 Okay. Hi, Mark. Hi. All right. So it is six oh one. I'm going to keep an eye on the waiting room. I said earlier to early arriving folks that. Sigrid is not going to be able to join us tonight. Seiji Ohashi is our new board representative replacing Amanda. And Seiji is out of town. And then. Now, how's her is planning to join us at about six 20 or so. She anticipated the date that she was coming out of a meeting that wasn't going to be over just in time. It's great to see you all again. Thank you for joining. All right. So you'll see me glance up because I have our agenda and some other note taking documents on. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here in the library. MHS. Is there any public comment? I do not see any members of the public. I did have an inquiry from a member of the public about joining these meetings. So that we might see somebody. Moving on to the consent agenda. Which I, I think I'll just call it. Okay. Those of you who reviewed the minutes from the last meeting, did anybody have any adjustments or corrections that they would like to make? Seeing none, we will approve the minutes of the meeting. Can I get thumbs up if that works for you? All right. So the reason this isn't really the consent agenda is that I added the bullet point to discuss the vision statement models and what we're going to do. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I thought this was a particularly good question from a number of members of the committee. Sigrid being one. And I'm sorry. That she's not. On the call to. Join us for this. But I think as we were talking, as we've been talking about the survey and other kinds of community engagement and outreach. A number of you've been asking. Okay. So what I'm going to do is, if I understand how the board will use our findings, what our final product will look like, et cetera. And so in service of, and it was one of those. Perspective taking things. I've done a fair amount of thinking about that. I've looked at other models. Not fair for me to assume that. Everyone else has done the same. And so I sent around that document that had a number of questions that I had found. And I just want to. Give a quick question. You know, was that useful? And did that lead you all to other questions? I think for the sake of brevity, I'm going to not do a sort of circle process in this. On this topic. But if you did have questions or observations about. I think that was helpful. And I think that was helpful. And again, I guess I kind of liked more of the ones that were more sort of simple. And less on and on and on and on and on. I think that that shows that like, you know, we know what we want. People can understand what we want. And move along. I meant to take a look at that. I think that was helpful. And again, I guess I kind of liked more of the ones that were more simple. I think that was helpful. And I think that was helpful. And I think that was helpful. And I think that was helpful. I'm going to move along. I meant to take notes on the specific ones I liked, but I didn't. Just to, to speak to that, I think. I'm comfortable at this point with not. Making firm decisions about what our final product will look like until we. Sort of hear from people and have an understanding. What kind of information we're building. Just because I'm comfortable with that doesn't mean that I don't want to. I'm just trying to. Partly what I'm listening for is if folks feel like we need to have. More structure on what we think our product will be. We can work more aggressively on that in the next few meetings. My inclination is to hold. Back. See the information we're getting and then start to shape. Shape our product as we have more information. Yeah, did you raise a hand earlier? Okay. All right. So let's keep moving. Check ins and reflections from the last meeting. I think I just covered to everybody that Seiji is joining us as a board member, but is not here for this meeting. Amanda Garces is stepping off the committee. Is still interested in paying attention. And so we may get to see her on some of our meetings. And so that's a little bit of an update on what we're doing. I was kind of wondering what else we can do. Aesteroleen Carlson unfortunately has. Formally resigned in a communication to me. And I will, I need, I realize I just need to send that to board members. Aesteroleen had said earlier on, she was not sure she. Could commit to this. And I was, I'd asked her to sort of consider it and, and give it some time because I was really hoping. We would have her voice here. The same way that initially the board expanded the number of student seats to include all the students who had applied. My guess is that if we have another interested student, then there might be space on this committee have not discussed that with the board. Okay. On the community engagement process, the here I am trying to scroll on you guys. I want to share to kick this off right so we've got a we've got a course survey to review some ideas about thought exchange that I put out there. A rough outline of things folks might talk about in a listening session and I'll get to what I mean by that. And then we need to talk about, you know how we're going to get the word out that we exist. This project is ongoing, which you know how we're going to reach people in the community, etc. Those are the major things to talk about tonight. My vision is that by our next meeting two weeks from now, we will have deployed a short survey via thought exchange. We will have held a couple listening sessions. We being you know individuals are a couple people at a time. We have deployed the bigger core survey, and some people will have engaged with that and in that process will be learning whether this is effective or not. So basically we will be will be having our wheels turning moving forward. We can reflect on what we've learned in that two week period and I at least will feel much more confident, once we're underway, and am open to sort of revising and refining my vision is that we are moving, you know that I, my vision is that I spend all day tomorrow, making these draft surveys into a Google form and into a thought exchange and getting you guys links to things like that and we can deploy them. We may not get there, but I dearly hope that we can make that progress tonight. I also want to say thanks to a number of you who got back to me individually with edits or suggestions and things like that did. So we haven't spoken so we had our meeting on the 28th. We looked at the first draft survey. There was a lot of good feedback. I tried to incorporate that feedback in a draft, which I sent around, and then I got some more feedback, tried to incorporate that and sent that around that I sent a clean version to you all Friday evening, sort of without all the messy editing that's as visible. And I got some more feedback from there and I've got some notes beside me on that. Before we dig into the sort of the bigger survey, the, I'll just pause. Did anybody sort of have thoughts or reflections they didn't have a chance to write to me about or things they want to say that are sort of big scope. Hi Caitlin good to see you I see your hand. Yeah, so I've been thinking about this a lot and the two main things that I keep coming back to our one is that I really feel like students are the answer to this, and we need to uplift their voice, give them more of a voice and I mean to the point where I sort of feel like the survey should just be for students. I think that they really are the ones who will tell us what's going on right now in the school and what they're lacking and what they feel like they need. And then the other thing that I just forget the other thing. Might have. Yeah, let's go with that one for now. Raise your hand again. Hi Mel good to see you. Okay. I'm never sure whether to respond directly each time but I have a question for you. So, Caitlin I have had not the same thought but I thought to myself, okay we have about 1200 students in our district. And I want before we leave tonight for everybody to set a personal goal for how many what percentage of our students will get to participate in this process and one way or another, because I'd love to see a large