 It's 32, call to order, meeting of the Montpelier-Roxbury Board of School Directors. Because we are doing this virtually, we do have to take all of the board members. So since there's a lot more people on my screen than I'm used to, Jill. Here. Mara? Here. Andrew? Here. Ryan? Here. Bridget? Here. Jill, again. Jerry. Jerry? This is the audio right now. Okay, I see Jerry. Jerry's connecting. Hi, everyone. Sorry I'm late. There you go. No worries. We have, so first order is public comment. We have a lot of members of the public. Can you all, you know the raise hand function? So everybody know where that is on Zoom? Give a thumbs up there. If people want to speak, could you please either raise your hand or give the thumbs up? So. So right now I see four. Which four I'm not, it's not showing for me. Mia, Beth, Joan, Amanda. Oh, Allison's raising her hands too. Both hands. Okay, and who else? Anybody? Oh, and Julia. Mia, Beth, Joan, Amanda, Julia. Great. Also, Carolyn. Oh, sorry, Carolyn, I missed you. Yep. And Abby now. Okay, I'm seeing it now. This, I have it right. I have Amanda, Beth, Joan, Carolyn, Mia, and Abby. Is that the list? It's those are the six hands I'm seeing. And Julia, Julia and Allison as well. Okay, we're Julia and Allison and that's showing up. I believe you. They have their hands raised on screen rather than in the participants' hands. Okay, and Allison. Okay, yes. Okay, I'm seeing the hand. So why don't we go, why don't we go in that order? Please try to keep your comments to a minute or less. And so start with Mia. Please remember to unmute yourself when you're talking and try to mute yourself when you are not talking to avoid background noise. So Mia. Thanks, Jim. And thank you everyone for your attention. This is actually my first school board meeting and I'm here to speak to the topic of the school resource officer item on the agenda. I just wanted to say very briefly that I don't think we need one. And two, I wanted to offer that this is an opportunity for us as a community to review why we needed one in the first place and see if there are possibly other ways that we could accomplish that purpose or those goals, especially knowing that the data shows that we don't actually have safer schools when we have police officers in schools and if that is one of the goals then what are the other ways that we can accomplish that? And depending on what the other goals are for having a school resource officer, what can we think? And we come together as a community to think creatively and collaboratively about other ways that we can accomplish that. Thank you. Next to me, Beth Blues. Hi, everyone. Hi, everyone. Sorry, we have some, okay, there we go. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I actually wrote my thoughts down and so I'm gonna read you what I'm coming to this meeting to talk about, which is to oppose and ask that we remove school resource officers from our school district. I can also submit this in writing. It just wasn't clear to me how or where to do that. So I'd love some information at some point. But it's just to make sure on video and expose more often. People, including Vermont's top law enforcement officials have said that those problems don't exist here. That Vermont is different. And so we should not let the actions of others in those other states drive our decisions here in Vermont. That claim is false. And the notion that Vermont is exceptional is offensive particularly to black and brown community members who are disproportionately targeted by police here in Vermont. The evidence clearly demonstrates that police violence and use of force is as present in our communities as it is across the country. In Vermont today, black motorists are stopped in search of disproportionate rates. Our prisons have some of the worst racial disparities in the entire country. Images of police brutality appear regularly on video recordings and a number of police killings is steadily increasing all here in Vermont. What does this have to do with police in schools? Simply put, you cannot ignore the history of police in this country and state in this country and state when discussing their presence in schools. This history does not suddenly disappear when that often white officer walks through the doors at Montpelier High School or any other school in this community. It does not disappear for the black and brown kids who are told by their parents to put their hoodie down while walking outside at night or to keep their hand visible when pulled over by police. It does not disappear for that 10 year old black girl who just a few weeks ago stood up and spoke at a black live satter rally in Waterbury crying and shaking as she explained that white people were lucky to not know what it feels like to feel the fear of police. That for her, it was terrifying, sitting in a back seat when just days before her parents were pulled over in Vermont by the police. Knowing that with one wrong move, she could see her parents killed in front of her. This is real for people in Vermont, even if it's not real for you. Police do not make all communities feel safe and schools are meant to be safe places for children. How can we possibly say that some of our students deserve to feel safe while others do not? At what cost? Now let's put that history aside for a minute and address the current arguments in support of police in schools. Two main claims made by proponents of increasing, proponents of increased policing are that school resource officers can control and prevent crime among students and prevent or afford armed attacks on schools by school shootings. However, the existing evidence for SRS increasing safety is mixed at best with strong evidence of unintended harmful consequences that come with SRO programs, including trusting students into the criminal justice system and perpetuating racial inequity. In other words, there is no meaningful evidence to suggest that police presence in schools helps to keep our students safe. And it is evidence we should be basing decisions on for this issue, not presumption. Another major argument is that the presence of police officers in schools helps to establish a positive relationship with people in the community early on and can serve as a resource for students in and out of school, helping to be a bridge when law enforcement gets involved in out of school family situation. Well, the question is for whom? For which population of students does the SRS serve as a resource? Thinking back to the history of policing and police and its relationship with communities of color, especially the black community, what evidence is there to support this claim when communities of color do not trust police because too often interaction with that results in harm to their body? It is a policy to say police in schools are good for building positive relationships and being a bridge in police interactions with families when the evidence and reality suggests otherwise. The fact is, when law enforcement is placed in a school, black and brown students and students with disabilities are less safe. Some argue that it's okay for police to be in schools because they get additional training to know how to support kids. Yes, SRS get training on trauma form practices. Is it enough? No. Do they get as much as a trained social worker or a school counselor? No. It's supporting kids and making them feel safe in our school is our goal with our sorrows and we can meet those goals far better with people more highly trained than a police officer who gets a few additional hours of trauma in form practices, people like social workers and school counselors. At the end of the day, police are trained to respond to threats and they are trained to respond with as much force as is necessary according to them. We have seen time and again, how inserting police into situations where a person is having a mental health crisis, for example, escalates the situation. It is at the response we want in our schools when children with brains that are yet to be fully developed are in a global crisis. At Montpelier High School, where my children will go, 11.6% of the 293 students are students of color according to 2015 data, which is the most recent available by the civil rights office of the federal government. Of the 12 out of school suspensions in that year, 66.7% for black students but 4.4 of the student population percent was black, indicating a severe disproportionate impact on black students at the high school. This is what institutional racism looks like. This is how the school to present pipeline begins. Additionally, 10.9% of the students at Montpelier High School are identified in the 2015 data as students with disabilities, IDAs. While 20 to 25% of students with disabilities received out of school suspensions that year, half of in school and out of school suspensions and referrals to law enforcement from Montpelier High School were for students with disabilities. This is unacceptable. The data makes clear that some of our children are not receiving the support they need to be successful. The Montpelier Rocksbury School District should end the use of police in schools and instead provide funding for educational support services. What our kids need is more counselors, more support and a stronger sense of belonging to this community, not more police. And so it is up to the nine of you to decide as our elective school board members who are you going to invest in? Are you going to invest in the students of this community and listen to the voices of the families who are asking you to get armed police out of our schools? Or are you going to prioritize? I'm showing up for my kids because I do not want to show up for black death. I do not want to show up for kids in jail. I want to be here to say that police have absolutely no room in our schools. It doesn't matter if they're nice. I know that everybody likes one person but they still carry a gun in their holster. And the thought of having my kids grow up with a police presence in our school is unacceptable. I think that the amount of money that we can put in that salary of 70 plus could go into restorative practices to instituting things that are making our kids feel safe, love, all of them. Not just because the color of their skin is different. My kid is white passing. She will never probably have a problem with the police but that it's not an excuse for us to think about all the kids that do from birth have issues with systemic racism. So I am here to say that if there is no vote today if this is the start of the conversation we should not be hearing from the police. We should be hearing from community members that are really concerned about coming to drop off our kids to see a police office today. Again, it's not about an individual officer. It's about a systemic issue that we're seeing as a nation. Thank you for your time. And I hope that if you don't make decisions today that you are here from the community that is impacted. Hi. Thank you. Joan, if you still wanna go, you're up next. Very thanks. My name's Joan Javier Duvall. I'm a resident of Montpelier and I along with my husband have a child entering first grade at Union Elementary School. I'm also a member of Union Parent Group's Equity Committee. I'm also a Unitarian Universalist minister. What I want to see for my child and for all of our children is a school environment that supports true safety, community and belonging for the sake of their learning and development. As maybe you have guessed, I am here also to speak about school resource officers and my belief that they have no place in our schools. You know, what's being made clear yet again in this current moment during this most recent uprising for Black Lives is that we don't, we don't. I also wanted to say that I am just coming off of a week-long conference of my religious community, a national-international gathering at which our community passed a resolution in support of the current movement to really examine the role of police officers and police systems in all of our communities and to really take the lead from Black, Indigenous, people of color in all of our communities and to really listen to those stories and experiences. And so that really informs where I'm coming from and I know that all of us here have different sources where we find guidance and where we find sources of our own values and our own morals. And this is, I think that the passing of that resolution just really speaks to the fact that this is yet again another historic moment and historic opportunity for us to take seriously the calls to question the role of police and to really talk with one another about how best to use our resources towards true safety for all of us and most especially for those who are marginalized because of their