 nice to see some of my familiar faces, to welcome some of our students too, and our new student. I want to start today first by apologizing again for missing that last meeting. And I wanted to also say thank you. I have appreciated all of your notes and kind of so has our family. I wanted to start by reading again that little statement that we shared. This is kind of really hard. Because you're using dissonance. I don't know. Can you just mute for the very, very beginning? And then I'll just mute for the very, very beginning. OK, now much better. Can you hear me? For a mark, if you can work on this Zoom sound, that'll be great while we sort of start going. I think we're going to have that table. I need to run up and get one. OK. Yeah, whatever you need to do, you just figure out how we can get the people in Zoom with sound. So what I wanted to say is that we were able to, I couldn't be there at in-service. So I wanted to share that same statement, because I think what we're doing today kind of ties that. So you would allow me, I'm going to share. Because the board didn't get to be at in-service either or not all of the board members. The message that we, as the board said, was welcome to the start of the 2022 and 2023 school year. We are committed to bringing oxygen into the system and continuing to collaborate with all of you in what are the nuggets that we need to learn not for ourselves, but for the kids to make sure that we have the school environments our kids need to thrive. So first, thank you to all the leadership team that is here and the staff, because you do that immense work of educating our kids and loving them and making sure their needs are met. So why is this important today? Well, today sort of demonstrates that the board is committed to bringing oxygen into the system, and we're sitting here together learning. So with that, I was going to pass it on to, I guess, Jen, you're doing the presentation on the data. But I let Megan first introduce. Yes. So before I introduce Jen, Bill Arseno, our curriculum director, we need the screen, Jen, before you can present. So I guess, and the other part I'm forgetting to say, we don't have any community members, otherwise we would have a community input right now. But I wonder if we can, while Mark is getting the screen up to speed, can we do introduction? I mean, I know, Bill, I don't want to step into what I think you had an introductory activity, but do you want to do that introductory activity right now, or would that stop your flow at the other part? How about, yeah, I think it, so this board meeting is meant to be a retreat slash board meeting, which may be part of why we're having some tech difficulties, because technology works well in a formal board meeting setting a little less well when the goal is actually to talk with each other and collaborate and connect, which is what we're going to do when Bill starts. While we're waiting for the screen, though, because we do have a presentation to ground us in student data, which is what Jen will do in a second, just so that we don't waste time. I thought maybe we could go around and introduce ourselves. Will that, do you want to do your activity, or if we introduce ourselves and do it later? It's all good. OK. Yeah, introduction to the students. All right. I'm going to put our two student reps on the spot, which maybe isn't fair. But we have Maya Elliott and Willow. Tell me how to pronounce your last name. Mastery. Mastery, thank you. And I'll let Maya go first. She's our returning board rep, and Willow is our new board rep. And then we'll just go around the circle. And name and for you all, maybe you just are great. My name is Maya Elliott. I'm a senior at U-22 here. I was a president during the facility, so you can see however many students here, because students don't really know a lot about what happens behind the scenes. And I thought that would be really scary. I'm a junior. I joined because I want to be a part of it. Like, I have a lot of opinions. And I have friends out of opinions, so I definitely want to get that out there. I'm Jen Miller, I'm the director of curriculum. I'm Lindy Johnson. I'm a rep from East Montgillier. Gillian Fuqua Principal Jody Memorial. Michelle Sefsted, district operations manager. Daniel Keeney, a rep from Calis. Suzanne Dan, business administrator. Maggie Weiss, rep from Calis. Aaron Moyten, principal at Merlin. Lauren Diaz-Smith, East Montgillier. Megan Roy, superintendent. Shelly Bramilia, your equity scholar in residence. Kat Thayer, principal at Calis. Diane Nichols Fleming, Berlin. Eric Anderson, East Montgillier. Caroline May, principal at Remney. Natasha Grabaning, Worcester. Kara Holden, director of special services. Ursula Stanley, representative for Middlesex. I'm Asia-Legman, principal at East Montgill. How might we introduce the folks on the screen? I think, Kari, do you want to go ahead? Sure. My name is Kari Bradley. I'm on the board and I live in Calis. Can you hear me okay? You can now. Great. Jen, do you want to introduce yourself? Ingersoll. Hi, I'm Jen Ingersoll. I'm a teacher in the district and an instructional coach. Thanks, Jen. Jonas? I'm Jonas Inovan, fleet board member from Worcester and you have to excuse me. I'm home quite ill today. Thanks for being here, Jonas. David? David Delcourt from the Times-Argus. Thanks, babe. Sorry, you guys had to miss the introduction. I think that's everyone else. Oh, where did Steven? Oh, yeah, Steven didn't get to. I'm Steven Delger-Paid. I'm the principal here at 32. Yeah, we have paper copies. I can try to share it on the screen. Yep, that would be all you can find. Can you give me host cards? It might be hard for Jen to not see it in front of her. I have it. I can do it. I don't have it on the screen. You all have it in your packet. Do you want to do plan D? And Karri is leading us to opening slides. So does that work if you share your screen on Zoom? I think it does. Karri, is that okay with you? What was I going to say? Sorry, I will share my, although we're getting closer. Mark, do you think? Yep, it's just a matter of a jump. Never mind, we're good. We will be able to share it in a second. And then Karri, you'll see it, because Mark's going to share it through the Zoom. Great. Thank you for your patience, everybody. Thank you, Mark. I'll let you see everybody, Karri, just past time since we're still seeing your family times of grief. That's great. Wow. It gives me a good sense of humor. Turn out tonight. Yes. Yeah, I don't think we don't have any time. There, and you'll be able to see it in a minute, Karri. Okay, there you go. Great. Okay, I'll just start then if that's okay. So thanks, everybody. I appreciate your patience with this. And just to remind everybody, this is the first of four opportunities that we've scheduled this year to monitor student learning, which is the first time we've done it like this. And two weeks ago, the Ed Quality Committee reviewed the data that's available. And one of the takeaways that we had is that in order to do a rigorous job of monitoring student learning, we have a lot of learning and thinking to do in terms of working out a system that's based on what is important to us and takes advantage of the data that's available to us. So I think we left that committee meeting with more questions and answers. And we thought that at this stage, it would probably be beneficial to provide the board with an overview of monitoring and introduce us to the concepts and some of the terminology. So that's the goal for tonight. And we're going to start, as we always do with the mission, that we exist to nurture and inspire in all our students the power creativity to contribute to their local and global communities. So next slide, please. That statement and this is really what we want to always be thinking about, the reason we do monitoring and the reason we do everything else for that matter. So next slide, please. So first thing to say, talk about is why monitoring is important. I'm going to trust that you had a chance to read this information from the School Board Association. The way I would summarize it, probably put it in three categories, and these are related. One is just basic understanding. We need to have an understanding of how our students are doing in relation to this mission that we've established and that we're devoting resources and building systems. We need to know how we're doing. Secondly, accountability, which this language refers to, the board is accountable to the community to deliver results. Monitoring will provide us with the information to report to the community and be accountable to them. At the same time, our superintendent is accountable to us, and just as with financials and other aspects of the school performance, we need a system to monitor to do an accounting. And the last piece of this I would say is so important is that the knowledge that we gain from monitoring will lead to action, ideally. So this information is ultimately going to help us with planning and with budgeting and our efforts to be more impactful. So all of this, you know, we're looking at the past, but keep in mind this should be future oriented in the long run. So, okay, that's my introduction. I'm going to turn it over to Jen to get into some of the terminology. Thank you, Kari. So when the Ed Quality Committee met a few weeks ago, again, we talked about the need to do a little bit more, that's okay, board, a little bit more board, you have to hang it up again. A little bit more board education around types of assessment data as well. So, Mark, can you go to the next slide please? Perfect. So this table, which again, I'm going to trust that you all read, I compiled from the resource I used to compile this for you all is the version of the multi-tiered systems of support guide. Because we're talking about multi-layered systems of support, it seemed like the most relevant document to use for you as we continue as a board and as a leadership team to implement Act 173. So the purpose of this slide is to demonstrate to you a few things. First, there are lots of different types of assessments. Second, each type of assessment serves a specific purpose. And third, I've provided examples for you of some of the assessments that are incorporated in our local comprehensive assessment plan. We'll talk about that in just a little bit. And I just want to underscore as well that some assessments serve more than one purpose. So even when you're looking up there at some of the examples you'll see, I put a few of them in there more than once. For example, the iReady Math Diagnostic, which we are in the middle of our follow assessment window right now, we're using that as a benchmark. We administer it a few times a year so that we can assure our kids are making adequate progress and are growing. And we can drill down in that particular assessment to do some diagnostic work as well and then tailor instruction to kids' needs. Next slide. The other thing that it's important to underscore is that data is a snapshot in time. An assessment gives us information about how a student performs on a particular day and a particular assessment. And that's why it's so important to triangulate data, to look at multiple sources of data that are measuring the same thing so that we can understand more deeply how our students are doing individually and as a system, we can take a look at how we're doing collectively as well. So that quote, which again, I'm not gonna read to you right now, but that quote comes from a source called DataWise, which is a tool that I and principals have been using to inform some of our thinking. Again, using multiple sources of data helps us confirm student performance or dispute, like wait, why am I seeing this on this result in somewhere else and then help us with our initial analysis. Next slide. So this is a snip from our local comprehensive assessment plan. A local comprehensive assessment plan is required by the agency. It's part of a local comprehensive assessment system. We are still working hard to develop our data literacy in our system overall. This local comprehensive assessment plan contains the statewide assessments that we are required to administer and the local common assessments that we've decided. What's not reflected in this plan is a lot of the summative assessments that are happening in the classroom and certainly it doesn't reflect our formative assessments. I wanna highlight a couple of things that are over there in the tenants. We developed these tenants originally in response to the pandemic and they still make sense. So first of all, knowing that when we're approaching assessment, we want our students to understand that we want them to do their best performance and it is just one indicator of many. So sometimes there's a lot of pressure our students are feeling and we don't want them to feel like it's super high stakes. We want them to understand that we can use an assessment result to tailor our instruction to their needs and for continuous improvement in the system. Another key, a couple of other key things. One, I wanna say that really the most important assessment I would argue is the formative assessment that our teachers are engaging in every single day multiple times within a lesson to tailor their instruction and be responsive to our students' knowledge and their needs and then again, number five, we talk about the importance of triangulation again. Next slide. So when we had the quality committee meeting a few weeks ago, there was a lot of data that we put in that initial report and there was a lot of data that we didn't put in that report and so part of bringing this to you all is to start to understand what do you need in order to do your jobs as school board members to monitor our student achievement on student learning outcomes, what do you need? So some of these considerations, lots of sources of data. So we've got quantitative and qualitative. Members of the Education Quality Committee have said again and again how much they appreciate hearing directly from our teachers, teacher voice and our students from student voice and when we were doing our walkthrough each of the student learning outcomes in the Ed Quality Committee, I was able most of the time not always but most of the time to embed some element of teacher voice and student voice in those presentations. The monitoring report, the draft that we present that I presented a couple of weeks ago didn't have really reflective teacher or student voice. So that's one thing to consider. How do you wanna receive it so you're hearing from more than just administrators? There's some source of data that we can easily disaggregate. Other sources of data is a lot harder just because of the way that we collect it. But we always wanna pay attention, especially with our commitment to ensuring that we're meeting all of our students' needs and a commitment to equity and humanity and justice that we're disaggregating our data. That we're looking at the performance