 Get started. I'm assuming I was going to join. I have not heard otherwise Fimponing the November 18th 2020 I'm up here Roxbury board of school directors meeting at 634 It's just do roll Anaket I Ryan hi, thank you. I think you can say here Since we're not voting, but I think does it Jill here Jerry here Yes, your first one present Andrew here and Mara here So before I got a public comment, I just want to announce that unfortunately Mara has decided to step down You tend to some personal matters, so we're all very very Sad about that. She's been an excellent board member and has really helped us Guide through some some complex issues particularly around Diversity equity and inclusion and we certainly hope that we can draw on your resources in the future Mara And your expertise in that area But definitely understand your decision But that also means that we will again be seeking another board member So I know we had a robust pool Last time so it'd be great if those who were interested previously Would be continued to be interested because we have three fantastic candidates, but also anyone else And we'll be sending out something more formally, but probably the next two to three board meetings will Hopefully be making every an appointment to that position, but thanks again to tomorrow and for all that The great service. She's she's given the board the last several months So Jim Jim, what does that mean for the SRO committee? We're probably gonna have to point another board member to the SRO committee And we can we can do that tonight or We can wait a little You know give it a little time and see if anyone else wants to step up, but I Suggest we do that tonight because that committee is moving quickly. So maybe we can add that to the agenda That would seem to go With The appointment of the vice chair and then also Mia has expressed interest in Serving on the superintendent evaluation committee Although maybe with that in mind she might want to do SRO and in the interim so that's going to be if she's interested That is going to be a time commitment as well But we can get to that later and maybe give me some some time to Information All right With those two announcements, let's move to public comments If anybody has public comment Please Raise your hand using the raise hand function Which is in if you hit on if you hit the participants link at the bottom of your screen it'll a little Pop up will come up and there's a raise hand button at the bottom of that pop up If if you have any difficulty figuring that out feel free to just Make yourself visible and and physically raise your hand. Okay seen seen none We can move to the consent agenda Um Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda and I think Mia noticed some typos? So we might want to pull those out and correct them Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda Do we need Ryan? Do we need to do anything special if we're going to be correcting typos? In terms of that motion And I think we have warrants to add into the game across today or yesterday also right Yeah, there's a warrant that came across and a couple more appointments Yeah, so just so that the motion is clear we should make the additions and the Whatever we're pulling out for discussion so I guess See mario your last meeting do you want them the honors? I I move that we accept the consent agenda With uh with corrections as noted Yeah, and additions as noted. Yes Um all those Oh, I guess you have to do the roll call again etiquette. Hi Ryan Hi Jill hi Jerry Mia Hi Andrew Hi Mara Hi Great consent agenda passes um moved to the board discussion and Brian murphy, I think yeah, I see you is here to talk about the naming of the baseball field. So um Brian Hi everybody. Um, my name is Brian murphy. Um, I'm also here with my son aidan murphy All right Um, and also you'll see olver plavin is on screen as well as uh, nicholas bevin. They're also uh teammates of patin smith Um, you know, I sent an email earlier about this. I just want to thank everyone for taking the time to you know, put us on the agenda and listen to us tonight uh, the idea that we have um Well, it's just reminding everybody Unfortunately, sadly patin smith who was a student at mob pillar high school And graduated from the school last spring passed away from bone cancer. Um In october and it was a long time that he spent battling bone cancer and During that time he was going back and forth to boston a lot for those treatments There were difficult treatments that he was going through But one the recipes they had from that difficult journey was playing baseball and Some of the best memories were being able to be out in the baseball field with the guys Be able to make friends and just have fun and kind of forget about what he was going through um, and joy just being a teenager and having fun with his friends so our Thought and you know this thought aidan came up with and some others just talking about is that Since there's no name for the baseball field at mob pillar high school and just to be clear We're talking about the baseball field at the high school Not the mountaineers field over at the recreation center or anything like that just the one that's um, you know right behind school To have that field named after patin to call patin smith field Um, the idea is that we would go ahead and have a plaque You know, we'd raise some money get a plaque to put together attach it to the backstop there. Maybe have a little um celebration at home opener In this in may or so and the first game And just kind of away They can always be Remembered there for his family and his friends and everything so that's the idea and you know I don't want this all to become from me. It's really come from the students So I want to invite aiden nicholas and Oliver just to speak about you know their thoughts of Payton and what this might mean When payton first moved here he His family had just come from the netherlands being a military family And they had just found out That he had bone cancer And he showed up a few days late to school And the one thing that really made him excited was hanging out with the baseball team and getting to be out on that field back there And I think that Having that the fact that there's no name for the field right now And we have the chance to name it. Um, it'd be great to be in payton's name Oliver nicholas Yeah, um, so I'm nicholas. I was also a captain on the baseball team with aiden And I was lucky enough to get to know payton pretty well Whether it was just on the baseball team or in school and classes. I had almost all my classes with him And he really inspired me as a person more than anyone I know And I'm sure you could ask anyone who was on the team with us or just Anybody around school. They'd say the exact same thing But he really just he he did more than inspire me to be a better person. He really just changed my life And as soon as I heard this idea of naming the field after him I thought that was amazing and I thought that'd be a great way to honor him I um, so like me pain did not grow up in Montpelier But he fit in and he was part of this community from basically day one Um, I think he belonged everywhere and this is clear from his dedication to the team um, his perseverance through, you know battling cancer um And by the ease of him being able to make friends was really inspiring and I think uh naming the field after pain would be um a great way Uh to commemorate his life and what he stood for so I'm not sure what the process is and how the vote would go and everything but um, That's our request is if we could go ahead and um have that occur Yeah, thank you, uh, Brian, Aiden, Oliver and Nicholas. Uh, I think it's a fantastic idea and a great way to pay tribute to the Peyton and Yeah, this is sadly a short life and the contribution he made to the community and to all the people he touched so I'm certainly supportive. Libby. I think we just need a motion Um, then can I make a suggestion to the board to either discuss and yeah, or nay We have a we have a very healthy fund balance and there's no reason to raise money for this We can make a beautiful sign for Peyton Out of that money and we can get the guys to to help us design that That'd be awesome So it matches what Peyton would want So I would I would recommend to the board that we use our fund balance to to get a pretty Killer sign going on our baseball field need some touch-ups. Anyway Yeah, that that was my next question was whether This was something we could you know, we could we could fund without so So I would love to entertain a motion to both name name the field after Peyton Smith and to Set aside some funds to you know, put a a plaque up or another Um, you know put a plaque and other commemorations to acknowledge the naming I move that we can commemorate Peyton Smith's life by naming the fields and having a relevant and and delightful dedication And can I just can we just add to that? Um, mara that we're going to pay for The plaque out of fun balance second Um any discussion I think it's I think it's a great idea. Thanks guys. Thanks for taking the lead on this and Paying respect to a life. It seems like Touched touched many so sorry for your loss Thank you for being supportive of it Yeah, I just want to say thank you as well to aiden and nicolas and oliver It's really great that you guys are here That you went out on your friend this way. I'm really impressed With all of you. Thank you very much. Yeah. No, thank you. Uh advocate a I Ryan I gel I Not a jerry. Hi Mia Hi Andrew Hi Mara Hi Great. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. This is a really really touching thing that you've all done and We're glad we could help in this way and Hope that this helps his memory live on and hope you remember and celebrate his life Thank you very much. Yeah We'll share the news with the family and um, you know, liby will be in touch You know, this winter goes on to put his the plaque together Yeah, rena and matt will be on it. I bet matt mclean will be on it too So rena and matt will be on it in order to get get in touch with these guys to make sure the Whatever sign we create matches what you guys want That's awesome. And you know, one other little nice note about is that Payton's younger brother keegan is a freshman of school and will be playing baseball this year. So He'll get to be playing us older brothers All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Have a good night. Yeah, thank you uh, um yeah, I'm it's um It's touching when we get to do things like that, which is or yeah glad Glad brian organized that that was that was wonderful I With uh, Bridget's departure, uh, not only do we lose a fantastic board member. We also lost our vice chair um So we do need to appoint a Uh new vice chair um And then there are a couple committee appointments that we talked about that we needed to finalize it that have totally escaped my brain appointing Someone to the sro committee and then a possible appointment for me, which may be one of the same Unless we want to punt on that on the vice chair Andrew has expressed interest and willingness to step into that role uh Uh, I think he would be a fantastic choice if the rest of the board is supportive, but I also, um Yeah, if someone else uh Is interested, um I don't want to Foreclose that opportunity either, but If we're willing to take Andrew up on his offer, I think it would be be great to have him serve as as vice chair Um, and shockingly he is now one of the more senior members of the board Uh So I will uh If if someone else is interested, um, now is now is the time to express it. Um, otherwise, it would be great to entertain a motion to appoint um Andrew as as vice chair for the remainder of um The the year which which would be till town meeting day I move we appoint Andrew stein as the vice chair of the montpelier rock spray school board of directors I'll second that Okay, um Any discussion I have a new board member question. Yes. What does what does the vice chair do? Uh The vice chair basically serves as the chair when the chair is is stuck under a rock or something So Uh, that is that is the that's I think the primary I think but they can he can also sign for instance, um Yeah, every Every couple weeks we have to do a