identities. Thank you very much. Thank you, Joan. Carolyn? Thank you. Hi, my name is Carolyn Wesley. I am a Montpelier parent, although my one-year-old daughter is not yet in the Montpelier-Rexbury School District system. I very much hope that she will be. That we will continue to live in this community. And I am here because in this moment when we are all grappling with the ongoing reality that neither safety and protection under the law nor opportunity to thrive exist equally for everyone in our current structure in this country, I think we are called to restructure and to think about different ways to be in community with one another in our schools and beyond. And up until now I have not been active in community conversations at this word or elsewhere around school safety, staffing, promotion of social and emotional well-being and racial equity. And I recognize that there may be good work underway that can be built upon and accelerated at this moment. But I do think that it's clear that both our school district and our city are facing significant budgetary pressures as a result of the pandemic and new ways of needing to work. And this presents an opportunity to reconsider funding priorities in the light of the demands of black and brown people across this country and in our community which include removing armed police officers from schools. I know that school resource officers are only one place where systemic racism and inequities show up in our school system. There are many challenges facing black and other students of color as well as low income students and students with disabilities in our community that you need to tend to as a board. And all of that requires resources. So I think it makes sense to prioritize school funding for programs better suited to promote the social and emotional well-being and academic success and equity of all students in the district. Thank you. Thank you, Carolyn. Julia? Hi. Thanks for the opportunity to speak. I speak to you as the parent of a white child in this district. I'm part of the UES Parents Equity Group and I've heard from several other members of that group in support of the message we bring tonight but couldn't be here. They plan to join us in advocating moving forward. I also speak as a trauma trained social worker and therapist in private practice working with teens and adults in this community. I would like to add my voice in support of the national call led by black and brown people in this country and in the state to remove school resource officers from all of our schools. In this case, I'm here to advocate for the removal of the SRO from the Montpelier-Roxbury Public School District. We are not different. We are not immune to structural racism and if we are not actively responding to those calls with anti-racist policies and actions, we are choosing to uphold and continue racist systems that harm black students, indigenous students and all students of color in our community. We often celebrate the fact that Montpelier was the first high school in the country to fly the Black Lives Matter flag. Our superintendent put out a statement following the murder of George Floyd reiterating that black lives matter. Now we need to take action to back up those gestures. The Black Lives Matter platform calls for defunding the police and removing SROs from schools. It is the responsibility of white residents, officials and leaders in this community to show up and take action in support of the students in our district who have been engaging with racial justice and calling for this change on others. As a trauma-trained therapist, what I will speak to directly is the argument that SROs are trained to be trauma-informed. Trauma-informed has become a buzz term. In my experience, very little trauma-trainment training, including at the highest levels, actually addresses institutional, historical or generational trauma. In that case, what does trauma-informed mean when it doesn't take into account the institutional, historical or generational trauma that black, indigenous and other people of color have lived through in this country? When the person who said to be trauma-informed is wearing a gun or a uniform that has been worn by others while causing trauma by inflicting violence or profiling people who look like our students or who are our students, how could we expect our BIPOC students to feel safe and equally access their rightful education when a police officer, someone who represents that historical and current violence, is a daily part of their school environment? This is true regardless of how well-loved and supportive any individual SRO may be. The 2015 statistics on suspensions for my Montpelier High School indicate that out of the 12 out-of-school suspensions that year, 66.7 were black students but 4.4 of the student population was black. As Beth said, this is what institutional racism looks like. Thank you for doing this research, chef. And I will add that this is what racialized trauma looks like. Additionally, in 2015, half of in-school, out-of-school suspensions and referrals to law enforcement were students with disabilities. This is what discrimination looks like. This is what institutional trauma looks like. This is unacceptable and we must take action. These statistics demand that we take no approaches but the money you choose to die after the police in our schools, we can invest more deeply in restorative justice, mental health support for students and equity-based initiatives with a central focus on ensuring that all of the children in our school districts thrive. Listen to black and brown parents and students in our community, choose to make an impact on structural racism in our schools, invest in solutions that replace trauma with healing. Thank you. Thanks, Julia. And I will pause as my camera is off. I think that's everyone. Do I, is there anyone else who wants to speak? Allison, sorry. Go ahead. My name is Allison Mayny and I'm a resident of Montpellier, an educator in another school district. And I'm a mom of two black kids who go to one who goes to Montpellier High School and one who will go to Montpellier High School next year. And I have their permission to speak. I had hoped my daughter would be willing to speak and she was earlier today but then she just got too nervous. Both my kids have said that they think that the SRO has been very friendly in their school. They've had conversations with the SRO outside of school and yet they're still very fearful. My daughter talks very eloquently about feeling terrified when she sees the police officer in the school. And both my kids don't necessarily feel like Montpellier is a very safe place for them, not just the school, but in general. There was a black man that was shot in Montpellier. There was a man with mental health issues shot in Montpellier and there was somebody, a young person shot on the school behind Montpellier High School. All of these very specific local issues, moments in time, plus with the black viral death that they're seeing on social media is making this a really traumatizing time for them. And I'm worried about them going back to school. I'm worried about them being able to feel safe, follow the enforcement of new rules that COVID is going to be placing on them. And I'm worried that their lack of compliance normal teenage lack of compliance will be seen differently because they're so dark-skinned and outspoken and not always super compliant like teenagers. And so I guess as a mom, I'm terrified, really. And I know it's not just an issue of having an SRO in the school, but that is just one gesture that I feel like our school district can really be making right now and making a big statement around that in support of my children and other people of color and people with disabilities in this community. And I also just wanna say I'm very heartened to hear everybody who has spoken against SRO in school. It makes me feel much less alone. And that means a lot right now, so thank you. Great, thank you, Allison. Anyone else? Yes. Thanks. Oh. This is LaLica, LaLica, my logo name. Yeah, yeah, come on in. Hello. No, go ahead. Oh, do you wanna? Oh, sorry. Yeah, that's LaLica, I'm Corby. Both of us are parents of two mixed race children in the schools. One is entering the high school and one is in middle school. And I mean, in support of what everybody else has said, yes, I think having a social worker in the school would probably be a better use of the money than an SRO. My kids have, well, one of them has experienced racism that got kind of dismissed by the police when it was brought to their attention. And that was a very disappointing outcome. And since then, I think that the level of trust has lessened with both of my kids, with police officers. And I think it's important that we use our limited finances better. And somebody called this a statement. And I think it's more than a statement. I think it's an approach that needs to happen in Montpelier. If we're going to be serious about addressing systemic racism, we need to make changes. And this is one of the first changes, I believe we need to make. LaLica, is there anything you want to add? So when my daughter went through that racism incident, when I said it is racism, the police officer, I'm sorry, it brings up a lot of stuff for me because I, as a person of color, have encountered a lot of racism too. So to see my own kid going through was really very traumatic. So when that happened, I had to take her to the police station because the kid that was involved was not from Montpelier High School. It happened in our local library. So I had to take her to the police station a couple of times so we can talk to the officer. And this was really not even not only traumatic for me, but traumatic for my kid who was like 11 years old, 10. And she had to recount again what happened. She got called names. She got hit. There were bruises on her. And I would prefer a social worker, not a cop. Absolutely. To come and help us deal with the situation. Someone who has experienced mental health. Is that correct word? Yeah. So I'm just very disappointed when me or a person of color says this is racism and the police officer says just no and strips it under the carpet. And if you don't have the training, you cannot see what I see. And even with the training, the minimal training in systemic racism that police have received or may receive, it won't be enough. It won't be anywhere near the level of training that a social worker who is trained specifically in racist issues would be able to, not just racist, but issues for children would be able to see. I think, I just think our money is far better spent on somebody, a counselor who can help with the issues. If police are needed, they can be called, but I don't think police are needed full time or even part time inside the school. And the other thing I remember is I was skill tripped in not taking any action against that young kid because I was going to ruin his future if I were to take action. And I forgot the other one. And if a social worker was involved, they would have told me this new information. So the following year, that same student from a different school who attacked my daughter enrolled in the same school again. Enrolled in her school. In her school again, in the middle school. So that was like a slap on my face because I was not told, my daughter was not told. And for her to see that perpetrator in the school was traumatic to her. And I had to tell her coach and tell her that just ignore him, don't go near him, if anything happens let me know. So it's really disappointing to find out. Yeah, that's it, sorry, thank you. Thank you. Thank you everyone, very eloquently stated and very helpful, I think certainly to me and I'm sure to the rest of the board as well. So I think, I suggest that in the board discussion we move the SRO to the top of the list so that way we don't have people have to hang on through other discussions. So why don't we do the consent agenda so that we can go to the SRO portion of the board discussion just again. So folks don't have to listen to. The decisions are probably not taking time out of their ones that you need for. