 started. Welcome everybody to our retreat and community forum. We're gonna start first by just giving you an update. Jill is not able to join us today. Diane is wearing a few minutes late where she is gonna try to join us. She was she had too much at school today. And Vera won't be able to join us today. She has some family things. So let's get started with the board retreat. And I'm going to pass this on to Jen. Alright, so thank you everybody. It's nice to see you all. Our hope today is that we can take some time to take stock of where we are right now relative to your board goals and central office capacity, and and what's you know, what's relevant in the community and refer back to our implementation plan. And just to craft a plan for you all some next steps in terms of moving your board goals forward. In order to do that, we're going to use a protocol that was in your packet called the ping pong protocol. And I have adapted it for our use in a few ways. I've shortened some of the sections so that we can do it in 75 minutes. I have created a document to support you in terms of some note taking, which will end up being part of our public minutes. And and I have asked you all to to the extent possible to engage in some homework. And I'm going to share that with you in just a minute. So the first thing again is this protocol is going to allow us to engage in what I hope is a substantive discussion where all voices are heard. I think you know from me in the past that using protocols is a way to I believe to build equity. And we have a range of experience in the space right now, from folks who've been veteran board members for a long time to some brand new folks. And we want to make sure that we're hearing from all of them. And I guess the other thing I would say that's highlighted in this particular protocol is that it's going to work best if we enter it with a spirit of openness and in generosity and know that we're going to do what we can do and that by the end, we will have some conversations about next steps informed by the work that you do. And we may not completely finish every single next step. It'll be a launching point for the next discussion. What questions you have about the protocol before we begin? Okay. And the next thing I'm going to say is that I'm doing my very best to facilitate this via Zoom. It's clearly not ideal. So just bear with me as I toggle back and forth a little bit between sharing my screen and putting some links in the in the in the chat for you to reference. So the first thing again, you have your board polls, you had that draft calendar in your packet, we PDF the implementation or court at the steering committee's request, I drafted a memo for you regarding my opinions about current capacity at central office and asked you to the extent possible to just do some homework and do some reflection. I'm going to share my screen with you and show that to you. So I gave you this link in the chat just a minute ago here. Here are the raw results. If you are somebody who prefers to see them this way, what I want to share with you though right now is this. These are the responses and I think it's a nice way to see in the summary view what is going on so far. So of the 14 of you, eight of you were able to respond prior to tonight that in itself I would consider a data point right so consider that. I intentionally asked some scaling questions. This is a tenant of the instructional coaching work that we've been doing in this district and a tenant of positive psychology to really think about scaling on a scale of one to 10 one being not near the goal 10 being fully realized where are we and then we would ask why are and why are we a 3 and not lower right to generate some hope and optimism. So you can see on this particular question related to the community engagement goal of the eight of you who were able to complete this work in advance our range is from 3 to 6. The next question is why I asked why you gave it that goal and again you can see these answers. They're also available in that link. So I'm going to give you a minute to look at this particular work just so you have a framework for solving, you know, engaging in this conversation in a few minutes about where we are. I'm going to move it along and just give you a quiet moment or two on your own to look at this in a minute, but I want to show you the summary again for your the second goal right now on long term planning same kind of scaling question and you can see what the responses are. So between a 2 and a 6 and again why answers ranging from just what you've been dealing with in terms of the pandemic what we've all been dealing with to newness on the board. Last board goal right here educational and academic outcomes also a pretty wide range here. Folks are rating this anywhere from a 2 so sort of just beginning to a 7 more than halfway done realizing this goal. Again those responses and then I asked you to just consider the strategic objectives. So the first one on clear learning targets and that's where you were on that one that range right now. There's your raw data and number 2 comprehensive and balanced assessment system. There's the range and then number 3 high quality instruction and intervention and the why and then I just asked anyone else have anything else that you wanted to share what was on your minds. So you have that information again in this format right now I'm going to stop sharing. The first thing in this protocol that we're going to do is just given that information and your view I'm going to ask you to just do some writing for about 5 minutes I'll keep track on my stopwatch for you and and just to think about from your perspective what's going on with with our goals right now given what you've read in advance and what you're going to look at right now jot down what what are some of the issues that are surfacing and how might it inform your next steps after you've shared that done that silent writing we're going to share the reflections we're going to divide you into 2 groups actually in order to do that so that you can have some more substantial discussion and then we'll come back and do some probing questions I will give you more information about each of those parts as we get to it for right now I would invite you to look at that data quietly and do some writing again and from your point of view you write about the current situation relative to where you as a board are with your goals and if you prefer to turn your video off during this time to do a little bit of writing that's fine I'll let you know I'll give you about a 30 second warning and invite you to put your video back on and and then we'll do some more talking got it okay again this is Steve I don't got it where do we write thanks Steve you can just jot some notes to yourself for right now we're going to share your bullet points in a google doc that I've created for you but um we'll do that in just a few minutes so just on your own good question all right so if you haven't fully gotten your thoughts together that is perfectly okay I'd invite you to show your video again and I want to talk through the next part of this protocol in your board packet is the hard copy of the protocol or you know you have it online we're currently on step three the protocol is on page eight of your board packets this is um sharing their reflections and so we are going to divide into the two small groups we've divided you I've created those groups just based on um trying to make you in a mixed group across experience and time and town all of those things and what you're going to do is um each person is going to have an opportunity to share their responses if you've written in prose you can just read what you wrote if you wrote in bullet points you can share those things as well but what we want to do is um two things one we want to make sure to capture your thinking and so I put in the chat a google doc right now you all have editing rights so as you're speaking or as someone else is speaking let capture a few key bullet points and we want to make sure that before the next person speaks that anybody in your small group has the opportunity to ask clarifying questions clarifying questions are a question of fact right now so um so any clarifying then make sure that everybody has a turn we have about 15 minutes for this part so again I'm going to set my timer mark is going to put us in breakout groups in just a minute I will toggle back and forth between your breakout groups to make sure that um you are if there are any questions that you have about how this is working I can answer them for you before we go into those breakout groups what questions you have about this next step Jen Jen do you want us to write our own sorry yeah I mean I think Harry that might maybe um let me think about that I think each group decide if you can quickly decide oh someone will type for you so that you can speak that would be great and if it if it works better for you to type your bullet points you do it yourself okay not it what we'll do after we've shared because we're in two groups we're going to come back together we're going to share some quick highlights give each other the opportunity to see that google doc and then we'll segue to the next part which is really where we have the opportunity to ask each other some probing questions about what's written this is just sort of the sharing and the clarifying okay again I'm going to keep track um we have about 15 minutes for this if I notice that everybody seems to be done I'm going to pull us back together a little early and mark it is okay to send everybody to their breakout groups right now so go ahead and join group one or group two so Jen it sounds like they're going to be taking notes so there's nothing for me to do at this point to capture or yeah Lisa I think um if you wanted to join a group to facilitate the note-taking process I'm sure they'd love it you want to do that where's the document oh I see that in the chat I'm going to assign you to group two they have more people okay this is the way the attendance worked all right welcome back everybody um I was trying to monitor on the paper car I'm a little worried about you getting to share or not did you have that opportunity or not yet no I didn't but I can put my comments in the chat uh can you put them in that document is that okay in the document yeah perfect so you know the one thing we had two groups and um and that I think for the sake of time that is what made sense but I also want to make sure that you all have the opportunity to see the comments of the other group before we go into um into the questions so I'm going to tell you about the questions so that you know what's next before you take a couple minutes to read what your fellow board members wrote so we're going to spend um up to 20 minutes probably a little bit shorter than that having the chance to ask probing questions of each other I put in the board packet on page nine that pocket guide to probing questions probing questions are questions of substance and actually on page 10 you can see that there are some possible probing questions stem so uh wanting to know more about why somebody is thinking what they were saying or what's your intuition or your hunch about this or how do you feel about this or what what are your you know what most excites you about this or what might you um be afraid of regarding something like that and we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to um to ask each member of the board probing questions so I'm going to ask that we pay attention to that in a minute as you're reading the um questions not only what what you might ask and probe about but also I'll try to keep track of who has been asked a probing question or not in the hope that at least everybody gets asked one does that make sense okay so I will um I'm going to share my screen with you again and um and I will put the link to the doc in case you all want to see it again so give me a minute and again just take a about two minutes let me get to that again and this is that document and read what um your colleagues have said and again as you're doing that I'm going to just move this view and put this in the chat one more time for you which I think so many things open I'm going to stop sharing you've got it I'm going to put it in the chat for those who need it one more time so again you are reading your colleagues writing you are wondering about probing questions and you are maintaining a stance of curiosity and generosity I'm going to check in in about a minute and when you feel like you have had a chance to look that over and you have at least a few probing questions for your colleagues can I see a thumb up please and keep it up while I can give it just another 30 seconds or so to everyone's feeling ready all right so I will um again open this up and invite you to ask each other some probing questions again on page 10 of your packet you've got some probing questions stems and I'll keep track of who's asked the question and who's been asked the question and I'm just going to ask that we give everybody the chance to ask a question before we ask the second question and monitor yourselves in the hope that we get everybody you know I ask everyone a question I'm going to set my timer for 15 minutes and we'll see how it goes who would like to start and ask somebody else their first question I see Jonas uh Stephen um when you talk about um you said the board needs to make very clear expectations of how to measure outcomes um and how to hold administrators responsible if outcomes are not met um I I hear that can you expand on that I'd love I'd like to know more about what you how how we can set expectations for how outcomes are measured you know I the the data that because I agree with you the data that we've received and the way that the whole board because I'm not I haven't done ed quality but the way that the whole board has reviewed that has been kind of cursory so Stephen I'd just love to hear you talk about that more I'll talk about it in simplistic terms and and this isn't the examples I use aren't meaningful examples I'm just trying to pick some off the top of my head but for instance we want um math scores by a certain measure whatever that measure is um to improve by five percent that's an example it would have to be expanded a little bit you know what's the time frame that it's encompassing so so it it it needs to be better understood but to me that's a clear thing we want a five percent improvement in this area and this is how we're going to measure it and we want it done by this time and if that's not reached people are going to be held accountable cut and dry yeah to me it's the you know it's it's the how do we reach that metric right is it all math scores go up five percent is it that you know some statistical measure of you know below a mean score is is raised it getting to that metric I think is is is the the sticky part for me I don't disagree but I don't know if it's a term Jen's heard but if you don't measure it it doesn't exist so if if you're not measuring it it doesn't exist it's not a goal it's just an aspiration so it has to be very clear this is our expectation and if the staff I'm not just talking administrators if the staff doesn't reach that goal then there's going to have to be an accounting of that why didn't that happen and the board has to be willing to be fine thank you so that's our first round of q and a probing question answer who would like to ask the next question Chris I see your hand and who would you like to ask it of Chris you're on mute I want to follow up with Stephen and you see can you tell us what accountability might look like from the board perspective you are muted now so the same way that most educators are held responsible if if it's a if it's a if it's a lack of education then some mandated training to improve mandated and supported training to improve their ability to accomplish those outcomes but I think ultimately it's in contracts in contract renewals thank you another question someone ask it to someone other than Stephen Scott thanks Jen take a break Stephen this one is is for Chris I'm I'm just noticing that in the in the realm of community engagement at least the notes in your block seem to be focused more on internal engagement rather than that is internal