approving approving and the second question I have is I feel like we're talking about this as if we're starting at zero and we're on a constant trajectory but I also have had trouble when I look at the state website and I know testing has changed of finding out how we have done over time for instance have we always did we start lower? I don't think we did start lower the fact I know we didn't start lower on this because I did find some data in some cases but we have done better at some points and we have done worse at some points and so rather than considering all these new strategies I would be interested to know when will we doing better and trying to reflect upon what changes have happened do we have any data and reference I mean those are hard things to look at it's a big question but I'm not entirely sure where to go to get good data on how our students have done over time so that we can try to see what programs were in place at those times so Allison to get to the data piece what happened with the common core is it shifted the learning targets for math at about fourth grade Jen jump in here when I get out of my memory about fourth or fifth grade what used to be a fifth grade target is now a fourth grade target so when we look at old testing data it's testing it's assessing different levels of knowledge of math not only the level of knowledge of math but the complexity of math so with the SBAC and the common core we raise the bar quite a bit on what a student needs to know at grade levels so if we go back and look at eCAP assessment the old NSRAs which I got back when I first came I went back and did a comprehensive data analysis of Washington Central over the years what I can tell you student performance and literacy in math no matter which measure you take our performance has really not changed it hasn't changed literacy it may have changed two or three points last time we did a page of literacy but that's two or three percentages we've been constantly around 70% in the time period anything from 2019-98 forward depending on what measures you use and are you comparing us to ourselves or to other populations of students to ourselves because it's a percentage it's not a comparison it's not a normal reference compared to some other population it's about meeting the standard or being proficient in today's language so it's meeting targets of what students are supposed to be able to know and how many are proficient before we used to call it meeting the standard so can I make sure I understand you're saying that are what we expect of proficiency has increased so now we expect 100 units of knowledge instead of 50 but we've hovered around 70% so maybe we've gone from 70% of kids knowing 50 units of knowledge no you can't do that Allison you can't do that with the data you have to say how many kids were proficient in that time and so in literacy I'm giving you some literacy data and I haven't gotten into that in literacy whether you measure with NSREs which are back in the 90s to early 2000s NECAP which came about 2005 to 2013 or 14 or SBAC where the standards have changed a little bit they've gotten more in depth so the complexity has gone up our literacy scores are somewhere in the high 60s to the low 70s we've stayed in that area about right and down so when you go to math before the Common Core the targets were about the same NECAP or the new standards reference which goes all the way back to 98 we used to have performance in math between about 45 to 50% of students were on standards when we came to the Common Core there was a huge shift in the target of what we call proficient or meeting the standard and with that shift and I'm telling you about fourth grade it's already a grade level difference and remember these as Rick was saying all learning progressions whether they're literacy or math they build upon each other so if you're going to make it already a grade difference in fourth or fifth grade imagine what it is at high school and so with that shifting of the target our percentages in SBAC have been pretty constant in the low 40s so you can't do some multiply you can't do some sort of unit analysis like how do I multiply a certain amount percentage from an old test to a new test I just can't compare the percentages all I can tell you is that over our time in Washington Central back to 98 we really haven't moved the needle in students being proficient no but you're saying we've moved the target so we are actually teaching kids more we just are hovering around the same percentage of what we're aiming for I can't really say that because I can't do that analysis of what it was with an e-cab and with the azerite I can't compare those two because the targets have changed so much I can't say that because they got 50% of it over here it's 40% over here I can't make that analysis the tests don't test the same thing we've got Ruben or Darcy and Katie it seems to me like the sticky point here we're trying to compare learning to drive on horse and buggy compared to learning to drive in 2018 the driver was Tarzan it's 50% of the people who took the driver's test in the 1800 test and 50% today there's no reasonable I don't know but algebra hasn't changed except that how we teach algebra which is why we have all these parents learning about the math has changed dramatically I want to add it's also the complexity of what we say to be proficient in algebra on an earlier test than what we say now so what you have to actually understand is like procedurally being able to do a computation and able to apply it to different things and I think further to sort of pull aside the weeds a little bit and get to something that's more like a board level goal something simple that we can aim for that I think we should aim in fact is that 100% of students in the SU make it years worth of growth right because if we're anything lower than 100% making one years worth of growth then that means that kids are falling off the back and we know hearing the science data however you measure that kids who fall off the back don't do as well and at the end of the day our job as a public education system is to keep people from falling off the back of the path so that's a simple we don't have to get into the howlers but that's a pretty clear goal that we can set for the SU and then we can probably do something similar for some of these other things I don't know what it was about these ones yeah yeah so I was just going to say it's really nice one is that you know I really appreciate the goals like everybody has said I appreciate the goals the most exciting part for me is that I know that everybody understands that there's an urgency to get math on its way so to me what is most important is where are we right now so that we're managing for the present but we're leading for the future so you know and I'm not I don't have any expertise in how we get that so I have all the faith in the leadership team and the administrators that are being working on this and I also we want to say that I think we need to bring a little more because you know from things that I that I hear from students like my daughter has a couple of friends that are in India right now and they're getting basically killing math you know like I graduated 30 years ago from a third world country in our math standard like we never took the math tests from the US because they were the expectation was so little so I think we all know that we can that we can do that so we part from that and then last and and her me said is that our quality as much as I want math and I understand