of students from historically marginalized groups and students from historically privileged groups in making sure that our students have opportunities that they need to all accomplish at high levels. We can look at comparative data and in a few slides you'll see an example of comparative data, our students' performance compared to the state, longitudinal data. We haven't presented longitudinal data in a while. We can present some longitudinal data and the reality is sometimes our sources of data change and I'll talk about that in a little bit as well. You look at performance data a lot. So how are our students doing compared to where we would expect them to be or what the bar is for proficiency? We can also look at growth data. We want all of our students to be making annual growth and we want our students who might currently be behind to make more than annual growth. Often we focus on literacy and math but that's where we have the most source of data, occasionally science, but we have student learning outcomes in multiple areas and I'm curious about what do you want, what data do you want to see related to some of those other student learning outcomes? And then again, we are constantly examining our practices. We received a lot of feedback from our teachers last year about the assessments and how useful they were. We made some changes. For example, we are no longer administering an assessment that was called STAR 360 which was like a universal screener for reading and instead we're doing a new assessment, the iReady reading diagnostic. It yields richer data for us and we can be more responsive and the state occasionally changes their assessments too. One example I can give to you is that we used to do a New England Common Assessment for Science, for example, and then we switched to the Vermont Science Assessment. We may well be making other changes down the line and so it's hard to know, you know, it's hard to look at data over time if it's continuing to change. Next slide. So one thing that is important for you even though is that the statewide data are not yet available so we were able to send home our individual student reports but we'll dig into that data, we'll look at the disaggregated data, we can look at our student performance over time when the data are not embargoed and we have not administered the Vermont Physical Education Assessment in recent years due to the pandemic and I have not yet heard what the plan was for that one. Next. Here is an example though of some comparative data. So this was our student's performance in literacy Smarter Balanced Assessment, this is the spring of 2021. You can see there seven different cohorts of students with a comparison to the state. Again, we could follow a cohort over time and present to you a performance over time and especially because of the way that the state collects the data and their data management system, this is data that is easy to disaggregate. Next slide. Again, these are some of our local comprehensive assessments or sorry, local common assessments that we administer to all students across the system. And again, we're continuing to look at our practices and to respond to new evidence and new research. So we've made some changes in our planning. We are not this year at universally administering the benchmark assessment system to students in kindergarten through sixth grade. We're universally administering it to kindergarten through third grade this year. And then we're using it as a more diagnostic closer look assessment for kids who are flagged on the I Ready Reading Diagnostic or who were flagged on the bass last year. I mentioned earlier, start 360. We've switched away from that assessment because the I Ready Reading Diagnostic gives us better information, more actionable information. And then another example of the local common assessment is the I Writing Math Diagnostic. We administer that universally in grades K through 10. Next slide. This is just an example. Again, I won't be able to present to you at the exact same slide come this spring but this is an example of looking at our students performance on the bass this was their fall performance on the benchmark assessment system and then their spring performance in kindergarten. We don't administer the bass in the fall because it's not an appropriate assessment for them. They're just learning their letters and concepts of print and sounds. Next slide. And then this is also to illustrate that there's lots and lots of local data that we collect assessments that our students are participating in that get reflected in report cards and transcript data. So I just pulled out an example. Some of you might remember this little math problem from before at the top right. That was from a third grade class looking at multiplicative reasoning. The other example I put there is an example of a summative assessment in algebra two. And then I highlighted a local document that we created. This one is here specifically for the high school because we referenced the student's transcript in addition to their report card. Next slide. So this is an example of math report card data. This was from June of 2022 and the Ed Quality Committee provided feedback that that slide in that way is hard to read all the percentages so we'll change it next time around. I just didn't change it for you this time in part to let you know that we are responsive to your feedback and I know it's not great and we'll do better next time. And next slide. And this is an example of transcript data. So PBGR means proficiency based graduation requirement. This was how our current 12th graders were doing by the end of their junior year. And so often I will show you a progression from end of ninth grade, end of 10th grade, end of 11th grade. You'll see that more and more students are achieving proficiency or even exceeding our standards as they travel through the grades and take more and more courses. But that's an example. We use this information to help our students make their course selections each year as well if they need additional support or there are certain classes that address serving standards. Next slide please. All right and that's the end of my presentation and Kari is gonna go back and finish it up for you all. Great, thanks Jen. So I just got a couple of slides here. This slide is to help us in the future when we receive reports, there's gonna be a lot of information for us to take in. And just as we're looking at data in different ways from different sources over time, I think it's gonna be important that we as a group look at it and sort of aggregate our thinking around it and have good discussions and ask good questions so we can really dig into this information. So this was our first attempt at coming up with some questions that you might be considering as you're looking at monitoring data in the future. So is this evidence of progress towards our mission? What are the implications? I think that the third one, are these the right measures and the second to last one. What measures are the most important to us? I think those are very important ones for us to consider because hopefully this presentation has shown that there's a lot, the universe of learning data is large and it's varied and it's complex. And I think we're gonna wanna understand how we're doing on a sort of a macro level but I think we're gonna wanna focus on a few key priorities. So we should be thinking about that as we go through the year. And next slide please. And this just to bring it back to the school board and our role in this process. So we've got the Ed Quality Committee. That's a group that can look in detail at some of this and help facilitate the board's learning and understanding of student monitoring it. But we all as board members are responsible for understanding how the students are doing, how the system is doing overall and what we think about that. I think it's important that we ask good questions using that information for helping establish budget parameters or when we get into planning in the future and then supporting schools to use data and to analyze and make good decisions based on the data. Those are a few of the ways that we interact with this and I'm curious to hear what questions you have, what comments you have and your thoughts. The light's not coming on but I'll use a good teacher voice. So in wondering about, there's a couple of questions I have and one was, this didn't occur to me at the Ed Quality but it's occurring to me now. In the grid where you showed us the assessments, the purpose and the examples, is there a timeframe of when they occur? That would be helpful to know. And then in that regard, that vicious cycle of how much time does it take to assess that impacts the instruction and so what is, how do you all work toward doing that? And then the question I had was, you answered the one about the PB, GR, PB and Jelly. That grid about how that's used. The one that showed, the BAS I believe it was, the benchmark that showed it in the spring and the fall and then how is that information used as you see those trends? Is it used by the overall leadership team? Is it used in the school level? And so those were just some of the ponderings. Thank you. Any other questions? Maggie? Not a question but what is missing in monitoring one of the, well two of the pieces are teacher voice and student voice and we've already heard from our new students on the board that there is an eagerness to be heard about their learning. So I know that's qualitative but I still think that has great value if we were getting some quotes and feedback from both educators and from students across grade levels. Especially looking at the students who are not meeting the standards. Like what is the barrier and getting that information to us at the school board level I think would be helpful from their perspectives. Anybody else? We had a very robust quality committee. So I don't think we need to repeat what we already said in the quality committee. So if there's no other comment, Shelley, do you have any? No, thank you. So thank you, Jen. And I'll pass that back to you and then we'll take this field. Yeah, thank you, Laura. Thank you, Jen. You know, as I said in the beginning this is a little bit of a hybrid board meeting and I don't mean hybrid because of the screen. I mean, it's a retreat and it's a typical board meeting. So the presentation is part of our regular board cycle and it also felt really relevant to ground us in these kinds of conversations as we also kind of transitioned to our work on how we will spend our time together this year. So just to sort of tee this up a little bit, we have Phil Gore that I will introduce in a second from BSBA. So Phil joined the board at our August retreat which was just the school board members and myself. And loosely, and he'll talk more about this but he will be working with us this year on the way that the board can function in order to have the best impact on students and student learning. And so it's board learning for us and we had some great conversations in August starting some discussion around what is our work for the year as a board. And today is about merging that conversation, bringing the voices of our administrators into that conversation and kind of moving it forward. We will today make some attempts at starting big and moving small because we will wrap this up after Phil's part with the beginning conversation about our work plan for the year which that grain size is very small and we'll see how we do going from big to small. So Phil Gore from the BSBA. Thanks, Megan. Can everyone hear me okay? What about you? Can you hear Phil? Yes. Good teacher voice Phil. Okay. And I'll speak up. I'm aware of the acoustics of the room or in et cetera. Yeah, my name is Phil Gore. I've been with the BSBA in my seventh month. So I'm fairly new to Vermont. However, I'm not new to this work at all. I'm in my 16th year working in school board development and was a school board member in a rural community outside of Seattle for five and a half years prior to that. So I've invested myself fully in this work of school board development. I have advanced degrees in leadership and policy studies and I've worked nationally in the state of Washington and the state of Texas and now in Vermont. And so at this point in my work, one of the things that has stood out is the only school board development that really helps is school board support over time. And the most effective work I've seen is when the school board members and administrators meet together elbow to elbow and mutually understand, thank you for that. Appreciate the elbows there. Mutually understand the importance of the work of the board as well as the work of an administrator and how that fits together. So a quick exercise just to give people thinking and talking together. I've got some cards I'm going to pass around. They have words at the top that represent a value. And I'd like for you to just leave through the cards, pick a value that resonates with you, give it some thought and then I want you to speak with each other in groups of two. Hopefully board members with an administrator and so when we get to that, Maya, if you don't mind, I'll ask you to come and speak with Alicia, is that okay? Okay, so keep it safe and check for understanding. So leave through these, pick a value that just resonates with you for whatever reason and then pass the cards toward the center because they don't have it for a while yet. Whichever value is kind of important to you and then think about why that's important and so you can take a couple minutes to share it with someone else. Can we have your discards? Karik can't hear us. He's not being able to hear you, Bill. Karik can't hear you. Can you hear me? Not either, oh, so something changed. It's not, he was on your interview. Yes, yes, I haven't changed any. Yeah, it was. It's like a mic work. