 Very happy to introduce Jamie, and Jamie is a resident of South Royalden and also was a staff member at South Royalden. Currently teaches, sorry, is a principal at Williamstown for seven years. Five years in the elementary and then the last two he added on the high school as well, 7 through 12. And he now consults Cross Vermont on the multi-tier system of support, which is a system to help incorporate all students learning. And I think what did you say, nine supervisor unions? Nineteen. Okay, nineteen supervisor unions across the state. After that I'm going to let him do the talking because he's better at telling about himself than I. So there's there's three new faces that haven't really in here that haven't really heard kind of the why? Well, like why did I apply to White River Valley? And then specifically what do I see the role as the superintendent? Because I think that can be different from superintendent to superintendent. So I just thought I'd start there and then open it up to questions. Does that sound okay? So the why is I've been at Williamstown for seven years, as was said, and I've done some work the last year and a half in the supervisor union office there. And be able to get a great deal of training, which I've been, I feel really fortunate to have had. And so with that I started to recognize this idea of how much I enjoy system level work. And that had led me about three years ago to start doing work through the higher ed collaborative. And now the Vermont Principles Association in partnership with the higher ed collaborative consulting work in s use around this idea of distributed leadership. And how do you utilize distributed leadership to make a comprehensive system of supports a multi tiered system of supports is what we call it. In regards to ensuring all students have what they need to reach their greatest potential, specifically around high quality universal instruction that meets 80 to 85% of our students needs. And then targeted intervention and eventually which would be small, small group, but prescriptive intervention and eventually intensive intervention for students who may need a more intensive one to one prescribed intervention, both either social emotional or academic. And so going through that work. I realize how much I truly do enjoy this idea of creating a comprehensive system that brings folks together for common ends. But also recognizing what I found is as I was doing work in s use that folks felt like that meant they could they would lose their identity as schools, because we also had this thing called act 46 that required us to merge. And so what I've seen is is folks have been I think a bit more resistant almost around centralized work at the s u level sense that because they're worried about losing local control. And so my work started to become more about how do you differentiate what is s u level work versus school level work and how do we work together to make sure we're still meeting s u level goals, which are ends for all students, but also make certain that schools feel like they haven't lost their identity. And so with that this position opened up and I did a lot of wrestling originally about whether or not I was going to apply to this position. And I finally came down to that why I was wrestling with it was less about me personally and more about my staff and students and community in Williamstown. And so what I decided was is that I would regret this 10 years from now if I didn't pursue this opportunity. I was born and raised here in South Royalton. I've worked in four different schools here within the s u in different ways and done some consulting work here with some schools here in this s u and felt like the work that has happened in the foundation that's been laid has set this place up for great success. So I think the time's ripe. I feel like I have the skills to work with the team that we have in place and to empower educators to continue to do good work and to work with the board so that we can really meet our strategic plan and mission and vision because there's a really good plan laid out. I think part of it is we need to reflect back on the plan do some revisions to the plan potentially maybe narrow our focus for a little bit continue to find some wins like there's been a huge literacy initiative that's taken place. And as I was in school today all I heard is how proud folks were about that. But that was a hyper focused initiative and there was a lot of professional learning provided to it and support and so how do we learn from that to continue to leverage change. And that's what excites me about the position so that is the why the role of the superintendent I sort of got to a bit I think it is about how do you work with the community with students with teachers and administration to make the job of an educator easier but also to meet those goals. And by meeting those goals it's ensuring that we have the right professional learning ensuring that we have the right resources for teachers to put in front of kids and how do we do that in an efficient way and cost effective way. And I think that that's really at the heart of the role of the superintendent as well as ensuring that we all are headed down to the same end. And that takes continued conversation and relationship building and refocus right it's it's no different than it in the classroom this idea of the cycle of assessment. Right like a formative to a summative but a summative turns into an informative because it informs future instruction we don't say the student didn't learn it so we stopped teaching it. Right just because it was a summative it's the same thing with the whole school system. It's all right we got this