within the district as opposed to externally with the the people we represent is that because you're less concerned about the latter part I think we have that under control better or just curious as to your the way you balance those out so just as a practice I don't usually take questions from Scott Thompson but this time but this time I will and Scott I don't think we're really focused on community engagement as much as governance issues in our block and having internal communication amongst all the different organizational aspects of of our organization I do think community engagement with our community outside of the organization is very important and I think that we would serve our goal of having more community engagement well by actually establishing calendar events for community engagement and either open-ended or on specific topics but actually get them on the calendar because if they're on the calendar we'll do them and for outreach for the out to our community kind of like we did with our board meetings I would like to see that we have community engagement at each of the schools one after the other but then also have a link there so that community members from the other towns not from that particular school could also engage so it's a broad based opportunity for the entire community to engage in that forum at that time and they could be based on a particular topic again or just open answering questions forums just creating that opportunity for our community to engage I think would be helpful thank you Chris Kari looks like your hand is raised I wanted to ask a question of Ursula not to put you on the spot Ursula but and this builds on the last topic I think you spoke about our engagement has been reactionary in large part which I tend to agree with and I'm wondering if you have some ideas or thoughts about what are the topics that we might raise with the community that would have more proactive engagement and if if you don't have any in mind do you have any examples of where you've seen success in either school or community endeavors where you can go out to the community and say hey we want to talk with you about this where it's been successful I cannot thank off the top of my head um times that I've seen success in getting community to come in to talk to you about something you want to talk about um I think sometimes there has to be like a predictive um aspect to something in that we as a board are looking at something something's coming up I would use a curriculum review because it's the most recent and it got a very large group of people to come to a meeting and that meeting was not the time to be able to take a large quantity of comments um is that if as a board we can look at some of the subjects and go do we think it's going to be you know a high topic item if it's going to cause concern within communities and then offer a public forum before like similar to tonight tonight we're doing a public forum meeting where we don't have a lot of business happening it's listening to the public come in and giving them that time and space to talk because they've you know the public has sort of stopped talked about not feeling like they have enough time to comment um at meetings but I also respect that you know the board has also said like we need to get stuff done which is true was that expanded enough great thank you who would like to ask the next question who has not asked me up floor and who would you like to ask it of it carry okay we have talked a lot about this in the past but in your I'm just going back to the document and you were saying in checking in more often right in as we set those those goals so I'm wondering as uh something that could be achievable even within where we are right now if last year we set some parameters as I'm just looking as we're going into budgeting uh just reviewing those parameters that we set as a board and and and seeing how they work if there's any way that there's some data available for us to see if those parameters were the right ones right we we achieved them by by creating a budget within those parameters but does putting those resources where we put them really helped I'm just wondering if that's something that falls within what you are thinking maybe I mean it is it is um sort of a systematic way of approaching the budgeting process which I'm definitely in favor of I think that when we think about budgets you know we we go in we set set the parameters we we come out the other end I think some reflection on the end about how that process went were the parameters we set the right ones how did it inform the budgeting process doing that at the end of the budgeting process we actually did that this last year at least the finance committee did and I thought that was good we might also want to start the next year cycle by doing that as sort of as you're suggesting and if there's any data that we can look at that could kind of set us up for a good budgeting process next I think that's related to my comment about board goals I was thinking about those three goals um I think when we set goals year-long goals we should really prioritize them in in terms of the time and effort that we spend on them you know people may or may not like this idea but I would sort of clear the decks and make make those goals the centerpiece of our meetings and our meeting agendas and maybe put the those three right at the or whatever they are right at the beginning it so we're the freshest and most focused and and we're checking in on them regularly at least monthlies and we can understand our progress and and new when new people come come on board they understand that these are the priorities I think we have opportunity to do better that way so I think those are related in terms of being systematic about what how we use our time great thank you who would like to ask the next question Chris I'm going to give someone else an opportunity first who has not mckaylin hi thank you um I just I had a question for Lindy um you mentioned in there kind of not being prepared um enough about the u32 time change question and the backlash um I'm wondering if you um had ideas for how that could have been avoided um in in similar situations in the future sure in our group we were talking about um communication and possibly board members participating not necessarily participating sitting in on other leadership meetings that we and what I was saying was that might have helped us be a little more informed except generally when we're getting a decision that some people considered a big change we've talked about it for at least a meeting or two before a decision and that time I think um it was the first we'd heard about it and in reflecting and what my comments were saying was um we trusted that it had been discussed it had been vetted and we voted and maybe that wasn't in our best interest and I think in some cases our agendas have been so packed that something like that comes up and it's added to the agenda and we may not have been giving it as much consideration as others felt we should have so it wasn't a very um it wasn't well received by some even though the decision may have been a very good decision um I felt afterwards when I saw some of the backlash that if we had said no we need more time or something we might have been accused of micromanaging because the leadership team had talked about so it was one of those and that comes back to the um being more informed about changes that affect a large population that we ultimately make the decision on and I have been very much um vocal about having the comments at the beginning of our meeting that would not have had anything to do though with public comments because it it was presented it was voted on but we have changed that and I'm very much in favor of that I don't know if that answers it or not but I just think having more information in advance and being more open with the public who attend our schools and their families thank you so I want to just do a time check everybody in a process check so that's been about 15 minutes we've asked six questions there are lots of you who have not had a chance to ask or answer a question yet and I'm looking at the clock so um I think this conversation is a robust one I'd like to err on the side of continuing this if that's okay with you what it means is that we'll sort of do a quick synopsis of next steps maybe around and then use that to continue later does that sound okay yes okay so um if you have had the opportunity to ask a question somebody who has not yet asked the question and again ideally ask someone who hasn't answered a question yet Steven, Chris, Ursula, Kari, and Lindy have all been asked questions so far so who'd like to go next Ursula do you have a question to ask yeah great um my question is for Jonas and I think it sort of ties into some things that Lindy just talked about um in the notes you talk about mutual trust between board members and district leadership and I was hoping you could maybe because I'm new I'm missing things but expand on that and I'm curious if you're talking some of what Lindy said like that boss time situation where they brought us information and the board voted um and maybe what you think could help so I when it comes to that situation I agree completely with what Lindy said right that I think that we made you know I think we made the right decision but I think we rushed it um and um you know I think that you know part of the community forum tonight is to try to to make that right um you know we were you know we were told in the meeting right that this may have you know an impact on some families right with a different drop-off time and it may cause some confusion but we'll work with everyone right and make sure everything will work out and um you know I think we I think we kind of hand waved away you know what sounds like it's a significant impact to some families um when I'm talking about the trust between board and leadership and I forget who else said this in uh in our group but like we the the leadership has to trust us that we will make the right decisions if we know the good and the bad right the the flow of information that that I've experienced has not usually included here's what I think we should do however here's the counter argument right here's the risk here's the downside here's what people may get upset about um which has left the board in the position of having to discover that itself um which seems kind of like you know it's like a hunt and pack like I'm not sure how to get that information so the I think the board needs to be trusted with with the good and the bad and the risk and we need that full scope of information and I think that only happens when there's mutual trust going both ways does that does that make sense okay thank you next question I'd like to ask it Lindy all right Jonathan you're on the hot seat now um when I was looking at the notes you mentioned the um upswing in public attendance at our meeting since we went to zoom so I was looking at the um prodding questions or the probing questions and I because you said for whatever reason I also have noticed it and I'm wondering and I'll use a couple of them so you can answer it whichever way what surprises you about that or um what are you afraid of by this public I don't know I just I'm curious about all of a sudden we were having meetings with 80 90 people at our meetings and we used to be surprised if we had one or two guests well I I think I think there's a few answers really uh I think again you know like I said earlier you know we're still swimming in COVID stew so part of it is that I think people were home they weren't going out so it was sort of uh didn't really have an option but it's also convenience you know people and I realize that internet connectivity in in the state is is spotty at best and certainly terrible for some people and not existing for others and pretty good for other people so it kind of depends but I think it's convenience I think people it was convenient for people to be able to check in they didn't have to get in their car and drive to the school to be at a meeting right they can listen to the meeting while they're working on preparing dinner or doing whatever they're doing so I think it's I think it's those couple of things and to think about it further too uh and it's good that people are are listening um because then they can hear what we're talking about and they can be better informed about what decisions we're making and what and what our thought process is as we work through some of these issues about governing the school and the district so I you know I tend to err on the side of you know more information is better so long as it's relevant information right and it's helpful to people um but but so so I think as we talk more about community engagement moving forward it really would make sense to me once we're out of COVID land and we're starting to meet hopefully again in person that we ought to have as a practice uh a remote option for people too some people are going to want to come and sit in the room other people are going to want to stay home and and and uh participate remotely and we should have that as a practice going forward thing thank you both uh let's see we've got Maggie Steven McKaylin Diane to ask questions and I suppose I don't want anyone to feel completely on the spot so if you don't have a burning probing question um if anybody else would like to ask a second question of but to somebody who has not answered a question yet let's give that opportunity and then we can move to the next part of the protocol so anyone have a question for somebody who has not yet been asked a question Chris Jen I don't have any probing questions at this point I feel like I'm really just digesting what I'm hearing from my peers here and um and I with the exception of the the common theme of these goals are not smart goals and so to me they strike me as more objectives than actual goals um and that's something that is you know a broad question for the whole board not an individual great thank you Maggie and that may well be part of what you're doing now uh in a minute which is when you synthesize that information and then think about next steps that could be something to throw out at that point thank you um let's looking at the time let's let's let one more question for now be asked and I think Chris you were the one to ask somebody who hasn't yet been asked and I was going to ask Scott to um identify um how we can I think in his in his comments he talked about the underlying systemic issues that can have impact on student achievement um if I'm remembering um and Scott if that is was part of your comment how would we go about identifying what those underlying systemic issues are and addressing them how is the board going to address them no how could the board address them well first of all um the systemic issues that I'm referring to um have to do with the um the really what I think is um desperate situation uh that the data show for um particularly for students on IEPs um but also the the systematic disadvantage that um free and reduced lunch students appear to be um suffering so what I essentially what I'm um looking at these students not looking at focusing on these students not so much um in order to take resources away from anybody else but but you know um essentially channeling the the great social justice energy that's in our system right now and turning it um turning that gaze inward on ourselves and looking at our more uh our systemically disadvantaged students as um remedying their situation as basically the condition for the possibility of all of our students um receiving um the best education we can give them um so that if we do um if we have the um you know the the skills the policies the systems the um you know essentially the organizational um infrastructure to remediate the um the the problems that our IEP students are facing those same that same structure will also carry along our students who are not on IEPs or 504s or in any special category um that this is um you know uh I think one of those paths through a crisis that will help us become better than we were before overall thank you thank you christen scott so the next thing that um that I want to do is just give you an opportunity to synthesize what you heard so again you just