that we're going to have to give up some things that you know math needs to be taught in 60 minutes and all that is that let's not forget the experience that that student has to try to reach that so if we're truly talking about personalized learning that 60 minute might look different for a lot of students that might need to do math in a different way so I'm not trying to do it but I think that to me it would be a mistake to completely get rid of music so I just want to present something that I think Scott was pointing to which is just that I feel this push toward math and I feel the urgency of it and I know it's super important and that university literacy is a fundamental it feels like the conversation is like we need these kids to go to elementary school and learn math and literacy all day long so I just want to make sure that yes there will have to be some change in time where we're going to have to shift things but we're teaching the whole child the child is learning so many important fundamental things including university literacy through activities that don't have the title of literacy or math on them and I just want to make sure that I think Bill knows that's super important that we're looking at it in a more holistic way just to keep bringing that into the conversation what I really think we need to focus on is you mentioned Jen that you looked in your meeting at research what works in math instruction what are the teaching practices that have proved effective what is the time that you see at different age levels how long can a kid actually sit and do a certain activity which is ready to learn because if a student is not comfortable and relaxed and open and their mind is not there and open they will not learn anything no matter what the teacher is doing so to me that's you're working on all this professional development because as so many people have said the fundamental chemistry in the classroom is that teacher with those kids with their little minds wide open ready to do math and excited about it and when Bill talks about making math fun and exciting and important and valuable to me it's not a theater performance that's something totally different but yeah it's something you're excited to go to school and do with your peers and do with your teacher because your teacher makes you feel good and comfortable and successful and you're getting something from it every day even if one kid's getting a little bit and someone else is getting a lot and the kids are helping each other with what they've learned so I think just I think you guys are doing great work with the professional development, the coaching but I have heard all of you say that there are teachers who are not there yet or it's not consistent across our schools that there's still more growth more work to be done so I'm really excited to see that work happening I don't think it needs to be that we said we become STEM schools or something we just wanted to take this back to our our mission right we defined all the various things that we think are important for students including other academic areas and transferable skills but what we're wrestling with is where did math literacy fall in the priority ranking I want to go back to Allison's first question because I think it's really important to point out that we do have very specific targets in this school and it is one of the strengths of it and it's very clear what we're really looking at is the column it's the June percentage of student proficient and you can see it for each school you can see an average for the SU 71% so that in the last column the number of percentage of students is making at least one year's growth this is what we're saying if we get reports in the next summer and we can see that we meant those targets we'll be able to celebrate we want to do something else regardless we're going to learn from that and we're going to build on that and take it to the next level I don't think we'll be satisfied with 71% I'm going to try to sum up in time so Bill in your description of the process that your leadership team went through you talked about resources so what additional resources did you folks think about and think unique in order to meet these goals so we're actually pretty leery not to take a direct answer on that Chris so we said to the executive committee I said that we had sat and made a plan for this that we haven't worked with our teachers on this and I know that some of the board executive committee board members pushed back on that I said well without a plan why would we go forward with it one of the things that we have had as a plan in our work and we talked about this over the years is the increase in our number of instructional coaches one of the things that we know we've learned Jen talked about our instructional coaching capacity and she and Alicia have been really leading this for us is that our coaches need to be building based because coaching doesn't happen on a schedule coaching happens more on when I need you and the staff member has to be willing to do that we're doing a hybrid of folks together we're going to do a lot of intensive PD on what it means to be a coach and we're going to be able to add some coaching services through federal grants and through the budget the last year's budget and it's included in this year's budget is one FTA of a coach we take money from title two A as well as we have some in the buildings and some of the building school-wide programs that Donnie has one that's there as well the other place that I express to the committee that is tenuous is our curriculum camp our curriculum camp is paid forward by federal funds we know about a year in advance if we have those funds so we know for this summer all our professional development that basically runs for teachers that isn't tied to faster agreement is coming through federal programs grants and those are getting smaller our curriculum camp costs us about $60,000 a year to run our coaches are about $80,000 a piece if we were to lose our federal funds we'll be losing those positions and that our major resource if I think like a business all our research and development is being fed by federal money outside of the two hours on Wednesdays that we were in BD is there a sense of when you might have a clear idea of a plan to build these goals so I don't have an actual date we haven't had that discussion as a team what we need to do to get out and have these discussions with our staffs I'm just looking to the futures in terms of budgetary issues right, so if I were thinking in budgetary and I wanted to go down that road thinking off the cuff right now so I just don't know exactly what it would be because I wanted to talk to my whole team is to say we need to have a way to look at what's already going on in Wednesday professional development what can we put on hold what discussions can we have with the staff how can we ensure that all staff get the professional development then talk about the lab school I can't tell you that all teachers of math have gone through that lab school so we have to figure out how we require and what time is that so and it's talking with our teachers not everybody needs the same type of professional development so the method they receive it and not everyone needs the same content so we kind of have to do that I think that's a long way of saying I think it would take us probably six months or next year to get into that level where we have everyone partaking building the plan as I reflected at the beginning of this one of my big learnings in