plan how are we assessing the plan how we revise in the plan and keeping the focus on the plan. And you know one of the ways I'd like to do that is by getting the focus on how are we measuring student success. I think there's lots of means to do it but I think we need to develop what are those means and that's what we need to share and celebrate the other thing. I feel like I'm strong at is how do you have a proactive dialogue with the community. I think there's things happening in every one of these schools that we should be incredibly proud of. I live right in South Royalton I'm in the education community. I saw a bunch of things today I had no idea was happening. I mean I think it behooves us to celebrate that and get that out there so that we're not reacting to the conversation but it's a proactive conversation that we're saying look at all the things we're offering students. And then eventually that results in us attracting young families which I think is really important for us for sustainability. So that's a bit about me and I totally would take any questions. You talked about the social emotional piece and I know that you have done some collaboration in Williamstown. Knowing that there's trauma based kids and we're having more and more problems I work in South Royalton so I see it a lot. I also do special ed so I see another side of it. Is there some kind of goal to get some kind of program similar to what you have established in Williamstown along with and I don't know all the specifics of the names. But to get more counselors and to get more help for these kids so that we can provide them security so that they can have a learning environment. Is that something that you see happening within these schools? I heard it's a desire and I think there's pockets of some schools trying some things but I think we got to create some type of outcome based plan at the SU level that says all right. Part of creating a multi tier system of support is having a strong universal system for social emotional learning. And I think schools can decide what that looks like. I don't think we have to be prescriptive about what you're going to do but you have to. Yeah, there you go. We're already implementing that. I know Bethel has been doing that for quite a long time. We have seen some results in South Royalton. But I see where there's even one need. The kind of staff to help these kids. That's what's a little challenging at times. I think you do two things at once. You build universal understanding around how do you become a therapeutic school around social emotional. And what I mean by that is part of being trauma informed is how do you build resiliency in students. We're not going to stop trauma. Because they leave our buildings. But what I think we can do is build resilient learners. And what we know about that is relationship building. But in addition I think teachers need tools of how to take care of themselves. Right, because compassion fatigues the thing. And every day I got to bring my best, especially folks on the front lines. And so you do that through self-regulation strategies around mindfulness. I think you do it through responsive classroom and common approach to instruction around social emotional. I think you do it by, I've seen a lot of success in Garcia and Winner's work around social cognition. It's a lot of practices that I think you already have in place in your restorative classrooms. That should be happening universally. But that's going to take time. But I think you start with one initiative. And by initiative, that word is sort of sometimes looked down upon in education. But it really is an initiative. It's saying just like literacy, this is going to be a hyper focus for us over the next three years. And we're not going to take our eye off it. And so I think what we've got to say is universally what's going to be the common approach? Like what are our expectations for students? Are they clear and posted? Are we all acknowledging students on them? So some common practices that way. And then in addition to teachers feeling like they have the tools to help the students start to identify when they're dysregulated. And then once you start to identify you're dysregulated, you're building this toolkit for teachers and students to be able to access. But what it can't be is just one person is the social-emotional teacher. We all have to be. And that's what I mean by universal, like everyone. So like when we teach a social-emotional lesson, my school teaches the social-emotional lesson too. Because it's just important for them to understand what it means when a student's in the yellow zone as it is for me. Or my school secretary. Or, you know, my fifth grade math teacher. And so you do that over time. But I think it's that focusing on universal. While though, you got to put some band-aids on things. And what I mean by that is you got to have some interventions, right? Because we got some students who are struggling. And they're trying to escape classrooms. And so what type of behavior plans could you put in place to better reinforce either attention-seeking behaviors or stop escape behaviors? Because the function of most kids' behaviors at elementary are those two things. They either want attention or they want to escape. And so we got to figure out that the band-aid to me is let's put the behavior plan in place and execute it with fidelity. And oh, it has to be done with fidelity. Or otherwise, we're not going to know if it works. And then meanwhile though, we're trying to give kids tools. And those tools over time is going to be what makes the difference. But that takes time. Yeah. But that takes time, you know? So you do get to have these