in you can do that in your head minds you can jot down some notes on a piece of paper this isn't something that publicly is going to be shared right the second but take about two minutes or so synthesize what you've heard with an eye toward a possible next step and um and again that next step conversation we're going to need to shorten a little bit um but if everybody can be prepared to share a next step that's on their mind I think that will give us a good start so about two minutes um just think about what you've heard and what you've read from each other and think about how that might inform next steps so one more minute all right so I'm gonna invite each of you to share a next step that's on your mind I'm gonna ask a couple of things one I'm gonna say that um if if you're not quite ready to share you may pass I'm gonna ask you to limit your response to one thing for the sake of time just to get us started um I'm looking at the time we set up a little bit of a buffer between now and the um and the community forum so I'm gonna sort of go into that time a little bit but still allow for a break for everyone to just get up and get reorganized and ready for the community forum but we'll go a little past 615 I think it's important to hear from everybody and I'm gonna call on you for the sake of efficiency and I'll let you know who's on deck so I'm gonna look for a volunteer to go first and share one next step okay so Stephen you're going first and by my order here I'm gonna say Jonas you're on deck be one proper smart measurable goal great thank you well my order just okay Jonas and then Jonathan you're on deck so I'm gonna I'm gonna make a preparatory statement that I formally sympathize with the board member unnamed who wrote that they have yet to meet a five-year plan that has not been a clunky soviet style device for creating the appearance of coordinated progress in the absence of its reality I have no idea who you are but I do agree with you um there seems to be a real consensus on the board that there is imperative to raise outcomes for students on IEPs and students from historically disadvantaged situations I would like to hear from the professional educators that work for the district what a what measurable goals you know are would be appropriate and achievable toward toward meeting that that absolute need great thank you Jonas Jonathan and then Lindy you're on deck yeah I would uh I would say that we continue our efforts to reach community members make ourselves and our decisions and priorities clear and available thank you Jonathan Lindy and then Scott um I would like us to investigate one meeting that is the nuts and bolts business type meeting a month and one that's focused on a goal or public forum type um and limit them from six to eight that doesn't increase the time per month just the two that because we were running three and four-hour meetings thank you Scott and then Maggie you're on mute Scott thank you um just to pick up on what others have alluded to I think the um it's a good idea to separate the um the current three goals the colored goals and have those be um just part of the board calendar as objectives or however we want to call them and then go with the smart goals that Stephen and um Maggie and others have been referring to that are Morris and Kai that are more sort of focused um time dependent situational thank you Maggie and then Chris okay uh in order to inform development of measurable goals um I would love to see a formal and concise brief survey for all stakeholders with multiple choice options and a free type field on two of the three goal areas defined right now communication with the community and educational and academic outcomes because I think that would be an easy way to hear from both educators administration and community members including the parents um and the students potentially as well because I think it'd be very difficult to come up with specific um uh approaches to meet those goals without hearing from all the stakeholders thank you Maggie Chris and then Diane so the next step for me would be to strengthen internal organizational trust communication and information flow thank you Chris Diane and then Ursula so two things one I think we need to connect with our building so not just our communities but also our buildings we need to figure out a way even in this COVID context of how we uh connect to the life that's going on in our buildings our school buildings and then also uh really taking a look at um all the ways that what are our successes and our failings um so there are a variety of reasons why kids are not accessing and able to progress we know the numbers and data around at least some of the data around our IEP kids but we're also failing a large other number of kids too and so taking a look at that and figuring out what what can we do differently thanks Diane Ursula and then Micaelyn um this laid in a few of mine have been taken but I'm gonna say um along the lines of supporting our students and our educational goals having some work between the education quality policy group or education quality committee and the policy committee to make upper policies that guide um curriculum and therefore hopefully educational outcomes thanks Ursula Micaelyn and then Thor um so I think one common theme is um the importance of building bridges so I would propose um like a monthly meet up in each town welcomed you know community members school staff teachers etc just an informal um opportunity to gather information thank you Thor and then Kari I have just one like really strict one like try to establish a board process to review and analyze student data on the proficiency in our student learning outcomes to inform that data to inform our align it with our budgeting process thank you and Kari thanks I'd like us to refine our board goals using the smart format and also being realistic about our capacity and the capacity of leadership team that's coming here thank you so we will consolidate all of this information and then I think probably um take it first to the steering committee would be my guest to see next what the next steps are in terms of moving all of this forward I hope that this protocol was one that you found helpful in terms of enough time to reflect and hear from each other and sort of synthesize and think next steps and so that ends this portion of the meeting Thor if you want to take it away yeah thank you first gen for for being an awesome facilitator I think you know obviously this would have been better in person and with more time but I think with all the constructions this is good for everybody it's six twenty almost we're going to take a 10 minute break so that you can be fresh to start the community engagement since we told them six thirty and at that point I I shared with you what our thoughts are on running community engagement and just be thinking about a very brief introduction of you know just who you are and not you know not going in depth because we want to hear from community but just the internet we're going to introduce each of you so the community starts to feel comfortable with their new board members and their old board members okay have a good 10 minute break and we'll see you right at six thirty thanks Jen that was great thank you yeah appreciate that that was well done okay six thirty it looks like we have about 46 people in the meeting including us so I think we have enough members of the public so we're gonna get started welcome to our first community engagement our first of many we hope the purpose of today's community engagement is to start building trust with our communities intentionally by engaging and collaborating with us by us I mean you know the school leaders you our community and school board members we want to hear different perspectives and this is just the beginning we want to have a non-going two-way process of building relationships and working collaborative to support all our students which is at the end why we all are here I I'm going to ask the board members to do a brief introduction and then community members and staff members as you speak please introduce yourselves when you ask questions the community member and just say you know who you are here for if you have a student it's great for us to put a face in which community you are from and get to know you so we have I have some norms that I'm hoping that we can just all listen to for this minute and see if I could get thumbs up from all of you in as we start this community engagement one please be fully present we're here to engage with you just be here for that respect other studies or other stories and perspectives assume best intentions recognize that we need each other to move any work forward so please listen to each other be kind and there's no wrong questions so please ask any question we are going to start with the with the introduction of the board members just briefly and then I'm going to pass it on to Jen so we can move on into COVID Jen and Steven and Maria so if I'm going to just call you by name to or actually I'm not going to call you by name I'm going to start because and then I'll stop talking and then Jen when all of the board members have introduced themselves please pick it up so we can we're here to listen to you and I want to minimize the time that we're talking so I'm Flora Diaz-Smith I live in East Montpelier and I'm the chair of the board it's nice I'm really happy to be here can somebody else jump without I'll jump I'm Lindy Johnson I live in East Montpelier I have two children who went through the system and I graduated this is Steve this is Steve look we'll get the East Montpelier people out of the way I live in East Montpelier hi my name is Chris McBain from Middlesex and I'm happy to be here and hope that you find this process engaging thanks hi I'm Ursula Stanley I am from Middlesex as well and I am new to the board and I have two kids currently in our system hi I'm Diane Nichols Fleming I'm from Berlin and I have two children who aren't children anymore and they graduated from the system I'm Jonas Eno Van Fleet ah Jonathan go ahead sorry Jonas Jonathan got her from Berlin I have three children that graduated from U32 as as well and I'm glad to be here and I look forward to hearing from everyone thank you I'm Jonas Eno Van Fleet I live in Worcester I have a fifth grader at Doty and next year we'll add a kindergarten to that mix I've been on the board since the district was created in June 2019 and I'm Nick Katelyn I'm the new board member from Worcester I am a Doty and U32 grad and I have a Kindergartener and fifth grader at Doty right now Maggie Weiss go for it Maggie East Callis Callis Town um former district um employee and I have one child who has been in the school system and one that is currently a freshman at U32 replaced dot nailer not replaced but um taken the position filled by her leaving and I'm the one who's so rudely interrupted Maggie Scott Thompson I too live in Callis um on the Callis Worcester frontier and my last child went through the system and graduated this past June hi I'm Cary Bradley I live in Callis with my wife Gabrielle and I have three children who are products of the system and I myself am a proud alumnus of Callis elementary in U32 awesome so thank you everybody I am Jen Miller I'm currently serving as the acting superintendent and the curriculum director and tonight there were two topics the first of which is COVID-19 so I want to share with you um quickly a few of the highlights regarding the mitigation strategies I want to make sure to introduce Maria Malekos our COVID-19 coordinator share a little bit about the East Montpelier situation because I know that some folks minds and then open it up for questions and concerns so earlier today we sent um we sent a few course letters of correspondence to the community we've sent another one again just reminding folks that we have multiple mitigation strategies um we are currently uh masking universally indoors we are encouraging all students and staff to stay home when sick we've done a lot of work over the years recently in our on our ventilation systems and so they are all functioning optimally right now and indeed we're sort of ahead of the game in that regard we are looking at vaccinations and encouraging vaccination we just had a clinic the other day at U32 we're promoting a hand hygiene along with just basic cleaning and sanitizing processes we're accessing our outdoor spaces for eating and learning as practicable we are potting or cohorting in the elementary schools to the extent possible and we are maintaining physical distancing to the extent possible one big difference from last year to this year is that all of our students are in school which means we have some robust and wonderful attendance it also means that it is not possible for us to always maintain three feet all of the time and we also are not set up in a way that allows us to pod as strictly as we did last year we're paying attention to our elementary kids being in classrooms as much as possible but we can't say that we're potting like we did last year we we just we can't feasibly we're doing it as much as possible we are not potting at U32 right now we have some new information folks have been interested in surveillance testing information so Maria can probably share a lot more detail about that than i can we are going to host voluntary surveillance testing hoping either next week or the week after that it will be our turn to get that going and hoping by the end of this week to send out a consent form for families and and again really want to underscore the importance if you as a student or an adult in your household is a close contact that we're encouraging folks to get tested so with that i want Maria to introduce herself to you i'll share a little bit about Eastmont Piliar and then let's open it up for your questions and concerns Maria my name is Maria Malecos and i am the COVID coordinator school nurse leader this year i was going to tell you a whole lot of stuff that Jen already told you but so i can talk a little bit about surveillance testing the state is offering surveillance testing for schools on a weekly basis this is going to be open to staff and students regardless of vaccination status so the logistics are still coming down the pipe in terms of how we're going to get those tests and get them returned in a timely manner but we should know all of that by the end of this week so i just want to say that all of our student safety is first and foremost in our minds as we make all of the choices that we're making this year and i welcome all of the feedback and ideas that everybody has at this point we're all in this together thank you Maria and i think up front i want to share so a little bit more information about Eastmont Piliar and then we'll open it up so as you know Eastmont Piliar students are learning from home right now we had two positive cases implicating 38 kids we had about 19 siblings that meant we had all but i think one Alicia can correct me if i'm wrong all but one classroom potentially impacted and 10 staff members who were close contacts we spent a lot of time Maria the school nurse Alicia Lyford the principal and i figuring out what best to do and as Maria just said our students health and safety is absolutely at the forefront of our decision-making process and we felt that keeping people home given the circumstances made sense it is also true that because we're not under a state of emergency right now we're not achieving 51 attendance in school physically and so currently those days don't count as attendance days what that means however is we still because we did such a good job with this last year we are taking attendance we are we made sure to provide meals to students who need meals and we are keeping track of all of the learning synchronously and asynchronously in which our kids are engaged we the state minimum is 175 days we right now are having 176 at this point in time and we can always request a waiver for attendance down the line i think that we're likely the first school that is experiencing this and probably not the last i want to say up front the agency of education has been really responsive to this particular situation and that we're hoping that this will be just information gathering down the line but i wanted to be