amount of participation. I think that this is a district wide visioning process and the district to me includes anybody who resides in the community served by the district as well as professionals who work within the schools. And so, to me that including those voices is also part of this. Caitlin if the way that you expressed that interest is by doing an incredible job recruiting students to participate, I'll take it right and then Dottie. I mean I think that this is this effort is designed to create a structure for how the whole district moves forward and maybe it includes. We are guided by our students, but not necessarily. The students need right now because that may not be what they need in 10 years, but it should include it should be about making that core value, or whatever the values come up to be I think it needs to. I, you know, I think we always want to hear from as many people as we can and be led by our students and I think we're doing our best to do that but we could codify it in this effort. If it comes to a conclusion that would be a good results, I think, I definitely don't always want to be led by our students, but not just right now, like always. Yes, I wanted to say that I think the student voice is extremely important, but I think it's only one of three voices that we should hear we should also hear from staff who work in the schools from their point of view. And we should also include families who have or have had children in the schools and who are expecting them to prepare their kids for the future. We need to have a, you know, sort of a history to actual students to the future goals because I think, you know, that is the only reason that we have schools is to prepare kids for what our best guess of what they'll need in the future is. I think, Kale, Emory, Amira, Carmen, any of you have, or Amelia, do you have thoughts about where we are and how that survey draft is evolving. I see you, Carmen, and then I see your hand now and I see your hand, Kale. Yeah, I mean, I think it's already been mentioned some but I've just found as a student, especially when I was younger that families and caregivers and teachers can honestly be a lot clearer and sometimes better advocates for my interest than I can be at times. I think even if we aren't directly asking only students, it's still maybe thinking about how to ask those stakeholders as well like what they see for students what they need is another way we could get student input without going directly through students but. Yep. Okay. I see you Amira so Mel then Kale then Amira. And then I'm going to move to getting some of this work done. Okay. A couple of thoughts. I have intentionally been asking all of my patients, ranging ages, I threw probably like 15 last couple since our last meeting. What's the point of school. Literally none of them could tell me. I'm not interested. So I wanted to neutrally describe that. And it to me made me wonder if. Even though I as a grown up, like, I know what the point of school is it's to prepare the kids for the future. See, we need to learn from this anecdote of if we don't name the thing of what we're trying to take to like what's the point of school, there are I think there's just a lot of brains who can't see it. And there's so many things about day to day life in society that violates people's autonomy and invalidates them. Like, I just, though I share the sentiments that we want to be representing the voices of all the people and not just the students. I do think that that we're not necessarily drawing out student voice. And this survey, I still think is too long and does not necessarily because it's a cover so much it's so comprehensive that I'm concerned that it dilutes the most important part. There's one more thing and I'm forgetting. Yeah, remember, can't believe it. It was brought to my attention by a community member on my patients families that the middle school did a project the teacher Don Taylor who did a middle school leadership group that studied already the values and needs of the middle schoolers. And I don't know if anyone was at the school board meeting when this was presented. They sent me a link to it that I can send you Nathan, like these sweet little logs they did this project already and they actually came up with. They did a they did focus scripts they did a survey they did like a whole bunch of things it would be really cool to like see what they did and how they did that. And I have to. Oh, interesting. Oh, oh, oh, interesting just on sustainability yeah um what I what I what was summarized to me I haven't watched the video Libby but it was the one where they talked about how they wanted more support for their identity. They wanted more project based learning, and they wanted a voice in their education those were the three take home points of that project. Maybe it's a different project. I was, if it was when I was superintendent. Yeah, that was about we were starting the sustainability project and it was at the middle school, and Don worked with three or four students, Nathan son being one of them ASA, and they did a lot of that work it was it was totally centered around designing what the sustainability would be all about there so it was just it was student led designing that program, if that makes sense so it wasn't about MSMS as a whole, it wasn't meant to be it was about deaf, it was about student voice in the sustainability process. Thank you. Um, this wasn't actually going to be the thing I was going to say but I wanted to mention this, and I don't. Maybe this was mentioned before, but it. This whole conversation about groups in the middle school is my one of the things that made me happy in middle school in eighth grade was was crafted edge and the end of seventh grade. And I may have spoken about this in the past and I may use in a different group, but the actions that the middle school did to make kids feel like they were running something like running a company made me feel like I was learning which is not more than anything I was ever learning about it say that's you know parabolas or how to spell. So that's what that whole idea of the sustainability conference made me think of, but I also was wondering, and maybe this is not something we should do, but I agree that you lose a lot of heads or kids is voiced when you you give something that's long and tedious, because I'm one of those kids who will not answer survey. If I if it's long and tedious, but maybe, but I know many adults would like my parents would love to answer 20 questions survey about my future. And I know we've talked about how we didn't want to have two separate surveys but I don't know it may not be a horrible idea. I don't know something to throw out there. Just a thing to say. I have to agree with like kale on like, I feel like as a teenager, especially like, I am not good at voicing, like, writing down on a survey and like being asked these questions of like what I think my education should look like, because I also don't. I get the point of school but at the same time it doesn't always feel like I understand the point of school. Sometimes it feels like it's very pointless and like I'm not actually learning anything and like kale said he brought up crafters edge, and that was like a really good. I guess way to kind of throw middle schoolers into kind of what running a business would be like. I feel like it's very hard to like look at a survey and be like, yeah, that's how I want my edgy this is how I want my education to be and so I do feel that having like adults and like staff answer the survey is really helpful because they know how to put those into words. But as teenagers sometimes it's hard to put that into words. And it's just hard to know exactly what's right for you as like a learner all the time so that's what I noticed about the survey and how I feel like it would be really nice to have two separate ones maybe. And I know that's a lot more work, but I think it could be beneficial potentially. So, yeah. Thank you, I want to, I want to respond to that and you gave me an idea in your comment but I want to hold on a second because I see Emory Merrick and kale and I want to start with Emory and then go to Merrick and then come to