other tools to keep kids in the classroom so they're learning because that's the other issue too, right? If kids' students learn how to escape, then what that becomes is now we have such an achievement gap for students, then of course they want to escape. And it becomes a reinforced behavior, right? So I escape because I don't feel like I know what's going on because I've escaped the last three years. So actually, I feel safe in my building now, but I don't want to be in the classroom because I feel like I don't know what's going on instructionally. And so that's the other thing, right? So the more we can keep kids in early intervention, continue to fill academic gaps, then the more successful we'll have. So that's the universal, like, education for all staff. Yeah, not just teachers. All staff. So like any time we do an initiative, it's all. So when we do mindfulness, all staff. When we do social cognition, all staff. You know, funding is always an issue with that. And so that's, you know, it's hard to be able to... Well, you know, I've said earlier, like, funding is an issue until you realize what efficiencies can you find to reinvest, right? So I'm sure that we are putting some interventions and supports in for students that if universally we all have better tools that we wouldn't need those, like really intensive supports that can cost the upwards of $60,000, $70,000, potentially, that could be reinvested in professional learning. And so I'm all about not let's cut things and to cut it. It's about what efficiencies can we find to then reinvest back into the system. And when you start to do that, what you start to find is you reinvest back into all kids and not just 10 or 15% of kids. But up front, you've got to be willing to say, all right, we've got to make some tough decisions because we've got to invest in this. I was going to say that I told you this earlier when you came into the classroom. This is the most excited, energetic faculty I've ever worked with in my entire career, having been at several schools. And hearing you talk about this, we actually have a group of people that get together with the person at the front desk, health teachers, our PBIS person, and other teachers who come and volunteer to meet on Thursday to talk about how we can do this exact thing. We're doing a book study and we do this on our own. And we have several groups like that that work on, identity as a middle school that work on, developing middle-grade institute programs that we want to go and study. And we're just incredibly excited and energetic. And one of the things that we're very curious about, I'm very curious about in looking at New Superintendent, is how can you support that enthusiasm and what does it look like? And then also, I'm just curious, what is something initiative that you are very excited or energetic about? Thanks. So I think the best thing the superintendent can do is celebrate successes and make certain people feel a true sense of accomplishment and acknowledgement. And so I think that's important. And I think if you model that, that trickles down, and then we all start doing it. And also making certain that teachers and principals and staff feel safe to take responsible risks. Because I want folks to be creative and to push the envelopes in a responsible way. But status quo we don't get better with. And so I think that that's something that a superintendent can do and empower folks to understand that change really does come from the bottom up. I believe that. And so that there's a system for distributed leadership that folks realize that they can make decisions around consensus and really look as long as those align to their continuous improvement plans, that they can go and work on that and that they'll be supported in it. And so that's what I mean about buildings having identities in regards to if a building is really passionate about something, they should pilot that. As long as it goes back to the SU goals, not the tasks but the overall overarching goals and the strategic plan, then more power to buildings to do that because we can learn from each other. The thing that I think most excites me is this idea of creating a system of supports that supports kids early on and makes certain all kids reach their greatest potential. That is not a sprint, it's a marathon. But the idea that if we do early intervention with fidelity that we could see students who often were classified with specific learning disabilities not be, that's really exciting to me. That also has to do with universal instruction too. And I also get excited about teachers who feel really confident in their craft and in their content and that they feel excited to come to work. This job is way too hard in education not to feel excited to come to work. And I'm a big believer that principals are the keepers of climate in their buildings and I think that the superintendent is the keeper of climate across the SU. And so I think that there's a lot to be done around how do you measure your effectiveness around how excited students and teachers are to come to school. Many of us get into teaching because we love kids. I say many of us, I don't know if everyone loves kids but certainly I expect everyone here to love kids because they like being at school. There's so many things that hit our plates every day that make the job tough that can take away from that and so how we fill in our buckets and that is I want to come to work the next day. I appreciate you saying that. I feel like we've been through a lot of changes recently for sure whether it was the merger, you know, principals and now of course with the superintendent and stuff but I'd really like to see someone who