Washington Central over the past six years if not everybody's involved it makes it much harder to do so in doing that it's going slow to go faster later two seconds, okay I understand I just wanted to know if you had a feeling for how the math pilot is going for those of you that don't remember that piece is we're piloting new programs to support so it's basically new resources to support instruction a lot of people get confused that a math program new set of textbooks is your curriculum there isn't a pilot that's going to have probably more than probably 70% thanks for that I want to make sure I was in the right place of what the curriculum calls for teachers are going to implement it's hard to do that we think we're going to have something for elementary and middle highs a year off so we have groups of teachers across the supervisory and elementary middle and high school who are engaged in the math program pilot right now we have piloted one program in elementary school and are looking at the likelihood of piloting two more we've done the math the budget math we know that we can afford whichever one we decide is most aligned to our effective practices the middle school is piloting a program right now and now pilot at least one more and in math a high school level we've looked at two and we just started looking at a third program as well there are, as you can imagine advantages and disadvantages to every program that's out there and what we want to do is make sure that we are making recommendations that are best aligned to our effective practices in mathematics and that we continue to develop our teacher's knowledge and skill professionally in addition to looking at a program as a resource because those two things do go hand in hand okay thanks it is growing late and we have a whole other several other things that our agenda is still to do so I guess I want to try to suggest a possible way forward from this conversation so we could put the slide back up that has the four recommendations from the school quality committee so the first thing that I want to say is that at least in my opinion the first three recommendations here don't appear to be highly controversial so we are basically saying we want to adopt a set of math learning goals that the staff has already worked collaboratively together to set themselves for this year so just doing the worst to adopt those goals the second is to require comparable goals for literacy in the current school year which I understand creates some work for the whole team but seems in line with the first goal and sort of hitting a couple of our top priorities the third I think follows from the first two we want the data to be gathered and analyzed and assessed and discussed coming out of that process so those three things don't seem controversial they also seem beneficial it's sort of the goals that the the math and structure and the literacy team have set together it's the first time that's really been done so you've got all the staff now looking at data considering it thinking about sort of how to move students from one place to another over the course of a year all of that is really valuable and those three things reinforce that so I would hope that it's on our agenda that we would basically approve or commend these goals going forward I think that if we had a motion for each of those three things we can discuss and probably vote on them the fourth one I think is obviously more complicated because, and it says this at the memo although we didn't quite talk about it in these terms the fourth one really requires that the board be able to express what its priorities are so if we're going to ask the leadership team to go work with the staff to develop a three to five year plan for significantly improving student outcomes they know what targets we're asking them to develop that plan too I know I have personal sort of thoughts on this I heard Ruben sort of throw out 100% you know students are achieving one year's road each year you know I've suggested a goal in the past that's 80% of kids are proficient in math and literacy through tier one instruction that sort of addresses a little bit of the scope we were talking about it sort of emphasizes that the teachers are bare amount in this our staff professionally and investing in that but I also so I think that coming up with those priorities is important I don't think we're going to do that tonight I would kind of ask the SU board maybe you know tacitly charge the executive committee the school quality committee with coming back in a specific one in January to discuss and to you know further any more specifics the the thing that I wanted to say I think you've done a wonderful job Matthew yeah get him off the hook just quickly I read that four bullet slightly differently just that not that we will tonight create proposals but that from the reflection of the third bullet the team will at the end of this one that's true although a couple things this meeting hasn't been stated as clearly tonight as it was at the executive committee meeting but I felt I felt the leadership team was really sort of putting the question back to the board about priorities I think it's more myself saying to the board and I would say leadership team in some of our discussions when things you know we get very much discussions so you make tough decisions I would like to have a clear mistake in the board's what your priorities are and I know I've heard from some folks like hey no we said this I need the boards or board to say these are our priorities and I want to commend them they've done a good job when it came to interventions they said you can look at anything else but don't touch interventions what are your priorities and let me try to remember what I was going to say now thankfully I'm going to try to illustrate this point with a couple of specific examples so one thing that was sort of calculated let's say that we find that we actually need a longer school day there's no way for us to fit in all of the sort of elements of education that are required to kind of raise our proficiency scores that much higher while we're lengthening the school day to have an hour cost a million dollars because that's just a cost like the staff running the facilities you know so we're going to put everything on the table and look at the entire system and examine every variable if we want to put a literacy and math coach in every building at least one you know if we want to make sure that all of our math teachers are certified to a certain degree can demonstrate themselves from an education standpoint proficiency as instructors so that we know they're able to use those techniques in the classroom we want to invest in a sort of top position on training and professional development exercise at that level you know that's a that's a governance challenge, it's an management challenge it's a negotiations challenge it's a budget challenge so we all have to know what our priorities are so that when the inevitable pushback comes whether it's from you know staff would feel uncomfortable whether it's from community members who say hey what's going on here why aren't we doing this as much as we used to do it now we're doing less or from taxpayers and they say why are we spending this money on all this stuff like what are you even talking about we all know why we're having that conversation what to say how to sort of move through those conversations so that's why this board this priority setting exercise is not cosmetic you know it literally is a critical step in this process