you kale, because you just spoke. And then I see Caitlin. Go ahead Emory. I agree with what everybody else is saying that I think it's definitely a good idea to have a separate format for the survey for like for kids and like younger adults. And I remember in middle school sometimes like in TA, we would have discussions about that so maybe we could do some way where we could have TA teachers kind of like, not leave the discussion but like collect thoughts and ideas because sometimes it's easier for people to vocalize them then to like write them down. So just have an option like having kind of a teacher led sort of survey. That's great, Eric. Just kind of building off of what Emory and kale said. I definitely agree that we should probably look at different formats of how we can like assess and like get data from students. Because if we're if you're putting yourselves in the shoes of sort of like really any student who gets younger and younger as the grades go lower, I think it's going to be even harder for them to, or for us to get good data from them with the survey since it is so long. I don't I just don't see that younger kids are going to fill it out. So, if kale if you and Katelyn if you can hold for just a second, both Merrick and goodness Amira, maybe think I'm certainly open to, you know, if somebody wants to record a two minute or five minute video or even just an audio of answering two or four prompts, as a student that that would be fine with me right that's a similar similar to doing a sort of free written response on a survey. And as long as I or or some subgroup of this committee is willing to listen to those and sort of okay what were the key words here what are the key concepts. It feels like a more engaging instrument that accomplishes the same thing. I'm completely open to that. And so I'm curious to know, you have to respond right now but I'm curious to know if that's appealing. Not against the idea and I, I don't know if that's like, for someone like me I'd love to talk about improving school for the rest of my life but I, I kind of want to go back and one thing is I think someone said it and I don't know what it was that made me think of this. Like, there's a lot of, I don't want to say distrust in like students and surveys, but I remember last year, you know, I don't have the data and it was probably but like, I know a lot of kids and I talked to a lot of kids, when they asked us like, there was a question in a pose was like, how do you want schedules to be like, like, at the, like, coming into this year. And you know, I've heard a lot of opinions and a lot of people felt almost like, almost like their voice wasn't recognized when they saw the schedule and saw it as the same thing as it was previous years. And I think there's a lot of like, not distrust but like sometimes people feel like they just send surveys like people just send surveys to make it seem like their voices are being heard. So that's another reason that I also think like, oh, a survey with large words is going to make, you know, kids kind of be like, oh, you know, they're just trying to put a lot of, you know, fancy school jargon into something and then they'll just do with what they want, like this group will do with, do what they want with that information. I don't know. I just think there is this idea that like a school survey is not going to fully be what they want and that's why personally I always like trying to get like in contact with the person that's doing it or be within the group. So I don't know something like that. Thank you for that. Yeah, I like all of these ideas that are being talked about and I really just felt like when I opened this week's version of the survey. I felt frustrated because I felt like it was not that different from the week before and I felt like we all expressed a couple really common things about it and so I don't know how we can like break this down and maybe like getting into small groups we all look at it we all pick it apart we give you what we want what we think it should be and then we move on, but I just feel like it's a little bit talking in a circle about the survey. I'm trying to say that in a way that's useful. Thank you. You can also be given a more hard edged if you wish. Back to that in a second. To Kale's point, I think one of one of the pieces of our process that I'm interested to see develop is what kind of feedback loop we offer to people who have participated. You know where we give you know whether it's an email update or some other way of saying, you participate in this process or you responded to a survey or, or a community and get you know community gathering. Here's where we are in this process and here's what we're learning so far. Because I think that that that feedback is important so that folks do feel heard and see the evidence of their, of what they're submitting. And chat said, are we able to slice the data in the end where we can isolate the data coming from only students or only staff etc. And the answer is yes, and that's part of the reason that we're asking the demographic data, you know, are you a, what town do you reside in what's your age. That sort of thing because it can get pretty interesting highly good to see you. That can be pretty interesting. Hold on a second. To see. Oh, what did you know, on this particular question. What if we just look at what the students responded. What if we just look at what folks from, you know this age range responded, or how they responded. So yeah, Nick that's the answer to that question. Caitlin, I hear your frustration, and thank you for expressing it. I will confess that. So, I'm trying to I'm trying to listen to the board and sort of district administrative leaders about where, where do we want input from the community. So that that can be kind of a big basket. And then I'm trying to draft questions that are that explore those areas as concisely as possible, and balancing, you know what I heard the first at the first meeting around sort of not not constraining folks thinking too much, but also giving some guidance. As you may have seen some, some of what happened in between one addition and other was that we, I cut a bunch of questions, but then I added some in for example one of the pieces of feedback I got from Jim Murphy was. I would ask people about we should we should be asking people if they have students who are enrolled, not in MRPS but who are part of the district right so they go to private school do they do homeschooling. Because it's really useful to know why the choice and what things they value. And so it is it continues to be perhaps more of a corner cornucopia than you or others might wish. That said, So, and that's the other, you know, the other thing that I that came up last time and I tried to reflect in my proposal about simultaneous methods, as we launch is that I think we can do both and where we can have a survey that you know Kale, like what was Kale's word long that for Kale is long and tedious, but maybe for Joe is not or Nathan is not. But simultaneously, we can have a thought exchange survey and we can have listening sessions and we can have a few distilled prompts that people respond to. So my hope is that if we have a multi prong approach, we can both gather data in the sort of broad spectrum and also be mindful of this be accessible. I don't know if that will completely satisfy your frustration but I want to be transparent about what I'm trying to balance. I think it will be helpful I just, I guess I'm feeling like. All that done. So, anyone second America is that a new hand. Okay. No, sorry. So, to answer Caitlin's question which may be a question. What I sent around included a six question sort of pre survey teaser is what I called it, and that was the, you know, this might go out and the thought exchange, and I had, and I, by the by the addition that I sent around on Friday that I think it's only six questions and you know that the most of it sort of about how you might access this process, but the top question was when I think about kids in our schools these are the things I think they need most to thrive. Please list the first five words that come to mind. And so, to me that is an attempt that it's, it's not