can come in and do what you're saying, Bruce Murrell. I think we have some amazing teachers, some great staff. I'm speaking specifically to White River Valley but I just love, I want teachers to be excited to be there and the staff to be excited to be there because I think overall the students have really merged pretty well but I'd just like to see a boost of morale for everybody. I think we need that right now. Thank you. It's just so critical. Don't worry. And you can feel it when you're in a school. It doesn't take long. I did a brief introduction before and so I'm Jamie Kinnerney. I'm the candidate for the superintendent and now we're just kind of into an informal question and answer and then if no one has questions I actually have some questions for state coders that are here but do you have any questions, specific questions? You actually answered those. That is why I'm in the business. Nice to meet you. I didn't really get into the elementary end today at the Southerland School. Yeah, it was a busy day today. I'm feeling all right. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good. I want to add one more point under that enthusiasm part and then hearing what you're talking about I'm really appreciating actually a lot of what you're talking about so far but just this idea of enthusiasm with teachers you know the very first day that we started and one of the reasons I decided to come work here is oh and you know he would say I think kids know this and they believe this and I think teachers live it that he wants to make this the best school in North America and I'm not sure if you've met with old or not but we have so many school meetings where he talks about that and believes it and we believe it and it's enough to where we believe it and we want to see that carry up you know all the way through the top that it's not just about being in good school it's about being the best school and I think that's what inspires so many of us to give even more and it does lead to exhaustion and you know we love our vacations and our breaks but it's really important to us that that's the mentality that's leading us Yeah I think it's critical and I think it's then critical how are we communicating that out like I said I saw so many great things today and you have so many things going on that I don't think the community necessarily knows I'm a community member right now and I didn't know it and I'm an education and so I think we got to look at how we're doing that to celebrate the work we're doing because I think there's really good work happening Do you have any other questions? Are you sure? Alright Do you think it's um I think that one of the biggest struggles that I find as a parent and as someone who's working with the kids is the time that they're with us we have somewhat control over but the time after that and as a parent you know I mean I have a son that's here in the middle school I sometimes feel foreign to the middle school because I'm so involved in the elementary over in South Wilton but is there a way to like you can't make the parents come it's not like you know feel the dreams you build it they will come kind of thing but I think more education for the families and the parents is something that really could be utilized to be able to be able to connect with the community a little bit more and so that those parents feel a little bit more connected I mean I saw um I didn't know but Alicia Henford is teaching a math class for parents tonight and I think that's amazing I had no idea about that kind of thing so like that the idea of getting that word out in the community and getting that idea that these parents can be able to help their children a little bit more with their math or not feel so inferior to social studies whatever they're learning about do you think that there can be something done for their parents? Yeah I've been you know we leverage social media a great deal right now when I'm out in Williamstown we'll get like sometimes we get 10,000 hits a week at the elementary school and so that's a lot yeah it is if for a little school as you share it out yeah that's a lot and so you know one of the things that we've started thinking about is we've done informational nights and we've posted them on Facebook and so what we started doing is videotaping them like tonight and posting them on social media and some folks will utilize that the other thing that we started talking about that we haven't launched yet but I think it makes some sense is there's a real captive audience at sporting events and you know I've done coffees with the principals and things of that nature and a few folks come not many but how do we leverage captive audiences to then say it's not an additional thing parents are busy too right and so how do we make ease of access to get that information I think it's through technology but I also think it's saying hey by the way you're here for X let us quickly talk to you about what we're doing in social emotional talk to you about what yellow green red and blue zones mean for social cognition right and you could do that in five minutes at least give a blip and oh if you want to learn more here's a handout and here's an upcoming info night or something like that and so I think there's ways to leverage already captive audiences in order to get the information out how do you see growing the breadth of programs that the schools offer given how tight budgets are and how much of a challenge it is to sort of create programming in that environment so I think you start by saying alright where do we have efficiencies or can we increase revenues or expenses so I'll just give you an example at the Williamstown High School two years