of goal setting and strategic planning for the system just on that note I'm Kyle Davis from middle sex because it has real-world impacts in the schools I think it's really important to have these conversations with community members and parents as well and with all teachers I don't know if you all made spoke with math and literacy teachers or if you spoke with music and PE teachers everyone else could be affected if things get prioritized and there's actually immediate middle sex tomorrow about this exact issue and big changes that were made to our school this year that increased math time to 75 minutes and all the negative impacts that can have on the rest of the curriculum and the whole child experience all this stuff and Katie was talking about it so I think it's a bigger conversation that shouldn't involve community members as well and parents yeah I agree I heard Bill say 17 times probably now that they haven't had a chance to talk to the staff and they have to talk to the staff all the staff and engage in this process and I think that's why the goal my understanding from attending the school is that the reason the fourth goal has the date ended up September 2019 it's just a recognition of that it's going to take a long time to do that kind of engagement well and broadly enough so my suggestion would be you know we look for emotions for the three bullets we get to the action and then for the four of what we come back to unless there's someone that has a brilliant other performance yeah I'm totally the pain here I get the performance goal but I don't see a set of math goals I still don't know what we're improving I only see performance I mean I see all sorts of other ideas and things we should audit our report card data but those aren't any clear goals the goal is to reach this whole set of goals so it's just this it's just the performance the first goal is just so it's not a set of warning goals it's this one performance goal well it's a set because it's by school and it's also across the entire that's why it's called a set totally but if that's what it is then where did I go got it okay well let's move on to 3.4 which is reports from the act 46 some committees the debt subcommittee to go first thank you the debt subcommittee met weekly when it was appointed last week that's on page 21 we struggled to we struggled to find consensus on many levels both proposals that might and also just consensus on why we were there and the future of the supervisor union many many many things but the report is on page 21 and if you've read it and I think you're to yourself why I really don't see any concrete consensus proposals that emerged from the committee I think you're reading it correctly we did brainstorm enough proposals I don't know that any of them are new except for the first one which is a new legislative idea initiative that's being looked at so I'll leave it at that I risk getting into sort of my personal opinion about the proposals if I discuss them much further because I did review the report I just want to stress that every one of the recommendations in here requires legislative action that's the crucial point that's the crucial point that's accurate yes I just want to be sure is that the point you wanted to make that was the point I wanted to make no matter how feeble no matter how limited it requires legislative action some of them are legislative proposals that would affect the whole state the first one is a legislative proposal but it would be special legislation for our unified district normally so it is legislative but it is specific to Washington Central is there anyone who can talk about why proposal one the vision legislative action would be limited to our supervisory team rather than potentially have a statewide impact is it because it's too late for so many SUs or new districts well proposal one is a proposal that is being looked at and developed by a representative of the council so that's an answer right there that's why all they relate to our supervisory I suppose more specifically we seem to be fairly unique in our in our challenge here about death and I'm not aware of any other communities or legislators who are interested in pushing same or similar legislation in their communities and what it is just to summarize it's the unified district before every year when the tax rate is set there would be an analysis to determine the effect of the debt from the high debt towns on the tax rate and that would be that effect would be phased in over a period of years I think I think the proposal right now is five years but that was just a number that was thrown out and so for example Worcester in year one would face an increase of one fifth of the total amount that would be phased as a result of the debt in year one in the unified district second year would be two fifths and then gradually would be up to the rate has set in every other district in this case I just want to say that we've done many committee members did a great job we were headed to Scotland and there is no real latitude we couldn't come out with alternatives it's a simple solution I've decided to go into it again it's a simple mathematical solution to get equity in this it's not allowed over the long you can't I think the other solutions if anything they are just intended like the phased solution maybe the towns that are hurt like this might recover 10% of the inequity which I don't call fair that's what we really had our hands tied it's just another problem with the whole consolidation legislation around this I find all of the options not very acceptable I think calculating that dollar inequity is fairly simple and it's also this thing you can get to being fair but not allowed so what do we advise the board to do I don't know all I would say is fight because it's certainly inequity and ultimately it hurts all five towns it's going to be divisive it's a very divisive issue and there's going to be no way out of that I think we've tried divisive for the last three years there are no circumstances the time for digging in our heels and trying to fight city hall is over I think it's been clearly shown that the legislature has the power to do this is going to do this has done this and it's done at this point I want to say I really appreciate that I really appreciate the analysis of proposals there was clearly a lot of thought that went into this and there was a lot of thought that went into the pros and cons that were very and they were very very present and at the bottom line we're in the corner we're where we are as a district we were the law of the district we're at 46 so the legislature making a carbon for us is somewhere in whether or not it's going to happen and I think frankly I find it incredibly frustrating personally that we've spun our wheels for three years trying to we could have spent the last three years doing something much more constructive which I just find incredibly frustrating but the bottom line is that we're here so I think the time is here for us to accept the reality of the situation and move forward as a cohesive whole and stop trying to find angles that are not so before we had that conversation I'd like to just try to address the report from the debt committee I do have a suggestion for the group which is that I think the articles committee is going to continue to operate assuming this board is in charge there will be a committee I assume set up by the district board as a vision to draft and recommend articles of agreement for voters to vote on so we're going to have to have further discussion