really clear and upfront with you about that because there have been questions about that and with that being said i think Flora we're ready to open it up for questions and concerns okay so if people could raise their hands so i could see them in the participant list they'll be great goodness let me see i'm missing i see one sorry oh there becca hi hi everyone i'm going first okay hi everyone my name is becca mandel i'm a parent of two kids at rumney i'm a alumna of rumney on u32 as well and i have some questions i guess it was really helpful to hear what sort of a little bit more about east mount pillier and i guess the the larger the larger frame for my questions is why we aren't taking the same mitigation measures that we took last year we know that the delta variant is is much more contagious than the variant you know that we were dealing with last year and are all the kids in elementary school sterile aren't vaccinated and can't be vaccinated so we know that transmission is is is just so easy between unvaccinated people and kids are getting this variant you know at the same rate as adults but just the the sheer numbers a lot more kids are getting sick so i'm just i'm confused about that so that's sort of like the large framing like what are the barriers we know what to do we did them last year they worked great you know we didn't have any remote days due to covid in our in our elementary school last year so i'm just i'm confused about that so that's like the big question and then you know we were really impressed with how we handled covid last year with the outdoor classrooms keeping the kids in pods my son is is not potted he's in a one two so he's going into two different classrooms so if there was one positive case in the second grade the other one two second grade i assume that he would be a close contact in that situation and both classrooms would be close contact so i'm just confused about the lack of pods especially when at rumney there is an empty classroom in the primary wing that's not being used from what i understand and so you know i also know that they're using shared tables again instead of individual desks and last year um you know we had this great work day for families we all came together before the start of school and built all these outdoor classrooms and geared up so that the kids could actually safely be outside as much as possible and you know the reality is that i understand that's more work for teachers and i really want to support teachers during this hard time um and we all know that being outside is actually better for kids right like they learn better all the you know there's all these outcomes that go up so i'm curious about why the why we weren't asked to come back and help rebuild the outdoor classrooms this year um you know because i know some of them had fallen apart over the summer so i'm curious when when folks say that we're being outside as much as possible i actually want some real information about what that means because that could mean anything from like oops we popped our heads outside for two minutes today to actually we spent two thirds of the day outside we ate all our meals outside and this is what happened and you know this is the time of year that the weather is really nice for being outdoors and another piece of this is that you know we know this covid this delta surge a lot of them have been peaking about two and a half or three months or so so it would potentially you know get us through to that to october when it's still safe to be outside a lot more so i'm just curious about why we didn't start off with more the mitigation measures that we ended the school year with last year knowing that we're in a period of real hard time with the hope that um that it will sort of burn itself out like these other variants have um and so um uh and i'm also curious about the three to six feet apart stuff i heard you say that that's not necessarily possible i guess i'm wondering like what percentage of the time are the kids really close together and why is that and what you know what else can we do creatively like we did last year um to to make that work um and and i guess my sort of final two final things and i'm i know i'm talking a lot um i was on a work related call about the virus and with an infectious disease expert from new york city who said that um uh delta is presenting in children with different symptoms than some previous variants have and so she's seen a lot of her children come in who are positive with gastrointestinal symptoms first and then um nose and respiratory symptoms so i i guess it that just sort of underscores for me um questions about why we're not doing the checks um you know we don't have universal paid leave here it's really hard to keep your kid home when they're sick because it means you have to stay home to or find childcare or backup especially at the elementary school level like that week of remote learning that strikes terror in my heart um because doing remote learning with my kids means one of us one of my partner and i is are not working all week um and you know i don't know where that time is coming from so you know that's one piece of it and i also just think that we need more information as a community about what it means to keep your kid home and what those things what those things are that we should be looking for because i think a lot of the guidance i have been seen is not necessarily updated for this new data about how delta is showing up in younger children so i'm just curious why we haven't brought back the health screenings um and if there's plans to do that and then i guess finally um uh you know what is it that you need from us as parents to get some of these mitigation measures back in place um what can we do can we build the outdoor classrooms again can we um you know i i don't know what it is but but we can't they're having to pivot to remote learning without having done some of the mitigation measures that we knew worked so well last year it just seems like a pretty bitter pill to swallow for all those families and i'm just waiting for it to happen at run me and um figuring out the juggle of that without any vacation time left we just had summer so i took on vacation time so maybe i should have planned ahead but um i guess i you know so that's that's all i wanted to say that's okay thanks there were several questions there so i let jen and maria it yeah maria do you want to start with the um the mitigation strategies and those differences so um some of the changes that we made in our mitigation strategies were based on the science um some things changed uh last year we learned a little bit more and the cdc changed a little bit of their guidance um some of the reasons why the mitigation strategies are not as strict have to do with the reality of 25 percent more students in the school and approximately eight percent less staff than we had last year um so some things are not as easily reproduced as we would like them to be however um when we look at what we aren't doing last year we are not strictly potting and that has to do a lot with um resources within each individual school uh whether if we have more students obviously one open classroom in a school is not going to balance out that 25 percent student um 25 percent of students that came back from remote learning so where everybody is doing the mitigation strategies as as strictly as they are actually able to do and that looks different in every school and that looks different in every classroom if you have a classroom of seven it's very different than what a classroom of 26 is going to look like um so that's some of the reality of what we're dealing with um oh sorry i thought you walked away for a second so i want to talk um a little bit about outdoor education i think everybody is um open and willing to continue having children outside um what different schools have done a hundred percent to prepare for that i can't speak to i i think the principals have some ideas of um what worked last year and what didn't work last year um and so i'll let them speak to that um the next thing that i wrote down is um keeping kids out when they're sick and why we're not using base camp so base camp had several um several uh deficits that that didn't work for us 100 percent one of them was that it didn't yield any appreciable data for us um while creating a whole lot of extra work in the mornings right um the other issue is that honestly if a if we if any this is just complete reality if a parent is going to give their child some Tylenol and send them to school base camp is not going to to deter them from doing so it was not a truth meter people put whatever they needed to put in to go to work to get their kids to school we still ended up seeing those children in our offices as school nurses so we have talked at length with the staff at all of the schools the teachers are aware that we have a zero tolerance policy for illness at school the only exception to that is children who have medically diagnosed alternative diagnoses right so somebody has environmental allergies that present during a certain part of the year we can take that into consideration if they come to our office with the running nose with that said we're well aware that actually one of the most common symptoms that we see in kids who are presenting that it will be testing positive for covid is plain old runny nose which lots of kids have and just like last year we have zero tolerance for any symptoms that could mimic a covid symptom our symptoms that we put out to everybody do include um stomach pain nausea vomiting and diarrhea so those are the gi symptoms that you're speaking of we are aware that gi symptoms present in children differently than adults and our teachers are all instructed that if a child says they don't feel well they call the nurse they tell them what the child is complaining of and that way the nurse can triage and decide if they need to go into our isolation rooms or if they can come into the school health office and then as nurses we assess the child and we ran into a lot of kids last year who were really good at symptom shopping and got themselves home without being sick because we were absolute zero tolerance i can tell you that many parents can attest to the fact that they brought their kids home and didn't feel it was warranted but we feel very strongly that staff and students should stay home when sick that's part of our layered mitigation strategy um so the other problem with base camp is that base camp's algorithm was not the same as our district protocols and as nurses we spent lots of time on the phone with people saying no no no that's not right don't listen to base camp have them come in and with delta changing as quickly as it is base camp's algorithm is not going to keep up and we just felt like it wasn't something that um that actually helped us in the long run that it was actually tasking employee hours that we could better use elsewhere and um we still of course have asked all parents to keep their children home when they are sick and we have to rely on the integrity of the community to keep our schools open and safe um so what have i missed from your question thank you um i'm just trying to figure out how to respond um i i guess it it feels like we're sort of starting from a place of here these parameters um and we can't change them and so we're working within a much more confined space of what our options for mitigation are and i guess my sort of 30 000 foot question is why is that right if why did we take for example if there's more kids in the classroom i know there's kids who did want the remote option for the year like and if that's causing our classrooms to be more crowded like why is that off the table why are we working within a much smaller sort of space of options when we had so many more options last year and maybe the ability for some children to be remote for the whole year would then allow the classrooms to have more space and why isn't there like more guidance that's clearer about like what does it mean to have to be outside as much as possible what does it mean to eat outside in safe ways what does it mean to set up the classrooms as safely as possible so um i guess i still like there's still like a larger um sure um so i understand that i can let you know that the option of remote learning was taken away right that that is a state that's a agency of education decision am i correct in that gen i can say it was under the it was under the state of emergency that remote learning like like we were able to offer last year was an option it's not an option right now um what we can do is offer some remote possibilities that we that existed pretty pandemic and for us mostly that is um high school students ability to access classes through the vermont virtual learning cooperative so um that's an aoe sort of state of emergency decision so we we're working within those parameters um and as far as the guidance we had a full expectation again so i want to say this very clearly that that the aoe has been very helpful within what it is that they can do and i'm not trying to push any blame off on the agency of education we fully expected on august fifth of this year to receive a document that was very similar to last year's document that literally broke down everything we were supposed to do and they came out with a document that had far less guidance and and really no um specific parameters for us to open up with so part of my job is that i have gone school to school to school and i'm talking to teachers about and i'm trying to empower them your classroom doesn't have to look like the next person's classroom what i want you to do is remember your mitigation strategies and what i want to really impress here is that our mitigation strategies have not changed from last year we have amended them to match the science and we have gone over those decisions again and again and again both the american academy of pediatrics and the cdc are super clear that in-person learning is the priority this year and therefore if social or physical distancing would preclude schools opening that lean more heavily on your other mitigation strategies to balance out the fact that you can't physically distance with fidelity so we are working to keep three to six feet children three to six feet apart in the classroom as much as possible within that classroom we are working with um making sure that masks are worn at all times indoors and properly we are doing surveillance testing we're keeping people home when they're sick we're potting when possible and there are schools that have smaller populations that are able to pod with more fidelity than the bigger schools are so we have poured over this guidance that we're looking at from the cdc and we have figured out how we can make that work for each school so each for each school being outside as much as possible is going to look different a lot of that some of that has to do with teacher comfort some of that has to do with the content that they're teaching some of that has to do with whether they have a door that opens up into an area that's conducive for teaching um so we do have stricter parameters this year than we did last year and that we are working with exactly what we have this year um i also and i didn't say this when i introduced myself i'm not sure why because she's sitting right here but i have a seventh grader in the system who is young enough to be unvaccinated and i am just as invested if not more than than anybody else to make sure that we keep these schools as safe as possible not only for our students but for our staff and our community um and and i i really think that everybody's working as hard as they can towards that goal it is a logistical um marathon and we've just gotten started and we may have stumbled in a few places in the first day or two while everybody's trying to figure it out but as the days go on we get more confident we get better at sliding ourselves where we need to be to keep these kids safe i just want to impress that at no point have we ever said let's just do this we we are working so hard to try to make it happen with what we have um so i i you know we we tried to sort of trim the fat as it were with base camp um and uh and other than that we're following the cdc guidelines to the letter with what we