ago I had I had 50 kids leaving my campus approximately to go to the tech center alone because I have 2-2 Berry Tech and Randolph Tech we started surveying students and meeting with students saying why are you leaving our campus because when students leave revenue leaves with them and so what we learned was is they just wanted more experiential learning it wasn't a specific program and so what we said is as a faculty and with students because student voice is important in this process what is it that we can build that you'll feel really interested in and so we built something called a sustainability strand that's going to meet two and a half days a week it's got three teachers in it an English teacher an biology teacher an experiential learning teacher and the idea is and we've got a greenhouse and we built the infrastructure around a pole barn and we're going to have goats and we're going to milk goats and we're going to make cheese and soap and we're going to have the greenhouse is going to raise fresh produce and we're going to have tilapia and the idea for these students is they're going to give back to their community now that's just one project some of the students want to do ag some of the other students have ideas around sustainability but what that resulted in right now I currently only have two students signed up to go to tech center next year from my current 10th grade so that is 13 students on average that I'm bringing back that I can reinvest in my building I didn't raise the budget to do what I just said right I just we got more efficient with the schedule and I was able to add a full time environmental education teacher that was part time prior but those 13 students more than paid for that and then I could take the rest of that what was before was revenue going out and reinvest in other programs and so I think you got to look at what are those points of entry that you can then project to say there will be enough savings here to pay for what we want to build and you know my sense is across the SU I'm sure that we can find some of those so any other questions if not I have a question I'm just really interested in learning what stakeholders are looking for so what is it that they're looking for in their superintendent and then what would they like the superintendent to prioritize I just think that's really important you know you start to narrow in what are the priorities over the first 100 days I think I need to hear from all stakeholders about what those are to make an informed decision I think it's important I mean she kind of touched on it a little bit but to continue to offer enough opportunities for students and not just one type of student but all students to keep them interested wanting to learn and to make sure we're supporting them and directing them so when they graduate they're able to go on and do whatever it is I don't know if that definitely has to do with the personalized learning plan I know they're doing that some but I don't know if everyone is doing that with a whole SU or not but I definitely like to see a focus on that and with the budget you know right now my concern is we're going to release some of these opportunities and with the merger we were you know that was one of the selling points was we can have all these opportunities for students and I do think we did definitely gain some but then I start hearing and we have to cut some so that definitely concerns me so I'm hoping to retain some up with more what you talked about what you're doing I mean that's awesome keep kids here and not have them going to VAS or a tech center but we have to make sure we have those opportunities available to students and I think you're right about the community I mean it's a big deal it's not a community aspect but I mean growing up I didn't grow up far from here but I grew up in a school where we had opportunities for the VAS program to go to college for our senior year and I strongly waved that as something we were going to do I was going to do and I didn't do it because I felt so connected to the school and so I think being able to build that is huge build that within the school and build that outside of the school that's a big piece for me which is big I think for me working at this school having a relationship with the staff being seen listening and being able to I like your idea that it comes from the bottom up that we don't feel that we're so separate I think that is a huge importance and I've heard that from other staff and teachers that I have talked to I think that's an important point I think our SU is unique because some of the schools have choice and some don't and in an ideal world I would love to see some type of event where people come together from all the schools in the SU so that it's hard for us because we have a high school and we would love for those students from the other towns in the SU to come to us and I think that's probably building up what we offer at our school in the events and stuff but I would love to see some type of unification with the schools in that SU I don't necessarily feel that either and I'd like to see that happen the familiar faces I mean there's people that for five minutes on the road in another town sharing that I'm like where's your camera supposed to be they were like well maybe we did that for it and I'm like wow I totally thought we were going to see yeah I like when it's like an extended family these are the people I mean I grew up in South Brooklyn so these are the parents of I went to school thinking playing against them in basketball I think of somebody from Chelsea specifically and I just we've always kept in touch and then now she's so far distant because they're