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Oh, thanks. We're passing somebody to speak to you. Well, that's about it. Better? All right, can you hear that? Yeah. Thank you. Again, so feel free to stand up. Is there a pizza break? Is that Bill's one? Yeah, that's a great question. We probably spent so much time logistically getting started that we forgot to highlight that. We should eat, folks should eat, folks should, I think this is meant to be, I know that we are recorded and such, but we should feel comfortable grabbing some pizza. Everybody hear that, okay, so add your leisure, grab some pizza, and start the morning. Yes, exactly. That happens. Why would you? To make it. Yes. Anybody not prioritizing? Or just selecting one as a, Oh, that's one. No, but all right. The selection, is it just like, Let me get to you. Yeah, that's cute. Well, there's a lot of kids here. I mean, that's just one number. That's one. Just one number, like that. That's one. That's one. I love that. Do you want this? You want this? But you're keeping the motion. No, I don't want it. Oh. Oh, come here. I'm really having a great time. And Phil, we're just spending time here, right? Oh, do you want that? Yeah, I do. I just want you to grab one as a gift for each of you. All day. You got it. Can I have a good share? I'm sorry that you guys are so excited. I don't know how much you get. Oh, no, I'm not. I told you so. That's what you're talking about. I'm sorry. That is a piece of me. I know. I'm sure you're happy. So I picked up. But there are a lot of kids out there. It's always hard to find. I just know. That's the one that jumped out of those little win-nots. I just thought that you know, we're working with my staff. Even if we fall down, you start it in a way so that we have integrity. To keep that in mind, it's been a hard start to get here. We've had a great time out. So it's just looking for those nuts. I chose the right thing to do in the end. So I work up an order. Right, yeah. So that's my role to be the one that's how I'm doing it. And it's not hard. You know what I mean? That's why it's always kind of important to be the providers of what we're talking about. So it's the history of art. Yes, and the change of narrative to what's going on. Yes. You did better. Yes. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you, too. I miss you, too. I miss you. Yeah, I'm taking. Yeah, I'm talking about it. I get to be an author. And it's just such a hard morning around. I just want to say I'm an administrator. So if you're sitting here, it's all the way up over. Yeah. Appreciate diversity and social responsibility. Those are both important. As a, as a business person at both of the, I relate to both of those actually. Yeah, the quality of that social responsibility is. Yeah, both are important to my business career. I guess, and I look very good there. It's just a different level. So, I saw learning from experience and, um, you know, go ahead. I was... Didn't know you were there. But you say you're there. However, trying to read your in here. Are you about done talking about the values? There's varying places and people happening about their attention. It's okay. Very curious, uh, of the school board members in the room, who is not with us at the first retreat on August 8th? One, two, and then the two student reps. OK, just four. We talked about some pieces of the Lighthouse Study, which is chapter one in the book that hopefully folks read. Does everybody in the room have a copy of this book? Improving school board effectiveness. Have you had a chance to leaf through it? And I'm not asking for a show of hands of those that read every single word in the introduction. And chapter one. However, we want to talk about these things tonight. And there is a very important connection to the conversation you just had about the data that's available. I would say personally, my hope is that every school board member in the state of Vermont can answer the question, how are our students doing? And answer the question, this is what we are doing as a system to improve how students are doing. And the third question that I would hope board members could speak to is, this is what's successful look like. These are our progress measures, right? This is where we're headed and this is how we know whether we're making progress. So how are the students doing? What is the district doing to improve how they're doing? And what will success look like? How do we measure that? So it was encouraging to my heart to see that conversation that your committee had been digging into with looking at data. And ultimately, the board has to decide and it's an ongoing conversation with the administration. What data do we need to see? What format do we need to see it in? And why? As a school board member, it's incredibly frustrating to have a series of reports that for informational, what good is that, right? I know that board meetings are public and there's a need to and a good value in communicating to the public. But really, if the whole series of reports is all about for information only, that could have just gone into a packet that was read or disunited. So thinking about how your board is discussing things that are actionable. What information do you need to see? What format do you need to see it in? And why? What decisions will you make based on that? So right out of the book, I wanna jump into, first of all, the introduction. And I think the introduction and conclusion of this book are some of the best and most valuable pieces, really, because it sort of ties it all together. And the introduction opens up with a discussion of we know that there's been a lot of emphasis, a lot of interest as a nation in student achievement. Ever since when I was, about the time I was getting out of high school, looking at our students and how old I really am, there was this report came out that, maybe one or two of you were familiar with, a nation at risk, nobody has to disclose, but a nation at risk, and I think it was Reagan era, and it was all of this hype about how the Russians are coming and they're gonna take us over and they're kicking our butts in all these subjects, especially science and math and then we can interact together. And it's kind of been a recurring theme that happens maybe every 25 years in our nation's history, at least over the last 150 years where somebody's like, we're way behind. And so when we're trying to compare ourselves with international data that may or may not be comparable, a lot brighter for comparing 100% of our students with maybe five or 10% of students from some other countries, how they take those tasks. And so you always ask yourself when it comes to data, like whose interest is this serve? And how do we as board members, and I would say as administrators, how do we think critically and discriminatingly, how do we think about data and the message it tells? There's a famous line in every statistics 101 course, right? The statistics don't fly, but liars use statistics, right? And I think there's a Mark Twain quote that says some similar things about statistics. It's like, how do we see what's in the data? And so I think in hope for board members as you begin to look at more student performance data, that you'll think in a discriminating way, okay, what's really going on here? What questions should I ask? What does this data suggest? All of that fits really well with what the research says that school boards do that can make a difference in student achievement. If you got to chapter one and through chapter one, Mary Del Gardel, who was a principal in one district and a school board member in another at the same time, and at the same time as Mary was quite the higher achiever, she was working on an education doctorate and a principal and a school board member. And she found herself looking at research that suggests school boards can cause a lot of trouble. And maybe not your board, but if you could just think about another school board you might know of, sometimes drama in the boardroom can relate to confusion and chaos in the classroom. And particularly in the relationship between the board and superintendent. That relationship can affect, impact everything about the rest of the school system. So as we put this book together a few years ago, what we were thinking of is what does the research say in ways that school boards might affect student achievement? A long time critic of school boards, the Fordham Foundation, who's on record in one of these pages here, I think maybe about the middle of page four, Checker Finn, who at one time was the assistant secretary from the US Department of Education. He gave school boards an interesting nod. The local school board, especially the elected time, is an anachronism and an outrage. We need to steal ourselves to put this dysfunctional arrangement out of its misery and move on to something that will work for children. Not a proponent of publicly elected school boards. Fast forward to 2014, and this foundation, the Fordham Foundation, published a piece of research by two researchers named Schober and Hart-Ainck. And they said that the fact that board members can influence achievement even loosely merits much more attention. Surely by scholars, but also by voters, parents, taxpayers, and other policymakers. Let me tie together just a little backstory of this book. So Tom Halsberry did some research in the early 90s that showed a potential negative relationship between school boards and student achievement. Tom found that when there was politically motivated turnover on school boards. So when a group of people in the community got together to oust school board members, then generally that corresponded with a turnover in the superintendent. And a negative impact through changing policies, changing procedures, changing personnel, moving people around, and changing goals, and all of that together, tended to have a negative impact on student achievement. Tom finished that study and went on to be a professor in Northern Iowa where he had a very formidable graduate student named Mary Delagardele, the author of Chapter One. And Mary simply asked Tom one day if school boards could cause so much harm, couldn't they also do good? And there are multiple studies since Tom's in the 1990s that have showed that relationship to school board dysfunction. Now, you know this, the public doesn't care who's on the school board until they do care. And then they really care, right? They don't care until they care enough to put somebody else on the board. That's as Tom characterized politically motivated turnover. So it's not normal turnover, it's not just somebody wanted to run for a seat or somebody vacated a seat, they're needed to be a replacement, but literally the community decided something was wrong. And one that happens, there has been, again, multiple studies that have showed there could be a negative impact on student achievement because of all of the personnel and policy changes. And Mary's study was groundbreaking. Chapter One, this book, The Lighthouse Study, it's the most often studied or cited piece of research for those that are doing research on school governance and school boards and what they do that matters. Because of Mary's positionality as both a school administrator and a school board member, she really had a unique perspective to start with, but she also just had a brilliant mind. And so her study was conducted over 13 states and over 13 years. And it became very, it had three phases to it, but at each phase went iteratively one phase built upon the other. So she began to categorize those things that boards do that seem to have a relationship with student achievement. Some of the other chapters in this book build actually on Mary's study, she passed away about six years ago. Some of the other chapters build upon that to get more quantitative data that shows specific actions of school boards that might affect student achievement. One of the things that we know is of paramount importance. If the system is doing well, there are effective working relationships between boards and administrators. There are appropriate relationships. There's trusting relationships. There is a sharing of information that comes across when people feel safe. And we know too, and I can say this by evidence that's backed up in some of the later chapters as well, when board members ask open-ended curious questions, a sign of wisdom, right? Curious curiosity is definitely a sign of wisdom. It could be move all of us to be more curious to lean in to say, what's happening here? What do we see happening? Why might this be? When board members ask those kind of questions, administrators feel safe. On the flip side, and sometimes with the same wording, they can say, why is this lifeless, right? As opposed to, why do you think this might be? And the why is this lifeless, that's people up to be resistant, to be on guard, to be defensive, right? And not really contribute their best self to the conversation. But in systems where there's high trust, and where there's relationships that are safe, people can ask questions that get at more truth, which expands the pool of understanding for everyone. So just not everyone in the room, but which value did you select and why? Anyone? Let's go back 15 minutes. Thank you. I chose authenticity, because as a high schooler, it's really hard to be yourself, and there's a lot of pressure to be someone you're not. So being genuine, being confident, having self mastery, I think it's really important, and even as adults, I'm sure there's times where you question who you are, what you're doing. So I think on authenticity is the most important thing. So evidence of authenticity is questioning who you are. Is that part of what I just heard you say? Yeah. Love you. Thank you. Yeah, how do we show up? That we're bringing our authentic self. Someone else, just two or three, but only if you want to share. First one. I chose creativity. Creativity? Creativity is about being able to look at things in a different way, come to a solution, potentially in a different way. But I also look at our children and see that creative art, something outside of the core elements, like the core lessons that help them express themselves and themselves. Thank you for that, Ursulae. Creativity and coming at creativity even from multiple vantage points, right? Anyone else? I can share. Yeah, but you go. Okay, I chose humor. I like to think about what it would be like if our schools and workplaces were full of joy and fun. And I think that's been particularly hard to access through COVID. Things have felt heavy and scary. And so I just was thinking about the ways we can reintegrate or enjoy into all of our work. That's good. Thank you. Yeah. Healthy organizations have a lot of laughter. Floor? I chose sympathy just because I feel like having that emotional intelligence for the kind of work that we're doing and being able to bring people together and just be aware of where others are, it's really important in order to bring change. You have to have some understanding of others and compassion. There we go. Understanding, yeah. Empathy though. Oh, sorry. Yeah, we can, I'll kind of repeat some of the things you said, they're just not on your score. Empathy, not just caring, but demonstrating that you care. Yeah. And the importance of that. So three on the table, I think, is that right? We've got creativity, authenticity, humor, for, and empathy. Oh, sure. And is that honest to you? Yeah, it is. Picture, I leave some to be desired. The value is honesty, though. And I thought about this when you went, Willow, sorry, there's an echo. Sounds good over here. Good, because I picked honesty because if you start here, then even if we missed up or we need to learn from where we were, you started in a good place. And I think that's a, and to me that has a lot to do with being authentic. So I can add to what you shared. Was anybody else right on the edge of sharing one, Peggy? Learning from experience, which I think relates most directly to honesty. How do we grow? Continuous