warrant for the payroll So the vice chair can also sign the warrant if the chair is unavailable. Basically, it's it's someone who's you can do chair functions when when the chair is unavailable both They have shepherd meetings and then You know, there are there are things like contracts and whatnot that the chair needs to sign and the vice chair can sign and the the chair's absence Andrew would be kamala harris Yes, I love it. What a compliment um advocate Hi Ryan Hi Jill Hi Harry Hi Mia Hi Tina She's not on the board jim. I I knew that would happen at least once I did hear that there was an opening after tonight though. I don't know I was waiting I was waiting for jim to say the vice chair does whatever the chair wants him to do Well, I want that I'm gonna tell andrew after the vote Yes Mara Hi And Andrew did I give you a chance to vote on yourself? Uh, yeah, hi. I'm happy to do it. Thanks everybody. I appreciate the vote of confidence Thank you. Thank you for stepping up um Are we ready to um Is anyone is anyone super interested in the conserving of the SRM committee? um To be frank, I'm very interested, but I've learned from past experience that Volunteering for more than two committees, especially when one of them is the negotiations committee and you're in the heat of things is Not a good recipe for work life balance. So now you're a vice chair Yeah So I just wanted to say that interested. Yes, but I'm not going to put my name for Not to put you on the spot Mia, but are you already appointed to other committees? I know sometimes that happens outside of the meetings, but I do think it'd be great to have you on there if if possible And we could make that your only committee until that committee wraps up So if you're interested, I think you'd be fantastic as well Before we get too crazy We've lost half of the policy committee with mara's departure Um Yeah, so we're down to we had been a four and now we're down to a two-person committee to just be MNI So we don't have to choose right now, but it would be nice to have at least one other body I'm helping out with some of the policy work going forward I mean, I'd be happy to go um back on policy I know I was on it for a little while and wasn't particularly helpful But maybe over time I can I can be more useful other than that I I to andrew's point I'm on the negotiation committee and and I don't want to over commit Which is why I wouldn't necessarily want to step up to the The SRO community form, but I would be happy to serve on the policy committee if that's helpful And one one quick question. This is a little bit of a digression, but it feeds into this gym While we're talking about this because some of some of these decisions are based on the fact that Are highly valued Board director mara is leaving which i'm very sad about um going back to that but um Since we just had a bunch of really qualified candidates come forward Can we do an expedited round of this like say hey if you're interested reach out in the next You know 10 days And we could appoint somebody at our next board meeting we could reach out to the three people that had just expressed interest and I'm in the process of doing that. Yeah and I know you you Yeah, and feel free to to reach out as well, but hopefully we can get You'd be great if we get all three of those to to throw their hats back into the ring Because what i'm thinking ryan to your point is if Mia for example joined the SRO committee, which has more more frequent work right now and more and a lot of time Sensitive work, we might be able to then appoint somebody to the policy committee at our next meeting Or have an idea as to that person would be No, and I think that's totally relevant. I think you're going to have a hard time Twisting elbows with the group that's in the meeting right now to get more committed between negotiations and prior committee appointments, so yeah We'll make that known in the announcement that goes up or mara's replacement that Committee seats will be expected to be filled with your presence We The SRO committee is rolling and we need to get somebody into that and Yeah, I would agree the and the superintendent evaluation committee um I think we're going to talk about that next time. I actually have to drop because I have a meeting but um I'm in with I sent Jim the documentation For this round and hopefully, you know, I'm fine to do that as much Until it gets buddy. Yep, and I think we're Planting to talk about that next meeting or the meeting next meeting. Yeah, so I'm going to drop up. So Yes, see you everyone Thanks, so if people want to think about the SRO committee Why don't I propose this and we give people some time and what? Yeah, I think wait until the next meeting probably going to be some movement on the SRO committee, but um, I think someone could step up and attend The meetings and then we could appoint them formally afterwards because they're open meetings and I think someone could you know sit through one not formally appointed one or two um Jim or we we could appoint Mia right now if she's interested in the SRO If Mia's interested, I definitely would would be very important, but I don't want to I also want to give her some time to think about it If she Lots time to think about it. Mia. What do you think? Mara is your um Resignation effective immediately or you sticking around sort of like Bridget did for a few more I'm I'm planning to attend the meeting uh the the safety committee meeting tomorrow and then after that It'll be effective immediately. Okay And I totally think that you should take that position and I'm definitely not, you know, strong arming you at all with love That's very kind. Thank you Um, I'll do it. Sure. Yeah, awesome. Thank you. Um We need a question to appoint Mia to the he um SRO committee I I move to appoint Mia to the SRO committee when mara has finished her term tomorrow So that we don't have more board members on the committee at once than we had initially said we would um Does that make sense? Yes with that qualification Yeah, just why don't we just make the appointment effective november 20th All right. Yeah, so I move to appoint Mia to the SRO committee effective november 20th Every second I'll second Any discussion? um etiquette I Ryan I Jill I Mia If I didn't think I'd get to vote on myself. Um, I Andrew I And my hi Great. Thank you. Mia and thank you. Andrew. Um And jill on the policy committee. Do you do you want to step up on that or do you want to wait and see? um Because I don't think I can I can wait I can wait until we have another person on board. That's fine. And just know I can be plan b Okay, perfect. Um Let's do that unless unless you are like I want to serve on the policy committee, please Then um, we can we we can we can wait on that And do we want to set a date for The one we want to make a decision on the the board member um Our next meeting is the second right liby I I say we I think we should aim for the second if if those three candidates are interested and we put it out And we get another candidate or two great or even if we if we get one or two of those candidates great Let's do that. Let's let's put it on the second and if we um Don't have much of a candidate pull of the second. We can always extend it Okay Great, and maybe I can I can work with annan liby to put out another another announcement We got that annan's already doing it right now. I can guarantee you Excellent. Thank you, annan um And then budget priorities from community input First off jill. Thank you so much for stepping up and and shepherding that meeting Andrew and I were both stuck under rocks at that point At that point, but no I got I got pulled into some some work work calls So I just want to give a quick summary of what what we heard And I know that Some documents there's a survey and some documents were circulated, but I don't chill. Do you want to just give a quick two minute overview of of Feedback Sure. So the um the survey had a pretty good response rate and that was really helpful And I know um my kit put it into a visual which was really helpful Which a few of us got this afternoon. It looked like before the meeting With sort of the big high-level priorities, you know about like special education early childhood after school Social emotional learning there were several sort of categories and and folks were asked to rank that and then there was um a place where people could add You know either things that they felt hadn't been addressed to things they wanted to emphasize and so that included everything from um requesting We consider the budgetary impact of pandemic response things like ventilation things like that After school programming music art theater and foreign language After school had had plenty of comments. Um, there were also some sort of resource specific things like AP classes library books and textbooks facilities Um And then and uh, there were definitely certainly comments about diversity equity inclusion and and not supporting the school resource officer position um, but there was pretty widespread theme of um emphasizing social emotional and mental health for um for students and families and prioritizing our budget to um the most disadvantaged students and families So and then we had a really good conversation. There were just a handful of folks that were on the call But they had really great comments. Um, we had someone who offered up that there was a new Bus service coming to Montpelier. That might be a good resource for middle and high school students. Um There was a gentleman who sort of drew the parallel to What he went through as an educator, you know back in the 70s and 80s about sort of schools Were kind of caught on their heels and weren't prepared to address some of the sort of change in cultural um title waves that were coming regarding sexuality and drugs and alcohol and that this was sort of our opportunity to Be a little bit more prepared and proactive um in supporting students and really investing in um counselors and Um and guidance for students and training and investing in staff training for diversity equity and inclusion um And then a lot of conversation too about you know history and how The lens through which we're teaching a lot of these courses Has changed and sort of the career pathways that are open to students has also changed Um jerry's not on anymore, but she had a really great point about you know The changing technology that we're going to need students with a balance of of science and ethics To sort of shepherd that to the future So um, it was it was really an interesting conversation and I do think it was Support above a lot of the things that we had been talking about Um, I think it was helpful um It was great that we had a good feedback to the survey because there were I think maybe four or five community members on the call So we did wrap that up a little early But I found it really helpful and and engaging. It was a really great group That was on well if anyone has any other questions or things that I didn't um address Yeah questions for jill or another a few other people on Any other observations? I just wanted to say first to you jill. Thank you for being so prepared for that town hall your You um presented to the town hall essentially for those board members who weren't there presented to the town hall Essentially what she just told us and I just was thought that was a really great way to set A good grounding for for the conversation. So thank you for doing that um And just one other one that I had notes on was um, we heard from the crossing guard as well with I guess well advocating for Making sure crossing guards were included in the budget, which we know they will definitely be as a safety feature and And then also had just a few questions about how Salary and benefits work. Um, so liby committed to taking that offline and connecting with With the crossing guards on that. So thanks for doing that liby great any other Comments on that otherwise we can Um give susan the floor of the board communications training which Have been great in the past and with so many new board members It will be super valuable. So susan why I hand it over to you and I don't know if you want to share a screen but Livia she set up to do that if she needs to Can