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. Do you have a second? Second. Second. So we have to do roll call again. Jill. Here. Aye. It's aye or no? Aye. Unless you want to vote present. Mara. Aye. Andrew. Aye. Ryan. Aye. Bridget. Aye. Jerry. Aye. And I don't think I missed anyone. Okay, so now we'll go to the board discussion portion and let's start off with the SRO roll and then we'll do the other four items. I can just say there's a comment in the chat. I think maybe from Bill about did we possibly cut off public comment before it was done? No, I'm sorry. Did we? It's Bill. I don't know how you normally do your business. I think I assume we could comment during the agenda item but if we missed it. Now, I'm sorry if I overlooked you. I thought we'll leave it for the last but go ahead and we'll reopen just. Sure, well I'll try to be brief. Thank you for having this. This is certainly a very difficult issue as many of the people here involved are also talking to us about policing and we take that very seriously. So my name is Bill Fraser. I am a 25 year resident of Montpelier. I have full of kids that went all through Montpelier schools from kindergarten to 12, all graduates and had wonderful experiences. I'm also the city manager for the city and as such oversee the police department. I would urge you as you have this company so I mean obviously I tend to favor this but I also think it is important to listen to everybody's voices. I would urge you that as you consider this decision you take a look at Montpelier specific data. Our data shows us that there is no history at least in terms of police stops, police arrests that show a bias in Montpelier but that should be proofed. You shouldn't take my word for it. Take a look at cases like the suspensions and find out how many of those involved in SRO. I don't know the answer where those police involved decisions or is that something else because as somebody earlier said and I guess I'd have to reinforce that I don't think that removing SRO is going to change it's going to suddenly end racism in the city or in the schools that are systems that are involved here. I would urge people to take a look at cases that were referred where they're, the suggestion was made people with special needs that it shows a bias. Perhaps you should maybe look at each one always in a safety situation where cases where students are throwing chairs around and we're out of control and there wasn't anyone in building able to handle that so they called in the resource over assistance to get some safety and control from the students to make sure that we understand why those referrals were made and what those things happen. And to that end, I would urge that the staff and the teachers be consulted about the impact of this role, what kind of support they call out. I think none of us endorse the ideas of the fully militarized police officer strolling the hallways, but I think that is not the goal or the system which I'd have that if there are problems that we'd like to hear, particularly in my opinion, specific problems. With regard to social workers I don't pretend to be an expert in the school but I know for some queer period of time there was a social worker in schools there's three. And so they do exist and I find it and people that may or may not be aware about the budget that starts today for the city includes funding for embedded social worker in the police department to handle these kind of calls. So we hear that and an armed police officer isn't always the best person. Like to quickly address the shootings someone brought up the shootings and I think I don't want to get into detail because it's sad and scary. There was a black person shot and the police were not involved in that. That was a crime and a person was being convicted for that homicide. And because of the work of our police that was not a police involved shooting. And without going into great detail on the two police involved shootings in both cases an hour plus was spent trying to de-escalate the situation in both cases the individuals pointed guns at officers and threatened to kill them. And so the officers responded at their own safety. We can like that or not but those are the facts there. Neither of those calls were initiated by the police seeking to pull some over and neither of those calls involved persons of color. So we have sensitive issues I urge you all to get everyone all of us. So I don't know the answers to these questions I've raised. They may, I think it's incumbent on all of us to engage in the conversation, get the information and see what has actually been happening in the popular schools. What's been happening in the popular community. Engage our new police chief who I know is interested in talking about this, I believe he's here on the call of the, I'm not going to fall in terms of speaking unless he wants to. But that's my question, do it thoughtfully, get the information and make a decision based on what's right for our city and make sure that we're doing the right thing that we're doing. I feel you. Thank you, Bill. And apologies for not wanting to speak. Just before we totally cut up public comment and move on, is there anyone else wants to speak before we turn either like? Yes, just one last comment picking off of what Bill said. I recognize that sometimes police will be being needed. But I wonder if that is something that can be done with a police call. And secondly, students throwing chairs or what have you. I mean, I worked at the hospital, we talked people down, violent people down all the time. I'm trained in that. I think that's something that doesn't necessarily have to be a police officer. And in fact, oftentimes it's best when it isn't. But that's my opinion. I just wanted to throw that out. Thank you. Great, thank you. And is there anyone I don't want to cut it off so I don't want to get into a broad debate because you do have to move on to the meeting. Is there anyone who has not spoken who would like to speak briefly? Hello, good afternoon, good evening. You're on deck, I believe, as well. You're on the main agenda. Did I just hold off then? Yeah, let's move to that. And we can have Libby kick off the SRO discussion. And I think she's got a slot for you to speak. So we're very, very excited and excited to hear from you and welcome aboard, by the way. Thank you so much. Libby? Yeah, we can actually, John, don't go away there, Chief Pete, for jumping the Chief and I met yesterday. So I know that he wants to talk about this process. We also have Matt Nisley here, who is no longer our SRO, but Matt was the, I should say detective Nisley from being professional detective Nisley should, was our SRO for six years, for the past six years. And so he's got a good history of the role of the SRO in schools. I wanna thank everyone who came to the meeting. And I know I speak for the board when I say it's delightful, even though this is a very hard conversation, it's wonderful to see your faces and participate in the discussion. And so thank you for coming out and sharing your stories that are not easy to share in any way, shape, or form, particularly in a public forum. So I very much appreciate it. I also invite you to make a session with me to talk to me about that, about your experiences in the schools. I know some of you pretty well, but I don't know all of you. And so I welcome anybody to come take, make a meeting with me to, to talk through some of your concerns and things like that. So as I start my third year as superintendent of Montclair Rocksbury Public Schools, the SRO position has, has been one that I quite honestly relied on as a superintendent. I can't sugarcoat that. At all, Matt, detective Nicely, has been a resource for me as a superintendent learning how to run a system with school safety at the heart. He also participates in every single meeting that we have as teams with our social workers and our administrators. He knows our kids, even our kids pretty well. And so when he was coming to support either administration or social workers or guidance counselors and teachers and students, he was doing it from a place of knowledge because that's what, that was his position he took. Detective Nicely can also share several stories of keeping kids out of the criminal justice system. And when I asked him for data around that piece from the six years he worked there, and Matt, please correct me if I get any of this wrong. Only one student was brought to the criminal justice court system under his role as the SRO. And that's in six years. So it's not that he didn't have the opportunity for others potentially, but he was able to work in conjunction with Montcalier's excellent restorative justice center to work with kids and families to move in a different direction than the criminal justice court system. So with that collaboration with the restorative justice center, it's worked in the way that we'd like to. Now that doesn't belittle or demise or take away from the fact that what is happening across our nation and in our state is not right. And I think that there are several concerns that we have in making sure that all of our kids feel safe, particularly our kids of color, feel safe every single day and thrive in our school system. And it's not taking away from that. And it's not taking away from that desire. But I do wanna state that the SRO position in my tenure here at Montcalier Roxbury has been supportive of our students and has been supportive of our administration and our goals to protect and keep kids on the path we want them to be on. And I think that needs to be stated. But as I'd like to give Chief Pete a chance to take part in this discussion and obstrinize it, detect it nicely if you'd like to, just to state from their opinion as well. And again, I appreciate anybody, everybody who's come out tonight, absolutely. So Chief Pete, would you like to take the floor? Hello and good evening everyone. Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. And I just wanna say this is a very personal topic for me that we cannot discount. And I encourage the school board to not discount the emotions, the fear, the anger and the experiences that some people have dealt with regarding past instances with the police. Those are real. And so I'm very encouraged and grateful for this dialogue. But I also need to say that we all should be involved in this conversation to talk about these things and to make the decisions based on what has happened here in Montpelier and none of the actions that happened in Minneapolis. And so if I may share, so if I may share a story, my father was working within the Chicago public school system. I am a black man born and raised on the city's south side. My experiences with police officers have been mixed. My experiences with SROs have been mixed. And I see the comment, yes, that's what I'm saying. It is not about Minneapolis, it's about Vermont. It's about how the police department in Vermont is dealing with the issues and how we can become community partners and try to find a way past what's been going on systemically and within our institution. So I just say that I think the many levels that you have, the many opportunities is incumbent upon us to try to put as many people who care and who want to make a positive difference. And yes, police officers do care. We do want to make positive differences. We want to be there to help our communities. And the more people that you have that are able to see something and to keep someone from slipping through the cracks because we're all doing more or less. Staff is doing more or less. Social workers are doing more or less. Counselors, teachers. But it's just another set of eyes to help someone in need. The Montpelier Police Department is not here to, we have laws, we have mistakes, and we're working towards things, but we're not here to be a symbol of institutional racism. That's the last thing I would ever want to be a part of. So I think that this conversation warrants a look and a discussion of it's how the schools use the SRO. We don't, we should not, we don't need officers there. It's going to escalate a situation where an officer may not be able to relate or to develop a sense of trust. With students, with our children, and my daughter's going to school there as well. So I've seen my father pull people out of really bad situations. And he did it without sending them to jail. He did it with partnering with other teachers and staff members and saying, hey, I think this is going on. And yes, we may not have the training or the education that a social worker does, but we have training and education and lots of experiences to understand when we see someone who is struggling in life and having problems, that we can de-escalate any situation to crisis and move them to the people that do that work. We're not claiming to be social workers. We don't want to be able to stop or walking around. It's not about safety. Montpelier has different challenges and needs than other places. And we need to make sure that we address those challenges and needs and respond to them. So I just say that there is a national conversation. This is the scripted part, but there's a national conversation to be had. And we're having it now, it's great regarding the roles of police officers in the schools. But Montpelier has been doing this right for a long time. This is the first time we're addressing this