improvement. Failing forward, he's also here. There's a connection too with humor because really the best kind of humor is self-deprecating humor, but only in a way that it's not like low self-esteem, right? You gotta have a healthy self-esteem to be able to use humor about yourself or to find humor in the silly things that we do throughout the days. Why is it important this sort of segue in and out of how boards might affect student achievement and these kinds of values? How do some of these values like authenticity, honesty, empathy, humor, creativity, how does that fit within or weave into a conversation, something maybe that you picked up in the book about how boards might affect student achievement? Well, I think it's about being honest and authentic. If we come with, if we present on a board with a hidden agenda and we're not being honest and authentic about it, then that can really derail the conversations. And if we're not being honest with what our questions are or what our statements are, then that can derail as well. Yeah, keep thinking that through because you're on to something I think really significant, right? Anyone else, maybe from the reading or you're just thinking about how school boards and board administrative interactions could affect achievement. How do these values connect? Please. I was hearing, thinking about what Diane just shared and I was thinking about the balanced governance piece, the decentralized control versus centralized control, finding that balance of uninformed delegation versus micromanagement. So I'm thinking about what you were sharing because it is in those places where we can have those same agendas and it can really derail us from the work of being student centered. I think board members with single issue agendas hidden or known, they tend to derail conversations and because they're stuck. And in fact, in the White House research, that was a part of what the early researchers were looking for. Where are those systems that are improving in student achievement and where are those systems that are stuck where they're either plateaued or declining in student achievement? And then what are boards doing differently in a district and the early White House researchers used the term moving in a moving district that was progressing, learning from the states, et cetera. What were those boards doing differently than the boards that were stuck? And certainly like a single issue board member can really bottle that board and the conversations. And people feel unsafe. And I think in terms of that balance, so how you get to that balance of understanding is through asking questions. But if what's bringing my question forward isn't honest or authentic, then that's not helping to create the balance. That's helping to kind of skew us one way or the other. So, Lauren? So, I- Is your mic on? Yeah, so in the introduction, it talked a lot about how our values and beliefs also influence our actions. So that's sort of what connected to me. So right at the beginning, our values and beliefs also are gonna make us take actions towards that. Yeah, they'll be represented in the actions we make, right? These beliefs we made think they're hidden. And we all have blind spots. So we all have things that are even hidden to us. When I was on a school board, I really did want to fire a coach. And I'm still standing up here with you tonight. But I wasn't aware that I wanted to fire a coach. It wasn't until months into it, it's like, oh yeah, that guy really shouldn't even know. Anyway, it's one of those sort of classics. What do you think about school boards? People get on to fire someone or whatever. And then they just stay there, right? And become difficult to work. You know what else? What about the values and something that was expressed or something in the reading? Or about our values and our beliefs by enhance or impede a board's ability to support improving a chief? Talk to that honesty, but it's a huge part for admin, teachers, and the school board to be honest with each other in the way that if something isn't working, students as well. If something isn't working, they can be honest with the school board and be like, this is not going well, we need to change it. And my card was balanced. My card comes into it as well. Just having a good balance between those who are talking and speaking and listening. And the word balance is very, very important to me. I'd say too much if I had said more about how important it is to me, but I think wisdom is in the balance. I think health is something that definitely has a balance to it. And I think healthy systems have a balance, right? There's a balance to things. What the universe is all moving greatly, right? That it's because things are in balance. Forces are holding things and systems together. One of the things that's been emerging, and this is really after the Lighthouse research, although it was touched on toward the end of that chapter one, is the importance of systems thinking, right? And one of the things that hinders a board from functioning well, from adding value, is when people pick apart individual components of something. It's like there's an old story about the blind men and the health. I think it comes from India, but the idea that somebody has a hold of the tail, right? And they think what they're dealing with is a paintbrush. And somebody else has a hold of the ear and they think what they're dealing with is some big piece of voyage. And just depending on what they see and what they touch, they're thinking what they're dealing with is a tree or a wall or a snake, right? They're just, they're all seeing a piece of it. It is extremely important to effective boardsmanship that the boards step back and see the whole picture and allow other people to be concerned about the trees and the details on the trees and the board step back and really focus on the forts. What is happening in this overall fort? Again, as you think about what you read, what I hope you read, just wanted to underscore a couple of things. One of the things that Mary was looking at early in the Lighthouse study was, does the structure of the board matter? This is certainly a question as a newcomer to Vermont. As I travel the state and I see just a whole variety of school government structures from one corner to the next. And even within supervised reunions for districts, there's a lot of variability in our structure. And I've been asking myself and others the last several weeks, is there evidence somewhere that one structure works better than another structure? Is there anybody studying this? So that the structure of the way the board is configured is that impacting student outcomes or student experiences or student opportunities. Is there some relationship between the way the board is structured? That's not something per se that we're going to dig into in our work, but it is a curiosity to find. How does the structure affect things? As you think about balance, I think it was Captain mentioned that extreme of sort of a detached board who is perhaps rubber stamping, whatever it comes to them, they could say, yes, thank you, Max, thank you. I worked with one board that the board chair was an auctioneer and is real life, you know? And yeah, meetings were 20 minutes. Four. And yeah, and they were done. They prided themselves in how they were done. But were they exercising appropriate oversight? So how do we find that balance as a board between just rubber stamping and micromanaging? Where's the sweet spot? And Tom and I have thought and talked a lot through the years about the need for informed oversight. What does it mean for the board to be fully engaged, fully informed, and supportive as they should be, and yet challenging if need be? Part of the White House study in chapter one, they mentioned Richard Elmore's work on what he called the reciprocity of accountability. If the board is going to hold the superintendent and her staff accountable for something, how is the board going to provide the necessary support financially and moral-wise, and through the board's diligence in their work and engagement with the community? That responsibility that we have if we're going to hold somebody accountable for something, it's the same between a principal and a teacher or in any relationship in our lives. Jim Collins in Good to Great wrote a lot about this same principle, but the idea of we're going to hold somebody accountable, how do we also ensure they have what they need to be successful? And what they need might be financial resources, it might be professional development, it might be a change in structure in the system, and it could be a lot of different things. When you think about balance, thank you for that word, Mike. When you think about balance, what else in the school board work and the board's work with administration, what stands out to you that the board and administration might want to keep in balance? It's not a trick question, she's kind of a lead into it though. What are some other areas that might be important to think about, how do we find a balance as a board and as a system? Well, that's the $64,000 question as we're growing and changing from individual boards to the merged board, we're trying to figure out what those roles are and what are the appropriate questions, what are the appropriate work that we do in this role because our muscle memory isn't necessarily as a merged board, it's as single. Yeah, it makes all the sense in the world. Megan, don't let me run over all the time. No, you're right. I'm not really watching the clock here, I'm not really going with the flow at all. I actually am, so you're good. Was that, you are? I am watching. Okay, thank you for that. So the transition, right, what is this new role, how is it different, how is it similar, what are the things that we need to bring forward when you say muscle memory, what are the things that maybe didn't even serve us well there, we want to make sure we let go of it. It's not an easy thing, right, what do you think about balance? Somebody else, first of all. Are we going to talk, the book touched on it, the balance between cheerleading the successes and also talking about our data and looking at where we need to improve and making sure that you're doing well with balance. And kind of related to honesty, the idea of gender, like are we having the conversations we need to have? There's a really good part in chapter one that talked about creating the stories. So like sharing the important data, creating our stories and it's something that we say often is creating our stories so you can talk to the public and inform them of where we need to improve but with humor and candor and honesty in a way that isn't just a downer but is, hey, this is what we're doing well and this is where we need to improve. I probably mentioned this in August but for the rest of the room a quote by a man that I've come to admire quite a bit is the Dean of Education, of the College of Education at the University of Texas. There's also a former school board member, local school board member, Eugene Orgen. And Charles Martinez will frequently say this gets to a balance when we think about data. He'll say statistics are a face with the tears wiped off. That in some corners of the world where it's all about showing the numbers, showing the numbers, showing the numbers, we can miss the humanity or the story. And I think when we think about data and this came up in your presentation earlier, how do you find that balance between what do the numbers tell us and what do the stories tell us? What can the students share to help kind of flesh out what's happening with the numbers? Anyone else from the book? Daniel, you've been good with high attention. Some people, when I look at them, they just look away. They just look away. Is there any data? Well, maybe just to go back to things. Maybe just to go back to the prompt, like what does the board and administrators need to balance what they think about? So I'm wondering if it's the bilateralism and thinking about more perspectives than just the bilateral dialogue. Yeah. How do you bring the community and how do you bring this to the board soon? How do you bring, and then what's the proportional importance on the subject of each stakeholder group with each perspective? The weight of voices, right? Great, great time. Balance. Do we have the right people at the table? Are we hearing from everyone or are we hearing from the community or are we hearing from the complainers? And how do we balance that? Because we will hear from the complainers. But how do we hear from the broader community, whether that's students, staff, community members, right? We're gonna hear from people that are upset about something, but how do we ensure we're getting a broader perspective and not just a narrow set of information that's being brought to us? So the foundation here, the Lighthouse study showed a clear correlation between board member beliefs and behaviors and the likelihood that student achievement was improving in a school this week. There are no credible researchers or speakers on this topic that will say the school board caused an increase in student achievement. The school board and Mary used the word disco, right? They're not close. They're not that teacher-student relationship that we know in all of our lives has this powerful impact on whether they're learning or not. It's really only been the last 30 years or less that education researchers decided that what principles do makes a difference for student market. I was stunned by that a few years ago working on a PhD and trying to find the research into how boards might affect student achievement and my academic advisor at the time who's a well-known researcher in central office configurations, she said that really shouldn't surprise you. It's only been the last 15 years we figured out principles make a difference. And it's only then since about 2005 that people realize that what superintendents do make a difference. This guy named Bob Marzano and a research partner, Tim Waters, published a paper in 2005. It was a meta-analysis. Now, Bob Marzano went on and published a lot of other work after that. But all from this basis of characteristics of superintendent leadership that seem to be exhibited in students that are improving in achievement. And what was that relationship? They found a strong relationship there. They also found very serendipitously that the longer a superintendent stays in a system, the more likely that system is improving in achievement. So that tenure matters. And what we know from the research is that board member tenure is directly related to superintendent tenure, right? That if you've got mass turnover on the board, it's likely to be a new superintendent to follow. So there's something about, and chapter four gets into this a little bit deeper. There's something about stability of the system. How do you get the mechanisms in place? How do we have the learning together? I used the term