about this meeting about these different recommendations and what get anything we can do with article 5 so what I suggest is rather than try to sit through the various proposals which I know Scott will tell you he's been dealing with for years already it's endless amounts of discussion and thinking that spilled so rather than try to get to that tonight that whatever committee is finalizing draft articles of agreement be charge of figuring out what is going to be in article 5 and call on the advice of the debt committee and work off of this document which is greatly appreciated there's probably not a lot of constructive purpose to try to discuss it much more I just have one statement so one of the things I struggle with and that's going to have to do with income sensitivity because I think it's really going to be part of the thing to know until it happens because I think the number was 76% of our 76% of our community is income sensitized so that's a huge part of the community that probably won't be available and so just for one that's almost something I struggle with when you're I have to dispel this myth because it's been uttered for 20 years and it's long when your school spending goes up for whatever reason even under income sensitivity your tax bill will go up it goes up the same proportion as your school spending for people that's going up so people are not protected in the sense that the tax increase because they're now in the case of my town, children a higher expense those of us who are income sensitized will pay more the only time there is a cap and you can't have to pay more is if you're very low income and you fall under what used to be called the rebate program started back in the 1970s and if that that program I think you're the percentage at 5% of your income up to $52,000 that can go to both school and town taxes well it started at 47 I think it was increased just the other year so it's somewhere between 47 and 52 that's the only time where if school spending goes up you're not going to have to pay that's, I don't think very many people in this room affected by that that's pretty low income but for the rest of us most of us who are income sensitized our tax bill will go up if per pupil spending goes up okay, does anybody else have any comments or want to suggest something although when I put on the table I get a sense of way to go forward in this which is that it's part of drafting the articles of the recommendation to ultimately the voters yeah, well just one more comment while the whole board is together out there in a community that's quite big drafting and that's the only reason why I bring it up it's Ruben mentioned that the chances of some sort of special legislation for Washington Central is slim and I don't know what the chances of that is all I know is what Representative Ansel told me which is I don't think that she's willing to push anything like this in less all five towns I guess that means this board is a hot board for them so I'll just, the conversation is how would she know that how would she know if everyone is well, that's a good question that's why I said presumably this board I guess that I guess it starts with this board I guess we'd have to know what the proposal is before we get evaluated and actually you know state representation absent that are those committee so the maybe has been once a week and we're going to have full day meeting on Friday to try to finalize we created a priority field focus within a priority level of the articles of agreement and believe it or not we have four articles left and we created a priority sort of hot to you know, cold to hot and we've been that at the end of the course which is the most controversial for all of us but we are really proud of and I just wanted to thank everybody in the committee because we've done a lot of work and it hasn't been completely easy and we have had a lot of questions so what I wanted to share with you guys today is that we have a final draft of the articles of agreement from a donor from the agency there were a couple of things just to bring to your attention that have been changed one is in article 9 that for the transitional board we can now as long as the board that is appointing members to that board they can appoint two members regardless of if it's the chair or the clerk assuming that's what that board wants to do so that's just a point of clarification then the other the other thing that I wanted to point out is that the articles that we have worked so far we have sent a draft to Chris and we're hoping to get something back by Thursday if possible but to have something on Friday that we would be doing a second meeting and then working on just the final four articles and anything that we wanted to add to the search course that is all sounds pretty easy but with that also we have to we're waiting for Dona to send us some information on a guidance of how to best work in warning and doing all the requirements that we have so we have as you know on the 30th we were unified and we have 30 to 40 days to do that warning they're working on like a little cheat sheet for all of the districts so that there's no questions no one how best to go about this really best for the way that I can myself as a CNN to me the most important word that is small to many because we are not representing everybody yet because we're not the transitional board is we would pass this articles to the transitional board as a recommendation we have done all this work this is where we are so it's something more tangible that they can work with and hopefully we can be they'll have done a quick timeline for us and hopefully we could possibly vote in this articles the January February looking at the outside like this I have so for you and I have a chance to talk since last week so the past two days I've been working on this quite a bit and I don't know if you want me to go here now Matthew or not about so that I'm charged by the AOE to warn a meeting of the district of which means the whole five towns to have a district meeting to bring together the transition board to be able to get it so that there's a vote on articles before February break and the articles committee agreed should happen before the break so I actually looked at the Tuesday February 19th I believe I'm going to I'm doing some of this from memory so don't poke me on it that's the Tuesday before thanks we have to warn it 30 to 40 days before then so we really need to have articles by the 18th of January done and so to do that we need the transition board working before then so we would need to I need to probably warn tomorrow and I want to get through tonight warn of district meeting for the first somewhere between the third of January and the 10th of January I would like to get it as close to the first of January as possible so then we can see the transition board and have the transition board be able to quickly put together a representative group it has to be 706 like it doesn't have to be 706 exact that's what the articles say which is different than what Act 49 says I know there's some debate there but I think it's fine to be like and then after the warning for those articles there are public meetings that happen so people can learn about the articles we have all that checklist you said and I talked on my day and I have she sent it I just have that we've been conferring on all the these that need to have so our hope is that I guess Friday we charge ourselves that we come out of that meeting so we have schedule at 8.30 to 4 and then we come out of that