make it work susan if you need anything and we can't get it to work then We'll figure it out. Yeah I don't know about the rest of you, but I've gotten very flexible about zoom meetings You do what works So I recognize a few of you from a couple of years ago when I came and met with your board and then I don't recognize some of you So let me introduce myself. I'm susan holson from the sba That's from ont school boards association, which is actually just around the corner from the high school Although I have been working from home since march. So I haven't been in Montpelier Let me my role at the sba is the director of education services Which pretty much means I do most of the professional development work for school board members And that is one of the core principal pieces of our mission at the school boards association of which you are members And so all of the resources that we have are available to all of you as members And before I get into anything I would just like to say every time I've come to one of your meetings I have been Blown away by your student representatives who serve on your board And I don't get to see them tonight, but boy that presentation from those kids really tugged at my heart You've gotten an amazing group of students and you're Smart and fortunate to have them come to your meetings. So you can remember what it is you're doing all this work for Now having said that Libby had gotten in touch with me and asked me to sort of go through communication protocols for board members because when you're wearing multiple hats things sometimes get really confusing and It's sometimes hard to remember which hat you've got on when and What the ramifications are So I've really geared this mostly towards a newer board members because she did also Let me know that You're in transition and it sounds like that's continuing and you do have a lot of new members So I welcome those of you who who have been around for a while to chime in if you've got any thoughts or suggestions And at the same time I want to say once I share my screen. This is I think the biggest Failure of zoom once I share my screen. I can no longer see who's here or I can't see your hands raised or anything else So don't worry about interrupting me Please feel free to do that chime in with questions or comments or just tell me to slow down I've got about 40 minutes. I think and I'm going to race through this But I want to make sure that it Penetrates so if I'm going too fast, we won't go through it all and we'll just take our time and and Make sure that it all makes sense to you That works for everyone. Okay, good So I will host disabled participants screen sharing. Hmm Will somebody give me permission? I don't know who the meeting host is. Is it you lily? All right. Try again Oh that works. Thank you Excellent Are you seeing the presenter view? Are you seeing the whole thing? We've got the presenter view. Yeah All right, fine with me Yeah, we'll go back. Okay. Um, so Really the question that I I think the core question here is what do I say and when do I say it and to whom do I say it and more importantly, maybe When don't I say anything? Um So that's sort of the premise that I'm starting with and we're going to sort walk through some different scenarios to figure out how to get there and this is really One lens that is looking at the school board role what you are as a board And what you are as a board member to your community So we're sort of coming in the back door here talking about roles and responsibilities through the lens of specifically communication But it remember that's part of a much bigger picture and everything we're going to talk about tonight is really based on the proprietary platform that the Vermont school boards association has developed over years Of what the essential work of Vermont school boards is and for those of you who are new members If this book on the right hand side of the screen doesn't look familiar I have a case of them in my trunk. We have cartons of them at the office and I strongly encourage anyone who doesn't have one you you should get one they're 15 bucks. We charge it to the su Libby can put in an order or any of you can just let us know send me an email or whatever It runs through All of the best practices and give some rationale behind them And so it's a handy resource, you know, I'm not going to say you're going to read it cover to cover But if it's on the shelf and you have some questions and you can just Pull on it. That's helpful and the piece on the left of the screen is our online adaptation of that we have a toolkit on the Vermont school boards association website and it's all Linked to resources. So that's just sort of an aside, but that's the lens that I'm coming at this with So there's lots of different types of communication and They obviously just keep exploding and I didn't even list them all here. I mean, I I've left out texting and I've left out Social media that I don't even understand and I'm sure a lot of other things But as we know, there's lots of different ways to communicate and and the one thing that I think is really important to remember for all Communication, especially as you're sitting in your school board seat is that communication is two way There's it's not a one-way deal Right. I mean, I like that's the co of communication even though I know that's not the origin of the word and if you're A greek scholar, you'll probably get upset with me for doing that But no matter what form it takes you got to be listening and you are contributing also And and so regardless of how you're communicating What you're saying and how you're presenting the board in what you're saying are important And and that's where it sometimes gets murky Because your personal opinions on things and the board's opinions on things may not be the same and While you are on the board and people are approaching you because you're on the board and they know you're a board member They're talking to you as a board member and you need to remember that so You know the first thing we think of with communication with the community is people aren't happy And that's when they get in touch and there's a lot of truth to that, right? so If somebody's going to communicate with you send you an email Stop you on the street Text you whatever it may be You're going to take a complaint from a from somebody in the community about the schools That's you're going to hear that. What are you going to do with that? Well, you actually have a policy in your policy manual expectations for Board members and in that policy it outlines your chain of command for this exact situation Which is that you are going to tell the board chair You're going to let jim know and you're going to let liby know That you have received a complaint or maybe you're going to let jim know and he'll take it Up with liby. I'm not sure how your board works on that particular thing either one of those is sort of left to the way an individual board structures itself You're not going to respond to that complaint because as soon as you do The person on the other side of that is hearing. Oh, well the the school board told me Blah blah blah blah blah and that's not true Right, you're not speaking for the board in that situation. So you have to be really really careful Sometimes it's okay to follow up later if this is a personal connection of yours You know just did everything work out You know, did you get the answers you needed? Did you get that taken care of? And sometimes it's not appropriate to follow up because it's a more contentious thing or it's a deeper dive or it's going to end up in some sort of Union grievance or God knows what and so you just want to stay back and the main reason for all of this is because If in the event there's an appeal Of some kind some policy Related matter didn't go according to policy and procedures. There's a reason for it. Somebody's appealing about it Once they go to the teacher To the building administrators come to the central office and deal with liby if they if a parent still isn't satisfied You as the school board are their last line of defense They will issue a formal complaint to you and you will sit as a quasi judicial body to hear All of the evidence just like you're a judge collectively you're a judge And if you are too involved up until that point you can't really be Impartial and that means you really have to recuse yourself. So get out of the way Stay out of the way and then if you need to be pulled in you can be pulled in effectively Make sense All right So this Part of your policy on handling complaints complaints are criticisms received by individual board members go to the board chair Um, and then you're going to direct Somebody that follow the policy And you'll let the superintendent that or this says okay the chair will let the superintendent know about a complaint So let's let's think about it this way here. Here's a little case study. Okay um You run into one of your neighbors while you're shopping And she approaches you and she just goes off about online learning how ineffective it is her son is not learning Anything his teacher doesn't know what she's doing with online learning. How can this be happening? How how are we going to do this? She's not engaged the teacher's not engaged and I want the board to do something about this What do you say? That's a real question. What do you say? Thank you Okay That we hear her and ask if she's spoken with her student's teacher or principal great And and you might want to soften it a little bit with you know, this is a really tough time and everybody is Learning to manage as we go What is it the the expression they're using in the governor's office? We're building the airplane while we're flying it You know and and for some teachers, that's what the online learning Really, I mean, that's how it hit them initially anyway But you stay detached and you reference them back to That chain of command. That's really the important thing and if this is somebody that you know, how do you leave it with her? I'll check with you next week to make sure everything, you know, you're getting some some satisfaction That sort of implies that You're going to take some action. So this might be a time for some education You know, the board just doesn't handle these kinds of matters. This is not board business This is really for the superintendent or the building principal. So those are the channels that you really need to pursue This is not something the board can can take hold of but then you need to make sure that you let Jim know That this happened, right and and give him the details Similarly, if it comes in by email forward the email to him Jim I just received this And the same kind of Simple response back, you know, have you talked to the teacher or to the building administrator? I mean, if it's a complaint about a classroom teacher, they may not feel comfortable talking directly to the teacher about it But have you talked to the principal, you know, the same kind of things Why first of all you're following your existing policies, you know The board creates policies and then you live by them and the entire district lives by your policies So you want to make sure that you're following them, right? That's that's the starting point And to Jill's point and whoever it was, I didn't see who spoke first when you said you thank them You do want to acknowledge that they that You're hearing what they're saying. You're not just dismissing them out of hand But you are kind of delaying to let them know this isn't your your work here So one of the fundamental principles that I think board members really struggle with a lot Is this whole idea that you speak with one voice People struggle with this because there are Seven of you did I get that right? How many board members when you're a full compliment? Seven eight something like that Um, and and yeah, Libby nine nine that's close So It's hard for nine people to have one voice Right, but as an elected body, that's exactly the structure You have a as a body you are an entity but As a board member in the eyes of the law, you're nothing You're just another citizen and so There as I said earlier, you really do run that risk of well the board said Even if you're not feeling