need to do with high community transmission i ask one follow-up question then i'll i'll see you before i know i've spoken a lot um i just the one one minute um just hold on one one one minute Becca i i just want to get a sense of how many other people are in the that want to ask questions see holly has a question too and also we'd like to invite impossible principles to have we have like a have a minute to just a brief a little bit in the outdoor room classroom a question that was there because it's different every and every school and just give them the opportunity to to share a little bit so each individual community can hear from them too is there anybody else besides Becca and holly and then okay so Becca one more question it was just a follow-up about the outdoor classrooms and how i was wondering if the state of emergency made those not feasible this year and that was just my follow-up let's wait on that one if you're okay and i'll let each principal speak to the outdoor classroom a situation holly hi thank you so much um i am holly lane i live in east mumpillier i have a graduate of u32 a senior at u32 is actually doing early college a freshman at u32 and a fifth grader at east mumpillier i just want to start out by saying i truly appreciate the board's uh making this opportunity for the community to have this conversation i think it's so important for us to begin rebuilding the community after the rough year we've had so thank you very much um i think some of the principals might address this but i'm just wondering um looking at things like the situation that happened in waterbury with the day camp where there were a number of cases that happened after kids were outdoors and unmasked even though the guidelines coming from the cdc or the health department here may not be addressing that seeing something like that in a neighboring community um kind of makes me wonder why we might not be choosing to do masking outside in on our playgrounds i know that they are not requiring masks for students at emes on the playground and i'm also wondering um just in relation to that as as principals address the outdoor classroom questions um when kids are doing the outdoor learning in the outdoor classroom situations are they wearing masks during those times um so thank you very much i look forward to getting some more info on that thank you holly jill i mean jen do you want to i'm gonna i will start that response and then maria if you want to help too um the leadership team met for three hours yesterday and talked a lot about covid protocols given just you know to to check in and debrief after the first few days of school and we spent a lot of time talking about um outdoor masking and um what we have landed at is that again as maria said we are following the cdc guidance and the american academy of pediatrics guidance and there is no scientific evidence that masking outdoors uh is necessary so i'll lay i'll put that out um we've talked a lot about trying to balance the emotion and fear that we know exists and that we're all feeling too and the science so that we can have clear um protocols for making our decisions so i'll introduce that by saying that maria what would you add to that response um i you know just a little more of the data right so um there's a study out of iceland that states that less than 0.1 percent of all transmission has occurred outside um the cdc it doesn't present um what they say is less than 10 percent and then there's this um really interesting study that talks about how wildly inaccurate excuse me sorry i gotta chill how wildly inaccurate that number is um and what they recommend is that people can mask they recommend that people mask outside in a very crowded outdoor setting with the example of an outdoor concert um so any place like a fair or concert or even a farmers market i would consider it um but when we talk about a school with a population of 100 that split into two recesses across a huge piece of property um we don't have the science to back up the need to mandate that um and that's where we are right now with that um um and so yes what happened in waterberry happened but we the minute we moved from the science we hit a slippery slope of just making decisions arbitrarily and i think it's really important um to say that we you know we had guidance that we could follow from the aoe we chose to go as strict as we could go by using the cdc um and when that science changes we will amend our practices accordingly thank you maria it holly do your hand is still up do you have a follow-up or can i go to nick and let the principles maybe we'll answer your other questions is that yeah i just a very quick follow-up so um i understand all the guidance and i appreciate that the school is is working to use the cdc guidance and the most strict guidance but as my 10-year-old who's listening and just said yeah but everybody's all clumped up on the playground so that's just what i'd like to add to that and um i i'd love to hear from alisha because she's right there seeing it all as it's unwinding so thanks thank you holly nick and then we'll move to we'll start with alicia as you mentioned her and then we'll move i'll let nick ask his question first because he's the only other person with a hand up hey nick welcome can you hear me yes okay thank you uh yeah i'm nick i live in east montpellier and i'm also a product of the the district i graduated from u32 uh it's a quick thank you to the board for the opportunity and uh just express my thanks for the me as staff um you know we were always impressed and then after seeing what deffert they put in and the leadership through the whole pandemic has been uh we've just been blown away so very grateful to be here and have these folks working with our children so a couple things i just wanted to say that i largely support the level of mitigation that's in place at this time i definitely agree with them eliminating base camp as maria said it was you know it just seemed like extra work that maybe didn't have a lot of uh you know didn't bear a lot of fruit um and i think that uh i also agree with the no masking outdoors um and just in my opinion i think that's uh you know those were a couple examples of you know returning to the data-driven decision making so i'm i'm supportive of those uh a couple questions i wanted to ask just to clarify gen i think you had mentioned that the aoe had taken away the virtual option and so the the part i was just kind of curious about is like but we were in east mapeleon we were a virtual this week um so i to clarify did you mean that the aoe took away like the full-time virtual option and they may be still allowing it in uh these scenarios so um when the state of emergency was lifted the ability to teach our kids remotely and um and have the day count for attendance when it was the whole school went away so you have to have at least 51 percent of your students present what that meant was a school right before us right before east mapeleon twinfield for example shut down a few grade levels kept them home because of positive cases but because twinfield was a k-12 school they achieved overall 51 percent attendance so these days with the because we're not in a state of emergency right now they technically don't count as student days unless something shifts down the line for the state being responsive or um if we can get a waiver down the line so what we chose to do was err on the side of safety and put in place what we know um were sound practices in which we engaged last year and so that's sort of where we are so east mapeleon with keeping folks home this week would be at 176 days the state requires 175 and we'll have to see how it goes again i'm i'm thinking that um we're the first school in the situation but i don't think we're going to be the only school in the situation but yeah technically under that it doesn't exist and then that nick the second part of your question about a full remote option that that is not in existence we ran a really amazing remote option for our kids last year and and we're that we are not able to do that because we're not in a state of emergency so kids needed to come physically to school or or homeschool and that's why our numbers have increased so much as well understood no and then for my own you know um i i i wouldn't choose a virtual option for our kids anyways i just wanted to make sure i understood i had heard that correctly um but to sort of carry on from that point though so if these if these remote days don't count towards our tally i guess really the one big question i had coming into this whole meeting is that um is like what we did at East Montpelier this week is that a sustainable solution for the school year like in terms of shutting down the whole school anytime there's any amount of covid positive cases um particularly given like you said if those days don't count um and sort of adding to that if there's going to be surveillance testing then you know potentially there's even more positive cases sort of being rooted out that way um so i i just and you've mentioned a neighboring school district right they closed down certain grade levels or portions of the school so i didn't know if there was you know any any option to pursue something like that so we could because we don't i don't think the kids want to be in school till july either you know so i will say um again since since going through this the agency of education has been very responsive i know that they're gathering a lot of data and hearing from a lot of folks and it may be that they're responding what they're saying now they might need to respond differently down the line but i can't say that and i can't predict that i'm just sharing information and documenting everything working with our administrators and our teachers um and you know the bottom line for us is that our students safety and health is first and foremost and we'll figure everything out as we have to but we need to ensure that the measures that we are taking are the right ones to keep our community safe understood yeah that's the best i can answer that question right now nick yeah um and then the last one last quick thought was just to ask if there would had was there any consideration of conducting a poll among the parents in terms of um sort of where they all land on mitigation strategies inside and outside and you know what to do and you know when there's a covid positive case and i understand like a lot of this is sort of dictated to the school districts and as you've all sort of made the point today you're you know really using the data to drive the decision making and the policy making uh but it did sound like there was a couple areas where there was you know you sort of had to make some judgment calls and i didn't know if there was uh yeah any opportunity for parent input on some of that well i can speak to the fact that i get a lot of the communication from the community um if we opened it up to the community i think we would find ourselves in a deadlock between please don't make my child wear a mask and please mask outdoors so we're yeah there's this whole spectrum of how people feel excuse me and and one of the things that is really important to remember is that we all have a year and a half's worth of really big feelings and thoughts about how what has happened to our lives since the pandemic started and i find it really important to separate our feelings from the science and especially as the science continues to evolve you know what we're seeing is people are like holding on to things from the science from last year right people are like i still don't feel comfortable giving say our pre-k students manipulatives if we're not then sanitizing them and putting them aside for a week and we can say well the surface transmission has been shown to not be the concern that we thought it was at the beginning of the pandemic and so we've moved on to worrying more about the respiratory transmission and so um i personally feel like asking parents would be we would be in a deadlock and it would turn into it would actually rip the community apart in a way i think um but what's important to me as a nurse and somebody with a degree in science is that right now what we have is the science and as it evolves we will continue to faithfully roll with it regardless of how we feel about it so you know there's very little actually left to the imagination in terms of our mitigating strategies we're following both the CDC and the AAP the one thing that we're really not being as as faithful about um is and more i guess we're just being more transparent about it is that physical distancing is not always possible and i can tell you that last year on the playgrounds um this speaks to your comment holly last year on the playground um what we did all the entire recess was to say please pull your mask up airplane arms you need some space between you and your buddy please pull your mask up move away from your friend please pull your mask up six feet please pull your mask up six feet so this year they're just going to be saying six feet use your airplane arms octopus whatever each school had a cute little mnemonic that they use to keep kids remembering that they needed to have some space um so we are still working on the physical distancing um i can tell you the same thing that everyone who works in an elementary school can tell you is that children are magnets and it is a losing proposition and we still spend all day long saying six feet airplane arms octopus over and over and over again to try to remember you know remind these children that if that's what's safe um so um i i guess i just um i would never actually think to take it out of science hands and put it into the hands of a community but that's just me thank you maria i i want to give a chance because we also have the other part of the forum i want to give a chance to have like maybe one minute per principle or a little less to to just talk a little bit of each school and then we'll uh we'll move on if there's more questions than covet otherwise we'll move on onto the the u32 dismissal time okay just to be conscious of people's time we're gonna start with alisha just because she was mentioned first and and then we'll move on caroline you're on deck sure so i'm happy to talk about outdoor classrooms first we created 11 outdoor classrooms a year ago august um and this august we revisited those spaces and i asked teachers to let me know did that space work for you do you need a new space should we look at um additional spaces so we still have 11 outdoor classrooms that range from the woods to the fields to the lines um you know the perimeter of the um soccer fields and the rec fields our students go outside multiple times so becca i can't give you a number of minutes a day but our students go outside both for eating and for learning opportunities whether that silent reading or read aloud or to play math games or the first six weeks of school really to do a lot of the responsive classroom collaborative um group work together um when it's feasible and the first day of school was really hot and hard to be out there but we were out there even then um we continued last year and i know we will this year to be outside for learning throughout the winter um our kiddos from starting at a very young age have eco and they're used to being outside um no matter rain or snow and then holly i'll just speak quickly to your um question about other times um and the masking we don't require masks but we do certainly um have a lot of students and adults who wear masks outside um because that's their choice and that's their preference and sometimes they just forget that they have it on because they're so used to wearing it um so i think it's kind of a mixed bag when it comes to wearing masks outside but it's not something that we're policing this year thank you alisha carlin and cat you're on deck this here at rummy it has been a high priority to give teachers ownership over their classroom where it is safe to do so um they lost a lot of opportunities for their voices to be heard last year so that combined with the discussion that we had with our covid coordinator maria and leadership team we utilize the mitigating script strategy of encouraging getting outside as much as possible and any teacher who has requested anything um that