meeting done with that recommendation so I don't know if there's any questions just a couple of clarifying points on the timeline I think one is that as I read the law it's actually the existing boards or districts that are being merged that was set up this committee to work on that I also if I read the law correctly that committee is required to have a public hearing on the draft articles actually before they would get warned for a vote that would have to happen also sometimes but in any case it's a pretty neck kind of pace essentially to try to get everything lined up and done in time so there are a couple of actions there's at least one action number one is that I thought the original charge for the articles committee actually expired today so I wanted to ask the board to renew that charge of the committee to keep working and then I also wanted this board to recommend an active charge to the district boards for their meeting in December about establishing the formal Act 49 section D Act 1 committee so that would be on the action then also so if there are folks here that are joined the board meeting to talk about Act 26 and you have something you'd like to say this would be the time offer you a minute to kind of weigh in if you don't that's fine too thanks reports to the board executive committee we've mostly covered already so we'll move to financial reports for the automated fund balances what we've done in the past was to outline why we have the fund balances we have when they were established in the end of the year historical perspective of how the fund balance was any questions to the board regarding this board hearing none sorry John I was just wondering if you could talk about the increase in fund balance in some of these categories and what the rationale is for allowances to grow originally you want me to start at the top the operating fund balance was established in 1995 it was originally intended to have a 5% balance of our operating budget speaking to that we are currently at the 5% the board has reduced the target most of the boards are using a 4% target why did it increase in the past year from 213,000 to 304,000 because the board intentionally reserved about 100,000 items that we used this year so it's actually about a 204,000 special ed fund balance that was closed several years ago I've just left it here for no purposes the next one is the office equipment and technology fund and you will see the growth there for the financial system there's an increase of 100,000 in that fund that's where I've been the last few days working with the state on transitioning to the statewide financial system and it isn't free there will be expenses in staffing and in other costs for programming to link some of their systems to what we have and then the building capital fund that we have been working on that maintaining it and increasing it for future needs for instance our mechanical systems we've been in that office since 2009 so our building is over time we're trying to do what other schools are which is to have a capital fund that we don't have to on both in order to maintain and the last one is the administrative physical agency fund balance and that is decreasing over time we expect it to be spent by the end of this year and that is for us to do the work for community connection is that missing anything? we met on Monday but we didn't have a quorum and we were to work on our charge we took a little attempt at it and sent it out and there's not agreement upon the charge so we don't have a charge to present what we're really dealing with questions? let's call the committee I think we have something else thanks for the SBA it's been a long meeting but one thing is that there is a training tomorrow I sent it to the Articles Committee in case they want to join their sale of time that there's training for how to write articles of agreement tomorrow from 6 to 7 it's a webinar you can take it anywhere you are so if you're interested just go to the SBA website and you can sign in and then the other thing I wanted to share with you is that we just had our meeting on November 14 and that's the meeting when we started here with new members and when we elected our executive committee and we reflect in our priorities that there were solutions so if we also, Lucas and myself are your representatives so if you have any questions or if you have any ideas please use their resources that the SBA has we pay membership to the SBA and the SBA is pretty effective in working with all the partners working with this bridge and association working with the IOD and helping, you know, lead education in Vermont I think that's I have to say for now if there's any questions please free to to ask not a question but just negotiations is on the annotated agenda but not on this one Chani would you like to report on negotiations? So the negotiations team is in the process of negotiating a one-year contract and we've met twice to negotiate we have adopted ground rules we're using interest-based bargaining which is a consensus-based process for negotiating contractual agreements we have taken up the issue of how the contract addresses time, professional collaboration and duties and we have made decisions about how we're going to meet going forward I want to just note for this board that we will not have completed negotiations at the point when these transitions start to happen around the board structure and there will need to be some decision-making made and I don't know what entity or entities will have the authority to make decisions about potentially one option may be delegating the task of completing the negotiations process to a group of people who may become community volunteers but that's something that should probably be considered for an agenda item at whatever point is practical to do so I don't have a proposal for when or where that should happen because I honestly don't know that's common at the very least it seems possible and likely that we would just appoint representatives who are negotiating now to serve in that capacity whatever board is responsible for that would do that but it's a little bit difficult to speculate it seems to me like the most likely outcome does anybody have any comments about the administration board of page 33 for the packet nobody's got one they're already in a lob into the circle here I'm going to assume there aren't any at the ready here okay we have a motion actually we're going to take off the table the motion is repeated Peter and second by Chani and it was to recommend to the transitional tradition board the approval of the U.S.S.U. 2019 to 2020 budget totaling $9,287,455 assessed by equalized pupils that is the motion is there any discussion yes Scott since we're in this very strange kind of shorting or cat situation where we're both alive and dead at the same time I wonder if I could suggest an amendment not just for this one but for all the way through just a hedge and the amendment would begin approve for the supervisor union and member districts and recommend to the transition board of the merged district I mean as everybody knows there's a lawsuit that will at some point emerge and who knows how that will play into all of this but it seems to me the more economical we can be in our decision making so that we to the extent that we can anticipate what happens we've got the basis for the lines of the world lines covered um it might just be practically speaking useful okay right it's your motion being heard so so I think Scott what I heard you say is to um what? a friendly