issue. This hasn't been something that each school board meeting, you've been having to talk about complaints with SRUs. I think that for all of us to come to a place that we're comfortable with each other, we all have to be involved in a dialogue. And we all have to understand that a lot of arguments are like, it's not about one individual person, then what is it about? We have to love each other. We have to tolerate each other. We have to understand where each other's coming from. We have to figure out what our department needs to do to right the wrongs of what's been going on institutionally wise. So I would just ask in making your decision about the SRO program that you judge our department based on the relationship that we've had with our community and the merit of the things that we've accomplished and not about the challenges that other locations may have. So I really am hoping for the opportunity to speak with you guys more in depth. I understand if you have to make that decision now, but I'm also hoping to continue this dialogue, regardless of what happens here. But I want to continue the dialogue with people here who have been affected and who have... Everyone's concerned here is legitimate, but we have to talk through them. We have to talk about it. We have to figure out where to go. And so I would just ask for those opportunities to be heard and judged in our personal manner. So thank you all very much for this. Thank you, Chief. Are you okay taking measures from the board? If they have any, about... Yes, I am. Yes, I am. Any questions for the Chief before I hear from Officer Nisley or Detective Nisley? Matt? Go ahead. Oh, that hurts. They may come later. That hurts. And Matt is fine. You know, six years being with the kids for me was an honor and a definite privilege to be part of that community. And I learned more from being part of that community and working with educators and social workers than probably ever in my career. Just a couple of quick stories that I'm not... I see some comments. It's not about me. I agree with you. This is a conversation we need to be having. What I will say is when we talk about school safety, the scariest time I had as a resource officer was sitting in Mike McGray's office when we were talking about getting the Black Lives Matter flag up and making sure that those kids were safe with the amount of national outcry and just hate and violence that was being targeted at our school and our community was the scariest time I've ever had as a police officer to make sure that those kids were safe and that all of our kids were safe in the school during that. And I took that very seriously and very personally when those threats came in. And I lost a lot of sleep over that. And it was about keeping that whole community of kids safe and thinking about them being outside and the amount of threats and the amount of national threats that were going on. We had a lot of hours of planning to make that safe event. And thankfully we did. The other thing I will say is, and Lydia brought this up, one arrest in the six years that actually went to traditional court, that takes work and takes relationships to make that happen. And knowing the kids in the school and being able to point them in the direction of resources to keep them out of the court system is what the position is all about. Strong partnership with the community justice center with social workers at school with family court when needed and having that knowledge of the kids to know what we can do to help in that partnership with parents and community members was so important in getting kids through the graduation. There were certainly times when cases could have gone to traditional criminal justice system. And because of that relationship and that knowledge of what kids were going through, I was able to point those kids in other directions which helped them be successful and get through graduation, which is what serves us best as a system is getting kids through graduation in a happy, healthy way. I'm happy to answer any questions about what our program has been. And certainly I don't discount anyone here speaking of personal experience. You know, good. Thank you, Matt. Any questions for Officer Nisley? I have a question. Oh, go ahead, Mara. Yes. So a good question on the Black Lives Matter piece was could not failure police department have been called and contracted with or consulted or otherwise used for protective during the all puppy dog during the Black Lives Matter national incident without having a uniformed armed officer in school daily. Sure. I can answer that or I'm sure Brian could as well. If you call us, we are coming. There is no doubt about that. We are here for our community, no matter what the role is that we had hit it. I think the difference was being able to be there with those students and part of those discussions on a daily basis as the threats were rolling in and as things were happening, gave an entirely different perspective than someone getting called into an hour meeting or whatever than we would have had. Is that something you imagined that the school district could have done on a long-term basis anyway though? Like as they noticed threats of a larger scale coming in, could they have initiated an interaction with the police department and then had multiple interactions as the situation developed and would that have served the same purpose? Yeah, I'm just trying to like, because obviously we don't have a national incident every day, right? So in the event that we would have another mass big incident like that, are there other ways to engage in protections that still fulfill the purposes of making sure the kids are safe without having an armed, uniformed person in the hallways daily? Matt, maybe, can I jump in? Myra, one of the things, I wasn't here obviously for the Black Lives Matter because that was before I was superintendent. But if I were to put myself in Brian's shoes at that time or Mike's shoes at that time, I would think one of the big differences, and Matt, correct me on this, is the relationship. So we've had other safety events after that in my realm, right? Being able to text Matt because I know him and we've built a relationship and I know he knows our schools as well as he does is very different from me calling a random police officer and saying, hey, we need some help here. And I know when I call Matt and say, I need to talk to you about this, then I know I'm taken seriously and I know that it's going to, like we're gonna be able to, I'm gonna be very honest and vulnerable around what I'm gonna say because we've built that relationship together. I don't have a relationship with Diane yet because I don't know her very well. She hasn't joined yet, but that for me as an administrator, yes, the school district probably could have collaborated with the Montpelier Police Department during the Montpelier College Matter Flag and ensure that our kids were safe and ensure that we had the process in place. I've no doubt about it, knowing Montpelier Police Department and knowing the administrators in our school buildings, that would have been their number one priority at that moment. The relationship in that particular with something as intense as that or like the potential shooter that was at the tax department last, when was that, fall? When I could just text Matt and say, and Matt actually texted me and said, lock your schools down, lock your schools down now, right? There's that relationship there that I don't question and it just does. It's a piece. Is it a major piece? Could we get around it? Probably. However, it's a piece that's important to put out. And if I may also add, I think that what we are is, we're here, we're on the side. We're on every one side. And we need, we want that opportunity to gain the trust of the people here, of the students especially. And I think that if they do understand that they see officers and they're able to understand that officers are human and that we can interact with children, with kids, with our students, then when times like these happen, God forbid they ever have to happen again, but should they have to happen that they know that we're here and we want to make sure that they're safe. So I just would think that we should have the conversation about how SROs should fit into the plan, should fit into school safety or involvement when we see something. Definitely, we should have that plan. But I think that this is an opportunity to add another layer of someone who can identify someone who's struggling with something and then move forward. Hi, Andrew. Yeah, thanks, Jim. Thanks, Chief. Thanks, Detective. Thanks, everyone who has contributed this evening. As a board, I'm sitting here, obviously, our role in this is we establish policies, we work on the budget, we negotiate a contract with the teachers union, but obviously our superintendent is held accountable to us and we are the representatives of our community with regard to the direction of our public schools. And so we are getting into some nitty gritty here that we normally don't, but this is a big enough and important enough conversation that I think it does warrant it from the board. I don't think you can just sit on the sidelines and say, administration, we're just gonna let you go with this. I think it's important for us to be part of this conversation. And anecdotes are one part of that and I'm hearing a lot of anecdotes, but I'm really curious to know as an employer, as a community trustee of one of our most important institutions, do we have clearly defined responsibilities for this position? Do we have a clearly defined purpose for this position? Do we have job specifications? I don't know the answer to that. Libby, maybe you can answer that. Yeah, is it formalized on paper from Ara? No, it could be at the police department, but as far as our job descriptions, because they're not technically our employee, they're the Montcalier police department employees. So the job description piece, if that's what you're going after, Andrew would be at the police department. Because I think for our schools, if we're going to have a police officer in our school, we need to have a conversation and we need to clearly establish, what is the role of this SRO at our school? What do they do? What do we want them to do? Should this person be the one that does this work or might it be better suited to some other type of professional? That's the type of conversation that I've been hearing from community members and I've been hearing from a lot of community members across a broad range of backgrounds on this issue. And I think we owe it to the community to have this conversation and to flash these details out. Yeah, we can talk. Man, I'm Wilton and GP can talk about exactly what the role is currently for the SRO. So I'll start listening, Matt jump in, GP jump in, whenever I've missed one. So the SRO currently is collaboration with the school safety team or the district safety team as well as each school-based safety team. So that's for crisis situations, it's for any kind of school safety event. They play a huge role in training our staff for those situations, which are mandated by the state, as well as helping us wade through lots of different opinions as to how school safety should be run. They also are a big part of that collaboration so that should the awful event happen or tragic event happen in a school, they are there to respond. They know our buildings really well. They know what our processes are. They know what our responses so that nobody's guessing each other. We've collaborated to make those plans together. In addition, whenever there's a threat made against our school and schools in any way, shape or form, the SRO is the one who goes and does a threat assessment. So it could be going to a student home or a family's home or a community member's home, whoever made the threat to do an assessment to say, is this a threat that is something that needs to be followed through on or is this not necessarily one that could be reality? I'm not sure how you would refrain that in a different way. Our SRO also helps when kids are highly dysregulated at times during the school day when it gets beyond what our school building's capacity is. And it usually involves whatever's happening in the hallways or things like that rarely happens inside a classroom. But it's more a student is left in some way or run out of the building in some way. Often it could be a kid has, we've lost a kid and not we, but in terms of the kid has run away and the SRO is helping with the family and other police is the connection between the school, the family and community officers to help us find that kid and keep that kid safe. The SRO is also part of all of our weekly meetings with administration