like you're representing the board at that moment So that one voice principle is something that Board members struggle with because they think that their first amendment rights are being curtailed Well, I'm still a citizen. I can still speak my voice. Well, you can but it's really really hard to take off your board hat When you're public facing if they're coming to you as a board member They know you're a board member and they think you're speaking for the board no matter how many times you try and Clear that up. That's what people are going to hear. So that's a really important thing And when I say people, I mean anybody I mean parents. I mean teachers if you go in for your parent teacher or if you Have a conference with your your kid's teacher Um, because it's parent teacher conference time or because there's an issue You know, you've got to really remind them and remind yourself I'm here as a parent today Let's talk about jane and only about jane and You know, you don't have to say this but we're not going to talk about your contract negotiations And we're not going to talk about your health insurance and we're not we're going to talk about jane my kid I'm here as her parent right and and so That's really the only time I think that you can completely take off your board hat And when you do that, I recommend that you are very Very clear about it. You know hit it over the head So the school boards are created by the state Right or granted power based on the vermont statutes And as I said, you have no individual power or authority in statutes So you're not above the law. Nobody is above the law, right? Um, and again going back to your policy Your expectation policy board members do not speak for the board But speak as individuals when interacting with other non-board entities or to the public That's fine. It's important for you to understand that but I think it's at least as important For you to understand that most people don't realize that um and so Best practice is to have somebody and and your policy. It's the board chair becomes the board spokesperson So if somebody that which is why you're going to refer all of the any correspondence that you get to the chair because Jim is your spokesperson. He's the one who's going to put the message out there that is the board's point of view And that by having only one person do it it it's consistent Right and he is speaking Based on what he has observed and processed as being the will of the board Got that Jim All right, so here's another another little case study and based on the conversation I just heard and maybe I'm not that far off the mark with this one So you show up at your board meeting You're going to vote on the the proposed budget You're looking at a two and a half percent budget for next year and it looks pretty good And you go into the meeting planning to vote for it But Libby shows up and she says, you know what this covid thing is out of control all over the state I think we better plan for The possibility that we're going to be all remote Now you think about that and you say well that sounds important But what does that mean? Well, it means a big investment in technology To make sure everybody and every piece of equipment is up to speed to catch all of the nuances of the online learning And that's going to mean more money. It's going to raise your budget by about a full point So you're now looking at a three and a half percent And you think uh, uh, that's not going to fly people aren't going to support that It's too big an increase in this in this economic climate We're we're never going to be able to sell that and so you vote against it But at the end of the day, I guess I did know you had nine people because I came up with a at the end of the day The vote of the board is six three in favor of this amended budget So one of your neighbors is sitting there at the meeting and as you're walking out at the end of the meeting He comes over and he says So you didn't support the budget. I'm I'm kind of confused. Should I vote for this? And then the next morning you get a call from the Times Argus Wanting they also know that you did not support the budget, but they want to they want to hear your your feelings about it So what do you say to your neighbor? Okay, as an individual you did not support the budget, but it passed What do you say the board has approved a budget that we think will do should we say quality educational opportunities for our children and that is the budget we're going to present to our communities to support so It wasn't a unanimous vote But overall the board as a whole and decided that the budget was appropriate for our communities and for our students Yeah, and another another My general thought on this Susan, this is Andrew speaking is that people don't give up their first amendment rights when they're board members and so they can I I think I think this is best practice and what Ryan's saying is generally best practice But I think another approach depending on how one feels is somebody could say While I did not vote for the budget because of x y and z and that was based on my personal beliefs and opinions of the situation I support the board as a whole the board has the ultimate authority and the board at large voted to approve this budget and present it to voters and so As a member of the board i'm i'm supportive of where we are Um On this yep, that works too Um, and and if it really is the way I laid it out you could even say Yeah, I voted against it because i'm concerned about the community's ability to support An expanded budget. There's nothing in that budget that I think is inappropriate for our kids Right so you can clarify a little bit of your actions And and and then go on to what Ryan was saying and this is the board's will and I support I support to this is what the board is bringing forward What about the media? What do you do when the newspaper calls? I would direct them to jim Yay Good answer. I like that one right and and they're probably calling you Because they think they're going to be able to churn up some dirt Right. Oh, yes, you know, it wasn't a unanimous vote. Here's an opportunity. Let's get some let's get some headlines Let's let's sell some papers here. All right. Let's get that strife going people love that stuff. Don't play You know, nobody can have a fight if you look themselves Right, so if you don't play they can't fight um, so yeah So the takeaways from this are majority rules that's the board's action And outside of the board meeting you got to be really clear again. You're speaking for yourself but the board Supports this budget to Andrew's point. So To the neighbor I didn't you know I didn't vote in support of it in the meeting and you can offer an explanation or not But I do support support the budget because this is how the majority voted and this is you know, the board chose to move this way and Exactly as Emma said to the media, you know Our chair Jim Murphy's our spokesperson. Here's here's how to reach him. He represents the board's point of view done So unless you're the chair You don't want to see your name in print Right, especially if they're attributing a quote so Some of this gets even murkier when we throw the overlay of public of open meeting law On on to board business and for those of you who are newer board members if you haven't been involved in other public Public bodies Open meeting law went into effect I'm going to say it was Like maybe 10 years ago that it really got stringent eight 10 years something like that and it's the the underlying premise is You are elected to conduct the people's business And you're accountable to them and therefore you need to be transparent And that's why your Agendas and your warnings all need to be at least five days before your meeting and they have to be posted in public places There are a whole lot of Very specific things around open meeting law. We could spend two hours just talking about that, but I'm not going to I'm just going to touch on some pieces of open meeting law where it rubs with Board communication So Okay, you're a public body You need transparency That's at the heart of it So anytime a quorum holds a meeting You need to have minutes. You need to warn the meeting have an agenda have that agenda publicly available There are different time periods allowed And and somebody needs to be taking minutes which also need to be posted even before they're approved at the next meeting Draft minutes need to be posted Again somewhere that's easily accessible to anybody who wants them And that by the way and I spell that out on this slide that includes board committees If it is a board committee You are bound by open meeting law if you as a board member Are serving on another committee? Let's say it's a select board committee of some kind They're subject to open meeting law But you don't need to be if you're serving on the Boy Scouts council committee You're that's not a public body. And so even though you're a board member who's placed there to Be the conduit with the school board. You're not subject to open meeting laws in that context And and there's language in the law about that And so they define meetings and they define That's actually what is a meeting and what is not a meeting? So a meeting can occur anywhere It's a work session It's a retreat if any kind of meeting of this board or subset Of a quorum subset of this board and it doesn't need to all take place in in one time and place so email strings social media discussions all of that stuff, right And here's one little exception So you can send a group email jim or liby can send out an email our thoughts for the agenda for the next meeting Here's the draft I'm attaching the draft anybody have anything you want to add delete subtract clarify whatever you can have that conversation about the agenda in group emails but You may not discuss any business of the board in that email so If you have if you want clarity around an agenda item you can ask for clarity, but it's going to stop short Of discussing the item it needs to stop short and One tip that I actually learned from dsba, which I think is a great one is when Most of the group emails here will will be initiated either by the central office by liby or anna or by jim And in all cases if you instead of copying everybody if you blind copy everybody There's no such thing as reply all If you reply all and people are blind copied on it, they don't get the reply So that's a very safe way to structure a group email to make sure that you stay within those boundaries of open meeting law Are there questions about that? Susan I have a question. This is this is Mia Um, we just held a town hall budget town hall just before this meeting We didn't make any decisions In that at that town hall. It was really just to gather information from the public So but does that fall into obviously it was it was being held as Essentially open to be part of a transparent process, but I'm just curious about minutes and All those kinds of things like how stringent do we we voted to adjourn? I think just to be on the safe side maybe but just i'm curious how is that was that truly a meeting of the board That's a great question and I am going to give you my best answer, but i'm going to also check in with my colleagues who are attorneys and specialists in open meeting law and i'm going to give you the right answer By email tomorrow. Okay, let me just make myself a note So, you know, we warned that and we had a quorum of the board Okay. Yeah, so if you have a quorum of the board um, and you are Discussing board business in the sense that you were getting the public's input on budget um, it it is a public meeting um, but if Minutes they're so there are really specific things that need to be included in minutes and A whole long explanation of discussion need not be in the minutes what needs to be in the minutes As you said Mia is when there are actions, you know, there's a motion a second a vote That needs to be in the minutes who made the motion who made the second and and how did the vote go? um, but I don't believe you need to Give lengthy description in minutes about discussion Does that answer your question? Yeah, thank you. I'm also I am gonna Get an answer and I'll send Jim an email tomorrow