asking too much. It's accessible. So I'm going to ask the question sort of how, how might the best include you in future steps. So that would, to me that's one prong. Another piece of that preparation is sort of second to last and this is called. Nope, that's not true. Hold on. That's the outline for listening sessions last thing. And the core outline was the distillation of getting it down to 11 total queries or question areas. I want graduates to be known for their blank academic excellence for our students means to learn effectively and thrive in our district I think students need characteristics characteristics I hope students develop include areas where I think school should provide explicit teaching values question facilities, which may be more than one question demographic, you know I'm a student parent, etc. What town do I live in. My students at what school and what age bracket. And so, you know in that in that example, those would be that's my rough outline for a listening session. So one of that, you know, the last four are demographic things which are, which I think are. I think what's called, they offer almost no cognitive burden. Those are not hard to answer so it's really sort of the top six or seven questions. Anyway, that that's, that's my attempt at, you know, okay, here's a really light survey. Here's a longer, you know, if you're going to if you're Tina Muncie and you're setting up listening sessions with the senior center, or your ret and you're setting up listening sessions in Roxbury and I want to be there too. Here's a rough outline of things we really do want to cover. And then there's the bigger survey. So I've hung on to you, as you're pointing out Caitlyn because I think it is. It is guiding in terms of the full spectrum of what we want to explore. So, so how do we get there. Not just Caitlyn is, I would like to at the end of tonight have your yes to the thought exchange, even if if we edit it a little bit. Yes to the distillation of topics for listening session. Let's do a version of the comprehensive survey. And there are I think there are things that we can cut. And that gets us to at least three moving pieces that we can put into place immediately. And then let's see what happens. I see Tina. Anybody else want to get in the queue. Hey, Caitlyn feel free to come back and respond. And I'm aware that I'm answering Caitlyn because you asked a question but I suspect you're asking a question that you're not the only one who shares that question. Go Tina. My concern is that you're only asking a certain set of people three questions for questions. And then you're asking everybody else for pages of questions. You clearly are not getting the same information from everybody. And I don't find that as fair. If four questions are good for a group of people. Why aren't four questions good for everybody. And I might say the board might like a lot of information, but they're not going to get it all this time. Sorry, Libby. Or maybe rat. Now let's see your hand. I don't think that four questions is sufficient for the sort of breadth of this process as imagined by the board. So, for example, if somebody responds to the thought exchange prompt. It's not, it's not, it's not a complete overlap and it's only a partial overlap with any of the things that are being asked in the, in the broad survey. And I imagine the thought exchange might close with you know something to the effect of you know, click here if you want to take the full survey, which might take 20 minutes or no not now thanks. But then that person is sort of in our contact list and and all you know we can offer entries to the to the full survey at future times. We're going to have community gatherings and community gatherings are not going to be a read through of the of the whole survey right so it's. I'm, I don't, I'm not pretending that this is going to be completely symmetrical for all participants right. I think we're just we're trying to gather. Imagine a community gathering where people are showing up in person, we might ask them a few demographic things because we want to know who is in the room, but then we're going to be taking and listening to their input, taking notes and bringing that back to this committee as further evidence and input. But you know as Libby has pointed out before in terms of, you know if you ask a certain group of people at a certain time show up at a certain meeting, what education looks like in our district or should look like. We may get a distorted vision and so I think our job is to do that and do that and do that and then do this right and be as flexible and receptive as we can. And then our job as this committee, let's say we get through April. And we say holy cow we are, you know, we're getting no feedback from seniors ages 60 to whatever. We really need to double down on our efforts to reach that group, or no one is responding effectively to these two questions, Nathan, you're clearly you didn't write them well. So we need to go back to our list and ask them a new version of those questions. I mean I think I think we can. I think we can respond, and we can identify where our needs are as they become evident. I'm going to raise your hand so I've got Mel, Kale and then Susie. I'm just wondering, do we as a visioning committee, representing various sectors of the community. Do we as a committee value universal design, like do we value that the way that we are collecting information from all people is important. I'm not going to inform where we go from here, because I'm concerned that we are still talking about the survey being the dominant collection tool. And I remember I figured what was on started but it was such a great quote or a great phrase that I hadn't heard before about like building from the margins. And I think that it's really important when I think about this through a social justice lens that that that everything that we are exploring is is is available accessible truly accessible to everyone including including plain language. And that's the other thing we haven't really talked about. And I tried to talk about this a little bit at our last meeting about just like some brains, like, like, need the concrete language as opposed to the abstract, even as it relates to vision like vision is an abstract term, but the what's doesn't doesn't necessarily need to be abstract, but it's about like just inclusive language and an appropriate reading level, you know, plain language for the community because we're not talking about just our students we're talking about the whole community. We really want to make sure that you know we talk about, you know, many of the other isms of, you know, explicit or implicit discrimination we don't talk enough about ableism, and I don't want the community to think that we are an ableist group who wrote a survey that is only available to some people. Thank you. I want to come back for that to that but I want to just hear the your kale and Susie. So, I had same I like kind of idea in the beginning about how I know a lot of people who don't take surveys or don't take surveys I don't want to say well because there's nothing like great about them but like just like there it's not their primary mode like personally for me I hate taking surveys I'd love to just like talk with someone about it. But, and, and I don't know who said it, and about like the length but for me, just looking at the survey I have it in front of me right now on questions. 