amendment would you take that as a friendly amendment? yes I'm just trying to make sure that I caught the wording of it myself yeah so um to how about to recommend for approval uh and to the transitional transition board something like that? well it was basically to approve for to approve for the supervisor union and member districts just in case that is where we find ourselves and another one for two yeah we don't know how to structure a motion so that it becomes viable in the case of like you know eventualities but so I adjusted the Scott not to be caught on the microphone but actually thinking about it for a minute that Robert was going in this grade right now um because Robert's rules are supposed to be clear directions with motions and having two options within a motion is not in the spirit I would have to go look at Robert's rules on that I think you could have different motions to do both and have a motion that in the event of whichever way you wanted the other one to take care of you but I think having a motion that's the spirit of Robert's rules is not to be ambiguous with your motions is not to have a second motion to be effective rather than trying to include a competitive first one whatever works okay we could hear that I would suggest that we improve the budget I don't really think we have to direct it at a transition committee I personally won't vote for this budget if it is directed at a transition committee that's not legal and it's challenged in court with very good legal backing and I am an elected official from the town of Calis and by God I am not going to vote or approve anything that basically relinquishes control of their what I consider to be their property and their ownership and so this I went down on the record and I would like I would say we approve the budget if that transition committee ultimately ends up having authority then they can take the budget that we created and use it but I personally won't relinquish that to them okay we do have a motion on the table to that effect we can make other motions as we just discussed we met with other contingencies but at the moment the motion is to recommend so are there any other comments or discussion about that motion no I think that the discussion and Scott correct me if I'm wrong was that if we wanted to approve the budget or have that language approve the budget that we would do that in a second motion which I imagine would be forthcoming surely is that right whatever works so all those in favor of approving this motion to recommend to the transition for the approval of the WCSU 2019-2020 budget in the amount specified please signify by saying aye pose no abstentions the ayes appear to have it motion carries entertain another motion on this topic if there's interest to make one Scott a motion to approve the supervisory the WCSU operating budget okay so a motion to approve the WCSU 2019-2020 budget totaling $9,287,000 $5 is that right that's good to me alright is there a second are all seconds discussion of this motion the question for the process and legal people at the table is there any contradiction between the two motions or any reason we couldn't approve both of them the motions are the motions are but the interest is separate legal entities and legal entities in the longer in existence and it has no effect alright would it be helpful to add the phrase in the event of a forced merger just so that someone reading these two motions side by side with no other context if I have no objection so that's in the form of a friendly amendment I guess and Scott you have no objection so we're going to add a clause at the beginning in the event that a forced merger is not realized is not going to pass sorry okay so in favor of this motion in the event that a forced merger is not going to pass approving the WCSU budget and the amounts specified please signify by saying hi opposed abstentions motion carries thank you we need to also recommend reserving the audited fund balances motion board is on here seems like you may have a similar issue come up with this one I have the motion language here as a standard that's not used in the past so if somebody is supposed to be here it's interesting I move to recommend a motion to recommend holding any audited fund balances as of June 30th 2019 in reserve funds to be expended under the control and direction of the Washington Central District WCSD for the purposes of operating I would just point out that this there's no wording in this in this motion that specifies the transition or not so it seems to be applicable in all cases is there any discussion of this motion sorry Matthew I couldn't hear it can you just repeat it sure the motion is to recommend holding any audited fund balances as of June 30th 2019 in reserve funds to be expended under the control and direction of the Washington Central School District for the purposes of operating the school district so this motion only goes to the supervisory union fund balances is that right as opposed to individual town fund balances individual schools for fund balances I believe it has to be a fund balances track yes why don't we look at it there's no further discussion all is in favor of approving the motion to be submitted saying hi opposed extensionist thank you 5.3 is recommend approving the policy community charge to the transition board because there isn't one fair enough so we'll table that one I guess 5.4 is recommend approving the school quality committee recommendation for a two-wide goal related to student learning which is not a fault so yeah I don't know if you'd be interested to make a motion to this whatever way you feel is appropriate so I'll move then we adopt the first three recommendations for the school quality community comment on the second thank you is there a discussion of that so we're moving to recommend adoption of these for the local board or are we adopting that as a broad based policy that applies across the board it's a good question Chris what I would say is that this motion is for the SU boards it's at the SU level I would personally recommend the district boards actually put them on their agenda and take their meetings as well if there is no further discussion all those in favor of approving the motion please signify by saying hi post motion carries thank you extending the charge of the articles committee WSU articles committee so they can continue so we can continue our work yes hopefully not forever but for a little while so does anybody have a motion to make on this I guess I'm thinking that extending the existence of the I don't know extending the commission of the articles committee until sometime in January I guess yeah just to be safe so care to make a motion that we extend the article the charge of the articles committee through January through January yeah so whatever transitional board WSU 31st we have to warn them if we have why should you do it through the 31st is there a second to that motion floor thank you any discussion of that discussion all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying hi post extensions we also need to I think recommend to the district boards that they establish an act 49 committee and charge it and appoint members I wrote a motion for this I'll read it out I have a tendency to over complicate motions but I was trying to reflect the languages in act 49 itself about the creation of this committee and what it should do and also take into account the timeline so the motion reads this way the WSU board recommends the WSU district boards that they approve the creation