once I have an answer to that for sure Yeah, I I appreciate that. I think the the point that I'm just so that's still a little confusing to me is that Whether or not we made any decisions feels to me like a defining characteristic of a meeting But I would so I would love a little more clarification on that Fair enough. Thank you um, I can also direct you There are on our website We did a really I thought very informal informative Webinar last in this last winter before the pandemic about open meeting law And it was held There were two presenters one was our executive director Sue Siglowski who's an attorney and the other was the deputy secretary of state and he was great and the two of them together dealt with a lot of the the minutiae issues and answered a lot of very specific questions and all of our webinars are archived on our website And and the power point deck that they used is also there So you might want to take a closer look at that at some point it ran about now Hey Susan right here. Yeah, could I ask you to expand maybe a little bit on open meeting law and distribution of materials? Policy committee gets itself stuck in some gray areas frequently The way we tend to operate is we'd have somebody who might be a lead author on a draft policy Um, we would warrant a meeting of the policy committee to discuss that draft policy So the lead author would distribute whatever had been authored so far In advance of the meeting the other committee members would have a chance to read it and make comments But nothing would be shared back and forth So we would make comments we would make edits as a group in an open meeting That's fine. The question that we're kind of bumping up against That we don't have a solid answer for is How files might be stored? So as board members, we all have access to the district's online drives If we have a folder that draft policies are jointly available to all policy committee members Is that an okay? procedure and okay I believe that is okay as long as nobody is working on them If they're just stored there That should be fine because you're only advancing them in public meeting Is there any time that there might be a file? An informational organizational file to keep track of adoption dates revisions That could be jointly edited throughout without open meeting law No So there's no point in time that board members could have access to a document that would be Opened or edited or changed outside of an openly warned meeting Correct Excuse me. Sorry just to follow up on that question. This is Mara. Um, what would we have to do to change that? You have to change the open meeting law Right and that so that that would be something to to discuss with legislature themselves. Yeah Awesome. Thank you. Um, I don't frankly I don't see that happening But good luck. I mean if you if you really want to pursue that good luck. I I think um, you know and and let's remember legislature is bound by open meeting law also Um, and it is an inconvenience For a public body to adhere to some of the really stringent requirements But it is all done with the intent of accountability Oh, yeah, I definitely agree. I just um, I keep thinking about like the view all capacity And if things were made publicly available to be acted accessed and viewed at any time Not that I need to tell you this to you because you can't change anything But uh, that is that's something that uh, I feel like it's not worth setting the issue down when we are in 2020 and electronic communication and co-work is part of the reality of how we function I understand that completely and and I know the frustrations of of not being able to just Make those changes in the google doc rather than Marking up a copy for yourself and being able to discuss them in the committee meeting I understand it it's not efficient Um, but it is transparent though So it's it you know, it it's it's bulky I have a follow-up as well because we're so you're hearing from the policy committee right here We've had a lot of talks around this um, but one other question that I had was um, I thought I thought you also mentioned that you could email back and forth With a quorum of the board of to develop an agenda Now would that be true with a shared google doc that you would be able to develop that agenda? You know, as long as you're not making any decisions or trying to build consensus Would you be able to? collaborate on So the agenda the Official answer is I don't know but I think you're getting into The weeds when you start to do that because generally speaking any um shared authoring That isn't happening simultaneously in public is It is yeah, it's going to raise red flags if you're doing that. What else are you doing? um, even if you're not doing anything else so the And I don't think it's all that much more cumbersome for Either jim or liby to send out the draft agenda and say please send me your feedback You know, if there's anything you want to add because at the end of the day they have It's their choice whether something's going to go on the agenda or not So if you add it on that doesn't mean it's going to stay there Yeah, no, and that's that's the way to deal with the agendas. You know if you see the agenda you want something additive questions, you know email liby and me and We'll either add it or We'll explain why it can't be added and if you disagree at the beginning of the meeting you can say I want to add this to the agenda and you know bring it to the board um, if you guys want I just pulled up the secretary of state updated um, jim condos his office updated their uh, open media open meeting guide last year and they have um a section on collective editing of online documents Do you want me to email that out to everyone or read that what? And and this is just the secretary of state, but he is the official correct managing Vermont's democracy. So No, no, he's my resource Yeah, you know, yeah, he's he's the definitive Yeah, especially since we're all working remotely this way and they're probably going to continue to collaborate this way for a while Yeah, I'd love to see that The crux of it is that they don't He doesn't recommend the office does not recommend that a quorum of a public body should participate in collectively editing a document um, because we can't We can't assume for example that all members of the public will have the skills or means to access the tools of these google docs Or be able to offer their opinions on the views of exchange In our view an acceptable alternative is to instead Name a point person who collects and compiles each member's comments for later discussion at a really warm meeting But this is this kind of falls outside of some of what you're talking about I think and it I I totally get where you're coming from Mara with regard to This is like the most inefficient way to do business in the 21st century One of all hold up at home and we're working this digital sphere So how to balance, you know the efficiency of doing this work with transparency accountability and accessibility It's not It's a it's a fine needle to thread But I do think it's worth prodding at because many of these laws are older I will also remind those of you who don't know that when the pandemic hit the there were temporary modifications made to open meeting law To allow for example this meeting tonight The base open meeting law which we're going to go back to When the the state of emergency is over Says you can hold a remote meeting, but One person of the body of the public body must be in a central location attending the meeting there Where the public can also gather Now that's been pushed aside temporarily and instead we're sharing zoom links but Every meeting still has to be open publicly and you have to have some mechanism for public comment And And then it complicates the whole executive session question too, right? How do you do that? Making sure that you're only Board members or invited people into your executive session So there there's another challenge there, but they did make some temporary modifications And may I compliment jim? Because I've gone to a lot of zoom board meetings in the last six months and you are one of the very few who is actually Doing the roll call Voice vote for every motion, which is what the Parameters are for digital meetings now. And so Thank you for doing This is a rats nest open meeting law has so many ramifications and and Boards get into um some weeds about this with certain issues and one of them is that um group editing Question it comes up all the time. It seems so wrong On some level and yet the intent makes the the Protocols At least understandable So executive session is another one. This is where most boards get into trouble With open meeting law the open meeting law lists 14 very specific reasons for executive session and only those 14 and if The if you vote to go into executive session you really need to include in the motion the language specific language in open meeting law that covers Which of those 14 is the reason for your open meeting for your executive committee? Sorry executive session Why are you closing this to the public? Well, because premature knowledge Let's say you're um negotiating with the new bus company or something premature knowledge could influence the outcome of that negotiation And so that's one of the rationales. I'm not going to go through the particulars but The motion needs to state the nature of the business Why you're in executive session and be and you have to vote on that? Are we going into? Executive session and that Motion needs to be in your minutes If when you're in executive session You don't take minutes because you don't make any decisions in executive session any Information in executive session any discussion Needs to first of all remain confidential first and foremost. You can't tell anybody What you talked about For getting the outcomes you just can't even say. Oh, yeah. Well, we were talking about a bus contract. Nope Executive session closed door It's up to the board to decide who you might want to invite in with you to executive sessions so if this is a personnel issue that Around three people you might want to have all three But only if it meets the parameters of the one of those 14 reasons Don't take minutes in the executive session because then it's you run the risk of losing the confidentiality And because you don't take any action It's okay If you are going to take action on something that was discussed in executive session You need to come out of executive session go back into open session and Somebody makes a motion That the vote the board votes on so all of the decision making is transparent So as I said, we have some Modifications temporary modifications now One the designated physical location That has been temporarily waived You need to make sure that the public has a way in so I think now almost all not all but almost all of these Platforms have a way to call in by phone So if somebody doesn't have a device or doesn't have internet or whatever they can still participate in the meeting And and I I was impressed with your agenda you're really clear on how to access the meeting Download the app and all of that And you must be recording your meetings That's part of this temporary thing if it's at all possible They need to be recorded and those recordings become public Questions about any of that? So this is my very favorite expression a board meeting is a public meeting, but it is not a meeting of the public What does that mean? It means when you have a lot of people who want to speak at your meeting in your public comments That's fine But it is not the place to get into dialogue with With somebody who's not on the board on an issue that they raise that may or may not be on your agenda That may or may not be a board issue to begin with that You have not had time to prepare for it. It's just It derails the the public body. It derails the board from conducting the meeting And and addressing the business that is on the agenda And that is your job at your board meeting is to complete your agenda So you're going to listen to what people have to say It may lead to a future agenda item. It may lead to some other discussion At at some other time it may lead to some public forum, but it's not