21, which are all the demographic questions and then I personally love the branch about like why, why isn't your kid enrolled in public school or whatever, because I think it's a question that goes. It's mostly a notice like never something that was brought up a lot. I just feel like, and we've kept talking about this but like 15, like it's 21 questions. And I think like a lot of them feel almost repetitive in a sense. It's not a bad thing because they're getting in that, you know, very finite, like answers but I think, I think you. You just lose people when they scroll down and see 21 questions versus 15 or 13. I just think that's something that kind of has to be noticed but I also. The wording of it for the most part is, you know, high school friendly I wouldn't say it's middle school and younger but I think it's high school friendly like none of these are truly like mind boggling questions that I'm like why are like what are they asking for. Maybe they're worded in like some more fancier language but like, for the most part I am lonely seeing like, you know, like some of the faculty questions, kids aren't going to need to answer. I think from like the wording of it, it's not terrible or not terrible but it's pretty good. Yeah, thank you. I want to hear from Susie and then I just want to make sure I can scroll through the comments because there are some other questions being raised there. Go ahead, Susie. Okay. I, after reading the newer version of the survey, I felt a little bit better about it. It was easier for me to read and like digest. I think we have to just know that some people are going to love this survey. We're going to get a lot of information from those people, and other people are not going to. It's not going to be for them we already know that this is not, there's not going to be one thing there's a lot of things so I think we need to just like. So, this long survey as an option and we need to like come up. I think if we can spend time and energy thinking of what the other options are, then we'll feel more like everyone's included in it like, you know, there's all kinds of great ideas of how to get, especially high school and middle school kids to talk about what they think is important. You know, if we do some sort of like video response for things or if we can spend time thinking of what the other ways of getting information from that, I think that will feel better, because so much focuses on this right now that this is like all we are thinking of where we're getting information from but there's going to be other ways so. Some people are going to love a long survey and there is a lot of information that would be really great to have. So, I, I think that the long survey is not a bad thing I think it just needs to be one of the things that we're doing. And if we can kind of get some kind of concrete other things going I think we'll feel better. Thank you, Susie. I just want to call out that. Let's see. Mel saying in the chat. Yes, each format of participation needs to be equal. I don't think we would be weighing one thing over the other. Some things will be easier to quantify. But I think that we need to be mindful of right if, if we have folks, if some of us are taking time to go interact through drawing with kids and those in elementary school, we need to value those responses. If you have a question about universal design for learning, which is a great question. I think that sort of speaking for myself. Yes, I value that. But it's a little bit of a yes and or a yes but in the sense that the pressure. I'm trying to keep in mind as I try to facilitate this process is that we do have to get to a final product that is legible to the public and to the board. And that is reflective of the things that we have heard. Some of that is efficiently accomplished through things like a written survey. Okay, if we if we accept that is true, then I think your challenge that I really appreciate is, okay, Nathan, how then do we be inclusive in other ways to ensure that those voices that don't interact well with that format are heard and I think that you and others are hearing receptivity to that. While, you know, I'm saying this course survey and the questions within it are important, I think are important to this process, but it's a it's a both ends not an exclusive instrument. And then the comments about language. You know, Kale, thank you for your comment about language, and Susie sun as well I did consciously go through the whole survey and rewrite a number of these pieces and took what I thought. I think it was Susie suggestion, you know so in the first meeting we had, there was the first meeting we had some really great comments about sort of accessible design from the edges. We had Joe saying, Alright, I'm going to defend academic jargon or educational jargon because sometimes educational jargon reflects hard one concepts like social emotional learning. And so Susie suggestion was to use the really simple language to talk about. In that case it was understanding there so changing social emotional learning to understanding their emotions and those of others, which I think is pretty accessible language, and then in parentheses, social emotional learning so keeping the terminology as a as a sort of using the social emotional learning tool, but making the first part of that response, really accessible. So I, I hope that was visible that I made those changes. If, if I didn't go far enough, I'm happy to hear that feedback as well. So if it works for folks. What I'd like to do is work backwards from the thought exchange idea which is a very brief, you know that's six questions or something like that. See if we can get some agreement on that. See if we can get some agreement on an outline for listening sessions. You heard me say sort of as anecdotally that Tina has offered to meet a bunch of times with folks through the network of the senior center. But that's not the only sort of venue or group that to which we can deploy a sort of distilled outline. And then I've gotten some good feedback about sort of redundancies within the survey and I think we can still trim it down a little bit. So I'd like to get to that as the third thing is that's probably the most sort of word Smithy and to use Kale's word tedious. So if that's an okay proposed pathway, then let's do that. And then I'm just going to put a marker in we've got about 40 minutes left. I do want to get to some calendar work. So for example, Tina has said here, three days in the next month where I intend to meet with people first on zoom and then also in person two different times in the same day through the senior center. I'm setting up an additional zoom user through my zoom account that we can that anyone here can use if you set up a time to hold a zoom gathering. But I want to get some dates on the calendar, assuming that we can agree on some of these instruments. And as far as I'm concerned that includes, you know, Mel saying Nathan will you come with me to union elementary and let's let's figure out if we can get into some classrooms with the permission of the teacher and do some work to make this really accessible. I'm absolutely here for that. Okay, for the rest of this meeting. All right, so I am going to pull up. So the core outline that I've got in a second, just need to get this right can see it and see you simultaneously. The core outline I've got includes. I want our graduates to be so if you're following along on the document that is and you share it on your share it on our screen. Yep, just a second. Can you see that. Yes. Okay. So, and I'd left the numbers because the numbers correspond to the. I didn't leave them. I added them in the numbers correspond to the, to the overall survey right now. So, I want our graduates to be known for there. This is sort of a brand question. Right. If somebody were to say you know, what else in Vermont. Oh, that's a, that's a Montpelier graduate and Montpelier graduates fill in the blank that sort of what are students known for. To me academic excellence for our students means to learn effectively to thrive in our district I think students need this is sort of about, you know, supportive, what kind of, what kind of support dynamics in the in the schools do we need characteristics that I hope students develop in our district include and somebody made the point privately that number two, I want graduates to be known for and characteristics that I hope students develop are similar enough that we might be able to combine those areas in which for which I think school should provide support or explicit teaching. I've had some suggestions that we could cut that. I'm going to keep my own thoughts to myself on that one. Number 12 is the values menu. But if it's a if it's a listening session it doesn't have to be presented as a menu. 15 plus the question about facilities and you know how do we think about our facilities and resources. Number 21 is a demographic I'm a student parent, etc. 22 is what town I reside