guidance counselors and social workers. There are liaison to the restorative justice center, certainly to make sure that we have that collaboration in place with the restorative justice center. The SRO also works closely with our social workers if they need to make a home visit to a home that has some challenges going on, safety for our staff and our social worker. In that situation, the SRO will accompany the social workers so the social worker can do their job with mental health and feel safe while doing it. Matt, what am I missing here? It's a pretty good list. I mean, I think one of the other things that we haven't touched on is just the collaboration with the social workers on SRO and C issues and helping get to school and through graduation. Going out to do a home visits day after day to try to get kids to just show up and that isn't just a police officer going to the door, that's going with the social workers to the door to figure out what's the impediment, what's stopping those kids from getting to school. And certainly at times that also involved referrals to the community justice center who did phenomenal work with a few of our students getting them through all the way to graduation recently from zero attendance three years ago. So it's those community partnerships that are so important. All right, so important. The other thing, sorry, GP, one last thing that I know that Matt has certainly helped us with is that people try to get into our district. And so Matt is the detective who will go look to see if they actually live within our boundaries and have some, yeah, this is a small piece, but it's also a piece, sorry, GP, go for it. No, no, ma'am, it's okay. I just, if I can add that I'm working, I wanna make it clear that we're not advocating to replace social workers or counselors. We're not advocating to do that position. We're just another resource that can be there. We just want to, and if I can, I'll just go off based on what it is that our police department, our creed, and we look to the 21st century policing practices and models and there's three of them. So basically, SROs must create, and I'm just quoting it so I don't get it wrong, that we're creating opportunities in schools and communities for positive non-enforcement interactions with police. We established memorandums of agreement for a place of school resource officers that limit police involvement and student discipline, and that we have to try to restore and build trust between youth and police by creating programs and projects for positive, consistent and persistent interaction between youth and police and we'll never have that opportunity to have those interactions unless we can, we can be allowed to be on school campuses and to have those interactions because that's what we're trying to do is foster and to improve relationships and to have to be there to have that national dialogue that if someone who can come up to a police officer and say, why are you guys racist or why is this happening within our communities that officer can be there to have that conversation and that that officer can be there for that student to vent and to hear and to understand and we can learn in turn with that. So I just, what we follow as we come into, as we proceed, hopefully with our SRO program. So I get the, Jim, can I clarify, we aren't making a decision tonight necessarily. We are simply getting educated on the position. So yeah, go ahead, Mara. Yeah, so I feel like it bears further discussion. Like what do we need done in the schools who is best to do them? And I don't know how we go about looking at something like that. I know I'm new to the board so I don't know what the role of the board is and what the role of the board isn't but I'm mainly interested for the purposes of kind of leading and caretaking schools in knowing what are the things that need to be done and what are the ways they could be done and are they being done in the best way now? And that sounds like a really big question and so I'm kind of tossing that over to Libby too. Those are my big questions and they seem bigger than they seem like you have to do some digging. Yep. Yeah, no, I think those are the questions that we want to look into. Also Libby, I understand the SRO is a city employee and not a district employee but what's the actual document that governs the relationship? Yeah, I mean, for instance, the SRO attends certain meetings, is that just a practice that's developed or is there like an MOA between the city and the district that defines the role and responsibilities kind of as per the relationship? If there is one, I've never seen it. So I've never signed something yearly or something like that. So if there is one that it's out of date and we don't have one that's updated, Matt, you might be able to tell something different there. Yeah, what I can say is it's, you know, Mark Booty started a very long time ago doing this and built the program and I came in, was trained by him and took over those roles and responsibilities and they have been over the years modified to fit what works best for the school district and the students. But as far as a new written document, I have not been involved in creating an MOU. And Matt and Ryan, is there something at MPD that's the written down description of what the relationship and role is supposed to be? We have internal expectations. I have to double, again, I just started as well. So I need to double check and to make sure that what we have, just to make sure that we have those things codified in writing. But the best practice is to make sure that we have these conversations, especially warrants it, that we need to make sure that within any policies that we have on our end, because we give our expectations to our SROs. This is what we expect you to do, but we need to make sure that we codify all of those in writing and memorandums of agreement that we're not overstepping or we're not coming in to create an environment of fear of distrust. We need to make sure that anything that's outlined within an MOA is the will of the superintendent of Libby and the will of the board. And that's what we're here for. We're here to be looking to be partners to try to figure out different ways as best as we possibly can. Any opportunity that we have to extend safety to our students, we want to be a part of it. Very thank you. Did any of the board members have questions for? Can I just have one comment quickly? If any? It's a little on a turn. This is something that you could send us writing. I just don't want to, if I open it up to you, I feel like I have to open it up to everyone. Well, it was actually, okay. All right. I'll tell you something. Sorry, Bill. It wasn't enough because he position us. No, it's, you know, you can put in the chat if it's a quick piece of information. I think everyone can see it, but any board members have further questions for Bridget? Yeah. And I also want to echo what other board members have said in thanking everyone that has come here, come here to our virtual meeting tonight and spoken. Thank you. I would like to hear a little bit more about the day-to-day experience of having a school resource officer in the high school and is it only the high school? And I know there have been a lot of references to having an armed police officer, I assume. As an officer, he's carrying a weapon, but I don't actually know what uniforms, police cars, like what does it look like? I'd like to hear more about that if that's possible tonight. Eva, I'm sorry, I spoke to Libby earlier again yesterday and we talked about what this should continue to look like. So we want to make sure that it's a soft appearance. We don't want to have, we're looking at not using marked cars, we're looking at using unmarked cars, we're looking at SROs dressing the same way. Unfortunately, we would, as much as I would love to not have to carry weapons, we are a smaller department. So in the event that an emergency happens, we're going to, and the SRO needs to respond, we're gonna need her to respond as soon as possible. So we would prefer to make sure our officers stay armed, but that doesn't mean that they can't walk through the halls concealed. That doesn't mean that any weapons have to be visible to the students. So we just want to make sure it's a soft approach and that officers are interacting, not sitting in offices, that they have not been, Matt has not been doing that, but just going around and talking to kids and just working on gaining trust. And whatever it is that the board determines that the things that this is gonna be the best way for us to interact and to gain that trust, that would be part of an MOA, what your vision would be. My perspective, Bridget, sometimes I wouldn't see the SRO for many weeks. Sometimes I'd see them daily. Sometimes Matt would make several visits a day into my office to tell me about a situation that he was working on in terms of a threat assessment or something. The SRO is always a part of our district-wide safety committee that meets monthly and always a part of the school-based safety committees that meet pretty much monthly. So I'd work with the SRO during that time and look to them for their expertise and safety. Then other times, Matt would be coming in to see if I needed something, and see if something was going on. He'd be talking to me about situations that were happening outside of the community that I might need to be aware of. So from my perspective, sometimes it was a lot, sometimes it wasn't. Principles would have a probably different answer for you than I do as a superintendent, but we don't have any of our principles on here tonight. We can certainly invite them the next time we talk about this. So you get a different point. You're asked about the different school buildings. So the SRO position is based in the high school, certainly is at the middle school often, and occasionally works with Ryan at the elementary school. But usually that's an on-call piece. Ryan will call if he needs support with something. And that's very atypical, but it has happened. Matt, do you want to add anything to that? Roxbury's Automobiliar Police Department's jurisdiction. So they don't have any support if something happens there? Yeah, so what my police, well, I'll actually show that the police department question, go ahead, Matt, sorry. So I'll speak to that. Certainly I was involved in planning with Roxbury and any kind of consult that I could be part of. I would work with them on that, but just the logistics of being that far away, their emergency response is going to be state police and Northfield just for geographics. But yeah, the only brick and mortar office I had was at the high school. So everything else was pop-in visits and interacting with students when we could or when we were invited by teachers or when something's needed. Thanks to all three of you, I appreciate all those responses. Any other questions to the board? Ryan? I get a question then, Libby. We did hear a couple of anecdotes of some of our students in tonight's discussion, which was great to hear. But I'm curious, do we have any data? Are there any graduate surveys? Are there any ways we would have any data to be able to get a sense where our students are reacting to the presence of the SRO? The first task is last year when we worked with RJ, the Racial Justice Alliance, as a policy committee working on the DEI, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Policy. The SRO didn't come up in our discussions. It's not really in that policy. It might have just been overlooked by the students or a policy committee, but I don't remember those conversations we had with our students really raising the SRO as being a big problem in our building. So I'm just trying to understand what avenues we might have or data sources to help us inform what our students are feeling inside our building, or buildings, excuse me. We don't have any data to show you right now, right? Around, from students specifically, from student voice, we could show you up-to-date data around suspensions and that kind of thing, but we don't have student voice qualitative data, but we can certainly try to get it. It's hard to get that kind of information now, but we can do our best. Thank you. And Ryan, that didn't come up during the policy conversation with the students. You're right. If we are thinking about doing some sort of listening or data collection, I do want to raise that the people who are disproportionately impacted are the people who will be least numerically represented. So it is really important for me to say over and over again, students with disabilities, LGBTQ students, black and brown students are disproportionately impacted. They are differently impacted in terms of trauma experiences and their voices will be drowned