earlier, serendipitous finding in that Marzano Waters study. But a serendipitous finding in the White House study was that when boards learn together as a team, they're more likely to be overseeing a system that isn't improving in student achievement. Want to underscore a couple things? I don't think we've said yet, but I just think that the highlights of the White House study included boards having high expectations and beliefs about what was possible for their students and their system, right? That in chronically underperforming school systems, board members have very low beliefs about what is possible. When we met in August, I asked the board members that evening a couple of very basic questions that come right out of the White House work. What percentage of our students are currently performing at or above grade level? And they wrote that down on a sticky note and put it on at least a flip chart paper. And then I asked what percentage of your students are capable or could you expect to be performing at or above grade level? This was the data collected that evening. Many of you will recall it, maybe obvious which side is which. The blue stickies were board members' best guess or understanding to answer that question. It was intended to be very open-ended, but aggregate here was about 60% ish of students were at or above grade level, but there was pretty unanimous belief 98 to 100% of students could be performing at grade level. And that gap is something that should, hate to say this, I don't wanna curse anyone, but it should keep us up at night. Like what's the difference between how our students are performing and what we believe they could be performing when it comes to learning energy? So again, that chapter one talks a lot about high expectations, but also the importance of urgency. Like if we truly believe all students could learn or nearly all students could learn at high level, what would we be doing differently when it comes to governance and administration? And what we might be doing now? How might that change the conversation at the board table, the types of questions that are asked, and how might the expectations affect the policy decisions we make, the budget decisions we make, and the other decisions at the board table? If we truly believe that nearly every single student could learn at a high level, what would we be doing differently? I kinda want that question hang there because I do think it's sort of an overarching question of work when we think about your board calendar, the board learning, the types of things you might wanna dig into this year as a team. What might the board or the board and administrative team together be doing differently if we truly believe nearly all students could be performing at a high level? Anybody feel a need to respond to that or just let it hang in here? It's all right. Caroline? I just feel compelled to share that that's actually huge progress because we as board members are asked that question probably six years ago and it was far fewer board members who believe that all students are capable. And so it's progress and we have the right board members. So thanks. You're not saying anything about because you left the board. No. You didn't even reply. Nope. And hopefully not in your sense. Yes, yes, it is. It's critically important. And recognize again the board's effect on student achievement is at a distance and it's overall for the system. It's an important effect size. It's a very important effect size because it's spread over the entire system and the board's superintendent relationship and what the board is talking about at the dais. What's on their work plan? What's on their agenda? How they evaluate the superintendent? All of those things are critically important for the overall performance of the school system. And ultimately I would say this. It's not only about raising student achievement as measured by multiple measures to triangulate a data. It's not only about that. It's also about closing gaps. We need to be thinking deeply about what does it take to close gaps in achievement? Because we've been talking about closing achievement gaps for 30 or 40 years. And nationwide we've not made a difference. In fact, the gaps may be widening in many areas. So what does governance look like? I asked myself and I asked others this question almost every day. What does governance look like? Is actually supporting improved achievement overall and closing gaps? What might we need to be doing differently at the board table? Not what teachers need to do differently or what administrators need to do differently per se but what does the board need to do differently if we're going to govern and oversee a system that's improving in achievement overall and closing gaps? Michael, is there anything else from our conversations that I should underscore or bring forward? No, I think you covered it. And then I would also remind us of the pieces we talked about related to accountability and monitoring. And how do we have the board meaningfully engaged at the right grain size in that accountability piece? And what types of data lend themselves to that? What types of data don't lend themselves to that? So I don't think you're missing it. I just want to draw that thread again. Yeah, I appreciated how Jen said teachers use formative assessments every day in the classrooms. So we're not talking about sort of a daily feedback for the board, but we're also wanting to get away from just a summative annual feedback for the board. There were two things I had in my notes. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned set but maybe not monitor high expectations. So set a high expectations and then monitor progress. And the other one from the White House study was the board needs to understand what it takes to improve learning and teaching. So that was one of the big takeaways. In fact, you found through multiple pages there that Mary and her team had found this that in high achieving systems, the board knew about professional development taking place. They knew about improvement initiatives that were intended to improve how the students are doing. And so it's not micromanaging to be informed. It's not micromanaging by the board to understand the types of professional development and the success or effectiveness of professional development that it really takes to improve learning and teaching. So yeah. So what that brought to mind when we were talking accountability because I guess some of the language was rubbing me a little the wrong way, because grade level has so many different connotations and the achievement gap is really putting the onus on the learner as opposed to those of us who control what the opportunities are. And so I was kind of struggling a little bit with that and I realized part of it is with that accountability and monitoring is what is the PD level? Are we making sure that the learning opportunities are there for our staff when they come on board as to what those initiatives are and how we maintain and check in as to the fidelity of those initiatives? And so that to me is a tricky part and as a board member to know about that. But it's exactly that. It isn't just how many are accessing and achieving and how many could, but then what are we also doing? What you've got at, if we're looking at those gaps, what is it we need to do to support the system that's providing those opportunities? Yeah, be sure to think one more level up too. So to extrapolate what you just said, what does the board need to be going to support effective instructional practices and student achievement? What does the board need to do? And thank you for catching like this the equity piece. It's not just about equitable outcomes. It's also about equitable experiences, equitable opportunities. So you might be thinking about what data does the board really need to see to know that our students are having equitable experiences and equitable opportunities as well as outcomes. Outcomes are important, however they're defined, but it's the other enriching experiences too that are really important. I'll stay with you a minute for a while for your conversation about the board work plan. So thank you Phil for doing that. I think that ties it all nicely and hopefully in our next session we will have more other opportunities to have conversations with the leadership team too. So thank you to the leadership team for staying with us. I wanna move us on into our board goals and I was thinking by listening to everybody talk about their beliefs from accountability, authenticity, honesty, empathy, humor, and learning from experience that actually some of the three goals that we've been having, we could get smarter at them, right? So we had a smart goal written for each of our goals last year. So I'm wondering actually if our after listening to Phil and reading the book, if what we wanna do is get a better understanding of how our students are doing, what are we doing to improve and what are we doing for professional development for equal opportunities for all and how do we support our staff and the parameters that maybe we could reaffirm our goals of educational and academic outcomes in broadening our community engagement and our long-term planning. I think we can build smart goals within all of what we were talking about today and that would allow us to then move on into this proposal of a work plan that we have for you. So this is a wondering question and wondering for members will feel comfortable reaffirming those three goals that we have last year and then creating a smart goal within that goal. For example, last year we, in the long-term planning, we did our capital plan, right? That made a couple and achieved the goals that are around them. We, in the quality committee, we already have a smaller goal for this year but last year we went through all our student learning outcomes through our community engagement and if I'm missing something or Jen and then we were not able to set a goal for our community engagement but we're hoping that's another conversation but we have more to come but to then have a goal that and by smart we mean that it's measurable, that it's achievable and that we will be able to monitor and there's more to that. What it means to be a smart goal but that's what I remember right now. So if the board, I don't, I was looking for hopefully a formal action from the board that like a motion to reaffirm our three goals that is possible and open to discussion. Can you share about something? Oh, yes, I will accept. Mark, can you make me a co-host and then I can share a doc that will have them? Great. Thank you. You're welcome. And I have hard copies. Yeah, I do that a lot. Yeah, thank you, perfect. And this is halfway between affirming board goals and the work plan but the board goals that people are talking about are at the top of this document. And in a second I will put it on the screen. It's okay. It's this orange block at the top are this board's goals from last year. The sort of 10,000 foot goals to floor's point. We would narrow down some action steps underneath that but the first one is educational and academic outcomes. Second is broadening communication with the community and the third is long term planning. So those are the three. So what I'm looking for is, before we move into the work plan it's maybe just a formal motion to just say that we're okay. We affirmed those three goals. I so hope. Thank you, Diane. Second. Thank you, Ursula. We can go to the set, yeah. Okay, any other discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? That's great. Thank you, everybody. And now I'm gonna be looking to make it. Perfect. So for the purposes of the screen I'm skipping the first page because those months have already gone by. Actually I'll stay at the top just for a second. What I'm hoping to do is give you a little bit of an overview of what the document is and why it's structured. Then talk about what's preloaded in there because it comes from your work last year and I'll explain that. And then we'll have a little bit of a conversation around making sure that this work plan reflects how we want to spend our time given the conversations we've just had. But just from a little standpoint, you've had a work plan in the past. This is not that different from that. The only thing that this is designed to do is make it a little bit more clear both to ourselves but also to our community about what each part of the board meeting is each month. Including what we're doing in our committees and how that's related to what we're doing. So this just left to right is organized by what's our presentation or board learning for the day? What are the reports you can expect to receive? That's probably gonna be a pretty standard list every month but you'll see some places it won't be. What are your discussion items? What are your action items? Again, there's fluidity there as well. And then what is the committee focused on? So that part of it is not, I don't think that different from what you're used to. Then if you move to the second page, these are color coded and there is a little key about the color coding. So anything that is blue is something that you agree to last year as part of your monitoring report. Anything that's red is part of our draft budget timeline which is on the agenda later today to confirm. So there may be some flux there but that's what the red items are. And those are important to preload because as you know, the budget process is something we can't get behind on. Anything that is black, some is just standard. So if you look as an example, a list of reports you'll expect a superintendent and central office report. We have talked as a leadership team about bringing back principal reports so that there's some understanding of what's happening in the buildings, the monthly reflections from Suzanne, our student reports, floor-made youth career center updates. Some of those items will be standard, some not. So it's mapped out for the year where I think we should center our conversation. I will pause for clarifying questions in a second. Is how we wanna spend this board professional learning time, this left-hand column. Sorry, I'm flipping really fast for those on the screen. We've pre-planned for discussion tonight a few things coming up and then as we go throughout the year, there is room to say, how do we want to use bill? How do we wanna continue this conversation? Are there other speakers or learning that we want to be plugging into the calendar? I also, one more logistical piece that I forgot to mention. We've talked quite a bit and I think it was a pretty universal recommendation board members that we move back to in-person, that we maintain a hybrid option and that we think about rotating again amongst our schools. So this board work plan has us rotating on the community forum day, which is, that's the rotating day. It's pre-loaded in here, it's random. I didn't, so there's no, there was no, actually I think it's alphabetical