in 23. If you have a student if the respondent has a student, my student is at, you know, whichever school or enrolled outside of the district, and then age bracket. So that was my first swipe at, if we're going to distill. I'm going to survey down to points that we would hope will be covered in a listening session. These are they. I can't see if I can get this display to be better so I can see you all. Yes, there we go. I also have to plug my computer is going to be off screen for a minute. Go ahead and unmute and start talking if you have thoughts about this. Does anyone mind if I make an observation. Um, there are three questions I want to ask people when I talk to them directly in person, whether or maybe on a phone. What's working what's not and what do you want that to me is like super distilled super simple. And then from there, I'm getting, you know, we're moving towards these more detailed questions. And I hope that that's an okay way for me to approach. I hope that we're not thinking that we're all going to be reading from the survey as we talk to individuals. But I think my hope is that we're, we're engaging with people were showing them that we care and then based on their own ability or interest or motivation, they're going to engage with what tools we put out there. Maybe that's a listening session. Maybe that's a drawing. Maybe they make a video, you know, or a music video. I don't know. Kids love that. Make a TikTok. You know, I don't know. But all of these things can can get information. And the final thing I'm thinking is, I really don't want this group to feel a lot of pressure to come up with a finished product. I think our goal is to have a product that we all believe in. And maybe we gather, we let it sit for a bit, and we come back to it, or something like that. You know, I don't know, I don't want there to be a product. I don't want there to be pressure to have a product. I want there to be a good process and to have a product that we're proud of. Rhett, thank you. I see Libby. Yeah, I just don't want to get away from the purpose, the board's purpose here, you know, so if Rhett, my concern would be with those three questions, what's working, what's not. People will be very specific about their child's experience. So what's not working is that I can, I'm just assuming that so-and-so's teacher doesn't do this, or kids don't behave in this way. And the purpose of this work is to get at what the community values and education. And so I worry that those questions wouldn't get us there necessarily. I might, but I'm thinking about, you just scroll down a little bit, but you know, when the idea of branding and when you think about a Montpelier or high school graduate, what words come to mind, what do you want them to have? That gets at value a little bit more than what's working, what's not, because people are going to speak to very specific ideas for their child's immediate experience or their experience three years ago that perhaps they loved or perhaps they didn't love. And so that gets me worried a little bit that it takes us away from the purpose of the group, which is really getting at the community's values for education and kids. Does that make sense? I don't know if Rhett don't hold back, but Libby, I share your perspective in a sense, but I also, you know, one of the things I've appreciated that you've said earlier, Rhett, is that your first question is how are you doing? I think you want your approach, you're imagining a phone call and you want your approach to be empathetic to whoever's entering that phone as a way to build some sort of rapport. And so a way that I can see your three prompts, even if it goes down a rabbit hole of what's my kid's experience with their particular teacher. If you're okay, I can see it working that you're okay to sort of listen to that, take those notes and honor that, and then get to the other stuff. Libby, would that work from your perspective or do you think it gets too far off track? And Caitlin, I see your hands. I think we have to always have the purpose of the group in our heads, right? So the purpose is to get at values. It's not to get at necessarily particular literacy programs or particular programming that the kids have access to. It's to get at we value this as a community and we're formalizing that. And I worry when we're offering the opportunity to get very specific about teachers or about other kids in the classroom or specific events that are happening in the particular classroom that that can take people down a hole that may not be useful for the project. Caitlin and Joe. Yeah, so a few things. I'm not connecting with the questions that are on the current survey. I think they are way too wordy. I think some of them could be combined into one question. I think it's, again, I'm just gonna say way too long. The whole like first page of like describing what it is, I think it's way too much words. So when Rhett said those three questions, I immediately was like, Oh, I can connect to those questions. And then hearing what Libby's saying, I'm like, Okay, are am I like just way off on what we're doing here. I'm like, is there a way to combine the questions that read just posed with values, because, and also I guess I'm just confused because like, what if somewhere were to say I value having second learning second language programs. Like, that's sort of, yes, it's a program and it's specific. So it feels like that person's value. So, I guess, thinking about like that we are a value committee. How, how can we get there without being specific, I guess, and also just more less words, more feeling. So I see Joe, then Susie and then Mel, and I'm going to do a time check at 704 and I am, I am feeling the pressure of moving the process further along. I've got Joe, Joe, Susie, Mel, and had you, Merrick, don't make that doesn't mean put your hand down. Your voice is valuable. Go Joe. I just had two thoughts. The first is just, well, they both kind of have to do with zooming out. I like the questions about academic excellence and what areas of explicit teaching. Should the district do I just think zooming out from those I think the term academic excellence might be a little too narrowing right and it's just one facet of excellence in schools it's important don't get me wrong with just one facet and then you know like the explicit teaching question yeah number 10 there thanks for scrolling up Nathan. I think that's a really good and fruitful area for us to explore right because I think the more we expand the idea of what a school is in our community the more we can get at that, the values that folks have been saying and what the vision actually is. Thank you. Thank you Joe. Mel, go ahead. Sorry, Susie then Mel, then Merrick. I just think that some of the questions probably could be combined, like you know, I want our graduates to be known for whatever that gets at values and we could drop the value question. But basically what I want to say is that us as a board of people who care about the community and we're trying to get their information. Some people just want to talk about their experience and we're going to have to if we're talking to people to humans, and we're not just depending on right this number check this off, like, we're going to have to be the ones to process it with them and filter out the information in a way that meets whatever are, you know, whatever we want but like, you know, we can't tell people how to answer a question if we asked them a question then we've got to listen to what they have to say. Thank you. Mel, then Merrick. And related to that, it's, I think that in our kind of the default of society where things like it should be efficient and like, you know, all most productive and all like, like, it's hard because when there, there are so many people who when they feel that they already feel excluded. When they feel that from, from, you know, a business from a doctor from a professional of any kind like that, it's not going to be efficient in for a lot of people. And we still really want to engage the people, because even a term like academic excellence like that means something to me but even like right now in like COVID chaos like that's actually not even on my