they've needed in order to be able to educate outside they that has been approved thank you carlin and cat and gillian you're next at callas um we learned a lot about what worked well and what didn't work so well um last year and we're trying to take those key learnings and bring them forward um there were some really practical logistical things that occurred for us at callas last year we built um outdoor spaces with the materials that we had the access to so we had a lot of tarps and a lot of lumber um it was really hard to pull them together and they did not last they did not withstand the test of time the focus this summer um was to really start building up those outdoor classrooms because being outside as much as possible learning can happen everywhere that's a value and we're trying to establish uh some sturdier frames uh so that those outdoor classrooms can last and um become just a way a regular way of doing business we are not attaching an expectation of a number of minutes or subjects that can be taught outside we are looking for every opportunity we have continued at callas this year to with the the the philosophy that there is no such thing as inclement or bad weather there's just poor planning for your um your outdoor gear um and that's going to take a lot of relearning um to establish readiness for learning in whatever setting that we have but we are committed to that at callas thank you cat gillian and erin you're next hey so at dodie we don't have outdoor classrooms per se but all of our classrooms do have doors that go to the outside um one of the issues that we also look at in terms of outdoor classrooms is um we need to look at in terms of when we think about universal design for learning uh and equity issues those students who have mobility um sensory issues balance issues being outside can actually be much more difficult for those students uh so we keep a good eye on our ventilation system and we do get kids out as we can in terms of recess i am going to give alisha credit for this we have our kids you know so they have their masks on and they go outside and they're like they have to wear their masks like this and then when they're close to each other what we do is is we do cue kids i have some set rules like on the tire swing you have to wear a mask um on the play structure you have to wear a mask and as we're wandering around during recess duty if we say mask up the kids can just then mask up so that they can line up to be outside so um it really depends in terms of the amount of time the kids are outside it really depends on the individual classroom the needs what's happening in that particular day but we are looking at you know i mean it's the masking the hand washing the distancing and we we do have kids outside with masks and encourage them and what we were talking about today is we've noticed that kids i think it was alisha who said they they forget to have them on and as time as this week has gone on i've seen more and more kids outside with their masks on anyway thank you can erin and steven i don't want to leave you out you can go thank you hi everyone so at berlin like gillian we don't have specific outdoor classrooms set up but it is encouraged that teachers may utilize the out the outdoors as much as they wish to really at berlin we've been focusing strictly on our routines using responsive classroom model to ensure that we are implementing our our safety protocols that we've agreed to as a administrative team so we do have we do have outdoor spaces that are along our nature trail that are used for things like like eco which is utilized each week by some classes and teachers are taking students out as much as possible for for breaks but our folks has really been making the best of opportunities with the new procedures and protocols that we are responsible for implementing thank you erin steven so u 32 is very fortunate that we get one other mitigation strategy that the elementary schools don't get quite as much and that's vaccinations and so with vaccinations with masking with good ventilation we are pretty confident we can keep everybody in the building as much as possible we do encourage our classes to step outside if they have an opportunity but our goal is really to make sure that we're getting in a full year with everybody every day and and so we're going to you know ask kids to make sure those masks are always up which has been our you know not a big challenge but a challenge for few that haven't had to wear them this summer but we're getting back in the practice and when kids are outside we encourage them if they're bunching up to keep the masks on or just spread out a little bit and take the masks off and so we think as I said my my elementary colleagues don't get the benefit of that vaccination level for our kids because we're pretty much 12 and up for the school and so we're very privileged but very happy that we can get everybody in the building this year and not have to do the hybrid schedule thank you Stephen and and with that I don't see any more hands I want to make sure that we have the opportunity to talk about the the day at U32 and I just want to say that you know the the board they just to put for silk circle on this the the board exercising our duty of care is in strong support of the of the guidance as our as our acting superintendent and covid coordinator has has led us through now and all of the state organizations that we are part of both the superintendent association the vermont school versus association and the principles association are working weekly with the state to you know to to make sure that it is for all kids in in vermont and we are you know I feel fortunate to be in this district where you know universal masking is not um it's not something that we're debating so you know I feel really lucky a priscilla I see that you have your hand up being one of our local physicians a go ahead and ask the last question and then I really want to move into the school time at U32 welcome Priscilla thank you sorry I just a couple of varied questions and comments one is I wanted to just respond directly to what Holly had said about um outdoor masks and the waterberry outbreak because I had the same concerns I was very alarmed to hear about this um and I actually reached out to a friend who had a child involved in that outbreak and it sounds like there was a lot of rain that week and they were indoors for a significant period of time and so it was probably indoor transmission and outdoor not outdoor transmission so I again it's just one story but it really was reassuring to me that it didn't kind of shake everything that we seem to know about indoor versus outdoor um I just wanted to kind of say I'm so happy that we are trying to move into 2021 and kind of focus on the mitigation strategies that work better um I spent last year watching teachers direct traffic and it sort of felt horribly frustrated that that was asked of people and that there was this tremendous effort that was being made to support keeping the schools in session and I'm so happy to see that we're trying to drop some of the mitigation strategies that probably just are not as effective um I do actually want to ask a couple of questions I I'm sorry I missed a couple for a couple of minutes so I hope you haven't already covered this um about um testing and about ventilation um and I'm excited to hear that we're going to add testing and this is just fantastic because we have testing widespread now and we didn't have that last year and this really is great news and I just wanted to know if there's any more details that you can share about the specifics of that and then on the question of ventilation I feel like this has been received so little emphasis publicly not from our schools specifically but just in general um and I would love to know exactly what is the air exchange rate in our child's school and and is there is that information available and can that be shared publicly um I know from our kids that the windows are left open but that really doesn't work so well in January um and you know I really love to see you know what exactly is the setting on the air exchange rate in those schools and what is the carbon dioxide levels that they've measured and and are those levels appropriate so thank you very much and again thank you so much for all of the efforts that everyone is doing to to keep the kids in schools. Thank you Priscilla Jen. Yeah I can I can answer those questions Priscilla we did talk a bit about surveillance testing earlier tonight we are participating Maria has a big she's been watching seminars and has a big meeting tomorrow we're looking at rolling it out the week of the 6th or the 13th depending on the equipment and we're hoping by the end of this week that we'll have the virtual consent forms out with many more details and lots more information so that families can sign up so that is absolutely something that we're doing um and Maria has been working hard on on getting ready to roll that out uh we do have a lot of information about the ventilation system and I've actually spent a lot of time in the past day or so trying hard to get smarter about that we are in the good um we're fortunate and that we've invested as a community in our buildings over time a lot and then we quickly used S or money last year to increase and improve ventilation in the buildings that needed it um I do believe we have the CO2 numbers and the air exchange rates I do not have it at my fingertips right now but I received a document today that I think is pretty comprehensive and in collaboration with uh the folks who shared it with me and Chris O'Brien our new director of facilities we could share that information for sure but we're in good shape we're absolutely in compliance for sure if not above and beyond I'm happy to share that when I can okay great thank you everybody and we're gonna move on into our um our second part of our community engagement thank you for being here I don't see any other hands up Priscilla that was in all hand oh yeah okay so let's move on I'm gonna give uh Steven and Jen uh that we're doing it to do a quick overview and then we want to do that quickly so people can ask questions and we are behind on time but you know this was important okay so I'm gonna do just a quick introduction to this and then pass it on to Steven and to share more information and I think that um what what I want to say by way of introduction is that earlier tonight the board engaged in their retreat work and talked about the importance of engaging the public proactively versus reactively and that this is one of those areas where we're thinking about down the line how to how to get more input up front but the decision itself has a super clear rationale and we have the data that you've asked for regarding ridership and impact on students and the decision-making process so with that I would share um I pass it on to Steven to share more information with us thank you Jen and um happy new year to everybody in the education world this is the new year we don't celebrate uh January 1st um and so uh with our new year U32 had um with the board's blessing we increased our school day by 20 minutes and there were several things that we speculated about in uh June about what we would need around buses and transportation and some of those kinds of things and so we have some better answers around that now that we can share with everybody but just a couple of quick pieces of of our rationale so adding 20 minutes of instructional time to our school day really allows us to um implement some interventions that we weren't as robust with in the past and it also allowed us to add back in some time that we had used differently um in previous years so the two things um we've really added um time to give our middle school some reading silent sustained reading we know from the research that the more time that students spend in reading and particularly some guided reading kinds of practices like silent sustained reading uh the better that they do overall and so um so that's one thing we were able to to make sure that we had in the middle school without the track taking away from their core time in the high school several years ago we cut back the time in our classes um by a few minutes to be able to make our call back 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes long and so what this change allows us to do is recover some of that instructional time back into the classes um so that we can have a 45 minute call back four days a week um and be able to um keep our class times um in the in the 70 minute time uh range uh for us and so those were some of the ways that we use that now I know some of your questions were um the board had allocated 241 thousand dollars for busing I can report back that um we thought that we might need up to four additional buses morning and afternoon or just afternoon um what we ended up having is the need for one afternoon bus to run to the very far edges of callus um so um we um we have just one additional bus run in the afternoons is what we were we were needing and uh and that cost um is going to be probably in the um 25 to 30 thousand dollar range once we have that and then we'll be able to get reimbursed on some of that as we move forward in the next couple years although we will be renegotiating our bus contract one of the other things that we looked at is um how many kids are riding those buses so we have between 16 and 47 kids assigned to our buses we have 18 buses that run in the afternoon and so that's actually a pretty good ridership for us um we don't know exact numbers those are the number of kids who were signed up and were placed on buses but we'll do an accurate head count after the first month of school we usually do a count to make sure how many kids are actually riding the buses and we've actually had a few kids that have added um since the beginning of the school year whose parents chose to add them to our school bus routes so we've had some of that and what we also found is that in redoing the bus routes for the additional 20 minutes students are home um about 20 minutes later than they were previously but there were no longer bus runs that we had to do so buses are running in the same time frame so kids are on the bus about the same amount of time and the last student is scheduled for drop off at 407 p.m so the very last student off of the very last bus for U32 should be home by 407 now we know that that's been a little off in these first few days because um we have to hold our buses a little bit longer to let them find them um and so the buses haven't left exactly on time but um I know that yesterday we got our buses out a minute earlier than they're scheduled to leave and so we were we're hopeful that uh that paid off dividends on the elementary side and I know that uh you know our buses get to the elementary schools um just in the nick of time right now as it is but we are going to make sure that they um that they're out there and on their buses as soon as possible one other consideration that we had was would we need to combine kids on the high school routes and middle school routes with the elementary schools and none of that happened so we we did not need to combine any kids from elementary with our middle and high school kids on bus routes although something to consider in the future uh in cost savings but there's certainly not necessarily something we needed to do to make this happen and so um everything else falls within contract and work days and so there were no other additional pieces that we needed to add and everything seems to be getting off to a pretty good start thank you Steven so we we were gonna break into small groups we do have we just did a quick count with the help of Mark Mark if you want to show us that it's our new it coordinator and we do have about 15 people I'm sorry my internet just disconnected me and I'm suddenly back here so it's uh sorry it just totally kicked me out of the me so I'm I'm here watching these breakout rooms and I'm I'm um I think I'm going to provide a little bit more context for all of you who aren't in a breakout room so you know what we're expecting to do I think uh Florida disappointed disappeared before we could get out there what we have done is we set up breakout groups for the board members and