order. It's how I did it. So we will be rotating. We will have a hybrid option at those locations and then the in-person option for the second meeting of the month will always be at U32, but we'll be back in 128, 131. We sort of recognize that that's the best room for a good hybrid experience. This, we had too many people for that room, which is why we're here. So I didn't wanna forget to swing back around to that. You talked about it at your August meeting. There are also a couple, just logistics-wise, one of our meetings, our meetings in March. The calendar falls during break, which happens year to year. It's because our break is late, so we have some proposed, we've essentially just moved March ahead. So just pay attention to that when you're looking at it. I'm gonna pause for questions. I don't wanna lose people online. Yeah. I think Mark is going for a record. Thank you, Cat. So can I do that clarifying? Because we were talking, before we had a, this is more of an actual working calendar, because what we had before, and I don't know that I can't share my screen, what we had before was more of a, we had our goals, and we called it the work plan too, but it was mostly what we were doing in August, what we were doing in September. And it had the three goals in the same way, but this actually gets us organized. We know better what committees are doing. We can all, and we can review it. It's not final, it's a living document. So we can review it as needed. As we create those smart goals, there might be things that need to change here. I can't imagine that we won't, I agree today to say yes to our monitoring calendar. For example, if that's a no, then we will redo those things. But nothing is, so look at it from a critical point of view. This is not set in stone. We're looking for input, right? Daniel? Yeah, I had two observations. One was if we could build into the work plan, opportunities to look at the work plan and change it. Just maybe like looking out three, three meetings and then do they, you know, doesn't do all the topics. Does the agenda feel relevant still? And the other was, as far as principal reports, I wonder if those could align with the visits to the schools and it could also be dealer's choice for how the principal chooses to use their time, whether it's like a report of the last month and how everything's going, or whether they choose to focus on one issue while they have the board's attention in their own. Really welcoming sort of a lot of lab tubes or principals to. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for raising that. I did, I should have explained this when I talked about it. So we've talked a little bit about what principals' past practices were in principal reports and what they were once we consolidated. And we've been absent of that structure a little while. COVID defined what our reports would be for a number of years. The current thinking, and this is obviously anything can evolve. One of the drawbacks with a rotation is that then you only hear from a principal probably twice a year. So instead of rotating, we're actually gonna create a format. This is a structure that has been in place in the past. We're gonna take one of those structures from before, update it. But the concept is that there will be a common set of things that each principal reports on each month. Little shorter, right? Because it won't be kind of a road show. But that is the intention for the principal's report. Part of that is to make it manageable. Part of that is to also make sure that we don't inadvertently create comparisons across our schools. Like how come we heard about this in Berlin and this at U32 when actually it happens everywhere, it's just what people chose to report on. So that's the current thinking. We would want to hear from the board about whether or not that works for you as we move forward. Daniel, I do think it's an interesting idea to think about is there something that we would do for the hosts? Like does the host school get five minutes on the agenda for a little bit? I mean, I think there is something to that. We were doing tours of their buildings before because a lot of people hadn't been to any other building and just highlighting what it was like something in science going on or a project. Yeah, you guys can be creative. Megan, you're the one sharing that right now. Yeah, so it's your bag. You wanted, well, no, it's not your bag. No, no, no, by the way, I'd like to be by your side. You're fine, but it's wanted people to see something different. Thank you. Yes. Do I want to? Yes, that's a great suggestion, Daniel, and I threw that second part out without actually having talked to the principal, so. Other format specific questions or feedback before we kind of move to let's make sure the right things are on it. Yeah. I have a, I'm looking for clarification on board communication and outreach plan, and if this relates to establishing a communications committee as a board, which was previously discussed last year. And if so, can we move that up from February? What, you know, why are we waiting until February to get this going? Oh, we were not waiting. Yeah, no, so thank you. That's in red, that's a budget specific, and actually I should update that language so that it's clear. That's not your overall communication plan. That's specifically for what are we sharing at the annual meeting specific to the budget. So thank you, I will update that language. But your point, so up here further, when we come back, because this is the first time you're seeing the work plan, we're gonna take your input about what to add, give you a revised version so that you can affirm it next month, and to your point, Daniel, I think when we look ahead at the agenda, when we have future agenda items, that's a natural place for us to review the work plan every meeting. So I think that's a good suggestion. So you'll affirm it, but it's fluid. But we also need to talk about committee charges, and some of them are, you know, finance committee is pretty standard, policy committee is pretty standard, but we should affirm, are we having a communication committee, or, and if so, what's the charge, or is our broader goal of community engagement something the full board is going to engage in? I think that's worthy conversation. But yeah, the February item is specific to the budget. And then the other thing that I will add is that we haven't incorporated it into the calendar here yet. The Humanities and Justice Coalition is just getting started again, not started, but, you know, like we, hopefully you can be getting some information, and that work also, as a board, will inform, so it will be reflected here. So don't be scared that that's not here, because that is just actually started happened this week. So that will be reflected once we've made it in. Yeah, I'll say one more thing, content-wise, before, and then maybe I'll, I can probably stop sharing so you can see people again. Because this one's coming up, we would look for a little bit of affirmation from the board. We have talked quite a bit around community engagement. How do we do that better? How do we think about that more broadly so that it's not just communication out, and it's multiple ways of getting input back? And we have talked about mapping our community, communities in order to facilitate better engagement. So before we say, here's how we should be engaging, we also need to understand who our community is. That is penciled in for October's community forum. So because that's coming right up, if that were not to sound something the board doesn't want to engage in, then we should talk about that quickly, but it'll require some planning. So I just wanted to highlight that one content piece, and now we'll stop sharing so we can see faces. Daniel? Yeah, that sounds great. I'd like more detail about how mapping happens before that meeting so we could bring more energy to it. Yeah, you will have more information and we'll be sharing some resources with you. Okay. So if, Phil, we're gonna move into our actual meeting. I don't know if you have some last words as wisdom for us as you've heard that conversation and then we'll be moving in into our meeting. You know, just there's always that afterthought reflection of maybe I should have said this and maybe I should have said that. Maybe I should have said what I said. But the emerging research over the last three years suggests there's a strong relationship between the way the board engages its communities and the likely put the system is improving in achievement overall and closing gaps. So we would get to aspects of that in chapter three of the book if we do that or if you just wanna jump ahead to read there. They use the terms brokerage and closure. I think more modern terms might be bridging and bonk. How does the board bond with its community and how does the board bridge with its community? And so like Floor said, for community mapping we need to get just enough information out to have a shared understanding and then sort of help people think about what to bring content-wise to that conversation. But a really valuable tool can be starting with and it wouldn't be the be all end all. We'll all walk away from that meeting thinking, oh, I should have thought of the co-op or whatever, right? There'll be something that we're all thinking of. By the way, I live in your district. That we're all thinking of, oh, we forgot about that board or this board or these people that speak this language or whatever. And so I think it'd be like a good first pass, especially before we're spending about an hour on it. We wouldn't feel done. We'd just feel like we made a good pass and we might be able to do this. Thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. Again, the research is really clear. The more that boards and administrative teams can collaborate, work well together, understand good governance, the better. Better offer everyone. We didn't dig into a lot of kind of roles and responsibilities, who knows what. But I felt good about the camaraderie and the interactions that people were having this evening. And I think it's really nice and foundational. Thanks for letting me be here. Thank you. Thanks. So with that, you're moving to a bit more boring part of the meeting. So I also don't want to make anybody stay that doesn't need to stay because I don't see life. You're welcome to be here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you to all the administrators for being here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, monsters. Don't feel like you have to go either. So if you want to stay, please stay. Thank you. And then I'm wondering if people want like a five minute break just to go to the bathroom. And then we'll be back at 1908, 707. It's 708 now, so there's a minute behind. I'm going to try to move us along without trying to make us just eight. Sorry, all right. Yeah. Hello. Maybe you can hear me. No, they can't hear me, sorry. Sorry, everybody. Can we get started? Sorry to interrupt. It's so much fun to all be together. And we will try to build some time to mingle the next time. Can, let's see. So let's move to 6.1. We're looking to affirming our superintendence evaluation process. There was a memo from Kari in page 22. I'm looking for a motion, and then I let Kari speak to it just because where we are with time. Kari, is that OK with you? This is the most important work we do. So I want you to speak to it. But I'm looking for a motion. Ursula. I move that we affirm the superintendent evaluation process and timeline. Thank you, Ursula. Second? Second. OK. Eric, seconds. OK, so now discussion. Kari. Yeah, thanks, Flor. So the memo kind of summarizes it. Talked a little bit about how it went last year, including the feedback we gathered from the year and survey. And then going forward, it contains suggestions on how we could proceed this year, including the timetable, the survey instrument this next time around, and goal setting. So the steering committee discussed it when we met last week. And we're checking to see if this makes sense to you. And if you have any suggestions about how to make the evaluation process even better this year. Thank you, Kari. So are there any questions from board members? I guess if there's no questions, I hope you guys all saw in there that we won 100% for participation. So put that into your calendars. And with that, all those in favor of approving the motion as read, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? OK, moving into appointing our student board members, I apologize I was going to do that first. And then I got going. Bienvenida, Willow. Estoy muy contenta de que hay alguien más que habla español ahora, y vamos a tener nuestra propia conversación sin que nadie más en tiempo. Me encanta. Pero bienvenida. So welcome, Willow. In part of her letter, she said that she was fluent in Spanish. So I was like, OK, is that right? I thought I might do that. Was it French? French, I think. I understood that, Willow. That's OK. But it's a good practice, but we promise we won't have a side conversation just in Spanish. But as you can see, I was very excited. So I'm looking for a motion. I shared the letter that you sent. It was wonderful. I think just your statement today about authenticity summed up exactly what you said in the letter. So we are lucky to have you. And I'm looking for a motion to appoint Willow to our board. And of course, we welcome Maya back. We're so excited to have you. You were a great voice. In person. In person, too. Yeah, this is so exciting. So I'm looking for a motion. I promise I'm not trying to rush you guys. Ursula. I move to be appoint Willow as our student members on board. Thank you, Ursula. Second. Thank you, Natasha. Did the board have any questions or thoughts before we vote? Just that I appreciate your involvement and your input and please do be vocal. Oh, I will. I can turn to you guys. So all those in favor of approving the welcoming and approving Willow joining the board, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? So welcome, Willow. Maya can be your mentor because she's been with us for a year. And we've always encouraged you if you want to pick somebody from the board, I selfishly would like to pick you, just so we could do it in Spanish. But you pick whoever you want to be mentor by from the board. We offered this to Maya last year, too. You guys, it's up to you. But any board member could be, if you had any specific questions, you could talk to any board member. But you can also just pick one person that could be your mentor for the board. We're looking forward working with you. I know that you guys both have a lot of homework. And we're hoping that we can figure out a way that you can fully participate in all our meetings. But for tonight, thank you for being here and for being part of the retreat, too. That was extra. So don't feel it be shy about going home and get your stuff done. OK. We now have to move into accepting Dennis Tells' resignation