the time to engage So if you're expecting a whole lot of people to come out because you're Dealing with some contentious issue and and everybody wants to speak That's fine. And it's fine to also set up some parameters for that Public comment period so you can limit them And and you just need to be really clear upfront what the what the rules are Everybody who's here can speak once you get two minutes and please refrain from repeating what somebody before you has said Or it's going to be a really long night And then keep to it two minutes. Thank you next. Thank you next. Okay I don't think this board gets into that So let me ask you this question and this is a real question You can think about this and let me know our public comments at your meetings a good way to judge The community how they're feeling on an issue anybody That is an excellent question Thank you uh, generally no because you oftentimes get the loudest voices um oftentimes you get people who have a particular issue that they're very concerned about but it might not be representative of what others are feeling And it's it's a very um, it's a very utter representative sample Yeah, it's not scientific representation of your communities And it's really hard sometimes if you're hearing the same thing over and over and over again To not walk away and say well the community thinks Blah blah blah blah blah because you've just had an earful of From a few community people Who are voicing their opinions which they're entitled to voice? but that To extrapolate and say oh, you know that well that must mean that's how everybody's thinking is a very very risky thing to do If you want to take the temperature of your community have a town hall or send out a survey or You know ask the questions. Don't just wait for people who will volunteer to show up and offer their opinion because it You can't count on that being at all representative Yeah, and one thing I would just kind of suggest is a a test for that is if you are hearing like Ask your neighbors what they're thinking And ask you know people you see and and seek diverse opinions and see if the voices that are coming across your email and maybe some social media feeds and at the meetings See if those sentiments are reflected in kind of Um the more random samples you might take just out about the town when we can feel out about the town again, but um sometimes that that's a good A slightly good Kind of test of of whether this is whether there's a broader sentiment you're hearing or Of not and that's true. You're at least then seeking more input I will caution though that one's sphere of existence may not be A really good reflection and I think that our our recent political Contests are a pretty good Demonstration of that You know people tend to surround themselves with people who share their thoughts Yeah, no, that's why I said, you know, try to try to diversify it a little don't don't just ask your your peer group, but yeah Yeah, maybe ask some people that that you wouldn't That you feel a little less comfortable if you have that opportunity that sure sure Susan I have a question that maybe does not really have an answer But just something i'm wrestling with which is I agree with you that the that public comments at the meeting Are not a good way to judge the community's opinion certainly especially if one person shows up Meeting after meeting and shares right same, you know, same opinion, but I guess the thing that I wrestle with is like It's still worth taking it seriously somehow and and that's I think definitely I'm I'm today is my very first board meeting So I'm very glad to be well welcome. I'm learning from learning from you tonight And that's just something that I keep holding is what does the board do about Taking someone who cares enough about this to come to us and say this was really matters to me How do we take that seriously? And in balance know also that it's not necessarily the the community's opinions Well, you know, if it's an issue that the board is already grappling with um Let's say it's it's a particular element of a budget Okay I'll give you an example from my own experience When I served on a school board. We had a couple of board members who decided that we needed artificial turf on our playing fields And this was a large board and these couple of people got the Parents of all the football players Mobilized and I don't know what it's like in in It worked in Malpelio, but I'll tell you the football parents You don't want to mess with these people where I live Right and they got it together and they went off and they decided they were going to raise half the funds privately And that the board could match it and they developed this whole plan with one of the school board members ears okay, and It really complicated things when the board had to really assess the value of the investment The money of the investment and the timing of it relative to other things that the board prioritized in Providing for the district to Aligned with the vision that we were working towards um, and at the end of the day the board voted against Putting that bond out And it was very very difficult because those people who were for it were the ones who were showing up to every meeting and they were bringing homemade muffins and they were you know, they were really going for it and It it reminded me That It's a challenge. It's a challenge to to decipher What's going on and who's Behind it and how loud are their voices? and so Well, I shouldn't say so the first time the We passed it and the bond went out and the bond failed miserably And so then they wanted to do a revised version and that's when the boards are okay enough of this This is not the time so You know in that case the board was swayed By the what we saw going on in the public But it was not representative I don't know if that helps you at all So you have to you have to sort of weigh it against everything else that the board knows that the public doesn't You know, they can come to every meeting and they can watch everything that they watch, but they're not going to understand the the Texture and the issues that you're grappling with as a board the way you're going to understand them from the inside I Will say also that over the years just um, you know, my son is now in eighth grade so I've been sort of paying attention to school board matters for that many years And and I think sometimes when you have a small group of people it can actually be representative of the community values Or feelings on an issue and I understand what you're saying about the statistical significance of having a couple of people arrive to a meeting and talk about something But that's sort of the same that we've been running into with town meetings and broader Public meetings that we've been hosting, you know, we're not getting a statistical significant number of people attending those things either Um, so I think jim's sort of right. It's like you do the best you can to I mean short of running a statistically significant survey where you're really trying to get A broad understanding of the community's opinion on something and even then you can't guarantee that everyone's going to respond to that survey So, you know, I think as elected officials, we do our best to like you said on an earlier slide to um represent the people in the community and sometimes if your sphere Happens to be reflective of certain values. Maybe you're the representative of the board to those people You know, and if you're not maybe you'll get voted out Right, and I think that you know in in the best of all possible circumstances, you do have uh enough representation on the board that you Speak with different voices for different opinions in the community I mean, it's rare that everybody is of like mind on a board Even if every vote ends up being unanimous if you get to consensus regularly that doesn't mean that's where you started out it means that you really deliberated and discussed all parameters all aspects of an issue before making a collaborative decision And and I think you do have to trust that you do represent your sphere you know What as I'm looking around I will say and this is Is there anybody serving on this board who does not have children currently have children in the system? Yeah, all right, okay Good because I think that's a really really important voice that often is overlooked Especially around budget planning um, you know Something crazy like 78 percent of remonters Don't have school aged children Think about that for a minute And those are the because a lot of them are school aged children No, it's because we have an older population. I see Um, and but it's been true for a really really long time And but those are the people who are voting on your budgets So if they don't have kids in the school, they have a different interest in the budget Right, they don't care about whether this particular second grade teacher's contract is getting renewed They care about our kids are learning their our schools are On on the right path to understanding what the future needs will be for these children as they become adults and and What kind of education they are going to need to help take them there? and Doing so in a way that makes me as a taxpayer feel that my money is being well spent That's a really different approach And it's really one so you non parents it's budget season speak up Speak up at your budget meetings. You are representing a really important constituency In that in that instance I know where I live When I was on board we Had the equivalent of a town hall. We did it jointly with our select board and we both presented budgets And then we did it again at town meeting But one of the things that we didn't do and should have done Is traveled to we happen to have a couple of senior residences in my town and we should have gone there And presented there because those are people who can't necessarily get out one nowadays. Nobody can but you know Who aren't necessarily mobile or wanting to drive at night or show up to the schools Get unfamiliar and yet these are the people who vote and so it's really important that you're hearing from them and speaking to them and so when you You know when you announce your town halls and when you Are looking to get input from people make sure you go past your community of parents In notifications and that kind of thing make sure it's you know that you're speaking to everybody Because it's really easy to forget that So email and social media And I know I'm over time so you can tell me to stop anytime Jim I'm leaving that to you Well, let me let me just query Libby because I don't want to go much past 8 30. Um Are we expecting the policy readings and policy moderations to go pretty quickly? We are Okay, um, we don't have any guys is they will try to wrap up at 8 15 or so though Okay, we don't have anything to say about some of the policies. So we're because we have that's kind of what that's what I thought but I just wanted to make sure there wasn't a snare I had that I was unaware of Okay, I'll go really quickly but still let me ask another question at the board. Does any board member plan to raise any big issues with the policy reading of the policy monitoring Okay, good. Then why don't you take to like 8 20 Susan? Okay, thank you Um, and and I'm going to go fast, but I want your questions are the most important thing So let's make sure we have that discussion and if we don't finish we don't finish So we've already addressed a lot of this the group group email is okay If you're discussing the agenda or to distribute materials for a meeting, but you may not talk about a meeting Don't do the following group emails discussing board business or collective editing or participation in a facebook group or front porch forum by a quorum of the If if it's about school business Well, what does about school business mean? It means anything having to do with the schools because Most people don't understand where the board's authority ends and They will always see you as answering for the board So That one's a tricky one Because if there's a community group and six of you want to be part of it because you're part of the community That's fine as long as you don't get into the discussions about the