value system and for so many people, it's like the you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs are not being met, like the basic needs of a lot of our community members are not being met. So, yes, we need like the big picture academic excellence vision but we also, it would be great to engage the community to find out what needs they want met because if you don't have your needs met then you really can't engage in this higher level with higher order planning process that's just like a brain thing. So, I see Elliot. Mel, I think that to me, for example, to learn the number seven on this distilled version to learn effectively and thrive in our district I think students need. I'm hoping that people will respond to the kind of things you're talking about. And I think we have to acknowledge the sort of context of COVID the time that we're in in in so many ways and the pressures that puts on anybody. But we still need to get the work done and get the get information to the district about what people, what people's vision is for the future. And so I think that we are going to have to make lots of sort of small and maybe a few big compromises about how we move forward. And then Elliot and then I'm going to take control back and push us forward. Alrighty, so, I mean, we're going back and forth on like what questions to ask. I'm not totally sure if we if rather we go with a specific approach or a more general approach if we're really going to get all that different of answers anyway. But if we are to go with like more broad approach, I think that we can do it by set in the chat of like asking what values are working what values are not and what values do you want to see. So which is like what we're saying but adding values into it specifically. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. I wanted to echo Susie a little bit but I would like the more specific questions I think that if we have what Rhett had said with the like what's working and what's not. We will be able to get like, I think more helpful information just because, at least for me when there's really general questions, I have a hard time connecting it to my life. But if we ask what's working for a specific person then we're going to be able to get, you know, like their, what they value and I think that that would, we'd be able to get that and then if I'm sorry this really isn't making a sense when I'm saying it out loud but if the person asking the questions. They. This is not making sense. I apologize, but I just, I think that more specific questions or the more like directed towards one person that we're asking. I think that those could be very helpful in. I apologize. No, I don't think you should. I think you're, let me see if I'm hearing you accurately. I'm hearing you to say the general questions and what I think Mel might describe as abstract are ones that you don't connect well with whereas Rhett's questions about what is working and what's not which may feel more specific might be a better entry for you and it and to take Susie's point. Up to us, I think was Susie, up to us to sort of filter responses for answers that point towards vision and values and answers that are just like this, this experience is really bad for this reason or this is really good for this reason. Is that, is that, am I getting that close to right? Yes, that is, that is what I meant. Because people's responses, those are the things that are like important to people's hearts, you know what I mean, what they want to talk about is their values probably even if they don't work it that way. Okay. I'm loving this and I'm, I am finding it very helpful. I think, let's see. First of all, I'm imagining Rhett, making a phone call. I'm not supervising Rhett on that phone call or anybody else, right? How Rhett opens that conversation is up to Rhett. In a listening session that Tina is holding at the senior center. I'm not supervising either nor do I have an interest in sort of tightly controlling it. What I do have an interest in is creating tools that give us some uniformity in terms of which buckets we put responses into. Whether I have to open a TikTok account so that I can follow the hashtag MRPS visioning on TikTok, I'm assuming that there are hashtags that have function on TikTok, maybe I'm wrong. But as I do that, if I'm transcribing things or somehow gathering that data, I will still be trying to fit this response into a question about academics, this response into a question about physical and emotional safety, right? That's a part of the way someone like me does their work in terms of community engagement is that we have to filter and translate and present to the board. Because the client in your case is your sort of public representation of the school or in the district. So that's just to name it a different way. I think many roads can lead to Rome. And what I'm trying to do is figure out, can we use the roads that I'm that I've drafted so far. And I'm hearing qualified. Yes, maybe. So, and this is actually this is another reason where I want us to get moving. If, if I've really misjudged and nobody wants to do the full survey and it's really inaccessible, we'll find that out pretty quickly. If, if the thought exchange, which has sort of one vision values question is sufficient and gives us all the information we want, we'll find that out pretty quickly too. My guess is that's not but it's a good entry into this, you know that we exist and we're doing this process. So I'm, I want us to move forward and see what we get. So here's a question we've got, we've got 15 minutes left. If I distill what I've heard today, including making another edit of the broad survey to try to trim it down with Caitlyn's voice firmly in my head, but also Joe's. Are you okay if we try if we launch these, give it a good effort. Try to connect with the communities and the networks we connect we're connected with, and then see where we are in two weeks. All right, I'm watching faces no one has, you know, made a made a major frowny face. Tina, are we connecting anything. I would like to get to that so do you mean how are we as a committee connecting with the community if we have these tools. Yeah, so I'll ask Libby to answer the thought exchange piece in a minute. I think so. If I create the major serve the big survey, but not the not the dominant survey. If, if that becomes a link to a Google form, that's something that you can share via text via WhatsApp via email, anything you want and then encourage people to reply, we can share it on from which form. I will make a print version so we can literally put print versions out at the library at the Rocksbury Village store at the front desk at the Rocksbury Village school and then we can get those back in envelopes and tabulate them into the into the Google form. If we're doing listening sessions then we take this outline or slightly edited version of this outline and Tina has that in front of her when she is doing a zoom call with senior center folks. And then we can start to hopefully schedule some community gatherings and then using this outline roughly okay we want to ideally touch on these points. We will design, you know, ways that we're going to engage with that community group. It's maybe we can talk about that design later but I think it's it's multi pronged it is. I can't remember what student talked about using the TA structure within the schools at least the high school. And I confer about okay who who do we know at us, or at Rocksbury Village school who might be willing to take this up in their classroom or have one of us as a guest. So I think it's multiple ways and then we come back in two weeks and we say okay. This is productive. This was a struggle. This question needs to change. This is great feedback and we move forward. So in the next five minutes. Are we deciding who's going to do what when we're going to do what we love for that to be the case. But let me, before we get to that. I want to get, I want to feel secure that folks trust that I'm hearing what's being said and that I will do my best to translate the feedback that I'm hearing into at least three instruments that you all can then start to use. And I'm not. Okay. Let me, I'm going to switch. Can