from the board. I shared that letter with the board. Oh, the mic. Sorry. Could you? Nobody could hear me before. Mic, we might hear you. Yeah, go ahead, Will. So we were under the congressional that we had to do it over a board, so we have a full report. Oh, so you guys have a board. We would love a report. Sorry, we didn't write it like that. We just did some of it, but it's not like this. So with that said, go ahead. Thank you, and thank you for being vocal. We thought we needed to give you guys a soft entrance, but clearly you were a little bit worse. So go to town. We are. All right, so to start off, there is a new K-232 with all of the bathrooms here. They were updated as of three, well, no, not all of them. Actually, yeah, they were all of them. And then the one that's upstairs, we're coming in with gender neutral bathrooms. And just telling you what the students think about that, what I know of this is a general positive feedback towards them. We're sub-negative responses at first about who we're anxious about, and we're nervous about not really sure what it meant. But it has seemed to settle down a bit and more people aren't using them. And there is a choice. There's still gendered bathrooms for those who feel like we need to go in. And we also sent out a survey to Glam, which is our health and safety club. And a lot of the students were saying, there are things in the school for doing that, and the same where they felt so much more comfortable using the gender neutral bathrooms. And they didn't have to choose which one they're going to and have to suffer the anxiety of that. So yeah, in all, what I've received from my classmates is that the bathrooms were very good against them. Another change is our dean of students is JB. And there's just a really positive change with class-wise. There's a drop of distraction for sure for kids that are in the class. And then he's also like a really respected person in the students community for sure. We love seeing JB around. And the kids that are not going to class or roaming the halls, I think there's a sense of someone cares about them so they want to get them to where they need to be. So I think there's a really positive change with that. Also this year, we have a new schedule where the students here are at least high school rooms, which it's been a bit rough with settling into it, but it's getting better, put it lightly. And then also there's the part about braiding with campus and right seat. And a lot of students are getting super kind of scrambled with that because I know half of my classes used IC, half of these canvasts, and it's just kind of upset everything. And students have talked to teachers and the teachers are doing what's easiest for them because they have a lot to worry about graduating. But maybe that's something to look into, I'm not sure. There's a lot of, I've heard from literally everyone that they're struggling with keeping that company stuff because they have to check five different websites to know what they have to do. Yeah, there's, so Canvas or IC is the two that half of the teachers are using. Also another note, we had a college friend here. A bunch of people went to it. I was actually surprised at the amount that were not seniors. We're going and looking at colleges. Even if they didn't really think they were gonna go to college, they were still talking to people. So I saw a lot of positive influence in it, but I also saw pretty negative influence as well. Some students don't feel enough for college and grading-wise and acceptance and money-wise. So there's definitely a 50-50, kids just walk by because they had the feeling of doubt and they're just like, I'm not gonna go to college, I can't get in. So there's definitely a negative impact as well. And then we're gonna switch to the lunch room that you're all in. There's a lack of staff at the moment and I know that we're definitely trying to get more people, but since there's a lack of staff, there's not a lot of choices. And so right now we're creating food that isn't as healthy as it could be. So sandwiches are not as healthy, but there's still a variety of vegetables and salads used to be a very big thing. People get different salads. Also, there's a lack of options for vegetarians and they're either salad or a PB&J. So I don't know what kids do if they are ordered to peanut butter and they forgot their lunch that day. They could always just get a hamburger, I guess. But, and then also we have bins, we have compost recycling and trash and trash is just being used. So we're definitely gonna try to figure that out. And then there's also an idea going around where students help out with lunch. And so if coming from both of us, I think is if you're cleaning up your mess and you're putting in the work, you're gonna think about what you do with it. So if I'm, for example, if I have lunch and I leave my trash on the table, but then I'm the one that's cleaning it up, I'm obviously not going to. So I think there could be a really good change that could happen with students and helping the community and just learning together that we're helping each other out by helping ourselves at the same time. Yeah, and just in general for that, just like at all schools, improving students' interest in community service, I think is a huge thing. And the lunch is one good way to start with that, I suppose. Next, last year I always talked about this, but it's still relevant, is masks. And as we all know, they're not mandated here. And a majority aren't wearing masks, but still a good number aren't, and people are getting sick wearing them. We also had the recent outbreak of like hand-spread mouth disease, which I could call Steven. Yeah, he deserved that. She got under control. But like, you have seen some more people who wear the masks, and people say home, a lot of people are gonna be home, but that's just kind of expected. Like before COVID, before masks, that was expected, because that's what it was. Yeah. But most people seem happy with where we are in relation to masks. And it's just, depending on like comfort level. And just from like a parent's view, I know my parents would be like, if you're sick, but like well enough to go to school, just wear a mask. So there's definitely gonna be probably more students in class, because they have masks on, and they can still go to school even if they're sick. And then there's also a positive increase instead of sickness, is the participation at games. So I'm a student athlete, and the other night, there was a ton of kids at my game, and I've never seen that many people for girls of our city soccer. And there's just, there's more advertisement. There's a lot more signs everywhere. Everyone's trying to get a community base. Like we're trying to get students supporting students no matter what the sport is. So also the numbers have shifted with girls sports and guys sports. So a lot more people are starting to show up for the girls sports, which I've never seen with my years of being here. But it's pretty good, and it's good that we're getting like a community going to support our school having experience. There's also an increase in participation at all the clubs, and we also added a bunch of new clubs. The new ones include all the UN, a debate club, rocketry, chess, mindfulness, robotics is more in the school, and the French club, along with the old ones of the conversation, blame, blame, the group seems like a justice, great to be a prodigal, an athlete, a group of, so we have a bunch of options for students. And I've noticed, I've been like athletes. I've noticed that the numbers in each group has gone dramatically this year, and it's just amazing to see this happen. And then lastly is the tech program we have. When kids leave school, we'll go to the tech college. Career Center, I don't go, so I don't know. But I know a lot of kids that do go and they are just loving it. They said it's a lot of work, but they're, I've also seen these kids struggle in the classroom, they don't wanna go to school, but now it's nice to see as a fellow classmate that they're excited to go to school, that it's all hands on learning, so it's going well, I believe. And that's all we have. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's wonderful. Any questions from board members? Okay, seeing none, I think we'll continue to move. And the agenda, thank you for including the Career Center, which is so important, and it's as hard as a other school, and it's just another way of learning, not a different way of learning. So it's a different way of learning, I would say, but there's no scene I think to go into. Last year, just because I said it on that board, last year, the kids in that, between 40 kids, they created about, they made about $400,000, just within the kids going to co-op, which is remarkable for working two days a week in between all of them. It's really amazing what they're doing. So let's move on. Thank you, guys, and we look forward to seeing you at our next meeting, we'll be in touch. So again, for resignation, and we try to do this quickly, could I have a motion to accept Dennis Hill's resignation? Thank you. I would like to accept Dennis Hill's resignation from the board. Second? Thanks, Daniel. Both those in favor of approving Dennis's resignation, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, Dennis, if you are listening to this board meeting later on, thank you for your service. We understand, and really, any time given to your community is welcome to see. So thanks. Let's move to the process for appointing a vacancy. It's really mostly informational. I don't know if you guys had a chance to look at it. That first part, our clerk, Rosie, has sent a letter. Sarah, the manager? Down clerk, down clerk. At Middlesex delivered the letter to the chair of the board, and they are all set. They know that we are a diselect board. They know that we have this opening. So I had that language that you see there, is the language that we have used before and some suggested dates. If you guys are okay with that, that would be posted as soon as possible. And then our hope is to have a full board in November, whatever we do, it takes the next week to interview and then to appoint. So we hope it's a little bit quick, but any? Just doing outreach. Yeah, okay. And are you guys okay with the language? Is that possible? Okay. So I don't need any formal action for that. You guys are okay with that, that's enough. So let's move into approving our new teachers, page 26, Lindy. If you want, Lindy, sorry to always put you in the spot, but I figured everybody should. I'll make a motion to accept the new teacher nomination for Rose Cercelli at Berlin as a literacy interventionist. Thank you. And the second? Diane. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? And make that motion. Lindy. Lindy. And second by Diane. I should have asked this question before. Oh, sorry, I didn't do the discussion I figured. It's one year non-renewable, is there a reason why? Yes, that's standard for hires that occur after July 1, I think, yes, so it's not that the position is going away. And you have to pack it, right, Lisa? So it's an intervention. Okay. So all those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Yes, so please. Aye. Yeah, all right. Do you want me to do the next one? Yeah, long term. I make a motion to accept the nomination for the long term substitute of Catherine Titt-Walker of the E32 Math Long Term Substitute. Thank you, Lindy. Second? Second. Thank you. Any questions for any discussion? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Did I hear a question? Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. And now to you. So I'll give just a brief update on vacancies. We are continuing to fill them, as you can see, which are taking action on them. The list is getting shorter, which is really positive. We do still have special educator vacancy in Berlin. We continue to have speech language pathologist vacancies. I did share last month that we have some consultative services and in-person, but contracted services, providing what needs to be provided in the interim, still trying to fill those positions, continue to have some para educator positions open as well. The biggest challenge still, and you heard it a little bit from our student reps, we have vacancies here at E32 in food service, maintenance and custodian custodial. And it's just puts an enormous amount of pressure on the system, on the people who are still here kind of holding it up. So we're trying to be creative in brainstorm. We did talk at the central office. We do have these positions posted in an array of places. We are thinking more specifically about some local posting, you know, shoring that up and doing that better, but those vacancies are tough. No, that's good, what's your turn? Yeah. Lindy. Oh, sorry, sorry, no, no. Yeah, Lindy. I just want to thank you for putting them in the report forum. Because I think that's a way that there may be people who, if we have to get creative with part-time, they might reach out and be community people who would fulfill those positions. Is there anything that the board should be aware of legally in terms of, you know, with the vacancies and special ed and the ability to provide services? Is there any heads up that we as a board should be launching? Yes, it's a good question. Kara and her team are looking very closely at how we're providing services. The positions, particularly at U32, which had the largest number of vacancies, were filled by intervention teachers, so with a focus on service delivery. So there's been a lot of restructuring to kind of cover the necessary services. Kara, I don't know if you have anything to add? I would just add that Act 173 provided a little more leniency in the way that we fulfill those special ed vacancies, so we're grateful for that opportunity to think it. And then the Kara positions also provide some challenges that will work with families related to classroom-care roles for specifically students in the elementary schools that may be in that area. And we're having those conversations and sort of solidifying what the challenges are now that we're understanding what our staff will be moving forward. Could you hear that, Kara? Yeah, okay. Pretty well. Any other questions? So moving right on, let's move into the finance part. And we had a couple of informational reports. Susanna's not here with us. I'm gonna try to, the chair of the committee, I'm gonna try to do my best at just synthesizing two things that I wanted to share. Oh, you're in the soup. Oh, you're in the soup. Okay, so you can, do you wanna see, I really just wanna especially emphasize your piece about Virginia and the new employees, so I'll let you speak. Sure, the financial account position at central office is vacant. We are advertising for that, hoping to find someone that will take on that mantle and it primarily focuses on accounts receivable, financial reporting, budget support, cash management, record