schools So if they're talking about some pocket park that they want to put on main street, that's fine but if they're talking about Even something as innocuous as naming your baseball field Stay out of it, which is easy to do. It's a lot harder to do when they're talking about Something they think you've done wrong Right and they're being really critical uh So this is our world now, right? This is a little out of date here, but This is taken over We all know that and we certainly know it in the last eight months, right? The statistics are crazy. I can't remember exactly what it was about the number of people who rely on facebook as for their primary source of news primary It's frightening So with all of that and with open meeting law, this is where they Collapse, okay? um So be careful of that last one Don't use social media as a way to talk to each other That's a really risky thing to do so Here are some guidelines if you wouldn't want to see what you're saying in print on the newspaper Don't say it in social media or email or blogging or tweeting Executive session we have already talked about Really bend over backwards to make sure you're not engaging as a that a quorum of you is not engaging in something that could be construed as school business Make sure you understand your Policies around electronic communications. They tend to be less about board communications and more about student and teacher And this last one protect your personal email from public records requests by utilizing school district email So as a public body, you are subject to public records requests That means anybody in For no reason at all can ask to see all your emails If you're not separating out your personal from your school board work Then you're going to have to turn them all over Which is why we strongly advocate for using a school board email address It means even if you have them all coming into one inbox as I do It means you can isolate them And if somebody decides that they they think that the board has violated open meeting law and that you've been communicating via email about X Y or Z and they want to see all board emails between any board members from You know april 12th until june 17th They're going to get to see them all So if you don't want them knowing what you're doing in your personal life Just keep them separate It's easy enough to do All right, so let's go to facebook. Okay, and here's this fictitious community watch group. Okay COVID-19 is out of control Why is it safer our kids to be in school when the governor just said everyone who can work remotely should Schools should be dismissed like they were last spring to ensure the safety of our children Right. This is somebody's post on facebook. You happen to be a member Six of you happen to follow this group So I then I'm going to say Well, the whole state's trying to make sure it's safe for kids to be in school The governor said public schools in need we can forego the wants like public gatherings So students can go to school and they can be safe My comment is now a matter of public record my facebook post Because remember a meeting doesn't have to have a place. It doesn't have to have a time. It doesn't have a duration It's always and I'm a school board member And here's the even worst part Somebody else chimes in after me That's public record too so if three of you are Four of you are chiming in be defending the board's actions Right because there's legitimacy to defending them and it's so tempting You're in trouble with your open meeting law and your public records So best practice Stay out of it if you need to follow it to see what people are saying fine but Don't participate and again if one person is going to be the board's spokesperson And that's the one person who should be participating or delegating In this case if you know jim if you're not a social media person and somebody else is and you feel that that can be delegated that's fine, but You are not able to take off your school board hat on facebook So you're always a school board member Now if you're acting as your own self among your friends And venting. I mean, I would say that's probably not a great Vehicle for it. Anyway, but you know, you're having a frustration with your kids schooling And you want to vent about it? Find another way to do it. Just save yourself the the angst of it Okay, and this is an important piece down at the bottom there If there's a quorum of you on this group, whether you're all physically online at the same time or not And you end up getting involved in school business It's an unworn meeting Major red flag with open meeting law and I'm going to ask you this question too. Is this a good way to judge community's opinions? facebook Or twitter In the interest of time, I will say no, it's a bad way Yeah, I hope not right. I mean first of all people feel unfiltered Right, they can say anything. We've seen that repeatedly um, and second of all Just like the loud people who show up at your meeting You're going to have the loud people on facebook, right? Um, so don't use that as A representation of what your community is thinking because they're getting it's the angry people who are getting riled up If there's something they don't like So be really really careful about it and I will tell you honestly in the last year I personally know of two instances of school officials one employee and one a board member who Violated this who used facebook Inappropriately wasn't there a principal who got Yeah, the principal was fired And a board member has been censured and they're trying to figure out how to get them off the board which You really that's a whole lot this time. We won't go there. Um, so I do have a specific question about this. Um I so Again back to this budget town hall, you know, we had we we warned it the the the district warned the town hall And I posted the warning there is a facebook page as you probably know that is friends of Montpelier Roxbury public schools I simply posted the warning as a way of putting the warning further out there Did I did I just break open meeting? No, because you didn't offer any You merely presented information correct. I did not offer my opinion. I just said this is happening. Please join us All right, you you didn't engage in a discussion on anything You just provided fact. Okay Yeah, and the same is true with email if if if You know, there's a group email on what times the meeting that's fine or or something logistic like when we The person again you have meetings in Roxbury. So you could You could ask, you know, can we carpool? um And coordinate a carpool there But then do not talk about board business in the carpool Because that would be an unabored meeting but you can you can coordinate logistics and share information right And I'll tell you in some Particularly the smaller rural towns around the state where they tend to have small boards If they've got a five-person board and three of them go out to lunch together They're hosed because that's a quorum Even if they're best friends and they've known each other their whole lives and you know, They have to be careful Now you guys aren't confronted with that a you're a bigger board and b it's not likely that you're all in the same social group but You know these things are Awkward at best Okay, so I've covered off a lot um And tried to keep it all through that lens of what what's it okay to say and what's it not okay to say did I Leave out any scenarios that you guys want to talk about I have a question. Um So I'm also new to the board And um, excellent. Love me board member We've talked quite a bit about open meeting law. So I'm you know Pretty familiar with that have done reading. Um, I'm just wondering so In terms of you are allowed to talk to each other outside of meetings One on one but not about board business But not about board business So you're never allowed to have a conversation about anything happening with the schools With another board member even if it's just one other person Best practice would be not to So even even if it's not a quorum, you just have two board members who want to discuss something Best practice is not to This It's you know, it's to me. It's a gray area. It's true. If you don't have a quorum Officially, it's okay But then you get into the situation and I've I've seen it happen where one board member has an agenda on a particular item and so they go and they talk to each of the other board members individually And then they come back and they say at the meeting Well, I talked to everybody and everybody said blah blah blah and all of a sudden you've got People in town who are raising open meeting violation questions Even though nobody actually violated it It gives the appearance of doing board work outside of an open meeting So i'm a little confused as how that relates to earlier. We were talking about Editing a document and it was suggested. I forget if it was from you Um that perhaps one board member be in charge of writing the document and then surveying other board members To get input on the document So if we were rewriting a policy If one person were the person to draft the policy, I might reach out to the other members to get input but that's They're at the meeting At the meeting only Not outside of this So there have been a couple of times where I've reached out as a new board member being confused about stuff or wanting to clarify things Reached out to jim. Is that okay? So you can only talk to jim outside of board meetings about school issues If you were asking for background on an issue That was in front of the board or detail about The budget process you know If you were not deliberating an issue a current issue that the board is confronting Then you're That would be training really right? I mean you're you're learning what you need to know to be doing your job So that's different than deliberating On an issue So I think what I hear you saying is that it's technically allowed To talk to other board members individually about board business But that it's it it can be a slippery slope. Exactly Yes, and and certainly if you were to Then show up at a board meeting and say well, I think this has been decided because One of the things that is defined an open meeting is that decisions are made By the board so clearly if like jim and I were to have a conversation about busing Jim and I cannot make the decision for the board about busing And so I can't show that Show up at the board and be like well jim and I talked about this so clearly the it's done Right, but if you individually also then talk to jill and mara and andrew and emma separately one on one And then sit down at the meeting and say well I've already talked to the majority of board members and they agree with me that this is what we need to do Yeah, that's where you get into the right that that definitely seems problematic. Yeah Even if it's not technically problematic it has It has the appearance of Be problematic. Well, it has the appearance of of having That discussion privately Which in fact is what you did When it should be an open discussion And you are allowed to talk to your neighbors or friends about board business one on one right because you're informing them Typically of what the board is grappling with or some or gathering information or gathering information right So this is aniquette. Um, just so I guess to play devil's advocate. Am I hearing that it's um In the strictest sense, um, it's okay to talk to the other board members and have you know exchange um information one on one and Come back and say not give the appearance again I'm playing devil's advocate in the board meeting that we've talked But at the same time you have exchanged ideas and you know, you've talked about it with one on one with four different members and then Come decision time you will, you know It's an open Setting where you're making that decision And you probably are having discussion and whatnot, but there is Some discussion or some energy of ideas that's happened outside and that technically is okay Well, that's really the part you want to avoid is when there's energy for it outside um and and The idea that you talked individually with people, but Collectively it was a majority of you I'm not an attorney and I don't want to Guess