out by experiences that aren't the same as theirs. So I think if we go into looking for data, I think it's important to note that this evening, we've heard from parent after parent after parent who raises youth of color in our schools that they do feel threatened and they do feel unsafe. And that, I think that that has bearing to me to just listen to with weight, that the people who are disproportionately impacted are saying loud and clear that they are disproportionately impacted. And if we go into some sort of data digging, I would want us to think about how we would weight the experiences of people who are yet again likely to be disproportionately impacted. Okay, then you're absolutely right, Mar. I didn't mean to dismiss any of these experiences, but it was when I personally had a chance to sit down with some of our students and we had these conversations, yeah, sorry, I just didn't come up. So I was just exploring what might be available to us. Jim, I have a question. Yeah, go ahead, Jerry. I'm just wondering if we have any information on if we have any risk assessments or anything like that in terms of, because I know a lot of times what you prevent doesn't always get good press. So in terms of having the officer there in the first place, what is the risk and have we done any work on, the risk should fit the position. So if there's less risk, then there would be, it would be less risk for us to move that to some other skillset. So maybe a social worker could do that, but is there a risk there that we are not privy to at the moment? That would be my question is, do we have any information on that? So Jerry, when you're asking about risk, are you asking about the number of threat assessments, the number of case law, like kids who are impacted? Yeah, like what would happen? So right now some of that is maybe de-escalated in quiet ways by relationships and trust and that kind of thing, or the officer going to the student's home, but I guess what are we preventing by having the officer? Do we have any information on that? Just what kind of situations could it become? Because we don't want the unintended consequence of increasing risk, and that could be anything that could be more truancy, that could be kids, because of that getting into more trouble and so on and so forth all the way to the worst possible scenario. So I just want to understand the risk better. Yeah, it might be hard to, certainly hard to quantify, although we could bring some numbers. It would be more qualitative information and based on assumptions and national data that may not match our local data. You know, I have to think about, we have to think about as a, you have to think about as a board, like getting more specifics that you want me to dig into and I'm certainly happy to do that. I would just need some direction so that I'm telling the story that you need to hear. To answer that question, because I think it's a good one. I think it's a really good one, Jerry. It's just I have to really think about with you all how to get that information. Yeah, I'm kind of thinking, I know that we're at a clock and probably should move on. I'm kind of thinking next step, I think we need to kind of revisit this conversation, but it would be great to get, I think a better sense of the need and a little more of kind of a written narrative form. Any data we have around the position. I think some sort of job description, so we can really see what the formalized relationship is and if there isn't a formalized relationship, what one would look like or at least what the informal one looks like and how it might be formalized. And then really try to build in a way to make sure that we're giving the way that's due to the stories you've heard tonight because I totally agree with Mara that the people who are most disproportionately impacted in a negative way, perhaps by this role, even if the overall feeling is a positive one, are the harder ones to have heard and making sure that we're hearing them and accounting for them and whatever decision we make going forward or however the role is shaped. Does that make sense to folks? I think, yeah, Jim, I think you and I would really want to talk about what it is exactly. We could just problem solve that together. Yeah, I know, definitely, but I think there's a hunger for a little more information about what kind of the real definition of this position is, what the relationship is with other resources. We do have social workers and we do have counselors and they are, I think, an important part of this equation. Knowing how all these pieces interact, I think would be very helpful because I think there's some misperceptions around that. So, yeah, I think just getting a better sense would be useful. Jill? Thank you. I just, really quickly, I'm humbled as always to be on this board and participate in conversations like this. I certainly don't have some sort of prepared statement, but I want to say how I think one of the things I'm taking away from this evening is there's actually a lot more to unpack here and a major decision one way or the other is not really going to get to the problems. We can make decisions and then the problems will remain. I'm actually really, I wanted to point out, the school resource officer certainly isn't the person in charge of discipline and expulsions and things like that. So, that's something we should talk about as far as what that data tells us about decisions at the administrative level. And also, I've always thought it's funny that in Montpelier, we never talk about the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. When I worked at the agency event, we spent a lot of time unpacking that. There's some pretty serious data in there that as a community, we should spend some time reviewing. So, obviously, that was a board agenda item this year. All we have is the state data. We still don't have the specific data. That's what I'm sure it would, yeah. My point was just that I'm so impressed and humbled by the voices that are here tonight. And I think it's pretty obvious that we all want the same things and we all can start to see the needs. And I certainly don't pretend to know all the needs. But the harder work is really getting at the root of the problems and then what are we going to need to try to address them? And I think that's going to take a lot of work and I'm here for it. Thank you. Great, thanks, Jill. Well, Libby and I will kind of discuss what this next conversation looks like and try to get, I think, more data on the bigger picture that the SRO fits into. And yeah, and we certainly want more community feedback as we do that. So, we'll think of a way to get both more community feedback and more student feedback to which I think would be helpful. And staff feedback. And staff feedback. Now, I think that's important as well. And also, I think good point, Jill, bringing in and Jerry, bringing in some of the risks that we're looking to address. Okay, well, I do want to thank everyone for just a wonderful conversation. I know these are hard issues, but I really appreciate members of the public taking the time to share their stories and to share their perspectives, some of which can be hard to do in a public space, hard to do in a private space often. So we really appreciate the involvement and we will continue this discussion as definitely something we want to get right and take the time to do that. So thanks again. And the next item and our kind of slightly rearranged board agenda is board training needs for 2021. The two main ones for context that we have done in the past have been around communications and diversity equity inclusion issues and the board's role in both of those. I think those are continuing topics that we can always, especially the diverse issues that we can always use more information on and delve deeper into. And with a bunch of new board members, communications is very tricky and there's things like complying with the open meeting laws and use of social media, et cetera. I think it's great to have those and know we've talked about them somewhat. So those are the two that come to mind. But I'd love to just open it up and we can get some ideas and then Lili and I can start to when we put together the board agenda is looking out to carve out some time for those to meet those needs. So I just open it up for ideas on trainings. Jim, I second, I definitely second the need. I think we all recognize the need after our last training for more trainings on issues surrounding equity diversity inclusion since I've been on the board we've had at least two of those. And that's the subject that's right for our attention, especially with our equity policy. But in communication, I think there's always value to that especially figuring out how to bring community members deeper into the conversation and how to ensure that in this 21st century we're not violating an open meeting law which is really well intended but it hasn't fully caught up with the times, I feel. But so that's always a tricky needle to thread. But another issue in addition to those that I think would be helpful is we're gonna be looking at some really, I have a feeling difficult financial decisions over the next year or two. And I think it would be helpful for the board to better understand where the money comes from how Ed funding works. I mean, we get this in the budget once a year and I know some of us, Jill, myself or and you haven't been on the board for a while are better versed and everybody has a little bit of an idea is on the board. But I think that's something that can help everybody and especially help facilitate conversations so that we all understand what's going on in this really difficult financial climate that we're looking at over the next year or two. Yeah, I think that's a great suggestion. Yeah, and I think that'll not only educate us all but as we answer what might be some difficult state level policy decisions, knowing how to intelligently engage those, knowing what's at stake, I think that the training like that would all help us with that. Any other suggestions, Brian? Yeah, I'm not sure I would propose it as a full training. I'm gonna take one of our last policy committee meetings I don't believe the board has had a discussion about policy governance or governance by policy since we've had several new board members come on and thinking about our conversation with the community this evening and hearing everybody and action and no action and I think it would be worthwhile to have a lot of discussion about how we govern as a board and how we make decisions and how we take community impact and make that happen in the district. So I think that would probably be something on our way at least for a general overview about full training. Yeah, that's a good suggestion as well. Others? I think those four give us a pretty good slate. Okay, well, thank you for those. We will, I mean, I will look into that. Next is gonna be a real crowd pleaser review of committee assignments negotiations and Levy first starts us off by thanking Ryan, Bridget, Andrew for really working tirelessly over the last several months. And really, yeah, I think for all three of you over the last couple of years and Bridget, I think even longer than that to get us to a great place with negotiations this year and in years past. I know that is a ton of work. I know it is offline, feels pretty thankless. So I really want to thank you for stepping out and doing the top work on that. That's super important to the district. It's hard and it's intensive and it can be draining on many levels. So we really appreciate all you've done over the last several years and over the spring to do that work. So thank you for that. That said, I think it's time and I know we've got a couple of members who aren't able to make it tonight to give the folks who want a break a break. And we don't have to make a decision tonight but if anybody wants to step forward to be part of the negotiations team, we are certainly looking for new volunteers. If you want to wait until we can talk to Emma and Annikette, we can do that as well. But I think if anyone steps forward they probably will not be stepping on toes. Jam, I will say something that we talked with PHRO about a little bit is that we have pretty much the smallest negotiating team you've seen. Yeah, and I'm willing to do it but I do think it would be helpful to have at least, I don't know how Ryan's feeling. He might be pretty stretched right now. I'd be willing to do it again but I really would like another person or two and if Ryan were gonna step down then it would be two but if Ryan were still gonna do it I think it would be helpful to have a third person because you can share the load a little better that way. Andrew, you'd be willing, we could