I stop screen sharing for a minute. Does that work for you guys. Right. Sure. Give me a second. Okay, so from my perspective there was another document that I sent which I will open just from my own reference and then read through to you guys give me a second. So this was the community engagement and proposal proposal and calendar. Uh-oh. All right, Libby's computer just died. So we may or may not have Libby for the next little bit. Okay, so I'm thinking about the community engagement piece as through a number of lines is right who are our constituents. The examples that I gave that's not going to work. The examples that I included in that document were students, students, community members, teachers and staff. That was something that somebody else mentioned. Dottie you mentioned more or less similar buckets. Towns, Roxbury and Montpelier venues. So Roxbury Village School Roxbury Country Store Montpelier High School Middle School, UES senior center, the Civic Center. So I'm, I was trying to sort of jump start this thinking. Right. When I go to watch one of my kiddos play soccer indoors at the Civic Center which is usually an ice rink. I can bring paper versions of this or I can connect with people there and say hey you know if I text you this link would you respond. You know if a mirror goes to school and has a challenge to connect with an activities group that she's with maybe Amir is part of drama. Can Amir then to say hey, in sometime in the next few days me if I send you this we guys respond to it. So I think it's useful to think in terms of how do our, how do our lives normally take us and where can we connect with people there, and then being more intentional, right, I want to connect. I personally want to go connect with folks in Roxbury because that's a group that we really want to hear from, and I want to support in that Tina wants to connect with folks at the senior center, perhaps partly because that's a network she's already connected to. I want, you know, Carmen and myself to be part of some of those meetings that Tina's having because I want to hear that stuff firsthand as well, and I really am excited about sort of generational connection or cross community connection and things like that. So, just a second. Are those helpful in terms of jumpstarting this thinking. I wonder. I wonder if in the chat. If folks think okay here here are two ways that I can engage in the next two weeks. Can you plug into the chat. You know if you were Tina you might say senior center and I don't know what else Tina would say. That's a way to sort of, we can collect this without everybody talking. Let me say something which I've already said to Nathan quickly which is, in order to get to people at the senior center has to go in a newsletter. And they have to know ahead of time so it's probably not going to happen in the next two weeks it'll happen after that but that's okay I'll take all your feedback from what you've done. But I'd also love to go to the middle school because that's where I've spent a lot of my life so anybody would love to go with me I'd love to have you. Caitlin yes, we can post on friends of my pillar schools on the Facebook page. Do you want to own that one Caitlin. Yeah, sure. Libby, I see Susie us staff and from which form. Libby what I've asked folks to do is in the chat talk about venues or areas of their life or constituents that they intend to reach out to in the next two weeks. I'm sorry everyone my computer just suddenly disappeared on. And Susie doesn't have to be the only one on front porch forum. My front porch forum for Roxbury is connected to the Northfield community and my school board member emails associated with an account so I can certainly use that for for this community, as well as for the Mira and Dottie. And I would like to participate with Montpelier Montpelier folks to in Montpelier so just reach out, I guess I don't know. So what I will do is I will assemble this into a list, and it'll make that into a shared about a public document that's in our public folder and I'll email it to all of you. So you, you know, you could potentially say, hey Susie can I join you for that. Okay, I work. I'm seeing stuff in the chat Joe I see your stuff and Joe on the mhs faculty. I would like to confer with you a little about making sure that we connect well with faculty. You know, a number of different ways. Nick bus stops in the mornings. What a cool idea. My pillow high school racial justice alliance. Right. I didn't get all that you want to put in the chat. Oh, Amelia, very sorry. I only had the, I should have read them more carefully. Thank you. Let's see qr code Nick, probably we can. I've written that down. Emory school clubs or others. Yes. We have an R.P. group. Restorative practices, and we have a school group. I don't even know. There can that conference with, I think two or so kids from every TA. The 22nd or 23rd of this month. Excellent. Okay. Thank you. Thank you with the RVS Friday evening. Carmen middle school. Yes. Love it. And then. You'd like to go with Tina to MSMS. That would be terrific. I see your other notes in there. Mira classmates TA. Love it. Elliot. Gay straight alliance at MHS. I'm getting goosebumps. This is exciting for me. And I'm really, really interested to see what we have to look at two weeks from now. We got about four minutes left. Open the floor. Any reflections. On process. And I want to say. For myself. I'm especially grateful to Caitlin. Thank you. Gosh darn it, Nathan. You were not responsive enough to my concerns. And I, I'm here for that. So I appreciate you. Saying that stuff out loud. Thank you. So just real. Quickly. I think I missed. You're going to, to complete the survey and send it to us to share with people. Or we're just going to ask them general questions. So I'm going to start with the questions that I put. I put in that document. One is the. The broad survey. One is the outline of sort of the distilled topics. And then the other is the thought exchange. Very basic. You know, one question about values essentially or vision. And then some demographic stuff as an entry into being on our mailing list and being aware of this process. If you all trust me to, to try to honor what I've heard. And then let's try it and let's see how this goes. And we can refine as we go. Susie, I did see a hand. Yeah, I was wondering what Caitlin was saying to like more specifically, what are our responsibilities for right now, but also to this is thinking ahead to the next time, but maybe people's wheels can get turning that. Yeah. So I think I want to offer the, at least the elementary school kitchen and cafeteria as a place for community gatherings to happen. I think that. For me, I'm always looking for a reason to have a party or food or whatever, but I think that a lot of people respond to that. I work at the kitchen there. I super love doing things like that and planning things like that. I think it could be really fun to get different groups from people involved in things like that to make it a whole experience. And then more people might be likely to like come and share information. So just if people want to brainstorm. Party ideas that can involve, you know, their school groups or what's just to start thinking of those things because hopefully next time we can move along to other things like that. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and chat between Rhett and Dottie and Amira and I'm asking red if you would please include me because I definitely want to be part of some of the Roxbury work. Okay. I'm grateful once again that you guys are giving this your time and feel free to contact me outside of this. I'm trying to be responsive to those and also incorporate feedback. I get sort of. Asynchronously to this group. I'm going to have a wonderful rest of your Monday and look for links to completed work for me in the next two days. It's going to be a bit of a, you know, it's going to be a bit of work translating all, refining it and then translating it to stuff that's ready for the public, but that's what I'm shooting for. Thanks you guys. I'm going to be on for a little bit because I need to capture, I need to make sure I capture in the chat and all that stuff. Take care.