which side of Right and wrong that comes down to but the spirit of the law Would suggest that that's not a good idea Right Susan Susan. I just realized on this. Um Touching on exactly what you're talking about um The secretary of state has a little guidance on it that they put under the term which is a really good term They've clearly thought a lot about this serial communications Perfect And what they say is Are you all right with me reading this? Thank you. Yeah And let's take this point and and wrap up It says the open meeting law does not explicitly address serial communications Also known as serial meetings walking quorums or daisy chain communications We generally recommend that board members avoid engaging in successive Interrelated private conversations about the board's business that taken together involved a quorum And um it goes on to say that because the law seems to allow for gathering over time these types of communications If used to develop consensus And I think the whole Thing there that they really emphasize is that when you when they're successive and they're interrelated They form they can potentially form a quorum. So what they seem to be saying they say we of course We understand the individual board members and administrators need to work between meetings So and and educate themselves on matters under their jurisdiction And they're not raising an issue about that What where the secretary of state is drawing the line is with the serial communications that involve a quorum They say that's where it gets questionable as to whether there could be a public meeting violation Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so that really just corroborates what we've just been talking about. Yeah. Thanks, Andrew That's a great resource So I do want to wrap up if you have lingering thoughts or questions. I am always available to you you guys, you know, your dues to vsba pays my salary. So I'm yours Oops That's me. That's how you can reach me. That is my cell phone number at home, which is where I'm working. Um and I Hope that you all know how to reach us at the sba And for those of you who are very new, I really encourage you In your spare time to spend a little bit of time on our website There's all kinds of great resources there that might help you Become more comfortable with this unusual role that a school board plays in in the district in the community And in the law You know, for those of us who aren't legal experts. It's it's something new to understand So I leave you with that I owe you an answer to one question, which I will get out to Jim in the morning I thank you very much for your time And please any of you don't ever hesitate to reach You know reach out to me And especially for some of you who are newer but for all of you We do do a monthly webinar on a different topic every month and I if you haven't had the chance We do them from 12 to 1 on the first thursday of every month We you should all be getting emails from us if you're not, please let me know We may not have the right email address and and As I said in the beginning one of our biggest Missions is to help boards do their work So if you're a new member and you're feeling a little at sea Let us know we'll help you out Thank you very much for your time tonight. I hope you get through the rest of your agenda. I'm out of here Thank you. Thank you, Susan. I really appreciate it and Thanks, Susan. All right. Thanks. Bye Jim What is the process to follow to request one of the One of the books that Susan referenced Yeah, I'd like one too. We can get it for you There's Mia Mia and Jill requesting them. I don't know We'll get a few. I think I have some on my bookshelf. So we'll get a few in stock and get it out to you Great. Thank you so third reading of the electronic communication between employees and student policy and the c12 prevention of sexual harassment and prohibited by title nine Um Any comments or edits to those? No great read thirdly um and policy monitoring expectations of mrps board members Which arrived a little late courtesy of my oversight um The g14 class size policy and then the F12 diversity equity and inclusion policy any comments on those before Entertain a motion to approve them. I have I have one quick comment on the diversity equity and inclusion policy Libby you mentioned that right now there's a freeze on data coming from the state Um, I'm just wondering can you briefly expound upon that that caught my attention? Well, we never got the youth risk behavior survey for our schools. We've gotten them for um, the county And or the disc we just haven't gotten it for the school broken up by schools and they wrote an email to us today Saying they were going to delay the youth risk the wire beef survey for this year until the spring and we were like Well, we never got the data for last year. So Fine by us to delay it Um, so and then last year we didn't have aspect. We never took aspect or adduction. So we don't have Up-to-date state standardized testing Um, and quite honestly in the spring last year We wouldn't have the best data to share with the board. So typically by this time in the school year I would have shared academic data with you all um as well as academic goals we're a different The the place that we're in right now in regards to our data collection and our knowledge of what data is Is a very uncomfortable place for me right now because we just don't have good data at the moment because of what happened in the spring and because of Where we are now, although we're we're getting it now. We're getting our feet underneath us right now So mayors cross we can stay in school so we can continue that that process So it's totally on me and the principals. We're just Putting more things on our on our teachers Um, it's a bit hard. We are having day-to-days starting in december With each of our buildings. So hopefully we'll be able to get a clearer picture But we're not in the same place. We usually are with goal development Goal attainment that we're just not in the same place where we usually are any other I just have a couple of questions. What does aspect stand for? Uh aspect Martyr balanced assessment consortium. Oh look at Jill It's Jill It's this test that we have to take in vermont Got it that assesses the common core state standards got it and just a clarification on the class size stuff um, I saw that the Kindergarten through really like second grade are pretty small and I just couldn't tell Is that Is Do we know if covet is impacting that like is it There are five classrooms in the building and then there's one more and there So we're actually spread out over six classrooms or is it five classrooms total just as like a hypothetical example The only one that we know for sure that covet has influenced or no I should say that that we highly believe that covet has influences our kindergarten numbers because kinder kindergarten is an Then mandatory grade level in vermont. So parents may have just not registered their kids Which is completely within their purview to do And so our kindergarten numbers are considerably lower this year than they have been in the past and we're not sure why Because they would ever we wouldn't have had access to those parents beforehand unless they were in our pre-k So the other numbers are pretty good the other numbers are inclusive of the virtual and in person You know and and we could get the home study numbers, but it wouldn't influence it that much right and So I think in like there's maybe five first grade classrooms If you're saying there's five first grade classrooms and you say that's inclusive of virtual That means there's maybe four in the building and one class is virtual I'm counting my first grade teachers in my head right now Yeah, I was just thinking first grade is like not to be specific but Yeah, so our classroom size right now for first grade across with our classrooms the way they are Are about 13 in a class Yeah, I think I caught just a minor typo on the class size report as well For grade three at ues you're showing optimal class sizes 17 But in the policy it states that three and four are at an optimal average per grade cluster at 22 I have to look more closely at it. I don't have it pulled up right here I was going off of grant grant puts an enrollment chart together and I was going off of that So it may just be a little bit different language. I know it was changed fairly recently The optimal class size and the policy was changed fairly recently But I think it used to be k through three and now it's k through two and then three and four separated out Of the look I'm not sure And I and I do want to say the dei policy I said we're in non-compliance because it's a huge policy Um, and we're just not there yet. And so when I say we're in non-compliance It's not in a on a shame shame on us kind of way. We're working really hard on that Just we're not there yet. And I don't I honestly don't know if we'll ever be there We're always working on that one. Um, so that's a different type of policy so I wanted the board just to make sure we heard that It'll be real quick I don't remember in the original discussions about the class size policy preschool numbers Coming up into the discussion It's not in our class size policy But should it be Would it help in terms of number of teachers or number of rooms to have A defining number for the preschool class as well Not sure if it should be because it's it's The preschool has so many different laws to it than k through Then starting in kindergarten on up. It's like because it's It it works with both human services and the agency of education at the state level and so those two things Have a lot of different rules They so the preschool class class size may be mandated by other rules So policy may not be necessary Yeah, like I said, I don't remember but it was when you started making a comment about COVID having the biggest impact on something The first thing that jumped into my mind was the preschool numbers because parents just chose not to send their kids But preschool wasn't in there. I just couldn't remember Why preschool wasn't included. Yeah, that's just I I My bet would be that it's in the law We have like so many feet to a bathroom in a law. I would imagine that class size is also there I think you're right. Yeah But you're also right Ryan and that especially at Roxbury our pre-k numbers were drastically influenced by COVID this year And I'm at UES as well. We have a we it was the first year that we didn't have a wait list at UES. I think It's one more year, right Other questions or motion to approve the um Reports I move to approve the policy monitoring reports for policies a a 0 3 g 14 and f 22 Uh a second I'll second Anakit I Ryan I Jill I Mia I Mara I Emma I Andrew I right, um Motion to adjourn Mara do you want to make it since this is I move to adjourn this meeting Have a second I have one little thing Yes Um, you had mentioned finding a mentor for me And I was just gonna say maybe in the interest of both time and not putting anybody on the spot Maybe we could just say if they're interested in doing that Which I would love to have one they email you And then you pair us up and if there's more than one they can thumb wrestle for it or something I don't know I have also never heard of this mentor idea and have not been appointed a mentor And we might need a third now. We might need a third. So anyway, this seems like a good thing to just handle over email Maybe It's a logistical thing. It seems like we wouldn't be breaking open meeting laws I'm happy to do a policy that we have just approved our compliance with indicates that we're supposed to have mentors Yes, um Who's mine? I'm happy to be a mentor to either either either of you Jim aren't you my mentor? I think I'm your mentor as well. He's doing an excellent job, too We talked a couple times Found some questions Um Yeah, so let's do that by email. Uh, Jeff is a second on the motion to adjourn I'll second that um Anaget hi Ryan Hi Jill Hi Mia Hi Mara Hi Emma Hi Andrew Hi Thanks everyone. Um We'll see you again in zoom world Sounds great. Bye-bye Bye Mara That's best Thank you Mara. You're the best Thank you so much Thank you! You have not heard the best of me Hope you strong arm us with love