going the other side of the map trying those kids and extending that community not just South Brooklyn the whole SU does that have everybody together I think a hyper focus on you know us looking at what we have to offer here at White River for sustainability for this district in regards to promoting that to the other choice towns is important and it needs to not just be at high school it needs to be at middle school a bunch of K6's that are making decisions come seventh grade there's a lot of them and so absolutely I think that needs to be a focus and that needs to be a focus that doesn't just benefit this district that benefits other districts because we're seeing tuition rates increase rapidly across the state so if we can keep a decent tuition rate here at White River district that will benefit other sending towns within the SU I want to add a total agreement with what Carrie is saying just being a teacher here if there are initiatives I really like the ones coming from us and being supported in that you know I always think about right now we're doing an integrated core but we've been able to add on to our schedule where we teach classes that don't fall into a core subject so we've done their own interests so Hannah got going how to play the ukulele that's what she wanted to learn in her own and with that we taught all about the brain and how people learn and isn't that right now we're doing one on a book by a Vermont author called Benefits of Being an Octopus and all the kids get a copy of the book and really enjoy it, we talk about it we have great discussions but it's hard for any teacher when you're getting someone else's lesson and teach those with enthusiasm first you don't really know it too well or it's not something you're excited about or energized by so I hope that with any initiatives that you come down because it happens in every district initiatives come down from the district and you're in charge of doing these things but it's hard, it's not just because you don't care you don't always understand the reason behind it sometimes it really just doesn't make sense other times it's maybe not in your wheelhouse you don't have a lot of the conversation so I would love to see the central office in here and not to like you've been in all these years teaching not to just have meetings for the sake of meetings but to have real authentic maybe coming to our spaces where the poor teachers are as opposed to having every teacher in one space where it's really easy to be it's distracted or whatever else you have so many other things in your mind but coming and having those conversations at our tables where we meet and have conversations to really help us to understand and feel excited about it process, ask questions and feel confident and like you said I think that makes it way more efficient as far as making a program successful so I hope that with anything that is coming district down or SU in is brought in on a smaller scale to have those authentic conversations before implementing anything and I think one of the things that why I think your literacy has been so successful that launch is that it's provided with professional learning and constant feedback, right? there's a feedback and so anything that we were going to do system-wide like that would require that type of embedded coaching you know it can't be a two-day in-service and say we're good it needs constant feedback in focus utilize your in-service I mean in all honesty beginning of the in-service we're required to go as peris but it didn't pertain to us it didn't pertain to what we're doing and so I think that like sometimes breaking it down a little bit further so giving me the tool to do my job better not just I'm here for my day I want to learn I want to be able to reach these children but I need more tools to do that so utilizing those days that we have for the training pertaining to specifics been really beneficial with Barry Allen giving us opportunity to work as a middle school up break down even more and decide what is important for us to be working on developing and that's allowed us to do really amazing things so we've been able to work with Scott Thompson from the Carrington Institute each time we have an in-service and I felt like that's made for every middle school teacher made it feel like it's a lot more of a productive use of our time than the time that happens when we're all sitting on the bleachers watching something and you start to wonder about how beneficial are you so we're thankful Anything else? Good luck Are you excited? No I will say this and I've said it a few times as I've toured the SU today I was unbelievably impressed with the work that's happening and so that's exciting I think if I'm selected to be the superintendent the work starts sooner rather than later and I'm excited about that and know that I go in this with eyes wide open there's a great deal work to do and that this position is very vast in the sense of it's a large SU it hits three counties there's ten towns there's eight schools and there's seven boards and so with that I am all about how do you build an efficient team that helps get the work done Jamie doesn't think he's going to do all the work now possible not to do it well and so know that I'm going to be looking at to utilize folks strengths and that may mean folks doing some things right now that they're not even doing potentially as we get down the line to best utilize strengths of the folks we have to get the work done and so know that I do go in this eyes wide open understanding it's a big position it's not going to get anything done and that it has to be a we and it has to be a team you want anything else? thank you guys