administrators to be able to facilitate the process to hear from all of you there should be an option for you to choose a breakout room a color group is that that doesn't exist Ellen I'm seeing you nod your head okay and I'm seeing that there are a number of you 39 of yes you can do it now yeah Ellen can you you have to you have to click on the breakout rooms on the right side of the bottom of the zoom window okay thank you so what our hope is is that you will choose to go to a breakout room by clicking the breakout room icon and looking at the rooms that are have colors on them and there are three questions that we were asking folks we were going to ask folks to talk about what excited them about the change what concerns they have about the change and what questions they have about the change and folks will take some time to to ask those questions the board members are going to facilitate that and administrators will take a couple of notes and then the board will have that feedback so if you are interested in asking those questions go ahead and click the breakout room icon down at the bottom and you will have the chance to choose to your breakout room but the color doesn't mean anything the color doesn't mean anything it was just a way for us to try to seamlessly distribute administrators and and school board members so that we had representation okay got it and I will stay right here in this main room for the time being to talk people through it if there are questions we were in a in the cafeteria we would have broken out into groups all over the place this was our best option physically or through zoom to do this I apologize Jen computer just not cooperating so were you able to use the I had to restart but were the breakout room still active and people could get to them I believe they're active I haven't checked mark because I don't want to leave this main room until people get to where they might want to be but it looks like there are breakout rooms that are active there's a good number of people that have moved into those rooms yes so they're working well so let's see we've got about two or 12 people left to move into into rooms so far yeah when I'm looking I don't see my name in any of the rooms and it's not automatically booting me in there like I have before right so Karen we set it up this time so that you choose a room oh okay if you hit breakout room assign yourself gotcha okay yep got it thank I got it so this is fun usually it's like you're throwing in something oh let's see I actually had that set up for everybody board and administrators but couldn't do it for the public oh my god as the board that'd be great you'd be like I get to pick which hotbed I want to go we pre-assigned them we just had no idea how many members of the public to expect and so we wanted to yeah so go ahead if you want to answer those questions um yes I see Catherine I went into the breakout rooms and I I'm such a zoom like not very familiar with all of this um so is there any specific way to join it once you go into the breakout room right yeah you should be able you can select it and then to the right it should say join and I can also you have to hover over it when you hover over so when you're looking at orange and it has four okay you hover over it it says join and then you get to go I need to have orange not those participants under the orange yes give that a try and if it doesn't work we'll try to talk you through it again and and I can actually move someone into a room so if if you are having trouble getting into a breakout room if you can let me know who you are and what room you want to go to I can do that for you mark it looks like Liz but Hillfoyle would like to be assigned to yeah I'm sorry I'm not seeing the icon maybe again I'm not no problem Liz what room would you like to go into um I'm not yellow has the fewest people you feel free to move me wherever it looks appropriate that's I'll put you in yellow here you go okay thanks mark um and I would also be willing to go into anything I'm still not able to cover okay okay yeah let's put you into uh orange great off you go we have a Denise who is having some difficulty anybody Denise are you interested in joining a breakout room for this conversation no I'm all set I'm multitasking and so I'm listening okay so that would you like to listen in a breakout room and and so no I'm all I'm all set are we coming back after after the breakout rooms are you coming back and gathering people we are so you can hang tight here if you'd like okay perfect thank you um Kathleen would you like a breakout room now I'm the same way I'm just going to hear the conclusion thanks okay great all right and then I know Maria are you all set do you want to stay here go to that conversation I'm also I don't have um a dog in the fight about the time change so I'm just hanging out in case anything else came up very good and then um Lisa is taking here fine where you are Lisa yeah I think at this point I would be more disruptive I'm just gonna sit tight and all right stay tight here so very good what we didn't I'm gonna uh Mark I need to find out just how long till we bring them back okay and then do you know how to bring us all back you close the breakout room I just closed the rooms yes all right give me a second and I'm gonna there'll be there'll be a 60 second notice that comes up that you have 60 seconds before you're booted out I guess yep very good yeah so let me just I'll I'll be back 30 seconds left before they close automatically thank you mark so we're gonna wait for everybody to come back I'm gonna try to plug my computer so it doesn't die there we have everybody now mark right now it closed okay so welcome back everybody to the main session I see that Jen has already put our Google form on the on the chat we we want your feedback on how this community engagement forum went for you so please give us our feedback if you don't have time right now it's also posted on the website we're gonna allow some time for each group to share the highlights of their conversation so let's start with with red which would be Diane Scott Alicia and Jess I defer to Diane okay um so it was basically one of the thoughts was that the statement being excited about the change was a little overrated and that we were mildly enthused about certain changes so we did approach it that way and um so there were just questions about one was about the history of why dismissal was at 235 in previous years just to help frame that up also there were some questions about was this impacting the elementary buses because they have been late but knowing that that's kind of getting worked out and it's potentially just um the nature of the beast of the start of the year and more kids on the buses and then also um wondering about um the and others please chime in if I forget things but wondering too about any of the ripple or impact on the athletic schedule and practice schedule and it sounded as though those are still running as is with the 440 bus happening thank you Diane uh Jonathan and Chris whoever your spokesperson is it can be an administrator so okay so we well I'm gonna split this with with Cat Fair because um unusually she was very talkative um but um so we had we had a lively and involved discussion we didn't really talk much about the start time but we talked about the buses and it sounds like it's a work in progress um and the other thing that we talked about was actually um thinking about having a student students who ride the bus being trained on how to ride the bus um to be able to say this is my stop when they're going by this bus because they're experiences where students don't speak up and then they're they're gone behind and causes delay um so Cat you want to bring up the other things we talked about yeah uh the one thing that uh also came up in that conversation that Chris is sharing about teaching student expectations a lot of our kiddos haven't ever ridden the bus or it's been more than a year and a half or almost two years since they've done on a bus so teaching expectations is super important another issue that came up is the concern that if we are um concerned about the timing and being timely for the bus what's to stop unsafe practices of speeding and not being safe uh for for the bus uh uh drivers and one of the things that I felt like was important to share to our group was the fact that um there are buses are come through a contractor provider and they come with zonar and what that means is there's a district employee not someone from the bus company that can check whenever a concern is raised to find out how fast the bus is going how long they're at a stop um on what road in what time but they need to know where to look for that um and I think there was a wonder and maybe a suggestion from our group Chris if I'm saying this right that um it would be great if we put in our front porch forums how important it is to reach out to us directly if a concern if you have a concern so that we can look into it did I say that right Chris you you absolutely right right and we'll follow up on that thank you a so the yellow group carry carline chris mackayl yeah one of the questions that came up that I thought was resonant was um how impactful actually is the extra reading time and um we talked a little bit or I responded to that a little bit but um not not really knowing and and one hoping that um that extra 20 minutes really does make a difference in the context of it makes for a very long day for the student and for the family um and um yeah that was thought it was a really good question thank you also sorry can I just add um kind of the other theme was just um you know parent mentioned that she the first she was notified of the change was in the transportation um survey email and still was not clear um on the change and so was just concerned about lack of communication thank you green steven julia michelle i'll make a brief comment and then defer to the administrators um but um in our group it was a uh a new family to the district um in the district they came from this was a normal class day for them so it was kind of business as usual but um and any of the administrators in the group wanna add anything i would just add um they asked some really thoughtful questions um they were interested in how we use our early release on wednesdays which was a really nice conversation to have and ellen dorsey shared some of her perspective and how um the lengthening of the school day has had a great benefit to our students has a capacity to have a great benefit to our students uh so we felt for this family because they were um there were a lot of school administrators and a board member um so they had our full attention but it they asked great questions it was a good conversation thank you yeah our blue group a lindy and ursa erin and lisa i can take it i guess um we had a consensus in our group um on being glad that the students had an opportunity for extra meeting time for the middle schoolers or more class time and feeling that that was a quality um effort and glad that they had that um i think some of the concerns that were raised were um the afternoon timing being tight there was some discussion that they feel that it'll probably smooth out as the kids start to learn which buses they belong on at u 32 and as everybody kind of gets into their routine and figures it out we have not seen winter yet and seen how those delays will affect um getting the buses to the elementary schools on time though and the only question that was really raised was that we were sticking with this for the year and i think we all kind of came into the consensus that it is sad it is done for the year thank you ursa a pink group maggie jonah stephen and carol so we talked a little bit about um you know what this means for the schedule what it means for i think it was callback time right and what the give and take in the minutes of the day are um uh we had a parent who's uh who's i believe correct me if i'm wrong uh but i believe that family was new to the district last year during the covet year uh and now this is sort of the first time full you know full full in person um it seemed like the uh the thing that we um spoke about the the most and the guys again correct me if i'm if i'm misinterpreting this or or misremembering this but uh but the the traffic flow in front of u32 and the uh uh you know getting back to one way uh you know entrance into the building and getting better signage so that traffic flow moves better and i would i would you know ask steven uh you know fill in all of the gaps that i left please no gaps good job okay so all right we are the last group flora jill couldn't join us today and gillian and amy were in my group too i'm just gillian took all the notes i'm gonna let her speak i'm just gonna say the three first ones because i was i was happy to hear her parents that have kids in the school too anything to help kids learn great to extend the day more opportunities more time at school with teachers and gillian can you talk about the other two the data and yep so the concerns that came up similar about the sports and the impact of bad weather um and how's that going to back up in the elementary and the question that nicole had was around what are we going to do and hoping that we're going to do some data collection to um measure the impact on student learning and outcomes is it jen do you have any final and just remind everybody about the form yeah so um i think that what we want to say is thank you for um going on this journey with us tonight doing this remotely via zoom was just a a bit of a wild ride and for those of you who didn't get into a breakout room right away thanks for your patience thanks for your participation um and leadership team thanks for taking all those notes and coming up with that awesome form to do that we'll get that shared um i would say that one of the um practices that i think is the most important thing is to always seek feedback so we're asking you to let us know for tonight what went well about the forum what what would make it go better what changes would you have and what questions might you still have so as flor mentioned before on the washington central uh district web page under board resources there is a link and i've placed the link to the feedback form in the chat so we hope that you all take a few minutes to give us some feedback and um and then the steering committee will take this feedback share it with the board and make the next forum even better thank you everybody scott you have a question uh just a just a remark that um the small groups were great um it's the most human and enjoyable interaction that i've had at a board meeting in a long time so i hope that we can repeat that in future thank you that's good okay so the board still has some business you are welcome to stay we're gonna try to be quick but we have a couple of things thank you to all the administrators for helping us out and thank you to the community for willing to be here tonight and spend a beautiful evening in front of your computer and we're gonna move on into the next part of our agenda let's move into personnel oh no actually we're let's do it let's do the the driver said driver said sorry yeah i thought okay so Jen and Steven on page 20 on page 27 in your packets is a memo um summarizing the needs that Steven and Lisa have written and taken the lead on and so i would invite them to share with you um what the need is and what we're asking for right now sure hi all um so the letter is pretty self-explanatory so i'm not gonna repeat all of it to you i will just summarize so our driver ed teacher um was offered a very nice position in may to be the executive director of the vermont special education association so he resigned from us at that point in time we posted um and unfortunately uh due to timing and some other difficulties around licensure we were not able to find a qualified candidate not for the lack of trying so much so to actually applicants actually from california um unfortunately vermont doesn't offer a college that teaches the courses that are needed people need to have at least three classes to have provisionals um and the local schools which are keen state in new hampshire and then one in pennsylvania haven't offered the classes lately so we are really stuck in a pinch without