twist your arm to do it again. You love negotiations. I don't love negotiations. It's very time consuming, I don't love that part. No, but you're good enough in that meeting. Andrew, do you mean that you think it's helpful to have three people for each contract, like three people in the room? I think for the NEA one, I can't speak to the other contracts but for the NEA one, it's Ryan and me. If there were a third person, it's not having them in the room so much but every once in a while, somebody can't make a meeting. It would give us a little more flexibility. It would also, if for example, we were looking to draft some language or look in to a financial trend that we wanted to bring to the table and discuss, it would just allow us to do that. I also think it can be helpful. We come to the board and say, we're representing the board when we're negotiating, right? And I think it can be helpful to have a little bit more of the board there so that we feel a little bit more like, this is the voice of the board and not just the voice of Andrew and Ryan. Yeah, I think that all makes sense. I think having three people for the teachers union makes sense. I'm not sure that every contract needs three people. Yeah, just for the teachers, that's the one I was thinking. And I'm not volunteering for the other one. Right, right. I just wanted to make the point that if we need three people on the teachers and we have two other units, we really need more like four or five people. Because we do have one year contracts for all three units. So next fall, we'll be starting all three up again. Yep. I mean, I may be wanting to do the teachers, but I would love to see what others' interests are. And then we can definitely think about it. And, Jill? Can we wait until we have the full board here? Absolutely. I just wanted to, and I noticed, I mean, I think we can definitely wait until the full board, but if anyone is like, yeah, I want to do it. I sort of want to do it, but I'm worried about my time constraints. I think it would be fun, though. So anyway, let's wait until we do go on. But, yeah, feel free to step forward if you want. Thanks, Jill, for stepping forward. Yeah. Well, actually, I was just saying, I think the way that Emma was appointed after, it was after Tom meeting anything, that I feel like we at one point sort of skipped over the formal assignment and referred to a committee. So I was just going to echo what Jerry's saying, that I would be happy to do whatever I would be most useful at. I would definitely need some training. I have a pretty extensive knowledge about, you know, educator contracts, but I also don't want to just keep saying, oh, I'll serve on that if it's not going to be valuable. And I want to make sure that Emma and Anakin have a chance to formally be, you know, I think Anakin has, but I don't think Emma's been formally assigned to a committee and there's a lot of good work to be done. So I'm happy to go wherever I'm needed, but I think maybe, like to Jerry's point, maybe when we get everybody back in. Yeah, that was a good point about Emma. Emma and I have talked about community assignments, but we have not formalized it yet. And I do want to say, Jill, that you are probably starting out well ahead of about 99% of board members who sit in their first negotiations. So if you were willing to do it, that would be fantastic, but we'll give you a little time and I'll reach out to Anakin and Emma and we'll maybe push this a little harder next meeting. All right, anything else on that? Again, think about it and we'll circle back to it next meeting and try to get Anakin and Abbas. I think both, yeah, all folks would be great, but Jill, we may pencil you in. Especially because the mainstream middle school building committee is indefinitely on hold, especially since we don't know what in-person learning will look like a year, two, three from now. So. Okay, so we will pencil in Andrew and Jill. We will very likely pencil in me and we'll talk to Emma and Anakin and if anyone else. And Jerry. And Jerry. Yeah, so let's put those in pen in the next week or two after we talk to Emma and Anakin. Community values are joining proposal for Sue from Supercarback and Keisha Rahm. Lydia. I put their proposal in the board packet, so you should have that. So I think it's just a matter of the board discussing if you want to move ahead with that direction or not. And to what extent? Because I think she put in a, I have to admit that I haven't read it since she actually sent it to me, which was about two weeks ago, but I believe she had a couple of options in there. But I think you all just, you need to decide if you want to move forward with those two. There was a four month and maybe six months, the 12 month, I can't remember now. I have to confess, I started reading it and then something came up and I put it down and I never read it. Shape, shape on you, Andrew. I guess I didn't get a really good idea of what would be included. I didn't get a really good idea of what we would be responsible for versus what is included in the price. So I guess my feedback is I would want more information on roles and responsibilities specifically what they would be doing because some of it was unclear. I can write that up Libby and send you an email if that helps. That would be great, I was just writing a note to myself but that would be. Okay, sure. Yeah. I mean, I can't really have poise to have a really good, strong conversation. There's so much sort of momentum about the conversation and the pieces that they want to talk about. And we have new leadership coming in. But I also want to be realistic about the challenges that COVID has presented and I just don't know where that fits in here because it's not like we have money laying around but it does seem like if there's some way we can ride that this would be a great opportunity to do that. Yeah, I didn't totally understand the difference between the two contracts. Actually, two things are like two phases of the same task. I think it was one that was kind of the upfront just community values kind of conversation to be able to formulate that and draw in and I'm making assumptions here. So I'm not speaking versus in our case. So please don't think I am. But what I've seen them work through in the past or at least who worked through in the past is bringing community together and facilitating really hard conversations around what and so we truly can name those values. That would be probably the first piece and then the second piece is taking that deeper into where we're going as a district in terms of our school buildings. That I believe that's my understanding of it. And were there, I mean, there was an estimated fee for phase one and estimated fee for phase two. Are those two separate fees? I think the phase two would be the add-on to the phase one. Yeah. Yeah, I had that same question. I was not clear about the price. Yeah, so phase one is just under 15,000 and phase two looks like it's anywhere between 12 and 30. So that would be in addition to the 15. I think so, I think it's much longer. Yeah. And to be clear, it's more sensitive because we got a price from two very capable people. So these are two facilitators that are well-known and respected throughout the state with this work and with lots of different types of work. So I recognize that they are not cheap but I also recognize I've worked with two before and I'm making an assumption about Keisha from Reputation that they're pretty good at what they do. Susan is very good at what she does. So that's why the price takes a little bit more than, I had a little sticker shock on that too. Yeah. What are thoughts are doing you a little extra time to think about it? It seems like some things. Jim, I still, because if you read the bullets and it's been a week since I read it but it just wasn't clear to me what the board members would be responsible for versus what was included in the price. So my only concern was if you read it one way and we're responsible for doing X, Y and Z a little bit worried about capacity and our ability to take that on and if you read it another way and they're doing it, well, great. You know that and what do we need to do to support that? So I guess I just would like to better understand the work since it is Roxbury and Ryan and I will be, I assume, pretty involved in that. So I just want to understand what will be expected. So Jim, could I make the suggestion that read it through in the next week or so our next couple of days and board members can send me questions that I'll send to Susan and Kasia to get more clarity. Would that be a good move, step forward? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because it is relatively general. I think, I think we might have understand for the meeting what we wanted, but I'm not sure it's totally reflected in this document. Yep, yep. So send me questions or points of clarity that you're looking for. Okay, thanks so much. I'll be happy to share that with them. Excellent. All right. So at 8.25, we are going to roll on into the safety guidelines for fall 2020 overview. Crystal Thayer and Levy. Yeah, we got our plan all worked up. So I sent all of you the link for that. I'm assuming you all have had a chance to digest that, hopefully with a good stiff drink in your hand as well. It's gonna be a pretty hard slough for the next four weeks or so, four to six weeks. I'm not gonna go through all of the guidelines because you all have it. And if you haven't read it, then please do so. I can tell you that our administrators all took a vacation last week. One is a long vacation. He took a later one, so he's taking it this week. But we all came back today and had a four hour meeting today just to really dissect it in terms of what are the rules? What are the things that were clearly laid out for us that we have to follow? And even those are little wishy-washy in other areas. And what are the real places that we need clarification from from the AOE? And that list is pretty long as well. Or where are the places that we have to have some really good conversation? What was abundantly clear is none of this is going to be easy. And we have a lot of work to do. We did start with creating a purpose statement that will go on all of our communications around this. And that is reading it from our agenda this morning. In planning for the 2021 school year, all decisions will include our collective physical and social-emotional needs as we continue to foster a rigorous, equitable, accessible and flexible academic environment giving these dynamic circumstances. So just that statement alone says where our heads are and it also says the difficulty that we're going to face. So the first order of business I had actually, my first meeting on Tuesday of this week was with Stacey Amerson in transportation because some decisions need to be made sooner rather than later. And so next week, most likely, our families will be getting a survey just to say, these are the guidelines we're going to have to follow on the bus. Are you still in need, are you going to be needing transportation for your students? With quite honestly the hope of meeting some of the need out so we can get a better clarity of how many kids, just how many kids are we transporting? Because I think that's going to be different than in your past. And once we have those numbers making our bus routes around that and then having families commit to actually using our transportation. So in the past it's been of use it if you want to, it's available. But I believe this year we're going to have to because of contact tracing of capabilities, we're going to have to have families commit to transportation. That's not saying that if a family needs help and needs their kid on a bus a couple of days to get the kid to school, that's absolutely, we can do that. But we need some more solid numbers because of the responsibility around contact tracing. So that's coming out next week to families. I believe we agreed on a weekly district communication to families as decision points are made so that we're in constant communication. Across the summer, I know some families are antsy for decisions and bottom line is these decisions are going to take time and we need time to figure them out with our administration and our union and our nurses and all the people who are involved in this conversation. It's not going to be easy. That was made crystal clear to us this morning as we dug in together. So I mean, that's kind of my update. I can go through that guidance and the main points for you but I think you've all read them and so I'm happy to answer any questions as best as my ability or write the questions down and answer them when I can. Yeah, no, I think at this time, you know those 830, we haven't read them already, can. Any