retention, capital asset and grant tracking. And the reason I went into that kind of detail is because if you know that person, please send them my way. And what you were talking about with Virginia, little ways down on the first page, I mentioned that there were 44 employees recognized as new or transferring at invocation this year. And that's a lot of work for payroll and HR to enroll them in their health insurance, get them set up in payroll, get them educated. And also there's work involved in terminating employees. So I just wanted to give Virginia a really huge shout out for that work. Last year, I think I looked at the same type of report and we had in the 20s that we thought was a huge number and now we're in the 40s and it's still a huge number. So there's a pretty big strain right now in that area, but Virginia has been very conscientious and devoted to the district. So thank you, Virginia. And also welcome to Christopher Pollard at Dodie and Shannon Knowles at Romney as our new school administrative assistants. And I just wanted to let you all know what kind of work the finance team does to get them set up in their duties. Sorry guys. Thank you, Suzanne. Any questions from the board on those two informational? I don't see any hands up and no hands up online. So I'm gonna, I just gonna emphasize one last thing and the capital improvement update that they gave us. I know that, oh, there's Chris too. Chris, do you wanna give us a little quick in the capital improvement updates? Yeah, if anybody has questions or has any questions, certainly here to answer them. Overall, feeling pretty lucky, like I said, at the finance committee because there's a lot of other schools out there that weren't able to finish projects. So I'm not gonna say we're 100% complete, we're working through punch lists right now, but for the majority, we did really, really well to end up where we were because of staffing shortages and material timelines and delivery. So yeah, and at the end of this at the bottom, you can see there's a note to call out Bill Ford for his ability to push the right buttons and we went through multiple iterations of different types of materials, change orders, to get everything put together. So he was a driving force there. So wanted to call him out for that, thank him for all of his dedication and hard work to wrap all this work up before the school year started. But yeah, if anybody has any questions, I'll feel free. Any questions for our members? Okay, seeing none, I will encourage, I know that not everybody who's pleased with the bathrooms near the cafeteria are hoping to do those too, but I will encourage you to visit the ones by the auditorium and the ones upstairs that have been redone. So let's move to our action agenda. So sorry, I'm going between my pages here. So the cover improvement project, budget at our capital, at our finance committee meeting we discussed all of this to detail there's a memo in there. So I'm gonna open it up to, I'm gonna start with possibly a motion and then we'll open it up to discussion and then Chris and Suzanne can also share more detail on this with Megan. Persona? I moved at the board to authorize the superintendent to engage Black River Design to develop the necessary bid documents and vendor pre-qualifications for the DODI AHU damper replacement, the U-32 boiler circulation pump replacement and the U-32 HVAC energy recovery units, ERUs 20-year upgrade for an amount not to exceed 1,278,750 dollars. Thank you, Ursula. Okay, second person. Thank you, Eric. Discussion. Sorry, the second is good. Eric. Thanks. No questions. That's great. This is on the, I'm sorry. This is on the original, the whole layout we had, correct? Yes. This is part of that whole layout but this is new work. So it's part of that whole layout, not everybody is familiar with that, but it's part of the whole layout for this very, very, very capital improvement plan. Yeah, yeah, and then from the capital improvement, that the capital plan that we put together last year. Right? Chris? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Anything else we're gonna move to say? No, I mean, the finance committee did have a conversation around the cost for this project is more than it was originally anticipated being. What you're acting on today is what allows us to move forward to make sure we get the work done, which is important. And their finance committee had some conversation about the ways to make up the difference in costs. One of which is the use of ARPSR that input process is still ongoing at the moment. And so we're trying to make sure that we don't slow down the process of this work. Moving forward, acknowledging that that is still, gathering input is still part of the process in terms of how to use SR funds. The memo outlines this really clearly. The board did approve to use SR funds in support of this project. This just changes the amount of SR funds that we would use. Yeah. And we talked a lot about good use of one-time money, too, and keeping up our facilities. But again, passing this motion doesn't mean that SR funds are dedicated to this, but it allows us to stay ahead so that if we do decide to go this way, we won't be behind, because otherwise we couldn't get the work done because we're also hoping to get some incentives, right? So the timing is really important. That, Daniel. I just wanted to build on Diane's question. And I think I recall from the committee meeting, there was some discussion of, there's been sort of a regrouping of capital projects for money savings. And I wanted to ask Suzanne or Chris to just maybe comment on that. I thought that there was something around replacement of multiple oilers or multiple energy recovery units that you could realize some savings and bring them all at once, is that right? Chris, it was a little bit hard to hear, Daniel, but I think he was referencing completing the ERUs, all seven of them, all at once. While we know that's a large expense to do at one time, we can find savings because just bringing a crane in to bring those units up onto the top of the building, we save money by doing it one time instead of over the course of years. Any other questions? I just want to make sure that, like everybody has the opportunity to have that conversation that we had. So, okay. I didn't see any other questions, I didn't see any hands. So thank you, Chris and Suzanne. All those in favor of approving the motion as read by Ursula and second by Eric, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. And then the last part we had is really that timeline process budget that we've been talking about for a few times. We're looking to, you know, having a motion and say, yay, this is what we want to do. If everybody's in agreement, again, I would be looking for a motion and we would still have discussion. This motion, the one about the budget timeline. Yes. Oh, please. I would move that the board adopt the final version of the FY23-24 Washington Central Unified Union School District Budget Development Timeline as updated on September 8th, 2022. Thank you, Danielle. Second. Eric, I'm going to give it to Eric just so that some variety. Right. Discussion. We have talked about this a lot. So I don't know that we need discussions, but hearing none, all those in favor of approving the motion as read by Diane, please signify. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Karen. Sorry if I missed it, but what was your thought for when we would establish any budget parameters? So we haven't put that into our first schedule yet, but we usually have, we'll do any combination with the Ed Plotty Committee and moving into that year-round budgeting that we've been talking about. So I think we're looking at October to be, you know, having a proposal for budget parameters so that we're ready to go in November, right? Great, sounds good. Okay. So going back to the vote, all those in favor of the motion as read by Diane and second by Eric, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. And now we're into the policy committee. I, if the board would allow me, I would like to table the policy committee. Chris couldn't be here with us today. Anyways, we didn't have a lot on policy, it's been a long night for everybody and I think it would be more helpful to have a more robust policy committee meeting later. Is that okay with the policy committee? The only thing I was gonna suggest is like the, we're at the second meeting in adoption of the, that's right. So Chris did reach out to me actually and confirmed, he just reached out after we sent the packet out and he confirmed he's okay with it not being on. Meaning we, if he were here, I don't wanna speak wrong but he would have done an adjustment to the agenda to take it off the agenda. He just didn't communicate out soon enough. So, which is different than we need this policy right now. So, I mean, this is one of the policies that's just been updated essentially by the SVA. It's just, we're gonna read again, there will be three months of it being out. I mean, I would, I don't wanna second guess Chris. Chris was comfortable taking it off the agenda, but I deferred it. The only reason he would be taking it off is because he's not present. No, he was taking it off in recognition that this is a long meeting designed to be a retreat. I don't wanna believe we're spending more time on this than we are. So, let's just, yeah, yeah, is that right? Like, so maybe it's okay, man, should we just do it? We can't. It's one of that, it's been waiting there and it's just do it, it's like we're gonna have somebody from the policy committee do a motion. Does anybody hear from the policy committee? No, not from the policy committee. But it doesn't matter, go ahead. It doesn't have to be. I was just trying to spread that. I knew that the adopt policy B1 about substitute teachers, I was right. Thank you, Ursula, and second by Diane. Any discussion? It's the second reading, so we're adopting it, okay? All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion carries. All right, moving right into the consent agenda. Here it is, okay. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the minutes of August 17th and September 7th. I moved that the board, okay. I moved that the board approve the minutes of the August 17th and the September 7th meeting. Thank you, and second. Thank you, Ursula. Thank you. Any discussion? Any changes, Daniel? I just don't see myself as being present I'm pretty sure I was present. Yeah, we recorded which one? In the, at the community meeting you were here. Yeah, and the other one too. Yeah. So which one are you missing? Yeah. The person, community forum, special board meeting. I'm not going to do that, but I'm more than ever. Okay. In the, he's missing in the community meeting. That's not a person, that's not a person. Sometimes I'm sorry, yeah. I am as well. Maggie, here. Yep. Okay. And we had a signing. How would you give me a sign in? The sign in was lightly signed, I would say, that meeting, so. Oh, you see, I hit the signing because it was by the food. Oh, okay. Because I remember it. Okay. So, as amended, I assume Eric, do you accept the friendly amendment? Yes. Okay. And two person. All right, second. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Any opposed? Any abstain? Just for protocol. Okay. Turn on, let's move into the approved board orders. I'm looking for a motion. Lindy. All right, I make a motion to accept the board orders for 818.22 in a total amount of 1,857. No, I gotta go. Yeah, sorry about it. 1,850. Ah, I can't say it. What's wrong with me? Yeah. I know, I just can't say it. 1,857,954.59 cents. Thank you, Lindy. Second? Second. Thank you, Ursula. Any discussion? Any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor of approving the board orders are submitting. Please signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Hearing none, motion carries. Jonas, you've been a superhero. Thank you for being here. I don't think we need to stay for future agenda items. I hope you feel better. And thank you, Carrie, too, for joining us from far away. For everybody else to stay here, even if you're in Zoom. We have three future agenda items. Humanities and Justice Coalition update. You will have one. We would like to incorporate the Central Vermont Career Center outside of report to the board if you guys are okay with that. And we need to do the BSBA resolutions because we would be voting at the regional meeting in October for reflection. Can I ask a question about a future agenda item? So again, bringing up about school lunches, free school lunches, where are we with that in terms of the impact and because as we're moving into budgeting on what happens at the end of this year. So just ask for that. Thank you, Diane. For reflection, today, I know we had like a half retreat, half board meeting, any reflections? Today's meeting, I would go for you or anything. Well, one thing Eric had noted as well as we couldn't get in was that as a public meeting, the fact that three of us were locked out, but then also anybody, I don't know what happened if the door stayed open after we came in or not, but I mean that could have locked potential. Steven went to, yeah. Took care of that. Yeah. Yeah, somebody must have looked at after because it was open. Yeah, because those doors were locked as were the ones by the auditorium. I had a sporting event. Yeah, I wonder if they will make sure that they put it in that checklist. Great dialogue though. I mean, I really appreciated the whole dialogue in that once we got in. Any other board reflections besides everybody really tired? Yeah, it's nice. It's always nice to have a bigger group than just our small universe of a board. I've been formed a group that's been sent from lots of institutors, especially, but yeah, really welcome. Everybody was okay with the meeting? I just want to say I really enjoyed the opportunity to have dialogue with people outside of the floor. And I also wanted to say thanks to our student representatives. I really appreciated that they were so enthusiastic and they have a report ready for us. It was great. I'd like to reiterate appreciation for the faculty who are here tonight. We're volunteers and we made that volunteer commitment and you know that you are a voice and you're here on the evening, so thanks for making the commitment. So with that, I don't see any public with us, so public comments I wanted to say. Unless there's somebody online, I don't see any hands up people. Oh, and Jonathan, I just noticed you there. So sorry. He's been voting. Yeah, I just, okay, all right. With that, I just wanted to reflect on how much I appreciate everybody. It's really, I feel like I have a great board and a great leadership team. It makes it easy to be here, to have such a great team to work with. So thank you for being here tonight. Okay, with that, a motion to adjourn. I move that we adjourn. I'll second. Thank you. All those in favor, please leave. You say aye. Good night, everybody.