a dry red teacher we had 72 students enrolled in the class which is what we normally are able to um teach in a year so we reached out to both the dmv and the aoe to come up with what we thought options would be and the options are in that memo so we are looking to ask all of you the board um to approve uh the use of funds that would have paid a teacher to be able to use that for vouchers for those 72 families um possibly it could be more depending upon what the salary and um amount is and so um a couple of different options i reached out to six different uh local all the way from weightsfield to uh more town like anywhere around washington county and i've heard back just recently as of this evening from two different teachers so we would like to be able to offer two different options um one option would be we have a teacher who's willing to teach in this and this will all be spring because they have unfortunately are all booked for fall um we have one teacher who would be willing to teach for 16 students on u32 campus from three o'clock till about 4 30 and be able to get the class through so the students who don't have transportation to get to a private class could take a drive red course on our campus and still be able to utilize our late buses we have another private drive red teacher who is willing to offer um 30 slots uh in between the seasons so i believe it's like march to april so in between the sport seasons at u32 um from six to eight p.m so that would get 46 students through um with just our students and then um the remaining uh slots to give me i haven't done the math and it's late and math is not in my wheelhouse um so the rest of them we would like to be able to have them have the option of um looking at the dmv website where it where it lists all of the private drive red teachers letting them pick what works best for them and then us providing vouchers to pay for the courses so i believe what we're looking for is board approval to use the funds differently than um we would have used had we had a teacher and also please know that we are actively recruiting um hopefully so that we will have a teacher for next year and we do have at least one in-house person that i'm aware of who's interested in and is working with local colleges or keen state and littleton gets community college of something in littleton new hampshire um to hopefully be able to be at least have a provisional certification for next year any questions there going to be any process in place to ensure that students who choose the voucher option are actually checking in with the aot website and that there's follow-up because just a question of equity there that that may the problem solving and organization around that may be a challenge for some students so i'm not sure i completely understand the question but i'll try so um i guess part of my thinking is is that the any feeling that one to go the private route would then get an invoice would then bill us and then we would actually pay the driver ed place and the school counselors and myself would help any of the students um with accessing and trying to figure out how to how to find slots does that answer your that's exactly my question is just you know not getting it built into the school schedule and with the availability on site could really cause a barrier to some families right which is why we were from an organizational standpoint that's why we were advocating really strongly to be able to get at least some of the slots on campus prior to the late buses for families who couldn't access that so that there was some equity scott and then diane do we have a sense of the net budgetary impact here just sort of ballpark well will all the costs be covered by out of the salary of the open position or will yes i see yes i know susanne's nodding and i'm nodding because um we're estimating that even if we're spending about eight hundred dollars on average per student for vouchers or for the courses um that's going to come up way less than what the salary of that position was um at this point in time yeah uh scott is actually a savings to the district of about thirty thousand dollars is there any potential for spending the number of students might have access in the future having previously had a child who had to pursue private because of the timing and age you know there are a lot of kids who just don't have access when they are legally eligible for driver's ed at u32 so okay head steven i was gonna say maggie so the first issue is that we don't have enough slots yet for the 72 kids who've signed up and so we're going to try to make sure that because we do that through uh i don't know it's not quite a lottery but we do um you know for the kids to get into the class so we're going to try to make sure we get the 72 first and then we can start evaluating whether or not we can do more um we're just way short right now of even getting to those kids hey maggie maggie right now we um we actually u32 gets through more students every single year than most other schools um we know there's definitely a need um but um we are on the larger side of numbers to be able to get students through in the aoe um they're basically allowing this option because we don't have a teacher this is not an option that they want schools to pursue the requirement is that schools have to are required to offer um driver ed during this during the school day so they're they're allowing these options just because we don't have a teacher so i think it was diane and then chris so just a couple one is somewhat what maggie was saying but are you capping the number at this point and then the other thing is um the if if people with a voucher were to call now would they still would they get the same response that you're getting in terms of people are too full already even in the fall um and then the other question was vermont higher ed collaborative used to do a course but it sounds like they don't offer that anymore now so i will tell you i did have one family um get back to me uh a week ago and they did find uh an opening um that one of the instructors who is interested in teaching the 30 slots for us at the 6 p.m. time um he is trying to find other instructors who could do the driving piece of it to be able to increase that um as of right now he does not have additional drivers so it's it's not just the actual class time it's all of the driving time that needs to be done um i did have one driver ed so i reached out to six of them like i said that were local one of them immediately called the office and said i'm full till next year please don't give my number out one of them said that he's actually teaching less due to some um you know some personal concerns um and then like i said i had the the the two the four the fact that we have 46 slots is um pretty impressive right now um and i do believe like i guess i would ask that um we would if we can't get all the kids through in the fall spring that the board authorized that the money could go into the summer right so these students could still actually um you know be able to find a class before next year starts chris um i my question's been answered thanks very much super scott said another hand yeah thanks i just like to move that the board authorized using the salary of the open drivers education position to cover the cost of the options in the memo dated august 27 now second that thank you scott thank you chris can i offer a friendly amendment that we can we on offer a friendly memo that we allow those funds to be used until the beginning of the 2022-23 school year to cover the summer concern that we said yep sorry yes i got it okay great so i had a question though if we limited to are we limiting the slots or are we saying that once we hit that salary we're capped i would love for you to say once we hit the salary we're capped because then if we can actually get more than 72 through then fabulous okay and we would have spent that anyway so it sounds like a sensible cap thank you lisa thank you steven all those in favor of the motion as amended please say aye any oppose any abstain the motion carries let's move into personnel thank you steven and lisa and jen let's move into personnel uh lindy can i put you in the spot do you have i have them open resignations thank you thank you um i would i was wondering about there there's a few things but the resignation the paperwork wasn't in there is that i guess it's not a problem the other ones are in there in our packet yeah sure do you want to make a motion and then we'll discuss is that okay yep um i make a motion to accept the resignation of mckinsey hernow east font pillier special ed teacher thank you could i have a second please second okay you guys did it at the same time i'm gonna give it to jonah sorry chris the other one okay so we have a second i'm gonna ask for reconsideration floor you had the other one you have to be willing to share so hey you had a question diane oh no i mean lindy you had a question i just wondered um the paperwork wasn't in the packet as far as the resignation where the ones for the appointments were and i thought they usually are so this was one that that we missed for you all in august this was somebody who um we hired and who in july uh ended up deciding that she could not come after all so she she was never here um she was coming from out of state and due to family circumstances was not able to make them move this is what caused the shift in special educators that we talked about last month that answers my question yeah well those in favor oh sorry any other questions would it be possible just fill in new board members on what that changes in special education for east font pillier so we had had a special educator who was assigned to wait let me get this right who was assigned to east font pillier who chose not to come we had somebody assigned to another school who's shifted to east font pillier and then we had somebody who was um designated to be an instructional coach who has a special education license who's currently serving as a special educator as we continue to search for another special educator that great thank you appreciate the back info thank you any more discussion all those in favor of proving the resignation please say aye any oppose any of staying here none the motion carries it let's move to five the change in fte all right um we have two people and i'll do it in one motion there is a typo there can i just correct it so you have to correct the motion first yeah so mary carpenter that is a typo mary carpenter is currently employed as a point five math interventionist what we need to do is um increase from a point five fte to a one point oh fte math interventionist sorry about that mistake thank you um i make a motion to increase mary carpenter at callus from point five to one point oh fte as a math interventionist and to change mona lutz at dodie from full time one point oh two point four five thank you lindy uh can i have a second second thank you steven well doesn't any more discussion dayan just wanted to clarify and check in as to whether or not gillian would need additional support or if she's in favor of this gillian are you still here i know that we are looking for support so that we have full-time help in the office right now yeah and and that was the the question not to say no that we wouldn't improve it for mona but just to make sure we provide what's needed yeah thank you dayan although it's a favor of approving the change in fte for mary and mona please say hi hi hi and thank you mona thank you any any oppose hearing none the motion carries a new hire we have one more a new hire lory shepherd athletic director for um the elementary schools of berlin callus dodie and romney thank you lindy uh second second thank you chris any discussion or questions steven why do we need this because we had a gen all right i'm gonna attempt but i'm gonna invite my elementary colleagues to help me out on this one um we offer some sports across our elementary schools after after school in some cases it's a rec department that oversees and supports that in other cases it's a position in our school system that helps to coordinate that elementary principals what did i miss there um a few years ago the some of our rec associations previously um every town had a rec association that monitored and had oversight over it as we began to move towards some more structure and oversight around liability um and background checks it became clear that um at least in most of our towns not at eastmont failure that we needed to take the schools need to take on oversight and manage the liability of um the athletics and recreation and also to ensure that we're offering those enrichment activities to all of our students where possible um and over the last few years it it's evolved from an athletic director in one building to the wisdom of saying we're all trying to work together it would be wonderful to hire one person to have some oversight over all of our buildings eastmont failure is not a part of the fold because what they're doing currently is working and there's no reason to make a change in that i don't know if you'd add anything more to that alisha nope you said it well thank you okay and that's at least the history i don't know if that's the rationale that you're looking for steven haven't we had someone in this position yeah so it's not a new position chris was hired to a different job so he left the position and now it's open i'm okay understanding that it's not a new position okay the paperwork didn't make that clear usually it says who's leaving but this was a position that already existed yeah okay all those in favor of the name of hiring lori please say hi hi hi any opposed any abstentions here none the motion and that business for tonight and we have an executive for the board members you're not done yet could i have a motion to move into executive senate for personnel i move to move into executive session for the purpose of personnel so lindy is getting that one chris sure i'm just just any question all those in favor please say hi hi hi hi hi so mark able to please move us into executive session with our supreme our acting superintendent jan miller please i would like to do that my computer once again frozen are you able to hear me let me i i'm sure i can try that okay i'm sorry i just it just did it as i started to do that all right i can i can try to do that for us real quick hold on thank you otherwise i if i just would take enough you know a minute for a restart and i can get back in and do it it's okay mark if jen can't do it i'll do it from here i'm gonna give it a go here hold on thank you i bet you've got it i'll restart once again and then if it's still not you know if you can't get it i'll be back in in just a moment i apologize is anybody going anywhere i'm moving people i might have to hold on um let me finish let's see all right i'm gonna open the room and try it everybody i think i got you all right i'm gonna now i have to get myself in i have somewhere fine welcome back everybody i'm gonna give a couple more seconds for everybody to come out of recording in progress there there's bruce okay would you like me to close all breakout rooms floor do you want me to what sorry mark i missed part would you like me to close the breakout rooms so that everybody comes back oh yes yes please we should all be in the general session now yes please i believe we i think we are all here i think we're here i think most people have left already mark so it jonas do you have a motion i do uh i move to designate jennifer miller arsono to serve as interim superintendent for the 2021-2022 school year i'll second that thank you cari i need this question thank you i just want to say thank you to gen for your willingness to support your district and all those in favor please die any opposed carrying on the motion carries unanimously welcome gen thank you you're ready to do it but thank you we feel fortunate so that concludes the business for tonight thank you everybody for your patience and thank you for participating in the retreat and the community engagement so have a good evening chris do you have a comment or you're gonna move us to adjourn you're muted just saying good night good night everybody good night y'all see you later right good night good night good night good night thank you