of a committee as specified in act 49 section 10 subsection D paragraph 1 to draft articles of agreement for the new union district to be formed by the merger of the WSU forming districts under the law state board of education statewide plan issued on November 28th 2018 set committee to be charged one to hold at least one public hearing to consider and take comments on the draft articles of agreement honored before January X 2019 to communicate draft articles of agreement to the new union district transition board and the WSU district boards by January X 2019 dates to be filled in the committee will comprise six voting members each WSU district board to appoint one member it's a long moment somebody wants to move it we can do that you just have to put in dates one member that's the transition board we're talking about a committee that would be charged with drafting articles of agreement for possible consideration by voters at a public meeting in February that's separate than the transition board no sort of it's a good question so the committee envisioned in act 49 the language was clear could not be created until the state board created like issued in statewide planning so it's only now that they've done that that we can actually formally create that committee and the current committee is supposed to be formed in the same manner as a 706B committee which is formed by the constituent districts not by the SU board so we created the articles of committee that has been worked just to be doing the work along the way until we have the opportunity to formally establish this other committee I know that's incredibly confusing yes is the make up of the current articles committee does it pass is it similar to this act 49 committee I would say taking no language from before it is likely enough it is likely enough the current committee so my next question is could we just call this committee the act 49 committee and we could have an action as required by the district understood I understand there's some legal complexity but I'm wondering operationally if we can simplify yes I suggested to Matthew that we have one member in act 49 it's very strict to 706B articles that we received from the state board is alike and I said I would suggest because speed is up the essence right now that you keep the same six people at the table and let them do the work and that you just take a leap of faith and say it's those six we're going to do one from each board each district and they do the work I think that the commissioning in charge of the committee by the district board is a formality because we've already done it collectively but it's a necessary formality that's kind of how I would describe it can I move the recommendation as you read it if you give me dates you can so we have to hold a public hearing before January I didn't know what the day was because I had been a chance to for January yeah so while Bill is checking the timeline and such under future agenda I have educational priorities which we're going to come back to in January are there any other items that you will want to catch on? negotiations negotiations specifically representation I think we should have a placeholder for that it may be that this board is not I don't know where actually needs to be taken but it would be nice to have a placeholder for delegating that work make a motion that the existing negotiations committee be recommended to I'm not nearly as prepared as Matthew we ought to make a formal recommendation tonight I believe that the transition board doesn't have the authority to negotiate on behalf of the new union district board so in a way they can't appoint members to negotiations until they've been seated which we don't know when that's going to be yet March seems likely but it happens that way but I think we can hold on to making the recommendation until January I don't think the hearing the hearing and the report to the local board by the 19th of January because on your motion that's why I came over to make sure how it's an honor before which is perfect we needed the last date that we can do a 30 day warning to meet the February timeline is the 19th so even maybe one day more so the 18th is the best last day so that's the last date a warning can go up so we'll put January 18th into those dates people would like me to read the motion again I can please do the WCSU board recommends to the WCSU district board that they approve the creation of a committee SMSified in act 49 section 10 subsection D paragraph 1 to draft articles of agreement with the new union district to be formed by the merger WCSU forming districts under the Vermont State Board of Education statewide plan issued on November 28th 2018 said committee to be charged one to hold at least one public hearing to consider and take comments on the draft articles of agreement on or before January 18th 2019 and two to communicate draft articles of agreement to the new union district transition board and the WCSU district boards by January 18th 2019 committee will comprise six voting members each to the WCSU district board to appoint one member I will give you the wording on that I'll move the recommendation as read is there a second room in thank you is there any more discussion of this motion all those in favor of the motion please signify by saying aye aye motion carries thank you are there any board comments or board communication yes Carrie first and then over to thanks I wish I had thought of this earlier but I think it's high time that we come up with something to say about actually six to the five pounds I'm thinking probably of the best to lead it to the articles committee because they're going to have a timeline I think that's really a clear definitive statement and a timeline so people know what to expect and express that through front porch forum and any other channels okay the articles committee can take that up on Friday yeah I just want to comment thank you one thing I've been thinking a lot about over really several years is we talk about equity and we talk about the importance of meeting kids where they are and that's all to the good and I'm 100% in support of that but one thing that I can't seem to get over is knowing that in Vermont and we know this that essentially one in five kids in the state are facing poverty and are facing serious hunger issues so one of the things that I would really love to see both this board and then as we barrel towards consolidation the transition board and then the later board consider is thinking about having breakfast and lunches that essentially families and kids directly won't have to pay for those things that yes the cost gets the frayed we're going to be spending a lot of money on a new track here at U32 you know the priorities we talk about priorities well one of the priorities ought to be in my opinion any kid that comes to school that wants to have breakfast should have breakfast and then wants to have lunch can have lunch no matter their income I think that's something that's really important I think that's a statement we can make for everybody in the district and in the state and in the country let's feed our kids first and when we talk about kids being prepared to learn they're not sitting in the classroom hungry to me that's frankly unconscionable and we can do something about that and it's expensive and I get it thank you so we can put an item on the agenda food security that's the educational priorities okay thanks for your patience the meeting is not getting shorter we're trying so the meeting is adjourned at 7.58