questions though for Libby? Jill? Just really quick thing I've asked this before too is I'm wondering if we have any flexibility with staff to meet the needs. I'm taking in the nurse at Roxbury if temperature taking is still a part of it or with the school length of time, if that is still in our contract, very prescriptive for the time of day where people are coming and going or if there is in light of this any flexibility with where staff are going or timing. So there's two questions there. There's one about Roxbury nursing that may be a question that we will bring to the board to say we need to talk about this. We have not been able to hire a point to nurse, a new point to nurse at Roxbury yet. So I'd say we're not trying still that we are but we may need to increase that capacity or figure out a different way to do it through contracted services, I'm not even sure. You know, I've kind of put my nurse, the Montpelier nurses on that challenge because they know that we're old better than I do. I know there's been waivers asked for and I don't know if we've gotten them yet from the state level to the feds because I believe there's a school nursing license and so I believe the state has asked for waivers around that so that just nurses could play this role and I'm not sure if they've had that guidance. And actually the temperature checking and the health check, Roxbury is actually the easiest place for this to happen even though we don't wanna nurse because each of their classrooms have an individual door and so keeping kids socially distanced and entering the building and we don't, we actually probably won't need to stagger starts or anything at Roxbury because of the size of the building and just the way the building's up, which is lovely. And the other question I heard you ask about was school day. Currently in the contract, the school day is from 730 to three and we have not talked with the union about any flexibility around that. We just, we're not there yet in the conversation. So we believe the school day will happen within those hours whether students will be there for the full 830 to three as they, or eight to 830 to three as they usually are is a different question. However, we believe we are going to try to work within those hours and see that's our starting point, but that could change in three weeks. We have not had that conversation with the union as we're not there. Okay. I guess, and thank you, that helps. I had just had a parent asking about the late start set up for professional development and a lot of like the three and four day weekends that was sort of surprised that those were still in there at least at the middle school. We had to catch them all up. The state has alluded to, so when I say the state, Dan French has alluded to potentially changing the school calendars from the state level in some way, we haven't got any more information on that other than him alluding to the possibility. So, yeah, so I'm kind of waiting on really looking at our calendar and, because I don't want to make decisions about the calendar and then have to go back on them because the state does something, tells us to do something differently. And we don't have our Thursday meeting with Dan this week, it will start again next week. So that's a question I'm sure people will be asking. To get more clarity on because he's alluded to it in past meetings. Thank you. Great, any other questions? I have a question going back to the SRO piece. Do we, do you want to bring that back next board meeting or at a different date? I just want to know where it needs to fall in terms of gathering lots of data. I think since it's summer and I think we can push it off for another couple of board meetings to give you guys the time to. It will be hard to get information from staff and students over the summer. Yeah, that's, I think getting that information's needed. So. So Jim, let's talk about it when we talk about board agenda. Yeah, I don't think we're going to know much more in two weeks than we know now or whatever. In two weeks could we have, so that we just keep things going and we don't peter out here and lose community confidence in any kind of process here. Can we establish at our next board meeting a general timeline for all of this? Sure. Do we have any more of a board discussion? Yeah, Sandra, is that what you're imagining? Yeah, and I don't think we need to spend a ton of time on it, but and I realize you're dealing with an unprecedented situation as an administration. And you're dealing with two, you're dealing with two crises essentially at the same time. And so I want to make sure that we give each of those situations the attention and focus that they deserve. I don't, I'm concerned that if we say, oh, we'll come back to this in several meetings from now, it's just going to kind of fall off and then we'll get to it later on. And so obviously dealing with COVID-19 is front and center for your preparation, but in terms of getting us information to make a decision about an SRO and the role of an SRO, et cetera, et cetera. I think we need to at the very least have a timeline established for what we're going to be doing, what information we're going to be collecting, that type of thing. I don't think we should push that off for over a month or two, that's my general thought. So Jim and I are clear it's the board having the discussion of creating that timeline or would you like us to come with a timeline established? And Jim, maybe we can talk about that, but I just want to make sure that we're clear. All right. Why don't we propose a timeline, you know, kind of, I think we do want to inspire comments that we are pushing this process forward because that's what we want to do, but I also think of, you know, meetings where we don't have all the information we need. That's not helpful either. So why don't we put together a timeline that's realistic, that's based on when you feel you can, you know, get the information you need from the city, for the police department, from students, from staff, et cetera, and then we'll propose that and put that out there and have some clear markers on how the process is going to look and why the timeline makes sense. Okay. We have one more agenda item, which is policy reading, first reading of the C28 transgender and gender non-conforming students. Do you have any, I'm getting what the process is for reading. We just have discussion and it's a reading, right? Is there any other magical thing that needs to happen? No, just point to suggestions and revisions and things. Exactly, yeah, we, yeah. If you're asking if someone has to literally read it out loud, I don't think that has to happen in the packet. That I know, but is there something between reading out loud and, so any comment, suggestions, revisions, edits, I thought it was well done and thank you, Ryan and policy team for putting it together. I know there were a couple of questions about, we reference a 2016 federal policy that is no longer in effect and I think it might be worth noting that it's no longer in effect, even though the guidance there is instructive and I think the direction we want to go. That's kind of the only comment I have. She might could follow up with that and say that I would propose when this comes back for another reading that we actually remove the footnotes entirely after we've had a chance to see where their references came from. It would be easier to maintain this as a living document without reference to the footnotes, excuse me. All right, that is, I'm a big fan of no footnotes. So despite being a lawyer, that is good with me. Any objections to that? No, that makes sense to me. I agree with Ryan that if you footnote everything then you have to keep paying attention to what changes and it's better to just keep the policy, the policy. Other edits, typos, general comments? Mara? Olivia, I had a quick question. We mentioned, and I think Ryan wrote about this in the email to you. We mentioned school activities and I didn't know if sports are included under school activities or if we address sports in a different place. Sports, yeah, I can look at this further, Mara. I could be talking out of turn because it's not my area of expertise. So I'm just gonna promise this with that. But from my understanding, the rules about sports are a VPA matter and VPA makes the rules on that piece. And I believe they've already ruled in favor of the LBGT Plus. Yeah, I hope them write their policy. I think you have to go by VPA rules there and I don't believe that you need it in your policy. I think the question Joe Ryan and I had was, is there somewhere in our policy manual that would direct people to go to VPA if they were looking for, I just know that if I'm looking for sports policy, I'm like, policies, they're probably- Why would I think it's a principal's association? Oh my God. The first time that I heard Vermont Principal's Association did sports, I was like, what the hell are you? I was like, what's your name for that? Yeah, but it's not intuitive. And I just didn't know if we had anywhere within our policy books that would direct people looking at sports questions to VPA for their policy pieces. We do not have, well, we don't have a policy book. We have a binder and an animal's a binder. On our policy page, on the board policy page, it doesn't mention sports in any way, shape, or form. I think those questions would probably go to Matt Link first, our athletic director, and Matt would either answer them or send people to the VPA. So I think people in our district can certainly point people that way, but if you're looking for it independently, you're probably gonna struggle to find it. Unless you Google high school sports Vermont, you probably hit the VPA page. But we might be able to put something on our policy webpage that indicates we're in a fun. Something as simple as for any questions regarding sports policy VPA. Yeah, send them to the, I would assume that they're linked on their website. I haven't actually looked, but I would assume they're linked on their website. So we certainly could put that link on our policies page. And I can probably do that in about 15 seconds. She's got her thumb up, she's ready to go. Do we need anything else for the reading? Or can we consider it red? Bring it back for the second reading next meeting. Yep. Okay, without further ado. Thank you, Laura. Thank you, guys. I think next item is motion to adjourn. I move we adjourn. Do I have a second? I second. Jill. Here. You're not for long, Mara. Hi. Ryan. Hi, good night. Good night, Jerry. Hi. I think that's it, at least it's enough. All right, thanks everyone. Thank you. Good night. Bye, everyone. Oh, I actually had a really quick question about records. Am I allowed to ask a question if we just adjourned? What do we do about the chat? Like, is Anna supposed to take a copy of that? Like, you can export it. I just didn't know if those things have to be counted as public record. Anna, do you know the answer? I don't know if there's an answer. I don't, and I've been thinking about the unit. We could just export it to be safe. Yeah, there's a way to preserve it. We can... Yeah, there's a couple of questions that I think I want. We want to ask the VSBA. I was asking Jim because it kind of made public comment continue outside of the public comment space. And I don't know if that's right, if that's wrong, if that's okay, if it's not okay. So I think that might be a question for the VSBA. Yeah, I was actually thinking the same thing. Maybe for tonight, Anna, if you can just export it so we've got it somewhere in the world. And then it's like, Zoom is notoriously hard to save the chat on. It's like really dumb. This is unbelievable. Yeah. So there is an export function like in the settings. Yeah, you got that, yeah. Yeah, I made a host, let me, you'll need to do that. I don't know how to be sure. Yeah, no, that's a good question though because yeah, it's somewhere between continuous public comment and chatter, sometimes we'll get on email during a meeting from, I think the difference is that everyone in the meeting can see the comments and respond to them. So it becomes- Like a dialogue that's happening? Yeah, it's a dialogue. Which goes into public comment. Yeah, I think it's a question for the VSBA. Yeah, great. We'll get on that. Yeah, we'll follow that up. Thanks. All right, you just go to the bottom right and hit save chat, I think. Yeah, I get it. All right. Yeah. Thanks all. All right, take care. And I got it, I'll send it to you. Great, thank you. And let's remember to ask the VSBA tomorrow about the chat. All right. Because I think we can cut it off if we need to, but I don't know what the rules are. All right. Thanks for your response up to it in the morning. Thank you. All right, see ya.